I like watching movies in a theatre only when the movie is worthwile. The fascinating thing about watching a movie in the theatre is that it leaves a life long flash in your mind. If one does that in every Tom Dick and Harry movie then I feel it is corrupted thought. "Golamaal", "Chupke Chupke", "Mr India", "DDLJ", "MPK" etc all of them are of that genre. I as a person believe that if a movie/plot is good enough, it is like watching a movie afresh everytime. In the bollywood perspective I like people with fresh ideas/plots. I generallly like Ram Gopal Verma stamp movies. They are generally so different from other stories. If I feel a movie is good, I go and watch it in the theatres else online/Cds/DVDs are a better route. I happened to recently see "Darwaza Bandh Rakho ne" and "Shiva" both of them were a good movie for different reasons. I also happened to see "DON" the new onw. I should appreciate Farhan Akhtar for all his previous movies, but in this movie he has tried to copy a bit too much. Had he adapted it, it would have been more likeable than this. He should have copied only the story to a large extent and a few dialogues and essence and not the other things.
The Indian movies when they have a betterstorylinearebetter than most of the other movies that I see. HAIL BOLLYWOOD at the end of the day.
Sunday, December 03, 2006
Sunday, October 15, 2006
Typical Towns in England
English towns are very identical in nature. The town would have a railway station to which a bus station would be provided close by or there would be frequent city bus service taking to the bus station. Very close to the railway station there would be a central marketplace which is called a town centre in UK. In the US they call it a downtown. The towncentre would have the same shops across UK. The famous chains of retails stores are
Sainsbury – It is good for food and drink primarily. Have huge variety of wines and alcohol. They also have some really good value for money fast foods with a lot of variety
Tesco – It is supposed to be the cheapest overall. Cheap cosmetics are generally bought here. It is generally good for many day-today products. Most of the smokers buy their cigarettes from here as it is cheaper than the rest places.
Boots – This is the biggest chain of pharmacy/beauty products stores. Here one would find amazing variety of shavers, lotions and lots of other stuff.
Iceland – This is a very good shop for buying frozen foods. Amazing variety. Lot of Indian variety too. Beers generally have good offers.
Pound Shops – Almost all the major towns have these one pound shops. It is something similar to our 49 & 99 stores across India. All items are placed at one pound. People generally buy umbrellas, cosmetics – soap, deodorants, brush, paste, mints, chewing gum etc. We even get a watch for one pound. But as expected you get only sundar, sasta and ghatiya products here. Few Indians also buy some really cheap chocolates here.
Wilkinson – It is the biggest chain of hardware shops. You get all the carpentry, electrical, plumbing, construction, gardening equipment here.
Jessops – They are primarily into sale of electronic items. The point is that it is better to buy electronic items in UK online as there are some awesome discounts there. We can use these shops to do some window shopping.
Marks & Spencer – It is as most of now the biggest cloth store chain. They have some amazing collection of clothes but a tad expensive than the general merchandise. They primarily provide discounts only around Christmas. The clothes overall are of better value for money in India. Well people with taste for brands can definitely shop here.
H&M – Cloth shop. Never been there
Pizza Shops – Papa Jones, Pizza Hut, Dominoes – the preference hierarchy
Burger Shops – Subway(Provide some personal customizations), Burger King and McDonalds. McDonalds sometimes don’t provide any vegetarian items.
ATMs – Almost all the major banks will have their ATMs in the town centre. HSBC, Lloyds, Barclays seem to be the most popular ones here.
Café’s – There will be quite a few café’s which would be Italian kinds with an odd Indian/Chinese/Others types. Starbucks is the only one heard about still need to go there.
Others – There are various other shops like Beauty shops, cake and pastry, clothe stores, toy shops, gift shops etc. which are generally out of scope right now for me.
The town centres would have parking spaces allocated in the basement or in the top floor of the the place depending on the design.
Just next to the town centre would be a few streets where you will have some additional outlets. Majority of these would be pubs, restaurants, takeaways, clubs, real estate agents, banks, Post Office, flower shops etc. The car showrooms would be spread across the town as they require more space. Apart from this you have very few shops scattered across. A majority of those would be attached to the petrol pumps. Just like in India we have the weekly markets, UK has them too. The local farmers come along with their stuff which they typically sell in stalls. In Karnataka-India we call it the santi or weekly market. Loads of people buy the stuff from here. Most of the big retail chains provide vegetables but they seem to be a bit stale as they are brought through the route of freezing. The only other way to buy vegetables is to buy some frozen cut vegetables which is definitely good for the bachelor folks. Majority of the big towns have a theatre called the Haymarket here where plays are staged at least once a week. Majority of the people flocking these would be as expected old folks and many middle-aged people accompanying them.
The big expanse of London is totally different from the ones mentioned for a smaller town. We can read the London section for more details.
The whole town is generally built surrounding these town centers (Or maybe it is the other way around). Majority of the temporary workforce either stay in hotels or in apartments or bungalows closer to the town centre. Indians and Chinese/Koreans generally prefer this as they do not want to buy/hire cars and hence need to be in the vicinity of the town centre which is well connected by public transport. In UK all roads (& rails) lead to London (instead of Rome). Most of the towns are well connected to London. I would also be writing on the transport in UK shortly with links to helpful hyperlinks.
The city centre (market) in England is called a towncentre and apart from this place we hardly get any other shop. The adjoining areas of the towncentre is generally the commercial district and the re would be lot of shops, agencies, restaurants, offices, bus stations, train stations etc placed around it. Few minutes walk around the towncentre and one would be in the residential areas of the city. The only other things which could be found away from the towncentre are a few hotels, restaurants, petrol stations
Sainsbury – It is good for food and drink primarily. Have huge variety of wines and alcohol. They also have some really good value for money fast foods with a lot of variety
Tesco – It is supposed to be the cheapest overall. Cheap cosmetics are generally bought here. It is generally good for many day-today products. Most of the smokers buy their cigarettes from here as it is cheaper than the rest places.
