Manas Garg Speaks

A few hitherto unknown facts revealed in this post.

I wrote CAT this time. I got a 98.XX percentile and have an interview call from IIM Bangalore.

The time I wrote CAT, I thought that maybe this will be a good thing. MBA - will get to learn a lot, will get to experience a new world altogether.

But then as the interview dates comes closer, I am  convinced that this is not the right thing to do at the moment. An MBA at this stage will surely mean moving away from hardcore technology - which I’m crazy about. Two years away from technology, surrounded by people who dream nothing but of investment banks and consultancy firms will prove to be a brainwash. I’m not ready for it.

My observation after speaking with so many people has been that it is usually engineers who do not find engineering the most exciting thing in the world who move towards MBA - it is a great way to make a career shift. The prospects of going to a technology or software company after an MBA are not great - at least not from IIMs. And so MBA does not interest me. Please correct me if I’m wrong.

Finally, I love my job. What could be a computer engineer’s bigger dream than to the first line of code in a  Microsoft product?

So I’m decided. No MBA - at least not in the near future. The big question is - should I go attend the interview? It will cost me 8k to go attend it, and all the trouble of the new airport at Hyderabad. Plus, the very next day, I have to make one of the most important presentations I’ve ever made.

Help me out - I’m tempted not to go for the interview. Any ideas?

Am writing this post using Windows Live Writer. It is a desktop application that can post for you to your blog – It corrects spelling, formats text just like an office application. The best part is that you can upload photos by drag drop, and it shows your post in your template even as you write it.

Let me hold the best for the last – it works out of the box even with WordPress and Blogger to name a few!

Check it out here!

People have been asking me why have I suddenly disappeared from the blogging circle entirely. I actually have - my last post was something like 2 weeks back!

I’m quite busy in office these days, and have taken up a new schedule where I get up by 6.30 in the morning and am in office by 8.30 :) Which also implies no staying up till crazy hours in the night. I am working on an exciting new project, and am learning a lot. I’ll write a post on work culture in my company and the kind of work I do soon. 

I took up the Art of Living course last week, and it was simply amazing. The best part was that it was not as if they were forcing you to accept some particular belief or ‘Guru’. The yoga was great, and I feel so much better now. I would urge you to take this course up whenever you can - after you do it you’ll realize that you should have done it a long time ago, just like I did!

I went on a company picnic to coorg, and had a great time. The resort we stayed in was just awesome. I got to stay in a private villa that had a private pool (all for myself :), jacuzzi and lots of other stuff. Won’t say that coorg was amazing, but out resort (Orange county) definitely was. In addition, these picnics help one be better friends with people in your team :) However, the resort was expensive (I’m not even sure if just ‘expensive’ describes how expensive it was), so no point going there on your own. Wait till your company takes you there! 

My post, a must have internet explorer add-on is getting a LOT of spam comments - I get upto 10 everyday :( Guess I’ll just disable the comments for that particular post.

This is all that is going on in my life - well almost :) What about you?

Though I’m not very religious, I like to visit temples. I visited the temple of Chilkur Balaji with my dear cousin Harsh today. It is located approximately 20 km from Mehadipatnam, Hyderabad.

The interesting thing about this temple is that among other things, people come here to pray for Visa. They say that God grants an early Visa to all those who pray here. So much that this temple is now fondly called Visa Balaji’s Temple :)

There was something else that struck both me and Harsh - even though there were thousands of people in the queues, there was no Hundi in the temple! No provision for you to donate money! Also, there was no provision of a VIP darsan, where the so called VIPs can skip the queues and get easy darsan. All were treated as equals in this temple.

I have never seen a temple that did not encourage donations before. I am quite impressed. Way to go, God! :)

Here is a page that gives a detailed description of this temple.

I came back late from office today - after 11 pm - had an unusually busy day.

I reached home and turned on my computer.

I launched Internet Explorer and prayed - Oh God! I don’t want my internet connection to work tonight.

It was working.

And here I am, at 1 a.m., dead tired, swollen eyes, but glued to the net. Can’t help it - I’m so badly addicted.

Read what I wrote about net addition two years back here. How things change!

Remember the time when coins were such a hard thing to find? No shopkeeper seemed to have coins, and everyone resorted to shelling out those toffees for 50p or 1 Re. (I bet the smart ones still do)

I’ve been facing the opposite problem for the last few months. I don’t carry coins in with me, because they damage my absurdly expensive wallet.

Every evening, I empty my pockets of all the coins I collect during the day, by virtue of buying things priced at sums that are not multiples of tens. I put them in my cupboard.

In the mornings, I never take coins with me. Reason already specified. Putting them and carrying them in pockets is also troublesome.

I now have more than a thousand rupees - all in coins. Dunno what to do with them. I think I’ll surprise the pizza delivery guy someday <evil grin>

Its hard to believe that these coins were not so long ago something hard to find - because the value of the metal in the coin was more than the coin’s value! Thus metal merchants actually melted the heavy one rupee and two rupee coins and extracted metal! That is the reason the new coins we see are so light and also the answer to where all the old coins suddenly disappeared :) Amazing, huh?

Let me share another childhood memory with you - a funny one this time.

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When I was a kid, before my voice cracked, I had a very thin voice. In simpler terms, I had a voice that sounded very much like a girl’s. I was teased a lot, and I used to wait for the day when my voice would crack.

People used to think I was my dad’s daughter if I happened to pick up the phone - they just assumed it hearing my voice. It was embarrassing. Imagine me explaining - “Uncle, I’m not his daughter. I’m his son.” Sometimes I used to correct people, most of the times I did not - just used to give the phone to my dad and wait for the day when my voice would crack.

