One year in IT industry.

I recently completed one year in IT industry. I am recollecting my experiences as a fresher a year ago. Frankly I don’t know what to say. Shall I say that I have matured as an individual or shall I say that this exposure has brought me face to face with some truths of life.. I joined this software firm as a campus recruit. To some extent I knew what to expect as a fresher.Still, other facets were unknown. Anyways I coped up with this transition. I wont mention the regular training schedules and the induction into project which followed, as most of you might be familiar with this phase. But I would like to mention few things that I learned as a professional/individual. Some of them are…

--> When given an opportunity to do challenging things, do accept it. In the end what matters is not whether you execute the task successfully or not but whether you handled it well with responsibility. There is always scope for people who take responsibilities.

• Have the humility to take responsibility for failures.

• Don’t rely on people every time. Help yourself whenever the need arises. Have the courage to explore solutions beyond limitations.

• A ‘Yes’ can mean a ‘No’. But a ‘No’ always means a ‘No’.

• Whenever offered help don’t reject it.

• Learn to hear between words and read between lines. This will help in anticipating crisis.

• Have lots of patience as there are many dumb people here.

• Be humble enough to learn things.

• Apart from that you need to have the regular stuff, communication skills, presentation skills, networking skills and blah blah..

There are few other changes that have impacted my personal life as well.

• I have become an addict to chat engines gtalk and yahoo. Trying desperately to kick this habit J. My work place provides me with free internet (chat) usage. This explains all. Hey, I do work. It is just that I cant concentrate on work if I am not online… (Hope my PM is not reading this :D) Well this don’t reply to pings if I am busy.

• You lose touch with your mates and close friends from your college. This happens if you are not staying together or when you don’t meet during weekends. Meeting during weekends is out of question as you are occupied with other things ;) . Initially you keep in touch through mails/chat/phone calls, eventually this practice will fade away. Gradually they will be too busy to reply to your mails or you will be too busy to notice their messages (will write about this in a separate entry).

• You get into habit of checking mails every now and then.

• You eagerly wait for weekends .

Hmmm… looks enough for now. It is really hard to summarize the changes of one year in one page. Well, I did my best. This is all for now...

Please, leave a comment before you navigate away from this blog .

Guru Poornima at Hubli

Last weekend I had been to Hubli. My grand parents stay there and its been almost a year since I saw them. There was another reason for my being there. I had been there to take part in the Guru Poornima Mahotsav which is celebrated annually by the Sanatan Sanstha. Sanatan Sanstha is a spiritual organization which is striving hard to revive ancient Hindu culture. My granny and aunt are active members of this organization. Well I am not a staunch follower of the organization, but I do appreciate some of the values preached there. This was the third time I was participating in this event and it has become an annual ritual for me now. Every time I attend this event, life has posed a new turn for me. I remember, first time when I attended this event, I got a job unexpectedly.

This year when I attended, I was put into a new and challenging project all of a sudden. I don’t know what you call this. ‘Miracle’ is too strong a word to be used to describe this. But I believe in and have faith in this annual ritual. Every time I attend this event, my instinct tells me that something exciting will happen soon. And this has been happening every time. I really don’t know weather it is faith or something else, but something does happen when I attend the event. Every one has their own faiths and beliefs and it is this that adds more value to every day life. Some times such rituals might seem foolish and useless, but you feel at ease when you perform them. Such rituals could be pertaining to divinity or could be relating to normal life. Whatever it may be, it helps in self actualization.

I am still coping up with the turn in my life this event has brought about. At the same time I am eagerly waiting for Guru Poornima next year and I am sure something more exciting will happen then.

Life, a paradox...

Life is such a paradox. Everything is a big Chinese puzzle to me. You prepare a fool proof plan and along the way of its execution you encounter unanticipated incidents. Well, if you are lucky enough you reach your goal (through ups and downs of course...).

Let us take my example. The project is in its final phase and there is no much significant work left. So I was happy thinking that I would be able to leave for home early today. My hometown is at a 3hr train journey from Bangalore. So I need to leave office early to catch a train/bus. More ever I have some tasks pending that need to be done this weekend. Thus, I have to go home this week at any cost. Though I can wake up early and go on Saturday, I prefer traveling on Friday. The plan to leave early was in perfect sink, until this happened. One of my team mate left for his native yesterday. Today he had to perform an urgent task here. Now that he has left that task was handed over to me for completion. That’s something good. Extra responsibilities teach you a lot. But see the irony. That task can be performed only after 6:00 in the evening. Poor me. I was thinking of leaving office at 5:00 p.m. Now I can only leave office at 6:30 p.m. if everything goes well. And to add to that I have been sitting idle since morning without any significant work. And the most important work begins only after 6:00.

Wah.. Kya life hai!! Now, either you can crib about life or curse your team mate for the transferring the task to you or write it down in a blog like me and kill time. I prefer the last option.

