Sunday, February 27, 2005

Best Pics from my Travels (so far )

Elmina Castle & the infamous slave Cells


Langkawi Islands

Boat ride to Langkawi

Me in mara (and rhino !)

Simba !

Masai dance

Next best thing to paradise

Savannah

Hanging between Petronas Towers

37,000 tons of steel

37,001 tons

Dolphins (and typical touristy things)

Every trek is photo-opportuntiy

Long time since a decent game of tennis

1

Office get together , Dynasty ,Accra ,Ghana

Dungeons on Cape Coast

Elmina Castle

Female Slave Cells


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Friday, February 25, 2005

Masai Mara - A kaleidoscope of memorable images

Masai Mara - A kaleidoscope of memorable images


Masai Mara was the last place on my mind, when I made the list of must see places before I die (a simple wish list of all the places that I could probably afford to go in future, ranging from rain forests of brazil to the great barrier reef)

And then came the call from my manger in Singapore. "Would you be interested in joining the rollout team?" The rollout team in our monster sized project goes around the world preaching the project gospel and disappear once the formal sign offs are done. Well, that was how I found myself in the Masai Mara, some 1500 sq kms of virgin African grasslands.

Masai Mara - literally means "Mottled" - a reference to the patchy landscape, in Swahili. Btw, Swahili is the same language that gave us the lovely word, hakuna matata. (No problem!) Masai Mara is arguably the World's most prolific wildlife conservation area. The Maasai's are a proud semi-nomadic cattle-rearing people with a fascinating culture, who inhabit these beautiful grasslands of Africa. It is the best destination in Kenya for viewing wildlife. With its rolling grasslands and wide-open savannah - the Masai Mara is the kind of African landscape that you probably see only in the National geographic or discovery.

A 5-hour ride from Nairobi will take you to the Masai town of Novak. Novak is the major town or trading point for the Maasai's. They make beautiful handicrafts ranging from wooden sculptures to lovely paintings. But then the Masai market, which happens every Tuesday in Nairobi, is a better place to purchase any handicrafts. To buy in Novak, you better have a local friend to help you bargain. We started early morning at Nairobi at around 7am(by my standards) and by 12, we were at Novak. We were a group of 5,3 Kenyans and a brit and myself. Our guide John mwanga, and let me add before I forget, probably has the best eyesight in the world. The way he would spot animals from distances would just surprise us. Once I was looking at a patch of burnt grass through my field glasses and I said there is nothing out there. The fellow just had a glance out there and spotted a hyena. Am dead sure of two things, ether he has mini binoculars surgically implanted in his eyes or had an arrangement with the hyena.

From the town of Novak, it is all the Mara for you. The camp we were put up, the Mara safari club, was pretty inside around 80 km ride from Novak. The journey begins when the journey begins at Nairobi. Especially for someone working and staying in the city center for weeks, when you get to see the villages and rural side of Kenya. It's really a welcome break. And you cross this famous valley of East Africa called, the great rift valley, with breath taking views of the mountains This geologic phenomena, dubbed the Great Rift Valley by the Scottish explorer John Walter Gregory, divides Kenya neatly down the length of the country essentially separating east from west. Today's Rift Valley is characterized by uninhabitable deserts, fertile farmlands, flat arid plains and steep escapements. In some places this natural divide is up to 100 km (60 miles) wide, while it reaches its narrowest point just north of Nairobi at 45 km wide. The valley floor is at its lowest near Lake Turkana where there is virtually no distinction between the Great Rift and the surrounding desert.



Another 2 hours of pretty rough ride through the trails in grasslands and we were reached our campsite. The Mara Safari Club is set in the Ol-Choro Oiroua Conservation Area, bordering the Masai Mara Game Reserve, at the foot of the Aitong Hills. Surrounded on three sides by the Mara River, and fencing on the other side, you do feel completely safe from three sides atleast. I was told that Kenyan conservation rules prevent campsites from putting up fences on the riverside.


