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Just Cognizant'ized

2011-06-21T00:05:00.000-07:00

Well into the 101th hour of being Cognizant’ized , Iam compelled to say so far it has been wonderful time yet. Having planned since last night to scribble a few initial thoughts on the blog , I have had multiple revisions and re-statements of the lines just over a zillion times in my mind. How to sound knowledgable ( apparently ) , how to sound politically correct , how not to raise many an eye-brow over the write-up et al are just a few of the scares that pushed-n-pulled me simultaneously. In the end , jovial as my nature is , the best way to compose the first blog-post concluded to be the most natural way I know how to write. So here I go with the 100+ hours journey of entering into this wonderful place called Cognizant.

I shall recount my sojourn with the flashback which was no less than a filmy ‘Hera-Pheri’.

Sometime mid-2010 ( while I was in the US and planning to return to India )

I started having the four-year-itch (vis-a-vis the seven-year-itch) when all of a sudden my brother,who is a Cognizant’ian and my room-mate,yet another Cognizant’ine started speaking so high of their company’s. Afterall , who in this IT-world could ever be so very satisfied and contended with thy-company. Admit it or not , we all have constant whinings and complaints about every other thing pertaining to our employer. I too had many. Here, these two innocent souls were singing odes, which made me wake up in the dead of night in sheer disbelief. My employer too was among ‘The Big Daddy’s’ of IT world. How can other companies shadow the benefits of a behemoth of a company of mine?After so many interminable how’s , why’s and what’s I convinced myself that may I was sitting comfortably in my own cocoon of a la-la land without much attention to the market place. Absolutely oblivious to the market-heating up to the IT jobs , I was far off from India, the center of action, the eye of the twister. With the growing number of ‘knowledge sessions’ these two people subjected me to day-in and day-out , I made my resolve to check out if the reality is somewhere close to where these guys had been tormenting me about. There comes a point in your life, when you feel awkward seeing your own resume as compared to peers. In my case, I was never bereft of such feeling for even a single moment. My resume looked atypical of a 4/5 year experienced candidate, nothing to show-off, nothing which jumped off the page to wow anyone , no significant achievements to boast , not many awards to cite , not many technical skills to blurt , absolutely dead-meat resume, plain vanilla cut n dry profile. Quite surreptiously my brother had earned himself a large fan-base of friends who had approached him to “touch-up” their resumes with his superior command over language. He was so good at it, he managed to have a strike-rate of 100%, wherein he would “brush” their ordinary looking resumes elevated to the position wherein Sir Winston Churchill would feel slighted with accomplishments and citations of brilliance. I immediately summoned my brother in the dead-of-night ( EST) and discussed length and breadth of the polishing that needs to be done to my resume. There it all started, we time and again came back to our most revered SCM ( Software Configuration Management ) parlance , versioning of the resume. Versions 1.x did not go well ; so did versions 2.x; 3.x were the versions which seemed more likely of a good resume. My brother untiringly complied with all my requests and codified all the changes ( fonts, spacing,alignment,content,verbiage et al). In the end, it was decided that the “breathing document”(yes another term borrowed from IT) , it ought to be sent out. The countdown of my arrival started and we timelined that the interviews and all should be coincided aroundthe same time ( which was around the same time last year). He posted my profile somewhere around the last quarter of FY11 ( wow I sound like a manager) and “late-latief” as I am popularly known , it did not get much of attention till about closing days of December. One round of interview and I was pretty certain that I stand a very bright chance of breezing past the interviews round. ( Albeit less knowledgable , God has been kind enough to bless me with a decent level of communication skills, which saved my days many a time in the past as well).

Fast forward Jan 2011

With no response in sight and time running up, started the mutiple-chaining of emails with discussions going time and again. Soon enough, I was getting doubled ( no reference to size ) , my marriage got fixed after months and thousands of man-hours of discussions. She was employed with yet another IT major. So making a job shift was becoming the task-of-the-hour. Round after round, telephonic discussions went on until we aligned on the final list of Go-No Go issues.

Come Feb-2011

Raj gets married and lives thereafter.

March-April-May 2011

The resignation from my company, notice period discussions, retention strategies , onsite travel lures, accomodative work-schedules, the proverbial “Work-Life Balance” promises , promotions et al, all came my way. However, after deciding , there should be no turning back, or in IT parlance “Point-of-no-return”.

June 2011

The ninth hour of the sixth day of the sixth month of 2011 was the reporting time to the Cognizant office@DLF,Hyderabad. It is precisely at such impending moments of life when the whole Big-Bang theory comes to life. The entire universe seems to be conspiring against you making it almost impossible to make it through. The auto-driver who had sworn the previous evening to pick me up does’nt show up;the stand-by autos nearby to my house suddenly vanish into thin air;the distance to march towards the next main road seems to be increasing at the rate of 10-light-years per second;one auto-driver sensing my desperation quotes exhorbitant money to land me at office;one of the experience letters had not been photo-copied;the auto-driver who agrees to drop drives at a sweet-own-leisure;the traffic signals seems to all get in sync and blink only red one after other;the driver misses the right-turn and instead races past ahead of the campus;the designated place of the induction is changed due to reasons best known to nobody so on and so forth.

Finally, I arrive at the board room and immediately get nostalgic about the last time when I had seen such a array of strewn papers to be signed on till the ink in the pen is over. That was four years ago. Now again, the same time, same ambience. The HR team had lined up a ton of rim of papers to be read and filled and signed and dated on. The tonnage of the paper work could have not been lesser than 2 tons per candidate. A few shockers sprinkled here and there;a few jokes,a few games, bundles of presentation sessions,volunteers walking in and out of the room articulating the ‘Sea of C’s”. I just got to wondering if there are as many C’s in the decks , then how many more would be encountered while working. The answer struck me almost instantly. To count the C and get over-whelmed is nothing new, better stop the count and concentrate more on the operational aspects. My previous employer had the noteirity of sloshing everyone with the sheer number of acronyms, the longer you stay the more number of acronyms get into your head. After the second year over there, I could make up a few of my own. After a point , my name as well got acronymised GRS with one of the client portfolios. Then I ended acronymization lest it should creep up to my family members as well.

So finally after an 8-hour shift of reading and signing documents infinitely the day came to a close with opening of the new bank accounts. The 22-member batch of new joinees bade good-byes and good lucks to one another promising to keep in touch. The presenters wished good stay and long tenure at Cognizant to all of us. Prominent members from our batch were very very jolly and we all were happy to start our new innings in our professional careers.

Here I am sitting in the confines of one of the premises of Cognizant and trying to post a blog and multi-tasking with the initial formalities of system updations.

Concluding my post with a few words of genuine appreciation and support to all who had helped me come on-board with a lakh of other Cognizant’ines , I can manage to say a whole hearted Thank You. I appreciate your help and support. I truely feel blessed to be in such a great place to work,have fun and grow professionally.

Ponderings.....

2010-02-06T10:46:00.000-08:00

Though this post does not necessarily fall in line with my 'Excuses for not actively blogging' series , I am somehow pumped up to post a few lines(i mean a few hundred of course - I do not know how not to be verbose).

The haste with this I was recalled here to the US just after just over a month in India is indeed one of the most damning events that has taken place for a long time. The events that followed the announcement date for my trip could at best be described as - 'genocides'. A string of mishaps - interminably littered all over have left me little time to contemplate on the pros-n-cons. My usual 'tension-not' attitude took a severe blow with irreparable losses . I had always kept my priorities and people straight with most of my actions directed towards the well-being. In one of the more severest hits I feel suddenly being targeted for being near altruistic. I have never claimed to be a saint NOR did I ever feel good about sainthood, however, I have been innately very proud of myself for having the ability to balance out evenly on the aspect of NOT causing problem to most of the people around me - least of all those who I adore. It is indeed a very saddening reality that being insanely selfless normally results in 'the hunter gets hunted'.

I personally held high my belief that being good always boomerangs with more good added to it. Seldom does it happen that way. It is indeed shameful that goodness does not breed more goodness, instead it often results in being made the dart-board. Though I would not be very comfortable in revealing more details about all my plights on having the courage to deal with the intervening untoward situations, it would be more than enough to say that there are few things that can match the complexity of destiny. It twists and entangles people and situations in such an intricate cob-web that by the time people come out to free themselves it is almost a done-and-dusted story. I have rarely been in such a deeply contemplative state of mind leading to quite a few moments of black-out. However, admittance is half peace. My admission to the fact that quite a few many times in these 45 days I have been sleeping with the devil in my mind and an enraged anger directed towards the nameless.

First of all, the project for which I came to the US, on the imminent insistence of manager was all in the drain. The project after a fortnight of efforts had been called off owing to some business negotiations failing over SoW. Viola , the news was spread to the immediately affected people – me and the project manager who had been hired and fired in haste. The director of technologies had personally called a meeting and candy-coated the news and informed us that since the negotiations had stalled and hence the funding has been curtailed. In lieu of this ‘sudden’ development coming to light , there was just enough funding to pay my company for my services for just a week more. This in crude words means – we failed to complete the business side negotiations before jumping the gun and calling you from India to the US and hence with no money to fund my billing, I would be released from the project within a week. I was visibly upset, however my heart knew no bounds of happiness – as with no project for me, I would be sent back to India within 15 days of coming to the US. This would have given me another window to attend to domestic affairs. However, with the news that we would be allowed a maximum of 2 weeks to sit ‘un-employed’ on bench, after which failure to be pushed into a project would result in being sent back to India for re-deployment I was just counting my days left . Alas, luck rarely sees me in good light , the 12th day I was informed of an interview and pre-decided selection into one of the biggest projects won by my company. The interview went good , with the client manager asking me more of People Management questions – conflict resolution , span of power et al. Big mouth as I am, added to the fact the I had studied OB during one of my XL courses , I breezed past through the interview questions and most probably impressed the manager of my superior communication skills. I was selected and asked to re-locate to one of the most sparsely populated places – Greensboro, NC.

The project, as I have been informed is a long-term project – supposedly 3+ years which could be potentially stretched upto 5-7 years. However , since I harbor no intentions of sticking around in the US for so long , I would be definitely wrapping around my assigned project pretty sooner this year. The place Greensboro , is at best described as a loner place – the population seems to be just a shade over 1 Lakh. I have the first week of my stay was spent in the hotel and next week I came in and out of a friend’s place in a jiffy. Unbearably miser as he is , I could not stay a moment longer and I got out his place to shift to another friend’s place and soon we moved into our leased apartment from Feb 1. The friend’s with whom I have moved in are also new to the place and good fellows. Hopefully the stay over here should roll out pretty much smooth. Fingers crossed.

A few other extremely private happenings have indeed had a debilitating affect which I would spare to put in here. Strength of personality which I am extremely proud of , would surely make me come good.

I close this scribble here as I have no further intentions of pondering over the time which passed by in the last few days. Normally this is not the way I am accustomed to write or be in a deeply thoughtful mode , however I somehow motivated to keep my blog active instead of dead.

Keep rocking and blogging my dear friends !!!!

Why have NOT been blogging off late - Excuse#1

2010-01-02T18:20:00.000-08:00

The last time I sat to scribble a new post on the blog was around a shameful 6 months ago. It is giving me pangs of embarrassment to remember the time period when I last posted. In the meanwhile, I have been seeing many of my friends/co-bloggers racing past ahead of me in the cyber-diary. I have been reading most of them and in a sense trying to derive some inspiration to keep up pace with them. A few of the bloggers had posted many a thing from a big personal loss ;concocted romantic utopian fables to lessons on ethics/morality to inability to strike a work-life balance to corporate fundas. These varied topics have made me sit and think, as to how and why am I not squiggling anything on the blog. A RCA(you better get acquainted with acronyms) made me come to the conclusion that, off late so many things have been happening at my end so fast added to the fact that I have been becoming a lazy sloth, so Iam neglecting this part. Excuse me for the sad description strewn with lame excuses. However, with the heralding of the new year 2010, I have vowed to write more often. By the way, it would give me some pleasure and some pain in describing the happenings of the past 6 months . Please bear with me when I flesh out some of them in vivid detail:

