“Stuff your eyes with wonder, live as if you’d drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It’s more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.” – Ray Bradbury
Good Morning. Finally the spree of having Hyderabadi Biryani gets over today! Yes, this is my last day in Hyderabad. Today evening I shall start to Bangalore where I am supposed to report to my office on Monday.
Looking back at my three and a half year stint in Hyderabad, I must say, the days had been wonderfully memorable. These years in my book have seen good work, amazingly great colleagues, reunion of old pals, numerous parties, and what not.
On the personal front, it was a distinct pleasure. Marriages of my beautiful friends in Hyderabad, Vishakhapatnam, Aurangabad and my home town Nanded a number of times were wonderful journey for me. Many good news post-marriage followed, needless to say . Many tours with friends and colleagues (memorable more for the Popats) have been equally remarkable.
Most importantly, the additions in my friend list is the highest valued thing I take from Hyderabad. Selfless, Laudable friends is perhaps the biggest achievement I consider in one’s lifetime. There is lots more to write, shorter is the time. So here I thank everyone associated with me, for even a shortest period of time, who were selfless with me. Good Bye Hyderabad. Keep in touch. With Love, Ajay.
Some of my friends are aspiring Team Leads in near times. Many of them say, “Ajay, what one should have, to be a good team leader?” And we discuss this over many times to bring out something. Of course, there is no one-fits-to-all solution to this quest, below is what I think is what makes a great leader great.
Experience and Expertise I believe, a good leader has substantial amount of experience in the domain his team works. For experience unfolds the intricacies of the domain and brings an expertise in the person to be a leader.
Empathy
A true leader is always humble in nature. That brings authority automatically. His understanding of and care for his team creates a stronger bond within the team and brings a recognition for both, team and the leader, beyond that team itself.
Vision and Strategy
Being experienced, having seen ups and downs in the organization (which requires a longer commitment with the organization, in my opinion), a good leader has a clear vision and can define a robust strategy to guide his team towards a new horizon. A leader has the volition to decide upon what is good and what is not for the goals of the team.
Growth Oriented Optimism
A leader has that inherent characteristic of sensing an opportunity before anyone else does. And not stopping there, a good leader capitalizes the opportunity by walking hand in hand with each member of the team. This helps every individual grow. That’s what makes a great team great.
Motivation For large and complex tasks at hand, a leader consistently instills motivation into his team members. That ensures that the work reaches the goal and the zeal with which the work started remains till the end.
Conflicts Resolution
Conflicts are bound to occur in a team which is diverse in nature (for diversity is very much required to have a creative environment. Monotony does not create or nourish ideas well). A good leader is very good at managing conflicts without downplaying the values of either of the parties in the fight. Nor he allows any compromise with a single aspect of the goal of the team.
Hi. I just realized one thing while surfing through my blog list. This blog turned 1 year old this October, the 14th. Though for various reasons I could not be consistent on posting articles, hereafter I shall try to be.
I think Saturday Mornings are the best times to write. Holiday gives a good spare time too. Also a good way to utilize time than sleeping till late in the afternoon! What’s more? I find this as one of the best ways to stay connected with you pals. Your feedback and comments are of high value to me.
While reading the newspaper yesterday, I found one more interesting Day-celebration, World Obesity Day, October 24th! It left me wondering about how people solemnize, if that’s the correct word, anything in their life. And that article forced some introspection upon my brain encased in my slightly overweight physique.
And while eating spicy & delicious egg curry in the lunch, I decided to diet from tomorrow, as usual! In such events, I don’t know what happens to my resolute decisiveness. It does not take much time for the resolution to get diluted, friends are to blame for that!
I am now, here in Hyderabad for only few more weeks. My friends know that. As the sun said good bye for the day, my friends wanted me to make chicken for dinner! My friends call me as the best cook among the circle. And I'd dare say, the Chicken curry I do, especially, is famous globally!
Thanks to myself, the plan was decided to be executed from TOMORROW! Albeit relived, 8 hours after the resolution, I picked up a leg-piece from the curry.
Life is like that. After all, Tomorrow Never Dies!
“How early do you reach the railway station to catch a train?” could be a curious question. I have some more! “How long have you waited for a train?”. Not good enough. Here’s one more. “Have you ever tried to sleep on a bench at a railway station’s platform to kill time?”
