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In a recent conversation, I kept referring to something as a kitchen sink. After a while, in a very subtle change of tone, the other participant in the discussion called it a swiss army knife. The words make a difference in the way our mind looks at things.

When we say kitchen sink, it is a negative reference to everything under the world being put into the product (often referred to as feature-itis). Sometimes we are quick to judge and call it this, without necessarily understanding the product development journey so far.

When you call it a swiss army knife, this suddenly changes to a product with a carefully thought out superset of features, where each feature can be useful to a different user, and as a whole, is considered a usual package.

In fact, the metaphor extends visually as well. Our minds never picture a kitchen sink as a clean thing – it is always overflowing with dirty dishes (I don’t know why!!), whereas the swiss army knife is pictured as a slick compact device with more features than you can visually count.

“The delta between intensity and intentionality is dissipated energy.”

This simple sounding statement that Jayawant Tewari (JT) made today in a discussion at work, is actually not that simple.

Take a couple of minutes. Read it. Digest it. No, go on. Really.

There is so much in it. Intensity is energy, diligence, focus, raw power in doing something. Intentionality is the doing all that to achieve the right outcome. If you are just putting intensity and not really being intentional about it, you are just wasting energy.

I got to see the movie on the third day of release. I hate first day first shows. There is too much noise and excitement that one cannot enjoy the movie. And I really wanted to enjoy this one.

As is my usual style, I am going to be jotting down my thoughts on this movie as easily readable/skimmable points, and they are in no particular order.

Cast

The cast is just amazing. Karthi was perfect for Vandhiyathevan. There is a word in Tamizh called ‘Thunukku’ – loosely translating to spunk. The attitude of going by the gut and having the confidence that one can take care of any repercussions. When one reads Kalki’s account, one can almost see the almost naughty wicked smile on Vandhiyathevan’s face. And from now on, when I read it from now on, Karthi’s face will come to mind.

Jayaram is awesome as Nambi. Perfect wit. Again very close resemblance to the character. Each time he says – Narayanaaaa, it is perfect match. The only thing that I did not quite like is the relationship between Vandhiyathevan and Nambi portrayed in the film, where the latter is shown as manhandled by the former a few times etc. I always felt that there was a very complex emotional bond between these two – vaccillating between jealousy, hate, suspicion, trust and in some places massive respect. That did not quite come out. but its ok – for those who do not know about this from the book, the characters do their part well.

Jayam Ravi does justice to the Prince Arulmozhi Varman role. I noticed a very natural persona portrayed by him (brought out beautifully by the director of course). No overacting. And then you realize that, this is exactly what the characterisation of Ponniyin Selvan is, in the epic by Kalki. He is portrayed as this down to earth, no nonsense, no drama Prince.

Now the two ladies – both Trisha and Aishwarya do their part really well. Trisha balances the emotions of coyness, the responsibility of being royalty, and the twinkle in her eyes lights up each time she sees Vandhiyathevan. Perfect portrayal in my opinion. Aishwarya does not necessarily need to do anything. I think her looks lends itself to the deceptively helpless but super dangerous character that is Nandini. Honestly she does not need to (and she does not) do anything exceptional ; but casting made all the difference.

The Pazhuvettarayars play their part. Nothing special. I really wish more could have been brought out of Chief Minister Anirrudhar played by Mohan Raman. A miss. The script could have brought out so much for this character, especially given the superb actor as well.

Not a lot has been spoken about Madhuranthakan in the reviews, but I liked Rahman’s acting. The Prince who was intentionally brought up as a Shiva worshipper and no exposure to ruling the Kingdom, who is cunningly brainwashed and lured into being the true heir of a large Kingdom, is portrayed pretty darned well by him. His lack of expertise but the lust that has been injected into him, comes out well.

Lastly, and intentionally lastly, I really wish they could have cast someone else for Aditha Karikalan. Vikram looks too old. And no, please dont justify the character requires a war torn look. Vikram just looks old. He showcases his acting prowess with his monologue etc, but this was the one casting miss that I would say.

The story and the cinematography

My opinion is going to be that of a movie goer who went to see an adaptation of this ultimate epic that everyone is talking about. I intentionally put aside any expectation of similarity to the book.

In recent years, my wife and me have just lost patience to watch 3 hour Tamizh movies. Just cannot able to. This one broke that jinx. It is fast paced and we did not even notice the time fly by.

Again, I would say – ignore the several plot twists that the original tome has. Kalki wrote this like a mega serial for a weekly Tamizh magazine. Can you think of making something like Radhika’s Chitti into a movie. Just put that into perspective. I liked the way Jayamohan has involved most of the characters involvements into the plot and kept most of the main story line intact. There are a couple of scenes that seemed forcibly added for movie effects – example – the bridge falling down with Chinese warriors hacking the wooden beams/ropes down. Ahem. Was not really needed.

