Innovative Business Idea -> The Million Dollar page

I got to know about it yesterday. I thought I have to blog about this.

This is the story of Alex Tew, he needed money to study in university, so he came up with the idea of creating a webpage with one million pixels, where people can put in their ads. He would charge $1 for each pixel of space, that the advertisers use. So for one million pixels he made one million dollars!!!!!!

I dont think I have to write more, you can read the following link, it is a good reading,
http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com/faq.php#2

And ofcourse the million dollar page is
http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com/

Wonder when will "a million dollar idea" strike me......

WISE and otherWISE

Recently for a change I have been reading lot of books, "Memoirs of Geisha by Arthur Golden", "Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand", "Wise and Otherwise by Sudha Murthy". All are very different kinds of books.

But I would like to mention about WISE and otherWISE here. Found the book really good. It is just the collection of short incidents/stories as experienced by Sudha Murthy (Narayan Murthy's wife). The book does not preach, does not try to decode complicated emotions, does not talk of philosophy. The book illustrates the power of simple human values in our day to day life. It also illustrate how get oursleves too busy and complicated and do not follow simple common sense rules of life and invite frustration. And everything through a simple story. It just brings you out from out glittering and complicated IT world and look at life in a very simple way.
I would recommend to read if you can get hands on it.

Does it make you feel good?

You would have probably received this a hunderd times before on a mail. But it is funny that everytime I read them I just feel happy. So I am just putting them for the record.

Think about them one at a time before going on to the next one . .

• Waking up and realizing you still have a few hours left to sleep.
• Laughing for absolutely no reason at all.
• Finding a 2 dollar bill in your coat from last winter.
• No lines at super market
• Hearing your favourite song on radio
• Midnight phone calls that last for hours
• Having someone play with you hair
• Accidentally overhearing someone say something nice about you.
• Knowing that somebody misses you.
• Knowing you've done the right thing, no matter what other people think.
• Running into an old friend and realizing that some things (good or bad) never change.

Adios.... have a good week ahead :D

Can yu identify the movie from the tag line -> Answers

The answers to the previous post are as follows,

1. Jurassic Park (The adventure 65 million in the making)
2. Independence day (We have always believed we weren't alone, on July 4th we wish we were)
3. Shrek(he greatest fairy tale never told)
4. Crash (Moving at the speed of light we are bound to collide with each other)
5. Brokeback Mountain (Love is a force of nature)
6. War of the worlds (They are already here)
7. The Lost World (something has survived)
8. The Unusual Suspects (In the world where nothing is what it seems you have to look beyond)
9. Brave Heart (Every man dies not every man really lives )
10. Matrix (Believe the Unbelievable )


The feedback I got was that this was very difficult, will try to put up something better next time.

Some more FYI

Yesterday watching Aaj Tak, I saw a news report on this 5 year old guy from orrissa called Budhia. Budhia is a marathon sensation as it seems, and he can run about 45kms.

Read more at
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4241958.stm
(I wonder if he is a marathon sensation or, his so called coach is torturing him with the stick in his hand to run all the time)

I also found the below story very good

http://www.goodnewsindia.com/index.php/Magazine/story/jaipur-foot/

I like goodnewsindia, their stories are good and inspiring, makes you feel good about India.

Narmada valley -> Sardar Sarovar

Just an FYI,

One of my friends forwarded me the video shot quite recently in the villlages of Madhya Pradesh, highlighting the issues of the Sardar sarovar. So propogating

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5886389293209844888

Can yu identify the movie from the tag line

For past some time I have started developing keen interest in branding and taglines. Like someone trying to explain me the power of branding gave me example of Reliance and Tata. Reliance always gives some kind of erky feeling, whereas somehow people seem to have lot of respect for House of Tatas.

So what I thought was put some movie taglines, and give it as a challenge to identify the movie. After all movies also need branding,

Note1: All are english movies
Note2: You can ofcourse not use google
So here we go. In bracket have tried to give some clue.

1. The adventure 65 million in the making (This is a easy start)
   
2. We have always believed we weren't alone, on July 4th we wish we were (also a giveaway)
   
3. The greatest fairy tale never told (remember it is never and not ever)
   
4. Moving at the speed of light we are bound to collide with each other (if you observe posters carefully you should not have any problem in guessing this)
   
5. Love is a force of nature (little difficult, but very recent movie)
   
6. They are already here (famous movie)
   
7. something has survived (relatively easy)
   
8. In the world where nothing is what it seems you have to look beyond (tag lines tells something about the movie)
   
9. Every man dies not every man really lives (senti type movie as it appears from the tagline)
10. Believe the Unbelievable (well this is very famous movie)
    

Most of them are very famous movies, I am not a movie buff but I have seen six of them.

Will put the answers in the next post.

