Rutuja's Orientation in St. Xavier's

 4-Aug-2023

Today, on 4-Aug-2023, I attended Rutuja's orientation session in her college, St. Xavier's. I was pretty excited about this session. I had almost a similar feeling when I attended her first parent interaction in her school way back in 2010, feels like ages ago.

We got ready for a 9' o clock session and left in our car. Rutuja was reluctant to take Kavita along since the notice clearly mentioned only one parent is allowed. It turned out to be a wise decision. 

In the central hall of the college, there were more than 600 people including students. We were greeted by Chairman of the college Fr. Keith, Principal of College Dr. Rajendra Shinde & Vice Principal Savio D'souza & Vaishali Mohumi. 

The orientation session started with anthem of St. Xavier's college. I was really excited to hear the anthem & the line "you helped me become more me".  All the speakers emphasized on the legacy of the college, its values and off course the modern and liberal culture of the college. It was a nice session with all information about history of college, curriculum, gymkhana, library, exam pattern and student exchange programs with foreign universities. 

They spoke very highly about illustrious alumni who made the college even more famous. It included politicians, solicitors, businessmen, scholars, sportsperson, actors and people from almost all walks of life. They also talked about how college has consistently retained its top rankings in various surveys. Session was nicely interspersed with funny puns. It is easily the best college for Arts stream in Mumbai if not in India. 

Rutuja was also nervous like most, if not all the students. These students were all soaking in the feeling that now they belong to this prestigious institute. They must be feeling overjoyed and nervous at same time, since it is now their responsibility to take the legacy forward. 

Me & Rutuja then took a tour of whole building & also the school building where Rutuja is most likely to attend her college lectures. The library & canteen were obviously two most crowded places with youngsters all around. Very refreshing to see the youngsters with all fashionable clothes, shoes, hair styles and accessories. It was lovely to explore the college having basket ball court & volley ball court right in the center of the building. It has a very classical heritage structure & perfectly suitable for 154 Year old college. 

Just like I was very satisfied after attending very first orientation session in her school, I was mighty happy to be along side her in the college orientation. And needless to say, mighty happy with the choice of college she had made. She studied really hard to achieve an excellent score of 98% (97.6 precisely) with dream of getting into the St. Xavier's. She has finally ticked that box. 

Dear Rutuja, may you enjoy all the college life with curricular, co-curricular & extra-curricular activities in this great institution. I am certainly very pleased with the college & I really hope you will be even a better person when you graduate from this lovely institution. 

God Bless you, Rutuja. May you achieve all that is in your destiny with the necessary hard work & honesty.

And I am thankful to almighty for showing this day. Thank you Dear God.

I pray to almighty that give me a chance to write similar feelings in few years time about her orientation session in some foreign university in Europe, US or anywhere else in the world. Amen !!!

Rutuja's Felicitation

Today, 18-Jun-2023, Rutuja gave a wonderful Father's Day Gift.

After scoring 97.6 % in her Class X CBSE, which I had rounded up to 98%, she was extremely happy and we all were even more happier. Topping in Sanskrit & Social Science in entire CBSE, by scoring perfect 100, was icing on the cake.

On insistence of Kavita, we had got Rutuja into Shobha's tuitions. This was done after much of necessary research by Kavita through her sources & fact findings. Just like so many others, it turned out to be a wonderful decision. During the Class IX itself, she had found her gear & was much relaxed in her studies & way of tutoring. Rutuja worked extremely hard & studied with great intentions. She told us that she feels her marks would be in the range of 90-95 maximum. However on the result day, she was stunned to know her score of 98%.

Shobha's had arranged felicitation for all the students who had scored above 85%. Obviously Rutuja was going to be one of the awardees. Me and Kavita were more excited than her. We were bubbling with all the enthusiasm, for the day. As usual, Rutuja was calm, collected and unfazed about it. 

Felicitation function started from around 10:00 AM & went up to 1:30 PM, interspersed with students being called upon to receive their medals, trophies and a small memento. She was called twice to receive the medals for scoring perfect 100 marks in Sanskrit & Social Science. I was unbelievably emotional seeing her on the stage. 

But Rutuja was again, very cool, not emotional at all. She was obviously happy with the medals but not too much emotional at all. This has to be the way. And more surprisingly, I found out that all the students were pretty much cool & much in the same mental space as Rutuja was. I was not able to relate due to my overwhelming emotions.  

