We saw some sites for the office. With a lot of filth in front of them, dingy and damp spaces with no parking. Okhla phase-I is not a clean or productive place to be in ( at least for the kind of work we do). Ramesh is back. Dadagiri hai. He is un-removable (if such a term even exists). He had arranged for a replacement @ Rs. 200 per day which is obnoxiously high for daily wages. To top it, he told the boy (who was to come in his place) that he (meaning Ramesh) would pay him. This was even more pre-posterous. Ramesh paying his replacement.
But I guess anything is possible in GC.

Mr. Saraf called from the ‘the bank’. He said that he would keep calling till we paid up. And my response was that he was free to do his job and we were free to do ours. That we were looking for ways and means to regularize the account ( apart from selling drugs or some other nefarious activity) and it would take time. But that is the issue. There is no more ‘time’ from the bank. Sab ‘waqt’ ka chakkar hai. We wish we could use the Einstein theory of relativity and go back or forward in time. The current times are getting unbearable.

Everyone in the office has declared a ‘chutti’ for tommorrow. Abhi chand ka pata nahin, ‘Id’ ka pata nahin lekin chutti to confirmed hai. So we are off tommorrow, Id or no Id. Appu might need to go to school, else we are planning to check whether there are some options for an office space in Greater Noida.

That is supposed to be an outing for us. From the constant stress and strain.
The match is over. For today. And we survived.

It is quite a marathon run.

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The presentation for the AAI authorities is ready (after a lot of calculations, research and homework). We need to show the same for approval to the client tommorrow. I am very proud of Narendra for having done a good job. We had zero idea of how the guidelines from AAI were to be interpreted and applied in the area of aviation (using GIS) where every decimal place counts. But we did it. It was a challenge for us and I am glad that we are moving towards developing applications of GIS in a new sector (for us) namely ‘aviation’. Just digitization of maps is like working for our daily bread and butter. The challenge for the mind and the value add is always in the applications and I am very happy that GC has entered the world of applications. This was always our topline.

The bank (not again) is breathing down our back (Guys, please let us work. kaam karenge to paisa ayega). The landlord (the lord) of the office wants us out (actually everyone wants us out of their lives, I guess we are too much of a pain). ASAP. As soon as possible. There are lovely office spaces with not so lovely rates. So, I guess we have to settle for what we can afford.

Shivaji took a new number for his mobile and did not share it with me. I guess I bothered him too much with my late night calls. I normally close office around 9:30pm ( I come in late so it is not as if I put in so many hours) and that is when I remember a few tasks (done or undone) and call Shivaji up. I think he got fed up and took a new sim. OK. I felt hurt but got the message. Of all people, Dimpi knew the number and had been given strict instructions to not share it with me ( I was angry with her too). But I guess everyone cannot/will not think of GC 24/7 and I need to remember that. Just that in the last fortnight, it has been an uphill task to have any conversation with Shivaji beyond office hours. So I have now started using the e-mail as a mode of communication. Hope this works.

My father suggested a survey company In Kolkata for the Infrastructure client. In fact, he himself had started one when he was posted there for a long time. It was also then that he developed a relationship with a colleague. The saving grace was that he was honest about it with my mother and us. It did not last and both me and my sister hated him at that time for hurting our mother but in retrospect today, I guess there is no guarantee tag, no permanent security in any relationship. People change, grow in different directions, find better ( from their perspective) partners. It is best to allow people to leave, if they so choose, however painful it might be. The only exception here would be the parent-child relationship.
Appu has also sent me a list of survey companies in Kolkata. But most of them have quoted beyond the clients’ budget. And we were anyway not interested in taking the project due to the payment terms. So we have left it at that.

Cannot see too far ahead as yet. The visibility is very low. Have no idea whether we are heading for a landing or a crash on the runway (or whether we would be able to touch the earth at all). Just thinking of the next 12 hours or maybe the next four hours. And If I can survive those, then maybe I will think of the next four.

Still breathing.

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Now in desperation if we do take on the infrastructure clients’ project, it will be a repeat of the ‘Yashi’ experience which got us where we are. So what are the choices here. None I guess. ‘Beg,borrow,steal’ is not an option anymore.

