And I became the nomad...!!!

Bachelors -- A very bad title for the people with a career line like that of mine. It is that state when they are doomed to all sorts of miseries and the only best part being the freedom - for every aspect of life and the feel good factor being the last stage in life where we stay with friends. But seriously apart from this its all crap, totally. And just for the record, by my career line, I am referring to a typical average student, scoring some ok level marks, getting a job in some software company in BENGALOORU and starting this doomed life first by starting to look for a place to stay. Its all good in the beginning when we go out for treats and parties often and don't really lead a REGULAR life. But once things cool down, once we are no longer FRESHERS, thats when the trouble starts. We no longer have friends calling us for parties on the occasion of they joining their first job. And sometime later even the first salary treats get over. Then we are just the NORMAL SOFTWARE ENGINEER. And don't even get me started on what that means. In short, as mentioned before, it is this doomed life.

I personally escaped this for nearly an year now. Luckily my doddappa (Uncle) was working in Bangalore and I got a chance to stay with him. But again, this was supposed to be a temporary arrangement. I was supposed to stay with a few of my closest friends from college in a rented house in Indiranagar. But that location was not good for me as there was no direct transportation to my office from there. I had to travel in two city buses, though the distance was just 7kms. Also I got so used to the easy life at my uncle's place that I was not really willing to move out and start staying on my own. Well man it was really heaven when I compared myself with so many other colleagues of mine who were the "Bachelors". But this obviously had to change. I just could not continue to stay there forever. At one point or the other I had to move out and face this partial-hell.

There were a few triggers for this either in the form of Doddappa's transfer or they moving to a different house at the north end of the city (FYI, my office is in southern bangalore) and some more. Somehow those just passed by and I stayed there for 1 ful year. I recently joined Akamai, and these people are moving further south and the new office is even farther and I might require close to 2 hours for one way commute which is certainly insane. Totally insane. So I had to move out to a place nearer to my new office.

There were different plans and different ideas, and as usual, only one worked out. I decided to stay with my college friend Abhijeet aka Kolya. As he was in a hurry to find a house (and I am lazy), we could not roam around a lot and check out lots of houses and find an awesome deal. We had to settle for one of the inital houses. Its pretty good, but I have this feeling that the rent we are paying is pretty high. Anyways I was sort of under limitations. The rent is not the point here, the point is that I finally moved out and plunged into this "DOOMED LIFE". Though the shifting, that too just the first phase, happened just today I am already feeling like a NOMAD. At the end of the day, when I see the
office getting empty, I get a thought of going home. But then again, there is a sort of reluctance. I don't know why but I become averse of going home. For me its still a friend's place, not yet my home. I try to reason out and find a valid reason to go home and find none. As of now my new home is like some 'yet another place'. Earlier, I had this push or force that I am going home, where there are people waiting for me to come and we will have food together. And probably later watch TV or just chat or have gyaan transfer later. All this can happen even at the new place also. Relatives replaced by friend(s). But that is yet to sink in. It will take some time, probably a little more in my case.

Whatever it may be, as of now, I am a NOMAD --- I have become the nomad.

Nostalgia and the movie next day

Date: 29^th December 2007

Since few days, because of some unknown reason, I constantly wished to be back in my 3^rd year of engineering with all my friends at hostel, specifically the L4x series of rooms along with the 3 CSI seniors. That was probably the best part of my engineering life. The amount of learning and amount of fun was highest during this time. I guess, if given again, I would enjoy that part of my life at any moment and any number of times. Now as part of the co-incidence series of posts, this one will also present another instance of co-incidence.

Yesterday when I was going to office, I saw a boy with a bag running to catch a bus. He reminded me of Harish Bhai and an incident when me and him had raced casually after lunch. I once again wished to be in one of those CSI meetings under the chairmanship of the Harish Bhai. After this when I reach office and logon to Gmail, I see Harish Bhai online after so many days and I talked to him for a few minutes.

