Windmills of my mind

I guess none of us are alien to the “Wow” feeling, one that you get when you bump into something that you had not even dared to imagine. Last Sunday was one of them for me.

Have always wondered why people stick on to one organization for 10+ years. Ages back it used to be the need of having a job/security/unemployment … blah blah!! But in the last decade things around have changed with the ‘boom’ed IT and infrastructure industry. So it is obvious that one must have something more than just money to work long in same organization, one reason I spotted last week was inspiration. Not sure if Alex (my biking mate) agrees this as the reason, works for Total environment (TE) for 13 yrs, who specialize in providing ‘total’ end to end solutions for making high end homes, really mean the word “Home”

Alex had been asking us to visit his projects and office, but took me a year to fit that slot into my ‘buggy’ calendar. When was the last time I entered a space in city, which housed a parking lot covered ‘Totally’ with trees? Can only date back to my good old BMS college of engineering, which housed almost a half kilometer of natural covered parking spaces. The moment we saw a football field of striped lawn in front of the small office buildings, realized that we are not in a commonplace. First sensible noticeable thing was that I did not have to sign in or login into a register, saving some paper and inventory cost of maintaining a useless database of all creatures for which the entry restrictions were waived. As we walked past the cubicles where engineers and architects sit, felt like a museum with some scaled models, large blueprints on solid wooden desks. Looked different to my routines with mazes of wires/cables, endless flow charts, geeky scribbles and “bakra” certificates pinned up.

Alex walked us to a house, which was a fully loaded prototype of an apartment being built. These are high end ones cost a few CRs and mostly serve the lifestyles of the CEO community. Perhaps people there are deprived of imagination and thus TE has to take the pain of building up the whole thing in their beautiful office premise. Have to admit it does not just showcase the features but also deliver a knock out selling punch. May be they hid the legends quoting “ All the accessories displayed are not a part of the standard model”

Alex was quick to point out how TE was different from the whole array of other commercial builders, who are busy planning the next 10 projects when one is being executed. TE was started by a bunch of IIT’ians 15 years back. Like most inventions, our team bumped into this common issue of not having a builder who can give inspired solutions. Like their other IIT mates, they just wanted to solve this problem for the world and converted this into a business case. Some factors made the jaws drop:
- TE handpicks each and every raw material and components that get into their homes. Eg: their elevations are always comprised of high quality hollow red bricks that are handpicked. It gave a naturally rustic look but also zero maintenance for centuries
- Buy their own wood, season them and do all the processing required before they deck up the interiors. Some day they might even start growing their own forests
- Have setup a workshop where all their beams, grills and other metal works are fabricated.
- I have read in PMBOK, that subcontracting is a method used to transfer a project risk to another organization. IIT’ians probably don’t agree with this theory and thus Subcontractors and even each worker on the premise, be it mason, electrician, plumber etc are handpicked and trained.
- 1 year replacement warranty on the ‘product’ the house. Sounds a decent strategy because the CEOs of this generation will rarely stay beyond a year at same home
- They have their own nursery setup which will be used inside the apartments as well as other common areas in apartment complex.
- A 400 man company managing project costs of 1500 crores, reminded me of the history pages describing riches of vijayanagara empire
- I owe the canteens of IT industry some credit for having kept me grounded helping me realize value of home food. Thus the most impressive fact – A kitchen is setup in the office compound where fresh food is cooked. Employees can barge in, help themselves and walk away with a loaded plate to some nice seats below few mango trees

