Backyard Conservationist [by Sharada]

Conserving rain forests, conserving wildlife, conserving glaciers, conserving endangered species – conservation is the buzz word now; the need of the hour. It is cool to be a conservationist at present, if you are not into conservation you are sneered at, looked down upon like the scum – like a fashion faux paus. It is the best time to cash in on the planet’s sad state; to make the most out of earth’s peril. There are various causes to choose from lest you are left behind due to lack of misfortunes. The chosen cause could be anything as long as it is related to saving the planet. “Saving the planet” causes are considered the elite in the conservation circles. There can be other “lesser” causes that could be close to your heart like child labour, however the conservationists are way ahead of these. The latest trend in conservation, thanks to the Fukushima disaster, happens to be anti-nuclear activism. Suddenly nuclear power has been promoted as the single most dangerous threat that the earth is facing.

In this age, a simple house wife’s meager effort to conserve the water that is over-flowing from a neighbour’s tank and getting wasted struck me like a sharp contrast and shook me up. As I got out of my bed and lazily walked downstairs one Saturday morning with breakfast being the only thing on my mind, I heard continuous flow of water outside our kitchen. I saw that our neighbour’s tank was over-flowing. The first thought that came to my mind was anger against the neighbour who had little concern towards world’s water problems. How could they afford to waste so much water when there is no drinking water in most parts of the world, aren’t they aware of the shortage of water and the water wars that are being fought world over. With the aroma of breakfast soon drowning these thoughts, I settled with the morning paper to enjoy my dosa. But soon I found my mom worrying about the water that was getting wasted. She wanted to see if I have some idea to route the water to our parched garden. I soon swung into action thinking of sleek ideas to connect pipes, thinking of water level, force, and physics of motion to see the most efficient way to change its course of flow into our garden.

With precious minutes past, with only thoughts and little action, my mom humbly kept a small vessel under the water pipe and started emptying this into our garden. The vessel would fill within a matter of seconds soon to be replaced by another vessel alternatively. My first reaction was ridicule; I told her how inefficient this method was – akin to filling an ocean with buckets of water. But her determination soon put me to shame and I decided to join the party, helping her fill up the small vessel and emptying it into our garden. Sitting beside this pipe, in our neighbour’s house and watching this small vessel fill up and my 67 year old mom’s excitement to see the plants being watered gave me a lot of perspective. I stepped down from my pedestal of earth’s conservationist and started enjoying this simple act of filling up small vessels of water and saving whatever little we could. I got completely involved in this activity and at the end of the exercise experienced complete satisfaction of being an active participant of what I would call “backyard conservation”.

With our busy lifestyles and “high thinking”, how easily we miss these simple but precious acts of conservation. Like the story about a zen master I read recently, who was considered as one of the greatest philosophers and when his country was in distress was called upon by the Government to save the country. His disciples came running to him and said “Master, the time has come, like you have always preached that we should save the people”. He simply smiled, got up and walked towards the pavement to help a beggar and said “It is not required to save the world, we only need to perform simple acts of kindness that can be of help to the needy at the moment and the world will be a better place”. And it is as simple as that. It is not necessary to think big and believe that you can save the world by doing great miracles. Simple acts make a difference to the world if each one of us starts to indulge in them at every available opportunity.

Raavanan : Good, Bad and Vikram

Twenty minutes into the movie and we go “Why did Mani Ratnam make this”? One Hundred and Twenty minutes later we go “Now this is a movie”! That was the reaction we had when we went to watch Mani Ratnam’s bilingual “Raavanan” (“Ravan” in Hindi). Mani Ratnam treated us to some breathtaking visuals, high spirited acting and a lot of attitude. Mani Ratnam’s Raavanan (the character) is not the villain we are taught about. He is a man with his dark sides; sides that all of us have. A man well portrayed by Vikram who has probably given one of his best performances (barring Sethu).

The story of Raavanan does not need an introduction. Written by someone centuries ago to imbibe morality into a society that probably started losing it, the Ramayana stands out as a very important common denominator among the South Asian countries. The story is so familiar that there is absolutely no sense of “What happens next?” when you watch Raavanan. But there is a question that arises at some point in time; that of “Why that happened”? At the end of it you are left wondering who the real villain is.

The movie asks many questions, or should I say makes one ask questions. Why is there a Maoist uprising? Why are so many young men dying as terrorists? Is democracy for real? In the end is good as we know it really ‘good’? Are we on the good side of things or have we chosen to take sides and call ourselves good? None of these questions are raised in the movie, but the movie is so much about understanding the good and evil that you are forced to think about the world we live in. The last scene of the movie speaks volumes.

The chemistry between Aishwarya Rai and Vikram is so wonderful that you can see the hatred she has for the man and yet the compassion she holds for him as a fellow human being. The brilliant camera work captures their mind through their body language and the short but emotionally draining interactions. The camera work is so crisp you can see the hair on Vikram’s arm twitching when tensions rise between them.

Vikram’s breathtaking performance stands out throughout the movie, so much so that I was left bored for a few minutes when he was completely out of the frames. He literally fills the frames, thundering above you menacingly but instilling absolutely no fear in his abducted Sita or us. The feeling you have for him is the feeling you would have for someone who is as human as you but has lost a sister, is misunderstood and now is almost going to lose the woman he loves for sure as you already know the story and things can never get fair for Raavanan.

Aishwarya’s performance is much better than some of her last movies, although you are left wondering whether Mani Ratnam and Santosh Sivan had her in the movie just to pit her worldly beauty against the out of the world beauty of the Western Ghats and see who wins; with the raw and rusty Raavanan thrown in to equalize things. Prithviraj does a very good job of the role given to him. He convinces you as an egoistic senior Police Officer who has his own dark sides which unfortunately turn out to be much darker than one would expect.

A.R.Rahman is not at his best in Raavanan, but then again he does not disappoint either. Most of the songs are humm-able while they are being played out in front of you but you do not tend to carry them back home like his earlier work. Of course there was one song the he himself sings which was intentionally left out from the Soundtrack that was released. Penned by Vairamuthu, the beautiful “Naan Varuven” will stay in your hearts for many more days. Then again, it is not a humm-able song; it will stand out as a song that will remind you of Raavanan’s tragedy.

The camera work that sizzles is when it is pointed towards the panoramic landscapes that surround the main characters. The movie is shot in the Western Ghats ranges of India and has done justice to the location. Each frame is a visual treat for someone who loves nature in all its glory. The green leaves, the early morning mist, the moss, the algae, the little grains of sand amongst the larger pebbles, the sound of waterfalls, the ripple effect of water when something falls in it, the overpowering nature of heavy rain, the water droplets falling off someone’s makeshift hat, the slippery rocks at the edge of a waterfall, the dense and dangerous looking interiors of woods, the unknown factor of the forest in the darkness, everything has been captured with so much love for life it has to be seen to be believed.

The human story of Raavanan is never overshadowed by this visual orgasm. It holds ground till the end when it tugs at your heart, when Vikram stares at the camera and his eyes speaks about his loss. A loss that I had never imagined in my dreams I would even think twice about. That of losing Sita to the “Ram” or the good one as the world knows it. The movie ends with a beautiful rendition by A.R.Rahman titled “Naan varuven, Meendum varuven” which literally translates to “I’ll be back”. While your soul cries for Raavan, somewhere in your childish head you are left wondering about Terminator’s line and a possibility of Raavanan 2.

We have our Cartoon!

We have started another blog where we have released our own Cartoon Series. Called Quibbles, the cartoon series will attempt to comment on various social concerns. You can read more about it here.

End of World or End of Us? [by Sharada]

End of World has been a favorite topic of fiction writers, film makers and astrologers for ages. Even the common man has been intrigued by the various theories around this. While some are drawn to it due to the fear of destruction, some others due to their religious belief that shows them a possibility of after-life, most of them are drawn to it due to the sheer amazement and action that it promises.

Why is this such a popular topic?

• People like to believe in finite things, having a start and an end. So if they believe (or are made to believe) that the world had a definite starting point some billions of years ago, they would expect it to have an end to it as well
• Over the years, thanks to the media, this “event of a lifetime” has been glamorized and glorified beyond proportions that people secretly wish they can experience this historical moment in their lifetime (even if they know very well they might not live to tell about it)
• It gives us a chance to discard our wrong-doings to the world, learn from our mistakes and start afresh
• Religious beliefs associated with this phenomenon promises people life after death and attainment of salvation
• It gives one a chance to go wild on imagination and let one travel vicariously into the “unknown”
• Have an excuse to justify our actions which have resulted in irrevocable damage to the planet and shrug it off by saying “Anyway the world is going to end, so how does it matter we throw garbage around or not…”
• Gives us an excuse to support our indifference towards the state of the planet and our inability to do something about it by saying “How does it make a difference whether I go by a car or walking, the world is going to end anyway…”
• For businessmen, it is a great time to cash in on the superstitions associated with this phenomenon and use it to promote their products

How would this happen?

