Damn you Language !!

      Looong flights from India to Dubai to Brisbane and then to Townsville. Was sitting in between a fat farty old genleman from New Zeleand and a pretty lovely french hottie(LFH from here on). As you must have guessed, this is obviously about the latter one. And simply because such thing never happens to me, I must have been to atleast 500 movies by now, but not once has a girl(or atleast something that can be called a girl) has sat next to me. So we sat down and
Me : So heading to Brisbane ? (As if she is going to jump off mid flight into the Indian Ocean from a non stop flight to Brisbane)
LFH: a.... ah.. ha!
Me: ! .. ok.. so vacation  ?
LFH: A. hh.. ye... arrrrrr.. ah.. nno...
Me: Can I borrow that book for a while ? (LFH had this tour book about australia and since I had changed my plans last minute and was going to go to brisbane and not melbourne. So this was genuine and not just something to add on to the conversation as most of you feel)
LFH: (No response - just staring at my nose)
Me: You fine !! ??
LFH: Aahh..book.
Me: Ya. .
LFH: (Nodding).. I no englisss...  spi.. arrahh.. (signaling some weird things and pointing towards her throat..)..
Me : (Spit !!).. !
LFH: Speak.. French ?
This was the point that my entire academic career came crumbling down in front of my eyes. I wondered why i hadnt taken a french course instead of engineering. Any ways i just freaked out those 4 years, one 4 week french course would have saved me from this terrible communication crisis at 31000 feet.
Me : well no ! :-(
LFH:(Still handed over the book).. aha..
Me: Thanks .. and yeah - it was in French !
Still i chose to just stare at the maps now that she had handed that over to me.
LFH: So you.. (again making that weird throat signaling).. French ?
Cant you see I am staring at this book as Mayawti would stare at some draught economic project report drawn by Chidambaram
Me: hhmm. Naah !
LFH: uh.. ah.. m.. me .. working job vacation !
Me: (Wow.. 3 english words at a go.. great going !! but more happy because she initiated this time) aha.. me business and studies..
LFH: (Smiles)
Lunch arrived and she could hardly tell the air hostess what she wanted. I realize how she much be feeling. Its the sorta feeling that you get even when you go to some other state within India itself. I sometimes get it in Hyderabad and definitely got it in chennai. Not knowing local dialect does alienate people so fast ! May be thats why its possible for any american to move to any part of USA easily- because he knows that his primary source of communication is going to be understood. Imagine if we had just one language- moving across states would have been so much more easier - Imagine landing in chennai and not having to struggle to tell the rikshawwala where you have to go and strike a conversation as well. Shopkeepers, offices and everyone understands one national language and prefers it. Wow ! The country's unity and productivity would have been so much higher. Well .. may be.

            Oh coming back, LFG and me did make some more futile attempts to communicate at times when we were bored of wtching movies, tv seerials, songs and playing games on that small screen which is your whole and sole to distract your attention from sore knees caused by non aisle seats in economy class -  And I kept wondering why God couldnt send us down here pre programmed in a single language.

Naxalistan !

                Narayan is a bright young boy who has grown up in a quiet interior village in south India. A regular topper and an ambitious fellow, he moves to the city for his further education and cracks the JEE to enter into IIT Mumbai. He turns into a super geek and a hard core techie and like most IITans do, goes on to join the IIMs soon after. Being such an academically high profile guy, obviously the big guys pick him right out of college. But he refuses to join and thinks of doing his own thing and working towards his own vision. He starts out small in his hostel room and slowly starts growing with his tremendous will power and tones of peer contacts that you develop on passing out from the II’s. He toils day in and out and grows from micro to small to mid size. All his hard work starts to pay off and he is now being rated as one of the leading entrepreneurs of the country. Then there is the big IPO and Narayan deservedly becomes a billionaire overnight. He now has a big house, few cars and a comfortable but non-flamboyant lifestyle. A few days later – he is kidnapped and beheaded. Welcome to Naxalistan !

