Thursday, December 31, 2009

Idea #53: Be lazy and disinterested..

I have a theory that being lazy and disinterested is not such a bad thing. Currently it's just a vague idea but I intend to develop my thought around it. What are your views on this topic?

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Idea #52: New Year, New Month Resolution..

Instead of having resolutions for the enitre year I have decided to take it one month at a time. So here's my resolution for Jan 2010,

Do's

1. Be regular in Sadhana
2. Excercise regularly
3. Regulate Diet
4. Focus more on work
5. Blog regularly

Dont's

1. No facebook
2. No Twitter
3. No unwanted internet browsing
4. No TV
5. No Newspaper

I will also remember in all humility that ultimately 'Man proposes but God disposes'.

Have a happy 2010

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Sunday, December 27, 2009

Idea #51: Save my beloved country..

Amidst a shameful verdict in a molestation case and an ex DGP’s creepy smile, the death of 30 people due to a poorly constructed bridge that collapsed, riots and violence in Andhra, a shamefully abandoned cricket match due to a poor pitch and the ‘alleged’ sex scandal of a 86 years old governor……India celebrated Christmas and waits with bated breath for the new year….please someone save my beloved country!!

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Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Idea #50: Happy Xmas and New Year..

Here's wishing everyone a glorious and happy new year and xmas.

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Sunday, December 13, 2009

Idea #49: Eventless Aging..

Had this thought just now that as we grow older our life should become more and more eventless.

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Sunday, November 29, 2009

Idea #48: Retreat

Just came back from a retreat at Malampuzha (Kerala). Our ashram's retreat center is right in the middle of a forest area surrounded by hills. I am not too keen on elaborating how my experience was because it will end up being mere words but will recommed retreat as a concept to one and all to be undertaken as often as possible. Some photographs from the trip.


Malampuzha Reservoir as seen from the Retreat Center



The meditation hall at the Retreat Center

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Sunday, November 15, 2009

Idea #47: Change..

Any change that happens naturally from inside is the real and lasting change. My Master also says that only individual changes can bring lasting changes to the society. Of course as I have written in an earlier blog only true love from within and from outside can be the basis of real, lasting and individual changes.

We change for what we love and we change because of what we love.

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Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Idea #46: The Blogger's Block

Going thru a writer's block or a blogger's block in this case. Hope to be back soon with some fresh ideas when the block gives way :)

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Monday, November 2, 2009

Idea #45: As we..

As we pursue the world with all passion and zeal
As we inspire ourselves to seek the transitory
As we give in to the urge to do more
As we do not  feel the need to stop, the world goes on and on.

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Friday, October 30, 2009

Original Quote #1: Lasting Change

Lasting change is the consequence of true love..

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Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Idea #44: Simple Life Tips (from a email forward)

Saw these simple life tips in an email forward. Posting them as a reminder to myself to follow them.

• Look People in the eye while you talk

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

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

• When playing games with children, let them win

• Give people a second chance, but not a third

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

• Keep it simple

• Beware of the person who has nothing to lose

• Don't 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. When you look back on life, you'll regret the things you didn't do more than the one's you did

• Never waste an opportunity to tell someone you love them

• Remember no one makes it alone. Be quick to acknowledge those who helped you

• Take charge of your attitude. Don't let someone else choose it for you

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

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

• Last but not least.........Don't expect life to be fair

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Monday, October 26, 2009

Idea #43: Sugarless but Tasty Nevertheless!

“Sugarless but Tasty Nevertheless” is a concept restaurant specially aimed at people with Diabetes and branded as such. By 2010 India will have close to 60million people with Diabetes and is already the world’s capital for Diabetes.

As we all know Diabetes is largely a lifestyle and diet related disease. Although occurrence of this disease is influenced by genetic factors the control and care is much dependent on change in lifestyle and diet.

Nowadays it’s a trend, a fashion to make sugar free sweets and packed sugar and oil free snacks which are showing up in many retail outlets. These concepts however have not spread effectively to restaurants and eating out at large. Mostly hotels have a selection of salads and soups and some so called healthy food options but mostly it ends up being a sham. Take for example a simple dish like Dal Tadka, the amount of ghee and oil that most tadkas have defeats the purpose of taking Dal which most people assume is healthy because it’s only plain Dal, they just don’t consider the oil content and unfortunately hotels do not provide calorie or other nutrient related information. Same is the case even if you take soups and salads, they end being so rich with cream etc that it defeats the purpose of ordering these dishes.

“Sugarless but Tasty Nevertheless” is new, path breaking concept in restaurants sector. The restaurant promises to use no added sugar, use extremely low quantities of oil and publish calorie and nutrition information for everything that is on the menu which in itself will be developed very scientifically and by a panel of experts, every ingredient is carefully assessed keeping a diabetic in mind.

However, just because the restaurant is focussing on diabetes related diet it will not compromise on the taste. Every dish on the menu will be tasty beyond imagination and people will not feel compromised about the taste. Also the restaurant will cater to regular day to day Indian + popular international dishes and not some obscure exotic dishes. Lastly the dishes will be affordably priced to cater to all strata of the society.

To summarise the USP of “Sugarless but Tasty Nevertheless” will be the following,

• A restaurant chain that is specifically focussed on diet of Diabetic people
• The restaurant will be branded as a restaurant for the diabetic and not in some garb of a health food/nature fresh restaurant
• Will offer regular day to day food but made in very healthy ways and with published information and ratified by experts
• Pricing will be affordable
• While being very healthy the food will not be compromised on taste

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Friday, October 23, 2009

Idea #42: An International Day of Silence

Last weekend I had the opportunity to be with Master in Manapakkam ashram, Chennai. It was the Deewali weekend and we left for Chennai by train on Friday Morning. The Shatabdi Express was very comfortable and we hardly felt the journey as we slept through most of it.

Upon reaching Chennai I always feel at home and especially Manapakkam ashram is very natural and welcoming. The 3 days in the presence of the Master was very rejuvenating with meditation and sleep being the predominant and alternating activities!

Nowadays I realise the value of silence, especially silence of the mind. They say cleanliness is close to godliness, I think the person who said this meant inner cleanliness of the mind and thought and not just external cleanliness of the body. I get this recurring idea that it would perhaps be nice to have an “international day of silence”, a day when people around the world observe silence for 24hours. No talking, No TV, No Music, No Entertainment, No Traffic noise, nothing, just human activity related silence for 24hours.

It’s hard to speculate on what will be the impact of 6billion people observing silence for 24hours but I would imagine that for a change the birds, trees and animals will stand a chance of being heard! You never know, they make have a thing or two to tell us and for once we may be truly ‘listening’ to nature! Any takers?

