Tribute to three Year Companion

This is a tribute to a companion who accompanied me for last three years. I shared my three young, struggling and memorializing years with this pal. Last year due to my unsocial behaviors my old buddy has broken up with me. however I intended patching up the things but nothing worked and whole incident created a cavity which is still unfilled. My dost was gorgeous and fully sincere to me.

In June 2007 I moved to sterling commerce and since then I did not see zero balance in my account. For an one year experience guy, it is shameful to have nonzero account so this unwanted disgrace was not admissible to me. All of a sudden I found a reason to abdicate my money. Ashish came from US and brought me my first laptop. This buy not only sucked single penny of my bank account but also dumped me to stand in queues of Ganesha Temple, next to JNC college. Ashish told me he bought a monster. Pranshu stated "Ashish got an awesome laptop".

Ashish came back to India in the last week of July but due to non-availability of frequent fliers in group I could see it after three weeks, thanks to Suri. Time I saw the laptop, I was awestruck. It was 17 inch laptop with glossy screen, sophisticated design, awesome configuration and latest in market packed with best available software. Best part of this investment was, it costed 20K less(Baniya Hun Bhai :) ). It was HP-Pavilion DV 9000 17 Inch. I was happy with such a gigantic laptops and to keep devils away I put a Kala Teeka(Black Mark) on it.

I heard critics, i.e., Felix and Psycho, analyzing the laptop and finding out pros and cons of the laptop. Their analysis was as following. It was most suitable laptop for common man's usage which was limited. Its most undesirable feature was Its weight which had brought down its portability quotient. Laptop was equipped with latest Windows Vista which was few months old in market, so was still testing phase. Did I care about critics??? You know well.

Soon my life started whirling around laptop. Movies, Songs, surfing, chatting and blah blah were few of the activities in which I had devoted myself thoroughly. My day used to start with first peek on my laptop, "Oops Abhi to bhaga nahi (Still have not run away)". My days used to end finding best place to make my laptop invisible from unwanted visitors. Days were going and my love was growing. Normal life outside laptop was shrinking with sun's movement.

One such fine days of my love, I woke up and opened the wardrobe to fetch the laptop. But I saw it jumping from four feet high wardrobe and in no time kissing the newly built floor. This kiss turned fatal to it. My laptop was not in parts but definitely internally it was shaken. Impact was not fully understood but one clear output was the 50% reduction in active screen. I continued using it but with time, similar to person's memory, my screen was decayed and it reduced to 20% of its original size. I changed it's screen but laptop was not fully repaired yet. At this time I got office laptop and ,as second wife gets more attention than first, I dumped my old and broken laptop. Though time to time I used to visit my first but its deteriorating performance used to make me switch back to new.

I planned to sell it. Searched some place where people deal with 2nd hand things. I went to first shopkeeper and asked him if he is interested in buying my awesome but unlucky laptop. He inspected and asked "Bhai miya, kitne baar kushti ki tumne laptop se? Bahut sare scratches hai is par. (How many times did you wrestle with the laptop as it has a lot of bruises?)". Hesitantly I told him "Miya ji ek baar gir gaya tha. (It dropped from hands once)". He said "To aisa karo, bagal mein kabade wala hai, use hi bech do, vese bhi tumhare wajan ke barabar ke laptop ko kab tak lekar gumoge. 200 mil jayega. (Nearby there is a scrap purchaser, sell it to him, otherwise you will feel tired with weight equal to your weight. he should atleast pay you 200 RS.)" All bastard shopkeepers told me same.

Somehow I was persuaded about buying power of 2nd hand shopkeeper. I went to scrap purchaser and asked "Bhai kharidna hai? (Do you want to buy?)". He said "Babu ji, Loha to hai nahi, mein 20 rs de sakta hun.(It is not iron, i can pay only 20 Rs.)? I said "Kya, pagal hai kya?"(What, are you mad?). He was "Saamne plastic wala hai use bech do (Plastic scrap dealer is sitting next, sell it to him)". I went there and asked same and he said "Babu ji plastic to hai nahi, but fir bhi 30 RS dunga (It is not plastic, can pay you 30)". I returned without selling it to him.

