Still very much a once-in-a-bluemoon blogger! This way, everytime I post, there is a lot to say.
Settled well in Mumbai now. The city has not disappointed on most counts - the pace is as electric as everyone says, the work culture is as professional and the city as tolerant. The last point might seem hard to believe given the recent furore over "ganga kinaare walas", but believe me, this place is well and truly cosmopolitan.
Two major disappointments - the quality of infrastructure is far below even Indian standards (creaking old buildings dominate the cityscape) and "bursting at the seams" is a gentle understatement; the city doesn't have the one good English newspaper in the country. In other words, The Hindu does not have a Mumbai edition - I even wrote to them, puzzled that they don't print out of India's commerce capital, but they don't seem to have any immediate plans of launching a Mumbai edition. However, if it takes printing 4 pages of photos of expensively clad people every day to get circulation critical mass in the city, it might be better to stay away.
Anyway, it's been an eventful year - establishing base in the city, finding a house, experiencing the 3-month south-west monsoon. Mythili and Rishikesh have also got used to Mumbai and a husband/dad who is pretty much absent throughout the week.
In case someone still remembers the title, here we go: can any post be complete without the customary discussion on cricket? Indians have at last played to potential in the current tour of Australia. IPL promises more fun and a NBA/NFL style commercial packaging that cricket has never seen so far. I am very happy that players are getting such big paychecks! This will inevitably raise the standard of entertainment (not neccesarily skills) and in the end, that's what we all want - some better way to unwind than TV serials at home, malls, movies and restaurants outside!
Hopefully other sports catch up and start branding themselves well. It would be great to have 2-3 sports through the year and a few top quality teams to cheer for!
Friday, February 22, 2008
Sunday, March 25, 2007
After a long hiatus...
It is ironic that I am beginning to consider blogging regularly just when I am winding up my affairs at the ISB. There were calls for regular bloggers from the media team right from the beginning of the year, to be ambassadors of the brand! I guess it is just as well I didn't become one.
ISB has been one roller coaster ride - a cliched term for sure, but certainly relevant in this context. I managed to make the academic merit list, get a job with McKinsey and most importantly, became a father last month. So, it has been a hectic few months. I feel like I have grown up a lot this year. My wife would rephrase that sentence as "He's put on a lot of weight and looks five years older". Perspectives..
I begin work this July and am quite excited to make the move to Bombay. It has been a city that has captured my imagination for a long time - the sheer extremes of emotion that the name brings out in people, has me eager to experience what life is as a Mumbaikar.
ISB has been one roller coaster ride - a cliched term for sure, but certainly relevant in this context. I managed to make the academic merit list, get a job with McKinsey and most importantly, became a father last month. So, it has been a hectic few months. I feel like I have grown up a lot this year. My wife would rephrase that sentence as "He's put on a lot of weight and looks five years older". Perspectives..
I begin work this July and am quite excited to make the move to Bombay. It has been a city that has captured my imagination for a long time - the sheer extremes of emotion that the name brings out in people, has me eager to experience what life is as a Mumbaikar.
Monday, September 04, 2006
End of an era
As he bid a tearful adieu to fans at Flushing Meadows last evening, Andre Agassi brought an end to an era in tennis - atleast to those of us who grew up watching Edberg & Becker first, and then Sampras & Agassi.
You could point to a few years in the life of any sportsman and say - "Man! Those were the years when he was at his peak - he could steam-roll anyone in sight!". With Agassi, there never really was a peak - or there were so many peaks that you really couldn't isolate a few!
When I look back, I never liked Agassi back in the early 90's - his pony tail and flashy behaviour made it easy for me to get away with comments like "He is all show - no substance!", "His serve is fit for the women's game - he lives only on his return". Back then, my favourite was Boris and anyone who could beat him - and that included only Sampras and Agassi - would automatically earn my hatred!
However, Agassi's subsequent career graph has been the stuff you want to remember when you are 60, sitting on a rocker chair and want a nice story to tell your grandchildren - he had the steepest rise through the ATP rankings, the heaviest falls - much like his hairstyle which went all the way from a flowing pony tail to nothing more than a stubble. Everytime people thought he was on the verge of retirement, he cut out a little more of the flashiness, he added a few more tonnes of grit into him and reinvented himself ceaselessly as the supreme-showman-tennis star.
Sportsmen like Steve Waugh, Andre Agassi are business school case study material - they represent the triumph of attitude, character and above all, a deep understanding of their strengths and weaknesses. Andre is special - he did all this and still managed to be the darling of the crowds for close to two decades! You should have seen the number of people who shed tears last evening in New York!
I used to think Agassi was lucky - but his career has been a product of such tremendous mental strength, physical training and attitude that I now believe the only slice of luck he had was getting a wife like Steffi Graf.
Thank you Andre - for providing memories and memorable matches, for giving me a dinner table story for my retirement, and most of all, for being a living proof of the triumph of mind over body.
