Up to the mark!

Shreyasi Bhattacharya from West Bengal is Sa re ga ma Little champ contestant who stunned us ( me & Vrinda ) in her first performance on Zee TV with a song from Roja .... Ye hasin waadiyaan, ye khula aasmaan ..... and today she peaked her performance with another Rehmaan's song from Rangeela .... Hai Rama ye kya hua, tum kaise humein sataane lage ..... Mentors Alakaji and Abhijitda have found true talent.

She is very perfect and can sing any song ditto. Wish her all the best to become successful play-back singer and reach the heights more than this.

CEO

Well, this blog is written when I was part time teaching at Sinhgad business school. One of the students asked me what is the meaning of phrase 'Horse's Mouth' as he was regularly reading sports section article by this name in Marathi daily 'Sakal' and he was not well versed with English phrases. I did answer him but somewhere i was still not satisfied with myself as I could not really cite an example that will make it more clear. I was looking for realizing meaning of this phrase 'Horse's Mouth' subconsciously whole day and was looking out for example - doing my chores in the office. I had no sooner read Cybage CEO Arun's newsletter than I was glee with satisfaction. I had realized the meaning of Horse's mouth.

His newsletters stating the facts about Company's performance are really studded with gr8 examples, very lucid and rich language and praise of the right people. Such personal writings about organization from owner makes employee feel closer to happenings in organization as against to large organizations where CEO is merely a post. CEO's of large organization talk more of what management board has to say and not what they want to say. Sad but true fact it that CEO's of big organizations worry more about their own position and image, board consensus, stock prices but hardly about customer satisfaction and employee welfare.

Oh... i already lagged behind?

Look at this random page of my orkut friends and all save one are migrated to foreign countries almost for good. In my 5 yrs at tcs i travelled to B'lore for 6 months :)

When i see repeated pics of their families ( Save few ) posing at the backdrop of Naigara, i feel immobilised in my chair & can possibly only recall my visit to Mulshi Dam. How may i get to understand global perspective unless i travel. I am not belittling myself or my friends as they are gr8 intellectuals, but, this is just amazing observation which in fact is very common with anybody.

Kapil Sibbal doesn't want marks!

I really wonder how Mr. Sibbal's decision to do away with % marks And optional board exams is going to ease burden on children who should be made strong in this billion people world. TV channels ( Times now ) is seconding this decision by showing that yesterday a girl from Delhi committed suicide as she could not get into college of her choice, owing to reason that she was short of 2% marks to make it to admission list. But the question is how replacing the %age system is going to avoid these kind of tragedies ? The point of contention, although the girl secured 92% in this particular case, is students are dejected by not getting into top colleges or in top coures where their rivals get admitted or in colleges where their parents expected to get admition and so on..... and not because they scored less marks.

How the new system will ensure everybody will get course and college of choice? Is this the change for the sake of change? In my opinion, one thing is sure, however you try to make education across India at same level there would be yawning gap beween quality of education in differnt schools owing to reasons as varied as finger prints. Hence we should let pattern develope naturally and adopt procedures in best schools in other schools gradually. I think Sudden change like this will ceate confusion as I am pretty sure this will not ease problems which have to be solved at some other level, and in some other way.

KuNachi mhais kuNala uTh Bais !

In Pune, on law college road, after Film Institute there is lane called V G Damale Path. If you park your vehicle in this lane for having a tea on roadside tapari and come back, suddenly a man will appear and give you above recipt and you have to pay 3 Rs. Had i seen board there, or somebody told me about this fees i would never hv parked my vehicle there.

What is most interesting is matter on this receipt which you cant read here in photo but it says, " Aamhi fakt jaaga bhade gheto Aapli duchaki wyawasthit lock karavi. Sadar wahanamadhe koNtihi Moulyawan vastu theu nayet. Vastu chorila gelyas koNatihi jababdari ghetali JaaNaar naahi." - Vyawasthapak.

Thanks to Vrinds for suggesting me title.

Do like romans when in India

Well, we were like Japanese when we were actually undergoing training in TCS at Coimbatore and studying Japanese as Foreign language.
We were learning foreing language course for 2 months in 2004 as Fresh joinees. Our honourable teacher Mrs. Devdoss San was japanese widow aged above 65, living alone in Coimbatore. She had married Indian when she was studying somewhere in foreign university ( i guess in US) and never returned to Japan since her community ostracized her for marrying outside her clan.

But she steadfastly supported her husband and was very proud of her Japanese culture too. We were most lucky since we got to learn Nippon from japnese teacher herself as opposed to other bathes who got to learn German, French and so on.. with Indian teachers.

