Training in Dubai

Few days back I travelled to Dubai for training by my company. In 5 days stay, I visited limited places; following are few of the important points.

1. Monika the Air-hostess from India in Emirates was very talkative same as me. We were silent until we were 5 KMs to Dubai and she suddenly saw my tattoo on my hand “Om” and we started talking for 15 minutes. We didn’t feel like we have talked for only 15 minutes
2. Attitude of Arabs at Dubai Airport for Retina scan is pathetic. 3 out of 10 counters were functional and 150 people were in one line waiting for 2 hours to get it done. Arabs were treating the foreigners like their servants and the way they were talking was driving me crazy.
3. Numerous citizens of Pakistan & India come to Dubai & there is special counter for Pakistanis & Indians at Ariport.
4. 45 degree Celsius was unbearable especially when you have to walk.
5. Hiring a taxi is not an easy task, sometimes you need to show your Pakistani skills
6. Traffic is an issue in Dubai but 120 KM/Hour is normal speed on Dubai roads though we touched 170 KM/H once :). Metro train will start soon in Dubai.
7. Shopping Malls are worth watching and Burj-Dubai is an amazing building
8. Because of Dubai Pizzas & Mexican food, I will go again to Dubai in September
9. Taking bath with hot water even in Al-Marooj Rotana hotel is not an easy task
10. I was surprised to know that Jabel Ali city has more than 10,000 companies in it.

Meeting in Manila

In June 2008, I had to travel to Manila, Philippines in order to have the official meeting with business experts of my company. Actually they were supposed to come here in Pakistan but due to our law & order situation here, we went there. I stayed there for 14 days. I took the flight from Karachi-> Dubai -> Manila (same was the return route). Following are few points worth sharing.

1.    140 countries doesn’t require visa to enter the Philippines but Pakistan does
2.    Requirements of Philippines visa were very high like they needed clearance from the POLICE and Ministry of affairs. I was laughing at the clearance from POLICE, even If I had committed the crime, how would our POLICE track that?
3.    Travelling in business class is comfortable but for only 4 hours, after that you are saturated specially when you know 7 hours more to go
4.    The rush at Dubai Airport was same as the traffic at Jinnah hospital signal
5.    I loved the way hotel staff used to call me “Good Morning Mr. Perkaaaaaaaaaash”
6.    Finding the Halal Food in Manila is an issue, though Indian vegetable food is great to have as an alternate.
7.    Training on security in Philippines by our company staff looked funny to me because we already have seen lot of things than they covered in their presentation
8.    Malls in Manila are closed by 8pm.
9.    Filipinos can understand English.
10.    Horse & boat riding on weekend was awesome. Though I pity on that horse
11.    It was fun to see the active volcano. Smoke everywhere was amazing but the way to volcano was TOO tough. I was praying to be back safely
12.    Filipinos charged us hefty amount for boat driving due to monopoly.
13.    Ocean Park is manila is also a wonderful place where you can see various kind of fishes.
14.    A girl in our group almost had a fight with a guy on commitment VS actual
15.    Asia Shopping Mall is the largest mall in Asia. It was very huge to be visited in a day and was also costly but I managed to buy a few things from there as well
16.    Beaches are on 2 hours drive from Manila which will be explored by me in the next visit to Manila in September 2008.
17.    On my return, at Manila airport we met with the judge of Supreme Court of UAE, he was a great guy. He told us a few things related to politics and I was astonished on them. He also asked us to contact him in case we face any issue unlike Asif (The Cricketer).
18.    In flight, we two friends told the Air hostess that we are twins. After that we ordered the same in appetizers and food. While serving deserts she didn’t ask me but served the same ordered by my friend. After serving, she again asked “You both doesn’t look twins :P”

An official visit to Muzzaffarabad

I got a chance to pay a visit to Muzzaffarabad city with around 30 of my colleagues to inaugurate the 3rd school sponsored by my company after the Oct 8, 2005. It took around 2 hours in fight till Islamabad and around 3 hours more towards PC hotel Muzzaffarabad. The way we passed through from Islamabad was the way to death, passing through mountains was freaking experience. We were passing through 6” margin and I was sitting at the window seat of coaster. On the way, I was relieved to see the beauty of nature.

