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| Sunday, April 30, 2006 |
| Evolution V |
Does it happen only to me? I met a guy at lunch. My colleague's friend, I met this guy for the first time. We had a casual chat and after 10 mins he asks me the much dreaded question.
"Where do you see yourself, five years down the line?"
"Err.... I don't see myself.. ha ha ha"
Oh my god, I was the only one laughing there. I couldn't classify if I felt embarassed or annoyed (or guilty?). I'm honestly tired on inventing answers. Everyone seems to be asking me the same question.
My new manager. This was the first question he had. I was struggling for an answer. (Were I were blessed to tell "thillumullu" kind of answers only in interviews? Come on, tell something....No luck. I fumbled, blabbering something.)
Even my father is not sparing me.
"Think about it da. Five years down the line you'll be married and having kids. You better....."
"What???"
I once had a default answer for all.
"I'm gonna start a company!";D
I had to give it up after my cousin went a step ahead and asked,
"What kind of? You have any ideas? I can help you get funding. Just come up with a business plan."
That was the last time I bragged that I would start a company.
It's the age, isn't it? Some critical stage in our life. We have to make a decision or atleast tell others something consistent.
I see most of us perplexed with the same question. The wave of enthusiasm that swept last year about CAT and MBA has died out. Idayathullah is the only guy who seem to have some positive plans. (Outsiders: I-D-A-Y-A-T-H-U-L-L-A-H is sometimes pronounced as "Beckham"). Of course, I couldn't get any news about Pradeep. When I last heard of him, he works as undercover agent ;D. (Vayatherichaloda innoru form machi. Kochikkadha.)
The rest, we try to speculate on what others will do, instead of doing something for ourselves. At least me and Karthik are doing this. The last time we gossiped, we felt Ramkumar is going to get married and that is why he is not 'participating' in career debates these days :).
Sometimes I wonder if I should accept the reality and concentrate on my work, for better. But you know, I'm afraid that the system will take me. I was once wondering, why I'm the only guy opposing process so vociferously, while most of you took the rival side. May be because, I was a 'fresher' for the most of my experience at job. "18 till I die...", my neighbor's new audio system blares!, as I type this :D!!!!
Other dimension is, many times I feel I didn't get this maturity level of a working professional. I'm still making this odd jokes at wrong moments. I couldnt enjoy my company outings. Ok that's a different story. Let me discuss just about career.
My problem is I couldn't make firm career decision.
What do I want, in my life?
"Money", how spontaneously Venkatesan would answer this question! (and Karthik would have seconded :))))) The problem is I don't have such a clear answer. I'm confused, if I should make decisions based on my interests, or pick one of those 'charsmatic' career paths.
When I interviewed people aspiring for MBA, most of them cited, "For Money." or "For faster Career Growth.", as answer for why they chose it.
"Which area of MBA?"
"Finance", instantaneous answer.
What's diriving everybody!
An advice I was given recently, "Follow your passion and not the outcome, especially while chosing the career path." Quiet true! When I make a career decision, I could not just think of 'money' or 'career path'. I should also plan how well we would fit in the career. My choice of taking up B.E. ECE would have turned disatrous, if not for the IT boom. I should not repeat this. If I'm not really good in say marketing, but I go for it because it is charismatic in various measures. I'm wondering, what if I'm not able to perform well? What if I'm not able to make to those '15L' paying companies but just a '6L' company. No, I don't say performance of individual. I'm talking about relative performance. When the industry slumps and '6L' is the highest bet? Will I be able to compete sans real passion? Am I bridling myself, from the real picture and setting my focus on that '15L' or the 'C*O' position I'm fantasizing myself in 10 years?
("Follow your hearts..." Bryan Adams again. What kind of coincidence is this? Situation song :D.)
I'm not trying to play a preacher but wanted to share my thoughts,as a one time CAT applicant :). The question eating my head is how come almost all except 2-3, go for a career in management. Is it just the charisma that drives all or am I only one missing the 'passion' thing? If you folks don't have a bleary view of career paths (as me) and clear enough already, great! But I would be happy to discover at least a handful, as confused as me ;D.
One more thought. This time a real-preaching. I find lot of us had let the 'enthu' for masters, die out. Including me. Come on guys... Look at 'I'. (Not kidding machi, you impress me :D) Let's start spamming aptitude questions again! Let's not grow old and serious and professional. 7 months are there for CAT and 3 more for GATE. Enough time to make it happen.. Let's start telling bold answers the next time someone asks that 5-year question. (Am I saying this to myself? :D)
PS: I look at me in the mirror. Oh my god! Lost lot of hairs. Five years down the line....(edhir kaalam papparapaenu theiyudhu) ..."18 till I die.." Oh shit, can't he get some other music to play? |
posted by Sunil @ 5:21 AM   |
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| A cowardly act!!! |
It is time we stopped calling these bastards as terrorists and re-christen them as cowards!!! Yeah - that is what these assholes really are. I am speaking about the killing of engineer Suryanarayan by the Taliban. They abducted him on Friday and then they ended it with this. Is this what they do to let the world know of their so called POWER. They don't have any courage do they??? Let alone terror!!!
