Eighteen months after moving here,
I feel much better off than before!
Looking in hindsight I feel,
I am glad I came to Bangalore!!

It is a brand the world has noticed,
And come to recognize India for!
The whole software / investment boom started here,
And I am glad I live in Bangalore!!

With our cheap manpower and outsourcing,
The city is not only a noun anymore!
Bangalored is now a verb used to indicate a layoff,
When jobs are moved offshore!!

Me having come from Delhi,
I can say one thing for sure!
When it comes to how to treat women and elders,
Those from up north can learn a lot from locals in Bangalore!!

Some people stretch it too far,
And call it India’s Singapore!
But let us not forget the mess,
With traffic, pollution, and garbage galore!!

Infrastructure, or lack of it, is a big problem,
Which you will realize as soon as you step outdoor!
With the speed of urbanization in the last two decades,
A lot of catching up needs to be done,… Read the rest

Our behaviour is the most important thing. The way we interact with others, react to situations and go through our daily chores eventually makes us the person we are. Be it our work life or personal life, our surroundings shape our thoughts and our actions originate from our thoughts. Our actions / behaviour actually shape the way people think about us, or whether we succeed or fail. For example, having lived in both Bangalore and Delhi, I can say the weather does have a big effect on me. It is much easy to get angry / shout at one and all in the sultry hot delhi weather. Even if you are not angry, it is very easy to lose your temper on the slightest provocation. But if you are greeted by a cool breeze whenever you get out (as in Bangalore), you tend to become happy even if you were in a bad mood earlier. The point is, our surroundings, whether natural or chosen, tend to have an effect on our personality and our day to day behaviour.

I am listing 5 examples how we can choose to surround ourselves with different things and how can it bring out… Read the rest

The IPL is going to be followed by the T20 World Cup in West Indies. As per some “hard to understand” ICC rules, all countries had to announce their teams one month before the tournament starts. As a result, many players who are out of form in the ongoing IPL have been selected and many in-form players have been left out. Kris Srikanth, chairman of selectors, has also remarked recently that it is unfortunate that some of the players in good form in IPL have to miss out of the World Cup T20. I am trying to list below a team “Indian IPL XI“, which will include only those Indian players from the IPL who have not been considered for the World Cup. My contention is that if this team enters the World Cup, they would perform as well as the national Indian team.

The team follows -

1.   Murali Vijay* – Opener
2.   Naman Ojha – Opener / wk
3.   Robin Uthappa – Batsman / Captain
4.   Saurabh Tiwary – Batsman
5.   Virat Kohli – Batsman
6.   S. Badrinath – Batsman
7.   Irfan Pathan – All Rounder
… Read the rest

The year was 1998, and the Australian cricket team was touring India. They were led by Mark Taylor, and had players like Mark and Steve Waugh, Ponting, Warne, Slater, Healy in their team. That was the time when Navjot Singh Sidhu was on the cricket field and not in the commentary box or TV studios. India was led by Azharuddin, and the team had players like Mongia (Nayan, not Dinesh), Srinath, Kumble, and others…. This series had been termed as the “Sachin v Warne” series already. And what was going to happen in the forthcoming weeks was something special.

Australia first played a 3 day game against a Mumbai team featuring Sachin Tendulkar at Mumbai. The world beaters v an Indian Ranji team. Well, Sachin had other plans. There were reports that he made local legspinners bowl to him turning leg spinners outside his leg stump before the Aussies arrive to prepare for the Warne onslaught. Coming back to the 3 day match, Australia lost it by 10 wickets inside 3 days as Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar slammed his maiden first class double century. Warne had been taken for 111 in his 16 overs without getting a wicket. The same… Read the rest

The IPL has taken the country by storm for the third year in the running. But more so, it has taken cricket by storm. If you ask somebody what is IPL and he replies – “It is India’s domestic T20 cricket tournament”, you can’t be more wrong. IPL is the perfect mixture of glamour, fun and entertainment making it a complete package for cricket and bollywood crazy Indians. No doubt it is such a success in a country like ours, where cricket, apart from being a sport, also unites Indians like nothing else. T20s will continue after the IPL too (for the rest of the year), but an IPL match will only come back next year.

Here are the list of 7 top innovations which make an IPL match stand out from (normal) T20 matches -

1. Cheerleaders – Cheerleading is basically an US phenomena that include elements of tumbling, dance, cheers, jumps and stunting to direct spectators of events to cheer. The cheerleaders in IPL have also been imported from US, and dressed in “attractive” dressing, are as much an attraction in the stadium, as the match itself. As expected, some self-righteous Indians have made a controversy out of their… Read the rest

The story of the last decade and a half is how the smallest unit in our lives has changed from atoms to bits. Atoms as in molecules has given way to bits as in bytes. For somebody who has grown up reading in textbooks that atom is the smallest unit, seeing this massive change is something nobody could have imagined back then.

And “back then” is only 10-15 years ago, not decades or centuries as the term is normally used for. My first computer had a 4GB hard disk in the year 2000, now my mobile has double that space. That 4GB hard disk cost my father a whopping 6000 bucks, but my latest 1TB hard disk cost me only 4500 bucks!! The cost per GB has fallen from Rs 1500 per GB to Rs 4.5 per GB. This massive change reflects everything that has happen in the computing world in only a decade.

It is said that change is the only constant. But this time the speed of change is what is amazing. And for the first time, the smallest unit has changed from atoms to bits. Things have moved to the digital world from the real world… Read the rest