Today being weekend I got up late, only to find two Kannada movie CDs on the table in front of my bed. My Doddamma (Aunt) got it from a neighbor here. As I was absolutely jobless (in one sense) I decided to watch one of the movies as it was a long time since I watched any of the new-age Kannada movies. Of the two I picked up one and seeing that Sudeep (A well known Kannada actor with a commanding voice) is the protagonist I started watching it. The movie was really good and I enjoyed it like anything. Now the co-incidence part is that the movie was about the protagonist recollecting the past – his school days, college days and initial days of his work, at a time when he was deciding on the list of people whom he wanted to invite for his wedding. He wanted to see all these three spheres of his life together once again for one last time. Every scene was beautifully portrayed (of course except for the songs) and each instance in those scenes reminded me of some instance that had happened in my life. I too have three sets of friends, in fact four including the colleagues at office. I could correlate several parts of my life with quite a few scenes of the movie. The only outstanding difference was that the protagonist has “FOUR” girls in his life where as there are typically none in mine. But nevertheless I have much bigger group of friends and above all a lot of them are still in contact with me and we talk frequently enough.

I suggest any person who has lived a hostel life to watch this movie. By the way, the movie is “My Autograph”. A really good movie (would have been much better without songs). I wish science was advanced enough for me to afford a minimal time machine, without any accessories, at least.

IBM Internship: Part I: The Interview

This is the second post regarding my internship at IBM. Since the prologue did not contain any information about my interview here is a bit about it. It was my first corporate interview and I guess I did fairly well. Before the interview I went out with a buddy to get print outs of my resume. He was one of the volunteers coordinating the selection procedure. He revealed to me that the IBM folks were selecting just about 3 or 4 students. This was certainly not welcoming information and it brought some concerns.

I did not top the written test and hence I was later in the list. So I watched people go in and come out at an interval close to 20 minutes. Pals like SI shared questions and even suggested answers. A couple of those finished their interview came out jumping, literally, and were totally sure that they were in. This raised certain doubts in my mind. I started imagining scenes where I and a few others would be just sent back without even being interviewed. Luckily IBMers were pretty patient and nothing like that happened. And then came my turn. I went into that same interview hall, which our senior Harish Bhai had shown as a place where he got his job.

A person named Suresh interviewed me. He started with typical questions which SI had told us earlier outside. The first one was the television and the remote control question, where in I was asked to design a system which will enable interaction between the two devices, just the object oriented (OO) software (no hardware details). My design was a little ok I guess. Then he went on to as me about some other design questions closely related to OO. Then it was my college and CSI senior Gautham Pai, who in a way is one of my gurus, who interviewed me. He looked at my CV and started asking me about the paper that I and my friend Ashwin had presented. We divulged into several discussions regarding authentication and authorization and how they differ and all that. It was all good and smooth. Then finally I was asked about the UNIX style access control system.

With this came an end to my first interview and nearly a 45 minutes wait to the next candidate. It was a good experience for me as my performance was satisfactory to me. This was confirmed when the list of selected students was announced and my name was the first. The first thing I did was, obviously, to run to the phone booth and inform my parents. Well I had officially started earning and 12K per month was a good enough deal to be happy. :-) After that I called Doddappa and a few others to inform them about the beginning of this success.

After this followed verbatim recitation of my interview and casual talks and finally the PARTY. More about the party and other happenings in another post. After all, Success Story has just started. ;-)

IBM Internship -- The Prolouge

Internship @IBM - The first productive period of my Engg student life.

THE PROLOUGE

The title clearly states that till this internship I have not done anything productive. On the academic front it was bound to happen considering the way college was being run, the competence of the people who imparted knowledge and the way exams were conducted. Had I been dependent just on these things then probably all that I would have been is a book-worm. But thank god, there is this world of open-source software which saved me. Thanks to a few seniors, a few peers and partly also my ego, a fire to learn things beyond the books was kindled and I started "wasting" my time on things not present in our textbooks. But it was all learning, a one-way traffic. It was never reflected back in any achievement. Though I and my friend Ashwin Biyani came up with a paper, we both know what research (re-search) we did for that paper.

