Signal minutes......

The light turned red, bringing the bus to a halt
All around vehicles heave a sigh and begin their wait

As I wipe my brows of the sweat, I see out
The people who depend on these minutes set about

Street performers do their thing in between vehicles
Ask you to admire and pay for their display of skills

Vendors of various wares flock your window
Fruits, snacks, toys, books and many more follow

Beggars with various ailments try to elicit your sympathy.
Which is often met with utter disdain and apathy

Not far behind are the eunuchs who indulge in extortion
Threatening you with the shame of public humiliation

Amidst all these hullabaloo there is the traffic constable
Trying to untangle things and contributing to the babel

As the the light turns green, you forget them as they go out of sight
Only to encounter them at the next signal, different faces, but same fight.....

Mid Year Appraisal Blues..........

I sat in the meeting room, contemplating on the 6 months gone by.

Thinking of my achievements, failures and what to reply.

Half yearly appraisal discussion was the reason.

Making me sweat in A/C and it wasn’t summer season.

He entered without making any noise.

And made me jump in fright with his voice.

Thrusting a bunch of papers and reports at me, he said.

These were your goals; let’s see if you deserve what you are paid.

Listing out each goal, he stared at me, waiting for me to speak.

I sat, with my eyes lowered and expression of a person with an urgent need to take a leak.

What is your technical expertise? He asked.

Nothing specific, I know a bit of everything, I replied.

Do you have enough functional knowledge he queried and also know about the business.

I have learned a little. But still am unable to differentiate between a spot and a forward*, I confess.

What is your contribution to the company, apart from your daily work was his next question.

I helped you to cook up statistics for every client visit, I said without hesitation.

In my opinion, he said, you have not any technical or functional skill.

Why should you continue to be a part of this project? Please pray tell.

Oh, mighty one, I realise that I do not fit in to the scheme of things.

Cause I know only to send reminders, prepare inane reports and schedule unnecessary meetings.

Then what should be done with you? He thundered with anger.

The solution is simple sir, I replied, make me a manager...

* Spot and Forward are types of trades

Dialogue.....

"There is a client visit on Monday"

"Yes Sir"

"I want statistics from Jan 2007 till date and I want graphs too"

"Yes Sir"

"I want it now"

"Yes sir"

"Also I want a few flow charts which depicts our processes and I want it to be stuck on the wall there so that the client can have a look at them"

"Yes Sir"

"Print it on A3 sheet and in Colour"

"Yes Sir"

After sometime

"Come here, all the data you provided is wrong"

"What Sir?"

"Its showing that our SLA is way above the limits, our 'Mean Time To Resolution' is very high and system availability is very low. That can't be right. Our project is in very good shape."

"Err Sir, this is the actual data"

"Oh is it?"

"Yes Sir"

"We can't possibly show this to the client, can we?"

"No Sir"

" Can you tweak the data and reproduce the graphs so that they look good?"

"Honestly Sir !! , you want me to falsify data?"

"Its not falsifying, its just a strategic adjustment of available information towards achieving maximum customer satisfaction"

"Ok Sir !!!"

"Do it ASAP"

"Yes Sir"

After some more time

"Now that the data and graphs are fine, whats the progress on the flow charts?"

"I have completed the flow charts Sir, Could you please look at it"

"Hmm...looks fine, can you remove this cylinder thingy from the middle?, its ruining the symmetry of the flow chart"

"Err...Sir, its the database, It has to be in the middle"

"oh !, ok print them out and stick them on the wall"

"Sir, there is a small problem, the Admin department disabled the printer in our ODC. Apparently they caught somebody printing a 1000 page book called 'Managing for Dummies' "

"Er....ok ..ok, you use the printer in the other ODC, its still working"

"Ok Sir"

"I'll help you in sticking them to the wall"

After some more more time

"Sir, I have got the print outs"

"What are you doing here then?, Go stick them"

"You told that you will help me"

"Aah yes, take this cellophane tape, use it. Its my personal one, so make sure you return it back to me after using. I am leaving for the day. Make sure that you stick them before you leave"

Next Day

"I see that you have stuck those charts"

"Yes Sir"

"It doesn't look right"

"Why?, Sir"

"The first chart should have been in the middle and then that picture and then those two charts. It all looks cluttered now"

"Is it Sir?"

"You should make effective utilization of space. If you were in doubt, you should have asked me, I am always here to help"

"Sir, You had already left and when I tried you cell phone and it was switched off"

"Ok, ok...You will have to re do this, remove everything and stick them again"

"Sir ?"

"Do it ASAP and as usual I will help you" ....................

Disclaimer: The usual one

...in which M asks K not to drink coffee....

Manager (M) calls K . K ambles over to him dreading what lies ahead.
M's roving eye spots me just as I was trying to make myself inconspicuous by slinking further down in to the chair and peering intently in to the monitor which was displaying a highly informative slide show of analysis of the best structured anatomy of the various female thespians in the Indian motion pictures industry. He calls me over too.

M to K and me: 'What are you working on now?"

K: 'I am working on an important development piece of code"

Me: "I am working on the slide show for client visit. Analysis of best structured model for software development to increase efficiency and quality leading to enhanced synergies with various teams"

M: 'How long will it take to complete?"

