Shift to wordpress

I have decided to shift my blog to wordpress. Here is the new link.
http://maxmayur.wordpress.com

Although I will be visiting here and will be posting some interesting stuff every now and then. I request my readers(?) to find me on the new link. This link is going to be phased out.

Take Care!

I Fear

I read a mail few moments back which talked about fears, many of them. It put me into a fearful position. :-P

Do I fear any one? or any thing? I don’t know. I’m yet to discover. But then if you don’t have any work in office, on one such days you can always roll your head hear and there, think stupidly and write such post. So read below few things people fear and my arguments with myself whether I should fear too or not. :)

• I fear god: But why should I? I don’t disrespect him, I don’t malign him. I’m not against his existence. I don’t debate with people about it. And I’m religious too. = I don’t fear god.
• I fear darkness: Do I? No I like it at night. It helps me sleep. Moreover I like horror movies.
• I fear my boss: :-D I feel like bursting into a laughter. There were times I used to hate my boss and wanted to dump him in a dungeon. I rather fear my boss’s stupidity.
• I fear death: Umm… again, why should I? Every one has to die, so will I. There is no reason to sheepishly say ‘I fear death’
• I fear failure: I could have said yes if some one asked this to me during my early days of engineering. But I always believe there is always a third way, your way. And believe me, if you fear failure, genuinely do so and never do anything in life. You will never fail.
• I fear ghosts: Bah! Show me a ghost first.
• I fear people, crowd: My suggestion, go and stay in the mountains. Help reduce the city crowd.
• I fear having a fear: Now thats a height. You don’t even know what to fear about. Great going!
• I fear love: Then I fear you.

Enough of fears. May be if I hear some more, I’ll update with y ‘expert’ comments.

Happy reading. Cheers!

Need advice?

Lot of people come to me for advice. They think I'm a 'gyani baba'' meaning a knowledgeable person. It really amuses me. I'm a guy with most ordinary record and absolutely mediocre intelligence. Dont believe? let me tell you who am I...

Through out my school life, I was an average student. I barely managed to feature in the ranks (only twice in numerous exams I appeared)

• Tried hard but couldn't get through in the Regional Engineering colleges. Although I was blessed to be a part of RKNEC civil branch.
• Managed to some how clear my engineering in 4 years.
• Failed in umpteen number of interviews before managing to crack CET and get through in MITSOM to complete my post graduation in marketing communications.
• Topped the college in only one of the possible 4 semesters.
• Changed 4 jobs in 3 years to move from junior to middle management.
• Started a business, booked profit and left it in midway.
• I'm earning more money than all my friends but lesser than all my colleague managers.

And I'm still not clear what I should be doing.

Despite all these facts and figures, I still think I can be a gyan guru.

Do you think you should come to me for advice? You are most welcome!

"sur with love" Jagjit Singh Live Concert

We went to the live concert of Ghazal Maestro Padma Bhushan Jagjit Singh, “sur with love” on sunday night (on 16 June 2008), the first live concert of my life. No there is nothing to laugh about. Now I have been a big spoilsport as far as the concerts are concerned. In the recent past, I have flunked quite a few of them. I tried for Pink Floyd in Mumbai, couldn’t get the ticket, tried for Parikrama, got the booking but couldn’t make it. Almost got the Dire Straits tickets, but this time he flunked. I finally managed this one and boy! what a concert this was.

“Sur with love”, as it was being called was staged at the plush Birla Matoshri Auditorium in Marine Drive, one of the posh locality in Mumbai (of course every one knows Marine Drive). Although I’m an ordinary fan of Jagjit Singh, I was surprised by the kind of audience they had for the show. The ever enterprising hostess Dolly Thakore mentioned that they had an audience ranging from 10 to 80 years. Whoa! quite a fan base Jagjit has, and rightly so. Excuse me for my audacity, but I think he has altogether a different genre of classical music. I’m not a classical fan but his silky voice leaves millions of listeners like me mesmerised. And Sunday was no different. So it started of with a relatively unheard ‘Kuchh na Kuchh to jaroor hona ha…’ ghazal and as usual ended with fast punjabi number ‘Dhai din na jawani nal chadhdi…’
In the process he sang ‘Hoshwalon ko…’, ‘Hothon Se chhu lo tum…’, ‘Hazaron Khwahishein aisi…’, ‘ Wo kaagaz ki kashti…’ amongst others.

