Night Life

For people living in the city, night life is something they love. Often they swear by it. However, night life in a goddamn factory in a goddamn town is nothing but a pain. In fact, come of think of it, the usage Night life is an oxymoron in this context. It’s simply insipid. And it isn’t just about me. It’s about anyone who works during this time without choice.
I had thought that my days in the night shift had ended with my software company days. Lo Behold!! That’s when I am asked to come for a week in night shift as part of my training. Well, the idea was to observe how things work during a period of time when the management or administration isn’t there.

The first night was really bad. I wasn’t prepared at all. I didn’t carry any book with me. I still hadn’t got my internet connection. The outgoing facility in my phone got snapped because I hadn’t paid my bills. And with no one around, in fact there was no work too. I thought I’d die of boredom. In the subsequent days, I started carrying a book. I also sent reading stuff to my official id so as to keep me occupied. And I started doing other things to keep me engaged.

10 pm – I reach office. Read and respond to mails. I hunt for personal mails amongst a flurry of official mails. Pillai never disappoints me though the mails he sends might be related to Malayalam cinema.

11 pm – 1st Line visit. The seamless production process of atta getting converted into a packet of noodles always amazes me. 50 pairs of prying eyes. I nod and smile as I move along and eventually meet the Shift officer to get the night visit report signed off.

12 am – The tea boy comes with a plate of bread butter jam toast and tea. This is one of the things I cherish in the night shift. Probably it’s got something to do with the boy who adds a tinge of love and respect while making the foodstuff which makes it all the more palatable.

1:00 am - 2nd line visit. In college, I used to think that I was best suited for a factory because I had an uncanny ability of getting along well with all kinds of people. This myth was based on the friendship I forged with the non teaching staff, security, canteen folks and others. However, this got busted when I reached the factory. I found myself struggling to break the ice with the technicians. I still am not quite comfortable at it though attempts continue at that during such line visits.

2 am - Tasting session. Well, this is the advantage of being in a food industry. You can satiate your appetite by just going for a tasting session. Ideally, the people who go for such sessions are the sensory evaluation experts who after tasting are supposed to provide feedback based on which it is decided whether or not the batches can be released. However, I don’t have any dual intention. My motto is simple – savor the magi :). Am reminded of my hostel days in TISS when Jaideep and Joseph used to sneak into our (Vibhu and mine) room and steal Vibhu's maggi. I didn't have much option other than being a silent accomplice. haha..

2:30 - Take a tour of the factory with the security. These rounds are meant to be more of an inspection. Checking the hygiene of the social blocks, canteens, checking whether there are people sleeping in the social blocks are some of the activities to be done. A couple of times, I found people sleeping the social blocks. They are very smart. You won’t be able to find where they are hiding. They change the position of the lockers, sneak in between them and sleep. A hide a seek game at 3 am in the morning. :)

3:30 am: Its tea time again. Quality of the tea served during the night is a concern, say some of the workmen. I note down my observations for the night and read a bit.

4:00 - Planning for the next day. Essentially this involves sending mails to people prescribing what needs to be done the following day. Now I am acting like a manager. :)

5:00 - Am almost ready to leave. I can’t wait anymore. It’s just beginning to get on to me.

5:30 – I take a stroll outside. It’s pretty cold. “Pahaad mein baraf gir rahi hain. Isiliye yehaan pe thandi hawa chalti hain”, says the security person. Bhajans from the neighborhood temple fill the air with devotion. I am immediately transported to the banks of the Ganges in Rishikesh. Well, that’s the feeling that you get. Damn good.

5:45 – I punch out and run to the hotel with a fear of losing the sleep if I see the sun.

My Short Sales Stint

Dusty roads teeming with traffic,

Sleeves rolled up, seated on a scooter that’s rustic,

Ferrying across the route to market,

Through a puddle of dust and dirt.

