Why so seriousssss-ly overweight???

I write this piece as a very gnawing feeling consumes my mental peace. The realization is that I need to shed atleast 10 kgs of pure and unadulterated flab.
This flab is a result of a combination of reasons like a crappy metabolism which is further deccelerated by age, the sedentary lifestyle of the working class and my inability to resist a tall drink and an inviting buffet.

I believe quite a few us ride in a similar bloat and are sufficiently bothered about it. However, the troubling bit is that there is a big group of people thats not even bothered about the extra pouches of flab hanging from various angles. 

I guess we need to tackle these 2 categories separately and that is what I will try to do in the following sections. But before I begin I guess I need to clear the air on why I am writing this. The reason is that (believe it or not) I am really concerned about the collective health of the working class of the nation and also because I believe that a healthy body is absolutely essential for a healthy mind. 

For the motivated souls

The people who are really bothered the problem is that not enough of us take the necessary steps needed to rectify this and get back in shape (round is a shape but not the one we are aiming for) and the reason cited is the lack of time due to work pressures or in some cases the lack of motivation. The first problem of lack of time due to elongated work hours is a complicated one because in my view it includes an element of lack of motivation which is under our control but also because some people are busy due to the roles that they have been entrusted.

Some solutions

No. 1: Pick 45 mins in a day

The key to following this rule/guideline is ensuring discipline, you may waver for a day or two but you need to ensure that you take out 45 mins in a day whether its early in the morning or late in the evening. Trust me its not much to ask for and you can easily achieve it by sacrificing that extra hour of mindless TV at night.

No. 2: Pick a sport  

Enrolling in a gym is good but doing drab and repetitive exercises in a gym can easily demotivate an individual. A good way to keep ones self motivated is to pick a sport (tennis, soccer, squash, basketball are some options) and to play that on a regular basis. Its not easy in a country like ours where cricket has ruined our minds ad our fitness but if you are able to get a group of motivated souls together then this can be your key to fitness. 

No. 3: Have a small home gym 

All you need to get this set up is a skipping rope, a couple of dumbbells, a floor mat, instructional videos (for aerobics, yoga etc) freely available on the net and if possible a exercise cycle. I suggest this coz a lot of times we hesitate to take membership of a gym because we are not sure if we will be able to use it regularly. Having a small home gym will atleast ensure that whenever you do have the time and motivation you can use this small investment and attack those flabs. 

No. 4: Motivate others around you 

This may sound ridiculous but in my view this is probably the most important since if you don't get the other buggers out of office you probably are never going to be able to get out yourself. The only thing that I can say with 100% surety is that the benefits of those 45-60 mins of exercise are definitely going to increase your productivity and offset any loss of time from people leaving for home on-time. (What do you think I am trying to do)

No. 5: Remove the guilt

Most of us tend to think that spending time on improving their individual fitness is a selfish act. On the contrary, the benefits of a fit body and mind don't only benefit the individual but everyone around them and especially the organizations they work for. Unfortunately most organizations dont outwardly support individuals efforts to get fit, probably because they are run by individuals who fall in the category mentioned below.

For the demotivated souls

The 7 benefits of regular exercise

This is the tricky bunch of people to handle and to be honest I don't really have a lot to offer to them in the form of advice. Although, what I can offer is a snapshot of benefits copied from here. If you still aren't convinced then probably you should take another look at benefit number 6. -->

Happy exercising..

How to make a Terrorist - 101

How to make a Terrorist - 101. 

This is a course being taught at the Indian Parliament and its many subsidiaries (nearly all the Vidhan Sabhas) since our so called Independence. Most of us city dwellers generally read about this stuff as conspiracy theories and dismiss them since it doesn't directly affect our deadline driven lives. 

I was among the many who find it hard to fathom why someone would take to arms. All this changed in a hurry when I got a 'crash' course in "How to make a Terrorist - 101".

