Thursday, August 24, 2006

The Yesteryear...

The past one year has brought about a lot of change in my life..I was a mere amatuer wondering about a lot of things in life and now i'm a professional-with atleast some insights into my future..

Infact i've lived in 3 different cities in the past one year-in Bangalore, Mysore and now in Pune-4 months apiece! Living in southern part of India was totally new experience for me; meeting people who didnt knew my language and communicating with them was a nice thing to learn.

Life in Bangalore was kool...i loved the weather and the city was quite peaceful. Brigade road was awesome-felt like being in the metropolitan city in some western country everytime i went there. Life was good but was a little worried about my CAT exams but then the unexpected happened and i landed up being in Infy and was on my way to Mysore-The city of palaces!

Mysore was a more culturally diverse environment as i lived with people from nearly all parts of india and i gained a lot from my experience there..For the first time i saw how people coming from different geographical backgrounds think in different ways..and then it was my time to come to Pune as i got posted here after my training...

On a more personal front i feel a bit sad as now many of my friends have gone to US or Australia for further studies and it feels like myself being alone when i get back home in surat..Feels like a Hole in my Soul...But then again thats how life is...people come in your life and then your ways part and you head alone towards the unknown path which your destiny has shaped for you...

Pune is a kool, young and beautiful city and feels good being here...Its been 4 months that i've been here and its fun being a puneite! Lets see where i land up next year at this time....may be the IIMs are calling me! :)

Monday, August 14, 2006

Nasty Cola

The recent reports of soft drinks containing pesticides has stirred the markets as well as the government - both in India and in US(i'll tell you how).

Many states in India have already banned these aerated drinks from all educational institutions while the government of Kerala has gone as far as to ban the production and disribution of colas in the state!

As these aerated drinks have a huge market share, these steps pose a big threat to the existence of these cold-drink giants in this country and imagine the loss of market and erosion of brand image in the country with the head count of nearly 125 crore!

So obviously Pepsi and Coca Cola are crying foul and bringing on US government to intervene the matter and help them by "blackmailing" India about the consequences if it goes on the "proposed" path.

So it'll be interesting to see what happens next...but for a change it was refreshing to see these all-time fighting cola giants getting united for a single cause-their very own survival! :)

By the way after what i saw on the TV regarding colas, one thing is for sure that i wont be tempted to take a sip next time i see those fancy curvy bottles...Will you still be tempted??

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

A Rain-bashed Heart!










There's no place like home and Surat is my home-its my city and a place i can call mine.

There has been a severe flood there in surat now for the past two days and the situation is getting bad to worse-infact this is the worst flood condition in the city in past 200 years..

The current stats show that 90% of the city is under water and almost 70% of the people have taken refuge on their house terraces with no where else to go. Some of the areas are filled up with 20-22 feet of water and there you wonder if it can get any worse than that... Electricity has been cut out because of the obvious hazards. There are families stuck with no food or water to settle their hungry stomach. There are people who have no clues as to where their loved ones are with all communication lines including telephones being unavailable.

Today i saw one guy from Surat calling up a private news channel to express his grief and ask for help. He said they had no food or water for their children. He said his mother was dead and there was no place to cremate her dead body. I really felt grieved for this man...dont know how many people like him are fighting the battle for their lives out there...

Tried calling up all my friends but could'nt get connected with any of them. Was able to talk to just one of my friends (Mitul) yesterday and i know they are going through a really tough time..Hope they all are safe and sound and i pray that everything becomes normal soon...

The picture you see above is of one of the bridges built on the river Tapi in Surat and you can imagine how the condition will be now considering that this was yesterday's pic and water level has been constantly rising after that because of a full moon day tide today..

I'm sure we'll get back on our feet bravely as we've always done but the main challenge will be cleaning up the city and prevention of epidemics after the waters go down. I'm hopefull with the good work that the SMC has done in the recent years and hope life gets back to normalcy soon in my heart-SURAT.

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

25th Anniversary Celebration : 126 Crore moola

Yep you read that right!

That’s the amount of money that will be distributed by Infosys amongst all of us! Well that’s a huge amount all right but we also have to consider that we are currently looking at an employee strength of about 57K. So lets see how much do we get on our hands at the end of it.

It was July 1981 when Infosys was founded. The growth of this company of mine from literally an “in-house” company to a billion dollar organization is truly exemplary. Its unbelievable that Infy started off with only 10,000 rupees as its capital balance! Truly a case study in itself!

Well for now I’m waiting for an official declaration on my share of the moola-lets see how much of it comes my way!