A Hero's Story

Warning: All characters in the following blog are fictitious; any resemblance to anyone living or dead is purely coincidental or it may be the gift of the writer to make fiction sound so true J. Wherever I have felt some comments are necessary, its written with a different format within brackets

Once upon a time in a galaxy far far away from earth was the planet OG. There lived the hero of our blog. He was a smart, intelligent, etc... And embodiment of many more adjectives that are part of Other Galaxy’s (OG) vocabulary. He got into one of the premier institutes of OG, OGIM L (Other Galaxy Institute of Management at NoLuck). After having successfully survived one year at OGIM L, he was set to the financial capital of OG, baybom to do his winter internship.

(Winter in OG was during March, April, May. Though they use different names for their months, the names have been translated for the convenience of the readers. Eg: ÑÔšÌ - this is our hero’s name, which translates close to God in English. But for simplicity, let us call him hero)

From here on, it’s the narration of our hero’s experience in his project. I have taken great efforts to translate his language, if you find any weird symbols, please ignore the language of OG and read on….

“You are going to have awesome fun, this is what my senior told me about the winter internship. To be a successful marketer you have to get your hands dirty by getting into the market, I used to wonder why on OG would anyone want to dirty their hands, when there are so many brands of hand wash available???

I don’t know if taking customer surveys is part of this getting ur hands dirty, but I assure you that you get everything dirty in the process J. By the end of taking surveys on a typical OG day (1 earth day = 1.0027 OG day, hence they don’t have any leap year confusion) you think as if you had committed a grave mistake in the previous birth and are reaping the effects of it :)

You find a lot of interesting and funny responses from people. For the past one week, I have been more or less like a tape recorder repeating the same thing over and over again in the hot sun (it’s ironical but it’s true, OG Winter = Earth Summer). This is my pickup line ;) “ Hi my name is hero, I am from OGIM L, I am doing …. and it goes for another 30 sec”.

Some people listen patiently to the pickupline and say “No”… wtf just a No, come-on I talked some 100 words without losing breadth and all you can manage is “No”???? Why can’t you give some lame excuse L

On the first few days, I was counting the number of rejections, but as the days progressed the number of rejections grew so large that, my brain started giving a stack error (just like an earth 6-digit calculator gives a value E for 7 digit calculations). I tried so many combinations of pickup line and nothing seemed to work. Sometimes when they would not even listen to what I am saying, I would shout OGIM L, few people turn back and then answer the question. Thanks to OGIM L brand name. Some are so intelligent that they give a lot of mind-blowing reasons,

“I am very busy” – Yea you can clearly see that I am interviewing people and am jobless.. So relatively you are busy than me. That is not an excuse NЮбФ (His family total damage). Most people who say that go and wait in the restaurant that is adjacent to the shop.

“I don’t really shop much” – Neither do I survey much, but am I not standing in the stupid heat and asking? I also got to know that there was a separate category of shoppers called “much shopper” and I have to go and look out for them J

“I need to go” – Did you think I am going to stay here forever, even I need to go moron. What a stupid excuse (The hero is surely in a bad mood :) )

"I've already answered a survey yesterday" - Even u ate and slept yesterday. aren't you going to do that today? I dont want to call you a stupid and insult stupids :) get lost....

“No” – Just one word, anyway you are pretty, so you are excused miss… J (Well this never changes across galaxies)

Many people ask in the middle of the survey “How long will it take? – When you have said yes for my first question, you have entered a legal contract according to the court of law of OG. Why can’t you honor this contract by spending 5 minutes? Obviously you not the Bill Door of Macrohard® who makes 50 OG$ every second

While taking exit interviews, you will have to stand outside the store. Sometimes you are amongst the company of some salesperson and get misunderstood as one among them. If your fortune is really good, then you will find yourself fighting with the beggars for customer share. But then there are some morons NÔWکژ۷ (this part had so many foul language, most of which I could not translate, I guess the foulest of foul language on planet OG) who just say “tch/Shoo” just like shooing away a dog. Wtf, how much fucking energy will be spent to say “NO”?

