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Spirituality is not boring – We generally drink the strongest

The blogger in me is still alive :). Just got a mail from Guy Kawasaki as a reply for an interview request and was going through his blog after some real long time. I got this link for his blog http://www.mppcfamily.org/app/w_page.php?id=49&type=section (Warning: A spiritual website, please don’t visit if you think you are not spiritual 🙂 ). I heard some minutes and I thought of recommending it to others. Don’t worry, its not going to hurt you :).

SEO for clients
These days I am working on http://www.SEOforClients.com, will explain more about it in a week time. I was searching inside me and asking me this question again and again, “What the hell I want to do in my life?” (Dare you ask anyone else, you will get all philosophical talks, ask yourself the simple way and keep asking). I am almost there (I think I am almost there), will let you know. Concerning Spirituality, we have made spirituality too scary for many (As we offer the strongest drinks, “Don’t do any evil or you will go to hell“). Every time I talk to a non spiritual man about spirituality, I feel comfortable but when I talk to a spiritual person (few exceptions are there) about the same, I feel a little scared of hitting the wrong toe. I am scared of people who are taught spirituality by others but I have so much respect for people who have learned spirituality, from their own experiences and other’s experiences.

According to me, spirituality is a lot different and amazingly attractive. I don’t see it to be boring. It becomes boring when it becomes a religion, a community affair, a ritual. I am a Christan and I strongly believe in the teachings and the law but I don’t forget to check the context of the content. At http://mysoul.in/, I did say (and I repeat it here) that “At times we feel that spirituality is boring and only for some but in reality, we all are born with great level of spirituality. Spirituality is very personal according to me”.

I thought of writing very little but the hands are moving really fast, in this last para I will share some of the things I learned from Bible that changed (and is changing) my life in amazingly positive way:

  1. Don’t judge others: (Matt 7:1-3)
    “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?” I have realized that at many times we judge others with the very little information we have. I keep using this sentence in my professional life (esp during interview rejections), “I am no one to judge you whether you are good or bad but just based on the interview I feel, its completely my personal opinion, may not be right, that currently there are better candidates available for this job profile. So, I am saying a no to you. I again repeat, that its not how good you are but how better you were in this current competition for the current profile. Thanks.”. At times we need to take a decision but there are many many occasions where we sit of the Judge’s chair unnecessarily.
  2. Forgive and you will be forgiven: (Luke 6:37) – Spirituality is a lot more about sacrifice. I feel you can’t forgive without a sacrifice. Someone pushes you out of the queue and takes the taxi. You deserved it, you should have got it but ……. Even if you shout at the person, its all legal and accepted. But forgiving needs a lot more, it needs to be practiced. From my experience I can tell you that I feel a lot better when I smile at the person and say, “Ok! May God bless you. I will take the next cab”. I am selfish and I forgive as I feel better 🙂 and it allows me to focus on better things in life.
  3. Hey we are all different: (Romans 14:15) “If your brother is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer acting in love. Do not by your eating destroy your brother for whom Christ died.” I think I haven’t read any powerful message than this about spirituality. It needs a whole new post to describe this.
  4. There is a God and it is not you. God came to love and give life, not to destroy you 🙂 (John 3:16) – “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,[a] that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life”
  5. Its not about perfection but the journey towards it.
  6. Lets not do good for rewards but do good as it is good. (Reaching this level is a dream for all of us. I don’t want to do good to go to heaven but I want to do good as it is good.)
  7. Spirituality can’t be taught but it can be learned.
  8. Anything that doesn’t change you from inside is just an attempt that hasn’t produced the desired result. Try again. (If by going to Church, you haven’t changed yourself from inside then go again and again till you don’t change yourself from inside. Going to Church and changing yourself from inside, both go hand in hand and is more important when taken together)

Ok, enough! I am just too simple to share advance thoughts on spirituality. You might like to visit http://www.mppcfamily.org/app/w_page.php?id=49&type=section at times. Have a very safe and blessed week. Do let us know if you have any prayer request (I believe in praying, register and put your prayer request or even feel free to drop an email.) Thanks.

