We are no better...

So we are retaliating against Aussies for the racial attacks made on Indian students in Australia. There have been number of cases in Australia where Indian students are stabbed and deeply injured for being Asians. It’s good to hear that communities in India have raised their voices in unison.

BUT.

Are we different from the Aussies in this respect? Isn’t India one of the serious examples of racism across nations? How the racism in Australia different than that in India?Students in Australia are assaulted for being Asian but in India you can have number of reasons for creating nation wide brouhaha. In this respect we are much ahead of any country in this World. You can feel apprehensive being of different religion, different state, schedule caste, different country etc etc…. People are attacked for following a religion of their choice. So the freedom as mentioned by constitution goes under wraps. Still parties like MNS explore a reason to deface non-Maharashtrians without having guts to prove themselves in front of terrorists during Mumbai attack. Still you are taunted as north Indians while driving a vehicle in southern part of India. You have reservations in schools, colleges, government jobs and now in private sector jobs too, for schedule caste people giving them the reason to be laid-backed. Why would a person struggle when he can easily get a job through reservation..??? On the other hand, how could a hard working schedule caste person prove that reservations had no impact on his credibility and experience..??? Even now, foreigners are looked upon with suspicion. Despite of knowing the fact that it is because of them that India has flourish in areas of tourism, outsourcing, infrastructure etc, we make fun of them, tease them, assault them and more.

Why do we need to address A.R.Rahman as “South Indian” after he received Oscar? Why every Muslim in India is looked as a Pakistani? What’s the problem in following the religion of your choice? Why the political parties have to be proved secular to get public empathy?

Phew..we have so many reasons to stab other people of our choice..!!! Is this the freedom governed by democracy that we had learned in our school? We are no better than others..!!!!

"Critical enough???"

It has been around 2 hour and 50 minutes since I have swiped in my office and staring at the white glowing computer screen in front of me. It shows Outlook mail inbox and a word document related to some heavy test scripts that I am assigned with for my next project that is going to start at new place. The cursor hasn’t moved much during this time except a bit of scrolling to avoid hibernation of desktop screen.

It has been two long years that I have spent my life in an IT industry and today somehow it just came to my mind how different was my life at Chambal, a typical manufacturing company. Yesterday my PM (Project Manager, your sole point of contact for promotions, demotions, queries, scams, slaps, regrets etc) explained me about the criticality of the document related to test scripts that I should read before starting a new beginning. “Criticality”…and that moment reminded me of my notion of criticality in real sense.

I was working with Chambal Fertilizers (CFCL) in Ammonia manufacturing plant and one fine day, during the plant start-up operation, we were instructed to fire a huge burner (it’s not as simple as igniting a household gas burner. This burner is as tall as 4 storeys building and is ignited with natural gas) that would heat the production gas to a temp of about 700 degree Celsius (if I remember correctly). One of my superior was standing on the ground floor (of the burner), clearing out the pipe inlet with the natural gas that will be ignited to form a flame. I was standing on the first floor and peeping into the peep holes that were meant to inspect the burner room from inside. My job was to watch out if any of those burners gets ignited with a flame so that our job was done peacefully. My manager and senior manager were standing at the ground floor carefully watching my actions (may be for next appraisal..!!!) and all of sudden called me to have a quick chat. I climbed down quickly and he told me one story about this burner. Last year 4 people had lost their lives during the same process of igniting a burner…!!! The peep hole through which I was watching the flame inside could have actually ripped me apart if flame would have started. My curvaceous smile turned into inverted smiley and my plain forehead turned into ripples…Critical enough???

One fine evening as I was strolling in Ammonia liquid storage area (in this area, the liquid-gas ammonia is stored in a gigantic cylindrical tanks. I would be over estimating myself if I could recall the capacity of each..!!), and had a little chat with the supervisor present over there. This area was isolated from the main operating plant and was guarded with a gun man and an operator. Casually I asked the operator that why do we need a person dedicated to look after this pair of tanks where hardly someone could think of passing by. He gave me suspicious smile and told me that a pin-hole leak in any of the tanks could release the ammonia gas in the atmosphere and can gradually suffocate the surrounding 3-4 villages to death..!!! The guard had to protect these tanks from being the target of sabotage… Critical enough???

