India turns 60!!!!

India turned 60 today. Lot of hype is being created in the media. All news channels, or any other channel for that matter, playing patriotic songs and flashing photographs from the days of freedom struggle throughout the day. I always fail to understand one point!! Why so much of emotions and reactions only during Independence day or Republic Day alone?? Why cant we have the same steady feeling for the country throughout the year?? Why cannot we sing the national anthem or Vande Mataram everyday?? Why don't TV channels broadcast these at least once a day?? I will be happy even if we show 1% of the emotions we show during these days, throughout the year but on a consistent basis!! I am not claiming to be a great patriot or anything. But then, I do not involve myself in what I know as False Patriotism. As someone rightly said, "Patriotism is not short frenzied outbursts of emotion, but the steady and tranquil dedication of a lifetime." In my case, I don't belong to any of the two groups. Now that doesn't mean that I do not love my motherland. Of course I do love but I just don't express it!!

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Last night when I was walking near my house, I found a group of people making arrangements for the Independence Day celebrations!! They had made a makeshift flag post, they were neatly cleaning and decorating the areas near the flag post. They had decorated the flag post with the Indian colours. They were just installing it in the ground. A small distance away was a set of small children stapling small flags to a long rope, so that it can be hung on the wall, in front of their houses. We all do it during religious festivals, but seldom have I seen people spending their hard earned money for national festivals like that. Considering that they were not from a well to do family, impressed me even more. What do we, the so called great and educated people of India do on Independence Day or Republic Day? Frankly speaking, we just take it as another holiday. We wake up late in the morning and just go about doing everything else. We go for a picnic or an outing. At least on this day, we should remember our freedom fighters without whom we never know where we would have been today!! Now that doesn't mean only remember the freedom fighters of the pre independence era. We also need to remember the brave jawans who have sacrificed their lives for the security of the country. I am talking about those valiant soldiers who have laid down their lives during the wars against China, Pakistan and even internally against terror groups like LTTE, Naxals etc..

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Mahatma Gandhi was definitely great and deserves to be the Father of the Nation. But I strongly feel that India has gained freedom not because of his Ahimsa or non violence. He was great because he was able to have a huge number of people behind him. Of course this public support had been gained by virtue of Ahimsa, but then, if someone like Subhash Chandra Bose or Sardar Vallabbhai Patel had gathered even a tenth of that support, they would have driven the British away long before they left!! All these ideals of Ahimsa so not find any relevance in today's situation. Considering the fact that the basic values of life namely trust and faith are absent, Ahimsa is totally irrelevant. It may have been portrayed quite well in the movie Lagey Raho Munnabhai but at the end of the day, its only a movie!!

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Coming to the real question now. After 60 years of independence, where are we today and where are we headed?? In these 60 years, we have not been able to eradicate poverty. There are still millions of people below the poverty line. We have not been able to improve literacy levels. Unemployment is still a threat to the society. There was a time, couple of decades ago when people were so fed up with the politics and corruption that, they wished India had not gained independence. At least, the British were good in administration. Though after the reforms of 1991 and the era of Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh, things have started to change for the better. The liberalisation and opening up of the global economy is a ray of hope. Things were taken up further by the Vajpayee government and is in a right track under this government also. One good thing to be observed in the last two decades is that even though ruling parties have changed every 5 years, major strategies have remained the same. They have persisted with same strategies on major issues and this has set the wheel rolling in the right direction. So all going well, we should be able to realise the dream envisioned by our former president Kalam. God willing, there should not be any problem in India becoming a developing country by 2020!!

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Something interesting to ponder over

I found this somewhere and thought I should share it with you!! Someone who I don't even know has written these words, but I found them very very relevant!!!

The usual hullabaloo is about to begin this week and we will all be swamped by everything to do with celebrating our 60th year of Independence. But amidst all this government-sponsored excitement it is perhaps critical to reflect on what we've really achieved as a nation and some exciting milestones that we've managed to cross in these six decades. And question the kind of freedom we've enjoyed. There is enough good news to keep us busy all the time. But there have been some reality-checks that we have chosen to ignore.

