Dr Sudha Selvarajan

Madam, as she was universally known in Wipro, was my first boss, and she
should be credited with, within days, crushing the image of boss my mind 
had, which it took hindi movies and diamond comics 20 21 years to build -
that of an ever angry, fat, bald, good for nothing (not at all gentle)man,
whose only job was to thrash ppl for coming late.

She is such nice human being, a delight to be with, she acted in the group as
a loving eldest sister does, to other kids in the family - repected, not feared,
(surely) made fun of - but in her presence, not in her absence ..

She was responsible for creating such a great - family like - atmosphere in the
group, that in spite of being more than 40hrs from home, I never felt
homesickness, atleast on the weekdays.

She was not just a proxy between the group and the rest of the company / top
management, she was more. She was to the group what a shield is to a fighter,
'ped ki chhaal' (outer layer on the tree's wooden part) is to a tree, shell to
a snail - all the time protecting the things concerned, ready to take the
first blow, if need be - and she did that - remember the circumstances that
lead to her resignation.


Shivasundar R Nadar

One, whether he/she is his subordinate or not, can love him, can hate him, but
certainly can not ignore him :).
As a boss, he is very demanding, v v demanding. In fact he is more demanding
than rest of all my bosses combined.
I worked under him for just one project, and demanding nature of boss comes
with at least one advantage, one learns a lot (whether one wants it or not:) ).
Though given a chance to go
back in time and replace that project with some other one with some other
boss, I 'll surely not do - as i learnt so much there - but in future if I
work with him, I am bound to fail his expecatations.
A nice human being, but an unpredicatable one - u can never be sure which joke
he would take seriously, but the beauty is, even when he takes something
seriously, the very next moment after asserting his unhappyness about it, he is
back to the normal Shiv.
He is technically excellent, if some thing is technically possible, he can do
it, and if can't, no need for some other person to attempt that, as that thing
may not be possible at all.


Dr Kanchana Gopinath

Top management entrusted her with a responsibility, not every one is entrusted
with, a challenge not every manager gets to face - that of trying to save a
sinking ship - if u can call a group, which has its crucial members already
moved out and remaining members thinking of doing so, which has a project to
release within a deadline which is very near, one.
She accepted the challenge and, well u all guessed it right, did very well,
perhaps better than the expectations of even the entrusters of that responsibility.

One thing that I particularly appreaciate about her is the concern she has for the
team members, and she does'nt hesitate in showing it. If one is not feeling
well emotionally / physically / work related / personally / whatever, somebody
coming and asking, expressing her/his concern itself makes a big difference.
Kanchana madam used to do that.

She was otherwise courageous, but scared of Bangalore traffic - every evening we
used to see her panick - while she thought and worried about the time it was gonna
take her to reach home :).


Murli Chari

The name suggests a Tamilian, but I was surprised to find him speaking as good
hindi as myself, if not better. He is very talented, has great sense of humor,
and great managerial skills. He is the man I owe my first onsite trip to.

His behaviour was as between Bossyness and friendlyness, as Kashmir between
India and Pakistan. The good thing, or bad thing, depends on which side you
are seeing it from, about friendly bosses is, even when they have to act rude,
they do it in a way so as to not to affect the friendship, say things in such
a way that the person concerned in not hurt. Murli was definitely not one of
them. When he had to talk friendly, and that was the case most of the times,
he would do that, but when you happen to be at the wrong side of his, you wont
believe it was the same guy cutting jokes sometimes back. Fortunately, I never
experienced it, but one should at least spread the rumors, if not believe them.

And one more thing, he was 'Antaryaami'. That is the word I used for him when
he caught us (Suresh and myself) on the M1 staircase to tell us about our
onsite assignment :). We did nt have a place to sit, so used to spend our time
shuttling between pantry and library. He was coming to the pantry to look for
us ... :)


Randy Hak

He was my first non Indian boss, and first non Indian friend. Born just two
years before me, he was more like one of the team members having an additional
responsiblity of interacting with the higher management on the team's behalf,
rather like a boss.