Boots – This is the biggest chain of pharmacy/beauty products stores. Here one would find amazing variety of shavers, lotions and lots of other stuff.
Iceland – This is a very good shop for buying frozen foods. Amazing variety. Lot of Indian variety too. Beers generally have good offers.
Pound Shops – Almost all the major towns have these one pound shops. It is something similar to our 49 & 99 stores across India. All items are placed at one pound. People generally buy umbrellas, cosmetics – soap, deodorants, brush, paste, mints, chewing gum etc. We even get a watch for one pound. But as expected you get only sundar, sasta and ghatiya products here. Few Indians also buy some really cheap chocolates here.
Wilkinson – It is the biggest chain of hardware shops. You get all the carpentry, electrical, plumbing, construction, gardening equipment here.
Jessops – They are primarily into sale of electronic items. The point is that it is better to buy electronic items in UK online as there are some awesome discounts there. We can use these shops to do some window shopping.
Marks & Spencer – It is as most of now the biggest cloth store chain. They have some amazing collection of clothes but a tad expensive than the general merchandise. They primarily provide discounts only around Christmas. The clothes overall are of better value for money in India. Well people with taste for brands can definitely shop here.
H&M – Cloth shop. Never been there
Pizza Shops – Papa Jones, Pizza Hut, Dominoes – the preference hierarchy
Burger Shops – Subway(Provide some personal customizations), Burger King and McDonalds. McDonalds sometimes don’t provide any vegetarian items.
ATMs – Almost all the major banks will have their ATMs in the town centre. HSBC, Lloyds, Barclays seem to be the most popular ones here.
Café’s – There will be quite a few café’s which would be Italian kinds with an odd Indian/Chinese/Others types. Starbucks is the only one heard about still need to go there.
Others – There are various other shops like Beauty shops, cake and pastry, clothe stores, toy shops, gift shops etc. which are generally out of scope right now for me.
The town centres would have parking spaces allocated in the basement or in the top floor of the the place depending on the design.
Just next to the town centre would be a few streets where you will have some additional outlets. Majority of these would be pubs, restaurants, takeaways, clubs, real estate agents, banks, Post Office, flower shops etc. The car showrooms would be spread across the town as they require more space. Apart from this you have very few shops scattered across. A majority of those would be attached to the petrol pumps. Just like in India we have the weekly markets, UK has them too. The local farmers come along with their stuff which they typically sell in stalls. In Karnataka-India we call it the santi or weekly market. Loads of people buy the stuff from here. Most of the big retail chains provide vegetables but they seem to be a bit stale as they are brought through the route of freezing. The only other way to buy vegetables is to buy some frozen cut vegetables which is definitely good for the bachelor folks. Majority of the big towns have a theatre called the Haymarket here where plays are staged at least once a week. Majority of the people flocking these would be as expected old folks and many middle-aged people accompanying them.
The big expanse of London is totally different from the ones mentioned for a smaller town. We can read the London section for more details.
The whole town is generally built surrounding these town centers (Or maybe it is the other way around). Majority of the temporary workforce either stay in hotels or in apartments or bungalows closer to the town centre. Indians and Chinese/Koreans generally prefer this as they do not want to buy/hire cars and hence need to be in the vicinity of the town centre which is well connected by public transport. In UK all roads (& rails) lead to London (instead of Rome). Most of the towns are well connected to London. I would also be writing on the transport in UK shortly with links to helpful hyperlinks.
The city centre (market) in England is called a towncentre and apart from this place we hardly get any other shop. The adjoining areas of the towncentre is generally the commercial district and the re would be lot of shops, agencies, restaurants, offices, bus stations, train stations etc placed around it. Few minutes walk around the towncentre and one would be in the residential areas of the city. The only other things which could be found away from the towncentre are a few hotels, restaurants, petrol stations
UK versus England
United Kingdom is made up of 4 countries - England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. UK minus N. Ireland is Great Britain. All these four countries are united for many things and independent on others. The language and culture of all the 4 provinces are different. One gets only a VISA of UK and not as England or Britain. England and Wales combine for Cricket, Scotland is a separate team. For Football they have different teams for all. They used to play hockey under the GB banner a few years back.
UK Flag (UNION JACK)
England Flag
Scotland Flag
Wales Flag
Northern Ireland Flag (Unofficial)
The UK flag is made after combining all these flags. Hence it is always referred to as the Union Jack. The reason why when there is mention of England we have a red plus sign in a white background and not the union jack. I never happened to notice it so far in my life and so would have quite a few people like me.
Sunday, September 17, 2006
Start of my visit to UK
This is my first visit outside the Indian subcontinent and it is a funny feeling. It has been more than a month since I landed up here. I came to UK on the 13th of August, just 2 days after the UK police nabbed suspected terrorists. The timing wasn’t that great as I had to make lot many changes to my trip plans. I had to buy a new bag so that I could accommodate many things in one bag including the hand luggage and handbag. I had to leave behind quite a few things. All the flights that day were delayed and there were long queues in the airport. I was happy to see one of my pages being filled in the passport after 6 years of getting it. I was flying from Bangalore to Mumbai and Mumbai to London Heathrow. The Air-India flight was peaceful and it is not that greatly different from a domestic flight except that there are more number of seats, the food is served couple of times more and there is alcohol provided too. I finally landed in London Heathrow after 22 hours from the start of my journey. Three of us had started the journey together – Raviraja Dubba, Pradipta Nayak and myself. We were expecting some amount of frisking and scanning of our bags or a thorough check, but did not find anything of that sort. There was a big queue for the immigration check and were apprehensive. But it was just a cakewalk for us. Then we boarded a Taxi to Basingstoke and realized the stupid system of communication while finding the roads here. They call a circle a Roundabout and the call nth exit for getting out of a circle. Hardly any landmarks are stated as we often do in India and finally after a while we landed at the Copper Beeches hotel at 11.30 pm on a Sunday night.
