Relations

Some relations don't grow naturally. You, deliberately need to make them work, foster in good way!!

I don't know why sometimes I get philosophical! It is good to think so at the same time, at the end if it, I feel, it does not help much. Since I already peeked into philosophical territory, let me scribble one more sentence here - as told by one of my prof.

"The last shirt has no pocket !!"

:D

Back with new machine !

This time I am writing using my brand new Dell laptop. My earlier laptop crashed all of sudden. That too while I was working for final submission of one of the courses I have taken here. I still had to complete .... really 'complete' 3 credit course submission day after that and few others submissions 'following that' too.

I was really in trouble. Anyway this wasn't my first time to be in trouble :-) I was even had better trouble times ;-) They call it - साला नसीब हो झेंडू तो क्या करेगा पांडू !

Anyway!! So with this new machine, I have regained my powers.

Mean time I was enjoying at home for more than a week. Let me tell you that one week is the maximum term break duration I could have grabbed in my life at this college so far. These 10 days, (okay, 9 days to be precise) gave me very much needed breathing space. And there is no other comfort like being at home. How could I have chose to loose an opportunity to trek any fort being at home. So I managed to trek Rajgad for one more time. Awesome is the only word to describe Rajgad.

Hopefully I will be able to post few snaps of my recent Rajgad trek in next post.

Till then Njoy Madi !!

Tuned with time

There wasn't really any such reason to prevent me from posting new entry but just happened .... got engrossed with my exams, submissions, rat race of grades (Is it really ?)....

So here I am ... back to square one or should I say .. the thing I love to do at any given time, especially when I have moved out of Bangalore and traveled to some of the places which I have always been longing for visiting. There are some really nice -butter, some bitter too, experiences on my travel-way till here ... so Dj stay tuned... to pour them here !!!

Till then ... Njoy Madi :-)

Khosla ka Ghosla

Disclaimer : The title of the post has entirely meant to what is in the post. It may be the case virtually, but different case otherwise ___ aBsTrAcT ___ :D

Vinod Khosla, as I mentioned about him in my last post is Pune born Technologist, Venture Capitalists, Commercial Environmentalist (?)

- Studied in IITD then in Carnegie Mellon University and then MBA from Stanford School of Business.

- Founder of Sun Microsystems

- Was partner in Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, one of founders of The Indus Entrepreneurs

- Owns firm - Khosla Ventures funding indian households through MicroFinance

- Founded ck12.org as it quotes :: "CK12 aims to reduce the cost of textbook materials for the K-12 market both in the US and worldwide. Using an open-source, collaborative, and web-based compilation model that can be manifested as an adaptive textbook - termed the "FlexBook", CK12 intends to pioneer the generation and distribution of high quality educational web texts". I am curious to see how they will be doing it so now waiting for their actual launch.

- Significantly investing in Ethenol Industry in US. What I mentioned in my last post is also part of it.

- Has invested in Praj Industries listed in India - not sure if he is also on BODs of Praj.

- Writes blog. and I am yet to figure out what is Prop 87 as he has mentioned many times in his blog.

- Is associated with Zaplet.com which is now MetricStream.com - it is Governance, Risk, Compliance, Quality Management Solution provider company. It's ComplianceOnline.com give online training for these mentioned things. By the way Tata Consultancy Services is also one of the metricstream's partners.- Serves as Directors for renowned companies like Juniper Networks, Siara Systems, Qwest communications, Centrata, Corvis Cooperation, Corio, SEEC, Infinera, etc.

What all this man has been doing. Can you sense 'Sense of Vision' in his attempts so far ?

Coskata

Coskata-Coatue Wildlife Refuge

'Coskata-Coatue' pronounced as "co-skate-uh co-too". This Wildlife Refuge is famous for its white-sand beaches, salt/sweet water, excellent fishing environment, oak woods and also historic light house. This is a natural and partially developed ecosystem that accommodates rare and diminishing habitats, plants, and birds.

This is the place that influenced the founders of Coskata Inc who were there for visit to Nantucket island. They were amazed by the beauty and natural wonder of this place. And this visit to the land refuge concluded as booster to their effort and inclination of preserving Mother Earth in though commercial but efficient way, so is the establishment of Coskata Inc to generate bio-fuels/ Ethanol under $1.00 per gallon (whoop) that too can be ported to any part of world and it can process any material as input which include waste materials, tyres too using their proprietary bio-reactor designs.

Coskata Inc. has made available the 3 step process of converting input material into Ethanol through first converting input material into synthesis gas, then deriving energy from oxidation of the converted gas (fermentation) and finally separation and recovery of Ethanol.

