Its time to get nostalgic!!! Its been raining since yesterday night and the weather is so dull. After two years in infy,today is the time to say goodbye. Its kinda sad because for the last couple of days I am meeting colleagues who have become friends and saying goodbye not knowing if our paths will cross ever again in this wide world.
I must say Infy does not let you go easily, i guess one of the methods to retain an employee is to make the exit formalities a big pain!! Some of it is fun, like my exit interview. The interview starts like this, I walk in and hand the guy a print out, and he says Congrats!! and I say thank you, is it because I am leaving infy.. he doesn't see the humour and just says NO, for getting a seat in a good college :) .. I told him what I thought of the company, it was mostly positive except for the dreaded night shifts!! He finally said things will change for the better and being an optimist I believe him.
OK, now its time to take my camera, get a couple of pictures.. meet some more friends and bid farewell to a place where i've spent more than half of my past couple of years... It was a ride with its ups and downs..but i guess looking back now i see more ups than downs :) .....
"Change is difficult but often essential to survival" Exactly my thoughts!!!
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Friday, June 15, 2007
Passion
I visited my uncle's farm house recently.. He is an agricultarist who has won many state and national awards for his innovative techniques and research in the field of agriculture....It was like going to a theme park!!! When you think of an estate you normally don t think about science and maths...but here everything was different... For starters he believes in making use of everything available in nature.. all the dead wood becomes manure for the newcrops and all animal and human waste becomes gobar gas which powers his estate!! There were mobile ladders which were designed using physics and maths..I saw it all from soil testing ground to an olympic standard skeet shooting range inside his estate !!! but what impressed me the most was his passion for agriculture.. after 50 years of agriculture he is still soo enthusiastic about it and is constantly innovating and using science to automate agricultural processes!!! There s so much of talk in IT these days about employee burn out and stress but i feel if you are passionate about what you are doing then everything else becomes immaterial.. My uncle has spent 12 hours everyday in his farm for the last 50 years and even now and i am sure he would rather do this than anything else in the world....
"Without passion man is a mere latent force and possibility, like the flint which awaits the shock of the iron before it can give forth its spark."
"Without passion man is a mere latent force and possibility, like the flint which awaits the shock of the iron before it can give forth its spark."
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Wedding!
The weekend saw me attending my cousin's wedding..sporting a formal attire in this heat is not a very comfortable thing but such is the constraints a society imposes on you.. it was an inter caste marriage and the good thing about it was the difference in the rituals performed. I have been to many weddings but never have i seen rituals where the groom has to run from the mantap and some body catches him and brings him back only for the bride to run and somebody again has to catch her and bring her back!!! I cudn t help but wonder what wud happen if one of them was a very good runner :p ... to make matters more interesting there was even a mini skit which had to be performed by the groom... everyone had fun but the poor groom was a li'l embarrassed... it was entertaining alright!! and as usual got to meet sooo many ppl,some after a very long time. some one at the wedding was saying, "given everyone's busy schedules these days, weddings and funerals are the only ocassions where all us relatives get together" blunt as it is I couldn't help but agree.
Friday, June 8, 2007
Somethin i wrote :)
In the middle of the jungle so dense
there roams a beast so immense
The night looks so still
the beast looks for a kill!!
Fiery are its eyes burning bright
scanning for food in the night
Happily ignorant are its prey
knowing not, DEATH is on its way!!
Ever so cunningly he stalks
getting closer to a stag as he walks
A final lunge, the tiger roars with all its might
the ground shakes in the jungle of the night!!
going for the neck, he s swift as light
the act is done without a fight
Sorry for the soul which just died
necessary it was for another to be satisfied!!
Who said life's fair..
there roams a beast so immense
The night looks so still
the beast looks for a kill!!
Fiery are its eyes burning bright
scanning for food in the night
Happily ignorant are its prey
knowing not, DEATH is on its way!!
Ever so cunningly he stalks
getting closer to a stag as he walks
A final lunge, the tiger roars with all its might
the ground shakes in the jungle of the night!!
going for the neck, he s swift as light
the act is done without a fight
Sorry for the soul which just died
necessary it was for another to be satisfied!!