He helped us a lot - which I needed as it was my first trip outside India - and
at least partial credit of me rating that as the best onsite trip so far should
go to him. It was he who showed us the supermarket, showed the place we could
catch buses, explained to us how to buy bus / train tickets, assisted us in
finding the apartment, and in fact came with us to the apartment when we were
to sign the lease, so that the leasing company would know we had "local
people with us" :).

He had great sense of humor, some great tech savvy housemates (his house looked
like a data center), the most beautyful room (his room in his aptmnt) I have
seen in my life so far, and a girlfriend :).


?askar
Sometimes silence, not honesty, is the best policy.


Rajaneesh Kini
They say the best ruler is the one whose presence itself is not felt by the
people he rules. Having this rule as a criteria for judging bosses, Kini would
be the front runner for the top spot.
I am finding it difficult to write anything about him, simply because I dont
know what to write. So less was his interference, but that did not affect his
effectiveness. I am finding it so surprising, how he could carry out all his
responsibilities, without - well, anything :), and responsibilites he carried
out so well, that on one hand the team ended up giving him a "Dear boss
award", and the management wanted to promote him to PM from PL right after
that project.
Kini: You are just myteriously wonderful. It is a still mystery to me how 
somebody can do a job so well, satisfy both management and team members so well, 
and still can manage to not to get that much noticed ... 


Joe Issac
Technically excellent, personally - a lot more than that. He is a boss who
never bosses around. Very very friendly - I am sure, if you ask his project
team members individually, most of them will name him as their best friend in
the team. 
After meeting him, one feels a little less dejected and depressed about all
the problems and sufferings of the world, as one feels that there are others
sharing his/her concerns. This guy, in spite of being arguably the busiest guy
in TISP vertical, used to find time for his charity work. He was headmaster of
a weekend school which taught poor children.

Thanks Joe, for being what you are.


Vijay Kr Kabbin
This man I owe my second, and longest onsite trip, the one to US. When he sent
me on the trip, it was a not a favor, as he had to send somebody - i was more
than willing to go, and he sent me. What was, though, that on completion
of that assignment, when I found another project within US, he was soooo
generous to release me from his project and group. I dont think many managers
in the company would do that, it was a big favor that he did to me, it really
really was. Thanks a lot Kabbin - for that.
Though he is a TM, 3 levels above the PE in the hierarchy, he is so approchable,
one comes to friendly terms with him almost immediately after one begins to
talk to him, that is something great.


Phen Chee
I have changed the spelling of her name (though the pronunciation is the same
as a precaution against the
possibility of her accidently finding this page, by searching on her real name
on google - though knowing her, I am more than 100% sure that this possibility
is less than zero, but why take chances - may be her husband or current
subordinates/boss try it and get it ... :)

She was best described by a german friend of mine, "Hey .. she is lady and she
is a chinese " :)

Hers is a personality full of contradictions, excellent technically - very
very common common sense (u need common-sense, and more than hers to decipher
this), excellent java/C++ knowledge - but only as good at english as I was at
java/C++ when I completed engineering :), chinnu parents - american husband.

She does not talk much if she is not frank with somebody, but if she is, she
even talks about her not liking that girl flirting with that guy ... :),
(this when both the concerned persons had left the company more than 3 months back :))
talk which would stun people at her power of observation - competetor for Sherlock
Holmes ... ???
As I told, technically excellent - in fact she did something (I was also
involved) which was recommended by the management to be sent for filing a
patent, and both of our names had been given :) .... i dont know what happened
after that.


Rajasekhar K A
Hmm!! my current boss ... I should be careful while writing this, he has to do
my appraisal :)
But the very fact that I am able to write this with my appraisal in his hand
tells something about the person, does'nt it.
We go along well, be it work, be it general chat - but there is a big
difference, at work we both go in the same direction, but in opposite
directions while generally chatting*, I am happy it is not the other way :)
More than managing the team, I feel his job has been managing the mamagers :)
and he has done it quite well ... 
*he a hard code conservative, me a left of liberal, nothing personal.