It was late in the night sometime around 2-3 AM when all of us, the shift engineers, couldn’t resist a fast nap from the schedule. It was a fateful day when I was staring at the control panel when calamity struck us and caused the failure of big, important equipment. It was a gas heating chamber and the lid at the top was leaking. It took around 24 hours to shut the whole plant operations to avoid the lid to get dissembled from the chamber. If we hadn’t taken the set of actions at 2-3 AM in the late night, the lid would have detached from the chamber coupled with huge gas explosion that could take many precious lives with it… Critical enough???

I still remember many such incidents during my working days at CFCL that make me think about the real sense of criticality that we IT ‘professionals’ are normally worried about. We guys are tensed about knowledge criticality where we fear being laid back due to lack of required knowledge. But is it more dangerous or harmful than the criticality of loosing someone life? We consultants are normally worried about the client’s commitments and then the project becomes critical when the commitments are jeopardised. But think of the storage tank, if got burst could wipe out various villages in vicinity..!!!! Human criticality vs. Reputation criticality.

Which one is more critical and now what should be my reactions to these so-called criticalities???This issue/ realisation happen when a hard core Chemical Engineer is made to sit in front of desktops and required to consult the clients without even meeting them..!!

"Happy birthday 2 u..."

So keeping my previous post in background, it was the time when we all had set up a celebration mood for tonight.

It was raining like hell when she was in cab commuting to airport to receive her friend. I was just praying that the rains should not turn off the electricity that could seriously dampen the spirits I was trying to imagine. Finally she came home along with two of her best friends from Mumbai. We had a good dinner which was entirely cooked by her expert hands (“keema-pao”, the famous recipe in Mumbai and “rajma chawal”). As the clock turned “12”, wishes started pouring from all directions..!!! After few minutes, we heard the doorbell that broke the rings of her cell phones. The first surprise was about to get revealed…as she opened the door, she found a delivery man holding a bouquet and a chocolate cake, waiting for her signature. The surprise worked well and with all the fanfare she sliced her birthday cake into two pieces..!!!

Next day, she had received number of bouquets and around 60 phone calls wishing her the best of day (I never had more than 10-15% calls during my birthday!). We had planned for a lunch at restaurant named as “36, Chattees” (this name was crucified by one of her friend in a very dilapidated way..!!!). All her friends had gathered there on time and then we had a lunch of our lifetime. After the lunch, it was time for some desserts and then we flew to “Chocolate Home” for smoking brownie with chocolate sauce and a scoop of vanilla ice cream..!! One of the friends had chocolate tea, the concept of which was beyond our imagination, so we made peace by not even tasting it.

After a nice lunch we all returned back to our sweet home and then the second surprise had followed…

As we were lying around in our drawing room, we heard a door bell and she again found a delivery man holding a gift for her and waiting for her approval. As she opened the parcel, a beautiful wrist watch popped up and she was excited with her mouth wide opened. Few months back, she had wished for this watch but unfortunately we could never get hold of it because it was out of stock maybe due to new designs in display. Anyhow I could manage to get this from online shopping and personal persuasion..!!!

Anyways …as the day came to an end, all we were left with was a bouquet of happiness and well wishes..!!! It was her birthday after our marriage... it has to be special..

Few moments to go...

Ahh..it's just few hours from now and then we have a celebration waiting for us. I am so excited at the moments to follow few hours from now that I have decided to sacrifice my dear sleep and write this blog instead..!!!

How can I not celebrate this day when HE had blessed me with her aura by sending her to this Earth??

Everything is planned as of now. The cake has been ordered, the flowers would have been collated up to form a nice bouquet, the surprise gift would have been travelling across the states to reach here by tomorrow, the drinks had been set, the dinner had been made...and all that is missing is .. the 'tong' of clock at midnight today when she is going to cut her birthday cake.

It's her first birthday after we had met last year. When last time I had wished her, we were strangers. But now the world has changed..!!!

Now here is my wish for her, few moments before her day..."It's very rare to have so many qualities in one life time and you have possessed many of them already. I would thank him to bless me with the opportunity to spend the next half of my life with you. HAPPY BIRTHDAY... MY DEAR WIFE..!!!"

“HE knew about it..!!!”

