Ooty again....

Have posted a few more photos made in ooty....just thought of sharing a few photos with you and so this post......

Photos in a way are really great - they kindle your artistic sense and bring out the artist in you when you make the photo and have the magic of bringing the whole event in front of you when you see them even after years!!

As usual have a lot more to share - will be back with more later.....

Little important things....

'At the stroke of midnight, when the whole world has slept, we wake up into prosperity and freedom'

-Nehru has made a mistake in his sentence, because at midnight in India, people in New York are wide awake

Just happened to read this just now from a website, it came as a blow right in my head. I have heared and read this statement 'n' number of times, but it never struck me that there was a mistake in this statement. I am NOT an Anti-Nehru and am not willing to get into the history and all the stuff......but am worried that my mind hadn't got this simple fact.

Lot of self-analysis to be done....donno how many such mistakes my mind has missed.....this ofcourse doesn't have any relevence with my life - just that missed to find out a mistake - but how many decisions do we make based on things which we read - things we hear - things we see.....may my lil brain be a lil more active in interpreting 'correct' things out of the 'sources' from which we derive at 'decisions'

Are we missing out somewhere??

As I said before - Stock Market is one thing which I have started following quite closely off late. And beleive me the Indian Stock market is at its best now....all the indices scaling new peaks almost daily. No, I am not exaggerating at all.....the back-bone of this is ofcourse the GREAT INDIAN STORY. All the foreigners out there (from US, UK, Japan, Korea to now even Australia) beleive India to be the best place to put their money into and thus FII's (Foreign Institutional Investors) keep pouring their money into Indian companies. Why won't they?? When a country can show more than 7% GDP growth (which is Great) and the finance ministry is confident of continuing this for a longer term.....and companies in all the sectors are showing tremendous growth...why wont they pump in their money here - afterall they are going to get great returns from this!

First the Software Industry then the BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) and now...the next industry in the pipeline to take off is the KPO (Knowledge Process Outsourcing). KPO is expected to grow at a CAGR of around 46% from $1.2 billion in 2003 to $17 billion in 2010. India is going to play a very important role in the development of the KPO. Ofcourse good news for us ...India is marching forward. (I dont want to fill in this column with statistics - may b I'll provide the links for all the data used here sometime soon).

And also the general lifestyle of the public has become great in the past few years. With the software companies coming in....all the restaurants and the pubs in the city are almost always HOUSE FULL! We have seen two revolutions silently happening - First the computers and now the mobile phones. Computer which was very rare just a few years back has become more a basic requirement these days...and to add to that lap tops are also catching up, in less than a year sale of lap tops would grow at a very high pace....say reports. Mobile Phones -- well I know there is no need for me to talk about that...we all know it...

Automobile Industry is doing great. Every foreign auto major wants to tap the market here - Ford, Hyundai, VW (I am not going to go into the VW problem - lets talk of it later), Chevrolet, Skoda.....and the list is endless and ofcourse many of you would be knowing the Rolls Royce' model Phantom's launch in July this year in India, 6 cars were booked on the very first day of launch and the cost of the car is around 3 Crores each!! Also the Indian auto companies are showing great sales numbers - yes India is a growing market for almost all commodities from Cars to Bikes to what not!

So are things finally getting good for India....when I read all the above reports I very much thought so! I was infact very much excited.....but not anymore.

But why not - you may ask. When we are boasting of all the above developments there is another section of people in our own country who have absolutely no connection with any of these developments!! Absolutely left out!!

It all started when I read an article in the Hindu - The Sensex, Sania and the Starvation. The article clearly underlines the inequality that is very clearly getting bigger and bigger. It just reminds me of the good old theory - The rich getting richer and richer and the poor getting poorer and poorer. Will you beleive 2,675 childern died of malnutrition in Maharashtra from April to July this year!! I don't want to go into the statistics - I prefer u reading from the article - http://www.hindu.com/mag/2005/09/18/stories/2005091800080300.htm.

And after I read this article I tried to look in to the real situation around me - just to confirm to myself that I was not getting biased reading the article, but I was shocked - I should say!! The number of homeless people.......no proper food...no proper clothing...and a set of people who have nothing else other than the above two. No I am trying to be cynical at all - just wanted to get a few things cleared for myself........ maybe once you try to go round the city during late hours...and you'll see a lot of families sleeping in the platforms - with absolutely no shelter......and time and again we do hear news of lorry killing people who were sleeping the platforms!! The case in the rural side is actually the one to watch....let me not go into that for now....

