Bangalore: Severe Dust Pollution

Bangalore was known for parks, flowers and pollens and its ashthamatic effect. Now, nobody worries about pollens anymore; huge dust cover across the city has taken over. Certain areas in the city has become completely unlivable but life still goes on. People walk on roads with dust cover, eat street food, take their small kids and stay there. Not sure how much damage to their lungs have already happened.

Across entire Outer Ring Road, there is endless flyover and subway construction. These constructions are being carried by corrupt and unprofessional builders without any responsibility, credentials or sensitivity. Result, a six months project stretches to 3 years, endless traffic jams, huge dust creation and absolutely zero accountability. It becomes very painful to witness 1000 vehicles in jam under a flyover undergoing construction, and not more than 2 people working on building it. These builders just dont give a damn.

And people have patience to remain stuck in jam everyday for 2 hrs, suffer in extreme dust surroundings and see the debris created by construction; but not even a single voice raised. Surprising ! We have just come to accept that nothing will change and accepted it as destiny.

Unfortunately, people have bought expensive flats in such areas and simply dont know what to do. They have to live there with small kids inhaling dust filled air round the clock. Tragic !

Constructions are necessary and they do happen around the world but there is governance, method and process to it. It doesn't happen in haphazard, messy and endless way. In developed world, sometimes you wont even feel that construction is happening in the vicinity, such care is taken to avoid any impact on people and their quality of living.

Apartments, Flyovers, Metro construction and complete lack of governance has made this city heavily infected with alarming level of dust. Either find a secluded area or give this place a skip.

Project Management Deficiet

The world is facing real Project Managers' supply deficiet. There are lot of PMPs and Prince2 certified professionals claiming to be PMs but don't even know the basics of project management. Result, unneccessary delays in projects all over the world.

Planning is not an inherent human trait, we are very random and unorganized animals; its not inculcated in our DNA. The examples of price that we pay for want of it  shows everywhere- delayed bank work, missed grocery items, unpaid utility bills, missed flights and endless complain about lack of time. The price that we pay in business for lack of planning though is severe, sometimes changes the fortune of the company.

In business, domain expertise is important to became a good project manager. Someone from brick-and-mortar industry won't be able to run an IT project and vice versa. A good project manager can really make a complex project look simple with efficient delegation of task and rigorous tracking. And a bad PM can make a even a simple project look complicated, they are project damagers, and they are omnipresent.

Industry has not yet realized the importance of having a good PM, they are selected randomly and the general perception is that anybody can do this job. Billion dollar worth projects miss their deadlines and enterprises bleed in expensive interest just because the entire thing was poorly planned and managed. Examples of delayed infrastructure projects are everywhere and if its public structures like flyovers, roads or bridges, the endless construction causes lot of pain as well.

Its high time organizations understood the true value of having a good PM and start spending time in training and building PM competency. Nobody wants the PM as the week link, because if that happens, then there is zero chance of success for the project.

Luck- Biggest Success Factor

You see lot of undeserving people doing so very well in life and start to wonder whether all these talk about hardwork, sincerity, creativity and talent holds any relevance. Frequently one sees a brilliant employee, a talented singer and great artist losing out to an average but lucky guy.

No one knows what works in this world; talent is definitely not the guarantee for success. Everything is based on people's perception; an average guy skills may be percieved superior. Sometimes I feel people do not want great work, they dont understand it and feel intimidated and insecure by it. Average becomes good because people can identify and relate with it.

There are filmstars with zero acting talent having bank balance of $100m, singers who can barely sing having millions of followers and sportsmen with lesser talent rated and paid very highly. Luck matters the most. I don't think the maxim 'harder you work, luckier you get' works all the time especially in comparative study.

One needs to be born with luck. There are people who took things casually and they were always at the right place at the right time and made it big without any planning. Life is beautiful for them. While there are others who worked hard and planned well but still struggled in life. Life is tough for them.

Unfortunately Luck can't be bought or learned; either you have it or not. If you are the unfortunate one, being the second best (sometimes last) will always be your best.

Big Data Analytics - Mapping humans behavioural DNA

Yesteryears, companies found it very difficult to learn about the buying habits, desires, likes and wishes of customers. A large country with diverse population and economic levels pose even larger problem in identifying the prospective customer. Result, large marketing budget with unsure outcome.

