We need a U turn. A turning point. In the company and in our lives. Look up to the sky buddy. The sky might have some answers. And at least looking at the sky is not taxable ( up to now that is). If the government realized that the common man was getting some fringe benefits by looking at the sky, I am sure there would be a ‘Sky tax’ or ‘God support tax’ applied to the activity. So till then, we can look up and seek support from HP.

Ritesh has joined the team. kab tak rukega? The most common and the most powerful question. And that also in GC ( a madhouse with a mad woman). After all he is an IIT’an and GC would be too small a canvas for his huge vision. Ok, let us use the common cliche, ‘it is after all a growing company’ (kabse grow kar rahi hai bhai, kitne saal ya decades lagenge?) Like we are a ‘developing company’ in a ‘developing country’. We are ‘IP’. I mean ‘In Process’. That is a good state of being. To be in IP. We are not like ‘finished’ (as if that is a huge acheivement).

The ice tray of the fridge has been replaced. The gas cylinder has been bought in black (the legal one has not yet arrived although we got a message after fifteen days of booking that it is on its way, in IP that is). There is water in the house. And milk. And vegetables. And a few fruits. My God, we are rich. And let me not forget the plum cake that Appu bought on the eve of Christmas. Also the lunch and dinner being served in the office. Aur kya chahiye. Gratitude. Dude, practice some gratitude. It could have been worse ( I mean let us forget about the bills for a moment).

Truly, there is a lot to be grateful for. Despite and inspite of everything. Even the fact that we are in IP.

For being a work in progress.

In process.

And so I wonder.

The office was not opened till 10:00 am this morning. The guard had taken a half day leave and the keys were handed over to the housekeeping peon who works in the evening shift. He came to the office with the keys and did not know how to use them to open the glass door. Ajay, the manager (who should have managed) the crisis reached office only at 10: 15am. I was frantically making calls to the office after 9:00 am and nobody was picking up the phone. I had even called Ajay yesterday, i.e on a sunday to remind him that there could be a problem in the morning as the guard had taken off. I was assured that everything was under control. I was upset by the time Ajay reached office and I told him that with a senior profile like his, he should have taken more responsibility. That with a ‘manager’ on board, I could do without the tension of checking whether (and how) the office had been opened on time. bas ho gaya. The fragile male ego got punctured.

And then it was the worst possible show of all the male egos getting together to stage a walk out and quote, unquote ‘teach me a lesson’. At least, in this area, I have already learnt my lessons, guys. I can live alone, work alone and stand alone. It is OK. This is not the first time it has happened. They did not call me, inform me or say their goodbyes. The office became a picnic spot. They picked up their bags and left. Quite a manly thing to do, I must say. Just walk away. The ‘walk out guys’ have also enrolled Dimpi in their mission. She also refused to take my calls and most probably will not come back after her holiday. She was also not ‘woman’enough to talk to me. I am the ‘villain’ again. Bahut aadmiyon ke saath kaam kiya. Aadmi koi bhi nahin mila ( worked with a lot of men, did not find even one man amongst them). ek bhi nahin. Not even one with any balls.

The following have walked away unceremoniously from our office today : Anand Singh Rawat, Ajay Kumar Bhatia, Dimpi Nayak, Kamakhya Puri Kushwaha. Narendra Kumar Das had also left after reacting very badly on a trivial issue. I did not mention it earlier as I wanted a peaceful closure. I wish we could put them on a blacklist so that they do not cause harm to another company. But I guess that will have to wait. There are other more pressing and urgent issues to be handled here.

Ajay had worked earlier in an office automation office as an admin executive. I think the promotion to the level of a manager in an IT company was a heady cocktail of of ‘power and control’. jhel nahin paya. Same with Anand. Both were new entries to the IT sector. And could not deal with the freedom along with the responsibilities and of course ‘my gender’. I do not know about Kamakhya and Dimpi. maybe it was pre-planned. They were just waiting for the right moment (just after the salaries were dispersed). How opportunistic is that?

We have begun the process of taking interviews. Just that the training in the applications of aviation will have to be done again. The collective energy will have to be channelized again. par achha hai. A complete clean-up is good to build a better and stronger building. A complete virus scan so to say. No remnants of any virus strains. I think over the months there was this smugness in the technical team that they had learnt all that was required. That they were the best. And this ‘smugness’ was harming us. It was stopping us from learning and growing. So it is nice that we can start from a fresh and clean slate again with no skeletons in to bury. Sometimes relationships which are meant to end just end. And it is for the larger good of all concerned. Its just the way they are ended that makes it messy. And painful.

We will go forward. We will fight the remaining battle. As always. Even if the ‘we’ includes just ‘me and God’ as of now.

