About the conference: SVUG - System Verilog User Group Conference. Taj Residency . Wednesday. 11th of November, 2009.
[Prologue: The conference was great. I could actually understand what was being explained almost completely, and that is a rare occurrence during conferences in general. Till lunch it was mostly an introduction to System Verilog and its uses for designers and in verification. Post lunch was mostly on OVM - Open Verification Methodology. Since that was methodology was alien, it was not as interesting as the first session was . But in general the latter half too was appreciated and was received with as much attention.]
Excerpts from the notes that I jotted down during the talks follow. They are mostly one liners from, C. Cummings, the speaker who delivered the brilliant talks in the first session:
[At the beginning of his talk, second point in his second slide] I would like you all to sit back and listen and not interrupt me at all throughout the presentation.... NOT!!
[On adding assertions to legacy code using bind] But if your mother and I ever catch you using the bind command to instantiate modules, we will be very angry with you.
[On using bind files properly] Start using outputs in bind files, then the designer will have very unkind words for you.
[On using macros in defining assertions] I introduced macros for assertions mostly for the designers. Because they are lazy.... C'mon, you know its true.
[On a question asked in a very low voice, after the talk] You need to be more assertive when you speak, or we need to get you a mike.
[When his computer switched off suddenly] I think the laptop feels it will work better with the power cord connected.
[During the time it took to restart] I can do hand puppets till the comp boots... [Laughs heard all around] It doesn't matter anyway. It was only a summary slide.
[When the booting took even longer] We can take questions from the audience now, without any distractions on the screen... Not that it is my choice.
[Announcing lunch after the talks slightly ate into the lunch time, and people were fidgeting] I guess there is some food available to the left of this room. I think you can go and have some. I mean, only if anyone really wants to.
[End of the conference, while calling out the name of the last of 5 persons who'd won OVM code books on a lucky draw, after the others called out company first and first letter of the person's name before calling it out entirely] Since it has become a routine... Ok.. How many of you are from Flextora*? [Three hands go up] Ok.. Does your name start with K? [One hand goes down] Does your name have a vowel in it? [Laughs heard all round]
PS: There were other one-liners too. Most of these would have worked better if one had actually been there. PPS: The lunch was great. So were the drinks and snacks at the end of the conference PPPS: Day well spent.
PS1:TINAMITE: The internal online quarterly magazine of the company PS2: Before I knew it I had a mail saying -
Aniruddha: Welcome to Tinamite team and we look forward to working with you.
As a part of the 'working with you' I was to write an article to - 'enthuse many more TIers to become a part of/ contribute articles in many ways to TINAMITE'. PS3: The article is pasted exactly as it appears in the magazine. PS4: The article below took the least amount of time to post to the blog ever. I just 'selected all' in the original article and middle-clicked in the create-new-post window. :) PS5: Editing the article in blogger - even adding this PS - is screwing up the entire arrangement of words and images. That is the reason for the existence of this post. PS6: The background in the original article in the magazine is white. PS7: TINAMITE May 2009 Issue
Update: The pictures in the post below had to be modified as the original pictures were linked to the company's internal site. :)
[This article is a stub. You can help TINAMITE by sending in new articles of your own.]
Wise men say to open with a joke. Especially in posts like this one. Studies have shown that most of the times, this makes people to actually read till the second paragraph at least. I thought of using the spherical chicken joke*, but deemed that too clichéd, thus, a bar joke follows -
“Infinite number of mathematicians walk into a bar. The first one orders a beer. The second orders half a beer. The third, a quarter of a beer. And so on. The bartender says "You're all idiots", and pours two beers.”
Subject of the article: ‘Put Something In’ TINAMITE, where ‘Put Something In’ is partly defined by:
Put Something In Draw a crazy picture Write a nutty poem. Sing a mumble-gumble song Whistle through your comb Put something silly in the world That ain't been there before.
- Shel Silverstien
On a more serious note: A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.[1]
It is certain that in this esteemed organization that several people amongst us have unique talents that transcend just exemplary skills in everyday work. So, put your creative hats on, grab a piece of paper, a pencil and get started. Consider this article a personal invitation to submit your creative outpourings.
Frequently Asked Questions:
How to write? No thinking - that comes later. You must write your first draft with your heart. You rewrite with your head. The first key to writing is... to write, not to think! [2]
What to write about? • Travelogues: The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page [3]. So, Travel. Fill pages. Submit the pages filled. Thus, more people can travel. Fill pages…
• Music: Supposed to be language of the soul. The poetry of the air. Love in search of a word. The shorthand of emotion. What feelings sound like. So, if you stumble upon some music that comes close to the above description, spread the joy. Let others know. Choose TINAMITE.
• Gaming: The Quakers, the Counter Strikers, DOTA warriors, PS2/ PS3/ Xbox/ Nintendo /Dreamcast/Game boy users, the MMORPGers - the rouges, the priests, the night crawlers, even people who stick to Minesweeper - As a Draenai Elf Vendor might say - "Your gold is welcome here!" (as long as it takes the form of an article) - feel free to discuss latest games, latest consoles, 25 men raids, God Like and Triple kills... even less than 100 seconds in expert level Minesweeper.
• Short Stories: The short story is like an old friend who calls whenever he is in town. We are happy to hear from it; we casually fan the embers of past intimacies, and buy it lunch[4]. Send in your stories. We would be really happy to hear from you. We might buy you lunch too.
• Poetry: The only problem with Haiku is that you just get started and then[5] Any poem with more than 17 syllables, thus, is most welcome.
• Art: A picture is worth a thousand words. A sketching or a painting is worth even more. Enough said.
• Hobbies: When your hobbies get in the way of your work - that's OK; but when your hobbies get in the way of themselves... well…[6] Put them in the magazine.
• General stuff: Individuals can expect miracles to happen to them, at the rate of about one per month [7]. Document any such revelation informally in TINAMITE for the greater good.
If you are reading this, it means that you have almost reached the end of this article: • Firstly, thanks a lot from taking the time out and perusing the article. Arigato Gozaimasu. • To define is to limit[8]. The ideas presented here constitute just the tip of the iceberg. As the tagline of the magazine says: Let your thoughts explode. • Always remember - o “Nothing is original” [9] o “It’s not where you take things from—it’s where you take them to” [10] o “90 percent of everything is crud.” [11]
We sincerely hope that you take up an action item to contribute for the future issues of the magazine.
* A farmer notices that his chickens were sick, and calls in a friend, who happens to be a physicist to help diagnose the problem. The physicist calls him back a few days later and says: “I think I have solved your problem, but it works only for spherical chickens in a vacuum”.
Credits:
[1] Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. [2] Forrester, Finding Forrester [2000]. [3] St. Augustine. [4] R Z Sheppard. [5] Roger McGough. [6] Steve Martin.
[7] Littlewood's law [8] Wiltshire's Law of Explanation [9] Jim Jarmusch [10] Jean Luc Godard [11] Sturgeon's revelation
As I was rummaging my bag, looking for my elusive PAN card, I chanced upon this relic. This was created during one of those HR type trainings, that we had during the first month in TI. As a part of the alternate/parallel-thinking session, we were all given a quarter kg cardboard, and were asked to depict four qualities that an ideal man person should posses, through a picture or a scene. I vaguely remember it also involved a part where a person proud of his work could actually present it to the entire populace there. I distinctly remember not volunteering for that part.
And it so came to pass that I had to get a cell phone. A wise man said that 'Everything happens to everybody sooner or later if there is time enough'... I guess it was George Bernard Shaw…. I guess it is true.
Anyway the process of selection of a cell was not a piece of cake. After going through a lot of sites on cell phones on the world wide web, to get the cell phone, and ending up right back to square one, I gave up and went to the nearest mobile store and looked at the mobile phones that were on display there. This helped - because the mobile phones in the store were an insignificant subset of the universal set. To further fasten up the search I reduced the ‘required’ features to - mp3 player, enough inbuilt memory to store a decent number of songs, and FM player [I had polyphonic and color display too, but there were no cell phones with any of the above features without color and decent sound, so adding these features to the ‘required’ list was redundant; so I scratched them off]. After spending about thirty five minutes in the store, I ended up with Motorola W230.
I reached into my pocket to pull out the cash and buy the phone, as I had spent enough valuable time on this already, the female behind the counter sheepishly informed me that it was out of stock, and I had to wait for a week, to actually get my hands on one of them.
I had to use all my energy to bite back several sentences that jumped in my head which were made up mostly of [not-so-usually used] four letter words.
I was walking out of the store, when she called me back and told me that there was one last 'piece' in another Mobile Store outlet in Malleshwaram and they could get it for me the next day. That sounded agreeable, as after about 21 years without a cell phone, an additional day is nothing. So, as asked, I gave her my land line. True to her word, she called me up the next day. I told her that I would be there to collect the mobile within the hour. But she sounded unhappy, and asked me couldn't I come sooner.
The shop was two bus stops away. I was there within eight minutes.
As I was walking into the store, I bumped into this guy, who it turned out, was on his way to Malleshwaram to get me my cell. The damn phone wasn't even in the store. I didn't want to return home empty handed, so I waited there.
He did not return for another 48 minutes, and by that time I had sat at all chairs in the store; stared at all the models in the huge ads put up, handled every mobile phone that was on display; watched Enrique Iglesias have a good time with Kournikova, on a Moto cell along with the security guard; attempted to swing his lathi in intricate patterns without seriously hurting myself or anyone within the swing range; went out and had a coke; came back; and was reading the insanely boring specifications off a box of bluetooth headsets, when the guy walked back in. His late-coming was received by the store employees with comments which were creative and almost musical.
But I was relieved. I grabbed the box from him and departed from that place. I haven’t gone back in again. Hope I never have to.
And this is just the beginning.
This was Sunday. 13th of July.
Monday dawned. The only thing I could see on my display was 'Emergency only'. I thought it was nigh time to change it.
I went to the Airtel dude in TI, entered my name and gmail id into the sim application form, paid the activation fees, got my sim and promptly incubated it into my cell. I was promised that it would get activated within 24 hours. And so I waited. Patiently.
For three damn days.
I then got to know that my sim with the promised number -9008022333, had some “technical” problem and could not be activated, so he had sent me a replacement sim with this female. This Mahatayee [allegedly] after a hard day’s effort of finding me and failing miserably; gave up and returned the sim back to the Airtel dude. I went and collected the sim-2 from him.
I chucked the original sim and put the new sim with the number- 9008966445 into the mobile. This sim was supposed to be pre-activated, and there was not supposed to be any delay. This was Thursday already, and by now I had grown to detest 'Emergency only'. The no-waiting-for-activation was good news. I eagerly restarted my mobile. It chimed merrily, and said 'Aloha' like it does every time it is restarted.
But then I saw 'Emergency only' staring right back at my furious face.
The Airtel dude promised profusely that it will be activated by that evening.
Thursday afternoon dragged into evening. Evening turned into night, night into Friday, Friday into Saturday.
It was Saturday night when I was about to call the Airtel dude for the 7th time, in exasperation; just for the heck of it I restarted the cell, and it said 'Airtel 19-Jul-08'.
I was :D.
The first thing I did was to call my land line. It rang. I was :D :D.
I called my mobile number then from my land line, and it recursively said "ee number chalane alli illa. This telephone number does not exist. ee number....'.
I was back to x-(
evilsense was online then, and I rung him up and he told me that the incoming phone number was 9xxxxxxxxx. And it was.
That is my damn mobile number.
I change two sims, contact the Airtel dude everyday, call Airtel every other day, wait for a week, then end up with a mobile number that another 'Aniruddha' from Intergraph was supposed to get. For the next two days the only thing I do is to try and convince disbelieving Airtel 'verifiers', that I was perfectly sure that my initials are P N, and that I was talking to them from TI; and that I certainly lived in 119, VHBCS Layout.
People these days, somehow just don't believe that. Check my previous post for additional proof. :P
Anyway, I at last convinced them to change this number- 9xxxxxxxxx to my name.
Later, next week sometime, I got a sms saying:
"Your bill plan - AES 199 kk, Monthly Charges - 199.0 Local Outgoing Charges - To Airtel Mobile - 0.4 To Other Mobile - 0.4 To Landline - 1"
That is crap because I have a receipt with me that states clearly that I have purchased a sim for the 299 New Airtel Corporate Plan.
After another round of phone calls /conversations, and meetings in the TI reception area with the Airtel dude, I had vocal confirmation that the plan had been changed. I sighed and accepted that. Things were quiet for sometime then.
Another week passed. The monthly bill was supposed to come by August 3rd. I still hadn't got it by the 4th. So, jobless as I was, I smsed Airtel *121# and inquired about my billed amount. And I got a sms back saying:
Your amount due as on 04-Aug-08 is 251.16.
