Change happens !

Many a times a change is inevitable. Especially when things do not go that well, when survival is most critical. Am I saying something new here for a change ? Absolutely not, but recent series of events made me write about this.

Take a look at what is happening at software giant Infosys, my last employer. Yesterday another senior executive quit the company, toll increased to 12. Eleven of them might have thought that he would not eventually become CEO of the company and one of his colleagues would. And each one probably did not want to work under a new CEO, who is his peer. The 12th person hoped for a longer time and finally realised that it would be a CEO from outside and he also quit. Yes, organization wanted a change and wouldn't have expected exodus at this level. And now Infosys board might be seriously going through the selection process again to find a new CEO who is capable of bringing in another dozen senior execs from his parent company !

Our neighbour is bringing in a serious change in law. In China. They are banning coffins and construction of tombs. Land is becoming premium and to preserve it they are making cremation mandatory by legislation. This law comes in to effect from June 01. To avoid this embarrassment, six senior citizens already committed suicide yesterday, to avoid the embarrassment and also to make best use of the coffins they had already procured.

I had changed my residence four years back. As any new inhabitant does, I also went for a pest control exercise with a reputed service provider to kill all the cockroaches. Three visits in that year part of the annual contract and I could not spot a single cockroach. I discontinued the service to save some money and I was hoping that their poison would have more life. It did. I did not find any pest for a long time. A few weeks back I found one cockroach. It was mercilessly killed by me with brutal force, consoled my wife that this would be just one-off case - knowing very well that "if you find a cockroach in an area, rest assured that it is not alone". In last few days, they started visiting more in numbers and more frequently. I already called service provider for a paid-help. I am thinking of announcing this change loudly. At least a few, intelligent ones will understand that poisonous sprays and gels are on the way. They might also think of an exodus to my neighbor's house. Or even commit suicide to have more decent death !

Driving car is becoming more of a head ache for many. Especially for people who drive it in using the steering accelerator pedal, brake and what not, and more for the pedestrians who are exposed to misuse of these clumsy devices by the drivers. Google wants to change this paradigm. They are developing a car with none of these. No steering wheel, no pedal, no brake. All one has to do is sit and it uses the computer and Google maps to reach you where you want to with no disturbance to anybody. It seems it looks like a TATA nano. No wonder it has to be like that - as such these three things are also given least importance in nano too, in order to save manufacturing cost.

Yes, flight safety is utmost important to all fliers. But, off late these pilots are not  reliable, though the technology helped a lot to make the air journey safe. These pilots tend to sleep due to overwork and fatigue. They tend to drink alcoholic beverages to make them awake all times. End result, their hands are becoming too slow to react to what their brains are instructing. Yes, change is required. Making pilots teetotalers is not an option. So, the scientists are on a different job. They are developing a "brain driven" aircraft. The aircraft can fly based on the what the pilot just thinks. All the pilot has to do is sit in the cockpit, close his eyes and visualize that he is going to Delhi. He, the flight along with you inside will be brought to Delhi, safely by the aircraft.

Everybody says change is required. Change can bring in hope, a new life. Also do remember, changes may cause  heartburn, discomfort, exodus or even suicide. Does it mean that a change is not required at all, absolutely not. It is required when needed ! And it is going to happen whether you like it or not !!

Tolerantly accomodate

Any ordinary person will look for a good company. Since defining goodness is tough let me reverse this statement ! Nobody likes to have a bad company of people. Criminals, thieves, murderers, alcoholics - the list of bad people can go on.

I suppose there is nothing wrong in me also wishing for a good company to do anything for that matter. Do I get that luxury always? I wish I had.

I had a friend Mohan, software engineer like me. "Shenoy, shall we go for a coffee, I am having a head ache" he approached me once. I  had just completed unit testing of my program. And I was convinced fully that I would need to make at least 50 changes to the program to make it any where closer to meet the stated requirements. However, I decided to give a good company to my ailing friend. As we approached the coffee shop, Mohan was still talking all high funda stuff with lots of intellect but less of any practical feasibility. No wonder he got that head ache, any body would get if he or she thinks so much, so high ! I was perfectly fine with that part. But there was no inclination from his part to feel for his pocket and pay for the coffee. I had to pay.

