Long Live Wireless

I'm writing this post sitting in Kerala Superfast Express, Train No: 2625, S9 coach. We are somewhere between Trichur and Palakkad. While the train is zipping through at 80 km/hr, I can see lots of coconut trees, bright green paddy fields and loads of children returning from school.

No, the train is not Wi-Fi enabled yet! Its a reliance wireless access card. Well, hey I can see paddy fields, coconut trees and the beautiful river that runs right by the side of the tracks.

Long live wireless!

Attrition Driven Innovation Boost

I have been counting my last few days at my current place of work. I have no career to save, and thus its the time when I get very adventurous.

Just a normal day, when a co-worker comes to me for advice!

Co-worker: Hey Santa, what do you think should be the escape velocity to ensure that this satellite reaches geo-stationary orbit
Me: Should be around 300000000 m/s
Co-worker: Isnt that the speed of light? Wont we end up shooting the Satellite into deep space?
Me: Well, you can always blame it on me

However, employees soon leaving the company are a great asset for the organisation. It fosters innovation by allowing them to take risks, which other employees usually will not. The trick is to keep the employee in the system, even after they have decided to leave!

That calls for a new management term, 'Attrition Driven Innovation Boost'

My creativity reached dizzying heights, when I decided to write a farewell poem to all my co-workers:

Thank You

I remember walking into the BASES office wearing a tie,
That was my first day ever in Mumbai,
During our welcome lunch we had lots of food,
And very soon I started feeling good!

I can’t believe its been a year since then,
From our early training at ITC Grand Central Sheraton,
To our latest summer picnic at the beach resort,
I have had such a great time; I even had a second thought!

Of course we do work once in a while,
I better say that, considering my boss is marked on this mail,
It has surely been great learning and fun,
I'm only hoping none of my projects gets to a validation!

Thanks for putting up with my eating habits for a year,
More than everything I have made great friends around here,
Please say hi to me at NYC, if you happen to come,
Or just drop me a mail at san.naras@gmail.com

The chicks loved me

My 6th grade geography class involved a 50 paisa India map (that had only the state boundaries). I was most excited about geography exams. I would buy the map the previous day of the examination at Murugan Stationary store. On the day of the exam, I would carry not only the map, but a large array of tools, varying from color pencils to small pieces of marble stone (to create a smooth shade). I would finish answering all the answers within the first two hours. The last hour of the three hour exam would be spent in shading each of the 27 states is different colors, naming them and marking their capital city. The day I receive my answer sheets, I would straight jump to the map sheet, attached in the end. The moment of pride would be to see the teacher’s tick mark, a ‘Good’ remark, and the 10 out 10 marks for the map section.

I never had a globe at home, but would spend hours together if I could find one.

The globe was substituted by the Reader’s Digest Great World Atlas. The hard bound atlas was almost one foot long. I would have spend innumerable hours during evenings and weekends learning about every tiny part of the world and the universe (the atlas had a special section on the Solar System and our Galaxy)! My favorite pass time was to locate our little rural university in Southern India called Gandhigram (obviously which I never managed to locate).

Ten minutes ago, Google Earth and Wikimapia showed me high resolution pictures of the little rural university - the basketball court (I was the scorer during the tournament), the hospital where I spent a month with jaundice and typhoid, the tiny Ganesha temple (Odai Pillayar Koil), and finally the Ladies hostel (my mom used to be the hostel warden and I lived there until I was probably 12 or 13. And it goes without saying, ‘the chicks loved me’!)

P.S. Google Earth recently released high resolution images for pretty much the whole world!