Nano Thoughts!

Don’t get mislead by the title! It is not about minute thoughts, but it is about Nano the car. I was reading about October car sales in team-bhp and was surprised to note that Nano sold only about 3000 odd cars. The highest selling car was Maruti Alto and that was more than 30000 that is 10 times more. This was unexpected I would say. Nano was definitely expected to sell more. In its defense it was said that suppliers are moving to the new plant and so Tata didn’t make enough Nano’s to sell, but it still doesn’t explain as even before this month Alto was outselling Nano by a factor or 4 or 5. So here is my wild hypothesis on why Nano sales is not taking off as expected. I think positioning it as 1 lakh rupee car has hurt it in a couple of ways. One is many people didn’t expect a 1 lakh rupee car to be a complete car. They expected it to be more like a 4 wheel auto rickshaw. Secondly, in reality people are paying close to 2 lakh or more for buying Nano which was marketed as a 1 lakh rupee car and this made it look expensive in the eyes of the people. This along with the first factor makes people think that for another 40K or so, they can buy a M800 or a decent used car (meaning real car). I am not against Nano. I felt happy and proud when Nano was launched, felt bad when people trashed it for fire accidents and now feel sorry that it is not selling well. This car really put the (low cost) engineering capabilities of the Indian Automobile Industry in the world map and deserves to Succeed.

Star Power

I am writing this post during the weekend when Endhiran has been released and Tamil Nadu and pockets across the country and around the world seem to be gripped in Endhiran Mania. I haven't seen it yet, but I do have tickets for the show 4 days from now. This Endhiran mania is not particularly new to people like me. We are aware of Rajni's mass appeal and the excitement his movie releases create. Only this time, it is even larger in scale. I am not particularly a hard core fan of Rajni and infact I like Rajni better for his anti-hero roles in his earlier movies, but I would still like to say that this movie release is a perfect illustration of "Star Power" and what a "Mass Hero" means. If you look at this man, you will never believe he is a movie star, much less a superstar. He is very humble, looks very ordinary and doesn’t hide his age, does not kick up controversies to promote movies nor does he show up in 20 TV channels to market his movie and yet his movie release creates so much anticipation, excitement and mass hysteria across all sections of society across all age groups. If this is not star power, what is? I think this is not something that you work at and achieve. It is a gift and I am sure Rajni would be the first to admit it. I would also say that Rajni is the only star in India who could have made this movie a success given the costs involved. Hype driven Bollywood should well take note of this phenomenon!

The Invitation

I came across this poem (or whatever you call it) a few years back and liked its strong verses. I again came across this when checking out some old mails and I thought I should post it here. Since it was long, I have given the link.

The Invitation

Enemies aren’t half as dangerous as loved ones!!!

I read an article yesterday and the gist of it were the two sentences below.
Enemies aren’t half as dangerous as loved ones today, because people closest to our hearts are the ones who are selling us out
Be nice to all, friends with few and trust only one… you!
If this is really the state of affairs, then it is a very sad situation. Well I don't believe it is true broadly speaking, though these of incidents do happen as we hear about. One aspect to think about is why do these people get-together in the first place. While I am not running down the affected people, I do think that people have become more superficial these days and neither have the time or inclination to invest time in relationships and even personal relationships are based on need, convenience and possibly some expectations. In that case even all relationships become businesslike in nature and selling out for profit is part of the game. So people can't complain about selling out. If you have your heart and mind at the right place, then you will have the right people around you, this won't happen.
About the second statement, I can't disagree with the last part more. If you can only trust yourself and no one else, then I think there would be no growth for you either in your personal or professional life.

Clouds and Moods

Okay this is going to be a crazy post. I had written it a couple of weeks back, but hadn't published it. Some days my imagination runs wild and I will come up with theories that mostly won't make sense to anybody else... :-)  Lately the weather in Chennai has been so atypical of it. It has been raining regularly and Sun has been playing hide and seek with the clouds. One of those days it was bright and sunny when I started from home, but had become cloudy when I reached work and after some time it was sunny again. Somehow it seemed to me that this unpredictability was similar to the moods. So hence my theory... Clouds are like Moods. They are transient most of the time. They come in suddenly and they go away after a downpour or disperse after some time. Similarly Moods also change if you allow yourself to get distracted by work or friends or just let off some steam. What say!

