Feel The IBM RiRa

IBM!! One name which I suppose many of us has the fantasy to work with. I feel my self lucky enough to be a part of it. At IBM, it makes sure that its work force has the flame ON to work and maintains the working milieu by conducting Friday-Fun events and other extra curricular activities.
One such event in IBM was The RIRA, and grand 4 day event including Fancy dress competition, Hit the Bulls Eye (Dart Game), Win it in a Minute and the Grand Event.

That's me as a Dracula in Fancy Dress Competition

The event was scheduled and conducted on 13th, 14th, 15th and 16th respectively. I was very excited when I received a mail about the event and seeking for nominations for participating in Dance. Me being a hunter of opportunities would never let this go out of my hands.

Success is all about the Journey, the journey to the Grand event was filled with thrill, excitement, team work, hard work and most importantly fun. We used to practice in post working hours. Though we worked hard, it never felt to be a hard work, practicing late after day long office... or should I say night long office. :D

Our team was a flock of 9 members with 5 beautiful ladies and 4 dynamic boys!!
Leaded by Ranjith an ultra dynamic and dashing personality and not to mention, winner of the Fancy Dress event (Yamunda).

Tatini Dey (Tina), the hyper active lady of the team, capable enough to take over the show single handed. Highly talented dancer and of course, a very fine and down to earth personality.

Rajesh T. the cool dude of the team. He had tough time fetching time out of terrible work schedule. Mr. Cool dude is down to earth personality.

Deepa Srivastav the girl with ultimate attitude, a fantasy girl, young beautiful, adorable and a very friendly girl. A energetic personality with choosy character. A wonderful dance partner.

Priti the cute and bubbly character of the team. She was also in the RIRA organizing team. A very helpful lady, with a  urge to learn.

Abhinav, Aruna and Swetha to name the others. We all worked or to be precise practiced really hard to make the event a grand success.

Here is one of the best performance of the RIRA event, ofcourse performed by our team.

And this is THE BEST performance of the Grand RIRA event 2011. The KOLAVERI DI!!!

(Much more to come yet....)

Cheers! 

My Experience at IBM Till Now

After a tiring yet exciting day of joining, filling mandatory IBM forms and signing terms & conditions and other legal formalities, I was presented with a welcome kit at the end of the day. Regina Baker who was the on-boarding manager helped me a lot and I admire the way she work. One should accept, she has a tough job to do!!

Now, the journey begins, 19-July 2011, my first day at IBM, we had a orientation seminar conducted conducted by Rachel, yet another energetic IBM'er, she initiated the day with what IBM is all about, how IBM works, history of IBM, and not to mention the journey of IBM through the century. Yes, IBM has completed its 100 years in the competitive corporate world.

The day went on with fun and learning activities, learning new things about IBM, tools used in IBM for proficient work.

20th, July, 2011

This day I reached my people manager, Kanchan Chaturvedi, cos I was asked to do so, she roster-ed me for cab, i.e. she updated my name in for the transport facility. And she showed me the way to my training room. From outside the room through a small window on the opaque Glass door, I saw a large conference table and people were smiling at a short height man, with a large beard and a Taqiyah (Muslim cap). I was nervous yet excited; as I entered the room, I came to know that that short guy is our Corporate Communication Trainer, that's not all I came to know a lot more. I was late for the session and there were almost 25 other with me in the training, many new faces, except one, Maria Tabbassum. I met her during the IBM interview.

I started off with a self introduction, was a engaging intro (Well!! at-least I felt it was!) and was asked to make my self comfortable with the team mates. The session began with a energetic intro round. The day ended up with some new friends and a novel like personality Mr. Mohammad Haqqani; a trainer, a new role model, and for me an intellectual. Mr. Haqqani, according to me, is one of the finest trainer one can get trained from, a reservoir of knowledge, and an inspiring personality.

Hence the journey of training, in corporate world this period is know to be "Honeymoon Period". It really was a honeymoon period, it was fun learning. And the day at last came.After a month and a half we have to face THE FINAL ASSESSMENT.
The training room was in a intense mood, everyone were glazing through the final notes, except few.
I was also very nervous, as always the last minute preparations were at a roar around, we were then asked to go to different meeting rooms in the buildings and were asked to wait for the call.

I entered the meeting room, there was a desk and a phone over there. I was nervous didn't wanted to lose the job at this stage, many things were hovering around my brain, I was trying hard to keep myself calm and be focused. Then suddenly, the phone rang, I immediately with tone of confidence attended the call and gave my best shot to. It was mock call by a person having a technical issue with his computer.

After the call ended the person who evaluated my call came in and gave me a feed back.. I was then asked to wait in the training room for the results.

To my surprise, I cleared in the first shot and later that day, I was assigned a project. Hurrray!!!!

12th August 2011, the day on which most of my team mates were destined to different levels, sadly few were aborted from the Ship of IBM.

This was the beginning!!!!

CASTE AND CREED?

I am from an orthodox middle class ‘Brahmin’ family, and there are many situations which force me to question myself, "Why we discriminate ourselves from the other caste?" Which also forced me to think why the casteism and other differentiating shits which divide one human from other?

Endogamous, is a word which I came across while researching about, "when and why casteism and religions were originated?" The word “endogamy” means a community in which the members generally marry within a specific ethnic group, class, or social group. After many arguments with parents and relatives and a bit research I have understood that casteism or religions were never originated but they were evolved.

