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 !