BRAToSPHERE

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  • >Akele hai.. to kya ghum hai??

    >Okay, I accept I have been single for pretty much too long now, and there is this sense of duty, that I should write something about it.
    Along with a score of other problems in life, and the many diseases in india, there is a very recent ( or was it there since ages?) one which has been inflicting young just passed B-school grads. It is called LOO.
    No, it is not the disease of going to the loo again and again. That particular disease is called by some other sophisticated name, and will hit all the above TG surely but probably after the age of 40. The LOO that I am talking about is “Lack of opportunity”
    This is due to the fact that the two years in campus puts in so much pressure and so much expectations, that you start feeling like God, and ignore the more important lesser things in life like Love. So you start ignoring your girl ( it is a very male centric post!), who was very much responsible for you being in the B-School in the first place. Don’t worry I would not be ranting about why one should not do this. There is simply no remedy.
    This new disease affects primarily those who say yes to one or more of the written things( these are the symptoms):

    • A decent pay package and a big brand name behind them conditions them to think they are the most eligible singles existing on this planet and re-ignition of old flames will happen soon (statistics say 98% B-schoolers try and woo their old connections once they reach a self satisfying stature, financially). F%^#$er, forgot the way you treated her when she was all wooed by you.
    • You think its no time for flings because you are 25-26-27 and its time for shaadi.
    • Work has put you in Indore, Raipur, Bhopal, HUBLI where you can find no one who matches you ‘mental frequency’, and you spend the day matching waves with the wholesaler to sell one more box of candies!

    What everyone fails to realize is how most of their batch mates would be feeling the same way. (Others just got married!)
    Now what do such sick people do?? 




    Arranged Marriage!!


    Yes, the very institution that they were so against, now becomes the only resort. They are so bored of staying alone, earning decent money, having everything that money can buy but having nothing to spend on, that they surrender. The worst part is that that they don’t realize that they are desperate. It happens.. it happens when you’ve been single for too long.
    This arranged marriage thingie takes some time to be executed, partly because the guy is still living in a small tinge of hope, and majorly because.. “ arrey yaar, aajkal acchi ladkiyan kahan milti hai!!”.
    So, during this wait, as a medicine to this disease, you do the following.

    • Get drunk and bask in glory of those days when your (X) girl friend got jealous when you spoke to a firang who came to visit the campus for a few days as a part of exchange.
    • You still frequent the orkut/ FB profiles of your EXs
    • You see them green on gtalk, you think for a split second, ‘should I , should I not start the conversation?’
    • You sit in a coffee shop without company, you order a drink( has to be Black coffee, after love Aaj kal!) and start calling your friends.
    • You crib too much about work
    • You realize you haven’t refused a single party invitation in last 6 months (you definitely wanna get noticed, get hooked)
    • Before a train journey starts, you frantically hope that may someone interesting occupies the seat beside you. Check the chart outside the compartment for the required age and gender.
    • In a gathering you suddenly come up with the announcement, “I wanna go to the Himalayas, I need to spend some time with myself( or, I should just join a Buddhist camp and become a part time Monk, I need to discover my inner self.)”
    • Suddenly after reaching your hometown, you feel like a lost puppy coz no one else is single anymore!( you feel the same on FB too!!)

    For all such people, who are now certified patients of LOO, i just have one thing to say.. “Akele hai.. to kya gum hai” ( paas mein Rum hai na!!!)
    And as is in vogue, keep saying to anyone who asks the reason you are still single.. I HATE LUV STORY’s

  • >Contra Vs. Tetris

    >May 1995, i remember. I was back from my maternal grandparents place, and i had got along a TV video game from delhi. It was much in in vogue, and i remember being the cynosure of all.

    Some games that i in particular remember there – Super Mario, Contra, tetris, goonies. Well, why exactly am i raving about these right now??

    Came across a very funny pic on the internet depicting the meet of two popular games of those times, and this got me thinking about those good olden days, where the normal catridge driven video games itself was a thing of awe. Where in this age of PS, XBOS, Nintendo’s and all the high processor guzzling games do they stand?? no where!

    Remember Contra – the game with two street warriors fighting it out in the jungle. and tetris – the brick game, which very welll could qualify as the most widely played game in all forms.

    Now, look at this pic.
    contra tetris

  • >Graduate’d

    >Tomorrow, 2nd july marks the completion of my one year. This one year has been a rollicking time, travelling across the country, meeting numerous people, doing things I never ever thought of, and as they say, getting into the corporate groove.

    Last week I was in Mumbai, for my graduation party (yes! After post graduating!). The new batch was there with the same dreamy scared curious eyes, the older batch (ME!!) trying to show off Who is the boss? N everyone else more or less the same. This got me thinking. One year has passed, how fast time passes away. It has been 12 months that I have been receiving this pay cheque in my bank account – month on month. That is a good long time for introspection.

