From Patni to iGate-Patni

Somehow my fate seem to be tied up with take overs....
This is third time I find myself associated with an organisation where some merger/acquisition process is going on...

First time it was at ABN AMRO take over by RBS... I was onsite at ABN that time.

second time it was the Lehman brother's take over by Barkley's and Nomura for respective regions .... i was part of Lehman brothers at that time...

And this is third time now that I have become a part of Patni which has just been taken over by iGate.

This time it looked to be a lot more smooth transition. No major impact for employes apart from few policies and email address. No stress or anxiety especially.

Lehman brothers transition was full of stress and uncertanity. To an extent where everyone was asked to be ready with plan B just in case.
ABN was also smooth as such but I had observed a lot of uneasiness and anxiety among the employees regarding their future.

This Patni takeover also gives me a feeling of life coming to full cycle. Look at it this way,
N.R.Narayana Murthy was employee of Patni. He moves on from patni to start Infosys.
Phaneesh Murthy was employee of Infosys who moved on and later joined iGate as CEO.
Under his leadership iGate took over Patni where NRN had started off....
the cycle completes :-)

Something a little out of context but still....
I just read an interview of Mr. Phaneesh Murthy where he stressed on strategy of having small but cohesive teams.

This reminds me of the battle strategy used by Napoleon Bonaparte where he used to win battles by achieving local superiority (e.g. battle of Austerlitz ).
He would use small teams to hold the enemy forces and then send a strong and swift Calvary or other army unit to join those local forces and defeat the enemy forces by achieving local superiority...
then those units would move on and repeat same at next location...this way they could beat enemy forces significantly larger in size....
Being the latest entrant in the billion dollar club.... can we do the same and win over biggies already in there? Just a random thought...

Unsung heros...

Since past few days there are constant news about the nuclear disaster at Fukushima power plant. They generally talk about a 50 member team that had stayed back and is trying to avert the complete meltdown of the refractors

I was overwhelmed by the story. It is something similar to the duty of a soldier... you know that you may not come out alive but still you go into the war... they too know that they may not come out alive and even if they do, they would be suffering for rest of their life.....

now, It is hardly any days.... world cup has taken over the news headlines.... all those heroes are already a history

It remind me of two movie dialogues.... one from Troy..... "history remember kings.... not soldiers....." very true in this case.... same like 26/11 heroes in Mumbai....

Another one is from movie Saving Private Ryan where Tom Hanks says something like 'for every soldier died in war there are at 10 or 100 countrymen saved....' this one also so much true....

What makes people think on these lines?
They will to fight till the very end... sometimes called esprit de corps...  may be from the cultural background...may be the same dedication has made Japan progress so much.
This again I feel would go cutting across geographies and civilisations....

Even Mahabharata says that if sacrifice of a member for family..... of a family for a village or of a village is required in interest of the state then it should be done....

but does that mean that just after they are needed.... they should be forgotten?
forget the rewards, they or their families may times are seen struggling even for basic necessities....

why would then a practical man risk his own life for sake of people whom he may not even know and who may not not even recognise his efforts....
but still it happens.... still we see so many social activists who take up the causes of society and fight for them....it has happened throughout the history and will continue to happen...

because no king can win even a battle single handed without his soldiers. ultimately it is because of these silent soldiers that the wars are ultimately won and societies flourish... and advance...

call to soul

My grandmother expired on 7th november. A lot of rituals took place as per hindu religious tradition.

I was observing those closely and trying to understand and make sense of whatever the prist was doing.

One particular ritual got my attention,
The prist requested the soul of my grandmother to come and rest inside a small knot made of 'darbha'; a special grass used in such rituals (i m yet to find y it is so special) .

He then offered her some darbha to sit upon, then she was given a bath , was offered gifts, was offered sacred meal (i don't know exact english word for 'Naivedyaa' ) and so on. Of course the gifts were later donated to the prist.

when I realised all this sequence, I was little shocked. this whole process had uncanny resemblance with the process of planchet.

In both the processes a soul is requested upon to come.

In planchet we request them to answer few questions whereas here the soul was honoured.
Planchet is considered something dark whereas these were religious rituals.

The core theme I think is same. That is acceptance or belief that there is something called a soul, that continue to exist even after this earthly body is burned to ashes. And that it can still have it's own existence in a form unk own to us. It still has an ability to communicate and hence perhaps it's own personality.

All said and done about the scientific attitude and all, still I don't think those who have experienced the presence of a soul through planchet will ever forget that experience.

Just like me.

My curious angel...

