From Dawn to Dusk

NIMSME guest house, Hyderabad

My stay in Hyderabad is coming to an end with Pune being the next city awaiting my arrival. The last weekend was truly wonderful with my mother over here and with Hyderabad being the pearl city of India, my mother made most out her visit as she bought a beautiful pearl set for herself. There is a huge market of ladies bangles and pearls in the vicinity of Char Minar, while we were walking people popped out of nowhere asking if we wanted to convert any currency to Indian rupees and the first thought I had was from which angle do I look like a foreigner to them.

I am visiting Indian School of Business tomorrow whose MBA programme is ranked 15^th in the world. I am quite proud of ISB for putting the name of India in that list. My visit will mainly include a guided tour of the school and meeting with their admission officer.

I am also visiting The Scindia School on the 29^th of August and doing whatever I can to have as many people onboard.

Insha'Allah اللهشاء إن

NIMSME guest house, Hyderabad

Insha'Allah is an Arabic phrase which literally means "God willing" or "if it is God's will" and is often used to indicate hope for an event to occur in the future. I left all my batch mates with this phrase regarding my next visit to south India and boarded the Rajdhani Express train to Hyderabad on the 19^th July. Bangalore has totally modernised with numerous high street bands and young college crowds in most part of the city. It was an exciting time, as I not only visited all major sites in Bangalore but also learnt to ride a bike under the able guidance of Yash Nahta (Ex-Scindian). Altogether a great break in-between my internship and also added another city in my list of cities visited.

I am staying in the beautiful campus of National Institute of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise and enjoy the convenience of the office being situated in the same campus. Although I haven't been around Hyderabad, but the city is truly a blend of traditional with modernity. Also known as the city of Nizams, Hyderabad is a Muslim dominated city with the total population of 4 million. With Hindi widely spoken and understood, I am easily able to communicate and ask my way around. The cuisine is dominated by traditional Hyderabadi biryani being served at almost all restaurants and tea being served at every corner of the city. During my mission in Hyderabad I will be visiting the Genome Valley which could be said as Silicon Valley of Biotech Companies and a couple of institutes who play a key role in the pharmaceutical industry.

I also would like to take this opportunity to wish good luck to my younger brother Manish Jain for taking Science in Class 11^th and I am sure he will perform greater than expected from him. Most of you have met my brother and to be very honest he is one step ahead of me, which most of you would agree after meeting him.

Lastly short write-up form the football front; I have a growing concern with the Manchester City football Club summer signing specially looking at the strikers. They have recently added another top 2 strikers to their squad and with that have in total 10 strikers in their present squad. I don't know what the manager is thinking or the Sheiks in Dubai want, I assume they don't plan to start with 10 strikers in their games. This summer transfer window has been full of surprises and with another month to go before the transfer deadline day we really can't say who will be playing for whom.

Let’s call it a day

Shatabdi Express, Tamil Nadu-Karnataka Border

As you already know that I am writing this blog onboard the Bangalore Shatabdi Express which runs between Chennai and Bangalore. Lalu Prasad Yadav has done a fine job during his two terms as the railway minister, the railways not only made profits for the first time but also several new trains have been introduced.

I will really miss Chennai and all the people I worked with for during my tenure here. I am taking back with me profound memories of my challenges with food to being treated as a foreigner in my own country. The thing I will miss the most is The Marine Beach, it was my time during the day which allowed me to reflect upon myself and enjoy the beauty of nature. My next stop is Bangalore, which is home to some of the most well recognized colleges and research institutions in India. Numerous public sector such as heavy industries, software companies, aerospace, telecommunications, and defence organisations are located in the city. Bangalore is known as the Silicon Valley of India because of its preeminent position as the nation's leading IT employer and exporter. A demographically diverse city, Bangalore is a major economic hub and the fastest growing major metropolis in India. The sole purpose of my visit to Bangalore is meeting all my batch mates from school, there are about 8 of among which the majority are in Christ College. My stay is limited to two day and thereafter will be travelling to Hyderabad.

I have completed my first leg of my training by visiting the leather and auto component cluster in Chennai and I still have lots to learn as I finish with UNIDO on the 12^th of September 2009.

