Adios 2009 Hola 2010!!

So guys here is the final post for the year 2009

Given the economic situation around the globe I think we as a country did a fair job in fighting the recession, As far as I’m concerned, professionally I would say it was not that bad and turned out to be a descent year

At the Personal front I would have called it as a pretty normal year but all changed when I met my Fiancée at the neb of 2009..so a pretty normal year turned out to be a special one at the fag end.I would consider my self as a luckiest person to have her on my side in this thrilling journey of life



Entering 2010 with lots of hopes,expectations & responsibilities..Hope it turns out to be a very good year for all of us..Will try to keep you guys posted with latest happenings around me

Wish you all a very happy and prosperous new year ,Lets rock 2010 !!

2States

Hi guys..as usual back to blogging after a long time..i thought this time let me share some thing different..title is confusing??dont worry..its just the name of the book..last week gotta chance to read this book..so thought to write down something on that

Now Chetan Bhagat is back again with a very good story in his new release - 2states.. Youths will love reading this book…especially ones in the verge of love marriage,He has narrated this in a very cool way which in reality is not so :-)

If this is the firs time you are hearing the author's name,here are some info on him..he has written very good books in the past and guy who studied in IIT and IIM..worked as banker and finally decided to become a writer..

More About Chetan

Moreover the story seems to be his own experience..I just started one evening..just to see how it goes..i kept on reading till 12AM and finished the book in just couple of days..



Story is about two guys from two different states (Boy from Delhi and girl from Chennai),they meet during their MBA program at IIM A, how their relationship develops and what all they have to go through in their life to finally get married

Chetan has managed to keep the reader going all the way to the end
Apart from enjoying the story, there are some good things to take away from this book especially for the ones who are in love :-),just kidding,its actually for all..like how to win a true confidence
But in the story I just wonder how the horoscope thing never came into picture in either of the family
Other than that everything else is very much closely related to real life
One should read it at least once..its a fun..

Here are some latest happenings around me

Got shifted from Hyd and working from Blore these days
So spending almost all my weekends at my home town with my parents/relatives and local friends
work wise-nothing much change.personal front -still an eligible bachelor :)
will keep you posted

Niagara travelogue and U.S Experience

My 2 months of US trip has come to an end, In another 6 hrs I’ll be on my way back to India, I should say that it was a pleasant trip, though some times I felt little bored as I was staying alone and couldn’t travel much places because of the logistic constraints still I enjoyed the stay here. One thing I should say that you cant expect to save any thing big :) , So if one has that idea then please drop that, then you can spend a nice time !!

After coming back from Sandy (UTAH) and spending a week at South Carolina I thought I would never get a chance to visit any new places. Here in east coast that too in this SC, NC, VA etc you are kind of stuck if you don’t have a car, then we got a long week end (23rd – 25th May) and still I didn’t had any plans for myself, All of a sudden plan for Niagara came up and till the last day things were not sure, Finally we (Anil, Lakshmi(Anil’s wife),Cute Adithi(Naani),Shivaji and myself) started our trip to Niagara (in Toyota RAV4 ) on Friday evening at 5 PM





Though I have traveled a bit already but this trip is so unique for me, In all my previous trips most of the time local travel will be in trains, buses or in cabs so I didn’t really got a chance to know lot many things, This time I got a chance to know the road rules as I was commuting daily in the car with my colleagues, The roads are so good in US, Every thing is well planned here, each state has its own set of road rules, we have separate area for everything, In fact Its a nice concept, For example if you want to take rest/fill fuel/take food then you have to leave the main road and take a separate road ,which will take you to the respective places, Those are called as “Exits” here, Again you can join back the main road. Even for getting into a town then you have an “Exit”, it’s the same concept




Oops!! I’m off the track, lets come back to the trip, yes we covered 4 states (North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania) to reach New York State (Buffalo) where Niagara falls is located ,It was an amazing night drive, Speed limits were relaxed (70MPH) in Virginia and West Virginia ,so Anil(my colleague)was in full form :-)

We took a room in a hotel near a place called Blasdell, there we slept for some time and started to Niagara Falls, It was a 1hr drive, Its must see place in US, at least once. Actually there are 3 falls there and Majority of the falls (Horse Shoe falls) lie in the Canadian Side, Other two (American Falls, Bridal Veil falls) lies in the American Side. Most of the people say that we can have a very good view of Horse Shoe from Canadian side but still it doesn’t matter, still you can have a good time. There was a small Cruz kind in which we had a close look at all the three falls, it was a nice experience




To top it all, we got a chance to experience real force of Niagara Falls (Cave of the Winds), we literally got drenched, by the time we came out of the falls it was almost night and completely exhausted. Had a view of Niagara with lightings in the night time then we managed to find an Indian restaurant with Buffet. Had good supper then next day headed towards Pittsburgh (Sri Venkateswara Temple).It’s a very famous temple in US and you get very good Sambar/Curd rice there in the lunch :)





On the way back, got a chance to take a glimpse of Pittsburgh –city of bridges, We continued our drive back to SC, Again the early morning drive was amazing with full of fog, for some time it was very tough to drive as nothing was clearly visible, Me and Shivaji (colleague) enjoyed the drive, Niagara trip ended with a good sleep at Anil’s Place




