The White Tiger...

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga, starts off in an unusual format as a series of letters addressed to Wen Jiabao, the Premier of China by a Bangalore-based entrepreneur, Ashok Sharma spread over a span of seven nights. The Chinese Premier is excited to learn how India is able to churn out so many entrepreneurs in spite of so many stumbling blocks in various domains of life.

Apparently, sir, you Chinese are far ahead of us in every respect, except that you don’t have entrepreneurs. And our nation though it has no drinking water, electricity, sewage system, public transportation, sense of hygiene, discipline, courtesy or punctuality, does have entrepreneurs.

In short this is the story of the transformation of a man born as a servant to the rich and elite, from Munna to Balram Halwai to Ashok Sharma, the successful entrepreneur. The story is narrated in a one-to-one conversation format with few relevant touches of wit, sarcasm and dark humor. The first person narration is simple and straight-forward.

The main protagonist of the story is born and brought up in a remote North Indian village. To meet the needs of his family, he drops out of school at the age of eight to work in a tea shop. Well a different godsend script is composed for him, to leave the village and become the chauffeur for a rich family. In his chequered career as a chauffeur, Balram Halwai sees life from different perspectives, the good, the bad, the ugly, the honest, the dishonest, the corrupt, the moral, the immoral, the jugaad flocks, the maain baap generation and lots more. Finally he decides to make a 'U' turn in his life and that's when he commits the murder of his master, for nothing else but money. The money he acquires by killing his master is siphoned for his entrepreneurial venture, running a cab company in India's technology and outsourcing hot seat, Bangalore. In short this is the story.

So now you can make out why the title of the book is 'The White Tiger'. Just as the white tiger is a very rare species among animals found in the jungle, so is Balram Halwai a very uncommon individual found in the sea of darkness, who crafts and designs his own blueprint for the road ahead.

On the outside it seems that the author has an excellent understanding of the economic changes and its effect of lifestyle, the oft-discussed topic of outsourcing, the class and caste differences in the society and many such related topics. But deep dive a bit and it has a storyline replete with the clichéd images and reflections, written to live up to the expectations of the western audience. The image of once-upon-a-time, the country of darkness, still retaining its share of darkness.

I don't deny the fact that the country is home to cases of brutal injustice, dirty corruption, victimization of the underprivileged by the rich. But but creating a painting on canvas in which each and every stroke of the paint brush portrays an image of extremity gives a very bland taste and a superficial touch to the entire framework. It smells of an outsider's view from a desi's quill.

Set aside these, the author is remarkably skilled in characterization of the people who dictate the plot. The language is very simple, non highbrow and straight-forward. But at certain segments of the plot, I found that the author was struggling with his script and has used repetition of events as fillers.

'I drove the Mongoose to the railway station and got him his favorite snack, the dosa once again, from which I removed the potatoes, flinging them on the tracks, before handing it over to him.'

The above few sentences with mild variations have been mentioned five to six times in the plot, each time the protagonist, Balram Halwai goes to drop another character, the Mongoose at the railway station.

Overall it was an ok-ok-sort of book to read. Rather it was my fault that I had lot of uber expectations from the book, considering that it won the Booker Prize for the year 2008. But one thing, I am very sure about, if Chetan Bhagat's books storyline could form the plot for Bollywood movies, then Adiga's, 'The White Tiger' can definitely book for an eligible Bollywood movie script.

Keep reading and remain connected.

Engineer 2008, to enquire, create and innovate...

Formerly known as KREC Surathkal, and now with the new name National Institute of Technology, Karnataka (NITK), this institute is one of the best places in India to spend the college days. Apart from being a top-notch engineering institute in India and ranked as one of the best schools in this nation for engineering talent, this college is a fun place to be in.

Situated in a secluded place, far away from the Mangalore city, this small hamlet of Surathkal has a picturesque beach which is just stone's throw distance from the college campus. The salt laden winds, the smell of fish on the highways near the campus, living on a shoe string budget, the road side tea stall @ Krishna, the clean surroundings of red bench on the beach and the lighthouse, all these make the life at this place for a period of four years, a never to forget experience in the lives of those who graduate from this esteemed institute.

NITK hosts, an annual technical fest, 'Engineer' each year and over the years it has grown not only in volumes but also has been a platform for some interesting discussion to celebrate the spirit of engineering. It also highlights, the impact the engineers can make to the society. Engineer 2007 was a well organized event, which brought together students from more than 120 colleges from within India and abroad. The symposium attracted the talent across India and also a gamut of sponsors with prize money worth Rs. 9 lakh.