Whatever might be their purpose, whatever their claims, whatever their agenda - such dastardly acts of madness are not going to do anything for them right!!! It is just an expense of few bullets for these mindless maniacs - it is a big big loss to his family. My heart reaches out to them to share their grieve at this moment of deep deep sorrow.
If they have any problem with Indians working there, they should have spoken to the Indian government. Okay - we cannot expect these maniacs to be politically correct isn't it. If kidnapping is what they do, they should have kidnapped a government official at least. Not that I hate him or something, he is the representative of our govt there isn't he. They should not have done this to a poor soul, who accepts an assignment in a dangerous place expecting to earn that few bucks more to change the fortune of his family.
If they don't have the spine or the potency to take on their real enemies - they should all kill themselves in cowardice. Not cover their ugly faces at the expense of innocent commoners. They aren't winning anything here are they!?!? Apart from throwing such families into life long sorrow. |
| posted by Iday @ 4:00 AM |
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| Saturday, April 29, 2006 |
| Short story - my attempt |
Shiva was sweating profusely, in spite of the pleasant Ooty climate. He must have had run more than 2KMs without any break, not even daring to look back and verify whether he was really being chased or not. He was beyond the state when his brain can listen to his body shouting "I can't anymore"!!!
His mind was thinking all the time. The last week had been a very bad one for him and his 6 college buddies - Anil, Raghu, Vijay, Sethu, Mano and Gokul. All 7 of them had traveled to Ooty for a fun week last Sunday, a week off from work and other pressures. Things haven't turned out to be the way they planned.
Vijay died on Sunday night!!! He fell down from the roof of the hotel they were staying. Or that's what they thought initially. The same night, their bags were found missing, they dint have money to return immediately. They rang up their homes, left messages and came back to their rooms waiting for a call back. Then they found that note in the room. It had only 4 words - YOU SIX WILL DIE.
Since then they have all been on the run. And one after one, one per day in fact, Shiva saw all his friends die. Today is Saturday, he's the last one left and he's running away from death now!!! All his friends, before their last breath, mentioned one name - Leela!!!
Shiva is afraid!!! What is happening is so obvious!!! Why this is happening, the dead 6 and Shiva know. Whatever that was, today he has to escape. "Run Shiva" - he told to himself, even though his legs were crying for a break!!!
And then he saw her!!! He felt a chill on his spine. He knew this was it. Her eyes were fixed on him. They followed him wherever he moved. And then, she blinked. The camera was fixed on Shiva's face. The light boys switched 2 heavy power light beams onto him, the rays which will be converted into something spectacular by the animation crew, and he enacted whatever the director had asked him to. Then Shiva fell onto the ground - as a dead person would do!!!
"Cut" called the director. It was a lot better than the unit had expected from Shiva and they were happy!!! There were claps all around. The 6 dead friends were clapping too. The director was the first to reach him. "Great job Shiva. This will be a big break in your career!". "Yeah Yeah Yeah!!!" nodded all the others as they surrounded him. He was still on the ground, motionless.
It was the director who saw small the pool of blood around his nose. He was dead for REAL!!! The first assistant director then touched the director's shoulder and with trembling hands, gave him his mobile. He was trembling - "It is Leela madam sir. She's saying that she'll be late for the shooting sir!!! She says she's been trying for the past one hour to all our mobiles".
That's when they observed - Leela was missing!!! There was a piece of paper in the place where she was last seen. It simply said "YOU SIX WILL DIE". |
| posted by Iday @ 9:48 AM |
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| Thursday, April 27, 2006 |
| Watch for the market falling... |
Guess you all would have spent your late evenings yesterday watching CNBC/NDTV-Profit rather than watching cricket/football match in StarSports.
Around 12 DPs were found guilty of playing with the DMAT account including big names like IndiaBulls (Sunil... Lucky that we didn't open the account that day in IndiaBulls...:-) !!
Who knows the sensex could endup the day in four digits ?! (too pessimistic?!)
http://www.ndtvprofit.com/homepage/storybusinessnew.asp?slug=SEBI+crackdown%3A+All+eyes+on+market&id=30971 |
| posted by kart @ 8:48 PM |
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| Monday, April 24, 2006 |
| Bull Run... |
Here is an interesting article about the bull run... http://in.rediff.com/money/2006/apr/25bull.htm
The sensex rise is too steep that it reminds me the German proverb.. "The higher flood hath always the lower ebb."
