‘Repairing of the soul’

Tag: slapped

‘Repairing of the soul’

Mar. 17 Uncategorized no comments

Hariom has left. Got a ‘sarkari’ job. Never mind that we invested in him for three months and put everything at stake. Never mind that we got no output from him. Not even one module. He only took from the company. Maybe that is what he was good at. Just taking and taking. He had nothing to give. And he is the best example of a typically educated and completely self centered man of our times. Gagan has left. He joined when he had no job offer. After two months, he suddenly realized that the online shop was not his cup of tea. That the online shop was just about uploading and downloading of maps. He could not make it work. And in place of doing a SWOT analysis, he dumped the project as useless. This is the current educated Generation X we have created. Its all about me,me,me,mine,my life, my money. There is no ‘us’ in their dictionary. The ‘selfishness’ is just very tiring. Very irritating. Re-start the computer. Re-start the project. Again and again. Talk about trust.

The news of a gangrape disturbs me. Why do we ban drugs of all kinds and yet promote addiction to sex? What are night pubs for anyway? Why is it not possible to ban them? Pubs are where girls and alcohol are used to boost and satisfy the male ego. What kind of entertainment can they provide? We are connecting sex with money. Then why ban prostitution? Why was the girl employed in the pub? Mainly to entice and accompany single men. At a cut. At a cost. My guess is that she refused the advances of a few men who took revenge by gangraping her. A man knows no other way of taking revenge from a woman, specially if his male ego has been compromised. And yet we claim that we live in a civilized world. Let us face it. We live in a jungle where mostly men rule. A woman must know her place, must behave else she will have hell to pay. Just like the girl who has been gangraped in Gurgaon. She was raped and slapped around. So it was not just about sexual violation. It was also proving to her as to who the boss was. No, I do not think I would like to be born as a woman again. No. Its too damn tough.

The bad: A single project in hand. Cash flows which are next to nil. The accountant wants to go home.
The good: Pradip patel has joined us in a senior position. Another trainee is arriving from Afghanistan for a months’ training. The IIT batchmates have committed to providing support.
The ugly: Appu is not talking to me. She is fed up of my unavailability. The pump in the house conked off and it took a lot of money to get it repaired.

The weekend, weekly rations, calls, homework for a project.
The repairing of things.

Leaving no time for the repairing of the soul. The most neglected task of the lot.

‘Repairing of the soul’.

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Just another bill

Mar. 02 Uncategorized 1 comment

Just wanting to be quiet. To be silent. It is very tiring to constantly deal with people. With bills. With real life.

GC was invited for campus placement to an engineering college near Ambala. We were very reluctant in the beginning but due to persistent efforts and calls, we decided to go. Vikram was supposed to accompany me but he somehow could not reach on time to join the trip. So I went alone. It was good and it was also sad. Good because it was nice to see our company banners put up in the college and the warm welcome they extended to me. It was sad because I saw so many students who were just completing their B. tech at a huge cost to their parents with dreams in their eyes. I did not have the heart to tell them that most of their dreams could/would crash against the wall of reality. I tried to be honest but their innocence and naivety baffled me. We had the same dreams once. Of making it big, of honesty, of using technology for the benefit of people. And for the college they are just numbers. Every admission means fees and money. And more the number of admissions, more is the money. And nothing else matters. The lives of the students involved is definitely not on the agenda. They pursued us to come for campus placement as every company visit means publicity which in turn means more admissions. Every placement also means media attention and again it means more admissions. In fact the colleges are willing to pay the HR guys for every placement. Talk about education. Some education happening in this country. And then we wonder what is going wrong.

On my return, we had to stop the car to fill gas. The boy filling it made some gestures which were not welcome and I got down to confront him and protect my dignity. Needless to say, there was an arguement and his behaviour became more and more rude and unacceptable. At some point I slapped him and he hit me right back. Forget that he was perhaps twenty years younger to me, forget that he was making uncouth gestures, forget that I was a client at the petrol pump and needed to be treated with respect. The cops came and a complaint was filed. Of course the manager of the petrol pump as well as the other men wanted to just hush up the incident but I insisted on filing a complaint. It just means that a woman, educated or not, with money or not, in a car or not, cannot retaliate. If she does, she will be attacked as the male ego exists in the lowliest of men. The driver, the petrol guy, the grocery man, the vegetable vendor, anyone whose only virtue is that he is a man, can attack any woman if she confronts him and/or refuses to ignore his unacceptable behaviour.

I guess this is our country. And the men still rule. Like it or not. Behind the polite facade is the male ego and a woman dare not challenge it except perhaps if she has some political backing or contacts.

There is some movement between the Ministry of Civil Aviation and AAI. Hopefully, they will come to some agreement on the protocol to be followed for the issue of the NOC. The training in the office continues. We are doing the best we can. Maybe the best is not good enough. Maybe it is. For now.

Beginning of the month. bills. salaries. rents.

