Work Hours: India vs USA

India:

• I had to work from 2pm to 11pm for this project. Pay was not encouraging for working in these odd hours, where we had to miss of our personal life for this work.
• Initially we were given cab to commute from home to work and back to home. But the signs were that even that would be discontinued in some time. There will be a bus which will pickup employees from common points spread across Pune city and drop them at work, and same way bring them back home. At odd hours, dont know who will take the bottomline of security and safety of employees walking back from common point to home. For this pay, who would like to go that extra mile in extreme danger and very demanding work environment?

US

• In US, you can land in office anytime between 7am and 9.30am. You can come back home by 6.oopm (earlier if you are a BA or in a cool project).
• Pay is satisfying though.
  
• Commuting is no worry, once you are through the dependancy phase i.e you have your own car.
• At times you may need to stretch week days and week nights, but you atleast have the money to keep you cheered to go through that extra mile.

Just finished some ab crunches and dips. Can sniff the aroma of eggplant rice siffling across the kitchen. Yummy...dinner in some time.

Commuting to work: India vs USA

Its so different commuting to work in India and in the US.

In India:
1) I used the office bus to commute from a common point (near home) to office and back home from office. It took close to 1 hour per trip, but could take more time depending on the road traffic and other extraneous conditions.
2) The gas prices are way too much to be affordable for a low mileage yielding Fiat Uno, so driving down to work day in and day out would be stretching myself too much. Especially after whatever that remains from my monthly paycheque after the homeloan EMI's.

In US:
1) If you are in a small town like Middletown, you can use the local Middletown Area Transit bus to take you to work at Aetna. Timings are not that flexible, but much better for one who wants to reach work between 7am and 9am and wants to leave anytime between 4pm and 6pm back home.

2) Most of us have a car. So it becomes really easy and convenient. The total driving time is not more than 10 minutes for each trip and the roads hardly have any traffic.

3) Gas prices aint that big a pinch in your pocket. But one has to go through the initial pain of obtaining a drivers license and more importantly searching for a good vehicle. Insurance costs and vehicle registeration costs are very much, but then you dont have a choice if you want independance do you?

4) In the long term the comfort, flexibility and freedom that your own car provides in the end rules out all pains mentioned in 3) Another important advantage is that when you have your car, you can drive down home for afternoon lunch. Its indeed very comforting after the kind of food we have in our cafeteria. Its not that food in cafeteria is bad, its just that i am a vegeterian and that limits my options!

More later :)

Its all coming back to me now..

It would have been a little after the second week of September 2006. I was at home, spending some time with my parents, who had just returned from a 2 month trip to London, UK visiting their daughter( in other words my sister), neice and son-in-law. It was a memorable and never to forget experience, re-living the older days, when i had the luxury of staying at home during my schooling and college days. Got to taste some of the best food that my pallate could every have had till now, re-live the banter, fun and enjoyment with my folks. I had missed it for so long, for my close to 4 years of stay outside home - in Bangalore, Pune and Middletown. It was paradise. Its so easy and comforting to have all the fun, joy and family experience staying at home that who wants to go out for vacations? Of course family vacations are a good change, but when you have so much of aura associated in spending time in your own house which is more than 1200 square feet, what more does one need?

Its too sad to see parents growing old and accepting this simple piece of fact is indeed hard. I want them to be as young as they were before, but alas its like being an adamant child asking for the moon. Childhood days were so much fun, when all your overheads like worrying about finances, paying your bills, being cautious of poachy colleagues and the external world were outsourced so willingly to our parents. All you needed to do was enjoy everything and throw tantrums and create more problems for them. In spite of that, the way the situations were handled by them was indeed awesome and i suspect if i may be as mature and kind with my kids.

Coming back to now, well am in the US now and away from home since the above mentioned good times with folks for more than a month. Today had given the customary weekend call to mom and dad and spoke to them their sunday evening (my sunday morning). Dad sounded ill and he indeed was. Nice to hear mom stronger and being able to do things on her own. This is the part about being abroad. You have all the money, good life you may want, but somehow you however cannot be at home when they might need you.

