Krishnamurthy Veeraraghavan deftly avoided hitting a jay-walking pedestrian on the overcrowded Bangalore road. He managed that by steering his Hyndai Santro (Hypothecated to the State Bank of India, Rajaji Nagar Branch, Bangalore) sharply to the right. That got him straight in the way of a over speeding cyclist riding on the middle of the road. The cyclist had also, among other poverty ridden tales, been unable to buy a new pair of brake-shoes for his bicycle for the last two months. But did that deter him from driving on the middle of the dangerous Bowring Road? You got that right. NO. He was the proud owner of a cycle - hypothecated to nobody.
Bang, Clash, Cling. The last one was the cycle's rusted bell hitting the windshield of Krishna's car.
A furious Krishna jarred the door open. In the process, pushed the cyclist, precariously balancing his cycle with only his thumb touching the road, down on the other side of the road.
Screech! That was the BTS bus veering over to avoid the fallen cyclist. Well, this bus had a brand new brake shoe - TVS Brake Lining, Mfg date: May, 2001. Never used.
"aiyee... @#$#@nda maga... " That was the bus driver who never used the brake - TVS Brake Lining, Mfg date: May 2001.
After a prolonged road rage with the cyclist - who kept blinking at whatever happened, Krishna managed to cajole the traffic policeman into believing it was the cyclist's fault.
"aree %&^%*^E#nda maga, edhu enu cycl-na, illa circus kadi aaa? brake ill, bell illa... nada stationigae...", and slapped the cyclist on the head - not so affectionately.
Nobody noticed that the cyclist was shaking from the near death experience of the veering BTS bus.
Did we mention that this incident didn't help improve the traffic condition of Bangalore, even a little.
------------------------------X------------------------------
Glad that he had the situation worked out in his favour, Krishnamurthy played "Karma chameleon" as he slid his Santro from that chaos to another.
Krishnamurthy worked for Klandisoft. Incorporated in the USA, Klandisoft had opened an offshore development center in Bangalore to cut costs - and in the process cut cruelly short, the careers of many of its employees in the USA. Krishnamurthy, an Engineering graduate from one of the many sprawling factories, er... colleges of engineering in the country, was currently leading the Bangalore center.
With 25 employees working for him (`under him' in India-talk), he managed to bring out features and bug fixes to Klandisoft's product as best as any manager could. This didn't go unnoticed by Samantha. Samantha Beudolf was Krishna's boss working out of the Redwood City, US office. Samantha had been able to motivate and get the employees from both countries connected and contributed greatly to the success of Klandisoft's India office - Klandisoft software India pvt. limited.
Together in the last two years, Samantha and Krishna had noticed a lot of different flavors of English tossed across by both sides over the phone and mails.
"Hi, this is Madan Sreenivasan"
"sorry, could you say your name again..."
"Two syllables.. `Ma' - as in mom, `then' as in now-and-then"
"I just saw your email. Your name is Ma-daan sss-rey-nie-va-saan. Be proud of it, say it loud and clear.", that was the soft-skill equipped Terrie.
"er, um, Thanks. But my name is pronounced `Madan Sreenivasan' and not the way you just said."
"sorry, could you say your name again..."
"I'll be taking today off, as am feeling sick"
"Well, you are", chuckle, chuckle.
More often than not, it was the side who used the mother-tongue which got the psychological one-up. But the team had managed to glue and produce astounding results over the last couple of years. But of late, there was trouble brewing. Many programmers in India, were complaining about the way George had been dealing with them.
George 'patriot' Grover was a republican with strongly misplaced US values and personal ideals. He was all-out against offshoring jobs for monetary gain, and his criticism had been really sharp and could be felt in the workplace. This was felt painfully at office, especially after his wife was let go by her employer, during her pregnancy for lack of Medicare - George blamed it on offshoring. Nancy Grover was 8 months pregnant.
Today was not a good day for Krishna. Earlier in the day, Krishna had walked over to Anubhav's place to discuss about the next deadline for Anubhav's project.
"Su che... nai..well, talk to you later...", that was Anubhav Patil closing his conversation with someone in his family, Calling from Vadodra.
Anubhav looked up at Krishna, and shrugged. "Krish, We can reach the endura milestone comfortably. I only wish George doesn't keep insisting that both Ram and Nitin cancel their vacations. Both of them have worked hard and deserve their vacations. They are getting sick of George's comments about their `lack of responsibility'."
"But don't you think we would be comfortable with them around during the deadline, am sure George means well.", That was Krishna defending George.
"We are well on our way to meet the dates, Krish. Plus Ram and Nitin are newly weds. You know what that means..?!", continued Anubhav, "Its not fair to do this to them... We'll only end up losing them, considering the job market thats hot for good people."
"I will talk to Samantha again, but for now, tell them that their vacations stand canceled."
"Wonder when you'll straighten your spine, put your foot down and refuse those ... ", Anubhav's voice was in a whisper when he said that, and turned his back to Krishna. Krishna stood staring unbelievingly at Anubhav's back. Krishna knew that Anubhav was right, but that didn't stop his anger brimming over. He could feel his Blood Pressure rise, giving him a sharp one-sided headache.
"Well, don't worry about him, he just ranting. He's real nice otherwise...", Samantha over the phone.
"I know, Samantha, but he should learn to criticize positively, without bringing his personal opinions into the conversation". That was Krishna.
"He means well, I will talk to him. You know he is one of our best engineers. Dot you?"
"Well, I just wish he didn't drive the `other' good engineers crazy."
"..."
"Samantha... what am saying is that it is difficult to keep people here motivated amidst such fury of personal attacks, especially since George is a good engineer, and is present in most of the meetings".
"Krishna don't get me wrong, but you need to have control over your employees out there..."
Krishna could hardly focus on the rest of the conversation. The headache had spread to both sides, by now.
- To be continued...
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