It’s May and almost halfway through the year. If I take stock of how I am doing, there are several perspectives
Professionally, it’s been a good year so far. I have been involved in several good and ground breaking projects, and most of them are industry first initiatives. Though everyone will think it’s been done before, in the true sense, what I am involved in is probably the purest form of IATA standards that’s been developed and delivered to airlines. And the space that I have always been involved in, is Sales, Distribution, Accounting, Settlement. In these areas, I am able to learn so much as well as contribute. I recall that while I was working at flydubai, we built so many systems from ground up. It took away that hunger for building systems. And these are not small systems, these are huge, complex, transactional systems which have a direct bearing on revenue, costs, payment, yield etc. So it’s a feeling of “Been there, done it”, when it comes to building IT platforms.
Now, I am also using AI tools a lot. The simplest usecase of course, is to record meetings, and prepare minutes through the agent. But experience has taught me that it is always prudent to read them carefully, because there have been so many cases where the tone is not correct, or the agent hasn’t fully understood the context. However, there is no question that it helps in reducing the workload tremendouly. One of my initiatives is to build a Notebook with all my notes, and other documents on a particular topic, and then use it to build help materials and training materials out of it. I also plan to use it for planning and tracking my project schedules. Of course, the war has had an impact on the economy and new business, which is to be expected. But I hope it will end soon, and things will be back to normal.
Recently, I was participating in an AI project which was rewriting some legacy code to new codebase. The work was given to several agents, the coding standards were also fed in. One agent would interact with us, to keep us posted on the progress. Another would be the scrum master, to divide tasks among the agents. The agents would work in shifts, with canvases indicating the work completed, and what needs to be done. It’s almost similar to humans doing the work. Which led me to think- will these agents become competitive, and try to generate the best code? Or, will they try to show that the other agent’s code is not as good as this agents? It was a very interesting PoC.
Personally, it’s been a time of discoveries. Discovering new friends. Discovering that life moves on, with or without us. Discovering that people we thought are close to us, might not even check up on us. Discovering that there are others in the world, who think similar to me, and share common interests. From Photography to walking to reading. One of my friends is a real estate moghul, with four apartments in Europe. And here I am, paying mortgage on my house in the Netherlands. It’s spring, and my tulips blossomed. It was an experiment, because I didn’t plant them during the winter, like it should be done. Instead I germinated inside the fridge, and when it started sprouting, i planted it. Luckily, it was enough. And I was able to see a handful of tulip flowers in my front yard. There are roses as well. And Lavender. lots of lavender. Birdsong in the back yard, flourishing greens without even watering, colorful patches of flowers, climbers starting to grow and extend, it’s life and pleasant air all around.
Some of my Dubai friends have their children gearing up for college life. But because of the war, they haven’t been able to finish their exams. I recall that when Jo had her classes, Covid hit and they had similar issues. But based on previous performance for the YTD, they were given grades and marks. So I wish them all the very best. And hope that they become better versions of their parents, and lead successful lives with sincerity and humility. The world is theirs, and all the opportunities are there for grabs.
I had a couple of trips within Europe and UK for work. So the travel bug has hit me again. From Feb, for almost two months I was not travelling, and now started again. June first week will travel to Middle East. Before end of this year, have to travel to Australia. I had a week where Monday noon I travelled to UK, Tuesday night came back to NL, Wednesday morning travelled to Poland, Friday night reached back, and Saturday to a hectic weekend. I am starting to love Poland, it’s warm and welcoming.
During lent, i had reduced some weight, and so was able to use my old clothes without getting rid of them. Now need to ensure I maintain it. I try to walk daily but still have a tendency to put on weight. I have grilled food mostly, and avoid chocolates, banana, sweet things as much as possible. Let’s see after one year what the situation is. One of my resolutions was to reduce alcohol, and I think I am doing a good job there.
One of the findings for me has been Heineken 0/0. It’s non-alcoholic and sugar free. But it really tastes like beer. I believe it’s proper beer, from which all the alcohol and sugar is somehow removed. It helps me to keep my spiritual levels high (4 of these is like a good beer). Likewise, non-alcoholic wine is also picking up, though I didn’t like it much when I checked it out.
One of the pleasures of the year so far, has been watching Sanju Samson dazzle the international cricket arena. And to think that he’s from my place, that he’s coached by my friend (my namesake as well), and that I used to see him and his brother regularly when I was based out of Trivandrum, in their nets. It’s a small world and we always have some links when people are from the same place.
It was St.George’s feast, and my home church would be so decorated and in a festive mood. I used to be there to see it, while I was in Dubai. Now it’s not so easy. Normally we would have a feast at our home as well, but now with parents not well, that money is donated to the church. I also contributed my bit, and included prayers for all the good people, as well as the sinners in my life.
I changed my car tyres to summer tyres. Suddenly the battery range of the car has jumped by at least 10 kms. I think winter tyres might need more power to push them along. It was very disappointing that i would get only 50kms on the battery. One direction is 48kms for me, and daily i would cover almost 100 kms.
Finally Jo’s exams are here. Final exams. I hope she passes. In fact, as of now, one is over, and there’s only one more. In the final year, it seems there are only 2 exams, and rest are paper submissions. Her thesis is also really interesting, it’s in the AI domain. She will probably put the details on her linked in profile, I got a copy of the paper though she asked me not to share any details. I told her to make it a product, and I will start a company and market it. After her college is over, I need to find a place for her to stay in UK. Everything’s expensive there, and it’s important to find a balance. So researching good and affordable places. She might get the chance to visit USA, I hope she gets her VISA.
Even though her exams are now, her convocation is in September. Will be good to be with her during that event. Maybe after that, will take her on a break to Sydney, yet to be planned. Will request her to book her own ticket with her salary.