Though now am not on a commitment state with this abroad stint and can be sent back or i may opt to go back whenever i want, it still gives me the freedom to take my own decision and be by my family when the time may arise. Had it been that i would have agreed to someones demands, i may have had a relationship on, but not this freedom, which would be a call of duty no true son will shun down.

Ganesh Chathurthi

Today is "Ganesh Chathurthi", which is celebrated with great pomp and reverence all over India, and especially in Maharashtra. It usually comes in August / September each year.

Being a Mumbai-kar since childhood, i have always grown up around the usual festive spirit by tolerating the blaring music emanating from the crackled public speakers of the "sarvajanik (public)" mandals, enjoying the clinging sounds of the gong and the melodious aarti coming from a million like minded spirituals in unison. A typical family which celebrates the festival, brings home the Lord's idol home, for a period of 1.5 days, 5 days or 11 days. There may be other intervals apart from these too. During this entire period, right from the time the Lord is brought into the house to the time he is grandly carried back to a water body for the holy immersion, its a time of unity, togetherness and spending quality time together for millions of families across India. Friends and relatives are invited for a "darshan" of the Lord.

The Lord is respected, decorated and pampered with chantings of numerous mantras, hailing him as the one who removes all obstacles from the path of one's pursuit for success. There is a nice divine and mystic feeling amist the smell of Jasmine incense sticks lighted around the Lord, amist colorful garland and flowers, and the sounding of the "shankha" (conch). The "aarti" (devotional songs hailing the lord) can be supported by not only singing it (if one knows it) , but also by ringing gongs and by clapping hands, to a unique tune of the aarti. No matter how tired one may be, with all the preparations, suddenly some divine force on earth brings in all the energy into the "bhakt" (disciple) and he sings, claps as enthusiastically as ever one could have.

Celebration of Ganesh Chathurthi publicly was started way back in the early 20th century by Indian Freedom Fighter Bal Gangadhar Tilak. Tilak started it to bring unity amongst people and get them together on a single platform, through celebrations of Ganesh Chathurthi. This practice still exists as there a lot common areas across Mumbai and other areas, where "mandals" (temporary bamboo sheds) are created and the Lord is worshipped in these public places. The public contributes funds to take care of the expenses of mandals in their locality.

Finally when the time of immersion comes, the Lord's idol is taken through a public procession and finally is immersed in a water body. People do feel very sad on the day of "visarjan" (immersion) that the time passed so soon. But nevertheless they do cheer up knowing that its the truth of life. The Lord takes shape through the flexible earth, shaped by the artisistic sculptor, and then he disperses back to mother earth, through water. It just indeed confirms that the cosmic power, god or the unknown force that some would like to call it, exists in each element on earth. Its upto us to find the Lord / force, respect it and worship it.

Sabbatical

Writing in after a long time. Kind of coming to terms with change in work, responsibility, environment and lifestyle. Encouraging, but taking sometime to come in terms with it. Right now on a sabbatical from work since July28th. Kinda nice to be away from work. Gives a lot of time to ponder, introspect, dissect the have and have not's and must do and must dont's. On a journey to a place where i want to be..this is the pit stop. Gotta shower, cook herbal/spicy rasam, to be had with rice. Cya later..

Welcome Back to India!

Had a good week's vacation in London where i happened to not only spend quality time with my sister, neice and brother in law, but also got to do a lot of sight seeing. Also planned my trip so that i was able to attend an Information Drop In session at London Business School. A really impressive school and had a first feel of being in a B- School.

After that came back to India. Its but of course - nice to be back home! Getting adjusted to honking car's, the right hand drive of cars, the people, temperature etc. Cut short my vacation at home and joined office in 2 days flat! Even before i could synchronize my body clock with IST, i joined office. Am on bench since then and will be starting a project mainly from May 1st.

A lot of pending items need to be taken care of in the next one - two months. Also need to ramp up my GMAT Score from 530 to something above 700. I know its do-able. Only thing is need to have discipline, perseverance and hard work.

Thats it for now..yawn...rest in next..

