Signing Off
Today is a poignant day in my life. I resigned from Patni, my first employer, after a stint of 3 years. Its time to take a rewind of the last 3 years and reflect on what changes Patni has brought about in me.
More to come....
Friday, April 21, 2006
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
A Note of Thanksgiving
It’s time to give a vote of thanks. Thanks to all those people who have made me what I am today. For today I am extremely happy and see a fresh new life ahead. Till yesterday I felt as though I was approaching the edge of a cliff just knowing that there is a deep trench ahead, its depth unfathomable and if I fall, I knew that I was going to get hurt badly. But no longer. Ok…am breaking the suspense. Have got through TISS - an institute where I have been longing to go for the past couple of years and do something which I wish to do from the bottom of my heart – Labor Relations. Finally that has happened and I am all set to go.
But hey…You just can’t go like that. True. There are many stakeholders in this success of mine and I need to give them a part of the pie. So this space is for them. Let’s do it the memento style.
First of all I would like to thank my Manager Uday who gave me the liberty to come back from US after losing an account just because I didn’t want to stay there. It was for certain that if I stayed there I wouldn’t have been able to appear for TISS. Thanks Uday.
Thanks to the entire PeopleSoft team at Patni which during my preparation helped me keep faith in me. Thank you Sanjay for taking the pains to understand why I was keen on doing HR. Your relentless pushing and prodding has helped me a lot in coming up with better, rational and convincing answers. I know that you still are not convinced and do not still consider my domain as something that offers potential challenges. I hope to demystify all your concerns and give you a satisfying reply in the next 2 years. Thank you all.
Thank you Preethi, for pitching in at the right time and helping me take the decision of rejecting the much coveted onsite opportunity, stay back and give TISS when the whole lot of people around me asked me to go. Thanks dear. (Very big thanks for letting me know that there is something called TISS…you deserve a large piece of the pie for that).
Thank you appa and amma for giving me the freedom to do something of my choice. I respect the freedom and will continue to cherish that freedom in the next 2 years. Thanks Renjini (my sister) for keeping alive the hopes in appa and amma’s mind.
Thank you Datta, for inspiring me to do IR. You have been there mentoring me throughout the last 3 years. Thank you for listening patiently to all my crap, immature statements about HR and for guiding me.
And now…..time has come to thank the main stakeholder. I don’t know what name I shall give him. Friend, philosopher, guide, critic, mentor….he has been that and much more than that.; a person who has been with me for the past 3 years and who has been solely responsible for shaping me the way I am today. Our relationship took off on a high met with a low and then has come back on a high completing one full circle. I don’t know how to thank you. I sincerely wish that you have a great life ahead. Love you and your bulging eyes with which you see a completely different life around. The most creative, innovative, pragmatic, eclectic and iconoclastic person whom I have ever met in my life – Rahul S. Thank you my friend for those golden words “Why don’t you go for HR and try giving TISS” even though it was over 2 rounds of booze.
Thanks to SAI Vihar bar for always being there as our last bastion of companionship when everything else in the world ditched us. Thanks to those rounds of Kingfisher which shook us up and made us think about life in a new direction.
It’s time to give a vote of thanks. Thanks to all those people who have made me what I am today. For today I am extremely happy and see a fresh new life ahead. Till yesterday I felt as though I was approaching the edge of a cliff just knowing that there is a deep trench ahead, its depth unfathomable and if I fall, I knew that I was going to get hurt badly. But no longer. Ok…am breaking the suspense. Have got through TISS - an institute where I have been longing to go for the past couple of years and do something which I wish to do from the bottom of my heart – Labor Relations. Finally that has happened and I am all set to go.
But hey…You just can’t go like that. True. There are many stakeholders in this success of mine and I need to give them a part of the pie. So this space is for them. Let’s do it the memento style.
First of all I would like to thank my Manager Uday who gave me the liberty to come back from US after losing an account just because I didn’t want to stay there. It was for certain that if I stayed there I wouldn’t have been able to appear for TISS. Thanks Uday.
Thanks to the entire PeopleSoft team at Patni which during my preparation helped me keep faith in me. Thank you Sanjay for taking the pains to understand why I was keen on doing HR. Your relentless pushing and prodding has helped me a lot in coming up with better, rational and convincing answers. I know that you still are not convinced and do not still consider my domain as something that offers potential challenges. I hope to demystify all your concerns and give you a satisfying reply in the next 2 years. Thank you all.