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neoligism: smartcut – User smartcut not shortcuts

Today I was writing the education email for dawebmarketing client’s (It’s a weekly affair) and coined this word “smartcut”. I don’t know if anyone has ever used it but Google define doesn’t have it for sure.

If shortcut is to take the shortest route then smartcut is to take the smartest route. I will always recommend using smartcuts than shortcuts for all arenas of life. Shortcuts may not be smartcuts all the time and smartcuts will give you long term benefits.

Wow, just a small post. Looking forward for your comments.

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Selling pubcon.in to Brett Tabke, owner of Webmasterworld.com

Pubcon India has been attracting more and more web enthusiasts in last few weeks. Everyone is excited about various events and the overall plan. I just took http://www.pubcon.in just by chance (May be because I knew pub con or hosting con).

Brett Tabke of WebMasterWorld.com, who blogs using robots.txt file. I can better introduce him as a great person who thought of opening WMW. WMW has been a blessing to many of us, I met a lot of people there, I learned a lot of things there, many memories to share about WMW and many dreams to follow. Brett has asked for http://www.pubcon.in and I am more than happy to sell pubcon.in to him as by this we can expect his entry to Indian webmaster world. We had been expecting this for quite some time.

After pubcon, what?

Don’t worry guys, we will get another domain, just suggest me some good name.

Am I selling pubcon for $1 million

Many have asked this question. Sorry, can’t reveal that :). Call me if you want to know the exact amount :), have fun.

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Congrats Sid, its really my honor to work with you

I remember the SEO talks we had some years ago when he was a student at AIMK. I was working on these techniques and he was very eager to learn the web marketing methods. I could walk him through some of the industry practices and I think he was just seduced the attractive web. He went further and applied for some SEO jobs as well.

There are many who learn the basics but there are few (like Sid) who can give themselves the extra push to do better things. For last 2 weeks, he was creating the curiosity about a courier sent by him. Check the emails to know more (thanks to courier company for creating this extra curiosity)

On Mon, Jul 7, 2008 at 10:56 PM, Fg Offr Siddharth Kharbanda < ******@gmail.com> wrote:

that’s nice sir.

i’m recently back to civilisation .. catching up with nimc and school crowd around.
got posted to hy’bad, will be leaving on 18th july.

2008/7/7 Web Kotler aka AjiNIMC :

I am working with digital avenues, it is a software firm and I am handling two departments there 🙂

How is your life? What do you do the whole day?

On Mon, Jul 7, 2008 at 10:18 PM, Fg Offr Siddharth Kharbanda < ******@gmail.com> wrote:

some god forsaken… i’ll ******* them sir. no doubts.
hope you get it soon.

where r u working now days sir?

2008/7/7 Web Kotler aka AjiNIMC :

they did not deliver it today as well, fire them there, I don’t have their phone number, I get all couriers to this address very easily. which courier company.

Aji

On Sun, Jul 6, 2008 at 11:52 PM, Fg Offr Siddharth Kharbanda < ******@gmail.com> wrote:

you got my snaps sir? i sent you sir,.

2. they should be delivering it soon sir, please roger them abt their sloppy service sir.
they were complaining of incorrect postal address.

2008/7/6 Web Kotler aka AjiNIMC :

how is everything going?

On Sun, Jul 6, 2008 at 2:45 PM, Fg Offr Siddharth Kharbanda < ******@gmail.com> wrote:

ok sir

2008/7/6 Web Kotler aka AjiNIMC :

yesterday they did, they are too lazy .. they did not deliver it yet

On Sat, Jul 5, 2008 at 12:20 PM, Fg Offr Siddharth Kharbanda < ******@gmail.com> wrote:

they probably complained of an incorrect postal address sir, they shall speak to you

On 04/07/2008, Fg Offr Siddharth Kharbanda < ******@gmail.com> wrote:

ok sir.. i too checked out with the courier chap… bloody bugger

On 04/07/2008, Web Kotler aka AjiNIMC wrote:

ok, which courier, did u call them up? I will check with my neighbours once again.

