home sweet home....great dharshan and delicious laddus

Last week was some free time from the hectic schedule of the B School assignments and presentations. I had gone home for 5 days. After couple of weeks of mid term evaluations, assignments and presentations it was a well deserved break.

I was fast asleep on the train when the great smell of Koovam River got me back to my senses and welcomed me to Chennai. When I reached home there were steaming idly floating in sambar waiting for me. Those 5 days at home eating mom’s food was the best part of the whole stay. Here in hostel after having rotis that are nothing but a miniature version of MRF tire, some yellow semi solid thing that they term as dal and mixture of some mashed vegetable called sabji moms food was heaven. Though the dishes made my mom are always great, this time it was even more special.

I also happened to go to Thirupathi. I have been planning to go to Thirupathy for the last 5 years but some how or the other I wasn’t able to make it. Generally they say that you can get a glimpse of the Venki only when he calls you, I guess that’s true coz I have been planning a great deal over the last 5 years but wasn’t able to make it. Having waited for 5years I enjoyed great Dharshan, was standing near the God for nearly one and a half minutes. People who have gone to the temple will be really jealous of this coz they allow you to stand there for hardly 10 secs. But know what if you use the right technique and push the right thing at the right place you can also make it. There are 2 things famous about Thirupathi one is of course Lord Venki and the laddu. Believe it they have a patent for those laddus. I happened to get a better deal on laddus also, got 2 extra laddus.

Having come back to college the assignments have again started, have 4 of them waiting to be completed in the next 3 days. Probably last week was the most memorable week of this semester, will have to wait for a while now before I can go back to Chennai meet my sister, parents and friends.

RJ

NDTV poll and BIG B

Today I was going through the results of a poll conducted by NDTV. As India celebrates its 60th year of Independence, NDTV conducted a poll to identify the icons, events and landmarks that have preoccupied Indians.

http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20070022301

The results of the poll on India’s Greatest Icon caught my attention more than any other category that they had.

I wasn’t surprised but shocked to see the name of Amitabh Bachchan in that list of icons. I wasn’t surprised because he is a household name and that he is known to everyone in the country. I was surprised to see his name there along side the others in the category simply because I feel you cannot compare him with the likes of Mother Teresa, JRD Tata, Narayan Murthy or Indira Gandhi.

I know him as someone who ruled the bollywood in his days and off late one who has been endorsing products ranging from banks to paints, chocolates to washing powder. More recently as one who is trying to project himself as an actor farmer or a framer actor or whatever.

All this while if I had been sounding as someone who hates Big B please correct yourself. I love him on screen for all the role he does and for the way he came back strong after the debacle of his ABC Corp but I think he simply is not that big to get his name listed alongside others in that list.

Big B in that list means he has taken away a position that could have been filled by Dr.A.P.J. Abdul Kalam (he needs no introduction for all the things that he has done for India) or P.V. Narasimha Rao one who led one of the most important administrations in India's modern history overseeing a major economic transformation and several incidents affecting national security. Or one that could have been taken by Atal Bihari Vajpayee ji who when he was a PM gave a new definition and Attitude for India. May be even our current PM not for his stint as a PM but for his great work as a Finance Minister. I would have also liked to see the name of Dhirubhai Ambani and many more who have contributed a lot to India rather than just act and endorse products.

Anyways these were just my thoughts and hope all the people who voted for him think about this.

RJ.

Bitten by the AD BUG

Over the last week or so we (me and 4 more guys in my group) have been working on a presentation for the marketing communications class. The assignment was to conceptualize a new product for a market launch and build the whole communication strategy for it.

Having worked on it and after a good presentation yesterday I think I enjoyed every part of the brain storming sessions we had. It was good feeling working on the advertisement part, designing them and planning the media campaign. Having been through this small exercise I liked them and this has developed a liking within me for the ad industry. I would want to associate myself with an ad agency sometime in future if there is an opportunity.

May be it’s the product that we decided upon that actually made myself get involved with the whole exercise. Guess what the product is “chocolate filled with cocktail”.

I have liked the subject right from the first day. Now I have started looking deep into the message of any advertisement that I come across. May be everyone does that unknowingly but now I am more conscious about it. Guess this will make me a hard nut for the marketers to crack :)

RJ

Indian Inc Glowing

If you are reading any business news paper or business magazine regularly of late, one word that props up more than any other is PROFIT. Almost all the Indian companies have been reporting profits this quarter and in the last couple of years. This reiterates the belief that Indian Inc. is shining.

