Ginger & Cardamom

On The Job: Alternate Careers

The other day I was watching one of the TV shows on M-TV. The show is called “On The Job”. It’s a very fresh concept and with a very different perspective. The show concentrates on the alternate careers. In this show people every week there is a alternate career in focus, something like a product designer, choreographer, DJ, VJ, radio jockey, bartender or a stylist. People are screened in the top 3 make it to the screen where they are provided with the setup and facilities and made to do tasks which they need to do on the job. During the course of the show it provides ample information for people who are planning to pursue the alternate career of the week. Finally the winner of the show who does the given job best gets a chance to be an intern with one of the best names in the career in focus.

First time in India, the alternate careers are being focused by such a mass media. One of the greatest problem with the people who are willing to follow alternate career paths is the resistance from the family. Despite all the cosmopolitan culture influencing India, still the mom’s psyche out when a son says he wants to be a bartender or a daughter says that she wants to be a choreographer. Answers like “Kya tum engg ya medicine nahi kar sakte” or “ Complete your degree from here and do an MBA”. This resistance from the families majorly because of two reasons one being lack of information, and the second being the amount of uncertainty associated with alternate careers.

With M-TV bringing the idea of alternate careers right into our living rooms, makes it acceptable that people are willing to join these careers. There has been a plethora of shows which were necessarily talent shows and they primarily concentrate on the talents of people and career opportunity associated with them. First time with “On The Job” a TV show has tried to sneak peak into the world of alternate careers. Focusing not on the talents of the participants but on the career choices people would like to make.

It is a very good opportunity identified by M-TV, as it connects very well with its target audience. Which essentially consist of youth and the cosmopolitan crowd of India. It not only entertains but also gives a very different perspective to the people who actually are looking forward to pursue alternate careers. With all the monotonous monologue on the television, “On The Job” provides a refreshing change.

With or Without You
(Couldn't think of anything else for the title)

The world has stopped, life is dull and slow,
The humans still, the trees silent as seeds were never sowed.
The roads lying speechless all along,
The skylarks are numb without a song

yesterday as beautiful as it could have been,
For me the words and the world she seemed.
My life had all the reasons it had to be,
Every time I opened my eyes, in front was she.

Some little facts my heart refuses to explain,
Her glittery eyes and shiny hair how they released my pain.
What a bliss it was seemed like a boon,
But never understood why it had to end so soon.

The life is empty, loneliness surrounds,
All around is a vacuum, memories profound.
A surreal touch and a loving glance,
A long wait to life another chance.

All off a sudden the folklore of my life,
has lost all it's stories.
Without her I am the sun,
Who has lost its glory.

A Walk Down the Lanes of Yesterday

It has been 7 years when I last walked down that gate, and thought I would never return back. Have rushed across the familiar building a zillion but didn’t ever felt like strolling through those corridors. After seven years here I decided to go to the same building where I started my life. Almost a quarter of century and a journey where I have reached an end of being a student. I believe that I started my career from PCVN, because I really don’t remember anything much from my former school where I did my education till class III except for some people who joined with me to PCVN and one Mansi Khare (which my mom and dad will keep praising because of her good hand writing).

It was so nostalgic to walk in there, walk in those corridors, and classrooms where I have grown up got my education. The place which introduced me to computers, books and above all my friends which are still with me. I couldn’t believe when people say that I have changed a lot, my teachers could still recognize me. My class teacher from the eighth and ninth grade still remembered me and also remembered how I used to carry those diskettes with me all the time (p.s. CD ROM were not into fashion at that time and I used 3.5” floppies to carry my data). The librarian whom we used to call library ma’am was still there and told me that how she always knew that I used to bunk library classes to go and sit in computer lab. My English teacher was still as stylo and arrogant as she always used to be. Things had changed, lots of faces were new, and the ones which were not the age showed on them. Life changes a lot of things, when I walked through those corridors they were so familiar the grey stone and the red brick wall. The wall magazines of the houses placed towards the right. But none of the faces seemed familiar, I was just wondering the people who would be passing out now would have been fifth graders when I used to be in school.

It was so good when I saw genuine smiles on faces of people who had taught me when I was a kid. Such feelings and compassion hard to find in the professional world, when people celebrate your life and trivial achievement with pride not with just a passing smile. The 2 hours which I spent in the school were few of the best times of my vacation. No matter where I go and what I do I will always remember PCVN.

World War III

I am sure you people would have been shocked by the title, but I was checking my spam folder one of these days to delete all the Crap I get. I read the titles of some of the spam messages. Actually its sometimes so funny and all the subject lines suggested me only one thing that the third world war had begun and unknowingly I or if not me then at least my mail box has been a party to it.
I am just writing this to tell the world that i have nothing to do with any missiles, aircrafts and satelites that have been talked about in all those spam mails. More so about the attack on the Supreme Court and the terrorist. I have read the news of Saddam Hussain being hung to death and I believe the media, and I have nothing to do if he is still alive. I mean I didnt even opened these mails.