On Fri, Jul 4, 2008 at 1:32 PM, Fg Offr Siddharth Kharbanda < ******@gmail.com> wrote:

courier sir

On 03/07/2008, Web Kotler aka AjiNIMC wrote:

haven’t arrived yet. How did u send it?

On Thu, Jul 3, 2008 at 12:44 PM, Fg Offr Siddharth Kharbanda < ******@gmail.com> wrote:

Dont tell me Sir. i’ll chk it out.
I sent it to yr home address

On 01/07/2008, Web Kotler aka AjiNIMC wrote:

nahi not yet

On Tue, Jul 1, 2008 at 9:24 AM, Fg Offr Siddharth Kharbanda < ******@gmail.com> wrote:

Sir, got it?

On 25/06/2008, Web Kotler aka AjiNIMC wrote:

Sure, looking forward for the surprise gift :), thanks

Aji

On Wed, Jun 25, 2008 at 5:13 PM, Fg Offr Siddharth Kharbanda < ******@gmail.com> wrote:

Kindly do acknowledge reciept of the courier, Sir.

Hope you like it.
Thanks.

Finally it arrived


Wow, he has contributed to a Journal. I will be reading the whole chapter written by him.

My best wishes for him. Now he is a Flying officer in Air Force.

My advice to Sid

You have learned many web related things and now you in Air force, nothing can be coincident, just use your learning for Air Force. May be you can initiate some good things, may be it can be inspiring young people to join Air Force, educating people, any social work, anything that fits in. The web knowledge will help you reach more people. Teach others and lets contribute to the growth of our country. Best of luck! You have made me proud and thanks for sending me the journal.

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What did you achieve in last 5 professional years?

Ok, this is a post that will humble me even further. God was so good to me that for last 5 years I was able to live a life worth looking back and thanking God. We all work, we all create quality products and services but I am happy that I with the help of many were able to help many do their work smartly and create better products.

What did you achieve in last 5 pro years
(Last 5 years of professionalism)

After leaving Grmtech these are some of the comments (in random order) that really kept me motivated:

  1. ” Wish you all the best. I have learnt so many things from you rather from your blog. Today I can’t stop myself from writing this comment. May god bless you all the time and be the best again.”

    – Susmita Chatterjee (She worked with me for some months. Thanks for the comment and thanks for reading my blog regularly.)

  2. “I came to know this from your blog only. I read your blog regularly because I find it interesting and informative. Sorry for being so late in posting comments. I hope its never too late to begin.”

    – Manjit (She worked with me for very few months, we enjoyed the work but it was a big surprise to hear from her. Thanks for remembering me)

  3. sometimes people make a huge difference in the environment surrounding you… and you are one who does that Sir… i am sure those guys in your new company would realize your true worth very soon… U ROCK SIR!!

    Sir, you made GrmTech the place what it is today. Without you it would have not been the same innovation oriented group of people. Personally you have made me what I am today. I owe a lot to you Sir. I have learned many things from you.

    YOU ARE STILL MY ROLE MODEL ALONG WITH ONE SPECIAL PERSON IN MY LIFE. 🙂

    We will miss AjiNIMC at GrmTech.

    May God Bless You Sir.

