Day #14550 - How much is enough?

Okay. Here comes a new thought and an perspective for me to blog on. A simple thought and yet something with some complex interpretations.

So yesterday while driving back home, I started pondering on money - more specifically on when exactly is money (that ones has) really enough! A realization dawned in the immediate next traffic light where surrounding me were a range of living emoting human beings. On one side I had a BMW 5 series and just a little ahead of that was a municipality bus with at least 100  specimens for my study. On the other side I saw a young couple with a small child stuffed neatly between them. A little ahead of them was a Gen Y or Z specimen trying to take a U turn. Further ahead was a cab driver with an almost exhausted beaten look - having dealt with the traffic all his day long. So in nutshell, I saw all around me people of different living scales and perhaps different aspirations of how they think they would like their ideal life to be!

Well I figured "enough" does not have a definite single answer. So that rolled me to think on what would "enough" be in different context and situations.

Now for the sake of preventing this from becoming a complex quadratic polynomial equation, I assumed a few constants and even fewer variables!

The constants I kept were - things like my kind of personality, my kind of temperament , my kind of aspirations or simply put my lifestyle!

The variables were different "settings" or locations as you may choose to call!

So If I were residing in a country like US, perhaps I will answer as somewhere around 4000 to 5000 US Dollars (post tax) a month as what I would consider acceptable "enough" (without trying to be too frivolous or too much spend thrift). This roughly translates in Indian currency to 2.5 Lakh to 3 Lakh a month.  I assume similar looking number is what I will have if I were in any of those developed countries.

Now if I was residing in a country like India and in a city like Delhi, Mumbai or Bangalore, my response would change to 1 Lakh to 1.5 Lakh  a month.

Now if I change the location to a city like Mysore or Coimbatore, the same "enough" would perhaps come down to 75 thousand to 1 Lakh a month.

Further if I change the location and setting to a smaller town like "Palaghat (my home town), then even 50 thousand a month will become "more than enough"!

And mind you, I am making no compromise to my so called lifestyle - just reducing the options of expensive and frivolous spending. (I assume flipkart and amazon will still serve to let me shop online for all the fancy unwanted stuff I need)

Now lets look at the "happiness" or "satisfaction" quotients of these options.  I believe that satisfaction (and happiness) is directly proportional to you having "more than enough" relative to the context or situation you have chosen to be in.

In other words - a person with a "feeling" that he or she is having "more than others" gives the same satisfaction in all settings - only the numeric value of "how much that is " differs !

So where is that leading me to?

I think its leading me to the age old fact that the choice you make is what will define how much is "enough". And extending that to the happiness quotient - wherever you are and whatever you have - as long as it is just a bit "more" than whats considered "enough" in that setting, it will eventually give you all that you need - happiness, sense of accomplishment and perhaps ever sense of worth!

What do you think?

Confessions of my failures

This blog is dedicated to all my failures. It’s a confession box which I know is going public!

I just thought I should list them out and then really think around if they were indeed a “failure” in true sense.

So here we go with the list in chronological order of when they happened in my life

• My earliest recollection of one my first failure was in the entrance exam of my school. I flunked the entrance test and the school refused me admission (to grade 1). I am told, my parents used my sister’s high score to get me admitted. (Those days were cleaner – there were no money transactions, only persuasions!)
• My next failure that I can recollect is perhaps a trivial one – where I must have forgotten a few important lines of my speech during school assembly. "Embarrassed" - I was.
• My next failure was in "all" the Engineering entrance exams I gave – IIT, Delhi College of Engineering, IT- Roorkee, BITS Pilani / Mesra and even common entrance exams of Uttar Pradesh. I didn't  clear even a single one!
• My next failure in the same line repeated 4 years later – this time entrance exams of Management schools – IIM, NM College, SP Jain, XLRI, MDI – You name any tier-1 or 2  institute and I didn't clear any of them.
• Next failure came with my job search– Entrance exam of Infosys in 1996 (which means had I got through, I would be one of their prized possessions but I didn't!!)
• Next – I messed up real bad in a presentation for a customer demo – This time in Chicago where I was giving a code walk-through and was brutally attacked by questions I was least prepared for. I was bruised real red and blue!
• Last one that I can remember for now was somewhere in my mid-career (2007 or 8) - I just wanted to attend any job interview for the heck of it and see how market takes me. I cleared first round of interview with ease. The second one went miserable. I was crushed one more time!
• Since then, there might have been more, but then either they are trivial or I am just not recollecting or I am just not aware. Either ways I don't think "they" have stopped or will stop ever.

