Anything Can Happen

Long time back I had read this proverb on the walls of some room, "Life Is A Challenge - Meet It! Life Is A Song - Sing It! Life Is A Dream - Realize It! Life Is A Game - Play It! Life Is Love - Enjoy It!". Somehow to me I liked this particular line "Life is Beautiful", that is what I have kept as my blog heading.

But now my current state of mind utters me this line "Life is Strange". That is really strange!

Yes! Life is strange and anything can happen at any point of time. It is hard to believe this, left apart than to realize it. Of course who will live everyday with a impression that something will happen to me today. We have been living the life which is so much straight forward and which is so much safe under the umbrella of protection all the time. We always feel things are under my control, but there are so many things which are not at all under our control. It almost seems that everything that changes in a day or night happens only in movies but it is not.

Everyday kids go to school, men go to offices, women go offices, people do their business, teens enjoy their time freaking around, everybody are busy in their own world of living, everything is in equilibrium, then suddenly an earthquake occurs, or heavy rain which bring about a flood, a deadly disease, a natural disaster, a bomb explosion, terrorist attack. Everything shatters into pieces, there would be devastation everywhere, every one's life is affected. This is something that happens in mass scale and even though we are in such a technologically advanced world no one has any control over it.

There is another case where world is in harmony but some disheartening events are happening in each ones life. There are numerous permutations & combinations of such incidents that affects an individual deeply . It is so strange that since our birth as our life moves on and we meet so many people, we get connected and disconnected on the way with many of them, some part of their life becomes our part, some influence us, some demotivates us, some form a relationship and some relationship fades off with time. In this network of relationship if something happens to someone it would create a shock-wave and each one is affected depending on the distance that is maintained. When everything is going on fine, as if it is a perfect world, perfect time suddenly there would be a twist on the road of life and the everything turns apart. You start wondering what is happening and some damage would have already been done and changes the whole course.

Why does it happen like this? As if God is maintaining a complex equation with lot of complex parameters and he always makes sure that LHS=RHS. If you are really getting all the happiness of life then just get ready to face the sorrow of life. Why can't there be happiness, brightness, success all the time. I know I know! the same old answer without the existence of darkness how would you understand the importance of brightness. I guess! God deals this with all creatures that he has created. Say! Spring! wow what a season spring is. The very name spring, springs happiness in mind. The flowers bloom, new fresh green leaves to trees, very soothing serene weather as if everything is perfect. But spring season remains for some time, then comes the hot summer and harsh winter. Things change. The bad news is the good things never remain forever and the good news is that bad things never remain forever either.

Ultimately you have to go through all these and it is true that anything can happen at anytime which makes me feel "LIFE IS STRANGE".....................................

Typical Software Engineer

Since a decade "IT" has hyped our life to a great extent. A Software Engineer is treated somewhat different everywhere. If a software engineer goes to a shop to buy something he will end up spending in 100s or 500s, because the shopwala will put nice topi on this so called intelligent software engineer. One more reason for spending so much is that he has money only in denominations of 100s and 500s that is what ATM gives out. Forget about the normal shops, these guys always shop in Food World, FabMall, Big Bazaar, Spencers and always pay by those so many Credit Cards which are Free for Life time .

Everyone tends to speak with you in English and even software engineers talk only in English (Nan magane Kannada Baruttala). Always acting very formal wearing formals with thousands of "Sorry"s "thank you"s. Damn! even vocabulary is built up with Jargon and the following phrases keeps on repeating even for the day-today most common activities; no issues, scope is not there, that is not my requirement, this is not a value add to me, great job, we should incorporate that, end of the day what matters is, basically, bottleneck, milestone, that is generally my process, I am currently in meeting, hectic and busy man! Now how would it be if you talk all these hi-fi words with a Doodwala. This itself will raise a typical guy's collar.

Go to any restaurants in the afternoon, it will be filled with these people who will roaming around with their respective company tag (ID) still hanging on their neck. Sodhexo coupon, ticket would serve the meal as well as save the tax. If they are around in a posh restaurant then definitely some 'Team Lunch' or 'Lunch with Customer' would be happening and all the orders would be placed based on the criteria that the dish should sound different and cost the most (chance hai loot le). Then the talk would be I tried that dish in that star hotel, it was awesome, have to tasted this dish over there, then one guy would tell the Team Lead, Hey! next time we will go there.

