The Mumbai Massacre – What after those 59 hours???????

शहीदों की मज़ारों पर लगेँगे हर बरस मेले;
वतन पर मिटने वालों का यही बाँकी निशाँ होगा...

I have purposefully used the word massacre here, yes it nothing other than massacre, Massacre of Humanity, Massacre of Human life, Massacre of trust and Massacre of civil society…..

Like many others I am also angry and sad at the same time. I also feel like shooting these bastards (no matter if it is Pakistan, Dawood or someone else), I also feel like weeping with those family members who lost their members. Amongst these feelings I am thinking—

1. For how long we will remember this?
2. Will we learn anything from this?

I do not have any answers to this, I am sorry but I do not have. I am living in a country whose Prime Minister lacks authority, the crime happened in a state whose chief minister does not care about terrorism, this country is having a Home Minister who is a shameless creature and has never heard of a simple term called Morality. Yes, I am talking about Mr Manmohan Singh, Mr. Vilasrao Deshmukh and Mr. Shivraj Patil. By the way where is Mr. Thakre, with his brave Marathi Sena, I could not trace them on any of the News Channel and also if I remember correctly, they did not find the way which was any way near to Taj, Oberoi or Nariman House. As I am writing this, I am seeing on one TV channel that Deputy CM of Maharashtra is saying that its no big deal, bade bade sehron mein aaisi ghatna ho jaati hai ( In a big city like this, these events do happen occasionally). What bull shit this is? Can someone please ask MR Patil, what if out of those 182 people that died; one would have been from his family. India is still paying the price of one Mr. Mufti Mohammad Saeed’s love for his daughter.

I think I am already getting the answer of point 1 after seeing what Deputy CM has to say. Based on this I am changing my mind, I think we should start with the enemies within the country, people like Mr Patil should be taught a tough lesson. We as an Indian should do something now to teach such guys a lesson, because it is very evident that all the politicians belong to the same gutter and we cannot rely on these bastards to take care of our country. It is we who holds the responsibility.

I am also amazed by the role media is playing, I appreciate what they have done to bring the coverage to us, however, I feel that it is not out of their responsibility towards the society that they have done this, but it is beause they wanted to earn fame for themselves and for their channel. The reason why I am saying this is that, after the completion of the operation, they are engaged in the same old rat story –

“One Mr. Deepak Chaurasia is showing pictures from inside of Taj and repeating like a toy, these are exclusive pictures being shown on Star News, then comes Barkha Dutt, these footage are shown for the first time on NDTV, someone from IBN7, Sahara Samay etc are doing the same. What the hell this is, people know that they are watching STAR NEWS, NDTV etc. Moreover, at such a time of utter grief, pain and sorrow why would we want to know who is brining those exclusive pictures. Why don’t they understand that they have far greater responsibilities towards society then selling themselves and their channels? Journalists are supposed to be the mirror of common man through which we can see the facts. Mumbai is bleeding and so is the society, please do something to stop that, do something to appease the pain, do something to uncover the culprits, do some campaign to bring people together, something to jolt these self-centered quiescent politicians out of stupor.

Everyone is talking about the hand of Karachi in this massacre, but my question is if we have evidence and even if we can prove that Karachi is behind this brutality, can we do anything? Do we have the guts to go ahead and kill the ones who are involved? Do we have the mettle to attack Pakistan if they refuse to give us the ones that are involved.

We all know the answer, isn’t it?

So my question is what is going to be different after those Deadly 59 hours? Unfortunately like before I am sorry I do not have any answers because my Country has been paralyzed due to inept politicians and policy makers who will do meeting after meeting in an Air-conditioned Hall with coffee snacks etc, then come out with some stupid plan that will never get implemented.

And we “The common people” as well as the media will again sleep and get busy in our life until (God Forbidding) something like this or even major or slightly minor happens again. Nobody will remember those Karkare’s Kamte’s and Salaskar.

India let us pledge to do something to change things in our own possible way and not forget the sacrifice of the Karkare’s, Kamte’s and Salaskar’s –

संभल जाओ होश में आओ ऐ हिन्दुस्तान वालों

ना जागे तो दास्ताँ भी न होगी तुम्हारी दास्तानों में........