So what do I make out of all this?

To begin with let me list out now what eventually happened in my life because of each of them

• In the same school where I was refused admission, my name shines there in Honors roll for having secured the highest percentage in mathematics (96%) in public exam and  forever engraved in those wooden boards!
• Today – I hardly spend any time preparing for speeches – I just prepare for the “theme”. Since there is nothing granular that I prepare, there is nothing I can forget!
• Eventually I did get my distinction degree in Engineering and topped my college in first year. Yes it was not Tier-1 or 2 or maybe not even 3…but here I am with 17 years of work experience across two continents with "that" degree!
• I finally did make a back-window entry into IIM Bangalore and completed 1 year part time program with "A" grade. I guess those "entrance" failures had left me forever “hungry” for learning.Even today I keep attending "exotic" courses through MOCS from universities such as Harvard, Carnegie Mellon and many more….
• Infosys – TCS – IBM – What’s in a name? An organization by any other name sounds and smells the same!
• Customer Presentations – Today I am more open, more transparent and more fearless than ever before. Maybe it was the failure of those early days which helps me be "such' today.
• And for Interviews - I am more on “take” side of interviews than “give” these days. And my idiosyncratic attempts at making the “interviewee” feel comfortable (if they ever reach my round) can only be attributed to my own earlier failure. I know from first-hand experience that the "real" you is somewhere hidden beneath those layers of "discomfort" that the process of "interview" creates!

So what really is a "failure"? Is there anything or anyone who really fails?

What do you feel?

- The Honest me!

Upon Rumination

Some thoughts just don't die. And there's one such that plagues me often - "It's the search for a deeper meaning of what I am doing or what I want to do in life". Of course I have got different answers at different points in time, but yet there is a theme that refuses to leave easily. 

That "adamant" theme has been "education" and its "unfair distribution" across living, breathing, emoting human beings. I keep dwelling on the thoughts that why is the playing ground never even? Why do we ask an urban-educated-fluent English speaking youngster to compete with not-so-urban-not-so-fluent-not-so-educated and expect the "war" to be "fair"? Why is it that education doesn't propagate "evenly" across everyone before the "competition" kicks in? 

But then as a spectator of these glorious corporate battles all around me, I just "feel" the "futility" of every competition and "desperation" of just trying to become - just a little more than a mere spectator!!  

A forward by one of my colleague just resurrected the "theme" once again in my life.  It was about an opportunity to do a "fellowship" in an rather interesting "social sector" field. It is a 2 year full time course with majority of it being spent in "field" - the field being the deepest, innermost rural villages. A grass root level "education" for myself so next time I open my mouth post this course, I actually know what I am talking about! (As you can infer, I haven't seen it from inside yet). The attempt of this organization has been to change the education system of the country at a grass root level rather than merely building schools or providing scholarships!!

So once again I started ruminating if this indeed is a real inner call of mine or just a wishful thinking. 

  Unfortunately I am flawed and I have no fear admitting that in open. Whenever I have given these a serious thought, a familiar "fear of not being practical" holds me back. It keeps telling me - what about your monthly bills, EMIs, family needs and the list goes on. It keeps telling me - Its for your future not now. I just keep wondering when will future become present? 

So I stand here right now at this juncture where this fellowship program and this opportunity of a totally different career and possibly a totally different future "lures" me on one side, while "Its not yet the time" holds me on the other.

Will destiny or events of life help me reach that clarity? I keep ruminating.......

Letter to the Publishing Industry

Dear Sir, 

 

My name is Shekar Hariharan and I am writing this note just to bring to your notice my thoughts on the recent ebook pricing conflict that your organization along with many others are trying to resolve.