There are several theories around how exactly the world would end. Some taken out of history books, some created in the modern era, some predicted by astrologers while some others conceptualized and proposed by scientists. However, so far, we have not found one unified theory that has everyone’s acceptance which can predict with conviction the exact details of how this would all happen. Some popular theories include – 

• Natural phenomena that would cause the global temperatures to soar, trigger rapid melting of the polar ice caps and in turn raise the ocean levels steeply resulting in submerging of major portion of land masses
• Meteor showers that can penetrate the earth’s atmosphere and cause huge balls of fire to strike the surface at incredible speed
• Shifting of the polar ice caps drastically that would result in the reversal of hot and cold areas and in turn cause the destruction of the life forms which would not be able to acclimatize to the drastic changes
• Drought, Famine, Earthquakes
• Epidemics, pandemics that would spread across the countries and bring about sudden deaths of large populations
• Alien Invasion
• Nuclear war among the nations that would end up destroying the planet

These are just samples, there are more of course. It has to be quick, intense, dramatic and enormous.

When I came across this phenomenon way back in 1999, when one of my teachers introduced us to the terminology “Apocalypse”, I was fascinated as many of us would at first be. It was predicted that 2000 would be the chosen year for this, but we all know that 2000 came and went, nothing happened. Now the year to watch out for is 2012.

Amidst these theories of ‘doomsday’, there exists a school of people who believe that the end of world has already begun. It would not happen on a specific date and time of a year, but will happen gradually. It will happen slowly but continuously over a period of time, taking away small pieces of land, wiping away small populations of people and species of animals. If we carefully observe around us we already see parts of this damage – polar ice caps melting, raising the sea level, flooding some places and submerging pieces of land. Countries are in war against each other, there is an outbreak of epidemics and pandemics.

It might not be obvious at first, but on closer observation, the findings are chilling. However, this theory is not as popular since it lacks action and drama – two main factors that draw the minds of the masses.

How are people reacting to this?

Different people react in different ways to this phenomenon ‘Apocalypse’. 

• Some start squandering all their money and desperately start “enjoying” their life • Some turn religious, philosophical, god-fearing
• Some start “donating” their assets and start their preparation for salvation
• Some panic, not knowing what to do, go into depression and turn suicidal
• Some look forward to it like an “event of a lifetime” – very excited with their cameras loaded
• Some look at it as an opportunity to improve their business
• Most remain indifferent, pretending to be ignorant and live in denial

Is it really going to end?

There are two ways to look at this – when we say ‘world is ending’ do we consider only ourselves (human beings) and believe that if we do not exist, then the world does not exist. The other one being the planet is going to become “lifeless”, completely wiped out of all the life forms and cease to live up to its unique status of being the only planet that supports life and become like one of our neighbors.

For some of us who are selfish, it hardly matters, what is the point knowing if the world exists if we (human beings) do not exist? So both the options spell doom. However, for some of us who are optimistic, love the planet more than our race, respect nature comprising of all elements that constitute life, the second option is very promising.

To believe that the earth would survive humans and continue to exists and support other life forms, long after humans are extinct is an exciting proposition. It gives us a glimmer of hope amidst the gloom of destruction we have caused the planet by our selfish actions. There are very strong facts supporting this. The earth has existed before we came in, it has supported life before we came in, we have come after a very long time and our entire life span (time between first humans came in and now) is extremely small compared to the life span of our planet. The earth can heal itself. Whenever there is an imbalance caused due to a particular species, the earth has decided to eliminate it and move on. At the rate humans are destroying the planet, we have become like a “disease” to the planet. According to Dr. W.W. Armistead “… the earth is a habitat and life source for human beings. But to the earth, human habitation is a disease, and human beings are arch parasites. To the pristine earth, the coming of Homo sapiens signaled the onset of a chronic, global illness, the outcome of which is still in doubt”. The earth would one day decide to heal itself of this “disease” and continue to create other life forms.

We might have altered this planet a great deal, some of the damages irreversible (like we have caused some species to become extinct) but that does not mean the end of the blue planet.

By systematically harming nature, we are successfully cooking up a perfect recipe for our own destruction – the end of human race. According to Oren Lyons, Faith keeper and Chief of Turtle Clan – “…The earth has all the time in the world. And we don’t”. By taking a positive action, we are only trying to save our own race. The earth can save itself. It has lived, it has survived, it is a fighter. It will continue to survive.. long after we are all gone.

How to have your own IT Startup at 22 and screw it up by 28 – A definitive guide [by Ratheesh]

Prologue

Let me be clear about this; you have to be either out of your mind, or being forced to read this article. Even though the author of this article has in-depth knowledge in the field of creating startups, he would rather sell it to you as a book instead of publishing it free on the internet. So don’t count your mangoes before they are pickled. (That’s not an appropriate phrase to use, but it is a tribute to some of you who impress me with your exquisite English).

Confused and Dazed

So you are 22 eh? Just out of college, if you are in Bangalore i.e. And If your mom and dad did not well-plan your conception programme, then you are probably 22 in your college records but 21 in personal life. Anyways, for the safe progress of this guide let us assume you are just 22 and out of college, and did pass out through legitimate means (I can help you otherwise too). Meanwhile, we are also assuming that you have enough money to start a startup. That would be about 15 bucks… oops sorry, that is what it takes to buy a masala dosa, and I am deviating here.

So since you have the money and all that, lets see what you lack. You lack guidance, confidence, direction and an awful lot of other sophisticated items that I can enlighten you with. Well.. that is exactly why you are reading this. Let us understand the most important term first. What is a startup?

A startup is a company that you ‘start’ and the only way it can pretend to go is ‘up’. Thats it! There it is, I just blurted it out. I can see you heaving a sigh of relief; you did think it would have some complex ‘IT’ definition didn’t you (for which you would run to a senior in college or google). Lucky you! that was an easy lesson. So the next question would be why you want to start one when most of them seem to be going ‘down’?

Well… once you start a startup, you are sure to get name and fame at the age of 22. And ofcourse, lots of money, a ridiculously expensive car, a girlfriend who wont stay away from your pockets (for the money you pervert), and a mom who walks into your office amused at the respect she receives from the security guy and secretaries only to find you sitting at your desk checking ‘email’ in your costly suit.

May I continue, If I have painted a good picture? Let’s come back to that 15 bucks you had. Let me speak the truth my friend, that much money won’t do. You need some ‘funding’ to get this process ‘kicked-off’. At this point, take out a piece of paper and write down the names of the richest people you know (include your dad, he must have something too). Now, figure out their phone numbers and contact them one by one and tell them how deeply you feel about reviving Indian economy, especially the poor of India, and you want to start a company that benefits them and you need money pooled in for this. You can come back to me after exercise.

Ah. You are back! If atleast half of them did not slam their phones down you can stop reading this article right now.

You didn’t, so you probably hate me now for playing that little trick. You just learnt a valuable lesson. ‘ness’ is the only common part in goodness and business and ‘ness’ has no meaning. Anyways, sorry about that, you need to do this again, and we can jump to the next stage; its called ‘Funding’.

Begging

I see that face of yours. Is this all you grew up for? to beg for money to start a business. To keep aside all shame and ask for money by providing pretty pictures of things to come (which might eventually not). No, there is another way out … Stealing, but you might want to stay away from that route.

So let me teach you some more keywords now for this stage. You need to first ‘conceptualize’ a product that you are going to make. It need not mean anything now, it need not mean anything anytime. Pick up something from thin air and name it something. Also remember that you always add that this product is a ‘game-changer’ or a ‘trend-setter’. By the way, if you are reading this around 2009 do call it ‘web-based’. Do you use google to search? YOu do? Good, then you know all about internet. Go ahead.

Now that you are set with the words and tools to use, you may run to ‘Venture Capitalists’ for your funding. Time for some clarity. Who are ‘Venture Capitalists’? These are folks who are from ‘capitalist’ nations of the world and are inherently ad’venturous’ by nature. So now you are clear about that too. Good job there.

‘VC’s as they are called lovingly are actually very nice people. They usually have greying hair, clean shaven faces (since they are in capitalist countries), wear a white kurta and pajama (yes, even if Non Asian), walk a dog to the gate and invite you with a smile that puts our bearded-female-sounding-white-robe-wearing-man to shame. Remember to put on your anti-glare glasses to look nerdy and wear a jeans that shows a little hair on your legs (only if you are male) and low socks. That should set a good impression of you with the VC. And remember, carrying a laptop is a must.

Present your case with a mixed look on your face. You have to attain the right blend of confidence and confusion. Think about the confidence on that president’s face when he said ‘childrens’ and mix it with the confused look you saw on the host’s face when a certain black guy said he is definitely not turning white. You get the picture, that is the look you maintain throughout. The VC will see the ‘potential’ in you to take the idea to ‘completion’ as well as the ‘openness’ to be ‘flexible’ incase you need to ‘diversify’ midway. I am sorry about a lot of keywords in there, but please figure it all out yourself this time.

If things went well, and you were not lewd to the VC’s wife or flirty with his daughter, then you will come out of that building smiling and go to the nearest pub and have a vodka. Well… you are 22, not 17, I can’t stop you. Get back to me to learn ‘Conceptualization’ in detail when you are done with beer (Yes, thats all we drink at 22)

Conceptualization

We heard this one didn’t we? Yes, that was before you ‘sold’ the idea. Now since you were just plain lying about stuff, can we do some actual work please? You need to really put some thought into what you plan to make or sell or both. And since neither the VC’s wife, nor his daughter is falling for your charms, you better work on this quick before he visits.

