The Untold Saga

Growing up on Amitabh Bachchan movies has influenced a lot in my life, much of the way I am and much of the way I deal with situations has been derived from Amitabh's characters in some of his movies. He has always been the celebrated hero, of course but it is not the loud one-man-beating up-ten-villains heroism that one gets on to emulate, it is the other kind of heroism that impacted me...the untold stories of the silences, the steady, resolute look on the face, the determination that does not want itself to be sung about, the single-minded, super-achieving and yet humble outlook to any situation.

There was the other side to his heroism too, the one we all loved to admire but perhaps never thought of emulating because it simply seemed so out of reach...the one Sachin Tendulkar embodies, arguably flawless, unarguably bordering on the greatest ever. There are very few however, who dream to be Sachin Tendulkar for it appears to be only that, a dream. It is therefore, as in my case, the achievable side of the hero that we all strive towards achieving...the Rahul Dravid side of it. Achievement par excellence, no doubt...something that any and all would be proud of and yet all of it done in such unassuming a manner.

This does not mean that Sachin or those other characters essayed by Bachchan are arrogant or don't relate to the ground realities. It is just that their brand of success is too flamboyant, too Sehwag-ish to draw a pattern around. Dravid, on the other side, seems a lot like most of us. The hard worker who is super talented for sure but can perhaps not move mountains on the basis of talent alone...the one who has taken risks in his life but not out-and-out risks, only those risks that make sense and have a back-up plan along with them...the one who could not dare to give up a good education riding on nothing else but faith in his own talent...the one who built things up brick by brick with each brick joined to the other via sweat and blood, so to speak.

Dravid is the second highest run scorer in the world in Test cricket, someone who has hit more centuries than the legendary Sunil Gavaskar, someone who was requested back in the one-day team that was floundering without an anchor post his unceremonious exit from it, someone who went on to not just survive for five seasons (when other more celebrated contemporaries called it quits mid-way) but also captained two different sides in the most commercial and ruthless exhibition of cricket, and in a format that fits the least with his style of play. Dravid is all this and yet he is still the boy next door (despite, as per his own admission, being the oldest playing cricketer around in India, older even to Sachin by a few months). He is still the common man who has fought all odds to become special.

It almost gives one the goose bumps to realize the significance of what Dravid and people like him achieve in their lives and how they manage to contribute to the society in the process. Not just their achievements, but even the painstaking manner in which they have worked on to achieve the same become folklore, examples that parents give to their kids when they want them to follow the path to idealism. Dravid and his type would rate amongst the guys mothers (and fathers) would want their daughters to marry, CEOs would want to hire for the most complicated and critical jobs they have, army generals would want to trust with the post situated in the most difficult of terrains and marking the most amount of risk if it were to be compromised.

He is all that one would want to be...a clear thinker, erudite, well-read and logical, a class act at what he does, and someone who has a sense of humor good enough to crack jokes not just about others but at his own expense as well. An idol in the true sense of the word, Rahul "The Wall" Dravid shall remain an inspiration for me as much as Sachin "The Master" Tendulkar or Virender "The Nawaab" Sehwag would remain distant dreams I would want to keep striving for.

By the way, if you disagree with what I have said and insist on a different perspective, I respect that. I would only request you to read Dravid's address at the Bradman Oration in Canberra, the first time in the last 10 years that it has been happening that a non-Australian has been invited for it. The speech in video should be available on YouTube and it can be read in text at the ESPN Website

A new update from a new city

There has been a lot happening around me that I should have written about but I guess I have been just plain lazy. It is difficult to put pen to paper, or finger to key when you are engrossed with so much else that is going on in your life.

For starters, it has been nearly two weeks since I have permanently moved to Mumbai. As if that was not an event enough, I decided to follow it up with changing my role from that of a Relationship Manager for High Net Worth Clients, who I used to advise on their investments. Going forward, I shall not be doing anything of the sort. Instead, I am supposedly going to be working with the business head of he wealth management unit of my company.

The work that I need to do, however, is not really very well-defined. Even though I am supposedly going to be involved in the overall strategy of the firm, as per the job description doled out to me, I always believed that I will be required to work as a floater. Having come here and spent more than just a couple of late nights in office, I think I can say with fair bit of certainty that my job details are pretty uncertain.

Right from trying to improve productivity in a tough year, to working towards some new businesses that the firm is launching, to some very mundane stuff like preparing excel formats for various purposes, there is quite a bit of variety in life. The good thing about this variety is that it keeps me on my toes almost all the time and that I do not get those pangs of boredom that I was so susceptible to, in my previous role which offered me the luxury to relax and not do anything, every now and then.