The Wonder Years - A serial Par Excellence...

Every time I watch any episode of “The Wonder Years”, it jolts my whole personality out of stupor. I began to think of my life, the learning I had in a similar manner to the narrator of this amazing serial. It surely is a timeless classic, something which I will never get tired of watching.

As I grew watching this serial I have learnt a lot about life, about relations and about the general human behavior and psychology. Those one liners at the end of the serial leaves me pondering and wondering. For instant in today’s episode the narrator says – 

Love can tear and rip you apart. It can kill you. But if you’re lucky, it can put you back together.

Even at this age when I watch it, I discover a new meaning from the episodes that I watch, I remember the days when I uses to miss my computer classes in order to watch the episodes of this serial. If that sounds normal, then, how about recording the entire episode in an Audio cassette and then playing it, listening to it time and again. I still am having about 10 Audio cassettes which I recorded way back in 1998. Such was my craziness about the serial. These days I have put an alarm in my mobile which sends me a reminder 15 minutes before the start of the serial.   

Then there was this one liner which helped me out during one of the tough times in my life with one of my friend –

I guess in a way we are all odd men out ..until we find a match that makes us even...Someone who challenges us to be our best...someone who understands us even in our worst....I was beginning to appreciate how rare a thing (true friendship) was...

 "There is one more that I always remember –

The day the child realizes that all adults are imperfect, he becomes an adolescent; the day he forgives them, he becomes an adult; the day he forgives himself, he becomes wise.

It just is an amazing serial and I bow to the creators of this serial – Neal Marlens and Carol Black.

In Pursuit Of Happiness

I was just thinking today “What do we need to be Happy”?

 While trying to find the answer to this, I figured out that Happiness is a feeling which is inside us, whether we want to find that or not is a separate question altogether. Life gives us enormous opportunity to be happy but I feel that most of us are not apt and skilled enough to grab those opportunity. Rather, we start shooting ourselves with negativities of future and succumb to the unseen painful future while living in present.

 Life has been kind on me, and I am trying to be happy at most of times yet when I am writing this, I am finding it difficult to narrow down on things which can make us happy. I am also wondering why people always tell me “tu hamesha muskurata kaise rehta hai, itna khus kaise rehta hai” (How do you manage to be happy always)…the honest answer is I too do not know and do not realise this unless someone tells me. Still, since someone has asked me to write about this, so I can say few things, but rest assured I am thinking out of my skin to figure this out. 

1. One thing that I think keeps me away from sadness is that I try very hard to not expect much from people. I will not say that I do not expect from people, but there are very few people from whom I expect things in return. What it does is that it gives me freedom to treat people as they are and not put them within certain boundary expecting them to react in a certain way under certain conditions. No expectation No pain.
2. I generally try to be honest to myself. Most of the time when I do something, I ask myself, am I doing the right thing? Will I be happy doing it? And how would I feel after the completion of this? If I get the answer in affirmative I do it, else I keep asking myself until I satisfy myself with either a Yes do it or No, do not go for it.
3. I am never shy of making a fool out of me and generally make a mockery of myself most of the times. What this does is that behind that laughter I myself act as my critics and hence do not get surprised by my short comings, weaknesses etc. As a result I accept myself with my failures and treat it equally with my strength and successes.
4. Last but not the least every night when I go to bed to fold my day; I make myself answerable for everything that I did during my day. After the question answer round, if I feel that I did not hurt anyone, did not cause pain to anyone, I sleep well and it reflects on me the other day.

 Some years back, when someone asked me “what is the greatest achievement of your life?

I replied – The greatest achievement in my life in terms of morality is that, I can bow to someone I did wrong and ask for forgiveness. Besides anything, it flushes my heart and wipes away all the guilt and gives me a clean slate always.  

Coming Back To Life

After so many days I am feeling as if I am coming back to my professional life. Reason is absolutely simple, today after so many days I got a chance to do Load Testing of a Swing Application. I realized how much I missed it. For the first time in over a year I was so happy returning back from office and planning for Monday.

