I miss you Nanna

Babu, you could have avoided this sudden shock.  Every item in the house is reminding of you and unfinished work. You could have finished what ever you have dreamed of. It was too early to quit.

I could have spent more time with you. As a father understand your unconditional love towards us. You are soldier trying to fight for us. From utter poverty and almost lost everything,  our fight is in the right direction. We are towards success. But your sudden disappearance is leaving us helpless.

I might be better educated and earning better pay, still I dont know many things that you are master of. I dont know how to pack my things.  I dont know how to smile in neck deep problems. If I have a small problem , I shout,  I dont know how to live with uncertainty. 

You loved the kids. I am sorry Nanna, I coudn't bring my kids to you as often as you wanted. In the run for career and stupid family problem, I neglected you so much. I thought getting back your respect by building house was a big thing but I was wrong Nanna. I dont like failures but I remain a failure in front of you. Sorry but I promise I will continue working hard till I meet you and will do everything possible to take care of mother.

Delhi Metro and Duranto Express

I am back from Hyderabad to Gurgaon today.  It was interesting to Travel in Metro and then in DURANTO express to Secunderabad from H. Nizamuddin station in Delhi.

Before the travel, I was searching on internet to find out what is the best way to reach H. Nizamuddin from DLF Cyber Terraces (Build 5C).

The best way to reach H. Nizamuddin from Gurgaon is to get Yellow Line to Rajiv Chowk. I boarded at Sikunderpur since that is just 1 KM distance from my office. Yellow Line starts from HUDA City Center and goes through Rajiv chowk till Jahangirpuri.

We need to get down at Rajiv Chowk and switch to Blue Line (You need to climb up to next floor to get to Blue Line, Don't worry the indicators help you) as the nearest metro station for H. Nizamuddin is Indraprastha.  I think it is the 4th station from Rajiv Chowk.  The Public Announcement System in the metro trains will help us get down at the right place.

You can opt to buy a smart card instead of a token (ticket), as you can top up as needed and also that is nothing specific to a particular person. You can share with anyone you would like to, when you do not travel.

From Indraprastha station, you can take an auto who charge 50/- to drop you at H. Nizamuddin. I think bus service is also available but I was not so sure so to avoid missing my train, I opted to go by Auto.

Duranto is better as it takes less than 22 hours to Secunderabad and no passenger stops in the middle. It does stop at few places (called Technical stops). But the bookings are from H. Nijamuddin to Secunderabad directly. After the price revision it costs around 800 bucks for a sleeper booking for one person. This includes 2 water bottles (one on day 1, and other one on day 2 of journey).Tea is served few times. Dinner, break fast and Lunch are provided in the train itself (The fare is inclusive of food). You can opt for veg or non verg. Under non veg you get egg curry instead of vegetable curry in lunch/dinner and for breakfast you get bread amlet.  But beware the catering team will try to skip one water bottle and they also collect tips from each passenger (min. 10 rupees), I am going to raise a complaint to IRCTC on the same since I captured video of the same. Also the cleaner comes separately for tips. You do not find him to do any cleaning other than asking for tips.

Otherwise this train is good since it starts around 4PM (3.50PM) and reaches Secunderabad around 1.30 / 2 PM next day. You are left with half a day with you once you reach Secunderabad.  Also the return journey on Sunday starts at 1.30 PM at Secunderabad and reaches H. Nizamuddin on Monday morning around 11 AM (though they say it is 10.35, it can be any time before 11.30 AM).

The year ahead

Year 2012 was an eventful year. Personally I experienced a lot. Stressful career to healthy relationships with people around, morning walks, the new found yoga guru Sridhar reddy in the colony, badminton practice daily, the continued online training that lead to registering CareerScale IT Consulting LLP and forming clear path for the years to come by.

The IVY experiment was not so cool, with so many issues around and the legacy not accepting change and me not able to adjust with the environment, though I was able to finally work on PL/SQL though found it difficult in the beginning (this means, I am through Java, .net, sharepoint and now into db as well  :-), though not an expert),made up my mind to call off this experiment.