Also there were some NÔWکژ۷NÔW (Dude Watch ur language) who used to sit in the car and answer the questions and then toss the paper over to me. Where the hell does this arrogance come from? From this survey experience, I found a general relationship between arrogance and wealth, which is explained in the graph here (what’s with graphs and MBA’s, a stupid graph and such a big fuss for this simple graph). Well there may be outliers to this general rule, but I am not bothered about it. If you see this graph and you are wealth and you don’t give a damn shit about it, then you are at the top of this red line :P :P :P (thank god OG is different from Earth)

I have been complaining about the a** holes (I am fed up with the swears :() all along. It would give a wrong impression of OG. There were also 100 odd good souls who were patient enough to answer my survey. However inn the whole process, I got roasted in the heat, got cramps in all parts of my body standing for 7 hours a day for 5 days, got cheated by auto-rickshaws, tasted different varieties of food, and more importantly met lots and lots of people.

The whole experience helped me discover a new me. This trip has been an eye opener. Never did I realize that people can be so hostile and so friendly to strangers. I learned a very valuable lesson. If there is any help or anything required, you know who to contact. Too much senti… :) I was just joking, if at all this experience teach me anything, it did increased my cynicism on people and made my attitude worse or else why would I come up with that stupid graph. I will be waiting for my revenge, since OG is a small world, I am sure I am bound to get my revenge… (Hero is pure evil, I am thinking if I should change the name to villain)

Hope you enjoyed the experience of our hero. Comments are really appreciated and I will make sure that it reaches hero in 2 light years. Thanks for your patience. Bye until the next post… :)

H9!!!!!!!!!!! Hniiiiiiiiine!!!!!!!!!!!

I had written most of my blogs when I was utterly desperate and disappointed. Going by that logic, I should have written at least 2 blogs every week in the past 5 months here at IIML. It has been one hel(L) of a time. But here at IIM you don't even get time to vent out your frustration J… There are many reasons why it's called Hel(L)

The campus is 20kms from the Lucknow city (yeah!! Even I have wondered if it should not be named IIM Lucknow given the fact that it's not even in Lucknow). After travelling in Bangalore and Chennai's public buses, when I travelled in UP buses, it was like time travelling into the past. I felt what it would be like to travel in a bus in 1990. A trip to the city is a rare event and I had so far visited the city 6 times and out of that went to the same place 4 timesL. The mess food in my engineering hostel was million times better than its here. I spent the Diwali preparing for my mid-term exams. I have almost forgot how a TV looks and how to operate a remote. 

Ofcourse I have learnt a lot after coming here, to prove that let me give a small analysis,

Number of people who have read my blogs so far = 1000 

Average time per user = 3 mts

People who have commented and follow up comments = 50 

Avg time per user = 5 mts  

So total time spent in this

 page = 3250 mts (Not including my time) = 6.77 man days (1 day = 8hrs)

***Confidence Level of the test - 95%***

So in one year the number of man days wasted = 6.77, if I continue write blogs, it's going to waste 6.77 man days to the World(Considering my global audience J ). Also consider the wastage of electricity that is caused by

• The running of computers for creating the blog and also reading them
  
• Servers at Google and at my Internet service providers location
  
• My effort to market this post to my friends through annoying chat and email ;)
  

This was just an example of a powerful (LOL) analysis that I am capable of doing. Please don't take it in the wrong sense and discontinue reading my blogsJ. I just wanted to make sure that no one from here on asks how my academics is going on. Nothing makes me uncomfortable than lying. It's very sad that people are asking about my gpa when I had actually come here to gain knowledge lol. One wise sage in 100 BC told that GPA is not a measure of knowledge; I did not realize it in my engineering days, but the ignorant days are long gone, I am clearly seeing the true meaning now…

If you are a sports freak, then this is definitely not a bad place to be. I am part of the IIML college team for Badminton, Basketball and volleyball. Here you can see me sporting the IIML Jersey.

Though I was part of my college badminton team, never did I get an opportunity to wear a Jersey with my name and my lucky number. It was truly a proud moment that I would cherish forever. There was an inter b-skool sports fest where we thrashed the visitors (IIM-I and NITIE).

So many times India has won matches only because of crowd support, teams dread facing ManU at OldTrafford. Same is the case with Hostel 9 in IIML.

Sikander is an inter hostel sports tournament at IIML. Rivalries between hostels are historic. Sledging is officially encouraged J. The game is played rough by most; few teams have people in their team with a sole intent of injuring the opponents. I got to learn lot of hindi words during this time, but I am sure I cannot use them anywhere, may be until next Sikander ;)… It was undeniably the best time for me here at IIML, playing for H9 (basketball and volleyball) along with the support of entire Hniners. We reached the finals of both the games, something no other hostel could achieve. We played 60% while the crowd took care of the rest 40%. The adrenalin rush, the heart pounding so loud against the chest, heightened level of reflexes, hunger to thrash the opponent – I experienced all this at a new level. I am sure I would not have enjoyed this as much as I did had I not been in H9… Though we lost the finals of both the games, it was a great experience that I will remember for a long time...

