So much to know, so much to learn, jst soo much

Chunchi Falls

2011-12-26T23:10:00.000+05:30

It had been over a month and half since I had been to Kudremukh along with a few of my relatives, this time I was looking for something closer, something that could be done within a day.

I had been to Mekedatu and Sangama while at school, and while searching for some places to visit around Bangalore, in addition to these I found this place - Chunchi Falls.

Chunchi Falls is lacated around 75 km from Bangalore. This falls is formed by the river Arkavathy which has its origin at Nandi Hills. With the rapid urbanization of Bangalore, the catchment area of the river is seriously affected.

This river joins the River Kaveri at Sangama and later flow through rapid stone gorge called Mekedatu. We shall discuss this in some other blog on travel and trek. Today's blog is about our journey to Chunchi Falls and the experience there in.

It had been long since I had spent time with my family and so decided to get going on a trip with family. The location choice was mine - Chunchi Falls. I had heard about the falls a few times when I was planning some treks, trips over the last few years but had never made the move to reach the place.

From the blogs I had read, I had gotten to know that the falls would be around 75 Km from Bangalore and one had to cross Kanakapura Town and move in the direction of Sangama.

We set out on 24th December around 11 AM from our home towards the falls. It was car drive and together with me on the trip were my parent, my spouce Sahana and my cute niece - Pratiksha. We drove pretty steadily through the traffic in bangalore before we hit Kanakapura road.

It was probably the first time my parents had driven out in our car on the Kanakapura road. We moved past the Metro, before the traffic began to subside. The rest of te drive was pretty peaceful. You move in front of the Art of Living campus, then beside the campus of APS College of Engineering etc before we reach Harohalli.

Another 20 minutes drive from Harohalli we reach Kanakapura. Just as we enter the town of Kanakapura, we cross a bridge across the River Arkavathy. All along the journey this far, we find hills which appear to recemble various creatures - depending on your imagination!

We reached Kanakapura a few minutes after 12:00 noon. We moves through the town' main road and then came to the road taking us to Sangama. We move for quite some time on this road till, we find an arch (not in the general sense of the word - but more to indicate an entrance). This is where we need to take a left turn and drive down the narrow road till we reach the parking lot. (The roads are bit narrow and its good to keep an eye for the vehicles coming from the other side).

The falls is supposedly best between early winter and early summer. One has to keep in mind that the falls is no perennial, and it is the rain-fed river which forms Chunchi falls. We reached the parking lot, just on the banks of River Arkavathy, when we found a localite run towards us with a receipt book - the parking fees for a car is Rs 30/-

Just as we move towards the river, we first encounter a channel with water. This channel takes water from the small dam upstream to the power-station a short distance ahead.

We crossed the channel and began defending towards the river - The river flows along rocky bed of Arkavathy. At various points you would find small deviations from the trek route that take you down to the river. Any point would take you to the big heart shaped pool that the river creates before it decided to take a leap downstream.

One can reach to the top of the point where the falls finally makes it leap! The only precaution one would need to take is the smooth surface of the rocks. While the smooth surface is just one of the issues to take note of, the other challenge is that of broken bottle pieces which the weekend parties of the bangalore crowd leave behind.

I still wonder, why we literate people do not understand that they have to be socially more responsible. The various waste that we produced as part of our joy is also our responsibility to dispose them without creating trouble for the others who too visit the place for enjoyment.

I some how wasn't very happy with having visited the top of the falls, I could still see faint strains of another falls close by and being the fall lover I am, I would love to get a view of the other one too. I spotted a view point on the opposite side of the falls. I quickly realized that would give me a view of both these falls.

We got back onto the return ascent to the channel and then took the jeep track to the view point. Its around a kilometer from the channel, and is relatively undisturbed.

The view of the 2nd falls from the view point was something that gave me a good satisfaction. The falls had 2 cascades and had a lot more water flowing when compared to the mail stream flowing.

We reached the view point, munched the junk food we carried and had some snaps clicked before we decided to return back. The view point however is not well maintained and if I could say is almost neglected.

This place too like many of the other places in Karnataka, has enormous potential but doesn't get the required attention and dedication towards ensuring that the potential is expiated and also gets little maintenance.

With these thoughts in the mind we began the return journey, when I woke up to the reality at hand. We had skipped lunch, so we had to get back to a good hotel to have some food that was to get us going back home.

We reached Kanakapura, had our lunch at a Udupi hotel that was at the entrance of Kanakapura just after having crossed over the bridge across the River Arakavathy when coming from Bangalore. My parents purchased some vegetables on the way back and we resumed the drive back home.

The journey was pretty simple till we reached Metro, the rest was a drive through the city traffic and we finally reached home at 7:00 PM.

After many days it was a time well spent with family, and I wouldn't be surprised if I would repeat this and get it to be a routine.

Trek to Kuduremukh 2

2011-12-13T21:36:00.001+05:30

It had been quite a long time since I had been on a trek. The last trek I had been in 2011 was some time in March. This was also to be my first trek after marriage. This time I decided to make it a closed group for the trek, including my wife - Sahana, uncle - Manju, sister - Shwetha, and my cousin -Ramya. Shana, Shwetha were to leave from Bangalore, while Manju Uncle and Ramya were to join from Udupi in the morning.

Our initial idea was to reach BalGal via Kalasa, however dude to prior booking of seats we had to get back to using the route we chose the last time via - Karkala. We were to travel from Bangalore to Karkala and then take the local service buses to reach Balgal.

We had booked a bus to Karkala, starting from the KSRTC Majestic Bus-stand at around 9:15 PM. We reached Kakala inspire of the pathetic ghat roads around 6 AM in the morning. Manju uncle and Ramya had just reached the Bus-stand a few minutes before we reached there.

We got down and enquired about the first bus that was scheduled to reach Kalasa via Kudremukh. The first such bus leave from the Karkala bus-stand around 7:30 AM. We still had nearly an hour and half to wait for the bus.

This was my second trek to Kudremukh, so I suggested we get to the hotel close by and have some "avalakki" and some other breakfast before we being the journey. We sat back for the breakfast and enjoyed it before we got back to the bus-stand.

The bus that was to take us to Kudremukh was a bit delayed and reached the bus-stand at 7:45 AM. A short while after the bus left the station, we reached "KinnigoLi" where the bus halted for breakfast. The bus stood here for around 10 minutes before it began the journey, the next major stop was at Kudremukh township. Another half an hour's journey from the township, we reached the point where we had to get down - Balgal. The time was around 10:15 AM.

Before we had left from bangalore, we had reached out to Arun who runs a home stay (I had taken his contact the last time I had come down here). He had organized a jeep to pick us up from Balgal. The jeep however wasn't there when we reached there! We checked with the localities and got to know that driver had just gone to the closest major town - Samse to pick up some of the daily grocery that was ordered by some of this relatives.

The driver was back in around half an hour, and we left towards our home stay at around 11:00 AM. The road towards the home stay was all wet and slippery, thanks to the rains. Yes, it had rained pretty heavily the last few days (unlike the last time I came here when it was in the hot summer) - this means there would be leeches for company through the journey :) It wouldn't be new for many of us, but for the first few times it would definitely keep any one paranoid! All this was to just the right build up for the adventurous trek we were to have.

The Jeep journey was just the beginning of the adventure - road was completely slippery and it requires great skill to drive on these narrow track. What made the journey even more challenging was that the sides of the road were dug up for some pipes laying. These pipes were built to store water for the proposed horticulture project. The construction of the storage tank was pretty bad, and the water would leak as if from a sprinkler! All along the track we had coffee estates and provided a very memorable scenery. After this long journey, we reached the home-stay at around 12:00 noon.

We were already late, so dumped our luggage and had a quick brunch before we began our trek to the peak. Arun decided to company us to the peak. The last time we had been on the trek, we began the trek at 1 PM and retuned by 6:30 PM, so I definitely believed it would be possible.

The climate this far was pretty good, with the sun shining. It looked like the ideal weather for the trek. I was pretty sure we would have a good trek to the peak. The only thought I had at the back of my mind was being able to really get the ladies in the team constantly moving and keeping their stamina ready.

We began the trek at around 12:15 PM, and steadily moved through the track. The initial track was pretty good, not too slippery. There were very few leeches at these initial parts of the trek. The first break that we took was around 20 minutes into the trek just below a tree - we called it "Bodhi Tree".

A 5 minutes break and we continued our trek to the beak, we resumed the trek. The next phase has many streams and - this time the streams were flowing with lot more force. We moved on to the lobo-house. I could feel the steam in the team slowly receding, we just took a short break before we continued the trek.

From the last trek, I remembered the next phase was going to be pretty challenging. - It required us to climb a steep slope. The team slowly geared up for the climb but it took longer than expected. We reached a camping point which had manifested itself to a leech removing venue for most of the trekkers. We had our lunch at this spot before we resumed the trek.

The next phase of the trek was the actual climb of the Kudremukh peak. The Camp-spot is just at the base of the peak and generally involved a pretty steep climb to the peak. When I looked at the watch, I realized we were slower than the last time and we would have a challenge at hand if we wanted to make it back by 6:30 PM like the last time.

Ramya and Shwetha were already completely drained of energy, so we were pretty slow in our progress. We began the last stretch around 3:30 PM and after consistent pushing and coaxing, we reached the plateau at the peak around 4:15 PM. The walk to the peak from the point we reach the top is around 10 minutes - one could find a ruined church on the right.

We reached the edge of the peak from where we could see the plains of the west coast. We spotted a few notable landscapes, completed another set of snacks we had carried along. and by 5 PM we decided to resume our return trek. The joy of having reached the peak had in fact completely gotten us to forget the strain we had put to get to the peak.

Just as we began the decent from the plateau at the peak, we could see the clouds forming pretty quickly. We had to rush through the remaining trek if we intended to reach pretty quickly - Just a few steps into the trek and we had a quick shower which got us completely wet. The initial drizzle just got heavier and we found it just hard to see the route more than 3 meters ahead of us!

The heavy rains of the slope, got the complete slope flowing with water. We found it hard to even lift our foot and put it to the next one. This was just the beginning of the adventure at hand! The light faded away very quickly. We could also spot lightning ahead. With the state of the team at hand, leeches, water, lightning, and many more we were here for something memorable for a life-time! It was pretty common knowledge that the heavy rains at the peak would generally flood the stream on the return path - that is the last one we would expect!

The steep decent, combined with the rains was just making the complete journey a hard task at hand. A Slip and a fall was something that had become an common seen on the way back. The umbrella, raincoat and jerkins we wore were no protection form the rain. The rain would subside for 4-5 minutes but it wasn't enough to hold the ground against the wind. The wet dress only made it chiller than usual. We had 3 torches with us and we were completely at their mercy.

Our Guide Arun, was pretty patient and helped keep the pace constant. He was the last person till we got down to the Lobo house, and then took to being the first in the line. The route was pretty clear till we reached Lobo house but then it was hard to find the remaining route in the tall grass and to add to it, it was the possibility of wild animals.

We steadily made progress and kept moving towards the home-stay. In the dark, we found a few rabbits, some bats and some others which we couldn't identify in the dark. This journey in the dark on the boundary of the National park, is definitely something that was to stay with us for long time in memory.

Ramya and Shwetha were pretty tiered and only when the reached the homestead did they realize that they had really done it. The strain of the travel, trekking, darkness in the forest and the fear of leech had gotten the better of us all. We reached the home stay at 9:30 PM.

The next 30 to 45 minutes were spent to finding the leeches that had climbed all over us. We then freshen up and finally had dinner at around 10:30 PM.

We took a sound rest before we had we woke up for the next day's return journey. We had asked the jeep to come down at around 7:30 AM so that we catch the bus at around 8:45 PM.

We reached Bajagoli at round 10:30 AM, had our breakfast. Manju uncle and Ramya returned to Udupi; Shwetha, Sahana and I returned to Beltangadi before catching the next bus to Dharmasthala.

We reached Dharmasthala and booked our tickets to Bangalore. We reached Bangalore at around 9:00 PM.

This was a memorable trek, thanks to the nature's forces. It always reminds me of one thing - Man only proposes and it is God who disposes. The Nature - a form of God has a lot of lessons to teach the student who is ready to learn. The absolute bliss is felt when you surrender to it, live through the experience.

From a Bound Glass to the Free Air

2011-09-18T11:46:00.001+05:30

Deep within the monotony around me;
All I see is many like me!
Compromising with the routine and the emptiness of daily life;
The water looked calm from the outside, but there lived a void inside.

Every new person walking in to the routine,
Like a colored drop, was lost,
Either being one of us,
Or occasionally, when many colored drops falling in
Painted us in a new gloss!

Everything around me was changing, yet there was no fulfillment.
Trapped! I felt in all this coloring and slow change.
Bound I felt like the millions around me;
It was the glass that held the water - that bound me.

The tranquility broke, as tough the hidden hand; had shaken the glass.
All the people felt the shake; it was only for a few who were now awake.

I was one of the few, whom the agitation drew,
Unhappy with the state around me,
I moved from wall to wall, bottom to top; In search of that inner peace.

In my confused search, I found –
A bubble - A bubble that grew out of the agitation around me.
On which I decided now to ride.
From the random motions – I was now moving to the top.

It had now opened up a new horizon to me,
As I raise to the surface;
The inner dissatisfaction, calms down,
With a larger view around

I sensed a new beginning,
With the mental agitation calming down
I was bound no more by the walls of the glass,
Or the image that stuck with many of the coloring around.

Freed from my bound; I moved on...
Liberated by the bubble, from the mental agitation,
This was now a new beginning - unbound, undisturbed.
I moved on...
Awaiting a new role – a new place.
I had but found in myself an inner peace,

- Chi

The Polyester Prince - Hamish McDonald

2011-09-01T20:12:00.001+05:30

I had got hold of this book from Mumbai road side when I was doing my internship, but had never set reading it until the beginning of this year. And even after I began reading this, I had a lot of distractions which hadn't let me complete the book earlier. Again the long weekends and frequent travels I have been doing off late have given me ample time to really spend time with my books, and that is how I got to complete this book.

The book talks about he era of - Dhirubhai Ambani. One of the icons of Indian business. What I loved the most was not the narration, but the links I could see to the history of India post Independence. Having born in this country with rich traditions approximately 35 years after we had gained independence, I have for a long time missed knowing how this country functioned and operated before my birth. I had another agenda when I began reading this book which is about the life of another entrepreneur.

This book has got me to realize not just the hardships Dhirubhai had to face, but also got me to realize how it was to live in an era of license raj. This book also gave me a peep into the importance of policitical back up for a business when its in a phase of scaline up.

Over all an interestin read! You would enjoy it, if you are interested in the business-politico history of a country.

Plunnge - Rakesh Godwani

2011-08-17T22:56:00.002+05:30

When I completed reading my last book - Simply fly; I was looking for something light and quick read. I had borrowed this book - Plunnge by a collegue of mine at IIMB - Rakesh Godwani, so began reading this.

The long weekend was an ideal time to start off a this book and I must admit, its a pretty engaging read! I was quick to acknowlege it to him on his Facebook wall saying I was enjoying the read.

Given that the book as a set of 15 short real life stories about people who dared to "reinvent" themselves by taking the "plunge". The short crisp stories with a learning that Rakesh has picked up was very usefull to reitererate the lessons learnt - a good style!

I also see that Rakesh has made an attempt to creating a theory here, and has used the different stories to evolve the theory. This differentiates it from just a lot of stories of people who took a differnt path or plunge; there are numerous lessons that Rakesh has put across in the book, and I wouldnt break the suspense out here.

For a first book, I must admit this is a great start - waiting for more Rakesh. When is the next one coming up?

Go grab this book and read it!

Simply fly - Captain Gopinath

2011-08-14T19:34:00.000+05:30

Its been quite a long time since I had completed reading any book, and this long weekend gave me some time for this cherished activity - reading (4 days!)

Stories of entrepreneurs have always excited me. My list of books too indicate the same. This one was special as it was gifted by Intel for me having spoken at one of their promotional events.

When I began reading this book, the narration took me back to some of the childhood menories of my village - the fun and frolic; I had experienced as a kid. The narration of the various phases of life and challenges that Captain Gopinath experienced has been really captivating.

The part of the book I loved the most was where Captain is out to set up Deccan Aviation - initially the helicopter and later on the Air planes. What got me involved so much with it was the scale of the operation that was attempted and especially when Captain started off with nothing! Hats off!

Captain ends the book about his current baby - the end-to-end logistics company. Wish him all the best.

Personally my respect for Capt Gopinath has grown after I have read this book and wish I could meet him some time in life.

Dont miss reading this book - a whole host of experience to gain from!

The Lost Starry Sky

2011-08-02T21:05:00.004+05:30

The Lost Starry Sky

A black blanket above me, with small spots - the stars,

Some twinkling, some shooting, looking as though at wars;

Far off, I hear the sea roar,

And occasionally tearing blanket a shooting star soar;

As it where it where to teach me!

Giving me the freedom - The white dots on a black paper;

With my creative ink - draw I could, linking the dots;

Not bound only by my thoughts,

I created structures in the sky;

With just dots and my creative eye.

My childlike innocence today looks like nonsense!

A busy day, and a tiered night

Within the four wall I see no light!

My bound mind's eye, - Now sees no more;

The structures I created are just a thought turned sore;

Evaluating today, I create;

I say some good, some bad; some possible some difficult;

The sieve of prudence, and convention has just let go of the fluid mind;

All I have today is bound by the routine, the definite; limiting me!

No dots to connect, all I look at today is only walls that bind

- Chi

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In this poem, I have tried to get to the table 2 aspects which I closely feel about

The lost child hood creativity and it being replaced by the routine life of a grown up
The Evaluative Mindset of a grown up which kills our joy of creatively looking at the situation we are in

The Undercover Economist - Tim Harford

2011-03-31T13:00:00.000+05:30

I began reading this book while traveling on my Business Development activities as part of my first start up - that was more than a year and half ago. I was only able to complete this book today through random bursts reading while on travel. I generally love reading books while traveling and not sitting at a place - this book was just perfect – Reading and relating to the surrounding I see is a very useful way of learning economics.

When I was first suggested this book by my friend who had completed reading the book - I wasn’t very clear as to why “This” book on economics. Undercover Economist is just awesome! - for anyone with little economic sense like me this book is an eye-opener. The reviews on the hind cover are very true; as David Bodanis says - "is like spending an ordinary day wearing X-ray goggles"; this book really gives you valuable insights and gets one understanding the reasons behind the way things work.