You could point to a few years in the life of any sportsman and say - "Man! Those were the years when he was at his peak - he could steam-roll anyone in sight!". With Agassi, there never really was a peak - or there were so many peaks that you really couldn't isolate a few!
When I look back, I never liked Agassi back in the early 90's - his pony tail and flashy behaviour made it easy for me to get away with comments like "He is all show - no substance!", "His serve is fit for the women's game - he lives only on his return". Back then, my favourite was Boris and anyone who could beat him - and that included only Sampras and Agassi - would automatically earn my hatred!
However, Agassi's subsequent career graph has been the stuff you want to remember when you are 60, sitting on a rocker chair and want a nice story to tell your grandchildren - he had the steepest rise through the ATP rankings, the heaviest falls - much like his hairstyle which went all the way from a flowing pony tail to nothing more than a stubble. Everytime people thought he was on the verge of retirement, he cut out a little more of the flashiness, he added a few more tonnes of grit into him and reinvented himself ceaselessly as the supreme-showman-tennis star.
Sportsmen like Steve Waugh, Andre Agassi are business school case study material - they represent the triumph of attitude, character and above all, a deep understanding of their strengths and weaknesses. Andre is special - he did all this and still managed to be the darling of the crowds for close to two decades! You should have seen the number of people who shed tears last evening in New York!
I used to think Agassi was lucky - but his career has been a product of such tremendous mental strength, physical training and attitude that I now believe the only slice of luck he had was getting a wife like Steffi Graf.
Thank you Andre - for providing memories and memorable matches, for giving me a dinner table story for my retirement, and most of all, for being a living proof of the triumph of mind over body.
Thursday, June 22, 2006
As harmless as they come...
How many times have we found ourselves time-traveling during a lecture or a meeting – eyes glazed, and the mind wandering to a faraway space-time coordinate? While such fantasy flights are amusing enough, revisiting every link in the chain of thoughts, tracing them back to the origins, is sheer joy! Trying to establish why, sitting in a Monte Carlo simulation class, I was reminded of my roommate at graduate school in the US, was one such exercise. Monte-Carlo – Spain – Spanish – Mexican food – guacamole - bingo! That was where my dear roomie came into the picture!
Now, as anyone who has been to the US would concur, the first few weeks for an Indian who has no experience watching American sit-coms or movies or listening to western music or just being tuned into the US “culture” is truly a turbulent period, where frequent bouts of speechlessness is an ignominious but inescapable reality. That was an unnecessarily long sentence, but humor me, and replace all the “or” s there with “and” s and you have my friend – as desi as they come; brilliant, great GRE score, in all probabilities a sure-shot Green card candidate, but just not “tuned-in”!
Indians speak fast, and we have a lot of unconventional phrases arising out of thinking in our native languages and transliterating those thoughts into English sentences. From supermarket clerks to graduate school office staff, we all had to face the “what’s that?”, “come again”, “say what” and other such puzzled remarks every time we asked something in our hinglish or tanglish (hinglish approximately captures all Indian accents from the Punjab to the Vindhyas and tanglish everything further south). However, it was my roommate who actually made the ultimate faux pas; on day 2 in the US, he asked directions to the nearest McDonald’s to a woman on the road. What made her step back a little and look at him as if he were a game theory exam, was his pronunciation – “mech do Knawlds”! I had the laugh of my lifetime that evening, recounting the tale to everyone who half-cared to listen.
His trademark south-Indian accent got him into trouble quite often in those early days, much to my secret delight and uncontrollable laughter. His subsequent efforts to force an American accent made for more hilarious moments. Having been a star performer back in Madras, this new phase of uncertainty did unsettle him quite a bit. Introduction to Mexican food made matters worse – an attendant at Taco Bell was on the verge of resigning his job, forced as he was by our man to fix his burrito with an extra helping of “green chillies” (Obviously chili to him meant red meat) and “coriander paste” (how could the poor guy possibly know that guacamole resembles our coriander chutney)!
I must end this “friend-bashing” now, but I can’t resist the temptation of recounting what I consider the funniest incident of all – a store clerk at Krogers (a grocery store) had to actually call her manager on her walky-talky, frightened by a brown guy (this was in October 2001, and back then, brown was the color you most definitely didn’t want to be in America) with a strange accent asking if he could get some “ladies fingers”! Four of us, with 6 college degrees between us had a tough time explaining how our friend was as harmless as they come and left the store, with tight, upturned lips concealing the wave of laughter that was soon to follow!
Footnote: The roommate is now a senior process consultant for a semi-conductor MNC and travels to at least one new country every month – providing, I’m sure, fodder for many more wannabe writers at each of those places!
Now, as anyone who has been to the US would concur, the first few weeks for an Indian who has no experience watching American sit-coms or movies or listening to western music or just being tuned into the US “culture” is truly a turbulent period, where frequent bouts of speechlessness is an ignominious but inescapable reality. That was an unnecessarily long sentence, but humor me, and replace all the “or” s there with “and” s and you have my friend – as desi as they come; brilliant, great GRE score, in all probabilities a sure-shot Green card candidate, but just not “tuned-in”!
