Business Venture = Headaches

Setting up your own business is not an easy job and I’ve learned it 1^st hand in the last couple of months. Initially, the idea seems great and your mind become so involved with it, that u tend to forget things around you ( Like i forgot all about CAT amongst other things )
WORTH it ? Hell Fucking yes now i look back :).

It is always helpful to talk to people relevant in the areas that have had prior experience. Try to get as much information as possible. Try to ask open ended questions and basically to get them to talk. I know it sounds difficult but if you are really keen about the whole thing, asking helps. People are generally shy to go to someone and ask for advice which I feel is wrong. Even in work, you can seek out the best minds in the business and the industry if you have the opportunity to do so. Explain to them what you have in your mind but do not give away the idea completely. Convincing them that you are contemplating the idea and will look at it in the near future shows your interest in the topic and genuine advice need from the concerned person so that if you want to have a 2^nd interaction with the person , he / she would be approachable.

Market research is a great tool to be utilized after having talked to a lot of people.

Good research done enables one to identify areas where the business can have great opportunities to succeed and also where it may face most problems. A great research involves developing a right kind of question list with an area of adjustment to accommodate further questions with a single question. Getting information out is what is going to help you in the direction one needs to follow in the future steps .The biggest challenge is to acquire honest opinions from potential customers.

The main areas of focus are the product, customer, market, finances, legalities, time and effort to put as the most important.

The product is represented by its features, what a product does is described by its benefits.

This sentence ( which i heard somewhere very early) helps to develop the right kind of approach one needs before going ahead with any future actions. The customer is the key and you need to market yourself and the product benefits because it is that which the potential customer would be acquired. Finances could be quite the deciding factor starting up, lots of risk involved but no gains without risks n pains , needs immense planning before investing the first buck but always have room for adjustments cause unknown expenses will creep up , so always have room for maneuver here and there . Legalities another issue, best handled by professional people like CA. Time and effort , well what more can I say , more the better , but the important point being quality time ahead of quantity any day but quantity is quite large too , damm u 24 hours ;)

This is just to give a basic idea of things at start up no matter what business u start up with and things to keep at the back of the mind.

More on this later.

The Memory Remains

Yesterday , 25th - i went for the rock show at IIT , it was an awesome show , no college / institution comes close to hosting a show like the IITians do it . simply superb and ROCKING.

Today was our Republic Day and remembering all the fallen for the peace and freedom we have now . Salute to All of you , who did so and continue to do so day in night out . And time to show India's military capabilities in the parade . i caught glimpses of the whole thing and have to say , every year it seeems better than the previous . Arms race is a very sensitive topic as it is the reason for most war n tragedies but man has always had the mentality of showing their might and arms race is one race where there will be no winner in the end.

Also , today met up with old college friends and i mean old friends ;) ... this was a big meet and a meet after 2 long years , around 25 of us . the fun part was some of my friends whom i used to hang out , party , study night outs had married , some even had kids :) , oh my god im fuckin old ... when ur friends have kids , u know ur getting old , trust me . the look on everyone's faces was a kodak moment and many of us couldnt stop laughing , cracking up ... joking abt Seniors having Junior ( kids ) so early and since i was the juniormost ( in college ) , technically whose my father / mother n stuff :D . Also a moment to reflect of a dear friend of ours who had passed away couple of years back. i had so not wanted to bring the topic up at the meet but one friend brought it up and the silence that followed was Loud. it has been over 5 years since that day and we all remembered and missed him .
This the Poem i had written in 1999 .

* was a real friend when one needed one

1+1 = 2, but with him it still was 1

Hanging out in class or outside was always fun.

His antics would make a clown serious

A real genius, the man was practical

Aced all exams, theory and practicals.

Never did he let us know about his dark side

How we never knew, emotions only a man could hide.

Deep into our friendship, I knew there was problem

And it was evident day by day; something was not right inside him.

So finally the day came of confrontation.

He was asked one simple question by all of us.

*, are you doing something or are you having some serious issues

First he smiled then he shouted, I don’t give a shit about any one of you.

As we saw him leave, I wondered what was wrong

I lifted my head and he was gone

We tried to contact him to no avail

Every attempt of ours, everyone failed

Time passed by, he left college and his rented home and we accepted we really Failed.

Then that fateful morning, the phone rang too early to my liking

At the end of the line was a stranger talking

Do you know this boy called *, I said yes

Well he is in hospital right now, what happened to him he addressed.