Come August 2009 : By the end of july/start of Aug, I was in the rush to make my first trip to the land of $$$. Though I was happy for having got the opportunity to visit US after slogging off my derriere for 3.5 years in the company, i was double minded of the timing. The dilemma arouse from the fact that though at a professional level I would be getting chance to move ahead(or rather in line with the IT herd) it would mean a delay over some imminent personal affairs. As is always my tendency, I figure out the devil in the closet only after I start cleaning up the mess. The onsite opportunity presented variety of pros and cons for me. However, as always happens with me, iam always on the edge of the cliff ready to be gently scrubbed off by the (allegedly)‘feather-touch’ actions of people around me. The whole exercise of the US trip was conducted in such a jiffy that, at one moment I was spreading my legs in front of the travel desk guys to get me Visa stamped , the other I was screaming in the parking lot over the guards to let my bike out of the parking area ; then I was shuttling between the two most uselessly separated office buildings within the same city – a distance of just 20 kms ; then I was made to realize at the 11th hour that US guys do not accept the standart Indian Passport size photos, instead they have a special specification, the studio lady was so rapt in her attention on the ongoing street-fight between two fellows that my call to her was not enough to distract her. I had to make my voice more of a baritone to grab her attention. One set of fotos never come out good for me, so a second shot and a third shot were taken. I snatched my fotos from her and ran away to meet the traveldesk czars who call the shots on who would travel easily and who would have to make a fight at every instance. Then the Visa interview dates were soon becoming the latest talk of the day. It is precisely at such moments of personal despair that rumour mills start to spread news about facing the most unprecedented of circumstances which had to erupt at the exact moment when I ventured out to work. Chief among them were – US Consulate has stopped giving dates for Visa interviews ; The Consulate building is undergoing some reconstruction work hence no dates would be made available till August end; For the IT MNC’s Obama has created more road-blocks than the roads of Pune thereby actively filtering out people rather than letting foreigners into the US ; Swine flu is catching up fast in India and hence US would not allow anyone entry into the US without a certificate from the highest medical authority(Governer/CM/PM/President of India or the CJI??). More the number of mouths more the number of ‘news’. Amidst all such ruckus , I braved to get the dates and schedule my trip to the US Consulate in Mumbai along with dad. The cab driver was driving us nuts with his superlative Ferrari-driving-skills all to be guinea-pig-tested on us. Somehow the Visa interview lasted for about 3 minutes – the lady at the other side of the table was from Florida and my petition mentioned as the same state. She was pretty too, and with a blink of the eye she stamped my petition. I too in my usual suave manner passed on a smirk towards her. Our ‘nain-matakka’ went on for a minute and as it is 100000 other things were already running up my mind. Then the bomb exploded, my stamped passport would reach the office only the next day. Viola, and my ticket for the US was the next day evening!! My dad often says, I end up making things difficult, worse even more, things start becoming difficult when Raj enters the picture. Now I all of a sudden could hear chimes ringing( I somehow felt the pain within my body as to which organ was being used to sound the chimes). No amount of self-sympathy was enough to make the skinny guy convinced that I need it today itself. Of course he meets hundreds of such hopefuls daily, so expecting him to make peace with me was obviously too much. But then we Indians, when do we lose hope. We have the uncanny ability to flight to the last straw even when we see all the shutters of the movie theaters being closed due to ticket unavailabilty , as if we would be ready to stand and watch the movie inside the hall. So was I in all true Indian spirit requesting the fellow to consider my case and issue the visa stamped passport the same day. These Americans have a way of informing upfront, without beating around the bush, the way we Indians are trained to speak and hear any piece of news. Me and dad returned to Pune to start the packing for the possible next day packing for the US trip. The cab driver was denying us the basic necessity of lunch for the day on the argument that , he would air-drop us in Pune in another couple of hours. Dad had to jump into the fray to ask him to stop for lunch. The sumptuous meal was not going in as the fear of not getting the passport for travel was lurking in my perennially disgruntled mind. Without the passport , I would not get the tickets , without tickets I would not get the travel insurance and without the insurance there is only one way of travelling to the US – dead meat form!!! Returning to pune , I had started packing and unpacking all the stuff in the house in search for the perfect baggages for the trip. The very moment I start searching for a thing, it starts following Murphy’s law – it gets hidden into such black-hole like places in the house, that I can never find them. The normally useless stuff like suitcases, were now becoming objects of my desire. Not able to find them , no time to go out and purchase no friends come to rescue , mom starts lecturing on the virtues of leading a well-planned life , ravi absent in his office , office formalities incomplete – NOT a single thing was going good and nothing gave even the slightest of illusion that I would be in a position to travel the next day. All objects – living and non-living, were speaking to me announcing the same message – YOU ARE GOING NOWHERE tomorrow!!! Life is tough , its tougher when you are stuck in shit !!! Somehow , the night passed off un-eventful, with 60% of packing done. The next morning, Iam struck by lightening that I do not have enough of inner-wear clothes – alas, without them I would be doomed. Pune central – rushed to the place and bought about a dozen of them, some single coloured, some multi-coloured and some oddest of color combinations, however , who in this world would be interested in seeing ‘what lies beneath’. To the thankful efficiency of our courier syndicates , my passport which was supposed ot be delivered to my office in the morning, I was tracking minute-by-minute about the status of the delivery. Finally, the sun dawned on those guys and it was delivered in the noon 2:30 PM. I started off to Mumbai in exactly 37 minutes after this momentous event. Mom was all the way in the cab, getting teary over the event that would separate us for a span of just 3 months – that’s how mother’s are, she has been through the separation for well over 4 years of my engineering, and here she is, almost crying over the 3 month duration. Dad was sparingly giving his advices based upon his trip to the Europe and other destinations on the way of lives in country’s other than India. Kator, was watching all the actions in the cab, just passing a smile and comforting mom sometimes. I was all the way rehearsing the place where I kept all the documents, place to go when Iam questioned by any authority’s and of course all the while I was hoping that the $ Vs INR exchange rate soared above 50( selfish me, but then that’s the way my mind was thinking at that point).
Finally, we reached the premises of the airport, when our cab was just kissed by the car behind us and then all hell broke loose. The cab driver was enraged and was hurling choicest of abuses at the other driver and was not ready to budge an inch from the place. It took the cop to interevene and make the driver move ahead – I was thankful to the maamu, as the 3 hour check-in time for all international flights was coming near by. Mom could not control her tears and she broke, while asking me to be strong. Dad too I felt had his eyes a bit damp though it really did not show up. Kator, was in his as usual jolly mood happy for my maiden trip to US. Finally I entered the airport and from there on I never came out to see off mom dad and kator. Seems that they were waiting for an hour.
My flight started off at 11:15 PM and there I finally started off my flight to the US with,without and inspite of all hinderances.
The next few posts would be dedicated to the 3 month vacation( as some of my friends say its hard to call it project work, as I have the infamy of masti during the tightest of schedules), then I would throw light on a few other issues which have been keeping my buzee mind all the more buzee.
In the meanwhile, though there is nothing un-usual about the haste which precludes any IT pro's US trip , it is the manner in which I saw things coming to a dead-stop at one instance and then revving up to speed the other moment.
Request you all to put in your comments !!!

My ex-associates.....

2009-07-25T12:53:00.000-07:00

A fortnight ago, a very eventful journey in my life came to an end. Though all good things are supposed to come to an end, this journey was particulary not very enjoyable one. The reason why I say this is coz, as in common with any phase,it was indeed a bumpy ride. Though I was pretty glad that it ended finally. Without further verbalizing it too much, let me tell what exactly happened that pleased me - I finally managed to take a release from the age-old project, I had been associated with it for the past 2.5 years. For all the time I had spent in the project, having faced the ire of some of the team members owing to the nature of my job profile,earned the abuses of some more members for the simple reason of being able to walk scot free inspite of damaging their reputation as a techy guys, sparringly pronounced by a few "incompetent managers" to be absolutely dispensible in the team et al. I had no reason to take any of these comments on my stride - as I had devil-I-care attitude within the team. Let me seggregate our team and let you know of the few of the popular characters and their category(albeit I would not name them,it would be very much implied for those who know my team).

The foremost group, in which I had little friends belongs to the,allow me to call them 'PIT's' - Pain in the Team fellows. This group had a remarkable ability to complain and crib about every damn happening in the team,project,account,company,industry,city,state,country,world and yes of course the galaxy!!! I have worked with such PITs for about an year. Their troop leader was God of cribbers,founder member and promoter of the perennially disgruntled...It seemed so hard to work with this person that I had this growing feeling that breathing in front of him too might be taken as a slight and he might come up with still a worse statement expressing displeasure on the organic activity. His levels of discontent were so high that I was sure that, had Lincon met him by chance during the course of his innumerable failures, he would have long long ago given up any hopes of rising in life. A small narration is in order for highlighting his "quality" behaviour!!! One fine morning, as usual in my carefree demeanour, I had approached him for a technical query resolution on one of our projects. Being in a cheerful mode, I picked up his pen and notebook to jot down a few points without requesting him. This cheeky act angered him boundless and he decided to "teach" me a lesson to not to be cheeky when it comes to project work. Though communicatively impoverished, he was no match for me, his constant references to dislike for the frivolous behaviour of certain team members towards the seniors in the team(yes FYI, he was called the daadu of our project, he has been in this project when Jesus was sermoning the jews!!!) was clearly making perfect sense for me indicating his direction towards me. After a few minutes of discussions on the project, he was back into his true colours - indefatigable pessimism!! He started lecturing about the absolute lack of morality in the managers,who instead of promoting him to onsite chose others;the lack of professionalism in his PeM(yes mine is a matrix organization with multiple managers to report to, i can not divulge further details) by awarding him meagre ratings YoY;the repulsive and obsolete technology which the project was working on;the ever-so-irritating-pain-in-the-Ahem Ahem testers, who had no better work than to challenge his authority over the project;the lacklustre performance bonuses;the chilling AC;the un-bendable chairs;the thankless account executive,who instead of heaping multiple Nobel prizes on him, for writing out the oh-so-novel 'System.out.println' statements, chose to give a simple smile everytime;the HR department who has failed to recognize the wonderful contribution he makes to the company by mere stepping inside the office regularly;the payroll department, who have been foolishly failing to add a few billions to his account;the floor boys who never care to recognize his 'sulken' face day-in-day-out,but manage to carry out their tasks in a purely mechanical fashion;the company tag which has to be 'latkaaoed' daily,wherein the biometric recognition system for employees could have been installed;the RKHS cafeteria team, who has nothing better to do than to server the mundane n repeated full thali to eat;the telephone;the dustbins;the mysteriously houseful meeting rooms;the lighting;the printer room;the pantry area.....the list went on and on and on and on....Amidst all these pestering troubles, I was sitting and wasting his precious 'cribbing time'. I being an extremely patient audience, kept listening to this saga-of-sobs(No pun intended here!!) for about an hour or so. My only rescuer was a smart lady from another team who too could not help overhear the interminably weeping story. She had quickly chipped in to purportedly clarify a doubt on one of the tools used in the project. Till this day, I keep thanking the lady for her much-needed intervention in saving me from the torture and bringing me back from the dead!!!

The second catergory of creatures in the team was "FIT's' - Foolishly Insane Team members. This was another lot of lost team members who had little to boast about. Their technical brilliance was restricted to changing the network ports - client port and company port. Though this act required us to stand out and pluck the cable from one port and insert it into the jack fitted on the desk and hit a few 'ipconfig /release/renew commands' , this too was a major achievment of these fellows. Though I should not be ridiculing any one so much,however, the fact remains that, the simplistic technical issues befuddled them and challenged their intellect to its limit. The 'media disconnected' message on the screen had to be mentioned in their native languages I guess to make them understand that the physical cable connecting to the ports was indeed visibly disconnected. The decision on printing of 'landscape'/'potrait' took just over a dozen print-outs to realize the differences. The torturous task of archiving mails on the local/server was so intriguing that a technichian had to drop by the desk to make them understand the concept of archiving. Remote Desktop connections was too much an ask. The last of these mentioned tasks was a personal experience of mine with a exceptionally fair faced lady in the team. It took me an hour to make her understand that the RDC required unique ID's of each person and of course the password protection policy mandated it to contain a combo of numeric,alphanumeric,special characters. The last thing I remember was creating her the password and writing it down on her notebook for her future reference. It was not for another 3 months before she had remembered her password,when at each instance I had to strain my brain!!!

LOT's was the third category. Lost Out of the world Team members. We had such a group of individuals in our very own team that had this meticulous attention to detail each time a task was performed,however a week later, it turned out that not even the overview of the task could be recollected on time.Yet another subset of this group comprised those members, who had continued to live in the utopian islands forever dreaming about fairy tales and exotic waterfalls. These people had the amazing capacity to have thoughtfully escaped the real-time current state of affairs and continued to live in those figments of foolish imaginative landscapes. One of the members of this group was a fellow with whom I had worked closely till the very last day of my tenure in the team. He used to speak so little,so slow and so surreally imaginative that I had to request him to wake me up once he was done talking. A few of the times, I had indeed asked him to call me on my desk phone,though he sat in the same cubicle very much adjacent to me for quite sometime to just to be able to hear what he was trying to blurt out of his mouth. The superset members of this category were so encapsulated ,enamoured and engrossed with their own thoughts way way above this materialistic world that neither work,managers taunts,onsite lead comments nothing,absolutely nothing in this world could bring them back to the planet earth and its realities. I chanced upon an einstein from this group, to ask about her career ambitions -and what a reply I got. Seems she had developed this fascination for supernatural and occult sciences through one of her ex-classmate that she had decided to give those freaky ideas of 'call-the-ghosts-for-a-round-table-discussion' a sincere trial. I wished her luck and never returned to her for discussing anything out of the project.

We now come to the SIT's - Seriously Insane Team members. I could have never learnt that the level of insanity in this world is Infinite++. Insanity was born after these guys. Music,fags,sex,booze interest us all. But the level of addiction to any of these reaches zeniths - i was made aware by this group. One fellow had this incessant and almost maniacal attachement to music n fags that, had it been allowed, there would have been a DISCO and a chimney beside his seat. I was, and still remain in shock of this guy, about the level of madness he had. The other point on which I used to wonder was, with the peanuts as salary in the company how could he manage to smoke so many cigarettes a day!!! Well then, may be,his grandpa must have left a fortune to his name.