For me these 60 years have meant the following:

* We finally got rid of the British not because of M.K. Gandhi, but only because Lord Mountbatten's wife Edwina and Jawaharlal Nehru (who I still rate as our finest Prime Minister) fell in love. Lutyens' Delhi then tasted a whiff of diplomacy blended with love.

* At one time we boasted of Presidents of a certain stature. Those fine men who entered Rashtrapati Bhavan were men of substance until a certain Mrs. Gandhi (not to be confused with the present Mrs. Gandhi) installed Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed and the decline began. We thought it would end with the installation of a rocket scientist, Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, but then again a certain Mrs. Gandhi (the present one) decided to gift Pratibha Patil to the nation, to mark our 60th anniversary and the rights of women. We now have a President that the people didn't want, that the people's representatives were forced to vote for; and all we've left poor Dr Karan Singh with is another presidency — that of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations.

* There was a time when we boasted of remarkable Union ministers and legendary chief ministers. Be it a T.T. Krishnamachari or a Dr B.C. Roy, they were people who brought a zeal to their offices, and what's more, were driven by causes. They helped inspire and instill a belief that this country was headed in the right direction. We had incorruptible people who were elected because of their honesty and not the lack of it. Today, some Cabinet ministers belong more to the prison and less to the Cabinet as it were. Some like Shibu Soren have scaled new heights by being incarcerated for murder, while others land choppers where even cars don't dare. From the sublime we have moved to the remarkably ridiculous.

* There was a time when we had editors who went to jail to fight for the freedom of the press. There were newspapers, which broke new ground, weekly magazines that opened our eyes to the Bhagalpurblinding. There were shows on Doordarshan, which you enjoyed with the remarkable Tabassum, but some of this has also changed, for the worse. We now have editors who are on television and television anchors who write edit pieces in newspapers; you have television interviews which make the Gulf War look small only because of the vitriol that flows, with the hapless viewer surfing channels like never before. There was a time when the youth of the country was seized with issues and value pyramids, where education was everything one aspired for, where it was more important to respect those who taught you and imbibe the learning from your elders. That too, somewhere down the line, has been forgotten. The Internet and family albums by Face book have replaced parents. The photographs we took of our families on holidays have been replaced by vulgarity spewed on You tube and we are all supposedly a progressive world. In my times, Coke was a drink. Today it is a powder.

* There was a time when we admired the art of giving. A time when we saluted those who gave back in full measure to society. When we actually contributed to causes and ensured there was enough societal follow-up. But sadly, all that has changed as well. The pink newspapers are busy telling us about who made it to the rich list and in the process perhaps trampled on how many innocent people. But a "Give List" has never been published to tell us who amongst these luminaries gave back to society.

* There was a time when we had actors and actresses who only did what they were supposed to do. Act in films or on television. Today some of them have become part-time activists, while others are pretending to run around trees at an old age. From the soulful music of Naushad we have descended to the music of someone who is best remembered for a complicated surname. The Dilip Kumars retired gracefully and were gentle human beings. Today, we have film actors doubling up as benaami landlords.

A lot has changed and a lot remains the same.

We have a tremendous future ahead and the fact that we have the world's youngest population (everywhere except in Parliament, not to mention the Union Cabinet, of course) should both delight and scare us. Age has many challenges and keeping the youth inspired is an entirely different ballgame.

This is what we need to reflect on as we approach the next life cycle in India's destiny.

Never have these words been more apt:

Eh mere watan ke logon,

zara aankh mein bhar lo paani…

Happy Independence Day!

One year in a confusion called TVS

I just completed a year as a professional!! Congrats!! Pat on the back!! Hurray. But is it really a great achievement?? It is just another year passed by!! But going by my experiences in the past one year, its definitely worth a mention!!

