Today is April 14 2009

I so badly wanna record this day in my life. Wish i had somebody following me with a camera for today only, only today. I have never ever been so overwhelmed in my life...im sure there will be more days like this but for a start today April 14, 2009 at Saudi Arabia is 'THE' day.
Wer do i start? ok here goes...
I squirmed, apologized a 100 times (mistakes are all mine!), felt like killing myself by jumping outta a car travelling at 140kph, apologized again, spoke my heart out to who ever would listen, reallocated tasks to my team, restrategized mine/team Visa arrangments, got managment lessons from an illustrious collegue, ran into problems which will never occur in a normal work day and the list goes on. Its 10 pm now and im still waiting for any bloody suprises which are in hold to complete my day!
Gosh, will you ever stop learning in life? I think not...but if every learning day is like this then hell no! I wud rather gladly strip to the barest minimum and brave a snow storm than face the music of my superiors.
Hitting the sack now and waiting for tomorow to start new with a new set of suprises.
Life is just so awesome!!

The woods are lovely dark and deep..........

I secretly do wish for my life to be much more simpler, stress free and full of vigour but life really needs to have ups and downs. One should enjoy their sorrows and thrive in their joys. For now its mostly enjoying for me now. Life couldnt be much better. My project is delayed, my private life is a mess and still i manage to keep a happy face. I ought to be mighty proud of myself to have handled so much till now, but as Robert Frost put it " ....... and miles to go before before i sleep"

All in a days work.

I am predominantly right brained and i know what makes a good design 'good' and a bad design 'bad'. My current project involves convincing ppl that the User Interface Elements i design is in conjection with project demands and user liking, which in most cases is just the opposite. I happen to lead the project and that makes it far more complicated because i am now trying to convince my designers and my client. Its like justifying murder to two sets of layers who are arguing against each other. Confusing??......that how it is when trying to do designs for a client who is so damn left brained!!

Trying to visually satisfy clients is by far the most challenging of tasks to a designer, i've tried and tested a few novel approaches.

• Guage his sense of dressing, a good indicator of the type of person he is. A well dressed person is slightly easier to deal with and normally has some design sense
• His desktop, a dull boring windows default desktop indicates a bad artistic sense
• His legacy system, a very good indicator! A visually good system, then your dealing with somebody with good design sense
• His mobile/mp3, an upto date gadget; then somebody with enough understanding of technology and awareness about latest design style

There are a few more ways i try to judge ppl but again, im being very subjective and am not right at times.

By the way, my present client dresses very badly but has a very good sense of color; that makes my life more miserable since he does not understand design but understands the colors used in these designs.

His legacy system is designed very well but has bad color schemes :( now how the hell should i judge this guy??

His mobile was created during the stone ages but has the latest iPod touch! Now, thats what i call extremeee.

I've been at loggerheads with him for so long now that i have decided to tell him this:

"No great thing is created suddenly."- Epictetus

Slumdog-bold and yet subtle

The British media called in 'Poverty Porn', Mr. Bachchan hated it and none of the indian directors gave positive remarks baring a very few. So wat if Slumdog Millioner shows India in poor light. Its not like Danny Boyle has depicted an India which is not true. Every frame of the movie echo's the real India which is not covered by the media.

Any movie buff will love the movie, its pure art. Hats off to the largely indian technicians who pulled it off. Indian directors should take a leaf outta this movie and try doing something fresh and fulfilling rather than the routine song/dance/sentiment melodrama.

Watch SM for the child artists, the background score and for the bold but beautifully etched screenplay. The movie moves at breakneck speed and your held riveted in a trance till the credits roll. And does it not finish in sshtyle!! typical bollywood sshtyle.

Note to Vijay fans: he is a bloody serious aberration!! For Gods sake he cannot act and is a serious pain with his do-gooder attitude. He invariably is always the hero who worships his mother, takes care of his family/village/town/city/country! If he wants to get into politics he might aswell do it rather than begging for votes with his mass masala movies. God save the indian film industry!!

