It had been over a decade since I went to a movie in a theater and when my daughter wanted to break this jinx, families of Suresh, Shankar and Raja were first to pounce on this chance to convert another staunch home theater coucher to the mo vie hall. Ghost Protocol (honestly, I think this undercover operation by the daughter and my close friends, deserves this name better) was the chosen conversion pad and we landed up at the theater last night, all families, occupying a complete line on the hall.  On to the movie, the star of the show Tom Cruise, the ever young IMF agent Ethan Hunt in pushed to the brink, a kind of a make or break situation, following the CIA’s disavowal, for a spectacular bomb strike on the Kremlin, gone sour. His options, if he chooses to accept it, is to track down the real trouble maker, a Scandinavian diplomat turned demented terrorist (Michael Nyqvist) who has the secret code for a nuclear missile launch, or simply be labeled and guillotined a terrorist ...

From the strange to the sublime, from the bizarre to the brazen, reams and reams of adjectives, anecdotes and analogies have been said, spoken and written on Ramalinga Raju since that fateful day on January 7, 2009. He has been named in fraudulent corporate lists, compared with Jeffrey Skilling, ranked on the Forbes scam list and been termed as an enigmatic personality. Even his jail life seemed to be making news headlines, with scoops on his reading the gita, badminton stint, his request for laptops, mobile, hospital sojourn, bail pleas etc keeping the ticker line moving. As someone who has been part of the Satyam clan for a while, it is still extremely hard to fathom the turn of events over the past two years. Raju, who had been known and projected (and to be fair, exhibited some traits) as a gentle, soft spoken, people oriented, empathetic, caring individual - relegated to the extremely opposite dimension by the turn of events. Yes, my personal acquaintance with him was very lim...

The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly – Richard Bach in his block buster paperback – Illusions. I never really got to relate to the brilliance of this dictum, until I experienced it. You can certainly trust Bach with understanding the intricacies and the vagaries of life – mine had definitely been turned upside down, inside out in the last couple of years, from that fateful day on January 2009, when Ramalinga Raju, with one stroke of his pen, stunned the world, sending the corporate and financial world into a tizzy, an event that Corporate India and the world is still struggling to come to terms with. Little did I realize the impact of what played out the next few months, as I sat in my cozy corner cabin on the 3rd floor of the swank Maansarower towers, opening out into the streets of Chennai. The 12 odd years at Satyam was possibly a fairytale run for me pers...

What’s all this fuss with the Credit Rating of Standards and Poor’s? (Apart from stoking a funny debate on what kind of a name this could be to a rating agency!). Well, it is all about, let us bite the bullet and spell out the tragic line – The Bankruptcy of the great nation – USA. Many thoughts and theories abound on why this great country is becoming the cynosure of all eyes very frequently for the wrong financial reasons. Questions are being raised on the audacity of the USA to be playing the “Big Daddy” for the developing nations, while its own backyard is being ravaged by debt. Debates are woven around the credibility of the financial culture of the once great nation, which was built around a simple principle - Live for Today. This particular aspect does require a deeper look, for in my personal view, does bear logic. Look at the needs of a common American citizen. The equivalent of our own Roti Kapada or Makan. This used to be an almost assured commodity, thanks to the Social...

The transformation that the Western Ghats, bordering the states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu has undergone, over the last decade is legendary, thanks to one event which was the hunting down of a man, who ruled the wilderness for over 3 decades. An undisputed master of the jungles, the man spelt terror in the wilds, was idolized like Robin Hood at the hamlets bordering the jungles, gave sleepless nights to the special task forces and forest guards – was an omnipresent phantom of the woods – Koose Munuswamy Veerapan. Such was his control over the forest ranges of Mudumalai right up to Sathyamangalam, driving down the Kollegal stretch or the B.R.Hills, MM Hills roads was fraught with great risk, for a chance encounter with this dreaded bandit. When he kidnapped Wildlife activists and Photographers- Krupa Shanker and Senani from their homes at Bandipur, no one gave them a chance in hell to get back alive. That they did return from the jaws of death, after almost a fortnight in th...