Shopkeepers smoking beedi give orders and Haryanwe Hindi dose,

Short breaks in between that keep me away from doze,

I come back to hear them say ‘Zyada chahiye margin’,

The haggling continues, I think with a grin.

SKUs in the form of packets, bottles, sachets and cases,

We fill them in all the available shelf spaces.

Malls, star outlets, shops large and small,

Irrespective of size, we visit ‘em all.

Soups, Noodles, Dhooth and Dahi,

With pride we say, ‘Taste bhi, Health bhi’.

BarOne, KitKat, MilkyBar and Munch,

We sell them even in times of financial crunch.

Cycleboys, Salesmen, Officers and Managers,

They all have their respective monthly targets.

Those who meet them are all merry and gay,

FMCG is SALES is what they all say.. :)

Happy to Help

During our management trainee induction program, all of us were asked to comment on our company ads. We didn’t give them a good rating. We were later asked which companies’ ads we like. The answer was unanimous – Vodafone, where a puppy always follows its master and is happy to offer help in all possible ways. That’s the beauty of an ad. They help imprint a brand’s image in the minds of the customer. It’s a passport that will make a customer reach the door of the company. However, loyalty of the customer hinges on factors like the first experience and the customer service he continues to get.

After coming to Delhi, I thought that I would continue my Bombay number thinking that I wouldn’t be connected with people that much and hence wouldn’t be using my phone to a great extend. Getting settled in a city brings with it, its own set of challenges and I had mine too. My phone bills were surging and I had to tighten my purse strings. I decided to take a new connection and this time for a change, Vodafone. Rather than heading straight towards a gallery, I found a dealer on the way and gave him all the required documents thinking that he would be my lucky mascot who would get my sim activated in a day’s time.

Things always don’t happen as you want them too. Thanks to the terrorists, service providers have become finicky. Along with address proof and identity proof, to get a connection, one would need to give a landline number and a couple of mobile numbers as reference. Forget my case, but how on earth can someone expect a migrant laborer from UP to furnish such details? All this has done nothing but just increased the average time for sim activation. A visit to the Vodafone office becomes a part of your daily agenda. You get there and you will get assurance from the executive that your sim will get activated in half an hour, a duration you wouldn’t want to sit in the gallery and sulk. Instead, you trust the executive and head towards home. You wait for 4 hrs, 12 hrs, 24 hrs but nothing happens. You call up customer care and you would have a ball of a time conversing with Vijender Singh, Santosh or Beena and listening to “Shudh Hindi”. You get pooped providing the same details every time. I realize that the next visit to the Vodafone gallery is due.

Quite contrary to what I normally do, I decide to give the executive a piece of my mind. But once I reach the gallery, I am my normal self and I ask why the sim hasn’t got activated. I get the same response; “Sir, this will ready in 15 min. If you want, you may go home”. This time I decide to stay back till I get activation done. I go and get myself seated in the plush sofa and take a good view of the office. Suddenly, a lady storms into the office and slams the door behind her back. She heads straight towards an executive and asks a question which to me appears as old as the hills; “Why hasn’t my sim got activated?” But she was quite different from me. She had applied for a connection for her son about six days back and still she hadn’t got it. In fact she was a Vodafone customer whose monthly bills are a meaty Rs.15000. Forget the differential treatment that she ought to have got. In my mind, I thought that I was lucky to get a connection in 2 days. She slammed the executive and all attempts made by the executive to mollify the lady were in vain. Oh! How beautifully she spoke. I was all merry listening to the lady giving her incisive comments on the customer service. I loved her chutzpah. She was doing something which many customers like me couldn’t do. She was the voice of the customer who trusted the executive; got betrayed and had a strong sense of indignation and a feeling of being cheated and she literally mortified them and reinforced to people like me that customer is still the king.

