Life as I find it

Today, as I traveled from home to the Resonate Consulting office, where I have started working for the past couple of months, I was watching the world around me as the rickshaw negotiated traffic.

On the highway, there was a traffic jam. Horns blared, irritation was in the air and there were many people held from their priorities. I was to reach the office to work on something important and urgent, and I was impatient myself.

Some street kids came begging for money, others came to try to sell me things. Annoyed, I waved them away.

A child caught my eye. It was sitting on the divider near an area where some repair work was happening. Oblivious to the ponderous priorities of the world, he was lost in his own world, talking to some invisible companion. From the look of things, he was giving some instructions. He was trying to act stern and in command, but excitement bled from every gesture. I don’t know what exactly he was doing, but it was obvious that in the middle of all that dirt and grime and pollution and horns and unsafe traffic, he had found something that captured his enthusiasm.

That moment was enough to anchor me, and I felt my stress drifting away. I was to sit in traffic. I couldn’t help it, but surely I had a choice whether I wanted to spend that time stressing myself out or enjoying myself.

I found myself humming songs under my breath the rest of the way. I would work on the work when I got there, and until then I would enjoy myself.

Funny, naughty and irrepressible girls having a great time on a top berth of a train

In a world of speed and luxury, I had forgotten the charming sloce of India - long distance travel in Sleeper Class on Indian Railways.

This time, I was attending the HID Forum’s Group Relations conference on Leadership in a Gendered World in Bangalore which was based on the Tavistock model of sensing unconscious group processes, which is a different story. I decided to travel the way I used to travel with my family in my childhood - Sleeper Class.

So here I am on the Udyan Express that left at 8:05am sharp. This Indian Railways experience of mine is complete as I booked a waitlisted ticket days in advance and then tracked its progress eagerly, until it became RAC - Reservation against Cancellation.

Itsdifferent being a kid travelling with a family and the compartment my playground to be an adult female travelling alone, with an unconfirmed ticket and responsible for securing her own seat. Not that I hadn’t travelled by train since then, but Air conditioned compartments are just not the same thing.

I arrived early (being anxious to check my seating status) and ended up entering the train as one of the first passengers in our compartment when it was unlocked.

My first sensation was the smell - its a dingy, ammonia laden horrible smell that is particular to a sleeper class compartments with closed windows and unventilated for some time standing in a busy long distance train terminus with all its implied toilets contributing in turns towards nurturing that particular stink.

I few passengers coughed and opened windows, which brought my attention to a group of four handsome young boys a few seats down. They were watching me with equal interest - the beginnings of long distance train intrigue. More windows opened, more passengers came in, and the smell changed. It was now a complex hybrid of our original smell, perfume, hair oil, sweat, different kinds of food being opened and that typical train smell….. quite overwhelming and kind of nasty but intriguing.

The train took off and things settled down. The smells grew less intense, movement of people stilled, sounds lowered. I had claimed a top berth on entry as usual, intending to sleep my way through the otherwise monotonous journey. Plus, I felt that I had better get some sleep done while the owner of the berth sat below, as I didn’t have a confirmed berth for the night.

Lous tea vendors woke me next and I looked hazily around to see that most top berths were occupied by sleeping passengers - I guess everyone had woken up early to be on the train.

Honestly, I slept for most of the journey, but what I do remember is the sheer diversity of people. All kinds of colours, clothes, languages, foods, ages…… the informal friendliness that needs no introductions….. and three mischief making girls sitting on a top berth near me - they were partt of a large family group going to visit their village temple. Take a look

I seem to be on a learning swing. Just back from the Group Relations Conference in Bangalore, and as I headed to my email, I saw that Cisco certification has a possibility for a review to be written. So I headed over to their site to take a look. No surprise so far.

What I found there was a relatively newish site with an eye for quality. This I admire. Further exploration led me to the learning center where the first article to cath my eye was one about soft-skills in IT managers. NOW, this is what I appreciate in an educational institution whether online or physical.

Just the last week, on an induction programme for young IT professionals in a leading organization in Mumbai, we had talked about how important it is to forget the competition orientation of education and learn to collaborate and achieve practical functionality.

The unfortunate fact of life is that people want to know what you know, and your own claim of competence is not an adequate measure in their eyes. So unless you are a mighty famous professional, it is important to have an idea of where your skills lie, build on them and get them officially acknowledged to certain standards to make them more visible and credible to those employers who have no clue of where your talents lie.

We had spoken of different ways to accredit and improve on this competence. In my opinion as both a consultant and an active webmaster, it is important to not just keep learning and updating our knowledge, but also to be able to apply it in a practical and functional way. One way of doing this is to step out of your comfort zone and take a risk to test your knowledge and get a stamp of acknowledgment.

