A sleepy town along the beaches of south of France,
where every one has a convertible car,
at least one super bike,
and few trophy wives,
where all the "brands" from Gucci to Gabana have their store,
where everything is charged at a super premium or more,
a town called Cannes.
Wah wah ... impromptu poetry. :D
On a serious note, I am currently attending the Cannes Lions Advertising Festival 2008 at Cannes (my rants from the fest can be found here). So far its been awesome fun.
I am here till Saturday and then its back to Mumbai. More updates on the trip once I am back to Mumbai.
Awesome weekend
7th, 8th and 9th June were yet another set of awesome days.
Friday night - Saw Sarkar Raj with Ashima and Parry. The movie was ok. Will rate it at 2 on 5. The ending is awesome. The last 15 mins is very very good. You could go through the ordeal of watching the first half of the movie for just these last 15 mins.
Friday night - After the movie, it was raining like crazy and stood in the baarish at Kandivali crossing for about an hour. Ideally would have wanted some music - romantic and sentimental but its ok.
Saturday evening - Had some work. Met my team and a client for a presentation. They loved it.
Sunday morning - Slept like a log for 12 hours. And
Sunday evening - played pool, countre-strike, sat with friends and they had beer, had awesome dinner and then slept for 10 hours.
Wish every day could be a party like this.
Friday night - Saw Sarkar Raj with Ashima and Parry. The movie was ok. Will rate it at 2 on 5. The ending is awesome. The last 15 mins is very very good. You could go through the ordeal of watching the first half of the movie for just these last 15 mins.
Friday night - After the movie, it was raining like crazy and stood in the baarish at Kandivali crossing for about an hour. Ideally would have wanted some music - romantic and sentimental but its ok.
Saturday evening - Had some work. Met my team and a client for a presentation. They loved it.
Sunday morning - Slept like a log for 12 hours. And
Sunday evening - played pool, countre-strike, sat with friends and they had beer, had awesome dinner and then slept for 10 hours.
Wish every day could be a party like this.
500 and My Blogging Biography
This is my 500th post on this blog. Come to think of it, its been an interesting journey.
I am not a celebrity blogger as yet, and in all probability I would never be one but blogging has been a really important part of my life. I have made very good friends (Megha, Priyadarshini, Ravi, Sandesh, Sanjukta, Shankar), learned so many things, found an avenue to express my thoughts, made public my inner most thoughts, shared with the world things that I am really fond of and a lot of other frivolities.
I think it all started sometime in 2000 when I saw Aakash, a very good friend from MAC update his profile page on yahoo. I did not know that time that Yahoo has this page where you can write your profile. I still remember he was using the only computer with a pathetic dial up network in out computer lab.
I went to a friend's place that very day and created a yahoo email account (I no longer use it - dont remember the password). And that was the beginning. After that I created my own yahoo profile, created a lot of websites for my self and for other people including my college fest, Lucky Ali and Simone Singh. I extensively used Geocities and other yahoo tools. No I knew had heard of blogging, social networking, even Google.com in those days.
Then all of a sudden Y2K happened. Along with it came a lot of new thoughts, opportunities and information. Online activity was limited to emails on yahoo mail, chats on yahoo chat rooms, games on yahoo games, websites on geocities, freeservers and buildtolearn. It's funny how those days life revolved around yahoo and now its around Google. Wondering what would it be tomorrow.
And then somewhere in 2004, I stumbled onto blogging. Yet again because of Aakash. Started this blog and have been writing since. There are times when I post every 5 minutes and there are times when I dont write a single word for weeks. But somehow my interest in blogging never waned. I then thought one blog is not enough. And I started a blog for posting my pics, this, this and this for posting my thoughts on travel, one for stocks, one for my not-so-random thoughts, one for MDI, one for MML and a host of other ones that I dont even remember now.
Then sometime in 2005, I registered SaurabhGarg.com to move all my unofficial pages at one place. I had esaurabh.8m.com (unfortunately I have forgotten the password to this one too) and a lot of pages sprinkled on the Internet.
Then I had this itch to start contributing to more websites and getting a wider audience and discussions, I started looking for more avenues to write and express myself. Sanjukta introduced me to mutiny.in. I found what Ashish was doing at pluggdin and thoughts users at VentureWoods would be able to add a lot to my understanding of the businesses. And then I started writing for these people. It has helped me a lot already and will hopefully meet more interesting people.