My last journey from Nanded to Hyderabad made us wait for 5 hours! Would you believe it? The delay for the special train from Akola to Tirupati was announced to bea of 2 and half hours and turned out to be double of that.
After learning about the delay, some clever heads caught another available train. Some nappers (including me & my friend Vishal) tried to find a peaceful (!), fan-over-the-head(!!) and clean (!!!) place to rest the spinal cord and some even succeeded at it (I could not, for, one, I don’t like full lights and second, mosquitoes singing full-on while I sleep). The wait for a train perhaps teaches you more than the journey itself. This wait taught me how to kill time by counting number of bogies of a goods train. Some Railway officials also showed how water is supplied to a train and how a bogie is connected to an engine, with a practical demonstration. Hands-on was avoided only for the reason of lack of energy!
Later half of the story saw some “lost and found” happiness & conversation of few people who apparently were colleagues of each other. Some sweet exchange of words with the railway manager was done. Some clever brains who didn’t catch the earlier train now found another train to Hyderabad and went by that train, by general class. I and Vishal did not dare take it; 6 hours journey, sitting on a wooden bench, starting at 3:40 AM. Don’t imagine in the wildest of dreams.
Climax of the journey began with the arrival of special Train in Nanded station at 4:00 AM (5:15 AM was, supposedly, its arrival time in Hyderabad). And happily, station after station, waiting for signals, blowing hardest whistle it could, finally, the special train reached Hyderabad at 9:45 in the morning.
On the spot I took a decision. Hereafter I’ll be faithful to the generic 563 and 564 (numbers of the trains which we Nanded-Hyderabad regulars take). Earlier also, I was in the soup while boarding one such special train (Krishna Express – Mudkhed- Secunderabad – 12:40 AM). Perhaps it was the curses by 563-564 which gave me strange experiences whenever I took another, special train.
And we experience the same, seemingly comic, yet very serious delays in train schedules, only to expose the casual behavior of the System.
Yes…. I have decided to buy a Lappie now. This thing has been lingering around in my mind from a long time. My 3 year old Desktop is fast becoming rusty. It is not that it is no more useful to me. I still use it a lot. It has well supported my Linux based work and somehow pulls a little Symbian stuff on Windows too, thanks to the new motherboard and RAM.
Yet I want to buy a laptop for the reason I travel home frequently. And it has occurred to me a number of times that I find myself stupidly helpless. Here is an idea that will be very effective in office or here is a new plan that will change the course of the task, here is the program that shall do great, How the hell do I translate, my ephemeral, brainy, creative thought into something I shall be able to use and reproduce the next morning? I run around, helpless, for finding a pen and piece of paper to jot down the idea. And in the effort to do so, my voltage in the brain neurons go down and that, ought to be effective, great idea is erased from the memory cells! And you don’t want to be in such situation time and again.
Now looking at the current personal financial conditions and the market situation, I do not want to shell out more than 30K for my maiden Notebook. Actually, the market situation has nothing to do about my thought. And current personal financial conditions is little glorified, my current pocket and bills payment is the matter of the fact.
And yet, with that budget, I still have some insistence on some of my specs about the Notebook I want. For example, the screen should be minimum of 14 inches(TFT, LCD or LED type of screen, does not matter). In other specs 2 GB RAM, any amount of HDD is okay, Intel or AMD does not matter, Mac not needed (as I’m not familiar with Mac, do not want to waste time in struggling with the menus to put in my invaluable (ought to be) thoughts.
While doing the survey another confusing cat appeared out of the bag. That is a Netbook. But looking at all available brands and their hardware specs I’m hardly willing to for a 10.1’’ screen Netbook.
Another important thing is that I’m ready to buy a used Laptop also (in working condition, not older than 2 years). This will save me some bucks. Anybody in Hyderabad, Pune or Bangalore has one such good machine can contact me on +91-9885911832 or write to me at ajay.sontakke@yahoo.com .
All right, that is that. I would like you to share your ideas and suggestions on this whole issue. You know after all, An Idea can change your life! (my pals with Idea cellular shall smile on this idea :-)).
बरेच दिवस मनात होतं की मराठी लिहून पहाव . संधी आणि वेळ दोन्ही ज़रा कमीच मिळतात आज काल . आज ज़रा कामामधून फुरसत मिळाली. आज शनिवार. उद्या विनायक चतुर्थी, गणेशोत्सवाची सुरूवात.
