Run Mumbai Run

“Xavy! Ameet! Mukesh! I’m excited & infact nervous about completing 21 kms of run tomorrow morning.” – I tell my friend, also my flat-mate, while setting up an alarm of 03:00 AM.

“Dude. Chuck that. All possible ONLY if you wake up on time, which I’m sure you won’t. “– replied Xavy.

“We will see. Ka-Chow!” – I snub back before the shutters of my eyes roll  down slowly and in peace.

Ringggg.. “Throw that phone out of the window someone.” The alarm doesn’t, but my other flat-mates voice wakes me up for the day, which was to witness an awesome proceedings.

Gradually, I start receiving calls from everyone I know who are participating in the Marathon to check if I was awake or not. It's Marathon mania!

Marathons are usually long running events, where runners participate to run on roads for 40 - 42 kms. There are of course different categories for running the Marathon. You can run just 6 kms or run a half marathon!

I’m at the starting point in Bandra, where this early morning, there is a huge crowd of runners far and by. I have my BIB number on my company’s T-shirt, especially designed for the Marathon participants, which lists down all the NGOs that we have been associated with.

I stand in the queue with my friends and colleagues amidst this big stream of people all around us. Man is always more important than the things that exists around. This was proved by the waves of people who have shown up  well before the Sun lord  on this pleasant Sunday morning, in a city where a peace sleep after a tiring day is the biggest spiritual feeling. They made this event the most count as the most successful Marathon in India, and am sure, soon the globe will look up to it. 

And, you can never take the credit away from the beautiful city of Mumbai. Mumbai, is the city of dreams, and ask many souls who have come to this city, how it has always nurtured their true dedication. It does test you, but if you pass, it never shies away from giving you what you deserve.

Mumbai never complains. It holds many dreams, many aspirations, and many stories every day, every hour. It has seen some of the horrifying days, sometimes from it's own people, it has fed. But then, she never bows, down, she looks into the eyes of people who aspire her, and stands back on her knees, no matter how wounded she may be. Mumbai is an example to our man-kind, of how without demanding even a passing recognition, she gives us a lot. Shouldn’t it be our duty as well, in return, to respect her, keep it CLEAN atleast? Is that too much to ask for?

My legs could feel what my hands were talking, and vice-a-versa. Half Marathon.

“Dude, it’s our time to start soon. Best of Luck!”

“Thanks ya!” – I can feel my vain. “Hope I don’t sleep midway. 21 kms is way too much! Hah!”

I see the wave of people in front of us start running. The fourth last row to me vanishes on the sea-link, third-last, second last, and then it’s us!

I pass the starting tracker with some red beams, and I’m in the air. I run with my full strength and find myself charged up with some kind of spiritual feeling.  It was phenomenal.

“Run Mumbai Run” – shouts someone ahead of us.

I see reporters on the side lanes clicking us. It’s Mumbai on the run. I soon let lose my nervousness, and find myself in the pool of people cheering, merry. There is some guy with the Team India’s jersey, there’s someone, with Gandhi-topi, then there’s some girl with I-pod on. Colourful people, colourful lives running. Even spot a physically challenged lad in his teens, surpass me quick. I feel like going and patting him, but I feel I shouldn’t remind this young lad of something, and let him run free. Someone needs to pat me, as he was way quicker than I was.

The mighty Bandra-Worli Sea-Link was lit-up with aspirants, cheerful voices, joyful street-lights. Many flaunting the camera clicks. It was an experience that doesn’t fade away from memory so easily. 

I speed up and finish the sea-link and on the main, land, next to the curve is the loo. Okay Break!

After a break, I’m on the run again, seeing a lot of people covering the streets, the neighborhoods all out with the Sun Lord slowly blinking his eye lids. These are the Mumbaikars, cheering each one runner, bucking up the one puffing his breathes, clapping and roaring. This electrifies the already puffing me. The spirit is lively.

Crossing Worli was so easy, now at Mahalaxmi, where the Sun lord is already smiling and majestic Haji Ali dargah is a splendid watch early morning, my feet feel the heat. Heat, in the real sense. Blisters on my leg, and I feel like some pebbles are into my shoes.

