Do all good things begin at the end ?

It’s a question I have been asking myself for the past 2 weeks and even as I sat this morning pausing to hit send, my resignation letter that I had written. It was evident, all decided, yet I felt strange. It is indeed strange to know that you will have to leave your home of 15 years never to return back, to know that you will never go back to the office that you have been going to everyday for an year, to know that you will never again go back home late at night to find your mom waiting up with hot food.

My hands trembled, I suddenly found my eyes moist as my mind contemplated weighing different things. Big opportunities lay ahead that excited me, at the same time to throw away all that I had was difficult. It had all begun a few weeks ago, I found a change in myself, I explored my office campus and I started loving it, I also suddenly started loving my work more than before, I started feeling the curtains and bedspreads at my home realizing after a very long time, the warmth and comfort they carried, the smell of my mom’s cotton sari, from the food I loved to the streets that I called home, I started loving it all more than ever.

Why was this happening? I asked myself repeatedly, “Do all good things begin at the end?” The friends I made, the opportunities at work, realizing the comfort of staying at home. My thoughts were too heavy to be weighed in a 6 by 7 feet cubicle. I went out with a belief that a solitary walk would clear my head. I walked along the street, the same street that I had been walking for an year, why then did it seem all the more glorious now, I waved to some of my friends, why then did they seem all the more special now. And then I knew, it was not the place, it was the time, the circumstance. When life is stripped of monotony, it gets interesting. When you walk a road with the realization that you will never again walk on it, you would want to experience it all, to take in everything it has to offer which otherwise you would have tossed away from your mind as any other trivial road. Same with people, you realize their value only when you have to leave them. It was one of those weird situations where taking a step ahead was as painful as not taking the step at all especially when you have dreamt about the step ahead all your life.

It was then I had mustered enough courage to get back and hit send, however is this the right decision, only time will tell J

If my mind were a data structure ...

Microsoft has been wonderful till now. My companions throughout the day are WCF services, SQL Databases and C# with the cool JavaScript hanging out with us at times. In the evenings, I find some solace with stimulating discussions and debates about implementing ideas with real people. It is this time that truly rejuvenates me, the whiteboard filling up with several different approaches to a problem, and number of coffee mugs increasing on the table as the time progresses. As I recall the many discussions, it was for one of the applications that we were considering using a hash table with chaining to resolve collisions. The call taken and everyone having approved on it, we decided to discuss the performance aspects the next evening.

The next day I decided to drive to work. It was a solitary drive of 45 kms, the empty road inviting me to push the accelerator a little harder and the radio playing some real good songs. At one song I stopped to listen, pausing my complicated thought process that usually comes to me only when I am on the high road. That song reminded me of my internship days. How I would travel two hours by local transport to get to ISRO, how I would spend my evenings in the ISRO library stacked with the latest books and journals, the light green walls and high ceiling with just the right amount of light, making the environment conducive to read, the long waiting for my Java code to process thousands of records, my 20^th birthday around the same time. I found it intriguing how just one song had brought about so much information, so many memories back to me. The reason was that I used to listen to the same song every morning during my journey to the internship. In its most basic form, I found my mind working like a hash table. In my case the song was the key, however it could be anything, even something as small as a smile, a feather, a toy and all you have to do is iterate through all the memories associated to that key to bring out nostalgia in bouts.

The memories, they are all there in the corner of the mind somewhere, and it needs a certain stimulus to remember them. The bad memories when still fresh in the mind, a stab in the heart every time you remember them, but as time passes by they are buried under the stack of newer and better ones. A dull feeling of sorrow is still associated with them but it will pass and after many years, perhaps the bad memories would also bring a smile on your face reminding you of your naivety.  

That one moment in life

I was more than sure, what I wanted to do. The course of events were so perfectly laid out in my mind that not even once did I doubt their occurrence. As always, back to my belief, what you think will happen for sure, will definitely not happen and yes, my course did take a minor detour !
Microsoft, every software engineer's dream was something I hadn't even thought about. With my goal of acquiring a Masters degree in the USA so strong and unperturbed, I had no intention of working so soon in life. The carefree life of a student without any responsibility was what I desired the most. Yet, I appeared for the written test only because my friend persuaded me to do so. Along with him, I studied for a mere two days, and wrote the test. After the test, I was only too sure that I would not clear it and was happy that what I had planned for the past five long years was still intact.
A month later, I got the news that I got through the written test and the interview was the very next day which meant very little or no preparation at all. Even after three rounds of interviews, I was sure I wouldn't make it. Exhausted by the events of the day, I wearily got into an auto after 45 minutes of bargaining. It was a long way from Gachibowli to LB Nagar. Along mid way, I received a call from my father saying someone had informed him that I got through. I couldn't believe it and thought that it was a prank which one of my many mischievous classmates were playing. For the first time in the day, I sensed some excitation in my mind. In the next few minutes, I received a swarm of congratulatory messages, only then was I certain that I was recruited into one of the most coveted companies in the world !
One thing that this experience taught me was that an interview does not depend on a weeks preparation or even that of four years, it depends on your entire lifetime, the experiences that taught you, gave you ideas, the sleepless nights during your projects, the essay writing and elocution competitions in school, every small thing that the 20 odd years of your life taught you.
Another important thing that I learnt is that no decision is concrete until done. Ideas, plans even decisions although the word carries an amount of definiteness in it, are virtual. One moment holds in it the power of changing the decisions of a lifetime !

