Click of Faith!

I went to Shirdi Sai Temple sometime back. My experience was a mix of elation and irritation. Elation as I have believed in Sai for quite some time and therefore get happy to have his darshan at his very abode....and irritation as I feel that the process is not streamlined to the extent that is possible and that there is an angle of commercialization involved.

However this post is not about my visit but my nephew Pavas Bhatnagar's visit to Shirdi Sai last year. He had clicked a pic on his mobile of an empty hall at Sai Prasadalaya but there is an element that looks like Sai himself that has come in the otherwise empty hall photograph.

Believers might feel happy to see this pic while non believers would be content with saying that this might be case of some other guy having come in while the pic was being clicked. One should be happy, that's what counts!

Parents and Media!

I had a PTM with my child's teacher recently. Amongst many things, what we discussed was that Kanu , my daughter sees lots of TV and lots of cartoons including Shinchen that I do not like! Shinchen is what the teacher proscribed completely!

Come to think of it, as a parent of growing kids, I can feel nothing but hassled by the fact that I need to make serious efforts to control the media consumption of my kids. Many parents will agree that our media is getting increasingly prurient by the day. From the time, a child switches on the TV , he or she is exposed to all kinds of indecent words, actions and scenes.

One of the realities about the reality shows especially the Dance ones is that they make it a point to keep the women participants as little clothed as they can, the so called item numbers leave little to imagination, the cartoon shows teach a lot of bad-tameezi.

Radio is better even though I have heard some RJs whose talk can best be classified as 'Phooharh'.. but Radio as a medium is much less popular than TV. Still there are many times when you hear a RJ trying to talk 'sexy'unnecessarily. This is because the poor guy thinks thats the only way to be popular!

Print is also not behind. From frequent so called Sexual revolution surveys that scream scandalous findings to printing pictures in the daily newspapers that would otherwise would have place in porn magazines,the effort is to bring adult stuff daily in your home, without your permission and perhaps with disastrous consequences.

I have worked with media. I know all about the "noble objective" of broadbasing the societal mind! The only mantra in play is Show what sells! The logical culmination of this thinking is also interesting and frightening..Imagine TV showing porn films at prime hours and newspapers becoming a "Debo" just because that is more lucrative - revenue wise.

Self censorship looks a possible way out.. but the violations in order to get a quick rise in TRPs and readerships will be far and frequent. What are the other ways?

Lets form a parents of growing kids forum that acts as a pressure group in matters like this. Are there any precedences anywhere else in the world?

What about a Parent networking site? Will it work..there we will discuss all things related to kids say from nursery admissions to media overkills! It may fetch us some millions also :-).

Happy Birthdays & Internet

There is a marked increase in the wishes coming my way in the last 2-3 years on 15th of Mays. Not that I am getting more popular as years pass by, but I am more approachable and accessible like never before. All thanks to Internet!

As I grow older, my old childhood friends like Tillu, Bablu and Bantu no longer call me on my birthdays. Not that the friendship is any less due to passing of years, but because they are not internet people and therefore there is no 'aided recall' through birthday alarm messages of sites like Orkut & Facebook.

Today, I have got almost 20 entries in my scrapbook on Orkut! all birthday wishes.. some from people i have not connected say in last 6 months..A cousin from London, Pallavi is also in conversation..She wants me to come there to take my party! How i wish the same could also have been got on orkut!

Then there are sites like Clickjobs,Netlog, Mutual Funds like DSP Merrill Lynch, Desi Martini, ICICI Direct and even I-mint all wishing me happy birthday! Coming to think of it, even though one knows all of this is automated but somehow no one minds getting good wishes!

What could be the possible next extension of this? Any Ideas?

Random thoughts!

This one is a myriad set of thoughts :
1. I dislike Shinchen!!
This cartoon kid is simply impudent, impolite and vulgar at times. The trouble is that kids love it and would try to emulate him wherever possible. Any remedies?