Jagjit has been the famous, most loved and respected singer of the yester years. His silky voice and the sleek pronunciation of Urdu. Its more than commendable he draws such audience (BIrla Matoshri can accommodate over 1000 people, it was full well in advance). What should I say about him, I’m too small to comment on some one like him. We had this concert for close to 3 hours. But it felt like we could go on and on and on…

To end this post, I’m quoting 1 or 2 lines from his Ghazals.

“Mohabbat mein fark nahi hai jeene marne ka… Usi ko dekh kar jeete hai jis kaafir pe dum nikle. Hazaron khwahishein aisi ke har khwahish pe dum nikle”

“Muzko jonhone katl kiya hai, koi unhe batlaye naseeb… meri laash ke pehelu mein wo apna khanjar chhod gaye.”

Enjoy!

How am I feeling these days?

I came across this quote recently and was impressed. This how I’m feeling these days.

“Single minded but flexible, like a river forging its eternal route, I am dedicated to completions and natural conclusions. There is nothing that cannot be achieved. There is nothing that remains permanent. I keep on moving with love and purpose towards my destination. My resolve is firm, my aims are clear.”

Hmmm… May be I’m not that single minded, but I flow like a river. I’m dedicated to the completions I associate with work and the natural conclusions I associate with relationships. Impossible is nothing, it only needs the right effort at the right time backed by right intellect. Achieving the number one is possible, but being there forever is not. Nothing is permanent. You are challenged by the worlds fallacies every day and often you fall, fail to deceive. But I’m confident of my movement. There is only one direction I follow, forward! With conviction, purpose and agility. I know where I’m going. I believe I have reached there and am already thinking about my next quest. My resolve is firm, my aims are clear… so is life.

An interview with Google's Joe Kraus on How to Make the Web More Social

No, I have not taken this interview. Neither do Joe Kraus knows me personally. (but ah!, I would like to know him though.) I was just plain impressed by the way he gave an interview to Wharton. It pulled me to post it here. May be my readers (if at all...?) would like to read this.

If Wharton has an objection, they can very well rebuff me. I will remove it. Please feel free to contact. So here it is...
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Werbach: Hi, this is Kevin Werbach, professor at the Wharton school and organizer of the Supernova Conference. I'm speaking today with Joe Kraus, director of product management at Google and truth be told, a former high school mate of mine many years ago. So, good to talk to you Joe.

Kraus: Good talking to you. That was too long ago.

Werbach: It's kind of scary, isn't it?

Kraus: Yeah.

Werbach: So, you've done some interesting things with your career. You're one of the founders of Excite, the early web portal, and then started a company called Jot that was doing wikis and collaboration software, which got bought by Google. And then, to those of us on the outside, it seemed like you kind of disappeared into Google for a while and now you've come back out. So, tell us what you've been working on.

Kraus: For the last year I've been working Google's social initiatives, which are really kind of in a couple of main buckets. But, probably the largest one is the notion of, "How do you make the whole web social?"

So, the killer apps that have really worked on the web have always been about connecting people to one another. So, whether it is instant messaging and e-mail as communications to connect people to one another, whether it's photo-sharing as a way to connect people to one another through photos, or blogging as a way to connect people to one another through the words, people have always been social and the killer apps that have really succeeded on the web have always been social.

And really, the primary set of initiatives at Google that I work on are, "How do you make the whole web a more social place?" A lot of that is divided into a couple of buckets. One is this thing called OpenSocial, which we can talk more about. And another is a product which we've recently launched called Friend Connect. But, that's just the general rubric of how do you make the web a more social place.

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You can read the rest on the Wharton website by clicking here or on the title of this post.

Spain 4 Russia 1

I thoroughly enjoyed watching the Euro cup 2008 football match between Spain and Russia. Spain, who won 4-1 are not the strongest or the best known team, but certainly they entertain no less. I know some Spanish league teams, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Sevilla amongst others. But nothing more than that. And most of these teams are over shadowed by the foreign players. Although I never followed the Spanish league all that much, I had heard that the Spanish play very creative football. I found out that what I heard was true.