Also, it is time to call up a few of your friends and invite them to create a startup. I bet a few of them will surely be interested in hanging around in one of their houses and making software. Weed out the ones who will surely pick up that offer from one of the big companies. You don’t need them, you need the adventurous types. The ones who have potential to become ‘entrepreneurs’. We need to go slightly off topic here. What is this ‘entrepreneur’. Its like the other word you heard as a kid called ‘rendezvous’; this one too does not sound as its written. In fact if you need to be an ‘entrepreneur’ you must pronounce it as remotely away from how-it-is-written as you can. For now, practice this. ‘On’ ‘Thra’ ‘Pra’ ‘Noor’. Say that about 50 times while we take a break.

Since you got your bunch of guys, now sit and make a list of software you can make. Broadly you can make ‘Products’ or ‘Solutions’. If you choose to make ‘products’ you will be working on the latest technology and making stuff that makes lives of customers easier and you get money for it. If you choose to provide ‘solutions’ you will be working on the latest technology and making stuff that makes the lives of customers easier and you get money for it. Did those two just sound the same? Anyways, lets leave me alone and see what YOU can come up with

a) Search Engine – No, X did that
b) Email – No, Y did that
c) Finance – No, X and Y merged and did that
d) Websites and Content Management – No, we all did that in college
e) Software to let a user enter data and show it in a report – Wow, we can do that!

There must be atleast one friend who muttered something like ‘but we did that in college too’. Throw him out immediately as he is not going to ‘grow’ into a good ‘entrepreneur’ (say that again, I am keeping a watch on you).

So thats your choice. ‘Software to let a user enter data and show it in a report’. Do you wanna call it that or any plans to name it? I think you should call it something snazzy, snappy, today-ey etc. But remember this truth, your product and company name MUST have ‘info’ in it and also ‘tech’. This basically sends out a signal to your potential in-laws that you started an IT company. Very few people will even converse with you if the case is otherwise. At this point let me make an educated guess. The initials of you and your friends form the word SANS. Gotcha, I think you must call it

“TechSANSInfo”

You might want to should that loud again

“TechSANSInfo, we own TechSANSInfo!”

Good you got that out of your system. Now since you conceptualized and exactly know what you want to do with the VC’s money, we can move to the next topic.

Technology/Framework/Scalability

This is one of the toughest part and I am not kidding when I tell you that the technology in this world changes faster than you change your underwear every three days. Its a ‘web-enabled’ ‘fast-moving’ world out there. So what you choose to build your product with is really important in the ‘long-run’. Choosing the technology itself wont help. Most of the time conversations between you and a colleague or client are disturbed when you do not have a ‘framework’ that you use. Not using a ‘framework’ sends out the signal that you are doing college coding. So whether you use it or not, learn names of some frameworks out there. Next time someone asks you, don’t say ‘Java’ tell ‘J2EE’. Similarly, do not say ‘Microsoft Technologies’, say ‘.NET’. You will see the difference. What you do is up to you by the way.

Coming to scalability. It is a simple decision. ‘Scalability’ is the speed at which you can ‘scale’ over hurdles when a certain technology you used backfires. So when you use .NET and got stuck on a platform, how fast can you throw that entire thing away and use some java for linux users. If you did that pretty fast, then ‘.NET’ is called ‘scalable’. Simple isn’t it? Like everything else in software.

Infrastructure

Rome was not built in a day (again a tribute to someone I know out there), so you need some place to start with, a building, a floor, a conference room, a room, a cubicle … alright, a computer will do for now. Put that computer at a friends place, or like we heard about some of the largest software companies, start at a friend’s garage (this might be tough in Bangalore as most friend’s dads would have rented out the garage as a single-room to some IT guy). Anyways, rent out some place where you can keep this computer, and pile up the ‘Framework’ on it. (Notice that I didn’t say stupid things like install JDK, JRE and all, smart eh?)

Now get yourself some ergonomic chairs because you are going to sit long enough. And a coffee maker since you are going to write code for all night long. Since you have money for only one computer, for your friends who are chatting, buy a carrom board or chess (if they qualify to play that). All you need to do now is learn some Java!!

Now you tell me this! I was under the impression that you are taught stuff like this at college. I can understand that, the friend of yours who is now striking the queen on the carrom board needs a lot of training to strike some deals when he becomes the Marketing Director, but you my friend have betrayed me. But it is too late now; you already got your hands ‘dirty’. So might as well wash them. Time for some quick training.

1. You – Get trained by SUN and become certified and become the CTO
2. Your balding 23 year old friend – You are ideal to be the CFO
3. That handsome hunk , he can be the Marketing Director
4. That one who follows orders – he can be the CEO.

Do not ask me how that was a quick-training. Thats the best I can do at this point. Figure out the abbreviations for yourself. All I can say is that the ‘C’ stands for ‘Cheap’. We are done with Infrastructure (and with the loss of a chapter, training too). So let’s move on.

Prototyping

Its been a long night installing all that stuff and getting ready with your skills. But trust me, its not over. You need to start work on the ‘prototype’ of your product. Remember, if someone told you ‘it’s just a prototype’, they are bullshitting. There is no ‘just a prototype’. As a startup, you always sell the ‘prototype’ as your final product to the customer. Now, don’t get all idealistic on me about startups. We know why you are reading this article, you want to screw up the startup in a few years from now. So you BETTER be creating a ‘prototype’ that can be sold.

What is a prototype? According to my very reliable friends (google) and sources (wikipedia) from the internet, it is a sample; a subset of what can be done with the final product. The cost of making a prototype can be more than mass production of the final products. But ofcourse, they are talking about solar and hybrid cars which real engineers make. So we need to unlearn that. In software, a ‘prototype’ is a program that you write with ONE table in the database, ONE form to enter data, ONE procedure to call and do EVERYTHING and ONE report to show it back. That is a prototype. And the time and cost to do this must be atmost 0.1% of the cost you plan to sell the final product at (which is this prototype itself).

Prototyping must involve endless lines of code written in atleast two or three ‘frameworks’ merged together and ‘tightly bound’. By tightly bound I mean you must NEVER use parameters and other atrocities that bring shame on prototyping. You must also include hundreds of lines of comments and these commented sections must be code that you tried and rejected. Leaving such code in entitles you to the awe-factor from the customer (and future developers who join your company) when they admire how-you-arrived-at-your-solution. Also, this leaves an indelible mark in the code about you as a startup starter.

Marketing/Sales

Alright, its time to start showing people the amazing things your software can do. After all, ‘Software to let a user enter data and show it in a report’ is something brand new in the industry and anybody cannot live without it. Show the world that they ‘need’ TechSANSInfo! Also, do not forget to patent the product as we don’t want cheap wannabe companies ripping off your ‘original’.

Contrary to what some of the gurus out there will tell you, Marketing is a very simple activity. First of all, call up some of your current and past girlfriends (I used plural because I know you well). Tell her to call her friends and ask them to call their friends. Trust me, women are extremely good at this kind of stuff. Within a day, word about your software will surely reach atleast a thousand people.

Meanwhile me (and you) cannot keep typing TechSANSInfo in simple fonts like this. You need a good logo and font for your company name. Now there are two options; pay a good amount to a graphic designer OR one of you could get ‘inspired’ from a known company and come up with a similar logo and font. Remember, you are a startup, at any point in time when you are questioned, just say ‘aww, please don’t hurt us, we are just a startup’. Also, remember, you can keep saying that for as long as you choose.

Again, if you are reading this in 2009, you already know the importance of the internet. What you immediately need is a website. So come up with a website quickly and buy a domain name. www.techsansinfo.com would be the ideal name for your company. Remember to put flash on your website so that all those idiot internet users who choose not to have flash cannot access your site (It’s good to keep them away right). Also you must always buy (or download) photographs of a lot of happy people from the internet and put it up on your website. A visitor should feel that these are your employees and interacting with them. To keep the ‘multi-cultural’ spirit, do keep the photos mixed. One Indian man (unshaven upper lip), one American lady, one African-American man in suit and who looks higher up the ladder, one Chinese on the computer wearing glasses.

Do put up demos and ‘whitepapers’ on your website to add some authenticity. And ofcourse finally some contact information, you and your friends can put in your mobile numbers here; but please do remember to charge them for ‘life-time’ so that incoming calls are not hindered.

Business!

At this point, I have to assume you heeded my advice and were successful in luring some unsuspecting customers to your website (or your girlfriend) and sold them your product. Good luck! (and pat myself on my back, how am I so good at this!).

Now is the time to ‘deliver’. And just to do that, some of the oldest experts in the information technology team came up with a brilliant idea. It’s called the ‘Delivery Team’. And you need one. Why can’t you guys do it, you ask me? Well.. you guys are ‘visionaries’. You do not get into such tasks and waste your time. You must now concentrate on the business and ‘strategic’ customers (strategic is the polite word used when the customers are more intelligent than you and they know they are being ripped off).

A ‘Delivery Team’ consists of a manager who does all the excel and word document work, a technical lead to do all the talking and fighting and an intern who will pick up your prototype and make it slightly more presentable to the customer. This team will ‘deploy’ your product as a ‘solution’ to all the customer’s woes and will be there with the customer till they ‘go live’.

Ask the manager to download one of those free excel macros to ‘estimate’ the effort required to build the product. You can find it all over the internet. Google for the following words (without quotes) “time required to build software product” and you should find one of them. Use it to conjure up some numbers and send it to the customer. Your manager will have to do some convincing over the phone to get them to agree. If they are ‘strategic’ customers, you might have to get on the phone too (Ah, the things you have to do!). If the customer is not convinced, then I am afraid you are going to have to spend money on a product called ‘Macrosoft Prazect’. Customers do not argue when you show stuff on that. It is easy to learn and just like the Sudoku game; you just have to type in some numbers here and there and they should match and stay ‘green’.

