Thumbs Up to Rock On!

Yesterday morning Seena pinged me "How aboout going to 'Rock On' tonight". Not being updated about movies in recent times, my immediate reaction was "What's that?". He convinced me somehow to come for his movie plan. I suggested him to wait for reviews till afternoon. We found one of the rediff reviews which rated the movie 4 stars and immediately Seena booked night show tickets at Urvashi Cinemas using bookmyshow.com.

The plot of the movie is about a desi rock band 'Magik' and its team members, their high and lows in life involving clash of egos etc. Aditya[Farhan] is lead vocalist, Joe[Rampal] is lead guitarist, Rob[Luke] is keyboard specialist, KD[Purab Kohli] is drummer.

Fast forward 10 years ... the band is no more. The individuals are in different roles Aditya is an I-Banker, Joe is a freelance singer, Rob is an assitant composer and KD is involved in his family(Gujju) business. Aditya's wife Sakshi[Prachi Desai] gets know about her husband's past and plans a together for the band members. Will they get together? Will they perform again ? Go and watch the movie.

The USP of the movie is its screenplay. The two storylines 10 years apart are presented in alternate chapters. While watching one doesn't feel the break in narrative, flashbacks are at the right moment.

In performance area there are many surprises. First in the list is Farhan Akthar. He is very effective being in front of the camera . Arjun Rampal dominates the screen with his expressions/body language in key moments. Purab Kohli(from Mahesh Bhatt factory) rocks the entire movie with his coming timing. Prachi Desai who previously used to come in one of the Balaji Telefilm soaps does justice to her role.

The soul of the movie is its music composed by Shankar-Ehsan-Loy. I can't comment much on it, since I am not a hardcore music enthusiast.

There are many signature moments in the movie, my favorite was Magik performing a old Hindi movie song "Saso ki zarurat aise" at a Dandia party for monetary benefit. A very hilarious sequence indeed.

What others say:
Indiafm: Taran Adarsh's review: 4 stars:

On the whole, ROCK ON!! is an amazing experience. The highpoint is the emotional quotient, the skilful performances and the superb execution of the subject.

CNN-IBN: Masand's Verdict: 3 stars:

The film isn't great, far from it actually. It's watchable because it's set in a new world, and because it's got a bunch of wonderful moments. Watch it because it at least tries to be different.

Worldwide-photowalk and related stuffs

I was a participant of World Wide photowalk which took place in Bangalore last Saturday(Aug-23rd). The walk in Bangalore was led renowned photograph Mahesh Shataram. The activity was conducted in 200 other cities all over the world on the same day. The walk was sponsored by many biggies of photography industry Adobe Systems, MPIX, Epson etc.

The walk covered the entire Residency Road, starting from Mayo Hall and terminating at Bangalore Club near Richmond. Before the start Mahesh brief about the intention of the walks and a few approach towards the photograp composition. He iterated "Capture as if it is your Residency road".
We were supposed to move in a group of 5-6 people. But majority of times myself and Deepak(participant of Bangalore Photowalk 4.0) were together.

With Mahesh words in my mind, I looked out for interesting composition. In initial stretch till Brigade road, I was not so enthusiastic because I had covered the stretch in one of the previous Photowalks.

While thinking about compositions, the variety of BMTC's buses moving on the road amused me. Instantaneously, I decided make a collage including all types. Taking the snap of a bus individually turned to be bit challenging as I had to eliminate the surrounding vehicles. The resultant of my effort in below.

Before terminating the photowalk we go onto to a footbridge near Richmond Circle. From the footbridge it was quite interesting to capture people. walking below. First it was a different angle and second the people won't be conscious as we won't be easily visible to them. From the same place I got my snap of the day. It was of a lady walking on the road minding the yellow line.

Asking one of my friends to my comment on the above photograph turned out into a big discussion about ethics related to photography.

My friend said

aa photo neevu thegediddu thappu...
aa vyakthi ge neevu photo thegeda bagge thiLide iralilla

[means: The photography is ethically wrong, because you don't have permission of that person]

I responded

Being part of photowalk event, I have the license to capture whatever is happening on the road.

I directed friend's comment about ethics to photowalk leader Mahesh. He responded with following points.

This is always a complex issue. My thought is this:
- You are not insulting or portraying the person in a negative way.
- You are not identifying the person by name, for which you will need permission.
- In fact, the message of this photo is not the person but the action performed.
Therefore the question of ethics does not arise. Please go ahead and post it.

Olympics and related discussions.

The 2008 Beijing Olympics has been the best performance of India ever with a medal haul of 1 Gold and 2 Bronze. Apart from the results there have been many discussions in sidelines. Can India Host Olympics, Who is the best athlete etc ?

Can India Host Olympics ?
According to a Businessweek article there are three major hurdles
- The country's pathetic performance in Olympiads.
- There is the issue of upgrading the infrastructure on time in a fractious democracy.
- Indian voters have become inclined to driving incumbent governments out of power.

Olympic Telecast on DD sports.
Last Saturday evening I was glued to my TV to watch signature event of the Olympics i.e 100 meters sprint. It was an horrible experience to watch the telecast on DD sports. The Hindi commentator didn't had presence of mind. When Usain Bolt created world record by clocking 9.69 seconds, the commentator shouted Olympic record. Even in semis the commentator was not aware that Tyson Gray, one of the favorites to win the gold model, failed to qualify for finals.

Michael Phelps v/s Usain Bolt
Who is the greatest athlete of current Olympics. Should we evaluate a athlete only on medal count ? Because there will more events in swimming than other disciplines. Anand says in his newly launched blog that there should not be any comparison.
Bolt recently told to media

Phelps is fastest in the water, I am fastest on the ground!!, So you can't really compare

Cricket v/s Olympics
It has become a big debate, whether it is time in India to give importance to other sports w.r.t investment ? Not an easy question to answer. Manish discusses about this in his Desigiri blog. My opinion is that Cricket is a game and most of the Olympic disciplines are sports. Generally entertainment quotient will be more for Games. What would people like to see on TV? Yuvraj scoring 6 sixes in a over OR Abhinav Bindra shooting a target from 10 meters ? So I feel there will be more viewers for Games and hence more investment. Also we have discussed several times ... why so many follow cricket in India ? because only 8-9 nations play cricket at professional level. Chances of India getting to top are more :) Same cannot said about Football where we are 150+ in FIFA ranking.