    Good luck !!!! (more …)

    – Anand Kedia – [He joined as a very young team member and how he is handling a lot of things now. Many hate him and rightly so 🙂 he sometimes is irritating too, I respect him for his initiatives (very few people have this quality) and I wish I could have shared some unwanted experiences with him. Never too late for it. Here I go: “The spirit of communication is not the spirit in which you speak/write but the spirit in which the other person hears/reads you. So always thing of the impact that it will have on others by thinking like others. Thats the only change you need, rest everything rocks except your knowledge level. People respect you for your knowledge, so read read and read and then apply apply and apply and then read read and read and then reapply reapply and reapply” :), he is a great guy to work with)

  4. When I started my career in SEO people use to ask me WHY? Why are you choosing this field, while you are an ETC Engg. and you can get a good job, but when I joined my first job that time I was completely fresher. It was you who taught me the real taste of web and now almost 20 hours of my day goes to web and I am really enjoying it. There are lots of stuff associated with web, and it is also true that you are going to learn every moment of your life. Thanks Aji.

    – By Alok (Currently heading a company as CEO, He worked with me on one of the projects. It is great to know that people are creating more jobs for India).

  5. If I look back at those 3 years, Grmtech has been more of an institute rather than a company for me (Thanks to Aji and Sourav Da).

    – by Anirudh – It reminded me of some early days of Grmtech where we wanted to make it more like a university to do a very highly work and research. Congrats dude for completing 3 years at Grmtech.

  6. Wish you all the luck and success sir…m sure whrevr u go…u will keep on inspiring people as always

    – by Vasudha (We worked together for just few months. People inspired me and some say that I also inspired many :). Great to see your comment).

  7. I know that you have the ability to change the environment when you do not like it…keep it up…my best wishes are always with you [:D]

    – by Saikat (he is one of the best lot with whom I am associated with. There was a time when my first 30 mins in office was scheduled for a meeting with Saikat and the topic of discussion was INNOVATION. We worked on many new stuffs. Soon looking to work with you.)

  8. good decision. Sometimes we need to deconstruct and reconstruct certain things in our life. I am happy that u have done so. I believe right now u r quite confident with ur new venture. Carry on, all the best.

    – by Susenjit

    Nice seeing you growing up. 🙂 Best of luck in ur life. hope things will turn in ur favour.
    It was great pleasure working with you. I always remember you.

    – by Subikar
    [This was truly motivating as I never expected that Subikar and Susenjit will comment on it. I am very very happy they did. Towards the end we did not share very good professional terms. We departed very sadly or in a very unusual way, very rarest moments in my professional career. There comments gave me a lot of energy. Subikar proved that any person if dedicated enough can prove his worth. I recruited him on my own risk, many laughed at him and on me (for my recruitment) as he could not even talk properly. Things changed very, he believed in himself and I in him. He became one of the good performing team members. Ended up doing many work on his own. It was big learning in my life. Best of luck to both of you and thanks for dropping in.

  9. Its great move and we should not keep us away from changes that happen around us. It was great time working with you. Now surely some more people will enjoy your experience and knowledge.

    – by Mithilesh [It was good working with him. He codes like an artist, never happy with the perfection of code 🙂 … we have learned a lot together. I will remember him whenever I see a complex regular expression :)]

  10. Wish you a very best of luck for your future. I will always remember your humble support and advise. The knowledge you gave me in last 11 months (not only technical) will surely help me to grow my career graph. 🙂 keep in touch

    – Shyama Kant [It was very emotional moment when I left Grmtech. I was helping him to fight the odds in his career. He was improving amazingly. I liked him because of his attitude towards work. He worked very hard to complete things. Soon he will be in different trajectory creating greater products. He was the only person who sat with me when I was a new driver, he is a risk taking guy :), wishing all the best. ]

  11. This is Jayangshu from Kolkata. I came by your blog by chance few days ago and quite liked the post titled “How to decide your new employer”. After that I saw few of your new post.
    But today I ended up reading a huge no. of your old post tooo ( Despite of having my xams tomorrow, writing my last B.tech xam ). And they are really great. Liked some of ur stories too. Keep blogging Aji

    – by Jayangshu Saha [through email…. I should blog more :), thanks for dropping in]

There are plenty more (thanks for all great comments, emails and scraps). I will keep on adding comments from emails and blog posts here. A very special blog post for me. Whenever I will feel down I will read this post.