बाजारही जागा प्रत्येकसनाची जणूसाक्षीदारअसते, कुठलाही सण असू दे, चार दिवस आधीपासून बाजार त्या त्या सणामध्ये लागनाऱ्या वस्तूंनी सजलेला. आणि गणेश उत्सवाचे तर विचारूच नका. सुंदर, सुबक नक्षीकाम केलेल्या असंख्य मूर्ती बघतांना मन हरखून ज़ात. मूर्ती, तोरण, दूर्वा, नारळ, केळीची पाने, आणि सजावटीचे रंगी-बेरंगी सामान बघताना काय मजा येते।
चला बाकी नंतर. I'm not good at typing Marathi with good speed। It is taking too much time to get the correct word. I also have to go and prepare for the celebration tomorrow.
Be it true or not with other matters, it turned out true, literally, with rains here yesterday. It hadn't rained here in last two months. Clouds hovering over the heads I and my colleague went out 36 kms away from office. What a long drive! Pleasant weather, nice road, huge traffic on most of the part!
Having done the work we reached office, back at around 5:30 in the evening. 6 in the wall clock and my colleagues started saying goodbyes! Not having checked mails, I decided to stay back and thought of leaving after 15-20 minutes. Little hungry, thought of having some snacks at the corner of the road. And as I was packing up for the day, it started! The rains yesterday as I remember have come after almost 2 months. And it started so heavily, don't ask! Clouds from my office window looked jet black, dark outside as if it was 7:30 or so! Deafening loud sound of the clouds, and flashing lightening continued and gave a hint of what was going to be a 3 hour long wait in the office!
Yes, waiting for rains to stop, I and two of my team mates, a security guard in the office sat down patiently, each one of us going to the window, checking for the status time and again. But His intention was different this time. What can be called a 'drought like situation' was turning into a flood out here. I did not dare to see a 3 feet high water logged on the roads, making it impossible for any vehicle to move (as my friend, stuck up on a road reported!).
Clock ticked 8 O'clock and hunger started sneaking up, and energy lever dipping down!Made a call to a friends had a long talk, 52 minutes precisely, to kill time. Finally, when voice went down such that what I spoke was perhaps audible to myself only, I decided to hang up the phone.By then my colleagues went had done a outdoor survey of possibility of going on road! When they came back, one of them said that we would have to spend night in the office itself and also better we order some food from McDonalds or Dominos. Given the tiredness I have had, I refused the idea and asked them to wait.
And then came a time when it stopped pouring and the mercy of the lord converted the rains into a drizzle. I took out my much raincoat, which I bought last year but did not ever use. Usually, You carry an umbrella everyday fearing the rain-god but never rains, and the day you forget it, you get drenched! Fortunately yesterday I was carrying my raincoat. I was glad to pull it out from the bag wore it over my new clothes. Making sure that my wallet and watch are under cover, I and my colleague finally logged out of office at 9:20 pm. The climate outside was pretty pleasant. Riding the bike, the droplets hitting the face through the helmet were amazingly soothing for me. Thinking of what's in the box for tomorrow, reached home in 40 minutes. :)
This is not new, but should be helpful for the readers.
As they say, Precaution & Prevention is always better than cure.
Wash your hands frequently, with soap. To make it most effective, rub the soap lather for 20-30 seconds
Avoid touching places like door knobs, railing on an escalator etc and wash hands after touching them
Avoid touching your nose, eyes or mouth as these are the ways virus might infect you
Avoid hand-shakes
Avoid crowded or public places like bus-stops, stations, malls etc
Eat healthy – more vegetables, fruits, protein rich food
Sleep well- 8 hours a day to rest your body appropriately
Avoid long journeys / laborious physical work
Avoid travel to cities which are hit badly by the virus, like Pune, Mumbai, Chennai, Ahmedabad. If needed, use masks.Stay home as much as possible. Weekends need not be celebrated by outing
Test Centre for Swine Flu in Hyderabad is located at
Govt. General and Chest Diseases Hospital,
Erragadda,
Hyderabad,
Andhra Pradesh
040-23814939
Contact Person: Dr. Prasad, Ph: 9849902995
Another piece of information I found while talking to the doctor mentioned above is that the masks used for prevention are available at surgical shops in the city. Also he informed me that when you buy a mask, ask for 3 layered mask. That is the best one recommended.
Click here to find Test centers for swine flu in India
Click here to find medical & surgical shops in Hyderabad (24 x 7 category).