DNA factor in sports.
I was wondering about this for last few days. All finalists of 100 meters sprint were Afros! Is it something to with DNA ? My curiosity was quenched by an article which came in TOI yesterday. Some exceprts from it.

There's no white man world's most exclusive club — who have ever run the 100m dash in less than 10 seconds. All 64 members of this club, led by Usain Bolt, are black!

In 200m, only 37 runners have ever finished below 20 seconds, and 35 of them are black.

In the middle distance races of 400, 800 and 1,500 metres, you may find a few whites.

But in the long distance endurance races like 5,000 and 10,000 metres, again there are no whites among those holding the top 50 timings.

In events that involve sheer strength, like shot put, discus, javelin and hammer throw, the situation is exactly the opposite. There is not a single black in the top 50 records in hammer throw and javelin, while there is only one black each in shot put and discus.

The association of skin colour with a genetic structure suited for athletics has not been established. This is more so because among the black athletes, there are two very distinct categories — those from East Africa, who dominate long distance running, and those of West African ancestry who dominate sprints. Most athletes from the Caribbean and North America belong to the latter category as their ancestors were taken to the New World as slaves between the 15th and 19th centuries.

All elite Kenyan and Ethiopian runners have grown up in locations that are up to 2,500 meters above sea level. Among the Kalenjin people in the Western Highlands of Kenya, people run practically all their lives, starting from going to school.

[source]

Not only DNA and physiology .. but also psychology matters.
The TOI article which I have referred above also mentions.

Gertrud Pfister, professor, department of exercise & sports, University of Copenhagen points out that even motivation, the way of thinking and orientation are important in determining performance. "In some societies, like India, with a more contemplative orientation, physical skills and sporting performance do not seem so important".

Bachna Ae Haseeno

Finally I broke the jinx about which I had posted a few days back. I was chatting with my friend Ajaysimha, then suddenly an idea flashed about seeing the movie Bachna Ae Haseeno(BAH.) I immediately checked and booked tickets in Urvashi Cinemas's wesbite (which has an online booking facility now). I didn't called my other friends because the movie was yet to be reviewed by experts. If the movie turned out to be a bad one, I would have got blasting from my friends.

About the plot

• The movie is about a flirt guy Raj[Ranbir] and his three girls(hassenas) in different stages of his life. First is Mahi[Minnisha] whom he meets while touring Europe in 1996. Mahi is a die hard of fan of DDLJ, had seen the movie 17 times and was on a mission to find her own 'Raj of DDLJ' in Europe. On getting to know about his Ranbir ensures that the same sequences of DDLJ happen and Mahi falls in love with him. Then is a abrupt fullstop when Mahi discoveres that Ranbir is not so serious about her.
• Raj grows older and becomes an employee of Microsoft in Mumbai. This time falls in love with his neighbour and wannabe superstar Radhika[Bipasha]. Initial tussle turns into a live-in relation. But when Raj gets an onsite opportunity to Sydney, he ditches Radhika in spite of she being ready to sacrifice her career.
• In Sydney, he meets Gayatri[Deepika], a B-school student in day and a cabbie by night. Raj gets impressed by her attitude, dedication, knowledge and decides to propose her in contrast to his previous stories. But this time he gets into receiving end since Gayatri doesn't believes in marriages.
• Dejected by rejection, Raj goes on a mission to say sorry to the ladies whom he had hurt previously. Entire second half is based on this and the story goes on and ends in a jiffy. May be the director had taken movie duration very seriously.

Performances

• Playing the protagonist role Ranbir has played reasonably well. Eventhough having Kapoor Khandan's DNA, it too much for him carry a movie on his shoulder. He is there almost in all frames but fails to make a high impact in most of comic as well as emotional scenes.
• Coming to the ladies. Minissha is okay types, Bipasha is impressive but Deepika wins the triangular contest(implicitly) with her perfect-ten screen presence. She doesn't have much role and in second-half she's there in only one sequence. However I feel she gotta improve in emotional scenes. Her emotional dialogues reminded me of Karishma Kapoor's riverside monologue in DTPH.
• Others: Kunal Kapoor brings the house down in a special appearance. Hitesh Paintel does well but he has to fine tune his comic timing. It is very difficult to step into Arshad Warsi's type of roles.

Technically speaking the movie has decent cinematography shot in Switzerland, Venice, Italy, Australia. It could have edited better as it lacks pace in many places. Apart from title song and Kudha Jaane rest of the songs are not so good on ears. The title song comes in starting credits itself, so don't be late to the movie hall.

Overall a timepass movie, the story is basically good has some sort of message. But it could have been a better movie. Recent observations indicate that trailers of all Yash Rash movies have been good and have given a good build-up to the movie, but the actual movie doesn't match up to the expectations. May be something on which the movie factory should analyze and work

What Others Say:

• CNN-IBN: Masand's Verdict: 2 stars - Watch the movie with no expectations and you won't be too disappointed.
• Indiafm: Taran Adarsh's Review: 2 and 1/2 stars - BACHNA AE HASEENO has an interesting first half, but a weak second hour spoils the show. At the box-office, thanks to the hype built around the film, the opening weekend should be great, but beyond that, has tough chances of sustaining.
• Youth Curry: Rashmi Bansal : 3.5 stars - If a film does not make me squirm in my seat, make me wish I was elsewhere it will get a 3 on 5 from me. The .5 extra is for Deepika and well, more on that in a bit.

Independence Day status messages

Happy Independence Day! Just wanted to share a observation of the day. I don't want make any judgment here but just want to share a thought. Looking at the status messages of my friends/colleagues today, I feel that patriotism of a person towards his country will be more when he/she is outside his/her homeland. May be a obvious point but today's observation confirmed it. Most of the status messages of my friends in videsh had an indication towards India's Independence Day which was not the case with my friends in India with one or two exceptions.

