Anand Nataraj

Archive for September, 2009

CCS has won a deal from subsidiary of one of the largest bank in India which takes care of back end processing of the bank. The work is to register and remit their Professional Tax in Chennai, Salem, Coimbatore & Bangalore. Having our presence in Chennai Bala finished all the work there. Now we had a problem in remitting & registering it in other cities. Engaging a consultant will not make sense as we have signed a confidentiality agreement and also having a consultant means shrinking of our margin. So we were forced to send one of our team members. That is when I thought why I shouldn’t try doing it myself as; 

1. I have experience in Registering and Remitting Professional Tax with my previous company.
2. I can save lodging cost as I’ve my relatives in all cities. Where in if we send a team member we have to bare the lodging cost.
3. Our team members are loaded with work and sending them out of city will effectively mean we are delaying other tasks.
4. I like to explore new things and I wanted to get a feel of it.

So I felt I decided and when I said I can do it Bala was initially hesitant. He felt a CEO need not do all these things. I told him that there is no written rule that a CEO need not get down and work. When I listed the above mentioned points he got convinced.

I thought I can finish Coimbatore first and then Salem on 30/09/2009 & 01/10/2009 respectively and finish Bangalore next week. Sadly my work didn’t get over in Coimbatore today courtesy to Indian Bureaucrats.  So, these are my experience; 

• Went to Corporation office only to learn that they have different office for different wards and I had to go to a different place. But they clearly gave the name of contact person and place.
• South Zone office was not too far from Corporation Office. Reached South Zone office only to fine all the concerned officer are on rounds and were expected only by evening. I was asked to come back by 4 o clock.
• Then came back home and took a nice nap as I was deprived of good sleep last two nights.
• Slept by 11.30 AM and got up by 3:30 PM and by the time I reached the bus stop it was 4 o clocks and I thought for a min that I must take an auto. Then my intuition said Bureaucrats will not be perfect.
• My intuition was right. Reached South Zone office by 4:30 only to find concerned officer was not there.
• Then checked with his colleagues about the formalities and ended up getting confused. There were two Circular which had Revised Tax details. We have made calculations with one Circular information and the other stated the slabs got revised 6 months back. Ironically they themselves didn’t have a clue when I asked which is valid.
• Finally the concerned person reached his office by 6 o clock and he got all the documents and asked me to come same time tomorrow. When I said I’m from Chennai and I had a booking back to Chennai. He showed me a sad face expression he was helpless. I can understand no it was the end of the day and he has to leave.
• Over all nothing happened as per my plan and this is common with Indian Bureaucracy. But I was happy with two things;

1. Climate was good and waiting for long was not difficult.
2. In culture coimbatorians are very polite. I’ve never seen Bureaucrats answering with polite tone.

With all these experience I had to close my day one assuming I might finish this job by tomorrow. Also I was called by the officer by 5:30 PM tomorrow and I don’t have any concrete work till them thought I can engage myself. Until them please prey the almighty to keep the office in good mood & see to it that he is in office (as next three days are holidays)…

Off late we are hearing a lot about “Dual Listing” because of Bharti – MTN acquisition. Before telling the difference let me explain what both terms mean?

What is Dual Listing?

Dual Listing means listing of shared of merged entity in Stock market of two countries. In Bharti – MTN case if the deal would have gone through they would be listed in Indian Stock Market & South African Stock market as separate legal identities with a common management.

What is ADR?

ADR stands for American Depositary Receipt where in a US bank buys Shares of a company in lots and trades them in US Stock Exchange. A buyer can convert ADR’s into shares and trade it within US bourses.

It’s been a long break from active blogging. The reason is not that I was busy but it was because of technical issues which took time to get sorted… 

• My blog and company websites are all hosted in a single host and we have reached a point that we have to move to different host because of support issues.
• We were unable to transfer the files to new host because of Iframe malware which affected our web server.
• So we had to clean all the systems in the organization and then we had to clean the web server.
• Cleaning 30 systems which is used by developers and web server which is also actively hosting all websites is not a small task.
• Finally after all hard work for last 20 days we finally changed to a new host.

Now I’m happily started blogging. I must thank Kannan & Co for their efforts to make this happen amid all challenges.

A Gujarati, a Madrasi and a sardaar were doing construction work on Scaffolding on the 20th floor of a building.

They were having lunch

Gujju said, “Dhokla! If I get dhokla one more time for lunch, I’m going to jump off this building.”

The Madrasi opened his lunch box and exclaimed, “Idli Sambhar again! If I get idli sambhar one more time I’m going to jump off too.”

The sardaar opened his lunch and said, “Parontha again! If I get a parontha one more time, I’m jumping too.”

The next day, the Gujju opened his lunch box, saw dhokla, and jumped to his death.

The Madrasi opened his lunch, saw idli sambhar, and jumped, too.

The sardaar opened his lunch, saw the parontha and jumped to his death as well.

At the funeral, Gujju’s wife was weeping. She said, “If I’d known how really tired he was of dhokla, I never would have given it to him again!”

