BRAToSPHERE

Blog

  • Summer of 2014

    After a brief hiatus I am back. After my move to Gurgaon, life sure has become quite hectic.

    The initial weekends spent in looking for a house to rent, and then a couple more weekends spent in dressing up the house. This was interrupted by a short weekend trip to Sujangarh, in Rajasthan, my maternal place.

    Why only weekends? Well, after joining the Gurgaon office I seem to be living weekend to weekend, as the entire working week just seems to fly by without any “me time”.

    Amidst all the chaos over the weekends, I managed to take a week off, for a short trip to Mumbai. A very much needed trip to unwind, as well as complete some pending tasks.

    Back to Gurgaon in end June, the preparations started for the Big day (more about that later).  The general day to day work, and talking to everyone and planning travel took up most of the time.

    A short two day trip mid-July to Bangalore (my first official trip after joining the Gurgaon office) was very fruitful – both work wise and personally. My first ever trip where I was involved in something very different from the routine market work, was very enriching and a learning experience.

    This trip to Bangalore, after a full three years, when I had left the garden city to move to Mumbai, was also filled with nostalgia. Walking down the brigade road and the MG road, did bring back a lot of fond memories from what now seems like a different era.

    Post the Bangalore trip, Most of end July was spent in malls, shopping for the big day and taking full advantage of the sale season. The Credit Card bills from the retail onslaught still gives me sleepless nights!

    Like I had hoped on my move to Gurgaon, I have picked up a sport. Have started playing Badminton regularly every morning, and the occasional bout of table tennis in office does keep me indulged in the recess hours.

    Amidst all this hysteria over the past couple of months, writing unfortunately took a back seat!

  • The Everything Store – Book Review

    e-commerce has always been a sector close to my heart, and when I heard of this book, I knew instantly that I had to read it. This book is a detailed coverage of Amazon and is an unflinching outsider’s view to the same. The author Brad Stone has done a wonderful job in creating a well rounded story of how Amazon has become, what it is today.

    Amazon is very well on its way for dominance on everything we buy. The recent launch of its phone is one more hint in that direction.

    Initially, it started off as a bookseller, but it was always designed for bigger things. Jeff Bezos, it’s founder, always seemed to have this grand plan of making it “The Everything Store”, which enables people to buy literally anything sold on the planet, and beyond.

    Being featured Recently on the front page of The Economist newspaper shows its ever growing popularity and its ability to stay relevant.

    One very important lesson to learn from Amazon is its relentless focus on Customer Service. (Interesting piece of nugget: Jeff was initially contemplating naming his company relentless.com and had even registered the name, but I guess better aesthetic sense prevailed). The author talks about Jeff’s exceptional drive and obsession and his journey in providing the best possible experience to his consumers. Customer first, is reflected throughout the book.

    The book also gives a very deep look into the behavior of its rather eccentric founder, Jeff Bezos. How he managed pressures, and cynics who have multiple times written him and his company off. Every time that Amazon’s obituary is talked about, it pulls out the proverbial magical rat from its hat.

    Any biography of a business leader is tough. Especially if it about a person who is still very much in his prime, and more so if it is about a company that is still growing ahead of the industry. An industry that it has created. Also, the author not being the founder, or an ex-employee makes it more difficult, but Brad has done a remarkable job. It shows the amount of research gone into the book.

    Brad tries to make it a parallel running between Amazon’s illustrious run so far, and a semi-biogrpahical account of its inspiring founder. That I think is a big weak point of the book, for readers like me who expected it be a story of Amazon.com and not its founder.

    Overall, this book is a must read for anyone aspiring to build a company, or interested to know how a clear long term vision supersedes everything else, and results into a great company. Here, the long term vision being, Amazon needs to be “The Everything Store”

  • Adios Mumbai

    July 2011, amidst the heavy Mumbai rains, I landed in this city of dreams.

    I had a new job, and this was going to be my new place of work. I had mixed emotions then. Mumbai was touted as an expensive and difficult city to be living in. The famous (or infamous) pace of the city was a cause of concern, more so as I was relocating from the calm and peaceful Bangalore.

    Overcoming all of that, I think the last three years have been an amazing experience in this City. These last three years have developed many a fond memories that I would be cherishing for a long time to come.

    I still remember during my first week in Mumbai, I had complained to my manager how I already hate the city due to its rains and the overcrowded roads. She very calmly smiled back at me and said, “give it some more time. Mumbai would grow on you and you would start liking it”. Grow on me, it truly did, so much that I now find it difficult to leave this city.

    After the horrendous experience in the first month, where I had to commute by the non-existent auto to office every day from my hotel, I had decided that I would stay as close as possible to my office. My 1 bhk flat, was a 10 minutes’ walk away from office and I so much loved it. Think, this was one very big factor that helped foster my relationship with the city. I could avoid its roads and traffic that it was unpopular for.

