Love of the Mother tongue

What is it about one's mother tongue, it seems to have a larger influence as we get on in years.  When we were in our School years, we were discouraged from speaking the local language.  You see, our School was a sort of Christian run English medium School and this School had strict policy of not allowing the students to speak in local language within the School premises.  Of course, boys being boys, would surreptitiously, speak the local language amongst their close peer group.  If they were caught in the act, the student used to be marched off to the Principal's office.  Some sort of punishment was meted out to the erring student.  Speaking English was considered to be, loosely,  an upper class fashion or more precisely, it was largely the remnant of colonial hangover.  The English speaking class considered themselves to be the ruling class or the English sahib (or Brown Sahib).  Ordinary people aspired to admit their children to English Medium Schools.  Local languages were largely looked down upon, during those confused times soon after Independence.  Times are A-changing now, but still the language prejudice persists in large parts of our country. 

Coming to the point, I have always known my mother tongue to be a strange dialect; a heady mix of Marathi (loosely resembling the regional dialect spoken in large parts of Maharashtra) and other South Indian dialects mostly Tamil, Kannada and to a lesser extent Devanagari. The spoken dialect, accent-wise, almost resembles the local dialect, either Tamil or Kannada, whichever, you would prefer it to be. Any Maharashtrian who would listen to this dialect, would not understand a word of what is spoken. Likewise, if a Tamilian or Kannadiga were to listen to this strange dialect, they would not be able to understand a single word of it. To this day, I don't know what is the dialect called .  We claim it to be the original Marathi.  Not the Maharastrian kind which we believe, has been corrupted and mixed with different languages, especially Hindi.  While, some of my people maintain that it is, indeed, pure Marathi on an overall basis (of the purer kind, if you will!); some would like to call it Desastha Marathi or Kumbakonam Marathi or Thanjavur Marathi. While we were younger, we had a perennial fear that people at large, would confuse our mother tongue with 'Koli Marathi'; also a dialect spoken by a small community of people (tailors mostly) who are basically non-vegetarian in their dietary habits. Hence, we were refrained from speaking our mother tongue, when moving amongst the general public (for example, while walking through the Markets, or while travelling in public transport like trains, Buses, etc.). Though, honestly, I have to admit that both the dialects sounded almost similar in most parts! I still don't know, what is the harm if people confuse one dialect for another. How does it matter to stray listeners whether you are a vegetarian (speaking Desastha Marathi) or a non-vegetarian (speaking Koli Marathi)?

I have to admit, I have largely forgotten speaking Desastha Marathi myself, these days; I refer to myself as a Kannadiga to anyone who wants to know my mother tongue. However, whenever I happen to speak to a certain relative, who has historically spoken to me only in Desastha Marathi, I instinctively start speaking the dialect fluently; almost like a fish taking to water. That is the beauty of it, we never forget our mother tongue, though we hardly speak the dialect on a regular basis.

When in School, I remember some of my school mates needling and bullying me with expressions, such as, "Kaai katlas re" or "Kaai kasala, benne masala". It sounds amusing to recollect those expressions, now; but, as a young boy, I used to be horrified when such expressions were casually directed at me and my mother tongue was made fun of. When I discussed such matters with family elders, we were advised not to speak our mother tongue outside of our homes; it was generally understood, that such fun-expressions on different dialects were par for the course. The times were such.

All of this is nice, in good humour. However, there appears to be a more serious issue at hand. It now appears to me that the strange dialect which I call for brevity's sake,  Desastha Marathi, that is my mother tongue, is simply vanishing from the scene. The dialect which was spoken in my family for generations (I can count, at least, five generations straightaway), has almost vanished, largely no thanks to me; I have to take some of the blame; for I have not taken any steps in the direction of speaking the dialect and passing on the language to my next generation of descendants. My daughter laughs at me when I speak the language.  Sad, but true. I have to own up to my responsibility, though I would like to partially pass on the blame to larger issues such as, national integration and / or globalization; which has accounted for many of the local dialects and or/languages disappearing from the scene. Take Kannada for instance, many of its adherents are of the opinion that the language would soon disappear if no steps are taken now for its propagation and continuous use in the city/state that we live in. English has become the common link language; what with people inter-marrying, cutting across castes and religious lines. In a way, all of this is good for the society, but then, there is also a negative side; that has an effect on the languages/dialects that gets marginalized in the process. I am going off the tangent, as usual. Pardon me. Coming back to the issue of my mother tongue, there is a real crisis on hands now. My mother tongue has been marginalized, largely due to its non-usage; not developing any pride in speaking the dialect and not passing on the language intact to our next generation.