This home was a treat to our eyes, no wonder it costs 4 Crores, but as Alex puts it in his stylish selling accent, it is a functional home and not a home loaded with valuable material. Some details of this 3500 sqft duplex house that did not go unnoticed.
- My eyes are still not sure why it looks palatial to have a 20 feet roof in a living room. Some costs were saved by making one whole wall of the living area to house glass slider doors looking out into the garden with a water body around it. 20ft Long curtains were used and obviously had to be motorized to operate them.
- Centralized vacuum system with one tank to collect the waste. Vacuum slots (or rat holes) were provided in many areas at floor level so that the vacuum pipe can be fit at these slots to vacuum the area or even just push the dirt with your feet into the rat hole. Perhaps would have appreciated a few more such slots to keep the cockroaches and mosquitoes at bay
- Balconies were serene with plants, the water body, the custom made wooden benches and glass flooring
- After walking around for 15 minutes my feet started to appreciate the joint less flooring of Kota stone polished several times after laying them. Somehow they felt this was better and natural than granite at my home, perhaps they are bored of it.
- Had a momentary kick of spotting a defect, when I saw that they had missed to reserve a place for the refrigerator in the kitchen
- Furniture is customized to each customer. Not sure if the Barcelona chairs had to be shipped from Barcelona, atleast sounds a myth not because of shipping overhead, but does Barcelona makes chairs. Its busy with its CBit forums, la liga and tourism for economy, spare time being used for civil unrest/protests activities of catalunya
- In the bed room, a large Aquarium is placed in the common wall between room and the bathroom. Thus one can socialize with your sea world either when relaxing in your bathtub or when lazing on your cot
- Extra mezzanine level beds in kids room to accommodate cousins and friends. Spoils the fun of sharing a bed/bedsheets with them
- How can you use the attic space 6 ft above for daily purposes? A hanger rod fitted into a mechanism which enables it to slide down when a rod is pulled
- My mom would have loved the idea of a wet kitchen in the outdoors to cook her heavy calorie/oily kolbade, chakli and Obattu etc
- Last but not least an application ported on ipad (2 ipads come free with each apartment, a steal offer tempting me), which can control each and every electric system in the house. So you can switch on/off any appliance, dim lights in area of the house, close-open curtains and doors, operate the sprinklers, lock your doors and windows using this app. But nothing much was done on the app to prevent misuse, thus can be a lot of fun if I can hack into one of my neighbor’s application

Alex drove us to the project site of ‘windmills of your mind’ where all the above crazy ideas were put into reality. The 16 storey buildings did not reflect the usual concrete jungle but sported a pleasant red elevation with the red bricks. This project will house a few hundreds of the prototypes described above and a line of villas. Entrance compound was a cloud of vertical grown crotons. The periphery of the project site was outlined with a line of the silver oak trees ensuring privacy and greenery. Bangalore still has a few lakes which don’t smell rot. One side of villa's area compound abuts the lake giving the beach resort look on the walk path. Rutu loved the independence of walking and tumbling on the lush lawns. The roof of villas were covered with lawns placed in wooden planter boxes which would help fight the global warming effects. The front side elevation was a curtain of flower creepers hanging down. We could not get into the nitty gritties inside as it was already late in the evening but still caught a glimpse of the swimming pools, rooms at lower level to ensure you are always close to upper living area, slot to hold your foot rugs in place

Having been an active part of building my home, I was able to visualize the amount of energy, commitment and inspiration that would be needed to clear all the functional blockers and at same time make it a visual treat. Alex did admit that their product was a value for money, but would never buy one, which explicates the different masks that our professional life forces us into, in order to earn our living.

Banasawadi Ganesha Gang

Splitting the above title one can make out that we hail from Banasawadi and what got us together was Ganesha. Things have changed with time in last 21 years but as it was audible yesterday, the spirit is alive. Will limit this blog to Quick one liner introduction to our gang:

(Against the blogging disclaimers - comments, suggestions and additions to the below are welcome)

Ramesha-> Life cycle owner (design, manufacture, maintain) of Audio system. Has been a rookie photographer for last 21 years

Ashoka-> Our ganesha in the flesh form, Resells one’s ‘kacha’ back to same person

Kanna-> alias Double barrel: 1. starters at home, main course at tamarind 2. Snores like a double barrel bazooka, the proven weapon which has scared off wild animals from ganesha pendal.

Muku-> coined “lata lata”, takes credit of fact that the gang is overweight

Usha-> Only person to make profits in the carnival. Takes credit for introducing us, to the third world names of “Pav Bhaaji” “Rugda Pattis” “Gobi Manchurian”

Anu-> Mentor, without her fundas we would not have been the individuals that we are today (pun intended)

Asha-> Brought Bollywood to our ganesha

Soma-> introduced PJs to the gang, Went on the whole nights with VP singh stuff

Viniya-> showed to the world that a man can sleep in a fish market

Yoga-> Expert dramatist and Veena player and man to coin the word “Mruganayini”

Sudhira-> BBMB “Bada bankar maal banega”. Made the wrong choice (with Pani) of bunking school as against cleaning up the gutters of ganesha pendal, still paying up for this mistake

Praveen-> Brought serial sets and flash lights, giving the shivajinagar touch to our ganesha

Shashi-> showed us Babusapalya was right next to Banasawadi, mukli urstha idha. But taught us how to ride a bullock cart when transporting pots back to sudhira's home

Shankara-> Has taken temple prasadam and meals to the next level of taste and efficiency

Naga -> Standardized Prasada distribution to qualify for 6 sigma levels.