Once it got ugly. Some guy started started blank calling our home phone thinking that there was a girl in the house! This when I am the only child of my parents and I was in class IV and I was a guy.

I used to tell that guy ‘Dude, I’m not a girl. I’m a guy. You’re wasting your time and money.’ But that dude never believed me. I used to laugh my head off when that unknown guy used to call and go like ‘Madam, please talk to me. Please give me a pappi (Hindi slang for a kiss)’.  

Finally, after years of wait, my voice cracked and I started sounding like a man. Thank god! :)

I saw Enchanted today. The new movie by Disney studios.

It begins as a classic Disney fairy tale animation, where a pretty girl meets the prince, and they decide to marry. The evil queen however, is afraid of losing her throne to this girl, and sends her to - guess where - New York! From the animated world of the fairy tale, Giselle is sent to the real world where, as per the evil queen, ’no one lives happily every after’.

What follows is a very elaborate and cute episode of love, affection and innocence. If you like cute, simple movies, with witty dialogues and laughter, you’d love this one. It has been put forward so nicely, that at least once, the whole theatre burst into applause. How often does that happen?

It is also a sarcastic take on how we have complicated our lives and forgotten simple pleasures. You start craving for the world where there are no emotions like anger, jealousy, and deceit. I came out of the theatre smiling :)  

But before you book your tickets, beware - if you like to look for too much logic, you might be disappointed. It is pure refreshment - topped with smiles :)

P.S. of course Amy Adams looks gorgeous :) 

If you are/were fond of eating at the gate of NIT Trichy, at Rajni Anna’s or Raju Anna’s or at Motel Bamboos, you must have eaten the world’s best egg dish - kalakki. After passing out, I missed it so much, that one day I decided to make it on my own. Smart as I am, I was able to reproduce the exact same taste as the annas at the gate do.

To benefit all the people who want to make their own kalakkis, here is how to do it - in straightforward terms - no confusing statements like ‘cook till its done’ or ‘add salt to taste’, which are scary for newbie cooks like me.

Required Inputs:

1 whole egg, salt, powered pepper.
A non stick pan and spatula
A spoon
A small bowl - will server both to break the egg and as the serving dish
A hot plate / heater / stove

Algorithm:

1. Break the egg, and empty the contents into the small bowl. Shell not required anymore.
2. Beat the egg with the spoon, add 2 pinch salt and 1 pinch powered pepper, mix thoroughly.
3. Put the pan on fire / hot plate
4. Unit Test if the pan is hot enough. Put a drop of water - it should evaporate immediately
5. Pour the contents of the bowl into the hot pan
6. Wait for 7 seconds
7. Use the spatula to remove the kalakki from the pan and put it into the bowl - Easier is to lift the pan with the handle and tilt it over the bowl and scrape everything out of it with the spatula. Careful - The pan is hot
8. Its ready to eat!!

Caution: When I say non-stick pan, I mean it. If you’re using a non non-stick pan (or a stick pan, as we should say), better oil/butter the surface properly before pouring the stuff into the pan to avoid smelly results.

Enjoy your kalakkis as I do every Saturday for breakfast :)

Presenting Vimal Kumar - the man who has made searching for trains so much easier for everyone with his brilliant website eRail.in. I contacted him through email and he was kind enough to let me ask him a few questions. Here we go!

Hi Vimal! I know you as the creator of eRail.in. Please tell me more about yourself. 
I have done my MCA and live in New Delhi. I currently have 9+ years of experience in software industry
 
eRail.in has become very popular now, given its ease of use. What inspired  you to start this amazing site?
One day I was booking a rail ticket, and found that it is very difficult even for a technical guy like me to find the right information and so it would be far more difficult for other people to do the same! That was the time when I thought of making a site which would be useful to people. Also, I was always a fan of trains and always loved to read time tables :) But again it was difficult to find the trains in a time table. I knew a lot more could be done through nice software and that is when eRail.in was born. I have put in all my years of experience in the eRail.in website , it has been built with a passion. The idea was to make it as user friendly as possible.
 
We see that the Indian Railways site is so cluttered with advertisements and pops, and your site runs only a few text ads. Any comments? 
I do not find any reason for the railways to give ads on their site. They have such huge budgets at their disposal - they should not irritate their users. Earlier there were image ads on eRail but some users found them distracting so I discontinued them and have only text ads. I believe that all users who come to the site should get value for the time they spend there.
 
You must get a lot of thank you mails for starting this site. How does it feel? Any feedback that you have incorporated into your site?
Yes I get regular mails. People tell me that they save a lot of time by using eRail.in. It does feel great. There have been regular feedback and I have been incorporating it all. I would like to thank all users of eRail.in who have provided their regular feedback.
 
Many students dream of starting their own online portals. What is your advice to them?
If one wants to create a portal, they should first identify the NEED and should have passion to fulfill that need. India is a big market and anything which relates to the masses will always work. So if you find any idea just go for it. It is the right time. To see whether you are correct or not – just experiment. There is no one who can tell you if it is wrong or right. Follow your instinct and do it. At least you will have the satisfaction that you did what you wanted to do. You have one life and you have to do it in this one only!
 
What is the next project after erail.in? 
I plan to make eRail.in multilingual and another travel related website will be coming up which would help travelers even more!
 
What do you like to do in your spare time? 
Usually I do not get spare time, If I get some I like to think about how to improve my work :)

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Wow! This is great inspiration for all of us who want to start our own websites! Vimal says that there is one life and we should just go for it - so true! Thanks Vimal, thanks a lot for taking out the time and sharing your thoughts with us. We wish you all success!

It is unlikely that you have not visited eRail.in, but if you really haven’t, then you should definitely take a look. I’m sure you’ll go back to it again!