PFMS redefined

Sometimes you have these amazing conversations in office...when seeking respite from the relentless summer of work you seek shade under an aimless chitchat and to your great surprise a juicy fruit of conversation falls into your lap.....I just thought they might make for interesting reading.....Here is the first in the series...

Since these conversations originate in real life, they have that peculiar quality of real life as well......any sense of direction and coherence is purely a coincidence and there is no The End, no definite closure, no Happily or Sadly Everafter......so one will have to contend with the open-endedness of these blogs.

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Saturday afternoon.

If there had been a clock in my office it would have been striking two.

That day of the week and that time of the day when self-respecting south indians lie supine, eyes half-closed, meditating on the divinity of curd rice sitting deep inside their hairy tummies.

And here I was, in my office, fighting my battles against stock-outs, marshaling my tanks....er, oil tankers....., shouting commands to my generals...er...vendors....

And I get this ping from one of my colleagues....for the sake of anonymity and out of sheer survival instincts I will call him here GM.

Now GM is one of those people who remind you of those extremely competitive and extremely studious kids at school...who are often portrayed in movies with oil-slicked hair and big spectacles and nerdy dialogues....but our GM in addition to (probably) being all those things is also a good sport.....with a taste for verbal fencing....

And GM had just been back from a (sponsored) trip to the Vegas.

I mention sponsored here, because otherwise what GM did there in Vegas he didn't have to go to Vegas for doing.........attend business seminar, have good vegetarian food, relax, sleep and come back home.....no gambling, no bars - the strip kind or otherwise.

And here is what followed....

GM - what are you doing!!!

Me - sitting in office, reading my blog

wat ru doing online?

chatting with the women u made friends with in vegas?

GM - hmm...

but... u readinng your own blog...

Me - yes...

GM - on DCO std oil?

Me - hehe

patthar ka jawab eent se....sahi sahi...

GM - saale... eet ka jawaab pathar se... misaal tosahi diyaa karo!

Me -

misaal ekdum sahi di hai bhai..

vegas ki women kahan aur dco stand oil kahan...

GM -

hmm...good one...you plan your honeymoon at Vegas na...

Me -

fir honeymoon me hi divorce ho jayega

GM -

expectation management kaa baat hai

like PFMS

(now PFMS is the dirty little Big trick that HR plays on all employees of our company......when completely unfurled it reads Performance Focused Management System.....but when read closely it is deciphered as "No, you are not that good, but we will tolerate you")

Me -

agar biwi ko vegas leke gaya na honeymoon pe to PFMS ka matlba hi badal jaayega

it will become

Piranha Female Murders Spouse

GM -

haha

PV -

ye to sahi ek aur blog ka material ho gaya

Vakola ke Chiraag - Tadaaaaaaannnnn!!!! The Introduction.

I thought it was going to be easy.

Yeah, I really thought so.

I am part of a small miracle in Mumbai called “walking to office from home”.

No being squished like a pancake in the locals - where your chest finally gets to touch your own back and you start wondering whether intestines, lungs, heart are all just concepts and not real things. Well, if they were real shouldn't they have been turned to juice with all that pushing and squishing that happens...or maybe its all that packing of vada paavs inside which cushions the insides from turning to a missal-like consistency.

No getting stuck in traffic jams with your car.

Just a simple walk.

I live in Vakola, behind the Grand Hyatt Hotel and work with Asian Paints, which is bang in front of Grand Hyatt. So, it’s like a walk of 5 minutes (though that has not prevented me from taking rides from bewildered auto-wallahs to just make it in time to office) from home to office.

Everyday when I walk to office I pass by a group of make-shift slums – not the kind of settled, structured slums that you normally see around apartments in Mumbai, but really make-shift slums.

It’s a colony of ragpickers.

A lot of them sleep on mats/bedsheets right out on the road.

And I never much thought about them. They were as much a given and inconsequential part of the background of my life as were the other absolute strangers I passed by daily on my way to the office.

Until I started my SELP program with Landmark Education.

Now this is a very powerful education for life and in SELP one is supposed to take up a community project.

I love teaching and I was convinced that the kids living in this slum would definitely not be going to school, and hence, if a group of my colleagues from Asian Paints join in this project with me it would have a big impact on the lives of these kids.

So, there it was – my project is to teach these kids with a group of my Asian Paints colleagues.

And our project name - “Vakola Ke Chiraag”.

I know, it’s a little too dramatic and has the cheap flourish of one of (actually, any of) Ekta Kapoor’s serials.

There are 3 areas to be addressed before this project actually becomes a reality –

1) Form a group of 5 – 7 people from Asian Paints who would be willing to give an hour a week (from 7.30 pm to 8.30 pm) to teach these kids

2) Find a place to teach these kids at night

3) Design the curriculum

I was simply amazed by the easy, large generosity of my colleagues whom I approached to be a part of this project. Now we are a group of 5 people – and trust me, 5 very interesting people (if I were to just write about their idiosyncrasies here I bet you this blog would be bought over and turned into a syndication) - committed to making a difference to the lives of these kids.

Now the next big thing to close is to find a room to teach these kids at night.