    It has been on roller coaster ride right from the day go. Right from the outbound training in garudamaachi to the present ASM stint handling north karnataka has been one helluva ride.

    grad party

    The travel across the country along with fellow management trainees, each one stud in their own league. Going around, right from the southernmost Kerala to see the cocoa plantations to the Himachal to see the factory and CSR. Getting to know my batchmates even more better in the process and making friends for life. Who had thought that these would be the people I would talking to and cribbing to on a daily basis?

    The first stint in Delhi metro. Whoa! I was the cynosure of all eyes. People generally get random far off obscure places in their initial years and here I was in DELHI metro – the capital of the country for my first sales stint. Those four months in delhi just went on like a whiff. Staying with Abhinav, thivahar, preteesh and Sashi in the south delhi house, trying to adjust to live out of campus and fit in into the corporate life. (yeah! Puneet I am not forgetting you!) Those wonderful all night chats and weekends with that someone special! It all seems like a beautiful dream now.

    Then in November just as the winters started kicking in delhi, I was parceled of to Chennai. Yes, my next stint was scheduled in Bangalore( once more Metro! I must really be lucky!). Bangalore metro with its young crowd and happening life was simply amazing. Friends here, and hanging out and doing crazy stuff which I had never ever thought off( Remember Ahen, the bus ride to the airport!) and the wonderful climate here just mesmerizes ones senses.

    Now after one month in Bangalore, any one would fall in love with it and this thought that I was just training here was sure killing me. I will soon have to leave this place to take over some territory. Which territory would it be? Where would I based out of for the next two years? How would my career shape up? All these thoughts just took over my entire mind, until that one fine night in Chennai.

    “Congratulations. Welcome to the South branch. You would now be handling North karnataka”, I still remember those words. My joy knew no bounds. I am not too sure if it was more for the posting being announced? Or was it that I would be based out of Bangalore? Or was it the challenging territory I was given? well, a mix of all i would say!

    It is all still very fresh in my mind, that chat I had with Ahen that night from the hotel room in Chennai. The yellow smiley ball really proved to be lucky huh!

    From then on, it has been no looking back. It has been six months that I have been posted, and now “graduated”, it has been, to say the least, a fun ride. Hoping for more!

    And yes, it felt good to be graduating once again!!!

  • >Post it

    >Well, already posted. now what??? 🙂

    i am sure we have all seen those tiny sheets of colourful paper on everybody’s desk, with some crap written on it.

    Post it notes, as we know are those yellow cute looking small pages that are stuck all around the office desk just to prove that the owner of the desk actually works very hard.

    Wiki defines it thus, “A Post-it note is a piece of stationery with a re-adherable strip of adhesive on the back, designed for temporarily attaching notes to documents and other surfaces.”. Ah! Just a small iece of yellow paper, having one small side with adhesives.

    Of late, the use of post it notes has increased from its normal usage. We use it for different things, to do different activities, and we even use it online. Some of the funny things possible with the innocent loking, un suspicious post it notes :

    1. Use sticky notes to leave messages on a door – do not do this at home if you have security problems.
    2. Use them as temporary design elements that can be moved around.
    3. Add a sticky note to food items to let people know any number of things, such as date of use, who the food is for, what the ingredients are, and so on.
    4. wanna quit staring at the chic opposite desk – use these notes. no!! not for ciggarettes!
    5. Dress up in sticky notes
    6. keep a small flame going – Burn them all!!!
    7. Make a small cheap book – Are they free in office??
    8. Make clothes for your pencils and pens
    9. Put small sticky parts on your eyelids and blink your eyes – Aankh Maaro!!!
    10. and ofcourse, you can use them the way they are supposed to be used! To write reminders, dumb!!

    I was recently at a friends place, and saw the complete use of these small tiny papers. This guy has quit his job, and to top it has recently got married. His sticky note read:
    1. Make a LIST. ( ticked)
    2. cross off item number 1. ( ticked again)
    3.
    4. think of the third point to write
    5. surf the net( tick, tick tick…..)
    6. tell wifey “ sent 10 resumes!!!”

    One thing where these post it notes also help is to spy. Want to know what your colleague is upto? Have a sneak peek into his trash bin and read all the torn out notes.

    Want to appear doing, or planning to do a lot of things? Post it all, on these sticky notes and not on twitter!!!

    Well, where did I get this awesome idea of writing a post on post it notes ( pun!! Yeah yeah!!). Again, at a friends place, where she had written quite important things on this yellow paper, and left it in open for the prying eyes. Her note:
    1. Take medicine
    2. eat rusk
    3. buy a washing machine
    4. use the washing machine
    5. buy an iron box
    6. use the iron box everyday
    7. eat breakfast everyday!
    8. things I can’t talk about on this blog!!!

    Well, I just remembered something, let me write it down the notes lest I forget it.

    p.s.: note on the note: “Smoke!”

