Hello All.. Wishing you a Very Happy New year 2009.

Well, The year that was for me.. It was a calm and very very normal one... No great accomplishments... Workwise it is going on in normal fashion. Same set of work.. there were some very good changes in personal life on family front. Got a pretty decent performance  review.  became a speaker in Various Microsoft tech Sessions in India.. Hoping for a much better 2009.

India 1998 and India 2008. Is there any difference? Yes a lot of difference. India '98 was a place where there were not much of affluent people , where there were not much of Toyota Camry zipping across the roads, where there were not much of Levis and Reebok dominating the nation but it was a nation where there were not much of great divide between the rich and poor and definitely it was a nation where a lot of things were more affordable compared to what it is now.

India 2008 - People are happy about drinking a coffee for Rs.40, having a haircut for Rs.200 and having a drink for Rs. 1500.

It is really a proud moment for every Indian that we have got more millionaires now , we have got our standards raised high, different hues of Merc zipping across the Indian roads every moment. But when every one looks at the so called affluence, what happened to the set of people who were in the lower strata of society. Definitely the numbers have come down when it comes to the population below poverty line. But is this the only way to measure the economic condition of the country. 

Big glass structures get developed on the lands of poor peasants. Thanks to the concept of SEZ. Indian Multinationals getting all the tax deductions and rebates while a high school government teacher gets penalized for his attempt of evading a tax of Rs. 800. Thanks to the concept of globalization and what not.

How could India change so much? Is it because of the cash flows in the wrong hands? Definitely business men in India are Gods gift to India. They never hiked prices of the commodities by demonstrating their affluence. When IT became popular in India, the Commodities got their price hiked . because there came a new class of people who felt that they could afford anything and everything. There came a generation of people who never thought about the impact on the society but restricting their thoughts only with how much of it will be paid off from the purse and the remaining from credit cards. This generation of people went to an extent of not able to accept the fact that their purse did not have the capacity to get somethings and finally resorted to the plastic cards which slowly made people debtors. This resulted in creating that great divide between affordables and unaffordables.

Even the bus tickets gets hiked to the max. When a bus ticket gets to a level of Rs. 10/ person, A single mans wage in certain families, I wondered how will these people survive. Are they not entitled to travel by government buses? Are we discouraging them to do so? I could not believe how insane we have become to Pay Rs. 60 for a Rasam in Malgudi. Rasam is considered to be the part of a poor mans meal which does not cost more than Rs. 3. Uff. a profit thats worth nearly 20 times. There were a couple of instances that i could re-collect when i say how IT prof. were responsible for this great un-equal Indian Atmosphere.

Once I went to a road side non-A/C barber shop in hyderabad and paid him Rs. X for a cut. I would say that Rs. X to be a standard across all barber shops in the country of that quality and standard. after a period of 3 weeks my friend  went on to make a hair cut for the Rs. X, but ended up offering an unwelcomed tip of Rs. X/2 thus paying and effective price of 1.5X. The next day when i went, the barber openly charges Rs. X+5 on seeing me. Definitely that Rs. 5 is not a big thing for me but for a min i thought how foolish it has been. I tried bargaining but in vain .. paid up and came back.. Only one thing was striking my mind. This Rs. 5 is more valuable for a large section of a society. This Rs. 5 i know is how much valuable for a government clerk. I dont say that my friend is the sole responsiblity of this hike but he is definitely one amongst the many of his sort.  Next time when he goes he finds that the prices are hiked and to maintain his dignity or pride whatever we may call it, he ends up paying Rs. 2X. He has raised the cost of the service for himself by twice the time in just a period of 2 months without even thinking of what the effect that it will have on an average struggling Indian Society.

I remember when me and my another friend went in search of a house.  the house owner says the Rent as Rs.10,000 and says that he is waiting for a Yes/No from another party and promised us to give the house if it turns out to a 'No'. My friend immediately sprang up and said ' OK Uncle.. I will pay you Rs. 10,500' . Give us this house irrespective of the other party. I just stared at him. He is definitely a fool.He did not think of any one else in this average Indian Society. - A 5 % hike in the rent in just a matter of seconds. This 5% makes a lot more difference in many of the average indian families.

