2 Day Training Experience - Part 1

Alarm starts ringing from 7 'o' clock. It couldn't even complete 1 ring fully. It is trying to wake me up every 5 minutes, but instead i'm putting it in sleep every 5 minutes. Atlast it won at 7:40. Today I need to go to another branch of my office in borivali for a training. So i got ready soon to catch a town bus to go to Borivali. As i went to borivali National park before by bus, i reached there correctly. Then i found the office and entered inside. Security asked for the details and i said that i came for training. He told that i need a visitor pass and asked me to sit in reception till a person comes to escort me. In reception me and another person were there. He would be around 45 yrs age. Receptionsist called him in few minutes and took a photo off him and gave the visitor pass immediately. And she called me in few minutes and asked "Did you came for 'Leadership Skills for Project Leaders' Training ?". Guess what would have been my answer.

It is 'YES'.

Yes. I went for Project leaders training. Don't get surprised or shocked. I didn't become a PL and i won't be in near future. I'm just a backup PL in my team and i should have attended some PL training. So this was the only PL training in this month and as we have audit this month end, i must attend this training. This training is only for PLs and above and only for one particular Project members. But i requested and got permission to attend. If i go for normal training ,where there are people of my ages , i will get many bun experiences and lot of comic swill happen. Now i'm going for PL training, where everyone is PL and above, except me. Guess how it would have been.

After getting Visitor Pass, A lady who was organising the training came to escort, not me. To escort that 45 yr old man. He is the faculty for that training. I got the permission to attend the training from that lady only. But seems that she forgot that. So she didn't ask me anything. But i just followed them both wherever they went. Whichever door she is entering, i'm also just tail gating. As i'm going behind them, security didn't ask me anything. Atlast, while entering the training room, she signed the register to escort that man. I followed them upto there. Then only she saw me and found that i'm following them. She was starring at me like looking at a guy who was chasing a girl in the street. I don't know what to say at that moment. I showed the visitor pass and said 'Ela..vara..san, from Thaaaaane...'. Then she remembered and escorted me also.

Me and the Faculty are the 1st ones to enter into that room. No one else arrived yet. Then one by one some people came. All are working on the same office,same project. I'm the only one from different branch and different project. Around 17 ppl were there. Then Faculty started the training by asking the 1st Question:'Who are all working in IT since Y2K problem?'. Some people raised hands. Oh My God. I was studying 10th std at that time. I got freaked out. I thought experienced people would come for training, but not this much experienced. Then the 2nd Question he asked is: 'Who are all having Kids?'. For that also some people raised hands. I felt like an Alien there. Or like a human caught in between Aliens. I was thinking how to pass two days like this with these Uncles and Aunts.

Then training started and going with some slide shows,assessments etc. It was not as boring as i expected. Because for every topic, he told some stories as example. Somehow, time passed upto lunch. After Lunch, there comes the interesting part. That is Roleplay.

Roleplay 1:
Before saying about this, i need to say something about me. In my office, whenever my PL or any senior persons asks me to do any job, the immediate answer which comes from my mouth is "It's ok. No problem. I'll do it". I'll suffer later without knowing how to do, is a different thing. I don't have guts to oppose any one. That is the fact. Many of you know this. Now see what my role in Roleplay.

"I'm recently promoted to Module Leader Post. PL is asking me to generate some reports. Now i need to reject that by arguing that "I'm newly promoted and i have never generated any report before and also my teammates are not listening to me. So i won't be able to this now."

This is little difficult role for me. I did somewhat ok. But atleast i got a chance to practise on how to oppose your seniors/PLs.

RolePlay 2:
This one is more interesting. If you had read one of previous blog, you would have came to know how i used to talk to my clients in our weekly call. If you didn't read, here is the portion of that blog: (Last 2 Months... : Team Meetings:Mostly in our team meetings, i'll never talk. I'll try to say 'Hi' at the starting of the meeting. But before i try to say 'hi', others will enter into dicussion, so i'll leave that. At the end of meeting, before i try to say 'Bye' everyone will hangup the phone. So till now my only aim is to say 'Hi' and 'Bye' in meeting.)Now see my role in the Roleplay.

"I'm a PL and one of my teammember is working very good, but feeling very shy in talking to clients in weekly call. I have to advice her to start talking to clients in weekly call. Her role is to oppose me".

Guess how it could have been for me to advice. That too regarding this. The only person who i ever advised and only person who ever listen to my advice is my sister.Don't think that i'm caring too much for my sister or my sister has so much respect for me. I would have been ordered to advise her and she would have been ordered to listen to my advise. Every one knows where the order would have came from(My Dad). So i completed this roleplay by imagining the person who was sitting before me as my sister and the faculty who gave me this role as my father.

I'll share the Day 2 experiences soon.

Parthiban Kanavu

Hi Guys,
I remember a scene in novel 'Sivagamiyin Sabadham'. Sivagami would receive a love letter from her lover after a longtime. She'll get the letter eagerly but would be in a dilemma whether to read or not. Kalki explained this scene as "Sivagami kept staring at the letter like a child looking at the sweet in its hands but not eating, fearing that it would get over after eating". Like that after reading Kalki's two historical novels ('Ponniyin Selvan' & 'Sivagamiyin Sabadham'), i was postponing the reading of 'Parthiban Kanavu' for many days.


Atlast i read that now and feeling sad that there are no other novels of Kalki (i mean historical ones) to read. Atlast i read that now and feeling sad that there are no other novels of Kalki (i mean historical ones) to read. This novel dealt with Chola king Parthiban's dream of Independent Chola dynasty and expanding it further. How his son Vikraman is fighting to make his father's dream to come true, is the story. Parthiban's dream just took two days of my sleep. It's a small novel when compared to SS and a tiny one when compared to PS. If you read this after studying SS, it'll be very good as most of the characters come in SS, but you can find some suspenses very soon as you already know the characters well.