Here are a few snapshot of gtalk status messages of some friends/colleagues outside India.

Manish M: present coordinates - Mountain View, California

Sudhir aka Ski: present coordinates - Arizona State University. A panta for keeping spoofed status messages, had a simple status message for the day.

Harish: present coordinates - University of Florida

Shreesh Ayachit: present coordinates - Paris, France

Harsha: present coordinates - Seoul, South Korea

Santosh: present coordinates - Seoul, South Korea. Had a status message indicating unity in diversity of India.

Similar messages were absent from my friend's status who are in India at present. What's the real reason ... Any comments ?

[I have erased out e-mail id in snapshot for security reasons]

Exile from watching movies ?

Well, I can't really say this as an exile, but nowadays I am not writing much about movies in my blog. This was pointed out by my friend Seena. Till last December I used to watch most awaited movies in first weekend itself and blog about the same immediately. Now, it's not so regular. In fact the last Hindi movie I saw in theater was 5 months back. I have seen some movies here and there but somehow I couldn't get my thoughts coherent and was not able to post in my blog.



Movies which I have seen and didn't my view in the blog:

Taare Zaamen Par:
One of breakthrough movies of Bollywood and directed by Aamir Khan. The movie handled one of the sensitive subject - dyslexia. I had a few thoughts after seeing the movie, was looking forward to post about directorial acumen of Aamir Khan and some other stuffs I liked in the movie. But something happened after I came back, some of my thoughts got flushed and later didn't get time to recall them.

Aa Dinagalu:
This kannada movie rated one of the best in recent times. The movie was critically acclaimed for its distinct narrative and hence found the place in 10 best movies of 2007, a list compiled by magazine 'The Week'. Myself and Harsha were looking forward to see the movie in theatres. It ran in PVR for more than 100 days. But the week we decided to see the movie, it was out of PVR! That weekend the movie was running only in one theatre in Bangalore - Pushpanjali theatre near Bashveshwarnagar . Reaching to the theatre itself was a big adventure, as the approach roads were in some horrible conditions. It brought down our and further came down by seeing condition of the theater. The movie was decent and simple, but seeing it after reading/hearing many rave reviews, we couldn't really appreciate the content. And hence I didn't blogged about the movie.

Race:
Honestly speaking I don't remember what was the exact story of the movie. There were so many twist and turns. The movie shot in good locations and had typical Abbas Mustan masalas. But the most irritating element of the movie was Anil Kapoor. At regular intervals he used to appear and eat a different fruit - Apple, Strawberry, Banana etc. The other irritating element was songs. Most of them were out of location and were not part of the narrative. One of the song is introduced like this. Katrina Kaif narrates a flashback "I went to Capetown", pause, a song comes, then the flashback resumes. Overall a watchable movie, but it movie could have better without unnecessary songs.

The Dark Knight:
The critically acclaimed movie is rated as best of 2008. I saw the movie with Tassa when I was in Mumbai last month. The experience seeing a movie in Mumbai was different one. There in theatres before the start of every show national anthem is played. Regarding the movie, I am really surprised that the movie is received so well by many people. Even one of the harshest critic in India - Great bong has given thumbs up to the movie. The major plus point of the movie is its villain Joker. The character has been described as one of the most cunning villains in history of Superhero movies. For each act and dialogue of Joker audience were clapping in the theatre. The title of the movie should have been 'Joker'. Other noticeable good thing about the movie was that there were not any exaggerated special effects, may be the major reasons for the movie to get good reviews.

Others:
There were some other famous movies in last six months. Having BSNL unlimited connection at home, I downloaded Jodha Akbhar, Sarkar Raj thru torrents. But as of now, I have seen only a few minutes of the movie, no patience to continue since the experience of big screen and movie hall can't be reproduced at home.

A paltry refund of Rs. 225!

I was supposed to travel from Bangalore to Mumbai on 17th July 2008 by Indigo Flight Number 412. Since it was a personal trip, I opted for a low-cost airline, but the ticket rates were not so low, thanks to recent increase in fuel price. The total price of my ticket was Rs. 4800(base fare 1500 and rest taxes).

Flying out of Bangalore is a kind of big headache for me. My house is in West-Bangalore, my office is in East-Bangalore and the great BIA airport is in North of Bangalore. So on the day of flying to avoid any kind of hassles, I carried the luggage(my backpack) in the morning itself to my office. In evening, somehow  I managed take off from my work and left the office at 6.30 pm. The cost optimization because of personal trip prevented me for opting for a taxi, instead I waited for BMTC's airport shuttle - Vayu Vajra at Siddapura bus stop near my office.

A bus came at 7 pm and immediately after boarding the bus I confirmed from the conductor the expected time the shuttle was supposed to reach the airport. According to him the bus was supposed to reach 8.45 pm and 9 pm worst case. As I was sure of reaching the airport half an hour prior to the departure, the thoughts of canceling the ticket didn't even came to my mind. At 8.55 pm the bus reached the airport. I rushed to the departure terminal and tried to check-in using e-kiosk. It was very sad to discover that none of the BIAL officials knew to operate the machine. I wasted 10 minutes by making a few unsuccessful attempts at the kiosk. Then, I went straightaway to the check-in counter. There I heard a BIG sorry from a Indigo employee. Turning up 25 minutes before the departure and with only a single cabin bag as luggage, I was tagged as a latecomer. Rubbing salt to the wound was to hear the fact that it will be difficult to get a refund. Then to continue with my travel plan, I had to take Jet Airways flight at 11.10 pm by booking Rs. 6000 ticket on the spot.

Later after completion of my trip, as per instructions of Indigo's correspondent, I sent a mail to customer care of Indigo explaining the series of unfortunate events which made me turning late at the check-in counter. I explicitly asked them for a refund, atleast tax component(fuel surcharge) of the ticket fare, which is nowadays more than half of total ticket price.

The following reply came from the customer care.

Thank you for your mail. We sincerely regret the inconvenience caused.