The Madrasi’s wife also wept and said, “I could have given him dossa! I didn’t realize he hated idli sambhar so much.”

Everyone turned and stared at the sardaar’s wife. ?????????

The sardaar’s wife said,

“Don’t look at me.

HE MAKES HIS OWN LUNCH!

A MBA and a BE student go on a camping tripset up their tent, and fell asleep.

Some hours later, the BE wakes his MBA friend and says

“Look up at the sky and tell me what you see.”

The MBA replies, “I see millions of stars

The BE asks, “What does that tell you?”

The MBA ponders for a minute

“Astronomically speaking it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets
Astrologically, it tells me that Saturn is in Leo
Time wise, it appears to be approximately a quarter past three
Theologically, it’s evident the Lord is all-powerful and we are small and insignificant
Meteorologically, it seems we will have a beautiful day tomorrow.

What does it tell you?”

The BE is silent for a moment, then speaks.
“Practically. ..Someone has stolen our tent

Today I was shocked to after reading Lisa Ray’s blog that she is diagnosed for Cancer. To know more you can check her Blog. It is indeed sad news as she was one of the personalities I had crush for. Like people say First Love is hard to forget. Lisa is one whom I was admiring as an adolescent. Adding to the irony she says that the type of cancer can’t be cured…

The good part is I’ve never seen someone who has been diagnosed with cancer showing a brave face to fight it and reveal in public at an early stage. Also don’t worry Lisa I’ll offer daily prayers for your speedy recovery.

Thousands of heart & God will be with you… Best of Luck…

Yes our wonderful Youth & People’s leader is in Madurai today. Coming to the story I started from office to have dinner in Bell Hotel in Tamil Sangam Road, Madurai. Then entire Tamil Sangam Road & roads leading to the road were blocked as he was travelling through that road.

I got irritated because they call themselves as People’s Leader and the end up creating all sort of agony to public and my hunger added up to my frustration. Then having no other choice I parked the bike again near office and decided to walk to hotel.

After reaching Tamil Sangam Road we notice both ends of the road were filled with people who wanted to have a look at Rahul Gandhi. While we were walking on the corner of the road we were interrupted by a cop asking us not to walk and asked us to stand. This again made me wild but I didn’t want to show my piece of mind to the cop and disobeyed him and kept walking and thought that would be the best way to humiliate him.

On reaching to the hotel we had to cross to get into the hotel. When we tried to cross the road we were again interrupted by the cop who said we are not supposed to cross. This time my temperament reached its extreme and it got exploded. I shot back to the COP claiming I was hungry and it took me more than 30 min to reach the hotel which is less that a Kilometer from my office. I said the COP to explain how a People’s Leader can cause so much trouble to innocent public.

I asked the COP to justify the agony faced by people who are returning home from hectic day, students who returning home etc. By this time the COP has realized that he has touched upon a frustrated person and I think he didn’t want any scene to happen when Rahul arrived. He allowed me to cross to the Hotel on allowing us a couple of people who were denied to cross the road also crossed the road.

Then I went into the hotel and placed my order only to find all the chef has gone out to have a glimpse of Rahul. This time had no option other than to laugh. Having left with no option I also went to the Hotel window waiting when our People’s Leader will cross so that I can get my dinner. Finally he crossed after 15 min.

Then I laughed at myself thinking how people in power misuse their power in the name of security. Then entire stretch was blocked an hour ahead of he travelling in that road which was less that 2 min.

Long live our People’s Leader and Long live his service to people I said to myself and I walked back.

Life runs so fast that when we turn back we can believe that itz been so long. Ten years back exactly on same day we went to Ooty trip along with college buddies. Yes we were in our final year and we know if not then it will never happen together. And we were right after that we were unable to make it as a team till date. Some one or other will miss because so some other priority.

Coming back it all stands ever green in front of my eyes the planning we did. Initially we thought of going as a class trip. But we had some problem; 

• As usual there was a set of folks who said they cant spend money on tours.
• Then college said we have to take some faculty along with us if we had to take girls.

We were so mean those days that we scraped the idea of taking girls as we were not ready to pay for a faculty. Also we thought we can go along with core group of friends so that we can have ball of a time.

Then it was time for planning we collected all the tourist spots from TTDC and thru other sources. Then collected college bonafide certificate from college as it gave us concession in train tickets, dorm rooms in youth hostel & concession in theme park. 

Then came the D-Day we packed our bags on 05/09/1999 where in we all planned to take Electric train and meet assemble at Mambalam station. So fun started from there where in confusion started from there; 

• Venket boards a train and joins Balaji from Palavanthangal.
• Both of them will join Karthik from St.Thomas Mount station.
• All three will join me from Guindy Station.
• We all join other folks other than Saravanan in Mambalam station.
• Karthik has a habit to sleep when he stands. So we were unable to pull him down at Mambalam station because of crowd. So, Balaji caught the train and said he will pull him down at park station and he did that promptly.
• Then we all joined at park station and crossed the road and boarded train to Mettupalayam. And it was fun from then on.

