The cryptic way

Hi,

There is a friend of mine, Nikhil who says.. 'Srini you are smart, you know.' But before I blush.. bang comes his remark, 'But you shud realise you are crazy.' Well, many friends of mine often wondered how would I be if I get philosophical.

According to me life is all cryptic. Ask anyone solving crosswords, U will get the same answer. Sometimes you have to frame clues and sometimes you have to solve them. Some girls are like Hindu Crossword which you would like to solve daily whenever you want to exercise your 'brains'. Then there are some gals like Young World puzzle for kids. Their brains cannot think beyond certain level. And all the clues you give them go waste, because they cannot solve cryptic puzzles. They keep framing direct clues for you which you can solve in a minute. Then there are Hindi crossword puzzles who cannot solve English clues. Then there are crosswords like that of 'Times' - the American kind of crosswords. These are the dudish gals (euphemism to pr@$). Like the grid of these crosswords, they lay bare with very few darkened squares here and there. Me being a fan of Hindu crosswords, would like gals who can frame and solve cryptic clues. Well, my apologies to anyone who has not followed this blog. No, don't accept that you can't understand cryptic messages. Instead, blame me for going mad, Young World puzzle solvers do think I am mad ;-)...

Its the time to disco...

Hi,

Let me continue with my blasting of Delhi. I talked about Delhi babes but not of Desi dudes. I call them hydrogen peroxide dudes. At my school our principal liked a guy who had his hair greyed by hydrogen peroxide. The principal happened to be a chemistry lecturer and he liked the idea that some student of his is making good use of some chemical he had worked on during his PhD. Coming back to Delhi dudes, these desi guys with a singing accent of Delhi never even bother to fake a good English accent and the so-called babe just falls for their biceps. The chidiya and thotha will startof there and go to the malls, go up and down the elevator spreading their deo smell everywhere. Then he takes her to Ansal Plaza where he answers one of her touches and slowly they cross the barriers and smooooooooooooochhhhhhhhhhh...... From there they will go to Nirula's, sit in the corner seat, the gal puts her lap on his and acts as if she has done something entirely socially acceptable. Lemme divert again. Talking of socially acceptable behaviour, one of our profs at IIT who also was our sysad used to appeal to us - 'Please don't open the web sites which you won't in front of your mom'. Arre...so much senti to stop porn viewing. Ok where were we..Nirula's... So this culture goes on. It reflects in the latest hit songs - 'Its the time to disco', 'Fanaa' - well, that is all ok. But the dudes should become modern in more ways than growing biceps and using deos. English with a bit more pseud accent would make him look more dudish... And for heaven's sake walk straight...

Rewind

Hi,

Now that my summer project is coming to a conclusion, I would like to get back to my original state. I would like to come back to the belief that business is all ethical and global. Companies actually are customer-oriented. They like to offer service to the customer because he is so important and they have got nothing else to do. I also want to believe that something called organisational culture exists and it distinguishes an organization from others. I want to believe that the source of motivation for the employees is not money alone. They don't work towards their personal goals but work in teams for the betterment of their organization. I also want to believe that HR cares for the company and their job is not just arranging cabs and giving pay checks. Bosses care for their subordinates and don't keep pressurizing them for their targets. Performance appraisal is done not on the basis of sales done alone. Other factors such as personal skills, commitment, blah blah.. play a major role in the appraisals done. Organizations work for offering good life to their employees and also their customers. Woww.........world looks great again....

Google....find this

Hi,

The other day I was browsing through net and gave a search string 'IITM blog' and was surprised that my blog was not there among the results. So I have decided that in my today's blog I will include all the terms that any friend of mine would have to enter to come upon my page like IITM, IIT madras, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, IIMK, IIM Kozhikode, Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode, Aalayance, Kans mama, KNS Srinivas, K.N.S.Srinivas, Danger, Phyter, fighter, GE Consumer finance, GE Countrywide, lunatic, mad, crazy, blog, web page, home page, webpage, homepage, blah blah blah

Kyonki main Kashtamer hun

Hi,

After having tried my hand in selling loans, I have found the right spelling of customer - 'Kasht'amer. Kasht yaani difficulty. Though I am wearing better clothes than him and am well groomed and educated, there is only one mistake I did. I approached him to sell something. That makes him my boss. Kitna time loge? Kya kya documents dikhaana padega, kitna charge karoge, agar mera income itna hai tho kitna loan milega. Main bhi kuchh kam nahin hun - Mujhse marketing ka gyan poochho, is product ke positioning ke baare mein poochho, kuchh bhi global poochho jawaab de doonga. But don't ask me practical questions. I will never give you direct answers.

