Support for Alan Jonhston

इतने ऊँचे उठो

इतने ऊँचे उठो कि जितना उठा गगन है।       देखो इस सारी दुनिया को एक दृष्टि से       सिंचित करो धरा, समता की भाव वृष्टि से            जाति भेद की, धर्म-वेश की            काले गोरे रंग-द्वेष की            ज्वालाओं से जलते जग में इतने शीतल बहो कि जितना मलय पवन है॥ नये हाथ से, वर्तमान का रूप सँवारो नयी तूलिका से चित्रों के रंग उभारो            नये राग को नूतन स्वर दो            भाषा को नूतन अक्षर दो            युग की नयी मूर्ति-रचना में इतने मौलिक बनो कि जितना स्वयं सृजन है॥ लो अतीत से उतना ही जितना पोषक है जीर्ण-शीर्ण का मोह मृत्यु का ही द्योतक है            तोड़ो बन्धन, रुके न चिन्तन            गति, जीवन का सत्य चिरन्तन            धारा के शाश्वत प्रवाह में इतने गतिमय बनो कि जितना परिवर्तन है। चाह रहे हम इस धरती को स्वर्ग बनाना अगर कहीं हो स्वर्ग, उसे धरती पर लाना            सूरज, चाँद, चाँदनी, तारे            सब हैं प्रतिपल साथ हमारे            दो कुरूप को रूप सलोना इतने सुन्दर बनो कि जितना आकर्षण है॥ - द्वारिका प्रसाद माहेश्वरी

Уик-энд в МОСКВЕ!

If you are wondering what the title means, its nothing but “Weekend in Moscow”! Sham and I made some good use of the weekend by roaming around in Moscow and discovering Tandoor, the Indian restaurant. We have already been there twice and I recommend it to anyone visiting  Moscow. Five minutes from metro Mayakovskaya, this place has very authentic Indian cuisine and really serves up some great dishes. I tried Lamb Rogan Josh and Achari Gosht and both were awesome. For those of you eager for more, check out the restaurant website here.

Well coming back to our weekend travails, we visited the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, the intricately mural decorated St. Basils cathedral, the architecturally rich GUM superstore building and architecturally rich building and the huge Red Square.

                           

And some others including a view of the busy Red Square, a collection of Russian dolls on a shop and a man showing off a captive monkey (where is PETA Russia!)

And we are not the only ones having fun while working! Nevin and Javier visited Elephanta caves over the weekend and got to catch a concert during the ongoing Elephanta Festival. It must have been worth the visit when you get to listen to a flute maestro in this world!

Shameer and I also planning to launch the “Moscow Metro 101″ course for English speaking looking to make their way through Moscow’s metro system within 45 seconds. Yes, this is not the buy 1 get 2 cheap TV channel offer this is really true But this course is available only on request! In the meanwhile check out the unusually beautiful metro stations in Moscow - Prospekt Mira, Krasnopresenenskaya and Novoslobodskaya.

Enough gyaan for today! More later,

Cheers

KL

From Russia with Love

Landed in the warm snugly Moscow at -19 C. Managed to hitch a cab after a lot of translation skills, I will either learn Russian by the end of my 10 day stay or forget English.

Day starts early tomorrow so I will keep this short. The Aeroflot ride was uneventful and pretty much on time. On my way to Heathrow, read a book review in the Metro (yes, the free crappy newspaper) by a NY author called Mohsin Hamid. Still need to lay my hands on it but on the whole it sounds pretty interesting.

 

After a four hour plane ride and a 1.5 hours taxi ride and a lot of difficult conversations :)  we reached our hotel - Holiday Inn Suschevsky. The room is neat and clean, just a bit cramped to fit in both Shameer and I along with our suitcases. Don’t think we will try and change it now. 

           

 There were also other small hurdles for a start including GBP travellers checks not being accepted by hotel and travel exchange shop at the airport Need to figure it out tomorrow.

 Out for now, good night.

Cheerio

KL

You and I …

Surprised …. haha … two posts in a day … well just when I was about to get off the comp, I thought I really like this pic of the two of us.

