Sure-shot ideas for winning medals at the Olympics

India, my home-country is looking up in the sky for some divine ideas to strike it rich at every Olympics. But, alas, the effort does seem to be lacking on the world-stage. Often, the common refrain being that being a developing country, we lack resources to train world-class. So, the question now is how to mobilize resources to fund world-class coaches.

There are some ideas which spring to mind.

1) Raise an Olympic fund and provide tax exemption for people who contribute to this fund(Similar to the emergency and disaster relief funds we have).

2) Conduct national lotteries and contribute the funds collected to build world class facilities( I guess, this idea is easier than the first.) When people splurge on movies, they should be more than willing to part their money to try their luck and support a national cause. This is found to be succesfully working in UK now and they are currently No 3 in the medals tally at the currently happening Bejing 2008 Olympics.

3) This idea is entirely mine and there-in lies my genius. I hold all patents for its succesful implementation. India has enough stray dogs. Starve a few stray dogs and pelt them with stones. They will come running madly at you. In your effort to save your lives, you will effortlessly train and surpass all existing world records. When it comes to saving your lives, everything else including World records take a back-seat.

Stray dogs are far cheaper than foreign coaches. Stray dogs will be happy to be contributing to the nation in their own little way.

So, this is a sureshot recipe to win 100, 200, 400 and 800 metres for both men and women.

Add a few hurdles in between and we will end up getting 10 gold medals and definitely a place in the top 10 countries. I am already seeing PT Usha ruing why she did not read this post 20 years back.

What to do.. Just like, every dog has its day.. Every post has its day...

I dedicate my idea to this song.

What goes around.. .comes around..

Today marks a few landmarks in my chequered career.

I complete 3 years as an IT consultant in the US ( phew.. time does run really fast.. doesn't it..). It also marked the 5th anniversary of my work experience in the IT industry. I joined a reputed IT company straight from campus on July 21st, 2003. In that company, its a practice to acknowledge those who worked for 5 years with a "Long Term service award ".

I have had the experience of working as a Consultant on an assignment in a fortune 500 Insurance company where it was a fairly common sight to see people with more than 25 or even 30 years of experience.

If 5 years is Long-Term, I am at a loss of words to term a 30 year experience with a single company. I really admire companies who have perfected the art of retaining employees. But with capitalism sweeping the world furiously, these companies will be more of the exception than the norm.


Now coming to the title of the post and its relevance..

Yours truly attended his first campus interview 5 years back with a company which is famous for "Applying Thought ". I still remember that day when my interview was scheduled at 3.45 AM ( yes, its AM) and I managed to barely talk coherently leave alone answer technical questions as part of the gruelling interview. The interview result was consistent with my performance and expectations.

The first interview being special still had the charm and excitement which made me to eagerly go to the placement notice board to see if I had by some miracle, managed to impress and get selected.

History records the fact that I continued to attend more tests/interviews and did not manage to get placed in any of the reputed companies that came to our campus.


Fast forward 5 years ( August 2008)...

I am madly being pursued by the same company to join them on board. I have a kind of "walk-in " offer and the HR of this multi-billion dollar company calls me every fortnight to remind me of the offer and care to see if I have made up my mind to join them.. Wow.. Thats the sweetest revenge of sorts...

What goes around comes around... ( A Justin Timberlake song last year with the same title was a chartbuster remaining popular on the top playlists for a long time.. The music video of the same is here).

That connects this post to another of mine where I contend that the " World is round " and not flat as Tom Friedman argues.