Madrasapattinam

I don’t feel like dissecting this movie and picking holes. This is a beautiful movie that you should sit back, relax, soak in, experience and enjoy. The background music is excellent and visuals are beautiful. More importantly this movie has all the things that ravanan lacked (couldn’t help taking a dig at Maniratnam). I don't think it is Arya's movie. It is the heroine who owns the movie and the movie revolves around her, which is a rarity in Tamil cinema. She is expressive, charming and a big plus to the movie. It reminded me of how Asin took over Ghajini's first half. Vijay and technicians have done great work and actors have done their part. Climax is neat without much melodrama. For the critical part, the running part could have been curtailed a bit and I am not sure if Arya's hair style is indicative of the 40's.

The German Surprise

Ok this will be my last post with respect to the Football world cup. The German team has been one of the surprise packages of this world cup. This is both in terms of their results and also their style of play. Not many including Germans expected a 3rd place finish. But for me their attractive style of play was a big surprise. Style and Flair were words you can hardly associate with German football. Efficiency, Industrious, Ruthless is what is German teams of the past are know for. I am not a big fan of their playing style earlier, but it has produced good results and you can always count on German teams to reach at least Semi-finals of any major tournament. Now this team is young is different. To start with nobody gave them chance to reach the Semi-finals. Without having seen them play, I was actually wishing that they get booted out in the first round along with Italy and France. Thankfully Italy and France deservedly got booted out and Germans were deservedly not. What happened in knockout stages was not something expected. They beat the over-hyped England 4-1 and favorite Argentina 4-0 and finally it took a strong Spain team to stop them. Though I was rooting for Spain from before the start of the tournament, I wouldn’t have been sad if Germany had played well that day and won the match. One thing I observed in this German team is that there were so many players from different ethnic backgrounds, something unheard of in past German teams. Klose, Podalski, Ozil, Sami Khadira, Boateng, Mario Gomez are not ethnic Germans. That makes me wonder may be this diversity in the team is the cause for the style and flair that is exhibited by this German team.

Looks like many people think this German team is different from earlier teams. An ESPN article says "Loew's 2010 World Cup side are the sexiest thing to come out of Germany since Claudia Schiffer became the supermodel face of Chanel”

Winning Ugly!

Arjen Robben of the Dutch team said before the world cup finals that he would not mind winning ugly. The Dutch did in fact try to win ugly knowing that they cannot compete with Spain at skill levels, but failed anyways. What they succeeded was to turn the finals into a ugly game that made for a painful watch for millions of fans. I am pretty sure that Dutch would not have got any new fans after this display. For a moment it looked like the Dutch may succeed in their endeavor when Robben went clear with only Casillas in front of him, but casillas saved the day for Spain. To me, more than Spain deserving to win this World Cup, Dutch did not deserve to win this World Cup. This is a sad situation because Dutch teams of the past were known for their flowing game, which made for attractive viewing. People still talk about the Johan Cryuff's 1974 Dutch team (Losing finalist) that played total football even after 9 world cups and 36 years later. I doubt if anybody remembers the boring 2006 World Cup winning Italy team. So is Winning the only thing?

Dishonourable Killings!

What is really honourable in honour killings, which seems to happen so frequently in the recent past. It could be that it was always there, but only recently it is in the news. To me it is a barbaric practice which has know place in any civilized society at any point of time. It just reflects people's narrow mindsets and intolerance of other point of views. To me, it is no use crowing about our culture when we have such inhuman practices like this and others amongst our midst. This actually brings our country, culture and people into disrepute and dishonour. It is sad that this practice often has the sanction of village leaders and shameful that even the government and major political parties are not speaking up and taking strong action to stop this because they may lose votes. This only goes to prove that we don’t have any leaders, but have only vote-seekers. The hallmark of a great leader is to take good decision if they are going to be unpopular!

The Sikkim Himalayan Trek - Coming up soon hopefully!

