If you're already getting that glazed look in your eyes, scroll down to the bottom for a totally unrelated pic out of my archives...should perk some of the guys up:-D
The summers are finally on their way out and monsoons are edging their way in and it wouldn’t be a day sooner! Summers in India are mostly tortuous and one time when you suddenly become thankful for AC offices :-).
And to think that during college days, I would regularly choose summer as my favorite weather because one could move around unencumbered by heavy clothes or umbrellas!! Our classes never had any air-conditioning and the fan could only occasionally be prodded into churning along a few recalcitrant gusts of hot air. I am quite surprised that we never felt the overpowering heat or got a sunstroke those days despite lolling for days after days out in the college grounds, hogging on the delectable samosas or chole bhature from the college canteen. The summer holidays were used to play outdoors while at school and later on in college to slip back to the campus under the guise of ‘extra-curricular’ activities.
A quick recap of what I've been going through since May:
Stupid decision-makers
I never cease to be surprised how sometimes incredibly stupid people manage to reach positions from where they can cause a lot of harm to businesses they’re supposed to be promoting.
Some people surprise with their indecision and those are the ones you can often work around – because their managerial skills lie in passing the buck and then agreeing with everyone else on the table.
Others promise you the moon but consistently fail to deliver, postponing things to Fridays in perpetuity. These are also easy to negotiate around because they often don’t know what they’re talking about and can easily be convinced by mouthing a few technicalities. Once you’ve figured that they’re never going to deliver, you can plan your own schedules accordingly.
Yet others irritate with their ‘cheerleading’ act – having no experience of a situation, they latch on like a leech to the nearest impressive-sounding person, pick up on their ideas and jump cartwheels around every effort trying to make a point which was best not made. They’ve probably read Dale Carnegie from cover to cover thrice and are really trying to win, impress and influence by summarizing whatever was said, agreeing with everything and then presenting their own contrarian (and extremely impractical and stupid) viewpoints – very American but also very very irritating. Talking to such people is often when I’m tempted to rekindle my college days and do an Obelix-slap routine, mouthing the choicest gaalis.
Amazing teams
I spent most of May in Chennai, working with an amazing team that gelled really well together. We bonded over a healthy disregard for some people of the above kinds who unfortunately had the decision-making authority temporarily. Within a few days however, we also bonded over the fact that we worked really well as a team, had different areas of strengths and could share a joke. After three years of going more or less solo, I really enjoyed working in a team and the easy camaraderie that was evoked.
And yes, I quite enjoyed being in Chennai for most of May – this was aided to a large extent by the team and the hotel gym, pool and sauna that I serendipitously discovered while prowling around after work. Ok, the dinner buffet was great too. Chennai as a place also seemed to be fairly OK, the auto drivers not the thieving pricks they appear at first glance (yeah, the rates charged are standardized and not really arbitrary, although they’re well above the national standards) and the people generally friendly. So that really finishes off a topic of dinner-table conversation – yes, people who don’t live in Chennai actually bond over Chennai bashing when they run out of all other topics:)
Leaving Bombay
Three years and one month after I first came to Bombay, I’m leaving. Leaving the city, leaving my job and leaving behind some really good friends that I’ve made since I came here. And I’m a little sad at leaving all of these.
Bombay, despite all my protestations to the contrary has grown on me and it was when I was watching ‘Life in a Metro’ that it struck that I’ll miss Bombay a lot, especially its monsoons. I could never get used to many aspects of Bombay – the local trains, pathetic infrastructure and a poor quality of life amongst many, but I have come to love what the city stands for – perpetual and dynamic motion, freedom, enterprise, multi-ethnicity and a can-do attitude of the people on the streets. I loved the heritage buildings and the charm they lent to the city, the various regional cuisines available and the truly cosmopolitan, all-encompassing culture at least in the part of the town that I lived in.
All said and done, Bombay remains a place where I discovered myself and really grew up in. I came here at the age of 26 more or less clueless about my long-term future and just driven by the lure of a significantly better-sounding work profile and more money. I stayed in a place which has to be the smallest and the costliest that I’ve ever lived in. But the three years here have been full of inward introspecting, growing, forming lifelong bonds and discarding some pestilential ones. I tend to attribute the lack of adequate living space to a lot of the personal growth I underwent (hehe, I spent less time pottering around) – or maybe it is just something that happens as you add years to your age…who knows.