I will not guide you through the low key jobs like the actual work your ‘Delivery Team’ will have to do over the next few months or years to build the product for the customer. Let us safely assume that they do their job well and end up delivering the project and you get your money in your bank. Let us move on to the really big stuff now; wait there is one more task before the big stuff.

Support

You have a brilliant product idea, you have the visionaries, you have the best technical team, the best delivery team, the best quality team (uh! do you?), now why do you need support? Your products are landmark items and are bug free, why do you need to bother to support you ask?

Look, every company needs support because talking to a customer who has already paid you is tougher than talking to them before or during the building of the software they need. And to do that, you need a team with mental strength, tolerance, patience, politeness and a love for night-life (after all your customers are not in this country because in this country people know you). Time to build your support team.

Pay a visit to the nearest college in your locality. Walk over to the cigarette shop near the gate (there is always one near colleges). Pretend to buy a cigarette and smoke. Whilst doing that, keep an eye on the youngsters who are walking around. If this is a girl’s college, then you should surely see some guys walking around. Look out for the ones who are wearing low rise jeans (where you can see one inch of the butt line), crumpled shirts, funny hairdo, just a little beard on the chin, maybe an ear ring, a stoned look in their eye. These are exceptional candidates for your team. Contact them and pick them up. These are the guys whom you can talk to for hours non stop and at the end of it they will respond with ‘Yeah, right .. dude’. That’s the quality we are looking for.

Now, let us move on to the bigger and better stuff.

Growth

Learning-by-rote time! Repeat these after me. “We are a growing company”. “We are growing”. “We are growing fast”. “We are ramping up”. As a visionary, you need to pull in your employees once in a while into a meeting room (I am sorry, but did we discuss meeting rooms ever?) and tell such stuff. And by the way, you need to keep growing too. So every year, as a ritual, keep recruiting new people into roles they don’t want to be in. Also, just to keep the balance, once in a while come up with really legitimate and valid reasons and fire them too, for e.g call them into your room and say, “Hey, we don’t like your face, we are letting you go”. They will surely appreciate your deep analysis. By the way, learn to say “letting you go” instead of “you are fired”.

But just adding people to your company will not do, you need to sit with your ‘core’ teams (usually you plus a group of self proclaimed experts) and discuss the organization structure and the kind of people you are going to add each year. Please do note that you always need to add more managers, business analysts, marketing staff, CEOs, CFOs, CTOs and CZOs to your company. Make the structure like an inverted pyramid where 300 people market your product, 200 sit and write functional requirement, 100 of them manage the project across the globe, 50 of the lead it and prepare the technical design, 5 of them sit and actually develop it and 1 of them supports it (part time). There, that’s the success-mantra of a good product company for you.

Remember, as you ‘grow’ you need more space to put all these people. But do not move to newer buildings until the HR inboxes are flooded with emails from female employees regarding the growing habit of male employees sitting on their chair-arm and working. That is a sure sign that there is no space left to sit and work. Although, if you are the adventurous types, you can wait till an email arrives where certain employees express their happiness of working here since they get to sit on each others lap. But it is entirely upto you on how far you want to go.

Keep this cycle going. As a startup, you are supposed to be showing atleast a 30% increase in employees every year. Also, only by doing the above, you can screw all this up in six years.

Awards & Recognition

At this point, let me take you to your childhood. You were a complete brat (like I said, I know you well) and you started yelling, wailing and made sure your parents looked like complete idiots when they took you to the exhibition. Your mom took out that nice bar of chocolate from her bag and gave it to you. The business gurus (not me) call this process ‘awarding’. Emulate this in your company to keep the yelling and wailing to a minimum. Also, be ‘proactive’ and give out some awards before hand. For e.g X might have got married. He/she might quit, so give him/her a ‘Got Married Award’. Y had a kid. He/she might quit, so giver him/her a ‘Had A Kid Award’. Discuss with your HR (those people who have pasted their upper lip onto their noses to stay smiling) all the possibilities of giving out awards.

Now you might think Awards and Recognition are the same; you are wrong! Check this out. You walk into the pantry and pick up a cup and press the button on that mystic machine. Nothing comes out. You look at the guy standing there and ask him ‘Why is this not fixed yet? Can you get me a cup of coffee’. He walks away and comes back with coffee for you. Your solution manager walks in at that time calling you for a meeting with your best technical lead. You ask ‘Oh ya, that brilliant guy, where is he?’. The solution manager points to the guy who got you coffee. Get the picture? Recognition is when you ‘recognize’ people. Again, sit with HR once in two months and prepare a chart with your employees’ photo and names on it. And recognize them later.

Corporate Social Responsibility

You have probably heard this one. Long for CSR. It is a recently researched marketing tool used by large companies (and ofcourse ‘growing’ startups) to keep up a good image in the IT industry. To proclaim that your company has CSR, all you need to do is ask someone in Admin to pay for the security’s lunch everyday or give some money to a frequently visiting bum or even put out some biscuits for the stray dogs. That entitles you to mention that you are socially responsible. See, that was easy.

Suicidal Symptoms

Okay, so now you are in the fourth or fifth year. Good! By the way, I am glad to see you made it till here and I feel proud. It has been an amazing journey for me. I would like to thank my parents … Oops sorry, that is the Oscars and I am deviating again.

At this point you have everything you asked for when you were walking out of that college and we met. Name, fame, girls, identity, a prototype product (yes, even now its a prototype), money, awards etc. What you need now is to somehow end all this, because you already got what you need. You want to take all the money and get out of this to start a new business. But you cannot end a company just like that right? You will be answerable to too many people. So here is the way out.

Stay consistent with ‘growing’ mantra. Infact increase employment to 40%. Also, increase lay offs to 30% (always lay off people you just recruited first, as that should start making you unpopular in the industry by the media). Start agreeing to do projects even if customers sound like the characters from the movie “Dumb and Dumber”. Agree to their wierd whims and fancies and always (as a rule) agree on impossible delivery dates. That should make you unpopular among customers (even the dumb ones), developers and delivery managers.

One rotten apple can screw up all of them. But imagine you had a bag of 50 apples and 30 of them are rotten. Or imagine that we are talking about 30 rotten fish now instead of apples. Do just that. Increase your manager-count to atleast 70%. Do this by recruiting more managers or making managers out of developers and technical architects. The rot should increase slowly but steadily within the organization because pretty soon, there is no one doing any actual work. Everyone will be ‘managing’ someone else. So when was the last time we heard a success-story attributed to managers. Hmm…let me think…yes you think too…hmmm…okay… NEVER!

Another exercise that you should always conduct on a half-yearly basis is called Org-Re-Structuring. It is very simple to do. Take two pack of cards, on one pack, write the name of all your employees on each card. On the other pack, write designations on each card. Now, you and your wife (or girlfriend, or boyfriend or whatever) sit with one pack each and lift up cards one by one. Note down the employee-name and designation combinations and send out an email letting them know their new positions. This is an absolute fun activity for you and your partner (partner is a safe word to use in 2009) and keeps the employees on their toes and maybe make some of them quit before you lay them off.

And incase you missed the point up until now. Never work on the actual product you set out to make. Keep piling up trash in your ‘sell-able’ software repository over the years and that itself can add to your companies demise.

The Demise of a ‘dream’ called TechSANSInfo

Ah! you are 28 now. And we are doing good. Things are moving just like you planned if not better. If you have initiated the suicide-mode described above, then you are on your last lap. You have made billions of dollars and ensured there existed a company that people will not know about when it failed. In other words, you cannot even be a successful failure. The media won’t report it, the business community will not talk about it. It is another feather in your cap (which had no feathers to start with, so its the first and only one).

At this point it is a waiting game. Either all of your people will quit themselves (including your HR, Admin, Housekeeping and Security). Or you can conduct a mass lay off. Or you may file for bankruptcy and let the government take over. Or you may go to office on a public holiday and set fire to the building and then file for bankruptcy. Or you may just sell the company to the next rich guy you met at the bar. Even better, just bet it on the next card game. The options are plenty, and I shall gladly leave it to you.

Epilogue

All characters, situations, thoughts, philosophies, ideas, words, emotions, situations (did I repeat) depicted in the above article are very real and if anyone was offended, it was intentional. And yes, no animals were harmed in the making of this article.

Footprint [by Sharada]

I was sitting on my bed this morning sipping lychee twirl, one of my favorite flavors of juice and was wondering how this fruit looks like. It occurred to me that I have never seen or eaten it except for this juice or in ice cream flavors. I have no idea where it came from, where it is grown, how it is prepared. My mind was then drawn back to my childhood when I have drank a lot of juices – apple, pineapple, mango, chikoo.. Somehow lychee never has been in this list. Then I decided to do a small activity – making a list of all the items used in a normal day and trying to figure out how it landed into my hands. We use a lot of things everyday, we take a lot of things for granted, have we ever thought how much it might have taken to bring it to us in the form we are using and how this would directly or indirectly impact nature. We might dismiss this as an insignificant part of the colossal damage, however, on closer look we will be really surprised to know. 