Beginning from a simple example highlighting the scarcity power and its relation to the coffee one could purchase, Tim moves on to highlight not just the daily activities and phenomena through economics but also deals with the externalities, taxation, globalization and finally ends with a very neat insight into the way China has risen to an economic super power of today. Free from details that could be got elsewhere from if one needs this gives a very useful reference frame for activities in our society.

This book is worth being in the library of everyone who is interested in gaining an insight on the daily functioning of an organization with the best of economics being clarified in it. It’s definitely a "Must Read" for everyone.

Believe you can!

2011-02-28T12:06:00.003+05:30

“We are all inventors, each sailing out on a voyage of discovery, guided each by a private chart, of which there is no duplicate. The world is all gates, all opportunities.”

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

When Emerson the famous explorer said this statement, he probably was reflected on the fear that we have to open up to the future and create our own identity.

Each one of us in unique - unique in our own way, our talents is different and what we do using these talents are clearly distinct. But, the big challenge we face today is moving above the ordinary, rising above the fear that is so prevalent. The thought that this is not tried earlier – I may not succeed, I may fail; the thought that - I would be wasting my time chasing the dream I have.

If, Albert Einstein were to believe that he was a dull student as said by this teacher; or Thomas Alva Edison were to believe that he was incapable when thrown out of school by his teacher; we wouldn’t have seen the scientific advancement due to relativity today nor would we benefit from the inventions by Edison. The life and achievements of such great people stands testimony to the power of individual dreams being created in-spite of opposition.

Don’t limit yourself with the thought that I am an only an imitator; believe in your abilities; you are an innovator, an inventor. Stretch your imagination. Reach for the skies. Pursue your passion. The whole world is your playground provided you are ready to play – explore it.

As you begin the new phase of your life - entering the professional course, take it upon you to follow your passion. Get interested into aspects of your specialization that most interest you. It is good to be completely involved – it helps you specialize better than others. Be the best in your favorite area.

Pursue your identity – realize you are best as you not as anyone else.

I stood the autumn

2011-02-07T16:33:00.005+05:30

I stood the autumn

I flew with the wind, not knowing where I would go…

Left I went and sometimes to the right,

As the winds settled, I landed down,

Not knowing where I was, what I was to do…

As the soil fell on me, I felt I was done for good.

Water moved on me, wetting me, dirtying me.

I felt this was the end of me…

Seasoned passed, I grew –

From dust and dirt to see the sun;

Sky’s the limit I felt, all but to know there were taller people than I.

Seasons changed – summer to winter, heat to cold;

When the sun was hot, there was no shade – I wanted to run but couldn’t

When the rain drenched, there was no cover – I wanted to run but couldn’t

When the winter froze, there was no blanket – I wanted to run but couldn’t

I lost my precious breath – I was hopeless what was next

My hands folded – nowhere to move, fighting for each breadth I stood

I just stood just believing I needed to stand, I had nothing but to stand

Stood I, as the birds flew, stood I as the heat increased, Stood I

I believed I would stand the autumn,

As my Breadth returned!

I knew, I stood, I knew, I stood the autumn.

- Chi

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I have used a metaphor of a tree to indicate the state of mind of an individual, right from the birth to growth. It signifies the importance of strength of mind in surviving hard times. This is my interpretation but is open to various other interpretations too.

Kudremukh Trek - 1

2011-02-03T10:07:00.052+05:30

Kudremukh Trek

Treks are a very lively and living experience. If you dream of a trek for quite some time, and it is realized after a long wait, the feeling is just ethereal. Kudremukh trek for me has been a dream since I began my trekking. I would see it from my hometown in udupi and wish I get to its peak – today the dream is a reality. I have climbed the Kudremukh peak.

This trek and hence my dream wouldn’t have been possible if my friends – Niranjan and Bipin weren’t getting married (Jan 24^th one at Udupi and the other at Dharwad) during this period. I dedicate this blog to their indirect assistance in helping me realize this dream.

When I realize that the 24^th Jan was a Monday, I was wondering if I could get some company over the weekend and we could climb the Kudremukh. I shared this Idea with Naveen G S, who was Niranjan’s ex-colleague. His office members were planning to hire a tempo traveler and make this trip, however as it would be, there were last minute walk outs from the plan and the field was left open. There were only 6 members all boys and enthusiastic to trek. Naveen put across the idea and it was accepted. We decided to leave Bangalore on 22^nd Jan Night. Naveen booked the tickets and the team was right there at the KSRTC bus stand game for this adventure.

The bus was an Airavata to Kundapura, and we got down at Karkala. Just before we boarded the bus I called up another old pal who had recently been to the trek – Nagendra Mayya and asked for any contacts. He sent the contact of Satish Mullodi who promised to make the necessary arrangements. He suggested we reach there by 1030 am and it should be an easy trek. He also suggested it was an easier getting to the place if we reach Kalasa – however this route was out of question.

We boarded the bus and got down at Karkala – at 5:00AM. A call to Satish and he told there was a bus at 745 AM and that would take us to Balgal at 9:45AM. He would later arrange the jeep to his place. We were wondering what we could do in the mean time in the bus stand. We freshened up at the bus stand and were still wondering.

One of our fellow trekkers – Madhu was a resident of Naravi, a small town just 30 minutes away from Karkala. After some discussion we decided to use the service and booked a Force Tufaan which would take the 8 of us to Balgal. We had time till this vehicle would come down to Karkala. We decided to have breakfast in the mean time. There was one hotel that had just opened up and was giving “avalakki” and “uppit”. We got in and hogged as much as we felt. By the time we were done it was 6:30 am. We were still waiting for the vehicle, we called up Satish and got the information updated – he suggested we come in the vehicle as far as possible on the mud road from where he would assist us get to his home.

At 7:00 am the vehicle was there at the bus stand and we were ready to get into – a few kilometers away from Karkala and we had the first part of the adventure – the vehicle had a puncture. Driver Santosh cursing his bad luck quickly changed the tyre but suggested we get the wheel repaired and left, the nearest place for this was Hosamar. Given that the it was a Sunday many of the puncture shops for such vehicles were shut. We all agreed and we reached Hosamar at 8:00 am and the repair work began.

With such a long break, we had time to discuss on a wide variety of topics ranging from politics to science to politics. It took around 40 minutes to complete the repair. We got back into the Toofan and we began our journey. We were already an hour and half behind the plan and my mind was busy calculating the possibilities. I didn’t want to miss this chance of realizing my dream!

We traveled to Bajagoli then S.K (South Kannada) Border and then Kudremukh Township towards Kalasa. We passed the check post, the place where we need to alight is named – “Balgal”, this is around 2 km from the check post towards Kalasa. There is a mud road which moves over a small stream, this is the route that one needs to take. Generally there are jeeps which are arranged to take you till Satish Mullodi’s home and they generally charge Rs 500/- for a trip. Since we had our vehicle, we moved ahead with the same as far as we could. We probably covered around 4 km out of the 7 km stretch to our Base camp – Satish Mullodi’s home.

Having covered the 4km through the vehicle, we parked it by the side of a small falls and continue the remaining part of the journey by foot. The scenery around was a treat to the eyes. At this point our team had split into 2 groups – one which was full enthu and the other which was occupied with clicking pictures and moving slowly to Satish’s house. A bit over a kilometer into the journey, we spotted a green snake on the path – the group that went front skipped this and had moved ahead. We took our time understanding is it was in an attacking mood or not and clicked snaps of the snake.

We moved ahead into the journey after this photo session and finally reached Satish’s home just moments before 12 noon! We were almost 2 hrs behind schedule.

As discussed over the phone, Satish and his family had prepared our breakfast! (Ya it was almost lunchtime!) – Idilies prepared of boiled rice. We also had tea before we began our trek. Satish had prepared Puliogare as our lunch. He packed them up in separate cover and handed them over to us. After a 30 minutes break, refilled cans and tummy we resumed our trek at 12:30 pm. He has also arranged a guide at Rs 350/-.

Our guide was a 9^th Standard student – Rakesh. He probably knew the terrain and had guided hundreds of teams by this time. It was really exciting to have him along in our team. Our team was now 9 members and it was absolutely scorching sun at this point of the day that proved to be our biggest challenge.

We began moving upwards taking the jeep track beside Satish’s home. We could hear the stream below the edge of the hill where his house was make a lot of sound. There was a small falls that this stream was making which created this sound. We continue our trek along the route, which now had slowly grown narrower and uphill. We could spot Kudremukh peak at a distance. We continue along this route till we found a lone tree – the base of the tree had a nice shade and a seating place in case some trekkers were tiered already.

The next part of the trek is taking a left at this tree, the path is along the side of the mountain and, you can savor the beauty of the Western Ghats and its streams along the side. This narrow path then takes us into a small shoal forest where we need to cross a small stream. These streams are rain fed and generally dry up in the hot summer; however we can surely see a shoal forest flanking any such water stream banks.

The terrain is pretty much the same for the first one third of the journey – you move along the side of a narrow path on the hill surface, them crossing over to the adjacent hill via a stream. We pass through two such streams and then the surface opened up to a beautiful hill
beside the Kudremukh.

We could spot a way to the peak of this falls, this too like Kudremukh was open to the sea side, and am sure would give a very beautiful view of the costal district. We didn’t take detour there and continued our trek along the Kudremukh route.

We passed through another forest cover before we opened up into an area which probably was used for cultivation some years back. This is where we get to spot two old houses – also called the Lobo houses. One of these is a bit off the main trekking route while we need to pass beside the other. The house that is farther from the route is in a better state compared to the one that is closer to the route. The closer one has almost collapsed. The area in front of these was probably the farms of the residents of these houses. The route this far since the first climb beside Satish’s home was pretty plain and almost negligible elevation what followed was a quick increase in the altitude.

We moved through the small forest beside lobo house and we found ourselves open up to the vast grassland lying on the slope of the hill. We could see the Kudremukh peak very distinctly from this point. It was getting closer! How close we didn’t know. It had take us an hour and three fourth to reach lobo house and it was all through the plains, now it was climb to the peak.

I had been carrying the heavy bag on my back; it had begun straining my shoulders and my back. I decided to shift my bag to some other team member and continued the journey. I continued clicking the snaps of the beauty that was at offer. We continued the climb, the edge of the hill, the ridges, the green slopes, the far off townships; etc all offered beautiful scenery. It was a treat on offer for me! I enjoyed every click here.

We continue along the side of the hill, and then into a small forest area. We had a small falls; the source of this was the peak of the Kudremukh. The stream had almost dried up but there was trickling water. We were just below the falls, but there was a challenge still at hand, climbing the last mile.

We moved out of the forest and continued the climb which finally opened up along the steep slope of the Kudremukh peak. We found a group of forest department return along the path here. While were resting along the small stone protrusion, we realized it was almost just a few minutes away from the high spirit of having reached the peak. This excitement got us moving along the surface, we moved slowly yet surely as a team.

With a 10 minute climb, we reached the relatively plain surface atop the peak; it was very easy move from here. I was involved in clicking snaps of the trek all along; the high spirited members ran to the edge of the peak and dropped down there for some fun filled moments. One of our team members – Nikhil had completely cramped himself, and I spent most of my time just around him to ensure that he is not the only person left behind; this also gave me a lot of time to click the snaps, and reduced my strain of climbing in a hurry.

We finally reached the peak at 4:00 pm. The sun which was above our head, now shown on the west side, but atop the peak there was no shelter.

We took the much essential break at the peak. We had our lunch – the packed puliogare here. We also emptied some bread and bun that we had carried along. This recharge was a really necessary one. Post the lunch we had a small photo session and then we begun our journey back.

In our effort to climb to the peak in a hurry, we had ignored the church at the peak, I am sure we wouldn’t have noticed it if Rakesh our guide hadn’t mentioned about it. As we moved along he showed us the remains of this old church. It is covered by weeds all over, there is no roof and is in complete ruins.

We continue the trek back, the sun now was preparing to set, and the shadows of the large mountains were growing pretty quickly. We moved quickly with longer paces and covered up the distance quickly, we reached the lobo house pretty quickly. We rested a small while before we continued on the trek.

We had covered around 4 kms to Lobo house from the peak, but the remaining 6 km to Satish’s home had to be done quickly, I was still in mood of clicking picture this far, I decided to do away with it as far as possible.

Another 45 minutes of trekking through the plains and the streams and we finally reached Satish’s home at around 6:50 pm. As I thought back about the initial thought while I began climbing, we had performed better than expected. We climbed the peak in 3 and half hours and got back to the base camp in 2 and half hours. It was a great record for the team.

We had a cup of tea and returned to the vehicle where we had parked. We reached the vehicle and begun our journey. As we reached the entrance to the check post, we decided to have small Tiffin. There was the commentary running of the final India-South Africa match on the Radio. We enjoyed the crackers that Yusuf Pathan was providing with Zaheer Khan.

We got back into the vehicle and continued our journey back home. Exhausted most of us were asleep in the cab except for the driver. We reached Naaravi, where our host Madhu and his family had prepared a grand hospitality for us. We thank them for all the support they provided us with.

This trek would remain in my memory for a very long time, I shall definitely return to this place; coz there is so much I haven’t explored here. I will get to them soon.

I think many people don’t have the contact of the people to get to the peak; here is the contact numbers of 2 pretty helpful people here.

Suresh Mullodi - 08263249595

Arun - 9481578065

Skandagiri

2011-01-29T11:28:00.015+05:30

Skandhagiri Trek

Treks are generally thought to be planned events, but I don't agree with the view. Treks are greater fun when you learn to accept the uncertainty that comes along with the new location. It is this uncertainty and the associated feeling that keeps me looking for more in every trek.

I had just returned from a long travel to Maharashtra, and was planning to rest when Rajat called me asking if I was game to a trek to Skandagiri. I had heard a lot about this from visitors to the place and the pictures that people had clicked. I was game but wanted some more people to join so that we had a larger company.

Rajat got along with him Vishwanath; I could get in Naveen, Umesh and Uncle Manjunath. It was a nice team of 6 people. Changing our initial plant to go by bikes we switched to car for ease of travel. With the team in place, we decided to leave Bangalore at 1:30 am.

I woke up at 1:00 am with Uncle along, and picked up Vishwa, Rajath and Naveen from Domlur. We got Umesh on board from Vidyranayapura. We fueled ourselves and finally left Bangalore at 2:45 am.

The night drive along the Bellary highway was a great experience, we reached past the Airport deviation, went further. Our idea was to reach Chickballapur as early as possible and begin trek. On the way, we saw a car with a drunken driver, whom we couldn't predict what the next move of his was.

We reached Chickballapur and 3:30 am. We were scouting for direction late night, thanks God! We found a rickshaw driver and asked for direction. Vishwa tried getting some inputs from the commuters in Telugu.

One you are in Chickballapur main road, go ahead till the Police Station, just before that there is turn take it. From there you have to continue till you find a Banyan tree (or rather move over 5 humps). Take a left there and you will find yourself navigating through the narrow lanes of some village.

At the dead end you could expect a Constable and the Inspector waiting in the jeep. You would need to pay an entry fee and get the approval. Missing or skipping this means you would find some more constables further through the way.

The next phase was through beside the lake (which is on the left) then through a village. The village road has a dead end, and just prior to that you would need to take a left turn. Keep driving and on the right hand side, you see torch light flashing.

Pretty soon you would find being interrupted by self proclaimed guides. The rates of their guidance depend on your vulnerability. They try dissuading you from venturing out on your won saying you would get lost. If you have trekked earlier, finding the path isn’t really difficulty. The guide charges vary from Rs 200/- to Rs 3000/-. Ensure you bargain well - else you would be taken for ride. The only challenge in the complete process is the starting point of the trek. If you are able to spot the starting point, getting to the peak is very easy.

Moving ahead without the guide, we had taken a chance here. We were new to the place, there was darkness all around. We weren’t familiar with the terrain to. Just beside the foot of the mountain, there is a small plantation of acacia trees, beside that there is a small stream - watch out for any water in this.

One you cross the stream, you are at the foot of the mountain. There is only one way which is pretty clear, and if you have crossed over earlier than the actual one - you might need to do some scouting just the way we did. Be ready for it - this is where the fun is; the usual route is not a great fun.

Ensure at each step you are looking out for the right route! Tough we began on the right route, we missed a small section of easy route and returned to the harder and then came back to the easier one at the fork. So, keep your senses open and watch out, even if you don’t, you will only be delayed to the summit, not denied of it.

The total time to the peak is around 1hr 15 min to 1 hr 30 minutes. Our detour cost us another 15 minutes. We started off following a small group of torches; we thought they knew the way, and it was only after some time that we realized that they too were looking out for the right way. After grappling in the dark for around 10 min, we spotted the right route. We continue along this route, and were able to spot the exact path. At one of the points we took a left turn instead of a right. This is where many people who were climbing too had mistaken and we were no exception.

This detour takes us to a steep rock phase where our confidence on our footing is tested. Most of the team members easily came up, but Vishwa, who hadn’t been on too many treks earlier, had some issues. He was looking his confidence, but made it up at this point after a struggle of 10 minutes.

The next phase we joined the other route, which joins here. At this point, the route is a bit slippery given the early morning mist. There are some step marks on the stone surface and we could use this to climb.

As we began climbing the trek, at the base we couldn’t see the peak, but as we continued the ascent the surface slowly unraveled itself and this was another challenge that our team had. Vishwa wasn’t expecting such a long trek to the peak given that this was his second trek.

We realized that in order to make it to the peak as a group, we needed to move ahead quickly. I decided to accompany Vishwa and boost his confidence. This seemed to have worked the trick and we picked up the pace. In less than 20 minutes we navigated some dangerous curves and reached the top. We reached the peak at 5:50 am.

Now was the time for the anxious wait - the wait to spot the Sun and the clouds if any that is so talked about of this place? We waited for nearly an hour and at around 6:45 Am we spotted the sun. All the while we had twilight, and the anticipation kept everything away from the mind. For many in the group, this was an early raise and probably the very few occasions when we had seen the sun come out from the horizon.

At a distance, one can spot two hills and I guess these would be Mulabagilu (not sure) which is where the first sun-rise is seen in the State of Karnataka. I think I would get down there sometime and have a look at the sun rise. Once the sun shown itself, it begun raising rapidly and just 5 minutes since the sun-rise the whole of the surrounding was brightly lit.

We spent the next hour clicking pictures and snaps of the surrounding. There are a couple of mantapas at the peak. One of these is the temple and the other probably was the guest house of the guard who would look out for enemy entering the vicinity. There is a fort which borders a very steep edge of the hill.

