Shyam's Blog

Laloo is giving a lecture at IIM-Ahmedabad on September 18th. His success story of making Indian Railways the second largest PSU profit org. after ONGC made IIM professors think about his managements skills and ideas. Railways earned 15,000 crores (150 billion) as profits in 2005-06. Read his dialogue below: " My mother always told me not to handle a buffalo by its tail, but always catch it by its horns. And I have used that lesson in everything in my life, including the Railways." wah wah wah. His mantra: "If you do not milk the cow fully, it falls sick". wah wah wah I somehow like the way Laloo is - He is kewl. He can make Bihar - Japan ;).

After a brief discussion with a family here about kids and television, I just feel that it has taken away the creative thought in kids. Adding to television, computers and games have destroyed the whole concept of constructive congnition. This continues throughout their lives, both childhood and adult phase. I have seen the current generation naming "watching TV" as one of their hobbies!!! The concept of television is different in the West. It is a way to make the kids sit silent by watching 24 x 7 cartoons. There are several channels which show a range of cartoon which makes parents give their kids the remote (by blocking other channels) and instructing them to keep watching it for the next couple of hours. In India, concept of television for kids is(was) slightly different. Since there are many other family programs compared to cartoons, it becomes a more family entertainment than just locking kids in a room and make them watch TV. Add the cricket effect to that please. 8 h...

With kids Ganesha Chaturthi celebrations at Dr.J’s house was a treat and will go down as one of the most memorable days in my life. With ‘aarti’ to Ganesh in typical Mumbai style being the start of the evening, ended with dinner which included homemade kulfi! Not to mention music playing a big part of the evening. P, exponent of Saxophone Aarti included ‘jayadev jayadev jaymangal murthe’ and ‘om jay jagadish hare’ which were given everyone in a printed form. ‘prasad’ was served and soon started a small music session. The kids sang a couple of songs, followed by a ‘raaga’-song piece by P on the Saxophone. He had J accompanying him on the Tabla. P played raag-‘kaafi’. It was a great treat to watch him play and J accompany him. P and J are trained in Hindustani classical music. After their piece, they let me take charge for the rest of the evening. P and J Microphones were set and I was all set to start. I was invited to mainly sing bhajans and songs for the kids. When I was abo...

I started blogging few months ago to improve my writing skills and put some thought online. Soon, I gained interest and met many people online and shared ideas. Slowly, I feel everyone has gone away. If not gone, they are regularly irregular :). Today is Friday and I am sitting at office finding to read something interesting and jumping pages online to find something thoughtful. Read a few things about stem cells and its implications on future research. Catholic Church is against using embryonic stem cells for research. Some believed it is similar to 'murder'! Latest development showed that embryonic stem cell can be extracted without actual destruction of the embryo. With this, the Bush Govt might start funding again to this field of research which was stopped couple of years ago due to political, ethnical and ethical reasons. After a huge lunch at a Chinese restaurant, I am in no mood to work :(. After returning from lunch, I was in 99% sleep state - A nap was most essential....

I was about to write about coming weekend's festival and was reading today's local newspaper. It was a coincidence that this is what I found there! Seen here is the picture from the newspaper - "Boston Metro". 2001 was the last year I celebrated the festival in India. After that, it has been a very different kind for me - keeping up culture and tradition to a possible extent. Wishing you all a very Happy festival season!

Navin arranging Chords Deepti and I rehearsing during recording Navin and Debayan ready for Take 5 Dinner with Prasanna  

I worked late last night and was sleepy to get up at the scheduled time this morning. The day will be started late for me. Adding to that, somehow, the minute got out of bed, I was, "tauba meri tabuba, moov lagao" style. Don't know how, my back is aching. With a slow tea, I am writing this, really lazy enough to get going. My manager has already been informed that I will be late to office because of working late last night. When I was making tea, I got reminded of those scenes back in India which are too typical for any place. When I was adding tea powder, I was doing some calculation of how much to add. I added around a spoon and then felt, a pinch more can go in. I added pinch more, but put rest back from the spoon into tea bottle. This was the time I remembered, the grocery store guy across the street, measuring sugar for us. He will put approximate measures and does the process of 'add-remove' to make the weight suitable as per our request. Do you see that any...