A few weeks ago, I was watching a recording of the annual shareholder meeting of Berkshire Hathaway, the investment vehicle of Warren Buffett – an encyclopedia, for commodities inforamtion ( A Woodstock for the mid life financial freaks). This organization, has always been a great reflection point, to understand the views, perspectives etc of the financial wizards on some of the ‘Asset class Commodities’, within the radar of the common man. This time, there are no prizes for guessing, the focus was on Gold. Hearing the views of the Commodity from the World’s Third Richest man is not a bad idea – it’s like hearing the nuances of the golf swing from Tiger Woods or the roll of the wrists on a backhand down the line from the great Roger Federer. Buffett, with all his wizardly wisdom of the financial markets, has never been a fan of gold. His most famous quote on gold: “Gold gets dug out of the ground, and then we melt it down, dig another hole, bury it again and pay people to st...

The other day, our house maid had quit  and my wife was looking around for a replacement. With the dearth of blue collared workers, we knew it was going to be a long and hard grind ahead.A two pronged strategy was chalked out as a BCP (Business Continuity Plan). a) Check with the cook if she would double up as a housemaid for the extra wages until a replacement was found b) Everyone chips in with their bit (do their own bed, dishes, rooms and equipment) until the replacement comes in Option a) as expected was shot down by the cook, even before it was explained in full, for the extra wages were unimportant compared to other priorities. Option b) was enforced at home, like an emergency declared across the country. The first day started in right earnest with a whole set of learning from folding the rug to fluffing the pillow. When the coffee mug arrived, the thought of cleaning it actually took the zing out of the drink and my attempts at stowing the mug away after a quick rins...

When I was young, I was always at loggerheads with the thought process and ideologies of my parents. I used to swear, that when I grew up and had a family, I would not do the things they did, like ration out my allowances, take serious offence to my late evening engagements, freak out on any complaints from school / college, deny me the next new motorcycle or simply never ever dole our anything, without a tradeoff or a reciprocal arrangement. I thought they were the most unfair people on earth, linking up my holiday plans to my marks, aligning attendance scores to my new wardrobe, tying up my next new camera to No arrears . . . they seemed outright cruel. Parenting, in my dreams had to be Utopia – at least close to it. Kids need encouragement, care and a perennial supply of money until they find their first job, they need to enjoy their most precious moments of carefree and youthful life, which calls for money, take them on annual overseas trip, load all the designer wear they car...

Having my hands around, what was perceived to be a game changer, here are my initial observations. The almost oxymoronic name “Play Book” is surely not a stunner by looks. The angular edges, the darkish tint are certainly not attention grabbers. However, the logo at the rear and the classy embossed name in front are saving graces. It can easily pass by for yet another Androidish looking tablet and it is a bit of let down, considering it is the first tablet device from the stable of Research In Motion, featuring the all-new QNX-based BlackBerry Tablet OS. The touch and feel is a refreshing change, especially from all the Blackberry’s I’ve owned since the old blue 7290. Right from that rubbery sensation you get, which you feel good and confident to hold, to the responsive 1024 X 640 display over a 7inch screen, the evolution is evident. The 4 buttons on top are neat. The device could have probably done better with a slightly larger and better positioned, on off switc...

What happens when Two IIM Alumni, one a highly successful Sports commentator and the other an equally well known Advertising consultant, decide on capturing their consulting experience over a period of 6 years in book form? A Winning Way emerges . . . . Literally! The Bhogle’s – Anita and Harsha have produced exactly that in their blockbuster paperback – The Winning way. This unpretentious 193 page power packed paperback is a reader’s delight. It was a pleasure to be part of their book launch at Chennai and spend time with them, hearing their views and experiences in person. Rarely do you find nonfiction which keeps you captivated all through and is really hard to put down. Harsha’s style of narration, his command over the English language, his choice of vocabulary is unmatched, as the book flows from corporate lessons and learning’s blending neatly with sport situations and real life incidents. I simply loved the way each chapter links into the other right from the Contents page. ...