My First Week of Internship

It has been almost a week I have been here and life still is moving at a snail’s pace. At the end of the first day of orientation, I met with my manager for the global online division. Interestingly my mentor was coming on Wednesday only so I was lined up for some meeting in his absence to get some idea of the division. Also, interestingly, I was told I would have my laptop by next week only, which essentially means I as a summer intern of Global “Online” division of “Dell” would not be able to do anything!!!

Damn!!! Tuesday was still fine with the meeting lined up for me; however I was bored to death on Wednesday… save alone the arrival of my mentor. I went to a few meeting with him as I didn’t have anything else to do and was almost dozing off there. Thank goodness I was carrying loads of books with me all this while from Delhi to Mumbai to Ann Arbor and now to Austin. Finished 2 books in 2 days and got paid for that as well. What more can one ask for in such circumstances! And as if Murphy’s law wasn’t good enough to explain things here, we have a big weekend to start here with Monday off. God only knows how much I need a break right now… so be it. Met with a few friends here but spent most of my time watching movies at home. I need to start working pretty soon :(

Are People Really Reading This...

At times it makes me wonder if there is any reader for whatever I write and then suddenly once in a while I keep hearing things like it was great to read this, that and all... well to all you silent readers, can I ask for just one favor... leave your comments here so that I know what you like, dislike, want to read more etc etc... Just a simple plain request or is it...

... too much I am asking for :)

And miles I went before I slept...

One of the things that have fascinated me for a long time was to drive long distances and though I had been traveling some long distance in India (trips being from Delhi to Rishikesh and one to Chandigarh recently… okay stop laughing now)… I had been looking forward to an opportunity to do the cross country for once.

Well I had planned one all India trip some time back before coming to B-School but I could never find a company to take it to execution. However, this time I was determined to go all the way from Canada border to Mexico border no matter what… I asked a few friends to join me as I take my car to Austin from Ann Arbor, but as luck would have it all of them got out one way or the other. So was I ready to call it off… No way here and I started my 1400 miles journey on my own (well for our Indian readers it is slightly more than Delhi – Bangalore Distance!)

I started on Friday, May 18, in early morning (11 AM to be more precise) and as I had decided to split my journey in two days with break at Memphis, I thought of covering 750 miles on Friday and remaining 650 Sunday after taking a day off in Memphis with my cousin. The 750 miles were further split in to three stretches – first one being after 300 miles near Indianapolis, next after 550 miles near St. Louis and finally at Memphis. However, as I started my journey, I was tempted to go on and on.

After taking my first break after crossing Indiana, I just didn’t feel like stopping. Of course the scenes in the way and the mileage of the car did help me to continue. In fact, one of the most memorable moments was to cross the Mississippi river between Illinois and Missouri. As I was crossing the bridge, the shear force of water underneath the bridge made my heart skip a beat of two and though the speed sign still said 65 miles an hour I could not stay on more than 50. For Indians, rivers have always had a mystery attached to them; however I had not seen something this big ever before. Gosh, it was hard to believe having seen the state of Ganges in Kanpur recently when it seemed nothing more than a canal. Even in Rishikesh, I have seen some people driving motor boats along the river; but seeing motor boats running from one bank to another was something I am sure not many Indians can digest easily. Anyways, after completing whole 450 miles in a record time (the distance equal to Delhi – Bhopal Journey), I finally reached Memphis at 10 PM local time. Some of the facts of the entire day –

Miles Covered – 750
States Covered – Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee
Major Cities – Indianapolis, St. Louis, Memphis

The Second Phase

It always seems easy to do less in the second phase; however the biggest hurdle becomes the boredom and lack of surprises. I had been chatting with myself for a long time now on the road and finally as I started to bore myself, I found something really occupying and this time it wasn’t Cowboys or Horse of Texas, it was the Texas Traffic. This leg of 650 miles was split between two states only, Arkansas and Texas, with one major stretch on I-30 being more than 320 miles. So as I was getting ready to cover this stretch and reach Dallas, I was illuminated with the truth of American city traffic; which I had been missing all this while in our small town of Ann Arbor, and there by I had been posting blogs on how different and difficult it is to drive in India. Sorry about that and here is the story – I was heading towards exit 44 on I30 from exit 48 (which means 4 miles of distance) and seeing 1:30 PM on my watch I was smiling to have covered so much in such a short time… so much so that I was thinking of reaching to Austin at around 4 (much ahead of my scheduled arrival at 5)… and suddenly I saw a whole sea of cars stopped in front of me… and on this highway with speed limits of 65 miles an hour it took me slightly more than an hour to cover 4 miles!