Quite soon, another day Mohan got head ache again. This time I was struggling to understand the specs of another program and assess how many bugs that I could induce. Still I decided to go with him, after all it was a question of a severe head ache and I was ready to give him some relief. Same thing happened, only talking high level stuff and drinking strong coffee by Mohan, no way near reaching to his pocket to fetch any money. I had to pay again.

Third instance onwards I just rejected his coffee offer and concentrated more on my "buggy" work. Did I do the right thing? I am not sure. I might also get a head ache and I would need his company to have a coffee. The better option would have been explicitly ask him to pay every time, to send that message across to him. Probably he expects such demand from others each time !

One of the important tasks, like many others I do on a monthly basis is to go to super market to buy grocery. Accompanying my wife to accomplish that task is a bit challenging for me. Not that she would end up buying too many things, I am least bothered about that. We have the credit card no ? And more over it gives us 5% rebate flat on the purchases made. At least we would get a huge discount !

What I am paranoid of is her habit of spending too much time in deciding what to buy. We have been buying for a long time the "strong teeth" tooth paste and all I would do is pick one and move on. My wife would keep looking all the brands - red gel, blue gel, with salt, without salt - before picking up the usual "strong teeth" wala stuff ! As if we still need a bit more strength to our teeth !! I get so impatient with that, with no reason. Not that I have to accomplish lot more things outside by using that time saved there.

Even if I am not interested in knowing what else available in the market, still I can hold that "strong teeth" stuff in my hands and read every word printed on it ( to get more convinced that this fellow is going to really strengthen my teeth ) until my wife completes her research. Or who knows, one fine day I may get an urge for using a ginger-lemon flavoured, black coloured tooth paste. And I might waste hours together in going from shop to shop, rack to rack to check whether such a thing is available before surrendering to the fate of using the strong teeth one ! It might be worthwhile to get adjusted to the "bad" company of my wife in the super market and look around more for my own good !!

I like to go alone for my morning walk, to get some free time of my own and to watch more closely what is happening around me with no distraction. Last week, I got company of an excellent person, my good old friend Anoop during morning walk. Nice guy, our thoughts are similar, our opinions do not vary much on any subject. Our chemistry was so nice and I think we walked more than required with out our knowledge. But I knew he will not disturb me for ever. His wife, with whom he would have better chemistry - for that matter all other streams of science, would return soon to join him for the walk after her home town visit.

Yesterday, I was not that lucky though. As I just started walking, I found Raj, another "not-so-good" friend of mine coming opposite to me. I just increased my pace and tried my luck to just limit the conversation with a "hi" even though we were meeting after a long time. But Raj was in no mood to spare me. "I will also join you" with a glee he took a 360 degree turn. He kept on asking questions about me and my family as we covered a good 100 metres. He was expecting similar questions from me so that he could share some of his achievements in life. Instead I just started jogging, knowing well that Raj had just started the habit of morning walk recently and he would be in no mood to jog.

I was up for surprise. Raj also started jogging. It worked for me to some extend as he was grasping for breath and the rate at which he shot questions to me diminished drastically. I had many options. One, stop jogging and return home, which I didn't want to do. Two, continue at the same pace and bare the pain. Three, jog much faster which would invariably give me shin splints which I am prone to if I run a bit faster. I took a risk, went for option three, started running fast  to counter the current pain on hand. It worked. Raj could not catch up with me. After 50 meters or so, he gave up, bid good bye to me and took a different direction !

I reflected on what I did once I reached home. Why did avoid Raj ? Such a nice person, all he wants is ask questions and some answers. What way is it going to affect me badly ? I had the choice of answering his questions with a word or two, which any way I am good at ! There could be a time when I can walk only slowly while many others would be jogging and I might be eagerly looking for a company. And the only choice in front of me at that time might be Raj - with many questions and many more answers !

