The 3 Stooges

I had a very good day today :) How should I put it? It was like a complete day. I got a lot of work done (writing documents is a killer activity!) , met up with Sameer for lunch after a long time, (at our favourite KFC. The zinger burgers are to die for) and practiced Salsa (we choreographed our own steps for the first time). There's really nothing that I could crib about today.

I am really excited about the Project Management thing happening at work. It would really feel nice if we can set an example with our project and apply it to all new projects. But that's a long way to go because a lot of things look good on paper but implementation is a bitch. Bhakti is doing an awesome work in customizing the existing ESA (European Space Agency) Project Management standards and guidelines. I have managed to get a preliminary introductory document in place to introduce the stuff to the management. Lets see if the Chairman will be impressed but then again it'll be sometime before it reaches him. I just hope I am not bothered with all the other activities at work (which is obviously not going to happen). I sometimes feel that I seriously need to get my job profile sorted out.

It's always fun talking with Sameer. I remember in college, Sameer, Nicholas and myself used to have these long discussions on various things in life such as ideologies, principles, girls, marriage, philosophy and sometimes studies too :). I miss hanging out with them. And it's sad that life has got us so entangled that in spite of being in the same city, it takes us 5 months of planning to finally meet up. Nicholas has gone down under and God knows when he'll come back. Australia is really not making me feel good at all. At the current situation, I have an extreme negative bias towards that country. Its a very personal issue of mine and I have nothing against the country except a few oblivious blokes. Ok, getting back to my meet with Sameer. We caught up over a zinger meal, gave me good advice as usual. Its amazing how different he is now compared to the first time that I saw him come into room number 26 (I think that was the number) in 2000. Nicholas and his Dad followed. The 3 of us were always together except in second year when we ended up being in different rooms. It was so damn tragic. Fortunately by the end of the 3rd semester we were back to being roomies (total jhol giri ofcourse! we were officially still in different rooms :P) Right from our first year, it was always the 3 of us with our fourth partner changing every year.

We have had such awesome times together. Right from trips to Guhagar to Sikkim, we have gone to a lot of places together and hope that there will be a lot more places to go to. I don't know why we started calling ourselves the 3 stooges, cause I don't ever remember doing anything similar to the actual 3 stooges but ya that's how we like to refer ourselves as. There are so many stories about college and us, that maybe I should just make a label of it and start putting in some of our awesome adventures once in a while :)

P.S. Had an awesome Salsa session today and actually did our own little choreography. I ought to write down the steps so that I don't forget. Also realized that I need a lot more practice cause I am still very stiff and I do not have the smoothness in the movements. Its still jerky :( . But ya atleast I remember the steps better.

Sleep walking

I am not sure where this weather is heading. I know that I shouldn't crib as I spend most of my time near an AC, but whatever little time I spend without it, is crazy! And the humidity is not helping at all. Well it is just fucked up and I have noticed plight germinates creativity in me. I am in a highly creative mode when I am either very happy, very sad or in general in one of my extreme moods. Well today's hot and humid weather led me to rewrite a poem which I think, almost all of us, at sometime or other have recited as a kid. Here's my take on it (Putting it here so that it doesn't get lost in the Facebook database)

Rain, Rain come today, 
Johnny's promised not to play, 
Save us from this heat I pray, 
Rain Rain come today!

Ya! I know its sorta sad but that's how frustrated I was :P and it looks way better as a status... hahahaha!

Sleep is another thing that I feel pretty sad about. I love to sleep. I just love it and it hurts me so to see myself not sleeping. More so, if you work out. During my initial gym days, I had read up a lot on how much rest is required and all that can be read about getting a lean, mean body. Apparently one needs 7-8 hours of continuous sleep for proper muscle growth. I sleep less than 6 hours a day (not counting the time when I am found splattered on my desk at work, usually after lunch) I can't complain right now cause I haven't been regular but on days I work out, I feel like dying when I have to get up in the morning the next day.

I discovered a huge trove of documents on Standards and Processes. It was like tripping into a gold mine! But I also realized that this business is like Alice in Wonderland's rabbit hole. You don't know how deep it goes until you jump in. I am still falling and I don't see any light at the end of the hole. :)

There are times in life when you don't know where you are headed but you keep going because you have this gut feeling that it'll lead you to a good place. There is absolutely no surety whatsoever but you just get a good feeling. Would you call yourself naive? The path isn't that great either. You get cut, you fall, you get disheartened, you get depressed, the pain gets unbearable and yet you keep walking. The only thing pulling you through are these instant flashes of what you perceive is at the end (a pot of gold). To make things worse, there is a rope dangling just above your head. All you got to do is pull it and you are out of all the misery, but you'll never know whether there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. What do you do at such times? How long are you willing to walk? All this misery that you go through, would you call them self-inflicted? And what would you tell yourself if you reached the end and found nothing but a poison ivy? Can you be strong enough to handle it? Or will you just wither away hopelessly never again to walk such a path, never again to trust your gut feeling, never again to hope. Is that how you mature?

