A Weekend, It was!!!!!!!

A Weekend, It was!!!!!!!
            We all love holidays. While at work if we get a long weekend we always try to plan it somehow. And here it was a LONG weekend, a 3 day vacation.24-26 January.So on this HOLY occasion along with my friends I planned for a trip to Alibaug and Kashid (areas on the outskirts of Mumbai). Although we were too late to plan for things, we managed it quite well, thanks to one of my friends at office.
            So we decided to go through sea route .It was six of us friends: Anil Deependra, Nivedita, Prateeksha, Pratibha and I. We had a fairy (ship) scheduled from Gateway of India on 25th January 2009, at 4:15p.m. Amidst lot of chaos we reached Gateway. There were a lot of phone calls, some impromptu decisions were taken. But we finally managed to get into our fairy on time. We were heading towards Mandwa… Remember ‘Agnipath’ the Amitabh Bachhan blockbuster movie, Hainnn. Some funny things happened when in the ship. We couldn’t manage to get all seats together and we had to split ourselves in groups of two. All of us had started to get into mood by then. Then we started teasing each other in our usual way. That was cool guys and it was certain that this would continue throughout the trip. We finally landed to Mandwa at arnd 6 p.m. Like Nawabs we had our car Qualis with our driver Uday ready to pick us up.
            From there we headed straight to our “HOTEL”, hmmm … at Sasawne gaon. Actually it was a simple house in that gaon. Nevertheless it was nice apart from the fact that mosquitoes kept bothering me throughout the night. The best thing about our lodge was that it was adjacent to the beach. So we had tea and then went straight to the beach (Sasawne beach). It was sunset time and the view was fantabulous. We had a photo session and let me tell you the best photos of the trip ware taken there (no points for guessing who did the best photography). Worst thing happened that time was that Pratibha’s phone fell down into water from my pocket. I managed to get it back but was uncertain if it would start working at all. But to our relief it did…
            Then it was time for us to move out. We went to the house of Late Nanasaheb Karmarkar to see his sculptures. He had in his collection sculptures of most of the historical Maratha icons along with some general sculptures. I somehow felt that each of it had a meaning inside it, I tried to explore …but what a bad explorer I am I could not think of any meaning for any of the Murti’s. There again we had a brief photo session and then we headed straight to another beach called the Kihim beach. By that time excitement apni charam seema par tha. But when we actually reached the beach it was dark so could do nothing there except…… Photography (mind u, its gr8 to click photos in the dark.). so we poor people came back to our HOTEL…
            Masti karte huae hum apne dinner ka wait kar rahe thae. In our house there was a coconut tree .We all tried our hands on climbing the tree with little success but we never stopped clicking our cams. Had some songs form our Rafi (Deependra). Then there was dinner time. After the dinner “Bon-fire” and then came our favourite session of antakshri…. Boss, inte gaane gay ke gale ki band baj gayi par gaane khatam nah huae. Write at midnight we sang this song “Yeh jo des hai mera, Swadesh hai mera…” and wished each other a happy Republic Day. Dekha aise hote hain Hindustani. Moreover beachside par itni mast hawa chal rahi thi ke maaza aa gaya. Suddenly I had a look at my watch and it was 2 at night. Then we thought of stopping the never ending game and decided to go to sleep….Everybody was sleepy but none wanted to sleep .So we had tea and then started chatting and by the time last person slept, which is obviously me, it was 4 in the morning and we had called our driver at 8 in the morning.
            Subah sab fatafat uthe and we were ready to move by arnd 9:30. which is only an hour and half late. Come on, its creditable guys. We sat into the car with a new driver Mangesh who had come to ghumao us leaving his cricket match and it was he semi-final of his local shield. Haha…its serious guys. Kher leave it! Then we went to a birla temple which was on the way to our next destination Kashid Beach, Which was supposed to be a very good beach. All excitement was there when we reached the beach. There I saw our Daniel Craig (yeah, is Deependra) and the awaara pagal deewana Anil …. Dono pagal ho gaye thae yaar. And even a dumbo like me, who fears water, went into it and started enjoying. Kya bataon yaar circle banakar paani main khood rahe hain, pani main summer-sault kar rahe hain….. I I I mean it was simply awesome. At the end of it (the instinct in the water) we all were extremely tried and more so it was me who was exhausted. Then we took a bath and had lunch and slept for a while on a kinda Day beds arnd the beach. All this while we had one thing continued…Photogarphy.
            Then at 6:00p.m.we left Kashid for Mandwa where we were to catch our Fairy back to Mumbai. We just happened to discuss about the trip in general:
            Prati(bha) liked the Sasawne beach sunset view the most, Nive(dita) liked the house we stayed into, Prateeksha liked the beach the most , Anil liked the the day beds the most , Deep(endra) liked the bon-fire the most. In short everybody thoroughly njoyed the trip. You know guys what did I like the most about it?? I loved and njoyed the time we all spent together, woh college ki masti yaad aa gayi and I was happy to realize that the changes in life have not taken a toll on us.
            We happily came back to Mumbai. Deep went back to Pune and Nivi to B’lore but each of us preserved memories. Now we are all back and busy with our work but would be waiting for the next trip…..

