What do i want from life.

Today a strange question was asked to me, What do i want in my life? And to my surprise, i was paused for about 1 minute before i could answer it. My answers were, a family - maybe coz i have always craved for one. Maybe coz i know that family gives us strength. Then i just couldn't answer anything beyond it. So i decided that i will go back home, shut myself out in my room and write this down on my blog.  Today i want to think about me, myself and what i would look forward to have in my life.


I think i have lived this life mostly for others so far. Be it for getting love, be it for playing music, be it for feeling obligated to care for someone. But really is it eventually the thing that i would want to take down to my grave? I think i have spent most part of my life, choosing sadness over happiness. I have always looked at what i don't have instead of looking at what god gave me. It's a mindset, i need to change for my good because now my survival is under threat. I just cannot feel bad, i just cannot feel dejected, unhappy and insecure.

Anyway coming back to what i want from life. I think i got goals in my life during my +2. With very little practical knowledge about life. I set my sights on becoming a musician. More like Savage Garden back in those days and slowly my tastes bled into becoming a rock musician. I guess somehow in the past 3-4 years, i have lost that interest because i tasted waters that sort of made me realize that it's a wild goose chase. But today i want to fall back and ask myself that same question again - is it really a wild goose chase at the end of the day? What is possible in life? To love someone so much that you'd think that life will not move on without her and then eventually look back and discover that it was just a phase and you can quit anything in life? Is it about believing that the job i have, that pays me handsomely today would sustain me for the next 40 years? To imagine that i would fall in love again and never ever let go of that person? Everything is possible in life. If disasters are easier to believe in then i am sure that fate has an equal share of happiness associated with it. I think it's only a practice, that we human beings need to do - Be fearless and Choose the things we want.  I want to go back and tell myself that maybe i don't want my music career as passionately as i used. Maybe i have given up on the sight to see. Maybe i need to resurrect my thoughts once again and do what i like.  As i write this, i guess there are no two thoughts on what i want to become in life. I don't want to be an IT professional, neither i want to become an MBA grad. I want to be loved by a million and i want to love that one special person, who'd love me differently than those millions out there. I want to sing to a crowd and make them reciprocate my feelings. I want to travel around the world - take the long drive around the grand canyon and say that i have lived life Kingsize!

I think i have to revive what i am loosing with every single minute passing by me. I have to think about things that i really beckon from life. Not something that can give me a momentary phase of happiness. I have to release myself from shackles that hold me close to a situation and makes me change my emotions towards them. I think those human beings who change because of situations are spineless. I don't want to be one of them!

I think i have found my answer to what i want in life eventually now...

How loyal are you to your company!

My job allows me to work from home, however, this time i chose not to. I was returning from home, around 3000 miles away from Bangalore. While sitting on the train to Kolkata, i meet a person who after a few lines of introductory conversation asks me, "How loyal are you to your company"? I was a little stunned to have heard that question all of a sudden out of the blue, we were talking rally races before that. It's not very often that i am caught off guard but this was one such occasion. I told him that "I am loyal to my work more than my company". He got a little irked by the answer. He seemed a little biased about the IT Industry in India where the average lifespan of a particular Job is not more than 3 years. He asked me, "Why do you switch companies every 2-3 years?" My answer, "We do that because IT is a very dynamic industry and you cannot be stuck with one technology forever, unless it's cutting age. If your company doesn't give you a room to move around, you'd rather not want to rot at the same place and become a less skilled employee in the market". He was not satisfied with this answer. He went to tell me about his profession. He is a doctor, who would see 100s of patients on a single day by loosing sleep. He asks me, "How many hours do you sleep in the night?". I felt a little irked again. I chose to close the topic and did not feel like continuing the conversation.

