Aparna's blog » bank

Trying to be a leader

Aparna.Burjwal — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 07:10:30 +0000

The bank has relented seeing our past good and clean record ( It seems as if we are talking about criminals here!). So we have temporary relief and oxygen to continue working. The pipe in the radiator of the car has burst and the coolant is leaking out (Kuch to shani ka chakkar hai, the car is getting into trouble again and again). The movement of the planets in the universe. There must be something to it. The shifting of energies. So the job of the Pundits is not completely useless. After all, they can talk to the planets.

From time to time, we are on the edge of a precipice and miraculously, we are saved each time. Now I really wish to ask the Higher Power, ‘what do you really want man?’ I mean if we need to die then let us do it gracefully once and for all. And if we need to live, ‘ then let us do it in style’. I mean a few limousines, a few flats, offices, political contacts and the branded accessories (you know what I mean). Here we are, ‘dying, dying and then suddenly alive’. Very dramatic but please, this is really very tiring.

The newsletter has been completed (finally!). It is not perfect but what the hell. At least we have done it. It has been uploaded on the PrithviPraroop online shop. I look a shade better in the photograph pasted ( not like a moron at least). I am supposed to look in control, all in charge but I don’t think I have been able to fake it well. OK. So it is an attempt. So far so good.

I am coming back very late in the night and Appu and me have a deal for this month. I have to streamline things by the end of this month so that I can reach home earlier (??). Kaise hoga? I am alreayd scared. ‘Time’ like ‘Money’ is a very difficult thing to manage. At least ‘money’ can be created. There is absolutely no way of creating ‘time’.

I have to reach a state where I am ready to accept, to surrender to the fact that people cannot be changed. They will be who they are. That the only person I can change is me. So the actions, reactions, thoughts, feelings of other people are really not my property. Talking like a self proclaimed Guru (when everything else fails, this is the best remedy).

Losers will create losers.
And leaders will create leaders.

Trying to be a leader.

‘Peedha mein anand’

Aparna.Burjwal — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 07:42:23 +0000

And our case rests.
Chandan is not scared of the additional responsibilities. Lack of fear is a good starting point. Chandrakant is also holding on. And Ashok is trying to connect the dots. Trying to create some covalent bonding in the team. Churning. And more churning. And yet more churning. At the end of it we will be like 99.99% pure distilled precipitates. Till then.
I was on a cheque signing spree in the office yesterday. Of course with no money in the bank. As yet. I mean it will come. Hopefully. Anyway, everything is about speculation. Everything, every event, every action is about ‘possibilities’. Even ‘life’ itself is about speculation. The odds of being alive against the odds of dying any moment. That is what we play with every second.
‘Religion’ is for people who do not wish to go to hell. And ‘spirituality’ is for people who have been to hell and back. I think similarly ‘GC’ is for people who have seen the ‘downside’ of ‘meaningless work’, ‘ lack of freedom’ and the ‘shit’ of a mundane routine with no challenges and no ‘vision’. It is not an experience which everyone can enjoy or appreciate.

I really love the following lines from the poem ‘Madhushala’ of ‘Harivansh Rai Bachhan’.

‘Madiralay jaane ko ghar se chalta hai peenewala,
Kis path se jaoon, asmanjas mein hai woh bhola bhala,
Alag alag path batlaate sab, par mein ye batlata hoon,
Raah pakad tu ek musafir, pa jayeega madhushala,

And last but not the least:

‘peedha mein anand jise ho, aye meri madhushala’.

‘Peeda mein anand jise ho’.

‘What is’

Aparna.Burjwal — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 06:57:46 +0000

Balmiki had stationed himself at the bank for the limit enhancement. By afternoon it became clear that they were not willing to do it. So I had to rush (I am always rushing!) to meet the CM who is not actually the CM as a junior has become the functional CM. So I had to go to the Regional office to meet the GM who had very little time to hear me out but he committed to speaking with the concerned people (That is how Delhi is. The concerned talk to more concerned people and hence if you are not in the loop of concerned people, you basically do not exist). So now after all the running around, all we can do is wait with fingers crossed. Our fingers are always crossed (the word I think is perennial, month after month, year after year).