RAT's was yet another group. Regionally Attached Team members. This was a sad lot of overlapping sets which had people grouping and owing their allegiance to that particular group. The characteristic of this was, team members,each being from a different region within the state and country, had formed groups based upon their belonging regions and mysteriously remain attached to that group. I was, and am still proud of myself for never having got attached to any one region,neither in college nor currenly. Hence, I was definetly not one of these!!! Andhra fellows had personal discussions and get togethers,Bongs had a seperate table,in-state people were indeed a majority they too had a chunk of their own. I did not like such groupism so I would rather skip any further description lest I come out with some despicable content.

The most interesting lot was the FATs. This has no acronyms or anything of that sort,but simply meant the word. We were a happy lot with a lot of 'weight' in the team - NOT to mean that we were obese or anything,its just that we were from a 'khaate-peete ghar ke'. Our baggages would lead or trail our presence in any gathering. A lot many times, we had to cover our bulging assets by putting an additional overcoat!! We were the talk of the team, at team lunches. Our share of cake and samosas and pizaas was always kept aside. We had a reserved chair in most parties to be in the middle of all actions and discussions! Occasionally, we were greeted by quite a few pretty ladies in the other teams on account of our extremely contagious smiles and laughs.

The last and the least interesting group is called the M-TPITA's - Managers-The Pain In The ...

They had nothing cheerful about them. Never liked by any majority or far that fact minority too. They acted as high priests of professionalism,paragons of perfection et al,however in reality nothing was further. They always had the killer instinct to hunt down and shoot a few jokes about them in the team. The eternal grin and subsuming sarcasm seemed to have got hardwired in their body. The scheming against certain members of the team, the threats issued, the intonation implied and the below the belt references would have put to shame the most powerful man on earth currently - The US president!!!

With all such characters - PIT's,FIT's,LOT's, SIT's RAT's , FATs and M-TPITA's, I would like to submit myself that, of all these shades I often used to find myself as a part of each group for sometime. So in no bad taste. I have summarized a few of our team characters,whereas a few of them have been left out for the obvious reason being, either they were dear to me or I did not care to write about them. Dear to me ones are pretty few, the latter point holds right for most time.

This was my team for you....I have moved into another assignment though I wanted to caricature a few highlights of the members for a small fee - please put in your comments on the post!!!

Log kehte hain...main impatient ....

2009-07-01T01:54:00.001-07:00

Many a times it so happens that ....the most desired things we want in our life come so close and yet by stroke of bad luck or as Maradona called 'Hand of God' ...we fail to grab it ....this indeed explains the innate sadness which is often attributed to anyone and anything except ourselves ...the real fact however per me could not be any further ....things do'nt often take place totally out of your control....its just that the level of control excercised or demonstrated to tackle the situation fluctuates . ...in places where there is absolute debacle we often try to shrug off our shoulders refuting even the least amount of involvement.....whereas in other situations we try to pretend to be acting upon things..in reality where little is done ....however , it seems totally senseless to have a defeatist attitude and resign to fate ..with little hopes ...Easier said than done, I have actually been pondering a lot about such trappings of cliched life off late. As I admitted in some of the earlier posts there have been certain pending issues on which some actionining needs to be done to bring them to fruition,however, the usual escapist's demeanour has been showing its true colours. My personal sphere has been in the centerstage of such events in the offing - but lack of motion sets in the 'happy-with-the-status-quo' feelings ,which being an Arien,I feel not-so-excited about.Dad always keeps saying,Iam restless and peevish and every conceivable thing which is not ideal for an individual. My,self-admittedly impatient soul, seeks action and events taking place all the time and the lull period seems to bring in crazy ideas.The most indelible event registered in my mind when I speak of impromptu action is my 'leaving-my-last-company fiasco'. In terms of debacles, this seems to be one of the biggest debacles of recent times(other than the Engg college failures!!!). Let me brief you all with the details of the disaster(you know my vocab is playing foul - so many words for FAILURE!!). The year was 2006,during the heated and sweaty month of May,the tenth day of the month and the 10 hour of the day. The previous evening one of my good-for-little friend Mr.Srikanth, by the stroke of brilliance had a wonderful idea to attend to the walk-in/referal interviews of one of the biggest IT services company in the world(dare i name it). His accomplice,who was working in the company had sent a mail informing Sri of the event the next day. Too tired of resting in the office, we both went out in the evening(aka night) to have a cup of tea. During the wild discussions, he remembered that we might as well go to oversee the interviews schedule which were being held at a place near Swar gate(yes thats the place). We had discussed all the points required to attend the interviews,except for one major point. The mail mentioned that all the candidates were to report to the venue by sharp 10 AM. Oh my holy God,10 AM in the morning, that too on a Saturday...it seemed a far cry that in any case we would go to attend. However,we bid adios to each other,with hopes of trying to make it to the venue the next day. In the heart of hearts both knew that, the probability seems to be well below .0019. However,neither of us wanted to sound the spoilsport by explicitly stating that "I would not be coming such early in the morning". Each was waiting for the other to say this,so that any failure to reach the swar gate venue on time, one could easily crucify the other for his laziness,stupidity et al.....That night, myself and Ravi, were scheming on making an important strategic decision on how to fend off 'attacks from ......"(he knows and I know,I cannot divulge due to personal reasons). There was an imminent bout of lashings from ..... on our behavious which was in violation of the traditional tenets of 'bandhutva'. As I say this, I fear treading and overstepping the path to actually revealing the intricate details of the happenings thereon. While having dinner, we both were actually loathe to the idea of 'bandhutva' et al which made little sense or rhyme to us. Einstein said 'Two things are infinite, universe and human stupidity and Iam sure of the latter'. The second part of the statement always inevitably made sense to us when it came to talk about 'bandhutva' crap. Any statement,action,feeling,thought,breath was being interpreted as a 'move-to-remove'. The coloured glass vision of the other party was driving us crazy,however,there was pretty much little which we could actually do. Discussing on the matter went ad infinitum and we had finally ended up watching Jason Bourne!!! Each stunt was making us charged up to beat the crap out of ..... Late night munching chips and all junk, we realized that we had no H2O(i.e water,for all the less informed!!). Poor old lady,Mrs.Vimala's daughter in law was disturbed, as she was the only one in the entire building who used to supply us with pure water. For your info,mom was as usual out of town,so we both were the bachelors in the house ....living off chips,junk and tons of maggi. It was during this era of un-interrupted fest,that I was crowned the "Maharaja of Maggi' by my Ravi. To date, I still retain this title.Anyways,let me spare you of all the details of mish-mash and come straight to the point of the interview the next day. Waking up at 9 AM, I was totally out of my senses when all of a sudden I saw 17 missed calls and 4 SMS's from Sri. The messages contained extremely polluted references to me and my near and dear ones. The last message ended with those pavitra words reminding me of the act of sexual intercourse. The pattern of the words if you want to know is (4,3) - reminding me of the versatility of the word which can be used to mean the best as well as the worst in the world. This encompassing word is one of my favourites,which amazes me with its utility coming handy in all situations.Waking up so early on week-ends was blasphemious to my behaviour,but still the pleasure of nailing down Sri for delay was overarching to the pain of getting up early. A strategic decision had to be resulted which required "To bath or NOT to bath is the question". I kept wishing that some event happens because of which all of a sudden the water stops coming out of the tap and hence I can easily pass it off as scarcity of water for me NOT being able to bath. Voila, water comes pouring down from the shower and thereon,it was a matter of breezing through - tidying self with trim and immaculate clothes,filing the resume in the folder and there I go - to Sri's abode. Well aware that he would be still behind schedule,I gave 3 more number of missed calls to him than he gave me - 20! All were deliberately cut-short to increase the count of calls. I reached his home and found him to be skimpily clothed in his bare minimums. What a sight it was, I rushed back into the hall - all scared huffing and puffing at the monsterous sight I just saw. To save time, I refrain from providing other details and directly skip to the most intersting part.By the time we reached the venue, it was half-past ten. We were pretty much sure that, we would be asked to go out as the registrations have been closed. To our horror of horrors, we were given the tokens for shortlisting resumes and then subsequent interviews. I was so sure of my resume getting dustbined that, I was actually raring to come out and go the nearby Burger King for lunch. On a given day, the midas touch comes to people who actually are not seeking it. The initial criteria for entrants was kept at 24 months,whereas mine was deppresingly short of the mark by 6 months. So sure was I of coming out, that I even messaged Ravi to reach Burger King for lunch. All of a sudden, due to some internal concerns the pre-filter criteria was reduced to exactly 18 months - and there , I was standing in the queue for the initial screening. Myself and Sri,never short of cracking nasty jokes were standing adjacent and commenting on the figure of the lady sitting to screen our profiles. Bomb,maal,patakha et al were the most frequent words and we were guessing about the possible ways we would approach her to impress - not so much for the interview but for the pleasure of enjoyment!!!! Sri was shortlisted and the lady was screening mine(resume I mean), and asked a few questions and with a genuinely disgusting grin on her face moved me ahead passing my resume for further rounds. Claps Claps...there begun the really interesting part. It was around 11:30 AM and we were told that in some time we would be interviwed and all. This short while proceeded well into the evening and finally we both were through the rounds of interviews(which we actually spoke great things about nothing). The Tech rounds.Manager round all went by and we were asked to wait in the downstairs for final confirmation. In one of the rounds, the manager asked me "What would your reaction be if you were to be put on bench for a prolonged period of 6 months(with no project)". I still get those unbelievable moments when I shot back at him saying "Six months is too long a period, Id have other options open if Iam not put in a project in a week's time". I immediately, followed it up with the names of companies of which I purportedly had offers from( I had none!!). Seems that, the manager was impressed by the confidence which I aired right from the start of the interview - I was demanding water, coffee et al . He then went on to ask a few more profile based questions, to which I had propped up with "out of the box ideas"(due to prep for CAT), and then he finally asked me if I had any questions. Wasting no time, I followed up with a barrage of queries most of which he fended off very dispassionately. He then asked the cliche,"where do you see yourself 5-10 years down the lane?" . Pat was my reply, "Definetly in a position which allows me to make decisions for a larger audience." Subsequent to the interview, I felt that I was more aggressive than expected and some of my responses were indeed sounding over confident. The manager though bore with me all through the interview and gave me some feedback.Coming downstairs and waiting for Sri, I was caught up in conversation with yet another hopeful at the venue. He was desperately looking for job as he currently had none. As usual, he had a lot more self sobbing story for this job. I listened with utmost patience and promised to help him in my current company by forwarding his resume to my HR. All things went on well into the night and we returned around 9PM - all smiles on the frivoulous achievement least hopeful of.A month passed, before I received the offer letter and there I go, I was in the 9th heaven. The most painful part then started - parting with the current company. I had informed the managers(mis-managers) over there that, I'd want to resign and move ahead in future studies. However, the draconian clauses which they included in their ruleset disallowed anyone to resign before 2 years of confirmation or shell out 2 Lakh Rs as compensation for doing so. The tug of war in this entire episode was very painful wherein I had come in direct confrontation with senior most people over my resignation. I was informed that since I did not comply with the rules of the company I would not be issued any relevant letters which my next employer would need. Co-ersion would never work especially with managers who are hell bent of having it their way or no way. In month and a half that I was spending there, nothing positive was coming out from the company managers and I was getting increasingly frustrated with the inaction. Thereby, I finally walked out of the company without any letters except for the offer and a few other. Subsequent to this, I could not join the next company for about a month and half more, which was getting excruciatingly painful due to obvious reasons. Finally, with the stroke of luck, I was asked to join the company with whatever documents I had. It still haunts me to imagine those painful moments.In such moments of desperation, I often commit myself to irrevocable changes which in most cases result in life-altering consequences. It has been around 2 and half years since then, Iam with the new company and have many positive experiences in my life.There are a few more impending situations which demand action to be taken,I fear my loss of sensibility at certain instances should not takeover me and I result in destructive stances.I close this post with a pensive heart!!!!

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2009-06-04T06:51:00.001-07:00

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Innovate or IPL

2009-05-28T01:51:00.000-07:00

Finallly, IPL 09 is over. With the loads of hype and hoopla surrounding the IPL in the last few months, the showdown event has indeed come to a culmination. So much for the moolahs it raked in as compared to the core theme of the extravaganza - gentleman's game CRICKET. The thought has being doing rounds in my wonderfully evolved brain - has cricket remained the central focus of the game or has been forced out of the ground - in IPL parlance - DLF Maximum!!! The importance of toss, fire in the belly of the batsmen , ferociously killing aim of the bowlers to uproot the stumps, the hounds of fielders aiming the batsmen, the uncertainity over the LBW's,umpires gaining demi-god stratures et al. Money was just a by-product of the game till a few years ago, when the brightest star in the cricketing arena shone upon the earth - BCCI and its office-bearers!!

Amazing is the capacity of human mind to conceptualize the myriad of thoughts and actually implementing them to see immense success or failure. They used to say "There is no short-cut to success". Whooosh has it gone for a toss? Miniaturized version of the cricket game has brought in actually so much of success(read it moolah accompanied by success). I dedicate this post to BCCI and the office-bearers - especially to Mr.LM(dare I mention all names here).

The cricketing genius he is, the simplistic idea of reducing the number of overs to be bowled in a match by as much as 80%, has brought in so much of prosperity. The BCCI, has infact made such a wonderful schema of all aspects of the game to rake in as much money as possible. Every possible outlet for earning green-bucks has been tapped into and has indeed turned into a rags-to-riches story. Our board has attained such a towering position in the cricketing world, which little other boards can even compare of. We have the chutzpah to declare tournaments null and void at our free will, we bring in players of all kinds to play matches for us, we affect the ranking agencies to keep ourselves in the near numero uno positions, we call shots for all other games played in India, donate peanuts of amounts to budding players in the name of coaching them up to bring to international standards etc. The list of dictats for BCCI can go on ad infinitum.

