Hyderabad Highs !

Hey all,

Its been sometime since i've updated my blog now - * now isn't this becoming a tad boring * starting every article saying its been quite a while and giving some excuses for the same. I for one person hate excuses and wonder why people simply cannot accept a failure or for not having done something. I think its pretty neat and simple unless one has a heavy Ego attached in his attitude , why do majority of the junta have to give lame excuses for even little and trivial issues. Anyways am no psychologist to analyse this nor have I done any particular teeny weeny bit of research to comment more on this.

Since i don't have anything particular thing in mind now, i'll just put a pot-pourri of sorts :

Life to say has become pretty much hectic these days with work being strenuous to say the least.And the lesser said about it the better it is for Me and for You as a reader as well, after all who'd wanna read about all the cribs that'll come out if I were to describe it. Its such an irony that there was a phase in my career where i'd not have any work to do in office while I was in Chennai and all i'd do the whole day was read articles from my firm's Intranet page and do some vetti chatting here and there with junta in Office. But life has just changed quite a bit actually for Me, I laugh back at people who called or better christened me as Vetti and say i've become a hard working guy from hardly working :p

I've not seen that many movies these days either and especially tamil movies. I can't remember the last time when i watched a tamil movie, guess it was late dec or early Jan when i went for Kanda naal mudhal. I think the quality of tamil movies has lessened a lot and from being a benchmark to measure the quality of movies in south or rather India it has now let itself slip into a deep hole. Another reason for me not watching tamil movies is the limited access that i have to for them here in Hyd, no tamil movies release in theatres and almost all of them are released as dubbed versions.

I've been in a total spending spree in an effort to furnish my place and improve my standard of living which was next to non-existent since i came to Hyd. My list of purchases in the last coupla months include a WiFi router, a computer table and a revolving chair , a bean bag and rented a couple of cots. I've asked my dad to send another cot from Chennai which i expect to arrive in a couple of days. And am now a proud owner of a Burgundy Bean Bag and its now my latest love. Now talking of my loves theres been quite a long chain of them and its only proved the fact that nothing is permanent but for change. Ok let me list my loves for the past two yrs :D

From Pc - Mobile phone - Digicam - Ipod - Laptop - my current love being Bean Bag and for those who wonder isn't there a female with whom this guy has been or is in love with i'd say Grrrrrrrrr..... !

Finally found time today to see a couple of movies and so caught up with 50 first dates in the morning and one lousy movie called "Just My Luck" in the afternoon and seeing "Italian Job" while penning this article.

One thing i'd wanna comment upon is the traffic sense or the lack of it of people in Hyderabad. Having come here from Chennai which is known for its notorious auto drivers and schumi type MTC bus drivers i thought i'd have some respite in Hyd. But what turned out was exactly the opposite, people here i should say drive like crazy and when i mean crazy i don't mean they drive fast instead they drive as though the vehicle they drive is not owned by them and they don't care a damn about the condition of the car or the other ones on road. Crossing here is an extreme pain but i've somehow mastered the art or atleast close to doing it. All you have to do is close your eyes and come what may, just keep crossing the road. Am sure you escape and cross the road unhurt, but once you are that extra cautious guy who wants to play it safe, am sure you'd be the victim at the end of the day. This is one city where i feel the good roads are a disadvantage, bad drivers have the comfort of speeing without giving a shit about their style of driving. Traffic policemen are next to non-existent or even if they are, they are busy discussing the latest stunts by Balaya in his latest flick. Huh and now when i talk of balaya i can't resist comparing him to our very own kaptain, so you'd now be able to imagine. If Kaptain can and has shot every terrorist that ever existed in Pakistan then balaya can shoot an object ( ie A plane or a helicofter or even a UFO ) which is flying some trillion miles from ground.

Didn't booze much for the past month or so, but been having nice sessions offlate which are a welcome break. Food habit has become totally erratic and i've developed this habit of skipping breakfasts these days and only have food twice a day. And the lunch that I have in office is stale and totally good-for-nothing. The only saving grace is the coupla Phulka's or Parantha's in night, no wonder i've lost 7 kgs since i came to Hyd. I hope i don't lose more else i'll have to work all over on my wardrobe again.

Huh having started writing this article not knowing what am gonna write, i think i've written my share for this *can call it EDITION*. I'd like to end this one by giving a mathematical equation which I read recently in Economist. A researcher called Mr Gelade from CASS B_School in Uk has derived an equation for assessing the chances of a team winning football world cups, however there are certain obvious flaws which even a football noob like me can figure straight away. Brazil is ranked 18th in this list should one do the calculation:

((111xP) + (1.2xN) + (5.8xE) + (188xW) - (1.2xWxE) - 68) - 881

the number of men who play football regularly (P)
the number of years the country has been a member of FIFA (N)
wealth (W)
the number of internationals who play abroad (E) and climate.