(Picture: Mahalaxmi Circle - Imagine the picturesque with humans and not cars on 20th Jan'2013)

I don’t stop, I run up the little hilly terrain, where music is played with little kids dancing to encourage us all. Cookies, glucose distributed by the neighborhoods, the spirit is amazing. Familiar colleagues, friends cheering us all up, and yeah they get the return too, when I’m kind of charged. I was witnessing the festivity and lost deep forgetting everything. A day before, I was lost in brain-storming the exciting idea. I would be lost tomorrow too, but then, this is the time to set myself loose and run in the spirit. Many like me would be, someone for some examination or result, someone for somebody’s health or wealth, someone for finding a way to marrying his girl-friend, some net-addict would have forgotten what tweets or posts mean. Run was the only LIKE button to press.  

At the Marine Drive, Lord Sun’s meditation seemed kind of intensified, subtly expressing the nature of the day.  I targeted 3 hours to finish the Half-Marathon. I was around Churchgate station when the clock hit three hours from the time I started.  The loud of people around us is wild. When I was finally at the finish area at CST Terminus, I see some African athletes finishing the lines. These are the winners of Full Marathon. Okay embarrassing that they finishing double the kilometers when I managed to finish half, but then cheers to them. After all it’s cheese, Bikaneri bhujias, pastry shops in & around Bandra that win. Not to forget, the Ahmedabadi brunches & the royal Rajasthani feasts!

I managed to finish the Marathon of 21 kilometers in 03Hours 07 minutes. A 55+ colleague I knew finished way before me, by only brisking his way. A 40+ another fellow I knew was minutes ahead of me. Honestly, you can finish too. If you think you not the part of Marathon this year, honestly you still can be. Everyone here was running for cause.

I liked an idea where the friends of each running the Marathon had decided to donate some amount if his friend finishes in some given time. For ex, A & B are pals. A is the runner, and B tells him – ‘Hey! I’m a student, job-seeker..so what..I contribute $x if you finish the race in this given time.” Or “I encourage your spirit, $y for you to finish the race”. They aren’t poking, they aren’t doubting, but they are trying to find a classy way to contribute to some NGO, he may be running for. As they say, a drop makes an ocean, a penny by 100 people a runner knows make what? Imagine the same for each runner. 

Again, I don’t wana sound like am asking people to do charity, that’s not my style of writing. I want you to be in the spirit. The spirit of this city, it’s roads warming up like burning tyres with the runners paddling their way towards CST on 20^th January. You can stand anywhere from Bandra to CST to boost the morale. You never know a Parle-G a runner pops in from your plate, is worth an effort. Even your presence to cheer the puffin ones is worth a memory. I hardly remember the faces smiling and cheering, but I remember the affectionate energy those little kids, those aunts, and ladies were out greeting us, cheering us with.

Beauty about atleast this Marathon, no one is left-out. You still can be a part, and that’s what is spiritual about it. I could have used the word ‘sexy’ for some sane readers, but honestly, am sure that doesn’t gives out the expression which this ‘spiritual’ word surely does, despite how ‘anti-spiritual’ we think you may be. For those running, the Marathon, I never practiced to run the last Marathon. For me, planning for practicing with pals, was only about waking up & feeling the pleasant morning, which I usually fail to. After-all, it is the best time of the day! 

And, you need to credit the way it was organized by the sponsors,  organizations. Waiting for this year’s Marathon bag full of goodies.

Again, you still can be a part of this race, where everyone is the winner. Bus, spirit chaiye! I don’t know if they play the Kolaveri remix at the start of the race this time, but whosoeva is running or cheering, do greet out loud the electrifying ‘Run Mumbai Run’ chant. So, to brighten up someone’s future, to lighten up someone’s life...........................Run Mumbai Run!

(P.S. - Ignore typos, if any. I post, once jotted :-P)

Torn page of a Calm Night

It is a moist cool rainy September night in Mumbai, the maximum city. Mumbai, for me, a kind lady, an inspiration of strength holding beneath her arms, many exciting stories of rags and riches. Every move, every nerve of her, every minute witnesses some or other kind of excitement, some kind of inspiration, some kind of lessons learnt.

