As an ambassador for AIDS prevention, Richard Gere is in Chennai. And he met with Rajinikanth, the super star of Tamil movie world. Richard Gere, who strongly believes celebrities putting their stamp on the noble causes, is touring India to raise awareness about AIDS prevention. The message is: AIDS is not a death sentence, you can live successfully with it.
Category Archives: General
Riding through the bumpy roads
Chennai traffic could be described in just one word – chaotic, like any other aspect of life here. To ride through swinging cyclists, weaving auto-rickshaws, crisscrossing buses and patches and potholes all over the road, one should have not only an enduring will but also quick reflexes and a strong backbone. It is definitely not for the light-hearted.
There is more to it. Cows and dogs enjoy the freedom of moving around the roads; Traffic doesn’t stop for pedestrians and pedestrians run through the flowing traffic, a mini-Hollywood action show on the roads; Drivers turn color-blind when traffic signals turn red; Honking is such a favorite but an essential action for all our drivers; State run buses emit thick black smoke through their exhaust. You are left only with sound and smoke, if you are stuck in traffic.
In this traffic, there are only two categories of drivers – those who scare you and those who stay away from driving. I don’t belong to the latter. I just flow with the chaos.
My day, every week day
I wake up at 6.00. As is my practice for years, still feeling lazy I roll over and think of what to do that day. These days it is mostly ‘Nothing’ and so it boils down to just rolling for few minutes. One might wonder, why the hell then should I wake up at 6.00? That is because my father use to wake me at 6.00 every day since I was 11. It has become a biological rhythm since then. Soon after I will be urged for stomach cleansing, a part of the rhythm as well.
I am fresh; Ha! I shake myself to face the day. With a cup of coffee, I go over the daily news – mud slingshots of local and national politicians, police atrocities, death of this one, murder of that one, some strike in some part, more Americans dying in Iraq after Dubaya’s announcement of ‘major operations over’, and his claim that he has done something good for the world (= his supporting CEOs?), few pages of ‘Business around the world’, and another page of how Indian Cricket team lost against almost any other team in the world, and pages filled with ads ranging from Bra to Brandy. Wow! So much happening in the world. I am tired reading them, so I lie down and imagine how I could have changed the world if I was… suddenly a flashing thought: you idiot, get up and change your world.
After a long shower and dressing up, I have breakfast. What is the time? Only 10? I read something until I realize that I do have a job. At 11, I put on helmet and start my lovable motor bike. After riding through the bumpy roads of Chennai, I arrive at work. I login to the network and check emails. There are still few good friends who keep sending emails. I reply them. I browse through the subject lines of official mails. Mostly nothing urgent. When the clock ticks 12, I am at the lunch hall. It is a buffet every day. How is food? No complaints, no compliments. Sometimes I am joined by team mates. Mostly I go alone. After food, it is time to visit library. Read through some more news papers – same garbage from a different viewpoint.
Now starts tough part of the day – I got to work. Well, having been a workaholic, it is really tough to stare the monitor for a possible inspiration. Somedays I have some development to do or some coaching for the team mates. But mostly I am left alone to browse through the net and send emails. At around 15h00, I go for a coffee and come back to repeat whatever I was doing. Some of my team mates who are doing night shifts start arriving around 18h00. Then we have a chat and if they have any doubts, I clear them or confuse them more. By the time we finish, it is time for evening snacks. After snacks it gets busy, as we are in offshore production support team and our American clients start coming to their office. Team mates start to work and I pose to work. It is 20h30 and we are ready for dinner. Normally dinner is better than lunch, may be because it is less people. Do we pay for food? Yes, indeed. We have a monthly deduction of Rs.25 (little more than half Euro) for food – lunch, snacks, dinner all inclusive. Yes, believe me, I pay Rs. 25 for a month’s food. No, it is not that cheaper outside. We have subsidized charges. After food and a bit of work, it is time to hit the roads again.
Some days, I feel bad to be a paid jobless. Some days I feel, yea, for whatever the firm has done to me, they are repaying me in another way. Other days I am just scared to be laid off; But whatever the feeling, I tell myself, ‘Thou shalt relax, my boy’.
Ye he yea! right choice baby
Someone’s nightmare is almost always another’s sweet dream. At least that is the case with outsourcing. Outsourcing is the current topic of the town, be it New York or Chennai. But is it a new concept? I am damn sure that all the articles (both for and against) are written in a PC (or a laptop) manufactured and assembled in Taiwan. It is also possible that the authors drive a German car, wear Italian underwear and taste French wine. In a market economy, as venerated by the western countries, outsourcing is inevitable – in every industry where cost matters.
In the recent days, I have read so many articles against outsourcing. Almost all the articles point out that outsourced IT projects would fail for the lack of proper communication. I agree fully. But isn’t it a documented fact that any IT project would fail for the same reason even when users, analysts and developers belong to the same culture? Proper communication is important for any IT project, more so for an outsourced one.
Then comes the quality. It should be noted that half of so far granted CMM certifications are with Indian software firms. This does not mean that every outsourced project will be a success. A careful study of requirements and vendors need to be done, like any other IT project, instead of lamenting the failure.