There are tenders and RFPs’ but mostly all of them require a turnover of over 4 crores so by default, we cannot participate in the race at all. Also we do not have the necessary associations with the ‘powers to be’ in order to get the stringent requirements diluted. I do wonder about the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of services being tendered. They are not ‘products’ with standard specifications. And the very tendering process which is designed to increase ‘transparency’ and ‘equal opportunity’, actually promotes a fertile ground for favouritism and corruption.
Abhi kaun si niti lag sakti hai? Even ‘Chanakya niti’ would fail here. Yet we are still here. I guess we are incorrigible stubborn mules. All of us at GC. Refuse to give up. ‘Anyone would suggest, chod do bhaiyya, tumarhe bas ki baat nahin hai. blog likhna alag baat hai, dhanda karna alag baat hai’. which is true. But till we lie flattened on the earth with our faces down, we will not give up.

Narendra has moved forward on the presentation. A lot of accuracy and calculations are required to be done and he has grasped the concepts very well. And he is being able to translate that to the GIS environment with dexterity. I am sure AAI will be happy to offer him a job at a very good salary (hopefully not now, we do not wish to lose him).

And Dimpy has created a beautiful map of Kolkata in ArcGIS. Very well digitized. Well done Dimpi. She is also working on the Cartosat maps from PACT (Will PACT ever end?). She is also the one to light the diya in the office every morning. Thanks Dimpi. And Shivaji ensures that prasad is served to the Gods ( to all his incarnations) every Tuesday.

Appu has been sending mails and looking for contacts on the net. She is a netizen (citizen of the net) and hence she is doing all the online marketing. Attended a PTA meeting in her school today. As I was waiting for my turn, I observed how the teachers were berating the students for not getting good marks and how ‘if they loved their parents they would get marks?’ This is hilarious. How can one equate marks with love? There was no focus on understanding, concepts, topics, ideas. Just marks, percentages, college main admission nahin milega. rat race se bahar ho jayoge. Achha hai. jo bhi nikal jayega ‘rat race’ se, shayyad bach jayega. Thsi formal education in our schools nauseates me.

‘Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content – Helen Keller’

To be content. Despite and Inspite of.

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A junior also read an extract from a letter written by U.S President Abraham Lincoln. I had read it earlier, had even put it up on my notice board in the office but it was good to hear the words coming from the next generation.

” Teach your children well” by Abraham Lincoln

” He will have to learn, I know, that all men are not just, all men are not true. But teach him also that for every scoundrel there is a hero, that for every selfish politician, there is a dedicated leader, teach him that for every enemy, there is a friend. It will take time, I know but teach him if you can, that a dollar earned is of far more value than five dollars.. Teach him to learn to lose and to also enjoy winning.
Teach him it is far more honourable to fail than to cheat, teach him to have faith in his own ideas, even if everyone tells him they are wrong, teach him to be gentle with gentle people and tough with the tough.
Teach him to sell his brawn and brain to the highest bidders but to never put a price tag on his heart and soul.”

I like the spirit behind these words.

On another note, we watched a ballad based on the life of ‘Krishna’ yesterday and the manipulations inititated by him to win the war. Maybe ‘Mahabharata’ is closer to todays’ time when ‘winning’ is everything. At any cost.

PACT has finally sent the list of maps to be rectified. And Narendra has discovered how to generate a segment at a given angle from another segment in ArcGIS. We need this functionality extensively for the presentation. Good work Narendra.

The ‘Bank’ is desperate now. I have told them that we are not running away. That the money will come (although I have truly no idea from where and when). Just trusting the universe. And the office has to be vacated. I have no idea where we will go. Sitting with a lot of uncertainty.

” If you can make one heap of all your winnings,
And risk it on one turn of pitch and toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss,

Yours’ is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And what is more, you will be a Man my son!”

By Rudyard Kipling

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Doing a job well. A very difficult task. kaam kar lo. Kaise bhi. The quality and the texture required for the work is ignored by most. And this ‘ignorance of neglect’ , this seemingly small error in attitude and execution multiplies to huge losses in terms of time, money and safety. The office boy will clean the office but not properly, Amma will cook food but not with interest or hygiene, the GIS executive will digitize but will leave many dangling nodes and the resultant line will not be a smooth curve, The safety procedures to check an aircraft will be followed but not to the last detail and it is this, this ‘not doing a job well’ that leads to losses and disasters (big and small). If we could just do the job assigned to us well (regardless of whether we love doing it or not), life could be better for all concerned. To baat hai yeh ‘finesse’ ki. The grace, the quality, the attitude of doing a good job is not easily available. Hopefully, we can integrate it in GC from top to bottom.