Yes, I need to be more accommodating and tolerant to others when I am in their company for my own good. I hope others would be thinking of a similar attitude towards me for their own good !!

Sorry for the inconvenience

Sorry for the inconvenience ! It's highly regretted !!

Today I decided to jog on the road around the park. I did not want  those elderly walkers create any inconvenience to me while sincerely jogging in the park. Suddenly I heard a noise, but it was actually not a noise. It was a live band performing in the middle of the road on one of the side roads. As usual I decided to jog towards that, as I believe I have every right to know what is happening around me. Young lady was singing on top of her voice, the clean-shaved head was on the drums and bearded and unkempt long hairy fellow was on the keyboard, I presume this attitude is norm of the day to show how much talented one is. There were another three wierd instruments played by equally wierd people of which I don' t have any clue !

I presume it was jazz, rock or Pop or a fusion of all three. Am I not qualified enough to judge that? Atleast I had tried to see the difference between the three types of music by changing the audio output setting of my media player. I could not find any difference, may be because I was trying to play "Chalte chalte", old hindi song by Mukesh, it wouldn't have sounded any different to an expert musician also. I am pretty sure many people in that neighborhood would have been worse than me as far as knowledge of music goes. And this rehearsal act by this live-band early in the morning  would have created a hell of lot of inconvenience to them.

The other day I was waiting at the KFC signal on 100 feet road. KFC, Pizza Hut those shops would clearly make you feel you are on a signal in one of the down towns in the US with one subtle difference. With three cops guarding the signal light to check people not to jump the working signal !

Yes, everybody was in a hurry. Office time, people were eager to reach office not later than they planned. Somebody was ready on honking soon the other side signal turned amber, auto-rickshaw guy was struggling to keep his neck out to check whether the signal was still red. Two wheeler guy was raising his accelerator with all force, not to get his vehicle stopped by any chance. Only fellow who was not in a hurry was the red signal itself !

Then it happened. The BIG 10 BMTC bus came from the moving direction and stopped right in the middle of the junction. For a while I thought it was a break down. But that was not the case. The driver forgot to take the left, and overshot by a few meters. The conductor got down to help him to reverse it and take the bus to the desired direction. He started making noise "right" in a unique way and frequency which can easily be identified by his partner.The car-wala behind the bus got so annoyed, in one swift action he overtook the bus from the right just to meet a pedestrian with a bicycle in his hands. In a fraction of a second the front wheel of the cycle lost all its shape. Nobody moved, nobody bothered, all were still anxious to see when the signal would turn to green. It looked like even cyclist was not bothered by the inconvenience caused to him. He coolly moved to the other side of the road lifting the one wheeled bicycle, as if he was anyway planning to change the front wheel.

It's easy to create inconvenience to people when you are a kid. What ever you do, many of the elders will keep quiet. Some brave ones will give a reason for their silence "After all they are kids no? Even we had done similar things at that age ".

We had done our bit too, during our hey days. We used to play cricket in the street in front of our row houses, that 10 feet wide lane with a dead end was a perfect pitch for us. Yes, we had 3 stump-like sticks of different shapes, sizes and lengths. We would try to keep them erect which would point upwards but in three different directions. Our biggest challenge was offside of the pitch. That jeweller uncle used to sit in his house, in the short-cover position and watch all the fun. Non-sportive fellow, he never used to encourage when a great catch was made by one of us. That part we were fine with, but by chance the ball entered into his house through the window, we had to abandon the match till we could buy a new ball. He would sit pretty on that ball also adding to his ball count by one more!

But the Radhakka was more sportive ! She with her family used to live in her make-shift palm-leave hut right on the boundary of our vast cricket ground. They used to make paappad and sell for their living and her husband would go early in the morning with the paappads even before our toss happened. There was every likelihood of the ball piercing through the wall of her hut and land in the paappad mixture she used to make, when one of the stronger players hit a four or six. When that happened, all players, all spectators would run off and hide in the nearby houses. We would peep through to see the inevitable. First Radhakka will throw the ball on to the pitch. Then she accompanied with her daughters would come out and do a "cheer-girl" dance with any of the paappd-making instruments in their hands. Once the dance got over they would go in to take some rest waiting for the next boundary. Then only we would slowly come out to retrieve the ball and resume play.

