Harish Ranganathan's Personal Space

All of us have been taught to be nice to others, try and extend help to others and be accomodative as and when possible.  They taught us that being nice to others gets you others feel good about you.

 

No longer, I would say.  Today, if you are nice, the first thing people do is to take advantage and make a fool out of you.  Not just in everyday life, but work place, family, everywhere.  Let us define, what is being nice.  First of all, trying to be as accomodative as possible.  Help others, go the extra mile so that others are happy.  Never knowingly hurt others heart with words/actions.  Most important of all, feel good and talk good.

 

Today, if you are nice to others, you become the loser.  Worst thing, your close aides make fun of you, term you as incapable and teach that you have to be smart.  I know there is just a fine line between smartness and cunningness.  Smartness to you may mean cunningness to the other and vice versa.

 

Take work place.  Those who keep constantly complaining on others and thereby showing how they are better seem to grow quicker than those who seldom complain on others.  More than growth, it is imperative for one to find fault on others and thereby highlight one's strength, to survive.   Even appreciating the other person is very very precious or usually well orchestrated.

 

Take family.  If you are kind, people take you for granted and don't hesitate to utilize maximum resources from you.  The moment you start questioning, you become "suddenly bad"

 

Take social life, in Trains/Buses/Auto/Traffic, everywhere, you got to have the "I am first" attitude else you would be left behind not just in traffic, but in life.

 

Fortunately/Unfortunately, I have the genes from my mother who doesnt know cunningness and I would remain like that throghout my life.   I am fine being left behind, for I will always have the last bus to catch

 

At least it gives a sense of satisfacation that I did what I feel is right although others keep compalining to you on that.

 

Cheers !!!

In this post, I am not talking about the priveleged Chair Car, II A/c, I A/c & Unreserved compartments.  These are spared from the hassles I am talking below (Unreserved is next to hell but that is a choice you make and you only have to blame yourself for doing that)

 

Take a typical case of Train journey.   Most of us travel by train and know that if you take up a Sleeper Class or 3rd a/c you more or less have the same compartment model - 3 tiers opposite to each other and 2 in the side.  Now, there is this additiona middlel tier introduced in the side berths as well last year, thanks to our ex Hon. Railway Minister who thought just like how they can accomodate as many buffaloes in a court yard, they can accomodate people as well.   Everytime it is a thrilling experience before you get to know your actual seat number.  Why is this?

 

Scenario 1:  You get a confirmed seat and say the number is 18.  Typically this means that you need to find where is 18 and sit over there.  In normal cases, there would be 3+3 in the normal cabin and 2 in the side cabin and there are around 9 such cabins so totally it makes it to 8 * 9 = 72 seats.    This would mean 18 would be in the 3rd cabin middle seat.

 

Now with the introduction of the side middle berth (literally like stacking up buffaloes, goats), there can be 9 people accomodated so 18 would go to side middle in the 2nd cabin itself, for sleeping.  The reason for this is that, they accomodated the old numbers in the bottom and top of side berths and the additional ones in the middle.  Again, this person has to sit in the normal cabin as a 4th member.  We all know how people behave when it comes to sitting in trains.  They try to expand themselves as much as possible as if otherwise, their ticket charge is not fully utilized.  The reason why the side middle person has to sit here is because, the side berth already can only have 2 people sit comfortably and if a 3rd person comes, not only he has to sit with his leg on the way (not to forget people who carry heavy luggage and dont bother hitting your leg on the way) but also he may be in between the 2 people who usually are from the same family / friends / colleagues, etc.,

 

When it comes to the trains, people want to sleep as early as 7pm which reminds me of my child hood when they ask me to go to bed then.  The funny part is, these people would not go to bed at their homes till 12pm but train, they either want to sit occupying maximum space or sleep.  This would mean that the middle berths have to come down and the side middle person cannot sit. 

 

Scenario 2: You managed to some how sit as the 4th person and anxiously waiting for 8pm to go for sleep.  If you thought that was all, the TTR would come and say, side berth is removed and all your seats are re-arranged.  This is implemented hapazardly in certain trains (Gareeb Rath?) and still not implemented in some trains.  This would mean that not only 18 but everyone from cabin no.2 now has to pack his/ her things and move to next cabin.  Again reshuffling and all the hassles.

 

In certain trains, the TTR gives the middle berth unofficially to the RAC folks for money although middle berth is not there.

 

Needless to say, this can sometimes happen even in the middle of the night.  When it happens to you in 3rd a/c (more so if you booked in tatkal), it really pains.

 

Now isnt this a truly great experience

 

 

Its good to appreciate others.  It always brings in happiness and the momentary adrenalin pump for the person whom you are praising.  While these days praising other person is done as an orchestrated activity (you praise me => I praise you) or done to inherently show that "He/She did help..but you know what, I am the person behind the scenes".