            Hum rahe ya naa rahe kal….
            Kal yaad aayenge yeh pal,
            Pal yeh hain pyar ke pal….
            Yaad aayenge yeh pal!!!!!!



Cheers,
Yoursrohit!!!

2009,A good start ?????

           Has the current year had a good start. Certainly not... Here we are in recession all the shadows on our jobs, not much business for the organization I work for and all turmoil of the stock markets all over the world and many more....
           Amidst I have my own problems... Start of 2009 gave me a shocker when I realized that I have not got positive results and will not be able to fulfill my dream (...) this year. Sorry mate, better luck next time. I am still hopeful, and I will be even if I have to hope against the hope, because there is always a next time. But life, does it have a next time??? I don't know. I don't think so.
           He was my brother, although cousin in relation but extremely close to me. My family has always been very closely bonded and so were we. I loved him a lot. Bhaiya was elder to me, 16 years. On this very day a week ago he left all of us and went to heaven. Now we have only his memories. But I still cannot imagine that a fatherly figure if no more. Woh jinhone mujhe mere bachpan se khub pyar kiya, loved me a lot. I don’t even have words to describe how dearly I would miss him...I am writing about it just to give a TRIBUTE to him and pray wherever he is in heaven, he is fine and happy. I remember that he would share all his good time with all of us and would take the bad times by himself. He would teach us to respect elders and never disobey them. I would really miss you Bhaiya and would try to the best of my ability to fulfill all your dreams.

           Doston "Yeh zindagi pyar karne ke liye bahut choti hai"

Collateral Damage.