Coming back to the IPL - I still have my reservations about the authenticity of the tournament to promote the game. The pomp and gusto with the players were auctioned made me think about the real motive of show. Players were being bought with money, the other merchandize of the game also being sold out, teams being purchased by so wonderfully talented sportspersons - bollywood stalwarts(I doubt how many would have actually spelt cricket correctly). The biggest stars in filmcity came down to lecture about the virtues of the game, money being "apparently "channelized" to nurture and groom the budding cricketing talent in the country". There was one star who I vividly remember went on and on for couple of hours reciting the godliness of the gentleman's game on the telly. The marketing campaigns which of course took away the sheen from the actual game were as per me, superflous. The monstrocity of the advertisements simply meant to keeps the boxes ringing was too much. Each star "owner" of team has gone out of the way in singing odes to the team,players and of course Mr.LM. LM anyways went away all laughing. Songs were being sung about that perfect strategy each team had decoded to win the IPL trophy. The most in-your-face one was from the "multi-captain" team. The lyrics went over the top, as was the message contained in it . The jingle went gaga about being "reloaded" - i fail to catch what was being reloaded with each defeat being handed over to it repeatedly. The other bollywood star teams too went with a tail between their legs figuratively and literally too. Their jingles too were more on the lines of attacking and winning over the opposition. In reality, it was an irony of all sorts. The very opponents they started out to defeat were the one's who were holding the stick at the other end. The marketing ploys literally made the game feel as if,cricket was just one part of the show,lion's share being pouring in of "Gandhi ji's".
The jersey's,shoes,guards,bats,hands,eyes,noses,butts endlessly were covered with logos. The second season was expected to be as hit as the first one,however, this was marked by a few characteristic guffaws.
I dont think, it is in my nature to be sounding pessimistic and sceptical of any such happening event. However, being well within my democratic rights to give it my spin, I think I need to pen down these thoughts. I have too enjoyed the rapidity of the game especially when the Gilly's and Hayden's ramped down the pitch to hit big time scores. The Deccan Chargers - the team from Hyderabad, won the IP 09 much to my pleasure. Mr.M(self proclaimed baron), was all but having "good times" in the final match!!!

Innovation they say comes in all sizes and shapes. The paradox of IPL vis-a-vis normal cricket, is the shortned version of the game has been one of the biggest hits of the decade. Mr.LM, by no means is short of a visionary. He cut short the overs,banked upon players and their ASSets for cash inflows,made every possible blade of the grass on the ground to ring in money. In the coming years, it would be no less than a wonder, if the sweat of the players would also be bottled and put up for the grabs. The other much innovative items on sale might as well be - the texture of the clothes worn by the players, their spits, verbal utterances,finger nails,air within the stadiums,wooden blades ripped off the bats,guards(i mean the ones used for protecting Ahem..Ahem) et al.
Hail Mr.LM, you have silently become the entreprenuer of the generation with so much of money-spinning abilities by the simple reduction in the length of the game.
Who says, there is no short cut for success? Shorten the length of anything and earn big bucks. Iam on my way to this goal Sir LM,please guide me. My venture might lack the finnessse of your IPL, nevertheless the core values and motives behind remain aligned in lockstep - earn while you shorten. Innovate or IPL is my dedication to you.
Bless us all cricket-fanatics for facilitating the creation of the only multi-billion dollar cricketing board in the world.
I Love cricket,I love money much more than that - God please listen and bestow me too with such wonderful short ideas!!!!

Triple Fortnight .....

2009-04-25T00:55:00.000-07:00

The time gap between two blog posts is on the ascent. The last post was on the eve of Holi,which I celebrated after a span of half -a-decade. Some genius said 'Time Flies' , I disagree , it dissipates,vaporizes,diffuses. Its been almost triple fortnight(wow i like this term - i just coined it) since the last post. Many events have transpired in the meantime - the XL convocation dates announced,convocation completed splendidly with a two-day stay at the MDP hostel in the campus; hyderabad trip to attend a friend's 'Final Plunge' - marriage i mean, met a dozen of fellow collegemates after long time; submitting the L1 Visa documents(strangely though,Obama fears my entrance to the US might sound a death knell for his presidency) et al. Each event has been equally immensely satisfying on many fronts. The convocation at XL has been the piece de resistance. It has been a revitalizing experience which had brought back the old memories(read it nightmares of alma mater - BEC) except that all events were indeed allowing me to take a dip into the ocean of happy feelings. The completion of the certificate course, with a decent enough grade from an institue of repute as in XLRI itself meant a lot for me. The feeling of having been able to do something on my own w.r.t academics is in itself a self-gratifying one. Especially after the near-slaughter house tourture called - Engineering, which had my ego take a dent time and again - the marks failing to rise upto my standards. Yes, I say the marks failed to meet my benchmark because, I nearly put in as much hard work in every semester as I put in the first one(where I scored a near distinction), still if the marks did not stay consistent enough, then it is the failure of the lecturers,failure of the college,failure of the university and yes of course failure of the Vice Chancellor. To top it all, there was always a margin of just a few hundred marks between me and the topper(s) - whereas the actual university roll number difference was mere 4 notches. Is it not the responsibility of the university to follow the suite - bridge the difference in marks to a manageably closer level? The issue had become a favourite passtime discussion for us - the epitomes of engineers. Alas, this simmering bubble was never allowed to see the light of day, we were all subdued beyond imagination, hence we never got the chance to take it upto the proper escalation matrix(Yes, thats one more IT parlance I picked up 4+ years into the industry). The mention of college brings me back the choicest of expletives which I used to mouth during the college times. They still remain in my sub-concious memory, but I prefer them staying there rather than coming to the forefront and making me lose my job. They say time mellows down the young blood, I agree, but the mellowing effect is only uptil a certain point in time when things being talked about do not strain my cranial nervous system - invoking the hidden second self,the animal within - College. All said and done, these expressions were more of a hyperbole than the actual reality. The fact still remains rock-solid that, there are a certain patches of college stay, which I hate to remember , I would rather erase that part of my life and donate it to a needy person in search of a few breaths of life.

Convocation at XL, was indeed once in a life time event. It all begun with a train journey which I would remember for life. The company I had was stupendous to say the least. Travelling in AC has its own advantages. Decent crowd(sometimes if you are lucky,you might even get a very very GOOD crowd). Mine comes in a different category. Eating,sleeping and talking all the way we reached XL. The accomodation was one of the best hostels I have ever visited - the MDP hostel. The facilities provided - AC , hot water, LAN Connectivity attached bath 24X7. Food was really good. The only detriment was the hot n humid weather. Proximity to Kolkatta, the humidity saps the energy and sucks the life out of a normal human. The classmates who had arrived were indeed pumped up with enthusiasm for receiving the certificate at a formal ceremony. The whole atmostphere at XL was jubiliant mired with some kind of nostalgic feeling - we would never in all probability get a chance to visit the campus once again in life. There were many firsts, in this trip,all of which can NOT be divulged in this post for certain confidential reasons(Eh...). Rehearsal for the convocation ceremony,actual gowning and the final ceremony were all conducted in a dramatic fashion. The culmination of the convocation marked the end of yet another wonderful journey for most of us. Of the six of us from Pune, one could not complete the course,one had to skip the convocation ceremony owing to an emergency which he had to attend to in the office. Finally four of us managed to attend the convocation ceremony. All thanked one another for bailing the others out of pretty tied up circumstances during the classes/assignments exams et al. The evening of 4th April, we had a party organized by XL. We met our profs,had talks with many friends. It all ended around 10:30 PM, when Jubin had a stroke of brilliance in proposing to have a pan. We went about all the corners of the city- Jamshedpur in quest of the pan. Finally returned to the hostel to pack up our belongings to bid the final adieu to one of the best journey's of our life. A sense of longing for the place was creeping in. Our train started at 1:35 AM on 5th morning. The journey though very much enjoyable, was still making each one of us remember the wonderful moments of the PGCBM course. The last time we had been to the campus for our campus component was still vividly alive fresh in our memories. The certificate was indeed a very proud moment in our lives.

Coming back to the elaboration of the events which went by in the last 45 days, I think I had underwent a small transformation of sorts,in terms of taking stock of situations around and beginning to handle a few important aspects rather than habitually delaying them for future. Now, this I must say, is uncharacteristic of me, I have been nurturing the habit of postponing many a thing, for just over two-and-a-half decades now. Now for the next two-and-a-half, my life needs to turn a new leaf. I have started realizing the deppressingly agonising fact that Iam turning a year younger with each passing year. This year,off the record I completed 26....Oops..for those who know the truth...I simply do'nt know how to lie properly. Let me enlighten all with my correct age, I completed 28. So, with this harsh reality staring me in-my-face, I have been thinking of lot many things - professionally and personally. On the professional front, the slowdown in the market has been the only restraint in preventing me from grabbing the yet-to-come-CEO's offer. It is indeed a very difficult time for one and all across all the sectors. Each sector has had to come to terms with the viscosity in the economy,which is causing so many firms to deccelerate their productions and in the process turning one more cycle of the viscious cirle of recession. The self-fulfilling recession ploughs back in more momentum to carry forward it well into the second and/or third quarters of the current financial year. I speak of the IT sector, it has been a really tough period for many - especially for my Satyam'ite brothers(NOT sisters I dare say). I have a few friends in that once-upon-a-time-rocket-of-a-company,now trashed to the bin in terms of reputation. Misnomer, the name is,Satyam, has been indeed a forgettable chapter for its employees,share-n-stakeholders in particular and the Indian IT sector as a whole. The aftermaths of the Satyam tremors are still being felt in the job market. Recently, a friend of mine, in my current company,whose tenure in the company ended just yesterday(she was on contractual basis of employment), mentioned to me. There are indeed few and faraway openings coming in the IT market,and whichever is up for the grabs, Satyam'ites are a major chunk of the populace coming for the interview rounds. A fortnight ago, there was a walk-in at my office, I was stunned to know that just a shade less than 1000 applicants had turned up. The HR,admin staff were outnumbered and hence could not handle the congregation. A rough estimate puts a number of roughly 35-40% of the aspirants in most interviews to be from the esrtwhile poster-boy of the Indian IT scenario.
In such a market, I too harbour aspirations to make a move into the desired sectors of my career advancement paths, slowly but surely. This would necessarily mean landing up with lesser-than-plum remuneration with the newly added feather to my cap(for that matter one of the first feathers) - PGCBM. Iam banking on my current company managers,many of whom have assured me that being a behemoth of a company, things move at a really snail's pace,but surely will happen. Counting on managers(efficient or otherwise) is one of the most dumbest things almost everyone of us is forced to do. Most reach the managerial designation,early in their careers,thereby lacking the resolve and conviction in themselves to hold water to the demands of being a manager. Mine is the milestone in mis-Management. God wanted him to rise to a certain level and get stuck in the pit for a longwhile, sucking in all his reportees into the still deeper abyss. His people management skills are as good as Valmiki talking about vasectomy!!! A sham and shame in terms of getting undeservedly nominated as a people manager, he is exactly how a manager should not be!! Let me spare the details of my personal feelings I park for him deep within me, lest my post would be reported un-suitable for even adults.

On the personal sphere, things have been appearing a bit shaky,though an incorrigible optimist Iam,hopeful of snatching victory from the jaws of opposition. A lot many rounds of discussions about the do's-n-don'ts to make my case emerge victorious, Iam keeping my fingers crossed for the best to happen as desired. There are many occasions in life when one can not think of self in isolation. It has to be for the good of a few others around him/her. Most of my life, I have been in this multiplicty of situations where I had to take into consideration atleast quarter-of-a-dozen people before embarking upon a task. The number greatly reduced though, still makes me feel proud of being able to bring in the consensus of many. A great situation is confronting me, which demands the "middle-ground" approach of resolving it. A dozen people involved in it, it requires adept tact to pull off the feat. Trials galore,each one bringing in lesser encouragement than the previous, still fails to deter my will to keep my thumbs up. I may take a beating,but I can never be subdued so much as to not be able to bounce back. Resilence, I believe is my forte. I wish to share some part of it to my co-inhabitants of my heart. Time framed as things need to be,but perseverence is the key,and I have tons of it. Hope to come out victorious soon. Subsequent to that victory, I shall post the matter in true detail in my post. The details of populace involved need to be guarded for the time being. But for the un-initiated,here is the hint - that involves ME(though that is not much of a hint,thats the best I want you to know right now). For those, who know the matter,hope you understand the importance of being RAJ.

For the first time in my life, I have voted in the Election 2009. I would withhold my words to the person I voted,but indeed I feel nice about having voted to him. A special thanks goes to dad for having taken all the pains to include our names in the voter's list.

Somewhere,in between, my Birthday came. We went out for a party at Kobe Sizzlers after a couple of pegs with dad. Many things unsaid, the birthday seems to be incomplete with the soon-to-arrive company.

I write this blog, sitting in the Office this Saturday. Had to complete some work but due to a technical problem which cropped up since the morning, Iam not able to complete my task. The issue resolution needs to be done by the other interfacing team which obviously would not support during the scheduled week-end holiday. My monday for sure is going to be a slug-fest. Lot of tasks to complete,with little time to actually do.