I think we are nearly done with the presentation for the Mumbai client. Now Chandrakant is exploring the possibilities in depicting the same in 3-d. Ashok is struggling with the development of the software. Everyday he faces new problems and has to look for new solutions. Chandan has been able to collect the maps with constituency boundaries of the states where the assembly elections are scheduled next year. So he has a base to begin work for the special category maps in the online shop. Om Prakash has created a new set of cropped images for the existing maps and is struggling with uploading them on the FTP. The newsletter has taken a backseat as of now as all our energies are being directed towards keeping the various projects afloat. Anyway no news is also good news. Our clients could also take a break from our crisis situations and never ending at that.

Appu is dealing with a lot of stuff alone: emotional upheaval, loneliness, the stress of the financial instability, the powerlessness of all that is going around us. And I am just busy trying to protect the office and the roof over our head. And to keep the electricity, water running and the phone lines alive. It is not enough. It is just the basics. But the basics are taking up so much time and energy.
The car is still being repaired. More time at the garage means a higher bill. Time is directly proportional to money. Scary thought. Dekh lenge. of course. Aur kar bhi kya sakte hain. The rents are also due with a huge truckload of other bills. Good. More weight means more muscles.

The mali has brought some lemon grass for my abundant cups of tea. A very good gift I must say. Much appreciated. Sometimes care and concern comes from quarters least expected. Reminds me of a colleague who came over from France for a short stay with us and as a parting gift, gave me a bagful of coals (I used to burn coal for heating the house in an ‘aginthi’).

Since the car is ‘in process’, Kundan is providing me with the pick and drop service to the office at a very economical cost. So far so good. At least I do not have to walk.

Wishes. Wants. would be’s. could be’s. should be’s.
And the directors’ cut.

‘What is’

Becoming to being

Aparna.Burjwal — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 07:04:17 +0000

The first day of the week. The targets for this week are: the newsletter, uploading of the Mumbai ward maps and cropped images, checking the integration of the payment gateway and finalization of the presentation for a site in Mumbai with of course the ‘management of payments’. The management of ‘people’ and of ‘money’ seems to take up 80% of the time. Only 20% is available for some ‘real’ work. The 80-20 ratio again.

The trying, the re-trying and the re-re-trying. That is all there is. To life and living. To move towards perfection. That is all we can do. That is all we need to do.

Have borrowed money from the market to keep us going. Also because the bank has not yet done the needful in terms of renewing and enhancing our limit. They just operate in another reference frame, non-newtonian I guess. Time does not matter. Or worse, it just stands still. Also they cannot understand the realm of ‘intellectual property’. They are still in the ancient age of ‘land, machine and raw material’. Cannot see anything else. And of course the last straw on the camels’ back is that they cannot even see a man standing beside me. Lo behold, the sentence has been pronounced. The judgement has been passed. What can be done. If my own family cannot believe in me, how can the ‘bankers’? After all, they are still outsiders. And this, just when we were beginning to believe that, this phase was over in our lives.

Appu is upset with me. I have been passing on my stress to her. Nothing new. I do this all the time. I wish I knew some way of protecting her from myself. from the effects of GC. I am truly sorry bebzer.
There is a new awareness. ‘Prostitution’ is not just about selling ones’s body for ‘money’. It encompasses selling one’s ‘soul’ or ‘emotions’ for any payoff ( a job, tender, promotion, control or more power) and not just money. It is scary to see that many of us do this all the time. Intentionally or unintentionally.

I would love to experience the humility which comes from being, becoming ‘all that the higher power’ intended us to be.

‘becoming’ to ‘being’

Not a soul to connect with

Aparna.Burjwal — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 18:15:48 +0000

Me and Appu were feeling very low last evening. We just went for a drive to India Gate. Roamed around a bit and had an icecream from the ‘thelas’ standing there. Also some candy just like kids in school. I think both of us felt better. The stress, the loneliness, the lack of a family, the constant struggle for survival has worn us down. I really do not know how to change all that. We came back with a little more ‘okayness’.