It may not be a bad stategy to invest in MFs and play safe when it comes to shares?! But, people who got their shares beforehand are having fun time. |
| posted by kart @ 10:47 PM |
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| Saturday, April 22, 2006 |
| Ship Wreck |
It was more terrible than the titanic climax when I found myself drowning in the dark sea all alone, even Kate Winslet was not around to accompany me and the ship was on it's way down to the bottom of the ocean. Next day, I was lying bare in an atlantic coast somewhere in an Island betweeen Newyork and London.
The first day was full of fun. Nature all around - singing birds, fresh fruits, green plants. ferocious stream and more importantly no boss to fiddle with my freedom. I spent my time sharing fun with the deers and monkeys that hopped around. I thought that unlimited fun was instore for the rest of my life.
Two days went by and on the third day I felt everything boring. The shouting birds disturbed my sleep, monkeys irritated by throwing ripe fruits at my head, the stream was too cold to wet my hands, the plants were too green to light fire, and more importantly I missed my boss who would lend his helping hands at my terrible hours. Allmost every animal in the jungle tried to attack me but none was good enough to overpower me. It rained all the day and my bare body shivered in cold. I thought that worst was still instore for me.
I knew that seven was always my lucky number but never knew that it could bring so much of luck my way. On seventh day, I woke up to find 6 or 7 young girls (around 20 or 22 years old) surrounding me, who wore little fur around their waist and two small flowers (too small to identify what flower it was) covering their top. I could not believe my luck, I pinched my hand hard to realize that everything was real. The youngest of them (around 19) gave me a dozen of ripe banana, which I ate in a split second.
The eldest of them (around 23) asked me if I was a virgin. I nodded my head and everyone started laughing at me. She told me that the islands entire male population died in an epidemic and the island has got not even a single male now. I pinched my hand once again to realize that it wasn't another dream. Another with a slighlty big tummy (like Jothika) told me that it was almost 1 year since they had sex and they missed their males to do the job for them. I realized that God should be in the best of his moods now. She told that "We are looking for a guy like you so long to do the job ".
I asked her, when could I start? The girl who had a big dimple in her face told me "You could start even now if you want to" with a smile on her face. She added that "There are lots of children in the island and you can choose any one among them". I was puzzled "children?!".She told me that "The male in the island did only the first part rite but they died before doing their second part. For previous 3 years, every male in the island was busy all day and night in their ventures to make every girl, a women. But, before bringing up the children, all the male in the island died. So, we were searching so long for someone who could continue their work. We were lucky to get atleast one male."
I pinched my hand once again to check if it is a dream only to find that I was running out of luck. The girl with a red flower on her top, asked me why I was pinching myself,without expecting any reply, helped me to stand up on my legs, to take me to a hut where all those kids with running nose and leaking bums were smiling at me. Without waiting for her instructions, with a towel on one hand and a mug containing water on the other hand, I walked towards the first child to start my job. |
| posted by kart @ 7:34 AM |
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| Friday, April 21, 2006 |
| Gods must be crazy |
| Today it has been a boring day throughout. If i get bored, what do i do? Hmm... new found interest blog. But, what would God do? Perhaps do some thiruvilaiyadal("thiruvilaiyadal"means playing said with respect) as believed in Hindu mythology. He did such a stunt with me this week. I was in a meeting for 3 hours planning the work ahead. So, the pressure in the bladder was increasing as the kidney was doing its duty more than expected in the cold room. Finally when i went to the rest room(i don't know why the f**k it is called that way), there were two guys already standing and i went to the middle one which was free. When i was about give pressure, i realised the gas station was also ready to release its pressure and to my discomfort it was rather a big one. Big enough to catch others attention. If i give pressure, both would be released simultaneously and i wud get embarrassment free of cost. if i don't the pressure in bladder wud kill me. I waited for few minutes till these guys left the room. Guys were washing their hands leisurely talking and drying their hands for few seconds while i was in great pain (dai seekiram pongada. aai pona kooda kaluva mateenga MNCndrathunaala summa onuku ponathuku poi dettol hand wash vachu kai kaluvureenga). As soon as they left. BOOM DAMAL BANG BANG BANG. PISSSSSSSSSSS. Life is a bliss when we piss. whew!! Gods must be crazy. |
| posted by Ramkumar @ 4:56 AM |
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| Thursday, April 20, 2006 |
| Funny |
Though i am a feminist, I couldn't help posting this image. |
| posted by Ramkumar @ 12:42 AM |
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| Monday, April 17, 2006 |
| Idea required |
| I am planning to write sudoku program. Though i haven't started it. i am quite sure that the user input and checks wud b quite easy to implement. But, I have no idea about the start up data - initial number fillings. Like any sudoku program, i wud like to have three levels; hard, medium and easy. Worst case is i cud hardcore the startup data with ... say 50 samples in each level. But this is the last resort. Is there any algo or logic by which i can generate a startup data. |
| posted by Ramkumar @ 12:40 AM |
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| Sunday, April 16, 2006 |
| To RamP - the single success story of the season. |
Okay guys - time we celebrated our future HR :)
I lost track of the number of guys who appeared for all these MBA tests this year. I'm sure it must be 10 at least. 10% of success rate is not something to be boasted of really - but we should shower all our praises on this single guy who made it through this year.
