Unemployed

I bid good-bye to the company a fortnight ago. It was sudden and I’m pretty sure I missed out a few names in my goodbye email. Funnily enough, I’d been composing that email in my head for the past year and a half, but when it came to actually typing it out, I was at a loss for words. I’d decided that the wonderful people I’d met along the way did not merit a generic email so I grouped them and sent out a different email to each group… I had so much to say…

That last day, as I walked from B4 to the Powerhouse Gate for that last bus ride home, I tried to take in as many of the sightes and sounds as possible… Most of them had become so familiar that I would walk on unseeingly. That day I felt a strange sense of nostalgia – and joy- at my departure from the place that made it all happen for me. I might not have loved my job to the point of being passionate about it, but I loved the atmosphere, the people, the transparency of the organization and I loved just generally being part of it all. The company gave me the freedom to be what I was, to distribute my time between work and all the extra-curricular stuff I was doing and in the process, gave me self-confidence and set a standard for how the workplace should be. If the initial few months gave me my fantastic friends, the latter months gave me a chance to work with some amazing individuals as colleagues. Most unforgettable are my 3 managers from WAG and KRFT – In the span of a year spent working under these 3 people, I learnt more than I did from anyone else. One taught me time management – get to office at 8, leave at 5 and get everything wrapped in that time, including fun! Another taught me the traits of a true manager – team spirit, encouragement, support – be it while helping her team through a downsize or sitting through a quiz as audience after hours just to provide support to her team and see them through to victory or while recognizing the talent in each team member and pushing them to achieve visibility in the organization. My last manager at the company taught me the all-important skills of organizing and conducting meetings and liaising with client folk, while showing faith in my abilities. To all three of them: I may not have been the best or star member of your team, but you made me feel like I was important enough and that gave me the impetus to outperform. I carry the lessons you all taught me all the way to business school. I may never work with you again, but every time I practice any of the lessons you taught me, rest assured I will send out a silent prayer of thanks.

Finally, here is a picture from the company… inspite of monickers like dog-tag and mangalsutra, a colleague and fellow-quitter agreed with me that the pride we felt the first time we swiped our ID cards at the gates of the office was unparalleled and undiminished despite any unhappiness we might have felt or any achievements in the months since that day. I beeped in one last time at the swipe-cards in the reception at B4 that morning and as I handed in my temporary ID card that evening, I walked away with a confusion of a smile and a grimace. I felt sad to leave but I felt happy to have been a part of the experience, a part of the monumental achievement of 5 people who started out on a dream and have never given up since then. I wished I'd gotten to keep my ID card and out that evening at the B4 reception, the way I'd done it for the past two years. But I guess in some ways it's good I didn't. Perhaps that's what's so special about Infy. You can leave, but you can never really get it out of your system. In some corner of your memory, you're always an Infy-ite. I like that feeling...

Here’s to Infosys and it’s bright and prosperous future!

Afterthought: As I reflect on the last couple of days at Infy, I realize I couldn't have made a better exit - I won a general + business quiz held at Shols DC a day before I left. I partnered with a friend and our attendance was very last-minute; in fact, the only reason I was present at the audi was to tell the quizmaster, a friend of mine, that I would have to skip the quiz even though I'd promised to attend. But the sight of that presentation and the curiousity to explore what lay beyond Slide 1 got me sitting there and going through the entire quiz... and even winning it on the tie-breaker! It was good to go out with a bang than just fade away like the countless others.

Lessons from an applicant

For all the help I received from the blogosphere during my application process, here’s my ode to all of you who made your thoughts, experiences and rejections public. I’m grateful for all the tips and all the information gleaned from the gamut of blogs I would visit. I’m pretty sure I’ve thanked a few people, just as certain I am that I couldn’t trace my steps back to thank all those I missed. So here’s what I’ll do: I’m going to put in some of my cents into this post and subsequent ones and hope that someday, when this blog goes public, some applicant will find something of use in here. So here goes!

Discipline. You’re thinking, what’s that got to do with anything? I’m telling you it does. If you have decided to take this little trip here then you have got to have discipline. I didn’t have too much to start with. I cultivated it somewhere midway in my process. I got lucky; I can’t assure that you will too. You need to start early. Take your GMAT a year early if you can and spend the coming year strengthening your profile as you research colleges, courses and essay writing strategies. Ideally you should have researched this stuff before your GMAT – researching will convince you of the need to pursue this line of study and you will know where you stand in the scene. Never mind if you gave GMAT just because everyone else did. Wake up now and do your research.

GMAT is not even step 1. This should have been my point 1. I cannot stress on this enough. A lot of people I know aspire to top 5 US schools because they got a 700+ in their GMAT. Take it from me now: 770 in GMAT may not get you a seat in Wharton (Argue with me that Juggler had a whopping score and she’s in Wharton and I will tell you that Juggler has a whopping personality and stellar talent/intelligence/writing skills… all this in addition to 770/780. Juggler might have made it to Wharton without the 770 too!). On the other hand, 620 in GMAT may not get you rejected from Wharton either. There’s a sane mathematical calculation behind the median GMAT range figures on bschool websites. So GMAT is just like this platform ticket you have to buy. Once you get in, you need to find the right train and your seat too. All of that takes up significantly more energy and time than the GMAT ever will. So, in addition to the GMAT, assess your candidature thoroughly. In other words, go over your profile. You’ll need all the information you dig up.