It’s strange when we feel ecstatic in small packets of incidences that we experience in our daily life (indeed, daily routine). Yesterday we (me and my wife) experienced a great irony of nature that left us perplexed and laughing at ourself.

For the past few weeks (infact months to be conservative), Hyderabad was burning like hell, and despite of our house being on ground floor, we could feel the heat directly through our concrete walls. During these summers’ days, we had hosted two families (her parents and my parents)..!!! I don’t know whether they were able to ignore the heat but I could clearly see the question mark on their faces asking me, “Can’t it be better than this???” For many afternoons, I could hear my wife screaming because of 3-4PM type heat that made me imagine her being roasted in hot furnace. Everyday I just prayed to HIM to send some showers over my area so that I can safely declare the arrival of monsoons and avoid spending on Air Conditioner (or even a pair of desert coolers). This was very much similar to the village scene in movie ‘Lagaan’ where the whole crowd used to stare at the clouds and wish if it rains. Obviously my reasons were very much different than theirs..!!

Anyways, finally I lost my patience and we bought a brand new LG branded AC for our master bedroom. I was calculating the cut in our future spending while the final bill was being prepared at the showroom. The installation was done at the rock speed and our AC went live at 4 PM on Sunday. We were enjoying every moment of cool, sophisticated air in our bedroom…and all of a sudden….

As I was busy dreaming about healthy environment that we were plunging into…I came to hear some tapping outside. I asked my wife to reach out the door and see outside if everything is just fine. As she opened the door, I could see the deadliest thundershower I have ever seen at such a time..!!! Not even thunderstorm, it was the time when you get to see the first hailstorm of the year..!!! “Oh my GOD, how does HE know about this???” I suddenly felt being cheated by HIM and cursing like, “why hasn’t HE preponed this rain before”. The electricity went off and we were sitting like ducks in front of our AC panel. Somehow we were able to re-enjoy the comfort of AC in night and when I wake up in the morning I could feel a bit cold and feverish.

So this is my experience with something I ain’t in harmony with..!!!

Policeman gets poorer

This time I had a short and hilarious stint with a policeman standing near the Hyderabad Deccan railway station waiting for me to come…

After spending some four special days with us, it was departure time for my in-laws. They had to catch “Charminar Express” from Deccan railway station which was around 4-5 kms from my residence. I took my bike and my brother-in-law hopped on and we started our journey towards station amidst busy crowd and congested traffic. As we were approaching the entrance gates of the station, suddenly a traffic policeman (junior rank) held my bike’s handle and steered us towards the road side. I knew this was going to be an interesting event because I had all documents in place.

As I removed my helmet he started his routine dialogue, “NOC, PUC, Insurance papers agar hai to dikhao… nahin to challaan bharo”. I started smiling at him knowing the fact that he was wasting so much of his energy over fruitless attempt to extract extra money from me. As I showed him the road tax slip, he was stunned but he still had the hope that can make him rich by few hundreds. As I showed him pollution certificate and RC he could feel his hopes dying in the burial. The next document was insurance paper and I couldn’t get hold of the latest one. He was quick on commenting on this. He said, “yeh insurance purana hai...2007 ka..challaan 301 rupaiya..gaadi side mein lagaao”. I again smiled at him and was feeling giving him a salute for his determination. As I unfolded second insurance document which was again an expired one, he got delighted and immediately called up his supervisor and said in one tone, “Saahb, Rajasthan ki gaadi hai, insurance nahin hai, 301 rupaiya challan”. For few moments I was frightened by his excitement and thought again whether I had the valid document or I was living in an illusion. As his superior was taking note of all the details of the bike, I got hold of the original valid insurance document and with a wide grin I showed that to the policeman. He stared at it for some 2-3 minutes and with shear disappointment he couldn’t even recognise where the validity dates were mentioned in the document..!! He seems dull, disheartened and lifeless as he held this document in his hands. As I folded all the documents in my bag and faced up to ask policeman if he has any more queries, he was gone with the wind and was mingled with ongoing traffic (maybe in hope of another one. I told you, I salute at his determination).

In the end, as we fired the engine, the supervisor (still standing there, writing the necessary details of the challan) raised his head and asked us, “RC dikhao”…and we started laughing..!!!