I was on my way back from a nice little vacation at a little known hillstation called Chakrata. Having done some very basic research we found another route back home to Delhi which promised to be shorter by 50 km.
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Route: The route is on State highway 57 and starts from a small town called Herbertpur.

Herbertpur - Behat - Saharanpur - Tajpur - Baraut - Bagpat
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The first 50 km on the road were like a dream and I almost patted myself on the back for my excellent Googling skills but before I could handout the prizes I hit the first pothole and then the next and the next and so on. It seemed the American army had unleashed a barrage of Napalms on the entire stretch of 240 odd kilometers and infact the road had craters rather than potholes. On hindsight I should have turned back but something inside me kept telling me that the craters would magically vanish and be replaced by something we humans call a road. The stupid voice got me to the point of no return and soon there was no turning back. 

I covered the entire distance at an average speed of 10-20 km per hour and my darlings (car ....and wife) screamed and grunted at each hurdle. It was so mentally and physically draining that halfway down the road I lost patience and had to ask my wife to take over the wheel. So what's the big deal in that, well given my confidence in her driving abilities and the love for my car this was a BIG DEAL. I could go on without pause to try and explain how bad the road was but I am going to end this bit by stating that it would have been better if there were no road at all.

But this blog is not about me or my insignificant existence, its about the people living in the many villages and towns that we crossed on the way (and there are many on this route in the heartland of UP, the most populous region in the country). Its about the torture that they have been subjected to by the administration of the state and the entire country. The few hours on that road made me want to gun down everyone even remotely responsible for its current state and I can only imagine what someone who has to endure this day in and day out would be willing to do. A simple thing like a drive to work or school or to the farmers market could rearrange your skeletal structure. What if someone you knew or loved fell ill and needed urgent medical attention and wasn't able to get help in time due to the state of the road. Wouldn't that enrage you to no end? 

The interesting thing to notice is that there is a very sizeable population of the Muslim community that reside on this stretch and suffer as a consequence. It would be so easy to convince a youth living in this area that this country discriminates against Muslims. If you factor in the number of youth that would reside in this 240 km stretch its enough to create a small army of jehadis and if you factor in the sorry state of roads in the other remote areas of the country and remove the community aspect (lack of basic infrastructure pisses off everyone equally) then we probably have the equivalent of the Pakistani army residing right here.

Will this ever change? What can I do to change this other than vote and pay my taxes honestly?

I don't have the answer to these but do know that this course and its advanced levels will continue to be taught at the democratic institutions of our country, while we struggle to get a hold of our deadlines....

The 10 Traits of a Bad Manager

The "Bad Manager" strikes again!!!

Its like the flu, we all have experienced it and no matter how hard you try you can never be totally immune.

The Bad Manager award is given away to individuals in managerial/leadership positions displaying the traits discussed below and not to any particular designation. So you can be a project manager, product manager, general manager, division manager, delivery manager etc. and well, sir/madam you are a disease if you:

1. Avoid transparency - Some managers avoid transparency like the plague, they will hold back information or even mis-inform as an attempt to hide their incompetence.

2. Make false promises - Not much to be said here, I guess we all have been sold an assignment by such managers which turns out to be quite different once you get on the ground or interact with the customer and by then its too late.

3. Think MBA'S are ppt factories - This unfortunately is a trait I have noticed and experienced even in managers who are generally good. In my view a presentation has a two fold purpose, it is used to highlight the key points of the idea being conveyed and to also serve as a electronic cue card for the presenter. To ensure the flow and delivery of the presentation is consistent and engaging the person who is actually supposed to deliver the message should actually create it. The most compelling or convincing presentations that I have delivered have been the ones that I have created on my own. The reason being that I owned the content and the flow of the presentation and was able to visualize what can be said to support the text.

4. Make and push suggestions without understanding the problem - Well making suggestions is fine but pushing them is definitely not, especially when you don't understand or have not experienced the problems being faced by the team or the individual.

