Snow Time

What does snow remind you? It's Christmas time for me... The festive time, the decorations, christmas trees, wreaths, santa caps, christmas carols, gifts and what not. A White Christmas is something which people always like to have. Those who don't know, a white Christmas is when it snows on Christmas day or Christmas eve.

Well, like everyone, i too was very excited to see and experience my first snow. It was sometime in April 2006 during my first visit to US, the winter was almost over and spring had just started. It was a light one, mostly flurries (the lighter version of snow which melts almost the time it touches the ground). I was at work and did not get the real feel of it.

Then i had to wait till the next winter season to see and feel the next one. It was sometime in the month of January 2007. This time i was at home and could see and feel it for real.

                     Night View (during snow fall)                          Morning View (after snow fall)

Cleanup Time

Well, snow is always not fun, especially if you own a car and you need to clean it up or you stay in an independent house where the community doesn't shovel the snow for you. While staying with my uncle, i had to shovel it myself. Usually i start my day at around 6am and get ready to work and leave by 7am as i had about an hour drive to work. Whenever it snowed heavily the previous night, i had to wake up at around 5am, then do the shoveling for about an hour to clean up the drive way and car. Believe me it is so exhausting to do it in that freezing cold temperature (it is more heavier than the earth due to the water content in it). And some days were so exhausting that i finally ended up working from home after all the hard work. Here are few pictures of the front yard from one of those days.

During the Snow                                    After Snow

And some playtime as well :)

"You have changed"

Do you like to be mentioned by anyone as "You have changed?". 
If you ask me, I do not. 
Why? Because i think it is often used by people when they find you have are not like before to that person or some action or behavior of you may not have met their expectation and eventually would have disappointed them. Or sometimes people use it in a sarcastic way too. And i have hardly seen people using it in a positive way to encourage you. Atleast i have not. Hence i do not like to hear "You have changed".

If at all you find a change in me (on a negative side), especially with a relation, behavior or attitude towards you , trust me, I haven't really. I am still the same, the same person who has the same feeling towards you, the best ones you have had with me.

Recently came across this quote, not sure how far it is true :)
A person changes when 
either pain becomes unbearable
or desire becomes irresistible

Training Days

Training days are always memorable for every Infoscion. The five star facilities at Mysore campus, the tension and challenges with the training program, the excitement of first job/salary and the freedom away from home and many more. Well, except for the five star facilities, i had all others. The campus was still being built and we had to find accommodation outside on our own.

Academics
Our training batch was one of the biggest as of then and had close to 300 people. We were split into 2 groups and were trained in 2 different technologies. At the end of the training we had to clear the 'Compre' test to complete the training. These 'Compre' exams were always a nightmare and tough one to clear. Our batch owner was a nice guy, Mr.K.S.Sundar. He was a very good at teaching and motivating us. He taught us 'Oracle RDBMS' and naturally i started a liking for that subject. It's so true that we start liking a subject if we like the person teaching it. Two of his famous dialogues which he used to repeat almost every day if not many times a day were:- "There is no shortcut to success and substitute for hard work in life" and "Every day in production is like a Compre". Though the former is true, the later didn't seem so atleast from what i have experienced so far.

Friends
We were a group of 10 mallus who stayed together. We got ourselves connected 'pretty fast and well' though none of us knew each other before. We shared a 3 bedroom house with minimal furnishing. If i remember correctly we just had cupboards. No chairs, tables, cots, nothing and it didn't matter to us. We had found good company in each other and had a gala time. We called ourselves 'Pulies' ;).

Law and Order
And here is something that happened during our training days. We had an uncooperative neighbor. He complained that we make a lot of noise and it bothered him and his wife both in their late 60s or early 70s. Frankly i don't think we were such a nuisance but just some high decibels occasionally when we get excited for something or other and we couldn't control ourselves :). Our poor old neighbor was so irritated that he went ahead and complained against us with the police. We weren't aware of this until one day when the police came by one late night and telling us on the complaint they received. They warned us and it so happened our house was one of the daily checkpoints for the late night police rounds. So the police became our 'local guardians' who kept checking on us regularly :). That's not the end of it. Our 'friend neighbor', went ahead and wrote a letter to the Infosys officials, including a copy to Mr. Narayana Murthy and few others mentioning that we are creating problems for him and he didn't expect such kind of behavior from employees of a reputed company. But unfortunately he didn't know our names and also it was a anonymous letter and he didn't keep his name as well ;). And the Infosys officials had to struggle for about a month to finally trace us as the complaint didn't have both plaintiff and defendant names. And once we were tracked down, we explained our situation and we wrote a letter with the help of Infosys officials complaining against our 'friend neighbor' to the police saying that we are being harassed. I think the police called up our neighbor and warned him on his baseless complaint. Anyway we did not hear anything further from our neighbor after that and the police rounds too came to and end ;). And the best part is one of our guys topped the class in the Compre exam inspite of all these eventful days :) Though we didn't feel these eventful days as light as it is being said here, we definitely had some memories to carry with us.

