GAIL - Parting letter

First Job, Getting married, Buying first car and Becoming father ... these are certainly some of the most joyous moments in anybody's life. In my case, I shared all these happy moments with my colleagues from GAIL. These wonderful friend of mine certainly deserved a better parting letter from my side but I could manage only what follows in the next paragraph. I believe to some extent it does reflect the true place for GAILians in my heart.

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"It feels as if it was only yesterday when on the fateful day of Monday the 1st of July 2002, I’d joined GAIL (I) Ltd at Noida as GET(E&C). Five years latter, I believe that my association with GAIL has channeled the exuberance and enthusiasm of a young & fresh out of college student to somewhat responsible professional which I think I’m today.

In the hindsight, when I reflect upon the time that I’ve spent in GAIL, I find that there are mostly happy memories. I consider myself fortunate that I always got supportive bosses who encouraged learning and gave freedom to experiment and grow. I got wonderful friends like you.

However, I also believe in a line from movie Black, “Life is like an Ice-cream, enjoy it before it melts” and that there is life beyond what I’m doing here in GAIL.
With this in mind, now after spending exactly five years in this wonderful organization, I’ve decided to take a break from 09:15 a.m. to 05:45 p.m. work life and become a student again. For the next 16 months, I shall be challenging myself with new goal of sailing through the academic rigors of 16 months full time MBA degree from ASIAN INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT, MANILA.

Working in GAIL, and having the opportunity to meet you is an experience, I’ll cherish throughout my life.

Again, with all these technical advancements, this world is becoming smaller with each passing day, which forces me to believe that “Kahin kisi roz, kisi na kisi mod pe, ham fir milenge jaroor”.

Till then, adios."
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GAIL (INDIA) LIMITED

I should have written this post exactly a month back, when I'd resigned from GAIL after completing exactly five years of service, but my procrastinating nature is to blame that I'm writting it today. Never mind even if I'm late, the organization I worked with for 5 years must find a mention on my blog.

Though I do believe in the saying, "Whatever god does, he does it for good" I find it very hard to understand what was so good about graduating from IITG in the year 2002. May be I'll discover it in the years to come!

2002 was the year when dotcom bubble burst was affecting the placement scene at IITs and other colleges of India.

Our seniors used to have the luxury of choosing best role and profile amongst the multiple job offers, but class of 2002 was finding it tough to get even a single job. Already two months had passed since placement exercise had begun, and I was still jobless. The list of companies yet to visit our insti for placements was going down very fast and with this my fear of walking out from IIT without a job was mounting. I was simply not ready for this ignominious situation.

And then one evening I heard that ECE and CSE students are invited to attend PPT (Pre Placement Talk) by GAIL. This was the first time that I heard this word, "GAIL" which became my identity for the next five years.

Never ever, not even in my worst dreams I'd thought that I'll work for a PSU, but then there are many other things which I'd never envisaged but they happened.

GAIL (I) Limted or Gas Authority of India Limited (http://gailonline.com/) , as it was known in the year 2002 is one of the most efficiently managed Public Sector Enterprise of Govt of india. As the name suggest, till sometime back it used to had the authority vested in it by Govt of India for exclusive Natural Gas marketting in India which was its main source of Revenue. However during past few years, it has diversified into the realm of Petrochemicals production, LPG production and transportation, Oil & Gas exploration, Consultancy and Telecom. I was recruited for its Telecom Subsidiary GAILTEL whose area of operation is bandwidth marketting.

During my stay in GAIL, I saw the business of GAILTE increasing from the initial level of a meagre STM-1 and a single customer base Bharti to present level of 5000 E1s and a customer base of more than 50 mobile operators, Pvt companies and ISPs.

Life at AIM

When I'd came here on 20th, all the seniors were unanimous in saying that, "get ready to experience the kind of sloging and grinding, you have not experienced till date" and I was like What a big deal ... I've already passed the test of 2nd/3rd year pressure cooker situation at IIT and now am ready to face anything.

Alas I was wrong.

My classes were scheduled to begin on 23rd.

Seeing that many of my fellow first yearites have already started reading last chapter of book that we got at the time of registration, I realized that I've been robbed of all the options but to study. That night I probably slept for 4 hrs.

A day latter, it was the turn of reading and problem assinments which didn't allow me more than 3 hrs of sleep. And then yesterday I could manage hardly 2.

Probably it has something to do with the fact that its been almost 5 years now when I'd last lived a student life but I'm sure finding it difficult to cope with the pressure. Now what am I supposed to do today?? Even If I don' sleep tonight as I've to read more than 100 pages of theory and have to solve many problems alongwith submitting an assignment what will I do tomorow then?? As therz going to be a quiz on day after tomorrow!!!

The best part is that its only PRE MBA so these days we are having two lectures only, accounting and quants. Which makes life a bit easier as I can devote all my time for accounts. What shall I be doing when actual MBA classes will start and I shall have to read more than 3 cases a day along with the related chapors from the book???

Life at AIM is certainly not going to be easy.