 

While I admit that I am not completely aware of the entire argument, I just want to let you know my feelings as an individual book lover. I live in India and though our education has stressed on the virtues of book reading since time immemorial and culturally my country has been in center of literature for several centuries, we unfortunately are a poor nation by and large who cannot afford expensive books. 

 

Though people like me - who are affluent enough in relative terms, can very well afford whatever prices are quoted, our likes only form 5% of the entire population of India. Remaining 95% of the population struggles each day to make their ends meet.(especially considering the inflation we (the neo-affluents) have caused in recent times). 

You can well imagine, for someone trying to make their ends meet, purchasing a book is nothing but just a dream!

 

eBook has been a revolution in its own regards - especially for country like ours - where strong desire to read conflicts with an even stronger constraints of inability to spend on it. eBooks with its low cost of "existence" does promise to eliminate this "conflict".

 

Besides making the book affordable, it has revolutionized by democratizing the availability of ANY and EVERY BOOK regardless of its nation or culture of origin. What more can be a better benefit of this new connected world which is making it "flat" and "fair" for every one to gain from it, regardless of which part of the world they reside in.

 

So as a common book reader hailing from such a nation , I only urge all of you - the big publishing empire, to kindly keep "us" in your consideration while taking decisions or fighting legal battles against or with each other and finally deciding the entire business model around eBooks.

 

Please Please do keep them "affordable" so aspiring readers belonging to developing nation like mine or even poor nations also benefit from this paradigm shift that publishing industry is going through!

 

 

Best Regards

Shekar

 

The new FLAT world of Education – Sky is the limit!

 

The new FLAT world of Education – Sky is the limit!

I vividly remember the afternoons of my high-school-childhood when amidst reading an Erich Segal novel, I used to get into a world of fantasy. The fantasy was not about lands of chocolates or about star wars or supermen, it was about the world of Harvard business schools and its elegant class rooms, dorms, proms and all those elite species of people who used to become the backdrop of all (almost all) his plots. I used to almost recreate the entire city of Boston and the institution in my own way on my own canvas of meta-physical mind. I often used to imagine what life would be if I was part of that landscape too? What if I too attended those fancy courses/subjects which I had trouble even spelling them correctly?

25 years later, lot of things changed – both in what my notion of a fantasy is as well as the world itself. And with these changes - something changed for good which is simply democratizing the entire field of education.

Welcome to the new flat world of MOOCs. For those of you who have not yet been initiated into this new jargon, it stands for Massive Open Online Course -  A platform that opens up education from all leading universities to anyone in the world who cares to fulfill their learning desires – be it Aristotle's Philosophy , Social Psychology, Learning Python/Ruby or even exotic courses like History of world culture. Anyone with a semi-decent internet connection and relentless desire to learn ANYTHING now has an equal opportunity to attend a class delivered from leading universities via renowned professors of those specific fields! And what more – Its free and that too at your convenience at your own home which ever parts of the world it may be in.

Typically these courses last 6-8 weeks requiring the aspirants to devote 6-8 hours a week, listening to video lectures, doing class assignment and projects, evaluating peers submissions and a few weekly quizzes here and there.  And Yes – There are hard deadlines and interactions with "real" people and "professors" just like it would have been in a real class. You even get an official certificate upon completion with requisite score criteria.

Now why am I writing about this ?

Well, definitely not to promote a certain specific site or institution. I am writing this to hopefully "stir" some of you in taking the first step towards fulfilling some of your latent educational desires. We all might have had (in the past) or may now have developed a "hunger" for taking your subtle passion into a more formal level of education. (..And if not, why not think about that NOW )

My assumption is that anyone reading this post in LinkedIn is a working professional and hence is in constant act of balancing his/her time against zillions of competing needs. MOOCs offer you the opportunity to just sneak in that "small" space into your never-have-enough-time schedule and fulfill those desires.

My story continued…

Okay – So this is what I did. My chance encounter with a MOOC offering site called www.coursera.org opened up a whole new world of knowledge to me – specifically to all those "exotic" courses from "even-more-exotic" universities which I always wanted to.  Today I have done several courses from Universities such as University of Michigan, Stanford, Johns Hopkins and Wesleyan University on topics ranging from Model Thinking, Game Theory, Leading Strategic Innovation to even – Introduction to Philosophy!

