Category: Personal

@Saurabh is back

@Saurabh is back.

For the uninitiated, twitter suspended my account last week. I am now told that it was because the link on my account was compromised. I did everything to get it back. Wrote to them, made blogposts, spoke to experts, updated FB, asked for help.

And few people heard. They came forward and helped.

Starting with Zishaan, Rajesh and Rina who helped me understand the problem to all the people who tweeted and re-tweeted. This is going to be a long list. I did not know I had so many friends. AaruC, dhempe, FagunB, umeshg, sharadaprasad, GauravSaha, krist0ph3r, SLotH13, Raj_S, fossiloflife, danishctc, aritra_m, Gagan, prolificd, anaggh, sahnigagan, sakthidharan, saaket, Netra, iMBA, KapilJoshi, nakulshenoy, Sampad, mtaram, deepakravindran, punkpolkadots, b50, thinkerwrites. I hope I did not miss a name.

Thank you guys. You rock. And this is my followfriday list come friday 🙂

P.S.: I missed twitter while my account was gone. 😐

May 2009: Goals and Output. And bits of miscellany.

I have been away form all kinds of blogging (except twitter and occasion spam on JFK) for last week. I dont know why. Last week was actually one of those few times when I did some heavy soul-searching. Without any benefit …

Not that I dint have opportunities. I went on this bike ride till Pune but again dint want to publish it. I put my bike on my website and twitter. I dint publish that. I made few cartoons (on the lines of Slog_More()), dint publish them either. Then I discovered this band caled Faridkot from Delhi. They do Hindi rock and are very good. I meant to blog about them but I did not.

I dont know why. I think I was living in some kind of an orb. More I try getting out of it, more dragged into it I get.

I am having this hard time understanding myself. This is one of those rare moments when I am ranting my true emotions and all. Please ignore the rhetoric.

Anyways, here is the monthly post on Goals and what I did about them. I had two simple goals for May. Start wearing shoes (that implied buy them and get used to them) and start writing the book (this implied stat re-writing the book that I started about six months back). Ladies and Gentlemen, I did neither. No, I am not proud.

And coming up in some time … is goals for June 2009.

May 2009: Goals!

In April this year, I started this monthly series of posts, called Goals. I will write on paper what I want to do/achieve in the coming month. I cant plan for the future. Leave alone thinking of 5, 10 year goals. Max I can do is think ahead like a week. Thinking ahead for a month is a way to try and do better. Also, Month is a good quantum of time to make realistic goals. I cant really get a lot of things done in a week. A year looks like an eternity. And hence a month.

Also, I have realized that I need to be able to measure my progress and I need measurable and frequent gratification (in terms of results and achievements, howsoever small they are) for my efforts. With these monthly goals, I can see sucess/failure very soon. BTW I am not only moved by success alone. I take failure with similar spring in stride. I need results. Something that gives me feedback.

Finally, I hate when output of my effort has to depend on too many external factors. I understand I need to be able to work with others and everyone has their limitations (of time, brains, efforts, motivation et al). My monthly goals are mostly personal in nature right now. Would try to extend them to work eventually.

So, monthly goals sound like a good idea. And here I am implementing them. Anyways, coming back to the goals, when May 2009 would end, I would have

  • Started wearing shoes. Not that I see any benefit out of it but I think I will.
  • Started on the book.

Thats about it. Small list for May. Lets see how it goes. BTW, this is the goal list for April 09. And this is how I fared on it.

April 2009: Goals and Output.

Off my April 2009 goals, I did …

  1. Bought the bike. I got it on 15th April 2009. It is a Royal Enfield Bullet Eletcra 5S. I paid a fortune for it (considering my cash flow) but I am happy I did and got over it. I had been thinking about it for a long time now.
  2. Restarted blogging on SaurabhGarg.com. I did. I call my new blog “Questions. And Answers.”. Why and how is here.

And I did not …

  1. Learn to juggle 4 balls: I can do only three. I did not get to the 4th ball. Dint get time to learn the fourth ball. Actually lost the motivation to move on the 4th ball.
  2. Do Twitter Clone: Given up without writing a single code. I have left the blog the way it is. I dint even check with kAgE if he did anything about it. Knowing him, it is improbable that he would have done it.

Neo pointed out that I have done things that I could have bought with money. Things that required me to work, put in effort, I dint do anything about them. This will have to change starting May.

Royal Enfield Bullet Electra is here!!

After waiting for about 5 years (I thought about it first way back in 2004 when I was just joining MDI), and talking about it forever (like here, here and here), I have been able to muster enough courage (and save enough money) to get myself a Royal Enfield Bullet Electra.

This one is a Bullet Electra 5S, 2009 Model. Silver. As compared to classic Bullets, this one has 5 gears, brake on the right side and an electric start. There are minor upgrades in terms of disk brakes, steelwool in exhaust and oil controled shock absorbers etc. The engine remains the same. So does the thump. And so does the (in)famous sound.

I got it on 15th April 2009. So far I have done some 100 KMs on it. Couldn’t annouce it earlier because I did not get the registration and other documents. Finally, I am assured that by today evening I would be a free man.

