Category: Personal

Happy Birthday Kunal Garde

Today happens to be Kunal‘s Birthday. Happy birthday kAgE. Hope you have a wonderful year ahead and both of us co-start something that changes the world.

From those early days at MAC,
when we won every competition we participated in,

to that trip to TITS,
where we won the textile quiz against all odds,

to our two year consecutive win,
at IP University‘s cracking competition,

to those cable Internet days,
provided by one Mr. Gokhale,

to those days at INT,
where we met Mr. I-IS,

to those times when we planned to create a company
and call it Cyntax Labs,

to all those gaming days,
where you have taken my arse mercilessly,
at q3dm17 and q3dm6,

to those days when cracking was fun,
and you taught me how to use SoftIce,

to that trashing that you gave Team MML,
at a CS tournament at AIT,

to all those biking trips,
that we have had on your Electra and my Caliber,

to those infinite number of hogging sessions,
at the van and all the Agarwal’s,

to our conversation last night,
about the next idea to take over the world,

every moment has been awesome fun. You have played a large part in making me what I am today. Your birthday is probably the best time to say Thank You.

Have an awesome year ahead. And hoping against hope that you read this 😀

And for other junta, Kunal is an awesome and fun guy to be around. He is still single except for those one off riffs with another guy (PA) from MAC. Any takers?

Just found out, its Katrina Kaif’s birthday as well. For the uninitiated she is the same chick that cant speak Hindi, cant act, has mile long legs, looks the same in all songs she does and is very full of herself.

Tete e Tete with NR Narayana Murthy

Went to the Mumbai airport to drop a friend. And amidst the crowd was standing a old guy wearing faded denim jeans, a white shirt and carrying his own bag. I looked at him and dint realize a thing. And then a friend screamed “Oh .. Fuck .. Its NR Narayana Murthy“.

We debated how can he be standing there, looking lost and all that. We took one full circle and yes it was him.

Before we could step out of our car and shake his hands and all, his taxi arrived and he left. This was probably the closet I have reached to someone who is super rich and does not mind lugging his own bags.

Wow. One of the richest businessmen in India standing at an airport waiting for someone to pick him up. No security. No air around him. No fancy attire. No chauffeurs. Will I ever become what he is?

One year at Creativeland Asia


This day, last year, I moved from GE Money to Creativeland Asia and its one of those few decisions that I have not regretted or reconsidered.

Reasons are two fold.

1. GE was not my kind of place. It might be very very good place to work and might have very good work policies but it did not work for me. May be I am not programmed to work under structures and rulebooks and guidelines and policies and checklists.

2. Creativeland Asia on the other hand, has been a very rewarding and enriching experience. Its my kind of place. Its my land. Just about over an year old, its not really perfect. It can obviously be better. And I, we at Creativeland are working towards it. Hopefully will see some results soon.

I have learned lots of lessons and have made tons of mistakes in this past year. And Creativeland has truly given me a canvas where I can make mistakes and learn from them. At Creativeland we are moving towards that fictional Utopian world.

Hope the coming year is even better and we get closer to making that revolution happen.

P.S.: Why do I always talk about revolutions?

Application to Berlin School of Creative Leadership

In my recent trip to Cannes, I chanced upon attending a talk by Michael Conrad and Prof. Casse on Berlin School EMBA and I realized that I need to apply to Berlin School. Along with the application, I had to write why is it important for me to attend the Berlin School. This is what I wrote (I have removed some specifics) …

I have always been known me as a dreamer and I think of myself as nothing less than a revolutionary. I am in a constant pursuit of that elusive new thing that can change the way we communicate and live. Never scared of raising that lonesome hand in a classroom of dutiful students or walking down that dark alley behind buildings or pouring yellow, green and blue liquids in that large beaker in chemistry labs, I have always been on an adventure trip. Where there are no roads, no clear destinations and certainly no guarantee of returns. For me, the journey towards the goal is more important than actually reaching the milestone.

Curiosity is something that comes naturally to me. I can boast of a logical flow of thought and questioning mind. I have realized that I have the skills required for being a creative leader. All I need is place to polish them and bridge the gaps that I have.

I see Berlin School of Creative Leadership as the perfect platform from where I can start that revolution that I knew I would start some day. The opportunity to interact with world-renowned creative leaders, handpicked peer group and wide cultures from Berlin to Tokyo to NY to my home state of Delhi, India is very unique and lucrative. I have realized that I need a cross-cultural exposure to understand people better and Berlin School can do that for me.

For me the programme is as much as about learning as contributing to the learning of their peer. With me, I bring to the table a child like enthusiasm, a never say die attitude and a lot of positive energy to the team. I can also enrich the learning of other participants by my understanding of businesses, buyer behavior and identifying gaps that potential businesses can exploit.

