Its Quiz Time

You are sitting in a room with three switches. 3 bulbs in an adjacent room are connected to these three switches. Now you need to tell which switch is for which bulb. You can go only once in the other room.

A man dies and goes above. There he finds two doors - one to Heaven and other to Hell. There are two persons standing - one each in front of the door to Heaven and Hell. One of them speaks a lie and the other speaks truth. Now you can ask only one question to any of them and you need to tell which is Heaven and which is Hell.

A king gives a horse each to his two sons and tells them that they need to race to city X. The one whose horse is SLOWER will win. The sons are wandering over for many days. When they are dead tired and have no hope left, they meet a wise man. As soon as both of them have talked to the wise they, they jump onto the horses and start walloping towards city X. What did the wise man say?

Duniya Gol Hai Mere Dost

Once upon a time, when we used to go to school, we used to study Geography. The name of our Geography teacher was Mrs. Purewal. She was very strict but she used to take us to wonderful places near our school so that we could learn things. Once while we were having our Geography class, she asked us to open our Atlas. She took us to the page where the map of the world was drawn (something like in the shown image). Then she decided to test us and our intelligence. She asked us to pick the shortest path through sea from Japan to the West Coast of America. Some answers:

a) Japan to India to SA to US
b) Japan to India and through the Mediterranean Sea to US




I won't mind if you cannot stop laughing reading the above answers. I also laugh at it, but it was tough to remember this simple thing back then:

Duniya Gol Hai Mere Dost

Thing of the day

While going to my office in the morning, a policeman standing at a traffic light asked me if I was going straight. I said Yes and he asked me for a lift. I welcomed him in and we started talking (rather he started talking :)). As soon as I mentioned that weather has become old and in the newspaper there was a report yesterday that it was the coldest day for the past 5 years, his stories about the press began. These guys need to fill in all the pages. They need some stuff to write. Some of them just call the policemen and ask them about what happened and they would get a story sitting at home. They ask for a Crime Report which is published by the police everyday and make their stories out of it.

This reminds me of the famous saying:

Is duniya ka kya hai sabse bada gam
Ki uska gam hai mere gam se kam

Even if half of this negative energy could be converted into positive, India would march ahead at double its current speed.

Ga Ga Ga Ga

A colleague of mine has a one and a half year daughter. As she is growing up, she is learning new things and this includes the mobile phone. She has managed to learn to play with it and accidentally dial a number using the phone. On one such occasion, she dialed the number of another colleague of mine. When he picked up the phone, he started hearing voices of a small baby going "Ga Ga Ga Ga".

Similarly my wifes sister has a one year old son. He is also enjoying the world of mobile phones and thinks about it as more of a toy than a thing used to communicate. If you put a phone on his ears and someone from the other end speaks, he would listen for a couple of seconds and then remove the mobile from his ears.

A little older kids love the ring tone of the mobile phone. They would start from the first stored ring tone and keep playing each and every one of them.

Thing of the day

I had gone for the monthly hair-cutting ritual to my nearby barber shop. After the usual wait for a few minutes and enjoying the sun for the first time this winter, my turn came to get the hair cut. As I was getting it done, a young man was getting a massage done on the nearby seat. It was an interesting process. The person doing the massage took a machine, put it across his hands (like a glove which is open at the fingers) and plugged it into a socket. When he switched on the power, the machine started vibrating and so did his hand. He then used that vibration to do the massage on different parts of the body of the person. Saw such a machine for the first time....

Tagging my posts with labels

On last Friday, I was busy tagging all my posts on the blogs with labels. It seems easy but it is not. Arranging yourself and your life is one of the toughest jobs. Anyways, I managed to do it this time for at-least the posts I have made. Following are the categories till now:

1. Bollywood: My all time favorite category.
2. Finance: One of my favorites these days.
3. Humour: My kind of humour, which only probably I can understand. And now my biwi too because she has to laugh at it :)
4. Information: General information that I want to share
5. Learn One Thing: Tag the thing which I learn every day into a separate category
6. Personal: My personal life information
7. Philosophical: Kind of person I am, this category will beat all the others in its numbers.
8. Professional: Tids-bits from my office life
9. Religion: Not one of the most interesting categories for me, but I do believe in that force which makes us all follow the right path
10. Sports: Wowwww

Thing of the day

While watching Navjot Singh Sidhu on Aap Ki Adalat, I was amazed by the changes he has gone through his life. If he really changed the way he portrays, then he has done a great job. One incidence, about his meeting with Shahrukh 25 years back when Shahrukh was not a super-star, which was striking was:

I do not compete with anyone. I compete only with myself.

