My First Snowfall :)

The 13th of August 2011, the first time I saw snow, EVER. I was relaxing in my room when for some reason, Sunil was knocking at my doorsteps. He made me notice that it was snowing out.. SNOWING!?! DHAN TE NAN. That was it for me. I literally flew out of bed, threw as many layers on as I could find and ran out the door. Ever seen a kid get stupidly excited over something really lame? That was me that evening. I ran around my neighbourhood possessed, looking up into the sky, trying to catch snowflakes, acting a little crazy. There was barely enough snow to even stick, but I could not get enough. Fortunately for me, a blizzard hit Wellington a mere two days later and I felt like I had all the snow in the world.

Ohio...Oh Ho...!!!

Jis Din se Iss Obama ne office join kiya hai, India ki naak mein dam kar rakha hai. Oh! Sorry..Infact jis din se issne White House mein aane ki icha jatai hai, uss din se.

I am still not able to figure out whether he holds any grudge against the Indians or is it because of his love for the 'American Manoos' that he is against outsourcing US Jobs to India and other parts of the world. Seems like Raj Thackeray has got global company now :). He has a special mention for Bangalore everytime he talks about creating more jobs for the US citizens. He warns that if the children in US don't concentrate on their education, there jobs will be taken away by their Indians and Chinese counterparts. Well, that may be true :P.

As far as unemployement rates in the US is concerned, Obama puts the blame squarely on India. I think he's too obsessed with us rather then US. First it was hiking the US Visa fees, then calling Indian IT giants as 'Chop Shops' and now a body blow, Democratic ruled Ohio banning any government department from outsourcing its operations to any non-US organization, specifically mentioning India. His administration is leaving no stone unturned in deteriorating what has been a great partnership between the world's biggest democracies over the decades. Someone please tell him, that had it not been this medium of business, US economy might just have collapsed in the pressure of high costs many years ago.

As of now only TCS has offices in Ohio and some of its contracts will be surely cancelled and the existing ones will no longer be renewed. The other IT majors will largely remain unaffected but what concerns me is the sentiment that it is going to create. I hope other US states doesn't follow suit and this remains primarily in the govt sector in Ohio also.

The IT stocks are surely going to be south bound in tomorrow morning's trade and might just take some days to recover. Not sure what to do with my e-sops though. Will retain them for some more time anyways.

Admist all this, the Govt of India is all set to roll the Red Carpet for Barack Obama during his visit to India in November. So as to avoid any negative vibes reaching saat samundar paar, he has even decided not to include Bangalore in his itinerary. Obviously when the Senate Elections are due around the same time, he couldn't have afforded to take the risk. This will be the time when he'll be signing the much talked about Indo-US Nuclear Deal and take home a business worth $20 Billion for US companies (public and private alike). How two faced he can be, not sure which face to slap first.

I hope our PM talks tough atleast now and not respond in his typical spineless style by signing the nuclear deal and not even mentioning the concerns of the Indian IT Sector, because if he does then the day will not be far when we say 'Bbye to IT' in India. Hopefully, he'll do it better with this meeting in comparision to the way he's running this country. Fingers Crossed.

What is so honourable about 'Honour' Killing....???

As I sit down to pen my feelings about the 'honour' killings in parts of India, news just came in that another couple has been massacred in some part of rural Haryana for the so called honour of their caste, family and village. So after their killings, has the family restored its dignity or have they lost it completely.
Wasn't dividing the humans into castes a reason enough for us to hate each other that we have advocates of sub-castes, gotras and what not coming in to divide us even more? I wonder why even forward-looking politicians (like Naveen Jindal, though he has hardly done anything to justify his forwardness) fall in line with khap panchayats and bow their heads before them. What is it that must have made them support the Khaps in full public view when they knew that the media is going to make a mockrey of their image. May be they feel that they can win over the hearts of people (read votebank) by supporting the khaps. The argument of their sympathiser politicians and khap leaders is simple: khaps don't order honour killings. It's true in many of the cases that they don't openly order honour killings. But the problem is that they create such an atmosphere that the brother kills his sister and the father is forced to kill the daughter just to save the "honour" of the family.
As far as i remember, some of the Jat community's highest ranking leaders have had no control over their children getting married to a person of the same gotra/caste/village. There is more bad news for the 'love birds' in Haryana. Arya Samaj under whom they were taking refuge for quite sometime when they were in the 'hitlist' of their own family members has issued a statement stating that it will no longer facilitate love marriages without the consent of the couple's parents, relatives and the entire village. Now getting the consent of them all will be a herculean task for them. Aab yeh bichare kaha jaayenge. :(
The solution lies in making them understand why their opinion is outdated. People who wield respect and influence need to address this issue logically rather than emotionally. If the Khaps understand why the Gotra's wont matter now, then they would relent.
Let us all join hands and say 'No to Barbarism in the name of traditions'.

An incident in an engineer's life...

A Day in the life of an engineer. Somehow i feel everyday is an eventful one but this is something which many will agree that no matter how many years pass by after your engineering, the engineer stays in you forever.

With the joining of the new company comes its own set of challenges. Adjusting to the people around you, the new policies (an important one since 'policy' being one of the reason i was suffocating in my previous company) and most importantly coming out of your comfort zone. How can I forget the new sets of complainces and ethics i need to remember and the abide by them not only consiously but also by passing set of exams.

A strange incident happened with me today. We (a set of four new joinees) were asked to complete a set of trainings which included business ethics, security at the campus, basics of communication etc by our manager. To which my immediate reaction was distribute the 4 trainings amongst ourselves with each one preparing for one of them and then sitting together to appear for all of the them together at the same desk. This didn't seem to impress my manager too much (Atleast it reflected in her response, when she laid out some idealistic benefits of these trainings). When i introspected later, i found that it was not me who responded in that way, it was the engineer within me who took that step.

Aren't the engineers 'jugaadu' types....????