Water eyed

India booming and India shining are some of the messages and slogans which I have been hearing since I was in my hey days, meaning my college days. Although I never got the real sense of it as I never had to think about the issues my father faces when he used to give me whopping 10,000 Rs a month to make me feel good and among the ‘haves’ in the society. I still remember my sixth semester when I went to shopping week after week buying some 3-4 branded T-shirts. The life style addiction was at the peak at that time and I never had any reason why I shouldn’t buy anything I felt like.

May be that was because I have grown up watching things only from a distance when my friends used to avail eat sitting in their lounge. This gives rise to a rarely surfacing memory instance when I ran after a 7’up (Lehar 7’up) up to 1km, due to the deep urge inside me to have it in the season of summer. That was because; from starting I and my brother were taught to behave at the first cloud and not at the seventh cloud. I also remember avoiding many times “samosa” at my school canteen because of ‘Maa doesn’t like it’ factors. These memories are still afresh in my memory when, I don’t think about having a cup of barista coffee, oops sorry CCD coffee, as barista is passé now. Yes things have changed. Now I don’t think about issues like ‘what If I save this money’. That doesn’t mean that I keep splurging but, nowadays the “friction-index” between the money and my wallet is less than ever, unlike the Sensex.

I know that for most of the readers, it’s hard to believe that those were the finer days when I used to spend less, but had less tension as well. Those memories make me water eyed today, because now, thanks to liberalization I am even able to think for a to and fro air journey from my home to job without taking any external help.

The next logical question: why this discussion is at place now. This is no randomization of thoughts. Some days back I read many articles which were bound to come from some of the finest writers as a response to the rising inflation rate. The articles came in many flavors ranging from plain vanilla describing the efforts that needs to be taken by Indian government to curb inflation to sad flavors like “how people are affected?”. I read many of the articles out of those and have a fair idea about how various segments of the society are fighting a loosing battle to strike a balance between inflation rates and ‘no hike in the salary’ events.

I was most moved by the current status of a woman who is a house maid who is fighting hard to eat well and sleep well. She has 2 daughters, both working and earning a meager amount to make it to twin meals a day. Her husband is a middle man between the common man and the retailers. He thanks daily to the “Walmartization” of society which entails no money for the middle man. The woman’s husband daily take home salary (these people don’t have monthly salary) has dropped to rs 50 from rs 100. The question of this woman is how she will get her family 2 meals a day from the current salary of her and her husband’s concatenated. The question is very logical and of course a frustration yielding, at the same time yielded by frustration.

According to the lady, they have stopped having non veg meals long back and the condition is so severe that now they have even stopped having 4 times a day and get satisfied with two half cups. Not to mention, they have stopped preparing once in an year dishes like ‘vada’ which were once prepared only in Pongal. India shining and the real Indian not getting his share of pie is the question to be pondered upon !

Should I then conclude that India shining is befitted for us IT professionals who are being offered more salary than anytime to suit our needs? To generalize, whenever such shining happens due to the cherry blossom imported from the US, a normal man is never benefited. yes, and why should he be? Right? Sad !!

So guys, next time your maid asks you for salary hike, don’t refuse her. Yes, Indian IT scene is more buoyant then any other time but the penetrated Indian is still in his ‘daily bread earning’ battle.

just like that

wow ! so finally the 'sleep as much as you can' day came. I slept upto 1'o clock today. Bad habit ! yes, but well deserved as I was really burning midnight oils since last 3 weeks. I said to myself that enuf is enuf. Sleep to prove a point and rather to brush away the jinx that ayush cannot sleep much nowdays.

Last saturday's sleep was washed away coz of my uncle's visit to my place. Anyways the need of the hour is reading. Gaush !! so much material to read and so less a time.I have finally ordered a business news national daily. Just take a look at any biz national daily. The looks say it all. Yellowish orange instead of white. yes, colors do matter to me.

The news are purely professional and industry oriented. The person who havent had a look at those kind of news wont even realize that the world is so big and umpteen transactions going over, be it mushrooming of start ups at the blink of eye or some tata/birla/mittal/? going for an overseas buying.

The edit page in such papers is also concentrated for all biz related news rather than Bachi kakaria or gurucharan das throwing some wanna be read material. Just read what a "market maniac" as they call themselves, have to say about the market and you got to know things or two more about the biz world.

Nothing like you cant get such material in TOI but at the end of day its all about getting the best literature for the same things rather than going for "also published" material.

Hey! its close to six and net time is gonna end , so lest I miss out on that front, I need to publish this "just like that" piece of blog.

happy weekend.

Black Tuesday

Thinking of surfing the internet to get the information about the possible new movie coming to your nearest multiplex. No it ain’t the name of a new movie. It’s the name of last night which made me almost cry, metaphorically. Yes, boys can cry as emotional downpour is allowed independent of any gender.

Last night is the first night I had to spend hungry with the rare species of the world playing tug of war inside my stomach. I felt everything after I had to sleep empty stomach, with my appetite knocking the doors of my conscience and begging for a handful of food which would have maintained the last value assigned to it. I felt helpless.I felt irritated and most of all, I felt alone. Really all alone!