I guess this mish-mash of a post is partly due to the lack of time and partly due to other commitments which demand my attention. I would sincerly want myself to devote more time for blogging than Iam currently.

For the time, this is the best I can come up with.

Hope many of you are blogging and do send me your blog links. I am indeed very good at commenting(both positively and critique).

Adios. Cheers to a nice weekend...

To HOLI or not to HOLI ....

2009-03-11T09:05:00.000-07:00

Holi 2009 has come and gone . The last time I remember playing holi was some four years ago when I was in the Final Year of Engg. What a day it was. Being in the final year, we had self granted super-constitutional in-hostel priviliges which included - breaking the queue in the mess(where we had food I mean), getting to play TT the whole night with no-one daring to question, getting hold of any movie CD's - of all kind(Ahem Ahem...) ahead of all the junior fellows, having the right to shout and yell out loud enough to wake up Osama at the dead of night, party and brawl inside the hostel campus,use the computer center's internet facility at any hour of the day(and night), having certain eatables customarily brought into my room in case of some special occasions(or when we ran out of snacks when there was some alchohol sprinkled here and there) et al. As the legendary Spiderman mouthed out the cult dialogue - "With great power comes great responsibility", I could sense the great responsibility bestowed upon, to restore peace and order in the hostel. It was we the final year fellows, who had to ensure that there was no decision taken in the hostel without our approval, it was we who had to ensure that no CD moves out of the hostel un-copied,we had to always keep stock of the most sought out 'incense sticks' during the lean periods as in semester exams,we took it upon ourselves that no-one is disadvantaged when it comes to 'mentoring' the first year folks - every one had equal rights, we being the elder ones, owned up the process of sorting out the incoming girls into the college, first and only then encouraged our juniors to chase the rest - it became our duty to keep the youngsters out of any troubles arising because of girls - so we chose first and then left the rest for them to choose. Shouldering such great responsibilities along with the 'burdensome' final year subjects was indeed a taxing task. In addition, we always had to be in the forefront of the General Secretary elections to have our candidate chosen as the GS. The indent of responsibilities could go ad infinitum,lest I put a pause to it.

Coming back to the HOLI day - our last in the college, it was pouring cats and dogs that very day. Hence, adding to our already deppressed moods(internal tests results had just been announced), was the primal concern on our inability to play the festival of colours due to the incessant downpour. Nevertheless, fate assists the brave, we marched ahead and took a roll call of all the hostelites present interested in playing(they had to come anyways!!). The roll call was perfunctory, we had around 120 poor chaps with dampened spirits for holi. Generous as we were, we all final year fellows collected 'Chanda' for purchasing the water colors as well as dry colors for the celebrations. The quantity of colors was enough to last for atleast 2 hours. The play started with the gradual increment of the year in the college - second year fellows had been given the chance to kick-start the momentous event. The mandatory requirement was to go into the field with as skimpy as possible clothes to avoid hardship of washing them later. Given this pre-requisite, we could see a forest of bare-chested guys with little more than shorts to cover their vitals. My roomie and me were especially getting concious of this mandate owing to the fact that we had just a few more ounces of flesh than the rest - no disrespect meant, but we were healthier than the rest. However, not willing to forgo the rule passed,we too had disrobed to our bare minimums. Second year fellows started off with our usual 'Engineering Anthem' - singing odes to our 'professors','HoD','princi' and their respective families. Third year guys pretty much laid down the red carpet invite for us - the final year fellows. A herd of 120 pumped up super charged boys was more than enough to create enough ruckus in the hostel disallowing any other function to take place. Our estimates of the quantum of colors proved grossly wrong, and it got depleted in just an hour's time. With some more time to kill and little other options left to discolour each other, we had to make the hard choice of selecting the mud and a few other un-mentionables littered around to fuel the play with. So odorous was the stench of each of our bodies that it seemed to be like pigs kernel. All of us had it enough and decided to call it a day when the odour became intolerable and we were on the verge of acting as a bio-gas plant. At this critical juncture, a very crucial decision had to be resulted - with the limited number of bathrooms in the entire of hostel, who would have priority to cleanse themself first. Inevitably, it was a matter of seconds, a matter of common sense, a no brainer - who would be going in first. The only decision which was to be made was of the second and the third positions. Seniority, if at all handy, becomes a potent tool at such times. Final year fellows will go in first followed by the third year and last but not the least, second year fellows. With a pompous march, we all entered the bathrooms with an audience of almost 80 people awaiting anxiously for us to come out. After an hour of tiresome self-purging , we came out clean but still tinged with the colors. The entire of hostel had undergone an cleaning activity in a space of 5 hours. Subsequent to this celebration, we had another event awaiting - the chief warden, demanding a written explanation seeking us to elaborate on the pandemonium created by the celebration inside the hostel premises or face consequences. Mob, as they say is the biggest saviour. In mobocracy, all get the same protection alike. With no-one willing to stick their head out to take responsibility, the warden imposed a fine of 50 Rs on each inhabitant of the hostel to recover the 'alleged' damage to the premises. We could see no damage - just a few doors coloured, two benches uprooted, the grass blades of the garden flattened and bursted water balloons strewn here and there, and yeah of course, the garden hose pipe broken into smaller pipes of unequal sizes. Being in the direct action arena, we all did not find it wise enough to capture the scene in a camera for subsequent viewing. So there is no evidence of HOLI being played in the hostel now albeit the 'damage' was evident. Nevertheless it has been recorded indelibly in all our minds for eternity.
So ended the last holi of college.

After a gap of 5 years, I once again played holi along with Ravi and Dad today. Most of the dwellers of the appartment complex had come down in the morning itself with self-cooked breakfast and tea. The action started with 'pet-pooja' first and then we all had a good time playing holi. No-one was spared from being coloured, and the late comers had to pay the penalty of getting targetted most frequently. Dry and wet colours were mixed and smothered to one and all - young and old,uncles and aunties,guys and girls alike. The garden was filled with coloured grass rather than the usual green. Our group of 5 guys ganged up against and targetted unscrupulous people who stood witness to the gang-play with little resistance.Any resistance on their part was dealt with severe colouring of their bodies. For about two hours, we had a good time with colours and then returned to our homes tired and dis-coloured.

Nostalgia set in with the mere touch of colors. This time however, there were no hierarchies as in college,no single one was calling shots,no discolouring of personal property,no uprooting of benches and last but not the least no broken hose pipes. Times change rapidly and there is no single moment from the past which we can relive and have the pleasure of the same company at any point in the future. College went by,Corporate entered,juniors passed out,colleagues came in,wardens are out,spouses have come(NOT in my case though).....but the festival of colors still evokes the same old good feelings as ever - not only of the college times,but also of the bygone years when we used to have a host of family friends arriving and celebrating holi together along with BHAANG. This year there was no bhaang either.

Different Strokes for Different Blokes

2009-01-23T13:58:00.000-08:00

Another day another post. This is not essentially meant for any specific event,rather owing to the time gap between the last post and the current, I sense that one new post ought to be scribbled. Off late many events have occupied the (mostly) empty part of my mind thereby keeping me in a quandary on the relevance of the topic to choose to word my views on - 26/11,my accident and subsequent absence from office for a month, my good-for-nothing-manager(s),rendezvous with "a-beauty-on-duty" which was getting prolonged since quite sometime, important and life-altering events which are to unfold in the coming months, preparations for travel plans(domestic and/or abroad) et al.
Each of these events has indeed had singularly differing levels of effects on my immediate mental state. At a disaggregated level, the latter part of the list has been causing quite some commotion in my normally balanced mind.
Allow me to introduce to the "Different Blokes" in my life
Adding to the miseries presence of certain unwanted intruders in my life who I would have normally kept at bay realizing their immense potential to stir up a perfectly calm ocean to a storm. They are perennially pessimistic of everything and everyone on this earth with the colossal bent of mind to misinterpret and misconstrue even the simple utterance of OM. To take a leaf from one of the recent movie dialogue's, there seems to be clearly written grafitti on my forehead in size 32 font - "Black hole for Chatterboxes". There seems to be this rock solid feeling in these fellows for whom I seem to strangely become a black-hole for dumping all kind of "personal stuff". In defiance of human laws of allowing a person to have a dignified and peaceful co-existance with all others in peace and calmness, these gossip-mongers have to have it their way. Iam usually the victim. Sequent to this, most have suggestions for me and also warning signals to reminding me of supposedly "keeping my hands off the boiler". These alleged well-wishers indeed have a sensible point - albeit one in a zillion.It brings in irritation to no end to me with such souls wandering around me.

Then there is another category of pests,who have nothing better in this world than giving live feeds second-by-second account of their daily monontonous and mundane way of life. Though the feeds do not reach me directly, there are other "channels" by which the news reaches me. These "channels" all by themselves form the yet another class of pesky personnel, who not only provide live feed but also twist,adultrate and amplify all the "noise" so that I do not miss out on the single most important "Oxifying agent in my life - botherations of others".

A very very rare and singular masterpiece of flesh and blood linked up by God forms the cream-de-la-cream of those few people, who have an innate quality deep within flowing with the blood, "My-way-or-no-way" mortals. They used to have a mighty crippling effect on my life some years ago, however as they say "after much of water has flown under the bridge" their effect too has abaited. This in no way reduces their potency to create a flutter every now and then,however owing to certain mysterious ways of life, we have been seperated - both geographically(though within the range of Kms),mentally,spiritually,logically and every conceivable fashion. Pretence of unity is one overriding factor which is demonstrated undoubtedly in social events when we are coerced to get together. For quite a large part of life I have been subjected to subjugation by a few towering personalities(literally) owing partly due to the dependance on various fronts. Now that the dependance has gradually attenuated there seems to be some respite.

Then come populace (though very very very few in numbers) whose presence I really savor. These are those who by their mere presence around bring in genuine happiness and positive vibes for me. They have a very tranquilizing effect on me and my restless soul though sometimes they too act up. I revel in their company and derive a sense of unfeigned gratification because of the ability to bare my heart and soul in front of them. A few amongst you fall indeed in this category,though I would refrain from naming,but Iam sure the moment you read it would strike you if Iam referring to you.

Though, in the process of such description, I could go on drooling about one and all, it would seems pretty much a insipid rhetoric with little interest generating value. It is already 5 AM and I ought to sleep for a while before all these creatures who are fast asleep wake up and carry on their taandav on me. As the weekend has come(this time a long weekend thanks to the Republic Day on 26th which is falling on Monday), my indent of tasks has again come up alive and kicking.

Wishing you all a Very Happy Republic Day(coz my next post would take some more time)

Quad-or-Bi Legged

2008-12-30T09:52:00.000-08:00

For the first time in 27 years,I have got a chance to be quad-legged - walking on four legs,two of my own and two borrowed. In a freak accident which occured last week on Saturday, I got my left ankle fractured albeit a hairline one.

