Spoon Feeding vs Bureaucracy

This is another in the series of re-migration to India. 4 years of spoon-feeding in US spoils you enough to get starting problems in India.Now you must be wondering what sort of spoon feeding am I talking about here.

Scenario 1: You are a new hire in a US company. The HR greets you with a big big (of course fake) smile. She tells you about the company policies and regulations, makes you sign the 'privacy' documents, medical insurance etc etc. She even explains you the 401K plan punctuated by some jokes on which you smile hesitantly (bcos u dont know who is she trying to make fun of ).Then she takes you to the seat allocated for you.Your team manager comes to you and greets you with a stiff smile (techies havent yet learnt the art of fake big smiles). He briefs you on the projects they have in mind for you. He talks about your past experiences/education etc etc. And then takes you around to meet with the entire team.He then delegates the job of setting up your machine, account, deskphone etc etc to one of his subordinates. You start attending weekly team 'meetings' ( a big big waste of time) and then get on track with your work.

Scenario 2 (or rather my first working experience in India): The HR calls me and tells me she has a list of some 50 documents that I need to submit while joining. She has sent me the list in an email. I open the email and see a document with 4-5 paras of text. I read it carefully twice and collect all my documents and go to the office first day for induction, thinking I am all prepared. And then I come to know that there is another group in the company which requires some 20 documents 'immediately',which also includes my X and XII marksheets and engg 'all' semester marksheets!! I havent seen/used these documents in ages.Luckily hubby is at home, he runs downstairs to the stationery shop and faxes me the documents. They just assume everybody carries their marksheets for induction. And to my surprise, most of the other candidates did have their X and XII marksheets with them. In addition to the 4 passport sized photographs submitted to the Background check team, they need another 4 passport size photographs (Again, they just assume that everybody carries 4 passport size photographs with them). Luckily that day, I was carrying mine.

The point I am trying to make is in US even common knowledge is iterated so many times that sometimes you get sick of it. For example, hardly anyone is actually hearing what the HR says about company confidential policies. You are just sitting there nodding to every word that she says and actually thinking about which restaurant you would go for lunch today. But in India, there are a lot of unsaid rules and regulations which has now become common knowledge and hence there is no need felt to actually say it out aloud.But to someone like me, it translates to a lot of running around. Its been almost 2 weeks since I joined, and I submitted one document yesterday and one document is still pending !
I am hoping in some time, I would come out of US 'spoon-feeding' mode to Indian 'bureaucracy' mode.
Lessons learnt: Carry all your documents for any official purpose in India, you never know when what will be required.
PS: Did you notice my habit of putting quotes to highlight a point ? One of the many gifts from Uncle Sam.

Mumbai's 'LIFE'line

I know I know...a post is due on life post-remigration. But this one focusses on only one aspect of it. Having lived in Mumbai for about 11 years before going to US, one of the things that I missed the most was travelling in Ladies II class in a Mumbai local train.Funny as it sounds, it was so soothing and relaxing to be able to finally achieve this feat.
In my first lcoal train journey after moving back, two college students were discussing their assignments and complaining about how one's dad is not allowing her to go on the weekend trip with friends. Not that much time has passed since I passed college, but it was nice to know there are a lot other people who are in the same situation as I was several years back. The two friends were really tensed about this and making schemes to 'manaofy' her dad - bringing a faint smile to my face.
In another journey from Dadar to Borivali, I was amazed at the skills of a fellow passenger on finding out if platform will come on left or right (I am not sure how much will this skill be appreciated by non-Mumbaikars).She calculated this by
1. Looking out hanging from the pole.
2. The signal- I didnt understand this part but she said something about this signal being down and other one being green.
3. Whether there was a Virar local coming on the track on right.

Another very important element of Ladies II class are the vendors who sell earrings, hair clips, pass covers, etc etc. There was a middle-aged lady selling hair clips. She had a daughter about 8-9 years assisting her. As the mother sat down on one of the empty seats (it was about 10 pm) tired by the day's work, the little girl picked up the box of goodies and started shouting "aye buckle le.." The expression on the mother's face changed to that of a proud parent seeing her child stepping into her shoes.

It is very interesting to observe different strata of people (to be precise, women) doing really odd things - cutting vegetables for next day, making weekend plans, knitting a sweater, doing makeup, playing antakshari, discussing about movies,husbands,in-laws and what not.
Truly, local trains are the LIFEline of Mumbai. They do not just transport lacs of people everyday to and fro. People spend a major portion of their LIFE in these trains. It gives you an opportunity to observe LIFE from several different perspectives.

A journey ends, another begins....

