Another down! Who's Next??

"I have already fixed a girl for you", my aunt from Kolkata said over phone. "She is very well-educated and is from a very good family. Very pretty." She then paused, expecting that I'd ask her more about the girl. Concealing my interest, I tell her to give me some more time to decide. I tell her politely that I plan to study, get another degree. "You are delaying too much, you know. Later on you will only regret."

Not even a day goes by, when someone or the other doesn't ask me when I plan to marry. This, when I am staying thousands of miles away from my parents and my family. Had I stayed with them, they would have already taken me to meet girls' families for negotiations and evaluations. The desperation is such that my family members, all Hindu-Bramhin hardliners, are ready to allow me to marry someone from another caste or community. They have no objection at all, they say. They give the following reasons for their anxiety.-

Nov'14. Shriprakash's at Gorakhpur

1. No GOOD girls will be left.

2. Hormones will become low. You WOULDN'T be able to have kids.

3. You will retire when your kids are STILL in college.

4. We WANT grandchildren.

5. You are staying alone, there's no one to COOK and CLEAN for you.

6. I know you drink and smoke ALL day staying all alone.

I ask them to give me a couple of years more. I have to travel, meet new people, go for more treks, maybe start a company of my own; and only then can I think of settling down.

Dec'15. Wasif, just before the Wedding 

I also have to get my friends married off. Two close friends got married last November. Wasif's wedding was last month. There are a few that are going to get hitched this year - Pankaj, Deepak, and Shukla, among many others.

I had written this piece during my 3rd year of engineering: (http://igavemybest.blogspot.in/2009/10/to-marry-or-not-to-marry_31.html) At the time, I knew nothing about marriage. Now, 6 years later, I still know nothing. What I do know is that I do not have more than a couple of years before I finally have someone as a wife, someone who will (hopefully) know more about me than I do about myself. To be very frank, I do have my own doubts about whether I will be able to be a good husband. Whether I will be able to stand up to the sacred bond of marriage.

Till then, cheers to life !! :))
                

Projects and Nations

At the project site. But see, no helmet !! :-)

Building something from scratch is always challenging. I had always known this. But got first-hand experience when I came to Gopalpur. Having operated a plant for 3 years at Joda, I had thought that working at a project wouldn't be so tough; what with no production targets to be achieved and no employee union to squabble with. I have never been so wrong in my life. The last six months have been a killer.

Consider this discussion that took place at a project review today.

Chief: "Is the raw material handling system ready at the site?

Senior Guy: "No Sir, the system isn't completely ready yet."

Chief: "Why?"

Senior Guy: "Sir a major equipment has not been supplied by the vendor yet"

Chief: "Why? What were you doing all these days when you knew that the material has not been supplied? Bas aate ho aur baith-baith ke jaate ho. Why are you coming to me now. I wanted it to be ready today"

Senior Guy: "Yes sir,.. I think they have not completely manufactured it at their end"

Chief: "Bhak!! Why? What is the manufacturing status? Have you asked?"

Senior Guy: "Sir...I didn't ask the vendor sir... but he was saying that some items have not yet arrived from his suppliers and hence it is delayed"

Chief: "Tell me what items they have not received yet which is holding up the equipment? Who are their suppliers? From which city will the supplies come? By when will they supply? What is the status of manufacturing of those supplies? Why haven't they supplied yet?"

Senior Guy: "Sir..i think it will take two weeks... but will have to check... "

Chief: "Is it my duty to check?? Just go now...asshole.. talk to the vendor and his suppliers. Ask the delivery and manufacturing status for each item. If required, go to the vendor's facility in Bangalore. Check the status of manufacturing. Ask them to make it ready in two days. Go to their suppliers if required. Give me an action plan in 15 mins."

This took place at a gathering of 50-60 people. Interactions like these happen frequently. A project is all about schedule. A project is all about momentum. You are always chasing deadlines, and without momentum you are always going to miss them. And you are going to get fucked. 

