Thamaraserry to Bangalore: Account of an impromptu journey

A.S: People who have never been away from B’lore(in a sense that they were missing it) might not relate that well to this post.

Well, my job has taken me to Thamaraserry these days. There is calculation that goes on in my mind all the time whenever I am shifted to a new location: How do I get to B’lore from here and in how many hours?

Now this is where Thamaraserry is a bit tricky. By road, it is just 313 kms away from Bangalore. To catch the flight you have to anyway travel 75 kms on road (40+35) and there is just one flight from Calicut and that too in afternoon. The train route, however comfortable that might be, will make you feel like being cheated for your time. Just have a look:

Fig: the red line shows the train route (includes the 35 kms road journey from Thamaraserry to Calicut), while the blue line is the road journey.

I decided to give the road journey a try, though it included a ghat section and an unpredictable service and also the risk that it might eventually take lot more time as well. But I perhaps had no choice either, I was not sure when I’ll be free on Saturday, so a flight was out of picture, and given that I only had a Sunday as the leave, I could have ill afforded the train and reach B’lore the next morning.

So I finished a meeting with salesmen, then accompanied one of them for sometime in the market and then asked him to help me in boarding a bus to Mysore. After a 15 minutes wait I got a bus going in the same direction..up to Kalpetta, some 35 kms away from Thamaraserry. I just boarded that bus and wow! What a feeling when you are finally moving towards home.

The ghat section was not that tough, though it had 9 hairpin bends. The scenery was good and the air became distinctly cooler as the bus moved up.

The bus took about an hour to reach Kalpetta and once reaching there I was in a state of cluelessness that could have put even Ravinder Jadeja to shame J

I mean that I was there at this station, having just 4-5 other buses. I tried to ask at least 3-4 persons about the bus to Mysore and none of them served any purpose but to impress me with their fluency and command over Malayalam and adding to my misery. After half an hour of wait and several such attempts, I got to know that I should go to the other bus stand for the Mysore bound buses.

Then I waited at this other stop for another half an hour, many buses came and went.. some going to Mananthwady.. some to Sultan Battery..which in fact was on the route. But I avoided these local buses and kept on waiting for a KSRTC bus. And then, there it was, I could read a bit(Ma..Sa..Ru)..confirmed the same and yeah, It was a Mysore bound Super Express..WoHoo! and I know that I am gonna be at home before the dinner time

The bus was true to its name.. a rattling Super Express being driven to the max speed it could afford. In an hour we were at Sultan Battery and had a half an hour break there.

Pics: Inside the SE bus and monkeys tormenting passengers in another KSRTC bus(on right)

Soon we entered the Bandipur Wildlife Sanctuary. I keenly looked outside to spot some wildlife but gave up after an uneventful 15-20 mins. After a nap, I woke up to find ourselves in plains. The time was 4:30. Soon we hit Nanjangud and I spotted the Mysore-Nanjangud KSRTC VOLVO shuttles, that sight made me feel closer to home.

I reached Mysore at 5:30. Ran across to catch a Volvo and did a mental High Five once I was in there.

At the end what came as a nice surprise was that Raja-Rajeshwari Nagar came as soon as we entered B’lore. I was at home by 8:30. Seeing my Mom, wifey n kiddu, there was no doubt that all the efforts were worth it : )

“what do you do in this company?”

Life is full of questions. We prepare for some of them, while few others just take us by surprise. While one can prepare for an exam, an interview or even the much abused ‘let the boy and girl talk for some time’ kind of instances in one’s life, there are few questions which will just prop up suddenly and will leave you wanting for answers. I am gonna describe one of such situation that I faced during one of the many non consequential interactions that I have had with my customers/retailers in this sleepy town of Kottayam (yupp thats my base for the moment, and for the un-initiated, its located in kerala.. n for the out and out lucky ignorant bastards, it’s in south India)


I remember an old joke about IT professionals. Which goes like this: A frustrated on bench IT guy vents his frustration on a poor restaurant worker. He says that after just 3 years of job he has a bank balance, car ..etc. Tumhare paas kya hai?

n the worker replies ki “Sir, mere paas kaam hai”


When I was in Wipro, we used to laugh our heads off over this.

