IT industry and random personal ranting

While we were doing engineering, we were always wondering, how awesome it would be to write code, to develop software applications which many end users are going to use. How cool it would be to spend years together, growing old writing code.

And years after turning a professional, we just realized, writing code and writing software applications do exist, but in reality what we do exactly is more often than not repairing software applications written by someone else. 

The truth hurts but you got to accept it. So after a while in the IT industry,  you find the intellectually stimulating stuffs are over, what you got to do, where do you prefer to go. It has been such a cross road for me in recent times, where in I rather pretty much question myself each day as to where do I end up in coming years.

In a way, I found the answer in fitness for almost 2 years, where in I worked at it and it kept me super-busy. Well, I got to write about it in another post. I did a lot of treks earned a good reputation and have maintained a certain amount of discipline. 

Now, there is one more trivial thing which just cropped up. Whilst engaging myself with treks and travels and other activities, I never realized the so called age passing through. And all of a sudden, it hits me, very hard, knowing the fact that, I have crossed certain age and this whole society and other things come into picture.

This side of me, is the one which is very receptive to what society perceives, what the so called society talks about behind our back when we are not around. So now, I am in a crisis kind of sorts, where in 

- the technical stimulant which is a part of the job seems to be missing. There appears to be more and more politics, bureaucracy and lesser intellectual stuffs on the professional front.

- the trekking, travelling or the physical activities part, where in each time my age hampers me from packing my backpack and going trekking. 

So couple of things which stare at me, while I look for answers really, how do I enjoy myself work-wise and how do I enjoy myself when not at work. I took to reading stuffs but when the above two questions come to mind, reading comes to a halt altogether. I am not that old to start cribbing about stuffs, but still, its this stupid society or rather mentality which calls you absurd when things do not work out according to their time!

Wondering, whether applying a work permit of a different country altogether and move out of India, change my job and meet new people, hope for some new learning. I never really was thinking of **** atleast till 3 months back, now when, while attending any occasional function for that matter, this question just pops up.

Well, hopefully, there is going to be a new direction. I wish to get answers on both work as well as personal front. Hoping to gear up for job interviews soon.

Cheers,

Sorting personal mailbox / emails

Starting today, I decided to organize my mailbox. I have been using this mailbox for almost 15 years now, I thought, it deserves some more respect. I have the same email login for linkedin, for facebook, for goodreads, for twitter, so  many places and yet this mailbox of mine is full of junk.

I do not know, how morons end up sending spam mails to this email id. I have registered the same with job portals for banks etc. With things looking so unclean, as of today, I somehow made a concrete mind to clean up the inbox, un-subscribe from junk alerts.

Hopefully it will look cool in coming days,

Wish me luck,

Cheers,

New contest on Indiblogger

There is a new contest on Indiblogger, namely marathon blogging contest. The participants are expected to blog about some topics for a period of 30 days. At the end of 30 days, the person with maximum number of entries across multiple genres shall be entitled for a prize.

That prize is nothing but a TATA car. Well, thats nice to hear. But what a person can blog for 30 days. I am thinking of this opportunity of participating in this contest in order to write off all of my blogs pertaining to Himalayan treks.

Well, there are certain drawbacks,
- it would fall under a single genre
- Lack of time to compose in detail.
- It will take off my reading time.

Considering I am reading also these days, I wonder, if that new re-discovered habit of mine could be strained. But worth trying for sure.

I wonder how come such a contest came into existence. Reminds me of a scenario where ..............(I wish not to mention the scenario though).

Cheers,

One such tale

These days, I end up reading more than writing, I haven't been travelling much, office work has become repetitive, nothing much to adore about.

I have not even gone out to buy new clothes, tomorrow seems to be the day, I hope to do that. I have become so monotonous with the tasks I get to do that, I lose track of even the topics which I wish to write. I had planned to write about two things, but I forgot one of the topic.

Now I am remembering one of the topic which I write now, as I yawn and yawn, I did not get to sleep during the day and I feel very sleepy as I write this.

I am generally against feeding street dogs, not that I hate dogs, just that, I am kind of pissed off when the same dogs attack small kids or other people or stories like that. My mother has a different opinion of feeding left over food if any to the dog, which I strongly disagree. They feed, multiply and create more nuisance in the neighborhood.

So she told me one such tale, in the office where my mother worked, there used to work a lady, who would each day cook a cauldron full of rice and feed it to stray dogs near her house and then come to work. She also told, dogs from nearby places came and consumed the cooked rice.

