WHEN IN KONKAN PART-4 (THE CONCLUSION)

Kevin Kelly had quoted – TRAVEL IS STILL THE MOST INTENSE MODE OF LEARNING. The three-day trip to Konkan was one such learning. I learnt how strangers become friends and eventually evolve into a family that travels together.

The day broke earlier than expected. Our bags were packed, the breakfast was served and Vicky stood there supervising every move. Bidding adieu, we moved out of Vicky’s guesthouse.

We stopped by a newly built temple, which is regularly seen in one or the episode of a famous Marathi serial – GAON GAATE GAJALI. The next stop was yet another temple. From here, we made our way to Vijaydurg fort. History seemed to be still alive in here. This is a fort, which was built by King Bhoj, won over by Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj and now in ruins. Luckily we were helped by a guide to understand the history as well as the geography of this fort.

By the time we finished, hunger had announced its immenseness. Local food rushed to our rescue again. After a sumptuous lunch, we made our way to Vaibhavwadi. This is where, right in the middle of crops and with a mountain range serving as the backyard, we were welcomed to Kranti’s (our team leader) native home. The temperatures had dropped. The mosquitoes had grown fierce. As we spent a large chunk of our time at her blessed home, we couldn’t stop ourselves from checking our watches.

At around 8.30 pm, from Vaibhavwadi station, we boarded the Tutari Express back home. All we held closer to our hearts were memories. Memories of Konkan.

When in Konkan… Make sure to have all the fun!

Dedicated to every awesome soul on this trip.

-Virtuous Vociferous | January 01 | January Blog-1A | 2018

Saying a Goodbye 

Visiting the temple

Temple run continues

Vijaydurg fort

WHEN IN KONKAN PART-3

There’s a difference between checking in and walking into a hotel. But it makes a big difference, when you step into a home and are left to think, “didn’t they say this is a guesthouse?” Vicky’s guesthouse in Malvan did exactly the same. We were left to think. Initially I had my doubts as to what a guesthouse could put on offer! Trust me, these guys have put more than one can expect. Had they not done so, they wouldn’t have found a mention in the considerably prestigious ‘Lonely Planet’.

Vicky’s guesthouse seemed to be one of the best parts of this trip. Possibly the best discovery too, through our team leader Kranti’s extensive research. The more we thank her for this trip, the less it feels in the tradition of conveying gratitude.

After freshening up, from the lovely surrounds of Vicky’s guesthouse, we dashed to Tarkarli beach. This was one of those moment, I had been personally waiting for since long. Especially after I had closely missed accompanying my friends from Pune, for a New Year bash on December 31, 2016 (regret it for reasons, not closer to the heart anymore). At Tarkarli, not only did we bathe in the saline waters but, saw the skies change colors, heard the waves grow louder & fall silent too, sensed a different kind of energy run within us.

On returning, we were treated to one of the finest dinner spreads from Vicky and his family. This was the moment, when we realized how Vicky had transformed his guesthouse to a home, for many of his guests. Each of his family member (including his fiancé) worked together to keep us happy. After we rolled in, some foreign guests checked-in too; we got introduced to only in the latter part of the day.

The next day morning by 9 am, we were already sailing around the outer peripheries of Sindhudurg fort. Our only expectation was to spot some dolphins. But we seemed to have already run out of luck. The dolphins had retreated. The boatman apologized. I somehow felt sorry for him and hugged in return. It’s while boarding this boat that I misplaced my camera’s lens cap. I was instantly reminded of my own piece ‘IN THE SERIES OF NASTY REALITY/REALITIES’ (http://virtuousvociferous.blogspot.in/2017/11/in-series-of-nasty-realityrealities.html). In this piece, I had tried to establish that the things we lose might just be hinting at us to do away with the past. This lens cap too was a part of one such past. Post the breakfast, we were back at the beach to try our hands at parasailing. I must say we did pretty well.

In the evening, we sailed to a massive historical experience called Sindhudurg fort. The moment you step in; the fort makes you realize the great prowess of the greatest Maratha warrior & ruler Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj. The legacy that he left behind is fast fading out. I wish, the so called custodians of a million odd things could have, for once saved the forts. I would like to put it this way – Old, unattended, uncared forts are earth’s most helplessly decaying monuments.