Essays are the most important part of your application package. There is a reason why bschools have essays. The sooner you understand what the school wants to know, the better off you are. Essays are not something you can write overnight, no matter how good a writer you are. Similarly, essays are not something you can write from a common generic framework and switch school names depending on which college you are uploading the essay for. In fact, I read on one of the blogs that if your essay is such that all you need to do is change the school name in the essay to be ready with a new one for a new school, then your essay is no good. Each essay has to be specific to the school. It’s common logic that the person you are and your accomplishments do not change ( and should not change) from school to school but writing essays specific to a school ensures that you are highlighting the part of your personality or profile that the school wants to read about. Perhaps a school like Darden would want to know if you can work in teams and if you have confidence to speak in a crowd. Maybe a school like Yale would be more interested in whether you have a sense of responsibility towards your community. Here's where all that introspection you did will bail you out. If you've got it, dig it up and say it... Make it sound good when you do! I do not have a spectacular success rate with my applications. But I made sure that I wrote out new essays for each college. My goals essay was essentially the same, but depending on the manner in which the question was worded and the word limit imposed, I rewrote that essay for all 4 colleges that I applied to. Was it painful? Hell, yes! But if you thought this was going to be a breeze then perhaps you should think again.

Optimism. I’ll try to do this one right so that I don’t contradict a previous paragraph. It’s good to be realistic about where you should apply to and should not. But don’t whine to all and sundry that you’re no good. While you're applying to colleges where you think you stand a realistic chance of conversion, it doesn't hurt to look a little higher up too. I speak from personal experience. I refused to apply to Darden because I didn’t think my GMAT/acads were good enough. A good friend brainwashed me into doing it. He said, think of this as your dream college and apply. Worse case scenario – you get rejected. But think of what happens if it works in your favor. I struggled but I managed to get in my Darden application in Round 2. I got rejected from all colleges ranked below Darden. Was it plain luck or something else? I’ll never know. But bottomline is I’m here and I’m writing this post. So there!

Well I’m done for this post. I am sure I have more information to share and I’ll do it over the next few months. If anyone does ever read this and wants me to write about anything specific, then drop me a line in the comments section and I will try my best to oblige.

When Darden Called

And the word is out! I got accepted at Darden’s Full Time MBA program!

And that is why I am back in India, filing my e-separation and hoping to enjoy a few months at home and with the family before I have to leave once more. Suddenly there seems so much to do, to plan, to calculate – all my years of taking CAT comes to use now as I convert Rs to USD and back again, trying to figure out where to meet expenses from. But on a different plane, there are other worries too. How will I adjust to being a student once more, after nearly 3 years as an earning professional? 3 years of not needing to be accountable to anyone for money earned or spent, of being able to eat out on a whim, or buy an expensive book or item of clothing without needing to trace back to monthly budget. All my Indian savings when converted to USD seem to amount to almost nothing, while my USD savings will probably whittle down to nothing by the time I get to Darden.

I guess this is a post to write about how happy I am, that a dream is finally coming true. I cannot shake off the feeling that perhaps it’s coming a year too late, but every time I think of Darden and the 2 years coming up, I cannot help but feel a sense of excitement and adventure. I wrote at the beginning of this year about how I could feel that this year was going to be significant for me, that my life was going to change drastically. That sense of change is heightened now and although there is some fear of the unknown, there is also this feeling that the ride is going to be not without a fair share of excitement. Despite the period of self-doubt that I went through during my application process – I’m hearing that the feeling is extremely normal! – I hear people telling me I’m getting what I deserve and with each passing day I’m convinced more and more that they maybe right after all.

Finally, I know my parents are happy. They’re worried, but they’re happy. They’re worried that I may not want to come back to India again, or that I may not be able to. They’re worried that the process of finding me a husband is going to get more complicated than it already is. But I know that they’re happy I’m going to do what I’ve wanted and to me that’s all that matters.

Reporting From...

...India!

The last time you checked I was in Chicago and the next thing you know, I’m back home in India. Sweltering hot, noisy, dirty, crowded, chaotic India. All that and home.

I made this decision to return all on my own. My assignment done, I was ready to begin on a new, longer one right there in Madison. But then all in a day, things changed and I decided to return. I was unable to concentrate on work and I kept thinking about all the million things I had to arrange for and do. I know I’m being all mysterious, but I’m saving the big news for another post.

Madison. What a life altering experience that was. Did I anticipate having so much fun? Or did I anticipate enjoying work as much as I did? Answer to both is a resounding No! It is ironic how, having written off work and The Company as something I do and enjoy in bits (like when I’m quizzing or organizing events here or meeting the amazing people I have at The Company) while cursing to oblivion at other times, I actually began to enjoy work at Kraft. Add to it a fun boss, great location, healthy work hours and great junta. I had fun even when my project looked like it was crashing all around me – ok it wasn’t all ha ha-fun, but it was like challenging-fun, the fun you get when you’re racing against time and each time you fix one hurdle you’re going yesss! Everything was a new experience, best of all being the knowledge that I could actually cook!

So why did throw it all away, that too all of a sudden, to return to India?

St.Patrick’s day at Chicago

I’d say I chose the best time to visit Chicago last weekend. It was St. Patrick’s day and it was worth all the delays and uncertainty that preceded my travel! I was supposed to drive down with a colleague on Friday evening but a late evening meeting at work ensured I was stuck at office till 630 by which time she had reached O’Hare in time to pick up her husband. But Friday evening wasn’t so bad either because I got to play pool at a friend’s house here!

Early Saturday morning I cabbed down to the Park & Ride on Stoughton to board the CoachUSA to Chicago. Four hours later I was at downtown Chicago by the Amtrak station where I was met by Sibha and Pratap. We walked down to MacD because my tummy was protesting big time and then went on to Michigan Ave in time for St Patrick’s day parade. It was awesome! Drunk people all around and colorful floats preceded my the sound of bagpipes played by men in kilts! There was green everywhere! Whacky hats to green beaded chains to green tee shirts… they had it all! Apparently there is a pub here in Madison that even serves green beer on the day! Parade done with and then it was time to see the famous river-turned-green sight that is a trademark of St. Patrick’s day. We walked past Millennium Park to a canal just before it opens out to Lake Michigan. The water had been turned green by motorboats dropping green dye into the water. A whole bunch of photographs later it was time to walk back a few blocks away for lunch at Potbelly.

