As Virender Aggarwal explained it to me:
"Okay, basically it's an Applications Package with an Oracle back-end."
"Uhh, boss, I don't know Oracle." I mentioned.
"No problem", he brushed it aside. "The front end for the data entry system is in Visual Basic"
"Uhh, boss, I don't know Visual Basic either." I chipped in.
"No problem, yaar", he brushed it aside with a smile. "There's an EIS which we're using Pilot Lightship to do."
"Uhh, boss, I don't know Pilot Lightship at all." I said, alarmed.
"No problem", he brushed it aside, with a broad smile. "You'll manage, yaar ! Oh, yes, there's a Reports package in MS-Excel, using Oracle Glue to tap into the database."
At that point, I didn't think it worth mentioning that I had no clue about the last concept either, but went along with VA's enthusiasm anyway.
The previous Project Manager, Raman Vig, was a sweet old soul, who despite his stated hatred of management duties, had been given the role of Project Manager, something he heartily detested. Unsurprisingly, (for NIIT) he wound up in precisely the sort of job he had stated dislike for, and found it an extremely uphill task. Given the players on his team, this wasn't too unexpected, either.
On the execution side, we had a ponderous person named Ajit Kumar (AK VI, not the legendary AK II of Jakarta fame) and Raman Vig on the application. Ajit Kumar was a person who believed that energy was a finite and precious commodity, to be carefully and judiciously used; his caution normally ensured that he moved with the rapidity of honey flowing uphill. He was often known to ridicule snails for their haste. Prodigious force was required to shift Ajit from his path, and even more to actually get him out of his preferred mode (sleep). Tremendously firm-willed, it took a great deal to shake him from a path that he had decided on, even if (unfortunately for Raman) the path was erroneous to begin with. This condition was largely due to the fact that there was only room for a single idea between his ears at any given time, and it took a great deal of energy to displace that one. In a fit of desperation, Raman and Ajit settled in as nervous partners on the application.
A basketball player named Varadan (along with his assistant, the Precocious Promilla) was assigned to the Executive Information System. While either of these two were capable of spawning legends (even within NIIT, which was itself legend), the combination was unparalleled.
Finally, a single ray of hope manifested itself in the globular and jovial presence of Harpreet (Happy) Singh, who handled the Reporting task.
On the client side, we had an interesting array of folk; these people, despite an evident deep faith in the goodness of humanity, were beginning to nurse serious doubts whether NIITians could actually be categorized as part of humanity.
The chief Systems Analyst was a canny gentleman named Calvin Choo, who was aided by his assistant, a remarkably down-to-earth young lady named Ee Sin. Calvin was a deeply patient soul who spent a great deal of time in carefully grooming Ee Sin to be a worthy replacement for him. Ee Sin took a slow and careful approach to problems which often frustrated the lightning-sharp Calvin, but he patiently persevered.
Calvin and his wife were both animal lovers, and did a great deal of charity work in that regard. One such fund-raiser scheme was offered to Ee Sin, who carefully pondered it.
"You see," said Calvin, "you only have to give one dollar. Now, if you give me your POSBank number, we can arrange for a dollar to be deducted from that account every month for the Animal Home."
Ee Sin gave the matter some serious thought, and it wasn't long before she laid her finger upon the flaw in this idea.
"No, lah !" she protested gently, "I will give you a dollar now if you want, but I can't let you take a dollar from my bank-account !"
"It's only S$ 12 a year !" exclaimed Calvin in surprise.
"Yes, lah, but you can never tell when you will need that dollar, no ?" explained the sharp Ee Sin. "Who knows, lah ?"
Calvin gave up, veteran of too many arguments with the lady to not realize the futility of proceeding in this vein of argument.
