once is never enough

I realized only at the end of the movie that, i did not know the names of the lead characters. And as the cast started to appear i understood why. The lead characters were named "guy" and "girl" !

A very simple, beautiful, unsophisticated (yet, emotionally complex) inspiring story. A very subtle style of story telling. A great unexpected ending, with the guy and the girl taking their own distinct paths (yet, happy).

I really enjoyed the movie.  :-)

The 5 rupee techie

Four months ago we moved from Banashankari to NGEF on old madras road. Banashankari, is old Bangalore, NGEF the new. Banashankari always felt like Bengalur, the idea, I had of Bangalore from my childhood. The newer areas of Bangalore, Whitefield, NGEF, Marathalli, Electronic city never feel like Bengalur to me, its a whole new city, ahead in time. I feel the newer Bengaluru sometimes looks artificial, clumsy, and more like it was built in a hurry. Looks like pockets of neat, clean apartments in the middle of a slum. They just don’t gel.

Anyways, ever since we moved here, I have begun to use namma BMTC to commute, as part of my every working day routine. And most days I happen to see something that would bother anyone not used to BMTC. Nowadays though, I have got used to it ...for good or bad.

The first bus I get into everyday is to get to the old madras road (now making space for the new namma metro). It is only a couple of stops away from my stop, but since the road is too dusty to walk I am forced to take a bus for the short trip.

Officially it costs me 3 rupees. But when I give the 3 rupees to the conductor and say "main road", he `ll invariably give back 1 rupee and walk away. Yep, no ticket. And when I invariably give back the 1 rupee and ask for a ticket he`ll (or she `ll), grumble as if it is something strange and criminal to ask for a ticket. This, well, most people in Bengaluru, would know, is one of many common of tricks the BMTC bus conductors have up their sleeves. A lot the people are of course, happy paying the 2 rupees.

The other short trip I have to take is when travelling back, from my office to ITPL. And, a lot of the times I take a volvo, the frequency of these buses is pretty good, a lot of the times better than normal buses. These volvo buses are meant for the elite IT techies of Bangalore, who else could afford to pay 50 bucks for a trip from majestic to ITPL every day? The buses are very comfortable, air conditioned and you never feel the "pain of traveling", except of course the traffic (at whose mercy Bangaloreans are), about which the bus can’t do much.

And guess what, the trip from my office to ITPL costs 10 (only), "cool". Most people can afford it. Is it not? The entire bus will be full of people wearing their badges, IBM, TCS, GE, DELL etc. These buses and the people who travel in them are very different, a different section of the market, society compared to the people who travel in normal BMTC buses. The people traveling in volvo s are educationally more qualified, have better jobs, contribute more to the economy and society, supposedly.

Yes, supposedly, but only supposedly. On one of my first days, traveling on this route I witnessed something that made me think.

A lot of the techies paid the conductor only 5 bucks, and said "ITPL". The conductor took the 5 rupees and walked away expression less. This was the first time I saw someone doing this in a volvo. So I thought it was something very unusual and isolated. But it happened routinely almost everyday. It was either the passenger offering 5 rupees or the conductor returning 5 rupee when someone gave him a 10 rupee note.

By the way, there is no ticket checking on these buses. I have never seen one. Why does no one check the passengers in these buses? Because people traveling in volvo s are elite? Or because they are educated, so they would be honest and always buy a ticket.

I feel there is something seriously wrong with the way we people do things. In a normal BMTC bus, though this was not right, I did not care coz the people travelling were from villages, carrying their vegetables, flowers, or small shopkeepers with their plastics, garments or construction workers who are never even adequately dressed. But what’s wrong with the IT techies earning tens of thousands (if not lakhs), a month?

What is the use of education if we can’t inculcate basic human values? Does it not reflect very badly on us as a society? What is the use of trying to put a man on the moon if we cant do the simplest of things honestly, buying a ticket in a bus? Do not all our economic, technological developments become meaningless?

What forces people to do this? What forces the bus conductor to do this? Is it just that the transportation is just too expensive for the common man? Is the salary the conductor gets just not enough to lead a simple life in Bangalore? Or is it just human greed? Or lack of values? Or a complex combination of all these?

As I was discussing with a friend the other day, the goals we need to set for ourselves as a nation and society, must be things like getting people to form a queue for a bus, honestly pay for the tickets, not littering in public places etc. Everything else can come later.