Cant believe its finally happening !! With less than a month to go, I am going crazy with all the wrapping up to do. Never realised I gathered so much stuff in my almost four years of stay here.
But more than anything, I am not able to understand the turmoil of emotions that I am going through right now. Its not easy to leave a place which has so many memories attached to it. And I literally mean, so so so many !!! My biggest lessons in life were learnt here.I think I hit the bottom-most point in all aspects of life at one point or another in these four years-academically, professionally, personally, financially. But I was blessed with such amazing friends to stand by me in these times -made some really good new friends and the bond of friendship strengthened further with the existing ones. Craziest times were lived here, did some things that I had never done in my life before - playing cricket at 2 am in the parking lot, talking about whether God exists or not for an entire night with two people who are not even ready to listen to each other,my first nightout for a project (I never did nightouts before!).There were so many firsts - first time away from family,first job,first apartment,first car,first snow ! Ohh - its been by far the most eventful phases of my life. I know I cant go back and live those moments again, but they will be etched in my memory till my grave. In a way, all these experiences here have made me the person that I am today. This was the only time in my life that I had to take all my decisions alone(ok not all, but most). And one of these decisions was to go back to India (read here).
As I get all nostalgic about my years in US, the fact that I will soon be in India is very exciting. Not just be in India, but to enter a new phase of life is even more exciting. But, that demands another post when I actually do land in India. Right now, let me just keep wandering in this walk down the memory lane...

Love Marriage vs Arranged Marriage

A friend who recently got married to his girlfriend since 5 years asked me "Arre yeh arranged marriages kaise hoti hai ? Please batana mujhe"
My various thoughts on the topic:
(Please note that “Arranged marriage” here refers to the process where the girl and the boy are allowed sufficient interaction with each other before saying the final yes. Not to be confused with the process where the boy and girl have no say in their marriage and do not even talk before getting married.)
1. Love just happens. It can happen anywhere, anytime, to anyone, with anyone. Arranged marriages are more organized and structured. Its more akin to a job posting. Biodatas and photos are collected over a period of time, shortlisted, candidates (and family)interviewed ( or met), again filtered, and then the person you are going to get married to is selected. After that interactions speed up, slowly turning into a friendship and finally graduating to a sense of mutual trust, commitment and finally love.
2. In love marriage, you first get to know your partner, decide that this is the one for me and then you try to find out about his/her family and get to know them. In arranged marriage, even before you know where your prospective partner works, you know where his/her father/mother/brother/sister is, what are they doing etc etc. Only once you are satisfied with the family background, you proceed.
3. Post marriage: In love marriage, you already know most of the things about your partner so you are already aware of the adjustments that you will need to make. In arranged marriage, you decide to get married only once you have ascertained that your partner has the basic qualities that you want to see in your spouse. The other little things have to be discovered post marriage. The key thing is you are not getting married to someone just because he/she is from your community. You are getting married because you really liked that person.
4. Whether love or arranged, I think it takes equal amount of effort to get adjusted and accepted by your spouse’ family.
5. 5 years after marriage, I think it hardly matters whether it was a love marriage or arranged one. By this time, you should already know most of the things about your partner (if you don’t – there is something definitely wrong!) and then it’s a process of growing together.
In summary, I think the big difference in the two scenarios is the sequence in which things happen. Other than this, there is hardly any difference. These are my thoughts as of now. What will be my thoughts 5 years after my marriage – only time will tell.

Beautiful Monday Morning !

Its been such a long time that I havent posted something here. Not that I havent been thinking or wondering. Just that been too lazy to jot down things here. So, thought would share something funny but learning experience that I went through this morning.

Monday, 20 Oct 2008, 7:50 AM: It was 0C today in Ohio, first time this winter that it touched 0. I looked at my car and instead of the usual fog, there was a thin layer of ice on the windshield. So, I started cleaning the car when I realized I should switch on the car so that the ice melts. I put in the key, started the car, came out, closed the door and started cleaning again. Because the trousers I am wearing today do not have pockets, I thought I would put the cellphone in the car, as it was difficult with the cellphone in one hand and trying to clean with the other hand. But, oh no! the car is locked !! I didn’t realize the car auto-locks itself when the key is in and all doors are closed. I tried my luck to see if any door, by mistake did not get closed properly. But no, not today. All the doors were properly closed and locked. Then after 2-3 minutes of panicking, I remembered something called a duplicate key of the car which was luckily in the house ( And for once, I even knew where it was kept). But guess what, the house is locked and the keys are in my bag which is in the car !! So then I called my apartment people to help me open my house. But they say, since it is out of office hours and I locked the car myself, its not an emergency - I will have to wait till the office opens at 10 am ( by the way, the car is ON all this while). Then I remembered that the duplicate keys of my house is with my friend who stays in the next colony (its not very far, but considerable distance for me to walk there and get the keys from them). So, I call them up (they usually leave by 9-9.30, and I called them up at 8). So, I make their morning barbaad but they are kind enough to immediately come to my house with my apt keys. With a sheepish look, I took the keys from my friend, opened the house, took the duplicate car keys and opened the car - phew ! That was 20 minutes of unnecessary trouble- not just to me, but to my friends as well. Needless to add, that also meant 20 minutes of delay in reaching office (which isn’t such a big deal :P)
I was saved a lot of trouble because of the cellphone. It would have been really difficult without it. So, once again, like various other times technology saved me. But, it was the technology which put me into trouble in the first place !!
Moral of the story: When technology puts you in trouble, only technology can take you out of it.
Moral of the story2: Once you switch ON the car, NEVER step out and close the door !! Or, come out with all the belongings.