The highlights of Engineer 2007 were video conferences with world-renowned scientists, including Bjarne Stroustrup, the creator of C++ and Prof. John C Mather, a Nobel laureate in Physics. The Last Word, a debate about Government Expenditure on Higher Education, saw many eminent personalities discussing and debating on very important topics and the how the engineering fraternity should take more responsible steps. Prof. Deepak Phatak, Subrao Nilekani Chair in KReSIT, IIT Bombay and Dr. Anil K Gupta, Executive Vice Chairperson, National Innovation Foundation were some of the chief speakers at this event.



A workshop on building underwater robots by IURS (the Indian Underwater Robotics Society), a hardware workshop by Ashish Derhgawen, a young IT student from New Delhi was one of the most featured workshops. There were many such events and open house discussions. Events like these opens up new avenues for discussion and research and adds new dimension in the thought process of graduates. I personally feel that an event of such proportion has many benefits: helps students to plan and organize as the entire show is managed by a students committee, it helps to meet students from varied backgrounds and share ideas, and also makes students realize that there is a big world to explore outside, rather than settling for a career in the regular IT and services industry that paints a rosy picture in the pre-placement talks.

I also feel that this is most apt time for the students to explore as there are ample opportunities on the fray, the market is healthy and needs young blood doused with energy, innovation, entrepreneurship and ideas. To support my point, at the previous year's competition, few of the featured contests, were Mushaca, where participants were invited to create original software applications that could benefit from the use of a three-degrees-of-freedom mouse (pioneered by Dr. Tim Poston and Srikanth MB, IISc Bangalore) and Mock Stock, an online stock exchange simulation.

I feel that this year’s fest, Engineer 2008 will be even better, bigger and loftier., and all those who can make there, just rush to Surathkal, to Think, Create and Engineer. More details here..

Keep reading and remain connected.

(If you watched the video clipping, there was one line that I liked the most: 'The qualification if you wish to be innovative is not that you become front benchers but become back benchers'.)

Rush Rush to Head Start...

The Indian economy is on an upturn mode and there is lot of action and acceleration in various industries across varied segments. On a personal front, what I like is there are many people, at least the number is exploding who want to shake up the world of business and technology, driving away from serving in companies and starting something on their own. So if you are one such person or even otherwise someone who likes technology, business, ideas and innovation, make sure that you don't miss this Big Bang event Head Start happening from the 18th-20th Jan'08 at Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. Well if you are taking the auto rickshaw, to reach this place, tell the autowala Tata Institute as that's how this Mecca of research and technology is known to the common people.

Head Start is a showcase of most exciting products and technology in India, of course with a new color, goal, and impact and definitely has a broader goal and vision.


So what is that what makes this event exceptional and prodigious? In most of the existing showcase events, we often end up meeting people with ideas, VCs and entrepreneurs. That's definitely an Olympian concept. But at, Head Start, it has all these and also covers the entire innovation lifecycle in one place and under one umbrella. This means the participation is holistic from all the players in the innovation lifecycle: academicians, researchers, entrepreneurs, solution architects, marketers, large companies, technology geeks, venture capitalists and customers, etc. The synergy among all these discrete communities to discuss and debate is one of the focal spark points to accelerate the pace of innovation in India. There are many topics to be discussed across domains such as:

• Consumer Services
• Mobility & Communications
• Silicon & Embedded Systems
• Enterprise Applications and Development Tools

The Agenda tab on the main page of the site is a good place to get a bird's eye view. Do have a look and participate in this exhilarating event.

Have fun.

Keep reading and remain connected.

An Unsung Hero : Girish Bharadwaj...

In India, when we browse the newspapers these days, we read volumes about the story of 'digital divide' and how many of the telecom vendors and other entities are attempting to bridge this gap. To me, to be connected with the outside world, comes in the second level of requirement, after the core essentials for the proper functioning of a developing society are met.

The luxuriant Western Ghats kissing the borders of Karnataka and Kerala are a fascinating series of greenery dotted with hills and valleys, simple people, countless rivers and loads of freshness. Traveling across this stretch in the Indian Railways is the best way to soak oneself with the flourishing vegetation. To an occasional visitor, all these appear charming, a perfect way to break free from the randomness of city life. But come rainy season, this region is completely cut from the outside world, a place where people use boats or coracles in their daily lives to commute and to transport kids to the schools across the water bodies.