• Wake up to the sound of alarm – as simple as it might sound, sound of an alarm is one of the loudest and most disturbing sounds early in the morning. It might not hurt our ears as much as it might disturb a bird’s nest next to our window and confuse the poor creature
• Toothpaste – Choose from a whole range of tooth pastes, blue, red, white.. whatever. Ever wondered what goes into making one (they almost never publish all the ingredients. Most of them that do not claim to be vegetarian have bone powder) and the process involves animal testing to ensure it does not harm human beings (I have never understood how we can conclude if it doesn’t harm an animal it doesn’t harm us, we are so different in constitution compared to an animal). And animal testing does not merely involve brushing a monkey’s teeth twice a day and see if they shine. It means the animal is fed enormous quantities of these chemicals till they show serious of some damage. And to produce one type of tooth paste, it might take thousands of animals who spend their whole lives in a small cage and eat tooth pastes all day!
• Toothbrush – Tooth brushes are made of plastic, so as you change them every 3-4 months, you keep piling up plastics all your life (by the time you’re 30, you would approximately have used and thrown 90 brushes!). And we can only imagine what chemical reaction the plastic of the tooth brush would undergo when it comes in contact with tooth paste. And, if this did not manage to wake you up, the next one would for sure.
• Coffee / Tea with milk and sugar – If you are buying coffee /tea powder directly from the place that grows and packs them, you are one of the blessed ones. If you are one of the not-so-lucky ones who buy from the supermarket, you might be buying Mexican coffee, thai tea from all the way round the world. Needless to mention, this would waste a lot of money and energy bringing it all the way to your country. Sugar (processed sugar) uses animal bones to make them white and sparkling (remember what they do to your teeth?). Buying packed milk, whether it is tetra packed or the most hygienically packed, would still come with a lot of unwanted pus, add-ons to make them white and creamy, and the poor cow would have to stand all her life and keep on supplying milk to feed the growing (human) population, so she is pumped with antibiotics and steroids to make her produce more and more milk. And it is better not to ask what happens to her calves, they are taken away almost as soon as they are born for the veal (tender skin)
• Morning walk in the park – Now you might think, for once, this cannot be of any harm! This is what I used to believe. Of course, my joy didn’t last too long. While we listen to our favourite songs on the iPod and walk or jog, we are unknowingly trampling on a lot of tiny creepy crawlies (caterpillars, snails, small insects). They do not know a “park” is for fooling humans to believe there is some greenery amidst the busy city traffic and that it is better to keep away from these artificial grass and trimmed bushes.
• Newspaper – This is an obvious one; think of all the paper that goes into making these pages and for what? One day worth of some news and a lot of ads! Of course we recycle them, don’t we? Some of us might do that, but once the trees are cut, we cannot grow them back from paper pulp!
• Breakfast (bread, cheese, veggies, Tropicana juice) – We are not talking about homemade bread, cheese or juice. Most of them come from supermarkets and again might not be locally made. If you are using veggies that are homegrown or bought from local villagers, give yourself a pat on your back. Most of us buy exotic veggies (non-seasonal) from supermarket stores, just because they are made available and they look “fresh” and “colorful”, which means the supermarkets and giving a tough competition to the local vegetable vendor or the push-cart vendors who toil all day in the hot sun to make a few bucks.
• Bath (water, soap, shampoo) – If we are having “bath” the Indian way, we would use one bucket (approx 20 litres) of water. If we consider this very “uncool” and try to mimic the west here, we would use a “shower” which means we waste more water than we use. And this actually means denying pure water to some unfortunate people who would have saved it for drinking. Because the water that comes out of the tap is not recycled water, it is fresh water from our rivers. What the heck, we pay for it right? Of course we do, but that does not give us the liberty to waste it. There might come a day very soon where we might not even be able to get pure water for drinking. Ever wondered where the soaps / shampoo / detergent or any other chemicals we use go after we have flushed them down the drain? More often than not, they join back rivers and lakes and pollute them. So the next time you pick up a shampoo that promises to make your hair soft and silky, just turn the bottle around and look for the ingredients. You might find some cryptic names that you would not even have come across in your chemistry lab. And most of these companies do animal testing to make sure the chemicals don’t harm us, or cause cancer (which means the animals are made to pay with their whole life undergoing lot of pain and suffering just for our silky soft hair)
• Dress up (clothes, hair gel, sunscreen, makeup) – Talking of clothes, let’s admit it, we are all brand freaks, aren’t we? Given a choice between a locally made cotton shirt and a cool Lee / Levi shirt, which one would you pick? (no points for guessing that the former would cost a lot lesser). Make up, hair gel, sunscreen, body spray or any other beauty or grooming products would mean unless you are careful to research about the parent company that manufactures it, you would be buying foreign products and /or the company might be doing animal testing. No company would admit that they do animal testing, they never show how the product was manufactured, and they always hide it behind the flawless face of the models that are trying to sell them. So all you see is this model, who looks absolutely out of the world and a product that would take you there.
• Mobile phone – The radiations from the mobile phone towers and devices are harmful for health. Not just that, they might be interfering with the frequencies that other animals and birds use for communication. They can also have harmful effects on their tender brain.
• Travel to office (bike / car) – Most of us use petrol / diesel run cars and bikes. This would mean, pumping a lot of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. We all know about the ever increasing problems caused by the greenhouse gases. So this is definitely a killer. And we are burning away fossil fuels at an alarming rate, as you can imagine, this has become a very precious commodity with wars being fought over them.
• At the office (AC , Computers, generator, coffee cups, paper napkins, paper for printing) -  Let us take a typical corporate office as an example, we are enclosed in a building covered by glass on all sides (not necessarily windows) with AC running 24 / 7. And we wouldn’t be aware of power cuts since there is always a generator or a battery backup to keep the AC running. Most offices also come with a pantry with a coffee machine, with use-and-throw paper / plastic cups, paper napkins, which means a lot of paper used per day and a lot of garbage generated with little concern about where it goes. And the glass buildings are a major contributor towards global warming and not just that, they confuse birds that fly right into them and smash their brains in the process.
• Lunch / snacks (eat outside in an eatery) – .We are more and more mimicking the western culture of use-and-throw. Even traditional restaurants use a lot of paper / plastic utensils to serve food (for hygienic purposes) which results in a large amount of garbage which is not bio-degradable. In good old days, the hotels would refuse to pack food if we did not carry a container for the liquids and most packing was in old newspapers. Now things have changed, plastic bags have taken over due to their convenience for both the hotel owners and the consumers. These days it is difficult to convince them to not give you a plastic bag.
• Grocery shopping (supermarket, packed food) – On the way home from office, you pass in front of the supermarket and decide to stop for some shopping. Of course, you did not expect this, so you are not carrying a bag for the stuff you buy. No sweat, the shop owners are more than happy to pack the stuff in plastic bags. I remember a store near my house which had become unpopular because they frown when people ask for a plastic bag, they would expect people to bring their own bags. Next time you shop, just spend a few minutes examining the stuff you just bought. I bet most of it would be packed food! We are again aping the western culture here; in good old days you would have cooked most of these at home and maybe never even heard about the rest of them.
• Watch TV (news, ads) – We are stuffed with 24 / 7 news these days. And we spend more time watching commercials than actually watching a movie or a program. Even prime time news is not spared; they are forced to take a break for the commercials. When was the last time you got a chance to complete a movie in one and half hours? We are bombarded with unwanted information all the time, this adds to our mental clutter. It makes us feel dissatisfied with our lives and leaves us a hope that buying that brand of washing machine would improve our family relations and get us sparkling homes with white spotless walls!
• Dinner (for a change, home cooked) – We are totally dependent on gadgets in our kitchen to get things done and most of them require electricity. Gone are the days when cooking would take hours since it involved hand grinding, kneading, powdering etc. Now, it seems we are totally equipped to finish cooking in no time with all the latest gadgets that do the work for us, when we can sit back and relax! (unless there is a power cut)
• Sleep (fan, cooler / heater, AC) – Global Warming is a big word, it is meant to be talked about in conferences by world leaders, it does not affect us common people. Right? Wrong! Have you noticed that you use the fan more often that you used to around five years ago? That you are saving up for an AC and want to escape the heat. Just five years ago, we had not heard of middle class home having AC, but now it has become a common practice especially in hot cities. This is a vicious cycle, since using these gadgets increase global warming, and we cannot stop using them because of the rise of temperature which is due to global warming! 

Whew! Finally, we have completed our guilt-trip through the day and it is time for some rest after all the brain churning facts related to seemingly innocent day-to-day acts. While we are having that much needed sleep, let us go over to the other side, to a village and get a perspective of a daily life of a farmer. Of course I am no farmer and have never lived in a village, but this is how I would imagine it to be like (the example chosen here might be an idealistic village which is not modernized and where people are self-sufficient) – 

• Wake up to the sound of cock-a-doodle-doo!
• Chew on neem sticks from the backyard for cleaning and polishing teeth
• Fresh cow’s milk from your family cow which is lovingly brought up in a lot of space for grazing around freely all day and the milk is taken only after the calf had enough
• Morning walk is not needed (since rest of the day is not spent sitting in a place) J
• Simple breakfast of ganji (starch water from the cooked rice seasoned with some salt and pepper powder). The rice is grown in the land which is harvested by the farmer
• Bathe in local pond without using soap or shampoo
• Wear simple cotton clothes which is made by cotton grown in the village and made locally by weavers
• Go to work by walk or by bicycle
• On the way to work, meet up with a few friends and catch up on the news
• Physical work to till the land from morning till evening
• For lunch have home-packed ragi balls with sambhar made out of seasonal vegetables grown in the backyard
• On the way back home, pay a visit to local fair (santhe) and pick up some basic stuff needed for home
• Chat with friends, play some games for entertainment
• Have a simple dinner cooked from home grown ingredients
• Sleep outside on the porch with the cool breeze 

Now, you might protest saying that you are no farmer and you are born and brought up in a city and your life is tied closely to the city and your job is in the city. So obviously cannot go back to a village life. I totally agree and respect this. But this was just a comparison to show how simple life can be and how we complicate it with unwanted goods. Let us now see what we can do to improvise on our city life to be as close as possible to a self-sufficient village life. We cannot achieve 100% but you would be surprised to know how small changes can make a huge difference. 

