Category: Personal

The Future of War of Words

I have been blogging on War of Words for quite some time now. I have talked about everything under the sun. From personal things to rants against people to photography to investments to lyrics to even one-liners.

War of Words has changed form ever these last four years. It has evolved form a personal journal to a pot pourri of thoughts, opinions and news. A brief history would be

When I started a blog, I did not know what am I supposed to do with an online journal. I posted everything I could think of.

Somewhere down the line, I thought you could make money out of a blog with Adsense. I started working towards it. Obviously with 1000 things on my mind, it failed.

Then I thought I would contribute to the wave of open journalism and citizen reporters. I did not have quality or the depth to make a dent and become the next Ragahv Behl.

Next was becoming an evangelist (probably the single most overused, abused and misquoted word after “strategy”). I did not become one.

And this is where I stand today.

I get about 20 unique visitors a day. Mostly land here from search engines. Not a single friend, colleague or a neighbour is a regular visitor. Only person to have bookmarked War of Words with a RSS Reader is myself. People have landed here searching for Pictures (India Unity Pictures), Advertisements (Keep Walking), Guitar Tabs (Saawariya), Famous People (Sachin Tendulkar) etc.

I have not made a zilch of difference to anything or anyone with this four years old online presence. I sure have developed a super-inflated ego, opinion on things and a biased view of world.

A decision needs to be taken on future of War of Words.

Long Time No See

Been a long time since I posted something. Quite a few things are happening.

Sensex touched 19000.

Realized that photograpy is INDEED very difficult.

Saw a raod accident for the first time.

A very good friend made me realize that blogging is not only about connecting with people.

A very good friend (philosopher and guide) is getting married. Yes I am talking about you 😉

Realized that snapfish is one of the rare Internet services that I like and will extensively use in future.

Me

This is what I posted on a Google Group

Ok,

Since the community sounds very active and focussed, time for a detailed introduction.

I am Saurabh, M, 25, EMPLOYED (hopefully not for long).

Complete BIT (Technology course) from Delhi University in 2003. Went on to complete PGPM in 2006 from MDI, Gurgaon. Was piked from campus by GE Money and was in their one year long Young Leader Development Programme. Post that I was ASM for Credit Cards in Mumbai.

Frankly dint see myself reaching anywhere in a typical sales structure in a MNC. Yeah, I would have become a VP or something in 15 years if I was average performer. I had to move on. As luck would have it, I bumped into this guy, he proposed I work for his advertising firm and do whatever I want to there. Accepted his offer. Ran away from GE. Now with him and I officially work on Market Research and Consumer Insight for advertisements.

Answer to why entrepreneurship is I don’t really want to work for someone else. Initially I had this idea that I would make the world a better place to live in but then I realized I need to be realistic. You might say I gave upon it even before I started but thats the way it is.

My reason for OCC and BC is to network and learn. I strongly believe that any organization is as good as the quality of people they have. Hopefully I would bump into some great people at OCC and BC and who knows, I might be part of a team starting up. After looking at all the threads here and on BC, my hopes are real high.

Personally, I am opinionated, talk a lot, try to read as many things as possible and love trekking and traveling.

And a few things that I dont think I should have but have are too much opinion, hopping from one thing to other very soon, procrastination, leaving ends loose … the list is endless… Hopefully I get to fix a few of these things …!

Few ideas I pursued and left are education online (24x7guru.com is doing it now), selling medicines online (could not get a team for it), creating a content aggregating website for Indian population (on lines of boing boing etc) but could not get funding for it – there was no revenue source for first few years and no one likes that. I have tried both tradition businesses and modern formats using new media and content but nothing has materialized. Interesting thing is that everything I ever did was always on paper. I never got my hands dirty. That has to change. Soon.

Yes, I blog. Mostly personal and things I like at War of Words
Yes, I click pictures and few of them are uploaded at 04p050
And Yes, I invest in stock markets and have an opinion at PseudoSocial
And NO, this is not a spam mail trying to advertise blogs.

Hoping to catch up with a few like minded people at BC on 14th and subsequently at OCC meets whenever they happen.

Warm Regards,
SG

P.S.: Can we also have some kind of arrangement where people interested in OCC can recognize each other @ the BC? We can at least break the ice. May be someone can create a list of people @ OCC and everyone walking in to BC can strike their names off that list? Any volunteers? More ideas?

P.S.S: I have this tendency to get verbose and long but I hope you guys wont mind!

Happy Birthday Amitabh Bachchan


Amitabh Bachchan turns 65 today. Many many happy returns of the day.

Amitabh Bachchan is one of those few who I admire. For his acting and for what he is. I am not a great movie follower but I started reading about him when he made comeback after the ABCL fiasco. He had an option to turn himself delinquent and he did not. Came back in the bollywood and rest as they say … is history.

Happy Birthday Amitabh Bachchan.

Delhi and Mumbai

Delhi and Mumbai.
Two cities, poles apart. Two worlds, million differences.
Political Capital, Business Capital. City of Djinns, City of Dreams.
Trying to bridge gaps and understand – people, culture and souls.

After spending about 24 years in Delhi, I have moved to Mumbai for foreseeable future. Mumbai is teaching me new things everyday and I am always comparing Mumbai to Delhi and how good or bad things are at Mumbai vs Delhi.

I have also come across loads of people fighting out if Delhi was better or if Mumbai was good. Thought why can’t we have people from both the cities give out their opinions? It would be even better if a Dilli Walla talks about Mumbai and a passionate Mumbaikar talks about Delhi.

Lets say we talk about street food. I am from Delhi and I know that Delhi has this thing called Chole Kulche and Gol Gappe. People just love it. I know about Mumbai. Vada Pao and those grilled sandwiches .. you can find them anywhere and its awesome.

Some other day we talk about people. People in Delhi are very very inquisitive. They would even want to know what did your maid eat when she was working at your house. In Mumbai, no one would give a second glance if you were dying … !

There are so many fascinating things about both the places and I thought may be its time its all put down in black and white .. ?

I want to capture small things that people often overlook and things that are taken for granted. Safety of women is, safety of men isn’t. “Metered” autorickshaws is and time taken to reach a place is not.

Me, a pucca dilliwala now in Mumbai want to look at things in Mumbai and compare them with Delhi and I want someone to do the same for Delhi.

Looking for someone, a pucca Mumbaikar, now in Delhi loving/hating things at Delhi and willing to talk about it.

Wondering if anyone is game … ?

If you guys know any friends, relatives, random people interested in exploring and understanding Delhi and Mumbai, please shoot a mail to me at septemberthe22nd@gmail.com.

In Pursuit Of Happyness

There are some things that can change your life. It could be movies, music, people, places, sights, dreams, and in a few cases – a Rubik’s cube. I am currently watching and live blogging a movie called “In pursuit of Happyness”. With a Y in happiness instead of an I.

So our Mr. Chris gets a call. A very important call – a matter of life and death. He is asked if he had a pen and he is given a 10 digit phone number and a 4 digit extension number. He did not have a pen. No other choice, he has to try and remember the number. I try to remember the number and I could not. And guess what – Chris does.

Then there is this interesting conversation between Mr. Gardner and his son:
“Don’t ever let somebody tell you, you cant do something”
“You gotta dream you protect it.”
“You want something, go get it. Period.”

Then Chris gets enrolled with the internship programme and he is handed over Graham and Dodds Security Analysis. He is told that Graham and Dodd is bible. He should sleep with it, eat with it, and die with it.

And this is yet another movie that made me cry. Twice.