The web has changed the game by  becoming the single largest channel of human expression. Internet has become an important utility for humans for networking, ecommerce, explicit expression and information gathering. In the process, humans are leaving a big internet footprint, which says a lot about their charecteristics, desires, buying habits, likes and wishes. Something which product companies will be greatly interested in.

The more people interact with and spent time on Internet, more footprints can be generated and then analysed for insights. Web 2.0 and social networking like facebook, twitter and youtube are ensuring that people are spending greater amount of time regularly on the web and thus divulging more about themselves as a consumer.

Moreover, technology has made it easier to create various kinds of digital data easily and make it available on the web. Camera enabled phones & PCs, tablets and rapidly increasing bandwidth are facilitating creation and distribution of textual, photo and video data.

All this information on the web in structured and unstructured form- email, blog, tweets, facebook messages, videos, et al - are creating a massive data deluge. We're talking in terms of petabytes. And these are gold mines of information waiting there to be analysed.

One can build a complex algorithm and try to make sense out of this data historically or one can go a step further and provide real time analytics so that prospective customer can be gotton hold of at the moment when he is researching on buying something and is about to take a call.

Big Data anaytics also helps in gathering choices, opinions, problems and other traits of a specific demographic.

Investment in Big Data realtime analytics will rise in leaps and bounds. The benefits are many in terms of understanding humans as a consumer, employee and a citizen and then using this insights to make a productive decision.

Chakravyuh Movie Review

Prakash Jha has done it again; has come up with really intriguing movie on naxalism. I was very disappointed with Aarakshan, he messed it up big time with lack of sincerity. This time his movie has a good subject, a tight storyline, good screenplay and perfect treatment.

Naxalism has now infected almost the entire country and nobody is benefiting from the mindless violence. The fight for land has taken a different meaning over the years. It started with revolt against the landowners, the zamindars, the uppercaste people owning vast tracts of land. Now it has spread to the tribal belt, where politicians and industrialists, are trying to snatch their land for minerals and hence the resistance. The film depicts the reality, where tribals and poor people, living in vicinity of mining company or mineral industry are suffering while the industrialists are minting money in billions.

In India land comes at a premium and with new found development stakes have gotten even higher. In some areas, the prices have gone up by 1000 times and land is the easiest way to earn tons of money; fool the poor guy, snatch his ancestor land at meagre price and then sell it at a premium.

Corruption in this country is the root cause of almost all the evils. It directly affects the governance and the result is poor not able to rise economically even after 65 years of independence. And now they are getting frustated with the system and its reflecting in spate of violent uprising.

Jha's film shows both sides of story, innocent policemen getting killed and innocent tribals being exploited and leaves the judgement to the audience. The film is shot in authentic outdoor locales in tribal belts which adds to the reality.

Hats off to Jha for coming up with such well made thought provoking film. And somebody please bring sanity to the governance, every evil and problems in this country are result of its deficiet.

Barfi Movie Review - Piece of Art

I just went through the emotional ride of 'Barfi' and it was really satisfying. Bollywood has definitely come a long way and I think its getting ready to compete with the best in the world. Cinematography, editing, screenplay, background music and acting - this film excels in all departments. 

Its a story of a deaf and dumb, extremely lovable guy, Ranbir Kapoor and his love story. It was quite a challenge for the director to make a commercial film with such a protagonist. Comedy, tight screenplay and excellent production made the film look very commercial and yet soulful.

Its a Ranbir Kapoor film and I give him 10/10. I dont think anyone could have done any better. Not a word said and he still made so much impact. He is brilliant, he is perfect, really amazing to see the kind of talent he possess. No wonder even an engaged woman and a mentally challenged girl fell in love with him in the movie.

The only sore point for me was Priyanka Chopra's acting- sucked big time. PC is riding her luck since last 10 yrs and like SRK just forces herself to the audience. Its high time the industry bid farewell to this ageing actress. Just one expression in the entire movie, Sridevi of Sadma was greatly missed here. Fortunately she had very less scenes and the director used lot of camera tricks trying to make her acting look palatable with good success.

Anurag Basu has made this movie with lot of soul, freshness and energy. Each frame is a piece of art and the hard work of his entire team shows. I will be surprised if the movie doesn't sweep awards this year. Pritam background score is world class, the film with this subject would have failed without it.

Excellent movie, a must watch and will definitely inspire directors to attempt something fresh. This movie must be sent to global film festivals to showcase Indian talent. 

