To FLIPKART or NOT

Today is one such day where in, whatever book I went searching for in Jayanagar 4th block was missing. I went to Book Paradise 2 times and then to Sapna Book House 2 times.

At the end after roaming for 45 mins, between one and the other book store, I ended up sore loser, except that something interesting happened, the second time when I went to Sapna Book House.

Well, when my search for some technical books in 4th block jayanagar, at the 2 most popular book stores left me high and dry (because of unavailability) I felt like kicking myself. I was gutted that, here I am roaming in the sunlight with nothing to get. Also when I referred sapnaonline.com for the book I wanted, I could see the search returning an entry saying; there was something which was available. But when I went there they told me, the book was neither there in this branch nor any branch across Bangalore.

They told me, they had sent the book back to the publisher, since no one was purchasing the book. Then HOW COME the website search ended up with a book result. Looks like something is out of sync.

I was so angry that, I thought never I shall come in search of such books, rather get it done via FLIPKART. And believe me, to my surprise, at SAPNA book HOUSE, the second time when I went, I bumped into one guy who was carrying a bag with a FLIPKART name embedded on to it. He was depositiing his helmet over the baggage deposit counter. On close examination, I could see his FLIPKART, ID card.

So I asked him,  " are you supplying books for Sapna book house as well ( rather a pretty pretty dumb question I guess. ) "

He told me " I have a procurement list, and I am trying to get those books over here in Sapna book house. " VOILA... ( i thought it was the other way round, how dumb I am ).

Ok never mind. Now I asked him,

" I am looking for some books which are unavailable even at Sapna Book House and thought of getting it from FLIPKART, but now since you too come here, I guess, I wont get it in FLIPKART as well "

to which he replied

" We procure books from different places, if not this, someone / somwhere else "  or they might ask Sapna Book Stall to get the book from the publisher and get it delivered at our place.

But where does the word PROFIT come in this scenario. Never mind, its their business model. I have lots of things to worry about, apart from trying to figure out whose making profit over here and one thing for sure is I would think 100 times before venturing into any book stall in search of a programming book..

So now its time for FLIPKARTING..

Cheers

UPDATE:: Just did a search on flip-kart website about one of the books which I was looking for.
It was listed for Rs 699, on the catalogue of the publishers at Book Paradise (+ 15% discount given by these guys ), the same thing costs a whopping, Rs 1700 at yours truly flip-kart. [IMPORTED VERSION]. The low cost book has not LANDED in India I guess.. :D

Just called up book paradise and told them to get me a copy from the publisher. I do not want an import by any means, costing me almost 3 times the money. [Imported version you see..]

UPDATE 2:: Neither did I go to the book stall, nor ordered the same on FLIPKART. Found the same on the internet. You guys know how ( If not leave a comment ..I will tell you). Now its time to get print outs of the selected chapters at office. So all in all its a free exercise.. Cheers

New post using my brand new keyboard

This post is dedicated to my new Logitech Keyboard, praying for its longer durability. I do not want to get one in anytime soon. Also my intention of writing 100 posts for the year comes alive once again.

I know 100 is a difficult number considering we are in the middle of November, but will try to write something atleast in the meantime.

Cheers

Working in India versus Working in Singapore - Part 2 - Interaction with END USERS

This one is my favourite. I simply love LEANER AND FITTER team structures. So let me start with my abroad work experience.

While working in Singapore the team structure was very simple, I had a manager, who in turn had his manager and then there was the END USER or client who uses what we develop. I was lucky to be involved in meetings with end users several times [I learnt a lot out of it]. So now you can understand what is a leaner and fitter structure.

But over here in India its totally different.

There are so many people involved in the project that at the end of the day

1. we actually forget do we really have a client or are we developing prototypes or side projects.

2. the client gives requirement X and we end up implementing 1/X [inverse of  X] courtesy a phenomenon called CHINESE WHISPER .[rather, because of the number of stake holders, you see too many cooks spoil the broth. quote suits aptly].

There are so many people involved in one simple implementation, I would love to sum them all, like
a. program manager.
b. project manager.
c. technical manager.
d. group manager.
e. resource manager.
f.  project lead.
g. delivery manager.

I can actually see all these people involved in a small project, and mark my word, NONE AMONGST THESE ACTUALLY WRITE CODE, nor have any idea about TECHNOLOGY.

And by the way, correct me if I am wrong, these guys dont even take responsibility, if something goes wrong blame the developer and sit in a meeting room and spend the entire day doing ROOT CAUSE ANALYSIS [ yeh I guess these guys are SIX SIGMA CERTIFIED, or rather PMP] while the poor developer [scapegoat] has to debug the issue all by himself and find a solution. The RCA done by these guys is of no use because the developer fixes something and something else breaks, so the cycle continues... I mean time to do RCA again.

They just crap crap crap, all the time and spend so much of time in meeting rooms and eat up a major chunk of the project bill or funding that the poor developer will have to COMPLETE the assignment in HALF the time. Believe me when these guys sit for a meeting all by themselves, their time goes unaccounted for, not a single time, I have seen any MINUTES OF MEETING from them.

PHEW..

too much to think about whether to continue in technical line or not or whether to continue in this stream or not.

Cheers,

Working in India versus Working in Singapore - Part 1 - Time utilization

Disclaimer - I have no rights to use the word 'WE'. If anyone of you feel offended, please let me know, I shall change it to singular form.

Cheers, this is my first post about my work experience in India versus abroad. Its about time utilization.
I will try to write a few lines about how I end up spending my time while working in India while how I spent it while working in Singapore.

Well, here in India, we do enter time-sheet for say 9 hrs including 1 hr lunch, the question whether we work for so much time really has been around since I have started working (around 6 years back). I had always questioned do we end up working for 8 hrs (doing nothing personal work during this time). Well sorry to say the answer is a BIG NO NO...

Its sad to admit, we do all sorts of CRAPOLA in the allotted time.

Here is a list of things that stops  us from putting 8 hours flat out towards work.

1. Travelling to office is more like a pain in the ass.
     How can you expect us to start working as soon as we reach office, when we have spent so much of time traveling, people tend to relax for a while after reaching office, so there goes some time out of your hours work. [ Not all people travel long distances to work, but there are people who travel long distances and one among them is me.]

Working abroad - Will update shortly..

2. Reaching office late due to traffic -
        Well all of them if not everyday, someday atleast would encounter some traffic snarls while coming to office. I do encounter it everyday, even though its 7 30 am in the morning. This in turn upsets our mood at workplace and it takes time to set it right. So there goes some time out of your 8 hours.

Working abroad - Will update shortly..

3. Making weekend plans.
       Weekend starts on Friday evening But unfortunately whilst working in India, I have always felt, we start planning for weekend on Thursday only. Hence you can take for granted that some Fridays of the year are rest assured an UTTER WASTE. ZERO productivity. We end up wasting Thursday as well.

Working abroad - Well, while working abroad I would have been engrossed so much work that, there is no time to even think of weekend. I enjoyed work so much that, weekend takes a back seat. So there is less chances of taking time out to plan for a weekend .

4. Coffee breaks.
     Coffee breaks are the so called reasons to bond with your team members. But unfortunately we end up not only bonding with team mates talking about work related issues we are facing, but also end up talking so much about personal stuffs that we lose a pretty huge amount of time.

   While working in Singapore, I tried so many times to take a longer break, but honestly speaking everytime I failed, either due to
1. lack of friends.
2. loads of deliverables.
3. miscellaneous reasons.

I ended up with coffee breaks less than 10 minutes. So losing out on time due to coffee breaks was the last on the list while working abroad.

5. Meetings.
       One more brilliant way to waste productive time in a LEGAL way, no one can question you about the meeting, nor ANYONE has the GUTS to ask MINUTES OF MEETING. So anyone and everyone is free to attend a meeting or jump into a meeting room to do some discussion to pass time, knowing very well that there wont be any OUTCOME of this meeting.

While working abroad, I did work as a consultant and by the way meetings were so hard to come by, All interactions were work related and result oriented, there is no question of BEATING AROUND THE BUSH, trying to waste time as we end up doing here.
 

Cheers,

Working in India versus Working in Singapore - Introductory Part

Disclaimer - All the content in this post are out my personal experience. I had the privilege of working in Singapore for a while, which I absolutely loved, hence I am trying to jot down my experiences about working in India and working in Singapore or abroad for that matter.  Any resemblance to any characters or for that matter anything is merely coincidental. I am not trying to bring any sort of dispute between the two forms of things which I am comparing over here, its just my personal opinion. 