Projects, Quizzes, Assignments, Mid-term, End-term, a house arrest kind of environment, 80% attendance - but there are also things like Sikander which erase all those miseries. End of the day no matter how much I crib or whine, the fact is that I love this place as much as I love my home. This happened 3 weeks back and why I am writing it only now? As I said earlier, time is so precious here. I was busy watching sitcoms and anime(manga). Of late, I have a strong feeling that I am suffering from obsessive serial/sitcom compulsive disorder. I completed all 10 seasons (238 episodes) of friends in 15 days. But for Bleach I completed all 10 seasons(190 episodes) in 7 days. Well for those doing quick math as to how that's possible, I have been getting used to watching videos at 1.5X and 2X speed. Now I can follow videos comfortably at 50-100% more the normal speed. After the madness for the past few weeks, everything that's been happening around me seems slow J, people have started to speak very slow all of a sudden. :) 

Thanks for patiently going through all the above 1056 words. As always comments are treasured , feel free to critize me…

 

New Home from Home

It started 6 years ago when I left my home for the first time; it has only been bigger and better every time I chose a new home away from home. This time it’s IIM-Lucknow. It’s been nearly a month since I had come over to this place. The way I got here was not a very pleasant experience; no one would call a journey in a train for 50hrs all alone a very pleasant experience. Only in movies do interesting things happen in a train ;)…But after that, it has been nothing short of a great movie (of course there hasn't been a heroin intro yet)

There I stood in front of the gates of IIML with lot of excitement, expectations, queries and questions. It was something that I always wanted to do since my third year in college. I always wanted to make the first steps that I take into IIML special, something like “A small step for Esh, but a big rod in the ass for the next 2 years”, but thanks to the AC coach, all that was in my mind was to rush to the loo..:)

The classes were to start on 25^th june for which I had arrived on 20^th, so I had nothing to do except check out the place and one thing I loved about this place was, it had a indoor badminton court very near to my hostel room. One thing that I found peculiar about Lucknow was that when one person travels through a particular stretch of 3-4kms, he gets confused if he had travelled in time 50years ahead. One part of the city is in 1920’s and other part 1970’s. No offence meant just a little observation. I still could not believe that this is a state's capital. The distance of the campus from the city and excellent transport facilities in UP gave me no chance to check out beautiful Lucknow gals :(.

On the first day after the official induction was complete, there was an induction by the seniors. Well in Management lingo Induction = Ragging, the students president gave a performance that was akin to old Sivaji movies, Over acting to the core. Then we were asked to take a test and based on which our concentration (specialization) for the next year will be decided by the seniors. I yawned during the test and that caught the attention of one senior. All the seniors in the room looked at me as I was some serial killer and was asked to come to the “DISCO” at 0000 hrs. I thought this whole exercise will be over today and there was some discotheque or insti party the same night until one of my batch mate enlightened that DISCO stands for “Disciplinary Committee”... WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D :D

The hostel experience was totally different one which I enjoyed, though I would have enjoyed more had I really known more Hindi swear words. The costume for the hostel induction was very minimal, how minimal is left to your imagination (it was just the next best thing > JOCKEY) ROFL, also it was the first time I was forced to apply lipstick, yuck!! I hated that; I could never wet my lips without eating that crap. There was free booze and smoke during the hostel induction and I don’t take both, so had to settle with the potato chips which unsettled my stomach next day. We were finally let to go to sleep at 4am. I came back watched Hancock and went to sleep at 6am. I am starting to live by the following golden rule.

“When you see the first rays of sunlight, it’s the time to go to bed”.

In IIML there is a peculiar thing called class participation (CP), the degree of activeness that you show in the class proceedings fetch you extra credit when your grades are determined. Well apart from the following questions, pretty much all sorts of questions have come up during the class,

(i)Prof I am trying to ask questions just for the sake of asking, will u give me CP marks?

(ii)Prof, I have no idea as to what u are teaching, but I dearly need the CP, so pls ignore what I have to say for another 3 minutes and give me the 0.5/1000 for CP. (I also included the probability that the prof will remember the question that a student asks)

(iii)Prof, I had slept through the entire class, so I am not aware of which class I am in, can you explain what class is this?? Will this count towards CP??

