Here it comes.. A road trip to Agumbe...

Uff... And finally a road trip after 5 years of having a Bullet, and this happened with minimal planning and within just days of initial thought... It all started with me applying for leave without any specific plans in mind, just because they were about to get lapsed.

We had literally 3-4 days to plan the trip, and it started with a pretty elaborate itinerary. Remember, none of the 3 of us have ever been on such trips, and one of them didnt even know the idea of what it would be like.. :)

First cut of the plan - 



Remember, our time constraints were as below - 
- We had Sunday, Monday and Tuesday return
- Sunday, earliest departure time - 10:30 AM
- Worst case- could manage to extend to return Wednesday afternoon

With first review, of this and Wednesday travel almost getting tough, the second version turned out be - 

Version 2 (just the night before leaving)
Bangalore - Sringeri (Day1 halt) - Agumbe (Sight seeing)  (Day 2 halt) - Hornadu - Kudremukh - Bangalore

With this plan, we started to drive on the Bangalore - Hassan highway, a drivers delight. I have driven multiple times in car, and every time, I love this highway, one of the best highways in Karnataka. Our next pit-stop was Hotel Mayura near Bellur Cross. We had good lunch, and was continued towards Chikmagalur. On this stretch, we touched 120 kmph, and our bikes were stress tested. Snack break @ Chikmagalur. Later we headed towards Sringeri, and later my bike making weird sound, and I realized that the silencer bolt had fell off during our ride. It was Sunday, and there weren't any auto-repair shops open. We managed to find one auto-spare shop and he helped us in getting the bolt fitted in a crude manner. Even though, it wasn't perfect, I was confident, we could continue atleast till Sringeri and get it repaired the next day.

We were running behind time (almost 6pm and still 40 kms away from Sringeri). Then change of plan on the spot (course correction). Since Agumbe was our main spot and had few main places to visit, we didnt want to miss that. So we decided to head directly to Agumbe and visit Sringeri on our way back. We immediately called up Kasturi Akka (of Doddamane) in Agumbe, who had space for us. The drive to Sringeri and later to Agumbe at night was just amazing, because it was a day before full-moon day, and the road were litted up with moon light. Our first road trip on bullet, with zero experience of driving in ghats on any two-wheeler and driving @ night in the midst of western ghats forest are with literally just 10-20 meter visibility, a nerve-cracking one. We reached Agumbe by around 8:30pm. Doddamane is a place where Malgudi days was shot, and currently run by Kasturi Akka (that is the name she is known there). She, along with her children and grand kids run a house which is 120 years old, and has all the flavours of a typical pre-independence village setup. They don't have any fixed price; guests generally pay the amount they feel it is worth. 

Doddamane @ Agumbe

Next day (Monday) morning, we went to Kuntadri, to the sunrise point. I am not going to say much about this, just see the pics below - 







We came back to Doddamane, had breakfast and later headed towards the Kudlu falls (around an hr drive from Agumbe). The road weren't good, it was more like a jungle safari, as we had literally to way too interior to watch the falls. Once you reach, you will also have to trek for 1.5 kms to reach the falls. The drive was slightly strenuous on the bike; I must admit. Again the falls was worth every trouble taken. At the middle was forest, the falls was a spectacular view. Pics below - 

Fully tired after playing in the falls, we came back to Doddamane. Incase you don't know, the ghats to Agumbe has 14 hair-pin curves, considered to be one of the tougher ghats in Karnataka. We had lunch, and rested till 5:30 and departed to Sringeri. We also stopped at the sunset point in Agumbe, but that was a disappointment, as the sun was covered by clouds and the sunset wasnt clear.

We reached Sringeri by around 7:30pm; directly headed towards the temple for the darshan. My scientist friend had to come back to Bangalore, and so we dropped him off @ the Sringeri bus stand. 