And yes, fortunately during my stay in United States, I actually did visit the Harvard Campus too, just to "feel" those fantasies of younger years!!

In closing – Let me recap a dialogue from one of the recent-popular Indian movie where the protagonist (who is a nerd sorts) speaks to a non-affluent poor boy who serves him the tea. The tea boy apparently is narrating his tragedy of why he couldn't afford education because he didn't have money. The protagonist's casual response loosely translates to "…but then who said you need money to get education…Knowledge is available everywhere, you just need a school uniform to go and sit in any class you want to."

That's the new reality.  What are you waiting for?

PS: A simple Google search on MOOCs can help you get a listing of all sites that offer such courses. Will not bother listing them here so I don't give you a list that will become obsolete even before my next post.

 

Day 14313 - Detours of Life

Clicking the "Inspire me" (to blog) today landed up with this question -  

What was the one incident/experience that completely changed your life? What happened? How did it change your life?

So here I am trying to describe the so called "detours" of my life. None of them were ever "designed" by me! 

 In fact there are many experiences/incidents that somehow now connect perfectly to where I am today. 

So let me list them all down along with how it made the difference

• July of 1992 - When results of my 12th std were out and having "successfully" not securing seats in any of the IITs and other prestigious institutes. I was partly devastated, not knowing what I should do next. My very close 3:00 AM buddy had chosen University of Pune and specifically Computer Science as specialization. Heavily influenced by him, on "one fateful day", I chose the same - University of Pune and Computer Science with no "reason" other than hope of staying in hostel and spending a few more years with my buddy. Little did I know that IT would become my career and a game-changer in years to come.
• December of 1996 - After graduating from University of Pune, once again my "hunger" for bigger institute and more qualification didn't subside. I had just given CAT (to get into IIM) a week before and had a week more before NM and other management school entrance were scheduled. A friend of mine  was working in an IT firm and he had asked me to come and drop my resume. Though I was really hoping I would get through one of these management school, I chose to go and meet him with resume. For safety reasons, I had carried one additional copy of my resume as well. So after meeting him on my way back, I just thought that why carry that extra resume back home and turned left to the main gate of another organization just near the main gate (of a place called SEEPZ in Mumbai, India). Little did I know that the same organization (TCS, Tata Unisys then) would become my first employer. Later it would also become my launching pad for a career in Data Warehousing which then will take me to a totally different land. It also brought some really wonderful professionals in my life, notably my supervisor who had (and still has) a great influence in my entire professional demeanor and personality.
•  December of 1999 - Two and a half year into IT industry, I realized all my peer "freshers"/colleagues were no longer in India. they all left for US/UK/Australia. Year 2000 was round the corner and suddenly Indian IT professionals had the entire world opening their arms to embrace them. Embrace them into a life of elevated affluence. And then the "bug" bit me too. I also wanted to explore the world but was very choosy on kind of organization I would want to go for. So while I was not making drastic effort to get "that" opportunity, a friend of mine wanted to attend a walk-in in a nearby organization for a placement in their US office. I accompanied him and also appeared for the selection process. As fate would have it, they were looking for "Data warehousing professionals" and I magically had just the right profile. The rounds were done really quickly and in about 4 hours from when I started, I had an offer in my hand.Little did I know that this same organization would ship me to US for their special client who later would become my employer (and they still are) and change the course of my life once again
• February of 2001 - My first visit back to India after I had left for US. I was at my sister's house in Jamnagar, Gujrat when a friend of hers came by (accidentally in fact). We were having our superficial talks around everything in the world, how my life was in US etc. The she mentioned that she is investing in a property in a city called Bangalore and that she was excited since this was a "Villa" with the advantage of a gated community. I was single and earning handsome pay in dollars those days and living in a country where inflation was less than 1%. I had no plans of settling in Bangalore or didn't even know if and when I will ever come back to India but for some reason, I liked the city and the property she was talking of. With absolutely no knowledge of the topography or geography of the city called Bangalore and no intentions of staying there, I also signed the dotted line to invest there.Little did I know that this property in the then-outskirt of the city would become one of the most admired affluent property of the country. Little did I know that my employer would later offer an incredible package and a role to shift my base to India for their offshore center. And lastly even little did I know that the city chosen would be Bangalore while the distance chosen would be 10.6 km from my home-to-be.
• July of 2009 - Yes this one indeed is life changing in a very different way. I met a young man in the park who was perhaps in his early 30s. He was the son of one of our neighbors and was working in UK and had come to spend a little vacation in India. So he talked about how things were going great for him and that he had just completed a management school in HongKong and was at his professional "high". Had offers from McKinsey and other top-notch firms, had a nice investments that had inflated in its value by over 20 times and everything including his health was great. He was damn excited about the new life he was about to embark. I felt very happy for him and appreciated his financial and professional prudence and how things were so good for him. I next met him in October of 2009.Little did I know that life can spin in any direction it wishes to. Later the same young man had a small gastric trouble while he was in Hong Kong and when he went to see the doctor, they detected a "cancer/tumor" in his stomach and that too in advanced stages. He came back to India after leaving everything behind in August of the same year. By September, his situation worsened and it took less than 12 weeks from that "gastric" disorder for him to completely leave the "gross-world" or ours. Little did I know that from that day onward, my views on life (and its futility) would change for ever. These days nothing disturbs me. I have no particular affinity or hatred towards anything. I guess in many ways I have started living each moment to its fullest....