I do appreciate the fact that there is a need for service providers to be more vigilant especially in the wake of our country being under the radar of terrorist attacks but the trade off cannot be customer service. Processes no doubt need to be robust so that atrocities like these don’t happen but at the same time service providers need to beef up their resources and ensure maximum customer satisfaction. Possible solutions are many. Either you increase the staff to do the additional processing or make the processes leaner so that the customer doesn’t have to wait for long. The most important thing is not to give false hopes of the sim getting activated in x hours but to be more realistic and sticking to the deadline given.

It takes a couple of days to start a business in Singapore and it takes more than that for a sim to get activated in India…

Pushkar - Seeking Salvation !!!

A little away from Ajmer, where vegetation begins to get sparse and cactus begins to emerge from jutting rocks, narrow roads cut in the mountain lead to a place called Pushkar. It’s the only place in India that has a temple of Lord Brahma (creator as per Hindu Mythology). Little do we guess en-route that once we get to the other side of the hill, we reach a small town that houses almost 51 temples and a lake that is considered sacrosanct.

Men with colorful turbans on bus tops

Women draped in bright colored traditional sarees

Bus is packed with people all and sundry

To head to a place that appears to be all but dry

A dip in the holy waters,

A 3 km walk to the sacred altar,

To catch a glimpse of the creator

In all his glory in this sole altar.

Camels and Cows get traded at the fair,

For prices that are considered fair.

People of all colors, dark and fair,

Come here to witness what is known as Pushkar Fair.

Beads, bangles, bells and bags,

Handicrafts, artworks and other skunk works,

Men and Women with blue, green and brown eyes,

It’s a color riot of sorts.

Sweets of different tastes and kinds are in the making,

Falafel, Pita, Pizza and Pasta are in the offering,

Bedi, Cigarette, Chai and Pan,

It just seemed like there was no ban.

Ghats, lights and placid waters of the lake

Am at another world where peace with everything is what I make…

For VSP...my first piece of poetry

He comes in a red car,

Clad in a white shirt with no scar,

With a face that is beaming,

Wisdom in his grey cells gleaming.

He enters the class with a smile,

And takes us through that extra mile,

Conflict and clashes happen

He teaches us to manage them.

Stand up for something,

You can negotiate anything,

Don’t get nervous, be staid

All of you will do well, he said.

He made us meet the Golden Swan,

Gave us a memorable sundown

Oh you roaring lion of AP,

We all love you VSP....

Doctor Hunter

Well, almost a year back, I was doing my summers in a Pharma company. As part of my project, I had to meet the marketing managers and collect information from them. That's when I met him for the first time.

Me: Hi, I want some information from you..

Abhi: Come tomorrow and get some stuff for me..

Me: What is this stuff?

Abhi: Grass (with a grin on his face)

Well, the following day he agreed to spent some time with me without the stuff. Boy, what a meeting it was. He asked very pertinent questions as to why this project was being done and he said that until he was satisfied, he wouldnt help me out. Thankfully, he got convinced.

From then on, he was one of the persons I got closely associated in the organization. Primarily, because, he wasnt satisfied with the way the organization was growing and I liked that..his sense of positive dissatisfaction. I knew that this guy was different but never to this extend that he had such an entrepreneurial blood running in his veins..... Well, I am referring to Dr.Abhilash Tirupathy, the maverick behind HealthcareMagic.com who has been currently selected as one of the top eight finalists for the Tie (The Indus Entrepreneurs) Cannan Entrepreneurial Challenge.

There literally hundreds of doctors and dozens of hospitals in Bangalore, but if you’re new to India’s IT Capital, you’ll probably be lost if you need to judge the competence of your neighbourhood doctor or the specialty clinic some blocks away. “There is very little transparency on the data available for healthcare providers,” says Dr Abhilash Thirupathy, a dentist by training who co-founded HealthcareMagic.com with Kunal Sinha a second-time entrepreneur. The portal, according to Thirupathy, is India’s first portal and call centre to provide medical advice and referral in real time. Doctors chat with patients online and provide initial medical advice. The patients are also referred to a specialist if needed. (Courtesy: Business Today, July 13)

A few useful links:

http://healthcaremagic.com/hcm/home.jsp

http://healthcaremagic.com/blog/

So, the next time, you need a medical advice, you know where you need to go....

