Around Delhi and Lucknow

I finally got a chance to get out of the house and visit family around the country. My first stop was Delhi, well actually Gugraon. My grandfather from my mom's side aka my nana lives in Gugraon. Now Gurgaon used to be a small village with farms ususally dry because of the lack of rain. The only reason the village was known was for the Maruti Suzuki factory located there. And for the information of those who do not know about the Maruti Suzuki company, it held about 80% of the car market in till the late 90's. 

Now getting back to Gugraon. The place has seen an explosion of multinational companies since the early 2000's and has been growing ever since. Just recently has the government actually put an effort to improve the infrastructure of the town, beginning with the Delhi-Gurgaon highway and now the Delhi Metro connection. The town has seen an influx of people from all over the country looking for work. People ranging from high level executives to everyday labourers. The influx of population also saw an upcoming market for places for social activities. In no time Gugraon saw 4 to 5 shopping malls pop up, all within a range of 2-3 Km of each other. The race is still on to put up more and more malls (although the more recent projects have been put on hold). The largest mall present in Gugraon is the Ambience Mall (called Ambi Mall by the local population). The mall has 5 floors and each floor has a shopping area of 1 Km each. One can find any and every brand available in the world in that one mall. How those malls survive, I still wonder. Every mall literally has the same stores and it has become customary to have a movie theatre along with it. One good thing about all this is that it has provided employement to a huge portion of the population. 

From the nice and bright life of Gurgaon, we now move on to Lucknow. Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh. I tend to call it the political capital of India. If you want to learn how to "play" politics, this is where you get your training! Right now, the Chief Minister of UP (Uttar Pradesh) is Behen Kumari Mayawati (Sister Miss Mayawati). Now this woman has some guts. She rides on the back of the SC/ST laws passed in India and can literally go through anyone in the country. Recently she has been spending a lot of money on Lucknow, not on infrastructure, but just structures. She has even resorted to putting up her own statues. Who in the world does such a thing! All the hoardings in Lucknow are about praises for Mayawati. And there are not private posters/hoardings. These are put up by the government. Publicity or waste or public money? I think that woman has a complex over everyone and lives by the rules of the past rulers of the world, which is: Do whatever you can in your life to grab attention, good or bad, you will be remembered in your future generations. If there is one person I would choose to civilize in the whole world, it would be her. Other than the Mayawati propaganda, the city has not seen much development. Although, I could not go around the town much, what I saw was nothing different from what I saw in 2004. 

So that's my 2 cent for my trip to Delhi/Gurgaon and Lucknow. I will be back with more of "What I think" when I experience such a think which needs to be given a thought about. Till then, enjoy some more work of my photography. Try and guess which is for what city.

A customary welcome

Hello and welcome to my very first blog posting. I am Rohit Narula. I hail from a small town in India called Bhopal (most of the time known only for the 1984 incident). I did all my schooling from Campion School, an all boys school and considered to be one of the best in town. After finishing my high school, I went to Toronto for my undergrad. I started off my undergrad at Ryerson University as a Computer Engineer. Mid way through the program, I realised that electronics and control systems exicted me much more than programing. So I made the switch at the end of my 2nd year and finally graduated with Honours with an Electrical Engieering degree.

That was way back in 2006. Since then, I had been working at Royal Bank of Canada (now called RBC) as a Technical Analyst in their RBC Express department. This a little thing I call the irony of my life. I started off as a Computer Engineer because I loved programming. I went away from programming, but ended up working as a programmer after all. I started work on 20th June, 2006. I started off small with very low priority projects, but was elevated to medium priority projects within 6 months. That gave me a lot of exposure into the real world of programming. Online banking is such a wide field. Any little change that one sees on the webpage requires a huge change in the background. I started getting involved in bigger projects and eventually was given the responsibility of a high priority project in the beginning of 2008. The project was called Go Global, which would connect us to banking in Europe and Asia-Pacific. I never got to know if the project was a success or not. It is just sad how an analyst never gets to know about the success of a project, but they are immidiately called upon when there is a problem.

By the end of 2007, I seriously sarted thinking about my post graduate studies. I will still unsure about my Masters in Engineering or an MBA. I was very inerested in a masters in Biomedical Engineering. But then, I also thought it has been very long since I did anything remotely close to what is called engineering. I eventually decided on doing my MBA and started working on my GMAT. By middle of 2008, I had taken my GMAT with a good score and had already decided on the schools I want to target. By late 2008, I had chosen Schulich School of Business as my choice for MBA. In February 2009, I was offered a conditional offer by York and was confirmed by April 2009. I made my decision to quit my job at exactly 3 years of my job at RBC. It was not an easy decision to make. I was too used to the people around me and the comfortable life of a working person. But I knew I had to do something more than just a Bachelors. So I moved on and decided to take a vacation before starting school in Fall of 2009.

So I am on a vacation in India, visiting home and being pampered. I have taken up my photography a little seriously these days. This vacation has given me a lot of "me" time. I like to let my creativity work when I am alone. I think I have done one of my best photography work when I am alone. Being in India gives me so many places to capture shots that I will never see in a country like Canada. Do check out my work at: http://rnarula.deviantart.com/ If you like any of my work, please do leave a feedback. I have attached a sample of one of my most recent work.

Now before I start blogging on what I think, do let me know what YOU think of this customary welcome and introduction.