All tents have their own private river frontage, with basic electricity, and facilities. The main building, with lounge, bar and dining room is cantilevered over the river. There is also a resident naturalist, who made Mara his home and is living here for the last 30 years (and my parents think am the crazy one to be going to Masai Mara!). The talks he gives late evenings by the campsites are fascinating and very educational.

The Mara River is famous for its crossings in October and November when thousands of wilder beasts, zebras cross across to Serengeti in Tanzania in search of greener grasslands and to give birth. Sadly I missed the rush hour, but still there were lots of animals around.

We were in a 4d cruiser, making it really easy to go, practically anywhere in the reserve, ravines, waterholes, cross streams the park itself is huge - around 1500 sq km area and you have all the big 5 animals there in the park. Africans refer to the lion, leopard, elephant, cheetah and rhino as the Big 5 and I noticed that depending on place-to-place in Africa the list varies like buffalo is considered and cheetah is not in some places. Now I saw all the big 5 except leopard. Leopard was one predator I couldn't target (in my camera) through out my travels in Africa. The best thing about the camp was, my tent itself, perfectly located at a turning point of the Mara river giving me two views of the river, there were hippos and crocs in the river, just a few meters away from my tent, seperated by few wooden logs you think that was cool and exciting, me too! Then came the bad news, the guide told me that hippos kill the most humans in Africa, now that really scared me. The first night there was really scary, the hippos were just too noisy .I just couldn't sleep.

The following day we got to see cheetahs, zebras, and giraffes. There were just too many zebras, after a while I stopped photographing the zebras. We spotted a female cheetah and 3 really cute cheetah cubs. That was the first time I was looking at cheetah cubs in the wild.

The adventure part was to come on the second day. The second day we were tracking a big group of African elephants, one of the elephants almost charged at us, there was a baby elephant, and it was probably as scared as we folks in our cruiser they say the cruiser is nothing for an elephant and can just crush a cruiser we were alive to go on another ride in the evening same day and spotted a big pride of lions, wow!
There were two tiny cubs, very sweet, but will grow up soon to be beasts of the jungle
But it was quite late in night so couldn't get good pictures. The evening we also got chance to see the famous Masai dance. The Masai dance is awesome .you just watch with open mouths, wondering how do they defy gravity to reach such heights when they jump the dance itself is simple with just a few steps. But the ambience, and the shouts, the chilled weather adds to the magic. Masais themselves are pretty confused at cross roads, development and tourist money on one side; desire to stick to their old traditions. Have you seen them movie "Ghost and the darkness", you should see that movie to get to see the masai dance, its fantastic, no wonder even the lions, they say, avoid the masai tribes. Did you know of the Masai tradition of boys getting circumcised at around 14 and then they are given a spear and left in the bushes, poor chap has to kill a lion with the spear to be able to return to his village to choose a bride. The tradition has long been discontinued and I doubt if there are enough lions to continue such a tradition.



The final day was spent searching for rhinos and giraffes and there were some anxious moments with the rhinos. We had to walk up a hill to catch a glimpse of black rhinos, I was taking pictures of two female rhinos, one of the rhinos came charging at me from behind, the forest ranger pulled me off the path of the rhino and then our sweet guide says to me nicely and slowly, black rhinos also kill boss (the moron should have told me before!) I always though it was the other way around, white rhinos bad, black ones good. Guess I was wrong. I got around 100 pictures and another 100 in my dig cam; at times i was just madly clicking, especially lions and cheetahs.


Kenya is probably the most gorgeous country on this planet. Where else can you get snowcapped mountains, grasslands, equator, deserts, lovely sun kissed beaches all neatly packed for you in a medium sized country called Kenya. Sadly Kenya is just known only for its Masai mara, while rests of the locations are ignored. The tourist money is being used properly to provide local employment by hiring rangers, preventing poaching, conservation Safety is however one big concern in Kenya. Nairobi is known as nairobbery and believe me it's not an exaggeration. If Kenyans can work to minimize the crime, Kenya can be the most visited country on this planet, which will in turn benefit the last refuge of the African wild life.