I really hate myself for writing about this trek so late.. long after the energy and enthusiasm generated from the trip had died down due the drudgery of the routine life. So I don’t think I would be able to do justice to experience we had in that trek, but I will write anyways. What a trip it was...

Viva Espana!

It was a well deserved victory for Spain over Germany. They were tactically superior and throughout the game they forced Germany to backfoot and into defending their goal post. German team was brought back to ground reality after their euphoric victories over England and Argentina, but this team is very young and they will become a really strong team by next world cup if they stick together. This Spain team has a real chance to win the first world cup ever for Spain and make history. The Spanish team of last two years are probably the strongest in their history. It rarely happens that so many good quality players like iniesta, xavi, alonso, villa, casillas, torres, ramos, pedro all arrive at the same generation of players in footballing terms. Better still is they seem to be playing as team, except on odd occasions like Pedro not passing to Torres in front of the goal in the semifinal. It is a great oppurtunity for Spain with a once in a generation set of players and it is up to them to take their chance and create history...

Ravanan

I watched Ravanan yesterday and I must say that I was not very impressed. First half was very disappointing and had a very shallow feel. Characters lacked depth and soul. Second half was better as the narration picked up speed. Last 30 minutes or so were the saving grace. Visuals were a treat as expected from Maniratnam movies. I felt the music (except the usire song) was not in sync with the context and circumstances... Also I think "Usire" song was wasted by bringing it prematurely without the allowing the Vikram’s feelings towards Aishwarya to build up. It was like Vikram wants to kill Aishwarya and she jumps into the water and suddenly this song plays out. When I heard the song in FM, it was so good, but it was disappointing to see on screen. This was the most disappointing part in the movie for me. I couldn’t feel for or sympathize with any of the characters in the movie. I could now understand why people are criticizing Abhishek Bachan’s performance in Hindi Ravan. If Vikram couldn’t make me feel for his character, I am pretty certain Abhishek could never do justice to the Ravan role. Maniratnam seems to have lost his touch nowadays... don't know who is he making movies for? Does he think by bringing big name artistes and technicians together and building hype around it, he could guarantee success of a movie!!!

You can prove anything with statistics except the Truth

I got reminded of this saying when reading about media stories related to the world cup. If you are not too much into football, you may be inclined to think players like Messi, Kaka have been flop shows so far in the world cup as they haven't scored any goals. And you may think that players like Argentina's Gonzalo Higuan & Brazil's Luis Fabiano are the stars. The truth is that Messi and Kaka are playing well and they are creating opportunities for the other players to score goals. Being big name players, they are usually the focus of the opposing team's defense and this in turn opens up space for the other team members, which Messi & Kaka exploit by passing on to them resulting in goals and victories for their teams. This is not to diminish the importance of finishers like Higuan and Fabiano, but the fact is that players like Higuan and Fabiano are dependent on players like Messi and Kaka to score goals, but Messi and Kaka are creative players who can create and score goals. Their value is not in number of goals scored by them, but in number of goal scoring opportunities created by them. For example, in Basketball, one of the parameters used to asses the player's contribution in a game is assists, which is how many points were scored with his assistance.
The worse part about the whole thing is these media stories only put unnecessary pressure on the players and may cause them to go for individual glory than for the team's good, which is detrimental to the game. I am not too surprised at this state of affairs, as I think generally people neither have the time or inclination to go to the depth of things and content with skimming the surface and this is applicable to those writing news articles as well as those reading them.