So much so, that I have uploaded it as the profile pic for my blog and its up there on my Orkut as well. I am sure Sheetal will agree that the Venture guys did a damn good job of our portfolio! This picture is actual a click version of the frame photo

 And then I thought the title of this post reminds me of the adorable Hutch jingle. And so for those of you who love it as much as I do, you can click here to download it!

 Happy Hmmmmming  and Enjoy

KL

Long time …

Yeah I know, its been a long long time since I wrote last but then since last few days its been blog talk around me and I thought my old crappy corner must be horrid and isolate and so here I am back with a new zest, which should hopefully last for a while!

 Chicago was here and its gone! Q4 2006 in Chicago GSB was an awesome experience, completely different from Manchester and better in lot of different ways! But am I glad that I chose a UK business school, well to be honest I really am! You could feel the American aroma inundating the lectures, case studies and examples and  I am not sure if I would have been able to enjoy that atmosphere for 2 years!

 Post that a month in Mumbai was just unbelievable! I would have liked it better if SP was around but then life is not ideal always! Working and spending time with friends and family was all that I did! I met Mugs, Moira, Uma, Vohra, Pondy, Naveen, Yusuf etc etc The New Year was a completely different experience with a flop show arrangement but then all made worthwhile cos my dearest friends (and sworn enemies) were around!

The life since I am back in Manchester hasn’t been any less exciting! Start of IB, bidding, late nighters, and some nice evenings out including a visit to No:4 on Warburton Street with my group were the highlights!

With IB off to a rollicking start, we are all set to embark on the most exciting travel phase of the IB. Shameer and I are off to Moscow and then Shanghai. Hope to visit St. Petersburg and Beijing as well while I am there. Although the schedule will be loaded with work, we should be able to squeeze in some fun as well.

 Things to do on my list while I am away:

 Catch a performance in the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow

 

and a visit to the Yuyuan Gardens!

 Hope to write more often now,

Good nite

KL

Chicago time … will be keeping this from September 17th onwards!

Chicago

Flowing on ….

Everytime I think the next term is going to give me more breathing space, suddenly I feel a constriction around my neck and it tightens as if to warn me of a shorter term with almost the same workload ….alas, when will my dreams come true, when will I have a spring break where I do not have worry about selecting projects and forming groups, when will I have an Easter break when I do not have prepare for my MIBS presentation …when, when, when! Probably a bit melodramatic but then that is the way life has been!

During the spring break, we (Sheetal and I) visited the Roy's in Northampton and P2 in London! Sheetal's first visit to the capital and her first walk along the Thames!

Last week we (Niall, Marco and I) came back from the Graduate Business Conference in Copenhagen, a school sponsored trip! Amazing experience, so many different schools participating, lectures and workshops all through the day and partying through the night! Feel like a dead duck being back in school!

To add some excitement to this term, we have a live project - a consulting assignment of sorts or a mini IB project if you were to say! Our team (Vasanthi, Javier, Paul, Shameer, Obinna and I) is doing a really interesting assignment under the Entrepreneurship Project category for a small food company based in Yorkshire! It requires us to apply all that we have learnt from various courses including Financial Accounting, Marketing, Operations Management, Strategy and PMO. Hope we can be of some good use in helping them!

CMS recently organised a successful careers fair (I missed it as I was in Copenhagen) and feedback that I hear from the class was pretty good. A very good mix of companies from the biggies (e.g. Ernst and Young Business Advisory Services) to much smaller recruitment agencies.

I hoovered and tidied the entire apartment today made some good use of the Easter break! Dozing off for now.

Cheers
KL

Life as it comes!

I have been buried in work for long now and I am really waiting to get up, move out and take a nice break during this spring!

Winter term is about to end with exams around the corner and last minute preparation is the life support system for people like me moreover I need to loads of it!

Between all the presentations and the time I handed in the justification document and closed the deal, I had a couple of breathers like

- the half day hiking trip to Shutlingsloe,
- Paul’s birthday celebration with a nice cake
- Sticking our necks out in Alderly Edge

I also have an extended spring break of sorts, as I will go to Copengagen to attend the Graduate Business Conference 2006 this year with Marco and Niall, in the first week of April.

More updates after the exams!
Cheers
KL