Fading friendship

Lobby mates standing at a connecting bridge way under the bright sun light after having lunch on a mild cold winter afternoon. Most of the time discussing faults in the academic curriculum of IITs, Kejriwal politics and where and who will be hosting the next party. The best piece of nostalgic life I had with some folks I call friends. But, the group talk is rare these days and standing on one terrace is a distant dream. We could not even avail ourselves for an online group chat these days, sad but truth it is.

Next month plan karo Goa, nope Ladakh, no no Shimla jayenge and so on. We keep on planning, but execution is just not happening. By the time we come to a consensus, the deadline would already cross. None of us is to be held responsible for the failed plans, but our priorities. Something high on hierarchy will always come up at the last moment. None of us are married yet, I afraid if post marriage, we would be available online for a small chat.

Last tour: Darjeeling

When we had plenty of free time for each other, we were short of money and the carrier trajectory, CGPI, no of extracurricular were on high priority. And now we have money, but very little time for friends and above all our professionalism is so dominating. Another 4-5 years, we will be husbands, fathers and parenting will overtake. The phase where we should enjoy, travel, party is passing by with days, months and all we can do is plan and postpone. I imagine going to Ladakh, Goa, Shimla, Masoori, Chandigarh and many more places with my friends. Once again sitting, drinking, driving, diving and lastly standing with the group and talking about flaws in our corporate strategies, Modi politics, girlfriends, marriage plans and so on.

Life is short and responsibilities are everlasting, but one thing we would cherish in the life ahead will be quality time. The thrill of moments spent with friends is always special and ecstatic. But, with time I afraid, we are losing grip on each other, our friendship is fading gradually.

Mahesh Dangi

The blog is dedicated to Kameng B3 lobby. 

Living on credits

Month end is coming, some pending plans started rolling back. I have to buy this first, no yr that is more important, let's buy this first. Oh friends have been asking for the b'day party since 15 days, lets plan a small party. And then next day 'blink-blink' SMS came, bank's notification of salary. Facial expressions changing, irritation, frustration all started taking over. Why it is always less than the expected amount. And again change of plans, this I will buy later, that I can't afford right now and story goes on monthly.

This should be the story of every middle class salaried employee, if I am not abnormal in particular. I have been trying to manage my monthly expanses for last 6 months now, but nothing is altered so far. Every coming month I think of cutting faltu expenditure, but it looks like nothing is unnecessary. After one week of rich life, pockets looses their weight and three weeks of a long wait for the same blink blink SMS notification.

This can't go on and on like this, unplanned & yet important stuff can knock anybodies door anytime and can't be put on hold every time. If this would be the time in 90's, I would approach any reliable friend of mine to lend me some money. May be asking for money in need, sometimes it is okay, but monthly no way. I wouldn't ask and he won't give either. Fortunately 90's are gone and banks came to rescue with the credit cards.

With this my waiting period for the salary is no longer an issue, but life without problems is boring and credit cards brought one more problem with them. I started buying everything on credit, which I used to postponed earlier . consequently monthly expense have gone up and the salary, which used to last for a couple of weeks is lasting even less now.

Mahesh Dangi

And the list goes on.....

Last time I wrote something was almost 3 months back, life is keeping me busy. Seems like my professional life is taking over me gradually. Few days back I had my first shift duty 4*12, I saw people were going back to home and I was starting my eventful day at 4 pm. Day or night, its same for me, one part I am working another for some sleep. Reminded me of a story about a NRI in USA, whenever his parents call, he is either at work or asleep.

Many a times, I find myself thinking over 'how do I simplify my life further'. Life always make us learn and understand its fundamentals through very simple day to day life things. Another day I was making a list of the stuff I am going to need in my new rented apartment. I couldn't find more than 10-15 items that time, next day again I added ten more things to it and some more next day. 3-4 days later, the list I started with only ten items was going lengthy with the days passing. While looking at the list I found myself running out of budget with all that stuff on it. Again I started pulling out less priority stuff from it. We always go by priority, right now my professional career is utmost priority for me. But, we should always have a look at the flip side as well. Whatever choice I am making today, surely has some negative outcomes along with it. Of course, first you need to priorities your list to bring it back into budget limits. Not everything is essential, you can eliminate some of the stuff for the time, but at what cost. for this list, its nothing, but when it comes to life, the impacts are huge and irreversible.

