And then.. the pantry erupted.. with joy

Today was the final day of the second test match and RSA were almost about to snatch a draw to dethrone India from the #1 ranking. Around 3.45 pm many employees gathered in the pantry, most of them were guessing the test match would end in a draw. I had moved out of the pantry a few minutes back.

Two overs before the end of play, India was able to get the last wicket, and win the test match. And there was a huge roar from the audience in the pantry. That was a superb moment. I could hear the roar from a distance away. What a way to shout guys!!! that too at workplace...keep it going...

Cheers,

Beyoncé - Halo

Love this song by Beyonce.. Awesome song.. Could not resist posting it over here. .:)

One hell of a song.. koi shakh

Cheers,

Shivaratri - A night to remember

We had an official holiday on the occasion of Shivaratri. So I was at home relaxing and chilling. Over the years I have some superb memories of Shivaratri. I have seen loads of people being awake all through the night.

I was staying at Malleshwaram for the first 15 years of my life, ie during childhood. Growing up in Malleshwaram is always special. That place is a different world altogether. Venkateshwara Bakery, Friends Circulating Library, Malleshwaram Railway Station, Mysore Lamps, Yeshwantpur APMC Yard, Malleshwaram 8th Cross, 18th Cross, Vylikaval, Govardhan Theater. these were some of my favorite spots. I was cycling to many of these places. 

It was during Shivaratri on one such superb year, not sure which year. I saw a bunch of my friends playing cricket under streetlight, during the night, just to avoid sleep. I mean aint it awesome. No traffic, no noise, some stray dogs here and there, some drunkards here and there. I too played on the streets infact main roads for quite some time, before going to bed.

You might be wondering why I am writing about this particular thing. This Shivaratri too, after 10+ years, something similar happend. I saw a bunch of people playing cricket under streetlight on a vacant site. I mean, aint it awesome, it indeed brought back loads of memories of my childhood days which I spent at Malleshwaram.

Playing hide and seek in the dark, story telling in the dark, loads of other stuffs. These days, I hate to spend time in the dark, I mean during power cuts, those were the days, when I was wishing for a much longer duration of power cut.

Things have changed. I miss the good old days, Malleshwaram etc etc.

Cheers.

PS::: My favorite spots in the last 10 years.

Kengeri Satellite town, Rajarajeshwari Nagar, Global village surround,  Nelamangala above all home sweet home..

Listen to the radio

Long time since I actively tuned into 91.9 FM Radio Indigo. I have not been able to catch with newer rock songs off late. My knowledge about the latest hit rock songs, on the charts is absolutely zero.

[ Most part of my head is pre-occupied with travel from ITPL to Uttarahalli ].

I came home early today, and apart from reading some stuffs here and there I planned to listen to some songs. I wanted to listen to some songs apart from those on my mp3 player or those being played on the radio.


Heard So Far away from me , by Dire Straits, playing on the radio. Not sure whether its a slow rock song, but sure its a evergreen song :)-

Cheers,

Trying to interpret the meaning of OUTSOURCING....

Disclaimer:: The below post consists of only my thoughts and has nothing to do with any person or entity. All similarities are merely coincidential.

Here I am trying to interpret the meaning of outsourcing.. I am looking from a developers point of view. Where a person codes to bring up a new software into the  market. Outsourcing can be considered as any software development work which comes to India. Please refrain from thinking about Maintenance or other stuffs.

I feel outsourcing is another gimmick. It is nothing but another management strategy to depict profits made due to outsourcing. Let me explain about the real project / product development. The project needs a lots of code to be written, the foundation needs to be built with some strong and steady code.

On top of this code, the developer codes more business logic or utilities which inturn make use of the foundation code. Every step either the coding related to foundation or code related to business logic, involves lot of design activity.

What I really feel is much of this core work never gets outsourced, I  mean to say is much of the foundation is laid in places apart from India, what work comes to India is nothing but writing small business logic on top of the foundation.

Many people feel this should be more than enough. But the truth is the design aspect of this also is controlled else where and is not outsourced to India. What finally comes to our hands is writing of some code, which has been designed and approved by someone outside India.

