Will be completing one year of blogging tomorrow. Its been one heck of a year for me...the concept of 'violent change' has been driven into my head now. '05 must rank as one of the most educative year's for me...learnt a lot of things in life...mostly about people...'06 is going to be fun...me in a strange city...with a laundry list of things to do...lots of hard work ahead.

the blog turned from being a fun-pad where I made a lotta friends(and pulled quite a few ppl's leg) into a sort of a internal polambal...all the same ive had max fun here...cya in 2006...happy new year.

The Devils Alternative...

...wonderful Forsyth book am facing a similair situation at work,4 of the 6 freshers drafted into my team want to quit the team.They dont think they are into this thing. I dont blame them,unless you know what you are doing this role can bring you down royally. I think i know what am doing...but u can never be 100% sure.when I hear all my friends talk about J2EE,mainframes and semi-con testing, it does feel a lil odd to be doing something radically different...the 'what-if-i-fail' factor is LOOMING over my head...not that this job doesnt have any benefits,it does--i can take my PMP in 3 years am hoping that the PMP would impress an interview board somewhere...this is also proabably the only job in the Indian IT industry that is suitable for my aptitude...

sometimes i feel am taking too many risks in life...sometimes the goals arent too clear...sometimes i just want to give up and run and be a graduate student in some god-forsaken Idaho univ studying VLSI which I dont understand(i did try to understand it).... sometimes the harder options are the easier ones to make...like a java job in chennai...

I guess it was never meant to be simple...you just have to enjoy the ride i guess...am gonna take 'D's gyaan seriously--this un-certainty,this ambiguity is what keeps a man going...this is what wakes up a man at 3 in the morning,makes him work till 12...do things he never thought he could do...like trignomentry :).....this is what keeps a man alive.....

Vacation plans severely cut-back...will be spending only 3 days in Chennai..."urgent work" has come-up here...new-year party plans stand cancelled :((.....best-friend has agreed to advance his vacation by a week...thanks machan,u r an ass-hole,but i love u....cant look forward to the prospect of spending new-years eve in the office :((.....co-conspirators outside 'cyber residency' will be on-vacation...room-mate will be in GOA....LIFE SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!

Carl Fox:He's using you, kid. He's got your prick in his back pocket, but you're too blind to see it.
Bud Fox: No. What I see is a jealous old machinist who can't stand the fact that his son has become more successful than he has!
Carl Fox: What you see is a guy who never measured a man's success by the size of his WALLET!
Bud Fox: That's because you never had the guts to go out into the world and stake your own claim! [Long Pause]
Carl Fox: Boy, if that's the way you feel, I must have done a really lousy job as a father.


Magic Cinema moment.From the movie Wallstreet. Insightful too...how do u measure success?? What is my definition of success?? I dont know...sometimes its a car,a dog, a woman and a job in OMR...sometimes i want to own the world...i really dont know...

Feeling low...

Met Mrs.R(or atleast i thought she was Mrs. R) today. She was an old family friend from about 15 years ago. Our families were pretty close then,close enough for me to go and have a word with her. When I did go and talk to her she was kinda flagerbasted...and when she realised who I was, she got a lil irritated...I said my buh byes...got her card and left. Came to the office and called up mom...turns out that Mr.R divorced Mrs.R(in a not-so-favourable settlement i think)....and as it turns out my dad,Mr.R's best friend was also his lawyer!!!! Felt like a piece of trash after that....am still in shock...damn am lucky to come outta this alive.....cant even imagine how she must've felt!! Was muling whether to tell mom about this...would only make it worse...mom would definitely want to get intouch with her...I dont think Mrs R wants to talk to some ghost from 15 years ago!!!!

Damn i feel like trash!!!!!!!Sometimes i just wish i would just shut the hell up....you know be the INFJ that i really am....I mean all this coming-out-of-my-shell bullshit isnt clearly working...i mean i was a lot more happier when i was lil more quite and a lil more introverted....would have definitely avoided all the disappointments in hyderabad so far...but hey the gab is what got me here in the first place and it is the only thing that'll take me anywhere......hmmmm...thats something to think about!!!!

Got a call from a Vinay . He is the son of the lady for whom I donated blood yesterday. They got in touch with me through the Social services commitee at work. Apart from the personal satisfaction of helping someone, you also become a worthy representative of your organisation and what it stands for. One unit of blood doesnt sound like much, but when a 70-year old man holds your hand tightly and says,"You know what, your company is good",you really feel that you are part of something bigger than you. It also puts a lil 'capitalism' in CSR(corporate social responsibility). Hey, a prospective employee may choose to join us 'cos he likes what we stand for; a municipal commisioner may overlook a certain building violation because we helped him with his education program. It may also help in preventing those Kannada-chauvinist types, who made a huge fuss about job quotas for Kannadigas.

I wanted to work with some NGO here,but ive kinda mentally commited to CAT 2006.CAT 2006 may be my one last shot at getting out of tech, i would be "too experienced" for anything else after that. So,the working-with-NGO dream has to wait.


P.S. : To all those cynics,pessimists and pricks who think this is some kinda 'resume-weight-increasing-manouvere', i have only one thing to say:!@@# you!!! Actually, I still cant figure out what it is......

