So Ganguly is in.
But what impressed me most was the selectors’ logic - Experience? In what?
Why not Mohinder Amarnath?
After all, Mohinder has got much better experience, both in making comebacks and in handling short pitched stuff.
Of late, I found myself cribbing and whining about work, the lack of challenges and growth opportunities in work etc. I thought I needed to give myself a dose of what it means to be an autotelic personality.
The following is an excerpt from FLOW by Mihaly Csikszenthmihalyi. There is quite a bit for me to learn from people like Joe Kramer.
Joe Kramer
Joe was in his early sixties, a welder in a south Chicago plant where railroad cars are assembled.
Joe came to the US when he was five years old, and he left school after fourth grade. He had been working at this plant for over thirty years, but never wanted to become a foreman.
Although he stood on the lowest rung of the hierarchy in the plant, everyone knew Joe, and everyone agreed he was the most important person in the entire factory. The manager stated that if he had five more people like Joe, his plant would be the most efficient in the business. His fellow workers said that without Joe they might as well shut down the shop right now.
The reason for his fame was simple: Joe had apparently mastered every phase of the plant’s operation, and he was now able to take anyone’s place if the necessity arose. Moreover, he could fix any broken-down piece of machinery, ranging from huge mechanical cranes to tiny electronic monitors. But what astounded people most was that Joe not only could perform these tasks, but actually enjoyed it when he was called to do them.
Joe has never been a workaholic, completely dependent on the challenges of the factory to feel good about himself. What he did at home was even more remarkable than his transformation of a mindless, routine job into a complex, flow-producing activity. Joe and his wife live in a modest bungalow on the outskirts of the city. Over the years they bought up the two vacant lots on either side of their house. On these lots Joe built an intricate rock garden, with terraces, paths, and several hundred flowers and shrubs. While he was installing underground sprinklers, Joe had an idea: What if he had them make rainbows? He looked for sprinkler heads that would produce a fine enough mist for this purpose, but none satisfied him; so he designed one himself, and built it on his basement lathe. Now after work he could sit on the back porch, and by touching one switch he could activate a dozen sprays that turned into as many small rainbows.
But there was one problem with Joe’s little Garden of Eden. Since he worked on most days, by the time he got home the sun was usually too far down the horizon to help him paint the water with strong colors. So Joe went back to the drawing board, and came back with an admirable solution. He found floodlights that contained enough of the sun’s spectrum to form rainbows, and installed them inconspicuously around the sprinklers. Now, even in the middle of the night, just by touching two switches, he could surround his house with fans of water, light, and color.
Joe is a rare example of what it means to have an “autotelic personality,” or the ability to create flow experiences even in the most barren environment. In the entire railroad plant, Joe appeared to be the only man who had the vision to perceive challenging opportunities for action. The rest of the welders regarded their jobs as burdens to be escaped as promptly as possible, and each evening as soon as work stopped they fanned out for the saloons that were strategically placed on every third corner of the grid of streets surrounding the factory, there to forget the dullness of the day with beer and camaraderie. Then home for more beer infront of the TV, a brief skirmish with the wife, and the day – in all respects to each previous one – was over.
Here’s another very good interview by the author on how to motivate people to learn
The recent boom in property prices in areas in and around chennai has spurred land frauds on a grand scale. Forgery of title deeds, power of attorneys, selling etc are becoming as common as meter pottadha auto in chennai.
Yesterday I was talking to an acquaintance and he had his experiences to tell. Sometime back, his father had bought some 5 grounds in Navalur. Navalur of those days was not the same IT highway phenomenon we are witnessing now. So our friend had all but forgotten about the land.
After hearing about all the developments happening in the IT highway, he had decided to go and see his land one weekend. He was in for a shock of his life when he found that those 5 grounds of his, has in turn been sold to 5 different buyers and that property has changed hands 3 times hence.
He had to let go of the property because of reasons like this :
1) He had purchased the land at a very low price those days and he would have to spend more money than the purchased price of the land to try and make a fight out his case, and
2) He, being an Indian IT professional, does not have the time to run behind police, real estate mafia and be part of court proceedings.
So, people who are keen to buy land in chennai, puleeeeez be extra careful .
