Random Ramblings over a weekend

It has been a couple of weeks since I wrote something here. Work has kept me busy, and is going to be so for the next couple of weeks.

Enough and more has been said about Sachin Tendulkar, especially in the last few weeks. SRT, in '90s as Rajdeep Sardesai, writes in his column in HT, represented the energy and enthusiasm of the new India that was emerging from unshackling of the socialist era. He changed the paradigm. He transformed the [self] image of Indians from being quiet, striving also-rans to a force to reckon with and more importantly decimators of opposition. Not too many people realise this, but the jingoistic fans of today would have little to cheer if SRT had not laid the base, back in the mid 90s.

Watching him play is pure bliss. It is a privilege to have witnessed his knocks both on TV and in person. This is an article written in 1988, about SRT before he made his debut, by Harsha Bhogle. Here is a man, who fulfilled his destiny

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There is Metro rail construction near my office in Bombay. There has been some construction going on in my office area, ever since I moved to Bombay - be it flyover, underpass, foot over bridge and now metro rail.

The construction has made the road so narrow that there are traffic jam lasting an half an hour is common every day. This means that no auto-rickshaw is willing to venture near my office both in the mornings and in the evenings. A 5 min ride from my home to the office translates to 15 min wait for the auto rickshaw in the morning, and a 30 min wait in the evening. Many a days I walk back home- a 20 min walk. If there was a pedestrian track, footpath etc, I would love to walk to work and back. However, I have to wade through horrible traffic and carbon monoxide emitting automobiles. Not at inviting option at all.

I am exasperated with the situation. I have been patient enough for past 3.5 years, hoping that things will get better, but no. The city of Mumbai has terrible infrastructure. It sucks. Roads are bad, traffic is worse, public transport isn't planned. For Bombay-ites or mumbai-kars, this city is the best-est place in the whole wide world. Start a conversation about Bombay/Mumbai, and words like cosmopolitan nature, open society, live and let live, enterprising nature and of course.. 'spirit of Mumbai' is thrown at you. Spirit of Mumbai is like 'Mere Paas Maa Hai' statement. No one knows what it is supposed to mean, but once uttered, it cannot be countered by logic.As a fellow blogger once wrote,' [In Mumbai] where people wore the badge of cosmopolitanism like an honour to outshine the irksome space crunch and commuting chaos.'

I am not able to justify to myself the insanely high cost of living and the terrible quality of life. If one doesn't live in south Bombay, Bandra or such areas, and /or does not have an own house, he definitely is up for a very tough time.

Net, Teleconferencing, Video conferencing, Virtual presence all have changed the way we do business. I don't necessarily have to be stationed where my partners, suppliers, customers and banks are anymore. This will surely make people and businesses consider options beyond Bombay in the near future. Businesses and people will migrate away if the infrastructure isn't stepped up significantly. And that migration may be to a city a few 100 kms away in Gujarat. People who have not visited Gujarat in the past 5 years should go there now. Check out the physical infrastructure that is available across Gujarat. A financial capital is coming up which is already the talk in the business circles.

Sachin Tendulkar says that Mumbai belongs to all Indians. He speaks the truth. Mumbai has come to typify all the problems that India faces in different parts of the country. Poor infrastructure, terrible or no planning, lack of coordination, resource constraints, linguistics/ regionalist politics and so on.

Ps: I know every other city, town, village in this country faces similar problems, if not worse. I am not comparing Bombay to any other place. I believe I have earned the right to crib about the city after living here for past 3.5 years.

The above paragraphs may be too harsh and negative. I have chosen to highlight only the negatives. I am quite aware of that.

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Have you guys seen ‘Ajab Prem ki Gajab Kahaani’? If you haven't then you guys have really missed something.. errr... someome - Katrina Kaif. Sigh! She is beautiful, pretty, gorgeous.. Oh! I could go on and on and on.. Anyone who can arrange a for a small tete-e-tete meeting between me and Katrina and take a picture of both of us shall be rewarded beyond his/her imagination. He/She shall be praised a thousand times in this world and the next. He shall get special mention in my blog, my twitter, facebook, email etc. I shall sincerely pray that his/her [day] dreams come true.