I reach for words, when someone asks me about my visit to the Mara - spectacular,
thrilling, awesome, beautiful, extraordinary .......
seductive..................fascinating ..................................

A kaleidoscope of memorable images

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Wednesday, February 23, 2005

"Women in Sciences - issues of intrinsic aptitude ?!!! "

You guys are aware of the controversy with harvard president's speech,SPEECH IS BELOW ,
....
Among his comments to a conference of economists last month, according to the transcript, he compared the relatively low number of women in the sciences to the numbers of Catholics in investment banking, whites in the National Basketball Association and Jews in farming. He theorized that a ``much higher fraction of married men'' than married women are willing to work 80-hour weeks in order to attain ``high-powered'' jobs. And he suggested he believed that, in the sciences and engineering, the innate aptitude of women was a factor behind their low numbers in the field.

``My best guess, to provoke you, of what's behind all of this is that the largest phenomenon - by far - is the general clash between people's legitimate family desires and employers' current desire for high power and high intensity; that in the special case of science and engineering, there are issues of intrinsic aptitude, and particularly of the variability of aptitude; and that those considerations are reinforced by what are in fact lesser factors involving socialization and continuing discrimination,'' Summer said, according to the transcript. ``I would like nothing better than to be proved wrong, because I would like nothing better than for these problems to be addressable simply by everybody understanding what they are, and working very hard to address them,'' he added.

Though Lawrence Summers has apologized, some are still calling for his ouster.

Tuesday, February 08, 2005

Sp Jain Group.Interview Experience

...It's been almost 10 days since my Grp Interview in SP Jain ,and i thought why not put it in words (serialize),before i forget. I had a fantastic Group Interview (IMHO ! ) . It was worth the pains of travelling all the way to mumbai.

Feb 5 ,friend and myself landed in mumbai airport,had to convince him to take the flight or we would be going on a day long trip from chennai ,and not to mention extra leave ,as had already taken a day leave for the monday .Basically we arrived by jet flight and we returned by chennai mail sleeper class (ironic !).Got into the hostel by afternoon had a long sleep till 7 PM ,woke up met other hopefuls , one guy came from infy ,i met him first when i took the CAT exam and now again for the jain GI on the same day(what are the odds !! ) , finished dinner at the nearby veggie restauarant and back to sleep.
Getting back into college campus was bit weird feeling for me , i imagined myslef spending two years at one place compared to my last 4+ years of nomadic life .I must admit mumbai girls are ho....t ,or am i spending too much time in chennai ?

