Showing posts with label SIEMENS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SIEMENS. Show all posts

The best dreams....



The best dreams are the one which keep you awake at night...

The last few weeks, some of my very favourite dreams have kept me awake... The Sun rises really early in Germany, I know, coz I have been sleeping at 4 in the morning, consistently, for the last few weeks...

Getting your book published is like nurturing a baby. You hav
e to keep it in wraps... nurture it... and one day when it's ready, lead it out to the world..

I am generally calm about everything but lately, I have been a little jittery. I keep thinking about the book... There is just too much work actually. Sometimes the cover is not right, sometimes there is a problem with the cover, sometimes the website wont load, sometimes the flash file that I am working on crashes.... There are times when I get up at 5 in the morning, go to the kitchen and wonder why I came there in the first place.... I return back, and then I realise that I was thirsty! I go to sleep anyway...

I have kept you guys in the dark enough... But today is the day I unveil the cover of my Novel.





Now there's an interesting story about the cover.

You see, the cover that was sent to me by the Publishers, though lovely, looked like a out of a Mills&Boons novel. There was this couple kissing and stuff. My mother and sister saw the poster and were slightly scandalized. I knew the cover had to go. Ever since my kid sister started bossing me around, I have decided, never do anything that the sister doesnt like. I like to be safe. Period.

So, my editor called me and said that if I were to reject that cover, I had to come up with a new one within a night.

I worked on it for some time. What I came up with was almost as Milly&Boony as the previous cover. I realized that this was the work of a real nerd. Someone so nerdy, that his life would revolve around Sci-fi movies, Autocad software and Cartoon Network.

In Pushkar Sheth, I found that nerd. The weird thing about guy friends is, that you dont really have to ask/request them to do stuff... You just tell them. We worked on the cover in the night (in different rooms on different continents) and by morning we had 2-3 nerdy covers, with the above mentioned cover being the nerdiest of all...

My European friends have asked me what does the cover mean... I explain it here :)

The HOW has a square sign, indicating that getting his girl back, wasnt that straight forward. The 'i' is an imaginary number, implying lack of confidence in the guy.
The girl is presented as Girl++, like the programming language C++, implying his failure to understand them.
The heart is the best part. The heart has what we engineers like to call - dimensioning. Dimensioning is used to measure things. Here, the guy is trying to measure his heart and thus, the feelings that it embodies!
Deep no?


I hope you guys like the cover. Do let me know what you think about it in the comments section.

I have also been working on the Flash Teaser for the novel. Most of my friends who have seen the teaser, like it... I am currently also working on the website where you can have more information about the Novel, like excerpts, Q&A with the writer, synopsis, the works you know...

I can show you the teaser, but I am too shy to show the website. The teaser came out pretty well, but the site, though informative, isn’t what you call dhinchak! The reason for that being than neither me nor my friend is a computer engineer. And I don’t really have the money to hire people to do this. So the website might take some time before I learn some stuff about making a website.

Anyway, here is the flash teaser I was talking bout... http://www.swfcabin.com/open/1276689382

If you like/dislike it, you let me know...



My friends in India as well as in Germany have been asking me for signed copies once the book comes out. Everytime someone asks me for a free copy, I feel bad that I get only 10 complimentary free copies. Yes, that’s right. Only 10. If you are Salman Rushdie, then you might get 10 dancing ladies with hundreds of free copies... But I am not him, not even close, so no dancing ladies for me. And only 10 copies.

What I can do is, I can get you guys a discount so instead of the market price, you will get it at a cheaper price, but that’s all. If you stay in India and read The Time Pass of India, do send me a mail across at arshat.chaudhary@gmail.com. I will make sure you get your pre-launch copies at cheaper prices.



Some dreams are good. They give you that tinkling feeling in your belly. The kind you got when you were about to kiss for the first time.