All good things come to an end...

Its 7:04 PM EST and i am blogging this from Newark Intl. Airport, NJ. Waiting for my British Airways Flight to London, UK. Will be there for a week and then head back to India.

Its almost 2 years since i landed here in the US. Came here on June 5th 2004, for an assignment for my organization. Really now that i think back...dont know how i spent those 22 months.

Its been a great experience being here in the US and i would definitely be coming back. As i head back at this juncture of my career, i am indeed concerned about my career, family and personal life. Its almost 3.5 years that i have been in IT and now i definitely look all ripened up to do what i want to do and what i like to do. I may face a lot of obstacles as i would always be stereotyped to be a developer. But this not where i should be and where i want to be.

Some things that i need to work upon - be better organized, time management and setting priorities right. I believe i have the power in me to wake up from the lazy slumber triggered by the kind-of-retired life for the past 2 years and channelize my mind, body and thoughts to where i need to head. I just need to stay calm, focussed on what i do. The results should take care of them.

Ramblings # Life #

What is life and what is it that I want from Life? Should one live life for himself or for others?
Is life, the process of keeping everyone happy or keeping yourself happy? If you think of only your happiness or pleasure, you are termed “selfish” or “self-centered”. If you think about keeping others happy, you may end up doing a lot of things that don’t make u happy. Is this what you were born for, to make yourself unhappy even at the cost of others happiness? Is this what god had in store for you, when you were being conceived by the desire of two divine individuals closest to you? Or is this what you chose, when your inner voice gave you an option to switch to making yourself happy? Did you take that angularly bent flat spatula and had a wild swipe on the ever awake but confessional arrogant inner voice, at least in thoughts?
Does real life have fairy tell endings? Does real life reward sacrificing souls? Only time will be a testimonial to that. Amen.

The Year That Would Be..

Wish everyone a "Happy, Healthy and a very Prosperous New Year" to whoever who reads this blog. May you get what you aspire and dreamt for.

This is going to be the year when
- I will be entering a prestigious Business School for my MBA
- I will be promoted to the next role in my organization
- I will have sufficient fame,fortune and opportunities to showcase my talents skill sets.
- I wont hurt anybody knowingly/unknowlingly to any living/non-living thing.
- I will be optimistic and positive about everything in life
- I will reduce my BMI from 27 to a value between 24 and 25 :)

Inflation

Inflation, a widely used term has always puzzled me.
"Government declares current inflation to be 4.5%",
"Inflation may further trigger prize hike in most items" and many such complex statements have come across us either in newspapers,web-sites or on news channels.

I have been personally interested in knowing about Stock Markets etc. in the past 6 months. As a part of my occassional ramp up to learn more, i happened to go to one of the trading web sites for some online tutorials. Thats where the concept of Inflation was better explained. I was then able to connect in atleast some way to what inflation was.

Example to explain Inflation:

I used to purchase a particular brand of pen at Rs. 10 (about 22 cents) per piece, when i was in the 10th year of my schooling. In about 6 years, on the 16 th year of my education (final year engineering) i was not able to buy the same pen for Rs. 10. I had to pay Rs.12 (About 24 cents) to buy the same pen. This means that in 6 years, the purchasing power of my Rs. 10 decreased. I was able to purchase less for the same amount of money over time. This is what is inflation. Inflation can be defined as the decrease in the purchasing power over a period of time.

How can we evade inflation:

• Invest money.
• Ensure that your money earns interest, which hedges (offsets) inflation and earns you money on top of that.
• Have a diversified investment portfolio - life insurance, stocks, mutual funds, government bonds, NSC, KVP, Fixed Deposits.
• Investment in Real Estate can also help you to have a good capital appreciation.
• Invest in the household non performing asset (NPA) - Gold. I know your mom,sister, girlfriend or wife would love u for this! But this is the last option to opt for. Branded gold may not loose value, but gold wont earn you monetary interest.

As i write this, i dont proclaim myself to be an investment ace or a know it all dude. Am traversing the learning curve and just jotting down my observations and interpretations. Diversifying my writing style to ensure am not stereo typed.