Adilabad- Travelling back in time !

    2012 had been rough till then. It was only March but the year disappointed me in every way that it possibly could. Suddenly my parents were planning to visit Adilabad, my home town. We had an old house there, almost 150 years old. The very idea of visiting such an old house, thinking about my ancestors who had lived all their lives there, fascinated me. Perhaps I could re-live some of their memories !!

    What followed then was packing clothes for the two night stay, a one night train journey and we landed in Adilabad, early in the morning. I spotted a huge difference between this small town and the bustling city almost immediately, right from the fresh cool air I was breathing to the vast lands used for cultivating crop. As soon as I entered the house I saw a huge Aangan with several small houses surrounding it. Our house was to the right. At the entrance there lay a weathered nameplate belonging to my grandfather in greeting. A small gate lead to a tiny room which I assumed was for entertaining not so close guests, followed by another gate and a door carved in the Old Persian style. This door opened to yet another Aangan which had a well at one end, two entrances to the main house and a narrow passage to another set of houses. All the wall space in the living room of the main house had been occupied by photographs, framed and arranged in order by my grandfather. The most magnificent of them were the three huge oil paintings of my great great great grandfather, his son and daughter in law. Almost everything in that house that I laid my eyes upon interested me a great deal. Once I captured in my camera all the photographs, I decided to explore the other parts of the house. In an old storage room, I found a rifle that was used to hunt birds and a device to pick up things dropped in the well which my mother called "Pathala gadiyaal". It was made of iron and spiked so that things like bangles, utensils could hook on to the spikes and be brought out. How times had changed!

That night after a delicious dinner made of farm fresh vegetables by Gangu, our family maid, (as her family had been serving ours for several generations) I went to the terrace to take some solace from the stars. The view of the Bada Talaab behind our house gleaming in the moonlight was splendid. I had heard that this terrace was a bonding spot for many a newly married couple. Just sitting there with the view of the lake and talking to the love of one's life was indeed very romantic. “How sweet and simple life was back then”, I wondered. After spending a long time, brooding over various issues on the terrace, I resigned myself to some sleep!

Bada Talaab

        The next day, we had to make it to a lot of temples. The first was the Pendrada Hanuman temple with a massive orange coloured statue of Lord Hanuman. Next came the beautiful black stone temple of Jainnat- a temple of Lord Vishnu. There, I spotted a construction of black stone under which is believed to be buried immense wealth! Last came Kelapur, a temple of Amba Bhavani! All these temples shared a common quality of peace and calm giving me a truly spiritual experience. The positive energy that I gained from them was inspiring, putting all my worries to rest. After this we returned home for a quick lunch and a nap. Later, early in the evening we set out to visit the local bazaar.

Door to library 

There was still one thing left to do. Have a look at the library bungalow that stood right near the entrance, a two storey structure that held its old form which had not been renovated at all. No one had lived in it for very long. The ancient looking door invited me, so I took the keys from Gangu and opened the door. The cobweb infested room was small and empty; all the books were donated to the district library. It had steps on the side to the room above. I mounted the steps making my way through the dust and cobwebs to see a pleasantly ventilated room on the top. Just standing there on the steps, I could imagine my great grandfather probably reading one of his favourite books. I had never seen him, yet the room held in it the power to transport me 100 years back in time. It was when I captured that moment in my memory that my trip was totally complete.

       

      This trip made me realize that there was a lesson or two to be learnt from the ever so helping and warm people there. A lesson to take it slow at times, a lesson not to have over expectations on anything which is not in our power, a lesson to sometimes leave it to the higher order, a lesson to keep it simple and finally, a lesson to actually live life, not a race!

A little snow, a skid and a memorable experience !

After a hectic day of shopping in the narrow streets of the beautiful Mall Road, Shimla, we set out the next day on our bus journey to Kullu. The snow fall of the day before had stopped and we saw the sun slowly making an appearance from the clouds. It was a pure delight to finally feel the rays of the Sun in a frigid -2 degrees Celsius. Having somehow pushed our luggage from the hotel to the bus which was connected with a steep ramp layered with a thin sheet of ice, we almost mountaineered our way back safely to the bus without any major skid and fall accidents. However, in retrospect our bus did not share the same good luck.

Mall Road, Shimla

The bus driver was not so sure to carry out the long bus journey. He waited an awful two hours at the entrance of the ghat road for the ice to settle down. Not wanting to miss out any of the places on the schedule, we pushed him to drive forward. We received mixed responses from people whom we asked about the road ahead. One lorry driver said, "clear ho gaya he", another said, "bahut bura haal he" and yet another youngster replied by hurling a snow ball on our bus window ! That we took as a yes and proceeded forward.


