There’s a reason why I was looking forward to meeting up with Ramesh Ramanathan, CEO of Club Mahindra. I’m always in awe of folks who dream big and more importantly, see that dream work. Ramesh is the main person who started Club Mahindra from scratch and it has now grown to become the Number One resort chain in India.
I’ve known Ramesh since the Sify days. He was the head of consumer Internet division then and did quite well until he decided to get back to the company he founded.
I went to the colorful office of Club Mahindra and we had an interesting two hour meeting with him. A condensed 25 minute video of our conversation can be found in the video below.
Disclosure: I’m an external consultant for Club Mahindra and help them with social media strategies.
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After I presented my talk at the Emerging Companies Forum at the NASSCOM’s office in Delhi this evening, I got this interesting book as a token of appreciation. What’s special about this book is that it had a personal hand-written thank-you message from Kiran Karnik, the current president of NASSCOM.
It’s a pity I couldn’t meet up in person as he had to rush out for a meeting. But it felt good that he made it a point to write a thank you message in the book. A small task but its a nice gesture.
It’s probably the last ‘Emerging Companies Forum’ that’s held during his tenure as President. He quits office later this year.
Now about the book. I have never read a C.K.Prahalad book before… (Wonder what the IIM Kozhikode students, whom I’m going to talk to today, are going to think of me!), though I’ve heard a lot about him and had to chance to meet him in person once.
And this is not the book I would have picked up at a bookshop if I had to buy a book myself. And that’s what makes the choice of the book interesting. Now that I have the book, I’ll take the time to read through it. Maybe now, I’ll figure out why a lot of folks go ga-ga over C.K.P.
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I’ve been invited by the editor of The New Indian Express to author a tech column. It’ll be a weekly column where I talk about interesting tech developments in an easily digestible language. The first of the series appeared today.
Haven’t decided on the name of the column though. Apparently the paper fixes the column names. But I’m sure they’d be open to ideas. I’d love to hear from you of interesting ideas.
My run with authoring columns has seen its fair share of ups and downs. Back in 1997, I authored a column for DQ Week (Data Quest Week) called Net @ttitude and wrote about interesting stuff online. It still remains my favorite till date. Had a decent response. Must’ve lasted close to an year.
I moved this column later to ChennaiOnline.com and it stayed there for close to six months.
I later wrote a column called ‘Net Results’ for the now-defunct IndiaInfoline.com. Internet information relating to the financial market. Didn’t last for more than 3 months. A failure.
Then followed a fairly high paying gig at ITspace.com during the IT boom. They even flew me to Bangalore to sign the contract and put me up in a 5 star hotel. Splurged. Not surprisingly, they over burned and shut shot after 5 months. This must be around 2001.
What followed next will be the biggest opportunity missed. I got an invite from The Hindu to write a column for the Sunday Magazine. I started off with a couple of pieces and for some reason I slowed down on my writing and eventually the opportunity bypassed me. I still kick myself when I think about what I had missed.
A brief stint with Economic Times followed where I wrote about half a dozen pieces for Madras Plus. My bad luck caught up with me when the Editor who chose me quit her job and the new Editor brought on changes. Damn! Just when I was beginning to think this might last…
So, as you can see, I don’t have the best of runs for Column. Yet, almost with amazing consistency, I keep getting offers to author column. The New Indian Express is the latest and I’m really hoping that I make this work longer than any before. Wish me luck, fellas!
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I bought a brand new table tennis table at my new work place. It’s been a longtime wish.
It’s a game that I fell in love with when I started playing at Tidel Park when working at Sify. After work hours, we would head out to the ‘TT room’ and spend atleast a couple of hours everyday sweating it out. I loved it. It was fun and it gave me enough dose of exercise. Fun and exercise is an awesome combination.
It was at that time that I promised myself that whenever I open my own office, I’ll definitely get a ping pong table. I loved it when I was an employee and wanted to give my employees the same perk. When the table landed up at my office, I felt good keeping up that promise.
Yesterday, we played our first few games. None of us knew how to play the game well. We followed the simple rule: Just get the ball to the other court. The technique was zero. But it was sheer fun. We’d laugh at each other’s horrible smashes. It loosened us up.
I’m also aware of the downside. It’s going to affect the work productivity for certain. Yesterday, we spent two hours playing. The game will eat into the work hours but I’m confident that while the quantity of work hours might take a beating, the quality of work life will improve. And my belief is that this will have positive outcome.
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Till this evening, we hadn’t done our Diwali shopping yet. My folks always prefer T.Nagar for shopping and I dread the crowd. Especially on the eve of Diwali. Been procrastinating the last couple of days and finally succumbed to the ultimatums. So, off we left for Pondy Bazaar, the heart of Chennai’s dress and jewelry market.
Was I in for a surprise or what? At 6:30PM, which is the worst time to get there, the traffic was not only fast moving but light as well. I had expected snarling traffic jams and mentally gave us an hour to head there but instead, we made it under 20 minutes. Even better, I found a parking space within a couple of minutes.
Credit definitely goes to dozens of traffic cops, volunteers and student cadets who have managed the crowds exceedingly well. The Chennai Traffic Police have even roped in the popular Solomon Papaiya to record instructions to the public in his own humorous way. It went very well with the festive joyous mood of the crowd.
However, when most of the cops and volunteers went away at around 10 PM, the traffic snarl was visibly back. Auto rickshaws started to park right outside the big shops hunting for customers, thus blocking the traffic. If autos were bad, some of the private cars are worse. They would do a valet service kind of pickup without any consideration for the traffic hold up.
A clear indication that we lack self discipline and expect to be governed by the cops.
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Email:Kiruba @ Kiruba.com
Phone :+91-44-42733619
Mobile : 98415 97744
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Virugambakkam,
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