Aavarthanam [ def. to refine ] This is the name of the group I am working currently to release the debut album. 'Aavarthanam' is a group of young artists from different parts of the United States. We have been having voice conferences to come up with an idea of what we will be singing and playing. I will introduce the artists when the music gets released online this Fall season. One interesting thing about us is, we are Orkut friends ;). Now, don't ask me, 'what is orkut?'. Next week-end is the recording. The whole team is working hard and is gearing up for the rehearsal and recording sessions. That will be the first time we all will be meeting face-to-face for this project. The name of the album is yet to be finalised. But, we have the pieces in place. I will not disclose what is installed. Am sure, everyone will like our work. All we can assure you is, we will do our best and this is just the beginning.

Indian Association of Rhode Island celebrated 59th Indian Independence day last night at Waterplace Park, Providence, RI. It was a very nice experience to see the Fire in waters after sunset and also listen to some music of Prasanna and his band. It's not a bad idea to go for a 'Gondola' ride if you are with some one ;). Lighting the fire starts after sunset and men in boats come and add more wood regularly till 1:00AM. The ambience was good with a nice amphitheatre at one end and a circular view of waterfire. Around 14 thousand visited the place last evening which had perfect weather along with music and food. Got up real late today after last night's hang over :(

An interesting sign board on a street in Cape Cod, MA. Men and women - go right If not sure ( '?' sign), go left!

I was trying to search for something funny and interesting in my repertoire (my documents folder). I had one for today. It is too incomplete in one sense because there is lot more to write ;). What do two bachelors talk? ‘A’ and ‘B’ - doing their Bachelors degree in Engineering in India . If they are ok guys – ‘A’: Oh man, what a knock Sachin played in last night’s game? ‘B’ will act as though he is Sachin’s coach and will tell this enacting, ‘yes, that flip down the leg side in that 34 th over turned the match for India’. If they are not ok, they will talk this way – ‘A’: Did you try that 4 th problem of exercise 5.1? I am still not able to prove LHS = RHS. They are talking about Engineering Mathematics ;). B will reply: haan yar. I too tried, but did not get (this B is too chaalu. He has got the answer, but is lying. Will change topic too). So got bored and tried working on that ‘selection sort’. Sachin was playing such wonderful match and these two did...

The biggest news of the day - terror attacks thwarted at Heathrow Airport, London. Around 10 planes were targetted to be blown up mid-air on the Atlantic. All planes were from UK to the US. 21 people were arrested at the London airport. Just can't believe when will all these stop and HOW? Attacks like these have become so common all over the world that we don't even know when and how the next one is going to come. Targets have been airplanes, underground trains and metro rails. People have become so vulnerable that if they are stuck in a traffic jam in the middle of a bridge like ...(name any famous bridge), God only knows who is ready to blow up truck-load of explosives right at the center of the bridge :(. So insecure is travel now-a-days. Police can't check every truck and car on the freeway which crosses a river. Even trains and metro buses- no security. I must just say, just keep your fingers crossed and move on with life. Latest example is Mumbai 7/11 attacks :(.

This company 'X' from India comes to my company and advertises to do 24 x 7 Support. I saw my calender for the day and noted that company 'X' was visiting us and a meeting was scheduled at 3:00pm. I did not think much. Here is how that meeting at 3 O'Clock sounded to me. One Indian comes in and names herself "n g" and she is the marketing person for that Company. I have known that Indian company for a few years and it is one of the top companies in India, no doubt about it. Then our manager goes on, " X will be trying to provide us production support 24 x 7. This meeting is to exchange ideas of how our architecture is and how X can help us". 'n g' starts, 'I am from X. We have our HQ in M, India and have around 25 offices in the US. One of our team leads is in LA right now who is ready to join us on the conference bridge. Could we dial that number?' Number dialed :). There comes my friend 'a' in our typical Indian accent a...

