aditya kumar's weblog

To move from one of the many small/medium organizations to one of the biggest Information Technology recruiters in the world is quite a transition. The problem I am facing is not of following the new rules and procedures that creep into the small things (that we take for granted while we work in a small company) but of facing the human sea that overwhelms me every day, every minute I spend my time there.

According to one estimate, there are 6000 people that work in the 4 blocks of my office. So when I take the lift (call it elevator, if you may) everyday, the probability of someone who has been in the lift with me before is largely diminished. And it shall remain so until I have spent some time there. Coupled with the fact that there are new faces coming in three times a week, the point of my time spent there’d barely make a difference.

So it does not matter how long have you been in the organization. You could be a week old, a month old or a decade old working here and still walking around as if this is your first day. 95 of the 100 people you walk across everyday won’t even notice you. Chances of looking at a person and making a mental note like “Oh, I see her around everyday” are remote unless you happen to be working in the same project/application etc (in case that happens you’d need a slap on your back because since she works with you, in the same department, you ought to know her).

So you, kind of, start feeling alone in this whole sea of human beings. There is no connection, apart from, of course, that all are working for the same company. That does not matter much, I dare say, because its not a big deal. Everyone is.

Of the thousands of cubicles that you see, one of them is yours. Of the thousands that park their vehicle everyday in the parking lobby, one of them is yours. And You realize that you’ve become, and how, a part of the system.

Rationally speaking, one shouldn’t be concerned with all this, simply because thats the way things happen all over the world. There is absolutely no other way of accomplishing the goals that world class companies chalk out for themselves. It’s raw manpower that drives the system (notice how ironical it seems, to use the word ‘system’ again, compared to the usage of the same word in the last paragraph). No number of machines, tools, hardware or software can replace the effect a bunch of minds, working together, can create).

Maybe one day I’ll be able to recognize faces in the elevator (or call it lift, if you may) and better still, someday people would know people three cubicles apart but for now, I appear lost and trust me, many, just like me, are.

My internet service provider decided that enough was enough as it had been quite some time they had had an outage that lasted more than a day or two. So here i am, writing to you from my cell phone. Bono once said that cell phones are ‘dangerous little devices’. Yes. Anything that lets you blog from your bathroom is dangerous, i say. Anyway, this is turning out to be a long break now. And to some friends who have been left wondering where i have been all this while – i am very fine, all good! What more better evidence of my good spirits than the fact that i am doing this from my cell phone! Oh i just hope that this attempt is successful. Later!

Changed my address without intending to and I have moved into Writers block. Don’t intend to stay long here, will move out soon. Oh and my new job is not helping the cause.

The ever beautiful Milla Jovovich. Portrait (though incomplete), 0.5 mm 2B pencil on paper.

So if you have been wondering what I’ve been up to all these days, lets just say I have been taking a break. Not the “I-want-to-take-a-break-from-writing” kinds but a real break. The hectic last few days in the office followed by equally hectic travelling. A rush-rush trip to Mumbai and then to Pune (I wasn’t getting nostalgic about the city in the last post for nothing, after all) and now at home in Goa.

A week off and half of it spent in travelling like mad — some of it in Mumbai’s locals that practically drain out ones stamina, in the buses, the autos and in the midst of all this, meeting friends that always complain that I am unable to take out time to meet them up.

Pune has changed in bits but not changed in entirety afterall. Traffic is more than before but so are the McDonalds and the malls. This change is just about happening in every Indian city. Sadly its Pune’s turn now. Why sadly you ask. Oh, Malls aren’t the ideal things to build when the city lacks basic infrastructure and proper roads, isn’t it?

Anyway, so I have been off for sometime and who knows for how much time more. Next update, probably in a few days!

My earliest memory of Pune takes me back to 2001, when I had come to the city for an interview in what was to be my college where I would go on to do my post graduation from. I remember telling a friend on email that in certain aspects, Pune looked like a combination of Mumbai and Delhi. I still stand by my statement — It had some Greenery left that reminded me of Delhi. Then, being a distant cousin of Mumbai, some couture automatically rubs off to Pune.