IndiGo stands for three things: fares that are always affordable, reliability, and taking the hassles out of travel.

Among the actions IndiGo takes that allow us to offer affordable fares on every flight and on every day is to offer only non-refundable fares, and that means we charge people who don’t show up 30 minutes prior to departure. Alternatively, if we were to do things “the old fashioned airline way”, then we would have three bad choices: either (i) all passengers would pay higher fares to pay for the people who don’t show up on time; or (ii) we could overbook the flights, meaning that sometimes people who have a legitimate reservation are turned away; or (iii) we could hold the flights, so that the majority of passengers would not get to their destination on time.

Since the fare and surcharges (Fuel: Rs.2900, Congestion Charge: Rs.150, Transaction Fee Rs.50) are forfeited, we will be refunding the tax amount of Rs.225 per person per sector back to the travel agent www.yatra.com.

We realize you may not agree with the current policy, but we feel strongly that it is this sort of discipline that allows us to bring consistently affordable fares, every day.

Thank you for choosing IndiGo, and taking the time to communicate with us.

My take on the response.
- Thank you for what ?  accepting the peanuts ? refund of Rs. 225. I won't accept it unless the entire tax amount is refunded.
- After experiencing the stubbornness of the ground staff and policies by customer care, I have decided that Indigo will be my least preferred airline, if I am traveling by Air due to personal reasons.
- The airline is very well aware of the distance of new Bangalore airport from the heart of the city. If they are so strict about timings, then they should arrange dedicated shuttle services to the passengers, so that all customers turn up on time. I guess all the Indigo users will be non business travelers, so many of them will not enthusiastic enough to opt for a taxi.
- With the current attitude, I hope the airlines survives in current turbulent times. A recent article in businessworld mentions that many of the airlines are unable to recover even the fixed costs on a large number of its flights, leave alone the variables. May be Indigo has found a way out i.e. by charging almost full amount to the customers to turn up late by a few minutes after cut off time.

End of Olympic Gold jinx

I still remember the day when I was in 1st standard(1988), my elder sister was reading out names the countries in Medals Tally of recently concluded Olympics in Seoul. I innocently asked her "Where is India in the list?". It took lot of effort from my sister to explain me the reason for India's absence in the list.

Years passed by and gradually I realized the sorry state of India in Olympic sports. In opening ceremony of 1992 Barcelono Olympics, I witnessed one of the dexterous way(by a bow and arrow) of lighting the cauldron. But the desire to witness an Indian winning a Olympic medal remained as desire. Not even a single Indian athlete came close to winning a medal.

In 1996 Atlanta Olympics, Indian Tennis maestro Leander Paes ended the medal drought by winning a bronze after defeating Brazlian Ferdinand Meligeni in a clash of semi-final losers. Well, I still remember the opponent's name! It was indeed a memorable moment and I still have the newspaper cuttings of the Leander's feat. It was nice to see 'India 0 0 1' highlighted in a list of more than 50 countries.

In 2000 Sydney Olympics, weightlifter Karnam Malleshwari got India's name in medals tally within 2-3 days after opening ceremony. But you know what "yeh dil maange more". one bronze we had got in previous games itself, let's win more. Unfortunately our tally remained as '0 0 1'.

In talks shows of various TV channels journalist, sportsmen, bureaucrats and politicians debated and debated about India's sorry state. Nothing significant changed, the only change was the topic of the debate, in late 90s it was "90 crores people - 1 bronze?" and post 2000 it was "1 billion people - 1 bronze?"

In 2004 Athens Games, Rajavardhan Rathore improvised India's performance by clinching a silver in shooting. Other probable medal winners choked. Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi lost bronze to Croatian duo after a marathon match of men's doubles. Anju Bobby George's 'long' jump was simply not long enough to earn one more medal for India.

Then the present Beijing Games started off with a spectacular opening ceremony. In the build-up to the Games India had major disappointments, the national hockey side failed to qualify for the Games. Just before the start of the Games, there was a setback after the weightlifter Monica Devi was banned after being tested positive. Later reports claim that she was clean and the incidence resulted in unnecessary regional politics.

The day after the opening ceremony, I switched on the TV in morning expecting some good news about Indian Athletes. The marquee of a news channel read 'Indian shooters disappoint'.
Seeing all the stuffs I hardly kept any expectations from rest of athletes. But things didn't remain the same. Today morning when I logged into my machine in office and opened my official mailbox, there was a mail from my friend Praveen saying that Abhinav Bindra has won on a gold in shooting! Initially I could not believe my eyes, to confirm I talked to my colleagues around. Some had already made Abhinav's pic with gold medal as wallpaper. It took a while for me to digest the good news. There was sense of excitement that I will be seeing 'India 1 0 0' in medals tally of next day's newspaper, the day which I was awaiting for so many years.

Congratulations to Abhinav, I hope it boosts the performance other athletes and hence increasing the India's tally of medals.

Some tit bits: Abhinav is an MBA graduate and CEO of a company by name Abhinav Futuristics. He has a dedicated blog in which he is posting about his experiences about present olympics. His latest post is already flooded with comments.

Lalbagh Flower Show: Aug 2008

Entry Fee:
Adults: Rs.30 on weekdays/ Rs.40 on weekends.
Camera Fees: Rs. 10 (introduced from this time).

Timings: 8 am to 7 pm.

Duration: From 9th August to 17th August.

I have been a regular visitor to the bi-annual flower show at Lalbagh for last 2 years. In short span the show has changed tremendously. The changes are not mainly with respect floral decoration/arrangement. After the recent low intensity serial blasts in Bangalore, one of the most evident change is security check, one has go through metal detectors before entering into Glass house. This time there is periodic monitoring of the place by bomb squad with sniffer dogs. The number of men in khaki uniform guarding the place have also increased substantially.


Let's get to the flowers, this time the center of attraction of the flower show - Hampi Chariot is not in Glass House. It's at a different place, next to organic farming stalls. I feel it would have been better if they had managed to have it in the Glass House itself. The present place is very congested and unlike glass house there is no natural lightning.