Call this comment arrogance of Shahrukh or his supreme belief in his abilities, the place where he sits today is really appreciable.

It also completely cuts the negative energy that might be present in your life totally.

As Sidhu puts it aptly in his own style:

Duniya ka sabse bada kya hai rog,
yeh soch ke mere baare mein kya kahenge log

Diwali Get-Together in our office

We had a Diwali get-together in our office. A small one from 4 till 4:30. The invitation for it said that we need to come prepared with Diwali stories from our past. Hmmmm.......

Anyways, some interesting tid-bits from it:

• It is used to celebrate victory of Good over Evil. That is the easiest one.
• Some use Rangoli to decorate their house during Diwali
• As a student, some guys used to hate Diwali Homework.
• Diwali Wishes change with years
• When we were young: New clothes
• Mid Age: Celebration through crackers
• Now: Sleep - Agony of engineers
• In south in some places, first diwali after marriage the guy goes to the girls house. He is treated like a King there. WoW or Duh
• You are woken up at 2 in the morning by the elders who put oil on you and then you bathe and so on - happens in south
• Time to thank for everything you are gifted by God with
• Time to thank God for so many people whose blessings are with you
• Lots of sales at lots of places
  

Thing of the day

While coming back from our walk after lunch, I noticed a person having a Tata Indigo get out of his car. When he got out of this car, the windows of the driver seat were half open. After he was out, he started walking towards a shop nearby. Then he pressed the Auto Lock button on the keys. As soon as he pressed that, the windows also closed. This was something I did not know. I always need to check manually the windows of the car when I go back home. Sometimes I need to come back at mid-night to confirm that windows are closed.

Try these good things out

Some good habits which we should incorporate in our everyday life:

1. Develop a habit to look at a list at the start of the day and end of the day
1. This will help in putting things which are in your basket immediately to this list at any point in the day and get you a reminder at the end-of-the-day
2. Try to learn one good thing everyday and note it down
3. Learn to tell good things to others if you think so
4. Try to concentrate on the thing you are doing and put it to a logical end to carry it on at a later stage, if there is a need to take a break in betweenPlan your financial in terms of targets to achieve twice an year
5. Do a small review of your financial at the start of the month
6. Spend some time during the week on how to build your wealth for short term

Mere Doston Mere Pass Aao

Mr. Natwarlal

This famous song from Mr. Natwarlal (An Amitabh Blockbuster release in 1979) reminded me once more of the enormous things one can learn from Bollywood.

Mere Doston Mere Pass Aao, Ek Kissa Suno

Amitabh calls on the kids to come and what follows is a brilliant story, only in a way Amitabh can do. Sung by him, it reminds me of the kisse kahanian (stories) that Grandmothers have in store for the younger ones and they need one every night.

Deewar

Similarly a scene from Deewar wonderfully summarizes how adjustments in relations can be equally happy for both parties. Amitabh is shown as a person who does not enter temple but always goes with his mother to the temple. He would stand at the footsteps of the temple. His mother offers him prashad from the temple. Amitabh is reluctant to take it and what follows is a dialogue from Shashi Kapoor which I can never forget:

Shashi Kapoor: Bhai, Maa isey prashad samajh kar deti hai, tum bhi mithai samajh kar kha liya karo.

Bluffmaster

Scene from Bluffmaster which defines love.

Abhishek to Priyanka: Na hasata hai, na rulata hai. Iska matlab abhi tak dil par kuch bhi asar nahin kar paya hai.

Love without emotions and its high and downs would be so cheyyyyy

There are numerous other scenes from the Bollywood movies, each of which has a story to tell. Love Bollywood and love the stories it has :)

Guru

There is a scene in Guru where Aishwarya is expecting a baby and standing in front of the mirror. Abhishek keeps his head on her stomach. Aishwarya asks "Kuch sunai de raha hai?" Then Abhishek (who is more fatter than usual in this movie, maybe for this scene) stands in front of the mirror and Aishwarya keeps her head on his stomach.

Abhishek: "kuch sunai de raha hai?"
Aishwarya: "Bahut kuch"
Abhishek: "Kya?"
Aishwarya: "Ismein mujhe bahut se logon ki awaaz sunai de rahi hai jo keh rahe hai ki hamein kaam do"

Talking about an inspiring scene for someone who wants to open a company for the well being of the nation. You cannot beat the above one.

