Connecting with the inner soul

Sometimes you want to be alone...not because you had a fight or something or because you got fed-up with yourself...but just that you want to be with yourself. You want peace in the surroundings, you want peace inside. When with yourself, you discover yourself, you talk to yourself. It a matter of connecting the physical body with the inner soul. Most of us, most of the time, take the inner soul for granted. And thus ignore it...but when there is a chance to connect and re-connect with it, it gives that heavenly feeling. Its like you always would not like to play in front of spectators. Sometimes, you enjoy playing in the backyard of your home. You hit a shot and you enjoy...it does not matter whether people are watching it or not; you write a blog and are satisfied with it...not bothering whether others read it or not; you make a movie and then sit back and say to yourself "Well done!". Its a matter of talking to yourself and connecting with yourself.
However, being alone does not mean going into isolation. I can be alone even when I am in the middle of a crowded place. In life there has been at least four occasions that I recount where I was so much with myself that I did not want to disturb me!

The first in Kanyakumari, the southernmost point of the Indian peninsular. I was standing on the shore - was facing the Indian Ocean, to the left was the Bay of Bengal and to the right was Arabian Sea. It was evening, the sun was about to set. There was a cool breeze that blew all over, the sound of the ocean waves that broke on the rocky shores, the mumbling of the people around. It was simply magical. That was 2001, just after I stepped out of my college to join my first company, TCS. That phase of my life was also important.I didn't know what all to expect from the professional life...I had heard a lot of stories about it...it was time for me to test the waters. There were dreams, and a thousand thoughts. There were mixed emotions.And then there was the calmness and the vastness in front of me, both literally and spiritually. That was first time I felt very close to my inner soul, I felt that if I had the power I would pause the time and live the moment to eternity...

The second time I was on the banks of the river Ganges, sitting under the Lakshman Jhula bridge in Hrishikesh, near Hardwar, when I felt that peace again. It is inexplicable. There were these gigantic green mountain ranges of the Himalayas in front of me. The cloudless clear blue sky up above. The clear shallow waters of the Ganges lost its way in the distant mountain chains. Not far above is the Lakshman Jhula bridge, from where I could occasionally hear the bells that were tied around the neck of some mules, the common transport for carrying local goods. It was a picture-perfect moment in my life. I wish I had frozen that time. That was February, 2007. I was just offered a seat in Cranfield University...I had this feeling of joy as well as that of uncertainty. Leaving my known shores and stepping into an unknown future. Enjoying the calmness around, I thought about my childhood days, my school days, my college days, the time I spent with my wife, brother, parents, grandparents, relatives, friends....

In my third encounter with the inner self was when I was in Cranfield University. I had written my feelings during that time:
"Sometimes silence speaks more than words, darkness has more light than the sunny days and eventless moments become more memorable than eventful ones. Tonight, the night of 21st June, the power went off in the campus. Initially it was annoying as it meant I could not do anything – even not surf the net. But as I looked around, I realised, it was dead silence outside. The almost complete darkness out of the window and lack of any artificial light made the atmosphere absolutely spectacular. I decided to play a soft music in my laptop. While the gentle sound of the soothing and melodious sitar filled my room and my ears, my eyes wandered around the silhouette created by the distant tress, with the very faint light in its background. My mind and soul were filled with the heavenly peace. It was the peace that I was searching for long, but never really knew how to get to it. I hope and pray that the power does not return tonight.
So as the battery of my laptop dwindles down, I decide to pen the memorable eventless, dead silent and pitch dark night before my feelings get lost in tomorrow’s morning sunlight. Suddenly I can smell the rain and hear the faint raindrops pattering on my window panes. It gives me goose bumps! Its so plainly simple a night and yet so out of the world!
Let me now write not a sentence more and enjoy the mysterious night and discover the peace within!"
It was June, 2008, when I was contemplating on whether I should return to India or struggle in UK for some more days, looking for a decent job in the already shrunk economy during the recession time. Somehow, after that day I felt it was more important that I should have the inner peace.

And then there was Benaras or Varansi. Completely different from the other three places mentioned. It was, put in a word, crowded to the core. Everywhere you look, there's people around you. In the first place, it was difficult to find a hotel room, then it was difficult to walk in the narrow and crowded streets, it was difficult to find a place to sit. There was an ocean of people. People of all sects of life. There were people who were so poor, that they hardly can afford to have a square meal a day and yet they came to the holy city (one of the oldest cities in the world) to offer their prayer to the GOD. They took the holy dip in the Ganges, which is very polluted, to say the least. It was one such foggy morning in the "ghats" of Benaras, where all I could see around was people, people and people. They were shivering in cold, busy drying their body, offering prayer to the GOD...there were activities all around. It was noisy and not-clean. And I felt those goose-bumps again...amidst the hustling and bustling crowd. And again, it was ignoring the world around your, being oblivion to the world around you, and connecting to the power inside you...suddenly seeing the light inside you, which words cant express.
It was end-January, 2009. May I mention, during that time I was quite frustrated with my job in IBM then and just the day before I started my journey for Benaras, I was informed that after waiting for four long months, I got the approval from the Oracle Management team to join Oracle in my favourite city, Bangalore within a month. I was elated and had only GOD to thank for the break. It was like breaking away from the shackles and filling my lungs with pure fresh air!

Its not that these are the only four times I felt that heavenly peace...but these are times that stood so different from the rest. These are the times that awakened me - kept me reminding that true mankind is above the petty fights and quarrels, that what clothes we wear, lifestyle we lead, the inner soul of all people are the same. And it is the connection with the inner soul that that matters - connections with the body and the inner soul and connection between different inner souls. Its a matter of understanding people, beyond what they look like or how they are related to you. Its the light that guides us and takes us forward, that gives us the supreme peace. In each of these times, I was not in the best frame of minds. I was in dilemma or may I put it in this way, somewhat confused state of mind. And after these respective incidents I seemed to know which way to choose, which path to follow. And thats why perhaps, I remember these incidents and those moments so vividly.
Let the light within keep glowing, guiding and enlightening!

Lets enjoy the time...the world will change, anyway!

Just a few days after writing my previous blog, knowingly or unknowingly I have stepped into another world. A completely different world. However, what I forgot to mention in my previous blog is that we all exist in many worlds simultaneously. So, the world I entered did not dethrone my existing worlds, which my home, my office, my parents, my brother; its just that another world was added to it. A world where you are able to sleep only a couple of hours at night; where you get up in the morning and without even getting up from the bed you know your first job is to replace the diaper of your baby; where you are clueless on why your baby is crying; and still you seem to enjoy every bit of it! Yes, my wife, Debreena, and I are now proud parents of a lovely little daughter. We have entered a new world on 19th September.
I am not sure how to express my feelings and emotions. Perhaps, its so mixed that I do not have the words to describe them. I do not think I am able to single out any emotion and react to it. There is anxiety, happiness, apprehension, that oh-no-not-again feeling...and a thousand more.
So the only thing that I am doing is enjoying the time: making sure I live every moment of the beautiful days.
Lets enjoy the time...The time will change and so will the world, anyway!

One life, many worlds!

When I searched the word "world" in oxford dictionary, then I found that the word has a number of meanings. One meaning that we are all so familiar goes something like this "(the world) the earth with all its countries and peoples". Another meaning says " (one’s world) a person’s life and activities". It is the latter usage of the word "world" that inspired me to give the name of my blog "world of amitava".

We all live in a world of our own. We sleep, we eat, we drink, we work, we have fun -- all in our own world. We share part of the world with our friends, relatives and neighbours. Its a cosy world we all live in - knowingly or unknowingly - quite like the atmosphere that surrounds the earth. We move with the world around us, with its set of views, principles, knowledge. We accept other people's world when we find something common or interesting in their worlds. We have fun and make merry when the worlds match each other. That is why sometimes even two complete strangers can be seen talking for hours in a park or in an airport lounge. Their worlds have something in common. They have something they can talk about. But if the worlds are different, then even the closest of the blood-relationships cease to talk to each other. Its just that the cats and the dogs can’t dine from the same plate and even if you force them to, you don’t expect any conversation on the dinning table as they don’t understand each other's language - each lives in a different world of its own.

The most interesting part is, these worlds keep changing! Thats why, even after five-six or more years of successful marriage, people file for divorce. Their worlds have changed. Once their worlds shared lots of common things between them. Alas! Today they don’t speak each others languages.
I first got a feel of my world getting changed when I had to leave my first school, St. Joseph's Convent in standard four (the school allowed boys and girls to study together till standard four, from standard five only girls were allowed to study). I remember the last day in that memorable school, when I felt really sad that I had to leave the school, some of my best friends and teachers in the school, the environment. It was also the first realisation that life moves on. Since then I had stepped into many new worlds with butterflies in the stomach and stepped out with a heavy heart. There was my life in my next school. My world in my engineering college; my world when I joined the Indian IT firm TCS and was in Trivandrum for some months; my world when I stayed alone in Bangalore in the initial days of my job; my world when I was deputed to USA from TCS; my Cranfield world and the world I live now. Each world is different from the other. Each world had its own taste and flavour. Most importantly, in each of these new worlds, I have lived a new life.
A very good way of revisiting those "lost worlds" is to read the mails that were exchanged during those periods. The mails that I had written when I was about to join Cranfield is different from what I was writing when I was studying in Cranfield or the post-Cranfield period. The mails are the proofs that my views, thoughts, dreams have changed its shape and form. In short, I call, my world has changed. Like the transition from day to night, I slowly stepped out of the world I was living and entered a new one. About a year and a half back, when I was in Cranfield my world was class lectures, team meetings, assignments, job search, Fedden Flats; today my world is completely different. I do not live in the Cranfield world anymore. I am equally sure that today's world of mine will eventually fade into oblivion and I will step onto a new one some day.
My age is thirty one now. And within such a short time I have explored so many worlds and lived so many lives. As I have mentioned a couple of times in other blogs, the journey of my life gets more and more interesting, especially, when every couple of years I discover new worlds, meet new friends, have new ideas, learn new things!

Its the same for all of us. We hear of explorers discovering new worlds and how Columbus discovered India and the adventures and stories about it. But we fail to take note of the fact that each of us is explorer in his or her own right. We discover so many things in the world we live in and then one day we leave that world and start exploring some other worlds. We also go through the storms, the rough weather, the high waves, the uncertainty as we set out for the new exploration. Whether we like it or not, this journey of life will eventually come to an end one day for all of us. But in this one journey we can have so many small journeys, in one life we can live so many lives and in this one world ("the earth with all its countries and peoples") we can have so many worlds(of our own)!

What's there in a song?

There are quite a few times I have come across a thought; but am not sure whether those thoughts are so universal that I should write about them and share them with others. However personal they might be, at some point the readers should relate to them. If my thoughts are weird and meaningless then its really no point trying to share those with others. But then I find echoes of many of my thoughts among different people. In one of the blogs, I wrote about the feeling of loneliness in a crowded football stadium. The other day I was watching a documentary in Youtube about Mecca. There one person said how he felt lonely even when he was in a crowd of millions in Mecca. In another writing, I vented my opinion on Indian universities and the newspaper reporting; some of my friends wrote to me how they shared the same view as mine. All these give me the confidence to nurture my thoughts and develop them to a well-composed piece. Today's thought is something that has been doing rounds in my head for quite a few months; its only when my younger brother said something similar last week that I felt the thought is universal. And I decided to pen down that thought - a difficult thing, but let me give it a try!