Wonder la Amusement Theme Park, Bangalore

** Checkout the six HD videos of Wonder la amusement park embedded in the blog **

Monsoon gave a skip to Bangalore this year, just clouds and wind but no trace of rains. I decided to try Wonder la amusement park, and play with water the whole day.

I took my car and a friend and in no time I was at toll gate of NICE (Bangalore-Mysore Expressway -Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprises Ltd) road near Electronics city. Paid Rs 80/- toll (hefty) and started my journey towards Wonder la, which is around 30 kms. The expressway is wide and smooth but doesn't go all the way to Mysore yet. We covered the distance in 3/4 hr flat ( tested my car at 180 kmph on the expressway).

It was Saturday and I was aware that its going to be crowded. First glimpse of Wonder la was people everywhere and the demographic 10-25 yrs around 80%. There is ample parking space (no fee) and the surroundings are neat and clean. There is an ATM and a snacks restaurant outside - it was only 10.30 am, so we spent the time having snacks and strolling outside. [there is a restaurant inside as well and water bottles are allowed]

There are more than 1/2 a dozen ticket counters, well manned and managed. Took our tickets paying Rs 730/- per head and entered into the campus. At the ticket counter, do not forget to buy the Valet. Valet is a wrist-watch type electronic swipe-able  thing which can be wore on the wrist, substitute for cash to be used at various food counters.  So one doesn't need to carry purse and cash and ruin the trip with fear of losing it; it comes with various denominations with service charge of Rs 20/-. So pay Rs 500/-, they will give you the valet, use  it for various food items and in the end return back at the ticket counter, they will refund whatever is left deducting Rs 20/- as service charge.

There is a very big locker building near the entrance. One has to pay Rs 500/-to secure a big locker( three sizes). On returning the key, they will refund the amount deducting a service fee of Rs 50/-. The locker key has a band and can be wore on the wrist, no chance of losing in the water. Do remember to keep the Receipt in the locker itself, its required to get the refund (I lost mine but the lady at the counter was considerate).
                      Besides thousand of lockers, the building has toilets and showers in adjoining area. Women and Men have lockers on separate floors, men in the basement and women in the first floor. If the weather is good, keep your slippers/floaters as well in the locker, if its warm take it with you, as you need to walk on slabs and concrete path.

People generally approach the park with dry rides first, then wet rides and finally the wave pool. On weekend really long queues at each ride. I did the reverse to beat the crowd.

I have experienced the wave pools before in Water World Mumbai, it was really impressive. Wonder la has also architected the wave pool very well. Three different sections, really wide, lot of benches to sit and watch, plenty of surveillance guards and a lighthouse as well.
                   The intensity of wave is perfect, if one really wants to experience the aggression, he has to go near the start of the wave. Thats where I spent most of my time and it was amazing, around six feet and relentless, took every ounce of energy out of me.
   
The water looked clean with tolerable amount of chlorine and at comfortable temperature, advisable to keep your mouth above it and go to the pool early before it starts getting dirty. Pool was really crowed btw.

After spending over 1 hr in the pool, we went to rain Disco Dance building. Rain dance happens every 1hr and its really good. Good lighting, lasers and plenty of water showered. People really seem to be enjoying this artificial rain and were dancing like crazy. There is separate area for couples/families and singles.

After rain dance I decided to take the wet rides. There are over 1/2 a dozen wet rides for all kind of hearts- faint to strong. I tried quite a few, not all, Wavy Falls are really sick. Every time you slide down, one has to take the stairs again to reach the starting point. People also spend lot of time in Play Pools, just lazing around and playing with their small kids.

We had lunch at the open restaurant near the wave pool. One can get tandoori chicken items, south indian meal, biryani and some other stuff. Food is okay, fair priced and the place hygienic.

Next we moved towards the dry rides. Since we started in reverse, most of the rides were empty now. We started with the Wonder Splash and Hang Glider and moved on to some crazy high thrill rides. High thrill rides do all kinds of spinning- revolution, rotation, sideways- with varying speeds and height, not for the faint hearted.

After completing the dry rides, it was close to 4 pm in the evening and we said it was enough for the day. Yes, there are some items as well, like musical fountain and documentary, which we gave a skip.

We took our stuff from the locker and claimed the refund, same with valet and started our journey back.

About Wonder la: It is a very well managed park. Courteous and well trained staff, neat and clean surroundings, secure rides and every thing seemed to be in place. A must visit while in Bangalore even though its a bit far. It has everything for all age groups and the money spent is completely worth it.

The entire Wonder la amusement park tour in 20 minutes: