To be a child again

Tag: financially

To be a child again

Jan. 04 Uncategorized 1 comment

The phone has rung again. After the deadness of three months, there is some activity. There have been calls from one or two clients we thought we had lost. The New Year seems to be ushering in a new turn for us. emotionally, spiritually and workwise. The Hyderabad project is moving towards closure, although this is the toughest part in any project. A single error, one wrong move could cause us to lose the match. Just one wrong decision, one inaccurate judgement is all it takes to become a loser.

The GRC of AAI has finally been dissolved. I am sure this is a good decision which will lead to more transparency, responsibility and accountability in the processes being followed. The Ministry has moved and how. Good work guys. This decision has restored our faith to a large extent in the powers of the universe, in the basic goodness of humanity and all who have initiated this change. Hats off to you.

We have been broke. For quite some time now. A state which is not unfaniliar to me and Appu. However, it has extended for a while now and the stress is getting unbearable. But the Appellate Committee has been formed and the members are not against us or our work. Hopefully we will get a chance to present our work in person and that is a very healthy sign. Our days of penury should end soon and we are waiting and watching with bated breath. Fingers crossed for now. Since we have specialized in this field now, it would be difficult for us to begin specializing in some other sector, unless of course we can open a coffee shop somewhere, a thought which has crossed our minds with no action taken.

Appu has worked very hard to make the workshop scheduled for Jan 13 on ‘Time Management’ a success. It has been entirely her idea, her implementation that has brought about such a huge response for the event. In her own way, she has become a huge support system (and that too online!) for us, our work and way of life. Thank you bebu. Very much. You are the best.

I miss my parents. Sometimes. No, I should say that I miss being parented. Miss being a child. The awareness comes in waves which wash over me and completely overwhelm me. I think these feelings never go away. This wanting to be a child.

To be a child again.

Tags: AAI, activity, again, Appellate, awareness, basci, bated, be, best, breath, broke, child, clients, coffee, committee, crossed, deadness, decision, emotionally, error, extended, field, financially, fingers, good, goodness, GRC, guys, hats, huge, Hyderabad, inaccurate, judgement, life, lose, loser, match, ministry, miss, months, move, new year, off, online, overwhelm.wanting, parents, penury, people, phone, project, rung, scheduled, shop, specialized, spiritually, stress, support, system, Time Management, toughest, unfaniliar, universe, ushering, washes, waves, work, workshop

Another moment in time

May. 16 Uncategorized no comments

My father came to visit me. What can I say? Kya bol sakti hoon. The dead cannot speak. I mean if I were alive ( as long as I was alive), I had questions. Why did you abandon me? Emotionally, financially and physically. Today I can look at him with nothing in my eyes. I ask routine stuff. How is mother? How is Ankur, my brother. Apparently he has opened an office in the US and invested crores there. I am happy for him. That is all. I wish that my family could have also respected the women and girls in their house. I wish. Maybe now even the wishing is over. It is what it is. And what you cannot get in your own family of origin, how can you get it from the world outside. Never got any self-respect in my own house. Still looking for it outside. Maybe someday, even this search will get over. In the ghats.

The DGPS survey of the GCP’s for the rectification of the satellite imagery begins tommorrow in Mumbai. The work for at least two sites needs to be finalized by next week. So there is a lot of pressure on Chandrakant. Chandan has cartographed the Delhi maps very beautifully and hopefully they will be uploaded on the online shop this week. Good work Chandan. Rahul has made drastic changes in the interface of the shop and it is now looking and feeling like an e-commerce site. well done Rahul. Keep it up.

AAI is behaving very strangely. No one is willing to talk. No one is open to sharing anything. Its all hush hush. What is there to hide? What is the fear? I mean what is technically correct will remain correct. And what is technically not possible cannot be allowed. To problem kya hai? God knows.

Appu’s exams are over. That is a big relief. I wanted to drop her for her last exam but then I had a meeting fixed up and She went alone. It bothers me that I am not there when she needs me. Now ’sleeping’ is the most important activity on her agenda.

