Soo Ra Sang

One more shot at Korean Food (scroll to Blog no. 6 from here for history :)) !!! I love anything that can be eaten with chopsticks - well almost anything. This is the first time that I encountered heavy, slippery steel chopsticks though - phew! I am talking about one of the two Korean restaurants at Bangalore - Soo Ra Sung on Wind Tunnel Road, Bangalore. Finally, I made peace with Korean cuisine.
This one's on the 6th floor of the building next to Sophia's school on Wind Tunnel road and can be spotted with a Korean flag at the gate. I have a hunch that the food is slightly altered to suit Indian taste buds, but the overall experience was just great! All food on the Menu was equally alien, so I ordered at random and recommend this approach to one and all.

I tried the Korean beer, which is certainly shingihada! (awesome!). I am now a much more evolved epicurean of south east asian cuisine!

Moral Police - Pub Bashing - Hey Ram!!!

To drink or not to drink - that is not the question. To mob or not is seriously the point, because political parties in India have lost all pertinent objectives. Ashok Gehlot (CM Rajasthan) says - destroy all pubs and malls, Yediyurappa (CM Karnataka) says - pub culture must be eliminated, eagerly echoed by Modi (CM Gujarat) and many other statesmen as well. Essentially, there is nothing productive worth spending political energy over. Let's not talk sanitation, education, health, infrastructure, corruption, lawlessness, education and topics that constitute progress. 

Let us not have protests over corrupt departments like customs, public works, road transport, electricity, water, registrar of companies and several others - you name it, and disinfect them. Let us make up some illogical word like "pub culture" and beat up vulnerable people. What on earth does pub-culture mean anyway and is it as bad as hooch culture, mob culture or lawlessness&corruption culture that is growing in India? 

Who needs moral police when the real police force is corrupt, underpaid, overworked and underequiped? 

Besides, the National Commission for Women - NCW, takes the cake. If you read the latest NCW report on the Mangalore incident - you will notice a very prominent phrase - "whatever it is...". Check http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20090081971&ch=1/30/2009%2010:09:00%20PM for the gist. Niramala Venkatesh (investigation committee head) says "the girls were participating or whatever it is" and "pub had to serve food or whatever it is", etc. After all this, whatever it is, it is the fault of the girls themselves! Awesome work NCW, you hit the nail or whatever it is on the head.

Satyam - Where is the Dharma?

Tis the truth that scandals don its day, controversies its night and Buddhism the twilight. Satyam may have become the bad poster boy of the Indian IT industry and ire seems to be piled upon it by the minute, but the dust and smoke seem to be hiding some bravehearts that continue to fight the dark clouds. Satyam's HR team is on an overdrive communicating to its employees literaly on an hourly basis. Senior executives are doing their best to boost morale communicating parallels in the industry. Industry personnel need to recognize that if Satyam collapses, it's going to hurt everybody that constitute it - competitors included. Many companies are trying to adopt a a "hyena" approach towards picking the spoils, which in my view is just as bad corporate ethics as fudging accounting statements.

The righteous approach should clearly be frontline competitors declaring openly that they will not poach Satyam clients and perhaps contribute to a bailout fund. Perhaps the latter is too utopian for the moment, but the least they can do is stay away from adding to Satyam's pain and support the bravehearts who continue to battle the evil that has befallen them.

Motorola fires twice

Fire - Hire and Fire again. No end to the knee jerks from Motorola. Key executives are being tossed around at the moment as Motorola tries to shake itself off the juggernaut that it is in. One interesting story is that of FZ - senior director, who got laid of a month ago, got rehired in a different division and then got laid off again. 

Razr has been the only success so far for the former giant, but nothing beyond that. 2 more quarters left before the final demise, I guess. The time is ticking - Hello Moto...

A blog on BLAGOJEVICH - esteemed ILL Governor of ILLinois

How does one judge this Illinois Governor? By american standards - a probable criminal, by Illinois standards - one more in a row and by the current Indian political standards - probably an uncorrupt statesman. Compare "Blag", if we can call him, to the average Indian politician and you will see how white he is - no pun intended. 

Hey -interestingly, Blag has an Indian connection to the scandal. How? - The FBI is investigating into a fundraiser hosted by an Indian businessman - Raghuveer Nayak, which was meant to raise around 1 mn dollars for Jesse Jackson's brother - Jonathan. Blag was at the event and as per a Chicago tribune report, some of the businessmen present there talked about raising the money for Jonathan to get the senate seat. This fundraiser was held at the India House restaurant in Schaumburg, three days before Blag was arrested.

Good going blag, bringing a taste of Indian politics to Illinois. Probably not - long live Bobby Jindal.

On a much more magnanimous note, apparently the other governors are giving away their paychecks or part of it for the greater good of the economy and probably notionally plug their sub billion revenue deficits. Read http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28257834/ for details. Among the noteable ones are the Kentucky Governor - Steve and good ol' Arnie.

Korean Cuisine - For Daring Epicureans

For the very first time in my life I sampled Korean Food. Korean food is far more pricier than its south east asian culinary cousins, and offers much more "variety". I love south east asian cuisine and have had my fill of Japanese, Vietnamese, Thai and of course - the indomitable Chinese. But, never Korean.

I pride my chop-sticking abilities and tolerance to "strong aromas". I also beleived that I was an all ingesting foodie demi God, until I had a Korean barbecue lunch. The restaurant, to set the coordinates straight, is located at the Chicago suburb - Schaumburg and is called "Soliphana". A colleauge who lunched along with me, came up with a semi-colloquial punch phrase post the meal - "Soliphana - Kabhi Math Jana". In Hindi that meant never go to Soliphana.

I ordered a Chicken dish with rice for lunch. The Chicken tasted very similiar to south indian curry with a bit of ageing and an extra kettle of oil and the "side dishes" seemed like the seawater wasn't as yet off them. Side dishes included sea weed, sea cabbage and 4 other dishes which proabably had some sea by its side.

I finished the whole dish and marked it down as one of the key survival milestones in my life.

Soliphana - Phir Nahi Jana

Winter Attire for a Sales Guy

Now, when you are a sales guy and posted in a really cold territory like Chicago, I can bet that your total cost to company is going to be less than your peers outside Chicago. The main reason for this being the extremely high cost of "good" winter wear.

Two aspects define winter wear for a sales guy - (1) must look presentable (2) must keep you alive (or warm)

Walking into top a retailer store such as JC Penny, Macy's or Sears should take care of (1)  and (2), but should burn a nice deep hole in your wallet too. 

Best bet would be Burlingtons that strikes a balance between (1) and (2) and leave you with a relatively low bill of USD 350-400.