We checked into our respective rooms and found out that the rooms were ridiculously small in terms of the size. I was put up in a 10 x 10 ft room including the bathroom and a cupboard. We had landed up in the second half of the English summer and found that the day breaks at 5am and night is realized around 8pm.
We were at the office by 8.30am the next day. In the next week or so started to get accustomed on the work front and trying to understand the scope of our work. Still most of us on the assignment are getting a feel of the work environment in UK. It is quite different to that India. People come on-time or early and leave after exactly 9 hours of work irrespective of the workload. Unless very very critical they do not hold back at the office. People hardly are on the phones, and they do not chat around much. People use more please rather than a thank you. People are at various positions irrespective of their age and most of the people like to do the same job day in and day out. Atleast this is the understanding. People speak primarily for work-related things only. I was also exposed to some British sense of humour but it would take a longtime to start really understanding them.
We checked into our respective rooms and found out that the rooms were ridiculously small in terms of the size. I was put up in a 10 x 10 ft room including the bathroom and a cupboard. We had landed up in the second half of the English summer and found that the day breaks at 5am and night is realized around 8pm.
We were at the office by 8.30am the next day. In the next week or so started to get accustomed on the work front and trying to understand the scope of our work. Still most of us on the assignment are getting a feel of the work environment in UK. It is quite different to that India. People come on-time or early and leave after exactly 9 hours of work irrespective of the workload. Unless very very critical they do not hold back at the office. People hardly are on the phones, and they do not chat around much. People use more please rather than a thank you. People are at various positions irrespective of their age and most of the people like to do the same job day in and day out. Atleast this is the understanding. People speak primarily for work-related things only. I was also exposed to some British sense of humour but it would take a longtime to start really understanding them.
Joining Wipro Technologies – Bangalore
I joined Wipro on the 10th of July 2006 after spending a little more than 3 years in Capgemini. I was very apprehensive while joining as I was leaving behind 3 years of comfort at my previous firm and all of a sudden came to new organization where I did not know anybody, the culture is different and the processes are different and all the infrastructure(computer, login ID’s, bus pass etc.) w.r.t me would have to be streamlined. I first met Raviraja Dubba in the induction program and he seemed to be a lively guy. Next few days were spent shuttling between various offices to meet the JDE management. Param is the JDE practice head mainly aligned towards sales/BD and Mohan Chennasamudram the delivery manager. I also happened to meet Vishal Saxena, Nirmal Assudani and Jagannath Kannan. I also met/contacted my Wipro pals – Mahantesh Halejolad, Gopi Hombal, N Sriram(who referred me) and Arun UJ. After the first few days was given oppurtunities in the Lexmark project-Kolkatta and Cardinal Health report development team-Bangalore but did not work out. Now I was asked to move to UK on the project Arjo-Wiggins for 5 months. I found out that Wipro isa very process driven organsisation with each everything happening based on approvals and approvals. It is a stark contrast compared to my previous organization where it was just through a simple mail instead of a system. The whole Wipro runs on an SAP system which is integrated with HTML interfaces. There are few more for quality and other tools. There is a website designed for the wiproites to discuss, buy/sell, matrimonials and many more things. This is a really wonderful concept.
Sunday, August 27, 2006
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
First Impressions of Bangalore
Bangalore is the city which is now known to be the Tech Capital of India and the Outsourcing Capital of the world. The city almost gets in half the revenue generated by the IT and ITES industry. It is also the R&D capital of the country as it is home to quite a few research organizations like IISc, HAL, DRDO, ISRO, IT R&D, Biotech industry, Silk research and numerous other things. It also boasts of an IIM institute. It also happens to be the Biotech IT consulting capital of the country. The IT revolution here started in the mid-80’s when Sam Pitroda facilitated the setup of the first Technology park in the country, the TI campus. The city was supposed to be developed as the electronic capital of the country. From there the journey began and lot many first generation companies started to setup shop here. Infosys and Wipro seem to be one of the earliest to set their foot here apart from Texas instruments. By the late 90’s people started to realize the IT boom and thus Bangalore came into prominence. Early on Bangalore was a city of retired people with loads of gardens and water tanks in around it apart from being the capital of the state of Karnataka. It is spelt as Bengaluru in Kannada, but is more famously known as Bangalore in its anglicized form.
Bangalore was a sleepy city which suddenly woke up because of the IT boom but has been very very slow to react in terms of infrastructure related aspects. From a small population of about 17-18 lakh people in the mid-80’s it grew to 32-33 lakh in the early 90’s and has now reached close to 60 lakh people. The population of Bangalore pales in front of its bigger cousins like Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkatta. The growth of Bangalore has been more of the educated class especially in their early 20’s. If one analyses the rate of growth of youngsters, Bangalore would be the leader by far. These youngsters are mainly fresh out of college with great deal of enthusisasm, energy and have a very high disposable income when compared to their counterparts in other cities. Apart from this they are the new globe trotting generation who has visited various countries even in their short careers so far. Youngsters from across the country visit the city in search of landing up a tech job. These software professionals with their high amount of disposable incomes have turned the economy of the city upside down. There would be about 5 to 6 lakh people in the IT arena and about 2-3 lakh in the BPO space. This population of about 10 lakh population must be generating atleast 10 lakh more people who basically are involved in servicing these people. Apart from these they would have about 10 lakh people as their family members. This basically amounts to half the people of Bangalore whose life is touched because of the Tech industry. Out of the remaining 30 lakhs a few people are in the government machinery, political organizations, construction industry, laborers’, NGOs, religious establishments, manufacturing industries and trader folks. Out of these also few people are still indirectly because of the IT industry. For example the people in construction industry, daily wage laborers’, municipality people and others. All in all the city is virtually dominated by the techies now.