Here's me finding some time to write again. I wanted to write a series of posts on my work related thing, comparing what I did in India versus what I did in Singapore in a post or like a table comparing the both in an excel sheet.

But I do not know how to infuse an excel sheet into a blog post (nor want to edit HTML code trying to insert a table via HTML), hence thought of writing it as a series of points. Then I felt I can do this by writing it as a series of posts. Well, I do not know if I can write 100 posts for this year, but sure will try considering another couple of months left.

I wanted to write these posts while I was watching the movie Buddha Hoga Tera Baap, but unfortunately was engrossed in the movie so much that, could not write anything for 2 hours. Now that the movie is finished I can write my introductory post.

Post #1 - Time utilization while working in India versus overseas.


Cheers,

Not writing much these days.. why?

these days I am not writing much. The reasons are a plenty.

First excuse being, The PC where I hook up to the internet has its shift keys disfunctional. This means I cannot type in Capital letters. [ So where am I typing this from ?]. As a result, everytime I have to use my laptop. Considering the fact that I do not have a wireless router, you can imagine the pain of connecting the modem here and there again and again.

Secondly I am not finding much time to write. I do travel a lot during weekdays for work and weekends I do a lot of time pass.

Thirdly, I need to write a lot of posts which indirectly somehow is slowing me down. everytime I think of writing something or about some topic, another topic starts bothering me and I end up not writing anything.

I need to jot down all the posts which I am planning to write and then start to blog again before I lose track of them forever.

Cheers,

Back from a 1050 kms long drive

It has been a good month and a half for me now. I am able to do few things which I have always loved to do. Travel is one of them. At workfront, I have been able to code some complicated or not so easy stuffs which have really won some favor for me, considering the fact that I work as a consultant at an organization and not as a full time employee.

Regarding my travel, I made a recent trip to Hubli Dharwad and above all Yellamagudda, the temple of Lord Yellamma, our house Goddess. Then I visited the village where my mother grew up and stayed for 15 years. Also saw the ancient home where my mother grew up. All in all it was a fun experience coupled with a drive for about 1050 kms, first of its kind since I have owned my car.

I would like to thank God for making it happen. Apart from this, I also made short trips to Melkote, Ramanagaram, Big banyan tree. So a productive month for me both in professional and personal terms.

Cheers,

Bloody AIRTEL and their bloody cheap GIMMICK...

Disclaimer - Sometimes in life, when I get cheated, or ditched or left out, this is the place where I vent my frustration out.. Please bear with me..

Till this day I thought airtel was a good service provider. But they suck, suck big time. My mother uses an airtel prepaid connection. For the last 3 months AIRTEL has been deducting Rs 2 every day, without sending any notice or information for a so called cheap gimmick called DEVOTIONAL PACK, which has got activated. I am 200 percent sure, its not activated by my mother who uses this phone, since she does not even know how to send an SMS.

Finally after 3 months of Rs 2 deduction, we realized something was wrong. And when we called airtel for help, they said, we have been sending you SMS everyday and we have an update at our end. BLOODY AIRTEL AND BLOODY UR SERVICE..

Feels like cheated to the core.. cheated of Rs 100 plus of HARD EARNED MONEY by the bloody airtel.

cheers, such is life.

What happens if you fight with your manager at work...

Disclaimer - All the events mentioned in this post are related to my life. There is nothing fictious about the below occurings.

Well, sometimes in your life, you end up encountering the repercussions of the wrong doings of your past life. One such thing which I did wrong was having a altercation with manager at work. This was in the year 2006 and it was nothing serious. It was just disagreeing on a particular point of view.

Somewhere on a blog post, I read that politics in software means going by personal view overriding the technical view. Something of this sorts had happened in the year 2006. I vaguely remember it, since its almost 5 years.
That was point #1.

And at the time of quitting the company, I had an altercation with an administrative guy with related to transport. The company cab used to go close to my house, but I was made to walk 1.5 kms because the company refused to stop the vehicle at a point close to my house. (how ridiculous). I made this whole thing big and then it just took off as the prime reason for quitting the company.
This was point #2.

And now 4 years quitting that company, I have moved on with life. Infact the manager has also moved to a different company altogether. One of my friend now works in the same company as him and infact when I was about to come back from Singapore, he told me about the opening in his company for a developer.

I thought this was a golden opportunity to work with some like minded people. And by the way I had not a single clue that this manager had these opinions about me. Well infact the altercation I had was with a person who used to report to this particular manager ( who currently works in the company I am trying to apply ).

But look at my bad luck, when I sent my resume to my friend, he immediately forwarded it to this particular person after which I did not get a response at all. My friend kept on asking me how is your bonding with this particular manager, have you done something wrong? Why aren't you being approached ? Finally it took a month for me to come to the conclusion that, it was because of the altercation and the transport related thing because of which I am not getting a call for the opening in that company.

Now in that one month, I had moved on to join a new organization, but now I got a call from the same company for a different project altogether a different manager, and this particular manager was not even aware that I would be attending the interview. The technical rounds happened and I cleared them, but the next round is still pending, and would be taken by this manager. Its already 2 weeks since I attended the technical rounds, so I guess, I have been ditched (alas will update this post if I get a call ).

And let me tell you about the second place where it has had a serious repercussion. When I was jobless for a month or so during July 2011, I had gone to one of my ex employer for interview again for a job. This company was the same as the one where I had the altercation. I cleared the interview and even filled the application form with major details. But look at my bad luck, I was ditched. Then I realized why. In one of the places in the application I had mentioned that I was the ex- employee of the organization and had given out my previous employee id.


According to my guess, what really has happened is that, when I quit the company in 2008, this manager with whom I had an altercation and this guy who works for a company where currently I am interviewing, would have written something rudely about me whether I could be hired again or not. So as a result, I was ditched.

Honestly I have no intentions of working for my ex employer (considering how much third grade interview process happened over there) nor crossing roads with this manager. But I wanted to work with  my friend and thats it.

Let me tell you about the interview process that happened at my ex-employer. I had one round of telephonic interview with some bare basic questions. When I went to the face to face interview they asked me the same set of questions. I wondered why, when I asked them, they told me, we are trying to confirm whether you are the person who took the telephonic interview or was it someone else. (Jee what an assumption).

Cheers,

Gandhi Jayanthi today

Today is october 2nd, the birth day of the Father of our Nation, Mahatma Gandhi. All through my school days, I kept on reading about the life of Mahatma Gandhi, in various subjects ranging from Social Science, to English, Kannada. I was always wondering, why do we have a chapter about Mahatma Gandhi, every year in one or the other subjects. Honestly speaking, I never got an answer for that question till 2007, when I happened to watch Lage Raho Munna Bhai.

After which I felt why did we have only one lesson every year about Mahatma Gandhi, why did we not study more about him. Yep, I am very happy and proud to say that Mahatma Gandhi was from India. What he has done to our nation is just beyond one or two chapters of study.

Happy Gandhi Jayanthi, Wish his legacy lives forever in the hearts of people.

Cheers,

Bigg boss new season

In the year 2009, I enjoyed watching Bigg boss, in the year 2010, I used to watch bigg boss on youtube for few days, after which just lost interest because of the loud shouting, foul mouthing etc etc. But the main reason being reports of the show being scripted etc etc.

Not sure how much holds good or is relevant, but never mind, this year there is one more edition of Bigg boss, with a whole new set of contestants.

This time too, I guess I will watch the initial few episodes and later just stop. Hopefully there would be no foul mouthing as the last time.

Cheers,

How a late 500K ( VOLVO ) resulted in me a new getting a VC++ book

Its embarrassing if I post how much time do I end up spending travelling in VOLVO bus all the way from ITPL to Banshankari, yesterday was no different, infact it was just horrible, torture sitting in a slow moving bus.

Its been almost 2 weeks that I started travelling from ITPL in a 500 series volvo  bus. All these days, I had avoided boarding the 500K ITPL - Vijaynagar bus due to some strange reason. The strange reason being, my instinct told me not to. Instead I used to wait for the next 500C. But yesterday somehow overrid my instinct and got inside this 500K and believe me, it was the torture of a lifetime.

Left ITPL around 5 10 pm and took 6 45 pm to reach SilkBoard. Lots of other 500 series bus came from behind and overtook this bus and in no time disappeared. But this particular driver had other plans, I guess he either wanted to make this trip his last trip for the day or I guess he just did not want to go home.

