Archive of An Unknown

Folks, With no idea as to whom to crown this week as SHoW (Super Hero of the Week), was just going through the last week's mails. As the number of mails is getting multiplied day after day, it has become very difficult reading all of them then and there. Hence, thought of reserving a day for this activity alone. Full reservation spree... Today is one of such reserved days for reading the junk mails (I am really very sorry to use such an offensive word... but any good stuff that is overused (even the brain) or overproduced naturally becomes junk). When I was going through the mails, I could realize two things. 1. Even one full day is not enough to read all the mails received in the week. 2. Every 25th mail is received from someone other than Chris the great. So, YES... we have found our SHoW! Believe me, Chris sends unbelievable number of mails a day. When I just tried to count the number of mails he has sent in a day on a sample basis, on June 13th, in a span of one and a half hour...

Friends, SHoW (Super Hero of the Week) announcement is lil late this week. As we had a lot of new members joining the group, we were very busy inducting them into the system... (Typical management fundas:-)) Have you heard of MLM? Multi-Level Marketing? I am sure some of you would have already burnt your fingers with companies like Amway!!! I am a living example to have burnt fingers, hand and the whole body in that. If any of your friends or a stranger calls you to discuss about "an exciting and very important business opportunity", please pass on my number to him or his to me and ask him to meet me preferably on a Friday night. I will thrash him to death. But I could see a constructive MLM (I know MLM cannot be constructive... it's all about cheating 100 people to enrich 10) happening in our group this week. As a birthday gift, we presented Jobsy a lifetime free membership to the group. Immediately to compensate the benefits, he joined 3 other ex BCians in the group o...

Hey, who stole the SHoW? One mail is missing. It is Dhanya's. If any of you find it, please do not report it to the SHoW. Parcel it to me. I will post it up here...

Umesh, Then you are the SHoW! Congratulations... This is called instant SHoWing. For those of you who don't know Umesh - He was in the HumaNET / Microsoft team when I left. He is an ex class mate of Umashankar (Mr. Umma). I am really wondering what to name this instant SHoW... Umma!Please F1... I am really not able to write anything now... I have a meeting at 2:00 PM. Bye for now!!! Umma & GG! Continue from here... Cumulative Summary: 1. Raghuraman Kadambi (Mr. Heartthrob) 2. Padmanaban VP (Mr. Padhu Jackson) 3. Sri Gopal De Lalgudi (Mr. Business Magnet) 4. Arun Kumar Mishra (Mr. Great Wall of Microsoft) 5. Radhakrishna Da Magane (Mr. Mannina Maga) 6. Kinshuk Banerjee (Mr. Dada Boy) 7. Iqbal (Mr. Manjunath) 8. Bimalendu de De (Mr. Dumeel) 9. Vinod DB (Mr. RDBMS) 10. Rabijit (Mr. Cool) 11. Suresh Lakshmanan (Mr. Dance Dance) 12. Umashankar (Mr. Umma) 13. Suresh Ramaswamy (Mr. Noble) 14. Satyajit Kunjur (Mr. Simple) 15. Sateesh Kumar Ayyapu Setty (Mr. Okke Okkadu) 16. CM Gururaj ...

Brothers and Sisters (once again:-)), It has been long time since we had any birthdays. Tomorrow (if you are reading it tomorrow, then "today"), Akka is celebrating her birthday. It is long time since we heard from Akka also. I was actually planning to crown Akka instead of Vinayak for keeping quiet for long time. Since Akka's birthday was nearing, thought it would be better to give her on the birthday. Happy birthday Akka! Wish you hundred more happy returns of the day!!! Akka, as you all know, is one of the most active and energetic participant in all our events in BC. Be it debates, arguments, functions, initiatives for tours, fund collection for Kargil war victims or earth quake victims or for BEST. BTW - how many of you still remember the BEST (Blue Chips' Extended Sports Trust)? There is still Rs. 400 with DB. DB! What did you do with that money da? :-) Akka, why are you so silent for such a long time? Are you very upset about Amma's defeat in the el...