K: "I have to complete it by next week"

Me: "I was just about to complete it, just the last slide highlighting Bipasha's...err Business Process statistics"

M to both of us "Whats your bandwidth to work on another requirement, which needs to be done ASAP?"

K: "I don't have much time to spare as I am pretty much involved in my current work"

I don't say anything, but just groaning inwardly for having to some actual work.

M to K: "I see that you spend 15-30 minutes, three times a day going for coffee with A, surely you don't spend all the 8 hours in coding. You should be able to spare the coffee time on the new requirement"

K is speechless and before he can think of any reply,

M to both of us: "We will discuss this with other team members as soon as I come back from coffee, in half an hour"

I hold back K, reminding him of the fact that his confirmation process is yet to complete and his chances of getting a good rating will be seriously harmed if he picks up the telephone and connects it with M's head with considerable velocity.

Disclaimer: As usual its a work of imagination and in no way related to actual living people or events except for the part where I was peering in to that slide show.

Art of leading......

Gather around children. Its story time. It is a corporate parable with great morals

Once upon a time, there was a huge public limited services company. It was one of the leading corporate houses in the country. It had great ambitions and vision to become a major global player in terms of revenue, man power and many other key features.

It so happened that on a particular year, the global market slumped and the forecast for the days ahead was not good. The CEO (henceforth will be known as CEO) and his board of directors looked at this forecast. As any able leadership does at the time of crisis, they reached to a quick decision and headed towards the golf course right away. Over the course of the golf game, they held intense discussions and arguments. By the time they reached the 18th hole, they had come to a unanimous decision on what to order for the working lunch right after the game. As the CEO pocketed a birdie at the 18th, he remarked ' Brainstorming is such a useful tool, no?'.

After 2 days of the above mentioned golf and working lunch...err brainstorming sessions, they reached a decision. Even if the markets are down and the economy is in recession, it should not affect their salaries (A point to note that every board member had a salary of approximately 2 crores/annum). CEO and the board hired a Firm of Financial Consultants(FFC) to analyse the situation and come up with measures to resolve the crisis.

The FFC spent a fortnight in analysing the data and used techniques such as the 'Ishikawa Diagram or the fish bone analysis' to arrive at the causes for the problem. They identified a number of causes and used another wonderful statistical technique called the 'Pareto Analysis' to identify the key cause. The outcome of these process was that 'Facilities provided to Employees' emerged as the single most major cause for the fall in profit of the company.

Next step was to come up with measures to solve the problem. The consultants at the FFC came up with a multi pronged approach and devised multiple solutions. These solutions were presented to the CEO and his board in a 3 day conference held at a 5 star hotel.

The solutions offered came under a common umbrella called 'Cost Cutting'. But as a 'value add', the FFC also came up with ingenious euphemisms for each solution rather than call them just cost cutting measures.

The first solution proposed was to stop all the project specific cabs provided to the employees. This would result in a lot of savings as hundreds of cabs plied daily to pick up and drop employees for shifts. The euphemism for this solution was 'Stop Pollution, Save Energy transport policy of the organisation'. The CEO and the board, who had chauffeur driven cars murmured their assent this. Little did they think what the employees will do to get to home when their night shift ends at 2 AM.

The next solution offered was to stop all the stationery that was being provided to employees. By ceasing to provide pens, books, staplers, markers the company could save a lot. This measure was concealed under the guise 'Save Earth, Green Planet Policy'. Since the CEO and the board only used pens to sign and nothing else, there was a whole hearted approval without pausing to wonder what will the employees do to jot down when they are in a meeting or a training.

Next in the list was to switch off lights and air conditioners during office hours which was named a 'Save Electricity, Conserve Power policy'. As golf courses don't need both lights and A/C, this proposal was applauded by the board. It has to be mentioned that the FCC went above and beyond its call of duty and proposed one more alternative here. It was, instead of providing lighting to the whole building, just provide a miners hat with a inbuilt torch to each employee a subsidised rates. The employee will have to bear the costs of changing the batteries and maintenance of the hats. This would reduce electricity consumption to almost nil. The board thought that this idea had excellent potential and can be considered if the push comes to shove.

Another innovative solution was to stop serving beverages to employees.Aided with statistics and charts, the financial consultants proved that stopping coffee/tea would save a lot of cost. It was shown that an employee, as an average partakes 2 cups of coffee or tea in a day and if the cost of providing a cup of coffee/tea is Rs 3 approximately, then it costs Rs 6 per day per employee. The company had a work force of about 100,000 and if its assumed that about 75% of them indulge in the consumption of coffee/tea. So the total cost per day amounted to Rs 450,000. Extrapolating the figures for a period of a month, it amounts to Rs 9,000,000. If the same figures are extended to the whole year, it almost amounted to the salary of the junior most director on the board. This was named as 'Health Policy'. The board members were so astonished by the figures presented, that many of them stopped sipping their coffee and by the spark in their eyes one could readily understand what their decision would be on this extraordinary idea. As a added bonus, the FFC also proposed that instead of completely stopping beverages, it can be sold to the employees through external vendors, there by making some profit. This too received tremendous applause from the board.