And boy, oh boy, am I running around here.

I have visited a couple of convent schools in my area who directed me to BMC schools who were extremely cooperative and polite in telling me that they can lend out their rooms only to NGOs.

So, I am actually a little stuck here.

And today I am going to talk again to one of those convents. Fingers crossed.

And I thought it was easy to just get a room, find kids to be taught and people to teach them.

I really thought it was easy.

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This, my lovely blog here, which has endured my long periods of absence, my vulgar jokes, my benumbing PJs, my dazzling, insightful moments of pristine vapidity (yeah, I know, she sounds like the devout wife of this degenerate Thakur) - is going to be a chronicle of our journey as we relocate the existence of this project from paper to real, physical life.

Legalize prostitution if you can't curb it: SC to govt

but i thought it was already legal...

i mean, aren't we getting paid for being screwed and ass-whipped left, right and centre by even those who cant get it up enough and end up using it as a wet whip.... ...

Ass licking is as common in our workplaces as it would be in the Wall Streets of the world's oldest profession... .

..and taking all of that in even we have to fake pleasure....

...we too are expected to show innovation time and again once the older method no longer excites interest...while what is expected is the same old basic stuff just begun in a different way to end the same way...

...and we too run the risk of contracting diseases...pretty dangerous and life-sapping ones at that...Cynicism, Pessimism, Sarcasm and Aimless-ism....

...We are not just prostitutes dude, we are pro-prostitutes...the very finest, the very professionals at it...the avante garde....

corporate climbers

Some people grow in companies...
some others grow on companies...like moss...

I must write because I love to write.

I forget the name of the guy….sorry, I must more precisely say, I never remembered the name of the guy in the first place…but there was this guy who was an author kind of person who had written many newspaper columns and perhaps a book or two also…..this guy was on TV and he was saying “one of the first things I learned as a newspaper columnist was that I should not think about who I am writing this article for. I should not think about the reactions of those who are going to read this. Only then can I write. So I just wrote whatever I felt like writing, without worrying about whether it will be appreciated or put down”. That’s probably the best advice I have ever received. And maybe the reason I feel myself capable of taking it is because it was not intended for me personally.

My friends often ask me why do I not get down to writing a book.

I offer my entire range of theatrical shrugs and poignant sighs by way of explanations. Work, frustration with work, life, frustration with life.
But I know the real reason.
And its something which ashames me as I admit it – even to myself. Such a damn delusionist I am.

Till the time I don’t write anything significant, and just keep shooting off a glib mail, a sarcastic reply, a biting review here and there I keep convincing myself that Oh Yeah, I have this talent as a writer. But what if I write something more substantial, say like a book, and it falls flat?

Then, I would convince myself and everyone else that I never had any gift of substance.

And that would be it. That would be the end of this feeling that I have of being a good author, of being able to write stuff that interests people. And that’s why I don’t try writing a book. That’s why.


Well, if no book, then no book.

Writing, out-pouring of thoughts and ramblings.
That’s something I can do and I will do.

I do not consider myself a person of any deep or incisive thoughts – about life or anything else.
But there are times when I feel like I have understood something, like some fact that everyone else, or most people have already been aware of for quite some time, which I have realized just now. This feeling is quite something I tell you.

The way I see life, myself, the world around in those moments, I wish I could see the same way throughout life. At all moments, in all occasions.

I just finished reading Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning.
(Considering the heavy analysis of psychological theories and alternate viewpoints in the second half of the book, it might even be called as “Man’s Search for Meaning…of This Book”)
Pretty interesting book.
And more than that.
If one reads this book and finds it no more than interesting or touching then it’s as wasted as a conversation with a pretty woman without appreciating how intelligent she is.

One of the interesting things I found in the book is the importance he attaches to the past. The past is real. The future is all potential.
What has been achieved and done has been secured in the past.
What is there in the future and undone is a mere potentiality.
Hence, to live life one must try and put as many things as possible in the past.
The potentialities must be converted and secured as permanent indelible pages in the book of Past.

Each moment spent in regretting is a moment stamped and sealed as “Moment of Regret” and that’s it – it has been lived, it has become real and it has become saved unalterably as a “Moment of Regret”.

I was walking back from the Churney road HDFC ATM, rolling these marbles of thoughts in the palm of my head - ‘look, I have got these 5 minutes while I walk and whether I like it or not these 5 minutes will definitely become history 5 minutes hence. Irretrievably cast into a statue of sand. Nothing bad is going to happen to me in the next 5 minutes. Despite all the transitoriness of life and treachery of fate I can still say to myself very re-assuredly that nothing bad is going to happen to me in the next 5 minutes. Now whether these 5 minutes freeze into wax statues of drooping, wizened listlessness or rising little angels of joy was upto me. Is that a decision that I can make? Oh yes. In the face of all the fatalism and determinism of the world, that is still something I can decide. '

And I just decided to fill the next 5 minutes with feeling good. Just feeling good. No regrets, no worries, no expectations, no evaluations. And I tell you, it felt so beautiful. So calming. Maybe that’s what Bliss feels like. Such peace.

