When I bid farewell to Token #1

Today was a weird day to be honest. Never thought I would see this day so soon. Incase you are trying to scratch your head as to what I am talking about, well scratch no more (unless you are suffering from a dandruff problem that is.. hehehehehe) Today was a day when Madhu bid good bye to us.

Incase you are wondering who the heck is Madhu, well Madhu is this fresher girl who was part of my neighbouring team and after being with us for 3+ years she bid good-bye to us in search of greener pastures. 

Well you might be thinking, why is this guy getting all melodramatic over a fresher girl quitting. I can even see you give me that crooked smile even. I wouldnt want you to let your imagination horses run wild. Madhu is a very unique girl to be honest and to be precise. She's been the most down to earth, easy going, no drama girl I have seen so far in my current organisation. She doesnt have reservations, she has an awesome sense of humor, loves to be complimented on how "pretty" she looks and yet, commands an awesome amount of respect for a person she is. Like all guys, I too have committed the sin of ogling at her and have been audacious enough to be blatant about it to her itself (LOL, am sure she's laughing her heart out when she reads this). But I realized that she's way too more than just being ogled at. She's an amazing person whom you would want to befriend, especially if you are looking at a no non-sense person to hang around with.

To her nothing is a big headache in life. Her biggest of woes are for e.g., "I am feeling sleepy" or "I didn't dress up properly" etc., On a superficial level it might sound as if she's a dumb girl. But nope, that's not what Madhu is as I learnt. Madhu loves keeping things as simple as possible, and she is blatantly honest. She taught me to laugh out loud (although I never ever confessed this to her until now). She taught me what does it mean when someone says "Live life today". She taught me as to what does it mean when someone says "Keep it simple silly".

I have had the privilege of being her friend, philosopher, guide, mentor etc., but she has done me an equal favor by always being there to listen to my never ending woes, my whining, my cribbing. She has never managed to solve any of my worries but has always managed to help me ease off with my fretting. She has always ensured that she comes to me, talks to me, pesters me like hell, every-time I get cross with her and climb up the "drum-stick tree". I must admit I haven't seen too many people who would even want to go through so much of pain just to ensure that they get to talk to me again.

Today as I bid farewell to her and watched her walk off cheerfully, I thought, would I ever come across such a live-wire who has managed to shake off all my woes and made me smile as well. She has promised to be in touch, but then again, life is one fabulous journey which has more surprises than you can imagine. So the chances of keeping up her promise are very grim. Not to mention that she is one lazy ass who loves to just sleep her life away, if given a chance.

Madhu, thank you so much for giving me the privilege of knowing you as a person, for helping me learn so many valuable lessons without even knowing that you were indeed teaching me all of it, thank you so much for making me laugh, for hearing to all my gyan and best of them all, thank you so much for being a friend and showering in so many good memories to cherish about in moments of tranquility.

May all your dreams come true (I know the biggest one of yours is to get the 3 knots tied.. lol)!

- Token #1 Holder :)

 

When God explained "God" to "humanity"

I haven't actually heard of much more elegant, down-to-earth simple and straight forward definition of God which makes sense to both a Theist as well as an Atheist.

I got so inspired by this dialog, that I felt I should share it with people who may have not watched this movie, or perhaps may not understand tamil.

[ Courtesy : Arai enn 305 il Kadavul, a tamil movie (God, in room no 305 ] 

The characters in this dialog.

Rudran is an atheist.
Arnold is God in guise, on planet earth.

Here's an interesting conversation between an atheist and the greatest theist's of all, God.

Arnold : umm, your room is filled with a lot of books.

Rudran : yup, all these books are against blind beliefs that exist in the society in the name of God. I have books written by Thanthai Periyar, Darwin's origin of species, The gospel of Atheism written by Annie Besant, Religions misguided missiles by Richard dawkins. All these books were written keeping one fact in mind, betterment of the human society. Most of the times I see society downgrade itself in the name of God which is why all these people proposed their thoughts.

Arnold : (smiles in appreciation)

Rudran : All that aside, tell me in which side are you ?What is your idea about God ?