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Monday, October 12, 2009

Even Dea Picture Question #1

If you were to fill the circle in the below picture with one of the 2 colors (blue or red) which one would you fill it with?



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What does this mean #2

Pushpa mala prasangena sutram shirasi dharyatey..

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What does this mean #1

Alone but not lonely!

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Thursday, October 8, 2009

Idea #39- Triview- Taking Chance (2009)

“Taking Chance” is a wonderfully sensitive movie. Wish the world was filled with people who are as sensitive as the characters shown in the movie.

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Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Idea #38: dydi

“dydi” (stands for ‘did you do it’) is a social activity tool + game. It’s a random activity generator for individuals and social groups. Here’s how it works,

1. The user needs to sign up with ‘dydi’ and during registration provide lots of specific inputs about interests, daily activities, passions, goals, swot analysis etc

2. User need may or may not create social groups by adding other users

3. Based on the profile details + details of others within the social group + a certain amount of randomness + calendar details of the user and others in the profile, ‘dydi’ will assign ‘specific/pointless/fun/profound/etc etc types of activities to the user or the user can ask ‘dydi’ to assign activities to others within the social group

4. Activities can be for the min/hr/day/week

5. The receiver of these activities will complete the activity, submit a summary and earn points. The points can be used by the groups or the individual user to gift goodies to one another

6. The activities could be anything and is generated by ‘dydi’. Users cannot create their own activities but can create activities for other but has to be submitted to ‘dydi’ which will schedule/assign to the intended user

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Friday, October 2, 2009

Idea #37: Triview- Awakenings

Awakenings, awakens you to the value of simple things that we take for granted. Robert De Niro and Julie Kavner are touching and real. Don’t miss if you haven’t seen it yet.

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Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Idea #36: Science and Spirituality

Eventually I believe that we will get to a stage where Science and Spirituality are an extension of each other and will not be in conflict with each other. Hence the title of this post is ‘Science and Spirituality’ and not ‘Science vs. Spirituality’.

Today however the situation is different. The two are at loggerheads with each claiming superior positions over the other. It’s becoming another manifestation of human ego and nothing more. There is in fact an urgent need for both these communities to come together and find common ground to work with. In fact I am of firm conviction that only when everyone adopts a ‘moderate’ measure of science and spirituality, will lasting peace and prosperity be created in human society. Hence it’s imperative that these communities should become more and more open minded and embrace each other instead of colluding against each other.

To me science and spirituality are two sides of the same coin. The interesting thing about two sides of a coin is that the sides always look away from each other and never converge at any point, but the fact remains that they are inseparable and incomplete without each other. Similar is situation with science and spirituality.

The starting point of both science and spirituality is ‘observation’. The simple difference is that science “investigates the observed entity” but spirituality “merely observes”. It’s just different approaches and not conflicting approaches. There is no need to claim that one approach is correct/better than the other. What is perhaps more important is that both entities need to recognise this difference and be it the way it is.

While science as a field is broadly well understood and well documented spirituality I may dare say is like the theory of relativity, everyone talks about it but very few understand it.

Spirituality is very often confused with religion. It has in fact nothing, absolutely nothing to do with religion. Religion is about traditions, rituals and belief systems in a very personalised and restricted way. In fact when I think of it now its not surprising that few people understand spirituality because there is absolutely nothing to ‘understand’ in spirituality.

Spirituality actually treads the same path as Science in the sense that Spirituality is also about observation. But this is where the similarity ends and all the confusion and conflict between the two begin.

While science investigates whatever it is observing, spirituality merely observes. Spiritual observation is total and detached. Something is observed because it’s there to be observed, nothing more or nothing less. It doesn’t deal with why, what, how and all the maze of questions that science deals with.

There is one little nuance here though. The spiritual observation leads to revelation of knowledge of what is being observed. It’s as though there is perfect synchronization between the observer’s mind and the observed entity and knowledge flows seamlessly. Again it’s a fallacy to give this kind of spiritual revelation a religious texture and dramatise it with images of gods and beams of light and all that imagery that comes to mind when we think of revelations. Spiritual revelation is a natural, effortless and happens only between the observer and the observed. No flashes of light, no drama and no nonsense.

This is why it’s impossible to ‘prove’ spirituality and spiritual experiences in the ways of science through formulas, equations and logic because the observer is not consciously seeking an understanding of what is being observed but that knowledge is just transmitted as an experience to the observer.

In this context I believe that all major scientific breakthroughs were moments of such revelations. The statement may seem untrue at the outset because you may argue that Netwon arrived at the idea of gravity only when he questioned the fall of the Apple with a ‘why’?

But why did Netwon question only that Apple’s fall, in all probability he would have seen other things falling earlier and staying where it had fallen without flying away! It’s precisely because in those other instances he did not observe and only deep observation precedes knowledge….irrespective of whether it is followed up with question or not.

Well, this is what I think is the truth behind science and spirituality. I will be happy to hear your views.

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Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Idea #35: The Future of Homo Sapiens

Predicting future is always a tricky thing. Mostly we get it wrong and we either sound foolish or pompous in the process, yet it’s intriguing and never ceases to draw our imagination.

Human beings have evolved and developed into what we are today over only a mere 500,000years (if we were to start with early Homo sapiens) .While 500,000years may seem a lot it’s only a speck in the context of overall age of planet earth (around 400,000,0000years)and even smaller compared to the age of the universe(1400,000,0000years). Yet if we were to meet an early Homo sapien today on the streets of a cosmopolitan city like, let’s say New York, most people would think that it’s some chimpanzee that has escaped from the zoo. No one will believe that it’s actually the same us about 500,000years ago. The point being that evolution while being a slow process, changes everything and slowly the original form become unrecognisable and distinct.

So undeniable is the fact that human beings will continue to evolve anatomically and perhaps in other ways too. It’s only anybody’s guess how we will be in the future. With this as the context I am adding my bit to the world of predictions. These predictions are about how human beings will evolve as a species, largely in terms of biological factors. I can’t fix a time frame on when these changes will happen because I am guessing that these changes will occur through natural evolutionary processes of mutation and subsequent anatomical changes.

So here it goes the grand future of Homo sapiens. In the future,

• Human beings will develop the ability to communicate clearly across any distances just through thought (no devices, no embedded microchips, and no electronics...just thoughts)

• Sleep will be an active process, in the sense that we will be very aware/conscious of the entire sleeping duration but this form of sleep will be much more rejuvenating for the body and mind

• We will lose our ability to identify or distinguish colour but our monochromic vision will become much sharper

• Human beings will stop consuming food and we will survive only on air/breath

• The normal human life span will reduce to 25years. Around 21 years will what will be considered as the start of old age

What is your prediction of our future?

