Z-Blogs

"She is from a village near Bangalore. Leaving behind the plot of land to her husband's brothers, she and her family moved to the city decades back. Migrating from rural happy poverty to urban hand-to-mouth existence, she etched out a living by working as a housemaid. Her husband sold tender coconuts near the local bus-stand and disappeared for days together when finances were low. Living in an urban slum, her son and daughter studied hard and graduated, thanks to the financial generosity of the families she worked for. After graduation, the daughter left an accounting job to become a docile…

Dear Readers, this post is another one in the series of interviews with investors.  I am pleased to introduce Samir Kumar, MD, Inventus, who has been very active in the Bangalore Entrepreneurial Circuit. Samir has been an early stage investor for some years now and is available on email at samir@inventuscap.com. Read on to get some of his insights on what he is looking for in a company. If you are looking for funding, you can take hope, Samir and some other investors are of the view that this is also a time for investments, despite the global economic turmoil.Question: What…

It's that month of the year that bores you out of your wits (just like the last one, and the last, not to mention the one before that). So here we are, holding your hand, offering calming cups of tea and warm reassurances as you tear your hair out, out of nothing to do. Oh and I nearly forgot. We also have a fine little list of things to help kick that fiend Time six feet under. Without further ado:1) Register for the Bangalore round of The Centre for Civil Society's youth centric seminar titled I, Society and Public Policy.…

Today is Rajyothsava Day (click on the link for the Wiki information).... Have a happy weekend, everyone! ⊕

Yesterday evening, we watched this sudden termite swarm in Indira Nagar...We saw the termites flying in their hundreds, around the street lamps:I tried to get them against the light, but only got this image: Nabeel Mohamed, another person intrigued by the swarming, was trying to capture the image of the termites coming out of the ground on his mobile phone camera:You can see the hundreds of non-winged grubs as well if you look closely:Karthik had told me about these termites, so I decided to look it up on the net, and here's some info about termite swarms: one two and…

Here's a message I found on an auto recently:It seems to imply that the person patronizing this service is...a female horse....!But it's actually the Kannada-ization of the emphasis on the word customer... (phonetically, "customer-Ey")Messages like these really add spice to the humdrum day....here's another romantic message on another auto.... That says, "the mind is full of you"....wonder which lucky damsel the auto guy was thinking of! ⊕

Getting a dog many years back was the last straw that made our family stop buying crackers once and for all. The dog was a hyper-sensitive creature who stood trembling through out the days and nights of Diwali; Any sound of crackers was enough to get her tense and get her heart racing. She would not even eat for days. I have also heard of dogs that get excited and try to grab the crackers. Dogs and other animals are many times more sensitive than ours. Once we get a pet, it is our responsibility to spare them the torture…

  Russell Peters was in Bangalore on Saturday (18th October) and performed at the Chowdiah Hall. For those who don't know, he is a Canadian comedian of Indian Origin, currently living in L.A. He traces back his roots to Calcutta and Bombay. I remember watching his comedy show on the internet and laughing uncontrollably. His Indian accent is great but his take on the Chinese is superb. His 'Be a Man, do the Riiight thing' joke still resounds in my ear. So I heard that he would do a show in the city, I just had to be there!I was…

Today, the 17th of October, Ranga Shankara organized a press conference to talk about the upcoming Theatre Festival, which will run from 31st October to 9th November 2008. There will be plays, documentaries, solo performances by veteran thespians, and two plays specially commissioned by Ranga Shankara, along with Vodafone. The presentation was as well executed as any theatre production, with veterans like Paramashivanna and Jayashree rendering beautiful songs.The Golden Era of Kannada theatre was aptly evoked:Both Arundhati Nag and Girish Karnad who are directors of the Sanket Trust, spoke to the reporters, and harked back to the age when Kannada…

It's a whole different experience to watch India's most popular game at the stadium. The crowd, the buzz, watching players warm up, huge shouts as Tendulkar walks in, boos when there is a war of words between the teams, there are no Ad breaks here or replays - the atmosphere is enticing and you become a part of it. My friends and I entered the KSCA stadium, we passed the security check (five security guards and two metal detectors) and raced up the stairs to get a good view of the players(there are no seat numbers in our gate). It…