Indians speak fast, and we have a lot of unconventional phrases arising out of thinking in our native languages and transliterating those thoughts into English sentences. From supermarket clerks to graduate school office staff, we all had to face the “what’s that?”, “come again”, “say what” and other such puzzled remarks every time we asked something in our hinglish or tanglish (hinglish approximately captures all Indian accents from the Punjab to the Vindhyas and tanglish everything further south). However, it was my roommate who actually made the ultimate faux pas; on day 2 in the US, he asked directions to the nearest McDonald’s to a woman on the road. What made her step back a little and look at him as if he were a game theory exam, was his pronunciation – “mech do Knawlds”! I had the laugh of my lifetime that evening, recounting the tale to everyone who half-cared to listen.
His trademark south-Indian accent got him into trouble quite often in those early days, much to my secret delight and uncontrollable laughter. His subsequent efforts to force an American accent made for more hilarious moments. Having been a star performer back in Madras, this new phase of uncertainty did unsettle him quite a bit. Introduction to Mexican food made matters worse – an attendant at Taco Bell was on the verge of resigning his job, forced as he was by our man to fix his burrito with an extra helping of “green chillies” (Obviously chili to him meant red meat) and “coriander paste” (how could the poor guy possibly know that guacamole resembles our coriander chutney)!
I must end this “friend-bashing” now, but I can’t resist the temptation of recounting what I consider the funniest incident of all – a store clerk at Krogers (a grocery store) had to actually call her manager on her walky-talky, frightened by a brown guy (this was in October 2001, and back then, brown was the color you most definitely didn’t want to be in America) with a strange accent asking if he could get some “ladies fingers”! Four of us, with 6 college degrees between us had a tough time explaining how our friend was as harmless as they come and left the store, with tight, upturned lips concealing the wave of laughter that was soon to follow!
Footnote: The roommate is now a senior process consultant for a semi-conductor MNC and travels to at least one new country every month – providing, I’m sure, fodder for many more wannabe writers at each of those places!
Saturday, May 27, 2006
The monsoon has arrived
I guess the monsoon is as unlikely a topic as anything else to write your first post on. However, being interested with climatic phenomena, I was quite intrigued that the monsoon has "arrived" in thiruvananthapuram, a week ahead of schedule!
In a country where punctuality is found only on resumes, barracks and school handbooks, a weather system originating in the other half of the globe, and influenced by atleast half-a-dozen capricious phenomena, is expected to maintain a rather rigorous schedule - I've had quite a few bombay-ites proudly proclaim to me that every 10th of June, the clouds would gather on the horizon, a cool wind would drive out the heat, and then it would rain - pour until "ganpati bappa moriya" time in September!
Growing up in Chennai, I was more used to the question "whether it would rain?" than "when?" and watching the Total Rainfall column in The Hindu paper, rise steadily for Bombay, Mangalore, Kottayam, Kochi and other west-coast cities through June-July-august, irked me endlessly! "What we lose out on the south-west monsoon, we more than make up in the north-east monsoon. Plus we have the cyclones..", was my unwavering response to friends asking me about Chennai's water woes! But deep within, I always knew we were wronged - deeply wronged by the south-west monsoon that decided chennai would not be a stop on its annual sojourn from kerala to kashmir! Ofcourse, the cyclones orchestrate magnificent light and sound shows, quite unmatched elsewhere in the country - but that is the Chennai-ite in me, trying yet again to score a point!
Cyclone time is November - if this blog(ger) is still around, cyclones will find their place on these pages.
In a country where punctuality is found only on resumes, barracks and school handbooks, a weather system originating in the other half of the globe, and influenced by atleast half-a-dozen capricious phenomena, is expected to maintain a rather rigorous schedule - I've had quite a few bombay-ites proudly proclaim to me that every 10th of June, the clouds would gather on the horizon, a cool wind would drive out the heat, and then it would rain - pour until "ganpati bappa moriya" time in September!
Growing up in Chennai, I was more used to the question "whether it would rain?" than "when?" and watching the Total Rainfall column in The Hindu paper, rise steadily for Bombay, Mangalore, Kottayam, Kochi and other west-coast cities through June-July-august, irked me endlessly! "What we lose out on the south-west monsoon, we more than make up in the north-east monsoon. Plus we have the cyclones..", was my unwavering response to friends asking me about Chennai's water woes! But deep within, I always knew we were wronged - deeply wronged by the south-west monsoon that decided chennai would not be a stop on its annual sojourn from kerala to kashmir! Ofcourse, the cyclones orchestrate magnificent light and sound shows, quite unmatched elsewhere in the country - but that is the Chennai-ite in me, trying yet again to score a point!
Cyclone time is November - if this blog(ger) is still around, cyclones will find their place on these pages.
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