So lets play sherlock homes.

I was pretty surprised when I saw the message

message in envelope 8

If you look at the information here, There are 3 things that Nakul dug out to catch our attention.

1. My name (Vinay)

2. Name of the Book (Black Swan)

3. The page number and the line (Uncertainty of the Nerd)

The name of the Book was quite easy to crack, I had to pick from a lot 4 books. The other 3 books were ordinary looking, almost the same size, similar kind of color on the cover but this Book the Black Swan was a lot brighter and catchy, slightly bigger in size,overall it had a superior feel and stood out !! So it was an obvious pick !! Its like asking you to choose one from  Rakhi Sawant, Jennifer Aniston or Sherlyn Chopra. For the fairer sex, say pick from Brad Pitt, Niel Nitin Mukesh & Bobby Deol. The point is Jennifer and Brad are much better packaged and have a much higher probability of getting picked.

What kind of baffled me was my name in there. How could he predict that. You walk into a room of around 100 people where you just know a handful of them and you find your name being called out in the end . So did he know that I would be the winner right when in walked in ??

At snacks post the event, I picked up my plate and happened to spot Nakul in conversation with another person, I walked up to them and asked “Can I?” Nakul replied ” What if I said, I knew you would come here !!” Well thats the guy for you, he’ll play it so well with that smirk on his face that you’ll just stand and notice. I was curious and wanted to know how did he pick me? He said there are lot of clues that one could pick up and make such a decision, Like, when he asked people to volunteer, I was the first to stand up. Clues that we normally ignore, Nakul would pick it up and form a pattern. So it was clear that the inking my name happened during the event. But when ?

If you go back to the previous post when I said, the 8 of us went on stage and he asked us questions.

“Next he got to me, gave me the same probing look for a while, I was eager for my question and shrugged my shoulders. He said “I haven’t asked you anything yet” for which I replied “I didn’t answer anything either”. Nakul said “You did !!”  I thought he was just acting smart “

Here Nakul was not interested in the answer, he was looking at how we answered it and more importantly our body language/facial expressions. Thats why the probing look (he did that to every volunteer on stage) So when we exchanged this..

Nakul: “I haven’t asked you anything yet”

Me: “I didn’t answer anything either”

Nakul: “You did !!”

I gave away information through my expressions. May be it was eagerness, smartness (I would like to believe), dumbness (I would not like to believe)  which was enough information for Nakul to place a calculated bet on me. So when I thought that he was acting smart, Nakul was actually smart !!

He went around picked up the sheet where all the other info was there previously and he just inked in my name in the space, put it in the eighth envelope, sealed it and passed it to the judge. (In the show he will do it so seamlessly that you will hardly notice it)

As for the page number, it still beats me !! It was my friend Vivek who read out the page number and he was very sure that there was no slip up. Nakul stopped the very moment he was asked to.Unless all the pages of the book were numbered 122,123 which wasn’t the case. He pulled a pretty good one out there. Full credits to him on this. But if any of you can help, then we crack it all

So now if you look at the whole thing what nakul was doing was just picking up clues. Just in the first couple of minutes (standing up to volunteer and with the simple questions on stage) he had made up his mind for a result that would present itself only half an hour later.

Books like Freakonomics and Blink will change the way you look at things. As per the mind reader The Definitive Book of Body Language is the best work on the subject so far  !!

This entire episode opened up a new window for me. To pick up clues that we normally ignore and to read body language (I’m sure it takes time) closely that can help you deal with people. No I’m not thinking of picking a wife. Its a big plus for business. After all business is all  about people skills.

btw, Nakul is an x-texhie who is now following his dream, Like he says,to be Mandrake the Magician !!

So whats stopping you from following yours?

or the mind of your client to find out whether he is going to give you Big Business??

Well, not on the same but something similar happened a couple of days back when I was in Bangalore to attend the website launch of Paul Writer (some great articles on marketing in there)  In the end was a mind reading session by this person called Nakul Shenoy !!

