business, travel and boredom.

business has always been by passion, how much ever i try to convince myself that i can digest technology, i am still unable to do it. the idea that you work day and night trying to invent new things in the RND department and some smart guy in designer suits will somehow cash all your efforts is abhorring to me. Putting it very bluntly, i want to be that smart guy. After two decades of wandering in the forests of hyderabadi colleges and schools, i am yet to find a guy who is good with both technical and the HR. The thumb rule is that people will stammer at at least one of these aspects. For reasons totally unknown to me, i do not want to commit myself to management so soon, i want to have a fling with technology for a few years, which is what brings me to GRE.  i know i am terrible with technology and most of my peers will gladly agree that the first half of this sentence is a fact.  i am still trying to try to get some tech gyan in me. lets see how much i can make it. 

designing is a very important aspect in life, you understand this very well when you travel on indian roads. every time you get stuck in a traffic jam, you want to curse the guy who designed all these roads. even though hyderabad cannot match any of the indian metros when it comes to ‘fashion sense’, it can very well claim to be a metro based on the ‘jamming power of the traffic here’. this congested roads gave wind to the flourishing billboard advertising industry. i can say for sure that the billboard ads always get better response in places where the traffic situation is pathetic. billboards are of no use at hill stations or at other spots. the idea is very simple: when people have nothing else to see, they’ll see your ad. 

just about a week or so ago, i experienced another of my  ’wow moments’. to refresh your concept of the wow moment, it is a moment when you feel the wow!. self explanatory, perhaps. a mahindra renault billboard caught my attention. the ad was that of their new car ‘logan’, it simply showed a young male model posing beside the car and the caption read ” why can’t my first car be a big car?”. i have been seeing this ad for weeks but the wow moment brings in insights which nothing else can. now, this logan car was initially promoted as a big car, more like a status symbol. and then came the new airport. some company bought hundreds of logans and turned them into taxis. far from being a status symbol, the car now became a damned taxi in the eyes of hyderabadis. what does the publicity team do in such circumstances. get a bakra. they start charming the young market which fresh jobs who wouldn’t be so much bothered about their status or other complicated things like that as long as they get a car. mahindrarenault is suddenly in business. let me tell you, it is extremely satisfying to figure out such simple business gymnastics, if there is something in this world which really gives me a high, its this. 

and yes. i’ve been to pune. one look at pune at the rich poor gap we read about in our social studies books is reminded very strongly. there is more to write about the journey than the destination. on our way back, because of some strange problem which i still have no idea about, our train was late by 14 hrs. i assure you this is insane, especially because indian railways are in serious collaboration with the pigs, dogs and houseflies in place of a regular drainage system. in short: its all on the tracks. when a housefly comes and sits on your hand, you wish you’d never known something called probability. i hope you understand. if you don’t, read again. you will. kudos to indian railways. the previous sentence was meant to be sarcastic. the situation was much more pathetic a few years when most indian rails were almost always known to be 24 hrs late. of course they had their own reason- just like that. however, thanks to laloo prasad yadav, the world’s largest employer (yes, he is!), the trains now leave on time. infact  seven of my friends missed the train thanks to the traffic and rains during this pune trip. we missed the biryani they were going to get. by the way, laloo has always had his charisma do wonders for him, you can read about laloo here, here or here. he is interesting.i assure you.

when people are bored, they can do amazing stuff. paid jobs degrade the  mind, someone said that, i don’t remember who. when people are bored, they innovate, they do stuff they would normally never even think about. i have two hallmark examples. what better way to flaunt your endeavors than on the net.  here are two of my friends dressed up like joker from the movie batman and a goth . 

thats it for now. happy independence day.