Thank you Preethi, for pitching in at the right time and helping me take the decision of rejecting the much coveted onsite opportunity, stay back and give TISS when the whole lot of people around me asked me to go. Thanks dear. (Very big thanks for letting me know that there is something called TISS…you deserve a large piece of the pie for that).
Thank you appa and amma for giving me the freedom to do something of my choice. I respect the freedom and will continue to cherish that freedom in the next 2 years. Thanks Renjini (my sister) for keeping alive the hopes in appa and amma’s mind.
Thank you Datta, for inspiring me to do IR. You have been there mentoring me throughout the last 3 years. Thank you for listening patiently to all my crap, immature statements about HR and for guiding me.
And now…..time has come to thank the main stakeholder. I don’t know what name I shall give him. Friend, philosopher, guide, critic, mentor….he has been that and much more than that.; a person who has been with me for the past 3 years and who has been solely responsible for shaping me the way I am today. Our relationship took off on a high met with a low and then has come back on a high completing one full circle. I don’t know how to thank you. I sincerely wish that you have a great life ahead. Love you and your bulging eyes with which you see a completely different life around. The most creative, innovative, pragmatic, eclectic and iconoclastic person whom I have ever met in my life – Rahul S. Thank you my friend for those golden words “Why don’t you go for HR and try giving TISS” even though it was over 2 rounds of booze.
Thanks to SAI Vihar bar for always being there as our last bastion of companionship when everything else in the world ditched us. Thanks to those rounds of Kingfisher which shook us up and made us think about life in a new direction.
Thanks Vijay Mallya…Has anyone got his number…:)
Monday, April 17, 2006
Bombay meri Jaan
What is it about Bombay that I cherish? I tried to answer this as I sat on the raised platform along the Queen’s necklace bang opposite the Hilton hotel facing the sea. In front of me lay a city, which had already earned many a description like “The city that never sleeps”, “The city of dreams”, “The land of Bollywood”, “India’s financial capital”, “India’s Paris” (Bombay looks like Paris when approached by sea), “India’s London”(Thanks to the Britons and their excellent town planning) etc.
All these descriptions might be true; rather they are. Nowhere in India you would find so many people rushing to catch the local train, which is the river of life, even at 12 o clock. Nowhere in India would you find so many people stepping in to make it big in their life; thanks to Bollywood and all those great men who made Bombay famous the way it is. Bombay houses the premier Stock exchange of India, some of the richest men in India, some of the poorest of people in the whole world; house of hijadas, hookers, peddlers and hawkers who throng the footpaths, the city of dons and encounter specialists, home of king khans and bollywood starlets, land of red street and dancing damsels, city of skyscrapers and shanties (though the latter is what Bombay is famous for –largest slum in Asia)… you name anything and I am sure that you would find it in Bombay. Such is the charisma and the innate ability of this beautiful island city to accommodate all those different identities that it has captured my imagination. I am sure that given the space and time I would just go on and on writing about Mumbai; no wonder Suketu Mehta took almost 600 pages in describing Bombay.
Underlying all these ornate descriptions there is something that makes Bombay so special, which can’t be expressed in words. It’s the spirit of Bombay, the soul of Bombay - its people. Many come here with dreams in their eyes, but we hear only about Bacchan or Dirubhai Ambani for that instance. We hear about people coming in but not about anyone who wants to leave Mumbai. There is something that holds us on here. I would say it’s the spirit of the people that is the true soul of Bombay. People live in houses like matchboxes, breathe polluted air, drink unclean water and travel miles a day to do something and eke out a living. Most of the people have a hand to mouth existence; still they stay here and continue to do something to make a living without the slightest of concerns for their dignity. It is the inequality that this city has by default that has affected me the most. I see people around striving to make a living without cribbing about how difficult it is to live in this city of crowded trains, crowded roads and crowded footpaths. It is this spirit of the common man that has taken me aback by surprise and sometimes I feel that in the stoicity of their eyes lies my lost resilience. They have tales of lost opportunities; luxuries that they are not destined to and having a comfortable and cozy life, which they can only dream, in this city of dreams. It is this sheer in-equation that forces me to think of the luxuries and privileges that I enjoyed; which rather shakes me to think “Shouldn’t I be more responsible, more committed to the society, rather take more ownership and create a difference?”