I got myself into a similar situation a week back. Now I was with the route Supervisor(oops.. Team lead), completing my usual beat, interacting with retailers (mostly with the help of my TL) wherever possible.

We had visited about 20-25 outlets by the time. I was reasonably happy with the way things had gone till then, I had noticed quite a few things which would have ultimately help me in compiling a good report. So when my TL (OK for the IT junta: A TL in this sales business has little resemblance to a TL in IT field, We are talking about TL of hawkers/salesmen) went away to park his bike, I decided to engage the retailer myself. So here is how it went.


Me: Hello Cheta(means elder bro in Malayalam), Where do you keep Cigs?(looking inside the counter to check the stocking)

Retailer: (Gave me a puzzled looks)

Me: Wo mein company se(showing my ITC logo on the T-shirt)

Retailer: Still confused. said something in Malayalam.. which I could not understand at all(perhaps was asking what do you need?)

Me: (I looked for my TL..but he was not in sight.. I again tried my best) : Cheta, Cigarette company.. Scissors..

Retailer: Hmm .. you.. new supervisor?

Me:(Feeling rather offended): Nahi, m Area Executive

(Had it been earlier days, I would have said tht m an AUT and perhaps even explained that I’ll become an ABM after 6 months .. but not now, I am comfortable with whatever stint m doing and living through it)

Retailer: (with a disinterested look) Gaon kya tumhara?

Me:(kya mein gaon kaa lagta hoon?): UP, … Cheta stock OK hai?

Retailer: Haan, Iss se pehle kahaan kaam karta thha?

Me: ( 🙁 what??): Iss se pehle IT mein thha.. Bangalore.

retailer: (Looked at me with renewed interest… came a bit forward): IT mein kya?

Me(looked back again to see the TL .. still no signs.. f*ck): Engineer

Retailer:(with a Smirk) Wahaan se yahaan 🙂 kaise?

Me: Uske baad MBA kiya.. phir yahaan first job.

Retailer:(He looked at my condition.. my hair was in a mess, It was almost 3 and I was yet to even think about lunch, and then It was really hot outside and I was sweating like anything) Iss job ke liye MBA ki kya jaroorat hai?

Me: hmm …. hmm.. (30 sec gap)…. Learning

Rretailer: what?

Me: Kuch nahi,..yahaan manager banne se pehle dekhna padta hai ki ground mein kya ho raha hai. Aapki problem aaj khud se dekhenge to kal office mein baith ke bhi samajh sakte hain.

Retailer: (whatever) Idhar no problem.. sab fantastic. He he he (with a ‘kat lo ab yahaan se’ look)

I gave him a smile and looked for our product availability and started filling the tracker. Though I might have answered the retailer.. but deep Inside I was myself searching for few answers.





Jet Airways: seek ‘forgive and forget’ from customers

Last night, the Jet Airways management and striking pilots reached an agreement.
In last 5 days the company managed to lose more than 200 crores, for incurring the same loss they had to labor through whole of the last year.

The top management has bitten the bullet and in this moment of great embarrassment they have talked about “forget and forgive” for the pilots. The statement made by the management has all the expected lines of “back together as one family” … ”will work together” and also a one line apology to the customers.

Now here is my point, whatever happened in those meeting rooms, a lot has happened outside. Pilots and Management might be too involved in this tug of war to think about anything else, but the reality is that there were thousands of helpless customers suffering out there, and thanks to the media, millions of the potential customers watched them. These are the people who were missing there exams, meetings, connecting flights, functions every day, or otherwise who burnt their hard earned money on purchasing last minute tickets from other opportunist airlines. Will they ever forgive and forget about this?

I believe it’s time for Jet to seek that “forgive and forget” from its customers. I would like to see an honest account by the management about this, and an explanation of why I can now believe that such things will not happen again in future. Doing something of that sort will require real guts and will actually show that the family is finally back. Till then, for me it’s a company in constant troubles, and when makemytrip throws those dozens of results in my flight search, I won’t mind spending a few hundred extra or travelling half an hour before if I can avoid them.