Arnold : Umm.. very simple. By birth everyone is born with some qualities. Some draw very nicely, some play well, some write stories well. A person who draws well cant play well, and a person who plays well cant write well. On the same lines, when everyone is born, along with you is born this confidence that you can lead your life on your own. You have this feeling that you don't need anyone's help to take your life forward and you believe in yourself. But some people feel it would be good if they have "Some company" as a moral support. Both these two sects of people have one common needs which is "Self confidence". But because in the way God is being manipulated and used and projected by the society, He now portrays a person who evangelizes blind beliefs and as a person who grows social discrimination. Like goats or hens being given as sacrifice, people walking on fire, people shaving their heads in temples, people rolling on the floor around a temple, people walking to temples upside down on their feet, all these gymnastics and gimmicks are all extra fittings. There is no religious book that is part of any religion which says, you need violence, you need to have racial discrimination etc.

Rudran : Lol.. hold on now.. whom are you supporting now ?

Arnold : I am supporting Love. Love is God. God's heart throb is Love.

Rudran : Wait a minute. You are just beating around the bush. You know how much discrimination we have in the name of God. This religion's guy cant enter the place of worship of that religion and vice-versa. Forget all of that, even among the same religion this caste person is not allowed to enter that caste person's place of worship. Is this what you call as the place of Love ?? Aint this wrong ??

Arnold : Well if you just talk with respect to this problem alone this is wrong. But I feel we shouldn't restrict ourselves only to this problem. Let me explain. Tell me how many houses are there in your village.

Rudran : Ummm...well probably around 4000 houses.

Arnold : umm.. good. How many places of worship are there ?

Rudran : Umm.. probably some 3 or 4.

Arnold : So how is everyone living in those 4000 houses. 4 religions, 400 castes, this street person wont go to that street and that street person wont come here, this guy wont marry a girl from that street, and that guy wont give water to this guy. A bunch of people who live as landlords, and another bunch of people who live as slaves.. Is this all right ? Is division in the place of worship, alone your problem ? Why don't you start believing in the fact that everyone is equal and change the village, wouldn't the places of worship change automatically ? After all, aint those 4 places of worship amongst those 4000 houses ?

Rudran : Gets ferocious and argues back... It was only because of God, came religions and castes and now along with it so much discrimination. That is why I feel that I don't need God at all.

Arnold : No Rudran its impossible. You can't bring that into practice.

Rudran : Why is it not possible? In my generation, under my leadership I will get this done.

Arnold : Smiles and replies back.. The reason why am saying its impossible is because, here are you, who has fully understood what your leaders have to say, you fully believe that atheism is the way to go and hence you are on that side. But do you really think that on this side, wherein you are facing people who believe in God, fully even know what they are talking about ?? How many people do you even think love God from the bottom of their hearts ? God also gets the same amount of respect as that given to a cop who is standing on guard for protecting the public. Do you think everyone who comes to a place of worship, comes there to express their gratitude to God for creating this world and prays for world peace ?? Come on Rudran... Either they come there and crib and whine about their problems, or they seek a completely secure riskless life just as any insurance policy claims to give. Most importantly your leaders don't believe in forgiveness for mistakes, but here its like the full time job of "God"...

Arnold : If you want to capsize God's market, its very very simple. All you have to do is have a good and right network using which you solve the small small problems in the day to day life of a person. If you do that, God's market will plunge... but there's a small glitch to that... then they will make you God..

because as I said earlier, All they need is a small "company"....

Father's son...!

We have all am sure watched a dozen videos which says, treat your parents with love and affection. I have personally read more than a thousand forwards which emphasize on the fact that when parents get old, they enter into their second childhood and that they should be treated like they were kids.

But here's a little of my two cents that I felt like telling someone. Unfortunately since there's no one else to listen to me, am turning back to my faithful companion who has always heard everything that I wished to talk about, "my blog".

I, as all other kids, always visualized and regarded my father as my biggest hero on this planet earth. He's like the zoo-zoo that appears on the "Vodafone 3G" ad. He could do anything. He would solve financial issues with ease, take in as much as emotional trauma as possible and yet smile at me and would at times even spend time with me, just being a kid. He has always been my world to me. Now I am all grown up, and my father has grown backwards is what everyone tells me. 