Congratulations RamP - for your perseverance, hard work and all that luck!!! Luck - you really need that in this B school thingy. After 3 years of test after test after test - you've finally made it through. I'm sure u're all smiles these days and hopefully ur fingers have stopped twisting and turning ;) I know I'm hoping against hope and hence I feel really sorry for that laptop of urs :)
To the others - time for your wishes to pour in :)
To RamP - Time we had a treat man. |
| posted by Iday @ 1:55 PM |
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| What the future holds??? |
Following the lengthy discussions we had over the mails, I thought the blog was a better place to run this thing. So here we go guys...
Let us try to give shape to our future goals here.
All that I hope is - we are not too late :)
We have 3 (SRP, RamP & PC - out of the 34 we had) of our guys moving into level 2. Guess "Pra" is a good sequence to have in the name :) Does that make Pradeep the next?!?! I hope so :) The rest of us are still talking.
Let me take a look at ourselves...
Some of us have really far stretched (I am not saying impossible) ideas as to starting a new company, something for which we ourselves accept that we are not ready yet - exposure wise, experience wise, resources wise. Still a long way to go, really!!!
Some of us, on the other extreme, have given this FUTURE thing zilch time or thought. Who cares?!?!?! Pity I don’t fall into this category - life is bliss this way!!!
But the most interesting part of the equation is for those who want to do things now, this year and still have to wait. Wait is painful - as I am figuring out these days. How good will it be if I get over this GMAT thingy?!!? How well would it be if the SimCATs (or the AimCATs) begin and I start testing my mettle?!!? Time really freezes for the waiting :(
Move over all these personal musings. I guess we have quite a diverse group of ppl in this blog who can really provide valuable ideas, which might be of help to everyone. It would be great to be of use as we realise dreams. How good that sounds ;)
So - get on with it... PS> Did ya guys know i do some bloggin too?!!? U can check that here |
| posted by Iday @ 1:28 PM |
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| My attempt to write a short story |
Kumbakonam and Delhi, two places which made an impact in my life. No, this is not the story about a town boy becoming the president of India. Rather it is about the boy who believed everything in the world could be planned. Needless to say, he failed.
She studied in DAV high. She was brilliant. She scored 60 in CBSE. You know its tough to score in CBSE. She took mass communciation for her under graduation, a very challenging field. She knew everything in this world. When I called the waiter "annaen", she said "boss". When I used the word "average", she used "mediocre". When I graduated to "Cliffhanger", she was raving about "Casablanca". She had an o.k face and fair skin. Fair enough to floor me. Afterall, I was born in a place where even a white pigs would be sought after just because it is white.
She studied in Chettiar school kumbakonam. While I scored a healthy 85 in tenth, she just scrambled for her 95 in state board. Hah, anybody can score in state board. I settled for government college in coimbatore while she just managed BITS pilani not to mention her placement in common man's havan Infy.
Not that I disliked her, she never impressed me. She didn't have that charisma in her. I knew for sure my inclination towards Soumya will not bridge the 7 months gap between us. Even harder was to jump over my mother's wish to marry me to Shenbagam. It is P.R.Akash who changed my mind. He was the one in college who taught us the most important alphabet in English - X and the tables associated with it - One X is X, Two Xs are double X, Three Xs are triple X. Like a criminal confessing to a lawyer, I made my intentions clear to PR(we called him
lovingly so). PR gauged my superficial love and chartered out a plan for me. A
plan which is largely a derivative of the porns which we saw.
Soumya has been passing every test. I started by tuning to FTV when we two were alone. She passed. I talked about extra marital and pre-marital sex. She said she was o.k with that(I didn't understand what she meant though). We went to 7/G movie together. Again there was no complaining. She seemed to enjoying that also. Now, the stage was set for the grand finale.