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Monday, September 28, 2009

Idea #34: Life's Wisdom in Human Anatomy!

The human body is the way it is for more than one reason. It appears that in every physical attribute there is something metaphysical/profound being communicated,

1. Fact: Human species is only one amongst 1,600,000 ‘identified’ species of life on this earth
   
Inference: You are free think that you are indispensable, fact is, you are not

2. Fact: The Human tongue is the strongest muscle in the Human body
   
Inference: Best evidence that we human beings talk and eat too much

3. Fact: The human body is vertically symmetrical
   
Inference: A great metaphor of the need for balance between materialism and spiritualism

4. Fact: The anatomy of the human body is designed to be herbivorous (not even omnivorous)
   
Inference: Go vegetarian, Be natural

5. Fact: No two human finger prints are the same
   
Inference: There is a ‘natural’ place and purpose for everybody and everything

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Sunday, September 27, 2009

Idea #33: Dosa and Phad Thai Outings

Today I ate at 2 of my (used to be until now) favourite eat outs and was utterly disappointed and dismayed with the deterioration in quality of the food and general standards of these 2 places.

First was morning breakfast at Vidyarthi Bhavan. Personally I abhor people who say anything against the Vidyarthi Bhavan Dosa, it’s a sacrilege in my dictionary. Such is my devotion to the legendary Dosa that they have been dishing out since several decades.

But alas today even I was dismayed by the steep decline in taste and quality. The chutney had become little sour, there was hardly any salt in it and portions of the Dosa was under cooked. Vidyarthi Bhavan has never been known for its idli but today’s idli was especially bad, the coffee was too sweet and the poori crumbled like a papad. It was bad, bad and bad all the way and I told this to Mr. Adiga’s son who was at the cash counter. He did sound a bit surprised but I was surprised that he was only surprised and not shocked and shaken by the feedback, but I do hope he will take the feedback seriously and do something with it. After all I won’t stop eating at Vidyarthi Bhavan based on today’s experience. Nobody’s perfect and everyone deserves a second chance!

Evening I went along with friends to Magnolia, again a personal favourite amongst the Thai restaurants in Bangalore. But it had been quite a while since I had visited them and in fact they have changed from the original location to a new place in Kormangala. Boy oh Boy, it seemed that with the new location everything has changed. I don’t know if they have got the Vaastu of the kitchen wrong or something but the food was badd, to put it mildly. The coconut milk soup which I used to love seemed like a new being that I could not even recognise. The appetizer, main course and everything else that followed was disappointing one after the other and overall we left pretty disappointed.

I don’t know if I have become a better cook or they have become worst but the two outings today left much to be desired.

Quality, more than anything is about consistency, more so in food business!

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Idea #32: Triview- UP (2009)

UP is hearty, touching and entertaining, could be pepped around the mid way. Young Carl and Russell are so lovable. 2 thumbs UP to Pixar.

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Saturday, September 26, 2009

Idea #31: Pati, Patni and 30 Others

It’s sad state of affairs for the King of the Jungle. Apparently there is no privacy policy in his kingdom. We are about 30 people watching him from 10 feet away while the King was ‘doing it’!

Any guesses about the location?


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Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Idea #30: Triview

“Triview” is a new standard/format of reviews. Reviews can be of anything but is written in a micro blogging format, the entire review of what ever is being reviewed has to be completed within a set number of characters, say 140 (since that appears to the world standard for micro blogging nowadays!)

Movies, Restaurants, Books, Web Services, Shopping experiences etc etc……you can ‘Triview’ anything.

An example of how a ‘Triview’ can be, this one is on the recent movie ‘District9’.

Fresh take on alien movies. Powerful depiction of xenophobia and the role of private corporations. Sharlto Copley outstanding. Don’t miss!

We can also express Triviews through charts, icons and other visual mediym. Crisp, Short and Visual are the keywords of the Triview concept.

Here’s how I would rate ‘District9’ graphically in terms of ‘wowness’ and ‘ouchness’.













What do you think?

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Sunday, September 20, 2009

Idea #29: A Book about Nothing

This is a book with,

• No title
• No content
• Has one question mark in the first page
• And one question mark in the last page
• All pages in between are empty
• There are 31 pages in all in the book
• All sheets are in white color
• The first question mark is in black color
• The last question mark is in white color

You just need to look at one page per day for 15mins and move to the next page on the subsequent day. At the end of 15mins, write down all thoughts that crossed the mind in those 15mins, not in that book but elsewhere.

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Friday, September 18, 2009

Ideas in a Trivia #5: Into the Wild

If you haven’t seen the movie “Into the wild”, please do so at the earliest opportunity. It’s based on a very liberating real life story of Christopher McCandless, a young 24 year old college grad who detests the ways of the society, throws away everything and goes into the wilderness in Alaska. The movie tracks his journey that spanned over 2years before he finally reaches Alaska.

This movie triggered a thought that our academic and growing up years which are really the formative years of a human being should be used to do some interesting, non routine things to expose people to rich experiences that will help us develop a very holistic view of the world around us.

Some things that all of us should probably do before turning 30,

1. Work at least 2 years in the armed forces
2. Stay 6 months absolutely alone cutting off all contacts (preferably in wilderness)
3. Stay 6months with relatives, preferably in a big joint family
4. Learn at least one sport very well
5. Learn at least one art very well (music, painting, magic etc)
6. Work 3 months for a company full time for ‘zero’ pay
7. Live with people who have very contrasting background, nature and outlook
8. Live in a village
9. Learn to cook your own food, wash dishes and clothes
10. Practice Meditation (without attaching any religious context to it)
11. Do part time jobs and earn you own school fee for at least 1yr of school or college
12. Make at least one good friendship (platonic) in the opposite sex
13. Be absolutely silent for one full week every year
14. Make friendship with one elderly person
15. Learn about the government and laws of the land

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Thursday, September 17, 2009

Idea #28: MoDiv

MoDiv is mobile convergence device that acts as multiple devices in one single physical entity. MoDiv can do the following for its user,

1. A mobile phone
2. PDA
3. Music player
4. High end professional camera
5. DVD player (has built in projection device that can project video to larger screen area)
6. Gaming Device
7. Credit Card and Debit card (it can act a credit or debits card of multiple banks in one device)
8. House Key
9. Car Key
10. Bike Key
11. Wireless Internet device
12. A full fledged computing/software dev platform (again using projection based large display device)
13. Passport/Visa device
14. Switch to turn on and off electronic devices
15. Basic health check up device (Height, Weight, BP, Sugar, Heart rate, etc)
16. Etc etc

MoDiv is protected through multiple security layers (biometric, password etc).

