Drishti - the vision

We are all familiar with the not-so-rare situation when our computer goes berserk. Nothing behaves the way it should. All the programs either suddenly freeze in time or manage to shed the chains of slavery that tie them to their algorithms. Our brain generally perceives it with a tag-line: "fir hang ho gaya ". And in these moments I profusely thank the person who has put that small button on the machine, the most powerful button in my opinion, even more powerful than the start button - the restart button. As in computer so also in life, we are bestowed with the ability to restart (and if you wish to thank anyone for that then in this case you are not struggling against anonymity - just thank god). I have a special place in my heart for people who have dared to restart their lives - Amitabh Bachchan, Sourav Ganguly, Abraham Lincoln, Maharana Pratap, Napolean Bonaparte. These are all people who struggled to reach formidable heights in their lives, slipped from the peaks and the...

My current role gives me an opportunity to learn a lot about management tools. Those sophisticated diagrams, matrices, maps, charts and tables that have supposedly been devised over a long period of time after intense and deep research. Many of you must have heard about things like 2 by 2 matrices. These are used by many management professionals, consultants, business leaders to segment markets, characterise products, define customers, assess economies etc. These are very simple to use, we can put any two parameters on the X-axis and any two on the Y-axis and then (as ardent fans of these matrices would want us to believe) we can aspire to fit the entire world in one of those four boxes. Some innovative professionals in their spare time have devised the next generation matrices which also allow for a conitnuous gradation within any particular box or even across the whole matrix. Then there is Michael Porter's famous five competitive forces analysis. This is a neat tool for industry...

This has been my email adress for a very long time. If I look at it now it comes across as bit of a propaganda, even a bit immature. It has a history. It was created sometime in 2001. I was not in IIT then. I was preparing for JEE. And in those days I used to go about with a different email id: mrfair320@rediffmail.com , even more propaganda and even more immature. I would not go into the history of this last one and my only defence is that I was only 16 years of age when I registered this one. Anyways coming back to kunaliit2002. I registered this while I was still preparing for JEE with a condition that I would use it only if I manage to get through IIT JEE to join the 2002 session. It was quite logical too because under any other scenario this email id would have only been misplaced. And it also explains why it is not kunaliit d 2002 for at that time I did not know which of the seven IITs I would end up in. I used to go to the cyber cafe every so often, check my mrfair id, and take ...

Those of you who have lived in Bangalore would know Blossoms. The famous three storeyed bookshop in Churchstreet. I had been there once about three months ago and had failed to discover the 3rd floor (may be I was in hurry or something). I went there again yesterday. In fact it was not a planned visit, it was just that we were looking for a decent place to dine and stumbled at Mainland China (it is a nice chinese restaurant by the way -especially their lunch buffet is value for money) and Blossoms is within a flower throw distance from Mainland China. This time I managed to discover the third floor. Second hand treasure or should I call it Treasure - second hand, anyways I am only referring to a vast collection of second hand books that was buried in this floor. I found a second hand copy of Porter's famous "Competitive Advantage of Nations" - hard bound, in good condition and only 500 rupees - a real bargain I would say. Then I found something interesting on World War-I,...

I finished reading Jonathan Livingston Seagull (by Richard Bach) only very recently. I had heard a lot about it and so many times that even without actually having read it I had discussed the core theme on many occassions by the coffee corner, only to make a factual error or two in the end which exposed my ignorance. It talks about a seagull who refuses to accept that seagull's have been bestowed with the ability to fly only to be able to find food and survive. Jonathan Livingston liked to fly and, like every individual who has found his calling, wanted to be a perfectionist in the art of flight. He used to practice for hours. Instead of just flying low enough to manage to scoop a few surface fishes, he practiced diving from 10,000 even 20,000 feet to reach speeds of 200 miles per hour. And one day when he managed to break all speed records and displayed his skiils to his flock, he was convicted with having gone against the traditions of the Seagull community and was outlawed. But ...

Finally I have decided I will write blogs. This decision can partially be attributed to a wealth of spare time that I seem to have inherited almost miraculously in this holiday season (an advantage of working in a Western Headquartered Company) and partially a desire to connect with people. I work for an Oil company. Oh sorry we now call ourselves an Energy Company and unless you are Saudi Aramco calling yourself an oil company is akin to saying that you are not going to be around in 2108. Green is the way to go. Future is green; cars, cities, industry everything should adopt one form or the other of green. It is the only way to survive: tactical in the short run but practical in the very long. Energy demand is soaring and everyone is being urged by governments, green peace, leaders etc. to curb their energy consumption. But I have not even experienced the basic luxuries of life and I am already in the well-to-do class of India. I have not yet bought my first car, not even a motorbike....