Never gonna rent a movie again!!

I ain't no pro-piracy person....ok ok not in entirety...but I'm still never gonna rent a movie again.
Neither did any Video Library guy hand over a pathetic movie recommendation to me, neither did I hit a jackpot of '100 movies to watch before you die'. My mistake was a rather humble one. I understood the Business Process of a typical movie library. I put their Manager, their bank, their staff, their inventory and most of all people like me 'the ultra-smart idiotic' customers existence at stake. But what did I get. A clogged web of transactions which might very well look like a poster shot for Spiderman-4 - The Revenge of the doped. That's how the Data Model representing Business process involved in renting a movie from Video Library.

That apart, i felt an immediate pang of empathy for those humble looking guys across the counters at the library. Who on Friday nights or on saturday nights rev up their acting skills to show no emotion what so ever and be as stoic as possible on hearing questions with key words like 'double' or 'triple. Even for that matter to endorse to some local siren. I've had my bit of embarrassments. I am not sure if these guys really need to apply for a license to have their store running. But they gotta gotta have these public demands straigtened out well enough.

Coming back to the Data Model, well the results are still awaited let's see if the reviewer really sees the Peter Parker version of it or the Spider man side of the diagram.

Driving & Professional Life

This thought has been lingering in my head for quite some time. How we believe that schools and colleges teach prepare us for our professional life and forget about what every day life offers us to learn and improve upon.

One often faces difficulties in work places or with peers. Would others get ahead of us or with they cross our ways without giving a clue us. Do you prepare yourselves for such improbable and near impossible circumstances?

Now let's shift the view to the road you drive on everyday. Do you really care to understand what would be running in the minds of people who are going along in your direction or coming from the opposite side. How is it that we take plant our trust (even if small) in them. Even we are completely wary of them, we assume some move that they'd make and thereafter plan our move.

Now imagine a person who is known to you certain extent. Why is it that we think that they may tend to sway from what is in your mind. How is it that we define the periphery of our trust. Just now I pictured how our mind might be working.

This is how I perceive 'trust' circle to be in our brains. The black area belongs to the people who we don't want to interact with, could be out of anonimity or animosity. People who are able to break the outer shell come to our 'acquaintance' circle where we keep them at a certain distance. Neither too far nor too close. Just ample distance to know and acknowledge their presence. The people who barge this circle either fall in the quadrant of trust, represented by the green segment here. Remaining, we realize are not worth maintaining contact with. Do we do this kind of analyses of people who are on road with us?

Just wanted to leave you with a thought if only we cross-learn from our mistakes and good-deeds on road and life otherwise, we may get some real insight in hand. I've had mine. Good luck with yours.

A man who can't be moved

No no...this is not from 'The Script' hit song. It's about my day....I rarely did move from my bed since morning until 6pm in the evening. What did I do....Well I was in a deep slumber...watched three movies and between the movies caught up with some good sleep. After a hectic week at work, it was a long 'longed-for' weekend laziness I was looking for.

Talking about the movies....Let me start with a low profile one...I mean in my view. TRANSFORMERS....I think it was for the fourth time I saw it....I'm still awed by its CGFX and Megan Fox ofcourse....CGFX...I guess after Terminator it is one movie, who has grown over me every time i've watched it. Megan Fox...what to say...ya ya she's hot and all that....but why can't ladies with good looks do some better movies...she'd have looked far better in a Lara Croft kinda role. Agreed, that AnJo is a different league...but for god's sake Megan didn't do any better that our Bollywood Ladies. That matter I'd like to speak about Shia LeBouf, his petrified and frenzied role got him some points to be at the helm of the matters as far as the script required. I'm not impressed by his acting all that much. But his voice over for Surf's Up totally rocked. He was soooo Cody-ified into that role with that fitting voice.

Coming to the next one WELCOME HOME ROSCOE JENKINS it had that old village modern family feel to it. Nice light comedy if any body wants to lighten up. But a Powerful performance by Martin Lawrance. I liked the family olympics theme, and the grandpa of the family was stingy yet a very sensible character. But it exemplified few good things one can keep as a piece of advice. No matter how big and neat gizmos/wheels/places we bring into our life and try and influence our parents about how much have we acheived. One thing's for sure that they don't see the fluffy grown up person you've become from what they brought up. They still see you as the person they'd feel free to whip the ass' off, considering a blunder one might have committed. So why try doing something for which you'd not get credit. Rather do something which get recognized....even if silently.

Now the best flick I saw today was STIGMATA....it's a must watch for somebody who'd like religion thrillers like : Angels & Demons or Name of the Rose. It opened my eyes to a new race (mystic or real) of people, who are in trouble for being too much closer to god. Now that's some advice to people closely engrossed in to idol-worship. The movie builds the tempo up in a good fashion. The character's portrayed are typical manhattan based daily workers, may be a better job could have been done had the character been in small country town. But then again. There was a moment in the movie when I literally switched the TV off out of fright. I just couldn't take the horror of someone being possessed by something so godly, yet cruel, that to own self. Plus it was almost 3am early in the morning and I had to manage with myself all alone at home. Over all a good movie. I am told thatit was a big hit, it couldn't make it big for the fact that it's glory was shadowed by THE SIXTH SENSE, which was released at the same time.