Some dreams are not so good. They give you the chills. The kind you got when were caught copying in the 4th grade. Sometimes I dream that no one is buying my novel. I dream that - I ask the publisher when he’s coming out with the second print, and he says no one has bought a single copy from the first print. Sometimes I feel my friends will not buy my Novel because they expect me to send them one. And it’s out of my control to buy so many of my own copies and ship them all over the world.



I couldn’t have asked for better friends. My friends at ESCP, MDI(Gurgaon), SPCE(Mumbai) and Siemens(India) have been more than encouraging. All my friends in Berlin, Indians, Germans and from all over the world have been extremely supporting. The foreigners (actually I myself am a foreigner in Germany) have been so excited about the whole thing. I guess they see a bit of bollywood in the teaser.

Rahul Sindal, my roommate has seen me change from calm, composed, confident man to someone who became pretty unsure of himself. I have always admired the ease with which he cheers everybody up around him. I am really happy he was around this time. Alright now, a man shouldn’t give more than 3 lines of praise to another man. It just gets too awkward.

Now that I am in the zone, I would like to get over with all the senti stuff quickly. Pushkar Sheth has been the creative mind behind a lot of things. I find it difficult seeing my book published on time without him being in the picture. I also hope after reading such praise about a fellow human being, one of you pretty girls will go over and approach him. He’s a nice guy, only too technical. Thanks Pushkar, I know you don’t read my blog coz you find the stories too senti, but one day your daughter will come on this blog and read good stuff about you, and she will think you are more than an android sent from the future :P

I also want to thank Sameer Thombare for doing what even professional designers find difficult to do. You did a better job than them, you did it faster than them. IIM B has waited too long for you :)

I thank Harsh Snehanshu(Oops I fell in Love) for patiently answering all my questions. I thank Sachinn Garg(The Sunny shady life), my senior at MDI, who constantly pushed me to work more on my novel. I hope you read the novel and like it. I also thank N Sampath Kumar (Love on the velocity express) for keeping up my spirits when I was down.

I wanna thank Purnima Gopalkrishnan. She did what girls like doing the most, which is, finding a man's mistakes. The time and energy she put in reading my manuscript and finding out 1027 errors is commendable. The quality of the novel really improved coz of her efforts. I can go praising her, but I don’t wanna spoil my chances with other girls. : )

I hope I cover everyone from my blog friends to the people I work with when finally I say – I thank my friends for being there.


The book comes out on July 10. That is my birthday. I am entering that phase of my life where one has to hide his age. So I will not be mentioning it here.

The book will be available for Rs.125. It was priced higher. I had to fight and fight with the Publishers to bring it down to Rs.125. The slightly higher pricing when compared to other publishers is acceptable because the binding and the print quality of Pustak Mahal is far too superior.

The novel will be available at all leading book stores all over India come July 10, 2010. It can also be bought online.


Novel:

How I got My Girl Back...!

A nerd’s guide to dating

Author:

Arshat Chaudhary

Publisher:

Pustak Mahal

Price:

Rs.125

Available at all leading bookstores from July 10, 2010


P.S.

1. Please do join the community of How I got My Girl Back...! on facebook : http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=125312997504438

2. Also there on orkut : http://www.orkut.com/Main#Community?cmm=102975754

3. If you wish to be updated about the book, please do follow me on twitter : http://twitter.com/arshatchaudhary

4. Dont know if you have noticed... This blog just reached 1,00,000 hits!!! (check out the number of copies sold on the column on the right)

To my readers - Thank you for everything!

