Feelings of being at India gate..!!

I completed my two years of existence in this walled city few days back. Out of whatever which fascinated me most over here, the most prominent is India Gate. Now even I don't remember how many times I have been to this place.  One of my friend calls me "Mangal Pandey of 21st centuray" because of my habit of being at this place so many times.

My first visit there left me speechless and I was standing there for hours in front of Amar Jawan Jyoti. I always wanted to be there and I finally was there just looking at it.

 Then from that day started the story of me being at India gate whenever I feel like getting away from everything around.

Now whenever I go there, I can feel myself much better connected to it, better than the previous times. Every time I see this Amar Jawan Jyoti, it looks different to me, although I doubt if now people really give importance to it.

Normally I had seen people going there for partying and dating, I wonder if this is the place for them to be there? These people are the reason for the mess they leave behind every day at India Gate, which pains a lot to anyone who visits that place for its magic and importance. Also these types force Delhi police to be rude to everyone because they treat that place just like another picnic spot.

 

PS: Like always special thanks to Devesh Singh for allowing me to use his pictures :)

Bhopal..a bleeding story..!!

Those who died were lucky to die, those who survived are still suffering, crawling towards a painful death. This case is a perfect example of how Indian politicians can screw up lives of their country men just to please a country like America. The CM that time helped the main co accused to flee from country instead of catching him and producing that culprit before court. Now the Congress says they will do their best to bring justice to all who suffered. It’s the same Congress which tried their best to help DOW stay safe out of any problem. I don’t want any justice, just bring back those guys and put them in a gas chamber with MIC gas for just few minutes with their family members. I wonder how America which invaded Iraq fro no reason can live happily with what DOW did to India and how our so nice politicians can eat up money and aid given for the victims to build up their empire.

 

I feel ashamed to be part of this democracy for what they did to people of Bhopal…!!

PS: all rights of above videos lies with their respective owners

Cry for only bruises and stitches....!!

In this lovely journey called life we meet so may people. I am not including parents and siblings as they are out of scope here in this. We know them by many names such as friends, good friends, best friends, neighbors, colleagues, people you come across while travelling to and fro to office etc etc. Many like to help anyone and everyone in as much as ways possible. So are the people around who take to advantage of these as much as possible. They will come to you, befriends with you, use you to their best and then part ways as if they never met you. Unfortunately this breed of users are now in abundance.

Although people should take lessons from every incidence like this, but there are fools who tend to keep on helping people even after being backstabbed. I would name these kind as emotional idiots who are not learning anything from whatever happened to them in past. I would never say that stop helping people and stop being reason for a little smile on their faces (I know it feels great to see that smile) but one should slowly and gradually learn to read people and their wicked minds. Remember not everyone who smiles is your well wisher, it can be and it is most of the time a devil waiting to kill your soul and suck humanity and kindness out of your heart.

One should learn to leave people in their pain and try not to hop every time to help them out. If they are in pain, its mostly because they are worth it. This may not be true all the time, but why to take risk and screw up your own life for someone one else’s happiness. Just be selective even while trying to help any freaking person around. Gone are the time when you will do good for others and receive at least a smile. In today’s world you could be branded as a moron even for helping others. So learn to be selfish and be safe and happy. With all due respect (whatever they deserve) to everyone around (as if I really do care)

This reminds me of one of the beautiful lines I am loaning from one of my friend…

Cry for only bruises and stitches....not for bastards and bitches..!!

Mockery of Education…!!

I was reading today’s newspaper and the big news of the day was “cutoff of 100% at LSR college”. My first reaction was, what the hell, is this some kind of joke? If the cutoff is this, what is going to happen to rest?

As one of the speaker pointed out in one of the discussions on this topic, its mainly because of students who are suing this just as a base station so that they can prepare for their IIT dream, killing the options for the real student who wanted to pursue this stream. See even today in top B Schools, most of the students are from Science background. Few blames CBSE for distributing numbers so easily, but I know that anyone who passed out from CBSE will vote against this. CBSE never distributes marks, they are earned by students.