Shite.
Again that is bull crap because the minimum charge has to be 299/-. That’s the monthly rental for the Airtel 299 corporate plan. I smsed bp to 121, and it happily declared that my bill plan was still AES 199 KK.
I went back to the Airtel dude, and as always, he called other Airtel dudes, and they called each other some more and later I got another sms saying that:
Your bill plan – 299. New Corp Plan – KK. Monthly Charges – 299. Local Outgoing Charges - To Airtel Mobile - 0.5 To Other Mobile - - 0.5 To Landline – 1.
Whew!!
And then I got my bill in my mailbox day before yesterday.
Jeezuz! [The sentences that sprung up in my mind, this time, were juicier, with some five letter words included to add more color and tang.]
Nothing, in the bill, except my house address on top left of the page is right. My name has no initials mentioned. The mobile number is not mine. It was what I was supposed to get. It is 9008966445. My number for the nth bloody time is 9xxxxxxxxx. The amount mentioned is not the amount I have spent. I am not even sure that my account number is right. If the bill period has anything to do with when the sim was activated [which the Airtel dude told me would be], then even that is wrong. The dumb sim got activated on the 19th and I have expenses from the 2nd of July. There is no billing plan mentioned even.
Aaaargh. [I am running out of new decent expletives to use... onomatopoeia ne gati]
So, I decided I would take up matters into my own hand, go to www.airtel.in and check stuff out by myself. I went to the site, entered the mobile number and registered myself. I get the password on my mobile. I logged in. The first screen that greeted me is a form that has all fields mandatory. I fill out name, age and other usual stuff, and then discover that in the mandatory date of birth field - the dumb ‘day’ scroll-down button is screwed. It only says ‘day’ when scrolled down. There is no way to enter any number in that space. Hence there is no way to enter a valid date of birth. There is no way to complete that form. No way to check anything.
Aaaargh [some more].
But at least I got their email id.
So I sent them a mail:
"Sub: Problems with my bill. Hi, I have two issues to raise.
1. The bill that I have got is not mine. The phone number is wrong. My sim has been activated to 9xxxxxxxxx. But the bill is under the number – 900866445. This matter is regarding Bill No – 797180227.The billed amount that is shown in my mobile, is also different than what has been sent to my email account.
2. I cannot register in www.airtel.in. The date of birth tab is mandatory in the registration form. The month and the year scroll-downs work well. But the ‘day’ tab is stuck. There is no way to input a valid date into the form. And without filling that tab, there is no way to go to the next screen and see any other details. I would be pleased if these issues are solved soon. I have brought this issue up several times already, but nothing has been done. I cannot pay the bill which doesn't have my mobile number.
Aniruddha P N"
I got a reply back saying:
"Dear Mr. Aniruddha,
Thank you for contacting Airtel.
You have expressed concern over the receipt of wrong mobile bill and the inability to access the date column in our Airtel website for your Airtel number 9xxxxxxxxx.
We understand your concern and will work towards resolving the same.
To enable us to process your concern, kindly send us the mobile bill that you received for us to initiative further action regarding the same.
Further, we would like to inform you that the invoice dated 03/08/08 for the above mobile number would be delivered to the email address anirudh@gmail.com within 8 days from the bill generation date.
Also, with regard to your concern over the inability to access the date column for your mobile number 9xxxxxxxxx, we kindly request you to select the "month" drop down list before selecting the "date" to complete the formalities.
If you still face the same problem, we request you to call our 24 Hours Customer Care service 121[Toll Free] for more online assistance.
For further assistance, mail us at 121@airtelindia.com or SMS to 121 (toll free).
We value your association with Airtel.
Warm Regards,
Kamei N Customer Care Executive Bharti Airtel Limited"
So, i replied back:
"Dear Sir,
I have attached the mobile bill that I received on 3rd August, as you had requested.
The email id that you have mentioned in the mail is not mine. You have indicated an email id - anirudh@gmail.com. But my email id is aniruddha.pn@gmail.com. I would like it if you could send the new bill to this id.
Also, I still have the same problem in www.airtel.in. No matter which way I choose – that is month first or day first, I still can’t get the scroll-down option to work. I still am not able to log in.