After a sumptuous lunch and some needed rest for our feet, we were back on the road again! This time we headed to Sears Tower for a bird’s eye view of Chicago from the 103rd floor. Up until the Petronas twin towers came up in Malaysia, the Sears Tower was the world’s tallest building. Now of course, Taipei 101 is the tallest. The view from Skydek of the Sear’s tower was breathtaking to say the least. The Lake Michigan stretched out like a picture perfect canvas far into the horizon while up close were the roof tops of other famous landmarks such as the Federal Reserve and headquarters of various financial heavyweights. Soon it was time to walk to the Metra station to head to Sibha’s place for the night. We had dinner at the station and had a good one hour ride to Arlington Heights where these guys lived. Sibha and I stayed up till the wee hours catching up on all the news we’ve missed since the last time we met nearly a year ago in India.

The next morning, Pratap drove us to Aurora, a beautiful Indian temple an hour’s drive from Arlington Heights. I had not been to a temple since I’d come to the US, so I was really grateful that they could take me. The temple was beautiful and peaceful and it was so nice to so many desis after such a long time, with little kids in pavadai-chattai and American accented ABCD aunties in salwar-kameez and sarees. It was like being in a cleaner, more affluent India. The food at the temple is very famous among the desis there. It is traditional Tamil fare – idli, dosa, sambar, pongal, vadai, lassi, filter coffee, puli saadam, thayir sadam… We ordered everything they had, and even managed to finish all of it! Of course, we were that hungry! A few photographs later we were on the road once more, this time to the Aurora premium outlet to shop! A couple of hours later we headed back into Chicago.

But Pratap had not had enough of the day so we drove along Lakeshore Drive to the Ba’hai temple of peace. The drive was really beautiful. Lakeshore drive is an affluent part of Chicago, replete with mini castles for homes and the address of the rich and famous of Chicago. The area borders the banks of the Lake and makes for scenic driving. The Ba’hai temple itself was a peaceful, architecturally beautiful prayer hall. We rested there for a while, each one lost in our own thoughts. Soon it was time to hit the roads again. We got home in time for dinner and then called it a day. I left for Madison on Monday morning along with my colleague.

My weekend in cihcago was one of the best I’d had since I got to the US. Good place, great company – what more can a person ask for! Sibha and Pratap took good care of me and more than once I found myself wishing I still worked with Walgreens and that I had come to the US on an assignment with them rather than with Kraft.

I fell in love with Cihcago. Downtown Chicago was vibrant and busy, the way I’ve imagined American cities to be. The suburbs were beautiful too, with wide roads and pretty homes, quite unlike Madison with its laidback, small town feel. Chicago really is the windy city, for a warm week in the Midwest where I did not need my overcoat in Madison, I was all bundled up in Chicago for both the days I was there! I hope to go back there someday before I return to India.

My Cold Call Chronicle

My 3 day adventure of the past week was on its final and finishing leg. Here I was, far away from all things familiar, flying across from Wisconsin to Virginia to interview with my top choice for business school, Darden.

I took off from Milwaukee to Chicago to DC and then finally on to C’ville where a student contact met me at 11pm (bless him!). Along the way I got to talking with a few random strangers, one at each stop and each as interesting as the other. First there was the desi from Chennai at O’Hare, a fellow techie who seemed to have traveled all over the world. On the flight from Chicago to DC there was the healthcare professional from Virginia who worked with GE and we got to talking about books and American history. During the wait at Dulles for the flight to Charlottesville – which was delayed – I got to talking with a Nutrition grad student from NCSU who was on his way to interview at UVA for a PhD.

Onto CHO where the serene town with its trademark red brick buildings made me wish I was already a student at the university. CHO is a typical American university town… not that I have been to any other American university towns. The only other university town that I have ever been to is Oxford (SRM University does not count here!) and so I had little to compare with. However I knew right away that CHO was a charming town that was steeped in liberalism, quite like Madison itself, and multiculturalism where a number of elite, old American families shared breathing space with university students. The Darden School itself was stately and architecturally beautiful, just the way Thomas Jefferson had designed it and the rest of the university; yet its atmosphere was serene and quiet, far removed from the fast paced and dynamic industry it serves to prepare students for.

I arrived at C’ville late on Thursday night, with just enough time to pick up McD for dinner – my third for the day! The Best Western where I stayed was a comfortable and cosy hotel and contrary to its budget hotel image it was really quite generous. I woke up early next morning to mentally prepare myself for my interview. I missed the First Coffee tradition since my student contact had warned me that due to impending exams the following week there would be no First Coffee. I got to Darden at around 10AM and waiting at the admissions lobby for my interviewer to come fetch me. There I got to meet other applicants and man did I feel small!! There was a legal assistant from New York, an equity trader from New York, a product engineer from Atlanta, a healthcare professional and his nurse wife from the RTP… basically really super achiever people. And I was feeling pretty small, I’ll admit! My interviewer came and fetched me and we had our interview for an hour or so. Once that was done, it was time for the special lunch that Darden had hosted for us. Lunch was a formal affair, with all the emblazoned silver finery and a sumptuous buffet lunch. Each table had seven applicants with one Darden professor. Free flowing conversation, nearly invisible maitre d’s, really tasty food and a friendly atmosphere gave me a good idea of what business school in America would be like. Once lunch was through, it was time for a current student to show us around the grounds. She showed us the classrooms, the meeting rooms, the offices of the professors and the cafeteria. Tour over and it was time for me to go back to my hotel. Back at the hotel I relaxed for a little while before I headed out for a walk. I took a really long walk across the university campus to the halls of residence.