It was totally natural learning experience since we were like 1st std kids to her both in terms of our age and our knowledge of japanese and mind you, we learned Japanese songs with the same vigour of little kids and i still remember the song which goes something like - Ha Re Na Kita, Ha Re Na Kita, Nanimo Kita.

It is gr8 to see their way of expressing, pronunciation and gesture and i really think i am missing learning anything value adding like this :(

Dravid can change the rules of the game !

What i meant to say here is Rahul should ask for a change of rule and he has the right to do it as he is the highest catch taker in Test cricket. When batsman succumbs to catch-out, wicket should be given to fielder who catches it owing to his concentration, effort and expertise instead of bowler who might not be gr8 contributor all the time. Hitherto unrecognised crucial part of the game. Kudos to Rahul for world record.

TCS seeking bailout ?

Todays Times of India featured an article saying TCS allegedly paid thousands of dollars to Larry Summers (US Economic adviser to Mr. Obama) for his speeches. Larry summers has gr8 influence on Wall Street Banks and companies and is said to be resopnsible for bailout money given to these banks by US government. As per wikipedia he ( Summers) is criticised for Gender discrimination by making funny statemetns and now for getting millions of dollars for these speeches.

TATA

Almost one year October 2004 - Sept 2005 i was in Microsoft ODC ( Pune, India) in TCS and in one of the ODC events called Raazmataaz we had organised different competitions and games. I made this sketch of Jamshedji.

Those are my memories working with TCS!

what is bad about Sanjay Dutta?

Todays newspaper featured a news article that Sanjay's ( Mr. Sanjay Dutt ) cavalcade was pelted by students when he visited Lukhnow University. It also quoted that Prof was given show cause notice about why he invited Sanjay since politicians are banned in the Universities. My question is, why so? Are educated people less political or because they are politically more correct? Aren't University people voting every election?
Extreme political inclination ( In bad meaning) of highly educated people can be explained by examples.
For instance, my company's ( TCS's) ( i am editing it today 3rd April 2009) decision to cut the variable pay last year was to be announced by HR Head on company portal. On portal Homepage, news-headline came with HR heads SMILING photograph alongside it. I did saw it but thought nothing bad or objectionable about it. But when i visited companywide Q&A platform ( Anothrer portal called JustAsk where employee asks question and all other associates answer in real time) I happened to read somebody asking about noticing change in Photograph from SMILING to SERIOUS gesture. I immediately browsed back the news on portal and true to the question photograph was changed with current photo showing serious visage of same person.
Later I tried to access that question to read how associates have reacted and i could not find it on JustAsk.

What I infer from all this is that Mr. A*** M******* ( HR Head) wanted to show that he is emphathised with associates in bad times and in times of good news he posted smiling photographs gulping all credit ( This happened later when variable allownce was announced).

Coming to Politics however, we unnecessarily crib about overt posters of political leaders raised in city with pure intentions. Having said that we crib, I would like to point out that political leaders' B'day posters too are not acceptable if they are hiding RTO signs and directions meant for common people.

All this hiding game of HR when everybody knew of corporate decision owing to current industrial scenario. This all got refurbished in my memory when these mercenaries had to pronounce one more change and make it formal - the decision to extend working hrs from 8 to 9 each day starting April'09 and I saw that serious photo again. I still have a question, What about ppl who already work for more than 10 hrs?

nways, this is still going on and will go forever but we can hope some day Politicians will enter Universities without any descrimination. Jai Ho!

GudiPadwa

What a gr8 tradition and enthusiasm! While i was on my way to Office i saw in the valley that all the houses were sporting Gudis from early morning, including huts of Nomadic people along the highway. It was very pleasant and serene to see new clothes, shining steel vessels atop a hight stick and trying to pronounce something serene, something rich.

People are angry

26/11 attacks on Mumbai were so deadly and dramatic that it took this long to sink in and now Indians are feeling anger over perpetrators. This will culminate into stringent action against accused and realization of horror of the moment. It was brutally unimaginable.

Stubbornness...?

Below are few of many incidents i observed during last 2 years making me feel myself as invisible or inconspicuous or may be they are usual things.
In office, new tool called Ideamax ( social ideation platform ) is launched and concept is your ideas can be considered for organization-wide implementaion depending on amount of votes you get from associates. So i canvassed ppl for votes online, on phone and physically meeting. Few of them voted my ideas and were thoese who i was sure of. But few ppl said "Sure, i will vote", some of them were not aware of ideamax at all and were introudced by me. They visited my ideas too but failed to vote.
Considering they did not know how to vote or may not have understood the idea also leaves room for susptection b'cos they always had option of coming back with their doubt.

