Friday, April 29, 2011

"My husband and I get along much better, as we OUTSOURCED our arguments to a couple overseas"

 Norwegians love to trek their mountains to find the calm and serene lakes atop. 


More clicks from the plane


Checked into this cozy hotel 
 


Met up with Ram and Vishnu that live in Kristiansand who came by to see me with their cute little one yr old Manu.  At 7.00 I had to bid my adieus and head to a Norwegian dinner. Øyvind the organizer of the seminar came to pick us up and walked us to the restaurant in the old town area. He showed us the venue of the seminar next day,  in a yellow building across the water.   

The Restaurant had a very marine theme with lots of boats and anchors scattered all around.  The menu too was delish.   



 Baked Scallops with honey and lemon , served with sour cream for starters


I only realized in the picture that the main dish was arranged in the form of a boat



Crème Brule


After late wining and dining we headed back to the hotel at about 12 AM to catch some sleep before the day dawned.

Time well spent!!!  To many interesting people from the commerce, county and business groups in Kristiansand , India - the future is here, was emphasized and re-emphasized. Each speaker dealt with different aspects that gave a totality to the topic.

A sneak peak into my presentation 





Øyvind was courteous to drive us around the town before he brought us to lunch at this Indian restaurant – Mother India, where we met up with other prominent people of the town.
For the first time I tasted something called – Mango chicken curry - a very tasty dish. and never heard of it before . Strolled again for a couple of hours on the cobbled pathways
before heading back home just in time for the ROYAL WEDDING :-).

12 comments:

  1. My husband will totally approve of outsourcing my arguments off to somebody overseas!!! What a great conference. What fun and how exciting to see how India is becoming, strong and confident. Fantastic. LOVED all the pictures especially those of the colorful buildings and the glass building that looks over the sea. Awesome. Thanks for taking us along on your trip! Welcome back. We are having an early morning girls party to sit in our jammies and watch the Royal Wedding. I still remember dragging my Poor Sainted Mother to British Council Library in Madras to watch it :).

    My3

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  2. Loved your post...but sadly disagree on the "talent" pool details. yes, we have millions of engineers in India...but the quality is greatly dimishing....

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  3. Vacation or business? Sounds like you're having a fun time. Loved the puffy ceiling of the restaurant. And I used to make a vegetable curry in mango sauce....haven't done so in a long time. Your post makes me want to recreate that recipe again. I too have to agree with Anpu....quality and attention to detail are sorely lacking here. :-( We have the smarts, but not the patience and skill needed to see a project through to the very end and make it a fine product! Its all about "chalega".

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  4. Super, Shanthi! Love your pictures! You are a real citizen journalist :-)

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  5. Yes doesn't it seem more like a vacation than a business trip :-).
    I can't agree more with with you Kamini and Anpu- IT engineers may be dime-a-dozen in India, not even around 25% of them are employable. It is the great tech boom story that is giving them the job rather than their actual skills - The education system should move from being marks oriented to problem solving. The few smart brains are burdened to pull up their teams and execute the tasks to completion. The Multi billion dollar industry should concentrate to get better skilled and employable work force that can think out of the box, take initiative and ownership to the tasks to keep the frustation levels down. Another thing that bothers me is the work life balance in India and how long will they keep up with these long long hrs of work.

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  6. Great pictures, good mix of fun and work!

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  7. Shanthi gi your blog is superb.oh your taste of collections (sarees and jewelry) awsome.

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  8. ...hate that word "Chalega". Sounds crazy, but im my Vendor pre-Auction calls, I actually let my Vendors know that the "Chalega" attitude will not work in my projects.

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  9. @Anpu - :-) Yes that is not a word that works for us. At 60 to 70% completion they think it is comeleted.One other most important thing I tell my people is to learn to say NO when they can't do it technically or when they can't do it in the stipulated time. Long way to go , but they have no choice - they will have to learn at some point till then the coordinators have to burn out :-)

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  10. looks like it was a good trip:)

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  11. raw mango fish currz is a common fish curry prepared when mango is in abundance.

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  12. The title of this post, the first image with India lake, the virtual visit through your trip and all those details you weave the story with.. loved it and find myself glued to your page browsing through archives and learning more about Norwegian life. So glad I landed on your site. Thanks n Cheers!
    ~Tara

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