5. Are too conservative while appreciating a job well done - In my view managers tend to display this trait since they think that if I appreciate his/her efforts that will mean that I directly or indirectly raise their salary expectations as well. Money is not the only thing that people work for, some of us actually believe or atleast take pride in whatever we do and a unhindered appreciation goes a long way in motivating an individual even if in your view the person had just "met expectations".

6. Push all the hard decisions and conversations to subordinates - Don't get me wrong here I do believe that the team should be involved in any hard decisions that need to me made. What makes me uncomfortable is that most of these hard discussions are due to the faulty decisions that were taken by managers even before the team was formed and in the end the team is usually left to defend these decisions on their own.

7. Have an unpleasant or unstable personality - A manager is looked upon in a lot of situations as a leader who will guide you and motivate you through his/her actions. Someone who you can approach with your problems and not return from that meeting with 10 other problems. Therefore its very important that a manager has a personality that exuberates pleasant and (mentally) stable vibes.

8. Lack clarity of thought - The "brain wave" from lousy managers tends to be devoid in clarity and detail. A presentation needs to be made and you are shoved a vague and usually bad idea which even after multiple efforts from your end never seems to match his/her "genius".

9. Expect more than you yourself are willing or capable of doing - As a manager/leader you need to lead by example if you want to stand any chance of earning your subordinates respect. Anything lesser is unacceptable.

10. Ignore inputs from the team on the ground - As a manager/leader your people are your asset with their ears closely to the ground and if they are feeding you information based on their day to day interactions and observations, then its your responsibility as a leader to understand the concerns and communicate more closely with the team to reach a solution. More often than not bad leaders will ignore these suggestions and form their opinions on their pre-conceived notions.

These have been some of my observations over the last few years working with some good and mostly terrible managers. Also, this takes into consideration that managers most often than not are faced with tough decisions and as all humans are bound to falter. I guess the challenge for a manager lies in being able to identify and avoid these symptoms, and personally speaking the even bigger challenge lies in being able to avoid these symptoms whenever I am cursed to be a Manager.

Oh Tiger...Where art Thou??

They say that the lessons of life are best learnt the hard way... And our trip to Ranthambore churned out more learnings than we were prepared to handle.

Having had our fill of the mountains we decided to head towards the sandy forests of Ranthambore in search of the elusive Tiger. I am not a big fan of the desert but was motivated by the experience of an acquaintance who met Sher Singh up close. I got the heebie jeebies just recalling his experience and it seemed too tempting to resist.

The First Mistake

 Having missed a couple of opportunities for getaways on long weekends me and the Mrs decided that we couldn't miss the holi opportunity. Having never tried travelling on holi and having spent the last 6 odd years in the South of the country where holi is (almost) irrelevant I wasn't really prepared for what awaited us. We were warned upfront by people (my dad will be nodding furiously if/when he reads this) but the bookings had been done and we had decided to start our journey at the unearthly hour of 4 am in order to avoid any incidents. 

We felt safe and had an uneventful journey till around 10 am after which the fun started. As soon as we crossed one of the toll plazas on the state highway we found a roadblock manned by a team of youngsters armed with flimsy looking sticks. Since I had never experienced something like this earlier and was accompanied by 2 ladies, I was alarmed and decided to turn back to the toll booth 500 mtrs in the opposite direction where I had noticed a police jeep. 

The cops were unhelpful and/or in cahoots with the Holi mafia and we were asked to register a complaint with the area police station who would then send another jeep. They too were kind enough to remind me of the mistake of venturing out on Holi (Dad! stop shaking your head). After waiting for a 10 minute eternity we were met by another Sikh couple who were travelling to Ranthambore with their 3 teen-aged daughters (and you thought I had it bad). There were other folks who were travelling on that day as well but they were the only ones who cared enough to stop. The couple and their caravan were coming from Jaipur and told us that they had crossed many such Holi toll booths along the way and a mere 20 bucks will get us through them. That gave us confidence and we followed them all the way to our destination crossing roughly 30 such Holi toll booths.
It was the Sikh gentleman's calm and tactful behavior while dealing with these groups that comforted us and honestly speaking this was something I can definitely learn and implement.