There are certain diseases that do more damage to a person than you can think of. Parkinson's Syndrome is one such disease. Although am not going to really elaborate on the symptoms of this disease (Google can tell you more than what I can do), here are a few things the disease can make a person into. You will become this "slow motion action replay character", which means everything you do, would actually resemble being done in slow motion, right from walking around to responding to things. You will also morph into this "Absent minded professor" who keeps forgetting the short term things. You will end up more frequently asking "Where am I".. ? or "I don't remember that".. or "How do you switch on this TV".. You will become this helpless child but the only difference is, unlike the case of a child, you wouldn't see too many people willing to help you.

Am now seeing my father do all this, which apart from the emotional trauma also ends up putting me "in the spot". Since am a very happy bachelor, I don't know how to deal with kids nor have I had the affinity to play around with any kids. When it comes to kids, I always have kept a safe distance from them, not because I hate kids, but because of the fear of my ignorance.. "I don't know how to handle kids".. Now my father is turning into one and am not able to find out how do I handle him. Perhaps I am still stuck with this mindset of him being my "zoo-zoo Vodafone 3G hero" that I can't think of him as anything else. I find it awkward when he is trying desperately to just "button his shirts" or when I find him concentrating hard just to ensure that the "morsel of idli" makes it's way into his mouth and doesn't fall off. If dealing with Parkinson's syndrome was something which is difficult, dealing with elders who are suffering from it is even more difficult.

Sometimes I have burst into laughter, seeing my father do some things. Like for e.g., this other day we were all to be going to the polling booth to cast our votes. Since both my folks are senior citizens and I was their escort, we were allowed inside the booth as soon as we got there. While I was busy signing the register and my mum was trying to get her finger inked, I saw dad going round the Electronic Voting Machine, as if he were doing the "Merry-go-round". I couldn't help bursting out in laughter but didn't do so. Later after we got home, I asked him.. "Dad why were you circling the Voting Machine".. to which he very promptly replied.. "I was trying to ensure there wasn't anyone around trying to sneak around while I cast the votes.. what did you think ? I was having difficulties finding the machine ??".. that was a funny incident.

Sometimes I have also sank into a chair in utter sorrow, with my eyes filled with tears seeing my father's helplessness. This other day his condition worsened so much that he said to me "I don't seem to know where we are".. He would bend down and try to pick up something.. and when I asked him what he was doing he said "Am trying to pick up my shirt that's lying on the floor..."

All I hope is that I gain the patience and the endurement required to ensure that I still end up behaving like my "Father's son" and not anything else. For all those who are wondering what I am speaking about, take my words.. its a lot more difficult and harder fact to handle your "ageing kids" than your "growing toddlers"...

A random story !

Bill, was a happy toad who lived with his family in a nice little pond by the hills. He didn't have too much to do everyday, just croak around the entire day, jump here and there and catch a fly when it was meal time. Bill was a loving son to his parents and they were very happy to have him around. Bill was a big croak, and he had loads of friends with whom he shared a lot of his "time-pass". One fine day, Bill met this frog in the lake, her name was Angela. Bill liked Angela, because Angela was easy going as well. All day they would hop around, have fun, tease each other. Time went by and Angela and Bill became very good friends. Bill never had any second thoughts or confusions about Angela, but he really liked spending time with Angela. One fine day, in a lazy afternoon, both Bill and Angela were sitting by the lotus flowers on the lake, hiding under its shadows to escape the bright sun. Suddenly Angela said, "Bill, what if we go our separate ways, due to some reason or the other"... Bill was too drowsy to even reply back.. Angela slapped Bill and yelled out the same question again... Bill jumped out, thanks to that quick slap... he still took some time to come back to his senses and then said..."Ummm... well I dunno... I would miss you around perhaps"... Angela said... "umm.. yeah.. I guess I would too"... Bill was all puzzled.. he asked.. "but hey, Angela, why this question all of a sudden".... to which Angela replied.. "Oh well, I dunno.. just felt like asking...."...

Days went by... but Angela's question stuck to Bill's head.. he now started seeing an unknown fear of losing a good companion... days were getting miserable... and Bill was no longer able to be himself... One day Bill decided to put an end to his misery.. so as always, after their lunch... this time it was a couple of juicy flies... after which Angela even burped "Croak, croak"... they settled down for the noon siesta under the bright petals of the big lotus flower....

Bill said... "Hey Angela, can I tell you a secret..."... Angela jumped up and said "wowwie.. a secret.. temme.. temme.. temme"... Bill said... "Am gonna tell you a wish... a wish that I dont know will come true or not... its just a wish...".. Angela said... "Ah, a wish eh... temme temme".. and started jumping around...