Once what happened, this lady who used to do this gem of a job, fell sick, and was hospitalized. She fell sick to that extent that the doctors had given up any hope. Finally miraculously, she survived and even came back to work completed her service and then retired.

To which, my mother told about a conversation which happened around this miracle some days later. It was perceived that, the dogs, which were missing their daily meal, when the woman was hospitalized prayed to god for a quick recovery or rather prayed regarding obtaining their daily food, that God cured the lady who was the source of their food.

I do not know what to say about this incidence. Long live the lady and she still cooks the cauldron of rice each day.

Cheers,

I'm glad I could remember this and finish typing this tale, instead of forgetting.

Reading Ruskin Bond

I have been reading Ruskin Bond books, well, rather in a hurry. I just want to gulp as many of his stories as possible and as quickly as possible.

I feel like a sinner, a big time loser, having never read his stories all these years. Its a pity, we never have read much literature at schools. Other thing being, at that tender age, we generally spend time doing lesser intellectual things. (its an irony most of his stories are enjoyable by kids, may be I'm just the kid with lesser intellect or rather mugpot or in simple terms dumb)

Time just flies away after that, and we drift away and away from literature. I never had someone come to me and tell me or ask me, " Have you read Ruskin Bond?".

Now when I read Ruskin Bond, I feel, I should have read them as a kid to enjoy the way things were depicted in the book. Who would have thought there would be so much advancement, where in I never get to see who lives in my neighborhood and I connect with my friends only on social network sites?

Also, what Ruskin Bond describes in his story, is best felt if you get to the hills. Yes please, I have been to Uttarakhand and spent 3 days after my trek just lazying around in a hill station doing nothing. What better way than to recollect those memories and savor the Ruskin Bond book at the same time, yet cursing myself for not having read them earlier.

Could I have enjoyed them earlier, having never been to DehraDoon, Uttarakhand, or rather hills? What if I had read them earlier, could I have decoded them, connected with them, as I do now? I do not know. Probably yes, with some stories that got nothing to do with hills

Cheers,

Good old days

Everyone seems to have memories, which they wish to recollect. I have certain memories of the few years while I completed my engineering. We were 3 friends, and out of the entire class of 30, we three stayed close by and somehow were friends.

We used to meet up atleast on few days or rather every weekend at one of the friend's place in RajarajeshwariNagar. I must have written about this very early in the blog and its almost 7 years to that. Have quiet evening walks thinking of whether we would get employed in a company, whether, we would get a job etc etc.

And fast forward 2015, all three of us have drifted away. Its almost 5 years, I have not met one of my friend. And the other person, well he is in the US of A since 2008, so you can add 7 years to that.
Both of them are married and one of them has a kid and has gotten very much more serious with life.

And regarding me, I'm still the same, hoping, future will still be worry free, trouble free, but I doubt. I do have my own fair share of getaways things which I love to do. But golden days shall never come back.

Wonder where all life takes us. Reason why I am writing this?

Well was reading RK Narayan books last week and this week reading Ruskin Bond. These writers put you in that spell, where you start remembering stuffs, which you would rather have forgotten.

What about people, who do not have memories and few others who do not read RK Narayan or Ruskin Bond, I just do not know to say in that case.

Cheers,

PS - These days, I enjoy solitude, I enjoy my own company more than anything else, I trek I travel, but most of the time, I just need my own quiet time. I kind of agree, I would like to meet friends, more often than not, I prefer to be alone!

After a break

After a good haul in 2015, time for me to start writing something in 2016. I hope I write across the blogs on my recent Himalayan treks. For the last few days, I had been reading quite a bit, trying to complete as much books as possible for 2015.

New year has been rather disappointing. Apart from it being a different calendar year, there has been not much, which is happening. Life is as usual. Going on. Getting older. Reading, working, rather work which I am ******. Still training, though barred from taking part in this year's Himalayan trek due to shortage of leaves as well as confidence plus getting old!

Hope to continue reading and training and hope to find another **** quickly!

Cheers,

And.. it finally happened!

One such trek was elusive since quite a long time. This was in Madikeri Srimangala and the reason was, permission problem. Permission was denied due to elephant encounters and as a result this trek was pending since almost 2 months.

And yes it finally happened.

Below is one such picture where one half of the mountain is under Karnataka and the other half under Kerala.

And regarding elephant encounters in the wild, believe me it happened, lots of things did happen, but may be some other day!

Cheers,

Of Managers and Ironies!

A person works in a IT organization. One day there is a Bay decoration competition. 