I don't know why Azhagar was crossing the river every year. But, this year, I believed he did it for me. My mom's two brother came along with their daughters from Delhi and Kumbakonam. As a Delhite, Soumya naturally would avoid going to temple and stay home. As a kumbakonam girl, shenbagam would take away all the old people along with her to watch the spectacle. I would leave the house even before them to my friends house just to see BOE, BI et al(refreshing my planned moves). After all, I should not fumble in the last hurdle not knowing what to do.
Plan A - Soumya would be alone. I would come to my home. Wash my face. Ask for towel in the bathroom. She would bring it. I would slip. We would fall. Then i take over. Plan B - If she refuses to be taken over, I would try evern try harder. Still she refuses. I would propose my love only to be rejected just to save some pride for my failed attempt.
The day came. I went out and came back. The door was kept opened. I went to bathroom and shouted for towel, "Ma, towel". A hand gave me the towel. It was not fair. It was of my colour-wheatish as they would say in the matrimonial column. Oh no its shenbagam. She slipped in the bathroom and I fell over her. She didn't leave me. After few tries, I stopped trying and started something else. I don't remember how long it took. My mom's shout split us. I was dumbstruck not to mention the embarassment. I don't know what happened after that. Somebody pressed fast forward button in my tape. I heard her friend giggle "nenachatha mudichitiyae kalli". I was standing in my marriage reception. I could see my classmates surrounding PR probably hearing the story how he helped me achieve my goal. The light music
troup started singing "Shenbagamae Shenbagame.....".
Machis, i was not able to keep a title for this story. Please suggest one. |
| posted by Ramkumar @ 12:17 AM |
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| Friday, April 14, 2006 |
| Yesterday - An Eventful Day. |
Every one of you would have heard about the riots in Bangalore after the demise of the great Kandada film actor RajKumar. 4 buses were burnt, police jeeps were thrashed, quite a few private vehicles were also banged and the saddest of all, it cost the life of 5 human lives!! I would like to share my experience on this eventful day @ Bangalore with you guys...
At Wednesday night 10 PM, I was still slogging in my company. I got a mail that thursday was declared a public holiday and went back home happily. Next day, got up very late and went out to have breakfast. No shops were open. There were few medical shops that were half closed (It seemed that is to only aid the few who got minor scratches while bumping the buses and jeeps). I managed to sneak into a small tea shop opened by a rebel and finished my breakfast with a puffs and tea.
Then... went back home to while away the day. My only hope was TV and thought I could manage with Bangladesh-Australia test match highlights. Then came the real shock...Cable TV operators at many places in Bangalore stopped broadcasting the entertainment channels and broadcasted only the channels that showed the great actor's movie or at least his photos. The manthra being..."No fun for 2 days".... Anyway, I managed with "Dishum" VCD that my roommate hired it for 10 bucks last evening..(VCDs in Bangalore are damn cheap).
At 1 PM, I went to my kitchen to get some water and ended up finding that there was not even a drop of water available to drink. So, thought I have to sneak in somewhere to get some food + some water to drink. After 20 mins of walk, I found an All-In-One kinda shop. When I requested for a pepsi, the shop keeper was reluctant to give anything else apart from bread, rice, noodles and jam (Funny...I never asked him for free of cost). A guy standing beside me told that u will get the stuffs that are needed for survival and no other luxuries. Hmm, never knew that drinking pepsi in the hot sun is an entertainment. I virtually begged him to give me a can of water and atlast managed to get it.
Time was now 1:30PM, was feeling very hungry coz I haven't had enough in the morning. Then we (me + couple of my room mates) found an Andhra mess, which was half closed but the owner was willing to give us parceled meals. By the time I got the parcel, I realized that I had already walked for almost 2 Kms. So, thought we would do good for ourselves by hiring an auto. I found an auto that had a mini cutout of Rajkumar. I was so tired that I was willing him to pay 1.5 times the normal rent (10 + 5 = 15 bucks). The guy replied back in Tamil with a kanda tint that "1000 ruba koduthalum nanga yarum innaikku vara mattom." When I went back home walking all the way, I had severe headache (I was ill last week and wasn't fully fit). When I finished my lunch, I.... don't know what happened...not sure if I washed my hands. I got up only @ 5 PM.
I planned well enough for my dinner. Went to my friend's house who stays nearby, cooked some food in his home and finished my dinner. Meanwhile, watched "Ullam Ketkumae" in DVD player, played NFS 2 (after a long time) in his PC and came back home @ 9 PM.
When I reached my house, I Switched on the TV...now NDTV was on...(still no signs of Star Movies or Ten Sports)... the first sentence I heard was ... "It is a shame for the people of IT capital of India to behave in such a manner and this act doesn't show any respect to the greatness of the man who had passed away. One could imagine the state of the city when Veerapan kidnapped the legendary hero. If his death wasn't a natural one, it's hard to envisage the state of the city."
