Good Insignificance!!!!

“Amrya… You feel insignificant re there”….
This is what a friend of mine told me when we were talking about Mumbai.
It was a Thursday, a weekday when I went to Mumbai. It was hot and humid. I had a rendezvous with some friends of mine there.
I will just quickly outline some places and matter I encountered in Mumbai in the short stay of around 8 hours…

Dadar….VT…Church Gate….Fashion Street…Bargaining…Azad Maidan…Red Flag…Taxi… Marine Drive… Queens Necklace… BCCI…Local…..




Queen's Necklace

Well these just a few things I remember right now.
Usually when a person walks around in scorching heat and humidity greater than 50% he sweats likes a fish and is uncomfortable.
I did sweat but wasn't really uncomfortable.
Let me try to explain why I wrote that first line in the blog.
The pace at which Mumbai moves is awesome. I don’t know how people manage to move that fast. Like living in a matrix. Everything is programmed. I also had the first hand experience of the crowded local train. You need not have to push around to get down. Just stand in the queue of the passengers getting down at say Dadar and you will automatically get down the train. It is that simple.
Mumbai is a dangerous place is what everyone like to say, well for me it was a myth. I went to the marine drive and sat on the sea shore there watching the Mumbai traffic moving and trying to make sense. You look around and you are totally lost. There is a sea on one end of where I am sitting; the Arabian Sea and on the other side is the Mumbai sea; the sea of big and small cars, busses zooming around from all direction. The traffic never came to a halt. I sat there marveled by the pace; marveled by the gigantic seas. One full of water another full of people and cars and poor me am sitting in the middle of these two as if stranded in an island nowhere to go. Generally one must feel sad about this situation, but interestingly I liked this feeling. I liked being insignificant. As my friend put it, “I love being insignificant. It gives me a feeling that I can be better than what I am right now. I work harder!!!”
I could make sense of the first statement of this blog only when I felt insignificant and why my friend was so jubilant when she made that statement.
Mumbai for me for now… Rocks!!!!

And Suddenly....

Life was going down, there was darkness all around me and suddenly….
And Suddenly I saw Dawn…
I have been working for the most respected Indian IT company for almost 20 months now. In all these 20 months, my faith and respect for my company somehow kept on dwindling. I mean as an employee not as an investor of course.
I still remember, May 18th a Thursday. Bedi, Amit and I were standing near KD circle drinking tea. I got a call from a Bangalore number. She said, she is calling from SAP and would I be interested in an opening in SAP. I couldn’t make a split second decision. Fright or whatever stopped me. I said I shall let her know tomorrow. I was an asshole I must say!!! I remembered Anisha telling me about that. She had forwarded Sid’s and my resume to a specific department in SAP.
Anyway, even Bedi got the call. He immediately accepted. I being a paranoid first wanted to consult someone on that before taking decision. When will I stop depending!!!!
Okay, anyway I did call up Anisha and took a thorough interview about the department. I was satisfied. I thought now I will get a mail from SAP and I can reply saying I am interested. I felt good and went to Bedi’s house… I don’t remember the rest.
Next day, I sat in anticipation of the e-mail from SAP. Bedi had already received the e-mail. I was feeling like an ass. Somehow, I was thinking very clear. I took the mail id of the SAP contact from Sid and sent an e-mail stating my interest. To my luck I did get the reply back very soon. I thought, better late then never!!! It was decided…
We were going to Blore next day Saturday. I know how I spent the Friday. I wanted to read. Crap, I couldn’t read a single line. We did discuss about PLM a lot with Amit. This discussion really really helped a lot.
I will not go into the details of the interview at SAP. But to sum up next day was very hectic. After almost 10 hours spent in traveling, 21/2 hours at SAP and a great dinner at Parklane I was too exhausted to even think about anything. I slept off. I was in general happy about the way this Saturday went. I had a good feeling about it. But with my luck line vaporizing at the rate it was, I was very skeptical.
To my relief, finally I got the call from SAP saying that I have made it to the next round and I will have a final HR round. I was…; I still don’t know what I felt. I waaaas happy. But it was different. It’s the first time I have experienced that and I can’t really describe what I felt.
I was again in touch with myself; back to being a Narcissist in all rights. I loved the feeling.
Now a twist in the tale!!! I got a mail from my boss that I must initiate my UK Visa and I had a chance to go onsite!!! What??? Are you kidding me??? How can this happen? But it was true. I didn’t wake up from a dream or anything. I had really received the mail. I was at the crossroad where I could stick to the current company, go onsite (hopefully), earn money etc etc. On the other hand I had to take the risk of going into an unexplored territory. The dichotomy in my well wishers’ ideas; some, saying take up onsite (well there were very few though) and some, saying forget it, join the new company didn’t really help me make the decision. Then finally I decided to quit. Well there are many pros and many cons. For me obviously the pros over weighed the cons. I had lost the respect I had for this company and there was no point in staying. And really I didn’t see my future in PLM in the long run.
Finally, 29th May 2006, 11:38 AM I resigned from my current post. Then the usual formalities of keeping me in the company were executed. I am very thick skinned. Once I decide, it’s done!!!
So just in just a week everything changed. I was a different person. I had experienced something great. It was like Born Again to be free!!! Let’s see how long I can carry this feeling. One thing is sure, after this I will never loose hope!!! Because… “And Suddenly” everything changes… Just like that in a flash!!!!