I tested a swing application with 500 vusers. Those 500 users were sending over a million messages on the server on a random basis. I will not go further deep into all this due to some confidential reasons as well as also I do not want this blog to be a technical one.

What I am trying to emphasize here is the amount of satisfaction one gets after doing the work one likes. I have felt it and riding high on it. That is the reason I have told everyone to do the work he/she likes. There isn’t much required to get when one is satisfied in life.

And that is not the only reason due to which I am feeling as if I am breathing again, there are many others –

• Now I am able to do estimation for my project and those are agreed by the management team.
• I am able to say “NO” to a task which I think is not doable. I am only asked to explain the reasons for it. When I do so (I think I am a reasonable guyJ), the tasks get removed from the PMP.
• I am sitting with a Business Analyst to understand the business need for the release and then make my requirement document to further understand it.
• In spite of being a load testing guy I am being asked to learn Functional Automation and implement it in my project. The logic being given to me that being at a level I am in I need to understand every aspect of the area I am in so that I can guide the rest. Again, that is a choice not brute forcing.
  
  In addition to all this, my goals are mapped with my current role. I have a great work and life balance where I am spending a lot of quality time with my family and my sweet little angel called “Nayanika”.
  
  Although I am not living in a perfect professional world, yet I am enjoying it. And by the way who wants a perfect world? I just remembered the Pink Floyd song –
  
  Where were you when I was burned and broken

While the days slipped by from my window watching
And where were you when I was hurt and I was helpless
Because the things you say and the things you do surround me
While you were hanging yourself on someone else's words
Dying to believe in what you heard
I was staring straight into the shining sun

Lost in thought and lost in time
While the seeds of life and the seeds of change were planted
Outside the rain fell dark and slow
While I pondered on this dangerous but irresistible pastime
I took a heavenly ride through our silence

I knew the moment had arrived
For killing the past and coming back to life………….

I took a heavenly ride through our silenceI knew the waiting had begun
And I headed straight..into the shining sun

Success Counts

All these years, when I see people like Tiger Woods, Michael Schumacher or a Sachin Tendulkar, I think what is that separates them from rest of us. I read a lot of article on them, saw a lot of their interviews and this is what I thought has made them successful in life -

Everybody knows that success does not go to those who never struggle. But while dreaming of success, one should be always ready for hard work. It is not something which can be achieved by spending money. What is needed is will-power, which comes from soul and heart, is needed. If our will-power is strong, we will be successful and a successful person is always found confident. But success demands hard work, struggle, sacrifice etc.

Emily Dickinson says – “Success is counted sweetest by those who never succeed”.

It is to some extent true, however successes is success. It is counted sweetest by everyone who struggles. So, struggle hard and be successful. Nothing is impossible, because if our will is strong, we can achieve everything. After all, “where there is a will, there is a way”.

Do not be afraid of failure, because failure is the first step on the way to success. Learn to face problems, bear troubles. Don’t worry and be happy: Remember that if we laugh, the whole world laughs with us. But if we weep, we will have to weep alone. So cheer up, be optimistic and courageous. Make your will power strong.

And the man who does not want badly enough to do a thing; will make any excuse for not doing it. We should never allow ourselves to think that any task or work is beyond us and any position is too high. We have to toil hard, lift the road, rack our brains and sweat it out to secure a worthy goal. It is highly impossible to get success without hard work. We should be confident; hope for the bright future; always think positively and do not totally depend on fate, because we are the master of our own fate. With oour strong will-power, enthusiasm any great thing can be achieved.

“The Secret of success in life lies in keeping the head above the storm of heart. A successful person never allows his faculty of discrimination and Judgment to be disturbed by the rising tides of his mental emotions”.

Look Who's talking

While the whole world is crying over rising fuel price, and most of the developed as well as some of the developing countries are blaming India and Chinta for this, I came across this interesting article,
http://www.rediff.com/money/2008/jul/23look.htm

Read this and decide who is to be blamed....

