...this photograph taken by me, appeared in the Spectrum page of Deccan Herald.. an English daily of India...
This photograph was taken on a water sports trip to Honnemardu, a beautiful place in Karnataka, India
The original version of this picture is uploaded in webshots. It appears in the 'Pictures of Globe Trekker' on the extreme right side of the screen, under the link 'Honnemardu River Sports' ;-)
Friday, January 27, 2006
Friday, January 20, 2006
Taste of victory
After a lot of falling, (including some real nasty ones)... finally managed to ski successfully in the most difficult hill of the Hyland Lake Ski Resort
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
Lords of the Rings
‘A curious outsider’s experience with the most energetic industry of India, the ITES’
"Welcome to People PC Online. This is Dan. How may I help you today?" croaked the American male voice over my telephone.
It was an internet service in US, available in the city I dwell, Minneapolis.
"I have registered for a service, on your website. But, the software that is given to start the dial up isn't working," I briefed my issue.
"No problem, sir. I will transfer you over to our technical support. They would be glad to help you out," said the man, and he put me on hold for a minute.
"Welcome to People PC Online. This is Andy, from the technical support. How may I help you today, sir?" came out the well-rehearsed voice, speaking impeccable English. But for the ears accustomed to identify the desi English from the American, there was no doubt that this was indeed a desi. ;-)
For a fellow desi, who has been in the US only for the last few months, desi voices are always pleasant.
After I stated my problem, he guided me for the next few minutes about the installation of the software.
Then, unable to hold it any longer I asked, "Andy, are you an Indian?"
"Yes, sir."
"I am an Indian too," I said.
"I guessed that, sir."
"Cool! Are you in India now?" I asked
"Yes, sir. Would you know Bangalore?" he replied.
Would I know Bangalore? I have seen the place grow from a laid back city with unkempt roads, occasional Ambassador cars, and a few scooters crawling around, while standing on the front of my father's lambretta in the early eighties to the modern day technology hub, with some of the best roads of the country, still not able to catch up to the burgeoning traffic of expensive cars, bumper to bumper with large buses carrying the drowsy IT guys with deep pockets.
"Yes, I am from Bangalore," I put it in a simpler sentence.
"I am working in Bangalore," he answered back.
"Where in Bangalore?" I asked him.
"Banaswadi," he answered, this time very confident that I would know the place. Well, it surely sounded like the more popular Basavanagudi, but I knew that this was a far off place where the girlfriend of my friend had her house, due to which he had to think twice before volunteering to pick her up from her place, for a date. ;-)
"What is your real name?" I asked Andy.
"I am Venkat," he said, putting a smile on my face.
For the next few minutes, we chat informally about Bangalore, the recent rains, and he enquired a little more than being professionally courteous about Minneapolis weather, before hanging up. I was surprised that even he knew the legend of the coldest weather conditions, here.
It has always been a love-envy-hate relationship with our friends on the other part of the IT scenario in India, the ITES sector. It all had begun with the large-scale recruitment by Dell, which was taken up by many of my friends, with engineering degrees, as a stopgap career option till they got a software job. Of course, this was during the economic recession in the US, three years back. (Recently, it has been the time for that famous Infy joke 'Tresspassers will be recruited', for engineers ;-) )
"But, how can one work throughout the night?" I mused, and preferred the other option.
STAYED AT HOME, UNEMPLOYED.
The trend took a drastic boost with my non-engineer friends getting quick jobs, with fat pay packets at various Call Centres, and BPOs. While the world seemed to run towards the ITPL in Bangalore, I was still trying to make sense out of the whole scene.
I was still one of those guys, who believed the Engineers ran the world, and deserved the highest pays that the employer can muster. But, the cool chaps from the ITES sector not only earned plentiful, but spent it with vigor, and seemed more jovial than my friends who had managed to creep into the trickling jobs from the IT companies.
"Workplace is like an extension of college, maga," uttered one of my friends.
I really envied the guy, when I actually joined an IT company.
For us from the IT side, the ITES had great work culture, hep crowd, and cool money to sponsor that life. What the hell were we doing, sitting in cubbyholes, coding bugs for people we had never met in life?