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I was in Bangalore a week ago for my cousin sister's wedding. It was something we all have been looking forward to for the past so many months. We all arrived 3 days in advance to participate in the sangeet and also help out in the wedding preparation. In spite of one's best efforts to execute a wedding successfully and going out of way to please everyone, people will crib. Period. Especially about the food and khatirdari - reception/ ease of movement/ travel to and fro from the wedding hall etc.

I was in charge of the transportation, logistics, reception and send off committees. Ok, there was no committee, only two of us - me and my uncle. It was a huge logistical nightmare. There were 132 people coming from out of town from the boy’s side and around 50ish from our side. The people were put up in 4 different service apartments. People had to be received from the stations (bus/ train), transported to the service apartment then to the wedding hall and back and all this multiple times over two days. Not everyone had to be present for all the functions and a few people of course had to be accorded special attention.

We had a 3 hour first day meeting to take stock of the trains, planes and buses people were coming in. Being the MBA, I drew up two huge flow charts, one to chart out movement of various people and the other for the vehicles. Quite meticulous planning, I must say.

The next two days were whizzed by. I started my reception work on Friday evening at 7.30 pm at the station and continued till 10.30pm. Then the next batch was expected at 3.40 am on Saturday morning and so on till the last group arrived at 7 am. The Platform ticket checker and I bonded over chai at 3.30 am with me cribbing that one should be allowed to by platform tickets for a day. The fun was when one of trains was late and it upset our vehicle flow timings. Much joy happened! Anyways I will spare details of the next two days, but I would say that to the untrained eye, things went off smoothly. And what more, I was also involved in a lot of festivities and had a lot of fun too!!!

And now that the cousin is married and all, all eyes are trained on me. I was told 1657 times by people I knew and didn’t, that route was clear and I should be next. I don't think my route was ever blocked... Anyways, there is always time when the inevitable happens. Its going to be my time soon!

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I am totally envious of people who have talent in music. I have dabbled in music a bit myself. I learnt Violin, Hindustani and Carnatic for a sum total of 7 years under 3 teachers. Every time I changed a teacher, the teacher would insist that some unlearning and learning was needed, and hence I had to restart or go backwards by a few years/ months. The net result of all of this was that, I almost always never proceeded beyond a point. Sigh! Anyways, the positive of all of this is that I have a basic understanding and a high level of interest in music but my knowledge about it is minimal. I made attempts to restart my violin lessons learning again, even in Mumbai, a couple of years ago. However, once my teacher moved out of Bombay, I lost the enthusiasm to find a new teacher and re-learn everything.

I am slowly discovering music for myself, especially Carnatic classical, jazz and world music (Shakti, Myntra, Rhydhum, Buddha bar etc). I so wish, I was proficient with an instrument. No, not a concert performance level proficiency, but a level where I could make music with gay abandon. As a blogger put it, [to be able to play] With the sort of combination of shamelessness and talent that a lot of us aspire to.

There is a certain joy, happiness and bliss in making music. Being lost in that moment is magic. Well, the next best thing is to enjoy watching when others make music. Check this link out. Don't miss it The two performers are out there absolutely enjoying the moment.

So, what do you do?

'We may not admit it, but the truth is that we all seek to be loved by the world. When we are babies, we are loved whether we burp or scream or break our toys. But as we grow up, we are suddenly thrown into a world where people judge us by our achievements or our status(rather than as our mothers did). Hence our anxiety about how we are perceived. No human being is immune from this weakness. The ego (Ahamkara) is a leaky balloon, forever requiring helium of external love to remain inflated, and ever vulnerable to the smallest pinpricks of neglect There is something at once sobering and absurd in the extent to whiche we are lifted by the attentions of others and sunk by their disregard.'

Alain de Bottom in Status anxiety.

I was blown away the moment I read this passage. This is so true. All of us love to be loved, be recognized and appreciated by others. We all exhibit this basic, almost primal need at various levels, at various forums and at in various contexts. Slowly, this need to be recognised by others gets converted to some form of affirmation of our achievements and in turn of how successful we are. Subconsciously the habit of constantly comparing ourselves to others is reinforced right from our childhood. we are given ranks when we are in school and everyone wants to know who is first. When we score a 85/100, we are asked, what did xxx score and so on? This 'need to compare' is institutionalised.