The infrastructure of the city is literally in shambles. The city is mainly dominated by individual houses and not apartments. The latest growth also is a mixed bag. The construction quality of the apartments built here is also not that great. The individual houses that have been already built are from pre-90’s and the Bangalore Development authority (BDA) has also stopped developing and allotting plots after a decade and a half. The growth now again has shifted back to the private sector that are developing the lands with the help of BMRDA which is not that stringent and does not help much in creating the infrastructure. Its main role is to approve the projects legally. The individual houses tend to be very small in size as the common man could not afford bigger plots and hence had to maximize the best possible way out. The growth of the city has been mainly in the South and South east of the city. The only airport which Bangalore boasts of was mainly built to cater to the HAL test sorties and a few civil airlines. It is no more able to handle the pressure. A new airport has been sanctioned on the outskirts of the city towards Northern part of the city and the work on it has already started. It will be 2009 by the time which it starts functioning. The city is slowly and steadily shifting to that direction now. Going further on to the public transport and the road/rail network, Bangalore still does not boast of a Metro or local train kind of a infrastructure. A Metro rail has been sanctioned by the GoI a few weeks back but it is a bit late to start according to me. The city boasts of 8-10 main exits – Hosur Road, Bannerghetta Road, Kanakpura Road, Mysore Road, Magadi Road, Tumkur Road, Bellary/Hyderabad Road, Old Madras Road, Airport/Vartur Road and Sarjapur Road. Tumkur and Magadi Road are the main roads which are flanked by the Manufacturing industry at Yeshwantpur and Peenya. Mysore Road and Kanakapura Roads are mainly used to bring in the trading goods and for the people in the adjoining districts of Mysore and Mandya to stream in to the city. Hosur Road, Bellary Road and Old Madras Road were used for resources to stream in from the neighboring states. Now the situation has changed. Old Madras Road, Sarjapur Road and Hosur Road have been flanked by the Tech companies and the Bannerghetta Road, Kanakapura Road along with the 3 mentioned roads have become a haven for the IT junta to reside. The property prices in these places have grown manifold all of a sudden. The city had a Ring Road network on the lines of Delhi but has fallen under the great pressure put on them. They are just 2 + 2 lanes with no provision for a service lane and this very fally brings to the core of the traffic problems. The city over and above that did not possess even a single flyover prior to 2002. It’s only in the recent times that a few have them have become functional. The average speed on the roads, the only way of conveyance, is pathetically low and is around 15 Kms on an average across the whole city. The average speed should be close to 30-35 kms/hour. The city has embarked upon a task to de-congest the main roads. The various ways in which it is going about doing these is – Metro Rail project, Few more flyovers planned, peripheral ring road, elevated road from Silk Board to Electronic city on Hosur Road and the Mysore – Electronic City link road. The government is also encouraging the companies to shift to other locations in the city like ITPL and Devanahalli side by offering lands to the companies at a lower cost. But all of this is not slated to be ready before the second half of 2008. Let all Bangaloreans pray for early completion of all these projects. Till then GOD SAVE BANGALORE.
Bangalore was a sleepy city which suddenly woke up because of the IT boom but has been very very slow to react in terms of infrastructure related aspects. From a small population of about 17-18 lakh people in the mid-80’s it grew to 32-33 lakh in the early 90’s and has now reached close to 60 lakh people. The population of Bangalore pales in front of its bigger cousins like Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkatta. The growth of Bangalore has been more of the educated class especially in their early 20’s. If one analyses the rate of growth of youngsters, Bangalore would be the leader by far. These youngsters are mainly fresh out of college with great deal of enthusisasm, energy and have a very high disposable income when compared to their counterparts in other cities. Apart from this they are the new globe trotting generation who has visited various countries even in their short careers so far. Youngsters from across the country visit the city in search of landing up a tech job. These software professionals with their high amount of disposable incomes have turned the economy of the city upside down. There would be about 5 to 6 lakh people in the IT arena and about 2-3 lakh in the BPO space. This population of about 10 lakh population must be generating atleast 10 lakh more people who basically are involved in servicing these people. Apart from these they would have about 10 lakh people as their family members. This basically amounts to half the people of Bangalore whose life is touched because of the Tech industry. Out of the remaining 30 lakhs a few people are in the government machinery, political organizations, construction industry, laborers’, NGOs, religious establishments, manufacturing industries and trader folks. Out of these also few people are still indirectly because of the IT industry. For example the people in construction industry, daily wage laborers’, municipality people and others. All in all the city is virtually dominated by the techies now.