Second incident is few days back i requested for some change in my personal details and resoponsible person did not pay heed to my 5 reminder mails, 6 phone calls and 2 personal meetings and moreover responded casually like we are discussing the issue first time. Finally change was done on 7th call. At least this gave me catharsis since it ensured there was something right i was following:)

Third incident was when i came to know after one month that my reimbursement request was not apporved and i called the person to enquire. He searched for something said call after some time. In second call he asked my extn number and said i shall call u back in 10 min. He didn't. Next day when i called him he started all over again from "which, when and how about request". When i expressed that i felt like govt office he retorted with suppressed anger "i hv lots of work". But i was never in haste, he could hv said me to call after one month instaed of tomorrow.


Final example is of my allocation in project where i can surely conclude that it was my need to get into project and hope to retain that energy to follow up .

Now i ponder, whether it was stubbornness, ego of the ppl or were they focused too much on their work and that left small window to occupy me in there briddled view?
If your company is working like this it is your badluck but i can infer one thing from this and relate it with Satyam Computers in a way that there is huge account cooking in many other companies too and CBI needs to invistigate it thoroughly.
Recently TCS executive gave statement saying they hv reduced almost banned travel to cut the costs. But senior people travel as and when they want. I heard my senor telling me and other coulleague how he went to some european country while coming from US and how he enjoyed wines at these places.

I am pretty sure there r many Rajus around.


i got a break for myself and went to visit riverside quiet place on weekend.

Disparity, Disparity, Disparity

How come two lives be at so much extreme in terms of the their artha (wealth) . CEO of wellknwon company draws (mind the word draws) aroung 40 Lacs per annum and LPG cylinder delivery man waits for his 2000 Rs a month sallary. Can there be exchange of work for very few days ?

Naam roshan kar diya

Sanskrit saying is Yen Ken KarNen Prasiddhaha Bhavet. I recollect this because few days ago i read about Pierre Salinger Syndrome ( Salinger was Press secretary for JFK who ince belived and confirmed internet article mentioning US tested missile on acutal plane carrying more than 280 people and killing them. And syndrome is nothing but who believes in such articles falling pray to new technology such as internet) and Lou Gherig's disease ( One which has contracted Stephen Hawking and first person to suffer from this disease which causes muscle attrophy was Lou Gherig).
There are innumerable examples where mathematical equations, constants, are eponimous. One idiom in marathi "Narova kunjorava" meaning not giveing perfect yes or no answer is also of the same kind.

Share your thoughts on this...

Oz terrain

I always amazed at down under continent and people there and was struck by awe when read news about incient mentioned below.

Australia was engulfed by flood on eastern coast and wild-fire on western almost simultaneoulsy. Worst was that floods brought crocodiles in city area causing threat ( fact - 14 ft. croc killed and ate 5 yr old boy) and fire incited evil souls to turn out as arsonists and loot neighbouring households. But Country of Brave people fought both the situations very good and still stands as best travel destination. Hats off

Radical change

Today Vrinda and I observed one marriage pandal entrance banner sporting Bride-Bridegrooms' photographs in addition to their names and thought what a hatke and informative change to otherwise ubiquitous marriage boards like Dhore * More Shubhavivah or Kulkarni* Deshpande.

Think how we would imagine crowd inside and not satkarmurtis.

A Fine Balance

This book by Rohinton Mistry may be more realistic depiction of Indian poverty and slum life. The book is far better compared to movie "Slumdong Millionaire". But what prompted me to this is fame and undue media attention given to Slumdog Millionaire movie which may be good in they eye of west but certainly not true and realistic portrayal of Life in Indian Slums.
Hype made by discussions and illusions by mainstream media always concerns me more because it never gives due credits to true gems. For example, i really wonder how hype created by media and Swiss supporters around Tennis star Federer disguised his more losses against Spanish champion Rafael Nadal in their bouts till date. After Expressing my opinion I feel that one should not get swayed by highlights and opinions shown by mainstream media and not think that what media shows is best in the world.

(United) State of mind

Amazing to see such a discipline and spontaneity of action at such a tragic moment in Hudson river. Plane got its engine bugged after hitting a bird and had to landed in the river at -7 degrees Celcius. I am amazed to see such a calmness which actually helped save lives. Contrary to this every year people die in stampede at pilgrimage in India.