When she was called on the stage for receiving her trophy, I was struggling to hold myself together again due to being overly emotional. But Rutuja & all the other students were happy, calm & not at all fazed by the occasion. Most of the kids were just plain in the moment, clicking pics, posting on Social media & putting filters on their photos for Instagram. I felt so annoyed that kids were so engrossed in mobile more than the function. But that is probably the way of this generation. There is nothing absolutely wrong or perfectly right in this, but I certainly felt little odd.

Rutuja received her trophy to a thunderous round of applause. Both parents were called on the stage during her felicitation & I have never felt prouder being Dadda. I was almost on the cusp of shedding happy tears but I managed to hold myself composed. Rutuja with her couple of medals around the neck & trophy in hand took lots of pictures with her teachers. All of them were very gracious & chatted so very nicely to us. Kavita did so much well than being on the emotional front. She was just simply happy & overjoyed. Simply smiling with all the happenings of the day. May be I have so much to learn from her. And may there be more such occasion where Rutuja will be awarded & we as a parent will witness those moments...Insha Allah :) 

But in overall, it was a beautiful co-incidence that function was held on Father's day & there was never a better Father's day gift to a dad by Rutuja.   

I remember writing a blog when I attended first meeting in school when we got Rutuja into New Horizon Public School. I very clearly remember the joyful emotions on that very day, good 14-15 years ago. It is a perfect end that her school life is wrapped up with awards from Shobha's for securing wonderful marks in Class X. 

Love you Rutuja for giving this wonderful moment.            

Sachin's 50th Birthday

 24-Apr-2023

Happy birthday Master Blaster !!! Wishing the god of indian cricket a healthy, happy 50th birthday.

Thank you for giving us such wonderful memories all over the years. It has been absolutely delightful & cherished memories all along.

I was reading a marathi news paper yesterday in which whole supplement was dedicated to wish Sachin on his 50th birthday. There were couple of articles in there by photographers who had photographed him over the years.

Both the articles were referring Sachin in plural form i.e. In Marathi it is called as aadararthi bahuwachan e.g. Tyanni tya match madhey ek chaan innings khelat hote. Tyanni jawoon Acharekar Siranchi bhet ghetali. Tyanni hee ad keli...

It was so weird to read Sachin's name like that. All over the years, we all have referred him as Sachin, Tendlya, Sacchhu or simply Tendulkar. We always felt as if he is still that 16 year old who made in debut in 1989 and he never grew beyond that for us. We all considered and will consider him as one of our own & never felt like we should call him that way especially in marathi. 

So I felt, it is nice to scribble this down on the special day.

Once again Sachin Tendulkar, many wishes for your birthday. May you be blessed with all the health & happiness. You keep giving us beautiful memories which you have been doing over the years.

India Pak T20 World Cup MCG

 23-Oct-2022

The match between India-Pakistan in T20 World Cup 2022 preceded with its usual hype. It was scheduled for 23-Oct-2022 and was billed as War minus shooting. But as compared to some over-the-top advertisement in previous encounters, this time it seemed pretty reasonable. Probably since Pakistan have beaten India couple of times in recent matches, advertisers would have taken it bit easy.

It was a Sunday during the Diwali times, so the mood was upbeat for all of us. India Pakistan encounters, no matter what, where, when, after how long, are always a matter of temperament. After watching so many Ind-Pak matches, its fair to say that the skill factor just goes out of the window during these tense matches. The team which has more belief prevails. Even this match had its usual up-down, pendulum swinging moments which is more of expected in tense matches. 

But King Kohli was in his zone that day. In spite of having asking rate of around 12 for last 10 overs which shot up to 16 for last 3 overs, Kohli batted like a man possessed. It was pure genius at work on that day. He took down the best of the Pakistan fast bowlers with full guts & he had the skills to match it. No mean a feat, to hit bowlers to boundaries when asking rate is 16 and they are breathing fire with 145+ speed. It was a sheer delight to witness. 

Like most of us, I had lost all my hopes when India were 31-4 in 6 odd overs. Kohli & Pandya had the belief. They had the confidence to take it deep & then see how it goes. Kudos to such planning & hats off to execution. They had everything going against them but they simply kept pushing themselves, simply kept the faith in each other, simply kept converting singles into two. The audacity of some shots especially two sixes of the best bowler of the day was the swing of the momentum. 

Kohli, who has been through some slump for last couple of years, was always going to be judged by the high standards he has set for himself. Anything short of those lofty standards are treated as failures. The weight of expectations, the weight of hopes of so many people, I am sure only Sachin Tendulkar must have felt something closer to that. The doubters, the nigh sayers, the armchair critics everyone had already seen the writing on the wall. 