So doing things without even thinking about others and with that great arrogance of 'Me and my Money' has taken India to a bad shape. This might not have an immediate impact. But definitely after 30 yrs when this generation reaches its last stages it could feel how much of dirt that it has made.

Disclaimer: The quality of being argumentative does not in any way give a negative connotation. All the views expressed here are my own as an individual.

Are women more argumentative? Mr.Amartya sen in his 'The Argumentative Indian 'mentions that the Indians are by nature argumentative and he sites many examples of it in the history. In certain portions he analyses if this nature of being argumentative belongs to certain section of the society alone which is characterized by the gender or caste or region or religion and he gives instances of how the nature of being argumentative is spread across the different sections of the society.

Now let me start writing the topic of 'Are women more argumentative?' Why should I write this topic. Am i experienced enough to right this. Probably not. Have I been involved with some close friends of opposite sex to make this statement .. No.  The only women that I have talked with a lot is my mother and unfortunately she is not argumentative enough :)

We have heard and seen many arguments that the men make in the epic Mahabaratha [ shown in TVs]. Also on reading the books we could feel that there were a lot of arguments made by men. However there were some killer arguments made by women. The one that I always like is the kind of argument that Gandhari [wife of Dhirudrashtra and mother of Duriodhanan] makes  and wins it when she blindfolds herself to make herself feel the same way her husband feels. The other argument which is well worth mentioning is the one that is  by draupati with dharma on saying why he should go on a war with duriodhanan and his brothers. Both these arguments are well made, and had high impact in the entire set of events. these were the arguments that changed the course of things and events.

Having said few examples from the history and stories, let me say what makes me say women are more argumentative. when a women starts an argument she makes sure that she wins it most of the times. Are women more talented then men in influencing the course of discussions? Is this the reason that many women leaders succeed? There is always that veil of separation. In one of my earlier posts, I mentioned the men are more soft on women. So is this the one that makes/aides women win her final argument.

Woman resort to two extremes. She does not leave an argument halfway. either she is completely into the argument or she never arguments. In Indian families the story of Daughter-in-law/Mother-in-law is very famous one and is a very much prevalent one. the one who is argumentative differs in different families. I have seen women making that most conclusive decision after an argument. Is this the reason why most love marriages have women as the dominant partner? A women in a discussion is a healthy discussion. You can be sure that she is there to make that discussion come to an decisive end. Is this the diversity that brings in more benefit to the organizations?

Men lose arguments because they do not hesitate to quit the argument halfway. I do not know of an argument with an women, where she quits before it comes to an end.  Is this the nature of women among the most affluent families alone. No. The women in villages are more argumentative

Kannagis argument with the pandian king is very famous in the Tamil history. That's the main crux of 'Silapadhigaram'. Men win fights, Men win battles, Men win wars, but do men win arguments? Are Men by nature are good negotiators. the modern day men are better negotiators.

There were some great instances of women playing that best role in politics. Indira Gandhi, considered to have been one among those successful Prime ministers of India, Jayalalitha being the CM of Tamilnadu for 2 terms and in the past Jhansi Rani, Sarojini Naidu etc., assuming some great position in politics.

Ok.. I have written a lot , a little more for a blog post. So what is my conclusion on this?

Yes..Women are more argumentative. Rather they do better arguments. They leave that best impact in the arguments that they involve themselves. But modern day men has learnt that trick of how to put a womens argument in its proper use and to his advantage.  This actually is a very subjective topic for which i cannot put in a more definite conclusion. My experience and my little knowledge says.. Yes Women are more argumentative and they are capable of changing the course of Men. Though men are deemed to be physically and socially stronger by the factions of society, its definitely a truth that they are not as strong as women mentally.

To be precise, the year started in a very very bad note , continued with mixed emotions slowly transformed into the one that helped me achieve my dreams and has landed me in a good position.

The key highlights of my year 2007 were:-

1. CAT 2006 gone ....
2. Some great disappointments in career. People I believed left me desolated.
3. Some great Project implementations. Got great hikes.
4. Determined to crack into Microsoft.
5. Got Offer from Microsoft
6. Brother getting the job in his 3rd year itself.
7. Quit my first job.
8. Joined Microsoft.  Achieved the Unthinkable

and lots more..........