So what wrong did Narayan do ? Well, he enhanced his productivity and was rewarded deservedly and that made him into a cruel elitist who is ideologically an enemy of the poor – in Naxalistan. He is the rich who is going to become richer at the cost of keeping the poor where they are or making them even poorer. Narayan is the face of social capitalism and the good part of our democracy. And he is beheaded by the bad part of the same democracy. Beheaded by an ideology generated due to the consistent loopholes in the same democracy.

                Remember the last time you complained about the government not taking action or not paying attention to the poor. Well, the Maoists say the same. They claim to guarantee you a life and a world which is paradise-like. Where everyone is equal and all the resources would be allocated as per needs and not as per the efforts. Where the state will control and ensure that everyone is free. But there is just one small problem. You don’t have a choice for this freedom and equality. You have to accept and live it ;-). Just like your parrot gets food, water, balls and pipes to play with and all the attention. You have all that for you too – but ya..within the Cage !

                And what happens if you don’t want to accept this freedom-at-gunpoint. Well your equality giver sends you back to where you came from – upstairs. But in Naxalistan, this is justified. It would be considered as a sacrifice for a higher cause. It ok ! Mao China sent 50 million upstairs. But its Ok! They would portray it as a violent agitation against a sham democracy.

                Why is it then, that Naxalistan gaining all this strength day by day?  How come they spread over 200 districts in 20 states across India ! We got ourselves to blame. We chose leaders who would go into relatively less accessible interiors of India only during the election time, thus leaving all the remianing time for the Naxals to breed and grow. They want to keep Naxalistan away from the other parts of developed India and gain a firm holding into these major areas. Thats precisely why all the bombing of the roads and rail routes happens. They want to reach everywhere where the government doesn’t and more. Protecting every acquired area becomes their self proclaimed responsibility and when your ideology is supremely flawed, you got to blow bombs hard enough so that people don’t get to listen to the sane world outside. And now they are bombing public sectors too. No wonder Mr P. Chidambaram is perplexed as to what they actually want !

                Another reason could be that Our history books dont have a big detailed chapter on the fall of the Berlin wall. May be if kids learnt it early, many in Kolkata and AP rurals would at least think twice before becoming a part is Naxalistan  ;-).

                When people from across the border with foreign nationality encroach into our area violently – we call them terrorists and shoot them down. What do we do to people of our own nationality who encroach into our socio-economic lives violently ?

Koffee with Kasab !

                Kasab wants mutton biryani, kasab wants rakhi, karsab wants perfumes – what is this big fuss about a brutal human butcher demanding stuff like being some Ambani’s spoilt daughter. So we sent our best reporter from Are Relax Tv – our beloved – Kunalchand Dozy (KD from here on : neatly combed and over oiled hair, khadi kurta over formal pants and as you should expect  – Tuffs sports shoes-shiny white) to find out the inside story about all the fuss about Mohammad Ajmal Amir Kasab (AK from here on) –  KD, typical of him, bored the jailer at Arthur road jail to death and managed to get a chat with AK –

KD enters wearing his million dollar smile and hits on :

KD : Hello Mr. Kasab.

AK : Aaadaa Barse !

KD: Ya Same to you – aadab harse ! So how are you ?

AK : Doing good. A little disappointed that they didn’t send a lady reporter though.

KD: Oh! I think I would be able to satisfy you, uh oh.. I mean through my superior reporting skills. BTW, you seem to have put on a lot since you have been arrested ?

AK: Hhmm, not much, just about 4-5 kgs. Happens when you are on vacation.

KD: Vacation !!!

AK: Oh, I mean I am not doing my regular job – so putting on a bit. Besides there is no Gym in this bloody jail. Wow, you just gave me a good idea to throw my next tantrum.. I need a gym.. thanks.

KD: Well.. welcome.., speaking of tantrums, we hear you want to eat mutton biryani and basmati rice ?

AK: Of course, my taste buds cant stand this stupid jail food.

KD: Well, sir, I suppose that is a part of your punishment.