Dears, As we have talked enough on feminism while crowning Vidhya. Let's extend it little more. Let's talk about motherhood this time. This, I think, is the most relevant week to discuss about it because we are crowning our SHoW (Super Heroine of the Week) for being promoted as mother. Ambrose Bierce rewrote the meaning of Sweater in his dictionary as follows: Sweater, n.: garment worn by child when its mother is feeling chilly. Do we really have to discuss about motherhood any more? There cannot be better explanations about Sweater and Mother. That is not a single line, but an essay!!! Sobia - There is something that I am going to tell about you, which you may or may not have heard of. When I first saw you in BC, I said Venu that you looked like my mother. After that whenever I saw you I used to tell him "hey... she looks exactly like my mother". I think I have told Raghuraman also once. You just look like how my mother used to be in my childhood. BTW - I am not get...

Members, It's all about numbers. It's numbers game everywhere. Anything without numbers is not accepted as fact. There is nothing called "good" or "bad" in assessments. Be it in business, sports, performance appraisal, or quality. If you can't back with numbers, you are ridiculed and any good statement of yours is rejected upfront as non-sense. We very often tend to claim and have fights over things like "our company is doing well", "Ganguly is a better player than Tendulkar", "I have done a great job and I am the best resource in our project/ company" or "we have always delivered quality products to our customers". At the end of the day, it's only the numbers that tell the truth or believed upon. Every other statement without numbers is rubbished because they might be told out of vested interests or blind biases. Politics is the place where numbers are misused and cricket is where they are overused. No other g...

Hi, When we crowned the big brother itself we were planning to do the honors to the small brother also. But tough competition didn't allow us to select him as the SHoW (Super Hero of the Week). Vijay, Vidhya and Moses - all had good reasons to get crowned. So, what is that Leo Felix (the small brother) has achieved now, apart from being a decent small brother to his big brother? He left BC and joined Logica CMG, which is one of the great MNCs in India. Recently he left Logica also and joined a new company called Motive (A start-up MNC). That's when we were planning to SHoW him. It's not joining a new company, but doing it in style that mattered. The jump was for more than 100%. Industry standards is supposed to be somewhere around 25%. Before or after Arun (Great Wall of Microsoft), I never heard of anybody getting more than 100% jump. It's not just that. Within a few months, he (though being one of the junior most fellows around) is flying to onsite today. It's ind...

Hi, Check out this innovative invitation... How was it? I got two invitations in this week. One is this and the other one is of Moses, our SHoW (Super Hero of the Week). It was indeed a 'short but neat' invitation, with an expectation of a 'huge but neat' crowd:-). Moses weds Joy tomorrow (pun?!). So he will be a joyful man from tomorrow... Hope this mail serves as a reminder also for his wedding. Don't say "I left early on Friday and could read it only on Monday" please... Let's make his life joyous by presenting our presence in the Infant Jesus church tomorrow at 4 PM. Moses as an ex BCian is still remembered for all his new initiatives in system admin team and for his extremely cool temperament. As we were saying last week, just like any other admin team members, he is also a very popular personality. Hope we can catch up with a lot of ex BCians of multiple generations tomorrow. It was during his tenure that we used to have 1-hour browsing every day...

Females and Males, This is the trend now. Feminism is the buzzword of the century. There have been lots of changes and developments on this front. Even terms like "man-days", "man-hours", "mankind" have been ridiculed, because they sound gender-discriminative it seems. It's "person-days", "person-hours" and "humankind". Gone are the days of using "he" as the default subject in stories and professional writings. It's "she" everywhere. So, what does this all mean? Have women got their share of what they deserve? People make fun of feminism and ask "who is suppressing them?" and "who is holding them back from growing?" That is just an urban - middle class view that comes out of the frustration of running behind a girl like mad and getting deceived by her (:-)) or based on the observations made within their own family and friends' families. Women are yet to get the real freedom. ...

Hi All, Sorry for the silence all these days. Work is very hectic. I think last week was the first time I failed to send the SHoW (Super Hero of the Week) mail. There is a saying that is used by Cricketer Navjoth Sidhu very often (mostly in irrelevant contexts, which is what he is known for:-)) - "Courage is not the absence of fear. It's conquering the fear"! BTW - It reminds me of two things now. 1. Once Rajesh was saying when Sidhu was screaming in front of Geoffrey Boycott, "Boycott would be cursing his forefathers for teaching English to Indians!":-) I think that should be the worst thing to have happened to English and the best to India:-). He has such a rich English (only the context-sensitivity is the issue:-)) with which he harasses English themselves:-). 2. I named our Gopal "Navjoth Sidhu" once and got chased like a dog by him wherever he sees me. That was in the beginning of Sidhuism when I didn't know Sidhu would yap so much:-). Now I u...

