Floating candle at a restaurant
2006 January: Sugandha's and Satyajeet's Naukri Party, Gurgaon
The place is called Park Bulachi and they would light a floating candle on the dinner table.
I took about 4 pics and here are the rest of the three...
Let There Be Light !
Floating candle at a restaurant
2006 January: Sugandha's and Satyajeet's Naukri Party, Gurgaon
The place is called Park Bulachi and they would light a floating candle on the dinner table.
I took about 4 pics and here are the rest of the three...
SaurabhGarg.com > OneHelluva Page
SaurabhGarg.com > OneHelluva Page is my new project. I talk about people who have been struck by lightening and zapped me ... !
Ponder This !
Got these in an email ...
Life is sexually transmitted.
Health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.
Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing.
Who was the first person to look at a cow and say, "I think I'll squeeze these dangly things here, and drink whatever comes out?"
Who was the first person to say, "See that chicken there? I'm gonna eat the next thing that comes outta its butt."
Why is there a light in the fridge and not in the freezer?
Why do people point to their wrist when asking for the time, but don't point to their crotch when they ask where the bathroom is?
Why does Goofy stand erect while Pluto remains on all fours? They're both dogs!
If Wile E. Coyote had enough money to buy all that Acme crap, why didn't he just buy dinner?
Did you ever notice that when you blow in a dog's face, he gets mad at you, but when you take him on a car ride, he sticks his head out the window?
Does pushing the elevator button more than once make it arrive faster?
Why doesn't glue stick to the inside of the bottle?
Alt + Tab Replacement
When you press Alt + Tab on a computer running Windows Xp operating syste, you get a list of all the programs running on the computer.
If the number of programs running is large, using Alt + Tab could be cubersome and hard. I recently came across a tool called PowerToys for Windows Xp released by Microsoft that makes the lives pretty cool and esay.
With PowerToys Alt Tabreplacement tool, the Alt + Tab becomes something like this...
The text on the website says...
If the number of programs running is large, using Alt + Tab could be cubersome and hard. I recently came across a tool called PowerToys for Windows Xp released by Microsoft that makes the lives pretty cool and esay.
With PowerToys Alt Tabreplacement tool, the Alt + Tab becomes something like this...
The text on the website says...
Alt-Tab ReplacementPowerToys Alt + Tab Replacement Tool can be downloaded from this link. I have been using this for about a month now and I face no problems at all of any sort.
With this PowerToy, in addition to seeing the icon of the application window you are switching to, you will also see a preview of the page. This helps particularly when multiple sessions of an application are open.
To Design or Not To Design
To design or not to design is the BIG question in front of me right now. I bought saurabhgarg.com about three months ago and I haven’t really made a website.
I have a couple of choices in front of me right now. I can design it from scratch; display all my creativity to the entire world and boast of the excellent design. On the other hand I can use some ready made template, customize it and save on a lot of time.
I would now proceed to do a decision tree analysis. Assuming that I design it myself, following things are bound to happen...
If I decide upon a template, following things would happen
So the decision has been reached, I would create my own design, go the hard way and hopefully try to complete the website soon.
AND BY THE WAY THIS IS MY 150th POST !!!!
I have a couple of choices in front of me right now. I can design it from scratch; display all my creativity to the entire world and boast of the excellent design. On the other hand I can use some ready made template, customize it and save on a lot of time.
I would now proceed to do a decision tree analysis. Assuming that I design it myself, following things are bound to happen...
1. No CMS. I would have lots of static web pages. Updating each of them would be a huge task. But again even if I go for a template, I still don’t have the expertise to make even a simple CMS. The template thing would also have static pages.
2. Time. I right now have nothing to do at all. And with all the travel coming up in the later half of February, I would not get time to design and update it.
3. Effort. I hate to work! and I can’t even imagine putting that much thought into the work. Although working is fun for me, I still hate doing small things such as editing HTML etc. I enjoy working on Photoshop and other editing software but I believe that they lack the power to keep me busy.