It so happened that after quite a few week-ends of frustrating time pass with nothing acheived good I finally made up my mind to complete a few long standing uncompleted tasks. Finally the day of reckoning had come - Saturday,the 20th Dec 2008. Gas Agency address change,BSNL phone bill payment,reminder to be sent to my "Mockery of a Manager" of my leave plans for the last week of Dec extending upto the first week of Jan 09,acting on mom's persistant nagging for getting the beds changed,some new "kitchen-artillery" to be bought et al. These were just a few of the tasks which needed my immediate attention,lest I should forget them with dire consequences. Ravi was peacefully resting his rear in the cool enviros of his office when I called him and updated him of the schedule which Iam going to conquer by moving my rear out of the house. He immediately offered to join me in the first task - change of address for the new Gas connection at a certain place in the Koregaon Park area. The change of the address for the new Gas agency was one of the most primal tasks which under any circumstance had to be attained at any cost - my mom being the reason being. It seems extremely strange to me as to how come she never realizes the time duration in which the cylinder gets emptied atleast a few days earlier to being critical. It is only when the cylinder reaches hyper-critical stages of becoming void her din starts. No Gas,No Food - such becomes the criticality of the situation that, even Gandhi ji would have resorted to abandon his silent protests against the english, there becomes an explosive situation where mom has to have the last word. The "All or Nothing" approach of her seems to be getting on our nerves with the way the paltry quantity of breakfast offered the morning. The situation needs to be defused before it gets any worse and the entire of Pune comes to know that there is an bubbling earthquake waiting to explode any second only in my house. Cul-de-sac, as they say is apt description. There is no way -its either her way or no way. With such insipid situation around, there can be hardly any person who can relax at home. So I started off with setting out my foot on this "must-be-won" task of the day. Collected all the documents required,photo-copied the documents,picked up Ravi from his office and there we go. The "moment of truth" they say is just before the result. With thumping our chests to the victorious moment which was about to come in a few minutes with the address change done and gas booking completed, we both stood tall in the match-box sized shop. Alas, God beats you in such situations that, he almost renders you speechless and soundless(other than the damnening sounds of curses deep within). All the documents were in place, except for the receipt which the lady at the other office handed over to me with such a big frown on her face, to be produced at this shop. The shop-keeper immediately sensed that the inflated smiles of us needed to be deflated by showing the lacuna - the most important document missing. That very moment, all the memories flashed back right in front of my eyes - there was that bloody pink-slip which was present on the dining table - where I kept it on purpose NOT to miss it. Without that slip, nothing could be done and there we both returned with the tail between our legs. Tons of curses were waiting to come out from my mouth - but I was not knowing whom to target them to. Adding insult to the injury was the thought of facing mom with the askance - mega decibels of words,proclamations and certainity of completing the small and insignificant task, all were denouncing my demeanour. The grin on the shopkeeper and his petite damsel's face was almost tantamount to showing us the gate to exit. Frustrated , we exited and our rages flew across. At the crossing, was another scooterist who was equally enraged about something and we exchanged a few "unparliamentary" words and "not-so-gentlemanly" gestures. He halted his scooter and gave a few snarled glances at us to which I responded back immediately by bringing my Pulsar to a halt. Two king-sized dudes vis-a-vis a dwarf-sized uncle was always going to be a lop-sided contest. Somehow, wisdom prevailed over his anger and he left. A few minutes of sense of ultimate loss of not being able to do a simple task was taking its toll. On the return to drop Ravi at his office and leave for further tasks was my plan. Amidst this, he suggested that we have a cold-drink at his office cafe and then I proceed. Crossing the road in between the two concrete slabs of broken divider at a modest speed we were almost through it when "Terror Struck". My bike came dangerously close to the slab and while manipulating the crossing, my left ankle slammed directly into the slab. Such was the impact of the collision that the sandal was ripped apart from the middle and my ankle directly took the hit to the slab. Immediate inflammation and abrasions all over my ankle were visible. Ravi took notice of the situation and concluded that the best course of action would be to halt the bike - just in front of his office. We stopped the bike, took a review of the situation,disembarked the bike and sat on the pavement. I noticed the bad abrasions and swelling of the ankle. While he went in to bring in some water and park the bike inside, I tried standing up and in a swift bout of incognitive state of mind I fell flat on the pavement thereby badly injuring my chin and fingers on the right hand. It was such a scene just in front of Ravi's office. Many of the by-standers who were mostly auto-rickshaw fellows and Ravi's colleagues from the office they had lifted me and guided me to safety.
The most imminent thought striking my mind was - since the swelling was intense and I was not able to move my ankle easily it would be a fracture. Fracture also would not be much of a concern as compared to the tension which mom would come into once seeing me with such an injury. It was for this sole reason that I did not want this to be a fracture of any kind. We rushed to the hospital and with the due diligence conducted by the general surgeon and the orthopedist, it was finally a no-brainer that this was a fracture - albeit a hairline one. Temporary plaster for one week and thereafter permanent fiber plaster for 2-3 weeks was in the offing. No pressure to be applied on the left leg,strictly minimal amount of ambling accompanied by a battery of pills - antibiotics,anti inflammatory,pain killers et al had been prescribed for the period of atleast 3-4 weeks . There went my plans of touring a place for a "special purpose" out of the window. All plans fell flat thinking about the horrific thought of spending almost a month at home. The horror images of mom having a feast at my immobility by drooling on and on interminably with her stories of "Blast-from-the-Past" and the constant dropping in of aunties solacing me and mom over the injury, inability to move freely on my own pair of legs for all the activities - BARE minimums also needed some kind of help.
We finally reached home in the evening breaking this news of fracture convoluted into a labrynthine tale of "just minor abrasion of the soft tissue","vein getting damaged due to the impact","twisting of a bone" and so on and so forth to mom. Ravi's friends Rohan and Mitesh arrived on time at the hospital and assisted me back home. We all trying to befuddle mom into believing that this is not a fracture - just to avoid her getting tensed and sad.

Such was the unfolding of the story - which is now already into the second week. The temporary plaster has been removed and the permanent fiber plaster put, no more pills (as literally but surprisingly I was devoid of any kind of pain) and life is moving on at the abnormal pace.Waking up times prolonged till the mid-noon,lunch directly,news paper,internet,TV and some of my favourite subject books have now become part of my daily routine.Crutches provide me a pair of extra limbs to walk. Friends calling and asking about the condition of improvement has become more prominent. One of my special inhabitants of heart, continuously beeps me daily about the condition and talks to me thereby acting as a catalyst in improving my condition and soon recovery. Mom and Ravi, needless to say keep providing me with as much comfort as possible. I too have come into the groove of adjusting myself to the nearly dependant state of life. The most comforting thing is the way mom is convinced that this is not a major fracture but a small accident resulting in a kind of immobility for some time - atleast this was what me and Ravi sought out to make her belive from the beginning. Innately joyful as Iam , I never bring upon even a whiff of sadness beset by this fracture just to ensure that mom does not become pensive. In fact, with literally no pain I feel nothing except the "Paav Bhaari ho gaya" feeling.

With this kind of incident taking place making me quad-legged, Iam sincerely experiencing the life of those who have been forced to not be able to walk freely on their own two feet. It is indeed a very humbling experience to step into the shoes of those unfortunates albeit for a matter of few weeks. With all due respect towards them, I have come to face the undeniable truth that being salubrious is one of the most important blessings to us humans. Any deformity or deviation from the state of complete health is indeed a very difficult proposition to be accepted by anyone. Life is indeed impartial but all the more cruelly uncertain. In a defining moment , I feel from the core of my heart that I wish that if at any point in time I could be of any assistance to the lesser fortunate people, that would be the hallmark of my benevolence.

I,Me,Myself.....

2008-12-04T11:34:00.000-08:00

For heavens sake I have been dictated,ordained,commanded,ordered in every conceivable way on this holy earth to blog about something other than SELF. All these tormentors of mine, needed to avenge my free flowing inherent articulatory senses to depict a digital biography of myself. They had indeed wanted to arrest my expression of freedom. To this effect, it had a seriously perilous and debilitating affect on my interest to blog - as is evident from the time passed by since my last post. I have however avowed not to bend down to the restrictions imposed upon me. To take a leaf from the recent disturbing events going around just a few hundred kilometers away from my place, I have decided not to shy away from writing about self (though there are little other things as happening in my life) - in face of all criticism,all mocking banters,hyper-excited slips of tongues,umbrageous statements passed - some even went to the extent of drawing analogies by designating me as being narcist - I continue to write,enthrall my readers,receive appreciative comments and take an honest feedback about the articles I have chosen to write - though absolute honesty in giving feedback is generally discouraged by me partly due to the definitive benchmarks set by me on who would comment and who would NOT and partly because of extreme honesty might bring in unwanted scorn thereby revealing the truths that certain "friends" of mine loathe the idea of reading my "un-naturally ornamented language".

I would like to throw light on some of the commentators who have unreservedly touted quite a few times that my writings in all ways try to Shoo-off lesser vocabulary knowledgeable people. This comment can be made admissible with few off-shoots. First and foremost, I when I sit to pen a few thoughts of mine, I do not intentionally use flowery expressions. The words/phrases/sentences do come to me naturally and I rarely make an attempt to improvise on the content and constructs of the write up. Ravi, in this respect gains my jealousy - he is a far more organized,well structured and probably more skilled writer than Iam. Before penning his thoughts, he makes a genuine attempt to put in some coherence to the ideas and then proceeds any further. A diametrically opposite way of mine represents the fun in writing down the continuously ideating beams of electronic signals hitting my brain. I have never ever made any attempt to bring in order in the disorderliness of my ideas. Jotting down the never ending train of thoughts flowing in my mind and thereby bringing them to life by the hitting of keystrokes on this keyboard displays the ad lib method of postings which I savor the most.
I must pause here to bring it to notice that the vocabulary of which Iam particularly proud of has not come with the strike of midnight. Rolling back a few years, the CAT had become my preocuupation for most time - woolgathering about the virtues of belling the CAT,entering the sacrosanct portals of IIM-A,graduating from there with Billions of dollars as the minimum annual remunerative package,thereby winning the jealousy of one and all around me. I had always known that english was one of my forte, wherein I had come to believe that with this gift for being able to blurt out a few sentences,though barely comprehendible to many others, I could easily become the real MASTER in BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION. The dream came tumbling down with the disastrously shameless performance recorded by me in my first attempt at CAT(a meagre 56 percentile) - thereby subsequent attempts have been showing dramatic improvements in percentile. I had indeed put in a himalayan effort to become so very vocab-rich that I wanted to dazzle all with my language. Though not fully succesful in that pursuit, I had become pretty much contented with the level of english which has dramatically improved over the years. This is the real reason, behind me, rarely if ever falling short of words/maxims to quote at many instances.
There is another reason for my so-called "outrageously bombastic" language. Reading books,articles,journals et al, off late has become my passion. The language used in most of these has indeed impressed me to such an extent that I would want to let the creative juices flowing and thereby enabling me to express the feeling in a more dramatic and vivid manner. I sincerely make an attempt to try to NOT to borrow even a word from any of my earlier readings, though certain expressions do indeed creep into inadvertantly. Per me, the best way to improve on articulation of facts is through trying to tell the same old "Crow-filled-the-tumbler" story in an indeed expressive way. My idea is to make the reader squirt out literally , the content of the write up comes out of the screen/page in a fashion to make it seem as if real life enactment is going on in front of his/her eyes. That would be the ultimate goal - so near yet so far!!!

Communications - as I have learnt in IT industry can make or break careers. I have indeed met quite a few technically brilliant stalwarts but communicatively impoverished. They could accomplish the SKY,but could NOT verbalize their achievements. I on the other hand, manage somewhere between technical splendor and communicative excellence. Unabashedly, I admit that I fall more towards the latter side of the balance. I communicate even my minutest achievements to hallucinate them to bring forth the illusory image of being THE ONE. It is entirely a different matter that my manager fails to recognize me - he always manages to give me peanuts as rewards. It has indeed become more of a norm than an exception, that letting the world know that you have conquered the everest, though in reality it would little matter whether this can be established or not.

The last admission I make would indeed be that of self-indulgence. I indeed keep my posts restricted to the chosen few who I deem to be in the same league as mine to comment on my posts. The fact remains that, other deprieved souls need not fret upon this, I have a small piece of advice - Iam sorry, can I IGNORE you LATER !!!

A host of many other reasons come to my mind supporting my language usage. However, if I fail to put a full stop now, I would be accompanying the sun when it rises. This would cause a total mess-up of my planned schedule for the last working day of the week.

PS : My next upcoming post is indeed on a very recent topic , ideas for which are bubbling in my mind. I shall soon put them to post.

Please pour in your UNBRIDLED & HONEST feedback on this confessional post of mine. I would be delighted to know .

Me Vs Einstein - he is incorrect !!!

2008-11-05T08:43:00.000-08:00

A conflict of agreement exists between me and Albert Einstein. He renownedly declared that there is nothing in this world which can go faster than the speed of light - Time does!!! It flies so fast - there can be no statement which would be further than Einstein's theory. It looks as if it was just a few days ago that I have passed out of the "self-inflicted torture" - four years of Engineering; took the plunge into the world of corporate and now adjusted to the "vanities" that accompany this esoteric world.

The change in my demeanor which has come to become a part of my life indeed seems to me as if Iam myself behaving in an "affected" manner.
I had never, blurted out a "sorry" when my shoulder brushed against another; never in my life had I called our most-used room as "Washroom" or "Freshroom"; never did I use "excuse me" as many times in my entire 27 years as I have uttered in the four-odd years of my "Work-ex"; and now it has become so much my second nature that I have been started using this jargon even at home - mamma seems to be amazed how many times I yell "BREAKFAST ASAP"; "gtg"; - these are just a very small part of the "affected lingo" i got used to using. Dad poked me atleast a half-a-century times about my extreme sophistication of language which I use very often.

It never struck to my mind that time would fly past me and change me so very much that I sit up and ponder into a deeply soul stirring thought process in the dead of the night deliberating under a very profound spell of self-introspection. Till a few years ago, when I felt like I got deppresingly stuck in Engg forever - genuflecting in front of the outrageously under-competent lab assistants, requesting repeatedly to have the journal submissions signed off;bribing the peons around to adjust for the deficit in attendance for each of the courses in each semester;remorselessly cursing the parvenu profs,barely out of the college,and had joined the ranks of professors thereby showing off the newly acquired power status;frustratingly impoverished as the semester end approached;putting foot in mouth with impromptu statements of promising to "re-invent the wheel" in a never-before-accomplished finesse;trying to condescendingly behave a stud towards the 'unfairly Fair sex' by becoming friends with the "Queen Bee of the college" and in the process gaining notoriety in our department et al.

All the priorities of that time have indeed come to fall flat on the ground thereby enforcing me to rejig the priorities list time and again. College journals have converted to the Experience letters,Faculty has turned into the Managers(both equally incompetent to judge ME though),peons have been replaced with the Taxmen(queuing up at the office promising me Sky-with-a-pie offers saving my money going to the deep pockets of the govt - a reality check - i have none!!!),Statements of promises are now Professional Business Commitments(appraisal objectives/goals - carrot hung high enough ensuring NEVER to reach),few and far between parties now seem to become must-have Friday night get-togethers with no limitation on the priceyness of the brand of "fermented grape juices", hard cash is a passe,Credit/Debit cards are in, shabby jeans fitting multiple T-shirts is nothing short of Levis and Polo Club,hostel room strewn with every possible scum under the earth now transformed into the AC controlled enviros of the office. It has been quite some time that I had a quarrel with her and hence got asundered - both of us branching out in diametrically opposite directions. Now, she has no place in my life - neither on my IM nor in my heart. Heart has four chambers - each of the chambers has a newer entity(those who know iam pleased, those who don't THANK YOU, I dont intend to spell out)The list goes on and on, but the important facet of the entire write-up underlines the fleeting time which has irrevocable changes in our lives.