Who said life's fair..
Monday, June 4, 2007
Musings..
Its less than 20 days now!! After nearly 2 years in my company, i have decided to move on.. Last night wen i was waitin for sleep to take over, i got thinking about my time in this company..normally when ppl leave, its fashionable to have a list of complaints but I realized that I didn t have too many. Yeah i always thought I was not allowed to work on something I liked but in hindsight I've realized it wasn't all that bad. So when you are OK with what you are doing and its not too hectic..You don t have too many reasons to complain do u ??
And anyody who joins infy as a fresher would remember his training days in the sleepy town of Mysore.It was rigorous no doubt but it was definetely fun!! Staying in the lab till ungodly hours regularly and walking back to the room well past midnight..its strange that I remember those walks more than I do the training :) And who can forget Roost!! our regular watering hole for 5 months.. I remember we used to go there to rejoice and to mourn... and even when there was no reason..wonder why :) With more than 5000 employees of more or less the same age, u can't help but make a couple of frnds..and I too had my fair share..tht s the thing with infy mysore..it s such a young crowd that it jus becomes an extension of your college life. But some ppl called it just a glorified prison, but is'nt there a term for ppl like me who end up liking their captors.. oh yes the Stockholm syndrome.
And anyody who joins infy as a fresher would remember his training days in the sleepy town of Mysore.It was rigorous no doubt but it was definetely fun!! Staying in the lab till ungodly hours regularly and walking back to the room well past midnight..its strange that I remember those walks more than I do the training :) And who can forget Roost!! our regular watering hole for 5 months.. I remember we used to go there to rejoice and to mourn... and even when there was no reason..wonder why :) With more than 5000 employees of more or less the same age, u can't help but make a couple of frnds..and I too had my fair share..tht s the thing with infy mysore..it s such a young crowd that it jus becomes an extension of your college life. But some ppl called it just a glorified prison, but is'nt there a term for ppl like me who end up liking their captors.. oh yes the Stockholm syndrome.
Sunday, June 3, 2007
Shopping!
Some people actually like shopping!! With a couple of formal events coming up and also my impending trip to a far away land in mind, I went shopping for clothes yesterday. When you are planning to spend your next 2 years in a different hemisphere it actually adds another dimension to your shopping. Have you ever tried standing in 30 deg sweltering heat and trying to choose clothes for a subzero climate. That is exactly the situation I found myself in :-) All in all I can say that I enjoyed the juice I drank after the shopping more than the shopping itself.
Boys Day Out
After loads of research we finally decided on a place to get away from the chaos of city life (at least for a day). Varun, Viinayak, Shailesh and me decided to go to Sangama a place around 95Kms from Bangalore on Kanakapura road and trek to mekedatu from there.
The initial plan was to meet up at my place by 7 in the morning, but like in all tentative plans there was a change. We met up at 8 and by the time we had breakfast at Adigas and left Bangalore it was 9 o clock!! (We blamed the cricket world cup finals for the delay but Vinayak who was the only one among us who watched the entire match was the first to arrive). The journey to Sanagama is very scenic and there are a lot of photo opportunities along the way but the road is not too great with many potholes and in some places the road is very narrow with deep cuts on either side. Considering this, we covered the distance in fairly good time; and we were in Sangama by 11.30. I feel that my excellent driving in some very difficult terrain played a part in this though my friends might not agree on this point.
Sangama means union in Kannada and this place is called so because the river Arkavati joins with Cauvery here. A friend of us had told us of a secluded spot near Sangama and we made our way to this point first. We were not disappointed as there was not a single soul to be seen in this beautiful place on the banks of Cauvery and that too on a Sunday. The water is not too deep here with very less currents and is ideal for people who want to get into the water. There are some really old boards warning people of crocodiles but I had read somewhere that crocs also live for a very long time so we were careful. We did some fishing from a discarded paper cup, as my friend Vinayak wanted a couple of fishes for his aquarium. As you probably guessed, we were not very successful.