What did you achieve in last 5 professional years?

It’s people, It’s people who creates. It’s not the Idea but the people behind the Idea. I have always believed in people and got very good returns. When many ask me that “What did you achieve in last 5 professional years?”, I will use this blog post to tell them, “A small group of people who trusted me and helped me grow the products and companies”. This blog comes very handy in expressing your emotions too.

Did I miss your comment, please drop me a mail.

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Where were you all these 7 months?

I was on a look for a good employer for the last 6 to 7 months. Met and talked with many, even took an off to disturb yahoo’s interview at Park Hotel for a good job. I did not like many, many did not call me, many did not value me enough and nothing worked out for several months but ……

For last one week, things have changed. After announcing my resignation on my blog and alumni list, I started getting hell lot of calls and mails. I already got committed to DigitalAvenues with good perks and more importantly good culture and quality work but people are still trying to lure me with better perks. The highest offer been close to 125k per month, Gosh! where were you all these 7 months? Thats why I still call life stranger than fiction. Anyway I appreciated and enjoyed all these offers and talks. I am on the track to shrink my CV and enjoy the journey.

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My first day at DigitalAvenues was really great

All happened really quick, on 25th Apr got a call from DigitalAvenues for an interview, on 29th Apr I took a leave and went for the interview. Reached there at 12:40 (instead of 12:30 because of huge traffic jam) and started interview in next 15 minutes. Partners after partners talked, we liked each other, thought of getting married and DONE. They prepared the paper, I signed it and I was in. On 30th Apr, I served a one month notice period to Grmtech and somehow that day became my last day there. I called up DigitalAvenues and asked them for an early join and they agreed. Took a day off yesterday (1st May) and I was in office today (2 may), my first day at office.

I reached there before 9, called up the guys and they were surprised since they were not prepared as I was going to join them officially on Tuesday (6th May). I was in t-shirt and jeans, so I asked them about the company dress code. I heard this back, “Wearing something is important, what you wear is not” (We laughed and carried on). Within minutes I was in the conference room going through some ppts about their new product line. When I saw the product, I was forced to say “WOW!!!!!“. Then I met another partner, he explained to me about the service part of the business and the whole model. I will be taking care of the web marketing department from Tuesday. We did a lot of official talks including an introduction to the pillars of DigitalAvenues (the core team leaders). It was more fun (amazingly fun) than work. My first day at DigitalAvenues was really great.

I was amazed at:

  1. Their ability to think and deliver big.
  2. Their achievement in short span of time.
  3. Their colorful PPTs, it looked so amazingly professional.
  4. Their crystal clear strategies.
  5. Their pristine clear mission and commitment towards delegating their vision to the bottom of the company. The management layer was into the business strategies rather than work.
  6. They having amazing fun inside the office.
  7. Amazingly artistic crowd. Their designers are really talented and a search on web shows the same (see some work).
  8. Enough for the first day 🙂

I will be spending another unofficial day tomorrow at DigitalAvenues.

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My journey with Grmtech ends here :)

After spending some 4 years and 9 months at Grmtech, I am leaving for my new ventures (Today was my last official day at Grmtech). (After a day break) I will be joining digitalavenues and will be working with two departments, one is a service of my own choice (Web marketing) and the other one is a product (my passion to shrink my cv is still alive).

I am looking forward to meet some of my new team members, I am sure it will be a lot fun. At this time I want to thank all of my team members at Grmtech (and ex-Grmtechians) and want to wish them a very big success in life. I have been a people-oriented leader and I have believed in what I have done so far, I will continue to do so. Keep smiling, take Grmtech to next level and I will work with my new team at DAve in taking DAve to next level.

I will start blogging at webkotler.com (My new avatar, changing it from 5 year long AjiNIMC to Web Kotler). Also I will be consolidating my experiences at http://www.99smallsteps.com.