It seems befittingly apt to say that when time flies, therez nothing that can catch up with it. It inevitably ensues definitive and temporal changes affecting us and all those in and around our settings. This axiomatic maxim is indeed very much true as it was during the Roman times. I have become very much introspective mood and hence don't intend to drool on the impact TIME has had and been having pretty much in my life. It would continue into the future and hence i see little point in spelling out the "Before-and-After" rhetoric.

Adios for this blog....Please pour in comments

Self-introspection

2008-10-15T07:05:00.000-07:00

This seems to be an apt time for me to pen down a few thoughts criss-crossing my mind. My mind is unusually abuzz with many many things going around. A few of them are indeed very important to me and indeed having repurcussions for other people too. It seems to me that , I normally, am at the receiving end of things. However, this time Iam present at both the ends. A deep retrospective mood which has set in since the morning after having spoken to one of my friend's is indeed been ringing ever since. Normally it is not very much of my persona to be in such sober mood for a long time, as other things spring up to break the train of thoughts which keep my mind busy. However, there is a much more intricate twist to the frame of my mind. To avoid sounding pretty dull and boring , I write this to evoke feelings of satisfaction of having been able to scribble a few thoughts - deppressing though in a light manner.

A few things which are currently on my TOMA(do'nt ask me wats that...go google and then read ahead), are indeed having a very positive affect on my bulging cerebral circumference. These mostly comprise personal things alongside on the career front. A few contentious issues are sure to raise quite a few eyebrows and even question my rationale behind pursuing them . The other half of my brain is preoccupied with the career front - direction in which I would be moving in to pursue the "blissful" life I seek to achieve. The left hemishpere of my brain - which is supposed to conceive and incubate all upcoming ideas is really working overtime. This taxonomy of the ideating part of my body seems to be having its toll in a wholistic manner. Professionally it seems to befuddle me that whereas the "American Meltdown" is resulting in the painful lay-offs of the employees of the affected companies world over, there seem to be all the more number of job postings coming to my mailbox regularly. My perception of the career path I want to move into has indeed been very lucid until now, when this "bubble burst". I was hoping of developing expertise in FSS sector and then quickly move into the Consultancy wing. One of the best known names in Consulting(can't name it here) integration with my IT services company(can't name it too) seemed to perfectly be intandem with my plans. A sorrowful mentor assigned to me at my workplace, who seems to be caring much more for the cockroaches in his bedroom than my career, is making the matters much more sluggish. All my commitments which we are supposed to make at the start of the year in-line with the company's business purposes, seemed to sound very impressive. But as the year is drawing to a close, those points seem to sound cacaphony - with no semblance of identification. The perennial urge of us S/w Engineers, to touch the land of varied opportunities - USA, has once again raised its head, with my mentor creating hallucinations for me in that direction - getting my VISA stamped and move me over to the client site - $$'s blinking in my eyes too....Alas, if only cows had wings to fly , I would have been Bill Gates son !!! A few words of "managerial fundas" technique has been applied to make my mouth shut . This has been going on for quite some time - with my "Inefiiciency Personified" mentor almost reluctant to even acknowledge my presence let alone doing something for me . This is a pretty gloomy situation for anyone of us to make us feel stagnated about. Add to this mix, a pinch of "parental concern" for a grown-up of 27 years(Iam being ruthlessly honest here) - the interminable questionnaire about taking the "Plunge" - marriage!!! Controversies galore , this seems to be a very thorny proposition at the moment given that ................
There was a Plan-B which I had kept in mind in case of the earlier mentioned plan comes to non-fruition. A drastic shift from the current domain to move into Strategic Consulting with my aspirations no less than the Big Daddy's - McKinsey et al. This seems to be pretty unlikely given the scenario that , with no prior experience in the Consulting field first hand nor the stellar educational qualifications to boast of, it seems a far cry - atleast for now.
Money influx into my bank account seems to have encountered a narrow path with the bottleneck being none other than myself. Outgoing leafs of my dear "Gandhi ji" is increasing by the day. Savings , car , own house, stable cash flow statements, investments and domestic bliss all seem to be absolute parallels to one another - with absolutely no intention of converging to make me a relieved man. A commonality which I often tend to keenly observe between me and the admin staff of my office - state of penury in which we both are continuing to survive in. We both work for the largest IT services company, we both spend a much larger portion of our day(and of course night) in the temperature controlled enviros of the company, the illusionay feeling of greatness of having got to be part of such behemoth of an organization....all seem to perfectly fall in place considering the myths of which we are part of.....the greatest IT services company in the world...
Penning my thoughts can continue ad infinitum, however I am leaving for the day now with this wondefully exotic thought applicable to all those friends of mine who are stuck with - embodiements of no-helping mentors :

"......Har shaakh pe ullu baitha hai ,
Anjaam-e-gulistaan kyaa hogaa....."

To plan or not to plan is the Question!!!

2008-10-02T04:45:00.000-07:00

Off late I have not been blogging much. The reason behind this being not able to find time. It seems to amaze me as to how Iam unable to manage even a few tasks in the span of the same 24 hours which have been allocated to others - dad especially, manages his time with swiss-clock precision. I cant even remember how many times I had put up a 'postcard face' with excuses citing reasons for the paucity of time.

Its been for ages I have been planning,scheduling and time-slicing for the entire 24 hours, which miraculously slips through with the completion of each task. I just can't recollect how many rims of paper I have scribbled on with intricate detailing of hourly activities in then end trashed to the dustbin due to the frustration arising out of my inability to go as per the schedule.

The last paper-planning as far as I remember was just last week, prior to the exam, when there was a carnage which took place in one of my last exam papers - SMM. I scored not even half the max marks allocated, and there we all friends sat in the comfort of the AC post-exam cursing the prof. After the usual round of jokes, we were all seriously digging into the menu card to order ourselves - plain cold water(mixed with just a few drops of alchohol). With a bang, we all hit cheers and then came back to our usual topic of time-scheduling. I was at the forefront of a revolutionary idea, by suggesting that we all need to maintain eSchedulers, which would be constantly sending us irritating reminders for the TBD's(IT parlance - To Be Done's). When the spirit in our glasses started speaking, all of us listened with pin-drop silence and deadeningly silent and single-minded focussed attention. All heads nodded in acceptance or rejection to each idea which sprung up with such synchronous symphony that would have given Mozart a scare. Minutes passed, a couple of hours later, all the board members rose to the standing ovation to greet each other for providing such entertainment and priceless brainstorming session and come up with a nought. The round table conference had barely ended a few yards away, we re-assembled near the Betel nut shop(see the level of sophistication) - paan ki tapri for another informal round of talks on the most pressing global issue currently causing major catastrophies - how on earth are we supposed to organize our routine so as to derive maximum satisfaction at the end of the day - while sleeping with a positive thought of having achieved atleast part of the plans for the day. Clouds of toxic gas raised carrying with them the evanescent but path-breaking ideas of our combined intelligence blurting out under the influence of HEAVY water. The bill was footed by one of our dearest friend's who later on informed all of us that this was not his party, instead this is TTMM(Tu Tera Main Mera) - which was for obvious reasons heard-unheard by the panel. Though not even one of day's activity had been planned earlier but inadvertantly it so happened and all things fell into place. With a sigh of relief ,I concluded that not the highest amount planning equivalent to the GoI ministries strategizing for countering the ISI, would result in a flop show, if things are destined not to happen.

A very decisive,definitive and conslusive finding of mine is -
More planning . More Confusion,
Less Planning , Less Confusion,
No Planning , No Confusion

Why I bump into .....

2008-08-12T08:06:00.000-07:00

Years of constant observation and keen monitoring and accurate analysis has given me a definitive yet peculiar result - I often bump into those people more than often who I try to keep,as they say, one arm's length distance!!! Weird,yes but indeed true.

I dont have the exact reminiscences of the start date of this observation, but yes indeed this has been since time immemorial for me. The very Parthasarthi madam would catch me and ask me to answer a question which she put to the class; that very Bhandari sir would haul me up for doing a great disservice to the game of Kho-Kho when I would run no faster than I could - as if I were to beat Ben Johnson at running race;Pauvva(thats what we used to call one of our teachers of Biology - I decline to name him coz of obvious reasons) would invariably give a innocuous tap on my shoulder and the moment I turned back would floor a thunderbolt of a slap on my cheek. The list would go on and on for miles together nevertheless it seemed to me that I was the obvious punching bag for all of these people who wanted to vent out some frustration going on at the back of their minds.
It was very difficult for me to hide myself,literally,coz my appearance has been more on the healthier side( I prefer calling myself so and would prefer all of you also calling the same) for as long as I remember. More than the physical appearance aspect, I used to curse my ill fate to spring up with a surprise each time I ventured to move out and escape furtively. Time and again, I bumped into dozens of such people who I was willingly wanting to not meet at that instant. I can not recollect how often I met a group of my college friend's whom I deliberately wanted to avoid - the moment I was going out with another group for a party. And more than often, they very many times put the obvious question "Party ke liye jaa raha hai kya?humein bhi bulaa leta yaar,humne kaunsa gunaah kiya" or "Tu in logon ke saath party ke liye jaa raha hai,in saalon ne to last time bahut jyaada bola tha apne baare mein" or the worst "Waah Raj baabu,nayee dost,naye party,badhiyaa hai. La______ ko to tune kuch aur hi bola tha?". Iam normally a very reticent person, and at times like these I feel all the more to go further deep inside within my shell and remain there. At times, I am even accused of being extra courteous to please one and all present, but my cardinal problem seems to be I become of a kind of timid person when presented with embarassing seconds. And this problem becomes all the more complex with my repute among friend's of being a loud-mouth most of the times. In this respect, Ravi, seems to have mastered the art of being assertive. How I wish I could be so?
There is this incident which often comes to my mind when I talk of such instances. I was once going out with a friend of mine in college,normally she has accrued a kind of notorious ill repute of being snobbish when boys used to approach her. It so happened that we had gone out for lunch, and all the while I was conscious of the fact that this lunch(bill footed by her) would cost me enormously when I had to return to my hostel and narrate minute-by-minute details to the group of more than anxiously awaiting kameenas!!! The moment I boarded a bus towards the city, to my shock of horrors, my HoD sits right there and passes a smirky smile at me. Trying to avoid any further eye contact, I run to the back of the bus, there comes that Networking madam,lets acronymise her as BR. Her volley of never ending questions kept me buzy enough to miss the stop where I was to get down and board another bus,accompanied by the lady with whom I was going out for party. She was waiting at the bus stand and then boarded another bus and reached the hotel before me. I reach the place and the moment I get down the bus she seems to be almost bone-headedly unaware of surroundings shouted my name which was audible to my Dad sitting in Calcutta. HoD,BR,the crew of the bus,paanwaala, and half the hotel staff started to shower me with all the attention which that would have given Neil Bohr complex when he was discovering his theories of physics. As if that was itself not enough, we entered the hotel, and BOOOM, half my class sits over there allegedly come for a quick lunch. I whole-heartedly deny this lie that they had come for a quick lunch, instead information leaked out that we both were coming for a lunch here itself. Now comes the really messy part, I had denied some of them who had asked me for accompanying for lunch citing the silliest reason of stomach upset. Here Iam, coming out for lunch with this girl. Queries,questions,taunts,comments,clarifications,allegations,grievances rolled out one after another. There I stand hapless with just a barely coming out smile wishing of another hiroshima over the town!!! In the end, as they say admittance of guilt is the easiest way than to fight it out. I calmed all of them, and acknowledged that we had this plan just a while ago(though it was a blatant lie) and this was no premeditated move. This was not even barely enough to pacify the crowd, I shrugged off my shoulders and pretended to be slightly offended with their interminable blabber. Adding to my miseries, we had gone upstairs in the AC cabin for lunch, and there I meet Vinay,Chou sir,sandy sir,manu sir and the most dangerous of them all Amit sir. Seeing me, they all got really really charged up and all the banter and tingling started. I can no further describe that afternoon which wound up with a host of many other unwanted situations.