In the Glass House the floral arrangement was as usual dominated by HAL team's works. Majority of the flowers were repeat of last time. So we(myself and Jatin) looked out for flowers of distinct pattern and colours. One of the arrangement done for filling the space was nice to photograph. All the flowers in it were fresh and in full bloom. The arrangement had series of different types of marigold (may not be intentionally done).

It was worthwhile to photograph each and every pattern of marigold and in the process we spent more than half an hour at a arrangement which was done just for filling the space!

The other flowers which caught our eyes were a Poppy Flower flower of white+violet colour, Spider Lilies.

Poppy flower

Spider Lilly

Rendezvous with CEO of Redbus.in

Redbus.in is one of the renowned ticketing site for inter city bus services of private operators. Started in 2006 from a small office in Domlur the company is already in a break-even stage and is looking forward to setup offices in other major cities of India. I was part of assisting when the Eblues team interviewed CEO of the company Phanindra Sama for the entrepreneur movie project. The CEO shared his remarkable journey of last 3 years.

Eureka moment
It was vacation time during Diwali in 2005 and many of Phani's friends were already left to their hometown. Initially not being sure about taking off from work Phani postponed his decision to book tickets. Finally when he decided to go to his hometown Hyderabad and the ticket booking saga took him no where. First he contacted his usual travel agent, later he contacted each and every known travel agent for a single ticket to Hyderabad. The series of unsuccessful attempts for booking tickers made him realize massiveness of the unorganized industry involving operators and travel agents. 40 buses from Bangalore to Hyderabad everyday! Being alone in Bangalore a golden idea struck him. Eureka! Eureka! why not organize this bus industry with help of a software so that it turns out to be win-win-win for bus operators, travel agents and of course for passengers. He discussed about the idea with his pals of BITS Pilani - Sudhakar and Charan. They started with a plan of making a software which maintains the inventory of the bus routes and assists the travel agents in booking tickets.

Key moment and the USP
Being member of TIE (The Indus Entrepreneurs) forum, Phani along with his friends submitted the idea to one of the competitions of the forum. Phani still believes the major reason for the project to get selected was the way it was presented. The allotted duration for presentation was 30 minutes, therefore they planned presentation for only for 15 minutes(rest for Q&A) with only 7-8 slides. 1- slide about the team, 1-slide about the unorganized industry and 1-slide about their solution and so on.

Godfather's insights
After the project was shortlisted in TiE competition, the team was alloted three mentors for further progress, one of them was Sanjay Anantharam. He helped the team getting the right VC and added some valuable inputs to the project. According to Sanjay, deploying the software for each and every travel agent all over India won't be practical, a lot of effort will be needed to make it work without any issues. Target city customer with a website to book the tickets online. Anyways in future Internet connection will be as ubiquitous as mobile phone connection.

Testing times
The venture went thru a lot of testing times. First of all convincing bus operators that the new medium will work took a lot of effort. The high pressure phase was the first two weeks after launch of the site redbus.in in Auguest 2006. They had to show the sales to the operators. The team went all out as for publicising about the ticketing site. They went in front of software companies during lunch hours for distributing the pamphlets and simultaneously explaining about the site.

The breakthrough moment
It was indeed the moment when the first ticket was booked by a software engineer of Infosys. It really was an auspicious beginning as the ticket booked was from Bangalore to Tirupathi! For the first customer the team ensured the safe travel by assisting the passenger for boarding the bus!

Engineers turned Travel agents
The way of earning changed completely. For every ticket booked the commission was about Rs.20. The expected amount of sales needed were very high to compensate for the salaries they used earn in their last jobs. There were slight thoughts of giving up, but the persistence of Sudhakar(co-founder) kept the team focused for achieving the goals. Also, when one starts a business even the minute details/rules can't be ignored like maintaining a attendance register, having a Kannada in sign boards etc.

Role Model & Inspiration
The major inspiration for Phani has been Richard Branson and his autobiography 'Losing my Virginity'. Branson's thoughts on colour red has been the major influence for naming the company 'Red'bus.

Meeting different kinds of people
Being a CEO at such an young age has been challenging. As part of work he has handle people with twice/thrice as his experience. Every person is unique, some people pamper him even not doing anything great and some blast him for not doing any mistake. These things one never faces being an employee of a big company.

Expansion plans
The main interaction with customer happens thru customer care operators. The company hires operators as employees, instead of outsourcing the work to a third party. The long term plan is to open offices all over India which includes even North-East Indian cities. But the expansion is planned/done in a organic way. When the one office breaks even with respect to investment the other office in a different city will be set up.

The edited video of the interview is embedded below.

Inspiration for wannabe Entrepreneurs!

Ankur and Hemanth being part of Landmark Forum program have taken up a project for social cause. They are making a movie on Entrepreneurs in various fields who gave up their high paying job to do something on their own. The movie also features people pursuing off beat careers.

Usually the entrepreneurs have similar patterns on the way to success. Their success stories will have the components such as Eureka moment, Role Model, Godfather, Breakthrough moment, Testing times etc.

The intention of the movie is these identify these patterns in life of Entrepreneurs. The list of entrepreneurs includes CEO technology starts ups such as Redbus.in, TringMe, Lifeblob, Hungry bangalore etc. Other than these Hemanth/Ankur have interviewed a Theatre Aritist(Pawan Kumar), a Interior designer(Mamta).

Here is a trailer of the movie.



The movie will showcased in various tech get-togethers such as Mobile Monday, TiE, Barcamp etc. The majority of screening will happen in Engineering Colleges all over India, so that it will be an inspiration to the students who want to be entrepreneurs in future.

There is a dedicated blog for this project. Please find more details there.

I was part of assisting team for one of the interviews. It was with CEO of Redbus.in - Phanindra Sama. It was an amazing interview and I got to know so much about one of successful start-ups in recent times. More details about the interview in a seperate post.

[The logo is from CES website]

Technology vs Money vs Artists vs Businessmen

Posting about the technology saturation here and here in my blog made a lot of people curious about the discussion(s) in Ctrl-Esc-Boys group.