Mangalesha-> Dug out the modaliyar treasure below the tombstone

Kalkere shastry-> showed us Poojari’s can also have a sense of humour. Taught dead and alive the patience to wait

LNS->The first ‘shastry’ customer for Shankar Bhel

P-> An example of ‘living dead’

Pani-> Still the only hope for ‘stretchalon’ chaddi market

Ragsi-> Abetted with Pani, ensured ganesha tasted the modern junk food from all corners of bangalore

Smitha-> Decoration architect in the initial stages, before passing the mantle to Rashmi

Shobha-> has got us all addicted to Lemon tea

Sowmya-> is the only hope to control the next generation with her 'popeye' stunts

Rashmi-> Current decoration expert bringing in a professional touch. Noteable achievement was creation of the famous ‘Marriage Pendal’

Sumana-> Probably the only silent member in the gang

Uma-> Invented stone rangoli, gave world the solution to rangoli problem in monsoon

Vidya-> Tamboori for yoga veena performance

KBS -> Did not invent the puliyogre, but made it taste much better

SRS-> Spirit and energy unlimited, Quotable quotes (QQ) “Kalyananagara aastika mahashayaralli vinanti”

Betraj uncle -> Sanskrit pandit, showered bhagavadgita on Ramkumar. Still the man behind the temple backend support

Manjula Aunty -> showed us women can whistle

Kamala Aunty-> The architect of the big ‘Mosaranna sandige’ fight between KBS and soma

Geeta Aunty-> ‘Lataji’ of our ganesha, helped me realize that singing was not my piece of cake.

Chandra Aunty-> Responsible for networking with KR market

Seema Aunty-> Process owner of prasada distribution at sankashti/Satyanarayana Pooja

Seethamma Ajji -> Senior most member and was the oldest cheer leader in the world

Ambabai ajji-> QQ “Mundedu somu karrige idru, tumba lakshana ide”

Kantamma Ajji -> First decoration architect, also pizza hut’s oldest customer by age

Girija: Ruled our ganesha dance stage for a decade

Vijji uncle (TKS)-> Has the distinct record of being the only person to have attended each ganesha concert in 21 years

Narayana Murthy-> brought sense into announcements and vote of thanks

Some Guest appearances:

RamKumar-> Showed us that every small item can be accounted

Shankar sir-> ensured ashoka was not alone in selling chaddis

Raghavendra /Venkatesha– > Have not yet returned back from coffee since 1991.

Dhaadi Mukunda –> ended the fact that dogs were teetotalers, fed beer to his dog

Meera Aunty-> failed miserably to inspire the gang into singing, but delivered a superhit chorus “Rama-ho”

Somnath-> made the first professional ganesha banner

Pousha-> was the show stopper with her leg-ins and rajastani dance

Padmini/Sarala -> The reasons why our last day dance programs were over crowded

Team day at Resotel

16 Sep 2011/Team building event/Parkfield Resotel/Chintamani road -> That was the calendar event from Sumana. When the day started with the perfect weather conditions (typical of Bangalore rainy season) this sounded like another normal day of team building, but as this has ended it has just left behind a small hangover created with a day of fun. This was a recipe cooked with a whacky idea to add the adventure spice (not sure whom to give the credit, but at this point of time will award it to Sumana), tanginess of nice ideas behind events (Thomas and his team takes credit), sweetness of participation and garnished with some high energy. Seemed like each one of us were loving every moment, thus the day flowed with activity and fun – Perhaps we are already a team well built!

My outlook woke up with one large calendar event for the whole day with only fun in the agenda. Its usual for me to wake up early on such days purely attributed to adrenalin. Got into car and called up Vinod to check if the bus will be, as usual an hour late, But had not expected this to be a wake-up call. Seemed like the bus had left on time, which means there would be a bunch of people who missed it. KR-Puram bridge jam gave me my daily dosage of caffeine, without which life ain’t normal at all. Imagine how boring it will be to start your day, if you are not able to yell at a few people, some head banging on the steering wheel and seeing a few irritant faces when jumping lanes. One of those days when I felt some of my taxes have been put to good use by the government when I drove out of KR Puram into the renovated 6 lane highway. It was a pleasant drive to the resort amidst farms on Chintamani road which are slowly getting gobbled up by the real estate. Resort had a nice green spacious look with lot of trees and lawns, housed a decent pool, nice cricket field, separate badminton, tennis, volleyball courts. Breakfast at the pool side ‘gazebo’ was mostly uneventful with exception of a few extra calorie Vadas making space between the idlis and bread.

We had to take the bus to reach the rappelling point 25 kms from resort. We were already one hour behind the schedule owing to the delays of waiting for people and pushing people into the bus. Sumana in her soft tone was able to push the guys who wanted to spend all day in the cricket field. The engine on the bus was last oiled when the crude oil was at 40 $/barrel and this was evident when I could barely hear Manish in the seat behind me. We signed off a declaration from Thomas that we are responsible for all our crazy actions. Sumana, again in her soft tone tried to kick off antakshari, when I realized I had to lend her my voice support. The front team competed against the raucous rear team of Chaitanya bringing in the Tollywood rowdy tunes. By the time we reached our destination ‘Himalayas on NH4’, Vinay had sent down a string of romantic numbers.