  • >My Life – Air India Chairman!!!

    >“Govt crushes AI strike; 17 union men sacked, several suspended”

    This is the news headline in the TOI, and that set me thinking. Can Air India ever get out of its perennial problems? Maybe privatization is the key, maybe restructuring is the key. Or maybe, plain shutting it down is what would help it from making further losses.

    Anyways, this post is not on air india, and I m not trying to give a bail out plan to get back air india in its days of glory. This post is about Arvind Jadhav – the man at the helm of affairs at the distressed airline, chairman of air india.

    Getting to be the top guy at an airline steeped in losses, neck deep in debt, under the intense scrutiny of the media and dreaded by customers is not really a job everyone would ask for. But here, we have this one guy who is braving it all, and trying to bring some positive change.( true, it is not easy to handle the pressures in a messed up atmosphere)

    Along with the existing set of problems, He also has to deal with recalcitrant unions, employees who are not too happy with him, and an excess of bureaucratic red tape. The day he took over he found a balance sheet in tatters, a declining market share, poor loads, poor on-time performance, business-class seats occupied only by the airline’s own staff and their families, aircraft flying to routes that do not make money and not flying to routes where everyone else seems to be making money. In other words, a “typical” public-sector organisation that was spiralling down towards a debt trap. Its net worth is slowly, but surely, getting eroded. To add to this, he found an “organisation where people felt nothing has gone wrong” and “that they were doing their best” ( How much true. This is the same that happens in any area where defeats have become the norm of the day!!!)

    Okay, now why exactly am I talking about this guy in THE BHARAT JHURANI BLOG? This blog is no news article. Well, there is a strong connection.

    Post merger with Indian airlines, the worries have only doubled.( nor did the demerger here in my own situation, help!!!)

    To say that this guy has a lousy job is putting things mildly. The airline has accumulated losses of Rs 7,200 crore and is bleeding Rs 300 crore a month. The organisation’s structure is massive and unwieldy because of the incomplete merger between AI and Indian Airlines — there are two sets of managers for practically every position and nothing is shared. Its staff strength is roughly three times what an airline of its size should have. It has strongly entrenched unions who oppose tooth and nail any effort to cut costs. It has a terrible reputation for service and an even worse one for on-time arrival and departure. It has an ageing fleet and working capital loans in excess of Rs 15,000 crore. And it has ordered 111 aircraft for over Rs 40,000 crore, which it cannot pay. ( If your infra itself is not right, there is little you can do to show results. the basics should be in place for you to perform!)

    That is not the worst. Being government-owned, AI has to contend with requests from politicians and bureaucrats — requests that it cannot refuse. More importantly, political considerations play a role greater than economic logic when any strategic decision is taken.( Interference for personal gains, and short term wins for some)

    When Jadhav took charge last year, he started off with a fair amount of goodwill. He was seen as a competent, sensible and proactive bureaucrat with “fire in his belly” who would understand the underlying problems of the airline and take the correct steps.( Seriously!! that was the reason!!!

    Unfortunately, Jadhav managed to alienate practically the entire staff of the organisation shortly after taking charge. He publicly lashed out at the work culture, at the sloppiness at every level of management, and the general lack of energy and ability among his staff who he felt were too pampered and overpaid.(Well, did not get much chance to do this. but yes, everyone is now on their heels and little should you care if they like you!!!)

    Jadhav also pointed out that he was saddled with 32,000 people when he needed no more than 12,000 or so. There are many in the aviation ministry and outside who think he is not wrong. ( Works even more against if the opposite was the case. imagine working with 25% of vacant positions at any point of time!!!)

    Jadhav’s personality has played no small role in his plummeting popularity ratings. The man tends to tell it like it is; can be perceived as abrasive; does not trust anyone easily; and can be obstinate. He was a shock for the AI workforce, which was used to considerably more placid bosses. (That is a good trait of an effective leader. only if things were happening like the way they ideally should, these same characteristics would have been the talk for his success)

    The main criticism that Jadhav’s detractors level against him is that he has “not done enough”. Although the minister claimed in Parliament that things had improved , there is reluctance to give any credit for AI’s marginally improved performance to Jadhav. “The committee of secretaries (CoS) and the Cabinet have been seeking a recovery plan. But Mr Jadhav has failed to produce one so far,” says a senior ministry official. He says that Jadhav has been running around like a “headless chicken”, one day to the east and one day to the west. “He makes presentations, but they yield no result,” he says. They claim that marginal changes in the airline’s performance are at best a drop in the ocean and that the CMD is not at “grips with the situation”.( Oh My God, is this like the standard response everyone in such a situation gets?? ” you are not on top of things”. The improved aspects are seen as happening naturally. great!! So, why am i here??)

    Well, for those who know me, and have been interacting with on a personal basis for the last couple of months sure would understand the connection between this article, connection between this man and me!!!