I turned the channel to NDTV Profit... "Heavy losses for BPOs and IT majors. The riot has definitely damaged the image of the IT city and this could prove devastating in the longer run."
Now, my manager (Australian by birth, stays in Bangalore for 2 years to write a book (his 3 rd book) on Bangalore's IT charm) called me if I would like to play tennis with him friday morning. Then, he asked me if it is quite regular in this part of the world for such riots to happen, for which I had no answer. He commented that "it seems like RajKumar has more influence in India than what James Bond has in US". I could imagine what he would write about Indians (For him...'Indians' is synonymous with 'Bangalore-ians') in his book.
Now...My house owner's son came into the house (a kanadiga by every right). I casually asked him about the happenings in the city. He replied back that "This shows the unity of Kanadigas and their power. People (north Indians?!!) will now realize the strength of the Kanadigas". May a times I get the impression that the native kanadigas feel that S/w engineers (north indians esp) are the looters of Bangalore's wealth?! I wasn't able to react to such a comment from him. I shut my mouth and started moving towards my bed wondering "when Shivaji died.....". |
| posted by kart @ 3:28 AM |
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| Thursday, April 13, 2006 |
| Yellai yenaku seatla oru thunda podu da.... |
There has been much noise in media about reservations in IIM and IIT. In my opinion, I don't care. Reservation in private companies is a greater issue than these institutes. Afterall, we are used to reservation in education. If NITs have reservation why not IIM and IITs though i pray to God that atleast the politicians pardon IIT.
Well, many a discussion has been made about what is right and what is wrong. I am one of those coward guys in India who accepts everything that is present because of whom India is still united and there are no major revolts. If i am included in reservation, i would enjoy the benefit and i don't get the piece, i silently whine. Then u can ask for what the f**k this post is. Well i am predicting the future and have a solution how to escape from the grave danger.
Reservation is inevitable. Take my case. I belong to a caste called gavara naidu. (Yeah yeah, i am one of those lakhs of gulute who speaks rubbish telugu) In other words BC. Kammavar naidus (those rich landlords from coimbatore) are FC. We usually get married to our own caste members or to a caste called gajala balaja naidus but not to kammavar naidus no matter how rich the BC is or how poor the FC is. This is because - kammavar:landlords - gavara:washers - gajala balaja:bangle sellers. Big deal. what i am going to gain in being stubborn about marrying a FC girl. nothing i mean......i have no point to prove as far as social equality is concerned. There is no untouchability between us or something but still the forward and backward caste line is still there. Imagine a poor kammavar boy and myself (middle class) getting equal score. Though he studied in an ordinary school and i studied in a reputed school, I am better placed in everything as far as the quota is concerned. This unequal oppurtunity doesn't make those kammavar fathers to give their daughter to me. I can hear you saying "yenna thanda solla varra". wait gentleman. the solution is around the corner.
Years ago, kammavar naidus were asking for their BC status. Ironical isn't it? Everyone wants to be backward. They have many powerful politicians. Say, they are granted BC status. now, the poor boy and myself are on equal terms. Now, gavara and gajala balaja naidus would ask for MBC status. Say, that is also granted. Likewise, every caste should become SCs. Why am i not targetting STs? No, the present day SCs has to go somewhere right. thats why and having a small imbalance will always satisfy the politicians.
Present scenario - Numbers are not accurate.
Seats Total 100 OC 50 BC 20 MBC 15 SC/ST 15
Caste Total 100 OC 20 BC 60 MBC 10 SC/ST 10
In my solution
Seats Total 100 OC 45 MBC 50 SC/ST 5
Caste Total 100 OC 2 MBC 88 SC/ST 10
Now, for those who doubt the efficacy of my solution - there are 2 points i have to stress.
1. Once, there was heavy reservation(this word is different from our topic) against granting engineering college license. Only VVIPs were granted. Its like opening a private company in kerala. Then came MGR. He started giving license to ramasamy and kuppusamy whoever asked for one and he got commission. You know the rest. Like wise, this caste downgrading process would start sometime. Once, started it would steam roll to what i said.
2. The only casuality would be brahmins. They would remain as FCs. This is because there has to be someone in FC to say all the castes are MBCs and STs. Why brahmins? I don't know about other states. But, in our state, with only dravidian parties in power, those poor guys are stereotyped to be FCs for eternity. |
| posted by Ramkumar @ 12:41 AM |
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| Tuesday, April 11, 2006 |
| Evolution I. vii v |
Prologue: Days before I posted this blog, me and Karthik had a discussion. (We usually have weekly discussions to make sure neither of us is doing anything useful and to share our 'vayatherichal' for those who did anything useful.) Both of us had a hidden agenda behind blogging: To secretly rate ourselves in "communication skills" (:D). And oh, I should not have done that. The "what is said" to "what is heard" ratio is just a little above "embarassing" mark, for the previous posting.
