3 years !!

naanushande.com is 3 years old now.

Following are popular posts for last one year

Favorites:-
-Going to office by BMTC: Experiences of commuting by BMTC. Sharing some amusing moments.
-Skiing at Bearstown resort: Maiden Skiing experience at Bearstown's resort in South Korea.
-Skandagiri Expedition: Welcoming new year atop Skandagiri betta.
-Harsha Bhogle - Career in these times: An inspiring speech from India's top cricket commentator.

Top contents statistically:-
-Rottikallu Homestay: A weekend getaway near Sakleshpur. Several adventurous activities like trekking, river-walk are conducted.
-Brand Equity Quiz - Finals: Experiences of the quiz show hosted by Derek O'Brien at Leela Kempinski, Mumbai.

Contents of previous blogging years which are still popular:-
-Photography Workshop - Kalyan Varma: Whenever Kalyan announces dates of his next workshop, this post sure to get a few hits.
-Kudremukh Homestay: Two and half year old post still getting sufficient hits.
-Sitanadi Rafting: A trip with Ctrl-Esc group.

A career break in times of change

Last to last week I joined SP Jain (Mumbai) for pursuing PGPM program ( 1 year full time MBA). It's a residential program and I have taken a break from my work. The decision to join the program and leaving a cosy job was really tough one, especially at a time of trillion dollar meltdown. But following two sayings helped me to stick to my decision.

"An investment in knowledge pays the best interest." -- Benjamin Franklin.

"Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful." -- Warren Buffet.

The actual decision to join was taken well before the collapse of Lehman Brothers. It was first week August 2008 when I had got an admission offer. The decision to take a plunge was not so easy considering monetary investment and one year holiday from work. First I did a self assessment, looked back at my track record, reevaluated my aspirations and goals and came to a conclusion that it's a right time to join.

Then I consulted many of well wishers, cousins, friends etc. I also contacted a few career advisors too. Here are some of excerpts of chat and e-mail with some of them.

Gautam Puri: MD of Career Launcher.

SP Jain is a good institute and its 1 year program is well regarded. Given that you have work ex of over 4 years, I would not recommend a 2 year MBA. I would suggest that you join this program. If possible, please talk to an alumni of this program to check out placement record.

Aditya PK: my classmate in Engineering, now working at Google.

It depends on what you want to do if you want a long term career as an IT manager or maybe even Program Analyst then it's a very good idea.You can probably even drift to other sides of management after your MBA slowly.

Krishna: my cousin

It's a good program and like investing in a mini car. If u ever thought you wanted to do a MBA - now is the time when you have the luxury, the mindset to do it and the right approach. As u proceed in ur career it becomes tougher to take this step - especially in India.

Ritesh Kamath: classmate in Engineering, doing PGP at IIM-C

An MBA should make u something like - brand mgr, asst brand manager in a marketing firm, an analyst in a financial major, a consultant in top 4 consulting company, an area head, a person managing 500 Cr business in retail & shopping. however i still feel doing this prog is going to give u leverage than not doing it . it will push u atleast 5 yrs ahead in life.

Rashmi Bansal: A Career Advisor, Editor of Jammag, Blogs at youthcurry.blogspot.com

I think even if immediate return is not that good in the long run an S P Jain MBA will help ur career and mobility across industries. Also a 75% jump in salary for 54% of the students after 1 year is pretty good. Cheer up! Course architecture etc is of no great consequence. It's all about learning from each other and the overall environment. And getting 'branded'. So do join ... and good luck!

Sudhir Kumar: my ex-colleague

God has given u a chance shande man, go for it

In addition to this I contacted a few alums and candidates pursing program by searching for profiles in orkut and linked-in. In the process, I experience one funny thing on decision making day. In my Orkut's homepage "Today's fortune" very appropriate to state on mind!



To conclude for next one year there will be very less traveling and hence less travel blogging from my side. However in minimal free time I will be clearing all my backlog posts and also will be periodically posting some high fundoo gyan which I am expecting gain in B-school.

Shande ? What does it mean ?