The journey there on was engrossing from the fact that I was constantly in the middle of this sea of traffic and getting my way forward was becoming increasingly difficult. Sooner I realized another fact about Austin. No matter how accurate your map may be, it is always difficult to find your way here and I lost my sense of direction in no time. Thankfully I had phone number of a friend of mine who had volunteered to help me in case I get lost and as he sat in front of his computer, it still took us nearly an hour to finally reach to my apartment from the nearest exit… phew!!! Even after reaching my apartment, things didn’t work out the way I would have like. From 1212 apt I searched all the way to finally reach at 2121… in between I had to call a few people to check my emails and as my phone gave up, I tried to get my computer hook on to some insecure wireless connection… got my way around the pressed shift key (my comp has this funny habit of getting the shift key on when I need it the most… those stupid practices of keeping numerals in your passwords are so crazy in these times)… all said and done I was home and on my bed at 7:00 PM… after completing a great journey all alone!

Miles Covered – 650
States Covered – Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee
Major Cities – Hope (Birth place of President Clinton), Dallas, Austin

Coming back to US – Is it real!

Well finally that MAP is over and I am back to Ann Arbor, one of the thing that has struck me is how easy it is for me to make a transition these days from one place to another. Yeah jet lagged for a day and tired for a while but when it comes to transition it was smooth as ever both in India as well as states. One day is all I took to get back to the Indian lifestyle and same here. In fact the feeling of coming back has not really sunk in to me both times. It was as if I had been here ever since. Don’t know if this is for good or not, but I am really amazed by the abilities. As I go ahead with the coming break, I am wondering how to make the most of the time at hand. On one hand, I am thinking about reading a lot and building to the knowledge base and on the other hand I am thinking of taking this long break and get energized for the coming year. Well as the dilemma continues, I am looking forward to the internship with Dell – The Austin Powers are soon to be released!

MAP over – FINALLY!!!

After fighting a numerous times among ourselves, draining out every iota of energies of me and leaving me silent for days now… the MAP is over. I am sure I would be hearing it from many more in Ann Arbor but the feeling of “Never ever working with any of these people” was the strongest in our team for sure. The things got further worse with Anjani sending out her feedback to the entire first year club with her wonderful illustrations of what she thought of the contribution from a few team members. I tried to keep my cool all this while but this was going too far with your personal agenda. To hell with it, I am feeling so relieved by the mere thought of having pulled it through that I don’t even care for what grade I get now. The first experience of the shared leadership is not really something to be proud of; however, there have been many take away for me in terms of my own learning – Firstly, I learnt to deal with ambiguity in a more systematic approach and also to deal with the multiple and conflicting interests. Secondly, to manage the expectations of your faculty and sponsor at the same time is something that will help me in long way; and thirdly and most importantly, it taught me to keep the loose ends tight in a project environment – something that I started in Evalueserve but experienced to this degree only in the shared leadership environment.

Kudos to the MAP – for being finally done with!

Arrival of the Little One

One of the reasons for choosing MAP in India was the expected arrival of a little one in our family. When Meenakshi told me the expected date is around 18th April, I knew I would be seeing the baby here in India, no matter what. On 14th of April, I got the call from Ashok about Deepu being blessed with a baby girl – Awesome… I tried almost everyday after that to get the next flight to Delhi and see little Samhita (Sam – as I am going to call her)… alas all in vain… well not entirely. On 20th just a day before my flight to US, I got the tickets and as I reached Delhi, I could not wait any longer. As I drove past everyone in that Delhi traffic, Dad and Ashok were biting their nails… and so be it. The little one was sleeping on the bed in the house and boy she looked so tiny even with the tones of clothes over her. As I held her in my palm I could not help but wonder at the cute Sam’s lack of fear. The little girl didn’t cry even for once in my entire stay on few hours. God bless the child.

The last few hours in India

I had never been cheated like this before in my life. Reached Mumbai domestic airport from Delhi and decided to take a taxi for the international airport. As I came out one guy asked me if I need a taxi and I nodded. The usual black and yellow cab came and as I asked the guy about the fare he said he will show me the chart. Thinking that it will be the usual cab chart, I was fine until I got this weird chart stating the rate for domestic airport to international airport as 1350!!! “Stop the cab right now…” I shouted. Already pissed off with so many things in life I didn’t want to get this dirt on me anymore… I blasted the guy and just then the thought of being in Mumbai – the land of vanishing people – dawned up to me. I finally negotiated the price at 500 and reached the highway. Seeing me a little restless the guys led me to another taxi and flew away from there is no time; however not before sharing their loot with this taxi driver and requesting him to drop me to the airport. Man, only if I had some time in my hand and some more energies… the last few hours in India been a reminder for me – for a long time.