Orange candy! Ah! Thats what my favourite ice-cream is. And I think its the best ice-cream in the world. I know its a bit too much, but thats the way I like it to be. But why do I think so? Because when I am down and stressed, an ice-candy sort-of relaxes my nerves, wipes off my tension and anxiety and I feel so relaxed. Perhaps, nobody else feels so having the same orange candy! Even the most rigorous scientific tests would reveal that there is no such chemical in an orange candy that can act as a stress reliever. Actually, to me, an orange candy is more than an ice-cream. When I have it, it reminds me of my childhood days - the days when there was no tension and anxiety in my life, everything was so jolly and happy-go-lucky. The taste of ice-candies reminds me of those days, of those times...and I am happy again!

Similarly, a particular smell. That smell may bring to you certain memories, certain times - good or bad. Certain food or certain movie clippings.

One of my bad times in the recent past is the time in Calcutta, working for IBM and I have no qualms saying so. Perhaps thats the reason I have developed a hatred for the city. Whenever I think of Calcutta, the life there, whenever I see any Bengali (language spoken by the people of Calcutta) TV channels, they remind me of those days. I no longer see the Bengali TV channel, but visualise my life during that time, instead. And I dont want to see them.

And then there are songs. It just amazes me how a song can have so many different meanings to so many people. When we (brother and I) were school boys, we used to listen to songs of a Bengali singer, called Anjan Dutta. We were die-hard fan of his. I thought, "Yes! Now I have got somebody who speaks my language, understands me." After more than a decade, his songs no more appeal to me. And yet once a month I just play his songs when I want to re-live those younger days of mine. When I listen to his songs, actually I dont listen to his songs, but take myself to those days. And I still remember, when I went to USA the first time in 2002, I used to listen to at least two Bollywood movie songs - one from "Kaante" and the other from "Devdas".
During my last days in Cranfield things became a bit confusing. I was dilly-dallying with the idea of whether I should go back to India, or should I stretch myself for some more months to find a job in the already-squeezed job market of UK. At that time I listened to songs from some other Bollywood movies called "Race" and "Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na". When I listen to those songs I cant help but get those feelings inside me again. What appears in front of my eyes is the Fedden Flat studio apartment of mine; the yellow bulb at the centre of the room, the big windows, the community centre view from my room, the car-parking lot...I get goose-bumps. And these same songs have different meaning to different people. Some may remember these songs as it was played when he/she was going on a certain journey or may be it was being constantly played by the local club at a function or simply his/her better half gifted a collection which had those songs!

So, even though I dont find any good sense to the songs of Anjan Dutta today, which at one time I simply loved, I still listen to them when I want to re-visit my adolescent days. My wife did not find any meaning to his songs at any point in her life. So, today, even though we both share the same opinion that those songs are too childish, she fails to understand why I listen to them, anyway!
Isn't it strange how we live in the present and then occassionally some incidents take us back to our past? For a moment or two we go back and live in a different world, which may be good, which may not be so good. But, nevertheless, it is a world we once lived. It is a phase of life that we passed.
One day in my newly-bought home in Bangalore I was relaxing on the terrace, when a parrot's twitter suddenly caught my attention and what immediately flashed in front of my eyes is the gorgeous mango tree that we had in our house. When the mango used to ripe, parrots used to come in flocks and nibble at them. I was too familiar with that twitter then, as a child. Alas! Today that mango tree is not there. Needless to say, those sweet childhood days have also quietly sailed to some distant fairytale land!

You are just a phone call away!

The number of contacts in my mobile phone run well above two hundred; when I open my gtalk or yahoo messenger I see more than a dozen friends always online; my orkut account has more than 150 friends and so is my facebook account. Many of you will have much more than that. Am I not lucky to have so many friends at the click of a button? And yet sometimes the world seems so lonely! Hardly the phone rings apart from the very familiar ones; hardly someone scraps and yet I like to think I am in the middle of everything! At the end of the day before going to sleep I can hardly count the number of people I can count on. Is there really anyone to whom I can pour my heart out?

This world is strange - you come alone in this world, you leave alone and yet like to think that you are not alone. You hate to be alone, though its a fact that we all are alone! Alone in our own world, where we silently laugh, smile, cry and shed tears. Our world is a very personal one. On one hand we like to share part of our world with very few people, on the other hand we want this world to be as private as possible.
Its a dilemma.

Do I really want to let others know who am I and what I think? We always try to don some type of the mask - in office we are different(quite professional), in home we are on our own (as close as it can get), in playgrounds we are competitive, with a bunch of strangers in a flight or train we are reserved. Are we not trying to camouflage our identity depending on the environment? And in the midst of all these sometime we perhaps fail to identify who we actually are. As for me, sometimes I can remain so cool, while at other times I may lose my cool, sometimes silent and hardly participating in any conversation and sometimes so full of energy. My dilemma with myself continues. Exactly who am I and how am I? What do I want in life? Is there any boundary line or does the milestone keep on shifting? How much happiness is happiness? Why do I feel lonely even when I am inside a crowded football stadium? Why did I feel that eternal bliss when I alone sat for hours under the Lakshman Jhula bridge beside the shallow Ganges in the Himalayas? Why do I feel at one moment that I have all that I need in life and the very next moment I feel I have nothing that I can call my own?

I dont think I'll be able to find answers to any of these. Or perhaps I will at the end of my life. Perhaps all the answers lie in the destination, may be like a pot of gold, and this journey is just the road to the destination. Its like you climb up the mountain without really knowing whats there on the top. The day when I reach the top , perhaps, the meaning of the journey will be as clear as a whistle. Perhaps, that day all the jigsaws in the puzzle will exactly fit onto each other and I will find answers to all my questions. That day I need not call anybody to relieve me of my loneliness. I need not login to my facebook or orkut to find out if anyone left a scrap for me. I will be my own complement. The world would not need me anymore; I would not need the world either! Everybody who thought their life dependent on mine will soon find that I am not indespensable. Everybody's life will be back to normal -it will be business as usual. Like the beautiful rose in the garden which thought that it brought that extra glow in the garden and when one day it faded it realised that the no one notices it after a day or two, same thing is applicable to all of us.
So, there will come a time when I wont be blogging any more,when people will scrap me in the networking sites, mail me or ring me, they will not get any reply. Because, by that time I would have got answers to all my questions and would have already started my next journey.
Ah! What a feeling!

Shrinking world or shrinking mind?

In today's world of mobiles and wi-fi internet we claim that the world is in our hand. You know, the "Global Village" concept. But more often than not I wonder how many people have really been able to rise above their small narrow world and have got a taste of the actual "world". Or is it that we know what the world outside is, but pretend that our one, even if its inferior a thousand times, is a better one. Its like the story of the rabbits that I heard when I was small. My grandfather used to tell me that when anyone chases a rabbit, it puts its head inside the burrow or hole on the ground. Since it cant see the world outside, it thinks that the world cannot see it to, though its little tail keeps signalling like a flag to the hunter! Let me give some examples:

The first one is when I just got a chance into my good old Cranfield University. And someone commented that there is not much difference between an UK - obtained degree and an Indian degree. Now it needs to be clarified here that the Indian degree in question is one of the lacs of B-grade Bachelor of Engineering (BE) degrees doled out by thousands of B and C-grade Engineering Colleges across India. I was going to ask the person, are you sure what you are saying? Was it really ignorance or was it shutting the window and claiming my house is the best, because I have not seen any other's house? May be, jealously. Or may be plainly foolish.

But then what do I conclude when the "Economic Times" on 4th August, 2009, claims in an article that "Students have left LBS, Cornell, Stern to join the great Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta"! Nothing but pathetic reporting! When IIMs (as the Indian Institute of Managements are commonly known as) never ever figure in the top 300-400 world MBA schools in the world, how can they think of competing with the market leaders? And may I know who these students were? What are their credentials? Quoting one (insane) student does not prove the world thinks so! Feeding the Indian public with IIM news has become a sort of pastimes for the media, which IIMs dont regret, because they get good publicity, nonetheless. Yes, we know we live in a "Global Village", but what about the feel-good factor that "we're almost there!". We became second in the race. Then a footnote: There were only two comptitors.

We all have our own world - our comfort zone, where we eat, drink, sleep, dream, work; where we live. Good, bad, ugly - we love the world. We know there is a better world outside and there are others who are living in the better world. Most people like to handle such situation in two ways . Either they dont want to see, which the rabbit-like attitude. Or they start comparing, be jealous...start those back-bitting. Modifying one small joke that I heard some months back, I can say fighting with the second category people is like fighting with a pig in the mud, soon you realise that since they dont have any other work, they are enjoying, only you are getting dirty. Best way to treat these creatures of the society: IGNORE.

I thought in the open world today, people would have realised that there are as many ways of living as many people are there on earth. If I have got a B-grade engineering degree and failed to obtain better degrees, then I should look how I can obtain that. Rather than , foolishly, comparing that B-grade degree with a B-degree (Business Degree) from A-grade worldwide renowned college.

And that brings me to my question - how much global are we? Do we pretend to be global (when we are just plainly narrow-minded) or we know what the world outside is but fail to accept that better and bigger world.

Surely not many have availed the facility of obtaining knowledge at the click of a button. And thats why even reputed publishers get away with such cheap articles. And thats why people still swear by the IIMs. The approach of IIMs and foreign universities towards the course are different. IIMs rely on the high placement (and thats more because of the growing Indian market), foreign universities on the quality and state-of-the-art knowledge, universal exposure. Yes, we all go to B-schools because we want to earn money - more money, perhaps, some days down the line. But not only because of money do we all go for MBA. There are illerate real-estate brokers, fish merchants, smugglers and lot more where you really dont have to be too much educated, but mint a lot of money. If money was the only parameter, people would not have gone for PHDs and thus spent the first 35 or so years of their life learning new things. How much is monetary gain? Very little compared to the intellectual one. Since monetary gain is simple to measure, IIMs use this parameter to create the hype and hooplah. And so, when the JNU (Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi) or the ISI (Indian Statistical Institute) or the IISC (Indian Institute of Science) and such other renowned educational institutes develop thousands of intellectual mind, their parameter is hard to measure. It does not make spicy news articles. So sad! I may categorically want to mention that my aim is never to demean IIM, but to say, it should not be compared with the other foreign school names mentioned in the article. Its a fact...come on, lets face it. Every education, every degree has its own position. Even the B-grades and C-grade ones. But comparing them with the creme de la creme only provides a laughing stock.

I would say our forefathers were more global as without having access to radios, TVs, let alone, phones,internet and all, they were so much better informed of the outside world. And that was through classical novels, books, un-biased newspapers. Above all, they were not narrow-minded. They appreciated others and learned to live with many under a common shelter.

Today, is it too difficult to accept the world as it is? To accept the reality? To accept that "Yes, he is a better person" ? To stand up and applause when somebody hits an ace? Can we,for once, shut up and clap for appreciation? As the world shrinks, I am afraid, so does most our minds.

I cannot conclude without writing a note of thanks to none other than my alma mater Cranfield School of Management for introducing me to the real and beautiful outside world.

As life goes on...

Life has been going at a fast pace for me for the last couple of months. Time flies here. Different emotions, different feelings, partly organised, some decisions taken with a cool head, some just happened before I could react to it. In short, life in Bangalore has been eventful. There is the urge to write another blog and yet I don't know what to write on...perhaps will be wandering here and there. Different very small incidents sometimes change the way you perceive things.

Things did not go too well after the MBA, especially with the type of job I landed in IBM and another idiotic and a****** boss that I had to report to. I mean some people just have so little knowledge about professionalism and they bring their personal 'I' so much into the office that they forget that they should actually abide by the organisation policies ; after all its not their home! But who will make them understand? But like this recession taught almost all that nothing in work can be taken for granted, hopefully, some day these managers will realise that its not enough to hang around in the name of (mis) managing the team. Since it was immediately after the MBA, the shock was just too much. It was a moment of shock and despair.

