I am glad to announce that Sulekha is conducting a Blog contest that will be on till the 15th of January .The grand prize is something I would love to have but tch tch ....I cannot participate ....

Incase u happen to know anyone who is interested in writing or sending across entries ..pls mail your queries to kartik dot kannan at gmail dot com. This is my first ad campaign since I joined Sulekha ...lets see how this one goes .

More about the competition at http://www.sulekha.com/blogs/blogandwin.aspx

E N S O Y !!!


NEW MEMBERS ..AT HOME FOR THE NEW YEAR


I had splurged quite a sum , last sunday at spencers super store ..buying a home theatre system ...and starting January First I would be bankrupt ..but the music gene in my body would be bloody rich... I have bought a sont DVD player + a 6:1 dolby surround speaker system from Onkyo and a 43' Digital Proejction Tv from Samsung .... and I am just about waiting to go home and try it once.It's coming at 6 pm this evening ..so I guess I should leave in time to escape from the din of the evening crowd ..along the egmore - tambaram railway track.

I am also getting myself a set top box...as I have long stayed away from my second love (cricket)..the first love being my Sony walkman . So looks like 2006 is ushering a great wave of the feel good factor...

Ganguly still not certain of a place in the 11 ??

I got this article from Sulekha news via Khaleej times ....

It seems Kiran More is coming over to Lahore for the first test to ensure that no
untoward selection happens by the team management...and ...what would that
mean ..in a certain Gangulyspeak .... . I feel disaster .....

Click here to know more about this

Neccesity is the mother of all inventions...


I find it somewhat strange that from the time I landed in my college to do a 4 year sentence term in computer science engineering ,I never seemed to have a special interest factor in doing programming and work in an IT company.As time passed by I realized that my interests of event managaement,writing articles/blogs..would not land me in a high paying job,so as the routine was in my family I became the 5th software engineer churned out of the engineering colleges under Madras University...and opted to apply for jobs in the software sector ..as the norm was with engineering grads graduating with a major's in computer Science.

I somehow managed to sustain all interest in preparing for the IT companies entrance tests,clearing them with elan..and even showing promise to the interviewer that coding has a major chance of being my next best hobby.I was fairly confident that I could manage in this coding world which honestly I never imagined ..i would be ..while I was in college.

Then Infy happened and the first few weeks of training made me feel on cloud 9 ..but soon I realized that unless coding was a major enthu facor ...I would find really tough to be the best amongst my peers in my training batch. Coding to others was a way of life..wheras for me ..it was another LIFE totally which ..i just switched into (better said as Logged into ) in the morning and logged off in the evening (actually nights ) ... So even though I did my job of learning mainframes ,AS 400 ..internally I wasnt really motivated to do what i was doing...and soon things went from bad to worse..as I hardly was able to manage with this stuff...of coding applications as it restricted my creative instincts ..and I certainly wasnt enjoying that.But ..could I complain ....as I was working for one of the best companies ..for which only 1 % of the applicants get selected ....so how could I quit such a well paying safe job...

I ignored my inner instincts to try out sometyhing else ...as I did not have the guts to quit Infy and kept saying to myself "I love my job" and went on with coding ...and debugging programs for a rather demanding client 10000 miles across the seven seas. Even though I was able to leave by 7 or 8 pm and not really put in regular late nights ...I realized that I actually dont seem to put in those late hours simply because I was not in anyway motivated ....... to the extent that there were times ..that I used to feel drowsy...and sick ... and over a period of time ...I was cribbing to my inner coterie of friends that I really dont seem to "enjoy" my job as others do... and was often left wondering ..why the heck am i not able to drive ...an extra ounce of enthu into me.

I thought I was suffereing from some kind of a mental problem..and decided to consult a doc's help..and most of the doc's who heard my case..asked me the same blunt question ..."DO U ENJOY UR JOB " ..for which i didnt honestly have an answer ..as I didnt know whether my job was actually the barrier to my motivation...

Then as in a movie .... where the evil things end and good precedes over evil ... a climactic ending occured on November 27th .when I happened to meet Satya and Kiruba from Sulekha.com at the bloggers meet and in a just abouut a week ... I had an interview and instantly received an offer from Sulekha for leading the blogs and groups section...

I was pinching myself ..whether this could be true ..as this job's role had all that I could dream of...event management,framing ad copies, reading blogs,writing some ,manqging discussion forums, reading various different news papers,framing advertising and marketing strategies for tie up's......... BUT

THE BIG QUESTION WAS ...........COULD I QUIT MY "secure " job at Infy and move over to a relatively small company (as in www.sulekha.com ). I gave myself a night in solitude to decide whether to move over ... and the best way to do that was spend an entire train journey from egmore ...to tambaram and back.....along the suburban railways and spend the evening at Marina beach for a couple of hours .. before breaking the news at home ... that I had decided to follow my heart ...and get into something where working...as in blogging was a way of life .... and not W O R K ....to me

Hell broke loose ....as my parents seemed to be totally against me moving there ..but after loads of discussion and drama sense prevailed from my relatives side..who reluctantly agreed to my decesion .....and I put in my papers and was releived rather quickly as I happened to be on Bench at that time .