And this brings me to a very interesting point now. What should I do with my blog. I have realized that blogging is one of the best initiatives that I have ever taken. And this is probably something that I have not left mid way. I tend to get bored too soon from things and there are times when I thought that I need to move away from blogging but somehow I was always back.
Now as I write this 500th post for this blog, I think I need to create a blogging policy. I need to update my blogs frequently to remain pertinent. I need to write sense. I need to think before I actually write things. Things like one post per week on mutiny.in, one post per week on pluggdin, one post per fortnight on VentureWoods, one post every two days here. Even if I dont have the ideas, I will have to think hard and come up with ideas. I need to bring a discipline in my blogging.
To end it, I can now be found on the Internet at my website, my blogs, and various other places including LinkedIn, Twitter, Tlickr, Friendfeed, Blogger, PBwiki, , Facebook, Orkut etc. Long term goal is to get listed on Wikipedia.
And hopefully reach more milestones with blogging. Signing off.
I am not a celebrity blogger as yet, and in all probability I would never be one but blogging has been a really important part of my life. I have made very good friends (Megha, Priyadarshini, Ravi, Sandesh, Sanjukta, Shankar), learned so many things, found an avenue to express my thoughts, made public my inner most thoughts, shared with the world things that I am really fond of and a lot of other frivolities.
I think it all started sometime in 2000 when I saw Aakash, a very good friend from MAC update his profile page on yahoo. I did not know that time that Yahoo has this page where you can write your profile. I still remember he was using the only computer with a pathetic dial up network in out computer lab.
I went to a friend's place that very day and created a yahoo email account (I no longer use it - dont remember the password). And that was the beginning. After that I created my own yahoo profile, created a lot of websites for my self and for other people including my college fest, Lucky Ali and Simone Singh. I extensively used Geocities and other yahoo tools. No I knew had heard of blogging, social networking, even Google.com in those days.
Then all of a sudden Y2K happened. Along with it came a lot of new thoughts, opportunities and information. Online activity was limited to emails on yahoo mail, chats on yahoo chat rooms, games on yahoo games, websites on geocities, freeservers and buildtolearn. It's funny how those days life revolved around yahoo and now its around Google. Wondering what would it be tomorrow.
And then somewhere in 2004, I stumbled onto blogging. Yet again because of Aakash. Started this blog and have been writing since. There are times when I post every 5 minutes and there are times when I dont write a single word for weeks. But somehow my interest in blogging never waned. I then thought one blog is not enough. And I started a blog for posting my pics, this, this and this for posting my thoughts on travel, one for stocks, one for my not-so-random thoughts, one for MDI, one for MML and a host of other ones that I dont even remember now.
Then sometime in 2005, I registered SaurabhGarg.com to move all my unofficial pages at one place. I had esaurabh.8m.com (unfortunately I have forgotten the password to this one too) and a lot of pages sprinkled on the Internet.
Then I had this itch to start contributing to more websites and getting a wider audience and discussions, I started looking for more avenues to write and express myself. Sanjukta introduced me to mutiny.in. I found what Ashish was doing at pluggdin and thoughts users at VentureWoods would be able to add a lot to my understanding of the businesses. And then I started writing for these people. It has helped me a lot already and will hopefully meet more interesting people.
And this brings me to a very interesting point now. What should I do with my blog. I have realized that blogging is one of the best initiatives that I have ever taken. And this is probably something that I have not left mid way. I tend to get bored too soon from things and there are times when I thought that I need to move away from blogging but somehow I was always back.
Now as I write this 500th post for this blog, I think I need to create a blogging policy. I need to update my blogs frequently to remain pertinent. I need to write sense. I need to think before I actually write things. Things like one post per week on mutiny.in, one post per week on pluggdin, one post per fortnight on VentureWoods, one post every two days here. Even if I dont have the ideas, I will have to think hard and come up with ideas. I need to bring a discipline in my blogging.
To end it, I can now be found on the Internet at my website, my blogs, and various other places including LinkedIn, Twitter, Tlickr, Friendfeed, Blogger, PBwiki, , Facebook, Orkut etc. Long term goal is to get listed on Wikipedia.
And hopefully reach more milestones with blogging. Signing off.