Another day. Another 24 hours.

Another moment in time.

Tags: 24 hours, AAI, abandon, alive, alone, another, behaving, bothers, brother, cannot, cartographed, crores, dead, delhi maps, DGPS, e-commerce, emotionally, exam, eyes, family of origin, father, financially, ghats, girls, good work, imagery, moment in time, mother, Mumbai, nothing, office, online shop, Outside, pressure, questions, rectification, respected, routine, satellite, search, site, sites, sleeping, speak, spiriyually, strangely, stuff, survey, uploaded, us, visit, wishing, women, work, world

‘To be content’

Feb. 02 Uncategorized no comments

OK. Hold your breath. This one is unbelievable (but when have believable things happened with us?). The payment gateway of the shop has been successfully integrated and it is working fine!! Just when we had given up hope of it ever working fine. Just when we thought that our e-commerce venture would go down the drain, that it would never work with all the technical glitches and the fiasco with the last team( I mean so many have happened, right!). So the shop is technically and financially open and we should be in business soon( I mean not even one of our maps has been sold as yet but what the hell).

Thanks to Hariom and Gagan ( who has recently joined and is a fresher). Thank you guys. For winning this one.

Hariom is also very near to testing the logic to be used in the software for the calculations with reference to the surfaces and the instruments for a single airport. Chandrakant is doing some reverse engineering for a site in Mumbai and he will also need to visit it very soon to collect a few coordinates. Amit has joined us in accounts and OmPrakash in administration. Let us see. Fingers crossed as always. The beginning is good. I have already shouted once (or maybe twice) and they have not quit. Hope is a good thing anyway.

It is so difficult for us to just manage the office ,bills,clients,meals. Wonder how HP manages the earth with its rotation and every miniscule life on it. It would be good to exchange notes with HP. I mean free of cost of course. Why would HP charge us? It is only man who cannot think of anything without charging.

A lot of potential team members are reading the blog. Sone pe suhaga. I mean why would they like to join after knowing all the nitty gritties of GC? A million dollar question. Kya hoga tera kaaliya. I hope it cannot get any worse. That the worst is over ( we have said that many times in the past too).

I don’t think I am writing intelligent stuff. I should pack up. One of the tyres in my car is punctured and that will need changing before I can reach home, hopefully before the time freezed by Appu which is 1:30 pm ( in the night of course). The team packed up early today (which means by 9:30pm) and that is amazing. They have only been able to leave by 11:30pm or 12:30pm in the past few months.

‘Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence,

And I am learning, whatever state I am in,

therein to be content.’ – Helen Keller

Tags: accounts, administration, airport, amazing, beginning, bills, breath, Business, calculations, charging, clients, collect, content, coordinates, cost, crossed, darkness, dollar, drain, e-commerce, earth, engineering, everything, exchange, few, fiasco, financially, fingers, free, freezed, fresher, GC, glitches, hell, hold, HP, instruments, intelligent, learning, life, logic, man, maps, meals, million, miniscule, months, Mumbai, nitty gritty, notes, office, OK, packed, past, payment gateway, punctured, question, quit, reverse, rotation, shop, shouted, silence, single, site, software, sold, sone, state, stuff, suhaga, surfaces, team, technical, testing, therein, tyres, unbelievable, value, venture, winning, wonders

‘To herald new beginnings’

Dec. 31 Uncategorized no comments

Debt, equity,funding, venture capital,angel investor, angel. Angel, where is the angel? Dur dur tak koi angel nahin hai (Please look carefully yaar, maybe we cannot see the angel). My brain got jammed last night. Too may equations with too many variables. Multivariate analysis. Just needed a cocoon of silence. Could not connect with Appu also.

What the hell do we really want in our lives. Money, name, fame,sex,power? lal batti ki gadi? VIP treatment? What do we want? For GC to grow, getting known publicly, have excess money? No, we wish to be self supporting. emotionally, spiritually and financially. For Appu to be happy and free. For us to be able to live with self respect. And to reach here, what a path we have to follow. And how difficult it becomes on a day to day basis. Forget the day. On a moment to moment basis.

