TheMoonTheDreamAndMe

2008-05-29T11:24:00.001+05:30

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

2008-04-18T12:05:00.021+05:30

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!!!!

2007-12-26T17:08:00.000+05:30

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?

2007-11-21T22:07:00.000+05:30

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

2007-11-19T22:18:00.000+05:30

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

2006-08-07T13:18:00.000+05:30

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

2006-06-21T11:58:00.000+05:30

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.

The Wait .... finally ended

2006-06-07T10:08:00.000+05:30

Like the title suggests, this is in continuation to my earlier post. And this time i am not going to use the chat jargon; one of my many admirers actually suggested me to avoid these. For the none chatty folks, chat jargon = "......".

Well, the wait finally ended. I got a call from the consultant, informing me of the timing for the telephonic interview from the US. It was going to be at 10:30 pm, the same day.

I decided to leave for home early. But when i reached home, i was in for a shock. A very rude one. I will not dwell in to what happened since it is beyond the scope of the present scenario. How ever for the more curious ones, you can read more about the shock here.

In preparation of the interrogation, i set up my laptop, opened up MSDN, some of my writeu-ps/notes, project details etc. I was hoping to use these during the session. I even fixed the handsfree on my mobile to keep my hands free.

Sharp at 10:30 i got the call.

The interview session went on pretty well. There were two interviewers. I was quizzed a lot on the projects that i had done so far, both from technical/architectural and project management point of view. This went on for about 30-35 minutes. All the pre-interview setup activities proved futile. They just didn't give the time to use them. In the end i hoped that i had been able to satisfy their queries.

The whole night was full of dreams. Both good and bad ones.

The next day i got a call from their Gurgaon office informing me that i had been selected and they would like to make a formal offer to me. Wooooooooooooopy !!!!!!!!

"Can you come over to our office right away to discuss the formalities ?" He asked.

Can I ?

"Of course i can." I said.

I arrived in their office dot on time. The deal was struck and i was on board. They offered a hefty package, a heftier bonus, onsite assignments to US. It just felt like a dream come true.

Now i think, "Was it really worth it ?". Of course it was, you damn fool.

Learning:
Never ever miss an opportunity. You never know in what form they turn up. But turn up they do. Often. You just have to recognise them and grab them.

Cheers. Party Time.

I am just waiting for that good old friend of mine to come back. If you are reading this buddy, i am waiting to hit the bar with you.

Bachelorhood

2006-06-06T16:32:00.000+05:30

For those of you who know that i am married, please be updated that i am bachelor now a days. No, don't get me wrong. There is nothing like "we have parted our ways" or anything similar. We are together and will remain so till the very end. By being a bachelor i mean that my better half and the kids are staying with my parents for some time. Summer vacations. So here i am, a bachelor again, although this bachelorhood is not going to last for long.

Anyways, this is about what happened to this bachelor on 29th June.

The morning that day was as usual; HOT. It was a clear day and the sun was bright. Very bright. Then at around 4 pm it all changed. Chotu, the peon in my office, suddenly came to us and said "Toofan aa raha hai". I went to the window and saw that the sky had turned dark. Wind was gushing at mind-boggling speed, trees were bent to the hilt ready to be uprooted any moment, doors started banging. Then there was a thunder storm followed by heavy rains. Me and my team stopped working and came out of the office to enjoy the rain and the cool winds. It felt great. It rained cats and dogs for the next 60-80 minutes. Then it calmed down.

Well i went back home at around 7:30 pm. The colony was dark. There was no power. The electricity department had probably disconnected the supply because of the storm. I climbed up to my floor and tried to switch on the main door bulb. Nothing happened. "OK, the inverter battery is down." I thought. I used the flash light of my camera-phone to open the door. The moment i entered, i was horrified. I realised that i had stepped into water. There was water all around. I looked around for the source. Then i saw it. The glass of one of the windows had broken in the storm. The curtain on the window along with it's rod was down. "Oh Shit, The inverter!!". Water had entered into the inverter resulting in a short circuit. The inverter battery wasn't down. the whole bloody inverter was.