"You have reached the Billing and Accounts section, of America Online. You may want to check with our technical support team for your issue to be resolved," the American voice spoke out. "Sure," I said. I had called up the toll free number to get the same kind of assistance from America Online, another ISP in the US, a little while after the 'People PC Online' story.
After series of beeps, and weird rings later, "This is the technical support section of America Online. This is Nick. How may I help you today?"
DESI!!! ;-)
Yet another day, "Guru (pal), I am going to CRV Consultants today, to apply for Dell Call Centre," said a friend of mine, during the initial days of unemployment, just after graduation, in Bangalore.
"You sure you would be able to work in the night?" I asked him.
"Who wants to work for Dell??!! I am going there because the girl taking the applications is hot, and she had given me some 'major hints' the last time I had been with friend," he said.
Ahem. Didn't I say something about each person's perception of life?
"So, when are you going? Can I join you?" I asked. Well, my perception was getting a new view point ;-)
Well, that is a love story that never even began. But, yes, there is a love story, which did go on for sometime.
An 'onsite' friend of mine had a problem with his Dell wireless router. He called up the Dell helpline, and lo!!! He was routed to Bangalore, India. The 'Tina' on the other end did cater to his questions with such care and dedication that he took the liberty to go ahead and asked her whether she was really 'Tina'.
She wasn't a 'Tina', but mentioned her desi name. She was from Bangalore.
After the issue with the router was resolved, she parted with her email id, to get back in case if he had 'further queries'.
The first mail was very carefully crafted by the guy in the west, about thanking her for her help, and enquiring about the Bangalore weather. The reply went ahead than just giving him information about Bangalore weather.
The two got talking over the emails in the next few days.
A week later he found in his mail box, to his shock, 'Hi Dear, How was the weekend?'.
A year ago, I was discussing about this wonderful phenomenon called the ITES with my cousin who was in the industry. "The people who join my company come from vibrant backgrounds. They could be graduates, postgraduates in various fields. They could be from a commerce background, pure sciences background, or engineering background. We even have CAs and MBAs from one of the finest colleges in India," he said. This was interesting, as the perception about ITES was changing from that of a stop-gap career option to a matured job market which not only required quantity, but also quality, of workmanship.
"But, don't you think that it affects people biologically that they have to work at night? Well, humans are 'supposed' to work in the daytime, and 'supposed' to rest at night, " I argued.
"Oh! It is not always in the night that people have to work. There are different shifts. People could prefer to work in the day time too," he added.
This was news to me. But it was definitely true.
"But, I chose to work in the night shift," he added later, "That is where the action is," with a smile.
Night is the time that one could have maximum communication with the clients in the west, and hence, it would add to the pace of the career growth in the ITES industry, he explained.
I have met some very interesting people who are from the ITES. A person who handles western customer calls at night, but who conducts trekking camps for the youth for passion. Another person who handles calls at night, and is passionate about social service. Another person is a model. Another person is waiting for his movie to hit the screens. I also know a group of dare devil enthusiasts, who would not ignore any opportunity for rock climbing. And many other interesting friends of mine, who are currently reading this ;-)
At a recent Christmas party in my apartments in Minneapolis, I met this two American young men at a table. I knew one of these guys, who always tried to beat me to the gym early in the morning.
As they got talking, I realized that they were working for a Call Centre for the Union Reserve Bank, just beside my apartments. Now, why would a Union Reserve Bank want a call center???
"Hello, may I help you?"
"Yes. It would be great if you could fish out few bundles of hundred dollar bills, and post it to me" ;-))
Heh heh.... nope. The Union Reserve Bank did more than just print dollar bills. They handled the bonds, and other complicated economical stuffs (he did mention what the 'stuffs' were, but they were beyond my limited vocab ;-) ). The customers who wanted to trade these bonds, and other related enquiries, could use the Union Reserve Bank call center.
"We literally sit on a pile of money," one of the guys was saying. "There are four floors below the ground level, where all the cash is kept in huge metallic shelves, resembling Walmart ( like 'Metro', in India). Nobody is allowed inside there. If you would want cash, you need to enter it in a computer, and there are robots which would fetch the cash to you," he explained the process to the others at the table.
"Which place are you from?" the guy asked me later.
"India," I mentioned, pretty confident that I need not explain him about the location. There were lots of Indians in Minneapolis.