If I don't say this then you would think that I am not living in this world. There is going to be a huge inconvenience for a group of people at NewDelhi. The bureaucrats.  They have been used to no work situation for a while and suddenly they have to work over time now. I presume it is a good inconvenience to have.

While you are doing something, be sensitive to others' convenience and inconvenience. Don't be overboard with that though, you may end up doing nothing. Many a times it might be your imagination that your act would make it inconvenient to the other party, he may be least affected by his own standards !  If at all any thing unpleasant happens, you have that magical statement handy "Sorry for the inconvenience, it's highly regretted" which does not mean anything to either party.

 But if you continuously get feelers from others that what ever you do, ends up in inconvenience to others, then it is high time. It is high time you made it convenient to visit a good counselor or doctor !

Please educate

Educating people on things that they don't know is a hobby for me. I enjoy it thoroughly whether the receiving party likes it or not. Whether it is solicited or not, I will do that job to the best of my satisfaction !

First things first. Let me start off by giving an important piece of information. Tomorrow, May/15 is my birthday. Let me educate you well, one does expect wishes from all on his birthday and I am no exception. So you need to wish me tomorrow, without fail !

But there are instances when one has to educate others forcefully.

The other day I was traveling from Bangalore to Kochi in the train, Kochuveli express. It reaches Salem by 10 PM and invariably it would prove two things as it stops at Salem station. People who board from Salem like to talk loudly. That too they prefer to talk in broad light. That day was no different. I had my dinner and just entered into sleep as there was nothing else to do. Suddenly the lights were switched on, yes the train had arrived Salem. I was waiting for people shouting "Unga berth keezhaya meleya ? ( your berth is top or bottom in Tamil ). As if the whole world is interested to know who is on top and who is on bottom !

But I heard some thing else this time.

"Show me the ticket ?" growled at me that thick mushy, stout, 100+ Kg Police inspector. From his uniform I could make out that he belonged to TamilNadu police and was no way connected to Railways. He, with his deputy - a thin stooping fellow,  was probably on the look out of a worse criminal than me ! To me he looked like Yama with Chitragupta by the side.

I quickly took out my mobile from the pocket. "No need to call anybody, all I need is ticket" he shouted and made sure all my co-passengers who might have been immune to light but not that much to noise also woke up. "It is an e-ticket sent by sms on my phone"  I whispered to him at the lowest voice possible. As Yama was giving me a dirty look, Chitragupta told him that these days mobile-tickets are also acceptable. He picked up my phone, and started scrolling up and down to find some information obviously which was not available in that sms. "It says Sundaresh + 4, where are the other names?". Yes, I realised it was time for me to educate him. I replied in a much louder voice ensuring that all other passengers in the coach woke up and got educated by me. "You may go and ask the Train Ticket Examiner ( TTE, no idea why we all call him TT and not the TTE ). He has all the names". Yama calmed down a bit by my aggression. Though I was ready to go for a identity parade of all my other 4 relatives in front of him, they were also woken up for the day anyways ! Instead Yama quietly asked me why it implemented like this and is there a provision of printing the paper ticket at all. I got golden opportunity to give fundas, I forgot all my sleep. I gave him all the info on nature, trees, preservation, online reservation, mobile tickets, sms et all to the best of my knowledge and capabilities. Yama was happy. Chitragupta was happy too, he didn't even open his small booklet ! I survived. I was happier that I managed to do something good in training sector which the Railways/police could not do.

"Orange bittu bidi, athu namathu" I shouted in Kannada. You may wonder why. Please read on.

This is another incident at Bangalore bus station a week back.