Still struggling with the payment gateway integration for the online shop. We were planning to make the shop completely functional before the arrival of the New Year. But HP has to step in now. Cannot do anything to control the outcome/s of events in our life. Jab hoga tab hoga. Read Chapter 15 of ‘Bhagwaad Gita’. Very useful in such times. And anyway good things take time. Hariom needs to read the guidelines. So does Chandrakant. I have done some shouting and screaming in the office regarding the issue. Hopefully, it will have some effect for at a least a short while. Unless we have all become shameless. Ritesh is still here. Chandan is committed to getting the shop moving with the constituency maps for the upcoming assembly elections. Best of luck Chandan. Keep the energy flowing.

‘Tenders’, dekh lo yaar. Take a look. At least try and bid again in one of them. Very unwanted path. Dekh lete hain. We will see. Worse come to worst. Shove come to push. We will have to do what it takes. To live.

New Year, party, celebration. All for just passing the time. True celebration would be of the spirit. In aloneness. In quietness. In peace.

Celebration of the spirit.

To herald new beginnings.

Tags: angel, anyway, assembly elections, beginnings, Bhagwaad Gita, brain, celebration, cocoon, constituency maps, debt, emotionally, energy, equations, equity, excess, fame, financially, flowing, GC, good, guidelines, hell, herald, HP, jammed, live, money, multivariate analysis, name, new, new year, party, path, peace, power, push, quietness, screaming, self supporting, sex, shouting, shove, silence, spirit, spiritually, tenders, things, time, true, unwanted, variables, venture capital, worse, worst

Lease for 24 hours

Dec. 21 Uncategorized no comments

End of the day. Very hectic. Two meetings ( as if a lot is achieved in meetings), one conference call and in the end a discussion with the team. I hope we have achieved the ‘aaj ki dhyadi’ today. Labourers that we are in the realm of GIS. We have to earn our daily bread. The traffic, the noise, the road rage. The intolerance of people. The lies. The manipulations. That is where the real tiredness lies. Not in the actual work.

We are nearly done with the pre-feasibility reports of a few sites. Chandan has uploaded the UP district maps in hindi along with their scale, description and price. Waiting for the first sale to happen on the online shop. Hariom is finding his feet and has inched forward in the application we are developing using open source GIS. That is a huge breakthrough. Just the fact that we are moving forward and are not stuck, at least technically. Emotionally and financially, there are still miles to cover.

We have found a decent cook for the office and everyone is happy about the quality of food being served (Thank God!). The rats are being taken care of and the office is clean. Quite an achievement.

We are approaching the end of the month (Do I need a reminder?). And that means the beginning of next month. Need I say anymore. The excel sheet is damn scary. The outgoing being much higher than the incoming (which is a trickle). Time to hand over. Surrender. Time to just get on my knees and ask for a miracle. Again (How many times can God do a miracle for us?).
There are successful people all around. Seems like they have it all. But cannot compare their outsides with our insides. They have their race to run and we have ours. There is no competition at all. Hence no need for feeling resentful. We are where we are supposed to be. period. Take it or leave it.

I am glad the day is over for today. Have not been feeling too well since morning. Appu also needs a visit to the doctor for her toe which has been hurting since she went to Pune for her performance. Tommorrow. Tommorrow is always another day.

Another lease for 24 hours.

24 hours.

