Nela Tara

BlueStar Limited - The AC company. They had an elecronic division which was into reselling. high end technology.

3dtvt boomed and WGC not going anywhere great, I was on the hunt and finally got it right. I could convert an opportunity at Bluestar into useful employment. I negotiated well and got more than what they wanted to give.

I choose the auspicious day of 'Akshay Trithya' to join Bluestar and it was going great guns from the word GO. Learning my past mistakes - I made all right moves. The team was fantastic, Suresh my boss was great fan of mine. Lunch times were great fun, people looked forward to hear me pull someone that day. Net Net - the team was perfect and I enjoyed my every minute at Blue Star.

Coming from virutal drought times of Deldot and WGC, Bluestar was a blessing. It was like having a cool bear near a pool after walking long and lost in a dessert.

My dept the 'Datacom dept' within the 'electronic division' was a cash cow. HSM was the flag ship product. Blue star had a monopoly over this market and ruled 300% margins. Any bank that issues plastic currency (like Credit or Debit Card) had to have a hardware based HSM to comply to Visa and Mastercard guidelines. So it was mandatory for the banks to buy HSM and Bluestar was the only option. This meant huge bottom lines.

We were hired into this department to identify the next such wave and capitalize on it. We looked at various products on the net and thro contacts,the bosses thrust some products on us, we did lots of experiments and finally concluded that nothing can be as lucrative as HSM, nothing can be as easy to sell as HSM. Along this hunting position - we also sold HSM - went to banks and followed up and the works.

My boss Suresh was a good guy and great fan of my one-liners but was very political and would always like to be involved in solving office politics related issues. He was in a way insecure with me, he would try his best to keep me away from his boss. My biggest grouse with him was that he never communicated any issues to me directly, he would use prabs and I would hence call prabs - The Hanuman.

I could have put up with Suresh for the rest of my life but work was sucking. I did not like this hunting role and HSM was mighty boring. I wanted to do something challenging and thereby attractively remunerative. I was on the hunt AGAIN!

While in Bluestar - I was blessed with Sonia - my elder daughter and when she was 9 days old - I managed to buy a flat, thanks to the corporate Bluestar- Banks were willing to lend. I used this opportunity and bought my first flat in G M Palya.

Retro Look: Great fun place, will miss Blue Star days, good bonding with colleagues, work was not challenging.