'Mera Bharat Mahan'

I used to stay happy before I had these couple of experiences here. I used to love the place and appreciate the people and behavior here. I am already in love with the sweet these guys make for dinner and I used to like the profile of the kinda job i have here.

During my stay here for more then an year now, I had never felt like a foreigner here before one of the eves. This particular day, I ended up having a dinner alone in the Canteen. I used to have dinner with all these Arabic guys here daily with the sheaf making one special Indian Curry for me and asking if I need anything else. The Indian Curry never used to be even close to anything you can have back in India but because they have named it Indian Curry, and they used to make it specially for me, I kinda started liking it. This eve I had my dinner all alone with the security guard and the staff staring at me. I didn't know why.

Later I figured out that the Co0rdinator had invited everyone on some kind of treat outside in the town, except for me! Well the word 'everyone' stands for all Arabics and 'me' being a non Arabic was left alone.

Later I thought that may be they had forgot me by mistake but the coordinator clarified the next day that I had nothing to do with the treat as it was supposed to be a treat for 'their' people.

WTF!!
I am a part of the operations for the company as well. I stay here and work here. I am living my life here. Why don't I qualify as 'their' people then?

Well I am sure of one thing. We, Indians, would never behave like this to a foreigner came to our country to work with us. May be that's why they call 'Mera Bharat Mahan'.

The Rig

Sometime you see the rig and not the way, other time you see the way and not the rig, sometime you see both of them clear and most of the time you see none!

You just continue driving in a direction you think is right.

You can't smell anything around except for the lonely deadly desert. The desert seems to be cursed to be absolute dark at the nights and absolute hot at the days. You wish you can hear someone talking or watch some children playing. All you get to see is a couple of cattle or handful of bushes, if ever you are lucky.

I compare the driving in a dead desert to the journey of life. Sometimes you know what you want and other times you don't. If you know the destination, you try to look for the way. Sometimes you know the way and other times you don't. Most of the times you are clueless about the destination and way both!

The journey of life never stops, you continue running in the direction you think is right.

Office Scene

Working in an operation Oil Company has its own pros and cons. The cool work-culture, flexibility in timings and schedule, informal interaction, behavior and chats among the employees, and the fat salary are the things you'll always love. But the hard screwing shifts, the huge responsibilities and extreme work conditions are among the few things you gonna hate.

Well I am in a nice mood today, so let me talk something about the coolest things here. Not that I am the most devoted employee but these are the few things that everybody gonna love.

We were having a discussion over a technical issue last eve. 'We' involves my immediate manager (the eastern hemisphere seismic business in charge!), the maintenance coordinator (weights no less then 200 pounds) of one of the busiest facility in Egypt, one of my colleagues (used to work with another big name oil company before joining us), a consultant (approximate age 50 years, a tough guy though) called up from US to help us upgrading the old system and of course me. So the set up was something like this:
The boss sits on his chair, me and colleague put our asses on his desk, the coordinator guy sits on a rotating chair (and keeps on enjoying the rotation mechanism with a time period T= 5 sec, # = 180*) and the tough old guy on the chair in front.
So the discussion was going no its pace and I suddenly felt bore and started monitoring the configuration of the sitting arrangement. Not that it was something very great to note or feel about but I found it kinda cool. I started wondering in how many corporate offices people work and discuss the issues like this, while there is always a dress code and they need to be packed in their suffocating (for me atleast) formals. The content should matter and not the covering! I was eventually feeling so nice about the work culture at this place. Well and then I forgot that people do this all while they discus..ohh so we were discussing something. I just drifted away so far that when I got back in my senses, I found the consultant's hand on my shoulder. Wow!! This is so blooding cool! A guy working in the oil field for 25+ years, has visited 70+ countries keeps his hand on my shoulder for no good reason. Guess this is the time I should also give some input into the discussion, Else the Boss gonna kick my ass very soon.

" Oh yeah! I am agree with his point, why don't we keep the decoder in the remote unit and the encoder near the well. The radio communication enables us to keep an eye on more then one decoders while we can use the same configuration in the walkaway onshore surveys as well." was the next thing I said.

PS: That was the day when I noticed my manager saying 'Fuck the freaking shit...I don't fucking care' which is another cool indication. Now I need not to apologize everytime I use the F word :-)