I tried to survey the remaining of the house to see for more damages. The drawing room and one of the bed rooms were also full of water. "Oh My God. This had to happen today. Today when i have a telephonic interview at night. What do i do now ? "

The first thing that this bachelor did was call up his wife. Like me she too was horrified. But she understood the situation immediately and calmed me down. She assured me that she would be back in the morning the next day. That was really reassuring.

I some how managed the night and the interview without electricity that day. The power was restored only in the after noon the next day. I had to take a day off from office to face the situation. I got the glass fixed and the inverter rectified the next day. As promised, my wife was with me in the morning.

So long to bachelorhood. But who wants to remain a bachelor. Not me. Not any more. She has again gone back to stay with my parents after this incident. But this time, i have also gone with her.

The Wait .... (gasp) ....

2006-05-29T19:13:00.000+05:30

This goes out for all those who have experienced the uncanny, very nerving (??) and absolutely unbearable wait for a positive response after a job interview.

The other day I had the (mis)fortune of landing up for an interview with a prospective, rapidly growing (aren't they all rapidly growing) company which according to the consultant had an open door working environment.... wonder what that means .......

It all started with this call from a consultant. She called and.... yeah it was a she..... but hold on ..... so what if it was a she. You dirty minded morons. She sounded more like a behenji; more like the good old Jassi .... completely out of place; clueless of what she was doing.

Nevertheless, she called and asked “Hello, Mr. Sarma?”. No, the ‘h’ is not missing. She actually said ‘Sarma’ instead of ‘Sharma’. She went on “My name is ______ and I am calling from _____ Consultants. We have an exciting opportunity for you.....”

She kept on rambling for some time and I kept on star gazing.

“ .... Will you be there on time?” she asked.
“Um !!!! Sorry … Could you repeat that?”
“I asked will you be there on time to attend the interview.”
“Yeah sure, but could you send me an email regarding that?"
“Sure, I will. Bye”
“Bye” (phew)

I wasn’t surprised when I got her email with 5 minutes. The interview was scheduled for 10 AM on the coming Saturday. I read it and dumped it. I wasn’t too sure whether I would go for the interview.

Saturday arrived and I left for office as usual. I was still in two minds …. to go or not to go? If the consultant sounded like @#$%^& I wonder what the company would be like. Different arguments started playing rugby in my mind.

“It’s still 8:30. I will reach that place by 9:15. Too early.”
“It will be a waste of time. What will I do there for 45 minutes?”
“Let it go man. I am not going.”

Then the white devil arrived.

“Hold on. May be I should go.”
“May be I am just being too harsh on the poor lady. Maybe she was dumb struck after hearing my manly voice. Maybe she actually is a Jassi in making. Maybe ….”

Then the red devil stuck the hot arrow up my $%#.

“Don’t think of the lady. Think of the job.”
“May be this is an opportunity in disguise. Maybe it is worthwhile checking it out.”

Yeah … even I am fed up now. Lots of “MAYBEs”. OK none now.

“Okay Okay .... I will go.”
“But what will I say at office?”
“I don’t want to lie.”

Another red hot arrow came straight towards me.

“Tell them that there was a traffic jam this time.”
“Cooooool....so be it.”

And lo behold. The moment I crossed Andheria More towards Gurgaon, there was a massive traffic jam. I cursed. Not because of the traffic jam but because I had been foolish. Foolish because I had thought of a traffic jam and not for Bill Gates fortunes.

By the time I cleared the jam and arrived at my destination, it was almost 10 AM. Lucky me .... Dear GOD had granted me two wishes that day. First I would not have to lie in office and second I would now not waste any time before the interview.

The interview went on pretty well. It was now my turn to be dumbstruck. What an ass I would have been to miss this opportunity. I am not gonna tell you more about it but believe me; it was really worth attending the interview that day. I was told that I fit their requirement and I would be telephonically interviewed by a technical person from US. It’s been 2 days since but I have not received any call so far.

Boy this wait is agonizing.... unbearable. But I have no choice but to wait and wait and wait and w....

Then I think; was it really worth it?