Well I over exaggerated as always, having said all this even I ask questions sometime. But CP is the least thing on my mind. It’s proven scientifically that when you ask a question, there is an adrenalin pump that energizes you and makes you more attentive.( OK stop the crap, this is another way to define CP).. :P :P

Is the course really tough?? No doubt it is very tough!!!! that is what is being told through the ages and I dare not to contradict that. But it’s more to do with perception (contrast bias to put it exactly) of people to compare engg with management. If engg was squeezed into 2 years, I am sure it would be suicide to choose engineering. Every day I use 5hrs in activities which most of the students here don’t do. I watch Scrubs(2hrs), Play baddy/football (1-2 hrs), Exploring ways to download new movies(1 hr), watch the downloaded movie.

So as you can see, the time constraint is because of the way I had designed my calendar. But I have no complains about it. This place is after all not that “Hell”y as it was claimed, I am starting to really love this place. I have 3 projects to complete, 1 assignment and 2 quizzes to prepare tonight, but that is not going to stop me from doing what I wish. It’s become part of the system. For me the distinction between day and night has vanished, I feel alert/sleepy through the day J, I have a constant urge to work towards mastering the system, at the same time an attitude for having reached IIM not to mention the biggest fear of being screwed by the system,.

Between did I ever tell you that I am taking CAT again this year??? I am not the only crazy person, there is one guy in my batch who wants to get into IIMA. If you want to swear him, pl drop a comment and I would make sure that it is conveyed to him. J I am writing CAT just to experience CAT without any pressure to perform, and I am damn sure that I would not attend any interview expect L even if I get all 7 calls ;)…. I am not leaving HelL for anything, the devil has found safe h(e)aven at Hel(L)…

I am sorry to have wasted your precious time, I am sure you are trying to make out some meaning of this and finding it damn difficult to do the same, well if you are preparing for CAT’08, then consider it as a RC practice. I wanted to record few of my initial moments at L and hence thought of writing it, I could have kept it to myself, but I thought this would give a new dimension to the screwing aspect in IIM. I am not sure when I would find time for the next blog, because I am not ready to sacrifice another episode of scrubs. So until then!!!! I am now signing off to do a boring assignment... ;)

IPL T(rickery)20

IPL has become a spectacle more than anyone had ever expected it to be. It has become one single source of entertainment for most people in the evening after the grueling work for the day. I am sure many people are going to miss IPL terribly after June 1. I am not going to talk about the success story of IPL, but rather a very interesting speculation that might raise few interesting questions regarding the integrity of the tournament.

The most colorful and the most fancy cricket tournament ever is being valued around 1bn$(4000 Crore Rs). More than that we all know an equal or even more money is involved in betting for the tournament. Also conveniently IPL does not come under the ICC and hence they don't have to follow any of the betting rules that ICC has imposed. It directly comes under BCCI and we all know that BCCI is after only one thing,
Developing cricket in India,
provide infrastructure to the rural India and tap the talents of the future...
I was just kidding :) ..

BCCI's only agenda is to make money.
BCCI is the single biggest gainer from the IPL after the bookies. Since the franchises are ready to pay what the BCCI wants, it looks like BCCI has relaxed all the betting laws that are in place.

Betting in sport is fine, it has been happening from a very long time. It becomes a crime when you approach a team member and influence the course of the game for your financial gain. If you have been following the IPL from the beginning, then you would realise that when the teams were purchased, Hyderabad was the strongest team in the league and Rajasthan Royals were the weakest.

Before going into that, there are so many bet that you can place for a match. they are,

• who wins the tournament, who are the last 4?
• who wins the toss, who wins the match, man of the matchmaximum 6's, maximum 4's, maximum dot(I am not kidding), maximum wide, no balls
• whether Sreesanth gets slapped in a match??
• Who slaps Sreesanth... (lol)
• Even who farts the most in the dressing room.. (well the last one I exaggerated a bit, but the rest are all valid bets)

When the tournament started the odds on Rajasthan Royals(RR) was like 10-1(i.e. if you pay 1 re if Rajasthan wins, then you get 10rs from the bookie, i.e the prob that RR will win is 1/11), similarly the odds on Hyderabad and the likes of Chennai would have been very high(2-1, 3-2 etc). I am not too sure how this entire system works. It's like you place a bet with the bookmaker/bookie by paying the amount and also the brokerage. Bookie's are very intelligent people and have strong probability logic behind all the odds that they offer. So whatever be the outcome, they earn money out of it.(just like a lottery agency, it always makes money)

So the likes of UB baron (sorry can't say Ma***a) and other heavyweights can bet heavily on RR and rig the entire tournament to multiply their money. That is exactly what has happened here. I will give some instances and it would be hard not to believe that the entire IPL was fixed beforehand.