You see, there is a roaring concerns to the traditional auto car manufacturers. The concerns will mostly turn out as threats to their survival of business in next 20-30 years if they don't take necessary measures to tackle the major causes of concerns -
1. Depleting oil reserves : The OPEC still rules. Recently they have decided not to expand their capacity.
2. Increasing environmental awareness : World is becoming really worried about this. As one can see the thoughtful actions being taken by different country groups G7, EU, etc. WTO is working and establishing norms for countries involved in it.
3. Country specific economic preferences: Developed countries are encouraging the R&D efforts of Private players, entrepreneurs for finding alternatives to oils/gases and reduce dependence of third countries for oil import and ultimately reduce the trade deficit.

No wonder GM motors , Ford motors and now TATA motors, M&M in India have started emphasizing on environment friendly ways to drive/sustain their business in future. So it's clear that GM has extended strategic partnership with Coskata Inc. So are Khosla Ventures, Advance Technology Ventures and Great POoint Ventures.

Coskata claims to have their processes and bio-reactor design being validated by world class research labs, universities and companies. It has sought help of academicians from various universities.

Founded in 2006 by Todd Kimmel and Dr. Rathin Datta, the company has compiled a strong IP portfolio of patents, trade secrets, know-how and assembled a first-class management team ... Wow !! So in all this company, as experts are saying, will be bringing revolutionary changes in Ethanol industry.

Remember Vinod Khosla ? The same techie and businessman who was founder of Sun Microsystems is involved in Coskata through his ventureship.

Also we have Praj Industries which is one of the leaders in Indian Ethanol Processing industry and to an extent can be called successful one. So long way to go for Praj looking at the pace with which the companies in US are moving in Ethanol processing.

Yoga with Shipa Shetty

The follower of Yoga and Baba Ramdev - Shilpa has completed her video on Yoga. I think she has signed the contract of shooting this video immediately after winning Big Brother in 2006-07.

Shilpa Shetty featuring in Yoga video would definitely give commercial and glamour value to it.

Surely, I am not the guy who can have 'say' about whether she has done Yoga Steps properly or not :D but it has a reason for me to be able to induce a thought of practising Yoga one more time ;-)

Old pick

I normally access rediff 5-6 times a day, more than I do with bbc and maharashtratimes.

While surfing came across old stuff on rediff..... hmmm ... not really too old but in case of rediff, which people normally access mainly for recent news, happening and money, career related information and buying activities, (email - I left it). That's why I don't think people dig much in older stuff available with rediff.

This business quiz is about Infosys. Revisited interesting facts :)

Mia Rose

Just around that time I was addicted/fascinated towards/about youtube. And happened to watch MiaaRose video. I liked it in first go. Time was somewhere in Feb 07. And after couple of week, I again tempted to see if there is any related video of her being published or not. I was surprised to see that her Heaven video was being most favourite and wached on youtube.

Almost a year passed, I didn't follow much about her. Not that I forgot about her but apperantly didn't happened. Just recently I came across her video again. Now her video is being posted my many of her followers-fans.

But now it really shows the kind of platform youtube has given her and many such aspirants. Just with couple of music instruments, a camera given this nice voice and beatiful face a chance to release her own album, 3-4 sites of her won, huge fan following.

Great going !!
Kudos to youtube for this proposition given to new-bees and even more for following the ethics of the game to possible extent. It has restricted sensitive contents across board. It i s good to see that hentai followers are not flooding it.

Really it has brought a transformation phase in internet era and still a lot to be exploded. It is very easy for any common user to have his video on web and sharing it with others, see how easy - friends go for bowling, shoot their excitments, upload it to youtube and they can watch whenever they want share with anybody. And it have become possible just because of Youtube and Adobe.

Unmaad is On

Unmaad is here. I consider, it was at its peak today.

Santy came down to IIMB campus to enjoy Satarday evening. Arguable he has missed the ecstasy of Yamini happened in earlier month and Zero, Mother Jane show happened yesterday.

Erlier, I have never been able to apprecited Rock songs much. But magic of live programs is something different. I actually loved the show by Mother Jane band. Their lead vocalist ' Suraj' is good. First thing I noticed about him was his generosity and his humane nature. Their guitarist 'Deepu' was also very good. It's great enjoyment to listen and appreciate the skills of the guitarist in live program.

Strings were also here. But despite of being an international band, I didn't find it so fascinating. Mainly because, I have not heard many of their songs and only partially been able to recollect their popular numbers.