Disclaimer: Most of the above movies are very famous and they have more than one tag line, have just put the one which I thought best describes it.

Innovative Business Idea ->2

When I wrote the first post of Innovative business Idea, I was wondering if I would be able to dig out anything else to post on this topic, but I did not have to wait long.

Well today story is about these IITD graduates who have started a service itasveer (http://www.itasveer.com) where you can upload your photographs and order prints to be sent to any address in India at a very cheap price. The charges are really cheap, with shipping charges less than $1 and each 4"x6" print costing around 10 cents (introductory price). I think it is a great opportunity for people abroad to share the photographs with their families in India.

I also remember something of the similar sort started by some IITB graduates. But I dont remember their venture name.

You can propogate this information and help this guys :D

TravelLog Karwar

When we decided to go to karwar in mid-april everyone was like, it would be hot. But thanks to one of my friends who was very adament that we have to go to karwar that we finally decided to go to karwar. And we realized that it was not at all a bad option.

Karwar is such a beautiful place. The best thing about karwar beach is that it is very clean. The town itself is kind of laid back in time. You see lot of this very old and huge houses, nice and beautiful. It is surrounded by this small hills, with lot of trees around. There are trees even along the beach, where you can just lie down at look at the sea. Apparently Rabindranath Tagore wrote his first poem sitting on this beach.

So next time if you are planning to go to goa you may as well consider dropping down to this place for a day or two. Below am just going to jot down somethings about karwar which you may find it useful if you decide to do.

The above picture taken just after the sunset. The thing you should note is how clean the beach is.

Where is Karwar?

Karwar is in the northern part of karnataka on the west coast of India. It is about 150kms below goa.

How to go?
Karwar is very well connected by road. For people in south, any bus going to goa will go via karwar. From bangalore you have about 3-4 Busses running everyday. It is about 12 hours road journey from bangalore.

Sunrise

When to go?

We found the atmostphere very plesant in April, (or probably we were just lucky to get cloudy sky). I guess winter should be the best time tog go. But the advantage of going in aprils is that there is no crowd. There is a festival in Karwar called Karavalli sometime in feb. You could even try your luck then.

Where to Stay?

Karwar not being such a big tourist destination there are very few hotels, But we managed to find one good hotel, called Sai International. Phone: (08382-229956/08382-229957). This is quite close to the beach. (Actually everything in karwar is close to the beach, there is one main road, running parallel beach, and most of the shops, hotels are onthat road.).

View from top of light house

What to do?
Apart from playing around on the beach most of the time, what other thing we did was to make friends with some fisherman. They took us around for a ride in their boat in the sea. You can see lot of ships parked(anchored) in the sea. We had good time looking at the ships from up close from the boat. You get a very good perspective of the size of ship when you see from a small fisherman boat. Even the small ships are huge.

One other interesting thing that happened was we going to lighthouse. In karwar lighthouse is loacated on an island which is 10 kms from the mainland. We went there again with our fisherman friends. The view from top of that is awesome. That was the high point for me of the full trip. There is sea on all four sides, with small islands scattered everywhere. I have put that pic above.

Apart from this, there is this place where river Kali meets the sea. There are little backwaters there. We walked all the way there along the beach. View and water is good.

Had we more time we would have climbled some of the small hills around karwar. To get the view from there of the sea should be good. And also would have gone the island there (called Devbaug).

You can also eat lot of sea food in karwar, but every beach town has good sea food so nothing especial about it.

We were really happy with the warmth shown by local people. These guys even taught me to catch shells, (Shells when they are living), I caught three of them on my own :). Above is the picture of all of us with fisherman, we owe a lot of fun we had in karwar to them. This fisherman has promised that next time we go there they are going to take us fishing, and probably if we are lucky we would get glimpse of some dolphins.

Innovative business idea ->1

Yesterday I was just reading about this guy called Sandeep Gajak, and he inspired me to blog about him. What has he done? Started something called a Shoe Laundry. Yes "Shoe Laundry", so next time if your adorable, expensive Nike, Reebok, adidas shoes get dirty all you have to do is to this service and they will pick up your shoes, clean it up and send them back. (This is available only in Bombay). Sandeep started his business in 2003. I dont have any figures on his prosperity but googling tells me that he gets about three lakhs revenues per month ( looks little bullish, but you never know).

But leaving everything aside, I really like the idea. You dont have to be a MBA, or an IIT engineer to figure out these things. It is such a simple day to day observation.

Hats off to this guy, for thinking, believing and executing.

Read more about shoe laundry.

Tapioca i.e. Sabudana

Today at the lunch table we were having a heated discussion as to how sabudana is made. Sabudana is quite famous in my part of India i.e Gujarat, where you make delicacies like Sabudana kheer, sabudana khicdi, sabudana halwa etc.