I couldn’t believe my ears; he had overdosed on some drug

How I wished I had him right now so I could hug

I called our friends and we reached the hallowed place

On a bed in a room, there he laid

His relatives were there, next to him crying loudly, his eyes wide shut.

We were just couple of hours late, he had sadly passed away

Our world turned and it still hurts me today.

How we could have done more, so much more to our abilities

* was gone, we never really took him seriously.

So this poem I write in memory of you man

I know u can hear it, I know you can

*, we are sorry you were in the end alone

You don’t know how sad and broken we are,how we wished if u had just called anyone of us on the phone.

If I had the powers, the hour glass I would turn.

As the sand trickles down, your memories still there with us.

So *, I hope you can forgive your friends for we never got to tell you

How special you meant to us in our hearts and in our mind, it’s overdue

As I end this little prayer we all are saying together

Holding our hands for you, your hand we miss and we miss you brother.

3 Hours of Real Entertainment n FREE

No , i aint talking about a hindi movie ( i dont watch them ... only exceptional cases where my butt was dragged to the theatre as i consider most of them time n money waste ) , but this is 3 hours of real entertainmentl . im talking about Band Practise

My band is really not that good cause we really dont practise much . it's just occaisional stuff , around once a week or once every 2 week for just 3 to 5 hours . today was such day , and what 3 - 4 hours it was

00.00 :4 memebrs supposed to meet up at x hours . 2 of us there , other 2 no sight . geting the gear in place , connections etc

00.20 : remaining 2 guys show up . greetings take place ( not friendly ) , Why the f*** u late ? Replies : oh traffic . my replies : wow , u should have come with me on my private jet ***hole

00.30 : everything in place , everyone set . oh wait ... where's the booze ? need a kick thats all ... my reply : ill give u a real kick if u want , just bend ... more arguments ....

00.45 : booze comes n 2 of them get mildy drunk and now they r fired up ( i dont need no booze or anything to get fired up ... im 99% of the fired up when it comes to playing n the other guy doesnt drink and also gives 101 % everytime )

1.00 : practise begins , just some sound check ... getting in tune ... checking if everyone is on the right tune in their area of expertise

1.15 : real practise starts ... way off today ... everybody doing their own shit . no cordianation ... STOP ... team meeting ... pep talk ... NOW COME ON GUYS ... WHATS WRONG TODAY .

1.30 : start off again ... much better than before . vocalist n drummer doing nicely . me not so well ... bassist , also aint at his best ... sound seems crappy today ... dont know why

1.45 : Lets get serious guys . once we meet in a week ... lets rip :)

2.00 : the thing is in 5th gear now . everybody fired up ... sweat dripping , vocal bursting , riffs hurting , bass thundering ... now we r talking :o ...

2.30 : played about 2 songs in half an hour ... good enough . atleast took our time n did them well enough to our liking . continue ? YESSSSS

2,45 : another song done , 2 drunkards ( vocalist and drummer ) , almost fully drunk and sound more violent n brutal than before . me ., fingers paining , back hurting , my vocals sound ultra bad ... looks like i ripped my voice during backup one of the song , here goes my voice , yet again , bassist ... always calm n composed ... knows what he's doing .

3.00 : Let the gloves come off and LETS PLAY , meaning ... no holds barred playing ... sound as heavy , as brutal we can be ... agreed ... god knows what we did , what we played ... at the end of 15 minutes ... ears buzzing , half dead ... 4 tired guys ... n we r done for the day...

3.15 : recovery time. ... more booze for the 2 , water for meee n pepsi for bassist ... half an hour later , chatting , talking about sad life in general .... what each of us did during the week ... bla bla blah

3.45 : pack up the gear n lets leave ( greeted warmly by the neighbours ... **** , *$&&$&$ ;" thank you for creating so much noise and not letting our kids do their homework and us watch TV " look on their faces along with nice artificial smiles )

4.00 : F*** off guys and have a nice week , please show up next week . Thank you

Free time = Time pass

Today , i had too much free time on hand , so tinkered around with the blog template . looks good i think , will stick to it for some time until i get bored looking at it ;) ... Was visiting all those old bookmarks , webpages i havent visited in ages . some of them still active , most 404 errors . well lotsa similarities with life in general , once webpages not updated , no one visits , end of life of the page . Blogs rule thesedays in terms of popularity , people are actually spending more time visiting blogs rather than surfing the web , im always surprised how new things come up n swarm us in totally and then one day , the magic dissapears and then something new comes up . i wonder whats next in line after blogs ???