However, I still have high hopes that, someone (brave and wonderful), somewhere would have taken steps to speak and promote the beautiful Desastha Marathi dialect (my mother tongue, which is lavishing in the ICU now) for the sake of posterity. I would be hugely indebted and grateful to such wonderful people out there!

Stray thoughts on ‘what constitutes Happiness’

In a recent article, what I read about ‘Happiness’, made me thoughtful and my brain cells were activated (normally, they are dormantJ).  The article went on, “Happiness is the ultimate purpose of our existence, whether as a conscious or unconscious decision. It is every human being's inalienable right. Yet, how do we measure happiness? It comes in so many different forms and for such diverse reasons that there can never be a consensus of what constitutes happiness.” The words rang true.   The author had so eloquently expressed it.  When I looked up on the Wikipedia and many other resources (Thank God for Google!) there were numerous and confusing definitions of what constituted happiness and I felt that the subject was too complex for a confused layman, like me, to handle; in effect, there was no consensus on the definition of happiness as concluded by the above said author.

Man, has lived and survived in this World for thousands of years, yet, if happiness is the ultimate purpose of all our existence, is there no simple answer to this perennial question of how to be happy?

I held this thought.  A beautiful quote had stuck with me, in my sub-conscious mind for a long time. 

“It is so simple to be happy….. yet it is so difficult to be simple”.  This was a quote from a Hindi movie of yesteryear “Bawarchi”, a cult classic from the inimitable Hrishikesh Mukherjee.  Although, this truism had a deep sense of meaning and suggested an elaborate word play, in effect, this implied to me, that simplicity, could be the answer to happiness.  If one leads a simple life with no material wants or desires; following asceticism, good virtues and moral character, life would be much simpler and thereby hangs a tale; Man, can be happy, if he chooses to remain simple.

It is not in my character to give up on the material wants and desires; I do not wish to lead an ascetic’s life, though I believe I have strong moral character and have some fine virtues.  Excuse me, it is not that I crave to own a palatial bungalow in Sadashivanagar or own a high-end Merc or BMW or Audi or even travel around the world, first class.  There is no end to what a person can crave for and the World can offer.  I, on other hand, would love to enjoy the material and mundane pleasures, life has to offer, within the limited resources, I have. I am digressing.

The more I thought about it, the more I felt that, happiness, is after all, one’s state of mind.  When we are at peace with our inner self and surrounded by Nature’s wonders, perhaps, a wave of ‘well-being’ emotions would sweep over us (could I say this is happiness, or may be, one would call it euphoria?); On the other extreme, just as an illustration, when we are walking on the street, in a heavy traffic zone filled with smoke emanating from vehicles; and we see dirt and squalor strewn all around, an opposite kind of wave, perhaps, nausea, would sweep over us, making us feel unpleasant; could this constitute unhappiness during that moment?  Is this too simplistic an explanation, for what happiness or unhappiness could mean to ordinary humans?

Have we all not heard the famous quote, that ‘darkness’ is the absence of light?  Similarly, in my mind, the absence of inner strife (our devilish thoughts and conflicting emotions) and/or the absence of problems/issues we face in our daily life, constitutes happiness. Apart from this, I really do not understand, what one would call happiness.  May be, an ascetic who is in deep penance in the Himalayan jungles would understand the term happiness in a better perspective.  I, for one, cannot. In that sense, in my present state, I am profoundly happy, thank you!

Happy Retirement!

I had read somewhere that, retirement is the reward after decades of hard work and an opportunity to spend more time with family, to travel, and to do all the things on your bucket list you wanted, but were too busy to do when you are working.  I do not know, if this is an exact description of the state of mind of a retired person.  This would probably vary from individual to individual.  By and large, I think this exactly fits into my idea of retirement.

