Century, at last!!

This comes as 100th post on "Infinite thoughts", rather slow rate than the name suggests :)


It took almost 4 years to reach this mark, statistically speaking 2 posts per month. But practically, there were many months of inactivity, many sudden spikes and similar things, basically lacking consistency. Not surprised. It really takes lot of patience to be consistent. One can not find any single pattern with the posts on this blog. It is completely random.


But more importantly, this blog has served it's purpose - providing me a platform to express my thoughts without the fear of whether people will listen to or not; whether someone is interested in it or not; whether what I am saying is correct or not.

Thanks to the internet, blogs and all supporting applications, who have made this a very smooth process. Happy blogging!!

Tour of Less Known Hoysala Kingdom

A good friend of mine, Arun, has announced a packaged tour of less known Hoysala Kingdom. For the readers in and around Bangalore, visit India Travel Blog for more details.

Weekend Reading

Here are some links for this weekend:

• Google Shares It's Need for Speed - TechCrunch
• Are Upload Speeds The New Broadband Selling Point - GigaOm
• Building Successful Long Term Relationships - A VC
• Why Am I Here? - Seth Godin
• How to Use Twitter as a Twool - How to Change the World - Guy Kawasaki

Golden lining to the India Inc.

Update: This is an old post saved in draft mode for almost a year. For some reason, which I don't remember, I didn't post it and found it today while screening through the list.

Amidst the much hyped Indian economy's struggle to keep up the pace, some good news has arrived. Abhinav Bindra has won a gold medal at Beijing Olympics 2008. This comes as a welcome surprise considering usual dismal performance of Indian sportsmen at this world stage.



In India, there is only one game and that is Cricket. However bad performance the Indian team may display, almost every Indian will still hope that India will win next match. At the same time, we show complete lack of interest in any other sport. Sania Mirza tried to steal the show many times, but lacks consistency. Same is the case with Paes and Bhupati. We know both of them more for their bickering than their game. Rajyavardhan Singh Rathor, who bagged a silver medal in Athens Olympics 2004, seems to be nowhere in picture in 2008. And we are not even qualified to play at Beijing for our "national game" - Hockey!!



I think all this is a chicken and egg problem. Since there's not much interest in other sports, there are no sponsors for those games, resulting in less money for those players. At the same time, since there are no star performers in other sports, sponsors are not interested in those games. (This was evidently shown in the movie - Chak De India - where Indian Women Hockey Team receives the sponsors only when they reach the semi/finals).



At the same time, the picture doesn't look so grim. Many corporates are coming up with plans to sponsor sports other than cricket, which is really a good sign.



Keeping up with the India 2020 vision, we can't be a real super power without stellar performances in the sports field. And I think it's really doable provided we erradicate the politics and corruption from the sports field and incentivise the real genius in this field.

Weekend Reading

Some links for weekend reading:

• The Choices we make - The India Uncut Blog
• Two Questions on Empires and Scale - Emergic - Rajesh Jain's Blog
• What's off the table? - Seth's blog
• 3 Ways to Perfect Your Elevator Pitch - Business Pundit

And some fun for the weekend:

• http://manbabies.com
• Thinking Outside the Box Doesn’t Work in Geometry Class

Mental need to be socially connected

After a long time of inactivity, I have become very much active socially. Facebook, twitter, Blog are some forms which are helping individuals to remain connected socially.

In these days of busy lifestyle, we don't find much time to connect with other folks - friends and relatives. But given the very nature of Human Being, he/she is ought to be a social person, barring few exceptions off course :) These social media have helped in fulfilling this basic need in a very effective manner. No, I am not saying these platforms are replacements for in-person conversations, but these are definitely feeling the gaps. If these wouldn't have been there, how would I connect to a friend sitting in the Uncle Sam's country and still both of us are updated about each other? At times it also helps in converting acquaintances into good friends. Few of you might also have experienced that there's very less "fear of rejection", since the rejection would happen in private and not in public :)

People have very much interest in "what you are doing", otherwise, why would Twitter be so successful. Similary your friends are interested in your photos, videos, thoughts, comments etc, leading to enormous success of Facebook, Orkut etc. People having more structured thought process opt for writing out blogs, which actually turns out to be very good content, giving way to publish one's ideas to the world.

Presence service integrated in mobile along with Social networking media would soon catch up as 3G networks grow and I am sure that would open up another set of applications, platforms which would enable people to connect socially at various levels.

Interesting insite on how a "Startup" is formed

In his recent post on GigaOm, Om Malik has sited a very good insite on how a startup is formed:

Back when I was in college, as a chemistry student, I came to appreciate the atom more than anything else in the world. Atoms, when bonded with other atoms, form molecules. Some of these bonds are magical and the molecules can, in turn, be magical things. Startups are essentially the same. Atoms are the individual people; he company is the molecule. And that’s what makes our journey into the future — some of it predictable and a little bit of it unknown — so enjoyable. Three years into the opportunity of a lifetime, I still have a spring in my step as I leave my apartment, for I can’t wait to be with each one of my team members.

I found this most relevant to my current Read - High Performance Enterprenuers. It aptly puts how a team at a startup should be. Read entire article here.

Update - Disturbing News

This is a very good sarcastic update on my earlier post - Disturbing News.
Read Amit Varma's posting at India Uncut - It’s All In The Jeans. :)

Disturbing news

Came across with two disturbing news yesterday. One of them actually has become common, but still felt disturbed when I read about it.

1. Intolerence against the immigrants - you might be thinking about the MNS movement against North Indians, but I am referring to something else. Apparently, a group in Australia is playing havoc against the immigrants, and incidently they are Indians. While we are showing intolerence for the people migrating within the country, our fellow countrymen aspiring to immigrate to another country are falling pray of same thing. While I understand and sympathise with the natives to a large extent, I can not simply support their actions. Every person in this world seems to have become insecure (or is forced to feel insecure by media?) and that is leading to such nuisance. Read the news here.
2. Not understand the real problem - A college in Kanpur has banned western outfits for "women". The reason given for this ban is to avoid eve-teasing. Now, this is height. A person who could be a victim of eve-teasing is being asked to abolish some of her conviniences/comforts whereas the probable culprits are allowed to be free without any resrictions/warnings etc. If the college wants to solve the real problem, they need to work on the mindsets of those individuals who think eve-teasing is a heroic deed. But taking this route is difficult and full of problems and hence an easy way of "ban" seems to have been adopted. Read the news here.