I spent my second day at C’ville walking around their very famous pedestrian open air mall. I couldn’t buy much except for a really tasty sandwich lunch at the famous Five Boys sandwich place. I managed to take a few pictures and was back in my hotel by afternoon to relax in bed with the tv on. Dinner was at the Italian place nearby – amazing sandwich, salad, cheesecake, soup, crackers and pink lemonade! I packed it all up to enjoy a tv dinner in the warmth of my room.

Before I realized, my relaxing weekend at charming C’ville had ended. I loved the university feel of the town, with its signature uniform red brick buildings and wide walkways to accommodate the iPod plugged pedestrian or the occasional backpack toting student pedaling away furiously uphill on her cycle to get to her class. Not the kind of place for a shopping trip, but I guess that’s one distraction students can do without!

On my return flight back from CHO to MSN, I met one eccentric UVA researcher – replete with long hair and piercing blue eyes – who was really friendly and very kindly walked me up to my terminal in Dulles. He was also an engineer so we had a lot to talk about. On the flight from Dulles to O’Hare was the med student who couldn’t get his nose out of his neuroscience textbook! At O’Hare was a seemingly endless wait as my flight to Milwaukee kept getting delayed due to weather – I suppose after weeks of snow, O’Hare had issues handling a day of perfect sunshine and warm temperatures! I finally reached home at Madison at around 10 in the night – physically exhausted but mentally rested. I’d need that for the grueling week I had after I returned!

Two of my favorite men on one platform!

Comedy Over Coffee

This poster was seen at my coffee room yesterday. I couldn't resist snapping it up!!
By this afternoon, someone had drawn a hand in blue marker in the blank space below!


At nearly 90 inches of snow for the season here in Madison, I think it sums up the sentiment pretty neatly... Of course this applies to the locals only... and some desis too... not me obviously!

In the words of some smart adman, I'm Loving It!

The Madison Winter Festival

We went to the Madison Winter Festival last Sunday (February the 2nd). And boy was it fun!!

The MWF is held every year and consists of ski races, Nordic walking, snow tubing, ice sculptures and great fun!! It is held in downtown Madison, outside of the Capitol building. They had dumped tons of snow down there to build a ski track! We went on day 1 of the festival – it just lasts two days.

We watched a few races, ate delicious American style pizza (pizza on a thin base, unlike how you get it in India) and nearly froze our feet!! After all the outdoorsy stuff, we hopped in to great coffee place near the church. It was warm and homely and full of students from the University, studying or doing assignments or surfing the web or just catching up! We spent nearly an hour there, warming ourselves before we headed out once more into the sub zeros!

It was late, the sun had gone down and we had missed the kite flying competition of frozen Lake Mendota. But we still had some fun in store! We drove down to Lake Monona and took a jaunty walk across its frozen surface! Twelve inches of think ice layered the surface of the snow, but if dug your foot into the powdery snow on the surface till you reached the sheer ice beneath, you could see the lapping water underneath – remember what we studied in school about the anomalous expansion of water? No? Google it dummy!

We walked and played and freaked me out by jumping on the surface and willing it to break – yeah that was part of the activity! We met some really drunk guys who were sitting around fishing! That’s right, fishing! They’d dug these round holes at intermittent distances and put in a line with a yellow flag on the top. According to one of the guys who gave us a complete lowdown on how the whole thing works, once a fish gets hooked (pun unintended I assure you), the screw-wound reel starts to rotate and the yellow flag stands erect ( it’s parallel to the ground when you send the reel in) and that’s how you know you’ve got a catch. So then you reel it in like a normal fishing line. After more playing in the snow and walking around, we made it back to terra firma, much to my relief! And we drove back home!

And that was the next brilliant day after the previous weekend when we went to a ski resort!!

Touchdown And A Month Later

I could not keep the tears out of my eyes when I said goodbye. And it wasn’t exactly the kind of good bye I had pictured in my head – and I had pictured it a lot! Outside the overcrowded doorways of Chennai’s Anna International Airport, a hurried peck on the cheek of each member of my family passed for a farewell on the night I left India for the US. I walked on through the crowd and once I was inside the sliding doorway the crowds had enveloped the familiar faces that I was going to miss in the coming months.

Several delays later I was at Brussels with just enough time to spare to get security checked and run to the next terminal for my connecting flight to Newark. It was unreal and with so many desi techies on the flight, I didn’t feel all that bewildered. More sleep later I was at Newark. And that is when the full force of things hit me hard in the face!

America. The land of plenty, of dreams, of fast cars, of Hollywood… of everything that we see on the tele and read in books. As I stood in the queue for immigration, I could not suppress my grin. I was finally here in America! I never thought I would come, but here I was. Everything had happened so suddenly, I had not expected or wanted it even, but here I was. I think I was in shock!! The sights, the sounds, the smells… I was lapping it all up hungrily! All at once, I wanted 360 degree vision, to be able to overhear conversations, observe people, fashions of the day, signboards, hair color, accents… I just wanted to soak it all in! I was in sensory overload and I was scared some, excited some, plain bewildered some, and my arms were aching from carrying too much hand luggage!

Immigration and baggage claim later – which involved fiddling with the alien currency for a trolley dispenser (India rocks, trolleys are free there) – I was running across the length of Newark’s Liberty International Airport to make it to my flight to Madison. Oh I nearly got lost! And they said take a train to the terminal and the very concept was so alien ( all the other international airports I’d ever been to always said take the escalator, or walk-alator, or the stairs or the cart, but train?! Huh!), so alien that I thought I heard wrong and went around in circles! I finally found the air train(!!) that took me from one terminal of Liberty to another one two stops away. And I was running again, for my next and last flight. Running, running and I was in finally! A making-me-claustrophobically small aircraft with one stewardess all the way to Madison. But I was having fun! I was doing what I love doing on trips – people watching!!!