For me, creativity as a discipline is not limited to only advertising or branding. It certainly does not mean writing smart copies and coming up with brand identities and churning out work for clients. Instead, creativity is a way of thinking. It’s the way you approach businesses and ideas. It’s more of a methodology, a route that you take to reach the end product. The end product could be an award winning piece of work for a client, a new way to arrange your bookshelf or even a new business.

I believe that there is as much science to creativity as there is art. Experience at Berlin School will help me find a right balance between the two. I have always had focus on creating original thought and its application in the business world. With the thesis I am proposing on identifying traits of successful digital brands and creating a framework for the same, Berlin School will help me with access to leading digital brands. Peers and faculty at Berlin School will help me scrutinize these ideas and create a robust framework.

Berlin School will play a vital role in my career and I am looking at the experience at Berlin School to rediscover myself.

Any thoughts anyone?

As I was posting this, I realized that I have made few mistakes in the application. Now that application is gone, I cant really change it but ought to be careful next time around.

Happy Birthday PD

Its PD‘s birthday. Since I have been lazy and I lack serious creativity, this is how I decided to wish her.

Words cant express how important she is to me. May she has a wonderful year ahead and gets all that she aspires for this year.

P.S.: If you are reading this, please save some cake for me 😀

Why I like mountains?

Me @ Yanker Pass

On way to Mumbai, in an Air France flight, flying over mountains.

I have often asked myself if I am a mountain person or a water person. To be honest, I like both the things. There is no better feeling than climbing a mountain, reaching the top and anticipation of the world that lies beyond it. On the other hand, a water body is all I can ask for. I love the concept of swimming, boating, water sports and my idea of fun is actually spending a day with water sports.

If it is not required that I put myself into a category but an introspection on this can be a fruitful exercise. Not that it would help me economically, it would help me frame my thoughts better when I talk about this to someone next time.

So, what is about mountains that I like? I think there are multiple reasons. First would be the sense of achievement that you get when you have climbed to the top of the world. Its like an award for a difficult task done well.

Second could be being at a place where so few people have reached. Not a lot of people think like that. Being able to climb makes you one amongst the few special ones.

Third is obviously the view that you get from the top of the world. There are so many things that you can see from there. The entire world transforms into a giant landscape with miniature objects. All objects are disconnected with each other and yet collectively they are part of something larger at the same time. Suddenly you feel so powerful about the fact that you can see everyone and no one being watched can even imagine that they are being watched. Its like being able to control the destinies of people.

Fourth I think is the curiosity. I want to discover the hidden, create the unthinkable and explore the secret worlds. A mountain is like a symbolic barrier that prevents this movement and exploration. I agree that we now have travel options that are easier and more convenient than sleeping in a luxury bedroom, but still the thought that mountain is a barrier and you can overcome is exciting.

Fifth the sheer size of the mountains makes you feel so insignificant. You can climb on for days and you will still remain as far from the summit as far you were when you started.

Sixth the mountains makes you realize that we the humans are very fragile. We live in our comfort zones and take things for granted. Moment there is a hint of adverse situations, like the ones on mountains; we realize how weak we are. How insignificant are the things that we spend our lives chasing.

Seventh the climb itself could be tiring, taxing and fun at the same time. You invariable come across thousands of species of life including a few human tribes that have been battling the mountains and have survived for ages. These are the people who have fought against and won the evolution battle. If evolution was correct, there people would have migrated to plains, in easier living conditions and would have concentrated on creating better generations. But here they are, living in tough conditions, with old tools, without complaining or leaving their homes. There are times when you wonder how did the very first these men and women reach the mountains and why did they decide to settle there. Still further, how easy or difficult would have lives had been when all they would have had is their courage and few very basic handheld tools. What about the times when they got hurt? When they got sick? And what about the fact that we humans are social animals and anyone devoid of any contacts with other human cant really develop in true sense. Would these people even bother about their development? Before I get on another tangent about existence and meaning of life, need to think of another reasons.

Eight I think climbing a mountain teaches you quite a few things – teamwork, decision-making, crisis management, character development, preparation, adjustability, attitude, fear, courage, strength. I can carry on adding words. Bottom line is that everything starts because of one reason – being in an uncertain and unfamiliar environment. And you develop all these skills because you are trying to be in control of situations. Or should I say trying to cope up.

Ok, now one of my colleagues has wakened up and anyways I am out of my wits on this, better take a break.

Happy Birthday Divya Mathur

Today is Divya’s birthday. She used to be a classmate at Plato Public School in Delhi. Last I met her was sometime in 1997 when I was leaving the school for a bigger and better school elsewhere. Since then have thought about her a lot of times, tried searching for her on Orkuts and Facebooks of the world but could not find.