TN Trip - Day 2 & 3

Day two started early with us getting up early and heading to Poompuhar to catch sunrise. It is a historic port town which figures prominently in Silapadhikaram - a ancient tamil epic. River Cauvery also flows into the sea at this place. In reality, Poompuhar was a disappointment. The beach was dirty. There was not enough water in Cauvery to flow into the sea. It was just stagnant like a lake. Only saving grace was catching the sunrise. We came back to hotel, got ready and had breakfast and headed to Tarangambadi a.k.a Tranquebar. Now this is another place with a History. Most of us know French (Pondy) and Portugese (Goa) held parts of India in addition to the British. In addition to them, even the Danes had a small strip of India during the 1700s before they sold it to British for 10000 pounds as they could no longer maintain it. As they could not pronounce Tarangambadi, it became Tranquebar. They had built a nice small fort along the beach. Right opposite to that was the Danish governer's bungalow, which is now a hotel called Bungalow on the Beach. We didn't go inside, but it looked very nice. Reading from the happenings during that time, it is clear that corruption was rampant even even during that time. Next we headed towards Kumbakonam, a famous temple town which also happens to be the hometown of my Parents. There were a lot of temples in the town, but we visited swamimalai and dharasuram. The dharasuram temple was grand and impressive. It was like a fort. This temple also didn't have much crowd and I seem to like those temples. After that we had our lunch and headed towards Tanjore. Upon reaching, we checked into the hotel and after refreshing ourselves went to the Big Temple. It was really Big, Grand and Magnificient. No wonder people are still wondering and speculating how it was built and specifically how the huge boulder was taken to the top.
Day three - We had breakfast and started to Trichy. Our agenda was to see Rockfort and Srirangam and head back to Chennai. First we went to a place that looked like Rockfort, but it was not. We then went to the actual Rockfort, walked up the steps to the temple at the top. Then we had lunch and after a brief shopping stopover, we headed to Srirangam. The main temple areas was closed at that time, but we were still able to go in and walk around and see the sculptures and architecture. It was time to start back to Chennai. We took the National Highway to Chennai and with thye roads being good and car maintaining steady 3 digit speeds we reached Chennai late in the evening. Overall it was a very good trip. Was able to see many peoples otherwise I may have never seen.

TN Trip - Day 1

I and 3 of my colleagues went for 3 day trek starting from Chennai and heading all the way to Trichy via Pondy, Chidambaram, Tanjore route and returning back. Two of the group were colleagues from US & UK and who were visiting Chennai on Business. It was sort of like a road trip!! We had hired an Toyota Innova van and were basically on the road except when seeing the places and stopping over for the night. The genesis for the trip for me was that I was very keen to visit the Tanjore Big Temple after reading that this year is the 1000th anniversary of the temple. Rajesh, my friend and Chennai colleague discussed about doing this trip coinciding with the visit by US/UK colleagues since we knew they would be interested in such a trip. We had decided to take the Pondy route to Tanjore and visit all the places on the way. Most of the places were first time for me though i am from Tamilnadu and parents were from Kumbakonam, a famous temple town (I am not known for frequenting temples :-) )

Coming to the trip, we started early on a Saturday morning from Chennai and headed towards Pondy with a breakfast stop at Mahabs. We went straight to Auroville and spent a little time there. Except me, the other three did not seem interested in seeing the main Mandir, so we decided to give it a skip. Next we went to Aurobindo Ashram and after that spent some time on the Beach and had Juice and snacks at Le Cafe, one of my favorite place in Pondy. Next we headed to Pichavaram, which is a combination of backwaters and mangrove forest. We took a boat ride that lasted nearly an hour. It was good but not exceptional. Next we went to Chidambaram, had lunch and visited the famous Nataraja temple. The interesting thing I noted was that there was a lot of crowd waiting for darshan of Vishnu in a Sivan temple!! (No intention of creating discord between the Gods!). Next we went to Sirgazhi and had a brief visit to Rajesh's ancestral house where his Grandmother lives and then to the Sirgazhi Sivan temple. This was again a big temple but less crowded. We then headed to Vaitheeswaran Koil town for our stop for the day. There was a famous temple in that town. Another specialty of the town is the supposed knowing your past, present & future from reading of old texts, manuscripts by the astrologers. We did not visit either the temple or the astrologers :-)

A eventful 2 months

I think it has been exactly 2 months since my last post. It had been very busy time with work, which is the case most of the time and it became a bit more tight due to performance appraisal that I had to do for my team., but I had managed to make it to a 2-day trek and 3-day TN trip covering places of historical, archeological and natural interest besides a couple of movies and also did my first 5km run as a preparation for the Sikkim trek in May. So that makes it a busy and eventful couple of months right :-) I will do seperate posts for the trek and the TN trip

Settled?