The best dreams....SocialTwist Tell-a-Friend

Editor in chief Arshat Chaudhary

Current Issues: , , , , , , ,
25 letters to the editor  

Of Holi and that confession thingy

When I was very young, probably in the fourth or the fifth grade, my dad would pack me downstairs with a small bucket full of water balloons to play holi with my friends. Now as far as I remember, I was a shy guy (arre sacchi!). I didnt have many friends. So while all the other kids would be busy colouring each other, a drawing class gone wrong, I would wonder how to enter the colour fest. I mean how do you go about throwing water balloons at people you dont know very well. I used to stand in the corner wondering how to get into the commotion. After half an hour of standing there, I would turn around to go back home, but just so that I dont look like a complete loser to my dad, I would throw a few balloons on cars, and a few on myself, to look the part. Then I would return home, soaked in the colour of three balloons I splashed myself with, take a bath and have puranpoli for lunch.

What I didnt know is that my dad used to watch me from our third floor apartment, while I went on throwing balloons on cars and drenching myself in colour. He didnt say a word.

***

My best holi were the ones I played with my cousins. The night before the holi day, we sat in the bathroom stocking ammunition. I filled balloons with water using my new nagraj brand pichkari, while Aroop expertly tied knots to the balloons. He had names for all types of knots. Floppy knot, army knot, super knot..
"Arre main aisa knot bandhega na, Michael Jackson bhi nahi khol paayega", Aroop used to say.
"Michael Jackson kaun hai?", I asked. I didnt have cable then. My favourite shows included Phulwari bachon ki on DD1.
"Abbe Michael Jackson nahi malum? kya dance karta hai bey woh.."
Its amazing how highly kids thought of him. And who can blame them, I mean of the 6.5 billion people in the world, how many have turned snow white from jet black?
Aroop(I know you are secretly reading this), you were such a showoff! :P But not his mistake entirely if you ask me, this is what cable Tv did to a lotta boys during the 90s.

***

Our colony, had two cricket groups the "bade log" and the "chotte log". My problem was that I fell in the age group which was common to both. But I chose to play in the chotte log, coz they played underarm cricket and I didnt know how to bowl overarm then and also it was easier to win there. What? Dont judge me! I like to win!

I shifted base to bade log at the start of the 7th std. I had taken a liking to overarm cricket inspite of the fact that I was terrible at batting and couldnt bowl 6 legitimate deliveries without giving away 20 extras. Anyhow, it was Bablu, who was usually the captain of my side, who had deep rooted confidence in me. How else do you explain a newbie bowler like me getting the first over in every match. As I excelled in the following years, it was as much as a triumph for him as it was for me. I have opened bowling several times now, even so for my team in college, but it still doesnt compare with the thrill that I used to experience when Bablu tossed me the ball.
Over the years I have taken Bablu's place and tried to do for kids like Debu and Nachiket what Bablu did for me. Its such a high to see them grow into such good players.

***

During my engineering, holi became just another holiday. Last year when I worked with Siemens, it ceased to be even that. I spent the that holi in the office. Ofcourse we did throw a little customary colour around. Too bad our German boss took a leave that day (clever fellow), we had decided to give him a taste of Indian festivities (if you know what I mean). So we spent the day working a little and forwarding mails a lot, which is good thing, coz the next day I had my friends (who worked in Indian companies which were more considerate to their needs of soaking themselves in colour on holi) send me queries like -
"Dude? yesterday wasnt a holiday??"
To which I replied - "Nahi re, was in the office. "
"hehe, dude!! no holiday on holi-day?? hehe he"(yeah, thats the level of jokes we crack)
"No re, had to work.. Have to finish this project before the German boss leaves for home. If I dont the assembly line in Berlin will have serious problems. Thousands of euros down the drain I tell you."
"Doood!!!"
He was in deep awe. He must have thought that I was the VP (Assembly lines) Siemens AG. Here, it should be noted that he was an IT guy and for him assembly lines was pretty much the lines we stood in before the morning prayer back in school.
But I did hear him telling my other friends - "Abbe! Arshat kaam karta hai bey!!"(his eyes and the eyes of the one hearing this statement as big as saucers)

***

Last confession - I will be celebrating this holi with my cousins, it gonna be fun. I know for a fact that Aroop's favourite isnt MJ any more. So I wont get any - "Abbe Michael Jackson nahi malum? kya dance karta hai bey woh..". He might ask me questions on Metallica though- showoff I tell you :P
My dad is abroad so he wont be joining us. But I would be cool even if he was there. Coz now whatever happens, I wont splash myself with balloons to look the part...