Through school and possibly college, we all as a peer group face similar situations of exams and that in one way serves as 'the' way in which people compare themselves. Once we reach late twenties and early thirties, there are no exams. Salaries, size of house, cars, places where we take vacations etc become barometers of achievement and slowly an affirmation of our success and hence in some way a measure of self worth.

This basic need to be recognised for our achievements is more often than not expressed in terms of material possessions. These material possessions are attached to some with emotional value. Thus there is this almost visceral feeling of joy and accomplishment when we acquire this material possession. I am also part of this deal. I do pause and listen to what my peers are up to, with a lot of pride and happiness and sometimes a tinge of envy. Today, more so than ever, we are asked to follow our dreams. And it is not just important to follow them, we also need to achieve some form of success. Books and movies and email forwards today glorify those who have followed their dreams and become successful. The pressure on each on of us to be successful is humongous. Let us not underestimate it. And the world is ready to give us a set of checklists, achieving which counts as success unless we clearly define what the parameters are for ourselves.

I don't think we will ever be free from the need of wanting to be recognised. The best we can do is to be cognizant of this desire in us and keep it under check.

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PS: I haven't read Alain De Botton's books but have read reviews. Do check out his website. He seems to have written on very interesting topics. http://www.alaindebotton.com/

Where is the party - Ada Namma uttla party!!!

This space has been neglected for the past couple of weeks. Not necessarily because I was busy, but because somehow I felt I did not have anything to say. (Now don't ask me if whatever I have said here so far is of supreme value or not ;) )

Last month has been different, if I may say so. Three of my friends and I took a 5 day short holiday to Sri Lanka - where we did a road trip across Sri Lanka. We had a great deal on flight tickets which we capitalised really well. 5 days was perfect, not too long, not too short. We did something different, something new each day. From beaches to temples to forts to hikes, it was a lot of fun. 5 days just whizzed by. Sigh!

This Sri Lanka trip was my first 'vacation' vacation in last 3 years. Yes, I have taken breaks but they were always one or two days off whenever I travel to a new place on work or couple of days if I go home. But this time I was in a faraway land where I was incommunicado. And I realised something very simple. Your surroundings influence you and your thoughts profoundly. When in Bombay (oops Mumbai) I can never switch off from routine work/ thoughts. When at home in Bangalore/ Chennai I cannot escape conversations or thoughts which still link back to a lot of memories (good and not so good). However, when I was in SL, I was switched off completely from routine life and conversations. It was refreshing.

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I recognise one aspect of my life - that I am immensely Lucky. I won the genetic lottery. I have great family and friends who can be called upon selfishly at any time for anything. I truly consider myself privileged. I also recognise that luck and good fortune has had a big role in my life as it does on everyone's life. Somehow I never get to articulate my thoughts and feelings to convey why I feel so strongly about this. I guess I am linguistically challenged. Hence I did the next best thing. Found someone who shares similar thoughts but can articulate it much better than I ever could.

I would recommend everyone to spare 20 min of their precious time to listen through this video.

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Two years ago, I was shifted into the team I am currently working in. For the first year or so I was working full time on this team and project and for past year my responsibilities are split between this team and a new project. Being part of this team and project has been an absolute pleasure. I know that I put in tremendous effort for this team, more than any other projects/ teams that I have worked on. And it never felt like hard work.

I remember this one time, December 2007, when I had to travel from Delhi to Ludhiana. There were no day train tickets available, so I was forced to take the night train. It was 1 degree Celsius that night and in second class compartment with the wind chill factor it was close to -1 or -2 degrees. I couldn't sleep one bit that night. I had never before experiences such cold and was ill equipped in terms of warm clothes. I thought I would freeze to death and my body could be used for some cryogenic experiments, all in the interest of science and humanity. I couldn't even sit down as the berths were frigid. I kept walking around the compartment the entire night. It did not help much when I noticed that there were only 2 others in the compartment that night. That moment I realised that if I were to sleep, I would either be frozen on mugged. Sleep deprived, cold, icicled, I walked into my hotel at 5 am, had a hot water bath and went straight to work.