Processing the processes

The best thing about working in a start-up is that there are no processes and the worst thing about working in a start-up is that there are no processes. Crazy huh? But that's how it is :( The usual mentality in a start-up is, "Get the customer and just complete the bloody work! And make sure he comes back again!" Doesn't matter if you have to bend over backwards till you get a slip-disk.

I started my career in a big organization, a telecom giant, where everything had a process. It was extremely frustrating at times when the processes hindered quick completion of pending work. We often joked that we would soon receive a process on how to take a loo break, how to pee, etc. But that's how all these big places work and I can totally understand why it is so. With so many people of different mentalities working in a place, processes keep order and peace. At the end of the day work gets done albeit slow.

On the other hand, in a start-up, no such troubles exist. You get a project, everybody jumps in and gets it done. But, in an extremely haphazard manner. Its more like how nature works. Chaotic and yet in tandem with each other. But then nature has probably got an ISO Level process worked out which we are approximately a million years away from. Right now we are just monkeys swinging around in the wild hoping that none of us would slip and fall and break our head.

Ours is in a state where processes have become a requirement to streamline work, increase coordination and smoothen basic functioning. Internal projects continue to run perennially without dead-lines, external projects are taken without a fixed scope due to improper evaluation of the requirement. And even if the requirement is analyzed properly, scope keeps changing due to lose ends in our agreement with the customers. Customer Delight turns into Employee Suicide.

I am not sure whether processes are a solution to all this because I have been in places that either had them or didn't. Never witnessed the change brought in due to setting of processes. A lot of our guys (specially the management) at work realize that processes are inevitable and they need to be introduced and a few are extremely enthusiastic about the same. If my new project works out, then my colleague and I have planned to put in a basic outline of a possible process implementation, partially because it could be a good case to experiment on and partially because it needs a lot of documentation to be done which is possible only if done systematically.

Lets see if that works out :)

Verbal Diarrhoea

Ever heard of the concept of "Verbal Diarrhoea" (henceforth referred to as VD)? Well I am sure you have and if you haven't then read on, cause you just might be suffering from it. The concept is very simple and is astoundingly similar to its namesake disease. The funny part though is how similar and yet different it is from the medical condition. The similarity is that in both the cases, there's shit all over the place but that is where the difference start. Because once you are done, in the medical condition you feel relieved no matter how short the duration, but in case of VD, buddy you are so screwed!

Now I do not consider myself a Phd in this particular topic but I have gained experience far beyond an average person thanks to my extensive experimentation with the subject. They say that accepting the fact that one is in a denial phase is half the war won. Well I would like to step up and say, "Yes! I am suffering from VD!" Chandler Bing makes it amusing and to a certain extent cute, but in real life its not such a pretty scene. Though I have noticed, that when relating an incident of VD, the audience is usually in splits. (By the way, in case you don't now who Chandler Bing is, google it!)

My friends know what I am taking about. I have given it a lot of thought and I believe there is a solution. Count to 10 before uttering each sentence, sort of like Atal Bihari Bajpayee, our erstwhile Prime Minister. Your listeners would be so bloody bored that they wouldn't give shit about the shit you are throwing. Or better yet just don't speak. Though the best option is to find someone who can stand your VD and stop you when you are at the verge of an attack.

You'll notice that once you have started understanding the symptoms, you can actually curb this problem. For instance, let's say by some miracle you have managed to crack a joke and actually got people laughing. Now if you are not good at a sequel, do not attempt following up on the joke. And if you had an abysmal effect with the first joke itself, do not attempt a comeback (this is a precautionary measure to all my fellow patients)! Its a sure shot way to leap into the endless pit of VD. Worse is the situation when you realize that you have just raped the joke, no one is laughing and just to save your face, you are still talking, trying to revive it, trying desperately to squeeze a little squeak from one of your listeners. But, within a couple of minutes you have gone into a spiral loop and every word you utter is making the condition fatal. That is a point of no return. May your soul rest in peace.

Now I contemplated citing a couple of my personal favourite cases of VD, but I think I shall give it a pass tonight. Each of them was an embarrassment beyond comprehension and some day I shall relate a few. But for now, I have understood the problem and things have improved a lot. I now try to keep my stupid mouth shut.

Inspired?

Have you ever felt so inspired that you thought you could achieve anything? That no obstacle was big enough, no distance far enough and no task impossible? It was as if a super-being had taken over you. A feeling of higher consciousness. You could see a pattern to everything that was happening around you. And you felt as if you had the power to manipulate circumstances, create situations and convince strangers to walk your path, just so that you reached your goal.

You work with such focus and passion that the thought of failure never crosses your mind. You can't see the end but you know that the dark road ahead will light up just in time for you to walk past without the minutest hitch. Your positive attitude helps you take things in stride. Your confidence is at its peak and yet safely below the level of over-confidence.

What if this source of inspiration is so strong, so cosmic that it engulfs your life? It inspires you to live. Makes you want to be a better person. Pumps in so much faith in you that you want to prove yourself. Inspires you to appreciate what you have and open your eyes to what you need. Helps you differentiate between what you want and what you need because there are times when you want what you don't need and you can never have enough of that.