Haasil - The Movie
Bollywood is known to release the maximum number of movies in a year. And most of them are forgettable. A lot of them go onto become big hits and send the cash registers ringing. And then there are times when a movie creates a whole new world. The way people think. The way people talk. They way people perceive cinema. One of them is obviously Sholay. The other one is Haasil. I cant really compare the two but Haasil deserves its place along side any other acclaimed movie in the history of Indian Cinema.
The plot is really simple. Its about a small town in India where people are happy go lucky and go about their own tasks. Its a typical story of a young guy. Its a typical story of a pesky father. Its a typical story of a guy in love with a girl and trying to express it. Its about a typical university in India where student politics is more important than the academics or anything else. Then its the typical story of hatred, envy, love, politics, corruption, anger, wars and other such things.
And this is where all the typicalality ends. The story is interesting and compelling enough to captivate the audience. The dialouges are impressive and more importantly their delivery makes every small scene a cult. To the extent that I will probably call each scene a conversation between two characters. Characters who are small yet giant. Who are incapable by themselves yet can do anything if situation demands. Performances by Irfan Khan and Ashutosh Rana that can put any other actor to shame.
Personally, for me, the best two conversations are "Pandit hum der na lagaenge maarne main" and "Hum to ShivJi kay bhakth hain, saara zeher humein hi peena hai". Although I don't support piracy, the entire movie is available here for watching online and free download.
Haasil fans, please share your stories. And please note that this is not a movie review.
Links
Orkut Community for Haasil Fans
IMDB on Haasil
Wikipedia on Haasil
The plot is really simple. Its about a small town in India where people are happy go lucky and go about their own tasks. Its a typical story of a young guy. Its a typical story of a pesky father. Its a typical story of a guy in love with a girl and trying to express it. Its about a typical university in India where student politics is more important than the academics or anything else. Then its the typical story of hatred, envy, love, politics, corruption, anger, wars and other such things.
And this is where all the typicalality ends. The story is interesting and compelling enough to captivate the audience. The dialouges are impressive and more importantly their delivery makes every small scene a cult. To the extent that I will probably call each scene a conversation between two characters. Characters who are small yet giant. Who are incapable by themselves yet can do anything if situation demands. Performances by Irfan Khan and Ashutosh Rana that can put any other actor to shame.
Personally, for me, the best two conversations are "Pandit hum der na lagaenge maarne main" and "Hum to ShivJi kay bhakth hain, saara zeher humein hi peena hai". Although I don't support piracy, the entire movie is available here for watching online and free download.
Haasil fans, please share your stories. And please note that this is not a movie review.
Links
Orkut Community for Haasil Fans
IMDB on Haasil
Wikipedia on Haasil
May 24, 25: Awesome Weekend
I had the most perfect weekend that a girlfriendless guy can have. Full of sleep, Counter-Strike, Partying, Cricket Match, Travel, Eating, Shopping, Talking and Gyaan sessions.
- Sleep: Slept for half a day. Switched off my phone for that duration. Blissfull.
- Counter-Strike: Played CS for about 3 hours with friends from MDI at Zapak Gameplex. This is turning into a weekly thing now.
- Partying: Met people from MDI, more people from MDI and still more people. Ate out on both days and had awesome time remembering things from past. An interesting incident happened. We were trying to remember the songs we like at MDI and I said "Bin Tere Sanam" by DJ Suketu and at that very instant it was played. Awesomeness.
- Cricket Match: Saw Kolkata vs Chandigarh march at Rodas. Huge screen. Great place. Friends boozing and pulling pranks. Awesome finish. Brilliant.
- Travel: Local mostly but well after mid-night. I love traveling at nights. When the entire world sleeps, you are on your way.
- Shopping: Long overdue bout of shopping. Only thing remaining is hunting for books. Will order online today. Saratchadra Chattopadyaya.
- Talking: Awesome conversation about history of India and how political turmoil pulled us from being the leaders of the world to a developing country.
- Gyaan session: This is where we acted as visionaries and talked about things that could make India what it was before we were invaded.
1V1: Whether vs When
Next in the 1v1 series. Whether vs When.
Today I will talk about Whether and When. Most of the times when you want to take a decision, there is often a debate between whether and when. You argue on things like "Whether you will do or not", "When will you do it" etc..
I think the use of these words greatly affects the decision.
The WHETHER questions by its very nature brings along uncertainty and with it a possibility of not doing it. You might do it. You might not. You will ask more people about it. You will seek more approval for the idea. And in the end you might or might not do it.
