Oktoberfest at Mysore

The last day of Navaratri is Vijayadashmi, anyone who has been associated with Mysore will agree how much of pride Mysoreans take in celebrating Dasara (Dushera) and playing gracious hosts to visitors from every corner of the globe. Dasara in Mysore is something worth being a part of and soaking in the cultural grandeur of the state sponsored celebrations. The streets are cleaned and swept (even otherwise, Mysore is the second cleanest city in the country), bright and colorful lights lining its small but historic streets. Old timers ruefully comparing Dasara of 'their' time with the present day celebrations. The key change in the last few decades being that of the King of Mysore being replaced by the portrait of godess Chamundeshwari on the howdah that the royal elephant carries. The king himself used to be paraded on Vijayadashmi day. The procession is almost always well attended with people thronging the street sides along the route. The 3-4 hour procession majestically culminates with a pooja at Bannimantap which is the abode of many Banni/Shami trees. This is followed  by a torch light parade by the forces and then some breathtaking fireworks adoring the dark october sky. At home, Dasara meant a display of all the dolls in the traditional Mysore way usually based on themes (Ramayana, Dashavatar,cricket match, Rajasthani and Gujarati dolls)

The Dasara celebrations ,the Mysore way is now 400 years old but to many of us the legacy is still young and hopefully will never grow old. Its the one time of the year when every Mysorean is excited automatically, something like a part of your life which grows with you and the spirit increases every year. 30+ years later, i am not bored of it. As kids, Dasara in Mysore meant gearing up for the various celebrations and events that are held in the city.And if you were a little well connected to the city administration,police,horticulture department through friends,relatives and neighbors and et al meant that free passes and some even with multiple entries! to the various events. The most popular events were the exhibition, flower show,VIP enclosure in and around the palace gates to watch the Jambu-Savari(elephant procession),Wrestling competition,flower show, Torch Light parade. I don't even remember if commercial tickets were even sold as one family pass in the neighborhood meant there was every possibility of availing it on a particular day by roster- I haven't seen such neighborhood camaraderie after i left Mysore. The much awaited Dasara exhibition was Mysore's only window to consumeristic opulence and fathers saved and planned for a day of impulsive spending. Today there are bigger and better consumer fairs and of course the ever so-convenient malls, but a visit to the traditional exhibition only completed the Dasara experience for the year. A ride on the giant wheel(and later tora toraa), the Delhi happaLa (papad), cotton candy,churmuri,mensinkai bajjis,10 packets of popcorn for anywhere between 10 and 5 rupees depending on the time of the day, and definitely the 'toy of the year'-usually a small and innovative contraption involving no more than a rubber band and a few pieces of plastic (boy! we loved them didn't we). There was always something for the ladies as well, a trinket, newer designs of imitation jewelry, handlooms from Tiruppur and Rajasthan and then the wonder machines that could chop vegetables,peel onions without a tear,knead dough, mop floors, soap savers,tap attachments and the crowd outside these stalls were something that would baffle any market strategist. The days are usually hot and sweaty during this time of the year and the evenings even more uncertain with the rain clouds looming over the horizon. But the lighting in the city during Dasara really drew my attention and soars the spirits. Every street in the city is decorated with light. Millions of bulbs glow to make the dark night in the city colorful and beautiful. The Palace and the surroundings are a sight that would remain etched in the mind for a long time.


Many years later with my daughter in tow, the festivities during Dasara continues to amaze us and i can see the same sparkle in my daughter's eyes that my parents saw in ours and encouraged us to spend and allowed us to give the school regimen a small break..wasn't it Dasara afterall? our very own oktoberfest !!
if you care for some trivia here, my first scaled down model car that i ever owned was (a red Lancia hatchback made in Hong Kong) was bought at the dasara exhibition circa 1986 -thanks to my doting parents, for an astonomical 8 or 10 rupees and it still has its place of pride in the display area in my living room)

And, finally a piece of advice, Don't bother clicking pictures during Dasara,enjoy the moment and the stay and just come back again next year and relive it again. It keeps getting better every year!

Internet Explorer 9

Microsoft announced on September 15th the beta availability of Internet Explorer browser. IE 9.0 has supposedly everything a browser did not have all these years - support all CSS 3 selectors, border-radius CSS 3 property, improved JavaScript performance, and embedded ICC v2 or v4 color profiles support via Windows Color System. It also features hardware-accelerated graphics rendering using Direct2D, hardware accelerated text rendering using DirectWrite, hardware accelerated video rendering using Media Foundation, imaging support provided by Windows Imaging Component, and high fidelity printing powered by the XPS print pipeline.IE 9 is available in both 32 and 64 bit versions and was initially thought to be OS agnostic.


