India rocks! Everything Indian! Indian blog!

2008-09-14T09:23:00.000-07:00

funpiper.com simplifies Online Wedding Planning!

How have we planning and managing our wedding invitations so far?

Send invitations on email by sending a scanned copy of wedding card or ecard.
Creating a dedicated portal for managing your wedding, and guests for which you pay for hosting charges and you got to renew domain and hosting charge year-by-year.
Handling invitees queries using email. In most of the cases they are similar queries. However, message need to be sent each time to different invitees. And, these message need to be mostly sent by the host himself from his mail account.

Once wedding is over, do we care to share wedding photos and videos?

Here is what you could achieve by using funpiper’s event planner:

Create your dedicated wedding page using event planner. This page could be absolutely private in nature. Hence, you get your wedding (event) code as a result of creating wedding page and your invitees could easily access your wedding page either using code or following link sent in the invitation email. You could share the code using phone, sms etc.
Add invitees easily from your wedding page. Your family and friends could add their invitees using one event moderator signup. You could club all these invitees in one group for later use.
Upload wedding invitation card, route to your home and other relevant photographs such as your engagement snap, your fiancée snap on the wedding page.
Communicate with invitees and answer all their queries. This makes it easy for invitees to find common information on this page.
After wedding is done, upload photos and videos and inform invitees about the same.
Keep this page forever without having to think of hosting or domain charges.
And, all of the above is achieved using only one event moderator sign up account.

Funpiper.com, India's first Collaborative Event Planner, is coming up with other features which will facilitate the cohesion among event attendees and make the entire wedding planning a fun process. To learn more, visit http://www.funpiper.com!

2007-05-19T00:23:00.000-07:00

India and Pakistan Must start some serious talks!

The clips are taken from movie 1971. Cheers!

2007-03-24T04:48:00.000-07:00

It is OK to LIVE in the PRESE NT MOMENT! At least, You Keep Smiling!

We have always heard and read that one should always smile. They say that smile is infectious. Keep smiling and let other smile. And, many of us have tried living the smiling life.

Tell me honestly – how many of us have got even 1% of success in keeping smiling at all the times. Just to give you an instance – Take a look at photographs. Find how many of them are truly smiling. In fact in 95% of time, people either make serious face while going for photographs or they give formal smile when photographer say – smile please!

Why is smiling so difficult? When you are reading this paragraph, watch yourself. How many times you have smiled in last 2 hours or say last 2 days. Are you astonished by your memory because you can’t remember many moments or have you really not smiled for many times?

I must tell you that Smiling is one of the most difficult tasks in this world. We do smile. But do we really smile? Do not you think that most of the time we smile air-hostess or receptionist kind of smile?

Before I tell you why we do not smile whole heartedly, let me ask you – when do you think we cry? We cry only when something really goes wrong with us. We cry when we fail and we get hurt. We cry when we loose our dear ones. We cry when some body hurt us. WE CRY WHEN WE ARE BROUGHT BACK IN PRESENT MOMENT. WE CRY BECAUSE FOR THOSE MOMENTS WE STOP LIVING IN PAST OR FUTURE.

So, now try imagining why we do not smile at all the times. It is because we are either living in past and future. And, as our past keep haunting us and we are not sure about our future, we remain uncertain in all moments. And, could you imagine smiling in uncertain state of mind. So, there it is.

So, try living at least one hour of the day in the present moment. You would find yourself smiling for at least one hour of the day. LIVE IN THE PRESENT AND STAY SMILING!

But, are not we loosing our future if we are not “planning” our future? O well, you definitely are not loosing any thing. Trust me. When you are truly smiling, or staying in the present, you are getting near to accessing the power of silence or say, the power of universe. And, trust me you could definitely much more with the help of power of universe than by your own power. So, STAY IN THE PRESENT MOMENT, STAY SMILING, STAY HAPPY.

2006-05-31T06:05:00.000-07:00

Reservation in higher education -A blunder by UPA government!

How could these so called responsible guys agreed on the decision of introducing "Reservation in higher education"? Any sensible person could make out that the very thing would definitely kill the merit and hurt progress! So, why can't sensible souls like Mr. Manmohan singh understand this simple thing!

And, if we talk about Gandhi family for a second, is Mrs. Sonia Gandhi sleeping? Or, she is happy to be horribly politically indianised so much so that she could n't even take into account what Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru or Rajiv Gandhi thought about this reservation thing?

And, then to talk about reservation based on caste system makes things worse and ugly. They talk of social justice! So called worthy politicians, please retrospect! Do not you think that this would take India back by so many years?