Thanking you, Aniruddha P N"
This last mail was sent by me at 7:49 PM (2 hours ago) I’m awaiting their response.
Till then, so long.
PS: I always wanted to blog about this. But more illogical stuff kept happening. I decided today that crap that has happened till now is worth blogging. It is here for your entertainment.
And so it came to pass that I had to get my passport done. The application form was obtained and filled up. I had also made trip one to the passport-application-submission-office to ascertain the distance from my house, and to clarify for good what documents need to be carried along, what kind of photograph needs to be affixed et cetera. The person I talked with told me that the background of the photograph needed to be white, and the one I was carrying with me, was light [which is exactly what is mentioned in the blue form [comes along with the application form, and contains rules how to fill the first form]], but not white, so I needed to get those. Also, he checked my other documents and told me that I needed to get them attested by a gazetted officer [even though the blue form says only ‘self attested’], and for address proof, any item of the following: a water bill / current bill / an address proof from the employer / ration card / election id / bank pass book would do. I showed him my pass book and the bills I had with me, and he said those were more than enough. This was one week ago.
Scene One:
One week later. Same place. Trip two. I enter the office. There were only a few people comparatively. I asked this female who was sitting nearby what the new protocol for the application was. Because the last time I was there, there were four counters and the original documents were being checked in a two other counters, which were presently empty. She looked back dumbly at me, and told me she had no idea, but was sitting there for the last half hour. I went to the reception-like lady, at the corner of the room, and asked the same question. She unglued her eyes from the TV on the wall, which was playing a Vishnuvardhan movie, without audio, and gave me a token number 3, and asked me to wait till that number was called. I told the female I talked to earlier, about the token. She jumped out of her chair, hurried over to the corner and returned with token number 5. The dude sitting next to her had heard me, and had beaten her to it.
It was 4:30 pm. The token number presently was 0 or some negative value, because I asked around and found a person in the far corner seat with a token 1. And he was actually waiting for his chance, with the expression ‘mera number kab ayega?’ Anyway, since I had nothing else to do, and there were only two others in front of me, I started listening to Stairway to Heaven on my mobile phone.
Scene Two:
Led Zeppelin’s ‘Stairway to Heaven’ is 8:03 minutes. I heard the entire song. The next was Eminem's 'Sing for the moment', and that was 5:41 minutes. Yet, the token number was still at 0. I decided that rather than sitting idle, I would at least make sure that I had all documents in order. So I walked over and asked the female behind counter 12 [the counter] whether the address proof given by the company would suffice [I started with that document because it was in glossy paper under a letter-head, with all the necessary details]. She took one glance at it and told me that I need to be working there for at least a year, for that document to be used as a address proof [and this is a on-the-spot-made-up rule. There is not a breath of this anywhere on the blue form]. It’s been only about three weeks through the job till date. So since that document was a no-go, I started pulling other similar stuff out from my bag. I took out a water bill, current bill, another water bill of the previous month, my new pass book, my mom’s pass book, my election id card, a ration card, the another address proof from the company, and attested copies of a few of these. But she came up with new rules for each of these documents. I needed to have bills dated at least one year apart. There needed to be at least one year’s transactions in the passbook [mine is as old as my time in the company]. The election id should not have this years date[I was in Surathkal for the last four years]. And the one rule that was mentioned in the blue form was that if only the ration card was being submitted as address proof, another document had to also be submitted alongside. So, even that couldn't be used.
Man, did that suck. All that time and energy and documents - and I still had nothing that actually could act as a satisfactory address proof.
That was the nadir.
Scene 3:
Then it hit me. My mom’s pass book also had me as a joint account holder. I rifled through the pages and found my name updated on the nineteenth page. I showed her my discovery. She went and discussed the matter over with her boss, came back five minutes later, and told me the decision - As an address proof I needed to get - a xerox of my mom’s pass book in such a way that - the first page having my mom’s name and the name of the bank; and the 19th page having mine and mom’s name together with the permanent address; and two pages following the 19th page, showing transactions over a a period of time greater than one year – should all be on the first page of the xerox. Also, I needed a xerox of my new passbook. A xerox of my election id card – printed back to back, like the card itself. And all these xeroxes in duplicate. Additionally, one copy of each of these three xeroxes needed to be attested by a notary [and the nearest one was on the ground floor of the same building]. This would satisfy the office.