This is just a funny anecdote for me. I knew I had to get the work done and the train journey was a minor irritant that had to be dealt with. But for another person I know, an incident like this, is yet another reason to crib about their job. Disregarding all other parameters and over simplifying everything else, I have come to the conclusion that the only reason, I worked harder, longer and yet did not think that it was such a pain, was because I was having fun. The team members of team A were fabulous and we got on really well. Also, we were doing something for first time in India, so there was almost entrepreneurial like feeling to the team and the work that we were doing.

Over the last year, 2 of the team mates have moved on, things are different now. Having been in this project for close to two and a half years, I have been asking for a change for a while. And I definitely think, it is time to move on for personal growth. The last few months on this project have been dull and hence it had coloured my perception of the entire three year experience.

All that changed on Friday night. Friday was our company's annual meet where we celebrated last year's performance. I won an award for 'Breakthrough Performance' on this project. The cash isn't big - a small gift voucher but the significance of the award hit me much later, when I was contemplating on the last 3 years. Working on this team and this project has equipped me with certain experiences and skill sets that are quite unique and very few people in the Indian FMCG industry have. I loved working on this project and with the team and guess what, over the past 3 years I have been recognized for my performance at various forums internally a record 6 times.

I don't write this here to brag. Yes a few compliments would be welcome :). But intent of my sharing this is that I learnt something very important. It is essential to pause occasionally and introspect. We are so busy in our day to day lives and so obsessed with planning and plotting for the next goal that we forget to recognise how far we have already come. Internalising this simple aspect, can be a source of immense self confidence. The above observation is true for me. I am spending this weekend, in my bed (as I am down with viral Fever :( ), gloating over my achievements. Monday morning is work as usual. The cycle for this year starts. The trophy closet means nothing more than higher expectations and bigger challenges to the outside world. But that is tomorrow. Today I am self indulgent.

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There she goes

It is end of an era.

MGM is a batch mate of mine from B school. She sat next to me in the first year till our electives separated us. We played silly school games sitting next to each other, passed chits, gossiped etc. Both of us were initially lost in the big bad B school world and helped each other find our way through the two years.

During our two month internship period I was in Madras and she in Bombay. She had a bad project and I was stuck in a place where everyone was 30+ and all they spoke about was diapers, admitting kids to schools and in-laws. What kept me (and her) going was yahoo messenger. MGM and I would chat incessantly on YM through the day. Two months ended, just like that.

Through second year on campus and the last three years of work, one thing that has remained constant is our chatting. When gtalk was disabled in her office we moved to another client, found some other proxy and eventually moved to mail-chat, exchanging close to 15-20 emails a day, if not more. We would talk about everything under sun - movies, music, books, our crushes, share interesting articles we read online, gossip about our batch mates/friends and so on. I don't know why, but I have a vivid recollection of this conversation when she mentioned her boyfriend/ fiancé for the first time. Never had I seen her more self assured. We are almost witnesses to each other’s lives, just living in different cities. Somehow we never run out of conversations. There have been days when sitting in Chennai office, I have chatted with her entire day then we would go out later in the evening for a drink and dinner. We would still have enough to chatter about.

My writing skills aren't spectacular, to say the least. And it was the same case when I had to fill out forms for companies to convince them that I was a suitable candidate. I would send the first draft of my form to MGM only to get it back with umpteen crosses and corrections. I wonder if she was living out her dream of becoming a teacher, like her mother, vicariously, returning my drafts with red marks all over them.

Last week she quit her job, to join her husband in US. Her She H1B visa did not get approved even though 20,000 slots are still lying vacant. A big shift for her - to sit at home at least for a while till she finds a job or they decide to shift elsewhere. It looks like her move out of India is going to last for the foreseeable future.

When I get to office tomorrow, after almost 2 weeks, I know I am not going find her 'Good morning' mail in my mailbox. Sigh! It is not like she has gone incommunicado or disappeared forever, but the nonstop (non)sense chatter that for so long, I had taken for granted, will not exist starting tomorrow. But right now, I know nothing can make her happier than being with the boy after close to 2 years of long distance.