Love That Time Forgot

Our Satyam Days, part X

Oh! I wandered off from my original topic, but I'm back on track now. L.T. has been the main focus of my thoughts lately, which is why I briefly digressed from discussing my Satyam colleague's unspoken, unfulfilled love. Now, let's move on to Heartlight's alias Mandeep’s little love story.

A love that could have been

Mandeep’s unspoken love, lost in time: Anyways, in those memorable four days at STC, where we all were having the prime time of our lives attending all-day seminars, luncheons, and meetings, I knew Mandeep had lost his heart to Shikha the instant he started telling me how beautiful she looked. While glancing at her from afar, he said (man-to-man talking), “Shikha too good hai na.” “How lovely she looks." Indeed, she had striking good looks. (That day, I learned that Mandeep — even though I had believed he was an immortal optimist, a humorous and world-savvy person with comedic brilliance that is sure to leave you in stitches as one of his many differentiae — had a romantic heart that is capable of loving someone was a first among his myriad mysterious likings was a pleasant surprise).

Dressed elegantly in a saree, Shikha, a manager at a company, radiated the womanly beauty and gentility expected of a woman in her position. Regrettably, Mandeep's love story ended before it could blossom into what it could have been. She flew back to Delhi, leaving my friend slightly heartbroken. She did not return to STC the following year; neither was she seen or heard from again.

Mandeep quietly let go of his feelings for this far-off beautiful woman from Delhi, who was to leave in four days. He knew liking or developing a one-sided romantic admiration for someone does not translate into a relationship worth its salt. That’s how he reasoned. However, it was indeed the start of love (at first sight?), and he pondered what love is and what may have been. His unrequited love ended with the imminent departure of the lady in question. That's how Mandeep's short love tale came to an end. Love hurts, but sometimes it's worth it. Mandeep would concur as much.

One last note. The cataclysm of Shikha’s departure following four unforgettable days of seminars and conferences at Satyam Technology Center (STC) proved that such transient romances could not endure.

Deep down in his heart, Mandeep knew as much: a brief yet sublime feeling of the tenderness of falling in love that came and went, causing heartache in the process. Shikha, as Mandeep would have felt in his heart of hearts but haven't felt able to utter as much, except a line or two in hopeless admiration of her maybe, was a lady bathed in the softest sunlight who flew back to her native Delhi, where she belonged, leaving him to juggle love and survival for a fleeting moment and after, in an ever-changing world that always seemed marred in love, intimacy, and relationship issues. He survived the ordeal, which was only a one-sided sweet interlude with someone who never could be his, even as he reconciled to the loss of, perhaps, a lifetime.

(To be continued…)

By Arindam Moulick

(Note: The title of this blog may have been "A Love That Time Forgot," with the article "A" added, but I decided to omit it and go with "Love That Time Forgot.")

Also published on Medium.

A Company of Great Friends

Our Satyam Days, part IX

Every year at Satyam Technology Center (STC), Mandeep and I shared a luxurious dorm room to help plan and coordinate the annual summits, which were always a delight to attend.

Satyam's concierge on the 5th-floor front desk, helmed by a ‘snow queen,’ an apt pupil by the name of Ann Mary R. or vice versa, as it chimes felicitously well in any way pronounced, reserved a dorm room for Gnana and Renju. We all got it done for all of us — per GG's bossy diktats, which come with a dreary supplement of other grotesque directives and hideous instructions straight from the Jaws!

GG's pet, his chosen one, Ann Mary, alias snow queen who lived her flawlessly chic astringent life delirious with feverish anticipation of something good coming her way soon or of prospective interaction with some potentially drool-worthy ‘sizzling bacon’ à la Salman Khan’s big pear- or almond-shaped eyes, or a tony looking nutty professor, or a Shakespearean duke, or maybe a haranguing do-nothing, good-for-nothing, say-anything yobbo who likes pronouncing the word twenty as 'tonetee,' moving around the vast halls of the East and West wings while every suitor comes in her sharp focus of the colleen entitlement for a little dillydally perhaps; with the buzzing possibilities of much-awaited things to come, such as GG's foreign-bought silky-smooth chocolates and candies, specially bought for his confectionery-loving bonbon Ms. Sugarplum while she eagerly expects someone familiar mysteriously sweep her off her feet — that, alas, never came to pass, and that was the end of the story, finished before it even started for her, poor finch.

Ann Mary R. relished being at her scintillating best every single day. Most days, with GG-gifted chocolate candy, this was as good as it got, optimistically her best prospect. Being spick and span in everything she handled did make an adequate impression on everyone, including Chicha, who cared so much to notice the 'snow queen' making professionally significant progress in her role. As a result, she showcased her highest potential as a Front Office Administrator at Satyam, gladdening all those in her vicinity. And, of course, not to miss mentioning GG—who was not known to dabble in magic charm or jinx, but when it was Ann Mary, he did bring, unbeknownst to anyone, his killer instinct forth—as he resigned from Satyam. She was the first to find out that GG had resigned, and she felt crushed under the ponderous weight of her justifiably fond entitlement to 'international' treats that GG regularly got for her favourite office employee. 

And that was all about this strange, elegiac maiden who has been deceptively tact from moving on from one to another at the drop of a hat, constant nit-picking plain Jane and thy name Ann Mary R. Many likened her to a modern-day Urvashi, albeit with a venal whiff of private motivations despite the charm offensive she is quick in using, aiming to entice you to the boondocks of infamy. One of her natural talents was problematizing things with a winsome smile that made a good case for her every time she indulged herself, even as she clung to a special place in apostolic GG’s largely blank jolly good books. Who knows, she might be expecting more chocolates from him, maybe. Adding further intrigue, she bore a surname that started with the letter R., which humorously translates to "Do you come daily?" (to the office!) — a witty invention by the ever-artful comedic colleague Mandeep, adding a layer of playful irony to her ballsy surname, Rozario. Ann May R. was a classic case of having your cake and eating it, too! (Only replace the cakes with the godforsaken chocolates).

However, Gnana had to stay in our spacious bedroom once and judiciously chose to sleep on the plush, velvety sofa. Devi and Suresh would get a lovely room down the dorm hallway.

+*+*+*+

The experience of these all-important summits was not solely about work; it was a joyful journey of productive collaboration and entrepreneurial creativity that GG—we got to give it to him this time for his sort of corporate battle-hardened business acumen in top presentation—knew how to handle, making each summit a notable event to remember. GG aside, those days were some of the most enjoyable times of our career.

GG was there, of course, at STC, erratically acting like a mythical phoenix (Rising from the prickly ashes? Whatever!) or something idiomatic like that; at other anxious times, he managed to keenly look like a love-sick (un)social lion looking for his seemingly estranged 'ZZ,' on the move with its sabre-rattling, graveyard stones like teeth bared, creeping stealthily around the exquisite campus: prowling, howling, hawking — he would, it genuinely seemed, stoop down from on high at any moment and catch us all unawares! And no, GG wasn't being funny, nope; he could never match up to Devi's self-esteem or Mandeep's blasting, globe-swallowing power of his artistry, or better still, his dazzlingly spectacular skill, in making spontaneous jokes and delivering them in a way that only those with a humorous bone in their good self could. GG was never schooled in good behaviour or politeness when he dealt with us and, therefore, was never fun to be around. That's why we amusingly dubbed him "Chicha" behind his back, a little inside joke at our boss's expense that always brought a grin to our faces and allowed us to lighten the difficult circumstances at work. His death-scare glances were reminiscent of a desi Dumbledore, a Chicha-esque dark lord Count Dracula.

Uttering a little more on GG while I can. Although he would not stay (hardly the bother) at STC for these summits, he typically preferred to drive back and forth from home in his executive private car every day for the three crucial days of his lucrative career at Satyam. A colossal narcissist who comes from a graveyard of lifelong anger management issues, GG is a bulbous-faced, frog-lipped, insult-spewing, swaggering oaf of a devil who maltreats the observations made, bumbles over pointless debates, useless arguments hurled over dispassionate grassroots concepts we tried to articulate. 

As you can see from the vocal abuses (I admit!) highlighted above, it's evident that GG was beyond saving — a gone case! So hopeless and dire that there was no way back for him to a better state, and any prospect of redemption seemed utterly elusive. Overall, he was an unsocial gadfly.

+*+*+*+

While the three of us were relaxing in the room, Mandeep, dressed in a T-shirt and Bermuda shorts, sat on his bed, removed his pugree (turban), and grinned away as he did. We were preparing to sleep for the night. When Gnana noticed Mandeep without his ever-present turban, he shot a glance at me to gauge my reaction to Mandeep's appearance (without his turban on his head). Lo and behold! Gnana and I weren't expecting to find Mandeep stark… bald: with practically no hair left on his head, with only a few light strands dangling here and there around his neck, but the entire top floor had no hair or hair follicles to speak of — silky smooth and shiny like an… airstrip! Or a big slice of Amul butter!; in fact, his clean bald head gleamed luminously under the white recessed lighting of the dorm room as he sat on his bed, still grinning at us like a smiling Doraemon. Sadly, all his hair had escaped a long time ago. Holy fuck!