Now, as I write again, I am looking for that 5 minute walk here.

a monday morning conversation

Cast - Myself and Ali
(the missing link in human evolution from apes...er..also a fantastically enthusiastic guy)

Note - This is a true conversation. It could be emotionally unsettling to young people growing old in their workplace. Parental discretion is advised.

Note2 - Ali is notorious for spelling mistakes. Parental discretion is advised. I have underlined all the ones i could find....Ali is a stud, he can spelling mistakes in hinglish too..

Pradeep Vedula - monday....lovely, beautiful, sweet mondays
Aliasghar Bawa- :)
Pradeep Vedula - such brightly coloured feathers, such sweetly melodious birds...such joy in the
air
no wonder i dont see any of it around me
Aliasghar Bawa - hmmm
Pradeep Vedula - as its all filled within me
and i have none to spare for the world outside
mondays, sweet mondays
Aliasghar Bawa - i see someone has had a blast on the weekend
mom still around? mr poet
Pradeep Vedula - "blast" is a term i now associate only with workdays...
we have aged ali...
Aliasghar Bawa - not me
Pradeep Vedula - yeah, u have the privilege to say that... a guy who travels miles and spends thousands to watch people race around in cars....is still naively youthful at heart
(whenever there is an F1 in Singapore, Ali makes sure he is lost somewhere among all that flat hair and silky legs)
Aliasghar Bawa - offense taken to naive
Pradeep Vedula - all youth is naive
Pradeep Vedula - mom leaving today afternoon
Aliasghar Bawa - the kind of stuff i did this weeknd brings a tear to my eyes
Pradeep Vedula - wat did u do? cut onions?
Aliasghar Bawa - 2 movies, 2 shopping trips, 2 long droves
Pradeep Vedula - ailaaa.... fantastic
Aliasghar Bawa - 250 kms of droving
Pradeep Vedula - now dont say with 2 couples
Aliasghar Bawa - 4 hours of sleep
Pradeep Vedula - ahhh, now i understand the tears
Aliasghar Bawa -2 meals with 2 sets of close frieds
total of 8 hours at home from 9 am saturday to 9 pm sunday
total maddness
o n shradhra were asking of u
(no its not shradhra...its shraddha...a very sweet woman who is married to lolo - my dear friend from B who balances off all that sweetness)
Pradeep Vedula - how is shradhha? how is her website coming along?
Aliasghar Bawa - ask her na, i m not the messenger
Pradeep Vedula - arey, i thot u wd hv discussed those things, thats all....stop resopnding like k***
(all the stars obviosuly mean we are referring to some 5 star general in the office)
Aliasghar Bawa - saale kaam hota hai toh login se baat karta hai, warna nahi
Pradeep Vedula - mujhe kya kaam hai yaar ab
koi kaam nahi
aise hi madhur monday morning ke bahaav me tujhe ping kiya, aur kuch nahin
Aliasghar Bawa - hmmm
i m sure boss wil call u soon
Pradeep Vedula - tht will crown this morning
Aliasghar Bawa - tru
Pradeep Vedula - now i am feeling like i will have a blast
Aliasghar Bawa - :)
Pradeep Vedula - and little tears are hanging like kids preening over just tall windowsills on
the edges of my eyes...
Aliasghar Bawa - chal, let me get back to working... rather start
Pradeep Vedula - lotus dear lotus
(lotus is our e-mail service...the real lotus goes far more quickly from bud to flower than it takes our lotus to open mails)
Pradeep Vedula - that keeps me from working too hard
Aliasghar Bawa - mr poet
Pradeep Vedula - i am not a poet
poets are hungry
i am not
poets are angry
i am not
Aliasghar Bawa - u r just in sorrow
like a hara hua aashiq
Pradeep Vedula - please
i am not in sorrow either
Aliasghar Bawa - ok, lament
Pradeep Vedula - i am celebrating bright monday mornings
Aliasghar Bawa - hmmm
Pradeep Vedula - u hv heard of black fridays and black sundays
have ever heard of a black monday?
never...
Aliasghar Bawa - :)
Pradeep Vedula - mondays are always blue
the colour of calm and peace and serenity
Aliasghar Bawa - have u noticed how many pple waer blue shirts on monday
Pradeep Vedula - thts called starting with the best intentions :p

Aliasghar Bawa - chal be, kaam karte hai... later
Pradeep Vedula - chal...bye

Those awful Sunday Mornings

(I know awful is normally for monday mornings, but some sundays can also go bad)

you know, some sunday mornings, you wake up and just lie in bed....and are not feeling good about it..... life and career seem to have reached a zen stage where they intend to just sit at one place in ostensible meditation, but which is actually more like energyless slumber... ...

"excitement" sounds like one of those words that taint old pictures of childhood and irrationally hopeful days of youth...

... yeah...i am talking about one of those bad sunday mornings when u wake up, staring long into the distance watching Life become a smaller and smaller dot on the autobahn of Time as it walks away from you.....

And there is just one cure in the entire South Indian world for such Sunday mornings.....a good, strong cuppa of filter kaapi.....