Before I knew it, we were taxing on the runway and I saw the famed Manhattan silhouette, with Liberty and the waterfront! Oh I couldn’t wait to explore, but there would be more time for that later, I promised myself that! I arrived at Madison, welcomed by a blisteringly cold day, and without any of my baggage! Seems like I wasn’t the only who was lost at Newark!

The first few days at Madison were full of questions! I think my roomie completely got sick of me and the incessant questions I was asking! I couldn’t/still can’t stand not knowing, I wanted to experience everything all at once!

Well it’s a month down now, my bags are with me, and I’m settled in my own room well enough to start noticing the not so rosy things about this place. I miss home every once in a while. I think I miss good company more than I miss home as such. I miss being a click or buzz away from my friends, the ones I would chat with everyday from office or home. I miss having hot tea and dinner waiting for me when I get home from work. I miss not having to make a decision on anything – about whether I’m running out of vegetables, whether I need to soak kidney beans tonight for tomorrow’s dinner, whether my shirts need ironing… I miss not having to worry about chopping onions and chipping off a nail accidentally. You know I should really stop writing now, before I get all homesick!

But life is good! I’m feeling as un-independent as I have ever done in so many years. All my independence from home is out the window and I am starting over. Plenty to learn and explore. Work is different from anything I’ve experienced offshore. I’m not the best person here, but I’m learning. Thanks to the internet and a great family and some awesome friends, I’m just a click away from any company I need. Hopefully, there’s something even better at the end of all of this! Even better than a two day snow storm and walking through 9 inches of snow to reach the parking lot from office, and getting frozen fingers in trying to clean the windshield (psst : I loved it!!)! Better than the anticipation of being able to drive in a while. But definitely not better than going down to Charlottesville at the end of this month – nothing is going to beat that and I’m uber excited!!

Welcome to America!

So long 2007 and no thanks for all the fish!

We’ve closed one door and opened yet another. As I’m writing this, I cannot quite decide if I want to rewind on 2007 or guess-forward for 2008.

The past year has been a good and bad one for me. It began with some bad news in terms of CAT results. More bad news followed as more results trickled in. January 07 pretty much shut the lid on some of my ambitions. The first six months were spent immersed in work, trying to get over the results season. It was punctuated by a not-so-hard decision I had to make over Symbiosis… I have no regrets over that, no matter what anyone else might say/think.

The second half was spent in trying to secure a second and alternate foothold to realize my ambitions. And that part is hanging in mid air now. By March of this year, I should know if the seeds of last August will bear fruit or not. The second half was also witness to a surprise development I thought I’d never see in my career here – the visa!

And now here 2008 is! In another 4 days, I’ll be off to Madison, on my assignment. I never looked for this to happen, so I’m in denial for now. I can’t believe I’m actually going, and I don’t know how long I’ll be gone. If this is going to mark the trend for the rest of the year, then I’d say this year is going to be pretty eventful for me! A new country, new people, new experiences, lots of travel… sounds promising enough. I just hope there’s lots of money thrown in there as well ;)

But as I step outside, I can’t help feeling sad for the safety and familiarity I am leaving behind in my country, my family and my friends. I feel sad knowing that I won’t be a part of the daily routine at home that I’ve gotten so used to over the last couple of years. Still, I think I’ll feel some enthusiasm once I get on that flight on Friday night.

There’s a lot to look forward to and I know that this time next year, my life would have changed a lot! I can just begin to feel the gentle breeze that preludes the winds of change.

Stars on Earth

I watched Taare Zameen Par today at Sigma.
The movie is just fantastic, and I think it's the best Hindi movie I have watched all year. Aamir Khan is such a genius.
If ClusterMaps down there isn't lying and all you people from all those countries do really visit here, then please go watch this movie. It's in Hindi but if you require subtitles I am sure you'll find a copy with those too.
I hope Aamir takes this movie to the Oscars.

The Growing Divide

I just got back from lunch at the Terminal. Today being Saturday, it’s normal to see campus teeming with people but of a different kind. Today you’ll find older men and women and really young children too. Saturday is the day that employees bring their families to visit this beautiful and sprawling campus with its seven food courts, lush green lawns and towering innovatively-designed buildings, the software development blocks or SDBs. It’s a pleasant sight. Children run ahead of their parents, making full use of the vast open space free of traffic, while the parents amble behind, taking in the sights and sounds of the place that their other halves call home for most part of the week.

This campus being the signature office and global headquarters of the company, there is constant construction activity here. Although the construction and the people working there are seldom seen on the main parts of the campus, every once in a while they are seen enjoying a walk on the campus in the evenings. Like today. As I was returning from Terminal, I witnessed something that pierced right through my day dream, and creating this urge to let out my thoughts here. I saw the family of an employee, well dressed and all made up, little son bounding back and forth on the walking track. And watching them, were a father and son, sitting in the corner, near where the construction site is cordoned off with green net. The man was obviously a construction worker, the boy his son. They watched as the young family stood to admire the Terminal, the front-loading-washing-machine building, the Coffee Day… The boy would have been no older than the little kid running around his parents on the walkway, in his new tee shirt and shoes. The other boy, in stark contrast, wore old and dirty clothes and was barefoot.