The cost of living has in one way increased due to the software engineers I guess. If you go to look for a rent for a house, my God! if the owner comes to know that you a software engineer in so and so company his rent rate will increase by 2-3 slabs. No doubt he would be saying my son is working in IBM and my daughter is studying in Berkeley University(Inside you will be feeling damn! my GRE score was not good). Even the smallest house are 2 bedrooms now and even if they are 20 km away from the city they cost more than 8k to 15k per month. The auto-riskhaw people now don't give change of Rs.6 suppose the meter reads 64. Mobile market with hundreds of corporate plans. All baayis have become good cooks in these engineers' house.

When a bunch of software engineers meet the scenario is very interesting. Everyone act as if they are venture capitalist and have invested their own money in their own companies. My company is a MNC, 50 billion dollar company. Each one is judged by mobile model they are carrying and the car they are driving. Typically they will talk my company provides this benefit, my company covers this much, my company has food from this caterer, my company is sending me here. There will be bunch of discussions on the company benefits and policies and few here and there would be cursing their own company saying my company doesn't provide us anything except work! Some guy would start "when I was in US, I saw that... I did this,... I did that...." Then comes the salary discussion, hike discussion, manager discussion bla bla bla.

You should see a software engineer position in a matrimonial market. Uufh! profiles would be so and so company, so and so salary, US returned or Germany returned or Australia returned. What will the guys from other profession do. Most of girls soon after their marriage you will find them in orkut with status saying married, San Jose, United States. The IT has influenced in almost every field of today's life, say it a retail market, say it transportation sector, say it real estate business, say it commercial business, say it entertainment, just no end to it. No doubt it has created a lot of opportunities and has raised our economy to one of the strongest economies in the world.

Whatever be it, a typical software engineer is so much typical in so many sense. Now don't run back on me with a hockey stick to hit me(a typical software engineer will not have one though), the above listings are just my views on the other side of the typical software engineer, because I happen to be one among them........................... ;)

PS: In some of my future post I will try to compose about a typical day in office.

The Joy of "Nothing"

Any point of time there will be so many activities happening at every point of the world. Everyday all the newspapers in the world is filled with one or the other news. Well! We are always concerned with the activities happening around each one of us, because that is what we see and that is what that influences us.

On one fine day, just like today it would have happened like this, my car has broken down in the middle of the way, I am late to office, I have three meetings today, I have slipped my deadline past 2 weeks, I have lost a project which I was supposed to get, my boss is troubling me for not performing well, I have to fill my tax returns form and invest for mutual funds(don't know a damn about it), my personal loan is not yet approved, I have to pay the debts of my housing loan, I had a fight with my girl friend, I have to wash and iron my clothes and get a new pair of shoes, I have to prepare for CAT, I have to go and attend a function of my relative, which is so boring to attend, My mobile is ringing all the time, I don't want to talk with that guy but then I get 3 calls from him, I have finish my dinner soon as I have a call at night to attend............ on and on and on. (In the above sentences "I" is as an example as me, all these are not happening with me today). So many things are clogged in my mind that it is impeding me to live Life and know what Life is all about.

Imagine how would it be to spend a day without a clock or watch or any timing device anywhere in the house or room. Mobiles, landline is all shut off. There is no one to disturb you or talk with you on anything. When you get up on this day nothing comes in your mind, there is absolutely nothing to be done today. Today I am totally free from everything. There are no sad memories or instances that is bothering me today, I have no plans or apprehensions for tomorrow. Suddenly it is appearing to me that the world has come to a standstill for me.

Wow! Now this is the "Joy of Nothing".

In this state of mind, the day would start like this. The brain would impulse the eyes to open, when it is tired of the rest and not by the way the sleep is interrupted by the ring of the alarm with a big snooze button. When you get up and look at the window outside a thought will arise in your mind saying what a beautiful day. As you sip the coffee watching at the birds singing, kids playing, trees fluttering their leaves, cool breeze then suddenly realize "whether all these things were there yesterday?" Then just start doing whatever that comes to your mind or do the things which you wanted to do since a very long time. Read a book, go for a long drive, eat a great food, meet and spend all the time with whom you want to, watch a good movie, take a stroll in the evening, ah! there is no end to this list. What a bliss it is to spend a day like this!