Scene 4:
It was now 5:03 pm. I went to the Xerox shop, also on the ground floor, same building, where there was this female with total experience with a Xerox machine less than that of mine. After having successfully screwed up two sheets she got the hang of a back to back xerox. Another two sheets later, she learnt the art of printing multiple pages in the same sheet.
At last, I took the xeroxes from her [my new passbook was still xeroxed in such a way that only the king or the jack in a pack of cards could read it correctly. normal people would have to turn it over.] and the duplictes, and went to the notary. It was 5:18 pm by now. There was a big board saying ‘Mr. Vishwanath [Someone]’ [LLb, etc.]. I walked in and there was this fat dude who took three xeroxes from my hand and painstakingly slowly put two seals on them. He asked me to wait for sometime, as ‘Saar tea anta hogidare’. After five minutes he got bored of waiting himself, so he took the three ‘sealed’ documents, along with a few other sheets and disappeared. I was waiting there with these two other clueless females in the same predicament as I was in. [by the way, the passport office closes by 6:00 pm, and I had no intention of going through all this again, so I was desparate of getting this done with].
Twenty five minutes later, he sauntered back with a green signature on the sheets, by some Deeepa Srinivas. I then observed that the seals on the sheets didn't match the name of the notary in any way. I let that slide. Time was against me.
He asked me ‘Amount kottra?’ and I told him that I haven’t paid anything. He says ‘Ondu arvattu rupaayee kodi’ – 60 rupees for three goddamn signatures by one arbit Deeepawith three e’s in her bloody name. She had no nameplate in the room.
It was 5:45 pm already, and I had no choice but to pay him the amount and return in haste.
Scene 5:
I rush back to the first floor only to find out, that that the dreadful pace in which the process was moving along hadn’t changed a bit, and the token number was now at 2. But atleast, I was up next. By this time there was no damn seat to sit. So I stood till the counter-12-female found a dozen ‘faults’ in female-token-2’s form, and at last female-token-2 conceded defeat and left. I stepped up then. It was 5:55 pm.
She looked at the xeroxes and observed me that the address in my voter’s id was slightly different than the others. It is. I knew this. There is one useless extra line saying ‘Fifth Cross, Kuruburahalli’. The first half of the new line is news [as there are no Crosses from 1 – 4 anywhere around my house], and the second half redundant. But the rest of the address is right. But this was a grievous, unforgivable error by her standards. The address had to be same in all three documents. So, she asked me to replace the notary-attested-voter-id-xerox with the company’s address proof itself. A pointless waste of twenty odd bucks for the useless signature and xerox. Then she looked at the other xeroxes and told me then that I need to have xeroxes of these documents after they have been attested by the notary.
Man, how I wished I could have some kind of recording device just to prove how these idiots contradict each other and even themselves all the bloody time. Still. her word was law. I went to the xerox female and helped her increase her experience with the machine, and got three more copies of the notary signed documents.
Scene 6:
It was 6:00 pm. I got back. The other stuff, the more important part, took about 3 minutes. She checked my original documents. Took a photograph from a webcam. Printed a sheet with the details which would be entered into the passport. Gave a receipt with the information that I had applied for a passport and had paid 1000 bucks. It was 6:03 pm. I was done. I walked out.
Epilogue:
After having endured a two and a half hour BMTC bus journey, in the middle of the bloody afternoon; most of that journey spent cramped in the last seat between these two gentlemen who seemed to have had a day long drinking competition, which involved neither of them wanting to concede defeat to the other; a half an hour to the passport office; and with all the documents duly filled, double checked, cross checked, clarified with people working in the same bloody office, all the while following every measly rule given in the blue sheet to the smallest apostrophe– I still had to go through all that utter crap just to prove that the house I have been living in from the last 18 years was indeed my bloody home.
Damn, they should really come up with a better solution.
For starters, if you need to add more rules, update the bloody blue form at least. And remove the on-the-spot rule making power that is so freely exercised by most people on the other side of the table.
Damn, again.
PS: I still have the police verification to look forward to. And there are similar delightful stories about that too.
PS_2: About the length of this post. I was bored. I was pissed off. And strangely not sleepy. Added to the fact that I type slightly faster than I used to, I had three pages typed before I knew it.
Anyway, consider this a heads up, if you haven’t yet got your passport done. Else, last heard, the earth is still rotating from west to east.