Last 2 Months...

Hi everybody (or) atleast anybody who is reading this,
Last 2 months i (choose the correct answer)
i) was busy in work, so couldn't write anything in my blog.
ii) mostly forgot about my blog
iii) was lazy enough, even to scribble few lines in my blog
(No prize for guesses)

Friends:
Ok. In the last 2 months i rarely watched any movie in my laptop. Because for around 1 and half months, i was watching the 'FRIENDS' serial. It's a comedy serial which was telecast in 1994-2004. Every episode is very humorous and funny that i'll laugh by rolling on floor. My roommates even thought that i became a mental. When the serial ended, it was very boring after that.

Me and Hindi...again:
Then i went to Guntur to attend my friends's marriage. While going from Mumbai to Vijayawada, by train ,to not get bore i borrowed mp3 player from my friend, and also bought some novels and books. 1st 6 hrs i passed by listening to music. Then a small girl about 4 yrs old sat near me and started playing with me. Then we played many games (mostly invented by that small child) for almost 3 hours. The funny part in this is she spoke in hindi for all those 3 hrs. In hindi, one sentence which i can properly speak is "main hindi nayi aatha hai" (is it right first?). You can guess my hindi knowledge from this. As she is a kid, i managed with few words and ek,dho,theen. But whenever her grandmother or mother tried to start conversation with me, i would start reading the novel i had.

Team meetings:
Mostly in our team meetings, i'll never talk. I'll try to say 'Hi' at the starting of the meeting. But before i try to say 'hi', others will enter into dicussion, so i'll leave that. At the end of meeting, before i try to say 'Bye' everyone will hangup the phone. So till now my only aim is to say 'Hi' and 'Bye' in meeting. But now it is really improved. (If anybody don't believe this, you'll be in hell for sure). I'm saying one or two points also in the meetings. And one more thing, i even got appreciation from one of my client for my work. If anybody don't believe this, don't worry i won't curse you, because till now i'm also unable to believe this.

Transfer:
My transfer is getting postponed month by month. But he didn't stop trying for that. That 'He' is my father. Yes. Every month he'll say "son this month you'll get transfer for sure. Now only i saw an astrologer and he said definitely a huge place change will happen for you in a month". Even my seating place in office hasn't changed for the past 10 months.

Ok then. Bye for now. Wait for the next update

Happy Pongal

Hi,
First of all, Happy Pongal to everyone who are all not celebrating it. And very very Happy Pongal to who are all celebrating the Tamilian's one of the cultural and the longest festival, 'Pongal' even in these busy,money-seeking,machine-life. In that case it is just a 'Happy Pongal' for me. In childhood, Pongal means a much joy for us as we will get 4 days leave plus, 2 or 3 new dresses, gifts,money from relatives, watching new cinemas in theatre or little old ones playing in TV, participating in games and competitions which are conducted in our villages. But where that joy went now? Is it because of the decrease in leave days or no leaves. Now we are getting only one day leave and if we're outside southindia, no leave. Next is buying new dresses, eventhough if we buy dresses for more money than those in our childhood, will it bring that joy. Only a computer monitor will monitor your branded new dresses. Then gifts. Frankly speaking i shouldn't be talking about gifts. I don't remember an incident where i gave a gift to someone. I donno about others, so i'll jump to next one. New movies. Yeah, new movies are releasing even now. How it'll be to watch in our village enjoying every scene of the film shouting, whistling no matter how the film is, rather than giving 250 bucks and sitting in a multiplex like a monk, thinking that we are behaving very decently and became a matured person. I remember that in childhood i gave pongals,sweets to my muslim neighbours, sharing our joy n happiness with them also. Now even to my Mom n Dad, i'm wishing in cell phone. And see, instead of celebrating a festival, i'm writing why we're not celebrating it. what does it shows?

PONNIYIN SELVAN

Before few months if someone asked me to read a tamil novel, i would have laughed out loudly, that too a 1600 page novel. But now i'm feeling why the novel ended up soon. It has been like a wonderful journey to 10th century itself, meeting great men like Arulmozhivarman, Vandhiyathevan etc and some beautiful ladies like Kundhavai, Nandini, Poonguzhali etc. Though the novel is based on the incidents happened over just eight months, you will get to know about the 200 yrs of Chola Kingdom from 800-1000 A.D after completing the novel. This novel explains Arulmozhivarman's leadership quality, treating everyone equally, his desire to build big temples (later he built the Brihadiswara temple in Thanjur) etc, that he had in the young age itself. Though the title role is Arulmozhivarman, the story revolves around Vandhiyathevan and the problems he is facing to finish his job and Thirumalai Nambi, a talented spy who helps Vandhiyathevan during troublesome times. The picture above is the scene where Vandhiyathevan and Kundhavai meets for the first time after knowing each other (before they met once without knowing each other's name). The way the author explained their emotions at this time is, fantastic. It is one of my favourite part in the novel. I got so much angry after finishing the novel as many would have got after reading it in weekly magazine 'Kalki' for 3 and a half years in 1950s. (Author 'Kalki Krishnamurthy' came out of weekly magazine 'Anandha Vikatan' and started 'Kalki' in 1941 in which his novels 'Ponniyin Selvan','Sivagamiyin Sabadham' were published). But after reading his explanation for his ending, it seems reasonable and i'm quite satisfied. Altogether it is a great novel in tamil, and everyone should have read this. I think some other novels came as a continuation for this novel. I'm searching those and i'll update about that soon.

PS: 'Ponniyin Selvan' is translated in English also. So Non tamilians can try reading that one. I guarantee you that it is worth reading.