Got a call from AAI. You must be joking right? No, of course not. There was a call and there is a remote (extremely remote) possibility of some work (the size of an atom perhaps). So there is hope on the horizon. The excel sheets are all unmanageable. The outgoing is more. the incoming is, well zero. So we are jumping at any opportunity for work. And when we were asked whether we would be able to do it, My answer was, ‘of course’. I mean we always jump first and then face the consequences, specially in the area of work. We never ever say ‘no’. ‘Dekh lenge’. I mean we should be able to ‘crack it’. If we cannot, then we have no business being in the market. So either we ‘crack it’ or we ‘crack up’.

Today being a friday, it was Balmiki’s turn to cook. He prepared a dish of ‘mixed vegetables’ and it was very good. So all of us at GC are becoming self supporting in all areas. To be able to earn, to be able to live alone and to be able to cook. Good going.
We have submitted the required papers to the bank for the renewal of our limit and are waiting with our fingers crossed. As always. Sometimes it appears as if our fingers are perpetually crossed.

The weekend is here but we are working this saturday due to the Dussehra holiday during the week. We only have five working days and to lose even one of them is a loss. Dimpi is enjoying her holiday and Kamakhya is coping with the pressure of the increased workload . He is not being able to work on PHBAAS and the newsletter is also pending.

Sab kuch hai par kuch nahin hai. Kuch nahi hai par sab kuch hai. What an irony. Kya vidambna hai.
Its like a poem ( cannot remember which one) where the poet says:
‘water water everywhere but not a drop to drink’

‘people people everywhere and yet not a soul to connect with’

Let time take time

Aparna.Burjwal — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 07:44:01 +0000

There is ‘aloneness’ in leadership. There is ‘aloneness’ in ‘living’. And there is no way one can fill that in malls, with work or money. Yet round and round we go. Till we are tired and the new age gurus tell us to meditate. Or the travel agencies tell us to take a break (bascially so that they can make some money). Or we try and ‘buy’ a new glittering accessory or ‘relationship’ to kill the emptiness for a while. An instant painkiller so to say. But the emptiness refuses to go. It keeps coming back. In waves. And sometimes a surgery and clean-up is needed at a deep emotional level. And that is even more painful. So we keep running away to find quickfix solutions.

The bank accounts of all the team members have been opened. That had been on the agenda for a long time now. So one more target achieved. Now it will be easier for us to transfer the salaries directly to their account and they would be able to withdraw the same using their ATM’s. A write-up of our work has been published in a magazine floated by CREDAI for all their members (who are real estate developers). That is a huge achievement. I mean we have not paid them to write about us. They want the developers to know about our work
and its advantages. It is a step forward, however small.

Dimpi is leaving for a long holiday to her hometown. So it will be upon Narendra and Kamakhya to take on her work. It is good to have a home to go to. I never felt that. I never felt like I had a home.

For once the direction is not clear to us. For once, everything is hazy. Maybe we have taken on more than we can handle. Is it about work? Is it about money? Or is it about our self respect? or is it just about living?

I guess this too shall pass. Clarity will emerge. In its own time.

Let time take time.

‘Jai Hind’

Aparna.Burjwal — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 05:19:01 +0000

A visit to AAI, vegetables in the house, letter for limit renewal to the bank, petrol re-fill for the car and ad infinitum. Amongst all of these, the only ” Aaj ki dhyadi” wala work has been the visit to AAI. I was able to clarify one doubt and that is a huge achievement. Not that we are very welcome there. But what needs to be done, has to be done. One of our clients in Mumbai has filed numerous RTI’s asking for information and AAI thinks that we are behind it. It is untrue but in their heads, it will be true until proven false. So we have to live with their resentments. It is difficult for people to change.