Poor Mandeep's hair has long since vanished, leaving him a small number of strands to comfort himself so that his head can still flaunt with pride. Seeing what I was seeing had left me feeling flummoxed, taken aback, startled, and even somewhat stunned. I or anyone else had never seen Mandeep bald, as he always wore a close-knit pugree covering most of his head. He had a full beard dyed with henna, perfectly snipped, but the hair on his head was altogether out of our critiquing. I noticed Gnana felt the same way as he lounged on the sofa with his head propped on the armrest, grinning away to himself and looking at us! While Mandeep was a good sport, a die-hard Punjabi munda, and a comedic Turbanator, he quickly explained, "If you constantly wear a pugree, you will eventually lose your hair." That's true, Mandy. We sympathize with your feelings and understand their perspective. Hair or no hair, life was indeed on an even keel for Mandeep, and that for him was a saviour.

Gnana fell asleep on the couch (Or was it a chaise lounge? I never could tell), galloping fast with his sleep-horse into the night. Mandeep slept on the right single bed adjoining the bedroom wall, and I slept on the other left. All night, I couldn’t get proper sleep. Sleep eluded me. After spending a long, exhausting day in meetings and conferences, where my contribution was to be a superb spectator, I had anticipated a dreamless, pure slumber, but that was not what I experienced. Devi and Suresh called it a day and retired to their rooms across the hallway for a good night's bedtime.

I don't know about Gnana, but before I could get some proper shuteye, Mandeep’s shining bald pate kept clicking (like a computer mouse) in my mind’s visualization for a long time into the night. As I lay on my single bed and moved this way and that, I thought Mandeep must be sleeping soundly by now, with his bald head free to enjoy the cool winter air in the spacious room, and he must be feeling very relieved as his breath rasped in the quiet night. I raised my head to see Gnana in the ambient light cast by the bulb recessed in the wall. He already drifted off to sleep. Tomorrow, however, Mandeep's majestic turban that he placed on the bedside table will be back on his head, and he will be ready to face another day head-on. Tomorrow morning, there will be more meetings, followed by a luncheon by the pool. Cool!

More pictures were taken, official and personal. The digital camera, owned by Susanne's Danish colleague from Copenhagen, was unlike anything we had seen. I can't believe I own a Sony Cybershot digital camera but have no use for it. Sadly, it has gone out of fashion. Nobody cares much about such outdated, obsolete junk lying around the house anymore. (I purchased that one a few years later and had only started using it before it fell into permanent disuse. It’s a shame because I had hoped to enjoy taking pictures with it far more). I brought my little Canon Prima SLR camera to take photos manually, if not digitally. I peered through the tiny viewfinder to take several snapshots of Mandeep, Suresh, Devi, and myself together — in the conference hall, in the lunchroom, by the pool, in the corridor while we had lunch with clients, and at the sumptuous repast in the evenings. I handed my camera to one of the poolside concierges, asking him to take a picture with one of our Kolkata clients. Devi and I are on each side of him in the photo, standing close to the blue-as-the-sky waters of the swimming pool on the promenade. That shot came out looking great.

I don't know when we were taking photos by the pool, Mandeep was nowhere to be seen; perhaps Devi and I thought he kept company to Ms. Shikha, a gorgeous-looking Delhi native, which caused his heart to race and visibly aflutter. And that's why—I can't believe—he skipped our poolside photo shoot! Where is he now?

(To be continued…)

By Arindam Moulick

Also published on Medium.

Tales from The East Wing

Our Satyam Days, part VIII

“For if life is vagabond, our memory is sedentary” - Marcel Proust

One learns many other things in an IT company; it comes with the turf. I learned early on that you can't win over everyone — especially not the person we reported to at the Satyam office on Raj Bhavan Road.

One thing's for sure, two things are certain — you cannot afford to undervalue yourself in a collaborative work environment where people interact, ideas flow and grow to scale, and feedback is received, as social interaction and joint attention to the problems the team might be facing may also be shared and resolved the best doable way, leading to convincing problem-solving. While this makes us better individuals professionally, the work gets done to yield better results that align with both short-term and long-term goals you may have conceived. To achieve this, we had three IBM desktops (laptops were rare at the time), including three corded Panasonic intercoms and a direct landline connection, all housed in our large cubicle in the East Wing of the building. What more could anyone ask for? All the office luxuries were at our beck and call.

Your demeanour, language, and behaviour shape your professional reputation in the organization. For every Satyamite in 1998 and after—unarguably the golden age of Satyam as a reputable IT company—these were specific points considered to be proven and settled for a long life in the IT industry. GG, the Chicha garu of the roaming division, battered us daily. But we did not flinch from the formidably gross boss-damaged hard times we encountered in his typical Timbuctoo-infatuated moments. We stood up to GG's daily haranguing in the best way possible as we went forward politely and cooperatively, setting boundaries as we went along together and trying to put our best foot forward in conducting ourselves as good-humoured software professionals; moral victory was more important to us than our boss's 'military victory.' I still hear our former boss's fanciful bombast: "That's the spirit, fellas," meaning — if you guys mess with it, I'm the most godless person you'll ever know. He's constantly criticizing and hollering, as is his wont.

Thankfully, we could still have a lot of fun while we worked. For that to happen, Mandeep was up for the task, for he was a masterclass of humorous timing and temperament, with Devi, Kavitha, Suresh, and me duly encouraging him to make merry as we would; actually, more the merrier it will be, so we bantered about back and forth as we worked in our corner. When you have a boss like "Chicha" (GG) amongst you people as the antagonist in the story, we also had gregarious Mandeep to nullify GG's bossy menace with teasingly chummy bantering, creating a full-blown adrenalized comedic relief that made everyone roll on the floor laughing. With an office colleague like him, you have to have a funny bone, too. So, feel free to laugh whenever you feel like cracking jokes. Feel free to learn and contribute. Feel free to help yourself with coffee or tea from our beloved Nescafe dispenser, which beautifully fizzles up while filling the paper cup to the rim. Feel free to go to the loo: that is urgently permissible!

+*+*+*+

Satyam's city offices had world-class state-of-the-art office infrastructure. Spacious seminar halls with premium sound acoustics which, in my experience, create a sense of calm: a peaceful ambiance that shields the auditoria from outside noises once you are inside; a reasonably well-stocked library in each office branch in the city; large cafeterias/food courts, on the terraces of the buildings, food courts were also on the ground floors; coffee/tea kiosks in the nooks and even on the patios, recreational facilities; tech-driven collaborative spaces; innovative learning centres; and even the restrooms and lobbies were spick and span — each one a cutting-edge facility that thrives in a smart, and vibrant, inclusive workplace accessible to all employees, visitors, and guests.

On the other hand, Satyam's flagship technology centre (STC), which was known then simply as STC until the company went under in 2008-09, had a unique ecosystem of manicured parks, expansive sprawling lawns in front, and even created inside the buildings like an atrial fountain, a zoological menagerie of captive animals, cafeterias, dormitories, galleries, large open passageways, and long winding roads leading to various facilities installed on campus, with picturesque settings and spectacular landscaping all around that only a leading global IT services company like Satyam's STC deserved.

Amidst the workday rush

Every December, the Satyam Technology Center (STC), the lively corporate headquarters of Satyam, played host to our highly anticipated annual client meetings and the year-on-year carnivals for Satyam employees called Satyamoutsav.

A vibrant gathering of domestic clients from Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata (formerly known as Calcutta), Bengaluru (previously Bangalore), Pune, and Mumbai (once known as Bombay) took place alongside our esteemed business partners hailing from Denmark and London. Enriched by the presence of our team of executives from Satyam Computers, which comprised GG, Balaji, Renju, Gnana, Devi, Suresh, myself, and Mandeep, this eclectic gathering was a testament to Satyam's ability to provide a range of diverse IT solutions to the gravity of the issues at hand while demonstrating a culture of solidarity across the GSM mobile roaming operations spectrum.

As gracious hosts, we went above and beyond to create an atmosphere that made our clients feel truly at home, showcasing our state-of-the-art facilities with a warm reception and red-carpet welcome. The central theme of these lively and engaging gatherings revolved around the strategic leveraging of the ongoing digital transition in our GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) operations, commonly referred to as roaming operations. This focus highlighted our commitment to innovation and collaboration in the ever-evolving telecommunications landscape.