Recently, a friend of mine whose son is studying in the US, told me that he had an offer from Google. And its ‘ 240K USD per year. This is for a freshman, so I don’t know if he exaggerated or not. I do know in UK, it will be between 1/3rd and 1/2th of that. But for Jo, I personally feel that it’s better to get into a domain based technology role, than pure technical role. While the facebooks and googles are the pinnacle for any tech student, their layoffs are enormous and heartbreaking. Thousands and tens of thousands in one go. Where as you go into serious domain oriented companies, they would be small, and keep their staff together. But kids nowadays have their own thoughts, I feel they are not so worried about losing jobs and finding new ones. I think it’s because they don’t have the pressure to earn money, like I used to have when I was young. When I started working, my first salary at IBS was 8400 INR (84 Euros) per month !!. Then it became 32000 INR after probation I think. And IBS was one of the better paying companies at that time. I remember my father telling me, that his first salary was 100 INR (1 Eur) / month.
Personally, for me, it was a proud milestone when I paid the last tuition fee and accomodation for her. It was a gruelling four years for me, combined with two job changes and lot of pressure. However, I didn’t succumb, I kept to my principles, and I made sure my daughter got the best education I could give her. Rest is upto her, and I am confident she will do well. I walked away from higher positions and material pleasures, because they were too good to be true and/or would have made me indebted to others. At the end of the day, I am from a middle class farming family. My parents and fore fathers made their lives by working hard and working with honesty and integrity. I haven’t yielded an inch when it comes to those core principles, in my professional life so far. Money will come and go, but respect and loyalty needs to be earned. Having said that, for the second half of the year, I expect to see more money coming in, than going out.
I was thinking, when I was in Dubai, I used to buy one luxury watch a year. And I had around ten or eleven such. Now I don’t even know where they are. I mean, I do know, but I am least interested. I use the same watch now day in/day out. If someone really loves watches, I would actually give to him/her, so they will at least use those watches. Now it must be sitting in some dark place , gathering dust. Maybe after ten years, they will become antique pieces and will be worth a fortune, who knows. One of the watches in a Mont Blanc one which is one of 50 pieces. But I really don’t think it will have much value in the Middle East. Maybe in Switzerland? Anyway, the point is, at some point in life, material things will seem important. But once you are past that, they don’t mean anything. It also depends on your lifestyle I guess. Here in Europe, we are normal people among many other normal people. You wouldn’t be able to distinguish a plumber from a waiter from an executive , if they were to stand together in normal clothes. No one shows off, no one has too much money, and if there’s savings, it goes into their travel. I believe if the bank balance is more than 72K, then we need to pay tax on the amount. In Dubai, it’s easy to recognize financial stature by looking at watches, dressing, cars, amount of gold etc.
My neighbours are Indians, and they have a beautiful daughter Ajuni. She’s 2 yrs old. Her favourite place now is my home, and a lot of my time is spent in carrying her around. There’s another Indian family close by, maybe five houses along. It’s a new house, and he’s working for TCS. His wife also works. He seems a genuinely nice chap, very open in his conversations. I am older, and I feel I am giving that paternal vibe to him :-). He’s young of course, in his thirties. They have a son 10 yrs old. The house they bought is newly built, comes to around 900K Euro. Mine is older, cost me 30% less. I fervently hope real estate prices increase steadily. Which reminds me that my UAE tenant still hasn’t paid his rent, and I need to issue another court order. The sad thing is that I also depend on that rent, to pay for expenses, else I would have given more time. Maybe it’s because of the war. But this is the routine every time, and I can’t evict him because once he pays, the clock is reset as per the rules.
Nowadays sun sets only around 9.30 PM. Till then it’s bright twilight and as a result, I get time to walk regularly. So far I am averaging 8.2K steps daily for the last one year. Not sure how I can make it to 10K steps, except by hacking the mobile app.
Recently, I went to a friends’ place. He and his wife had studied with me at Engineering college. Another class mate of mine was coming to visit them, and they took the opportunity to invite me as well. And when I reached there, I realized that they have some neighbours who dropped in. And the neighbours also were my class mates from before Engineering. Of course they didn’t know each other then, but I knew both of them. So confusing. Unfortunately, the lady had a poor opinion of me when we were studying together, and I think it still remains. She used to see me smoking, drinking, cutting classes and she was very religious. Who knows, maybe now that she’s in NL, she might be using poppies.
One of the tech stocks I had been after, was Sabre. It was trading at 25 USD/share around 2016, and now it’s 50 cents per share. Well, one month back. Yesterday when I checked, it was 2 USD/share. So i bought some of those. If I had been more alert, I could have made a couple of thousands easily, if you get the drift. I once had such an experience where I bought Satyam shares when they went bust. Then they were taken over, and now they are high in value. So, there’s always a silver lining. Also, I feel that travel will soon bounce back up, with new technology coming to the fore. Hopefully the companies I have invested in, will also benefit from that. Even during the war, US stock market is doing well. Indian stocks are dismal, and as I had mentioned before, I really don’t understand how the growth of economy doesn’t show in any of the shares I own! For the last 16 months, my Indian investments hasn’t moved up, rather has come down a bit.
It’s spring, soon it will be summer. Time to sit in the garden, feel the sun against my skin and the breeze along my hair (what’s remaining of it), the bees loving the flowers, the plants in miraculous unison with the earth, the smoky contrails of airplanes painting the blue sky with white strokes , the birds pecking at morsels of food and the occasional worms and the earth singing it’s glorious summer songs. It’s the time to let go of the past, and look into the future. Smile and face the world, and whatever experiences it brings.