The infrastructure of the city is literally in shambles. The city is mainly dominated by individual houses and not apartments. The latest growth also is a mixed bag. The construction quality of the apartments built here is also not that great. The individual houses that have been already built are from pre-90’s and the Bangalore Development authority (BDA) has also stopped developing and allotting plots after a decade and a half. The growth now again has shifted back to the private sector that are developing the lands with the help of BMRDA which is not that stringent and does not help much in creating the infrastructure. Its main role is to approve the projects legally. The individual houses tend to be very small in size as the common man could not afford bigger plots and hence had to maximize the best possible way out. The growth of the city has been mainly in the South and South east of the city. The only airport which Bangalore boasts of was mainly built to cater to the HAL test sorties and a few civil airlines. It is no more able to handle the pressure. A new airport has been sanctioned on the outskirts of the city towards Northern part of the city and the work on it has already started. It will be 2009 by the time which it starts functioning. The city is slowly and steadily shifting to that direction now. Going further on to the public transport and the road/rail network, Bangalore still does not boast of a Metro or local train kind of a infrastructure. A Metro rail has been sanctioned by the GoI a few weeks back but it is a bit late to start according to me. The city boasts of 8-10 main exits – Hosur Road, Bannerghetta Road, Kanakpura Road, Mysore Road, Magadi Road, Tumkur Road, Bellary/Hyderabad Road, Old Madras Road, Airport/Vartur Road and Sarjapur Road. Tumkur and Magadi Road are the main roads which are flanked by the Manufacturing industry at Yeshwantpur and Peenya. Mysore Road and Kanakapura Roads are mainly used to bring in the trading goods and for the people in the adjoining districts of Mysore and Mandya to stream in to the city. Hosur Road, Bellary Road and Old Madras Road were used for resources to stream in from the neighboring states. Now the situation has changed. Old Madras Road, Sarjapur Road and Hosur Road have been flanked by the Tech companies and the Bannerghetta Road, Kanakapura Road along with the 3 mentioned roads have become a haven for the IT junta to reside. The property prices in these places have grown manifold all of a sudden. The city had a Ring Road network on the lines of Delhi but has fallen under the great pressure put on them. They are just 2 + 2 lanes with no provision for a service lane and this very fally brings to the core of the traffic problems. The city over and above that did not possess even a single flyover prior to 2002. It’s only in the recent times that a few have them have become functional. The average speed on the roads, the only way of conveyance, is pathetically low and is around 15 Kms on an average across the whole city. The average speed should be close to 30-35 kms/hour. The city has embarked upon a task to de-congest the main roads. The various ways in which it is going about doing these is – Metro Rail project, Few more flyovers planned, peripheral ring road, elevated road from Silk Board to Electronic city on Hosur Road and the Mysore – Electronic City link road. The government is also encouraging the companies to shift to other locations in the city like ITPL and Devanahalli side by offering lands to the companies at a lower cost. But all of this is not slated to be ready before the second half of 2008. Let all Bangaloreans pray for early completion of all these projects. Till then GOD SAVE BANGALORE.
Monday, July 24, 2006
My Relation with JD Edwards
My relationship with JD Edwards started in the year 2003 when I was given a campus offer from Cap Gemini Ernst & Young Consulting India in my B-School and was assigned to the JD Edwards practice. I was given a formal training on JD Edwards there mainly in the Distribution arena. I had to wait for quite a few months to actually get into a JD Edwards project. In the mean-time I was involved in Software/Bids risk management from the teams set-up, some internal tool developments and was doing some global reporting under the COO. Finally I got a chance in HPCL project-Sewree, Mumbai. I made a modest beginning as a fresher there by making the Supplemental Database documentation, Converting PDF images to Word text documents, Version control exercise for P4210 and P4205, learning a bit on purchase and inventory modules and doing a few bug-fixes on the customized objects there, going through customization documents, Updating FDD’s and TDD’s and a bit on Role-based user manuals. After spending about 8-10 months, I was put onto the JK Paper project at Delhi wherein I started to blossom as a functional guy. As this being my first implementation project was groomed by my seniors in the first half and then later on started to take independent charge. After spending about 11 months was sent back to HPCL-Mumbai for 3 months where I consolidated my JD Edwards knowledge under the able hands of Sivaramakrishnan. I was at the peak of my JD Edwards career by the end of January 2006. I again had to go to JK Paper project for the last 2 months but this time in the plant at Jaykaypur, Rayagada, Orissa. It was also a good experience as I got a feel of quite a lot of messed up things and had the opportunity to work on the Weighbridge interface. Also got a chance to visit the plant and meet the actual end-users.
My first impression of JD Edwards was that it’s very good software. It has immense functionality and is easier to tweak when compared to its other peers. Its GUI interface is very good and pretty friendly. I was awestruck in the way any related data to a particular document or transaction screen can be reached. The entire data is very well organized and related in a pretty organized manner. The first time in my life I was exposed to such a huge amount of possible permutations and combinations in a business process and then to find that they still do not suffice the entire needs of everybody’s business needs. It made me FEEL (& not just read) the huge diversity in how businesses are run. Any packaged software is a graduation/PHD in its own right. It is always interesting as first you try to familiarize oneself with the various modules and then various end-to-end processes, navigation, transactions, fields, masters, tables, reports………….. This creates a basis for the beginner to start trying out the various possibilities and scenario’s.
My first impression of JD Edwards was that it’s very good software. It has immense functionality and is easier to tweak when compared to its other peers. Its GUI interface is very good and pretty friendly. I was awestruck in the way any related data to a particular document or transaction screen can be reached. The entire data is very well organized and related in a pretty organized manner. The first time in my life I was exposed to such a huge amount of possible permutations and combinations in a business process and then to find that they still do not suffice the entire needs of everybody’s business needs. It made me FEEL (& not just read) the huge diversity in how businesses are run. Any packaged software is a graduation/PHD in its own right. It is always interesting as first you try to familiarize oneself with the various modules and then various end-to-end processes, navigation, transactions, fields, masters, tables, reports………….. This creates a basis for the beginner to start trying out the various possibilities and scenario’s.
