In search

I sleep very well , but tonight is different I am restless ,staring out of the third floor of my modest home at the dark sky , i wonder what I am searching ...maybe

My:

Soul
Passion
Zest for life
Arrogance
Tenderness

This search continues , I thought I knew the answers to be reminded of my folly ......

The Search.....

The Search continues...

For life
For peace
For joy
For love
For meaning

At times I wonder , is it worth it at all , or its just that I complicate matters for myself , or is it a deep hurt....a feeling of being used by one and all ..........

Govinda Aala Re, Govinda Aala

The Journey

The Journey has begun....to:

break away from my dogma's
trust and embrace love
get in touch with myself
experience my anger and anguish and deal with it
unlocking my potential
come closer with people who value me
be in peace with the inherent contradictions of life

This journey is to change my life , and make a difference......

Abandoned

I have heard a very gripping tale of an individual who has been abandoned .....not abandoned in the physical sense of the term , but abandoned emotionally from the time he can remember

• Abandoned by people whom he considered his loved ones
• Abandoned by society , cheated and used (for as long as he can remember)

He is at a very critical phase of his life , he believes that being abandoned and remaining in the state is a permanent phenomena of his life , he has killed the child within him , the little things that would give him pleasure , over time he has learnt to cope with the feeling (of being abandoned), and build a wall around him , a wall which drives away true well wishers , ....he is incapable to deal with emotions like love and caring ......

What does he do ....

My advise to him is to give life another chance ,despite his experiences , try it out and get in touch with yourself my friend .....the way you lead your life is not worth it...I say this because I care

Iraqi Women turning to Prostitution to feed their children

Arwa Damon -CNN reports about Iraqi women turning to prostitution to save their children

Also go throught he interview of an Iraqi lady who describes the complusions that forced her to be a prostitiute

Amchee Mumbai

Ruby Tuesday -On a Saturday

A couple of weeks ago on a rainy Mumbai Saturday , we decided to venture out to the Fort area to show Neelabjo glimpses of the real Mumbai . I am a Navi Mumbaikar , and those familiar with the city will understand why I used the word "venture" out to the Fort area....for inhabitants of the satellite city of Navi Mumbai it indeed takes a lot of courage to step out of our cosy nest . Not getting into the deadly details of how our day went , I will take you to the most interesting part of the day ...our visit to Ruby Tuesday. Ruby Tuesday has a very special place in my heart ...it was my only source of sustenance for 3 months that I spend in North Plainfield a small town in New Jersy (circa 2002) . I was so fascinated with Ruby and its food that I virtually had every meal in Ruby’s. The chicken meals with liberal helping of mashed potatoes and assorted vegetables were my favorites. I knew Ruby Tuesdays had set up shop in India and had heard and seen the Ruby outlet in PVR Saket in New Delhi (this outlet disappointed me , because it did not have the Ruby decor and ambiance ..and the food was also somewhat Indianized...) . With a slight reservation, I decided to give Ruby Tuesday's -Fort a try . This outlet was an absolute pleasure, it had recreated the original Ruby experience, the sporting gear was displayed correctly , the waiters were dressed perfectly and the menu looked the same as the one that I would have savored in the US . We got down to ordering chicken dishes and yes it did have mashed potatoes -the signature of a proper Ruby meal. It was quite a good experience, but if there was something that I could not figure out was an interesting item called Service Charges in the bill , which was a certain portion of the bill amount ...an unusual thing as far as Indian restaurants are concerned ....the prices were exactly the Indian equivalent of the Dollar amounts, which the management of Ruby may want to consider for a downward revision . Overall a good ninety minutes spent .....

Swimming Lessons

In the last few months Neelabjo has taken a great fancy towards swimming and cricket. Though this is not a photo blog , but here is a post where a doting father takes his darling son out in a mini pool to teach him how to swim . Neelabjo can manage to keep afloat with some swimming aids , here he is learning the back- stroke with daddy ...

Park Belapur@ Navi Mumbai

I came to Mumbai in June 2004 to work for the Aditya Birla Group . Prior to moving into Mumbai , I lived in a Mysore . Mysore has and very special place in our lives , our son Neelabjo was born there and the city was wonderful , calm , serene and away from the hustle and bustle of a metro. The city completely spoiled us and made us incapable of living in a big city. While I was contemplating the Aditya Birla offer , the thought that struck me and Sona was whether we could survive in the mad rush of Mumbai , soon to realized that I would be working for the Group's Corporate Learning Center based in Navi Mumbai . I made a short visit to Navi Mumbai and was impressed by the civic amenities , the roads and the green zones. I took up the job and decided to stay near my place of work , I started living next door to my office and in 2005 moved to my own place in a nodal town called Nerul 5 kms from work .