While I’m definitely happy at my status of being unemployed starting 1st June 2007, I knew that this was one job that I was going to miss. Starting a company from just an idea in the air, going through the rigmarole of getting investors on board, coordinating between shareholders and lawyers in three different time-zones and goose-stepping through the political and regulatory minefield and a fast-changing business scenario to successfully incorporate an investment bank was not something that I had thought would ever be easy, but definitely proved to be much tougher than I had thought.
The job was more of general management and less of finance and can form a classic case study on how to incorporate a company with large shareholders with uber-vested interests. So effectively this was my baby that I had to leave behind and it was a tough decision especially with all the carrots dangled to prevent me from leaving. I can never put in words the pride I felt when I finally saw the incorporation documents and will really look forward to tracking the company’s progress over time, hoping to boast later about having set up a wildly successful investment bank.
Friends formed a large part of the growing up process I experienced here. Different people with very different aspirations and careers meant that I learnt much more about many more worlds than just my own. Most of my previous friendships had a common base to them – a school, college, job or an institution. In Bombay, new friendships made us form many common bases to stand upon – board games, movies, long drives, weekend trips and stray animals were some of the passions we discovered along the way after we had formed friendships. It has been a pleasure to see these people evolve in their own worlds and I know these relationships will endure as strongly as the ones formed previously. I know every time I come to Bombay, I will always view the Barista at Regal with a tinge of nostalgia and ownership after having spent countless hours till the wee hours in the morning playing board games and generally yakking away. Having FBP as a friend meant that we saw every movie that was released by the time the weekend was over – I know I can not keep up with that pace we set over the weekends all by myself but also know that I can never live a weekend without at least one movie. Sundays with Abodh of late were full of this feeling of anticipation about meeting the dogs on the street that you'd really grown to love.
My last few days in Bombay were hectic. I had given sufficient notice to leave my job on the 31st May but a monthful of Chennai meant that all the wrapping up in Bombay had to be done in a tearing hurry. I thought it would never end, the process of wrapping up, but here I am, gainlessly unemployed and really happy at getting some serious R&R over the next one month.
I have been working almost continuously for the last six years after college – there was a gap of 4 days between wrapping up at college and joining my first job in 2001. Then there was a gap of 1 day between my first and second jobs in 2004. This period of two months at home and traveling is something I’m really going to cherish – no hurry to check emails, no compulsion to be by the phone all the time, no worrying about targets or company bottom lines and investor ROIs.
Where next?
Six years after getting an MBA and working almost non-stop, I decided to follow in Shikha's footsteps and go back to school. I’m joining Wharton for the two-year MBA. Philadelphia I’ve heard is a lovely city atleast in the summer and for most of fall and spring. So I guess I’m going to be in a great place for the next two years with some amazing people. It has been made easier by the fact that I’ve been awarded a nice, fat Wharton Emerging Economy merit fellowship. So that takes care of the cost of an MBA abroad to an extent. And I guess I can afford to be pompous till the schedule at Wharton hits me like a ton of bricks:)
Academic session starts on the 1st August and I should have been excited at the huge opportunity that Wharton will provide but the lazy, shameless me is just focusing on the 1 month up ahead. Some travel is also on the cards including a drive up to Gangotri but mostly I’ll hunker down at home with parents and focus on spending some quality time with them and tank up on home food. Paperwork and processing for the Wharton admission and the student visa go on smoothly in the background while I put my feet up and……..relax.
The summers are finally on their way out and monsoons are edging their way in and it wouldn’t be a day sooner! Summers in India are mostly tortuous and one time when you suddenly become thankful for AC offices :-).
And to think that during college days, I would regularly choose summer as my favorite weather because one could move around unencumbered by heavy clothes or umbrellas!! Our classes never had any air-conditioning and the fan could only occasionally be prodded into churning along a few recalcitrant gusts of hot air. I am quite surprised that we never felt the overpowering heat or got a sunstroke those days despite lolling for days after days out in the college grounds, hogging on the delectable samosas or chole bhature from the college canteen. The summer holidays were used to play outdoors while at school and later on in college to slip back to the campus under the guise of ‘extra-curricular’ activities.