Kudos Abyaby..

PS: Preethi, this site might be of use for you and your org..Check this out..

GLASSMATES

Often, for a person residing outside Goa, Goa is a place of 3 B’s; beer, beach and babes. The third option is a bit elusive, the second one requires a lot of efforts in traveling but the first one doesn’t require anything. In Goa, getting drinking water might be a problem but not the ubiquitous beer.
Drinking alone is a pain; especially if you have had some great glass mates in the past. So this post is a toast to some of my favorite glass mates with whom I have had some of the best times along with beer.

The first name is always a bit difficult to choose; hence I would go the alphabetical way.

Anuj - I cannot stop laughing when I think about this incident. I think we were in a bar in Chennai when this happened. The bearer came to our table to ask for the last orders as it was time for the bar to close. As usual Anuj, though he had guzzled down a good 5-6 pegs, was still normal and wasn’t quite amused by the fact that the bar was about to close. In his quintessential manner, he replied, “ oru 15 peg rum poratte..”. I still remember the bewildered look on the bearer’s face. There was a roar of laughter when the bearer left and the banter continued…
Enjoyable moments – When he laughs at the silliest jokes you feel like laughing when you see him….

Bijoy – You never know what will happen when you are with him. At times he would be the only person who would be perfectly alright even after downing 7-8 pegs. At times, he can be the only person who really gets knocked out and then god knows what will happen.
Whenever I get back home, he would be the first person whom I call. In his usual manner, he would say, “Namukonnu koodende….vaikunneram vaa Indrapuriyilekku..”
Don’t know whether he has changed his hang out place now.
Memorable moments – Most of the times…(though I have landed in trouble at times also).

Motta – Sporting a cap, this bearded man has always been fun to be with during such sessions.
Most memorable moment – When he sings Andhikadappurathu…..

Murali – From school days, I knew that he had interest in music but never knew he sings really well. Murali has been a revelation in that aspect. The last few drinking sessions that I have had with him have been memorable. His rendition of Venugopal songs is fantastic. I am sure, even now, he would be learning some song for his next session which would definitely elicit an encore from his audience.
Most memorable moment – When he sings Mayamanjalil….

Musthafa – There was a time, when we used to have daily quota of beers. Tired of this, one day we decided that we would stop. He suggested that we should kick this habit by having a can of beer. So both of us went to Amrapali to have a can of beer together but ended up having 4 beers each. With that, we put an end to our dream of quitting drinking.
Most memorable moment – When we had Red Label in Helen Villa at 3 am in the morning while it was raining outside. The yellow lights that stood tall in the streets, against which the rain drops felt gently lighted the room that was otherwise dark. It was beautiful….

Rahul – Discussions of all sorts happen with this guy. Music, movies, work, girls..the list is endless. He has this unique thing. He will obliterate all our thought processes in a single moment with his ideas and make us think over it again. Creates a sense of positive dissatisfaction by asking, “dey, ingane irunna mathiya…rekshapedednde….cinema edukkende.. Days spent in Sai Vihar bar will always be memorable primarily because of the above mentioned reasons and also because of Fish Pulimoonji..
Most memorable moment – When he scripts a story on the spot, especially murder mysteries…

Reghu – He drank with me for the first time at our house in Bombay. He started off by saying that he has drunk only once before. The way, he guzzled down the pegs didn’t quite seem to tell the same tale. Instead it appeared that he was more of a seasoned drinker.
Most memorable moment - When he said after drinking, “Dey, fan karangana pole thonnunnu….”

Drinking is a vice. I don’t really believe it. If you have such glass mates, then I think we need to meet them to create memories and part to preserve them.

Cheers……….