Architects are finally waking up to the reality that just CAD drawings are not sufficient. That it is important to link them to the surface of the earth for realistic outputs. So we may have them working with us as a team rather than against. Finally, we have a small (really tiny) project in Mumbai. Like an icebreaker. A they say, something is better than nothing.
At least some of the bills (the age old story) will get paid.

Many invitations for all kinds of conferences all over. Have no wish to attend. Fake it to make it all the time. Paste a smile, look and act successful and keep exchanging cards. Any robot could do that. There should be better ways to market one’s work and connect (if shaking hands and eating together can be called connecting).

Appu has been experiencing mood swings and is not going to college today. I wish I knew how to support her better emotionally. Life and living. Entirely different realms.
We are on an even keel now. The accounts are getting under control. PHBAAS and the online shop are in process. Hopefully, the payment gateway issue should be closed by next week.
I have to believe that what we are being able to do on a daily basis is sufficient. If it is the best we can do on a given day, it is alright. There is no need to push ourselves to do harder. We just need to keep doing what we can on an everyday basis. Easier said than done.

We have two boys for housekeeping in the evening shift. They have worked in the Air Force and whenever we pack up in the night, they always sign off by saying ‘Jai Hind’. It feels good. It is strange. There is always a sense of pride in saying and hearing this salutation.

‘Jai Hind’

A single breath

Aparna.Burjwal — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 07:45:36 +0000

The ‘men’ are managing the office. That is what we had planned a long time ago. That the ‘men’ should be in the front. That I (i.e a woman) should be at the backend. That is how the world prefers it. We have a senior accountant who is mature and very down to earth. We also have a junior accountant to support him. Amazing. A couple of days ago we had no accountant at all. I guess we are extremists. All or nothing. We also have an experienced HR/Admin manager. And the senior accountant and HR manager are being able to work in alignment which is awesome. It means the company is in safe hands, there are fewer phone calls for me and a little less stress. Hopefully, this weekend will be better than the last one where I reached my breaking point.

The bankers are ‘pleased’ with our performance ( as long as their instalments are paid !). It is time to renew our working capital limits and for once they have a positive attitude. We had forgotten to give our newsletter to them and so in his next meeting, Anand (the senior accountant) promptly presented a copy to all the senior officers in the bank and it appears that they are ‘mildly’ impressed. At least the newsletter has served some purpose. So it is that we have submitted the required documents to the bank and this time round we are not scared. We are sure that the bank will do its best to support us in our growth (kaunsi growth bhai? of course financial. They have nothing to do with our emotional or spiritual growth!)

Dimpi has done some amazing things with the online shop. Without any formal training, she has been able to make changes in the X-cart, the software behind the online shop and in the home page of our official website. We have formally launched the height map for Mumbai, PHBAAS and needed the heading along with the write-up on our home page and she has been able to upload it alongwith the editing in the graph. well done Dimpi. We presented her with a certificate for the best ‘project team lead’ yesterday.

Yesterday was friday ( a day when a chosen team member does the cooking for the evening) and Kamakhya cooked a special Assamese dish with steamed rice. It was very delicious and a welcome change from our daily routine of dal,chawal,sabzi. Good work Kamakhya. Of course, now Ajay (The HR manager) has introduced a ‘pizza lunch’ which means that every thursday afternoon, pizzas are ordered for lunch. It is Ajay’s turn next friday and he has said that he would require to take some cooking classes from his wife for doing it. He also mentioned that traditionally in his family, the ‘men’ never entered the ‘kitchen’ which was essentially a womans’ domain but that he was breaking this tradition and had no issues in helping his wife. That is extra brownie points for you Ajay. That indicates a lot of open mindedness, tolerance and compassion.

Still waiting for a breakthrough in projects. A new airport is coming up in Navi Mumbai so PHBAAS will need some additional work. Another proposed radar in Mumbai. Will the radars ever leave us in peace?
We are planning to prepare some special maps for the online shop depicting constituency boundaries for the elections for the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha. Narendra Rana has been asked to take U turn and leave the creation of the traditional maps for a later stage. Since we have already advertised for the position of a GIS executive to assist in the online shop, he will have the required additional support.