Joy in Train: Venket took control by himself and claimed himself as the captain of the trip. Who cares we didn’t give him a damn and we were in our own world. So first step of control Venkat took was to lock all our bags and he was good at that and we were relieved that someone took care of our belongings.. Then he took all the snacks which we brought (we planned to have snacks for whole 5 day). But when Venkat slept we finished off all the snacks we brought within minutes.

Then we were shouting, talking, playing cards and didn’t sleep the whole night. We were pulling down each others socks. 

Then finally we reached Metupalayam by 7 AM and we ran to board Ooty heritage train. It was a 4 hour right and we enjoyed first 2 hours by running behind the train. Taking snaps on the falls that pours en route. Then we got bored. Then we reached Ooty and we were sitting in a park before we found the youth hostel.

We refreshed our self and it was already 2 PM and we proceeded to Lake that day and we returned back as we were tired as we didn’t sleep that day. Then we returned to Hostel and slept.

As we stayed there for 5 days we need 5 parts to cover the entire episode as each day was an epic by itself.

To start with I’m not a great admirer of teachers as I was always a below average student in my academics. But as usual I’ve my handful teachers who were very supportive and helped me come up. So these are the great ones to whom I’d like to pay my TRIBUTES; 

Jacqulin: She was my class teacher when I was in Class II in Alpha Matriculation Higher Secondary School, CIT Nagar, Chennai. She was young & good looking. I always had her affection and she was very supportive to me. Since she was a primary class in charge she did play an important role in my career. But she help to lay good foundation which was helpful in later stages.

Poonam Motwani: She took Biology when I was in Class IX in AV.Meiyappan Matriculation Higher Secondary School, Virugambakkam, Chennai. Class IX I came terribly low in my academics but I really excelled in Sports. In this year I represented my school in Zonals in Football, Basket Ball & Athletics. Poonam mam was newly married then and was a fresher to profession also she was gorgeous in her looks. I was pet student of Poonam mam as I was very naughty, mischievous & bottom topper in the class. She treated me like her brother and she really took lot of pains to improve my standards. But all her results ended in vain as I didn’t show any interest to learn. The very next year her husband got transferred and she left Chennai and I’m not sure where she lives. But I’ve high regards for her. 

Malathy: She took English when I was in Class IX, Class XI, Class XII in AV.Meiyappan Matriculation Higher Secondary School, Virugambakkam, Chennai. English is one subject which I was above average. Malathy mam was my well wisher and she keeps advising me to choosing a career path and she has shared a lot of her personal with me. She is one special person and I’d keep her at No.1 position compared to other teachers. After my schooling I didn’t take efforts to maintain contact with her and I feel ashamed for that. 

Usha Sundar: She was my HOD in by UG where I did Bachelors in Computer Science from Dhanraj Baid Jain College, Thoraipakkam, Chennai. She is one lady who stood as inspiration in my life for her courage and for her problem solving skills. Also today I dedicate my success to her. During farewell day she said; 

“You are all ending a life which is just filled with Fun and no worries.
You were shielded by your parents.
Now you are stepping into real world.
Real world is so cruel.
If you are successful it will take as its own success.
If you fail it will treat you miserably.
So, don’t take Success for Granted;
Failures to your heart;
Learn quickly;
Best of Luck.”

All these words hit me hard and since I ventured into business immediately after college I came across all the things she said and her words helped me to overcome struggles. You can understand as you can see I’ve typed her golden words even after 9 years. Again this lady is my courage, inspiration and a mentor.

Raghu Iyer: This man is a real legend when it comes to Finance, Teaching & Humor. He enlightened me by showing power of Ms-Excel as a tool to maintain finance. He really inspired me with his teaching style that I started developing admiration for Finance. He was my Finance professor at Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai.

In this list I’m in touch with Usha Sundar Mam & with Raghu Iyer thru linkedin.com. With other I’ve lost tough once after 1986 with Jacqulin, 1994 with Poonam & 1997 with Malathy. Let me see the power of internet and see if I’m able to get in touch with them.

Once again let me thank these important people as without you all I’m not what I’m today.

Also I’d like to thank Mr.Gopal Ramanan for igniting my inner self to atleast write about these great ones. He asked me to do it over chat and you can check his Teachers day tribute here.

If you have come across any bright students coming from poor financial background who have finished their 10th standard this year (April 2009) and scored more than 80%, please ask them to contact the NGO-Prerana (supported by Infosys foundation). The NGO is conducting a written test and those who clear the test will be eligible for financial help for their further studies.

Please ask the students to contact the people mentioned below to get the form;

#580, Shubhakar, 44^th cross,
1st ‘A’ Main Road,
Jayanagar 7th block Bangalore
Mob no- 9900906338(Saraswati)

Mr.Shivkumar( 9986630301) – Hanumanth nagar office
Ms.Bindu(9964534667 )-Yeshwantpur office

Even if you don’t know anyone, please pass on this info, some one might be in need of this help desperately.