Appu is experiencing the same lack of commitment from her team members in the dance. The entire attitude is ‘kar lete hain’. Whether it turns out to be ‘outstanding’, ’synchronized’ or ‘out of this world’, is not on the agenda. Just do it, however. And Appus’ stand is, ‘ then what’s the point in doing it at all’? We are both hoping ‘ki kuch miracle ho jayega’ and all the girls will get inspired to do a fabulous job as a team.

And I have also been thinking that all the mundane jobs can be done with people. But the ‘greatness’ associated with any work comes from ‘aloneness’. Great work, great achivements, great pieces of art are almost always created in solitude, in aloneness.

The banks, the bills, the salaries and the need to close a project remain the same. ’status quo’. For today there is petrol in the car, the office functioned, the ‘atta’ was ordered for the house and we even have electricity (in the house and office). Great.

‘The greatness of aloneness’.

Stay there.

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Thereafter the teaching class went well. I understood the positioning of the instruments on the runway and the guidelines for the restrictions on building heights to ensure that their functioning was not disturbed. Even with two cups of coffee, it was a long class (kab tak padna padega). But my ‘fundas’ (short form for fundamentals from our IIT lingo)are clear now and hopefully, we should be able to transform the restrictions on a digital map. The obstacle surfaces are still not very clear (some of them are, some aren’t) and I will need to go tommorrow also for one more lecture ( phir se?). After a few guidelines were discussed and some calculations done, it appeared that the maximum permissible height could only be 175 m whereas the appeal is for 402 m. So I asked the officials for a solution. And they shot back, Madam, aap log to (meaning the powerful and rich real estate clan, surely not me) kuch bhi kara sakte hain. Aap airport he shift kara dijiye. Phir jitni marzi unchi building banaiye. Airport nahin to radar hi shift kara dijiye. I am sure it was said sarcastically but it also reflected the power the real estate guys have on the political and economic landscape of our country.

I have been whining to Appu about how I have not been able to do any real work over the last few days. Exasperated, she finally shortlisted four things for me to finish today and she put it down on a white board in my room. The list included the meeting at AAI, sending 5 mails to potential clients (one of them has already bounced back), asking for a pending payment and discussions with Narendra on the presentation. And the deal was that in case I managed to finish these four jobs, I was not supposed to crib about not doing any work. OK, so I got the four jobs done. Cool. No whining today.

The ‘bank’ called. The red alert is beeping very fast now. We have to clear the TOD (by hook or by crook). The question is ‘how’.

Yeh CEO ka kya chakkar hai. Actually it should be ‘Chief Executive Peon’ or ‘Always available executive (AAE)’ or ‘ Blame us for everything (BUFE)’, actually that is a nice punchline for a T-shirt for CEO’s- Blame us for anything and everything that goes wrong. We have no control (we are just supposed to be in control) over anything. Just like the man appears to be in control in the house but it is the woman who wields the power (from the kitchen from where the food originates). Like me and Appu appear to be the bosses in the house whereas it is Amma (our long time maid) who has real control over everything( including every cup of tea that leaves the kitchen.)

Actually I was never comfortable with titles. When I founded the last company, I had travelled to Pune (on a shoestring budget and therefore had to stay in a very small and dingy hotel) to sign an agreemnt with a Pune based firm. On the last day of the trip when the agreement was being signed( and I was wondering how I would reach the airport on time as I had finished all my money and walking would have ensured that I missed my flight and be stranded with no money and no ticket to travel back), Prof. Krishnayya (the head of the Pune firm) asked me what title I would like to use. I was lost for words as I could think of no heavyweight title for myself. And he said how about ‘Chief officer’? And I said OK. I was never comfortable with heavy titles like ‘MD’ or ‘Director’.So that is how the journey of titles began for me

And now from ‘Chief officer’, it has evolved to ‘Chief Executive Officer’. But the job remains the same. It is mostly that of a sophisticated available peon,manager, executive,punching bag, all rolled into one.

And what a journey it has been.

From CO to CEO.

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Dimpy is still working on the Kolkata map and Narendra is working on the presentation. Shivaji checked out a few places for the office but they are all exhorbitantly high and beyond our budget. So it is just not clear as to where we would shift. The ‘when’ is very clear. Our lease gets over on September 30th, 2010.