My decision of not selling it became productive. Soon I gave it to my younger and my relationship with my comrade ended. I prepared my resume, studied, seen lot of movies, heard music and chatted with lot of gals on it and it always functioned without giving any hiccups until the calamitous event brought pause in our relationship and this pause sooner extended to break up. This a tribute to my pyara laptop who is a family friend now.

Tea Breaks

In India tea breaks, with colleagues, are the part of our job. We are not paid only for working but apart from our work there are lot other factors which contribute to our compensation. Few of those factors are gossips@work place, unworthy meeting, town hall meetings to present nothing but some figures to stop people from leaving company, idiotic boring and unnecessary product trainings (To hamper the confidence of a person who is already working on same product for past 6 year) and tea breaks. There are chances to avoid few of these factors by displaying affection to your work but it is inevitable to avoid Tea-Breaks. Not that you want to invite acidic problems by sipping more and more coffee but the depth of these discussions pull you out of your seat. These breaks are funny, knowledgeable (At times you get to know about the new entrants in office. :) ), harsh, and few of these discussions are not categorized.

In general these discussions erupt based on crowd. When you are coming with colleagues including team lead or manager you got to talk about sports i.e. Cricket, Hockey, Football, CWG, you talk about cars in the market, pollution, population, crowd on the road, places to visit around Karnataka, some philosophy, some debates, pulling someone's leg, photography, driving, movies, songs, player, composer, director, festivals and many more interesting topic. Moreover these discussions keep repeating with the time and new facts keep emerging.

Oh there are times when your TL and manager do not accompany you, it is time to discuss company, its future, our compensation, manager, work, TL, plans for MBA, plans for leaving company (Though no one reveals it), HR policies and rarely general discussions. In a way these discussions are as interesting as discussing cricket in public as everyone is indulged in it from core of his heart.

Apart from these groups there is one more group, called office friend (Group where you can crib about anything to everything... Even about your desperation to have a girl friend.). These creatures have the least number of topics to discuss. For me I end up talking about table tennis, new gals employee, so called chicks, MBA college, disputes and problems within team and manager, Daaru parties and some time trying out plans to explore places around Bangalore.

All these discussions are quite exciting and ice breaking in itself. These tea breaks add lot more different flavors to the boring office life and this is the reason we Indians love them most.

Guhantra: WMS Official Party

Sterling is facing a liquidity crunch, which implies no more team parties for us with sterling money. So, burdon of arranging a party was on our recession hit pockets, which will surely burn a hole, if there is not one. In these dire conditions few enthusiastic people find reasons to impact economy more :(. Madhav is leaving and it is a tradition to arrange farewell for the parting person, so here is the reason :) :). 

After fierce and extensive discussions we booked Guhantra resort to spend out Friday evening. Guhantra ,which means inside the cave, has all the indoor activities inside the cave. Along with caves you should expect little more. You may expect few stones in Beach volleyball court, bulls-eye marked with chalks, unmanaged grass, lots of mosquitoes’, non ac dance floor, and 1KM bullock ride.

Entrance Cave

Auditorium

Guhantra entrance is one of about 100 meters long cave and which opens into a big nice auditorium. The auditorium has bar, dance floor, water fall, swimming pool filled with dirty water and food court. Besides, there are a few outdoor activities and one nice swimming pool. 

Me in Auditorium

After finishing the resort tour with our guide we started with beach volleyball. As we were all novice, so initially it was difficult to keep the ball in the court and due to enormous wide open area near the court, time spent to fetch the ball was more than time spent to play the game. With every passing minute, game matured and people started holding the ball in the court at least for 3-4 passes. After an hour drunkards became conscious of loosing time in unimportant activities (Drinking is only important activity to them) so the game halted. 

Starting days

Running to Fetch the ball

Waiting for Ball to come

Gins also ran too much to fetch the ball

Now it was time for short archery session. Here Ekesh topped the chart whereas Hari grabbed bottom position. For Hari, it took skilled advice from 3 persons and 10+ wasted shots to hit first correct shot. 

