Monday, January 30, 2006

Policies and Management

I was away for the weekend and when on Monday I checked for any updates on Myself Speaking™, there was none. I do not blame either of my group members as one of them would have been busy in the cricket matches and the other in making academic progress with the Compilers course. But the readers suffering at our cost is not very nice.

While publishing a post, the time I reach the topic which I initially had in my mind, it already is late since the post has become too long to exceed for anybody to read. So, I bring a recent incident to your attention which I had wanted to publish for a sometime now.

I was in the process of filling a form for my application to an institute. For that I required the signatures of my Head of Department (HOD). So, I reached at his office with some answers ready to be blabbered regarding

1. Why I required his signatures?
2. Why anybody else could not have done the job and I had no choice but disturbing him?
3. Which department I belonged to?
4. Why should he sign when he does not even recognize me being in his department?

And so on … When I reached his office, he a in the balcony with a cup of tea in one hand and a cigarette in the other. He expressed his helplessness to sign in that position and asked me to wait a while. When he finished his above mentioned bodily needs, he quickly called me and signed with only a single question, what are you doing? I told him about the institute I am applying for and that was all.

Meanwhile another professor (prof) had com for a signature. The prof in one go started telling what the signature was all about and that it was for the project he had discussed earlier and who are the other people involved. The HOD stopped him and just asked where he had to sign. After that he revealed his philosophy that he does not mind signing on a paper which already has a faculty member’s sign.

That was inspiring. For someone like me who wants to do his MBA and become a manager, that was the first lesson. Not that you should sign on every other paper but that the screening process for signature (or for that matter any other work) should involve one’s experience and should not be prolonged to an extent that the documents become irrelevant or the people get afraid of the process which would be involved. Managers should evolve policies based on what they learn and follow them for everyone’s benefits.

Saturday, January 28, 2006

What a movie

I am writing as I return from watching the movie Rang De Basanti. After the movie all my friends were discussing about the grade or for that matter the marks (out of 10) upto one place of decimal which could be given to the movie. There were many 8s and 8.5s thrown and finally after comparison with various other movies including Swades and replacing the roles of the film characters with others not even remotely related with the movie I left the conversation as I remembered that I had been waiting for sometime to write something. By the way, I would also give about 8.5/10 to the movie.

The entire movie revolves around a diary which has witnessed some famous or should I say notorious events of history. And by correlating them to the sequence of events in the movie, it has been shown how these events can easily happen again. One of the points which may be not that significant (when compared to others in the movie) is that it shows the power of expressing ones thoughts by writing or making a film or any other means.

It emphasizes things which I have firmly believed. One is that if a person feels that he should as soon as possible leave his/her country as it is in a condition which will not improve and nothing can make it better then he/she is mistaken. It is the lack of efforts which is leading to such a condition. A famous (I am not very sure about the fame part) analogy is that if your house is dirty then you do not go to live in someone else’s house. Either you live in it in the present state or you make an effort and clean it. These are also the two ways of living that were reiterated in the movie.

Secondly, what is happening is that more and more people have started to refrain from thinking about issues which matter to them, to the society and to the country. Though we are moving to the age of technology so that the functions to be performed take less time and we have more time for ourselves, what we actually see is we are getting busy by the day. We have time to watch 5 days of cricket, discuss about it for another 3 days and then another 5 days of cricket but no time to reflect on things much more important.

Yes people have their priorities but then you decide if they are justified in raising their grievances about things they are pretty much indifferent about. I end this as I have been hearing the conversation of my friends touching subjects which anybody related to the movie might not have thought about in their entire lives and I would like to join.

Friday, January 27, 2006

KS is here!!!

Before writing anything I want to make one thing clear...
{oops!!! But to make that thing clear I have to write it here}

This blog belongs to Mr. AA and the responsibility for any controversial views presented would of course be shouldered by him.

So now I am writing...

In one of the previous posts AA talked about FRIENDS. I must mention that only last semester both of us completed the whole ten seasons of the series... This was AA's first time, although I have watched all the episodes at least thrice. Obviously now that we have indexed all the episodes, we have kind of ranked them and hardly a day goes by without watching a highly ranked episode on my computer.

Before you label us to be isomorphic to couch potatoes, here is another facet of our daily routine...




Yes, Cricket. We can play cricket anywhere and anytime. We have done it on the basketball court, volleyball court and also our mess roof.

Have you not heard people complaining how cricket has destroyed the popularity of other sports? They are right. It has.

Simply because you can play cricket on a volleyball court but not vice-versa. Come on... there aren't enough "volleyballers" to occupy the courts, how can they overflow to the cricket pitches!!!

Anyways no offence to "volleyballers" (if there are any :D).

I think its enough for now, hope AA and me can continue this daily show and eventually all the browsers installed in your computers have this blog as the default home page.

Thursday, January 26, 2006

Ideas at work


So, after a good start (as I see it) of a few comments (1, to be specific), I was expecting the same momentum, if not more. However, there were no comments on previous 2 posts and neither did any news agency, whether in print or television or internet, mentioned about Myself Speaking™ and so I started wondering if anyone is actually reading the genuine and unique content made from hours and hours of doing the most difficult kind of work, namely living.

But I then realized that the world is actually conspiring against me. Almost everyone waits for my posts. But they do not post any comments and search engines intentionally lower Myself Speaking™ rankings so that I am bluffed into believing that I am writing in vain when actually I am creating history. However, as we have seen in The Truman Show, you have to realize this plot on your own and with some help from people who want to be on your side.