People have littered the peak and hence we find dogs and monkey a plenty there. There are a lot of stores that give u a tea and some quick breakfast like sandwiches, omelets’, bread jam etc. We had carried our own food - thanks to Vishwa for the wonderful palav he had prepared and got along.

We rested for a while and began our descent back to the base at 8 am. We had sufficient light and so the torches were all in the bag now. We moved slowly now that the whole day was there to make it to the base. With rests in between, we were having our tummy filled too.

We finally reached the base of the hill, a few meters away from where we began. We looked back and recollected what we had done over the past 4 to 5 hours. The memory of the night would stay in our mind for ever. The excitement and fun clouded with the experience is here to stay with us.

This was one awesome trip, as I drove back to Bangalore; we visited our role model - Sir M V's home town - Mokshagundam. There are three monuments that are put up at this place. The house of his birth has been renovated. There is also the house that he used while he was the Diwan - part of this has been converted as a museum and the remaining houses the SBM - which he was instrumental in forming. His samadhi is just beside these houses and has a beautiful lawn surrounding it.

We paid our tributes to the great engineer who inspires us and would inspire more engineers for the years to come. We prayed for his blessings and returned to Bangalore.

The FB link here: http://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=196129137070269&id=675735319&ref=notif&notif_t=like

We reached home by noon and had the remaining of the day to rest!

Shivagange

2011-01-02T22:51:00.015+05:30

Parinathi Group goes on its treks for brain storming and group building every quarter. This trek is the fall out of this resolution of the group.

Shivagange - a place known as a pilgrimage center by many is also an interesting trekking spot. Unlike the other treks where one has to put a lot of strain on the complete body, this trek is more of a step climbing pursuit.

Situated around 60 - 65 km from Bangalore, we chose this place for our brainstorming as most of the group members couldn't spare two days for the trek. Our initial count for the trek was expected to be having around 10 members but turned out that only 4 could make it.

We moved out of Bangalore around 8:30 am (a delay of around 30 minutes) from Domlur where all of us had decided to meet up. The journey thorough the city was pretty not eventful. We reached Yeshwantpur and refueled ourself before continuing the journey. Once we reached the elevated road there was no stopping us, the group was in the discussion while I was busy driving the car.

It was a pleasant drive over the elevated track, and we were near the tollgate withing 5 minutes. The road was pretty clear and the speed limit prescribed was 80 kmph so that made it all the more easy. We bought the toll pass for the day (priced at Rs 25/-) and moved a head on the NH. The road was very good and we reached Nelamangala where we took the deviation towards the Bangalore-Mangalore Highway.

We reached gudemarana halli, from where we took a right to Shivagange. Shivagange is around 15 km from this point. The road is not the best nor is it the worst. It is pretty good ride down to the town.

We begin spotting the mountain from a distance, in some angles it resembles the holy Ox (Nandi) of Lord Shiva. We reach the entrance of the temple where we parked our car and had a small energizing tiffin before we began the trek.

We began the climb the first temple that you get on the left is the "Harake Ganapathi" You then climb up to the split. Take the right if you want to visit the temple and the left if you want to begin the trek immediately.

As you move towards the temple, you get a small passage, this passage take you to the Veerabhadra swami and the Patala gange. Besides the passage is a small temple entrance - that of Swarna gowri (aka Honnadevi).

Back on the track you get to the temple route, you enter into the temple which of lord Gangadhareshwara. In front of him stands the bronze idol of the founder of Bangalore - Kempe Gowda. There is supposed to be a tunnel that connects the temple with Bangalore, but people are forbidden from attempting to get through these.

All these temples are inside caves and give a very special feeling since we are away from the disturbance of the outer world. The feeling is so peaceful and gives happiness.

The shiva temple is also very special since we see an irreversible reaction (that of converting ghee into butter) take place right in front of your eyes. The priest applies Ghee that the devotees get on the shiva linga and it turns in some time to butter, which is then served as prasadam.

The temple is pretty old and I guess it dates back to the time of the Cholas, some of the Nandi carvings look to resemble them. The gopura etc resemble the Vijayanagara times.

Once you have visited the temple, you can begin the trek from the path adjacent to the temple. On the sides you see an old fort wall and numerous pillars all telling the story of apathy of he present and the glory of the past. One would easily get moved seeing these scenes. Something needs to be done quickly with these so that we preserve these for the future. With all these thoughts running in the mind, our next target was the famous Olakallu teertha.

Moving out of the fort premise, we being the ascent towards the peak. There is a door (dwara) to begin the journey. All along the path we find vendors offering one thing or the other to ear/drink. The consumers eat these and drop all waste around the path. This has lead to a big monkey menace; and the reactions of the people who climb have only made these monkeys more aggressive. There are warnings stating that monkeys could be aggressive, but this should definitely be controlled if we don't mindlessly litter the environment.

There are steps all along the trek so there is no way any one could miss the route. There are many students and groups that were on their yearly trips and we found at least ten different such sets. The students were bubbling with a lot of enthusiasm as the begun, but later on, as the ascent got steep there was absolutely little of their voice that was heard. Many returned from Olakal teertha.

There is a common belief that only the fortunate ones get water when (s)he attempts to catch water from the underground spring. Many test their fortune and get back!

We continues our journey further on the path and reached the place where larger than life size idols of Lord Shiv and Parvathi have been constructed. The path further from here have been infested by Monkeys.

The climb through the next phase is pretty steep. At some points you note the old step marks or the railing that have been replaced. Take sheer care of your luggage, the aggressive monkeys take away your belongings even if you have them along in your hand.

The climb through this exciting phase you reach the Nandi which is carved out of the rock there. And once down the Nandi, you get to climb to see two temples at the peak of the hillock.

There is one store at the peak which again showcases the power of monopoly there. There are two pillars there which seem to be dating back more than a millenia (that is my guess, given the architecture and carvings there)

The view of the surrounding is really mesmerizer. I couldn't spot the Savandurga around from here thanks to the clouds and the sun which blocked my view.

We went to a bit off the general public and had our food there, surprisingly, we had no monkeys to bother us here. This is what got me to the realization that the monkeys thrive on the filth we throw away on the path to the peak. I guess if we have the discipline to handle these carefully they wouldnt bother us much.

We had rested at the peak for around 45 minutes before getting on to the return path. The journey to the base was rather non-eventful and we returned at our own pace.

The sun which was scorching in the afternoon had become more familiar as the day progressed and now looked very friendly.

The total journey from the base to the peak and then back to the base was around 3.5 hrs. We had gone barefoot to the peak and it felt really different all along the trek. We probably hadn't got the blood circulation so effective for days.

This was a rater memorable trek for the reason that was done on bare foot, but what saddened the whole thing was the filth people put all along the way. I guess it is time we grew more responsible to the environment.

We drove back to Bangalore and reached Mantri Mall by 4:30 and had fun watching Upendra's moview - Super.

It was complete fun filled day that was worth remembering.

PuranagaLalli Management - B R Ravindanath

2011-01-02T10:48:00.003+05:30

Indians have been the temple of knowledge from time immemorial, it has been only in the recent past (around 500 years) that we have forgotten our routes and aped the west to such an extent that we today believe they are better off at science and management that us. I don't intend to have a post on that at the moment as it would make a diversion from what I really want to do - review this awesome book. Its a translation of the the English book - wirtten by Dr Devdat Patnaik.

"PuranagaLalli Management" - meaning Managament in the Purana's is a Kannada book by Sri B R Ravindranath. The book as the title suggest sight some of the key learnings that one could pick from the Purana - the books that state numerous stories. Though this book gives as much knowledge as possible in its 18 chapter with some amalgamation of cases in the chapter it looks like there is much more one could look out for in terms of management from these books. None the less these lessons here are worth a note. The

In the chapters the author Sri Ravirndanath gets out most of the dilemma that the modern manager/leader has to face.
1. How important are rules and regulations/discipline - where should one draw the line?
2. The possible meaning behind the incarnations of Lord Vishnu & the significance to the pictorial depictions of the lord.
3. The priority that Indian's attach to the verbal communication over other means.
4. How to frame rules and when to start amending them to the betterment of purpose.
5. The rule of nature vs the thought process of humans
6. The fear of a leader and the failure of execution
7. Importance of sabbatical to prepare for the larger challenges of life.
8. There are no right answers they are all situational (so make your choices based on the situation)
9. Dominance of mental power over physical power
10. Delegation and its effective skills
11. Importance of recruitment and induction
12. Knowledge management & its significance
13. Keep your eyes on the purpose don't be derailed by insignificant distractions
14. Every action has both direct and indirect benefits - focus on the over all enhancement not short term, that would stand in good stead.
15. Standardization or Variation - make the balance carefully
16. Significance of being human in approach.
17. Avoid options which lead you to a confusing state.
18. There is more to what you see - be empathetical

As I said more, just these points I listed down won't limit our understanding - there more... its time we explore and understand the significance of these.

Savan Durga Trek

2010-11-24T09:26:00.017+05:30

It would have been just another Sunday morning if it was not for this trek. This was my first trek around Bangalore. Yes! being a Bangalorean and a trek enthusiast, it is a bit sad that I hadnt done any trek around Bangalore.

Savanadurga, is the largest monolith in Asia. It is around 60 kms from Bangalore towards Magadi. Drive towards Magadi is around 50 km. Once yo reach Magadi take the Left turn on to the Ramanagara road and drive for 8 km before you get an arch welcoming you to the Savandurga road.

Another 2 km drive along the almost non-existant road you reach an old temple of VeeraBhadra(Some believe an incarnation of Shiva, while others believe him to be one of his close associates). The Gopura of the temple has a "Nandi" (the vehicle of Lord Shiva). Just beside this temple is a small park where one could spot various birds and animals. This place is called Savanandi.

Further down this road, we reach the famous Lakshmi Narasimha Swami Temple at Savandurga. Large number of devotees throng the temple to seep the blessings of the Lord. There is also a medical herb plantation situated close to the temple. This is the starting point of the trek.

The Savandurga monolith is visible from the road much before Magadi, but one needs to almost circumvent the rock before being able to begin the ascent to the peak. At 4050 ft, this towers over most of the surrounding hillocks, or any man made structure - Normal human beings around 6 ft is negligible.

The best time to begin the trek is early morning when you could see the sunrise on the east and enjoy the serene beauty that could be associated with it. The whole feeling of the effort to make it to the peak, completely exhausted and then savor the divine feeling of the sunrise is definitely an occasion in the person's life.

We began pretty late from Bangalore after our breakfast. We traveled by car to the base from were we decided to trek to the peak. It was almost 11 am when we reached the base.

After a quick sip of the tender coconut, we were ready to begin the trek to the peak. A quick walk through the shrubs along an established trail, we immediately reached the base of the monolith. The recent showers had left some watery trail along the sides of the monolith were the natural process of breaking stones into soil was in progress.

It is really amazing the patience nature has in breaking the large rocks into smaller one, then continuing to break them further. The hot sun heats the surface, the rain water then tries to cool it in one go, leading to formation of cracks, and then seeps in. The wind then continues to cool it further over time Widening the cracks further and then repeating the process. One can easily see these at Savandurga. The work of nature over millions of years is very visible. I could see some rock broken probably a few years or decades back.

The rock side close to the temple is very smooth and poses some good challenges initially. The trek begins on a pretty steep note. One needs to maintain the stamina and push consistently to get to the first level of the fort.

Many people tire up at this level and return. There are some vendors who sell fruit juice along the way adding to the pollution (inappropriate and inadequate disposal has the tetra packs hanging on the side of the monolith).

Continuing along the slope of the hillock, we find many stones and slippery patches. One needs to navigate these carefully to avoid any damage. If there is no cloud cover, this phase might get really hard.

There are numerous routes from here to get to the next level of the fort, where the watch tower is constructed. The climb is pretty manageable till one reaches the steep uphill just before the tower. This is the second challenge and many people give up at this point to return without visiting the peak. It is not really difficult, as there are number of small steps/grips that people have made to make it easy for their followers.

At this juncture it is a real test of character for many, do the embrace the uncertainty and move ahead by stretching themselves to realize a new self or do they just accept the complexity and stay with the status quo! The question is of the mind set and the toughness!

Once a person crosses the fort besides the watch tower, there is whole different world that one gets to see. The confidence of having tackled an almost seemingly tough task is a great booster. One could rest here for some time, watch the surrounding areas from the Watch Tower and then resume the trek. From this point onwards, the bubbling city of Bangalore can be seen - some high rise buildings also could be spotted.

The next part of the trek is pretty much at the top of the peak. A small climb uphill and we come to a Mantapa. The Mantapa was probably the resting place of the watchman of the fort. The watchman could see all the sides in the surrounding given the peak and inform the King who could then take appropriate action to handle the situation. There is also a small tank that is created here, this might have been used by the watchmen for their daily purpose.

The final peak which has a Nandi Mantapa is pretty is separated by a small cave-like formation. There is some thick vegetation here which provides a good shade from the scorching heat.

The final phase of the trek is a steep climb along the side of a rock and then an easy walk to the Nandi mantapa. We reached the peak around 1:30 pm. The clouds had moved in and gave a good cover from the sun's hear. After spending around 20 minutes at the peak, we decided to get back to the base and on the way have some of the snacks that we had gotten along.

We rested near the Watchman's pond and had our food, and then continues on the descent.

We could spot the another majestic hill the Shivagange at a distance, I could feel my hear call for another trek to that hill, I would be going there soon.

Continuing on the descent with some exciting and adventurous moments we reached the base around 3 pm. With another dose of tender coconut, we were ready to get back in our car and reach Home.

This trek was a memorable one for me given that it was my first trek around Bangalore. I began to appreciate the difference in trekking in the western ghats and the rocky mountains around Bangalore.

The trek wouldn't be complete without a mention to the few typical characters I met along the way.

NCC Cadets:

The NCC cadets were on a trekking expedition with one of their group leaders. The enthusiastic people were in a hurry to climb leaving their not so able compatriots who were lacking the confidence. I guess they should have spent some time in encouraging the morale of those people who were on their own mental wars along the trek.

Another instance I saw was the rigidity in the mindset of some of the cadets to innovate and explore. There were alternate routes to a common path don't be blinded by a single choice.

The fruit juice Vendor at the Nandi Mantapa:

This guy taught me a lot about economics (- monopoly and the like), Strategy (first mover advantage)

The Director's son:

The talkitive boy got me to realize the power of dream; when one is young and how one pursues it in all (s)he does.

2010-11-18T15:57:00.005+05:30

The Leader Who Had No Title

I have been an avid follower of Robin Sharma's books for over five years now, since I first read the book - "The Monk who Sold his Ferrari". His narration has been a constant source of inspiration which pushes me into action every moment. This book is another to the series.

Unlike the Monk who sold his Ferrari and its sequel which had the "Monk" as the main character across the books, this book - "The Leader Who Had No Title" takes a war veteran as the protagonist and narrates using the trauma he goes through. He finds his mentor in an old friend of his father who leaves a life changing experience for this young lad. The story then revolves around the protagonist meeting other mentors and learning the essential features which make one a leader with out title.

The lessons that the book gives could be encapsulated with some of the following acronyms:

You need no Title to be a Leader

I - importance of innovation

M- mastery

A - authenticity

G - guts needed for business

E - ethics

Turbulent Times Build Great Leader

S - Speak with Candor

P - Prioritize

A - Adversity breeds Opportunity

R - Respond versus react

K - Kudos to offer

The Deeper your Relations, the Stronger Your Leadership

H - Helpfulness

U - Understanding

M - Mingle

A - Amuse

N - Nurture

To be a Great Leader, First Become a great Person

S - See Clearly

H - Health is Wealth

I - Inspiration Matters

N - Neglect Not your Family

E - Elevate your Lifestyle

With his usual style of writing, the book is studded with a lot of quotes - these are worth a treasure!

Gavi Betta

2010-11-10T12:37:00.009+05:30

Trekking is probably the best I can expect on a weekend - it rejuvenates me. My excitement is always towards exploring new places - the places I have never heard of. It had been three months since my last exploration to Dedupe & Jamalabad, I was on the look out for an opportunity and Sampath from Sharavathi Valley had posted a trek for the weekend - I decided to join in primarily interested in exploring the "Gavi Betta", associated activities though present didnt really interest me to begin with. It was 2 Day outing with a lot of itenary including rappelling, water sports in addition to Trek to Gavi Betta.

I know I am pretty delayed in writing this blog - almost 2 months since I trekked. The trek was on 21st and 22nd of the August.

Day 1: We began our journey from Bangalore early morning. Inspite of a delayed start from Bangalore, we reached Shanivara Sante by noon. Here we met our guide here who suggested an alternate route to the one planned through the coffee estates.

The guide took us to his relatives home were we received awesome hospitality! After a brief break and getting to know the hosts well, we continues our journey from the starting camp. I spent most of my trek time with the guide getting to know the specialties and the mindset of the person. He worked in Bangalore but returned tiered of the noise and the pollution to set up his own studio in Shanivara Sante.

The initial part of the trek was through a common jeep route, but since the road was blocked with a tree falls (thanks to the rains), we moved into the coffee estate. This was were some of our fellow trekkers had some trouble with the leeches.

Continuing the trek further, we reached another estate - there was an artificial lake created by building a dam. It was just beautiful. This water tank acted as the source of supply for the plantations downhill. A small distance further, our guide plucked a cardamom, and showed us how it looks before being processed and it reaches the store. The taste of the cardamom was sweet. He also showed us another fruit which they generally use instead of tamarind, this fruit is dried and then canned for storage.

Further on the route we reached an open area were we found granite pieces laying scattered. We climbed the hillock and were mesmerized by the panoramic view around. After a brief session of photography we continued our trek on another trail.

We crossed few valleys, stream and some beautiful scenery before getting to a fresh green opening besides a pristine lake. The weather this far was awesome with cool breeze, clouds on the horizon, clear view of the route ahead.

We rested beside the lake and I had all the time in the world to explore the small falls that the lake water made as it overflowed its boundary. The accessibility of the falls makes it a really good place for photography and probably cinematography too.

We then had our lunch before resuming the next phase of the trek. Mr Sampath of Sharavathy valley relies on his expert cook for the taste - Mr Dharmanna. He reached the peak via a different route and had prepared an awesome lunch for us to savor.

The "Vana Bhojana" (literally meaning forest meal), besides the lake and the clouds slowly moving closer created a very memorable lunch for me. We as a team had gelled well by this time and were in full flow with our jokes and comments. Post lunch, we got some wild berries as desserts which made the lunch even special.