So that match was very racy , full of quick moves and counter attacks. Russians were the first to put their shot on target but some how Iker Casillas (plays for Real Madrid) parried that away. With string of attacks and counter attacks, finally Spain broke away. Fernando Torres (who plays for Liverpool, England) ran down the right flank and darted a through ball for David Villa (plays for Valencia). Villa perfectly timed his run and hammered a pile driver beyond the Russian custodian. Russians tried their luck too, hitting the post from an outcome of a free kick and then one of their players heading on the cross bar. In another counter attack from Spain, it was David Villa again, who out ran the Russian defense and slid a low ball into the net just before the half time, this time the provider was Andres Iniesta (Barcelona winger).

Russians, hurt by the second goal, came back strongly in the second half. But their constant push for a goal allowed plenty of space for the Spain forwards to fire their counter attacks. Finally, 15 min from time, one such suave move was rewarded when Cesc Fabregas (plays for Arsenal) ran down the right flank and delivered a cross in the center to be met by, who else but David Villa. He celebrated the hat trick and Spain were out of reach of the hapless Russians. They did pull one back from a diving header off the corner 4 min from time. But it wasn't enough. Cesc Fabregas, who set up Villa's hat trick goal was finally awarded for being a wonderful playmaker that he is. He scored with a thumping header in the dying minutes to signal a perfect opening for the El' dorados.

Cheers for Villa! Cheers for Spain!

Linkedin

I find this website Linkedin very funny to use. Last year, after being pressurized a lot by my peers, I decided to register and upload my profile onto it. It claims that it is a business networking site. But surprisingly there is nothing they do for networking. You create your profile and frantically start searching for people you know and add them in your network. Next, you can send them messages or ask them favors. They say it helps business grow But there is no tab on whether whatever information I write is true. You just need to believe the other person and continue.

How is it possible?

I'm allowed to enter any damn thing I want without any verification. I might say that I'm a CEO of XYZ limited and post myself there. What next? I have myself seen some of my moron colleagues writing their designations as "Manager"where as I doubt whether they know what the word manager means. I may be wrong, but I still believe in the old traditional way of networking, through exhibitions, seminars, Industry meets etc. I was talking to this guy, on of my prospects today who said "Mr. Pathak, for any business deal to happen, it requires two pwople to sit and talk eye to eye." I couldn't agree less. I may be wrong, who knows.

Linkedin folks are you reading this? I want explanation why is it good.

Sarkar Raj Review

"There is a thin line difference between loyalty of years and treachery."
"To kill some one is murder... to kill some one at the right time is RAAJNEETI."

Couldn't resist picking up some dialogues from the new movie, Sarkar Raj. So I'm back to movie reviews again. I saw this movie few days back and have been thinking about writing some thing about it. Sarkar Raj is a sequel to the earlier movie Sarkar, made by Ram Gopal Verma. With series of big flops and small disappointments, RGV come back to what he does best, portrayal of the malign side of politics and underworld. Although Sarkar Raj is not exactly a political film, nor is it a film based on underworld nor it is an action film. Its a mix of all of them.

The movie begins with Sarkar's (Subhash Nagre a.k.a. Amitabh Bachhan) birthday celebrations at the Nagre household amidst all the fanfare and usual meetings at the Sarkar office, held by Shankar Nagre (played by Abhishek) . (Reminds me of the Godfather I, RGV has tried hard to emulate, or better the shades of intensity and darkness.) So between all these visitors, they have a Lady CEO of a Shepperd power plant, Anita Ranjan (Played by Aishwarya) visiting them with a new proposal of setting up a plant at Thakerwadi (Nagre's Abode). With initial rejections and objections from Sarkar camp, they agree and decide to visit the place in order to convince the 40000 people dwelling in Thakerwadi of the benefits of the plant. But this also will mean their relocation and rehabilitation. This gives rise to bitter mud slinging political movement across Maharashtra and emergence of Sanjay Somji, a new leader of the common man. The movie manages to rivet you between Shankar and Anita's struggle for state's betterment through their dream power plant project and Somji's quest for political power. The political opportunist and businessmen are let loose to twitch already uneasy Sarkar camp in a bid to obliterate Shankar and his claim to fame. A bomb blows Shankar's 2 months pregnant wife away right at their heart and Shankar falters in a blink and you miss situation. This leads to the old faithful Chander, defecting.