Lesson learnt: In the end we got to our destination safely, however given the mood of the folks on the roadblocks and my short-tempered nature anything could have happen. This is a mistake I am not likely to repeat in a hurry.

The Second Mistake

This happened on the way back from Ranthambore when we were speeding down a empty stretch of the highway and noticed a mini traffic jam at a distance. A bit of questioning informed us that there had been an accident and the villagers had blocked the road. Since the jam seems a little ominous we followed a person who seemed to know a parallel road running through the fields. The road was one of those very narrow lanes which separates one farm from another and are mostly (or only) meant for tractors. Anyway everything seemed to be going smoothly when a moments lapse of concentration (I was trying to see the traffic buildup on the highway) led the entire left side of the car into a mini ditch. 

It wasn't a totally lost cause since we were going really slowly on a really bumpy road but my Precious was stuck deep and I was nearly on the verge of tears. The partial saving grace was that we went down in front of a villager's house and he was able to summon a group of 10-12 youngsters who actually lifted the not so light Swift dzire from the ditch and onto the so called road. The real sigh of relief came when the car started and moved ahead without any signs of damage to the axel. 

One set of villagers lead us into the ditch (I played my part in it as well) and another set of villagers got us out. We offered them money in return for their help but they furiously refused to accept. By the time we negotiated the rest of the village road and got back onto tarred roads the highway had been cleared but the thought of being the idiot in that village had not quite cleared.

Lesson learnt: Stay on the ROAD and Keep your eyes on it at all times.


Dude!! but where is the friggin Tiger in all of this. I guess if you have been reading till now that is exactly what you are thinking.... aren't you? Well we did see the Tiger and we did have a relaxing time while we were there. 

The Place - Rantambore National park is located about 15 kms from the small town of Sawai Madhopur. The city area has nothing much to offer and seems pretty backward even though there are quite a few foreigners who come to catch a glimpse of he sun and Sher Singh. Mostly locals tend to stare at you as if you have landed from a different planet. 

The Hotel - We stayed at Raj palace resorts which is located at the outskirts of Sawai Madhopur. The hotel had a very nice garden and the rooms were really classy for the 1600 a night that we paid. The hotel has a decent sized swimming pool as well and being a water baby I was really thrilled. The crowd was a good mixture of families like ours from Delhi and other neighboring cities with a generous helpings of foreigners. The only sore point of the hotel was the food they only serve buffets for all meals which are (very) excessively priced. We had most of our meals outside the restaurant since we as usual wanted to enjoy the local cuisine of dal baati churma etc. 

The Safari - We took the early morning safari and weren't really prepared for the biting cold that was waiting for us. So if you decide to go in the winters then...... All the best. Living in concrete jungles we city dwellers generally get really fascinated by even the most common of animals or birds. And the park has a large amount of peacocks, wild boar, spotted deers, sambhar etc.

Among the more exotic kinds we saw the kingfisher, herons, blue bull, crocodiles, and baby crocodiles. The tiger was elusive during the safari, although we came close to crossing paths on a couple of occasions. We did see the tiger that afternoon when we visited the Rantambore fort, the road to the fort goes from within the park and that is when Sheru was kind enough to show us his posterior. He was lazing below a bush just 10 feet away from the road and as a consequence there was a sizeable queue of paparazzi's trying to get a piece of the action, apparently Sheru's behind was as popular as JLO's. 

The Route - We referred the blog from Ghumakkar and used route 1 on our way there and route 2 on our way back. Its a little difficult to catch route 2 on your way out of Delhi unless you know your way around Daruheda. Our experience on route 2 was marginally better due to lesser traffic and better roads. For details on the routes refer the blog.

In conclusion, the travelling spirit was shaken but still lived on to travel another day.

