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.

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’

We are very close to finalizing the payment gateway for the shop. Hopefully, a decision will be taken by today evening. Miraculously my father called. It is amazing. Whenever I think that he has not called in a long time, he somehow gets the message and connects. It is as if the universe responds in a strange way to all our needs.

It always feels as if it has been a long day. Sometimes with no output. There is no project as of now. But I think we are safe for the coming month. That itself is a lot. There was a time when we did not know about the next day or the next hour or the next minute. We are safe and all is well. We have to believe in the universe, in ourselves and in a Higher Power.

A presentation has been scheduled for tommorrow and all because Appu has been sending mails to all real estate developers. She has put in special efforts because of the lack of projects with us. Thank you Appu. For your active and passive support.

There are a lot of if’s and but’s every moment. But to accept what is, as it is, is the toughest part.

To accept what is,

As it is.

We lost a tender yesterday over a micro difference of Rs. 2000=00. What is Rs. 2000 over a few lacs. But that is what it took for us to lose the race. The difference of a few nano seconds. I guess that is all it always takes. The difference of a few seconds, marks or numbers to lose the game. And a winner is a winner. ‘Jo jeeta wohi sikander’.

We have a client by reference from none other than the AAI (Can you believe it?). A reference client! Kya baat hai. I mean most of the clients hate us (mostly me) by the time the project is finished and here we are with a new client referred to us by the old one. It will take time for reality to sink in. It is the eighth wonder for us in the world. And apparently the chairman of AAI is recommending our work to all. Collars up guys. Good achievement. All that studying (along with the cribbing) did not go waste after all.

We exist. As of today.

And that is huge.

The front of the car is all mangled and there is a huge price tag for the repair (garibi mein atta geela, I guess that is the saying which suits us now).

I forgot to wish my daughter a ‘Happy Daughters’ Day’ past midnight and she was very upset. However, I tried to make up by taking her out to see a play on Sunday evening. We got late ( as I overslept, something which is new for me) and reached when the awards were being handed out. So we walked (actually ran to cross the roads) to reach the nearest metro (Barakhamba Road and later changed from Rajiv Chowk) for Saket. It was a crazy evening. Then Appu suggested watching a movie but we were late for all the ones that were running. So we settled for coffee and sandwiches at ‘Cafe Coffee Day’. It was a disastrous evening as far as I was concerned but Appu said that it was the best ‘Daughters’ day’ she had had (daughters can be crazy too!). That it was nice for her to know that there could be some ‘fun moments’ even when ‘mom’ was around (that is a huge compliment). So I guess ‘all is well that ends well’. I am glad we are both crazy.

The work on the tender for the ‘Atlas’ has yet to be done. I am not feeling ‘inspired’ enough to do it (when did work and inspiration go together?). Actually a lot of paperwork is pending. ‘Proposals’ are quite a pain. Our life at GC has become a proposal ( for the bank, for the client).

We are looking for a new office space. And the bank is already behind our backs. So it is ‘cool’. As ‘cool’ as can be. I have no idea how ‘Dimpy’, ‘Narendra’, and ‘Shivaji’ are surviving the ordeal. Just as always, ‘hats off to them’ for ‘being there’ when it would have been so much easier to just walk away for better options.

Hanging between time and money.

Now in desperation if we do take on the infrastructure clients’ project, it will be a repeat of the ‘Yashi’ experience which got us where we are. So what are the choices here. None I guess. ‘Beg,borrow,steal’ is not an option anymore.

There are tenders and RFPs’ but mostly all of them require a turnover of over 4 crores so by default, we cannot participate in the race at all. Also we do not have the necessary associations with the ‘powers to be’ in order to get the stringent requirements diluted. I do wonder about the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of services being tendered. They are not ‘products’ with standard specifications. And the very tendering process which is designed to increase ‘transparency’ and ‘equal opportunity’, actually promotes a fertile ground for favouritism and corruption.
Abhi kaun si niti lag sakti hai? Even ‘Chanakya niti’ would fail here. Yet we are still here. I guess we are incorrigible stubborn mules. All of us at GC. Refuse to give up. ‘Anyone would suggest, chod do bhaiyya, tumarhe bas ki baat nahin hai. blog likhna alag baat hai, dhanda karna alag baat hai’. which is true. But till we lie flattened on the earth with our faces down, we will not give up.

Narendra has moved forward on the presentation. A lot of accuracy and calculations are required to be done and he has grasped the concepts very well. And he is being able to translate that to the GIS environment with dexterity. I am sure AAI will be happy to offer him a job at a very good salary (hopefully not now, we do not wish to lose him).

And Dimpy has created a beautiful map of Kolkata in ArcGIS. Very well digitized. Well done Dimpi. She is also working on the Cartosat maps from PACT (Will PACT ever end?). She is also the one to light the diya in the office every morning. Thanks Dimpi. And Shivaji ensures that prasad is served to the Gods ( to all his incarnations) every Tuesday.