If the college thinks that 100% can be taken as a cutoff, then I believe that very soon they should decide that this holds valid even for reserved category candidates or else it would be highly unfair on the candidates belonging to general category on scoring 96 % and still not being able to get into that college. Also the need to enforce that anyone from Science background student to get admission in Commerce stream, unless the student is there for the entire course duration.

Now even I doubt if the university administration has even considered this fact that not all students applying for admission are from CBSE. There are states like UP and Maharashtra where getting such high percentage is next to impossible, even if they get something around 80%, its an achievement by itself. This really looks a ridicules step which surely is going to increase pressure on general students. Either the administration/ ministry should put in force once education board across all the states or they should not play with future of innocent students.

Even if they say that this step is taken to match the demand supply, I would trash this as rubbish. If demand is rising, its responsibility of system to provide the supply of enough opportunities for studies and quality in education. Only god knows what will happen to next generation of students and how are they going to study or they all are going to end up like teenagers of developed nations where most of them don’t even cross the step of being a graduate.

Amazingly this laid down process in no way considers other aspects of student’s life, their co-curricular activities. Are we again going towards producing just clerks or we want a well educated human being to emerge out of these temples of education.

Why can’t we take a common entrance test by giving the kids a fair chance to perform and compete, is that so difficult?

Well, I don’t think so…we all really need to think and come together to achieve basic motto of education system “ ज्ञानार्थ प्रवेश, सेवार्थ प्रस्थान...!!”

Working for a small setup helps you grow..!!

Ever since organisations were formed and global spectrum was implemented for corporates, it is believed that employees should go through processes and practices to enable them learn new things to scale up fast. This on paper translates into getting involved in planning, training, development, taking new responsibilities and initiatives.

One popular conception is that to be nurtured as a leader, one must need to understand the dynamics of the profession in a well established set up where processes and scope are well defined. What they fail to see is that there are very limited opportunities to put such learning into practices at these places.

The reality is while one is working with any of these big, well established corporates, they never get a chance to take risk as they are designed in a way to reduce the risk factor to the minimum. Only the young entrepreneurs give fair chances to an individual by giving him opportunities to take risks and succeed. Google and Amazon are few of the biggest available examples. Because if one thinks within the defined frame of the traditional setup, there are very less chances to innovate and execute. The priority will always be to follow the rules and processes.

In the present complex business environment, anyone who gets an opportunity to grow in terms of technical, managerial and humanitarian expertise, emerges as a leader. In big organisations you have a structure in place which helps in you getting into all these roles, but if you are working for a startup or a small organisation, you need to think and act like an entrepreneur and constantly be on the toes to look out for new opportunities in all the areas. One should always remember that success also depends upon individual skills, appetite for success and how one aspires to be in life.

“There is no point working as a small fish in big pond after a while”

I know people who moved on and left their comfortable jobs from MNCs to join comparatively smaller firms and are happy learning things at these places. Although this decision must have impacted their perks and pay cheque, but what they have today is the pleasure of being able to put forward their ideas and implement that to be “The One” for changing the ways of working in their new firm. Moreover, these smaller firms do give flexibility in terms of working hours and working from home as compared to the big organisations.

Also, it is also not very difficult to move up the ladder in small firms, as every person from the top to the bottom knows you and your work, and whenever an opportunity comes by, it is very easy to put yourself forward. Whereas, in large firms, you are working as a hidden employee, which would result in some key members of the management not knowing you.

Since large organisations have a good amount of budget that can be used to buy and manage latest in resource and technology, it has some negative sides as well. As each person has a defined role in his area making it very difficult for a person to gain knowledge of other areas in this kind of environment. On the other hand, despite providing immense opportunities, small organisations have a limited budget for these things and which results in more and more efforts to learn and innovate instead of just going and purchasing the readily available services.

More importantly, to make yourself dependable even in the best of times, one needs to be aligned with the company’s processes, culture and ethics, and should be able to set the right expectations and manage expectations of all the stake holders to grow as a leader.