The other day I approached a pakoda shop waala to ask him for some permission for using his shop for our marketing. I asked him, "Kya aap meri madat karoge?" He shoots his answer in perfect English, "What will I get in return?" Arre waah..yeh tho angreji bolne lagaa. His pseud accent and polished English reminded me of a bike ad. Don't remember clearly, but some gaonwaali ladkiyan suddenly speak in English when the bike passes by. Other than this pakodawaala, all other customers of mine would speak like, "wohi pichhwaade gali mein laal bathhi ke paas hai na aap ka daftar?" At the beginning I had some trouble understanding them. But now I am kind of accustomed to laal bathhis, phaataks, rail patri and gol chakkars.

TOMA among languages

I have found that telugu is not among the TOMA (for non-MBAs, TOMA=Top of the Mind Awareness) set of languages. The first time I meet someone, I can see them think with real focus...where is this guy from?...looks a lil like a northie...but hindi accent is different.. Can't be a tamilian or Mallu.. where else can he be from. And most of them would eventually ask me...Which place do you belong to? And only when I say Andhra..the land of Chandra Babu Naidu strikes their mind. Earlier it used to be called the land of Balaji (Tirupathi fame). Now it is identified with the big boss who rules the land. Most of them would then talk about Andhra pickles.. and Andhra food. At least there we are present in the TOMA set. Unfortunately most people don't know that Telugu is supposed to be the Italian of the East being a mellifluous language.

After Hindi, Telugu is spoken by most people in India. This reminds me of my tamilian friend who would argue that Hindi cannot be the national language just because it is spoken by the most..that way crow has to be the national bird. Very nice argument but that doesn't qualify Tamil to be the national language...it is far from peacock.... ;-)

A hell called Delhi

Hi,

Haven't updated my blog of late as I have been to Delhi for my Summer Project. Mumbai ke baare mein I heard a lot...be very careful there..people are bad...but I thought Delhi is a better place. I had a perception that Mumbai alone has mechanical life...but guys, Delhi is not behind. After having enjoyed the luxuries of Bangalore for one year, I am finding it very tough to adjust in Delhi. People are very harsh... I was thinking there will be good babes..but Punjabi kudi seems to be missing...or maybe she has put on lotsa weight. I had been travelling in city buses so far..but have decided to switch to autoes...after losing my mobile..too late :-((... Only good hangout I have been to so far was Ansal Plaza in South Ex. Really really waiting to get back to the heaven called Kozhikode...

My bowling skills

Mommy, mommy today I bowled a maiden over and took 2 wickets. Mom would always smile and accept that is true. But the truth was I was always considered the slowest bowler on earth. They say I can beat best of the batsmen by my pace. As quoted by Dixi (the-guy-who- was-my-senior-topped-at-IIT-in-aerospace-and-joined-IISc) “if Kans continues his run up after delivering the ball, he will reach the bat before the ball.” His other comments include “Kans has started his run up? Ok I will have my dinner and come back and hit the ball.” I dunno why these guys are so bothered about pace. In my view the best kind of ball is a slow ball yorker. The fact that I keep trying slow ball yorkers every ball is a different issue altogether. If you want to know more about cricket, please refer to my friend Avinash Iyer. To tell you more about my bowling, I also used to have the longest run up. My gallee cricket mate Subbu says I get tired after such a long run up that I lose energy before delivering the ball. That seems to be the reason behind my magical pace. I have only one answer to all these people. As Mahesh Bhatt said once opinions are like ar$#ho&*s, everyone has one.

Global Fundaes

Hi,

Now that CAT results are out, I remember the good old days when I used to think management is crap (now I am sure about it). At my office they used to hold managers' meet regularly and one of my colleagues badly wanted to become a manager because managers get a free pizza in the meeting. He believes nothing else happens in these meetings. I remember listening about one of the decisions made in one such meeting in a software company where the techies decided to use only small letters font because of some technical advantage compared to capital letters and the managers unanimously ruled out the option as GOD cannot be written in small letters. Now the managers' decision sounds like common sense to me as I am more exposed to global fundaes like culture and values.

When I was getting ragged at IIT, funda was the big word which I found did not have any particular meaning and can be used at your own convenience to make meaningful talk out of your crappy fundaes. Similarly in management global and gyan can be used conveniently to show off your global gyan. Well if you read the last line of the previous paragraph carefully, you see a mixture of both cultures imbibed in me (when I involuntarily used the term global fundaes). GOD save IITIIMs.

Continuing...

