2012 - The year...

...was a tough one to be honest. There were however, several great things that happened this year. Some of them are as follows:

1) Getting back to Photography : I have always loved Photography, but I stopped clicking in 2010 & 2011, one big reason for this was non-availability of film and I have been a film-loyalist all this while. In 2012 I decided to move on and shift to digital. I am thankful to Zara and Rajiv for their constant encouragement and  guidance. This is therefore also the year when I got my first DSLR. 

2) Turning 30 : Yes, it does sound a bit too much but I did turn 30 this year. The celebrations took place in Nainital. The trip was very random and relaxed... just the way it should be.

3) Exploring Madhya Pradesh : Madhya Pradesh is indeed a huge state, and it would take me months to discover the state fully. I am glad I at-least made a start this year. I went on a Motorcycle ride to Orchha with Zara and this surely was one of the most awesome trip of my life.

4) Making Videos : I have always enjoyed making videos, and this year with the DSLR and a set of newly acquired prime lenses it felt even better. Video content is a powerful medium today and I believe this skill will surely help me make some extra money :) 

5) Acquiring new skills at work : I learnt a lot about Social Media Optimization and Content Marketing this year. It is truly overwhelming, as I discovered this will be the future of marketing and there is so much opportunity out there for people like me. This makes me optimistic about 2013, makes me feel my time has come :)

10 signs that you are not a photographer but a DSLR operator

1) Most of your pictures are clicked around your house and they feature pigeons sitting on cables, stray dogs sleeping on road and squirrels on trees.

      2) Most of your pictures have such high contrasts that they actually hurt.

      3) You have just learnt selective coloring/selective saturation and do not hesitate to show off your editing skills at all, it is all over your photos.

      4) You give philosophical names to your pictures ‘life goes on’, ‘life is struggle’ and the all time chart-buster ‘reflections of life’

      5) You just can’t get the horizon straight, well ofcourse you are different and a follower of Steve Jobs

       6) You love standing in front of the mirror with your eyes set in viewfinder and clicking your super hot profile picture

       7) Depth of Field/bokeh is the biggest kick in your life. You have already posted several key-board pictures (both Mac and PC) with one key in focus and rest blurred, and needless to say they are some of your best pictures.

      8) You learnt how to watermark pictures and how to run your own Facebook photography page before you knew the difference between a crop-censor and full-format camera

       9) When you see someone’s picture on Facebook, and it is slightly better than yours (which can’t happen a lot ofcourse) … you quickly ask for EXIF data. More often than not that picture will be clicked from a better gear than yours, so there isn’t much you can do about it.

      10) You are the best photographer you know! 

My photography page : http://www.flickr.com/photos/deveshuba :)

Meeting school friend...

Your well-paying job

in that expanding MNC.

With expensive coffee machines,

super-fast internet,

exhausted printer and idle shredder.

Those spreadsheets, presentations,

deadlines, columns and rows.

Your 3-BHK apartment

in a posh society.

With courteous security guards,

parking space for cars,

quiet poolside and noisy gym.

Those fast elevators, balconies,

gardens with pigeons and crows.

Your high-flying life

in a comfortable cocoon.

With extravagant parties,

multi-cuisine meals,

tight clothing and loose behavior.

Those expensive wines, luxury hotels,

mindless movies to tackle the lows.

I was happy we got in touch,

so long after school.

Within minutes of meeting I realized,

you haven’t really grown,

deep pockets and shallow conversations.

Big car, swiss watch, thai-holday and

your office-politics woes.

It means nothing to me,

because

when you don’t read my friend,

it

shows.

5 reasons to fall in love with the Delhi summer.

1)      Longer days: It technically means you can do much more. Going for an early morning jog to any of those beautifully landscaped gardens or riding through the dimming evening light. These longer days leave you with so much more time to explore this beautiful city. From its architecture that changes shades as the sun retreats into its shadows, the growing hustle bustle around street food joints, the endless wide roads lined by a multiple hue of green, yellow and red. Somehow, waking up early is much easier in this season than any-other.