So what outsourcing is really this ?? Its nothing but a gimmick where management asks to step up profits by outsourcing work to India. In the end you can imagine what work really comes to India.

If this is wrt to development related activity, you can imagine what about maintanence related stuffs.

If such work comes to India, where is the place for a person like me who likes to CODE.

There exists only Managers, and the only organization ladder which exists is the management stream, ie becoming a project manager.

Sad state of affairs, but what to do.

Cheers,

Usual Weekend

Its been another usual weekend. Nothing new, nothing exciting. I am wondering what to do to make stuffs interesting. I thought let me join a new organization. It will make me more enthu towards my work. But it turned out the other way round.

Drove yesterday for around 150 kms. Was kind of satisfied. But the everyday travel to ITPL coupled with the drive had made me tired to the core. Slept a lot yesterday. Lots to look for this week. Including one holiday on Friday. Yippy.

Cheers,

Some pics from the latest game which I am playing.. GTA 4


Here are some of the pics whilst playing GTA4, phenomenal game, enjoying every bit of it. Some of the cars which I drive in the game. The picture in the middle was a mangled car, which was refusing to move.. :)

Cheers,

My New PC Game, GTA4.

I have seen the game GTA since many years. I have not been able to play the game even once, because of some issues wrt to hardware requirement and stuffs like that.

Now that I have a good PC, I have started playing the 4th edition of the game.

Frankly speaking, GTA 4 has phenomenal graphics. Worth playing. I wish I get more time to play and play.

Way to go RSG.

Cheers,

PS:: My brother is playing another edition of GTA, San Andreas :P
Regarding NFS undercover went on with 15 levels, but soon realized none of the cars were getting unlocked. So moved to a new game altogether.

A New post out of no where

Amidst all these travelling which I do from Uttarahalli to ITPL, close to 70 kms a day, I somehow have found some time to write a new post. Otherwise I am in no mood to write anything these days.
Most of the time, I shall be cribbing about my pathetic decision to join a company in ITPL.

Now cribbing aside, here is some writing.

Close to my house is a dog kennel. A place which provides shelter for many dogs temporarily. Owners bring their pets here and drop them so that they can move out of town, without a worry about feeding the dog.

Over all these years, I have seen one strange dog behavior, that too about stray dogs. A locality may have few stray dogs wandering in front of the houses. But whenever a dog from a neighboring locality enters another locality, the dogs of the locality start chasing it and probably will even bite it. So there is never an open acceptance of dogs from other locality.

Now when I saw in this kennel, there were many dogs from many owners. All these dogs were quiet and they barked in unison. I was wondering how is this possible. The dogs though not stray come from different localities and are never aware of each others presence but still how could they get along so well.

Then I recollected the old saying in HINDI, " APNI GALI MEIN KUTTA BHI SHER HOTA HEY ".

So the rest is understood.

Cheers,

PS:: Somehow felt like writing about this thing.

Unleashing the gamer in me..

Long time since I actually blogged. Over the weekend, I purchased a new PC. And yes, after years of waiting, I am actually, unleashing the gamer in me.

Started with NFS Undercover. Cool one.. Will try to complete as many levels as possible before I start with another game altogether..

Cheers,

Solar Eclipse today

It was solar eclipse time today. I was told not to eat anything whole day long.

I leave my home for office at around 7 am. I ate my early morning breakfast at 6 45 am. Then I left for office. I did not have anything during office time. I came home around 8 10 pm and had dinner around     8 20 pm.

I am not boasting about my achievement. It was an extremely hard and difficult day for me. Not to eat anything, nor drink water all day long. I somehow managed to reach home.

I thank my teachers and God for whatever I am today. I cannot imagine how people lead a life where they cannot get food 2 times a day. I feel I am indeed blessed to have good food.

Thank you God.

Cheers.

Great to follow Robin Sharma on twitter..

I use twitter quite often. I do keep on tweeting whatver comes to my mind. I have a few people whom I follow on twitter. One of them is the great Robin Sharma. I have been a huge fan of Robin Sharma. Robin Sharma's book The Greatness Guide has truly and tremendously inspired me a lot.

I discovered something which I always wanted to do. That is coding. I owe a lot to Robin Sharma and his superb book.