Big Brothers, Small Brothers and Sisters:-) (it takes a lot of guts to call everybody your brother or sister!), Selecting the SHoW (Super Hero of the Week) is a complicated process in its own way. If there is any birthday celebration in the week, it becomes very easy. The birthday boy/ man himself could be selected. If any of the ex BCians has achieved something and we come to know of it, then also it is very easy. But most of our heroes don't tell us what they have achieved if they have achieved anything in the week passed by. To simplify the process and encourage everybody to share their recent achievements, we want to crown someone who has done that. Good SHoW Benny! It's indeed a good achievement to receive appreciation from clients for what we have accomplished. The words of client are always powerful in any organization as they are the god for any business, for they give us money to survive and allow us to learn at their cost. So I am sure you would have also received a h...

Hi Tech Gurus (Hi-tech Gurus?!), Is Guru an English word? Yes, it is... if you go by Microsoft Thesaurus. There are many such Indian words that have been included in English, some recently and some very long back. The recent ones are the effect of globalization. The 'long back' additions were also because of the globalization only. Globalization is not new to India and this world. That is what is natural. Everything else like Governments, countries, states and borders are all artificial. There are records in the early Indian literatures for our business men going all around the world to make money. That was when these lending and borrowing of words must have happened between the languages. Whether Guru has been accepted as an English word or not doesn't matter much for us as of now. But I am sure Guru will be accepted as the SHoW (Super Hero of the Week) by all ex BCians. The credit also goes to KS for bringing Guru out of his shell. The whole thing was initiated by last we...

ex Blue Chip Garu Andhurukkum Namaskaramandi... As the announcement has already been done yesterday itself, there is no point in trying to build the suspense now. Let's congratulate our SHoW (Super Hero of the Week) Sateesh and wish him the best of everything on his birthday (sorry, I started typing this mail yesterday itself, but got busy later). Sateesh joined the CCM team in the beginning of 2000, the year I joined Blue Chip. CCM was one of the critical projects for Blue Chip at that time, because that was the first ever overseas project executed in India after Blue Chip started its overseas strides in the US by placing Shyam as Director - International Business. We were all building a lot of hope, thinking that BC was going to get many more of such projects. He was one of the team members when he joined and went on to become the project leader by the time the project got over. In BC, changing the project leader is as simple as changing the chief minister in our country. I still...

Engineers, Officers and Others, "Everything is fair in war and love" they say. War and love could be replaced with anything as you want depending upon the situation. Some say "everything is fair in war and business", some say "in war and dreams", some say "dreams and games" and a few say "fun and love". What is that we as ex BCians say? We say... "Everything is fair in ex BCians' debates and in the bugs-filled code we deliver". But there is one guy who said "Not everything is fair everywhere. There is something called 'fair practices' according to the principles we follow and everything else is unfair". "If the principles he follows are accounting principles, can he be called a principled man?" - This is the debate point for the week. Irrespective of the outcome of the debate, we decide to crown our most eligible accounts man Satyu as the SHoW (Super Hero of the Week). Satyu joined BC through h...

Hey Maaaaams & ma'ams, Exteremely sorry for the delay this week. Job changes sometimes change the lifestyle itself. I never knew I would have to work so much in I-flex. First two months were very jolly jolly! Now the life has turned 180 degrees. I am almost working 12 hours a day. Very hectic... That's fine. This week's question is, "does marriage change people?" Those who haven't met Gopal would surely say "yes". Though I have not seen him before his marriage, I have always wondered how he manages to maintain the same momentum even now. There is a saying which goes like this - "there is no point in growing older if you can't become a child at times". This is not to say Gopal gets childish. :-) But to say that he still remains young and independent like a bachelor no matter what even after so many years of marriage. But don't worry. Gopal is not the SHoW (Super Hero of the Week) this week. He was dragged just because of the cont...

Romeos & Juliets, Happy Valentines Day! Love, in Robert Frost's words, "The irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired". Nobody on earth hates to love "love" or loves to hate "love". We all want it like breathing air. It's not just a want, it's a need. The number of people who committed suicide for love is more than that of those died for food. We all wonder what makes people so crazy about it at times, when we are normal. It's a biological chemistry, which can't be felt with the brain. It's an emotion. Only when the brain is at rest, it starts working wonders. Not all questions have logical answers and not all problems have logical solutions. Love is one of such solutions for many unanswerable questions and unsolvable problems, be it the world peace or a silly fight between you and me over a useless topic. Needless to say, it's of course a problem to many, too. Like any other week, our SHoW this week is special in a way...