Today about 1 and half months after that incident, i sat down to think on why i feel the urge to move around various companies. Is it something to do with my Salary? The answer surprisingly is a NO.
Let's take an example of an organization that has about 100 employees. The "degrees of separation" between the CEO and an employee on an average will at max be 2. An average employee closely impacts the revenue of the organization and the margin for error per employee is very less. This means that an employee is more accountable towards his company's end goal. Employees are highly skilled, there is nothing like a "Bell's curve" in picture and most of them are happy. Motivation factor? Mostly to do with accountability. Now let's name this Company as A (well i got to a late naming this time). Let's take another Company called B, with the same portfolio as A. B on the other has a very profit minded CEO/Owner. He wants to grow (Sorry for using all masculine gender) his company. For that matter, he decides to make an IPO. Considering that this company has performed exceedingly well in the past, buyers have a lot of faith and the IPO gets sold out in minutes. Now we have more investors on this company than that one guy who owned it. Every investor looks for profit. The CEO has to instill confidence on the company's shareholders. He decides that volume is more important than quality. Even though you can think about having no bell curve during appraisals but now the company looks at the Supply Chain Model. Here the resources (supply) are the People who will do this volume work. Slowly but steadily, company B figures out work items that can be executed with less skilled people. Hence rather than hiring from the IITs, it now falls back to the other Engineering colleges for recruitment. A imbalance is struck in terms of accountability because the person who is doing a less skilled work might still screw that up and not impact the companies overall revenue. First quarter results of expansion - Excellent. The CEO and the Shareholders are really happy. Now they go on to set a record margin for the next quarter. More hiring takes place and all of a sudden this company's employee skill structure becomes like a view you'd see with  Windows De-fragmentation. As the company expands, the "Degrees of separation" between that same employee grows to a phenomenal number. All of a sudden an average employee, concentrate only on his area of work and forgets about what the overall organization goal is. Now, his accountability reduces from delivering revenue to delivering for his module. Slowly, he dissects himself from feeling a part of the company to being only responsible for his job. Now I know why i felt that I am Loyal to my work more than my company. 

The idea of making someone feel "Special" not just within the organization but as a citizen is reducing day by day. IT is trying to put it's footprint into everything that we do in life. Calling it a giant bubble might be too early but isn't it true that the impatience level and the dissatisfaction we suffer for our job is ever increasing? The resources are becoming more volatile also courtesy of the imbalance the Salary Structures create post a Job Switch. We might be happy today about it but then who is the person who is responsible for this? I leave that to you, to find out!

A Journey back home.

It's been a while yet again since the last time i took up writing. None the less, i am back home and it might be one of those real drivers behind this post. Let's not dwell, let's just picture this right up.

It was 12th of July, an exhausted soul, more for waking up at 5:00 AM to get on the flight to Kolkata and eventually running through a day full of events - yes events, that would involve tackling the weather in Kolkata (i am not so strong on my bones to boast of it) and then to hear an onslaught of offers, made at my cousin brother's place about them willing to get me married. How insane is that, isn't it? For anyone of you who think that marriage is an institution, you definitely would want to believe that not everyone deserves a chance to qualify and not be pushed. Haven't we been directed to do everything in our lives from the day we were born? To give us the direction in which they wanted us to sail if not them choosing it directly? I am sure there are many of you unfortunate ones out there - who have always had to bear with the inability to make a decision and were given an answer that you without a qualm, accepted.

Nah, but this ain't about cribbing about my personal life like i always do over this white sheet of "virtual paper". It's more so about what happened when i finally got on the train from Ranaghat to head towards Sealdah. So picture this, at the Ranaghat station, where this train originated from, i reach around 5 mins before the train was scheduled to depart. I see that the train is already filled with people. If i was a super computer with super sensing AI technology, then i think i would count it up to about 30000 people inside that god damn train. Nah, not that i guarantee  you of the number - i didn't proclaim of a six sigma, i may have added a little bias of frustration into it. So i finally manage to get a seat after traversing through the multiple compartments where people stood by the doors to allude me from believing that there was indeed some empty benches made of wood for me. I eventually find one to rest my ass. And here we go, all of a sudden the thought of the "India Shining" glitters bright in my head and i start picturing reality right in front of my eyes. I see people mostly dark in complexion because of the excessive global warming struggle side to side to find a place. Then in comes a bunch of what my mom taught me to call them - "Hawkers", bringing down national market right into your laps. I see people of the age of mid 40s, selling 6 apples at the cost of 10 bucks - I thought we don't even get 6 panipuris for that price in Bangalore? Then in comes this guy selling "chanachur", i ask for one. I take out a 5 bucks note and hand it over to him, and i look outside the window. This man calls me and hands me back 2 rupees as change. I was like - really? Are you sure, you aren't mistaken? I mean i can't blame myself for the price i pay for a cup of tea in Bangalore - that too when i have to actually reach out to the CCD or the Barista instead of them coming to me.