What they say ...

1. Passion - Passion to create a difference and the ability to stick thru the ups & downs can only be there if there is that passion.

2. Patience - Sift them many ideas, validate & then launch. Understands that this is not about spreadsheets, but real revenue & real benefits.

3. Be a good listener - Ability to listen and willingness to accept another point of view provides flexibility. A good listener is always alert towards getting insights from those who may have a more experienced view about the topic under discussion.

4. Be a good team member - Understand that you need a team, by yourself you'd be stretched to execute.

5. Leadership - Must be a good leader, understand people issues and is able to manage them thru the difficult journey. Especially managing a peer group is a serious challenge.

6. Share - Be generous about sharing ownership of the company with others who take the risk with you. Team must stay intact thru thick & thin including your investors.

7. Value, not valuation - Must be focussed on creating value & not a valuation. If one creates value, valuation will automatically follow. Remember this is not & should not be a short journey.

8. Inclusive - In growing companies, people need to be empowered to keep them motivated to deliver. Delegation and, more importantly, inclusion in the growth strategy is a great motivator.

9. Flexible and not stuck on his idea only - Entrepreneurs who recognize that things do and can go wrong are more likely to succeed. Though this seems obvious, this often is the toughest aspect of entrepreneurship if not imbibed at the incubation stage itself.

10. Understand that success is not dependent only on a great idea. Execution is equally if not more important.

- Praveen Gandhi

First birthday in 'B'

Grown up men still celebrate their B'day ;-)

I am back from the traditional IIMB B'day celebration. I am still feeling my back n A%$ burning.
And now it has become really painful to sit anywhere. But I am glad. Though people are busy in Summers and Mid-term preperations ... our own CR and Khidki dragged me to the 'L^2' - normally that's where the Hooshing and other ceremonies take place.

Great to see great going day ahead. Though there are thoughts about Summers, etc .. having a nice time now.

Mirgadh Trek - Old pick

Nov 25-26-27 2006 -

This was one of the exhaustive trek, I ever experienced. Myself, Dr. Ayyaz, Dr. DattaSagar and Raju were the member of team to trek Mirgadh and no one of us had ever visited this area, around Pen-Panvel. Raju was the senior most member in our group in fact he is. I heard a lot about Raju from Ayyaz and in my opinion, he is gem of the person.
Despite being senior person, almost close to age of my uncle, Raju could easily get involved into the younger groups and I have noticed 'this' some more times whenever I visited B. J. Medical college hostel. By profession he is a photographer from Sangamner. Originally from Lahore, had to come with family because of 1947 India-Pak split and settled in Pune. Very particular about things, still very patient - key founder member and claimed to be the only one because of whom the Mountaineering club in B.J. Medical College is still active and has established as an autonomous entity. I know, I have much more to say about Raju, but I will stop here and share the trek pics.



One of very few silent moments in life. We were only four people on the top, we were sitting here almost for half an hour sitting silently. Ekdam chup. I can't calculate what is the outcome/ gain, etc stuff like that at this point of time. It is just different.


This is something to be seen in presence. Amazing example of human intelligence using primitive tools available, beside the indication of adaptability nature of human being.

We had been walking for last 5 hrs almost without any major break and here we were on the flat surface on the top and still unaware where to go !!

While we moved from one of the end of the Songadh to Vyaghreshwar, we came across a village of approx. 20 cottages. People out here were talking about the Bauxite elements of the metal, usage of it in the Aeroplane, space shuttle. We went little dumb here. We thought that they were saying something is there on 'BACKSIDE' :D

Next day, leaving the Mandir to next unknown destination, we wanted to go Sarpoli. Yeah and to the back side of this Mandir, there is a small water kink with constructed tank. Very cold water, We bathed in that tank, next day when I went there to fill the drinking water bottles, Cobra passed with the falling flow of water.

Though this trek was exhaustive, it gave me very nice friends - Raju and Datta. Raju is in regular contact with me. He keeps on calling and inviting me for Treks, rapplings, etc. Datta is busy doing his internship in Sasoon Hospital. Ayyaz is extremely busy studying in Delhi. And here I am - engrossed into the flow of the activities in I-I-M B.

I am really missing the environment during rains and it is a different fun of having treks during rains. I am feeling jealous of my dear friend Yogesh, he is trekking almost every weekend and that too in this season. But I am happy about him - at least he is consistently able to do it.

Bloodbath on Street

'This' is I think is unavoidable in today's circumstances meaning the way effect of the prime, sub-prime lending crisis in US housing industry is causing ripples across the world markets especially in the Asian Market, it can not be ignored.