Friday, July 21, 2006
Those were the Capgemini Days - The Other Half
In my 15 days stint in the JDE practice at Mumbai – 2 I met Ajay Agarwal (my N+1), RamKumar Iyer, Vinay Rayas, Abhishek Chauhan, N Sriram and Sridhar Iyer. After making a modest beginning at HPCL where I came across quite a few guys into the JDE practice. I came across Rajesh Dahale (my reporting boss and counsellor), Satish Kadam, Santosh Patil, Fauzan Patel, Mathew George, Nilesh Savant, Nilesh Rajadhyaksha, Anand Bais, Surendra Arora, Satish Kumar Joshi, Milind Bam, Sanjay Joshi, the great Chetan Sabunkar, Pramod Jaiswal, Sivaramakrishnan, Dinesh Kumar, Sandeep Shejwalkar, Narayan Prasad, Manoj Kumar and a couple of more guys. I also happened to meet all the big stalwarts of the HPCL project – Srini, Rajni Mehta, Surana, Nishi, KVS, Parihar and a few more. Thereafter I was sent to JK Paper Delhi and I knew most of the guys on the project. My project manager happened to be Dipanjan Banerjee. We were provided a guest house exclusively for the project team and we all stayed as a strongly bonded team for the next year or so. The team comprised of myself, Fauzan Patel, Ramkumar Iyer, Nilesh Savant, Abhishek Chauhan, N Sriram, Rajesh Agarwal, Raman Sibal and Satish Kadam. Ram Iyer and Rajesh Agarwal left us pretty soon and were replaced by Sridhar Iyer and Anish Agarwal. Naveen Gupta and Rajiv Mittal were also part of the project. We were briefly joined by the APS team of Dinesh Kumar, Ajay Agarwal, Satish Joshi and Pramod Jaiswal and their exit from the project was also pretty soon. Anil Sinha was our Change Manager on the project and was hardly visible onto the project. At the time of Go-Live we were split up into the HO and plant teams and were joined by Shankar Iyer, Vinod Bhat, Narayan Prasad and Vishwas Ghanekar around the Go-Live. We also had Aashish from IAL on the project. The JK Paper guys involved on the project were WTD, CFO, Kapoor, Subramanyam, KK Rustagi, Atul Agarwal, Bijoi, Saurabh Agarwal, Sanjeev, Prabal Mahapatro, Doctor sahab, Bose and Pragyan Mohanty. After Go-Live support of 1 month I was sent back onto the HPCL project wherein I was sent to assist the Purchase team in solving certain issues. I met Sanjay More, Paresh Hule, Hanumant, Nitin Kane (my N+1), Abhishek Pandya, Murali (My booze partner and a friend) and ofcourse Sivaramakrishnan. It was a great learning experience which I would treasure. I was sent back to Orissa on JK Paper project for 2 weeks and then all of a sudden was asked to continue on the project. I met a few more guys here – Suresh Kumar, Sudal Acharya and Nihar Padhi. Luckily for me the project ended pretty soon. After coming back to office in April 2006, I was shifted to the SAP practice and within a week or so was asked to move to Schneider-Electric India deployment project in Delhi. I was very reluctant to go there but had to eventually go there. My role here was of a PMO and I had replaced Niraj Ruparel(IIM-C) guy who had decided to move onto purely Management Consulting roles. The Project Manager here was Tushar Wahal who is pretty much a workaholic guy. I met some nice guys here like Jagdish Misra, Amit Panjwani, Manij Kumar, Manoj Bhoota, Ponnuraj, CS, Nitin Goel, Daljit Singh, Anil Tanwar, Dipak Dolas, Sudheendra Nyamati, Nilesh Edwankar, Aashish Shekher and Inderpal Singh. That was my project history in brief at Capgemini.
I started planning for my exit way back in November 2005 and finally got through by June 2006, a solid 6-7 months. Though the seriousness started to grip in only late March 2006 and by mid-May I had an offer with me. July 3rd 2006 happened to be my last working day in Capgemini-India and the CG saga for me came to an abrupt end.
I started planning for my exit way back in November 2005 and finally got through by June 2006, a solid 6-7 months. Though the seriousness started to grip in only late March 2006 and by mid-May I had an offer with me. July 3rd 2006 happened to be my last working day in Capgemini-India and the CG saga for me came to an abrupt end.
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Those were the Capgemini Days - Intitial Days
It's a very funny feeling when one quits an organisation after serving it for couple of years. I am facing a similar situation in my life right now. I worked for Capgemini Consulting India – Mumbai for 37 months and have recently joined Wipro Technologies Bangalore. I joined Capgemini (then called Cap Gemini Ernst & Young) after a campus selection and it being my first job (technically second) found it to be another “HOME”. I have been staying away from my family since the last ten years now and have made couple of places where I lived as my home away from home but the feeling here is a bit different. I guess leaving the first company always seems to be interesting for most of us, but it so happens that I am undergoing it right now. I still feel as though I have been sent on another assignment on behalf of Capgemini. I am still coming to terms with calling myself a Wiproiite and trying to adapt to the culture and lifestyle.
I met quite a few guys in Capgemini and enjoyed interacting with almost all of them. I remember joining Capgemini in June 2003 alongwith 3 Symbi guys and 10 IIT-SOM guys from Powai. The Symbi guys were Isaac Manuel, Jaidev Singh Rathore and Anuj Sharma. All the three of them quit before me. Isaac and Jaidev entered SAP and Anuj after getting his CA moved into the Financial Arena. The SOM guys were great guys too – Aseem Gaur, the 2 Saurabh's, Himabindu, Akhilesh Madhukar, Parag Jain, Yashasvi Venkatesh, Amit Khandelwal, R***** and one more who left pretty early. We were the famous 14 as we used to call ourselves. All of us joined on 16th June 2003 and were together for the next 45 days or so. We all underwent a training in JD Edwards and had a bench period wherein we used to be either be in the Canteen eating Bourbon n coffee and having big GD sessions on various topics or discussing about projects with whatever little knowledge we had on IT(MBA gyaan) or play network games in the corner cubicles (!!!! ????) of mezzanine floor or go for smoke breaks outside the Godrej campus and crib a lot. We used to go either in our bikes or Ashwin’s Ford (F1) or the Patel bhai’s Accent. We enjoyed couple of parties in CG and got a photograph clicked with the then CEO of CGE&Y India – Salil Parekh. Slowly we(the famous 14) all drifted into different roles and practices. I was involved in the meeting with Baru Rao (COO then) – famous six, wherein we were asked to find a project for ourselves or face some tough decisions. Scary isn’t it. We all somehow settled into some kind of roles in the organization.