Thank GOD I do not have to deal with him and new manager is absolutely amazing.

Immediately after that manager, I came across my manager in Oracle. A completely different person. Jovial, hard-working, dedicated and loves the team! In fact the best boss I had in my whole career. The whole team has lunch together, we play pranks together..its absolute fun. In fact, last month there was a possibility that my manager would be transfered to another business unit. The whole day we prayed that it does not happen. Ultimately it did not! And the whole team was so relieved - BOSS stays as BOSS! A moment of celebration.

And then there are relationships and the over-heads that come with it. Mainiting the links, striking the right chord, understanding what opinions others have about you, its all so complex! In this small life of ours I wonder how people have the time to brood over small things, have time to peep into other persons' life, analyse it and then prepare the perfect recipe to set the house on fire. Perhaps those who have lost the direction of their own life try to distract others. Its sometimes so difficult to control your temper. But at the end of the day I realised the importance of something that my dear grandmother taught me long back when I was small - BE COOL. When as a child, I was very hot-tempered she used to constantly calm me down and compare anger with fire. It was a moment of realisation - an old lesson revised.

Compare this with what happened just in the last two days. Our maid (we call her "Aunty") yesterday told me about her past life and how her husband left her 23 years ago to marry another women and how tough her life has been. I was moved by what she said and was amazed to hear that she actually knows driving and carnatic vocal music (I know none of them!). Today morning she said she had a problem and had to be admitted to the hospital today evening. She cannot continue our job. I learned from her relative that she had breast cancer of advanced stage and was going to be under the knife soon. She bought our used old washing machine and with this month's salary it was supposed to be adjusted. However I don't know why, but I did not adjust and gave her the full salary. While time of leaving, she said "Sir, I will pay you the amount. Don't worry" I only said to her "Don't worry, aunty...you take care of yourself." I wanted to say "Let that be a farewell gift to you!"...But perhaps my throat choked and I was unable to speak. It was a moment of sadness.

My dear old friend of college days, Sandipan (to be precise, Dr. Sandipan Pramanik, Lecturer of Nano-Technology at the University of Alberta, Canada) one day mailed me about some project plan that he was going to submit in approximately 10 days time. He wanted me to proof-read it. When I opened, I was elated to find that its a business plan. Having just completed my MBA and raring to go, I jumped into it. We worked day and night - round the clock towards it. That was in May. Last week I came to know that our business plan won the first prize. I was on cloud nine. If there was even the slightest hesitation in me about the value of my MBA and the time and money I spent on it, this incident rubbished all of them. I am happy and proud for every moment that I spent in the MBA. Once I thought that I'll tell to all who even now doubt the credentials of my MBA, but then recalled my grandma's advise to be cool under all circumstances. I don't have to prove any point to the world. If I am clear in my conscience, I know I am in the right. It was a moment of great joy, satisfaction and peace of mind.

My life goes on...small incidents, big impacts,some old lessons revised, some new lessons learned. My life goes on...learning new things everyday, improving myself, changing the way I look at life, paying attention to some, ignoring others.
All in my endeavour to become a better human being -- better than the previous day.
Amen!

The graduation and beyond!

This Friday...the 6th of June is the graduation for the Cranfield University batch of 2007-2008. Being a student of the MBA cohort of that academic year, I was invited for the graduation. But, unfortunately, due to several factors I would not be able to make it. My office work and some other personal obligations are the key reasons behind my absence from the prestigious graduation ceremony. Am I feeling bad? Yes a bit. A bit, because this is my third degree (after a Bachelor of Engineering and another Master of Science) and I have made a hatrick-of-sorts by not attending any of the three graduation ceremonies. Each time something or the other came up which prevented me from attending the ceremonies.

To all those who thought that Cranfield was the ultimate destination, nothing can be further from truth. It is the train to the destination! It is the stepping stone to beginning of a long and interesting journey. I have got world-class education from the university; I have attended lectures from some of the stalwarts in the world of academics; but they are things of the past. From now on there should be no looking back. I was in Cranfield for a reason...the days and purpose are over. Today my world ahead is different...I am out to live my new-found life. There is no point in revisiting the past and unnecessarily feeling nostalgic about it. In life you lose some, you gain some. So, while my heart will like to revisit the past and will miss the graduation, my brain will be busy working for a better tomorrow. My life post-Cranfield gets more and more exciting as I will reveal them in the coming blogs.

Somebody is controlling!

Many times we think that we can do a lot...there are a lot of things that are under our control. But, at least for me, I have seen that except putting the best effort nothing is in my hand, least of all is the result. And this observation is not based on a single incident or two, but on a series of incidents. And so many things would have changed in my life had not a particular event taken place.There are so many turning points in one's life that sometimes one really wonders how much is really under our control.

It would make a long story to narrate the different "defining moments" of my life. I am sure, we all have numerous such instances. My making into the engineering way back in 1997, getting admission to the Cranfield MBA, my landing with a job with Oracle Corp. in Bangalore again...its just that I have done my best and the rest is controlled by an invisible pair of hands. And that makes me believe in a power, often refered to as the Almighty. Sometimes you are at the end of the tunnel and you have absolutely no clue how to get out of it, you are getting suffocated and its then that you see the light...and you swim to the safe shores!

When you do good things, you are rewarded; evil begets evil. These are some old adage. But evertime I think I can do this and that, I realise that I am a tiny entity in a vast universe and I am almost entirely guided and dependent on the environment around me. Its not I have surrendered myself to my fate. But its just that sometimes it gives me a solace of sorts to let things drift and take its own course and hope and pray that the stream will automaticall find the ocean! It so happens that you fight and toil the whole year, you dont get the desired result. And then you gave a dedicated effort for a month and there is a miracle. None can explain these phenomenon, which keeps on occuring in our life.

Everytime we think WE are in total control, we are subtly made aware of the fact that we are just the means. Having said that, there is no substitute to the dedication, hard work and the zeal to succeed. Day dreaming might not lead us to great hights. Sincere effort, hard work and a dice of luck, guided by the invisible power of the universe, might just be the perfect recipe!

And while we strive to become a better human being and raise our level, the journey of life gets even for interesting and exciting.

Bon Voyage!

31st March...

I am now in Bangalore. My good old Bangalore! I have been here from 2001 to 2007 and left it only to join my MBA. Both I and my wife had an intuition that some day we would return to the lovely city; but I didn't know I would return here so soon! But, nonetheless, I am enjoying my life in Bangalore - every bit of it!

Today is 31st March...Its a memorable day in my life. Not exactly today, but 31st march, in general. No its not my birthday, nor is it my wife's or brother's...even not my parents'. So what makes it so special? Well, we all get obsessed by dates. And to top the list are birthdays (one's own birthday, birthday of loved ones, near and dear ones, friends), marriage anniversaries, New Year, Christmas. We celebrate those days and more often than not plan for a couple of weeks on how to spend that special day. But have any of you taken any particular date of a calendar and seen how you have spent that day for last few years. Lets take an arbitrary 14 October, for example. How did you spend that day once when you were a child...and then once in high school, and then for the last few years? Facing a day without the least preparation. Or, lets put it in this way, you prepare something for a day..and it happens to be the 14th of October...Thus it will turn out that one 14th October you spent in some movies, one 14th October you spent your time with your grandparents, one 14th you were stuck in the office, and lets say in the last one you just didnt do anything special at all! The interesting thing about this arbitrary date compared to birthdays and marriage anniversaries is that on this arbitrary date you are free to do almost any thing and every thing; unlike on the birthdays (and all) when you are pre-occupied with some special thoughts almost the whole day and some things like wishes, phone calls and cards are almost an integral part of those days.

31st March is one such date in my calendar. Some eventful things happened quite a few times on this date and yet those things could have taken place on any other day in the Gregorian calendar!

As a small boy, that day was 'eventful' in the sense it was the last day of the financial year. My father, being a bank manager, often came late in midnight on that day. Generally he came at 7-8 pm in the evening...that day he often returned home at 1-2 am in the morning. To me, that sounded a hell lot of work then.

31st march is also the day before the April Fool day. When we (my brother and I) were small, on one such April Fool eve, we played some harmless pranks on our grandparents with coins and rubber-band wrapped in a piece of paper that makes strange sound once the paper is unfolded. I still remember that our grandfather expressed utter surprise and fear during the time of unfolding the paper when the crackling sound was heard. We believed him them. Today, I realise that fine piece of acting was to ensure that the tender hearts were not broken. Today my grandparents are no more.

31st March 1997. Yes, I remember the year too! It was the day my Higher Secondary Mathematics examination was held. Since my humbleness will do no good to the article, I admit that I pretty good at Mathematics. I was even better at Physics! Ah Physics...my favourite subject! The physics exam was held on 29th March. It was disaster for me. I don't know why, but things did not go well for me on that day. I failed to answer simple questions. I forgot to answer a set of questions worth 8 marks and I still remember on what it was (What is anomalous expansion of water and how it helps the aquatic animals and plants). I returned home completely shattered. 30th march was a holiday. On the morning of 31st march, I had a sort of semi-nervous breakdown. I seemed to have forgotten all the mathematical formulae and another disaster on the examination day seemed looming large.My father anticipating my panic and tension decided to accompany me to the gate of the examination hall. It was his D-Day - Bank closing day. But he chose to take a leave and go with me that day. For me that was a really BIG sacrifice that my father did on that day. Needless to say, before that and after that he did innumerable such sacrifices, but that somehow stands a bit away from the crowd. It also perhaps showed how he chose personal life over the professional life. Fortunately, my Mathematics exams was not that bad.

31st March 2004. Why is it that each time my dad features in some form or the other on this day? Believe me, even this one involves him...in fact the whole of 31st March, there was just one person who grabbed all our attention, focus and prayer: it was my father! Debreena and I got in November 2003. My parents came to visit us (in Bangalore from our native place near Calcutta) in February, 2004. To cut the long story short, during the visit, he was detected of stomach cancer. It was a total shock to all of us - a bolt from the blue. He was just doing his routine check-up when this got diagnosed. He had to go under the knife on 31st March. After a five hour long and critical operation, he was back to normal...he is leaving a healthy life, by the grace of the Almighty. When I went to the hospital medical store to get his medicines, at night 9 pm, they said. "Sorry sir, generally we are open 24 hours a day, but today being the financial year end, we closed all our transactions by 8 pm and are busy in the accounting process." I went to a medical store outside to get those long list of syrups and tablets and capsules and injections.

31st March 2008. One of the best days of my life. I was all alone in cold England during my MBA. My wife was working in India. In the Easter break, she joined me for 15 days. It was not planned, but the day we chose to visit London was 31st March. Though I had been in Cranfield from September, I kept the day-long trip to London postponed till my wife came. Actually I always thought I should write about that day...and then kept on postponing as I took time for my thoughts to get organised. But before my thoughts got organised, the economy got dis-organised and with it so many plans, thoughts and dreams got hay-wire. I did not have the mentality to sit down and write and that's why there is a considerable gap in my blogs in that period. Perhaps, some day soon I will write about them. But one thing I must say, seeing 221B Baker street was living my childhood dream. I had goose bumps then and am even having so now at the very thought of the moment. So, it was a bright sunny day in London - the London eye, Big Ben, Traffelgaur Square, The Westminster Abbey, the London Bridge, the Piccadilly Circus, the cruise down the river Thames, the Greenwich Meridian (read about in school books), the Buckingham Palace...you name it. I still remember that we were in the Buckingham Palace in the evening time. The sun had gone mild. I told my wife "Life is so unpredictable. On 31st March 2004, we were in front of the operation theatre, now are in front of the Buckingham Palace. GOD know how we will spend the next 31st March.