Nakul Shenoy was introduced as one of India’s best and a world class mind reader ! He claimed that he can actually “read” minds, He asked for 8 volunteers to come on stage to prove that. Now I don’t trust these kind of guys, So I almost instantly volunteered.

The 8 of us had to introduce ourselves. He starting off asking us some questions, which we were supposed to answer instinctively without thinking, like described in the Malcolm Gladwell book Blink. He stood in front of the 1st person, looked at him probingly for a while and asked him “Up or Down” the reply was “down”. Next he got to me, gave me the same probing look for a while, I was eager for my question and shrugged my shoulders. He said “I haven’t asked you anything yet” for which I replied “I didn’t answer anything either”. Nakul said “You did !!”  I thought he was just acting smart and then  he shot my question which was “White or Black” and I answered “White”. So there you are.. just some random simple/silly questions shot at all 8 volunteers. after which he got back opened his file, did something. Got 8 sealed envelopes numbered 1 to 8 out and handed it over to a random person in the audience whom he declared The Judge !!

The rule was that the Judge was supposed to cut open each envelope and read out aloud the message that was inside !!

So the game starts, Nakul read out the first one, which was something to the effect..

Envelope 1, “Listen to the questions carefully and act responsibly, If not you will pay for it !! ”

So the stage was set !!

Envelope 2 read, “Any 4 of you take a step forward !!”

That was simple, I stepped up and so did four others, So we were 5 in all. Nakul asked if anybody wanted to step back. One person did. So we were 4 left !!

He now asked the other four to stand behind us !

Envelope 3 read, “The ones who did not act and take a step forward, Kindly get back to your seats”

So the 4 on the back returned to their seats..

Envelope 4 read,  ”Any 2 of you raise your left hand”

I guess I pulled up first, we were 3 who had our hands up !! Again, On being asked if one would want to opt out, one of the gentlemen pulled his hand down !!

Envelope 5 read, “The ones with the raised hands stay !!”

The other two got back to their seats. So it was just the two of us now !! Me and my friend Vivek.

I was finding this kind of funny !! and then

Envelope 6 read, “One of you take jump ahead and strike a pose !”

That is something we both did, I guess I was a little slow. So was asked to stand back !!

Envelope 7 read,  ”Its very easy to jump in front and hog the limelight but its tougher to stand back, So the one who stood back is the ‘Winner’ !! ”

Now I was the only one on stage , It was a little confusing but then I was fine “Winning” now Nakul wanted to give me a gift so he pulled out 4 books and said “Choose One”. I went through the title briefly they were on game theory and so on. The choice was upto me, I could choose any book and I picked the “Black Swan”

Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nakul ran through the other book and showed me that nothing was handwritten written in there, he now asked me to open mine and I found the below (expect for my name which he wrote much later )

It said “The Impact of the Highly Improbable is rather Intriguing !” and “Thank You for making all the Right Choices !!” Signed Nakul Shenoy.

The inner page

I was surprised !!

Now it gets more interesting

Nakul picked up one of the other books, asked a person form the audience to stand up,Nakul was going to run through the pages of this book and whenever he heard the word Stop!! he would stop at that particular page. He started running through the pages, There came the Stop !! Nakul asked if he was sure or should continue flipping , The person said “No, Stop it there” !! He gave him the book and asked him to read out the page number, It was 122/123

Now asked me to get to that page number in my book and said read the 2nd line, and I read out

the Uncertainty of the Nerd !

and finally the Judge was asked to open the Envelope 8 which read :

The Final Message !!

I guess there were close to a 100 guests in the hall and we had all seen him handing over the sealed envelopes to the Judge. This was surely impressive !!

This surely freaked me out a bit, I dont believe in these things and there he was reading my mind !! Had a brief chat with Nakul after the show and kept thinking of it  on the entire drive back to Mysore.

You must be thinking “How the hell did he do that??” well..now even I can read minds huh

I eventually figured most of it !!! and i was thankful to Nakul for not revealing that part of my mind which was also looking at pretty chicks out there.