This is to announce that I've become proud father of a beautiful baby girl....

Although the expected date of delivery of my child was 23rd of June, during my last visit (on 5th of June) doctor had said that now the baby can arrive any day. So I took a long leave from office and was with my wife in Jaipur. As everything seemed to be normal, on 11th I went back and joined office on 12th. However, it proved to be a wrong decision as in the evening I received a phone call from my father-in-law that they have admitted my wife to hospital as she was experiencing labour pain and doctors are saying that baby can arrive anytime during the night.

She finally came at 02:32 a.m. on 13th of June while I was packing for my journey back to Jaipur from Vijaipur.

From railway station I went directly to hospital but could see my daughter only after 02:00 p.m. She is under specialist's supervision (in ICU) and hence doctor's did not allow me to hold her in my hand, in fact I could only see her from a distance for a few seconds only. But those few seconds are something I will cherish throughout my life. In those seconds I'd seen a small, fragile looking almost pink in colour small baby girl, who would look up to me for all her needs and want and get inspiration and strength from my success. Who would one day call me "Papa".

Thank you my dear wife for promoting me to next level of hierarchy in life.

Main jahan rahoon, main kahin bhi rahoon .... teri yaad saath hai

Its final now ... I'm going to be away from my beloved country in an entirely new environment for more than 16 months starting July 2007. I had few other options but in the end I believe that an MBA degree from AIM shall prove to be the best foot forward towards achieving my career goal.

Now Philippines.... though it is in Asia only, more than 400 years of Spanish and American colonial rule has resulted in its culture being closer to US, than any other country in Asia.

While I was in Manila, in the month of February 2007, I'd befriended an old filipino guy and on his invitation visited his house. This guy, Ricardo had four daughters who were all divorcees and to my horror all four were planning to get married again. They also introduced me to an American staying with them, who was a friend of Ricardo's second daughter and was in Manila on a short visit. This American and Ricardo's second daughter were planning to get married sometime in the month of November 2007.

The same scene might happen in number of families around globe, but one can not imagine anything remotely like this to happen with any Indian family. This and many other things like this are uniqueness of our Indian culture. I'm sure going to miss India and its beautiful culture, its diversity ... everything.

Only yesterday night, I was watching a hindi film, "Namastey London", which has India and uniqueness of indian culture as the theme. I really really loved a song of this movie :

"Main jahan rahoon,

main kahin bhi hoon, teri yaad saath hai….

kisi se kahoon, ke nahin kahoon... ye jo dil ki baat hai.

Kehne ko sang apne, ek duniya chalti hai,

par chupke is dil me, tanhayi rehti hai....

teri yaad saath hai."

Zindagi....Kaisi hai paheli

This is not the first time that I'm in pain .. but probably its the worst chapter of my life ...or ..may be not ...I don't know whats their in store for me in future .... whatever .. but the fact is I want to scream .. to cry .. to cry aloud .. but I can't do that ...
The worst part of this ongoing tragedy is that I can't share it with anyone. I'm not sure exactly whose fault it is .. but sure I'm part responsible ... in hindsight I feel I always ran away from my responsibilities on this front .. whatever ... the fact is that I'm finding myself unable to salvage the situation... the damage done is irreparable ...

Considering that only a few weeks ago I was so happy that after years of frustration and agony of working in a PSU without any job satisfaction, I'd resigned from job and was about to begin a new chapter in my life ... Everything seemed to falling in place...and then all of a sudden my life went topsy turvy ...

Zindagi .. kaisi hai paheli hai .....

How shall we treat our heroes?

I still remember the "farewell" Steve Waugh received when he decided to retire from professional cricket.

I'd watched it on TV and I must admit I was throughly impressed. The test series in which Waugh was playing for the last time ,was meticulously publicized as "Waugh farewell series", and it was a big event in Australia, and in world cricket too. He was accorded a standing ovation at almost all the cricket venues.

This was probably Aussie way of saying thanks to their "hero" for bringing laurels to Australian cricket.

Then a few days back, I saw the farewell that a player from Subcontinet received. After serving Pakistani cricket for more than 16-17 years, Inzamam had declared in advance that he'll retire from One day cricket after world cup. Before the advent of world cup, Inzamam was a hero in the country. He was being credited for resurgence of Pakistani cricket and all. But once their team lost 2 matches in a row, the same guy became a villain. One responsible for everything that was wrong with Pakistani cricket.

I'd the privilege of watching his retirement one day match too. After the match when he was walking back into the dressing room, in front of an almost empty stadium, I really felt very sad.

I believe we from subcontinent are too emotional. We certainly lack mannerism of treating our heroes.

When they are doing good, we go full throttle to shower them with "too much to handle" love and affection..

A little drop in performance and we try to leave everyone behind in castigating them.

Is this the way we should treat our heroes ? Certainly not. At least not in my opinion.

I didn't like a bit in which Saurav Ganguly was unceremoniously dropped from the team and neither I agree with the undue criticism of Tendulkar and company.

We certainly need to grow up.