If you do not recollect what a bay decoration event is, we sit and work each day in a contraption called a bay or a cube.

So this organization has this weird competition where it expects employees to come up with weird ideas to decorate their cubes with what not!

What is the irony over here, you may be wondering.

One of the team, which was working came up with an idea of putting a vacuum cleaner, printer, dustbin, soiled tea cups thrown around, paper print outs indicating weird weird things.

The employees thought this to be a call center theme.

The irony is when asked, one of the employees told, this was the state of the project which they were working on, what it was all about, errors, unexpected things etc etc.

And even bigger irony is, the employee who told or explained this theme was none other than the XXX of the company.

And the biggest irony of them all is that, the XXX person told "What an nice idea " to this bizzare absurd decoration.

Well, what do you have to say, when the management knows what is the problem, yet they fail to address them and fix them, instead resorting to, depicting them in a bay decoration competitions.

In a way, I guess they are incapable to take responsibility, rather gathering sympathy from bystanders, but when the storm strikes, does it listen to your or mine sympathy. I'm afraid not. For that, I'm sure there would be a bag full of political tricks!

Cheers,

Of Protests and Ironies

Yesterday witnessed two ironies, here I am writing about the first one!

Most traffic on Outer Ring Road is caused by the incorrect flyover which descends down at ECOSPACE SEZ, making way for people to reach their offices within the SEZ. The other side of the road allows vehicles to join the main road.

So, what actually happens!
- The gates of ECOSPACE are not that big to allow fast entry and exit to vehicles.
- Vehicle build up happens at ECOSPACE entrance and this continues to the main road.

As a result entire Outer Ring Road ORR gets choked! Till Agara lake sometimes traffic comes to a standstill.

Now when the whole of the IT companies located on ORR come out in protest against the traffic, I came to know even people working at ECOSPACE are participating in it.

Now is there anything wrong over there! Well, they themselves cannot cross the road, nor stop bringing vehicles to work (you ecospace employees) what right do you have to participate in the protest! (Fuhgeddaboudit)

Cheers,

100 posts for the year!

After almost 5 years, I hit 100 posts yet again! It could have been the last couple of years, but owing to non availability of Wifi Router, I was too lazy to login to the desktop and write.

So many miniscule incidents went by, some which made me a better person, some which left me high and dry, none of which I could record so that I could read at a later point in time.

But never mind, I shall always recollect them and write them as and when I remember.

But 2015, had loads in store, and I am hitting a 100 this year!

This post is dedicated to all those people who have worked hard, had led a hard hard life, dedicated their lives just for others, in a way, let go of their dreams, just to fulfill dreams of others. They have grown older enriching lives of others, forgetting their pleasures, so one such person celebrates their birthday as I write this post!

So happy birthday, I'm sure, you are reading this,

Cheers,

Unknown record!

Sometimes, things do happen on their own, you end up being at the receiving end and you wont even know about certain things unless you do a thorough retrospect.

One such thing happened to me!

During one of our treks, I had met a guy who had done 3 Himalayan treks in 1 year's time (within 12 months). I was wondering, when would my time come when I can atleast equal the same.

I did one himalayan trek in October 2014, one more in May 2015 and one more in October 2015.

Voila, there you go, I equaled that record unknowingly! I came to know only when I was writing a post on my blog. No retrospection would have meant, this could have gone unnoticed.

As of now, cheers to myself,

Cheers,

And..it finally happened!

I was very much wondering, whether I would be able to visit the beaches during the year 2015. I had made it to Sharavathy Valley 3 times this year, but none of the times, I had descended down towards the beaches.

My road trip for the year 2015 fell out of the equation and my trip with cousins too did not happen. Chance was little of me making it to the beaches or for that matter coastal Karnataka.

But all of a sudden, I see this beach trek happening, register immediately. And alas, I get to the beaches, trek along the beaches, 3rd time beach trek, 3 times in 3 years, feels great.

Trek was awesome, people were awesome, 2 days and 3 nights worth well spent.

Started out at Om beach Gokarna and ended at Haldipur beach Kumta!

Cheers,

Song blog

I have been posting on this blog since quite some time, over the years, I have infused some songs from youtube in between. In the middle for few days, I was pushing songs on facebook too, until my cousin warned me not to push, since no one was interested in my songs!

I was wondering, what prominence, songs had over me in the last few years.

- I have been listening to songs at workplace almost all of the professional years. It helps you to shield unwanted noises and at the same time concentrate too!