During the working-phase of my life, I had a never given a thought, as to, what would life be, or what I would do, after retirement; always assuming that the life, as I knew then, would go on and on.  It had never occurred to me, that someday I would get old and bald; no longer required by the company that had employed me; skillsets would age; technologies would change, or there would be a fixed retirement age (which is 60 years in India, now for most of the government and public sector enterprises including banks).  After reality kicked in, and retirement was almost upon me, I realized, that on the day superannuation dawned/resignation submitted, my name would just be a closed entry on the company’s records.  I would be merely acknowledged, as an ex-employee, on exit from the company.  The company which had, until the day prior to my last day at office, commended my work ethics and quality of work delivered; bestowing me with fancy titles, had overnight deleted my ID out of the systems and blocked out, physical access to all of their facilities.  As I happened to visit my beloved office, the next day after my retirement/resignation, I had to request my ex-colleagues to log me in, using their ID and escort me to the department, I had wanted to visit.  All the admiration and respect I had commanded the day prior, amongst my colleagues, had vanished overnight into thin air.  It was literally like, I had become persona non-grata, with the company.

During my working days, weekends and other public holidays were great fun, to go out with the family on social visits or reading or simply enjoying a lazy day at home.  ‘Me-time’ and ‘sleep-time’ were always at a premium during those hectic working days.  Mondays used to be a drudgery due to heavy traffic conditions on the streets and workloads left over from the past week at office.  Immediate bosses and superiors used to reach office early on Mondays brimming with fresh ideas, displaying high energy and vigour; waiting to pick on and browbeat their subordinates with their new ideas.  Their ideas were normally tried out on the middle level Managers, who had, no option, but to nod their heads in agreement, like a bimbo.  If you were to disagree or raise any objection to the boss’s ideas, you were a marked man!  No small favours would be entertained; which were unavoidable in our line of work; like sometimes coming late to the office, leaving office early due to some work or engagement or even during promotion processes; there were always some such frivolous favours that needed the boss’s nod.  Basing on my experience, working life, indeed was a real pain, especially in the middle management; sandwiched between demanding superiors and indifferent subordinates.

After years of waking up early in the day to an alarm clock, it was luxurious in the first few days, post-retirement, to over-sleep for some time and wake up leisurely, with no particular place to go and above all, freedom from routine obligations.  Life was great, no motoring to the office in the terribly mad traffic conditions, no bosses to get shouted at, no subordinates to deal with.  Once the initial euphoria of the post-retirement life passes on, new challenges, arise.   Many, new unforeseen factors come into play.

The biggest challenge would be on the home-front.  People around you, resent your presence at home; especially the women folk (you guessed it!) because you are staying at home, like them, with them, in their hitherto unchallenged domain.  Women folk, generally, do not like or want your presence, day in and day out, around the home space, that they have created and nurtured, over the years.  I can understand their animosity; You see, it is, but, natural when someone who has not been home during the daytimes for years and decades together, suddenly comes alive and tries to mark his attendance at home.  Ladies, please forgive me, I should not have said this, just a slip of the tongueJ.

After the initial challenges, as detailed above, on the home-front wane (you see, the famous Charlie Chaplin quote comes to mind, nothing is permanent in this world, including our troubles or worries or even irritations or fightsJ), comes the new challenge of what to do with the rest of your life.  People with extraordinary passion or energy continue with their life/career pursuits in line with their passions even after their formal retirement; however, for people with no particular skillsets, the daily lazy routine bites.  It is my considered opinion, that nature counter balances this state, generally, by inducing some adverse health condition such as diabetes, or high blood pressure or heart condition or some such debilitating health condition, not necessarily life-threatening conditions or diseases; in order to keep the retiree, busy in life.  The retiree would have some new health challenges on hand to discuss and mope about with his retired group of friends in the neighbourhood parks; exchanging health related advice and discussing ad nausea, the present Indian political scene and current affairs.  As the popular quote goes, ‘Time and tide wait for no man’, time swiftly marches on, relentlessly.  It is soon time to say goodbye to the world, as we know it!

Coming to my plans, it had always been my dream that I would travel around the world and visit interesting places, post-retirement.  Come retirement, many of the post-retirement plans remain only on paper.  Our travel plans kept on postponing due to one reason or the other.  Nothing moved forward.  Life remained in a limbo.  The upside of this, however, is money to that extent has been saved, which would come in handy for a rainy day, especially if you are living off a pension, like me!

Work is Worship!

