I had to attend an event in Mumbai last December.  I booked Two-tier Air-conditioned train tickets 50 days in advance.  I didn’t go for flight tickets because even though they were just two times costlier than these train tickets, they were non-refundable and I would have lost the entire amount had I canceled them due to any reason (actually I had more chances for cancellation since my mother was not well).  Since I’m an entrepreneur now, I didn’t wish to waste money by booking flight tickets.

Unreserved compartment from Mumbai to Chennai

While my travel from Chennai to Mumbai was confirmed at the last minute, the return journey was not confirmed.  When I checked flight ticket fares, they shot up to 10 times that of the train ticket.  I had only two options: 1) book a flight ticket for an exorbitant amount and reach home in 2 hours or 2) travel for 24 hours by Train in an unreserved compartment.  I choose the second option since I didn’t wish to pay such an exorbitant amount (you will understand this when you become an entrepreneur after earning a very good salary in a regular job).

The moment I looked at the unreserved compartment, I was stunned.  It was jam packed.  I thought for a second, “Should I go by flight to avoid this mad crow?”.  I decided not to.  I thought to myself, “Now I’m an entrepreneur.  I should take any risk in my life. What is the worst thing that would happen by traveling in an unreserved compartment?  Whatever it is, let me enjoy that.”  This thought gave me a wonderful experience.

I was not even able to board the compartment.  Somehow I managed to board it and was standing for 3 hours till the train reached Pune.  Standing was not painful because the first half-an hour I was standing carrying my luggage.  When I got some place to offload them, I felt better standing alone.  After Pune, I got 16 sq.cm of space to sit.  It was very comfortable than standing.  Normally I won’t feel like sleeping till 1 am.  But that day, I was feeling sleepy at 10 pm.   After 10 hours of travel, I got a decent space to sit till I reached Chennai.

What initially looked impossible for me, became possible and my confidence level went very high after this journey.  Also, the people who were in that unreserved compartment were more humane than those who were in two-tier air conditioned compartment.

You should try to travel in such an unreserved compartment for 24 hours and experience what it is.  You will cherish it through-out your life like I do.

Wow! This is what almost everyone said after watching this amazing event at The Music Academy, Chennai.

Yesterday, I was fortunate enough to get a free invite and watched it along with other Chennai Bloggers and media persons – from second row.  After it was inaugurated by N. Ram (Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu), the show lasted for about 70 seconds (actually 70 minutes).

Watching this kind of show in TV is totally different from watching it live.  Even though I watched the ‘trailer’ in youtube, watching this event live was fantastic.

In such shows, claps from the audience give energy to those performers. Many times our audience forgot to clap and cheer the performer.  I wanted to tell those artists that, “Look, we were breathless because of your performance.  That’s why we didn’t cheer you by clapping.”

If you are in Chennai on 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7th Feb 2010, then don’t miss this live show.  It is definitely worth for various reasons.

Please Note:

There is a detailed article in today’s The Hindu newspaper which you can read here: http://tr.im/wow_article_in_thehindu

While I was young, I used to get bored when my father starts this sentence: “In those days….”

Yesterday (at 11 pm) when I told my 6 yr old son to switch off the TV and sleep, he asked me what I did when I was a kid like him.  When I told him, “In those days when I was in first standard, I never watched TV because there was no TV in our home”, I immediately remembered my father’s sentence.

I guess that it is inevitable for us to compare what happened in those days and what happens now.  Instead of boring you all with what happened ‘in those days’ to me, let me ask this question to you all and let’s watch this tag #inthosedays in Twitter here –>  http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23inthosedays .

It may be interesting

A man, who was of no use to anyone, after death, went to heaven.  He asked for a luxurious room, he got one.  He asked for excellent food, he got them.  He asked for an LCD TV with all his favorite channels, he got it. He asked for a vehicle to roam around the place, he got one.  Then he started asking one by one and the angels were providing all he wanted.

After a few weeks, he was fed up with all the luxurious and comfortable things.  He wanted to do some work to engage his mind.  He asked the angel, “I want to do some work.  Do you have any work for me here?”.  For that the angel said, “I’m sorry, here you can get anything you want but for work”.  This man was annoyed and shouted at the angel, “This place is horrible.  How can you call this as heaven?”.  For that the angel replied, “I beg your pardon.  Did you say this place as heaven?  I think you misunderstood it.  This is not heaven.  This is hell.”

————————————–

 My Physics Prof. Ananthan doesn’t only talk about Maths & Physics but also tells me many thought provoking stories.  One of them he told me when we visited Rameswaram Temple was this ‘Hell & Heaven’. The context of this story came when we were describing about people’s motivation to build such wonderful temples few hundred years ago when they had everything in their life.

I always used to think that every person in this world should do something useful and make their life meaningful.   After talking to one of my friend – Ramanan, I realized that ‘we should be what we are’ and simply enjoy our life.

This is like: If everyone has to play a game, then who will watch it? If everyone wants to sing, then who will enjoy listening the song?  If everyone wants to blog, then who will read?

Like how there is pleasure in doing something great, there is equal pleasure in receiving that great thing.  The only difference is that your name (or ego) will be invisible when you just receive it.  But so what, just be the person who enjoys life.

So, the best thing to do is, just be what we are and enjoy life.

Some of you may not understand this sentence because this article is not elaborate.  I’m not telling to enjoy  by just receiving, but by being what we are.  This is similar to “Be the part of the automobile where ever you want to be and move the vehicle.  Don’t always think of being the steering wheel.”