The Sarkar camp loses too much in the fierce battle more for survival than for supremacy. But in the end all that begins well also ends well, although not that much. The movie is more to do with the new ideologies being forced in the old way of running a family business, or whatever they call it. It features exceptional performances from Amitabh Bachhan, Govind Namdeo (as Hasan Kazi), Upendra Limaye (as Kantilal Vora) and Dilip Prabhawalkar in a short but important role of 'Ravji.' Aishwarya has come off as a big surprise for me too. Abhishek however is shade behind the lines. He lacks the convictions he showed in Yuva (by far his best performance till date) or Guru. Overall no one from the cast and crew disappoints. Backed by excellent back ground score and stupendous cinematography, Sarkar Raj comes out as a dark, tragic but a sterling power packed movie.

I would recommend "should watch" and give 4 stars! ****

Busy with raining work!

My love for rains and their love for me goes back a long way. I remember my school days when I used to go to trotting on a bicycle... carrying a raincoat in a different bag. However I never wore it, or rather, got a chance to wear it. Me and the rains always had this challenging wars between us. He would go out of the way to disrupt my days, my cricket matches, my kite flying, my school and at times, even during my exams. I always returned the favor back by not fearing him.

My mother says she has aptly named me. "Mayur." It means peacock. A peacock is a rain bird. It senses rains and enjoys getting wet in the downpour. I'm no less at it as well. Rather I attract rain. Even if I'm traveling in my car, it will rain the heaviest when I'm getting out and rushing to the door. Its fun to compete, till the time when he decides to give up and retreats into his dark dungeons behind those white clouds by end of september, only to come back again next year in June.

Anyway, days have been extremely busy lately. I don't get frequent time to come back here and pour my thought out. Hopefully I will be regular this week. By the way I saw Sarkar Raj this weekend. I'll come up with the review as next post.

First drop of the rains.

It rained in Mumbai last night. What a welcome relief it was. It just happened that me and my wife were returning from our office, as usual late. I could sense the weight in the air even from inside of my car. I said to her, "do you think it will rain?" She said, " If your heart feels so... it will" Well, an expert that she is in answering, it took my heart6 out of the window, waving in the air, weaving into the rain drops, swinging to the tunes of the whistling woods and I almost bumped into the truck in front of me.

Well, life's realities are some times so stark that I feel like never living in the real world. So there we were, back to our flat after the hard day's work. And there were so many things to do... put the garbage out, wash vegetables so that my wife could cook them, change clothes, look at where the stock market ended, look at the cricket news, and... oh no! I forgot to bring her medicines again. She would kill me if I told her. So i said, "honey, I'm going out to buy some mineral water. Will be back in 15 mins."

Thankfully the chemist is just a few blocks away. So I could afford to take a stroll down hill and still make it home in time. As soon as I stepped out, as if he was waiting for me to splash the colours on my face. It rained! It actually started raining!!! I couldn't believe my eyes, and ears ans feelings. Oh how much I love rains. I could hear my Motorola E6i ringing in the back ground, must be my wife I thought. She is worried, I will get wet and fall sick. I'm worried too... does she know the rain has come to meet me? to seduce me and take me with her? I was completely lost in the drops falling continuously on my cheeks, my head, hair dripping from my palms and wetting me inside out. I kept walking, splashing water through the pathway in our streets. I saw children running out of their homes, mothers chasing them. I saw teens playing football in the neighborhood. I saw some unenthusiastic nerds taking shelter wherever they could. I saw me. ..myself in every drop that fell. I was enriched.

I heard the Motorola ringing again for the third time. Despite soaking it was still working well, good technology they make these days. It was my wife again. I said I have taken shelter in the chemist shop. But will be back soon. I did so, purchased the medicine and went back home.

"Its been almost an hour. Where have you been?" My wife asked. "On a date" I said, "with you!" and I walked straight in the bathroom.