Living in cities and towns, we are tuned to getting all the facilities to reach our offices, schools, banks or for that matter any destination at any time of the day. Now think of a scenario in a village where the boats are the only savoir, and with the overflowing river during the monsoons, most boatmen are reluctant to ferry their boats. Life would come to a standstill, kids can't go to schools in time, pregnant ladies needing medication in the middle of the night can't be transported to the nearby hospitals and the problem list becomes endless.

But there is this unsung hero who with his engineering skills and humanistic activities has brought smiles and cheer in the faces of many people. This is Girish Bharadwaj, who hails from a small village Arambur, in Aletty district near Sullia town on the western slopes of Kodagu. Born in Mangalore in 1950, this virtuoso received his formal education from P.E.S. College of Engineering in Mandya near Bangalore. He learnt the classical techniques in Mechanical Engineering, during the 1970's, a time when not much stress was laid on experimentation but rather on the application part of it. During those days, getting a job was considered a remarkable achievement, and Girish took up a part time job while running Ayas Shilpa (sculpture in steel), a small fabrication unit in Sullia town.

It was in 1988, that Girish's career took a dramatic turn, when few people from his native approached him and requested him to build a bridge. Girish replied that since he was Mechanical Engineer and was not at all adept in Civil Engineering and construction related designs, he was not qualified for the assignment. But persistence, tenacity and the people's faith in him, triggered an unusual fire within him and he started studying about bridges. He consulted the technical faculty at two of the top technical institutions in India, National Institute of Technology, Surathkal and Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai and thus started his journey.

Today at the age of 58, Girish is the proud architect and constructor of close to 68 bridges in the deep hinterland, the average length of most bridges being 70 to 80 meters. The skeptics who had the impression that bridges, cannot stand without the pillars in difficult terrain, are speechless today with his marvelous creations, the suspension bridges.



I know Girish for a while now and after interacting with him, he shared with me few other facets of his artistry.

Initially big trees were used as pylons, if those were available at the right place as in case of Kodagu district. The trees were the perfect fits, when the bridges stretched from 10 to 30 meters. Concrete pylons are now preferred for longer stretches because of their assured long life. The hanging floor element is quite stable supported by anchors and transoms. On both sides of the bridge, PVC coated chain-link fencing is erected till waist level. Over the years, the bridges have seen many conceptions and engineering innovations.

Girish is supported in his work by a team of 36 members, of which 18 perform the core design and implementation tasks. Since there is no other organized body in India, which is consistently building hanging bridges at a low cost, with uncompromising importance to safety and quality, Girish has to yield to pressures now and then. I learnt that very recently he has got invitations from Srinagar in Jammu and Kashmir and Bhavnagar in Gujarat to undertake some new initiatives in those lands.

Because of various reasons such as distance to commute from Karnataka and to adjust in these new lands with different climatic conditions, lack of a skilled team to backup his core team members who are getting old, Girish is more than willing to share his knowledge and know-how's to interested people. He told me that all he needed were a dedicated engineer and a bunch of smart working boys and he would accompany and guide them till the completion of two or three bridges in a new region. Thereafter, the new team can carry on this task all by itself.

Girish, a father himself never pressurized his own children to carry on this tradition, and he is scouting for people interested to perfect the craft and utilize this workmanship for the benefit of the people and society. Although Girish, has not been advertised in the print and the online media much, he has found himself admirers from far and wide like Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Cambodia, etc.

Girish's people-based approach towards his work has always attracted considerable local support and it is very practical. When construction is in progress, his entire team, lives in small tents constructed on the river bed. They share the work and the food, concentrating till the project gets over. Girish recently completed a project in the naxalite terror afflicted, Warangal district in a placed called Laknawaram in Andhra Pradesh. He told me that, at night the common villagers used to come and share the tent with his entire team, providing the much needed security more out of thankfulness and appreciation, rather than his personal petition.

Trifle makes perfection but perfection is not a trifle, these words of wisdom apply to this master artisan who has lived his life bringing goodwill to millions of hearts. A rare individual to find in this bribe hungry bureaucratic world, not bothered about the felicitations, and all that drives him in his selfless endeavor is the gratitude and the warm blessings of the people.