A player entertains the audience.  A singer in the audience entertains the player.  A bathroom cleaner helps both the player and singer not to get pissed off when they go to the rest room. ……

Yesterday I met this guy ‘Anantharaman’ who is ‘Head of Technology’ at  “Hey Math!” during  TiECON Chennai 2009 committee meeting.

After our introduction, we started exchanging details (like ‘Why did I start HomePlanGuru.com?’, ‘How did he join Hey Math!”, “How he is heading CII Young Indians Media Chapter”, etc) about each other.

During our conversation, he offered to help me in few areas like introducing me to some journalist and getting some visual communication students to capture my venture ideas, etc.

While leaving, he told me, “Viru, I’ll do these things next week.  If I don’t do it, call me and ‘Demand’ me the things I promised to do”.

I was astonished by his character, commitment and care for others.  How many of us can tell to a “30 minute old friend”  – “Demand my help, if I don’t do it”?

I have a good friend who used to to tell me this sentence, “All are guilty until proven innocent”. I took his comment on the lighter side.

But, now during election time, I had an interesting debate with my friend about political parties and their qualities. My friend was putting the entire blame on Politicians for corruption in the country. I was unable to accept that. I told him that almost everyone is corrupt in this world. Politicians are no exceptions. He didn’t agree to my statement. I gave some examples to prove my statement:

1. A petty shop owner who has his shop on the road bribes the police to run his business. Here you may say that “Police is corrupt”.
2. A house owner bribes the “Property Evaluator” to reduce the “Property tax” for his house. Here you may say that “Property Evaluator” is corrupt.
3. A Driving License aspirant bribes RTO officer to get his driving license. Here you may say “RTO officer” is corrupt.
4. A motorist bribes Traffic Police when he violates a traffic signal. Here you may say “Traffic Police” is corrupt.
5. A person who has a “wait-listed” train ticket bribes the TTE to get a confirmed ticket. Here you may say “TTE” is corrupt.

All examples above show that a “Government Official” is corrupt.

Let’s take examples where a “Government Official” is not involved.

6. A software company owner or a Home User uses “Pirated Windows Operating System” / other “Pirated software” for his PC.
7. Many software professionals who earn very good salary downloads “Illegal copies of Music and Movies” from Internet.
8. A college student illegally takes photocopy of an expensive book to save money.
9. A reputed software company illegally sends it’s employees to foreign countries on “Business Visa” to work since “work permit” is not available for them.
10. People buy gold ornaments from jewelery shops without proper receipt/bill to reduce cost by not paying tax to the Government.

In the last 5 examples none of the Government Officials are involved. It is common people who are involved are “corrupt”.

Even after giving these examples, my friend was not willing to accept the statement “almost everyone is corrupt”. The reason, I believe, is, I missed few more words. I should have told him “almost everyone is corrupt in their mind”. If you are honest, you will understand what I mean.

We all must have one similar feeling irrespective of our profession. It is: “I’m intelligent”. It is true that almost all humans are “Intelligent”.

Many of us fail to understand one thing which makes us sad many times. It is “everyone has some limitation”. This limitation could be because of personal reasons, family reasons, official reasons and so on.

Many “Intelligent” people who don’t understand their “limitation” feel sad when their counterpart/peers move up the ladder in a company or in life.

Suppose a kid has a passion to RUN. Assume that he wins all the medals in his school, college, etc. His natural passion will be to be in Olympics. But to be in Olympics, he has to get trained in a different way. The probability to even participate in that even will be almost zero. But he should not feel bad about it, but accept it. Because there are several factors that influence this kid to even get selected for a Olympic game.
The factors could be like his personal strength, training, opportunity, influence, publicity, other person’s ability, family, personal problem, family problem, political system and so on.

The above sentences should not discourage anyone in moving further in life. It is meant to just make them understand that there are several factors that influence your position in the “world” (which may be your limitation).

The only thing you can do is, set “yourself” as a benchmark instead of setting some unknown “great” person and try to increase your own benchmark every day.

One day, your own benchmark may increase to a level which will be above this unknown “great” person. If this is done, “sadness” won’t be there and only joy will remain in the mind.

Good luck (to understand this article)!!

Many of us know “Richie Rich”. But how many of us know “Richie Poor”?

This guy “Richie Poor” is the father of a techie guy working for an IT company in India with a salary of Rs.1 lakh per month (with this salary, you can buy at least 80 grams of 22 carat gold in today’s market).

Why is he “Richie Poor”?
This question has two parts:

First, “why is he Rich”:
When he was young, he bought two grounds of land near a city in India with his salary from Government job. Today that ground is worth Rs.2 crores (in b&w market) and Rs.1.2 crores as per govt. guideline value. Assume that today this old man sells the land at “govt rate” and puts the money in bank for 10% interest. Then, he will get at least Rs.1 lakh per month from interest alone. Isn’t this guy rich?

Second, “why is he poor”:
Even though he has a potential of getting Rs. 1 lakh per month from his own property, since he didn’t sell the land (because it is where he lives in his old house), he just survives with his pension amount of Rs.2,000/-pm and Rs.3,000/-pm from his “rich son” who has a luxurious apartment, luxurious car and luxurious life style. Comparatively he gets only 5% of what his son gets every month to lead his simple life. Isn’t he poor?

There are many such old people in India who are “Richie Poor”.

What will you become when you are old? Richie Rich or Richie Poor?