AK: Punishment !! What punishment. I like it here. A billion people and more want to know anything and everything about me. Even my irregular bowel movements causes a stir in the media. I enjoy the attention and the limelight.

KD: Don’t you miss home ?

AK: Are you mad ! don’t remind me of that place. Bloody get up at 3 in the morning, climb mountains, work out like mad, tones of gym, Bombing drills, AK47 drills, swimming, trekking, suicide practicals  and stuff you cant even imagine. Your turn into an android – you know thats why they are able to program us against the fear of dying. Dying is sorta  In.. there. And after all this, you got to share your dinner with a dozen of guys in the same plate. I am in jannat(heaven) here.

KD: Oh, so you like it here ?

AK: Like it??  I love it ! They spend Rs 2500 from your tax money every day on my security, stay and food. You know how many Indians make less than Rs 20/day.

KD: You seem to be having a lot of knowledge for a person exiled here in a jail !

AK: Yeah, its this micro chip fitted behind my ear(Kasab bends his ear and leans forward towards KD to show the chip- KD almost faints with AK’s odour). It gets continuous audio feed from the LeT website. Keeps me updated.

KD(awe): Wow !

AK: Also, ask those twitter guys to stop napping and upgrade. Duh ! I need to post audio feeds from this chip below my tongue. What do they expect me to do : Have chips in my eyes for God sake ! Tell them to do it else we will hijack it.

KD:  Oh Uh.. You mean Hack.

AK: Yeah same. Don’t act smart. (Seems nobody told AK that KD doesn't need to 'act' smart .. huh!)

KD: Oh sorry! Why did you……… (KD just watches the next question, remembers something and cancels it out ) – Why did you ask for a perfume ?  Well, sorry , we heard you wanted rakhi ?

AK: What !  NO ! She is good for loosers like Eelesh only .

KD:  Oh no no. Not Rakhi Sawant sir. As in Raksha Bandhan Rakhi.

AK: Oh ya, my lawyer explained me the importance. Besides my TRP was dropping down. H1N1, elections almost beat me to it. So you know, I had no other option. People love ‘breaking news’ on holidays.

KD: Just diverting from the topic, if you like it in here so much, why did you confess and ask to be hanged some time back.

AK: Mind games baby, mind games ! If I ask them to sentence me to death, and they do, then you will never have the satisfaction of hanging me against my will. So i know you wont. Besides the opposition will get an agenda to accuse the ruling party of listening to a terrorist

.

KD: Oh thats intelligent. And whats with all this lawyer thing?

AK:  Well, I seriously don’t know. May be they want some TRP too. Who cares anyways, my chargesheet is 12000 lines long and there are about 200 witnesses. Its going to take millions of years. And ya, its going to cost all you tax payers crores.

KD: Hhmm, you seem to be a lot worried about TRP and publicity don’t you ?

AK:  Of course I am, how many people do you think follow your stupid blog !! My photo is one of the highest published and distributed photo ever- this one ->. Man I must have beaten Megan Fox at it. Its my duty now to keep it up to date.

KD: Oh, why don't you try some reality show then ?

AK: Grinning. Well.. I did have an invitation from Big Boss 3. They even built a separate jail cell out there for me.

KD: Oh that was for you. We were wondering why they are not able to utilize it properly. But what happened ?

AK: Oh its dates collided with the elections . So the government has asked me to go in Big Boss 4 instead. This time they took that Kamaal instead of me.

KD: Oh ok. Why does it seem that the ISI and the LeT are not worried about you being here.

AK: Oh they know me. I have doom going inside my head. I killed 166 people dude! Aamir khan from Ghajini can be relied to remember things and be consistent more than I do.

KD: Didn’t they audio tweet you not to spill out the details of the training camps ?