• Try switching to natural way to clean your teeth, it could be neem sticks (perfect) or atleast go for a tooth paste that is vegetarian and does not test on animals and manufactured locally (in the same country)
• Use soap / shampoo / detergents that are locally made, contain organic or natural ingredients (lesser chemicals) and have certified that they do not test on animals
• Try to resist temptation to buy news paper, instead subscribe to a e-paper or headlines
• Buy coffee / tea from its source (coffee / tea plantations) and avoid using milk, use brown (unprocessed) sugar or jaggery
• If you have a garden space, grow your own vegetables or else buy from farmers directly whenever possible (do not get fooled by corporates that claim to help farmers by buying from them directly, make sure this claim is well supported by facts). Use seasonal vegetables and fruits only. If you do not know of a source from where villagers are directly helped, then buy them from the next door vegetable vendor or push cart vendors (instead of supermarkets)
• Always choose locally made products, grocery instead of branded, foreign items sold in supermarkets. Most of them are available locally and will work out cheaper too. Try and avoid packed / canned food, more often than not they contain chemicals to preserve them which might be harmful
• Consciously minimize water usage all the time (washing, bathing etc)
• Always carry a bag for shopping, as a rule. If no bag, then no shopping
• It is cool to go to work on a bicycle. It is not just cool, it is healthier option too
• Always buy locally manufactured clothes, shoes etc. Also take care to avoid leather, silk, animal fur etc. Do not go for branded stuff
• Whenever possible make best use of natural air and light in homes and offices
• In office, be proud to sport your own snazzy mug instead of using paper cups

 All these are simple yet very effective ways to help the world in our own small ways. It just requires some amount of extra research to find out the alternate products and requires some extra effort to turn off that tap when not needed. But it goes a long way.

TGIA (Thank God I’m Alive!) [by Sharada]

“Ouch! That hurt. Why do we have to go through this bumpy ride in the city in the hot sun? Why can’t we buy a car with an AC and just zip around?” I protested as my back hurt when the bike we were riding on bumped over one of the countless potholes in the city. To this my best friend only smiled and pointed to an over crowded city bus where people were hanging on the foot board. “I know we are better than them, we are lucky to reach anywhere we want on our bike without having to wait endlessly for an overcrowded bus”, I mumbled.

As they say, there are always two ways of looking at a situation – the optimistic way and the pessimistic way. This applies to almost every situation in our lives, if only we care to analyze them. Even a physically challenged person might have ways to look at others and feel happy for what he / she has. Let’s face it – we do not choose the events in our lives, we do not choose whom we meet, what we do for a living, where we live. But we can always choose how we look at things, there is always a brighter side to things and the day we start looking at the brighter side of everything, we would have discovered pure happiness. And nobody can control our thoughts more than ourselves.

This might sound a bit philosophical, and it might sound like a very unlikely statement from a young person. However, in whatever way I look at this, there is no better way to feel happiness than to be happy! Let us go over some more day-to-day activities and see how we can feel happy and satisfied by looking at the brighter side.

You wake up one day and find that you have run out of cooking gas. Now, being the perfect person, you might curse yourself for not booking it on time and keep cribbing about it OR choose to use this opportunity to take your family out for lunch!

You are all dressed up to go to office, and then your car won’t start. You might get terribly angry at the car or the mechanic who serviced it last time and curse your bad luck and tell yourself that it is going to be a terrible day at work OR you can choose to wear sneakers and hit the road, use the chance to walk to office and feel exhilarated on your achievement on reaching and at the same time brimming with energy the whole day.

If we keep looking for perfection we might never find the ultimate day when everything would go as planned, your whole life is just as you wanted, you have the perfect job, the perfect partner, and the perfect house with a garden. Instead, if every day of your life you choose to be happy, you can be assured that there is no way you will be dissatisfied.

To begin with, make a list of all the things that you are blessed with, you never asked for and yet have got. These are truly the things that we should thank God for the rest of our lives.

• Life - the ultimate gift of life, we are what we are because we are living. Once we are dead, there is nothing after that
• Good health – If you are not suffering from any serious diseases, then you are lucky till now. Because there are a lot of people out there who are ready to switch their suffering existence with your healthy life. Do all that you can do to maintain health
• Physical fitness – you might be healthy (no serious illnesses) but you might still not be fit. Fitness is what defines how many steps you can walk without getting tired. It also shows that all your organs are in working condition. This means, you should run, walk, climb, do whatever you can while you are fit.
• Perfectly working senses – eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and skin – if even one of them doesn’t work, you lose a lot. You might say what is the big deal but wait till one of them gets shut off even for a day and you will realize how thankful you should be for them. It contributes a major part in enjoying your life.
• Loving family – this is something that you always wish for but never ask for but sometimes get. If you have got loving parents, siblings, loving pets then you should consider yourself blessed. There are many out there who are orphans and yearn for some love from family
• Love of your life – This is the person whom you can safely decide to spend the rest of your life with. If you have found such a person, do all you can to retain the relationship because the world is such a better place when they are around
• Freedom – Have you lived in a country where you cannot walk freely on the streets or go to school regularly? Do you live in constant fear of someone knowing about your activities and might put you behind bars if they wish to? There are still a lot of countries where a majority of people are suppressed, cannot exercise their free will. If you are living in a free nation, you have a lot to be thankful for. You might curse the government for its policies, you might complain about corruption but believe me, there is nothing better than living in democracy.
• Cozy home – It is that place where you are comfortable, would like to rest at the end of a hard day, no matter where it is, how it is, it the place where you can be YOU. Look around you and you see people living on the streets, in the cold without having a place to call “home”
• Full stomach – Ever been hungry for a few hours past your lunch time without having a chance to eat lunch? Imagine this, you are traveling in a bus and forgot to pack lunch and the bus did not stop anywhere. There is no food available with you, but you look around and find other people happily munching on their stuff, you look out of the window to distract yourself and you see posters of huge burgers zip past. It makes your stomach cry. And finally after five hours you have reached your destination and you are almost in tears, you run to the first thing that looks like food and decide to buy it. At that time, to your shock you realize you forgot your wallet in the bus and you see the bus move away and there is nothing you can do about it. Feels bad? Of course, but this is not just a case of have-money-but-forgot-wallet scenario for many people out there. They just do not have the money to buy food; they are reduced to foraging the garbage bins to find anything remotely edible. Remember this the next time you do not like the food on your plate and want to waste it.
• Clean air and water – This is the most precious gift of life, you almost never realize it and would never thank God for this because you take it for granted. You expect to find air and water everywhere, after all, isn’t that what earth claims to have to support life? Have you been on a trek where you have lost your way and exhausted your water supplies and all through the way you do not see a single source of clean water? You body is dehydrated but you know that you have to keep walking to find your way, you start hallucinating. You are angry at yourself to have wasted the last bit of the water pouring it on your face. Then you find a small pond of water, infested by mosquito larvae, but nevertheless it is water. You do not care how clean it is, what diseases you might get, at least you will be alive. You leave all the sophistication behind and decide to drink it. This is not just a story, it has happened to me. I realized the value of clean water that day. To realize the value of air, just go under water and try to hold your breath and if you do not know how to swim you would truly appreciate air! Across the world, there are wars being fought over water, it has become one of the most precious commodities exploited by corporates for money. Only the rich are entitled to the water and the poor have to spend all their money buying it. This is true in some of the African countries where there is severe scarcity of clean water.
• Education – Back in your childhood, there might be days when you would have cursed your parents for sending you to school, but they would have spent a major part of their earning and ensured you get good education. You might not have realized its worth back then, but if you sit back and think, your life is comfortable now because of your education that you received. However absurd it might have sounded back then, it was important you pass through all these stages in your life to get to where you are today.
• Security – You might live in a free country, you might do whatever you want to but if you are not secure there is no way you can enjoy your rights. Ever wondered how it might feel to live in a country or a state where there are people killing each other everyday and you do not know when you might never return home to see your family? This is the case with some of the states in the world, there is civil war going on, there are fights going on between two countries or states and people are living in constant fear. Their homes are getting destroyed, their friends and family members taken away and they never get to see them again. Democracy goes hand in hand with security; if you are living in constant fear in democracy then you will never be able to fully appreciate a free country. So, security is one of the important things that you have to be thankful for.