And, yes all of them are behind vote banks! What to talk of Congress! Worst is BJP whose actual color has come out! Earlier it was Shri Ram Mandir in Ayodhya and now they want to take advantage of OBC. Guys, you would definitely loose!

And, yes, I do not blame Mr. Arjun Singh. He really got some good unneccessary publicity. However, he is just the puppet who is unaware about basic facts! We could afford to ignore him outrightly.

May God bless India!

2005-12-30T00:28:00.000-08:00

Taj Mahal or Shiva Temple (TejoMahalay) ?...

I came across an article which claimed Taj Mahal to be Shiva Temple by providing some evidences from here and there. This is the link: Taj Mahal is a Hindu Temple. According to the article, the real name of Taj Mahal is TejoMahalay.

After going through the article, I thought it to be good idea to google "Taj mahal Shiva Temple" and surprisingly found some 83500 results. Whatever it be, it is definitely one of the most beautiful thing I have ever known. Read some interesting details about TajMahal in WikiPedia.

Kudos to all those sculptors and stonecutters who played a great role in construction of Taj Mahal.

2005-12-28T07:06:00.000-08:00

Perseverance pays if one chases one's Passion with Patience!

Quite true! I was reading some articles from website ForBetterLife.org, and I found some interesting stories on perseverance, passion and patience. Following is some text on perseverance from the website, forbetterlife.org.

One inch at a time. That is how I climb and that is how I live. Sure, the summit is my goal, but without each carefully calculated move, I could never make it to the top. Each small step and each giant reach presents a unique challenge. As I move up the cliff, I recognize characteristics of the rock and then adapt learned techniques to advance further toward the goal.

I looked back in my life so far and was able to relate the above with my successes so far. I remember when I was writing IIT JEE, one of toughest competitve exams, in my school days. I was so much determined to get into one of the IITs that I didn't write any other examinations and I failed to get myself in shorlisted candidate in the first attempt in the year 1994. Then, my mother-father encouraged me to try again and yes, also try to write other competitive exams as well.

In year 1995, I again wrote IIT JEE and also other exams. And yes, this time I made it. Finally, I passed out of IIT Kharagpur. Thats just a small example.

I was very much passionate about getting into one of the IITs and I chased it with patience and perseverence. I finally got it.

If we make up our mind to chase our dream with passion, patience and perseverence, we are sure to get it. Rightly said by somebody...Dance until it rains!

2005-12-27T01:58:00.000-08:00

Indian Rocks...! Way to go, Mr. Vijaypat Singhania!

I could be late in posting about the record set by Mr. Vijaypath Singhania, but as they say, its never too late..!

I was surfing internet and found an article on Mr. VijayPath Singhania, an Indian industrialist and adventurer who set himself a new challenge - to establish a new hot air balloon altitude record in the beginning of the year 2005. Textile magnate VijayPat Singhania aimed to fly to 70,000 feet ( 21,336 meteres) and break the world record of 64,997 feet set by per Lindstrand in June 1998 in Texas.

And there he did it by flying to 69,852 feet above sea level in his hot-air balloon 'Envelope'.

Congratulations. It must have been very dangerous if at all we imagine the altitude of 69852 feet. Gosh!

Well, it speaks loads about the courage and attitude of the textile magnate, Mr. Vijaypat Singhania. If you make up your mind, and if you are well determined and passionate about your ambitions and have that bit of attitude and courage, you would definitely acheive whatever you want, be it business or be it flying. :) Way to go...! Indian rocks!

2005-12-26T00:17:00.000-08:00

Kalyug..Is that a publicity strategy for IndiaPassion.com?

Star-cast: Emraan Hashmi, Kumal Khemu, Deepal Shaw

Saw Kalyug, movie produced by Mahesh Bhatt, a well known bollywood producer-director. Kalyug was a decent movie based on the a bold topic of pornography. Film was originally named Blue-film. The name was later changed to Kalyug for one reason or the other.

I am no movie critic so I don't want to write on performances and story of Kalyug in general. But, as far as I am concerned, I found it as an average movie based on a bold concept of pornography. May be this would give other producers-director chance to make films on the subject of various aspects of pornography.

One thing I observed is Kalyug might end up in publicising the website, IndiaPassion.com. I myself thought to check out if there is a website called indiapassion.com and what I found is indiapassion.com to be indian pornography website.

So, whethar it was a planned publicity or not, IndiaPassion.com might end up increasing hits on its website. Thanks to Mr. Mahesh Bhatt.

I am sure other porn based websites must be strategising their budget for funding a movie which would publicise their website. Watch out, folks...!