'Financial services, investors, etc have been focusing more global, the FII (for us they are normally from US and European countries) investing into the developing countries like India, Malaysia, Taiwan, Japan etc. But any significant moment in their respective base countries make them to withdraw their money from these market to remain cover their position it with the gains obtained from the developing countries. Which obviously creates panic in the local investors in these developing countries.

Who is worst off ?
The small investor who is unable to understand the happening in the global markets or unable to understand the money making minds of the FII, etc.

But any small investor can be prudent enough if he is able to track the events around and little judgments about the market in general so that he can save himself from dragging in such situations.

Disclaimer - Such a vague article. I just tried to scrap something without much thought.

Learning what I missed to enjoy

This is not any sort of introspection of my past. Just that I realized something 'dé·jà vu'.

...... When I was working with Selectica, everyday I used to check my clock to record the travel time to office from home. Lesser the commuting time, I used to feel more challenged (??? ;-))

....... By that time I had just learned to swim. I used to set a mark on the other bank of the tank and used to record the time to cover the distance in shortest possible time. Again challenged (??? ;-))

Slowly after few days I realized that it is not fun of driving so fast or swimming so fast. I am missing the point to enjoy the journey. I started driving and diving(?) slowly (sorry!!! it was not equivalent of dragging - it was normal pace), while driving I started observing people around me. Then I watched them at the signal, how most people become race runner. It was fun watching 'those' people, some days back I was also one of them. I started looking around, bazaar, banners, Bolds & Beautiful, and realized that -yes- really serious and funny things happens around and we don't notice because we are running behind something for almost nothing.

Now when I have landed on this campus, I again realized that I am undergoing the same phase of getting carried along with the fast pace of this place, then come the day, I felt that this is not something what I enjoy the most or what I want the most out of this place, I sat back for some time, started moving around the campus, started talking to my friends on campus, calling up my school friends, colleagues, family, etc. More important is I realized that it is required to have 'Bigger Picture' out of whatever I am looking/understanding currently.

Cheers,
:D


Post to be completed ...

Nothing to write

????
This blogger.com really sucks ! Its usage of Ajax has removed all of the text I typed for last 10 minutes from the posting window. It has strongly reminded me of 'Windchill' - The copyright product of PTC. I was part of the Windchill development team. In Windchill one can have multiple versions and iterations of the documents, parts, assembly, etc. And he can selectively delete the iterations and versions of the same.[Too much techie!]

Unfortunately it is not the case here.

Anyway. On the Wednesday night, our mid-term was over. All exhausted ppl, especially junta from my section who had undergone three exams in a single day were omnipresent (at least) in PVR, Banaglore ;-)

Chilling,
:D

Now the pressure levels are rising each and every day as the mid-term is nearing. The people who were chilling last week are engrossed into the preparations. The PlaceComm has its own pace which is least bothered about what is happening at the acad, cultural way of the PGP1. They know their 'business' or 'the Trend' which is carried for last decade or so. And one can not skip the PlaceCom guys, ultimately they are the people within campus who will be showing the snapshot of post-MBA for us to the outside world.

Above all there are presentations, group activities, games which are sucking significant amount of important time. It's like hell. Again one can not skip any of them at all 'cuz they all carry some credit (though it's mininal) of the curriculam. But everything happening here makes life funny in a way. I know these two years I am going to remember for my whole life.

Not that I have to remind myself - enough environmental parameteres and creatures are here to remid me that - every now and then - it is THE Time for preperation - I am going to learn some more things before the exam-papers ! Will gaining some funda's cleared the night before the paper which is going to be kind of funny. I can remember the days in my engineering when I used to prepare for the papers - (AppMech, Graphics, DSF, DSP, CC, CN, MO, etc) just the night before the paper and used to enjoy the course, I mean it. Just before my practical exams (MO, CPL, AC, DSF, CN, etc), I had done some programs and I really liked the way I was able to appreciate most of the subjects, logics to be applied, tools used, etc.

Let me get back to the books and xerox!!
Till the chill time come again,
:D

Exec's Life

I read lines below from the Harvard Mgmt Review presented by David Nadler .