Its so ridiculous to have such mails in ur mailbox as spam. IThey really expect someone sane who would open mails like these. Spammers at least you can think of better subject lines. Best of luck next time!!!

Current Song: Let it be- The Beatles (Real words of Wisdom)

I know I have been either too lazy or too busy for past few days to contribute anything to my little space in this virtual universe. Now that I am back, and yes I am amused and I am angry. Actually I am unable to decide that what reaction is more suitable for the occasion. The Google Analytics shows me that I have been getting hits on my blog despite it not being updated frequently, and these hits are coming directed from searches on Google. It is quite relaxing to know that Google is aware of my miniscule existence, but the greater matter of my amusement and concern are the keywords that are directing users towards my blog are-

1- Infosys girls pics

2- SIBM sexy girls

I mean, please I haven’t even joined Infosys and I hardly know anybody from Infosys. I agree that I made a community for the new management recruits there, and I know a couple of girls from that, but for heaven’s sake I don’t posses any pictures. Nor do I have any intention of posting them and converting my decent little blog into a official infosys girl watching center. But it sounds like a good idea, may be I can make money through adsense. :-)

Anyways adieu till next post….

Current music track: Ya Rabba (Very Nice Song)

Terra Incognita

It has been a month now since the news has been out and I have been told that I will be spending some next few years, months and days of my life with Infosys Technologies. Since then, something has changed. A lot of thoughts are flowing around in the empty space above my neck casually referred to as head. It’s going to be a new place, new people, new environment, new expectation everything new. All that’s going to be old is may be a quarter of century antique me. There are so many questions propping all over, that the world seems to be hazed out. It was so easy few days back, when all I wanted to do was to reach where I am. But now over a month, the world is unclear, which I thought was my goal is just an intermittent destination and I don’t know where I will be going henceforth. Till here the journey was so far so good the terrain was familiar, and the feet were held strong. But what about the land ahead, is it a swamp which will swallow me completely with nothing left of my antiquity, or will there be a strong wind that will blow me away. Will the sunshine in the east, will the moon still shine or the seasons would stop. It is like passing through a gate where you do not know what lies ahead, but you also know that once you enter there are no comebacks.

I have always been surprised by the ability of life to bring new and still new surprises for me. Sometimes pleasant while other times not so pleasant. There are a lot of questions which are standing straight in front of me. The only answer to them is to live them with the time. The only way I have ever won from being surprised by the life was giving her back surprises in a bigger and better way. All I can feel from my gut, there is going to be a competition between me and life and its going to be array of surprises and an era of unpredictability for the next few years. All I can say to life is let the best between two win……. Adieu till the next post.

Education & Courage

When I look forward to the issues and really think about it, education seems to be one of the biggest ironies of the life of my friend. Actually not only she but I am sure there would be hundred of other women who would be under going the same thing for lack of courage and independence in social structure and may be men too. One of the better students in the country, an engineer from a fairly good institute and an MBA from a renounced Institute in her profile. She after all this knows what is good for her and what she wants out of life. 24 years of life with 6 years of a technical and professional education has given her a lot of perspectives about life. With roots descending to an unknown village in Uttar Pradesh, she has seen a lot of life and is very competitive in all spheres of life.

I always believed education could bring changes in people that made them great as they were but I guess I was wrong when I see her plight. Despite knowing what is good for her, what she wants out of life. She will start making compromises in her life, for her orthodox family has never heard of a women who can have her own will in the family. So how can she be spared? Is it not the Males who spent most of life in that village know how she should spend her life, they already know what is good for her. If she doesn’t agrees may be she can be killed, or her mother for that matter. Does it makes a difference? Can education help u save from the bullet or a give you courage to stand against one. I think her mother did really a good job to make sure that she studies so hard and go high above all expectation, but she really forgot to teach her to stand for what she thought was right.

The interesting fact is that all her education has made her plight more unbearable, a girl who has probably never seen a school will never be able to sure what was right for her and what was not. But girls like these will always know that what is happening to them, what has happened to them is wrong and they will live with it all their life. They will do what the males of the family wanted them to do and at the end may be tell their daughters too that they should follow the same league. Was all that education able to brought a change? Wasn’t one of the finest minds in the country is going to be wasted, and deprived a right of choice? Does she actually have a say in her own life or family? There can not be a more waste of education than this for the lack of courage. I have no answers to these questions to help my friend. But I wish the only solution is a pinch of courage, to sit down and listen and then stand up and say that I am what I am and I know how to handle my life and I need to take charge, and my Time is NOW!!! There are scary thoughts when I think of this, but it is still better than a life suffering and living like hell for rest of her life agonizing every minute for the single minute when she had a choice to stand up.