I had recently been to TISS (Tata Institute of Social Sciences) for an interview for Human Resources Management course. I had been asked to report there by 9 am for my GD/PI. The GD got over by 11 am and I went and sat outside the room where I was supposed to get interviewed. Contrary to last time, I thought that the admission process this time would be more organized but I realized only to my dismay that there was no change in the whole process. Students were called in random into the rooms where panelists were ready to grill them for the next couple of minutes and give their verdict on how good or bad they were judging them during the 10 min stint that candidates share with them. Initially I saw that there were only 10 candidates that my number would come soon. But later I noticed that there were always 10 candidates and that number never seemed to decrease. I was perplexed, as I could not make out from where were those students coming from. I sat there with a bemused smile, though I was already on the verge of losing my patience. But hey..You need to be more mature, I told myself and you just can’t be like those kids straight out of college who were sitting beside me and cribbing.
The time was 5 o clock and there were still 10 of us left to be interviewed. I was getting tired of this entire process of waiting and the whole scene reminisced me of some movies in which people used to line up outside offices for getting into those limited coveted posts. Disillusionment had started to creep into my mind and I was increasingly getting the feeling that I wont perform well in the interview. Just then I noticed a lady in a wheelchair advancing towards me. Her eyes were gleaming and she was telling her friend that she could manage by herself as she turned the wheels of her wheelchair with more zeal and enthusiasm. The spirit of this young lady whose smile and energy made me think that it was I who was handicapped and not she amazed me. I realized that this was the specialty of TISS. Handicapped people are also given opportunity in this institute and it has truly lived up to the expectations of a Social Sciences institute catering to the needs to a wide variety of people and in meting out social justice. There were a flurry of thoughts in mind; again of lost opportunities and that comparative advantage which I enjoyed but which never ever had captured my imagination to this extend. I just hoped that I would be the last person to be interviewed and it happened so.
I entered the room and I greeted the panelists warmly and told them that I was the last man standing. There were relieved. After hearing to a host of “Why HR “answers they were tired.
I gave my own reasons for doing HR and I hope they were convinced. My interview got over in 15 min and I was about to leave. I reached the door and I turned back. I said in a mellowed voice, “ Sir I have a suggestion”. They asked me to be seated. I told them about how candidates who had come at 9 o clock had to wait almost till 6 o clock to get interviewed and how it had disillusioned and disgusted them. In addition I told them that if this entire procedure could be made more organized by giving time slots to people, they would feel better and more motivated. At least the first impression they shape about the institute in their minds would be a lot better, I told them. One of the panelists riposted “ That’s a good piece of HR advice”.
I was extremely happy that I could tell them how things could be made more organized in an institute in which I dream to study one day. In my mind I thanked the lady in the wheelchair for having given me the courage to speak out something that was in my mind. I returned home happy and satisfied.
What is it about Bombay that I cherish? I tried to answer this as I sat on the raised platform along the Queen’s necklace bang opposite the Hilton hotel facing the sea. In front of me lay a city, which had already earned many a description like “The city that never sleeps”, “The city of dreams”, “The land of Bollywood”, “India’s financial capital”, “India’s Paris” (Bombay looks like Paris when approached by sea), “India’s London”(Thanks to the Britons and their excellent town planning) etc.
All these descriptions might be true; rather they are. Nowhere in India you would find so many people rushing to catch the local train, which is the river of life, even at 12 o clock. Nowhere in India would you find so many people stepping in to make it big in their life; thanks to Bollywood and all those great men who made Bombay famous the way it is. Bombay houses the premier Stock exchange of India, some of the richest men in India, some of the poorest of people in the whole world; house of hijadas, hookers, peddlers and hawkers who throng the footpaths, the city of dons and encounter specialists, home of king khans and bollywood starlets, land of red street and dancing damsels, city of skyscrapers and shanties (though the latter is what Bombay is famous for –largest slum in Asia)… you name anything and I am sure that you would find it in Bombay. Such is the charisma and the innate ability of this beautiful island city to accommodate all those different identities that it has captured my imagination. I am sure that given the space and time I would just go on and on writing about Mumbai; no wonder Suketu Mehta took almost 600 pages in describing Bombay.