Cultural Shock

Central Park guest house, Chennai

Having lived in over 6 cities I faced the biggest cultural shock today in my own country. The food here is pretty straight forward with people clear what they want to have in dinner when they go to a restaurant, unlike me where it takes me around 15 minutes to decide and I end up with a masala dosa every time. One of the suits I really wear on very well is being ambitious and I credit the computer game FIFA 08 for switching it for me. I walked into Sarvana Bhavan, quite a popular restaurant chain founded in 1981 and decided to order something which I haven't eaten before. 7 star uttapam please, I said and the waited gave me alien look and walked away. After 20 long minutes, which was the longest time I have ever waited for my order in Chennai, the waiter gave me 7 tiny-mini uttapams each with different sauce or chatni including plain tomato sauce. My first reaction was to avoid anyone see me eating this and ate it as fast as I could. I am pretty confident that they must have celebrated in the kitchen for selling their 7 star dish to a foreigner. In the end I wasn't satisfied with my meal and ended up eating sambar idly.

After this incident, I am well prepared to face such shocks and now I have got my concepts clear around south Indian food. Weather is fine with little drizzle in the evening and the day covered with clouds.

What a wonderful World

Central Park guest house, Chennai

Nothing particular about the title, it's a song which was playing while I was writing this entry and is really a wonderful song. 10 days up in Chennai and I haven't seen anything apart from work related sites and the Marine beach, I don't know if that is sad or really sad, but the fact is that I really don't fancy going around in foreign city alone. I visited two auto components small businesses this week, which were both established in late 90's and have a work force of around 15. I spent half of the day with each unit understanding their product line, market, supply chain and other company logistics and came to the conclusion that it's not easy to run your own business and that too in this competitive market. Both the companies have an annual turnover for around 2 crore but haven't grown substantially over the years and are still based where they started originally. Apart from this I am having a good exposure to cluster management and project evaluations tools and this weekend I will be busy with training.

I watched New York the movie last weekend and it did not live up to my expectations because of its drama and a predictable storyline. This was the first movie I watched alone in a theatre, though I never wished such a scenario but choose it as I was short of other entertainment options. Privatisation of the telecom Industry has revolutionised this sector with various networks battling amongst each other for customers and in all this competition we the people really benefit. Tata gave me a deal which was 50% what I was paying to Airtel which I took without hesitating, however on using it I noticed that there is no signal in my guest house and that's where the catch is. Also there is an awesome Idea ad called walk and talk and if you haven't seen it, please do that now. I really love it personally; Just YouTube it.

Nice quote from Bill gates "Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one."

It’s raining and raining hard here

Central Park guest house, Chennai

This weekend started with me sitting alone in my room watching a boring rain interrupted cricket match which India eventually won and avoided the huge criticism they would faced if they lost. There was a time when I used to try and watch every International cricket match being played and played regularly for my school. However London has generated my interest in football at the cost of cricket and now I have stopped watching cricket and only weekly update myself with the sport. Cricket is a summer game in England and is only played for 3 months and for the rest of the year its football which keeps people engaged. I still love the game and given a chance to play I can play all day.

I have been in the sea lots of time before but never when it is raining and you normally associate beach with the sand and the sun around. Today I decided to take have a dip in my Indian Ocean which I thought is a good way to wash your sins and went to the beach late evening. Rain was never in the picture and within 15 minutes it started raining heavily with the thunder strike and people rushing to the nearest shelter which is at a distance of 400 meters. HAHAha

Some news do pop out of nowhere like this week section 377 scraped in Delhi, North Korea testing 4 short range missiles and scaring the shit out of South Korea and Manchester United saving cash by signing Michael Owen, who was out of contract. So you really can't expect whats coming.

LOVE MUSIC HATE RACISM

Foreigner

Central Park Guest house, Chennai

People consider me a complete foreigner in this city, which is proved occasionally by me being charged more than normal or people ignoring me while I am asking any question. However on the other side some people start talking in Tamil as if I am local here and not to disappoint them I nod my head and keep the conversation going. People always say body language does play a major role in the way one communicates and thanks it I am able to survive here, as much of communication is through hands and gestures.

Sambar and tea plays a major role in people's life here, with alone me having sambar and tea in every meal.