“It’s not the pond but the quality of fish that matters in a longer term”

Stanleys and Ishans of our world…!!

Watched the movie Stanley ka Dabba today, initially the movie reminded me of my good old days at school, the fun we had at school leading a very carefree life with no tensions of project deadlines and presentations. I was missing my school life all through out the movie but was also shaken a bit towards the end of the movie. I know we are in position so that we can choose our food and delicacies, but it really hurts when a kid has to struggle to get his food and is forced into child labor. I know everyone will say what am I doing for them, just by writing something is not going to change anything in their lives. But since I am not here to explain anything to anyone, I would like to keep my mouth shut on this, I am very well aware on what I am doing and I know from the core of my heart that it gives peace to my mind. But think of this, if we can really spare a bit of our leisure time to help them learn something about real life, that will really help them in being someone. the best way to do this is to do it anonymously and never expect a return from all this.

There are lots and lots of these kids around us losing their innocence of life in struggle of mere existence in this highly paced lives around them. Least we can do is to at-least stop and think about them even if we can’t so anything right now. If we start doing this now, who knows one day we may really do something to help them.

We the strange bunch of people..!!

We fellow Indians are really strange bunch of people. We may celebrate a cricket match win but will be skeptical in celebrating festival of other religions. We can question the quality of our teachers but will have full faith in our politician, just because he or she belongs to our own caste.

We can spend crores on safety and stay of a terrorist but can’t think about spending a single rupee on street child education. We would never go out of our comfy homes to vote but can sit and blame our government for hours over drinks. We can tolerate hundreds of Osamas but get irritated by one Medha Patkar.

We blame our politicians for all the mess around but never hesitate to go to one to get something done out of way. We may raise our eyebrows over garbage lying all around but will never give a second thought before throwing an empty water bottle out of our car window. We may reach office late due to our urgent work but other’s urgent work looks like lame excuse to us.

 We are hesitant in going to religious places but can have cocktail parties on every festival holiday. We love to speak English but feel a bit shy to speak our own mother tongue. We may not know what happens in our country but are aware of each and every bit of What happens in Vegas. We complain all the time about traffic jams but will never hesitate to drive in wrong lane beat it. We can complain about always rising price of petrol but can’t switch off our engines at traffic signals even if it means keeping engine on for more than few minutes. 

Although we as general public are still struggling for basic facilities like water, road and basic infrastructure but still we are happily paying our taxes without any resistance. We pay fine for late payment of our dues but are least bothered to fight back if we are charged by our service providers wrongly. We pay for an unlimited Internet connection but still accept the “fair usage policy” enforced upon us once a specific data limit is crossed. We pay full charges for booking a flight ticket at last moment but never demand any explanation if airline is delayed by few hours.

We really are a uniquely strange bunch of people…!!

Delhi nights and early mornings…!!

Any city always amazed me at nights. You can see the true colours of that city, the people inhibiting that place and if lucky you are in a position to praise both. This is my experience of several night outs and my experiments with Delhi, the capital city of India. And yes I am considering Delhi NCR while writing this.

 

Although I am a nomad but by far I was never able to appreciate the infrastructure of this city during the day time due to clutter and mess across the city and the food joints and places which are either too much fussy or too much crowded.

 

This myth of mine was broken when I started to venture out during late nights and early mornings in this city. The parathas, maggie and tea at roadside stalls near Ship building, Convergys building and near to Machan on Golf course road. Equally tasty was the food available near to CP. You can see people from everywhere eating it without any complains and enjoying the taste of it, the same people who would not even look at it during the day time.

 

These places are open till wee hours every day and are always full of people having fun there. I enjoyed these places across all the seasons, in the rains, in foggy nights and in windy summers seamlessly.