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Monday, September 14, 2009

Idea #27: I-tag

I-Tag is an I-Phone application. Its primary purpose is to tag phone transactions (Calls, SMS, Email etc), create reports, share information on the social web and observe interesting trends amongst users that could be used as market research information.

Let’s say on an average an individual i-phone user makes or receives about 15 calls and 10 SMS per day. (a conservative guess). This accumulates to around 9000 calls + sms per annum, add around 20emails in a day and the number goes to around 16,000 transactions per annum.

Currently there are around 21milion I-phones that are out there globally. So this translates to around, 3,36,00,00,00,000 I-phone transactions globally per annum.

What if each of these transactions are ‘tagged’, which means after every call or sms, made or received the user tags it, sees reports of the tags, shares it social web and see how other people are tagging there transactions.

Not sure what the nett outcome will be but it may throw up interesting data and trends that could be useful for research.

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Idea #26: Uppu, Tuppa, Anna (Salt, Ghee and Rice)

It seems this was MGR’s favourite dish. If that is really true then he must have been a man of simple but great taste for food.

Uppu, Tuppa, Anna translates to Salt, Ghee and Rice and quite literally these are the only 3 ingredients in this dish (apart from the potato chips which is optional, but in MGR’s version chips was a key ingredient)

Here’s how you prepare this humble dish.

1. Take hot steaming rice

2. Add generous amounts of ghee (couple of table spoons for a plate of rice)

3. Add little salt to taste

4. Crush a handful of fresh store bought potato chips (take the spicy version from any of the hot chips store….not packed ones like ‘lays’ etc) and mix it with the rice

5. Eat when its hot and fresh

And there you have it. One of the simplest and tastiest rice dishes, one that was loved by the most famous Tamil hero.

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Idea #25: Baby Potato Fry- South Indian Style

This is one of my favourite accompaniments with steaming hot rice or freshly made chapattis. The recipe is simple but the taste is exquisite and lasting.

What you will need...

Baby Potatoes, Oil, Mustard Seeds, Split Urad Dal, Red Chilly Powder, Roasted Channa Dal Powder and Salt.

Method

• Boil or pressure cook whole baby potatoes till it is cooked completely (it should retain shape and not become soggy)

• Heat oil for tempering, add mustard and split urad dal

• When the mustard starts to splutter add the baby potatoes and fry them till it gets a crispy brown texture on the outside

• Sprinkle generous quantities of red chilli powder, a small amount of the roasted channa dal powder and salt to taste and fry for another couple of minutes

• Eat it when it’s hot and fresh of the stove with hot rice and ghee

Yummy, Yummy, Yummy…I made this yesterday and the fact that I am still having it on my mind and blogging about it should tell you something about how tasty this dish is!!

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Saturday, September 12, 2009

Idea #24: The Mama-Mami Corporation

The Mama-Mami Catering Corporation is a web service that facilities home based individuals to enter catering services without having a commercial unit or establishment.

Let me play out a scenario to explain what this idea is all about. Let’s say there are 5 bachelor working professionals staying in one house in Bangalore. Typically what would they do for food?

Cook their own food, eat outside in office or restaurant or get hold of home delivery person and get food delivered to their place. Each of these modes has a problem or limitation. Cooking their own food is mostly not preferred and working professional don’t have the time, eating in restaurants over long period of time is not healthy and catering services will supply limited options and one get soon bored of it but cannot be changed on a daily basis.

This is where the Mama-Mami Catering Corporation comes in. Imagine you had a web service where you could the following,

1. Go online to a one stop website

2. Look at dozens of meal options provided by various catering services and individuals

3. Look at user ratings for each of the service providers

4. Book the type of meal and the quantity of meal that you need for that day

5. Pay online

6. Get the food delivered at home or pick up from the provider

7. Customise your meal preferences and ingredient used

8. Etc etc

What is USP of this concept?

The USP here is that you are enabling home based individuals and not just hotels or catering units to participate in this service. Think of a housewife who let’s say is an exceptional cook but is not interested in starting a hotel or a commercial catering unit and wants to earn some money working from home but does have any other skills. This person can just create a profile on the website, create menu for the day, limit the number of food orders that she can take on a given day, take advance food orders etc etc.

No big investments, no major wastage and income sitting at home. Now extend this to other things beyond food. Say someone is good at making sweaters, small jewellery, toys, dresses, packaged food etc etc…basically provide a gamut of services thru the web, sitting a home, no upfront investment and highly flexible….that would be the “Mama-Mami Corporation” and this idea is dedicated to all the wonderful home makers of this world!

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Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Ideas in a Trivia #4: The Gandhi Moments

“Gandhi Moments” are milestones in history often centred on a personality that changed the course of a nation or humanity at large, through peaceful and non violent ways of these personalities but resulted in unfortunate and paradoxical violent end of the personalities themselves.

There are 3 distinct episodes from History that come to my mind when I think of the “Gandhi Moments” of humanity.

The Crucifiction of Jesus, the Christ

Although there is considerably speculation about the factuality of the crucifiction episode most people believe the existence of Jesus and the noble life and ways that he taught. For me personally crucifiction of Jesus was perhaps one of the most painful moments in the history of man kind. But pain always brings out either the best or the worst in us. I think many of the principles of non violence, love and patience that Christianity believes in is hinged on this one moment in Christ’s life. I wonder what would have happened if Jesus took up arms and fought back the Jews and the Romans.

• Mahatma Gandhi’s principles of Satyagraha and Ahimsa

Gandhi’s life can be summarised using his own words, “"There are many causes that I am prepared to die for but no causes that I am prepared to kill for."

It is said that when Angulimala, the dreaded killer who used to wear a garland made of human fingers encountered Gautama Buddha he was perplexed, scared and petrified by the peace and tranquillity that radiated from Buddha’s face. So much so that Angulimala gave up his violent ways instantly and became a monk.

Similar was Gandhi’s love and commitment to non violence that an entire British empire was afraid of him.

• Martin Luther King’s civil right movement and “I have a dream” speech

Martin Luther King changed the course of life for Blacks in America and perhaps the world over. He raised public consciousness of the civil rights movement and created a new generation of human rights activists who core values were non violence and freedom of rights. Martin Luther King indeed change the texture of the 20th century and I hope he has done it irreversibly.

The sad side to all these ‘Gandhi Moments’ was that each of the personalities involved were either crucified or murdered violently.

This aspect is something that still intrigues me. Why is it that the most peace loving, non violent people in this world met with very tragic and violent deaths? Perhaps it’s because we human beings fear or do not understand the idea of peace and universal love. As strange and paradoxical as the idea may seem, that appears to be the only apparent truth.