If I decide upon a template, following things would happen
1. Plagiarism. Even though I would have a nice, good looking website, it would be work of someone else and I would certainly be using it without giving credits or royalty. I do not want to do this. I guess this reason alone is more than enough punishment to not to use a template.
So the decision has been reached, I would create my own design, go the hard way and hopefully try to complete the website soon.
AND BY THE WAY THIS IS MY 150th POST !!!!
Sarkar - The Movie
Yesterday I went to see a screening of the latest Bollywood movie Sarkar. The star cast included Bachchans - Amitabh and Abhishek in the lead roles.
In the words of Producer and Director of the movie, Ram Gopal Verma, Sarkar is his tribute to Mario Puzo's The Godfather. Indeed many sequences are inspired from the legend of the Godfather. Infact the very name Sarkar is a synonym to Godfather.
The movie is about one Sarkar who believes very strongly in his ideology and distinction between right and wrong. He believes that if he thinks something is right, and then he would act on it irrespectiv of the fact that it may not be legally correct, politically correct, morally correct or ethically correct. The thing to question here would be practicality of such a line of thoughts. Since a man has to live in society - there is no man in isolation, should someone stand out and make his presence and individuality felt or should he tone down himself to be acceptable to the society? The very first day when you start learning, you are taught to conform to the social beliefs and if you deviate, there are a lot of negative reinforcements given out. Are we helping propagating the norm? Since we are making everyone think in the same way, follow the same rules, behave in an expected manner, are we terminating the genesis of newer perspectives and thought processes?
The movie also portrays that people are ready to do anything, ANYTHING to realize their goals of power and money. Although there people were among the most powerful ones as shown in the movie but they seeked more power and the clichéd saying is hence proved that power and greed have no bounds.
However certain things were missing. The most perplexing thing was the fact that the revenge that Sarkar seeks is incomplete. Sarkar eliminates everyone who had betrayed him, tried to kill him/his father, destroy the family except one. The Police Commissioner. May be because the commissioner left him alive, he did not seek revenge but in my humble opinion, one should never ever forgive and forget someone you don’t trust at all.
There were attempts of humour in some dialogues of a certain character but they were totally uncalled for and deviated from the theme of the movie.
One of the biggest positives was excellent photography and art direction. The camera work is amazing and although I do not see a lot of movies, I believe that it had very very innovative and unique camera positioning techniques.
Another thing that I realized after watching movie was the importance of having a cool, composed and a calm brain on the shoulders. I for example am amongst those people who would take decisions in haste and without giving much thought and repent later. I am not sure how many things from a fictitious story could be applicable in real life but yes, patience is something that helps.
Saurabh Garg
In the words of Producer and Director of the movie, Ram Gopal Verma, Sarkar is his tribute to Mario Puzo's The Godfather. Indeed many sequences are inspired from the legend of the Godfather. Infact the very name Sarkar is a synonym to Godfather.
The movie is about one Sarkar who believes very strongly in his ideology and distinction between right and wrong. He believes that if he thinks something is right, and then he would act on it irrespectiv of the fact that it may not be legally correct, politically correct, morally correct or ethically correct. The thing to question here would be practicality of such a line of thoughts. Since a man has to live in society - there is no man in isolation, should someone stand out and make his presence and individuality felt or should he tone down himself to be acceptable to the society? The very first day when you start learning, you are taught to conform to the social beliefs and if you deviate, there are a lot of negative reinforcements given out. Are we helping propagating the norm? Since we are making everyone think in the same way, follow the same rules, behave in an expected manner, are we terminating the genesis of newer perspectives and thought processes?
The movie also portrays that people are ready to do anything, ANYTHING to realize their goals of power and money. Although there people were among the most powerful ones as shown in the movie but they seeked more power and the clichéd saying is hence proved that power and greed have no bounds.