The bad thing about this job, however, is that it takes me far away from much of human contact. Since this is more of a brains rather than mouth kind of a job, I do not get to interact too much with people, either internal or external, which is something I had not anticipated or factored in and therefore, terribly miss. The change of location has not helped, either, since it is now a new set of people at work with whom I can't even have cordial, meaningless, unrelated-to-work banter without some amount of effort.

Since it has always been difficult for me to put in that effort, I , more often than not, remain at my desk, at times doing something I am engrossed in and at others, just plainly gazing across the window towards the sea, whose view my seat so graciously provides.

It has been just a few days here, and there are so many things that one still needs to understand about the job and people here that it is quite unnerving at times. But herein lies the opportunity, and I am sure of it, to shape a career. It will be left, however, completely to my own resourcefulness and ingenuity to identify and capitalize on the opportunities before they get out of my grasp.

Amongst other stuff, I visited Singapore with my family (parents and sister) on my first offshore trip paid by my own money. The experience was very nice, and doubly so because I had the good fortune of being able to enjoy the company of my family on this vacation. Following it up was this felicitation in Goa organized by the company for some top performers in a certain category. I took Papa along but had not really anticipated how much he will like it and neither did I anticipate the positive feedback that I received from peers and colleagues who liked the novelty behind the idea of taking your parent along to a place like Goa. Novelty? Coming from a culture as rooted to the family concept as India's, that did come in as a surprise factor.

Well, I have finally moved in to a well built and well provided for place that I can call home for the time being. This place is in Santa Cruz, a 2 BHK, furnished house where I have moved in with Priya, my sister. It is still early days and even my stuff has not reached me from Delhi but first impressions seem quite favorable as the house is fast on its way to being called home.

I'll make you an offer you can't refuse

I think that my guide did not turn up yesterday or even if she did, she was too busy to be at her place anytime yesterday. Anyways, I had the option of lazing around for the entire day but contrary to my wont, I actually decided to do some work and some interesting work it finally ended in. As of now, I am still not sure if I have to prepare just the work flow of the processes in the company or the data flow or both. So, I decided to take the initiative and take up the work flow and data flow for the most complicated of processes, recruitment. I am now waiting to show it to my guide and my Project Manager so that they may be able to decide if we want either or both (or neither :-( ). I know that I may have put myself in a bad position and this might just result in actual work being thrust upon me, but I still feel that it was the least I could do. As for the work load and the rest of it, let's see...still a lot of time to think about it.

By the way, the DFD Context diagram turned out to be a real sweetie...perhaps the most complicated Powerpoint slide I have ever made. I just hope that the animation I have put in helps people to understand the thing and it is not rejected just because it appears too clumsy.

In addition to all the hard work, I had some value-adding surfing time, too. Just how value-adding it was can be guessed by the fact that half of the time, I was searching for the names of myself and friends over search engines to see what pops up. Something interesting did pop up when I searched for my name. It seems that the work that I did at JNCASR under Prof. CNR "God" Rao has actually got into a paper and got published in Materials Research Bulletin (look here). It is really a great honor, having a paper published as a co-author with one of the greatest contemporary scientists of the world (Prof. CNR Rao is our next Nobel hope).

Another place I could find myself was of course the MSDN article that I had contributed to, while in Infosys (look here). That one is also a big value-add, at least when I mention it in my CV...looks impressive ;-).

I just got to hear that my guide was in an induction program the whole day yesterday...anyways, whatever it was, I got free at 6 and left for my PG with an intent to watch my quota of two movies for the day...and watch I did. The Godfather is one hell of a movie and the way Al Pacino plays Michael Corleone is something that has to be seen to be believed. The legendary Marlon Brando, Al Pacino and the rest of the people in the two movies (yes, I watched the first and second parts yesterday...the third is on for today) were simply amazing.

They brought to life so vividly, the various colors in the life of people who don't think twice before murdering another but, all the same, are bound by the strictest of codes when it comes to their own families. The famous Sicilian code of revenge was in full display as the gangsters fought amongst themselves and all the while The Godfather, and his successor rose above it all to vanquish all those who dared to back stab or even speak against the Corleone family...man, am I speaking their tongue now...must have been a solid six hours that I spent watching the two movies so this is expected, too in a way.

Today should be a busy day, at least in comparison to the last couple of days where I may not have worked to my full potential (though I seriously doubt if I ever will). Anyways, got to meet my guide in a few minutes so got to leave...signing off till next time.