Here we go
A must for every mani ratnam fan
via my friend madhu
Lousy student PK proudly presents, for the first time in Indian blogosphere, a Match the following series. Please match the following people/personalities on the left to their favorite themes/hobbies/characteristics/pastimes on the right.
(Padikara vayasile olunga padikalena ipdi dhaan Sigh!)
It’s jumbled right now, prepare well and give your best. Correct answers will be announced tomorrow 
X is 26 yr old ’sambhar sadham’ guy in bangalore - in love with a gumeel punjabi figure affectionately called “chappathi” - appa and amma turn opposition party at home - love still going strong like ruling party coalition in initial days.
Sambhar works in contract for TCS - one day he gets an interview call for a full time position in singapore - clears the interview - gets selected - puts in his papers in TCS - waits for his offer letter from singapore - keeps waiting - only a few days to the notice period and still no offer.
“Sambhar’ is scared - takes up another interview in a small firm - somehow clears it - delay in getting the offer from this company too - he is desperate for a job.
The love with “chappathi” turns rocky like ruling party coalition in due course -”chappathi” decides to go after another North Indian handsome hunk - our guy is neither handsome nor hunk - becomes devadas - life turns upside down in a matter of days
———-(INTERVAL)————-
Sambhar comes to hometown chennai - is completely shattered - feels like a loser - amma arranges a bride seeing ceremony - compulsion from opposition parties (amma and appa) - sees the girl - who is a gumeeler figure than chappathi - the “chemistry” is good - very rich girl - green signal from “other” end too - decides to marry her.
Courtship continues - Only worry is job - keeps attending interviews
Suddenly out of nowhere - gets the old offer from Singapore - and another offer from a top IT company with promise of long term assignment to US.
Moral of the story - Fruit falls - only to land in milk - Don’t worry be happy 
PS: Adapted from a real life story as narrated by my friend ‘Gumeel Figure’ trademark belongs to Praveen.
Ram Guha is a classy, no-nonsense writer.
Why Indian intellectuals and activists are hostile to the market
From Arundhati Roy to Ram Guha….looks like I am growing up.
According to Businessworld
India in 2010
What it does not talk about in exactly glowing terms about India are.
Electricity
Ports - we need to double our port capacity in 4 years (Now, don’t laugh)
Infrastructure
Here’s an excerpt from a comment on Rajeev Srinivasan’s blog
During Diwali holidays this year, a friend wanted to tour northern Karnataka (Badami, Pattadkal, Hampi and Bijapur. He left his house in HSR Layout in a rickshaw with his wife and one year old daughter at 7 PM to catch the Hampi express ETD 8.15 PM. He reached the station at 12 midnight!!
And i am not even going to talk about healthcare, primary education, and corruption.
The government obviously has no plans on how its going to tackle the unprecedented urbanization in the next few years.
The ADB chief economist warns growth has to be more inclusive to be sustainable.
The Economist here warns that this boom might in the end be too hot an Indian curry to handle.
2010 is just 37 months away.
As an Indian, I dont know if i am witnessing a gorious era in the development of this country or a period of euphoria before large scale social unrest.
I am shit scared!
>> Ind vs SA, 3rd ODI, Live report
My comment: As far as India is concerned it’s dead, not live. You do post-mortem on the dead, not live report.
>> Air Deccan to fly eight million passengers current fiscal.
My comment: Of these 5 million were to fly the previous year, but their flights got delayed err…rescheduled.
>> Consecutive sentences cannot exceed 14 years: SC
My comment: It’s rumoured that the Supreme Court took 28 years to say this.
>> India to ease visa procedures for Pakistanis
My comment: There is a plan to issue a new type of visa called T1-b using which pakistan can send 65000 terrorists a year to India to ‘work’ here.
Q: Hey did you get to read Rashmi’s article on Design schools and their future?
A: I did. Well written. But amusing.
Q: Amusing? What’s your problem?
A: The problem is, it is not relevant to India.
Q: Did they not talk about schools like NID and IDC in that article?
A: That’s exactly where I am coming from. To begin with, designers in modern India – be it architects, product designers or interaction designers – are not respected.