Underlying all these ornate descriptions there is something that makes Bombay so special, which can’t be expressed in words. It’s the spirit of Bombay, the soul of Bombay - its people. Many come here with dreams in their eyes, but we hear only about Bacchan or Dirubhai Ambani for that instance. We hear about people coming in but not about anyone who wants to leave Mumbai. There is something that holds us on here. I would say it’s the spirit of the people that is the true soul of Bombay. People live in houses like matchboxes, breathe polluted air, drink unclean water and travel miles a day to do something and eke out a living. Most of the people have a hand to mouth existence; still they stay here and continue to do something to make a living without the slightest of concerns for their dignity. It is the inequality that this city has by default that has affected me the most. I see people around striving to make a living without cribbing about how difficult it is to live in this city of crowded trains, crowded roads and crowded footpaths. It is this spirit of the common man that has taken me aback by surprise and sometimes I feel that in the stoicity of their eyes lies my lost resilience. They have tales of lost opportunities; luxuries that they are not destined to and having a comfortable and cozy life, which they can only dream, in this city of dreams. It is this sheer in-equation that forces me to think of the luxuries and privileges that I enjoyed; which rather shakes me to think “Shouldn’t I be more responsible, more committed to the society, rather take more ownership and create a difference?”
I had recently been to TISS (Tata Institute of Social Sciences) for an interview for Human Resources Management course. I had been asked to report there by 9 am for my GD/PI. The GD got over by 11 am and I went and sat outside the room where I was supposed to get interviewed. Contrary to last time, I thought that the admission process this time would be more organized but I realized only to my dismay that there was no change in the whole process. Students were called in random into the rooms where panelists were ready to grill them for the next couple of minutes and give their verdict on how good or bad they were judging them during the 10 min stint that candidates share with them. Initially I saw that there were only 10 candidates that my number would come soon. But later I noticed that there were always 10 candidates and that number never seemed to decrease. I was perplexed, as I could not make out from where were those students coming from. I sat there with a bemused smile, though I was already on the verge of losing my patience. But hey..You need to be more mature, I told myself and you just can’t be like those kids straight out of college who were sitting beside me and cribbing.
The time was 5 o clock and there were still 10 of us left to be interviewed. I was getting tired of this entire process of waiting and the whole scene reminisced me of some movies in which people used to line up outside offices for getting into those limited coveted posts. Disillusionment had started to creep into my mind and I was increasingly getting the feeling that I wont perform well in the interview. Just then I noticed a lady in a wheelchair advancing towards me. Her eyes were gleaming and she was telling her friend that she could manage by herself as she turned the wheels of her wheelchair with more zeal and enthusiasm. The spirit of this young lady whose smile and energy made me think that it was I who was handicapped and not she amazed me. I realized that this was the specialty of TISS. Handicapped people are also given opportunity in this institute and it has truly lived up to the expectations of a Social Sciences institute catering to the needs to a wide variety of people and in meting out social justice. There were a flurry of thoughts in mind; again of lost opportunities and that comparative advantage which I enjoyed but which never ever had captured my imagination to this extend. I just hoped that I would be the last person to be interviewed and it happened so.
I entered the room and I greeted the panelists warmly and told them that I was the last man standing. There were relieved. After hearing to a host of “Why HR “answers they were tired.
I gave my own reasons for doing HR and I hope they were convinced. My interview got over in 15 min and I was about to leave. I reached the door and I turned back. I said in a mellowed voice, “ Sir I have a suggestion”. They asked me to be seated. I told them about how candidates who had come at 9 o clock had to wait almost till 6 o clock to get interviewed and how it had disillusioned and disgusted them. In addition I told them that if this entire procedure could be made more organized by giving time slots to people, they would feel better and more motivated. At least the first impression they shape about the institute in their minds would be a lot better, I told them. One of the panelists riposted “ That’s a good piece of HR advice”.
I was extremely happy that I could tell them how things could be made more organized in an institute in which I dream to study one day. In my mind I thanked the lady in the wheelchair for having given me the courage to speak out something that was in my mind. I returned home happy and satisfied.
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