For last 2 years ... blogging years to be precise, Shande has been my identity on internet. Outside blogosphere this has been my nickname and has persisted for several years !!! Normally, bloggers think a lot that to keep(select) their internet id or blog name. In contrast ,I didn't even thought for a second ! How exactly this nickname originated ? I am not very sure about this. In primary school there were two Sandeep(myself and Sandeep.T.S) in the class and to annul the ambiguity my classmates gave a nickname Tassa to Sandeep.T.S and gave somewhat a weird name "Sande" to me. The reasoning was that my closest friend was "Ande"(I still don't from where the word "ande" came from). Then after 2-3 days the name refined to "Shande"(शांदे, ಶಾಂದೆ), so that it sounds cute! The main person behind this drive was Chandan[at present more famous as a Radio jockey at S-FM 93.5]. The nickname intentionally or unintentionally has carried on from primary school to high school to college and even to workplace. It has become so common that some of the people close to me feel very weird when they try call me by real name :) Variants: Like any other names, my nickname too has got many variants like 'Shandu', 'Shade', 'Shande Man', 'Shande Boy', 'Skande'. Some Anecdotes: At work place many people with whom I just have acquaintance (sort of hi-bye non professional relationship) don't even know my real name!

• "I thought you were other Sandeep!" : Apporximately one year after engineering I chatted with my classmate Sachin Satish using yahoo messenger. The chat went on for a while and we dicussed about usual stuffs such as "Howz work" etc. Then all of a suddent Sachin started to ask me some weird questions which were totally irrelevant to me and my reply sounded even more weird to him. Then he asked me "Are u really Sandeep H.R". He was able recognize me only when I said that I am Shande. The root cause for this was that my yahoo id didn't had 'Shande' as substring. A few months after this incidence, while creating my gmail id I made sure to have 'Shande' as substring.
• At Seoul Railway Station, South Korea: I had traveled all the way to Seoul from Gumi with Subhajit. At Seoul Station we met Mazeeth and he guided us with some basics to explore the city. In order help us for accommodation he called up the onsite manager and said "Subhajit and Shande have come to Seoul" ... (!!!) ... I had to immediately interrupt the conversation saying that my name is not Shande :) it was really an embarrassing moment ... till that time Mazeeth didn't even know that my real name was Sandeep!
• Searching 'shande' in employees list: At workplace there was kind of chess challenge with Brijesh Gowda(works in a different BU). The loser was supposed to treat winner with a glass of orange juice. The game didn't materialized for a long time. But one fine day enthusiastic Brijesh tried to call me for the challenge game. He search for my extension number in ip-phone, company intranet etc. On the same day in evening while going home he asked me "Man ...What's your phone number. I searched for 'Shande' at every place, no where I can find your name!".

These anecdotes are just a tip of an iceberg, there are many similar hilarious incidences and bound to happen in future.

Cooking sessions at SuiteMDB

As I had posted earlier that I stayed at Suite-MDB hotel for most part of my biz-trip at Paris. The major feature of the accommodation was attached kitchen and the same facility was not there in Hyatt Regency. It had all the major stuffs from microwave to dish-washer. Also various other accessories like porcelain utensils, knife, spoon, fork were also there.



Hussu Mia - the saviour, who joined me after 2 weeks, on getting to know about the facilities brought almost all the food items from India. It was literally like he had shifted his house from Bangalore to Paris.


Hussu took the charge for preparing the food on first day. His preparation was decent enough but the ratio of water in rice was more. It was almost like ganji. Next day Hussu prepared his favorite recipe - Ghee rice. He has very much emotional attached to it, as the recipe taught by his wife.

Third day when Hussu thought of preparing ghee rice again, I protested saying that it would become monotonous, and took the charge. Starting off with sambhar rice, in subsequent days I prepared to yellow-dal, green-dal and moved on to some experimentation i.e. mixing green-dal with yellow-dal etc.


One day we prepared chappatis too ... with channa-masala. Well, we didn't had any belan to make chapptis .. then how did we managed it ?? ... simple with aid of a Parachute bottle. In fact it was Hussu's idea.

I voted like an illiterate

Being out of town for one month will keep you completely out of touch with the local news. Well, that's what happened to me when I was in Paris for 28 days. Coincidentally I came back to Bangalore a day before the election day of Karnataka assembly.