The client meetings conducted were something to look forward to every year. GG would brief us in his deep baritone thus at the Raj Bhavan Road office —

• “As you know, we will be hosting clients from all over India, and our partners from Denmark and London will also attend the annual meeting. There will be conferences and meetings with clients.
• Arindam… Mandeep, you guys must review file transfers, status reports, and other specifics related to GSM mobile roaming operations. Email or call our partner from Denmark, Susanne, to resolve all pending issues. Be prepared; up-to-date information should be handy with you guys. Take help from Balaji if necessary. I leave that to you."
• And then again, GG adds: “Make sure you learn more about Transferred Account Procedure version 3 (TAP3)...” Mandeep, Devi, Kavitha, Balaji, Suresh, and I exchanged glances as we anticipated what would happen next. Kavitha was on the verge of tears, about to spill down her face, visibly anxious.
• Almost everything was unpredictable with our manager — a rhetorical, magniloquent, big-talking, high-sounding GG. Then his bafflegab burst out of his mouth like a runaway freight train on a dead-end track — “LOOK AT ME WHEN I AM TALKING TO YOU…!" “Yes, GG.” "… ARE YOU, BY ANY CHANCE, DISTRACTED…? DO YOU WANT TO HAVE SOME COFFEE...TEA...? ANYTHING ELSE TO MAKE YOU FINE SIRs COMFORTABLE?" “No, GG.” "…HAS THE CAT GOT YOUR TONGUE?" “No, GG.” "WHAT ‘NO GG’?" “Yes, GG!” "…IF YOU DON’T GET THE FINANCIAL SETTLEMENT INVOICES, CREDIT, OR DEBIT NOTES TO THE PARTNERS ISSUED, THEN I TELL YOU… YOU’RE SCREWED." “Yes, GG.” "WHAT ‘YES GG’?" “No, GG!” "I’LL THROW YOU OUT OF MY CABIN!” Which was fine with us!
• “Coming back to the point, this is for you all: Learning about TAP3 might not be required presently, but connecting with clients can be beneficial if you have the necessary TAP3 information to confer upon. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?" All in unison — “YES, GG!””
• GG speaks (louder than necessary): “BALAJI…?” Balaji looks up, hair probably prickling at the back of his neck but he doesn’t tell (and why would he!). GG, in defiance of good behaviour, hollers shabbily, “WILL YOU PLEASE TAKE OVER?” Balaji replies delicately, “Ah yes, GG.”, without further blowing off GG’s permanently fused goddamn switches!
• GG bashed on, regardless of the decorum he, as a boss, is expected to maintain in the meeting, “Devi and Suresh may need further information on the billing records of all mobile roaming network clients, especially INDCC and INDSC files that are still pending processing. Both these networks may grill us, so please ensure you get it processed before we all convene at STC for the annual conference."
• Again: "Report back to me when it is taken care of; you have a week... Take this on a war footing, will you? Proceed with the assistance of CyberNet's Michelle. She is going to attend the meeting next week.”
• Finally, militarily — “That will be all for today. DISMISSED!”

As you can see, GG, a modern-day Caligula, an Angulimaal, was not a nice man to know. (But the annual seminars were something we all looked forward to every year.) His Monday morning meetings (later rescheduled to Wednesday) were regularly insulting, sometimes even going so far as to be outright offensive. To keep our jobs going, we took it all in our stride. Perhaps, around the time of annual seminars, it may have been the only time in the year that half-crazed but highly diligent GG spoke to us somewhat respectfully, though much less politely, or did not care much at all. Otherwise, his filibuster conversations would consistently result in stern warnings and unpleasant awakenings on every occasion, leaving us on edge throughout the day. GG had a reputation for his abrasive demeanour and tendency to drain the joy out of any interaction with this unbelievably foul man.

Our Sojourn at STC

STC was great.

At STC, every aspect of the annual review conference was carefully arranged, including every detail about the guests' stays at the dorms or in the star hotels. Utilizing the cutting-edge facilities at Satyam Technology Center, we aimed to provide each client with a customized experience that resonated with their business expectations in a way that Satyam could favourably impact.

Mandeep, Renju, Gnana, Devi, Suresh, and I attended every workshop with our clients for four days at the STC, with our chief, who had the teeth-gnashing name GG, magnificently (gloriously) discussed the past year's performance, upcoming challenges, etc., for the coming year. GG presented numerous PowerPoint presentations during the sessions, answering customer queries with convincing data-driven insights, ideas, and resolutions that made it easy to comprehend the issues and the resolutions that address them. He demonstrated cooperation, dedication, coordination, and commitment among us at Satyam Hyderabad, our partners Danet Denmark, and CyberNet London while impressing them with his clarity of thought.

A little “boss bashing” never hurt…
It’s good for employee morale!

GG was deferent and courteous when he interacted with clients, who, of course, expected nothing but how good he was at delivering on what he was promising; nonetheless, when working or talking with us, he turns into a transgressive, wrong-headed, and constantly agitated dingbat, permanently pissed off on a whim. Staring one right in the face, he was an enfant terrible in his profession, the epitome of toxicity — a true-blue Hari Sadu, that's him. Regretfully, that was only one of the numerous reasons we disliked this ill-tempered, exasperating, chromosomally abnormal, hard-line, Hari Sadu-like character during the three long years of working with him at the roaming division under his rigid direction and iron-clad control. That's understood, knowing that we'd return to work the next day as mere private employees allowed our foul-mouthed, deadly boss to afford to grow fouler and fouler by behaviour every day.

But of course, with the clients, he cannot ever afford his detrimental conduct to come in the way because if they go away and make a run for it, they won't return for business ever. As a consequence of that, GG himself would become the target of his ouster from Satyam. Or so we felt about this Tyrannous Rex. Urgh!

(To be continued…)

By Arindam Moulick

Also published on Medium.

The Golden Age of Satyam

Our Satyam Days, part VII

Devi, Suresh, and I eventually moved base to Satyam Technology Center (STC), which is several kilometres outside of the city and far away from our beloved Raj Bhavan Road city office branch, when Mandeep, Shiv, and GG departed. Balaji too moved to STC.

So it was in 2001: as all my colleagues began to leave, I remember being quite heartbroken by the move I had to make, unwillingly, to STC — it felt like the end of a long-standing relationship with someone or something I loved so much for three incredibly formative years had come to say a silent goodbye. We might not see each other again: that was a personal setback, and I'm not sure how I would handle it going forward. I was on the verge of tears those days after my colleagues parted from our Raj Bhavan Road office. Sitting alone in our beloved roaming division cabin with no one for company, I felt emotionally saddened and somehow felt considered like a shunned denizen pushed into some quarantine miles away in an uncaring alien zone. For the first time in my professional life, I felt no purpose.

Things began to seem indifferent and heartless: perhaps after three incredible years with my beloved colleagues, the harsh reality of the corporate world was finally catching up with me. Our days of laughter, fun, and friendship were over. If I wanted to keep the job, I had to move too. With great reluctance and heartbreak, I finally moved to STC to join Devi and Suresh, leaving behind something of a legacy that we were wonderfully a part of during our time in the roaming department.

Renju and Gnana, whose precious association I've missed ever since, pulled up stakes from our beloved workplace to a different office branch, as did Revathy and Rafi, whom I (and Mandeep, I think) could never meet (nor work) with again after 2001. And how could we, because 2001 was the decisive year for all of us: to ship out. Each of us has gone into history that may remain unknown but never forgotten.

Friendships hurt because we lost touch with each other years ago. I wish I could turn back the clock and rekindle all my cherished friendships with people from the Satyam era. Even though those bonds are still intact, I understand that my Satyam friends are more involved in their current lives, and their inclinations differ and vary. Everything changes, including friends, priorities, and things. Keeping up with life has also been a constant struggle for me — as if circumstances have begun to cast too many nostalgic aspersions on me, perhaps the same way as my former friends.

And since that day and ever afterward, Satyam's office branch on Raj Bhavan Road has always remained on my mind; the scenes play out in my head; I can still hear the voices and see the familiar faces: GG's come in bold-faced, double-chinned XXL (double XL). Throughout the years, those memories have always tugged at my heart. The truth is, I often reminisce about the years we worked there in that fifth-floor office, which brings a smile to my face but also a deep longing to relive those days again as I yearn to go back in time. With the roaming division closing, I couldn't shake the feeling that an era was coming to an end. It was an era, our era, indeed.

+*+*+*+

(I no longer visit this part of the city where we used to have our Satyam office. These days, I try to evade the surge of sad emotions that make me tear up in heartbreak if I drive through that cherished avenue of my earlier life, yet I always find myself in its unrelenting pull. Deep memories come flooding back: the memories of our time in that office tower are too much to bear — three years of fulfilling work life, enough to make them last for a lifetime. But not long ago, I had to ride along Raj Bhavan Road. I saw that our former workplace, the balsam-brown, T-shaped TSR Towers, was still there and had not been reshaped or remodelled like so many other structures these days, holding up nicely the harmony of the passage of time, albeit bereft of gleaming Satyam offices on the ground, first, fourth, and fifth floors. The old Peepul (Fig) tree that stood inside the compound wall where I used to park my motorbike... more than two decades ago... was still there, much wilted but offering plenty of shade and tranquillity. The building looked gloomy and mournful, agonized, as I stopped my motorbike in front of it for a minute or two, perhaps to take one last look at my former workplace.