The users were represented by an affable and charming New Zealander named Robert Chen, whose considerable good cheer and bonhomie were always a good part of visiting NSTB, and his aide, Lai Mun. Robert was a sportsman with a deep love for cricket, and could be counted on to always have the latest cricket scores of the last match (no matter where in the world it had been played), and made it a point to always thoughtfully update me with this information promptly upon my arrival each day, based on the fact that since I was Indian, I would naturally love the game.
Unfortunately, as several of my friends would vouch, cricket was a game that (with rare exceptions) bored me silly; Robert had chanced upon one of the few Indians who didn't share his tastes. Ah, well, he was just too nice a guy to disappoint by explaining this, so I continued getting the cricket scores throughout my tenure there.
The Head of Systems who overlooked this project, Ronnie, watched the whole thing with great care; this was supposed to be NSTB's pilot outsourcing project, and so far the results looked quite definitely against the motion. He appeared to nurse a strange dislike for Rajeev, NIIT's marketing liaison on this project. This apparently had something to do with Rajeev's penchant for only appearing when there was money to be collected, but Ronnie didn't specify his rationale.
Upon joining, I pored over the Project Papers, determined to figure out a trifle more about what I had been given. Raman's management style appeared to be a rather interesting one, though a trifle incomprehensible one on occasion. Speed seemed to have ruled the project, with the group bypassing Analysis and Design and lunging straight into Programming. While this seemed to work well with Raman (who had an intuitive - though non-user-friendly - grasp of the system) it failed to be communicated to the rest of the team, which caused some interesting deviations as a result.
Another interesting note emerged from the Minutes of a Meeting held
in NSTB on June 26th:
"Agreed that this item shall be delivered to NSTB on June 25"
I couldn't fathom this puzzle, and swiftly gave up any attempt at rationalizing it. Still, this was a pretty good explanation of why the project was late; there was no chance of it ever reaching some of the deadlines that were being agreed upon.
Besides VA, Rajeev and Pat (the Patron Saint of Singapore), the Singapore office also contained a bright young ray of sunshine named Sumit Malik (who had been assigned to Marketing) and the secretary, the continually cheerful Sharifa Maricar. Sharifa's constant cheer made her a great favourite in the Singapore office, often drawing in people like Sanjay Goel and the Raunchy Rock, who rarely bothered visiting Singapore office for any other reason.
We celebrated my birthday a week later, in Pasir Ris resort, where we were staying. For the first time since I had met him, I saw a soft dreamy smile cover Ajit's face. He moved like a man in a dream, gently reaching out to hug his beloved ... whisky bottle. Apparently, the bottle of whisky that we had thrown open to the party had overcome all his inhibitions. In addition, the fact that it was free was enough to instantly raise him to the seventh heaven of delight. He sat there alone, holding the bottle like a long-lost lover and softly crooning to it. And there he remained, bothering no one and blind to the world as the party rolled on around him.
Came 11:30, and his roommate Varadan roused him to catch the last train
home. Sadly, he cast an eye on the bottle,
"Must we go ? There is still some whisky left ..."
However, not even this piteous appeal to mercy was enough to soften the hard heart of Varadan, who shook him out of the room, and dragged him away, with visions of bottles still dancing through his head. Long centuries from now, the poets would write their love songs of star-crossed romances: Romeo and Juliet, Heer and Ranjha, Ajit and Black Label ...
The one other thing that could affect Ajit quite as powerfully was the embrace of sleep, as I found out a few weeks later, when I attempted to arouse him from bed to reach our 8 am appointment at NSTB. I woke him at 6:00 and then returned to my room to dress up. At 6:30, I learnt that it was necessary to wake him up again, as was the case again at 7 am. At 7:30, I ruthlessly tumbled him out of bed and stayed with him while he actually got ready for the meeting, all the while bemoaning the feeble quantity of sleep that he had.
Given the phenomenal nature of the team assembled, it was no wonder that I appealed to VA for additional reinforcements short weeks later. The Garrulous Ganesh was sent in response to the plea. This gay, carefree bachelor lost no time in joining the team and sinking into the work.
That's enough travel ... now let's head back home