AK: Phissss.. you believed that didn’t you. Thats what got me the Big Boss invitation btw. Frankly I love making a mockery of the judicial system here. Instead of ripping my ass off for throwing away dinner dishes, these guys report me to a special court and I get reprimanded every week. I am a good source for entertainment for the underworld too you see. They like it. And when I am not doing it, they get bored and go out and start bombing and abducting. So you see, my actions are actually leading to world peace. I should get the Nobel peace for that. If not at least fund my antics. At least give me a mutton biryani. Give me Mut…(starts barging at KD)… tton biryani you.. whats your name you..

KD: kkk.. uu.

AK: Ya you Ku !

KD passed out and the jailer got him back to us – without his report copy ! I believe Kasab ‘hijacked the report .  We had to hack into archives of Kasab’s  tweets to get you this.

                                                                                                                                Are Relax TV !

Egolution !

                When you are a little kid going to school and your partner takes a pencil from your pencil box and keeps it in his, what do you do ? You fight to get it back, get into a tiff and get punished when the teacher comes along.

Consolidated loss :  Both knell down for 1 hour in front of the class  – child ego.

                Then you grow up into a smart teenager, get your first bike, toil hard and get a lovelly girlfriend. Alls fine until the college bully starts hitting on her. You stand up to protect her, get into a tiff and fight it out.

Consolidated loss : A few broken bones and a week long detention – teenage ego.

                You pass your graduation, get a high flying job , churn out some good work, just to realize that your boss and the person sitting next to you gets all the credits and perks. You get into a tiff with your HR(those who don’t stay in a perpetual conflict with themselves), and give in or get out.

Consolidated loss : Your job and some internal peace – professional ego.

                You make some money, get married and buy a land for your new home, just to realize that after coming back to the place after 6 months, the neighbors’ newly built boundary walls encroach by 3 meters. You get into a tiff and take him to court and settle it out.

Consolidated loss : Huge pile of lawyer’s fees, peace of mind and slight amount of social humiliation - Common man ego

              You inherit one of the biggest businesses in the country from your father, become one of the richest person on earth and still you need the government to interfere and solve out an internal family MoU you signed with your brother. – God knows which Ego !

                You step into independence after huge amount of sacrifices, unshakable will power of great men and stand up tall for yourself and breathe a long sigh of freedom, just to realize that all your neighbors’ want to amputate some part of you for themselves. One asks for your head and the other for your arm. You have no choice but to get into a tiff. Your big father turns up and scolds your neighbors, asks them not to wish to steal again(While giving them chocolates toys(non-military aid for pak – ya right !). You give everything to protect yourself, be really good and not even eye the others hoping that your good karma will do justice to you eventually.

Consolidated loss  : Thousands of lives, disruption of international peace – international ego.

                Author Guru Charan Das has mentioned an amazing thing in his book - India Unbound : ‘When a father makes a mistake, the entire family suffers, but when a national leader makes a mistake, the entire generation suffers. ’

                We call small kids immature, undisciplined and stupid for fighting over petty erasers and pencils. What should we call the bigger evolved ones then ? Maybe, if we really wish to upgrade our scale of evolution, then we seriously need to downgrade our scale of ‘egolution’.

               

Open Source- open Money !

                At EC, we have a lot of people coming to us with all these different ideas about building portals. More because we often push Ads like ‘Have an Idea ? We have the technology. Build your dream web portal with ECBuzz.com’. So we get to listen to a lot of ideas everyday. And as true software guys, what do me and sushant do when we have to work out a proposal for something new, we follow the standard coders maxim : Good coders code. Great coders reuse !, and look out for existing softwares. We look out for all that free stuff, or better call it open source to reuse. And every so often, we used to wonder- how do these guys make money ? With all the code up for grabs, are these people so noble at heart and want to earn so much goodwill – of course not ! So this leads to the all important question – how do open source companies make money ?
           There are 2 entities here, the ones who write the original software (‘original company’) and the ones who take it, reuse and deploy (lets call these ‘parasite company’). The case of the latter is easy to understand- why reinvent the wheel, if someone is just giving it to you, take it, polish it and sell it. So we will consider entity 1 here. Lets try and see.
           So you come up with this great idea, find a loophole in the market, or just have a super enhanced version of some existing concept and you decide to make a software solution. After toiling hard and working with great passion, you build your product. Lets say you spent about $20,000 building it. Lets see how going open source is going to help you make money, both in terms of saving of essential investments and actually generating revenue.