 

In corporate world, it is even more tougher (Refer to the story where two IT professionals go through a forest.  When they see a Tiger, one of them quickly pulls out the sports shoe form his bag.  The other person asks, "Do you think wearing this shoe is going to make you run faster than the Tiger?" and the other person replies "I dont need to run faster than the Tiger.  I just have to run faster than you"). 

 

But, today, I received an endorsement from one of my ex-colleagues (http://www.janakiramm.net/) in Linked In and needless to say it was a selfless one without any hidden agenda.  It was very heartening to see it.  I am putting here below the transcript. 

 

 

 

 

For the benefit of non-it folks, I want to explain first.  Friday evenings are party (rather were) times in most of the Software companies.  Everybody gets casual on Friday evenings considering the next 2 days of relief.  (Now I dont want to tell the actual fate in many companies that force employes to work on Saturdays and in certain cases Sundays as well).

 

But in a realistic software company model, fridays are parties.  People try and leave early, some people try and work from home to avoid the hassle of driving forth and back.  Others try taking off and do a myriad of things to extend the bit of the day to the weekend mode.

 

Also, most of the team dinners (team building activities) happen on Friday evenings since its a time to chill out given that most of these end up being drinking party and the folks dont have to come to work the next day, being Saturday.  

 

However, in my 10 years of career, I have always found that some how or other, I screw up on Friday evenings that I can't leave early.   Either it would be a demanding work or something that is a burning issue or in certain cases, an installation/uninstallation I started which seems never ending.

 

Also, the anxiety that the next 2 days, I might be totally off from system, makes me dig up and complete everything in my task lisk ending up having to do the extra bit.  Now, I am not trying to show that I am the hardest working guy.  It is just that, I suck when it comes to time management and efficiently planning work so that this doesnt happen.  Also, that nerdiness in me, asks me to check that extra bit of everything before I feel comfortable.

 

Believe me, I have done this when I started my career - initial 2 years, became experienced did the same, got married - still did the same and after four years of getting married, I am still the same (while I type this I am at office trying to install a new product and that took hell a lot of time and is continuing).  The only difference is that, before marriage, people dont bother to call me and ask where I am since they know for granted that this guy comes late home.  The recent (rather 4 years) is that my wife calls up and asks when I would come.  Invariably I would say in another 15 minutes I am starting and end up spending one more hour. 

 

The reason for this post is that, today I got the infamous call from my wife who said that "I know its Friday evening so you end up at home only after 9pm" and kept the phone without waiting for me to react.

 

For all those out there envying Software professions and their huge pay checks (imaginary)  these are some of the things which you can find in most of the folks.  We have seldom seen sunsets and had very rare occasions to come home in the evening and then going out for shopping / functions etc.,

 

Cheers !!!

 

 

 

 

Its hard to believe six years have gone by since I met this wonderful young woman whom I share my life with.  One fine day, I walk into a brand new work place and as I wait for my peer mentor who would be briefing about my roles and responsibilities, I never knew that the peer mentor would be a life partner too.

 

There are a lot of things that gets hidden when you see this person who comes across as a soft spoken, quiet persona.  Secondly, the amount of detail that goes into everything she does surprises me.  Everything has to be perfect for her and that is one source of our arguments on a day to day basis.

 

I am a poor guy in romance, I never possess the art of making others admire out of what I talk and most of the time end up as a hopeless guy with a sense of humour.

 

For a person who never bothered for perfection, who never took life seriously and who thought a computer and internet could solve everything out in the world, she came as a clean sweep showing the real world out there and dealing with life.

 

I repeat what I said 2 years back - Manaivi Amaivadellam Iraivan Kodutha Varam which in Tamil means, Getting a Good Wife is God's Boon.

 

Cheers !!!

 

Believe me, Valentine's Day was never our culture.  It never was meant to be hyped up as much as it is done these days in India.  I vaguely remember of someone talking about Valentine's Day until the mid 90's.  Thats when this fever caught up with India.

 

Some of the funny things I noted about Valentine's Day is that, people no matter whether they are committed or not, they always turn up in Green to show up they are free.  Girls do come in green, but are a little skeptical.  They still wait for this day to see who proposes to them.  As always, they can dispose  but they still want to hear from every Tom, Dick and Harry who wants to propose.

 

Greeting Cards, Gift Shops, Flowers everything gain rapid sales on this day, not to mention the different marketing tactics they provide.

 

Ok, the first time I knew about Valentine's Day was when I was in my school final.  I was pretty Open  at that time but unfortunately the school uniform was white and blue so couldnt show up.

 

Anyways, if people have fun (and they know the limit for fun) its good to have these days because these things add a little cheer to the day-to-day hustles.

 

The other funny thing (culture) that has come up in the past decade to India, particularly down south is the Akshaya Thrithiyai.  Now this affects me the most because it involves Gold (which is expensive from the day I could remember).  I will write about this in a separate post, and it wont be long before I write since Akshaya Thritiya is also fast approaching.

 

Cheers !!!