The rocky mountains seemed very innocuous as Thomas guided us to the 40ft rock that we would rappel down. 3 basic instructions: 1. Keep legs apart 2.Knee locked 3. Easy chair position. A few dos and donts with some trivia “Rappelling is mainly used to bring down an injured mountaineer to the base camp very quickly”. First few to get down were the brave Chaitanya, Binnu, Divya, doing the bold act of a titanic pose with arms spread amidst loud cheering. Sangeeta had the privilege to slide down the whole length of rope. Thomas showed his persuading skills with Uma helping her to conquer the fear factor. As I went up the rock, the swift breeze made me believe that this rock was really 40 ft high. The only jitters was when I was tethered to harness and the guide told me to walk down the rock backwards. Until I hit the vertical drop and saw only rock in front of me, I did not trust that the rope was really holding me. Highlight was that each one of us rappelled down amidst loud cheering. Thomas had set up an archery range, with each one getting two shots -> basically made up for the empty space in his marketing brochure. A reduced 30 minute trek between the rocks scared off the snakes and spoilt their fiesta plan.

On the way back we realized that our buses do have a live backup mechanism for rear tire punctures. We barely stopped for punctures, but drove back on 5 tires, a burst tire and a split tube providing the drum effects to the orchestra. Lunch back at ‘gazebo’ did not provide any surprise ‘great hot food’, the rotis could have been better used as rappelling ropes.

Thomas managed to pull us aside to diffuse the bomb. Each team of 7 people had to carry a tennis ball on a ring by holding the ends of the 8 threads connected to the ring, from one pipe to another. 5 Pipes were used to place the balls and all the 5 teams were constrained within a 30 ft circle. The fun part was when other team members got entangled in your thread while they move their ball. Srini(Yarra)-Manish team were the first smart ones to balance the ball on the ring and thus the rest of the teams allowed them achieve their target in the spirit of team work.

Thomas next flew us to the Caribbean with 3 small islands – one each for the dumb, blind and lame. Two of the islands were supposed to explode and all the team members to move to safe island in 30 minutes. One can cross the ocean only by placing his feet on the wooden tile floater. The game started with declaring the dumb island as the safe one, all the 5 wooden floaters placed around the blind island. Lame people came up with smart plan to first build a bridge to go to blind island. So they guided the blind to gather the tiles and Santosh did the neat job of building a ‘straight’ bridge which clarified that he was peeping in the gap between his eyes. Lames quickly hopped over on the tile bridge to reach the blind island. Nishi provided entertainment with her fall into ocean. The lame now built the next bridge to safe dumb island and saved themselves leaving behind the blind. Chaitanya->the dumb guy did a smart act of guiding each of the blind on the tile bridge hand holding (sometimes even leg holding) them. We celebrated on safe island with tea and bonda after Thomas quoted that we broke the record by saving ourselves in 20 minutes

Thomas enticed us with another quick game with marbles and pipes. Goal was to transport as many marbles to the finish point in 10 minutes using laterally split pipes. Each member had a pipe of about 2ft long and was not supposed to move when marble is in his pipe, but can only guide the marble to the next team member. Sounded easy until we started off the trials, struggled to pass correctly the marble to next member and by the time we got things working it was halfway through. Aided by able guidance of trio Manish-Gangesh-Divya our team managed another record of 4 marbles, thus putting to shade the effort of Mrunalini’s team of zero marbles

Now the normal phenomenon of team outings happened -> the team broke up into segments, but it was 5pm as against the usual 10am. Some Girls preferred to stroll the resort, water crazy dived into the pool, water phobics grabbed racquets/balls and the lazy took the pool side benches. I joined the water crazy for a game of water polo, was an intense game and sensed that both teams wanted to win. It was a crazy 30 minute fiasco with maradona chaitanya, dancing samil, bully prakash, splash allergic Akhand, strategist manish, front wingers Pavan and santosh, the cheerful audience of Hari and ashish helping with ball boy stuff and I was supporting my team with my loud cheers, slogans and celebrations.

By the time the sky turned orange, the only thing we were looking forward to, was getting into an horizontal position and some place to nurse our outstretched muscles. Energy levels went down much faster than spirit. Adrenalin stayed much longer, the only apt way I could contain it was by scribbling this down in an attempt to rekindle my interest in writing.