Me and my friend stayed in Shankar mutt premise. There we pondered on what to do the next day, and we squashed all plans made till then and decided to head towards Hariharapura, where there another Mutt on the banks of Tunga river, and later follow it up with Shimoga to Tumkur to Bangalore. So the final itinerary looked like below - 

Bangalore - Chickmagalur - Sringeri - Agumbe - Sringeri - Hariharapura - Shimoga - Tumkur - Bangalore

Next day (Tuesday), we headed towards Hariharapura after breakfast in Sringeri. We visited the mutt, and Tunga was at her best in this place (infact better than Sringeri). The best part was that there is a hanging bridge over Tunga, and we drove our biked on that. The experience was simply exhilarating. I knew this was the last major thing on our trip, and was thrilling. 

Later on, it was a long drive back home (close to 370 kms from Hariharapura to Bangalore) and we reached around 8:30pm. We drove close to 950kms over 2.5 days, which is pretty high even by car standards. It was pretty strenous, but a worth one... :)

What process still fails to recognize?

Few months back, I had gone one a weekend outing to Wayanad. An amazing ride, with greenery all around and with sights of elephants and deer in the midst of forest, without a forest safari (I just saved 2500).

While coming back, my car’s horn suddenly stopped working. I could have well-managed without it, but its Indian highways, flooded with idiots (like in one of the ad). I didn’t want to take risk, and hence hunted for a Maruti Service Station in Mysore. It was past 6:45 pm and the service station was about to close. I later went inside to request if anyone was there to assist in solving the horn issue. I was sure that it was some sort of disconnection problem, which wouldn’t take time for a person who knows the system reasonably well. The receptionist bluntly told me that there aren’t any mechanics as it’s past their working hours. I told him that I need to travel to Bangalore that night, and it would be of great help if anyone could solve the issue. There was one service coordinator who was washing his hands and was getting ready to go back home. He came voluntarily to have a look at the problem. He found that the wire was disconnected (as I had guessed), and just fixed it by tying around the prongs (though soldering is the right fix, but the electrician wasn’t there).  The problem was solved in just 15 min. I wanted to recognize the effort of the service coordinator who actually went ahead of what the duty demanded.  I enquired with the receptionist, if there is any way I could provide feedback to the gentleman who helped me, so that he could use it for his increment/promotion, but in vain.

4 days earlier, I had actually given my car for a full service. There wasn’t any issue then. The person who was my service manager, here in Bangalore had called me 2 days back to enquire if there was any issue, and I had told him it’s fine. Later I got a call from the central service team to rate the service and the experience, for which I gave 9/10. I am sure this would add to the service manager’s rating. But how can one rate the efforts put by the Mysore’s service person who went the extra-mile to help me, and that too when it was most needed? As an owner, I would any day want a person like this than a rudimentary service manager who does things because the process demands.

Clearly the process doesn’t capture humanity and real care. I many times wonder, bringing in processes would have enhanced transparency and accountability, but not sure if it has actually increased moral responsibility, that human touch which probably is the vital reason why a customer would be loyal to a particular vendor.

On one hand, the service manager got good rating for actually not doing a good work in Bangalore, but the there was no recognition for the service manager in Mysore who did solved the issue and probably was most timely!!!

Organization Culture & Strategy

This is one topic which catches my eyes and attention pretty fast. These 2 factors – Culture & Strategy have always been, in my opinion, the critical factors for success in any organization. They become all the more important if a company is under crisis and is looking for a turnover or for a successful acquisition. Here is my story of an organization that reported to have taken major steps around 2005 to turn-around the company and bring it on a success-path – HCL Technologies.

It is pretty interesting to note that as I am writing this, many investors & analysts are opining that HCL Technologies is the company to be invested in, atleast amongst the top 5 Indian IT players – TCS, Cognizant, Infosys, Wipro and HCLT.  Through my MBA, or probably before that too, turnaround strategies have always enticed me, and when I was selected to HCLT fresh from my college, I wanted to know about this revolutionary concept called – Employees First, Customer Second. There is something special (read catchy) in the name itself.