2005-12-22T21:40:00.000-08:00

Kingfisher..Jet..Air Deccan..Air Sahara..Indian..fighting out the Price War

Good that lot of new airlines have brought price war in place and the winner is us. With the kind of prices available, a middle class person could now easily imagine to fly in one of the airlines and reach home fast.

Gone are the days when Indian Airlines was ruling..although they are in renewing-airline mode, they have a tough fight before them. Jet Airways-Air Deccan- KingFisher-Air Sahara airlines are going to give tough fight to Indian ( New name of Indian airlines ) in winning customers for them.

I was reading the Kingfisher airline chairman Vijay Mallaya message on the Kingfisher website, I found that they are going to give tough fight to every other airlines including Air Deccan especially known for their low prices for flight tickets. Only time will tell who wins!

Lets watch the fun. Whoever rules, a middle class person would win due to cool low price flight tickets. If you quickly want to compare prices, take a look at rediff.com faresearch.

2005-12-21T20:28:00.000-08:00

Does anybody have guts to beat Google? I trusted Microsoft but...

Google, Google, Google.. it is spreading like never before. Who knew some 5-6 years before that Google will give MicroSoft a run for their money. Google is coming with cool features and MicroSoft must be surely finding hard to even imagine whats going to come next! If MS dont get their acts straight and sharp, they would have to accept their "defeat" from Google.

Just a couple of days before, Google gave again hit to MicroSoft by bagging 5% stake in AOL for $1 Billion. Well, its fun to watch the battle in the market field.

Can MicroSoft beat Google in the area of search engine? However, cool search engine they bring, it would defintely take time for MicroSoft to win the trust of people to move from Google to MicroSoft when search engine is concerned? I am sure they could not buy the trust of the people so easily.

And, did I forget to mention Yahoo? O yes, Yahoo is also doing lot of stuff to beat Google/Microsoft in Search engine techonlogy.

One thing is sure that it is not going to be easy for both Microsoft and Yahoo to beat Google. But, one never knows...!

Anyways, All the best to MicroSoft and Google and Yahoo!

2005-12-21T02:24:00.000-08:00

Gosh! Did they have camera with them?

This might have been first thought of the politicians who are caught red-handed while taking bribe for raising questions in question hour in parliament!

Hey politicians, if you do not stop taking bribes, you really got to be more innovative in taking bribe. You never know who is watching you. Maybe, you would want to ask the person, who want to bribe you, to meet with you in some secret place, however small amount of money it is.:) If you cant get innovative, hire some talented creative guys as there is no shortage of talent in the country.:)

Also, if you dont want to waste money in hiring creative talents, grab some CD/DVDs of nice movies which shows good/bad guys taking bribes.

May God save you from camera-guys..detectives! All the best!

2005-12-21T01:46:00.000-08:00

Ganguly's removal from third test match - Blessing in Disguise!

Ganguly's removal from thord test match between India and SriLanka looks to be proving blessing in disguise for him. The very event of his removal from the team brought him in the limelight.. much needed one!

Well, the whole act of removing Ganguly from thrid test match between India and SriLanka seemed quite wrong as he played decently in 2nd test match scoring 40 and 39 in two innings.

Selecters of Indian cricket team should not act so harsh on players based on a couple of performaces. More so when the player is someone like most successful Indian cricket team captai, Sourav Ganguly.

After all this hungama in which media played a great role ( thanks to media!:), Ganguly looks to be certain of getting a chance in Indian test team playing Indo-Pak test series.

All the best Sourav Ganguly! You definitely deserve another chance!

2005-08-21T03:56:00.000-07:00

Lets wish that we could go to Kashmir some day without any worries?

Is that possible? If we all pray for peace in Kashmir, and if god of all religions come together and make up their mind to make it true, would n't be a boon to mankind as a whole? I definitely believe so. Kashmir is said to be the heaven of earth.

I always dream of going to Kashmir and spend my 7 days vacation in one of those water boats. But if that would be come possible is a big question mark? By the way, what is this whole fight for? Why is all these killings of innocent people? Who is responsible for the killings in kashmir?

Is it Jehadi (so called) who are very much motivated by some militant groups across the border? Well, sometimes our indian army also end up killing innocent lives? But that is never intentional, as far as I believe. Only people of Kashmir could tell much about it?

The news of killings in Kashmir goes across us so easily. We never seem to get affected by such news. For this, we must thank god that we didn't take birth in one of the Kashmiri families. Could you imagine the lady from Kashmir below in image with a big question mark on her face?