I do not know what held me from doing anything. It was my laziness or probably lack guidance. But neither of these are reasons worth mentioning. All that matters is the outcome and what can be present in "white and black" and there was no such thing in my case. We did have certain failed attempts though. After our 4th sem we stayed back in holidays and learnt HTML. Of course the plan was to further continue it and come up with a project which of course did not succeed. Then probably in 5th sem, we tried joining GNOME, Bangalore with projects like Mono or Evolution. Again that too failed. We did try to knock the doors of Novell but backed out later, just because of laziness and lack of josh and passion.

It was so until the middle of 6th sem. I was at our university hockey tournament at Tumkur (I guess it was Tumkur). At the end of first half of first day we had won our first match against PESIT and were to play our second match later that day. It was a little late in the evening and we were getting thoughts that we will not be playing our second match that day as the first round was still going on. Around this time I got know (I do not remember how, I did not have a cellphone with me back then) that the very next day IBM-ISL was visiting our college for offering internships. I was a little disappointed considering that I will have to travel and reach hostel that night and the very next morning I would be attending the test and hopefully the interview also. I hurried without informing all of my teammates. Kushal, the team captain, was pretty reluctant and tried retaining me for the rest of the tournament. He said "VTU Cup maga". I said "Nanna career Maga" and he said no more. (I now realize that I was absolutely correct about what I said. This internship did shape my career as a s/w engineer.)

When I reached hostel I could feel the heat of the next day's test by seeing all my able friends gummed tight to OO - related books, mainly C++ ones. (It was revealed by a senior interning at IBM that selectors would concentrate on OO concepts) There were few BOOs and WOOs when people saw me back, as I guess they were expecting me to miss this internship opportunity. I was a bit tired because of the game and the journey. But I had to hold the books and I did. I started with Herbert Schildt's C++ and I started to realize that there is so much in C++ that I do not know. But this attempt for last moment preparation was in vain as I was very sleepy. I do not remember much about that night, but I am sure I would have had a few discussions with friends, both technical and non-technical. I would have narrated the hockey match and finally when we realized we were wasting time, few punters would have gone back to books and I would have gone to sleep.(of course with some hope - which I always like to carry)

FULL SLOSH - The day I realized (visualized) it’s meaning.

There is a saying in Sanskrit which tells us about the heights of mischief or hyper-activity. It deals with a MONKEY being drunk and later bitten by a scorpion. Well first of all it’s a monkey and over that the two additional treatments would take the monkey totally out of control. There was a similar condition back at the hostel. Though the animal involved was not a monkey but a much more decent and a LOYAL one. [:P].

It was during our last days of the hostel and as expected people had a lot of reasons to booze and dEOp and do any such similar thing in the name of parties and have fun until they would get high and later either become sentimental(most of the times) or comical(very rarely and only a select few). The day I am talking is also a similar one. It was with the grace of one of the funniest guys around, Mr.PETU, that a new kind of party was organized. Actually there was no organization. The right resources were there along with the right consumers at the right place, at the right time. (What more is required for a grand party..? [:D] ).

The location was the area in front of the Gym. There were around 15 people probably. The resource was Imperial Blue (IB). There were two candidates who were comparatively new to the boozing world and were still semi-pro if not amateurs. They were done with KF and Romanov but never touched anything of the order of IB. This day obviously they were excited (I believe) as there was no other option and hence no reason for them to avoid it. These two punters were the two strong V's of our class (and also group) --- Viggu and Vikya - The LOYAL one. They were partner in crimes like boozing (right from KF to IB) and eating chicken (and other non-veg dishes of which I have no idea at all). This blog entry mainly revolves around one of these two characters, to be precise, the animal involved.[;)].