Happy Holi everyone.






















My 2007 holi post here
 Of Holi and that confession thingySocialTwist Tell-a-Friend

Editor in chief Arshat Chaudhary

Current Issues: , , , , ,
24 letters to the editor  

The difference is - German Engineering!

Audi
Mercedes
Siemens
BMW
Blaupunkt

See the trend? All the above mentioned companies apart from being among the best in the business are also German...

I have always had this fascination about German Engineering, so much so that I wanted to do my Masters(yeah in engg!!) from Germany! But that was long ago, just around the time I had entered engineering.. After 4 yrs of hardcore(and theres absolutely nothing sexual about tht) engineering, I was damn to tired to get involved in Automobile Engineering in an alien country... But the point is, Germany always amazed me..
I mean, imagine, a country with a population of 8 crore, being the third strongest economy in the world..The number of Scientist this country has produced..The fact that someone from this country actually thought that they can win over the world if they wanted to!!.... But most importantly, the engineering brains that this country has are what finite element analysis is made up of!!

There is this joke about German enggs tht I am fond of..
The Russians send the first man in space in April '61...
JFK, the US president at time was really miffed at this. He called his chief engineer and asked him, - "How in the world did the Russians get their man in space before we did!"
To this the chief engg replied - "I am sorry sir, but their German engineers are better than ours!!"
Hahahaha... wait till I tell this to my boss...

Talking bout my boss, hes the Head of Tech transfer, so effectively hes the one who's responsible for the entire factory. Now he is one of the representatives of his country for me.. So when I talk about Germans, a lot of my observations will be based on him... Ofcourse there are other Germans who come here in really good suits and really bad English.. Sometimes when they don't know a word, I suspect they throw in the the German equivalent.. Every other of their sentences starts with "nicht" or some word sounds like that... The shrug accompanied by-"I dont know!" is native to all Germans mrgreen ... And may I add, apart from the guys who are a part of management, the others have a terrible sense of fashion!! I mean, Paris is just a stones throw away ppl!!

*One of the things I have noticed bout these guys is that they are extremely polite.. And these guys are supposed to be gas-chamber-suffocating types!!
*They don't change jobs that often! The guy whom I am talking about has been working in the company from like ages!! He worked for Audi for a few years before moving to this company though...
*They are extremely patriotic .. They have a simple policy- everything German is quality! Everything German is good.. German cars, German electronics, German beer, German cellphones !! It took us a lot of cajoling to make them allow the usage of Indian spares in the factory...
*One more thing I admire about them is their dedication towards work.. So someone who works 36 hours a week(yeah! try believing that!!) back in Germany, does 48 hour weeks(Like the rest of us) here!
*Somehow quality inspection takes 3 hrs when our German boss does it.. Somehow 25 yrs of service for a transformer isn't good enough for him..
*Somehow he can run around the factory all day when there is a crisis(Hes 52!).. A bolt not fitting in? Crisis... Too much copper/iron dust on the shopfloor? Crisis..! Nut not tightened correctly?..You guessed it right! Crisis!!!

There are times when something gets messed up real bad and I look at him and he seems to say to himself - Why the f*** am I here!.... No, not angry, just despair..
Sometimes ..well, things don't get messed up and he seems to say to himself.. "Man! They did it, didn't they!"