Ever since the day we stopped going to our Satyam office, which had been on the fifth story of the TSR Towers on Raj Bhavan Road, I couldn't shake the feeling that the building itself felt our absence, had been as though silently awaiting us all these years, longing for the camaraderie that once filled its halls. It struck me that the hallways, corridors, passageways, walls, Nescafe coffee machine, green-marbled entrance lobby area, cubicles, cabins, and conference rooms, once vibrant with the laughter and energy of our team, seemed to yearn for our former group to return and work in its midst, just like in the old times when we would park our motorbikes under the Fig tree and walk briskly through the entrance to take the elevator to the 5th floor, where we had our shared moments, immersed in our memories of work, friendship, and learning. That day, as I looked up at the building and the familiar long-lived Fig tree, I wept tears of longing for my former office life that no longer exists. Everybody is gone, moved on to different worlds — Renju, Devi, Gnana, Mandeep, Suresh, Revathy, Rafi, Shiv, Balaji, and other familiar friends we met and shared an enriching IT experience at Satyam. Alas, time doesn't go back in time; I wish it had. We miss you too, TSR Towers, we do. But those days will not return. Be well and secure from the tough times we are living in. I rode on, leaving my beautiful past behind, my eyes tearing up. Those were the finest days. Oh, the magic of those days.)

“Tum mujhe bhul gayi ho lekin

mai tumhein ab bhi yaad karta hoon

mai tumhein ab bhi yaad karta hoon

…

Jinhain ek pal ko main nahi bhula

pana chaha sada jinhain phir se

Jinki yaadon ko pujta main raha

paya aur kho diya unhain phir se

paya aur kho diya unhain phir se

…

Samay ka dariya behte jaye

behte-behte kehta jaye

Jeevan ek sanghursh hai

Jeevan ek sanghursh hai”

Jagannath R. (shortened as Jagan) and Khan S. (Khan, shortened of course), two additional team members, had also left Satyam for good to find new opportunities. Jagan has relocated to Chennai to work for a multinational corporation, embracing the vibrant city life and career prospects it offers.

Meanwhile, Khan boldly ventured on a new professional journey to New York and was never heard from since. Khan: tall and dandy, thin and randy, good-humoured, always with a broad smile from ear to ear, with white permanent teeth gleaming in the lights of the cubicles of the roaming department, all 32 of them jam-packed side by side in an assembly line, piano keys all so white that not a single one was black. Khan of that Satyam era, of that brief span of a year or so that he worked with us (around 2000-01), could not get in touch with us, nor was there any available means for us to reach him. Losing touch with him was a bummer, and the absence of his landline phone number made it regrettably so. Twenty-three years have passed since he escaped to New York, likely to become the next Warren Buffett! And maybe ghostwrite a book, the title of which could be — Khantastic: My Escape To New York, fervently dedicated to Chicha, alias GG! Chalo enjoy! (Khan got in touch many years later. He phoned Mandeep, and there were plans for us to meet (with Shiv included), but it never materialized).

Mandeep called me many years later, most likely around the time Khan returned to India in 2006–07, to tell me that Jagan, who had relocated to Chennai after we had all sadly witnessed our roaming division's gradual expungement from Satyam Computers in 2001, had passed away in a Chennai hospital from a severe illness brought on by compulsive smoking and chewing hazardous gutkha pan masala. He leaves behind his wife and two children. That was the sad end of Jagan, our former Satyam colleague. There was no way of knowing whether Balaji, GG, or other Satyam colleagues who knew Jagan ever got to know about his demise.

Suresh and Devi, the financial experts, had perhaps spent more years in the company as Suresh shifted to the Vikrampuri branch while Devi continued to work at STC. As for me, it wasn't until I had worked for two more troublesome years, first at STC and then at the 'fish market' Vikrampuri branch, that I decided to quit Satyam.

+*+*+*+

Mandeep suddenly found himself drawn to the high financial compensation GG offered him if he joined the new company where he headed the division he helped expunge from Satyam. He decided to switch, permanently leaving Satyam.

After clocking in two and a half years of work experience, Mandeep did well envisaging his professional calling and quit our beloved company to pursue it elsewhere. I vividly recall his last day in office: after that day, he was not to return to Satyam.

[Except once, very briefly in 2003, when I tried to recommend him for a senior position in Project Management for a Management Information System (MIS) function in Satyam's 'fish market' Vikrampuri branch, where he would be planning, scheduling, delivery, monitoring, and reporting, as well as briefing business unit leaders and providing stakeholders status reports/updates, among other deliverables on the completion of IT projects. 

Sitting in the front office lounge, he waited for an interview. In a short while, he went through it. Eventually, he didn't see it through to the end. He and I felt that something was lacking; there was not much enthusiasm for the specified role as there had been earlier at the Raj Bhavan Road branch under the authoritarian leadership of GG, a man whom we called — let's say, as lovingly as could be possible, — Chicha. In retrospect, I thought it was a good thing he didn't take the job because, after a few months, I had put in my papers for good.]

+*+*+*+

Khan and Jagan had quit. Shiv and I were holding up tight. He and I were experiencing a period of apprehensiveness we were not habituated to: about how rapidly events had developed in just a few days, and we were still none the wiser about what may come. GG had already resigned and left, and Mandeep was about to. (Kavitha left a long time ago, becoming a part of an unsung history in which we all will have a chapter each, including GG's own).

Mandeep's turn had come, and he seized it. Balaji, the thinking man, moved to pre-sales at STC after having an acrimonious fallout with GG, which we knew was inevitable. Earlier, Renju and Gnana had also been transitioning to other projects, and when tomorrow comes, Devi and Suresh will follow suit. Renju's roommate Elizabeth and their bosom chum, Marilyn Thomas, were not seen or heard from again, as though everybody began to disappear altogether: There was never a chance to say goodbye to one another. (Maybe it's not always necessary to be so formal. Friends move on without saying farewell, and time passes...).

Before long, Shiv announced that he would put in his papers too and move on to other vistas, thoughtfully telling me to consider resigning. I promised to think about it, but he knew I was not too keen to quit Satyam yet because of how good things have been and how much the past years have meant to me as a young software professional, as a Satyamite. Shortly after, Shiv exited.

Taken away by GG and his opportunity-seeking organizational coterie, our beloved roaming division, which gave us a great deal of professional prestige and learning, ceased to exist. I found myself alone, missing the companionship of my dear colleagues with whom I had worked for three long years, equally allegiant to Satyam company just as I was. By 2001, everyone had left, and I felt lost and lonely without them and missed the work we did. 

GG happened to extend job offers to Devi and Suresh, but both quickly responded that they were not interested in taking up and turned them down. GG was unwilling to offer me a job position in the new organization he was running. If he had offered, I'd have turned it down outright, no question. Who would want to work with a gnarled and crusty man like him? Nobody. Once bitten, twice shy.

(To be continued…)

By Arindam Moulick

Also published on MEDIUM

Click on the above link to read.

Chronicles of The Cubicle

Our Satyam Days, part VI

In our roaming division, everything ran smoothly despite GG's rubber-faced, maniacal antics.

While a couple of domestic clients/partners were slow to respond to fix their own problems at their end, by and large, they fared better with us constantly nudging and prodding them. Our 16-hours-a-day, 7 am to 11 pm, 7 days a week responsive single-point-of-contact (SPOC) technical support provided remotely meant the world to them.

At the supporting end of the continuum, we at Satyam offered highly scalable services with state-of-the-art software platforms and technical expertise to elevate complete roaming analytics and financial settlement — in other words, a full engagement from start to finish.

As a Data Clearing House (in collaboration with our Denmark DCH and Cybernet, London partners), we facilitated financial clearing (a specialty from the desk of Suresh, Devi — from Hyderabad, and Michelle — from London), providing fraud detection solutions (Susanne's area of expertise among many others — supporting from Copenhagen, Denmark) and highly scalable, full-stack roaming operations services that establish compliance and operational excellence for our customers (Mandeep's and my domain areas — supporting from Hyderabad).