Moment you start asking WHEN question, the whole paradigm changes. You have already made the decision. You are going to do it. If not now, later. But you will do it. And this decision makes all the difference.
What do you think you will choose when making decisions? Whether or When?
Originally posted at Saurabh Garg @ Thoughts
Today I will talk about Whether and When. Most of the times when you want to take a decision, there is often a debate between whether and when. You argue on things like "Whether you will do or not", "When will you do it" etc..
I think the use of these words greatly affects the decision.
The WHETHER questions by its very nature brings along uncertainty and with it a possibility of not doing it. You might do it. You might not. You will ask more people about it. You will seek more approval for the idea. And in the end you might or might not do it.
Moment you start asking WHEN question, the whole paradigm changes. You have already made the decision. You are going to do it. If not now, later. But you will do it. And this decision makes all the difference.
What do you think you will choose when making decisions? Whether or When?
Originally posted at Saurabh Garg @ Thoughts
Remembering Duck Tales
When I was growing up (I still am), on TV, there used to be just good old Doordarshan. And it was the time when Sundays were important. More important than anything else. I would not miss the Sunday for anything. I used to wait the entire week for Sunday. I would make sure I had done my homework on Saturday night itself. On Sunday, I would get up early, get ready, was bathed and powdered and my hair parted on the left side, I would sit in front of TV at exact 9, waiting for the clock to strike 10. I would be the perfect kid. I would give no reason to my mom or my dad to disturb me that day. It the most important time of my life.
At dot 10, Duck Tales with its awesome intro music would start beaming. And with it, I would get lost in a fantasy world of Uncle Scrooge, Beagle Boys, Magica, Launchpad and all the pranks played by Luey, Huey and Duey (I dont really remember the names). I used to wish I had an Uncle like Scrooge McDuck who would literally be flooded with money. I wanted to have brothers like Luey, Huey and Duey. I wanted to have a nanny like Mrs. Beakley. I wanted to have a friend like Launchpad. I wanted my life to be life that. Full of action, adventure, suspense, comedy and emotions.
Life was so perfect. There were no worries. No decisions to make - their was only one channel and hence the simple decisions. Moreover the ads were very limited. There used to be just one commercial break and the ads of Cadbury's Tobu Cycles etc. were lot more fun that the ones right now. (Ok, not Tobu Cycles but Cadbury's for sure).
And obviously next day at school, at the lunch break, there were sessions where we discussed everything that happened during the show. We would talk about funny incidents. We debated about strategies that they should have taken.
And now, we have serials that started with TV channels and in all probability they would never end. There is no wait. Life moves at a snails pace. I happened to see Kyonki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi few weeks ago and they were still talking about Tulsi and Ba. I mean its been 10 years since Tulsi has been contemporary and is most talked about Bahu in the history of India.
Sincerely wish if those days could be back. Need to write another post on Tale Spin, Dekh Bhai Dekh, Zabaan Sambhaal Kay etc. And if you want to read more about TV shows from those times, read my earlier post here.
I have the sound tracks of both Duck Tales and Tales Spin. Please email me in case you need em.
The Great Indian Media
If you dont know Arushi, The Great Indian Khali, the colored cheerleaders, blog wars of Amitabh Bachchan and Amir Khan you live in a cave. The Indian media has gotten into so much frenzy with all these that all other events sound minor.
Inflation is touching 8% and there is no analysis or debate on the same. Indian Hocket team finally is doing something right. They lost in the finals of Sultan Azlan Shah cup but there was hardly a mention. A very important issue is being debated at WTO but no one has a clue about it.
Brings me to a point where I am thinking if media business needs a radical change. I have expressed my displeasure at the way media functions in India. They show what is popular and people see what media shows. With time the original thoughts would die away. They need to move beyond popularism and start talking about things that really make a difference.
Coming back to Arushi, whatever happened with that girl is very tragic. It should not have happened but I guess media could leave her now in peace. I am sure media is saying that they want justice for her. But did media raise a single hand for justice to all those people who die very regularly on roads because of negligent driving?
The bomb blasts in Jaipur were forgotten as fast as they happened. Media has decreed that police and intelligence have failed in their task and thats it. I want to ask why dont they investigate the Jaipur blasts with as much gusto as they are tracking murderers of Arushi? Why cant media itself become the investigation department and then we will not need the CBI, IB, RAW or even the new central investigation agency that Dr. Kalam has envisioned. It will sure get them more eye balls and save the nation some money.