On the first day, we went to see the school inaugurated one year earlier and see how children are passing their time in school. We were divided into groups and we got chance to interact with students and for the first time I felt that IT’S VERY HARD TO TEACH SOMEONE because we had drawing competition between groups and I am not good at drawing and I was supposed to teach them. Anyways, drawing was made by children of all groups; I was surprised to see the communication & drawing skills of those students, they were simply the best. Top Three Groups were awarded some awards and off course my group wasn’t one of them . After that we played around. That three hour experience was the best experience of mine with children.

Second day, after driving for three hours on zigzag mountains, we reached at the remote area of Muzzaffarabad where we were supposed to paint the school & plant the plant, after that school was officially inaugurated. After that whole team went to visit the city and have the food at Food Street. Surprisingly, in Food Street there was no arrangement for cooking food of 30 at a time, the person managed to serve us the food after 2 hours. After food when we tried Kashmiri tea, it was damn salty.

After having dinner we came back to hotel and had a chit chat with each other along with singing & telling the spooky stories to each other. I didn’t sleep that night at all since we had to leave by 3am as we may catch the flight from Islamabad by 8am. On the way to Islamabad, we faced a dangerous accident, the other vehicle was about to fell down from the mountain and we hit the mountain at the left. I checked for the girl who was sitting at the front seat and fortunately she was OK, interestingly she was still sleeping :). Well after the 15 minutes Pashto fight, we continued our journey. We reach at airport around 7:15am and checked in on time and reached Karachi safely.

Disclaimer

I get damn angry on following points regardless of the scenarios I am dealing in.

(1) When someone makes fun of my emotions
(2) When someone starts judging me without looking at the complete details
(3) When someone doesn’t agree just to show he/she is right
(4) When someone shows that he/she got me but he/she doesn’t in reality
(5) When someone passes bad remarks about my family
(6) When someone is not being given food because its being saved for high profiles
(7) When I don’t have money in my pocket because of false commitment by some friend
(8 ) When I am supposed to answer because of other’s mistake
(9) When someone doesn’t take me seriously when I am serious for his/her goodness

P.S: I might have missed few points. So extrapolate from these points and be careful of these points while dealing with me

Trade Off

“Its life my friend, sometimes you ought to choose one, we call it trade off”, this is what one of my friend told me when I expressed that I couldn’t attend the offsite planned by my company due to my brother’s marriage. My brother’s marriage was planned on April 18, 2008 at Ghotki city and I was out of office for 11 days (6 working days) on behalf of this. On my last working day before leave, it was announced that we are going to have offsite in Karachi for our department 

It was hell lot of fun being at my brother’s wedding. I was feeling so good to be with the family. I enjoyed seeing all the relatives together after such a long time. I enjoyed, I danced (forced to), I worked and I didn’t sleep for almost 2 days as told in Managing Shadi post below.

Whereas I missed to be with another family, P&G family where they all had very nice time together, having a 3 hours boat ride from Kemari -> Sanspit Beach, stay at beach with lot of fun and jokes along with Bar B Q dinner, dancing, firework, singing, water scooter riding along with unending games (cricket, football, volley ball, fuze ball etc) not forgetting the group discussion on first day. Second day, they had tons of fun activities to do at beach, lunch at pizza hut, adventure at Go Aish (paint ball shooting, hanging on rope and passing above the water etc), gaming at Playdium (gaming zone), dinner at burns road and ending the second day by staying at Marriot Hotel. Third day, they had a training in Marriot and return to home along with two gifts. One was Ipod Nano (4GB) and other one was a packet containing wallet + key chain + card holder.