"From Bangalore to Baltimore, this is XM Highway 16" ;) This is what they announced on the XM radio channel recently! I get to listen to XM radio for a few minutes daily on my way to railway station and then back home. Very soon, that free subscription will end though ;). The other day, someone was talking about his style of music and commented saying, "I sometimes play the raaga-style" :D. XM radio is kewl!

It has been crazy these days. "Crazy" is the word I get. Stuff I did, Practised too much music - 15 hours in 2 days House cleaning Read some blogs Some chatting Photo editing Shell and python scripting Training a new employee at office Writing blog Googling to get an equation for Standard deviation :( Making travel arrangements for UK visit Writing a report at office Shopping groceries One thing I didn't do much - Cooking :).

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The title is ripped from the television competition, "So you think you can dance". People have seen me singing on stage a lot. But, one of my FIRST stage appearances was a dance and my role was - my name. It was in Tumkur during my first standard. My mom visited the school few months prior to 'school day' (also called Annual day). She was enthusiastic to teach kids some group dance. There I was stuck with the role of Krishna ;). She picked a few songs on Krishna and his pranks and made up a ballet. Practise sessions went on well and the finale was approaching. One fine day, someone triggered me with an idea, 'dance is for girls'. ha ha ha. Gone was my mind into the woods. I told my mom, "Amma, I am not going to dance. That Soumya (who was doing the role of Yashoda) is not my real mom. I don't feel like calling her 'amma'. Pick some other kid". Soon started my mom putting my Krishna's stolen butter back to me. She and all my teachers c...

Bianca Ryan Age: 11 years old Achievement: Finalist of America's got Talent See the video below. She just came on stage. Judges and audience did not know that this little kid could do wonders ;). At the end of her 2-minute show, audience and judges gave her a standing ovation. Bianca is my bet for this 1-million dollar prize "America's got Talent" show. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozDh4NQveJs For more details of the show, visit www.nbc.com

It has been in my mind for while on how people take appreciating art. Here is a link to my brother's blog which talks about appreciating art - ( Read here ). There is one more interesting link, which talks about music ( Deepti's blog ). I will talk about these points with a different analogy. I believe music is an art which needs NO language. It has the same concept of 'art of painting'. Read the above two sentences few more times before going ahead. How did music start? Its first form was drums ONLY. Just beating the drums in the jungle was music! This was also used for signalling and send messages within a boundary. Later came some form of syllables - just imagine Tarzon shouting! Music did not have human voice in its earlier form. Staying with drums, Shiva had 'damaru' which was used for rhythmic dancing. There are many examples related to instruments and Gods - Krishna with the Flute and Saraswathi with the Veena are the most common. Is there any God with ...

Back in India, it was always ice-cream season when Summer started. I remember eating ice cream daily. Apart from home made mom's ice creams, there were typical brands which are no where in the picture now-a-days. Here are some brands... Sub zero Kwality Vadilal Arun Ice cream Dollops! Can anyone remind me the Ads of these brands on TV? Baskin Robins came in late into indian market. Was there are brand - "Yummy"??? I think so. I still remember eating that ice-cream vendor's mango icecream during hot afternoons. Favorite flavor was - Vadilal's cassatta (did I spell it correctly?). Wow man!! With multilayer - Just awesome. Kwality's cone was good - Chocolate cone - it was costly in those days! Dollops and Sub zero - they had unique bowls - family packs! Why ice-cream suddenly in my blog? Because it is crazy hot here with temperatures touching 105 F. We got instructions from our office staff to close ALL shutters and keep sun away! It is always great and refreshin...