About Me and Myselves

This has gotta be the frankest entry I have written till day. Recently got a suggestion that I was not being frank enough in life. Hence forth I thought may be its time that I should be writing something really related to my life and surrounding without any prejudice.


The matters surrounding my day to day life would be loosener and motivation to write more.

-As most of you must be knowing that I live in Uganda, which is not as volatile as the other African countries like Zimbambwe (has the world's highest inflationary rate 100,000% :-(. A pack of bread there costs about 1 million Zim $s), Botswana (had the highest HIV prevalance rate, but in the recent years have controlled it with great expertise), Kenya (has been in news lately) etc. etc. Compared to other places this is a far better place, but nevertheless it is Africa.


-On more personal front, I dont know I drive like a mad man and have a bike whose brakes are effectively loose. The driver of my car, can effectively be described as a crank case (I dont really try to argue with him on matters like religion, coz he has seemed to me as a fanatic).


-I m maintaining a blog which commands a combined audience of about 55 since the past 4 months.


-I have had crush on a girl for the last 6 years and haven't been able to tell her till late.


-I have been planning things but have failed to implement anything. I have reached such an extent with my planning that now I seem like the 80s Indian Govt planning commission (All words no action).


-I actually like to Himesh Reshamiya's songs and compositions and listen to him to unwind after a hard day. However repititive, he might be, however nasal he may sound, I like him.

-I have a fetish about cleanliness, for eg. I tend to clean each dish, utensils twice before using, even though it has just been washed (may be the gal I marry may be just opposite and that may change me :-D)

-I like loneliness and tend to walk alone for hours together on a stretch.

-People tell me that I have problems keeping commitments, but I dont think so :-).

-I like Friends but can't equate myself with any of the characters. I even like Scrubs and can compare myself with JD.

-I m fultoo mad about someone and can't get her outta my mind, can't thing of a moment when I dont think about her (I don't think this was relevant here but then on second thoughts, it was)

-I am pessimistic in my approach but am trying to change fast & hope will complete the transformation soon.

Its tough to write about one's ownself. Its very hard to look into our own life and try to write about it. But it gives you strength and insight into the things and facts about yourself.

Things to do before death :-D

Another long delayed blog entry, but better late than never.

I recently came across an Ugandan blogger going by the name of dying communist (dying-communist.blogspot.com). It is rather unusual how i became interested in Communism keeping in mind that I was never interested in communism since my teenage years when i was a moderate communist (when u tend to believe every crap that comes ur way, communists dont get offended). Nevertheless I liked his blogging style and got influenced from one of his entries and decided to make my own list of things, I need to do before disappearing from the face of Mother Earth (the list is not written in the order of priorities but randomly as it came to my mind)

Own a house in my native place, Kerala; retain my small house in Ahmedabad; earn like the CitiBank CEO (atleast 1% of that i.e. $216m = $2m, even if its one time); own a highend Nikon photocam & shoot the flora and fauna of Uganda and Africa; travel extensively across Africa; work in Libya, Congo, Ghana, Rwanda, Dubai, Uganda (m already working here) and come back to India (Each place according to me has its own sweetness); defy all odds and clear CAT with atleast 99 percentiles :-); get into any one of the IIMs to STUDY (I have been in one as a employee); start an restaurant anywhere; learn Kiswahili, French; work a jingle on guitar but after learning it :-D; meet a real achiever in life and gain experience from him/her and adopt the same into my life; come face to face with death and defy it; confess undying love to a person in front of her; save a person from the clutches of death; outrageously start my own rock band ;-); see India win an individual gold medal at the Olympics; read as many novels as possible; own all Mahesh Bhatt movie songs (ALL, I adore his songs, movies different case); own all AR Rahman songs (all languages).

Whew the list wud extend to few pages, so for the time being this seems to be enough, I will keep on updating it as and when time permits.

luck and luv

santos

Small Organizations

The best way to learn the basic nitti-grities and the laws of management is in a small organization. It goes like this, every day, every moment, every phone call, you will come across new problems and new case scenarios and nevertheless you tend to devise new formulas or remedies.

Every work is handled by you, you supervise everything, you tend to think more, you devise better ways of working and in short you become more adapted to the management fundas.

Atleast it has given me more exposure while working in a small organization. I have worked (even though for a small period of times) with big organizations of 500+ employees and governmental organizations, where you follow protocols. But the things I have learnt in this small organization, far outweighs that from the rest.

According to me everyone should, atleast a couple of years work in such a miniscule organization, so as to polish his/her management skills. This experience will especially work for people who are to appear for a MBA entrance, or putting together a resume to put it on with the adcom of various reputed institutions. It works out nicely as an added work experience and at times of interviews as real case study, from which you can answer things you have learnt.

Hope that this has been of help to someone, so do keep joining the new upstarts and smaller organizations.