GG and Balaji liked to say, "We have come a long way," and reiterated in the weekly meetings that we had made significant progress with the accomplishments so far, a fact verified. Indeed, we did, as there were emails of appreciation and thanks, commenting that technical problems had been troubleshooted, files processed, reports made, software applications deployed, and so on. Everything went well in Satyam's roaming department, as it did throughout our association with the division under GG's aggravating, watchful eye and Balaji's (the thinking man) calm, logical sense of things. However, out of the blue, we all were caught off guard (rather quite shocked) when the owner-entrepreneurs of Satyam suddenly began to disagree on business matters: They agreed to disagree and disagreed vehemently. (Or was this one of the first ominous signs of Satyam's eventual debacle?). We loved our work — until the day the division stayed with Satyam Computers because everything radically changed from then on, and the year was 2001.

Given Satyam's tremendous reputation and standing in the country's IT sector — which was already making great strides in the global information technology industry — our small roaming department, staffed by young software professionals like us: Mandeep, Devi, Suresh and I (with substantial contributions from Kavitha, Shiv and others; not to mention GG and Balaji themselves as principal founders), was sadly deprived of its raison d'être at Satyam. It was as if they had severed the umbilical link and robbed us of the pride and dignity we had so skilfully achieved thus far.

As a spin-off, these so-called CEOs and super managers, who were supposed to be risk-takers, challenge-takers, and all that corporate bla bla, decided to forsake their business acumen and move away to start a new company while 'stealing' away the lucrative ventures they took pains to establish when they functioned under Satyam's fabulous trademark reputation in the IT market as a full-service software solutions provider. Welcome to the world of corporate skulduggery that super managers' owners' syndicate commit without shame or fear of damnation. Spin doctoring was at its best display! Greetings!

Within the span of a few months, we saw GG resigning. In place of him, a new noticeably-contrived individual (THE TADPOLE) is coming to handle our division while sending out self-serving feelers that he is the best our division could ever have: That the GG-era is over and out and the man we should watch out for today is the Tadpole, who is beginning to sound a lot like GG when he was in charge of the roaming division, albeit a fake imitation of GG, a counterfeit copycat of GG.

Confessedly, Mandeep and I, even Devi and Suresh, felt saddened and glum for GG because we wanted him to come back and lead our division again, just like in old times; never mind his stormy behaviour, he can restore it if he desires to — we cannot imagine GG without his loud mouth that shoots off faster than a rocket and at every opportunity he spots! But alas, that cannot happen; that never happened. There were inexperienced managers, such as the Tadpole, who took over the reins of the shop on its last legs, and nobody was expecting this young fellow to achieve anything meaningful for it. And he proceeded to wreck it just as we had anticipated.

There was an air of no one taking anything seriously. Not because we suddenly became unconcerned about what we loved doing but because of this inexperienced, rather bumptious rapscallion, who turned out to be a big let-down. The Tadpole acted friendly, but we saw through his pointless game. That everything got jinxed right from the get-go. He came, he saw, and he conquered no one. We believed that someone who was the complete antithesis of what GG was known for would emerge once GG left Satyam. Regretfully, the Tadpole was a cynical sceptic, much like GG, with stultifying managerial abilities that destroyed all remaining traces of our eagerness to continue to work at the roaming division. The Tadpole turned out to be a shifty no-gooder, as far as we were concerned.

Shiv chuckled at the new man's handling of our department's issues, and his spunky personality was one of the preparatory reasons Shiv decided to leave the pathetic tragedy of GG taking the roaming section away to another company. That was in the mid-2001. Devi and Suresh, the finance duo, were preparing to leave the Raj Bhavan Road office branch and, as of 2003, would never be able to return to this beloved office, nor would I. Balaji had shifted to the STC branch before I made my way there, as did Devi and Suresh. GG's departure had sounded a death knell to our beautiful way of life on the beloved 5th floor of the TSR Towers on Raj Bhavan Road. I can still remember those days we left behind.

Everybody started leaving Satyam: first Mandeep, then soon it was Shiv's turn. They were the first to move, followed by the rest of the team. Even that cartoonish Tadpole, who temporarily took GG's role and moved in for the kill, swiftly swam away to Satyam Technology Center (STC), saving his teeny ass from being trampled under the weight of changing times and unrealistic expectations. The TADPOLE foundered, ruined it. He was admittedly at a loss for options. Such scallywag types end up not having any.

As the tide changed, this smart-ass could carefully dodge the irrelevance of his job role. Kavitha was gone, parted a long time ago, a faint memory. One of the early members of our Roaming Division's original team, which consisted of just three software professionals — Mandeep, Kavitha, and Arindam (myself) — became a memorable part of the most favourite era each of us richly experienced at Satyam Computers Ltd.

(To be continued…)

By Arindam Moulick

A Bad-Tempered Old Devil

Our Satyam Days, part V

Wine and dine at the office cafeteria or alfresco with like-minded office folks, but never let your guard down at the workspace. Being careless at work is a strict no-no. Work matters the most, but so is your dignity and self-respect. Work the hours and speak in their lingo to support your work as a team member, so they—especially your manager, good or not, GG was never good anyway—understand you better as a professional.

Sometimes, you never know when your boss might say something hurtful that you won't find acceptable because they (like some office co-workers), like the bulbous-faced GG, are wont to think they're a distinct species who get to manage and supervise everything. As a result, the sheer gauntness of their ilk boosts bigger and bigger egos unrestrained. So, say upfront to him (or they) what you don't like being talked down to in a condescending tone, directly in the first instance and in the first sentence itself. (GG was the sole foul-mouther in Satyam.) There's nothing for later to tell; it's now or never. Unfortunately, I learned that much later in my professional life, not at that time.

Who's the boss! 

GG was an Old-Schooler dynamo, a Teflon man, a crass World-on-his-shoulders sort, and a Dictator of some managerial ilk who joined Satyam as a measly Consultant, not even a Vice President to throw his weight around the way he used to during those days in Satyam.

GG was the same shit, different day — a corporate badass boss unapologetically visible as a fly in the ointment, a Bio-hazard! Try pronouncing his name aloud: G G; it sounds like you're gnashing your front teeth to make a couple of single-letter vowels: GG. That's the word (a couple of letters only) he insisted we address him by. Sadly, this stingy, U.S.-educated boulevardier, of all people, was bossing our division.

He typically wore khaki pants and a white shirt, with a red tie occasionally dangling down, setting his shirt collars in a tight noose, giving off an "I mean business" or something like "I will throw you out of my office" vibe. The excessive verbosity of his language and working too ambitiously, even rigidly, about living his life on his terms outside the family line had, we believe, allowed him to look threateningly unapproachable to almost anyone who interacted with this allegedly self-made man, prompting Devi to once quip, "Idiot!". That's why, perhaps, he always appeared to be a hardass brutish. Carrying a cup of coffee, he prowled heavily into the East Wing through the green-marbled front office staffed by his favourite maiden, who was practically a loyal protégé in all of Satyam's branches, head offices, and headquarters combined, the perked-up front desk administrator of the office branch on the 5th-floor.

His beer-bellied paunch would protrude out like a gaunt prospector of grosser worlds he inhabits in his mind without much to care beyond his way in the world. This Colin Powell lookalike had a dome of a head that must have constantly groaned with ghosts and ghouls from the past days he spent somewhere out of the country westwards that came to haunt him like an implacable scourge when he returned to the Indian subcontinent: the return of the prodigal son with a misguided understanding of corporate culture. A fake sardonic smile that his gaunt face could contort (some long-hardened facial muscles twitching, that's all) and a barrage of inquiries and allegations he devised managed the trick for him to "come out of any situation unscathed." GG was a person whom we always saw as angry, impolite, and rude, words that define his professional conduct as disrespectful, inconsiderate, and inappropriate. In a nutshell, he was determined to show us who's boss.

Balaji was far off in his cubicle, ideating, brainstorming, calling clients, and assuring them he might turn up in the following week to discuss a few outstanding issues relating to roaming operations or financial settlement. GG would have given the 'green signal' to Balaji, the thinking man, to dash off to Delhi, Chennai, or Kolkata. If it is to Kolkata (Lord) Balaji is travelling to, why doesn't he get some Rasgullas from K C Das? A large tin box filled up to the brim with the juicy doughs! "Yes, GG!" Balaji would reassure GG. “Tin cans are convenient to carry and manageable to pack. So why not." Onward Balaji would go, flying to his destinations in two hours, per the long-drawn itinerary prepared ahead of his routine trips.

(Yet, everything was perfect in our life at Satyam because we made it that way. Making a deliberate effort to keep our vile manager at the farthest periphery possible and confining ourselves from his debasing influence was something we did every day. We loved our job because that keeping-away tactic worked in our favour. Yes, we all loved Satyam Computers and the work we accomplished there, despite having to report to a nasty, temperamental, miserly boor.)

One is bound to say this: With the knowledge and experience that GG gained from a dog-eat-dog, high-tech delusion of corporate covetousness and a misplaced delusion of some info-tech hinterland westwards of India, this absolutist controller of his own GG-iceberg set atop his atoll: our senior manager flipped into a misguided blokey character, hand-in-glove with Bingo Capitalism moments of the late 1990s and coming to hold a job position at Satyam!

