North-east Monsoon?

Growing up in Pondicherry, I was always a weather freak. Well, the growing up in Pondicherry part was just for effects. Anyways, being a weather freak and observer of nature, it always mattered to me which side the wind was blowing, which clouds are going to bear rain, and whether we would get a school holiday due to a depression the in Bay!



Like I know that the wind reverses direction around September 23 year after year. It's definitely something to do with the equinox. Same with March 23, when the official summer begins in the northern hemisphere.

Last morning's rain in Bangalore reminded me of those monsoon days in Pondicherry - the typical depression rain; of a continuos and determined bunch of clouds to not stop raining - without any hurry.



Well, I'm off to Pondicherry today to see the real North-east monsoon :). Here I come, the holy land ..

Rainy bandh day

I woke up at 7 AM - an hour earlier than usual. It was still pretty dark outside. Ah, there's the reason - it was raining. It'd started raining last night! The front door opened to a beautiful world outside. But my sweetheart was away in Delhi - can't hear the music of appreciation of nature from her today :(.

The day crawled in anticipation of a break in the rain. The wind chimes in the balcony refused chime. This house is so different without her. Okay, she's only gone for three days! So I pull along.

I decided to chug along in the rain. Today's a bandh called by the communists. I still saw school kids arunning in their colorful raincoats. As I went past the ADE campus, I saw a few red flags and a couple of workers standing there. Others just went past them for work. So much for communism in Bangalore city!

As I took a turn towards Krishna temple road, the inevitable happened. My bike stopped! It's been giving me so much trouble. Rain or heat or traffic or speed - just any reason to stall. So I push it along and let it dry the electrical circuitary. I left with my mechanic and told him to do whatever to do something with the electrical connection.

But, now - no autos! Those contraptions I'd belittled just yesterday; they were off the roads. And the steady rain had no intention of letting up. So I walked along in my new role of being observer. The traffic seemed to flow better than normal. I thought what a pity that some companies are closed today to compensate on a good saturday.

As I walked along, I was also getting pretty wet, naturally :). In my observer cap, I thought about the amount of rain that just drains. If only, we made good use of this water ..

I just stood on old madras road asking for lift - and got dropped at the ulsoor fork .. then i walked from there till office again - drenched pretty badly ..

IT and the farmer

We've all seen the ITC ad on how they're tranforming lives in rural India. The e-choupal is an interesting case study on the Supply Chain System.

ITC, in a bid to shed its image of being a Cigarette manufacturer and take up a social cause combined with a long-term sustainable profit introduced these e-choupal concept. We do see ads on Indian television about these e-choupals about how ITC is transforming lives. Well, there really seems to be some changes happening.

Check out : http://www.digitaldividend.org/case/case_echoupal.htm - a very interesting case study.

And for a feather on their cap : ITC has won the 100,000$ Development Gateway Award : http://home.developmentgateway.org/award

Hope for a better future for the poor farmer!

Letter to the Editor

My letter to the editor of Deccan Herald was published on September 12th, 2005. This is a subject close to my heart.

http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/sep122005/editpage1554292005911.asp

The Braille Slates

At the Ramana Maharishi Academy for the Blind reception. In the background, you can see the trophies and awards won by the organisation. For the 2500 alumni of the school, "respect not sympathy" has been the motto.







The Braille slate being used by a visually impaired. We - the diljale, had donated for the purchase of braille slates. This girl was extremely enthusiastic to show us the use of the braille slates.

Six Years ..

6 September, 1999 was the day I joined Infosys Tech Ltd. It's been 6 years already! My God, time flies ..

Such milestones are good times to reflect back on what's happened.

• How do I rate myself career so far?
• What have I achieved so far in my career?
• What is my action plan for the next few years?
• Where do I see myself 2 years from now?
• Where do I see myself 5 years from now?

These are the typical questions to my mind whenever I think of my career.  But overall, to judge in a qualitative manner, I would say average. I have followed the path that a average Indian IT male would've had. Very average indeed ..

In terms of my aspirations, if I look at my yearbook, I wanted to be a manager - I still want to enter the management field. That way, my long term goal from a 10Km height still remains the same. What else has changed? I started as a enthusiastic Telecom development guy - I was very enthu about writing code for the Telecom network and swicthes. Over the years, certainly a lot of events have influenced me. And, I took to testing as a career. Boy, that was one significant move in my career. Today, I lead 4 engineers in a multi national product company. But, I need more .. I want to direct and manage an entire project on my own.  Some day ..

Now, an MBA looks more achievable than ever before. My wife has played a huge role in this transformation. It's amazing how much life's changed since she came in into my life! In terms of experience and reading and knowledge, I'm more ready for an MBA now than ever before. Only time will tell, where my career is headed. But, as of now it's Chalti ka naam Gaadi. :-)

Book Review: Managing in the Next Society

Peter F Drucker is a man of experience. This book is a collection of essays from Drucker on the trends of change in society and the way people work in the next century. This was published in 2002, so certain conditions and trends might not be covered in this book.

But, overall his analysis based on the 250 years of Industrial revolution and how the Knowledge revolution will impact societies and economies is amazing. His description of how the railroad changed the concept of distances and how the internet has zeroed the distances now is excellent.

To summarize the book, the take away are as follows:

• In the Knowledge society, the specialist  will be in demand and so instead of generalists that we have in the IT industry cannot differentiate for too long.
• The developed countries of the world, especially in Europe, will start facing a demographic crisis in the sense that the average age of the population will steadily increase and so also their competitiveness.
• As the average age of man increases, people will see the beginning and end of corporations within their lifetimes.
• Temp workers will also start be dominant component of workforces as companies will increasingly find it difficult to employ everybody that works for them.
• The world is definitely gravitating toward the east - China and India to be specific.
• His view on China - there is a huge discrepancy between the public sector communist West to the highly Capitalistic Eastern Shanghai region. There is very low quality in the produce of the Chinese public sector.
• Manufacturing will face the same future as Agriculture faced after the second world war. It's no more going to be capitalism, it's going to be a Knowledge Society.
• Two areas that desperately need management are : Non-profits and Governments. As I speak to my counterparts in Europe and US, I realize that nowhere in the world, politicians are respected! These areas need focus because the Goals are not easily identifiable.

Weakness of the Book : It is very repetitive in the messages it tries to convey. Also, I was specifically looking for any views and opinions on India - but could not find too much reference to India. His later articles though have to lot to say about India.

It is definitely a very good read for all who plan any venture into the Business world.