That's all for today.
CIAO!!
Good Night Take Care Love Everybody who cares!

Man on mission!!

Call it lack of interest or sheer laziness.
I am turning back to blogging after close to two years.

A lot have changed in between messed up at job, got married and have been diagnosed with the first disease which would take me along with it.

Have I been choking? I don't know but surely need a space where I feel myself and everyone in it.
No more forced pretensions, No more you-scratch-my-back-I-scratch yours.

I'd try not to miss a night without blogging now on. Need a download of all the clutter I have in my brain.

See you around...see again talking to myself.

TOI Blog space : Do you think our Police gets challanged?

India is a unique country in many regards, and the Police Department in our country is no exception to it. I hold a neutral view about them, not because i don't have any view, because its balanced with the pros and cons involved in this issue.

Do they get paid well, NO!!
Do they Bribe for petty things, Yes!!

Do they behave properly, NO!!
Literate Indians don't enter Police System, Yes!!

I have been cheated, even looted, by the system at more that one instance. But do 'they' care about it? Do they actually think that at every point they are being judged against a benchmark which their predecessors have set?

Would we expect any Police Personnel to actually read this blog? May be their children would, and might develop a stigma against the general public and gain access to exploit them with the facilities given Govt. to their parents.

I believe somewhere the entire cadre who joins IPS is affected by one grave disease of greed. Not because they 'are' greedy, but that's what the system makes them.

When poor children in villages walk for 3-4kms to reach their school ,assuming they get educated, Our dear Police Cars are being used as Personal-School Vans for the children of Police Officers. Why can't they own a private car if they love their children's comfort so much? But poor souls might have to bring the black money to surface, so they won't buy anything from their own money.

Its an ironical situation, things keep running in circles and circles, with no end in sight.

What do our Schools and Colleges have to say about this? I think we should actually take either of two options
a) Start an institution called IIC. Its easy to guess what this 'C' would stand for. Corruption is what they are bred with, so why not etch it on the walls of the nation.
b) Start proper orientation for students to get into IPS much earlier in their career to enrich the Country's Future.

Neither of this seems to be a pragmatic solution. Hence I have a neutral, yet thoughtful, view about this entire scenario.

But I plead to the honest serving women/men to not let even a drop of the sweat, that they put in their jobs, go waste and tell the world that IPS is basket of money-suckers.

Best Experience

Out of many events encountered at my debut job, my last-working day of the 45 week stint at Convergys India Services (CIS) reaped what one can undoubtedly regard as the 'Best Experience'.

Prologue :

Destination One Chandigarh, are the consultants responsible for the skimming job for CIS in certain Northern States of India. Destination One selects the potential candidates at the college level and then ushers them for the grand finale with the HR team from CIS. All this process takes almost two individual days' rigor and a selection process of 8-10 stages. The selection is done on the basis of Technical 'know-how' as well as Communication Skills, in written as well as interpersonal fashion. The selected candidates are bestowed with the Letter Of Intent (LOI).

Getting the job was a matter of jubilation, but there was no time to sit back as the Final Semester's exams stood ahead. Again conclusion of exams brought a new concoction of ambivalence for me, as the joining date for my maiden job was much ahead of time. Although initially this seemed as an impediment, but later on all the rush paid-off as the unpacking-packing delays were done away with. Earlier than what I estimated the new environment was as friendly as it could be. CIS boasts of swanky American infrastructure, it helped as most of the clients Convergys server for are from North America. Some names worth a mention are Microsoft, AT&T, Cisco, Orange, Citibank, CapOne, American Express. Hitherto as the industry in unworn, it offers amazing opportunity to a wide spectrum of talent pool.

Job Profile :

AT&T, the American telecom major, had established its back-end services' centers in Canada which from the past three years is in India. The internet services offered under the AT&T's umbrella was christened WorldNet. Canada had WorldNet’s business from the past 8 years, spread across 3 centers, with the major center being at Winnipeg. Later owing to the outsourcing wave except for the Winnipeg center other two centers were moved to Gurgaon (read Delhi) and Mumbai, respectively. But soon Winnipeg lost its business bowing to the intellectual capital present at Indian centers. WorldNet support center has two basic components under its belt - Technician Support & Billing Department. We worked for the Technical Support Department and were held responsible to acknowledge the technical issues faced by the customers and AT&T technicians residing in USA. Equipped with 6 weeks of rigorous training on ISP nitty-gritty and American culture, we boarded on the job-floor. Ours was the 15th batch of technicians for AT&T WorldNet, known as WAVE-15 in the CIS jargon.

