HeartFelt

The Great Indian Induction ....

2012-01-07T04:22:00.000-08:00

Like many HR jokes that circulate on the internet, so is the one that how the polite, soothing “Welcome to our Organisation” from your HR suddenly turns into “Don’t stand at my desk wasting my time”. So, after many pre-joining emails from the HR that made me happy (except for the one where they sent me the soft copy of my offer letter which made me frown due to the daily wages they were offering), I was quite charged up on the first day.

I walked in really happy but to my horror, the scene was shocking! It was neither because the chairs were ergonomically incorrect nor because the room was really gloomy and depressing as if designed to put us to sleep. But it was because the tables were empty – meaning no free notepads and pens! Now whether you agree to this publicly or not, we all love the word ‘free’ and even more when it gets associated with the workplace. I personally believe it is the least compensation they can offer for the otherwise meager daily wages. Quarter after quarter, after every investor meetings & result announcements, we show our solidarity and lineup in long spiral queues for the Lower Parel market manufactured synthetic T-shirt that seldom is of wearable size, but we still do.

More so, I have hopped many organizations in search of better employee gifts and mark my words when I say that the induction pen is far better than the one that you usually get in the stationery after climbing up three floors and signing on numerous registers. So, obviously it wasn’t just me who was disappointed. When I scanned around during the session, I did see many of the dejected new joiners looking down and messaging on their BB. Perhaps they were spreading the word around. Later, they did try to make it up with free lunch, evening tea and some welcome bouquet. But were they thinking that such gestures would net-off the pen loss?

The induction was designed with many sessions. Like one really senior, really really senior guy walked in as a speaker and kicked off saying ‘I have been in this organization for 30 years .... ‘. Before he said anything, my eyes widened with respect, no really, I did have respect in my mind though my neighbor’s mouth was wide open conveying disgust and shock. “They call such people as speakers for induction session?” he said to emphasize his disagreement to the selection process. I poked him and made him show respect, but just when I turned my attention back to the dais, the speaker continued “… you know why?” I quickly sensed the seriousness of the situation and pulled my neighbor down hard just when he was about to stand up and ask the speaker “you tell me, WHY!!” in bold letters. My neighbor obviously wrote-off my cowardly behavior and walked out under the pretext of a phone call. I didn’t pay much attention thereafter because I was busy calculating the number of companies I would have on my CV in thirty years going by the current rate. I smiled thinking what I would say if I were called to give such an induction sessions after thirty years.

Later on, he tried to make the session interactive by asking some questions but it did not help much. Like one time he asked an open forum question “what made you join this organization". There was a pin drop silence in the room when he continued “…except for money”. People, I tell you these days !

Then one HR lady walked in, decked up and that’s when I sensed a sudden vigour around me. She began with a question whose answer I thought was very obvious “So what do you think guys! Can any organization function without HR?”. There was a unanimous “NO” from the male crowd around me. That day I learnt that guys can fake anything to please a beautiful lady.

But some sessions were really important like the Finance & Payroll session where everyone was busy noting down options to save tax while mentally planning the shop name they would use to fake the medical bills. Also, the one that publicized the environment friendliness of the organization which ended with us knowing the different types of birds and their nests that could be spotted in the campus.

Overall, the induction, I was told, would help us to understand the length, breadth and depth of the organization. I started revising. So if two lakh employees formed a hand-in-hand human chain, the length would be approximately 400 kms? Don’t ask me to prove it because they didn’t confirm when I asked. And when they meant depth, they sure meant how deep their pockets should be to hold the 8.2 billion dollar yearly revenue. Whoever carries so much cash around I wonder …....

Of People and Places! – Part 2

2011-09-18T03:31:00.000-07:00

My previous attempt of assault received more flak than cheer and mostly it was from my close aides complaining of my non-adherence to what the Wren and Vodka had to say. If you didn’t found it last time, chances are you wouldn’t found it even today!

So this Wren and Whiskey, oh wait, I think I got their names wrong, it was Wren and Martini ,or some allied drink name, have taken their revenge and added me to their latest list of victims. You ask me revenge for what? So the story goes that these two, who were children of British officers residing in India, were deeply in love with each other. Since India did not have any law supporting such marriages, the society cruelly separated these two lovers. Then they decided to take revenge on every offspring produced by any Indian marriage by making this book a part of curriculum and today, almost 85 years after, I too have been victimized. (Yeah I know that was made up. And I also know that was not funny.)

So, coming back to the point, I was given this book 'Elements of Style' to improvise and when I skimmed through the book, I read something in the preface that made this self-help grammar-cum-write-sensible-stuff book completely useless to me. It read 'Omit needless words'. I mean what will remain on this blog if I were to follow that... I have just filled in three whole paragraphs without making a single valuable point.

But nevertheless, trust me on one thing; I will never fail on the assault -

Scene 2-

Most of my city explorations were always through public transport, mainly local trains and in some instances, city buses. But then one thing led to another - I started working, the companies pretended to pay me and I upgraded to rickshaw. That’s where the woes started.

Mumbai –

I am late as usual so I am speeding on a rainy day, holding my cell phone in one hand, umbrella in another, coordinating with her on phone and scanning for a rickshaw. I cross the road to get to the stand and hurriedly get in the nearest one I see.

Driver – “Madam, I can’t come with you. There are others in the line ahead of me”

I am amazed! I get down and start speeding again to the front of the line jumping over potholes.

When I reach, - “Since this is a crowded route, let’s take the parallel road to avoid traffic. I am in hurry and I need to go to …….…”

He cuts me sharply - “Madam, if you don’t want to come, it’s perfectly fine. Don’t use swear words!”

I am shocked. What did I say I wonder? Then it dawns upon me. Grave Mistake!!!

Mid-scene Learning – Finally after 27 years, I have proved my mother wrong. She always tells me – You need to know the local language in any city.

Me- (I translate it into best possible Mumbaiya Hindi that I know of) “Oh no. I was just saying that lets take the alternate road”. He is not fully convinced so I shut up and say “Bhaiyya, Talaopali jaana hai”

Phew! He nods. I keep my mouth shut for the rest of the time. He drives through potholed roads with utmost precision taking shortcuts I am unaware of. When I reach, he takes out the tariff card “11 ruppess 75 paise”. I pay and escape from there as soon as possible.

Learning (For all my folks from other cities who have never seen an auto meter working) - A whole lot of distance can actually be covered in 11 rupees J

Learning (For me) – I am still grinning over my mid-scene learning…

Pune –

It’s a hot Pune summer and I am relieved by the fact that the rickshaw stand is at a stone’s throw away from my house. Yet I wrap a scarf all around my face almost suffocating me to death just to look one amongst the other terrorist lookalikes hovering in the city. After my Mumbai learning, I walk straight to the first rickshaw in line but am surprised to see a long line of deserted rickshaws so I walk all the way back to see a highly interactive card game in progress. I interrupt –

(The conversation will obviously be in Marathi)

Me – “I need to go to Sadashiv Peth”

One of the drivers disgusted due to my interruption – “SO?”

I go blank at that expression. When I recover my consciousness - “So will you come?”

Driver – “No it’s too far”

I realize the futility of any further arguments but since I see no other autos passing by, I call up a friend to pick me from a nearby area. He agrees.

Me- “Ok. Just drop me till Deccan Gymkhana”

Driver – “No, it’s very near”

This time around, I lose my patience so I scream – “So how many kilometers is an appropriate distance to travel at a time”

Driver – “Ok. Let’s make it clear. I am a specialized driver.”

Me – I try to be sarcastic. “Specialized in not going anywhere it seems”

Driver – “You can be only so ignorant if you are from Mumbai. I am specialized in Teen Patti. The only other rickshaw stand that promotes this game is that Dange Chowk one. All other stands play kiddish games, below my level. Therefore I can commute only to that place.”

(I don’t remember much after that because I fainted. Apparently my roommate saw me fainting from the balcony and took me home. She tells me that she had to apologize in writing on my behalf to the drivers for my inconsiderate behavior)

Learning - Rickshaw stand is a place where an auto rickshaw (only) stands (for the rest of the day).

Moral of the story – Do I need to say it!! Though I haven’t been able to defend Mumbai too well, yet …Mumbai Meri Jaan !! :-)

Of People and places! – Part 1

2011-08-19T00:11:00.000-07:00

It’s good to live in multiple cities. And I say this not so much because of getting the pleasure from trivial things in life like adopting diverse lifestyles, assimilating different cultures, trying different cuisines, learning different languages. No. There’s much more to it. I feel, moving to a new city instantly bestows you the right of authoritatively cursing and cribbing on a range of topics.

Now, for example, there is this super cool guy next door who usually comes home late with a roar of an even super cool bike and one sneak peek from the window makes you go weak on knees. After several weeks of attention seeking attempts through expensive parlour appointments and uncomfortable walks in skimpy skirts, you have not even managed to get a glance from him but rather the other day he almost crushed, with his cowboy-like shoes, your little stuffed toy which you had dropped to initiate the ‘baharon phool barsao’ scene or anything even remotely close to it.

Immediately, the local people can be termed as self centered, unwelcoming, closed-minded, myopic people. Then you can go on to narrate stories of how the neighbor in your ‘previous’ city had shared his pasta dinner with you when you were hungry and your gas cylinder went empty, cleverly hiding the fact of how, at that time though, you had labeled him as a ‘despo’ trying his luck on you young beautiful ladies.

I have, due to sheer chance of fate, been literally living out of bags (and some smelly cupboards) and have hopped cities back and forth for past six years. Therefore I do this, all the while, with untainted sincerity so much so that I sincerely feel I definitely deserve a small role in those tourism promotional ads.

Scene 1

I have lost my house key and am desperately searching for that ‘key’ guy. I finally find a small roadside shop but it’s deserted. So this is how events would roll in respective cities –

Mumbai -

I pace around for a few minutes. Scan surrounding areas but see no one who can fit the ‘key-guy’ profile. Seeing this, a Gujju (offcourse!) shopkeeper (of an adjacent grocery shop) comes out, asks me with concern as to what the problem is.

(All this conversation will be in Hindi in fear that people will think I am a regionalist if I engage in Marathi)

Me - “Do you know where he is“?

Shopkeeper – “Must have gone somewhere nearby. He will come soon. You can sit inside till that time”

Me – “Thank you”!

(Another 10 minutes pass. I am still standing outside)

Shopkeeper – Comes out, pulls out his cell, makes few calls, traces that ‘key-man’, informs him of a potential customer, takes my address, informs him, tells me to go home, I thank him, ‘key-man’ reaches my house in next 5 minutes, key made, door opened, and work done!

Learning – Sometimes simply standing over the problems could also solve them !!!

Pune –

After my Mumbai incident, I proactively approach a lady sitting idly in the adjacent-almost-zero-inventory shop.

Lady shopkeeper - Screams at the top of her voice in the purest form of Marathi I have ever heard (rather, not heard) so much that I strongly believe that conversation could easily be part of Delhi Belly’s Marathi version if ever it were to be dubbed.

Lady (I have filtered it out to preserve my dignity) – “Are you a fool. If I owned that shop, would I be sitting over here? And do you think I am some GPS device to track his current location. Also do you think I am idle to answer such idiotic questions”?

I wanted to point put that there were indeed no customers in her shop but I couldn’t muster enough courage to say so because soon she continued, “If you are in such a hurry why don’t you pick that stone and go break that lock. You ...” and then the dubbed version of Delhi Belly followed.

Learning – You cannot have a worthwhile shopping experience in a zero inventory shop.

Moral of the story – Mumbai Meri Jaan !! (More assault coming soon ……… )

Yes, we know, that you condemn!