There is this middle aged colleague whos really cool, and always positive, he has 10 years of work ex and we(the young ones) look up to him.Lets call him GS sir.
All the guys in my dept. have been to Germany..Sir has been there more than a couple of times..But he does not contribute much to the conversation, its only the new foreign-returns who do the talking... And most of them are starry eyed about the buildings, transport, the facilities, the engineering, the cars, the people... They talk about the places they have seen and the Mercedes and BMWs they travelled in... And how fast their trains are.. and how when a train is late by 3 mins its considered a breach of quality ...& How a crater on the road is a national crisis .. " All the young ones(like me) gather around them, listening to their stories and wondering why we cant have smooth roads and trains that are on time...
"Apne yahan sab chalta hai re",they say...Somehow "chalta hai" is our ideology. "We are like this only!!" Garib desh ki yehi problem hai...

Garib desh?

The young ones look at each other feeling bad, feeling helpless.. Garib desh?

Sir says nothing.. He just looks outside the window.. and keeps looking there...
Comeon say something...someone..anyone.. Comeon sir, say something to get our young, inexperienced spirits up!

"Aaayega", sir said....

"Aaayega... Apna bhi time aayega.. Abhi toh humne sirf shuruvat kiy hai....Kuch din theherjaao... Yeh Garib desh, ek din sab ko dikha dega...Apna bhi time aayega..."

Apna bhi time aayega.. Yeah..

 The difference is - German Engineering!SocialTwist Tell-a-Friend

Editor in chief Arshat Chaudhary

Current Issues: , , , , , ,
11 letters to the editor  

My placements - When the Vacations finally begun...

Its been ages since I posted. So here goes..
This post is bout my placements. SPCE is known for its amazing placements. This was one of the reasons why I joined SP.

Our placements began on the 19 June just 10 days after our 6 sem exams got over. I wanted to get selected as soon as possible, not because I wanted to get in the best cos (the best cos usually visit first) but because I wanted to enjoy my vacations. I didnt even wanna sit for the interviews...I didnt wanna work in a 9 to 5 job (btw I do tht nowadays..n its not tht bad!)...

The first company tht visited us was Bajaj Auto. Clearing the apti was the least of my worries. I am good at clearing Aptitude tests. The only apti I didnt clear was the Bajaj autowalla apti (Bajaj autowala- pun intended!) And tht was because of a wrong question in their apti...I missed by one question, and had to return home...

Next day it was LnT...Now, I had heard really bad things bout them (no offense meant) and was in no mood to attend their aptitude test...I gave the apti for the heck of it, cleared it, and gave the interview. The interview was the fun part...The interviewer asked me questions bout IC engine and mechanics(the fav of my subjects)...Then he asked me one question bout metallurgy...This is one of my worse subjects..I have an allergy of meta-allergy...I faltered...He smiled, just like Brett Lee smiled when he knew Sehwag couldnt play balls targeted into his rib-cage..!
He did it to me what Lee(How come an Australian is named Lee?) would do to Sehwag! He tested me in Metallurgy...Tht was the end of my innings...Btw Kunal(one of the my "dirty dozen" group) made it to LnT...
I went home feeling sorry for myself..Why? I have no idea!

The day after, on 22nd june, it was Siemens...Cleared the apti, waited for the interviews...About 20 of us had cleared the apti...Looking at the quality of guys nd girls selected for the interview I stood no chance...But I aint no quitter nd I was getting bored of travelling to the Andheri(my college) everyday for interviews...I wanted this job real bad...
I took the 17th spot for the interview...I wanted some time to brush up on my metallurgy...
The interviews took a lot of time...My chance came at 9 in the night...The interview did not go very well..The interviewers did to me what Sourav Ganguly does to left arm spinners!
I came out sure tht I wont be selected...But there were only 3 more guys to go, so I decided to wait...

By 9:30 all the interviews were over...They took half an hour to decide on whom they were gonna recruit...But it seemed lot more than half an hour! I was making myself think tht Tata Power is gonna come tomorrow... I wud make it tomorrow...I had completely given up on Siemens, after all they wanted only 3 students from mech...3 out of 20, wht chance did I stand?..