Now ..life is cool ...Ya i do have steep targets to meet..and am really busy here ..but i enjoy the work that I am doing ...and am able to really feel a sense of satisfaction ..and no more am i cribbing to my friends about how miserable I feel ..every time they pop up the the rather familar question "How's Life " . It's still early days ..at Sulekha ...but I kinda get the feeling that this is the ideal platform for me to launch my creative skills .

So ...that's life as of now... feel a lot better at sulekha ..but would love to get back into Infy in a much higher managerial role ...in a few years time ...

So as the post's heading would convey "Neccesity is the mother of all inventions... "..my neccesity to doing what my heart says .....is what made me invent or plant the thought in my mind whether sulekha..would have any position open ....for some one like me ..and bingo ....they did ...

The end of Premarital sex :

Kamal hassan's article on todays OP-ED Page on Deccan Chronicle takes a satirical look at the whole "concept of pre marital sex" and is definetely worth a read ....

SEX TAPES- AND THE ART OF MARKETING


I am kinda fed up with this technique adopted by most actresses ..as an alternate means of showcasing their assets and inceasing their market prescence without stepping into the sleazy world of pornography.

I guess I first saw this when some video tapes of a popular tamil actress were sent across by mail of she having her bath ...which was recorded and it sure did send ripples of sexual fury aroused in the menfolk by providing them aple tittilation...
Now when the clipping is doing the rounds....at a brisk pace the actress comes and issues a statement like an innocent lamb...who wears the motto on her chest .."Virginity is dignity" while her inner mind labels virginity as "lack of oppurtunity"...now this statement assuages the angst of some of the no-sex- loyalists (a.k.a fans ).

So she gets the support of her fans and for sure ....her name is etched in her fan's ...not-so-volataile memories ..and yo...directors are queing ..to sign her on in the next movie ..after having watched ...her vital statistics with an exxagerated drool...
So who needs an MBA ..when u can market ur cards so well...the latest in the list is the girl who keeps screaming "OOPS I DID IT AGAIN " ..yo the 14 year old senasation who rocked the music world in 1999 with "HIT ME BABY ONE MORE TIME " ....
She apparently videotaped her sexual encounters with her husband ...and supposedly ...the video tape was shown on some public network....
she is now claiming 20 million ..dollars from the magazine in the name of "suing" .Now looking at the economics of the whole thing...the magazine/website ..gets the required hits ..earns the money..., in the process britney makes a quick buck,the voyeurish boy and girl who view it get a few pointers on new positions and briney gets "the good girl who was exploited" kinda senti feeling across her fans ...and this is what a WIN WIN atmosphere is all about ...
I guess the porn industry is all set to give some corporate lessons ...on its WIN WIN strategy ....and dear Mr Kotler and druckers....and strategy gurus ....watching porn ..or advocating porn may not be that bad after all
what say ???

Indians :Coming of age ??


Picture this ....Its raining heavily ..literally speaking it's raining cats and dogs ....and you have some urgent work to go out somewhere.One doesnt know what to do when the sky decides to cry and sob the proverbial H20 . In this information age ..waht is expected is ...one would switch on the telly to know the weather repotr to know when the rains would cease ...but not too far away ..there would be a community swearing by tradition and culture .... and proclaiming their way of stopping the rains ....belive it or not ... is to send a young unmarried woman nude in the rain ..so that the rain god is appeased and will stop the rains . Wait wait wait .. i know this would have had most guys ...right on the edge of their seats ..seeking google's help in locating where this would happen . Now even though we are living in the information age , if such customs are followed ,does it not reflect India's height of superstition .... if that isn't enough ..even as I am typing this I hear that two poor buffaloes were killed ..oops i must say "sacrificed" by the politcians of the samajwadi patry in the famous Kamakhya temple in Assam ...so that the almighty gets appeased and cures Amitabh bachan quickly . Now it is a heinous crime to kill animals in the name of religion and such illogical belief's ,which only goes on to say that India is still a long way from properly using it's independence and creating an environment where people can co exist with minimimal conflict and air their views and opinions freely. So even though we may be seen as the land where IT is happening and money is being pumped in , its largely being done in tier1 cities and none of this is actually percolating into rural areas which are highly plagued by such bizzare thinking.So the question we really need to ask ourself is even though India is a country with great potential ...have we come of age...?? My take on the question is that India is primarily retarted by such thoughts and this takes the sheen off quite a bit ..as it's in stark contrast to a logical/scientific revolution happening in India in the form of IT.


UPDATES : I have quit Infy ,and have decided to join Sulekha.com as the channel manager for interactive services ...as the job profile and nature of work was something that was more to my taste of managing events,reading and of course blogs . will talk more abt how it all happened in my next post.