I made the choice to attend my brother’s wedding, because my brother is marrying for the first and last time whereas offsite is going to happen next year again; I chose to be with family at my native town, I am glad with that, but I do sometimes miss the fun my colleagues had at offsite.

Managing Shadi

Managing a Shadi especially in interior is hell lot of tough job. I experienced this in April 2008. Though I was given very few responsibilities but my father and groom himself took LOT OF RESPONSIBILITIES. One thing which irritated me the most was Absence of Standard Operating Procedure (SOP). There is no SOP for managing the shadi, every one does it as per his/her wish though many things are common but again if we had SOP we might not have worried a lot and could have focused on some other things.

In interior, you are the whole sole responsible for managing the shadi. You yourself have to arrange the place for treat, tent, food stuff, return of stuff, transport for guests, decoration stuff and transport of food to your relatives in near by cities. You have to fulfill the requirements by Pandit, ensure the availability of stuff at right time, follow the traditions, follow the religion for sure.

On the other part, it was wonderful to enjoy the brother’s marriage. Funny chit chat with the family on arrangements, pin pointing cousins to wash the plates, dancing with and without music, getting comments on dressing, taking snaps on funny moments, demand of 5000/= for entry into home for bride & groom. One astonishing moment was when my two brothers picked me up with their single hand, Amazing na

I worked straight for 72 hours by sleeping only 6 hours in between and I am sure my father and groom slept less than me. Thanks to my friends especially Rakesh, Vishal & Jairam who showed up on Shadi day and helped me in arranging the Ring Ceremony of my Sister planned on the same day.

“No matter whatever you do, people are going to find some shortcomings in the marriage arrangements and pin point this after the marriage” told by one of my relative and I had a very clear answer on that “We are trying our best but even that doesn’t satisfy them, Who cares”.

We recently got this blessing of having a marriage lawn in Ghotki but unfortunately that was booked on that day. After this experience, I am planning to open two more marriage lawns in Ghotki to serve the people and earn the money If I faced any issue in getting Australian visa for my Masters . Any one who is interested in investing, I have lot of options like these

…..

Woh jazboon ki tijarat thi yah dil kuch aur samjha tha….
osey hansaney ki aadat thi yah dil kuch aur samjha tha….
mujhey oss ne kahaa aao naiee duniya baasatay hain…
osey soojie sharart thi yah dil kuch aur samjha tha….
hamesha os k chehray pe dhanak se raang hotay thay…
yah os ki aam haallat thi yah dil kuch aur samjha tha….
woh meray paass bethtie, aur ghazlaien meri suntie…
osey khud se mohabat thi yah dil kuch aur samjha tha….

US Visa and me

Visa always has been an issue for me. I got the Chinese visa 50 minutes before my flight time. I applied for the Indian visa at very last moment expecting no reply from embassy but fortunately I got both visas. I applied for U.S visa right on time or before time but I didn’t get it

Being the Regional Student Representative (RSR) of IEEE, one of my prime responsibilities is to attend the student activities committee meeting held at U.S, I was supposed to be one of the participants but I couldn’t get through the visa.

I was interviewed on 15th February 2008 for the first time at U.S Embassy Islamabad. I spent PKR 30,000/= on this trip and took one and half day off from office. Before Interview could take place, I had to be in five queues before (Ticket Queue, Bus Queue, Security Check Queue, Embassy Entrance Queue and Finally Waiting Queue for Interview). It took around 3 hours for me to reach to the counselor officer. Mind it, I was not confused at any point and was confident enough to get the visa. While I was in waiting queue, I saw one person being rejected, I said “Damn, how bad this person would be feeling, he is rejected on the spot” unknowingly this will happen to me as well. And here comes my number, I went to the window, she asked several questions starting from my birth to till date and I replied to them to the best of my knowledge and everything was nothing but truth. After Interview she gave me a paper and passport back saying “Sorry, you are rejected, but it’s not permanent refusal, you can re-apply”. My question was “what’s the reason?” she said “Everything is written on this document”.  After a long debate she said “It’s your organization”. I was seriously startled. I went outside I saw the document very carefully, nothing in specific was written on that page but that document seemed to be general purpose. I was pissed and called IEEE authorities and told them the whole story. They recommended me to re-apply. I re-applied for the visa on 25th Feb 2008, in the mean while IEEE authorities faxed some documents to embassy about the authenticity of the organization.