Global Delivery Model

Ever came across this term? It means work can be done across across time zones, giving a 24 hour processing capability to Work Products.

This is a widely used concept by a lot of IT Services Companies, most of them based in South Asia. The time zone advantage which Asian Countries have, over the countries in the West has enabled outsourcing of a lot of Western World IT and Business related tasks to the Eastern World.

What this means is when Tom Banks, a guy from Minnetonka, Minnesotta in the US goes to bed, a guy in Asia wakes up for him. Mr. Asian works on the prototype of the application, for which Tom had just finished designing. Had Mr. Asian not been there, Tom would probably had to wake up the next day and resume working on the prototype, thus giving way to an unavoidable delay of 12 hours of work. As a result, the work product of Tom Banks can be completed about 40-50% much earlier than it would have, had it not been outsourced.

The Global Delivery Model (lets call it GDM) concept can also be applied to this interesting scenario. A lot of Married Software Engineers from India, who are sent abroad (read US) for their assignments usually travel with their spouses. Its like a sponsored honeymoon. The transition from auto rickshaws to cars, from crowd to sparser population, from pollution to fresh air, from water to tissues is an altogether new experience.

The snow chills, picturesque locales give way to a desire to parent a US Citizen. So after settling down in the first 3 months in the US, the couple starts planning their first child. The wife is carrying for 4 months and suddenly Mr. Java, HTML- ASP-CMM gets the shock which is common for Asian IT Consultants. His manager tells him those magic words "You may have to go back next month". Mr. Java, HTML- ASP-CMM gathers his composure and replies "My wife is carrying and she has been advised not to travel". Manager is bamboozled and is check mated. He thinks of those projects which needed resources. He plays the sentimental card and puts Mr.Java, HTML- ASP-CMM onto another new project, so that he can continue his stay. This may well be at the expense of another deserving bachelor, who has spent countless desk hours striving for that onsite chance. But alas! Mr.Java, HTML- ASP-CMM soon becomes yet another parent of a Naturalized Citizen. The newly born, will never need to care for a work permit/visa when he needs to come to the US. As they say ...its his birthright! Planning to start a family in the "Global" terms is nothing but the Global Delivery Model (in the humorous context!).

H1-B Under Blanket

Blanket ke neeche kya hai?

The picture you see above is the third man in our lives (my life and my roomie Srivatsan's). Hehehe...now dont be naughty. Its our third roomie at 173 Hunters - Durgaprasad Kalicharan Navin Chandra Mahavadi Kesava Sharma.

This image may make you assume that someone under it is sleeping and snoring away happily to laziness. But do you know? The "under-cover" activities are one of the reasons for RelianceIndiaCall, WQN and T-Mobile having huge profits.

The picture u see doesnt have the sound of soft telugu whispers that flow like music from this sleepy pied piper. With marraige just a fortnight away and every minute after work spent on phone...here is wishing all the best to Navin for his future venture.

The Legacy of 17 Hunters

Prashanth, Me and Srikantha at the patio of our house, on 2nd Oct 2005.

The above snap was taken the day my ex-roomies Prashanth and Srikantha left for India.

We had moved into this apartment in January 2005. It was the winter of 2005 and our first exhaustive experience with snow.Srikantha was actually then in India, for a personal trip. Prashanth moved in by January 8th. Even Satish was with us for some time then.

All the 3 of us had a good time together. We used to take turns cooking. My mouth still waters when i think of Iyengar Rasam, North Indian Dal, Aloo Sabzee from Chef Prashanth.
Captain Srikantha always used to have an understatement ready, when one asked what he had cooked for that day. It was "See man i dont know what it is. Something i have prepared" Beware...the statement was just a hog wash. He used to prepare some very good Sambhar, Chutney, Gongura Sambhar ( this was just too good) and always used to have some speciality in what he cooked (and also lot of spice at times!!).

We guys shared a great compatibility and wavelength. Prashanth was really disciplined, regular and very much "Dravid". That means he had all the qualities of a samathu pillai as they say in tamil. Srikantha always had a talent to build rapport with people and was smart and a masalaboard addict!