31st March 2009. I am in Bangalore. Writing this blog. Had a normal day at home and in office. The only event is, though fairy tale ending it might sound, today my father went for a routine check-up. The doctor did not find any carcinogenic cell (cancer cells) in his body. In 2004 the doctors told if they are not found in the next five years, my father can well assume that he is in safe shores. Today he was relieved to find himself in safe shores!

The speciality about this date (31st March) is that it is uniquely special (I don't know what it means!) in my life. But on second thought, I firmly believe that all such days are unique in each of our lives. In the busy daily life, we fail to take notice of it and ,thus, in most cases lose the joy of living every moment!

Cultural shock in my home town!

Its not that one year of an MBA in UK has made me a British; its not that I feel a sense of pride by disassociating myself from my roots; its not that I think that I will be considered a superior human being if I give the impression that I am more of a developed-nation 'resident'. And yet my home town Calcutta left me utterly disappointed and shell-shocked in the few months that I was working there. It was a cultural shock, more precisely, "work-cultural" shock!

They say that the best journeys are the journeys that bring you home. And then there is 'home sweet home'. And yet the few work environment in Calcutta left a bad taste in my mouth. 

I am proud to be a Bengali (the residents of Calcutta). After all, despite the poverty and untidiness and many other issues, in India the noble laurates, oscar winners (until the recent Rahman spectacular) and several intellectual men and women were from the city. But now the state of the state of West Bengal is abysmal. We (Bengalis) crib about the state and still like to think that we are better than the rest of India. But, sadly enough, the reality is something different. The world has moved on...Calcutta has not. I am not trying to bash the city, which formed my basic foundation. The fact remains, whatever the city does, it makes a huge publicity stunt of the work or acheivements. The number of IT (Information Technology) offices and campus are a small fraction of those in Bangalore or Mumbai. The prospect of the establishment of the Nano motor (more famously known as the world's cheapest car) raised such a celebration that it seemed that the world can't get bigger and better. All these point to one thing: we love making a mountain of a mole (Empty vessels sound more?). 

I had been wondering what it is that makes Calcutta not so industry-friendly. From being the capital of India till the early decades of the 20th century to being reduced a shadow of its glory days, there really has to be something wrong somewhere. Well, I did not have to scratch my head for long. It was the unions, the strikes (bandhs), the laziness of the people which top the list. The cultural shock that I faced was is the attitude towards work. I wonder how people can be so ignorant about their work. When I go to repar it my DVD, the mechanic charges me money, without even repairing it. And on top of it, he creates more problems in it. One Sunday the taxi unions call a strike the following day; the reason being that the drop in the global petrol price should be reflected in the price of the petrol in the local market (in India petrol prices are regulated by the government). Have they ever thought that so many thousands of people will have to suffer and so many crores of business will be lost. Not a word, I bet. The list is endless. And I wonder how a community or state can ever think of progressing if this is the attitude that its residents have.

There is an absolute collapse of the work culture. They say that as long as you dont feel feel the heat, you can sleep well. When during the Durga Puja (the main festival of the Bengalis that continues for four days) I saw the employee turn out in offices in big IT MNCs (like IBM, TATA Consultancy Services, Wipro, Cognizant Technologies etc) barely reaching 10% for entire 1 week -- F-I-V-E working days -- I was left spell-bound. At least in the MNCs I expected some discipline and punctuality. And , believe me, no one had the least thought for the business going going haywire. People just did not work in that week. Be it bank, offices...you name it. The scenario was no different during the last week of the year. Amazing place!! It really leaves me in a work-cultural shock.

But, perhaps, I should have reliased that such a thing was coming. Morning shows the day. I will end my piece with the morning which showed me the day or the months that was to follow during my stay in the city of calcutta. After my MBA, I landed Calcutta in the first week of September. I landed in the Howrah railway station (which is the main railway station to enter calcutta). It was morning 4 am. Typical to the other Indian cities, the newspapermen were busy suffling and arranging the daily newspapers to distribute them to houses, shops and stalls. And the big headline that was displayed 'majestically' on the front page of all the newspapers was something like this ' NANO CAR MANUFACTURING UNIT WORTH 1700 CRORE (INDIAN RUPEES) CALLED OFF FROM WEST BENGAL'. The reason was a land dispute between the company, the state governemnt and the opposition. I would not like to go into a debate or adda, another very dear time-pass entertainment of the Bengalis. Be it sacking of the Indian cricket team team, the decision taken by George Bush in a certain X country, the impact of the recession, almost every bengali person has an opinion on it, which he is ready to defend in some of the most heated discussions for hours together. Needless to say, at the end of the hours of discussion and exchange of views people hardly move from where they were when the discussion began.

The withdrawl of the car was , undoubtedly, a major blow to the state's industrial prospect. But,it  re-assured the fact that for whatever reason, the city of Calcutta and industries/work-culture can never go hand in hand. More than the project, it reflected the attitude of the people towards work. 

Calcutta is not serious about business and hence, rightly, business is not about serious about Calcutta either.

The City of Joy (as Calcutta is commonly known as) was never a a city to enJOY work for me.

And the MBA ends...

I realised that I have not written anything about the end of the MBA. The Cranfield Experience, as we all love to call. Undoubtedly, it was one of the memorable years of my life. I discovered things about me that I did not know. I made friends with people from so many different nationalities. I had a blast like all other students. It was a life worth living! And all came to an end for me on 6th August. I packed my bags and headed off to my country, India. The decision may not have been something that I had wished when the MBA began. I was , honestly, attracted by the glamour and sheen that the Western world carries with it. But time and GOD had something different in store for me. But I am proud that I took the decision. I had a whole lot of different experiences in the last few months after returning to my hometown. I worked in my hometown Calcutta (where I got a cultural shock!), visited the holy city of Benaras (which has people from all sects of life with so much emtions), discovered another dimension in my relationship with my parents and went through such a variety of emotional and mental phases - the roller coaster rides , the highs and the lows. I believe I will gather enough thoughts on each of these to be able to write and make interesting reading.

But even now whenever I close my eyes I can see the school, my 1.18 room of Fedden Flats, the tree in front of it, our classes, professors delivering lectures and speechless students listening to them in awe, the fun, the cold winters when we wrapped ourselves in the best of warm clothes and go for team meetings. Alls over now. On 6th August I left the campus. One last time looked back at my room in tearful eyes. My friend dropped me to the bus stop. Took a bus to the airport. And then the flight back home. A very mixed feeling. I returned home 7th August and celebrated my birthday (8th August) with my wife.
My MBA dream might have concluded on a pleasant note...but my dreams haven't. I just can't stop dreaming. May be some day in future I'll write about them, as well.

The business of a business is business

For once at least the ruthless and brutal side of the mushy mushy corporate world is shamelessly lying naked in front of the world. All the good old words like "employee friendliness", " work life balance", " duty towards society" have been been conviniently thrown out of the window. Its time for "cost cutting", "right sizing" and what not! I am not blaming the companies...if they dont have the cash how can they pay the employees. And thats why I say that the business of a business (organisation) is business (trading, making money et al)...the social responsibilty is something they like to believe that they practice in. When one's house is on fire, one does not go out for charity. One saves one's a**. And thats exactly whats happening. Thats why some of the Wall Street companies who received the bail out packages, distributed a good sum among themselves; who knows kal ho na ho (what will happen tomorrow).

Its a good lesson for everyone who thinks comapny really really care for you. There is nothing personal between an individual and the organisation he or she belongs to. The relationship is strictly professional and thats the way it should be. You bring business, you contribute, you are paid. As soon as the employees feel too much personal, there is a tendancy to get complacent and getting into the 'comfort zone'. The employees thinks he or she can enjoy certain priviledges - its the birth right. Its disaster for everyone.

However there should be an ethics in everything. Even wars abide by certain code of conduct.
Only the jobless understands the pain of losing the job -- the nagging worry of feeding the family, paying the telehone bills, mortgages and a thousand other things. One day as soon as you walk into "your" organisation, you are called in a conference room, given logic on why the company does not need you after so long dedicated years of service and then you are escorted out by the security guard. Surely better treatments can be meted out. But these things are more common now than ever before. These are realities, which we cannot escape from. Heads will roll and we just keep our fingers crossed and hope that its not ours!!
Welcome to the corporate world!!

When elders want gifts from Santa Claus

Its good to be a child again...and hope that in Christmas time Santa Claus brings goodies for us, like he did when we were kids.
Its good to think that when one wakes up in the morning one will see gifts wrapped in glossy papers beside one's pillow. The cricket bat or the soft toy or the magic pencil that one wanted so desparately from dad, who never got!

Time has changed...from being young boys and gils, we have matured to responsible adults.

But in these changing times I have a feeling that millions of elders will want Santa Claus to shower them with goodies. After all, gifts are not only for kids. Surprise gifts are a joy for everybody. But in hard times such as these, when the world is reeling under the economic slowdown, we pray that the gifts that Santa Claus give need not necessarily be surprising. The gifts are humble requests - an urge, a plea, you may say. Geeting back the job that one lost few weeks ago, bringing the smile to the family when the happy days were around, buying the gifts for wife and family which was so affordable not-so-long ago are all we hope to get.



O Santa...please bring us back the old smile and the laughter that we seemed to have forgotten ages ago...We may not be a children now, but we still expect gifts from you...something to cheer about!

Wishing all the readers a Merry Christmas!
Tough times don't last, tough people do. We shall overcome!

From Russia with love…

As a part of our Cranfield MBA program, different students went to different parts of the world – Brazil, Cuba, China, Japan, Saudi Arabia etc in the second week of June. I chose to go to Russia. The Russia trip included visit to two cities – Moscow and St. Petersburg.

We started from the University at about 4 am on Saturday, the 7^th of June, and reached Moscow Airport at 4 pm…there was a half an hour of delay of the flight. Then we took about three hours more to reach our hotel, pulling our heavy suitcases all the way while changing trains of the Moscow underground.

Instead of going on an hour-by-hour or day-by-day description, I thought it would be a better to make the blog more reflective.

The Moscow memories!

Most of us prefer our home town to stay and visit the outside world once in a year or so. Now with the growth of technology and communication, many people may shift to the nearby big cities; but the fact remains that they want to be closer to their homes; the closer the better. What many people do not want is to relocate to a different country altogether. It is the comfort zone that we all subconsciously like to remain within. Stepping outside the comfort zone can be quite a challenge at times.

When I was asked to select a location to visit, as a part of my MBA International Business Experience, I chose Russia above others. With the shades of darkness that’s behind the country Russia, I decided to step out of my comfort zone and try this completely new world.

The experience has been varied. I am not sure if ‘pleasant’ is the right word. Because there were so many highs and lows during the week-long tour. It is a part of the world that is so different. Today, the 12^th of June, 2008, I am in St. Petersburg, having arrived here today morning. I was in Moscow for the last four days. They say you form majority of your opinion about a person in the first few minutes of the interaction. Same may be said of a city – may be it is the first few hours in this case. When you step into a host’s house, within a few minutes you realise whether the host is cold to your presence. With its history of once-a-vast-empire, I never expected Moscow to open up its arms towards visitors like us. I was aware that like the old emperors, who once owned a large empire, Russia will have its own pride and to some extent the snobbish behaviour, unwilling and unable to take to come to terms any more that time and world has changed.