Bill cleared up his croaky throat and said... "I wish, that someday, after a lot of days... I still get to spend time with you...."... Angela stopped... and said... "Well, aren't we now?".. Bill replied... yeah...we are...I just wish... that "we spend a lot of time with each other, as the froggy pair".. Angela's smile vanished.. she had a blank look at her face... she sat silent for a long time and said..."I thought we were friends"... and just walked away...

Bill sat there, lost... Bill didn't know what he had done wrong... Bill had just told a wish... Bill that day promised himself... he's not going to tell anyone of his wishes... including "God"...! because sometimes, wishes are not taken as wishes... but as hidden intentions !!

The day when I clinged to my parents wrinkled hands for support...

Weekends have almost always been pretty much a drag offlate. Blame it on the lack of hobbies, or blame it on the lack of availability of friends.. or blame it on me being a bachelor still.. The reasons could have been anything, but it was a bit of a brutal reality. I have been striving hard to fight off this boredom by indulging myself in something or the other. Unfortunately I must admit, my laziness has always gotten the best of me, and I have managed to end up trying hard to literally push the clock's hands and make the weekend go away as soon as possible. This past weekend was no different. But this time I was determined. Saturday morning, I decided to book myself tickets to a movie. I didn't explore much, for the agenda was simple and straight forward. I quickly opened up Mayajaal's site and managed to find tickets for the tamizh movie "Payanam". The movie hasnt had much of a hype. It wasnt on the ranks of Eindhiran the robot nor did it have the advertising backing of "aadugalam". It just had the reputation of having something to do with "Prakashraj". So I booked tickets for the movie. Weekends have always been a busy day for mum, for she's very particular that she prepares whatever best she can.. her excuse.. "Kanna, these are the only two days you are at home, and I want you to eat properly.."... (For those who have seen me, would somehow have a tough time believing this alibi of hers.. especially considering my gigantic size...LOL).. So after a sumptous meal and a good noon siesta, I headed off to mayajaal. I was startled to find that they had hiked the bike parking charges from 10 bucks to 20... So I paid the doubled up charges, parked my bike, collected my tickets and headed off into the theater. I felt extremely weird walking into that theatre to be honest, for I seemed to be the only guy, who had come to watch the movie, all by myself, no company, no shoulder leaning, hand clutching pretty faces to accompany.. just me, myself and me! The movie was a good one, and I had a good laugh as well. The interval was marked with some childish fights between the love smitten pair sitting next to me on my left side.. while on my right side the gal was busy explaining the rest of the story to her boy friend.. ! The movie continued and eventually I headed back home.. Till now all was fine.. I came home and resumed my weekend ritual of being glued to the idiot box, and watching a mallu movie... That was when it happened...

      Mum had gotten some dosa batter and had delegated the task of having the batter emptied into a vessel to dad.. Dad has been a victim of Parkinson's syndrome and has been having a slack in responses, ear-marked by extreme shivers. While he was pouring out the batter into the vessel, he spilt everything on the floor. Like a small kid, he kept repeatedly telling me.."I spilt the batter .. I spilt the batter ".. I was shattered to see dad's plight.. Here was a man, who has been my greatest hero in my life, the man who single handedly managed the entire affairs of his big family.. the man to whom everyone of his siblings ran to when they were in trouble.. the man who stood unshaken even in the worsest of disasters.. and now I saw him all said for a petty thing of having spilt the batter .. I dont know what got into me.. I stormed into the kitchen and blasted my mum left right and center.. and in the fury, I uttered words which I shouldn't have.. Mum didn't utter a word in response, dad timidly walked into the kitchen and kept urging me not to scold his "beloved sweetheart".. but I had turned a deaf ear to everything... I could see my mum's eyes filling up, but I had no remorse at what I was doing.. Finally I got so angry, that I stormed out of the house and decided to go to the beach with a cancer stick in hand.. But this time, something kept asking me.."Why did you yell at her".. I tried giving a dozen excuses of why I had every right to do so, but unfortunately the rationale mind in me refused to buy any of those excuses.. I sat in the beach, with the waves running to the shores with a roar, and that moment was when I cried.. I shouldn't have yelled at my parents.. All my life I have apologized to a lot of strangers for no reason, but never have I apologized to my parents.. I decided to set the records straight.. I went back home, called both of them into a room and said.. "Ma, am sorry.. I don't know why my tempers shot up, and I don't know why I did that.. but am sorry for whatever I said..".. Offlate I have always regarded my parents as my kids and treated them only with that regard... this was one moment when they made me realize, that they still are my matured and extremely caring parents..My dad timidly said, "Son.. don't think am trying to advice you, but you have to learn to control your temper..We are your parents, we will understand.. but others wont..".. I didn't say anything, just nodded my head in agreement and lied on my mum's laps..That was a day, when I felt as being their kid one more time.. felt the luxury of having them take care of me.. felt the warmth of running back to them, whine about my problems to them, and be assured of having them to listen to me.. It was a day, when I stopped living the life of a grown-up and went back to my days as a child!

