Valentines Day Messup


Day before yesterday I wanted to surprise my Girl Friend who works in Bangalore…

After checking with couple of famous websites I settled for RosesandGifts.Com and ordered a cake and chocolate basket…

My mistake was I neither validated online reviews nor I contacted the Customer Support asking for a commitment on delivery…

Yesterday when I checked the order status it was unchanged… I kept calling the number specified on the site… Irony was night one picked the call… I’d have done 30+ calls from noon till evening… Another agony is am unable to send any message through their contact form…

Now I missed a good occasion to surprise my Girl Friend in our first Valentines Day…

Today I’ve shot an email to the Customer Support and send a SMS… Also must check with my bank about the possibility for a charge back…

Overall it is a bad experience with RosesandGifts.Com…

Anand – The Vagabond Entrepreneur


Its been 13 years when I flew out of my parents nest… From then on my parents complain about my transformation to a new species… I was the first in my family to be different and crazy… I did and do things that don’t match my parents expectations as;

– I didn’t want to work and took up entrepreneurship…
– I hate being organized… I’m clumsy and do clumsy things…
– I hate saving money… I spend a lot to keep the eco-system rolling and I invest…
– I hate to be disciplined…. I’m disciplined to be undisciplined…
– I don’t worry making mistakes… I’m today because I did many mistakes than my parents…
– I hate planning things… A lot of my golden memories come from unplanned experience…

When I look back all my happy moments come from my vagabond life… A vagabond might be deprived of wealth and richness but I can vouch they are the happiest…

My own parents have created layers of materials that brings them happiness… I’ve never seen them being happy as they never get contented with what they have…They always felt sad for what they dint have and hardly took steps to get what they wanted… They always expected miracles to happen…

Someone who has been raised in such a middle class attitude nest I longed to live like a vagabond… I occasionally take break and live like a vagabond and return back to the nest… Now I long for my next vagabond adventure…

Looking for a hobby


As a student I had hobbies like stamp collection, fish breeding, browsing, poster collection and writing to my pen pal…

Once I became an entrepreneur I was fully into it and there was a gap… During 2008 when I was running thru a tough phase I wanted to distract myself and that is when I started with hobbies like blogging, Tweeting, Travelling, Driving, Watching Movies alone at home and amateur photography…

After 5 years blogging has become a habit… Travelling, Driving and Movie watching has come down drastically… For some reasons photography hasn’t caught up my interest…

From this year on I want to get hooked to some new hobby and not sure what to do and how to do… Also I want to work independently and work from different places… Want to drive somewhere halt in an unknown place and work… Goto my favorite Andaman island and work from there… Some of the hobbies I’ve in mind are…

Running a e-commerce site: One option have a hobby as per my liking is running a website… From my childhood i’m hooked indian arts like Kashmiri crafts, Tanjore paintings, Mamallapuram sculptures etc… It would be an idea to total all arts and crafts makers and create a platform online to sell them…

Coffee Brewing: Though I’ve passion to learn coffee brewing and create a unique (or secret) recipe… But not sure if I can do this as a vagabond…

Write a Book: Again this is another I can do with my tablet, smart phone, some good apps and internet… This will allow me to be a vagabond and pursue my work…

Entrepreneur Training Academy: I always evangelised Entrepreneurship and wanted to make it consistently…

Start an Incubation Center: Am setting up a small incubation center in Chennai which has all infrastructure to start a company and a small seed capital for startup…

In the above I prefer to run a e-commerce site or write a book as that gives me flexibility… For the incubation center it would be started with my friends companies and probably neXT year I can have that as a new hobby…

Reality Behind Fresher to Employability GAPS


We hire a lot of fresher at Cogzidel Groups and we put a lot of efforts on Training them… These days we work more on their Personality, Soft-Skills and Inter-Personal Skills than on their core competency…

The reason for this is the education system in the country and the attitude behind institute owners… Colleges are more business oriented than working on student skills… Institutions are reluctant on hiring skilled teachers and investing on proper infrastructure…

Last month when we went for a campus drive… Correspondent of the college asked for feedback on their student skills… We said they were very low on confidence because of the limitations on communication, soft skills etc…

Correspondent immediately asked for ways to improve things and we immediately gave our recommendation… Particularly we asked them to tie-up with a finishing school…

He immediately asked if that will cost him? When we said it will… He said what they are offering in college is more than enough… This experience showed opened an ugly truth and we decided it is waste of time to work with colleges…

After that incident we have stared to tweak our training process… These days we work on the gaps and we do more of finishing school training initially and then move to training on core competency…

Had meeting with Bala Murugan


It was long time since I’ve spent time with Bala… Finally it ended to be a productive and fulfilling meeting…

– I had asked him to help me on insurance refunds for my dad and to get it done..
– Discussed about PF…
– Discussed about Group MediClaim…
– Discussed about gratuity…
– About sales team building…

Then it was in-depth discussion on Sales strategy and I covered most of the places where I failed when I was handling the sales team…

We have jotted the points for a 2 week intense training program… And their one month pilot sales project…

Have the training program scheduled by 11 am today… Am rushing to office and will post a separate blog on the experience….

