Anurag..Anurag...Anurag

Date: 3rd Sept'08

Venue: XYZ company's Office

Event: Weekly progress update involving analysts (from both onsite and offsite teams), client lead and country lead

Details: Before the meeting a progress report document was prepared and circulated to all.
It had project spilt into smaller work streams with colour coding used to indicate the progress level.

Almost all the work streams were either green(on time) or amber(a little behind schedule). One particular workstream was RED. Column next to colour index was labelled Reasons.
Mentioned in the document was "Resource not available".

Now lets do a time travel and go a little back in history. I had applied for US Visa on 1 July and was rejected on grounds of CRAP-CRAP-CRAP. This particular piece of analysis was to be done in Canada and the off-site resource was ME. I had applied for Canadian Visa and as usual, though not rejected, it was taking a greater time than usual. Apparently my smiling face from photograph on Visa form scares the daylights out of Visa guys, or my smiling face reminds them of misery their own life is and they reject / delay my visa outta spite...Whatever be the reason, deal is, i wasnt getting visa on time and so was not able to join the team in Canada. The particular piece in document that was RED was the one that i was supposed to do.

Now back to call. People are happy with the general progress of the project. Important points are discussed. Country head and client lead are both sounding satisfied. Then they come to the piece of work that is red. Cant tell you, how important and dignified it felt to be the centre of discussion for doing nothing. Everyone was taking my name.

"Anurag, so whats the current status?".
"Anurag, can you tell us the expected time when you are expected to arrive?".
"Anurag, we need you on this piece asap.".
"Anurag, can't we expedite the process somehow?".

Anurag...Anurag...Anurag

I had a feeling of Dejavu.

Friends hanging together and amidst friendly bantering, a question pops up,"Yaar, hum logon mein se sabse end mein kiski shaadi hogi?"

Anurag...Anurag...Anurag

Roommates check the refrigerator in the morning and finds out that all the rasgulle are gone. "Who ate them during the night?"

Anurag...Anurag...Anurag

Everytime something like this happens, whereby my name is taken by everyone, i think of the movie AUSTIN POWERS. In one of the scenes of the movie, Austin Powers meets Japanese twin sisters and asks them their names. One of the names was F***-ME.

What if i had this name. Everyone taking my name..F***-ME...F***-ME...F***-ME..
Spoiled for choice :)

Just one more thing. Those of you who have seen the movie might remember, name of the other twin was F***-YOU.

What if i had this name. Everyone taking my name..F***-YOU...F***-YOU...F***-YOU..
Reality bites :(