Googled and found out that Sabudana which is also known as Tapioca in south east Asia, is make from the roots of the cassava plant (called mogho in gujarati). The roots of this plant are shown in the adjoining figure.


These roots are dried and processed and made in to small white hard pearl like things which we call sabudana in India. (Look at the picture to the left, who dont know sabudana, will be able to map it to something which used to lie is some place in mom's kitchen)

The root is also made into flour form which is used instead of wheat in some places.


you can read if you have enthu
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassava
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tapioca

Happy eating :)

Just Happy

When was the last time you were so relaxed and just happy?

FYI -> Bangalore Metro

While passing from MG Road couple of days back, I saw some road dug up, which had a big sign Bangalore Metro. Yipee Bangalore metro is under way.

But just one look at google on Bangalore metro, I figured out that there are infinte controversies related to land acquisition, over using broad or standard guage etc. So I guess a long long way to go. And once started will take about four years to finish :(.

The only interesting thing that I found though was the railway map.
http://www.karnataka.com/watch/blr-metro/metro-rail.jpg
and one more map
http://irfca.org/users/delhimetro/maps/Bangalore.pdf
(Both are fairly consistent)

If you planning to shift or buy the house, you may want to consider the above map :D.

Upcoming poet's "Kavita"

Recently one of my friends got cross with me, and left the following message in my mailbox early on a friday morning,

Sukhrawaar ki li hai Sapath
Aaj hai mera Maun Vrath

Which resulted in my reply,

Oh mere pyare Mitr,
Karo no aisa Anarth,
Kah gaye the sant kabir,
roothna hai Vyarth,

Ab na tang karenge kisiko
Aisi li hai Goli ne Sapath,
Murga banke baitha hai Goli,
jaldi todo apna maun Vrath,

Hopefully my creativity will improve soon and will not subject you to more such torture :D.

Khuda Meharbaan to Gadha Pehalwaan

Yesterday I saw movie "Malamaal", some comedy hindi movie. Nothing great about it, but all throughout the movie the script writer had used lot of idioms/proverbs. that made the language very colorful. This blog is inspired from that. Putting down some of them. The first one is from the movie, some others are from my mom, and some from web. Njoy.

(The title is some proverb which I hit upon on web, I really like it :D)

Agar chamkadhar ko ped se ulta latka do
To woh mor nahin ban jata

Abhi bhensh Chara khane gayi hai
Aur tum dahi bechni ki baat kar rahe ho

Sar salamat
To padgi hazaar

Haathi chala jaata hai
Kutte baunkte rehte hai

Aokhli mein sir diya
To musal se kya Dharna

Utne Paav Pasaria,
jitni Chadar hove

Aandhon mein
Kaana Raja,

Das chuhe khake billi
Haj ko challi

bandar kya jaane
Adrak ka swaad,

Dubhte ko tinke ka Sahara

I found this wikipedia page very interesting
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Indian_proverbs
and also the following page is good
http://www.akshargram.com/sarvagya/index.php/Hindi-muhavare

Why are pot holes called so???

I had this question while biking yesterday, and on seaching for some resources on the net, found that actually potholes have their origin in geology. In geology potholes refer to the holes in the shape of pots formed on rocks, especially at the bottom of the water bodies because of water current or due to the action of pebbles.

This term started to be used for the modern roads because the process is similar, water is absored by the road during mansoon, and then ................
read the below pdf, if you are enthu about the science of it.

http://www.virginiadot.org/infoservice/resources/Potholes%20.PDF

Nice pdf, and after reading I understood why roads break after monsoon :)

A Love Story

Recenly I have been reading two books concering Indian history Freedom at Midnight and City of the Djinns. Both are nice books. Realized there are lot of things which I dont know about history.

Coming back to the point, this blog is about the story of Butta Singh which I read in freedom at midnight. Gadar movie was partly based on this movie, the actually story is quite different. Here it goes.

Butta singh was a sikh and he brought this helpless muslim girl for 1500 rupees and married her. They lived quite happily for quite sometime and had a daughter. But then there was this drive to send the people who had got seperated during to partition to their respective homes. So police caught Butta singh wife and put her in the camp. After that her family was located and she was sent back to her family in pakistan. While going Butta singh's wife promised that she would come back. Meantime Butta singh cut his beard and converted himself to a muslim and applied for a visa to pakistan. But he was denied. Finally he illegally crossed the border with his little daughter and landed up in pakistan. He went to his wife village to realize that she had been forcefully remarried. His wife's relatives beat up Butta Singh and handed him to police. Then there was this famous court case, where Butta singh pleaded that just for once he be allowed to ask his wife if she wanted to be with him. The judge pitied Butta Singh and asked for his wife to appear before the court. His wife confessed that Butta singh was her first husband and the little girl with him was her daughter. But when asked if she wanted to return to India with Butta Singh, she refused. Heart broken Butta Singh took his daughter and left that place. Later he went to some railway station nearby and he threw himself and his daughter under the train. He died instantly but his daughter miraculously survived. They found a letter with Butta singh for his wife stating that he be buried in her village, where she should come and put flowers on his grave everyday. But his wife relatives would not allow that to happen. By this time his story had been widely circulated and had generated a wide spread sympathy. He was give a grand burial at Lahore. Butta singh is the symbol of the love that thrived during those tormented times. It seems that his daughter was adopted and lived happily later.