Going to home from airport I expected the roads and lanes to completely decorated with party banners and flags like previous elections. Surprisingly no such things were there and I was not looking like as there is going to be elections tomorrow. Chatting about the same with taxi driver I got to know that there is strict regulation by Election Commission(EC) against use to banners.



On May 10th morning I got up early and had to make decision about whom to vote? As this time I could not to any R-n-D about the candidates being out of Bangalore. My major aim was to vote against the incumbent MLA as he had wasted public money for unnecessary spendings. Therefore, I decided to vote based on the party and against the sitting MLA. I went to the polling station and looked up for my name in the voter list. Thankfully there were no discrepancies. I entered into the alloted polling booth and finished the formalities (getting ink mark on my left index finger). Then the polling officer ask me to proceed towards the EVM machine. Like an illiterate I just saw the party on pressed the button next to it.

On the same evening my uncle called up for asking about my 28 day trip. Then the discussion came to the candidate I voted. My reply was some ... party candidate. "Oh that person" was the reply from my uncle. According to him he is vary good person and favorite to win this time. It was a big relief for me, voting like an illiterate I didn't vote to a wrong candidate.

10 things which I am missing

It’s been more than 15 days of my stay in Korea. I am missing so many things here. Among these, 10 things I am missing the most.

Ramanjaneya Gudda

1. Mother and her food: No explanation needed.
2. Ramanjaneya Gudda: A perfect stress buster for me.
3. Handwriting Institute India: Missing RYB’s, assisting assignments and Rafi’s golden words.
4. Ajaysimha : A friend in need is a friend indeed.
5. Sigma Top 10 : For more explanation contact Harish Malleshappa.
6. S10 Cab: Ravi’s sincere missed call.
7. Urvashi Theatre
8. Shivani : relax .. she is my niece.
9. [Reserved for future use]
10. Radio City and Radio Mirchi

Shivani

I would have missed Indian Food here, but thanks Keshab because of him we are not missing it. One more thing I would have missed was World Cup cricket, as India is already out of the competition it doesn’t matter.

First Day, First Show.

Friday 23rd March, I am not talking about release of a movie but my First Day at Samsung Office, Gumi. Morning 9 am Kim Seo Nuk came to IGH to take us to office. Before leaving to office he gave some introduction on topics ranging from geographical location of Korea to people in Samsung with whom we will be working.



We entered the campus through ‘main gate’, but entry for visitors is not simple, there are a lot of procedures. First we had to fill visitor form in which majority of entry is in Korean, fortunately Seo was with us. Then one more rule, non Samsung phones are not allowed inside, therefore we had to deposit our moto phones at security. Further we should show our passport for security purpose. Then we have to make an entry about laptops serial number in a yellow form. Whooooosh … so many procedure … this place is like a fortress, so much security is not there even at airports.

Then we proceeded towards mobile communication division block. There we met Mr. Jung at 10.30 am as per schedule. He started with overview of the project and explained who will be doing what etc. After sometime at 11.40 am they left for lunch and surprisingly everyone in the block left at the same time. As we scratched our heads for the reason we later go to know that it was so because of the small cafeteria and the employees have lunch in a time sharing basis. Each block has a specific time slot for lunch.

Before entering cafeteria I was mentally prepared for distinct foul smell, about which I was warned enough by my colleagues who previously had been to Korea. It was not bad as described by my colleagues who previously had been to Korea. There we took coupons for lunch from the vending machine. The cost for one coupon is 3300 Won.
They had specially ordered vegetarian lunch made for us. It had fruits, Korean rice, milk, bread and butter.

After Lunch we roamed around Samsung campus with Mr.Jung and Mr.SeoNuK. They showed us the dormitory, soccer ground, and other recreational facilities. Then they took us to library cum pantry to have some coffee. There we tried to have a look at some books, but unfortunately for us there was only one English book - “Bill Clinton’s My Life”.

After coming back to workplace all types of questions related to work were shot on us. Why this … Why that .. why so ???. Also they told us that we are expected to work form 10 am to 10 pm. We replied by telling that we have our dinner at IGH, and hence we can’t stay for such a long time.