Today morning I got a mail from Aditya PK:
What is this Ctrl + Esc group that you mention in your blogs? It seems like a very interesting discussion board. Is it a mailing list? Can I join?

With warm regards we welcomed 'best outgoing student' of our class into our discussion thread and he added his gyan(thoughts) to two days old high intensity discussion.


Aditya's Response:
The whole discussion about technology vs money vs artists vs businessmen is a very interesting one. But I think they are all very very connected. You will find that the "artists", the people who are really passionate about software and are really good at it, are also the ones working on the best technology while simultaneously making the most amount of money. I may be a little biased because I work for google, :P, but it is true that people here are very very good at writing software, and they work on the coolest tech and also make the most money. I am also very certain that people who write software for free on sourceforge are highly-paid developers in their day-job.

The key to this, I think, is being really good at what you do. If you are so good at your job, then you will be producing a lot of work that is very valuable for the company, and the company will be willing to pay lots of money to keep you. I have a mini-theory about the connection between salary and the "artistic ability" of the person.

The salary that a company pays an employee has to be in a range. It has to be lesser than the amount of work that the employee produces. If the company is paying employee more than what he is producing, then the company is making a loss, and will fire the person. It also has to be more than the cost of the closest alternative. If the company pays less than the alternative, people will just switch jobs. For many people in the software industry, this number is measure by how much money the competition is paying.

So, if you want to increase your salary, there are two ways:
(1) The cost of the closest alternative goes up. This happens when the competition starts paying more, your salary also starts increasing.
(2) The value that you are adding to the company increases. If you do more productive and valuable work, then your worth to the company goes up, and your salary increases.

In the last 10 years, the salaries in Bangalore are primarily increasing because of (1). Other companies are paying more, so I should also get more. But if you rely on this, it is a very dangerous thing, because in a recession, when the competition is sinking, you are also very likely to sink.

It is my opinion that it is better to pursue (2). If you add more value to the company, they will, very happily, pay you more. There are many ways to do this, like getting a better education (Anyone did their MBA recently? :P). Another way is to become what Ritesh below called being an "artist". If you become really interested in what you are doing, the quality of the work you are doing automatically goes up, and you end up doing much better work. You can be a "businessman", just doing stuff because other people are making you do and because they are paying you, but this puts you in (1)... having to depend on the competition to make more money.

A couple of other observations about the discussion:

• I don't agree that the "missed call", the predominant way college kids communicate, is zero revenue for the mobile companies. When these college kids graduate from college and get money, they are likely to continue to use their phone, but now they have money, and so they make calls and download applications etc... This is popularly called a "loss-leader". The idea is that a company sells something for a loss (below-cost), in anticipation of making money later. SONY sells the PS3 for a loss, hoping it will make up the money in game and blu-ray movie sales. Google makes huge losses on orkut and gmail, hoping that regular users of gmail and orkut will use the search engine more often and make money for google in the long run.
• I also disagree that Microsoft has not creating something innovative in the last few years. It appears that way because we all love to hate the big evil company, and listen to only the things we want to listen to. There are several things I can think of that Microsoft has really innovated in the last few years. XBOX 360 is a really good product, HALO is a mind-blowing game. Have you seen the Microsoft Photosynth demo? It's mind-blowing. Microsoft's World-wide telescope is also pretty cool.

Technology: Where are we heading to?

The technology discussion in Ctrl-Esc-Boys group continued. The below discussion is continuation of the stuffs mentioned in Have peaked out technologically ?.

Ritesh asks:
And what are the rest doing ? pour in your two cents.. the question still is : "Where are we heading to ?"


Rohith Reponds:

• 0.000001 cent ... The debate about a new technology versus what a consumer wants - is not just between us. But one that is happening in every company that invests in newer technologies. First of all, a newer technology doesn't translate into new business! So, no one can predict the future of a technology before hand.
• Companies those invested in 2.5G or 3G are still struggling to make real business out of it. One of killer application proposed was video on demand. But so far, I haven't heard a story about any success!
• I believe Motorola is an example that burnt hands in investing in such newer technologies. Please correct me, if otherwise.
• There are numerous factors that guide to technology success than just technology alone. While we are talking about video on mobile, that didn't succeed, consider, the recent "caller tune" concept. This is no new technology. But its a huge success! All the customer needs may not be your new technology!
• So, bottom-line, is that technology is done by artists(as defined by Ritesh) - who rarely care about the implications. And putting into practice and most of the success is enabled by Businessmen.
• Another e.g. While we receive numerous ads on our mobiles with new value added services (e.g., Astrology), rarely we try them. The problem is not with the idea of giving astrology on demand. But with the marketing strategy. The SMS with such VAS(value added services), generally end with "call at Rs 6 per min". Which deprives the user from even giving a try before actually subscribing to it. So, it marketing strategy that enables technology!
• Another factor, is the consumer base. Imagine creating a business model for our own "miss call" communication.We give miss call to communicate, sometimes (or say most of the times). And this generates "0" revenue to the network operators. And with all the technology, if it doesn't generate any revenue, no wonder that the technology will die soon.May be its not a good example, but lot to infer from it. For sure, one cannot survive long, working for charity!
• There are more factors to consider for the so called "technology" to be a success. What about the government policies? Negative impacts? The moment somebody utters "nuclear" all it comes to our mind is nuclear weapons, Hiroshima, World war II. But rarely we think of the other side of it - using for energy. In such a case technology doesn't remain technology anymore, but a disaster to the society.
• So, technology is not just technology in itself. No one can predict !!

Naveen's(Thode) Response:

• Interesting debate!! I am quite skeptic about Rohith’s claim that the technology does not drive new business. I am coming from the retail domain and have seen the impact of emerging technologies in the business for the good. In some of the instances technology has given a new dimension to few areas in the retail business.
• Technology may not be influential in all domains but some. There is only a need to extract the essence of the technology to leverage ideas into the development of the business.
  