But one man who refused to buy that was standing in the middle. He had some of his own ideas, some of his own skills. Coupled with supreme fitness & unshakeable faith in his ability. King Kohli dragged the match out of Pakistan's throat & made it one of the best nights MCG had witnessed.  

Doing it in front of 90,000 plus fans in the biggest of ground in Australia, the G, against the old rivals when chips were totally down, was really a stuff of dreams.

Seems like I have exhausted all my emotions in the first match itself. Irrespective of what happens with Team India in the remaining world cup, this innings will be remembered as one of the greatest ever played in cricket.

Thank You Virat Kohli for the unforgettable day. 

2021 - A year that was

 2021 - What a year this has been.

Started with all the fears of corona virus multiplied to a factor of two. With hardly anything in sight to guess if & when this crisis will end. But vaccines provided a glimmer of hope and we all were so thankful that we could now fight with this deadly virus. It must have been a gigantic efforts for governments to manage these vaccination programs. That said, the virus still remained a threat with second wave in the later part of the year.

For me personally, year kicked off with Amol guiding me to Freedom From Diabetes program. It was much needed for me as my sugar levels had shot up to real bad levels. The year long program was quite comprehensive and tough to follow. With diets, exercise, medicines and much support from FFD, I was able to follow different phases of program. No words are enough to thank Kavita for the hard work she did for all my diet related changes. It was awesome from her. Thank you Sweetheart for all those efforts.

The toughest phase was first six months of Vegan phase. This was really hard to follow especially sacrificing meat, chicken, rice, khichadi, eggs, bakery products, dairy products and simply sticking to pure green vegetables & spices. But again it was worth since it brought my diabetes under control so much so that I was free of all medicines by month of September.

On professional front, I had been looking for opportunities outside OFSS. Finally after much of search and utilizing all my resources, I was able to land up a job with Odessa. The lure of working from home for perpetuity was the biggest clincher for me. The role of being a part of architecture team was enticing and I hope I will be able to contribute to best of my ability.

On family front, it was nice to spend this much of time with Rutuja, Neil, Kavita, Mom & Dad. Happiest of the lot must be Kavita :) She enjoyed me being at home. Going for a walk with me in the evening, Doing Yoga with me in the morning. Few outings like Taj Palace, Yacht ride in colaba and Saputara picnic were nice highlights to end the year. Trip to native place for couple of marriages were a nice change from the daily routine.

In summary, no regrets, no resolutions just simple gratitude for being able to see through 2021 and looking forward to 2022 !

Last Day in OFSS

Today 19-March-2021 is my last day in Oracle Financial Services Softwares. 

It was all credit to people like Vipul, Vaibhav & Rohan who had pushed my resume. After interviews I was all set to join on 4-Oct-2010.  

The journey professionally has been really rewarding. I got to work in many different aspects of Retail Banking before settling into Collections module for last 6 plus years. Role of Product Manager has really put me on next pedestal. But that was just a byproduct.

The amount of fun I had in the organization & with friends was simply awesome. I remember the gala lunches in Balaji and then to Nirlon Canteen. The dinner or drinks session in Cooling Tower Cafe were so great. It was awesome to organize, co-ordinate and host such lunches & dinners. Special thanks to Rohan, Vaibhav, Vipul, Aby, Vartak, Deven and Amitabh for those memories.

The FS Team was so straight jacketed at times. It was all so formal and so very plastic at times. I am glad that people changed their attitude over a period of time. I was glad to be part of that team with refreshed attitude and even gladder to be one of the reason for change. We certainly bought the new thoughts and started mingling whole lot better. The social outings surely made everyone to come out of their shell and be themselves. Many more meal gatherings, birthday celebrations, dinner parties and even picnics were great fun. It helped team to bond even more. 

Collections team, my product team which was so new to me when I joined them. But slowly the entire team warmed up to me. They started trusting me more and more as the time went on. I also felt obliged to provide them with right artefacts backed by sound research. I certainly feel the product which I had taken up is lot better when I am leaving. So its reasonable to say I took the product forward.