Then he came out of the TPO, the HR head from Siemens..Everybody gathered around him...I stood away from the crowd, near the doorway, so tht I cud leave as soon as he finished calling out the names.

The first name he called out was "Akshay Sukhtankar".Akshay almost leaped onto him...Hi fives all around...Next was "Rohit Apte". The next name he called out was "Komelabbas Lakhani"..Not selecting him would be such a mistake...

Thts it 3 names called out...thts all they wanted..3 guys frm SP...they were recruiting from Somaiya the next day...
I turned around and took a step towards the doorway...Thts when he called out the 4th name? What? 4th name? "Arshat Chaudhary".... What the?Who? me?how?they said they wanted only 3 guys!But he called my name out..loud and clear...Know how it is when u prick a balloon? It happened to me!

Navin shook hands with me, someone patted my back, ppl congratulated me, I dont remember if I answered...I had blacked out...

I remember breaking the news to my mother and my dad...I called up Aroop and Rohit and few more guys who were pretty close to me...Congratulatory messages started pouring in on my cell...

Even at 11 in the night I didnt get a place to sit in the train, but all of a sudden, it didnt matter
anymore..The Vacations had finally begun...

P.S.-They didnt recruit anyone from Somaiya mech the next day. For any Somaiya guys reading this post, you know whom to blame! My placements - When the Vacations finally begun...SocialTwist Tell-a-Friend

Editor in chief Arshat Chaudhary

Current Issues: , , , , , ,
4 letters to the editor  

Schlumberger…

I cleared the apti(believe me,I was as shocked as you are).

The feeling of contempt is not becoz the company pays a whopping 7lacs per annuum(they say only iitians raked in the moolah!)….The feeling of satisfaction here is to find your name among the best of the class…

There are about 6 who have cleared….Sameer(God),Supriya(Goddess),Jagruti(amazing PR),Deepak(Newton),Rahul(God)(sorry I ran out of nouns!)…

In all probability I wont make it…But still I can hold my head high,coz I made the cut…More so,it helps me to identify the fact tht Siemens(currently placed here) was no fluke!

I am in two minds…if I make it in Schlumby,I loose my Siemens job…Dont wanna loose Siemens!Formed a bond with them(especially after the college bag they gifted us…)

The interview is on sunday at nariman point….

Schlumberger…SocialTwist Tell-a-Friend

Editor in chief Arshat Chaudhary

Current Issues: , ,
0 letters to the editor  

SPACE 07….the last one…

All three days were a lot of fun at SPACE…The best being(after a lot of consideration)the last day…
Following chronological order,the first day started with
elims(eliminations,duh!)with people like me getting eliminated in every event…I guess these elims are arranged so tht people like me know tht they are good for nothing(like I never knew!)
Well I did make it through the elims once,for the event..Ignoble ads..where we had to demote the products instead of promoting them!
Visual Impact followed after 6pm officially(7.30 unofficially)…
Second day was fun too,with Casino Royale being our favourite.There was a casino set-up in one of the drawing rooms,with gambling going full-on!Didnt win even after cheating!But did win in a game called code-venture!
Third day was the best coz I did what I normally wouldnt
do….dance!There were these FE girls with us,who seemed pretty interested(in the dance that is!).Learnt a few Salsa moves(the event is called Ballroom dancing).The choreo was really cool,making fun of everyone including himself…
The last event was the Rock Show…lot of headbanging…lot of weird looking guys..lot of second hand smoke…But tht was still fun coz most of my group was there…Navin,Kunal,Siddhant,Umesh and Arshat(thts
me).Also Harish was there(one of my oldies).Two FE girls tht I mentioned earlier are Shruti and Poonam who blended in as if they’d been with us from ages.I guess their bubbly innocence had a lot to do with these three days being so much fun!
And guess who sponsored the event? Its my employer…SIEMENS! SPACE 07….the last one…SocialTwist Tell-a-Friend

Editor in chief Arshat Chaudhary

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