So was it a good year or not

It looks like Bad --> Good --> Very Good.  Hope my next year will be very good. Lets hope for the best. Let it start on a good note this time.

[Disclaimer: All the details specified in this post are my personal opinions, inferences drawn from the confessions of my friends or persons whom I have met, or the way it gets portrayed in cinema. It is neither intended to hurt anyone's feelings nor is it related to something of my own.]

This is not a post that  I have prepared well or thought about a lot. Went for a dinner with my friends and heard 3 love stories at one time. Then switched on the music player and I heard Backstreet boys singing 'Show me the meaning of love' and 'Quit playing with my heart'. Suddenly I started thinking of why i'm not hearing many girls cribbing over their love failures or their past crushes. Why are men behind women? Is that a general tendency or is it that women are more conservative.  I neither have a sister nor have some very close friends of the opposite sex. So started thinking with a set of assumptions.

Why is this topic? you could visible note the changes in the behavior/appearance of a man who fails in love. But this is not apparent in the case of woman. At least I have not noted it. This is the first and the foremost assumption that I have made.

Here are the reasons that came across my mind:-

1.  Are men more soft hearted?
2.  Whether women are capable of shrugging the feelings off soon?
3.  Whether men set the priorities high for a woman?

Let me discuss each of these in a subtle detail below:-

Are Men more soft hearted?

We have seen men who have sacrificed their life for the sake of love. We have seen men who were generous enough to let their Lady Love to other man for the sake of her life. We have seen men who  have left their careers for being behind a woman. And one blunt truth... We have seen men who leave their long time friends to be behind a woman. I do not say that there is no woman who has done all these for the sake of a man. But the proportion and probability is very less.

Whether Women are capable of shrugging the feelings off soon?

Does this mean that women do not have feelings of the lost love at all.. It is not the case. Most of the love stories end in one way.. the Juliet of the story gets married . So obviously they get more engaged and involved . Women do not have time to think of what that lost love cost them.. is it so dear or is it rather cheap.. Men are always lazy and they always go hunt for the comfort zone. Men always love to be in the arms of someone, be it either friend or mother or father or sister or  a lovely one. and when his lady love moves out he falls into the comfort zone of cribbing about her. So how does it get reduced.. Don't know.. i don't have the experience of it.  So how does a woman shrug of her feelings.  Women are naturally intelligent. They do have that acumen to prioritize it accordingly. Men should learn to prioritize accordingly.

Whether men give high priorities for women?

Yes. This is the cause for all the problems. Why should a man give more high priorities to a woman. It is natural and it has embed in the culture as we see 'Ladies first' and showing that courtesy towards woman. We men tend to be the first to open a door for a woman. In Indian hotels i have not seen a woman opening doors for me.. is this one field that woman has not come into. Ok.. we leave our places for women. We get enthusiastic about the time we have spent just talking with a pretty woman. We Men write or tell stories about it. Do women do the same? 

So will a womanly attitude of a man towards a woman help him get rid of his feelings. Should man learn to prioritize his feelings. Should man learn to be more hard hearted. Or is it that the entire set of lines written above is wrong and women suffer more strong feelings than men. Voice your opinions in the comment section below.

What is beauty? This is the more subjective question. Every material in this world has an attribute called beauty associated with it in one way or the other. However depending on the nature of the material the attribute beauty might be termed differently. We say that a girl/boy is beautiful, a home looks good, food is nice. However every material has a common attribute which expresses the pleasant feeling that we get or the pleasure that we feel on seeing/feeling or interacting with it in some form or means.

wikipedia says the history of beauty as follows:-

"The earliest theory of beauty can be found in the works of early Greek philosophers from the pre-Socratic period, such as Pythagoras. The Pythagorean school saw a strong connection between mathematics and beauty. In particular, they noted that objects proportioned according to the golden ratio seemed more attractive. Ancient Greek architecture is based on this view of symmetry and proportion. Modern research also suggests that people whose facial features are symmetric and proportioned according the golden ratio are more attractive than those whose faces are not."