2011-07-16T21:43:00.000-07:00

Dear Politicians,

A young man stood tall at a crowded bustop
He had cracked it and earned it, his dream job
He felt so proud, this day was great
Just waiting to go home and celebrate

From there at not a faraway place
Walked a pretty girl, full of grace
Swinging happily her wedding shopping
All she wanted now was a diamond ring

A wealthy man sat in a Porsche so fine
Happy about a deal that he had just signed
To leave his mark, to make his name
This he knew was his stairway to fame

Moments later, this street is now a deathbed
The rain water here has turned blood red
I stand here horrified as they die in vain
The big and the small, the once strong men

You will come here soon with your empathy mask
Do you even feel a pinch is what I ask?
And once all your showbiz is over and done
You will wipe their blood with your dirty linen

And say, yes we condemn!

And certainly sometime, not long from now
They will strike back again, someday, somehow
Tear us and kill us and bring us down
From plush gateways to shady downtowns

We aren’t resilient, just lost all hope
Hanging in despair to a broken rope
Not sure if we would live to see tomorrow
Relish our dreams or be buried in sorrow

We will face this all, one more time
Tears would flow for this hideous crime
But all you would say is that you really condemn
And move on as if nothing has changed

But yes, we now know, that you really, really condemn!

Sincerely,
A Survivor

ONE

2010-08-08T02:04:00.001-07:00

Fair or dark, eyes blue or brown,

We can look so pretty all the while,

Laugh about and remove your frown,

It’s a question of just ONE smile.

Just ONE spark can do all the work,

Light up and set ablaze the campfire,

Millions of light to drive away the dark,

Just ONE sun can make a day brighter.

The remembrance in the ONE minute silence,

ONE tight hug in despair,

The comfort of ONE quilt to the homeless,

ONE day of fame and fanfare.

The shimmering light of ONE North Star,

On a dark night for a lost boat,

The last ONE man standing in the war,

The election won by just ONE vote.

Long lost friends whom we miss so much,

Seem so far when they are so near,

There are many ways to get back in touch,

It’s a distance of just ONE desire…

Happy Birthday to me !!

2010-05-24T09:52:00.000-07:00

I got up today before the sun rose high

I felt that I was on the wrong side of twenty five

My mom hugged me as I rubbed my eyes

She said "I wish you a life kingsize

And I hope that you always keep your dazzling smile

and you spread it across as you walk your miles"

My dad patted me, and wished "Happy Birthday

I wish you all the happiness today and everyday

And ever in this journey should you stumble and fall

I know u will come out unscathed and always stand tall"

My grandmom said that "I hope for you now

that you are always surrounded by people you love

and may you build ties that last for life

tons of hellos without any goodbyes"

My grandpa smiled when i took his blessings -

"I am the oldest and today I tell you this

That though I wish for you all the wisdom

May you in life stay forever young"

My Brother jumped and pulled my cheeks

He got me a cake and wonderful sweets

He said that I was the sweetest sister

and our fun and pranks would last forever

My freinds wished me one by one,

on phone, by message and some in person

I felt so special you made my day

I so wanted it the same way

And as shall pass days months and years,

May be some setbacks, some times of cheer,

I hope all your blessing do come true,

I want this all but not without you !!

Apni toh Pathshaala .. masti ki Pathshaala...

2010-04-22T05:24:00.000-07:00

Yes so ‘Pathshaala’ has failed miserably at the box office. It has a descent sound track with Lucky Ali making a powerful comeback with ‘Bekarar’ fitted at the most inappropriate place -when the audience is just waiting to run out of the movie halls. It was almost like that Indian Idol series 1 audition, where participants ran over each other as the gates opened to test their vocal chords, only this time they ran out screaming after watching hours of mindless clatter. For the geeks, like ‘Java’ which spawns many threads for parallel and faster processing; the movie burst out with compounded stories. But looks like the non-techie zero-storyline director forgot to put a thread.stop() leaving many of those threads dangling forever.

But yes, the movie does transcend you on and off to those wonder years, the time of heavier bags but lighter minds, lots of friends and no egos, where teachers probably taught from heart more than book, where going home without a peeled knee or a scratched elbow was a waste of day and many such caressing moments.

The bivouac of school life may have ended but memories linger on forever. OK so the rhyme scheme may have gone for a toss but what the hell.. Cheers to those fun filled days!!

The morning sun rays which used to wake me up,

For the bag to be packed right and to neatly dress up,

To toss and sway the water bottle on the way,

As the school gates opened to a brighter day.

Where we sang the morning prayers in perfect sync

The tune of which still echoes sometime,

The colors we splashed and the stains of the ink

That life was so much in a perfect rhyme.

The spat of the wooden ruler that instilled a fear

There stood our teachers firm but kind,

On a cold day today, I still feel their warmth and care

As I move forward with their faith behind.

The wooden bench on which we carved our names,

Recess fights, dance and song, the mud and the sand,

Peel an elbow, the passion for the games,

Marching in the sun to the school band.

The stories in class we carefully listened

Leapt over fences in the morning sun,

Mischief and fun, got caught and punished

Standing outside the class was a different fun.

With back to the wind we started to grow,

But before we knew, it was time to go,

A fresh course to discover and new paths to be found,

We made place for the new and took memories abound.

But sometimes I wish I could simply rewind

Wake up someday to that old regime…

Live Strong ..

2010-03-15T09:36:00.000-07:00

I have learnt how faith can shape my destiny

That it could fritter away under sheer negativity

That success tastes sweeter after a bitter failure

The power of valor needed to beat that fear

That though I looked away too long from a door left ajar

But a start with a small step has helped me come real far

That I got strength sometimes from the unknown

Even when my best ally thrust me alone

That I can wipe my tears if I make someone laugh

And believe that these tough times too shall pass

That there is sparkling steel below every sheen of rust

And marvelous sand dunes form after a storm of dust

That I am never too small to dream high

And aspire to reach to the stars up in the sky

Autobiography of Sachin’s Bat

2010-02-24T19:55:00.000-08:00

As they say and I quote, when Sachin plays, men and women, the big and the small in the house finally agree on one – to watch him bat.

This is my tribute to an extra ordinary innings !! Sachin, I bow to thee!!

As we walk down to the crease I hear,

Thousands whistle with vigor and cheer,

For he knows he has promises to keep,

To fly high the flag and live up the dreams.

I can feel the tension as we gear for the challenge,

To get the ball rolling and to set it ablaze,

We need to rock it past the grasslands,

We can do it for sure cause I am in the right hands.

But sometimes I misjudge, I miss a space,

I sway it across but in wrongs ways,

And sometimes I fall short, as hard as I may try,

To reach the crease, as I see the bells fly.

But many times we smack it far,

His talent, his vision, my grip, my power.

I love it when the crowd roars and cheers,

And the man behind the stumps groans with fear.

I sense the liveliness double in the stands,

And drums and trumpets lash out of the bands,

Banners of praise, fun and dance,

To shout and scream they get a chance,

But best of all is when he holds me high,

Looks above and points me to the sky,

And though his friends and foes know there is God above,

They would rather bow down to Sachin for now.

Men are from Mars

2010-02-23T10:16:00.000-08:00

This blog is dedicated to my friend. Promises be kept, no names shall be unveiled!! J

So what is it that makes someone say that Men are from Mars?

The other day as I was wrapping up my work in office and one of my friends pinged me on the google messenger. I dreaded that it would be yet another of his cribbing rant and would delay my escape strategy from my 2X2 office cell. I conveniently chose to ignore it for it sometime but the google guys, intelligent that they are, presumed it to be a 'severity 1' issue which needed my immediate attention and decided to highlight it by a bright orange mark on my otherwise blank windows blue screen. To avoid any further speculations I decided to examine it but to my astonishment it just said - “I am so tensed”.

I wondered what the matter was. Past few days had been difficult for him in office. Every presentation that he churned out created magic during meetings. He was the young manager of the company ready to take on new challenges, develop new solutions, and create new perspectives. All he wished for a chance to prove himself. His unbridled enthusiasm was infectious. Then why was he kept out of most meetings, most report work, most conference calls he didn’t know and I wondered too. He was bored and wanted to quit. I wondered if he had caught on with a fight with his boss. Being cornered had made him even more fickle minded. He had once revealed that if it would reach his tipping point, he would just put down his papers. But where would he go he didn’t know.

I frantically typed back to ask but no reply. He had just vanished. I slammed the enter key when it asked me “What do you want the computer to do?” Damn this Windows! It asks the same question over and over again and with newer multiple choices. “Shutdown, log off, standby, restart” – this it asks when I had already declared that I need to “Shut Down” after clicking on the “Start” button – another euphemism. I could have as well pulled off the power cord - skillful entanglement of the cord around my sandal heel and a small jerk – that would put an end to all this irrelevance. But I just let it be.

I rushed out to call him but instead a woman rattled in indecipherable Tamil which seemed to indicate that his cell - a) was switched off b) was out of range c) was busy d) wanted me to dance to his weirdo caller tune before she would allow me to talk.. okay may be not the last one..

What on earth could have happened! I hoped he could be located somewhere. Even in this time of crisis, I carefully hid my id card as I ran across the road to fetch an auto. They seem to have a profession detector which induces them to spell the auto fare proportionately. My trick didn’t work though but nevertheless I boarded the flight err auto...sorry the fare charges always seem to confuse me.

I was almost out of my breath as I climbed over to his place. The door was ajar. He sat there on the sofa with a mystified look staring at the ceiling with the television showing some random channel, or so it seemed to me. The office id was lying below the centre table which I assumed was thrown away so hard that it had gotten to the other side and toppled down. On one side lay a stack of pillows on which he rested his legs. The keys, the laptop, the shoes, everything and anything in that room seemed to be out of place. His eyes were red out of worry& pain of the future that lied ahead.

I didn’t know how to break the silence. When I had finally gotten enough courage and I began to ask, he cut me sharply. “Damn you ignorant lady, you fool, don’t you know!! Fifteen minutes for the day to end and we still need to pull one more down. Else get used to trailing like losers. This is a war and there is no prize for runner ups. Huh!!”

That day I understood two things -

The first being why and why on earth is Cricket called THE religion of India.

And the second being that you guys will be guys…. damn you guys. You are really aliens from Mars!!

The choice

2010-02-15T08:42:00.000-08:00

A young man in his mid twenties sat by the river, head hung low,
Eyes weary, thoughts blocked, what to do, he didn’t know,
The birds returned to their nests and the sky had shades of wrath and pain,
Why couldn’t he choose, why did he have to face this constrain.

Alas his friend said, the sun has set, let’s just toss a coin,
Since you cannot, let it decide your fate, your destiny, which road to join,
He shivered by this thought, tried to stop, he was puzzled,
But it was late; the coin soared high, and even in this dark hour, shimmered.

How he wished to fly, over the mountains across the seas,
How he had toiled through nights to live a life of his dreams,
Far away set the place, he could rise high and prove his worth,
Could he let go, the luxury, pleasure, moments of pure joy and mirth?

He could smack down his misery and pay back his loans,
See the grandeur and beauty at his career’s capstone,
He craved for this so much standing at this split end,
But something unusual happened as the coin began it’s descend.

Her face lit up in his mind, she was pretty and full of grace,
Her eyes with trust, blissful touch, her faithful embrace,
He could never let his dream house tumble like this with the wind,
The ocean of memories he would never want to leave behind!

The coin zipped by his face and landed, he stood there with his perplexed look,
He hoped the coin would say the same, but his friend swinged it far across the brook,
He smiled and said ‘it doesn’t matter on which side it landed,
I just wanted you to know what your heart really wanted’.

I pray

2010-01-19T20:39:00.000-08:00

The clock was ticking; time was short and ahead seemed to be a joyful day,

I hurried myself to the world outside; I had no time to pray,

Neither a blue sky nor the sun that was to shine brighter,

I was puzzled but God said, I wonder if you asked for it ever.

When I began my walk, on my way today I thought,

I would meet my friends again who have been miles apart,

But all I got was woods deep, lonely and dark,

I asked God why, and he replied, you didn’t ask.

I played a game to win for sure, I was best and I knew I could,

But as it rolled I made mistakes and I wondered if I would,

I lost the game and felt sad, looked up and cried,

You forgot to ask my child, he replied.