United HealthGroup - The “CAPTIVE”

It took me a while to pen down this blog of mine which was going through my mind for long. Not sure what stopped me for so long, maybe I was trying to get my anger calm down and my hatred settled down. Considering I resigned on 14^th May 2008, It took long, isn’t it?

It takes me back to the day I joined UHG 14^th May 2007, full of energy, expectation and spark in my eyes to make it really big. I also remember the guys who joined with me the same day, but left it long back. Things were so good when I joined, on one hand Diwakar was there greeting everyone personally, on the other we had Prabir, full of life and warm smile. Things looked positive, energetic and I was feeling as if I had hit a bulls eye by leaving IBM and joining UHG.

Did anyone notice the coincidence that I joined on 14^th May 07 and resigned on 14^th May 08?

Today I feel sad. For what felt like an amazing organization has turned into and absolute nightmare where a group of confused individuals (so called leadership) are trying to take it to a place called nowhere. In a way it has become a monarchy where the king decides everything and he is surrounded by like minded ministers who thinks that the only way of moving ahead is buttering and nodding to King’s decision. Further to this there are some idiosyncratic guys sitting on top and getting appreciated for their lunatics.

The Problems

1. There isn’t any skill set to Job matching – UHG is full of individuals who are experienced at some level but are put into an entirely alien area or something which they do not want to do.
2. One of the worst set of Employee Relations Team – The Employee Relation team at UHG is more of a Supervisors relation team. The only thing that they care about is how to keep the leadership happy. They have forgotten their basic job and are warming the heels of Leadership to gain rapid strides inside the organization. I have never seen such pathetic set of ER team in my career. With an ER team like that Employee know that there isn’t anyone who will listen to them and care about them. I just hope that someone will tell them that thing like UFL, quizzes etc only works when an employee is happy and trusts them. For now it’s a time killing mechanism for most.
3. Employee Unfriendly – No policies for Employee, no benefits, nothing that will excite an employee. The icing on the cake is the Leadership which says “We do not have any budgets for things like party or team budget” or “ aapko party kyon chahiye, daru piney ke liye?”…..well I am speechless. They have budgets for Leadership off-sites for something like discussion about setting up competency. Competency in a captive? When I proposed this idea, I was given a feedback that we will not work like a consulting firm, we are a captive unit. It brings me to the next point.
4. No Respect for Employees initiatives – It’s an organization where the more initiative you take, the more you will be pushed back to the oblivion. Your crime – you are working beyond your scopes. Do I need to say more?
5. Extremely Poor Management skills of Managers – With due respect to some of the managers who are good, most of the managers I met or saw were delivery centric without worrying about the future and aspirations of their team members. The only thing that they are worried is about the delivery, rest all go to hell…
6. The Belief of US counterparts being clients – This has been one of the major pains of this organization. Ever since one joins the organization, one is forced to treat the US counterparts as the client. Similarly the US counterparts treat the Indian employees as their vendor and then rest we all know what happens in a client vendor relation.
7. Crazy timings – The 11.30-8.30 shift is very painful. It leaves you nowhere. You hang between day and night and your personal life goes for a toss. Leave everything for a weekend and sacrifice your rest is the motto.
8. Leadership – Most importantly, the leadership, I do not know how to describe them. They are a set of egoist people who care about their ego to the fullest and employee / organization to the farthest. They have made sure that the organization is an opaque one and no information flows from the top to the bottom. For example, team formation takes place without the consent of the Team Lead. One fine day the lead comes to know that an individual is joining his/her team. This is just one example among zillions of other. The leadership in this organization has ensured that no one remains happy and confident about their growth, their career path. One never knows what happened to the promises that were made to them before joining the organization. Promises like Variable to be paid 100% if not more, like reviews will be honest and will be the catalyst for appraisal etc. All the time they will say that it’s an open organization yet when you seek 10 minutes from their time they will not have anything for you. You write a mail, they will not even bother to respond. Your crime – you are not from the leadership team or even a project manager.

These are quite a few things to say, but I am sure I can write more. As I think, I am cursing the day when I selected UHG from 8 other job offers that I had. It was one of the worst career moves that I made.