Childhood Memories

I was listening to Radio the other day and they had a cute thing going on…they were asking people what games they used to play when they were small. It was so nice to hear some names that I had not heard in a long time. People said all sorts of things from pakdam-pakadayi (running and catching), oonch-neech or land and water, lock and key, sitolia (or seven stones or pitthoo). And then I also remembered my childhood and all the games that we used to play. There was one particular game that we used to call “gallery” – Don’t remember the rules now, but it had something to do with four blocks and four stones. Any kind of stones- big, small, round , flat. Ahh…flat stones - that reminds me of something. But, I just couldn’t remember the name of the most basic game that we used to play where you have to throw stones on the boxes we used to draw in the playground/road with sticks/chalk. And not just any stones could be used for that game…you needed special flat stones. In fact, flat stones were so difficult to find that half of games period used to be spent searching for them and then the other half in playing that game. So much so that, I actually started collecting such stones and used to put them in my school bag. Before I knew it, I had almost 30-35 of them! My dad once came to the room and lifted my bag to keep it aside, he found it awfully heavy and asked me “kya patthar bhare hai kya isme?” I of course, didn’t know it then that it was meant to be a metaphor and innocently said yes (I was also wondering how did he know?). Papa was shocked beyond words. At first, he could not understand why it was so important for me to have those flat stones. But after my repeated attempts to explain it to him, he let me keep one of them and let me go with the warning that he would check my bag daily now. I don’t remember, I think I had cried then because papa had scolded me. But now, I can’t stop laughing about it. As I was having this flashback, there was one thing that was still bothering me…what was the name of the game? How can I forget this? After days of thinking, it suddenly struck me “STAAPU”. That’s what we used to call it. I know there are innumerable other names for this one. Then there was this other game, I don’t even know if it ever had a name. Two people stand facing each other, holding hands up, sort of making an entry gate and everybody else has to enter through it. I remember some parts of the song “….ab toh jail mai jaana padega, jail ki roti khani padegi, jail ka pani peena padega, ab toh jail mai jaana hi padega”. And then that person would be out. Was there any name for this game? If there was, I don’t remember it (I have become old !!)
And then of course I thought about good old teacher-teacher, ghar-ghar, ringa-ringa roses, fire in the mountain,…….and the list goes on. Children have a good imagination and do not really need toys to play with !! Anyways, it was nice to relive those years all over again (atleast in memories)!!

GOD

A friend asked me today "Does GOD exist ?". I dont know how to reply to her in yes or no. Here are my various thoughts on the issue:

1. In ancient times, people used to treat their kings as gods. So, essentially Ram, Krishna etc were good kings that took good care of their subjects. Hence, people gave them the status of “God” and believed they were re-incarnations of Vishnu himself. Even Hiranyakashyap declared himself as God and forced people to worship him, but because of his bad deeds people gave him the status of “raakshas”
2. Being a Hindu by birth, I have been taught (or rather just gathered this while growing up) to treat the five basic elements as God. Food is considered god. Sun is considered god. Science also says we cannot survive without these. We know for a fact that the body dissolves into these elements upon death. That’s exactly what geeta preaches….”bhagwaan ko sab arpan karta ja”
3. I also believe in the theory of vibrations. And that’s why I like to go to temples. When so many people with good vibrations (even the worst of the people think only about good things in temple) are together, those vibrations have a positive effect on you. Also, the fear of God instills discipline in people. If you get up early in the morning, take bath, pray (which in a way, is same or close to meditation) , the body will be healthy. Havent you ever wondered why you feel so good on smelling “agarbatti” ? Its fragrance itself makes you feel happy, besides in ancient times it used to get rid of insects.
4. My take on astrology: When the moon’s gravitational pull alone can cause tides, the gravitational forces of planets definitely affect our thinking, actions and hence our future. It has been empirically proved that the number of accidents occurring on amavasya is much more than that on purnima. I believe in astrology the science, but do not know if I can believe in any of the modern day astrologers. If the place and time of birth is known accurately, the future can be predicted with some accuracy. But then again, it is in your hands to change it.
5. Never underestimate the power of human mind. “If you think you can, you can”. And that’s why I feel the belief in god is nothing but belief in yourself. If believing in god gives you strength, its nothing but your own inner strength which you otherwise don’t realize that you have. Only when you are put into certain ‘not-so-good’ situations , you realize how much you are capable of handling, and you really find your inner strength. Some people say they did it, some give it the name of God.
6. I really do believe in “geeta” – though I have not read it fully yet. It does not try to clarify if God exists or not, rather talks about what should be one’s approach towards life. I try to follow it as much as I can.

Makes sense ?