The other side of the story !

This would be a bit of a technical post. So please don't bother reading ahead, if you are highly allergic to technology.

All my life I have been a tester, who bugs and drives developers nuts with his bugs. I must admit, although I profess with blatancy that "I always wanted to be a developer but ended up being a QA", I guess over the period of time I kinda became good at testing (atleast I would like to believe so). During my short career of being a tester for 5 plus years, I have had many an instances wherein I have celebrated successful releases and I have also bore the brunt of last minute confusions.
All those years, I never felt or experienced the other side of the story, which is what would the developer feel, when his/her code is being released.

This was all fine until last friday, when things turned topsy-turvy in my professional life as well !

Its been close to 2 plus years since I moved away from testing and started exploring the unchartered territories of automation. Recently close to a year back, I finally landed in a framework development team, wherein I was offered a fabulous buffet of challenging problems, hair pulling logic etc etc., Yes, for the first time, I was beginning to live the life of a developer.

Coming back to the story, this friday was supposed to be our automation framework code release, and I was asked to get my act together and do it as well. Imagine, from being a tester some years back, now I got to the level of being a developer plus a release management guy as well ! Wow, I was flabberghasted with the oppurtunity. Little did I realise what was due my way. So after some initial confusions with all the credentials and access etc., I finally kicked off the release by noon. Things were sailing smooth. Although GIT to me has been like a film heroine (good to look, but very hard to "get"), I still had a few basic things that I knew. For all the rest well, "Google guru" was still at my disposal.. [GIT is an open source free to use, version control system.. See, now you learnt something new]

By around 6 PM, after 4 hours of checking and double checking and nervously biting my nails I had wrapped up the release, and the builds all ran fine on Hudson (Nah, Hudson is neither the name of a river nor the name of some dude who works in the US, its a continuous build integration tool.. gotcha didnt I ?? Its ok dont worry.. the first time I heard this name, I thought it was some guy from San Jose, USA who was working for us.. LOL.. so you are not alone...). 

My trusted friend and colleague Kiddo (His name is Rex, but for some reason everyone calls him Kiddo.. although I must admit, he doesnt portray any characteristics of a kid for sure.. LOL... am sure he's gonna murder me when he reads this.. Sorry Rex.. just leg pulling..), was asked to help us test the release. I know I know, you must be wondering.. dude aren't you a tester yourself ?? Well, what do I say.. I guess my testing skills got a bit rusty now perhaps.. just kidding.. 

So Rex started testing the code post release and in the first 5 minutes he found a Sev 1 and that too was directly tied down to my code... I couldn't believe my eyes... I had missed an obviously straight forward simple bug... and I was a tester who coded.. !! I was shattered... the first time I made a huge delivery and I took a Sev 1.. I panicked.. I tried figuring out what was the issue. The issue was too simple to need any investigation. I found the problem, created a patch and I was in such a hurry to apply the patch before anyone of our users found it... My team mate Deepak warned me... He said.."Hmm... Chrisnun (yup that's how he sounds when he calls me...) I dont think its a good idea.. you should probably leave the patch branch out there and then we should later decide.." but I was determined.. I guess I couldnt still get over the fact that I introduced a bug.. the guilt was killing me... I had failed in my own scale of being a perfectionist and here I was feeling "butt naked" and I had no one else to blame but my own-self...
 

I convinced him that applying the patch right-away is the right thing to do and we should do it before we run out of time.. Eventually Deepak agreed as well.. That was when catastrophe struck.. I tried pushing in a new build and it failed.. Only then I realised that I could only deploy once and not more than that...

