First Impression of Amazon Marketplace for India

Without much pomp-n-show, Amazon launched its online marketplace today in India, with which users in India can order merchandize locally. With the launch of Amazon’s flagship marketplace in India, it appears that the e-commerce industry in India will see some turbulence. Currently, Amazon is offering very limited categories - only books and digital media. With regard to its business model, Amazon is still working in lines of Junglee.com, which compares the prices of merchandize across multiple vendors and gives you options to choose from. This is unlike the methodology adopted by Amazon’s biggest competitor in India, Flipkart, which manages complete delivery cycle.

All in all, at this point, Amazon’s strategy seems to be very conservative – limited categories, lean inventory and light weight distribution channels and to our dismay – no freebies – yup there are going to delivery charges, additional charges for cash on delivery model and so on. It is too early to say whether this strategy will work out in India or not. All I can say at this point without an iota of doubt is that, if I feel like reading a paperback book today, I will go to flipkart, order the book and not worry about who is delivering the book to me or if I am being charged anything extra.   

Yelagiri Trip : A perfect closure to a happening year gone by

This is not the story of a year gone by; nor does it have anything to do with my new year resolutions and expectations. This is an account of the near perfect 2 days I spent with some of my oldest friends bidding goodbye to the year 2011 and welcoming 2012 with new hopes and aspirations.

As the year 2011 was drawing to a close, we all (Ranjith, Ravish, Yogesh, Megha and Dheeraj) decided to get away from the city and enjoy amongst hills and nature.. Our destination - a place called Yalagiri which is around 160kms from Bangalore towards Chennai. Because it was a last minute plan, getting accommodation was turning out to be the biggest hurdle. But Ravish somehow managed to find a resort (KozeeKaves) where a few rooms were available and we got it booked. I still wonder how he managed to get the deal (we later found out about the unbelievable rapport he had struck with Suzanne (the owner of the resort) who helped him with not just finding the acco but also a lot of other things which I will not mention here).... 160Kms would have made for an ideal bike trip, but the weather played the spoil sport and we ended up booking an innova.

With utmost sincere efforts to start early on 31st morning, we finally ended up leaving Bangalore at 9:30am after picking up everyone and having a sumptuous breakfast at Anand Adyar Bhavan. The drive to Yelagiri was pretty comfortable except for Yogesh's straight from the heart rendition of oldest imaginable hindi songs and Ranjith's desperate attempts to flaunt the utility of new apps on his phone(song recognizer, Payback etc etc...) :-). The wheels kept rolling through the picturesque hills of Niligiris and we reached Yelagiri on time for our lunch. After a lot of poking and prodding, Ranjith who had not slept the whole of last night, agreed to not sleep and we went boating on the Punganoor lake. One of the best things about a trip to Yelagiri is that there are not many places to see; so you get a lot of time to spend in one place and dont have to rush to cover everything. After boating, we went to the park and spent some time there.As usual Yogesh was getting hunger cramps (despite the fact that Megha and Yogesh were the only ones who would stop by every roadside vendor and nibble something all along the way). So we stopped at the Tandoori hut to grab a bite and then headed back to the resort.

And here comes the best part of the trip.. the Campfire. The resort staff was kind enough to arrange for a private campfire for our group and after having our dinner, we lit the campfire and just sat around playing dumb charades, dancing to the last ketchup (uniquely choreographed by Ranjith), entertaining random guests (courtesy Ravish), playing Uno ( made interesting by Megha, yes you did win but we all know that you cheated.. :-)), bidding 2011 good bye and welcoming 2012.

We all crashed in our beds by 4o'clock in the morning and did not get up till 10am next morning. We had our breakfast and headed back towards Bangalore. On our way back, we stopped at Krishnagiri to visit the dam.. The humongous water body with sky blue water surrounded by the hills was a picture perfect setting for capturing the memories of the last place we visited during the trip. We had a late lunch at Kamat and reached Bangalore by 5pm.