Just as we resumed our phase two of the trek, the weather turned form pleasant to cloudy and really challenging. We couldn't spot each other at a distance more than 3 mts, the clouds were so dense. One of our trek companions had pulled her muscle and decided to stay back at the spot accompanied by Sampath. The remaining team continue the trek with our guide leading the way.

A 20 minute simple trek given the terrain, we reached an awesome clearing(actually a ridge) atop the hill. This was the peak - made completely of stone. If the clouds cleared up, we could get an awesome view of the Western Ghats and its thick vegetation from this point. We weren't really luck and so we continue with the trek, moving along the boundary of the ridge, we reached a dense vegetation from where we had to get into a steep descent along the ridge to the Cave.

The clouds had now begun to pore and the descent was getting really messy. With some heavy weights (including me) the supporting shrubs were giving way and the sod had turned slippery. The light dimmed and visibility problems were high. The high moisture & rain was instrumental in avoiding us from any shots here.

After a 10 minutes descent we reached a cave formation. "Gavi" in Kannada stands for "Cave" and "Betta" for a "hill" - this the secret of the name this hill has. Getting to the last part of the cave is really hard; it requires us to creep through low and narrow opening between the rocks, move on slippery rock to finally get to the cave. This cave has a religious significance and villagers come here to offer their prayers to the deity here.

After a really hard photo shoot given the low light intensity, we resumed our trek to return to the lake. We reached the lake in around 40 minutes.

We then began our walk back to the Tempo Traveller, which had now been stationed at the main road were the jeep route ends. Continuing along the jeep road which had turned slippery post rains; we moved ahead to get to the TT.

The consistent rains had drenched every one of us, so we were quick to change and get seated in the Tempo. The tempo moved on, taking us back to Shanivara Sante - We had hot coffee and thanked the guide before leaving to a Camp Stay were we would spend the night.

We reached Camp Leapord Rock at night, had dinner and caught some really hard earned sound sleep.

Day 2:

After an hot cup of coffee in the morning, we went on an early morning safari through Nagarahole and then reached our rappelling spot.

We had an awesome Akki Rotti (rice pan cake) and Avalakki (pounded rice recipe) along with the famous Kashaya (herbal tea) which gave us a super bunch. We then completed our Rappeling activities and returned to our base camp.

Delicious Lunch was served and post which most of us spent time in the water sports facility available there.

I enjoy trekking a lot more than the other activities and thats one of the reasons for not having all the energy to write more about day 2, but none the less the second day too was equally exciting as the first one.

We began our journey back to Bangalore, and I got down at Mysore as I needed to get to Surthkal the next day for classes.

Photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/sachidananda.bs/GaviBetta#

How to Become CEO - Jeffrey J. Fox

2010-10-03T18:19:00.004+05:30

A very quick read, encapsulates all the important rules that one would need to follow to get to being a CEO.

Jeffrey who is a Harvard Graduate, gives us 75 tips towards being successful as CEOs. Many of these are counter intuitive at times but worth a read, and get done with reading very quickly. I could read the book in plain 3 hrs!.

The rules suggested in this book give you an essential hint to the alternate way in which one would need to work towards reaching ones goal (yes thatz one of the rules too), not through the political way to get there.

A must read if you have the ambition of being a CEO!

Flip - PeterSheahen

2010-09-20T22:50:00.003+05:30

"Flip" is an awesome book! thats my take - thanks to the match of ideologies that I have with the author - Peter Sheahan

The book deal about the importance of embracing change, adapting oneself instead of brooding and trying to deny the reality.

The book talks about the four forces -

compression
complexity
accountability
expectation

as the primary drivers of the turbulent change we see in the environment.

The remaining chapters deal with how to handle these fore factors - important keys among these being

Be all of fast, good, cheap and more...
Business is personal
There is no wisdom in crowds (they are important to validate not to help you innovate. innovation happens of the fringes)
To get control, give it up
Action precedes clarity

Pete provides sufficient information and evidence to support his claim and argument, and convinces the reader about the need to change. I can use quite a bit of these in my examples.

Initial part of the book looked a bit boring, but then as the book picked up each of the four factors the excitement was on the ascent and only left me hungry for more.

People trying to get an answer from the turbulent environment we exist in today, here is an useful aid.

1 + 1 = 2 Whatz the assumption

2010-09-16T14:56:00.002+05:30

I was thinking of it while speaking to some of my friends and here is a realization I had!

me: I ask them what is 1 + 2 ?

response: '3' came the response (with a vague stare indicating - do you think you are smart?)

me: My next question went what is your assumption?

response: Assumption? its plane maths! its arithmetic... (with the stare indicating that they were surprised with this)

me: Nope I just wondering if you realized the depth of what you just told!

response: ah!!! (with all expression of kind of frustration!, looking at each other.)

I then proceeded to ask them what is 2a + b; and the answer came (2a+b).

me: Then what is 2a + b + a

response: 3a + b

me: Yup! So what is your assumption!

response: they are like variables!

True! but the question here is essentially, do we really understand what like variables mean? They are variables true but - they are modeling something in the real world. What is that?

The variables essentially stand for class of objects; what I mean is here

Let me ask:- How much is 2 dogs + a cat (equivalent to 2a+b!)?

2 dogs + a cat (that is the answer, its nothing like 3 cats or 3 dogs)

This realization is so fundamental, I hope we realize the depth of every thing that we learn!

Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! - Richard P. Feynman

2010-06-16T21:46:00.003+05:30

The sub title of the book says - "Adventures of a Curious Mind".

Feynman, a Genius in many ways, a noble laureate, a Musician, an artist, a pranksters, and much more. The sub-title aptly summarizes the book.

The book is about Feynman's curious mind. The human mind is inherently curious; but curiosity invariably gets deprived if we don't encourage ourselves to go ahead and explore the opportunity that curiosity offer.

Feynman did exactly that, enjoy what ever his mind thought about. The book is a narration of these encounters of a curious mind. The best take away for me is to be able to build on a curiosity and convert it into an option/opportunity.

In case you are in a state of deliberation with one of the curious pranks/attempts of the mind; go read this book! am quite sure you would love to get going with your attempt than think too much about the options that are available...void of curiosity.

Dedupe & Jamalabad Trek

2010-05-10T19:50:00.001+05:30

It had been over 6 months since I had gone on a trek, every time I would give a reason. This time I decided to break the routine. We decided this trek around a month back, but priorities are quick to change, and we landed up being only 5 people for the trek - Tyagraj, Naveen, Niranjan and Rajat.A team of 5 people decided to have a fun in the Western Ghats.

After a tiring work on Friday, we decided to catch up at Domlur and then leave for the trek. Excepting for Rajat who stays on the other side of KBS, all of us began our trek from Domlur.

Catching a bus to KBS on Friday evening from Domlur is never easy, there is always going to be people and you need to deal with the packed buses and traffic to reach on time. We reached there just 15 min before the bus was to leave! (thank God we had booked our bus in Advance)Rajat who came from the other part of the city was already there... it was the last seat an we though we wouldn't have any sleep.

I was damn tiered and caught sleep quite early, didnt mind the road bumps that were there on the road. Its only when the bus stopped that I woke up. After a long journey we reached Dharmasthala at 5:30 am. Tyagraja our host was very courteous to give us his new house to sleep before we began our trek. All of us had a nice nap.

Day 1:

We woke up at our own convenience, there was an awesome breakfast and then with some packed up some food for our trek. We reached Dedupe by car to compensate for the delayed start. This was my second trek to Hanadka, while Tyagaraj had spent his early childhood at his Uncles home near the falls; and the other three were very watchful of the picturesque surrounding. The road was a jeep track for a long distance and so occasionally Naveen who was craving for some more variety would choose to use an alternate route to reach the same point thorough some shrubs, bushes and dried up streams.

After a simple walk in the steaming heat for around an hour we reached Tyagaraj's uncles home. I was a very refreshing break from the heat, the cocum juice that was served was just awesome and I was shameless to ask for another one - it just tasted so good! Thanks for this one.

We also got to know that Hanadka was the last in a series of 7 falls (and one of the most beautiful and easily accessible ones). I made a mental note that, I would get to check all of these out sometime - this is for another time. The starting point of this trek it seems is from Samse - will do the checking and then start off some other time. We decided to resume our trek after a refreshing break.

All refreshed with a 30 minutes break, we moved through the plantations by the side of a pipe which provides good drinking water to the houses near by, we reached in 15 minutes to the very elegant Hanadka Falls. We spotted a waterfalls, at a distance - this was the 4th level of the falls (I for a moment thought i wish I could get there today).

I was taken aback, this time when I compared it with the first visit. It was very neat, undisturbed by the plastic & filth that careless people who come for an outing leave behind. I was feeling guilty, since my blogs might have given the access to this beautiful falls - my humble request to all the trekkers who read my blog and go to those places, please act responsibly. The ecosystem is very sensitive, do not leave behind any plastic or non-bio degradable material which might disturb the ecosystem.

Naveen, Niranjan and Rajat, were excited by the elegance of the falls and decided to have a shower in the falls. I generally retrain from having a bath in the falls that I visit. After some fun, we had a good packed lunch and decided to try out exploring some higher levels of the falls.

It was around 2 in the afternoon, and we had time till till 4:30 pm to try out some exploration. I detected a small path in the adjacent forest and followed it to reach the top of our falls. It was quite slippery and narrow and having reached the top, asked if we would really like to continue.

The enthusiasm was contagious, we reached the top of the falls and waited to refresh ourself. After a small break, we decided to follow the water on its trace and explore further. After 30 minutes of trekking we reached a split. It was a very silent and beautiful falls. This was the second level, a very neat one!

On the right we spotted another another stream joining this one. We couldn't climb the 2nd falls so we decided to follow the other stream and began climbing trough the slippery slopes and leaves.

The slopes and leaves made the climb very treacherous. Towards the last section of this climb, we could see a nice falls (not exactly a falls but a small flow of water over the rock surface). The route was through slippery rocks, we didnt have any ropes to help us climb and so we decided against taking the risk of slipping and falling on the rocks.

We had some photo sessions all along the way, and finally reached the first falls - our base. The time was around 4:45 pm. After a refreshing break at the falls again, we began walking back at 5:30 pm. We reached the car at 6:20pm.

We drove back and had a nice dinner after a long day of trek in the hot sun. After dinner and catching up with some news we had a sound sleep.

Day 2:

We got up at 7 am, freshed up and decided to get going on the 2nd Phase of the trek before it would be hot!. The trek was to Jamalabad Fort.

This too was the 2nd time I was getting to Jamalabad, and I knew that the later we get started,the tougher it would be. Given the hot sun and the steep accent it would make it really hard.

We reached the base of the fort at 8:15 AM. After purchasing the ticket, we began our trek to the peak. Nirajan who wasn't feeling comfortable - decided to stay back. The rest of us continue to the peak.

Trek was slow and challenging. The sun was raising higher, making the surrounding air hotter. We could spot a lot of mountains, houses, bridges, rivulets as we began but as we continued the distant objects dissolved into the bright light.

The climb is long and hard one when it gets hot it becomes harder. We had sufficient water and that helped us refresh ourself as we climbed. Lemon is another aid in these conditions.

After a climb of around 1:30 minutes we reached the peak. The last part of the trek was the hardest. Given the steep slope and the large steps - it gets us frightened. Slow but sure, we reached the peak. Lot of things have changed since the last time - where is the cleanliness gone!

After surveying the peak end to end, we began the descent. In 45 minutes we reached the base. After refreshing ourselves, we began back. We reached Tyagraja's home, and got back to Dharmasthala.

Tyagraj decided to stay at home for some more time, while we decided to get back to Bangalore by night and take a nap. After lunch, we caught a Suvarna Sarige and reached Hassan.

After a tiffin at the bustand we continued our journey to Bangalore. We reached home at 1230 am.

It was one awesome trek!

Making Breakthrough Innovation Happen - Porus Munshi

2010-03-23T22:34:00.003+05:30

It has been long since I completed a book. I generally read multiple books at a time and the one that catches my interest the most is the one which gets completed the earliest.

Entrepreneurship is so much about keeping yourself inspired and at the required task most of the time. Books are probably the best source of inspiration and this book

"Making Breakthrough Innovation Happen", is probably amongst the top few books in the category.

Its a book about India and Indians who made a dent in the history of innovation. It the story of 11 companies/individual who made the impossible. Its definitely worth a read. Take a personal copy I would not share mine!

The instances in the book are:

Dainik Bhaskar

Arvind Eye Hospital

CavinKare

ITC-IBD

Bosch India

Trichi Police

Chola Vehicle Finance

Titan Edge

Shanta Biotech

The Surath Transformation

Su-Kam

Each of these stories are so inspiring and get you on your feet and in action... It makes you feel better. This book would always remain to have a special impact on my life and will hold a special place.

Blink - Malcolm Gladwell

2009-09-16T20:12:00.003+05:30

'Blink' - the power of thinking without thinking; is an interesting book in the sense that it talks about the small split second in which we make the first perceptions.

I had never seen that fraction of a second; the first feel, the first look so seriously though I had been using it unconsciously since birth. Some questions always used to linger about how this is possible - this book gives me the answers I was looking for.

The book talks about concepts like - thin slicing, snap judgment, behind closed doors etc... when understood in greater detail help us build on these and strengthen our first impressions there by

For people interested in knowing more about psychology, and the way we function unconsciously... this is definitely a must read.

Every Step is here to stay

2009-09-11T13:39:00.002+05:30

Every Step is here to stay

None was built in a single day

It a journey not a stay,

Like the marks on clay

Every Step is here to stay.

Every single step has something to say

It’s not the goal but the way,

Showing us light farther away

Every Step is here to stay.

Life with its twist and turn

Makes us earn,

A moment left not to return,

Filling life with fun;

Leaving no heart burn,

Every Step is here to stay

It’s not in one single spot

Connecting every single dot

Looking back, making a plot

More beautiful than you thought!

Every Step is here to stay

- Chi

First, break all the rules - Markus Buckingham

2009-09-11T13:02:00.002+05:30

This book was gifted to me by the Quetzal group when I was interning with them. I started reading this book on the journey back from Mumbai. I couldn’t concentrate too much while traveling that time so stopped reading and the book was lying aside for quite a long time.

Recently while doing my routine Business Development stuff I thought of looking back at the book. It’s just amazing how we can effectively use this book to foster excellence in organizations. The book challenges the conventional wisdom and explains how the most successful managers handle the situation. This book is very revealing and I would say a must read to every manager. We manager need to understand that we are catalysts to the process…

The book deals with 4 key ways which the great managers have in common and how this can be used to enhance the effectiveness of others. The four keys are

- Selection of talent

- Definition of outcomes

- Strength’s focus

- Finding the right fit

To know more about these 4 keys to improve your managerial effectiveness I would definitely suggest a read. A must read for all managers

Leadership wisdom from the monk who sold his ferrari

2009-09-11T11:08:00.001+05:30

Robin Sharma doesn’t stop to inspire me. Every time I read his books I get all the more thrilled to work towards something more meaningful. May be the start up phase of my company also has something to do in me appreciating the points he puts across.

This one is the latest of this books I have read. Ya! There is a new collection of all his works a set of 9 books – some day I will get that collection (a good gift too I can say). I have read 4 of his books and get all the more involved in them.

Leadership wisdom is an awesome book the 8 rituals he suggest towards increasing leadership effectiveness is a compilation of the leadership knowledge this far from history. The way he weaves a story around the rituals makes it even more exciting. I think the apt review of this book would be to list the 8 rituals of Leadership here and let the interested people read through the book. So here goes the list.

The ritual of a compelling future force
The ritual of human relations
The ritual of team unity
The ritual of adaptability and change management
The ritual of personal effectiveness
The ritual of self-leadership
The ritual of creativity and innovation
The ritual of contribution and significance

These rituals are aptly designed to help us improve our leadership capabilities. So if you are searching for the book which would help you do that; here’s one.

Joker in the Pack - Ritesh Sharma & Neeraj Pahlajani

2009-05-29T20:48:00.003+05:30

What a time to reflect on the life at IIMB? Graduated in March with the convocation, it been just around 3 complete months but feels like ages since those magical days in the corridors on the college.

The book is a nice read for people going into the college but similarly, its worth while to be read post the college days. No new insights but gives good memories of the days.

The issues dealt in the book are really interesting for I could relate closely to many emotions but with a mix of characters.... Go ahead read if you want an interesting view on the life @ IIMs

Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert M Prisig

2009-05-29T20:25:00.007+05:30

Some books are path breaking in the world of philosophy and this one is definitely one them, a book which has inspired new thinking of thousands across the world.
Did I like the book? Definitely, then I need to ask Why did I like to book as much as I did? May be its part narration, part the content - the questions that it has dealt with, part just the timing of reading the book.
The narration:
One of my hobbies as is clear from some of the blogs that I have posted is trekking, very similar to the motorcycle ride across The United States; these are times when you get to think a lot about your own ideology of life. On a trek, in the lap of mother nature, its time to reflect and search for any meaning that comes out, any new insights that comes from the past; this a one of the reason why I loved the book.
The content:
The details of the story apart, what interested me most of the many things the attempt at understanding quality, the unity of eastern and western approaches in searching for the meaning of life and to be most precise - the attempt at understanding 'dharma' in the Indian philosphy.
There are as I mentioned already a lot of other issues he deals with, its worth reading at a slow pace and letting things sink... I personally spent over 4 weeks to read this book, and I still feel there is lot more to this.
The timing:
While I am working for most of the time on starting up, this book talks of a lot of the philosophy, which looks so very true when I read about it and relate to the context in the real life. May be at some other point in time you can read it to be understood quite differently from what I understand it now - but that is so true of awesome works like these.

A nice read if somebody is interested in philosophy and the associated debate - just to emphasize... there is no much relation with 'zen Buddhism practiced in the east.'

