One of my favourite poems..

The Man In the Glass

By Dale Wimbrow By Dale WBy Dale Wimbrow 1934

When you get what you want in your struggle for pelf

When you get what you want in your struggle for pelf

and the world makes you king for a day

Just go to the mirror and look at yourself

and see what that man has to say

For it isn't your Father ,Mother or Wife

For it isn't your Father, Mother or Wife

whose judgment upon you must pass

The fellows verdict that counts most in your life

is the one starring back from the glass

Some people might say your a straight shootin chum

Some people might say your a straight shootin chum

and call you a wonderful guy

but the man in the mirror says your only a bum

if you can't look him straight in the eye

He's the fellow to please never mind all the rest

He's the fellow to please never mind all the rest

for he's with you clear to the end

and you've passed your most dangerous test

if the man in the glass is your friend

You may fool the whole world down the pathway of years

You may fool the whole world down the pathway of years

and get pats on your back as you pass

but your final reward will be heart ache and tears

if you've cheated the man in the glass..

Kid with the chip on the shoulder

A month after the trainees joined, I realized, a path is only so wide. People are constantly moving around, fighting for position and often the smart and diplomatic thing to do is to let a fellow teammate in. It became my character at the time. I felt secured and totally confident of how strong I was. I was still the kid playing with a chip on my shoulder. Overtime I understood that I would not win a race all on my own. I would need teammates and the goodwill and cooperation of my competitors too, although there was not much competition between us in the Business Development of GMR. People will have to want to run for me and with me.

I am now bored about the Trainees stuff...will stop this story and write something about the Present..

Things I want to do.....

Its a lazy saturday afternoon at office. Had lunch, one roti, some curry and lots of curd. The food comes from PVs home. Right now am thinking to myself about what I want to do in life. It's a weekend, and I have been reminded by Rani over and over again that I need to pull back from the hectic work schedule and spend some time with the family, remembering all the things for which we together are grateful for. I plan to pull half a day off today and spend some time talking to my mom and playing badminton in the evening.

Some other things I feel like doing:

1. Late night chat with my mom
2. Know myself better and be true to myself
3. Be a kid, the innocence is bliss kind
4. Help people
5. Fall in Love
6. Be patient, forever
7. Take my mom out for dinner
8. Be good at transactions, deals, money
9. Work on my Hospital plan
10. Create something good
11. Dream big
12. Study hard
13. Play harder
14. Exercise, be fit, jog in the morning
15. See the Sun rise
16. Talk to people, learn more about life
17. Thank everyone around
18. Learn to play the guitar
19. Act in a movie, be on screen
20. Finally, Live life to the fullest

The trainees

31 October, 2005. A group of 8 management trainees join the team. The idea that was passed on to us was that they would work in the BD team and in a couple of months 4 out of the 8 would be shifted to the Delhi / Mumbai Airport project team, if GMR won the bid, that is. A pretty logical decision since we did not have a sizeable experienced team. Rohit and I joined at a time when V. Prasad and Ashutosh had left. They were one of the very few highly capable, outstanding professionals who gave in to the mediocrity of the department and the company as a whole. We were expected to take their places, to fill the large void that their absence created. Well, thats a different story. I continue with the Trainees.

My first interaction with them was in the following week, the usual introduction about the Group, the company, and the Business Development team. A week later, on 8 November 2005, the new office building at the site was inaugurated. I was to show them the site, the masterplan, the runway, the terminal building etc. Malathy and Naresh also were with us. They had also joined a few days back as support staff to the senior management. Malaty was in the Business Devleopment team and Mr. Naresh Verma in HR. I has infact come to the site in the company bus with Malathy. After showing and explaining the site to them, to the extent I knew, we boarded the bus back to the office. This was a different bus to the one I had come in. I had left my helmet in the bus and now I had to contact the bus service provider manager and request him to send the helmet to the office. On the way back, I distinctly remember sitting in the second seat. Naresh Verma was sitting in front and Raghavendra beside me. A rail line passes along the edge of the site and their is a small village between the border and the rail line. While passing through that village, Naresh Verma asked me if that is what we call the Airport village. I was dumb for a moment. I nodded my head and said no, and explained to him the concept of an Airport village which basically was the area just in front of the terminal building where the meeters and greeters and other non-passengers could see off or receive the passengers. Another conversation that I would not forget for a long time was the one I had with Raghavendra, Raghav for short. He narrated to me his life-story, inlcuding his childhood, schooling, education, projects, etc. and his English was really hmm..he has improved a lot though. I had only one question for him - "What do you want to be" and he gave me a straight answer - "I want to be the COO". I was amazed, amazed at the clarity and direction of his goal. We then discussed on how would it be possible for him to become a COO, the skill set that he would have to acquire, the communication that he would have to improve and the mental thinking process.