It is extremely difficult to build a brand, but as such incidents will show, it’s so easy to lose it all.
Jet is not all about the management, Pilots or the ground staff, yeah maybe the physical Jet is all about them, but the real Jet ..the brand , it lies with the public. And while it is easy to bring those few physical aspects back in shape, like to get the planes back in Air and back on schedule, it will be a gigantic task to regain that mind space among millions of people.

Michael Eisner, CEO Disney said this about a brand
“A brand is a living entity – and it is enriched or undermined cumulatively over time, the product of a thousand small gestures”

So those thousand small gestures of last decade could well get undone by this one major setback.
Let’s see!

Last exam of my career, and a mixed bag of feelings about my MBA

Tomorrow I’ll have my last exam herein IIMB, and almost certainly the last exam of my student life. Phew..it’s been around 20 years of classrooms, teachers/Madams/AcharyaJis/Profs, exams, Vivas, attendance, practicals, projects etc..and finally all of this will come to a rest tomorrow.

Can’t help but devote half an hour to savor the moment and reflect back on all this, especially the last two years in IIMB. It has been busy like hell, I have missed out on lots of other nice things in life to be able to write this mail today 🙂

t me try and give a flavor of this, however tough it may be but let me try and recap this in a paragraph, whatever comes to my mind:

..entry in the college, lots of new faces, unexpected ragging on the very first day, managing between being a fresher at B-School and a week old marriage, shuttling between Insti and home, first quiz that had 10% weight age, getting to terms with this grade system, taking the printouts and running hard and reaching the PGP office just a minute before the deadline, end of first term, seeing how people get bracketed into their respective boxes within a few months, Summer placements, when one piece of paper was all you had to show someone who you are, feeling awful and disgusted, sitting like call girls, waiting for 3 days and hoping that some tracker will come and call me (for an interview), bruised ego, learning some hard lessons of life, ending up with 5 offers to choose from, rejecting all others for Reliance, life goes on..scoring no As and no C grades in 2nd terms..only Bs..was I also getting bracketed and learning the easiest way of survival? Continued shuttling as no room was available here, leaving the home at 3 am on the days of exams, waking up one day just 15 minutes before one quiz and missing it, a slightly frustrating summer internship, back to college, participating in lots of competitions, lots of back to back night-outs, launching a website, spending hundreds of hours on the site, getting to the finals of CTS boardroom competition, Catching the flight to Pune for the final presentations after spending whole night in completing the BDMDM project, continuously worsening economic meltdown, the exchange term, CMS course and the satisfaction of being the number one team by a great margin, the IBP course, going to Singapore and those 2 weeks over there, coming back to face the placements term, extremely bad job scenario, tracking the CGPA to the second digit .. 3.14 to 3.07 to 3.05 to 3.02 to 3.11(/4) is how it went in the last 5 terms. Directi’s lateral process, CTS’s laterals rejection, overall gloom, a few rays of hope.

That’s how it has been; overall it was an experience I will never want to trade against anything. All the hardships that we all go through in this environment are worth it. I have seen a transformation within myself from someone with dreams to someone with a plan and confidence to achieve them, a better understanding of what I want in my career, and on a more cosmetic level..from a timid speaker to a decent presenter 🙂

Perhaps this crisis is there to help us, to let us do what we wanted to do in our life and not what was offered to us(I don’t know if any good job will be offered to me at all). Perhaps this was the day for which I am much better suited after these 2 years than I was before. Perhaps it’s a time to reject those easy choices and take the decisions that might not please the majority..perhaps!

Lets not spring back!

It’s happening again. It’s war on Mumbai, war on India or simply put war on humanity.
Oberoi and ‘Nariman house’ have been conquered by our brave army men and sooner or later Taj will also be secured. But what next?
A few days of continuous coverage over media, less about the real issues and more about bites from celebrities and politicians, some of them will come up with absolute emotional stories. Politicians in power will talk about not tolerating terrorism(but what else have we done in last 2 decades?), Opposition will term it as an intelligence/security failure and demand for resignation of the party in power(for nothing else but for early and favourable elections). This will remain the topic for hot discussions in offices for a few more days and then .. then life will go on as usual.

Rather than talking about the society at large, we can simply look at the conduct of our media and that will be a true reflection of who we are.