Marketing : once you have decided to go open, you give away your code for free download, have it for a free download on your product website, blog about it like mad and post about it in every possible place you can. You start attracting some developer community attention – obviously its free and no one has anything to loose to download and see what you have done. It’s amazing how the word FREE has a specific magnetic effect on your mind no matter where you see it. Anyways, so people start downloading and messing around. To your surprise, the software starts reaching customers who would have never have even considered or even come to know about it. Here comes the most important point about going open – you need a software that is seriously good – because it is naked out there, a good enough will never attract developers and downloads. You didn’t spend a penny and your software is already going places by harnessing the power of open source to market itself. This much about saving on money – now about actually making some-

Service : You then put up pages on your website about a complete installation suite(1st source) – a preinstalled OS, DB, App Server and your free application over that and offer it for some price, say $5000. You can now officially use – free, open source, $0 only to attract all the attention you want. There is a good chance that a lot of prospects considering your software will go for you as of all the parasites thriving on you, you yourself are obviously the most reliable. Next comes your customization : Many of the users who consider going in for your free software, would need some arrangements to suit their own needs and since the idea of getting the software for free has already gotten them excited, they would not mind shelling out something like a $100/hour for customization(source 2). And once you have gotten your customer – you always have the enhancements :-) @ may be $150/hour which becomes our 3rd source.

Support : By now, with some amount of downloads and some community focus on your software, you would probably have an active support and knowledgebase on your site. Its obviously free until now. But now onwards, you start charging for a support package selling support on case basis or a monthly or yearly basis(Say $100/month). Consultants depending on your software and serving customers will not mind paying you for all genuine support. Every programmer has their style of coding that other coders dont understand and trust me, even if its open- tones will need support which is our 4th source.

Demoware Open Source : This is a somewhat debated but definitely a very effective way. Give a really basic, almost commercially non usable version of the software as complete open source. And have a professional and enterprise paid edition over it(Say $500 and $900 respectively). The lowest version suffices the basic needs, but people are stuck up during critical customer custom deployments and have to upgrade. Sugar CRM does this. But attracts a lot of criticism for marketing itself as open source while truly being our demoware open source. But they seem to be better off than other truly open source CRM’s. Proprietary softwares like Salesforce.com, Oracle On Demand and FreedomCRM are way better off in the CRM market though. Anyways, so this is our 5th source.


Collaborative Money : This is where open source is used to collaborate and help some other aspect of your business to monetize itself. Google have Wave and Android open for developers and cant we see the android boom now(2% to 7% growth in market share in just 6 months). Turning these into open source is actually their marketing strategy to market their software through the power of the community in order to be able to sell more Advertisements. So that’s source 6 to use the self marketing power of open source to generate revenue through some other aspect of the business.

        So as per our(just some rough) analysis, you need to sell 4 Installation suites($20000) or 200 hours customization ($20000) to break even and we have not even considered other sources.

        So open source is not about goodwill or spirit, its about fierce competition and capitalism. You know that the company next to you has the same piece of clay as you have and it all boils down to who can mould it better and sell, thus fostering innovation and productivity. No one can put it in words better than Red Hat CEO, Jim Whitehurst “If we all had to walk around naked, we’d spend more time in the GYM”. :-)

Everything you would need to get going on the web !

Web 2.0 Tools to Inspire

View more documents from tippydawn.

Why making a bollywood movie is better than launching a new software !

Currently, at EC, we are working on launching our new CRM software: www.freedomcrm.com.

I always thought making a movie must be really fascinating, and hell it is ! I say this not just as an outsider, but  because I got an amazing chance to follow the complete production of a bollywood movie that my uncle is producing – Rivayat.