Kuchh naya?

Just another bill.

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‘To be silent’

Feb. 16 Uncategorized no comments

I had a fight with Appu. No excuses. No explanations. I just snapped. Everything got too much. She is upset. So am I. Between the bills and the loans, there seems to be no place for any love to exist. I guess ‘sorry’ will not be enough this time round.

Chandrakant is in Mumbai today. For the collection of GCP’s. Hariom has nearly crossed the major obstacles in the software development for the maximum permissible height calculations using open source GIS. Gagan is trying the install the SSL seal on the interface of the shop. Chetan and Vikram are working on the training content for the two professionals scheduled to arrive in the beginning of next week. Lots of positive energy in the office.

It is very tempting to compare ourselves with others. Very easy to fall into a trap of self pity. Hence it is extremely important for us to keep the focus on ourselves. All of us have our own race to run with a different set of starting and ending points. There cannot be any comparison.

The additional temporary limit extended by the bank has run its course and we are not sure if it can be extended for some more time. Bahut jhamela hai. Lots of unmanageability. Chaos. Financial and emotional. The Review Committee of AAI has not sat for a meeting as yet. Many clients are waiting for a decision on their files. And in the waiting process, our work has lost its value. Any decision in our country takes a long time. That is the worst part. The dis-respect for time. Kills everyone and everything.

Kuch bolne ko hai nahin. Its the same rigmarole. In fact we should stop jabbering. There is nothing new.
Maybe silence will express what words cannot.

Very powerful.

‘To be silent’

Tags: AAI, bahut, bank, beginning, bills, bolne, calculations, collection, content, energy, everyone, excuses, explanations, GCP's, hai, height, install, jabbering, jhamela, kills, limit, loans, love, major, maximum, Mumbai, new, next, obstacles, offfice, open source GIS, permissible, powerful, ppositive, prey, professionals, review committee, seal, self pity, shop, silence, silent, slapped, snapped, sorry, SSL, tempting, to be, training, upset, week, words

The nut and the gut

Jun. 11 Uncategorized no comments

I am losing it. I shouted at Appu last night. I was tired,exhausted, overworked. She said something and I just snapped. But that is no excuse. There can be no excuse. It was unacceptable behaviour and I need to step back and examine what is going on. I am mad. There is no doubt about it. And I am making everyone around me also mad. Maybe I need to be sent to an asylum. I will have to be careful lest my insanity hurts those closest to me. I have apologized to Appu but apologizing is never enough. If making amends were that easy, there would not be so many hurt people in this world creating more hurt.

My father called to ask about the status of Appu’s admission. I gave him an update but mostly, I feel irritated. I am not very clear as to the reason and source of my discomfort. Maybe it is because I feel it is mostly talk and talking is easy and cheap. However, I do need to remember that he did give some newspaper cuttings related to the ‘ admission guidelines’ and they did help us in locating the various colleges. Thank you papa. Maybe I do not really wish to see his care and concern beneath the lies and abandonment. God, this has always been a tricky area to traverse.

It seems that the entire team is working on the online shop. The energy and creativity levels are extremely high and the environment is infectious in a very positive way. It feels good. We have a core team. And that is the most important thing. The logo is being designed, the template of the interface is under discussion and the maps are also in process. So everything is IP (In Process). Being IP is a good sign. It means we are not dead, as yet. It may also mean that we are in the process of being more alive.

The truth and the untruth. The seer and the seen. The observer and the observed. It is all mixed up for me.
Ghar chal raha hai. Office bhi chal raha hai. Life is also moving at its own pace. I am the only one out of sync here.
There have been many losses along the way. emotional,financial and spiritual. Still taking stock. Still coming to terms with the losses. I just need to take a deep breath and be OK. It is OK now and it will be OK in the times to come. The worst is over. We will never be on the roads again.

The weekend is here. Thankfully. The phone will ring a little less. The rations for the office have to be bought but I guess that is manageable. Appu’s admission to college is the only issue looming large on the horizon. Ho jayega. As everything else.

Ankit was mentioning that he would look for ‘cheap and best’ solutions for the marketing of the online shop. And I told him that the two could never co-exist. What is best, could never come cheap and what came cheap could never be the best. Strange irony but that is how it is.

The distance between the nut and the gut is very small and yet very important. Sometimes an awareness exists in the gut for a long time before it travels to the nut. Hence, it is very important to listen to the gut.

The nut and the gut.

It is always difficult to differentiate between what each one is saying and what is correct.

Tags: abandonment, admission, alive, asylum, behaviour, best, care, chal, cheap, college, concern, creativity, cutting, dead, differentiate, energy, exhausted, ghar, God, gut, hurt, IP, lies, logo, losing, marketing, newspaper, nut, observer, obseverd, office, OK, online shop, overworked, phone, rations, roads, seen, seer, slapped, solutions, team, template, tired, unaceptable, weekend, world

Tag: slapped