It all started last year!! July 12th 2006 was the day when I set out from my home in Udupi to the city of dreams, Bangalore!! A year earlier, in July 2005, I was placed with one of the leading two wheeler manufacturers in the country, who called themselves TVS Motor Company Limited. Back then, we were all very curious about what TVS stood for!! And the answer we got was TVS meant Trust Value and Service. Not too convinced about the explanation, we were definitely more curios to learn more about it. And as an icing on the cake, we got an opportunity to meet all our future colleagues and visit the factory even before we joined it!! This was an event organised by the company in March 2006!! Incidentally it coincided with our annual inter college cultural fest "Incident". Being in final year, skipping the fest was a difficult decision to take. But then, the excitement of visiting the factory and coming back and boasting about it among our classmates, won over the difficulty of deciding against attending the fest!! In fact this was a unique practice, as no other company called their freshly recruited graduates to the factory! There were companies who used to send T Shirts, bags, caps, Jackets and other goodies with the company name and logo printed on them. But this was a totally new experience. An all expenses paid trip!! And after visiting the factory, we were even more impressed with the work culture and all those things over there!! There we learnt that TVS was the initials of the founder of the TVS group and many of our other unanswered questions were answered on that trip.

Infact, I had plans of going for higher studies too!! But then, a placement in one of the best manufacturing sector companies in the countries, coupled with the thoughts of enjoying and freaking out in the final year and the trip to the factory took out whatever little amount of motivation that we had in us!! Though we had written GATE, the entrance exam for M Tech, it was not a whole hearted attempt.

So after all the ups and downs of college, I had decided to go in for the job offered by TVS Motor Company Ltd. Towards the fag end of our college, we got a call from the HR in the company asking us whether we preferred to join in the first week of June or the second week of July!! We were actually hesitant to join so early. And in fact our exams were scheduled to end only in the last week of May. So we too needed a break!! So finally the date of our joining was decided as July 17th 2006.

I came down to Bangalore, where I have plenty of relatives, with a lot of my luggage!! Not sure about what the immediate future had in store for me, I was a bit apprehensive with butterflies in my stomach!! And also the sudden change in climate also took a toll on my health. Only one of my classmates (4 of us were selected) was joining along with me. Besides, one of my classmates in my PU, who did engineering from a different institute was also joining!! So I knew only two other people!! The company had arranged accommodation for all of us in a hotel in Hosur for a week. We were supposed to look out for permanent (or temporary) means of accommodation within that period!! I reached Hosur on the 16th evening with my uncle who dropped me at the hotel. The first priority was to search a house. As I had mentioned earlier, I had not yet recovered from my illness either. But then, we had to search a house to stay in. Lots of thought process went in, first to decide whether to stay in Bangalore or Hosur (the places are 40 kms apart and company has buses plying between both the places). Having decided to stay in Hosur after consulting seniors in the company and also people who had joined in the first week of June, the real problem started. We were 6 people from Karnataka and had initially intended to stay together. But then differences of opinion started coming out openly. One wanted to stay close to the city, whereas one wanted stay in a secure place. One wanted to stay in an independent house whereas another had a different idea. Moreover, it was very difficult to find a house which could accommodate 6 people!! Rent was never an issue, but then we decided to break into smaller groups, so that people with similar basic tastes and habits joined hands and came together. I preferred staying in a locality where security was sound!! After a lot of running around here and there, we(myself and another person) finally found a good house at a good bargain. By then 6 days were over!! We immediately shifted our luggage which was lying in the hotel. During the weekend, I shifted whatever was left over in Bangalore in another trip to Hosur with my uncle!! House hunting was probably the first occasion where I got exposed to the outside world. I had to take a decision on my own. Of course there were people to guide me, but then end of the day, I had to take a call!! It was a nice experience after all and I knew that there was a lot more in store.

In the first week in office, other formalities like identity cards, opening of salary accounts and other similar formalities were completed. But by and large we were free!! Literally having nothing to do!! Incidentally the company had also applied for BVQI certification and most of the executives were busy with the TS 16484 (I dont really remember the exact number!!) audit!! There were brief one hour odd sessions by some department heads coming and boasting about their respective departments, but that was only for one odd hour in a day!! That was a time when all of us (19 people had joined) started getting bonded together!! It was the beginning of a great relationship. I will never forget my first set of colleagues ever in my life!! And moreover having nothing to do, we started having fun and passed the time by playing games like dumb charades, su do ku, kakuro, discussing about movies, sports, etc etc and God knows what else!!! But this is literally what we did for the first two odd months!! Breakfast, lunch, tea twice a day and fun, fun and more fun. Infact we played so much of DC that, by the end of 2 months, we were all confident of acting out anything under the sky!!