Anyway, My GI exp pretty much in q&a went on a bit like this:
..
GI1: (two faculty members and a student on panel) 6 candidates-> marketing fresher female ,IM (2 of us) 1 from infy bangalore ,Finance (1 from infy again ! ),marketing another 2-3 years exp gy (pune ,swedish MNC) and another ops exp guy
...
Kicked off with intros:
My intro was good (i guess ) - Am blah blah working for TATA's for the last 4 + 1/2 yearsI worked in geographies of south ,east,west africa,south east asia,mid-east and south asia,domains,technologies,roles,projects,education ,parents,hobbies etc..
..
about your present project ?
explained about project and implementation,actvities ,standard chartered bank and client
..
clients of the project and how they use?
.i practically gave them a qwiky intro to our project
...
does the bank make money on this project ?
one of the most profitable projects of the bank,major portion of the bank's transactions come thruugh this project
..
competitors for the bank's product ?
gave few names like abn amro,deutshe bank
...
who does this kind of software for deutshe bank ?
initially in singapore inhoused ,now bangalored i guess
...
what after mba ?
in medium to long term want to do research focussing on areas of info mgmt + emerging markets(i.e bottom of pyramid)
...
what is BOP?
CK prahlad's famous book "The profit at the bottom of the pyramid"
Did you finish reading the book ?
I read it and am re-reading it
are you reading the cases or the content of the book ?
mine was unconventional ,sir, i started off with the cases and then moved to the rest of the text ITC e-chaupal took me there and then i covered rest of the book
...
hobbies ?
travelling ,thanks to my job and personally ,adventure sports like rafting and bungi jumping,volunteering,contributing articles,travelogues to magazine
why do crazy(or some other word ! ) things like adventure sports?
i do actvities which are absolutely safe ; to me it's more about conquering your own fears than any real concerns for safetyi was afraid of water when i was in priamry ,parents pushed me to swimming etc ,and now am doing rafting etc
...
Any questions to us ?
How do you encourage / Do you encourage students to take up assignments in Non- Profit organizations post MBA?We have DOCC and students do socially relevant projects.
I mean post MBA?We had 1 student who worked for NGO and now applied to LSE,and we will be happy if students choose this path may not be rewarding financially but has other career advantages
..
(in brief about others : infy IM had to sing a rafi song as his hobby was singing,fresher female said she was reading Da Vinci code but could'nt expalin convincingly the story or plot , marketing fellow said somethign about importing goods to be sold at premium in India ,and use india as export base to produce same products here in pune !!!,IT guy applying for finance was asked about coimbatore )
...
GI2: (Brigadier and faculty)This time 4 candidates - 4 months infant from infy for mkting ,finance guy from prev GI again from infy,IM from CSC Indore and me !
Intros as usual
...
My q&a:
Brigadier - you mentioned about adventure sports ,what was the most recent one?I went on white water rafting trip on the zambezi river in sep 2004,considered grade 5 by the british rafting association,i.e extremely dangerous and high waves,day long rafting trip takes you from zambia to zimbabwe
...
(faculty) How does it help you in your life /career?
Rafting is all about team work,working in unision and following your leader any silly mistake and everyone's in water and possible danger.
but life and career are different?
When you have responsibilites and family depending on you ,career becomes equally importantand you don't want to lose it beacuse of someone else's mistake
.....
Future Plans ?
Research based career in medium-long term in IM + Emerging markets
..
Any event in life when someone you know betrayed your trust?
Once on a hiking trip in naivasha in kenya,3 of us got lost ,a friend of mine was supposed to be guide who assured us that he knew the routeand took the hike before ,and we got lost to realise that he never took the trip and we were lost somewhere in the rift valley
lessons learnt ?
Building trust takes years and breaking it takes just one stupid deed
..
What you don't like about TCS? ( 2 things)
Need for Hi performance work culture ,similar to GE vitality curve
...
Removing bottom 10 is too drastic?
Bottom 10 % can be counselled first and their objectives and role clearly definded and removal only in worst case scenario
If you are offered a role in TCS post MBA,would you consider it?
Yes,love to
(brig)What if there is another offer 75 % higher ?
I'll prefer TCS, i already have similar offers from others based on my present work-ex
Even if 100% higher?
If a company pays such high pay for similar revenue streams ....( interrupted here but wanted to say this ---> and similar work ,it is probably not sustainable in the long run)
One word Yes /No?No
(Faculty) say any MNC offers?
Sir, TCS pays me well
...
Whims/Fancy?
I want to be known as the greatest management thinker and business philosopher of this century
(others fancies ranged from playing cricket for India ....etc)
Like who?
Drucker and Prahlad
So Drucker has some competition!
Possibly
...
Animal you would identify yourself?
Elephant ,for it's intelligence and team work
...
Team work as in TCS?
And am sure , other companies too

I wonder why there were so many fellas from infy in GI and GD's this time around Is something wrong in infy or something right ?( almost like the mongol invasion ) Overall am optimistic about the interviews, a lot depends on the weightage they give for CAT exam score !
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