2005-08-17T07:22:00.000-07:00

Please don't smoke! Because smoking is injurious...

To health of those around you. Got puzzled! Yes, I also got puzzled when I saw the following poster Ad on the wall of one of the nearby tea stall that I visited today.

Please don't smoke. Smoking is injurious to our health!

The above is a dual meaning statement. Either, this is a general statement that says that smoking is injurious to our health. Or, this could also mean that if you don't care about your health, that doesn't mean our health is not affected when you are smoking around. After all, there is something called passive smoking.

So, if you really don't bother and care about your health, do care about other's health. Smoke in a lonely place. Don't smoke in crowd.

2005-08-16T07:56:00.000-07:00

One of the secrets of success is...

Keep up a high self esteem like the one below!

2005-08-15T11:20:00.000-07:00

Recipe of success for a start-up...from the horse's mouth

I am working in a company named Cendura corp, with offices in Mountain view, CA, USA and Hyderabad, India. My company is working in the area of configuration management. The CEO of Cendura is Mr. Pavan Nigam. A true and thinking enterpreneur in all aspects. He is of WebMD fame, which he grew from few people team to a team of 6000 employees. I am very much hopeful of same with Cendura, started somewhere in 2001.

Pavan Nigam is a visionary person. He graduated from IIT Kanpur, and moved to US thereafter. Since then he has been living in US.

Last week, Pavan was in India. Following are few tips from his side, and what I have watched since last couple of years while working in Cendura:

A great idea is not the only sifficient thing. The other more important ones are great team, and great execution.
Cost control is very important in the entire cycle of business. To acheive, do whatever it takes... Hire or Fire.:)
Always good to have competitors. However, do everything to kill the competition.
Proper positioning in the market. That is supported by quality publicity from time-to-time.
Calculated and quality hiring from time-to-time. That includes calculated hiring of engineers, sales people, marketing guys.
Having a couple of great board members always helps.
One of the most important one is to have repeat business from same customer. That is possible by having greatly satisfied customers who could provide references.

I could firmly say that watching a growing start-up is better than any MBA degree from any university. Rightly said Pavan!

2005-08-14T22:22:00.000-07:00

Ab Tumhare Hawaale Watan Saathiyo...Happy Independence Day!

This is an absolute wonderful day. Celebrating 58th indepedence day, I wish you all a very very happy independence day. I was listening some of the following songs that kind of gave some hard patriotic feeling on the fly.

Kar chale hum fida.. ab tumhare hawale watan saathiyo
Jahan daal daal pe
Saare jahan se achaa

I am proud to be an Indian. Days are not far when we would be truely called as "maathe ki bindiya" as sung in a hindi movie, Pardes! We are progressing ahead on an absolute phenomenonal pace in all the aspects of life. If we sustain this pace in coming years, we would be able to eradicate poverty, unemployment from our great country, India.

On this day, let us take pledge to break all the barriers and acheive what no country has acheived so far.

Jai Hind!

2005-08-13T09:44:00.000-07:00

Job hunter started talking in Hinglish! That was so pleasing!

On Friday, I got a call from a job hunter from Noida, Delhi. He started the normal questions such as "Are you looking out for change?" and then, quickly he moved to speaking in Hindi. And, I myself started talking in Hindi with no issues at all. This was a good experience for me when I talked with a job hunter in Hindi.

After I kept the phone down, I realized that I was speaking with a job hunter in hindi. I thought I should have complemented him on his manner of interacting with his clients in hindi.

Today, we have got so much Englishized that we rarely speak in our native language, be it Hindi, or Telugu, or Tamil. We should keep our native language alive for all times.

2005-08-12T08:10:00.000-07:00

Mangal Pandey logs in or get logged out! We would know starting today!

Aamir Khan is finally back after a long wait of around 4 years. Last couple of movies that he acted in were Lagaan and Dil Chahta hai. Lagaan was a massive hit. Dil Chahta Hai also did very well on the box-office. Could Aamir khan bring back the Lagaan magic in Mangal Pandey? Only time will tell. But, all I know is Ashutosh Gowrikar, couldn't bring back Lagaan magic in his last movie Swadesh.

Mangal Pandey is getting released on 12th August. Right time to do so as 15th August, independence day, is around.

Are you one of those who is brain-storming on some idea for product development? Or, are you one of those who want to be enterpreneur? Then, following image could keep you busy for a while!