Finally at 7.30 pm we decided to leave for the day. We underwent the same security check, returned the visitor badge and collected our mobiles. It was end of our first day at Samsung office.

My first travel outside India

Though I had a valid Schengen visa for onsite support since December, some how my travel hadn’t materialized for many days. Last to last week when Ramesh asked me whether I am interested in Samsung project, I didn’t agreed immediately. After discussing with Chethan(who already is in Korea) over the weekend Chethan, I changed my mind. I enquired Ramesh further about the project. He told that the work will be at Gumi, 300km from Seoul and the stay will be at the Indian guest house (IGH).

Flashback Feb 22:
I was in a meeting room taking KT from Deepak. A call came from Srikanth that may have travel to Paris to for urgent customer issue. Discussion happened with many big people and was decided that I had to travel next day. All the formalities started from raising travel requests, getting approval etc. In the evening I went to Big Bazaar to buy a travel-bag, MTR Ready to Eat. Next day while going to office I got a call from Shreesh that the customer issue is resolved and there was no need to travel. All the overnight shopping went in vain.

Fast Forward March 22, 12.30 am:
I was on board Thai Air TG326 (Boeing 777-300) which was about to take off from Bangalore. I was excited as this was my first air travel and foreign travel. It all happened so fast that I didn’t have the time to inform my friends and relatives. At the last minute there were many panics I missed some important stuffs and adding to woes my luggage was overweight.

Subhajit and Hussu were there with me. If was alone, I would have gone mad. The flight landed in SuvarnaBhumi Airport, Bangkok 6.15 am local time. Our flight to Seoul was at 7.25 am. It was already late and there was big rush to collect transit boarding pass. Then they made a special counter for TG624 as we had to take boarding pass ASAP.

Enroute to seoul the flight landed in Taipei for 45 minutes halt. In the mean time we did window shopping at the duty free shops. At 12.55 pm local time the flight took off. On board I got Lemon Rice for Lunch. Lemon Rice ... 29000 feet above East China Sea !!! it was more than my expectations.

@ Incheon Intl Airport

Finally plane landed at Incheon International Airport at 4.15 pm local time. It was end of eventful journey with 3 take-offs and 3 landings within 24 hrs. We collected our baggage, completed immigration formalities and exchanged Dollars to Won (1$ = 900+ won). Hussu parted away and took taxi to Seoul, the taxi driver was a very nice person. He helped us to call IGH,Gumi and instructed us to use gate 8 to catch bus to Gumi. As soon as we came out of Gate 8 we got feeling of Korean weather. It was damn cold and fortunately we were wearing good Jackets.

Daewoo Limoseine Bus

Subhajit bought tickets to Gumi at counter, the price was 26000 Won per heard. The platform for Limosene bus to Gumi is 10C. The bus came at 5.35pm and departed at sharp 5.40 pm. It was a Daewoo bus, superior to Volvo. The seats were more comfortable than that of an Aircraft. The journey was bit long but wasn’t taxing though as the expressways are too good. Even if there is congestion, people follow the lane. The bus halted at some place for 15 mins, in the mean time we had photography session. Finally at 9.30pm we reached Gumi.

Here bus halted for 15 mins

We had to take a Taxi from bus stand to IGH. As we had card with address in Korean we didn’t face any issues. The taxi ride was memorable the driver didn’t know even a bit of English. On the way I witnessed that Gumi is a bigger city than I expected. There are flashy buildings, shopping marts etc. We saw a Samsung motor showroom. Samsung there in automobile sector as well ?? Then driver explained in Korean with hand actions that Samsung motors is a collaboration between Samsung and Nissan Motors. He tried to explain other stuffs. We also tried ask some questions but were unsuccessful in communicating.

As soon as we reached IGH, we got a call from our Korean sales office in charge that he will be coming next day at 9am to take us to Samsung office. After refreshing ourselves we had dinner prepared by Mr. Keshab (cook at IGH) and slept as we had to get up early on the next day.

Callback from KBC !!!

The entry mechanism for Kaun Banega Crorepati(KBC) is to register the answer for question of the day and expect a callback. But getting a callback from them is next to impossible. I too had same opinion until this happened.