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Monday, September 7, 2009

Idea #23: Cooking with the Wife- Tips from an Amateur Cook

1. When your wife is cooking, don’t interfere

2. When your wife gives a cooking suggestion, don’t ignore it. They have an uncanny sense of what’s going wrong (and I am not sarcastic here)

3. If your wife messes up a dish, don’t tell her the truth. Being truthful is not a virtue here

4. Over time you will begin to like what your wife cooks, just be patient for the first few years!!

5. Help (not interfere) your wife in the kitchen, it’s the best kept secret of a happy marriage!

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Idea #22: Cooking Basics from an Amateur Cook

1. Cooking is therapeutic and this is a little known secret

2. Too many cooks not only spoil the broth but end up squabbling

3. Every ingredient deserves respect. Dare to ignore the salt and it will show its worth

4. Listen to music while cooking and you will never go wrong

5. If you are happy about what you have cooked then you have not cooked it yourself

6. If you cook with love you will dish out something lovely

7. If you are too eager to cook a particular dish you will inevitably mess it up

8. Don’t compare home food and restaurant food. It’s never the same

9. Most people can cook nowadays, don’t think of yourself as a great cook

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Idea #21: American Corn Sandwich

I am a bit of an amateur cook. Of course my friends laugh at it because I am a vegetarian, have never eaten meat and have never tasted alcohol. They wondered how anyone can claim to know anything about cooking without eating chicken or drinking beer. I remember one incident when I told my friends that I had cooked superb vegetable biryani. Their uncontrollable laughter did not make sense to me till the time they mockingly said, “Vegetarian Biryani? What’s that?”

I was fittingly shown my place and have not ventured to discuss my cooking skills ever since! But anyways I AM an amateur cook and can dish up decent, largely Indian or Indianised, vegetarian food. I like to experiment and create my own dishes and often dream about creating a brand new recipe that will acquire global fame!! (As an aside, did you know that only 6% i.e. about 400million out of 6.6 billion people are vegetarians globally and of the 400million about 300million vegetarians are in India?)

Anyways, a couple of years ago a friend and I created this “American Corn Sandwich” recipe while playing with some ingredients. It turned out to be fantastic and has become a big hit ever since with many friends, relatives and acquaintances. We have dished out dozens of these sandwiches over the last couple of years. Thought I will share the secret but simple recipe with you.

Here’ what you will need.

Sandwich Bread, Frozen or Fresh American Corn, Green Chilli, Red Chilli Powder, Salted Butter, Eggless Mayonnaise, Dried Oregano, Chopped Coriander and salt.

Method

• Boil frozen Corn for few mins till it becomes soft and fresh but not soggy
• Drain out the water
• To this corn add proportionate amounts of all other ingredients except Butter and Bread!!
• Apply butter to both sides of 2 slices of bread and then spread generous amounts of the corn and spices mix over the bread
• Grill this as a sandwich till both side become crispy and golden brown
• You will be eating one of the best ‘vegetarian sandwiches’ and may seriously consider giving up non veg food!!

I will add a photo the next time I make this sandwich. After all a picture speaks a thousand words, isn’t it? Let me know how it turns out if you happen to make it.

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Ideas in a Trivia #3: Soul Soothing Songs..

Some of my favourite soothing songs, I don’t seem to get ever bored with them.

Sri Ramachandra Kripalu



Wey Mein Chori Chori



Bhaja Hu Re Mana



Mharo Pranam



What do you listen to when you are in one these moods?

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Sunday, September 6, 2009

Idea #20- Unique ID or No ID at all?

Today I went along with a few people to see a friend’s site (a piece of land not a website!!) in a ‘gated’ layout. I remember when I first saw this site a few years ago at the time he had purchased it. We could see all corners of the layout standing at any corner and this layout is spread across a good 20 to 30 acres. The place was barely recognizable for me today with dozens and dozens of houses having sprung up in seemingly no time at all. Forget about seeing all the corners I was wondering if even the corners have been used up to construct houses because it seemed like an endless sea of houses of all shapes and dimension. I mean the place was looking so packed that the stark contrast between the images of a peaceful and vast expanse of land that I had in my mind to the change I saw today was hard to digest.

Anyways, my friend has recently put a barbed fence around his site to protect it from trespassers and that was the primary reason for the visit today. We wanted to take a look at how the fencing has been executed.

My earlier memory of this site before the fencing was that of a corner plot situated at the intersection of two roads and has 3 similar sized empty plots adjacent it. I remember the first time I saw this place without the fence and when the overall layout was far emptier I had this major sense of space in my mind. There is something about space and vastness that creates a sense of awe and tranquillity in my mind. Alas, today amidst the clutter of the layout and the barbed fencing of the site I felt something missing, as though the size of the site had shrunk and as though it was feeling pretty caged and lonely. May be the barbed wires were adding to the drama of my thoughts.

Anyways after this visit we returned home and when I was doing my 9pm prayers this thought about the fenced site came back but led me into a different direction. I began to wonder if human mind is a victim of such boundaries that it has created around itself and how these boundaries are limiting its perception and sight of what may be a different reality if the mind had no boundaries at all.

Ultimately the question is about individual identity. The fenced site because of the fencing around itself had successfully created its individual identity but in the process had become limited, small, isolated and somehow felt like a less happy entity. Similarly I feel our individual identities as human beings gives a sense of ‘I’ness, pampers the ego and probably makes us feel great on some occasions and miserable on most other occasions but more than anything identities limit us.

I don’t know how we would feel if we lose this individual identity, but surely it ought to be different but then how would we ever come to know because “I” don’t exist at that stage.

On a lighter note, perhaps Mr. Nilekani should rethink before giving us all a ‘unique ID’ and should instead try and get rid of all identities that exist today. My guess is that the latter is much harder to come by and Mr. Nilekani has chosen the more doable one :)

What do you think?

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Friday, September 4, 2009

Ideas in a Trivia #2- Filmy Protagonists!!

At some level we are all influenced by ‘filmy’ characters in one way or the other. They create subtle but deep impressions in us and often we may find ourselves imitating their ways and thoughts unknowingly. I am not a movie aficionado by any means but do watch my share, thanks to the world of torrents and some kind friends who are generous enough to share the ‘free’ stuff!!

I was thinking this morning about my favourite protagonists from movies and came up with this list of characters that have left strong impressions on my mind. So here it is, my all time favourite protagonist(s) from movies (not in any particular order),

1. Prot from K-PAX
What appeals to me most about ‘Prot’, is the fact that he is in a human form and knows everything about this world yet he is a stranger and everything about our world amazes him

2. Nallasivam and Anbarasu from Anbe Sivam
There cannot be a more contrasting portrayal of human behaviors than Nallasivam and Anbarasu. Also the idea of teaching by conduct not by preaching is very well portrayed

3. Forrest Gump
For his innocence, unthinking obedience and his ultimate love for ‘Jenny’

4. Guna
Kamal Hassan goes overboard in Guna but I guess it required to convey his ‘almost’ divine and deep love for Abhirami

5. Ravi from Kasturi Nivasa
I can’t forget the tragic, melancholious yet unaffected expressions of Dr. Rajkumar in the song ‘adisinodu belisinodu’

6. Tashi from Samsara
My favourite scene in this movie is when Tashi reads a letter from his Master where he asks Tashi, “What is more important: Satisfying one thousand desires or conquering just one...”