After this innovative experience, we were off to Sangama where we have to cross the shallow river to begin the trek to mekedatu. When we reached Sangama we were again harshly reminded of the population problem facing our country. It was jam packed with people and the irony is this crowd from the city had probably come here to beat the city crowd. Anyway there was a new hotel named Tender Coconut in Sangama and as it was already time for lunch we found ourselves in this restaurant in no time. The heat was such that we first asked for tender coconut and for our surprise found that they don’t serve tender coconut in tender coconut.
After a humble meal of chapatti and dhal we started our trek to Mekedatu. There is an option of taking a bus to mekedatu but we wanted to experience the journey on foot. Varun and Shailesh even wanted to jog to mekedatu. (Ah the exuberance of youth) It’s a different matter that 100 yards further Vinayak and me found them catching their breath under a tree. Somebody heard of the story of the rabbit and the hare??
It is a 4 km trek amidst the forest and its really good. We could hear some monkeys giving some calls and being a Kenneth Anderson buff I interpreted it as an alarm call and was on the lookout for a panther. But the only animals we met on the way other than the monkeys were a couple of thirsty dogs. It was the middle of summer and we were trekking in the hottest part of the day, and naturally we were bushed by the time we reached mekedatu.
There is a gazebo kind of structure as soon as you reach mekedatu where you can replenish yourselves with some soft drinks and biscuits if needed. But on this day there was something interesting happening here. There was a person sitting here who was playing a game where there are three tokens and one of the token has a marking on it. He keeps interchanging these tokens and we have to guess which of these tokens have a marking on them and we get 100 bucks if we guess right and we lose our money if we guess wrong, Well it was a sort of gambling where your observation skills were tested and yours truly was also tempted into applying his abilities and in the process losing a 100 bucks. In hindsight I realized that there were less powers of observation being tested than there were a group of people making money by cleverly conning people like us. My friends had a good laugh at my expense but I guess that’s normally what people do in hindsight when something goes wrong or when some one is taken for a ride.
Mekedatu in Kannada means the point at which the goat crossed. The Cauvery river here becomes very narrow and flows with a lot of force, at one point it flows so close that the legend has it that a goat jumped across the river at this point and hence the place got its name. There is a deep gorge here and standing on top of this we can see water gushing at tremendous force beneath us and I could not help but imagine the plight of anyone slipping and falling here. This place somehow reminded me of the place in “Paatshala” song of the movie “Rang de Basanti”.
After spending sometime here we unanimously decided on catching the bus back to Sanagama (Case of the heat sapping our exuberance of youth I guess). When we came back near the Gazebo structure to catch the bus we found the cops arresting (read as belting) the con group which was a very bollywood style ending for the financially unfortunate set of events. The bus back to Sanagama took only 10 minutes, which made me think of how the concept of distance varies with our mode of transport.
After an eventful trip it was time to head back home and we were a tired group of people who sat in the car in the evening. We tried to play some car games to make the journey interesting but after a while I guess only Shailesh, who was driving the car was awake enjoying some supposedly competitions with other cars on the road. Having said that we reached Bangalore pretty early in the evening due to some good safe driving by him and thus came to an end a very satisfying and eventful but in no way relaxing weekend getaway of four old college friends.
The initial plan was to meet up at my place by 7 in the morning, but like in all tentative plans there was a change. We met up at 8 and by the time we had breakfast at Adigas and left Bangalore it was 9 o clock!! (We blamed the cricket world cup finals for the delay but Vinayak who was the only one among us who watched the entire match was the first to arrive). The journey to Sanagama is very scenic and there are a lot of photo opportunities along the way but the road is not too great with many potholes and in some places the road is very narrow with deep cuts on either side. Considering this, we covered the distance in fairly good time; and we were in Sangama by 11.30. I feel that my excellent driving in some very difficult terrain played a part in this though my friends might not agree on this point.
