She knows how many times you failed and yet looks at you like you are a winner !

Friends are like those warm showers you take in the evening, after a tired day.
The day could have been lousy or arduous or utterly confusing and you can’t wait to get back home. And nothing falls into your plan . You indeed get back home on time, put on that soothing music, light up some scented candles, give yourself some warm oil on the skin and just let yourself descend to the tranquillizing effect of warm water.
You can’t term anything more heavenly. And similar is the feeling a time spent with a close buddy can give you. Times and distances could have taken huge shapes between you both. But the memories of having been with each other over conversations and nothing else to hang around with, could go on to make the best of times ever !
I still get kissed by a smile, when memories of those good old days, spent with buddies, flow in like a gush of sea breeze.

And when you meet one after years , you realize, the energy and the young-you have really been sleeping in the deeper layers of the heart and you can’t stop wondering at how easy it is for this friend to pull them all out and you feel lighter. To garnish the entire feeling, you sprinkle a few words with a smile at the end of it
“Some things don’t change ever”

It happens only in India.

Had been to a concert by Sankar Mahadevan last night and ended up having heaps of excitement.
This guys rocks ! Seriously, he knows how to keep the audience glued to the delight of watching someone perform on stage ! I was enthused by his ability to keep the entertainment ablaze for the couple of hours he rocked.

Nevertheless, there were incidents amidst the show that were truly Indian. And it was all about brawling to move ahead, closer the stage. The seating was parted into two sections, the first half and the one in close proximity to the stage was for those who had VIP passes . A barricade fenced the limit of this section. Those who did not have a pass had to be behind the barricade.

As Sankar went on sparking the excitement with his ‘Urvasi, Take it easy Urvasi’ (Yup, he sang it, despite that being originally sung by someone else), a bunch of guys from behind the barricade were desperate to get to the facade and there went an endless scream and nudges to and from the security team. They shrieked despite the heavy thump of the drums and I wonder if they could understand a word of it all that since there was enough ear-breaking sound booming out from all around, already.
And what more, Indian audience are perhaps more lured by such enthralling live events than a celebrity concert. Eyes opened in awe and heads focused on them, those unruly guys (as ddressed by the management later) caught the attention, thoroughly to themselves, orphaning Sankar Mahadevan.

Sankar, being no exception to a normally behaved human, did not want to sing to an audience that found him, well, comparitively less exciting and with no much option left, walked his way back , adding to the chaos and I could see faces (ehh, including mine), going, 'aaahhhh.....nooooo' !!!

There were announcements, requisitions , threat to call for calm, but at the end of it , it was chaos and more chaos and no body knew what was going on, until there finally descended some police force to actually tranquil the buzz of it all. They settled for some compromise or were taken by threat by the police and fixed on putting their fury out and shouted ‘Sankar ki jai’.

With in moments, the show resumed. Sankar was singing like he had not been with a better crowd and the people were dancing, singing along, yelling and merely jumping up and down, to live every moment of the exhilaration.
The tumult that had ascended a few moments ago like a Tsunami wave to agitate the fun
was absolutely forgotten or may be washed out by the zeal and the sound of the vibes that filled the evening again.

There was never a hint on how low the situation was a jiffy ago, may be it happens only in India and that made me smile with pride.

The spirit that we carry is awesome !!

The week that was NOT !

There is this programme on CNN IBN at the end of the week, making up stuff on events that did not really happen in the prior week. The news would be on events, the world wished to view. I contemplated on a few issues, that I, personally have always wished to see happen. I came up with the top 3 on my mind. These, I strongly believe, are issues that require serious address .The world has to indeed see them happen one day,

or so I believed.

1. I switch on the TV and hear ‘The UN launches the most discussed and the debated "WorldPeace Mission" today. The mission, starting today shall first target to do a world-clean-up by collectively directing the terrorists and the extremists and the religious activists (well the fanatic ones I mean) and the murderers and the women-and-children-exploiters and the uneducated politicians to planet Mars, where they shall undergo a decade-long resurgence programme which will include incessant training on setting up the mental, physical and spiritual fundamentals to possess and follow a life style that would by no means be harmful to the society. Our correspondent from the UN office has more details…

2. I am on my way to work and the traffic out on the road is nothing but disciplined. Cars don’t give out that frenziedly nonstop honking to overtake. I don’t see a chain of vehicles that comfortably manage to follow an ambulance and drive past the few other vehicles that give them way (well, it was supposedly given to the ambulance alone).

3. I find an e-mail which reads, ‘Owing to the augmented emphasis on Work Life Balance from the senior management and the employee union (well, that’s again something that’s part of the I-wish-it-existed list) and the frequent reports of abuse on employees who travel back late, the company has unanimously decided to stick to a strict deadline of 5:30 PM to wind up work on all weekdays . We would also like to communicate to all our employess that the office shall not be open from 6:00 PM Friday to 8:30 AM Monday, IST, which calls for a compulsory closure of all deliveries by Friday evening, maximum. The company shall not entertain any work on Saturdays/Sundays.

I'm a Newbie !

I think I like it here. I was initially skeptical about publishing your personal thoughts over the internet. But after having visited a few blogs (some were really nice, some made me scowl in disgust and some were idiotically funny and some real sensible stuff ) , I agreed upon the fact the it’s an open podium to express what you feel like. Whether you want to post stuff that might be rubbish to others or write-up that could be inspiringly a scroll-downer (my e-version of the word page-turner) , it’s all in the choice and freedom box of the writer and the reader.