My personal guide to Investing In Stock Markets

Are you planning to invest in stock markets? Thinking about making money and doing well. Here is my personal guide which I use to invest:

Divide your money into different funds at the start of the year. This will help you in setting targets and achieving them.

Planned Equity Fund: Money that you plan to invest into Equity at the end of the year. For me, the first year end target was 75,000

Planned Mutual Fund: Money that you plan to invest into Mutual Funds at the end of the year. For me, the first year end target was 75,000

Shopping Fund: Extra money that should be ready to be invested when market goes down. Keep a cap on it and do not be greedy when the market goes down.

Non Performing Assets: Take a regular look at the non-performing assets in your portfolio. The duration after which you review these assets would depend on how much time you can spare for your portfolio. Try to remove the non-performing assets and replace them with something which grows faster.

Year End Target: How much do you want your money to grow by at the end of the year? For me, I wanted my money to grow 15% at the end of the year. Conservative by todays estimates, but as a fresh entrant to the stocks, I wanted to play it safe.

Now the strategy is simple:

Invest in stock market through the shopping fund when market goes down.
Refill the shopping fund when the market goes up.
Keep the shopping fund constant.
Do not worry if Planned Equity Fund exceeds Planned Mutual Fund as long as the combination of two is below your limits. Equity is better if you know basics about stocks and have a good GUT feeling about stocks which you can back. For ex. My Equity Fund is more Loaded right now that Mutual Fund but I have a little more faith in my equity skills than choosing mutual funds.

If the planned fund goes above limits, then get it back to planned levels as soon as you get a chance. You will always have funds in your portfolio that are not giving returns as expected. Take a decision and get rid of them. DISCIPLINE your investments.

This can change the way we work!

The thing which we discussed (and I will go into the details a little later) today can completely change the way we work, only if we execute it. We have tried doing it some months back and it fell flat. The adrenalin flows for a day normally for these things and then everything comes back to the same level. Anyways, its good that we find the courage to discuss it again because if we are able to win this one, we would have what we call a "World Class Team"

What we did today was come up with a list of positive and negative points about the way we work? We are a bunch of guys who wanna work hard, do some good stuff and make money. We have been working together for around 3 years now and know quite a few things about each other.

Positive:

1. We are very fort right with each other. We say if any other person is doing wrong at his face and that is the hallmark of a good team.
   
2. We are almost at the same frequency.
3. Koi angrez nahin hai humme se, no doc / ppt only guy
4. We all want to work technically even after 5-8 years experience, so we can be very efficient
5. None of us is a politician
6. We have trust in each other
7. We are open to sharing our knowledge if the other person asks
8. Despite of cribbing and criticizing everything, we continue to work hard.

Negatives:

1. We speak in hindi even in meetings where people who do not understand hindi are present.
2. We are negative in our thoughts.
3. We look to criticize everything.
4. We do not focus.
5. We talk a lot and waste time.
6. We mix emotions with logic.
7. We do not show interest in meetings in which we are not interested.
8. Somo of us do not want to do Docs / testing
9. We do not take proper initiatives, we want to be managed by someone.
10. We want that every decision should be made after asking us, which is not possible.
    

People with Time Vs People with Talent

Karwa Chauth

October 29, 2007 was the day when the moon decided to play hide and no seek with the ladies in India. Karwa Chauth is a festival in India where the married ladies keep a fast and pray for long lives of their husbands. One of the infinite reasons why I love my wife :)

Some sound bytes from this festival:

Couple of years back on Karwa Chauth, the moon was not shining bright. Question asked: Why does the moon not shine so bright on Karwa Chauth?

Because there is so much demand for the moon, the voltage drops :)

Interesting ways to teach

We had a presentation from one of the new persons who has joined the team on a topic. He is going through the specifications and he had to explain one part of the specification to us. There are two things which are kind of blocking his speed of progress:

1. He is a fresher, so everything is new for him
2. He is reading a specification which assumes you have some previous knowledge about things and he has none

After the presentation, there was a look of exasperation on his face - I start at one point in the specification and end up somewhere else.

Now how to you make his learning process interesting?

It is always good to relate some new thing to something you already know. For ex. A person who has been for 5 years in the industry would relate a new project work to one of the older projects he has already worked on.

What does a fresher relate to?

He cannot relate to anything because he knows nothing. So it is important for his mentor to help him relate to things he might already know. For ex. he asked a question during the interview which was: What is preamble and how is it used?

Now preamble are certain bits of information which are used to separate two frames from each other. When we switch on a mobile, it might be switched on within a frame but we need to know the start of the frame. So mobile keeps waiting for the preamble to know the start of the frame.