Another one of my writings

For the last time I saw a light that bright

Right on top of me, lying on a hospital bed so white.

Colored now red, and people around me

Helping me to live in this world of misery.

Let me go I said, I want to go away to see THE light

How many get to see that wonderful nature’s sight

That light so white but still murky like the Milky Way.

What’s beyond the way or within the black hole, no one knows

The more you think, the more the mystery grows.

Then I see it, the spotlight's on me

Time to play the lead role, a million $ celebrity.

I get up and touch this light to experience its brilliance

How could I, I never could when I was on the other side of the fence.

Suddenly the reality hit struck that I’m no more an entity

I pinch myself to feel experience reality, but fail completely.

The white light took everything away

Now that I have seen and felt it this way

Let me reveal you the eternal secret today

All I can say, live life fullest now and everyday.

Ran a Marathon ... Almost :)

Today i ran for the Standard Chartered Marathon Dream Run ( Yeah , Unbelievable but True )
www.mumbaimarathon.indiatimes.com/

7kms [ 2 kms would be dream run , 7 kms uhh oh ;) ] . I wanted to actually run 21 km but none of the friends were into the idea . I should have practised seriously cause its been a really long time since i did something this strenous . 12 of us ran for a good cause as all procceds we have collected will go to NASEOH which is awesome . 20 k runners , it was a different kind of traffic jam :D ... also it was so cool seeing flora fountain , marine drive without cars ... good change .

The race started with everyone running off like it was Pamplona bull run ( WTF ) ... dont know why ??? i , Geetu n PG decided to take it easy and run for short distances and then walk ... others were running like they were trying to make some records or something . it was a dream run , should be in the form of a dream not a nightmare . running , walking , kms going slowly :D ... 1 , 2 , 3 ... when will i see no 7 ... biscuits and lotsa mineral waters down ( he he , eating buiscuits while running , not to be tried at home for personal safety ) , walked the green mile ... i have to say the crowd was awesome ;) and saw all kinds of funny dressed people too ... saw a couple of celebs too.. .not many ran the whole distance i think . 7 kms completed in 1.30 hrs ( sad time but nothing was competetive , it was all fun ) .

Sad part ... We didnt come on TV :( ... i was hoping we would be seen somehwhere on tv but i guess they were too busy catching glimpses of celebs running for a km probably ... ironic isnt it .
Must have lost some weight ( i hope ) but after the race , gained a couple too as lunch was great.
By the time i reached home , i fell on the bed literaly and dozed the hell off for 2 hrs ... got up to this nice pain in the legs ... took one hell of a loong hot shower . ... prolly go late to office tomorow ;) ... off for 2day ...

Tired soul wondering his destiny
for now till eternity
cause its all confusing
anyone for explaining ?

My Passion for Music

I was first introduced to rock music when I was 10 when I heard a screeched out tape of a band called Nirvana and another one of Metallica thanks to this half aussie friend of mine Dirk , and I was hooked from day 1 . One small shop in andheri used to sell tapes 14 years back, we both would chip in to buy tapes of the likes of the 2 above bands and pearl jam which were our favorites. When I was 12, a band called Bon Jovi came to Mumbai at andheri sports complex. I don’t know till this date how I managed to convince my parents to let me go to my 1^st ever “ ROCK SHOW “ and there was no looking back . Those were the days of growing up, rebellious teens belonging to the infamous generation X.

Listening to parikrama , pralaya , psychomotor , agni , Bombay black in the hay days was something . Independence rock at rang bhavan when your 16 is an awesome experience. Touched a guitar for the 1^st time when I was 17 and started to strum it on my own and thanks a couple of mates, covering bands in those days was close to impossible with no tabs sheets as internet was just in and damm expensive, I remember my first song I did was Strings – Sar ke Yeh Pahar , arguably one of the earliest local rock band video and that to from Pakistan .Did that on my friends guitar , at that time I didn’t own one as it wasn’t cheap thosedays . After an unsuccessful and a real bad experience of forming a band , I gave up ( I matured like anything thanks to my 1^st band , taught me a lot about management at 17 ) … late 90’s , my influences grew thanks to MTV to listen to megadeth , slayer and pantera n so many others , that too when there were no cd’s , no mp3’s , only tapes and some friend of mine whose father used to get vinyls from chor bazaar . In many ways, mtv of those days was much better than any damm channel now and had a huge influence. Also my parents were very supportive , never questioned what is this “ loud shouting” u listening to , u want to b a musician kya stuff , mostly cause of my dad as he used to listen to elvis , bee gees when he was in college in xaviers Calcutta so he understood , mom still is a bit apprehensive but its all cool .