Went to the Salarjung Museum finally. After 4 freaking months!!! Well, priorities change when you are a recently-dumped person. Lot of learnings in Salarjung,most profound of which is that you should never visit a Museum with a bunch of Morons, who are not interested. The museum itself was a let-down from my point of view. I mean I had a decent hypothesis about the local area:Nizam invades Vijayanagaram(the AP of today).British invade India. Nizam kisses brit-butt.Nizam gets to keep un-fertile telengana, while brits merge Rayalseema and Coastal Andhra with 'Madras'.Nizam neglects Telengana. Rayalseema/coastal Andhra prospers(relatively, of course). After Independence all three regions merge. And then CHAOS!!! Telengana is not able to compete with the well-educated Coastal region. Land reforms are skewed in favour of the powerful(read educated).Telengana is oppressed and the local people are very angry. And then out of the blue, explodes a revolutionary movement in a Bengali town named Naxalbari.Telengana gults get inspired by it and the rest is history--we have the Naxal Movement of today.

I was hoping that the main museum in the centre of Telengana/Nizam-country would reflect any of the history. But No--its sheer denial!!!! Nizam was a nice guy. Salarjung was an amazing person who collected SHIT-LOADS OF PLATES!!! I swear ive never seen so many plates together!!! There were so many plates that Benny commented,"They were proabably gonna train the locals to beg all over India..." Now you know why I made that Moron comment!!! Ironically, the tiny weeny bit of history nugget I got was from Salarjungs Report card--yes, his REPORT CARD!!! It was signed by the "Controller of Examinations,Calcutta". Truly amazing--the extent of British control and the depth of the Nizams in-competence. The bugger couldnt even get himself a "controller of examination"???? And guess what Salarjung majored in?? English,Math and PERSIAN!!!! Persian??? I thought that was the Iranian language!!! Ofcourse, thats a totally different story about Hyderabad, which i shall save for later.

Rest of the week-end was a national-disaster!! Made the mistake of calling 'her'. Well I guess i became a lil nostalgic after getting drunk on Sataurday. Got accused of being a "pervert" AND an "emotional black-mailer"!!!Thats a new low in an already low-life... Well, i truly truly deserved it!!!! Aravind and Raja gave me the rod for calling!!! One silver lining was that my support system came into the picture for the first time. Avinash even insisted on coming down to Madhapur all the way from secundrabad. Frankly, i wasnt THAT upset!!! I was upset with myself for the 'temprory relapse' but thats it!!! Anyway, thanks a lot guys, dont know what I could've done without you guys!!!

You see,bachelor life is alright. You get to see things in you that you never knew you had. Some of these things are not nice, some of these things were put in a cardboard-box when you were four and were stowed away in the attic. Now you are beginning to open these boxes and you dont like what you see.And you have to learn to deal with it!!!

Raja made an interesting point few days ago:The reason I am 'different' from him is that I am a "second-generation immigrant",as opposed to a recent immigrant to Chennai,like himself. 'Different' refers to pretty much everything from values to opinions on the Khushboo issue to perceptions about women .Ironically, I have to come to Hyd to perceive this difference. I guess living with someone is different from studying alongside someone. I have more in common with my North-Indian friends than my "first-generation immigrant" tamilian friends.Trust me, everyone in 'Cyber residency' is an adult and we give each other space-they know that I am not into Rajnikanth and I dont force them to tag along on my drinking binges with Freddie(where we have some uniquely "second generation immigrant" arguments).

Brilliant article in Express on the khushboo issue. But the article pits Dalits of TN with the rest. Dont know how far the assumption is valid. Dont know if Thirumavalavan is as much a 'Dalit-activist', as he is a first-generation immigrant,on the Khushboo issue. Beneath all that iconology of "tamil pride" and "chastity of the tamil women" is a simple in-security issue which is unique to the recent-immigrant.TN is on the move,and the immigrant is afraid. Afraid of change.And he is making a monkey out of himself.

I am forced to think about Immigration 'cos I am an immigrant myself,albeit an internal one. Going forward,I think internal-immigration will be the most important issue facing India in the next 50 years. Lets face it, southern cities are going to receive more and more immigrants from the north, they may not over-shadow the locals,but they'll definitely be a very important constituent. Now chennaiites can go the Bangalore/Bombay way and act like complete monkeys or we can go the Hyderabad way-the pragmatic way-and embrace them.

End of the day, I think India is gonna be one really interesting place, especially for recently-benched-amatuer-sociologists.

Got some feedback on the communication training thingie:"You begin your sentences with a lot of energy,but it kinda fluctuates towards the end". Haaa....story of my life. But it was a very useful training,i think i'll follow-up on the "action-points" suggested,am supposed to open my jaws a lil more...suggested method:"eat a lotta chewing gum... :))"....arghhhh....women....The trainers are almost always from a particular demographic group:Ex-air-hostess. Training attendance was never this high before... really interesting girls:24-28,single,independent,travel a lot...oh you dont meet a lotta those in Annanagar...have to give it to North-Indians...