A quick recap of what I've been going through since May:
Stupid decision-makers
I never cease to be surprised how sometimes incredibly stupid people manage to reach positions from where they can cause a lot of harm to businesses they’re supposed to be promoting.
Some people surprise with their indecision and those are the ones you can often work around – because their managerial skills lie in passing the buck and then agreeing with everyone else on the table.
Others promise you the moon but consistently fail to deliver, postponing things to Fridays in perpetuity. These are also easy to negotiate around because they often don’t know what they’re talking about and can easily be convinced by mouthing a few technicalities. Once you’ve figured that they’re never going to deliver, you can plan your own schedules accordingly.
Yet others irritate with their ‘cheerleading’ act – having no experience of a situation, they latch on like a leech to the nearest impressive-sounding person, pick up on their ideas and jump cartwheels around every effort trying to make a point which was best not made. They’ve probably read Dale Carnegie from cover to cover thrice and are really trying to win, impress and influence by summarizing whatever was said, agreeing with everything and then presenting their own contrarian (and extremely impractical and stupid) viewpoints – very American but also very very irritating. Talking to such people is often when I’m tempted to rekindle my college days and do an Obelix-slap routine, mouthing the choicest gaalis.
Amazing teams
I spent most of May in Chennai, working with an amazing team that gelled really well together. We bonded over a healthy disregard for some people of the above kinds who unfortunately had the decision-making authority temporarily. Within a few days however, we also bonded over the fact that we worked really well as a team, had different areas of strengths and could share a joke. After three years of going more or less solo, I really enjoyed working in a team and the easy camaraderie that was evoked.
And yes, I quite enjoyed being in Chennai for most of May – this was aided to a large extent by the team and the hotel gym, pool and sauna that I serendipitously discovered while prowling around after work. Ok, the dinner buffet was great too. Chennai as a place also seemed to be fairly OK, the auto drivers not the thieving pricks they appear at first glance (yeah, the rates charged are standardized and not really arbitrary, although they’re well above the national standards) and the people generally friendly. So that really finishes off a topic of dinner-table conversation – yes, people who don’t live in Chennai actually bond over Chennai bashing when they run out of all other topics:)
Leaving Bombay
Three years and one month after I first came to Bombay, I’m leaving. Leaving the city, leaving my job and leaving behind some really good friends that I’ve made since I came here. And I’m a little sad at leaving all of these.
Bombay, despite all my protestations to the contrary has grown on me and it was when I was watching ‘Life in a Metro’ that it struck that I’ll miss Bombay a lot, especially its monsoons. I could never get used to many aspects of Bombay – the local trains, pathetic infrastructure and a poor quality of life amongst many, but I have come to love what the city stands for – perpetual and dynamic motion, freedom, enterprise, multi-ethnicity and a can-do attitude of the people on the streets. I loved the heritage buildings and the charm they lent to the city, the various regional cuisines available and the truly cosmopolitan, all-encompassing culture at least in the part of the town that I lived in.
All said and done, Bombay remains a place where I discovered myself and really grew up in. I came here at the age of 26 more or less clueless about my long-term future and just driven by the lure of a significantly better-sounding work profile and more money. I stayed in a place which has to be the smallest and the costliest that I’ve ever lived in. But the three years here have been full of inward introspecting, growing, forming lifelong bonds and discarding some pestilential ones. I tend to attribute the lack of adequate living space to a lot of the personal growth I underwent (hehe, I spent less time pottering around) – or maybe it is just something that happens as you add years to your age…who knows.
While I’m definitely happy at my status of being unemployed starting 1st June 2007, I knew that this was one job that I was going to miss. Starting a company from just an idea in the air, going through the rigmarole of getting investors on board, coordinating between shareholders and lawyers in three different time-zones and goose-stepping through the political and regulatory minefield and a fast-changing business scenario to successfully incorporate an investment bank was not something that I had thought would ever be easy, but definitely proved to be much tougher than I had thought.
The job was more of general management and less of finance and can form a classic case study on how to incorporate a company with large shareholders with uber-vested interests. So effectively this was my baby that I had to leave behind and it was a tough decision especially with all the carrots dangled to prevent me from leaving. I can never put in words the pride I felt when I finally saw the incorporation documents and will really look forward to tracking the company’s progress over time, hoping to boast later about having set up a wildly successful investment bank.