Tags: 24 hours, Aaj, achievement, actual, application, approaching, call, clean, conference, cook, dance, day, decent, description, dhyadi, district, doctor, emotionally, end, feeling, financially, food, GIS, hectic, Hindi, insides, ki, knees, lease, lies, manipulations, maps, meetings, miracle, month, noise, office, online shop, open source GIS, outsides, period, pre-feasibility, price, rats, real, realm, report, resentful, roadrage, sale, scale, surrender, take, tiredness, toe, traffic, UP, well, work

An everyday job

Nov. 08 Uncategorized no comments

Chandan, Om Prakash and Ashok stayed back in the office last night. Kuch to ho jayega. I do not think we will die. With a committed team one cannot fall. But I do hope that this committment, patience and perseverance can last. Till the mission is achieved. Even after the infatuation with the job is over.That is until we become completely self supporting. emotionally, spiritually and financially.
Are we a brand? Or an anti brand? People ask me: ‘dhandha vanda karna hai ki nahin? itni honesty se kya hoga?’ I do not know. maybe this is not the way to run a business. But I do not know of any other way. Or let us say that any other way would mean losing out on self respect which is what we wanted in the first place. Cannot trade ‘self respect for ‘money’. So if that means that we live and die on the battlefield, so be it.
Still ‘looking’ for work. ‘waiting’ for a miracle.
Open the shop. Suit up, boot up and show up. nothing more. nothing less.

Interviews, accounts, pantry, admin,plants. Like breathing.

An everyday job.

Tags: accounts, admin, anti brand, battlefield, brand, breathing, committed, dhanda, emotionally, everyday job, financially, honesty, interviews, jayega, Karna, kuch, last, mission, money, night, nothing, office, open, pantry, patience, persevearnce, plants, self respect, self supporting, shop, show up, spiritually, suit up, team, trading

Fullness and emptiness

Apr. 23 Uncategorized no comments

The books in the house are in the same condition as my ‘insides’. Tattered and shattered. I lost faith in books the night my stuff got thrown out on the roads due to non-payment of rent and me and my daughter spent a night on the roads. It has been a long journey since then, emotionally and financially. The faith in books has slowly begun to seep back. But there is still a long way to go before it is fully restored (and that is a possibility which seems remote at this point).

No payments have come in this month and there is nothing to be done. I mean we have done what we can do in terms of submission of work and raising of invoices. Now we have to wait. ‘To wait’, is the most difficult task on this earth, for anything or anyone. Many times Appu needs to remind me that ‘everything is alright’ and ‘will be alright’. That there is no need to panic. The lease for this house is getting over this month and we might need to move. Ok, one thing at a time. We will see. dekh lenge. one step at a time.

It seems to me that every worthwhile battle at some level is a battle between the ‘inside’ and the ‘outside’. And on a spiritual plane. The rest is just drama. sound and fury signifying nothing.

We need utensils in the house (since most of them were sent to the office). Maybe also mattresses (as they were also sent to the office). But it is not on the priority list. ho jayega. at some point. we are fine as of now. Planning to attend the NA meeting this evening. Appu wants to come along. I guess this is the only family we have known in a long time. Also kundan celebrates his 6th year of being clean today.

There are tears and there is laughter. There is pain and there is joy. There is sadness and a sense of being alive.

There is fullness and there is emptiness.

Tags: alive, battle, birthday, books, clean, condition, drama, emotionally, emtiness, faithmstuff, financially, fullness, fury, house, insides, invoices, journey, joy, laughter, lease, long, mattresses, NA meeting, non-payment, pain, panic, payments, plane, possibility, remote, rent, restored, roads, shattered, sound, spiritual, step, submission, tattered, tears, utensils, work

Connection ki keemat

Jul. 24 Uncategorized no comments

We made a serious mistake by taking the project from Yashi. Without doing any background check. without checking the people behind it. without checking the credentials. The consequences have been disastrous. It will take us a long time to recover emotionally, financially and spiritually.

I am angry.

Any break in commitment always causes huge losses whether it is between parents and children, whether it is between employers and employees and whether it is between a service provider and a client. and Yashi has broken many.

But what is bothering me is whether there are clients out there who are not dysfunctional.Who can respect work and people. Mostly GIS is needed for the management and decision making of ‘infrastructure’ which is under the control of government departments. So we have to deal with bureaucracy and that takes up more time than the actual work. That is why everyone wants to do an IAS and become a bureaucrat. Short cut to a good marriage alliance, power, money. Aur kya chahiye.