As the two families, in sharp contrast with each other, came within the same line of my vision, I was reminded painfully of the increasing social divide in this country. I was wishing just moments ago, that I had thought to invite my own family over for the weekend to visit the campus, and that one picture brought me jerkily out of my reverie. To me, this company is a reminder of what India has become today, of the growing economic power and the waves that it is creating in the global playground. It is an edifice of India’s favorite success story, of what dreams can achieve and of how ordinary mortals can affect a change so drastic. But today it became a reminder of how companies like these are doing little to bridge the gap between the two extremes of Indian society. As IT makes more money, the techies are raking in the cash, and cities like Bangalore become more expensive to live in. The poor pay the price for this. As our standard of living goes up, their standard of living does not see a commensurate increase and as a result they remain where they are, what little money they have losing its value with each passing day. India’s greatest employer is IT and ITES, both fields requiring an educated workforce. They compensate for their increasing demand for resources by recruiting large numbers of people from campuses across the country.

Unfortunately, rural India is not seeing an increase in primary or secondary education and therefore the IT success story bypasses that stratum of society completely. The few who do manage to make it to BPOs in the cities do so with immense hardships and sacrifices. Young parents of rural India hope for a better future for their offspring, one that is different from their own and does not involve doing menial labour to earn a living. How long will it be before their dreams turn to reality? Consider even the poor living in India’s metros. Most of them still do not go to school. The few who do, cannot afford the fees to study beyond class 10 or 12 and therefore drop out, joining their parents at their jobs as house-cleaners and cooks. I am not denigrating labour here, but I wish every child had access to education so that he could at least have a chance at a better future, one that a lot of urban Indians are enjoying today.

I wish corporate India could take the onus of education in villages, at least as an investment for their future workforce. With CSR gaining the kind of importance it has, I wish each company could “adopt” a village and take responsibility of primary and secondary education there by building schools or sponsoring education for families or helping schools build facilities that would keep children engaged. I read somewhere that the biggest issue plaguing rural schools is the lack of teachers because of poor wages. If companies could pump in funds to schools so that they may pay their staff better, it could help make the functioning of these schools a lot better. In Chennai, Sneham, the CSR arm of the Chennai office works in these areas by helping schools with infrastructure such as toilets and furniture. I am sure there are other such organizations. Perhaps giving them more publicity through the media would make people aware of ways in which they can help bridge the social divide.

In The Run Up To New Year

This is going to be the first new year's eve that I am NOT going to look forward to.
You guessed right, I am going to rant, so click off if you're having too much fun and don't want to have to deal with one whiner right now.

Back to the new year's eve that I am not looking forward to. I am alone, away from family, in a god forsaken part of India's happening city. I am working on new year's eve AND on new year's day. I am going to be running around getting a million different papers in order before I fly out. And believe me, running around here sounds like a great work out at first, but loses the novelty soon enough - I am not making this one up. I have been running from one end of this sprawling campus to the other all day and my head is pounding and I can't even will my feet to take me to Terminal for dinner! And after all this running around, I still have not got any of the documents I was promised. Am I pissed or what!

This weekend I'm going to be here on campus, trying to wrap up my applications. I still have one very important essay to write from scratch, for my top college preference. I'm hating myself for getting into this state - had I begun earlier I'd be paying credit card bills for all college applications. I've just done two of them so far and I have my most important ones coming up next week. So basically this weekend is going to be spent in front of a dell desktop tap-tapping away to oblivion. I don't know about you but my life sure is happening!

With seemingly million things to do before next Thursday and feeling the need to be in more than one place at a give time, I'll be really fortunate if I get out of this place in one piece and more so if I make it to my flight on Friday night with all my papers and luggage intact. I'll squeeze in one more post later about this flight thing that I'm suddenly talking about. Beginning yesterday I seem to have been overloaded with information that makes very little sense. Thankfully I've made copious notes ( or so I think) so I'm going to pore over them as bedside reading tonight so that I can make some sense out of them.

Basically this new year's is going to suck big time. I probably won't even know when it comes and goes. And I'll probably be ultra cranky too. I'm already getting there.

Of all the months for this to happen, why in god's name did it have to be the holiday season?????

Afterthought:
As I was pondering on the labels to put for this post, I put in experiences too. And I got to thinking how I would justify this post as an experience. Well turns out it is. It's going to mark the beginning of a year that is going to change my life completely, in so many more ways than I can foresee now. This party's just getting started!

Live!

After watching all corporate events at the company via webcast over the last year and half, I finally got to watch one event live at location last night. The Awards for Excellence were held here at the Bangalore campus (as always) last night and I had been looking forward to watching the event live for some time now. And what do you know, I was not one bit disappointed!

This year our special guests were a noted journalist and news show anchor from CNBC (SB) who was present here for the event and Sunita Williams via telecon! Now you can see why I was all excited! Of course one of my favorite personalities from the company, the proprietor of the flat world concept (FlatWorld), was here too and I always look forward to what he has to say.

The weather was as amazing as always. Chill, windy (coming from down south, this kind of weather tends to get me high!) and with a slight drizzle every now and then. Not everyone would agree with this being awesome weather but it didn’t dampen anybody’s enthusiasm and the crowd only increased as the event progressed. There were employees after a day of work, sitting with Coffee Day mobile coffees in hand, wrapped in their shawls and sweaters, or like me, zipped up in jackets. Since it was an awards ceremony, there were the customary men and women in ultra formals – these were the award winners, all decked up for the moment before the flash bulbs posing with SB and FlatWorld; these pictures will then sit smartly atop the glass shelves in their cabins at work, ensconced in weather proof frames. There were also the families of the award winners: young wives and toddlers, old parents, dressed in warm wear and clapping enthusiastically when their children went on stage to receive their awards.