Screw It Let's Do It - Lessons in life by Richard Branson

2009-05-29T19:56:00.006+05:30

We are inspired by some people to the core, and Richard Branson is one of those some special people for me.
A man who has done so much in life, who has risked so much in life just to be himself is definitely one from whom you need to take a leaf.
This book is a short read, can be completed in a couple of hours; but inspires one to the core, probably one of the best books which I can compare with the likes of 'Alchemist'. Why did I choose this smaller book when I could have read the bigger one... well no explanation to that its just the paucity of time and the let me try it out first (may be I fell to the trap of what the marketing genius wanted me do .... would be more than happy for this one... coz it given me a lot more)
Some of the lessons shared in the book are worth being mentioned in a lot of places. Here are some of those gems which I would like to share; probably more relevant to those who would start off and experiment, the adventure type... every one would take something out of these definitely. So here I go

Just do it!
Believe it can be done
Have goals
Live life to the full
Never give up
Prepare well
Have faith in yourself
Help each other
Have fun, work hard and money will come
Don't waste time - grab your chances
Have a positive outlook on life
When it's not fun, move on
Be bold
Calculate the risks and take them
Believe in yourself
Chase your dreams and goals
Have no regrets
Keep your word
Challenge yourself
Aim High
Try new things
Always try
Rely on yourself
Chase your dreams but live in the real world
Work together
Live the moment
Love life and live it to the full
Enjoy the moment
Reflect on your life
Make every second count
Value family and friends
Put family and the team first
Be loyal
Face problems head on
Money if for making things happen
Pick the right people and reward talent
Have respect
Be polite and respectful
Do the right things
Keep your good name
Be fair in all your dealings
Do some good
Change the world, even in a small way
Make a difference and help others
Do no harm
Always think what you can do to help

This is definitely a long list... but its worth practicing. Having taken the entrepreneur way, I see the value of each of these in my daily life. The book is a must read for a quick dose of inspiration to change the world in our own small way.

The High Performance Entrepreneur - Subroto Bagchi

2009-03-19T11:06:00.005+05:30

I heard Subroto Bagchi, when he had come down to IIMB to deliver a lecture for the incoming batch of our juniors. It was also the occasion when he released 'Go Kiss the World' in our college. He made a brief reference to the accolades he got on with the first book of this -' The High Performance Entrepreneur'.

I had decided I would start off on my own after my PGDM from IIMB, and did so. I started off my company along with a few friends of mine - 'edu-next'. I began working full time on the company after my completion of the course, i.e. since last week of Feb 2009.

I had taken up a few entreprenuership related course and interned in a startup during my summers. A lot of places while working on these courses there were sufficient references being made to the book. I decided to read this book following all this background.

It is definitely a very insightful book for entrepreneur who want to start off; a lot of the caveats which are given which these people need to be cautious about. A very good book to read before you start to ensure that you are on the look out for these caveats. However, every enterprise that starts has its own course to follow, its own challenges to face - this book doesn't solve all the issues. It is a must read before you start, but the challenges of each start up are very different.

An interesting read in general and a must read for entrepreneurs to be.

Games Indians Play - V. Raghunathan

2009-03-19T10:37:00.005+05:30

We have heard about the famous anecdote of Indian Crabs not being covered with a lid while transported across the oceans. This book takes up issues like this and explores the questions we sometimes ask ourselves as Indians - 'Why are we the way we are?'

Most of the things that we do look so usual for us that we accept them at the face value never questioning the logic behind our actions. This book is a summary of the efforts which Prof. Raghunathan has made towards analyzing the behavior in terms of Game Theory, and Behavioral Economics.

The book tries to look at the 'Indianness of Indians' as detached as possible checking the personal biases at every stage and looking at answering the apparent paradoxes that emerge. Some of the questions that he tries to answer are - Why are we a nation that is individually so smart and collectively so naive? Why do we mistake talk for action? Why is our self-worth massaged only if we have the ‘authority’ to break rules? Why are we among the world’s most corrupt? Why do we jump red lights? Why do we dump our garbage at the neighbour’s doorstep?

In the last chapter Prof, tries to link the Gita with the concept of game theory; this I believe is a very interesting attempt at interpretation of the slokas from the Gita with a game theory perspective. These can always be debated and a new understanding be derived from them, none the less it is very interesting interpretation.

This attempt by Prof, should be only the starting point and a lot more needs to be done in taking the subject of understanding the 'Indianness of Indians' and make it a main stream of study.

Man's Search For Meaning - Viktor E. Frankl

2009-03-17T18:29:00.005+05:30

The first time I heard about the book was in a class at IIM-B, I got to know more about some of its contents when some of my friends started reading it. From their initial review and small snippets I read from the book I borrowed I decided to buy one for myself and began reading.

This has surely been on of the best books I have read, a store house of knowledge on human psychology. The insights which Dr. Frakl educes from his experiences in the concentration camps is just phenomenal - a hell a lot of work in the situation!!!

Instead of rewriting some of the points from the book, I choose to copy paste some interesting qoutes which are put up in the wikipedia here.... I am sure when in the right frame of mind and right situations there will be many who would appreciate the depth of these thoughts

"A man can get used to anything, but do not ask us how."
"everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way"
Nietzsche's words, 'He who has a why to live can bear with almost any how.'
"When we are no longer able to change a situation...we are challenged to change ourselves"
"We can discover this meaning in life in three different ways: (1) by creating a work or doing a deed; (2) by experiencing a something or encountering someone; and (3) by the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering."
"Man is capable of changing the world for the better if possible, and of changing himself for the better if necessary."
"It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life—daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual."
"We were not hoping for happiness---And yet we were not prepared for unhappiness."
"Live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now!"
"Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom."

These 10 points in essence what I call the highlights of the book. These points listed down here are so profound, I am sure writing a page of on each of these 'meaning's would not do justice in any sense. These are like the distilled truth one begins to realize when one starts reflecting. Further, interpretation and analyzing the experiences shared in the book would lead to many insights for us as individuals, which we can be applied in different situations.

Interestingly, independently before reading this book these were in essence some of the thoughts I discussed with Bipin ( a close friend of mine at IIMB). There seems to be something beyond what is visible in all that that happens in the B-Schools, especially IIMs. The competition, the reaction, the approach and my interpretation of these in some way relate to the readings from the book. It would definitely be interesting what would emerge out when a study similar to the one done my Dr Flankl is done through the country's top B-Schools.

The books touches psychology and spirituality majorly, however there are many more things that emerge to be interesting about this book which explains why it was voted as one of the ten most influential books in the United States in 1991.

Banker to the Poor - Muhammad Yunus

2009-01-20T22:31:00.004+05:30

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”

- Lao-tzu, Chinese Philosopher (604 BC – 531BC)

The adage mentioned above, has a lot of significance in every day life. Every single work that we do needs an initiative. It takes a lot of courage, to choose a path that has been less traveled and even more challenging if it defies the conventional wisdom. This is exactly what I felt after reading the autobiography of Dr. Muhammad Yunus – 'Banker To The Poor'.

Background:

While I was looking out for a good book to review, I was considering the following options viz – 'The Creation of Wealth' – The Tatas from the 19^th to the 21^st Century by R.M Lala, 'Maverick!' By Ricardo Semler, 'The Polyester Prince' – the rise of Dhirubhai Ambani by Hamish McDonald and 'The Banker to the Poor' by Dr Muhammad Yunus. While reading the first few pages in each book I was looking for a feel in the pages which was different – one which made me think and question the conventional thought process. I was struck very significantly by Dr Yunus's battle against poverty, and on reading a bit further, his ability to question the fundamentals of economics in the first few pages really intrigued me into reading the book further. I was searching for a book which had both the spirit of entrepreneurship and a social perspective to it; I found 'Banker to the Poor' the best fit in what I was looking for. The following is the review of the book.

The story of Dr. Muhammad Yunus, Noble Peace Price of 2006 – captured in his autobiography - “Banker To The Poor” is a story of a struggle to move against the conventional wisdom; facing every possible challenge both natural and human. The story doest just mention about the journey of a unique banking paradigm – The micro credit but also the shift in the perception of people towards poor in the society.

I have organized the review of the book/journey of Dr Yunus into the following sections

The time lines
Spheres of influence
The Grameen Experience
The Philosophy & Vision of the future
My Learnings

The Time Lines

Dr Yunus, was born in 1940 in Chittagong, the present Bangladesh Chittagong is a commercial city of around three million people and is the largest port in Bangladesh Yunus was the second son of Gold merchant Dula Mia and Sofia Khatun, who had nine children in total. Most of the early schooling for Yunus was done in his local school following which he moved on to do his Secondary School at Chittagong Collegiate School. Following his schooling he enrolled himself in Chittagong College in 1955, following this he proceeded to Dhaka to study at the Dhaka University where he spent four years. Following graduation in 1961 to 1965 he taught at the Chittagong University, when he got a chance to go to America to pursue PhD, he accepted the offer and went ahead with the Fulbright Scholarship.

While in America, he married Vera Forostenko in 1970. Around late March 1971, the liberation war broke out in Bangladesh; and he became actively involved in garnering support for the people who were fighting the war; this was a very eventful period in his life. The war ended and Yunus returned to his homeland with a lot of new ideas; in 1972 and was appointed to the governments planning commission, he found not much work happening in that post and then resigned the post to head the Department of Economics at the Chittagong University.

In 1974 there was a severe famine in Bangladesh, that is when Yunus decided to make a focus on farming improvements, he conceptualized the Three Share Farming experiment, which won the President's Award in 1978. It was around the same time that Yunus realized the complete inability of economics as taught in the colleges to help the grass root improvements to the life of poor. The close interaction with the poor around the University, unraveled a lot of hidden issues for Prof. Yunus; the talent and the skill of the poor was unquestionable but they still weren't able to make their ends meet. A bit of field interaction enabled Prof Yunus, to realize the critical role loans played in the life of these poorest of the poor. They couldn't borrow from the banks as these loans would need collaterals; and the other source of money was from the money lenders who would exploit the borrowers off all their efforts and make large profits for themselves.

The Three Share Farming experiment was not a real success as Prof. Yunus wanted it to be, and it wasn't able to really elevate the life of the poor farmers. Following the learning from the the experiment he decided to focus on the problems of the landless, assetless people.

Realizing the importance of collateral for the hardworking poor people who had already learnt the skill of survival and were enormously talented, he set out to see if there was any bank who was ready to plan his idea; of lending to the poor without a collateral. This interaction with the banking system, made him question the very basis of the current financial system, where only the well to do got more loans and the needy actually didn't. After much persuasion, an experimental project; in 1976, was initiated - The bank would give loan only if the collateral was signed by the Prof!!! Having received funds, came the organization and execution of the project, having seen the local society very closely, Yunus decided to loan out to the women in higher proportion than men. This however was a challenge in itself considering the deep silos of thinking in the country, Mechanisms were devised to be able to attract new borrowers, retain them, ensure they repay their loans. In 1977, an old acquaintance found what Prof was doing really worth the salt, and decided to support his initiatives – this is how the first 'Grameen Branch' was started as an experimental project under the aegis of Agricultural Bank.

It was around this time that his first marriage was a failure, and had ended in a divorce; but there was no time to look back. In 1978, at a seminar of 'Financing the Rural Poor' organized by United States Agency for International Development, Prof shared his experiment and its lessons with the bankers and experts presiding over. There wasn't much enthusiasm and more cynicism amongst the people from the conventional banking domain; except for Mr Gongopadhaya, who was the deputy governor of the Central Bank. With support from the deputy governor, he was now in a better position to pitch for Grameen from the banks, the acceptance of the banks came with their own challenges, not just of approval of the requested loans, but also, the test of the 'Grameen Model' in various geographies, and life styles of the poor. This phase of challenges enabled Grameen to improve its own model, make it suitable to the local needs and grow; the toughest challenge in this approach was the mind-set of people. Having overcome this problem and through a 'slow' and persistent approach in each of the localities; the Grameen model was accepted by the poorest of the poor with open arms and a medium to elevate them self from perpetual poverty.

In 1982, Prof Yunus met A.M.A. Muhith, an old acquaintance of the liberation days who had quite unexpectedly become the Finance Minister of Bangladesh. Muhith had brought into the idea of Grameen completely, and when Yunus approached him to be able to make it a separate corporate entity, it was accepted; however in spite of a lot of resistance the, haggling, change in clauses etc the Grameen Bank Project became the 'Grameen Bank' on October 2^nd, 1983.

Following the success of Grameen in Bangladesh, the model of working with the poor began to be replicated world wide. The model replication was in a sense replication of the philosophy of Grameen to work with the poorest of the poor, and ensuring a very high repayment rate; unlike the traditional banking system.

Starting 1990 onwards, Grameen has taken a march towards new horizons – the micro-credit concept is a super hit; following this its has been able to grant housing loans to the poor; and started new venture to benefit the people in a larger way – The weaver community of Bangladesh which had remained a dormant entity got a new lease of life with 'Grameen Check'; The traditional ponds are being taken up though the Grameen Fisheries Foundation to promote Fisheries as a medium for upliftment of the poor; Grameen Phone, another sub-entity of the Grameen philosophy has enabled the poorest generate some income for them self though the well known PCO model, and also ushered a quicker growth in the economy by reducing the communication and travel time for the people. As the popularity of Grameen grew around the world, Grameen Trust was created in 1989 to bridge the ever increasing demand for information, training and technical assistance.

Influences:

All of us are familiar with the context that we live in, the societal values we inculcate, the way we interact with people, our value systems, our behaviors and our attitude are all influenced to a high degree by the kind of people we interact with and the life experience we encounter. An autobiography definitely captures a lot of the influences one would have in ones life, it is this rationale with which I have made this a separate section for influences in Dr Yunus's life.

Parental Influence

Parents play a huge role in the value systems that a child inculcates, Dula Mia was a business man while his wife Sofia Khatun was a home maker. Dula Mia was was a soft hearted person and a devout Muslim all his life. Sofia was a strong and decisive woman, she was the disciplinarian of the family. She was very determined and once she decided to take up something she wouldn't budge unless done. She was full of compassion and kindness and probably had the highest influence, according to Yunus, on him. She always used to put aside money for any poor relations who visited them from distant villages. It was this concern for the poor and the disadvantaged, which later helped Yunus discover his 'destiny' – as he calls it. She narrated stories and sang songs, this was a source of knowledge for her kids, and also had a lasting impact on the life Yunus. His early years were dominated by his mother's influence, an interesting thing that he remembers till date was that she worked on some of the jewelery sold off in the shop, and it was the amount that she earned on selling these which she would use to assist the neediest relatives, friends or neighbors who came asking for help. She had 14 children in total and five of them died young. Growing in such a large family helped Yunus pick up the importance of babies, the importance of family loyalty, peer pressure and peer support, but also the value of compassion when living in a large group. When his mother got severely mentally ill later on, his fathers role became very dominant - His father didn't change one bit, and still behaved the same towards his wife. Once his mother was ill, his father took on the role of both parents for his children, 'in every sense of the term' as he now recalls. He never settled for anything other than the best for this children's upbringing. He now entails the present life standard and values to him.

The early childhood experience of Dr Yunus, definitely made him more responsible, compassionate, ethical, determined and hard working. These became the core value on which his future life would hinge on.

Education in Bangladesh

The next highest influence in the making of any one's mind set would be the initial formative period in school up to one completing his 10+2 education. The general education was limited, during those periods, only to those who could afford to go to school. The primary school to which he went to didn't just give the necessary scholastic ability but also inculcated 'good values' as he calls them – civic pride, importance of spiritual belief, respect for arts, admiration for music and poetry and respect for authority and discipline. He had a passion for reading and would read any book and magazine he would get his hands on.

At the mark of the Indian and Pakistani Independence, he makes a mention of the severe hatred prevalent during the days towards India, the question remains to be asked; for what does all the hatred exist? Is it because one gets a new identity to which his thoughts have been trained to accept? These are some of the thoughts that came to me when I was reading the small section on the number of hatred that was prevalent at the time of independence. The formative periods of child play a very prominent role, and if there is so much of hatred in the air at the time, wouldn't the child pick up some of these? I cannot generalize it but unless unlearnt and learnt again, this hatred would persist is what I believe.

His next education was at the Chittagong CS, which was thought to impart the best education in the country. It was here that he got his first exposure to boyscouting. The whole discipline imparted in the scouting exercises, helped Yunus develop the self discipline, compassion, courage, being religious to the inner self, to cherish and help fellow human beings. One one train trip to India as part of the First Pakistan National Boyscout Jamboree in 1953, the team stopped to visit important historical sites and relics. He recollects this trip as 'a time travel through our history, almost a pilgrimage to meet our own true selves.' While in front of the TAJ MAHAL, he found the assistant headmaster, Quasi Sirajul Haq, weeping silently. He states that the tears were not for the monument, nor for the famous lovers, nor for the poetry etched on the marble. As he recollects – 'He was weeping for our destiny, the burden of history that we were carrying and not knowing what to do?'. Quasi Sahib later on went on to become a friend philosopher and guide to him in many aspects. The encouragement he received from the Quasi Sahib, helped him realize the leadership abilities in him. Quasi sahib's influence enabled young Yunus to aim high, and channelize the passion and restlessness. It is through such teaches who communicate not just orally but also emotionally and guide their students that the student begins to realize his true potential, and march towards ones destiny.

After having completed his high school education he spent a very eventful time at the Chittagong College. His four years of graduation as he recollects were less event full than the two years that he spent in his college at the pre-university college.

Entrepreneurial Stint

While working in the Economics department at the Chittagong University, he tried his hand at Private business. It was in the packaging materials business, the loan for which he applied was immediately approved, and the industry was set up. It became a commercial success, he states this was not primarily to get into business but to prove that he could be a commercial success if he intended to. This experience gave him a lot of self-confidence, it confirmed his belief that as a young man he didn't have to worry about money – he could find one way or the other.

Campus Years in the US

The eastern culture and values are very different from those of the western, and generally one goes through a phase of unlearning - relearning when such a situation come through. This was no different for Yunus who had gone to US to complete his Doctorate. The shy and conserved nature of Bangladesh was not to be found anywhere. The colleges were co-eds and it was a highly informal environment a start difference from his country. It was in during his day in the US that he became addicted to the television. He joined the anti-Vietnam war protests, but there he kept an open minds than being carried away by any news and group think. Group think is probably the most easiest trap we fall into, the heard mentality is to be checked and understood properly to be able to overcome.

The traditional leftist Bengali's hated him for his positive opinions on US, it was the exposure and the learning phase which had made him realize the potential of the positives that the American Culture brought along with it – the personal freedom experienced was the most essential ingredient which enthralled him into accepting the culture as he saw in the US. He clearly states the high learning experience there as – 'little everyday incidents made big impressions on me.'

His interaction with the famous Romanian Prof. Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, made him realize the respect for precise models which showed him how certain concrete plans can help understand an create the future.

The most important take away of this part of life for Dr Yunus, put in his own words is - '...things are never as complicated as we imagine them to be. It is only our arrogance which seeks to find complicated answers to simple problems.' I buy-in to this learning – its only as complicated as we make it; when u make yourself a clean slate having erased the earlier prejudices we start to look at thing simply and the solutions emerge easily – having a clear and calm mind becomes very essential in the success of any work we do, other wise we will invest far more resources into getting the work implemented.