Leaving for Jaipur on Monday. Our trips should be financed by Yashi or JDA. How many times have we travelled to Jaipur to sort out the issue? We are only being offered Rs. 2.5 lakh (and we are being pressured to remove the blog) against the Rs. 3.9 lakh we are owed. Exploit kar lo. Pehle angrezon ne kiya. Aab bureaucrats (retired and in service) aur politicians kar rahe hain. Exceptions to honge. Only we are not being able to find them. We always land up at the wrong place with the wrong people.

Or maybe doing good clean work and being paid for it respectfully is an anomaly in our system. We do not respect work. We do not respect people. We respect caste, alliances, family connection, sarkari connection, political connection, any connection. Aur woh to hamare paas hai nahin.

par connection to hona hi chahiye. lal batti ki gadi mein aao to sab kuch maph hai. Jai hind ka nara lagao aur hind ko hi nashta karo.

As they say, everybody wishes to reach the top (of something) but by the time one reaches it, it is just not worth it.

Tags: alliance, angry, break, commitment, dysfunctional, emotionally, financially, government department, infrastructure, mistake, political connection, power, project, recover, sarkari connection, service provider, spiritually, top, wrong place

Here and now

Jul. 17 Uncategorized 4 comments

There are times when there is bankruptcy in all areas of one’s life, emotionally,spiritually and financially. That is what I am experiencing at the moment. I have nothing to offer to anyone, not even to myself. To sustain GC has been more than a 24*7 job. It has ensured that I have not been available for significant people in my life whom I love. My daughter being the first one on that list. Between bills, instalments and constant crisis situations, a lot has been lost.

There was a time when I had started my earlier company, Coordinates Solutions Pvt. Ltd., (from which I later resigned) when I had nothing. I had to leave my daughter with her father and grandparents as I did not have a place to live in Delhi. And there was no reason to really live. And a dead soul can face anything. I had to go to Mumbai on work and after the day was over, I stood on the beach past midnight. It was lonely with just me and the sound of waves. But the loneliness inside was so much greater than the loneliness outside. I stood there and as each wave came towards me, I silently said to myself that I could face it. However big it might be, I had nothing more to lose.

Have been having similar feelings since the past few days.

I used to love listening to classical music, specially Kishori Amonkar. Have not been able to do that for quite a while now. The car does not have a CD player and there is always work to do in the house and office.

The office rent is not yet gone. Appu needs to visit a psychologist. The CA is meeting the investors today. Hopefully HP (Higher Power) will step in and get us a good deal. Met Imitiaz in the office regarding the Atlas. He has always been there when needed. We worked as a team earlier. Hopefully, we can do the same now.

Radhika from my Alanon group called. she found me on facebook. she was keen to meet me as I have not been attending meetings for a long time now. she also introduced me to mothers’ pride, the school where she is working currently to enable me to work as a consultant for a while to conduct workshops for teachers.

And since then we have shared a bond. A new meeting has started and I am hoping that I can attend it today. Get some sanity back in my life. I also connected with Munesh (from my IIT Delhi days) and he is now posted in Delhi (a senior bureaucrat now). He always had a larger than life vision and of course he is now a member of a group promoting a boundaryless world. Hopefully, we will meet in the week to come.
His take was that I had put in enough hard work. Just needed to make money now. And of course the two are different things altogether!

July 15 was my recovery birthday. I remember I was invited to the French embassy for their annual celebration on July 14, 2001 and that was the last time I had wine. So I completed maybe 8 years away from alcohol although I must say that life is not any easier now. I mean get up at 6:00 am, pump chalao, then take a look at all the bills and organize food in the house. Not a very inspiring way to begin the day, I must say.

Being with human beings can be exhausting. I just need to go on a trek maybe and experience the silence, the strength, the stability and the magnificence of nature.

Tags: alanon, bankruptcy, beach, bills, CA, classical music, emotionally, facebook, financially, house, human being, instalments, investors, midnight, mountains, office, recovery, spiritually, trek, wave, wine

Tag: financially