Formula 1 - an Indian experience

So the other day someone told me that this year F1 is coming to India. He was very excited about it and apparently for him, F1 coming to India is the next best thing after the Indian youth's discovery of Anna Hazare. Don't be surprised if you see Formula One fans wearing Gandhi caps during race day proclaiming "I am Michael Schumacher" in English and Marathi, he told me.



What you see below is a work a fiction, how I imagine this event to pan out with a flavor of "it happens only in India" .... in a lighter vein.

Race day was spectacular, people from different strata of the society had come to witness history in the making. The rich and the influential used their contacts to get free passes in grand stands. Couple of film stars who happened to buy a team or two were accompanied with their coterie all dancing to the loud blaring tunes of Daler Mehndi and Akon. Alcohol-barons and kings of good times were cockily gleaming with their toothy sons and long-legged actresses. Life could not be better, except for the Rs 32 per day daily wage earners who were frantically trying to fill up the potholes on the racetrack, formed due to the late night unexpected rains. They didn't have the slightest clue of why this shapeless stretch of tar was more important to be fixed than the roads leading to municipal hospitals. But he had a job to do, to keep his head above the 'poverty line'.

The initial delay for a couple of hours was because the local minister was late. Apparently he was in his farmhouse in the previous night and couldn't make it for the inauguration on time due to the traffic jams. Culprit - few protestors had blocked roads demanding for a separate state or reservation for their sub-sub-class, I forgot which one. Finally, after a meager delay of 4 hours, the minister arrived with his convoy, made some speech on population control and eradicating poverty, declared the games open and got back to his cell phone calling some relationship manager in a Swiss bank.

There was some more delay because some cow had squatted in front of the Ferrari and wont budge till it made its mark on the track. Our friend, the Rs 32 earner was called back to clean the act. Finally, the race started with some skimpily clad women did some cheerleading and walked off the tracks waving their checkered flags.

As the race proceeded, most of the laps were uneventful, except a few stray instances. Somewhere between the 15th and 20th lap our minister fell asleep, but not many realized because his rhythmic snores were effortlessly enveloped in the loud buzz those heavy duty Bridgestones. Sometime between the 25th and 30th lap there was a rumor that government has increased petrol prices by Rs 5 effective this mid-night, and that let to some spectators queueing up in McLaren-Mercedes and Renault pit lanes to get their tanks filled. It took some effort to usher them out of there, and the race went on.

If McDonalds can serve tikka masala burger and Dominos can serve tandoori paneer pizza in India, then F1 cannot be left far behind. Pit lanes were dotted with a hawkers selling mini flags, or young boys selling pirated copies of Paulo Coehlo or Jeffery Archer's latest. There was a speedbreaker just before the stretch of tar leading to the grand stand with huge hoarding strategically placed so that the Manikchand, Royal Challenger soda and Paneeri sari ads can get maximum eyeballs.

As the race drew to an end, someone nudged our minister out of his slumber and prepared him for the final award distribution. The stage was prepared yet again, this time wide enough to accommodate some 20 odd guests, 3 MDs from sponsoring companies, 2 local MPs, 5 members of Indian Car Racing board (this also included 4 more MPs as board members), 3 commentators and few other family members of MPs or board members who just managed to squeeze themselves on the stage.

Soon the organizers ushered everyone out of the arena because this same venue was chosen for Anna's next fast. And thus ended the famous raceday, the first one in India to make way for yet another fight against corruption.

Defining 2000-2010 ....

Today marks the end of the first decade of the 21st Century, probably the most defining 10 years of my life that have shaped me into what I am today. 10 years that started with the end of student life, advanced with stepping into the corporate world, and ended with a beginning of understanding my place in this world. 10 years that seemed like a lifetime, but elapsed like a wink of an eye. A time that taught me the greatest lesson in life, that education never stops.

This phase has been dotted with my share of achievements and disappointments, self-realization and missed opportunities and above all, getting a step closer to understanding my strengths and weaknesses. I have realized that I am a complex personality, predictably unpredictable, sometimes to the extent that I get surprised by my own reactions to unexpected stimuli.