When we stepped in the hotel, our passport was taken, kept overnight with the hotel management and then returned the next day with a stamp on the immigration paper inside. Checking of passport in foreign land is never uncommon – it is just a way of verifying the identity. (Though sometimes I feel that it’s an irony that one small booklet, commonly known as the passport, seems to convey my identity in such a spectacular way!). But what is particularly notable is the way that the process is handled here. When we checked in St. Petersburg, the same phenomenon was followed. It is as if my every move is being monitored. As if a pair of invisible eyes follow me all around! And that’s when you feel that the host is suspecting you. They don’t trust you or your presence. The last thing you want your host to do is monitor each and every move of yours. I heard it existed rigidly during the KGB-era…but was unable to understand why such processes are religiously followed even today. It leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

The next point is the nightmare of being illiterate. In the last few days I realised that after food, drink and shelter, education and communication is so important. Perhaps because of the logic of the good-old-empire, Russia did not care the use of English, or may be deliberately avoided its use as a mark of independence and the attitude that “we can live by our own”. When the main mode of transport around the city is the underground (or tube train or the metro as is known in different parts of the world), it would have done a world of good to the visitors had the stations been spelt in English alphabets. But alas! There were only the Russian alphabets all around. And added to that are the Russian names and their pronunciations which are not so easy to remember. There is always the subtle thought that you may lose your way and never be able to find one out! The underground stations are very deep under the ground level and , believe me, seems like it takes ages to reach down and get out of it. There are beautiful sculptures and paintings, chandeliers and statues inside. People have every right to confuse it with a normal railway station. They are huge; they are gorgeous. And all these add to the mysterious Russia! It is intimidating! Every moment you know you cannot afford to get lost from the group. If you ask people, you may not be able to understand them. The feeling that one needs to fight every odds to survive everyday that is only in the subconscious mind, surfaces. And it’s not a good feeling, either! It has uncertainty; it has fear. It has the feeling of getting lost in concrete jungle among the human beings. A place where even in a normal eat-out each meal costs approximately £10, it can soon get worse than you have ever thought!

These were my broad experiences of the four days in Moscow. I have heard the name Russia or USSR so many times in my life from childhood. But never have I been the least hint of the picture of the world that exists behind those names; how exactly it is like in the cities of Russia and underground of Moscow? And same thing applies for a person and the often-used passport. The passport says the name of the person, date of birth, but does not say anything about the person. And yet, we think we know persons from his or her passport. Russia will never be the same for me. The six-lettered word has much more life and soul for me today.

I am not trying to paint any negative picture of one of the most historical cities of the world, a city where I saw the Kremlin and The Red Square, the KGB headquarters. I am sharing my thoughts on how it feels to not receive a warm welcome at any new place or how it feels to be fully alert all the time. And this takes me back to where I started. In our own home or country, we never feel these. They never surface. I am glad that I was able to realise the advantages of staying in the comfort zone and, at the same time, realise, again, that there is a vast world beyond the comfort zone and beyond our thoughts, imaginations and names.

And, though stepping into that world may be challenging, yet it is what makes a man different from the others. I am glad that I saw this part of the world. And now this world – the world of a fallen empire, an ideology that stands no more, the huge Red Square and Kremlin, the deep and gorgeous underground and some of my subconscious feelings that surfaced and made me aware that they exist within me, within us – has become part of my world.

I am glad that my world is expanding!

Murder on the Orient Express on the White night!

When we take pictures, we take pictures of people smiling. We make sure that we smile in the pictures, which gives a feeling to everyone seeing the pictures that everything was so beautiful. But, life has a different story to tell. Things go wrong, some experiences are not so pleasant and sometimes you find diamond in heaps of coal! So, I decided to write about something that went horribly wrong in the journey. The reason being, like our life, I wanted this blog to have a mix of good days and bad days.

Our so-called Orient Express was the train that we boarded from Moscow to St. Petersburg. It is not called so. But I thought that the name was quite befitting. Everything went wrong from the word ‘GO’! The expectations were high; we all expected some heritage-type train – the Orient Express- type. But it turned out to be a dampener. The coups were small, the blankets and the carpets had a damp smell, and the toilets were dirty. Things just did not go well on the ‘Orient Express’ and our expectations and hopes were brutally murdered and there was blood all over! It was a journey of eight hours – from 8 pm to 4 am. But time seemed to stand still. There was no restaurant in the train. I still could not make out whether the air condition actually worked or whether the few windows that were kept open had kept the ventilation going and the temperature cool.

What could have been a nightmare (may be it is still for some!), became a dream come true for me, as I watched the spectacular phenomenon of white night. Difficult to explain this magic that nature offers. There was bright light all throughout the night, whether it is 1:30 am at night or 3 am in the morning. The light is fairly bright, may be like that of a cloudy day. You can see everything around – the vast green fields or the distant houses – very clearly. It’s what fairy tales are made up of. Twenty years ago I read about some lands are called ‘The land of the midnight sun’. Last night added more meaning to those words for me. Here they call it the white night. Being so close to the North Pole, during this time, the region gets plenty of sunlight – even in the dead of night.

This train journey will always be a special one for me. It started off as a nightmare, but soon a dream took over. And like the smiling photos which seem to give the impression that there are more happy moments in life, when I think of this journey, I visualise it more in terms of the white night and the amazing creation of nature, while the soggy train atmosphere gets eclipsed behind them. Perhaps it is the human nature that we always try to think of the good moments in life and treasure them.

A small incident and a big realisation!

Sometimes a very small event or incident in your life leaves a lasting impression. It tells you lots of things. One such incident took place last Monday, when I was in Moscow. Andy, my friend from the Cranfield Executive MBA, and I were trying to find some decent evening snacks in one of the market places in Moscow. As mentioned earlier, Russians hardly speak or understand English, though I heard that the current generation is learning to speak English.

We found a road-side food stall, which seemed to offer good snacks and at reasonable rates. It was a type of pan cake, with stuffed meat inside. They were of two varieties. We initially had a hard time finding out the price of the snacks. This might sound strange to some readers who might think how much can a pan cake-type snacks cost. To give a rough idea, in a road-side stall close to this one and having very similar look and feel, one such pan cake and a piece of chicken with a bit of chopped onion and cucumber cost 370 roubles, which is about £9. You may have to pay a really heavy price if you are a bit unmindful in the streets of Russia. They will rip off tourists in the slightest opportunity they get. Yesterday one of my friends ordered a glass of pomegranate juice, not having seen the price, in a normal restaurant. After she drank, when she was told to pay 350 roubles or more than £8 (£1 = 40/45 roubles); no wonder she was shell-shocked!

We ate the pan cake of one variety. Then we roamed around for some time. Since the snack was different and quite delicious, we thought of eating the second type. However, it was quite difficult to get two pieces of information from the shop owner. Firstly, that we wanted the second type and not the first type, when both the types were closely kept and wanted to know the difference between the two. Secondly, the price of the second type. Our futile conversation with the shop owner only resulted in the queue behind us getting longer. So, we decided to eat the first type itself.

Then we wanted to drink something. This time Andy spoke a language that was universal, easily understood by the shop keeper – ‘PEPSI!’ She was quick to grab one from the shelf and hand it over to Andy with a smile. Same pack, same taste. This is what globalisation ought to be.

Today I tried the same in the Mac Donald’s shop. Walked up to the counter and said ‘Big Mac!’ The job was done. Prompt and neat. Same word all over the world, same taste, and same caption: “I’m loving it!”…Yes we all are!!!

The Beautiful city of Saint Petersburg

As the British Airways flight BA 879 take off from Saint Petersburg at 5 pm on 15^th June, I had the last opportunity to see the city from above. There well-planned stood the city on the shore of the Baltic Sea. The flight is headed west towards London. This is been the last lap of our Russia trip. The last three days in Saint Petersburg has been a wonderful experience.

After the horrifying train journey to the city, things have been improving for us. To start with, Saint Petersburg is a beautiful city. There are lots of statues, small green parks, couple of narrow rivers and river cruises on them, churches that give the city a romantic flavour. To add to that was the chilled climate, perfect when you have a coat, and bright sunshine. Even the five hours walk around the city with friends was never tiring in the picturesque city. Then we had almost a day-long visit to the exotic Hermitage, a palace-cum-museum that has amazing work of art on the walls, floors and ceilings, gorgeous chandeliers and paintings all over. In fact, everything in the Hermitage is so elegant that it’s really hard to describe it unless one sees for himself or herself. What followed was an exquisite dinner last night with the entire group and then typical songs sung by some Russian ladies; I tried to discover some of my foot-tapping skills there. A memorable night indeed, that marked an end to the overall wonderful Russia trip.

All’s well that ends well. The week-long trip to Russia is almost end. There have been highs and lows. Perhaps Moscow, like any other big cities in the world, is more business and commercial orientated. Whereas, Saint Petersburg, a much smaller city, is one of the most poetic cities I have ever seen. During the tour there have been gossips and fun, moments of laughter and anxiety, uncertainty and friendship. It was indeed a different experience. The school calls it the IBE – International Business Experience. I am not sure how much business knowledge have we gathered from the Russian trip. Nonetheless, it has been a truly memorable week in the strange and mysterious land of Russia, when Moscow, on one hand, seemed intimidating, Saint Petersburg, on the other, was so fresh and beautiful.

I like to end this Russia diary with the only word that I learnt in Russia. It is ‘Spasiba’, meaning, ‘Thank You!’. Thank you for those moments and memories, Russia. Spasiba!

From Russia,

With Love…

Amitava

PS: Please visit this blog from time to time to see the wonderful pictures taken during the tour. I shall be, hopefully, able to compile and upload then from 20th-21st june onwards.

A thought about my MBA

I have realised that it has been ages that I have written something about my MBA and the Cranfield University. Its not that I have forgotten that I need to write about it, but its just that there is nothing spectacular happening that inspires me to write. Sometime eating food cooked by the best chefs in the world day-in-and-day-out makes you take the good food for granted. Perhaps that's the syndrome that has caught up with all of us. The good lectures, the great presentations everything seems so normal and obvious that often I feel sad that I am unable to appreciate them to the core. Its only when some external speakers (senior executives from multinational companies) come and deliver their speeches that you realise the difference. Perhaps when we go and interact with the 'outside world' (that is the world outside the campus) would we realise how superior the environment here is.

Its spring time here...The trees are covered with green leaves and colourful flowers, the grass is green dotted with white flowers - nature's own carpet. The days are getting longer - there is daylight till 9 pm and keeps on extending each day. The silence of the surroundings is often broken by the humming of the bees that get into my room and chirping of the birds or the children playing outside. Isn't this spring that the great immortals like William Wordsworth and John Keats has so often mentioned in their poems?

Its closing time, as well. My MBA is coming to an end. I can see the writing on the wall. Just few more months to go. There are no more team meetings. Once we hated team meetings and thought that they take up most of our time; today there are no regular team meetings. But honestly, I would actually like to go for a team meeting, because its a place where you interact with others and get out of your silos.
A few more months and then its all over.We all will pack up and bid farewell to the university that has changed all of us. The university will wait for the new batch of students - new enthusiasm, new smile, new faces...and not to forget, new DREAMS!

Feelings

What is the feelings

Of the person standing on top of Mt. Everest...
Of the athlete who has just won gold in Olympics...

Of the warrior who looks at his wife the last time before leaving for the battlefield...
Of the victorious soldier returning home...

Of the widow whose husband has died after 50 years of marriage...
Of the bride and the bridegroom about to get married...

Of the passengers of AA11 before crashing into the twin towers...
Of the astronauts of Spaceship Columbia before it burst in space...

Of the old farmer who lost his family in the tsunami...
Of the mother whose son is an infamous militant...

Of the prisoner of war who was once ruler of a country...
Of the convict about to be hanged...

Of the old man on his death bed as he reminisces his life...
Of everyone of us as we grow from childhood to youth to adulthood to the aged!

What's there in a name?