Sangama means union in Kannada and this place is called so because the river Arkavati joins with Cauvery here. A friend of us had told us of a secluded spot near Sangama and we made our way to this point first. We were not disappointed as there was not a single soul to be seen in this beautiful place on the banks of Cauvery and that too on a Sunday. The water is not too deep here with very less currents and is ideal for people who want to get into the water. There are some really old boards warning people of crocodiles but I had read somewhere that crocs also live for a very long time so we were careful. We did some fishing from a discarded paper cup, as my friend Vinayak wanted a couple of fishes for his aquarium. As you probably guessed, we were not very successful.
After this innovative experience, we were off to Sangama where we have to cross the shallow river to begin the trek to mekedatu. When we reached Sangama we were again harshly reminded of the population problem facing our country. It was jam packed with people and the irony is this crowd from the city had probably come here to beat the city crowd. Anyway there was a new hotel named Tender Coconut in Sangama and as it was already time for lunch we found ourselves in this restaurant in no time. The heat was such that we first asked for tender coconut and for our surprise found that they don’t serve tender coconut in tender coconut.
After a humble meal of chapatti and dhal we started our trek to Mekedatu. There is an option of taking a bus to mekedatu but we wanted to experience the journey on foot. Varun and Shailesh even wanted to jog to mekedatu. (Ah the exuberance of youth) It’s a different matter that 100 yards further Vinayak and me found them catching their breath under a tree. Somebody heard of the story of the rabbit and the hare??
It is a 4 km trek amidst the forest and its really good. We could hear some monkeys giving some calls and being a Kenneth Anderson buff I interpreted it as an alarm call and was on the lookout for a panther. But the only animals we met on the way other than the monkeys were a couple of thirsty dogs. It was the middle of summer and we were trekking in the hottest part of the day, and naturally we were bushed by the time we reached mekedatu.
There is a gazebo kind of structure as soon as you reach mekedatu where you can replenish yourselves with some soft drinks and biscuits if needed. But on this day there was something interesting happening here. There was a person sitting here who was playing a game where there are three tokens and one of the token has a marking on it. He keeps interchanging these tokens and we have to guess which of these tokens have a marking on them and we get 100 bucks if we guess right and we lose our money if we guess wrong, Well it was a sort of gambling where your observation skills were tested and yours truly was also tempted into applying his abilities and in the process losing a 100 bucks. In hindsight I realized that there were less powers of observation being tested than there were a group of people making money by cleverly conning people like us. My friends had a good laugh at my expense but I guess that’s normally what people do in hindsight when something goes wrong or when some one is taken for a ride.
Mekedatu in Kannada means the point at which the goat crossed. The Cauvery river here becomes very narrow and flows with a lot of force, at one point it flows so close that the legend has it that a goat jumped across the river at this point and hence the place got its name. There is a deep gorge here and standing on top of this we can see water gushing at tremendous force beneath us and I could not help but imagine the plight of anyone slipping and falling here. This place somehow reminded me of the place in “Paatshala” song of the movie “Rang de Basanti”.
After spending sometime here we unanimously decided on catching the bus back to Sanagama (Case of the heat sapping our exuberance of youth I guess). When we came back near the Gazebo structure to catch the bus we found the cops arresting (read as belting) the con group which was a very bollywood style ending for the financially unfortunate set of events. The bus back to Sanagama took only 10 minutes, which made me think of how the concept of distance varies with our mode of transport.
After an eventful trip it was time to head back home and we were a tired group of people who sat in the car in the evening. We tried to play some car games to make the journey interesting but after a while I guess only Shailesh, who was driving the car was awake enjoying some supposedly competitions with other cars on the road. Having said that we reached Bangalore pretty early in the evening due to some good safe driving by him and thus came to an end a very satisfying and eventful but in no way relaxing weekend getaway of four old college friends.
Friday, June 1, 2007
Introduction
I guess I had to start this!! After reading many such blogs and after thinking many times of starting my own.. i finally start my own BLOG!! I had soo many ideas, but when i start writing they seem to disappear..maybe this is what is called writer s block. wonder if it should happen in the intro post tho :p ..Well lemme give it a try..
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