So, I met one of them, Mr. SS. He confessed of reading my posts and actually thinking how we can improve them. His first suggestion was to have pictures with the posts. I included one in the previous post itself. As you would remember that in the morning it was without an image and then when you checked Myself Speaking™ in the night, it had one (I believe that not an hour passes without you rushing to see if I have published something. After all, it has now become your homepage).

His second suggestion was to make it a group blog where more than one person can post. So that when I am busy with something important facing the world, other people can continue the good work. Again accepted (It’s in my nature). I want to introduce Mr. KS (yes the one who gave the first comment) who has been given a golden opportunity of contributing to this unprecedented space. But I want to warn you people that I would not give him any powers and would not allow him to come in between me and you all.

As for Mr. SS, I think he does a lot of thinking and comes with innovative ideas for he realizes the importance of the popularity he could get on being mentioned at Myself Speaking™.

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

The One With The Baby


I am back again with a daily anecdote of my experiences and an account of my actions and behaviour. You would see a lot of “The One With … ” on Myself Speaking™ as I consider myself as a die-hard F.R.I.E.N.D.S fan. Here is the first one of those.

So, as I have already told you that I did pretty well in a competitive examination namely CAT (required to be cleared for admission to IIMs). As a result, one of the institutions had asked me to get three teachers/professors to fill up a recommendation letter. After a lot of screening (searching for professors who would atleast remember my name after almost 4 years studying at my institution) and all, I found that I could identify exactly 3 (Thank God!) professors to whom I could request.

So, last week on Monday I had given them the letters to be filled. While one of them agreed to fill it up and give it back on the next day, the other two had agreed to give it by Thursday. So, as a sincere student, I collected one on Tuesday and one on Thursday. The other professor who agreed for Thursday was not in his room and so I decided (after waiting for 15 minutes) to take it the next day.

On Friday, he was again not in his room, implying that I would be able to collect it only on Monday. So, somehow the weekend passed and I kept on wondering what all good stuff he may be writing on the letter. On Monday, after some 2 or 3 visits, I finally found him in his room. He had actually forgotten all about the form and asked me to give some more time. The reason he gave was that he had a baby few days back.

So, there I was standing for my letter and not ready for the words I heard. I did not know how to respond to such situations. What does the other person expect? I really don’t know. So, after continuing with my small talk (and my brain processing what should be said next regarding the baby) I congratulated him. And as there was not much time I could give him with the form (as the submission date was fast approaching) he obliged me by filling the form then and there.

I took the form and started going my way thinking about all the sentences I could have uttered and all the questions I could have asked while in conversation with someone who has just informed me that he has become a parent. What came to my mind was
1. How is the baby?
2. Is it a boy or a girl?
3. How is the mother doing?

I talked to one of my friends Mr. AR and he narrated his similar experience when he got a message on his messenger from his mentor saying “Daughter at 3pm”. He too was taken aback not by lack of words but for comprehending the meaning of the message. However, he recovered and had asked for a treat from the parent. His response was atleast better than my late congratulations.

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

My First Comment

Yesterday was a good day for me. Firstly, after a long time I finally managed to start a blog and moreover I got some people visiting that blog. Obviously there were not many but I believe that the world is slowly getting ready for this.

The first comments Myself Speaking™ got was from Mr. KS (This would be the pattern here. Rather than disclosing complete names I would try to use initials of the persons involved so that in the future, when the world pays homage to me, they would not be able to take advantage of the situation citing the fact that once in a blue moon I had mentioned them.) He said

Mistake:3rd para, 2nd line, inside the parantheses...No. I did not gave GRE.

with did the past tense of the other verb is not to be used.Welcome :D


Point taken. It should have been “No. I did not give GRE.” But one thing which I did not mention was that though I did not give GRE but I gave (Hope this is right) another examination (CAT) which also had some questions testing proficiency in English. I did pretty OK in it and so wondered how that could have happened. But with me, you never know!

For the whole of yesterday, I was doing routine stuff but my mind went into thinking of how best this routine stuff can be embedded into the vision I have for Myself Speaking™. I concluded that the next item on my buy list is a laptop so that I can jot down whatever flows in my mind and the next item I would be innovating (If till then somebody does not steal my idea) is an interpreter converting thoughts into well framed sentences without any mistakes of the kind that I always do.

Monday, January 23, 2006

Anybody there?

Hello myself and everybody,

My first blog posting (you would have guessed by now!!!) for Myself Speaking™. But I am not a blog virgin. The previous blog was more prominently for other people to read and myself to post. However, this blog is for myself to read (may be in the future, sometime like FutureME) and for myself to post. So, it is Myself Speaking™.

But that is not to say that no one else is welcome. Infact I have already said ‘hello’ to everybody. Also, I would me making all the efforts to popularise this blog (henceforth, referred to as Myself Speaking™) as I tried for my previous blog. So, surely expect to get spams via IMs, mails, people etc entrenched in persuasion to visit Myself Speaking™. My final aim is that everyone has their homepage set to Myself Speaking™. When that happens, I would stop posting. So if you want me to stop, change your homepage now.

You are also invited to post comments (if you have all the time in the world as I have). I expect you are not so dumb and that you would find something or the other (definitely, more than one can count on his fingers) erroneous or provoking or insulting in each and every post. Comments with these sightings are more than welcome.

Do you get such an opportunity of bashing somebody everyday? But I, being the most magnanimous (No, I did not gave GRE) person ever have given you this privilege. Do not thank me as it is in my nature.

With Myself Speaking™, I want to try and maintain all my experiences in writing so that the world will not be sorry afterwards.