Today one of his tweets had a superb message. I thought of blogging it over here.

Here it goes.I am copying it over here. I hope it inspires you too.. :)

"You risk everything by risking nothing." Donny Deutsch (read his book "Often Wrong, Never in Doubt")

Awesome, I recollect there are certain risks which I plan to take. Lemme see, how it works about. :)


Cheers,

Some things which I would love to do or want to do (whtever).

Here is a list of things which I would have loved to have done. But I haven't. Some of them are possible. Just need to make my mind.

1. I would love to be a geek, full time geek. All kinds of stuffs included apart from coding.

2. I would love to code for a lifetime. I have made up my mind. Only God or the Indian IT Industry can stop me in this.

3. I would love to write a tech blog, which includes side projects on .NET and stuff.

4. I would love to work on open source stuffs all by myself. Tools which get listed on codeplex. Some super project which is kind a new.

5. I would love to master WPF- Windows Presentation Foundation.

6. I want to be a hard core gamer. ( I have brought a new PC, need to check how much I can unleash the gamer in me.) I have enough fun unleashing the turbo charger in my car :P

7. I want to listen to radio on a constant basis.[ 91.9 FM ]

8. I want to drive out of Bangalore every weekend.

9. I have always loved to drive a Mahindra Bolero or a Tempo Trax aka Force Gama. These two are my dream machines. I know its literally impossible for me to own a Tempo Trax in town. I can someday think about Bolero though. As of now I cannot afford it, some day, I shall definitely drive  a Mahindra Bolero :). [As of now more than happy with Indica TDI ]

10. I would love to move out of India, in search of better coding opportunities.

11. I would love to read more. Loads of fiction books and books pertaining to .NET and coding.

12. I would love to follow more blogs on sharpreader.

13. I would love to see my car giving a mileage of 16+ kms per litre diesel in city limits.

14. I would love to be a better human being.

How about this, for a career ?

Recently I came across a blogpost, on one of the technical blogs which I read. Let me give a short history about my blog reading interests.

As a developer I always loved to read blogs. I used to read  a few of them. But after joining Honeywell, I began to read a bit more of them and then came SharpReader into picture and I started reading a whole lot of blogs. I still have my Exported Subscription file (*.opml) file in my mail. Unfortunately both Honeywell and my current organization have not been so friendly in promoting the use of " FREE TO USE " feed readers. Hence I have not been able to import my opml file into reader. But let me practice using google reader for now.

Ok thats a bit of history.

Now I still remember some of my favorite technical bloggers url. I happened to read one such blog. The author studied electronics and music , then graduated with Computer science bachelor and master degree. He was a part of a UK based band, and then stopped it all and came down to programming. Now he has been a programmer for last 13-14 years. He is an amazing programmer, I wish someday, I could be a bit atleast like him.

Recently he posted an article, where he said, he would quit programming, since he found his talent else where. That is music.

It kept me thinking and thinking. I am so much in favor of UK or US or any other country other than India. It allows you to lead a life of your own.

I have seen bikers, their fulltime passion for bikes, programmers and their dedication for coding for a period of over 25 years. I have seen musicians and their passion for music for their entire lifetime.
In other words, they all enjoy what they are doing and that too big time.

But here in India, people ask me to settle down in a a company. Do whatever work which comes to me, rather than do the work which interests me the most. People advise me not to change too many companies. And everywhere I go, people tell me you will end up as a manager in sometime. Forget about coding. Don't take it seriously.

I mean this is one thing which I do not like about Indian software industry. There is no scope nor respect for coders. Everyone who studies in an engineering college dreams of becoming a project manager someday. No one is interested in coding for more than 4 years.

If you code for more than many years, people think you are unfit to become a manager.

How about this for a career, I was wondering. What a lightyear gap between Indian market and those markets.

Someone please tell me how to pursue coding as a career for another 10-15 years. I am running out of time and answers.

Cheers,

Hooking on to twitter via mobile

All of today has gone without me doing anything. I had gone to some furniture shop to select a computer table. But did not like any of them kept over there. Hence thought of going to another shop someother time.

Apart from that, I tried hooking up onto twitter using my Nokia 1100 mobile phone.

