Blog@GraceJunction

India. A Monday morning in the May of 2008. It’s his first day at duty and the only thing on his mind is: “to make a difference“. He is determined to be unlike the ones before him. He would be clean, uncorrupted and only stand for the law and the rules. He will enforce it and propagate it. He takes up position at one of the main traffic junctions.

He soon realises that culprits are ‘dime a dozen’. They are everywhere. Most riders are without their helmets. Some drivers do not have seat belts on. Others have dark films on it. Still others have no colors prescribed by the law on the lights, bumpers or the back. Still others have heads tilted while riding and many a drivers are juggling while driving - trying to finish the most important telephone call of their life. Many more are standing in the wrong lanes! God only knows how many of them have licenses. (more…)

Out of the total arrests made in the country, 44.6% belonged to the 18-30 year age group. Many of them are novices and are not hardcore criminals. Most of them engage in crime for easy money, money they use to fulfill the aspirations raised in them by the “glamour” they see around.

The police and experts feel that these should be given “a second chance“, and they are sure that most of them will reform. Well, might be.

Many youngsters are increasingly being attracted to the word ‘hack’. They sleep during the day, chat with the world at night and make money too! Using ‘keywords’ and ‘codes’ and help from others across the world, they hack into servers of multinationals and payment gateways and make money through online fraud. It has changed their social life, made them happening and cool and also equipped them with the right gadgets! Another chance? (more…)

Hey Shridhar!

Sorry I did not get any reply from your personal mail id and did not have any contact numbers to get in touch with you for these last two years. Heard that you are doing well in life, that you joined an IT major and are now settled in the U.S. Ravi gave me the news when I was chatting with him. You are the only guy who has got settled so fast, but you deserve it.

It has been two desperate years for me, hunting jobs and making ends meet has been a Herculean task. Natasha and I soon moved in to another apartment after our graduations, she has landed a job in a bank and I am still languishing in a call centre, the same old routines, only thing that has changed is that now I am a floor manager. The BPO’s have been hit hard with the fall in number of clients due to the American slowdown. Pressures to keep our jobs are increasing and my medical bills are not likely to come down any time soon. (more…)

Recently I was in Mumbai for a ten day training for Private Banking (a division that handles only ultra High Networth Individuals). This field is very polished and the Relationship Manager’s(RM) meet only the business biggies of that city or state. These RM’s are highly regarded by the company and they themselves have a big inflated ego, “pride value” and all other values we can think of. The training was for both domestic and International RM’s coming from different countries.

These RM’s were very touchy about small small things. Somebody was complaining about the hotel not being a five star and being a three star, somebody about food, somebody about the Air-Conditioner et cetera. But I want to share one incident whick kept me thinking for a long while and prompted me to come up with this blog.

In one of our breaks some of us went to the wash room. On entering the wash room one of the RMs, based at Bahrain, got his shirt pulled off by some sharp obeject, possibily on the door. The right side of the shirt tore off, near the hand, in the size of a “pin hole”. This guy looked at the shirt for a while trying to see if it could be hidden or adjusted in some or the other way. After few minutes he said to us, “I’m going to meet the General Manager of the hotel and take him to task”!! (more…)

Recently I was passing by a transport godown near our factory. I passed by that part of their godown where they were taking in the goods. It was a fairly big door they had there. But a little outside the door they had “Size Restriction Bars” (I don’t know what else to call it). It’s a steel structure made with heavy channels (often rails), with two vertical bars and one horizontal bar (a shape similar to the greek alphabet “Pi”).

Though the door was bigger, all the goods that could go inside had to pass through this “Size Restriction Bars” and only then the transporters could “book in” the goods for transit to other places. Probably the size restriction was keeping in mind the size of the truck container or it was a size restriction put on that particular godown. Whatever it was, the message was very clear: If you have dimensions that cannot meet our standards, go away.

The heavy steel bars made sure that this standard set by the company management would not give into pushing by mere mortals, perhaps not even a heavy truck!! The decision was final and binding on all, even if it was the biggest player in our industrial estate! (more…)

“Life-On your Terms”. This is the quote I came across on the cover page of an investment review magazine of one of the biggest banks in the country; for some reasons I’ll keep it unnamed.

The magazine is a research magazine which shows the past performance of all the investment products available in the market. In short the magazine is giving us data to analyze and understand where to put our money so that we can make more money and when we have more money we can live our “Life on our Terms”.

But can we really live “life on our terms”?

If i see it from the material perspective may be “yes”. You see people around us taking control of their life: deciding what to eat, drink, when to drink and with whom to live, what brand, and even pre marital, post marital relations et cetera. These are components that people consider when defining “life on their terms”, doing what they want and when they want without strings and without any moral standards. (more…)

Some years ago when youngsters would be free and would want to unwind themselves, they would meet up with friends and have fun. The fun element would be derived from the various games they played, movies, music, lunch or dinner at a good restaurant, or just simple chitchat at a coffee shop or an ice cream parlor. But today if you think that the usual hotspots would be one of the coffee shops or favorite restaurants, you may be wrong. Those are a bit outdated now. The latest ‘cool’ hangouts are hookah bars or restaurants offering hookah facility. The latest trend rampantly creeping in amongst the teenagers and youngsters is the hookah trend, which is mistakenly believed to have no health implications. A new tobacco fad to attract the youngsters it seems. Another challenge for the government and anti tobacco campaigns trying to curb tobacco usage and smoking. So hookah trend is in. Is it in to devour the moralities, valuable time, health,talent and parents’ money or is just an instrument to relieve stress or a mere substitute for cigarettes?

What is a hookah used for anyway? Is it trendy? A cultural tradition, social activity or a substitute cigarette vice? A hookah, shisha or narghile is a water pipe used to smoke sweet-flavored tobacco. It can also be used to smoke other drugs as well. (more…)