           Remember something..... Arnold Schwarzenegger. Now do Ur eyes widen? Arre, the movie yaar.....But I am not talking about that. For the past two weeks everyday when I pick up the newspaper, I feel a sense of urgency in the news. It is full of news of "Satyam and its fiasco" and a lot of political blame game and not to forget "Maytas”, the name from where it all started.
           The primary findings of the whole saga(up till now) and the primary issue of concern is of "Corporate Governance"...There might be a lot more issues to handle once the investigations into the matter are complete. Any which ways this whole event has already left a black spot on the Indian Inc. Although the Indian IT companies are saying that this event is not going to affect there business, I think they are not 100% correct.
           You might have by now understood that what I am pointing out.... Yes? No?Ok, I mean to say that there certainly will be a huge impact on the "Off-shoring" business in India. India has always been an attractive off-shoring hub even the price of living is constantly increasing, thanks to lower cost of operations coupled with lower attrition. But this is not the most important thing to fetch business to India. The "most" important thing is "Trust" of their clients and stakeholders. Now with a question over the corp. gov. of the companies this trust seems to lessen and the companies understand this. And for this reason most of them have started to go up to there clients tell them of the authenticity of there businesses and finances and balance sheets. But this is easier said then done. The foreign companies will have a little bit of hesitation in giving new and strategic projects to Indian companies. This is addition to an already tough process of getting new projects. We can relate it to the World Bank’s statements where they refrained from giving any project to Wipro for 4 years now.
           Here I would like to take the issue to a broader horizon... With the globalization of Indian economy it has become easier for any company to have there own business in India. This area is not much explored as of now coz the Indian companies have always given good returns and major off-shoring business is with them. But now this area will be explored. If this happens we will loose a chunk of our profits and that really hampers the growth. This would intensify the already existing competition.
           Now one solution could be that we move to IP based solutions, like Infosys Finacle, Mastek's Elixir... Having said that its not easy to do that and takes a bit of time. So while developing IP an organization has also to be efficient in their existing business. Have extra concentration on projects at hand and try to make our deliveries efficient and on time. Actually this should be the thumb rule. You must not hamper your client's productivity. Client happy, your business grows stakeholders happy. Another thing that can be put immediately in place is the actual work in the area of "Corporate governance". I have heard a lot of companies taking their clients into confidence abt their governance but I have not come to know of any extra measures taken by any of them to ascertain themselves and their employees. I feel some actions, even though subtle should be taken immediately to improve our "Corporate governance"... The onus is not only on the companies but also on our government. It can give more rights to ICAI which will take care of the auditors. Moreover, a direct look-up sort of a power given to SEBI so that a check can be done. Well I would not like to get into details of the corporate governance as of now.
           Now this is just one, but a major issue. If we think positively, the Satyam Fiasco is an eve-opener for the Indian Inc. The quick interference of the Government was commendable but the need now is to take decisions fast and efficient not only for the future of Satyam but also for the Indian IT industry as a whole.

A Wednesday, with a difference….

           Hello!!!!!! I am not talking about the movie “A Wednesday” , but a Wednesday of a different nature and attitude….A Wednesday of togetherness….
           It was a fine Wednesday morning…. As usual I reached office at 8:45 in the morning… I had been suffering from cough the other day but this morning I was feeling better and chirrupy as always. People had started coming to office as always... It was as usual, except ERS (name of my project) team… After a long –long time we had planned for a team lunch. Actually it was a party given to us by our “Project Leaders”.
I sensed enthu among the team-mates. Actually all outings are cherished by our teammates as it gives a chance to get closer, more so this time because we have grown as a team, the size has approximately doubled in past few months.
           We had planned a “trip” to a restaurant nearby called “The Golden Punjab Restaurant”. The morning started with the booking at the hotel and placing the order for the starters. Roger and Yash (two of our friends) took that responsibility. The day before there was a sheet circulated within the team to know the choice of each (veg, non-veg and sea-food) and had booked for a mini-bus and had called it at 12:15 in the afternoon (way before our usual lunch time). In IT terms I called the whole process as the requirement gathering and freezing phase marked by the start of design. At around 11 in the afternoon there was a mail saying that the design has been made and we got to start the execution at 12:30. (Oops… I am sorry for getting into technical terms..Kya karoon software engineer hoon naa, I keep finding such weird analogies).
           Well let’s move on: Our bus arrived on time and we started getting into it .By the time everybody was coming we had a short discussion on “IT for terrorism” and thinking as to what IT can do to enhance our security. We eventually left at 12:45, once our new captain “Roger” had made the head count. Ohh I forgot to introduce our NEW “captain”. The journey was expected to be of 15-20 minutes and Santosh, aka Santi had to get down on the way to pay his electricity bill and was to join us at the restaurant. During the short journey we were discussing our favorite ads
           Now then we were there. More than the party, the feeling of togetherness was special and everybody had a soothing expression. The first incident in the hotel was of the “Saint Gobain Glasses” (??I hope we remember). We all took our places after initial exchanges and Santosh Sir taking a place in the table at the center. Unfortunately we all could not sit together, because all our tables could not be joined. Nevertheless we all were comfortable and with complete ease had our lunch. We talked, laughed and enjoyed a lot. You don’t get a chance to talk so freely with ur peers, coz at the work place sometimes u r stressed, sometimes busy and various other factors. We ate lot of dishes and kept giving our opinion about every dish. In short we were in full masti mood.
           With all this masti we finished our lunch and got back to our buses. Fortunately, unfortunately the bus wasn’t there and we had to wait for the bus. Some of us even thought of walking all the way to office. For the first time I had interaction with a relatively new member of our team, Sunil. It’s an irony but I met him, rather talked to him for the first time. 10-15 minutes later our bus arrived and alas we all were heading back to office. I could very well see the calm but content faces when we were getting into the bus.
           The journey back was relatively quiet, may be coz everybody was preparing to get back to work. Finally we were back to our office, on to our seats and into our work. The most amazing thing is that everybody got engrossed into their respective work as to nothing has happened.The best part of the IT professionals is that whatever is the situation we live to our fullest and do not let one thing get over the other. i.e. have a blast when on an outing and work to ur maximum when in office, that is the one thing I like the most about my work-culture and religiously follow the same….

