'Discover'ing Bangalore

I just changed and got myself a new bike with an endeavor to discover the unseen places in Bangalore. And aptly my bike has been named ‘Discover’. I got it on the 17th of this month, and have already done nearly 400 Kms. Enjoying every moment of it.


With so many options available these days, selecting one is very difficult. And what a coincidence, my discovery has matched with thatof experts ;-). This has been adjudged as the "Indigenous Design of the Year 2005" by OVERDRIVE and has also been awarded the "Best Bike of the Year 2005". And its living up to it.

I really couldn’t pick up any photograph of ‘my’ bike, but managed to pick up one from the Bajaj Site matching the color of mine. Doesn’t it look good??? Hopefully I should get the original portrait of the same soon enough to my photoblog http://mageshg.myphotoalbum.com.

Going the HP way...

Well a few days back I was feeling very much bored and didn’t have any work to do at office. Now it’s just the opposite. Life is just rocking. It’s a nice experience for me to work in HP facilities and environment. Its much different from TCS and it’s a great learning experience. Work is going very fast, lots to learn. The Storage domain and the technology is new to me and I have a lot to gear up to. Last two weeks saw the bringing up of all our storage arrays ourselves. Right from stacking up the disk enclosures,  to piling in the disks to the bays, to powering up the Controllers, to connecting to host machines and management stations, to cabling and configuring the fiber switches, we had to start from the scratch and build. At last, along with a lot of lessons and best practices, we brought all things into place by last Friday. This was not enough though. We also had to attend to various training sessions conducted by the Storage experts who have solely come to India for this purpose. I am riding along this huge tide of work, happily and things shaping up in the positive, probably first time in my work life. Hopefully I would get hold of this path.

Idle mind

Idle mind is devils abode, they say. I do not know how much it is true. But I know being idle is one of the most difficult things in life. I am experiencing this hell for the past few weeks in office. Coming to office only to check mails, chat with friends, have lunch, take tea breaks…done…end of day, travel back home. But one cannot complain about this life as well. Hopefully this state quickly passes away.

The Homecoming

Lots of things have happened in the past months, laziness crept in and I didn’t make any efforts to blog. A fresh month is approaching and as a genuine software engineer, thought of making my processes right. Had to wipe out the old blemishes, hence this blog summarizing what had happened during the last two months.

By the mid of December, It was almost certain that I will be transferred down to Bangalore and eventually it did happen, not fully though. It was mutually agreed that I would be on deputation for six months and will be transferred after that.

I was in a confused state as I had offers from Sonata Software for a Tandem developer job with Dell. With lots of uncertainties within, I was not sure if I should take it up or not. The package was good but the pink slip was in the waiting one year down the line. (It was a one year fixed-time employment). Moreover it was in the technology which might hamper my career growth. It was not worth enough to risk ones job/ career, hence decided against it. In the meantime, got some interviews arranged with HP by TCS and cleared it with ease. In fact it was a No interview. Anyways as the technology of Storage was very good I didn’t even spare to think to accept the project. But at that time nothing was spoken of my transfer. This is one of the most frustrating, boring and difficult phase in ones professional life – a change in job/ role/ location/ project. Uh!! Uncertainties to the max and with all these I am sure one cannot concentrate on anything and work upon. I was like a nomad in office, roaming all places in the floor; reaching office by 11.00 AM and leaving early. And at last it all came to an end. Things were getting postponed but I was happy in a way that it was going to happen. The move out of Mumbai, I knew would not be that easy. I had a nice establishment there and moving out everything would be a huge task. In the idle time of this transition phase, I planned to send my entire collection home through courier. I was surprised that it weighed only 50 Kgs. my two year collection of all kinds of books. Then I took up and completed the big exercise of change of communication address. This again was a huge task. I have 3 magazine subscriptions, 3 bank accounts, my great IGNOU MBA program (its in a messed up state, I am ashamed of myself), a few other financial relationships etc. As I had the Christmas week off, with the D-Day (joining date with TCS HP- Bangalore) not being finalized, I decided that I should make use of the time and make a short trip to Bangalore. I shifted half of my things through train and left the rest for the final fly down. It was a nice short trip and I enjoyed the New Year in the place where probably I am destined to live the rest of my life. When I reached Mumbai back on the 3rd of Jan, nothing much had changed. Then the news of the “Jan 6th Training” in TCS Bangalore reached and I felt as if I had just seen the last lap flag in a Formula one race. Within a day everything was done; my deputation letter came to my table, and my flight tickets to Bangalore reached my office reception. Bid good bye to all and started to Bangalore on the wee hours of 6th January. If I had been there in Mumbai for a few more days till the 12th, I would have completed the magical time of 2 years. Carrying loads of “The-Great-Mumbai-Experience”, I boarded that flight. The day went well and by evening I was at home. I reported in TCS ITPL for a short training and I were to report in HP Lavelle Road office on 9th January. So that was the big story of my home coming.    