Sometimes I just let my 7 months old daughter freely stroll around the room letting her handle any thing along the way ,the way she want... Hold...climb...push... I just ensure safety and observe whatever she does.
It is always amazing to see the curiosity...excitement...enthusiasm with which children at this age approach absolutely everything... Every activity.
The spark in the eyes and smile on the face. May it be simple rattle or watching the image in mirror.
Any activity we do is observed carefully and of course an attempt is made in that direction. The way we eat in plate... The way the remote or mobile buttons are used... Or the way a laptop is used... Nothing is out of reach. She would see me using laptop and immediately she would want to try banging on keyboard.
I simply open a text pad so that she can see the cause-effect between keyboard and screen.

A lot many such activities. I know the experience is common but it is yet so unique to everyone. as we grow up we loose this excitement to explore,learn .

May be we start thinking we know all. Or just because we no longer have the liberty to explore the things 'the way we want'. There is always some restriction, some rule, some law,some tradition that dictate 'the way' things should be done.

In later life the same ability to explore things without any prejudices become rarity and
I think those manage to retain a little of this ability, manage to have some thing called 'out of the box thinking'.

I wish I could borrow some from my little angel... But for the time being I an trying to learn this fresh approach to life without any prejudice.

Losing the spirit of competition.

Some recent news that made me a little uncomfortable. First one was the latest decision of “best of five” subjects in SSC and second one of the decision about not to fail any student till 8th standard.

Somehow I disagree.
When I think of the educational process that I went through.... and the current one being modified through which may be my daughter will go through, I feel a lot of difference and also feel that the system will remain for the namesake. Onus of developing the competitive spirit will be more of a parental responsibility than a educational process.

Instead of upgrading the system to reduce the gap between toppers and average performers, the system is being degraded to bring everyone to equal in a wrong way.
But again, given the undue importance that was being put on marks and percentages, this was to happen.
Only point is that it should have been a relaxation instead of total elimination of stress. A little stress is always beneficial and required for performance. It could have been introduction of grade system where candidates are classified into broad categories till 8th standard. But total elimination of competition is wrong in my opinion.
Many people say that we never use in future life what we learn in school. But that is only partially true in my opinion. Those things invariably leave an impact on our character, and imbibe a lot of morals and ethics through stories,lessons, history. Add an eye for facts and figures through maths and science.
We may not use those exact texts in future but the values they add to our persona's can not be denied. To some they add 80% to some it may be only 20-30 % depending on individual learnability but this fact can not be denied.
As in my case I fully believe that whatever confidence I have to succeed in any field I choose to enter with proper preparation, is due to the competition I faced in my school and college days. A healthy competition is always welcome. It improves the quality of every party involved.

Now when there is competition, someone is ought to win and someone loose. But that is again a lesson in life. You may not win every time. It is all about trying your best.
In current situation the reason that being put forth about increasing suicide rate among children,
I guess it is more to do about parents attitude towards the whole process. The same process is being followed for so many generations. Only in recent years these suicides have began. I put entire blamer on parents.
All around I see parents, one may not even go gar, just have a look at people around you, everyone want their child to score more and more marks, with total disregard to the ability, likes and dislikes of the child. Parents are under more pressure than the children and the pressure then is transmitted through various ways. The child may not necessarily have the ability. It then become a frustrating experience for the child , the parent and everyone around.
One my relatives had started telling to everyone that their son will surely rank in merit list in 10th exam. Poor child was put under so much of emotional pressure that the boy who had consistently scored 94-95% throughout school life, scored 85% in 10th. His father was so much shocked that, instead of the child, who was in need of support, it was the father who needed more support to recover.

Anyway, the who;e pint is that, it the aim is to relieve the pressure from children, it need to be done in a diffenrne manner.
If there is no pressure to pass in exam, then there is no pressure to study.. there is no knowledge gained and in the end it is the child who is on the loosing side. Schools may welcome this because they need not bother about anything, just collect the fees, let the child sit in the classroom for whole day, no worry about the quality of teachers, no worry of teaching anything, just move the child from one standard to another year after year. It is a really horrible scenario. I can see the quality of education drastically going down, so much that it may even happen that children will reach 8th standard and may not even know how to read and write.
Then they will start failing in the 9th and 10th. May be then govt will do away with those exams also.
But how far one can go on doing this?
This can be done at the most till the child graduates. We may even give degrees to children without any exam and then we may even have graduates who may not be able to read and write. But will anyone will employ a graduate at such a level? May be govt institutions... but what about others?
Will India as a country then will survive in the global competition?

You can not eliminate the competition from life altogether.
At some point of time in their lives these children will have to face the competition. And they will not at all be prepared for it. Failure is the only outcome if you enter a competition without preparation.
So if we can not eliminate the competition altogether than the only way out is to prepare the children to face the competition head on, Struggle and ultimately come out triumphant.

I need to figure out a way to imbibe these qualities into my daughter in case this stupid drama goes on for next 4-5 years. Let's see how I succeed as a parent.