Memories....ahem!!

Everybody has memories of their best moments till date. The day you came first in class(i used to!!), the day your dad bought u your first bicycle, the first time you took somebody on a date and didnt know wat to do afterwards, the first time you sneaked out your dad's car for a secret drive, the first time you crashed your car/bike....memories are aplenty and serves the purpose of day dreaming when not doing office work.
My memories of driving a motorized vehicle was way back in high school when i used to steal my dad's antique bajaj for sneaky drives. I remember the day i decided to touch past the 50km mark, the odo had only 70 or 80 as the max. These were the days when i was just learing to drive and my sense of balance on a scooter with a right engine was not too great. The needle took eons to touch the magical 50kmph mark and i was shit scared yet the rush was just magical. My heart beating a 100 paces faster than the pistons.
The same rush and adrelain, pumping a 100litres of blood into my heart came when i decided to push my Yamaha RX100 past the 100kmph mark. I had a shogun for company and it was a definite case of 'who is the boss'. That day i knew that my motorcycling days are gonna be much more fun than i had earlier imagined. My RX outflanked the Shogun and i was trembling like a kid lost in a carnival. This was pure evil rush, the rush to beat any damn bike who dares to dicatate terms to me. Having an ported RX helped me thoroughly in my college years to have the same rush over and over again but nothing like the first time you feel it.
Doing 180kmph on the Glasgow-Inverness highway on a Vauxhall with my dad and mom seated in the back bought back the exact feelings. Dad was cringing and mom looked petrified but i kept the pedal down knowing this was the only time i can get back at Dad for not allowing me to go past 100 in this old Maruti 800. The feeling, sublime!!
But the pure adrelain rush i first felt on my RX was to be overshowed by me driving a Vauxhall Zafira, a 7 seater sports version MPV with close to 3 litres. I was thumping past the 200kmph mark on the Edinburgh-Glasgow motorway well aware that there are atleast a 100 speed cameras. We were already late for the 10'o'clock London bus which my friends had to catch in order to save their job on Monday morning. For me it was enuf reasons to keep the pedal to the metal. I'll forever live that thought, the rush, the sweat, the fear, the digital speedo clicking 200, the trees and cars turning into a speck....Wow!!
That day i said "Speed is definitely better than Sex"!

Chaos Theory-Live young and Die very young

Leading a chaotic life is strangely satisfying to me. Keeping my brains buzzing and bursting to the seam has not really been my cup of tea but now its become second nature, i think about a 100 things at the same time. Guess my line of work compounds it. Nowadays i simultaneously think about my next project layout design and the color of the car Vin Diesel drives in Fast'n'Furious. Is it normal? hell no.....something is definitely wrong with me.

End of the day im so stuffed with thoughts that i have no room for actions. I tried consulting my trusted doctor friend. Try yoga he suggested but added "......anywayz software Engineers dont live to be too old, so just chill out and eat your brains while it works" .......eh??WAT??

Life!

The last prayer call of the day voiced over the loudspeakers jolts me from my day-dreaming; its been almost 6 months in this country and atlast i get to go home. Life is very weird; especially for the travelling kind. U never know where your next assignment will be, all u think about during the projects is home, friends, family, your bike/car/cat/dog/girlfriend (they can be reagrranged in any order ;) ).

I've lived outside India for a while now; 4 yrs is kinda long enuf to make judgemental statements. India for all its flaws is still a magnet, everytime i cant wait to catch the flight home to experience the untold hasseling, pollution, traffic jams, honkings, stupid-pedestrians, superemely arrognat driver in a Benz, super egoist ticket counter person aka govt servant...the list can go on. But tats the way the country is and i love it ;)

Think it will be while before i write an other post, i've promised to myself to not touch the computer during my holiday......but..........its just a promise, can always break it.