I was really moved by this story, I am trying to find some resource for this story on the web but have been largely unsuccessful. Google search for once does not yeild any result.

I put this story in the blog, because I guess most of the poeple dont know this story. I am not making any conclusions or judgements from this story, but just was wondering that in our generation will anyone go as far as this.

Associating brands with things

I had taken my parents out for dinner sometime back at the chinese place. And was showing Mom all the various noodles that were available for menu. And Mom was like "Maggie na, I dont want to eat Maggie".

For Mom noodles means Maggi or rather Maggie means noodles. Smilarly bike is a honda. Anything from yamaha to pulsar is a honda. Even tooth paste is a Colgate.
Sometimes wonder if this is because these brands had a first mover advantage, or it is just effective advertising.
Anyways it would be good if you could add to the list of
noodles->maggie, bike->honda, toothpaste->Colgate

About Me

My name is actually Rajesh, but since college people have been calling me Goli and hence so is my name now, and my blog name.

Professionally am an hardware turned marketing engineer now, but as most others I do feel that such jobs suck and I should get out of it and do something else in life, but dont have the courage to leave this job and leave all the corporate luxuries :D.

Apart from work, have tried my hand, at guitar, salsa, film making, writing, aerobics(ing), with moderate and no success at some.

Apart from this blog I do write for a monthly e-magazine called Sattva. Along with some friends am also involved in running the website called NGOPost.

If so thy wish, you can get in touch with me at togoli-at-gmail-dot-com

--
Goli

Early Morning Gyan

Below are the small oneliners, someone (vineet, my IIT classmate) forwarded, I keep reading them especially when I am feeling bogged down. Makes me feel happy :).

Why I titled "Early Morning Gyan", because I think morning sets up the day.

Here they go

Loosen up. Relax. Except for rare life-and-death matters, nothing is as important as it first seems.

Have a firm handshake.

Look people in the eye.

Sing in the shower.

Own a great stereo system.

If ina a fight, hit first and hit hard.

Keep secrets.

Never give up on anybody. Miracles happen everyday.

Always accept an outstretched hand.

Be brave. Even if you're not, pretend to be. No one can tell the difference.

Whistle.

Avoid sarcastic remarks.

Choose your life's mate carefully. From this one decision will come 90 per cent of all your happiness or misery.

Make it a habit to do nice things for people who will never find out.

Lend only those books you never care to see again.

Never deprive someone of hope;it might be all they have.

When playing games with children, let them win.

Give people a second chance, but not a third.

Be romantic.

Become the most positive and enthusiastic person you know.

Dont allow the phone to interrupt important moments. It's there for your convenience, not the caller's.

Be a good loser.

Be a good winner.

Think twice before burdening a friend with a secret.

When someone hugs you, let them be the first to let go.

Be modest. A lot was accomplished before you were born.

Keep it simple.

Beware of the person who has nothing to lose.

Dont burn bridges. You'll be surprised how many times you have to cross the same river.

Live your life so that your epitaph could read, " No Regrets".

Be bold and courageous. When you look back on life, you'll regret the things you didn't do more tahn the one's you did.

Never waste an opportunity to tell someone you love them.

Remember no one makes it alone. Have a grateful heart and be quick to acknowledge those who helped you.

Take charge of your attitude. Dont let someone else choose it for you.

Visit friends and relatives when they are in hospital; you need only stay a few minutes.

Begin each day with some of your favourite music.

Once in a while,take the scenic route.

Send a lot of Valentine cards. Sign them, 'Someone who thinks you're terrific.'

Answer the phone with enthusiasm and energy in your voice.

Keep a note pad and pencil on your bed-side table. Million-dollar ideas sometimes strike at 3 a.m.

Show respect for everyone who works for a living, regardless of how trivial their job.

Send your loved ones flowers. Think of a reason later.

Make someone's day by paying the toll for the person in the car behind you.

Become someone's hero.

Marry only for love.

Count your blessings.

Compliment the meal when you're a guest in someone's home.

Wave at children on school buses.

Remember that 80 per cent of the success in any job is based on your ability to deal with people.

Dont expect life to be fair.