Of This and That

While I would tend to agree with what Vishal Sikka has observed about Infosys and almost all IT companies in India, I also think that this is a bit harsh way of putting things. Most organizations being service providers, their primary mandate is to ensure proper in-depth capture of requirements and delivering on them, for development projects. And for maintenance kinds, it is mostly bug fixing. Most development projects already struggle in trying to meet the timelines and are burdened by often changing requirements. In such scenario, it is unlikely that a person will stand up and provide suggestions for enhancements or will try to be proactive. I did like his another observation on to whom should the policies apply " Not everything applies to everyone at the same time. If a client has certain requirements, those cannot be violated. But others who are not under that do not have to follow those requirements " This is so very true and something that we had had long hours of

In today's busy world where everyone is running a fast paced life, I got to re-experience the helpful nature of fellow people I was driving to office on my pulsar, when it started to jerk. A jerk typically associated with petrol line running dry. I switched to the reserve mode, but the jerks continued and to my dismay, the bike came to a stop near Rakshak society signal on Aundh Ravet road. I realized that the petrol had run dry, but why the bike didn't signal this from On state to Reserve state? I asked a person sitting there on his bike for the closest petrol pump and he told me about the one in Pimple Saudagar, which was, I guess, an easy 2 km walk from the current spot. As I stood there, visibly shaken and trying to figure out what to do as dragging the bike all the way would be very difficult, the person came to me and asked what happened. I shared the surprise of bike directly running dry while still being in On state and he pointed out that I had got it wrong. I was

The other day I was driving to Hinjewadi for a meeting and as I drove on the Hinjewadi flyover, I suddenly felt a bit nostalgic. This was the road on which I had driven almost every day for the past 10 years and now for the last 4 months, since I left Infosys , I had not come this side. After the meeting, I caught up with few ex-colleagues from Infosys at Tamanna over a cup of tea. During our general chit chat and catching up, one of them asked me if I missed Infosys. Well, it would be wrong to say that I don't, but what is it that I really miss? As an employee, there are few things that mattered to me - the work, the people, the infrastructure, the development center. As I had stated in my earlier blog , the work was never really an issue and mostly I had enjoyed or loved whatever work I was doing. When I moved to Curologic , I had to suddenly change gears and had to move quickly from a pro-Microsoft person to getting my hands dirty on open source technologies. It has been

The other day I got a very apt message on whatsapp. It read as " Irony of India... Priyanka Chopra has earned more money playing a boxer's role than Mary Kom has earned in her entire career by actually doing it " Nothing against Priyanka for playing Mary Kom or Farhan playing Milkha Singh, for it is their profession, a profession that pays them handsomely. The point to really worry about is except for Cricket, somehow all other sports get sidelined. The players don't get much recognition and end up living in pitiable conditions as well (read here ). The ministers, sitting on the committees for various sports, possible have never played those games themselves, are mostly keen only on "What's in it for me?". They probably like to organize the various events like Asiad, Common Wealth Games, but not for any love for sports, but for their love of money and fame. Many years back in an interaction with the India Shooting Queen Anjali Bhagwat , she had

Try as much, being in senior leadership role means that typically you are cut off from some internal group discussions and gossip since you are considered the management person and will always take side of the management. I always felt that I had a good, strong and healthy relation with all my team members and they felt free in sharing any issues with me, but then there is always that last mile, which I was not a part off, which I realized the other day.  I got included in a Whatsapp group, which had all team members of mine. Initially I felt that a new group has been started given that many people had left us in recent past and this was good and easy way to remain connected, but when welcome messages came my way, I realized that this group wasn’t that new… only I was new to it.  And the reason I wasn’t added to this group earlier was that people would discuss things about the organization they felt should not be discussed in front of me, as they believed I was a pro-orga

As I left Infosys, during the various farewell meetings, people shared few observations that they felt were the strong points of my leadership and that they liked it very much. These were a) quick response to emails, b) being available always to listen to anyone for any of their issues and c) the ability to handle multiple things at the same time. The first I think comes from the fact that I don’t see a reason in keeping anyone waiting when I can respond immediately and also I had spent some time early on in my career in learning typing. I won’t say that I have mastered it, but at least it has helped me being able to type pretty fast and that helps in responding to emails quickly. Since I know that I can respond to an email within a couple of min (If I have the answer), then why not respond right away? Why wait till you actually tend to forget about the email and the need to respond to it. If I don’t have an immediate solution, I reply back saying that I will get back shortly. Th

One visit to this place and you wonder, why such a beautiful temple (one of the best temple’s I have seen) is not on the regular tourist map of Pune. In fact it is almost as if this place doesn’t exists, for not many people are aware of it. The temple is named after Lord Shiva and depicts his blue throat due to the venom that he had swallowed during sagar manthan. It is a huge temple, with lots of open space, space to sit and enjoy the exquisite sculptures that tell different Hindu mythological tales. I have never seen so many sculptures in one place. See some of the pictures to get a sense of what you are missing, if you haven’t been to this place as yet. These pictures still don’t tell the complete story. Now that you have seen some of the pictures and want to make a trip to this place, note the following. The temple is on a small hill, maybe around 700-800 ft high. Physical walking distance maybe around 1.5 km, but given the steep climb that

Bhandardara , a place I had not even heard off till recently, turned out to be one of our best holidays till date. I had recently seen this place in a friend’s Facebook updates and when we had some time at hand (in between my changing jobs), we decided to give it a try. About 165 km from my place (about 4 hour drive), this place is almost like heaven on earth. A place you can visit all year round due to its lush green mountains, Wilson dam, Arthur Lake (also known as Pravara lake), Umbrella falls and many other points worth visiting. We stayed at a place called Anandvan resort . There are only 2 other places worth staying – Yash Resorts and MTDC resort. The MTDC resort was in a really poor condition and was in a state of renovation. Didn’t notice Yash resort, but Anandvan is by far the best place to stay, as also rated on trip advisor . The experience at Anandvan was just great, right from the reservation call I did. A friendly person advised on various options and shared the

What started a long long time ago… on a nice Monday morning of August 28 th , 1995 @ Electronics City Bangalore, is finally coming to an end today on May 19 th 2014 @ Hinjewadi Pune. Almost 19 years, with Infosys (missed reaching the 20 year milestone!). While it seems like a lifetime, it really wasn’t. When I think back, I can still clearly recall the Monday morning when my uncle had come to drop me to the Koramangala Infosys Office and I had taken a bus from there to the Electronic City campus. I had walked cautiously into what was then just the building 9 and 10 (Heritage building) of the current Infosys City, Bengaluru. I walked to where some HR folks were sitting and told them that I was to join from this day and they greeted me with a warm smile and pointed me to a room where many others like me, freshers, were sitting to complete the joining in formalities.   For some reason I had expected this to be similar to college’s first day experience: ragging. But then realized that

Of the various cities that I have been too, somehow to me Pune seems to top the list of speed breakers. There seems to be some specific liking for this object by our local municipal corporation and in some roads they really abound, almost like one speed breaker per house.   The purpose for this object is good. It helps break the speed and ensures that people don’t over speed in certain areas where the possibilities of accidents can be high. However these get constructed with little regard to this basic rule and in many cases are themselves the reason for accidents.   Personally I believe that they aren’t really required. If people follow proper traffic rules, there is actually hardly a need for something like a speed breaker. And then given the condition of some of our roads, there again is little need for speed breakers, given the various pot holes that exist on the road anyway. But I guess our highly zealous corporation employees go purely by the rule book. It defines a speed break