I sank in my chair... Here I was, doing my first release, and I had now made two mistakes.. I introduced a bug in the first place and then introduced another issue of a build failure.. I was already imagining myself being called into a conference room and being beaten up left right and center by like 100 people... I had lost it... I still had to let people know I goofed up.. I gathered courage and then sat down patiently to write an e-mail (If you ever read that note I sent, it would remind you of a guy confessing at the confession box in a church !!!) explaining to my onsite manager, what had gone wrong... I was sad, I was depressed and as all sad and depressed people do, I too headed off to a bar.. deciding to drown my sorrows in alcohol.. But I couldnt afford to overdo it, for I still had a conference call later that night and I definitely didnt want to sound drunk...

11 PM, and I log into the call.. I am expecting angry voices, furious shouting at me.. but I heard a calm voice from my manager.. I was pacified.. he said its ok.. he said, you did a great job and these things happen... Eventually I re-ran the release the following Monday and drew the curtains on the release... But running the release on Monday I was under tremendous self pressure.. I had already made mistakes and I was scared to make mistakes again.. I literally was shivering at my desk amidst that release...
Finally when I had completed the release.. I felt like a mother who came out of a labour room after delivering her child.. and that too "Normal delivery" !!!

Today when I think of the entire episode, I cant help but notice one strong feeling.. Would this how every developer would have felt, when a tester caught a serious issue in their code and that too on the day of a live push, and that too on a friday evening at 6 in the evening... just when every other guy around is singing.. "Where's the party tonight"... ??

Or was I over-reacting ?? I didn't know.. I didn't care what it was.. but I certainly learnt how it feels to be "On the Other side of the story" :)

Songs of life

As an average Indian, I have always been fascinated by the importance and relevance of songs and the extent of impact they tend to have in our lives. My very own life is a standing testimony of such an impact. 

Let me take you on a journey wherein I narrate to you one such instance. Those were the most difficult days of my life. I still remember the hard times, when every minute seemed to last a life time, the hands of the clock would literally come to a grinding halt and I would almost go down on my knees pleading it to move ahead. I was admitted in a hospital for a serious health problem and I was bed ridden and had lost the ability to walk. I was lying on my stomach for quite a long time and as such, I had managed to induce severe cramps all along my intestine. End result, I wasn't able to eat any food at all and whatever little I did manage to eat, I would end up spending the rest of the day puking it out to all glory. It went to such an extent that, the nurses managed to get hold of a big steel bucket and have it ready at my bed at all times.. LOL.. talk about being pro-active. Well coming back to the story, the doctors advised me that if I didn't get out of my bed, I would go on experiencing this and had no other alternative. But as all patients, my morale was all time low, and my confidence had literally taken a hike. So I was not going to get out of my bed and thus my woes seemed to just get worser by the day. That was the period when our "Superstar's latest movie viz., Padayappa had hit the theaters". The hospital in which I was admitted also had a movie theatre complex adjoining it and I could literally hear the shrills of whistles that flew from the ever vibrant Rajni fans. As all young teenagers, my heart was wandering out of the window and I seriously wanted to get a sneak peek at the crowd atleast, if not getting a chance to watch the movie. My cousin brother who saw me go through terrible times, had a brilliant idea. He went and after a lot of trouble, managed to get a copy of the audio cassette of the movie Padayappa and gifted me and said, "Kanna listen to this", it might manage to take your mind off your pains. I felt it was so very touchy of him and very weird as well, because I have always seen him to be a casual no sentiments guy. I had a walk-man at my disposal, so I started listening to the songs. I felt it was just the usual typical Rajni songs, and didn't have much to it. That was when I heard the song Vetri Kodi kattu. I till date, don't know what got into me, but that song began pumping blood into my brains and out of no-where I felt I was being put on a high voltage battery charger. The song had a nice rhythmic beat and a fast number as well. By the time I heard the song the third or the fourth time, I was literally dancing in my bed. Bear in mind those were the days when I was an ardent fan of Rajni and even if he just pee'ed on the screen, that too was Rajni style to me.. LOL...(I know that really sounds childish now, even to me...)