Appu has been sending mails and looking for contacts on the net. She is a netizen (citizen of the net) and hence she is doing all the online marketing. Attended a PTA meeting in her school today. As I was waiting for my turn, I observed how the teachers were berating the students for not getting good marks and how ‘if they loved their parents they would get marks?’ This is hilarious. How can one equate marks with love? There was no focus on understanding, concepts, topics, ideas. Just marks, percentages, college main admission nahin milega. rat race se bahar ho jayoge. Achha hai. jo bhi nikal jayega ‘rat race’ se, shayyad bach jayega. Thsi formal education in our schools nauseates me.

‘Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content – Helen Keller’

To be content. Despite and Inspite of.

I mean, it is stipulated that an SSI unit need not deposit EMD (earnest money deposit) as deposit for various government tenders. They are exempted from this to enable units like us to market our services with the minimum of pressure on our working capital. par koi manta hai? Kya baat karte ho?

Everywhere the refrain is the same: draft to dena hi padega. Mostly it is in the range of 2-4 lakh. And if you do not have that kind of money to invest for 2-6 months(that is the time it takes for a tender to get decided), then do not bid. stay out of the race. Or tie up with a richer company and work with reduced margins.

It is also a law that SSI units should get there payment on time. Hota hai? My God, you must be joking. You have to dance, skip, give commission, create drama and then when you are close to dying or almost dying, a part payment will come and by the time you feel alive, the bank will be breathing down your back for the next instalment.

The rule is simple: If you have money, business kar lo, politics kar lo, kuch bhi kar lo. If you don’t have money sweetheart, job kar lo, ego massage kar lo, shaadi kar lo (with someone rich), dekh lo, jee lo somehow.

I am mostly alone in the office from about 7:00pm onwards till about 9:30pm or so. That is when most of our creditors are coming. One (Nadeem’s Khala, Nadeem is our office boy) came yesterday threatening to use other means to take Nadeem’s salary. He sat on my head for more than an hour and was very abusive. He was very keen to pick up a PC and go. He wanted to know if the car was mine. I said I am just using it but the papers were not on my name. That is when I lost it and asked him to leave. And I thought I had seen enough.

No response from Yashi.

So far.

The constant noise of construction right above our office is getting to me. To all of us in the office. It is a constant knocking and it is very difficult to work in so much noise. We are hoping that it will get over by the weekend. And that we are able to shift to a new office space at the earliest.

Amma has been annoying me no end and also the other part time evening help, Sangeeta. I mean being kind to them and all that is fine but what about getting good services in return for the salary being given to them. Their entire focus is on the money earned and unearned, deserved and undeserved. More often than not, I have no idea of how to deal with them.

Rest is OK. As Ok as can be. We need more projects. Definitely, cannot just depend on one project. But marketing is at an all time low as every tender, every RFP, every EOI is a cost and we are working with a very stringent budget.

I do not know if we will ever have the numbers needed to create a furor in the market. I do not know if we will ever have team members who are committed to the company and are not available for sale. However, I do know that we are in the right direction. And that in itself is huge.

Regardless of how far we are able to go, we are traversing the path in the right direction.

I have not been able to make any headway as far as the business plan goes. OK, Maybe today I will go beyond the headings that I have been able to put on a sheet of paper.

Jagannanth Nayak who is working on the mining project is leaving for Indore today for a field visit. Hopefully, it will be a successful trip. Narendra will be leaving for Barabanki to submit the base map against which we should be able to raise a bill for a delta x amount. Any amount is welcome guys.

The provisional balance sheet is yet to be ready. The service tax and TDS issues are still loming large. The plotter is still with the HP service center.

And me and my daughter wish to go on a holiday. What an audacity and tenacity of purpose.

Cool.

There was a tender with Jalandhar Municipal Corporation and since the investment was high, we decided to go ahead with a lead partner, Genesys. It was all smooth till they asked for our company details and we asked for an agreement. Then we were asked to define our scope of work in the entire project. We mentioned that we could actually handle the complete technical execution from start to finish and that they needed to highlight what part they were keen on doing. And that was it. All communication stopped.
I am wondering if stating our capabilities was what busted it. I mean we should have shown our disability and shortcomings rather than our strength. And maybe because it is a company being headed by a woman. Maybe it is true that it is difficult, maybe impossible for a woman to break the glass ceiling in the corporate world. What else can explain the slow and tedious growth of Global Coordinates?
Or should I follow the idiom: ‘stoop to win’ literally. Jhuk jao, doormat ban jao. Then it might work. To do it with self respect and honesty and dignity, forget it.

Maybe I am speculating.Maybe I don’t want to see the reality even when it is staring me in the face. Jo bhi hai, kuch to theek nahin hai. Actually, kuch bhi theek nahin hai.

Theek ho jayega, like in the future tense. It will get better.
When?

is an irrelevant question.

Just walk the walk.