I was curious and genuinely interested to read this book before I join the company and so did I. Not everyone who joins would do so. In all honesty, that book had all the ingredients to actually turn-around a company, and the references made to historical companies are also interesting to know. Companies like Southwest airlines, who hired people based on attitudes, are proof to the point that employees are the differentiators for most companies in the service space. There have been anecdotes that pilots of Southwest airlines assisted the on-board staff so that they could reduce turn-around time and in-turn increase efficiency. 

Coming back to my previous point – there is something special (read catchy) in the name itself. What makes it so? Clearly, if it was called Employee First, it would not have caught much attention, almost every company knows the employees are key (though treatment & implementation is a different topic altogether), it is the “Customer Second” which caught the attention. People around started wondering about the guts of a company which told Customers are Second in an industry which was ruled by philosophies like – Customers is the king; Customers are always right; Customers come first. This makes the name special.

I am sure, most of you reading would also be wondering that how is it possible for a company which banks on customers, say they are second and yet make an impact and grow. So here is the key difference – EFCS (Employee First Customer Second) is not really a philosophy; I would put it across as a strategy for a company. This is a very well thought off strategy. For any sales guy, a dream run of a client meet would be to get the maximum attention to what he says – and this is exactly what EFCS facilitates – When you say your customer that he is second – you have grabbed his attention, now how you utilize this is on your capability. So in this sense, this makes a great tool and strategy to crack conversations.

But EFCS at the core signifies something more than a strategy. It is essentially empowering an employee without any fears of hierarchy to contribute to customer’s growth and development. It ideally creates an ecosystem for an employee where one can focus only on the value addition for client, and not about the peripheral activities. So an employee’s support system is to be more effective and efficient in order to fully realize the effectiveness of this concept.

With so much about EFCS and high aspirations, I stepped into this organization, to really be part of its success story. In the initial days itself, I realized that EFCS was known merely as a name and not many people in the lower and middle management were actually able to confidently address the topic, and explain its importance in the company’s strategy and how it has been able to grow based on it. This put me in a fix. What are company strategies for? Are they limited to only senior management and the key decision makers? Isn’t important for people working at the grass-root level to be aware of them and realize the value of the same.  But one thing was very clear – the top management was putting in all the efforts to actually spread the word of EFCS and its benefits, key pillars of the strategy through various communication media internally.

This was the point when my focus shifted to another element called the culture of an organization. If this company deserves applause for one thing, my first choice would be the fact that it has actually survived for 36 yrs. Companies with such a history would definitely have developed a long standing unique culture for itself. In the first few days of me joining and interaction with people, I predominantly found only 2 types of people – either they are company veterans (like 8 -15yrs exp in the company) or just fresh in the system (like 0-3 yrs exp in the company). Seldom had I found someone in the mid-range. That made me realize that there is a strong force within the company who are highly experienced and seen the company grow through the times. These folks would probably form the core of the culture in this company. These guys have had the mentality of the erstwhile Indian industry where bosses were made from predominantly experience, and sub-ordinates were expected to do what the boss says (atleast in most scenarios). I could now see how tough was the job of actually fitting the strategy of EFCS into this culture and actually make it work. Invariably top-down approach was the better choice to get this down to the bottom. And the management chose so. There were only minor changes that was made in the culture, for e.g for any IT issue, instead of calling the support team, we were supposed to raise a request online, which made tracking lot more easier.

This is probably the best thing that the management has done right - They did not force a cultural change in order to ingrain the strategy. They made minor tweaks here and there, but even today it is essentially the company of yester years. They leveraged the fact the managers are made of experience and chose high- experienced managers to actually propagate the concept downstream (how many were good is another aspect).

Even today, this strategy still remains to me as an exceptional one only on 100% implementation. It is upon individual companies to understand the culture and fit the strategy with minor tweaks.

For me the biggest lesson was – Never estimate a company based on its strategy, because invariably, culture trumps strategy every time!!!

P.S: All the information written above is purely opinionated, and cannot be held for any discrepancies of perception and/or understanding. This post is my own and don't necessarily represent HCL/any other individual's positions, strategies or opinions.

