Unrealistic Expectations

Last week, we had a situation on hand to deal with which is painfully becoming a common scene in the IT industry. Satish Kapoor* who joined the company just 3 years back as fresher wanted to quit because he was assigned bug fix tasks. Mr. Kapoor didn't like the 'mundane' job and wants to 'move up' in the food chain to something else even though the bugs he was asked to fix were the ones created by him and the team during development. HR guys were more worried about loosing Satish Kapoor and wanted the team management to do something to keep him happy.

For a person who has been close to code till about 7 years back, this doesn't make sense. Everyone wants to be a Chief and not an Indian. This model where everyone will be Chief and no one as Indian is not sustainable. I have been in this game for 23 years now and have NO qualms in doing any job to get the work done. But, the new kids who have just arrived are extremely finicky and quit at the drop of a hat.

This may be sign of times.. but doesn't augur well for the industry. If everybody moves away from the code after 2 - 3 years who will code? what will be quality of the code?

I understand and acknowledge everyone has aspirations to move up, but the kind of expectations we see in the industry is unrealistic and unsustainable (If I were to quote Alan Greenspan out of context here.. - it is irrational exuberance).

What is your take?

*Name Changed

Auto Anarchy

This story kind of sums up my take on recent fare revision and enforcement in Chennai.

Though, Chennai has the highest regulated Auto fare of any metro in India, Chennai Auto guys aren't happy with it and are off to their usual ways of fleecing the hapless passengers.

I would have personally taken Autos at least 10 times since the new fare came in to effect in January and not even once did the drivers charge by the meter. Worse, most of the time, drivers didn't use the meter at all citing the 'grace period' and 'faulty' meters. The only time, the driver did put on the meter was for a long trek and even then made sure that he would get INR 20 over the meter. This wasn't a tip, but a pre-negotiated 'extra'.

Now that the Chennai Autos technically have time till July to re-calibrate meters, Autos will continue to charge arbitrarily and Government wouldn't take any action either. Not that, Autos will fall in line after the grace period, which will not happen till the City Government enforces rule of law.

According to some officials, the Transport department was going slow on enforcement only to give "grace period" to the drivers. An official, on the condition of anonymity, said they were forced to go slow because the revision had come after a decade. Strict enforcement would start in the second week of March.

Incredible Sivamani

Hiteswara 2007 organized by Shakthi Foundation

What a treat to see Mandolin U. Srinivas, Shankar Mahadevan, Sivamani & Ustad Zakhir Hussain performing together? It was simply amazing. Last Saturday, they were on for Shakthi Foundation and I enjoyed every minute of it..


Shankar Mahadevan did 'raga alabanais' just as masterfully as he does his melodious numbers for films.. He was brilliant..


Mandolin U Srinivas, Shankar Mahadevan & Ustad Zakhir Hussain with Sivamani (not in the picture) was a treat to watch and listen






(Recorded these grainy clips with permission)

Good Luck Team India

Team India is off to World Cup 2007, with billion eyes and trillion hopes trailing them, there is lot on the shoulders of these three grand old Dhadhas of Indian Cricket.

Saurav Ganguly: I am particularly not a fan of this guy, but I must applaud him for his great comeback, It must not have been easy for him with so much competition around and heavy sniping from the press. But he persisted and is now back in the team without any doubt or questions on his ability or inclusion. Good Job Saurav and I hope you do well in Windies.

Rahul Dravid the cool cat and the iron man of Indian Cricket has a lot to prove and contribute in this tour. He will have ample opportunities to show is leadership abilities and excel with his willow as well.

Sachin Tendulkar might well be retiring after this tour of dutry and I hope he steps down with a series of scintillating performance at the crease.

Go Blue