7. Davis from 12 Angry Men
For his perseverance, intelligence and keen observations

8. Andy Dufresne from The Shawshank Redemption
His coolness, tenacity and gumption are stuff of legend, one of greatest protagonists of all time

Well, that was my list, at least from what I could recollect. Which movie characters have influenced you the most?

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Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Ideas in a Trivia #1: The Great Mongolian Empire!

I am commencing today a new series that I call “Ideas in a Trivia”. This will run parallel to the current theme of the blog which is around new and fresh ideas for all walks of life.

“The ideas in a Trivia” series will be based on already existing facts, historical incidences and will draw out ideas and lessons that we could use from these facts and trivia. It will be great if you can join my rumblings and add your own!

The first “idea in a trivia” is about the Mongol Empire of the 12th Century AD. Back then the Mongol Empire was,

• The largest contiguous empire ever in history. It was also known as the world empire
• At it’s peak 4 times larger than the Roman empire
• Controlled one fifth of the Earth's total land area
• Was responsible for mass extermination of Persians resulting in a population drop from 2,500,000 to 250,000!!

Well, that was the Mongolian empire then. It must have been a privilege to be a Mongolian in the 12th Century. Let’s see how Mongolia is doing now. Today Mongolia is,

• the 4th most thinly populated country in the world
• 19th in terms of land area
• Ranked 150 on the basis of GDP; 164 in terms of per capita income
• And 106 as in terms life satisfaction and expectancy

Interesting little turn around, don’t you think? So, what’s the point?

Simple actually,

1. All great empires, countries and corporations will inevitably disintegrate into oblivion if they lack continuous, consistent and compassionate leadership

2. There is a certain amount of certainty in the collapse of today’s great powers. It’s not a matter of ‘if’ but ‘when’

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Monday, August 31, 2009

Ideas #19: Learn Chinese, Talk German

This is an idea for all the HRD and Education ministers of the world. As per Wikipedia, following are the major 10 spoken languages, based on the number of native speakers:

Language                 Encarta estimate
Mandarin                 1,210,000,000
Hindi/Urdu                366,000,000
English                        341,000,000
Spanish                       322,200,000
Arabic                         422,039,637
Bengali                        207,000,000
Portuguese                176,000,000
Russian                       167,000,000
Japanese                     125,000,000
German                       100,130,000

What if all children around the world are taught these languages at school and over let’s say the next 25 years the entire world population is able to converse in all these languages.

You may ask why learn all these languages and not just pick one and make everyone learn that one language well. It’s simply because diversity and not homogenization of society is the solution to all problems that we currently face.

At the same though, it will be unimaginably useful for us to learn to communicate with people in their native languages. This reason is this. There are 4 major factors that divide human beings; colour of the skin, spoken language, day to day culture and economic status. Apart from colour of skin which we cannot change (at least through natural means) all the other 3 aspects are pretty flexible and have been developed by human beings over aeons of time to suit individual conveniences.

In my opinion if all of us are able to systematically learn all of these languages it will trigger unprecedented inter mingling of the society, help us understand other cultures better which in turn will improve and accelerate trade and the overall economic balance (Of course improving economic balance has other dependencies like availability of resources, human greed etc.) This is an idea that can be vaguely likened to a butterfly effect.

I can’t wait to see a day when I can say “Guten Morgen” to a Pakistani gentleman and hear him respond with a “Ni Hao”!!

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Sunday, August 30, 2009

Idea #18: The Cockroach Confusion

We have been facing a cockroach menace recently in our house and you will soon find out that it’s a menace in many ways.

To begin with these are not your typical large sized cockroaches. That was the only kind of cockroach I ever knew before I discovered this new species in my house, these seem to be some new genetically mutated breed! They are much smaller in size and come in 3 different sizes, small, smaller and smallest with the smallest being the size of an ant and the largest being double the size of a mosquito! But anyways that’s just beside the point; I don’t intend to discuss the entomology of cockroaches here.

What I do want to place before you is the dilemma in my mind that happens when I see a cockroach in the kitchen. The big question is, whether to kill or not?

In this regard my wife has a simple theory that cockroaches don’t deserve to exist, at least not in kitchens because they are ……., actually there is no ‘because.…’ for her. It’s just a matter of fact, like when you wake up in the morning, you brush; when you are hungry, you eat; when you see a cockroach, you kill!! Thus she effortlessly and with great élan swats them without blinking an eye lid.

For me killing a cockroach is a matter of great dilemma and turmoil. Not because of virtuousness for anything but it’s more to do with the fact that I see them in a very animated way. Perhaps it’s my love for animated cartoon characters which is at the heart of this dilemma. Think about it, can you ever harm let alone kill Jerry the mouse or Nemo the fish? It’s impossible.

So when I see a cockroach I start to wonder. What if this guy is going for walk to become healthy? What if he is packing some nice fresh food for his family? What if it’s a lady cockroach, wouldn’t I be a coward to kill an unarmed lady? etc etc. All these thoughts cross my mind and more often than not the cockroaches get away from me before I can make a decision. But sometimes when I am in that ‘cockroaches have to be killed as a matter of fact’ mood I just swat them away. But I must confess that I go through pangs of guilt and pain when I see them dead. It just doesn’t ‘feel’ the right thing to do.

I am curious to know how you handle this cockroach situation if you happen to face it. I told you earlier, cockroaches are a menace in more than one way.

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Idea #17: I-Pal

I-Pal is an application for Iphone. I-Pal is your personal Iphone buddy. It’s an animated character that “lives” and “hangs out” in your phone and has 'meaningless' conversations with you! (that’s what we do normally with friends, isn’t it?). I-Pal is the closest thing to having a quirky friend inside your I-Phone.

Here’s what I-Pal does or does not (as the case may turn out to be),

1. The primary use of I-Pal is to talk nonsensical gibberish anytime and anywhere. Here’s how it works,

• I-Pal will contain a predefined list of responses, responses that are fairly general in nature but can be categorised as humour, movie dialogues, quotes, spiritual wisdom, health tips, business gyan and general chatter that we use in daily life. It will have hundreds of such responses. It will also have a built in random response generator

• You can invoke a conversation with I-Pal by asking a question, passing a comment, talking about how you feel and pretty much anything

• I-Pal using its random generator and the set of predefined responses will throw back at you a response. The responses from I-Pal are random, mostly illogical, not connected to the question or the point you made!