Lesson 1: Don't try to 'peter' when it doesn't come to you :)
Back to the process and confusions. I have few questions that keeps nibbling my mind:
(Try to answer this with Often/Sometimes/None)
1. We are programmers end of the day. How many times you get a feeling that your code can be refined and better architected?
2. How many times you get a feeling that you could have written your code more efficiently if time had permitted?
3. How many times people in IT industry end up slogging at the time of release?
4. How many times you have faced this scenario: You know your program / project which was released has some problems. But if you want to make a fix however small it may be, need to go through all the process which makes you decide to keep shut and wish the testing team will never find out.
5. How many times you find your code architecture as documented, is broken at several places?
6. How many times you hate bugs, not because of the problem in your code, but because of the process headaches it generates?
7. How many times you have felt the appraisal and performance tracking system is faulty?
8. How many times you felt that your project is running into chaos and false projections are the face savers in your status meetings?
9. How many times have you lied / found it difficult to fill in your status reports?
10. How many times you felt the system recognizes those good in corporate language than in computer language?
My answer is "often" for all the 10. If there are lucky ones who got more "None"s than "Often"s probably they can help us find out what worked for them. I believe that all this process and all the ideas came down to help us, but in contrast it is deteriorating our performance. I mean more "often"s to the above questionaire, which covers just a sample of our job means, everybody is cheating everybody else and somehow the ball is rolling on. Even if you don't like this, as Pradeep said, the system will take us. Process should not be a plant of slow growth. Few years down the line your project, your technology everything will go to scrap. So who will enjoy, if at all, it has some fruits? :D.
As you told Ram, process is made a virtue. It is a false projection given to upper management and auditors that the company is following that process. If I'm right, it should have started this way. When Japan grew exponentially, the Americans dug out what had caused their growth while the American industry had almost stagnatted at that period. That is when this process and things should have born. And it became a buzzword and fashion with everybody having their own interpretation of that. The "what was said" to "what was heard" ratio was too low again :).
Epilogue : My attempt to start all this discussion is to see if we can reform and filter all this to help us. Something like "If we start a company and work for its progress, should we encourage having these processes?" ;D |
| posted by Sunil @ 10:06 PM |
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| A good one! |
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| posted by Sunil @ 2:07 AM |
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| Monday, April 10, 2006 |
| Short story competition |
I guess our blog wud be of main use to keep everybody in touch. Apart from that i fell it wud improve our writing skills. y don't v have short story competition. Let us write a short story. Short is relative term. Lets not have any rule like 200 words or so. It shud b short enuf for us to read. thats all. V can decide conducting a poll among ourselves.
On ur mark, ready, set, go............. |
| posted by Ramkumar @ 8:14 PM |
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| oru oorula.... |
I almost forwarded the mail with below content. Suddenly realized i was not supposed to do that.
A soldier stationed in Afghanistan recently received a letter from his
girlfriend back home. It read as follows:
Dear Ricky,
I can no longer continue our relationship. The
distance between us is
just too great. I must admit that I have cheated on you twice, since
you've been gone, and it's not fair to either of us.
I'm sorry.
Please return the picture of me that I sent to you.
Love, Becky..............
The soldier, with hurt feelings, asked his fellow soldiers for any
snapshots they could spare of their girlfriends, sisters or
ex-girlfriends. In addition to the picture of Becky, Ricky included all the
other pictures of the pretty gals he had collected from
his buddies. There were 57 photos in that envelope.... along with this
note:
Dear Becky,
I'm so sorry, but I can't quite remember who the hell you are.
Please take your picture from the pile, and send the rest back to me.