Now how I think he did it will be in my next blog !! until then do enjoy this case study on Royal Mysore Walks & Social Media written by your truly for Paul Writer.

Keep thinking guys !!  It always helps

It had been more than 6 months since I had gone running, Yeah I know I do Walking Tours for a living but then Running is a totally different ball game. And the first day I went running I cursed myself for registering ! It felt like I was carrying a barrel all along. But then if entrepreneurship has ever thought this Walker anything it is to ‘Never Give up’ So there I was every morning doing about 5/6 kms whenever there wasnt a Walking tour to do !! And I found the amazing android app My Tracks on my Google Nexus one fone which uses GPS to track your route gives you some great stats on your running like speed, timing, plotting graphs on your performance etc etc !! So it really helped to show how much I sucked !! I know you must be thinking that did I need that app to tell me that ?? I know I know, but then having spent the cost of almost half my kidney on this fone I better use it in whichever way possible than just voice and text thts another thing biz teaches you, makes the most of your moolah , if you have any left thts is

Anyways getting back to the running, what really helped was running up Chamudi Hills, An 8 kms uphill track takes out all the juice out of you but then I would its still say its worth it, considering the amount of respect this atheist got on completion from the god fearing and the devout  near the temple  So doing this uphill track twice was a good test for my endurance. By now I had begun to enjoy the running and just a couple of days before the THE day, decided to run on the periphary on the Kukkarahalli lake (where the greatest Indian English writer, RK Narayan took his evening Walks cooking up stories of Malgudi) with my friend Suraj, who was also preparing for the run. Did two laps of the lake and was fortunate that Suraj dint beat by a lap, the man runs like a manic, his body gives him a better mileage than mine because it runs on fresh cane juice and not on Barley water But few tips from him surely helped, like for example start slow and then slowly build up speed and more importantly keep your mouth shut while running (some have advised me to do it all the time too !! )

The run was on Sunday the 23rd, but was in Bangalore a coupla days before just catching up with friends and in the pretext of loading up carbs for the run ended up eating quite a bit. I must say, collection of the bib (your running number) and the goody bag was quite well organized at the Kanteerava Stadium unlike last year when there was a mayhem, where you could have easily mistaken it to be a sabji mandi with well dressed customers !!

The run began at around 8 am at the Kanteerava Stadium, with more than 7000 runner participating the atmosphere was electic ! It reminded me of one those Nazi Army procession held by Hitler !!  It was great to see so much energy together. The 10 km route was sketched in the heart of Bangalore and thanks to the number tress in our Garden City the blazing sun dint do much havoc. So morons in the corporation, Stop cutting Tress !! All along the route you had people cheering for you, right from Amry jawan to general public and trust me it really helps you pull up and with so many people running you tend to run a tad faster than you normally do, after all we all like to show off, dont we So I ended up finishing it in 70 mins, was hoping I would do a gone in 60 mins but looks like that movie is still under production

In the end it was a great experience, considering one of my friends Raga came down from Singapore fir the race., No No, he dint come running from Singapore, the airfares now are so cheap that people might even come down for an haircut with our local hajam Anyways good to know that I’m still mobile !! Oh and yeah !! It sure is a great personal high !!

So, How has it been ? Absolutely Great !! I would say without battling an eyelid, Been a great ride.  The more I discover about Mysore, the more I fall in love with this beautiful city, The more I meet people, the more I fall in love with humanity. Its been great sharing the interesting stories of this city and getting people to look at it in a slightly different manner. Had the opportunity to Walk / Tour close to a 1000 people in the last one year, from Presidents and CXO of companies, senior IAS officers, Diplomats, amazingly interesting travelers to enthusiastic students. It been great the wide variety of people I have gotten to meet, people with different interests, with different backgrounds, with different temperaments and yes different attention spans . Its been an interesting challenge to connect, communicate, get them to open up and spend a great time along.