Yesterday was Sunday and after dropping my daughter for her dance class, I went for a walk in the park. It is a site where a ‘Qila’ has been restored and there are these walls of the fort which have been augmented by rocks. It is a nice site and many times it has occured to me that it would be nice to climb those rocks and look at the view from there. Since there was time before I needed to pick up my daughter, I did climb the rocks and it was a beautiful view from the top. The lush green grass, the trees, everything looked draped in green and peace. What a change in perspective. Just by shifting of positions, the perspective is so different. I guess that is where the current generation has got its often used word ‘POV’ (point of view). And they keep saying that our POV is different. Of course it is. Their angle (way) of looking at things and events is different from ours. And that is how it should be, I guess. Humanity cannot, should not continue to make the same mistakes.

The hunt for an office boy has re-started. Ramesh just left in the afternoon to attend a family function and we are left to handle the basic office functions ( who will keep the keys to open the office, clean it, serve tea and lunch). The closing of the office has always been my domain so that is not a problem.
I am not sure if we will pick up the project from the infrastructure guys. The payment terms are pathetic and we have burned our fingers too many times. It is better to be without work than work in a lose-lose situation. Basically we are ‘unemployed’ for now. And ‘bankrupt’. Kya combination hai. Lethal.
My father called. And he desperately wants me to join my brother. He has always been on a different frequency mode. He has not understood the choices I have made. And the reasons. So what is there to be said. I have told him that ‘poverty’ is better than ‘pain or chaos’ and that ‘poverty of thought’ is a greater poverty than the ‘poverty of money or material things’ but I cannot get across to him. It is as if we talk two different languages.

Appu is busy practicing for her dance on the ‘Teachers’ Day’. So the entire drawing room has been re-arranged (which is not much since only one piece of furniture had to be shifted to make place) for the practice. I had a huge altercation with Amma in the morning. She is becoming increasingly dysfunctional and I have no idea how to deal with her. Or to run the house without her presence. This is one constant area of conflict.

The day is over. for now. It is always nice to drive back home. It is as of nothing more can be done. No more efforts can be put in to change the situation and I can literally let my hair down and listen to some music (that is in case the antenna works to catch the radiostations. It works quite intermittently).

Just get out of the way and let HP work.
Not to create a crisis and not to prevent one from happening. Huge.

‘To not do anything’.

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It reminds me of a specific course in our second year of engineering. After about 23 lectures had been taken and a semester test was approaching, we (the entire class) decided that it was time to confess that we had not understood anything. Hence in the next class before the professor could put on his microphone on the collar, we raised our hands and four of us walked up to the podium where he stood and walked (now and then)to give his lectures and told him that we had not understood anything. That none of us had understood anything. He was flabbergasted and exasperated. He turned around and asked the entire class (of about 1000 as all the engineering streams were mixed in the first two years) and the answer was in the affirmative. He raised his hands in the air (seemingly to pull his hair) and walked up and down the podium restlessly. He also asked why the confession time could not have come earlier. In the end it was decided that extra classes would be taken in the night (and our only concern was of course the dinner, how could we miss dinner in the mess?). And so it was fixed that the classes would be conducted after the dinner timings of the mess were over and in case they were held earlier, the professor would arrange for the dinner(that was enough cause for a cheer).

For a long time, I tried getting my mothers’ love and attention. At any cost.For close to four decades. Didn’t work. I think I joined ‘M. Tech’ to look good’ for my parents. Batane mein achha lagta hai. Beti M.Tech kar rahi hai IIT Delhi se. Sounds respectable. I remained a topper throughout (B.Tech from IIT Kanpur was a different ballgame altogether. I could never top there) but left without submitting my thesis. I have been declared the craziest of cases by most.

The gas has been booked by my daughter by SMS. She is the technosavvy person in the house. The land line number is mostly never picked up by the agency guys. Amma has begun to cook lesser quantities of food ( after a lot of jhamela) and that implies lesser wastage of food and decreased shopping of rations in the house.

The Infrastructure client has indicated that the payment terms could be difficult. Meaning that it would be ‘back to back’. As and when their client pays, they will pay us. That could mean five to six months. That would be a very difficult call to take. A running payment to maintain our working capital is extremely important for us. Toh dekhna padega.