The numbers that multiply each of these factors are weights which only he knows how he derived. For all you footie freaks, this one makes a good case study.

Toodles for now and adios till my next one comes.
Current Mood:Arghhhhhh
Current Song : Yesterday my troubles seemed so far away ...

Editor's Round Table

Today was the day when I for the first time went to the campus of ISB. For the past couple of years I've heard and read quite a bit about the facilities and infrastructure that the campus has and as always there is nothing like seeing and experiencing it in real. I must admit that it has an awesome campus and gives the real feel and motivation once you are in there to achieve greater things in life. I never knew till date that the looks and atmosphere of a place could have such a tremendous effect on ones mental psyche. The campus I heard is about 200+ acres and is situated right opposite Infosys and besides Microsoft and located in one of the peaceful and less noisy outskirt of the city.

Net net let me return to the subject matter of what I am supposed to write about, I'd primarily been to the campus to attend a Editor's Round table which had eminent who's who from the field of journalism and editing. Before I spell out who were there in the panel, who moderated the discussion and who were the audience let me tell you guys what the topic was all about. The topic that was discussed was "Is the lack of political involvement amongst the youth a threat to economic growth? " . Now I guess this topic of discussion is a straight aftermath effect of the movie "Rang De Basanti" or a later after shock of "Yuva" 'cos I don't think anyone really thought about youth being a part of politics and striving to make a change if not for these two movies. There could be other petty teeny weent reasons but the ones which are obvious and are the real cause are these movies .

Now the group was moderated by Mudit Kapoor who is a PhD, Economics, University of Maryland at College Park and the panel included the following speakers. Ms.Kaveree Bamzai - Exec Editor of India Today , Mr.Kumar Ketkar - Chief Editor of Loksatta , Mr.CRL Narasimhan - Associate Editor of The Hindu , Mr.Alam Srinivas - Business Editor of Outlook and two students from ISB which included Mr.Ali M Potia and Ms.Disha Rustogi. The audience for this round table included current students from ISB and working junta like me who didn't want to aimlessly spend a Saturday afternoon either sleeping or watching some goddamn sports channel.

*Vicky pats himself on the back * - 'Cos he's managed to remember the names correctly !

The round table happened in this way where every speaker was allowed to express his/her opinion on the topic for 12-15 Mins approx and then the Moderator doing a pot pourri of the views from the speakers and not to forget add his own thoughts too and then this being followed by the Q&A session. Am not going to express my learning's from the session instead I'd reflect my thoughts on how effective these kind of sessions turn out to be and does it real effect even a minor change in the thought process or the final outcome . To be very honest I don't think it does or for that matter any talk show in NDTV/CNN IBN/ any such news channel does. Now am asking myself why do you think so and what is the real objective behind holding such a forum and discussing a topic does.

1) - * Is it just to showcase and improve upon one's oratorical skills ?
2) - * Is it to find a real time solution to whatever be the topic of discussion be ?

If the answer is Yes for question#1 then I'd say great job done, instead if the answer for question#2 is Yes I'm sorry to say none of the aforementioned type of forums serve the intended purpose. I agree its next to impossible to arrive at a solution within such a span of time especially with people who have divergent viewpoints. Then why the heck conduct it in the first place ? I know its tough to arrive at a solution to what India's approach towards Pakistan be in a discussion like this , but the info discussed and pros & cons analyzed can at least be put to some practical use which I don't think is quite happening . I agree everyone has time constraints but I've seen it hazaar times in The Big Fight where the argument seemed to heat up and one party trying to put across his point and exactly tell why the other party is wrong when the moderator would say * Its time for a commercial break and when we come back we would discuss blah blah blah * where the blah blah blah would be to discuss the topic from a totally different angle. Now whatever happened to what was discussed,

Did one speaker convince the other ? - No
Did the audience get a clear picture of either sides viewpoints ? - No
Was a solution or at least a remote one achieved ? - No

One of the two good things about the whole show is that audience are confused about the whole topic and that the news channel was able to fill up its time slot and get some commercial value. At the end of it the ones who has a viewpoint remain the same with some additional arbit funda about the divergent side which really does not have much value at the end of the whole show.
Now just to emphasize on how exactly it is at the end of the time spent n discussing is like me having told my viewpoint now not saying the solution to what is to be done for it to be corrected which is precisely what I am going to do :D !~!

As they say there are lots of people with Opinions but how many of them are knowledgeable ..!

Adios !

Ps:These are truly my own thoughts and there is every chance I might not be right but thought I'd pen down whatever thought straight out of my heart as well as head.