The return to Bangladesh:

The liberation war had left the country in ruins, and there was much to be done. Dr Yunus was appointed to be on the Planning Commission. Having returned from the US, he was fresh with a lot of enthusiasm and energy to help shape the country's future, how ever he was taken aback by the slow pace of things; he was in the office the whole day and without much to do – having been frustrated he resigned from the post and became the Head of the Economics department of Chittagong University.

An important take away for me from this scenario and my personal experience is that is very essential to keep the resources in use, not to keep them waiting so long that they loose their interest and look for better opportunities to do things in future. Its important to keep a learning and challenging environment to keep the best talent in an organization.

The Grameen Experience

The famine of 1974, had a very decisive influence on the life of Dr Yunus, he began questioning the basic premised of what he had learnt all along the years. His usual travel to the campus from his residence was the first exposure to the life of the poor villagers surrounding the campus. He was dissatisfied and quite surprised at the observation that the land around the University was not really cultivable; while the University was a treasure house of knowledge, the areas surrounding the place had hardly anything to make use of the knowledge that these universities stored in them.

I think he was an activist or a pragmatist in his perspective; this life experiences had made him realize the sufferings of the people in his surroundings. The small villages surrounding the University campus – the Jobra village became his experimental ground. The theory he had learnt till focused primarily on finding why some countries are poor, rather than why certain segments of the population were poor. He finally decided to do something about the famine and initiated a campaign to get the attention of people to the issue of the hour.

This experience of the life of the poor and the famine forced another phase of unlearning and relearning, this time unlearning the theory and learning from the real world.

As a response to the famine, Dr Yunus decided to experiment and took upon himself to help the villages of Jobra grow more food. He designed the Three-Share Farm experiment. This involved the using the unused tube well to grow a winter crop. The experiment was primarily involving three parties – the land owners who would contribute the use of their land during the dry season, the share-croppers who would contribute the labor and Dr Yunus who would contribute all the costs; and each person yield would be distributed in proportion of a third by each party at the harvest. The process was a learning experience and the experiment was an enormous success, this experiment also won the President's Award in 1978. The experiment had brought to light the problems which he had not focused on earlier – The poorest people who slogged at night didn't get anything substantial from the initiative. This wasn't what Dr Yunus wanted to achieve – he was in fact expecting to benefit the poorest of the poor. This realization enabled him to think on different lines to seek a different solution to the problem. His attempts now focused on the problem of assetless, and landless people who lived in the neighborhood.

The story of the numerous poor people in the surroundings, helped him realize the importance of credit in the life of the poor. He wanted to come up with a better solution to the problem, rather than the usual methods of going to money lenders or looking for contribution from the well off. He instead went to the government bank and this lead to another insight into the plight of the poor and their inability to get loans to uplift themselves - the collateral.

The collateral actually denied the poor of any possibility of having an access to any loan, they had nothing at their disposal to provide as a collateral. This inability denied the most needy of the loans and only the people who possessed some asset already would gain the benefits of loan from a bank. This was something the Prof could not understand. After much coaxing with the bank; he was finally able to get the permission from the Bank for collaterals, where in he would act as the collateral guarantee for the large number of poor people. This model was how Grameen worked for quite a long time. His opinions on the topic of collateral are - “people who are well off don't care what the law will do to them,...the people at the bottom are afraid of everything, so they do a good job because they have to. They have no choice.”

The lending process was very unique in itself, unlike the traditional banks of Bangladesh, this loan were primarily given to women. These loans to women helped solve a lot of issues which were the core of the concern that Dr Yunus wanted to attack - “Women experience hunger and poverty in much more intense way than the men.” Poor women are the most insecure of the lot, and supporting her would help not just improve her social status within the family but also ensure greater stability to the whole family structure. The goals of economic development are easily attainable if its done through helping women. This approach however didn't come without its own set of social objections, but when the benefits started emerging out most of the doubts were automatically laid to rest. The major challenge in this approach of targeting the women as the primary customer was difficulty in reaching out to them, the conservative culture of Bangladesh didn't make it easy to be able to get to speak with the women being a man directly, lot of alternate strategies had to be adopted to get to the women in the locality. The efforts paid of; slowly but surely.

The next challenge in the journey was one of scale, the experiment was slowly growing and the impact was seen in society, but like any NGO, the challenge of scale persisted. There was a lot of formalization that had to come in the future, but currently the immediate challenge was to reach out to the poor women. This necessitated good talent to be able to work at the grass root level under not so favorable conditions, and having to work with women, women employees were an absolute must. Dr Yunus had to take up several hard decisions and finally the results paid off.

While combating poverty, there is an interesting observation made by Dr Yunus - “Poverty is a chronic disease, it cannot be cured by ad hoc measures. There may be short-run measures, but one must have a long term strategy in mind when taking a quick tactical step.

One short term programme is totally ineffective in this regard. Continuity of relationship creates an atmosphere of trust which helps to lay down the foundation for higher level of relationship. Projects can have an impact only when a long-term commitment underlies them.”

So, essentially for the success for he project it was very essential to have those people who were committed and were bought into the philosophy of the project completely. The kind of people who work with the project were both the really well educated people with masted degree – they were typically the branch mangers, and the others were people with some basic eduction.

Grameen follows a group structure and this plays a very critical role in the success of the operations. Individually a poor person who is already down in confidence feels exposed to all kinds of hazards, group membership gives him the feeling of protection, support. The group pressure smoothens the behavior patterns and makes the borrower more reliable. A sense of intra and inter group competition helps everyone to try to be an achiever. Keeping track of individual borrowers is difficult, and this challenge too is mitigated by using the group as the unit of interaction. The focus of the attempts of the Grameen employees was to focus on helping women to form groups and initiate the loan process; Awareness-building and Leadership training would follow the delivery of credit, rather than precede it. In the words of Dr Yunus - “The Grameen loan is not simply cash, it becomes a kind of ticket to self-discovery and self-exploration. The borrower begins to explore her potential, to discover the creativity she has inside her.”

An other interesting feature of the Grameen model is that is doesn't have any legal instrument between the lender and the borrower, its only based on trust. The relation is mutual – Grameen places trust in people and the people place trust in it in response.

Other than the organizational challenges that arose in the way the Grameen bank got built, the way it got financed was also very interesting. Networking and communicating with the right kind of people – the like minded people – was very critical in garnering the support so crucial for the success of Grameen.

The success story of Grameen spread beyond the boundaries and various modifications were attempted all over the world. The strong principles which Grameen has adopted if strictly followed had ensure success every where.

What started off only as an experimental project, went on to be a project under the Agricultural bank; became a separate financial bank later on. The success didn't stop there, it went ahead with helping improve the lives of the poorest of the poor – through the latest use of technology, power, communication etc. All this has put Grameen on the high books of every person who has come in contact some way or the other with the name – Grameen.

Finally, In the words of Dr Yunus, his journey with Grameen has taught him the following two lessons -

“ first, our knowledge base about people and their interactions is still very inadequate; second, each individual person is very important. Each person has tremendous potential. She or he alone can influence the lives of others within the communities, nations, within and beyond her or his own time.”

I concur with the above insights given by Dr Yunus, we need to believe it is in us that the potential to make the difference lies and if we consistently work towards achieving it, the world would be a better place to be. In the process of contributing to the world, we need to be cautious about arrogance and complacency – our knowledge about a lot of things is limited and it is essential we realize and work towards knowing each other better, so as to improve our understanding of the unknown-unknown in life.

The Philosophy and Vision of the future

Grameen is what Dr Yunus calls the Social Conscious Driven Enterprise, it is a private sector self help bank and its members gain personal wealth. Competition is central to a lot of innovation, technological changes and better management. He suggests a close association between profit and social returns.

Self employment hast been dealt very extensively in economics, and the role this has to play is very substantial in the alleviation of poverty. Self employment as a means of self help helps quicken the societal growth economically and in a very acceptable manner.

The vision of future for Grameen is to bridge the conventional society with the technological innovation to reach greater success for the poorest of the poor, and finally reach a stage were poverty is sent to the museum.

My Learnings

Many of my learnings and observations have already been added int the earlier part of the review, in this section I intend to touch upon the other topics/issues with which I could relate and learn from the book review.

The story is of a one man's dream; which arose out of his compassion and willingness to do something to society; spread like wild fire to many countries across the globe; challenging the assumptions of conventional economic wisdom and creating a whole new clan following of this world transforming idea of micro-credit. Each one of us in our own small way that we start can give rise to magnanimous organizations/institutions which grow on to not just outlive our time, but also make us believe in the strength of a slow, compassionate and steady approach to the challenges that we face.

'Slow and steady' as I see it today is almost a lost concept, we are in a fast paced world and expect every single thing around us to be done at the pace we expect it to be. We need to realize the value of value of patience; and work towards achieving what we set our mind on.

I intend to be an entrepreneur, and have started off with a venture of my own. As I read through the book there were many instances in his life that I could relate with. Probably this was a very critical aspect which helped me choose this book to make a review on.

I was born in Udupi and have my ancestral routes in the agrarian rustic lifestyle. I was brought up in Bangalore, but have been visiting my home town very vacation I got an opportunity. It has helped me become more socially conscious to the suffering of the people in these rural areas especially the role of money lenders in exploiting the poor. I have seen a transition happen in the past 15 years with the advent of the micro-credit schemes and various nationalized banks coming forward to help these economies grow and contribute substantially to the growth of the economy.

Education has played a very pivotal role in our family, and I can see the results of this right in front of my eyes. My father was the only person who got a formal schooling and went ahead to complete his engineering – the life we lead compared to that of my uncles who didn't get a formal schooling helps me value education and learning a lot. I could also related to the explanation of Dr Yunus that poorest of the poor are not short of talent and skill, as I know of my paternal grand father who was skilled in many things and was able to drive the family of 4 with his meager earnings. This story of the Grameen bank has helped me link much better to the life of poor people.

I was thinking of the new strata of firms called socially conscious firms; this would be a definitely a plus point to the firm I have started.

The biography has given me a lot to think about not just from the experience shared in the book but with the reflection on the various experiences I have had in my life. This book is definitely one of the few most influential books I have read in the recent times.

Some random thoughts on IIMB

2009-01-13T00:13:00.001+05:30

The tag is one of the few things I will carry

unprotected unlike many as I walk out of campus...

to explore and realize my destiny...

this place has changed me a lot... given me a lot, taught me a lot...

I am nothing without the path I traveled hr...

I am still nothing coz a lot has been traveled b4 I came hr...

this place has humbled me.... and made me realize... its still u.. and nothing more...

It has made me a fighter.. made me realize my potential...

made me work harder...

over come the lazy inherent being that I generally am more often than otherwise...

I am in debt all thru my life for this place...

at the end its not the success or the failure that remains

its not the CG nor the RG that will be reminded...

its the way of life that shall remain...

.....

New Blog!!!

2008-10-23T18:48:00.002+05:30

Its been a long time since I actually wrote some stuff here... what have I been doing... ah! I have been working on another blog of mine... some posts already up there.....
http://sachi-journal.blogspot.com/
this is the link to the blog... its more of philosophical approach than anything else... people who are interested in some philosophy can read it over.... :)
Will get back to this once I have something really interesting to write down... :)

The Alchemy of Growth

2008-09-22T17:58:00.003+05:30

Written by Mehrdad Baghai, Stephen Coley and David White; this book describes a new framework which for managing growth in any company. The concept of classifying the projects into three horizons and then explaining using Staircases how to create an environment by which the management of these ideas are easily accomplishable is very innovative and helps not just understand the challenge a company faces better but also helps a start up plan how to go about doing something it.

I wouldnt go ahead explaining much about the book, its definitely a must read if you are searching for a source which will help you manage your company's growth better.

The greatness guide - Robin Sharma

2008-09-18T11:58:00.003+05:30

There definitely something interesting in what he says... He repeats the same message, and keeps me going.

The greatness guide is a nice book, very small - similar to the book who will cry when you die. There are 101 chapters in this book, which remind me of the habit of journaling that he has. I picked up this habit from him from this book. I now write a journal daily, some thoughts that I value, something new that I learn.

A nice books to get back to the basic lessons, can be read in very quickly and get the summary of the route greatness which every individual wants to reach. As I would put it...its the basics that are very important to stick to; stick to the basics and you have a lot to achieve...

If you are searching for the book which would guide u to gr8ness, then this is one of them...

Go Kiss the World - Subroto Bagchi

2008-09-08T15:41:00.002+05:30

Subroto Bagchi - the co-founder of Mindtree has written this book which is basically his autobiography. After the initial success of his earlier book - the high performace entrepernuer, this is his second book.

The title is very interesting, and he make a special mention of the reason why this book is named so; there is definitely an IIMB link to this naming as well... thatz what he told when he had comedown to give a orientation lectuer in our college for the fresh batch.

Bagchi can be see in a very philosophical mood in this book, he has given away a lot of philosophical perspective/gyaan to us. I would like to recommend this book for the philosophical insight that I was able to gain from the book...makes me look at the points which I have learnt in life in a greater detail.

One this that impressed me the most of his messages was - "You need to learn to receive..." very true...this one thing can change the whole perspective of life.

Sharavati valley trek -1

2008-09-07T18:43:00.008+05:30

Route:
Banglore -> Shimoga -> Sagara -> VageVaddi -> Basavanabaayi -> Padu beedu -> Belli gundi -> Godanagundi -> Padubeedu -> Jog -> Sagara -> Shimoga -> Bangalore

An awesome experience with people from different countries on the trek, a couple of people from Germany, Malta and people from different parts of the country itself - the locals, the bangaloreans, and the hydrabadis... all this was only to start off - we never realised when we got along to be a good team....For some this wes the first experience with leeches, for others a differnt terrain to trek...a nice mix of treks experiences for all of us.

I met up Mr Sampath on orkut, and was impressed by the trek pictures that were uploaded there... we shared some comments and then I decided to go on a trek to this awesome place, unperturbed by human habitation, still virgin forest... I had been waiting for a good break in my course during which I wanted to do this trek.

After a hectic schedule of exams and submission I decided I would join Sampath and group on the trek. Sampath had arranged a Tempo Traveller(TT) for us to get to the destination at the earliest, and save some time and use that effectively in trekking and getting to feel the nature...

The TT was parked at the railway station parking at Majestic, and it began its jouney at 10:30 pm, we picked up people on the way and started our jouney. A small break for Vinay to get his dinner packed and we moved further. As we crossed nelamangala, the rain God decided to shower his blessing on us and there was a constant down pour all along the journey.

The TT went slowly, partially due to the heavy rains and partially due to the bad roads, we reached kargal, a place some distance off Sagara at 745 am, where we got along with the 3 trekkers who had caught their bus to get to this place. The had come form Hydrabad the earlier night and had stayed in the hotel-lodge, visited Jog falls and had been waiting for us till then.

Day 1:

We had our first cup of tea at kargal, and then moved ahead towards vagevaDDi. The drive from kargal to VageVaDDi was around 45 minutes by the TT and we could see some lush green vegetation, some back waters of the lingan makki dam and so on. I caught up with some sleep in this 45 minutes as well.

We were to reach VagevaDDi at 830am, but given the bad roads and the weather we could only reach by 930. Mr Narayan was waiting there with the breakfast for us. He, Shridhar, and Mr Dharma were to be our guide cum cook for the next two days. They had prepared some akki rotti, badnekai chatni, and liquid jaggarey; they also cut a papaya for us; this spot were we had our breakfast was a nice place. The villagers had make a lake, which was to serve as the source of water for the fields, when the rains had died down - there had been no rains in the area for almost 10 days prior to our visit; for a moment I thought - "does this mean that most of the falls we visit wouldnt have water?'"

Just as everyone completed the breakfast we had a stand up meeting lead by Sampath to brief about the trek we were to begin, the route we were to follow, and some basic directions. Narayan was to lead the way for us and we would also have Shridhar to guide us along during the trek. We began our trek - I could see dence forest at a distance...my mind was already ready to move towards the direction, felt like running towards the lush green forest cover there and didnt want to spend too much time on the jeep route that we had begun.

My excitement was all put to a pause mode when, Sampath told me that there was a jeep route till Basavanbaayi. As we went from the green land into a more tree covered area; I found some company who looked very familiar...Yes!!! the leeches. "Ah! finally some fun this way" I thought... I would run through the dead and fallen leaves, the leeches would climb up and after some time I would halt to toss the climbing leeches off my shoes and socks... this was fun...after around 30 minutes walk from the starting point we reached the temple - Basavana baayi.

Most of the trekkers were busy getting the leeched off their shoes, some were already bleeding form the leech bites, some were jumping around not knowing what to do...They had applies eyucaliptus oil but that seems to have done little effect on the leeches. After completing this session of leech removal most of them set out to get to the falls.

In the mean time Philip who was now excited watching Narayan catch frogs began trying his luck. Philip seems to have an ability to attract animals towards him, earlier in the day he had cows running behind him and following him where ever he went, now he was trying to catch the frogs. Narayan was an expert at it and could catch the frogs with great ease; every time philip was to catch a frog it would jump off or get deeper into the water making it hard to find them...

Once all people were ready to get to the falls - actually to get to the place of fun and frolic for those who would like to get down in the falls for a shower. All those who had been bitten by the leeches took no time to get into the water and almost forgot that the were ever bitten by the leeches. We spent around 30 minutes at this falls and then got back to the temple to have our lunch.

The lunch was too good, the jackfruit pappad, the saambaar...humm... I can smell and taste the food...really well prepared... just as some of them were appreciating the lunch, the leeches which had been thrown out of the shoes and from the legs began their assult again...they bit quite a few of them and again the panic struck in the minds of the people. Sampat gave strick directions to follow the route which narayan and shridhar would show and not to wander off. We were a group of 18 people and keeping the tab on all would be a humongous task.

Just as we began the trek, shridhar leading from the front narayan in between and sampath towards the end. The leech count ouly increased as we began the trek upwards, the far off forest which I saw initially is where were trekking. We would walk some distance and then stand asking for salt and removing the leeches... while most of them were involved in removing the leeches, we had trekked for around an hour and had covered only a kilometer or just above it. Most of the team mates decided this wasnt what they were looking for.