But then there were things that were happening against us also!! Small things which started pinching our happiness. We were supposed to alternate Saturdays off. But because of the TS audit and some other reasons, we never got an alternate Saturday off for the first 2 months!! And moreover, the bad thing was that these things were intimated to us only the previous morning or evening!! So all plans of the weekend were screwed!! We were only cursing the authorities, having nothing else to do!! We were all so much offended that for our first salary (something anyone will be very very anxious about), we had to wait for one and a half months and we got it only in the end of August. The reason given was that we had joined on 17th, and all salary calculations are done on 15th itself!! What a ridiculous idea!!! Anyway, this was not the only thing, there was lot more to come!!

In almost mid September, the batch which had joined in June, finished all their so called orientation and on job training(for which they had to come in the morning shift and the same for us had also just started!!) and had to be placed in some department or the other!! All the department heads being very busy people, they made one big blunder!! They had our placement interviews along with the previous batch people!! We had no idea what was happening around!! Also just for the sake of having the interview, they had it!! We were supposed to give our choices for departments under three broad choices: Product development, Sales and marketing & Manufacturing!! Having interacted with a lot of people in the two months, I had started to have an aversion towards manufacturing!! Product development was always my first choice, but since I dint want Manufacturing, I put it third and put Product Development first!! Fortunately or unfortunately for me, 90% of the people put Product Development as the first choice!! So they decided based on the second choice!! And only 3 from our batch had given Sales and Marketing as the second choice!! And tak fell the hammer on our heads!! I still was happy to get into the Sales and Marketing department. Earlier the VP of the department had impressed me personally. And moreover, I was fed up with the discipline and other things in the factory like food, the language(everyone starting from the machine operator to the VP speaks in Tamil!!! Even the President speaks in Tamil in the monthly meetings!!!) So getting into the field meant a lot of freedom and a cool life away from the factory!!

But the transition from the factory to the field was not as smooth as we had expected!! First of all, as all others were in the factory, they were supposed to continue with the factory orientation and coming in the first shift!!(Coming in the first shift meant no alternate Saturdays for another two months!!) But our department had literally nothing to do with things going on in the factory other than selling them!! So big shots(atleast at that point of time, we thought so) from our department said we need not attend it, but the TQC department said we had to undergo the basic orientation under any cost!! Nobody boldly said this or gave it in writing, and we were literally like ping pongs moving from here to there(In fact both departments are located exactly opposite to each other in the same building!!) The most frustrating part was yet to come!! We were supposed to report at the Product Training Centre(PTC) where the person had not received any communication about our arrival. Again a ping pong!! And mind you, these places are miles apart!! Another big confusion was that we were told that we were only for service and not for sales!! That was the most disappointing point!!

Looking back in retrospect, now I feel it was definitely a good thing to happen. It would have been definitely difficult to handle the pressure, especially when we are not doing so well, more so as a fresher. Anyways, days passed on in PTC with no formal and proper training. We were asked to open and close vehicles and engines and whatever technical things we learnt, we did on our own with little help here and there from some assistants there!! Then it was time for tests, in which we fared pretty badly. And the diploma holders did pretty well in those tests!! The main reason for our poor performance was that we were all brought up in such environments where we never made a habit of remembering things which were easily available in books!! And we were so humiliated there by the all India Training head, that we felt like slapping him then and there. Whatever the reasons, after two months in that hell, we set out for our deployments. Again lot of confusion. 4 people got what they wanted. Only me and my friend from Bangalore asked for Karnataka. But they said no vacancies in Karnataka and tried to divert us to Hyderabad and Vizag. My friend, unwillingly opted for Hyderabad. Which meant that I go to Vizag, which was unimaginable at that point of time. So I asked for West Zone. Again lot of dirty politics was played, lot of equations changed. Meanwhile we were all deployed in Bangalore for field orientation. That two week period was by far one of the best periods in TVS. As soon s that was over, I was asked to report at Hyderabad the nest day. My friend got Bangalore. I took a couple of days off an then reported at Hyderabad.