“Settled” is a term commonly by people (mostly family, relatives, friends etc) used to describe how a person is doing in life (actually I think more in terms of having a job and the money you are making). Usually it means that you completed your studies, got a job earning decent salary and being “settled” makes you supposedly eligible for marriage... Being a (self proclaimed) non-conformist who doesn’t fit into regular stream of thinking, I don’t find it making much sense from my perspective and actually annoys me quite a bit. I for one would go further and split the “Settled” to three “Settled” – “Financially Settled”, “Professionally settled” and “Personally Settled”. Financially settled would mean that you have a decent job with decent money and you have assets or in process of building them and in position to service your loans. Professionally settled would mean that you are in a job/industry that you like and intend to continue and possibly retire from. Personally settled would mean that your emotional needs are taken care of! (I am not implying that you have to be married to be personally settled). From my perspective, I think I am reasonably financially settled. About being professionally settled, I am sure I am not. I have been in IT industry for 13+ years, but monotony has set in and I don’t think I can continue for long. And I am definitely not settled emotional/personally . Are you settled?

Friendship!!

This topic is close to my heart. I think the concept of friendship has been changing over the years due to what I believe is the lack of time or inclination from people in today’s hectic life.
What constitutes friendship today?
Are everybody that you are friendly with are “friends”?
Has friendship become need based?
Can friendship be Monday to Friday 9AM – 6PM?
Has friendship (or any other relationship for that matter) become superficial now and are people really interested to invest time and emotion into friendships.
I grapple with questions many times. Makes me feel guilty sometimes, that I may be expecting too much out of friends!! Or may be I am a dinosaur stuck in time :-)



Note: This will be a living post. I will be keeping updating it as and when I can put my thoughts coherently. You guys feel free to post your comments.

Automotive Dilemma(s)

I am a guy who likes driving though driving in Chennai traffic (and in our country in general) is very stressful. Not very technical and hands-on nuts and bolts type, but generally interested in knowing about new cars and bikes and their specs. Subscribe to a few auto journals and frequently read auto websites. I have so far owned 3 cars and 3 bikes. Lately I have been thinking if I should replace my current car – Hyundai Getz. It’s a mind vs. heart thing, as the rational side says why change the car if it is good enough and also is not on EMI J, while the emotional (irrational) side in me wants a newer car and is a little bit bored with the current car. The recent and upcoming new car launches this year by the auto majors is not making things easier. Getz, the car I drive now is quite a good car, but it is not very involving to drive. This feeling is aggravated because of my experiences with driving newer cars owned by friends recently. The other sub-dilemmas within the main dilemma are whether to buy a new one (which brand?) or used (like Getz). Now I am quite open about either of the options. I for one believe that upto 3 year old well maintained car is a great buy as you get a significant discount (1st owner takes the depreciation hit) and the car is still good for many more years. Of course there is some luck involved, but if you do the due diligence the risks are lesser and you can buy better cars with your budget. Now about my preferences, I am not a believer in bigger is better, though I admit I would like to own a Civic. Bigger may be better and safer in high ways, but not in day to day usage in traffic and parking will be a pain. My ideal car would be a Hatchback which is not too small, which is well built and has good power and handling and be easy to drive around in traffic. I have been driving Hyundai’s (Santro, Getz) in the last 7 years and quite satisfied, but it is time to try other brands – may be Honda or a German car. Honda Jazz comes close to my needs, but it is priced high and has only a 1.2L engine (I would have bought if Jazz has City’s 1.5L engine). That leaves VW, the only German brand that I could even think of. I have been following the Polo launch for quite some time and felt disappointed when I read that they are launching with 1.2L petrol & diesel engines. Now I hear that 1.6L version would also be available... so there is hope. When you look at the market, it appears that there are a lot of cars to choose from, but when you get closer, there are few choices, at least for me. I realize the issue here is that I don’t fit to the standard buyer template that most manufacturers cater to. I feel from personal experiences it’s true in all aspects of life if you don’t fit into the standard template. :-( Ok enough of my automotive story, but it is not over till I tell that the car that I ultimately aspire to own and drive is a Beamer (BMW), but that would be in an another post.