Almost all were there in front of the gym at the said time and were waiting for the few missing ones. In the mean time, as I needed to EAT, went in search for a food place with PJ(Civil) on Koli's bike. Unfortunately we had to move around a lot and finally landed at Manu's. The peak time crowd still delayed my default long food duration. Moreover we had a Kannan stop for a Mango. While waiting for that I saw Kolya with Kudva and messaged him to go to gym. And finally when we were back the melodrama had already started and unfortunately it was sentimental one(as laughing is always preferred to crying). The loyal one was all set and was crying in front of Kolya(who is very popular as an all time NON-FUNCTIONING partner for boozers, though recently he started getting high with a few drops of beer). And Viggy was speaking his heart out in front of SI. After a very short stop there I and PJ went to hostel to give Anya's parcel. And by the time we wanted to go back we had all the crowd coming back to get ready to go for food. Casino Park was chosen and many rode off. Kolya was struggling a bit with Vikya and asked me whether I would like. I agreed almost readily as I was interested in seeing what circus these HIGH people would do.

/******* FACTS **********/

Vikya and Viggu were heavily drunk, much beyond their capacities. This was only known later after we got back from the awesome road trip described below.

/****** END FACTS ******/

So me, Kolya and Vikya started and as per SIs instructions we went to Metropol. There when Kolya was refueling his vehicle Vikya delivered his first output. It was one big Omelet(or whatever you call it). It polluted a big area and I finally had to put a bucket of water as the petrol bunk guy insisted on it. Meanwhile Kolya got an Aquafina bottle and Vikya cleaned off a bit. Then after a short pause Vikya started the second round. But this time it was mere sound(VVVyyyyaaaaaaaaaaakkkkkkk) and at the end a spit. After a bit of this he was ready to go and when told to sit on the bike he said: "Aye L**de Activa myaale karkond honti matta?" (Well god only knows which bike this Mahaan Rider wanted!!!). Finally we started moving, with Vikya between me and Kolya. All through the journey I was afraid that Vikya would pluke again and I would be bathed in that. Luckily that did not happen. Vikya tactfully spat a couple of time and it did not come near me. (Thanks buddy for that CLEAN ride.. [:P]). We of course had some kireek at the gate, but Vikya's VVVyyyyaaaaaaaaaaakkkkkkk and Kaju's fast words cleared the way pretty early.

Back at the hostel we threw Vikya in front of L-Block just to give him some more time to clear of the crap within. He looked like a devdas. Kolya got his Dig cam and I took Kaju's cell and a lot of snaps were taken. (I hope they are still available and not been deleted because of fear of parents seeing it). Vikya made any more sounds but nothing came out. It was very clear that he had consumed far beyond his maximum limit. The way Vikya was acting was very funny for me and I tried to take pictures from all the possible angles. After some time we took him upstairs and made him sit in front of his room. He was so much out of control that he could hold himself up and sit. He repeatedly kept falling down. Then there was a bathroom trip also. Finally he was thrown on his bed. Now that loafer put out some more Omelet here INSIDE his room after all that mere sound outside. I started video recording at this point. We took him out. I do not know how but his pants started dropping and we could not pull them up and tighten. He was now lying in the pathway in front of his room, with an old shirt tied around his neck as a napkin, by Kolya and a sheet of paper shielding some more of his body and clothes. Here he looked like a pakka drunkard lying on the roadside besides some Gutter.

Almost at that moment SI and others returned from Casino Park and was a bit taken aback (I think so) to see his good old LOYAL one lying like this.

/******* FACTS **********/

1) All this time Mr. RamanaMurthy, the L4x puppy was besides Vikya. A friend in need is a friend indeed. [:D][:P]

2) Vikya was not aware of any of these kaarnaame.
/****** END FACTS ******/

Then SI suggested carrying him to the terrace and we did so. Got his bed there and put him in the cool breeze and he was totally switched off there. No more sounds, no more inside-crap and no more actions. That was the glorious end of the drunkard Vikya’s best booze day. It was a day worth remembering and hence this writing.

There was a parallel hungama going on at the Casino Park, involving Megastar Raghu Moms, and also earlier in front of Gym. Those are described in another entry. If this was interesting for you then check that out also. It was a different story there, more interesting in fact.