Hi, Hello, Ciao, Ciao means "hi" or "hello" or "good bye" at times. This is to be pronounced like "chow" in English. This word came from Venetian language, which, if directly translated, means "I am your slave!" this used to be used by Venetian slaves when they meet their bosses. Venice is a huge city which stretches across many islands (!!!) in northern Italy. This is not irrelevant to an Indian e-group, if you accept the fact that India is a country whose largest political party's president is an Italian. OK... this has nothing to do with the SHoW (Super Hero of the Week) this week! This week's super hero is celebrating his birthday today. He is turning 30 today. You won't believe he is 30 years old, if you look at him. He looks as young as... not less than 40. Looks are deceptive, right? Even words are deceptive when he speaks. Ask him how old he is. He will say "15!" even at sleep (his conscience at sleep?!). E...

Hello ex BCians, "Who do you think is the next potential branch manager candidate in BC?" If anybody asked this question a few years back, most of us used to say without thinking for too long, "the one who comes to office by Kinetic Honda with his wife or girl friend who is also working in BC". That used to be the trend. Because we had seen two branch managers who met this criterion. "No matter you fall in love with your job or not, you have to fall in love with a girl in BC" became the guiding (or misguiding!) principle. Then the criterion was customized to generalize (because liberalization was the buzzword at that time) as "any Honda vehicle" to suit the changed scenarios. This is not to say that that was the only eligibility or everybody who did that became the BM. There were many other people who did that but didn't sit on the hot chair. There should have been affairs as much as the number of members in this group at least, ranging from ...

DBAs, Programmers and Others, Thought of SHoWing on the site itself. But long way to go... for that! What is the difference between DBMS and RDBMS? As per the CODD rules... sorry I don't know them. But I know there are no hard rules to differentiate them. If you pay 10K per hour, Ram JethMalani might prove that dbase is an RDBMS and Oracle is a DBMS. With the little knowledge (almost zero) I have, I conclude here by saying any DBMS that has relationships is an RDBMS. So the relationship is the key, primary key. Is Vinod DB a DBMS or an RDMBS? Going by the cord rules, "yes", he is an RDBMS, because he maintains and helps people maintain relationships. What is "cord rules"? The relationship between ex BCians is an umbilical cord relationship. He has hosted the web site to keep us all connected. DB (FYI - he is not Vinod DB, he is just Vinodb) is fully loaded with tons of data and the amount of communications he has with the outside world is immense. If there was n...

Do you know what FIFA stands for? Federation Internationale de Football Association! "De" in Latin means "of". So now you know why Gopal called himself "Gopal de Lalgudi". It is there in French also. This "de" is to be pronounced like how we pronounce the letter "D" in English. It is suffixed after the first name or prefixed before the surname. :-) But there is a surname called "De" in India, which is to be pronounced like the word "day". There are a lot of notable and notorious people who have this surname all over India and one in our group also. Yes, it is our Bimalendu de De (Sudip), who is celebrating his birthday on coming Sunday (22/01/2006), is the SHoW (Super Hero of the Week) this week. He has been a silent member in the group all along. Finally when I called him up, he said that he doesn't use that id any more and gave another id. He has been re-inducted to the group yesterday. This is to honor his re-...

Yeah, little free now... There is nothing other than "SHoW Announcement" in the "To Do" list for the day. Sometimes I get unusually busy, you now? :-) Coming to the achievements and greatness of this week's SHoW (Super Hero of the Week)... IQ (as he is fondly called by some of his friends for his high IQ and having it first part of his name) is one of the intelligent bunch of people (it's intelligent because I am one of them) who came with plenty of business knowledge straight from the clients' places to BC. He joined BC from HLL (BC's rice-winner, bread-winner is too western I say!) and spent a good amount of good time there (hope this tells the quantity and quality of time he spent). Even when he was in BC, he was known as a HLL employee rather than as a BCian. As Zac was saying few days back, he was so sold to HLL in order to remain unsold. In today's corporate world where for many of us the word "boss" has become a synonym to "...