The trip was made memorable by the company of some of most amazing people - adorable Megha who blended with the group so comfortably, extremely patient Yo! Yogesh who was always raring to go, ever so accommodating and reliable Ravish who managed all the logistics without cribbing even once and was lucky to guess most of the movies in dumb charades, perky Ranjith who taught people with two left feet to dance and delightful Dheeraj who never complained for sitting in the back seat for the longest duration. Kudos to everyone... And may 2012 bring us all another set of great memories to cherish for life!

The Year 2009

New-year has always been the time to reflect upon the year gone by - the time when lazy people like me just want to sit back in the veranda, relax in the serene beauty of my home town and take a trip down the memory lane. With 2010 dawning upon us, I thought it is high time I pen down the defining events in one of the most happening years of my life, the year 2009.

The year 2009 began on a happy note with my sister deciding to step into a new phase of her life - she had met the love of her life and had decided to get married on the 5th of march 2009. With so little time left for preparations, everybody in the family was in their running shoes always. I still remember our shopping spree in bangalore for her engagement saree, shopping in Chandni Chowk for uncountable sets of clothes for relatives and friends and the innumerable runs to the sabzi-mandi in wee hours of morning to get anything and everything the halwai demanded.

The day after the wedding, I recieved a call from my manager. There was this opportunity to go to a client site in US for a period of 3 months and with everything in place there was no reason to decline it. Thus 2009 got marked as the year when I had my first "foreign trip":-) Those two and a half months in US (march - may) were a blend of joy and boredom - Joy of being in a new place with new people and completely new lifestyle and boredom for lack of company over some of the weekends. This was the time when I visited a lot of new places , tried out some new cuisines but most importantly the time when I made new friends and reinstated old friendships. Can never forget those endless chats with friends back home which kept me sane over those weekends when I had literally nothing to do. Will also always remember the bread and butter of my life over those three months : garden salad sandwich and enchiladas for lunch and khichdi and readymade paranthas for dinner :-)

While the first half of the year was full of masti and fun , the second half was predominantly occupied by introspection - ........ (Will put up the complete post in a few months..)

Time since then has flown fast. Here I am writing this post just 10 minutes before the clock is about to strike 12, the end of a year that brought with it so many goodies sprinkled with a few lows here n there. But that's what we call life and that is how the year 2009 was for me.

Two States by Chetan Bhagat

I had borrowed "Two states- the story of my marriage" (on an exchange program :-)) from a friend and completed it in just two sittings this saturday. The book is good 268 pages thick , so dont undermine my achievement:-). And, yes, thats how captivating the book is.

Two states is the story of Ananya and Krish. It begins with how our protagonists meet in a B-school and fall in love with each other. Reading through their college life sprinkled with combined study sessions, late night phone calls to their families when STD rates are lower, gossip sessions et al. leaves you feeling nostalgic of the days gone by. The story then moves on to how they struggle to convince their respective in-laws particularly because Ananya is a tamilian and Krish, a punjabi. The chapters where Ananya's mother tries to emotionally blackmail her to marry a Tamilian well settled in US or the one where Krish's mother makes him forcefully meet eligible girls in Punjabi community seem so realistic and just right out there.

The book is no literary marter-piece, but the story has the right mix of romance and drama , that make this book a page turner. The characters come alive right from the opening paragraph and are woven so finely that anyone who has been to college will feel a connect with them. If you have been to an engineering college or alike or have had a stint at trying to convince your parents about the person you love, chances are that you will like reading this book.

The Professional by Subroto Bagchi

I have been thinking of putting down my thoughts regarding this book ever since I finished reading it , but I havent been able to do so . Why? One , I was a little too busy last month with hardly any time to spare to blog (yeah, I do get busy at times :-)) and two, I had set really high expectations from this book which unfortunately were not met and therefore the motivation to write about it was missing.But anyway, here I am...