In projects, every day is a new day; and there are unforeseen challenges. On a lot of occasions, you just don't know the way forward. The whole project seems thwarted. You wrack your brain over a problem all day. You cry to bed at night. But suddenly the next morning you have an idea, you talk to your team and start going ahead with the idea, and suddenly it clicks. The project gallops once again.

The process of creation is just that much more difficult than the process of sustenance. You are creating a 600 crore entity from thin air. You are building structures, towers, reservoirs, roads, and integrating all of them to produce something absolutely fantastic. You are building skills, manpower, morale, and knowledge, touching hundreds of lives. You are building your nation. However, while you do this, you face hurdles every minute -  not the internal ones, but those external, those fostered by bureaucracy and local politics.  

Will tell another recent happening. Local villagers were staging a sit-out at the main gate of the site.(They wanted a few more of their never-ending demands to be met by Tata Steel) They had been sitting there for the last fortnight or so, not allowing any entry or exit of vehicles from that gate. There was another smaller gate which was sufficient for movement of small vehicles and trucks. However, a 80 MVA transformer of 100 T had come on a trailer to the site. And considering the combined weight, height as well as the length of the trailer, it could not be taken in through any other path except the main gate where the villagers were staging their dharna. Long negotiations were held with the agitating villagers to allow us take the trailer inside but to no avail. The district administration also gave up trying to convince the agitators. The project was getting delayed and something had to be done. At the dead of the night one day, so as to not arouse and agitate the protesters, a section of the wall of the site, at a distance from the man gate, was broken down and the trailer finally taken in. 

That night, I recalled what the Chief had once told me "In a project environment there are no if's and but's. Even if a wall comes in front of you, you have to break that wall and move ahead. You cannot just stand there and contemplate. 

That's the way with life as well, I think.

BTW, what's up with the projects of my personal life?? Where's the schedule?? :-D

Why So Serious??

Was getting too serious with life recently. Better sense prevailed soon and I realized that it was foolish to think too ahead of yourself. Watched a few of my all-time-best movies and all was well again. Needed a re-fill of emotions as I tend to run out of those from time to time.

There's a ton of passion in all the movies posted above. There's love, beauty, agony, hatred, misery, resilience, insanity, struggle, deceit, horror, sheer brilliance and intrigue in all of them. There's however one thing you had find common in all these movies - hope. 

"Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies" - Andy Dufresne

Now you know which is THE movie I love the most out of these super awesome ones. If you don't, get in touch with me and I will change your life, for the better. :-)

The Sea, The Sea !

The view from my balcony

The Beach

“The sea! The sea! The open sea!, The blue , the fresh, the ever free!” – Bryan W. Procter

I came to Gopalpur on a new assignment this summer. A small, sleepy town, it is situated in southern Odisha, on the Bay of Bengal. A town of white-washed churches, fishermen and the sea.

Three years at Joda had taken a lot out of me. I was starting to get weary of the long working hours and the 24-hour work schedules. Thus when the opportunity presented itself, I just couldn’t stop myself and came hopping down to this beach town.

Even before I had arrived here, I had made up my mind that come what may I would live near the sea. Thus I let go of a city just 10 miles away, to live at a smaller, quieter place near the sea. What is the mall and the supermarket in comparison to the vast, blue sea??

In fact I have always been drawn to water. I had choose to stay in a lodge by a water body any day over that in a five-star hilly resort. And living in a apartment overlooking the ocean just beats everything else. I get to appreciate nature here. I go for jogs and walks on the beach. I get to eat the freshest sea catch and drink the sweetest coconut water. I meet the local fishing folk and get an opportunity to experience their lifestyles. But most importantly, I get to live a life I had always wanted to live- beautiful, bright, and sparkling – like the sea.   

Its an ideal retreat for a writer. You can sit in your balcony writing a book all day long drinking  cups of tea, while the tides rise and ebb. I had obviously love to write a lot more. But then I have a manufacturing plant to start, and its not a supposed to be cakewalk. The sea keeps you mesmerized though. It changes its colour - one moment it is a very dark blue with white crests, then a light green after which a lucid grey. At times, it is a glassy green in the front, and a dark blue-grey at the back. It makes you feel happy and forget all your worries. It also makes you dreamy and optimistic about life. You must see the bay on a full moon night, its ravishing. And all this for no cost at all because it returns everything it takes – I had lost my towel to the sea the other day I had gone for a swim; a local fisherman found it on the beach a day later and brought it back for me.