Back... Changed yet same...

So here I am... after a long 6 months break... There have been few changes that have happened in the last six months – A marriage, job dissatisfaction and finally a job change. To put in common parlance, it is fresh beginning in both major spheres of my life – Work and Personal. 

Material made for my wedding

However, when I put the last six months in retrospective, I strongly feel I am pretty much the same person. But then circumstances have changed, people apparently have started treating me differently for all the wrong reasons. But one thing is for sure, as I am writing this, there seem to be more people happy about me than otherwise. I know these are going to change overtime – Dissatisfaction is bound to creep in across all relationships I have managed to excel till now, because I know I can never work towards keeping someone happy just for the sake of it, and this is going to beat me one day or another. After all, genuine happiness is something precious and seldom seen.

Aah Yes.. I shall improve my momentum of blogging going forward...

Socially ill-social..

Today... I am very happy primarily for 2 reasons... First - An experiment which was awaiting completion from past 3 yrs completed today... and the results weren’t surprising. Second – A day spent silently, yet remarkably...

Let me explain the first – Few years back when I opened an account in orkut, then leading social networking site in India, I made an observation (which offcourse many would have also made) that remarkably more number of people started wishing on birthdays, thanks to the person’s DOB displayed on his profile. I wanted to check, does this enhance your relationship quotient or decrease... Today, it is interesting to note that inspite of my DOB not displayed on FB, only those people who have wished me offline were the ones who wrote wished on my wall; else it is an absolute zilch. This is not a complaint against anyone, as I don’t really measure one on his/her ability to remember any bday, as I am only weak at it. But it is interesting to know what impact this social media has made on this society. 

Recently when I called one of my MBA mate, he said that I am not active on FB, hence he didn’t mind to contact me. Ideally it should be the other way around – if someone is not active, then you might have to make an effort to find about that person. This brought about an insight that people have started to believe that FB is the universe, but the fact is FB is a subset of the universe around you. But today, if someone is outside FB, he/she is dead virtually.

Few years back, I had attended a seminar of Shiv Khera, and he had mentioned 4 types of friendships:

1. Friendship of Convenience – Convenience goes, friendship goes
2. Friendship of Usefulness – Usefulness goes, friendship goes
3. When you both have common enemy – Common enemy goes, friendship goes
4. Finally, the most sustainable one – Friendship built on mutual respect.

Today, if I am allowed, I would like to add one more thing –

• Friendship of Social Networks – Social Network goes / even one friend goes out of social network, friendship goes

I had this realisation long back, and I was waiting for something to prove my hypothesis.

This is again, not an allegation against those who didn’t wish me, but just an analysis, I am sure few of them would have remembered but due to genuine reasons could not have.

Second reason why I am happy today is – for the first time I applied for a leave on my bday, met few people and spent good time. Though it was very silent, but it was memorable for more than one reason –

1. Realized that marriage is not just about you, but the society around you – especially your friends, true friends. Never ever let them out. Today, I didn’t meet even a single friend, and that makes them all the more special.
2. For the first time, there was someone on this earth who applied leave just to make my birthday memorable. I didn’t even have an idea that this could happen to me.
3. My close family isn’t bad either, they also proved that they can throw a surprise party... again for the first time.

P.S. This is again an impulsive one. I wanted to write a detailed post on the social networks, but this came out first..  :PP

Intense Passion in Hindsight

October 5 – Probably the day which most of us would not want to remember – the death of a magician called “Steve Jobs”. This is definitely not another obit. I was totally depressed the whole day, for the same reason, thinking of one of the two people whom I have admired.  The whole media was ushering the same news over n over again, making me all the more depressed. Oct 6^th was a holiday for Newspapers, thanks to “Ayudha Pooja” festival. On Oct 7^th, as I received the newspaper, I knew what the front page news was, but what I didn’t know was the article which came on the page 4. Now I needed this bit to pull me off my depression and provide some food for thought.