After spending a couple of months on Risk Management, Internal Systems, Quality and some Reporting. I started into risk management alongwith Vikas Bhatia and was lateron joined by Anand Krishnamoorthy(Manager) and Sankar Vorapattur(Assoc. Dir). They were kind of my first bosses in Capgemini. I still remember those days when Isaac used to put in his best efforts to learn SAP and I made certain attempt too. Isaac got a job in SAP(IBM-Bangalore) and moved on. Jaidev was settled in an SAP project after having a 2 month stint in JDE. Anuj was somehow hanging on to Peoplesoft just to complete his CA. Saurabh got an offer from an MNC as a liaison person for their IT outsourcing in Bangalore and got married later on. Aseem, Madhukar and Saurabh Kumar got into SAP-PP/MM and hung on for a few months. The rest of the guys moved to IDEAX project or some other roles and then quit over a period of 7-8 months. In the meantime I moved on to JDE practice only after I put in my papers. After 15 days of recap was put onto the mother of all JDE projects in India – HPCL. I made a modest beginning as a fresher there.
I met quite a few guys in Capgemini and enjoyed interacting with almost all of them. I remember joining Capgemini in June 2003 alongwith 3 Symbi guys and 10 IIT-SOM guys from Powai. The Symbi guys were Isaac Manuel, Jaidev Singh Rathore and Anuj Sharma. All the three of them quit before me. Isaac and Jaidev entered SAP and Anuj after getting his CA moved into the Financial Arena. The SOM guys were great guys too – Aseem Gaur, the 2 Saurabh's, Himabindu, Akhilesh Madhukar, Parag Jain, Yashasvi Venkatesh, Amit Khandelwal, R***** and one more who left pretty early. We were the famous 14 as we used to call ourselves. All of us joined on 16th June 2003 and were together for the next 45 days or so. We all underwent a training in JD Edwards and had a bench period wherein we used to be either be in the Canteen eating Bourbon n coffee and having big GD sessions on various topics or discussing about projects with whatever little knowledge we had on IT(MBA gyaan) or play network games in the corner cubicles (!!!! ????) of mezzanine floor or go for smoke breaks outside the Godrej campus and crib a lot. We used to go either in our bikes or Ashwin’s Ford (F1) or the Patel bhai’s Accent. We enjoyed couple of parties in CG and got a photograph clicked with the then CEO of CGE&Y India – Salil Parekh. Slowly we(the famous 14) all drifted into different roles and practices. I was involved in the meeting with Baru Rao (COO then) – famous six, wherein we were asked to find a project for ourselves or face some tough decisions. Scary isn’t it. We all somehow settled into some kind of roles in the organization.
After spending a couple of months on Risk Management, Internal Systems, Quality and some Reporting. I started into risk management alongwith Vikas Bhatia and was lateron joined by Anand Krishnamoorthy(Manager) and Sankar Vorapattur(Assoc. Dir). They were kind of my first bosses in Capgemini. I still remember those days when Isaac used to put in his best efforts to learn SAP and I made certain attempt too. Isaac got a job in SAP(IBM-Bangalore) and moved on. Jaidev was settled in an SAP project after having a 2 month stint in JDE. Anuj was somehow hanging on to Peoplesoft just to complete his CA. Saurabh got an offer from an MNC as a liaison person for their IT outsourcing in Bangalore and got married later on. Aseem, Madhukar and Saurabh Kumar got into SAP-PP/MM and hung on for a few months. The rest of the guys moved to IDEAX project or some other roles and then quit over a period of 7-8 months. In the meantime I moved on to JDE practice only after I put in my papers. After 15 days of recap was put onto the mother of all JDE projects in India – HPCL. I made a modest beginning as a fresher there.
Monday, January 09, 2006
Nostalgia - Simscompany
Well I finished my B-school studies from SIMS - Symbiosis Institute of Management Studies, Pune in the year 2003. When I joined SIMS I thought that I will easily scrape through the B-school rigours. I thought an engineer from an REC with a decent academic track record and great analyzing skills, good communication skills and the right attitude of bend-your-back and do the work - what else is required. But alas it was an awakening for me as I realized a B-school is all about the art of liasoning with the concerned people (practically could be an educated whizkid to a 10 grader) and getting the work done from them. Sending the right feelers right across the organisation/team. The ability to understand the subject is not relevant but how to confidently justify it to someone else is more important. The basic ideology being - " Truth is just a perception". The environment has lot of variables to devise a complex equation and to always seeing the broader picture instead of getting into the nitty-gritties as there are horses on hire to get the job done. You need to just confidently state few basics to grab the appreciation of others. The two big regrets of my B-school were I was never good at public speaking and have a good amount of confidence which I could not overcome in this period. And still have never overcome them. Also another aspect I feel lacking in me is to take a stand when it is required. I have kind of lost my risk-taking abilities over a period of time because of the above stated shortcomings of mine. But I have the will to overcome all of these one day, hopefully in the near future. At least regain my confidence and awaken my risk-taking capabilities.
I came across in a nice freind/pal in Mukesh Bhatt who continues to be a very good freind as on date. We formed a group which we ended up calling SIMSCOMPANY. The group initially had Tanesh, Rao, Bhatt and myself. Later on Karan and Bhaskar were included. The core of the group was to get behind each other when needed (95% of the times during fights of which majority were initiated by US) and the second was to effectively take each others trip all the time and thirdly to help each other during placements. We boozed together, chatted in "Fauji Mess" on most of our Brunches and snacks, ate at "Chaitanya" - a PUNJABI mess on FC rd and had most our parties either in each others room or treats at G Da Dhaba on Mumbai-Pune bypass.
There used to be lot of parties in the college and so there used to be lot of fights with out group. The other memorable people in the batch were quite a few - Delphi, Sheru, Bharat, Mayur, Praneet, Anubhav Kohli, Sherry, Louis, Nishant and quite a few others. I also had a huge crush on this girl called Sheila Kaveri, a very nice decent, beautiful girl.