The more I heard this song, the more grew my confidence and I announced profoundly to the nurse "Sister, call the ward boys, I wanna get out of the bed".. She was literally in shock, because it was the same me, who whined like a spoilt brat and refused to get out of bed... Within minutes there were two herculian ward boys who took me out of bed and gave me a walker to stand.. I also had a tape recorder in my room (yeah yeah, I know you might be wondering.. what next, you had a Micro wave and a pizza maker even in your room).. LOL.. well what can I say.. I was stuck in that hospital for months together and had managed to amass quite a lot of these things... I vehemently ordered the nurse.. "Play that song again"... So as she stood right next to the tape recorder, rewinding and playing back the same "Vettrikodi kattu" song over and over again, in a matter of minutes, I was literally running around my cot like a mad man with a walker... 

Some songs are like that.. some make us cry even when we are just hearing them on a casual note and some bring out the "freak" in us, and make us sway even without our knowledge..

I still remember the song Bhool ja by Shaan, that I keep repeatedly hearing everytime I have a heart break (Trust me, I have had more heart breaks than you could possibly imagine.. LOL)...

The song Engae Sellum Intha Pathai from the movie Sethu, still moistens my eyes, because it makes me feel as if I am standing in the middle of a winding road which just keeps going and going, not knowing where I am, and wondering where is life gonna take me...

Everytime I hear the song Koi kahey kehta rahey.. it reminds me of the don't care attitude that I should adopt to wage the everyday battle of life...

The song Chalthey Chalthey hallucinates me till date and makes me believe as if I am singing that song to the world, in a desperate attempt to tell people whom I know, not to forget me, after I am gone..

The one other song that promptly comes to my mind, everytime I turn back and look at my life filled with solitude is Lemon tree.. because I keep feeling its me who is singing that song to the world.

Songs come in all colors and in all flavors and at all times, always remind us/encourage us/lighten us/crack us up/let us brood in grief/teaches us to move on/advises us to deal with the tough battles of life.. the list just seems to be endless... and as I am typing this blog, I am still listening to this song  titled Enrique Iglesias "Tonight" (I'm F**kin' You)   for the sheer peppy beats this song has.. !

So as I wind up, here's my two cents for you.. let music rule your life and emotions, good or bad... music is sheer bliss.. !!

Facebook Galore

Yes, that's the latest mantra these days. From mobile phones, to chat applications everyone seems to be singing laurels of "Facebook".. In India, it has gone to such a level, that very soon you would probably see a day when they run "Facebook enabled autos and buses" even !.

Every mobile manufacturer seems to have Facebook as his first priority. No one these days says this phone has this, that etc., but the first thing they say is "Stay connected on FB" buy our mobile. Which makes me wonder, are they selling their products by advertising its own unique capabilities, or just basking under the glory of Facebook...!

That actually makes me think, what is there so much in Facebook that makes all these people go crazy !

Well, its just another social networking site, which managed to conveniently encourage "orkut" another social networking site, to commit suicide ! These days the only memories of my orkut account are due to the fact that once in a while, orkut kicks of e-mails about some happenings in the profiles of my friends.

Facebook sure has managed to take over the fascination of the average Indian, who seems to want a piece of anything and everything. The one big unique thing about Facebook has been this ability to have group conversations, which makes it more interesting.

Oh dont worry, I am not here to talk of the "Pros and Cons" of Facebook nor am I a critic who is doing a product review.

Its a mad rush, today its mobile phones, tomorrow it may even be televisions and the satellite televisions. Dont be surprised if you see a day when the satellite television providers like tata sky or airtel or reliance advertise to you saying, "Ours is the only service wherein you can watch your favorite channels and also stay connected with your friends on Facebook"...

Kudos facebook, you have managed to create a revolution and in the process helped everyone earn their itsy-bitsy profit and make some quick bucks ;-)

A weird journey

I want to share with you (whoever you are) this weird journey that I am now into. Its always been a passion of mine to do this travel and here I am finally living it. Before you unleash the reins of your imagination horses and let them run around all over the place, let me break the suspense. Its the journey of being a developer that I am talking about.

Did I see that weird expression in your face just now ? (or) perhaps that sarcastic grin even.. be it whatever, once I am done with painting the picture of this journey perhaps things might make a bit more relevance. If not, dont be too harsh on yourself, I guess you are losing it off-late :p (Just Kidding)

I have always profoundly confessed to whomever I met. I have always wanted to be a developer, but ended up being a QA. Lets face it, who wants to be a quality guy, who earns his bread and butter by cribbing his heart out, on things, by whining like a spoilt brat and by making a big fuss over things. LOL, incase you have your jaws dropped down in shock, relax, because that was my perception of being a QA.