Thanks to his convenient closeness to the super-managers of the so-called strategic business unit, the senior position worked in his favour, making it possible for him to head the business entity like a clipped phoenix ascending from the trashes... err... rashes... err... ashes of his earlier years of IT background! After nearly two and a half years (or more, who knows!) of unchecked whodunnit jiggery-pokery, he hauled the money-making business entity away to another company, hurriedly set up to accommodate this one, leaving Satyam's human resources unit high and dry in its wake, not to mention us: as we were put on, what they say as, bench, looking for internal job postings.

Yes, exactly the kind of HARI SADU you can spot from a mile away; that's right. Sometimes it's best not to tolerate that frigid nonsense and move on, leaving your stormy manager to his own devices, his dark materials. Live today to fight another day. That is a wiser reasoning you can give yourself as you try to focus on your work and drive home, hard done by the day. HARI SADUs of the world can come again tomorrow. It’s a professional hazard, I’m afraid.

(To be continued…)

By Arindam Moulick

Echoes of Yesterday

Our Satyam Days, part IV

A life without jokes would be boring. We can joke around a little, then.

Mandeep, a pecunious colleague, used to rise to the occasion using comedy as a norm of light-hearted and pleasant banter to relieve the GG-triggered heat off us all. He liked a friendly conversation with everyone at the cubicle and made it a point to turn around and greet a 'hello' or a 'bye.'

A man of substance and means, he is interested, competent, trustworthy, and understanding, with a penchant for telling Sardarji or Santa-banta jokes or Hyderabadi slang: a boundless treasure trove of funny one-liners, if you like. One had to hear them and laugh out loud.

Besides being a straightforward, uncomplicated man with infectious clarity, purpose, and intention that lent itself to his comedic bent of mind and the seriousness of purpose in life, Mandeep was a man of clear conscience.

Ecstatic, exuding passionate confidence combined with city-bred metropolitan sophistication, relying solely on his inner goodness of being, his ruthless wit, and strong camaraderie with friends around were all his high standards. In every way, he was the man of anything and everything, a world unto himself, having not a single unfunny bone in him.

(If he suspects someone disrespecting him, he has a rough-shod stock phrase, "Shut up, baap!" he doesn't mind using it on anyone at any time, making frequent use of it, and that too without much ado.) 

In my turn, during coffee or lunch breaks, I would pour some withering contempt on our staple whip-horse, GG, and throw in something intense and witty in the subtle way I knew and hope for laughs. There'll be chuckles at my jokes, but when Mandeep takes the lead, there'll be plenty more making top headlines throughout the day, and the constant laughing and banter had given many a bellyache throughout the day. (Without annoying anyone at the workstation, mind). It used to be laugh-riots during coffee and lunch breaks. Devi and Suresh would go ho ho ho, hoo hoo hoo, catching their breaths after bouts of genuine head-back roar of laughter and returning to their seats happy and feeling relieved. Yeah, sometimes, you will have to leave it to the professionals!

Here are some Sardarji jokes he shared with us: (I have found that these are publicly accessible online.)

• The Sardarni asked Santa Singh, "Santa darling if we get engaged, will you give me a ring?" Santa replied, "Sure. Why not?" "What's your phone number?"

• Sardar asked a girl to marry him. “But I'm one year older than you," the girl said. “Oye! No Problem Soniye, I'll marry you NEXT YEAR,” declared Sardar happily.

• Once a Sardar ordered a pizza, the pizza order taker asked if he should cut it into six or twelve pieces. The Sardar replied, "Six, please. I could never eat twelve pieces."

Humour intended!

Our collection contained a printed copy of various long and short jokes, including the hilarious shaggy-dog Ghanpatrai jokes, which occupied a whole A4-size page. There were also a variety of witty ones in chaste Hyderabadi slang. (The jokes presented below are available online.)

“Bhai baraf thanda nahin hai !!"

----

“Guy orders: Cafe Latté?
Ismail bhai: Haan laatu, kya hona bolo.
Guy, perplexed: Mocha?
Ismail bhai: Mauka to sabku milta saab, aapku kya hona bolo.
Guy, exasperated: Cappuccino?
Ismail bhai: Arre haulay cuppa kaiku chhinu main, terku kya hona bol re.
Guy runs away!”

----

“Uno Cycle chalate chalate pairaan dard hore bol ke bike liye,
Bike chalane se kammar me dard hora bol ke car liye,
Car chalane se pet nikal gaya bol ke gym join kara,
Ab gym me Cycle icch chalaraa !!”

----

“This is the most Hyderabadi thing ever:

A guy...

Goes to a restaurant
Grabs the menu
Scrutinizes it
Page by page
From soups to desserts
Till the end
Back and forth
Just to order “Bhai, Ek Biryani !!”

+*+*+*+

One last word on camaraderie: Entering into the orbital ring of Mandeep’s contagious camaraderie, Suresh and Devi would dig out a few of their witticisms. They shared them with such an uncanny flair that it was a welcome surprise to all team members, catching them telling jokes just as they did. Kavitha would roll her eyes and say, “Off foh... Deviii...!” Revathy and Rafi, our go-to support analyst duo, would smile away pleasantly, finding us in good Satyam spirits.

Whenever we shared humorous stories, our co-associate Kavitha, who hailed from the city's eastern corner and rode a peppy scooty, would be the first to giggle. Her laughter would gradually escalate into a full-blown amusement carnival. This quick-tongued laadli girl liked satirical caricatures rife with irony and sarcasm.

When Kavitha was in the 'afternoon shift,' and I in 'general,' Mandeep would be in his elemental best. He would create an amusement park of clever wisecracks exclusively for our ears, just for fun, making her laugh heartily and so hard that Revathy and Rafi would come running to our cubicle and inquire, “What happened...? What happened…?” Kavitha would often gleefully concede that, unlike Mandeep, she was not particularly adept at crafting or cracking jokes. Maybe a pun or two would pass muster, but she loved hearing them and having a great time, regardless of her own comedic abilities. Sometimes, our enlarged cabin became our little comedy club, which we fondly called the — 'Jimmings Club.' Jimmings — a pun term coined by Mandeep for 'eating with relish' at the Satyam cafeteria on the 6th floor.

At around 12:50 pm, when it's my 'general shift' for the day, Mandeep would suddenly burst out in hunger pangs, mockingly craving for lunch and jokingly bellow, "Yaar Arindam, chal 'jimmings' karte hai, mujhe bhayankar bhook lagi hai." — "Hey Arindam, let's go 'jimmings,' I'm really hungry." Kavitha would be bemused, but all three of us seldom went for a coffee break in the company's large, self-service cafeteria, with open counter displays and buffet line, Cadbury chocolates, ice creams, soft drink beverages, etc. 

Sometimes, when we needed a break from work to grab a coffee from the excellent Nescafe espresso machine in the corner of the 5th-floor hallway, he would playfully call out, "Chal peeke aate hain!" — "Come on, let's go grab a drink!" And then, looking at me, he would laugh while I pretended to be astonished by his impromptu suggestion for a... what…? A 'drink’...? Oh my God...! Even though I thought I had heard it right: "peeke aate hain!" in plain English means "Let’s have a drink!" The first time he said that I wondered why he said it. The next moment, he would add playfully: “Coffee re!" — "For coffee, man!" grinning as he felt he had caught me unawares. He sure did.

Where can you find friends like that these days? Our life at the Satyam of the Raj Bhavan Road branch was an incredibly immersive and captivating experience, filled with fascinating moments and unique encounters.

+*+*+*+

Kavitha thought about how she could pursue her goal of travelling to America as soon as feasible. Something had to give; she couldn't wait much longer, and why should she? She believed that nothing in this dump would ever get better. Our boss, GG, was a gone case, hopeless to the point of no return. Nothing ever good comes out of such an unreasonable delinquent of a person, so drop everything and move on. Goodbye, Satyam. Her plan had been a long time in the making, and perhaps she should be preparing her exit plans and quitting right now before GG throws a spanner in the works by denying quick separation from the company. Be gone before the old, forgotten things catch up and erode your focus from achieving your goal. Kavitha carried on laughing all the way to the bank, eventually.

From the beginning, she had every advantage. She saw her ideas through to completion and even gave back when needed, like paying it forward. But with our bad manager, GG, she couldn't afford to be overbold and make it worse for herself. Aside from the advice of her US friends and relatives, whom she knew she could depend on, she tried keeping herself informed about the most recent travel schedules or visa regulations: technical requirements that make a convincing case for it. Come hell or high water, she was well-prepared to make it to the United States. She was loving it.