It has it's own charm – from hustle bustle of the suburban ‘local’ stations to calm sea shores, which takes away all your tiredness in its deepness.  From noisy busy mornings to silent tired nights. It has it all.

I’m in the room of my guest house, sipping a hot cup of Green tea, which has a punch of ginger in it. An usual composed hoping sound by field cricket is playing at the back of my ears. My room is all on boxes – formals, jeans, tees all scattered around, and thankfully, not on my bed!

Suddenly, it starts raining. Rains are different here in Mumbai, or maybe they are just similar to any other rain. But then, what makes them look different? May be the feeling of relaxation it gives you after or midst a busy day. The sudden downpour and the moist air suddenly relaxes you and touches your soul, bringing to you the aroma of wet soil - the best perfume on the planet.

Rains fall unrelenting, sounding like a lullaby, putting on mute all the hulla bo noises around me, bringing you close the voice of your soul. Not really sure about how, where and what my Sunday will bring for me – kind of little excited, nervous, happy, scarred. Believing in my honest work and dedication, and awaiting some magic for next Sunday, I wear my slippers and walk out of the building.

Magical sound of the raindrops slowly touching the dark black wet road plays at my back. One hand, I have my umbrella, and on the other, my phone

I start walking towards the station for some station wali - chai and packed biscuits. This walk is not the usual walk I have every morning. My walks are sluggish towards the station rather than being measurable for me with every minute having its own meaning to me. 5 minutes late to the projected time – 9:29 Churchgate Slow, 10 minutes late – 9:42 Andheri Fast, so that I can catch the same 9:29 slow from Andheri station.

The scene is also different on the road-sides at this time of the day. Roadsides are sleepy, they are dark. Yea alright your nostrils do hit some wet rotten stinky smell, mix of vegetables, polybags and all day long trash.

I finally reach the station. The view is calm. Few autowallahs sleeping, few having a chat. I finally reach Platform no.1.

“Ek chai dena” – waiting for my cup of chai, I realize, that station is the place, though it may yawn, but will never sleep. You have people here waiting for the first train that leaves and arrives in the morning. You’ve a gang of college guys and girls, laughing and chatting all out.

I turn towards the stall vendor.

“Kahan se ho?” (where are you from?) – I ask yawningly .

“Sahab Johnpur”. Aur app? – He asks in a friendly tone.

Living and growing up in so many cities, I always find this a tough question to answer.

“Whole night, you’re awake no sleep?” – I continue to talk to him, when he serves me my cup of tea, with some chocolate chip cookies.

“No sir! We officially have to be awake. Railway stalls cannot be shut in the night.” He continues – “I sit here whole night, and then sleep for 4 hours. Then I go to work to guard one of the ATMS close by from noon to night. “

“That’s tough! Don’t you think of going back to Johnpur?”

“No sir! I don’t get the time to think about it, and anyways going back there will be a bigger struggle. There are local groups, who would not let us hamper their business, if we wish to start one” – he answers

“Chai kum pani jyada hai” – I complain.

“Sir, should I make another?”

“No! that's fine.”

I start walking towards the guest house, where I’m staying, thinking, every person here around me have different dreams for tomorrow’s Sunday. Every person has different aspirations. Every person’s definition of what he/she wants is so different. Every being’s definition of comfort is so different. It’s quite amazing.

Cloud Security

IT has the ability to deliver almost anything that you can think of, and here is the latest entrant - The Clouds, which is now a phrase du jour in the IT coliseum already. Clouds are on the rise and so are the organizations looking ahead to capture clouds for their business practices.

Cloud Computing has changed the approach such that a cloud – user now only requires a browser for access to the company’s network. And this raises risks and compliance concerns.

Being a part of GRC, we know what matters to organizations most and here, it is their corporate data which they may put on off-premise servers. So are the clouds safe? What are the risks involved? Will the data (kept off – shore) still sync with their company's internal compliance mandates?

  

Being in the GRC domain, I had serious question in front of myself – are clouds secured and safe and what should they do to adhere with IT security norms. How can they be well-equipped to address any IT security concern raised as any organization would want clouds to be safe before putting their enterprise data on-board?

