Leaving the sterile job

Finally, today I left my job. I was thinking about it for a very long time. Everyone is asking me about the reason. There are many reasons. Some of them are related to the job and rest are related to what I want to become in my life.

My focus now is to

1- make myself fit
2- focus on what people do- learn from their lives - two blogs i am reading on them-

http://isbclassof2008.blogspot.com/
dilbertblog.typepad.com/

i have a strange feeling that the last one might not help. But it will surely be helpful to enhance my sense of humor which I have started lacking after working in a sterile environment for 1 year.

Few points from ISB junta

- Someone pointed out four important things for living a full life

• be fit
• be nice
• be smart
• be drive

I feel i am none of the above right now. But I also feel that the last property is what brings all the rest. Whenever I had purpose, I achieved fitness, smartness and may be niceness (not too sure). But whenever I achieved my purpose, I slowly surrendered to laziness (to enjoy the fruits of my achievement). I have the realization that I could never enjoy the fruits. The journey was always more exciting than the destination.

May be being fit, nice and smart is our purpose? And other purposes are subset of this big purpose.

Two month in India after one year of frustating job in USA

I have come here for one month vacation which thanks to Visa officers (VO) at Mumbai has now extended to well over 5 weeks now. And I mean it when I thank them, the only thing is that now the process has taken so long I have begun to regret thinking of this curse as a blessing in disguise. To tell you the truth, I had not been to India for 2 years and started to suffer pangs of jealousy whenever I read stories of riches in India. I wanted to be in India and was secrately planning my move to India a year later. I still beleive on my planning but challenges are forcing me to seek first the easier way out i.e. going back to what I was doing in USA.

So first the Visa story, I went to visa office for interview and they could not get my fingerprint. I think I also flunk my interview (I might have looked bored which I was after sitting for 4hrs on a bench) because the VO lady looked suspiciousely at me and ordered me to come for fingerprinting again and submit a qualification questionnaire. Me and my wife looked at my fingers and could not find finger grooves. My skin was peeling. We went again 4 days later after submitting documents to them via email. They took my fingerprints and told me to collect the passport in the evening. I collected the passort with visa stamped with a sigh of relief and left for vacation for next two day only to get a call the next day from visa office. I went to visa office and they asked me to submit my document in word format and cancelled my visa. I asked the reason and they told me that they will do security check and let me know in a week or two. Strange!! very strange!! but what I can do to them I thought. I wrote emails and called them up but here I am, still waiting. I was disppointed and angry on the day they cancelled visa and thought they have done some admistrative bungling in the processing. I still think so. However, secretaly I was also happy that I will have now more time in Mumbai. Lets party and figure out what is my market worth, what I can do in India?

I am in Mumbai for last five weeks looking for jobs (research and development in materials) and thinking about different things I can do. Following things I find in Mumbai-


- There are very few good paying jobs in areas other than IT.
- Connections are everything in finding a non-IT job (even true in USA)
- Core research and development jobs are few
- Consultants mainly for IT but there are some for non-IT but again they are not big firms

other things
- Big difference between rich and poor people
- Poor infrastructure (roads, rail, you can not get 1-2 mbps network at reasonable price in Mumbai)
- lack of information (internet is not the main source)

I am little confused on what I should do next (part of the reason is that I dream big but have difficultly in taking firm dicision which all involve quite a bit of risks. also, may be the biggest reason is that I am not sure what I like to in my life.) Things are not clear. Options which come to my mind are following

- Trying to find a job in existing R&Ds
- Enterpreneur (opening a online shop or online site with a good idea, manufacturing unit). But I suspect if I have enough experience.
- Become prof.
- Go on travel to focus on what I want to do rest of my life
- Prepare and go for an MBA (i do not want to rush without having an idea about what I really enjoy doing. i fear that I might end up in a similar job which I will not enjoy. In my last job, I realized how much I hate doing what I dont enjoy. It drains all the energy from me and leave me depressed and frustated at the end of the day).

Do you have an idea of what I should do?

Rich Dad Poor Dad
I went to Big Bazaar yesterday on Sabse Sasta Din promotion. The only place where I could set foot was the book store. I thought when I have taken so much trouble, lets buy something too. They had "take one get one free" promotion on the fiction, I was happy. I went on mission to buy books and here it was, Rich Dad Poor Dad, the book I have heard a lot about but did not buy yet. I bought 3 more books authored by Ayn Rand, Shoba De and some politician. And now after one day, I have finished half of the Rich Dad Poor Dad. I have found such a interesting book after a very long time. The timing couldn't be more perfect. I have spent one year in USA corporation after my PhD and now I am stuck in Mumbai for past many weeks with visa trouble. I had been fighting with my boss on many things thinking he was cause of all my problems. Last one year had been terrible for my personal life. The book spoke to me all the reasons for them. I got my biggest lesson of life in a day. Let me share it with you. The problem was that I had fears such as loosing out in competition, getting less money, what will happen if I lost my job etc. The root cause of these fears, as described in the book, are that we work for the money. Its a matter of thinking. It is just attitude. The book persuaded me to think what will happen if I start working for free i.e. I will work even if my company doesn't pay me. I set aside the book and thought for a second. I felt my first moments of bliss after one long year in my company. I realized if I instead work for gaining experience or learn something, things will be very different. I will stop focusing myself narrow on promotions, raise etc. I will look for opportunities and will not hesitate to work harder if I see greater learning. Most of all, I will not fear anymore. I will choose my path based on what really want to do instead of who will pay me more. This path has a capacity to grow me. I am still reading the book and it seems I will finish it tomorrow.

Trip to Big Bazaar in Kandhivali, Mumbai on the promotion day "Sabse Sasta Din"

I went to Big Bazaar today on one of their "Sabse Sasta Din" promotion. It was an experience in itself. There were two reasons for going there, first I had recently read the book from Kishore Biyani- It happened in India and second, I was getting bored at home waiting for my visa to come. In the book Biyani had divided Indians consumers in three section which he called India I, India II and India III. The India I were people in good job with good amount of disposable income, India II were people who service India I and India III were even poorer. He pointed out that most of the big retailers in the big fancy malls attract only India I which is tiny part of the pie (India I makes 14% of consumers and India II consist of 55%). Big bazaars were made for the India II which might also appeal to India I. I was curious to see it was true. I took the local train to Kandhivali and went to Big Bazaar. I did not know where it was located so I asked as many people as I could on the way (I have learned in Mumbai that nobody would ever say "I do not know this location". They might say go straight if they were not sure but they would always tell you something. So I had got into the habit of asking at least two people for the same location, just to make sure.). When I was approaching Big Bazaar, I found a big line (almost 1/2 km long) outside it. I cursed my Gods and waited for some time but eventually I mustered all my strength and went into the line. After half an hr standing in the line, I was inside the store. The store was jam packed like local trains of Mumbai during weekdays. People were literally looting the stuff. For me at least, stuff was cheap but it certainly did not deserve this much trouble. However, I was happy that I did not come with shopping as my primary reason. I saw, it was true that the bulk of the crowd made of people who service the India I i.e. family members of policewall, panwalla, dhobi, bai etc. I was glad to see them here. I felt that other retailers must have taken hard lessons from the success of Big Bazaar model and it probably would dawn upon them to open open Super Bazaars where it would not be so hard to spend our hard earned money.