Category Archives: Random

Map of India in 1951

I stumbled upon the map of India in 1951. While I knew that the states were reorganised along linguistic lines, I was surprised by a few things that I saw in the map – the vast geography or Madras state, the existence of independent states of Saurashtra and Kutch, and also the state of Hyderabad. Interesting indeed. See for yourselves!!

India Administrative Divisions 1951

Seth Godin’s 5000 blog posts

I became a fan of Seth Godin in January 2012 after I read his blog, which was shared to me via Facebook or LinkedIn. I immediately subscribed to his blog expecting to read some articles occasionally. But I was pleasantly surprised when I realized that he blogs daily. Some of the posts were short, while some longish. But what was remarkable was that he blogged daily.

I learned lot of new things from him like “Permission marketing”, “purple cow” and “tribes” to name a few ideas. Being a marketing professional myself, I soaked myself in some of his insights. Apart from blogs, he has also published several books. The titles of his books are quite intriguing – “Purple Cow”, for example. I could not stand the suspense of the purple cow, and promptly bought it and read it back-to-back in a few hours. It was fully worth it. (I will share a review of the book sometime later). The title of another book – ” All Marketers are Liars”, raised an eyebrow and I am very keen on reading  it, because I want to know how I, as a marketer, am a liar.(Apparently the title has been changed to ” All Marketers Tell Stories“). “Tribes” is a book I have purchased last week and intend to read soon.

Coming back to blogging, I passingly wondered how someone is able to consistently do that, but did not think of it further. But today, when I got his 5000th blog in the my email, I was awestruck. This is one persistent guy. I did a math – if he blogged everyday, that would be 365 blogs a year which would mean that he has been blogging for more than 13 years or from the year 2000. Turns out he has been blogging since January 2002.

So far so good. As a I read through the blog, he mentions something that seems to be addressed to me. He says ” My biggest surprise? That more people aren’t doing this. Not just every college professor (particularly those in the humanities and business), but everyone hoping to shape opinions or spread ideas. Entrepreneurs. Senior VPs. People who work in non-profits. Frustrated poets and unknown musicians… Don’t do it because it’s your job, do it because you can.”

Yes, I can!!

Or can I? I had blogged in this space only thrice in the last year. But I have been blogging about solar 2 times a week. That still is a not a lot. But I have decided to try to emulate Seth. Let’s us see how this one goes…

Waking up from the “blogging” hibernation..

More than 2.5 years have passed since the last time I blogged. To say that these 2.5 years were eventful will be an understatement. Lot of non-favorable and favorable events crossed my path, but as Shakespeare said” All is well that ends well”.

The existence of this blog was completely forgotten till the day I got the mail from godaddy.com, reminding me that my web domain name is set to expire in a couple of months. Not wanting to let this happen, I duly renewed the domain name and then pondered over the future of this blog. A “Mad thought” helped me decide that I should share interesting/funny/insightful/great thoughts and ideas that I come across periodically with others. In the process, I am sure I will enlighten, entertain and annoy my readers.

So, without further ado, off I go!!