New LetsStartUp Poster

Guys, this is the new LetsStartUp poster. Please share your views in the comments section. And if you can, please distribute it or put up at relevant places like your college etc. Let me know if you need a printed copy.

Your callers will now listen to tring tring

If you thought taunts are the weapons used only by your wives, girlfriends, moms, aunties (basically all the ladiezz in your life), think again and read on.

Airtel had recently started the caller tune service on my mom's cell without being asked and humbly and politely (and secretly) they started charging her for it. When we noticed it and complained, they admitted the mistake and agreed to stop the services and return the charged amount. All was well but the real fun was the confirmation sms that we received. It went like - "You have been unsubscribed from airtel hello tunes service. Your callers will now listen to tring tring. Call 543213 to listen to full songs". Hahaha. Guys, that was brilliant. I still cant stop laughing. From my side airtel gets 10/10 for humor.

Cheer for Xavier

Visited school today after a long time. Reached there at 6:45pm and it was dark already. Quite a crowd... packing up after the evening sports sessions. Guys at the football field, basketball junta, people running on the upper field. Met the gym coach and some 12thies pumping the iron. Was a great chat. The coach invited me to join the gym till the time i'm in jaipur. Tempting as it sounds, but couldn't as LetsStartUp is keeping me busy full time (yeah i know the word in your head.. excuses excuses... but take my word for this).
Then a walk around the campus. Junior school corridors, assembly ground, canteen, cricket nets, senior school building, senior assembly ground, THE STEPS, and THE STEPS off the school hall(the ones above 9C and 9B), parade ground/cricket pitch... Beautiful.
All was well except one thing. The administration has installed cameras all around the campus!! yes they have..What the.. they cover all the grounds and buildings.. and the toilets too!!. Come on people, how will the guys "install" bummms in there. Spare us a bummm or two at diwali. kiddin.. but still, why? An occasional bunk or two is healthy. Let them do it.

All said, Xaviers rocks.

Alibis for not starting up

Ideas for blaming the procrastination you showed in starting your venture/startup, on factors outside your other"wise" ..duh later.. field of influence-

1. Not many of your facebook friends "Like" the idea.
2. Your maid didn't show up and you had to do all the dishes yourself and so could not work on your business plan.
3. (Only for geeks) Your object reference was not set to an instance of an object.
4. You had so many great ideas and could not decide which one to start with.

But if you're through with all such gastroendomytholingualdynacrosiac
reasons, you can start by visiting LetsStartUp.com.

Passions and Fears

Graffitaria View

Passions and fears make a lethal combination. The nature of both these is such that one contradicts the other, but when they do collide it is annihilation, matter meeting anti matter. The hollow spaces created suck the instruments of life and form within.
These two forces are generally mutually exclusive and strong enough to curb the other. But in the rare scenarios where their scopes mingle into each other, a havoc is created. The observer of such a scene may look at the results from different perspectives and come out with different conclusions accordingly. One might say that greater sense of the passion prevailed, though with a tough fight, and finally fears were crushed. The other might have another vantage point and will conclude exactly the opposite. It is only a careful all round observation that reveals the destruction of everything; passions and fears alike.

Counter View by GuNs

Passion and fear though seemingly antithetical might not necessarily be so. There are instances when fear leads to passion. In fact, fear is a fuel for passion, I would say. Imagine a person stuck in a deep well with no apparent way out. The first emotion in such a scenario would no doubt be fear. Fuelled by the fear of getting stuck in the well forever, a person will be motivated to find a way out. The forced need for persistence in searching for a way will gradually lead to a passion of the subject. Surely this is not always the case but I see a few instances when this is imminent.

Carvin Jones

This could easily have gone into my music blog but then again the "Blues" would have gone unnoticed by the masses(My assumption here is that the masses would read my blog, which doesn't seem to be happening at the moment...but what the heck).

I went to see the Carvin Jones band perform yesterday at the jolly-farmers pub(Purley). The band comprised of Carvin Jones on guitar and vocals as the front man, and two italian guys, Will and Flaco on base and drums respectively. I had not heard about the band ever before and was rather sceptical at first looking at a rather smaller venue which was a small local pub in Purley, Greater London. The band website boasted of Carvin being hailed by Eric Clapton as one of the best upcoming blues guitarist. Well, that coming from Clapton, the guy had to be a real guitar hero i thought.

So i got out of office, took bus number 466 and was in purley in about 20 minutes. A 5 minute walk to the venue and here i was. Ian(a colleague) and Dan were already there.

We waited for Carvin to start at 9 P.M. and discussed lagers, beers, real ales, the superiority of blues and rock and how the masses are going to the dogs and listening to teeny bop and stuff.
A little late then scheduled, the band came up on stage at 9:30 and started with an old school blues jam. Carvin had crafted out a brilliant piece on the blues scale with some virtuoso guitar techniques for the opening piece and it prepared the audience for what was to come as a grand blues-rock n roll holocaust. Carvin then belted out some all time classics from Hendrix, Clapton and B.B. King and some of his original material which was damn impressive. It was a complete show with out and out brilliant music, tremendous showmanship of Carvin with shear decadence of rolling here and tumbling there. Although I'm not such a great fan of acts of playing guitar with your feet and behind your back etc. and Carvin had all of that, but with such astonishing music, i could live with it.
With two encores and thunderous applause from the crowd throughout, the night ended at 12. As i made my way for some territorial pissing, i got a chance to chat up with Carvin and the drummer. Here's an excerpt of a sort of short interview :

Me: Hi Carvin. I'm Prafulla.
Carvin: Hi there, how you doin'?
Me: I gather that you're influences range from Hendrix to Clapton to B.B.King and Stevey Ray Vaughan. But who's the MAN?
Carvin: B.B. King always.
Me: What with the flat fifth? (A Flat fifth is known as the blues note or devil's note in a musical scale.)
Carvin: Yeah man. Definitely. But still all the notes rock.
Me: Thanks Carvin. Its been a real pleasure. (And we both give a bow to the blues and B.B. king).

Well, that's that, and Ian and i catch a bus back to sweet home alabama..err croydon.
Hail the blues.

You might like to get a glimpse at www.carvinjones.com

Idea-lly

Ideas have a peculiar time when they pop up in the usually vast crevices of our brains. As Oasis said... "All your dreams are made, when you're chained to the mirror and the razor blade"... Though these lines do not encompass half of the demographic, however they've been proving quite true for me at least, provided I'm not rushing for office and peeling off in a hurry rather than shaving. The other, rather more creative time, i guess, is when I'm in my bed and not asleep at night. That makes up a long time considering the inveterate insomniac i am. The ideas range from all the song structures i want to write, all the scales i want to play, all the lyrics i wish to write, all that i want to do in my life, all that i could have said, all that i should not have said, all i could have expected, all i should have expected, the time i had been right, the time i thought i was right. The problem is that most of them are either forgotten or are suppressed by an even stronger idea which eventually gets forgotten. Well today's shaving session went into trying to figure out a solution for this. Don't tell me i could write the ideas down!!... Neither i would get up from bed to get my notepad and if writing while shaving, i don't want to end up using pen on my face and razor on the paper...