- While driving I listen to songs, there is a collection I have, more often than not I do not enjoy music while driving. I simply listen to something playing. Plus the sound of the diesel engine keeps me heavily happy. With speakers being in the rear, on long drives my parents tell me to turn it off.

I should have taken this step of having a song blog long ago, but its never occurred to me. Now I got the idea, I plan to go ahead with it. Plus, owing to commercials on 91.9FM, I have switched my loyalty towards Kannada playing radio stations, so I now have more songs from yesteryears than contemporaries, so the song blog makes even more sense to keep track of all of them!

Cheers,

Of IT Parks and ironies

Sometimes what you see is not what you get, in fact its most of the times these days. Reality is a hard pill to swallow. Its better we accustom ourselves with reality (instead of talking crap or rather diplomacy)

Its about one such organization where an IT employee worked. It was located in one of the small localities in Hosur Road. It was situated in an IT park nonetheless, but it was surrounded by clothing companies, like the one's which stitch clothes for export. It was very close to NICE road of Electronic city and one could escape to Hosur, Tumkur, Kengeri, Bannerghatta road and where not. Couple of times, we had escaped Silkboard junction and directly took NICE road to Kengeri/Kanakpura road.

People coming from KR Puram faced traffic hurdles, but rest all seemed to be fine with the arrangement. Plus it was at a slight distance from the main road causing issues locating the building.

But top leaders (Indian) of the organization felt otherwise.
- They thought, they had to move to a technology park.
- They thought, the working next to clothing companies did not provide the right marketing presence required to attract the brightest minds to work for them.
- They also thought working next to a world class organization would rub off some of their charisma on to our employees.
- They thought the new IT park was located at a central place and would reduce most of the traffic woes.

This resulted in the IT organization being moved to a IT Park close to Marathahalli. It costed 3 times the rent paid to this current building on Electronic City. What happened after the shift is nothing short of a Bollywood movie.

I prefer not to write about it. The charisma rubbing off from the neighboring companies phenomenon went to the gutter, but what really rubbed off from the neighboring IT companies was sure, the smoke and ash, which the continuous chain smokers left each day and night!

And the biggest irony occurred when the VP of the organization came all the way from US to India for a business visit. The IT office generally functions from 11 am to 8pm. On almost all days during his visit, the roads on Outer Ring Road / Marathahalli were choked. People coming by office shuttles came as late as 1 30 PM when the login time was 11 AM.

Most employees were late and the office resembled a barren desert during his visit (11 AM to 1 30 PM). It must surely have painted a rosy picture of productivity to him. I am sure the Indian think-tanks would have been very pleased at this sight!

After all, what you see, may not be what you get.

Cheers,

Break from diet and training

2015 has been a tremendous year on one side, where as it has been a let down on other sides.

Where its turned out positive -

 - Two Himalayan treks
 - One being Auden's Col which was tough tough 11 day & other being a 12 day continuous trek.
 - Loads of preparation, had to be very precise on diet and regular on training.

Where its turned out not so well.

 - Haven't been able to go to beach side during entire 2015.
 - Two times had been to Sharavathy but could not get down all the way to Honnavara.
 - With so much of preparation needed for Himalayan treks, much of Western Ghats trek took a backseat..
 - Only 3 treks to western ghats since January.
 - Very less road travel
 - Lethargic attitude weeks together after Himalayan treks
 - Work related disappointment.
 - Personal life took a backseat.

There has been days after Himalayan treks, when I have been lethargic and took time to get back to the routine. waking up late, missing diets regularly and missing routine training has become quite frequent now.

I have not been a 100%, trying to be on a strict diet, its taking a toll on the body. Plus I have been told by my parents to avoid future Himalayan treks.

Without a goal in future the motivation to continue training or diet seems to be going all wrong. Sometimes, I wonder, how important it is, in life to have a serious goal where we can focus our energy on. Without a goal its just wandering like a nomad taking whatever comes in our way, well, atleast as of now, I feel thats how it is going.

I have planned couple of treks in the next two months, hoping to end 2015 on a high!

Cheers,

Shuttle / Office cab update

After a steady 3 months our office shuttle driver, is calling it quits. He has his own personal reasons, and we very openly sympathize with him.

Our office cab woes are set to re-appear. So it has to be a new vehicle, since this was a self owned one. We are pretty sure we wont be having a permanent one for this route. But we are used to it or we have rather other things to worry about.

Hope its another Toyota Innova this time, with a 3 seater in the middle bench. After driving, being driven around in a Toyota Innova, i don't know what to say, take a bow Japanese guys.