Friendship-its a strange relationship

This post is as a tribute to my friendship with a friend. O the friend is alive, but the friendship is on the verge of death, courtesy an unnecessary gossip article.
It takes years, ages to build up friendship with anyone, and it takes only few, mark me, just a few minutes to ruin one, bring misunderstanding into it and then killing it altogether.
Well, its always that people dont comment on things for any purpose, just for the sake of drumming someone up, u do so and then it ends in a tragedy like mine.
If the person, I m have in mind, reads the post, then hopefully he would understand. I started a topic with him, based on all kinds of false facts etc. and he as such got carried away into it. He should had understood that such mischiefs have been done previously also and had been taken in the spirit of the sport of Friendship. But then I didnt quite know that he was so close to the topic, I had hummed up. Nevertheless the harm has been done. I just hope that the person tries to accept my apologies in the form of this blog.
All the other readers who feel bored with my blattering of personal stuffs, please keep in mind to be aware of true facts before you drum it up with someone (otherwise BE AT THE RISK OF LOSING A GOOD FRIEND, which I think the person in the q will understand and I will not lost one).
More on the weekly updates of things happening out here, Africa may be going from bad to greater height of badness (cant say worse, but only a level lesser than that).
Kenya still seems to be burning. Maybe people are correct about Africa not being able to adhere to democracy (truly here Democracy = Demons gone crazy). There are only about a handful of countries, who have truthfully followed the laws of democracy with all its stamps and prints.

Anyways that will sum up the day for me. Please keep posting those criticisms, which may help me to better the quality of the blog.

Kenyan Situation and Me

Living in Kampala, Uganda or for that matter any place with whose topography your folks are not well versed with is problematic. If anything happens any place nearby, you are the ones who are bombarded with emails, smses and phone calls.

Take for instance, the case of the Kenyan trouble. Kenya is a different country and everything associated with Kenya is different including the people, culture, security, infrastructure and even the expartriates living there. The only problem is that it is near to Uganda and whenever the crisis in Kenya is talked about, Uganda is named invariably.

There have been a lots of things happening there in Kenya and the worst affected are no doubt the common people living there but people like me living here in Uganda are also well affected. Our fuel and most of the Raw material comes through Kenya, so it has affected most of the supplies incoming into Uganda and production in local entities as well. On personal front, Everytime I find anyone from my friends or family circle online, I have to convince them that Kenya is a different place than Uganda. The airtime expenses have gone up. I have to call my family everyday to say that I m fit and fine here, that today's violence was in so and so place is not in my residence 'country'. It may feel funny for us to comment on it, but the situation was really grave and worth giving a thought that can Africa ever be sure of having regimes, which can boast of being democratically elected and constitutionally correct. From Kenya's example, we can say that even economical powers dont have a stability, when it comes to governance.

For that matter, I can reliably comment that Uganda is an oasis of peace and stability (for the timebeing, but hopefully will continue to be so in future).

Johari window

Hi all,

Found this site, which can tell your JOHARI window.
Do comment on mine at http://kevan.org/johari?name=santoshpillai

A Big Happy New Year to all

Happy New Year to one and all.

This post is coming atleast a week late. The excuse being the same old of working too much.

Ok it may be old but I had been under tremendous workload especially for a small organisation like ours. Forgot to tell, ours is a very small organisation comprising of 2 Indian and 3 Ugandans or make that 4, one being in Rwanda.

More on the organisation in a later post.

This was my second Xmas in Uganda. Ugandans, you may be a bit surprised to know, have one of the highest per capita consumption of alcohol. In a recent research, it was ranked the first on their list of priorities. Airtime following next and then education, food, lodging etc. So from this, we can estimate how much alcohol plays a part in their life. So Xmas would have been a boom time for the breweries. Uganda may at some point of time, form apart of a case study for MBA students (may be I will take it up, when I go for that delayed MBA degree) on the Marketing and sales of alcohol. There are actually many things on which you can write a case study here in Uganda. But, again there too I m in the process of making a detailed list, so that will also have to wait for a later post.

Nevertheless, last Xmas had been pretty uneventful for me, I slept it off at home. So, this one I made up my mind not to waste the holidays in slumber and went off to visit some place here.

On Xmas day, we headed off to Jinja. Jinja, by topograpical sense is a bit on the warmer side than Kampala (dont know the reason, may be because Kampala is surrounded by hills & Jinja is a plateau, thats my inference, nevertheless it was hot). It was a quite trip but a nostalgic one for me, because it was my first trip outside Kampala on vacation or siteseeing and also because it was the first time I was visiting a genuine virgin water source/waterfalls. Bujagali Falls is just beautiful. White water rafting, swimming, bungi jumping, you ask for it in water sports and you get it there. But then I didnt venture out into one, because I dont quite know swimming and I have a hydrophobia of sorts. Some pics of the trip have been captured from amature cam phone. I will upload the same asap. The same day, we visited another charismatic place. It was the Source of Nile (ya, the great Nile river originates from Uganda). Dont know how true that is, but then it should be true because no one has yet refuted the claims or put forth any counter claims. This place is actually strange. Its in Lake Victoria, from one end, you could see Entebbe, which is about 160 kms. from Jinja & at the other end you are in Jinja & for reaching both places you have to pass through Kampala.

Truely said, Uganda is one hell of a beauty, may be thats why Gujaratis came and settled here hundreds of years back. Atleast it has a better climate than Ahmedabad. I should say that everyone should atleast once try to visit Uganda.

The Boxing Day trip should be for the next post. It was more eventful with full of more twists and turns. But till then keep posting those comments (actually I have received just one comment, but thats not a deterent to keep me from writing :-))