We have all seen this, besides some rare incidents of responsible coverage we have seen an all out war amongst media houses for that exclusive footage, that exclusive talk with eyewitnesses, that extra bit of drama, and so on. Here are some of the most appalling incidents –

Live coverage: No one sitting in front of the television set needs an up to date account of what is happenning there minute by minute. Things like “as you can see..just now a set of 20-25 commandos are entering from the backside of the Taj”. Given that there was information about militants having satelite links established outside..such information could easily be available to them. and btw what value are you adding by doing this?(I noticed that surprisingly Star News refrained from using live feeds)

That extra bit of drama: A Zee-news reporter was lying on the road and reporting in a manner as if he is reporting while in serious cross-fire. While actually the whole bunch of media persons were right there.. half a foot behind him and all were sitting calmly (perhaps because they were not on air), Barkha Dutt was also seen screaming without much reason, looked desperate to be seen as doing a sensational piece of coverage.

Why troubling the forces:These media men are required to be cordoned-off repeatedly, a considerable effort of the security forces is spent on ensuring their security as many of these fools will just not respect the guidelines of reporting within the drawn lines. And then there stupid questions to the front line policemen, “Sir, whats happenning inside?”, “How many terrorists are there?”, “What are you planning to do next?”.

Insensitiveness: We don’t want you to pounce on the just rescued people as if they are your prey. If the person is in a sound state of mind and is willing to share his thought ..fine go ahead!
But in most of the cases the victims were not in a position to tell anything, they did not want this much intrusion and perhaps had nothing particular to share, but still they were virtually chased down by these media men. Someone finishes on one channel “I don’t know anything..saw nothing.. were just guided out by the commandos..” and suddenly a desperate Rajdeep Sardesai(who will otherwise sound so refined, concerned and hard hitting journalist) will come and literally grab the victim with both hands.. He will resist but our media bigwig will not hear anything, he’ll almost drag him and take him in front of his own camera to repeat the same thing.. will ask the same questions, knowing well the answers himself. What kind of journalism is this(and especially if it comes from the editor-in-chief of such a well known channel)?

Switch on any news channel and you hear the word ‘exclusive’ in almost all the sentences. I even heard a phrase called ‘exclusive victim comments’.

Just extend this behavior of media and you will see hundreds of people, most of whom have no purpose to be there, thronging these places..looking in to the TV cameras to have there own moments of existence on national television or to simply experience a live thriller.

Coming back to media, it’s an absolute certainty that in the next few days our media will run reports from all around the Mumbai to tell you that Mumbai has sprung back.. Mumbai is not threatened.. usual traffic..usual environment and so on..as if nothing happened.. and thats the true spirit of Mumbai!
But for God’s sake please hold on, is this the spirit of Mumbaikers or just the fact that a common man is forced to go out for his livelihood? or a gross insensitivity on the part of our society at large.

Why spring back? Why not stand and assess whats happening around us, Has it become a part of our lives? Who is accountable for this? Why do we need to live under a threat for no fault of ours? and what is the solution of all this?

‘Springing back’ is a phrase that has been overkilled in India. A society bounces back from a shock, when it tries to get back to normalcy. After any big attack the perceived risk is likely to soar much higher than the actual risk.. so bouncing back is the process of bringing this perceived risk down towards the actual risk. Something what happened in America after the WTC took place. The Systems were reviewed, the actual risk came down considerably and the society bounced back.. back to its business.
But what about India? Have we done anything to justify this bounce back? are we feeling any bit safer now?
I know the answers, and just wish that we, as a society can actually bounce back in terms of our approach, mentality and response towards terror and not just through those shots of overcrowded CST to be shown as a sign of bouncing back.

(Perhaps I have been over critical about the role of media, many of the media persons were amidst all this and must have felt a real ‘call for duty’ while doing this coverage with all the good intentions.. but sometimes the pressures of market results in such filtering and tweaking of news that the coverage comes out as just a desperate attempt for higher TRPs at the cost of being completely insensitive to the situation)

50 dead and still counting.. God’s own man!

Shaqeel was very anxious this evening. He could himself hear his heartbeat, as if it could explode anytime! Now, should he just keep quiet and recite the name of the God or should he switch on the TV to see this happening and enjoy the moment, the success, and the revenge.