With a frame and chassis construction it offers an unparallel ride, believe me, with a unibody or moncoque construction what it might offer. I can imagine the rates of monocoque Innova (if any) will hit sky high, but cannot imagine the comfort on that one though, plus added handling! Ahh man, thats the best affordable treat a man can have!

Cheers, I still cannot afford it!

Savoring the retro...

I don't know how to write anything into this post. It mostly has to be precise. (As I have slept for only 4 hours each day since the last two days and its already midnight today, I'm scared the same thing will repeat for third day in a row!).

I have been quite unaware of songs of Kannada movies, which are gems. Some of the lyrics composition have been quite extra ordinary and many of them are from the years 1980's to early 2000's. 

So in the last 10 minutes I was wondering how could I have missed them. Why did it take so long for them to turn up regularly into my playlist.

One enlightening program was Straight hits with V Ravichandran on Big 92.7FM. It surely turned some heads when it came to playing hits only! Apart from that, many programs at the same time do play lot of retro Kannada music. That's competition I guess. What we do is to make sure to switch stations at each advertisement break. (But none with Ravichandran program though).

Reasons for my unawareness...

- Ignorance, may be I was too busy listening to something else, to pay attention to them.

- Immaturity, may be I was immature to appreciate deep lyrics, while I grew up, providing importance only to tunes.

- Accesibility, 80's 90's early 2000's did not have this kind of reach when it comes to CD's radio stations, TV, internet. We did not have a steady supply of songs to get hooked into.

- Unaware - Due to less advertisement / coverage we never knew what all contemporary music had to offer, be it any language English / Hindi / Kannada.

- Kid/Amateur/Teenage - the golden age went by without us even understanding or appreciating the language, now, we only have, to look back!

Why are we bothering this much now?

- Thanks to shows like these we get to know songs which one's topped the charts.

- The crap which is churned out these days, I guess its better to savor the retro than those lyrics which tend to be written in 5 minutes.

- Anything with beats is a super-hit. Absolutely wrong. I prefer songs with lyrics please. So back to retro.

- We could relive the period where there was less traffic, less crowd, where great great people like Dr Rajkumar still were around to give out great hits.

- Unlike now, take any language, its just so boring to tune into contemporary music, amidst that all kinds of promos advertisements etc.

- Seems like many people had chosen literature to study during those days ending up with proper lyrics. Now that, all the painters/writers/mechanics have all disguised themselves as software engineers, you can imagine who would be writing lyrics. (My assumption though no offence!)

It would be so fun just to have these old songs getting played without any breaks!

Cheers,

Listening to the radio - 2

So you might be wondering, what program on the radio we would be listening while stuck at silkboard.

Luckily to our rescue, few of these days we had one program on the radio channel Big 92.7 FM I guess. It was called "Straight hits with RaviChandran".

I guess RaviChandran needs no introduction, probably, if you are from Kannada, I am sure, you would know him very well. Else go and do a search!.

So this program was all about songs from RaviChandran movies. Believe me, every alternate days couple of the songs would repeat or would be the same. But not a single time we would crib about the songs being the same. Mainly because they were songs from the bygone era, extremely good lyrics, worth listening a 1000 times.

In the end, I switched listening to Kannada songs, which reminded me of the 80's/90's my childhood! So when one door closes something else surely opens.

Just like the radio 91.9 which I stopped listening to the ads, which helped me recollect Kannada songs of the 80's, though there were commercials, well, either it was because we were stuck in traffic that it made no difference or may be it was less after all.

I cannot imagine what would have been playing on 91.9 FM at the same time, but why to bother!

Cheers,

Listening to the radio - 1

Once upon a time, I used to listen to Radio 91.9 FM, my favorite show was hosted by Geoffrey Thomas called the Night Patrol, I used to come home and finish dinner and listen to it, before going to bed, preferably with the lights turned OFF.

There is something soothing with alternative rock music and no lights. Gone are the days, gone are the melodies. I do not know what plays in the night.

Day time, I do not listen to radio at all. The commercials on the air have driven the radio out of my room. These days I find myself having very less time. Whatever its and bits of free time I have, I spend reading or blogging.

I do end up listening to music, but those are all songs which I know/remember. Learning about contemporary music is a thing of past to me. I am no more interested in knowing, which is Coldplay's latest song is, nor what U2 is upto these days.

But still, I listen to songs at work and listen to the radio as well. Considering we move through silkboard traffic each day, we ought to listen to something while we are stuck, so what it is!

Let me tell you in the next post. Its of course not 91.9 FM

Cheers,