Like Mr Steve Job said, in retrospect - I think connecting the Dots in reverse is always possible and easy. But you perhaps cannot ever connect them forward! So corollary of this is - You have no clue that all the incidents, events, people you meet RIGHT NOW, may have a life-changing impact in the FUTURE.

Little did I know that Life is a mystery full of detours...who knows where one is heading towards...  

 Do you agree?

 

 

Day 14310 - The mystic 108 number

Yes – Today I want to write about the mystical, magical number 108. 

 

Hinduism and specifically Vedic literature and practices have always laid an extremely high importance to this number called 108. Be it the number of times “Gayatri manta” has to be recited or be in an “japam” you do , the number has always been 108.  Though I was remotely aware that this number cannot be a mere ordinary number, I didn’t have much details on its significance.

 

Yesterday I was reading my current book called “The Krishna Key” by Ashwin Sanghi , when the answer decided to appear before me.

 

So here we go

• The distance between Earth and Sun is 108 times the Sun’s diameter
• The distance between Earth and Moon is also 108 times Moon’s diameter

And if this didn’t strike a bell, listen to this..

• The ratio of Sun’s diameter to that of Earth is also 108

 

Okay I know even now you are not amused….So let me add more till I can “feel” the “awe” in you….

• According to Marma Adi and Ayurveda, there are 108 pressure points in the body, where consciousness and flesh intersect to give life to the living being
• An official Major League Baseball baseball has 108 stitches
• In some schools of Buddhism it is believed that there are 108 feelings. According to Bhante Gunaratana this number is reached by multiplying the senses smell, touch, taste, hearing, sight, and consciousness by whether they are painful, pleasant or neutral, and then again by whether these are internally generated or externally occurring, and yet again by past, present and future, finally we get 108 feelings. 6 × 3 × 2 × 3 = 108.
• Astrology: There are 12 constellations, and 9 arc segments called namshas or chandrakalas. 9 times 12 equals 108. Chandra is moon, and kalas are the divisions within a whole.
• Planets and Houses: In astrology, there are 12 houses and 9 planets. 12 times 9 equals 108.
• Pentagon: The angle formed by two adjacent lines in a pentagon equals 108 degrees.

 

Enough to believe its not mere coincidence…. (or is it the work of our beautiful mind….) I let you decide…

 

-Me

 

 

Day 14306 - The Citizens day

Today is citizens day for Republic of India. 

The entire nation is in the process of electing its next prime minister. So I too did my part of "exercising" the most important "right" as well as "fulfilling" the most important "duty". Yes I cast my VOTE.

Ironically though its been more than 20 years since I earned the right of voting, yet as fate would have it, its my second time ever.

Now I don't really have a strong view or even knowledge on the political aspects of  running a country, but yes I do have a few perspective around the subject.