Sometimes even if you plan with accuracy, it can go waste. You can see what happened to me. You can still prevent this by being bit smart. But that does not help always and there are other drawbacks associated with it. I will talk about it some other time. For time being I am making frequent trips to cafeteria on top floor and loitering around. I tried bugging my friends who are online with nonsense tricks, but all of them are too busy to respond. When you are free and don’t have anything to do, all your online friends will be busy and they don’t respond to your pings. During such a period you don’t receive any chain mails or forwards that you would receive everyday.

That is life you see. You have to leave with it. Hey, I think it is time for another trip to cafeteria. I will go around and see if anyone is free to fall prey to my non sense tricks.

That’s all for now… take care…

Ps:
I just remembered one of the Murphy’s law :

If anything can go wrong, it will, and usually at the most inopportune moment.

Spectacles story

Phew!!.. after a long time I am able to relax in the office. It is 3:00 p.m. The pantry lad just came and served the tea. I am sipping the hot tea now. I can here some body shouting over the phone in the next cubicle. All my team mates are digging into their computers with wide open eyes. Sometimes this computer job can be bugging. But I was somehow able to take advantage of this. Want to hear it? The story goes like this…

I like to wear spectacles. Right from childhood I have been envying people who wear specs. I don’t mean the ones with thick glasses. I meant the ones with thin frame and thin glass. No matter how ugly a person looks, when he wears such spectacles he gets an appealing look on his face. Those specs always add an intellectual and scholarly value to his face. Looks like I am drifting away from the topic. Anyways let me come on the track. My job is computer related and requires constant interaction with it. I have to sit before the computer for almost 9 hrs. Just imagine the state of my poor eyes. Then I came up with a plan. I decided to buy an anti glare glass :). Here was my chance to wear glasses and satisfy my childhood wish. I went to few optical shops here in Bangalore. Happily tried few varieties (this is the only chance to try few exotic varieties to your heart's content.. free of cost of course!!! Well don’t think I am cheap but I am just normal.. :)) and finally settled for a good anti glare spec with thin frame and fiber glass lens. It cost me around Rs.1200. Well neither high nor low. For the past few months I am wearing my specs everyday. Most of them think that glasses don’t suit me. But who cares, I am quite happy wearing it. Why not.. after all my childhood wish has been fulfilled.. :)

That’s all for now..

Long time….

I am blogging after a month or so. Was bit busy with work… Many events happened in this course of time. I got a slight feel of the deadlines and work pressure in corporate world. Learnt the value of home food J. I went home after a gap of month or so and was happy to have good food after a long time. God alone knows how I got through this month. Working for almost 12 hrs a day, 9:00 A.M. to 9:00 P.M. And even on Saturdays and Sundays..Life had almost driven me crazy. But I am happy with the outcome. J Want to take a break from work and these hectic schedules.

Well, time to start another chapter or should I say that chapter has already begun. ;)
Hmm.. saw the new movie Cheeni Kum. The movie is based on a story in which a 64 yrs old man romances a 34yr lady. The old man’s character is played by none other than Mr Big B and Tabu plays the lady’s role. The story line is good and ends up telling some bitter truths about life. Looks like I am writing an essay on the movie.. I think I had better stop at this. But one thing is for sure you cant bear someone elderly like Big B being paired with a young actress like Tabu. It sucks.. At the same time that’s the thing which is adding value to the movie. What else..
Its been a long I read a novel. There is Dan Brown’s Deception Point lying in my cupboard. Borrowed it from a friend yet to read and return. I had better start off with this.

Well that’s all for now. Hopefully I will be able to make next blog entry soon.. Till then take care and God bless..

Microsoft’s hollow blow to open source community.

“Microsoft claims that Linux and other open source products violate about 235 of its patents.” This news it been circulated around lately. Several questions come to mind when you read this caption. Is this Microsoft’s new corporate tactic to get even with the open source community? Do Open source products really violate Microsoft patents? If yes, then what was Microsoft doing all these years?

I think this is more of a corporate tactic and the accusation is baseless. The MNC has not yet come up with the list of patents which are violated as claimed. Linus Torvalds has come up with a retaliating response to the accusation. He says that Microsoft violates more patents than anyone does (I somehow feel that this accusation is true :) ) and has challenged the corporation to come up the list of patents which are violated.

These days many corporations are turning towards open source products. Use of such products do not require procuring of licenses, you need not pay any hefty amount as part of procurement. Last but not the least, the source code will be available (under GPL license of course :) ). Thus, the support extended to the open source products makes sense in this context :). IBM is a supporter of Linux. All these factors have proved as a threat to anti-open source organization like Microsoft.

Summarizing the entire issue, one could say that Microsoft is trying to create a storm out of nothing.

Ps: Microsoft has decided not to sue Linux users.

The following links will provide more info :

Microsoft’s claim

Linus Torvalds’s response

Nothing but abstract...

Nothing new is happening these days. It is the same old routine. Waking up early in the morning, going for a walk and doing bit of work out, getting ready to catch the company cab, work for 8.5 hrs, then back to the heavenly abode, read for a while, wash clothes, have dinner and hit bed. Sometimes life becomes too mechanical and monotonous. You wait and wait for something exciting to happen. It is not that there are no new events happening around you. You don’t see the newness in these events. Yet there are days when nothing is happening and you are excited about something unknown. You see freshness in every trivial thing. Anything that is least important, interests you. May be all these abstract feelings can be attributed to the age factor. When life comes across a plain phase with no ups and downs, it is better to change the perception of seeing things. It is better to make some effort to see freshness in every trivial thing we do. Then no matter what life becomes exciting.