The adventure of three kids

It was the usual jam near the K R Puram bridge, now part of my routine. I was on my way to office, had started ten minutes late. But i knew, those ten minutes would cost me half an hour if i was lucky, if not, an hour.

I tuned into to Radio City, one of the very few non irritating radio stations, in an otherwise long list of chaotic radio stations in Bangalore.

I looked out of the window, and paratas were already being served by the guy in the small shanty hotel, who used to be kneading the dough when i passed by everyday.

And then as i turned to look right, i saw something that would, on any other day not have interested me. There were three little girls standing, all in their white school uniforms. So what was so uncommon about that ? Nothing much, except that they were trying to cross the road, and, well, they were standing right in the middle of the road. The signal had just switched to green, and all the vehicles had started moving. As my bus moved on, away from the little girls, i turned back to watch.

What i saw was really shocking, the three little girls were stranded in the middle of the road, between the two lanes of vehicles, both moving faster with every second. Trucks, cars, bikes, even bullock carts, went past them, not one person slowed/stopped to let the kids cross the road. It went on for sometime, every new second must have felt like hell for the kids standing there.

My bus slowed down (yes, that is how the K R Puram Jam works, you have just about started, when u realize u have to stop). As i kept watching, i was relived to see one lady in a car, finally stop, and let the kids cross the road.
 
I was wondering how insensitive all of us are or have become. We could not stop for a moment to let the kids cross the road. All of us, across the spectrum, from truck drivers to sophisticated IT professionals (in their swanky cars) to all the heroes on their bikes.

Are we one of the worst possible civilized (if at all) societies ?

The guy in the picture, Enrique Penalosa, is a former mayor, now a consultant on urban vision and strategy, credited with transforming the city of Bogota, in Colombia.

He says:
"The single biggest difference between the infrastructure of an advanced nation and a backward one is its footpaths, not its highways"

I think, he puts it very aptly, it is how we keep our footpaths (a lot of our the roads don't have one), treat pedestrians and cyclists that will reflect on our "urban" values, if at all we have any, and not how many expressways and flyovers we build.

The bigger world

I was not too keen, but this person would not let go, he kept calling me. As a part of the Kannada rajyostava celebrations in my office, some of our associates had come together to enact a couple of skits. I, being a little shy, and having enough stage fear agreed reluctantly to join him during the practice.

When i first entered the "recreation" room , i never thought i would spend the next entire week there. As i sat listening to the group, evolve the script, i wondered how (if at all) i could contribute. I did not want to go on stage. So when i told them that, they agreed, said there would be enough work backstage, turning ON and turning OFF the background music. I said "OK", tat would be fine. I thought i would be comfortable doing back stage work, i had done tat a good number of times in college.

But i never could have imagined tat this last one week would be so enjoyable and memorable as it has been. It was, for me a much needed break from the long, monotonous work (or..of late ...the lack the of any ...). I have laughed so much, enjoyed the entire process so much, with all its goof ups, especially the goof ups, that i am now feeling a little agitated, that i will have to get back to normal work from Monday.

I have since i joined the company, kept away from any kind of activities apart from work. One of the reasons was sheer amount of work i was doing, practically had no time off (till recently...). The other, well, that i was (and am), really not happy with anything around me in my office, have become really pessimistic, and have developed an aversion to anything and everything related to work and office. For me, till last week, my company meant only one thing, "work", and people who want WORK done at ANY cost (the definitions of both the words extend able to mean anything in the world).

Anyways, to sit back and see, we came up with a script, or rather two of them in less than a week, practiced, fine tuned, added music, and finally presented it. Of course it was not perfect, but it was good, good enough, i think.

We had a wonderful team, some excellent speakers, both in terms of content and presentation, some really good actors, picking up things in virtually no time, but most of all, every one in the team was really instinctive, the script was never fully finalized, simply because people kept coming up with new, better ideas and dialogues with every trial run.

And then, the job of turning ON and turning OFF the music, expanded, not in terms of profile but in terms of scope (to use job market terms). First the Fashion show (or rather the "ethnic wear" show), we had to find a track which would sound traditional yet modern, which would be soft yet not slow, the audience mostly the younger generation would like some rhythm and beats. Luckily one of the tracks we had, composed by Prem Joshua seemed to fit, the moves on stage also seemed to suit the flow of the song. Next, then the singing teams (with their karaoke) and dancing teams with some really good songs.And finally, the background music for the entire show. It was fun, to play the famous "Mungaru Male" music, exactly when Yograj Bhatt, the chief guest walked in, and when he was being felicitated. And to fill other times with some nice music. I enjoyed my part.