Today again a new day, everything was new,

My eyes were tired but there was so much to do,

As I turned myself to the world outside I knew it would be a busy day,

I was so much in a hurry that I had to take time to pray.

Hope, Belief, Faith

2010-01-19T19:57:00.000-08:00

A pleasantly cool morning. The place has an ambience of its own. Suddenly this ambience is enhanced by the enchanting ‘swaras’ of the ‘Omkara’. My feet are drawn to the sound. Some 8 -10 boys are seen doing the yoga. The yoga teacher is helping them perform the various 'yogasanas'. Children are carefully listening to the teacher’s instructions and following them accordingly.

Later in that day, students are seen doing a range of activities like variety of envelops, decorative gift covers, paper bags, plastic flowers etc. Jobs keep coming one after the other as per the demand of the season and the occasion. They indulge in creativity by making extremely attractive ‘rakhis’ & diwali lanterns. The ‘Best of luck’ cards for example are on the anvil before the board exams. The most creditable of all is the computer training and data entry training that is imparted.

The word ‘Autism’ is no longer a strange word. It means to be self absorbed or having to do very little with the outside world. Autism could be from birth or develop later. Today there are approximately 80,000 autistic children in Mumbai and about 80 lakh (8 million) in India.

WINGS is a vocational centre located centrally in the city of Thane wherein autistic, slow learners and other mentally challenged are taught and trained in various valuable skills. They bring together these children and foster their learning with a conducive environment, right facilities and most importantly qualified teachers.

The special teachers appointed at WINGS and all the volunteers are teaching and training these children to perform jobs and enhance their skills so that they can hit upon a source of income of their own and enhance their self-esteem. This is our hope, belief and our faith.

Help us create awareness and better their lives.

Website Link :- http://www.wingsvocational centre.org

Maid of Honor

2009-10-06T09:46:00.000-07:00

The most difficult task of surviving in Chennai , after bargaining with the auto guys of course, is communicating with the maid or ‘domestic help’ as they call it in some sophisticated localities. Safely assuming that neither my paychecks nor my house gives any indication of “affluent” lifestyle or even a lifestyle for that matter, I shall continue calling her ‘maid’ though I love the word ‘bai’ used back at my home.

So everyday sharp at 6 a.m. our door bell used to go “kharr..kharr…” mind you it does make this noise unlike the popular nursery rhyme that makes the bell go ‘ding dong’ as the pussy falls in the well and nor does it go ‘ting ting’ like school bells and no fancy music no songs….just plain “kharr..kharr..” and then more of it. So the mundane usually started with this shrieking bell creating a riot at the said time be it a weekday, weekend, festival or not a festival day. But soon she realized that these permutations of ‘Morse codes’ are inadequate to stir us and she replaced it with a prolonged “kharrrrrrrrrrrrr…..rrrrrrr” and more of this “...rrrrrrrr…” till either of we sleepy heads are irritated enough to open the door to cleanliness!! This is however just the beginning.

Most of the times, the door is opened in a zombie state of mind and then we get back to the ‘Alice in wonderland’ which is quite intimidating for her though, after all how can we sleep when she does all the work!! So she comes up with all sorts of creative things to talk about and wake us up yet again. It can be ‘vim bar getting over’ – as per my cleanliness standards it could last for atleast a week more but then that’s a reminder which can be repeated every single day thereafter until she can get a empty soap case and stick it up to my nose with a victorious smile. Or it could also be ‘get a new broom’ – I wonder how the broom gets unusable so often because the angle of her bend is not even 10 degrees while she performs the so called sweeping act. So when she enters our room, we lie still and freeze, lest she should see our nerve move, she would go with another whole lot of complain riot. Moreover, we can't converse in a common language. She clatters in indecipherable Tamil and leaves us speechless – another reason for her victory smile.

If somehow she isnt able to come up with anything, all she does is switch off the fan in our room under the pretense that the 'garbage' collected, of which I have seen none, at a minimum of 15 feet away from the fan goes helter-skelter. And I need not talk about surviving in Chennai without a fan!!

However, if we do manage to survive this dreadful 15 minutes, yes she can do all the work in the world in that time which explains for the numerous cobwebs spotted in our house, we are all set to use the freshly cleaned utensils and sip on some tea!!

Things I will miss @ Great Lakes

2009-06-03T21:33:00.001-07:00

10 things that I am going to miss at Great Lakes -

10)

College building – The ancient relic is being struck off the heritage list of the archeological society, cause finally it vacated, dismantled and moved to a posh, new campus. Ever tried finding the Mansarovar hall in the building? You really need to be a kith and kin of Sherlock Holmes to do so. Not to forget the numerous secret ways and staircases to reach Veeranam. The seminar hall was the best idea of the architect. With huge screens and speakers placed all over the place, I have had the pleasure of adlabs movies in my own college. And off course who would not want to capture a chair behind the pillars in classes and complete the unfinished sleep!! The college would have moved to platinum rated building with the best facilities, but this old treasure hunt structure will always be for me, the place to be in.

Examinations – I guess these were the most victorious moments in our year. We used to bet on who would be the first one to leave the exam hall. Not to forget our dearest colony aunties (read: supervisors) who thought that it was their moral responsibility to disturb us by threatening at least few of the poor souls who used to supposedly cheat (read: blink, sneeze or coughJ). Now this was lol…cheat from whom was a question though…because no one ever knew what the right answer was!! The worst of the lot were the open book and open laptop examinations. With internet being switched off for these tests, did they know that our bluetooth enabled machines did bridge the required gap…....J The group studies on night before the exam was extreme fun. Life would put forth many such tests in our life ahead but never any such preparatory leaves.

Tapri – If you are a Great Laker, your day could not end without at least one tapri visit a day. I am sure most of us would have a 100% attendance if it would have been taken here. If I wanted to find someone, I always knew where to go. From innumerable b-plans that have taken shape here to discussions on clueless placements to come, from F1, cricket, squash, and football, from politics to college events, from birthday celebrations to exam after shocks, you name it and it was discussed here with the best tea that you can ever get in entire Chennai. It is rightly said that the time that you enjoy wasting is not a wasted time!!

Acads and Admin – Great Lakes would not have been the same if it were not for them. We must have gone to them numerous times complaining to about every small thing – timetables, exam schedules, course materials, canteen food, A/C, college timings, every small thing. We have made much fun about the frequency of changing timetables of the course. We are sorry for all the pranks and fun that we played during the year. The help that you all provided through numerous events, placements, admissions, exams will never be forgotten. We know we can count on your blessings for the rest of our life.

Library – Whoever put the ‘Silence Please’ board in the library would by now realized that it was worthless to do so. It was the noisiest place during the day in the entire college. Though we were threatened many times to be thrown out for talking loudly, with the air condition working to the best of its abilities and the t/v and media room just a stones throw away, the librarian had a tough time during the year.

Shimla kitchen – The ‘Shimla Kitchen’ located on a not-so-Shimla like place was where we ate and cursed, yet ate the sambar masala filled chole and oil dipped bature for an entire year. Not to forget the numerous morsels of rice that I gulped down my throat so as to avoid stimulating my taste buds. We were sometimes blessed with a stock of Parle-G and Maggi that used to be served with much reluctance. Yet the lunch break was the most sought after time during the day. We may dine in a posh hotel or eat the best cuisines in the world, but it cannot match the fun of standing in long queues and fighting for an extra papad.

Grades – This was the time when some of us felt completely elevated while some completely suicidal. It also gave us another reason to crib about the normalization techniques used to give the grades. The happiest of the lot were the ones who used to bag an A grade by free riding on a group project.

Events and Parties – Who says that you cannot have fun in a one year MBA course. SWIM, HR Conclave, the numerous power talks and the most awaited Sangamitra. Bombarded with numerous assignments yet determined to put up a great show, we had our dance rehearsals from 12 am to 3 am in the night. The list is incomplete if I do not mention the numerous birthday parties celebrated at 12 in the night, movies at Satyam, the trip to Pondicherry, dozens of cheese burst pizzas ordered from Dominoes, the new years party, holi celebrations, the frequent visits to Ascendas. Even the thought of these times brings a cheer.

Lectures and professors – From days when I was filled with guilt because I was almost caught napping to days of happily snoring away on last bench. From days when I read pages and pages of pre-reading material to days when I walked in the class completely clueless. All of us have gone through this. Class presentations were always fun. All the animosity would come up when we used to trouble each other by asking numerous questions during class presentations. People who bunked classes often ended up feeling stupid with nothing to do. They would miss the fun that they could have had in the class itself!! We really appreciate all our professors who kept our spirits high through endless days and who were never tired of solving our numerous doubts. The knowledge and the experience that they shared with us is something that we value very much and as we take a leave from their classes, we hope we do make them proud some day.

Friends - This is the best treasure that I carry out of this college. It is said that the friends you sit with on the graduation day turn out to be your friends for life. I wish the same for me and every other student of the Champions batch. We are bound by similar experiences and memories of a time that will never come again. In the end, I would just say that our seniors were a little too early and our juniors a little late. Because there can be only one Champions batch – champions once, champions forever !!!

Winds of change

2009-05-08T11:47:00.000-07:00

As I walked down the streets of Srinagar colony on a unusually hot Chennai afternoon, my eyes blurred, only this time it wasnt because of the sun. Like Rocky Balboa says 'if you live in one place long enough, you are that place'. Everything associated with 24th South Mada Street, the place where Great Lakes stands tall - the tapri, the icecream van which kept us cool on hot summer afternoons, puru where we must have gulped down litres of sambar, kowsi where we actually spent more time waiting for food than eating, the temple at the corner, the shops where we bought most of our stuff, the college itself and offcourse my home which I shared with 2 other friends and a dozen other lizards, just everything flashed in front of my eyes. This place was because of us and we because of this place.

This feeling had sunk in 2 days ago when I finally removed my suitcase from the top shelf and began packing. As I opened my cupboard, I could see the entire year stacked up in front of me. My first presentation in class and then many more, my first test when I studied through entire night to giving a test being complete clueless, the innumerable assignments and deadlines and struggling through books of finance, from the days when I was tired and exhausted yet still kept going to days of complete laziness, attending classes till 11 in the night and then relishing on domnioes pizza, from wasting a complete day in library reading magazines just to avoid the heat outside to running to tapri in every break to gulp litres of caffeine, all this and more was all associated with the past one year.

And offcourse where there are friends there have to be celebrations too. The numerous birthday parties, kicking sessions at 12 in the night, celebrating holi, new year, christmas, onam, independence day and u name it festival, waking up the enitre batch at midnight by banging on their doors to wish happy freindships day, converting the seminar hall into adlabs after submiting assignments at midnight, ordering dozens of dominoes cheese burst pizzas and asking for free garlic bread with it, making kanda bhajji at home while it rained outside, giving a continenntal touch to our food by adding cheese to maggi noodles, sangetha dinners, dancing my heart out in parties, roaming aimlessly on the streets at night, watching Fed vs Nadal in college media room and fighting on who should win, even a thought of these times brings so much cheer.

So now after a year, as I walked down the streets and passed the building, I felt all this and much more. I felt I have come a long way through the past one year, a lot has changed either with me or with the world that surrounds me.

On a lighther note, CAT/GMAT is no longer my priority and thank god for that. For once, I dont have to wake up early on Sunday mornings for mock tests and thank God for that too!! I was just sick of finding the relative speed of two trains moving in opposite direction. I never understood why on earth was it so damn important, I mean for a passenger in one train the other train hardly matters otherwise why on earth would he be on this train and for a 'observer' as the problem states, both trains dont matter. He is just a bystander anyways and can be conviniently ignored. Oh yes I would definitely miss having the 'CAT jaundice' in November, but I would rather prefer spending my Sunday mornings lazying around.

The year was tough. A year ago when I left my job, the economy was flying high with tremendous confidence, and it is just quite opposite as I pass out today. I have seen placement days vanish in thin air leaving me with nothing and I have spent hours thinking about them. But all this has only taught me not to be regretful. There were times when I thought and wished that I should have passed a year ago but such thoughts dont clog me anymore.