• You can however decide the categories of responses by pre configuring the category. The categories could be humorous one liner, movie quotes, spiritual wisdom, business gyan, health tip, celebrity gossip etc

• You interact with I-Pal by just talking into the phone but I-Pal will display its response as a text message within the application

Examples of the conversations and responses from I-Pal

User: Good Morning I-Pal
I-Pal: I had my dinner!!

User: What are you doing I-Pal?
I-Pal: Inaction is a subtle form of action!!

At times the responses can be ‘accidentally relevant’

User: Feel like seeing a movie I-Pal…
I-Pal: Starts Itune and plays the Iron Man movie (see the next point)

• I-Pal can also respond by randomly playing a song or a video from your playlist

To summarize, I-Pal is an animated character that generates random preconfigured text (could eventually be voice) responses to the user’s voice input messages.

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Saturday, August 29, 2009

Idea #16: To write or not to write

You know I started writing a blog post about the idea of God; concepts and misconceptions about God and related ideas. I had in fact written a detailed post but somehow I was not able to complete it and the thoughts were not flowing freely.

In the meanwhile some other work distracted my attention and I decided to save the draft and thought of completing it later. While I was preoccupied doing something else a thought struck me that one should avoid writing or discussing about the idea of God. God is a matter of personal experience and no individual can overrate or undermine any concepts of God. Hence its best not discussed.

I have always liked the phrase, ‘to each his own’, and this is especially true in the case of God!!

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Idea #15: The Idea of Dependence

Why is it that new born babies and old people have so many similarities?

Both are so dependent on others even for very basic needs like eating, moving around and it’s generally impossible for them to get through any activity without someone constantly paying attention to them.

I felt today that this is nature’s way teaching us the “idea of dependence”, that by depending on others and completely trusting them in a very innocent way we are being natural, in the true sense of the word natural which means to ‘be in accordance with nature’.   

The dictionary meaning of the word Independent is, “not begin dependent” but I would prefer to think of it as, “In being dependent”.

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Friday, August 28, 2009

Idea #14: The Currency of Currency!

This idea came up in a discussion with my friends a few years ago. I think the idea just evolved during our discussion so no one person can be credited to it.

Money is often considered as the root of most evils and that it corrupts people beyond redemption. If we think about it though, it’s not money but the hoarding of it and the imbalance that the hoarding creates in society which is the main problem.
The idea goes like this. What if the wealth of an individual had an expiry date? One may have any amount of wealth but will seize to be theirs after a certain time. So what ever they want to do with the wealth has to be done within the set period.

After the expiry date whatever wealth remains goes to a common world pool and will be circulated to others after that. This happens to every single individual globally. So one can hoard money beyond a certain period and since hoarding money doesn’t make sense people will be perpetually spending and money is always in circulation and never away in bank lockers and deposits.

On the surface this sounds like a socialist idea but hang on there is an interesting twist here.

Irrespective of how much money you own you are allowed to spend only a certain amount before which the total amount expires. You may ask why? It’s simple actually. Since individual wealth has an expiry date everyone will be greedy to buy and hoard ‘things’ instead of money and soon the world will run out of resources and be unable to feed this kind of consumption. Hence the limit on spending.

What about profits, motivation to succeed, to become rich to excel etc etc. What’s the point if I cannot even keep my money?
Well there is a solution to this too. But before that please pause to think of the possibilities that the above process can create. Money is constantly in circulation, we will never have disproportional inflation or deflation. Markets won’t crash because of the circulation of money etc etc.
Now coming back to the bit about motivation to succeed and how do we differentiate the performer v/s the non performer. Simply by allocating lesser amounts and much more time to spend that money and adding a condition that subsequent allocation will not happen till that prolonged expiry date runs out. High performers are allocated more money and faster expiry dates and quicker fresh allocation. So there you go, there is enough monetary reason for you to be successful and excel at what you do.

So the key rules of this system are,

1. Money has an expiry date for the individual after which it moves on
2. You can spend only a limited amount within each expiry period
3. Non performers are allocated lesser money and more time to spend it
4. High performers are allocated more money, faster expiry dates and quicker new allocation

So, how current is your currency?

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Idea #13: Individual Changes

This one is an idea but not in the normal sense of the term. It’s like that prayer that is blogged in an earlier post, something that is in practice elsewhere that I wanted to share on this blog.

The idea is simple but the most profound one that I have ever heard and it’s not a coincidence that it comes from a great saint. Here’s how it goes,

“Individual changes can only create lasting changes in the Society”

Simple, isn’t it? Now put this to practice on yourself and let me know how it’s works for you. It’s not that simple after all!

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Thursday, August 27, 2009

Idea #12: TIM - The Ideas Market


TIM stands for the “The Ideas Market”. TIM is a web service that acts as a platform to trade ideas.

Most people have ideas but lack Resources, Readiness and Rigor (3Rs of Execution!) to bring these ideas to life. Many on the other hand may have the 3Rs but lack the ideas or concepts to begin with.

TIM bridges this gap by connecting people who have the ideas to people who need ideas to execute.
Please do not confuse this with concept of investors or private equities. TIM is an open market place where anyone can sell or buy ideas.

The process works something like this,
  1. X has an idea but lack the 3Rs to execute. Also X is not inclined to spend energies on the 3Rs
  2. X then prepares a business case explaining the idea and revenue model and puts it up for sale on TIM
  3. It’s important that the idea be detailed out and not be limited to a high level concept
  4. All ideas that goes on TIM will be copyright protected automatically
  5. Anyone who is interested in the idea presented by X can bid to buy the idea and can quote a price
  6. X can sell the idea based on the highest one time price or based on share allocation that the buyer offers
  7. An idea can be sold to more than one buyer if its agreed to be used in non competing scenarios
  8. TIM generates revenues by taking a % of the total deal

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Idea #11: Itstory

Itstory (pronounced as It’s Story) is the single largest complication and archive of the history of all corporations and institutions that have existed in the last 110 years (from 1900 to 2010). I know what you are thinking. The idea is a dud because such information already exists in Wikipedia and other encyclopaedias. I agree that its there but what they have is a brief overview, summary of companies and not the details.

Itstory will offer unprecedented levels of details and information about every single corporation that has recorded information.