I’ve never been too much of a fan of SB’s. I guess it’s because an ex-teamie of mine would go on and on about her – he is a big fan- and so I just got too sick of hearing about her to actually think about whether I was a fan or no. Of course, I like the way she does the news. But that’s it. But given my background, I have deep respect for women achievers, especially those in fields where there are many different levels of the glass ceiling that one has to breach before straddling a position of authority. And therefore, yesterday I realized that I would have to admire SB for her determination, if nothing else, that came through in her succinctly worded speech. She spoke about the lessons she had learnt as a journalist, in the industry for a decade. She was articulate, confident, humble and most of all, willing to share her experiences. Although her speech did remind me a bit about a business school essay, but that’s probably because I’m so saturated!

Sunita Williams was once again, not a disappointment. With all the newsprint and media attention she has been garnering in recent times, there is very little about her that we do not know. Yet the company had done a good job of picking the questions that would be posed for her to answer. These questions were submitted by employees on an internal forum and about ten questions were handpicked among those. Although we could not see Sunita, we could hear her smile and laughter as she graciously answered all the questions and participated in a little friendly banter with the hostess, a popular radio jockey from Bangalore.

Soon it was time for the event to wrap up. The guests would be whisked off to their hotels in the speedy and silent golf carts that will course through the many routes between the OAT and the main gate of the campus, and the OAT would wear its habitual deserted look once more. People all dispersed a little earlier to dig into the buffet that was arranged for them. I had to make do with paid dosas from the Terminal because I don’t belong to either centers so my name was not on the food coupon list! Ah, the travails of being a temp-transferee!

The only disappointment of the evening was FlatWorld. Despite the name and the connotation, I always enjoy his speeches. He has lots to say and he says it well. He’s got the stage presence too – yes I’m a fan! So what? Unfortunately he decided to introduce SB and remain a mute spectator for the most part. Too bad! The last time I watched FlatWorld live, during training at The Campus, I was completely bowled over by his presence there. I even got to take a picture with him!!!

But that couldn’t take away from the fact that I was watching yesterday’s event live at Bangalore! Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!

Bench revisited

Just because I'm from IT, it doesn't mean I am going to talk about that eagerly anticipated period in one's career in IT, the time when you are not required to clock more than six hours a day and your responsibilities involve ensuring that every chain mail or forward that you receive in your email inbox is religiously forwarded out to countless other people. So no, this is not about that.

This is about a tradition from training days at "The Campus" where the gang used to sit on these wooden benches under the trees near the hostels. They were also smoking zones, so it suited most members fine. It was shady, and there was just enough room for the entire junta to sit and talk crap for hours. Real crap. Stuff ranging from Rajnikanth's so called greatness to brands of underwear ( I swear only some members of the gang participated in that last one).

After training, I moved to a different city on transfer and the benches here were smoking zones only. Which meant that if you went there, you had to have a cigarrette... Actually you'd be lucky just to find a place to sit! So recently, I had the opportunity to "put bench" again, here in Bangalore. Even the weather was like training times - a nip in the breeze that was blowing through the sprawling campus, enough to keep my jacket zipped all the way to the chin. What was different was that this time it was just two of us. And a bag of soggy MacDs and more soggy french fries! We discussed stuff again, not crap this time of course.

I was reminded of how much our lives have changed, some for the better and some that are so different from earlier times, younger days. Now, there was too much to discuss and none of it was crap. I felt a little sad about that. But it's ok. I like to think that the crap belongs to days gone by. The here and the now are the most important, especially for both of us who were there at the bench next to the Terminal. I can see that we're all on separate tracks now... some converge some diverge but all essentially remain unique.

What else can go wrong??

Based on personal experience, here are somethings that can go wrong in the bschool application process:

So you've written the essays for your applications, and you're feeling all proud of your work. So what do you want to do next? You want to show your essay the light of the day. It's really important to get your essays reviewed by the right people. A lot of people will offer to review it for you. Still more will agree when you approach them to review. It is your call on who you want to pick. There is lot of gyaan on the net about the right kind of people to pick to review your essays. So I am not going to repeat that. But I will warn that there is a chance that none of your reviewers will get back to you with their inputs. Your printouts/emails will be languishing in their shelf/mailbox and you'll never hear from them. I found my saviour in two people, thankfully, one who patiently reviewed my essays ( and will continue to do so) and the other who I approached right at the last minute when I was desperately in need of another reviewer. This second person was the last person I would have thought to ask. Just goes to show that you can find help in the most unexpected places.

Essays are really not too much of a battle. The real battle is the recommendations. Again, there is enough gyaan on the net about whom to pick as recommenders and that titles don't work blah blah blah. It is most important to heed that advice. It is even more important to make sure you give your evaluators enough time to fill this stuff. If you looked at the questions you would know that they do not require too much thinking. One hour tops. If your evaluator had good things to say about you, then he/she will not have to dig right into the recesses of his/her brain to get them out. People who read this blog and know the screw ups that happened in my recommendations will know what I am talking about. So here is where choosing the right evaluators comes into the picture. Choose someone who can manage his/her time well enough to not give you excuses a week before your deadline about how they were caught up in work - this after being nominated 2 months in advance. Choose someone who really knows what to write for you. It doesn't matter if he/she has written recommendations for other people. You still have to evaluate if this person has the right skills ( viz communication, thinking) to give you a recommendation. Remember that it can make or break your application. I know it has broken at least one of mine.

Dont wait till the last deadline. There is a possibility that you might get transferred. Or go onsite. Or have a sudden upheaval at the workplace that ruins your state of mind and saps you of motivation. Or all of the above. I know you're thinking, " Man, I'm so screwed if this happens!" Well it does. Trust me.

At the end of all of this, if you still manage to get your applications in on time, then you'd better have strong prayers. Because after all the screw ups, it will dawn on you that you cannot go through this again, and that you'd rather get out of your current situation than have to stick around another year or two and give Wharton a go, because you'd have more work experience or you'd have got your promotion or you'd have international experience or all of the above.