The service industry in a service-dominant country

For the entire duration of this MAP, one thing that has been haunting me in the service levels provided to us in this service-dominant country. I had been hearing about the Government sector having been clogged by the corruption and things not moving from one table to another and it will be a folly to compare my getting a driver’s license in less than 24 hours here in the US to the things back home; however what surprise me or rather shocked me this time was level of services in the private sector in India. So let me start giving you a few examples before I start –

First Time

Being a telecom analyst, I had believed that India has one of the most advance services in the world simply because we are a late arrival and do not bear the weight of legacy networks. However, here is what happened when I applied to Data services of Reliance. First of all, I had to furnish all the documents ranging from my passport to the letter from J&J in order to get a connection – the reason given: We are a country suffering from terrorism and we need to be doubly sure – my only contention was that if I can produce a forged driving license and a forged passport how long should it take me to forge a company’s letter head. Anyways those fell on deaf ears anyways. So after 3 days, I had my connection working and as I was heading to Delhi the same day I was happy to have some way to connect to the rest of the world on my field trip.

31 March – I reached Delhi and the connection was not working. After I called the customer care, I was told that I need the STD to be activated for using the internet services in Delhi as I had a Mumbai connection. Why on earth did they give me this connection, when I told them specifically that I would be traveling to North India in 3 days and I need to use it there. Anyways, the agent told me that I need to wait for 3 hours and this will be taken care off.
4th April – I kept calling the customer care every three hours since the last time I called them, and kept getting the same 3 hours crap. I finally lost it all and asked them to connect to the manager. I told him that I have lost 9,000 USD as my connection is not working and I am unable to sell my shares online and he better get this thing sorted or I will go to the consumer courts and sue reliance. He said it will surely be done by 9 AM tomorrow. It was 11 PM that time.

5th April – The net was still not working and this time I was told that the STD is fine but the roaming facility is not activated and it will take 3 hours to get that started.

10th April – The net was finally working – two days before I had to leave back for Mumbai!

The Second Time

Well this is a story about net again, I got this 80 rupees an hour card from my hotel and found that the net in my room I not working. I called up the maintenance and they asked me to do all sort of weird things ranging from changing the nodes of the network wire, starting the PC again to holding the jacks with both hands and trying again! Finally as I asked the guy to come to my room and sort it out, one lazy fellow reached in half an hour and tried some funny things again before declaring that the cable is not working and I need to get another cable. I said well fine, get me one… “It will cost you 35 rupees…” “To hell why?... this is supposed to come along the internet card” “Yeah but that is not working” “So what can I do, it is not working and I should get a replacement” “No sir, this got damaged here in this room and you will have to pay” “Okay go ahead and get me another one” I had to budge. It was 35 rupees more against the sunk cost of 80 rupees. Te guy brought another cable in another half an hour and after trying for some more time declared “Sorry sir, the cable on this floor was destroyed by mice last night so that might be the problem”… “So what can I do… you change my room” “Sir please call the reception for that…” and the guy left without even waiting for a response. “Sorry sir the hotel is completely booked and we cant give you any other room… ” Everyone is too busy to listen for a response… anyways it was pretty late by that time and I decided to sunk the 35+80 rupees and some prestige with that.

The Last Nail

It is funny how you get delayed in these flights and then the whole world crumbles around you. After reaching at Mumbai at 1:00 AM after a delay of 5 hours, I decided to check with my hotel to ensure my booking. “Yes sir, we have your room ready”. 1:45 I was at hotel and yet the room was getting cleaned… 3:00 AM still the same and I was loosing my patience in the hotel lobby, sleeping over my luggage… finally we got a suite for us… A SUITE!!! We wanted two separate rooms so that poor Nitesh can sleep without listening to my singing the whole night… what happened to our rooms. “Sir I don’t know, you talk to the manager in the morning”… to hell with it, and Nitesh and I decided to wait until we get another room… at 5 we had the other room and this suite and I slept in the luxury of a suite for the first time. Not for long though, as I got a call at 7 AM telling me to be ready to shift to my room. Again the guy didn’t bother to listen to my side. I called up reception this time and found the same guy… after asking him if he was the one who called I said I slept at 5 in the morning and there is no way I am shifting now… if he has it come upstairs and try to wake me up… this was my time to click the phone without bothering to listen… well I could not sleep after that and finally called the guy again to shift my room at 7:30… “I am just sending someone upstairs sir” and then I waited again till 10:30!!!