I was waiting at the bus stop like place in front of Bangalore railway station. Where the buses coming from Pune stop. Waiting for arrival of Airavat bus, the white elephant, bringing my daughter. I was struggling to "withstand" at the stop, one side being "pay and use" and the other side being "use without pay". As the bus approached, at least 15 or more auto drivers were already on the foot board looking for their "preys". This was usual and did not surprise me. But one more new thing happened. Advance booking also started. "Blue is mine, Black is mine". Each one was indicating that a particular passenger dressed in that color would be transported by him. Then I heard one of the drivers shouting "Orange namathu ( Orange is mine in Kannada ). I looked up and found that it was my daughter in Orange T-Shirt. I had to educate these drivers about two things. One, Orange clad lady is my daughter. Two, do not crowd around in front of the bus door which creates a lot of inconvenience to passengers, who are only half-alive after 14 hours of bus travel ! That's why I shouted "Orange bittu bidi, athu namathu" ( Leave Orange, it is mine in Kannada ). They all looked back, probably they heard a voice not familiar, I would not have sounded like one of their colleagues ! Any way, my education to them worked. They accepted that message with a grin, gave a little more way for my daughter to alight from the bus, a bit more peacefully !

Please do not hesitate to educate others when you get a chance, obviously on things which you know. It may not do any harm, but many a times it may benefit others. But, watch out the reactions and body language of the recipient. After all, wasting energy with no purpose is not good at all - one more education for you from me with a definite purpose !

Restrictions

I found those two  road humps on my way to park has been modified today ! There is no change in the height or width though. They remain as twin towers 1 foot high and an 1.5 feet wide, separated by a distance of 1 foot ! If you are riding a two wheeler, even at moderate high speed, even if you survive the first one, the second one will make sure that you fall down. The only change was that it was nicely painted white to alert riders on the death trap, good initiative at least. People can predict their future better.

I am not at all surprised by this modification. After all the whole India is getting "modi"fied.

One should realize how these humps are formed in our roads. Initially there would be a road like stretch. No need of humps then as there would be enough natural ones to control the speed. Once the road gets tarred, even non-adventurous drivers would start speeding. One major accident would take place after a few minor ones. On public demand a hump or two will be formed, the size of which will solely depend on amount of material available. To restrict the speed of vehicles.

Restrictions will get imposed like this in many fields.

When I was a small boy I had attack of jaundice, not once but thrice. As such I had no restrictions of food. I could eat anything. But during this illness, all food will be restricted. Ban on salt, oil, sugar. Basically no tasty food, natural way of forcing one person to take rest. The home remedy was that bitter juice extracted out of "kizhuga nelli", ground level amla-like plants. Unfortunately that tiny amla like plant was abundant in the village and a morning dose of that would kill all my appetite. I wonder how much jaundice and the requisite food restrictions still prevalent in that village. My food restrictions would be lifted only once my morning urine sample stops turning those white shiny rice seeds to yellow after they get soaked for 20 minutes ! Which was an acid test for me every day morning !

When internet first came in, we were all excited to use it. There were no restrictions to use internet in office. After all very few people were in office and much lesser number of sites on www. Things changed, organization grew, bandwidth got choked, people started chatting to beloved ones during office time. Restrictions were also imposed. Internet was available only during non-office hours. All the time access was given to only much more restricted customer applications which allowed us to see that minuscule part of those gigantic legacy applications, not an inch to the left or right.

Movies. I wonder whether censor board existed those days. I used to ask my parents why that dirty hero ( to me he looked like a third rate villain though ) embracing that heroine shamelessly in the movie. I was made to believe that it is just camera technique, their pictures were stuck together to achieve the desired result. I strongly believed in that morphing technology for a good number of years until I realised what embracing all about and the seriousness and consequences of that touchy process ! That was the level of censorship needed at the beginning. Now censor board has more job to do to review each and every movie to award an "A" certificate to make that movie a big success.

I am not sure what would happen to us, if there is no need of any restrictions. If we all become extra  decent, well-behaved, living in an Utopian world. It would be uninteresting, monotonous, not at all challenging - right? Thoda spice tho life mein hona chaahiye na !

Enjoy your restrictions. Enjoy more in restricting !