Nope! I’m not talking about the overly fantasized Time Machine! Here is a website that maintains archive of all websites since their first appearance. Wow! This site provides you a search engine –The Way back Machine, to enter URL of a website and then gets you a huge database of all the achieved links from the website’s birth. Interesting, I searched for TOI, Intel etc, and it was real good and neat stuff.
Typically Way Back Machine can be used to 1.Find out the age of a website 2.Find the old URL 3.See the changes done by website’s owner for branding & various other purposes 4.Have fun, read the stuff which you could not read years back! Enjoy Madi.
“Change is the only constant thing in this world, change yourself, now!” was the quote hung up on a wall, in a friend’s house. How true it is! Many are afraid of change because they fear the unknown. They do not follow their heart for the fear of the failure, for the fear of drowning themselves into misery and pain, for the fear of losing what they have earned so far, material, educational, monetary, spiritual et al.
Some do not have the courage to change. Sometimes you get the courage to do a thing before you do it, sometimes you get it after doing the thing. So, why fear the unknown, go for it. There is no reason one should not follow his heart and chase the dream. Keep changing. Change is the only constant thing in this world.
Summer & Wedding season is really on the top of everything else in Maharashtra. Yesterday, there was a wedding of my colleague friend in Basar, near Nizamabad. I had gone home on Saturday itself as Basar is 100 kms from there. Usually when I go home on weekends I cook food for me and my father. To be precise I cook some non-veg dish and mother makes the Rotis and Rice! So this Saturday was no exception and I ended up adding some 100 grams, at least, to my current, slightly more-than-normal weight. Having filled the stomach to the fullest & deprived of sound sleep in the journey earlier night, sleep was the order of Saturday.
And Sunday was more than animated for me.
8 AM : My Sun rose & without caring much of the train timings took my own time to groom up.
9 AM:reached the station “aaram sey” only to find that the departure time of the available train (Mumbai – Hyderabad) was 8:45 AM. Despaired me, just walked to the enquiry to check next available train & surprisingly (or not so) the 8:45 train was late by half an hour. I sprang back to the ticket queue.
10 AM: Train arrived. Larger than Life crowd. I hated. What had been the dream of having a ‘suitable’ seat, turned into a walk from engine to the rear end to ‘just find a seat’! Finally hit into one of the sleeper coaches. To my luck, an old man offered a seat from his half-already-occupied berth. So nice of the kind man.
11 AM : On the trains going south, I always find Maharashtrian people mistaking me as a South Indian and starting to talk south Indian languages with me (avoid talking in the first place!). And I surprise them with my fluency in my mother tongue. Kind Uncle who did not speak to me for over 45 minutes and was busy talking to his wife on various family issues, finally found me speaking Marathi on phone, admitted his confusion between my look and language! Some sweet exchange of words and the Ticket Checker walked in! Seeing my non-reservation ticket in the Reservation Coach, asked for a fine of Rs.75. Having many co-passengers of my type, I gathered the courage to oppose him. He insisted that I should not continue and should change the coach on the next station. The next station where I was supposed to ‘change the coach’ was Basar itself.
12 PM:In the function hall. Ceremony started. Completed. I left for the Lunch. Known that return train was at 2PM, decided to visit Goddess Saraswati Temple.
1 PM :reached the temple, purchased a coconut, got through the entrance. Surprised to see the emptiness in the temple on a Sunday. Went in through a couple of turns, bare foot, Sun at its unkind hottest. Security cop inside told that “Darshan” is closed between 1 to 2 PM!! Surprised me by this Lunch-time-closed thing, gave my regards & prayers on a closed door and walked out with the un-broken coconut. A couple of clicks on camera, from outside. Back straight to station.
2 PM :Train supposed to arrive at 1:45PM, was announced to be late by 2 hours. Headed to the bus-stop to find a bus. A long wait – no bus!
3 PM – 6 PM: a couple of 15 minutes-each halts at various intermediate stops, couple of times change in the six-seater autos, in the front, besides the driver, then finally a bus (which started from Basar itself!). Harsh Sun in the sky, hot air, dust from the mother earth really filled up my heart (or Lungs rather). Reached home- sweaty, dusty, dirty.
6 PM : went straight into the bath.
P.S.:the evening train to come back to Hyderabad I and Deelip were to catch was late by 2 hours.
P.S. again: However, we two yesterday found a uniquely innovative way to pass the time if the train is late! Can’t mention it here. Know it in person!