We can't eliminate friends, family, health, hobbies and many such things from that list. One should always focus on carrier, but not by isolating oneself from the awesome people around us in this gigantic world. Eliminate only jargon's from the list, they are taking you nowhere, but making out of budget.

That day I said to myself 'It is wise to put yourself over this professionalism bullshit, since it is taking you nowhere, except that it is making you a little more busy and uncomfortable. It was valentine’s day and not too late to make some calls which I should be making regularly, but I didn't,  since I was so busy in pretending like I am. 

Mahesh Dangi

The shifted paradigm (no more PSU Ramraaz)

There was this time, when sarakari naukari was considered as a low pay scale, time pass job. For a long time, It was assumed that people usually go and pass their fixed hours in the office idling here and there without much of productivity and it actually happened in those days. Corruption was so, trending, side income was mandated to back up the low salary, they were paid at that time.

Govt employees were stereotyped as lazy, corrupt, unproductive and what not. Though, many of them were like that only and got into the govt departments after approaching every mama, mosa, phupa, they had in the govt organizations and surely bribe was the ultimatum. There was neither a defined recruitment process existed those days, nor does anybody monitored them. Consequently, all sorts of typical behaving people (Nikamme log) gathered in these departments and branded this very image of psu culture in the country.

And now in the current scenario, when I joined a psu, many of the older relatives of mine murmured 'tumhari to kafi side income rahegi'. However, I briefed them about the modern psu work culture. 'Unlce ji zamana badal gaya he ab', we are no longer in 90's, it is technologically advanced time now a days. Pen-paper based things are almost obsolete, no one can take a penny for signing any paper. We don't enjoy the perks of our power anymore, neither do we idle these days. We are competing with the private players now and  supposedly, need to possess a decent efficiency & productivity in order to make ourselves a strong opponent.

There is nothing like a typical sarkari naukari in recent times, not even in the clerical work. Already Kejrival and Modi tightened them and made their work traceable. Nevertheless, everything and everyone can't be changed at any given time, few exceptions always resist to the change. But, I am sure in the days to come, they will find it difficult to survive with the same old 90's strategy of being into a psu.

Even psu's are more technically equipped these days. Biometric attendance, e-tendering, e- procurement, e-care for employees, online recruitment, e- management of change and so on. 100's of things which were unimaginable in the 90's are all available to us today and monitored at each and every step closely. So, for all those who still imagines 90's psu Ramraaz, you will be disappointed to join them. And to all the private players, who still consider us easily vulnerable, we are coming and the pace is unprecedented, therefore you better gear up before its late or else you will become obsolete some day.

Mahesh Dangi  

The Transition Phase: College to Corporate

Roaming around on the streets during late hours, 3 am Maggie at Lamboo’s canteen, weekly pizza party, daily political debates, b’day BPLs, unplanned dhaba visits and the list goes on. All this was just a few months back only and now it has become a part of the unforgettable memories. Undoubtedly, everyone would love to get back in this life, if ever get a chance to do so.

at Grad. tea party (Dress code)

While I am still living in these beautiful memories of the near past, the next chapter of my life has already begun, the corporate life. Almost everybody hate this phase (exceptions excluded) most of the time. Routine life, rules, boundaries, responsibilities, deadlines blah blah. For me the beginning is like this: getting up at 5 am, you will definitely say WTF, 3 hrs travel (to and fro), traffic jams, and above all the refinery smell.

After all this, shaadi to hui nhi abhi, so I need to wash my clothes as well. In college time, nobody gives a shit, whatever you wear or even if you don’t wear- :D, but here, no one will recognize you as an officer without proper attires. I almost sleep like I am dead, in the bus while returning back to home. But the story doesn’t end here, after passing all these hazards, the biggest challenge is still left ‘Khana’. Finally, Mumbai dabbawala is the only option I am left with, so no complaints on that. The phase  of transformation is really difficult to cope with. There is so much excitement right now as it is just the beginning, but anxiety doesn’t let you relax either.

At HP MDI (mandatory dress)

I clearly smell few unusual changes in some personal behaviors as well. Earlier, none of my friend use to complain when I didn’t call them, but now they straightaway start abusing. Even some of them started giving missed calls ‘ab tu kamane lgaa he bey’:P. Parents started asking about holiday plans, home visits and surprisingly sometimes they even talk about some girls they might have lined up for their son.

