The RG School of Consulting

Being in the consulting profession for about two years now,I have seen the good the bad and the ugly of the same.

When I started there was a certain glamour associated with it, 5 star hotels, expensive restaurants, lots of travel and places to see and meeting the high and mighty. Moving on things are changing,cost cutting is the new mantra, as
more and more projects become fixed fee and extreme competition from the Indian System Integrators whom I call the Walmarts of Consulting. But in order to survive many of us consultants have taken these things in a stride.


My first manager in the firm was Mr. RG. He is a school of thought in himself and many of us who have crossed his path have always admired him. If you work under him assured you will learn things in one year which would otherwise take 5. You will not
hesitate to experiment. Look up to the client when they ask for the moon and tell them to better get astronauts for the same rather than us.If you left office by 6 pm it was a crime, if u leave at 8 pm its OK and if you leave at 9 pm you ar an asset.In the RG school of consulting when you are high on the project Bell curve put double your time and efforts and when at the edges of the curve, it doest matter, that time is your free time.Some of the commandments

1. Never sit on e-mails
2. Reply to e-mails which make sense
3. Know your subject,if you don't know don't bluff, if you bluff its adhoc, long run it only hits u
4. Have good people skills
5. Give credit where it is due, don't snatch it
6. Be ruthless where you have to be.
7. Its ok to be angry sometimes
8. Be specific and objective, the more generic the more problems


I have heard him say that most of the current generation wants to learn it fast and achieve it fast, a strong foundations needs annealling but if we try to hop bridges we are more likely to drown. One should take time develop and grow.I agree, but I think I am the former will take the risk of jumping, I know free style swimming to come back ashore!!

Catching the 7:14 Acela

My sunday midnight to Monday morning schedule has worked like clock work. Sleep by 12 midnight, wake up at 5:30 am , enter bathroom , 6:00 am out of bathroom, chlothes on , 6:15 make coffe, 6:20 Drink coffee, 6:30 Out of the House to the Path Station, 6:45 reach PATH, catch the 6:50 subway, reach Newark in a minute, 6:55 go to the quick track machine and print ticket, 7 am buy WSJ from the stall, read the paper till 7:14, catch the acela on the way to Philly for more than a year and nowadays to Washington and trust me all this happens without seeing the watch ever.

Past week my biological clock went haywire ( dunno adjusting to a self induced daylight saving schedule). Woke up at 6:19 ( well past the deadline), 6:20 entered the bathroom , 6:45 out of the bathroom , 6:50 Chlothes on, no time to make coffee, so took 5 sips of coca cola just to have my morning caffiene levels in, 6:57 out of the house, 7:07 reached the PATH station,caught the 7:10 subway , 7:12 reached the station, 7:13 got the ticket from quicktrack, 7:13:30 took the WSJ from the stall, slammed the $1:50 on the counter, 7:14 doors close all aboard just scrapped in ( sometimes it helps to be thin). 7:16 settled down, 7:20 got coffee from the caffe car, 7:25 sipped my coffee as the train pulled into metropark and as I was reading the latest on Bear Stearns.
And all this while being glued to the watch.

Not Bad Mr. Patra, Not bad at All..

The New Air India

Recently I read an Interview of V. Thulasidas, the head of National Aviation Company Limited ( merged entity between Air India + Indian Airlines)and he said about the next steps of the merged entity and how to compete with the likes of SIA and Cathay Pacific. One of the things he mentioned was a new hoarding that Air India had put up in Times Square. This week I got to see it, there on the intersection of 51st Street and Seventh Avenue, just in front of the Lehman Brothers Building it was ( technically Mr. Thulasidas it is not Times Square, but still the location can be counted as of the costliest ad spaces on earth).And how passe it was, more like the ubiquitous 555 Pataka Bidis ads you would see in the muffosil towns of Indian Hinterland.And amazingly Accenture were the Brand Consultants, Air India had definitely been coned.

My first flight in India was in the days when the aviation sector had just been opened and Air Deccan had just taken its flight of fantasy, for me my first plane ride was more of a joy ride.Those days a sandwich on the Mumbai Delhi flight used to cost 45 rupees.My first Internal flight in the US was on a Delta MD-11( the company got merged with boeing) and it is where I had my first Bagel.And I would blame Delta rather than the Bagel for the my dislike for that chow ever afterwards.What I mean to say is the service in India's airlines are much better than what the current international airlines offer, but we have always been a victim in trusting our abilities, a disease which has plagued our nation since its birth and is now showing signs of dissipating.I could relate that gaudy Air India hoarding for that.Our marketing strategies are so poor that tends to devalue our worth even before the product is presented.Hopefully Air India learns from its mistakes fast, or else all this rebranding will prove futile.

My First Blog

I had been writing for long, mostly on paper and on computers here and there.With time the papers frayed and the computers switched and much of the legacy is lost. Now I find something more perennial to jot down my ideas and leanings, mostly for myself and maybe if this interests someone else then for them too.