Confessions of a software Engineer

I’ve been contemplating the question for time, I must say, since I moved out of college . Three years into the profession still finds the same question lingering.
And when I finally decide to look deep into myself to dig out some answer, the response is depressingly not in par with what I am incidentally doing.

And I ask again, “Are people really happy being SOFTWARE ENGINEERS? “

Well, I can for sure hammer down on the point that this is not one of the finest things to do in life, at least for me !
Because, I am doing the chore of parking myself in front of a computer and design or study software, used by populace, remotely familiar to me.

Fortunately or unfortunately I have been through it for three years and sometimes I am surprised at this fact because from the day I started learning computers till day, I know there was not a single moment when I enjoyed what I did on computers nor admired the way it worked.

The business fascinates me to a certain extent. A study on it, I believe would keep people enthusiastic ‘coz one can then relate the work to practical real-life applications. But staring into somebody else’s software code, trying to understand what it is, preparing a report on that, while you are wriggling about the head or tail of it , attending meetings to give answers to the never-say-die-deadlines and take some more questions from the senior peers to have more work , rushing back to the computer and rack brains again over the same thing to meet deadlines….
I mean…what the heck….why am I doing this !!


But over the few years of experience I have gained, I must say I have managed to do the work pretty ok and have managed to impress my bosses (though I never felt deeply satisfied with the effort, myself and have always wondered how my boss did).

And oh yes, there were so many a time when I really felt like fleeing this completely uninteresting thing that I continue to do and dreamed how nice it would be if I simply stopped coming to office, one fine day. (This feeling descends on me habitually when I get assigned with fresh dead lines and a technology that sounds Like all Greek and Latin ).

I know myself pretty well. I do not want to christen myself with titles like ‘Determined-to-do-her-best-despite-disliking-it ‘ .
But the fact is that it is partially true. I continue to do it despite disliking it.

I wonder why !!

But talking of one side of a coin, it’s worth peeping onto the other side, as well, for a change.

There are definitely things out in this job which have been value-add to my life.

This tag of being a software engineer fetches me pretty good money.
Good (but I would have made money, had I been doing something else too !)
I must admit that I take immense pleasure in answering the question “what do you do” . It throws in this conceited feeling in me when I say I work for this company, which is globally HOT in the industry. Alright but I wonder how amazing it would have been to answer the same question like, “I am a writer/ I am en editor for this magazine/ I own a coffee shop/boutique / I am an anchor for a personality development foundation…” Wow ….This is so incredible.

Okay, let me try and focus on the positive side of being a SOFTWARE ENGINEER and not on any other profession that I DID NOT get into !!!

I still dream big. Good. Or am I a day dreamer ? Ohh no !

Quite sporadically, I imagine myself to be owning my own boutique or teaching a bunch of smart students or be a full time writer or be a corporate planner in a great company, thinking and working on the lines of development of the business and functional structures of the company(whoa...that was some sentence )

But it has turned out that my qualification and experience identify me as a software engineer.

Yes, I can tune my writing skills to become a profound writer someday. And it does not require a qualification but a lot of practice and determination. (But Sunday evenings are the only time I might settle down to let my creative skills peep over my otherwise-so-hectic routine and all the channels have their best programmes on Sunday evenings and let go of the pen and paper).


A Teacher ! I like teaching and I think I am fairly good at it . Alright. But let me give myself a gentle reminder that I NEVER wanted to become a Teacher. (Oh, How I wish I had a group of students to learn the most extra ordinary arts of Living and the skills required to groom oneself that are disappointingly not part of the curriculum in our educational system).


An Entrepreneur !! To take the sole ownership of the management of my own store which introduces people to goods that are creative, attractive and uniquely carrying my style. A boutique, a super market, a coffee shop. How exciting !! I would travel across the globe in search of the vividly unique and high quality stuff and learn the art of marketing.


An able corporate planner who is noticeable at the sheer entry of hers everyday and is associated with the events and the planning of the actions that will help the company become a better work place. Talk to people. Travel . Collect ideas. Implement. And in the process of all, grow as an individual.

But HELLLOO !!

These opportunities DID NOT knock my door or rather, honestly speaking I did not prepare myself to hear any of those knocks.

I should have been keen on pursuing a degree on MBA in a decent college if I truly had a vision of my dreams. But wait a minute, did I really dream about big things those days ?

Ohh yea, the fuss and craze of college Life withered my focus a little too much, albeit, that is how college Life is and I was a loving them all. And I know I had a great time .

So there slips down the story of how my dreams landed with a bang !

So, what else did I expect out of Life ? Did I think some angels would come down to grant me all my wishes and I would have everything set in front of me, just like that !!!

Whatever,
I seem to be pretty clear about what did not happen and more clearly why. So I SHOULD also be clear about what I must or must not be doing now or in the future at the least !

But I am not !! I still dream about things which are out of scope of my practicality. I keep whining on how interesting Life WOULD HAVE BEEN otherwise and just not on how best I can make out of the present Life !

Are these not signs of a DAY DREAMER ????????????

OH MY GOD !!!!!

OH MY GOD !!!!!

AM I REALLY A DAY DREAMER !!!!!!!!

I CAN”T BELIEVE THIS !!!

I ALWAYS THOUGHT I HAD A NOT-SO-BAD-THINKING SYSTEM !!

BUT HERE I PROVE THAT I AM A DAY DREAMER AND I AM NOT PRACTICAL, NOT REALISTIC, NOT AN OPPORTUNIST !!!!!

OHH NO . FEELS LIKE I HAVE JUST REALISED THE TRUTH !!!!

SOFTWARE ENGINEERING HAS INDEED BEEN AN EYE-OPENER !!!!