If at all they are, it’s usually for the wrong reasons – the glamour factor and how much they earn. To be fair, designers have a role to play in this as well.
Also, I feel all these D schools are elitist. Make no mistake, they are good. But the numbers they produce and their attitude they betray while selecting is more in tune with keeping their brand intact than addressing the industry.
Q: This is just unsubstantiated bull.
A: Let’s take interaction design. IDC IIT Bombay has a grand total of 10 seats in their PG program in Design per year. Same with NID (there it’s called user interface design program). Now apply the reservation quota factor to it. I’ll come to other aspects in a minute.
But every year, the Indian IT industry alone needs numbers in thousands. This is only going to increase with time. So where will the industry go? Hire people who are erstwhile web designers or visual communications graduates or fine arts folks.
If there are some professions which can be described ‘paavapatta’ it’s got to be tech writers and HCI design guys. Everyone wants them but none recognizes the value a good designer or writer can and should bring.
Indian IT industry is predominantly services oriented. Often, the client wants it done ‘yesterday’ or at least it’s claimed to be so. This in itself is a disadvantage for any meaningful research oriented design. Unlike the programmer types who have a recognized BE and MCA, there are very few academic programmes of repute and in decent numbers for these two professions in India. Those who toil in these two areas are mostly self-taught.
The project manager, who invariably comes from a developer background, does not have much idea about the value of a good designer or writer to software development. Nor are the designers able to assert themselves because they themselves know that they do not have any formal knowledge on Design.
The result - most of the major design decisions masquerade as ‘requirements’ which the designer has to comply. These two professions are clumped as ‘shared services’ and ‘documentation’ guys. Add fundas like ‘resource utilization’ and you have the picture complete.
One would’ve thought these design schools would attempt to do something to correct this anomaly. But they are happy producing 10 graduates per year. This way, their brand stays intact.
The admission criteria for IDC reads like this:
Any Branch of BE/B Tech or B Arch or B Des (again from IIT Guwahati) or NID or 5 year BFA graduates. Bottom line – they are IIT.
What’s more, in practice, from whatever I could observe, quite a number of these students in these PG programmes are those who did their UG in IITs. Talk about in breeding. The criteria for NID is even funnier – they have some stupid age limit funda.
So even if a self-taught designer aspires to get hiself formally trained, he has to by and large look for avenues outside India. Fortunately unlike these elite schools, there are plenty of scope to further one’s study in Design in universities overseas.
Only that you need vitamin (M)oney. So these NIDs and IITs neither have the numbers to drive out the ‘on the job trained’ UX designers like me nor are they willing to embrace and train folks like me who are in thousands.
So for now, IITs and NIDs are content to supply designers to Google, Yahoo and Microsoft. Never mind that design, at the end of the day, is a practical profession where what you do is more important than and independent of where you come from. Those who don’t believe me please visit Taj Mahal in Agra. And no it was not designed by the Delhi School of Planning and Architecture, I’m afraid.
At the end of the day, if the value of design and innovation has to be instilled to corporates, its much more sensible to teach it to management graduates than hype about some D schools. After all, MBAs are the ones who call the shots in business, for right or wrong reasons.
So talking about D School ruling the future helps the publishing industry and the recent design school grads to get a better salary. Bbut for the average designer in an IT service company its Same Shit Different Day and for the industry it’s Same Shit Different Designer.
mahaa janangale
Dil Se paatu keppom nu Raaga site ponen. First song - Chayya Chayya. No issues.
Now, try the second one listed, i was astonished. Then the third one had me shell shocked. How come AR Rahman had composed brand new songs 8 years after the movie got released?
UPDATE:
Clarification 1: “maha jaanangale” vandhu Goundamani style addressing Clarification 2: Raaga has updated the link. Previously they had some crappy DD of the 80’s style “Sangeeth karyakram” music in place of Dile Se Re and Ee Ajnabi
Clarification3: I thought i’ll have fun at the expense of Raaga. (namba buthi apdi)
Oorai kooptu mike pottu sollalaam nu nenachen. Namma prabhu is theeviramaana gaptun fan.
Thappu enga nadanthaalum ‘thatti’ kepaar.
so he’s thattufied a mail to raaga and they’ve removed those songs.
Good job prabhu!