Of course, the common problems in the industry were visible here too, too many managers giving out conflicting directions to poor participants, bad quality of infrastructure esp the sound systems, and so on. But, inspite of all that, i think, we all put up a very good show. Thanks to everyone.

For me, i must say i met a lot of new people, each person interesting and different in their own ways, worked with a lot of new ideas, and heard innumabrable number of "dialogues" and jokes, every one them packed with a big punch. The world all of a sudden seems to have become bigger, with a lot more variety and color.

Nine Lives

It truly is  "The search of the sacred" in modern India. To my surprise, it was really amazing, the kind of diversity we have even when it comes to spirituality. The kind of sophisticated thoughts each of the "Nine lives" have about god and spirituality is truly beyond what i had of "god" and the "spiritual people".

Me, someone not too "spiritual", found the interview of Dalrymple in The Hindu intriguing. Had always thought i should pick up a book, to see, if i could relate to or appreciate anybody`s or everybody`s views on spirituality, and this seemed interesting.

Though the book did not raise questions directly on "GOD" or "Spirituality",  it did present a very beautiful holistic picture of spirituality and the innumerable number of ways people become/are spiritual.

Every story, of each of the nine different spiritual people, whose story the book tells, is unique and extremely intriguing. It provides very different insights on, the numerous, often misunderstood extreme spiritual people, from the "tantrics" of bengal to the jain monks of shravanabelagola to the devadasis of belagam and their wonderful ideas and thoughts of the divine.

The Client...

Many people thought it was almost impossible to complete the project. For a company like ours it was too complicated a project. Forget the technical competence or expertise, we did not even have the minimum levels of raw intelligence that would be necessary. And of course (to add some management terms) we lacked the processes. Basically, it was doomed to fail. Yes, it was new technology. People had not even heard of it, let alone having worked in it.

And as the team missed one deadline after another, all hell broke loose. And as any other organization would have, a crisis management team was "sent", to rescue the project, to "fix" issues and to get the project "done". Heads rolled, a lot many things changed, (or so we thought), new people were "brought in" to head the project. After all, we did not have experience in developing a complete product. What the "new" did or did not, is an entirely different issue (which must very much be questioned, but, later).

The core technical team though worked through all this. And to the amazement of a lot of people, did in fact complete the development of the product, late by a year though (the schedule in the first place, itself questionable).

If we looked back at what we knew when we started, and where we stand now, we really should be surprised. None of us had even heard of the technology. Today, we have a complete working product, almost ready for end users. All this in less than a couple of years.

Yet it seems not many are surprised. In all the drama, people, i think failed to recognize certain amazing things.

I have always had one question in my mind, if we were capable of developing what we had, then why did we ever wait for someone to come and "outsource" that.

From the one project i have worked in, i must say, most of us are working (or being worked) way below our potential. Not in terms of efforts, but in terms of intellectual ability. In a way it is really not justifiable. But as a continuation to the education system that trains people to be as creatively dumb as possible, it fits well into the system.

The kind of talent, intelligence available in leading IT companies is really amazing. They recruit the best from every other college. Hence have a big pool of talent, but most just wasting.

Ours, a typical IT services company, is really worried about, services. Only, about services.
Which other project can we get next from the client, how do we never loose a client, is he willing to outsource any other part of his system, how much can we "bill" him, how much "more" can we bill him, and how long can we keep billing him.

Why are we always looking for a client to serve? Why can’t we develop things on our own? A country of more than a billion people must surely have enough problems to solve, enough challenges to face and enough opportunities to grow. I believe, we have the ability to.

The few products we develop are based on available standards and specifications. Why are we, only, looking at existing standards, products and always "wondering" to whom we can "sell" them. Why are we implementing standards and specifications someone has made, yes this too has its own challenges, but, i do believe we can really develop standards and specifications for the rest of the world to follow. Intellectually, i think we have the ability, NO doubts.

In some of our organizations there are certain small groups that are into R&D. Maybe, they are doing good work. But from what i have seen there is so much talent just being squandered senselessly.