On behalf of Global Coordinates, I would like to thank Adam and Paul of webschematic for doing a stupendous job of creating our site and hosting it for so many years. We would also like to wish them great success in their chosen paths. Thank you Adam. And thank you Paul for the smooth handover of the sites without major hiccups and for being there for us unconditionally.

Chandan, Ritesh and Altaf have left. They could not take the pressure of gettting the online shop up and moving anymore. They have quit midway. Altaf anyway came in after desperate attempts to get a job. After having one, he could not value it. Ritesh had just begun moving on the learning curve. Maybe the effort required to be a winner was too much for him (notwithstanding his IIT tag). All the best guys. Maybe freedom and responsibility is not your cup of tea.

Queries for training. For forming a consortium for a tender. Good signs. But we need more than just signs. More than just opportunities. We need to win the race.

Theree steps forward. Two steps backward. Or maybe four.

The same dance. One two three. One two three.

Time to try a new choreography.

Chandrakant is in Mumbai today to pick up the coordinates of a few sites. ‘Coordinates’, the be all and end all of our existence. Our life depends on it. And of course he has flown and was very excited about the trip (specially the part where the air hostesses come in). Chandan has uploaded the district maps of UP in hindi. Quite a feat for us. The testing of the payment gateway integration for the online shop finally seems to be moving towards completion. Hopefully it should be complete by the end of this year. We need to start selling the maps. Revenue, revenue. Think of ways and means to generate more. and more. Jo jeeta wohi sikander hai bhai. Keep earning.
Hariom is figuring out a way to run spatial queries for detecting the surfaces where the site lies using open source GIS. He is moving. Sometime just moving is enough. At least we are not standing still.

Appu is back. It was a tiring trip. She could not really gel with her group ( most of them indulged in binge drinking and ogling at boys occasionally). So it was not entirely an ‘unforgettable trip’. But it was an experience. They came third and were loudly cheered during their performance. She is glad she is back and I am glad too. Too much ‘aloneness’ leads to ‘loneliness’.

We have four housekeeping guys in the office. Two in the morning shift and two in the night. We continue to serve breakfast, lunch and dinner, all cooked in the pantry of the office. A tall order by any means. Its tough to arrange the milk, vegetables, curd on a daily basis. The weekend is here. Which also means it is time to get the weekly rations. My God. I mean the week has ended too early. Two meetings lined up for this evening (late evening, night hi bolo). Have kept no meeting for tommorrow. Just need to be. To not have to rush every minute of the day. To not have the mind think continuously about the next task on the list.

Kya paya. Kya khoya. Pata nahin. What did we lose? What did we gain? Do not know the accounts as yet. I guess the balance sheet will be prepared in the end. When is the end? Or is it every moment? Or at the end of each day? Before the next day begins?

Hisaab Kitaab. Accounting. of time. of good deeds and bad. Of kindness and cruelty. Of honesty and dishonesty. Too complicated for human beings. We can only handle the accounting of money. Our 2D thinking cannot go beyond it to the realm of multi-dimensional accounting. Toh chod do. So let us leave it to the universe.

The story of our lives.

Hisaab Kitaab.

OK. So we are free from another potential dangerous virus threat.

Chandan has a lot on his shoulders now as far as the online shop goes. Chandrakant too will need to handle the project and the newsletter. Guys, the shake-ups have not been intentional at all.

Saturday, a cleaning day. And what a cleaning it has been. Of viruses and dirt. The plotter is working again (Oh really?).
The UPS is working ( cause for celebration, however small). And the salaries have been paid (That is why the dude left sweetheart!)

waiting for dawn to break.

For a new morning.

Its a miracle that they have just picked up the car. Not me. I am sure they would love to pick me up, control my life and make me grovell to their whims and wishes. Thank God I can breathe. Its just the car that they have attacked. As yet.

Kuch naya to hai nahin. I mean this has been going on for years. the unwritten rule being ‘ Do as we say or face the consequences’. So from time to time me and appu have to pay the cost of choosing this path. If we wish to live with self respect, it is a huge problem. According to those in power(any kind of power like being a man, or being a cop, or being the president of a RWA) we should live, but without any dignity. If we bend our knees, if we ask, no beg for help, then its alright. They will condescendingly grant us the right to exist else we have to face their anger and wrath. Time after time.