It will be a revenge for the brutality and atrocities against his community. Whatever happened in Hashimpura, Meerut or Gujarat were just the more explicit and more known incidents of what has happened in this so called secular country in the last 6 decades post independence. The fact is that this country has never accepted and perhaps will never accept them as their own. He himself lives under a constant scrutiny all the time, people look at him with suspicion, as if he is carrying a gun or a grenade in his pockets.

So let it be! Yeah he has done it, in fact ‘we have done it’, and he knew that from today onwards life will never be the same for this Rajputana city of Jaipur. What he has done is just a small act of service to the community. Tomorrow even if he is traced and captured and then hanged, it’ll all in the name of the God. But….being traced out..exposed.. unimaginable torture thereafter before finally being hanged.. he shuddered at the thought. Who will take care of ‘Ammi-jaan’? What will happen to Aslam’s studies? After all this is his final year of graduation and he is doing so well in studies. And what about Aasmaa? What will she do without him, will she ever forget him? Forgive him?

All these thoughts left his throat dry; he looked at the clock, 7:05 pm. He didn’t know about the exact timings. All he did to help the mission was to procure 2 new and 1 old cycles from the city and arranged for 3 old bags for Haafiz-bhai. He was quite sure that today was the day, he got that hint by whatever conversation he could overhear, he wished to play a more active role in this but was kept out of the riskier tasks.

To think about something else than the possibility of his arrest, he focused back on his anger. Whenever he looks at prosperous Hindus, he feels that they are so because they have taken an undue advantage of his community. Even his boss Mittal-bhai whom they fondly call as Mittal bh****, behaves like he has done a great favor by giving them this job. Almost half of the workers in his shoe factory are from his community. He once overheard him saying jokingly “I have no option but to employ them, and any way these sons of pi** look good doing this kind of work”.

Today is the day when several such Mittals will learn a lesson; he was much less frightened now.

He noticed increasing activities in the locality, people started screaming, and telephones started ringing. He has switched off his own mobile phone as per the instructions of Haaafiz-bhai.

He switched on the TV. He was thrilled to see the destruction; the ticker was flashing “More than 50 feared dead”. Not bad, this is better than what he expected. He felt proud of what has been accomplished by them. Suddenly he heard a knock on the door.

His heart stopped for a bit too long, he regained his mental poise only after hearing Saadiq’s voice “Shaqeel bhai!”. He opened the door. “Shaqeel bhai SMS Hospital chalo jaldi… blast hue hain.. kam se kam paanch.. Ya Allah sab Illake waalon ki khair kare…. Aao jaldi se Aslam bhi wahin hai..phone kiya thha usne..appka switched-off hai ..isiliye mein…”

He could not hear any further.. the mere mention of Aslam left him almost paralyzed, He took a while to understand that Aslam is there only to help the victims.

He was talking to himself “What has this boy done? He is there in such a situation, this is not the time of helping anyone but to be safe yourself. These people and police together will search for any Muslims like vultures in the days to come, they will not leave him. This will take a communal turn anytime, I’ll have to go and bring him back before it’s too late” and he rushed out.

The scene outside SMS hospital was not for weak hearted persons. Just near the entrance he saw dead bodies of 2 young boys. Both of them wore identical clothes..very much like He and Aslam used to get from Abba-jaan in their childhood. He was pushed in to the gallery by a rush of new bodies brought to the hospital. Sounds of wailing were deafening. The helplessness of hundreds of mothers, fathers, wives, sisters, and children had a piercing power. Suddenly he found himself very weak. “Beta, tumhara bloodgroup-O+ hai kya? Mere bête ki jaan bacha lo” said a crying, helpless father. He looked into his eyes, the eyes that have perhaps seen the world for more than 50 years were filled with pain and utter despair today.. he has seen this face before.. yes it resembles the face of his late father he saw when Aslam was down with Malaria for more than 30 days. It just did not matter who he was.. his mental state was close to that of his own father when he saw his son almost dying due to lack of proper treatment. He just went with him.. Doctors took a sample of blood. He saw at the other corner of the room. He saw Aslam donating his blood. He could also see Rehmaan bhai, trying his level best to help the victims and their relatives.