And like I said its a ride, so  bound to have its ups and downs but then you appreciate the ups only because you have the downs. I’m not saying that I haven’t met pricks, Oh I have and loads of them may be less on the Walks but more off it in the last one year when I have been trying to build it and its thanks to them that I get to appreciate other people

What have I learnt ?? You meet some people and they change the way you think. Like this one guy who has been donating blood on this b’day for the last 25 years. He says what better way than to start your celebration than by donating a part of your life and now even I follow suit ! or this guy travels the world without a change of clothes, I plan to do it atleast on one of my trips sometime or Driving in your car from one continent to another or this Yoga practitioner who was on my Walks and made me feel like an idiot for not learning Yoga being in Mysore from the great gurus here when she had to come half way across the world and spend a bomb to do the same, needless to say, I’ll be joining Yoga classes soon

The learning has also been immense in terms of  building a business, understanding how to make it work. And also to realize that the real world works very differently than how you have been thought to believe :) The use of technology to aid business. the power of networking, the plethora of ideas. And Meeting other entrepreneurs, learning and relating to them has always been fun !! And the best part being the learning still continues

What Next ?? More action I would say !! Have a lot more ideas about which I get really excited about , plan to prioritize them and get down to making them work. So you will surely see more Walking Tour routes, more offbeat tours and more hatke things to do with Royal Mysore Walks. I have already started to build a team, Presently working with another person on joining Royal Mysore Walks (more on it later So you will see a small team in place. Let me know if any of you or your friends would be interested to join, there is SO MUCH more that can be done with tourism here. It would be great to meet more passionate and committed people.

This journey that has begun wouldn’t have been possible without the support of a lot of people who have helped me selflessly and a lot more who still continue to do. Few of them are with me today and few aren’t. A huge hug thanking you all from my side

Over the last one year, I have seen myself grow.. guess I gotten to be more pragmatic, more mature (my folks wouldn’t agree on this one more complete and yes a lot more happier !! and now that the journey has begun there is no stopping n like johnny says, lets keep walking !!

I spent the next 10 days in Vipassana without any communication with the rest of the world. And when I got to Bambay soon after. Everything seemed normal except near the Taj.  I wanted to take the Walking Tour in Bombay and the lady running it wasn’t sure if it’ll happen because of the obvious reason. I wondered why cant life still carry on like before? Anyways she finally did the tour for me, which started from the Gateway of India and I could still feel the tension in the air with the whole area still cordoned off. For the records the walk was an absolute disappointment.

I went to the Leopolds Cafe later, I had always wanted to go to that place.. I was sitting by myself sipping beer and all I could see was bullet marks all over the place, from the walls, pillars, ceiling to the table cloth. Nothing seemed to have escaped the fury of that night. They had preserved it all as some kind of memorabilia, which I failed to understand why. I was sitting in a corner and when I turned to the Wall right next to me, I saw a deep bullet mark piercing the mirror. It shook me a bit because who ever was sitting there that unfortunate night would sure have not survived.

I am glad I went to Leopolds and dint avoid (as I had been advised, again for obvious reasons) it because I happened to meet Gregory David Roberts,the Author of the most gripping book I have read so far, Shantaram. The very reason I was at the Leos was because a lot of what is described in the book takes place at Leos. I was thrilled to meet Gregory and get his scribblings on my book. I am glad he too dint avoid this place because of “security reasons”.

I was in Kashmir this July on a biking trip more about it here. I was in Leh when my good friend and Author of Splendours of Royal Mysore, Vikram Sampath called. He asked “Vinay, Is Mysore safe now?” I said “Why?” He said “A friend of mine wants to go there for a musical concert and after the recent communal clashes and deaths due to police firing, I was wondering if it was all fine now” I told him “Well.. I am in Kashmir now and this definitely feels normal !! ”

It is human be paranoid. We are living in the age of fear and we avoid going to a lot of places. doing a lot of things for the exact same reason. And by doing so we are actually helping these terrorists achieve their goal. That is to drive fear into our minds. Dont you think the most fitting reply to these rouges is to live as if we are not affected. Every place is affected by terrorism. Weren’t there blasts in London, New York , Madrid, Bali? Yet we Indians avoid Kashmir like plague. Which I think is the most beautiful place on earth that I have been to and where people with their kindness and helpful nature show you what humanity means. When we Indians regard as Kashmir unsafe I don’t blame the foreigner for his/her attitude towards India.

