5th guy got hitched!

My last post yesterday, where I spoke about 4 guys getting married in last one month, just got the news that my roomie from MDI is getting married. And wedding is happening in a month.

DUDE!! WTF is wrong with the world!!!

Wisdom of Ravana

From Dev's blog

The story goes that after firing the fatal arrow on the battlefield of Lanka, Ram told his brother, Lakshman, "Go to Ravan quickly before he dies and request him to share whatever knowledge he can. A brute he may be, but he is also a great scholar." The obedient Lakshman rushed across the battlefield to Ravan’s side and whispered in his ears, "Demon-king, do not let your knowledge die with you. Share it with us and wash away your sins." Ravan responded by simply turning away. An angry Lakshman went back to Ram, "He is as arrogant as he always was, too proud to share anything." Ram comforted his brother and asked him softly, "Where did you stand while asking Ravan for knowledge?" "Next to his head so that I hear what he had to say clearly." Ram smiled, placed his bow on the ground and walked to where Ravan lay. Lakshman watched in astonishment as his divine brother knelt at Ravan’s feet. With palms joined, with extreme humility, Ram said, "Lord of Lanka, you abducted my wife, a terrible crime for which I have been forced to punish you. Now, you are no more my enemy. I bow to you and request you to share your wisdom with me. Please do that for if you die without doing so, all your wisdom will be lost forever to the world." To Lakshman’s surprise, Ravan opened his eyes and raised his arms to salute Ram, "If only I had more time as your teacher than as your enemy. Standing at my feet as a student should, unlike your rude younger brother, you are a worthy recipient of my knowledge. I have very little time so I cannot share much but let me tell you one important lesson I have learnt in my life. Things that are bad for you seduce you easily; you run towards them impatiently. But things are actually good for you fail to attract you; you shun them creatively, finding powerful excuses to justify your procrastination. That is why I was impatient to abduct Sita but avoided meeting you. This is the wisdom of my life, Ram. My last words. I give it to you." With these words, Ravan died.

Nice.

Another one bites the dust

Yet another friend got engaged. This one is fourth in last one month alone to get hitched. And the funniest is that these are arranged marriages*. Guys who I thought weren't capable of tolerating any "arranged" arrangement!.

By the speed which they are falling, I think, very soon, I would be the last man standing.

Scary. Any company anyone?

*India has this concept of arranged marriages where parents of the guy/girl find a suitable match for you and you meet each other once/twice and get married.

Back from Vipassana

I am back. I went for Vipassana. I did a ten day course under the guidance of SN Goenka in the tradition of Sayagyi U Ba Khin at Dhamma Sota (map) and I loved every bit of it. I have never come across anything as professional, motivational and grounded in science as the course.

Thanks to Goenka Ji for Vipassana Meditation Centre. I would recommend the 10 day residential course at one of the Dhamma centres (more than 120 centres around the world) to everyone.

Should someone need more info, please write in. Will be more than happy to share details and experiences.

And if I was to summarize my learnings in one sentence, I would say, "This too, shall pass". And if I was to use one word, it is, Anichya (impermanent).

P.S: I cant say I have changed or learnt the art of living but as Goenkaji says, I am on my way of Dhamma.

Gone. With the wind.

??? is going for Gehan Aatmachintan for ten days, starting today. Would have no access to email/phone/sms/twitter/blog till 27th.

Goodbye world.

Cheap Bastard

I am addicted to phone and SMS. Blame it on super cheap tarrif plans that I had access to when I was at MDI and GE Money.

Now that I no longer work for someone else, I have to bear my phone bills myself. And they are killing me. I mean KILLING me. Ever since I left Mumbai, I have paid about 9000 bucks in phone bills. In just about two months. 45 odd days to be precise. And no, I am not exaggerating.

Damn. I dint know working for myself would be this hard :(

Sorry for the rant. Anyways, I my blog is read by bots, SEO experts, comment spammers and myself.

Hi, Poker.

Been some time since I picked a major hobby. Now sounds like a good time. And what better than Poker.

I was first introduced to poker way back in 2005 when I went to a trek with few classmates from MDI. There we met some guys from IIMA and they apparently were big on poker. We played for a while and it seemed interesting. Back from the trek, read bits about it and then lost interest as poker required other players and all.

Fast forward to 2009. Now that I work for myself, I have some bit of free time. And I plan to use this time in picking up a new hobby. Poker sounds like a good one. It teaches you discipline, odds, patientce, respect for competition, history, maths and lots of other things.

Kick started things by downloading these two (1, 2) documentaries on poker and starting this FB group. Any takers anyone?

And if this is a convincing enough a reason, WEB and Bill apparently are kick-ass poker players. May be I get to rub shoulders with them on a green table? :)

Crib crib crib

Sunday mornings. Ideal time to relax, read, watch movies, laze around, eat, get a massage, get my hair cut, sleep etc. Right now, its 10 AM, I have just woken up, already late for office, I can hear my parents watching TV, the phone ringing incessantly, a water bottle by side, and thinking about issues as random as life, the futility of it all, QLC, work, celebrities, silver spoons, people who have it easy,

A Sunday morning rant. At best.

P.S.: I have realized that I do now have a distinct writing style. All I need to do is find some people who like what and the way I write. Then chase a publisher. And then publish a book.

Good Afternoon Prof. Garg

So , it happened. After dreaming about it for years, I finally addressed a room full of students and gave them gyaan. I am aligned with one of the MBA coaching institutes here in Delhi and I am supposed to talk to MBA students about interviews and group discussions.

Today Yesterday was officially my first class. There were 32 students (but when I took attendance, I marked 36 as present :) reminds me of glorious MDI proxies and jokes). I gave them gyaan on group discussions. Most of it was from instructor's notes but I did add my learning over the years. Dint have enough time for their feedback but from what I can judge, they would have liked me. After all, only four people were yawning.

P.S.: Education and Teaching is something I am very keen on and will contribute to.

Competition for Cyntax

So Cyntax is now live. Thought the design is copied right now from a very famous CSS tutorial, we are working on a new one. And the good part (or may be bad part) is that we already are competing with some 6 businesses. I made this post over on the Cyntax blog couple of days ago.

If I told someone that I work with Cyntax, and if they found my pitch interesting, instinctively they would Google/Bing/Yahoo us and dig for more information. I did the same to see what the search engines think of us.

More than what search engines thought of us, I was surprised to know that there are atleast SIX more companies businesses called Cyntax. Yes six. Two of them are tax guys (1, 2), two are web design companies (1, 2), one is a website of a poet and thespian. And then there is a CyntaxGroup as well.

I dint know our choice of name would be this popular. Do you know any more Cyntaxes?

And next up is a post with their logos. BTW we are still looking for a logo for OUR cyntax. Any help?

Common sense and Business sense says that since your name is your identity, it should be unique and rememberable and trademarkable and remarkable and marketable and all the other ables. On the other hand, I argue that even though there are a million people called Saurabh, my identity IS Saurabh and I cant change it. Then why cant I stick on with Cyntax?

And then that guy (Shakespeare) also said,

What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

What do you think?