"Oh! Do you know 'Kannada' ?" he asked me!!!
NOT HINDI, NOT TELUGU, NOT TAMIL!!! He asked me, if I knew Kannada???!!!
I knew for sure that there was a huge Telugu population, Tamil population, and North Indian population, here. Despite all these, he was asking me 'Kannada'???
"That is my language. But, how do you know about it?" I asked, suppressing excitement.
"I had a few friends from Bangalore who spoke Kannada," he said, pronouncing Kannada immaculately.
Well, in the new half hour I enlightened the people at the table with Kannada, Hindi, and other languages spoken in India.
"Sixteen official languages? Doesn't that create a lot of confusions?" he asked me, with a smile.
"Four time zones, and foot, pound, mile measurements instead of the metric system. Doesn't that create a lot of confusions?" I smiled back at him.
I have had a lot of friends from the ITES sector, who actually made me realize later, that all that glitters is not Call Centre job. Some of the girls' parents felt uneasy letting their 'brought-up-with-love' children to work in the night. Some of them had issues with colleagues misbehaving as a result of the 'college' ambience. Some guys complained that they had lost out girls to other guys working for the day jobs. Some other guys felt frustrated, as they had taken up ITES jobs for stopgap arrangement to finance their higher studies, but felt uneasy in leaving the high paying jobs.
Well, they were the like usual comments of many of my friends, from the other IT and non-IT fields.
Life, after all, is the way we perceive it. And generally, most of us don't refrain from perceiving it to be a huge and loaded, Ashok Leyland truck, with a flat tyre, on a deserted highway of Rajastan, under the scorching Sun, waiting to be pushed ;-)
There have been the highs, in the form of ecstatic cries of friends who got their jobs at Dell, 24/7, AOLs, followed by the trendy clothes, partying, and sleek mobile phones. There have been the lows with stories about frustrating bosses, slogs, and gloom over rumors of jobs shifting over to Philippines. But the slick ITES industry did change the way the metropolitans’ look and feel. It is changing the way business is done in India. It definitely is changing the way the media looked at the youth.
Away from the big statements about what it did to the youth, or what it did to the economy of the country, it simply reassures me that, at the end of the day, when something goes wrong, there is some person waiting to solve my problem, with a 'May I help you?' in the kindest of tones, at the ringing of my call.
And that person is my friend, my counselor, and my guide. And that person is the lord of my (telephone) rings.
Teju
"Welcome to People PC Online. This is Dan. How may I help you today?" croaked the American male voice over my telephone.
It was an internet service in US, available in the city I dwell, Minneapolis.
"I have registered for a service, on your website. But, the software that is given to start the dial up isn't working," I briefed my issue.
"No problem, sir. I will transfer you over to our technical support. They would be glad to help you out," said the man, and he put me on hold for a minute.
"Welcome to People PC Online. This is Andy, from the technical support. How may I help you today, sir?" came out the well-rehearsed voice, speaking impeccable English. But for the ears accustomed to identify the desi English from the American, there was no doubt that this was indeed a desi. ;-)
For a fellow desi, who has been in the US only for the last few months, desi voices are always pleasant.
After I stated my problem, he guided me for the next few minutes about the installation of the software.
Then, unable to hold it any longer I asked, "Andy, are you an Indian?"
"Yes, sir."
"I am an Indian too," I said.
"I guessed that, sir."
"Cool! Are you in India now?" I asked
"Yes, sir. Would you know Bangalore?" he replied.
Would I know Bangalore? I have seen the place grow from a laid back city with unkempt roads, occasional Ambassador cars, and a few scooters crawling around, while standing on the front of my father's lambretta in the early eighties to the modern day technology hub, with some of the best roads of the country, still not able to catch up to the burgeoning traffic of expensive cars, bumper to bumper with large buses carrying the drowsy IT guys with deep pockets.
"Yes, I am from Bangalore," I put it in a simpler sentence.
"I am working in Bangalore," he answered back.
"Where in Bangalore?" I asked him.
"Banaswadi," he answered, this time very confident that I would know the place. Well, it surely sounded like the more popular Basavanagudi, but I knew that this was a far off place where the girlfriend of my friend had her house, due to which he had to think twice before volunteering to pick her up from her place, for a date. ;-)
"What is your real name?" I asked Andy.