Zero Points for Winning. Minus Points for Losing

Recently I read a book “The Score takes care of Itself” written by legendary American NFL (Football) coach Bill Walsh. This was given to me by my Boss to read. . It was a management book about how he converted San Francisco 49ers, which was one of the worst teams in NFL history to winning several Super Bowl’s. It is not necessary to know about the game in order to read and benefit from the book as I did not know much about the game either. The main gist of this book is how Coach Walsh came up with detailed set of guidelines for each and every member of the 49ers team, including players, coaches, administrative and support staff. He called this Standard of Performance. He clearly explained each member of the organization about his responsibilities and expected them to follow it religiously. Now I have my own doubts about this type of management philosophy, but I will not dwell on it on this post. Towards the end of the book, I came across something that I could relate to very much. The Coach’s words reflected my state my mind. What was said was “Zero Point for Winning. Minus Points for Losing”. When you start winning, the bar keeps rising (both by you and your managers) and nothing other than winning is acceptable. You reach a point where you no longer enjoy winning; you are just relieved that it’s done. I feel the same way nowadays in whatever small things I am doing. There is no celebration after a major release, just plain relief that it went through any major issues, while on any objective assessment considering the scope, effort and constraints, it would be considered a successful release. The fun has gone out of work, it has become more of an obligation.

Highlight of the Year Gone By

As I reflect back on 2009, probably the highlight was the trek to Himalayas (SARPASS). Nothing else was significant both personally and professionally (that says a lot about me ). That was also the first time that I took a two week break from work in my 8 years in my current employer, which was significant (!!!) for me in its own way as I was away from work, emails, internet, mobile and all. So for me this trek was the best part of 2009. This was a 10 day program with the first 2 days being acclimatization and some training in the base camp at Kasol, a small village in Himachal. Since my previous experience with Treks were not more than a couple of hours, this trek was a big step forward for me. Three of my colleagues had also joined the trek and they all had done at least one trek in the Himalayas before and so there was some guidance and support. I couldn’t prepare well before the trek due to hectic work schedule as I would have wished, but I was determined to make this trek. Though I haven’t been to gym for 3 to 4 years now, I would say my fitness was not that bad, relative to most people, as did some walking on most weekdays and played tennis on weekends, but walking up the hills is a different ball game. But as the Director of the base camp said, there is always a first time for everything and so this is going to be the first time for me.
At the base camp and during the trek, it was like a NCC camp and you feel like you have been transported back in time. We stayed in tents, about 10 in each tent and no space to move your leg when sleeping. Life revolved around the whistle. 1st whistle at 5 or 5.30 AM meant tea is ready. 2nd at 6.30AM is breakfast is ready, 3rd at 7AM meant return the sleeping bags, 4th at 7.30AM is packed lunch is ready and 5th at 8AM means assemble for the trek and do a count. Similarly as we reach the next camp in the evening, the 1st is to assemble and do a count, 2nd is tea & snacks are ready, 3rd is soup is ready and 4th at 6.30pm is dinner ready. Life was simple (eat – trek – sleep) and fun and there was no need to think and worry about too many things. I think I did not struggle too much during the trek and managed ok. Obviously it was difficult to keep pace with my friends, but I wasn’t the last man as well, but somewhere in the middle of the pack.
About the Trek itself, a few things surprised me – The trek route was not that scenic as I expected except for a few patches; I sweated a lot every day during the trek specially during the climb (wasn’t expecting to sweat it out at that altitudes and temperatures); and we were able to use our mobile phones on most of the days even at 14000 ft height.
This trek is organized during the month of May and early June every year and during the trek, and it had spawned a small industry of local people putting up stalls along the trek path, where we could get Tea, Omlette, Noodles, Nimbu Pani etc. Good for us and also the local folks. The interesting part was the cost kept increasing we kept going up. A 10 rupee omlette near the first camp became 40 rupee omlette at the top. No issues with me as long the local population benefitted.
I must say a few words about the trek organizers – YHAI (Youth Hostels Association of India). This trek is very well organized and very cheap. The reason being except for cooking and some other support staff, all others involved is volunteers, who are doing this for their love of trekking. Every camp you reach had a camp leader and cooking staff and had sleeping bags, blankets etc. Can you imagine this trekking program costs only about Rs 3000 inclusive of food and all. Hats off to YHAI. It just goes to prove that good things in life don’t need to be expensive. You just have to look around. I am glad that I did this trek.