The state of the Fourth Estate

Did you catch the recent debate on Indian Cricket team’s dismissal performance on any of the news channels? That’s another thing that these debaters were themselves the non-performing cricketers for a long time, but that’s a different story.

OR, did you catch the big Aish-Abhishek wedding coverage, with all the incidents of look-alikes going to meet Aish or that of an actress going to media claiming to be Abhishek’s wife. The wedding itself was a bonanza for the paparazzi.

OR, god forbids if you caught the “Mat Chuko Chauhan” episode on one of these 24X7 news channels. The poor major was not allowed to speak a single word in the entire half an hour program amid numerous breaks.

If this is the state of fourth estate in India, I wonder how long informative journalism can breathe there. The scandals (be it exposed or created) and taking upper slots and high TRP rating, whereas the news or the real stuff is being thrown away somewhere. If you want to find out the turnout in UP election, you may have to stay tuned for more than 4 hours to see a small clip in the bottom; however the Bob Woolmer’s death was covered to the most specific details possible.
The media in India is on a suicidal track and I see no looking back for it now. Even the print media has been reduced to Page 3 and the cartoon paper these days. There was not a single day that I didn’t find a poor grammatical error in any of the newspapers I picked. Whoever reads this and why? Whoever watches the crap that comes over on those 24X7 news channels? How long can we really blame our middle class house wives for all the garbage on the Idiot box? How long should we buy the newspaper for our hostel wall collages? I think we need to find the answer to this sooner…

From Phoenix to Nightclub!

Having spent so long in Mumbai for the MAP, I think it would be ridiculous to say that I was not thinking about partying late lights here. Well I did, almost everyday… and yet could manage only two nights to really go out and enjoy the Mumbai nightlife – Two very different and contrasting experiences.

The first time was a club named Phoenix (wonder why such a name) where I went with some other MAP teams in town. The long queue outside was an entire college going crowd – I was told, and yet it was hard for me to believe that until someone told me the college in Mumbai starts right after class 10th. Welcome Mr. Uncle look-alike to this party! Anyways after paying 750 rupees as the cover charges (which people told me is more than what they charge in NY), I entered in to this crowded dingy looking place (the walls had this weird graffiti which symbolizes the independence of today’s youth I guess). After getting over with the initial hiccups, I headed for the bar for a drink and voila – welcome to the hell. By the time I could order a beer and get one, I was thirsty for another one and yet headed in the opposite direction for the fear of being crushed. The dance floor, the same scene and I got sick of those rap tunes and reggae beats sooner than I thought. The smoke in the room was irritating my eye and the couches around the floor were all taken by love-birds making it out in the privacy of few vodkas I sense. I was once an 18 year old and I was trying to save 20 rupees everyday by not eating at the canteen or avoiding that ice-cream. I was once an 18 year old that was afraid to hold the hand of his girlfriend and I was once an 18 year old that used to study long hours in the night. I wondered if that 18 year old would have been there in my place today, how he would have reacted. My folly, I am sorry… I am growing old finally I guess!

So what was the second experience like – wonderful to say the least. I was once again frustrated with our MAP team and decided to go out and have a beer. 1 o’clock in the night and the only place my friend knew that was open for beer at that time was Night Club – a dance bar this time! The manager asked us to pick seats as the whole place was almost empty. I chose the corner most place as I watched this orchestra playing in the middle and few girls roaming around that. The chilled beer was served in no time and as I was enjoying the cold sips of beer, the gazals were making my mind soother. Did anyone disturb us or anything… well not even once after we said we need to talk some things. Did any thing disturbing happened around us… well I saw nothing more than a few drunkards giving away 10 rupee notes to the girls there and feeling happy for in the bright sun shine I think this girl would not even spit at him. So after having some good time, I came out, left a 20 rupee tip and got the royal treatment throughout.

It is interesting to debate, if I would have got more time in Mumbai where would have I gone, very interesting indeed…!!!

Around the India in 12 days

As the MAP went little warm and we started to travel a bit, the temperatures went soaring in to 40s in India. The first city on the list was fun loving Pune – or at least this is what I though of the city last time I was here – more than 4 years back!

As I traveled to the places again, it was a funny feeling, be it Ferguson Road, Aundh, or even Kothrud… Last year when I was here, I was in dilemma to go back to Germany or to work here. Last time I was here on a Job hunt and it was a messy situation. Not that much has changed either, I am still on a job hunt and I am still wondering if I can work here. Anyways, as we were traveling to all these nursing homes treating the doctors as customers for the first time, it was surprising to see how some of them play demi-god and make decisions on our lives. Evening was spent with in meeting Shivani, Taposh and Nishtha and it was good to see so many people waiting to read through my stories here. Good to catch on the old times as well.