---------------------------------------------------------------
CEO of one of the !Top Notch! company saying "Every night I go to sleep asking myself 'Why people think, I have all the answers?' and every morning I wake up thinking 'Is today the day they figure out that I don't'
---------------------------------------------------------------
Again, CEO of one of the top notch companies - he looks forward for weekends 'because I know I could open the front door in the morning without seeing the Wall Street Journal lying there and wouldn't have to explain to my wife and kids why the newspaper was saying all these terrible things about me.'
---------------------------------------------------------------

Torna Trek last year - Old Pick

A little background : Prachandagadh or Torna. By conquiring this fort Shivaji Maharaj included the first fort into the Hindavi Swarajya account (?) . (Swarajya Toran)


Torna is close to Pune with Velhe goan a place of Taluka at its base. Velhe has a a court, Tehasil office, and I was surprised to see all these in such a small village. We had breakfast at Nasarapur - place 20km before Velhe. I am sure Sandy will never forget this breakfast for years to come or at least whenever he will visit Torna or Rajgadh.


I parked my bike at the Ashram Shala at Velhe, kept part of the luggage with the superitendent of the Ashram shala. Then Sandy and I started trekking in this route. Initially the way looked all dried as you can see in the pic and it was also dehydrating but we have taken water bottles along with so it wasn't the issue.





It is just at the start of the climbing up. We were accompanied by the group of 3-4 local people and they were easily climbing as it was a daily route for them. A young girl from that group guided us how to climb and later we never seen that group again even when we returned to the base.



Sandy tried some of his photography skills.
Again this time also I was not expecting such reasonble quality picture to be captured by mobile camera.

Budhala Machi a trailing arm of Torna and a opening for the way (sond) coming from Rajgadh.Earlier ppl used to run between Rajgadh and Torna with this way. and it was considered to be the smoothest one.

Zunzar machi. Real pleasure to look around from this place. Breath deep at this place and you will realize the relaxation and some kind of larger than life stuff ;-) yeah but that is true, some kind of strange feeling fills up our heart. It tells us there is lot things to live with. Move around.

View of the Rajgadh from Torna.

Someday I am planning to trace the whole route - Velhe-Torna-Budhala Machi-Suvela Machi-Rajgadh-Padmavati Machi-base village in one go. I have started counting days for that day. Lets see what is the count.

Study Hard and Change the World

One of the nice things being in IIM B is - as a part of Forum for Industry Interaction activities, we get to hear from eminent personalities. Last week we (PGP-1) heard about the Changing Paradigm from Kris Gopalakrishnan. Today we interacted with James Abraham about 'Building for future'. James Abraham is MD and Partner - Boston Consulting Group, India. In his speech, he talked about the experiences he had when he was working in North America, Europe and now in India with different private sector corporates and Public sector majors. He put across his idea in 10 things learnt, experience which he found the most important.



1. Find a passion. Passion will drive you to your way desired for happiness and success
2. Be less insecure and be more humble
3. Learn from failure, they teach better than success
4. Do not always run behind where the crowd is running, they might go wrong
5. There is always somebody is better off than you and somebody is worse off than you
6. Overestimate things possible for today and underestimate things possible for tomorrow
7. Sell yourself. Be salesman, saleswoman
8. [missed this item, I will update it sometime later whenever I will recollect ;-)]
9. People remember only three (3) things
10. Study hard and change the world.

Though it is true that James has delivered an impressive speech, his won experiences with people he mate, industries he worked, different geography he lived in marked the session entirely with his won identity but I find that moreover now people tend to deli ever things at academic institution, the way Steve Jobs had delivered at Harvard. Hats off to Steve Jobs. He really do stand at a very high level with his incredible battle with life, people stood against him, etc.

One thing I have found common with the exec. level of people at various organization - they are very humble. They listen to the almost everything that the any concerned individual (poor mortals - somebody like me) standing in front. Mostly because they are aware that the vision in their mind can be transferred/ made understood to the other peoples, subordinates only when they are clear with about idea/vision. -

I know that this is something globe stuff that I tried putting here. SO refraining myself from doing same, I am terminating this post with little note ;-)

With this forum, I know we will have opportunities to know about the great people from all over globe, interact with them, hear their experiences, their utmost values, passions, expectations from us i.e. the generation sitting next to them.

Ratra Thodi Songe Phar

Yes, that's what my situation is. I have limited time and there are so many things that I have to do, rather complete before I sleep. Definitely this kind of management education is testing people's capability to handle stress and to manage time.

I am realizing that my reading habits have changed over last 3 years since I have not been reading proper books for this period after leaving college. And while accessing Internet and computers, I got bad habit of skipping things all together or sometimes only looking for the key/interesting stuff. Soooo I am finding it painful to read the paragraphs lasting for 1-2 pages and conveying all global things.

Let me get out of this habit.