Well , just to recap, "The professional" is the third book by Subroto Bagchi (co-founder, Mindtree) and aims at answering the seminal question of what makes a true professional and what are the challenges in future that a professional should be prepared for. The book no doubt provides a comprehensive set of qualities that a professional should possess encompassing integrity, self awareness, managing volume, managing complexity etc. But, in my humble opinion, it can be treated more as a handbook of professional qualities which would need to be referred to every now and then, as it is literally impossible to remember everything by the time you finish reading it. As it goes with Subroto Bagchi's writings, the book is dotted with anecdotes but there is so little space dedicated to each chapter and so many views , that it ends up getting too preachy.

The good things? Lively stories and lots of them.... If not for imbibing professional qualities, you may just want to read this one for "the larger than life and so close your heart" kind of stories spilled all across this book.

The Professional : Book-reading at Crossword

After "The high performance entrepreneur" and "Go kiss the world", Subroto Bagchi has come out with a new book titled "The Professional", completing the trilogy. There was a book-reading session today by the man himself at crossword. Being an ardent fan of his writings, I was all excited when a friend told me about this session.

We reached crossword just in time and caught Mr. Bagchi at the entrance who was probably waiting for the rest of the guests. Begining the session (well 10 mins late ), Mr. Bagchi explained that the book is all about answering one seminal question : what does it take to become a true professional. He then went on to emphasize two points : One, a true professional is the one who delivers even without supervision and two, that he can certify completeness of his work. Yes I know it doesnt sound too exciting but thats probably because I am not conveying it well. The book it seems is full of anecdotes and real-life stories, just like his previous one's.

And well here comes the interesting part : the guests of honour. Kannada film actor and socialworker, Chetan Kumar and the protagonist of the opening and closing (real life)anecdotes in the book and an undertaker by profession, Mahadeva . Chetan Kumar, born and brought up in the US, came to India on a Fulbright scholarship to pursue his passion for social upliftment and imparting education to the underpreviledged. Mahadeva, on the other hand, after sudden demise of his mother, chose to become an undertaker early on in his life to earn a living.Both of their life stories were truly humble and inspiring and depict true professionalism in Mr. Bagchi's words.

By the end of the session, I had made up my mind to buy the book and read it. Will keep you posted on how I liked it..

Tharoor episode : Political tweeting or chirping?

Shashi Tharoor's recent "cattle class" remarks, in the backdrop of Congress's austerity drive, created a political furore and recieved massive political attention. For the uninitiated, when asked by a journalist if he would travel economy class to Kerela, Mr. Tharoor replied that "he would travel cattle class out of solidarity with all our holy cows". The use of words "cattle class" and "holy cows" was condemned as insensitive and irresponsible by most of our politicians.

With excessive media hype about the same, I could not resist signing into twitter myself, to gather some first hand information. Unfortunately, by then, the comments had been removed (or was I unable to find them?). So I googled to find the exact meanings and origins of these words. This is how urban dictionary defines cattle class : "pertains to flying economy class (or 'coach' in America) on a flight. It is called this mainly because many people are crammed into such a small space for an extended period of time and most of the time are treated like animals". Basically , it is a common American word used interchangeably with economy class.

At the end of this excercise, when I reflected back on how our political fraternity reacted to this entire episode, I was shocked, once again, by their negligence and inability to think analytically. Now you must be wondering when did this happen earlier. Well, remember Jaswant Singh's book on partition and the political drama that followed? I wonder how many of our politicians actually read his book before commenting on it. Drawing cue from these episodes, I cannot help but point out the tendency of Indian politicians to escalate non-issues. We witnessed this when BJP fired Jaswant Singh for his remarks on Nehru and Patel and just when we thought that it was over, we are seeing this tendency yet again.If you take a look at Tharoor's tweets, you will notice that he is one of those politicians who shares a lot of the information and replies to messages from his followers.These politicians are giving our politics a new dimension in terms of transparency that we have always been fighting for.Its time that other politicians take cue from them and spend their energies on more relevant issues that are awaiting their attention.