For having warned you, please send out a prayer for me so that I may get through a college of my preference and not have to go through this crap again.

Six Questions*

Here they are:

1. How was CAT?
2. What are the other exams you are writing/have written?
3. How come you're on bench?
4. When are you getting married?
5. Wassup ( in all the ways that you can spell that)?
6. Are you busy? ( this when my status on a chat application says I'm busy)

* that you should not ask me.

Not(e) to myself

I haven’t written about the mba journey thus far, but since it is occupying majority of the space in my head, I have to write about it. Like I was telling 'smee the other day, writing a piece is like delivering a baby. You have to have it fully formed in your head before you can let it out. My whole mba thing has been in my head for too long now, but I always feared that if I wrote about it and it didn’t come through, for whatever reasons… So I’ll start off with a few things.

If you have been lazy till today then banish it right now. There is no room for lethargy and sloth in an mba run. There are a thousand different things to do at any point in time and though prioritizing and list-making (like yours truly who is a compulsive list maker) helps loads, eventually you have to get all of it done, and all action items checked. That would include calls to your evaluators to wish season’s greetings.

We have a tendency to think in terms of stats and numbers – typically any online discussion board would have name/gmat score/ no of years workex /quality of workex (IT, mech, consulting etc). Good ways to categorize your competition pool but a really poor indicator of your standing vis-à-vis them. Case in point is a friend in Wharton. Her stats would read Name/7xx/2/IT… But it’s so much more than that. I don’t know all of what she has done, but I know she has been damn busy in her 2 years of workex and I am not referring to office work. So all of that matters more than the stats thing. Sure a 7xx gmat score tilts things in your favor. But if I make a success story out of my applications this year, then it would prove that even sub-7xx can make it through.

Banish negativity. It’s easier said than done and in my run so far, it is proving to be my biggest enemy. I just have to read other applicant blogs and I’m depressed. People seemed to have done so much and studied for gmat AND got stellar profiles at work. Well too bad I didn’t do all of that. What I can do is work harder on my essays. Easy to say? Nearly impossible to do!! I can either fall victim or continue to swim against the tides.

Taking a break. SO very necessary, this aspect! My iGoogle sticky on a Friday morning is a clean slate. By Friday night, it’s about half a screen in height, full of things to do for the weekend. I have to list even a beauty parlor visit! Needless to say, most of the stuff on that list never gets done. In fact, I can barely concentrate on essay work on a Sunday. I am lagging behind terribly thanks to this. But at least I am not suffering from writer’s block on Monday when I decide to tackle essay writing once more. You have to decide what you’re going to trade for what. And then once you’ve decided, you ask your conscience to take the day off. Really. Otherwise you’ll go insane.

They say you have to abstain from socializing. I couldn’t agree more. I don’t seem to want to talk on the phone either, except to very select people. In the two years since I’ve left college I’ve forgotten most of my classmates’ names. I think by the time I have to leave for my bschool, I won’t have any names on my mobile phone book to call to say bye to. Tough luck, but I’m ok with it, provided that the day actually does come. Indulging in mindless channel surfing is not included in socializing, thank god for smaller mercies! There are times when even astha* channel will seem interesting – those are mini-alarm bells telling you to take a break because you’re fatigued.

Take yourself seriously sometimes. At all other times take a chill pill. Lay off a little bit and (this is a note to self) stop constantly revisiting your lists. Yes, that includes adding new stuff too.

Now if I could just listen to myself every once in a while...

* Since only Indians are reading this I am not explaining Astha channel here.

Of Life, Dreams and Maturity

First off, I will have to say that I’m really surprised that I haven’t written about this earlier, because god knows I’ve talked about it to a lot of people. I guess it takes another (and most likely final) blow in the coffin to actually bring to focus the irony, if you can call it that, of it all.

It has been a long standing trend in my life of never getting what I want but always getting, too easily at that, what I least wanted. This isn’t to say that what I finally was given was something I did not desire. Rather I would say it was something that was never in my list of wanted or even unwanted things; it was just never in the periphery of my mind.

I think the phenomenon has been around in my life for a really long time but the only time I started to take notice was two years ago. The mechanigal had been led to believe that no core industries would recruit her at the end of her degree. Lucky for mechanigal, since two months on shopfloor of a CPG major’s chemical plant convinced her that shopfloor was not her do! So here I was all, deciding to put a foot in at a CAD company once engineering was through, when suddenly this job happened. It’s sudden because up until a year ago, the company would not allow us folk to sit for their placement process. I didn’t know what to make of it. I had not even begun my job thought process, let alone the search. I had an offer letter from India’s most respected company and I didn’t know if I should be amused or bemused! I had taken as given that I would never set foot inside an IT company but here I was trudging my way to Mysore!! Then at work, while I grappled with seemingly nonsensical bits of code and trying to put a foot in to bschool, the visa happened. Now armed with an h1b I am awaiting deputation – without ever wanting it! I still don’t know what I’m doing here, much less what I will do if sent onsite – for all practical purposes I know nothing in technology and just marginally more in domain. I just know that this where I do not want to be! That’s some clarity!!

Right now I’m clueless about what I am doing! Going through the motions with applications on my gmat while a million what-if scenarios keep running through my head. I plan and plan and plan and finally what happens is the one thing I would not have planned for. On the one hand there are my dreams and aspirations. On the other there is the need to deal with all the failures and screw ups keeping a straight face all the while – hibernating in the Himalayas after denouncing the material world isn’t an option, most unfortunately. And then, there’s life in itself, the one that’s threatening to spin way out of my control.

Regrettably, I really do know what they mean when they say that life’s what happens when you’re busy making other plans