Then came 10^th and 12^th , time to decide about careers , lost touch with guitaring , band split , and a time in college when every soul around you listened to stuff I could never listen to . So there was always this problem of fitting in and “what’s wrong with u dude, why u dressed in black t shirt blue jeans, do you do drugs, why you keep long hair blah blah.

Those days, drugs usage was so rampant that I remember behind NMIMS, the lane would be filled with cars with dopers. It was very easy to get hooked on to these things, but thank god, I never tried it. I saw how it destroyed people, friends, friendships, people who were great in school dropping out of college and never to hear from them again and the worst when I lost a friend as he overdosed and he died in front of my eyes in the hospital , never touched booze or any other stuff since then ( God Bless u Dude , wherever u are ) .

Razz the disc here , started allowing bands to play on Sunday nights around 1998 . we would have 1 show like in 2 months and I wouldn’t miss it for anything . I have seen so many Indian bands, I have lost count . Some great , some not so good . , some out n out real shit. Then came the pop revolution and remixes . Indian rock n metal suffered even more than before. a time came when we had no shows , no news about bands , only I Rock once a year thanks to farhad wadia , and then u had morons not knowing a , b or c of rock n metal coming to the shows and cheering and dancing when someone played a heavy metal cover , I thought its an end of an era . Let me tell you , metallica was so damm close to coming to Mumbai , we all were thrilled , but in the end it was the shiv sena who never allowed them . I heard the band was like a month away from coming here but it never happened alas .

Then an unknown band called PDV ( Pin Drop Violence ) came at IROCK and blew everyone away . For the 1^st time, someone covered slipknot. Rockers were left stunned, me too. I couldn’t believe my ears what I was listening to. A revolution began in Mumbai, bands started coming up out of nowhere, Gigpad.com and rsjonline.com came up on the net for fans to discuss about the scene, shows started happening regularly. Soon things moved out towards other parts of the country and bands from Calcutta, banglore came down to Mumbai to perform. Still an album, sponsorships was a dream for many. A Day job at offices and rockers by night was and still is for all of us. We formed like a community meeting up at shows, bonds stronger than friendship trust me . .PDV album came out in 04 followed by some great albums from the metal bands, compilations and a couple of days back, saw a video of PDV and I was like …. Things are improving for the good or is it so?

The current generation doesn’t seem that enthusiastic about rock and metal music . All I see at shows is guys n some girls like me who know what this thing is all about and have been quite regular and keeping the thing alive . I don’t blame them in a way cause they don’t see or hear rock n metal on TV ( we had MTV in the 90’s) , Radio ( 107.1 fm did have shows in the 90’s in the night ) and all they see n hear is pop , bollywood and SRK n Priety zinta wannabe’s ( she is hot by the way J , so was Janis Joplin , ever heard her ? ) . Rarely do I see a 16 / 18 yr old coming to shows with the passion of rock music .Its all about pop, remixes, half naked chicks in music videos which everyone is into. The whole rock n metal scene in India will have a hard time in the coming years if this new generation or the coming ones fail to accept it. As for me and people who I know since I was 16 visiting shows, encouraging bands to do their shit, we will hopefully stay loyal for years to come and in our 30’s still go to shows like we do now and yes after some years probably let our kids listen to metallica, nirvana, slipknot, PDV, Demonic resurrection and do their own thing and keep the whole thing alive for years to come.

Rock on \_/

Sunday Spent in the Best Possible Way

A loong day literally ... began at 5 am , yeah fuckin 5 in the mornin , has been ages since i got up this early as on weekends i sleep around at 3 / 4 am .

I and the PG gang ( www.pagalguy.com/cat ) had this medical camp to attend at Mhasa , lets say a long way away from my place . Met up with Raj at 5.45 to catch a train upto dadar and then dadar to kalyan . After meeting up with rest of the gang and early morning chai nashta n meetha ( listening sowmya ) , headed off for Mhasa . The whole jeep ride reminded of me college days picnics and biker rides at manori islands some years back ( those were the days :D ) . quarter , half asleep gang reached there and the activities began . Basically , it was camp where villagers n their family members came for checkups of members who had some kind of physical disabilty . Since we were > 10 volunteers , work was distributed . around 150 patients landed up ... mostly children . it was very touching to see them still smiling and their family members having the patience to sit all day for their turn . I had seen such similar scenes when in college i n my colleagues used to do some hospital management , meeting up with disabled patients , guiding them around , so it was ok for me . lunch was great and yeah , sitting on the ground and using hands to have chawal dal was cool .