I am writing this blog on 27th-May two days before semifinal of IPL. I am going to give some predictions as to how the IPL is headed in the last week and if they somehow come true, then it's not that I am having some extra sensory perception but, it's because I realised the entire trick just before the end of the IPL.

Mumbai hosts the semifinal and the final, so it has to definitely get into the semifinal stage. But after the first 4 matches everyone thought it's going to end up last, but alas it did not happen. They won miraculously 6 matches in a row. I don't think slapping Sreesanth brought the good omen to the Mumbai team.

RR started off very poor, were mauled at the hands of Delhi. But later there was nothing to stop them?? Why?? Someone wanted to odds to be still lowered for RR so that they can bet heavily on them..

Chennai is the classic case of a bookie's loser. It started out fantastically and no doubt everyone would have better heavily on Chennai (By everyone I refer to the people who don't have the power to influence the course of the match, poor ppl who bet and count on something that is non-existent-- fate) so the only way bookies are going to make money is to make Chennai not reach semifinal. In order to do that, they lost against Bangalore (come on, I can lead a team to win against Bangalore). So the only outcome from the next match is Chennai is going to lose against Hyderabad and earn the bookies a lot.

Also Bangalore which as a team is the weakest team performed superbly in the last 2 matches against Chennai and Hyderabad. The logic is simple, a weak team if it wins then it rains money for the bookmakers. End of the day you can have only one team to win and that team is already decided. But you can also make a lot of money by making a team lose continuously and then make them win a match when the odds have been so low for them to win. This is what has happened here. In the same lines, I expect hyderabad to win against Chennai in the last game and thereby making double bonus for the bookies.

Here are few more predictions that I have for the rest of the tournament, Delhi is going to win against Mohali and reach the finals.. Mumbai will win against RR to reach the finals and is going to win the cup.. I may be totally wrong, may be I am giving the predictions of some crazy bookie, or some wild imagination that has gripped me due to lack of any work at work place, but the point is that we are glued to some sport that is not even being held in the right sense of sport.

There have been instance of slapping, arguing and all sort of nonsense happening. Even street cricket is more orderly. Why do we ever need cheerleaders for games (I do like them, but then that does not make them a necessity). Is IPL trying to compensate for the lack of "legal" strip-clubs in the country?

End of the day all I want to ask is "Is all the money and time that we invest in it is all worth it??"I paid 550rs for a match between Bangalore Vs Hyderabad. Damn even the cheerleaders were disappointing on that day. Please treat this post as a frustration from a man who has been robbed of 500Rs(the match was worth for 50rs :D )

All that I had written is in electronic form and has not legal validity. Even the facts that I had presented may not be entirely true. But hope there is at least some amount of truth in it. All this never struck my brain until my roomie mentioned about the certain speculation and it really inspired me to write this piece of "whatever". Thanks Rk... :)

:( :( :( :) :) :)

I am really surprised that my blog reading base is spreading far and wide. That is the only reason that makes a lazy butt to type all these. Thanks for the support, and will try my best to waste your time in making you read this. :DI had promised to come up with the sketches and more in depth details about the prototype design to unlock traffic in Bangalore, but saving Bangalore can wait for some more time.

I managed to convert my Lucknow IIM call. 2 years of work finally paid off. I was very happy to have acquired the IIM tag(not yet, but in another 2 years) which I had always dreamed of getting.

WARNING: (It may get very sentimental, so weak hearted ppl are advised to stay away)

I am half way through my notice period and will be quitting the company in another 15 days time. Suddenly today it stuck me that I have to leave Bangalore in another 15days. have to leave my roomies, friends, job, unlimited downloads@oracle and the daily free bourbon biscuit :)...

23 months have passed so fast and if given a chance, I would like to extend my stay. I have learnt so much in these 23 months. I am not sure if it had made me any wiser but, when I look back there are lot of positives that I can take from my brief stint in Bangalore. I was blessed with my college mates as my roomies. It was just hostel life once again with salary and other perks. ;)

I will always cherish
the day when I got my first salary,
the day when I got my first bike,
the so many "first" happened in Bangalore(it's not even close to what u think it is :P).
all my attempts to communicate in kannada with just the single word "madi"(means to do)..
(eg: guru, one plate idly madi -- addition of madi makes it kannada :D )
how one of my roomie learnt telugu so fast in Karnataka(He can write poems and even epics in telugu now)
all the attempts that we made to cook,(I can cook really well now)....