I have had my own chances of being in the limelight thanks to me being a QA. I have rightly earned the reputation of being called as "A developer's nightmare". But writing code has always been a passion of mine. Its like the first love, which just refuses to die its natural death despite you doing whatever. So sometime back, when I was offered an opportunity to wear the hats of a coder, I thought... finally this castaway coder is being asked to come back to mainstream. 

Ever since its been no looking back. But now is the time to confess a lot of things, which in turn would only mean I am singing laurels at developers.

• A developer's job is not easy as it seems. Trust me I learnt that the hard-way especially when I had to stare at my PC for days together just to try and understand what has been created. Understanding existing systems is always such a herculean task and I too was confronted with it. But strangely my testing instincts took over me, and I started looking at the system as a user, trying to understand bits and pieces. This approach worked for me, and instead of being this mundane developer who scrolls through his code editor up and down a zillion times, I had managed to break open the system.
• The second biggest challenge I faced was, when it came to knowledge on technologies. I felt as if I was in the middle of Russia, on a dark evening, starved to death and not a single person who speaks English except me. I didnt know where to start with (I still am pretty much in a similar situation) and ramping up was a never ending task.
• As a developer, you are expected to have this unique ability to not only write code and fix bugs in your own creation, but to step into someone else's shoes, understand like him/her and tread the extra mile by fixing the short comings in their code as well.

The woes of being a developer only seem to be unraveling in front of me, as I dive more into this journey. But now there's no looking back, for now I have decided that come what may, I shall perish in my vain effort of being a developer.

So as I get beaten up left right and center by the police who are profoundly called as "Code Reviewers" in their futile effort of making me write those "wonderful poems in technologies" flawlessly, and having the so called "Unit Tests" for literally "Even the sneeze" in my code, I cling on desperately and hope that someday, when I am near the destination, I would turn back, take a look at this "Weird journey" of mine, smile at it and say "That was a good one" !!!

But I must admit, I have made some progress... Wanna know what it is ?

Here it goes.

I now have learnt to tell people, "That is not a bug, you were just too dumb not to know how to use it".

I now have learnt to reject bugs, by saying "Not a bug".

I now have learnt to say "It works fine on my machine, wonder why it doesnt work on your machine"...

I fix bugs, by giving countless hours of explanation and not write one line of code :D

Wonder if I am gonna end up in a situation, wherein thanks to my blatant honesty I am a castaway from the development, and thanks to me being a "Two timer" if you can call me so, I am now a castaway from the "Testing" world as well.. ! 

That would make me a look like a "Drum" that gets beaten up from both sides wouldn't it ;-)

Am back !

Am gonna begin by using the typical dialog that all bloggers use... "Its been quite sometime I blogged".. I know it sounds pretty stereo typed but well, its like you can only call a "Rose as a Rose and as nothing else".. :)

Well anyways, the reasons for me not blogging, umm.... well... errr.. ah! I cant find one single reason and yet I still never managed to blog.. Probably I was out of words, burnt out with work, swamped by girl friends, over-burdened with my social responsibilities.. I haven't a clue..

Off-late I guess I did forget as to what I started blogging for. If not anything else, it was supposed to be a time pass. Lot of people blog for a variety of reasons. Some blog to vent out what they have to, some blog to improvise some ability of theirs, some blog to share knowledge.. and then there are a lot of folks out there like me, who blog just for the sake of it.

I have been resorting to boozing as a time-pass, but I realized that it has been creating craters in my pocket and I am not getting anywhere with it, except for being chosen as an "Elite Customer" at the regular bar where I visited and also by my credit card company for swiping their card left right and center!

So, here I am.. back to kill the boredom and save some bucks as well ;-)

I am going to make it more melodramatic by saying, "Once again, the Phoenix arises from the burnt ashes, yet again Optimus Prime, arises from the wreckage, to guard the sentinel right of all human beings, Iron Man, relinquishes his hiding and decides to uphold the right of the down trodden".. LOL.. relax, I told you I was gonna make this come back sound extremely "Filmi" style ;-)

So I am back !