I am not writing this post claiming that I wear my undies outside my pants and that I am Sooperman !! I am just another individual like so many other who wants to lead his life normally so that terrorists know that their objective will never be fulfilled by creating fear and if we all as a nation do it together, It’ll be loud and clear.

As for the question, Is Mysore Safe ? I think its safe as any another city in the world or probably as unsafe. Ain’t it the same

Once at the venue Mr Tharoor took off seamlessly over how he joined politics and what got him to twitter. Mr Tharoor’s unassuming self, his amazing sense of humor with his brilliant timing at it and his positive attitude would grab anybody attention. I found him appealing because he was normal, more for the sense in what he spoke rather than how he spoke and more of the Aam Aadmi around him rather than security guards. so unlike our other netas, here was a leader I could connect to. A refreshing difference in our political class.

Mr Thaoor got to fielding questions varying from Politics and Cricket to Social Causes, It was great watching him at ease and how well he tackled the question around his twitter controversy. Sample some of these..

Audience : You should suggest that twitter should make manditory for all minister ?

ST: “I’m not the right person for the job”

Audience : How do you manage to stay so positive in spite of being in the Indian Political arena?

ST: “If you want to make things better you have to believe that things can get better and stay positive”

Audience : How would you want the younger generation in India to change

ST: “I’m not the sort of  person who would  want to change people”

Audience : Describe yourself in 140 chars ?

ST: “Lets not even get there”

Now with the time for Questions over and he was getting ready to leave to Mysore for the TED Conference, I asked the minister “Can i hitch a ride back with you to Mysore ?” And genetly came the reply with smile “Sorry, Its a official car..so I wont be allowed” So there I missed my ride to Mysore with the Mr Tharoor. But what a tweetup it had been. And I managed to get his book The Elephant, The Tiger and The Cellphone (Which i bought the day I quit my job to start Royal Mysore Walks .. and have been using much of its stories to keep my guests entertained on India Autographed, another reason I was at the tweetup.

It was a great effort by dhempe, tinucherian and santoshp to bring together the tweetup. A lovely choice of venue at TERI, Domlur. It left me thinkning, we need more minister like Mr Tharoor  because being normal is a rarity these days !!

After pulling a lot of strings and a bit of my patience we managed to enter the Private Durbar Hall of the Mysore Palace, Which in my personal opinion is the grandest and the most beautiful place in the Palace (of the little that i have seen). You had the cremonial Golden Throne out on display. It is really impressive with all the gold and studded with precious stones. With a line of priests sitting in row in front of the throne and also the Palace staff deressed up in ceremonial robes waiting for the Maharaja to Arrive. The entire ambience makes you feel thatyou are actually in the bygone Royal Era.

The Maharaja makes a grand entrance, The Palace staff guide him to the throne, A lot fanfare, Bugles being blown and respect shown (real or otherwise) in lot a ways. It feels like you are watch a 1960s movie on some royal dynasty ,

They go on to announce loudly something that you can never decipher expect for the words “SriKantaDatta Narasimha Raja Wodeyar Bahadur”, guess they were singing praising for the Maharaja. He accends the throne and salutes.For the next 20-30 mins there are a lot of Pujas that are performed and the loud annuncement keeps coming up regular intervals. After which the Maharaja decends the Thonre and is escorted away.

The best part of the evening was when we came out and happened to meet Mr Paramesh the  turban maker, He is from the family of turban makers who makes the famous Mysore Peta (Traditional Mysore head gear). You see him in the pic wearing the traditional robe and silver in his hands. Took down his contact , So you might end up seeing more insider details on the Mysore Peta on Royal Mysore Walks