In the following week, I was assigned another task of allocating work profiles to the Trainees. I made a list of their majors, the projects that they had done before and the kind of work they were interested in. Philip and me interviewed all of them over two days. Meanwhile I was also discussing with RK and he was clear on who he wanted to be a part of his team. We, as in Philip and me, wanted two Trainees in our team and we shortlisted Mithun. The second was after a little discussion on Prakash and Sikander. I was of the opinion that Prakash was good at logical thinking while Sikander was good at finance, and we needed people who were good at logical thinking. They could learn anything. We eventually choose Prakash.

The Trainees had to be divided in to 4 groups of 2 each. One group to support RK, one to support Philip, one for Rajesh Vetcha, Corporate communication and one group to be assisting the Finance department, which incidentally was not part of the BD department anymore. This was the toughest part of the profiling as none of the Trainees wanted to leave the BD team. The Trainees were given a choice of deciding among themselves on who would join the finance team. Meanwhile, we had decided on who should ideally go to the finance team. After a lot of showdown and convincing, I had to reveal to the Trainees that Sikander and Meghana were the unfortunate ones. Unfortunate only for that day, whereas they had a gala time at the finance department. So the final list stands as follows:

• Corporate communication : Bhuvanya, Raghav
• RK and Rohit : Nidhi, Abdul
• Philip and Vivek : Mithun, Prakash
• Finance department : Sikander, Meghana

Over the first few days, Raghav was being more and more involved in our team, also because there was not much work in the communications team.

I got to go pick up Rani, she has caught a cold is not sounding good on the phone. Shall continue this blog

A dream come true

Rani has finally got her visa for higher studies in the US. Since moving to Hyderabad after college, she got kind of jaded about just about everything. Her sole aim was to pursue a career in Physiotherapy in the US. I was keen that she appeared for the CAT and do a MBA at the IIM.
But she was reluctant. She felt disgraced at doing something other than treating patients. And the belief that India is not a good place to make money out of this profession made her all the more determined to make it to the US. And I've got to admit that she is one of those truly deserving people who overcome steep odds to make their dreams come true.

It seems like the end of something for her. A finish line. The tough part of the fight with life is over. No more crying, no more depression. Maybe it is the end of the long hard climb of childhood, the freedom, the independence, the sheer desperation of wanting to stand confidently on her own feet. The last two years have been a nightmare. With just no escaping from the 'what if' questions nagging her. There were times when the dreams seemed shattered and time was moving very slowly. But she climbed her way, never felt helpless or objectified.

It also is the beginning of something new, something fresh, the feeling of something good that's happened in a long long time, something exciting to look forward to. Atleast 'something' to look forward to. Hope this good time continues for the rest of her life. May she have the most amazing time of her life and live her beautiful dream.

Waiting

I am waiting as usual for my sister Vidhya. I have realised that I have spent half my life doing this. But it also gives me time to reflect upon myself, collate the days learnings, collect thoughts and put them on paper. Of course, I have now started to use this time blogging.

My first job...the transition..continued

There was a big difference between the volumes of textbook and teachings at IIM and the way businesses and organisations function practically. What I noticed was the discreet way things were done and attitudes that I did not quite understand. And even when I did understand them, I did not feel I had a part of them. In fact, I ignored them. Although I was a little fearful of people, of things and the pace at which they moved, I started working with no emotions. Absolutely none.

But I still wanted to be happy, but whether I would or not was still a huge question mark, and even while confronting that question mark, I was beginning to sense that to experience or be in a situation like this was not such a bad thing. To be afraid is a priceless experience, it educates you. Once I have been scared, I know more about myself and I think it helps. Time now forced me to ask more of myself as a person than I ever had before. I decided I am going to be a changed man and seek out a different path.

Boss would yell at me at the slightest error and I would most likely turn off. I had the familiar sinking feeling. Philip was different. His thinking was subordinates should be taught and trained and that the lessons should sink slowly. There are some things that we learn better through experience and Philip let me figure those out on my own. For example, I never evaluated my work. I would think that I am doing it because I have been told to do so but he insisted that I think and figure out why its being done, what the purpose is and is that the best way to do it. Slowly but steadily he passed along his knowledge of various business, more precisely his way of handling various work situations and to evolve a solution or a course of action tactically. I learnt that there are moments when we can use our time and effort to our benefit and there are moments when we use it to no avail. We need to focus our time and effort towards maximising it to our benefit. He not only controlled, he educated me.

I had never really examined the psychology of work or of doing things. The reasons were not too clear to me and a lot of what I did made no sense to me while doing it. But now, I knew exactly why I was doing something. I became more optimistic than ever and refused to let any fear blot out my optimism. Something told me that fear, although can be sometimes helpful, should never completely rule the heart, and I decided not to be afraid.

I now began to realise, very strongly, that I had plenty of learning to do and I structured in my head that the next 1 year would be a process of experimenting, refinement and learning. Life from now on would be a process of incremental improvements, of seeking the tiniest knowledge that would make me a better individual.