It is one of those experiences that you can’t really put in words. You feel like an attempt to use language to describe what you feel at the end of the day is just going to dilute the experience.
It is similar to what I felt after I heard the Kadtal in the Rajasthani Folk troupe perform during a Spicmacay concert. At the end of such a concert - you can not exclaim that it was awesome and breathtaking. The music went beyond these words. I remember, then, we invented a new level called KT level – Kadtal Level, that transcends these 'trivial' words.
I need a similar new label here to describe the Corporate Theatre. I will call it the Paul Mathew experience.
About:
Paul Mathew Director, Academy for Transformational Learning ("Corporate Theatre") Madras, India
Summary:
Ex-Army Officer (Regiment of Artillery)
Worked in corporates for 22 years - in Avery India, and Godrej & Boyce. Have more than 40 years of theatre experience as an Actor, Actor trainer, and Playwright.
Conceived and developed the "Corporate Theatre" Methodology while in Godrej. He resigned as Regional Manager, Prima Division (South India) in June 2002 to start the Academy for Transformational Learning in collaboration with ATBM Holdings. The Academy uses "Theatre" tools for Management Training using a very interactive, totally experiential, provenly transformational, and thoroughly enjoyable process. Over 28,000 participants from across the world have experienced this original Methodology since June 2002 and till Aug 08. Participants have ranged from Presidents to Plant workers, CEOs, Directors, Consultants, Facilitators and Faculty from a wide range of Industry.
About the workshop:
I initially thought of posting all the exercises we had, as a part of the workshop [in Taj Recidency] here, but then decided against it, as someone has already posted a decent enough entry about Corporate Theatre.
[See here] for a detailed write up of a very similar workshop. The few areas where it differs are in the number of people in the group [we were closer to 40]. Also, the tableau that we were supposed to depict was different than flying geese. We also didn’t sing on the bus the way back. And the authors feelings about the workshop, though certainly true, don’t do it complete justice. Other than these things, I have no real complaints about the post.
But anyway, for the benefit of the people who attended the workshop [including me], to one day reminisce fondly, a few reminders are posted here:
Pre-lunch session:
Games: From silly, sillier to absolutely silliest
1. Point and act: I want to talk to you [ x-( ] [:-D] [ :`- ( ]
2. The three man boat: Pachak, Pachaak, Pachaak, Pacchak, Splash, Splaassh.
3. The three man elephant: Flap, Flaap, Flaaap, Flap, Flap, Umbrrraagh, Umbraagh
4. Bang, Bang You Are Dead. ‘Aaaaaa….h!’ ‘Bhawawh Bhawaha Sob Sob Sniff!!’
The 30- minute preparation time freeze – shot :
1. An accident at a circus – complete with two tigers, the patient, a doctor, paramedics, manager, an orchestra, audience, clowns, hunter, ring master, and a pick-pocketer.
2. A fight at a cabinet meeting – complete with a speaker, two gaurds, the stenographers, Lallo Prasad Yaday, Sonia Gandhi, ManMohan Singh, Vajpayee, other cabinet members and journalists.
The Post Lunch Session:
The Trails, Three Level Ones, One Level Two, One Level Three Acts.
A few enactments:
Airhostess, Model, Butcher, Executioner, Potter, Night Club Security, Barber, Lab Technician, Fisherman, Golfer, Air pump mechanic, Chef, Sadhu, Masseuse, ATM user, A pillion rider, Mason…
[The list is just too long …]
Lessons Learnt:
Aspects touched upon in such a way never before:
Self introspection, Team work, Team behavior, Dropping Personalities, Embracing the child within, Commitment, Losing Inhibitions, Battling Stage Fright, Theatre, Acting as opposed to Dumb Charades, Leadership, Time Management, Motivation, Goal orientation, Energy flows, Clear quick thinking, Creativity, Imagination into realty... damn, the list is endless.
This one day course, as someone pointed out , was so much more better than a whole year's Management course.
Most importantly, the workshop was fun. It was hilarious, actually. I do not remember laughing that long and hard for a long time.
As I began... the value of the entire experience can’t be put into words. What a person learns in these out of the box workshops can not be itemized and labeled and described. The entire post lunch session was non-verbal acting. Words to describe it will only lessen the experience. The only way to really know what it is all about is to be there, and experience it first hand.
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