Most of the bills for this month have been paid. Thank God. Of course there is the next month but that is tommorrow. For today, we are safe. We are not being thrown out of the office or the house and that is good. Very good.

Today is all that matters. This moment.
This breath which differentiates the living from the dead.

A single breath.

Beginnings and Endings

Aparna.Burjwal — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 07:38:42 +0000

A lot of energy is spent in just drawing boundaries with people. I guess that is why it is so stressful to be around people. Its easier to be alone. The physical boundaries are very clear. It is the emotional boundaries which are not in the visible realm and hence easier to cross all the time. I could not fathom the dysfunctionality of my own family, the hidden agendas for a very long time. Also, since it is covered on the surface with ‘love’, it is even more lethal. We will do anything for ‘love’ you see. So all the advertisments display this happy family scene, of course if you buy their house. Else you will not have a happy family. How ridiculous !

What is there to say?What is there to write? the truth is one. And it is absolute. We are looking for a state of happiness. A state of being in peace. A state of being connected to our source. Unfortunately this does not come with money or status or work. But we keep looking. Maybe, someday,somewhere, sometime.

Appu has her dance practice today. And I need to get the rations (the atta, dal, chawal). OK. Like it or not, let us just do it. JDI policy. Just do the next right thing. And keep doing it.
How boring. How monotonous.

The limit renewal in the bank is pending. We have to submit the papers in the next week or else our working capital will be reduced to zero. Some dollars need to be transferred to Adam and Paul for the online shop and the search for a web developer is also to be closed. Then there is the water proofing for the technical section in the office, the marketing of PHBAAS and the maps for the online shop. Where is the revenue guys? Show me the revenue. Quite like a mirage in the desert sands. OK, then where is the oasis?

I see new leaves sprouting in some of the plants and that gives me hope. Beginnings are inspiring.
Maybe endings are too. We just never look at them that way.

Beginnings and endings.

And the path connecting the two. Keep wondering which one is more important, the beginning, the ending or the path itself.

Insanity vs sanity

Aparna.Burjwal — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 05:43:58 +0000

Sometimes the trauma of all that has happened comes back to visit me. And I am not able to cope. That is what happened last evening. Appu had to cope with the insane part of me. I wish she did not have to go through with this. I wish I had a different past. But then wishes are just that, wishes. A lot of incidents in the past few days have acted like triggers and I lost my balance. I drove the car at a crazy speed, I was shouting and screaming and crying. And after a long time this urge to take sleeping pills came back with a great force.

And in the midst of all this craziness, managed to get a bag for the files I need to carry all the time along with the office keys and the other associated jing bang. So the infamously famous ‘jhola’ can go. Actually it is tme for me to retire. Maybe another few years till all the loans are paid off. Hopefully I can retain my sanity till then. But looking at what happened yesterday that is a huge question mark.

Tried making ‘Gujiyas’ at home for ‘Holi’. They did not turn out to be too good. Need to re-try. The fridge has conked off. And the service center has been promising to send someone for the last three days. Thats service in this part of the world. The gas cylinder has been bought in black from an employee of the gas agency where we are registered. The gas was booked long ago but what we could not get legally from the agency has been provided in black to us from the very same gas agency. I have no idea how this country works. And for how long we will remain poor in thought. Black and white. In thought and in action.

I am trying desperately to re-gain my lost balance.

love and money. AR Rahman endorsing cars. beautiful girls endorsing all kinds of products. sometimes its comic. no mostly its hilarious. If you buy a good looking home, you can have a happy family. OK agreed. The probability of having a happy family will increase. But there is no surity that it will happen. Illusions. how we love them. it keeps us going I guess. its better to be in the race than to be out of it. kuch to kar rahen hain. even if its meaningless.

I am insane. But maybe sometimes insanity is better than sanity. Who knows.

Insanity vs sanity.