Finally after 1 hour 45 minutes of unbearable torture of sitting in a slow moving vehicle, I felt thoroughly embarrassed and wanted to avenge my anger by doing something useful.. cant say productive though. So I got down at East end and came over to 4th block Jayanagar to the Book paradise for buying some new book.

The book I wanted to buy was Architecting enterprise applications using .NET, and believe me it was not in stores even after doing rounds to the store for 3 weeks. So finally another book caught my eye, Beginning VC++ 2010. I was in two minds whether to buy or not. But my love for VC++ is so strong that even though I have never professionally programmed with it, wanted to buy it just for the sake of learning it.

So here I am, after 6 years of professionally using CSHARP, I start to read a VC++ book, a humble beginning, I would love to learn how to use the windows API once I learn the language. And then would move towards learning COM, yeah, it was there on my wishlist for the year 2011.

I guess I avenged my anger for being so so late in a different way.

Cheers,

Old monitor back from repair

Started today with a good note. Today was the day, I was about to bring my old monitor from the repair shop. The poor thing had ceased working almost 1.5 years ago. Since I was away from India, there was no chance that it would end up at the repair shop.

Now that I discovered a service shop near my house, I gave it to repair last week, and after Rs 650 worth of repair, I was looking for restart using my old pc. No sooner did I get my monitor, I plugged it in with the old CPU to make sure everything was al-right, but this time, there was an issue with the CPU, something had gone wrong, I was trying to boot it after 1.5 years and boy it refused to boot.

I had plans of starting to blog with this happy post, but looks like all is not well with my old PC. The same PC through which I saw my engineering days pass by.  But nothing is predictable. Now I have to decide how to proceed with the old PC.

But on a positive note, I started to read VC++. I shall put it in another post, I remember my intention to write 100 posts for this year too.

Cheers

To be posted sooon...

I have few topics about which I am gonna write soon.

So here 's setting a reminder for the same.

--- games what managers' play
--- an article in a popular newspaper about something which I have an opinion about.
--- how I fell in love with TINTIN all over again, while I was in Singapore.


cheers,

Why is it so???

I still am not able to come to terms with my rejections happening in the last few interviews. I am getting rejected because of so many reasons. I need to up my basics, technical skills, etc etc in the coming year, else I will end up doing people management only. [Need to write a broad post outlining the reasons for my rejections in the interviews which I am still not sure.]

Recently I came to know that, a top notch guy of an IT company had quit his job and opened his own organization. I thought finally someone had taken the guts to go SOLO technical. When I came to know about the reality, it was not surprising.

The top notch IT guy had opened a consultancy company on his own. He never ventured into going into technical, writing his own product from ground up, selling it to someone, marketing etc etc. This GEEKS versus SUITS battle is a historic one.

I guess in India the SUITS win handsomely. All you need is to have a bunch of software engineers under your payroll and send them to various clients as and when required. The risk is less.

Where as writing something from ground up, breaking lots of head on technical stuff, covering all requirements, making it work over a period of few years and then again marketing the same, is nothing but burning your own hand, and that too the outcome is still unsure.

So in India, I can expect only such kind of companies, but if its other countries, I sincerely hope we can find people who have the guts, capability to develop software solutions on their own, and sell it on their own too.

Not sure, when there shall be a turn around of things, where in we can find people in India, venturing into something on their own, TECHNICALLY, and not just sending people here and there just to get money over their billing amount [per hour].

Anyways, its up to individuals, and yes congrats to this gentleman who has opened his own manpower organization, atleast, he has the guts to do so, I can only afford to mention it on my blog, but not emulate the same.

Cheers,
Sandeep

Back in India.. lots of things to write

Its almost a month since I came back to bangalore. I have loads of things to write, but till now held it back, because I wanted to start writing with my visit to Goddess Mahalaxmi temple at Goravanahalli. Unfortunately I havent been able to visit this temple during the last one month.

And I believe its the same reason why I have not landed up with a good offer. I have loads of things to write about my interviews over the last one month, why I lost 3-4 interviews in the managerial round, just because of the CATTLE CLASS attitude, etc etc. Yup hopefully I get to visit the temple pretty soon and join a new workplace.

Till then,
Cheers,

Change is easy.. Yes.. All you need is a few interesting encounters !

Disclaimer - All the content in this post are based out of my personal experiences. If I have quoted something wrong in my post, please let me know, I am very much ready to correct them or remove this post.

As I write this post, I am listening to the song "River of dreams" by Billy Joel. The topic I am trying to write about is called as " Change is easy .. how gadgets are a reflection of your personality ".

Honestly speaking, I am only interested in the first part of the phrase "Change is easy". Well how gadgets are a reflection of your personality. I shall reserve it for sometime later in the post.

So let me tell you something about myself. I am Sandeep, born and raised in Bangalore, lived 26 years of my life in Bangalore, before relocating to Singapore a year back. All these years I have spoken either English, Hindi or Kannada. I never made a sincere effort to learn any of the languages of the neighboring states namely TamilNadu or Kerala. I do not know why, but I guess its a mistake I made.

When I relocated to Singapore a year back, I saw Tamil was one of the languages widely spoken over here. Immediately I realized my mistake of not learning Tamil whilst I was in India. At least I should have been fluent in speaking Tamil (my bad). I asked few people over here, who had relocated few years earlier than me, whether they knew Tamil. (They were not from TamilNadu though).

They immediately replied, English se kaam chal jayega, uski koi zaroorat naheen ( You can get most things done knowing English no need to learn Tamil). It made my whole idea of learning Tamil a little more tentative. So I completed 8 months in Singapore without even learning a Tamil word.

Then in the month of April my parents came to Singapore. I intended to show them a few places in Singapore and travel along with them to Malaysia for 7-9 days. I went to Langkawi and then to Kuala Lumpur.

Actually few people who had visited Kuala Lumpur before (from India) told me, there is a problem of availability of food over there (esp Indian veg food which I later found out to be utter rubbish). My parents and me are vegetarians so we took  bread and jam to KL, hoping to consume them in case of any difficulty in finding veg food.

But to be honest, I ended up at restaurants serving Indian food and people in these restaurants spoke Tamil. Though I could converse with them in English, I realized what a blunder I committed by not learning Tamil. I am not telling its an absolute mandate to learn Tamil to converse with them, but I am telling out of sheer respect for the language Tamil and for the people of TamilNadu who have set up shops in KL (far far away from home) who embrace every customer (esp Indians) with a warm smile without thinking about which state he is from.

How do you feel when you have climbed up a lot of stairs to reach the Lord Murugan temple at Batu Caves and an equal amount of effort to come down and finally end up at a restaurant where you eat the same rice and sambar on banana leaf with your bare hands, the same way you used to eat a 1000 miles away in India.

How do you feel when you are roaming around the streets of Little India in Kuala Lumpur with no clues on where to go, searching for veg Indian food, in the hot scorching sun, sweating down your spine, just to end up at another Saravana Bhavan restaurant over there.

Belive me its bliss, its like home away from home. My respect for Tamil, for the people of Tamil Nadu just grew exponentially and my hatred towards myself for NOT LEARNING Tamil just doubled.

And at every restaurant the people serving food asked us where we are from. When we said from Bangalore they politely replied back (with a smile of course) saying I am from Trichy, Chennai, Salem etc etc.

Where ever in the world we stand as Indians first.

So I thought, though it was late in the year 2011, to make a resolution, I have decided to make a sincere effort to learn to speak Tamil in this year.

Yep CHANGE IS REALLY EASY. My ignorance to the resolution I made above, is the change in me. And its really very easy. Just took a few encounters with few interesting people to remind me that Change is really easy.

My increased respect for neighboring states other languages, people , culture of India is the Change in me. ( I always had the respect, it just increased exponentially )

So now lets come to the gadgets part of the post.

Honestly I am not interested in being a contender for the Dell laptop. I only wanted to share my story to a bigger audience via this contest. If people who have read the post till this point and felt a pinch increase in their love for their neighborhood states/people/language, then I would be the most happiest person. ( Is that a change in them ? If yes then, change is really easy, nothing else to prove. )

And let me tell you about the gadgets I took during my trip to KualaLumpur.

I only used my laptop to book my flight tickets to KL and a camera to take some pictures. Rest throughout my stay in KL I ended up asking people for all the instructions, I did not have any GPS to navigate me nor any compass to tell me which direction I was headed to. And I was not alone, I was with my parents. I roamed around many a street in KL without actually knowing any direction and ended up either travelling by taxi or MRT or by bus back to the hotel and in the process meeting few interesting people (few of them who spoke Tamil of course).