My upwardly mobile friends and acquaintances refer to Navi Mumbai as a "Gaon" (village) , the thoroughbred Mumbaikar looks at me quizzically , when I proclaim that I am a proud citizen of Navi Mumbai -to them Navi Mumbai is a remote outpost of humanity ....an abode for losers like me . Most of my Mumbaikar friends (some wannabes) live in extremely populous areas in the Western suburbs and enjoy that ....each to his own I guess

At times , I had felt a need for a good hotel or a disco and if I ever had a complaint against Navi Mumbai , it was that it did not have a classy joint to hang-out on weekends . Not any longer .....the Park Belapur is a wonderful solution to the only grudge that I had ....

The five-storey Park is metropolitan and modernist. The grounds are small - a stylish terrace with dip pool.It takes a fraction of a second, walking into the Park Belapur to register that the place is chic. Only later do you realize that it has seduced all five senses subtly . Tucked away from the main roads and a frontal view of hills , Park Belapur leaves you de-stressed the moment you walk in . I decided to celebrate my wedding anniversary in the Park , they have a very good buffet package. Knowing Renu Kakkar (VP- Communications and Technology) helped, Renu put a good word for me and family . The people in Park was amazing , Neelabjo loved the dip pool and like daddy wanted to drink Bacardi by the poolside (he settled for coke ...pic above) , he watched a kid movie in the makeshift theater and now he wants to go there every Sunday . Kanupriya and team sprung a good surprise for Sona and me , they had a cake , a huge card and a bouquet for my wife . The food was good , and am sure it will get better ...overally a world class experience in a "gaon"...I would urge all Mumbaikars to come by on their way to Lonavla and check Navi Mumbai and Park Belapur out ......

Field Guide to the North American Bikini

Blogger "The Bachelor Guy" has written an amazing post on the North American Bikini.

A well researched , well documented and very well presented piece of information .The summer is here ,and in some parts of India, gaudy bikini's are out ,they come in all shapes and sizes ....... unfortunately the Indian woman has not developed a taste for the bikini ........ for the Indian male , with an upwardly mobile girlfriend , here is your chance to impress her with your nuancical understanding of the bikini.....this is a classy piece of information will be of immense help to you ......the lucid narration of the different kinds of bikin's available can go a long way to develop a taste of these things. My favourites from are the polka dotted and the banded thong bikini (pics above) .Whats yours .......write in

Social Trap -The BPO Agent

My post on the Talent Trap a week ago, has evoked some interesting responses , some of my friends recognized the implications, while some others felt that development is an individual issue and there are limitations to the extent that an employer can facilitate development .....I believe that the truth is somewhere in between , however the responses to my post has inspired me to look at another phenomenan which I would like to call the social trap . In this post , I would examine the dimensions of the social trap based on my personal experience with the call center industry .......

Circa 2005 , location Bangalore , venue- founder's day of a prominent call center company. I was the guest of the CEO and travelled all the way from Mumbai with an air of expectancy ....

The celebrations began with the ceremonial speech by the CEO , followed by honoring the exceptional employees of the year ...somewhat similar to the old economy .......but then it all started ........they called it a culture show ........I have seen cultural shows before but this was different ...the kids were attired in costume which were indeed global ( I hope you get what i actually mean!!) and were putting up a performance which was far beyond my imagination , in terms of choreography , professionalism etc etc ......I felt like a dinosaur and looked at my colleague and told him " P -this is indeed brilliant ....he responded saying -Welcome to the world of the BPO..." , i said to myself , I wished i worked in this sector ......however the real story unfolded a bit later ....

The Social Trap -Evidence 1

The show had some event managers who decided that they would randomly select some employees from the floor and engage with them on the dias .....a good idea if executed well....the first guy to come on the dias was a decent looking Kannada fellow and this is what happened thereafter .....

The Event Manager (E) - Hi , thanks for coming to the dias , whats your name ?

Respondent - Namez Jerry (he meant my names is..)..... I will refer to him as J from now on ...

Me- The fellow looks like Jawant Gowda , or Janardhana Murthy or J Karnard ....why does he call himself Jerry ....well it did not take time for me to realise that Call center agents have American names which helps them to be more acceptable to their customers . However , I tried hard to put myself in his situation and failed to understand why I would not call myself Niladri and automatically respond as Niel (even if i worked in the call center industry...) ...I told myself "this is a different generation so don't be judgmental ".....

What happened thereafter is even more shocking ......