Has such a rapid development catered just a small portion of the people......I don't know, frankly - trying to find out the answer! Actually I am not trying to blame anyone........but just am not able to digest the In-equality which is very clearly visible!! I am sure people responsible would we watching these closely and hopefully working on these issues.....and now we remember those beggers who bug us time and again - don't we - oh yes - do they come under this category?? But anyway I have never supported and will never support those people who can work but just opt for begging!!

Just wanted to get a clear picture which is simple so that even people like us can understand the actual situation. So wanted to remove the jargon and present it in simple language......

* The United Nations Development Programme's Human Development Index (HDI) is an Indicator in terms of Human Life expectancy, Income generation and literacy and is provided for countries across the world.
* For the year 2005, India has retained it's position at 127 out of 177 countries. (Srilanka being the only country in south asia ranked below 100)
* IMR and MMR are sensitive measures to determine a nation's health. (IMR being Infant Mortality Rate - Annual number of deaths of children under age 1 per 1000 live births and MMR being Maternal Mortality Death - Annual number of Maternal Deaths per 1000 live births)
* India's IMR is 63 per thousand live births. IMR's of countries like Srilanka(13 per thousand), China(30 per thousand), Nepal(61 per thousand) and Bangaladesh(46 per thousand) better than India
* India's MMR is 5.4 per thousand births. Countries like Srilanka (0.92 per thousand), Pakistan (5.0 per thousand) and Bangladesh(3.8 per thousand) have done well when compared to India.

Maybe you can get more details from the following link - http://hdr.undp.org/statistics/data/
I think this is just enough to get an outline of things.....I happened to read the reports of both sides....so just thought I would put them on here and leave you to think for yourself.....will write more on this later.....

so....would you mind going through the first few paragraphs again....and now the title - Are we missing something somewhere??

Convergence..

Does this convergence of trees at some distant point tell us something........don't know...just got a bit philosophical when was closely associated with nature......Vazhga Iyarkai - Vazhga Udagamandalam.

OOTY - A Beautiful place to be in!

OOTY also known as the Queen of hill stations is one of the best places to be in. I just loved this beautiful place. The climate, the greenery....and what not. A perfect place to go and spend some time off.

Let me save my experiences in ooty for some other time - just wanted to share a few pictures I made during the trip. Have a lot more to post but thought this would be enough for now. (~I think few photos look crumbled due to compression, just click on the image for clarity!~)

I wish I lived in any of the above houses.......I wish.....

Introduction...

Okey - Here we go. This is the second time I am starting to write a Blog. The first time I did - I stopped abruptly after my very first blog!!. And this time around - hope that doesn't happen again!

Let me introduce myself before I proceed any further. No I wont start saying like say - I am mechanical engineer - I am working for so and so company - No...I dont beleive in this kind of an introduction - that will be very formal to say the least. Should I say I am a very simple person with complex ideas - maybe yes. But unless u come very close to me you wont find the complexity. Okey let me try to keep things simple here!

I wanted to be a lot of things, the latest being a Travel Journalist or simply a Travel Videographer. I have always wanted to associate myself with cinema. Cinema has been my passion and it continues to be. But the current state of commercial cinema has kept me a
bit away from it. But yes - u cant seperate me from cinema - every happening around me becomes a scene and every person I meet become a character in my story, thats the way I've been and that's what has taught me a lot and thats what has kept me going. I've learnt a lot of things for the sake of cinema, indirectly though.

I am right now into Business here in Chennai and it is keeping me sort of busy but not like my friends who are into software ! They hardly come home !! Being in business has its list of advantages and dis-advantages. But I see many advantages to dis-advantages!! The most important thing I like about business is you got to answer no one else but you! If you are sincere for yourself and work hard with a vision you get the reward. The other thing that is keeping me busy nowadays is the Share Market. I am still a novice and am just learning the basics of the market but it's really interesting. I am sure its worth investing in the market - given that you are sensible and disciplined enough and not driven by greed.

I just want to write a lot of things.....but dont want to test your patience right away. I know this exactly is not what I wanted to write in my first blog.....but I dont want to correct it now....let it be how it is. This is just a starting of yet another journey and the first step has been kept. Hope I'll continue my journey here......