However certain things were missing. The most perplexing thing was the fact that the revenge that Sarkar seeks is incomplete. Sarkar eliminates everyone who had betrayed him, tried to kill him/his father, destroy the family except one. The Police Commissioner. May be because the commissioner left him alive, he did not seek revenge but in my humble opinion, one should never ever forgive and forget someone you don’t trust at all.
There were attempts of humour in some dialogues of a certain character but they were totally uncalled for and deviated from the theme of the movie.
One of the biggest positives was excellent photography and art direction. The camera work is amazing and although I do not see a lot of movies, I believe that it had very very innovative and unique camera positioning techniques.
Another thing that I realized after watching movie was the importance of having a cool, composed and a calm brain on the shoulders. I for example am amongst those people who would take decisions in haste and without giving much thought and repent later. I am not sure how many things from a fictitious story could be applicable in real life but yes, patience is something that helps.
Saurabh Garg
Pearls of Wisdom
24th June 2004. I landed with a couple of bags at MDI. My new home for next two years.
23rd June 2005. One year of the two is over and when I look back, there sure is something that I have been fortunate enough to learn in this year. This post, although is a bit late, has few pearls of wisdom that I could gather in this year at one of the best business schools in India.
As they say, management education is about participating in class and contributing to other people's learning and understanding. There are times when some of us tend to overdo it a bit. Everyone must have seen, heard or experienced some obnoxious people who love to speak up their minds. A component of evaluation is based on the contribution you make to the learning of other people in class. And there are people who want to make a killing with this component. They would keep their loooong arms stretched out all the time. I don’t know if they have something to add, but they would keep their arms as stiff as a scarecrow’s. This phenomenon is called DCP. DCP is an acronym for Desperate Class Participation and is used very conviniently for people who speak without adding anything substantial to the class.
Next thing that I learnt at my BSchool is a word called Arbit. If you try searching for it on Dictionary.com, you would not find it. Why is that? Because this word is used exclusively in management studies. In fact I think that this is the most commonly used word in business schools after the sacred F word. Lets try to learn the meaning and origin of this word. Many enlighted souls say that this word is a short form of the word called arbitrary.
This sounds like a plausible explanation. When people speak up their minds, get creative, determine by whims, forget reason, ignore logic, what comes out is called Arbit !!!!. I can post a few examples here. Lets say the entire class is involved in an intellectual discussion about a car being an HIP (High Involvement Product). A reasonable addition to discussion would be that a HIP is something whose selection involves a lot of thought process and an arbit addition would be that a HIP is something hep. Hip as in hep and happening. Hip as in
Saurabh
ORIGIANALLY POSTED ON July 10, 2005
REPOSTED FROM ABOUT2EVOLVE TO SEPTEMBERTHE22ND
23rd June 2005. One year of the two is over and when I look back, there sure is something that I have been fortunate enough to learn in this year. This post, although is a bit late, has few pearls of wisdom that I could gather in this year at one of the best business schools in India.
As they say, management education is about participating in class and contributing to other people's learning and understanding. There are times when some of us tend to overdo it a bit. Everyone must have seen, heard or experienced some obnoxious people who love to speak up their minds. A component of evaluation is based on the contribution you make to the learning of other people in class. And there are people who want to make a killing with this component. They would keep their loooong arms stretched out all the time. I don’t know if they have something to add, but they would keep their arms as stiff as a scarecrow’s. This phenomenon is called DCP. DCP is an acronym for Desperate Class Participation and is used very conviniently for people who speak without adding anything substantial to the class.
Next thing that I learnt at my BSchool is a word called Arbit. If you try searching for it on Dictionary.com, you would not find it. Why is that? Because this word is used exclusively in management studies. In fact I think that this is the most commonly used word in business schools after the sacred F word. Lets try to learn the meaning and origin of this word. Many enlighted souls say that this word is a short form of the word called arbitrary.