E- So what did you do all day

J - I kinda , woke up in the morn and called up my gal ...and told her ,need some kinda time to shit .....and then take her out for a date .....then the unmentionables which i prefer not to document even in a harmless post like this ......the accent was perfect ...i had heard people speak like that in the Mid-west

Me- have I heard him right , did he say shit ? , was my automatic response ...of course he did , these people talk about morning chores in gay abandon in a public gathering ...!! . I decided to do some further investigation on the background of J , and as I would have expected , J comes from the outskirts of Bangalore , from a place called Maddur .

For those of us who are unaware of Maddur , it's a hamlet on the Bangalore -Mysore road and most of the villagers are probably agriculturists ...and J is probably the first generation that has ventured out to the city for easy cash ...thanks to the BPO industry

The more I thought about J the more i was perplexed , a part of me bowed down with reverence to the captains of the IT and IT enabled services for having provided employment to thousands of people like J , the other part of the me thought about the Social trap ....according to me you are in a social trap when " displacement without moderation happens from your roots and are transported to a make believe world , which is not yours and never will be.."

J was transported to a world , where he talks like an american , apes them in whatever he does , but at the end of the day retires to his small one room apartment in some non-descript ,pot-hole infested part of the city....he is trapped between two cultures and he is too young to realise it .......

Social Trap- Evidence 2

I like frequenting discotheques and in my younger days have been a reasonable party animal .....my haunt in Bangalore is a place called "Spin" . In this visit , I went to Spin with a couple of old friends of mine . Before we proceed any further, I would like to also tell you that I have a bad habit of observing people in public places like disco's ...and i have been doing this for years .... I find great pleasure in spotting the BTM 's (Behenjis Turned Modern ) in Delhi ..the Ghatis in Mumbai , etc etc ..... I was not hoping to see something like that in Bangalore ...but to my surprise , I say this young group of gals in their late teens and early twenties ...dressed in (not skimpy, but close enough) colorful attire coming in ......I asked my well informed friend...who are these people .....pat came the reply...BPO kids .....

I went closer to the group and observed them , the ladies were wearing contemporary fashion but in wierd color combo's , hair done up in geen and brown.....a fascinating variant of the BTM's .....they were calling themselves Steffi , Anna, Stacy......wow , I am sure their names are Saritha , Anitha , Sunitha , and after the voice and culture acclimatization program ....they have morphed into Steffi , Anna and Stacy......and have taken to smoking , drinking ....and who knows what else

I am not judgemental about personal preferences and habits , but the feeling i was left with was that these young people have gotten themselves wonderfully in the "social trap" and like J have no clue about its implications .

After a few years the attractiveness of the BPO industry will come down (it's already coming down with shrinking margins and commodatization) and as these young people grow old their salaries will not be enough to sustain a life style of a Steffi or a J ....once you have a bad habit , it stays with you for long ........and few years in the BPO , I am sure they will find it difficult to relate to their parents , their peers (who did not go to a BPO) , their cousins , etc ....and would definitely not migrate to the US ...so what's in store for these trapped people ? , where do they go from here now ....what suggestions do you have to give them....pls write it ...trust me this is serious.........

My motivation to blog -The need to express myself

It has been sometime , i have been watching this wonderful social phenomena called blogging . Some of my close friends and some not so close have blogs of their own , creating content varying from their love life , to their view on politics , to organization development et al . As a phenomena i would believe that blogging is an extremely interesting development in the democratic world...now now what does that mean !!!....i am told that you can write anything express your views (even if they maybe factually incorrect or conceptually weak or opinionated with ones points of view ....don't know if thats allowed ....for an amateur blogger grant this understanding to me for the time being ....i promise you that i will learn the rules fast ...) .

Coming back to the theme of this post ....what motivated me to blog.....couple of interesting things happened in the last few weeks . I came across a lady with eclectic tastes ( many years younger to me and an active blogger) and also a CEO who is a brilliant blogger (brilliant defined by the quality of content) . Somehow between the two of them , i got an inspiration from within to write , write pretty much anything and not get misunderstood , or being judged as we are in our day to day life.So i said to myself, I must express and my inner self on topics that i have a point of view on (and trust me as a good Bengali , i have a point of view on many things :)...) and issues which are socially relevant and i don't have a point of view on.

So after overcoming the initial lethargy here i am with a post on the very first day that i opened a blog account , declaring my intention to express.......

Before starting to type this post ...one part of me said "Niladri , you cant write coherent English to save your life..." , the other part said " Ok if you bad at it , test the hypothesis of being judged..." either way you learn ............and as i learn i grow ...