There are many factors which are contrary in college and corporate life styles. But, as Darwin perfectly quoted ‘The survival of the fittest’, one must acquire certain volatility in this dynamic world or else he wouldn’t be the fittest to survive all the time.

Mahesh Dangi

The New IIT Trauma

How many IIT's do we have right now in the country and how many of them are complying with the motive they were established ? I surely don't know your response, but the answer is very simple and it is the wonderful number 'zero'. I believe you don't need any explanation for this as the fresh QS rankings are released few days back and our media has created a huge fuss about our global standings. So I don't feel any need to prove me right. Since water level above our head was nicely zoomed by the media, but surprisingly they didn't talk about any of the possible reasons behind this, which together making sure that we don't touch the double century mark.

So, what is preventing us from climbing up on the ladder? any guesses! sometimes some overwhelmed or stupid Indians speaks before they could think of the impacts their empty words carry. They keep on promising junta to deliver something out of nothing. While quality and delivery such things doesn't matter or even if they matters we can do nothing about it. For example now a days, IIT has become a commodity. Every new party leader is promising new IITs, like it is very similar to availing half kg more rice to the poor's from the older stock. It almost took 50 long years of consistent efforts to establish the brand 'IIT' and now they started mass production of it without looking into the factors gave it a brand value.

We are still lacking infrastructure, 30% faculty posts are still vacant in the older IITs, even we don't have money to fulfill whatever they just promised. Therefore, the only option left is to name some barren land in outskirts of a city as another new IIT. Then our media as usual starts blowing their horns without getting into the depth of any matter. Whenever we make any policy, the pros and cons are always been discussed in the cabinet sessions. Then why not these promises? At least one should give a thought to his empty words before making them a public promise, 'Bas bandar baant challu'. Building a new campus and name it as another IIT doesn't make it a brand. But, they think allotting some crores rupee fund and a piece of land will suffice the promise. In actual, it takes decades to add values to this brand.
Reference of whatever I mentioned above:
Student-Faculty ratio
Poor Infrasturcture
Infra

May be this is the right time to sit and introspect. We know our global standing and how effort fully we earned it. So, if our bells are still not ringing,  then there is something wrong with us. I know you and me can not contribute very significantly to such matters, we are no bureaucrats. Its them, who need to stop being foolish. Until then, we have the only option to wait and pray 'Bhagwan inko satbuddhi de'. Till the time, lest hope for the best!
Anyway thanks for your time and I need a favor from you, please comment in case you feel to do so.

Mahesh Dangi

One Night Stay At Platform 1

For few months I had an engineering degree, but no job. Since I was not earning and had plenty of time , I can sleep wherever its free of cost with any sort of facilities I can get luckily. Before you imagine me becoming a street beggar, I was healthy and enjoying traveling across various cities these days, but this was not the period when I got this lovey chance of spending a night at a railway platform.

It was later when I visited the holy city of Ujjain to accompany my grandfather for a medical issue, I had this opportunity and it was so empathetic that made me right the whole story . It was around 12 pm, all the cheap places of stay were already flooded and I was low on money, so hotel is left out of the question. We (me and grandpa) finally stopped by the railway station which was the only cheap and available safe place we could find for the night stay.

I was hired by a company by then, so I was also a little worried about my social status in case somebody known would see me sleeping there, luckily that did not happen. One bed sheet and a shawl for two people. Since I never slept on such nice bed, I was not feeling like sleeping. Train engines were buzzing and hauling wagons all the time and I was just rolling and turning sides to get a couple of hours rest.

What you must be thinking is 'What made me call this a lovely chance' ? The platform was flooded with homeless and helpless people. I only spent one single night and that was also under some circumstances, but for these people this platform is the only roof. I immediately realized that, what I was looking at is the quality of life for poor India. This is what made me say it a lovely chance.

Few days later I was in Bombay and passing by Antila (Ambani's home). This time I was trying to imagine the contrast between the two scenarios. 600+  people hired just to serve 2-3 Ambani's in such a massive structure while on the other hand millions don't have a home in the same country. I just went blank and felt lost. Stressed my mind to list down all the causes created this skyscraper difference between quality of life of two different man's in the same country. 

Well, it was a wonderful night. Not physically, but at least added an important experience to my life and another blog to my blogger. But, I still couldn't figure out answer to my own question, 'what has created such a huge difference between the living standards of two human beings living on the same demographic zone ? Hopefully some day I will have an answer and a solution as well for this very important issue nobody even cares.

Mahesh Dangi