The best part of this experiment is the orphan home facility that is coming up at Vikarabad. With contributions from IVY employees and some matching grant from IVY itself (mgmt was reluctant initially) is now bringing up a big facility 123*33 sft shelter with the cost of INR 15,00,000/-. I was very instrumental in picking this up and taking it forward. Unfortunately I was not there to see the completion of the work but will monitor on behalf of TMAD

CareerScale, the legal entity that is born on 4th Dec 2012(incorporation date), has lot of hopes and work for me for the years ahead. But it is into incubation at present and not much of commercial activity. The dream is to make the infrastructure that goes deep into the education system that the final outcome of our regular colleges is industry ready youth who can either work for industry or go on becoming entrepreneurs. Probably  it may be bit odd to say, train them and shift the academic system from typical kirana store to a supermarket where companies can go and pick the ready made employable youth. May be the future walmart of the world in IT and other employable sectors. BIG DREAM though!. Lot of work ahead and I am still at baby steps.

TMAD was an important part of the year in my life. It will be as well in the years to come. The dyvakrupa orphan home work with the cost of INR 3,00,000 brought tremendous change in the lives of 30 kids in the orphan home. The little shelter in a small room behind a church now has decent facility and with the support of RDO they started a dairy form which gives them around 12 to 15k (after paying the loan installments) they are able to meet the maintenance of the orphan home. They were expecting more help from TMAD but somehow I thought they must self sustain and we shouldn't do too much of spoon feeding there.

The Mahima orphan home (though primary fund pooling was in IVY) work also has great interest in TMAD friends, we really wanted to play a major role in this (if not the HR disinterest @IVY), but we still worked on supporting the electrification with a domestic connection (which includes getting a transformer etc) we incurred cost of around INR 50,000/- towards this.

Supporting buchanna's CA dream through TMAD (I am directly supporting this) and other student (a B.Pharmacy student) etc kept me busy through out the year.  Though I haven't planned any of these activities  for the year 2012, they just happened because they needed support and I wanted to contribute.

You know you will feel very very very happy when you realize your simple assistance bringing up BIG change in someone's life. Recent mail from Karthik Dumpala that he got a big Job and scholarship or something for his invention at IIG Gauhati. I feel really happy. You know sending a little amount as Money Order to a student in his early engineering class with the hope that it helps, and getting this mail after some years is an amazing thing.

The year ahead is going to be challenging for me, I must re-christen myself and get back the old geek skills that I lost with my IVY experiment  I must become someone very very inevitable on technical skill set which any employer on earth should like to hire. But this is not for another HOP but for my CareerScale dream. Being away from typical comfort zone (living in venkateswara enclave, upparpally, hyderabad) with friends like Divaker reddy, Sridhar reddy, Mahesh etc and with my family is a difficult thing. I have become numb being away from my kids Abhi and Adith (They are the best of my existence, I simply love them for what they have been to me). But this leading to simple living and saving few extra bucks might help my dream.

Mahima orphanage work to begin

Finally, we are starting it. After some strain, few visits and lot of time and discussions, we are starting the work at Mahima orphanage near vikarabad. It is a big thing that I am doing this year and Hopefully it should be ready before new year kicks in. It is bigger than the warangal orphange project (Dyvakrupa orphanage). In fact multiple times of it.  we are planning a big shelter with 10 to 13 lakhs of Indian currency.

I am getting bore with regular life, hope to see some change to happen in the near future. It may happen.

On the regular things, one is corruption. it is so much part of each one of us in some way or the other. I like this picture. All govt schemes are finally like this. Multi tier corruption makes the real beneficiaries getting very little. Cann't we do something about it? we can. Let us raise RTI requests, shout on corruption and importantly NEVER PAY A BRIBE even if it means taking off for a day or half.