Our next stop was my own Delhi and this time we traveled to place varying from Uttam Nagar to Lajpat Nagar to Patel Nagar. Now for an average Delhite like me, this was a strange contrast. Meeting doctors who don’t even care as to what they get in the operation theaters to surgeons that want to be in-charge of every decision making process. Surgeons that are in their early 70s and might have delivered some of our parents to surgeons just fresh out of college and wondering how can they sell more to the patients. It makes you wonder where is the whole India rising thing happening when you see these know it nothing doctors. Meeting doctors that complaint that their patients don’t buy a 2 rupee iron pill post child birth. Meeting doctors that choose patients based on the affordability and meeting doctors who are ready to treat them all. It made me wonder as to how the same Delhite delights on Kouton’s sale and buys himself a 750 shirt and not be bothered about what his doctor is prescribing to him. How we would go place to get a good tailor to stitch our coats, and not be bothered what suture is stitching our bodies. This was a city of contrasts, but then that’s Delhi for you, where youth and heritage live side by side. Anyways, talking about Delhi’s best experience – lunch at Haldi Ram’s (undoubtedly the best!)

After finishing Delhi on 4th, Nitesh and I drove to Chandigarh and although we started at around 5 from Gurgaon, it was only around 3 AM that we could make it to the Hotel Mountain View. The traffic at Gurgaon has far worsened and it took us more than an hour to cross just a flyover. All those 6 lane roads are a myth really, considering the traffic here. Are the planners in India failing to react or the reaction is too slow. We were discussing how easy loans have made it easy for an average middle class Indian to own a car, once again taking me to the Suture debate of not using a 200 rupees suture in a child birth… anyways when I research I found that total number of cars in India roughly equals to the cars sold by GM in the US and for those of you who know the state of GM in the states against Japanese giants, this is not a number the middle class Indian should be proud of. So, why is there still not enough infrastructure on the roads, or may be there is and yet when I want to get ahead of everyone on that road, I am taking the whole system for a ride. I don’t have an answer for that now. Anyways, it was a smooth ride thereafter and I had enough energy to drive through the night. In Chandigarh we covered Mohali and Panchkula and then started for Ambala on 6th. This time the contrast was much less and it was fun to drive in the city of Charles-Edouard Jeanneret popularly known as Le Corbusier. The roads were wide, the traffic much smoother and to top it all we were welcomed by warm, helping people on the streets. Yo Chandigarh!

After an hectic week of primary research we stopped on the week-end at Delhi and I got a breather on Sunday to celebrate my 28th Birthday with friends and family. A small function at home and a lot of relatives to meet – One could not ask for more.

Monday morning and like all consultants, I was off to the airport to catch my early morning flight… from a busy Delhi airport, where delays due to congestion are a norm, we flew to Lucknow and to my surprise many of us walked to the Airport gate from our plane! The city had worn this yellow color during the election time and to my surprise there were no banners, posters and loud speakers in this election. Kudos to election commission for being able to achieve this much to the relief of citizens (some fools call this “murder of democracy” where a leader can’t even be heard… but then who wants to listen to these leaders anyways). Lucknow still holds on to its rich culture to a great extent among all the big cities in India and although I was not lucky enough to experience the “Pahle Aap” styles much the Paans, the mosques, the imam-badas still keep it the queen of old Awadh royalties.
Having spent two days in Lucknow, I headed for Kanpur on 11th. Strangely enough the land of the Best IIT (yes I say it with a hint of sarcasm) does not have a decent hotel for the team to stay let alone an airport! So we had to travel by Car from Lucknow in the mornings and return by the same in the evenings. It was also strange to find that a city once known for its industries is loosing it all to the metros now. Another funny incident was when we crossed Ganga Setu (Ganges Bridge) on our way and I suddenly realized the small stream of water beneath is Holy Ganges! If this is what it looks in Kanpur, I wonder what keeps it running till Bay of Bengal. Reminds me of the Bupen Hazarika’s number “Aye Ganga Bahti ho kyon?”

Anyways, after getting over with Kanpur, the field trip got over and it was time for us to go back to Mumbai. What if we didn’t hear the loud speakers there was no dearth of Politicians on Lucknow airport and we saw a few waiting with us for the flight. However, it turned out to be a long wait as the flight kept delaying time and again. To make things a bit more complicated it was not a direct flight and we had to go to Delhi first and from there to Mumbai. Once again the delay in Delhi sky to land and then a long wait for the strip to get ready for us… From 5:15 at Lucknow, we reached Mumbai at 1:00 AM!