I just got a glimpse of this joy of nothing, as I had taken leave for 2 days with no reason. The reason I gave for myself before applying for leave was, Man! I have been working on every working day since 5 months. I am back to office now.

Now it is like this: There is nothing called nothing....................

My First Accident of My Life

On the rainy Saturday(the rain hasn't stopped yet since my last blog) I was in full josh, because it somehow happens to be a long weekend. Long weekend, which extends beyond the weekend with some leaves on week days. The saddest thing this year is that American Independence Day has fallen just in the mid of the week, no where near to any of the edges of the week, on the awesome Wednesday.

I was in full enthu to have some good fun on Saturday. I came to my friends house, with intention of something to be done(but nothing was there in mind). As the rain had created enough of annoyance since morning, the options that too in Kansas being bare minimal, nothing much other than to go to a movie. I wanted to watch some josh bhara action movie. So we decided we will go and watch "Live Free or Die Hard" which recently released on the movie day Friday.

The movie was so good, filled with only action and really made me feel Live free or Die Hard. All along the movie I was thinking Damn! I don't do anything that risky or anything adventurous where in I really have to think about death anytime. What a safe life! It raised my adrenaline to a good level. After the movie we walked one around the Town Centre Plaza with the thoughts of action & josh of the movie in mind.

Then I came to car and started with the "Khalbali" song of RDB and put in reverse gear and pushed the accelerator. Well! even though the movie had made impact but I was just barely above 0 mph. The mistake was, I saw first time in the rear mirror and went back a little bit and then changed my mind to turn the other way around for which I took a bit forward and then back again in reverse in a different direction. As I was pulling back the car this time suddenly I heard a bang sound. I was not surprised anyway, just thought something minor happened. When I looked back there was a Lexus car on the other side(Thank God I hadn't hit this super costly car) but to my surprise in my rear mirror I could see a Jeep SUV right behind orthogonal to my car. Then we both pulled back and I went out to check the amount of damage.

The damage on the Jeep was just superficial, in my sense and Indian sense it was nothing. But my car back bumper was hit a bit hard. I just told that guy, who looked pretty shrewd and crooked (Was he already my enemy?) that nothing happened we can just walk over. He started saying why don't we share the insurance information and then use it for claim. The greatest problem I was facing in my mind was that I didn't knew what is the process or the procedure. Damn! Knowledge is always power, (I like the converse proverb too "Ignorance is Bliss"). So I asked him and then he called the cop. My first encounter with cop as a bakra in the whole situation. I was just ready to face anything, my first experience and I was not wrong, after all an accident happens accidentally. Then cop came and was just cool said if something is above $1000 (my eyes started rotating hearing this) then a report has to be written else we can just share the insurance info. Whatever! we did it and I got rid of it, actually I didn't knew what exactly is the next thing to be and what is the impact overall on me. I asked the same question to cop and his answer was not satisfactory to me.

As this was my first encounter to something like a accident(it no where qualifies as a accident at all as nothing absolutely nothing), but it had kicked a bit on my faith in driving which expands more than 11 years. I tried so much to take it off from my mind. The whole adrenaline got down to zero level like hawa after a flat tire. Went to Taco bell to have something and tried to forget about it. I just was wondering how can some incidents impact so much on mind and mood and things like that.

Like a typical software engineer I am downloaded all that junk data from my mind to this e-paper and deleted that memory from my mind. I think it is deleted now!.....

Deleting 100%......70%.....50%.......30%.....10%.........0%

Rain Rain Come again! / Rain Rain Go away

One of the most beautiful creation of God is Rain I guess! Of course Rainy season takes the prominent period of atleast 3-4 month a year. I just can't count how many rains I have seen till now :)

There are different types of rain at different places or at different times at the same place (now does that make any sense, whatever). In Bangalore the rain is very sweet, because almost everytime it will rain heavily only in the evening. The best part is this 2 hours of rain would not interrupt your schedule much. But it would have caused enough devastation in they city. Blame it not on the rain, but the world class infrastructure we have for this beautiful city. Anyway! in Dharwad the rain is really boring. It won't be heavy but enough to drench you totally in 1o mins and it would go on and on and on for 2-3-4-5-6 days, like a girl; when she starts crying, there is no signal for a stop sign. In the coastal areas it is heavy and gloomy. In Gulbarga or some desert like places the rain is the rarest gift that hardly turns up.