Hi,

In management, they say, the strategy of a firm should emerge. The management should only provide an umbrella. Similarly, I feel the theme for my blogs should emerge on its own. So without restricting myself to the theme I was following, lemme try new things. After two blogs on cats, I started thinking about cats and came across a very interesting trivia that a cat spends 30% of its life grooming itself. Well, I have some friends who do better than that. That was mainly because of the water problem at Chennai. Some of them spent their summers at Chennai and had to end up with some 20 baths in 55 days. One of my friends even kept a count. He says he had got enough time for self-introspection at that time, but doesn't understand how. I explained to him that his friends left him to self-introspect because they thought they have better things to smell. We used to have many monkeys running around our hostels that time. One of my senoirs would say a monkey would never ransack my room. His logic is a monkey comes to my room, looks at things, thinks it is already ransacked and leaves. One day I told him a monkey has ransacked my room. He apprieciated my observation because I could distinguish between the current mess and the earlier mess. Talking about monkeys, if a cat spends 30% time of its life grooming itself, I guess a monkey spends that much time grooming other monkeys. Grooming is a substitute for taking bath. I feel the soap-sellers should realise this before some smart guy like me comes up with a clean all product that would scratch you and can be used as a substitute for soaps.

About cows

Hi,

Let me slowly change my theme. In management, they say, the strategy of a firm should emerge, the management should only provide an umbrella. Similarly, I feel the theme for my blogs should emerge on their own. Since we have been discussing about cats, I thought I should divert into another species of animals. Once I participated in an extempore competition and I was prepared to talk about girls whadever topic they give me. The topic given to me had the word 'cow' in it. Well that is enough for me...

The other day I was alone in a restaurant and was looking around. There, opposite to me I saw a cow, a beautiful cow

Cat revisited

Hi,

First of all, my sincere apologies for not updating my blog for 2 days. Will make sure this doesn't happen often. One of my friends (Srikanth) came up with some dangerous logic to solve the 'perpetually moving cat' problem. I haven't understood it but I thought some of you can explain it to me in English. I am pasting it as it is. So here goes the disclaimer - "All crappy ideas given below are from a seriously lunatic friend of this lunatic. The blogger (me) is not responsible for any brain damage or insanity ensuing from reading these ideas or experimenting with them". So here goes the crap:

Well,

Regarding the cat with a bread stuck onto its back, there seems to be a lack of understanding of anything thats beyond 'seemingly-obvious' reasons. Here I crap!

Assumptions:
1) The cat cannot think (so do the guys who crack cat)
2) The bread is not one of those Indian breads
3) No number of assumptions can make life any easier.

Action:
1) butter is applied onto bread
2) its stuck to the cat's back thru some complicated procedure!
3) The cat is kicked onto its ass form nth floor (where n>2, n is an integer)

Theory:
The theory can be split into two conflicting sub-theories.
(1)

In the first one, it is assumed that the cat has no choice with regard to the landing style, and so does the bread-butter side.
Also, it is assumed that the earth (gravity) decides as to which will fall in which style. So, as far as the inputs to the earth's 'brain' go, it only sees the cat. It doesnt realize that there is a stinking piece of bread behind it. Thus, the cat lands on its feet.

(2)

Here, it is assumed that the cosmic powers or the imaginary repulsive magnetic fields of moon push the piece of bread and the cat downwards. We can use some fuzzy logic to solve this problem.
Now, 2 cases arise:

(a) The bread piece's dimensions are larger than the cat onto which they are stuck. In this case, the only thing seen from the top is the bread piece, and the forces unite to make the buttered side get battered onto the ground.
(b) The bread piece is so tiny that only the cat is seen form the top. In this case, the cat lands on its feet.

So, in between them, the cat has to fall in a tilted fashion.

Perpetual Motion

Hi,

There has been tremeandous response from you guys. Thanks a lot. I promise I will show the same energy and enthu in maintaining the blog for the days to come. I have enabled comments for my blogs. Please thrash me. I actually got a very good piece from a friend of mine, Avinash Iyer (The higher you go the Iyer you become - as he claims). The piece he sent is very much in line with the current theme I am running. So I thought I would make it the topic for today. Here is the quote my friend has sent to me:

"We know that the cat lands with its feet downside when thrown into the air. We also know that the bread always falls butter side down when thrown into the air. So if we stick a peice of bread to the cat's back and then put butter on the bread, then we would have achieved a perpetual motion machine that will keep rotating above the floor at a constant speed, not knowing which side to fall down first?"