Ekesh the best in archery

Snacks included tea, pakora and philosophical discussion/gyan. After snacks, few of us marched toward pool and rest began the big daaru session. 

Pool water was clean and none other than us was there to spoil our party. From the group of 5 people 4 knew swimming. This time I was at the receiving end. Every skilled swimmer was trying to explore the fundamentals of swimming. I think though I could not learn it but I can surely write a book named "Learn swimming in 30 minutes". Having Beer in the pool was more fun. This fun session was called off for dinner session. 

Resting at Swimming pool

We reached the audi and to our astonishment there were some 20+ empty Beer bottles. I joined the party and started consuming Beer at much speed, to account for the lost time. At around 9 o'clock we started dancing on some songs. Dancing, Drinking Beer and eating Roti were the processes of one complete round and I completed such numerous rounds.

Party was due for an ending but people were not ready to leave(as if if they ever are!!). So it took some time to move people out. Finally all of us were there in respective cars.

I do not know what I told and said but believe me, I loved the feeling of getting out of senses though I do not want to repeat it as we all know precious things lose the charm if they are attained much number of time.

Finally Sterling met to its destiny

Few weeks back one colleague told me about the probability of sterling commerce's acquisition. But it was not possible for me to figure out the reason behind IBM's motto of buying and AT&T's intentions of selling. On the contrary it was my fear that ignored the facts which were strongly signaling the forthcoming unexpected changes.

Few weeks passed without any significant events. One such general day I reached office at my usual timings. There was something fishy in the environment. People were standing in groups and they were discussing something which was still unknown to me. As per the human nature my curiosity had already been reached to 100th time. I sat down, opened laptop, started outlook and read all the mails.

Oops I dint find anything unusual, Okay let me ask reason for such unexpected activities at the floor. My TL predicted the possibility of an announcement in the Sterling worldwide meeting which happens on last Friday of each month. Speculations were heating up, gossips were increasing and rumours were spreading. Though it was impossible to predict the flow of the events but to in line these events sterling pantry was filled with max possible groups.

Finally meeting started. The first shock, IBM big guns were accompanying Sterling's bosses. People were clueless and they were hushing. We all had idea and no one wanted to believe until the announcement was official. People were praying of an announcement about a business tie up with IBM.

Sooner or later dream were to be broken. Meeting started with Steven Auldts, VP Sterling commerce, who was anchoring the meeting. After his first few words, he showed the reality to the people and announced the merger (merger: Big fish eating small fish J ) of Sterling Commerce and IBM.

Oh I was Sterlite when I joined the meeting, and now I am an IBMer since I left the meeting.

Bangalore No More heaven for me

Few years back Bangalore was heaven to live. People/Friends were there to hang out with, few had more time, noon were not as hotter. Everything was just like living your dream time with your own hard earned money.

Now things have changed. Noon is exposed to more UV rays than earlier, College friends have chosen their destiny. As part to their decisions either they moved to other states or re-entered to colleges or could not find time as they need to fulfill their other important commitments.

Am I happy with this life? :(:(:(

Hmmmm, nice question :)... As we always say there are pros and cons for everything. Are there any pros? Oh surely there are, I can list few. My manager who never expected me to work 8 hours now expect me to code for 15 hours a day because I spend more time in office rather spending it at home. So chances of getting good rating has enhanced a lot. I can read more books(It rarely happened) at home. I can learn new technologies(Techie thought). I can learn some instrument(Oops no music sense), write more blogs(Poor in talks), talk to people more on phone(Oops noone calls me as well) and may be because I am not surrounded by guys anymore; I can find a partner(No good girl in my circle) for me.

Oh I never thought there can be so many advantages :( :(. I know I know I am bullying a lot but...

Oh what are the cons of the whole migrations? Hmmm, I don't find people to hang out with, people to fight with, people to argument(mostly nonsensical manner) with . I think this is what matters most to live the happy life. Now if I have to go out to shop, i have to think 10 times and but there was a time, when people used to ask and I used to deny as I had been to market twice earlier in the day. So all in all I miss a lot of things wwhich is named Bak*****.

