Perils of Volvo

Volvo town buses are a great hit in Bangalore, especially amongst techies (I can see some techies objecting to the term ‘town buses’ as condescending, after all IT guys are of a rare pedigree and isn’t town bus a trifle demeaning?). It will generally be not that wrong to assume that a travel in Volvo ought be a nice, cool and pleasant experience and especially after shelling out  quite a generous (or extortionate) fare. Alas, things are not that simple in this complex world. From outside everything looks swanky and great, but inside it’s a different story altogether.

The music system will blare all the inanities dished out by the plethora of radio stations and the ads repeated ad nauseam. The repeated requests to the conductor to tone down the volume will go unheard. You can’t do anything except grit your teeth and endure the torture. The office hours will be crowded like hell and if you don’t get a seat you really had it. You will have to sway as the bus sways and believe me this is not a laughing matter and more so as most roads in Bangalore are in perennial repair mode. Getting a seat is another issue and you may even have to indulge in some strategies to grab one. You have to watch with eagle eyes for the slightest movement like somebody putting their books, music headsets or such paraphernalia in their bags or making a gesture to get out. Also listen keenly for the slight rustles and so on, I think you got the point. Then you jostle your way to that place either brashly or subtly, even if it means trampling on someone’s toes. If the goddess of luck smiles then you can have the seat. But most of the time Murphy will always smile on you. The moment you move from the place where you were standing for a good 45 minutes, the seats in that vicinity would get vacated only for you to see someone who had just hopped on the bus to occupy it and you will let out a silent scream, curse your luck and what not!

The seats aren’t that wide and if by any chance a person of liberal girth sits besides, you really have a nice journey trying to wriggle and squirm in your seat in your futile attempts not to get your shoulders chaffed. The biggest peril of all is the backpack missile and you really need to be ultra alert in negotiating these perilous and pernicious things. Techies as is their wont, will stuff their laptops in the backpack, sling it on the shoulders with an air of superciliousness and care two hoots about fellow passengers. They are IT, and if you cannot see the bright halos and the mysterious aura around them, well that’s’ your fault. At every twist and turn of the bus, accentuated by the air suspension in Volvo, you will be scrapped, chafed, frayed, brushed, bruised, pressed, squeezed and even compressed. Some of these bags are made up of material that really cuts thru the skin! It’s really an art dodging these obnoxious objects. You have to keep watching them closely as you have no idea when the guy will shift the weight to the other leg or turn any side or slump on you. Whatever may be the case one thing is for sure - You will get hit if you relax your vigil.

Another quirky thing is the a/c, one moment you will be blasted with cold air and you would want to close the vents above you and to your dismay you will find that it does not work in most of the buses. The next five minutes you will turn the vents in different directions to deflect the cold air blowing on you and finally give up throwing up your hands. For the next 20 minutes you will not have any air coming at all and again you will fiddle with the vents hoping something positive happens, after all did not Alexander Pope say –‘Hope springs eternal in the human breast’. Finally you emerge out of the bus raked all over, bent and bruised and heave a really big sigh. Deliverance at last!

Projects & Global Warming

Times when I descended into throes of agony & pangs of anguish when questioned about delays in projects!

I used to dish out the valid reasons (obviously not so valid for my bosses) about resource crunch, hazy and nebulous requirements, Customers changing requirements like a town bus driver shifting gears, the ubiquitous attrition, the mediocre skill set of the developers and so many other things under the sun that I have lost track of it. Probably it was not that convincing to bosses and sure there were the occasions when strands of doubts about capabilities, efficiency and effectiveness criss-cross in my mind.

Then if flashed to me one day, like Buddha getting enlightenment under the bodhi tree, sort of feeling Newton must have had when the apple dropped on his head or the excitement Fredrick Kekule should have experienced when he divined the structure of benzene. It dawned to me what is wrong with projects, project management and the world in general.

The scientists, environmentalists, ecologist and good measure of two bit socialists, politicians of all hues, the blokes in research institutes and academic universities like the JNU have all singing the same tune for such a long time that I chided myself for being so naïve and blind to such a glaring and obvious fact.

If it rains cats and dogs and brings Bombay to a standstill or if it does not rain, if arctic ice caps melt or do not melt, be it famines, droughts, cyclones, tornados, typhoons, heat waves, cold waves, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, mudslides, low rainfall, excess rainfall, dry river-beds, rivers in spate, tidal waves, tsunamis, fog, smog or any phenomena - it all because of only one thing – Global Warming. Blame it all on GW, anything and everything under the sun. Man is such a messy animal interfering with Mother Nature and incurring her terrible wrath. How dare these puny creatures even think of conquering her?

I had grossly underestimated the effects of global warming. I thought it was only to do with rain, temperature and earthly things, but I did not realize that its effects are all pervasive and all encompassing. At least our venerable folks have painted it to be so with some generous help from the media who come up with grim titles about the impeding doom and disaster.

On reflection I need not have made my mind a swirling cauldron of negative thoughts, undue worry and stark pessimism, after all my projects were not completed in time only because of global warming. So all project managers RIP.