This incident seems to have been registered indelibly in my memory and each time I remember this it sends a tickling sensation all over. Just sat down to pen these thoughts as they came to my mind after a long long time.
Iam signing off for now!!! Cheers

Mediocre Soft-ware Engineers

2008-08-03T23:07:00.000-07:00

My mind keeps working until I reach office ....is'nt this the same condition of our fraternity - elite panel of self-proclaimed creators of software programs which run and operate our entire digital world. It seems so amazing that we create a thing which can not be touch,seen,felt or tasted yet being up,running and performing so many miraculously repeatative tasks which have made our lives easier.
We keep our engines running by making the Software Engines work according to our whims and fancies by "Coding" lines of executable statements which the computers ONLY can understand. Code written by me is exclusively for my understanding and can NOT and should NOT be understood by anyone else. as the day that takes place I would be redundant in the IT parlance. Hence , I would each time try to write my code in such a way as to ensure that no-one can "De-code" my "En-coded" and in case anyelse tries to make head and tail of it, I would take a KT session and confuse,befuddle and create such chaos that he would never in his life attempt to understand pieces of code written by someone else. If this end is accomplished my purpose to make myself useful in IT is achieved. On top of it, as each day passes my "Relevant Work Experience" increases and I start feeling proud about it and try to adeptly calculate my current and future worth in dollar terms - in Corporate Finance terminology - NPV and NFV(dont ask me what these terms mean, I can't explain them here. I guess only sufficiently educated readers are welcome to read my blogs). Currently , my NPV is just barely enough to make my ends meet - my company pretends to pay me and I pretend to work. This ideology is the motivating factor which keeps me running. I think iam periliously underpayed and I need to do something about it - so I keep my resume posted on portals(which are inturn another IT miracles) which fetch me a better paying job - my reason for the shift, Iam supposed to say is, better and challenging job opportunities. The moment I utter the blasphemy -reason for shift is money, I become the pariah of my potential future recruiter. At each step, I dont lie, just be 'economical with truth' when I say this. Iam no longer counted as an individual, rather Iam a 'Resource' with my utilization being linked to the number of billable hours - the quantum of time I spend working on client project(per hour billability). This money goes into the deep pockets of my company while Iam left high and dry, with a big hole in my small pocket.
Hours count to days, days accumulate to months, months total to years and years re-configure my salary. This viscious circle keeps me circling for ad infinity until one fine day , I once again get the itch to shift - they call it the 7-year-itch, mine falls disgustingly short of that term, 1.7 year itch. I keep hopping and hopping, I repeat that kid-time poem we learnt, jump a little,hop a little....
This on and on process of making myself feel relaxed due to the perks and $$'s blinking in my eyes would last for sometime until I too like all my seniors get vexed and get stagnated with their job profiles. To avoid this blase , I keep myself rejuvinated each time by keeping my mind free of all such heavy thoughts and instead be happy and gay(not the other one!!)

I dont think, many of us, differ in our 'Path to Paradise' in this amazing yet intricate and labrynthine world of IT industry.
A shift in the paradigm of our IT, is what I foresee and fore-wish(I think this is an impossible word in english,but in usage it sounds pretty good).
Please feel free to add your comments for the same
Cheers

Why others pain is indeed sometimes ours

2008-07-29T08:15:00.000-07:00

Its a very interesting case that we find that in others pain we sometimes tend to find that pain as if it were our own ....most of us rarely admit this ....however this is infact the truth atleast once for all of us ....just a recent incident which I experienced , I felt the pangs of pain which my frend was going thru, somehow I was feeling very sad that this person is going thru such a pain and here Iam totally helpless and unable to do anything from such a distance. That was the most frustoo part and I started feeling that this has been becoming a frequent occurance with me off late. The person about whom Iam talking is extremely close to my heart and I could not tolerate leaving that person alone writhing in pain of any kind - physical,mental or any !!!

I just kept wishing that in order to abate pain I would happily offer my shoulder to offload the pain ....which would make me feel extremely satisfied if I could just help in any small fraction. It seems to give a lot of genuine satisfaction of being helpful to the people closest to u....

Suddenly a sober kinda write up ...i too dont fully understand why am I writing this now....but it seems somehow better now that I have written it here ....

Cheers
Raj

Log kehte hain....main impatient.....

2008-07-27T02:51:00.000-07:00

Many a times it so happens that ....the most desired things we want in our life come so close and yet by stroke of bad luck or as Maradona called 'Hand of God' ...we fail to grab it ....this indeed explains the innate sadness which is often attributed to anyone and anything except ourselves ...the real fact however per me could not be any further ....things do'nt often take place totally out of your control....its just that the level of control excercised or demonstrated to tackle the situation fluctuates . ...in places where there is absolute debacle we often try to shrug off our shoulders refuting even the least amount of involvement.....whereas in other situations we try to pretend to be acting upon things..in reality where little is done ....however , it seems totally senseless to have a defeatist attitude and resign to fate ..with little hopes ...
Easier said than done, I have actually been pondering a lot about such trappings of cliched life off late. As I admitted in some of the earlier posts there have been certain pending issues on which some actionining needs to be done to bring them to fruition,however, the usual escapist's demeanour has been showing its true colours. My personal sphere has been in the centerstage of such events in the offing - but lack of motion sets in the 'happy-with-the-status-quo' feelings ,which being an Arien,I feel not-so-excited about.
Dad always keeps saying,Iam restless and peevish and every conceivable thing which is not ideal for an individual. My,self-admittedly impatient soul, seeks action and events taking place all the time and the lull period seems to bring in crazy ideas.

The most indelible event registered in my mind when I speak of impromptu action is my 'leaving-my-last-company fiasco'. In terms of debacles, this seems to be one of the biggest debacles of recent times(other than the Engg college failures!!!). Let me brief you all with the details of the disaster(you know my vocab is playing foul - so many words for FAILURE!!). The year was 2006,during the heated and sweaty month of May,the tenth day of the month and the 10 hour of the day. The previous evening one of my good-for-little friend Mr.Srikanth, by the stroke of brilliance had a wonderful idea to attend to the walk-in/referal interviews of one of the biggest IT services company in the world(dare i name it). His accomplice,who was working in the company had sent a mail informing Sri of the event the next day. Too tired of resting in the office, we both went out in the evening(aka night) to have a cup of tea. During the wild discussions, he remembered that we might as well go to oversee the interviews schedule which were being held at a place near Swar gate(yes thats the place). We had discussed all the points required to attend the interviews,except for one major point. The mail mentioned that all the candidates were to report to the venue by sharp 10 AM. Oh my holy God,10 AM in the morning, that too on a Saturday...it seemed a far cry that in any case we would go to attend. However,we bid adios to each other,with hopes of trying to make it to the venue the next day. In the heart of hearts both knew that, the probability seems to be well below .0019. However,neither of us wanted to sound the spoilsport by explicitly stating that "I would not be coming such early in the morning". Each was waiting for the other to say this,so that any failure to reach the swar gate venue on time, one could easily crucify the other for his laziness,stupidity et al.....That night, myself and Ravi, were scheming on making an important strategic decision on how to fend off 'attacks from ......"(he knows and I know,I cannot divulge due to personal reasons). There was an imminent bout of lashings from ..... on our behavious which was in violation of the traditional tenets of 'bandhutva'. As I say this, I fear treading and overstepping the path to actually revealing the intricate details of the happenings thereon. While having dinner, we both were actually loathe to the idea of 'bandhutva' et al which made little sense or rhyme to us. Einstein said 'Two things are infinite, universe and human stupidity and Iam sure of the latter'. The second part of the statement always inevitably made sense to us when it came to talk about 'bandhutva' crap. Any statement,action,feeling,thought,breath was being interpreted as a 'move-to-remove'. The coloured glass vision of the other party was driving us crazy,however,there was pretty much little which we could actually do. Discussing on the matter went ad infinitum and we had finally ended up watching Jason Bourne!!! Each stunt was making us charged up to beat the crap out of ..... Late night munching chips and all junk, we realized that we had no H2O(i.e water,for all the less informed!!). Poor old lady,Mrs.Vimala's daughter in law was disturbed, as she was the only one in the entire building who used to supply us with pure water. For your info,mom was as usual out of town,so we both were the bachelors in the house ....living off chips,junk and tons of maggi. It was during this era of un-interrupted fest,that I was crowned the "Maharaja of Maggi' by my Ravi. To date, I still retain this title.
Anyways,let me spare you of all the details of mish-mash and come straight to the point of the interview the next day. Waking up at 9 AM, I was totally out of my senses when all of a sudden I saw 17 missed calls and 4 SMS's from Sri. The messages contained extremely polluted references to me and my near and dear ones. The last message ended with those pavitra words reminding me of the act of sexual intercourse. The pattern of the words if you want to know is (4,3) - reminding me of the versatility of the word which can be used to mean the best as well as the worst in the world. This encompassing word is one of my favourites,which amazes me with its utility coming handy in all situations.
Waking up so early on week-ends was blasphemious to my behaviour,but still the pleasure of nailing down Sri for delay was overarching to the pain of getting up early. A strategic decision had to be resulted which required "To bath or NOT to bath is the question". I kept wishing that some event happens because of which all of a sudden the water stops coming out of the tap and hence I can easily pass it off as scarcity of water for me NOT being able to bath. Voila, water comes pouring down from the shower and thereon,it was a matter of breezing through - tidying self with trim and immaculate clothes,filing the resume in the folder and there I go - to Sri's abode. Well aware that he would be still behind schedule,I gave 3 more number of missed calls to him than he gave me - 20! All were deliberately cut-short to increase the count of calls. I reached his home and found him to be skimpily clothed in his bare minimums. What a sight it was, I rushed back into the hall - all scared huffing and puffing at the monsterous sight I just saw. To save time, I refrain from providing other details and directly skip to the most intersting part.
By the time we reached the venue, it was half-past ten. We were pretty much sure that, we would be asked to go out as the registrations have been closed. To our horror of horrors, we were given the tokens for shortlisting resumes and then subsequent interviews. I was so sure of my resume getting dustbined that, I was actually raring to come out and go the nearby Burger King for lunch. On a given day, the midas touch comes to people who actually are not seeking it. The initial criteria for entrants was kept at 24 months,whereas mine was deppresingly short of the mark by 6 months. So sure was I of coming out, that I even messaged Ravi to reach Burger King for lunch. All of a sudden, due to some internal concerns the pre-filter criteria was reduced to exactly 18 months - and there , I was standing in the queue for the initial screening. Myself and Sri,never short of cracking nasty jokes were standing adjacent and commenting on the figure of the lady sitting to screen our profiles. Bomb,maal,patakha et al were the most frequent words and we were guessing about the possible ways we would approach her to impress - not so much for the interview but for the pleasure of enjoyment!!!! Sri was shortlisted and the lady was screening mine(resume I mean), and asked a few questions and with a genuinely disgusting grin on her face moved me ahead passing my resume for further rounds. Claps Claps...there begun the really interesting part. It was around 11:30 AM and we were told that in some time we would be interviwed and all. This short while proceeded well into the evening and finally we both were through the rounds of interviews(which we actually spoke great things about nothing). The Tech rounds.Manager round all went by and we were asked to wait in the downstairs for final confirmation. In one of the rounds, the manager asked me "What would your reaction be if you were to be put on bench for a prolonged period of 6 months(with no project)". I still get those unbelievable moments when I shot back at him saying "Six months is too long a period, Id have other options open if Iam not put in a project in a week's time". I immediately, followed it up with the names of companies of which I purportedly had offers from( I had none!!). Seems that, the manager was impressed by the confidence which I aired right from the start of the interview - I was demanding water, coffee et al . He then went on to ask a few more profile based questions, to which I had propped up with "out of the box ideas"(due to prep for CAT), and then he finally asked me if I had any questions. Wasting no time, I followed up with a barrage of queries most of which he fended off very dispassionately. He then asked the cliche,"where do you see yourself 5-10 years down the lane?" . Pat was my reply, "Definetly in a position which allows me to make decisions for a larger audience." Subsequent to the interview, I felt that I was more aggressive than expected and some of my responses were indeed sounding over confident. The manager though bore with me all through the interview and gave me some feedback.
Coming downstairs and waiting for Sri, I was caught up in conversation with yet another hopeful at the venue. He was desperately looking for job as he currently had none. As usual, he had a lot more self sobbing story for this job. I listened with utmost patience and promised to help him in my current company by forwarding his resume to my HR. All things went on well into the night and we returned around 9PM - all smiles on the frivoulous achievement least hopeful of.
A month passed, before I received the offer letter and there I go, I was in the 9th heaven. The most painful part then started - parting with the current company. I had informed the managers(mis-managers) over there that, I'd want to resign and move ahead in future studies. However, the draconian clauses which they included in their ruleset disallowed anyone to resign before 2 years of confirmation or shell out 2 Lakh Rs as compensation for doing so. The tug of war in this entire episode was very painful wherein I had come in direct confrontation with senior most people over my resignation. I was informed that since I did not comply with the rules of the company I would not be issued any relevant letters which my next employer would need. Co-ersion would never work especially with managers who are hell bent of having it their way or no way. In month and a half that I was spending there, nothing positive was coming out from the company managers and I was getting increasingly frustrated with the inaction. Thereby, I finally walked out of the company without any letters except for the offer and a few other. Subsequent to this, I could not join the next company for about a month and half more, which was getting excruciatingly painful due to obvious reasons. Finally, with the stroke of luck, I was asked to join the company with whatever documents I had. It still haunts me to imagine those painful moments.
In such moments of desperation, I often commit myself to irrevocable changes which in most cases result in life-altering consequences. It has been around 2 and half years since then, Iam with the new company and have many positive experiences in my life.

There are a few more impending situations which demand action to be taken,I fear my loss of sensibility at certain instances should not takeover me and I result in destructive stances.

I close this post with a pensive heart!!!!

XL ki trip

2008-04-28T05:56:00.000-07:00

Just recent trip to XL,Jam....changed my whole perspective on MBA ...i feel all the more inspired to be part of such sacrosanct portals of higher education....iam feeling the burn within me ....to try for ISB the coming year ....but papa ji mere ...meri shaadi and all keh rahein hian ....to dekhnaa hogaa...ki kaise hogaa sab kuch ....dekhte hian ....

I met quite a few people over there ...and a few special people ...who i guess have made their way directly to my heart ....life is full of surpirises .....do'nt realise ...ppl from different corners of the country pour in ....to meet at a different place ....and walk straight into each others hearts .....hehehe....iam not getting romantic or senti ...but then ....its wat I experienced ....