Now the fresher knows neither preamble nor is right now comfortable with the notion of a frame.

BUT he knows cricket. Now how does cricket come in between all this?

To answer the question above, an over in cricket is like a frame and preamble is like taking a break between the overs.

When we switch on a mobile, it might be switched on within a frame but we need to know the start of the frame. So mobile keeps waiting for the preamble to know the start of the frame.

CHANGES TO

When we switch on the TV, it might be in between an over but we need to know when a new over starts. So we keep waiting for the break to know when a new over starts.

I BET HE WILL NEVER FORGET THIS ONE :)

Its does more bad than good

We have been taking interviews during the past few months for recruiting people to our company. There are many things we test people on. In addition to the technical details, there are lots of inter-personal things which come into play when you are being recruited to work in a team. In all these things, it does MORE BAD THAN GOOD to all who speak what they do not mean. For ex. We generally ask a person how comfortable he is on a topic before asking relevant questions on the topic. Based on his assessment, we then start from a certain level of questions and then go into easier or difficult ones. Now, if a person rates himself 7 out of 10 and then is not able to answer questions that I expect a person at rating 3 out of 10 to answer, then either I am expecting too much or he is thinking too highly for himself. Anyways, at the end of the day it is the other person looking out for a job. Being open on what you know and what you do not know is the BEST way to behave in an interview because there would alway be things which you would KNOW and things which you would DO NOT KNOW. So whats the harm in admitting it. Follow it up that you are more than willing to learn things which you do not know (of course only if YOU ARE READY to do this).

As the Aussies team have repeatedly said throughout the series:

Your words should be backed by your actions. It leaves a bad taste if only words flow and actions do not follow.

How tough is it to manage?

Day before yesterday we had our weekly status meeting. A fresher has joined our group and he is reading the specifications to get to pace. As he is a fresher and because he is reading any specifications for the first time, he is bound to have quite a few questions. So our manager assigns a person to help him in his queries. There are four persons in our group who could be assigned as freshers. While asking the fresher to be proactive and ask wherever he gets stuck, he asked him to collate all this questions and ask them once a week to whoever is his mentor. Huhhhh. Once a week :) By the time a week passes, things would be all confused within his brain. Ofcourse, if he starts asking whenever he wants to, that also is not the best way.

So what could be the best solution?

Ask the mentor how much times a week he would like to get interrupted?
Would he like fresher walking in without notice, with some notice or at some fixed time in the day?
Any other concern he might have!

Ask the fresher what he would be comfortable in?

Would he love to ask whenever he has a doubt?
Would he like to consolidate questions once a day / few days and then ask?

As a manager, the next step for you would be to find a middle path that makes both of them happy. Going by past experience, you would definitely be able to find one.

Ek Bhi Nahin

A friend of mine has two kids. Once when they happened to be out of house, a guest came to their house and they were received by the kids. The kids invited them to drawing room and made them comfortable on the sofas. Those were the days of KBC - a popular game show on TV where Amitabh Bachchan used to play a game with the people where he used to ask them questions and give them four options to chose. The kids were impressed and decided that it was time they played KBC. So they asked the guests:

Aap kitne gilas paani piyenge? Inmein se ek chuniye

1. 1 Glass
2. 2 Glass
3. 3 Glass
4. Ek bhi nahin

The guests said "2 Glass" (The husband and wife had come and both were thirsty). The kids (in Amitabhh style):

Bilkul Galat Jawaab. Sahi jawaab hai "Ek bhi nahin"

Performance Metrics for kids

Performance Metrics for kids - yup, thats true. They do exist, at-least in India. A colleague of mine is going through the admission process for his kid (2 and a half years old) in school. Following are some of the expectations schools have from a 2 and a half year kid:

• He should know the different colors
  
• He should know counting (more he knows better metrics he has)
• Should know A for Apple....

How do they test it?

They gave him a sketch to color which had a shape of mango on it. Now with this test, two things are tested in the kid:

• Whether he is able to recognize that the thing drawn on the sheet is a mango
• Whether he is able to remember that mango is yellow in color
  
• And if he does manage to pass these two, whether he is able to color it properly

Wew.......

As soon as the kid becomes one year old, it is common practice to start teaching him A for Apple, 1 to 10 etc. Everyone who will pick the kid up in their arms will try to teach him at-least one good thing. Its nice but its a little worrying. As long as you find innovative ways of doing it, great, otherwise, take care.......