Second time I am again in Islamabad taking one and half day off from office. Again 5 long queues, this time I went a early because I wanted to interviewed in good mood. Here comes my number and following conversation took place in between me and counseling officer (C.O).

Me: “Good Morning Sir”
C.O: “Good Morning”
C.O: “After looking at my documents, Sir this is second time in the month you are re-applying, so what is the change in you”
Me: “There is no change in me, however this time I have more documents with me to prove the authenticity of my organization and they have also sent you dozen of faxes”
C.O: “Sorry Sir, Your visa is rejected again; he gave me the passport and same paper back”
Me: “Could you please tell me the reason”
C.O: “Everything is written on this paper”
Me: “Friend, I have read this paper 10 times and I don’t find anything specific, everything is general. What’s the main reason? What should I tell to my organization?”
C.O: “Sir, Please refer to the paper”
Me: “See, I have seen this paper earlier and I know nothing is written specifically on it. Why don’t you tell me the reason? You don’t like my face? You have some other reservations with me?”
C.O: “No Sir, It’s not like that, It’s the over all situation of you”
Me: “Overall situation. Financial / physical or ….?”
C.O: “Sir, Interview is over, Thank You and he switched off the microphone”.
Me: “Taking my stuff and giving him terrible look”

Causes / Observation in two visits / Comments by Friends

-    U.S Visa rejection ratio in Pakistan is 8:2, meaning 8 are being rejected out of 10.
-    A pure U.S national was taking the interview in Urdu, that last for 20 seconds and old lady who wanted to see her son was rejected
-    500 to 1000 people are interviewed every day at Islamabad, Pakistan
-    I was rejected for the visa because I didn’t take the bath that day
-    U.S guys has limit of issuing visa, probably they approached crossed it that day.
-    Mood of your interviewer must be off.
-    Second time you were rejected because you hadn’t enough time to get the security clearance.
-    Your doesn’t look like a person who should go to U.S
-    Simply bad luck 
-    In case of U.S visa, more important is luck NOT Interview.

Disclaimer:

Whatever is written below is my personal opinion, others may have different. All are the facts to the best of my knowledge and observations.

A Visit to India

I was in India for 10 days to attend IEEE R10 Student Congress 2008 at Chennai and IEEE R10 meet at Ahmadabad, Gujarat. Blog is written in points like a summary because 10 days in India were wonderful. Neither I can forget that experience nor can I write that down here because it will take additional 10 days since every moment of that time was fantastic.

26th Jan – 31st Feb (Karachi -> Mumbai -> Chennai)

- Mishandling by PIA authorities at Karachi Airport. They removed my ticket “Mumbai->Chennai” instead of “Karachi->Mumbai” besides my saying “Madam, I think you are tearing wrong ticket, can you please re-check”. She had some proof of being the right, so I ignored.

- Rickshaws of Bombay are wider than ours.

- Indian Airline’s staff was very supportive. They called P.I.A to resolve the issue and didn’t let me say few words to them since I was very happy with the performance of P.I.A

- I liked the south Indian food on first day but later on I started feeling like I am in China since In china “language and food were the only issues for me” same goes for Chennai.

- Enjoyed a lot at Ice-breaking activity in lawn where every one introduced in a group activity and I could remember more than 30 students in first meet, few people started calling me KOOL guy. Probably they were mistaken

- First day was wonderful, activities were good and 95% of the participants knew me with name.

- Many were willing to have a snap with representatives of a peaceful country (Pakistan), People were curious to know more about Pakistan and specially my life in Pakistan being from the minority.

