Now that the time has come to bid adieu to Malaysia (Most
probably) I will be going from Malaysia to India permanently in one - two
weeks. I think the time is ripe for summarizing my stay in Malaysia. First of
all I did not roam much in Malaysia. I just covered some major tourist
destinations. Moreover most of the people I interacted with were Indian only,
as my company is Indian. Thus I cannot claim that I had any major insight into
Malaysian culture per se. Nonetheless my experience in Malaysia was rewarding
in other senses. It does not matter at all whether I was in Malaysia or
anywhere. I could be anywhere in India as well. What was special was that I was
away from my comfort zone and force to break away from my daily schedule. This
was an opportunity for me to start afresh. And how much did I succeeded in
this; Well, let's see.
As stated before also, I come to Malaysia as part of my
induction in new job. So it was not only the country but new job also. And
every job has its own distinct culture. There was no similarity between my new
and old job. Everything was different. There is some element of truth in change
management theories when they say that first instinct of humans is to resist
the change. There was already some issues involves in my joining and coming out
on second day of my joining itself, the environment seems obnoxious, to say the
least.
The very first shock that I experienced after coming here
was regarding change in working hours. In my previous company I was a one to
put in maximum no of working hours and frankly many a times I rub my colleague
in wrong way because of this also. I thought of myself as a very hard working
person capable of putting in the no of long hours required to get the job done.
Little did I realized that realized my job profile was of a person sitting in
front of laptop whole day. Plus there was a kind of ennui that comes with too
much time on your hand which was a case with me in my notice period. Hence to
say that I was caught unaware will be an understatement. After landing in
Malaysia I realized two things. One that this is not a training but more
correct word will be deputation or project. Hence rather than sitting on front
of computer I needed to be on the shop-floor standing almost all day. And
second that since all the projects here are running late. Therefore I need to
work 12 hours daily. It was not easy for me adjust with all this. On top of all
this I did not knew anything about the company culture, Nature of my
colleagues, Technical details of the product we offer. All in all the situation
was quite bleak.
But the biggest contradiction were the weekends, As on
weekdays I was super busy but on weekends I felt that there is so much time and
nothing to do. I was away from the family, no local chores to run, no friends,
relatives etc. Due to time-lapse between Malaysia and India and international
calling I could not even call my friends to talk to my heart's desire. So the
situation was like this, Very hectic schedule on weekdays and then feeling
lonely on weekends. All my colleagues were content in sleeping till noon to
spend time on weekends. But I did not felt like doing that. After really think
over it I did decide on two things to make better use of the situation.
One I decide that I will not sit idle on weekends. On every
Sunday (and Saturdays too when free), I used to go out for sightseeing.
Second the free time on weekends was my private time,
Something that I think we all long for , the time we can really use to
introspect and plan for future. One of the major indulgence of mine was
reading. And I really utilize this time to read as many books as I could lay my
hands upon. I even subscribed to Kindly unlimited so that I can read unlimited
books.
The second major problem faced by me (and most of my
colleagues on deputation from India like me) was the absence to familiar foods.
The problem was two pronged. First, as I'm a vegetarian I have to be on
constant guard against meat, beef etc in the food. And second, Malaysia has
large number of Indian but from south India, hence the so called Indian food
available was south Indian foods and after a few days I got fed up from this
type of food. To add to it; I have this weakness to not knowing how to cook.
Due to not getting enough food. My attentiveness was also down. The first few
weeks passed just like that before I could recognize the positive effect of
this. My weight comes down by 3 kgs!!. It was then I realized that it's
actually a blessing in disguise. While in India, I really tried hard to lose
weight but to no avail. Now that this food issue has already given me a head-start.
I decided to pursue it with some exercise, experimenting with food and managed
to shave off further 3 kg off.
I do maintain a crazy bucket list which is mostly about new
experiences. Adventure sports feature very high on that list. Bungee jumping is
one think that I always wanted to do. I actually enquired places near Delhi
(where I lives in India) where I can do this activity. It was not really far
off (It's done near rishikesh some 300 km from Delhi). But among other things,
I always used to procrastinate; giving lame excused to myself like back pain,
risks involved and lack of friends. Now that I have my weekends free, I googled
and find out a place in Kuala-lumpur itself where I can go and do bungee
jumping. The describe that experience will take another blog post so I can
conclude by saying it was once in a lifetime experience for me.
PS: Its is perhaps write only that I'm finishing this post
now that I'm back in India; Looking back in the hindsight. My stint in Malaysia
was an experience that I will always cherish.
No comments:
Post a Comment