Miss the times we used to watch Seinfeld, Everybody Loves Raymond, Sex and the City, Becker together and laugh. Also all the hindi movies that we used to get from Indiamart - Agnee Chakra, Morning Raaga, Anubhav, Ganga Jamuna Saraswati etc. U name it and we have watched it! And at times we also gave away the cassette without watching it, cos it was too boring a movie!

But all good things in life come to an end and so did our association. But life is like that. People come and people go. But its essential to remember the good times and keep in touch with people with whom u have shared an episode in your life.

Lazy Sunday

Went for a drive on late Saturday night, in and around Middletown. Then had gone to a friends house to fix his iPod. Came home, saw some comedy snippet, surfed the net..then slept at 3.30am on early Sunday morning.

Had a lazy Sunday today. Woke up pretty early..9.30am.Shopped,slept,shopped. Had peas-jeera rice, curd-rice and cantelope milk shake for dinner. Didnt study anything today till now.

Yet another week starts from tomorrow. Time is passing so quickly.

Surrounded by the following items, as i write this blog:

• How to Create,Win and Dominate Markets - Philip Kotler
• Table Lamp which i had purchased from Walmart for 4.88$, hoping will need it while studying for GMAT :)
• Table Clock - hardly see time in that these days
• My Motorola RAZR, which i havent used that much.
• My 512MB iPod
• My Nokia 6600 ...most widely used cell phone in my life :)
• Headset, which i had got from Planet M, Bangalore for 260Rs. 3 yrs back, with Anu, at Brigade Road

Enough of show off...will write later.

Kaatula Mayay

This is the name of the play i watched this evening with my roomie - Vatsan. Kaatula Mayay can have 2 meanings in the Tamil i know - Rain in the wind or Rain in the forest. Its a Tamil Comedy play, by a renowned comedian S. Vee Sekar. This guys sounds and speaks really innocently and cutely. In fact its really sad that we see really less of him in tamil movies of late. An industry that is thwarted by the ever sadistic Goundamani, ever pavam Senthil, ever loud and cheap Vadivelu, has now only the euphoric Vivek, who can come close to S. Vee. Vivek's wit and punch on relevant social and current issues, through his comedy are indeed entertaining.

Its indeed sad that am unable to check how my stocks performed on icicidirect.com. They are down for 2 whole days, due to some technical reasons. Why is icicidirect have downtime so often these days? Even during trading times, its painfully slow.

Did some Sentence Correction exercises from Kaplan. Planning to study solve some Critical Reasoning exercises too.


Will sign off now...tata...

Whats up with me for today?

Whats up with me for today?

Professional: Same old work. Mechanical, Monotonous,a no-brainer, but high paying. Sometimes i wonder..why is it that the money you earn is inversely proportional to the complexity of your work? Is it because that low complex work needs lot of patience and that no one does it, which makes it highly rewarding? Thinking...18 months have passed by..since i have been thinking on this.

Spiritual: No meditation started yet. Did a bit yesterday. But too less....less than 2 minutes.Meditation helps you focus and attain what you want. But when i think of this, the thought that hits me is - aint i being selfish?

Educational: 2 hours on Sentence Correction background yesterday. Need to work today on some exercises from Kaplan.

Financial: My stocks and mutual funds are performing bad. On the negative side by 4000Rs. But believe that will be up by this amount in the next 3 months. Counting begins.

Will finish this blog now...missed enough of Sex and the City, which am watching simultaneously, as i blog this.

Lazyyyy

This is one of those days...when i hibernate back to my same old lazy shell. In this shell, i hardly focus on my meals or on anything else. This is the time, when all i want to do is, look for a bed on the most ignored corner of the house, pull a blanket over me and let my mind wander in a 1000 different directions.In this phase of a tance, am always sleepy and kind of on a different level altogether.Nothing motivates me to get off my self induced exile from a routine normal life.
Havent cleaned the house. didnt go to temple, havent done my laundry for the week. Also did not shop for groceries. Thinking of good old days, when i was in school/college and while we were in mulund.Those days will never come back.