Thick & Thin... "Kith & Kin" (Means "Friends & Relatives"), "Does the 'dada' of Indian cricket deserve a place in the team?" "No comments!" It's no more a cricketing issue. It's become one of the regional and political issues to be discussed in the parliament of the nation, which is supposed to be the most valuable premises of any country, which should be taking decisions that concerns the country. Irrespective of that, our answer is a strong "YES" (in capital, bold and within quotes) if some one asks "does the 'dada' of ex BCians deserve a SHoW (Super Hero of the Week)?" (No one can keep you out if you consistently perform in all occasions!) Might be, as we discussed, he doesn't deserve the word "dada", because he is as young as the New Year! So we shall call him "Mr. Dada Boy"... I remember 2 years back once when I said Kinshuk, "Ganguly plays more politics in ...

Udugas & Udugis, This is Bharathiraja of i-flexu on behalf of e-BOGu from Bengaluru. Doesn't this sound better and more rhyming? Great! So the Ex BCians group hereby welcomes the government's move to rename this beautiful city, as it will restore the respect on our culture and identity. Being part of a democratic system, we also welcome the opposite opinions in this regard. Being democratic is all about having all rights to remain confused I say! Hope this triggers a nation-wide... sorry group-wide debate on the renaming issue. Please feel free to spam regarding this. All your opinions including "no comments" would be appreciated. The only string attached is, you are expected to be decent in whatever you are expressing and respect the sentiments of everybody on this earth. The only request on behalf of the group to our honorable politicians: "do whatever you want - RENAME, COPY, CUT, PASTE, MOVE, OPEN, CLOSE, VIEW, FIND, REPLACE, INSERT, FORMAT... we will sup...

Was wondering whom to make the SHoW this week... time was running faster than time (nothing could be compared with time)! Just opened the inbox in frustration to read through last week's mails to spot the hero and caught the right one... This guy didn't get caught in HoW days, but this time he can't escape because as you all know we are very particular about honoring the right talents at right times. Will there be a better time than this for us to honor him? Look at the style... a pillar of Microsoft in front of the compound wall of Microsoft! But he doesn't look like a pillar. It looks like a wall in front of wall. So we can also call him 'Mr. Great Wall of Microsoft'. I think now you know who the SHoW is... Good SHoW Arun! We are proud of you... We knew you before we knew Bill Gates... for us - the word Microsoft has always reminded you only, not Gates... if someone says "Microsoft head" we used to think of you only, not Gates... because you were the...

So... Who is the SHoW (Super Hero of the Week) this week? Who else can it be? It should be none other than the one who is hosting the December 17th event... Mr. Gopal de Lalgudi! BTW - though we are all Indians and we are proud of being so, the event is going to be on Dutch system. Please co-operate! "Share and care" is the caption (part of our logo) of our group! So it doesn't mean that the host is going to sponsor the event. If Satyu is adamant about sponsoring the party (because of his birthday this week), we will evaluate the option of allowing him to pay! To keep you guys updated about the progress - Gopal has been talking to me every night about the event and he has already started working on some plans. He would keep two big canes of drought beer ready (only to start with... that's not all for the whole party!). As I said in the pervious mail - he is the guy who made "drink and drive" and "drink and work" officially accepted in BC. A drop fr...

Hi XBCians & ABCians (in Romance), This is SHoW time again. Within our group, we have many groups. There is one group of people who have been very active from the day 1. They are the ones who have been keeping us entertained and together all along. Hats off to them! There is another group of people who just don't like participating in all these. For them - life is much more than yahoo groups and fun. That is called the gentlemen's group. Let them remain gentle as always. Let's not disturb them. The third group is the hesitant group. This comprises of people from generation next, the younger ones and the ones that spent a very short time in BC (who will not know many people). They might be thinking "Why should we unnecessarily get into all these? I don't know most of the people in the group and vice versa. Let the senior guys talk and do whatever they want. Let's continue to enjoy as spectators". This is not a project meeting where your ideas will have ...

Ladies, gentlemen and boys! Good evening. This is going to be a special mail for the reason that it intends to revive the vintage fun times of our BC days. The then HOW (Hero Of the Week) was to identify and honor the heroes in BC every week. As we have become super heroes now (anybody who leaves BC becomes super hero the very next day of his relieving), I would like to re-christen the next version (2.0) of HOW as SHoW (Super Hero of the Week) with the permission of our honorable members. This is to bring a lot more new energy to the program and to remind all of us that we can't do away with version upgrades as we are destined to be in the ever-changing e-industry. It also means that SHoW is given to those who have made a good SHOW (SHOW: synonymous with performance). So when you wish the SHoW, you have to say "Good SHoW"! Then our erstwhile unregistered organization that used to announce HOWs every week which was called SLOT (Singasandra Local Oscar Team) is now to b...