I go back in time when “work” was considered to be a serious form of worship.  Serious workaholics strongly believed in the idiom, “Work is Worship” and toiled day in and day out. Most of these workaholics were “seen” to be good leaders and successful people.  The names of these people were often quoted, as shining examples to emulate and to motivate the younger generation to work harder.  For anybody who was seen taking a break or just relaxing in-between office work, their acts were considered blasphemous. Back in the eighties, during the early stages of my banking career, I had a nagging suspicion that the Bank had assigned some senior executives solely to keep a close watch on the young employees who had been recruited in hordes in all nationalized banks post the bank nationalization phase in the late sixties and early seventies in India.  Recruitment took place in Banks in thousands, in the late seventies and early eighties, very much like the mass recruitment we see in Software and Services Companies these days.  I suspect, some of the senior executives in Banks were ordained by Bank management to go around their Head Office / Main office building in the Bank just to catch the youngsters in the act of chatting among themselves standing near the staircases or loitering here and there or just “whiling away” their precious “work” time in the office canteens. I remember being remonstrated a few times by senior executives to go back to respective work stations and complete the “work” instead of wasting time.  Working late was considered the norm with employees putting in extra hours of “work” beyond their stipulated working hours.  Sitting late would fetch the employees the required additional marks in their annual appraisals which was considered a “must” for promotions!

The youngsters in Banks who had been freshly recruited from various colleges had carried over their baggage in forming groups of like-minded individuals for sharing experiences and discussing their work-life occurrences standing near the staircases.  The atmosphere in the Head Office of the Bank was buzzing with activity.  Young people were seen milling all around the Head Office or their Main Offices with enthusiasm.  There was so much energy and freshness around the Bank environment, which is in sharp contrast to what we see in the nationalized Banks today.  Pardon me, while I say that most of the nationalized Bank employees today appear all too tired, dull and old, ready to pack up their bags at the drop of a hat, once and for all, either to opt for voluntary retirement or wait for attaining superannuation.   Since there was the mass recruitment of employees in the early eighties, now there appears to be the mass exit of employees occurring in nationalized Banks these days.

Coming back to the topic at hand, we hear the refrain “work life balance” being bandied about constantly these days; used synonymous with the IT and other services’ employees who work around the clock, 24/7, catering to their “clients” from around the world.  These days the term of yore, “work is worship” seem to be almost absent.  It is now all about teamwork and making greater use of technology.  Great ideas and inspiration seem to be the buzzword.  People have realized the darker side of slogging 24/7; with the pervasive lifestyle, related health issues cropping up; employees not having quality time for families; and many other negative factors in the society catching up, to show up, the ill effects of working too much at the cost of their personal life.  Personal life gets disrupted with too much focus on “work” and nothing else, in between.

“All work and no play make Jack a dull boy”, seems to be the mantra these days; in the process, companies are urging their employees to have a perfect work-life balance.  The big multinational companies, software, services and otherwise, have all provided for various facilities within their Headquarters each looking more and more like college campuses rather than companies where people need to “work” for generating profits for these companies.  It appears that Google HQ has Group cooking classes or coffee tasting arranged for its employees; bikes are provided to employees to move around the campus; Cafes galore within the campuses; group fitness classes with A class Gym facilities and much more are provided to their employees.  Facebook HQ, on the other hand, have many other wonderful facilities for its employees; company store–filled with FB apparel and items; it seems they even have foxes on campus, real ones, with specially designated fox-habitat area, and the campus certified for wild-life; video arcade for employees to hang out; many fast food restaurants filled with Burgers, pizzas, burritos, sushi, sweet shops, coffee shops, vending machines filled with snacks and beverages. All free. An interior swing for employees to “chill” in the playground near to the mini-kitchen.  Lots of electric cars in the parking lot.  Apple, it appears have designed their new HQ in a unique circular style reminiscent of their iPod, iPhone and iPad.  Their new campus will include a cafe for 3,000 sitting people; be surrounded by extensive landscaping, and offer parking both underground and a parking structure.  Media reports widely describe the new structure as "spaceship".  Other facilities include a 1,000-seat auditorium, 300,000 square feet of R&D facilities, a fitness center; an orchard, and a dedicated generating plant as the primary source of electricity (powered by natural gas and other more environmentally sound means); with a gorgeous courtyard in the middle, and a lot more.  What else, next?  Your imagination is as good as mine!  With all these wonderful facilities’ available, where do the employees find time to complete their required “work” hours, in between all the recreation and fun?