Many people have interpreted the sentence 'What's there in a name?' in many ways and in different situations. I think, this adage has been misused more often than not. I am not going to argue about the line in this piece. I took this line as I thought it is an appropriate title for this piece.

I am Amitava Chatterjee (I shouldn't have said such as obvious thing!).
I am 29 years old (Could have stayed without disclosing my age!)

25 years ago I was Amitava Chatterjee (So what???Isn't it obvious?)
25 years ago I was in my kindergartens in my dear old St. Joseph's Convent,Chandannagore,my hometown, a small town in India.


What am I driving at with the statements above?
I am trying to say that today's 'Amitava Chatterjee' is not the same as the one that existed 25 years ago.
Have I gone mad??
No, is the precise answer.

25 years ago the world was different to that 'Amitava Chatterjee'. It was about the small boy and his small town. the lush green fields of the school. The dream to get taller and look forward to the new class, the new books and the new uniform. The fear of something unknown, commonly called exams. The desperate wish to grow faster and study in senior classes. If I extend it to some higher classes in the primary classes, it was the friendship with the classmates, the returning to home and play in the evening, dinner with grandparents. I don't want to continue writing, as all of us have the same sort of experience. So, I leave it on the readers to relate when they were kids.

And now...only 25 years passed by. Grandparents are no more. This 'Amitava Chatterjee' is some 1000s of miles from 'his' hometown. Laptop and mobile are his windows to the outside world. Feels lost in the world when the internet connection is down. (Feels lost in the world, anyway!) Thoughts have become complex. The relationships and friendships have a different meaning today. There are business case studies; there are report submissions. His thoughts and imaginations knows no boundaries. He has grown up.

Are these two the same person? Or is it the name has remained the same, the person inside has changed. We all change. Everyday we change, as we are influenced by new actions and thoughts. We change and we evolve. I am not the same person today as I was yesterday. Likewise, I will not be the same person tomorrow or some years later. But the change is so small, that nobody understands and wakes up in the morning and says 'God! I have changed!'. But, believe me, you have changed!
Scientifically speaking, each day thousands of old cells die and thousands of new ones are born. It has been seen that every seven years the entire body cells get replaced. So, in any way, over a period of years, we all the change. We are different human being today than we were some years back!

What was dear to you some years back, may not be so dear now. Why? If you were the same person, this should not have happened. If I had an affinity towards something, say chicken fried rice twenty five years back, I should have had the same affinity today, too. Lets put it in a different way. If sodium and chlorine reacted under certain temperature, pressure and other external factors to produce sodium chloride or salt twenty five years ago, then it will do so now...it will do so twenty-five years later and forever, for that matter. Then why is my affinity towards fried rice changed? I liked it so much then, but can't tolerate its smell today! The fried rice did not change (considering it was cooked under same conditions all the time). I say, because I have changed. Our taste for something changes, because we change. We all do. For some the change occurs in five years, for some it may be twenty-five year. But we all change.Whether we admit it or not.

I think when people say 'You've changed!', (one a lighter note, this is one thing wives often say to their husbands!) then they refer to the relative change. When the change between people is different, then the gap of the relative changes widens. You find it hard to get a conversation going with a friend who was your best friend some years back. The reason is, you both have changed differently. Your views don't match anymore. Those two best friends have long been buried. These two persons have different opinions and views. Ironically, those two best friends and these two persons have the same name.

Over the years we all live lives of different people under a common name! Those who live them simultaneously are called split personalities; those who live one after another are called normal human beings - WE!

Coping or Copying?

Thanks to the IT and BPO industries in India, lacs of persons, like me, are exposed to the foreign countries of Europe and Uncle SAm! And, almost everyone who is part of these industries dreams of making (official) trips to some foreign countries or the other. And then take pictures of themselves with the sexy cars and glamorous buildings in the backdrop, and post them on the networking sites. For a change, these dreams are fulfilled more often than not. So, its not a wonder that people aged 30 years, who worked abroad for even 90 days will have 90% of the photos posted taken abroad. Perhaps they associate more with the 'culture' of the foreign land, or perhaps they think that those are the best part of their life. Everyone is happy and no one's complaining.

I do not have, and should not have, any qualms in saying that the countries talked about in the above paragraphs have a lot of good things to offer to the rest of the world, obviously including India and the Indians. So when we try to understand more of their culture and imbibe the better ones in us, it should be a matter of joy and pride to all of us. There is no shame in adapting the virtues from even your enemies! But what I am particularly skeptical about is are we really taking the best from their culture? We generally start with the easiest thing and those things which draw the eyeballs, not the ones that the hygienic - good for the mind,body and soul. One of the foremost things that we imitate (not imbibe) is the English ascent. And we make such fools out of us in the process! Sadly, we do not realise it. Most Indians have a fair amount of heavy regional ascent. So when we pepper the regional ascent with the British or American ascent it feels like having an Indian curry and tandoor chicken with muffins! However,over the years many Indian have developed a more neutral ascent, which is more pleasing to the ear.

To comeback to my point, I am not against using the foreign ascent or getting rid of the regional ascent. The British came to India and ruled for 200 years and for that they even learned a new language - Hindi. They knew that to sustain in the foreign land and make trade they had to adapt to their situation - learn the foreign language. We don't have to learn any new language, as English in one of the subjects taught from our school days. We just , at the most, have to learn to roll the tongue in a different way to make ourselves being understood better by the foreign clients. But my problem is, many people mistake the ascent as the culture. My problem is when parents talk to their kids in India in English. Because in all such parents-kids english conversation,which I, by chance, overheard there is nothing expect a whole lot of grammatical errors and sentences or phrases directly translated to english from the vernacular, with the least botheration of whether they actually exist in the enriched english language. It is one thing to learn something to cope with the situation or adapt the virtues and a completely different thing to copy. We are disillusioned in our thoughts that speaking English will enrich us. We have failed to adapt the virtues that make the Britishers the Brit - their sense of punctuality, their well-behaved and well-mannered culture, respect for individuals, care for life,cleanliness and the list goes on. If the timetable says the bus will arrive at 8:55 am, rest assure, it will come on-dot until something really unavoidable things take place on the way. And if it is late, the driver will apologise. No one can think that the food served - whether it is a big restaurant or a small roadside corner shop - is adulterated. No one's seen spitting on the road or throwing litters anywhere except the dustbins. These are difficult to follow and adapt, by any standard. These are the qualities that make a nation and its citizens superior to others. Alas, we only take the superficial ones and pride our aping, not adapting, certain acts.

It would be unfair on my part if I paint a picture which gives the impression that 'all's great on the western front'. But it is also true that we should look at the brighter and better aspects of all that is there in the universe - from the moon to the rose. That's the way we all can be a better human being with each passing day. After all, the Almighty has created us as a human being so that we move and improve from where we are born. Otherwise, HE would have made us trees, who are more controlled by the outside nature, than by the one inside!

I wish we hadn't unearthed the past!

Its perhaps a human psychology that we always think that the past was good - how green was my valley! And from this thought comes the urge to unearth and re-discover the past. We think, how nice it would have been had we been able to rewind ourselves, go back and make merry again as we did in the past, when the days were more sunny and brighter! But an incident that took place just before I came here made me sit back and think...'ummmm...is it worth trying to unearth the past or is it better to leave them as they were?'
Sometimes its better that some things remain as dreams...if they are turned to reality then you feel you have lost something.You have nurtured a dream for so many years that you can't think of anything other than it being a dream - a sort of fantasy.My long cherished dream of studying in a typical English university has come true and I am so happy for that; but at the same time I have lost the dream forever. What I mean to say is that sometimes things make us happier when they exist only within our thoughts and fantasies; perhaps not so much when they are real and worldly.

This special incident that I am talking about is our visit to Bhubaneshwar, a city where my father worked more than 20 years back, just before I came to study here. My parents had contemplated the idea of visiting the place, the city, the house that we lived (as a tenant) back then. My father wondered how when everything else around changed, our 'world' - that place - in Bhubaneshwar changed. He was really excited when we were driving down to the city. I had faint memories of the place - our house, the road in front, the shops around. I could see the excitement and at the same time the nervousness in my father's eyes. On the way, perhaps, he was thinking of the sweet memories that had been associated with the place - when my brother and I were small kids; when the distance between the two places - my hometown, Chandannagore and Bhubaneswar which was barely 400 kilometers - seemed much more than the distance between London and my hometown today in that age of no-mobiles and no-internet; when my grandparents lived and my father would desperately try to visit our hometown at least once a month. My mother was perhaps thinking of the hardships she took during those days when my father was in office for the entire week and she had to raise us and wait for the Saturday and Sunday when we would walk into one of our favourite restaurants, called 'venasin' or the 'nehru children park', not too far away. She is more relaxed today with both her sons (me and my brother) well settled in life. I was kind of trying hard to relate the roads and landmarks with the very faint memories that I had as I was barely six or seven years old then.

As we drove down the different roads my parents kept noticing the different changes that the city underwent. 'These shops are new...they were not here then'....'This place was a barren land...things have changed', they noticed as we drove closer to our old residence. That the things really changed became more and more prominent as we arrived at the lane. 'Was this lane so narrow?' I was telling to myself. In my mind, it was a broad one...but here it seemed so narrow then. 'Where is the stretch of land that we had so often gone passed by?' We walked to our house...
The house changed. Its colour; it was two-storey then, now its three storey. The name plates in front of the house however said that the house owners did not change. Or is it?...Is it that their names did not change and like all other things they have changed, as well. The city's name did not change, but the city changed. The same can be said of the people as well. Perhaps apprehending this, my father decided not to meet them. He perhaps did not want to risk all his memories.
Time has changed and so does everything else.
I realised my father, especially, was quite disheartened with the all that was around. We then went to eat in another restaurant, which two decades back was the best in the town. Somehow the luncheon was equally a dampener. It was not at all up to the mark, especially when you compare it with the bill that we had to foot at the end.
On the way back few words were exchanged. Perhaps we all were trying to cope with the dreams that were lost some minutes back.

I, at least, later thought that we would have better not ventured on this journey. It would have been much better had we left the past as it were and not gone to have a peep into it.
And while I write this I think whether it will be prudent to visit 221 B baker Street in London. The last thing I would want is my well-crafted castle that I have so long built within me regarding that place of Sherlock Holmes vanish into thin air. Yet I am curious to find what that place looks like.
And the dilemma continues...

What a time to do an MBA!

The stock market around the world is crashing; the air is heavy with the words like liquidity crunch,sub-prime mortgage crises, the rising oil and gold prices, the falling interest rates by the federal government. And guess what? I can understand at least bits and pieces of it.
Today our second term got over. Theoretically its a clear boundary line where I can safely say I am half-way through. But practically, the course is more than 50% complete. the third and forth terms are more of choosing and studying your electives; even duration wise we are more than 50% complete.

I believe its human nature that when you understand things that you did not understood earlier, you feel a strange feeling of joy and satisfaction. You feel you have improved as a person, the days spent were worth it. I felt the same feelings many times in the past. These days this feeling enthrals me.
I am not saying you need to do an MBA to know these term, what I am saying is, I have realised that the MBA has injected something in me which makes the world clearer to me. I can relate to what's happening around. I know what the finance minsters said in the budget...they make sense to me now...a year ago, most did not (let me be honest)!

When I look back six months earlier when I first walked in, then I truly see an improved and matured person in me. Two more terms to go...I am sure the transformation will continue for the better.
It is the eagerness to learn new things everyday that makes me wake in the morning and never grin and grumble at the hectic schedule; it is the opportunity to explore the inexpressible inner peace of gaining knowledge that makes this life so special!
This MBA has enlightened me;had I not done this I would have not understood many things that keep on happening around me.But now that I am in the process of doing it, it feels like having those extra pair of binoculars which make things around look bigger, brighter and better - the distant things are not so distant anymore!