I had my share of disappointments as well,
I failed in cat'06, was reported for non co-operation in my office(still not sure why the f**k was I reported for, but whatever :) )... But every obstacle made my resolve stronger. I never thought about the -ve outcome of an event, because accepting "failure is the f**king stone of success" makes one think failure is the way to success...(I am not sure which asshole coined this "unwise" saying).

Now as I move ahead following my dream, I will be terribly missing
Bangalore's traffic, malls and beautiful women(Lucknow has even prettier women :P),
My favourite khara bath + sakkare and roti curry,
on a serious note, i will miss my roomies and friends in Bangalore more than anything. It has been "my home" away from home for 2 years.

When I reach Lucknow, I guess I will experience the same sinking feeling that I experienced when my dad enrolled me into the college hostel and left in 2002. I still remember the first week when I wished I had never passed 12th and cried many times :).What happened after is entirely different. I am sure I will live through this transition... I am not sure if I will be crying this time :), if it happens I will surely update it in the blog, but will deny the fact if you ask me in person... :P

Why this blog all of a sudden with such a strange topic name? I would have never been able to express all this in real time, but I wanted to thank each and everyone who had made my stay in Bangalore for the 2 years very exciting and pleasant. I could not have asked for a better start to my professional career. Forgot one more thing, even started blogging in Bangalore....

I sincerely hope that my intent of this blog was not diluted by some PJ's(poor jokes). I did not want to write an out and out sad note, because I am sure there are atleast few people who are happy that I am leaving... (Oops!! another PJ--- Sorry I am a slow learner) :)

---The End---

June'08 Due to heavy work schedules and assignments, this blog has been temporarily suspended.

July'08... FLASH NEWS: Millions(he he, height of optimism) of people around the Globe have filed online petition asking esh to start blogging.

Aug'08: IIML director finally gives in to the pressure from Government and allows esh to pursue the degree at his own desired pace and asks to please continue writing..

Media: What do u think about this move by IIML Director ? ?
Vijayakanth: I will make sure bakistan terrorists are banished from India. We will meet, will meet, meet.. :) :)
Media: bakistan, where is that country???

Esh's mom: Wake up lazy fellow, you need to pack your stuff for Lucknow.. Stop day dreaming and go get all items in the list..

Esh: ??????????????????????????? I shld'nt have seen Vijaykanth's movie Arasangam, even my dreams are getting polluted... lol...

Unlock Bangalore

This was an initiative by the Times group in Bangalore to ease the traffic congestion by asking people to identify the problems and then propose solutions for the same. Being a contributor to the problem, I wanted to come up with some solution to this problem. The solution that I have in my mind may be a very crazy but has the potential to really unlock.

Before running into the solution, let's see what are all the problems that I face and create in the road. Because most of the times "We are part of the traffic Jam".
Most important points that were brought out were,
(i) Poor roads, bad foresight and lack of planning
(ii) Rash driving.
(iii) No adherence to traffic rules

These three factors are the major cause of all traffic jams. The roads and infrastructure are poor, no doubt about that. But we only tend to make the situation worse by not following the rules(By "We" I point to the Bangalore people who have that sucking attitude when it comes to driving--includes me too).

• How many of us are willing to stop at the red signal when there is no cop to govern the signal?
• How many of us are deliberately keep away from the pavements? Luckily four wheelers are more concerened about the cost of repairing else nothing will stop them from getting on to the pavement.
  
• How many of us honk just for the sake of it? even though all our brains know that honking is not going to clear road blocks?

Sometimes I realize that I use the "F" word more often than I use the brakes while driving. There is no respect for the fellow driver. My work timings is flexible and yet I tend to behave arrogant while driving and try to reach the destination asap. Everytime I decide not to jump signal, there are a** holes< > behind me honking with all their might. Many times I derive great pleasure irritating others in traffic. I guess this is very common and I get back the same treatment on road.

Everyone knows why this is happening and why it won't stop happening. There aren't strick rules in place. You can get away killing a person on road by paying Rs.50000 fine(provided you are not drunk). If you are drunk then you will have to shell out more to the police and lawyers to get away. If you don't believe this, go to any RTO(not sure if Inflation has increased the fine), else search for the case where Salman Khan ran over ppl sleeping on the pavement with his Land cruiser and got away with it. It's a pity that he got away killing people but served jail term for killing chinkara..