I believe that running a country is no joke. It takes enormous amount of selflessness to really even attempt that. All of us have a choice of leading a "citizens" life - with money, family, a nice cozy corporate job, easy weekends and so on. Its perhaps a much easy way of making money than being in politics and governance business! Although our politicians are always blamed of corruption, power play and what-nots, but then surely if it was just money, its much easier in corporate sector. (As any IT or those startup folks of how "hard" they have to work for a living)

Its of course not easy to be 24 hours on vigil - watching every statement that you ever utter, being weary of anyone you meet, keeping your accounts as clean as possible, watching for any "enemy" attack and on top of that expecting to get everything in this system , "corrected" for its citizens.

Hence I sincerely and truly salute all the politicians (Good one, Bad Ones or the Ugly ones) and I really think, I have no "real" right to complain or blame them for everything that goes bad in this country. I am as much responsible as they are.

Yes, If possible I would want to help them by sometimes raising a few pertinent questions, providing a few suggestions and may be volunteering for anything that I may be of service. But then I personally draw my line there!

So as far as India is concerned, my only prayer is that let it have a Government that wins (and it can be any one) have a clear majority so it can take decisions without trying to compromise too many things. We have seen enough of these coalitions and a democratic setup where no decision (good or bad) ever sees the light of the day. For once, I wish and pray that we have a Government that can run on its own! 

So I cast my VOTE this morning and want to wish the future prime minister (who ever it can be) , the very best. May God bless you with "Good" intents and may the "citizens" of this nation give you enough "support" so you can successfully make those intents come true for the betterment of everyone (including you if need be)

Day 14305

No - Today's topic is not about me or anything philosophical or anything factual. It's pure 100% nonsense. ( It happens to me every time a day before the election)

Today's theme for me is one of the most abused phrase that I picked up by means of my random-phrase-search-generator.

It's called "Making mountains out of molehill". And it is usually used to indicate that someone is exaggerating a SMALL thing into BIG. It's basically directly implying that "Mountain" means BIG and "Molehill" means SMALL. And that's where I take the offence.

Didn't Shakespeare say "SIZE lies in the eyes of the beholder" (Or something like that).

Now everyone in their life would have used this phrase or its regional vernacular variant! But how many of us really know about "moles" and "molehills".

I have done extensive research on this subject (thanks to Wikipedia) and I can confidently say that for a decent family of two working moles, a baby mole, and a child mole , the "molehill" is actually quiet spacious! In fact it can even host the in-laws (one at a time) in case required but then like Humans, in-laws are not welcome too many times in a year.

...So then in what way is it small!! Well , Yes SMALL for HUMANS but nor for MOLES!

Okay - I know what you are thinking. You must be thinking that do we really need this discussion when Bangalore faces a real, and I really mean a Real-estate issues. I don't deny that there is indeed shortage of space on roads, shortage of water supply, shortage of money to pay back to Credit Card Banks, shortage of iPhones and especially iPAD Air and many more essential commodities like that. But then we (as Human) need to be sensitive to our environment. "Moles" are an integral part of our nature (I mean not the moles on the human body, but the real ones...You know what I am talking about) and we need to care about them.

Okay I got carried away. My intent was to share my profound knowledge on "Mole Hill". So Mole Hills (like Beverly Hills) come in three variants. They are sometime stacked one on top of another with a neat basement under the ground. They are called "Molartments" . Then there are individual dwelling with a decent back and front yard. They are not called anything.
And there are those gated communities called "Millaments" where you get the best of both - A independent house called "Millas" (like Villas) and the benefit of community which then appoints a "association". The association then takes care of all email chains, General purposeless meetings etc.

These days they even have "theme" based Millaments and Molartments like the one on "Disney".

According to economic statistical Institute, it is expected that with increase in Apartments and Villa complexes throughout the country, Moles and Molehills are posed at a growth of 22.34% CAGR annually (21.73% Y-on-Y) . If you take into account the mortality rate of only 3% in that species, we are looking at a Billion dollar industry out there!!

So I am sure by now, you understand where I am leading you towards. Yes - you are right. Throughout history it has been a wrong connotation of usage of the word "Molehill". It's not SMALL anymore. On behalf of All India Mole association, we condemn the usage of that phrase anymore.