School Friends

At the banks of Ganga in Patna, June'09,  I clicked this pic ! 

During semester breaks in my 1st year of engineering, I used to reach his home at 6 in the morning everyday to ride his dad's scooter. He rode pinion, giving instructions and cracking jokes. Once, he was seriously hurt when I crashed the scooter into a pole, hurtling both of us on the road. But he continued giving me riding lessons. It hardly mattered to him. He was a stud. A come-what-may guy.

He was a dear friend at high school. His house was a stone's throw away from our school and a domestic help brought him hot tiffins everyday during lunch break. All those years, I ate more out of his tiffin than I did of mine. He was also this hot-blooded guy who was always getting into fights with others. Once he got into a fist-fight with a senior whose sister studied in our class. He had blood all over his face and I, like the coward I always was, did not go to take sides with him.

He got a very decent 87% in his 10th boards. Went to Kota to study for IIT-JEE, could not stand it after 7 months and came back home. It all went downhill for him after that. Scored a 58% in his 12th boards and spent a year at home. Went to Pune for graduation and survived a near-fatal road accident which put a permanent scar on his handsome face. Did his MBA but stayed jobless for a few years. We didn't talk at all those 3-4 years.

I was relieved to hear that he had finally landed a job at the Union Bank earlier this month. He called me up from Chennai to tell me about it, and he sounded his usual self again - confident, cheeky, and slightly presumptuous. We promised to meet at Chennai and recreate the older days. I have another friend from my school days at Chennai. It had be great to meet both of these guys there. Made many friends all these years at NIT and at Tata Steel, but friends from school are different. The bond is that much stronger.

Jodappa!!

My Plant at Joda

Once in a while I have this huge urge to write. Generally, it starts when I see someone's beautifully-written blog. I feel pangs of guilt and I open my blogspot. I start writing something I have been thinking to write about for a long time. I finish off a paragraph in a frenzy. However, after a few minutes this passion starts ebbing. I re-read what I have written and feel miserable about it, I curse my writing skills and delete all that I have written. That's it. That is the regular drill. That is the reason why my blog doesn't look as great as it should.

Not today. I have made up mind. This post is about certain stories of Joda, the Odisha town where I live. This post is about the spirit of Joda,

So I am going to the plant last Sunday evening. I am on my bike. At an intersection I have to slow down and I stop the bike. Riding a cycle and coming from the opposite end is the helper (Khalasi) of a truck of my section in the plant (factory). On recognizing me, he gives a huge salute, smiles and rides past. It's an impulsive thing that he does. It stays with me for a long time and makes me wonder if I really deserve it.

We changed their gear thereafter :-)  

Last month two of my workers sustained burn injuries at work in separate incidents. Though the burns were minor and needed first-aid and light medication only, they traumatised me and shook up my core. One of them, in which a drop of molten iron (at 1500 C) went inside a worker's shoe and caused burn to his left foot hugely agonized me. One, because howsoever minor a burn injury maybe, it is still a burn; and that too from contact of molten metal. If not properly attended, infections arising out of it can be quite severe. Second, it showed that people working out there were still vulnerable and subject to injuries. I had worked very hard and given it my all for workplace safety; but something still turns up to torment me. My worst nightmare is getting awakened by a phone call from the plant at 4 in the morning telling me about a worker's injury.

                                       The Hostel

The hostel here is an asset. Its the spot for gossips about office politics, laments over ex-flames, and despair about current life. There's good food and booze of course, and great parties. Its the place to bond, and have brilliant people alongside you. Everyone aspires to go to super places and have a higher sense of accomplishment than he currently has. So a couple of guys went to ISB this year, one to IIMA, and another to XLRI. There's one who has written UPSC Mains twice and has been very unlucky not to have cleared it yet. 