I guess slavery is embedded in the very marrow of our bones. So anyone trying to be free is anathema. Be a slave or have a slave. But in someway, slavery should be a part of your life. That is the mantra for the ‘sarkari babus’, for anyone in any position.

Appu has left for Pilani this morning. I hope she has a good time away from all this harassment. Since dance is her passion, I also hope that their team can perform well and feel proud of themselves.

The new team members are slowly gearing up for the long marathon ahead. I am sure some of them will not be able to take the pressure and fall out but I am hoping that a few will remain to take up the challenge.

Feeling completely drained of any energy. Need HP to pick me up and carry me through this shit.

Right now.

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’

Whenever I leave for the office, I check the needle of the petrol tank. If it is above the reserve mark, I feel grateful that I can switch on the AC in the car. Small things. I feel grateful for the car itself. ‘surrender’, I am learning is the most powerful way of being. Let us add ‘complete’ to it. ‘Complete surrender’ would be better. To the powers of the universe. Trying to control people, things and events causes more unmanageability than going with the flow. But ‘letting’ go is even more tougher than ‘trying to control’. Still in the process of learning.

This is a long weekend. After a very long time. The office is closed for three days. A welcome break for all in the team as well as for Appu. Still figuring out the list of ‘to do’ tasks over the weekend. Have brought all the accounts related files to the house. The filing needs to be done properly since most of the bills are lying haphazardly and have not even been punched. That is going to be a herculean task. Apart from which the rations will need to be bought for the house and the office. The rest is still unclear and hopefully clarity will dawn before the weekend disappears.

Project chahiye. Sabko chahiye bhaiya. What’s new. Kuch aur baat karo. Payment chahiye. Again, what’s new? kabhie to koi aur bhasha bolo.
Bank instalments, please not again. The salaries have been released. Thank God. At least something is positive.

Today is Rakhi and no one from my family has called. It is for the best. There never has been any relationship for the past so many years. Now the facade is also gone. At least everything is real. There is no fakeness. They do not want me in their life. Its easier to deal with reality than with faked fakeness.

I hope to spend some tme with Appu. It has been quite a while.
The rest is the daily humdrum of life and living. The noise, the drama, the ‘being busy’ part.

To get a moment of quietness in the madness of everyday life would be a great acheievement.

‘ Just a moment of quietness’.

There is a new guard in the office. The old one also just walked away after taking his salary. All of us, constantly looking for greener pastures not understanding that who we are never changes with a location or a job. The interviews for filling in the post of HR/Admin are in process and hopefully we will have someone by the end of the week. Ashok has sumbled upon yet another roadblock and this time round we are back to step 0. The software engine he was using has been apparently taken off the market and now we need to look for a new engine to build the application. This has been truly devastating. Just when we were thinking of launching the first module, we have been thrown off track completely.

Acounts, HR, bills, client, money, repair, maintenance, pantry, plants. Ok. So what’s the deal. The deal is that all of it cannot work in synchronization all the time. Something or the other will not work on any given particular day and we have to learn to live with that. The online shop is moving mm by mm. We are still struggling to understand X-Cart, the software running the online shop. Paul has yet to check the integration of paypal with the shop and the interface is quite a mess as of now. Reflects our inner state quite well, I must say. At least the inside and the outside are matching. There is no discrepancy.

The birds have flown away. It was quite an experience to watch the eggs hatch and see the birds grow and have enough strength to fly away.

To give up or not to give up. There is a choice.

Each moment.

Dimpi, Bhagat and Narendra have taken on the responsibility of shaping up the online shop before August 8, 2011, the launch date freezed for the shop. We have requested Paul and Adam to check the working of the paypal account since it is showing an error. We tried buying one of our own maps and the transaction did not get completed. The money transaction is important. At the end of the day. It is the only measure by which success is measured in the outside world.