The Adventures of Deputy Dawg

Courtesy: www.hilarious-pictures.com

I met Deputy Dawg on the metro headed towards connaught place. I did not notice him enter but could not miss his sprawled body on the floor of the ladies compartment. He was a shepherd from Germany recruited by the CISF to sniff out the baddies. 

As I noticed him lying there I wondered if his passing out had anything to do with the frequent and deadly flatulence by metro commuters. I mean he was OUT!

He was accompanied by a human colleague and once the train reached CS (one of the busier stations) a swift command from the human and Deputy Dawg literally jumped to his feet quicker than Usain Bolt taking off for the 100 mtr dash. (hahaha) Sorry can't control myself when I am reminded of the reactions that his sudden awakening elicited from the already petrified women.

Not only had deputy Dawg woken up but was keen and raring to go at the first hint of a command from the lesser human. Once the train moved from the station the human barked another command and Deputy sprawled himself on the ground as swiftly as he had woken up. He fell close to the feet of the women occupying the 2 seaters next to the door, their expressions seemed to suggest that they soiled themselves a wee bit.
I bid adieu to Deputy Dawg after a couple of stops but wasn't able to forget the discipline, obedience, agility and enthusiasm that he displayed. This blog is a very small tribute to all you Deputy Dawg's out there (sniff sniff bow wow).

Too cool for hockey ....

You know that feeling when there is so much you have to say that you just don't know where to start..... I guess it may be better if I just started from the beginning.

My first encounter (per my hard drive) with hockey was when I was around 8 years old and when Pargat Singh and Jagbir Singh (the hockey player from yesteryears....not me) used to don the Indian colors. We kids used to gather at the park of our army flats and go all out for each others shins, we were in the age group of 7 to 15 what else do you expect. This lasted for 3 years and once dad got posted out I have had the opportunity to play hockey only in our front yard with my brother and cousins. I guess its worth mentioning that even those couple of yrs we played hockey it was only used to fill in the gap from soccer, swimming, cricket, and a failed attempt at horse riding. 


Given all of that (i.e. my limited exposure to the game) I find it difficult to explain this love and passion that resides deep inside. The passion that I struggle to control when I see a forward dribbling the ball past defenders, or when I hold a hockey stick in my hands, or when I feel the crack of a meaty strike, or from the sense of achievement from trapping a ball hit at you with lightening speed (well it feels like lightening speed anyway).

It may not be the beautiful game or one for the gentlemen but once you've experienced it you wouldn't want to turn back. I was lucky enough to have experienced it but unfortunate not to have played for longer. It was always so hard to convince people to play the game, cricket or soccer always seemed more attractive given that Indians in general hate to run and are too afraid to walk away from the field with a couple of bruises (or atleast their parents are).

In my view hockey's latest avatar is even better than soccer given that they've done away with the offside rule and made it super fast and exciting.  However, I am a little more than disturbed to see people around me totally ignorant to hockey and the action packed 70 minutes it provides. Ofcourse I know that in India cricket rules the lazy masses but I also know that there are a sizeable bunch of Indians who passionately follow the English Premier League teams like they belong to their own respective neighbourhoods. Its time you people poured half of that passion into your hockey teams... Why?? Well coz its fast, its exciting, filled with goals and your own city/state has a team vying for the silverware.

This brings us to the World Series Hockey and the lukewarm response its getting as compared to the IPL or EPL. My suggestion to all the Indians out there is to give the game a fighting chance, I assure you it won't disappoint you. The venues are cleaner and better than any cricket stadium in the country, the tickets are dirt cheap, the dhol beats are invigorating and the excitement is unlimited. 

I have a lot more to say on this but would leave it for another day. In the meantime why don't you Just Catch the match.

Global Service Jam - 2012

The weekend of Feb 26th, 2012 Thoughtworks hosted the Global Service Jam @ Bangalore,  Pune and Gurgaon. 

