Thursday, December 22, 2011

App Frenzy


The only joy that comes close to seeing your child being born is when the apps you were part of creating, come to life in the marketplace. In a short span of two and a half months, we were able to start a company in Bangalore, hire people and release 4 mobile applications to the Barnes & Noble market, the Android Market, and the Apple iTunes store. 

As the year ends, I can't but consider myself extremely lucky as I have the best team anyone can hope for. The commitment, the perseverance, the dedication and attention to detail are a few of the qualities this team possesses in abundance. Hats off to the MoveableCode family and especially the folks in MoveableCode India who have been with me through thick and thin, always positive, always cheerful and always willing to go that extra step day in and day out.

Our work has just started but we could not have hoped for a better start. Actually, it's been a dream start as I spread my entrepreneural wings for the first time in my life. The excitement is building, the challenges are growing and the team is ready to take on innovations, technology creations and do whatever it takes to reinvent play for all generations and ages! A truly remarkable endeavor we've taken up and boy have we delivered!

Another eight days to go for the new year and if I don't publish any more posts this year, let's just call this a wrap. 

Happy New Year to all!

Tuesday, December 06, 2011

Wedding blues and other true colors

This time we raised the bar so high that only orbiting satellites can see it. For one, we had a five day wedding and the madness that went with it was significant to put it mildly. 

As is customary, the festivities kicked off with the Mehndi night, which the boys of the family have mastered. Fortunately for us, the 'Kolaveri' song showed up a week before so there was plenty of ammunition and plagiarism as we customized the song to fit the groom's love life much to the embarrassment of the couple. But, that only helps motivate us more.

The song medley skillfully led by the only real singer in our family was a sight to behold. About 15 of us were involved in this mess...sorry...medley and it took all of my cousin's patience and perseverance to get us through the numerous songs we belted out. Just the preparation for the medley rivaled the preparation by the New York Philharmonic since as usual no one had a clue what to do but everyone had a bucketful of opinions each and every second when we finally commenced singing in numerous beats, pitches and tones. While my cousin bravely attempted to bring a semblance of order, we all ploughed on, unmindful of her guidance. For some reason, we did get applause though the applause from the 'singers' drowned out the audience cheering.

The highlight of the show was hands down the 'Kolaveri' song which the four boys had mangled skillfully to suit the occasion but was the most entertaining event for sure.

The reception was kind of uneventful as the horde held back for the final onslaught which was the wedding day. 

The 6 a.m start did nothing to quell our enthusiasm and we even got into a musical duel with the bride's side (yes we were the groom's side). The 'Uyyaale' or the symbolic swing ceremony required a sedate song. Once the unknown old lady from the other side got going, we egged on our musical genius. Hesitant at first, my cousin soon warmed up and we started taking the lead. However, the opposition was made of sterner stuff and kept pace and volume if not matching in melody and harmony. We resorted to playing dirty and my cousin started off with a frenetic paced song in Malayalam. Game, Set, Match - Groom's family...yeah!! Take that!! We had even thought of making my cousin sing in Arabic if we had to.

While the wedding went on (endlessly I might add), sheer boredom took over the boys and we entered the realm of creative photography with my 18 year old nephew as the star. Being of a healthy proportions and hairstyle like a nuclear explosion mushroom cloud, he was the easy choice. What helped of course was his willingness and initiative to be the model. 

Fortunately for us. we had an entire length of the marriage hall protected by a dark curtain so we could do pretty much what we wanted. We began with some 50 meter races with my 8 year old daughters. After a few casualties, the photography sessions started in earnest. For props we used a large white dhoti which we 'innovatively' wrapped around my nephew.  The first session was purely the 'Guruji' photographs, a part he fit to the tee. This was followed by a surprisingly self and well choreographed 'Durga' like pose where the photo shows just my nephew and a seven pairs of hands behind him in various positions. Truly a masterful work of art that was.  We completed the photo shoot with some villanous politician pictures inclusive of the 'spitting the paan into the sidekick's hand' shot.

As we later recapped the events, my nephew was surprised to learn that there was a wedding happening in the background.

A great end to the year with lots of fun an celebrations in the family. Waiting in eager anticipation for the next wedding. Or if someone wants a Mehndi planning, execution and participating team, we're available at short notice... 

A wedding in Chennai

It's been a while since we had a massive wedding on the wife's side of the family. This one was especially important as it was the...