When I first landed in Hyderabad, it first reminded me of Mumbai with a lot of flyovers on a single road. Slowly, as I started moving around, I started realising the differences and concluded that the two cities were miles apart. The very first day I came here, the president of the company was also in Hyderabad. And I was fortunate enough to have shook hands with him and spent some time with him. Infact he had some encouraging words for me which motivated me even more!! I was probably the first GET to have spent 10 minutes one-on-one with the president of the company!! My boss also turned out to be a good person. Very friendly and gave me enough time to settle down. But now its totally opposite!! And my first week in Hyderabad was the most eventful week!! House hunting was not a problem this time as I had previous experience and was pretty sure how to go about it this time!!

Slowly I started learning all the tricks of the trade. Somehow or the other, I was feeling that being posted in Hyderabad was a blessing in disguise for me!! I started to ride the motorcycle(Officially nothing was assigned to me, but i used to take whichever as free. And moreover I had my first long bike ride only after coming to the field!! I still don't have a valid driving license for a two wheeler!!).

Parents visited my place in early January. After they left, it was heavy work fr me with new dealership inauguration! And that was one hell of an experience I will never forget for life!! Tat was when I became close to my counterpart who is looking after sales, and that association continues even today!!

Slowly and silently boss isms started increasing. I started feeling the real pressure. Customers screwing from one side, boss from the other; it was becoming really intolerable at times. Mainly because my boss lacks clarity in expressing his thoughts!! He always emphasizes on the use of body language, but that's not everything!! But then he has been in this company for 20 yrs, and that fact I saluted. He was God for me!! By the end of the financial yr, during policy deployment for the next year, I got an opportunity to meet other bigheads in the company. And then I realised what a person I was working with. My boss is nothing compared to those and I am nothing compared to my boss!! So still a long way to go. After the policy deployment, I became more clearer. Now I know what exactly is my duty and what exactly is expected of me!!

Looking back, the one year has seen lots of ups and downs for me and terribly huge number of mood swings!! But at the end of the year, I am definitely wiser than I was last year at the same point of time!! I have met lots of people, dealt with lots of issues, attended lots of official dinners and parties and all these have definitely added to my KQ!! So even though joining TVS was with lots of confusions in the mind, today, as I prepare for my confirmation interview, I must say I am a far better person than i was before I joined TVS. I even had thoughts of doing MBA earlier(before I joined), but now I feel with a work experience of one year, I am definitely well equipped for it.

Can these things ever happen in India??

I was just going through the newspaper today and found an interesting article which I thought I should share.

In the recently concluded Presidential elections in France, Nicolas Sarcozy has come into power winning 325 seats in a 577 seat assembly. The important point to note here is that a whopping 84% of the public voted in the elections!! Another remarkable fact was that most of them running for the top post were only in their early or mid fifties. The capacity to dream and envisage changes is increased many fold when one is young. President Kalam is an exception, possibly because he has always kept in close touch with the youth of the country. Immediately after his oath taking, Mr Sarkozy, who will occupy the Elysee Palace for the next five years set out to Berlin to meet Ms Angela Morkel, the chancellor of Germany to start afresh some talks which were stopped earlier for some reasons!! And the same evening, he was back in Paris!! He still finds time to jog in the Elysee gardens lawns daily!! Though this may seem to be a publicity gimmick some of his actions have really been thought provoking. For example, his Cabinet of Ministers has only 15 members!! Just compare it with the Indian scenario!! We have a 545 member Lok Sabha and we have 70 odd ministers!! of course, a handful of state ministers will assist these cabinet ministers, but their roles, it is said, is going to be like that of small projects. Once the projects are completed, they will be relieved of their responsibilities!! A small council of ministry will definitely imply a lesser burden on the exchequer and indirectly better funds for developmental activities!! Can we ever imagine such a scenario where people are made ministers without any ministry, or new ministries being created only to satisfy all people?? Another innovative point in the cabinet is the fact that out of 15 ministers, 8 are men and 7 women!! Here in India, we still hope to see the 33% reservation bill to be tabled in parliament one fine day, and I feel that the one fine day is not going to come for at least another couple of decades!! And the jewel in the crown is the fact that the No.2 minister in the cabinet after the president is the Environment Minister!! How many of us even know who is our environment minister!!??

Can we ever imagine an Indian Prime Minister go jogging and shed the weight of the Government?? I don't see it happening in the near future!!

With excerpts from The Sunday Express dated 01/07/2007