So is beauty a concrete thing? Is it a more generalist term or definition that every one can agree upon? No.It cannot be generalized to a greater set of audience however it can be assumed to be perceived in common among a group of individuals who share the same set of behaviors, likes and dislikes or atleast a subset of it. A thing or material or person that/who appears to be beautiful in the opinion of one person might not look as beautiful for the other. Every one has their own set of sub parameters that defines this attribute called beauty. This more often gets influenced by the personal interests of the observer. Is this the reason that some of us are not in agreement with the selection of the most beautiful woman or the most handsome men in Miss Universe or Mr universe contests. Probably might be. Or at times we also get influenced by the thoughts of the others in perceiving the beauty. A material or thing or person looks to be beautiful when someone whom we respect or believe feels that it is beautiful and says it so. This is a kind of bias that our internal thoughts creates and considering the fact that we might not be in a position to understand and analyze what really it constitutes to be beautiful.

It has always been my feeling that what appears not to be so beautiful suddenly starts appearing to be beautiful when a couple of my friends says that they feel it is beautiful . not sure of why is it that I have this kind of feeling. Is it me alone? No. This is more or less a common tendency of man that we get carried away or get influenced by many facts. So the beauty is determined by a couple of factors but not limited to, the observer or the person who determines its beauty and also the time. So it is a figure that has 2 or more dimensions. In the perspective of a person the beauty of the thing generally increases over time to a certain extent and then decreases gradually. With only 2 dimensions of the beauty being considered at this point, it can be considered to be following the path of inverted parabola. Lets not consider the fact that Time by itself has multiple dimensions attributed to it at this point of time which will lead to a more obscure problem statement. probably this may not be an exact inverted parabola however it can  be a normal curve also.

Is beauty an absolute or relative value. If it is absolute do we have a measure for it. If it is relative do we have a measure by which we say that a particular thing has ‘x’ factor of beauty when compared to the other thing. Beauty is more often than not a mere relative factor. Though the term Beauty is not a comparative degree in English language. The Term ‘More beautiful’ elicits the relative part of it. So what constitutes a beauty... Nothing. but the perception of a man. It cannot be defined as a set of features or points . It depends on how it is being looked upon by a particular person.  It probably sticks to the definition of WordWeb 'The qualities that give pleasure to the senses'. Probably this is one of the most confusing words that does not have a concrete definition however it has been more widely used.

Disclaimer:- The entire writing is based on my perception alone.

Why does corporates conduct contests???

1. For advertisement by spreading the name.

2. For recruiting talkented individuals.

3.For bringing in more awareness about their products.

4. For getting some of those fresh ideas from the general public...

and the reasons can be many.. its a never ending list....

www.Guruji.com  the Indian search Engine has launched a contest.. And it requires two things to be done by participants..

1. Attempt 5 questions

Here you are required to search for some specific terms and some specific landmarks which ensures you that by the end of answering the 5 questions, you are made to use al the features of Guruji.com and also brings a feeling in you that you should use guruji.com the next time for an Indian specific search..... wowow.. a great innovative idea.. it does not test any capability of an individual.. however Guruji.com is able to achieve its objective... bring people to their site and make it the number 1 search engine in India.. A great marketing mind.....

2. Refer friends:-

Make more people to visit guruji.com... simple business strategy.. Hats off to Guruji.com Team...

Persons who would like to participate in the contest.. mail me at

sundararajan_online [at] hotmail.com . I will send you a link which you can click and continue and try out if you are that lucky person....

yesterday I tried out some of the features of the online web office  by thename of Thinkfree.. It gives you spreadsheets, word docs and also Powerpoint(google does not provide this). It is awesome... the UI is exactly the same as MS office 2003.

visit www.ThinkFree.com for more info....

Once there was a guy and girl who fell in love...

They did NOT marry each other..

They lived happily ever after... :-)   

When we join our first job we continue to believe that this is the best and probably this is our destination. however it does not remain the same throughout.. during the course of time our mind changes. we start to see the opportunities that other jobs provide... somehow we miss to see the opportunities that we are provided that others are eager to have.. things start to take a turn. we start believing that there is something better. Then at one point in time we believe that this job does not fit us any more.... we start searching for a job... however the mentality changes again.. during the course of time if we survive that phase of demoralized attitude in our job , we again start to believe that the job suits us in some sense.. we start deriving some sense out of our current job which was very much explicit earlier also. This phase continues in ones life.... it follows a general Wave pattern...