Yes, a free man. A Royal Enfield for me is not so much about heritage, performance or durability. It is a dream I have cherished for a long time. Its part of the trip I am on. It is like my second life. For me its freedom from the boring routines that we call life. It takes me to a place where I will be by myself. I will be on the road discovering new places, knowing things like I have never know and experiencing the pains and pleasures of riding a Bullet. I plan to take long journeys on it, once I master the art of riding it. Lets just say, I will get in the God Mode (alternate definitions here), moment I am on a bullet.

BTW, we are calling it RajDulara (and Chetak for brevity). Named after Neo‘s RamPyari, finally its hum do, humare do. And please, no test rides. Will try to get my hands on a camera over the weekend and upload some pictures. Next on agenda? A trip to Leh perhaps?

P.S.: My last bike was Kawasaki Bajaj Caliber Croma. I had it for about 5 years before I moved to Mumbai. It was sold without me ever getting to know about it. I plan to make this one last for the rest of my life.

P.P.S.: Next todo is to create a trip poster for myself. These posters are just brilliant. Check them out.

Origami Crane

I have always been an Origami fan. As a kid I remember folding all kinds of paper into all kinds of shapes. Not that it excited me, it was one of those million things that you do as kids. And then when I stumbled upon Prison Break, I wanted to be able to make Cranes and all the other things that people make with one sheet of paper.

Somehow, yesterday, I started reading about it and decided to learn at least a few things. The Crane was an obvious place to start. Googled and used this image to learn how to fold a crane.
This is the final result. Not as beautiful as the ones Michael (Scofield) makes, but its still a crane. And it can still bring a smile to anyone.


I made two of them. The second one looked better. And while you are at it, you might want to check out this TED talk by Robert Lang where he marries the art and science of origami and creates wonderful objects (check out his website for his creations).

Any more origami aficionados?

And yes, I realized that I need gratification for my efforts. Even if its small. Even if it comes from myself only! I see things like juggling, origami, rubik’s cube etc as those small little things that give me that instant gratification I look for.

A, B and C

One of the latest pieces of work that has really caught the fancy of the world has been Anurag Kashyap and Abhay Deol’s Dev D. It is a story of this young lad, Dev, a rich dad’s poor little boy, an obsessive lover, an escapist, disillusioned by the world and in search for something that he calls love.

So much for Dev and his psychedelic life. Let me talk about me and a couple of my friends. Let me call these three people A, B and C. All three have a fairly enviable education background. All are beyond their prime now (28 types).

A works for India’s most visionary entrepreneur’s prodigal elder son’s one of million companies. This company is one of few organized players in India’s burgeoning retail market. A is one of the most extraordinary people that I have ever met. Although he doesnt put a lot of time and effort in coming up with insights and ideas but whenever he does so, he comes up with gem. His words are worth their weight in gold and diamonds and platinum. His thoughts are very clear and he knows what exactly he wants out of life and work. He is also one of the laziest people you would ever meet.

B works for a “conglomerate” with businesses ranging from chemicals to locks to rocket engines to foods to retail to real estate to medicine and to what not. If we legalized gambling and prostitution, they would have launched that too. Of course they would have put myriads of hierarchy and long designations for doing seemingly innocuous work. Anyways, B is an engineer by education, manager by designation and Shikari Shambhu by character. His sole aim in life is to make more money than anyone he knows, own the biggest house amongst his reference group and retire with enough in the pension fund. Nothing wrong about it. Just that its a different story that he is not doing anything about it.

C thinks that he hard to understand for most of the people that he knows. Including C himself. Actually that’s what C thinks. He is often branded random, frivolous and fickle minded. He is trying to ride some 19 boats at the same time and needless to say, failing at staying on course. He work a 8:30 to 5:30 job and leaves his office strictly at 5:30, goes to his place and stares at the wall and TV for about 5 hours before he sleeps.

So, three of us, our life stream can put any number of Devs‘ to shame. A typical day for each of us is VERY predictable. We probably are the cheapest targets for detective agencies. Sitting here, in my office, I can tell, with 100% certainty what the other two are upto. For example B is trying to scroll through his gtalk chat list thinking who he can chat up with. A would be out of his office smoking umpteenth cigarette of the day. I can also say for sure if you asked the other two about all three, everyone but A would know what others are upto. A’s secretary might have some answers.

Not that we dont try to break out of this monotony, its just that we are constrained by things that seem out of control and we dont even try to move out of the rat race. For A, its lethargy, for B, its security and for C, its, well he doesnt know.

Dev was better. He at least had an outlet in blur of alcohol. We dont.

P.S.: Title changed from “Putting Dev D to shame” to “A, B and C”

Work Better

I have realized that I work better when …

  1. I am facing a wall. I this helps me keep distractions to the minimum.
  2. Listening to music I like. This helps in concentrating.
  3. The background noise is at bare minimum. For obvious reasons.
  4. There’s a glassful of water next to me. And a loo within 10 seconds walking distance.
  5. My feet are free. Or read as, when I am not wearing any shoes. May be my brain is in my toes?
  6. I have a notepad and few pencils to scribble things on. I like taking notes!
  7. Lights are dimmed. Not too much of a brightness fan. Blame it on q3?

I am trying to build this list. Lets see how far this goes. Once I have everything in place, I would move!

What helps you work better? Any more tips?