Being part of the organizing team at the Gurgaon event, I thought I'll share our experiences about this new and rather unique event.

What is Global Service Jam (GSJ) all about?
GSJ is a event held globally on an annual basis (actually this is just their 2nd year) which aims to build upon the concept of service design and give the participants a real world flavor of this concept. GSJ is not a conference and neither is it meant only for techies, for most of us in the IT space service tends to webservices; Service Design is much bigger and better. 

What is Service Design?
Service Design (my borrowed perspective) is a concept that guides and facilitates the management of resources in such a manner that provides a unique and satisfying experience to the consumers of a service. View the better explanation.

What or who is the driving force behind GSJ?
GSJ is run and promoted as a non-profit volunteer activity. The parent organization has virtually no staff and budget. They are just driven to spread the message and get your creative juices flowing.

Ok!!!...but what is this jam sham business???
Well to put this simply you get a group of motivated people with diverse backgrounds and divide them into teams, then you give them a (abstract) theme and 48 hours to brainstorm and prototype a real-life service around the theme. Jammers (aka. participants) are expected to experiment, innovate and cooperate all along the way.

Who would be interested in something like that??
26 in Gurgaon, 80 odd in Bangalore, and 30 odd in Pune. They were furniture designers, Phd scholars, design specialists, product managers, students and even retired individuals. Sadly Thoughtworkers (atleast from Gurgaon) were in short attendance.

Hmmm.. In that case I bet the prizes must have been really Exciting!!
Yes, if you think that interacting with people from different spheres of life to imagine and create innovative solutions and expanding your mental capabilities is worth anything.

What was the outcome?

Day 1 

We started the event in the evening with a keynote address where we focussed on educating the participants on the GSJ, basic concepts of Service Design, and some basic rules of he game. We figured that the since we as organizers were new to the concept we needed to educate the participants. Ice breaker. We planned a fun ice breaker to get the Jammers into the groove and it worked out really well (some people still insist on calling me Just-Mast Jagbir). 
The Jammers were then divided into 3 teams of 8-9, we wanted to keep the numbers high on each team to ensure that the teams could work even if some people opted out. Since this was a first of its kind in India we were not really sure about its uptake till the end. The theme & the ideas This years theme was "Hidden Treasure" and after the initial brainstorming sessions each of the teams were asked to share their ideas with the entire group. The ideas were really impressive and so was the approach taken by the teams to determine them. We ended day 1 here to come back and start afresh. 

Day 2

As mentioned earlier we (organizers) were a little worried about the turnout after the teams had experienced the initial brainstorming sessions. However, response from the Jammers was fantastic and our eyes and hearts brightened with the energy they brought along. We started the day with a small presentation on what was expected from the teams and shared the Business Model Canvas and the prototyping methods to help guide them. We also shared the various concepts from the previous years to help them understand the concept development and prototyping aspects. To our benefit showing the previous years concepts also served as a nice break for the participants. Again the energy and dedication of the Jammers was amazing through out the day and this was visible in their outputs.

Day 3

I had planned to skip the event on Sunday (the wife had a long list of chores lined up) but the enthusiasm of the participants was infectious and I was tempted to see the shape their ideas took. The teams had a bit of a mad dash in the end to finish their prototypes but they just about made it in the end. The quality of their ideas was reflected in their prototypes as well and they once again managed to leave us spell bound. 

To sum it up we loved the energy, enthusiasm, cooperative attitude, excellent quality ideas and their execution. We learnt, we laughed, we mingled,and were left asking for more.... 

 View final presentations here.

The 'clouds end' but the magic doesn't ...

The trip to Clouds End, Mussoorie was a long awaited one for me and the Mrs. We hadn't been on a getaway for sometime and the long weekend was too hard to resist.
Sharing some of our bitter-sweet experiences from the trip.