Rohith's Response
Yeah Naveen! I Agree. So, I correct my statement: "a newer technology may not always translate into new business" :-)

My Response:
Nice points Rohith. Here a few additions to your points

• There hasn’t been a really ‘breakthrough’+’revenue generating’ service in mobile telephony in recent times. But if you had read Monday’s TOI business page there has been a new service by name Slydial. According the NY times article it’s a runaway hit. With that feature one can send voice message by avoiding conversation. Go thru the article, I feel it will be soon introduced all over the world.
• Your point with respect to Motorola is valid. The other company falling in similar category for mobiles phones is Samsung. Inspite introducing world’s first mp3 phone and world’s first 8 mega pixel camera they still face a identity crisis outside South Korea.
• Regarding Video-On-Demand, you are absolutely right. It’s not been successful as per expectations. There hasn’t been a demand wireless network infrastructure because youtube has just created a demand for wireline network infrastructure. Youtube has indirectly generated revenues wireline equipment makers such as Cisco, but not for wireless vendours. What’s the root cause ? … Physical limits. As we all know that all wireless(mobile) devices require battery power. Video streaming eats lots of CPU cycles and hence drains the battery charge. One can’t stream a video continuously for more than 15 minutes without charging the battery. Also replacing battery on the move is not practical. I used to do live network testing in Paris for Video streaming with charger plugged on.
• A technology has to find right business model. Google was not the first company to create a search engine. As per my knowledge it was altavista. But google found a profitable business model even in dot-com crash era. In the process they were able enhance there search algorithm by retaining and paying their “artists”. Nowadays, their search interface has become de facto interface to the Internet.
• Innovations may not lead into better standard of living. For example Microsoft has thousands of registered patents. Have they really introduced a innovative product post 2000 ? A organization has to innovate with ingenuity and introduce right product at right time. May be Microsoft is waiting for the right time.

Have we peaked out technologically ?

The Ctrl-Esc-Boys brainstorming thread regarding career switch spawned a another thread on technology saturation. Being decently updated in technology from information point of view, I had to respond to Ritesh's statements and the discussion continued.

Ritesh's statement on technology & future:
Today we have reached a situation where we don't want to change our cells, computers and gizmos. partly because we have peaked out technologically for the present. How many upgraded to Vista ? have a 3G handset & own an iphone? . The truth is that technology is stagnating because of reducing demand for the incremental features.

My response:

• Nice views, but I don't agree to your views on technology saturation. Luxury of one decade will be need of subsequent decade. 10 years back ... Did anyone of us really used to bother about of not having a mobile ?... I wonder how people used to plan trip/treks and plan meet at a particular location without mobiles :)
• Why we don't have an iPhone ? Because it is not yet legally available in India ...Globally why iPhone didn't picked up in last one year ? because iPhone 2.5G was not a complete smartphone whereas latest iPhone 3G overcomes it. Have a look at the sales iPhone 3G in last one month and telecom service providers all round are wooing Apple for selling iPhone on contract! It's killer feature is safari browser, its experience of web-browsing browsing beats other smartphones by miles.
• Web browsing on mobiles ? I feel it will be a need within 5 years .. with traffic situation is getting bad day by day .. people will be forced to travel more than an hour to office .. then iPhone type phones with 3G connection will come handy ... because people will be lazy enough to take out laptops and browse :)
• Coming to Window Vista .. why are we not using it ? Simple it doesn't do anything great and has lots of issues ... many people say it will be last of its kind of product (OS) developed by a closed community ... to say in ur words OS type project in future will be done by artists, not businessmen.
  

Ritesh's response:
Defly you are much up-to-date on the technology front. But what I am telling is that talking is a necessity, messaging is an accessory & browsing on the mobile will be a big thing in years to come but :

• How many people will pay for this service ? - the ones whose company sponsors it use it , else businessmen .. most mobile users are naive users. Did you notice that the mobiles have to drop prices by a huge amount to make u buy a mobile nowadays ? In turn the companies working for these handset manufacturers will have rising wages and lowering margins.. This is not a sunrise sector anymore.
• I know Iphone is a bad example but even if it is available, it should be available at a discount to nokia to sell here . We techies will buy it at a premium but local junta wont.
• I used to upgrade OS every year from 2000 to 2004 .. now I dont .. Why ? forget Vista I dont want to upgrade bcos there is no incremental advantage.. Now Shande .. if you were the microsoft CEO what would have you done to make people buy the next version of software ?
• Processors :- Do we go for the fastest processor these days ? I have seen people going for the most cost effective one as the processing power is far more than they want anyway...

Question which comes is : What do we make to make people buy new technology of any kind ?


My response:
It's a billion dollar question for industries worth trillions of dollars. I don't have the answer of it .. one way we can do it by making existing version defunct or inferior … here are some additional thoughts.

• As a Microsoft CEO I am going do what Nitin Pujari said in our first CCP class in engineering. Introduce a bug somehow in old version so that people buy an upgraded version. That won't be ethical in the real world. But as per my knowledge Microsoft was planning to stop support for Win-XP in order allocate more resources for ailing Vista. I think indirectly they are doing what Nitin Pujari had said.
• Being in mobile terminals domain for last 2 years I feel companies always avoid making a perfect mobile phone. They expect people to get bored with a mobile within 6 months. Also people want to break pattern, but in the process 'breaking the pattern' also becomes a pattern! So I feel people are not going for frequent upgrades of mobiles as 2-3 year back.
• I agree mobile industry is not a sunrise sector … margins are getting low … companies are losing a lot of money in integration/testing … so they are planning go for a stuffs developed by artists i.e part of components which are developed open source .. Android is one such example.
• Regarding premium prices … many technology products are initially very high …may be companies want to recover RnD costs or they don't may people buy it because a new product will have many issues .. Moto Razr was 25K+ when it was launched and also Nokia 6600(also 25K) was a kinda dream phone when we were doing engineering. But what happened 1-2 years after launch .. prices were half the launch price and every tom, dick, harry had similar kind of phone.
  