Girish Bharadwaj's story is informative for those uninformed of India's social dynamics and wish to bring about a change by engaging in action-less dialogues and debates in television channels. Much of the exclusive economic growth and development is centered around urban areas and most of us in these concrete jungles, do not have enough time and energy for making a change in the bowels of India. But that hasn't stopped few humble folks from exploring ideas and gathering a core of dedicated people around their passion. Isn't that a miracle ?

Keep reading and remain connected.

(Note: Incase any reader is interested to interact with Girish and wish to learn more about his work, do drop me an email, (its there on my profile) to collect the contact and email details. Doing this to avoid misuse of the contact number and email account with unwanted calls and spam mails.)

BlogWorld & New Media Expo - Blogs Go Mainstream...

A couple of months back, I was at the Bangalore BarCamp, [a Bloggers collective version] which was nothing but a series of talks and discussions on an extensive list of topics, of course in a un-conference format. The blogging world is catching up fast, with the explosion of Internet facilities. And very soon the first and only industry-wide tradeshow, conference, and media event dedicated to the furtherance of the dynamics of blogging and new media, the BlogWorld & New Media Expo is coming.

This Blog Summit is a conference series that focuses on the applications of blogging in various spheres of life, social media and a wide array of topics. Apart from all these, the BlogWorld & New Media Expo would feature more than 50 seminars, panel discussions and keynotes from prominent gurus on the new age online technology and internet-savvy business.

Now anyone who already has the blog virus in his/her blood can join the party. Anyone who is currently blogging, podcasting, producing other forms of new media content, entering the new media industry, or just want to learn about the know-hows of the blogosphere, can be a part of this comprehensive blogging convention, the BlogWorld & New Media Expo.

Blogcritics and Desicritics are participants in this event. Eric Olsen, the Founder and Publisher of Blogcritics.org and who later mentored Aaman in the Desicritics initiative is one of the key speakers at this forum.

A peek into Eric Olsen's career graph in writing, editing, and media exposes his expertise in this arena for close to 20 years now. He has written volumes on a vast array of topics including politics, current events, world affairs, popular culture, music, music industry, digital technology, opinion and commentary, etc., for periodicals, books, TV, radio, and the Internet. As an editor and author, he supervised the compilation and publication of Networking In the Music Industry (Rockpress, 1993) and Encyclopedia of Record Producers (Billboard Books, 1999). In 2002, Olsen founded online magazine Blogcritics.org, the sinister cabal of superior bloggers.

I am a member of the Desicritics family and softly coupled to Blogcritics. It's definitely a moment of pride and appreciation for all the Blogcritic'ians and also Desicritic'ians to have Eric Olsen address such a groundbreaking conference on blogging.

Apart from the discussions on blogging, the conference would also touch other appendages, that regular bloggers use such as widgets, advertising networks, news readers, aggregators, etc to enhance the substance and the presentation of their sites. The event would also feature an open house discussion on the galore of products and services configured to make blogging easy and user-friendly. Apart from these some interesting discussion sessions on topics such as improving the look and aesthetic features of blogs, tips to increase readership, and how to make money from blogs, etc.

The inaugural event will take place on the 8th and 9th November'07 at the Las Vegas Convention Center, with an exclusive 'Executive & Entrepreneur' conference beginning on the 7th November '07.

Venue : Las Vegas Convention Center
Address : Las Vegas Convention Center
3150 Paradise Road, Las Vegas,
NV 89109, USA.

The event has some cool sponsors(check the webpage on the top), with, the Southwest Airlines being declared as the 'Official Airline of BlogWorld & New Media Expo'.

Some facts to show how fast the blog virus is spreading. So much so that many of the contenders both from the Democrats and Republicans brigade are using blogs as a medium for canvassing voters for the forth coming US elections. A glance at the official blog site of one of the strongest Democrats competitors, Hillary Clinton shows the impact this new media tool has made. Also a couple of weeks back, there was news about an anonymous blogger who assumed the persona of Steve Job, Apple's chief executive and made ad-lib posts at The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs, to charade Mr. Jobs and his reputation as a swollen-headed and egotistic leader. On being unmasked, Mr. Daniel Lyons, a writer and editor for the technology related articles for Forbes and author of two works of fiction, the most recently one being, 'Dog Days' said.

Mr. Lyons said he invented the Fake Steve character last year, when a small group of chief executives turned bloggers attracted some media attention. He noticed that they rarely spoke candidly. "I thought, wouldn’t it be funny if a C.E.O. kept a blog that really told you what he thought? That was the gist of it."