These rules easily make people careless, every day we read so many news about people getting killed on roads because of careless/reckless driving(even happened to one of our college mate in the college). Is all the adventure on road really worth it? Everyone emulates a schumi on road, but how many know the amount of safety precautions he takes before taking the steering wheel in his hand? Even after knowing all this, we
don't stop overspeeding,
don't stop changing lanes,
don't wear helmets fearing it may spoil our hairstyle..
What good is a hairstyle to a cadaver??

The change had to come from within, which I don't see happening anytime sooner. People talk at lengths about how good the traffic is in foreign countries, wtf!!! they have stricker punishing system in place. They track your ass wherever you go, all their police vehicles can match some GP2 race cars. So it's fear of punishment that ensures orderliness and not that people are morally good. I may sound like a person who have lost all hope, but this post is not to infect your minds with the -ve thoughts rather to enlighten with some idea which may trigger some spark. Atleast if this makes one person stop at the red signal once today, I would be the happiest person and will even add this achievement to this year's appraisal report.. :D


I am also not hoping the infrastructure in terms of roads to improve. Only possibility is to demolish the houses on either side, since that is not happening, no widening of roads is possible :).. Flyovers do improve the situation a bit, but by the time the construction is complete, the traffic grows and then the situation is as good as earlier(see Chennai). Same is the case with metro rail. They start building with a capacity X and by the time the construction is complete, the capacity increases to 3-4X. Also the construction process is the most tedious that involves land clearance, shifting of people to another place, traffic chaos caused in the construction site(MG road in Bangalore)

So the solution has to very radical, I don't say my solution is "the" solution, but the idea must be something like this.
(i) Which does not impede the normal day to day routine.
(ii) Ability to withstand the load for 10-20 years.
(iii) Encourage people to take it up instead of personal transport.
(I am not willing to go in a bus given a bike, the transport system should be able to change this mentality. I am saying we bring in cheerleaders into the bus :), but that should be really attractive alternative for people)
(iv) More scalability.
(v) More importantly must be completed in a very small time.

Now the intersting part, what is that I am boasting about? My idea, My Idea??
It's a three legged(tripedal) transport system that
1) has a solar panel on the top which takes all energy from Sun - eco friendly
2) In the existing road dividers and platforms, we lay small grooves to which this can hold and walk without affecting the normal traffic.
3) Driven by a computer with preset driving instrcutions.
4) More like the creature that destroys building and people in War of the Worlds.. :) Only it's used for constructive process now :)

To be contd....
Next Week on journeytotheinevitable...

Q: This is the most stupid idea I have ever heard..
Esh: No great invention/idea had received support, even Gregor Mendel's work was recogonised and appreciated only after his death

Q : What if the robot falls on the traffic?
Esh: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Q : What about the stops? how will the passengers get down from it? Should they be trained in sky diving?
Esh :

Q: What if there is a computer malfunction?
Esh: It will be bug free, I will write the code for it... ROFL

Q: What is the cost? when can we break-even? can it be extended to private customers?
Esh: what!! are u doing a MBA or what? no comments :P

If I have missed out any comments, you are welcome to add them in my comments section.

More detailed working model in the next blog with pcitures and more.. Stay tuned

2/3 Devil

Once again a long gap between the post. Well I have to blame my employer for keeping me busy not with work but in finding alternative ways to download stuff from the net. My internet usage in the company(15GB in feb) though little low according to me, has made my employer change the rules in the organization. No more bulk piracy downloads from rapidshare/megaupload allowed, anyone found violating will immediately be terminated without any warning.... lol

People in my organization have started to delete the songs, movies they had downloaded and also started uninstalling games. I am not sure if I was one of the reasons for the sudden change in the policy. Whatever be it, I am proud to have made a policy change in the company which is working for the greater good of the company ;)

Well sometimes, to achieve the greater good, you are forced to take the dubious path, but at least I am happy that I was able to contribute to that good cause. I forgot to mention, I have increased my downloads these days, thanks to many ppl staying away from the downloads, I get more bandwidth... :) Greater good for me... Let's keep this hush hush.. :D

The main intent of writing this blog was different, ok how do I start it?
What do you think about the number 4??
-- the only number that is preceded by 2 consecutive prime nos
-- smallest non-prime even number
Reader: (hey esh!! have u gone nuts?? come to the bloody topic)