2. How to save Ram Setu?
Like a typical Congress approach, I now see Central government working towards demolition of Ram Setu that is essentially an object of faith. They have filed an affidavit to SC for the same!

Though I know that Ram does not need any one's support to do what He wants, but as a follower of Hinduism, I am uncomfortable with a polity that has no compunctions about hurting majority sentiments all the time!

3. Economic slowdown :
I think the Boom pundits have gone all wrong and the Doom Pundits have gone all right! Stock market has touched 14000 and there are talks of it bottoming out to 12000! God save us!

Extramarks.com goes live! We get covered too!

If some one was to ask me for Career advise, especially concerning Internet, I would definitely advise one thing - Work for a startup..atleast once in your professional life!

My prior experience in Established companies has also been good enough..but when youwork for a start up where virtually every job lands at your desk..the learning is awesome!

We started working on Extramarks.com 6 months back. With SN moving out to Reuters, I was also quite open to looking out of HT. Met a guy - Rohit Jain who was looking for some one to head an online startup on education..Rohit came across to me as a super intelligent guy! Somehow our chemistry clicked and I ended up joining Extramarks. It was not named like that. A (rare ;-) ) brainwave led me to this name which got universal approval including that of our chairman - Mr. Atul Kulshrestha. Rohit is now the CEO.

We hired a company called Image websolutions which despite many weaknesses, did deliver to us a project with multiple functionalities. Praveen lohani & I created lots of Project Requirement diagrams (PRDs) that made the lives of the tech team quite miserable ( due to quantum of work) and easy ( defining a thing clearly helps a techie a lot).

About 3 weeks post making the site live and getting a good number of users ( essentially word of mouth) , I feel happy for 2 reasons..
a. Starting something from not even the scratch
b. Ability to create a team that delivers

We got covered in alootechie (http://www.alootechie.com/) .. my favourite internet newsletter .. Rajesh Barnwal, his editor gave our subject line in the newsletter he sends everyday! We got 21 comments - allmost all of them positive.. It made me happier. I think we would have broken the maximum number of comments record on alootechie!

Deepti Kaul helped us get some footage in http://www.htnext.in/. Feels good to see the site name across prestigious publications.

See the coverage if you have not seen it already :
http://www.alootechie.net/news/extramarkscom-launched-to-help-students-score-extra-marks-in-exams

http://www.htnext.in/news/7087_2040360,008700000011.htm

http://www.agencyfaqs.com/perl/news/company_briefs/index.html?id=19291

I just hope the site does well! Our promoter's faith and his willingness to back us with any kind of support has to be justified!!

Saturn's movement in Leo

Thanks to my Astrospeak days, I get to know deeper things about Astrology than most of my peers. The TV (which I dont see) has supposedly been blaring about Saturn's movement to Leo sign incessantly and since time immemorial.

My belief in astrology is limited. To the extent, that I feel its largely indicative and not definitive. Astrology itself says so. However to be frank, I am also not a member of the so-called Ratioanlist association of India.

Saturn is however one planet, I would rather believe in. Its movement to Leo has seen India see partition and riots in 1947 and emergency in 1977. This is 2007. Eerie 30 years period!

For the lesser mortals like us , doing some things will help us overcome any malefic effects of an otherwise great planet! They are :

1. Live a simple life
2. NO EGO
3. Work hard
4. Help others
5. Leave "Daaru"
6. Take care of parents

People with Leo moonsign need to be careful. It will be good to check what your moonsign is if you do not know it already.

Prayers always help. If you feel that last 1 year or so has been rather tumultous or very expensive for you, you may really be needing the little somethings that prayers add in our lives.

Hiring Criteria

Read an awesome post on the Criteria of Hire by Marc Andreesson.

The main criteria according to him are :

• Drive
• Curiosity
• Ethics

I would largely agree to this.

For those who are in a position to hire or aspire to be in a position to hire, reading this blog will be of immense help.

http://blog.pmarca.com/2007/06/how_to_hire_the.html