"I am Venkat," he said, putting a smile on my face.
For the next few minutes, we chat informally about Bangalore, the recent rains, and he enquired a little more than being professionally courteous about Minneapolis weather, before hanging up. I was surprised that even he knew the legend of the coldest weather conditions, here.
It has always been a love-envy-hate relationship with our friends on the other part of the IT scenario in India, the ITES sector. It all had begun with the large-scale recruitment by Dell, which was taken up by many of my friends, with engineering degrees, as a stopgap career option till they got a software job. Of course, this was during the economic recession in the US, three years back. (Recently, it has been the time for that famous Infy joke 'Tresspassers will be recruited', for engineers ;-) )
"But, how can one work throughout the night?" I mused, and preferred the other option.
STAYED AT HOME, UNEMPLOYED.
The trend took a drastic boost with my non-engineer friends getting quick jobs, with fat pay packets at various Call Centres, and BPOs. While the world seemed to run towards the ITPL in Bangalore, I was still trying to make sense out of the whole scene.
I was still one of those guys, who believed the Engineers ran the world, and deserved the highest pays that the employer can muster. But, the cool chaps from the ITES sector not only earned plentiful, but spent it with vigor, and seemed more jovial than my friends who had managed to creep into the trickling jobs from the IT companies.
"Workplace is like an extension of college, maga," uttered one of my friends.
I really envied the guy, when I actually joined an IT company.
For us from the IT side, the ITES had great work culture, hep crowd, and cool money to sponsor that life. What the hell were we doing, sitting in cubbyholes, coding bugs for people we had never met in life?
"You have reached the Billing and Accounts section, of America Online. You may want to check with our technical support team for your issue to be resolved," the American voice spoke out. "Sure," I said. I had called up the toll free number to get the same kind of assistance from America Online, another ISP in the US, a little while after the 'People PC Online' story.
After series of beeps, and weird rings later, "This is the technical support section of America Online. This is Nick. How may I help you today?"
DESI!!! ;-)
Yet another day, "Guru (pal), I am going to CRV Consultants today, to apply for Dell Call Centre," said a friend of mine, during the initial days of unemployment, just after graduation, in Bangalore.
"You sure you would be able to work in the night?" I asked him.
"Who wants to work for Dell??!! I am going there because the girl taking the applications is hot, and she had given me some 'major hints' the last time I had been with friend," he said.
Ahem. Didn't I say something about each person's perception of life?
"So, when are you going? Can I join you?" I asked. Well, my perception was getting a new view point ;-)
Well, that is a love story that never even began. But, yes, there is a love story, which did go on for sometime.
An 'onsite' friend of mine had a problem with his Dell wireless router. He called up the Dell helpline, and lo!!! He was routed to Bangalore, India. The 'Tina' on the other end did cater to his questions with such care and dedication that he took the liberty to go ahead and asked her whether she was really 'Tina'.
She wasn't a 'Tina', but mentioned her desi name. She was from Bangalore.
After the issue with the router was resolved, she parted with her email id, to get back in case if he had 'further queries'.
The first mail was very carefully crafted by the guy in the west, about thanking her for her help, and enquiring about the Bangalore weather. The reply went ahead than just giving him information about Bangalore weather.
The two got talking over the emails in the next few days.
A week later he found in his mail box, to his shock, 'Hi Dear, How was the weekend?'.
A year ago, I was discussing about this wonderful phenomenon called the ITES with my cousin who was in the industry. "The people who join my company come from vibrant backgrounds. They could be graduates, postgraduates in various fields. They could be from a commerce background, pure sciences background, or engineering background. We even have CAs and MBAs from one of the finest colleges in India," he said. This was interesting, as the perception about ITES was changing from that of a stop-gap career option to a matured job market which not only required quantity, but also quality, of workmanship.
"But, don't you think that it affects people biologically that they have to work at night? Well, humans are 'supposed' to work in the daytime, and 'supposed' to rest at night, " I argued.
"Oh! It is not always in the night that people have to work. There are different shifts. People could prefer to work in the day time too," he added.
This was news to me. But it was definitely true.