"Determined by chance, whim, or impulse, and not by necessity, reason, or principle" - Source:http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=arbitrary
This sounds like a plausible explanation. When people speak up their minds, get creative, determine by whims, forget reason, ignore logic, what comes out is called Arbit !!!!. I can post a few examples here. Lets say the entire class is involved in an intellectual discussion about a car being an HIP (High Involvement Product). A reasonable addition to discussion would be that a HIP is something whose selection involves a lot of thought process and an arbit addition would be that a HIP is something hep. Hip as in hep and happening. Hip as in
"Very fashionable or stylish." - Source:http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=hepI might not be able to give a very good example of arbitness because am not talented at that and am certainly not the gifted one. By the way a lot of people say that this statement that I just made itself is arbit.
Saurabh
ORIGIANALLY POSTED ON July 10, 2005
REPOSTED FROM ABOUT2EVOLVE TO SEPTEMBERTHE22ND
Interviewing Skills
I was supposed to take interviews of the first year students for the events Delphique and Imperium. I interacted with about 20 odd students of the first year batch. Following were the things that I learnt from the experience...
1. There are better people than you are. There were about three or four people who were excellent in terms of thought clarity, were street smart, could deliver the message effectivly and above all were humble.
2. I learnt that interviews ARE really effective in judging people. I am not among those specialists who would know how to talk to people, judge them but I defintely could find when someone was lying, someone was talking the truth etc.
And finally a few random thoughts ...
Since we take these events very very serisouly, the people who are out there to select other people mkae sure that they take in only the absolute best for these events' and the managing teams. Sounds alright when you first think about it but as far as I understand, the real objective of being at a BSchool is the to learn through these events and enhance your personality (apart from regular things like studying etc). Now lets say someone tried real hard and cracked the selection process for a BSchool and now he wants to groom himself, an excellent way to do it would be through these events and committees. But the paradox is that the people who are in the selection committees wont pick him cos hes not that great. I cant think of another way to help this guy and let him develop himself. Any thoughts?
ORIGIANALLY POSTED ON July 13, 2005
REPOSTED FROM ABOUT2EVOLVE TO SEPTEMBERTHE22ND
1. There are better people than you are. There were about three or four people who were excellent in terms of thought clarity, were street smart, could deliver the message effectivly and above all were humble.
2. I learnt that interviews ARE really effective in judging people. I am not among those specialists who would know how to talk to people, judge them but I defintely could find when someone was lying, someone was talking the truth etc.
And finally a few random thoughts ...
Since we take these events very very serisouly, the people who are out there to select other people mkae sure that they take in only the absolute best for these events' and the managing teams. Sounds alright when you first think about it but as far as I understand, the real objective of being at a BSchool is the to learn through these events and enhance your personality (apart from regular things like studying etc). Now lets say someone tried real hard and cracked the selection process for a BSchool and now he wants to groom himself, an excellent way to do it would be through these events and committees. But the paradox is that the people who are in the selection committees wont pick him cos hes not that great. I cant think of another way to help this guy and let him develop himself. Any thoughts?
ORIGIANALLY POSTED ON July 13, 2005
REPOSTED FROM ABOUT2EVOLVE TO SEPTEMBERTHE22ND
What They Don't Teach You At Harvard Business School - Mark H. McCormack
I never thought highly of the book until I read it. I thought this is yet another book that talks about what management educatoin lacked. The best faculty here at MDI recommended it and I thought if a Prof as good as Prof. Bhushnurmath is recommending it, there has to be something to the book. I got hold of this copy and wow !
The book is an absolute piece of gem and should be read by not just business school graduates or managers but everyone. The book is written by a man that was considered the most powerful person in the sporting arena. Sporting Arena where luck plays absolute ZERO role in your success. Everything is dependent upon the amount of hard work that you can put it. Sporting also puts you into unfamiliar territories and brings out the real person from behind the mask.
Some interesting quotes from this book...
"I once heard someone say that if Thomas Edison had gone to business school we would all be reading by larger candles."
"Companies never function according to their organizational charts. They are made up of people and personalities and politics and power plays..."
I can personally relate to this one...
"... many people in business seem preoccupied by a fear of being left out."