And such inspirations come unannounced. You cannot brainwash yourself to be inspired. It could be an idea you got during one of your early morning dreams, or the thought of insignificance while looking up at the sky on a moonless night. It could be a near death experience or a child birth. It could strike you one winter morning while you sip coffee staring into nothingness. It could be your inner conscience, a beautiful poem or a piece of music. Or it could simply be... a person.

Sita hindi bhasha bol sakta hai!

Had a great Saturday as usual. Got some serious practice done at class today, actually feel a lot more confident now and its been just 2 weeks that we have started practicing more. I am really happy with the way the sessions are going.

The heat is really turning into a killer! And to go out shopping in this heat is as torturous as third degree treatment in POW camps :P (feels exaggerated right? but that's how much it irritates me).

I was watching "Atithi Kab Jaoge" today and I really connected to a small thing they showed. In the movie, Konkana Sen Sharma was playing the role of a Bengali girl and in it she kept mixing up gender while speaking. Eg. "Woh jaati kyun nahi hai?" referring to Paresh Rawal. It just made me happy seeing that it is actually a phenomenon common enough to be shown in a movie.

I have lived almost all my life outside Calcutta and have spoken Hindi for a very long time. But apparently there is one thing that has had very little improvement in my mastering of the Hindi language. I, like Konkana just cannot get the concept of when to use "ka" and "ki". I refer to a girl saying, "woh kal aayega."  or "Tu sari kyun nahi pehenta". I have started putting in conscious effort to correct this but I think I need someone who can correct me continuously and explain the logic behind the sentence formation. I could also get myself a Hindi Grammer book and attempt on my own. But I fear that the result could be disastrous.

It is actually not completely my fault. Bengali doesn't have this gender differentiation! And genetically I am a Bong :) Thanks to this, my friends and I have had some very amusing time, some very embarrassing and quite a few life threatening situations (cases where I have referred to girls as mentioned above).

I firmly believe that there are numerous Bongs out there, who are tormented and are living in misery because of this "ved-vaaw" between the genders. Come on! Why should there be any difference in how we refer either a man or a woman? Is a woman less than any man? So why shouldn't they be referred in the same way as a man?

:D Absolute pathetic attempt at selling my concept but God  knows my life would be simpler if this minor ammendment could be done in the Hindi language.

Hideaway

I must agree that I have had a pretty good childhood. I had my share of troubles but then again who hasn't? But the bigger picture brings a smile to my face and fills me up with nostalgia. I had everything that a kid could dream off. Parents to trouble (mostly mom), big place to run around, huge garden to dirt my clothes, zillion trees to climb, chickens to chase, dogs to be chased by (bitten, at times), fruits to pluck (steal too :D ), fishes to catch in streams (mistook tadpoles for fish at times), books to read and a heavenly place to grow up in.

The 3 phases of my childhood that I remember extremely clearly are my days in Melli (South Sikkim) - thats where my father used to work, Kaji House (Kalimpong) - where me and my mom lived while my dad came to visit on weekends and Tapoban (Kalimpong) - where I began living as a PG but then became family. Each and every moment of my life back then was an adventure and the best part was that I was a kid to actually enjoy life. I didn't have to worry about the difficulties that my parents had to face to make life work there, but I guess that's why every kid deserves to have a memorable childhood, enjoy being a kid. I guess I was just plain lucky.

As a kid too, I was quite a loner. I enjoyed time in solitude. While living with my parents, I could balance my friend-time and alone-time but when I started living at Tapoban, things were a little different. There were other kids there and one wouldn't be left alone when he wanted to. Though now I look back and see how wonderful a time I had in Tapoban, as a kid back then, I really missed living with my parents. I was in class 4 then. Not too big. And at times I just wanted to be left alone and picture myself with them. But as I said, it wasn't easy being alone in a house filled with kids of various ages. But where there is a will, there is a way. I needed to find a place from where I could keep an eye on what's happening in the house, whether anyone was searching for me and whether I had to make a quick getaway. Kalimpong being a hill station had terraced landscape. We had  our water tank up a couple of terraces to the left of the house, (its a totally different issue that we could never pull water up to it from the "jhora" below :) ).

But I discovered that it was the perfect place to spend some quality time with myself. No one would even dream that there could be someone sitting behind the tank. Had a wonderful view too, sitting above the tank. I could see the whole "Kanchenjunga" range peering behind the house on the left while Kalimpong town to the right.

Took these photos, the last time I visited the place in 2008. It was during the rains, so was mostly cloudy. But there wasn't a single shred of cloud as far as my memories were concerned. Its been ages since I sat there studying, at times angry and at times sad cause I missed home but then its not really too difficult to time travel. All I have to do is close my eyes and I am there, back to the water tank, a kid in class 4, and yet there is difference. I see myself not sad but smiling smugly because I know the future and I know that I must enjoy the moment for I'll be holding on to it for a very long time in the future.