The catch however is that IE 9 works only with Windows 7 or Windows Vista SP2 (with Platform Update and IE8) Windows XP is not supported and most of us are on Win XP SP3 and we all know how successful Vista is. Surely some typical Microsoft strategy at work here Huh..

Risk (a)version!

I have spent the last decade and beyond  developing, testing and overseeing the release of multiple versions of many software products on multiple technology stacks and seeing it succeed though its planned shelf life and lifecycle. This also came with an inherent self assurance that the next version of the software would be better than the current one and would solve all our (clients) problems. In those days, heroes were tagged to different releases. I even have a certificate at home from one of my past employer proclaiming me as one of the stars of the v2005 and v2006 releases! A close friend recently and quite suddenly asked me which version of facebook was i using. This question of his left me stumped but moments later sounded a wee bit rhetorical - did facebook ever had versioning?


I soon realized that it was not just facebook, most products from Google did not have versioning. The old order seemed to have changed suddenly. Developing and selling software through versioning with the accompanying hype and timed big bang releases is actually disappearing fast. Its being replaced by a method where the software actually resides on the internet or the cloud and is continuously updated as a result of which the user has the latest and greatest version or simply the current version! Unlike the older model of spending years adding new features to the products and then spending whatever dollars to advertise market and convince existing customers to upgrade or new ones to purchase. If you added up the maintenance hours and the costs associated with "supporting" older products all the while cramming newer features out of fear of losing out on features - isn't this software bloat? I also think this is a 'vicious' reinforcing loop that one gets into while the software becomes more complex and expensive to build over time and more complex to use. And are my users using more and newer features of the complex software i delivered? Probably not, a good ERP user needs to use about 20% of the features the best of the breed ERP vendor offers today!! ( you may question the 20% - but from my experience, i am convinced that it is pretty close). And, how many times have we seen anything ‘frozen’? But the time a new version of the product was ready for a release, many of the features would have been outdated while many more would be missing since the customer and his needs also evolved during the product development cycle.

I recently was introduced to a different revenue model in product software wherein the company wasn't charging a one time license fee but a monthly subscription or a rental fee. The best part of this model was subscribers also have the rights to the future enhancements. I am sure the revenue model and the transparency it brings drives these companies to constantly innovate. This would not only keep the maintenance revenues flowing, but also ensure better software quality. Product development finally seems to be heading the Agile/Rapid App development (RAD) model versus the traditional waterfall model. The new model would not only give the time to understand customer needs but also lets you build small incremental features and also,ofcourse- discard things that don't work. And who drives it - Product development is no longer marketing led development but engineering led.

Does this make life easier? at least you don't probably don't have to estimate for features ahead of time and sometimes these features may not even make it to the version. Just let the folks develop smaller pieces of code and publish it on the internet or cloud for your real users to ratify, They are your real 'user' group and who isn't happy without any productivity loss?

So is RAD effective? For one, it reduces the development time and reusability of components help to speed up development. All functions are modularized so it is easy to work with. The only expectation for large enterprise level products would be extreme commitment by the end customer and developer to complete the product in a fixed and an abbreviated time range.

The good break diary …

31st August 2010


For the past few weeks, it has been a very emotional time for me as I bid farewell to my dear colleagues and friends of the past 7+ years at manhattan Associates. I woke up today to realize i didn't have to be at the bus stop in time for the office cab. I also signed up for an Ayurvedic detoxification plan to flush away all the toxic remnants of the loving farewell lunches and dinners from the past weeks. The Panchakarma therapy lasted 10 days at the comfort environs of Parampara Ayurvedic center at Sadashivanagar under the watchful eye of Ranjini, my wife and a physician herself. During the next 10 days, there is nothing much to look forward to, other than a regimented life with the work life being uncharacteristically calm.

1st September
Almost midweek and after a long time, Wednesday looks calms and I am already missing the numerous meetings scheduled for Wednesday. The idleness bout already seems to have taken over me and my idle mind is now meandering and throwing posers- do i really need to do something around the house in order to keep myself busy? Cleaning, organizing stuff, run errands for the family, revisit my investment portfolio. Thinking of investments, I call up Nagaraj BG and BLN Swamy, my trusted friends and advisors in the moneyed world. Life would have been much more prosperous if only I had acted on their timely advice. As always, they had fantastic news for me-if only I was ready to act upon..Buying and selling stocks on advice will perilously bring me closer to being a trader -certainly not something I started with (Mr Buffet - still with you). I also don’t have the wherewithal to become one; I believe it is too tedious to track markets on an hourly basis and have brokers on speed dial. As many have said it before, just be long term and the markets will take care of the rest...

