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.

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.

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.

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.