Blog It Forward – Vivek Barnwal

Hi All,

I have been blogged forward by Jitendra Kansal‘s BIF. Thanks to Jitendra for inviting me here.

About Me

I am Vivek Barnwal from Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India. I have been working for Infosys in the consulting stream since May’2006. And I have been fortunate and lucky to have traveled to various countries (Germany, France, Australia, Sweden, Spain, Belgium, Switzerland and China) around the world because of my work at Infosys. I think the onsite opportunities is the reason why I love this IT job because it helps me to travel to different countries, live there for some time and experience the culture, food and atmosphere of that place like any other ordinary person living there. I really enjoy the sense of ordinariness and solitariness of western life.

I originally belong to Jhumri Telaiya, Jharkhand. And yes, this is not a fictitious town, it actually does exist 🙂 . This town falls in the rich mica belt of Jharkhand. There was a time when a lot of requests for songs on AIR (All India Radio) used to come from this place.

I have been working in SAP HCM since Mar’2008 and it has been an exciting journey in this space till now.

And this is me infront of Uluru (Ayers Rock, Australia) – my favorite vacation spot!

Fun Fact About My Country

Well Jitendra has already covered quite a few things about India in his blog. Let me cover something different here which not many people may know about.

We have often heard that cow is considered holy and worshiped by Hindus in India. But does anyone know why this is so? In fact, I have found that not many people are able to explain it well. So here is the explanation…

In Hinduism, the status of Parents (Father and Mother) is considered equivalent to that of God. When a baby is born, s/he drinks mother’s milk upto a certain age and then switches over to cow’s milk for the lifetime. Hence, cow is considered as Mother in Hinduism. And since Mother is worshiped in Hinduism, cow is considered Holy and worshiped in Hinduism.

In fact, there is a famous poem in Hindi which starts with the line – Cow is my Mother!

Fun Fact About Me

I believe that Google has been one of the most innovative companies in the world and one of those which is truly changing people’s lives.

It was sheer serendipity for me when while trekking through the rainforests in Blue Mountains, Sydney, I realized that I loved traveling. As earlier mentioned, I have been fortunate to have traveled across the world (Germany, France, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, USA, Sweden, Spain, Belgium, Switzerland and China) – some of them were personal travels.

My wife was also a SAP BI consultant and she and I worked for Rio Tinto for around 1.5 years in Brisbane, Australia. During the year 2011, we went on vacation almost every month since we wanted to explore Australia.

When we returned to India, I realized that I had left behind a part of me in Australia. I really miss Australia even today. I even thought of applying for PR in Australia but my wife didn’t want to settle abroad for long term.

So what do I do in such a case?

I use google maps street view to explore places in Australia and sometimes revisit those places. I do this quite often. It is really an amazing tool to experience and relive those places.

By the way…if you are an Indian looking to settle abroad, Australia will be one of the best places because of the below reasons:

• Weather in Australia is similar to that of India.
• You won’t have language problem since English is primary language. This is very important because it helps you to connect to the culture and people there. My worst experience with regards to language was in China as I couldn’t even read the scripts 🙂
• Food wise, the best thing about Australia is that quite a few food outlets provide “Make Your Own” option and you can prepare your own vegetarian dishes and just pay for what you eat.
• You will find a significant Indian population there or people of Indian origin (quite a few of them have migrated from Fiji and South East Asia too).
• And no doubt, it is one of the growing economies of the world and hence, more opportunities.

What do you most enjoy on SCN?

I am more into creating quality end to end knowledge documents in SAP HCM space in SCN.

With time, I realized that I get immense sense of satisfaction in writing detailed solutions to various problem situations in SAP HCM. I also love explaining standard SAP HCM concepts in detail so that any person going through the document can understand the concepts.

I am also happy that SAP Community members have appreciated my contributions and feel that I am enriching the knowledge database in SCN.

Below is the list of all my SCN Knowledge artifacts created in SAP HCM space till now:

One Stop Shop of my Knowledge Artifacts in SAP HCM

Just like I like creating knowledge artifacts in SCN, I also love reading quality knowledge documents created by other community members. It helps me to learn from their practical experiences. SCN is a wealth of information of all the latest happenings in SAP world and leaves the reader really enriched.

What is your personal life dream?

As I realized that traveling keeps me alive, my dream one day is to travel to Europe once again for a longer duration – may be 2 years or so and explore the places related to WW II. The history of WW II really fascinates me and I wish to visit Auschwitz, Anne Frank museum and many other places.

I hope one day I get a chance to visit the wild Africa and its fabled African safari. I also want to complete my Australia discovery (I couldn’t travel to Darwin, Katherine, Broom, Adelaide, Canberra and Perth last time).

And last but not the least, I would also like to visit Latin America.  The list is long, time is less…I hope I will be able to travel these places some day 🙂

If you were 20 again, what would you study?

Without an iota of doubt, I would study photography and become a professional photographer and capture those Kodak moments. In fact, all the photos taken during my travel are another source of reliving those places for me.

And now coming to Jitendra’s BIF questions, below are the answers:

What makes you smile/laugh?

Without a doubt, witty remarks and jokes bring smile to my face. And since it is season of elections in India…all one liners on Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi trending in Facebook, Twitter and Whatsapp do make a good laugh!

But most of all, the innocent activities and answers of small kids sometimes pleasantly surprises me and that really brings a smile and feeling which is difficult to express in words!

Had you not been into software at all, where would you have been?

I believe that this is another thing which evolves with time and changes as you also evolve with time 🙂 .

When I was 8 years old and used to get upset seeing India bashed by almost every other country in 1990s in Cricket, I wanted to become a Cricketer 🙂 .

But now I believe that I am more aware of what I would have been had I not been in IT industry. I would have worked for a travel channel or travel magazine and write blogs on exotic travel locations which the world can explore.

I believe that traveling is an education. It helps you to re-discover yourself. One should just travel…wherever it may be. It will help you to know things about yourself you may not have known till now. It will definitely widen your horizons of thinking and make you appreciate a different culture, language, food and way of thinking. Without an iota of doubt, it will make you a more tolerant and better person in life 🙂 .

What is the craziest thing you would have done in your life?

Well, I wanted to climb the Sydney Harbor Bridge but couldn’t do that. Hence, I finally decided to climb the Story Bridge in Brisbane.

It was an awesome feeling climbing on the top of a bridge and looking the world from above…I think almost equivalent to going on top of Eiffel Tower.

Blogging It Forward

I’d like to blog it forward to the following people:

Anand Jalan omid daghdar

and I would be happy if they could answer these:

1) Which is your dream travel destination and why?

2) If you have to do something for society, what will you do?

Remember the rules of the game:

– Follow the Blog It Forward Chain in order to be updated when the people you blog it forward to post the links to their “Blog It Forward” blogs.

– Read Moshe’s blog again to make sure you follow the rules in your own blog:

• Provide an introduction to yourself
• Provide a fun fact about your country or yourself
• Add a cool picture of yourself or your homeland/town
• Answer specific questions that were “Blog It Forward” to you
• Answer 3-4 optional questions from the bank of questions provided below. Or choose to answer questions you make-up on your own.
• Create 1-2 personalized  questions you would like to blog forward
• List at least 2  people who you are blogging it forward to. Share why you choose them. Link to their SCN profile by typing @  and then their name (e.g @HisName).
• Ask the community to follow the Blog It Forward Chain in order to be updated when the people you “Blog It Forward” to post the links to their “Blog It Forward” blogs.

Thanks for reading my blog. Your Comment/suggestions are most welcome.

Looking forward to read everyone’s Blog It Forward.