In fact CK Prahlad realized this long before any of us. He even wrote a few 500 page book called "Fortune at the bottom of Molehill" ( Yes - He meant that, but one of his Egyptian descendent Publisher changed that to "Pyramid")

That's all. I rest my case.

PS: Who said you can' write if you don't have a content. I just managed in proving that if required one can even make "sentences and blogs" out of molehill!!

Day 14304

Today is Vishu - A new year in a customary way. And  NO, I am not going to talk of any resolution or the sorts…

 

The time has started going really slow these days. Not sure but maybe it’s a side effect of bachelorhood after a 10 year of non-bachelor life that I am going through. You see, suddenly there is a void of activities at home.

 

Election is round the corner. Still not made up my mind on whom to vote. Should it be for the party or should it be for individual or should it be for a “leader” (albeit from a different party) who can potentially become the new PM of India.

 

IPL is also round the corner. Starts on April 17^th in Dubai or Abu Dhabi or Sharjah (I could never make out the difference between these three congenial triplet cities).

 

That’s all.

 

-Me

 

 

 

Day 14302

So today was as boring as yesterday. The only worthy things that happened were

• Violin class in the morning
• Watched the movie "Memento" (Christopher Nolan) - and loved its narration. Its a story that goes backward each time the protagonist recollects the story! Maybe I will use it for my next book
• Scheduled everyday routine to write something, just about anything everyday in the morning
• Plan to have early dinner and then read a book before dozing off

- Me

Day 14301

It's a weekend, summer and vacation time. What it means in plain English for a 39+ year old married man is that his spouse and kids are away on vacation, it's too hot to go anywhere out and there is no one at workplace to kill time with!

So here I am sitting in front of a TV and a laptop trying to write something…just something to kill both time and boredom.

 

So how was my day…Well this morning,  went to school to collect the fee book and books for my kids. The afternoon was spent in paying off all my creditors (that includes the school, the municipality, the credit card company and my broadband provider). I am sure I must have made their day!

 

Then I thought I would get some sleep. But as life would have it, didn't have an iota of sleepiness or drowsiness in my system so decided to just do random things - like blogging for instance. And that's all that has happened today till now

 

So you may ask, where are we heading with this post. Well frankly - nowhere. But maybe if I articulate what's going on in my head it may help to make some sense of this writing.  So let me start…

 

For the sake of clarity, I have assigned percentages to the items listed below to indicate how much of my mind share its occupying at this very moment

• Renovation of my "palace" - 10%
• Upcoming financial liabilities - 10%
• Movie that I want to watch tonight - 15%
• Writing as a serious hobby/occupation - 35% ( My resolve to write at least 1000 words everyday - 15% and my next book and what should it be - 20%)
• Blankness - 30% (Yeah I am serious, I am really blank….and that's making me wonder if a third of my mind is already blank, can I assume I am just two-third away from complete "moksha")

 

Well not bad, This blog successfully killed around half an hour of my everlasting day‼

 

-Me

 

 

 

 

 

Day 14040 to Day 14282

Okay….The longest elapsed time since I blogged but wait…this time I can explain…

 

·         It’s not that I have not been writing, I swear , I have been….but it was a short book…

·         …which incidentally is LIVE now on bookstore – Amazon. Available both in Kindle and Paperback edition, it’s a small experiment that I have been executing for all this while. Called “The Day of Abduction”.

·         Here’s the link , if you still don’t believe me - http://amzn.com/B00J1FJYUW

 

·         Life at large is going great both at work and personally

·         Planning a renovation of the house I live in for Dec 2014. Will cost a small fortune but then what’s “fortune” there for anyway

·         Grandfather and Mother are ageing rapidly (They are in their late 80s/90s). Have some recent health issues that have cropped up

·         Election Fever in India

·         Missing airline in Malaysia

·         Wife and Kids planning for their big summer vacation. They leave for Mumbai on 3^rd April, I join them on 16^th

·         Temperature rising in Bangalore – It was 39 degree Celsius yesterday

 

That’s all friends….Until next time..

 

-Me