So life is kind a fun WITHOUT all those gadgets. And yes, I do not have a smart phone, I still have a phone which cannot play mp3 nor am I able to browse. I have a prepaid connection luckily which was able to recieve incoming calls from Bangalore while I was in KL.

Believe me in the absence of any device which lets me listen to mp3 I end up humming the song "Ode to my family by The Cranberries " or " Soldier of love / Sha la la la by The Beatles " most of the times and yes, its fun.

May be with those gadgets, I could have saved time or found out about few more streets or roads which were or rather are obscure to me. Well next time !


This entry is explicitly for the Change is easy contest on the Indiblogger the winner of which takes away this super cool laptop, details of which can be found over here


http://bitly.com/inspiron

Cheers, Sandeep

PS:: You may be wondering, If I am not interested in contending for the Dell Laptop why have I posted the Dell Inspiron URL at the end of my post. Its because, I am scared that my entry will be thrown out of the site for Non Compliance. I do not want that to happen. So complying.

PPS:: Why Billy Joel - River of dreams, Well  I was about to go to bed, when all of a sudden got this thought of writing this entry for change is easy. So the song sounded apt to listen to while I write this.

There may be spoon, fork, chop sticks to eat food. But nothing comes close to eating with bare hand. Similarly nothing comes close to roaming around empty handed without any gadgetry. There is unmatched fun, because you start somewhere, end up somewhere. Having gadgets makes such encounters predictable and uninteresting. You end up knowing there is a restaurant at this location, but sweating it out, in an unknown place, for a veg mid day meal seems to much of fun (to me atleast). Gadgets will come and gadgets will go, but there will be always a special place for minimalism.

I also see a flip side. Over here I see people carrying lots of gadgets, but I dont see them going anywhere, I mean I assume they spend fair amount of time within city limits with the gadgets [you can classify them as my colleagues at workplace], but I also do get to see backpackers, who still carry a printed map asking people trying to find out where is the nearest backpackers' inn.. Aint this funny ? Why do these backpackers do not carry gadgets with them.?  Like a navigation system which gives out street view etc etc, and does a laptop fit in within a backpack? I really do not have an answer for that and I do not want to risk my laptop by putting it into my backpack.

My sincere apologies, If this post seems irrelevant, given the current context.I do not mind if my post gets disqualified or thrown out, I never intended to be in the race in the first place :)

Back again

I guess I have taken too much break from blogging in the last one year. I have had lots of interesting events in the past one year. But I tend to get so much worked out at the end of the day that, I generally feel too lazy to post something over here.

But that is not the case today. Being a saturday, I am in a cheerful mood today. loads of things to be done for the day. Past couple of weeks, I have been to office to finish off some pending work. Today I have refrained myself, as I am in no mood to do any activity which needs me to think.

Just lazying around here and there, playing a game on my laptop, are couple of thoughts. Apart from that, I am looking for a 100L backpack for  my future trips. Its very sad, that I am not able to find one, which suits me , here in Singapore, saw them at a couple of places, but the backpack seems to be pretty ordinary, small etc. They quote it as 75 L + 10, 85 + 10, but I doubt it comes anywhere near to that, after all it looked so so small. :)

Never mind, loads of things to write about, will write about it shortly.

Cheers for now.

Time to write something

After a quite some time, I am back to writing. Its been a while. But yes, I am doing good. Time is ticking.

Another 15 more days and then I shall _________[CENSORED]_____________
 The whole thing is scaring me off. But never mind, I wont look back this time.

As I write this post, I would like to mention that, it has been a great month for me. My parent came to Singapore, I could see few places in Singapore and had been to Malaysia 2 times within a span of 6 days :)

Its been awesome last 2 weeks, doing loads of coding and coding. Infact I am enjoying it. I worked for 2 whole weeks including saturday sunday and guess what, I have been putting 15 hour day, during weekdays. Yes. It sounds funny, but its true. I go to office at 7 am in the morning and leave by 11pm.

Because of the good transport system, I am able to do this. But yes, my body is taking a beating for sleeping for so less number of hours. But at the same time, I am excited because I am getting to punch in so many lines of code. So let me see how things go

Cheers,

Blog address back to original one

After holidaying close to two weeks, I have decided to change my blog address to the original one. So here it goes.

It has been a great last 2 weeks for me. especially considering the travel I have undertaken, roaming around in a foreign country with little or no help. I had been firstly to Langkawi and then to KL. Frankly speaking I am in no mood to write a travelogue of my travel. But yes just to remind myself, I shall post something over here.

Feels so good to be back to my normal routine.

Cheers,
Sandeep

Changing my blog address

Well, I have to forcibly change my blog address for sometime. I have applied for two weeks leave at office. Since I open my blog from my workplace sometimes, the address has got stored in the browser history.

So today thought of deleting the details from IE at office, but unfortunately the clear history button is disabled.

Since I will be surrendering my password as well, I can expect someone to open up my IE and check history. So in order to safeguard myself for another 2 months, I have left with no other option but to change my address.

Here it goes.

Cheers,
Sandeep

PS:: I should not open this blog from office henceforth

Setting up a feed reader

Its been a couple plus years, I have found reading blogs very interesting. On a boring day at work, I get pepped up by reading few blogs. In the year 2009, I had a healthy collection of blogs (mostly technical related). But the organization I was working at that moment in time, put a full stop to usage of freewares and that is how I stopped using one of the super cool utilities I have ever downloaded " The Sharpreader ".

However, I exported my subscriptions in the form of an OPML file, which I have even today, but sadly the same enthusiasm to read the same technical blogs had gone down since I stopped using Sharpreader.

Then when I moved on to a new organization in 2010, I started to use Google reader after importing my subscriptions. But in the year 2010, the travel bug had bitten me and I started reading loads and loads of travelogues. So apart from the usual blog subscriptions imported from my OPML file, I started to add more and more travel related blogs.

In the month of june 2010, I had to part ways with the travel bug which had bitten me. I moved to Singapore. And when I joined an organization over here, I was stopped from even opening Google reader at workplace. I have no regrets, not reading blogs via google reader. Even though I was reading few entries from home, I still was lacking the same zeal which I had a year back.

These days I read lots of inspirational blogs


Was reading one of them, which said, jump ahead and set up a feed reader. I thought for a moment, well, why not do some research on readers apart from google reader or sharpreader and set it up for a third time.

This is how this post popped up into my mind. Let me see which reader I choose.

Cheers
Sandeep

How do I give a title to this post...... Different encounters

While cruising through life, you meet up strangers, some of them you get to know better, some of them you tend to keep in contact, some of them become your close friends, some of them whom you end up respecting a lot, etc etc.

This post is dedicated to one such different encounter. This event dates back to somewhere in the early months of 2010, may be April or May 2010.

While working in this company in ITPL, I had a small gang of friends. It was one such special 4 member gang. It was the first and probably the last one as well, and ideally the best. Because we were 4 guys, all of whom were from Bangalore and all of them born in the year 1983. We had bonded together well.

Now, let me tell you about this encounter. It was a hot day in Bangalore. I had just finished my lunch and was feeling very thirsty. So thought of having something to drink. We were as such not interested in having any fruit juices nor any other colas which were available within ITPL. so thought of going out and having tender coconut water.

So we located a lady selling tender coconut water exactly opposite to ITPL. So this friend of mine, with whom I usually used to have lunch went to that lady and said..

" Yeradu yelneeru kodakka " .

I was surprised. I did not expect this from him.

Well the above line in quotes is in Kannada and it translates into English as

" Give me two tender coconuts sister ".

Now are you too surprised ? Did you expect such a thing coming if you were in my place.

How would you approach that lady ? Tell me tell me. Would you straight away go and call her sister ?

After this particular incident, the respect I had for my friend just got doubled. The reason why I got surprised it because, its very difficult to find such people. His respect for dignity of labor was eminent. Given a chance I too would go that way. Why not.

Cheers,

Looking forward to June 2011, new additions

In one of my previous blog entries, I had written about why I was looking to June 2011.

I also have a few crazy ideas on how to spend my time especially weekends in Bangalore. But as the day is getting nearer and nearer, its not that, the crazy ideas which I have are losing steam, but I am getting to know more and more things, which would make me happy or which I absolutely love to do.

As of today I have these two fresh new ideas on how to spend weekend or my precious time.