Doctors returned shortly after and took him to the blood-donation room. He laid there thoughtless.. sounds of wailing were even more piercing now. Clearly more and more bodies were being declared as dead bodies, more and more children were losing their fathers and mothers.. wives were losing their husbands ..more and more homes were getting converted to permanent haunting houses.

After the process he felt dizziness.. but he walked out.. he wanted to walk out of this mess.. otherwise perhaps he would collapse there. Suddenly he hit a man.. he was.. he was ‘Mittal-bhai’. He was in a devastated state, he clutched his hands as if he wanted to say something.. no voice came out, but lips said everything “my son”.. Shaqeel did not know what to say or do, he moved a few steps further, then looked back. He was not the Mittal-bhai known to him, he was just a helpless father. He went to him.. Without much thoughts his arms were around his shoulders.. Mittal bhai looked up and clutched him again like a child.. he was trying to stop himself till then..perhaps he could weep now.. when his wife won’t see him weeping..Perhaps he didn’t care anymore know. It was a cry that Mittal-bhai was trying to control as hard as he could.. just those gasps for air would let it out. Shaqeel was shaken to the hilt. Mittal bhai recovered in a few minutes, sat in one of the corner.. with hands joined he started to pray for his son’s life.. Tears were still rolling from his eyes incessantly.

Shaqeel also found his hands together, subconsciously, this moment he knew that Mittal-bhai and he were referring to the same person.

The person that all of us remember when we are completely helpless is the same. It didn’t matter anymore if there was an Idol in front of you or not.. whether you call it Allah or Bhagwaan.. whether you are a laborer or a factory owner..with those trembling hands, sinking heartbeat, and teary red eyes.. you pray to the one .. you become a mere beggar.. and you beg for the lives of your loved ones.

He got up.. moved towards the blood donation room once again.. he wanted to drain all his blood there itself.. he never wanted to come out of that hospital.. he wanted to die amongst those cries..those eyes..where homes were being destroyed one by one.. he did not want to be alive till the final count.. he just wanted to add one to it..If only the doctors could drain out all his blood.

who is the real king?

Ok, I recently went through a torture called ‘Singh is Kinng’. though m a singh n Akhshay is not..but in those 3 long hours he was the real king and I along with some 300 poor souls(-25 real singhs) was treated like an utter fool. It was a film that took its viewers for granted(n whats wrong in tht I had already paid for the ticket), the director assumed absolute liberty in the name of cinema, Can you imagine that a person who could wreck havoc just to catch a hen in a punjab village can neatly manage an underworld empire in Australia, 4 people boarded the wrong international flights so that our Akki can have a nicely picturized song in Egypt as probably was suggested by cinematographer(hence the story mein twist). Add to it a hell lot of stupidity interspersed with songs, forced comedy, mamta (motherly love), national pride and the repeated ‘Singh is king’ nonsense… thats wat you go thru in those 3 hours.

I am not writing a review, thats really not the point. Whats the purpose of reviewing a movie hundreds of whose reviews r already out there on the internet.

I am writing it to point out to a new theory that popped out in my mind while I was going through that torture. This theory has made me an even bigger admirer of Akshay Kumar.

I’ll name my theory as “Theory of Stardom and Trashiness in Bolllywood”

‘SIK’ (wow how apt.. SI/C/K) was released and claimed the biggest opening of this year, there were houseful boards even after a week of its release and recently I read that the movie has already garnered more than 100Cr Rs worlwide..Given that the movie it self is quite pathetic, what all this tellls you is just one thing..that Akki has become the biggest star in bollywood.

Let me explain this with my new theory, fact is that in bollywood the biggest star is the one who can carry such absolutely ridiculous, senseless and entertainment less movies alone on his shoulders, get the returns from the box-office and force everyone to assume that the movie perhaps was actually quite good.

Sharukh did it with absolute trash like KANK and a mediocre movie like OSO and became the real darling of bollywood, this was after Akki had done somethin similiar with ‘Garam Masala’ and many other between the lines movies. But Akki has finally won the top slot with SIK, I believe that if he can sell SIK, he can sell any movie.