Muththathi - 11 April 2010 - Continue

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Now no nosense, all this will make sense.

We were 8(Srikanth, Gautham, Mitalee, Soumaya, Om, 2More and me), all were ready to trek and enjoy the heat of mountain. There were 7 peaks, and we decided to hoist our flag on all the peaks. Our glucose level was very high. It was a 3 hours trip but the trip was under the surveillance of sun god,
who was producing more heat than normal. (Dude, I have one important question - How the hell does Sun god know that I am going out to trek?  Shhhh he never let me trek, I was still praying, he will prey some
other group today).

There we were, are we? All of us did not know if this is the right place?

We verified as well. Oops there we were, next to a shrine, next to a hill station and near a river (ravine or I should say dam - Place where water smells as stagnated water). As there were no clear pictures of the hill tops, no clear ways to travel up to enjoy trekking, so the verification was the continuous process. First step

toward the journey was to cross Kavery, vehicle was a circular boat and driver was a 10 year old kid. In the mid of the stream our boat was little unbalanced and we were scared. Dude what is the depth here? How many of us know swimming (For the matter of fact there were 2 swimmers only)? All those questions were remained undiscovered as it was desired and finally we were on the other side of Kavery. Oh did I
tell I helped kid to row down the boat with long hands like pole.

There were two sides to trek up and we choose one. We started horizontally to find the way to trek vertical. We walked and walked horizontally in the heat on the sand, in the treeless forest. Two were down soon. Mitalee and Soumya seated under a Banyan tree and rest of us walked to find way up. We walked one more mile and our patience also went down. Here we found only one place where stinking water of river was producing sound effects(Somewhat similar to fall). To reduce down(omit) the tiredness and heat we spent few minutes at the same location. But all was in vain. We came back under the Banyan tree. There we had snacks brought by Mitalee and while eating I figured out my hands were still recovering from the smell of stinking water.

Okay It was over, we returned to our cab and moved to Bangalore. For me it was the worst trip of my lifetime. Stinking River, unfamiliar smell, treeless forest and horizontal trekking was the achievements of
the journey. May be it was the bad timings, but I would suggest if you want to enjoy the day then stay away from Muththathi and if this does not scare you then you are worth the place like us.

Muththathi - 11 April 2010

On Apr 9th, Friday, my colleagues forced me to plan to go out. They (I am included) were exhausted with the work pressure (Hard work put up@ TT/Foosball) and heat waves (Truly hot) of Bangalore. Somewhere out??? Dude, you guys could have told me before; now I have committed my Saturday. But their thirst to go out was so unquenchable that I had to accept their proposal***.

*** Conditions apply: Trip was trimmed down to one day and we had to find place near to Bangalore.

Now time to finalize the place. We got few places which were were spread out over several categories. Few of the categories got interesting comments like this. Shrine was the place where people could have lost their Jawani ('chiiii, Bhari Jawani me sadhu nahi banna chahati mein'). One guy could have failed his history exams because of Archeological Places listed(Before each history exam I used to be in dilemma - 'Akbar Auranjeb ka baap tha yah Auranjeb Akbar ka'). Dams were short of water (Shhhh, what will we do there? Machi pakdenge pure din). Hill Station was too tiring for people who had already put extra pounds (Mera BF patla ho jayega).  Birds sanctuaries dint have charm (I do not have interest in watching chidiya bird, ohhh birds are there around - Though my company does not have many arrre bhai any...)

Anyways after whole set of comments, arguments, advices, and place promotions it was fixed. Oops here it came, the place unanimously (Dint find any good competition) selected was Muththathi (It took exactly 10 days to pronounce it correctly.). Others preparations were booking the cab (booked late Saturday night), getting the road map (Nobody had any idea) and getting something to eat (Oops thanks to Mitalee, with this act she improved her gal quotient in my eyes). Okie dokie, lots of nonsense, come to the point. Oh this blog is growing. Ok I will split it here. Arre one more click please.