Take Care,
Ricky |
| posted by Ramkumar @ 3:00 AM |
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| Sunday, April 09, 2006 |
| Thiruvilaiyadal |
| Sunday, i was watching the program "thulatha manamum thullum". They played a song from the film "thiruvilaiyadal". Paatum naanae bhavamum naanae....... Nice song. Man this shivaji... as usual showing his histrionic skills. There was a scene in which there wud b many shivajis, each playing an instrument. My mother is an ardent shivaji fan. My brother always teases my mother. As usual he started it. "periya actingu MGRa vituruntha piniyiruparu". Now, my mom's turn. "nayae kaluthaiku theriyuma karpura vasanai". Let me translate it for u. She is asking a dog (my brother) whether a donkey knows the smell of camphor. She was praising his acting skills especially when he was playing instruments with all the facial expressions in the world. now, my father jumped in (what an oppurtunity for him!!), "summa overact pannraan." V always treated actors with atmost respect. My grandfather, a nakkal manan with a diplomatic cover gave the verdict, "how can v decide whether he is really imitating musicians or not. after all our family never knew the smell of music". (The fact that he is always proud of) Even, two silent guys, myself and chinaina started laughing. Now, mom took it personal. she was really pissed off by now. Afterall the opinion was split in the ration 5:1. There came a scene where all shivajis one by one started playing in round robin fashion. They started to show the real musicians in the orchestra playing the song and the movie in split screen. Then, came the moment of truth, the movements were almost similar. Veena, flute, miruthangam.... If any of you guys saw the movie and you have knowledge about music, please tell how far shivaji got it right. Till then, its advantage jaisri. |
| posted by Ramkumar @ 11:34 PM |
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| Thullatha manamum thullum |
| Sunday night 9:30, there is a program that has been broadcasted in Podhigai. Name is "thullatha manamum thullum". It is the only program at present, the entire family in my house watch. Otherwise, there wud b always b a fight as to what shud b seen. The timing is perfect as no major program to my knowledge clashes with this slot. An orchestra plays old songs. There are few star singers as well. Surendar better known for his mohan voice, Deepan chakarvarthy, sainthavy-randaka randaka. The song selection is too good. Really nice songs. Not a great deal of disturbance from ads as well(remember it is podhigai). After materialistic bunch of 7 days, this is a real booster for freshness on Monday. Don't miss it. |
| posted by Ramkumar @ 9:10 PM |
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| Wednesday, April 05, 2006 |
| Teaser! |
I was facing a problem in a "single line text editor" kind of code. It is "kind of" but not the actual editor since select copy paste and all the weird thins are not there. A simple section of pseudo code is as:
do
{
if (key == backspace)
{
string[index]='\0';
index--;
}
else if(isprint(key))
{
string[index]=key;
index++;
}
printf("\r%s",string);
}while(key = getkey() != Enterkey);
getkey is more like getch.
As you can see if I give backspace the change will not be reflected on the screen. How do I refelect it?
The fix is not a great deal. I took sometime to settle on the soultion.
PS: Assume support of conio is not there. |
| posted by Sunil @ 5:37 AM |
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| Sunday, April 02, 2006 |
| Compassion for fellow women in IT Industry |
The very thought of improving the facilities in the workplace catering to the needs of women has to be welcomed and groomed, irrespective of the industry in question. The subject of matter, being IT industry only reinforces this notion. There could be many a scale to judge the prosperity of a country-freedom of speech, literacy level, military power, GDP etc. But, a nation could attain true prosperity enriched with peace & happiness, only when the state of womanhood is enviable. Visionary leaders like Mahatma Gandhiji, Bharathiyar, Rajaram mohan roy knew the importance of women’s role in socio-political structure of the society and hence, lent their voice to emancipation of women from the evil clutches of the society. They strongly believed independence to the country could not be complete without independence to women. The economic scenario is no different from the political one and more than that both are complementary to each other. Most of the industries are male-dominated in India and do not provide equal opportunities. IT Industry is unique in this sense. Unlike in other industries, women compete on equal terms with men. Those employed in software firms; enjoy more opportunities which have lead to their empowerment. There could be no second thought in the need of steps to improve facilities for women. The questions that remain are how and where to draw line between improving and pampering. Late working hours have been a trend in the IT Industry. Especially in software industry, where the amount of work is equated to number of hours worked, women have problems in balancing both family and work. A strict law marking the working hours from 9 to 6 would ensure high productivity in the given short period, happy family life and put aside the safety concerns. But the call centre jobs demands its employees to work in night shifts for their US customer. In such cases, safety must be the top priority. IT Industry, though boasts 20 years of existence, is a young industry with almost 90 percent of employees fall in 20 to 30 years old category. But, when it matures there would be a growing demand for crèche, children play space within the work place like some of the textile companies. In twenty years from now, IT parks would be built along with schools. This would complement the 9 to 6 rule. This would be a win-win situation for both the company and the employees. While the company would see its working mother smiling all the way to its office, the employees would think twice before quitting any company, thus reducing the attrition rates. Other things like maternity leave, special incentives would automatically fall into place. Steps to increase the women’s participation are the steps to a healthy and exuberant nation. The days ahead would be interesting and the only thing that would mark Mother India’s face – happiness. ......Last time, my essay fetched me 6 out of 10. That was 13 years ago. I know there are some obvious flaws in the essay. I eagerly await your healthy comments. |
| posted by Ramkumar @ 6:55 AM |
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