Firstly I would love to take up cycling. Not solely for the purpose of getting back in shape. But I stay 4-5 kms away from Kengeri, I can cycle my way to various places in its vicinity. Also I would love to go to Nelamangala to my cousin 's place via cycle. I would love to go through the toll road which would cut short my distance as well as traffic. So how would it be me cycling on a saturday afternoon to Nelamangala to reach cousin's place and spend the Saturday roaming around Nelamangala, and Sunday come back home sometime in the evening. Also I would like to cycle along the road which leads to Magadi from the Big banyan tree. I know its kind of weird covering so much kilometers by cycle, but yea, I guess practice makes a man perfect.

Secondly I would like to start out a new blog with only portraits of stranger or interesting strangers. Its inspired by a website 100strangers.com.

So let me see how it goes. I shall keep on adding to these entries. Meanwhile I have to update my older post as well. I had promised myself that I would keep that one too updated.

Cheers,
Sandeep

One such week day

Today has been one such day, nothing much special, but just wanted to write about an incident which happened today.

I have been working in the IT industry for close to 6 years and all these years I have seen lots of code. Coding, debugging is nothing new to me. Today, something different happened.

I was interacting with this so called person at office, suddenly I was on the look out for a piece of code, which I had written sometime back. I did not remember exactly where the code was, I mean which file. So I started doing a generic search based on keyword. Then I managed to locate the code.

After a while when I was having coffee with this colleague of mine, I told him, sometimes, I end up forgetting things, where exactly I have coded certain things. He listened to me patiently and replied :

" If you dont remember where the things are, where the code is, what the flow is, your experience is ZERO, knowing API's and answering technical questions is of no use "

This is what, he precisely said.

Frankly speaking, at that very moment I felt embarrassed, very very embarrassed. All kinds of thoughts were running in my mind, as to how to prove, what he said and what he thought about me was absolutely wrong.

But yes, I did not, I simply kept quiet. I just cannot describe how I felt at that particular minute.

I decided, I have nothing to prove to anyone. If someone tells me even after working for 6 years, my experience is as good as ZERO, I absolutely have nothing to lose.

I will play my game, and enough of listening to this so called SOCIETY or JUNTA. Why should I react if someone tells me something...

This is how I feel at this very moment. Reading tons of inspirational blogs got the better out of me today.

And if your wondering, I am waiting for a day to prove my worth to that colleague of mine, your are absolutely wrong.

So till then Cheers,
Sandeep

PS:: I wanted to write this whole episode as a poem. Unfortunately I do not have that much poetic skill set.
Sometimes, i regret not having studied literature or something which would have enhanced my writing ability. I regret it badly, very badly...

Places to visit in 2011

The more I think of coming back to India, the more I get excited. Tons of things run through my mind, and I end up thinking on for hours and hours as to WHAT ALL to do when I come back to India. Though I have listed few things which I would love to do when I come back to India, in my previous posts, I would specifically like to have a list of all the places to visit once I am in India. So here it goes, its huge list and yes, I would love to visit each and every one of them.

1. Goravanahalli Mahalaxmi temple.
2. Channapatna Toy factory.
3. Maidanahalli black buck reserve and surrounding areas.
4. Shravanabelagola.
5. Chickmaglur, Koppa, Kalasa, Hornadu, Sringeri, Agumbe, Kudremukh, Kollur Mookambika temple
6. Udupi, Mangalore.
7. Gokarna, Karwar, Yana, Sirsi Marikamba temple, Murudeshwara temple.
8. Coorg and surrounding places including Tibetian monestary.
9. Ooty, Kodaikanal, Yercaud.
10. Kanyakumari, Rameshwaram.
12. Shimoga, Sagar, Theerhahalli.
13. Wayanad, Thrissur, Guruvayur, Munnar.
14. Kannur, Bekal fort.
15. Allepy, Cochin, Thekkady.
16. Mysore, SriRangapatna, Somanathapura.
17. Hubli, Dharwad, Belgaum, YellamanaGudda, Gokak

and will update the list with few more.

Cheers,

Change in attitude....Part 2

The change in attitude seems to be working.... Yes, today, I started reading from home and I was feeling sleepy at home, so guess what I did. I ended up at office on Saturday, read about whole lot of things, wrote some good code. While coming back from office, went to the library and got a book to read. Ahhh.. Not sure if I would have done the same, if I had not figured all about this so called attitude.

Cheers,
Sandeep

Change in attitude....

Not sure why I am writing this post.. By the way, I have no idea why do I write every time. Just to quench that inner thirst I write. Moreover some days end up being so so memorable, either because of some happenings or some thoughts which run through my mind, that I feel desperately to make an attempt to write about them in this blog.

Today is one such day. Some things are really really happening. And yes, it in turn is making me happy. I am happy to say that time is ticking very very fast. This week is one such week, where I not only did I learn some stuffs, but also started applying them.

One such thing is a change in attitude. I know it sounds ridiculous. But yes its true, may be it took close to 6 years of work experience ( including 1 year out of India experience) for me to learn how to change my attitude towards a particular thing.

All these years since I started working, when ever an issue comes up, I was always wondering,
1." what the f^& is this, how much ever we do, we still end up short of target ?? "
2." f%^cking issues will suck the blood out of us.

Somehow, though I love to code, sometimes, I still ended up being unhappy, because of these issues or because of some other reasons, like unawareness or unpreparedness for a new technology.

So I always, (mind you) always ended up cribbing. Sorry to admit this, but its true, I crib a lot. In the last few posts, you can find my cribbology / cribpost. But this week was considerably different. Considering the fact that, I have a clear cut goal of what I need to do, I am a lot more happier and seriously it shows. My goals for the first half of the year 2011 are pretty pretty much clear.

Since I am kind of contented with my decision, happy about my goals for the second half of the year 2011, I am doing things with lot more passion. Or you can put it like, I am happy at workplace.

Its been almost 3 weeks, I am sleeping too much everyday, and I do not regret it. For the first 7 months over here, I used to sleep late, get up early, and there were 4 - 5 occasions when I could not sleep whole night. I would be awake till 4am trying to catch some sleep, then doze off till 7am, get ready and leave to office. But now I sleep around 11pm and wake up at 8am. It does help an extra hour of sleep.

And regarding the change of attitude I learnt about this week, yes, here it goes. As I previously mentioned, whenever any issue used to crop up, I used to end up cribbing about something or the other.

So this week was full of issues, one or the other especially relating to code. Since I was a lot more happier these days, I suddenly gave a thought, instead of issues coming to me, I would rather run towards issues. Though I did not end up running from desk to desk asking my team members for issues, I thought let me put up a brave face to all these issues instead of just saying " Not again "... I did it. ( I mean it).

Frankly speaking, it worked, I do not know how to put it, but at this moment in time, if I want to tell you something, it that, after all these years, I have finally managed to change my attitude towards issues, problems, new technology, or whatever,.

And instantaneously I feel the enthusiasm to learn lots of new things, solve few more issues, read about new technology and apply to solve existing problems. You wont believe when I say, I am so excited, I feel like throwing away all the code I have written and then re-write everything from scratch. ( though I cannot do that, because it has undergone so many cycles of testing.. lol ). But yes, I am happy. Its late than later.

This is what a change in attitude can bring. I am sad to say that, it took me so much of time to actually put it into practice at workplace or wherever... All I can say is reading a lot and lot of inspirational blogs off late has really really, brought about a change in me. We actually need to apply it. There is whole lot difference between reading and applying... I feel all these years, I was actually reading and reading about them, but never applied to this extent. Yes, applying is a whole lot different than reading...I wish I realize sooner about loads of other things as well..

Cheers,
Sandeep

PS:: Long post, but I do not intend to confuse anyone
I should have written this post yesterday but never mind, better late then later.

 Yesterday, was trying to make a build out of a huge huge code base, with lots of unknown stuffs. Failed miserably a couple of times, got latest code from source control, tried to build and failed again. Tried to copy the working folder from friends machine, still could not copy due to some error. In the end had to make another attempt to get the code from the source control ask for a bit of help from my friend, then reading carefully each and every line of error message, trying to figure out what went wrong, I could find out the missing files, download them separately. With an hour extra at office, I could figure out what went wrong and finally got the build up and running before I left for the day. And yes, it all happened because of a change in attitude. If not, I would have either waited for monday to ask for seniors for help or would have gone for the shortcut, ie copying the whole code from friend's machine. But this exercise was fun. It really opened me up..

Cheers once again

Memories

Here I have another article on Memories.....

Recently one of my cousin had shared a link on his facebook account. It was none other than 90's song.

The song was "Kal college bandh ho jayega main ... " from the movie Jaan Tere Naam.  This song really brought back loads of memories.. Incidentally, I happened to press the like button on my cousin's facebook entry and also commented saying brought back loads of memories, 90's.