The sorrow of much education today is that it doesn’t account for the human factor, which is what actually makes things work. To find a site that talks about soft skills while encouraging the certifications in various subjects makes me happy to be.

The online world is a good place to unfurl wings and chase development and growth in our chosen careers. This site is a useful tool for those.

The certifications themselves are well thought out and useful. In a world of competence, it is getting increasingly important to have skills verified and attested, which is exactly what this site helps you accomplish. Rather than duplicate the contents of that site to tell you everything about it, I invite you to actually experience it and perhaps you may want to share how you found it here.

A most interesting weekend. Raka had gone to do his ALHP with ISABS. I thought that after a week of sensitivity training kind of stuff, he might appreciate the opportunity to find some peace before returning to the bustle of life.

So, I went to Modi Resort on the evening of the 5th which was the party night for their event. I knew over half the community there, and was made very welcome and enjoyed the opportunity to connect with people I knew. We danced for a looooong time.

I spent the next day lazing around, and finally, when Raka was free from the event, we went to a friend’s bungalow near Neral, at a place called Keki Baug, which is full of well maintained bungalow plots for people to relax in. This place belongs to Harsha Joshi, a friend of a friend of ours called Raghu. Actually, Raghu stays there more than Harsha.

Raghu is this nature lover, who once was a business partner with Harsha in some electrical business, which is now Prolite Autoglow. Raghu is famous with all the women, because he is an amazing cook, a bachelor with no intentions of marriage and an amazingly caring heart. Raghu often keeps an eye on this place (and enjoys it) for Harsha.

Harsha is the guy heading Prolite Autoglow, the head of a joint family of fourteen members in Mumbai in todays day and age, a guy whose circle of loved ones expands with each person he comes across.

So, we went there for a spot of peace and quiet and romance before heading to the chatter of the city. It was fabulous.

The house itself is in a well maintained lawn on a slope, with a stream like fountain with a bridge across it. Very picturesque and peaceful. At the foot of the property, there is the backwater from a dam and the season meant that they vally is absolutely beautiful……

What’s even more beautiful is the people. Harsh and family bring “open door policy” a whole new meaning. An example would be that Raka had never met them before, and a day after we arrived, they arrived with some friends from abroad expecting and empty house, and we all had a great time together when they found us there. How many people can bring special guests home to find people they don’t know settled happily and be genuinely happy to find them enjoying the space?

We felt that it was our home too, and indeed it reflected in all we did, from caring for the place to planning future visits…..

More than the land and the home, it is this inviting nature that had us feeling so…. healed. In a world where people are so focused on owning their properties that they forget to enjoy them, Harsha’s attitude enriches all it touches.

We ate pakodas to celebrate the rain and spent a most enjoyable evening with Roxanne joining us for a while. Roxanne is a story in herself. You shant there and do nothing and she happens to you. She tells you about things, asks stuff, and answers herself too…. an animal lover and the manager for the property, Roxanne is one interesting person to meet. May be I’ll write about her separately.

I’ve been able to flow from one work to another almost all my life. Curiosity got into me, temptation, the lure of quick money, desperation…. you name it, me done it.

Sometimes I wondered if I was some kind of a freak who was good at so many things, yet didn’t have lasting experience with anything and when I moved on, it was usually to something totally unrelared. The only pattern I saw was chaos, which reflected the chaos in my emotional life as well (born in an unhappy family, fostered with grandparents).

My jobs ran included (in approximate sequence) part time work with a cable TV service, running children’s camps, partner in a new layout design business, modelling, teaching English tutions, working on outdoor education/experiential learning programmes, instructing on Himalayan Adventure tours, working as a cook on treks, guiding treks, cultural tour hosting, pack horsewoman on treks, joyrides on horses, conducting surveys in remote villages, “home remedies and first aid” for local horses and dogs, transcripting interviews for documentaries, research for cocumentaries, film making, outdoor adventure training, facilitation on management training programmes, website design, SEO, content development, promotion, blogging……

A varied life…. and it still goes on…..

When I first learnt that a website could be created with a little effort, I remember my wonder - I had thought it to be an exotic and expensive thing, and yet, with a free host and an internet connection and some googled up tutorials, I could do it for free! It seemed impossible and impractical at that time. I had wanted one, and couldn’t afford any money, let alone the fancy quotes I got from designers.

Its been exactly 2 years and 7 months since my first website (which was largely white with some text on it), 13 revisions of my website, as I kept learning new things and stuff. I write on three blogs, run 7 websites (some for friends), earn enough from it to keep myself in necessities, and keep discovering new people, information and dimensions to the world.

This  category of posts - my journey - is a documentation of this strange, but satisfying journey of mine, that needed me to sweat blood, but rewards me just as intensely.