To conclude in the next post…

-Virtuous Vociferous | January 01 | January Blog-1 | 2018

On the quest for dolphins

Kissing the skies

Sindhudurg fort

WHEN IN KONKAN PART-2

In our concrete cities, everything is readymade; luckily in the wide expanses of Konkan, things are still natural, human. Take for instance, right here, in our cities; we walk into a restaurant and are sure of getting served on time. But when you are in Konkan or anywhere else, which is considered to be ‘the’ countryside, erase all your expectations, once and for all.

Therefore, taking ahead from where I had left last time - The destination ahead was already beautiful in the mind; I wish to now proceed a little further (and not at all faster).

Once we alighted at Kudal, our bellies were reeling through first & fresh pangs of hunger. Since we had hired a van, we could feel the urgency of our hunger. Similarly, our driver too knew, how to settle us down. So once we had huddled inside the van, he drove a little faster and stopped only when he knew, he had the right restaurant on his mind to host us.

Remember, when we are traveling out of our cities, the rules of eating out changes! Restaurants stop being flashy but, the food starts getting tasty. Restaurants grow a little clumsier but, the hospitality starts growing warmer. We had a similar experience. Not too far from Kudal station, we walked into a restaurant, which moderately advertised itself as Hotel Pankaj and had it written loud within a bracket – Only during afternoons. This meant, we shouldn’t expect the place to be open during other hours or the food to be readily available at any given point.

Hotel Pankaj was thin on manpower but high on taste. The place was packed. Families, lovers, friends, groups, locals, runaways; everyone seemed to be thronging that place. We were politely told that we might be made to sit separately (this also meant, we could be brushing shoulders with strangers…complete strangers). We were also told that the food will take long to come to us. But finally when the food arrived, we were left overjoyed. The fish thalis, the chicken thalis, the veg thalis, the fried Surmais, the fried Pomfrets; all of it tasted so divine that we were no more left hungry. But we were left feeling greedy. For a moment, I thought we could have been blessed with a better appetite to consume more.

We were done with the lunch. We were done with the chewing of a sweet delicacy too. By the time, we stepped out of Hotel Pankaj, other groups rushed in. Their hunger pangs seemed far higher than us. As we geared up to board our van again, we could hear a flurry of burps go up in the air. To conclude, all that is cooked well ends up being eaten well in Konkan.

To be continued....

-Virtuous Vociferous | December 10 | December Blog-2A | 2017

Hotel Pankaj, Kudal

The 'Only Afternoon' rule, the warm little hotel follows

WHEN IN KONKAN PART-1

When in Konkan, the sea never seems too far, the food is never too late, the extended hospitality is never an unpleasant experience. And Konkan is where we chose to be at, for a short span of three days; December 1-3, 2017.

The time spent might seem too little. But the experience will continue to be too special. During this short trip to Konkan, I realized why the natives long to come back to their hometowns.

Konkan kept me excited. Maybe next time when someone invites me home to Konkan; I am going to promptly accept the invitation and pack my bags up.

Kranti, our tour team leader had proposed this trip while we were on a tour of Kaas Pathar plateau in Satara district. Initially I showed no interest. I was not even in a mood to give this outing a thought. Simply because, I wanted to save the weekend from just another trip and the exhaustion that ensues. But nothing was going to stop Kranti from planning this trip for us.

The blueprint was ready. The time had come to simply execute it. Kranti got everyone onboard and there we were; at 5:15 AM, on platform number 5 of Thane railway station. The much awaited journey was to begin now. Our gang was a motley crowd of 9 individuals. All of us were excited because we were travelling by the Tejas Express. On arrival, we didn’t have to hurry. Our seats were reserved in advance. Once we stepped in, Tejas treated us well. The AC temperature within was perfect enough to ensure desired coolness. The breakfast was delicious. The destination ahead was already beautiful in the mind.

To be continued....

-Virtuous Vociferous | December 10 | December Blog-2 | 2017

The Tejas Express

At the core of the sea

The Pomfret Thali

Dual Surmai in one plate

Ready to Sail

WAR ISN’T EASY

On a lazy morning, we went in search of food, water; we found nothing and wandered endlessly.

Through those narrow lanes, we walked being clueless.

Just then the skies brought on us a different kind of rain. This rain was not of water but of few handbills, which made us realize that the enemy was coming for us.

But before we could think of it, gunshots went off. Life was in the grip of death.

The ocean swelled, ships drowned and strewn bodies painted a portrait of utter failure.

Isn’t it clear by now, war isn’t really easy.

The pilots put their lives at risk.

They chased the enemies in the blue skies. They flew furiously. Some so down; we thought they will come crashing on us.

War isn’t easy.