In all this, I hope I have learnt not to stumble under circumstances that are not under my control. I also hope that I have gathered enough strength not to be pressed under despondency and dejection but to keep moving ahead. And I have finally learnt to accept that to keep going, I do indeed need to believe in something, like my destiny , intinct or whatever and always trust that among this crisis, newer windows of opportunities will emerge.

I have learnt that failure is inevitable and that it was Ok to fail while doing what I want to do. Like every generation that has faced its challenges, these are just another ones and these tough times will pass, they inevitably always do.

As Shashi Tharoor stressed this to us in his speech, I have come to agree that giving back to the society is important not just because it has helped me become what I am today but because it is my moral responsiblity to be a part of collective effort in bettering the place and life of people around me.

I have learnt that nothing is achieved in isolation, nothing at all. Every achievement, small or big has many stakeholders and it is as important to stay humble as you rise the ladder of success as it is important to take pride it. Yes I have discovered that it is a difficult potpourri to make - valuing every small success yet preserving humility, but this to me is the mantra of life, the mantra of happiness.

As I walked down the lane, I took one last look at the building... I carry all this with me as I bid a farewell to a wonderful year well spent. I consider what I learnt in these very premises not just as a foundation, but rather as a spring board that will help me bounce higher and achieve more. In the end, at this turning point, I finally hope that I am going out with a big heart and big apetite for adventure and create newer paths for me.

The last lap..

2009-04-07T07:24:00.000-07:00

A picture is worth a thousand words....

There is too much to write about and talk about the last few days...but with so much happening, I will save it for the end...

For now... i see the finish line very near..

Courtesy : Kaydee

cause gurls just wanna have fun ??

2009-03-08T07:48:00.000-07:00

As the sun shone brightly in the sky, I woke up today rather lazily. Today was going to be just another sunday...in classrooms and library. As I hurried myself for the lecture, I saw my cell was showing 3 new messages. I wondered if lecture was cancelled postponed and if I could go back to sleep. What surprised me was I had messages wishing me "Happy womans day". I mean wow, I didnt know people celebrated it so passionately.

Coming to think of it, this may not be the time to really 'celebrate' International Women's Day. Just recently, women were beaten for sitting in a pub; one was forced to strip naked for an FIR to be lodged against her husband. I read an article somewhere which said that - "woman is raped every 35 minutes in India; female child mortality is higher than male by 25%-50% in India, Bangladesh and Nepal; about 60% of women all over the world have complained about sexual harassment and that the average South Asian woman's risk of dying in childbirth is a hundred times greater than for a woman in an industrialised country (1 in 43 for South Asia and 1 in 4,000 for the developed world)". How do we react on such statistics?.

All echo in one voice that nothing can be changed unless the women are empopwered. But the point is that if everyone knows this, why isnt it being done ?? And if its being done, how long do we have to wait until we finally see the results. Can we atleast hope to see the results sometime?

The Taliban are now terrorising the Swatis, Pashtuns and what is shocking is that they can, at will, blow up girls' schools and colleges, burn down music shops and punish women who go out unaccompanied by a male relative. In the name of implementing Sharia law, such actions will actually be legitimised and the worst sufferers will be women.

Whenever there are celebrations of women achievers I have always been confused on how to react to it. Yes there is no fact denying that we have had Kalpana Chawala, Indira Nooyi, Aishwarya Rai, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Naina Lal Kidwani and many more like them. And there are no qualms about their achievements. But I dont think they really represent the women of India. And why them, even a ordinary girl like me doesnt.

I dont come from a family who denies me education for the sake of my brothers studies. I am not made to cook because studying is worthless for me. No one ever tells me that education is waste cause ultimately the only thing I have to do is to manage someones home. The only place where I have known about child marriage is in books or magazines and never seen it happening. I dont have to wear a saree that covers me head to heels even in scorching summer days. My opinion is actually asked, valued and counted. I am not beaten up by someone who comes home drunken. I have a dream that is cherished, valued, protected and promoted by my family freinds and colleagues. These are just few of the basic things that make me misrepresent todays woman in India. When I look out of my window onto the slums adjacent to my house, I feel this profoundly more than ever.

I know I have grown up in a very safe protected world and may be I do not even have the remotest idea of what the plight of women really is. But now after the Mangalore and the Bangalore incidents, I feel theatened, angry and helpless all at the same time. I wonder whats next and now I dont even know whether I can go out and celebrate Womens day today without being beaten, or even killed !!

Emotional atyachaar...

2009-02-28T11:38:00.000-08:00

As the countdown begins...you can see the difference in peoples attitudes, their sentiments, their talks and even their gtalk status messages. It is that time that everyone wants to pause a moment and look back at the time gone by.

I know its a little too early...there are almost 60 days more....but in a 1 year course like ours..days weeks and months hav just zipped by without even leaving a trace. Well the only physical evidnce that we have are a little worn out laptops, lean figures and dark circles.

Thoughts of exams,assignments, grades, lectures, nightouts, placements that once flooded our routine and our minds have suddenly taken a back seat. Previous job comforts, left away appraisals and hikes, hazy future and scary thoughts of jobless days ahead somtimes now clog our eyesight now.

But the spirit never dies. We all find relief in laughing at each others plight, laughing about how we all have become bankcrupt in past one year, how the next job could actually pay less than what we got earlier n lots of stuff like this. Best way to vent out ones emotions is by using gtalk messages.

Some funny, some inspiring and some of them that make you feel really nostalgic..

"The only thing stopping you is YOU"

"Memories are good as long as you dont have to deal with it"

"Do not fear going ahead slowly, fear only standing still"

Some even get devotional with "Sri Ram Jai Ram Jai Jai Ram"

One of the most interesting message that I came across in past few days was - "Yesterday I was clever. So I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise. So I have decided to change myself". Who says nothing is impossible. I have been doing nothing for sumtime now"

"There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all".

"Mera Number Kab Ayega?????"

"I am interested in It Telecom Consulting jobs in 'Forced2' initiative. :) "

"Who says nothign is impossible. Ever tried slamming a revolving door"

So heres the story so far...My heart is stuffed with a little too many emotions to handle... Happiness to get out of Chennai for once...God the weather here sux like crazy... Sad because rock and roll times are about to end and 162 of us will never ever be together again..anxious because am yet jobless with nothing on my radar...Tired and weared out of all the nightouts and assignments. But one thing thats for sure is that may be crisis times like these will come and go...but college days will be gone forever... (sob...sob)

Ek chotisi naukri...

2009-02-13T08:24:00.000-08:00

Well they say music transcends all barriers.

I dont know about that for sure but it sure saves me from wasting my laptop battery for writing what we are going through right now...

This has been the song of the campus for quite some days now...

Well hats of to Kishore Kumar and the lyricist to write this song so many years back...the song of the future...true visionaries.. :)

Boli Lagao...

2009-01-24T11:49:00.000-08:00

Finally some cheer in the college. Apart from the frequent whinning that prevailed in the college about how uncertain the future is, there is hardly anything that I have heard in past few days. With whole week blocked for "THE week" of MBA, there was not much to do for the past 5 to 6 days but catch up on some old time classic movies, have delicious food @ Mariott, listen to great music and lie tirelessly on bed refreshing the mailbox every 5 minutes. So we really couldnt believe when we saw the timetable for the following week...three lectures of 3 hours each on the very first day after this vacation. 'How can people be so cruel', I thought.

But past two days have been quite happening with with auctioning and bidding tactics. This was the experimental economics class - a required elective ( I wonder how an elective can be required....but neways...let me not digress) by Prof Shyam Sundar of Yale School of Management.

As I waited for the class to begin, the housekeeping staff in the college began repositioning the chairs. What on earth is going on, everyone wondered. Row after row chairs were removed from the huge seminar hall. This guy seems to be crazy, is he really going to show us experiments or what !!.

The professor explained us the rules of the game. The whole class was divided into buyers and sellers. The buyers were given a slip with a perceived value of the good. The sellers had given a slip with the cost of production of the good. Each buyer and seller had difefrent amount. The strategy for the seller was to find a buyer who was ready to pay more than the cost of production. The strategy for the buyer was to find a seller who would sell at a price lower than the perceived value.

This was not all, the auction was supposed to be over-the-counter auction. So the auction opened for 5 minutes and there was open outcry for the price. As the market opened, there was huge bidding going on in every corner of the room. People rushing everywhere to find the best deal.

WAITING FOR THE AUCTION TO START

Some were risk averse people who settled for small profits and closed deals early on. Some wanted to wait until they got a higher value. Seemed like a fish market. Session after session we did this auction. Sometimes I managed a huge profits, sometimes less and sometimes I couldnt sell. A great experience and sore throats in the end. He explained to us all the results and how markets work in reality. As we got more and more experienced, we could see how we became more efficient. The class seemed more like a picnic place.

THE AUCTION BEGINS

Second day was even better. We had a closed bid tender game. Each of us was given a perceived value of the item to be auctioned and we were divided into random groups of 10. It was necessary to bid higher to win the auction, it was also necessary to bid lower than the perceived value in order to avoid loss and thirdly we didnt know the bids of the other members of the group. We played several variations of closed bidding - second price auctioning, common value auctioning etc. At the end of each game, we were taught different strategies on how to maximise winning chances while minimising losses.

There are few cynical "know-it-all" minds that feel this whole experience is just not worth attending. But past 2 days have been a great learning experience for me. With only 3 months before we close this course, all I want to do is to enjoi this time before I get back to that sad corprate life again..(This is called height of optimism....confident of a job even in such times) Whether I will ever participate in bidding in my life and use these startegies is really irrelevant to me now. :-)

It is that time of the year again..

2009-01-18T01:49:00.000-08:00

Well not really a great post to open this years account. With less than 24 hours to go until we begin with this years placement season..eh er..week..er..days..whatever...,the scene is quite gloomy. The coats and shirts that would have been by now kept neat clean and pressed and hanging somewhere in my cupboard. The books that would have been revised and re-revised are just stacked up with no intentions and motivation to be opened again. Where companies would be fighting for the day zero slaught, the colleges are struggling to pull them till the campus this year. Well seems like tough days ahead for all of us. All that can be done is hope that Obama's winds of change reach India as well....

Connecting with the world.

2008-12-12T11:42:00.000-08:00

Faster internet speeds have brought information around the world to your laptop screens just few clicks away and mobile phones are almost being viewed as commodities in todays age of globalisation and rising telecom power in India. But listening to the daily happenings by getting glued to television has its own charm.

I remember my vacations when all I did was lie tirelessly on my sofa with remote in my hand and switch channels speedily not to miss single action happening on tv. I used to fill up water bottles and pile up chip packets near my sofa so that I dont have to lift my body weight and drift it along till the kitchen. Offcourse I was too old to attend to nature calls wherever I wanted and hence some energy got used up in squabbling towards the bathroom. All the entertainment that I missed during the prime time due to numerous K,L,M soaps that my family was fond of had to be recovered during the day. Not to forget all the useless reality shows that I had got hooked on to.

Just a year and half back one of roomie got hooked on to the uselss fights on Big Boss. So much was the addiction that after some days even I used to be curious on whos gonna fight next with whom and whats the next bitching and gossip topic on the set. Not to forget the numerous series of Indian Idols and nach baliyes which I never missed out. Once in a while, out of sheer pressure of appearing for mba entrances, I used to stop by one of the news channels.

That year later I moved to Mexico. I had no tv in my studio apartment but I was allowed to get glimpses in my owners house who lived next door. It was very frustrating to sit in front of the tv with remote control in someone else's hand. Not to forget the additional annoyance out of watching espanols blabber out indecipherable words and soaps that had the most obscene scenes that I had ever seen. This eventually led to greater disinterest in getting glued and I conviniently shifted to bollywood movies. After I came to chennai, life was something more than just being hectic. We were bombarded with assignments and tests one after the other, and if that was not enough we had guest lectures and more assignements that were in line. All in all, we had a television at home lying without a cable connection. Not to forget the tv and media room provided in college which lied unattended.