One such rain I saw in Kansas, US yesterday. This vast country has so much rich nature of so many beautiful faces that one has to just experience. Sometimes I do feel that the nature here shows up really wild faces also like the Hurricane in the south, Tornadoes in the central area, Snow Blizzard in the northeast, Burning Hot Sun in the West. Yesterday the whole day it was raining and we went for a long drive of about 70 miles in this beautiful evening and in this rain. It is really quite a good feeling to drive at 70 mph on the freeway(highway) with all the vehicles around gushing water all over. This surging mist was so mesmerizing with all the surrounding green trees showing us the way forward. At one place it was as if a thick black cloud sitting over head was laughing at us and cracking jokes around about our fate or state. It was as if a party going on in nature. Nature was getting tight really ;). I had one such drive experience earlier where in I was driving a sexy Porsche boxster sports car at the speed of 150 mph the rain was making it hard to control and I speeded all the way skidding around. Oh! that was Need for Speed 5 game in computer!

This Rain is favorite for poets, so many songs are written around rain, so many movies are pictured in fake rain, so many photos of rain. Rain is the one which brings the fabulous rainbow in the sky, the one which makes all the silent trees smile. It is such a good feeling in rain, the amount of enjoyment we get playing in rain is just awesome, like the way school kids play with the colourful raincoat on, still turning wet all over. The feeling of the first few drops of rain trickling down into your body, the chill feeling, then the wet feeling, then the shivering, and then warmth of the towel rubbed over your head is just priceless. Having a hot masala tea with garma garam kanda bajji with all your friends cracking jokes in the balcony is a great joy. It can turn out to be romantic also like sitting with your wife in a single chaddar ;).

When the rain stops, the world around you won't stop, but it starts. Even though with a feeling as if it was as a great fest or event we had last day, we all get ourselves moving in our own world of work, problems, routine and go on...

Blog - Blogging - Blogger

After a terrific start of my first blog last year in May, I thought based on the comment (which I got after a year), I am inspired to restart it all over again ;) .

Well! Blog: I used to wonder what a weird name it is. I searched in the dictionary and couldn't find this word (old oxford dictionary). Who started this all, whose idea was it, how did it get famous, why do people blog, what is it all about. These questions are still pondering in my mind as my fingers are playing with the keyboard. I am aslo wondering, is it a noun or verb. But now if you see in the modern dictionary it has made itself as a complete word.

Historically, in the past when I was in school studying 10th standard I thought to myself that I should write diary. In fact it took almost 6 months to materialize and I got one very nice king size hard-binded maroon colour diary from my Dad and started with it. Like with any task the difficult part is hmmm... what to start with, what should I write... Then I started and continued it for almost 2 years and went on writing what all came in my mind and the happenings of each day, the good part, the sad part and the feelings and emotions and the situations. uuh! it turned out to be very interesting and then when I used to read it back, it used to surprise me, oh! is it! did I think in that way, was it like that....

Though I loved writing it, it halted for a simple reason that it was read by someone. I had written a big note at the start of my diary saying "Please do not read this". Damn! such note creates lot of curiosity. Anyway I had not written a secret code for a national treasure or something. But guess what! I had developed my own code language, my own script and that initial script I had hid it at some other place. Sounds crazy now! kind of Da Vinci code to break it.. :) . Why was a need for such a thing; man! to hide the secret love stories, and about some wacky stuff. It was fun!

Now back again to such a thing, just visible to World Wide Web. Is it a human instinct to record the life, we have lot of documentation of the past so many civilizations. Is it to show others about what we think and what we feel or is it a show off. Is it a tool for self-retrospection. Is it for the happiness we get in writing something. Or is it for the happiness we get in reading someone's comment on our literature or praise from others, from which we elate ourselves (because we can not elate ourselves by just feeling good about ourselves for no reason) . Oh! what the heck, why should I analyze all this. The weird thing called blogging is the trend and it is fun!

Entering into the world of blog as a insignificant creature....

Life is Beautiful