The guy at the centre 

There's also this guy - Devdutt of a senior batch from ISM Dhanbad. He bid Tata Steel goodbye to prepare for the UPSC examinations. He worked here for almost 4 years, and resigned since the work didn't excite him and he wanted more out of his life. So he dumped a 70000 rupees per month job and a very comfortable life to live in Delhi in dormitories, study at coaching centers, and work on his dreams. He went back to start life afresh. He showed us how its done - the Jodappa !!

And It's Not So Bad

She called him up last evening. She hadn't talked to him in the last 6 months. She had been busy with her work, she had said. He longed to talk to her every moment. He had waited for her call, had thought of a million things he had to say. Now that she had called, he stood transfixed in elation. His hands tremble. His mind goes blank. He picks up the phone and stammers trivial things.

The ice between them does not melt. The conversation does not come from within. They run out of topics. She is angry with him. Angry that he makes no allusions to their relationship, angry that he was such a coward who could never speak his heart out. She slams the phone down. He is sad. Broken. Tearful. He contemplates for a moment. He had had enough with his stupidity. He had had enough of his insecurities. He sends across on her mobile.-

‘I drank too much last night,

 My head just spins in pain

I missed the bus today,

I was late for work again

I may not last the day,

My life is so uncertain,

And then you call me and it’s not so bad

It’s not so bad’

My mind plays all these tricks on me,

I know I have been such a villain

And to who can I but you explain

And then you call me and it’s not so bad

It’s not so bad’

~Dido.

 

Show Me Your Chin - II

This Wednesday morning when I woke up groggy-eyed and upset about the prospects of a long day at work, I didn't expect to see this on the front page of The Hindu.

Arunima Sinha with India & Tata Steel's flags on the Everest

It was just too overwhelming. Imagine yourself being thrown out of a train during an armed robbery. As you are flung in the air, you hit the bogie of a train coming in from the opposite direction on the adjacent track. With the impact, your left leg comes under the wheels of one of the trains (you don't know which one because you are too numb to comprehend). Finally, when the trains have gone, you find your left leg hanging out of your jeans below the knee. You then touch your right leg to find broken bones poking out of everywhere. Your spinal cord feels like shattered glass. You can't move one inch. You cry for help, but its miles and miles of tracks amidst empty fields. Every half hour trains pass within inches of you and rattle you body and spirit. Rodents start coming out from the burrows; the smell of your blood and flesh is all around.

Now imagine yourself scaling Mt. Everest just two years later. You are the first amputee in India to do it, and the first female one at that in the entire world. Come on, if Arunima can actually do it, you can at least imagine it, right?? 

When I met Arunima in Uttarkashi last year, she really didn't look like someone who would be able to win Everest so soon. She walked with a lot of effort. Climbing was tough, and she had a considerable discomfort at all times. I had written this piece about her back then - (http://igavemybest.blogspot.in/2012/04/1st-row-from-left-ashish-singhania.html) I had lauded her determination and spirit. I had prayed for her. Yes, she had a big heart. But, I had thought getting to Everest would be almost impossible. But like the entire nation, how I was proven wrong. I was left awe-struck and teary-eyed on that Wednesday morning. 

So after I get to know of her feat, I reminisce the interaction I had with her outside our tent during the trek last year. I also call up all my friends who were there in the trek. We are all very happy for her. How often do you get to share tents and have dinner with real life heroes??. 

On retrospect, there is one thing which makes me feel slightly upset about the entire episode. Its just that one minor thing, Something that doesn't matter much, but remains at the back of your mind and doesn't let you cherish something as much as would like to. That one thing is this picture of Arunima with us.

Where Am I? :-( 

I still curse my decision of being the photographer for this pic. In fact, I still lament being the designated photographer for the entire trip. There are so few pics of me for the entire trek!! But I mostly regret not having Arunima and me in one frame. Why didn't I take a selfie with her?? :P

Here her awesome speech here :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mIIxU3gI4c
  

Love.Joints.Life.

That Friday finished it off. He had gone to meet her at the university. He wanted to see if there was something in her eyes- some kind of a spark or emotion which would reassure him that yes, there was still some hope left.