Its exam time!

Yes, now the days are becoming longer...the sun is less dominated by the clouds...so things are better and brighter. The tress have not yet borne new leaves....but soon they will.

But that's what the world outside in UK is. The atmosphere in the Full Time MBA Course of Cranfield University is pretty different. Its exam time! Its submission, assignments, review sessions, late night group studies and what not!

Somehow even after giving exams umpteen times, one would expect that the exams becomes more of a habit. Even if one drinks so many glasses of quinine for the last 25 years, one would no longer feel its bitterness and should be in a position to love and enjoy quinine. But the 'beauty' of exams is that it still remains a nightmare ending in a bright sunny day, otherwise called vacation or a thorn with roses in the form of the vacation that follows it.
Surely, its one thing that I , at least, have never looked forward to with excitement and eagerness. The world seems so cruel and unjust before an exam!

How can you do that?...Thank God you did that!

My MBA is almost half-way through. Its exciting, its fun, its informative and its hectic as well! The subjects and topics of discussion vary from one end of the spectrum to another. There's the trick in the balance sheet in Accountancy, the infinite graphs in the Economics, the 'lean approach' in the Supply Chain, the 'it depends' answer in the Strategy, the presence of innumerable 'four quadrants' in almost all the subjects and the ways to handle and manage people in people management and organisational behaviour , to name a few. Good! Interesting!

Today, there were so many things that I can relate to the daily activities and the way my previous organisations functions. There were so many interesting things there that became clear to me as I sat in the classes hearing the lectures. Below I would point like to point to a particular case from my old organisation.
There was one senior person who is supposed to have an MBA degree from the best IIM (Indian Institute of Management) in India. Those of us from India know that those set of elite students are highly respected and admired in our society. And , going by the Indian ways and norms, he displayed it with a certain pride, when in his CV the qualification had the words 'IIMA' (IIM Ahmedabad), nothing else. That spoke a lot about him. Or did it??

Its not a question of critiquing someone or the very common practice of criticising your boss. (I have learnt many things from him, I must admit.) Its a question of asking 'How can you do that?' as I saw the way he functioned many times, the irrational way in which he handled and dealt with people. I wondered how can people make such a royal mess and be blind to what was going around. But there is something called a small fish in a big pond. That's what I was. I realised it was none of my business to rectify or correct a senior person. I tried to turn a blind eye to what was going on , as long as it did not interfere my way of functioning.

Unfortunately, within months I realised, quite ironically, I happened to get the wrong treatment from him. Initially I ignored and neglected, but soon it came to stage where things got messier.
I thought of asking the same question again: ''How can you do that (to me) ?' . But from my previous experience I felt some things never change. There is a small story from the famous Indian saint, Vivekananda, which says that however hard you try to straighten a dog's tail, it soon curls - its a waste of your time to try to do so. So I did not want to change the way he behaved. I knew he never will!
So I decided to do something that will take me out of the mess. I decided to do it in a more interesting and elegant way, rather than changing the job. I decided to do the MBA.

Today when I look back and think of the person and the incidents I don't ask that old question any more. In fact, I am glad they happened! So, I just say 'Thank God you did that! Otherwise I would never have been here!'

The English Weather!

"Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy...
If there is a day I can give, I will give sunshine all the time"
these are lines from the famous singer John Denver.

When I was in India I was used to the sun and its scorching heat. Waiting in the bus stop or walking to the market in a hot summer noon were not the things I looked forward to. Many times getting out in the sun seemed more of a punishment. So in Wimbledon when the spectators clapped when the sun shone on the Centre Court, I wondered why they did so. I never realised how the sun is unmindfully linked in our day-to-day life.

In UK things are quite different. Here when you stand in the bus stop you dont have to bother about the sun, because hardy you find it shinning! You have to bother about the rain, the clouds. Whether the meteorologists say or not, there is always the chances of rain - anywhere, anytime. The drizzle; the cloudy days; the cool breeze; I have slowly become so used to the English weather. Its not the kind of weather where you will feel the adrenaline pumping and want to go out to work. It is the kind of weather you like to stay indoors and spend lazily. You feel sleepy and want to take as much sleep as you can! And in the afternoon if the sun comes out you want to take out the cricket kit and get yourself warm in the field.
I cannot say whether people will agree with me, but its a kind of poetic and romantic weather. I felt I came more close to nature. I began to appreciate nature even when there are no mountains or oceans around. Another thing, which may sound contradictory to some extent is that the night sky is sometimes very clear here. I have not seen so many stars in the smoky sky of Bangalore, India.
The nature expresses herself so differently here. It brings a thought in my mind that its the same sun, the same moon, the same sky and the same stars...yet they are so distinctly different in different parts of the world. And what makes them special and eternal beauty is their ability to display the different forms that seems so familiar, yet so mysterious, so common and yet so mystic!

As the year ends...

One of the memorable quotes that I read goes something like this: 'The safest place for a ship is the shores, but that is not where it is supposed to be'. True. Very true.

Every time during this period of the year - this end-December time - I try to sit back and think of what the year offered me. Every year some new things happen - some good, some bad.
In the beginning of the year I lost my dear grandmother. The year took her away from me.In the first month I went to Haridwar (of which I attached a self-made documentary in my blog) and thanked GOD for everything and seeked his blessings for the life ahead.
This year I worked in the headquarters of prestigious International Monetary Fund in Washington DC. I made some good friends during my last working days in the company. Then of course this study, something I don't want to write in this piece and bore you all.

If this year had something really special to offer me, it was to re-discover myself. The motivation to take the ship out in the ocean. The pleasure in rejecting the safety that the four walls of our room provide. The joy in the sorrow of missing your near and dear ones. Rediscovering the student in me after so many years. The list goes on...
My ship is still sailing in the ocean. The problem is as you come to know new things, you realise how much you don't know. The more you discover, you realise that there are more to be discovered. There seems to be no end to it. There is a saying that says, once a man eater tastes the blood of human beings the tiger falls in love with the taste. The problem with the ship in the sea is more than that. You know that there are so many lands that you can potentially go to, so many opportunities awaiting for you. So even when you reach that shore, you are never complacent. You stay there for some time and then start a new journey again. Once you realise the vastness of the world, you are no longer content with the small piece of land that you owned so long. Your journey never ends. You have tasted human blood and nothing sort of it will do. And each time you want to outperform yourself. The game is interesting. But the game is equally dangerous!
So my getting into the course is in no way an end; it is the beginning of a journey. And that's the most valuable thing 2007 offered me. It started a journey for me. The study is not the end of a dream; it is a platform from where I can see many other dreams. It is a stepping stone. And this is what I remind myself of each day - stepping stone.

Last year this time my ship was chained to the shores. Today my ship is out into the vast unknown ocean. I can see, for the last time in 2007, the sun set on the western horizon. Soon, from the east new rays of the sun with new hopes in a new year will bathe the world - my world, your world, everybody's world. And in the new dawn my journey will continue. And so will yours.
This is a small world, my friend. So someday in some shores we will meet and talk about our journeys. Till then, 'Adieu et bon voyage!'

The journey so far...

The actual MBA started on the 1st of October. On 20th of December Term 1 ended with the last examination of Strategic Decision Science .The next Term starts from the 7th of Jan.New set of case packs have been collected.
I thought its time I reflect what went on in the last few months. Is there really a change that took place in me? I don't want to get into any type of debate...but a thought, that, is the MBA really doing good to me. Is it worth doing, in the first place? It is very easy to say 'YES'. Because that's what you would like to believe. Because that's what the world will like to hear. But I am not doing an MBA for the world. I am doing it for myself. Its time that I look back and 'take a stock' of what went over me. The question is 'Why I want to 'take a stock' in a blog , publicly, when I could have done it in my diary?' My answer is, I might just give others an sight of what happens in an MBA school - sort of an inside story. I am not promising the moon! I am not saying this is an exhaustive piece; it may be just a glimpse; a view of how I see it. And this may differ entirely from what others think or view. And if this piece, by any chances , makes any reader at least think once that 'Shall I go for it?' , then I would consider my blog a truly successful one. Because, I have also realised in the last three months there is as much joy in getting education as much it is in inspiring others to go for it. Though out of context, yet I want to mention that I will more be more than happy to answer any question that follows the 'Shall I go for it?' one (my answer to the 'Shall I go for it?' is a big YES for everybody!).

The term had a number of subjects, none of which I studied before. Economics, accountancy, operations management, marketing and organisational behaviour. On 1st october, I knew nothing of them. Today I know something of them. I know what return on investment means and what is opportunity cost; I know how cheap airlines operate and how coke was introduced in China.Things are never the same as before. I have definitely developed a broader view of the business. I have learnt to see a holistic picture, while keeping focus on certain areas. I have learnt why GOD has given us two ears and one mouth - so that we hear much more than we speak. The learning experience goes on. What is most fascinating is that everyday, yes everyday, here I learn new things; something that has never occurred in my life before. Imbibing virtues from the professors, classmates - the learning curve never seems to dip. Sometimes there were days which were tough to pull through. Tough assignments, strict deadlines. But I made it. Today it gives me the strength to think that I was able to pull myself off from such situations. The road surely was not a smooth one. Nobody promised smooth ride! It was bumpy. But is it not the boulders and rocks that make the mountain brooks to gorgeous to look at? Is it not the test of fire that makes fine steel? Perhaps this is what an MBA is. It teaches us to cross the hurdles; it teaches us to brave the fire. It brings out the best in us. It unleashes the potential in us. In our words, its a 'risk-free zone', where we can try whatever we always wanted to do, without the fear of losing.


I have become much more matured in the last three months. Not only do I look into any business in a different point of view, but also the way I look at the world, in general. I have become a better human being.
And then I think that if in 3 months I changed, what will happen by the end the course gets over? I am myself eager and excited to find it.
While the course concerned is MBA, there are certain things that rise above the MBA. The education in a world-class university , the philosophy of the knowledgeable professors, the maturity of your friends - all rub you in the right way, day in and day out. And they all have an effect on you. The effect is clearly visible. I would say, the entire effect is called education. Its just not what you take inside you what was printed in the books. Its not about attending lectures and replicating them in the examination hall. Its about the realisation of who you are and where do you belong to. I am not saying MBA taught me this, or this was the reason that I am into an MBA. I am saying what a good education has done for me. It made me think those thoughts that I so long never felt the need to have a look into. It made me think! It made me think about the business world; it made me think about me and my strengths and weakness. And all these in only three months!
When the school reopens things will be tougher, with the the number of subjects increasing. The pressure becoming even more, with the obvious thought of hunting for a job added to the tension. Things will not be easy. And I know that. And yet, I know for sure, that I can't wait for the school to re-open and plunge myself into the 'melting pot'!

In the land of Sherlock Holmes...

Wishing all the readers a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
May all your dreams come true.

There was another prolonged gap in my writing. The reason being exams. We just completed the exams last week and the body is crying out for a much-needed rest.I have to oblige its demand as its revolt is no good to me. We have vacation till the 7th Jan.The university reopens on the 7th of Jan. Till then I have virtually nothing to do. That's good and that's bad. Good, because I have after a long time got a break from the hectic running-here-to-there schedule. Bad because I dont know what to do. I do have some plans, but I have a feeling that like New Year resolutions the paper on which I wrote all my plans will remain on the board - never to get turned into reality.
I will write about the university life in the last few days sometime later. Because, I feel, just a plain writing of events will make it a report, not a diary. I don't want to write reports here...I have had enough of them for the last 3 months and more to follow!
By the look of some pictures you might have already guessed the campus has a lot of greenery. In the morning, I can't say that the sun rises. because its so foggy. I can say that the day breaks at about 8 am. Pretty late. At 7:30- 7:45 am its still dark outside. You might just want to curl in your bed for some more time. When the dawn eventually breaks, you just see a thick blanket of fog surrounding all around.The distant trees , with no leaves, are hazy. The grass below have a thin layer of frost. The cars in the parking lot has also got a white shroud. The sun is yet to show up. The picture is lazy and hazy! Its whitish and greyish . There is no golden touch, otherwise provided by the sun. There is not much green as the trees are all bare. Everywhere around is quiet.