Do we really need a disaster to help us understand life’s precious gifts? Why can’t we start respecting and thanking God for these wonderful things in life? Don’t the materialistic things suddenly sound very trivial in front of these enormously important, life-supporting gifts? How often have we prayed to God that we pass in an examination OR we win a lottery? At that point, I can imagine God sitting with a few options on his computer screen which says “1- take away leg in an accident” “2- lose lottery” “3- trip to Africa to experience civil war” and you will be only thankful at that point that he chose to click on option #2, which is the least harmful of the choices. It is not that God is keeping a score of what you say in your prayers everyday and see if you thank him enough. It is just that when anything wrong has to happen, it will. So why not enjoy the good things in life meanwhile and be happy about them while it lasts.

Remember, life is not a destination, it is a journey. So enjoy your ride!

Muthodi and Mullayyanagiri Trek [by Sharada]

Chikkamagalur (Younger daughter’s town), is known for its picturesque hills and coffee estates. Our weekend trip to this cozy town was thoroughly spontaneous and a good one at that. We discovered some surprisingly beautiful places very close to this town. Quick trips like this; without too much planning sometimes leave us disappointed, but most of the time we end up enjoying it completely.

So off we started on a weekend in December armed with a bus ticket on our journey. We did not have much idea, though we had done some reading on the internet about some places near Chikkamagalur – the top on our list was Muthodi – a wildlife sanctuary.

We left Bangalore at 11:30PM on an Airavath (KSRTC Volvo), it is a five hour journey to Chikkamagalur. It was a comfortable ride, and we reached early in the morning at 4:30AM. Since there was nothing much to do till the town wakes up, we strolled around the place on the empty roads. While walking we made a mental note on the direction and the road to Muthodi. Chikkamagalur is a small town, there are only a couple of main roads, so it is not very tough to know the directions. We managed to spend around two hours this way, by which time we found the town had started to stir. We walked into Kamat hotel for some coffee. While having coffee we struck a conversation with the owner of the hotel. We enquired about buses to Muthodi and other places nearby. He suggested we take a bus that starts at 7:30am to Muthodi. We decided to have breakfast there and also packed some lunch. There are no government buses to Muthodi, so we walked to the private bus stand, which is just behind the KSRTC bus stand. We had plans of staying back in Muthodi if we get accommodation. The bus did not come to the private bus stand on that day, fortunately we heard about this a few minutes in advance and walked over to the nearby bus stop which was near Chethana Nursing home. The bus came at around 7:45, however we almost got tricked as the name of Muthodi was not written on the bus; we found Mallandur-Kolagamey written. We would have easily let it pass, had we not taken a chance and asked the conductor. Finally we were on our way to Muthodi. It was an uneventful one and half hours trip, though the scenery all the way was enchanting and just as we reached Muthodi a Sambhar crossed the road right in front of our bus. The locals sat unfazed as our jaws dropped at this unique sight.

The bus reached Muthodi at 9:30am, we got off and walked to the forest office to get permission to enter the place. The forest guards were friendly people, who explained to us the things we can do at Muthodi. There are cottages to stay overnight at that place; there is a 3.5km guided nature trek thorough the forest and safari morning and evening. Since by the time we reached we were too late for the safari, we decided to do the nature trek. Even before we started the walk, we spotted a malabar giant squirrel on one of the branches. We quickly took out our binoculars to get a closer look. We immediately knew this was going to be a very engaging trek. We wished to stay there overnight, however we came to know that since it was a weekend, all the cottages were booked. Though we were disappointed, we decided to come back some other time again for that. This time around, we decided to make the most of the nature trek. It started at around 10am with a guide and both of us. As we walked through the forest along a trek path, we spotted an amazing amount of birds, we quickly started noting down the features and identifying whatever we could. We were enchanted by the bird density in that place. To name a few – racquet tailed drongos, red-whiskered bulbuls, woodpeckers, plum headed parakeet, bee eaters, orioles. It was a mesmerizing walk, which we felt was a bird watcher’s dream come true. We took some photographs of the place, experimenting with some photography tips and tricks we had learnt recently.

After the walk, we rested near the guest house, at the lunch area. We took out our packed lunch and gorged on it. In case you have not carried lunch, there is a canteen with a cook to serve a decent lunch. After lunch, we sat on a wooden bench in the park and watched birds all around us. We realized even if we sit in one place, there is so much around us to see. So we just sat there and saw an amazing variety of bird life around us. The most important thing on this trip was the binoculars, since without that we would not have been able to enjoy even half of what we did. Around evening, we saw people coming in cars to occupy their cottages. We realized how peaceful the place was till then. We were happy we were leaving the place, since it was not peaceful anymore. The best time to go to this place would be on a weekday, one and half days are more than sufficient to enjoy the natural beauty of the place. If you are not a bird watcher, you can still soak yourself in the natural surroundings, the sweet smell in the air and the cool breeze. All you need to remember is to be as calm and quiet as possible and take care not to pollute the place, since it is right in the middle of the forest. If you are quiet you would spot some wild animals too. Evening is the time for the safari, where all the people who landed were headed, however, for us it was time to leave, since the last bus from that place is at 5PM. Just before leaving we got some time to chat with a young, newly recruited forest official who was friendly; we just talked about his job and the excitement of living in the forest. It felt good to meet young people who were enthusiastic about protecting the forests.

The bus got us back to Chikkamagalur, we headed straight to Kamat and had a masala dosa. We somehow had taken a liking to Kamat food, though there are a lot of restaurants in and around the place, we were very loyal to Kamat, not sure why exactly, but the food definitely was extremely tasty there. We had no idea what to do the next day, however, we were contemplating on a couple of plans in our heads. One was to leave Chikkamagalur, travel overnight and reach some other place altogether. Another plan was to take a room, spend the night in Chikkamagalur and next day head to Mullayanagiri. We had this inclination to do our bit of trekking and climb Mullayanagiri. Since there were no suitable buses to any place we wanted, we decided to stay back. This was a decision we would appreciate later, since only when we hit the bed did we realize how tired we were!

We found a nice hotel just next to Bus stand – Samrat Deluxe, we were happy we didn’t have to walk very far in search of a hotel. Also we had noticed that this was one of the good ones in that place. We checked into the room at around 7:30PM and crashed into bed. It was a nice room with TV too, we found the double bedroom decent and clean for Rs.350/-

The next day, we got up rejuvenated after a good night’s sleep. We had bath, packed up and went for breakfast at Kamat again! We found the friendly owner there, so we again discussed the plans with him. The plan was to take a bus that goes to bababudan giri, get down at Sarpana haadi (or Sarpa daari, meaning snake path). We packed lunch and boarded the private bus just in front of the hotel. It was not a very long ride, in about 45 mins we reached Sarpana haadi and were dropped off there. The bus continued to Baba Budan Giri. At Sarpana haadi we found that there was a definite trek path, we knew if we follow that we would reach the top. There was not too much confusion in the route, however in a couple of places we felt we might lose the way. It was a steep climb in some places, however since we have done tougher treks before, this was a very easy climb. We stopped on the way to enjoy the view and take some photographs. It was wonderful view of hill ranges and clouds all around us. The sky was a beautiful blue with a white line separating it from the lower air. On the way to the top, we spotted a few raptors and other birds like the Malabar crested lark. Just as we reached the top, we saw a cave formation. Later we came to know that these were unexplored caves. The wind was blowing in our faces as we reached the top, it was an amazing experience having climbed the tallest peak in Karnataka. There is not much once you reach the top, there is a temple that was getting renovated. However the view all around is breathtaking. Though there is another easy route by vehicle to the peak, the sarpana haadi way is much more peaceful as there are no people around and the view is very good all along.

After spending some time at the top, we got down and climbed the hill just next to this. This was not any tourist spot, it was just another hill. Since there were no people there except the two of us, we decided to have lunch there. The time we spent here was one of the most beautiful and peaceful moments. We watched a few raptors hunting their prey. We also heard a jungle cat, but couldn’t see it. We spent the next few hours watching birds, trying to follow their behavior. After we were satisfied with this, we decided to walk back through the road route. This was one of the mistakes we made, since we could’ve easily got down the same way we climbed up. We chose the road instead to avoid the steep descent. But the road is definitely longer, so we had to walk 8km till the junction where we get buses back to Chikkamagalur. On the way we found a temple – Seethalayyana giri, here the priest showed us a short cut and guided us to the road. We refilled our water supply and continued our walk. When we finally reached the junction, we were tired, we could’ve waited for the bus but we took an auto coming in that direction and reached Chikkamagalur.

We went to the bus stand to buy our return tickets after this. Without having much to do till our bus, which was at midnight, we decided to go to a small town called Hiremagalur (Elder daughter’s town) nearby. It is just 3kms away from Chikkamagalur, we boarded a bus going to Hasan and got down at the Hiremagalur stop. It was 8:30pm, and the town was already sleepy, there were hardly any activity. However we instantly took a liking to this small town due to the peace and calm we found there. We visited a Rama temple, which is what the place is mainly known for. Seems the temple is around thousand years old, of course it has been renovated now to make it look modern. The specialty of the temple is all the chants are uttered in Kannada instead of Sanskrit. As we walked out, we roamed the streets looking for some night birds, we did spot a few owls and bats. The best part of this place was the night sky was amazingly clear, we were able to see a lot of stars, star clusters, nebulae and even the Milky Way. It was a memorable sight. We then took an auto back to Chikkamagalur. Our bus back to Bangalore came at 11:30pm, we boarded it and immediately fell fast asleep, having the satisfaction of an eventful weekend!