So it’s simple,
Star’s power = sigma(BO success*Trash quotient of the movie)

So if a ‘Chak de’ becomes a hit, SRK hardly adds to his star value as the movie was actually good and would have done well anyway(or the marginal utility was less). By the same logic Shiney Ahooja got nothing much out of his performance in Gangster(Huh..good movie thee yaar)

Now in my opinion the only way that someone can ever challenge Akki is to come up with an even more crappy movie(OMG thats a herculean task) and make it a hit or at least make an equally crappy movie(even thats not easy at all, going by the high/low standards set by SIK) and try to touch its BO results.

Both of these scenarios indicates that Akki is gonna remain the real King for quite some time, so just hope that after setting the new bar for ‘Star Power’ he will now try not to assert the same thing again and again and yeah, hail the new megastar!

A big doubt crept in

(wrote it some 3 weeks ago, when I was in Mumbai)


Well! It has been almost 8 months since I realized (for the first time) that I am made for a career in General Management. I seriously thought that ‘Operations’ is a field with which I’ll start and will gradually move up to a proper General Management profile. So the picture was quite clear. I could never be an I-Banker, don’t have the grades or the profile to make the cut for top3-4 consultancy jobs, and compared to whatever else was on offer I somehow convinced myself that this GM stuff is suitable for me.

But it was a new field, so that’s where I chose an internship in this GM company.
I believed (and still believe) that the main purpose(from the interne’s perspective) of this kind of internship is to Provide the Experience. An intern must feel how his life is going to be after one year if he joins the same company. First hand experience is great but at least if he can work with people who are in that position (seniors who were offered the similar post), that will be just fine. I am saying this because an internship is not like a sales pitch for a small FMCG product, we are talking about careers. If someone likes the culture and joins in, the company is getting a great employee for the future; otherwise it is just wasting its money and someone’s time.

Needless to say that I am finding myself on the wrong side of this philosophy (Otherwise who thinks about such things.. even Newton thought about gravity only when he was hit by an Apple J).

In fact now I am more than apprehensive about a career in General Management. The fear is that it’s not that professional a field as IT(that I’ve experienced). As the field requires you to deal with real issues/numbers.. Most of the people who are there for 5- 10 years, feel that all these MBA types are those hi-fy PPT types. Most of such companies are bureaucratic or even worse they are dynastic, family run types. And anyway a bad experience fills your mind with lots of doubts.

Leaving that field currently I find myself more suitable for the IT/domain consultancy types of jobs. And then yeah I may also go for marketing.

So overall I am a lot more confused than I ever was, Thanks to my internship experience 🙂
And the love with GM career is not completely over yet, anyway it is hard to believe that all GM jobs can be as worthless as I have seen them to be. Sometimes I make myself believe that it’s not the time to run away, but to fight. Migrating to a system that is easier to work in is no big deal, probably showing these Lo-tech baniyaa types the reality behind this hard earned MBA is a challenge in itself.

It’s odd, but the only incident that inspired me for a GM career did not involve any of my mentors or anyone from the company, rather ironically it came from a taxi driver. Here it goes..
I was coming to the outskirt of this village type thing (unfortunately where my Guest House is located) from the air-port. He asked me if I work for XYZ? As this part of the city is kinda owned by this company. I said yes. He asked me a few more questions and I told him that I am a manager there (no need to confuse him with the internship story).
He turned back and very sincerely he requested “ Sahab, Jab se aapka store khula hai tab se hamein bhi local kiraane waale saste mein saamaan dete hain.. waise sahab mehangaai bahut hai aap thoda aur sasta kar deejiye plz”

It was a big thing for me.. when I worked in my IT job, I could never expect a common man to have any connection with me.. I could never touch lives of those around whom I live, who indirectly shapes my life. My job was meaningless for a commoner, (in fact to an extent it was meaningless for me as well). And now you see! It amazes me how many lives you touch when you work in such mammoth GM companies. This thought pushes me back to feel that a career in GM is still not out of sight. Given the scope of this area, Perhaps I still want to come here and make a difference.