He was looking for some kohl on her eyes and gloss on her lips, some perfume on her body which would have indicated to him that his arrival was still welcome. But he received the same arrogance from her; the same looks of I-am-so-much-superior-than-you-moron and the as-usual I-was-so-busy banter.

Back in the train he knew that he had been mistaken in trying to look out for love. He shouldn't have fallen for her. He let his emotions go uncontrolled this time, the only time in his life-and he suffered heavily for it.

He felt pain. He felt even more depressed; alone. Barring his parents whom he lost when he was eight; and a few college friends now far away, he had not had anyone close to him-or even nearby, semi-close. That is why his heart had been so desperate and- disobedient.

He needed an antidote. A painkiller of sorts. He puffed away on the joint he had brought from home. He felt better. The drug filled his heart, drove away love, pain, jealousy and longing.

He realized that this trip hadn't entirely been a failure. The state of uncertainty over his relationship with her was killing him. Now he knew that requests from the heart were to be left unanswered. Now he knew that he was staring at defeat from the very first day.

He walks to the lavatory. Apart from the expletives that can be found written on the walls of any Indian train's 3rd class compartment, he finds at the corner written in dark red, by some crazy literature enthusiast:

We are all alone, born alone, die alone, and-in spite of True Romance magazines-we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company; we were alone the whole way. I do not say lonely-at least, not all the time-but essentially, and finally alone. This is what makes your self-respect so important, and I don't see how you can respect yourself if you must look in the hearts and minds of others for your happiness. -Hunter S Thompson

He lights his second 'madman' joint.  

Office Office - I

My juniors and my siblings in their final years of college don't leave an opportunity to ask me about my new life. My life in Tata Steel and my roles, responsibilities and challenges involved. They also seek advices and tips which would help them out once they enter a corporate setting.

I tell them a lot of stories and give them plenty of fundas. What I don't tell them is that on some days,  I get into a similar kind of situation.-

 Or that sometimes, this is all I do-

Not to mention my activities during important meetings-

But jokes apart, there are some fundamental rules and values by which one must conduct oneself at his/her workplace. I am trying, I must admit, with tremendous effort, to regularize some of these in my everyday activities. I have learned some of them the hard way and am listing them down for my peers and juniors; those who are new to a work environment.

Many self-help books and performance-enhancing guides may also have similar articles. But this list is my own; from what I have learnt in the last 12 months. Also, barring a few, I don't have a clue as to how i would be able to pick up these traits.-

• The Fundamental Rule. Keep your eyes and ears open, and your mouth shut. Your work should speak about you and not the other way round.  
• Try to learn as much as possible. There are lessons hidden everywhere. 
• Never try to belittle anyone or hurt his/her feelings. Whether it’s your unit head or even the office sweeper. No one forgets an insult. Ever.
• Be careful about whatever you say. Everyone notes those extra As and Bs you are dropping around. 
• Be on time. Its importance can never be over-emphasized
• 'If you have ego and anger on your side you don't need an opponent'. - Harsha Bhogle 
• Never ever lie. Sooner or later, everyone gets to knows everything that is happening.
• For all those manufacturing/process-industry guys, spend lesser time in front of the computer and more time on the shop floor. Your payslip is being processed there.
• Sharp observations. Invest in this skill. Often the game-changer.
• At times, share a joke with your workers. Sit down on the shop floor with them. Offer them a smoke. Have rum with them on their daughters' marriages.
• Be ethical. Life is a fairly long journey.Your unfair/immoral practices are going to catch up with you sooner or later.
• Be the first one to admit a mistake. People forget the mistakes you make, they don't forget that you give shitty excuses for them. 
• Never gossip about others. It is the habit of fragile men.
• Appreciate your subordinates' work even if there are a million flaws. Then politely but elaborately, list down their mistakes. Don't let their shortcomings go unattended.
• At times of crisis, try to stand up and deliver. That's when one earns recognition and respect.

Finally, the most important one-

•  It takes years to build a reputation; just one moment to squander it away.

And if someone can follow all these tenets, he will surely be very productive.-

Credits: Scott Adams