Just as we continuted the trek, shridhar showed a small hole which was dug by the bear... using he expertise he could also tell this was just some time before we came and was a younger bear. It wouldnt be far off form the place were walking on. We stood there to have a look and just as most of the people were on our way we continued further... after some time narayan gave a call asking us to stop; I could see exitement in his eyes he came and explained how he has spotted a dear which ran across at lighting speed bisecting our line of trekkers.

Just as we continued our trek sampath could see the frustration on the face of the trekkers who didnt like the trek through the leech prone forest area. Sampath asked for the choise of path and most of the voted this time for a grassland with very few leeches. "So shall it be!!!" was the experession and we with shridhar leading the path walked towards the grassland to the left of the dense forest.

We walked through the grasslands, picking snaps of the distant mountains, the streams, the water holes on the way etc. the landscape reminded me of Poorna Chandra Tejaswi's description of this hunting experiences. Shridhar guided us to his brother's house were we rested for some time and clicked the pictures of a some gaint butterfly which were around their home. After a break of around 45 minutes we resumed our trek/journey through the grassland. We walked through the bunds bordering the fields and took pics of the muddy fields, people working in them etc... it was real fun clicking the snaps all over the place... we continued our jounrney and took some rest at the vast grass land that was some distance away form the village and local inhabitation.

Shridhar had gone ahead and got the groceries which we would carry along with us to the final resting spot of the day - the tribal's house. We had some small games amoungst ourself here. Philip was busy trying to see if the Dogs can get him the frisbee that he throws at them...think he is still trying to train them [;)].

We resumed our trek/walk through teh jeep route and finally reached the tribal's home where we decided to rest for the night, the place is called PaDubeedu. Narayan was quick to get some dry wood that had fallen off in the forest...his ability to get the dry wood and that too quickly combustible ones is remarkable. Sampath was mentioning about the experience with narayan getting along the woods even in a very rainy climate and being able to get the wood which would keep them warm.... really a skill which I appreciate after the experice at tadiandmol trying to make a camp fire.

Just as the sun set, and the camp fire took the lime light, we got into discussion and got to know each other better. Some of the trek enthusiasts were asking sampath & me about my trek experience, any encounters I had with wild animals, etc... we narrated our stories...just as we were into the discussion the dinner got ready and it was time for us to get to the bed.

The hosts were kind enough to let us spend the night at their home. Shridhar and Dharma had cooked an awesome dinner with a local flavor to it. Ah! I need to mention this - the Germans viz Philip and Dominic were all fans of the tea, and were a all time sport to the tea that was prepared. Tea just too good - it remined me of the tea at Gowdar mane on the Bandaje abbi trek...

We all slept quite early that night...ya early by all standards; I think it was jsut 930pm when we slept.

Day 2

We were to get up early finish the next day's trek with relative ease. I woke up at 6:00 am when I could spot some brightness in the visinity. The atmosphere was relatively chilly and sampath and I got into discussion of the days plans. Shridhar and Dharma had got up early to help us have our breakfast.
I brushed my teech with the the mango leaves which the host gave me, it was a nice experience. It makes the whole feel look more natural...more rustic in a sense. Just as every one were ready with the daily chores, we decided to continue on our trek for the day after the breakfast. The breakfast was a local special called kadubu and uppit. I liked it...so did many of our team members. Philip and Dominic were on the tea spree again....well only till the tea got over [:)]

We started off to the view point, which is a 45 minutes trek from the base camp...it was panaromic view. At one corner I could spot the Murudreshwara island, at the other end I could see the batkal town. There was the Arabian see at the horizon...There wasnt much clouc cover and it was great to get some nice pics. After a bried photography session we began a small trk towards the BelligunDi falls view point.

I was spell bound by the beauty of this falls. The backdrop of the falls has numerous mountain peaks, and dense forest cover. The water in the falls fell in only1 go from the top to the bottom. The vegetation around the falls was dense, I knew the whole trek was worth this one falls for me... I could have trekked any distance for this view.... I just am crazy of falls...

Just as all the trek group gathered there, the cloud decided to take control and not give the view to all of us. the winds played their game in moving the cloud from right to left and then from left to right, but there was no sign of clearning up to give the view of this falls again.

We decided to move ahead and spend some time at the Godana GunDi falls. Narayan lead the way till the falls, This time too we were through dense forest over and the leech prone area, but it seemed as though not many were really worried about the leeches now, they seemed to have accepted the reality of the leeches on the trek. We had real fun getting down the steep mountain to the base of the falls - slipping, skidding, jumping almost a stunt scene there...

The falls was a very neat one, not too high, not too small, it was ideal to have a bath...I too had a bath in the falls...I generally dont like having a bath in the falls inbetween a trek primarily becoz I believe that it saps a lot of energy which would be helpful in trekking long distances...may be I am wrong but I still believe in it :)

We had fun here, playing in the falls. The team from hydrabad had to leave early and so shridhar lead the 3 people to the tempo traveller which would take them to kargal from where they would be able to go to Hydbad...

Narayan took us to the top of the first level and no sooner had I taken a couple of snaps, it started raining. We were quick to get back to the path which leads us to the base camp. Another 30 minutes and we were at the base camp. We had an awesome lunch thanks once again to the cooking team....

We left the base camp, a walk for around 45 minuted down the jeep track, some photoshoots, some discussion with Sampth on his new water sports facility near honnemardu and we were on the main road, and then in the TT which would take us back to bangalore

We dicided to have a glimse of the world famous Jog Falls, but as our luck would have it... it was all misty, we could spot the traces of one of the 4 units, it was very hazy; and that didnt help. We got back into the TT and were on our way back to bangalore.

We reached Blore at 330 am, and went on our ways back home...

An awesome trek... will get back for more falls and more treks some time...

Some of the pics are at this link
http://picasaweb.google.com/sachidananda.bs/SharavathiValley1#

Meruti parvatha

2008-08-23T22:31:00.012+05:30

Ah! finally a trek after a long time....The long wait after the trek it is worth it... A monsoon trek...how better can it get? wow a thrill of a life time... thatz exactly how it was...
After the ligament strain I had, which had put me off for more than 6 months from any strenuous work, this was a return debut for trekking that I was waiting for... and how better can it get? a monsoon trek...my first one officially....All these years I would go on a trek and it was incidental that it would rain...this time it was a planned one... it was an high anticipation trek...It was one I expected to be a full rain trek....I was geared to it...
This trek was again with Arun and company, Shrikanth, Subbu-1, Subbu-2, Tarsh matte Harsha... all with long trek experience...My anticipation for the trek and the precursor to the trek with the bomb blasts in Ahmedabad, made the trek all the more memorable...
I reached the majestic bus stand much earlier, I was at 2015 in the bus stand and was waiting for the rest of them, at 9:30 Arun and company arrived at the station...a small intro to being with and then we were on our way to board the bus...We boarded the bus to HoranaDu at 2215... and we intended to get down at KaLasa...A long journey in the bus to Kalasa, and then we reached there at 7:45 pm.
The first bus to basrikatte which is on the way from HoranaDu to Shringeri reaches Kalasa at 730 am. We missed the bus and needed to wait for the next bus, we had some hot tea and were waiting for the next bus when the rain started pouring down. We got in to rain preparation mode, purchasing some polythene bags and using our creativity to design and apparel out of the bags...it was an experience in itself...didnt know that there was a fashion designer in all of us...or was it the necessity? some one once said - necessity is the mother of all invention...may be this is what he meant...
We got down at Basarikatte and then had tea at the hotel there...the bus stops there for some time and we had a nice breakfast there, with uppit, avlakki, idli humm all yummy...after our breakafast for half an hour we changed to the trek gear... track suit, shoes etc.. We then began our trek....
A small distance walk back on the route the bus had taken us would take us to Mertikhan estate entrance... we started our photography session on the way; the rain which had taken a breakfast break as well had started pouring again... it was nice... we were all thrilled by the way the rain would keep the excitement in our trek...
A walk through the tea estates on either side for around 30 minutes and we came to the entrance of the estate office... we asked for permission to get to the peak of the meruthi parvatha. The office people told us that the usual route which takes people to the peak is closed and we needed to go through a round about route...they tried to dissuade us by saying there would be lakhs of leeches down on the side, and getting through the forest would be really difficult.
While Arun and Shrikanth were busy getting the permission work, the remaining of us were busy with our photography sessions...the rain had stopped as thought to give us some nice view of the lad far off, the surrounding hills etc... we were in the middle of a lush green tea plantation, and we could spot the tea estate workers working at brisk pace in the estate... all a picturesque view to keep in our imagination... you need to live it to savor it...a image worth keeping for the rest of a life time.
Arun and Shrikanth had done their bit and got the permission... we started our photography cum trek ahead, the rain was pouring in periodic cycles...ya pouring...there is no other equivalent word to it... it was just too heavy... we had to keep our cameras in good care, else it would stop functioning...After around an hours walk we reached the estate guesthouse, and asked for directions again.
The lady in the house directed us to go through the estate plantations and then through the forest...you can get to peak that way!!! well we stared on our trek...Another walk of around 45 minutes through the estate and the forest, Shrikanth taking the lead as usual we reached a clearing above the forest over....
Subbu-2 the high enthu guy decided to see if there was any other way nearby, We only knew the direction of the peak, and didn't know the actual peak...The rain had halted since we had asked for directions from the guest house lady. We took a break of around 15 minutes to see if any leeches had climbed on... fortunately there weren't many till now...I followed another train not the one which subbu had chosen and spotted r peak on to the left of the clearing...subbu-2 came running down and wanted to climb the peak...we were busy clicking the pics... at the far end we could spot HoranaDu... the place where we wanted to go... it looked as if it would take eternity to reach the place...
Another 5 minutes and we were ready to leave to the peak... the weather got worse, it was just rain that we needed to face till now, and now almost at the peak it was the wind which was giving us more of a challenge than a rain... The wind made it look as though, the rain drops were bullets directed to us... A braved trek for another 45 minutes and we decided to take a break for lunch...for some time we thought the place where we sat was the peak - the meruti parvata...We couldnt see anything more than 5 meters away... it was that cloudy...
Just as we were done with our lunch half way through, as though to tell us - you people still have long way to go...We had some amazing fun there during the lunch break, and following which we decided to continue our trek to the peak... another 10 minutes trek and we were at the peak...
There is a ganesha temple at the peak...looks like there is some pooja done once an year, and not many people come there... we could see some cigarette butts at the peak...think these might be of some trek group that had come earlier....We spent around 15 minutes at the peak...the weather got worse again and we decided to get back...
We had to reach horanaDu by night and its only then that we could catch our busy and get to business the next day...With all the fun of a early monsoon rain, and a great trek we reached HoranaDu at 5:00 pm.
We booked a room at one of the lodges there and then took a hot water bath...The evening dinner was at the temple....We waited in the bus after checking out from the lodge, and then sat in the bus. The bus was to leave at 9:15pm but as the heavy rains had got the river overflowing, it was really hard to get over...this meant that we would not get to our business!!!
Another half an hour of intense prayers, and some fun filled memories being discussed, we got to know that the river had subsided, the bleak possibility of reaching Bangalore now looked to be a reality...
Another nights good sleep in the bus and we were in Bangalore at 6 am in the morning. All of us went on our own routes back to business... there was new set of friends to make, a new place to visit, lot new learning... and finally the memories... with every trek it only makes me appreciate the beauty of nature... not just the way the environment is, but the uncertainties the sudden twists and turns that emerge...all make it a course in itself.... a course for which the fees you pay is minimal, but the benefits are innumerable...well may be as a student at IIMB this is how I am looking at it...
And just to follow it up... I read in the news paper the next day that there was some naxal activity in the mertikhan estate, and the STF was searching for the naxals who had left some of their material and the sort there...What an experience!!! ya really... would be memorable..

Family Wisdom from the monk who sold his ferrari - Robin Sharma

2008-08-13T22:54:00.002+05:30

After who will cry when you die, the monk who sold his ferrari, this is the third book I have read by Robin Sharma. Why do I read his books? well not that it totally inspires me to do something that he says....but as I told you, he just helps me recollect and understand my own thoughts better.
This book is about personal leadership, how to transform the personal leadership into action and help the family grow better as a whole, through this 5 principles of family mastery he has tried to communicate simple yet profound messages. I second that the use of these principles would help us live a more fulfilling and complete life than we are leading now.
I would say, there is a message for everyone who wants to live a more complete life; if you are one of them, then go ahead have a read.

The three mistakes of my life - Chetan Bhagat

2008-08-06T10:09:00.002+05:30

This is one of the three books by Chentan, I have read all three and must agree...this is not one of this best...Five Point Some One, One night at a Call Center and now The 3 mistakes of my life...
His narration is good, but some where I feel there is no great strength in the story that he says...I personally believe the story has to be thought provoking giving the reader a completely different perspective...making him reflect on himself, see new avenues for growth or atleast some improvements....In none of the three books do I find such a thought provoking issue or agenda....Its only the narration that interests the readers... if coupled with the strong thought provoking story line I see a huge area for improvement....
I would say not all that great book to read.... My rating would be 2.5/5 for the book...

Omniscient & Omnipotent

2008-07-30T11:36:00.002+05:30

me: innen samachara kano (any other news?)

Guruprasad: illi inna summer time....so aaramagi nadhithide(nothing, its summer time so all going well.)

me: cool

Guruprasad: do u get any time while ur doing ur MBA ?

u seem to have read a lot of books a

and travelling also

me: he he... adella chance sikkaga maDle bkalva(need to do all that well u get a chance rt!)... its jst a matter of priorities kano... some value sleeping I value travelling aste...

correct taane(rt!)

Guruprasad: right.....

I wish I could be more like u !

somehow I can't compromise with my sleep !

me: no u are unique.... if u are like me then thr is no use of me

Guruprasad: I am trying to do lot of stuff...like photography, travel, gym, ...

me: u will get over it kano... np... its not wrong to take a nap.. its only a matter of keeping it refreshing enough

good thatz gr8 kano(man)...

nice to keep trying different things...

Guruprasad: but it sucks out all the energy out of me for my studies finally !

me: he he... its the mind that makes something refreshing or not...

Guruprasad: u right sir..

me: so if u simulate ur mind thru encouraging its creativity in all u do it wouldnt make it boring...

actually feeling bored is only a matter of not feeling interested enough

or say simulating enough

en antira?

Guruprasad: and btw what do u think for my status msg ?

me: can u paste them over?

ur status message?

Guruprasad: "I am Omniscient and I am Omnipotent. Ergo, I am Lying."

Guruprasad did not receive your chat.

me: i differ on the last u arent lying... thou art really that

we are omniscient and omnipotent...

Guruprasad: I mean't it ...

Both cannot be true at the same time...

it contradicts Logic

me: both as in...

Guruprasad: and Reason

me: he he...

Guruprasad: Say if ur Omniscient....and u can see the future

me: humm...

Guruprasad: then u cannot change anything

me: he he...

u have already seen so u can always change cant u?

Guruprasad: But if u change something, it means u r not omniscient

then what u have seen will not happen

me: you are omniscient... which means u know wht leads to wht... not that I have seen everything... it only implies I understand better than usual

Omnipotent says one can has the energy to change it...

wht if he is the energy himself? he definitely can change himself rt...

thr by change wht is the end result?

Guruprasad: hmm....that changing the definition of Omniscient

It doesn't matter so the energy is right

It should hold good for all cases

me: changing the commonly held view of Omniscient

not its meaning

he he... are u sure?

will everything be good for all times?

in all situations?

Guruprasad: nopes..

me: dont thngs change?

Guruprasad: so ?

things change

me: so y not meaning and interpretations?

Guruprasad: but nobody can predict the future and still have the power to change it

he can either do one thing not both...

they are mutually exclusive properties

Sent at 11:03 AM on Wednesday

me: he he..

Guruprasad: if one is truly omniscient, then he should be able to predict his own actions to change the current future

and thereby goes recursive

me: prediction is a game of probability rt

Guruprasad: and we get crazy !

me: it needs that 1.5 kg sooooooper computer sitting on our shoulders to get into action...

thtz it...

Guruprasad: I believe it is with the probability '0'

me: prob is not zero for any thing kano...

Guruprasad: hmm

me: we in our smaller intellect choose to make a lot of assumptions...

and thr by make things of higher probabiltiy for a certain event...

we look for causality and not co-relations

we confuse co-relation with causality all the time

or atleast most of the times

Guruprasad: co-relation interesting...

co-related with what ?

me: whn some one predicts some tng..using palmistry or some other technique he only gives a co-relation based understanding...

he cannot state something to be causal...

he only predicts based on the past data...

but that doesnt get all encompassing

Guruprasad: thats interpolation

me: its again as u say... some sort of interpretation...

not even interpolation...

Guruprasad: extending the past curve right

me: this has been the basis of al attempts to predict...

ya... some sort of ...

not exactly tho...

Guruprasad: ya...

me: some time thr is the factor of intuition which is un predictable tht plays a major role...

so finally wht some one predicts only is based on past

but doesnt get all encompassing...

so there is a lot of un explored things... and so there is abundant scope to get to teh new

Guruprasad: ya....such prediction are very limited in very dynamic situations

ya...

me: so we sometimes claim that those ppl who can co-relate better to be omniscient..

or rather in most cases...

but again they dont know

its like the case of a student who wanted to show case to his teacher tht he was damn smart

Guruprasad: actually the metaphor I was using was God

me: humm

well hang on

Guruprasad: ok

me: he gets a small bird in his hand to the teachers cabin and say...

sir I have a bird in my hand can u tell me if its living or dead...

so he was confident he could any way change the consequence based on wht the teacher told him

Guruprasad: ok..

me: the bird was living whn he brought it in

if the teacher told its living he could kill it and if he told it was dead then

then he could let if fy...

he thought he had all the strings under his control

he thought he knew the future...

Guruprasad: teacher's answer ?

me: the teachers reply was

;"I wont say if the bird is living or dead... I only know tht its existence is defined by ur choise"

so was the student actually knowing all?

Guruprasad: did he claim that he knew all ?

so...that stupid

me: atleast he thought...

thatz exactly wht u are trying to say...

Guruprasad: no...

not that point..

me: omniscience... is only that state...

and omni potence was the realization given by the teacher

getting to the next level which the student didnt expect... letting him know of a greater truth...

Guruprasad: Omniscience - All Knowing

right

me: its like getting into the shell of... all very beautifully packed within one another

so at the end of the story the teacher becomes omniscient jst by letting the student realize he is omnipotent...