                      “Long Live IT”


Cheers …
Rohit!!!

Global Financial Crisis : Its Origin

           Yeh jo world hai naa world….. yeh har waqt kissi naa kissi se ladta hi rehta hai….. Chahe who Terrorism ho ya phir religion ya phir “Financial crisis”…Yes the most recent problem before the World economy is the ongoing Financial crisis started in the US supposedly by the negligence of the “Big Brother” :- The Federal Reserve… The negligence is already accepted by the former head of the FED, Mr. Allan Greenspan in front of the U.S. Senate.
           The financial crisis or the “credit crunch”, is more popularly known as the “sub-prime crisis”. The credit crunch means that there is no liquidity in the market, less of cash flow and more of assets whose value is rapidly falling. It all started in America with the “sub-prime mortgage loan”.
           It begins like this: an American wanting to live the famed American dream, “having a house”. So he seeks a loan, a “housing loan” But the issue is that he does not have enough credit to back the loan. Here comes the dream of another American, this time a Bank who sanctions the loan, which is more likely to be defaulted and thereby taking risk. Now the bank invests this money somewhere and the chain is built. So a bubble is made, fondly called “a housing bubble”.
           Now when someone in the chain defaulted, usually starting with the people lower down the chain, the investors started losing faith in the “securitized mortgages” and alas, the so called Housing Bubble bursts :-‘bhooommm’ and gave way to a liquidity crisis….. Indeed, a dangerous equation. The whole business based on mortgages and derivatives received a knee jerk. At this point of time the government had to step in and inject volumes of cash and bail-outs to keep their economy on track
           The first victims were the banks which have a highly leveraged nature, the “investment banks”. Remember, Bear Sterns, now acquired by JP Morgan Chase, was the first of the bail-outs. Those who did not seek bailouts even when there conditions was very bad, “Mooh ke bal ghir gaye”….. Guess whom I am pointing towards. “Lehman Brothers”, aapprox 150 year old institution, had to file for Bankruptcy. Two pillars of the US investment banking had already affected one shattered and the other collapsed. The next in the list was Merrill Lynch which is now acquired by Bank of America. Many others included Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, and Washington Mutual etc.
           It adds fuel to a decade old debate that the “investment bank” cannot sustain itself; it needs to be controlled under a “commercial bank”. It’s like once the investor looses its confidence in the company or an organization or any institution for that matter the equation worsens the respective. The American government has given a bail out package of 700 billion USD to restore the economy and win back the confidence to the investor and get the cash flowing again in the market.
           Still the economy is under recession. And it might some time to get back on the growth track… But this does not end here. There are a lot many aftermaths …. I would soon be making another post to discuss them… for the time I would like to invite readers to discuss This particular issue.....

bit busy!!!!

Hii Folks,
I am a bit busy these days , so not writing anytihng....
But I will be back with some interesting posts soon!!!!!
so keep watchnig.....