AFTER RETIREMENT 

I writing this blog after a long time. The reason for that is not due to lack of time or laziness. I was busy engaged in some interesting passion which I could not indulge so far in a big way.

 It starts with my retirement. Retirement is one milestone in life where a  people are scared off for various reasons. It could be due to loss of power, position, re-location, loss of facilities etc. Among all this, one of the most important issues related to the change in life style as well as the sudden dip in attention and work schedules. These issues are having more mental impact when the position and power held were higher.

 In 2019, when I retired many people asked me, 'what are  my plans after retirement ?. ' Will you be taking up some consultancy or auditing job ( BIS was offering part time auditor to retired qualified employees ) or any private job. The fact is I was offered an extension in BIS for  six months in the same level ( I was holding Joint Secretary level )  which I declined and the   two offers I got after retirement from private . I refused all of them because I wanted to pursue my passion which was pushing me..

 Through out my life,   I was fascinated by the photography and videography and I wanted to do lot travelling  further and  shoot lot of videos .As a matter of  fact, in the last 3 years I travelled a lot and bought a basic camera and gathered  lot of  information about Photography & Videography as well as  Camera Techniques.  I spent hours together on Lenses, Camera Gadgets, Video editing, Camera movement, Audio editing, Lighting, Camera Angles and Video editing software. 

 Basically It has 3 advantages hidden in this hobby. The first one is,  this hobby enables you to open up your creativity and creating an art brings lot happiness and satisfaction. When you create an art or when you learn some mistakes you committed  while you edit your videos keep you updated with not only continuous knowledge but keep you engaged..

 Of late  I realised, I made plenty of  mistakes which could have been avoided if I had this knowledge. Also I realised costly cameras or lenses are not the important aspects, but  the knowledge of camera, the way  you look at the scene and  capture the scene , the way you recreate the same with your own  perspective  would make the difference. 

Since I cannot go back to all those places I visited earlier, I decided I    should transfer this knowledge to people like me who loves travel and photography.  That is why I decided to make complete series of learning photography with all tips and techniques   and make it available to Public. You can learn this videos free in Youtube Channel Travel videography for seniors or my Instagram id - senior_citizen_photography.

       I have created 39 videos organised in 9 chapters on basics, advanced techniques, tips for photography and videography, editing, lenses and gadgets etc…

3 THINGS I DO DAILY MORNING. - VIVIN JOY

Silent Prayer

Silent Prayer 

An artisans programme was to start in Coimbatore (2015) and everyone stood up  for prayer. The record player  was tested earlier but right at the of nick of time, it did not function. Everyone was standing in silence. One second, 2 seconds and 3 seconds. Nothing happened. I could see some of my colleagues frantically trying to do something. Many of them closed their eyes for prayer hence it was not known to them what was happening. Few  seconds passed.

Some started  looking at me for the signal to sit.  I then looked at my officer who was on the PR desk and signaled to render a prayer song. She took up the challenge boldly without any hesitation and she did it. Everyone involved in organising the programme were relived. Some of them thought, the prayer  was organised in that way. Only we knew the story behind the curtains. The incident remained unfazed in my memory. 

BIS through these programmes had definitely helped large number of artisans in improving their technical knowledge in the area of melting, making solder and soldering, reducing the  loss, reducing pollution and creating awareness on Standards and Quality apart from Hallmarking. Shri Tirupathy Rajan, an Expert and Shri K.Anbarasu Sir then DDGS were always there to support these programmes.

We tried to organise many programmes as  much as  possible because unlike other programmes, these were improving the  techniques  deployed by the   artisans in melting process and also for improving the work environment more  than the purity of gold. That is the truth.

Foreign Post office

THE STORY OF First Foreign Post office Certification

This photo was taken during the award of first foreign Post Office Certification in India as per IS/ISO 9001 by BIS. Seated next to me on the left is Shri K.Kadirvel, my colleague & co-auditor  and on the right side is Shri Mahesh, then Director of FPO at Chennai. I was then the  Head of Management System Department at Chennai and was the Lead Auditor for this project.

 It was just a phone call  from the Director of the foreign post office that culminated  to this great event at the end. He sought  guidance on the benefits of implementing ISO 9001 in a service organization. Shri Mahesh,  wanted to implement this  system for the first time in the country in his department. Later on Post office as a whole implemented  the  ‘Sevottam certification’.

On the phone, he made two queries to me:

1. What is the benefit of this system to a Public  Service industry ?.

2. Would an a organization like Post Office get any tangible benefits  where Government and international protocols have to be followed mandatorily followed and there is very little scope for modifying  the existing the  process?. 

After listening to him, I asked for a meeting with him and for a short  visit to witness their operations. He readily agreed and I spend some time studying the operations in detail.

The operation is not very complex: When any  person, anywhere in India wants to send  a cover or packet to be delivered to another location in a different country, it can be given at any of the  Post office in India and pay for the stamps. These packets  from each zone is collected to the nearest zonal foreign post office to repack after   sorting. These bags are then moved  to their  assigned Gate way stations. ( Kolkatta, Bombay etc.) From there as per the country sorting, it is again regrouped and transported either by air/sea/rail/road to destined  country.

As per the mutual  Postal agreement  with other countries the packets finally reach the  local post office of the concerned person and gets delivered. All these operations are completed in 15-20 days very efficiently.

During  my observations of operations  on that day, I found two areas of opportunities for improvement.

1. A case of  misrouting detected on an article but delivered within the time  frame. So the customer  did not even know about this mishap. This was a process error which could have been avoided and would have saved lot of time for the consumer.