Feb 13th 2007, 4.47 pm. Incoming call from number +91 22 44344942.
I attended the call, heard a female’s (say ‘K’) voice

K: Is number se KBC ko phone aya tha ?
Me: Jee Haa
K: Is number ko phir se dohrah sakte hein
Me: 98XXXXXXXX
K: Do you want to continue conversation in Hindi or English
Me: English
K: Please note that to be a KBC contestant you should be good in conversational Hindi
Me: okay
K: Are you free to attend KBC shoot on March 6th in Mumbai, at our expenses.
Me: Yes
[then she asked me abt details such as date of birth, residential address, back phone number]

K: Let me repeat the entry question for which you had registered the answer. Keep in mind that you have only ten seconds to answer this question. You are not supposed to repeat the question or the options, otherwise the call will be disconnected. Are you ready?
Me: Yes
K: Which animal form did Vishnu took for Kurma Avatara? options are Boar, Fish, Tortoise, ***.
Me: Tortoise
K: Tortoise is the right answer. Now I will ask you another question. Right answer will take you to next round. Ready ?
Me: Yes
K: Which of these is a serial telecasted on Star Plus? Options are Gulab, Kesar, Jal, ***
Me: Kesar
K: Your answer is Kesar. If your answer is right, we will call you back within 3 days.
[call ended, call duration 00:07:14 ]

'Kesar' was just an intelligent guess as many serial in Star Plus start with ‘K’. In fact it is right the answer and I was expecting call for next round.

Fast Forward.

16th Feb 2007, 3:31 pm. Incoming call from number +91 22 44344953.
Again a female’s (say ‘K1’) voice

K1: Is number se KBC ko phone aya tha.
Me: Jee Haa
K1: Is number ko phir se dohrah sakte hein
Me: 98XXXXXXXX
K1: Do you want to continue conversation in Hindi or English?
Me: English
K1: For this round I will be asking you four questions. First three with four options and the last with no options. You will have 10 seconds each to answer first three questions and 15 seconds for the last. Are you ready ?
Me: Yes

K1: First question. Former Karnataka chief minister S M Krishna is Governor of which state? Options are Andhra Pradesh, Maharastra, Rajasthan, Haryana.
Me: Maharastra.
K1: Your answer is Maharastra. Ready for next question?
Me: Yes

K1: Second question. In which year did India host the Asian games for second time? Options are 1952, 1982, 1990, 1974.
Me: 1982
K1: '1982' is your answer. Ready for next question?
Me: Yes

K1: Third question. Which of these mean Pure in hindi? Options are Sujeet, Navneet, Puneet, Vineet.
Me: Puneet [answered by elimination method]
K1: Your answer is Puneet. Your next questions will have no options. Keep in mind that you have to answer this question with units, otherwise the answer will be invalid. If answer is in distance then it has to be number followed by metres or kms. Are you ready?
Me: Yes

K1: How many years ago Reserve Bank of India was established ?
[ whoosh ... bouncer ... after thinking for a few seconds, I made an intelligent guess ]
Me: 75 years
K1: Your answer is 75 years. If your all answers are right then we will call you back within three days.
[call ended, call duration 00:04:24]

After the call I had a look at RBI page in wikipedia and found it is established on April 1st 1935. So the right answer is 72 years !!!. For me it is so near and yet so far, but I was bit optimistic that I might get a call again because many people cannot answer this RBI question with accuracy. Now more than 3 days are over, so I am assuming that I am not selected for the next round.

After all these stuffs, I have realized that the route to Fastest Finger First is not so easy as there are many hurdles on the way. I have shared this because you should be mentally prepared in case you get a callback from KBC.

Are you sharing password at ur workplace ?

Are you sharing system password at your workplace ? Think again. Today I had a funny experience at my workplace. Here it is.

On occasion of Valentine’s Day I had been to Hyderabad to do handwriting analysis at Barista outlets. I had shared my system password ‘Password1’ with my teammates since it is necessary sometimes. Someone took advantage of this and tried to do some heroic activity (hero banneki koshish ki). He/She logged into my machine and sent the following mail to many of my colleagues (majority of them were girls)


Happy Valentine's Day to all my favourite girls and.....also boys(wink wink) in Aricent.