2nd September
One of the other things that i am doing these days is reading up a lot since i can afford the entire day reading books. The detoxification therapy comes with a statutory warning of no-sleeping during the day and that again helps the reading cause. I have been reading Michael Lewis' Money Poker, A compilation of clichés by Christine Ammer, The fish omnibus , re-reads of Dave Barry to keep myself in some good humor and the bed time read for the next few nights will be 'What got you here Won't get you there' by Marshall Goldsmith. With all these reading, i haven’t become any more of a geek, but the exercise has proved worth the effort and offered some solutions and solace to the restlessness caused by a few days of inaction. I suddenly remember ‘Winnie the pooh’ here, who famously said - Never underestimate the value of doing nothing. Stock market gurus actually sometimes prescribe doing nothing.. As it demonstrates patience, perseverance and even conviction. While still at investing, doing nothing helps investors like me restrain from making unnecessary wrong moves and even more unnecessarily churn portfolios enduring pain while hoping for some gain. The question that refuses to go away easily now is how long will I do nothing?

3rd September
I had at least something to look forward today. Thanks to facebook, i got in touch with a buddy from school, Vijay Iyengar who was visiting India. We had promised to meet at a hotel in Malleshwaram after exactly 18 years. Vijay had left the country 18 summers ago to pursue education in Moscow. Subsequently, he moved to the United States along with his wife and lives in NJ. Vijay works with thought leaders from the medical world and represents his company Sanofi Aventis quite well in getting these thought leaders speak for the drugs and molecules that his company develops. The reunion was fun, full of nostalgia and helped me spend the day relatively easily. It took some convincing from me to assure Vijay that the decision to stay back in India was well thought of and work can be as challenging as it can be anywhere else. Fortunately, i had Manhattan Associates and IBM as examples to show how well the captive center and the off shoring model worked. I am due to join IBM in about 5 days and actually a bit nervous about how the big blue works given its scale. After a long time, Friday didn’t seem like a weekend and strangely enough, I am now looking forward to 8th Sept, Wednesday when I formally join IBM..

4th September
The day began lazily with a late brunch for all at home except me. There were a few chores to be attended to. A lure of a clean deal in a residential plot took me near the new international airport to check out a residential plot in a gated community. As in the past, this one too looked uncertain in terms of appreciation and valuations that I had to 'do nothing' about it. Before getting further frustrated, i decided to analyze the current status of my portfolio. It did show a steady net gain with the best performer in my kitty being Rallis India while Tata steel continues to be one of the bigger drags. Warren Buffet and Benjamin Graham's experience and wisdom tells me not to be disheartened. So, again I delve into some research reports with the hope of predicting it right, but no more for some time. I decide to again 'do nothing' and simply allow these companies the time to grow.

5th September
My detox therapy is going well, but I am now missing my coffee so much. I feel light but not weak, the day is spent with the family and those who know me praise me for the discipline while following a strict diet-but the doctor (my wife) isn't - she actually wanted me to follow the regime for 3 weeks for the most effective treatment and to gain maximum benefit. Sunday also meant, I get access to the internet using Ranjini's computer. Being between jobs has made me digitally disconnected with fewer email replies, facebook and twitter updates. But i still needed to be connected as my communication with IBM, my new employer is through web mail.

6th September
The markets open and the world goes back to the working mode once again on a Monday morning, my therapy has now reached final stage. It’s now a luxurious 75 mins at the spa in the mornings making it something to look forward to, not to mention the rejuvenated feel during the day. Diet is still the same. I also began preparing for my new job beginning in two days. Getting the necessary paper work, pre employment forms, photocopying, getting photographed for the various forms and identification needs were some of the distractive things I did today. The stock markets meanwhile are on a surge ready to break the 19000 barrier. My neighbor who is a portfolio manager looks elated vetted some of my investment decisons.There are more buy recommendations coming in from almost everywhere and from everyone, but the percentage of Indians who believe they can create wealth in the markets is still a dismal number-so much to speak about awareness and risk appetite. I used this good peak in the Sensex to redeem some of my mutual funds for some tidy appreciation.

7th September
Began the day with the last visit to the therapy center and came home and began browsing through the info way to find as much as I could about IBM, the history, break-up of the business, spoke to my Royal Blue Ambassador about the joining formalities. The afternoon was spent navigating the IBM website for pre-joining requisites that I was expected to be aware of. IBM being so huge cannot operate without processes and policies. I was soon to discover how scale can be managed and managed effectively and what a chaotic place IBM would have been without these processes and policies in place.

8th September - early morning..
I now get into active work life which also means this diary would also end and it would be sometime before I come back with more blogs. For now, the immediate learning is to make newer friends, learn to navigate the big blue maze and set up an office and get back to the working ways. I will try to continue to keep an eye on the fate of my portfolio and hopefully, will be able to share some details and i hope there will be a few more zeroes in the net profit.