Another important lesson I learned about myself was that I cannot plan my life. I can indulge in wishful thinking, take risks and at times play safe, make choices; sometimes good, sometimes regrettable, but I cannot decide how the future will unfold.

In the material world, these 10 years gave us affordable laptops, mobile phones and blackberries, Facebook and twitters. These 10 years digitized us to the extent that sometimes I feel that it’s not air we are breathing but transmission waves. A time when iPods and fancy phones have become a natural extension of our body. A time when we judge a person not by the colour of his skin, neither the content of his character but purely by his Facebook profile! When Mahatma Gandhi became a limited edition of an expensive pen-maker. Ironic!

In the world of hatred these 10 years showed us the ugly head of terrorism and how it has changed the common man’s life. We cannot enter a temple without being scanned, we cannot sit in a train compartment without scanning our surroundings for a left-over bag. When dates such as 9/11, 26/11, 7/11 were marked with blood of our innocent brothers. Till now it was our sins and our prejudice that came between us and our God, now it is our fear in for form of metal detectors and security personnel.

But I am hopeful.

Hopeful that one day we will come out of this blanket of fear and hatred. One day terrorists will find peace and the common man will find God. One day we will try to understand our friends as a person and not as a profile.

I am hopeful that one day I will find what I am looking for.

3 X 2

Today I got myself relocated to our office in Bombay. Bombay being my home town and place of birth has always been my favorite city. In fact I have also limited my job options just to be able to live in Bombay. I live in Bombay as much as Bombay lives in me. For me, in the true sense it is a Maximum City.

But for the first time in my life, I got a rude culture shock from working in an office in Bombay. To begin with, I suddenly find myself displaced from the corner cubicle into the middle of a long row of 3 feet wide pigeon holes (PH). One may choose to call it "Quarter Cubicle" or "Shoe Rack" if not pigeon hole. If I stretch my hands then I will probably poke the next 2 guys in their ears, I had to refrain from any stretching exercises through out the day. I kept my cell phone on silent mode so that the hardworking pigeons do not get disturbed. That too didn’t help because my phone being on vibrator mode, when I got an incoming the four blokes around me seemed to tremble with the vibrator effect.

I switched on my desktop and tried moving the cursor, the mouse just won’t respond. I sucked in my stomach, squeezed myself under the desk, and groped behind the machine to make sure that the mouse wires were well connected. I think I even scared a lizard while I was feeling the behind of my machine. All wires seemed well connected so I again trudged my way back on my chair. The sudden relaxation of my solar plexus might have passed a gust of wind in the floor, if you know what I mean. After 15 more minutes of fiddling the guy on my right rudely asked me to stop screwing with his mouse (no pun intended). It was then I realized that my mouse was between the monitor and phone, on top of my file and right under my elbow.

Since it’s my first day, so the unused pigeon hole also has a conked off printer, some abandoned printouts and a phone with no cord (no, it’s not a cordless phone) to give me company. I am hoping that by Monday this mess will be cleaned up and the cubicle will appear bigger. The tray to keep my keyboard was hanging on just one screw, but thankfully the carpenter was available to fix it soon. Someone has locked the drawers and probably swallowed the keys or thrown them in sea out of spite. I will have to get duplicate keys done.

As I retrospect into my career, I can say that the one thing that definitely shrinking as I move ahead is the size of my cubicle. Sometimes I think that this is the corporate way of making sure that my ego is just big enough for the size of my cubicle.

Waka Waka FIFA

Football frenzy is almost over and will be long gone by the time anyone reads this post. WC '10 will probably be remembered for some weird reasons... an Octopus and a Parrot making predictions, Upsets and First time Finalists, Referee blunders and a promise by FIFA to consider the use of technology in forthcoming editions, just to name a few.

But this post is not about what happened in FIFA WC '10. This is an imagination of how the corporate world can be influenced by such mega-events.