This is probably the best time to be in the country as there is a huge economic boom and burgeon of industries. This fairy tale is not restricted to the IT sector and other sunrise sectors. Even traditional sectors like manufacturing have been doing well over the last couple of years. There is enormous amount of opportunity for the people today. Gone are those days when one needs to be an engineer or doctor to earn a good living.

Another phenomenon of this growth is the frequency with which Indian companies are going on a merger and acquisition spree. Almost every day you see an Indian company bidding for companies in U.S and Europe. Almost all the top global brands have entered the Indian market and the others who haven’t so far are charting their plans to.

As I have already said this is the best time to be in India. This growth is good news especially for guys like me who are into their final year of MBA and counting the days before the campus placements start.

Hope this fairy tale continues for some time to come.

RJ

India Shining

India’s victory over England has come in at the right time for both the team and the crazy cricket loving nation as a whole. It’s said that cricket is a religion in India but I guess that’s an understatement, it’s the way of life for most of the population here; it’s the air they breathe. After the debacle in the world cup the fans needed a miracle to happen to get them back to their senses and that’s exactly what happened yesterday. Away victories are precious commodity for the Indian cricket (even though they have been wining matches more frequently of late).

Indians needed to play good all-round cricket and they needed some amount of luck to be on their side. They got both. Gods must have felt the same and they came to the respite of India in the previous test by showering rain on the fifth day to help India draw the match. In this test they helped us by being on our side during the toss.

But don’t take away the credit from the game they played. It was heartening to see every member of the TEAM contributing to this victory. Be it the solid stand from the openers in first innings or the glow of the glorious underperforming middle order it was all there. The bowlers contributed a major part in this victory led by Zaheer Khan. Zaheer bowled with immaculate precision in both the innings and he was well supported by both Kumble and Singh. The two wickets of Singh in the second innings were beauty. The most important thing we played like a TEAM. I wouldn’t be exaggerating if I say “Gone are those days that the match was won by primarily the contribution of either Kumble, Sachin or Dravid “.

Indians have been winning test matches oversees more frequently now, only that the consistency is missing. Be it in South Africa, West Indies or Australia they had the upper hand in the series but couldn’t go on to win them. Hope they don’t repeat that again and come out and win this series. I like any other cricket crazy fan will be praying for it, but will have to wait for another 15 days to see if our prayers come thro’.

RJ

Jelly beans and the english media......

After India’s thumping victory yesterday, as an enthusiastic Indian fan I was browsing through some of the articles of the British media to read their comments on the match. Though every other site was praising India for their win there was one thing that caught the limelight in every one of them. It’s something totally irrelevant to cricket that’s the JELLY BEAN.

I have always thought that the English media was one of the most hyped ones. After reading those articles yesterday it just reiterated my view on them. It’s amazing to know how they can hype up a simple (rather silly in this case) issue out of proportion. The media conference after the match was filled with questions about the jelly bean rather than cricket.

Guess had Beckham been from any other part of the world he would not have been as popular as he is now. No I am not trying to pull down his capabilities but it’s just that the English media played a HUGE part creating a BRAND BECKHAM. Freddie was all over the place in the media after their ashes victory couple of years back. Images of him sneezing and coughing would make it to the 1^st page for almost 6 months after their ashes victory.

Anyways let me not be like one of them trying to take the limelight away from India, hail India for one of their rare victories in England. Come on India go and get the series.

my first scribble

The idea of scribbling my thoughts through a blog arose some 2 years back and I did write couple of blogs then but never continued from there on. It was primarily due to 2 reasons

1) I should confess that I am kind of lazy to sit down and write a blog now and then.

2) Every other blog article that I read was lengthy that would run in for atleast couple of pages and I aint good at writing for pages together.

But now I have decided to start blogging again ( if I can consider those 2 stupid blogs I wrote some time back ).

This interest to blog again was kindled primarily by 2 factors

1) Now in a B school I spend most of my time in front of my laptop and I wish to do something meaningful other than simply play games in it and try to search over google to do some ctrl C and ctrl V for my assignments.

2) After going through my friend Giri’s blog (http://grikboy.blogspot.com/) I realized that blogs need not be lengthy. They can be short and still be sweet. Each of his blogs are not more than 1000 words but they are still good and they drive a good number of hits every day.

Giri if at all I continue to scribble for some time it is because of you dude, you are my inspiration for this. Thanks to you and hope you don’t are not furious at me for mentioning your name and the blog address here.

Hope I continue blogging at least till the end of my stint here in college J