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..