For GOD's sake - we all are different!

I read in some oneliner "Like anybody else in this world you are unique". It was supposed to be taken on a humorous note. Or is it? When I see around I do not find any two persons same in all respects, not even twins. All have different thoughts and ways of living, to get back to my commonly-used phrase, everybody has a different world of his or her own.
Here's a simple story of what happened in our office this week. We were working seriously last Monday. Somebody came and told in the afternoon, "Its raining". This is nothing new in bangalore...nowadays its cloudy for weeks here. What came to my mind is "This is like the London weather". When I told one of my collegues, " Its raining", she said "Gosh! There are clothes lined up in the terrace and they'll get wet again!" When she told ("Its raining") to another friend of her, she said, "Today I brought an umbrella!", another replied "How can I attend today's party?" Phew! Two words and no two emotions are the same. So, how can we really expect people to share same point of view or opinions on so many other different things, which are more complex than "Its raining!" ?

We all know we cannot compare apples with oranges. I am not sure whether we can even compare two apples. What I know for sure, taking reference from the different apples available in India are Kashmiri apples and different from apples from Shimla, which are different from the Washington apples...the list is endless. I bet, even in Kashmir the experts will tell you that this garden's (or may be this tree's) apples are sweeter than the apples of that one. It is to be noted that we can differentiate them though we have a very limited interaction with them, albeit eating. Ask the owner of two similiar breed of dogs and you can hear a list of things which differentiates one from the other, starting from their sound of barking to eating to playing. Then why do we compare any two human beings when we are so different from each other?

In the kinder garden when you hardly know whats going on around, in the same class, some fare really well and others not that much. Even in universities when the lecturer delivers a lecture, each one interprets the lecture in his or her own way. When asked to write a synopsis of the lecture no two writing will be the same, word to word. If we all were same then how can this happen?
This is the root of all the problem - comparison: my home vs your home, my wealth vs your wealth, my kids vs your kids. How long shall we continue with the keeping-up-with-the-Joneses syndrome? Perhaps, much without our knowledge, this syndrome creeps within us - from our parents, teachers, neighbours, relatives, friends. I was annoyed with some people when my daughter was born as they started comparing her weight with those of others. Now that is ridiculous as you put that innocent baby in a rat race from day one! Give her a break! This disease called comparison results in a lot of fall-out between siblings, commonly known as sibling rivalary, relatives, friends etc. Just because he or she is my brother or sister, does not mean our parameters should be compared in all fields - be it in in the playground or academics. I had a very good neighbour-cum-friend. Today I realise that we had lots of things in common and we could have had a much healthier friendship. Just because he was my next-door neighbour and we studied in the same class and same school, people around started comparing us. I would like to point out, that till standard four we studied in different schools and thats when the friendship blossomed. But from Class Five, we were in the same school. People around got another topic to gossip. Whenever the results were out, there was comparison between our marks. How foolish! From good friends we started drifting away. You cant ignore the cacophony around and that too when you are that small. Now we both have become matured and have admitted and realised the mistake. Really, comparisons can ruin good relationships.

I sometimes wonder, is there any need to compare in the first place? If I am compared to X, then my achievements are limited to that of X. After a certain age, we all choose our own path...live our own life. So, today, the childhood rivalary is of no significance now, perhaps were not even then. Likewise, today's comparison regarding my car vs your car or my bangalore vs your london seems utterly foolish. After all, we all live the life that we choose to or are happy to live. Ideally, my 32 inches LCD TV should not make me proud because my neighbour has a 24 inches flat screen normal TV, but only because I love my TV's sound and picture quality.

Its like running a marathon race, which is our life. We all our running. While running some only look forward, towards the destination, dreams about how to get to a better place in a better way. Some keep on looking on the left, on the right, behind to see who is closer. If somebody is closer, then they foul the person, the fall of the person brings that temporary wicked sense of amusement to them. Then somebody else fouls them and they fall and cry, vowing to take revenge. The leg-pulling continues - starting from the kinder garden (or may be from the first day of the life!) to the last day. And in the process of rise and fall, they constantly think about how to score one against the relatives and neighbour; they very often get diverted from their destination, which is very different from the person who enjoys running, irrespective of whether somebody is breathing down his neck or not. He knows what he wants and where he wants to go...surely, he is enjoying every moments of the journey!

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 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 problem, in India the noble laurates, oscar winners (until the recent Rahman spectacular) and several intellectual men and women were/are from the city. But , sadly, 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 mere 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 is the unions, the strikes (bandhs), the laziness of the people which top the list. The cultural shock that I faced is people's attitude towards work. I wonder how people can be so ignorant about their work. When I go to repair my DVD player, 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 serious about Calcutta either.

I did not enJOY working a moment in The City of Joy (as Calcutta is commonly known as).

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.