This was my second such attempt. Last time I tried, I could not succeed. But this time, I managed to do it. So am happy about my feat for the day :)

Cheers,

New Ad on the television

I was impressed with a new ad on the television. " Kuch Cheesey Jo Dikh Thi Hey, Aazmaane Par Kuch Zyaada He Hoti Hey " or a kind of catchy phrase introduces the ad.

It shows a vendor on the road signal accepts a currency note from a driver, for a newspaper or magazine which he is selling. When he crosses over the road to get the remaining amount, the lady driver feels he is eloping with her money. But promptly he returns it back.

How often have we been in such a situation. In particular me. We feel in two minds about the decision we have made especially monetary decisions.

For example, a tenant giving the owner rent in the form of a cheque, so as to keep a proof that rent is provided, in any case if the owner revolts about this. In reality the owner would have no thoughts of doing so, but thats how we are :)

I have been really concerned with every organization I have joined, but when you see my today, its because of working at all those organizations.

And yes first impression is not always the best impression. That is what the ad on TV depicts. How true. :)

Not many people agree with me on this. Everyone feels, first impression is the best impression.
Assume you have a bad first impression about a person. You may end up " NOT " speaking with that person for a whole lifetime. :)

Cheers.

The grass is always greener on the other side

Not sure how to convince myself. I always end up crying over spilled milk. Its one of the hardest things, I am yet to come over. Every now and then, I take one step ahead and start wondering whether, was this step required or not.

If you are wondering what I am talking about, I am talking about my new organization and some stuffs involved with it.

I joined a new organization. I had 2 offers on hand and decided to go with one of them. Now after travelling to ITPL for a week, I am wondering if I had selected the other offer, its workplace which was relatively closer than ITPL.

This is not the first time, I have ended up in this situation. The last time I joined Honeywell, I too had an alternate offer, and somewhere I ended up cribbing too.

But how long will I regret my decisions. I have full faith in God that he has guided me to the right direction. But having said that, why do I end up crying over spilled milk?

I really do not know. And yes the grass looks very green on the other side..

Esp when there is no travel to ITPL involved. :)

One of the so called ordinary week.

Its been a very quite week. I have joined a new organization on the 4th of January. Ideally speaking, I should be a very happy guy. A hike in the salary, a new workplace, lots of people to meet.

 But it isn't. The travel to ITPL is pathetic. I thought it would be bad, but its worse than the worst.

 Somehow I feel I have not made a wise decision.

 I am praying to God to make me accustomed to this new organization and ITPL travel, else .. you it better :)

Cheers,

What am I blogging about ???

Its been almost 3 years since I started blogging. All the posts in this blog are about myself. Its been three years and still I am not tired. Sometimes I wonder, why do I post about myself. Why can't I give out some gyaan.

But the honest truth is I have never intended to share / give out any gyaan to others. May be I am not good enough for sharing gyaan or may be I dont have gyaan, you can take that for an excuse, I dont mind.

But I really did not know as to why I was blogging about my day to day topics. I surely did not have an answer for almost 3 years. But yesterday, I got to see one of the tweets of SRK.

After reading that I sure have a reason as to why I blog about my day to day routine.

Though I am not a celeb as SRK, but sure the tweet sounded apt for me..

SRK ::: " but my friend ______ insisted that i should learn to share my life. "

So I feel proud about my blog posts and I am happy that I finally found a strong backing reason to keep me blogging.

Cheers,

Pleasant surprise

I joined a new organization on 4th of January 2010. Everything was new over there. The induction did not happen. This was my fourth organization and everything over here felt weird.

In all of my previous organizations, I would be introduced to my team mates, guided to lunch, some topics of discussion would be there. But here it was different. I was in a meeting room going through some documents and was all for myself yesterday.

I indeed wrote some tweets about my frustration yesterday. But today there was a pleasant surprise in store. There is another new joinee along with me, whom I met while leaving the office yesterday evening. Infact I could not get much info about him.

But today was a different case. I found out that the other new joinee was a localite and we both started speaking in Kannada. It was one of those pleasant days after an ordinary day.

Everything I did today found a special meaning in itself. I did not get frustrated as much as I did yesterday.

Hoping for a still better day tomorrow.

Cheers,