During the evolution of human race, the brain started developing in many different ways and also made them to compare things; to believe and feel things. One started comparing by strength at first, then by color, then by beliefs and so on… It evolved and evolved and now we are at point where 90% of mankind doesn’t know why we differentiate each other, rather just understanding that we are doing nothing but comparing among ourselves… Especially in India, they believe what they are asked to believe rather thinking why we should believe in things which has built a gap between one human and another human. I believe that God has never been the reason behind the development or origination of any caste or creed. It’s all in the grey matter of our head. God has gifted us with the power to think, to compare, to create and evolve… 

A newborn child starts comparing and understands his ambience by listening voices and sounds, then he open his eyes and compare shapes and people, but he never compares a person by his caste or creed until he is taught to!!! 

We are at a stage where we have stopped comparing through good or bad, right or wrong rather by color, caste, and religion. They say that caste was developed by the profession of a community, but now the situations are totally different. Now, many of so called upper-level community work under, not so well defined, lower community. Now all that doesn't make any sense. 

What I strongly feel is that the only difference between humans and other species is our complexity of thinking; we evolve much rapidly than any other species known till date. We have to evolve our thoughts, our level of understanding from a narrow capillary to a much broader space.

Every human is born with equal dignity and rights; it is you and me who have to make a difference in the ideology of discrimination!!!

USE YOUR POWER OF ‘THINKING’!!!

The above is Caste and Creed PERCEIVED THROUGH MY PERCEPTION.

Weird, Isn't It?

Today was the weirdest day in my life. It’s Wednesday, June 08, 2011, and I woke up early to drop my girl friend to her workplace near Tank Bund and after dropping her; the time was around 10:00 AM, I was walking along the Hussain Sagar Lake. The lake is the most attractive scenic beauty of Hyderabad. As I was walking by there was this mad beggar who was fooling around there and came to me asking me to look in the lake pointing towards a view point. Initially, I just ignored him and walked through, enjoying the lake view, glaring through the beautiful view of the Hussain Sagar.

I just looked over to the point where the beggar was pointing and my eyes popped out after what I saw floating in the water. It was a dead man's body, face turned down!!; floating approximately 6 feet away from the wall of the lake. I was astonished and was just staring at the body for few minutes thinking of what should I do next!!

I immediately called the Police on 100 but the line was busy for a long time. Then I remembered seeing a police van near the Darga which was a 100 yards away from the point. I rapidly approached  the police van, reaching it I found nobody was in and around the van. I looked around and found a Traffic police constable at the Lower Tank Bund crossing and rushed towards him to deliver what I saw. I told him the situation and he just threw it away, as if nothing has happened. He asked me to look around the Darga for a Police Inspector who may help me out. I looked everywhere but couldn’t find anything. 

Then I immediately called 108 Helpline whose response was fast and it instantly connected me to the control room and I was asked to explain the location of the situation. After a 20 minutes or so few police constables came on motorcycles with a local security in-charge. I showed them the body to which they rudely asked me to clear the place and leave. They didn’t wanted anybody nearby. I inquired them when will they pull out the body from the water, as they were not putting any action towards the situation but no answer. I walked away and was watching them from a distance on what these guys would do, but was dumb struck watching their reaction. They did nothing about it!! They stood there for a while and moved on, dispersed, as if nothing has happened. I tried to inquire to one of the constable but their discourteous reaction turned me into thinking whether they are asked to ignore it or something fishy is going on in their head.

I stood there for a while waiting if anyone would come and do something about it at the same time I was trying to call my girl friend to tell her this thrilling situation. But she was not responding to my calls, must be busy with her work. Then I called my best friend to narrate the situation and asked him some advise; he suggested me to move out of there and don’t put my head in it...

He was concerned about, me not getting fussed up with the police prosecution. He was worried if they would halt me with them asking me to be a witness and fix me up with the situation. I did what he asked me to do, thinking that I have done my bit of the social responsibility. I moved forward and saw a local security guard, I was enthusiast to tell him the situation. He was on a call, and I didn’t hesitated disturbing him at that point of time. I told him about the dead body to which he promptly replied, that he knew about it and he has also informed the authorities, I was shocked and enquired him that “when they are planning to take out the body out of the water?”, “how much time does it take to bring a dead body out of the water?”. To which he replied that we can’t bring out the body now as it will chock the traffic here. That was a clear escape of that security personnel from his responsibilities or he was ordered to do so.

                                    Above photograph is taken from my mobile phone

The situation was getting murkier; I wanted to involve media, but unfortunately couldn’t contact them. Then I thought of just moving on!!

Again at around 3030 to 4000 hrs I returned to pick up my girl friend and just to quench my anxiety about the situation of the dead body I went to the same spot, and to my surprise the body was still there, but this time it floated near the wall and was turned over, I could see the face of the body. He was a man of around 35 to 40 years of age line with black mustache wearing a brown T-Shirt. That’s all I could observe in him as there were two police personnel watching me. I inquired them about any identification of the body after confirming them that I was the one who first witnessed the body.

The police replied that their particular department was informed very late about the situation and assured me that they will clear things within two hours. After observing so many things in a single day I am really amazed seeing the inefficiency of our police department and other rescue departments.Though there is nothing amazing about it!!

It takes more than 6 long hours to recover a body out of a lake which is floating in water; I doubt whether they have still taken any kind of action over it. Can’t imagine how people can be so irresponsible, how could police be so insensible, how will they come to know whether it is a suicide case or a murder without bringing out the body. If it was a murder case then many evidences must have washed out. This makes me feel that, this is the value of a common man in India. I am ashamed of authorities which take such situations irresponsibly. If it was any of their relative missing or any well known magnet then the work would have done in within minutes. I pity the situation of so called independent India.

The above photographs are taken from my mobile phone.