I am not an expert in Cinematography but I kind of liked the simplicity of it all. I really did not expect grandeur. Maybe because I saw the few interviews following the audio launch where I heard about Mani’s fascination of Kurusowa and realism etc. I liked what I saw. Some awesome scenes stand out – Vandhiyathevan walking through the market place of Thanjavur. Kalki takes a chapter for this, but brilliantly covered in a couple of minutes. The meeting between Kundavai and Nandini was covered beautifully. Poonkuzhali’s and Vanathi’s characterization could have been slightly better – the former being portrayed kinda crassly in my humble opinion. Her strength as an independent woman does not quite come out. For those who have watched the movie, there is an easter egg from Prabhu (General Periyavelaar) where he calls Poonkuzhali – “Ey Ponnu ..”. That is such a common dialogue of this veteran actor and brought a smile to my face.

The Camera, lighting etc etc has been debated enough by others. I just felt it did justice to the story that was told.

Locations are brilliant (classic Mani!). The sets are decent. I read somewhere that Thota Tharani has always wanted to do a period movie (his father did sets for all the raja rani movie of yesteryear).

There was a comment by some ‘reviewer’ about the dialogues being weak and it was surprising for Mani’s calibre. Hello, you cannot bring in Thalapathi or Roja level dialogues to a period movie like this. The dialogues are not the hero here. It is the story line and the plot.

Music:

The only comment that I will make is – the music supports the story well (mostly!). Two of the songs are part of the screenplay. There is at least one song that seemed force fitted. The music is nothing to be recalled for. Maybe the one song – Ponni Nadhi Paakanume – is hummable and has recall factor ; the rest are meh. Not bad. They are ok. But not spectacular or recallable.

Summary

Overall, I liked the movie. I am glad that this awesome epic got its movie. Please do not compare the book and the movie. The movie is an adaptation. It is near impossible to make the full book / plot into a movie. Maybe a series, but not a movie.

As you grow in your career and if you start leading teams of people, there is an inevitable period of time, when you would suddenly feel – what am I doing? I don’t do tactical stuff? Am I unfairly getting paid?

Remember – as you grow (and lead teams), you are now paid not for just your work. You are paid to take on accountability. You are on point for stuff. You are paid to take on that ‘stress’. 🙂

A leader in my org in the US said – most of his time goes in resolving conflicts. How is that for something worth getting paid for? 🙂 

This was part of a long deep conversation with one of my colleagues ; and I feel that this is something a lot of people (including me) go/went through.

Today, I want to write about a conversation that I had with a colleague recently. As PMs in a large company, there are times, when execution takes front-seat (and there are other times, when innovation takes precedence). During these war-time PM periods where one needs to focus on execution, it is very common to hit a form of imposter syndrome, where you start questioning yourself – “what value did I add?”

Our conversation led to two levels of introspection that I suggested – 

a) Step back. Rewind. Think about (say) the last month. How many times did you have to make a decision? I bet that half of these decisions were ones that others would have just said – “Its the PMs call”. This is a huge value add. The PM is where the buck stops. Judgement calls are made by PMs. We own these decisions and stick by them (until of course, in some cases, we are proven wrong). 

b) The secondary thought that occurs when you do the above exercise is – “If not me, anyone could have made these calls.” That is where I vehemently disagree. These judgement calls / decisions are a by-product of days/months of being steeped into the product aspects of what we are working on. It is not a function that another dev can write (sure the quality of devs can churn different quality of code, but immaterial, transferable). The PM is the only person who has actually spoken to someone in Marketing, all stakeholders, Leadership, devs, the vendor tester, the design team. yes, all of them – and that is what gives you the unique context and the ability to make these (hopefully well-rounded) judgement calls. 

I have been through these phases, and I am grateful that I have had folks help me through them. I thought I would share this, just in the case, there are others out there, who face this situation.

I was giving some feedback on visual appeal in a PM resume, to a mentee, and had a few thoughts. Typing them here as well, hoping this would be of use to other folks as well.

• Simple parsable (by human eye and machine) resume format with lots of impactful work data is preferred over visual jazz.
• Some basics like alignment and balanced text blocks, are a must. Eg. all left aligned text blocks aligned to the same ruler. Pass your resume through a few friends ~ if possible, a designer. They can spot imbalanced text blocks from a mile away.
• Same font throughout the resume. Make it a legible common font. In the race to make it a one-pager, dont go too small a font size. Dont go below 11 (max 10). Distinguish headers with an increased size, bold, or both. Play with shades of grey to make things stand out.
• Dont play with margins too much. Always print out as a pdf and check how it looks. There are still some orgs, which print out resumes for interviewers.
• If you really want to put in some pizzaaz (and it is Ok to do so), ensure that you do it perfectly well. Use an available resume template if needed. There are lots of freely available ones out there.
• These are just some top of mind points that I thought off. In no way, is this a complete visual tip guide for a PM resume. Are there other tips that you recommend?