No connection between the 2 sentences above- well I have been doing both things simultaneously. And just realized, that both the processes, making of the movie and process of creating a new software, for any company,  are so similar.

                Like any software product, a movie starts with an idea, it can be anything, an inspiration, passion about something, some good cause, simply the idea of making money, or you are just crazy !. Then you write down the concept that becomes your IP(Intellectual Property) – the script. Most important similarity – you check what all your local competitors and international competitors (lets call them as mentors or innovators) have already done about the same concept and copy… oops – get inspired by what you like in them be it awesome scenes, good sequences, or an amazing GUI. Then you step forward and get a team together. And then all the regular HR procedures follow : interviews-casting, portfolios- resumes, packages and  negotiations. Even confidential upper management hiring- isn’t there a similarity between Steve Jobs pulling in John Sculley for Mac and karan Johar making Shahrukh Khan cancel other dates for K3G ;-).

                Just like the software has to be completed in the stipulated timeframe, the movie has to be optimized during its production to hit the mahurat on time. And for obvious reasons of enhancements (dream sequences to be shot in Switzerland that not originally in the script) and precision (blowing away 10 cars instead of 5 for better effect ), the budget overshoots much to the apathy of the chairman. Designers and developers have to work in sync to give the software the creative touch and the superior functionality and so do actors and technicians. Except of course designers wont get that sort of fame.

                After months of toiling hard, the movie is out for release. Lots of pre launch hype has to be created for the ‘revolutionary’ product we have created. After lots of internal testing, it goes out towards the first round of live customer testing- the premier. These are the elite class of testers(software experts) who supposedly have all the knowledge of the taste of the world and often go wrong at that..

                And now comes the big difference that makes the movie a really amazing product business to be in. There is no other product in the world, that comes to know its fate in a matter of 24 hours of its launch. A movie does ! You know your sales, revenues, profit or loss- everything within 24 hours. And that’s it- no further fuss at it. There possibly cant be a business plan for any software that has its base over what happens in a span of 24 hours. This is a real highlight of making a movie. You don’t have to bother spending more on trade shows, altering marketing strategies, or do anything if things have gone wrong. Just leave it and move ahead J. You don’t have to keep trying again and again to make it right in spite of people making it clear that they don’t want you – steve ballmer should wish he would have consulted ram gopal verma before trying so hard with Zune ;-)

                And if it’s a Hit- nothing like it. You turn into God overnight. And like all successful softwares, what do you do when the world loves you- go in for the version 2.0 (read sequel) of the product.

Products from small companies are like documentaries – coming next. !

Why the Indian IT industry is against the hope Nobel !

How outrageous, how can you give Nobel peace !!. The entire Indian IT Industry is against the committee on the decision. Check out why -

We are a peaceful industry – we get up everyday morning, go to work at the same time, peacefully swipe in and have breakfast, log to sametime- or whatever it may be, chat away, settle down, have a leisure long lunch, come back, check mail, forward the worlds best information around, sometimes even do mock fire drills, oh ya – by noon start working on huge softwares which God knows who has written in the first place, try to understand them and fix things that the original- less visionary people have created, occasionally dance around at parties, celebrate birthday’s with the same discount coupons that HR has given us, come home, watch tv, mess food(unless its someone’s bday) chat(attempt to study for CAT/GMAT if within first 3 years of the job) and sleep away. Weekends are so lazy that we hardly realize how it passes away. We even pay a small Rs 100 every month from our salary (which automatically gets deducted since we never read the appointment letter ) towards some charity which we don’t even know exists. Such a no fuss lifestyle surely makes us one of the most peaceful species on the planet.