I think I am done with the corporate world. Even without making loads of money. The whole process is quite meaningless (But I think I am saying that today because the office rent can be paid). Its amazing how philosophical words can be understood once the basics are in place.

I have placed a small tulsi plant on my table. Just some way of connecting with HP. The bird who has built a nest in one of the trees in our courtyard is very protective of her babies. The eggs have hatched and I was just trying to peep into the nest today to take a look and the bird flew around my head making a loud sound. I got the message and retreated.I was just thinking that, when even the birds are so protective of their children, how is it that my mother could just abandon me. Never got any answer to that. And I guess I never will.

Ashok is planning to finish the first basic distance module by friday. Bhagat and Balram have also defined their deadlines. Dimpi and Narendra will work on the interface. So far so good. We are all trying. ‘Trying sound good’. But it is never good enough for this world. After all we have been trying for several years now. It never worked in the outside world. The bankers said they only understand money. The landlord said that he only understands rent.
So we have to do better than trying. We have to do the ‘best’ in whatever it is that we choose to do.

Need to lessen the noise around me. It is so easy to create a lot of noise and hide one’s true self behind it. Hide our true feelings, intentions and soul. The noise becomes a cover up for the real ‘us’. And with time the real ‘us’ is lost. Only the ‘cover up’ remains.

And the ‘cover up’ covers us up completely.

AAI will not recommend us to clients anymore. We are too close to challenging them and causing discomfort for them with our curiosity and use of new technologies. Dal Roti ka kya hoga bhaiya? Leave it to the Gods above. Jaise abhi tak zinda hain waise aage bhi zinda rah lenge. Fingers crossed.

The interface of the online shop has moved a little bit in the forward direction. I mean we do not have empty boxes for the audience anymore. There are photographs and a slide show and a globe and a welcome message! That is huge. There is a long way to go before we become presentable but at least we are not blank. Ashok has also been able to crack the map scale problem and hopefully his module will move ahead. So today has been better than yesterday. And I hope that is how it remains. A step forward, however small, each day would eventually take us somewhere.

Ankit is yet to grow up and Balram has joined us because he just needed a job. It is sad but we are hoping that this will change. That he will stay here out of choice and not because of any desperation. Narendra has been handed over the charge of shaping up Ankit and Bhagat has been asked to shape up Balram. To ensure that there is enough pressure on them to make them ‘men’. Unless they go through the pain of growing up, of performing under pressure, of stretching their limits, they will not become worthwhile.

Amma is safely harboured in the office. She is off my radar and stays in the office for serving lunch. So far so good. As long as she does not show her fangs, all is well. When she does, which may be sooner than we think, we will see.

Still a lot of unanswered questions in the aviation sector. Still looking for a guru. The punchline for our online shop is ‘giving direction to your search’. Pehle apna to direction mil jaye. Apni to search khatam ho jaye. I was asking the team to give their bestest (satvottam, uttam,shreshta), if such a word even exists in the english language. I said that even the best was not good enough for the cutting edge needed to make a mark,to make our work count.

Count, Counting, Accounting, Arriving, Surviving.

Living and Dying.

The bank, the bills, the salaries. All are here to stay (of course). Appu’s exams begin from tommorrow. We have finished the Gurgaon project and the Chennai work is on its way to completion. We have yet to clear the adhoc limit sanctioned by the bank and the service tax also needs to be paid. Can’t one just live. just be. Just breathe without the system, the rules, the regulations, the pressure to ‘do’. ‘to perform’ so to say.

I guess, we should be OK for a month. That is huge. we were earlier talking in terms of hours and days. The catch is that people think we have become big (bigger than what we were) and that is not true at all. We are just safer than we were in terms of our bread and butter. But since everyone just looks at the ‘outside’, there is absolutely nothing to be done. So we are appearing to be ‘successful’ (compared to when we were on the verge of being thrown out by the landlord). But ‘success’ is a very relative and fleeting term in this world.

So here we are. The ‘underdogs’.
Are we trying to prove a point? No. It has already been made.

Back off.

In place of ‘trying to live’, allow us to just ‘live’.