If a day starts this way surely the rest of the day will not have something dramatic to offer. The cold wind outside is the least tempting factor to inspire one to step outside the comfortable and cosy rooms.In exam time I studied, now I become bored.
In the evening, things ends in a similar way as it started. But I feel its something taken out of the leaf of some fairy tale.At 4:30 pm its dark. And then misty. A thick fog descends as the sun goes down.When I return from the university or the examination hall, I always felt that I am walking in the area which was so often described as the English countryside by Sir Aurther Conan Doyle. Yes I am talking of the stories of Sherlock Holmes. As if I can feel that I would see the man with the typical cap,pipe and coat appearing in front of me from nowhere. You may think its childishly foolish and laugh at my thought. But perhaps in my situation many would have felt that way, perhaps not.
So when the examination ended the first thing I did was to log on to youtube and see 'Sherlock Holmes and the Speckled Band'. This particular story of Sherlock Holmes was the first I read when my father bought it for me and my brother on the day my Standard 2 exams ended. After reading the story, I almost instantaneously became an admirer of the character. Two days back when I watched the Sherlock Holmes, my thrill was no less though there was a gap of about 2 decades - 20 years!
While the time changed, the place changed, some feelings never seems to change.
Like that day, today also, one of my dreams is to go to 221 B Baker Street in London(the residence of Mr. Holmes), which, today,however, does not seem as distant as it were then!

One city many moods

It is a small documentary on Haridwar that I made during my leisure time some months back. I thought of sharing this attempted creative effort with you all...
Though Haridwar is supposed to be holy place of the Hindus, this documentary has nothing to do with the religion. I have made an attempt to capture many moods of GOD's most wonderful creation - human beings or may be the moods of the people when they have faith is some power and seek blessings from it.
I hope you will like it...Its about 5 minutes and should not bore you.

Please note that there may be a buffering problem, so you would ideally want to pause and buffer the entire video and then see it at a stretch than view it in fits and starts.

Now relax, sit back and enjoy!

As things move on...

First, my apologies for not writing for a long time, when I had promised that I will write every fortnight. Well, there are some things in life that you don’t expect and when it comes you take time to get adjusted to it. One such thing is the ‘Cranfield Experience’. I don’t want to bore you all by saying how busy I was, because, wherever we are and whatever we do, we all are busy in our own world. And we all have to fit all our work in the 24 hours of a day, 30 days in a month (though there were times when I thought a couple of extra hours a day would not be a bad idea :) )

Cranfield Experience has so far been a very enriching experience for me. Back to school was never easy after more than six years in work. But, now I have slowly got used to it. Morning lectures, evening team meetings or the other way round seems easy to handle than it was in the initial days. Though I am not very fond of parties, sometimes cooling me heels off in some light ‘get together’ is not a bad idea. When everyone around has a glass of beer or whisky, I seem to be the odd one out with a glass of coke. But I have learnt to be in the crowd and yet not imitate them.

I have tried to regain my old touch in badminton and found I enjoy just as much as I did 15 years back.

Today we had a ‘mega submission’ or in Cranfield’s lingo, WAC (Written Analysis of a Case study). We were given a case study yesterday 1 pm…we had to discuss it within our learning teams (group of six students mainly) and then with the entire class and had to individually write a report of about 1500 words before handing it over. It is not as innocent as it seems, since reading, understanding and then reproducing within the word count may be quite challenging especially within the limited hours. Working till wee hours of the night and then catching some 'power nap' before getting back to work again the following morning was the tricky part. The atmosphere was charged all the time…the irony is here it was charged with the WAC, while India was charged with the celebrations of the Diwali or festivals of lights.

The indications that winter is coming are pretty much loud and clear. People have begun wrapping themselves with more winter clothes. Thick sweaters, gloves, mufflers have come out of the wardrobes. The areas below the trees are carpeted with brown dry leaves, blown here and there by a chilled breeze. The murmuring sound of the leaves and the whistle of the breeze seem to play nature’s orchestra welcoming the winter. The days have become shorter. By five it is completely dark and cold. The tree in front of my window has started shedding off its leaves. When I first came here it was covered with green leaves. Now it has a mixture of green and brown leaves and ,at places, no leaves at all – only the bare brown branches.

Season is changing, time is changing…and, perhaps, so is my life…

A 'worldly' thought...

It has been more than week that we are safely seated in the MBA-flight. Seat belts are fastened, but there is no guarantee that there would be a smooth ride ahead. In fact, indications are many that more often than not we will face turbulent weather.The seat belt sign is implicitely on!
Many times I felt tired and thought I would go to bed early, that is, by 10:30 - 11:00 at night. But everyday I end up going to bed pretty late. Some thing or the other comes in the last moment and I end up staying awake till quite late at night. Everyday is so eventful. Everyday I learn lot of new things; learn a lot about myself. Already the marketing-accounting-economics jargons make some sense (however little they may be!) to me. It has ,undoubtedly, been a steep learning curve.Today there were some personality developement test. It was fun; it was interesting. You realize that you are either introvert or extrovert, go by the heart or by the brain, whether you judge or you perceive things and ,last but not the least, whether you are more practical or you go by intution.
At the end of the session I realized that all I do and feel are guided by some very basic features and characters that is otherwise deep-rooted inside. Personalities tests such as these bring those characteristics out in the surface. I became more conscious about myself. I realize the way I see the world and interpret things are different than those of others.The same pictures/images and sounds have different meaning to different people. We all have our own thoughts, views, principles and ,of course, our own world!
Though we all have so much common among ourselves, yet are so different from each other.

The beginning of a journey

The Pre-MBA which started from the 17th of September and continued till the end of the month was a sort-of warm-up to the actual MBA program. So it is not surprising that about 48 of the total 138 students attended the course.
There is a long gap between a certain date in May,2001 and 17th September, 2007. Huh! A gap of more than 6 years. And for all those who are wondering what that gap in the calendar has to do with the blog, it is the gap between when I last sat in a classroom attending lectures for my Bachelor's Degree and when I sit for the first class in my MBA (or may-be the Pre-MBA).
The thing I feared most is, I would fall asleep in the class during the lectures. But ,to my pleasant surprise, I did not! And not a single time. The credit in no way goes to me. It goes to the wonderful professors of the university who ,it will be an understatement to say, knows the art of teaching. Many times I was left in awe by their presentation and views.
Beside studying their were get together, socialising (It was a bit of hiccup for a not-so-social person like me!),sports (I almost thought that in my age of late twenties I would hardly get a chance to enjoy sport so much!), quizzes and what not?
I developed a liking for the place, the university and all that is associated with it.
In a very short span of time, I developed friendship with so many classmates from so many nationalities. Did i say there are students from 38 countries this time in the SOM in the Full Time course?
By the time the pre-MBA was over, I realized I had made a very correct decision in my life.
I realized, my journey has begun. I am in a train, which is about to leave the station.The guard has blown the whistle.The signal has turned green...the train is on its way to a new destination...
there is no looking back...

In Search of Thee...

I searched you in crowded trains,
I searched you in packed auditoriums,
I searched you in lonely highways,
...In temples,churches and mosques.

I searched you in the garden,
I searched you in the morning sunlight,
I searched you in spring-time flowers,
...In old albums.

I searched you in my memories,
I searched you in the blue sky,
I searched you in the deep oceans,
...In books and music.

I searched you in the twittering of birds,
I searched you in my dreams,
I searched you in the sunset,
...In the green mountains......

Until I heard your voice from within -
All along you were within me...
In my heart and soul!

A dream-come-true and a note of thanks!

1^st October, 2007.

When dreams become reality, we are thrilled and overjoyed. But if the reality is something you haven’t dreamt of? Well, this is just what I am into right now. When I was small, or may be a year or two back, I heard of people who studied abroad and how they are looked up and admired in the society. Especially, people who went to UK or England to study. There were a couple of friends of mine who went to US to pursue higher education – MS and then Phd. But studying in UK always meant something different and special, I think, for the Indians, or may be more specifically Bengalis (sorry for getting too regional). But perhaps it’s the close association with Great Britain for a long two hundred years that has somewhat moulded our thinking.

In the photos I used to see the typical universities – narrow roads lost its way into the distant trees. Small houses, two or maximum three storeyed high. Windows that seem fairly large and less in number. Green lawns, lush green fields, the blue sky, with white clouds floating, bright sunshine, but nevertheless a bone-chilling breeze. Or may be sometimes dark clouds overhead and incessant rain – sometimes drizzling, sometimes pretty heavy. And you find people/students under umbrellas hurrying back to their hostel or may be running towards the university. All these seem so out of a movie or a book or may be a dream to a person like me who have started the journey of life from a small city in India. But when this is what you see around, you pinch yourself and wonder ‘Hope this is not a dream!’ And when you realize that its not a dream, you look up and say ‘GOD! I thank you for all these.’ And you thank all the people that GOD sent around you without whom this dream would never ever have been possible.

Its too late today for me to write about what happened in the last fortnight in our pre-MBA. Its 12:17 am, so theoretically its 2^nd October. The class starts in about 8 hours…seems long but I have to squeeze in a night’s sleep after a busy and hectic day in the office. Then there is a bit of preparation for tomorrow. Seems like I have to start planning, get organized and improve upon my time management to make the most in the coming year. One more thing , last but not the least, that I plan is to write a diary. Surely, not possible to write everyday, but may be when inner voice wants to say something and my body permits.

Today is just the foundation stone laid for it, primarily with the sole objective of thanking all the people around for helping me live a dream that I never dreamt of a year back! Thank you LORD for sending so many wonderful persons around me. I am really grateful to you and them. May I say my ‘Cranfield Diary’ is dedicated to you all.

Beginning of a new chapter in my life

As if it were yesterday....15th january,2007. How can I forget that day? On that day I was informed by one of the best MBA schools in the world (The Cranfield School of Management or SOM) that it has selected me as one of their students for their Full-Time MBA 2007-08 classes. My joy knew no bounds...the starting date (16th September) seemed a long long time then.
After a long wait of 8 long months, the day did arrive.
At 6:55 am sharp the British Airways flight BA 0146 took off from the Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport,Calcutta.
Destination: Hearthrow Airport,London.
One of the passengers in the flight was Amitava Chatterjee.
Destination:Cranfield SOM
A cab was sent by the University to receive us (there were some more student for the
SOM in that flight).
At about 4:30 pm,16th September, I was in room no 1.18 in Fedden Flats; some thousand kilometers away from my hometown. My room is west facing. When I unpacked a couple of essential items, I looked out of my window. The sun was setting. It was as if, a symbolic representation of the end of my comfortable IT job. I know tomorrow, the 17th of september, the sun will rise again. But this time it will rise , for me, in the horizon of the land of the Queen!
A new day will bring for me a new life....a life that I have not even dreamt some years back.
I pinch myself and ,to my pleasant surprise, realize, its not a dream anymore today.
It is real...it is very much real.
My associtation with one of the world's best universities has just begun.
Its the beginning of a new day...a new journey and ,of course, a new chapter in my life.........