Since there was a lot of ideas flying over, one of the board member too had a sudden burst of imagination and put forward the suggestion of withholding the promotions of all eligible employees, there by saving a big chunk of moolah to the company. Though they didn't come up with any official name for this idea, in general it was agreed to be called 'Screw the Employees Policy' in the inner circles.

As solutions were being presented, the CEO saw that one young man was sitting at the end of the table, without contributing to the discussions. He was from the FFC and the CEO, who wanted everyone to contribute asked the young man to speak his mind. The young man, after a moment of silence said 'Wouldn't it be prudent that at the time of such financial crunch, the board members and the directors take a salary cut and contribute to the profitability of the company?'

There was a stunned silence and the only sound was of that of the snore of a board member who had fallen asleep right after lunch and just before the meeting started. Then the whole board to a man burst out laughing and the CEO thanked the young man for bringing the much needed laugh through his excellent joke. Then he went on rambling about the necessity of laughter in the stress filled world and how important it is to smile and work together for a greater cause till one of the board member gave him a kick under the table to make him stop.

When all these solutions were presented and discussed about, the group used yet another decision making tool called the 'Nominal Group Technique' to decide which solution, when implemented will provide maximum returns.

They voted each solution based on its importance and the final result was 'Let Nominal Group Technique go to hell, we will implement all the above solutions'.

After deciding thus, the board members patted each other on the back for a job well done and coming through difficult situation. They also unanimously agreed to hike each other's salaries as a bonus for coming up with such solutions and making sure the company's path to the top is free of obstacles. They agreed to meet the next day at golf course to tackle another important issue rankling their brains. Yeah 'How to improve their golf handicap?'

PS: Last heard, the Young man from the FFC has become a vendor- supplying beverages to the same company and is earning as much as the junior most member of the board.

Disclaimer: All people, events and places mentioned above are purely fictional and statistically improbable. But the very fact that its highly improbable, makes it perfectly probable to occur.

The road to home.....

Me and my mate in the car, after a long day at office.

Trundling along the long stretch of pot holes connected by bits of road.

Stopping every few metres, waiting for the traffic ahead to ease.

Contemplating on the day that was, the futility of the things.


Taking time to appreciate the small joys - the cute girl in the bus.

Causing the fellow motorists behind to blare their horns,

Indicating us to move on, in to reality and avoid the big fat cow ahead.

Snaking past the cabs which are in a hurry to jump the next signal,

Trucks advising the world to 'Save Rani Water'.

Vividhbharathi belting out old hits on the radio, professing to throw all caution to wind,

And fall in love, pyar, ishq, mohabbath without a thought.

Inter spread with messages from a parrot on the perils of promiscuousness,

And the importance of being 'Safe than sorry' in the act of making love.

A big celestial bear devours the sun, ending the day.

But our journey to home is yet to end.

We crawl along, savouring the best parts of the day and ignoring the nasty bits,

Hoping the sun of the morrow brings more bright moments.

Literature or literally torture?

Hello there . This was something which I attempted long back when I had nothing better to do and was consumed with the idea that I was the next big thing in literary world.

It had been lying in my cupboard for all these years and I came across it accidentally when I was looking for my previous IT returns (yeah its that time of the year when you look at your form 16 and exclaim, 'I never got that much of taxable income and what the heck is this amount in total tax payable?, I declared so much of saving !!!! and where did I spend all the money that they say they have paid me !!!' )...

Ok I digress. I came across this thing which I like to call a poem and showed it to a friend (if you are reading this, yeah it was you), who for some reason liked it and advised as any well wishing friend would do just as when they say to go and take up bungee jumping...to put it in my blog.

So here is my किस्मत

में गया उसको कहने 'I Love You'

जब होश आया तो डॉक्टर पूछ रहा था What happened to you !

मुझे याद है की उसने संडल उथाया था

उसके आगे का मुझे कुछ भी ख़बर नहीं था

आगे के तीन दांत निकले थे बहार

और चहरे पे लगा हुआ था एक बड़ा प्लास्टर

मेरी हालत थी बड़ी painful

मगर मेरा दिल खुश था, क्योंकि अस्पताल की नर्स थी बहुत beautiful

रोज़ डॉक्टर मुझे देख के कहते 'you look sick'

मुझे पता था की में बन रहा हूँ नर्स का आशिक

जब भी में उसे देखता तो होती मुझे pleasure

और ज़ोर से बदने लगता मेरा blood pressure

डॉक्टर ने समझा मुझे हो रहा है complication

मगर नर्स ने जान लिया मरे दिल के असली situation

दिन यूँही गुज़रे, हम दोनों की मिलते थे नज़रे

मेरे घाव लगे भरने और दिल गाने लगा प्यार के तराने

अस्पताल से चोओत थे ही मैंने उसको किया propose

और उसने भी नहीं किया मुझे refuse

अगले ही दिन वोह बन गई मरी घरवाली

मगर में क्या कहूं अपनी किस्मत को,

वोह संदल वाली लड़की बन गई मेरी साली