Indian search engine

A New search engine for the indian community - guruji.com, but what is different about it? For one, I found a really very interesting site about bangalore in the first page of the result. The question however is how long will this site hold against the likes of Google. The site looks and feels very much like Google's simple UI.

Swarm Consciousness

I am not a complete believer of telepathy nor am I a non-believer. I think we have a collective consciousness as humans. This swarm consciousness is most concentrated where people mostly knowledge workers tend to think a lot. This consciousness also learns and evolves because of the evolution of the individual consciousness. I am not trying to say that this is a sort of super collection of memes. If it was, then there would be some form of communication required to pass it. I am trying to put a word around - "multiple people from different places inventing the same thing independently" - sorta thing. There must be a channel of communication know to our subconscious minds to communicate with other subconscious minds (may be memes at subconscious level). I guess if we can dwell deeper into ourselves, we might see the subconscious in action and then we might be able to access this channel.

On a different note, I saw three different companies take off with the name sounding "indigo" independently.

Laid off

I was laid off from my company today. A company where I spent the most of my precious years, now let me go. Why I call these years precious is just for the reason that they were almost risk free. Would I do something else, given another chance, may not be, but I sure will be careful before I take the step.

The layoff is not all that bad. This was something that I guess had to happen. Guy Kawasaki has an article about layoffs on his blog and I wish the guys in the top management read about it.

This has been one heck of a ride. I have to thank Sridhar for such an unforgettable experience. Having been a part of this family for six years as a co-founder and Principal Software Engineer, I am feeling real sad today having to leave. I wouldnt trade this journey for the world.

The funny side of this is that I went through the day not knowing that it was my last day. I was told that it was, almost at 10 P.M my time, which is the morning in California - problems with the global office!

Now I guess I should do what Joe Kraus says - Pot plants.

Startups and Daughters

As an enterpreneur you should definitely not be emotionally bound to any single project. They are like daughters who go away getting married. Its good that they leave. However you never forget them and you take all the care to raise them.

Two articles which sum up the discussion about funding and ways of funding for a startup -

"Whether to grow slowly, organically, and profitably, or whether to have a big bang with very fast growth and lots of capital." - Joel Spolsky

"Venture funding works like gears. A typical startup goes through several rounds of funding, and at each round you want to take just enough money to reach the speed where you can shift into the next gear." - Paul Graham

I am noting them down here for a later reference. I know about Google's notebook and I really like it, but these articles are worth more than a note.

India's Shashti Poorthi

Two things that bother me on the eve of this 60th year of Indian Independence.

First, a country with such diversity (a wonderfully written article by Dasarathi describes it in such beauty) has been plagued by reservations which divides the nation like the British did.

Second, our lack of innovation for our own people and the extent of dependence of Indians of things that are foreign. We cant think for ourselves and that's a pity for people who were considered really brainy.

The speech that was made on that day should not remain as just a speech. I have been reading "Discovery of India" and I dont like the conclusions that are drawn by Nehru. History is not about conclusions. When they are included by the author, it assumes an authentic form which people will believe as the reality, whereas it is just another perception.

And one thing that I am really hoping that will save this country is the youth, the current generation. They just have to take control of their own destiny.

Mt.Hamilton

Raghavan sent me this snapshot of Sandeep, himself and myself on Mt.Hamilton in 2001, I guess. How much I loved to trek and get into the wild side. Now that I am in Bangalore, its tough to find any kind of vegetation except in places like IISc or Lalbagh. Unable to breath in this place anymore.

Rang De Basanti

Watched "Rang de basanti". It really turned on its head half way through and got me all excited. This is going into my list of "must-own" movies.

http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/IAF/Info/Aircraft/MiG-Prodyut.html

The less you pay respect to quality, the more it will bite you. Life without reverence to quality is worse than that of animals. Compromising and accepting things of less quality is one example. I guess this is one thing we as indians need to learn, i.e. not compromising on quality be it at the giving or receiver's end.

Reservation policy

There has been so much of opposition and strikes against the reservation policy. I donot understand how somebody who belongs to these categories can accept such reservation policy.

Wouldnt it mean that they are not talented enough to fight for a seat through their sheer merit. They should be not wanting such a scheme which belittles them and discriminates them. This shows that they are themselves ok with this kind of discrimination against them. They should stop blaming others.

Madappaiah, My GGPa

For the purposes of posterity I am putting these "facts" down here. The validity of some of these have to be verified. This is more of a legend at present.

Krishnaiah built the "Nela Mane" (the first/initial/source house). He had three sons - Keshava, Madhava, Govinda. Madhappaiah (Madhava) is my great grand father. Madhappaiah had two wives. The first wife (name unknown) gave birth to sons Anand Rao and Narasinga Rao (the person responsible for bringing sons of Madappaiah to Kakinada). Anand Rao has a son Vyasa Rao and Narasinga Rao has four sons - Rajgopal, Chandrashekar, Ramachandra and Anand Rao (II).

Madappaiah's second wife, my GG Ma's name is Padmavati who gave birth to four sons Ramakrishnaiah, Srinivasa Rao, Lashmi Narayana Rao, Seetharama Rao. Ramakrishnaiah was the eldest of them.


The ancestral home and property were built by GG Pa at around 1890. He was the "Seneyaru" at the Adamar matha in Yermal. (My dad says Uchila and a great part of Padubidri as well). What this means is that he was like a civil court taking care of issues that pertained to land, family fueds and overseeing the maintainance of Adamar matha. Its been said that quite a bit of land that belongs to the family has been gifted by the matha. A boulder on the beach towards padubidri represents his jurisdiction. (Photo of the boulder coming here). This boulder is even named after my GGPa.

The other three sons (Seetharaama, Srinivasa, Lakshmi Narayana), left home at Yermal in search of work and prosperity. They settled in coastal Andhra Pradesh in and around Kakinada. They established restaurants serving Udupi style cooking and are doing well. They gave all the powers on the ancestral land to their eldest brother.