Shyam's Blog

View of "The Collection" Mall View from 4th floor Rajadhani restaurant in UB City - portable hand cleaning!

These days, I am getting involved in hiring process and interviewing candidates for our company. On those lines, we had "Interviewer skills" training session. This was a session about how we should interview a candidate. The session reminded me of all my job interviews I have attended till now. Some of them were very easy going and few net cracking. We talked on wide range of topics ranging from dress code to what to answer the candidate if asked about recession. At the end of the session, we were split into groups and were asked to do mock interviews. This was to test 'interviewer' and not interviewee. Here are some basic rules for interviewer: 1) Start off with a welcome note and thank him/her for sparing his/her time to come for the interview. Also mention about job roles and responsibilities. 2) Please be a good host. Offer a beverage. 3) Do pre-screening of resume before entering the interview session. 4) Talk only 25% during the interview. 5) Do not interrogate....

I was having my morning coffee and just thought that it is the most enjoyable thing for me everyday. Nothing to beat to have a cup of morning coffee which dad makes and rings the bell - "tin tin tin... tin tin.... tin". Yes. He really gives the ring once coffee is ready. Wah dad... wah coffee bOliye`!

Recently, I wrote about "Office Space". While thinking about the cause for that type of attitude, I realised that we ourselves are responsible for that. It wouldn't go away with time. As kids, we do homeworks and mini-projects. The main emphasis by teachers and parents is - "Don't share your work with anybody. Do it yourself". Parents also teach the same to their kids. There is no mention of team-work. Nobody has the ability of working with the team, as a team. That being the case, when they move to college, same thing continues. Once they start their job with the same mentality, there is no way for such people to turn their attitude to a new type. They do the same 'hiding' and 'holding their secrets' to themselves. In US, I have seen many times, if a team-mate says, "I don't know. Please show me how to go about doing it..", the other person will be more than willing to help. At no point of time this is thought to be giving away...

This is a very story which I got to know recently. I wasn't aware about the details. But, I knew something like this had happened. In my office, I see this guy slightly limping because of an injury. I had talked to him over phone many times in the past couple of months. I started seeing him in meetings recently. Couple of days ago, I got to hear this horrifying story. His injury was because of an accident on Aug 3 2008. I do remember this - it was August 4th morning when I heard the news in our morning Synch up call that, one of our colleagues met with an accident and died on the spot. We had minute's silence to condole the demise of Sudeep (name changed). The one I keep meeting now was the rider and the one who passed away was the pillion on the motor bike. My friend, Gopal (name changed) narrates the story... We were friends for the past 3 years. He was from the north and had not visited Chennai. Since I was visiting Chennai for the weekend, I asked him if he liked to accompa...

The 'Office Space' I am talking has nothing to do with the movie, Office Space. The one I am referring to is about office environment in India inside a IT company. One element is true - Working in US is different from working in India. Why? You will come to know once you read below... In India, there are people grabbing tasks to prove their superiority. Whatever task is crossing across their cubicle, they want to grab it. Let that be not concerned to their scope of work, they just want to take it and say "Yes, yes... I will do it" by shaking their head in all directions possible. This is the most unprofessional way of work. At the end of the day, one who just grabs all the work proves to be 'the most wanted' guy. This is cunning attitude #1. Hiding 'code secrets' is one more thing of IT people here. They do something to solve one problem and send an email to boss with cc-ing the team saying, "issue is resolved now". What the ... did he/she do...

uffff! It was great to listen to Vishaka Hari last evening here in Bangalore. It was a discourse on "Prahladha Bhaktha Vijayam" of Saint Thyagaraja. Vishaka has performed a full concert at the same venue a day before this one which I missed. The auditorium was packed 30 minutes before the start. Vishaka has such a talent that nobody can match it in future and nobody had it in the past! I don't have words to explain. Most of the discourse was in Tamil with English in between. This seemed tough when we started to drive from home. Sitting there, every word was sinking in like water flowing smoothly in a calm stream. That was Vishaka Hari's expression of words.

Days are running so fast that I don't even have time to look at the clock/calendar! Weekdays run off like a rocket. Weekends, run faster than weekdays ;)

Shopped for the first time at Metro Bangalore. This reminded me of Costco shopping. Metro is the only store to have such a huge place for car parking! The ceiling, arrangement of stocks, checkout - everything resembles Costco. The store has frozen section where one can get green peas, corn, etc. The meat/fish section has to be avoided if one is not a meat eater! It smells a lot in that area.

Above were the gifts given to us for this year's Diwali. Our office has a holiday on Tuesday. With people taking off on today (Monday), it was a deserted look. Went to office in the morning and not to be surprised, I got a big gift pack. Every employee gets it! Early morning 1AM, we had a new baby in our family. My brother and bhabi got a new baby boy. I listened to his cry over phone and his pitch is good to become a singer :). Happy Diwali to everyone!