The Summer Ordeal


Ok so who ever is going through or has ever gone through a nightmarish internship (please include your engineering ones as well) should have a look at this experience

– Your internship is supposed to be taking place in a metro city, but you are miles away from any signs of civilization, OK there is a good guest house, but just outside it, is a place where people don’t understand that a toilet and a road are two different things altogether. You feel crappy to walk 3 kms to ur office at 11 am in the sweltering heat (btw that’s the office timing), when you wear your formals, hold ur heavy lappy-bag and walk through those dusty-shi**y lanes.. and yeah you walk because the company owes no responsibility for ur conveyance..and the location ensures that you won’t get an auto either, if sometimes you get a bus then you must be thankful to the great admin dept.

– You get no projects in the first 2 weeks, in those 12 days you go to ur mentor’s desk at least 30 times and each time he makes a typical face..takes 5 long mins to look up from his monitor.. and says “yeah we will meet this evening/morning/afternoon/ everything is fixed we are waiting for BOSS’s approval” and yeah he always says “I’ll call you” before diving back in to his monitor.

– OK 2 weeks over, you are frustrated with ur mentor so you contact those senior people whom you have seen in ur college, in those nice PPTs and selection interviews, distributing lots of goodies, giving gyaan about the company culture and the internship, looking ever so helpful. But what they do is that they call ur mentor, bash him up, reply to ur mail having all the top brass and ur mentor in the list and say “Don’t panic, we are shifting you to a new dept”.. Hurray! Tactically so awesome! N btw the new mentor and HODs are also in the reply list J

– Your new mentor doesn’t even look at you while you are being introduced to him by the HR, he says. “OK, he will work with XYZ” .. that’s it .. this XYZ himself is not a very nice person to start with

– As there is no place to sit in this new dept, you are sharing the seat with Mr. XYZ. Next morning he comes and the first thing he does is to unplug ur lappy power and put his mobile on charging, and points to a temporarily vacant cubic and tells you to shift there.

– Ohh! I haven’t talked about the work in the new dept. They hand you 2 crappy but ‘secret’ docs, you are not allowed to take them to your Guest House, each day you must submit them back to ur mentor. One day you do the same and then the mentor is off to a 2 day training, leaving you behind with nothing to work with

– Now you know that there is nothing much in the manuals, you take ur own initiatives to learn something.. you request to go to the store and see the things by yourself.. you do the same and meet the store manager on one evening. You go to the store (of course you go by local trains/auto) some days later early in the morning to see the store-opening processes. The guard questions you when you say that you are an intern (wtf is an intern? there are BOSSES, employees, temporary emloyees, contract workers.. but an intern ..aayla tum yahan training karne aaye ho), ur id-card doesn’t carry the company name and nyway its so pathetic that it is an insult even to the batches that school going kids wear these days. The manager is not there, and his deputy refuses you to observe the ‘secret processes’. You argue that you work with this n that team, but then you don’t have their phone nos, in fact they never gave you any. You try whatever other nos you had.. but yeah the company opens at 11:00 am and people are as helpful to their colleagues as Mr Mallya has been to Dravid n company throughout IPL. Absolutely frustrated, you walk out of the store, but yeah not before the guard frisks (yeah “FRISKS”) you and u could notice a hint of smile on his face( as if he is saying “looser..ho gayee teri training”)

OMG.. the list is never gonna end, But to complete the story, more or less all of this is repeated everyday in a never ending loop… but you see a ray of hope.. ohh its just a summer internship. Remember when sometimes you see those bad dreams..you missing an important exam, falling from a hight n all..and then you suddenly wake up to realize that it was just a bad dream. Sometimes you get a similar feeling with your internship.. you thank God that it is just an internship. I am so Lucky!! 🙂

Happy Republic Day!!


Wishing all the Indians a very Happy Republic day, lets pray that our country, the biggest democracy in the world may go stronger with the grit and determination of over one billion Indians. We truly deserve to savor the moment when the tri-color is unfurled at the Red Fort..that moment is meant to feel proud of what we have achieved, and the very next moment we have to start again, get back to our work..as we still have a lot more to do.

m already waiting for the morning, when the Adelaide test will take a back seat and the national will be at a stand still for those 52 seconds.
(best of luck to the Indian team as well, Aussie ki Taissi kar do 🙂 )

Vande Mataram!