But today yet again the day has come where all I did was lie on the cot in the drawing room and switch channels sipping orange juice. So all three of us decided that enough was enough and we needed to have our share of entertainment. Basically we have mastered the art of delivering the best with minimal efforts. Ya we took our time to find ways to fight this evil education system that denies sleep to poor souls but finally have deciphered it. Okay, so I have degraded from the super comfortable sofa to a dhaba-type cot, but the passion of watching tv tirelessly remains the same. Yet again its time to connect to all those fake emotions on tv shows!!

Dream come true

2008-11-18T05:24:00.000-08:00

Today was one of those days that I had longed since my childhood. Supper packed schedule and loads of assignments take care that I dont over sleep and even if i do manage to sneak peak into my dream world, I wake by the horrifying placement dreams that I see.

So as always, with loads of other subjects to study, we had to cope up with this micro economics. All the demand supply curves had begun to converge on the equilibrium points. In the end, all the micro economics to me was the art of free hand drawings and systematic way of intersecting the lines to form a beautiful wire mesh. So today morning I woke up with a start at 4 am after sleeping for complete 3 hours....and began flipping pages. How I wished that i could sleep longer, how i wished the professor would have forgotten to set the paper, how i wished that the printer would have got jammed while printing, how i wished the supervisors wouldnt turn up. (Basically I wished for everything other than the fact that I should have studied earlier).

I did try to understand different graphs of how a monopolistic market would work and how a perfectly competetive market differs from the former one. After long hard struggle, I somehow figured out the difference (at 4 am all i could see was randomly drawn lines with random names assigned to them). In the end the book said that in reality, a monopolistic or perfectly competetive market does not really exist...grrrr...my temper shot faster than the chandrayaan...then why the hell do they teach such things that do no exist..isnt mba supposed to be "practical" teaching.

Neways..let me not digress from the main point. Somehow i got up from the zombie state and got ready for the exam. No sooner did I pick up my bag than I got a message saying that exam in postponed by an hour. Yipppeeeee...i jumped with joy. I ran with full enthusiasm towards the college. I went there only to find smoke everywhere. There was a short circuit in the college and the power was off. Soon it was declared that the exam was postponed to evening. Not a avery good news though but that meant that I could go and sleep for another hour before the lectures. Then came the news that the exam is postoned till next monday. We all jumped with joy. There were mixed reactions in the crowd. We got "uh-i know-all-and-might-as-well-finish-the-exam" looks from the sincere and intelligent lot and "good-now-i-can-go-n-sleep" from dumb people like me. But who cares, I happy walked back home, ate a good breakfast and went off to sleep.

I had longed many times since childhood that the exam got rescheduled. Today finally that dream has come true. Before sleeping I promised myself that I wud utilise this time doing a deep analysis on the subject. However everyone aorund me knows what the scene next Sunday is going to be :)

Mass murder

2008-11-11T23:28:00.000-08:00

What is a open book test - Its exam when the professor knows that the paper is going to be so tough that the students will not be able to solve anything and he allows books and papers to be carried so that students AT LEAST SIT through the whole exam duration frantically searching for answers in the book.

"It is a open book test. Carry all the material available on earth. All the best" the professor smirked as he walkd out on the last day of the lecture. Past few days had been extremely discouraging. Day after day as new optimiastion techniques were churned out in the class, law of diminishing marginal utility had worked yet again and increasing cost savings techniquies developed had only resulted into diminishing awareness of the subject.

All charged up to fight this evil, 162 of us gathered at this D-day that is hence forth going to be the Martyr day in the history of Great Lakes. Dozens of paper sheets and books were gathered and piled up in the class. Few people were almost out of their seat trying to fit the books that would save their grace. As the clock ticked 9, my heart skipped a beat, hands trembled and sweat gathered. There was tension in the air. There was a total hush-hush and we could hear the AC growl. It was almost as if the benches and the blackboard were laughing at us. Just then out of nowhere a leader rose and said "Dont worry guys, we shall overcome!!" Such were the encouraging words and with loud clapping we set on to fight.

The enemy attacked us psychologically. The first line read "Any material can be read and used". As i read this I could imagine the enemy smiling victoriously. But I was determined to fight. Questions after questions I read, but yet not a sign of victory. All that i could do is to flip pages after pages in search of some strategy to conquer. Seconds, minutes and hour passed by. All I had done was copied the question as it is (this is old engg days strategy- experience counts you see), done one step out of nowhere and halted the solution.

Finally, as the two hours almost ended, I cracked one of the problem. I had fought long for this moment. My death was certain, but I had given a good fight. At the end, we all lost to this cruel, unconsiderate enemy but we all had fought courageously against a evil.

In the end, when all die, relative grading saves everyones grace ! :-)

From Dusk to dawn

2008-11-07T11:42:00.000-08:00

This is not an original post...

Been too busy (read: too lazy) to write one...But post below pretty much summarizes why I havent added a post in past few days.

Yes it’s a mad world out here….. Starting 7 in night and ending 8 in the morning here’s what we need to do-

1. Read one marketing case and prepare for the end term of marketing management, which is at 8:00 AM in the morning. God knows why exams are scheduled so early in the morning.

2. Understand how markets with asymmetric information work (meaning read, read and read) and make a presentation for tomorrow.

3. Read a strategy case on ‘Orthoteks USA’ and make a presentation for tomorrow.

4. Read TWO cases in optimization techniques and be ready to solve them on some dumb software... huh… how I hate this.

5. Submit an end term report on one global topic before 5:00 PM tommorrow as a part of evaluation for ‘Business government and society’

With so much on my plate, I am at my all time best. Believe me I am so glad and elated !!! :(

Zero IQ talks..

2008-08-23T10:51:00.000-07:00

We all paraded to an place in the heart of chennai to eat rajasthani food. It is amazing to see how we all crave for food that even remotely tastes like home food. So after a clash with auto rickshaw, a plesant train journey and a ride in a crowded share auto, we finally reached our destination. After a yumee rajasthani food which we all smacked up in few minutes, one of my friends Ms S suddenly exclaims out of nowhere.. "You know wht, my grandfather was working for the King of Rajasthan". Then Mr R, trying to show off his so called great GK, says "You know, hmm, that king had 120 wives". By then Ms S was in a mood to show off her ancestral power and without wasting any time adds "The king has a huge palace with more than 100 rooms".

There..this was enought to trigger a very interactive and informative conversation. So Mr H exclaims, "So what does a big palace with more than 100 rooms have to do with 120 wives. Or is there a connection.? He probably had as many wives as many as bedrooms in the palace". Mr V innocent (read : dumbest) of the lot asks, "Is it really so? But what if he has a crush on one more woman. Then where will she stay?" Everyone is rolling with laughter by now. Mr A starts applying management principles. He says "The fixed cost of maintaining the palace is the same. So as per the costing principle, more the number of wives, fixed cost per wives will reduce and cost per product..errr...cost per wife will reduce drastically".

"Ok", Mr H says, "I was actually planning to buy a 3 bhk in Pune. Now I know how I could utilise this house better. Maximising profits and minimising cost. So Ms S, when you marry make sure your husband buys only a 1 bhk house, else umm..". Ms S, showcasing women power replies almost immediately, "Yeah so good for me, I will keep 2 husbands...haha".

Everyone was dumb struck by this analysis.

As if this was not enuf, Ms S screams again "I wonder how the king must be keeping track of which wife to meet each day (read: night). Again Mr R "See here we have to be little more analytical.. I come from operations background and this is extremely simple supply chain problem. "The wife must be hanging a oil lamp in front of her room. This way, the King can take a look at the palace corridors from a distance and know where to head to". Quite a thoughtless solution everyone agreed.

All of us were rolling with laughter and the overeaten food was beginning to digest. So sometimes such zero IQ talks are good for health :)

The GmaTTer

2008-08-19T02:53:00.000-07:00

Past few weeks or rather months, I have assumed the role of a MBA counselor. I take great pride in motivating people to do pursue an MBA or rather take up higher studies in general. Talking about myself, I took up MBA rather thoughtlessly because that i believed that was the only career path available to me at that point. Answers to questions like why MBA, short term and long term goals were crafted very meticulously without even meaning a word of it. But 3 months later, I have realized the power of an MBA. It can transform you as a person. And I feel that is the reason why people should go through the MBA experience.

So, after numerous unsuccessful attempts to get through a b-school through CAT, SNAP, NMAT, IIFT, CET, and dozen such other such exams, GMAT was the last ray of hope for me. So almost year back on 14th August, 2007 I decided to test my luck for one last time. Murphy may have well written his law so long ago but its application could not have been better than it was at my GMAT test.

As the law states it, I chose to take a test date only to find a empty slot in the week of my code delivery. To make it worse, I had a big mouth to go and inform my PM that I was going to take a leave in that week. No sooner did I apply my leave, I got a ping sound on my communicator and I knew I was in for a big trouble. I could have easily got a "jaundice" or a "viral fever". Everyone at Infosys knows how the jaundice suddenly crops up during November and heals magically after the CAT. But I thought that I was not the one who would do this and 2 months was a notice enough for any manager to plan the schedule. But to my dismay, it was all in vain. After hearing a straight 'NO' from her, all I could do was to prepare myself to face the music after my leave.

But little did I realise this was just the beginning of a huge war. Planning has been my strongest asset. I take keen interest in planning my day, my work, my leave, my studies..and I chalk out plans that only few great planners can....the problem arises only at its execution. So as always I was armed with a fabulous plan to crack the GMAT. But i wonder why do I always forget our own Murphy. I was packed with work so much that 24 hours a day seemed to less. Leave had thus become inevitable.

A day before my leave, one of my team mates had some "medical problem" and alas....i knew..now it was the end. I was requested..warned..threathened...that u better watch out ur leave plan. But I was left with no way out and i absconded for the preparation.

I couldnt sleep a day before the GMAT....there was too much at stake I felt. After managing to get a bare minimum sleep, I reached the GMAT centre. Checked my passport, wallet and pens. all set...The door opened and names were called out one after the other. The security was enormous as if we were about to witness a nuclear tests inside. Everyone went in one by one except me. Yeah u guessed t right..my name wasnt there on the register of test takers...!!

How can this be possible..I thought. When I enquired the guard about my name, he searched up and down back and forth, but it wasnt there at all. He looked up at me and asked, "What was your date of exam ?". My heart skipped a beat, I mean, what kind of question was that. It is well knows of how miserable I am in remembering birthdays but cmon, I cant be wrong in my GMAT date. I was now unsure myself but gathered enough courage to raise my voice and say "It is today at 9.00 am. Go check properly". He looked at me rather disgustingly and said "Show me your payment receipt". Oops...I had not taken a printout of that..but so what..it was never required. Cursing myself for being so lazy, I again said sternly "It was not required !! They have only told us to bring passport. Go check properly".

By now, I had irritated him to the limit. He told me to move away from the door and slammed to door on my face. I stood outside trembling thinking what to do next. I iterated over and over again, yeah it was 14th off course. It can’t be wrong!! There was silence around the floor. I could here every water drop that fell on the roof outside. Distantly there was a car reversing. I started sweating. Remembered all possible Gods and Godesses. Every second that passed seemed like eternity. Thought of all possible excuses that I could tell people for nt giving GMAT….I mean I couldn’t go and tell that I forgot my date…

Finally the door opened and there he emerged as a saviour of all times. He said, “Well, actually we missed your name, you may go in”. My temper almost rose like a rocket, but there were more things to be accomplished. Picked up my bag and walked victoriously inside….

When things go wrong..

2008-08-09T11:20:00.000-07:00

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,

When the road you're trudging seems all uphill,

When the funds are low and the debts are high,

And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,

When care is pressing you down a bit-Rest if you must, but don't you quit.

Inspiration flows when you read this. But trust me this blog has absolutely no intentions of motivating anyone. Just that past 24 hours I have frantically spent trying to get things in place.

