Raman's Blog

Usually I do not bother much about the news on my blog. But looking at the scale of devestation and loss of human lives caused by Tsunami, its just so heart-wrenching. I pray for all the people and families affected by this large scale natural disaster.

From last week onwards I have been shifted to a new project and now I have to commute for abt 1 hour each way. Earlier I was so clsoe to office that I used to walk also timings were very flexible and workload was quite less. But apart from commuting , workload is also full and pretty much there is no flexible timing. So my two years peace has been broken.

So far I am coping fine with the nightmares of this new project. We are also considering to move out from our current rented apartment and move near my new project location. Till we shift to the new place I am working out some car-pooling arrangement.

There was call from India and my father had a relapse of chest-pain, 6 years after he had gone thru heart by-pass surgery. I spoke to him and my brother about it over the week-end. Again my nostalgic feelings were triggered and I felt like leaving US and going back to India for good. I am still having confusion about whether to make US as final settlement place or go back to India.
I spoke to my friend A who was planning to go back to India but now plans to postpone it for some time as he wants to spend a year in Europe and then go back to India for good after covering his world tour.

Otherwise thinks are going fine. I am also getting quite active in writing my Hindi blog.

Though its a pretty old book but I read it recently only after my oh-not-so-good experience with quixtar/bww.

It is a very sophisticated , subtle and detailed account of problems within the amway and its related organization. We left the bww/quixtar during our first year itself so we did not get a first hand view of what goes at leadership or slighlty higher-up levels. Since author has a very extensive and long experience with Amway, book successfully exposes even the most minute and most subtle problems within Amway. Some of these are not so obvious to the newbie ibo's or prospects.

Book covers both the micro and macro level happenings. At the obvious level things like day to day activities , mechanics , prospecting etc. are covered. At a more subtle level things like cultish activities , systematic manipulation and parsitical nature of earnings etc. are covered well. Book is written in very readable style and is also filled with some humoristic, insightful and very subtle and mature observations.

Overall I would strongly recommend this book to anyone interested in knowing about Amway/ Quixtar and its related entities.

I was quite depressed yesterday from afternoon onwards. I beleive following are the reasons for this depression.

- I had started a mild dose of anti-depressants for last 3-4 days this might have caused it
- In my current job my interaction with people has reduced significantly which seems to have caused aloofness.
- In my current job workload has reduced significantly which means I have a lot of free time which is causing depression sometimes.
- Being new in US , our socialisation is limited which also might have increased the trouble.

Anyway I am feeling alot better now.

When I was a teen-ager growing up in a small sleepy town in UP, I had a romantic notion about bombay. Whenever Bombay's name used to come, there used to be a special smile on my face. During my engineering I chose bombay as the location for my summer training and immediately after completing my engineering I landed in bombay. After my initial struggle, which lasted for about 6 months I landed with a good job with accomodation from day one. Thus started my initial honeymoon with Bombay. I can describe my initial romantic affair with following verse

न जाने क्या बात है , बम्बई तेरे शबिस्तां में
कि हम शामे-अवध और सुबहे-बनारस छोड़ के चले आये

( I don't know what attracted me to your bed-chamber Bombay,
that I left the evening's of Awadh and the mornings of Benaras to come to you )

As I spent 3-4 years in bombay slowly my dream went sour and I started hating bombay for all that crowd , filth , pollution , human degradation , money hungry people , crime etc. Even though I hate bombay now, a part of me still feels some kind of a special attachment to it, its almost like your first romatinc affair which you can never forget.

Initially i faced struggle for six months for getting a job and a shelter in my dream city.I was staying at one of my relatives' apartment quite far from bombay and used to take daily commuting trains. Initially train commuting used to feel like a thrill with Bhajan singing people, people playing cards when there is no space even for standing , people reading newspapers or solving crosswords etc. But eventually very thought of riding in a local train used to scare me to death.

In the book suketu has covered his various encounters with people from different walks of life and parallely described his own years spent in bombay. Book successfully protrays a very correct view of bombay full of criminals , dance-bar girls , film people , police , businessmen and everyday people. It might be an eye-opener for even many long time residents since many of them wont be aware of various different things which bombay means to various different people. Certainly there is no such thing as one bombay. Within a bombay there are various different bombay coexiting with each other and sometimes one not realising the presence of another.

There are several interesting people's stories in the book for example Bar Dancer girl Honey who is actually a happily married male. Encouters with gangsters and sharp-shooters of Dawood's and other gangs are very daring efforts by Suketu. Book is filled with very lively true stories.

Overall a very readable and highly recommended book for anyone interested in knowing about bombay or Mumbai.

Every now and then this question is being discussed in my household. My wife , near and dear ones all want to come back to India. I am the only one who seems to prefer to remain here though sometimes I am not sure what exactly do I prefer. Somehow I am not getting a clarity of thinking about which way to go.

I came to US for some awkward reason. Not the usual reasons like greener pasteurs , land of opportunity , more money etc. It was mainly because my health was not feeling well so i thought it will be tough for me in india hence i decided for remaining abroad for long time. Also I am missing the colorful and chaotic life of India. Things in US are bit too simplified and organised. Also none of my relatives live here so we kind of feel nostalgic about back home.

Since my health has started improving, I am feeling more and more confident about going back to India. Also in the meanwhile things in India have transformed dramatically with all the job growth and economic growth. So at this stage odds are becoming higher about my going back to India. In any case within next 1 or 2 years I am going to make a final settlement either in US or in India.

I have been thinking about my relationship with L. He is almost 9 yrs junior to me in work. I was respponsible for their training and initial grooming at work in india then I had come to US. He had also come here sometime back. He is a very good tennis player so about 2-3 months back I had also started playing with me. But his tennis level is abt 5 whereas mine is abt 3. Initially he was quite enthusiatic to coach and help me in learning tennis. But now he avoids me. Now I have managed to find some new people as my tennis partners but I was kind of taken aback by his u-turn.

I can understand that because of our level gap we can not play much together but I was thinking that we can play atleast once in a week. Also I found that because of our age gap it was it was becoming an asymmetric relationship wherein I was able to say everything openly and frankly but he was not telling his thoughts to me frankly. Because of this asymmetry I have decided that I will not be calling him much since this does not seem to be a two-way equal or symmetrical relationship. I will leave it to him to come to me and tell whatever he wants.

L is generally a nice guy so I am sure he does not have any mean intentions. So I will still considers him as good and nice acquaitance and we will generally be nice to each other.