There was yesterday. There is today. And there will be a tommorrow. I guess.

The past, present and future. All mixed up for me at the moment.

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Anyway the long and short of it is that there is another project and the same person has contacted us for participating. We have entered very late in the bidding process (better late than never) and it was suggested that we meet the MD with our battery of experts (Irrigation and survey) at a short notice of a few hours. And with the methodology. And with the pricing. So I was scanning the database in my mind and I could zoom in on the survey expert very fast. But the Irrigation expert was another ballgame. And which expert would be interested in attending a meeting at such a short notice and that too for a small company?
The scanner in my head worked overtime. And I called up a professor from IIT Delhi who handles GIS projects. And hoped that he would know someone in the Irrigation sector. Well it was late in the night when I called up his residence(his wife was quite irritated) but he said he would work something out by the morning. And Narendra worked on the methodology. SO bingo. It all came together. I could attend the meeting with the experts and the methodology in place. So it was done. We stand a good chance of winning. But here is the catch. ‘liasioning’ ka paisa chahiye and that too in advance. Bole to ‘ghoos’ ka arangement karna padega. ??

The next meeting had been arranged by the real estate guys with the chairman of the ‘Airport Authority of India’. I had asked for it as there were a lot of technical queries. The client’s plot lies in the outer horizontal surface and I was keen to know the guidelines AAI would use to freeze the maximum possible height. The slope of the obstacle surface, the distance from ARP and the key points. The meeting had been specifcally arranged for me but I could not reach on time. So the client met the chairman and collected the technical points. I then had to meet the client in their office (in Cannaught Place) and I could reach there only by 8:00pm due to the traffic. The information collected from the chairman was transferred to me along with another set of maps and drawings. So I have to start studying ( not again!).

Appu has been feeling low. She and her troupe are getting ready for a dance performance on ‘Teachers’ day’. She is mostly coping on her own while I am trying to close some work. She is also paying the price of keeping GC alive.
I had to make a choice between paying for the inetrnet or buying fruits or rations today. So I chose paying for the net ( I guess we always have choices). After all, being ‘connected’ is more important than being ‘alive’ these days.

It has been a day of ‘meetings’.

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Have a meeting scheduled today with the  ‘Airport Authority of India’. And a proposal needs to be sent. ‘Proposals’. There is always a high and a low associated with proposals. ‘High because it means a ‘possibility of work’. And ‘low’ because it is just a ‘possibility’ and it means ‘homework,’ research’,’ formatting’, ‘pricing’. So it might just be a long day today.

We were supposed to go to my brothers’ house yesterday around lunch time. It had been ‘officially’ declared that ‘we’ the ‘unofficially ousted’ had been ‘officially invited’.  It is a bit complicated. However, I was ‘called’ by the bank. The TOD has not been cleared as yet and I had to present my case before the RO (Regional Office) officials who were visiting the bank for an audit. So I had to rush there and I could come back only by evening. I made a feeble efffort to explain to the bankers how difficult it was to retain good people, how we were not aligned to do work in the government departments (and that is where most of the GIS work exists). Of course, these explanations were unnecessary and the bottomline was  ’clear the TOD’ and ‘regularize the account’ asap, else the account would be declared NPA. Red alert.

Appu took a small nap till then as she had been awake the entire night. So we managed to reach my brothers’ house only be evening. It was as expected, albeit a shade better than earlier times. I was told how mother had disapproved of the fact that I had been invited, how I should have been there in the afternoon when everyone was there, how I should have fought for my rights before taking a mutual divorce ( so that they did not have to experience even the slightest pang of guilt) coupled with some unwelcome comments on Appu. Anyway, I tied the Rakhi, got some shopping vouchers as a gift (they are supposed to change my life for at least a delta amount of time, that is what shopping can achieve at most), had dinner and came back. Their house is like a five star hotel complete with heavy ornate furniture, decorations and chandeliers. To spend an hour or two is fine there but anything longer than that would feel claustrophobic. Appu said very philosphically that the only part of the house where she felt some ‘realness’ or ‘freedom’ was the toilet. Awesome. I guess my brother and his wife did their best. And we have to be happy with that.

Back to the TOD,bills,salaries,looking for work, proposals. The office lease is over. So that is another sword hanging above our heads.

‘Look to this day, for it is the day of days’.

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