All of a sudden i start to picture on what this 3 rupees could mean to this guy and eventually with all the costs and energy he puts up in selling it at 45 - is it what we really called, India Shining? Is it something that i have or rather we have closed our eye lids for? I am sure this person, doesn't make more than 200 bucks a day of profit for working up his ass like none of us do for that amount of money we get paid - neither he has a respect of telling people about what he does. He is this street monger, really fighting a battle to live this life. Like really? Like really at 45? Then i see these guys sitting next to me, with linen pants and again sweaty as if they are put into a furnace, looking at me like i am some survivor from the mars. O c'mon, i am no different, yes for sure i earn probably a respectful but you should see my life man - i don't save no money. I gulp a peg of whiskey and i pay 700 bucks for it. Then the next moment, i see this tea guy, i buy a cup of tea from him for 3 bucks. Does it quench my thirst? Sure it does, do i feel any different? No i don't. Do i observe all these and think India is not really shining and that i have probably missed a point in my life - Yes i do feel that way.

On my journey to Alipurduar that same night inside Kanchan Kanya express, a person as coveted as a chartered accountant (not accounting it to my disbelief) makes a very valid point about politics in India. He said, that none of them want the masses to get educated because education makes a person think independently. Maybe ruling won't be an option if we really wanted people to be educated. If they were probably educated, then that man working up his ass for that 200 bucks will end up spending his energy into something that would give him more money and more "respect". But then this is how we are dead stricken behind our legacy and yet proclaim of a progressive nation. Neither we move beyond that margin, neither maybe we want to. Now do you have an answer to "India Shining"? Or do we attribute it to the 700 bucks worth of Jack Daniels with Coke?

Drops of Love.

Yet again, i am at home and i have all the time this universe has to offer. I think i should take my mom there with me soon - so that i get all these useful time to do stuff that I wouldn't normally get the time to do - write blogs.

As life squeezes out even that last bit of juice, i tend to think on the funny side of it. I mean let's face it - i grew up as that insecure boy - who was always scared to say a thing to the other guy 'cause i always knew that i had no one to support my family. Got myself eaten up in a rot where life was about being a pessimist with no hope. But now i realize that the small thoughts of how nothing was possible to spreading my arms around in the sky had one little difference - the difference was in my head. The difference was that, as i moved around to more unknown places around this world of mine - i realized that after all - it's not too bad and the planet has more places that i could roam than the lanes i feared to step in my neighborhood. The reason i can make out that difference so distinctly is because i can step into both the worlds as a courtesy of this visit.

But na na, i ain't comparing those two worlds. This post is about converting your adolescence into your teens. Well, when parents tell you to study - you usually feel it as a burden, atleast i did. Then there is this time, when i am craving to do new things at work - as if it's a playground i always wanted to be at. Then you talk about this band - well, you tend to think that you can touch the sky when you jump during your teens but then reality bites you and it brings you down. Same happened to me, but now i wish to see it fly again. Talk about flying and here we are boarding our first flight for a show together next week. I realize the value of all these because i started from nothing. But amidst all these, there's one thing that is still missing like it was missing in my teens - "Love" - like i got it and spilled it all over. Somehow, i feel in this whole process of fighting ways in life - i missed what is actually more important than any of these. No wonder that i shall spend another day tomorrow - as the world would celebrate Valentine's day!

These days when i walk on the street, i feel good, i feel positive for the things i could do and now i don't want to see where i come from - i just one to be one among the rest and walk ahead. This took sometime for me to start thinking about. If someone wants to advocate free thinking - my life may serve as a good example, how it can transform someone. However, in the process of making up for the time from my teens - i hope life gives me back what is more important to me than anything else. If you yearn for the same - don't loose out on the "Drops of Love".