After staying put at home (other than a couple of minor trips to Chennai / Kumbakonam) all through the Covid phase, we finally ventured out on a road trip holiday as a family (wife, 12 y/o kid, and me). Writing this as a travel journal format, so that, it could hopefully help folks plan similar trips.

Plan: Bangalore -> Horanadu -> Sringeri -> Udupi -> Kollur -> Baindur -> Bangalore (later added Chikmagalur into the mix)

Day1 (Wednesday) – Started from Bangalore around 1045AM. (Kiddo had his last exam that day).

Used the city route to get out of the city (MG road -> Malleswaram -> Yeshwanthpur -> Tumkur Road -> Nelamangala). Manageable traffic. It was not that bad.

Outside the city, it was Nelamangala -> Yediyur -> Kunigal -> Chennarayapatna -> Hassan -> Belur -> Kottigehara -> Kalasa -> Horandu.

Had packed lunch (lemon rice and curd rice). Ate somewhere in the middle.

Reached Horanadu around 6PM. Temple was practically empty. Had a super darshan. Had packed dinner as well (Chapati and Amul Shreekand). Had it in the parking lot of the temple ; and left around 720PM.

Reached Sringeri around 9PM. This is a dark route with multiple small patches of very bad road, through very dense forests, and almost no habitation.

Finally reached Sringeri at around 9PM. Stayed at Guru Krupa (new serviced apartments that have come up very close to the Temple/Mutt complex). Decent spacious simple rooms. Basement car parking.

Day 2 (Thursday): Spent the entire day in Sringeri. Morning was Sharada temple and Guru Paduka Puja to the Acharya. Afternoon, did a quick sortie to Hariharapura (one of the adjunct mutts in the area, which is about half hour away). Breakfast was at Maruti tiffin rooms (as always). Lunch and dinner was at the Mutt. Saw the night Chandramouleeswara Puja by the Acharya and retired for the night.

Tip 1: Watch out for the badly laid concrete road from the main Bharathi street that goes down to Guru Krupa. Height difference between the concrete topping and the mud shoulder is at least half a feet. I missed seeing it in the night, and hit the underbody of the car. Later in the evening, we saw another car stuck with its underbody scraped up.

Tip 2: Download offline google maps before the trip. Internet can get very spotty in the middle of the forest area. I had downloaded the map, and it was super useful.

Day 3 (Friday): Started early at 605AM. Headed eastwards towards Udupi. Original plan was to hit Udupi for breakfast. But we felt hungry much earlier. Around 7, chanced upon this fantastic restaurant in the middle of nowhere. Good clean veg food.

Malnad roads at their best. Wonderful surface quality. Winding around the moutains. With my new automatic car, I had one less thing to focus on (changing gears). Totally enjoyed the drive.

Reached Udupi around 830ish. Krishna temple was not crowded at all, given that it was a weekday (Friday). Had a wonderful darshan. It was Devi Alankaram that day. Finished darshan around 9AM.

The road until Kundapura is a brilliant stretch of road. This is the Kanyakumari National Highway. In multiple places, you can see the Arabian see on the side. Past Kundapura, there are two roads that lead to Kollur. We took the second one (as suggested by Google maps). Road was pretty good.

Reached Kollur around 1015ish. Temple was super crowded. Probably because it was Friday (auspicious for Devi). But good darshan none the less.

Started from Kollur around 1130ish towards Sai Vishram Beach Resort, Baindur. We had good reccos from multiple people about this resort. Original plan was to spend Friday second half. All of Saturday and leave on Sunday.

Some observations about the Sai Vishram resort:

1. If you are a close to nature person, you will probably like it. Family like ours, who are pretty averse to reptiles and insects, did not take to it too lightly. We found huge lizards, cockroaches and a toad – all within the room.
2. We took the tent room initially – very close to the beach. You can hear the waves. It was unkempt and we saw the lizards here. Asked for a change in room ; got shown a delux room (higher up in the property and further from the beach), which looked like it had not been cleaned at all.
3. We came back to the tent room and asked for a full clean up and got prepared to settle down ; but they gave us a beautiful beach cottage right next to it. Great, we thought.
4. We went out to the beach for playing. Had an excellent time. The beach is super clean and private.
5. We then had dinner. Food here is average, but not bad at all. Simple wholesome veg food.
6. We came back to room for a shock. More lizards and a huge toad on the door. We called the staff again. The staff, I should say, are super helpful. A guy came immediately and helped remove the toad and scared the lizard away.
7. Thats when my son started complaining of stomach issues (pain/vomit/loose stools). Could have been something we ate at dinner ; or some salt water intake during the water activities (as suggested by the staff).
8. Later in the middle of the night, we had a huge cockroach dance around the ceiling.
9. The property website says – there might be lizards, frogs and snakes on the property. We had seen the first two, and had no intention on seeing the third. We made plans to leave the next day.
10. We also thought, with the kiddo sick, instead of doing a Bangalore return (8-9 hours), we could break in the middle.
11. I should say however the staff were super helpful and courteous. Beach proximity is amazing. I wish they maintained the property better (or had non-nature-focused rooms for families like us).
12. Signal strength in most places is super low and they dont have intercom facility – so its a huge exercise in itself to call a staff member up in the middle of the night.

Snagged a room at the Vismita County resort in Chikmagalur sometime in the middle of the night.

Day 4 (Saturday): Had an early breakfast and left around 9Am. Reached Chikmagalur around 145PM – right on time for lunch.

This drive is super pretty . Goes through Agumbe. We missed a turn somewhere and ended going through Sringeri, and then back to SH27, through Balehonnur and eventually to Chikmagalur.

Notes on Vismita County:

1. Great property
2. Newly developed – only about 1.5 yrs old
3. Very well maintained.
4. Has about 2 kms of bicycle trails within the property – they provide cycles
5. Food was really good
6. Helpful staff. When we had to get some meds for my kid for the stomach upset, they sent someone fairly late in the night up to town to get the meds.

Day 5 (Sunday): Had breakfast around 8AM and left around 920am. Fairly uneventful drive back to Bangalore.

This has been churning inside my brain since yesterday – since I saw the prototype “no code” app ad on times of India recommending Air India to use it to revamp that app.

Just a fancy UI isn’t a better Airline app. By the way, the app looks so much similar to the slick app that travenues platform powers for SG today.

Leave that aside, UI isn’t the hard thing while creating airline apps. Do you know how hard it is to hit the old school airline inventory systems like Navitaire, Amadeus etc. That’s the hard part.

The SSR infra (that powers the addins /ancillaries such as seats, baggage etc) is complex as hell. The revenue team of the airline will drive you up the wall everyday getting new combos of SSRs. The govt will drive you crazy with restrictions. You need an engine to power that.

Try creating the web check-in infra backend to performantly call multiple APIs and get your pax on the kerb side happy.

Try optimising on the routes that the backend inventory platform throws at you to show the most relevant routes with minimal hops, in a few efficient calls coupled with cacheing.

I love the concept of no code / low code apps. But please for heaven sake don’t trivialise complex apps by showing pretty UI prototypes.

Update: AirIndia and builder.ai are locked in confrontational conversation and even contemplating a notice.

To set context, I am a very heavy email user. I tend to not like unread emails. I like to respond in a timely fashion (often times, very quickly). I am always on the lookout for good hacks. This is for my official email. I 💗 Inbox-Zero.

1. Emails that I get are either actionable or archived for later reference
2. Those that are actionable are:
   1. emails that I need to reply to
   2. emails that I need to follow-up on / be on my radar
   3. emails that I need to read later / watch later (meeting recordings etc)

As far as the ‘archive’ part in (1), I just hit Archive button. Exchange email search is pretty good. If the desktop ain’t that good, the Outlook Web Exchange (OWA) is leagues ahead. So you can choose. (I usually go to OWA for searching purposes).

For the ones that are actionable, if I can respond quickly to an email immediately, without having to refer anything or having to write a long-form email (I try as much as possible not to do this) and hence most likely not taking more than 30s, I action immediately.

For those emails that I need to read, refer, respond in detail, it goes into a folder called _Current (the underscore is an old habit to bubble up in text sort). Just adding it as a favourite folder is good enough actually. Other emails that go into the _Current folders are misc to-dos that I need to keep track of or det done.

I usually am following up stuff closely with <5 people. In my current scenario it is 3 – two of my direct reports and my engineering manager peer. All emails that are on the radar for follow-up go into the respective _Current<Person> folder.

Automated system emails from AzureDevops, FinanceReports, HR automated emails go into respective folders using Rules.

I keep scanning my Inbox 2-3 times a day to funnel stuff into the above CurrentFolders. Once or twice every week in my team meeting or 1-1s, I chug through the _Current<person> folders. It remains there if it requires more follow-up, or gets archived when done.

I have been doing this for the last 2-3 weeks, and it has been working like a charm. Let’s see how it works in the long run. One of the things I know I would need to worry about later, if there are more folks that I need to follow-up closely with. But then limiting that list would reflect my management / delegation abilities.