Lemme guide you to the link pmm. The above joke reminds me of one of our quant profs who keeps rotating around the desk while teaching, like the cat above. Guess he has a butter bread attached somewhere :-)). The above joke put two questions in my crappy head - if at all such a perpetually moving cat is possible according to physical laws, what will happen when the cat dies? Also, will the cat keep rotating at 'constant speed' as mentioned in the joke? Actually, the joke is well worded in that it does not attribute perpetual motion to any physical laws, it just says the cat keeps rotating not knowing which side should fall first. So maybe only confusion can lead to perpetual motion. Yes, I know what came into your mind just now - Is this guy perpetually confused? Yeah, you are right ;-)

I stink therefore I am

Hi,

There was a Rexona deodorant ad I saw some months ago. It is in a cowboy kind of setting. Two guys are escaping from those bad guys carrying guns over their shoulders. When they approach their hut, the two guys will lie down and act as if they are dead. The bad guys smell them and take away the guy who doesn't use Rexona deodorant because they infer from his sweat smell that he is not yet dead. I thought an apt caption for the ad can be "I stink therefore I am (alive)".

Now coming to business, lots of guys actually don't know what "I think therefore I am" means. Many think it means - it is thought that keeps us alive. One of our professors (one of those spiritual kind) gave us the same interpretation. But the actual statement - cogito ergo sum - made by Des Cartes means something else. It actually means "I doubt therefore I know". Des Cartes came up with two basic questions - "Can I feign that the world does not exist?", "Can I feign that I do not exist?" The answer to the first question is - yes you can - because, the world around you maybe your imagination or something is making you believe that this world exists as you know. Now in both the possibilities, you are accepting there is a thing called "I" that thinks. In the first, you assumed "I am imagining", in the second, you assumed "I am thinking". And both the questions arose from "doubt" which is also thought. So, I am accepting only one fact - that 'I think'. Now this would mean I am accepting that something called "I" exists. Hence the statement "I think therefore I am". So, this is the only statement you can say with 100% confidence, according to Des Cartes.

Too philosophical...aah....

Marketing Research applied

Hi,

Today afternoon I was in the bathroom and I suddenly got an idea. When I was in Hyderabad, I found that I can suddenly find a place to pee anywhere in the city. They call them Sulabh complexes. I found that I can actually apply marketing research fundas to make Sulabh complex a better place to pee. We can do a customer segmentation to find out who finds it convenient and who finds it demeaning to be asked to use them. And another management problem "How many rooms for ladies and how many for gents" can also be tackled by this customer segmentation. Actually I have prepared a questionnaire...

Answer in Yes or No ( dichotomous questions ;-) )
1. I find it demeaning myself to use Sulabh complex.
2. I find it very uncomfortable to look at a guy peeing next to me and grinning at me.
3. I don't mind leaving without flushing.
4. Momma says, "Don't leave the taps open"
5. I want a closed room to do this unmentionable thing.
6. I wait outside ladies room searching for the love of my life.
7. I like listening to music wherever I am.

OK, do take time to fill up my questionnaire..I have some work now. See you tomorrow, same place.

Hi,

As promised here is the first of my musings:

Newton's Third Law of Motion:
The other day one of my friends told me a joke which goes as follows. A lady is travelling in a city bus in Delhi. The driver applies brakes suddenly and the guy behind her falls on her. The lady looks at him scornfully and the guy says, "Don't mind Ma'am! It is just Newton's First Law of Motion". The lady slaps him and says, "Don't mind! It is just Newton's Third Law of Motion".

Now here I was totally shocked at the way Newton's Third Law of Motion has been interpreted. The guy was absolutely right when he said the reason for his falling on her was Newton's First Law of Motion. But the lady seems to be a commerce graduate who knows a lil bit of this and a lil bit of that and starts confusing herself by mixing all those lil bits. I have a friend called Siddharth who has incidentally become a CA contrary to all our expectations. Many a time he applies similar logic when anything to do with mathematics troubles him.

Newton's Third Law of Motion says every action has an equal and opposite reaction. And here action refers to a force applied by a body on some other body and dear Ma'am even reaction refers to the same. And both action and reaction occur simultaneously. One of my friends, when he listened to the above joke, extended the logic and came up with amazing discoveries about universe and existence. He said, the universe was formed by a big bang, now that was action, there will be an equal and opposite reaction which will ultimately pull all the matter together. Right now, as we have learned in our physics, the entropy of the universe is increasing, so the current age of the universe is less than half of its total life time. Now, this guy surely does have imagination. It is no fault of him because he made 2 assumptions, one big bang theory is correct and two, the lady's interpretation of Newton's Third Law of Motion is correct. So, dear ma'am be careful when you make such statements. There are crazy guys over here who will extend it to the end of the universe and conclude that they are dead.

Hi,

I have just created my blog. You can expect lots of fun and creativity from this showman. People call me a lunatic and I very much agree with them. If you want to get confused with yourself and the entire world around you, you can listen to my crap. I have decided on a theme to start with and will mostly start from tomorrow. The theme is - applying management principles, theories, frameworks, physics laws, etc., to general life and get confused with the most obvious reality that lies in front of you.