For the few who are reading this, the good-bye mail that I wrote on the last day at UHG was a complete satire and every single word was an irony :-) . The funny thing is that everyone failed to understand this. Another feather in the UHG cap.

It has become a “CAPTIVE” in every sense.

[Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are solely of the writer. Based on what he's seen, heard and felt, and do not represent anyone else's views or concerns]

Gurgaon Expressway – The Nightmare still persists

It’s been more than 5 months since the 28 KM express way on NH-8 has been opened, but still it continues to be a nightmare for the commuters. It takes anything between 10-20 minutes during the peak time to cross the toll plaza so whatever time one saves to reach the toll plaza gets consumed while waiting in long queues.

They did devise the mechanism of Tags and Smart card to appease the effect, however it still remains. For me the biggest trouble has been the waiting in the line that has been exclusively meant for vehicles having tags. Most of the people are blaming the DS construction management for this, however, I think they are not the only ones to be blamed for. I think people like us are also to be blamed for this. As ridiculous as it may be but somehow we take a great pride in braking rules and hence even without the tags lots of vehicle come in the Tag line and waste the time of genuine tag holders. As a result the waiting time keeps on increasing. When I spoke to one of the concerned authorities, they said that whenever they try to tell someone about this, people start fighting knowing that vehicles from back will pressurize them by blowing horns to get this cleared up fast. So, they are left with no option then to take the cash and let them go.

I will propose the following solutions to take care of this bottleneck –
1.Hefty Penalty for illegal entry - For anyone entering into Tag line without a TAG, Escort their vehicle near the office and take at least 50 Rupees from them. The management will need some strong staff (bouncers etc) to do this, but this will ensure a smooth flow as well as less argument and quarrel. I can guaranty that this illegal entry will stop soon once we charge the owners with a hefty amount.
2. Strict lane following – I know it is tough to get this implemented in India. However, for the project to be successful and achieving the desired result this is must. Most of the times I have seen 3 lines going into a single Tag lane, this results in nothing but chaos and slow movement. One way to get rid of this can be, something like an iron barrier starting at least 500 meter before every lane. The hard Iron barrier on the sides will make sure that people do not zigzag in the lane.
3. Disciplined individuals – Do I need to mention anything on this? I sincerely feel that if we stick to our lanes and take a disciplined approach, then this problem will reduce drastically and it will be a win-win situation for everyone.

Finally, my suggestion to the world on this will be (I am stealing Anupam’s SMS) :
If you like my ideas raise your hand, if not, raise your standard.

Nayanika – My 6 Month Old Life Line

As I was leaving for office today, I was repeatedly recapturing the moment when Nayanika was in her mother’s lap smiling at me with a question in her eyes, Daddy where are you going?

I just realized how much she had become a part of me. She has not yet reached an age where she can speak, but her actions really speak louder than words. Off course she can shout also, showing her dissent on something which she does not agree or showing consent on things that she agrees.

Life has taken a U turn ever since she has arrived into my world. With her smiles and giggles she makes my day. Even her crying makes me spell-bond. The last 6 months have been nothing less than a fairy tale for me where I grew with her and went through a lot of motions with her. Life becomes a musical journey when she is in my lap, although she thinks that my clothing and my body is a urinal for her. :)

Yes, I have learnt the art of patience under her company.

For someone like me, who never believed in planning my personal life, I have started planning every aspect of my personal life. I have never been a firm believer of saving money, but she has taught me the art of saving money not to become rich or something, but to plan for unprecedented things of life.

Yes I have learnt the value of planning in life due to her.

I generally wake up in the morning with her sound of sighing or playing with something. The first thing I do after opening my eyes is to search for her around the corners of our bed. An eye to eye contact with her makes my day and I must say that hers is the best smile in the universe. Every morning she looks the most beautiful thing I ever saw in my life. She greets me with a smile every morning and that sets the tone of my day. The touch of her tiny fingers on my face gives me a feeling of completeness.

As it happens with most, I have also become a more responsible person.