Another aspect in those articles is the mix-up of skilled labor migration and outsourcing. They aren’t the same. Men and women of the developed world don’t rock the bed and even if they do so, many offsprings drop out of schools. Not every drop out becomes a Bill Gates. This creates a shortage in skilled professionals. On the contrary, our national hobby is producing children and we do it exceedingly well (though current President and Prime Minister of India are bachelors). Not just the quantity, even quality has been proved consistently better. Obviously we migrate to fill the vacuum. Even this is not a new concept. Long back, during World War II, Indian soldiers fought in Europe along side the British.
Factually speaking, outsourcing is a backfire of the Regan and Thatcher’s era of pushing the developing countries beyond their limits to open their markets. Then we struggled, now we strike back.
And you think, outsourcing impacts only the western economy and we Indians are basking in the new found wealth. Not quite true. For one, it has bastardized our society. Many of us did not evolve to posses such technology and luxury and thus are cut-off from the mainstream society, living in illusionary castles. At office, I talk to Americans who still live in yesterday and to Australians who have already seen tomorrow. Few of us, sleep when our children are in school and when they are asleep we come to office because that is the time our clients are working. It isn’t easy to be an Indian, never.
What does the future holds? Well, no one can predict the future. Probably as India raise to join the elite group, costs will go up here and then we will start outsourcing – may be to Vietnam, or to Africa or may be even to America. Along side a new business model will emerge embracing outsourcing (and migration). What I fear and a good possibility of it coming true is that new laws coming in place in the western countries shutting their markets for us. That will only prove the suspicion that the western countries preach democracy and open market, but when it starts hurting them they practice otherwise.
Day off, Delicious food, and something new to learn
There was a free seminar on Friday by IBM on ‘Web services in an on demand era’, conducted at Le Meridian. My sister registered us for the seminar. It started at 9.30 and finished rather late at 18.00. There were two speakers – an Indian trying to imitate American accent, there by speaking as if he had a bug-bite in his tongue and another American. The earlier talked about the concepts of web services and the later introduced IBM products for the same. This is the first time I am attending a free seminar and I should say it was conducted in very much a professional way. Food was good, receptionists were looking good, content was satisfactory and to top it all we were given 4 CDs having trial versions of IBM products.
Thanks to my sister, now I know food and girls in Le Meridian are good. Ok, to be honest I did learn something new about an emerging technology.
Monsoon sets in
After years of ‘negative’ rainfall, Tamil Nadu started to enjoy the North East Monsoon today. The whole night it was pouring. Unlike in Belgium, where rain is part of the life style, here there is a particular rainy season. For the past few years, it has not been a pleasant news for the farmers. Now that the saint has come to the state, it is blessed. It might be like this for weeks. Though it is highly inconvenient for us, it is very good for the farmers. Hopefully we will have a joyful pongal (harvest festival).
To beat the banality, I started writing about the Belgian trip. Already I got some compliments. This is only a draft version and I will write whenever time permits. Only after completion, I will do a page (re-)design. You can read the first write-up already.
And it goes on…
Tommorow is a state holiday in India (Gandhi’s birthday). We (my sister, her husband and I) took a day off on Friday and we are leaving to parent’s house today. This is major difference in lifestyle between a Belgian and an ordinary Indian. For a long weekend, a Belgian would pack bags and go someplace, on the contrary an Indian would just stay home watching TV or in cases like us where we stay far away from parents, we will just go to parent’s house. One might wonder (especially those Belgians), wouldn’t it boring after sometime; the answer is, if not that what else? The infrastructure and other facilities are not conducive. Also the economic mind set of people is different. The western mindset (the Americans on the extreme of the spectrum) is that when money is spent, there is enough money in the market which aids the economy, whereas in this part of the globe it is, money is put in savings (banks especially) which in turn invested to aid the economy. Anyway the matter is, we will be home for next few days eating, resting, watching TV and if I could convince enough then a trip.
Time to time, I recieve appreciation for FOW. This helps me facing my days in these tough days. Just a simple thought that I have helped someone even if in a small way gives a pretty good feeling. A professor in a US university is using it for his classes, a Lacrosse organizer creates his camp pictures, a consumer organization in Netherlands is using it for their intranet and so on. Whenever I read such a mail, it is a great good feeling. The lacrosse organizer even donated for FOW. When I get a PC, I would incorporate more features into FOW; I already got few requests from users.
Abusing parent’s PC
I installed all the software tools needed for programming in my parents PC including FOW. I installed firewall and anti-virus too (one good act compensates other abuses). I created three albums – Italy, Paris and Holland. I wanted to create one for Belgium. Having stayed for four years I have accumulated hundreds of photos and choosing what to publish is difficult. So that is for a later time. You can view the albums from my homepage – www.jjude.com.
If possible I will install linux as well in this PC.
Today my sister and her husband are coming to my parents house. I am not sure whether my sister will permit me continue the abuse (she wants to play PC games).
FOW continues in its popularity. Now it is one of the top 100 freewares in webattack.com. I modified the styles and CSS to get little bit professional look. If time permits, I will create more CSS.
Finally there is something working
After so many things going wrong, I made this blog working. I will post here time to time what I am doing (except what I am doing with those Indian cuties 🙂 )
There are two reasons behind this blog. I always wanted to write. So this will be a holding place for my thoughts, and a practice ground for my writing. Second, it is difficult to type the same information about what I am doing and what is happening in my life to all the friends. Here I can put in the common things, so that if they want they can follow it. Then when I type a mail to a friend, I can describe those special things.
With so many changes in my life recently, I am not sure how far I can keep with this idea. Hopefully I can continue it with frequent updates.