Let me also share the food/life style which I observed here in US. Whatever people drink it will be in huge big mugs/cups, In the morning by default you can find most of the people with coffee mugs, then coming to water/cola’s 50% of the cup filled with ice cubes and rest the respective content,Coming to Restaurant apart from fast food outlets like Sub way,MacDy,KFC we can also find lot of Mexican restaurants around
There are quiet a variety of foods available but all have the same fatty stuff though :-)
These are some of the things which I tasted (Waffle,Nachos Fajita, Chicken Fajita, Burrito, Tortilla, Bagels) People take more quantity in Dinner than lunch, even the quantity and the price of the dish will be more than lunch dishes, This is some thing unique which I observed here, but all the hotels will have peak rush between 6 -7 :30 ,People take early dinner, they go to bed early and start the work early in the morning, that’s one good thing here, Even at 8 Am you can find the parking lots almost filled and at 4 pm on Friday the contrary :-)

That's it !! I think this is the longest blog I ever wrote in my life, just thought to type down all that I experienced and observed here

All This was possible because of my lovable colleagues,who helped me a lot and made my stay a memorable and pleasant one.Special Thanks to Anil/Sudhakar/Shivaji/Kishan and all my team members

P.S : All the above are my personal views/observations, there is no intention to hurt any one and some of the above said may not be completely right, It’s just my perspective and understanding

Hope I'll get another chance to come back and explore this country more :),Will be back with some other stuff after reaching India,Ciao !!

A week at Sandy/Salt Lake City – UTAH

Here I’m at the United States;country which I never thought will visit in my lifetime
Time is a master of all you know, we plan for some thing and it surprises us completely with some thing else. I’m not sure whether it’s the same for all but at least in my case it’s been like that right from the school days

Even this trip to UTAH was not part of my itinerary until the last week; all of a sudden it popped up. It’s been a very tight week for me as I had to complete my requirement study for a client called –Harman Music Group. UTAH is almost central part of America and Sandy is kind of serene place surrounded by stunning snow covered mountains of “Wastach” range



Luckily I had to stay for the weekend here as my work was not over. On Sunday my Wipro Colleague (Raja) called me and told that he will come and pick me up in 10 minutes. It was a kind of shock for me as I never expected this. Then went to Walmart for purchasing some things, Wow!! It was similar to METRO which we have in India/China etc; it was overcast weather and was drizzling through out the day



Then we went for a long drive to Heber City along with his kid(Surya).We had rain till the mid of our onward journey and suddenly to my luck sun came out bright and allowed us to enjoy the drive and surrounding scenic beauty. This again was an unplanned surprising trip which I thoroughly enjoyed. Some of us like getting in to big shopping malls and all swanky stuff. But to me nature takes the precedence and then comes the rest

So my sincere thanks to Raja who took me to these places


That’s it, my work got over there and now I’m back to my project in south Carolina (Greenville),Hope I’ll get some chance to visit new places here, Keep checking the blog for further updates :-)

Its Recession - Time to act

Hey all its 2009 !!My first blog of this year and that too on Recession,In couple of days first quarter of this year will be behind us. World is witnessing the worst recession in 100 years. Daily we are hearing job cuts, companies shutting down/downsizing operations etc Stock market’s nose dive only adds more fuel to the present situation .Governments all over the world are taking corrective measures but apparently nothing seem to solve the cause (at least for short term).As I’m writing this blog Indian economy is heading towards deflation. It’s indeed appalling to note that within a span of 8 months, Indian economy has taken a complete U turn from record high inflation rate of 8.75% to almost zero % inflation (this coming week)

Recession at its peak

Where are we heading? All goody feedbacks on Indian economy are no more appearing in the news columns. May be I feel this correction was long pending. It’s time to understand the real terms and as a responsible citizen it‘s also our duty to fight this recession by chalking out clear plans, cutting down unnecessary costs rather than panicking

How’s the world going to come out of this mess? Given severity of the wound it’ll surely take time to heal .It’s a good time for the country, people to take stock and hone its/their skills. All of us should try to innovate in all we look at. Word – Innovation itself may scare most of the people as it carries a whole lot of meaning and make a common man think that he/she may not be a genius to innovate. To me innovation is as simple as bringing in process improvement which there by may increase the productivity or saves time, money or what ever it may be which ultimately should enhance the experience

Not this kind of innovation though :-)

As I’m discussing about innovation, this forwarded link has hit my mind (received from my PM this week- you tube video link), I was thrilled to see that video, our experience with mobiles, notebook, and internet are definitely going to have a sea change in coming years, you might have already seen this still thought to share the same with you all along with this blog, Try to peep in whenever you get the leisure time, Man behind this innovation is none other than a Indian – Pranav Mistry – try googling his name, you will get lot more interesting details

Pranav's Innovation


Ok guys that’s it for now, things are going as usual at my end, you know what - I’m here in Hyderabad for 9 months now, really couldn’t believe myself, this is the longest stint since I left TATA, I’ve had a good time so far, though it’s a kind of routine life (now)
Have got an opportunity to work in a support environment which I had never experienced and also opportunity to prove my leadership skills by managing this current project as an offshore project lead, so things are going on ok if not that great :-)
Wish you all a advance Good Friday and Tamil new year(for all tamilians)