Steven.P.Jobs (1955 - 2011)

Yes – Mathoor Krishnamurthi, a Sanskrit scholar who probably did more than what life would have expected him to do. If my grandfather would have been alive, he would have definitely been depressed; probably more than what I was for Jobs. I remember seeing his programs explaining the essence of Bhagavat Gita, every morning in a Kannada channel.

This must be a story around a few years ago (might be during engineering; though not sure) – when I used stay at my granny’s place if I was late from college or was just lazy to drive back home. I used to sleep in the hall watching TV. At around 6:30am, my grandfather used to come down and switch on the T.V for this program, where Mathoor Krishnamurthi used to explain verses of Gita. I used to get irritated initially; but what caught my attention was – this person had tears in his eyes whenever he was explaining few intense lines of Gita. I am generally not awed at people without testing them thoroughly (that’s probably one reason, I have had only 2 persons whom I admired intensely); but frankly this person had absolutely no reason to create a drama of crying on-screen, when his audience were few (imagine at 6:30 am – should be only grandparents like mine); had established credibility in the subject; TRP is out of question totally. Now this is what comes closest to intense passion – quality which Steve also exhibited. I could see truth in Mathoor’s eyes – it was just drops of true tears n not buckets of glycerine. I later asked my grandparents about his credibility and stuff, and he turned out to be absolutely spectacular – His life was a worthy one.

Mathoor Krishnamurthi

Now there was Jobs who was an excellent marketer, who had amazing negotiation skills, probably the best the world has ever seen; and here was Krishnamurthi, who grew from strength to strength in this life, but later dedicated himself for spreading the essence of our culture across the world, effectively he marketed our culture, spread the knowledge to alleviate poverty, made Sanskrit an attractive form of poetry.

Offcourse, this news would have died under the Job’s one. Nevertheless, here is a hats-off to the person who proved that you don’t need to be a multi-millionaire to show off what you have achieved – you can just prove to yourself that you are worth the space which you are consuming on this earth – How many of us are really worth...??? Think about it...

P.S. Do read Sudha Murthy’s comments here...

Independence!!! Really???

I am not sure what exactly people think of independence or being independent. Whenever I think about independence, whether it is a country or an individual, it means the same, the definition shouldn’t change at a 50,000 ft level. Till before 2 years, the idea of independence was very abstract for me. However, there has been good amount of clarity in what it actually means, now. But as I was thinking about the long weekend for this Independence Day, it suddenly struck me that India’s independence is hardly different from mine and yours.

There are many definitions about being independent, the most naive one being that people need not depend on others. It is very tough to digest this definition. How many of us would have told – “I am independent, I don’t need his/her help”. How true is that?? Slowly, I have understood the real meaning of that line; it means – “I am independent, I don’t need his/her help, there are others too”. This realisation shook me slightly, but I have accepted it as the truth.

Consider my country India, for instance – What did she achieve post Independence? She never learnt to live on her own; she never learnt to sustain everything by herself; she never learnt to live in isolation. But she got the independence for taking her own decisions, independence to decide her own course of development, independence of spoiling herself too. She would have been almost dead economically, if Dr.Manmohan Singh hadn’t opened the collaboration doors in 1991. Off-course we didn’t make the best use of it, but that step was most probably the only alternative to come out of the debt we were in then.

That’s more or less, what an independent individual also does by being independent. Just think what you can achieve just by yourself in this era of globalisation. Nothing!!! The help you receive might be from your parents, friends, colleagues, etc., but you definitely require it. It is just that you decide whom to ask and whom not to. You can change your preferences based on the situation you are.


So Independence is not living by yourself, but deciding on whom you can depend and whom you cannot. And that’s exactly the reason for which the whole concept of society evolved amongst us. However, being human and independent doesn’t just stop at deciding whom to depend and whom not to, but being thankful for the same, irrespective of whether you chose to ask him/her again or not. After all that’s the core of being human – Gratitude!!! Never lose it.


Happy Real Independence Day!!!