Good Night, will see you all next morning.

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Diet Killer week starts – Happy Onam

Had a mixed day today, missed my most loved afternoon Sunday 3-5 hr sleep (due to dad’s committee meetings 🙁 and forced shopping call) and Navartna Oil massage. Shopping went really horrible as we were trying to buy something different for a new born baby (and some other relatives). As usual we were late for shopping and the shops were closing, could not buy the wanted items. We managed to shop few unplanned items for our satisfaction.


I was tempted (but I am not supposed to) to see the old streets and the memories of special cheese filled mayonnaise chicken burgers from NV BUT after reaching there we found it closed 🙁 (Bad, really bad). Thought of buying some cookies and brownies from Nahums but it was closed too (two bads in a row). Pushed ourselves to the special juice center to try our luck and thanks, IT WAS OPEN. To compensate for the unluck, after having a mango juice (it has 3 layers, A layer of curd, A layer of sweets and the top layer of dry fruits) I had one grape juice too. What a odd combination to have but chaltha hai, we will see it tomorrow morning, jo hoga deka jayega. Then came the real inhuman uncivilized diet killer at park street (the evidence):

Diet killer

This week is going to be a complete diet killer, tomorrow starts the Onam week. I will miss the real Sadya tomorrow 🙁 but I will surely have a special dinner with some 20+ items.

Onam special

These are the items I know (to eat and not to cook):

  1. Special red rice – I don’t know how do I explain it, a little fatty stuff
  2. Avial – Veg mix done is a very different way, my mom makes it really well, sorry for making these temptations.
  3. Sambar
  4. Parippu Curry (Special Dal with coconut and all, very tasty, I love this one)
  5. Theeyal
  6. Cabbage Thoran
  7. Sweetened Banana/Tapioca Chips
  8. Banana Chips
  9. Moru Kalan
  10. Olan
  11. Kootoo Kari
  12. Puli Inji (Puli means khatta and Inji means ginger)
  13. Ada Pradhaman (Very tasty, sweet, I can’t wait anymore)
  14. Spicy Buttermilk
  15. Sweet Chutney
  16. Pachadi
  17. Pal Payasam (Milk kheer)
  18. Banana
  19. Papadam
  20. There are few more items but I have no clue about the names

“Kanam Vittu Onam Unnanam” which means “We should have the Thiruonam lunch even if we have to sell all our properties for that”. So much to eat and I AM Suppose to keep my promise written on a diet Pepsi box. Onam hai, sab chalta hai ……….. Happy Onam to all, eat .. eat and eat this week!

Onam aashwansagal

(This is how we say in Malayalam, it means Onam wishes, so try it in Malu style)

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my white-green-red-black board or modern art

Oh! I have discover many expressions though this board, which is also known as white board across our teams. My white-green-red-black board is the most used and abused board in company, just imagine the condition of the duster (Once it was white now it is of no but all color). I caught some new expressions when a new recruit looked at my office white board. If I am allowed to enter his mind to blog his thoughts then here they are:

“I think this guy is given a second-hand much-used white-board, poor fellow”, or may be “Is it a white board or a modern art, may be this guy is like MF Hussian” or may be ….. (You can fill in your own experience …..)

Things that you can read here:

  1. DNS settings – MX, A , NS records.
  2. NPER calculations for debt management decision making tree.
  3. Some Google algorithm explanations.
  4. Team structures.
  5. And the latest one “How to build stronger/successful architectures?“

Here is a small tip to end this not so unwanted blog post. When you are busy in making improvements to your architecture (it can be tech, career, personal, company or any other architecture), you keep on moving ahead and building more structures with smaller and modular additions. In order to build a stronger and successful architecture, you need to take some backward steps to see a better/wider view in order to understand the need of bigger changes/arrangements. Such complex tips like this can only be explained using a white-board, so do drop in an appreciative sentence for this ugly looking flat board :). Happy new week!