Chetan Bhagat

Hey,

What a pleasure in telling you readers that we are going to have Chetan Bhagat on CE. Can't believe it myself. Well but thats true. And for people like me and Kaustubh, who have taken interviews with the big wigs of the tech world, I think this was a big deal :-)

But then, this is a bigggggggggggg achievement for us. I feel reveled after getting Kawasaki on the home page.

Watch out for the new post!

God is every where!

A small boy once approached his slightly older sister with a question about god. "Sister, can anybody ever really see God?" he asked.

Busy with other things, Sister curtly replied: "No, of course not silly. God is so far up in heaven that nobody can see him."

Time passed, but his question still lingered so he approached his mom: "Mom, can anybody ever really see God?" "No, not really," she gently said. "God is a spirit and he dwells in our hearts, but we can never really see Him."

Somewhat satisfied but still wondering, the youngster went on his way. Not long afterwards, his saintly old grandfather took the little boy on a fishing trip.

They were having a great time together. The sun was beginning to set with unusual splendor and the grandfather stared silently at the exquisite beauty unfolding before them.

On seeing the face of his grandfather reflecting such deep
peace and contentment, the little boy thought for a moment and finally spoke hesitatingly:

"Granddad, I--I-- wasn't going to ask anybody else, but I wonder if you can tell me the answer to something I've been wondering about a long time. Can anybody - can anybody ever really see God?".

The old man did not even turn his head. A long moment slipped by before he finally answered. "Son," he quietly said. "It's getting dark. So I can't see anything else... but GOD"

Politeness

Its been long that I tested my writing abilities, so here is the first one in the many stories that I may write in near future. I have this unruly feeling that you get what you give, so I'm narrating you a true story happened with me a couple of years ago.

I walked with a friend to the ticket window of the suburban train the other night, and he bought a pair, thanking the owner politely. The owner, however, did not even acknowledge it.

"A sullen fellow, isn't he?" I commented as we walked away.

"Oh, he's that way every night," shrugged my friend.

"Then why do you continue being so polite to him?" I asked.

And my friend replied, "Why should I let him determine how I'm going to act?"

My new car

We recently booked a vehicle, a Suzuki Wagon R. I had been thinking about this vehicle for a long time now. Finally with my marriage, I got a chance to get it. (Psst, I’ll tell you, getting married is not all that costly affair. All the cash I received in my wedding has significantly contributed to my heavy expenses, Wagon R being one of the.) So there it is, I landed in Mumbai from Shimla, en route Delhi on 3^rd. The first thing that my wife asked was a car, and my condition was like… WHAAATTTTTTTT! Chill, I’m a rich guy. ;-) So we walked in to this showroom nearby our house, got the deal finalized, worked out the down payment and decided to book it… then and there.

Well it started off with us trying to know how much are the banks gonna suck out of us. And we decided that the showroom was providing the best rate to us and we will go with it. But then the people who have absolutely nothing to do with you and your wishes are the ones who fancy giving advices the most. It almost led to a big fight with my wife. Thankfully a cool headed guy that I am, I decided to overturn. Most of these guys argued that the interest rates we were paying were phenomenally high. However the idiots didn’t know that for a poor guy like me, who can pay the lowest possible down payment actually couldn’t afford any thing else. When you say that the interest is cyclic, it means lesser the loan amount, lesser will be the rate of interest. It took lot of patience for me to make my wife understand that. Anyway, it wasn’t over there. The banks are after all banks. Even if there is a cut throat competition, they will still take there leisurely time to process your application. The best part was, we applied for a loan in a public bank. Wallah!

I don’t understand, what difference does it make if you submit a telephone bill instead of an electric bill for an address proof? And who uses a ration card these days? Interestingly, the one I had seen in my home (parents) was a hand written card with names of family members written at the back page. Any guy could easily add one or two of them in the same card. It is very surprising and stupid. Never mind. The condition right now it, I’m still waiting for my car to come. The loan took almost 2 weeks to get through, and not the showroom and RTO combine are eating my remaining time.

Never knew buying a car would be such a time wasting exercise.

Long time

Its been long time since I wrote here last. In fact exactly an year after. Hmmm, its been very busy lately. Switching jobs, Crazy Engineers, Hurix, Euclid, Datamatics, Marriage, Honeymoon.... lot of things. But I promise to be regular now, would like to add at least a post every day. Lets see how much do I succeed.

Max is back!