Mahima orphanage vikarabad

My two visits to Vikarabad and earlier visits to Mahima orphange in chandanagar are now towards a concrete action plan to build a proper shelter for the orphan home (also houses old age people and HIV infected ones). I along with collegues at IVY Comptech (called Sparsh group @IVY) have pooled up around 6.5L so far from contributions of employees who are interested in this activity. This is really decent amount to build them a 35*140 size shelter, which could accomodate around 150 to 200 people (including kids).

Overall, I am happy with the progress, in another 2 to 3 months, we will have the structure ready.

This is my 2nd activity(first one being the Dyvakrupa orphan home at secunderabad thanda, near Mahbubabad, Warangal district. I worked with my friends at TMAD  to pool up 3L and build them facilities. It was quicker at TMAD as there is no delay in decision making).

I must take some break after this activity, There has been too many activities this year and it is being growing year by year. I am happy with the difference we are able to make to needy. I know this is not sufficient, there are millions of people who need help some way or the other and we just started. I thinkI too need help in managing myself and my time so that I can do more and more.

Shit called corruption

It is the terrible thing. This corruption is there everywhere, It is so formal and so legal in almost all govt offices.
Recent experience is with RTA office Kishan bagh.  The amazing organizational structure of corruption makes us get surprised. These idiots got fixes for every solution to stop corruption.  The webcam to take snap of the license seeker, the thumb impression machine, the signature recording machine, the online test everything is so well managed to create more avenues for corruption.

I went through  the driving school and agreed to pay what ever they said it will cost. The old man at the driving school (it is a  small shop used for multiple purposes and doubles up as driving school office) winks his eyes and says govt is only one so is the fee, but there are so many people in the layer and everyone has to be fed so the fee charged is more than 4 times of actual fee.

I along with  my friend went there to RTA office and the agent whose number is given by the driving school guy didn't switch on his mobile until 9.15AM or so. Upon his confirmation we went to the RTA office and called this guy multiple times. He got irritated in NAWABI style and came to see us. He was stinky and might have not taken bath for at least a week or so and also not sure whether he brushed his teeth anytime in his life.

He asked us to wait for 15 minutes and then came after 40 minutes. Says they are not accepting PAN card for DOB proof and he need to make up affidavit for it. We asked what other proofs  they can accept, he says secondary school certificate.  Fine, we will get. I am not really sure if Congress govt makes changes on a timely basis to not to accept PAN card as ID, DOB proofs(while accepting all TDS ). It was a big lie.

When we went to RTA with SSC copies, he made us wait for some time and then he says no need to stay in the queue, you can go to front and say "My photo didn't come properly so need to take it again" and skip the queue. We didn't like that idea and stood up in the queue.

We found most of the people are doing the same thing, I got pissed off at the end and they shouted and sent back  5 to 6 people back to queue. But then the smarter ones stayed. One guy says he already took photo and it didn't come well, so need to take it again. Even the guy at computer says, yes yes he did take photo before. I asked his reference number, it is 60 and mine is 13. Though I shouted at him how come 60 takes photo first before 13. he says it happens.

Agent gives slips with 90 written as code sign (might be the computer operator gets 90 rupees).  once photo is done, agent gave a different slip for LLR test with some other code for money.

Funny thing is that the online test is so simple in that RTA office, just give the slip and the RTA officials will enter your number, dob and click start test and complete test. You do not need to touch key board or mouse.

Believe me or not, you can easily get driving license in hyderabad for you pets also. Only thing is you may have to shell out little extra money.

For me the agents, the govt employees all looked like MAN EATERS.

And Anna does shout and show his ego, did it solve any problem? I am afraid it didn't. Anna could have used his supporters to go and clean up all govt offices one after the other so that no office has corruption. It is a simple task, just go to govt office (1 or 2 people) with cameras and tell them that they will be put behind bars and lose jobs, try sending volunteers to do this on regular basis and then reduce the frequency, this brings awareness in people that things are working fine and they need not bribe. I want to dare the system and fix it.

Abhinav Reddy and Adith Reddy July 2012