I had no clues that I would be writing this particular entry, but thanks to my dear friend, who reminded me. When I pressed the like button on my cousin's entry, my friend could see it on his page. So when I met him yesterday, he asked, what this memories was all about. So I had to tell him the whole story. And that is what I am going to do now.

It sounds weird, but frankly speaking, I get more happiness and more out of life by doing weird things.

The story goes back to early 90's may be 1993 to 1996 to be precise. I was a kid of 10 years, I had a bunch of friends namely N, N's sister and one more person V. So during the evenings when N's mother used to go out for work, we friends including my brother would gather at N's place and place hide and seek.

So you might be wondering what has this song got to do with playing hide and seek. Yes, there is a connection. We used to play hide and seek inside N's house and that too in the evening. His house a 2BHK.
Playing hide and seek inside the house in the evening, what is the whole point about it you might be wondering as well imagining, how would it be like playing hide and seek, inside a lit house in the evening, where will these 5 guys hide. what are the rules etc etc.

Let me clarify the whole stance.
Firstly our team comprised of me, my brother, N, N's sister and occasionally, V, or A.
Secondly we used to play hide and seek in the evening, not in a well lit house but in a dark house, Yes we used to turn off the lights just for the purpose of playing hide and seek.
Thirdly we used to hide in the house, under the cot, dining table, kitchen. (no bathroom please).

So when we used to play hide and seek in the dark, we used to play all kinds of Hindi movie songs, like songs from the movie phool aur kante, deewana, jaan tere naam. And yes N' s music system or u can call al tape record, had this equalizer lights.

I hope now you got the connection between all the points.

Cheers, love the 90's and yes, so so happy that I have grown up doing all kinds of weird things. Thanks to my parents.

Some inspirational stuffs

For days I have not opened my google reader. Infact when I joined my new workplace in June 2010, I asked my manager, can I use google reader at workplace. He immediately said "no". Then I asked, can I write one, so that I can subscribe to the feeds and moreover its my own written application, for which he said "no".

So I was left with no option but to save the blog url's as my favorites in the internet explorer and then try to revisit each and every blog looking out for new entries. Never mind, it happens once in a while.

Its almost 8- 9 months, I am not seriously following much blogs. time and again I end up reading travelogues, because I love to travel and its on my list for 2011.

But apart from them I dont know how, but somehow I stumbled upon this brilliant website called the dumblittleman.com, and from there on I am picking loads of inspirational blogs.

Yes, I never knew so many people exist whose entries could lift me up to this level that, I am even ready to take the risk to quit my job without having another job in hand.

Not sure, how this transformation happened overnight, but its true. In 2008 when the so called recession happened, I was scared what will happen if I end up losing job.

But now, I seriously feel like quitting without another job in hand. After all I may end up at home for 2 months or may be 6 months, its worth a try. I can travel a lot, play a lot of games, drive my car umpty number of times on highway, read lots of books, blogs do some certifications and eventually find another job.

I might lose out on money, but frankly speaking, what have I gained, following the pursuit of money. Nothing really.

So come June 2010, I will be a free bird out of bonded labor.

Ok, so my cribbing is done, let me share some of the inspirational stuffs which I have read over the last couple of weeks, which really helped me change myself and get ready to take risk.

I work to live, not live to work. So I gotta loads of other things apart from work.

Here goes few links,, will keep updating once I get more by the way.

http://www.dumblittleman.com/2007/06/39-ways-to-live-and-not-merely-exist.html

http://www.dumblittleman.com/2011/02/most-important-question-youve-probably.html

http://theskooloflife.com/wordpress/the-courage-to-learn/

http://theskooloflife.com/wordpress/4-bad-decisions-and-what-i-learned-from-them/

http://theskooloflife.com/wordpress/finding-the-company-that-lets-you-be-you/

http://theskooloflife.com/wordpress/how-i-ended-up-with-the-greatest-job-in-the-world/

http://www.dumblittleman.com/2011/02/how-to-stay-motivated-when-you-hate.html

http://celestinechua.com/blog/whats-on-your-bucket-list-101-things-to-do-before-you-die/

http://www.themiddlefingerproject.org/25-ways-to-become-an-american-overnight-without-a-visa/

Cheers,

Party time

Went to a party after office. There was lots of good food and drinks, infact no music nor dancing. Had loads of good food. With a full tummy drinking Vitagen (probiotic drink) I am writing this post.

It was appraisal time at our office during January, and few people got promoted. So they combined together and hosted a party.

Ate 3-5 pieces of roti / Naan or whatever, paneer, daal, halwa, kheer, then veg biryani and had two glasses of coke ... I am done. Tummy full.. Another day in Singapore to remember.

Cheers,

PS::: The party was at Ras Bytes opposite to office, else I guess, I would have skipped...

Looking forward to June 2011, Part 2 of the series

The previous post described few things...

1. my future plans once my contract gets over in June 2011.

2. things running in my mind.

I did not write about my interests which I would love to pursue once I am back in Bangalore. Yes, I have reserved it for a separate post. There are loads of things which I would love to do once I am back in Bangalore.

I would like to write all of them as I do not want to miss out on them. I have already missed out on loads of things in the period starting from June 2010, to June 2010, the most important being, marriage events of Abhijit, Vaibhav and Muthukumaran. ( I am sorry guys, please forgive me if possible ).

Before writing all the points, I would like to

1. Thank god for giving me such a lovely parents, for giving me such a lovely opportunity where in I can openly write about think about things which I love to do. I am what I am because of you God.

2. Thank my parents for giving me everything, till date. Yes you may be wondering, I am working since close to 6 years, but still I feel happier when I get something from my parents rather than I buy myself. (Its got nothing to do with spending my parents money instead of mine). Somehow I feel whatever I get from my parents is just gold.


Now straight to the point, here are the list of things which I would love to do starting from June 2011.


1.  Visit to Goravanahalli Mahalakshmi Temple.

I just love this temple. The last time I visited this temple was when I was in a company in ITPL and was praying for opportunities outside, and I was rewarded with this onsite opportunity. This time I have to loads of things to pray for. This is first on my list.

2. Listen to loads of music-

Hindi - Rock music, english retro, whatever. I am out of touch when it comes to the latest rock songs or movie songs. Would love to follow the one and only international music radio station in Bangalore regularly. ( I mean it ).

3. Read loads of books.

Yes, though in Singapore, I have taken public library membership, I regret not having read much. I guess buying books on Avenue Road for Rs 75 each makes me really really happy. Above all there is some library which seems to have started in Bangalore, with a branch in RRNagar, hopefully I can get a membership over there.

4. Play lot of PC Games.

In the year 2010, I purchased a new PC with the sole intent of playing games on it. But sadly since I had to move out I could not play much games. Now that I have decided to be back, I sure shot shall play lots and lots of games, Infact have plans to fit in a Logitech MOMO Feel force Steering wheel for playing car race games. I am keen on this one.

5. Swimming.

Though Best club close to my house has a swimming pool , I am not sure how regularly I can swim. But I would love to swim after a tiring days work. Great way to unwind infact.

6. Gym

I have even plans to join Gym. Hoping 3 days to gym and 3 days to swim would be meaningful.

7. Watch loads of movies.

After coming to Singapore, I have not watched TV even for atleast 30 mins, since I do not have access. Even though there is a TV in the place where I stay , I still do not watch it because not many channels are available. Never mind, once I am back I hope to see loads of movies, old ones, new ones, and even those movies which I have already watched, like Jab We Met.

8. Evening walk at RRNagar.

Though I have of interest in going for an evening walk with my friend in RRNagar, it is subject to his availability. My friend is married and moreover he is looking for opportunities outside Bangalore. So I guess time will only tell.

9. Weekend drives on Mysore Road.

This one is a sure shot. There is no second thoughts on this one. Mysore Road, Maddur, KokkareBellur, Ramnagara, Chennapatna, sure you can find me at one of these places on weekends. And Tatte IDLI on Bidadi, wow love to do that.

10. Photography.

I am keen to pursue photography. Thinking of attending a photography course after coming back to Bangalore. I am also keen on buying a good DSLR camera this year and take my photography interests to one more level.
I would love to capture few landscapes. Right now if you ask me which landscape you are currently imagining, I would say, on the way to Kunigal via Magadi, there is a lonely road, I would like to stop over there and to do some photoshoot. Sounds crazy, rite, but its true. Loved driving through that road> i miss it.