                We hardly have any problem with what people do with the world. And how can someone, who, single handedly disrupted the peace of such a peaceful industry be given a nobel for peace. How can we forget mental disruption millions of us had to go through because of the ‘Say NO to Bangalore and Yes to Buffalo ’ campaign that the new President ran just a few months into his office !! This is outrageous. The peace of the most peaceful industry went for a toss because of the campaign. We all stand tall and condemn the decision . hehe ;-)

                But what did Obama do in just 12 days that he got nominated. Well, he said that he intends to do a lot of things, We congratulate you Mr President, I don’t know what the committee thought, but if I get their perspective, then Al Gore should have got the Nobel Peace for  ‘intending’ to take measures to counteract climate change, Mother Teresa should have go the award for ’ wanting’ to step the missionary movement forward and Jimmy Carted for ‘aspiring’ social and economic development. And they should have got it much before they actually did. Much before any action did bear any fruits. But are we missing one thing, all these didn’t have Mr Bush just before them to be compared with. No wonder there are views that Mr. Obama got it for just not being Bush.

Another thing- why are you bombing the wrong place boss – check out this amazing thing : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrAkbb62uVk ;-).

If Google started in India !

Dr Venkatraman, Indian born US-based scientist wins Nobel Prize in chemistry, and undoubtedly makes our entire country proud, or does it ? One of the news guys asked him if such sort of a research was possible in India, he had to say that India lacks the facilities and has limitations for such sort of long term research projects. He also went ahead to say that if India does not invest now, it will place itself 10-20 years behind in harnessing such technology for better benefits. But is this the only issue – less infrastructure that hasn’t allowed a single company in India to come up with something that topples the tech world and keeps everyone watching. Is this the reason that prohibits research based product companies like google to come up in India – well there has to be more doesn’t it, what if Sergey Brin and Larry Page started out of India ;-) – lets try and see what the founders would have had to endure starting off through India -

1 > Writing on the Wall : While Larry and Sergey (lets call them L&S from here on ) were in their final years of graduation, lets say engineering, L&S would have had to defy the three ultimate career options that are written on the wall and continuously shown to almost all undergrad students here :

1>     Get a decent paying IT job.

2>      Give GRE and go to US.

3>     Become a full time MBA aspirant - CAT appearing professional - trust me, this is a career option.

I really don’t see anyone giving the students of their caliber the advice to go ahead for research. I don’t know how many engineering colleges here know that research can be a career option. Above all, they would have had to skip something that most of the colleges are formed for – placements. Is asked about their highlights, 99 out of 100 colleges in India would boast about placements. This think is actually global, but it should be more of a choice than a mandatory religious activity in colleges.

2> Peers : When google started, a whole lot of peers from Stanford picked it up in no time, understood it and started publicizing it. It must have been a perfect cross cultural and varied bunch of inputs from students from across the globe studying there at that time. To their credit, L&S would have definitely been in some top notch college of India for sure, but most of their peers would have landed with them due to a heavily paid management quota or through some sort of a caste quota. Googles initial troubleshooting would have been just a little bit haywire.  Forget cross cultural, imagine how a big agenda our politicians would get if we start accommodating international students – currently, there are problems of accommodating each other across states within the country itself.

3 > Edu Culture : L&S must have earned great respect while going ahead with their research. But how about thinking of doing the same where the only type of people opting for that would be mavericks or low graders . How is it that, in the west, we continuously see big shot innovations and creations coming out of dorm rooms and garages & going onto to silicon valley – micosoft, Apple, Dell and countless others. Why is it that hostel rooms of Indian colleges don’t produce companies. Or more surprisingly, how many students think of starting one while in college – certainly very few.  Our edu culture certainly needs some reform if any.

4 > Mentors : L&S endure all the odds and go looking out for advice and guidance. Just to come to know that most of the mentors here would just be able to help them with their textbooks and regular thesis curriculum. Because business here is considered to be meant for either for MBA’s or Gujjus ;-) – not for Phd or research type of people.  While guides like Rajeev Motwani gave the creators of google not just tech guidance, but also encouraged them to dream about building a business around their ideas. It’s the sort of advice that parents of young jawans in Punjab give their young kids in spite of knowing the risks behind it -  never come back without winning! Don’t we need that sort of a sacrificing attitude in technology. Shouldn’t a partially innovative concept for a final year project be rated above a fully working project that been done overand over for years. How often do we see college professors dropping projects because it may not work infront of the enternal ! Think its time for more ‘ go and dare ‘ gurus rather than ‘play it safe’ gurus.