It is the same guy who stands at that place every day, that lady waits for the bus right at that corner, this driver drives in full speed right at 7:32 am, and this coconut vendor starts opening his stall by 7:35am - So many faces I do see every day when I am heading to office in the morning. To start with, I start my house at 7:25am and walk for couple of minutes to reach the stop where our office shuttle arrives at 7:35am. On the way, this is what I see - couple of moms with their kids walking them to school nearby, few senior citizens finishing their morning walk and few getting to stores nearby to buy something urgent. At one specific corner, I daily cut across cow dung on the street. That's because, there are 4-5 cows in the house adjacent to that corner! Once I reach the stop, my waiting time starts. In that busy street, same set of shuttle buses pass through everyday - few college buses, couple of school buses and many office shuttles. Two college goers always stand there wi...

1) From yesterday, I started back my music lessons. It was great to get back to my guru after many years. Song taught - 'karimukha varadha' in 'naata' composed by GNB. 2) One market which is opening up in India is DTH (Direct To Home) television. All we need is a dish antenna. Current players - Tata, Airtel and Reliance. 3) Watching television is so monotonous - all channels are filled with so many competitions that it is easy for anyone to just open a channel and have some competitions in it. Television before was run by actors/television stars/news reports, but now, it is run by common man. Even news channels have Ads saying that common man can send in videos/news clippings and they will put them on their channel. In a way, television channels are making money (if at all they are) by having such shows for which they don't have to pay much to 'common man' to be part of the show. 4) Today, my wife and I visited Big Bazaar shopping mall. I am hunting for Febr...

Jan 10 1999 , Jayangar , Bangalore April 18 2000 , Fort High School, Bangalore April 18 2000 , Fort High School, Bangalore

Jan 26 1990, Hubli 1991 , Karnataka Medical College, Hubli Our debut concert - Nov 1997 , Bangalore June 18 1999 , Bangalore Singing at Jayanagar National College Auditorium (College in which I studied 95-97)

Found this old audio archive. With the tape getting older, I converted this to mp3. I have sung this playfully without seriousness. If I see a kid now sing like this, I think I will be impressed. When was this sung? In my primary school! I had recorded 30 minutes of audio with 10-12 songs in it for my grandma. Here is the mp3 now.

It was a day-out for both of us as we spent time in the Forum Mall here in Bangalore. After a short shopping in Jayanagar Shopping Complex, we planned to watch the movie, A Wednesday, which was running in PVR Cinemas. We reach the Mall by 3pm and bought the ticket at PVR Europa Cinemas. We had couple of hours to do some shopping/window shopping. With a quick snack at "Transit" (this is the food lounge), we did some window shopping. After a while, my wife wanted to sit and there was no seating area. We went inside a home-theater demo area and tried to sit there for 10 mins and see the features of that 60K-odd rupees home theater! By then, it was time for the movie, A Wednesday. The movie is a suspense thriller and a good one to watch. Moral of that movie - Every common man has the right and responsibility to couter terrorism. Don't take this moral as "authority", it is just "responsibility". Forum Mall is indeed a nice place to spend a day. So many peop...

Got up this morning to notice a laddu kind of swelling in my throat. Reason - viral throat infection called Mumps. It is painful to swallow anything and remedy is to take painkillers and leave it to heal by itself.

We got a Hyundai Getz today. One of our colleagues sold this car which he had hardly used. It is a 2006 Hyundai Getz GVS. We chose this car as it was in a very good condition and a brand new would have costed us 40% more than what we paid. On the occasion of "Ayudha Pooja", it was good to get the keys for the car! A few of Getz from the web... Technical Spec: Dimensions and Weights Overall Length (mm) 3810 Overall Width (mm) 1665 Overall Height (mm) 1515 Wheel Base (mm) 2455 Ground Clearance (mm) 160 Front Track (mm) 1450 Rear Track (mm) 1440 Front Headroom (mm) 980 Front Legroom (mm) 1180 Rear Legroom (mm) 880 Boot Space (liter) 290 Gross Vehicle Weight (kg) 1500 Kerb Weight (kg) 1095 Fuel Economy Mileage Highway (km/liter) 15.3 Mileage City (km/liter) 10.7 ...

Wishing everyone "Happy Dasara"

Bangalore is ready to host the first test match of the four-match series between India and Australia. It rained heavily last night and for 9th, hopefully, we will have clear skies to have a complete 5-day contest. Why am I blogging this? I am few inches (put it as miles) closer to watching this match live sitting in the Stadium!