- My announcement of being IEEE Regional Student Representative (RSR) by R10 Student Activities Chair (SAC) surprised almost 70% of the participants.

- Interaction with students from different countries was cheering me up, Chinese were yet again the attraction point for me

- Congress third day was horrible for Pakistanis. We Pakistani get the Indian visa city wise and we have to report at POLICE station within 24 hours of arrival. Fortunately, 3 Karachites were exempted but 4 from Lahore had to report and they faced lot of issues on it.

- Interview with IEEE.TV went very good and interviewer feedback was good about Pakistan after getting some information about it. While I was at interview organizing committee was searching me as I was to be at stage for some good that I did with my team in July 2007 (Pakistan Student Congress 2007)

- Chit Chat with Bhavika, Ravendar, Namita, Shoaib lasted for 6 hours Out of 6, 3 hours were utilized in Khichae of Ravendar on a step he took that morning

- Hari was also a good friend. He accompanied us for whole day to visit Chennai. Beach was same as ours but we had to walk around 10 minutes before reaching there, buffet was cheaper than ours and shopping there was costing more than it should

1st Feb – 4th Feb (Chennai->Ahmadabad->Mumbai->Karachi)

- Visiting Ahmadabad was fun, Historical places were good, Gandhi Nagar was a nice place and well maintained but Kirshna Mandir was exceptionally good

- Shopping with few friends from Madras and Australia was a nice experience. Shopping Mall was very good like we have in Karachi. But I was amazed to see that kind of shopping mall in a city like Ahmadabad.

- First time in my life, I was attending a professional meeting which was for 2 days. Environment was very good. Accommodation was more than satisfactory. I was enjoying the weather and was feeling like flying

- In Bombay, I stayed at friend’s relatives. Their hospitality was outstanding. They were caring same as my family does . I didn’t feel for a minute that I am not in Ghotki. Hats off to them. Every member of the family was tremendously good and caring.

- Even after 10 days one P.I.A guy remember me for being the victim of their outstanding service so he didn’t bother to say anything to me for 25 KGS over weighted baggage than allowed (because I was carrying 30KGs of a friend )

In short, memorable trip, No office calls, No office tension, only fun. Special Thanks to Dr. Ashwin Sahoo (Organizing Committee) who cared a lot for all of Pakistani delegates and gave them special privileges after POLICE teased 4 Pakistani delegates for whole day. A few pictures of my visit are available at http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/opbatra2kn/AVisitToIndia

3 Days full of happiness :)

Last week has been very lucky for me. I have some good news to share with friends, below is the summary of them. No doubt, it took lot of efforts but finally I am happy to see the results.

Day 1:

I was sitting in my office, when my manager came to me and took me to huddle room, I was expecting some business discussion but he said “Congratulations, Now you are permanent employee and you have got 45% increment in salary effective January 2008, which is the highest possible increment and needs approval from functional lead”.

I was on probation for 6 months and was glad to hear this news.

Day 2:
I reached office on 9:00am as usual. After an hour I was informed to be in OND (October, November, and December) business update, all employees of the company are supposed to be there. It also includes the awards part. In last, my functional lead came on stage and told every one that “In December, one guy has been working twice than his job responsibilities and leading the team in his manager’s absence, I am happy to announce an outstanding performance award for Mr. Om Batra”.

I was pretty good experience to get the award in front of whole organization. I will also get some money for it.

Day 3:
I was sitting at home around 7pm, Electricity was off but Internet was working in my laptop due to electricity back-up provided by building management to switches. That time an email update popped up in my Google Talk informing that I have got an addition to email conversation from IEEE Region 10 director which announced that “Effective today, I am appointed as IEEE Region 10 Student Representative (RSR) and part of the IEEE regional committee. My job responsibilities are to attend the regional executive committee meetings, student activities meeting and increase student activities in region 10 by helping regional student activities chair around the globe”.

I am going to India this month to attend the first meeting of this year.

That’s it for now. I will surely like to share the journey from IEEE student member to IEEE RSR.