How many of you believe in lucky numbers and stuff?? I was a strong believer, I am a strong believer and I will be in future too.. Only difference is my perspective on the issue had changes over the years. I refresh you with my history and then you will feel the strong presence of the lucky number through my life.
I was born on 13th, considered unlucky by most english people, luckily I am nowhere close to english and there cannot be a luckier number than 13 for me. I also have a roomie who will agree to this statement more than me.. ;)

The first 4 years(0-4) I spent in Madurai,
then came the first shift
The next 4 years (5-8) I studied in a school in Rajapalayam(TN)(UKG - 3rd) -- again 4 years
Then again a shift,
Joined 4th in a school in Coimbatore studied there until 8th(multiple of 4)
another shift
9th - 12th in another school in coimbatore, (BVB) --- again 4 years
another shift of place
Engg @ CEG,AU -- 4 years again
another shift
@Bangalore currently for the past 17months..
If you had noticed, the number of schools that i had studied in so far is also 4. :O

I have been noticing this pattern for quite a long time, in the initial stages I thought this was all fate, yeah it was fate that was responsible for the school changes since the transfers were more driven by my Dad's banking transfer policy.But the same cannot be attributed to the last 2 shifts, which were voluntary choices made in sane conditions by me.

There was a period when,
I thought everything was driven by numbers esp this 4..
I thought all exams that I take up on 4th will bring me gr8 success
I used to pray for an easy exam and more marks from God
I would be delighted to get a hall ticket/roll no whose single digit sum is 4
I would carry 4 new shuttles to practice always(this no one knows until now) :)
I used the same fountain pen and digital watch from class 9 exam to class 12.. Still have both of them.. :)

This is just a small part of superstitious belief that I had. I am not revealing anymore :P. But the point is I realized that all people(including me) used/use the tool of superstition to just shy away from accountability. Fate is a very good scapegoat. You can very easily blame your failures on fate without any remorse. So if an exam did not go as expected, I used to blame it on the profs, lecturers(how convenient) and attribute luck as the sole reason behind a person who scored the maximum marks(how mean).

Also with an animosity that has been developed over an entire semester :), teachers easily become scapegoat for a poor performance of a student. I am not in support of any teachers, I do agree that there were a lot of dumb asses(I don't believe that ass and a** makes a f***ing difference lol). May be the teachers were responsible, but I feel that they are not the reasons.
Also ppl reading, by teachers I allude to the crappy lot. There were also many admirable prof's/lecturers in my college. This is my view and the other 100+ ppl who studied with me may wish to differ. I respect all of their views(Implies: I expect u all to respect mine ). Just kidding, really I don't expect anything, this was yet another typing exercise for me... :P

All I wanted to convey is surrendering to fate makes one weak inside. I really love this conversation from the Matrix Movie,
Morpheus: Do you believe in Fate
Neo: No!
Morpheus: Why not??
Neo: I don't believe in fate because I don't like the idea that I am not in control of my life...

That is exactly what I wanted to convey through this blog. Though there may be really some things that may be out of our hand, don't accept that. Don't let the fear of failure stop you from trying. A horoscope is just a piece of paper interpreted by a human, not a God. A prediction from a horoscope if it's good, then use it as a confidence booster? if it's bad, then WYAO to prove that astrologer is a liar. We all have to remember that all these things were invented by man, so they will be as good as the products that we develop, there will be definitely bugs in it. It cannot be fool proof. If you ask me if I am so strong inside, to be honest I would say I am not.. But I would like to add that, with every passing second,minute and hour, I am getting more and more stronger inside.

I guess that was very serious, yeah whatever.. Now comes the reason for the title. Like the last blog this is also very very interesting one. :)
I noticed this very recently,
my birth date is
esh_devil: Oh No!! don't reveal ur age...(pls ignore my alter ego)
esh: no no.. it's for the greater good.. lol

13 - 04 - 85
I am doing a single digit sum,
4 - 4 - 4 :O
444
Everyone knows that 666 is associated with devil, I am not sure if they will have one such story for 444 after some year..
But anyhow with the data in hand, all I would like to say is I am as good as 444*(666/666) = 2/3*(666) = 2/3 Devil.. :)
(Quant gods, pls don't say this equation is invalid)
For further proof, this was how i look in the mirror ;)
[A small treat for April 1 ;) ]

The End

P.S. As usual comments are treaured. But now I have also added the Shout Box(SB), so u can shout whatever you want for having patiently gone through my entire post. Once again thanks for the time and the support.. It really keeps a usually lazy guy active occasionally...