11. Gaming with brother and brother in law.

This one is also a top priority. Now that, I have a laptop over here and a good PC at home. My dear friend (who is also my brother in law now), can accompany me and my brother in multiplayer games. Wow what a sight it would be, 3 people one room, gaming and gaming and nothing else. I am sure, Abhijit, if you read this, you would also be as excited as I am.

12. Try out some other technologies.

Somehow after reading some blogs of people who use open source technologies, I am feeling the itch to learn loads of new technologies apart from .NET. this includes, Linux, C, C++, Perl, PHP, HTML, CSS, JavaScript and loads of things. Infact experimenting with Linux instead of Windows is one of my main interests in the coming months.

13. Learn loads of stuffs related to Microsoft Technologies.

It might sound crazy but I would love to learn, COM, DCOm,Win32 Api.
Apart from this I am seriously considering about going for a course on Microsoft expression blend (if someone is ready to teach). I would love to learn WPF as well as VS2010.

14. Trip with my cousins.

There is nothing more than this one, which makes me happy. Sitting in the last row of a Tempo Traveller, cracking wild jokes in the middle of the night, laughing our loudly till there are tears in our eyes, is something what I am looking forward to. we have done it many times in the past and yes this year we are going to do it again.

15. Thinking of visiting Rameshwaram and Kanyakumari.

I could have written about this in the previous post, but since my cousins have already been to these places, they would not accompany us on the trip. I have to look for a new company infact. Let me see.

16. Visit the hill stations once more.

Love to revisit Ooty, KodaiKanal, Yercaud once again. Nothing like this.

17. Travel to Kerala and Coorg.

Would love to visit these two places as well.

18. Trekking.

Would love to trek to Kumaraparvata, Kudremukh and other places.

19. To blog more.

In the year 2010, I had written about 123 posts. In the 2 months into 2011, I only have 9 posts. I have loads of catching up to do. In other words, I have to blog more and more and more.

20. Helping my mother out with cooking.

It may sound silly to you, but I am pretty pretty serious on this one. I have learnt to cook basic stuffs over here. I would like to help out my mother once I am back in Bangalore. My mother has been managing office work as well as household since many years, all alone, I guess now its time for me to pitch in.

21. Technical blog.

This is something which I supposed to have started years ago. But better late than later. I hope to get more serious on technical stuffs once I am in Bangalore.

22. Side projects.

Learning new technologies goes hand in hand with this. So this should not be a surprise. Love to code more ...

23. Read more blogs / follow more blogs.

Love to read lots of other blogs. I need to install Sharpreader and start all over again. But do I mind.. Not an inch..

There are loads of other points which I am not able to recollect as of now. will update the post as and when I recollect few more.

Updated 21 Feb 2011.

24. Take drawing classes.

All through this blog, I have never written that, as a kid, I loved to draw. Though my drawing skillset is quite bad. Not sure whether pencil drawing or sketching can be taught or has to come naturally, but surely I would like to pursue it more seriously. I know I am bad at it. I want to learn. This occupies #24. [Am off to search on google trying to find if drawing can be taught or has to come naturally]

Updated 17 Mar 2011.

25. Start a new blog dedicated to portraits of strangers with a brief description into their life and lifestyle. Inspired by the website 100strangers.com

26. Cycling - I would love to cycle to my cousin's place in Nelamangala, via toll road, and also, along the road from Big banyan tree all the way to Magadi.

Cheers,

Straight from my heart - Part 1

This 2 series posts are very special to me. These are very close to my heart. I have spent day and nights thinking and thinking, and finally I have arrived at a decision.

I only hope this blog of mine and especially this post of mine never gets noticed at my workplace. I need to make sure, that I do not access my blog from office and clear the history from my browser.

Never mind, it should not stop me from writing this post.

In the month of May 2010, I received an employment opportunity with one of the organizations in Singapore. This was the first time I was about to work abroad. I accepted the offer and relocated to Singapore.

So now let me cut short my employment related thing, and talk about how I felt like.

I was seriously very happy on one side that, someone was providing me an opportunity to work abroad. (Else I would have to go in for a Visa, quit current job,move to another country, then look for a job there. Here i was rest assured of a job).

But on the other side, I felt I would be missing my parents, family, cousins, my car. I would miss out on long weekend drives, on Mysore Road, trips to neighboring places with my cousins.

Somehow I did not think much and just moved to Singapore.

Now that I am into my 9th month in Singapore, I can say that, I have learnt lots of things here, apart from work related stuffs, as a person I have grown matured. I hope my parents would be happier when they see me after a year.

Initially I was quite pleased about the whole aspect of working abroad, thought it would add great value to my resume. In other words, you can say for first 3-4 months in Singapore, I was on a high.

Later after 6 months of my stay over here, I realized I was missing loads of things. I had a crazy life style in Bangalore. I have always been under the shadow of my parents. I do not regret it even an inch, and I thank my parents for that.

After coming to Singapore, my life style was kind of different, I was no longer able to do those crazy things which I used to in Bangalore. So I thought and thought and then realized, I was more happier in Bangalore. So I decided to return back.

The problem  was I was in the middle of a contract, if I had to return back I would have to pay money. Hence I resisted the temptation of returning back after 7 months.

But now since the thought of returning back had come up in my mind, my heart started to feel happy. ( I dont know how to put it, but seriously somewhat my heart felt lighter).

The first thing, which comes to your mind when giving up current job is about your next venture. How are you going to find another job. The coming days, I started thinking of how to give interviews from Singapore to companies located in Bangalore.

I was and still am in touch with a friend of mine, who works for a company in Bangalore, asking him to get an interview opportunity for me. I even asked him if a telephonic interview was possible. Though it seems highly unlikely, he sure assured me he would do his best. In this current month, though my heart was happy I still was wondering, what would I do without a job in Bangalore. It still was pinching me, the whole idea of quitting Singapore job and landing jobless in Bangalore.

All these days, I was reading loads of blogs, travelogues, people who have travelled around Karnataka. I started to miss my weekend drives on highway even more.

I was wondering when would I feel better. Then came one such day, I was reading the blog of a person from Bangalore. The person had just quit his/her job in order to take up a career as a freelance writer/photographer and to pursue his/her interests in the year 2011. And when I read through the comments section I found out one more such person , who has just quit his high paying job in order to pursue his/her interests.

This kept me thinking. Finding a job in Bangalore was the biggest hurdle in me continuing to stay over here or coming back. I just gave a thought on this particular direction, about quitting the job over here whatever may be the case. I may get or may not get a job in Bangalore, but who cares.

Then I felt happy, seriously happy. My heart now feels better. I have nothing to worry. I can go back to Bangalore and look for a job over there. I have nothing to prove to anyone.

I have also decided on taking a month's break before joining.

Firstly thanks to these two people who literally influenced my decision. Secondly these days I end up reading loads of inspirational stuffs. I have posted few of them on facebook. Thanks to these guys too..

So now that I have decided to move back to Bangalore in the month of June 2011, I can now decide on what all the things which are all the unfulfilled desires of mine, and which are my interests which I am going to pursue in the year 2011.

Well, infact, I originally intended to write those things in this particular post, but never mind, I had a long (I hope not boring) story to tell. Will reserve those things for another post of mine.


Cheers,

Less blogging these days...

2 months into 2011, I have written only around 6 blog posts. There is nothing to hide, my writing has come down. Though some days I feel like writing I do not end up posting it over here.

I hope by June / July 2011, I shall be back with my original form and at the end of the year 2011, I can boast of an equal number of posts as 2010.

Cheers,

One such weekend

Last week, I had been to Universal Studios Sentosa. Sentosa is a small island resort in Singapore. It has lots of attractions. This is my second visit to Sentosa. The first time I had been with my friend, visited Fort Siloso, Merilion, History of Singapore and saw a 4d movie spanning 20mins.

This time I had primarily thought of visiting Universal Studios. Universal Studio is a theme park consisting of different rides which span across different environment. 

like..
1. Egypt section has a big tomb kind of thing, which is not pyramid shaped but in a normal shape of a rectangle. Inside it was a roller coaster ride in the dark.
2. Similarly there was an area called the Sci-Fi city where in there we two other roller coaster rides.
3. Apart from this there was also a ride in the area known as the Lost World. I missed this ride, since the waiting time was about 90minutes.
4. I also visited the water show, which is similar to a stunt show, where in some action sequences are performed.
5. I once again saw a 4D movie this time, a Shrek movie which also lasted for about 15-20mins.

So all in all it was a good day. I had got 4 days off on the occasion of Chinese new year, so went to this place on one of the day.

Last time I had been to Sentosa, I went through the Cable car, but this time, I used the board walk from Vivo city mail.