To start off, we studied through the night for our exams. This is required to compensate the sleep that one has had when things were being taught in the class. But even if a cost benefit analysis is done comparing benefits of one sleepless night before exams at the cost of total attentiveness in the class, one night out wins hands on. So after two lectures, one guest lecture and a test, I came home terribly tired almost about to crash. The plan was to take a power nap and get back to preparing presentations to be given on Saturday.

My roommate ( lets call her RM1) was already at home and when I reached home didnt open the door. Assuming that she wouldnt have heard it while snoring away to glory, I rang the bell a dozen times without breaks only to realise that the bell wasnt working. I resorted to banging the door voilently beacuse of which I got suspicious looks from the otherwise not-so-bothered neighbours. I assume my commotion woke her up and only when I walked in, I realised that there was darkness everywhere. I frantically searched for Hindustan Times cause they claim that they can spread light. I stumbled over twice and seeing my desparate search RM1 finally decided to ask me what I was upto. Hearing my enlighting solution she exclaimed with an extremely disgusted look that we had not paid the electricity bill for past 2 months and I even heard her murmur with extreme annoyance "the only way Hindustan Times would provide light is by burning it".

Feeling embarrased I tried my best to divert the topic and thinked about all ways to get back the electricity but all in vain. The other roommate RM2 was enjoying a nice coffee at Besant Nagar beach and she almost flew out of her chair with this news. I tried to sleep in that hot humid weather with no fans but the moment I closed my eyes, the only thing that I could imagine was a creepy lizard walking over my bed. That day I slept over at my friends place on floor within confined space, no mattress and felt like I had become homeless. An MBA can make you do all things that you would have never thought of..!!!

By next day, the house was nothing short of an oven. The fridge was leaking and the milk was smelling. Just then we were about to get into cleaning act, the house owner called us for not paying the rent. Oh god..we were into another mess. I immediately pictured a big tall giant like figure with a whip in his hand walk down our house throwing our stuff out of the balcony. I was pleading him to give us a day and just then he was about to whip me RM1 screamed..."We forgot..we forgot..we better pay".

She rushed to get her share of rent. When she didnt return even after 15 whole minutes i tiptoed into her room thinking she would be probably sobbing over these incidents. And lo..there i got news no 3..she had misplaced her fat wallet ( fat due to hundreds of useless receipts in it)..'Oh no..not now'.. We decided to sit down and call up all people who were there with us yest night while doing presentations. I jumped into action, and dialled Mr. V. But neither me nor she could call anyone...because we had also not paid the phone bill. Now this was the limit. I just could handle it any more.

I decided to tackle it one at a time. My friend Mr A helped me pay the electricity bill. Then I sat down and paid my phone bill. Called up people for her wallet. Thankfully, we traced her wallet and her big fat wallet was saved. But by that time her credit card was blocked. So paid her phone bill by her credit card. Things seemed to working out for us now....

We were so tired that a good dinner was a must. So Mr N, RM1 and myself zeroed in on a restaurant and took a bus that stopped 2 kms ahead of that stop. We obviously had no energy to walk back so we took a bus again which again refused to stop near the hotel. Now at this point,more than getting annoyed by the series of events I had started finding it quite amusing. Even more funnier was that me and RM1 hopped out when the bus slowed down but Mr N couldnt. So he again had to come back..thankfully he decided to walk. We both by then had broken into a laughter riot. So after all this drama, we finally reached our destination and as expected there was absolutely nothing left to eat. Almost expressionless, we walked out, took a rickshaw and went straight to the hotel that we had initially rejected. So we spent almost twice the money reaching the place where we could have reached directly by a rickshaw.

We had almost reached to an acceptance level that anything and everything we do would go wrong. Just then things started getting better. We had a superb dinner, RM2 messaged that the power was back. Came home happily as the power was back. What a relief it was to sleep on my own bed. Hopefully such events will occur rarely in coming future...

Good Morning class....

2008-07-29T07:02:00.000-07:00

What happens when managers are pulled out of a corporate and suddenly put in a 3 hour class. What happens when a suddenly super rigorous course has a two weeks break and you comeback thinking you are all fresh to learn new things. What happens when you just manage to finish a assignment sitting through whole night at 6.00 am and are made to attend a class at 9.00 am in the morning.

Well they all seem to be very normal scenarios for a b-school until u see people struggling to be awake fifteen minutes after the class starts or hear loud snores all around you. Here are top 5 ways to fight sleep-

5) Most primitive way of keeping awake...the never defying x-and-zero game, pictionary, bollywood. But they do not match the 'b-school' standards. Some try to read the "true facts" section printed on the last page of the register for the 132nd time. The other creative lot get down to fashion designing. Flashback to school in the drawing class and we see budding managers using their creative paintbrush. Pracitice live sketching.( of the professor offcourse). Well but most realise that how pathetic their right brain is and give up on showing their creativity further. Well if you are miserable at drawing, there are other ways too.

4) Try sitting erect. Believ me, posture does matter :). However this doesnt remain for long and as you feel that you are curling in the confined space of the chair as if it were your bed, change the way you sit. Keep changing from left to right, fold your leg, remove your shoes, wear then again, play with your pen....do all this until your neighbour gives you really 'stop-that-or-you-are-dead' look. Time to move on to the next idea.

3) Water can do wonders in terms of momentary wakeup calls. Gulp water down the throat as an when needed. However fellow benchmates soon realise the power of these H2O droplets and the bottle is soon emptied. So what could have kept you awake for 15 whole minutes results into keeping neither of the three awake for even 5 minutes. Neways, there are other ways of stopping your eyelids from closing.

2) Start ferociously copying whatever is written on the power point presentation or whatever the professor burps out. This way with your hand working faster than the mind, the eyes might agree to co-operate. However, this cannot last long and as time passes the fellow classmates hear a sound of pen plummet down on the ground and the elbow thud on the wooden desk. Time to try something else.

1) I suppose the best way to keep awake is to ask questions. However stupid they might be, when the professor answers looking straight in your eyes, you just cant sleep. Well say for example, your neighbour has suddenly woken you up. In that case you casually ask "Sir, I didnt et that..err.can you please repeat it". Well you may get some "what-the-hell-looks" from the really attentive lot or "Good-question-now-i-can-sleep-for-some-time-look" from the other few. In both cases, being under scrutiny will wake you up.

Well if nothing of the above works...Dont worry...Just go to sleep....Zzzzzz.......

Language no bar !!

2008-07-23T04:58:00.000-07:00

It all started because of my unfamiliarity with Facebook. I happened to change some settings on my account and it so happened that my relationship status got changed from 'Single' to blank. Little did i know that it would trigger a Note on everyone's feed that 'Gauri Lonkar is no longer single'. None of my friends wasted any time to start of a chain mail on this gossip and made wild guesses of all possible people speaking different languages.

But thinking of it on a more serious note, a sudden realisation dawned upon me of all the possible choices that I can make for myself. So here goes the story-

Being in Chennai..you can comfortably assume that there is a good probability that I have learnt Tamil. Not very fluent at it but can definitely speak some of it. Well atleast some words like "ennada, tambi, kutti" easily come to me. I know they are far from the words needed to strike a romantic relationship with any tamilian, but trusting the age old saying that 'well begun is half done', I can always give it a try.

Also, you can fairly call me multi lingual as my Spanish is also pretty strong. And considering I was the only Indian girl out there in Infosys Mexico, wasted no time in flirting with the extremely smart and good looking Mexicans guys. Learning spanish was just a reason to have nice long chats. But in the whole flirting process, I actually ended up learning quite some words. So much was the influence that when i came back home, I used "si" more often than "yes".

Great Lakes (btw- this is my college name if you all dont know) has this unique passion of teaching the students Chinese or Mandarin as it called popularly. And having wasted enough time in learning complex symbols and weird pronunciations, I can proudly say that I have topped Mandarin classes so far and have managed to talk beyond Ni Hao Ma.

Offcourse, Marathi and Hindi is like my mother tongue.And thanx to my freind CG and his Gujju lessons during our engg days( he was actually ahrown out of the class for the same), Kem cho..majama ...all this comes quite naturally to me now.

Well, I did try learning Kannada while in Banglore, but for this discussion let us safely assume that I failed badly in my attempt and so u can keep that out for the discussion.

Well the sad part is that my english has gone for a toss. Juggling between tamil, hindi and english is probably far difficult than a rope walk. We often end up saying 'anna, one day before, water order, you no give". Even more embarrassing is when the shopkeeper shuts your mouth by saying "OH you mean yesterday you ordered for water" and the whole bunch of classmates break into a laughter riot.

OK, so coming back to the story, I have actually decided to leverage on this newly developed talent of being able to talk in so many different languages. And hope that this attempt to socialise may probably result in what all my friends called it as ' Gauri Lonkar is no longer listed as "single." '

So, if I am somehow able to assign appropriate weights to all the languages and come out with a fair estimate of my fluency in every language, then I can probably focus better. :)

Tick Tick One...!!

2008-07-19T07:49:00.000-07:00

Well it is very evident from the increasing number of blogs per month of how well I am managing my time (read: basically I have too much time at my disposal). But one thing for sure that a b-school teaches you is minute by minute time management.

If an assignment is to be submitted at 7.00 pm on any day, panic begins at 6.55 in the classroom. As the clock ticks, you need to completely realign the entire group and re-distribute the work within next few seconds. Quickly reiterate the tasks remaining - format the word document and justify all the paragraphs, write a mail with the group name and address it to the concerned prof, click send. Looks simple, aint it.!!

Group dynamics is awesome at such times and all group members quickly align as per their strenghts and the work begins. Its almost 15 seconds short of 6.56 now. Eyes keep swinging between the work and the right bottom side of the laptop ( the clock).

Task of group 1 - format the word document. Well this group just cant stop blessing microsoft at this point, a button click and the hours put into writing the assignment seems to suddenly start looking good well formatted. Well, a sigh of relief, three minutes before the deadline and we are already done. Oh, hold on, some genius realises that the font is not uniform. It so happens that different members contirbute to different sections of the assignement and hence the difference while collating it. 'Oh no, more to do' . 'Not to worry' some Mr A screams. Just do a Ctrl-A and select the font that you want. 'Oh yeah, its so simple', the formatter exclaims. Click.Click...lo its done. Few clapping sounds in the background...I think we are just saved. Cmon copy the assignement on the pen drive and give it to the mail guys. 'Take this pen drive', says one who seems extremely self satisfied for showing such proactiveness. Last look at the assignement. 'Damn..where the hell is the index'. Formatter panics. 'How do i do it, we dont even have page numbers written?'. Then comes the hero of the team..Mr IT guy jumps in action. 'Dont worry guys...I have done all this in my three years of experience. Its very simple'...A slight sigh of relief on everyones faces. Confidently takes the place..few seconds later..frantically searching for that command button. 'What the hell r u doing dude..2 mins are left'.

Meanwhile, the mail team is pretty cool. Person B is happily typing the mail ' Dear Sir...Please find attached the assignemnt. Grp No so-n-so..grp memebrs.a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h. Person B to C 'whats the mail id where its to be sent?'. ' Just hold on, I have written it in my notebook'. Removes his book and tries to find it , all in vain. 'Dude what are u doing? Give me fast, their assignment is almost done'. 'Well,err, I am not able to find it'. B looking annoyingly 'Well then move, let me get my book'. He also searches and doesnt get it. Both look at the other team-mates working, they seem to be extremely tensed and caught up with formatting, so dare not ask them. Ok what next. "RUN"...both run to other teams and ask for the mail id. Other too busy, mostly choose to ignore. Finally someone is kind enough to give it. 'Hey we found it' victorious smile. Return and complete the mail and all is done.....err...well except the assignment.

Two minutes left and the index is being made. Search Search...'Dude leave it..its ok to submit without index than to submit late' Quick calcualtion of gain and loss in everybody's mind. Suddenly, 'Eureka..See here it is...Click Click ..ok..hmmm.save..Yeah see here it is...Was so simple'. Nobody in a mood to really congratulate. 'Quick copy it in the pen drive'. Copied and transfered. ...