With the current economic scenario, businesses, especially mid-size, may feel the need for cost reduction and look forward to this technology to source some or all of their computing services into the cloud; but what may hold them back are the security concerns. To pass the risk and compliance test, they would need to address the following concern that comes with clouds not only for IT auditors but also for themselves. A lack of robust methodology of identifying risk areas and being compliant may derail the complete concept of clouds. 

First, we discuss the various planks which can be of major concerns to the data owners:

·      SaaS, PaaS and IaaS: Cloud providers use Software as a Service (SaaS) or Platform as a Service (PaaS i.e. providing a platform to build software applications to cloud - users) or Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS like servers) to deliver a single application through the browser serving multiple clients.

·      Use of web services: Use of web services like search engines, web portals, etc.

·      Use of Utility Computing in Clouds: Utility computing i.e. utilization of services and computing resources, such as virtual Data Centers.  

Risks Involved

·      SaaS, PaaS and IaaS: The risk of using Saas, PaaS or IaaS is that all these platforms raise issues of identifying user accounts (duplicate user accounts) and their roles and rights, misalignment of data.  In short, concerns of authorization and authentication. Here, the onus of data security lies not only on the data owners, but also majorly on the cloud providers (Cloud Service Providers), as the data is stored on any third – party software, storage blocks or platform based clouds.

·      Use of web – services: Use of web services in the clouds is crucial to IT security as traditional vulnerabilities like virus, spywares are always of concern. Apart from the traditional villains resting on the web, it is security of the enterprise data to be transmitted to these web services is also under scanner.

·      Use of Utility Computing in Clouds: Utility computing raises a high level of security concern as mission critical data of organizations are under scrutiny. The access to crucial and critical IT environments such Data Centers has always been of high concern to organizations. The fear of clouds growing dark rises, as we are actually looking into the prospects of a ‘virtual Data Center’.  

Compliance practices to tackle the risks

Addressing risk and compliance aspects is fundamental for clouds to grow. This is important as no GRC umbrella over an organization’s cloud cluster would mean a complete degradation of their enterprise data and their business practice. The best practices to tackle the mentioned risks are suggested below:

·      SaaS, PaaS and IaaS: Organizations need to focus on data security which becomes highly important as the clouds reside on storage blocks, software or platforms. User accounts and their roles and rights are absolutely crucial as well as their authorization and validation must be of primary focus to the organizations.Organizations / data owners here would also require robust cloud-based third party policies, rather than just the orthodox enterprise third party-based policies for the service providers who own the clouds (as the data now no more rest in their environment or facility).

·      Use of web services: Filtering (URL filtering) on what is to be viewed on the basis of User roles is an effective measure while using web services on the clouds. This ensures that each cloud users access what is actually necessary for their role. This takes care of access to attractive but distracting information / services, which gives an easy en-route to traditional intruders. In case web security is outsourced to a third - party, SLAs / KPIs and related policies must just not only focus on web-security and filtering concerns, but must also focus on the services to curb and prevent data loss. Here, the responsibility of these measures lies primarily with the organizations, who own the data, because it’s just not their data residing on the clouds, they actually share a room out there! What is notably important here is to realize the guidelines and policies that need to be built around these risks and consistently keep a check on them.

·      Use of Utility Computing in Clouds: To overcome security concerns related to the utilities like virtual Data Centers, it is highly recommended to locate and highlight low, medium and high-level of security concerns and risks in-depth. The policies, authorization and access to Data Centers must not only highlight but also address the risk areas and concerns that have been analyzed. The back-up and restoration methodologies adopted are of high significance too, because the Data Centers in the clouds are just not located off-shore, but are virtual as well. So, if organizations do not want the clouds to grow dark, it is important to primarily focus on the below aspects:

·         Policy management and audit capabilities for themselves and cloud-providers

·         IT security controls and the ability to transport and archive enterprise data

·         Addressing poor visibility into risk exposure properly

·         Avoiding lack of alignment from not having risk and compliance processes embedded within the business

Best practices ensure that the organizations; their corporate and enterprise data remain on cloud nine. Clouds are always pleasant to watch and GRC is all about ensuring they don’t grow dark. We won’t.