2005-08-09T08:24:00.000-07:00

Size does matter! and so does Google, so much so that...

the search of two chefs for Google cafe for their mountain view office is covered by various newspapars. They say that Google is going to conduct some screening tests for two chefs. The chefs has to be creative and innovative. Why not? After all they have similar requirements for recruiting engineers. And, they could afford to do so. After all, they are such a big search engine company. But, talking about chefs is going a bit extra step. Is n't it? Anyways, rightly said, size does matter!

Discovery landed safely in California. Thank God! It takes me back to Columbia disaster where we lost the entire crew that included Dr. Kalpana Chawala. Congratulations to the entire crew of Discovery space shuttle. Let us see if US prepares for next space flight probably scheduled to happen sometime in coming september.

Cracking Rs. 1,60,000 in Kaun banega Crorepati 2 seems to be an easier task. KBC 2 started last weekend on Star Plus channel. Amitabh Bachchan, as usual, is attraction of the quiz show. Some of my observations regarding questions are following:

Common sense
Current affairs
History

To crack 2 crore, one has to be smart, logical, knowledgeable, and lucky (mainly in 50/50 and flip lifeline).

Indian enterpreneurs could at least start with websites like Craigslist.org!

2005-08-06T20:59:00.000-07:00

All that was needed for www.craigslist.org to have annual revenue of $7-10 million is to start off a privately owned online business with the aim of keeping one's friends up to date with what was happening in one's hometown, San Francisco.

This is one guy, Craig Newmark who founded Craigslist.org. The website is absolutely simple, no attractive images, but some useful stuff. And, today it attracts 10 million unique vistors every month. Not bad!

Ebay.com had to buy 25 % stake in the company last year.

So, the moral of the story is be simple, but be useful. To start a successful business, the KISS strategy could as well pay off, provided you have some useful stuff to offer the users. By the way, KISS is Keep It Simple & Straight.

Could we even have our young enterpreneurs start something like Craigslist.com? Take a look at the website and I promise, you would end up getting loads of inspiration. Cheers!

The Website to help raise money received $400000 in donation! God bless humanity!

2005-08-02T22:25:00.000-07:00

Rightly said, where there is a will, there is a way. However, God should also be around to play his role.

It would have been very easy to lose all hopes when Susan Torres, a 26-year-old researcher at the National Institutes of Health, lost consciousness from a stroke May 7 after aggressive melanoma spread to her brain. At that time, she was pregnant having the gestation period of around 12 weeks. Susan was brain-dead pregnant woman who has been kept on life support for nearly three months to give her fetus more time to develop.

With all the effort made by doctors, and with all the blessings, the baby took birth today. The baby is doing absolutely fine.

Hats off to her husband Jason Torres! He kept his cool at this testing time. He fought out everything with courage. He put up a website, http://www.susantorresfund.org/ in order to get donations from anywhere possible. And, in return he got overwhelming response from people worldwide in form of a donation of $400000 since last week.

God bless humanity!

Is that a never ending fight for Kashmir? Reminds me of Tom and jerry?

2005-07-31T11:51:00.000-07:00

Pakistan is doing everything to take away Kashmir. Be it attracting third-party (mainly, US) intervention, or, exporting terrorism in the form of militant infiltration to India through LOC (Line of Control).

Every fortnight, there has to be some blasts in Srinagar or Kashmir killing innocent people. These militants even tried to dismantle the Indian constitution by attacking on Parliament house, a couple of years back. Very recently, LeT, a militant group active in pakistan,is alleged to have carried out Ayodhya attack.

When would all this merciless killing end? Shall India do something about it? Definitely Yes!

The fights remind me of Tom and Jerry. The question is who is Tom and who is Jerry? By the way, in the picture below, who is the third guy, relaxing? Do not guess it as US.:)

They were among the likes of us! And today, they are...!

2005-07-29T03:32:00.000-07:00

Today, all of us know what they are. I am talking about N R Narayana Murthy and Bill Gates.

We asked for a bucket full, and you gave us much more! Now relax, Rain God!

2005-07-26T09:21:00.000-07:00

It has been raining a lot in my city, Hyderabad, since last few days. People have already started talking about rainfall of the likes of August 2000 when there was flood in hyderabad. God save Hyderabad!

It is always good to rain cats and dogs but only for few days. God, could you be a bit generous? Flood would only bring miseries to the poor people. Few days before, it was Gujarat, and Maharastra. Now it seems to be turn ofHyderabad. It is raining so heavily that even roads are getting blocked by rain water.

There are manholes on roads which are major reasons for accidents on a rainy day when water get accumulated on roads. Andhra Pradesh government should take immediate measures to meet such circumstances.

By the way, Rain God is showing no mercy on Mumbai. Mumbai has come to stand still. God Bless!