Animated Coaches screaming their lungs out and making gestures that only they can understand can influence Project Managers and Team Leaders sitting in the big cubicles. Some poor techies are working their ass off to make a piece of code work and the PMs jumping around and yelling abuses. Unit test cycle fails and the next thing you see, some PM throwing monitors and keyboards on the ground cussing team members and yelling at the quality team (read: referees) for giving NCs.

Floating octopeds in Business Development teams immersing food packets in boxes marked "Fixed Price" / "Time & Material" OR "Onsite" / "Offshore".

Technical Consultants flipping from seats in fake injuries when their leave is not approved and they are asked to work extra hours on a Saturdays. Fall on the ground, roll a bit clutching the stomach or calf and if no one notices then sit back on the desktop resuming work.

Shakira couldn't "Waka Waka" for IT geeks but a little bit of jiggling before appraisals will not hurt those HR guys and supervisors.

There could be many more intersections between the corporate world and the world cup, care to contribute??

Getting inducted

I would like to see this post as more of a Time Capsule. And after several more posts and years later, I would like to revisit it to see if it still makes as much sense.

I am writing this with a view of sipping the first hot cup of coffee of the day and contemplating how the rest of the day would churn out to be. This is about my first few days on HSBC rolls.

The first thing that strikes heavily on the mind is that the organization makes every effort to make the inductee PROUD of being a part of the family. The position they give you, the facts about the bank they throw at you, the proud history, everything that brings in, as they call it, a Feel Good factor in you. I think it is very important to make the new family member proud of what he has gotten into.

I also felt that the team members are very friendly. They are not reluctant to walk across the cubicle and exchange a few pleasantries. The seems a conspicuous absence of distrust or politics. Some mates infact seemed a bit relieved to see me. (quite unlike some of my previous work places).

Being a back office / data centre of the worlds largest financial institution invites some extra precaution on the security front, which can sometimes be a bit irritating.

All in all, my first 72 hours seem to promise a good future and possibly the positivity that I always yearned. But a little voice inside me keeps telling me that at the end of the day, I am still working for someone else and not for myself. Whether the feel good factor in HSBC will suffocate this little voice or whether my anti-establishmend, free spirit will get the better of me .... only time will tell.

Weather you like it or not!

The India Meteorological Department (IMD), also referred to as the Met Office, is a Government of India organization that is responsible for meteorological observations, weather forecasts, and detecting earthquakes.

Read again; WEATHER FORECASTS!

Now, am I the only one here or did you also pass a smirk as you read that term associated with our Met Office? After so many monsoons, I am sure that the average Indian is cynical enough to read “Indian Met Dept forecasts” as an oxymoron.

The way it works is that there is some middle-aged Amma working for the IMD who almost become an Air Hostess in IA or AI had it not been for her binocular eyewear or stinking coconut hairoil. She wakes up in the morning and sipping her hot cup of coffee wanders to the window. Outstretches her hand and leaves it there for a good 10 mins. If the hand’s wet, we will get non-stop rains for the next 3 days accompanied with thunder and lightning. Hand’s dry means no rains for Indian peninsula in this season, prepare for drought. If the long combed hair on back of her hand flutters then it’s breezy and if hair stands erect then it will snow in Chennai (even if its 40 degrees under shade and the shiver was only because her coffee went cold).

A friend told me that one of the bigger sources of forex for India was exporting satellite data to the western world. We export it because apparently we don’t need it! IF WE DON'T KNOW HOW TO USE IT, THEN WE DON'T NEED IT!

Bermuda has a better way of reading weather. And it does not have to be paid a salary!

Monsoon

So its common knowledge now that monsoon has hit Bombay. Yaay!

And how do we know? Flip through TV channels and if you see 26th July 2005 reruns / references or some half wet fake journalist wadding through toe-deep puddles, then be sure that its drizzling somewhere in Mumbai. I mean, why can't we let the ghost of 26th July rest? It was not politically motivated, nor a terrorist act sponsored by naughty neighbours. It happened once, may or may not happen again. But repeating it million times on TV whenever there's more than 5 drops of rainfall will not make it go away! ShIt happens! No one’s fault.