Albert Einstein: 10 of his best quotes


“No problem can be solved at the same level of awareness that created it ”

“If A is success in life, then A = x + y + z. Work is x, play is y, and z is keeping your mouth shut.”

“Intellectuals solve problems; geniuses prevent them.”

“A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.”

“Everybody is a genius. But, if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it’ll spend its whole life believing that it is stupid.”

“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”

“I never think of the future. It comes soon enough.”

“The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.”

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.”

“I don’t know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”

Moving with Faith & Determination


I’ve always seen GOD to be crazy as he has given many parameter of experience like happiness, sadness, anger, anxiety, loneliness, relationships, separation, laziness, pain and a lot more…

We are all happy when we FLY GOOD TIMES and mostly when we run through tough most people break some fight it out…

I first had my experience of breakup, backstabbing, losing wealth, dreams shattered and castle broken a couple of years back… My mind was filled with lots of unanswerable questions, unacceptable and dreaming for a miracle…

It took a lot of time for me to understand the reality and come to terms… Slowly I came across a world of experience which I wouldn’t have unless I’ve faced a tough reality….

This experience was on my capacity and I managed to overcome it…

Now god has put me on to the next phase of challenge where I’ve to win my father back, give strength to my mother, motivate my sister, calling (showing) my love to my wife and of course managing professional commitments…

First time god helped me get a trait of gaining self-confidence and a skill of independently handling turbulence…

This time it is managing emotions and managing a team… I keep running with this FAITH;

FAITH is seeing light with your heart when all your eyes sees us darkness…

Last two weeks have shown me how to handle life when it is beyond our control… I did get down on my morals sometimes… But now I started seeing the future where I can motivate a lot depressed people…

I see the future where I’m going to take care of my DAD like how he care-took me…

Prayers and showing more trust on god will definitely pay back….

Victory is always possible for the person who refuses to stop fighting…

Abraham Lincoln’s letter to his son’s School Headmaster


“He will have to learn, I know, that all men are not just and are not true. But teach him if you can, the wonder of books.. but also give him quiet time to ponder the eternal mystery of birds in the sky, bees in the sun and flowers on a green hillside. 

In school, teach him it is far more honorable to fall than to cheat….. 
Teach to have faith in his own ideas, even if everyone tells him he is wrong.

Teach him to be gentle with gentlepeople and tough with the tough.

Try to give my son the strength not to follow the crowd when everyone getting on the bandwagon… 

Teach him to listen to all men; but teach him also to filter all he hears on a screen of truth, and take only the good that comes through. 

Teach him, if you can, how to laugh when he is sad… Teach him there is no shame in tears. 

Teach him to scoff at cynics and to be beware of too much sweetness.. Teach him to sell his brawn and brain to highest bidders, but never to put a price on his heart and soul. 

Teach him to close his ears to a howling mob.. and stand and fight if thinks he is right. 

Treat him gently, but do not cuddle him, because only the test of fire makes fine steel. Let him have the courage to be impatient.. Let him have the patience to be 
brave. 

Teach him always to have sublime faith in himself, because then he will have faith in humankind. 

This is a big order, but see what you can do. . He is such a fine little fellow my 
son!

Enjoyed MidNights Children


MidNights Children
Thought of taking a break for couple of hours and went to watch MidNights Children…

I’ve known Salman Rushdie as a controversial writer and playboy but I couldn’t believe if he had this much imagination…

It was a story of kids born during the time of independence and partition… It covers early days of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh War and Emergency…

Now many people would like the movie as it moves slowly and moves like story-telling…

It is perfectly converted into a movie by Deepa Metha and neat performance by characters… Movie genre takes me back to Malgudi Days…

Now I have to buy all the writings of Salman Rushdie and time for some reading…

And here I come flipkart…

How to live a happy married life


Marriage is the most needed thing of our social life and every person wants to live a successful married life so that he can live happily with peace. Chanakaya has given many secrets for a successful marriage in Chanakaya Niti.

While every man wants to marry a beautiful girl but Chanakya has told otherwise. He says that if a girl is beautiful but does not belong to a good family then do not marry with her. He said we should marry with a girl of a good family even if she is not beautiful. He said the marriage should done in a family which is equal to our family.

Chanakaya said the love between husband and wife is the most successful reason behind marriage.

He said the real happiness of a wife lies in the serving of her husband and it is the Swarag of the wife.

He said a successful wife is that who is honest and clever. A wife should love his husband and speak the truth. This kind of behavior of a wife brings happiness to the family.

He says that the wise people should not quarrel over the talks of women as it brings sorrows in the family.

A woman should understand any work done by her with the consent of her husband is beneficial to her and family.

A husband should always protect his wife with his money etc.

A daughter should be married in a good family.

A wife should not quarrel with her husband without any reason.

The couples can live happily by keeping in mind the secrets told by the Great Chanakaya.