I do have one request for my HP. Give me the same brain, the same feelings, the same problems maybe but in case I need to re-visit the earth, please do not make me a ‘woman’.

Repeat:

‘Please do not make me a woman’.

The bankers are ‘pleased’ with our performance ( as long as their instalments are paid !). It is time to renew our working capital limits and for once they have a positive attitude. We had forgotten to give our newsletter to them and so in his next meeting, Anand (the senior accountant) promptly presented a copy to all the senior officers in the bank and it appears that they are ‘mildly’ impressed. At least the newsletter has served some purpose. So it is that we have submitted the required documents to the bank and this time round we are not scared. We are sure that the bank will do its best to support us in our growth (kaunsi growth bhai? of course financial. They have nothing to do with our emotional or spiritual growth!)

Dimpi has done some amazing things with the online shop. Without any formal training, she has been able to make changes in the X-cart, the software behind the online shop and in the home page of our official website. We have formally launched the height map for Mumbai, PHBAAS and needed the heading along with the write-up on our home page and she has been able to upload it alongwith the editing in the graph. well done Dimpi. We presented her with a certificate for the best ‘project team lead’ yesterday.

Yesterday was friday ( a day when a chosen team member does the cooking for the evening) and Kamakhya cooked a special Assamese dish with steamed rice. It was very delicious and a welcome change from our daily routine of dal,chawal,sabzi. Good work Kamakhya. Of course, now Ajay (The HR manager) has introduced a ‘pizza lunch’ which means that every thursday afternoon, pizzas are ordered for lunch. It is Ajay’s turn next friday and he has said that he would require to take some cooking classes from his wife for doing it. He also mentioned that traditionally in his family, the ‘men’ never entered the ‘kitchen’ which was essentially a womans’ domain but that he was breaking this tradition and had no issues in helping his wife. That is extra brownie points for you Ajay. That indicates a lot of open mindedness, tolerance and compassion.

Still waiting for a breakthrough in projects. A new airport is coming up in Navi Mumbai so PHBAAS will need some additional work. Another proposed radar in Mumbai. Will the radars ever leave us in peace?
We are planning to prepare some special maps for the online shop depicting constituency boundaries for the elections for the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha. Narendra Rana has been asked to take U turn and leave the creation of the traditional maps for a later stage. Since we have already advertised for the position of a GIS executive to assist in the online shop, he will have the required additional support.

Most of the bills for this month have been paid. Thank God. Of course there is the next month but that is tommorrow. For today, we are safe. We are not being thrown out of the office or the house and that is good. Very good.

Today is all that matters. This moment.
This breath which differentiates the living from the dead.

A single breath.

Finally went to the authority for Appu’s driving license. We need a license to drive, to work, to live, to be. It is amazing how much licensing we have allowed in our lives. Maybe we will also need a license to die, to cry, to breathe in the times to come. We love control, controlling, being controlled.
jhamela hai. Everything is looking like a jhamela right now The emotional, financial and spiritual. Lots of unmanageability in all areas of life. Hand over. surrender. Tough to do. Time to get down on my knees and ask for help.

AAI is closing its doors on us. They think we are barging in their territory. Their fiefdom, their kingdom. So we are still looking for a ‘Guru’. I guess ‘Gurus’ are hard to find these days. Its easier to find followers. Baki theek hi hai. I mean what else can one say. Theek to lag raha hai, bahar se. waise kuch bhi theek nahin hai par jitna theek ho sakta hai, utna theek hai. What the hell does it mean. Exactly. It means nothing. It means I don’t know. I don’t know what direction we are moving in and whether we are moving at all. maybe it would be better to stand still for a while. Not move. And figure out what is going on inside us. But then the bills will not stop coming sweethearts. They will always come on time. And stopping and feeling our feelings will not pay them. Chakkar pe chakkar.

Just focus on the ‘Aaj ki dhyadi’. The tasks which need to be done today. No matter what.

WIL (women in Leadership) is planning a conference and has sent a mail suggesting that I could/should send in my nomination for an award. This is pre-posterous. How and why should I nominate myself and beg for an award. What is deserved will come my way anyway and what is undeserved will be lost along the way. And I mostly forget that I am a woman.
Appu is still very hurt. I guess so am I. So all in all there is a lot of hurt, lot of loneliness in our space. I think we both have unrealistic expectations from each other. Both of us need some TLC (tender loving care).

Need some more miracles in our lives.

And now.

PHBAAS, the thematic map showing maximum permissible height (according to AAI guidelines) for any given site in the city of Mumbai has been launched and we are hoping that it will generate a lot of interest in the real estate developers and architects. And hopefully we will be able to shift from being daily wage labourers to real engineers. Right now our life hangs between the start and end of a project.