So, to enter the United States, you need to spruce up your indigenous habits and customs and learn what you think you can do to fulfil your objectives and other things in unfamiliar terrain, a foreign country. When it comes to other matters, you have the self-confidence to do the talking for you. For that motivation, her straight-backed, flowy hair was often sequined, either left hanging in a ponytail or contriving to look like a live Boa Constrictor or just left languishing like a prehensile tail, snaky in shape and lustrous black. Her tufty hairdo must be employed in tactical TAEKWONDO-ish self-defence, coming into use to asphyxiate anyone at any time or knocking out of their senses. Correspondingly, her height lends her a personality most Satyam ladies could only dream of, never achieving even an iota of her knock-out self-possession. So everybody, kindly back off, don't even think about it.

Occasionally, she found enough motivation to tame her frizzy tangle of hair, cutting it short enough to leave it cascading down her shoulders like a lush valley in the Amazon rainforest. At first glance, her sleek hairstyle looked quite hip and happening. But upon closer inspection, as you adjust your already so gung-ho pupils on her trendy hairdo existing just meters away, you might discern a distinct stray hair or two swirling around her temples like smoky incense sticks escaping a trail of jet-black smoke upwards in glamorous curls. Regardless of what you want to flaunt, her thick, kinky hair was spick and span, hands down. When you have a fetching mane like that, you get around and even effortlessly navigate your way to the United States of America. Easy-peasy.

+*+*+*+

In the insistent march of time, I never thought that I'd leave Satyam or that Satyam would leave me. The first three years of my life there were so memorable that it never occurred to me to quit and look elsewhere for a 'better job,' a higher income, or anything else that would suit my interest as a young IT professional. The truth is, nothing was better than Satyam. Not even close. Hardly were there any other IT firms that could match the one I was working for; there was no point in looking around. None of our team members wanted to go beyond Satyam, except Kavitha, whose passion was to make it to the US and not look back once she was there. She did just that: scrapping all GG-explicit dump yards of drudgery at Satyam in favour of a good life overseas. American paychecks were generously better than GG's beggarly handouts at the end of the month. To each his own. However, for us folks, looking out was a sacrilegious deed no one wanted to commit, least of all me. Because working at Satyam was a dream come true, Mandeep, Devi, and even Suresh had no interest in looking out. Bizarrely (or not so much of that), we became so happy despite the 'almond' (contrary to 'peanuts') payscale never coming our way! Either continue to work for Satyam as a poverty-stricken church mouse or relocate to the US of A as a hopeful alien, as Kavitha did. The choice is yours to make. Hence, in pursuit of happiness and the meaning of life, Kavitha fled to America, and whatever came after was hers to count (the dollars), and whatever followed had to follow (even if there may not have been much of a friendship, it was lost to the world forever).

That's how it was. Nothing ever changes unless you let it.

(To be continued…)

By Arindam Moulick

To read the first part of this series, click -> Memory Crossing

Also published on Medium.

Wolfish, Owlish, Devilish

Our Satyam Days, part III

Long gone are the nostalgic, golden days when I used to go to work at Satyam on Raj Bhavan Road. 

Mornings were so fresh and unhurried, work was interesting, and in the evenings, friends awaited me for tea or sometimes nothing. Lounging on velvet sofas or gravitating upwards onto the still-hot terrace one floor up or occasionally sitting on the compound wall outside in animated proximity under the inky blue starlit sky...

There will never be another era like that, and those friends will never return to the way it was because no one can. That time has passed. The terraces are empty, the compound walls remain abandoned, and the divan has become redundant furniture as friends have parted ways with silent tears. There's no breath of fresh air anymore anywhere. It'll never be the same again for anyone, ever.

Times have changed. Twenty-six years into the new millennium, those days will never return. Let me reminisce about the good old days once again and bask in the splendour of the former Satyam days. That's all I can think about these days. Life will take its toll. Time is unforgiving.

Last two years at Satyam, and exit

Things weren't so easy-going during my last two years at Satyam's STC, and after, I grudgingly relocated to the "fish market branch" in Vikrampuri.

Everybody here clamoured for work; umbrage-taking superiors were the prime delinquents, not to mention their stand-in hoagies or subordinates who liked tunnelling like pack rats under people's credible positions and reputations for their day-to-day survival in their jobs. Much to my terrible surprise, I could find very little reason to like working at the Vikrampuri branch; eventually, it made sense to me, oh God, why it was called the "fish market branch" and why I had to shift here.

While working at STC was not to my liking, the so-called strategic business unit I worked in caused me more emotional as well as physical distress than any positive impact I could have had on the career advancement that I was making on my manager. Besides that, I didn’t immediately know where my instinctive priorities lay regarding my professional progress — within the company before recognizing, much to my astonishment, that there wasn't any left I could contend with. That happened slowly, though. Reporting to a chronically indecisive super-manager, a slightly tipsy at that, was as embarrassing as it could be considering how enormously stagnated I felt in the year I was at STC and after. Devi and Suresh shifted to STC too and were on the same floor as me; that had an effect of salvation on me, as if nudging me to take some chill pill and go about my work, or else my ability to be an IT professional was, believe it or not, diminishing drastically and stupidly I was still none the wiser about the stark ludicrousness of it all. In such a woeful situation, what do people do? For heaven's sake, they offered resignation and looked for work elsewhere, but shamelessly, I didn’t. I came super close to doing it, but I didn’t.

Since Satyam was my first employer and I enjoyed working there, I hesitated to quit, deciding to hold off on resigning for another year. I thought, let's see what happens next.

In the meantime, I relocated to the Vikrampuri branch of Satyam, leaving Devi and Suresh and our joyful lunch, post-lunch walks, and coffee breaks at STC, not before realizing that I might have made a wrong judgment by moving here. I wanted a shift, and thus it followed; I can't possibly repent now. After I stopped taking the company shuttle to STC, I resumed using my private vehicle to get to work every day. The Vikrampuri branch was up ahead. Nonetheless, I instantly hoped that things would be facilitative at this branch so that I could work on the kinds of projects I could handle: that my new workspace, office branch, and assignment would allow me to work on the tasks I wanted to take on while keeping me relevant in an inherently tough, but also the increasingly unattractive, cut-throat world of IT software solutions and services.

Ironically, after having one of the most amazing experiences at the Raj Bhavan Road and STC office branches, I had the grungiest experience of my life at the Satyam branch in Vikrampuri. Even more than two decades afterward, I still regret why I made that unnecessary switch that I shouldn't have. Although it might seem unreasonable not to mention it here, regardless of that, I can't stop talking about it because this blog is about that wretched mistake I made. So there.

(Mandeep and Shiv had to leave our precious Raj Bhavan Road branch before clocking in nearly three years and two years of experience, respectively. Kavitha was the first to renounce her presumably first job. She decided that the U.S. was her calling; subordinating under a manager like GG would not provide her with any learning opportunities, but possibly gaining general Satyam experience might help her obtain a visa to that nation. She had worked that out well. She was walking, talking, breathing U.S., and rightly so. When you gotta go you gotta go. Why not!

Personally speaking, you must learn how to work or collaborate with others as well in order to grow in your career. While I was learning how to do that, I became aware that I was beginning to really miss my friends who had left Satyam, namely Mandeep, Shiv, Devi, Suresh, Revathy, Rafi, and, to some extent, Kavitha because she had moved on quite some time ago, and whose departure was too distant in the past, the first one to jump ship, before one's feelings for a co-worker would mean something to another colleague.)

+*+*+*+

Telling it like it is: At the Vikrampuri office branch — It was a veritable hellhole of hypersensitive egos and a cesspool of opportunistic cynics united in the godforsaken alienating cause of the be-all and end-all of program/project management and analytical computing, where hotdog intimidation and grandstanding behaviour primed up to outdo the cock and bull duels of toxic conflicts, schisms, cold wars, and hostile death-stares of the Upper Lot (read: top-tier executives) and the Lower Lot (read: subordinates) seething day after day, from sunrise to sunset, unabated. A constant shroud of darkness hovered over the business unit. I survived, God knows how, for a little more than a year here.

Egomaniacal, swelled heads were the swaggering show-offs that held the fort there. The GG of the Raj Bhavan Road branch was a pauper compared to the vicious pack that overran the Vikrampuri branch.

Even though it wasn't easy for me to put in my papers, I did it because I didn't want to overthink bitterly about quitting Satyam at that point in my life and live, in retrospect, to regret my decision if it comes to that end. Happily, it didn't come to that.

Most of the staff members at this branch, where I had the misfortune of working for a whole year before ultimately departing, were just plain irritating and obnoxious; they had a zilch sense of professional kinship or relatability and tended to be disagreeable and negative from the get-go, making you feel distressed and overly anxious about completing your daily tasks, let alone learning new things or getting new insights into technologies and processes.