Look at the clock..50 seconds before the clock hits 7.00. BP has risen well above acceptable levels. Now all is in the hand of person B. Others in the team look around the class. See the tension everywhere...except few who are busy capturing these moments in their camera. Suddenly one group starts clapping. They have just mailed the assignment. Everyone turns back then again turn and look with lot of hopes towards B

Now, quickly B opens the drafted mail, attach the assignement. "Almost done guys..dont worry. We wil make it". Few more claps in the room. 30 seconds to go. "Why the hell is it taking so much time to attach." . (Obviously..whol told us to put so many graphs and make it so big). 10 seconds and it showed attach. 'Hurray....quick quick..hand trembles...sweat drops...eyes are blurred....and SEND'. For 2 seconds no one reacts...quickly check the sent items. It is showing 6.59 sent time still...Now everyone jumps with joy...higher than probably what one would on the convocation day. Claps all around the room...

Saved this time..make big big promises and take oaths that next time we will not keep it tilll the end...close laptops, few hugs, lift bags and walk with glory not realising that timeliness would never happen..atleast in the next one year to come.....

Hold not..story is not over yet..Twist in the story, the college server time is 2 mins faster. So basically all the assignments have reached late. But the prof is either too kind or basically is too busy to check this....So we are saved yet again...

The gift of God

2008-07-16T05:24:00.000-07:00

Well my blog may look like being extremely philosophical but past few days have forced me to think about how I am living my life, what is it that I really want and what is the real meaning of my dreams and if I can really realise them.

One of my very good friends, Amol, based in US had a sad untimely death when they had gone for jet skiiing. Another boat collided on his boat and he met with this fatal accident. As much as I cant stop thinking about this, I am just not ready to believe this and still feel that this is a dream, somehow he would call me, mail me, scrap me...anything just anything would do. It feels like I could just wake up from sleep and see everything just alright, just the way it was before.

I think that the greatest gift that God has given us is life. We see people struggle, slog through their lives, people cry and laugh, fall and rise, lose and win, but all the while, they can feel it and so can they touch the lives of others. There are challenges that are thrown, life brings in with it lot of surprises, pleasant and not so pleasant. Some people conquer them all and rejoice the success and some fail to make it big. Whatever it is, it is still not the end of this beaultiful thing called life. They fall and get up again and there lies the glory of life.

The point I am trying to make here is let us take a stop and think of how often we crib about the bad roads, the sultry weather, the lack of order, the traffic jams, the bad food in the office, the crowded trains, the bad customer service, the load shedding, the pollution, the honking of the horns, the bad grades, the job that sucks, the uncleanliness...this and many more. From the time we get up till we till we close our eyes. I just want to say that its time we start cherishing this gift called life.

I once read a thought saying " I cried so long because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet". Look up to the challenged, physically and mentally, learn a lesson or two, learn about the stories of their conviction, determination , stories of endurance and pain to reach a pinnacle of success. Talk to a man who has survived an accident or who has just comeout from a coma or a soldier who stands guard on the line of fire. They are the people who help us realise what a wonderful gift life is.

Life is full of surprises where we dont know what is in store for tomorrow. It is said that today is a gift and hence it is called present. Let us learn to live in the moment and live it to the fullest. It is not wrong to have dreams. Let us all have a dream that we can chase, a dream that can bring out all the passion, the best out of us. But today let us not hurt anyone , today let us make an effort to better someones life, today let us call someone just to say 'hi', today make use of the time cause tomorrow may just not come.

Probably, time and again such instances force me to look at life from a different perspective. All said, Amol would always be in my memories and this loss is simply not recoverable, to his family, freinds and everyone. Amol, u will be truly missed....

Salaam Infosys..

2008-07-12T05:26:00.000-07:00

Well 11th July is a date that would always be a special one in my mind...for one reason is that had I not resigned to pursure my MBA, I would have finished 3 complete years in this wonderful organisation called Infosys. It has taught me things far more than what I can express but the least I can do is to salute it with a blog.

Well to begin with, my bond with Infosys started in June 2004 with this dream company coming to our campus for placements. All young bright minds dressed to look best made their way through heavy rains , puddles, potholes to the placement room. Few quick quizzes, a small chat and a one day wait..that was all that was required to hear the most awaited words "Welcome aboard to Infosys". What a sigh of relief it was to get placed a year before your graduation.

The last year of graduation just zipped by and the college days, the fun days ended...leaving us at the door of this big corporate world. Just a minute..did I say end of fun days..well not really.... Infosys began as a college outside the college. I had a huge bunch of friends 11 of us with just 22 pieces of luggages, who set off on this wonderful journey. Thanx to some of the most innovative money saving ideas that my freind had, we had booked a 3 tier non ac compartment which was soon filled by our attrocious decibel levels. 24 hours of this train journey from Mumbai to bangalore followed by 4 hours to Mysore brought us to the extremly heavenly paradise called the training centre.

No one who knows even a bit about Infosys needs to be described about this "name-it-and-you-have-it" Mysore campus. The amazing trainings, the late night assignments, the gym ,the sports club, the awesomely comfortable beds in the room, the cycles in the campus...it was a home outside home. Whoever has worked in Infosys but not trained in Mysore has probably missed the best welcome that any corporate could ever offer.

I was lucky to have worked in great teams. As a fresher life was so simple. It was so easy to make mistakes and blame it on inexperience. Working late nights before project deadlines was fun. Litres of caffeine was gulped down the throat to keep the eyes from shutting. Coding was an experience of a lifetime. It is great to see days n months of code being translated into something as big as an online banking site for a big American bank. As I grew to a team leader, I realised what kept Infosys going..the young and fresh talent packed with enthusiasm to create something big. As i worked with freshers i was amazed to see their energy and passion that they put in the work. More often I see people mocking at the kind of recruitment spree that Infosys has taken up in past few years...but who cares...they take the best talent and continue to be the best in India.

What makes Infosys so special is its culture. We screamed, shouted, gave birthday bumps , cut cakes , sometimes had stupendously long lunch breaks, wasted a complete day in something as stupid as a cubicle decoration competetion. Never ever were questioned by anybody. The cubicle was a place to discuss things from Bollywood to politics..from MBA talks to onsite opportunities....from stock markets to certifications. The motto was simple..work bloody hard and party like crazy.

Well I would be lying if I said i never cursed Infosys. The hottest season was the appraisal season. Everyone had a spiced up story to tell after his/her appraisal discussion and how no one appreciated the hard work, how crappy the appraisal system was. We have spent hours giggling on the fact that same feedback was given to the entire team like: improve communicatin skills, be more assertive..blah blah..a fact that all Infy PMs will deny and all SE's will support :). The next in line would probably be April and the topic of the month would be how pathetic the hike was and how it was unfair that freshers were getting almost the same as the experienced lot..another hyped up false conclusion. Next was the "Last Day at Infosys" season from Jun to Aug for people opting for higher studies. We even used to bet on the number of mails that wud hit our inboxes in a week or a day. But the best of all was November or the jaundice season ( better known as the CAT jaundice in Infosys). It was sadd to hear how people fell ill (read: studied hard for CAT) from Nov 1 to Nov 20 only to look even more healthier and fatter when they rejoined. :). Other petty things such as "how hard we are made to work", "how inconsiderate the onsite is","how much the foodcourt sucks","how crammed the cubicle was", "how stupid of the client to remove us from Infosys netowrk and make us work on the bank netowork" were topics to be sulked upon perenially.

Whatever it is, it is a great place to be in. It is said that it is easy to get in Infosys than to get out. Founded by Indias most respected people, the values on which it was built on 25 years ago still permeate even to the lowest level. Close to three years in Infosys have transformed from a college graduate into a person ready to take on bigger challenges in life. Infosys has brought me a long way from Mumbai to Mysore to Bangalore to Pune and then to Mexico. My dreams and ambitions might have taken me away from here but the memories of the first pay, the first project delivery, the first project party, the first appraisal, the first goof up, the first client interaction, these and many more of such firsts will always remain special...Hope that it grows in leaps and bounds.

Connecting the dots....

2008-07-11T09:28:00.000-07:00

Few days back i happened to hear a Steve Job speech. In the speech he told a simple story of connecting the dots...something that we all must have experienced yet never realised to the fullest..He says "It was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college but it was very very clear looking backwards 10 years later. You cant connect the dots looking forward but you can only connect them looking backward,so you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in the future. You have to trust in something - your destiny, karma whatever because believing that the dots will connect in the future will give you the confidence to follow your heart, and that will make all the difference."

A great speaker he is, these words touched me and made me retrospect on all those small moments in my life where i failed, fell, cried but somehow looking back i now realise those were the best turning points in my life..

So often i have cribbed over things that slipped out of my hand only to realise now that there were other things that were meant for me....dont know weather better or worse..but just those that were truly meant for me..

I joined a junior college much against the wishes of everyone. It was a humble college with just two classes one for 11th and the other for 12th. I remember my 1st kadam in the JC thinking if I made a right choice joining SES – my to be junior college, a strict dress code – compulsory salwaar kameez, a stupid jacket to top it, as if we were not covered head to toe, sharing the building with school kids – right they were kids now in just 1 year. But looking back, I can affirm that I made more than a right choice, I made bonds that I will cherish, bonds that will remain forever with me. We were a group of 13 girls!!, yes only girl group, or better a girl gang and it was so much fun.

I struggled and slogged so that I score good enough to make it to my dream college but just couldnt grab the marks that cud get me in. I settled for something else but those were the most wonderful years of my life. The college had so much to offer and the learnings at my engineering, the campus, the fun filled festivals, the waits at Vidyavihar station, the long walks from station to our college, the numerous sugarcane juice stops, the xerox wala..the list is never ending...no other college could have given me all this under one roof...Here again I made a whole bunch of wonderful freinds that i would cherish my whole life...

The campus placements was a huge event with two biggies coming to campus on the same day..I failed to get though one and lo..here i was not celebrating over my placement but sulking over others comments how the other company was better. Only after three years when i wrote my "last day at Infosys" mail I realised what i was leaving behind. A bunchful of corporate experience, the celebrations of project completions, the team spirit gathered in the competetions, the late night parties, the joy of beautiful campuses, the long chats at lunch tables, the transfers from one city to another and most importantly, the tremendous confidence of being independent and adaptive...one of the learnings that i would have surely missed had I not joined here....

Instances like the above and many more like these have come and gone...It is only today that i realise why they happened. Everywhere my road turned unexpectedly, it has only turned to a better, livelier, wonderful path.

I have a friend who always says that have faith in what you are doing and put your best in it. God would take care of the rest. Today again I am at a crossroad where the path ahead is unkwown, risky and uncertain. Path behind is untraceable and unretreatable. Here again I see myself doubting my steps. It is now that I need to show faith and hope that the dots will somehow connect..not into an unsolvable mesh but into a indeed beautiful picture...Till then..just wait and connect the dots...

Bus ka safar..

2008-07-08T09:32:00.003-07:00

As a part of celebrations for our term end exams, we decided to go to Pondichery...and the best part of the trip was the bus journey...Singing songs that were attrociously vulgar to bhajans ..jumping on the seats...all this took me back to my school days...the wonder years and the amazing bus travels..

As a child, bus travel was something which I always looked forward to. Thinking about it now, we were lucky to be in school with an extremely good bus service (though that time we always loved when the buses came late as it was an official half day at school) along with a very kind conductor. Ram Kaka, as we called him, exactly knew where each one of us got in and got down and was extremely tolerant to all the hungama that was done inside the bus. Every evening as the school bell rang, each one of us used to be in extreme hurry to run up to the bus and book a window seat. So much used to be the competetion that sometimes we would throw our bags through the window on to the seat inside so as to avoid increasing the bottleneck developed at the bus door.

Bus time was equivalent to fun time. Everything was done in the 20 mins journey. Thanks to the dumpy road that led to our school, few minutes of travel were nothing less than those on a essel world ride. To add to that, we used to stand and jump all over the bus which often led the heads of the taller lot to hit the roof. The journey back home was more pleasurable. All games left half way during the recess time were saved to be finished in this journey. If there was no unfinished businesses then we invented new games that could be played sitting accross the seats. Antakshari to Rapid Fire, punja to statue..all games were efficiently managed within the confined space of the bus.