The following 5 things surround me as i write this blog:

• Glucon D Box
• Nokia 6600
• Table Fan
• Packet of Oma Pudi ( A form of South Indian crackers)
• Tiger Balm

Will go back to my lazy stupen spendour..zzzzz

Independant Software Consultants vs Employees of big IT companies

Just coming back after dinner from a friends place. Was chatting for quiet sometime with his new room mate, with whom my friend share's an apartment. Mr. Room mate is the ideal indian software consultant. Its so surprising to find that consultants have such a different life than employees of big 3 Indian IT arms like me.

Some interesting points:

1) Consultants Change clients,jobs, consulting agencies as soon as he can, whenever he wants to. He has no worries of sticking to the same technology/same project/same people for long.

2) His resume is more frequently updated that the latest stock prices on a trading web site.

3) He doesnt care for promotions/mandatory yearly training schedules/onsite-offshore calls/indian salary.

4) Feels suffocated and runs when he is asked to work like us - work over weekends for free, no charges!

5) Has a host of technologies/skill sets/experience under his belt.Or...at least looks like. A Big 3 guy knows the in and out of Word, Excel,Notepad and other "blaah"ding edge (meant bleeding edge) technologies.

6) Has to do all the paperwork of his H-1 B Visa and everything else. For a guy working in a big 3, all we need to do is send all the right papers to our HRD and the rest is taken care by them.

Enough...this blog was in my draft for a long time...just finishing it now.

3 years with my first company!

Just earned 3 years of work experience with one of the top 3 IT Companies from India...this September 30th. It was almost as if only yesterday i took that Udyan Express train from Mumbai to Bangalore, eagerly anticipating working in an IT Company. Time flew much faster, than i had anticipated.

Of these 36 months, the last 16 months have been spent in the US. Thanks to IT and opportunity and most importantly the H-1B. Today, am at the crossroads, where my mind is running in all different directions. Job Switch in US, MBA Degree, Clinging to the same old IT Company, Job Switch in India..to name a few. Why is life so complicated? Or is it that we make it complicated? Why is it that we always want more?

Why is it so difficult for someone to opt for one of the choices and work towards that? Is it because so much is at stake? Is it the fear of failure? Is it the loss of belief in self?Or is it that feelings and concepts like enhancing skills, optimism, hard-work, smart-work, self-belief are covered with a layer of complacency and laze glazed dust? No certifications, no coding for past 2 years, dreams of being a business degree...thats all am left with.

GMAT, Short Listing Schools, Recos, Essays, Apps, Acceptance, Visa Interviews, Studying...all look so far and so much of a struggle. Sitting alone in an 1 BHK , besides the light of a table lamp, typing away to boredom is this IT Guy, who never wanted to be in a field where he is, when he was earning his engineering degree in electronics, with a flair for computer networking, only to not be able to apply it now.

Enough...cooked the toor dal in cooker. Need to cook rice and prepare tasty dal. Not having room mates doesnt mean i skip cooking.

Life...strange life

Life's indeed strange. You need something to look forward to, that keeps you going through your normal routine. Perhaps thats the whisp of fresh air that gives that otherwise boring day an extra zing. Was looking forward for a trip down to visit her at Texas and last weekend finally arrived and i went there. It was an awesome trip..being with her, driving a SUV for the first time - Hyundai Santa Fe'. Its so organized in this part of the world. Person can go from city A to city B, rent a car in city B and reach the final destination with no problems. Everything is so mechanical and organized. Mapquest, Internet, smooth network, awesome infrastructure. Admire the vision that would have driven the planning and had the drive to complete the same.
Finally..after a weekend involving loosing directions regularly, driving in Texan conditions (people somehow dont use indicators while changing lanes, a la Mumbai!) and watching Texan Ranches, am back to "The Constitution State" - Connecticut. The whisp of fresh air, the driving point for my not so interesting routine is finally over. Which is the next drive for me, that should keep me going? GMAT? Study...Study..Study mate.