How times are A-changing.  The workers of the world, rejoice!  Sitting late in Offices is now considered passé.  Life seems to have come full circle for the workers of the world, who were once viewed with suspicion and had to be reined in to be more productive with catchy phrases such as “Work is Worship” as a means of motivation.  Retaining employees was unheard of, in our earlier days; there were no retention policies to retain talented youngsters by providing facilities, including employee stock options.  Workers were considered mere “automatons” or “robots” working at the pleasure of the employers; the loyal “employees” of yesteryear were threatened with more stringent working hours and bad reviews if they did not “fall in line” with the management philosophy of work, work and more work.  What a “royal fall” for the employer managements, it has been!  Who has had the last laugh, now, the “workers” or the “employer managements”, your guess is as good as mine!

The Irony of Life

“The irony of human condition is that we are so focused on reaching some point in our journey, some happiness, or some goal, that we seem to forget that the journey itself is where life happens!"   

                                                                                                                     "Author unknown”

Attending job interviews is a challenging prospect for most people; however, for Rahul, job interviews had been a smooth sailing affair, so far, as he had performed fairly well in many of the interviews, he had faced in his lifetime.  However, every time Rahul attended a job interview, he had to go through lot of background preparation and new learning or unlearning processes, based on his previous experiences, in anticipation of the interview.  He had to understand the organization, the role, the background of the company, their financials and many more such important information gleaned from internet sources or from some ex-colleagues who had worked in that company.  The purpose of a job interview was deploying right people into the right job.  Only if the interviewers had this in mind during the selection process, many of the unpleasant or irrelevant questions posed during the interview could be avoided; again, the interview process, in general, threw open many candidates who lacked the technical or required skills to operate proficiently in his/her role.  Still the interviewers had to go through the entire process for selection of the best candidate, among the list of finalized candidates appearing for the interview.

When the interviewers, sometimes asked stock questions, for which there could be no ready factual responses, Rahul had ended up making up stories around them; which in most cases, was an imaginary answer or plain guess work, not always convincing. The one question that the interviewers invariably asked was, 'If you are selected, how do you think you will be able to transform this company or bring a new perspective into the job?’.  How can a sane person who does not know the “ABC” of the organization, seriously answer such questions?  All that the candidate knew for certain was the position for which he had applied for and the first impressions he had gained on his interactions with the company personnel such as the receptionist or the HR Department official; other than that, there was nothing noteworthy for him to assess and answer such question.

Another question, the interviewers generally asked was, ‘What do you think are your weaknesses?’. As if anybody, in their right senses, would open up before the interview committee and discuss their innermost fears or apprehensions regarding their own shortcomings.  However, if one, did mention their weaknesses honestly, what if they rejected the candidate based on the responses.  Honesty is a rare virtue, but then, how many of them appreciate the human value attributes of the candidate, in an interview process.  Again, there were some standard questions, interviewers were prone to ask.  For example, ‘Why do you want to join this company’.  Rahul was not sure how he would reply to such questions.  If he had indicated that he was unable to cope with the pressures of the present company he was working with or he did not like his current boss, what would be the reaction of the interviewers.  Would they still select him as a job prospect, because he had not lied and spoken the truth? 

Most of the interviews Rahul had faced were for seeking jobs during the later years in his life.  Like they say, life had begun after 30 for Rahul; after he had upgraded his professional qualifications and migrated to the Middle East.  During the earlier phase of his life in India, he did not venture out much to seek jobs, nor were there any jobs on offer during the pre-liberalization period of the economy in India.  He had this strange lethargy and not belonging to the "aspiration" generation, he was not keen in seeking jobs or positions in life.  Quite content with the IT Operations Specialist job he had with a Private Company in India, Rahul was quite happy in the 9 to 5 routine.  There was no job stress or pressure on performance.  He just did his routine job and went home without any worries or pressures.  As there were less work pressures, he had a nice peaceful sleep.  Life motto, at that stage of his life was simple living and more simple thinking; he had no illusions or aspirations on his own skill sets.

