My First Professional Rendezvous - ITC Corporate Induction

Barely out of IIT, i was standing here, in the grand lobby of Sonar Bangla, kolkata, an AUT, overwhelmed by the warm welcome of ITC hotels. But the grandeur was short-lived, soon I realized I had forgotten my originals, photographs and everything they had asked to bring, except myself. Convinced ITC would not chuck me off for my not-so-serious-crime I headed to collect my room keys, with my colleagues from jaipur, who looked more shocked than I was, on my negligence. But it felt good to see one more and few more who had forgotten some of the things I had. All done we signed in our rooms, pleasure at its maxim, luxury redefined, elegant scent of affluence pervading the space…and AAILA! My key didn’t work.. neither did my neighbours’. Standing in the 5 star corridor wasn’t bad either, green carpet, yellow lamps..woooh perfect playground. My first room mate was farhan, management chap, a cool guy, except for being a devoted smoker which I hated.

It was six, I was in a professional mix, confused about what to wear(that’s ok im confused most of the time). I was wearing a blue coat unlike my colleagues who were in shirts. We took tables which had our names written, the first professional seating (after high school quizzing). I could read most of the faces, some looked snobbish (specially girls from management, but they were exorbitantly pretty), some had sweat, rest bore a plastic cover of malignant grandiloquence. And so began the unending 5 day tour where we were constantly fed about the ITC umbrella, its grandeur and expanse. Let me take you throught the series,

Prof J Ramachandran, case study: Age old Robin Hood, Aim to find what problem was he facing and solve it, if prof allowed us to. The tiger gnawed its prey's skin, a huge class of 80 professionals laid before him to be savored. New to the management world, we the batch of gullible AUT's (Assistants under training as ITC loves to call new joinees), came up with ideas to define problems, which were treated a fracas, later I realized prof was sure there was no problem and hence no solution, but it took us 3 hrs to come to this conclusion. All that drivel was necessary, it actually gave us an insight on how unnecessary things get discussed daily on board of director's table neatly coated with name "value proposition", but its ok, prof had to speak for 3 hrs, ITC pays no one for free. Probably he was subtly telling us, mission statements of any corporate are misguiding complex of seemingly simple things brought about by confusing English jargons which follow a "complicate-solve-complicate" theory, to which everyone in the hierarchical framework nods. We were no different, as one of the board directors recited and re-recited the policies and strategies all AUTs, as it was our first day, nodded in anticipation of having maiden recognition, quite normal, may be peer pressure!!

What followed were informative sessions (in case this blog is read by seniors at ITC), where we learnt about finance, safety, businesses, folklore and much more. And it was peer pressure again which had most of us make notes; though there were intelligent skippers who were eyed time to time, did I tell u there were monitors? four on sides, two at back and one in front, who made sure we don’t loose attention, it does make a speaker feel insignificant, specially when he is telling you what percentage of cow dung is used to run biogas plants now as compared to 5 yrs back (i never knew they weighed dung! oh yeah.. they might have weight cow before and after she did "it".) Lectures looked similar from day 3, except for the topic. Schedule was to come at 8:30 am, have breakfast, occupy your seat, listen... and listen. Listening eventually turned into hearing and hearing into careless whispers till the day ended. Monotony was also exhibited in the meals offered, ghar ki sabzi was rated the most seen vegetable on platter with near to zero change of taste.

Coming to Happy hours, the Dublin nights rather, most of us after exploring pool, gym, spa turned to the Free bar, the freedom limited, it was timed, from 6-8 evenings. It was quite surprising to notice that all AUTs were devotional in turning up here right on time, some didn’t even want to change to informals, who would like to waste time anyways when agenda is FREE BOOZE. Lined up! queued up!, we did psyche others in the club, by apparently acting like spendthrifts, those who didn’t drink cashed on mocktails, and still managed to get high. Befriending the bartender was fruitful, I hated the queueJ. To the amateur booze lovers, it was a paradise, the only problem being their lack of knowledge about what to ask for, so the man (one man) said “take the costliest of all u have and mix it in a big tumbler”, dude! This aint a pao bhaji + the bartender has been instructed to dupe you when he got a chance.. And you just gave him one, I didn’t say it though, my relations with bartender were NICE. And we drank, toasting our first jobs! What was remarking was the bonding we made at a professional level. There was humor but of a different kind, there was a professional touch about everything we discussed, it was no more protective college days where you can say anything and get away, this was your company, choice of words was important, especially when one is talking to a female colleague. Alls well that ends well, we headed to our respective locations, exchanging contact numbers with a promise to stay in touch, lets see how much of it works!

victorian euphemisms still plaguing indian journalism

"The woman was relieved of her purse by a miscreant yesterday night"
better: woman was robbed
"they guy was caught in inebriated state before entering the room"
better: guy was drunk
"would u please repress the insane outburts of merriment"
better: stop laughing!
"where is my rotundity of leather?"
better: wheres my football?

These are few examples picked up from conemporary journalism which make lavish use of circulocution and gibberish. Indian journalism since ages has been plagued by babu english, legacy of english officialiase. We tend to do pick up these mistakes from the model essays served in guides (like wren n martin) in schools, irony is, inspite of publishing revised editions every year, mistakes stay!It seems journalists are rather paid to make sentences longer and senseless all because when they write they forget about the reader.
There can be two approaches to writing, speak-as-u-write or write-as-u-speak. Needless words clutter writing producing a khichdi out of nothing. Circumlocution or the roundabout way of telling things is one of four main diseases indian officialese suffer from, for eg. for business writers prices dont go up they undergo an upward revision, oh sorry i just wrote it in a hasty manner (hastily)!
Planeonasm or the art of adding adjective to a meaningful-by-itself word is a crime newspapers are often seen to commit. The first word only duplicates the idea in the word next to it:
advance planning, final outcome, end product, past history, proposed plan etc.