2)      Blooming Amaltaas: No wonder those summer dresses are mostly yellow, this is surely the colour of this season. In Delhi, when nature picks up that yellow…it does cast a spell whizzing you into that fantastical, ethereal neverland. Especially during a motorcycle ride, the lovely amaltaas leave you spellbound… when  you look up all you see is a bright yellow haze against the deepening blue… you look down and a yellow dotted carpet rides along with you…  It surely is surreal to say the least.

3)      Mangoes and Musk Melons: A day in the month of May. The mercury is flirting around the 45 degrees mark, it is a Saturday afternoon and it is too hot to venture outside. You walk up to the refrigerator and much to your delight find it stacked, heaps with those big yellow mangoes (takes you back to those  Nursery class “Aa se AAM” pictures). To top it all, the extremely juicy musk-melon. This summer is definitely all juice.. pulp... slurp and burp…

4)      Beer: Picture this! There is a steaming Football and Tennis match on Television or  ‘I shouldn’t be Alive’ or ‘Banged-up abroad’…the living room only feels warmer… what else do you need?!!! A full bottle of Kingfisher costs 65 rupees and a pint comes for 35 bucks!  Oops, if you are not a beer person…try the local Bunta or Nimbu-Soda.

5)      Spectacular Sky: Most of the hot evenings of this season are compensated by an outrageously beautiful sky. A bright noisy blue, with shreds of yellow ‘reshamy’ clouds. You can just stand in your balcony and gaze it for hours, without expecting rains. In case you love photography, this is an excellent time to capture those Mughal tombs against a dynamic sky. 

When problem solvers become 'the problem'

Engineers like to solve problems. If there are no problems handily available, they will create their own problems. - Scott Adams

I read this quote somewhere, and it made me think, I guess it has a greater meaning to it than Scott Adams would have known. I have always been close to engineers, in-fact some of my best friends are engineers and some of my cousins are engineers too. My father is a civil engineer and I have seen him working on tunnels, dams, railroads and power-plants since my childhood. No wonder at a very early age I got so fascinated to JCBs and CAT equipment.  I have seen him solve problems both at work and at home, he would fix households appliances himself and also encourage me to do so (which sadly I could never pick up). As I write this blog-post my dad is working in Manipur, braving out the rains to get a few tunnels done in time for the railway tracks to reach Manipur. This is what Engineering means to me and it makes the first part of the quote very sensible and true. 

Now as we move on to the second part of the quote, I believe it has many layers to it. The first one is obvious that Engineers like to create problems and then solve those for their own joy/amusement. I wish it would just stop there… There, however, seems to be a different scenario today...

Engineers today can’t solve problems, and to put it more clearly they themselves are the biggest problem for India. Sounds really stupid, isn’t it? Maybe even oxymoronic? Engineers are known to build, to create value and off-course to solve problems. Well look around, how many Engineers are doing it? Most of the engineers from IIT become so called investment-bankers or business-analysts. Engineers in streams like Pharmaceutical, Mining, Metallurgy and Textile hardly do what they study in their engineering. In case a hand few of them ventured out in other areas (where they are still mediocre) it would have been understandable, but when everyone tries to do things which he isn’t equipped for … it becomes a problem.

How do we solve this problem, thought the policy-makers and engineers? Well thanks to their short-sightedness and mediocre abilities one of the only answer they got was IIMs. Indian Institute of Management (IIM) is the 'holy-grail' of management education in India, what it also does is bring engineers to a level playing field. It is like a huge assembly line where these inconsistent and incompetent engineers get in and after two years they come out as at least consistent – with everyone having the same degree (and almost no ‘real’ knowledge). Getting into IIMs is not such big deal for engineers, because the paper has been designed in a way that gives them an edge over others. I wish the CAT was more robust and deep in selecting the very few, thereby justifying their selection. Essays as a part of the examination could possibly help achieve that.

Statistically, India produces around 4 Lakh Engineers and 85% of IIM seats are taken by engineers. Now that is the huge problem. It essentially means around 70% of people coming out from IIMs can’t decipher a newspaper, 75% have no idea why is Indian GDP growing at less than 6%, 80% do not know why they went to IIM and around 85% do not know what it takes to be a ‘leader’.

I have spent five years in corporate India, and I have come across several IIM guys. They are 'supposed' to lead India’s corporate landscape and sometimes they even do (thanks to their strong alumni affinity). In the global business landscape however, they haven't made their mark and I know for sure that they never will.