Trek pics - http://picasaweb.google.co.in/rxk2000/SARPASS2009#

After You Experience the Best, What Next

I have been going to Chennai Open Tennis tournament since 2001 or 2002 every year except for one year when I could not get the tickets. Over the years I had witnessed some very good matches, the Carlos Moya – Srichapan finals for two consecutive years and more recently Nadal – Moya semifinal two years back. More recently, last year and this year so far, the quality seem to have gone down or so it seemed to me. When I thought more about it, it seemed to me that this thought of mine is probably due the Nadal – Moya match. It was a great match and no doubt the best ever match that I had watched in a stadium and one of the best I have ever watched in person or in TV (that includes Federer – Nadal 5 setters). This match I refer to was a 3 setter that lasted nearly 4 hours. It was emotionally draining evening for spectators like me, let alone the players. I had that empty feeling the next day and no wonder Nadal had one of his worst losses in his career in the finals. The point I am trying to make is after seeing this match, all other matches in the subsequent years seem to be lower standard and somewhat boring, when they may not be actually. This match I still remember even after 2 years, for it was worth many times the money I spent on the tickets. What I experienced is from a sporting perspective, but I think this will be true with just about anything. When you experience the best, then it changes many things. You are no longer satisfied with lesser things. I will sign off with a some quip I read a long time back and I don’t even remember the context. Someone said “My tastes are simple, I am easily satisfied with the best”.

How Long is Long?

In the industry I work for (IT), 3 years is about the time an employee spends with a company on an average (that is in India). In that context, I used to think my 8+ years with my current employer did mean something (whatever that means)!! But all that is busted.. A recent viewing of the list of years of service awards in the company's newsletter put things in perspective. There is even one person who has spent 45 years with the company and there are are significant number of people who had put 20,25,30,35,40 years of service and so on. All of them were in US or Europe, but that doesn't matter. I used to think this can happen only in Government service (For example my mom put in 38 years in TN Government Service). May be a few people do put in long years in Private Sector as well, but the sheer numbers in my company surprised me. I am certainly not competing with them. Don't think I can even if I want to. The 8 years that I spend with my employer had been time well spent with lots of learning, growth and making good friendships, but lately I have been grappling with the thoughts if this is high time to seek some change. Ofcourse there is more to it than just the number of years, but that would be a subject for another post :-) Just my thoughts and I am sure everyone has their own take on "How Long is Long".

Tale of two movies

Usually I watch movies in theatres once in a while, may be many months apart and definitely not very frequently. There were many movies that i would have liked to watch but didn't because of laziness or lack of company or both (:-)) even though there are good theatres no so far from my place. So it has been quite a achievement (!!!) from my part that i had watched 3 movies in december. Of the 3 movies, I had watched 2 movies back to back on 2 days - Avatar on 31st december and 3 Idiots on 1st Jan 2010.
I went to Avatar as part of a 12 member gang from my company, obviously with a lot of expectations given the hype surrounding the movie. My view is the movie is quite good from a technical perspective, but definitely not great. The visuals were very good and the 3D glasses helps, but the novelty wears off as time passes by. There is a definite lack of dramatic/emotive content that makes this move less fulfilling I would say. Somehow the rituals and customs of the Navi tribe failed to make an impression with me. May be it is because of animation, but i had really liked animation movies like Finding Nemo and Shark Tale.
On 1st Jan, I went with a nephew of mine to watch 3 Idiots at crazy 7.30AM show @ Satyam.. it was a case of 2 idiots watching 3 Idiots :-) I liked the movie very much and was able to enjoy and relate to it even though i dont know Hindi. The first half was peppy and more fun than the second half which dragged a bit and had some typical indian movie senti-stuff. On the whole it was a good movie to watch and I definitely liked it better than Avatar.
BTW, since the first thing i did on this new year was to watch a movie, by common belief (??) I am expected to watch a lot of movies this year.. Let us see..

Wish you all a Great Year Ahead..