The hard facts:

- How far is it? - Mussoorie is roughly 280 kms from Delhi. And clouds end is around 10 kms from Mussoorie.
- How to get there from Delhi? - The route we took is Delhi - Modi Nagar - Meerut - Muzzafarnagar - Rorkee - Dehradun - Mussoorie.
- Where did we stay? - Clouds End forest resort.

The sweetness of it:

The Snowies

The property - The best part about Clouds End forest resort is its location. Its located on a 400 acre forested area which is around 10 kms from the (Mussoorie) city center. The property is a refurbished villa from the colonial era and is ideally located with a clear view of the snow capped himalayan peaks.

Sunrise

The views & sounds - The views from almost any place were breathtaking the best being the views of the snow capped peaks, the Sunrise and Sunset. One of the interesting facts that we learnt on the trip is that the South facing side of a mountain is always more barren than the North facing one. The reason for this phenomenon is that the south facing side tends to get more direct sun hence less hummidity (and less germination) hence less growth. Whereas the North facing side gets less SunThe peace and quiet of the hills with the distant (and not so distant) calls of various animals is something that still brings a easy calm to yours truly.

View of the barren & the lush green

The People - In my experience the people you interact with on the hills (locals not outsiders) are mild mannered and willing to go that extra mile to help you. I just love that about them and hope that we city dwellers don't (also) pollute this aspect of life at the hills.
The trek - There is a wonderful trek from the resort to the adjoining hill (with a temple on its peak) which gives a closer and awesomer view of the snow capped beauties. Although the view in the end is the best the fun is in the journey to the top especially since we took a slightly offbeat path to the peak which went through the less traveled paths with amazing views on the way. The wife had a field day clicking snaps and ran the darn camera out of battery.
The adorable puppies - There were these adorable puppies at the resort (around 8 weeks old) and being a dog lover I was thrilled. I've always wanted to own a pet but it'd be criminal considering that we spend most of the day at work and live in a apartment (with no open spaces).

The Naughty One

What was unique about this particular breed was their aggressive behavior with each other and also how their mother handled them. I have seen quite a few interactions between these animals but have never seen them play with such an aggressive intent. It was interesting to experience this trait which seems unique to this breed.

The bitterness:

The roads - The roads in our country are bound to feature in this section and the road to Mussorie is no exception. The only stretch that is worth anything is the one between Meerut and Muzzafarnagar, which provides a much needed breather. So if you are travelling make sure that you start early so that you are not pressed for time.
The jumping jack - The only other minor sore point were the kids of a couple residing in the room directly above ours. They seemed to be practicing for the 100 mtr dash at the Olympics while simultaneously practicing for the long jump event.

Side attractions:

This was my first real visit to Dehradun (the earlier visits were too far back) and I was amazed at the numerous schools and colleges that throng the relatively small town and the  vibrancy the young crowd brings to the equation. Also, given the population of youngsters it wasn't really surprising to find the large bouquet of brands (clothing, accessories, financial institutions, automobiles etc) lining up the congested lanes that criss-cross the city.

Thats all for now....more to follow soon....

My First....My Preciousss

I am one of those people who never really took to blogging, infact I am one of those who actually mocked the concept when I first learnt about it and for a significant period of time afterwards.

So what am I doing here you ask???

Well after having thought long and hard about this I realized that I need to have good reasons to start blogging, and mine are:

Why I decided to start?

- To Capture my experiences, thoughts and opinions for my own self.... rather than anyone else. So that I can relive them at sometime.

- To Improve my writing skills and develop the ability to put my thoughts in a sensible congruent manner.

- To Discover and experiment with something new, something that brings me out of my comfort zone. (like most men im not very good at sharing stuff)

- To Make effective use of the 3 hrs I spend each day travelling to and from work.

 Once I have got this sorted out I need to figure out what to blog about and here are some of the things I thought I could write about:

- Work life balance
- Travel
- Sports
- Funny incidents from life & relationships
- Software project management and my experiences with Agile project execution.

 Challenges to overcome in this journey:
- Being regular
- Being clear and concise
- Writing with passion & purpose