The vendor who was supposed to integrate the payment gateway with our online shop has mis-behaved and hence the agreement with him stands cancelled. Kamakhya is searching for another vendor. The vendor who will provide us with the payment gateway has been finalized and freezed. So at least part of the work is done. The time it takes to convert an idea, a concept to a working reality is herculean. That is why it is so easy to give up at any stage. Cannot see the results or even hope for them for a long time.

There is ‘aloneness’ and there is ‘emptiness’. And I am not being able to connect to a Higher Power at all. There is a sense of agitation and meaninglessness. It is also dawning on me that my mother is a very ambitious woman and hence she moulded my brother on the basis of her own idea of a successful man. So he could never really be anyone or anything else. He has not been a brother at all, I wonder if he has been a father and son too.

After a very long time, we have an enquiry from a client. So that is good news. So far so good. Hopefully, we should be able to close it. A very small job but work is work. And revenue is revenue, all said and done.

Another day. Another hour. I have just suited up, booted up and showed up. My productivity levels are at an all time low. But after the trough, there should be a crest. That is how a wave is defined.

Surviving the trough.

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.

And the woman who goes out there to stand on her own with dignity is left alone, even by her own family of origin. And the rest of the women and men in the so called social network, label her ambitious, of loose character and what have you. Amazing. Awesome. And of course the vulnerabilty to abuse increases. The woman who ventures to compete is more open to abuse than other women, be it sexual, emotional or financial.

A lot of work is pending in the house and office. Am just gearing up mentally to tackle the most important ones. Had to ask the maid to leave after she took uninformed leave. Drawing boundaries is always tough. There are always consequences to pay. But then there is no other way to live. Living withour self respect would be worse.

Having ‘a back’ is so important I guess. Sons always have it. Their fathers, the property of the family, the social importance, its all there. Its the women who lack ‘a back’. Specially if the men responsible to be ‘their back’ refuse, are unwilling or incapable of doing it. The real culprits in my opinion are the parents. If parents do not want a girl, they should go in for ‘female foeticide’. Kar lo yaar. At least another life will not be abused. Kill the origin. The damage is much greater when its too late in the day and the same life is gasping for support and dignity. We can save a ‘female foetus’ but can we ensure a ‘ safe life with dignity’? We always end up only looking at the tip of the iceberg. Hence all the problems remain. They not only remain, they multiply. So what is to be done. Make more laws, more courts, more judges, more chaos. With no change in ‘attitude’ or ‘thoughts’ or ‘beingness’. No wonder that nothing really changes.

Its one of those days. I am angry.

All for ‘a back’.

We have two new members in our team: Ashok and Shikha. Ashok has more than a decade of experience in the field of GIS and software development and Shikha is the ‘HR manager’. She is front ending all public dealing for us. So we are in the process of structuring the functioning of the company and of not keeoing too many hats on one head!

We have a presentation scheduled at the AAI today and we are hoping to do a good job (I mean hope has been our staple diet for a long time now). Appu is having her second board exam and she has been tense. I mean this pressure that her entire life hinges on it, is intimidating. How can one exam make or mar a person’s success. Its just like a one day match. You lose or win by a few marks. But in the long run, does it really matter? We have become slaves to the systems we have created. I thing freedom is scary. Rules and regulations give us a sense of security and familiarity.

One has embarked on this journey. No idea if there is an end point apart from death. There seems to be no meaning to the sound and fury attached with living. The collection of the latest gizmos do not help beyond a point and yet they are necessary possessions to survive in the system, so to say. ‘Necessary but not sufficient’.

The tiredness of the spirit is many times greater than the tiredness of the body.

Thus far and no further.

p.s: I have these lovely comments and feedback and I need to thank each and everyone for their ongoing support. I am truly overwhelmed with the genuineness (hope the spelling is correct) and am very grateful to each one of you.

While in Rome do as the Romans do. While living in a world created and run by ‘men’, do as the ‘men’ do. Smoke,Drink,use foul language, maybe keep a gun along with a huge ego. Is that it in the final countdown? How much of a ‘man’ can a ‘woman’ be to just live,to be,to win?

Conversely speaking, how much of a woman is left in me after so many years of trying to create a space in a male realm?

Or is anything left at all, male or female?

I have been down with viral fever for the past three days and Appu dragged me to the hospital last night. So I am on antibiotics and I am grateful to her for forcing me to go. Thankfully the weekend is here and I can get some rest. Yesterday was friday and Kamakhya did the cooking and it was brilliant. We chatted for quite some time before signing off for the day regarding the future growth chart of the company and the team members.

Spent a lot of time at AAI. There is always a finer nuance in terms of calculations to learn from there. A presentation is scheduled for us on Monday and we need to gear up for that. ‘Gearing’ up. That is what we mostly do. Gearing up to face the banks, the world, the clients..

Moving towards a resting place.