It so happened that I had to stay in the office for some ‘critical to the project’ work. Although I don’t like to stay in the office for so long , I had to, as this blog had to publish. The weather here yesterday followed the trends of the whole country and it rained heavily, though unexpectedly. As I am not a big visionary, I didn’t carry any warm clothes. Therefore, weather was a typical rainy season cold weather. To “walk” in such cold weather at 11 of night was a bizarre for me. I could see many ruthless bikers who didn’t stop on the way to drop their fellow Infoscion and, following the principles of “duniyaa-dari” why would they?

Anyways, my friend talked to me the whole way on phone albeit he left me alone while I was getting closer to home. Now I was back to the real world though, less professional in nature. I could sense and smell danger waiting for me in the dining table when I saw all the shops closed. Now the only option left for me was to look for anything where I could something. No, there is no one to welcome you in that substandard shop where paneer costs you Rs 10 a plate. After calling that shopkeeper for about 4 times he replied affirmatively. This confirmed my order for a plate of sabji.

This was the same shop where I couldn’t even stop to spit had time been little faithful to me. I was feeling no less than Amitabh Bachhan of “Lavaaris” who had it enough of life and had more strokes from the time then the number of chapattis.( 25 saali ki zindagi mein roti kam choten zyada khaaya hoon). At the same time I couldn’t avoid feeling like an army man who has destroyed his personal life for his nation known as Infosys.

Yes, I was back to square one. All were standing there. A rickshaw vaala, an auto vaala and a labour of near by construction setup. No Infy tag is gonna work and no verisimilitude of the Infy guard is gonna let you take any food before him if, he is standing before you. What a shift in the status. Wearing Red tape shoes, working for a billion dollar firm and standing with the common multitude that at time may be preferred over you owing to the customer loyalty perspective.

This is the time when I again realized that everybody in this world is onto his own. I couldn’t ring my Mom, dad nor disturb any one because that would have only disturbed their life with, anything they say only theoretically right. Anyways, I took whatever he prepared whole heartedly and appreciated myself for my robust and adjusting nature. I opened my room and took around 1.5 minutes to get to the so called dining space, shifting channels with no special channel in my mind. The momentum imparted by my hunger was transmitted to the channel button. And now what? The obvious oblivious thing. No sooner I ate my first bite did I realize the inedibility of the carried food which made me stand with ‘also stood in the shop’ people. This completes the foundation of this blog.

Name it anything; I was not comfortable standing and competing with the people standing there. As a matter of fact, I am not even comfortable competing with the fellow infoscions for a thing as basic as food which has no yellow metal or diamonds attached to it. Well, what happened had to happen!! So, no regrets. Some great man has said that every problem in the world is an oppurtunity to improve your condition. Lets see how that saying manifests itself in my case.

Hello !!! Is any director listening ?

Bund Bund se bhare Matka

Ha ha ha ha...what?? dont ask me what happened. I am just coming from what is called a skip level meeting. For people who dont know, in this meeting the PMs or the Project Managers are skipped. This is done so as to make the whole crowd at ease which is only possible when the PMs are not around.

and what ?? ha ha ..it worked . More ironically is it so because the PMs themselves told us that "speak something in the meeting". What an Irony !! a criminal is telling me to give a "gavaahi" at the court against him. And, that was done. People spoke at length and in group. Even the dumbest spoke this time. The guy who till yesterday was being urged from the junta to speak a bit more was appreciated this time.

This clearly again supported the adage that a single stick cant do anything but a bunch of sticks can work wonders. It all started with a single guy taking an initiative and the rest following him as a matter of fact. Good show !! I am but more than happy. More happy because I could observe this time a sense of satisfaction in people who opened their rebellion outfit to the whole world for the first time.

I am more than happy as today all were talking at par and showed today that there were more than mere puppets of their PM who otherwise holds their strings of direction. I am more than happy as I could see a more leveraged discussion this time. I am happy as I could see more confidence in the walking style of people.

Nevertheless, I am having a sympathy with the managers as they are the people who are near to us all the time. They do some play acts sometime. They do have some strange handling tactics sometimes so as to make the people work who normally would like to chill in some other activities like "blogging"..ha ha ha ..I am a big big escapist.

The GPM as always was patiently listening to the complains of the people and did more than just nodding his head to his affirmation. He has always been a good man to talk to. He understands that he 'd have done something similar sometime in his career and will definitely step into the managers shoes before giving his verdict.

Probably, thats why the word perspective is being defined.

speechless

Seriously, I am of no use..I had only 1 good habit of penning down my emotions over a page of blog. This was the only creativity outlet I had to come out of crowd. No Man !! this's not done.
I am not gonna give up the habit of writing blog.

Some near past failures like failing the IBM interview have again sown the seed of dreadfulness and non-complacency, often required to write down few words. For people who are not in touch, I had a reasonably good interview at IBM ( only according to me) just to listen that I wasnt good enuf to be taken into consideration.

Pooh, IBM you, and not I shall be regretful for not taking me. I woke up around 9 am ( a rare scenario on saturday for office goers) to study my old Mainframes concepts. I mugged many things and as a result of that , I was in top notch to score 28 marks out of 50. Still, the interviewer said that "I need to be moderate in my approach . Point taken sir !! .

Mr Anonymous also said that sometimes I should also face the fire of rejection to have a shine at par with gold in long term. Your point is also taken sir !! The very few logical things I need to do now is to improve my Tech knowledge to come out with running if not flying colors.

Failures are only step stones for success is being said by some chosen fews of the world and I am too short of height to reject that and feel cribbing and remorseful about every minute details of the interview.

hereby, I take an oath that within 1 month I shall come out with flying colors.