Mr. Lyons says he recalled trying out the voices of several chief executives before settling on the colorful Apple co-founder. He twice tried to relinquish the blog, but started again after being deluged by fans e-mailing to ask why Fake Steve had disappeared.

Now how can I miss Heather alias Dooce, the queen of blogosphere and a household phrase in Technorati. Heather Armstrong created Dooce.com in February 2001, and a year later she was 'dooced', i.e. fired from her job as a web designer for writing about her co-workers and workplace. Dooce ranks very high on Technorati and is on the top 100 Most popular blogs list and has won Bloggies Award for Best Writing, Most Humorous Weblog, Best Tagline and Best American Weblog. Unlike other top blogs, Dooce is centered around Heather's articulate and humorous pennings on interesting observations in life, pregnancy, babies, depression, jobs, husband, and hilarious interactions with her daughter.

Now some cool facts on blogging.

• 9% of internet users say they have created blogs.
• Technorati is currently tracking over 70 million blogs.
• Over 120 thousand blogs are created every day.
• 22 of the 100 most popular websites in the world are blogs.
• Blog readers average 23 hours online each week.

[Source: blogworldexpo.com]

Ok, if you see the last point, it's like someone spends to close to one day out of every seven days in the blog world, for reading, writing, commenting, etc all related to blogs.

Do I fit this profile? You guess!

Keep reading and remain connected.

A Talk on New Models of Product Development...

TiE Chennai is conducting a talk by Mr. Gowri Shankar Subramanian, CEO of Aspire Systems, on the 31st of Oct'07 at Chennai. Check below for details.

The Indus Entrepreneurs or TiE is a not-for-profit global network of entrepreneurs and professionals founded in 1992 in Silicon Valley, California, USA by a group of businessmen and entrepreneurs of desi origin led by Dr. Suhas Patil. Though its name signifies the ethnic South Asian (desi) or Indus roots of the founders, TiE, as the founders claim, stands for Talent, Ideas and Enterprise. Since its inception to date, this group has expanded and today has more than forty chapters in nine countries. One of the first chapters in India is the Bangalore chapter founded in 1999. It has some prominent members, regular speakers, industry gurus, technology geeks who are part of this forum and to name a few are Jim Clark, Eric Schmidt, Carly Fiorina, Irwin Jacobs, Thomas Friedman and Vinod Khosla.

So what's being discussed at the Chennai's talk session?

NEW MODELS OF PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT - How leading Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) and Outsourced Product Development Companies are changing the rules of Product Development.

Why should product companies build their own products? Shouldn't they be able to tap specialists who can build their products for them? Traditionally, product development has been viewed as one of the core competencies of ISVs. But, is it really?

This presentation will look at how leading ISVs are adopting new models of product development that frees valuable management time that is then directed towards the more vital activities of product management, differentiation, and marketing.

Definitely an interesting topic when the rules of business are changing at an alarming pace, so products catering to business and commerce need to have shorter design to roll-out time gap.

A short profile of the speaker, Gowri Shankar Subramanian.
Gowri Shankar Subramanian has been a key architect of Aspire Systems and has been the driving force and visionary behind the industry-transforming initiative of Outsourced Product Development (OPD). He is currently driving Aspire to change the way software product companies (ISVs) do product development.

Gowri has nearly 15 years of experience in the software industry, with expertise in the areas of software product engineering, software product marketing and support, and software development. This rich experience helps him push the boundaries of Aspire's business not by issuing edicts, but by getting people to buy into his vision.

Gowri has a Bachelor's in Mechanical Engineering from Pondicherry University and a Master's in Industrial Engineering from Texas A&M University. While at A&M, his research interests focused on optimizing production of printed circuit assemblies. His papers have been published in the International Journal of Production Research and Institute of Industrial Engineering Conference Proceedings.

Date:31st October 2007

Registration:6.30 Pm to 7.00 Pm

Venue: "St. Mary's"
Rain Tree, 20 St. Mary's Rd,
Raja Annamalaipuram,
Chennai-28, Tel.:044-42252525

Session:7.00 Pm to 8.30 Pm

Charter Members: Complimentary
Members: Rs 300
Non Members: Rs 600
Students: Rs 250
Cheque payments can be made at the Registration counter, kindly avoid cash.

The entry passes rates are decent even if one has to pay from his/her own pocket, the timing is perfect, in the evening after work hours (hope you manage to finish your work by that time), so be there and have fun is listening to some new gyan.

Keep reading and remain connected.