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.

The ‘walkout team’ or rather the ‘walkout group’ has been sending negative mails and messages full of abuses. So much of venom in their hearts and minds. I wonder how they faked for so long that they were working as a team and for the company. All they were doing was ‘hating me’ and GC. It appears now that they were being tortured in GC and me (me being next to ‘Hitler’ maybe). Then why were they lying and hanging on? Why were they writing good stuff in their blogs? Why did they not leave earlier? There was no written bond. There were no certificates withheld. So much of poison in the office. And I could not detect the dis-respect, the hatred in their hearts and minds. It is strange. But now, I am glad that the poison has burst and flown out. That at least for now, the office is clean. And God help the companies that they now join. A snake will remain a snake. People do not change from within. This is what I have learnt from this experience.

Ashok, who had also left the software project midway is keen on re-trying. Trusting again is a difficult proposition. But at least he had left with no rancour, no maliciousness, no acid in his heart. Perhaps he felt incapable of taking on the task. But he never maligned GC or me and that is a positive sign. So we will see. Maybe we will take a chance again.

Appu was very upset yesterday. All this affects her a lot. A lot of my feelings have died. Many parts of me are already dead so maybe I do not feel the pain so much. but she is as yet, fully human and fully alive and it affects her. All that is happening in GC and in the house. She has her dance performance coming up and I hope she is able to do well regardless of what is happening around her.

The interviews are over and I think we have a small team in place. Let us see how we can move forward. For once we are unarmed and have no idea what works anymore. Freedom or discipline. Control or the lack of it. Faith or mis-trust. So we will need to take it one day at a time. Face the ball as it comes.But we will definitely ensure that GC is not vulnerable to further damage.

Another vicious chapter has been closed for GC. I hope it is a new phase for our growth and learning.
May this Diwali be another homecoming for us.

To ourselves.

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’.

Appu wants me to be happy. Now that is a tougher task than making money or even being just alive. Happiness is an inside job and inside jobe are kind of complex in a simple way (now I am making it sound complicated). I mean one can fake happiness but to be truly happy,joyous would be difficult. To give up the masks,to clean the clutter, to live simply would take a lot of courage. Its easier to hide behind work,accolades,material things,routine,something,anything to appear busy. Multiple lives,multiple masks,multiple tasks and all for a single life. Very unbalanced I must say.

Kundan celebrates his 6th recovery birthday this saturday and he wishes to receive the token and card from me. That is a huge honor. I mean I am not used to getting so much respect. Never got it from my family you see. I told him that it would be a problem but he is adamant about it. OK. So I will go and experience what it is to feel ‘respect’.

The ‘sever’ in the office needs to work like a ‘server’ so that the backup of the data can be maintained. There is a need for a new machine ( wonder it it is a ‘need’ or a ‘want’). I guess all is well or is appearing to be well, for now. The quiet before the storm or the part of the iceberg that is below the water and hence is not visible.

What am I trying to say here? No idea. Am I saying anything at all.

To communicate in silence is so much more powerful.

To top it, yesterday was also very challenging in the office. Rajeev, our accountant wanted to quit because of my late night calls to him regarding work. He felt it was a 24/7 job and he could do without it. I also got to know that Shikha, our HR manager had come in late in the morning to be able to appear for an interview in some school. So it was clear that she was looking for a change while I was hoping that she would be able to support us in creating better bonding in the technical team. She wants a soft job with fixed timings. That is truly a joke for us. Our coordinates are not fixed, how can we fix the timings? I mean we have to change office after every three years, when the lease gets over. Rajneesh was packed off with three days salary by Shikha and the guy who provides us with security guards. All in all, quite a mess. A rock bottom so to say. decisions to be taken with no clarity on the consequences to be faced. I sat alone in the office for a long time with no answers. It was a task to close the office,pack up and drive home. One of the longest drives in a while. I could not sleep. Night broke into dawn. still no answers. I sat and prayed for clarity on the path to be taken. Some clarity emerged. The rest had to be faced as it came.

Rajneesh has re-joined on a trial basis. The security guy has decided to leave. Shikha has decided to quit since she could not envisage working with Rajneesh. Talks,meetings,discussions,closures,openings,sharing. Finally it is peaceful again in the office.

Peace.

What a difficult state to strive towards.

Money or no money, ‘peace’ is extremely important.

Anytime,anywhere.

The car has been repaired. I think I smashed it very badly. The original antenna could not be found so a replacement has been done. However the radio is working and that is a help in the large time periods when I am stuck in huge traffic jams. It is easier to repair material things. It is very difficult to repair the soul. The emotional healing cannot be done in any workshop. And that is the most critical part. The rest is just superficial.

It is an effort to keep the team together. Just like a musician has to ensure that all the strings are in the same frequency, a team leader has to ensure that all the members are aligned in the same direction and are working towrds the same goal with a common frequency. And that is extremely exhausting. The backgrounds,motivations,reactions and the past of each person is so different. It is difficult to understand the wavelength of each and everyone. And then to tune it to what is required is a humungous task. It is also tiring.

I have finally found a morning to evening help in the house. A huge sigh of relief. With the doorbell and phone ringing constantly in the house in the morning, it was getting very difficult to get my quiet moments and get ready to face the day. Of course the banks are not calling. Not anymore (Unbelievable). Maybe working for the government is a luxury we cannot afford. To provide the best services at the lowest cost and then wait for ages for the payment to come in. Only companies with a lot of moolah can survive with the ‘sarkar’ (a lot of moolah would also imply a lot of unscrupulous means to get it).