I came across in a nice freind/pal in Mukesh Bhatt who continues to be a very good freind as on date. We formed a group which we ended up calling SIMSCOMPANY. The group initially had Tanesh, Rao, Bhatt and myself. Later on Karan and Bhaskar were included. The core of the group was to get behind each other when needed (95% of the times during fights of which majority were initiated by US) and the second was to effectively take each others trip all the time and thirdly to help each other during placements. We boozed together, chatted in "Fauji Mess" on most of our Brunches and snacks, ate at "Chaitanya" - a PUNJABI mess on FC rd and had most our parties either in each others room or treats at G Da Dhaba on Mumbai-Pune bypass.
There used to be lot of parties in the college and so there used to be lot of fights with out group. The other memorable people in the batch were quite a few - Delphi, Sheru, Bharat, Mayur, Praneet, Anubhav Kohli, Sherry, Louis, Nishant and quite a few others. I also had a huge crush on this girl called Sheila Kaveri, a very nice decent, beautiful girl.
Lonely Times
Of late I have found myself very lonely in life and a deep feeling to runaway from myself. I want to run away from all the problems, all work, all tasks, all colleagues..... But deep within I am also aware that it is no use running away from the problems. When the going gets tough, the tough get going is the philosophy which I have mentally adapted but has been very difficult for me to cope up with this. Basically neither my life - I mean professional and career has not been going as I thought it would.
Professionally I need to hang in for few more weeks and then only expect a change in fortunes, but at the moment it is all in a disarray. Gave 1 or 2 iinterviews but the requirement turned out to be something else compared to my profile. Want to apply in B'lore - based company but no oppurtunities are coming up. Thought I will grow within my organisation but the initial feelers suggest that it is going to be really tough finding a practice to avail my services good or bad work seems secondary now. The company gives a 15% hike and an almost equal amount as a performance bonus. This will be provided by March-end so need to hang in till then. The problem I feel is that I should not do a hara-kiri and get into something undesirable. There could be some oppurtunities in Pune or a Hyderabad but will push there only in mid-Feb.
Personal front I am looking for a life companion. There was a lean patch in the last month or so and am looking forward to it. I have met 2 girls so far but something did not click i mean, there was no bells ringing in my head yeah this is the girl I want to marry. Would like to marry a girl whose expectation levels can be met and the same needs to be true vice-versa too. My expectations of a good wife are that she should be working and should be lively enough to keep my life alive and ticking.
Professionally I need to hang in for few more weeks and then only expect a change in fortunes, but at the moment it is all in a disarray. Gave 1 or 2 iinterviews but the requirement turned out to be something else compared to my profile. Want to apply in B'lore - based company but no oppurtunities are coming up. Thought I will grow within my organisation but the initial feelers suggest that it is going to be really tough finding a practice to avail my services good or bad work seems secondary now. The company gives a 15% hike and an almost equal amount as a performance bonus. This will be provided by March-end so need to hang in till then. The problem I feel is that I should not do a hara-kiri and get into something undesirable. There could be some oppurtunities in Pune or a Hyderabad but will push there only in mid-Feb.
Personal front I am looking for a life companion. There was a lean patch in the last month or so and am looking forward to it. I have met 2 girls so far but something did not click i mean, there was no bells ringing in my head yeah this is the girl I want to marry. Would like to marry a girl whose expectation levels can be met and the same needs to be true vice-versa too. My expectations of a good wife are that she should be working and should be lively enough to keep my life alive and ticking.
Chinmaya's Marriage & Homecoming
I had a very long break from my work. I had a 11-day break from the same old work routine. Was very eager to go home on the 20th december. I attended a function at Dharwad on the 24th and left for B'lore the same night. It was my good ol'pal Chinmaya's wedding. The most amazing thing is that all the people I knew and thought would never have a love marriage like Bandi, Chinmaya, Ranjeet...., but alas all of them had a love marriage. As the old going says that "all dogs that bark need not bite".
It was a nice feeling as I met couple of good friends from KREC - Surfya, Ajya, Bandi, Gopya, Nagya, Chetya, Bramhya, Sushya and of course Chinmaya. Ashwin from KREC and Purushottam from Belgaum were also there on the occasion. Vinay purposefully did not make it to the marriage for his own good reasons. Met Ajay and Chinmaya after a long long time of 5 years. The rest I had bumped in sometime or the other. I stayed at Veerya's house and had a nice time with him too. The 26th was spent with Veerya and Gopi.
From 27th to 1st January 2006 was at home with my family. My sister's Madhakka and Nitakka were there alongwith their kids. Had a nice time with them. The motto for my whole trip apart from meeting my friends at B'lore was - "Do absolutely nothing". This motto was a great success.
Came back to apli Mumbai on 2nd Jan 2006. The first week was OK and was still in the "Do absolutely nothing" mode. Well have fallen in the groove of work lately.
It was a nice feeling as I met couple of good friends from KREC - Surfya, Ajya, Bandi, Gopya, Nagya, Chetya, Bramhya, Sushya and of course Chinmaya. Ashwin from KREC and Purushottam from Belgaum were also there on the occasion. Vinay purposefully did not make it to the marriage for his own good reasons. Met Ajay and Chinmaya after a long long time of 5 years. The rest I had bumped in sometime or the other. I stayed at Veerya's house and had a nice time with him too. The 26th was spent with Veerya and Gopi.
From 27th to 1st January 2006 was at home with my family. My sister's Madhakka and Nitakka were there alongwith their kids. Had a nice time with them. The motto for my whole trip apart from meeting my friends at B'lore was - "Do absolutely nothing". This motto was a great success.
Came back to apli Mumbai on 2nd Jan 2006. The first week was OK and was still in the "Do absolutely nothing" mode. Well have fallen in the groove of work lately.
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