My New Coordinates – Moving to Mumbai, India

After about 11 great years in the US, I’m moving back to Mumbai, India for a couple years. I’m taking on yet another exciting gig with WSJ. I’ll be joining the Dow Jones team in India, and I’ll be responsible for developing and managing The Wall Street Journal Digital consumer business in India. Check out http://india.wsj.com when you get a chance, and keep an eye out for new products in the coming months.

To all my friends in the US – it’s been a real pleasure getting to know you and to work with you over the years. Let’s definitely keep in touch, and I hope your work/vacation plans bring you to India at some point within the next couple years. Definitely look me up if you’re in India, it’d be great to meet up. My last day in the US is Aug 6th 2009.

I’m really excited about my move, and look forward to new beginnings and making some new friends in India. I’m sure I’ll get to apply some of my learnings from the US, and most probably unlearn a few things I’ve learnt here and do things a bit differently in India. Drop me a note if you have suggestions, have any advice to offer, or just want to get together for a drink.

Date With Destiny: 7-7-7 or 7-7-2007?

Reports the NYT, “Christmas. New Year’s Eve. Spring break. There are certain dates on the calendar when travelers know that hotel rooms in prime vacation spots will be nearly impossible to come by, even if they try to book months in advance. This year, add another day to the list: Saturday, July 7. That’s because that date — the almost numerically perfect 7/7/07 — is being sought after by couples around the country as the ideal day for a wedding. More than 31,000 couples have already signed up with theknot.com, a wedding-planning Web site, saying they plan to marry that day, a figure that is roughly triple the number for any other Saturday that month — and nearly 20,000 more than the number of couples who got married on the corresponding weekend a year earlier.”

My numerologist friend, Hariram Subramonia, doesn’t think 7-7-7 is auspicious numerology-wise. He writes in an email, “7 is not a good number for marriage date. 6 stands for Venus and hence 6 is good, number 7 stands for Ketu (Neptune) which stands for philosophy (spirituality in broader sense). Number 7 also stands for intellect or deep thinking and insight. You can very well see that 7 isn’t good for marriage (an emotional bondage), since 7 is all about intellect (more to do with mind than emotions). Hence, in numerology date 7 isn’t a good date to get married. Now coming to 7-7-2007, if you add the digits it results in 5 which has got nothing to do with 7 at all. But 5 is the most lucky number and hence luck might favor the marriage. 5 also stands for business and money, hence couples married on this date will get lot of money yet their marital bondage might be more about business than emotional bonding. To add to this, 7-7-2007 is a Saturday. Saturday is good for only one thing – spiritual matters. Saturday is the last day a person would want to get married as it indicates Saturn or complete failure in marriage.”

On an unrelated note, online voting for “New Seven Wonders” has ended and the results will be broadcast live streaming from Lisbon. WSJ’s Carl Bialik questions whether 7 wonders in the new world are enough? The Taj Mahal of India is on the list and I know from talking to my friends that they’ve voted for the Taj and are eager to see it make it list of New 7 Wonders. I hope the Taj makes the cut too, only because it has been neglected and decaying. I hope by making the cut, the Taj gets the attention it deserves.

The technophiles have called out 7-7-7 as the Scriptless day. It is a way of thanking Javascript. for what it has brought to us in the form of Ajax and Web 2.0, by removing all client-side scripting from the sites.

Personally, it’s just another day or just another birthday!

Salaam Bombay Bangalore!

My parents move again, this time for personal reasons! As a Central Govt Employee, my dad has always had a tranferrable job. The whole family has been kicked around every 3-4 years – a few years in Pune, Ahmedabad, New Delhi, and a lot of years in Dombivli. I have always considered Dombivli home – we have family there, I spent most of my childhood there and after I moved to the States all my India trips have been to Dombivli. My parents have finally sold our 1BHK we’ve had since 1984 and moved to Bangalore.

Every proud Mumbaiite knows how heart-breaking it could be leave Mumbai. I’ve had several enquiries from old buddies asking me how I feel.

from Jacklin:
Don’t know whether to feel happy or sad. You don’t live in India but still hoped to see you at avp some day and we all meet up like old days. I suppose your parents are happy with this move.

I spent a week in Bangalore this January and the city has changed a lot since my last trip in 1995. New roads, new buildings, a lot of new people and lots & lots of new cards, and a good number of foreigners (mostly South East Asians, Africans and Europeans). Some things are still the same – cheating Rickshaw drivers, “slow” localites and riders parking their vehicles in the middle of the road to piss on walls in public.

While my parents are no strangers to Bangalore, this is a big change even for them. So here’s hoping they like the new place and are happy with the move. I definitely love our new house, lots of rooms for visitors and guests :)

Leaving another footprint online…

Why blog? And why blog now after leaving a trail of 3 abandoned blogs.

For one, in the past it was simply cool to have a blog. Now I believe it is necessary for one have an online presence and footprint.

Secondly, my deeper involvement with blogs at work require me stay at the forefront of the blogging curve.

Thirdly, and most importantly, my tech-averse father needs a strong reason to boot up his PC and go online.

Here’s hoping that my renewed blogging adventure lasts longer than my previous aborted attempts.