The anatomy of a goodbye

This week has been a very memorable one filled with a lot of nostalgia. The beginning of the week was the last day at work for me at Manhattan Associates, a place where I have spent the last 2675 days or 7 years, 3 Months and 26 days to be precise and clocked in more than a 100,000 kilometers on the commute using the office cab and developed many a friendships, skills for life, fair degree of prosperity in life not to mention the satisfaction of having achieved a lot professionally. While this has been a very satisfying stint for me personally for having got numerous opportunities to work with the best minds and customers in the supply chain management space and equips me for my next job, it also left me a little bleary eyed to part and say goodbye to so many wonderful friends and colleagues across the globe with who many a milestones were together achieved, successes celebrated and setbacks re strategized. The innumerable product releases, travel to customer locations, satisfying our internal clients, managing people, working on quality initiatives, traveling to campuses (NITs,IITs, local colleges) to meet the most enthusiastic and brilliant minds trying to lure them into joining us has best defined my years at Manhattan Associates. This again re emphasizes the fact that when people with a good skill set and even better attitude get together - Success is just another flagged cell on the on the MPP. As manager of fairly large teams, I have in the past replied passionately to goodbye emails and on odd occasions a nonchalant 'Thanks, Good Luck' also, to anyone who has sent me their farewell email. However, it was only last Friday that I realized that a lot of emotions go into writing one and however hard I tried to make it humorous, it ended up in a pathetically polite note (those who received mine will agree). Some recent ones that came into my inbox had plenty of humor in them - One of them likened his journey in the company to the tossed around and reincarnated Dude (call him AsokJoecool if you have to give him a name) while another one almost said where she wasn't going next and yet another one writing a scroll of honor of all and sundry who had helped him in his brief career so far.


While I did not really take long to compose my email, answering a few direct questions wasn't something I was prepared for and the toughest one amongst that was the 'What went wrong that you are leaving'. It took some composure before i said "well, actually nothing" as mine was more of a Just about time move to a larger organization where I hopefully get to learn more and enjoy as I have at Manhattan Associates for all these years.

To, the Ol' gang at MA - Bangalore & Atlanta, I am surely going to miss you - thanks for nurturing me and providing me the fish during the time i was learning to cast...

An Independent nation's predicament

With the usual dilemma of how to celebrate Independence Day, I stepped out of home this morning with my daughter in tow -her only incentive being the éclair that usually is the flag hoisting sweet that my apartment’s residents society distributes on Independence day. The event itself did not begin before multiple announcements on the public address system goading the citizenry to come down. Many agonizing minutes later the flag was hoisted followed by the patriotic singing of the national anthem which most of the folks from the generation after mine could barely sing. The oldest gentleman in our society delivered a very energetic but nostalgic speech glorifying the achievements the nation had managed in these 63 years.

I often wonder about the nation’s journey and importantly the whole Idea of India and its multiple predicaments. It is generally believed that the people get a nation that they deserve and also the vice versa. While I agree with the probably septaugenarian gentleman this morning who proudly listed all the great achievements in various fields viz science, technology, medicine, economics, education etc. I have never been convinced that freedom actually brought societal stability or affluence. We are still as heterogeneous as a nation, cynical as a society than probably most of the 120 countries that became independent from some sort of colonial domination between 1947 and 1962. Some of these countries tried to make such changes too quickly and the process to introduce affluence, order while still trying to maintain the new found freedom and ended up in one party rule, neo-colonial domination, dictatorship or plain anarchy (You can see it all in the neighborhood). I am proud when it comes to India having managed to retain its democratic framework while silently triggering off revolutions in economic development and prosperity. Critics may argue that this is a pittance when compared to where we should have been in the 60+ years. Back in school, we were taught that India survives on two virtues –democracy and pluralism. Interestingly both of these ideas consummate the strength of my country and also challenge it so much (all the bandhs, free speech and the freedom of the press). The beauty of this nation is that we are pluralist and not monist. Our founding fathers had never thought about achieving a nationhood by flattening religions, linguistic variety and cultural differences, but by harmonizing them and building on them. Sometimes, it does seem that the ideological difference is bigger than national pride. But in the end, I am confident that my country will emerge stronger and elements on the fringe will realize the rational and see the value of growing with this great nation. A nation where as simple as a game of Cricket can be the binding force which can bestow a distinct Indian character to nationalism.

While the celebrations end as the flag is lowered in the evening, thoughts race as the nation prepares for another week of nation building. Does anyone remember anything more than what has to be done on a Monday morning? Isn’t it a question of existence after all? Life has to continue and thank god-it is a Monday again!

An incredible nation, my lovely motherland full of vibrant cultural heritage and spiritual mysticism - what more can i say but ' I ♥ India '