The great Khali is another example of media going overboard of things that dont warrant a single glance. Agreed he is 7 feet. Agreed he is from a village in India and now a professional wrestler at WWE - a place known more for glamour rather than professional wrestling. In my humble opinion, the great Khali might be the best ever but on the wrestling stage he has only brought disgrace to India. The way they talk about India, the way they dishonor the Indian flag, the National Anthem and the way they mock Indians there at "professional wrestling" ring is not even funny. If he was half Indian, he would have put a full-stop to all that show business.
IPL - Indian Premier League. If I start talking about this, I wouldn't even stop. Agreed cricket is our unofficial national game but any channel - sports, news, family, even devotional channels are full of insights. Someone correctly said that there are 11 players and 1 billion experts on the game. Every one has an opinion and everyone wants to voice them. It doesn't matter if the logic is flawed or opinions are biased.
Wish there were more people who wanted to raise their voice against this stupidity that we call media in India.
Inflation is touching 8% and there is no analysis or debate on the same. Indian Hocket team finally is doing something right. They lost in the finals of Sultan Azlan Shah cup but there was hardly a mention. A very important issue is being debated at WTO but no one has a clue about it.
Brings me to a point where I am thinking if media business needs a radical change. I have expressed my displeasure at the way media functions in India. They show what is popular and people see what media shows. With time the original thoughts would die away. They need to move beyond popularism and start talking about things that really make a difference.
Coming back to Arushi, whatever happened with that girl is very tragic. It should not have happened but I guess media could leave her now in peace. I am sure media is saying that they want justice for her. But did media raise a single hand for justice to all those people who die very regularly on roads because of negligent driving?
The bomb blasts in Jaipur were forgotten as fast as they happened. Media has decreed that police and intelligence have failed in their task and thats it. I want to ask why dont they investigate the Jaipur blasts with as much gusto as they are tracking murderers of Arushi? Why cant media itself become the investigation department and then we will not need the CBI, IB, RAW or even the new central investigation agency that Dr. Kalam has envisioned. It will sure get them more eye balls and save the nation some money.
The great Khali is another example of media going overboard of things that dont warrant a single glance. Agreed he is 7 feet. Agreed he is from a village in India and now a professional wrestler at WWE - a place known more for glamour rather than professional wrestling. In my humble opinion, the great Khali might be the best ever but on the wrestling stage he has only brought disgrace to India. The way they talk about India, the way they dishonor the Indian flag, the National Anthem and the way they mock Indians there at "professional wrestling" ring is not even funny. If he was half Indian, he would have put a full-stop to all that show business.
IPL - Indian Premier League. If I start talking about this, I wouldn't even stop. Agreed cricket is our unofficial national game but any channel - sports, news, family, even devotional channels are full of insights. Someone correctly said that there are 11 players and 1 billion experts on the game. Every one has an opinion and everyone wants to voice them. It doesn't matter if the logic is flawed or opinions are biased.
Wish there were more people who wanted to raise their voice against this stupidity that we call media in India.
Vodafone customer care
I make this trip to a Vodafone store every month to pay my phone bill. I dont have a credit card and hence this unnecessary evil. And its an awesome learning experience.
Anyways so this trip is to any Vodafone store in the vicinity and I stay there for five minutes on average. Its surprising that even in those five minutes I see at least two people shouting on poor and often clueless customer care executives. And this is not an one off incident. It happens every time without fail. Every time someone or the other is shouting about inflated bills, sudden disconnection, charges without consent or 1000 other things.
I wonder for a company that shouts out loud that it is Happy to Help (btw GE Money also prided itself with this Happy to help gimmick), the service levels are pathetic. Customer care executives are often clueless about things that you ask them. Half the times they cant speak English or Hindi. And the other half times they are busy fixing their hair or creases or drinking tea etc. All the money that they pump on advertisement (which in my opinion is top notch) goes for a toss moment customer screams in the store.
My heart goes out to all those customer care executives that face the wrath of these angry customers for no fault of theirs. Can something be done about this rather than wasting money on frivolous things like fliers and other innovative ways of charging a customer? Is the advertising agency and social media agency for Vodafone listening?
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