In this mockumentary sitcom of an office, these managers (junior, senior, and everyone in between) openly promoted in-group cronyism and had the sharpest knives in their drawers. All they were steadfastly accountable for was making it possible for themselves to jump ship should the need arise. Like Aliens, as they show in Hollywood flicks, they exploit the company resources and relocate to greener pastures of IT positions, leaving a trail of broken promises in their wake. Such was the lot of your average cabal (of managers) in attendance at this aptly named 'fish market' office branch.

An apt slang phrase to describe these poor chaps is "jerks" — sad to say, that's just how they were. To put it mildly, the people I encountered here were utterly repulsive.

(To be continued…)

By Arindam Moulick

Postscript: Despite my aversion for the group of zombie managers I had to work with, I'm not looking to assign blame or minimize their already tattered reputations; by writing this article, I'm just trying to fairly and impartially present the facts as they were at the Vikrampuri branch.

Also published on Medium

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A Company Like No Other

Our Satyam Days, part II

Within a few days of joining Satyam, I realized the only private emotion I had been used to experiencing until the end of my university days was that I had all the time in the world. That progressively shifted to nearly no time after joining Satyam.

However, while in the throes of youth and young adulthood with the prospect of a job, things seemed to scroll by fast as events such as career pursuits, finding your calling, and earning a means of livelihood began to take shape in various moods and tones at a new-age IT workspace that demands 'continuous learning' and staying relevant — an epiphanic reality forever astride on the edge of time.

I had a lonely, optimistic sense that I hadn't expressed to anyone, which settled into my half-responsive self-introspections as my career started to take a, shall I say, significant shape on account of joining Satyam and stumbling upon some amazing friends there. I thought: college days were well and truly over, officially done, and I'm beginning anew right here, right now, so I should better equip myself for the long IT road ahead. Being hired by Satyam was most certainly a dream come true. And it was seriously wonderful.

At Satyam—the firm I still regard as the most beautiful, inspiring company I've ever worked for—things moved quickly and brightly. That is to say, before I graduated from qualifying as a software engineer and working for a year (essentially, professional practice) before joining Satyam, nothing about life, in general, felt even slightly surreal, and that is because when you start working for a living, you do get some things straight up front: The innocence of being a college goer gradually shrank as my professional life took me over that threshold; as though the proverbial teeny window of opportunity had been unlatched: when a future career in the software technology profession was within my grasp, I took it. And just as it happens, days went by from days to months to years.

Most of my colleagues at Satyam have done more or less similarly.

Things change, don’t they?

Nevertheless, I never liked playing the game of one-upmanship (read: office politics and other BS) at the workplace: Achieving hidden agendas or cultivating domineering habits that inevitably some people are quick to fall prey to, in my case (and of all my earnest colleagues) never held their aggressive claws onto my KRA bucket list. We were far too busy disentangling from our earlier lives to a new one that lay ahead like a burst of bright sunshine.

Throughout my years of experience, I've learned that if you run away from office politics—it exists virtually in almost every organization and is therefore inescapably unavoidable—you can use it to your advantage and still get your things done. You can't avoid workplace politics and its propagators entirely; certain people will always engage in it, something to do with the typical tendency of the personality traits in action that you cannot know when they get unleashed in climbing that corporate ladder, or to sneak into the good books of the boss or some such motivation. It's, therefore, time for you to become politically savvy and increase your political intelligence at the workplace while maintaining your inner conscience, which is also vital. Sometimes, nailing the zeitgeist with your sense of diplomatic optimism (my term: a side effect of MBA education, coupled with bathroom philosophy) yields nothing but positivity around your reputation at the workplace. It helps.

When you work for one of the most prestigious software development companies in town or probably the whole country, people with decent family pedigree do not like to brag or boast about their skill sets or abilities that can take your profession forward. Having a job was important, so I had it. Some goals were achieved, others were not, so what? You don't get everything in one fell swoop. Or do you? More importantly, I didn't let myself get bogged down by the TED-talking competitive types you continually encounter at organizations like the one I worked for. Yeah, Satyam had its share of bigmouth braggarts; our chief was one such inimical character full of bully juice while oozing charm and dreadful friendliness that provoked loathing reactions from us. Fortunately, Satyam only had a small number of these all-knowing narcissistic individuals we could handle — part of the job. Or keep them at bay by carrying out our work with responsible keenness and not letting anyone overwhelm us in any way. Our team of five did not have any of those overly competitive personalities except the Big Cheese autocrat, GG, who thought it was incumbent upon him to be gross. Minus him, life was beautiful in Satyam.

(However, things at Satyam were always exceptional that only a select few like us, of the late '90s era, could be fortunate enough to experience, thanks to my beloved colleagues like Mandeep, Devi, Shiv, Suresh, Revathi, Rafi, and other friends who made it a rejoicing part of life that never could be put out of heart or mind.

I confess, there was nothing like Satyam that came my way again. All those days of hard work and joy were never to return. With Satyam's debacle, everything was lost to us, for we lost our dear friends to the world outside, to the one we had not much known so well and how could we, and everybody went away looking for better prospects, becoming disinclined to return to our Satyam days. Ultimately, only the memory blossoms remained since).

+*+*+*+

Making noise about yourself will have the world lap you up. That's how the workplace atmosphere has come to be so. Making noise is used to express one's importance, often misplaced or misguided, in an office setting in the information technology (IT) industry, whose broad sweep of influence has taken the present world by storm, but our team and the others whom we knew by name at Satyam had zero aggressive behaviour, barring GG, who had a fixed-oriented, fetid mindset and was trying to construct his own self-serving Tower of Babel or the leaning Tower of Pisa, believing that nothing works or moves according to his wish if he is acting plain civil and gentlemanly towards his subordinates working under his leadership.

Or, as your superior might imply by saying, you don't exist if you've never made that noise or represented yourself enough day in and day out. And it entails, as these despotic types reiterate continuously and constantly, that it becomes a dirty reality breathing down your neck and, in the process, if you miss something that is being implied, severely undermining your professional abilities, skill sets, and other trained attributes that negatively influence your superiors to whom you have to report.

The whole fetish is about continually representing yourself in the office, from sunup to sunset, more and more often in the vain hope of being noticed for the work you deliver. The point here is to make a lot of noise amongst the noises to increase your chances of winning your reporting manager's favour; otherwise, you will fall behind the rat race and slowly get killed off as you fall victim to scapegoating, credit stealing, grudges or vendettas, and whatnot. Are all the cogs chasing the wheel? It seems so. That is how the tech industry operates today, contrary to what we experienced in the late nineties at Satyam.

+*+*+*+

It's not all rainbows and butterflies in the tech industry today. Year after year, the technology industry outlook always seems to be positive. Yes, but many years ago, our Satyam workplace was different as it was genuinely positive. We enjoyed being part of that pleasant IT scenario of the late '90s and after, where programming or coding was the heart and soul of software development. Satyam is gone now, and today, along the path of the Indian tech industry, which accounts for 7.5% of the country's GDP, the classic IT scenario has changed drastically as the onslaught of new technologies such as AI, Automation, Cloud, and software 2.0 have taken over the tech business market.

Today, the evolving digital tech 5G, for example, is at the edge. Driven by characteristics of "granularity, speed, and scale," the technological transformation will continue to accelerate; it will not stop, ever. Nothing of that sweet old pleasantness of job satisfaction exists today and perhaps will never from heretofore. Those old friends are lost; new friends are distracted and aloof, living their life in self-sufficient, family-first silos. Even they are fiercely driven to the point of shedding their blood to keep their job and earn their way up the ladder of success in a global economy that means serious business. In the fight to meet deadlines, the work-life balance often goes haywire. Most techies have a similar story to tell.

Today, if you work in an IT body shop with a gluttony of employees, you may fall victim to corporate cronyism or favouritism through no fault of yours. Shit happens; it's bound to. Not to mention that while you continually worry about what you could be lacking: Whether you are falling behind the times or becoming a sitting-duck target of partiality or favouritism, or the mid-level managers are stifling your opportunities for professional advancement by deferring income/financial fulfilment. It's not hard to pinpoint that which worries you. That is so significant to ponder upon. I'd think so. At the same time, underplaying yourself in a business-oriented organization is anathema to you, leaving you stranded between a rock and a hard place. You are in complete control of how you respond to it. Overall, it’s a melancholy fate you need to escape. But how?

At Satyam, I admit, we made GG-specific noises whenever necessary to better survive and grow our careers, careful not to tick him off. Dickhead managers often feel threatened by the awesomeness of junior employees, and in these situations, new joiners have little to no choice, you see. Much later in life, somebody remarked cynically, "You know, it's a lot of fun to work for a jerk!" Ahem…Ahem!

Nevertheless, we'd complete our tasks and go home smelling sweet like roses every day. That sweet, old pleasantness lingers like wonderful blossoms of sweet memories even to this day.

(To be continued…)

By Arindam Moulick

Also published on Medium

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