Friends formed a large part of the growing up process I experienced here. Different people with very different aspirations and careers meant that I learnt much more about many more worlds than just my own. Most of my previous friendships had a common base to them – a school, college, job or an institution. In Bombay, new friendships made us form many common bases to stand upon – board games, movies, long drives, weekend trips and stray animals were some of the passions we discovered along the way after we had formed friendships. It has been a pleasure to see these people evolve in their own worlds and I know these relationships will endure as strongly as the ones formed previously. I know every time I come to Bombay, I will always view the Barista at Regal with a tinge of nostalgia and ownership after having spent countless hours till the wee hours in the morning playing board games and generally yakking away. Having FBP as a friend meant that we saw every movie that was released by the time the weekend was over – I know I can not keep up with that pace we set over the weekends all by myself but also know that I can never live a weekend without at least one movie. Sundays with Abodh of late were full of this feeling of anticipation about meeting the dogs on the street that you'd really grown to love.
My last few days in Bombay were hectic. I had given sufficient notice to leave my job on the 31st May but a monthful of Chennai meant that all the wrapping up in Bombay had to be done in a tearing hurry. I thought it would never end, the process of wrapping up, but here I am, gainlessly unemployed and really happy at getting some serious R&R over the next one month.
I have been working almost continuously for the last six years after college – there was a gap of 4 days between wrapping up at college and joining my first job in 2001. Then there was a gap of 1 day between my first and second jobs in 2004. This period of two months at home and traveling is something I’m really going to cherish – no hurry to check emails, no compulsion to be by the phone all the time, no worrying about targets or company bottom lines and investor ROIs.
Where next?
Six years after getting an MBA and working almost non-stop, I decided to follow in Shikha's footsteps and go back to school. I’m joining Wharton for the two-year MBA. Philadelphia I’ve heard is a lovely city atleast in the summer and for most of fall and spring. So I guess I’m going to be in a great place for the next two years with some amazing people. It has been made easier by the fact that I’ve been awarded a nice, fat Wharton Emerging Economy merit fellowship. So that takes care of the cost of an MBA abroad to an extent. And I guess I can afford to be pompous till the schedule at Wharton hits me like a ton of bricks:)
Academic session starts on the 1st August and I should have been excited at the huge opportunity that Wharton will provide but the lazy, shameless me is just focusing on the 1 month up ahead. Some travel is also on the cards including a drive up to Gangotri but mostly I’ll hunker down at home with parents and focus on spending some quality time with them and tank up on home food. Paperwork and processing for the Wharton admission and the student visa go on smoothly in the background while I put my feet up and……..relax.
This was a shoot for hot-stone therapy in a Spa in Bombay - one of those 'look but dont touch' shoots...lol
10 comments:
hey man...it was great fun working with you too. Actually those have been my best days working in microfinance too. You go to Wharton, work for some investment bank or something and hire me on your team with a six figure US $ salary. In return, we will run the newyork marathon together in sub 4:00...deal? Btw my new thing is to tell everyone i know " you owe me a beer!!!" just to cut down on beer costs....hahhaha
Congrats again, pal! And hope to see you soon!
WOW! Congrats!! Looking forward to loads of pics n posts on your life in Philadelphia :)
great going dude :) this post was well worth the wait! all the best!
and you were in chennai for a month. hmmm...
hmm . so finally you have penned some very good things about my Bombay. That puts our Delhi vs Bombay debate to rest. Bombay is going to miss you too and may you come back asap.
Best Wishes
:)
Shumit: make sure YOU have a job ready for me when I come back from Wharton, heh:)
Wanderstruck: thanks, I'll be quite close to where you are, so yeah, hope to see you soon!
tg: thanks:) yeah the cam's going with me:-D, though after a month of holidaying, am not sure if i want to go at all!!
wooster: thanks:)...yeah was in Chennai for a mth...but was under the impression that you were in London?!
Abodh: :-) haha, I always had good things to say about Bombay, its just that Delhi is better:-P I'll miss Bombay a lot, though, and thanks in part to you all!! Yeah, look forward to cmg back too!
Nitin: thanks:)
AND TG, COME BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wharton! not bad!!! Am sure you'll have a blast being back at school, and of course, make pots of money thereafter :)
Anuja: am not sure about those pots - and ideally I'd like to retire immdtly after graduating:) but yeah, I think 2 years will be a blast for sure!
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