Your's Forever Lovingly,
Sandeep


Next day (Feb 15) morning I was embarrassed when Priya showed me the above mail in her Inbox. I don’t know who all have received this mail as it is deleted in the sent folder and recipient addressees were in Bcc. I hope recipients of this mail have not taken this seriously. Sorry in case you are one among them. It all started with my mistake - sharing the password with my teammates.

To the person who sent this mail from my machine “sir/mam why you did all this, there is limit for everything, u have almost crossed the threshold this time. I am taking it lightly but what about the people who have received this mail?”

To conclude, I never thought that I would be blogging about this topic. As of now I feel this is the right place to express as I don’t know who is that great person and also who the recipients of the mail are ?

I was hospitalized for first time.

In Kumarparvatha Trek my energy levels were down to minimum. One of the reasons was that I had slight fever. I was getting tired so fast that I was not able to carry even my camera. When I came back to Bangalore on Monday, I slept for entire day. Even I took leave on 27th and 28th Dec. On Friday (29th) when I went back to work, I felt feverish again. In evening when I went to the doctor, I got to know that I have got Jaundice :(. The infection would have got into my body in any of recent trip/trek.



I was admitted to hospital on 30th morning and was given glucose water as drips. It was first experience as I had hospitalized for first time. The stay good was overall. Thanks to Ajaysimha for spending time with me in hospital ward, without him it would have been boring.

My New Year trip plans went for a toss. One year back I was at Kudle Beach, Gokarna to celebrate year switch (2005 to 2006). It was an electrifying experience, the new year was welcomed with fireworks. There were many rave parties going on the beach. This time I had got call for trip from 2-3 groups, one was from Chetan to Goa and other one from Rohith, Venkat for bike trip. Harish was forcing to me conduct Gokarna trip. Ultimately it turned out to be exact opposite of previous year, I celebrated New Year switch on hospital bed :(.

From now on I have to be on strict diet. Therefore I can’t be part of any trips/treks for next 2-3 months. It all had happened because of my ignorance to Hepatitis A, B vaccines. So if you travel frequently please take the necessary vaccine ASAP, otherwise you might end up in my situation.

Two years as Software Engineers

I never thought one day I would be writing a post related this topic. Now its exactly 2 years after we became so called Engineering graduates of VTU. Immediately we started working as Software Engineers in top IT/Telecom firms in Silicon Valley of India - Bangalore. Yesterday there was a dicussion among our classmates (in chain of emails) about achievements in 2 years. Its seems most of them are not completely satisfied with things they have done over 2 years. Everyone has one reason to be unhappy.

• Some are frustated for not getting onsite opportunities in spite of working in good product development team.
• Some are calling themselves ' jack of all, master of none'
• Domain is very important in long term, salary is secondary is opinion of one person.
• One person said 'Drawing Room Status' is important. How outside world looks towards is important, so onsite opportinities and salary matters.

Looking at all these reactions one of my friend said 'We should enjoy over life to the fullest'. One should live for the moment. I feel 'live for the moment' means changing goals, ethics on day to day basis. I dont think this is right way of living.

I believe in order to be happy, satisfied one has follow this famous quote by Mahatma Gandhi ...

" Live as if u were die to tomorrow. Learn as if u were to live forever."

Its really difficult to follow both aspects of above quote. Balancing between Living and Learning is really a challenging.

So learning is also important in life. Now its season of ppl going to United States for higher studies (Fall 2006). Many of my friends who are 2 years experienced Software Engineers have got their Visa approved and are flying to US next month. Some are planning to settle there, some are planning to stay there for 5 years and a few have decided to come back to India immediately after MS.

Looking at this rest of us are getting motivated and are planning to write GRE, TOEFL and are hoping that they will make it US for Fall 2007. Some are planning to write CAT this year, irrespective of whether they are really interested in management or not. Some are in conflict i.e their head saying something and heart is saying something else ....

Its nice to see people are giving importance to learning. Equations have changed over 2 years from the time we finished our engineering to present.

So Congratulations to all my batchmates for completing 2 years in software industry. All the best to people who will be starting new innings in their life.

Please feel free to post comments.