"If you aren't afraid to fail, then you probably don't care enough about success"
I think apart from there interesting quotes, there is more to the book. The book is very practical. The experiences of Mr. McCormack help a lot in understanding the issues.
However there are somethings that I would agree to disagree with. There are many places where Mr. McCormack talks about throwing in the towel even when you know you are right. The thing is that this may be right thing to do to reach higher the corporate ladder but at what cost? Cost of your identity and your self-respect.
Just yesterday I was reading about Mr. McCormack and I found that he passed away in 2003. I wanted to meet this man so dearly ... :( Details about the legend can be found here and here.
This is a 9/10 book and a must read !
ORIGIANALLY POSTED ON July 28, 2005
REPOSTED FROM ABOUT2EVOLVE TO SEPTEMBERTHE22ND
Business School Education - A Farce?
When I landed at my dream institute, I had twinkle in my eyes, high hopes and aspirations about the entire concept of going to a B School, I knew I have arrived.
But it all changed during the time I have spent here. Its been just over an year and I have figured out that B School education is atleast not for people like me.
Most people that I have encountered (not only at my B School but also from other BSchools and I estimate this number to be well above 500) do NOT have even a vauge idea where they want to end in life or a question as simple as why did they decide to pursue management education.
I found out (I don't have any marketing surveys, data and analysis generated using SPSS or Excel) that the single most importnat reason for choosing management career was because of the image attached with B Schools. It is viewed as an extension to education. Its like a transition - complete secondary, move into higher secondary, complete that goto college for graduate and once you are done with graduate educatoin, next in line is - you guessed it right ! post graduate programme in management.
As I understand and infer from a few books that I have been able to read so far, management education is mostly about people skills. The onus is on preparing managers rather than say Chartered Accountants (equivalent to CPA in US) or HR professionals who would go by the books all the time. I think management education should be about only one thing - PEOPLE. Its the single most important thing that can make or break any organization.
The business education atleast in Indian context is a paid vacation. Either you ewre working or fresh out of college, you need a break from dull routines and what do you do? Join a business school.
Trust me, I have seen people dropping like house of cards after those numerous booze parties, hitting each other knowingly what they were doing, copying in examinations, blatantly plagiarising from the web or the library books for not so techies. We have done it all. The only stone we left unturned - management education.
ORIGIANALLY POSTED ON August 1, 2005
REPOSTED FROM ABOUT2EVOLVE TO SEPTEMBERTHE22ND
But it all changed during the time I have spent here. Its been just over an year and I have figured out that B School education is atleast not for people like me.
Most people that I have encountered (not only at my B School but also from other BSchools and I estimate this number to be well above 500) do NOT have even a vauge idea where they want to end in life or a question as simple as why did they decide to pursue management education.
I found out (I don't have any marketing surveys, data and analysis generated using SPSS or Excel) that the single most importnat reason for choosing management career was because of the image attached with B Schools. It is viewed as an extension to education. Its like a transition - complete secondary, move into higher secondary, complete that goto college for graduate and once you are done with graduate educatoin, next in line is - you guessed it right ! post graduate programme in management.
As I understand and infer from a few books that I have been able to read so far, management education is mostly about people skills. The onus is on preparing managers rather than say Chartered Accountants (equivalent to CPA in US) or HR professionals who would go by the books all the time. I think management education should be about only one thing - PEOPLE. Its the single most important thing that can make or break any organization.
The business education atleast in Indian context is a paid vacation. Either you ewre working or fresh out of college, you need a break from dull routines and what do you do? Join a business school.
Trust me, I have seen people dropping like house of cards after those numerous booze parties, hitting each other knowingly what they were doing, copying in examinations, blatantly plagiarising from the web or the library books for not so techies. We have done it all. The only stone we left unturned - management education.
ORIGIANALLY POSTED ON August 1, 2005
REPOSTED FROM ABOUT2EVOLVE TO SEPTEMBERTHE22ND
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