The day it was ....

28th April 2005 was my last day of work at CIS. I went to the office with a heavy heart, moments drowned in nostalgia. Be it the fun-learning I had with my team during Communication & Culture Training (CCT) or the scolds we bore from our Process' Trainer (PST), I simply missed it all. With these pangs striking every now and then, I took over a mission of my own - 'Make the last day unforgettable'. My peers knew me for my tacit and suave nature, much of which was due to the multi-tasking I performed owing to the CAT preparation along with the job, which further left me little time to join them in the jamborees. With some remarkable feats achieved like 100% scorer in both CCT & PST, I was never a boy-next-door entity, thus my departure was well noticeable on almost everybody's radar. The above-mentioned mission commenced with the T-jotting session, as I got a T-shirt autographed by all those who made my stint at Convergys commendable. Mr. Ghumman (Country Head, CIS) was the first person I chose to break the ice with, as who else could have made this experience as enchanting as it was than The Dean himself. Then came the time when I was to go to my seat and start the day’s work, as the shirt was still afloat amongst my peers, for they wanted to vent off their share of creativity. Abiding by the mission, I made this a point that "come what may, today I’m going to work with utmost dedication so that I can remember this day of work for ever'.

When it came to the routine chores I was 'right on', tough the days’ dedication was not going to result to anything as my scores would not be considered any longer, but only I could tell what all that meant for me. Case after case was a success, may be it was the day's magic that kept me abreast to the targets. But what made this day more remarkable were the outcomes of the cases I handled. First was the declaration that one of the initial calls of the day was put on calibration by the client, a routine that is followed once in a week. So on yearly basis almost one out of two agents got a chance to prove their mettle, fatefully I got this chance on my last working day. The appreciation directly from the client came as a sweet surprise. Then came the second event which I can still visualize with my eyes closed, it was for another live-appreciation from a customer. This customer was expansive of the way I dealt her case and thus she asked for my supervisor to appreciate. When my supervisor announced "Guys, appreciation call for Tedd (my alias)", following a motivational rite all the agents gave me a standing ovation. Never in my life I felt so elated than I was on this day. But this was not the end of the dream I was living, as the big one was still left to the icing on the cake. Last and definitely not the least, I got the much awaited appraisal. Irony of the matter was that I got it on my last day but still it was able to fasten my pulse rate. My immediate boss confessed while giving that appraisal letter to me –“I liked your resignation letter”. He referred to what I wrote on my resignation letter. It was undersigned as –‘I’d always admire my stint at Convergys’. Nevertheless my day was full of joys as I, though enchanted, march forward to a new beginning.

Time is chasing after us...

It struck me as a novel thought...lost i was...rather foolish all this while. We often question ourselves with some over-thought questions - why do we exist? What is our purpose of living? and all that can be imagined of. But did we actually think of what can be the purpose of our living. People, like us or me, lost in their drill; chasing passion in some form or the other. Money, food, status or flesh; never do they realise that time is chasing us. We plan for our future, but somebody else is keeping a count of what we are left with. We never plan for our future on that scale. Do we? We never say that i am left with 10 years so i would make my future in these 10 years. The moment a clock is put on our face we feel -" this is it". We become pessimistic, our thoughts run us down.

But then we ponder "where is the solution?", if there is any. For how long can that formula be used? Can it provide us all the happiness we seek? Of course there is. But everyone's gotta explore it in their own way.

Personally I dont know what keeps me happy. Or may be i do, but don't acknowledge it to be one. Everynight if I wish to keep a vow for tomorrow, i might or i might not. Am i that flimsy? I wonder!!

Am i looking for any answers at all??

The otherday i was disowned(..or may be i took it way too seriously) by a professer. He said that people who are not happy now (at my age) cannot be happy in future. My immediate reaction was " Who gives him the right to say so?". So what if he has experience. If his soul was in my body probably it would have felt the same.

But then if I (or people like me) are sad so what are we doing about it. Do we sleep with it everynight and think that probably next morning our fate might play the gamble and give us a better opportunity to be happy? We never question our fate. We are so reliant on it that we leave everything to it we share almost all our failures with it. That's even better than what the best-est friend one has would share. But we never think what forms our fate. Is that also something very fateful, leading this entire process itno a vicious loop.

The child in me still wants to go out on a rainy day and play in a puddle of mud. The more i get closer to concrete the more i feel going back to my humane roots. I wish the world was not all this selfish. So am I? Can i change the things around me? No is all i hear in almost all cases. The moment i start thinking i can i might edge towards becoming selfish. So where do we draw the line? Where do we say that no matter what happens i wouldn't budge in such a circumstance.

And i believe humanity has always been troubled with such questions.
The questions with no answers..or may be excessively private answers.

I wish to explore mine.