5 > Value : Richard Branson mentions in his book ’Business stripped bare’ that they have managed to establish Virgin throughout the world, but they are having a really tough time in India because the only value that the people appreciate here is the value for money. A long term perspective, superior service, ethics, convenience all come second to it. L&S wouldn’t have had a tough time because they gave it free. That’s why India loves google and google generates very less revenue from India ! But is it because of this that most of the innovative ideas loose gas early here, because they try to establish themselves in this market first. Well, may be!

6> Name: On a lighter note, when L&S would have gone ahead to register – Google- they would not have been able to register google technologies pvt ltd. Simply because google is a misspelling of googol and to register company here, you need to mention the dictionary meaning of the name in the form– or you don’t get it – unless of course you know the alternatives. ;-)

7 > It would have worked : Well, these and there are a lot more points like do we have the sort of people like Andy Bechtolsheim who would, for the love of technology fund research projects and many more. But thinking of it, even if all these barriers would have come up, google would have worked had it started in any part of the world – because google is a spiritually correct product company. We all are searching for something in our lives - love, happiness, goodwill, money, success, meaning of our lives, something or the other. And Google, lets us do just that in the best way – SEARCH !

Wake up- Gandhiji !

     Few days back, on 2nd oct 2009 was the 140th birth anniversary of Gandhiji.
     India got up as usual and so did Mumbai. Many in a mood to enjoy the long weekend. Well, thats what the day meant for most of us, get up late, have a lazy breakfast and then - some movie by afternoon, especially when a well marketed movie of one bollywood's biggest producers is lined up for release - yup- wake up sid !
     The movie is actually pretty cool- decent acting, good screenplay and the débutante director does a pretty good job to strike a cord with the audience- except - for one major error - or rather a blunder - the movie actually calls the city if Mumbai as - 'Bombay'. And for the obvious reasons of violating one of the top agendas of Mumbai's top safeguarding political party, chaos spreads round the city as well as many other cities in the state as political passionate morally charged workers threaten to close down theaters showcasing the movie with such a heinous mistake. They can go to any levels to safeguard the respect for their city, even if that means carelessly threatening local people and destroying property that ironically belongs to Mumbaites ! But at the core, arent they right for rightly spotting the error and taking a stand - even if that means disruption of peace in the city- which can be understood as a sacrifice that has to be offered for any noble act.
        After all, taking the process through the proper legal channel, suing the producer and filing an FIR would take so long that by that time the entire country would have fallen prey to the grave mistake made by the movie makers. Well a little violence definitely seems to be the way to get things done and stand for the right  in a country that ironically got its freedom in a perfectly opposite manner ! Well we did vouch for this freedom didnt we - degrade in morality and law = increase in freedom of expression.
     K Jo walked down and apologized, well, rightly for him, again, taking the path of the law would take too long, especially when he has so much money riding behind the movie and he would already be done with producing 2 more movies by the time the court moves its - well you know what. Rightly, he apologizes and agrees to add a disclaimer taking responsibility for the error. Well, thinking of it, all this could have been done in a more personal manner - Mr R calls up K Jo and barges at him for the error, K Jo apologizes and adds the disclaimer. Wastage of property, tense moments, fear amongst the common man, allocation of police forces, unlimited amount of worthless aired news, all this would have been avoided and the birthday boy would have been more than happy. Well not with  the elections coming up in 15 days. No Way ! But if this is the way things start happening, what would the large force of self proclaimed moral police do - and worse, who would stand for them and threaten the owner if they get fired !!
       A spoiled brat wakes up when he is thrown into the world with all his resources cut out- self realization. Wonder what it takes for a country to wake up to its true self. And did we forget- it was Gandhijis 140th bday anniversary on that day. Well thats the only joining news we had on a day full of BREAKING News!