One thing I understood was that the Ghat roads of Shimla are only for professional drivers. Without as much as a barrier between the road bends and the deep valley on the other side, it seemed a nightmare for drivers not accustomed to that terrain. It was at one such bend that our bus stopped to let a vehicle on the other side pass through the narrow road. We sensed a jittery movement in the bus when someone yelled, "It's skidding !". What followed was a moment of panic and chaos. We could see the bus inching towards the valley and our only concern was to jump off the bus which we did. The driver managed to reverse the vehicle onto safer grounds, a little far away from the edge. Shaken by the incident, we were in a state of blankness not understanding what to do next. People who forgot to bring their wallets got on the bus when it started to skid again. Yes, it was then that we realized we were in a predicament. We had to walk in the freezing temperatures, how long no one knew ! Although civilization was not totally extinct in that region, it still seemed to us not a very pleasant endeavor. By then, people had gathered and work of layering the road with soil to provide some friction had started.

Shimla Highway

Holding hands, we formed a chain and moved forward in one line taking care not to let our feet slip into the snow pits. We had walked about a kilometer, with numbed feet when our bus started coming slowly behind us. The snowy Ghat had mostly ended and we boarded the bus, still unsure. The driver instilled some confidence in us and we confided in his experience. After this incident, it was smooth sailing and we enjoyed the rest of our trip !

Romantic Patterns

Ever since my efforts of applying statistical methods to more than a hundred thousand records, I have been trying to find patterns in everything and my latest muse being the most romantic scenes in big fat novels. I have been mentally making a list of all the romantic passages in different novels and my results were as always surprising ! When the current's out on a warm summer afternoon, there is nothing better than enjoying the feel of a fat book in your hand, a device that can transport you to a world, totally different from your own, more challenging, more adventurous and the most important of all, bolder than your own smooth and simple life.


Margaret Mitchell went on to weave the turbulent love story between Rhett Butler and Scarlett O Hara, but it is the scene where Rhett bids for the widowed Scarlet clad in black that sparks my interest. Although Ayn Rand has shown no restraint in penning down a number of pages describing the intimacy between Dominique and Howard, it is their first encounter that is embedded forever in my mind. Another concept that totally amazed me was that of a handsome priest, bound by the vows of chastity, falling for little Meggie in "The Thorn Birds". If you are wondering what connection these three have, all have a common element of taboo in them, an act of feeling or doing something forbidden that grasps the mind. Our indigenous epics are storehouses of such events that make every page a thrilling read.


I call my results surprising because it is expected that the first kiss or something beyond should be the most romantic of all, but from all the books I have read, I cannot remember the description of even one such act although there have been a number of pages dedicated to the sole purpose of sensuality. Romantic has come to mean the quotidian meaning of loving, but it is always that is different, out of the socially accepted norm, more adventurous which is usually the most romantic.

The TGMC Experience

Having figured out how the IBM tools worked was one of the main driving force for taking forward my project for The Great Mind Challenge 2010. True to its word, the experience was challenging indeed. We had mailed the preliminary project on the very last day of the deadline by hurrying to the Speed Post in Abids struggling in the very long line. The mailing done all right, I had even forgotten about it when the results of the top 300 teams selected for the next round were announced. I was more than shocked to find our team name among the long list of successful teams. The next step was to give a demo of the project. Little did I know that giving the final touches to make a project work successfully would be so difficult.


The project that I had sent was developed in a huge RAM eating trial version of the IBM developer environment called Rational Application Developer. As if the task of improving the project was not big enough, the horror of finding that the trial version had expired was a considerable blow to me. I spent another week running two parallel endeavors. One to somehow again download a copy of the 8GB RAD and another to make the free software Eclipse to work with IBM's WebSphere Application Server. When I was just about to give up my futile efforts, I suddenly got the whole thing working. I could sleep in peace on that day after several sleepless nights of anxiety.


Juggling between my internship and trying to improve upon the existing project, I successfully gave the User Interface a major re vamp. However the testing required more time and much to my guide's disappointment, I took a week off to focus on the project. Working almost 18 hours a day, I tried to add new features and made sure that they worked all right.


On the day of the presentation, it was raining heavily. The venue being Keshav Memorial Institute of Technology, I entered a little drenched and carrying my laptop safely in a plastic cover. (Here unfortunately you cannot go green). The demo went not as good as I had expected it to be. They asked us if we could show the entire project in Linux within 3 hours and we rushed to find a place to download the software. The University being our only resort, we went there in the rain only to find that it was a bandh and the whole campus was closed. Understanding that it was only a wild goose chase, we gave up the attempts and just went to have a sub.


As you can expect, we could not make it to the top 20 teams in India. Despite the many disappointments, this project will always remain close to my heart as I have learnt a lot from it. I put all my efforts into it and it is in every sense my child although flawed.




If you need any help with the SRS, JSP Programming, DB2 design or setting up Eclipse with WebSphere on Windows Platform, feel free to contact me.