Guruprasad: see...thats true..

me: its not a permanent state... its a stat e of flux... thatz wht i wnt to tell

Guruprasad: the teacher or the student is not both

they are only 1 state not both at any time

me: thr is nothing like complete truth... everything is evolutionary..

humm rt...

flux as I call it...

nice discussion kano

Guruprasad: it could be flux, but a entity cannot be both at any point right ?

me: well u can call this paradox... but wht some call the GOD, I would call it life

or nature... that makes be feel better...

Guruprasad: ya....

me: so I thru my limited understanding would not at any point be able to

Guruprasad: so..when people say God is both...

me: be omni-*

Guruprasad: its actually contradictory

me: but wht if u see nature closely...

thru all its species it is trying gain nothing more than experience...

and in the process growing into being a completely new state...

we exist till thr is life in us...

we dont carry anything...

we start relating to the body and our identity of ego...

Guruprasad: We carry Genes.....but thats for another discussion I guess

me: in the process we some whr loose a lot of our powers which we can tap

if we disassociate frm the identity of ego...

Guruprasad: ok...

me: we would be going for experience.. and thru the gigantic network of various degrees of intelligence come to a new state of enlightenment...

and in some cases using tit to create beauty in the process...

Guruprasad: nice...

me: we as human are only catalysts...each one some way different from the other to get a different experience...

that is exactly y I told u - "if u are like me then there is no meaning in my existance... "

at the beginning...

Guruprasad: Omniscient I guess ?

me: so wht GOD/nature/ life is wanting from us is not

our triviality of trying to understand things and jst stop... we need to continue and make more creative works

be it in any field...

Guruprasad: hmm....

me: we need to use our huge 1.5 guy who is at the top to create things... not to jst brood on memories...

Guruprasad: 1.5 guy ?

me: I dont claim we should not work on our memories... we should not stick at tht point and judge any experience.. we need to extract the essence, take it along and then create something new

ya 1.5 guy = the brain...

Guruprasad: ok.... I don't deny that

creating new is what we all are trying to do in some way ..

me: its like u have the choice to carry the dead wood or extract the essence and carry it along...

Guruprasad: sure...I am with u, on that one

)

me: and to emphasize this further u can also observe tht its once we create something new

thtz whn we are the happiest...

this new thing can be by listening to some one... reading something... exploring/discovering etc...

thtz y a baby is so happy...and it doest stick with the dead wood...its looking for the essense...

doesnt it look so simply beautiful... we in our busy life start loosing the essence of all this...

alva?

Guruprasad: ya... Learning is a continuous process

and as adults we stick on to established ideas...

me: as we grow... some realize whr they are and wht excites them...

and follow.. some jst search and give up... some never start the search...

Guruprasad: ya....

did u see randy pausch's last lecture ?

me: illa...(no)

ellide adu?(whrz it?)

have no idea kano...

Guruprasad: on utube

its a good

me: hey am planning to put this on

my blog... wht say?

Guruprasad: I have no problems

me: cool...

its actually a discussion on spirituality as I have learnt it kano...

Guruprasad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo

me: will look at the lecture

Guruprasad: ya...to to some extent

me: as said next discussion on genes

bye tc

cya

Guruprasad: I am up for that !

--------------------------

An interesting discussion with my friend over Gtalk thought of sharing it.

Love Story 2050

2008-07-26T02:11:00.003+05:30

Hey man for some time I thought I was seeing Hritik on the screen....Harman Baweja seems to be a total mimic of Hritik Roshan... the moves when he dances, the way he acts all resemble a lot....
This is a partial sci-fi movie where in a time machine is able to teleport ppl and get them from the future into the past!!! what a fantacy....Some nice imagination has gone into the creation of the sets and fiction!!! I definitely appreciate that...
Boman has been at his usual best in getting the humor...I remember the conversation when he enters into a museum dedicated to him and responds to the robot sitting there... it was real funny instance...
A nice time pass movie... nothing great to look forward to except for the special effects and the concept... A single viewing wouldnt make ur money a loss definitely....

Jaane-Tu-Ya-Jaane-Na

2008-07-26T01:57:00.002+05:30

A nice movie that is what I would call it... looks at adressing the question if a boy and girl can ever be just friends?
As my policy is I dont want to share the story here... I would only give some hints and my thoughts... so I would just say this is about two different presonalities who gel with each other very well....the scene is just after the college life of the two youngsters and their friends.
Imran and Genelia have done a real good work... they are able to depict the characters really well and play their roles... I am impressed to say...
Nice story, good acting... go have a watch...

Tashan

2008-07-26T01:50:00.003+05:30

Man what is this!!! I dont get it!!!
It is so predictable is what I felt when I was mid way into the movie... I feel its as though the story was forced into without much thought.... The story makes a jugglery once then again and then again!!! what is the message in the movie...
Well I think Kareena says it when the 3 walk after killing Anil Kapoor - "Inside all of us there is some innocence, and we at some points are still ready to help one another."
Some stunts are good but the sheer quantity of this hyper action makes it not that genuine... looks like it was a ploy to showcase Akshay as the action hero who has re-emerged!!!
Not a great movie...would suggest not to watch it!!! unless you have a lot of time , money to spare and nothing to do...

Aramane

2008-07-26T01:40:00.002+05:30

I don't know if Ganesh chooses these sort of films or these sort of films choose Ganesh!!!
The movie is again highlighting Ganesh in the traditional style of his where in he is impressed by the girl, the girl is in love with some one else and how he handles his love for the promise he has made to AnanthNag.
Again the Ganesh-Ananthnag combination...they seem to gel well with one another on screen...well this is good for the viewers at least!!!
The acting is ok sort and the message still seems to be the same as one of Mungaru Male - "Preethi Madhura Tyaga Amara"(meaning loves sweet but sacrifice is eternal)
A nice time pass movie is what I would rate it as....I would like to see Ganesh try something different... if he keeps doing the same story in a different parcel I don't know how he would grow as an actor and do justice to his talent.
This post is long due!!! ya saw it some time in june... just got the time to blog it now...

The butterfly....

2008-07-06T23:14:00.005+05:30

Behind the butterfly I ran,
Thinking that catch it I can...
Closer I went,
As as I bent...
And before I knew,
The farther it flew....
I ran and I ran behind,
I can! thinking so in my mind...

But then I sat,
Giving the world a spat...
I reclined below in fatigue,
Lo! I see the butterfly in intrigue...
Through the leaves and through the gap,
It came and sat on my lap!!!

- Chi

This poem is not a depiction of an event, for me it is more than just that. It reflects the state of mind and our achievements. Typically there are thousands of things that I want to get in life, I run behind them restlessly, and not focusing on any one of them completely...
But the paradox of life is even the most complex of things can be achieved with a calm state of mind, a clear and un-perturbed mind. Its by sitting on a particular thing that we are able to achieve success in it... There are numerous interpretations that we can take from this poem... this one appealed me the most so here I jot it down.

The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari - Robin Sharma

2008-06-16T09:45:00.004+05:30

I read this book after reading "Who will cry..." by Robin Sharma. In many aspects it was like reading the executive summary before the actual book...blessed me (I surely think its so!!!)... I knew exactly what I can take out....(then I sure did miss some other aspects... may be as I reflect on what I read through when I decide to would derive some other aspects as well).

The story is about a very successful lawyer finding his life's purpose!!! I would like to put up the memory pegs, so that we can gain the maximum out of this review... so here are the pegs along with what they stand for-

The Magnificent Garden -> Master your mind
The Towering Lighthouse -> Follow your purpose
The Sumo Wrestler -> Practice Kaizen
The Pink Wire Cable -> Live with Discipline
The Gold Stopwatch -> Respect your time
The Fragrant Roses -> Selflessly serve others
The Path of Diamonds -> Embrace the present

This is a memory aid which helps us live our life more fully and gain the maximum out of it...after all isn't it that we actually want...our full utilization of our time and resources will give a un-explainable and strange solace in our life...
This book is really a good one to read... thats my personal feeling... but may be the perspective you need to look at would be a bit different. You need to be in the state of mind to actually be able to appreciate what the yogi Julian needs to say... the context change would not let you appreciate the book with the same intensity as mentioned in the book...
The very creative fable is another point of appreciation... I am writing a book on similar lines and think there is definitely something I would take from this read of mine :). So it was all the more advantageous to read it now...

The Greatest Salesman in the World - OG Mandino

2008-06-11T09:34:00.002+05:30

I had purchased this book long back...almost 2 yrs earlier...hadnt read the book till just a couple of days back.
During my internship at Quetzal, Bhushan had mentioned about the book and I recalled I had the book in my shelf...so this was on my "to read list" when I got back to Bangalore...
OG Mandiono has been regarded by many as one of the most widely read inspirational author. His books have been aclaimed to have changed the life of many...There is also a sequel to this book which I havent got my hands on... and am waiting to read...lets see when I get hold of it...
The book is about a world greatest salesman of his age and the principle he followed to reach the height he actually reached....the lessons to the salesmen are in the form of chapters in the book...each having one of which inspires us to give more to the work we do...
In brief these are the take aways...

Today I begin a new Life
I will greet this day with love in my heart
I will persist until I succeed
I am nature's greatest miracle
I will live this day as if it is my last
Today I will be the master of my emotion
I will laugh at the world
Today I will multiply my value a hundredfold
I will act now
Believe in your strengths and ask for guidance

Read the book if you are in a low phase and am sure each of these 10 lessons will help you transform your life.

Who Will Cry When You Die - Robin Sharma

2008-06-11T09:14:00.002+05:30

Seems like the summary of my learnings till now...that is exactly how I felt when I read this book....I would definitely put is on my must read books....
The way the book has been presented - a very simple and elegant fashion... I dont have to read through tons of pages to get this summary... 101 points to note...and each point not having more than 3 pages of illustration!!! awesome... To know what these points are read this book.
The lessons are so simple...yet powerful...follow them and see yourself transform...reveal the true potential that you possess into the daily acts....

Freakonomics-Steven D Levitt & Stephen J Dubner

2008-05-26T19:09:00.007+05:30

Some books are different from others, some books try to imitate others....this is one in the first category...A completely different perspective this books gives to its readers.

Is there any relation between
the school teachers and sumo wrestlers?
the ku-klux-klan and a real-estate agent?

Why do drug-dealers stay with their moms?
Which is more dangerous - the gun or the swimming pool?
Do parents really matter?

Some of these questions are absurd...some look illogical...this book breaks these boundaries which we have self-imposed. Kindles in us the spark ok questioning...what we think may not be related may be related...

Another interesting way of looking at the book can be through the lens of causality and the correlation. Causality is hard to prove...I doubt sometime and feel there is no causality...a high correlation is what makes us feel causality...Interesting... I let others ponder over this for some time...am sure this will give an interesting insight...

An interesting read...Go ahead and read when you think the world is only the way you think it can be...

link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freakonomics
http://freakonomicsbook.com/

The Elephant, the Tiger, & the Cell Phone - Shashi Tharoor

2008-05-12T18:21:00.003+05:30

The title.... "The Elephant, The Tiger and the cellphone" is the indicator of his thoughts of how to India has transformed over the decade after independence. This is my first book I am reading of Shashi Tharoor...its been a different experience... Lot my friends said he is an awesome writer puts his thought in a very different way...I accept this to a certain extent, there are some areas in which I have difference of opinions...well its absolutely ok...its after all an opinion...if I had no different opinion my existence would be redundant isn't it?

I loved the starting part where he makes a mention of India transforming from the Elephant, in its jungle directing the right and the wrong, to a tiger getting more people into its territory. He later goes on to give his views on a lot of topics...rt from his child hood, the cities he spent his life in, his experiences on various changes in India, the diaspora, the common mans life, the way Indian thoughts have changed over....

He goes on to praise Kerala for a lot of developments....some arguments I do buy but not all...I dont agree with him completely...there are also other areas where it needs improvements... he is a bit over optimistic in that sense...I got to know a lot about kerala from the book but my practical input from my surroundings is not always the same as he has tried to portray in the book... definitely it can be cause of the attachment he has to his home place....

I loved the description about Ajanta and Ellora that he has given towards the end of the book...I was on my plans to go there when I started reading the book...helped me get some idea of how I can plan the schedule of my tour... will go there soon... thanks for those valuable inputs...

Overall a very insightful book on his thought process and his hopes about India...Definitely improves the Indian Pride and shows the future is promising.

The most closest to my heart was his identification of the diversity of Indian Existence - both the prayer and the technology blended so well in the example of a software engineer coming to Putparthi...Awesome!!!

Read it at leisure when you have a lot of time at hand...definitely not a must read...but surely a worth read...

Ramdom mumbling- the old man & the child

2008-04-27T23:15:00.008+05:30

there is child in me...

there is an old man in me...

all through my life these will be within me...

some times I am a child

some times an old man...

but i enjoy being both the child and the old man...

the enthusiasm of the child

mapped with the maturity of an old man...
its a blissful experience...

the child loves to play pranks
the old man wants to get the understanding of the worlds
I gain form them both...

the child wonders and experiences
the old man takes the experiences and makes thoughts...
I wonder, am I the wonder or the experience or the thought....

- Chi

This was an arbitrary set of lines which I felt like jotting down... all in a spark...don't know how and why... just wrote them...

The Man From Earth

2008-04-27T12:25:00.002+05:30

It seems like nature is giving me more understanding of what "trapped by thought" really means....My roomie and I are in constant discussion over this phenomenon of "trapped by thought". It was he who suggested I watch this movie, and this sunday seemed to be an ideal day for it...
The movie is really profound in its message...makes us challenge our beliefs. It helped me see the phenomenon about which I was thinking about so deeply...Questions a plenty every where in the movie...What is truth? What is illusion? How have we created it... we try to measure everything though our limited capacity of analysis...we identify with the beliefs we create over our life...
The clear message that comes out from the story is this...be ready to have your thoughts challenged...If I believe there is also the other aspect of life...the unexplained...there is....if I try to reason it our and make it a causality phenomenon...it shall be that...but thinking that thought our theory of causality we have understood completely what was to be understood is again an assumption...If this was the way...science...the so called baby of rationality wouldn't have grown to the state it has grown to...this is typically the state at which science was when it was challenged by the church in the medieval period...people like Galileo had to phase tremendous opposition... but finally for science to go ahead the old beliefs and thought alignments - as I would call them had to change...
Even to this day...any new theory in science to be successful has to first be able to explain everything that has already been observed and explained by a generally accepted theory...and go ahead and predict what might occur in future so as to prove the theory...it is only then that such a new theory would be accepted by people...So its just about being ready to challenge the already formed view of what is observed and what we think might be the reason for such an observation...
The film challenges the generally held conceptions at multiple levels...it narrator - John keeps his audience engaged with his story... and makes a profound impact...I will not give the story away....but if you think its time to realize that you are "Trapped by thought" go ahead and see this movie...worth it...
for some more reviews on the movie
http://www.beyondhollywood.com/the-man-from-earth-2007-movie-review/

A New Earth - Eckarth Tolle

2008-04-21T11:42:00.016+05:30

Spirituality, this seems to be a buzz word these days....very often on Orkut the religious status mentions - "Spiritual but not Religious".
A question I would like to ask is this - "How many of us really know what does being spiritual actually mean?"... Well for those who are seeking the answer this book seems to give one....

The books was presented to me by Quetzal Online Private Ltd... it has since played a very great role in moulding my thought process..did I say thought!!! Yes, It is "thought"....where does this concept of thought itself come from? Will get clear as we get into my understanding of the Book, rather my book review

When Descartes told - "I think, therefore I am" it was just the reiteration of how connected we will be with our thought. I am nothing but what I think I am... It is what I think I am that makes me do what I do, the way I do... But who is this "I"?

A peep into the the thought over "I" and we will start realizing, all we identify with it just thought..."I am Sachidananda!!!" well is it so... wouldn't have my name been different if it was christened that way? Why would not some one call me by some call me by some other name?... so is it that I am "Sachidananda" or "I think I am Sachidananda"...people call me so... that is not what I am... its just my name... not me!!! It could have been anything.

I have a T-shirt to which I am very attached to, I was walking by the road, and some paint fell on it...I immediately react shouting abuse at the painter...Why did I do it?... The T shirt is part of my identity... I think what I am is reflected by the T-Shirt I wear...But wait...for a moment if I think its not my identity...its just a shirt... any shirt would be soiled some day...so why do I have to hurl abuse at the painter...I move ahead... may be try and get it cleared, which would actually make the most sensible thing....

Well the problem then seems to be as though it was me identifying with something..."I think I am..." So what would I call this identity? Tolle calls it the "Ego"... The more we attach ourself with the ego... the more we tend to identify ourself with things that we think we are... and when it doesn't go the way we think it has to go, we are upset, we are angry, get irritated... all these...

The ego always tries to expand itself...it makes me feel happy that I abused the painter...I have got more power than him... I see myself as one who is above him... Ego can equally be negative...it can make me feel completely miserable...It makes me search for pity and concern from my fellow mates..."This shouldn't have happened to me" this is what it says...this is what is tries and identifies with...when people around me reciprocate it goes to the next level and tires to get some more sympathy from them...it goes into detailed description of the event and tries to prompt the person around me to give me more concern... all this will help me feel... there is some one who sympathizes with me...well do we need the sympathy...not exactly... its only the thought that I need some support form someone at least verbally... I can still live and make more if I don't attach myself to this failure... I need to look at the current available option...choose the best and get above my thought of looking for people support to me.

When I said "I identity with my thought" does that mean its wrong to thing? No absolutely not.... thinking is not the mistake... its identification with the thought that you have which makes it critical..."Thought" is our slave... it is not our master... Identifying with thought we let it be our master and decide what we have to do.

How do we stop identifying with our thought? well its a long process.. It is important to prevent ourself from evaluating any situation that we are into....also don't evaluate the person who is around u.... When I evaluate I am trying to judge and compare with some thing I think I am...instead accept the things as they come... do your best... use your thought to make it the best...this is a better way of life....

My prof always used to say "In the process of becoming, you should not loosing being. Being is more important" Yes, this typically what happens and makes us dissatisfied... we think of somehtinig that has happened in the past and crib that is shouldn't have happened... or we keep thinking about the future and loose our present moment....It is only the present that is in front of us... we cant change the past by thinking about it nor can be get into the future by just thinking... its important that we live the present moment....

This being with the present is a state of concentration... being completely involved with the present work that we do... this is what makes us "human being"...

All this and more is explained really well in the book... if this small review of my thought on the book has influenced your thought...then do read the book...its worth more... may be life transforming to a few....A clearer understanding of spirituality will come out of it...

I loved and enjoyed this book...very revealing...very realizing...