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!