"But, I chose to work in the night shift," he added later, "That is where the action is," with a smile.
Night is the time that one could have maximum communication with the clients in the west, and hence, it would add to the pace of the career growth in the ITES industry, he explained.
I have met some very interesting people who are from the ITES. A person who handles western customer calls at night, but who conducts trekking camps for the youth for passion. Another person who handles calls at night, and is passionate about social service. Another person is a model. Another person is waiting for his movie to hit the screens. I also know a group of dare devil enthusiasts, who would not ignore any opportunity for rock climbing. And many other interesting friends of mine, who are currently reading this ;-)
At a recent Christmas party in my apartments in Minneapolis, I met this two American young men at a table. I knew one of these guys, who always tried to beat me to the gym early in the morning.
As they got talking, I realized that they were working for a Call Centre for the Union Reserve Bank, just beside my apartments. Now, why would a Union Reserve Bank want a call center???
"Hello, may I help you?"
"Yes. It would be great if you could fish out few bundles of hundred dollar bills, and post it to me" ;-))
Heh heh.... nope. The Union Reserve Bank did more than just print dollar bills. They handled the bonds, and other complicated economical stuffs (he did mention what the 'stuffs' were, but they were beyond my limited vocab ;-) ). The customers who wanted to trade these bonds, and other related enquiries, could use the Union Reserve Bank call center.
"We literally sit on a pile of money," one of the guys was saying. "There are four floors below the ground level, where all the cash is kept in huge metallic shelves, resembling Walmart ( like 'Metro', in India). Nobody is allowed inside there. If you would want cash, you need to enter it in a computer, and there are robots which would fetch the cash to you," he explained the process to the others at the table.
"Which place are you from?" the guy asked me later.
"India," I mentioned, pretty confident that I need not explain him about the location. There were lots of Indians in Minneapolis.
"Oh! Do you know 'Kannada' ?" he asked me!!!
NOT HINDI, NOT TELUGU, NOT TAMIL!!! He asked me, if I knew Kannada???!!!
I knew for sure that there was a huge Telugu population, Tamil population, and North Indian population, here. Despite all these, he was asking me 'Kannada'???
"That is my language. But, how do you know about it?" I asked, suppressing excitement.
"I had a few friends from Bangalore who spoke Kannada," he said, pronouncing Kannada immaculately.
Well, in the new half hour I enlightened the people at the table with Kannada, Hindi, and other languages spoken in India.
"Sixteen official languages? Doesn't that create a lot of confusions?" he asked me, with a smile.
"Four time zones, and foot, pound, mile measurements instead of the metric system. Doesn't that create a lot of confusions?" I smiled back at him.
I have had a lot of friends from the ITES sector, who actually made me realize later, that all that glitters is not Call Centre job. Some of the girls' parents felt uneasy letting their 'brought-up-with-love' children to work in the night. Some of them had issues with colleagues misbehaving as a result of the 'college' ambience. Some guys complained that they had lost out girls to other guys working for the day jobs. Some other guys felt frustrated, as they had taken up ITES jobs for stopgap arrangement to finance their higher studies, but felt uneasy in leaving the high paying jobs.
Well, they were the like usual comments of many of my friends, from the other IT and non-IT fields.
Life, after all, is the way we perceive it. And generally, most of us don't refrain from perceiving it to be a huge and loaded, Ashok Leyland truck, with a flat tyre, on a deserted highway of Rajastan, under the scorching Sun, waiting to be pushed ;-)
There have been the highs, in the form of ecstatic cries of friends who got their jobs at Dell, 24/7, AOLs, followed by the trendy clothes, partying, and sleek mobile phones. There have been the lows with stories about frustrating bosses, slogs, and gloom over rumors of jobs shifting over to Philippines. But the slick ITES industry did change the way the metropolitans’ look and feel. It is changing the way business is done in India. It definitely is changing the way the media looked at the youth.
Away from the big statements about what it did to the youth, or what it did to the economy of the country, it simply reassures me that, at the end of the day, when something goes wrong, there is some person waiting to solve my problem, with a 'May I help you?' in the kindest of tones, at the ringing of my call.
And that person is my friend, my counselor, and my guide. And that person is the lord of my (telephone) rings.
Teju
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