1. How the company came into being?
2. Major milestones
3. All interviews and articles every published about the company in Media
4. TV interviews, Videos, Ads from that company
5. Financial trends and Stock positions
6. A good summary of why the company failed (if it has failed)
7. What are the people involved in those company now doing
8. Rich personal history about the key people of the corporation

This could even be made into comic books or part of school syllabus for children to learn from.
In a nutshell and borrowing from Google’s tag line, Itstory will be,

“Organising the World’s Corporate Information in the most sensible, effective and useful format”

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Idea #10: Sing, Talk and Be Silent

Once every week the following will be nice to do,

1. Sing for plants: Stand in front of some plants in a garden or in your house and sing a nice song for them. You have to sing yourself and not play recorded music

2. Talk to animals: Stand near a herd of cows or a dog or even a bird and talk to them. Ask them how they doing? What they think about this world? What are their plans? Just about absolutely anything. The animal or the bird that you are talking to need not be your own pet

3. Be silent: This one may be though to do every week but we can try as and when possible. Just be absolutely silent for an entire day irrespective of whether you are alone or you are in company of others.

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Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Idea #9: Effective Work Out

This is a basic exercise regime that I follow and works well for me. Have cut down about 8kgs in the past 3months using this work out and some basic dieting (reduced deep fried; nothing else).

Here's the workout regime:

1. Treadmill 30mins; average speed of 8kmph
2. Cross trainer 15mins; resistance at 10
3. Squats 2 rounds; total 10kg weight; 20 to 25 repeats at a time
4. Multi gym Cover all basic options at 6kgs; 2 rounds each of 20reps
5. Situps and inclined situp 2 rounds; 20 reps each
6. Pushups 2 rounds;20 reps each
7. Biceps and Triceps 2 rounds; 20 reps; 5kgs on both hands

I do this 3 or 4 times a week.

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Idea #8: Google 2018365

This one is an idea for Google. Google turns 20 in 2018. How about Google releasing one app per day, every day of that year from Jan1, 2018 to Dec31, 2018.

Sergey and Larry, giving you this idea 9years in advance. Please think about it.

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Idea #7: Unusual Magazine


“Unusual” is a magazine published monthly. The USP of the magazine is that 100% of the content in the magazine is crowd sourced. The articles in the magazine are written by people who submit it. Anyone from around the world can contribute to the articles in the magazine and contributors will be paid if their article is published in the magazine. All articles will be reviewed by the editorial team of “Unusual” before it’s published. “Unusual”, the company will only select, finalize, publish and distribute the magazine and will not create any content of its own.

All articles written should be the original work of the author and should not be sourced from any other media outlet or magazines. The articles can be on any topic whatsoever.  However “Unusual” may issue guidelines on what types of topics to choose from every month to avoid repetition and make the issues interesting. There will be a web version of the “Unusual” magazine too.

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Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Idea #6: A Daily Prayer

At a fixed hour every day close your eyes and give a thought that every one is filled with love. Contemplate on this thought for 15mins.

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Idea #5: Slick Sigma

Slick Sigma is a highly customised, event specific Six Sigma methodology.

Traditionally Six Sigma projects go through all aspects of DMAIC for mostly academic and documentation value and not necessarily for sustained positive changes. Most often Six Sigma projects result in immediate benefits but over time these benefits either plateau out or deteriorate.

Another problem with traditional Six Sigma is that it spends too much time on Define and Analyze phase and not as much on Implement and Control phases. This normally happens due to slacking initial enthusiasm and weak management attention to these phases.

Slick Sigma over comes these problems of the traditional method by making Six Sigma a practical day to day tool and does not confine it to academic value and limit it to certain groups of people only.

The key phrases of Slick Sigma are,

• Implement once, Sustain forever
• Significantly reduce total project time
• Measure all phases based on value and impact and not effort

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Monday, August 24, 2009

Idea #4: A Concept Restaurant

This is an idea for a concept restaurant.

1. Every country has its most popular, loved by all kind of dishes
2. Take the 3 most populous countries in every continent
3. Take the top 3, most popular recipes from those countries
4. Get authentic recipes from original sources for these dishes
5. Use ingredients that are closest to the original recipe
6. Create a franchisee model
7. Set up these restaurants in each of the represented country

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Idea #3: Clog- The Collaborative Microblogger

Clog is a new platform that combines traditional blogging, micro blogging and social media collaboration. The idea is simple. Each Clog comprises of a cluster of members and it’s a closed group system, in the sense that only people within a clog can edit and author but the clog itself can be a public or a private document.

A clog must have a minimum of 3 members and a clog is complete and can be published only when at least 2 or more members of that clog add to the contents of the creator of that session of the clog. Each member can edit only 140 characters and at a time only 5 members can clog. So the maximum allowable characters of a clog is 140*5=700 characters.

The member who starts a clog session can write on any topic but members who add to that clog session have to either continue that session or the last member to edit the clog session must provide a logical link to the first session of that clog thread.

A clog that is publicly listed can be commented, rated by anyone outside the clog.

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Sunday, August 23, 2009

Idea #2: SoPer!!

Our life is a sequence of activities. Little actions linked in a sequence to form patterns, personalities, societies and our general way of life. Everything is a sequence of events. Any change in one event inevitably leads to changes in the eventuality of the event before the change happened.

What we call as personal changes is actually change in activities. Some changes are conscious, some innate and some coerced by circumstances. If the same activity changes in a large multitude of people at the same time then what we call as changes in the society occur.

SoPer is a social media service that tracks, measures, designs and reports social changes occurring as a result of small personal changes in activity.

It is completely user driven where a user creates of list of activities that comprises his/her daily life. Activities should be as granular and as specific as possible. Once the activities are created the user can trigger changes to an individual or a set of activities and share with other users within a closed or an open group. Others in the group can emulate these changes or trigger their own changes.

Closed groups can create rules of compliance in which a change in activity agreed by a group will be followed by all members of the group. There should be an option for members to opt out.

The changes can be permanent or for a limited period as agreed by the group. Change in activity does not project changes in the outcome but the outcome of the change in activity is a mere observation of the impact of changes. In other words there are no set goals but goals are observed, documented and shared with other users or other groups. These can be made public or can be kept private.

SoPer is intended to provide a social web platform to affect societal changes through small personal activity changes that happens within groups of people.

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Idea #1: The Five Destinies

The Five Destinies can be a book. It's a fictional story.

By the year 2012 the world is in a state of chaos due extremely polarised inter religious conflicts. A group of wise and influential elders propose an experiment in social living based religious beliefs.

Five identical islands are created with enough resources to support human habitation for 150 years. Each island is assigned to specific groups of people.

Island1 is meant for Muslims only, Island2 for Hindus, Island3 for Christians, Island4 for equal proportions of Hindus, Muslims and Christians and lastly Island5 is meant only for Scientists (Atheist Scientists)

These groups are assigned to these islands and are closed out from rest of the world completely for 150years. The story unravels the happenings and the state of these islands over the 150 years.

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