Life surely has been rollicking along ever since she has come to my world. It has never been this enjoyable and I never had so much of excitement in life. Her eyes, her smile her movements have all been painted in my heart and soul.

I just realized, I better be leaving for home, my sweet little kid Nayanika must be waiting for me.

Life surely will be a worthwhile Journey from here on.........

Arushi Murder – Role of UP Police

The suspense over the actual cause of Arushi’s murder and the real culprit is still going on and on. I have just heard that the case is being handed over to CBI for further investigations. What has been the most eye catching thing about this whole scenario is way media is highlighting this case. All the BREAKING NEWS is coming out of this incident only. I am yet far from convinced that this outrageous act has been performed by none other than Arushi’s father himself. Although initial investigation is pointing towards him only, yet I am finding it hard to believe that a father would ever do that. However, I am surprised by the way UP Police has handled all this. They are tarnishing her character without any proof.

Not surprising that in the current society no one believes in law and specially on police. For most, police has become a money making name where you can do all the illegal stuff underneath a uniform that is being provided to them for honesty and truthfulness. This is really a shame that most of the public is still skeptic about the theory provided by UP Police in this case. I am also not in conjunction with the police story. Every now and then they are trying to prove their point by giving a story which they do not have sufficient proof to back. I sometimes suspect that there may be a case of hiding the truth because of some influences coming from some corner. I think its time that the police should be made accountable for their actions. Can they explain as to why they did not open the door of the roof and didn’t even bother to go upstairs to check anything? Can they explain as to why they did not bother to open the garage when they came for investigation after they got the news? Who knows they might very well have got some substantial evidence at that time.

In the present society the Police have become a laughing stock. With their bulging out stomach and hanging out tongue, they do not give any kind of comfort to the public. In fact most of us want to be away from them as far as possible. People are not taking initiatives in the accident cases, murder cases etc thinking about the hazards they will face while dealing with Police.

An innocent child has lost her life and the Police have made a mockery of her death. If this is what Police is for, then we are fine without them.

Negi's (Pradeep) Marriage

Negi’s Marriage

Pradeep Negi our dearest friend got married on 14th January 2008. This blog of mine is dedicated to him.

Sweet heart - Negiboy, this one is for you.

I saw him for the first time in Allahabad in the year 1999 while both of us were in the counseling session for our MCA course. There was something distinctive about him which attracted me towards him. He looked absolutely naive with the thin moustache that he had at that time. Not sure what caught my attention, but I did look towards him and thought “boy this guy looks like a potential candidate for a good friend”. What followed in the next 8 years is nothing short of an epic.

We are with each other for 8 years now and I must confess that Negi has been a true friend over all these years. He is a guy on whom you can always bank.

As I saw him going through marriage ritual I couldn’t force myself thinking about how lucky bhabhiji is going to be. I am saying this not because Negi is my friend, but simply because he is one of the most uncomplicated guys that you will ever come across. It was evident while he was going through the marriage rituals. He was patient, cool and calm with occasional bursts. Deep down my thinking lane I also realized and thought that life has never been very kind on him. He had gone through a lot but the most amazing facet is that he played everything with straight bat. I have often heard of a term called “Nerves of steel”, and he is the man best suited for getting that kind of tag. Though I never confessed but I had this worry all the time about your marriage and how you will take it. However, that night answered a lot of my questions and the satisfaction and happiness that was evident on your face kind of appeased me. Your face told a lot of story and I was happy and satisfied with the changing expressions of it. Not that everyone can read your face but I surely did.

Further down the memory lane I remembered the day when I became a true fan of yours. It was probably 28th Dec 1999 (don’t compare me with Subodh of Dil Chahta Hai J) when I saw a character worth admiring for the amazing mental strength. It changed a lot inside me and secretly I started appreciating the strength of your character. That day and this day not much have changed other than few extra kilos of weight, a little matured face and some new dimensions in your life.

This journey of friendship with you has been really worthwhile and I will always cherish and relish this throughout my life.

With a small tear of happiness in my eye, I wish you All the Best for your future.