Um, nameless

Interesting phase of my life i guess.

Drove down to Tuticorin, Sivakasi, Tirunelveli and the likes during the last week (Just a few hours from here, inspite of the horrific state of the 'National highways')

My first time ever to Tuticorin & Sivakasi - inspite of having been born & brought up so close to there. Interesting places, interesting people - some of the guys with whom i had appointments are surprisingly savvy, well informed & um, avante garde in their line of work - inspite of outwardly appearances & a general perception (at least mine was) suggesting otherwise.

Folks from down here are down to earth, warm & very eager to share information & offer guidance - Very different from Gujjubhais or Marwadis or Bhaiyyas - who'll think nothing of hustling & exploiting & often misguiding people with limited commercial experience - All down to different business cultures in different places i guess !

Interestingly, it really drives home one very important lesson:

It is easier & More profitable to sell in your own backyard - whatever you are making - derive strength & profitability from your backyard & talk volumes, geographies, international etc. AFTER being in control at your own turf.

Other things:

-- I DESPERATELY want some software / thingy - which can catalogue our book collection at home - my dad & i estimated today that we spent about 1,00,000 rs. every year at a minimum for the last 5 yrs (excluding educational material) - and because of lack of space & excessive loaning out to friends / carelessness we lose about 3/4 books a month.

I cudnt find freakonomics, The Hobbit, Beating the Street - My dad cudnt find parthiban kanavu & Hawley's condensed encyclopedia of chemistry [and omigosh, he went mad] -

-- My laptop is nearing its death [ i can sense it already - the battery is cranky, the power system is cranky (i cant work on ac power) & I ve been drooling over Thinkpad Ts&Rs for too long now ]. Some action is expected on wednesday when il be in chennai.

-- After neglecting the John Grisham shelf at home for over 2 or 3 yrs now - Ive done like 4 or 5 in the last 10 days - The Rainmaker, Innocent man, The last Juror, The Client ... the inspiration came from 'playing for pizza' - which soon led to a re-read of 'a painted house' - Nothing majorly spectacular

- but it really is AWFULLY HARD to find, buy & do good fiction these days - I may even resort to buying the heavily advertised / publicized blokes like - Khaled Hosseini or Orhan Pamuk - who just MIGHT write passable, light fiction.

Lifes good, informative & the works fun - but everytime i blog - the isolation & boredom get rubbed in :)

The Trip to the UK > Nov 2007

This has to be brief for now - just a word or two - because iam now terribly busy writing up a business plan / activity report which means a lot to me and is VERY interesting (Yeah baby! my fingers are burnin to type up the rest of it)

I ve uploaded most of the photos & commentary as a photo album on Picassa (this is for no one's benefit - but i cant risk just keeping the photos on my comp)

http://picasaweb.google.com/l.abhilash/UK_Oct_Nov_07

I promise il update the complete photo set and commentary soon (From China, Italy and the rest of this one) - again serving also to protect my photos against accidental crash/data loss.

[ UPDATE: All my albums are up and running - although not like a photo journal - there just a few pics ive put in because a) I did not get that many pics because i was fucken working, unlike in London b) It is a real big pain to do the comments for each photo after 2 months :) - Theyre there nevertheless and surely are worth the storage ]

I'l be back, soon - and hopefully complete a few of the several WIP posts.

Cheerio!