    Catching up with old friends, working double triple hard on my new job, and spending sleepless nights to catch up with the city comprised my first year here. I was staying alone, and all of my weekends would be with friends trying to explore the city.

    Different places to eat, to hang out and every possible popular pub in the city was on the radar in the first year of my stay here in Mumbai.

    Our new found interest in plays comprised a vital part of our weekends those days. We religiously checked the schedules of Prithvi Theatre in Juhu and made up our plans around it.

    Like every city, I developed my own favourite places to hang out, where I could spend hours and hours together. Powai was one of them. The whole locality gave a very European feel to it, and I wish that I could stay here someday. The other favourite is Colaba causeway. The whole street has fascinated me right since my Summer intern days, where it turned to be a daily hangout place, from our hostel near Chruchgate.

    And like I have a favourite coffee shop in every city, Mumbai too had one – the CCD at Carter Road, Bandra. I remember having spent hours and hours there. This place just made me forget all about the daily life chores and helped experience a different world. This was pure meditation! The entry of Starbucks did not change this preference at all.

    This, and many other experiences truly enriched my stay here for a little less than three years, and yes, I would love the opportunity to be residing in this city again someday.

    For Now, Gurgaon it is!

  • Manjunath.. Idiot tha Saala

    This weekend, most of us will undoubtedly watch the IIMA Romantic comedy – “2 states”, and yes, we should.

    It does seem to be well made, and the story by Chetan Bhagat was quite fun. It is probably the first romance set up in an IIM to be made into a Movie! No second thoughts about it, it would in all probability be very well worth the time spent.

    Three weeks from now, there is one more IIM story that would hit the theaters – “Manjunath. Idiot tha Saala”

    How many of us would see this one?

    “Manjunath.. Idiot tha Saala” is the real story of Manjunath Shanmugam, an alumnus of IIM Lucknow batch of 2003. He was posted as a Sales Officer in Bharat Oil, Lakhimpur Kheri, UP. On a chilly November day in 2005, he was shot dead for daring to raise his voice against the system and it’s corruption.

    Following the murder, there was immense media spotlight on the case. Manjunath’s batchmates from IIM Lucknow (where he was affectionately called Machan) also kept the story alive. The incident inspired several students at IIM, IIT and other educational institutes culminating with the IIM students setting up the The Manjunath Shanmugam Trust.

    Sandeep, an advertising guy, has made this film as his directorial debut. He says, “Anjali Mullathi, the main person behind the Manjunath trust, is the motivation behind this film.”

    According to the director, “The only reason for making the movie is that it should be done, and it is the right thing to do. Manjunath had been threatened and warned many times for taking stand against the corrupt. He obviously knew what he was getting into, and in spite of that he, chose the path, not because he was stupid but because he knew that it was right.”

    It took a lot of hard work and emotional turmoil to make this movie, with the director himself having put all his resources behind it. Lack of financiers at the beginning of the project did put a big strain on Sandeep’s finances, who is married and has a daughter. (source: news)

    Of course, the movie does not have big stars backing it, but it is one film made with all heart and honesty. It is the culmination of the efforts put in by the alumni of IIML, and countless other people who toiled hard to bring the perpetrators to justice.

    This is one story that we should ensure gets maximum eye balls, to know how an innocent fun loving guy is trampled to allow illicit gains at the expense of the public at large. Through the lens of Manjunath, it shows the dark underbelly of the nexus between different powers to be, and how it is all collectively destroying the fabric of the country. Why young people entering into the workforce would be forced to become corrupt!

    Are we looking at a future mired with corruption and sub-standard way of life? So, who is coming along on 9th may?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nPY6O8XDv8

    (Viacom18 motion pictures is releasing the movie across on 9th may 2014)

  • Outliers – Book Review

    My first book by Malcolm Gladwell, and I am now tempted to read up all his works.

    There are two ways of telling every story, and similarly there are two ways of justifying a person’s behavior. One – the person alone is responsible for everything happening in his/her life, the other reason – external factors around the person are responsible for the person’s behavior. This book explains the second part in a detailed way, with ample examples.

    Success is tightly coupled with opportunity and time. The 10000 hour rule discussed by the author here, states that it takes approximately 10,000 hours to master something. This seemingly simple rule of thumb has profound examples and logic behind it, elucidated very well in the book.

    The rule makes one realize that the way to master something is to put in the rigorous hours. Be it anything – a sport, dance, Running – the more you do, the better you get at it.

    This book also touched upon the author’s personal story of becoming a writer tracing its roots to his maternal grandmother and the various world events that helped him get where he is. All the examples given in the book, just makes one feel – it is all written. It gave a complete new twist to destiny and its importance in our lives.

    To summarize the lessons in the book – success depends on myriad external and internal factors, and the only thing in our control is the amount of effort we put in. In other words, a person has to be talented and also take advantage of the singular opportunities provided to him, to be truly successful.

    Off to lay my hands on the next book by Malcolm Gladwell.