Rebirth

Uh!! After all, what Nilava told has come true! Yet another long break. To err is me, To Forgive is me…I, Me, Myself!! Here I am, born again in this Bloggers Park!

After a break...

Huh! That was rather a long break. So many things happened and still I didn’t blog it? This one deserves an RCA – Root Cause Analysis. A good manager in the making! But this one should not require a meeting of five people, fighting and wasting each other’s time like it happens in any CMM Level 5 company. (Once I typed the word CMM Level 5, I thought, why the hell did I pull that out? Logically speaking there is no relationship of CMM Level 5 and this blog. Anyways, My Blog is the index of my mind…of course whenever I blog, so thought not to delete it).
Coming back to the RCA, I thought I should keep this short and sweet. So just sat and thought why I didn’t blog for such a long time, 42 days to be precise. The only conclusion to which I came to was that because I didn’t have any reason not to blog. It was just like that, that I didn’t blog. Oops..I can see a few hands being raised on this; so let me cut this down. (Often this is how an RCA ends in all CMM Level 5 companies… Oops again there I go!)

Anyways, the one of the reason was that I was in a confused state of mind. A few options opening up, a few changes in career line, etc., which never gave me an opportunity to think and blog. So, this one is to break the jinx. Hopefully I wouldn’t get into this sort of a break again.

Time, Mood and Happiness...

Time is directly proportional to happiness. This is a nature’s law in context with human beings. I realized this recently and thought I should let this world know about this.

Some Proof:

Date: 3 Nov 2005; Place: Mumbai

Morning I reached office. Didn’t have the mood to work. My bus to Bangalore was by 3.00 PM from Andheri. But somehow I felt that it was never going to come.

Mood = Boring; Unhappy
Time = Dragging                              ( 1     

Date: 4 Nov 2005; Place: Bangalore

Finally after a long wait, the 3.00 PM did arrive and I took the bus to Bangalore. Chetan Bhagat’s ON @ CC and Three movies in the most comfortable 6 wheeler on road (A/c Volvo) and I was in Bangalore. I didn’t realize that the same ‘time’ which refused to move on just hours ago could move so fast now.

Mood = Energetic; Happy
Time = Flying                                   ( 2

Date: 9 Nov 2005; Place: Bangalore

I felt as if closing my eyes and opening again, and here I am in the Bangalore City Station waiting for the Coimbatore Kurla Express to return to Mumbai. Obviously I could not dare to imagine how fast the past five days had gone.

Date: 10 Nov 2005; Place: 3A 61, TCS Gateway Park, Mumbai

I was back in my office cubicle checking all the hundreds of mails that had piled up in my mailbox. Again, the mood was bad, and again I felt like dragging time along with me.

Mood = Boring; Unhappy
Time = Dragging, like never before                    ( 3

From 1, 2 and 3, it is very clear that Time is directly Proportional to the mood, or rather happiness. The proportionality constant should be equal to the Happiness Index.

Isn’t it??

Home Sweet Home

Wow… I am excited. Yes. After a gap of two months, I am going home again. Yes.
After two months:
I will get to eat mom’s tasty tasty food,
I will watch TV, TV and TV only,
I will drive our car,
I will watch movies in our DVD,
And I will visit my relatives….

The list goes on and on. Really, Home Sweet Home. Whatever one says, nothing can beat going home on a vacation.

But this time, there’s one difference though. I am traveling by bus for the first time, from Mumbai to Bangalore. Hope the journey is good.

And more exciting is that I bought ON@CC by Chetan Bhagat. I started it, but thought it would be my best companion in the bus, hence stopped myself. Still somehow I couldn’t really, and already thru to Ch #9.  For the return journey I have already booked Sons of Fortune.

Hope to have a short sweet trip to home. Yeah, its too short, next week, this time I should be sitting in this same seat in my office. Holidays to me means, Holiday for my blogs too. Will come back with all what I did during my short trip. Until then… cheers!!

Diwali - Festival of Lights

My Second Diwali in Mumbai. Last year it coincided with my birthday, so had a nice bash. This year, we already have perfect plans in place. We shall be going to Worli Sea Face, one of the shorelines in Mumbai. People come here and fire crackers like crazy. One can surely witness all kinds of crackers, firepots, rockets etc. (I am very poor in this, I don’t know anything about varieties of crackers – accordingly to me, firing crackers is to burn out money).  

Apart from that, what else? Of Course, missing home, mom and her sweets & savories, a lot.

Hope this Festival of Lights brightens all our lives…Wish you all a Very Happy and Safe Diwali.