It was indeed a good experience, much needed break after so many days of hard work at office.

Cheers,

I read a lot of blogs

Yes its true. Though after I moved to Singapore, my writing has taken a big hit (though I have loads to share about what I do over here just to pass time). I do not write much because most of the time, I end up coming home tired from work, check mails a bit of facebook, listen to some songs online, and re-watch another episode of TinTin and thats it.

In such situations I miss a handy smart phone, on which I could have just blogged whenever I felt like. But I am in no mood to spend money for a new mobile. My team members call me a miser , jugga or conjouice....(dont know how to spell it). But frankly speaking people are advising me to ditch my old Nokia 1100 mobile for a new phone whilst I was in India only, may be from a year I guess.

But I dont really need the need to get a new mobile. I need a phone to speak to my parents and friends which I do it from my Nokia 1100. But regarding hooking to internet on the go, blogging on the go, well i do not want to run towards them, by buying a new phone. I may miss out on 1 or 2 interesting topics or photos whilst not having a phone, but apart from that its the same. Yes I can read lot of blogs on the go too if I have a smart phone. But yes, its not mandatory as long as my reader keeps track of the new entries, I can read it anytime.

Though I do not blog much  these days, I do read a lot of blogs. Its something which keeps me hooked to my home country India. I see there are lots of bloggers in Bangalore, who do a lot of traveling, I am envious infact, but yes, in another 4months time, by God's grace, it shall be home sweet home for me too.

So reading these blogs is a good past time for me. I read loads of books , but yes bloggers English is easy to understand and most of them write about their life's ups and downs and travels unlike fiction authors. So all in all a good time pass.

Above all I have drawn loads of inspiration from blogs of people, who have gone out of the way just to do what they love. They really really show me, that its "One life we got to do what we should ".

My feed reader's subscription is increasing day by day. So many blogs to read from all about travel, daily life's, Bangalore events, news.

So Cheers,
Happy reading..

Todays updates...

Out of nowhere I am writing this post. I just feel like writing. Its 1 am in the morning. I am supposed to sleep, but since tomorrow is a holiday (as well as the day after... its Chinese new year guys on 3Feb and 4 Feb 2011). So I am taking it easy.

Planning to wake up late but yet go to office. So its been a kind a good day. I was assuming to stay at home tomorrow and sleep the whole day. But unfortunately there seems to be never ending work at office. Have to be at office tomorrow. Never mind, tomorrow is tomorrow. So for today's updates..... here it goes..

For the last few weeks may be 2-3 weeks I am putting in 12 hours each day @ office. Not sure if my productivity can match my length of stay (time duration) at office. But still, cannot leave earlier.. So called deadlines, and being contractor the ever green threat of being fired, makes me stick to office.

Fortunately 8 months are done, 4 months are pending. But coming to the happy part of today. Was at office today till around 11pm. One of my colleague who was with me at office, asked me whether I have the ingredients for the coming 3-4 days since all the shops (well most of them) shall be closed since its Chinese new year.

I somehow confidently proclaimed that, there is shop (super mart) near my house called Prime Super Mart, which shall be open throughout the night and over the next 3 days as well.

Though I did not know for sure whether it will be opened or not, I told him about it because, I could always see tonnes of stuffs stacked outside the shop and the shop ideally runs 24 hrs on each day. I thought who would move loads of all these things from outside into the shop and then lock it. It looked to me like an arduous task, to which my friend said alright.

I in turn thought, let me buy wheat bread over there while going home tonight so that I can prepare some bread sandwiches for tomorrow.

But to my utter surprise, the shop was shutdown, the whole stack of goods which used to be outside the shop was all moved inside and there you go, I was left empty handed. So at night 11 45 pm, I had no option but to walk a good 1.5 kms towards Little India. So went there , had dinner in one of the Indian restaurants which runs 24 hrs a day and then went to Mustafa to get bread and some ready to eat food.

This time, I saw some ready to eat stuffs of a brand by name "Ammas Kitchen" or something. So brought 3 packets of ready to eat rice items and then brought a can of tender coconut drink.

Yup these are updates for the day, came home and logged in to check mails, found Prashanth online so called him up on his India number and shared a few jokes. All in all a good day..

Cheers,

PS:: more than being happy for myself, I feel happy for those laborers who were sitting in front of a coffee shop (which was shutdown) and drinking beer having food and talking over the phone with people / family I guess in India / Bangladesh / etc etc. These laborers work very hard and mind you, they get just 1 day off on Sunday. Now that its Chinese new year, I hope these guys too get 4 day leave in a stretch... Yup.. seeing them having a gala of a time really made me happy, infact thats what made me write this post.


 

Nothing much to blog about....

My writing in the last few months has taken a big hit.. Yes.. I am in no mood to write.. Just feel as though I want to come back to Bangalore ..and be myself..

These days working hard.. really really hard.. I shall remember my Singapore days once I go back to Bangalore.

Had been to office yesterday.. Working closely with testing team.. not able to close issues.. not getting sign off from them.. Its headache at its best..

But the point is days are running and I am getting closer and closer to June..

A trip to Malaysia, Indonesia, and Langkawi.. and I am done.. will be back to Bangalore...

My friend is getting married tomorrow.. Today there is a function too.. So missing loads of things..

Cheers,
Sandeep

PS:: Yes Kranti.. I 2 miss the evening walks in RR Nagar...

Memories...

Recently I got a marriage invitation. It was one of my class mates. I haven't spoke to him in the last 5 years. But I do keep getting few mails from him once in a while. So got this mail about marriage invite.

Why am I writing this post, is because of location where he was getting married. He in fact was getting married in a wedding hall located in Malleshwaram.

I do not know, but somehow time and again memories pop up.

I have lived my first 15 years of my life in Malleshwaram. So this place is more like home to me. Infact the marriage hall was somewhere around 8th cross Malleshwaram.

What I can recollect is, when I was a kid, there used to be a small shop in the underground, some where opposite to the marriage hall, which used to sell lots of toys meant for kids.

I still remember my father getting me a Hot wheels car after every year annual exams. Yes its true. I had a desire to collect as much Hot wheels cars as possible, but the truth is I could gather 8 or 10 only. Never mind.

All in all, a post out of no where. But at least I am in a mood to write something.

Cheers,
Sandeep

PS::: Yes, I did not attend the marriage.. (as usual)

Retrospect.. a sneak peek into my 2010

Not sure why I am writing this.. but yes.. I have to write about what I have done in the current year, what am I going to do in the coming year.

2010 as year has been quite good to me. But as I write this post,  I am a bit upset, bit depressed. Let me come to the point as to why am I upset later.

But 2010 started in a good way for me. I found an offer from a new software company in Bangalore for quite a good salary. There was no looking back. I joined this company on 4 January 2010. This company was really good. There I met one of my old classmates working for the same company. He along with 2 other people from Bangalore became so close that, we formed a group of our own and then kept on hanging out together in ITPL.

All good things have to come to an end, like wise, my friends and me started to find the work over there not so interesting, So one by one my friends started looking out for a job outside.

Finally it was my turn to look out. I indeed ended up with couple of offers from companies in Bangalore. But I chose to work in Singapore. I ended up in Singapore, but I guess I left my heart in Bangalore only. Yes its true.

I wonder if its one of the not so worth decisions of my life, which I took in the month of May 2010, that I am still repenting upon it. Though there has been lots of positives which have come out of it. I still feel I missed out on loads of things.

Why am I writing this post is, at this moment I miss Bangalore very much, I have been talking to family and friends and loads of people about how I feel after 7 months in Singapore. Many people have told me to continue even after 1 year in Singapore.

But that is not going to be the case with me. I am planning to join a company in Bangalore once my 1 year contract finishes. I feel I have saved some amount of money, now its time to get back to Bangalore and do all those things which I have missed out in 2010.  Yes visit loads of near by places travel a lot and have a gala of a time with family and friends.

After all mother and motherland are sweeter than heaven. I guess I am not one of those persons who can stay away from Bangalore for a long time.

So its just 5 months away for me to be in Bangalore. I hope these remaining 5 months just ease away in no time and I find my way back home.

Once upon a time I prayed and prayed to God for a  better opportunity now I am praying to God to help me just pass out these 5 months so that I can be back in Bangalore. Yes I miss my hometown very much.

I do not know how the 2 people who read my posts will react when they read this post, but yes this post is all about my heartfelt feelings of missing the warmth and lovely atmosphere of Bangalore. There is no place on earth like Bangalore.

Cheers,
Sandeep