More often, bus was the place to do things restricted in school. Playing holi was one of it. None of us used to fail to fill full our water bottels a day before Holi. Splashing water all over the bus and applying colours was never stopped by our very own Ram Kaka. On the contrary exam time used to be the exact contrast. It was time to revise(i wonder how i managed to study the whole syllabus because never after that i have managed to do it), to discuss so called "important" questions, to mug up last minute answers and to pray to God for a descent paper.

As I moved to college, the city bus was used as a mode of travel. I had a couple of freinds who accompanied me to my classes. The talks were varied..drifting from college gossips ..to Bollywood...to career goals..Although according to us it was a hush-hush affair, most of the times we were often given strange looks from the commuters who objected on the decible levels of our chats that we conviniently ignored. I was amazed at how the conductor would remember which passenger had taken a ticket and who hadnt and the high level of skills that he used to make his way in the over crowded bus.

Years later in my corporate life, bus again become an inseparable part of my life. We had the best buses in town running every day and night on perfect time. But sadly, as the saying goes...we have more channels of communication but we care less to keep in touch...All ears hooked up on radios , ipods or mp3s and all eyes either shut or focussed on some games. We seldom knew or bothered to know who the person sitting next to us was. Like zombies we used to get in and get out.

As kids we never once about old dusty buses running on potholed roads. Today even an air conditioned bus is not good enough. We used to sit crammed 4-5 of us on a three seater so as to play in a better way but now even a complete seat is uncomfortable ...I wonder sometimes if we see life better as kids....

A new journey...

2007-11-10T22:17:00.000-08:00

As I stepped out of car and in the airport, my heart sunk. It was going to be my first stay outside my country. As I turned back for last time to wave everyone a goodbye my steps got heavier. Checking in, getting the boarding pass, the security check all went off as if I was hypnotized. Vision blurred as past few years flashed on mind like a never ending reel of film. As I saw Mumbai sparkle in lights from the plane above, I knew that there was no turning back now.

Past few days has buzzed off so fast. One fine day, I was called by my DM to ask me about my willingness to go to Mexico. For a moment I thought that it was yet another managerial way to pacify the poor lot of us who had lost out on the ever increasing H1 battle. I agreed without hesitation knowing little what my “si” had in store for me. Come September and the lucky few with visa got busy with their preparations for chilling cold in Charlotte. Taken completely aback, I was asked to apply for Mexico visa.

I panicked. What about my CAT. What about my applications. What about my ISB interview. Many questions but no answer. Right from applying my visa, convincing myself to be prepared, convincing the client of my oracle capabilities (which I didn’t have any) and most importantly convincing my parents. Somehow they always seem to have better argument points than me…especially when it comes to the decisions that I take all by myself and seem to be pretty sure that it would be the best for me.

Next few days would have been the most irresolute days of my life so far. I was taking up something I wasn’t even sure it was right. Grown up in a joint family, surrounded by dozens of cousins immersed in friends, how was I to even think of staying alone? But that was not the only thing that was worrying me. Different well wishers giving different advice. Some built up my courage while others mocked at my decisions. Stranded at a crossroad where the road ahead was not visible and road behind was not traceable. There were nights where I felt lost …not knowing what was in store the next day.

Things seemed even worse when no one was ready to cooperate. The visa, the travel, the forex, the laptop guys... all of them seemed to behave as thought they were ruling the world…all the things were messed up. I kept telling myself to hold on….my parents pressuring me to postpone my trip at least till Diwali, my friends persuading me to rethink, my managers forcing me to move soon….middle of it I cried for someone to hear my voice...someone to stand beside me to tell that I was right...someone to get me out of this maze...

Things happen when they have to…and so here I was …flying over the Indian Ocean…all the way to Pacific….It is said that life happens when you are busy making some other plans. I believe this is just the beginning of lot of things that Monterrey has in store for me….

Truly, Madly, Deeply - Independent

2007-08-15T10:11:00.000-07:00

Today, as India celebrates its 60th year of independence, undoubtedly, nations across the globe who, few years ago, disregarded India to be a country of snake charmers now struggle to call India a 'third world country'. Today the prime minister of India in his speech not only celebrated India's economical progress but also showcased his concern on the upliftment of the rural India - essentially the farmers, who are, without any doubt, the support system of todays growing India. All over India people have debated on whether India is truly independent or is still a slave of its own burden of problems and what is the meaning of true independence.

As a child, the idea of independence was very concise. The Independence Day and the Republic Day were seen as just another days of celebration in the school. Days of practice put into perfecting the marchpast, rehearsing patriotic songs so that they were sung in total sync and finally rejoicing the hoisting of the tricolour- this was what Independence Day broadly symbolised. Stories narrated by our teachers of the freedom fighters used to generate a tremendous sense of patriotism in our young minds though the meaning of patriotism for us at that time was restricted to giving one's life for one's country. In that sense, only the freedom fighters of glorious past and the army men at our borders were truly patriotic.

In a more day-to-day world , as a school kid, being independent was to read the timetable and to pack one's bag without parents gudance, being independent was to go on school camps and to live independently, being independent was also to decide which stream to take based on what one's interests were, being independent was to venture out independently with freinds to fill out college admission forms. As school life ended, I thought that this essentially spelt freedom.

Junior college dreams were much bigger, challenges were more, hopes were high, though the meaning of freedom was essentially that of what a teenager would have. On a lighter note, freedom was shopping on my own, freedom was watching movies with friends , freedom was to follow the latest fashion trends, and freedom was to dream a dream of a great career.

As I grew, my world widened to encompass the society that surrounded me.
Reservations were abundant, encroaching on the oppurtunities of those who really deserved.
Even today, I have utmost respect and admiration for people who work hard to earn money for survival, for those who work hard so that their education is not hampered. But the ones enjoying the fruits of reservation were not necessarily the ones who deserved it. This hurted me a lot beacuse it hit me directly and painfully.
Measures for betterment were abundant but did not reach the ones for whom they were intended. I was shaken up to reality and pitched across to the real world. This was the time I realised what the voice of India essentially meant to say when they cried for true Independence. True independence now demanded a social equality and a prosperity of every citizen of this country.

Today, as the part of nations work force, my world has enlarged from four corners of my house to this cornerless world. Indians have spread across the globe making India proud in every sense. According to a recent poll conducted by a leading news channel, 92% youngsters wanted to be reborn as Indians. And why not. India with all its faults is still someone to be proud of, which is essentially why we call her our 'Mother India'. How much ever though we may agree that India has achieved a lot in these years, there is still a long long way to go.

60 years after independence, India finally has a women president. However this news was followed by the news of acid attacks against women, by the death due to less dowry, by the news of child marriages. It is this that is holding back India from becoming what it can truly can become. Today, India may not be the greatest nation in this world, but it has potential to be one. It is in this India that every one should be capable to dream a dream for himself and realise it to the fullest. It is in this India that every man and woman, girl and boy should be able to live a life free from injustice, free from discrimination , free from poverty. Only such a India will prosper in years to come and only then can we celebrate our 'Independence' - truly, madly, deeply.

Chata hai jindagi ke liye

2007-06-10T03:26:00.000-07:00

As monsoons are fast approaching, shops are already flooded with colourful umbreallas for all age groups. Every year lakhs of umbrellas are brought and thousands are lost at shops, in trains, rickshaws and every possible place.
Last week I watched a movie "Cheeni Kum" whose central character of the movie was essential the traditional black grandpa umbrella. Although the movie did not take into account a very important aspect of what finally happened to the umbrella, it once again stressed on the fact of how inseparable our bollywood is from the umbrella. Be it the evergreen song "Pyar hua ikraar hua hai" or "Main koi aisa geet gau" or numerous other songs....Its not just about the rain..its about being under one umbrella which romanticizes the entire scene..how the heroine runs frantically in the rains only to find shelter under our very own heroes umbrella.

And its not just the bollywood. Its something which I have always admired.
From childhood i had a secret admiration for umbreallas. As a child, i was always made to wear a raincoat that covered me head to heels. Few years later this too had a makeover and changed into windsheeter- a modfied version of raincoat essentially made for the little senior lot of the school who had started becoming fashion concious. However I was always jealous of the few elite classmates who would carry an umbrella.

After lot of crying and acting I got my first umbrella. It was big bright red one with small white balls placed at the ends of the umbrella strings which would prevent anyone from getting hurt. The top had a bright red mickey mouse cartoon on it which i am extremely fond of even today. I was now a part of the elite few in my school and did not waste any chance of showing it off even when it was sunny. I took extra care of that umbrella and used to neatly pack it in its plastic cover without fail. It had a special corner reserved for it in my house and even in school it used to be cautiously hung over the bench in front of me.

However my connection with the umbrella was short lived. Once, after the school bell rang we were all lined up to leave for the day when one of my PE teachers snatched my umbrella and went off to scare someone. I tried following him but he soon dissappeared and so did my umbrella. I went over to ask him for it the following day but all I got was "Sorry....i must have misplaced it somewhere".And it was gone...I never got it back.....I cried that day after the school. I find it very funny now when I look back at it because there are so many more important things that i have lost after ths incident and not shed a tear for it....But probably it just showed that how important small thing in life are.

In life we gain and loose a so many things. Some things do not affect our life in any way but some seem to leave an impression for ever.Things that seem so unimportant to others may play a very important role in your life. I have always believed in forgetting things that i have lost in life. However this loss though may seem so insignificant, is still not forgotten.

I have bought several umbrellas after that- red, blue, green- big and small, cheap and costly.. but this one has always been in my memories.
As every monsoon brings so much life with it...fresh green trees and fresh smell of the earth, as much as it brings to life the memories of my long lost umbrella.

Battle lost or won?

2007-05-19T09:50:00.000-07:00

This being my first attempt to write a blog made me apprehensive..nervous..No sooner had i finished writing a few lines...i erased them and fratically started reading my friends blogs searching on tips on how to go about penning my expeirence...But this was my interview...my answers.... and it had to be truly "me".So here it goes....

It started a few months back...when i had given up all my hopes on CAT,SNAP,NMAT,XAT and thousand other exams..CET was the saviour for me...But much to my dismay..my percentile could not keep in pace with the ever increasing race to MBA admissions...one gud thing about this percentile is that even though ur score isnt gud enough u still end up getting 93 "percentile" sounding very good to people unknown to this cut throat competition...

Ok .so coming back to this MBA struggle..i had lost the battle on the results day and lost all the motivation to mug answers to questions like "Why do want to do MBA".."Why do you want to chose this institute"....and other answers which are so meticulously crafted that once me and my freind joked about it saying that the candidate could actually vomit out the answer on just hearing a "Why".

But all my friends urged to me attend the interview process though i was more than just confident that even my best performance would not help me get a seat. But i decided to try it as an experience..a try where i would go to the interview...completely fearless..with a attitude where i had nothing to loose...and this was the golden opputunity.....

Me and my friend Deepali made up big plans on how to "improve" our Gk by reading up few magazines..Few days after this decision...we had started reading newspapers in and out...surfing through sites IBN Live...Collecting small articles to read through the bus journey which otherwise used to be utilised to complete our sleep...And we actually used to meet on Yahoo chats and discuss India Globalisation...

Phew...this was a drastic change in me...There was me who used to be addicted to MTV and Channel V..who only knew which singer was performing in which part of India...
and here was I...hooked on to CNN-IBN....And gradually i developed interest in all that was happening..from UP Polls to Gujrat Encounters... I investigated the 2007 Budget and India's agriculture sector...From India's commercial sattelite launcher to mergers ad acquisitions.

I cannot say how much it helped me in my interiew or how much more marks it added in my GD score..but it has definitely helped me in developing a keen interest in the world that surrounds me...
My world has expanded from four corners of my home to this cornerless universe!!