The constantly ticking sound is not that of a time bomb hidden somewhere. But it’s our mind ticking maybe. Or is it the heart that is beating abnormally. It’s war. The war isn’t allowing us to go home.

Help, help, help, we wish to shout. But there is no one to heed to those shouts.

Bombs, missiles, grenades, guns, blankets, uniforms, bullets, lifejackets; we have so much to run in our favor. But the war isn’t growing easy.

Oil from the destroyed ships has now slowly started corrupting the sea waters.

To hell with that coward who reacted so violently that a seafarer’s associate stumbled down the yacht’s deck and died.

They are taking turns to evacuate us from this place; including the wounded and ignoring the dearest dead.

Finally when we got to go home, we were applauded.

We fought at DUNKIRK.

Don’t you know? DUNKIRK is in news again.

My favorite director Nolan has hit the bull’s eye.  I think, DUNKIRK will help me develop new kind of love for war based movies.

Hats off to the vision, the sound effects and the realistic war scenes; my feelings are still with DUNKIRK.

-Virtuous Vociferous

INDUCT FIRST, INSTRUCT NEXT

Two weeks back, in one of the farthest suburbs of Mumbai, in the conference room of an otherwise pretentious but swanky office, I was asked a question by a stranger – How good are you with your interpersonal skills?

I hadn’t ever met this person before in my life. I hadn’t heard about him or read about him. I might have read about his agency’s name in the list of instantly mushrooming so called ‘digital’ agencies but, I never seriously considered meeting him in person.

The necessity to reply him didn’t seem of vital importance to me. In this scenario, I was neither a desperate seeker nor a desperate browser; I was just meeting up for some other purpose. His question left me miffed. In the past few years, I’ve been asked many such questions and I’ve also been party to people doubting my capability, my capacity and my calibre. So be it! But I need to ask one question – Why aren’t any of the recent organizations (in my knowledge) conducting induction programmes? I am not asking this question independently but this is a unanimous concern, which needs to be addressed by the so called thinking community of today’s changing advertising, digital or any tom-dick-harry culture in India. So I ask again, “Why aren’t any of the recent organizations (in my knowledge) conducting induction programmes?”

Every time, I’ve asked this question, I’ve met with failure or a long lull (almost mute). To be honest, none of the organizations are encouraging induction. The hiring culture has grown worse than ever. This is how the entire process takes place; this is with regards to the hiring marathon, appointment thereafter in most of the recent advertising and digital agencies:

An HR Manager calls up after reading the first few lines of your profile. In most cases, keywords like #CreativeBackground #Copywriter #Scripting #Experience #CampaignDevelopment seem to be enough for the HR girl or guy (I am saying girl and guy because serious individuals have left this space and jumped into the valley of invisibility) to dial your number and invite you for an interview.

• The first round of the interview is necessarily with the HR Manager. In some cases, the HR Managers are well read about the background, a candidate hails from. But, at times, I’ve been personally saddened to come across some hiring executives, who don’t know a thing about advertising or even the age of digital communication in India. I’ve met someone who thought Facebook is 20 years old in India. Shit, why wasn’t I on Facebook then? What a shame for me!
  
  
• The second round is usually conducted by someone who is loosely or tightly associated with the job profile that you might get appointed to. Now this girl or guy comes with his/her own excess baggage. The deadpan look on their faces tells you that they have been forced to conduct this interview. Secondly they are very upset about the candidate they had met last week and had eagerly desired to be appointed to the position, now under negotiation. Since the deciding committee hadn’t selected his/her desired candidate, this interview will be considered an additional burden. Your resume will be not scanned or read in this second round. You will be asked silly questions about yourself, your best campaign, your knowledge of a brand and some more extra queries (about which you might not have any inkling).
  
  
• The third round of your interview will be a rapid fire round with a person, who usually hangs around three departments; the Managing Director’s Cabin, The HR Manager’s Cabin and the Cabin of the Second Round Interviewer. This person might be a relative or a good friend of someone already working in the office and will come to you either with a sheet of paper or loads of attitude around him. The certain task in his or her hand – Ah, here is this product, create a campaign around it.
  
  
• The fourth round will be a negotiation round, which necessarily focuses on underestimating your talent. No matter, the years of experience you possess, you will still be made to realize that you are nowhere. 

Having cleared all the rounds, you are in the Bingo Zone. You are happily handed over an offer letter, an appointment letter, a bunch documents comprising illogical rules and regulations and yes you are told, “Our incoming times are fixed 9:30 AM but, we are very weak at outgoings.”