2. In the other case  the stamp duty calculated for the packet was slightly more than the required amount by the collecting post office. The customer did pay the amount asked by post office and normally overcharging or undercharging is not known to customers. Post office charges are comparatively very less and people in post office are very courteous and customer friendly.  The excess amount was just 10 rupees and this  human  error was  not very serious. But it was a service defect which could be removed.

So I  told him, the implementation would help you to identify service defects and set targets  to improve the efficacy and efficiency of the entire system. After the discussions, on that day itself, he ordered  to return that Rs10/-  to the customer and apply for application for BIS certification.

I realized on that day my marketing skills.  I never knew till that time I can do this specialized task, even though I studied Management (PGDBM). 

 

Kochi Office site Inauguration

04 MARCH 2012

INAUGURATION OF THE  PROPOSED KOCHI OFFICE SITE.

This photo was clicked at the inauguration of proposed Kochi office on the land donated by  lease basis  with Kerala Government in Maradu Municipal Corporation on our constant persuasion, Kochi after the shifting of office to Kochi from Trivandrum.  The land overlooking the backwaters was inaugurated by Shri K.V Thomas, then Honourable minister for Consumer affairs along with Late Shri Sunil Soni, IAS, former DG, BIS and other dignitaries including former State Minister Shri K.S Babu and Maradu Municipal office bearers.

This was my last assignment in Kerala and after the inauguration of this site, DG had a personal discussion with me and asked to come to head quarters. I have shown my disinterest  in working again in Certification or Laboratory departments  as I spent all my time in certification since joining. I requested him to consider posing in other departments. He then created a new department called SPPD( Standards Policy and planning ) and I was shifted to that   department as head. He wanted me to have fresh look on some of the existing systems and was aiming for a complete transformation. This department from scratch was  established under my supervision and the role of the department was to assist Standards Formulation departments and DDG(Standards) similar to Central Marks Department(CMD) in Certification. I served little more than  one year before being shifted as Head of Management System Department for another important assignment. In the MSCD department I was there for one year and later shifted to Central marks Department-III when transformer was brought under compulsory certification and after one year I was  promoted as Deputy Director General. 

               

Kochi-KBWMA Meeting

KERALA WATER Manufactures Association [ KBWA ] meeting at Kochi@2013

 

 

 

One of the regular meetings with  Kerala Bottle Water Manufactures Association in Oct 2013. Shri M.E Mohammed then President of KBWA seated next to me seems busy examining the water bottle for its compliance to the norms.  The interaction with  KBWA  was always very productive and progressive.

 

Most of the Packaged drinking  water units were located close Ernakulam centre at that time, and my officers could travel faster and return back on the same day due to the proximity of these units. This helped BIS as well as the industry to serve better and this was expressed explicitly by the association when we shifted the office to Kochi.

The association organised meetings to disseminate information to their members when there is some change in standards, procedures and rules.

Lets-Talk Website:

https://sites.google.com/view/speaktovivin/home   

When I superannuated, many offers came in my way including the extension offer from BIS. But I was firm and clear in my mind that I should do what was burning in my heart. To help the Stuttering/Stammering children and that my son also said we will do it when I shared this idea with him long back.

In 2019 the pandemic started and my launch of the trust by name Lets-Talk got stalled, but then we decided to launch a You Tube channel named Lets-Talk. I got a logo designed by Mr. Thomas of NIFT who did it free of cost as a support to this cause.

In the many of the  inspiring videos, he narrates his life experience and path he went through  to reach the his goal. He is now serving as a Senior software Engineer in LinkedIn  and prior to that as a software architect in Samsung Ecommerce. He  shares his various   experiences  and solutions for the benefit of other stutterers..

So far Lets-Talk released many videos and some links are given below.

1.Simple tip to reduce stress -Opening Up: https://youtu.be/C4F_oJEQsZo

2.Job Interview –Self Introduction:  https://youtu.be/GqvC_xSW7pQ

3.Forth coming new videos: https://youtu.be/hLN8JM_gW7o

4.Handling guilt : https://youtu.be/wgen5aMtmQY

5.Time pressure : https://youtu.be/wsy8a2e5w-E

6.Why do people stammer ? : https://youtu.be/yRCkzTPMFpk

7.Public awareness campaign: https://youtu.be/_uxHMAPBs2U

8.Open Speech at Connaught Place, Delhi:

9. Open Mike event at Chennai : https://youtu.be/h5naI0UyZe8

10. Self Introduction :  -  https://youtu.be/1_gvlIk_nrc

11. Phone Interview :   - https://youtu.be/jjDC-Sz_cu8

12. Identify stammer : - https://youtu.be/Eo9b3q2Flzk

13.International Stuttering Day Awareness -  https://youtu.be/8BCeR4rpXYo

14. Eye Contact : - https://youtu.be/Kg-H9KGVdSE

15. How do You tell your name: https://youtu.be/HjYGm_BhyLE

16. Online Effective Learning : https://youtu.be/1Uh0cPZN7UI

17.Online Teaching : https://youtu.be/XJZ4m88u2Sc

18. Open Mike event at Chennai : https://youtu.be/o3Ipjctvvug

 

When the number of videos were going up, we felt it was necessary to keep all these videos available at one place so that it can be accessed by all at any time. That is how the website was born. A feed back form where anybody can directly interact and seek assistance. Have a look at this by clicking the link.

 https://sites.google.com/view/speaktovivin/home

 Varghese Joy

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