Big reason for that is John Mays. He is not only the best in product strategy folks I had dealt with but he is also one of the best in industry. His vast knowledge and super confidence rubbed on me. It reflected when I stood in front of prospects to demonstrate the product. The win of KeyBank was a true indicator of our hard work and sincere efforts. Those trips to Cleveland enhanced my professional reputation but also allowed me to spend time with Mangs & Prachi. The last trip to Cleveland with Kavita was a nice cherry on the cake. I am so pleased that me and Kavita could spend a week with Mangs & Prachi at their beautiful home in Cleveland.

I also must say that I somehow got emotionally attached with the product and started to take personally. It is never a good situation to be in. But then life do teach you some good lessons. I remember I spoke to so many of my well wishers about next move. Finally, I could manage to find a new job which will allow me to pursue my dream to be in the Product Development space. For this a big credit goes to Yogesh Ayachit, who kept pushing and nudging me in the right directions. I finally made up my mind and took up the offer.

Today, at my farewell everyone spoke so very nicely about me. Everyone described me as cool, calm and composed person who never gets angry. It was such nice gesture from everyone to highlight qualities which I never knew I had :) 

It just told me that I am a nice person. So keep going Greatyogs !!!

Thank you OFSS for all the learnings, great memories, superb life lessons and many more friends for life. Again I feel I got more than I deserved !

On to new journey ....Odessa !!!

Brisbane Breached on 19-Jan-2021

19-Jan-2021

Unbelievable , Incredible, Miraculous and beyond the wildest of dreams.

These are some of the words which spring to mind when I recall the victory in Brisbane over the mighty Aussies in their own backyard. To make it double sweet, it was achieved in Gabbatoir. The venue where Australia's proud record of unbeaten for 32 years was shattered by Team India.

Reels and reels have been printed and will be said about this victory. Rightly so. Probably this is the greatest series victory by Team India with all due respect to what they achieved in yester years. Simply the best !!!

I was following the series closely and waking up at 5 AM to watch first session of test match was never a problem. Brisbane test match was no different. After watching the heroics in Sydney, I had a feeling that India will do well in Brisbane. But even the optimist in me did not see a victory on a final day by scoring 328 on a Day 5 pitch. Everyone in the team chipped in with some contribution and hence this, for me, is the greatest team victory for India.

Team India resembled a school bus in this tour during these bio secure bubble times. Just like the school bus drops kids on their way home, Team India kept dropping players for injuries and other reasons. One after the other. It was down to last men standing in Brisbane. The net bowlers have to be recalled in the team to make up the playing eleven.

Especially after 36 all out in Adlaide, pundits were calling for heads. Many of them predicted 4-0. What was about to unfold was beyond even the wildest of dream of Indian cricket fan !!!

My experience was exhilarating as everyone else. I thought not checking my WhatsApp messages on Day 5, I will bring some luck to Team India. WhatsApp groups were on fire that day. Every group was full of coaches who would advise how the Team India should approach the final day :) I was also doing the same stuff a day earlier. But that day, I decided let's go with this superstition. I definitely did not like people calling this as India A or India B team. If you represent your country that means you are as good as everyone else who has represented it earlier. So its disgraceful to call a team as B team or C team. It is India's Team period.

It was sheer luck that I could return from Rutuja's school visit, just in the nick of time. Last hour of the match, I was standing at the same position in front of tv. It was too much to bear since the pure feeling of joy which was lurking on horizon. What if....just what if this happens. I did not even bothered to move an inch for the last hour or so. 

Moment the last boundary was scored, I let out a loud & passionate scream. Just went on clapping for couple of minutes. Doing my own celebrations, Hi-fi ing every one in the house. Three generations at my home enjoyed this rare moment. I had tears in my eyes just to realize what is meant by "Khushi ke aansu". I looked at Kavita and she was shaking her head in joy and just going like...there he goes again.

I had suppressed so much ill feelings towards Aussies, so much of hatred for the players, so much of anger for their abusive behavior and their hateful brand of sledging. I wanted to give it all back by cursing or swearing loudly. I just wanted to say take that you xxxxxxx....

But what I felt in the rare golden moment was 

• Why don't I enjoy the moment? 
• Why to waste the moment by getting ill feelings out? 
• What is the point to take a dig when the job is already done?

This is such a rare and beautiful moment, such a historical moment. 

And then at that very moment a serene, calm and beautiful feeling hit my mind. I was all smiles and never been happier as a test cricket fan. I was just soaking in the moment, enjoying the moment and forgot about everything else. 

Harsha Bhogle itched this moment in the history with words "Covid, you have been beaten" 

Well said Harsha !!

Perhaps this is the reason why we love this game. This wonderful game of glorious uncertainties.