NASEOH ( www.naseoh.org ) and Rotaract club had organised the whole thing free of charge for the people which was great .

Typing now somehwere in la la land after a 15 hr day , let me tell you it was worth every minute . These are days which u will remember when we grow older n remember some good worthwile stuff we did when we were younger ;) ( apart from some great hell raisers :evil: ) Pics would be up in a couple of days , will post .then . Monday morning , back to work and screwed up routine
zzz .zzzz Going going gone asleep zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

PS : I have cut my hair , yes yes sold out guys ... but had to ... u know ...

My Writings

One of my hobbies is to write my own poems . Earlier in college when i had free time , i would just pick a pen and write n write . Nowdays i just write here and there , whenevr i get the time . some of my stuff is nice , some of it highly explicit and weird ( not recoomended for the weak hearted ) , maybe ill put up those lets see , as for now this one i wrote some years back , its a good one i think ...

I had opened my eyes sometime back , to this world unknowing

Everything around me was a world always glowing

Trashing my hands , tried to move

Unsuccessful attempts but I could not loose

I tried and tried , hard with all my might

Like a shell on a beach , with waves thrashing day and night

I could see the world around me moving

I knew something big was about to happen , I had this gut feeling

Somebody was trying to steal me , from my beautiful place a high ceiling

As time passed by , I felt a pain

So strong it was , I cried in vain

But my voice no one heard , I was alone of course

Suddenly I was pushed with this unknown force ,

Telling me to free myself , separate from the source

I tried to resist , I loved my place

It’s been such a long time in heaven thanks to god’s grace

But the force was mightier than anything I had felt before

I knew it was time to move to a new place for sure

Then it happened , I had moved to somewhere new

I was In this new place , the air was cool , strongly it blew

I felt the warmth of these two hands

Guiding me , holding me like a cactus on desert land

It was an out of body experience , suddenly I felt like a king

I got confused , I was just thrown out from my castle on the hill

I took my royal bath and patted by a soft cloth of linen

I knew I was the centre of attention , glaring eyes smiling at me

I was still crying , maybe my subjects laughing at my misery

I then felt this heavenly touch , on my cheek

It was this soft lips of an angel sent from above

I cried no more and saw who it was

The angel is my mother of course

Happy Birthday Mom , ur the greatest . Love you .


1 great link i found related to relief work for the tsunami victims ishttp://tri.htmlplanet.com/ ... u can follow the link to find out how can you help DIRECTLY if you are still confused wether ur funds will reach where required .

Here's a pic of my niece , welcome to planet earth :)http://community.webshots.com/photo/244154839/244160485WdodxW

Great day .

Also a Rock concert is arranged for the 6th ( great work guys , rock on forever ) and all proceeds from the show will be sent for the tsunami victims , be there ( go rakshit dude , rock the fuck out of razz this time )
http://www.gigpad.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=456

Blog Squad

WTF am i doing here . yesss , started blogging or atleast an attempt at it . I had thought about this in 2004 and thought lets give it a try in 05 , so here i am . Well im no expert in html and stuff , so lets see how i change the look of this page . Will try to look up on the net abt HTML etc etc n lets see if i can make this into 1 dhaasu page.

Hoping 2005 will b better than 2004 ( numerology says so , im no ****in expert , 2 +5 = 7 ... lucky 7 ) , 04 was quite bad with the war n then natural disaster . biggest issue with such situations is that the long term effects are going to be tremendous n thats where the problem arises when the world community FORGETS abt it . The earthquake in iran led to similar outpour of funds initially but in the end only 15% of pledged amount was gioven to Iran . was this due to Iran being a " Evil " state ? or was this just like any other issue , no body wants to b involved long term with such issues . US raised its pledge from 35 to 350 million , was this only after Annan n his chief associate said that developed countries r stingy and that too before any 1 from US admin doing a survey of the whole region . Hmmmmmmm
Indian response has been good but again the problem arises with co-ordianted channel distribution mismangement . Like they say , Indians have a big heart and donate for those who need it , but these situations demand more proper ground research n them implementation of the findings to help the people . Rahul Bose doing this in A n N islands speaks volume of commitment but where are the government officials for such kind of research with over a week already gone . Lets hope things will improve n the relief effort becomes more organized .