After moving to the Middle East, he had settled down in one of the big four Audit and Consultancy firm with their Information Security Department which had offered him a decent salary.  Rahul was not pleased with his current job, though; the main reason was that his immediate Manager, was not a very considerate and understanding person. The Manager’s life motto seemed to be, to just harass his subordinates’ day in and day out to squeeze work and blow their minds with his wisdom.  He, probably, derived sadistic pleasure in bullying and underrating the performances of persons reporting to him.   Rahul stayed on the lookout for better opportunities, mainly to avoid daily friction with his Manager.  He badly wanted mental peace and a change in work atmosphere.  There were some job offers in the initial days and he did attend a few interviews, but none of them progressed into a concrete job offer.  One fine day, Rahul was invited for an interview for the position of Head of Information Security with a Retail Bank proposing to establish themselves in the Middle East region.  The Head of Risk Management, a person of Indian origin, was known to him and he was on the lookout for a fellow Indian with considerable experience, to report to him.  Rahul had appropriate work experience and right credentials for the position.  He was invited for the Interview at 1.00 PM, one afternoon.  Rahul took time off from his regular work schedule, informed his immediate senior that he had some personal work, and left his office as early as possible.  By the time he reached the Office where his interview was scheduled, the clock showed 1.15 PM.  The interviewers had already gathered in the interview room and the receptionist directed him to hurry along.  Rahul stepped into the interview room, sweating a little and apologizing for being late.  He could see that there were three of them seated in a round table.  The person of Indian origin, who was known to Rahul, was looking at him with slight disapproval, as he was a little late for the interview.  Rahul could feel that his confidence level was a bit low and the interview did not go that well. He wanted the interview to end as soon as possible.  After some few minutes, which had appeared to him as an interminably long period, the interviewers concluded their questions.  Rahul thanked them and literally sprinted out from the interview room with relief writ all over him.  He wanted to forget that he had appeared for this interview.

Rahul had a surprise in store the next day; he was informed that he had been selected for the position of Head of Information Security by the Retail Bank which had interviewed him.  Rahul was shocked albeit pleasantly, that in spite of his bad performance in the interview, he had been selected to the position.  He thought that, may be, the contact person, who had known him, had influenced the selection process.  Rahul was asked to submit his credentials the next day at the Bank’s main office.  When he went to submit his credentials the next day to the Human Resources Department, he was told that the Head of Risk Management (the person of Indian origin known to him), who had interviewed him the previous day had resigned from the Bank, and yesterday was his last day at the Bank.  This was news to him and he felt strangely disturbed because this was the person to whom he was supposed to report to, in his new position as Head of Information Security.  Rahul did not know what to say.  The Human Resources Head, who was a Middle East national, informed him confidentially, that the person who had interviewed him the previous day, had joined the big four Audit and Consultancy firm for which Rahul was presently working.  Yesterday, the day of his interview, was his last day.  Rahul wondered at the irony of the situation.  Rahul was planning to quit his firm to join this Bank, whereas his would-be boss, the interviewer, had already put in his papers and quit the Bank to join his current firm.

Rahul, then went to on discuss his contract terms with the HR Department.  The terms of employment were good and very well acceptable to Rahul.  He was asked to join the Bank as early as possible.  Rahul was happy with the salary raise he had bargained for and, most of all, relieved that he could escape from the clutches of his Manager, his immediate boss.  The very next day Rahul submitted his resignation with his current firm.  After the lapse of a month, as planned, Rahul reported to the new Bank after serving his notice period. 

As per his letter of appointment to the new Bank, he would be directly reporting to the Head of Risk Management. On his first day in his new job, Rahul was ecstatic and happy with the Bank environment. The Bank had a pleasant atmosphere and he had a beautifully decorated office, all to himself.  The perks included a Personal Secretary, as well.  After an hour or so, into his new job, Rahul was informed to meet the Head of Risk Management, his new boss, as soon as possible.  Rahul had not met the Head of Risk Management, his new boss, till now.  He only knew that the person of Indian origin, who had interviewed him had resigned and Rahul was under the impression that the position was still vacant.  However, it appeared that the Bank had filled the position immediately and hired a new person.  As he had received a summons from the Head of Risk Management, he thought this was a good opportunity to go and meet with his new boss; and get acquainted with him.  Rahul, hurried to the Head of Risk Management’s office which was situated on a different floor in the same building.   He was asked to wait for a few minutes as the Risk Management Head was in a short meeting.  After a few minutes, the meeting was over and the Head of Risk Management was free.  Rahul went into the office of Head of Risk Management, with a smile pasted on his face.  He wanted to create a good impression and appear pleasant while meeting his new boss for the first time.  The Head of Risk Management, presently looked up, stood up with his hand outstretched and a broad smile on his face. Rahul’s face had gone ashen, with dismay and shock writ all over his face, as there stood in front of him, his old Manager from his earlier Audit and Consultancy firm.  He was the new Head of Risk Management!  He also later came to know that this new Head of Risk Management, his old boss, was instrumental in selecting him for this position and not his contact, the person of Indian origin, as he had presumed earlier.  Rahul had learnt a new lesson in the supreme irony of life!