The walkway of death .... this sure scared the heck out of me:

Of late I have started realizing that I am becoming a nomophobic. The symptoms have been around for more than an year now but some how they kind of evaded me. Or may be I just didn't know they were all related to nomophobia. It was only recently that I was reading a review of "Cell" by Stephen King and some other related articles that this term stuck with me.

Here is why I feel this way:
1. I wake up with my cell phone in my had.
2. I go to bed with the phone on my side.
3. My cell phone is never out of battery charge and is never switched off.
4. My cell phone charger is the first thing I pack before leaving on a vacation.
5. I probably listen to my phone more than I do to my wife :)
6. I backup my phone's contact book every 15 days.
7. No one in my family, not even my dear wife, is allowed to touch or use my cell phone.
8. I take my phone every where with me.

This is scary!!!!

While driving to work the other day, a funny thing happened at one of the traffic intersections. A street dog was crossing the road using the zebra crossing while "humans" were avoiding it. I so wanted to capture that in the camera but unfortunately couldn't because of the moving traffic.

In spite of being a hilarious incident, this has it's irony of sorts as well. The first question that pops up is "Who is the dog and who is human here?". To me the people crossing the roads at the time were not human beings; neither was the dog a dog. It was vice-versa.

Why can't we act humans? I mean, you look around your self, and you see people who care a shit about such things. Majority of us Indians, I think, are specially "proud" of this..... this non caring, chalta hai attitude. Why? Will we ever learn?

I can't believe this. For the second time this week, I had to chuck out a team member. This is so tough.

Unlike the other resource that I fired, this was a new joinee. He had not been performing too well and I had already served him couple of warnings. Today was the final one.

At first I couldn't gather the courage to speak to him. But I eventually did. And once the news was broken, I just couldn't manage to keep looking at him. He appeared shocked .... and me ..... heartbroken.

Why am I having to do this? Why?

Dunno.

But honestly.... I don't want to do this any more.

Letter of TOE

In my whole professional career spanning a good 11+ years, the thought of having to terminate a team member never crossed my mind. I am among those unfortunate earthlings who are weak at heart and just can't think of even "thinking" bad for some one else. But here I am today, having to take an unfortunate decision of terminating the services of one of my junior team resources; that too of the opposite sex.

OK. This will be a breeze.

I will call her, tell her that she is being terminated because of poor performance and then just hand over the "Letter of Termination of Employment".

Short. And simple.

But wait a sec. What does one write in the L of TOE?

How am I supposed to know that you jack ass? I have never been terminated and have never been the terminator.

So the search on google started for "Letter of Termination of Employment". Total results returned: about 20,00,000.

Ugghhhhh
Man ..... this is going to be tough!!!!

The first lady

If you are thinking that I am going to write some thing about the Indian First Lady then you are mistaken. That's because we don't have one. The most admired Indian President of all times is still a bachelor. If your little thinking worms are now telling you that this might be about Laura... "Laura!!!! who's that?". Don't you people know Laura Bush, the 90% better half of George Bush Jr. But you are mistaken yet again.

This is about the first lady in my house. But let me quickly tell you jet age imaginative dumbos ... this is not about my wife either. This is about my 18 month old daughter. Jia. Yeah this is more about Jia.

She is the best gift that my family has ever received from dear GOD. Ever since she came to this world, our happiness has known no bounds. My entire family experienced the same joy and happiness when we were joined by two little devils before Jia was born. But this time it is a bit different. This is a difference that cannot be described in words.

She is exactly 18th months old today i.e. 7th August 2006. And boy have these 18 months just flown by so quickly. She was so small at the time of her birth that i was afraid of even holding here in my arms. It actually took me about a month to find the courage to hold her with out fear of hurting her.

The first three months were mostly with sleepless nights. I had actually volunteered to take care of Jia at night. This gave Anjana the much needed rest. We bought a small baby cot kind of thing, it was called a "bouncer". She would lie on the bouncer, eyes wide open and just gazing at the ceiling. To make her go to sleep i would slowing hummm Rabbi's "tere bin". Sometimes that actually worked.

As she is growing up, she is becoming naughtier day by day. So many people have told us that Jia is learning things faster that any other child her age usually does. Touchwood.

I still remember the day when she uttered her first words. The day when she first said papa. The day she took her first step.

My day starts with a "morning" from her. She is usually awake by the time settle for my breakfast. We have it together. Let me tell you that she is more fond of me than my wife. Everyday she cries to come with me to the office. Everyday she waves me bye. And every morning she yells "papa" from the balcony. She will be so happy in the evening when i return. That just makes my day.

Being a girl, it is obvious for her to be interested in make up etc. And my wife actually fuels that. There have been so many instances when we might have gone for dinner to a restaurant or may be shopping to a mall and a complete stranger would just walk up to her and play with her. And Jia, being a brat she is, would respond positively. Infact i have been forcing my wife to buy a burka for her.

The two devils, who I just referred above, are just crazy about her. Tintin takes care of her like all elder brothers tend too. And Vyom, well he is just toooo fond of his little bobo (BOBO is a way to refer to one's little sister in rural UP, India). He loves her, fights with her, snatches thing from her and then loves her more than before.

I can keep on going writing more and more about her. May be one day i might just end up writing a small book of sorts on her. And of course the two devils as well.

The Wait.... of another kind

Most of us, especially in the IT industry, have had the experience of changing jobs. Frequently or not so frequently is a different matter, but people in this industry change/switch jobs more than in any other industry.

In one of my earlier post I have written about my experience of one such change and how I felt waiting for a response from my prospective employer. Here I am again, writing this time on a different kind of “Wait”.

Having been finally selected by the new employer, I submitted my resignation to my boss. He was shocked. SHOCKED. Apparently things were moving smooth here, between him, me and the rest of the team. In spite of that I had opted to move out. Why? A lot of explaining went on both from my side and his. Counter offers were made. But I stuck to my point.

All this happened around 4th or 5th June. Finally my papers were accepted and 24th June was fixed as my final day with the company. This is where the second kind of “Wait” started. The wait to leave the present company and join the new one; the wait of join new exciting opportunities; the wait to work on new technology; the wait to work with new people; the wait for a new work environment; the wait for fresh challenges.

The counter started.

20 more days to go.
19 more days to go.
…
…
…
5 more days to go.

Today, when I am writing this, there are still 4 more days to go. 4 more days to work with the present company; 4 more days of working in this environment built my me; 4 more days of working with the team I so painfully assembled, trained and nurtured; 4 more days of working with juniors who are now pretty close friends; 4 more days of leaving this wonderful place.

There is joy of joining a new place but at the same time there is pain of leaving this place. I have never felt like this during my earlier job changes. The last time a job change hurt me was when I was leaving a place after 3 years of working. But that pain was more of leaving couple of good friends; not the place. So why am I feeling it this time? I don’t know. Maybe I will find out on 24th June. Maybe.