The roads which made me loose my temper everyday during day time looked very smooth and peaceful all of sudden at night. they looked more colourful and much more lively to me as if they were inviting me to explore them more and more.
Although there was not much of change in the scenario at both the toll gates on NH-8 (which became even worse due to that strange hike of Rs. 01 in toll fee) but still who cares when you are loving the city :)

Only thing which continued to irritate me was the manner in which people drive here. Somehow they love to drive on the wrong side of the roads (efforts to control those is again in progress by installing devices to deflate the tyers for these special breed of people) and those who are either impatient at traffic signals and are happy to jump the read lights risking their and everyone else’s lives.

 

But still the city kept on moving with its admirable pace. Even at 6.00 AM in the morning people were in rush to reach somewhere. To the airport, to their jobs or to meet someone special in their lives.

I met several people during these trips of mine, some drunk to the core, some sober, some rude, some careless, some in their own world, policemen who were rude, some who were happy to help . In all till date my experience encourages me to explore more and more of this mysterious city and know it better.

And the ever inviting roads remind me of these lines…
I have miles to go before I sleep again….

PS: Special thanks to Devesh Singh for allowing me to use his pictures :)

Corporate chain..!!

Disclaimer: With all due respect to Mr Shashi Tharoor  (for using his Cattle Class words) and every single corporate entity I came across in my professional journey, irrespective of where they worked, if ever we interacted or not, this is just a funny try and interpretation of  whatever I saw and felt :)

Corporate life has always made me think in different verticals. It has been a funny, stressful, lame, witty, exploring, hilly and sloppy feeling traversing through various corridors of different powerhouses of our ever growing economy. Few I was a part of and for others, few of my friends facilitated me to have this enchanting experience.   

I saw different types of people working with these organisations, some always fighting,  some always shouting,  some reacting to even a whisper, some never ever reacting to anything, some always busy, some always fuzzy, some working hard, some hardly working, some capable of frustrating anyone just by their sheer presence and some capable of making you understand that "a  gearbox is full of gears" by taking you through a 100 page presentation on that. 

I was reading somewhere about food chain, that reminded me of my good old school days and I could easily convert whatever I saw in my professional life to a corporate chain. Although in food chain, everyone is eaten by someone, here in this corporate chain, everyone reports to some one and works for someone. Everyone has got some job to complete and has got something in queue but no one gets killed in literal senses.

There are few who do the job and remain unrecognised and their are few who take credit of everything happening around them. There are few who cannot put their voice through the proper channel and there are few who can ensure that even their sneeze is officially attended to. But since everything is supposed to be running smooth, the proper mix (as per industry standard) is required of these people. I came up with these classifications and role assignments as shown in picture below.

Again I would reinstate that this is a just a funny interpretation and is never meant to hurt or blame anyone and should be taken on a lighter note. I am just trying to add humor to our busy lives :)

Feeling a Feel . . .!!

How good it feels to be alive,
and to appreciate and enjoy life.

How good it feels to wake up every day,
and to watch the little ones play.

How good it feels to dream at night,
and then wake up to beautiful sunlight.

How good it feels to have good friends,
who will be with you until life's end.

How good it is to have the support of loved ones,
and be able to go out and have fun.

How good it feels to hear, touch, smell, taste, and see,
and live in a time in which we can be whatever we want to be.

How good it feels to breathe in air
and to be able to recognize my happiness and share . . .

Ex-CM Traveling cattle class..!!

Looks nice to see ex chief minister of Madhya Pradesh traveling cattle class with wife and his son. Power shuffle plays around too quick in Indian politics. The so called Diggi Raja traveling economy somehow gives a little hope to the rotten political system of second largest democracy of this world. I think and firmly believe that this guy must be entitled to several free flights but still if he chooses to opt for economy class that too in a private sector carrier, it gives me absolute pleasure to share this. I would not comment on how he was as a chief minister but if this travel of his is to be considered, he looks as a sensible guy and an above average politician.

Although this thinking was not extended by his family members. The son was in his own world where every one around was reporting to his dad and madam was feeling lost due to lack of her assistants. After trying several times to put tray table back, she was forced to ask for assistance and in the end she couldn't resist to take along with her the in-flight magazine :)

And we as young citizens of this country are looking forward to this breed of politicians.