Wondering if a blog can help me find her. Her full name is Divya Mathur and last I know, she stayed in East Delhi and went to Plato Public School in IP Extension.

Please see if you can help.

Visit to Cannes

A sleepy town along the beaches of south of France,
where every one has a convertible car,
at least one super bike,
and few trophy wives,
where all the “brands” from Gucci to Gabana have their store,
where everything is charged at a super premium or more,
a town called Cannes.

Wah wah … impromptu poetry. 😀

On a serious note, I am currently attending the Cannes Lions Advertising Festival 2008 at Cannes (my rants from the fest can be found here). So far its been awesome fun.

I am here till Saturday and then its back to Mumbai. More updates on the trip once I am back to Mumbai.

Awesome weekend

7th, 8th and 9th June were yet another set of awesome days.

Friday night – Saw Sarkar Raj with Ashima and Parry. The movie was ok. Will rate it at 2 on 5. The ending is awesome. The last 15 mins is very very good. You could go through the ordeal of watching the first half of the movie for just these last 15 mins.

Friday night – After the movie, it was raining like crazy and stood in the baarish at Kandivali crossing for about an hour. Ideally would have wanted some music – romantic and sentimental but its ok.

Saturday evening – Had some work. Met my team and a client for a presentation. They loved it.

Sunday morning – Slept like a log for 12 hours. And

Sunday evening – played pool, countre-strike, sat with friends and they had beer, had awesome dinner and then slept for 10 hours.

Wish every day could be a party like this.

500 and My Blogging Biography

This is my 500th post on this blog. Come to think of it, its been an interesting journey.

I am not a celebrity blogger as yet, and in all probability I would never be one but blogging has been a really important part of my life. I have made very good friends (Megha, Priyadarshini, Ravi, Sandesh, Sanjukta, Shankar), learned so many things, found an avenue to express my thoughts, made public my inner most thoughts, shared with the world things that I am really fond of and a lot of other frivolities.

I think it all started sometime in 2000 when I saw Aakash, a very good friend from MAC update his profile page on yahoo. I did not know that time that Yahoo has this page where you can write your profile. I still remember he was using the only computer with a pathetic dial up network in out computer lab.

I went to a friend’s place that very day and created a yahoo email account (I no longer use it – dont remember the password). And that was the beginning. After that I created my own yahoo profile, created a lot of websites for my self and for other people including my college fest, Lucky Ali and Simone Singh. I extensively used Geocities and other yahoo tools. No I knew had heard of blogging, social networking, even Google.com in those days.

Then all of a sudden Y2K happened. Along with it came a lot of new thoughts, opportunities and information. Online activity was limited to emails on yahoo mail, chats on yahoo chat rooms, games on yahoo games, websites on geocities, freeservers and buildtolearn. It’s funny how those days life revolved around yahoo and now its around Google. Wondering what would it be tomorrow.

And then somewhere in 2004, I stumbled onto blogging. Yet again because of Aakash. Started this blog and have been writing since. There are times when I post every 5 minutes and there are times when I dont write a single word for weeks. But somehow my interest in blogging never waned. I then thought one blog is not enough. And I started a blog for posting my pics, this, this and this for posting my thoughts on travel, one for stocks, one for my not-so-random thoughts, one for MDI, one for MML and a host of other ones that I dont even remember now.

Then sometime in 2005, I registered SaurabhGarg.com to move all my unofficial pages at one place. I had esaurabh.8m.com (unfortunately I have forgotten the password to this one too) and a lot of pages sprinkled on the Internet.

Then I had this itch to start contributing to more websites and getting a wider audience and discussions, I started looking for more avenues to write and express myself. Sanjukta introduced me to mutiny.in. I found what Ashish was doing at pluggdin and thoughts users at VentureWoods would be able to add a lot to my understanding of the businesses. And then I started writing for these people. It has helped me a lot already and will hopefully meet more interesting people.

And this brings me to a very interesting point now. What should I do with my blog. I have realized that blogging is one of the best initiatives that I have ever taken. And this is probably something that I have not left mid way. I tend to get bored too soon from things and there are times when I thought that I need to move away from blogging but somehow I was always back.

Now as I write this 500th post for this blog, I think I need to create a blogging policy. I need to update my blogs frequently to remain pertinent. I need to write sense. I need to think before I actually write things. Things like one post per week on mutiny.in, one post per week on pluggdin, one post per fortnight on VentureWoods, one post every two days here. Even if I dont have the ideas, I will have to think hard and come up with ideas. I need to bring a discipline in my blogging.

To end it, I can now be found on the Internet at my website, my blogs, and various other places including LinkedIn, Twitter, Tlickr, Friendfeed, Blogger, PBwiki, , Facebook, Orkut etc. Long term goal is to get listed on Wikipedia.

And hopefully reach more milestones with blogging. Signing off.