Happy Hours 
The happy hours were spent at our house itself and sometimes at a local restaurant nearby. Those were one of the best memorable times we had. The restaurant was a small, no frills place serving food and beverages. We used to frequent there mostly on friday evenings and weekends and enjoy the chilled beer with some live music. Those times still lingers in my memory and so does the famous song from yesteryears that used to be played live there, "Kabhi Kabhi Mere Dil Mein...♫♪"

These sums up the training life at Mysore... Do i want to go back to those days? Yes, only if there is no Compre exam :)

 

Balance

"Balance", this word came up in one of my recent conversations. The statement was "After all we need to have a balance in life, isn't it?". And since then i have been thinking over this.

When is that we come across balance for the first time in our life. I think its around the age of 1 when we try to balance on our 2 legs and make those first baby steps. Yes, that is when we lookout for balance the very first time. And as we grow, more than the physical balance, we start looking out for mental or emotional balance.

This emotional balance is needed for everyone to remain calm and sane. People who are doing all well and happy cannot just stay happy always. A closer look at them will show us that they too lost their balance somewhere. More importantly people who are having a tough time in life need something positive to strike a balance. Sometimes you may have to go out and put deliberate efforts to find that balance for yourself. And sometimes that balance just comes to you or you may find it in people or situations around you with no efforts and sometimes you even don't realize what keeps you in balance. Lucky are those folks :). But trust me, we all definitely need that balance in life to keep us going. It kept me going and the hope keeps me going...

And what happens when you lose your balance in life. Look at that baby who lost the balance with those baby steps. They fall down, they cry a bit, they take a short break and then they are back on their legs again trying to find that perfect balance.

So keep trying until we find that perfect balance again,

After all "Life is a balancing act".

Mangalore Diaries - The 'Firsts'

People says “First” always has a special charm and a special place in your heart. Be it the first job, first child, first prized procession, first car, so on…and maybe first love too ;). Mangalore did give me a lot of ‘first’ experiences, many of them being pleasant ones. So let me jot down few of the firsts here.

First Boss –

After all I landed in Mangalore as part of my first job. So I meet by first boss finally. He was a mallu and I thought that’s a good thing to have, I can speak in Malayalam with him, catch up informally and naturally he might feel a favoritism towards me. However to my surprise, I didn’t get much opportunities to speak to him in Malayalam except for 2-3 times in a span of 1.5 years I worked with him. Our interactions were strictly formal and never ever I felt he showing any favoritism towards me or even other mallus. However later when I traveled onsite, he too had traveled to the same location for another project and he seemed to have opened up and more casual. But today, when I look back at some of the interactions I had with him back then, I understand the value of it, how he helped me and the team for their good. Today, I can undoubtedly and confidently say, he is the BEST BOSS I had so far.

First Colleagues –

The first project did get me introduced to a new set of colleagues. Some with similar experience level as me and some much senior to me. People from difference places, background and all different kind of people. At first you feel quite intimidated to interact with them, but gradually you become comfortable with their kind and friendly approach. Fortunately, I still see and interact with some of these 'first' set even today and some of them are good friends and one became my BESTIE ;)

First Long Drive –

I took my car to Mangalore in the year 2005 from Trivandrum. It was dark green Maruti 800. Later people used to identify me referring to my car, maybe the color did the trick ;) My father and myself started from Trivandrum one day, via Ranni to meet a relative who wasn’t keeping well and halted at my native (Thuruthicadu). The next day we started early morning and the plan was to reach Mangalore by dusk. This was my first drive from one end to the other end of Kerala passing through many towns for the first time ever. Here is a lighter moment that happened during that drive. I was supposed to pick up my roommate from Kannur on the way. While I was near his place, I called him to get directions. Unfortunately, there was police checking and they did see me on the phone and asked me to stop and obviously my father was not happy with what I have done and he did voice his displeasure to me. So I stopped and went to the police with the documents. They started questioning me, telling me what I did wrong and asking me to take the car and come to the police station. I was all worried and scared, wondering what to do. Then my father intervened and told the police that he too was advising me on not using the phone while driving and started yelling at me in front of them. I am like “C’mon you need to be on my side and save me/us from the police” and just dumbstruck there. On seeing all these father-son moments, I think even the police guys got confused and they felt it was better to leave it between the father and son and asked us to leave with just a warning :). I still wonder to this day, what made my father yell at me that day in front of them. Was that part of his plan to save us out ;) I have never asked him, and may never want to. He might have forgotten as well :)

There are are many more 'firsts', will talk about them another day :)

World Book Day

Today, April 23, is World Book Day also known as World Book and Copyright Day, or International Day of the Book, is an annual event organized by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to promote reading, publishing, and copyright.

I have never been an avid reader, but I do enjoy reading.

Here are few of my picks.…

• Fantasy: Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling
• Thriller: Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
• Fiction: Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
• Management: Goal by Eliyahu M. Goldratt
• Biography: Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
• Non-Fiction/Self Help: Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, What the dog saw : and other adventures by Malcolm Gladwell, Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman (these are heavy ones and i am yet to finish reading them)

Happy Reading !