Time for me to return to work. :)

By the way this entry is dedicated to Sadhana and Ankit. :)

Train musings and IT….

Train journeys have always fascinated me. The comfort and joy of the journey cannot be surpassed by anything else. It has been almost 8months since I shifted to Bangalore. Every weekend I travel by train to my hometown. (I do commute by buses owing to the circumstances.. that’s a different story altogether..). You come across many interesting/fascinating/idiotic things when you travel in train. Well, I would say that you should be lucky enough for these things to happen. The duration of the journey is around 3hrs. Many a time I have enjoyed joyous/funny moments in train.

Sometimes the Ticket Collector catches some people who are traveling without ticket. The victims usually pay fine and leave silently. There are others who are courageous and argue with TC (God knows what for…) and end in creating a scene in the compartment. (Anyways, it is sometimes good to have some entertainment ;)) There are other people who try to be too curious about their co-passengers. Most of the time my co-passenger starts the conversation like this…

Co-passenger: “Neevu yenu madthiddirra?kelasa na?” (What are you doing?working or studying?)
Me: “kelasa madtidini” (I am working)
Co-passenger: “Yelli? Bangalura?” (where? In Bangalore?)
Me: “Houdu” (Yes)

When you say that you work in Bangalore, the next question will be
“IT?”

(These days Bangalore has become synonymous with IT. You say that you work in Bangalore and it usually means that you work for some IT company. There is a joke which is been circulated since many days…

“In Bangalore, when you throw a stone it will either fall at a dog or at a software engineer” )

The next question will be about the company. And then your co-passenger will give the most awaited response…

“Oh! Howda?? Nanna tammana hedatiya bhavana maga #### companyli iddane… monne monne US ge hoda…blah.. blah.. blah…” (Oh! My brother’s wife’s brother-in-law’s son is in #### company. He went to US… blah… blah… blah...)

Your co-passenger may then spend his/her entire journey in describing the stay in US, though he/she might have never visited. If you are lucky then he/she may shut his/her mouth.

Uncle Sam’s country has influenced Indian economy a lot. If US sneezes, India catches cold (read this some magazine.. :D). If you are in some IT company people usually think that you would some day make it to US, the land of Nirvana…

I almost forgot to mention one important thing. The train from Bangalore to my hometown is always filled with people, most of them working in IT companies returning to their home during the weekend (Like me ;)). So the conversation described above somehow does makes sense…

Hmmm… as I said earlier there are many funny moments… will write about it some other time.. I could not go home this weekend. This blog entry is the result of that..

This is all for now…

Bangalore, through the eyes of a foreigner

Recently I came across a book in the company library. The name of the book is ‘An exemplary family in Bangalore’, written by Bob Hoekstra, CEO of Philips Software Center in Bangalore. The book describes Bob’s experiences in the Garden City. A book with 62 pages and 27 chapters was successful in captivating my attention thought out the reading. The sketches in the book are rendered by Soumen Chakraborty. The title of the book immediately caught my attention. Most of the chapters are short and I wished they were longer.

The book describes Bob’s view of the Banglorean life, the change that the IT industry has brought about along, the attitude of the residents towards this change. He gives a humorous description to the day to day events which might seem normal to a resident. Some chapters in the book are indeed thought provoking.

I liked the chapter titled, ‘Ellora Caves’. Bob describes the Kailasa temple with the big software companies flourishing in Bangalore. Someone like me who works in a software company might find this chapter interesting. He writes that it would cost the software engineers around sixty billion euros to complete the Kailasa temple, with all the planning and the CMM (Capability Maturity Model) modeled software development. I am reproducing the last lines in the chapter here. The chapter ends like this...

“One can just wonder what will remain of the work of this army of software engineers, a thousand years from now. If it something like the Kailasa temple, it will get World Heritage Status.”

A must read book for every Bangalorean.

'Potpourri'

The title of this blog is 'potpourri'. While going through the process of creation of blog I had to fill in the title. I thought of giving a title in Greek or Latin or in some unknown language as most of them do. I even browsed through some of the so called Greek, Latin, French dictionary websites. Didn’t come across any word or phrase which conveyed simple and an interesting meaning.. Thought of giving the title as 'My Think pad'. But that would sound philosophical. Finally, I remembered one friend who calls me 'potpourri'. I thought that this word would suit the title.

According to a dictionary, potpourri is a mixture of dried petals and leaves from various flowers and plants that is used to give a room a pleasant smell. The other meaning of potpourri goes like this.. 'An unusual or interesting mixture of things'. Hmmm... something relevant and interesting too.. a blog which would be a collection of unrelated yet interesting thoughts/posts. That’s all for now.. Please feel free to post your comments..

First post

Hi,
Finally I got a cyber identity. I have seen many of my friends and seniors blogging. This tempted me to start a blog. Here i go............
More about me in the sections to come.. Happy reading..