Pearson India Blog

Staying alive

Thursday, November 18, 2010 comments (0)

Isn't it tragic how little traffic there is on this blog? Even my random musings have stopped..

So first of all, here's another contest to get this moving again - how about another bottle of wine from my personal stash to the best posting over the next two weeks? Since Soumitri and I were the last two people to post, I'm appointing us as the judges.

And for those of you who are interested, I had a successful visit to my future home country - I was trying to find a school for my son and a home for us in the space of 4 days, and thanks to the remarkable organisation by my wife, we were able to select both. So while we are still awaiting confirmations, we have a pretty good idea of what our life could look like.
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Paranoia

Wednesday, October 6, 2010 comments (0)

Is being paranoid good? When the Commonwealth Games were a few months away, I was sure that we would be unable to get to our office from Delhi. We made arrangements for people to work from home, or to travel so that we would be able to continue to work through these two weeks.

The reality has been somewhat different - the roads are empty, making it easier to get to our office than ever before. I don't know what the metro is like, but I assume that's less crowded as well.

So I guess that was a bad error of judgement. But its probably better to have been paranoid than to have been unprepared should it have turned out the other way. Also, maybe we'll learn how well working from home works for us.

Vivek

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Speed dial!

Thursday, August 12, 2010 comments (0)

A very intelligent Gorgon once said, ‘Life changes before you get a chance to bat an eyelid!’ Yes, it does, most of us will agree. Little babies grow into impressive adults, adults change addresses like butterflies, lovers part, interests wither, hobbies transform and climates alter. All such exciting and dramatic changes make our lives terribly exciting. This is exactly the stuff that thousands of poems are written about! Nothing remains constant. Everything suffers an inevitable end.

But, if you are/have been an employee of Pearson Education, the company will offer you something which will never pass, end or leave you. You may quit, your designation may change (or be taken away), all your stationery items may be snatched away, your laptop may break down, you may be fired (or killed), but your speed dial, once assigned will become an inseparable part of your existence. Yes, you may have moved on in life (and changed five jobs post-Pearson) but your past will continue to haunt you in the form of occasional (or frequent) frantic calls from your innocent ex-colleagues. It could be equally embarrassing as well as startling for both but the curse of the speed dial will outlive that feeling (and you). You may have been determined never to allow certain voices come within earshot. But Pearson will keep unleashing upon you these blasts (or tremors) from the past. In this day and age, when you hesitate to exchange vows of eternal companionship even with your pet tortoise, you got your speed dial to fill the void.

However, if such promises of eternity don’t mean a thing to you, it is advisable to change your cell-phone number once you set out towards greener pastures.

Soumitri

School NSM pictures link

Monday, August 2, 2010 comments (0)

The School NSM pictures are available at

http://picasaweb.google.com/pearsoned.co.in/SchoolNSM?feat=directlink

Regards

Kapil Kant Kaul

Manager, Learning & Development

Pearson Education

7th Floor, Knowledge Boulevard

A-(8A), Sector 62,

Noida 201309 (U.P.)

INDIA

Ph: +91-120-4190287

Fax: +91-120-4190350

Web site: www.pearsoned.co.in

Work and Play

Monday, July 26, 2010 comments (0)

It’s been a while since I visited the blog site and posted anything. As I was browsing through the Web site just now, I realized that the first post was uploaded on 25 July 2008, exactly two years ago! I am a person who is easily impressed with such instances of coincidence. And as I played with dates and years, rolling them in my mind to and fro, from past to present to some unforeseen future, I figured that there remains only five more days for me to call myself an employee of Pearson Education.

I suddenly remember how often, when I was in school, I would only finish reading those books that I borrowed from libraries or from friends – those that came with deadlines. And the books I would buy would remain untouched at home, gathering dust, in piles and rows. I guess I felt a similar kind of urgency to post something on the blog, while I am still able to. So I sit in front of the computer, with nothing worthwhile in my head that I can write about.

My mind devises a silly game. It splits into two – SA and SB. SA asks SB questions, and SB answers them as truthfully as possible.

SA: So how does it feel to realize that there are only five days left?

SB: Well, it’s been three years, which is quite some time. Honestly, now that you remind me I am quitting in five days, I suddenly feel a bit emotional.

SA: Tell me about some of your experiences?

SB: I get flashes of the first day in the office, Y and I tucked away in the farthest end of the basement, the uncontrollable giggles we had to fight in our attempts to be a part of the adult world; the stay at Patparganj with four other friends; the nastiness of landladies; the initial rickshaw rides, and later the bus rides, to work; the friends I made; the trips in and around the city with them; the NSMs; the trust in machines that create books from authors fed into them (well, Amar will able to explain that better to those who are unaware of such advanced technologies); the variety of authors I got to interact with; the variety of manuscripts I had to figure out; the thrill of seeing the manuscript turn into a printed book (I still remember how I jumped around the basement in jubilation, when I saw the The Naxal Challenge as a book. It was the first ever project I had worked on, while I was still an intern. The transformation from a bunch of A4 sheets to a printed book seemed nothing less than magical!)…

SA: Ok, come on, sum this up in one line.

SB: I learnt every day, and I loved the learning.

As I am about to wrap up the game I play with myself, I realize how much I am going to miss everyone at PEI and also being a part of the organization. A friend of mine tells me I should concentrate on the adventures that lie ahead, rather than look at what I would be leaving behind, and my mind obediently wanders off to the distant land I will soon inhabit and things I might learn there.

The ipad

Monday, July 12, 2010 comments (0)

How many of you are seeing Apple ipads turning up everywhere? I find myself on planes a lot of the time, and over the last few months, I think I get to see at least one user on every domestic flight - and since I rarely fly business class, there may be more users up front.

That's still not a large number, one person in about 200, and clearly this is not scientific research, but I have the feeling they are going to be ubiquitous pretty soon..

Vivek

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