However after a certain point of time we are sure of some better opportunity or some opportunity that always we dream of... we go in for that... That's the same stuff that has happened to me..We know that what we have is gold... the same gold that we were proud of earlier.. Man is never contented.

Ok having said all that... how the first week of a job is like for me... Yeah a great place to work for...First day when I walked in everything seemed to be new... new energies.. however we get to hear a lot in that place. My mentality relates everything to how I was in my earlier job...suddenly there comes a feeling "Is this the right move???". I definitely know that "It is".. however a slight confusion comes in.. it becomes difficult to digest some of the new stuffs.. then a couple of days passed.. Started liking things.. probably the sequence of events that happened out here might have left a positive impression. luckily I have got 2 good friends out here who have joined with me..  Friday evening when I was returning from my office, i felt that knowingly or unknowingly my mind started thinking in the way of my new company. Started liking the company. Enthusiastic about the new challenges ahead... Also felt like the Monday should come soon.

Looking forward for some interesting stuffs...

 Windows live writer is coool... it is very easy and appealing... my first post from windows live writer

June 28 , 2004 :- One of those happiest days in my life, that i achieved my dream.. Yes im an employee of Infosys Technologies, India. The Dream Employer in India...

July 18, 2007 :- A day with mixed emotions.....  Me with confused mind.. Should i be sad for the reason that im leaving infosys, apprehensive for the reason how am i going to be treated in my next company or happy for the reason that im going to be a part of another successful organisation?

Its around 3 years and 21 days of my life at Infosys, My first job.  Always those first things are more of your love, passion and everything... a lot of things were learnt, a lot of things were experienced.... good / bad everything....

I was in love with my company Infosys technologies...  i thought that i  belong more to infosys... Infosys gave me a lot of things... money, promotions, position etc.. however why did i take this decision??? Is it because of the fact that I started thinking that i could do something better in this world????

So how were my last days??  - yep.. last days are one of those very delicate ones.. I decided to put my best efforts and show that im one of those star performers for them one last time..  clocked an average of 10-11 hours in office...  however i know that all these performances are going to be forgotten..it is not going to mean anything after july 18...  However that lingering desire of showing one last time how effective I was.. how precious I am... and that burning desire in me to leave that one last good impact...

Last day I could see my colleagues bidding me a farewell.. I was happy.. I had the same enthu that i had on june 28,2004.. Because this is the first time im experiencing on 'Leaving the job'.. found it interesting to fill up documents... had certain emotions when surrendering my ID card ... however it was a new expereience...

Drafting my Last day mail was one of those best performance that i had to give.. went through N number of odd Last day mails on how people write it down on their last day and trying to differentiate among them.. yeaah the same lingering desire to show that im different and definitely valuable....

could not digest the fact that i will not be with those people who were around  me then... i will not have people who will report to me... i will not have people who will call me for a coffee .... I will not have people who will request my time for some professional or personal suggestions...

However i loved that day... because its a new experience for me...   My colleagues presented me their parting gift  and one of the senior colleagues showered some words of praise on me..  good... Finally went on to say that much awaited Thanks and all the best to all of my colleagues and left the campus....  receiving SMS from colleagues of they missing me in the campus... :-)

So... where im headed to.. what is that , that persuaded me to take this heavy hearted decision...  Will write about it in my later [updated] post........

[UPDATED]: i have joined Microsoft R&D India Pvt Ltd., as a Developer. Joining Microsoft was my dream and thank God i achieved it :-)

I still wonder how iPod became a success. Its nothing but  a costlier gadget.. u get to hear music out of it…. I suppose. However u can hear the same music by various means. I have a 80gb hard disk where in I can store a lot of music and hear it the whole day… one more thing. Lets suppose that im going tohear music the whole day…. Am I going to listen to the same music day after day.. definitely its not for persons like me… if it is a bad song then I hear it twice or thrice… if it is a good song definitely not more than once….. y should I pay 250$ plus for this gadget….. or why should people pay for it…. However Apple made it a big success. This is the marketing strategy… iPod is more of a symbol of marketing than a symbol of electronic gadget….. the same way that shiv khera won his life by selling the book ‘you can win’….