• With increase in processing speeds there have been better phones .. some people have upgraded but many have not… the major factor for this is our poor networks and delay in issue of 3G spectrum license … mobile phones are still a conversation device(just a phone) for many people … but it's going to be a communication device(like computer) soon … with growth of Internet in India especially in vernacular languages .. who knows in future a auto rickshaw driver will be reading a kannada blog on 'How to calibirate a autorickshaw meter' in a iPhone type device.
• In India are technology penetration is very low compared to tech-savvy countries like Korea,Japan. The scenario may change in future or gradually changing(?) … recently in a barcamp I met a co-founder of a start up company developing mobile phone games .. he was telling that highest downloads of his games happen in Uttar Pradesh and other North Indian states … so we can't ignore a section of people as naïve users .. they may fetch more revenue in future. If we look at stats .. population of U.P. is more than entire population of Europe put together!

[The views expressed here are not entirely my own, it is somewhat integration of my thoughts with one-liners several other people whom I have met in seminars, events etc.]

Ctrl-Esc Brainstorming: To switch or not to switch ?

Yesterday one of the members of our Ctrl-Esc-Boys group Joy started a thread asking for suggestions and ideas for his dilemma to switch or not. Did he get any response ?.. obviously a lots. The 4 years of experience in software industry of our group members was evident in the response. After a long time we had a kind of career discussion thread. Here are some excerpts from the same.

Joy's Queries:

• Today, I m planning to put my papers ( at last!!!!! ). Got offer from www.xyz.com. It's a product company. I have no idea about work cultures of such companies.
• If you have any suggestions/ideas abt product companies, and also is it the right time to switch ??, and is it worth to switch from Service company to a product company?

Disclaimer: If have just pasted the responses from the thread. The intention here is that people outside our group know about this constructive discussion. Not to make sarcastic statements at a individual or an organization. So I have purposefully put the nicknames or codenames for a few people.

Bade's Response:

• You being a talented guy shouldn't face any problem when it comes to sustaining in the new company, as you always exceed expectations!!! Even though the market is down, it is the media pulling the market further down that shouldn't be a problem.
• Coming to your question of working culture, Working in product companies will be a great experience with respect to ownership but not with responsibilities and they are very slow when it comes to execution of plans and you might get exposure only to one or hardly 2 products, but in a service based company you get tremendous opportunity but no money.
• You have to decide whether you need money or exposure, for me both are same as experiences always adds more weight to your profile. Think about your option once again and take a decision.

Yesh's Response:

• Get the feedback from anyone who is already working in that company. What is the growth provided to the employees, remuneration package, appraisal etc.
• It is always good to know abt the team that you are going into. What is the team size, how is the Manager etc. I know these are really difficult to get. But if you try you may get some information. Because most of the time it's the Manager who will decide what you are worth for , how much you deserve and all – I know its difficult to belevie but it is the fact and I suppose most of us have already experienced.
• Last but not least – which is very much required .. Check how many girls are working in the company.

Rohith's Response:

• @Bade: in my opinion, it not always true that service company provide more exposure than product companies. If you talk about exposure to software development, then I would say, its product companies that provides you to work from end-to-end of a product lifecycle.
• The technology and its future - www.xyz.com looks to me a telecom company - mobile services. So, at this age of telecom, it is important to know if they have plans to evolve to 4G/Wimax technologies. This secures your future. (Luckily today, we have got lot of companies - lot of jobs. But you never know when the jobs in India will get dried up). So, as Yesh suggested, it is good to know on what product and with whom(customer, architects!) you would be working with.
• Ofcourse salary. And no harm in switching job now. Market is going to be the same. We need to emerge out. But yes, take a calculated risk!

Then finally the response of the day came by Ritesh who was a software engineer for 3 years and from last year PGP student at IIMC.

• Regarding service Vs product: It really doesn't matter as you will be sitting in one cubicle at the corner in a floor orkutting, gtalking , checking emails , hitting on girls & working in between. You will be assigned a part of a building software where u will be undoing the mistakes of the @ss who left the job creating a vacancy for you. So are you solving a product bug or a service bug ?
• Regarding learning: People who wanted to learn hav done it in any field, any role and type of company, Ex: ABCD was the best tester in Lucent.. we all know .. He did justice to his job.
• Regarding technology & future: Today we have reached a situation where we dont want to change our cells, computers and gizmos. partly because we have peaked out technologically for the present. How many upgraded to Vista ? have a 3G handset & own an iphone? . The truth is that technology is stagnating because of reducing demand for the incremental features.
• Then what to do ? Join a smaller company - there you will be the coder,tester,manager, watchman .. everything .. that is the biggest learning you can get.. It really doesnt matter product or service..
• Regarding pay: For your family, your job is a blackbox. you go in and out but at the end you get XXX Rupees with you. It really doesnt matter if you do job x or y for them. So earning is pretty important to keep you near and dear ones happy. So it is quite an important thing.
• Knowledge, Exposure ? If someone tells me now that knowledge, exposure etc is important . think again .. In the past 4 yrs what is the major thing u contributed to the industry ? There are 2 kinds of people - Artists and businessmen. People who are satisfied with their work will not worry about money, they are artists cause they love what they do. Unfortunately all the artists are scripting open source code or are on sourceforge.net ( The site from where we copied our projects). The rest are businessmen selling their time to companies and cleansing code for a fixed sum of money. I have not seen a guy who is willingly working in the S/W industry.. it is a compromise as the money is good & we did a BE. It is just that we can do .. not we want to do .. I donno how many feel I am radical ( Or because i am not a S/w Engineer now) but these are my true thoughts.
• Moral of the story: Joy ... go ahead... .. most things u did is after asking people around you. What do u really want to do ?
  
• Another school of thought says that "Don't stay in a small tent when a storm is about to come" .. We are in a kind of a slowdown no doubt.. My friend PQRwas working in LMN, a startup.. Recently was laid off due to a bad market. He was working in VLSI .. had an MS .. but is unable to find a job since 2 months as VLSI market is pretty bad . No openings in sight as he told... So be ambitious but be careful too.

This is how the discussion went on. What are your thoughts on the responses?

[The image is from iQuit