In the hotel room, the first time I rented out a hotel room that is, while flipping channels I came across Sting’s music video of “When we dance”. I experienced bliss. I loved the song so much that the first thing I did the following morning was to buy Sting’s “Best of” album. The following evening, I kept listening to the album in my walkman while I waited for the train to take me back to Indore.

Back in Indore, I was one of the lucky few in the final semester of BCA, who knew where they’d be leaving for, after graduation was done with. My PG course, though not as good as I would have liked it to be, had given me an assurance, an easiness that spared me those sleepless nights which my other friends were going through (Of course, I have had my share of those before as I had hit a roadblock that could have turned out to be a catastrophe for my career, but that’s another story). So the career blues notwithstanding, I spent the rest of my 3 months in the city studying Numerical Analysis and Java, while, of course, listening to Sting.

Pune, at least the part I was living in, reflected a laid back lifestyle. Prabhat Road, as I later found out, had been a host to Narayana Murthy and Sudha Murthy. It was on these roads, they say, that romance blossomed. Roads, I know, are one of the best places for letting romance grow (Hopelessly romantic, you’d say). Anyway, my college was on Law College Road, the road nearest to Prabhat Road and the same road on which FTII is located. Spotting khadi kurta clad aspiring actors was not that difficult and to bump into Amol Palekar was also not a rare thing to happen.

After the college hours, I used to wander around Deccan and often found myself going to Alka talkies. One of the few halls in the city that, at that time (and for a long time before that too) encouraged Hollywood by showcasing only Hollywood movies, was almost the same distance from my house as was the college. Not only did I love to watch the pretty Nicole Kidman in the musical “Moulin Rouge” — I was equally horrified as Anthony Hopkins revealed cannibalism to me with “Hannibal”. But the freedom that Alka talkies gave me, and I hope still is giving to many like me, was invaluable –The freedom to watch a flick when you want to, to watch it for Rs.30 and to watch it without advance booking. The freedom to watch a movie at just the moment you feel like, without having to think twice about anything.

Today I am out of college, on my own but can I afford that same freedom?

Oh and by the way, I still listen to Sting.

I arrive at the local shopping complex, like I do every evening. A huge chunk of my time here will be spent on deciding what to have for dinner. The usual choices — North Indian, South Indian, Pasta, Soup and bun with cheese, Chinese and what not. The everyday riddle. I have to ponder on these thoughts everyday ever since my regular dine-in place closed down (reason being, of all things, that their cook ran away). And then everyday I promise myself that a permanent solution needs to come out, and will come out. I can’t eat here so often. But for now, standing outside this “costly” restaurant, my dilemma prevails.

Meanwhile there is crowd gathered outside the Sony showroom. In India, if you ever see a crowd gathered outside an electronics showroom, you can be sure a cricket match is on. During my student days, it was common for me to be a part of a mob like this. A closer look reveals that Sehwag is on 99. His highest ODI score in almost 2 years. It’s 9:15 in the night, time for the showroom to shut shop. One of the two shutters is put down, thereby reducing the viewing area by half. The large group of people unsettles and regroups to the other half of the viewing area. Sehwag still on 99. In the showroom, a man on the other side of the glass pane comes into picture, intending to put down the last remaining shutter. He notices the large mob on the other side and puts on a weak smile. Sign language comes into action and the man is told to wait. It’s more of an order than a request. There is a talk in the crowd of the batsman throwing it all away. And why not, considering his antics in the past, its a possibility that can’t be ruled out. It could be the dilemma of the moment as it overwhelms the mob, and many mobs like these all over the country, the team in the pavilion and possibly even those two batsman in the middle. Three balls later, the swashbuckling batsman scores another run which is, in all probabilities, his most awaited run since the last two years. Later, Sehwag would go on to say that he never “lost sleep” over his lack of form. Well, with his track record, he should have.

The mob erupts into accolade. The “weak-quality-of-opposition’s-bowling-attack” argument notwithstanding, this has been a dilemma they have been happy to get away with. The shutters of the Sony showroom are finally down and I am left with the everyday dilemma of what to have for dinner.