Click Here to view all the photographs

Places Visited:

Chikkamagalur – just a base camp to see other nearby places

• How to reach – Easily accessible from Bangalore by bus or private vehicle. Buses take 5 hours and there are plenty of government buses, road is pretty decent
• Places to stay – Samrat Deluxe, Soundarya, many more
• Food – good hotels available – Kamat, soundarya (both pure veg), many more

Muthodi – Wildlife sanctuary and bird paradise

• How to reach – From chikkamagalur take a private bus that goes to Mallandur-Kolagame and get down at Muthodi. Bus starts at 7:30am and last bus back is at 5pm.
• Places to stay – There are forest guest houses and cottages, but need to book atleast 1 week in advance
• Food – Canteen serves decent food

Mullayanagiri – Tallest peak in Karnataka, moderate trek.

• How to reach – From chikkamagalur take a private bus that goes to Baba Budan Giri and get down at Sarpana Haadi, from here it is a moderate trek for 3 ½ Kms to the peak. This is one of the routes, the other route is by road (no buses though, only private vehicles) through Seethalayyana giri, this reaches till the top.
• Places to stay – None
• Food – There is no food available on the peak, should carry food and water

Hiremagalur – Small town having a Rama temple

• How to reach – by bus or auto from Chikkamagalur, 3 kms on route to Hassan
• Places to stay – No hotels, if you know a local, then they might let you stay with them!
• Food – no restaurants noticed

A distant dream [by Ratheesh]

“Dad, Can I go to the excursion next week?” Shreya asked while Akhil was still sitting in his bed with his laptop. He was staring at the screen with a blank look on his face. His face showed signs of exhaustion after the previous night’s marathon web meeting he attended with his peers. “Dad?” Shreya queried. “Yes, go, go, I am fine” Akhil responded finally. Many thoughts ran through Akhil’s mind while Shreya, his daughter ran away from the room.

Akhil is a senior manager with another not-so-heard-of software company based in Bangalore. And today, was not just another day for him. He had to start the process of choosing the employees he had to lay off as a result of the companies decision to do some cost cutting. And he had just three days to do that.

An urgent meeting was held the previous night presided by the company’s CEO and many others from the board. Akhil and others did not get to say too much, they were just the audience and future pawns. They were being dragged into a cruel game. A kind of game whose tagline reads ‘Either kill, or die’. Although the exact words were never used, it was clear to Akhil that if he did not choose to send off a few employees and participated in the game, he would be on the receiving end of it.

The company, like many others always claimed of success and popularity all the while. The products being made were mediocre, and Akhil always knew that, but in those situations too, he had to play the game of presenting a pretty picture to the employees. So as always, there were claims of huge customer satisfaction, major deals, so on and so forth. But now this. ‘If we are so well off why should we stoop so low to send a handful of employees away … and without dignity’, he thought.

“This is India Damn-it. We are an emotional lot. They can’t do this to my employees, they will be heart-broken” Akhil told his wife Sneha. “Why don’t you do something about it? You are a manager and all” She responded with the naivity of the school teacher that she was. Akhil had thought about it. What could he do about it? He was clearly asked not to discuss this with any employees. Infact one of the persons on the list was his peer who was not invited to yesterday’s meeting. He was to quickly come up with a list of names merely based on what projects they were working on. It was not based on talent, potential, any of that.

Some of the employees were below par, and Akhil knew that. ‘But still? How can you ask someone to just go away one day. After all the effort they had put in for this company. Agreed, they are just other human beings, living careless lives, marrying, having kids, watching movies, taking loans, and getting paid for their work. But were they not human beings? Wouldn’t this be traumatic?’ Akhil thought. ‘How would they react? What about their wife and kids, or their parents? You are hurting a lot of people’ Akhil could not stop worrying.

But did Akhil have a choice? He was just doing his job. And he needed his job. His status. His car. His posh home. Also he was beyond an age where he can attend interviews and wait in queues for jobs. ‘I shall probably send off some freshers’ he thought. ‘But what about their confidence, they would be shattered. Shit! my company sucks. It literally sucks the living blood out of human beings’

As Akhil entered his room, he could feel a deathly silence around the office. News must have spread. There were friend circles that cut across managers and other employees. ‘Someone must have leaked the news’ he thought. Akhil was always the diplomatic one. He never mixed friendship with work. And now he hated himself for that. Somehow, he felt people would think he is an asshole now. The ones who were humane and friendly would get away with lesser curses.

As Akhil stared at the list of employees he had chosen, many thoughts crossed his mind. He had chosen 5 veterans and 3 freshers. He had worked with all of them. All of these folks will be called to a meeting and just asked to pack their bags and leave. They will not be given a chance to say anything. Adding to the insult, they will be escorted by security personnel, lest they do any verbal or physical damage. They will not be allowed to have a cubicle chat with anyone before leaving. ‘How shameful’ he thought.

‘No, I cannot let this happen. I cannot let some power-and-money hungry, morally deprived people sitting in comfortable chairs insult my people’ Akhil thought. He sat up and typed a mail and sent it across. Later during the day he spent his day smiling at all his colleagues and went home.

The mail he sent to the V.P and Director read:
“After working for this company for five fruitful years, I have decided to let myself go. During all these years, I always thought I was doing the right thing. But as the company has decided to go on an all out low in morals, I decide to bail out and live like a human being. You might not immediately understand my harsh decision, but you will, if you turn around and smile at your colleague and appreciate him/her for the simple human being that they are”

Akhil lives, only in my imaginary, ideal world. How much I wish there were managers like Akhil, who would make me really proud to be a human being.

– Ratheesh Pisharody

The planet needs an euthanasia [by Ratheesh]

That’s it! I am done. Go ahead and start destructing everything. All of you. Just go get all the weapons you can collect and start lynching this planet to death. I will not stop you, I will not come in the way. And I shall not distract you while you do it. I shall just sit and watch the whole thing peacefully. Once you are done, just let me know.

What are you waiting for? Ideas? From me? Sure, here are some.

Purchase the best electrical saw you can buy and start with your garden. Cut off all the plants at the stem. If you have got the time, uproot them. So that they do not come up again and invite those butterflies. Also, buy some cement and plaster the entire garden. No more mud and dust entering your sweet little home.

If you are done with that, move on to your street and cut down all those plants and trees in your street. No more noisy little bastards called birds disturbing your cricket matches. Burn the stem of those trees to be double sure. Create some panic and get together with others in your street, and cut all trees in your area. Tell everyone trees are dangerous and their children can get hurt when branches fall on them.

Now mobilise a mob and move towards the parks and forests and do the same. Do not let the momentum die down. Provide food and water to anyone who volunteers for such a cause. Do not stop till each and every tree in this city is destroyed.

Well, that was a good start. Now lets take care of all the vermin. Let’s start with dogs. You will need to buy some guns for this. If that is not easy, buy some poison. Mix the poison with rice, biscuits and/or milk and invite all the dogs in your street to your gate. Feed them this magical potion and release them from their lives. Again, plan to meet up with your friends throughout the city and ask them to do it too. I am sure one too many will be your willing partner. Do not stop at street dogs, conspire and do this to pet dogs too.

And why stop at dogs ( I said vermin right, anything other than human beings are vermin ). Do the same to cats, crows, squirrels, snakes, cows, horses, donkeys, pigs, rats, anything that is not human. Please take enough care not to harm humans lest you be called inhumane.

Now that all the trees are gone, and all the vermin have been shown their place, lets do some more damage. Pick up your car or bike or anything that you have that guzzles fuel. Fill it up with fuel and ride around the city day and night. If you can do it, just go for a hell of a long ride. If that does not sound practical, just switch it on and leave it day and night. Remember to fuel it up regularly. Get many people to do this along with you simultaneously. Do not forget, taking a flight is cheaper these days, so think about that. That should ensure we have exhausted all fossil fuels. That should also ensure the heating up of our planet real quick.

It would be really nice if you could also switch on all the lights in your homes and offices and leave it that way. Leave those electrical gadgets running too. Forever. Oh come on, you can do it. You have always done it, I am only asking you to do it in an organized way.

While you are on the bike or in that car, do not forget to incessantly honk your way through traffic. Also, if possible create some additional noise with the loudspeakers on your phone or switch on that radio. If many of you do it, there would be enough noise around to send those last two or three birds running for their lives (only to be shot down by one of your friends).

I actually erred when I said ‘human’. I should have told, ‘not to harm the urban-human’. We do not care about the rural ones, or the tribals, do we? So lets continue. Go buy all the expensive things you can buy (including vegetables) from all the corporates you can find. Fill up their coffers with your money. Let that poor farmer or tribal die. Why do we need them anyway?

Ah! Good job! Please do remember this. Do it together. All at once. I am sure it is going to be painless to mother earth if you do it together, and once and for all. Once you are done, some of us who go to bed crying about these oh-so-trivial problems can go on a vacation, without guilt or remorse.

Our planet needs a euthanasia … very soon.

Epilogue:

What bothers me today is the slow and painful death that our planet is going through. It is akin to someone who is my own, my blood, in death bed gasping for oxygen, pulling at the various wires inserted into her, screaming in pain and begging to be killed while a few hopeful doctors keep her alive. And that is the pain I do not want to see my mother go through. Hence my above mention suggestion, to end it all, with mercy. But remember, you, human might have the sword in your hand today, but you are by no means masters of this universe. The planet shall redeem itself, like it has always done, millions of years before you, and millions of years after you are gone.

- Ratheesh