I really began noticing and following Philip. There were ways things were done and things ought to be done. He taught me to be patient and to work strategically. It took me some time to reconcile myself to the notion that being patient was different from being weak or slow and that working strategically did not mean giving less than your best effort. I became more polished.

First job

I am waiting for Vibha to pick her up from her hospital. Am also missing the people and the fun at GMR.

hmm...let me write something about my first job.

Life at GMR started at the dark, dingy begumpet office with 4 people in the business development team. That was my first job, straight out of college and a blank head. I had absolutely no idea of the aviation or the real estate industry or of any industry for that matter. The role assigned to me was that of an executive assistant to the COO. The first activity was to prepare a board note on the PTB and ALS contracts. I had no clue to what these were, no clue to even what the abbreviations stood for. A hell of a time followed. Also boss was stressed with the work and the pressure and me being his so called executive assistant had to take in everything like a cushion. Every evening at 8 was the wrenting and I usually went home thinking about life, work, its purpose, meaning etc. Home was about 6 km from office and I used to walk back. I stopped eating regularly, the appetite went down, stopped talking, went into a kind of depression.
But I used to smile whenever I could. Ambrish once remarked that I bring in the sunshine into the office whenever I enter and he feels good and cheerful seeing me. The others never spoke, they were busy in their work and they were generally not too conversant. I was the youngest and that made me the default clown. After the remark by Ambrish, I made up my mind to smile, talk and cheer people up. That was the only way I could overcome my depression.

Meanwhile, Philip joined and we also shifted to the new office building in banjara hills. The first few days were the same. Boss asked me to leave, saying I was not fit to work for him and that I was slow at understanding things and was not interested in work. I asked him to give me one last chance and that I would want to work under Philip on a single project. He agreed.

Philip had been working for GMR for the last 7 years and was much more patient and level headed than boss. He was willing to guide me and open to my thoughts, stupid doubts and would take all effort to clarify them. Things started looking bright and the new big, clean, spacious and bright office made me feel good.

A month later, a new batch of 8 Management Trainees joined.....

Have just checked with Vibha and she can come now. So will continue the story.

home..career..dream

Today both PV and Philip are not in Hyderabad. PV is on a mission to convince the funders in Mumbai to fund us while Philip is busy trying to rope in a tenant for his new house. Even I should start planning to buy a good house to live in Hyderabad. After yesterdays visit to the site of the upcoming villas in Hyderabad, my mind is just not letting go. Those are the most beautiful house models and concepts I have ever seen. The biggest villa is over 14000 sft on a land area of 1.1 acre with 6 servant houses, 6 car parks, 2 gardens, a swimming pool and sit-out and 7 bedrooms priced at rupees 12 crore. Lavish is a small word. The concept is Spanish and the architecture is by an architect from Jaipur.

Coming back to work...today has been a not so hectic day...prepared a simple model for the Golf course residential township on the lines of the Spanish villa. PV is of the view that we should have many smaller plots / houses and fewer large villas. In my opinion this would affect the quality of life, increase the population in the township and hence the maintenance cost would be huge. Its basically a trade off between quality and price. However, all this is subjective and basically depends on the positioning.

Work on the Vijayawada mall is progressing slowly. Had a meeting with JLL on understanding the retail business, the tenant mix, process of selecting tenants, what do the tenants look for and the average rent that JLL could guarantee us. They didn't do their homework, didn't even study the Vijayawada market thinking PVP Ventures is a small firm tha would not be of much help to them. I had to tell them about PV and our long-term plans and that set them on their toes.

Then updated PV on these 2 projects.

And then I had nothing to do. Ramakrisha and I watched funny videos on google for a while and then both Ramakrishna and Krishna left for the day.

Also had lunch at Angeethi with Ramakrishna and Krishna. Good place. The owner has managed to have a dhaba concept in the middle of congested Hyderabad on the 7th floor of a cramped building. And the place is buzz with people at lunch time. Food service Industry is on a high at the moment in India.

Just before going out for lunch, an old classmate praveen chaitanya called. Wanted to meet me but I don't want to. Asked him to call me after lunch. He didn't. end of the story.

On the way to lunch, Krishna started an interesting conversation on career. People worry too much about their careers. They worry about money. They worry about recognition. I told him not to worry much about money and recognition. They are by-products. The true product is the learning and the value we add to our work. Work should be purposeful and meanigful. Also told him not to focus on real estate or any single industry as a long term career. Working for too long in a particular field or industry restricts the learning. We need to change industries, learn more, experience more. Also our core competency should not be industry specific. I gave him the example of PV whose core competency is outsourcing services. very industry neutral and he has been changing to industries as and when they are high. Even I plan to do the same thing. Thats my goal.

And my dream remains to join the Foreign Service.

wireless mouse

I got a new wireless mouse today

new job...goals...dreams...life

Got a new laptop today... a silver color sony vaio...pretty sleek