On the first day (in the event of you deciding to join on a demotivating, lazy Monday), you are hurriedly pushed into a conference room, which smells of neither a room freshener nor food but rather stinks with the pesticide sprayed over the weekend. The HR Manager from the first round makes a Godly appearance and promises to introduce you to everyone in the office. On your first day, you are made many promises and none of them are true. On the second day itself, you are put on task by the two people from the second and third rounds. They start acting like a boss to you. When you gather the courage to ask for some time to think over it, pat comes the reply, “Time is what, we are running against my friend. You better pull up your socks.”

The moral of the story – On the first day when a candidate is misled into an organization, the chances are thin for him/her to continue even for the first six months.

Therefore whey is induction necessary?

• A newly appointed candidate might come from the same sector that your organization operates in but the functioning might be different.
  
  
• Your organization might be following the theory of chaos to win accounts, lose accounts, adjust accounts or sustain accounts; the newly appointed candidate might like to do things in an organized manner.
  
  
• Some people in your organization might not be aware (either deliberately or unknowingly) about the appointment of a new candidate; wouldn’t it be nice to organize a 10 minute get together to help the new candidate break the ice?
  
  
• The hierarchies might be different in your organization; what if a junior talks to a senior like a boss or what if the candidate is dragged into some important pitch presentation, about which he has no knowledge at all.
  
  
• Every organization, every agency has a certain DNA of operating; are you sure the newly appointed candidate will come to know of it on the first day of his/her joining?
  
  
• Hold back your set of instructions before gauging if the candidate has found a proper place to sit in our office. If he/her hasn’t yet been shown the place to settle down, you seriously need a reality check. 

Hoping that I haven’t kicked off a controversy, I would sign off saying - INDUCT FIRST, INSTRUCT NEXT.

-Virtuous Vociferous 

DEAR MAA – 60 MILES AHEAD OF US

The train reached Nagpur. Summers were riding high. This was yet another school vacation. This was just another summer trip to Kolkata; our annual holiday. Our Milton water-container, which could easily carry 5 litres in it had started running dry. We kept praying for the train’s timely arrival in Nagpur. I am speaking from memories of a time when mineral water was a rarity, branded bottled water was out-of-sight/out-of-reach. The moment the train came to a halt, I saw her jump out of S5 (the coach we were reserved with), sprint towards an ice counter, fill the container to its brink and return with a victorious expression. She had done it again by acting on her immediate instinct.

Maa’s life has been a collage of many such fearless experiences. Being the eldest daughter of the eldest son of a joint family, Maa’s days of ‘Being Responsible’ had commenced from her days in cradle. Over the years through her decisive actions, she just didn’t silence her critics but went ahead to generate a fan following, very much similar to that of a filmy personality. She started her career with New English School in Kalwa as an Assistant Teacher on a meagre pay scale. Being a teacher, she treated every student equally. According to her every student is special and it is the teacher’s responsibility to make her or him a better citizen for the future.

I continue being a student of hers. Maa also happens to be the first superwoman I met from the time, she brought me into this world. After my birth, she chose to dream on an all new level. The challenges had grown tougher than ever. Following a non-cooperation movement, sparked by a political union leader of old times, textile mills started closing down; one after the other. My father’s mill was one of them. When his mill closed down, he was serving as a Production Supervisor but, over a week’s time everything changed. At this juncture, Maa had to shoulder the responsibilities. It was during this difficult phase that she had to also pursue further studies to secure a B.Ed degree. Determined and passionate about teaching, Maa continued achieving success in everything she chose to associate with.

Last month, she touched 60. She is now retired but continues to be an active teacher and is still referred to or addressed as Krishna teacher. She has mentored everybody, irrespective or their age, caste, creed or religion. Every time she is greeted, she returns the gesture with her same old simplistic warmth. On many occasions, I couldn’t hold my tears back because I found her to be too simple. But she is unstoppable. Chasing a dream, defying attitudes and countering opinions; even I tend to grow tired. But for Maa, every simple movement is a challenge in making.

To Maa that I shall always remain indebted to, I have learnt the following lessons from her:

• Be determined, be always responsible
• Counter every challenge with fire in your belly
• Let the world oppose, never fall prey to opinions
• Patience is the key to unlock unknown opportunities
• Giving up is the characteristic of cowards
• Hard work will definitely pay off in the long run
• Don’t demand respect; let your deeds bring that to you
• Teaching is not a profession to earn money but a passion to create better citizens

-Virtuous Vociferous