The best comment we got was from a trainee recently. She said that she has visited many organizations and institutes in the field of GIS but GC was ‘a class apart’.

Definitely made my day.

The visiting cards with the new swanky design are being processed. And it is being discussed that the entire lunch will be prepared in the office as we have a larger pantry now and it is also away from the technical section, hence the noise and fumes will not afffect the equipment and PC’s. So it is that all the  containers with dals and spices have been packed into a carton with a pressure cooker, ‘kadahi’ and ‘thali’( wonder what is next?). Of course as of now it is going from the house so I will need to replace everything in the house (tough job). So now we will be a company providing freshly cooked lunch, in-house to its team members. Nice. Very nice. Unless of course the burden of buying rations for the office kitchen falls on me ( buying for the house is enough of a job).

Shiva handled the contractors in the office today and I am very grateful for that. They are quite a handful to handle. Always trying to do a shoddy job to save money (that too peanuts). I wish we could as a country, focus more on ‘the creation of wealth’ than on ‘saving peanuts’. And doing that by executing a damn good job than just trying to cut corners and saving pennies by delivering sub-standard outputs (this sentence is really too long).

Me and Appu have been discussing the setting up of a fund for ‘women enterpreneurs’ at some stage. I thought of it when I was making the rounds of various banks and it took me three years to just start this unit. Specially for women ‘with no apparent men’ (husbands,fathers,brothers) in their lives. It takes an eternity to kickstart anything for women in general but for ‘women with no men’ in their lives, it is a task next to impossible.

Somebody ( a man) had asked me once ‘teri aukat kya hai’? Frankly, I do not know. I just know that I am trying to be self sufficient and self supporting and it has taken all my energy to do that. If ‘aukat’ is a measure of the amount of property and family support one has, then I have none. But if it is a measure of the ‘efforts’ put in to build a clean and decent life, I have loads of it. So I guess it depends on what the measurement scale is. I felt very hurt and humiliated then. But now I understand that ‘reference frames’ can be different. Just like Newtons’ laws apply to only Newtonian frames, the measurement of ‘aukat’ would only be valid for people living in a world where ‘money and property’ is everything.

Feeling the feelings. Quite a luxury.

There is a lot of ‘change’ happening around us and any kind of ‘change’ is stressful. There is ‘work’ and it is more than we have handled before. The office needs to be changed and that is also a ‘stress’. But the shift in my opinion has to be in the mind rather than in any physical sense. To move from a ‘cramped space’ and ‘deprivation of thought’ to ‘abundance’ and ‘richness’ and ‘ vast open spaces’ in the head. The ‘head’ is the place where the magic happens. And to take the team along in this transformation is a huge task.

We are cruising along as of now at a steady speed. There are loans and instalments and payments to be made. But for once, the fear is less. There is hope and the winds are favouring us (a clear sky, no fog). Visibility is high and we know the direction in which we are heading (that in itself is a miracle). I think HP’s (Higher Power) radar has detected us finally and we are being looked after and guided towards a safe landing (This is the result of being surrounded by aviation language!).

Dimpi is handling the Nagaur and Uniyara project on her own ( good work Dimpi) and we all have faith in her capabilities. We argue and fight sometimes but that is ok. Its part of the process of executing a live project. Himanshu and Shiva have come to the office on time today (can you believe it?). Hats off guys. Keep it up.

Arvind is back after the survey of Uniyara and with the khasra maps of the villages. Hopefully work will start on this town today.

‘Time’. Desperately looking for time ‘to be’ with myself. To be with Appu. Choosing to be an enterpreneur implies that there is ‘no money’ most of the time. But what about a little ‘time’. Think about it HP. Just trying to negotiate here. ‘Time’ in place of ‘money’. You could consider that. Its definitely worth a thought.

Do not give me that ‘one moment in time’ when the world is thunderously applausing me, just give me one moment in time when I could quietly be with myself and feel peace. Just give me that one moment in time when I can look in my daughters’ eyes and know that I did not fail her, that I did my best.

When I know that I did not stay quiet when I should have spoken up. When I know that I have done my bit to leave this world slightly better and cleaner, When I know that at I have contributed in making at least one more life happier.

Before the baton is passed on to the next gen.

I am getting ready mentally for a potential business partner. Maybe that would mean increased growth, distribution of responsibilities, funding.. Maybe I am in the burnout phase. Just too tired most of the time.

The salaries for February and most of the pending bills need to be cleared. Except that I have no idea how.
The bank has refused to increase our limit at all unless we show some collateral, property against which they might consider our request. And ‘property’? You must be joking guys. Where is the property?

So I checked out the process of developing a business plan. And it is a herculean task. And how can you go on and on writing (actually praising) about your concept, services,idea, whatever..
par karna to padega.

VC’s,angel investors, angels.. please visit GC.

I have not contributed an iota in my daughters’ final exams. If at all, I have been whining and have been depressed around her.

I am going insane.

Don’t check me out.

I did not feel like coming to work today but it is like one task at a time, one day at a time. And what needs to be done on a daily basis has to be done. I have not really accomplished much. A few phone calls, a few mails and that is about all. A lot of clutter needs to go from my table. Too many unproductive files.
It will happen I guess. awareness, acceptance,action. Action is the last step you see. I am yet in the awareness stage you see. Although action is the magic word.

So today, I just wish to go home, lie down and rest. Close my eyes and forget that I have loans to re-pay, that we need more projects and the unpaid bills.

For once. For a change.

Surrender to a HP.