Never listen to your heart!.......sometimes

The digital clock on the dashboard shows 11:25 pm, im thundering down the elevated highway across Electronic City, Bangalore. One look at the Chevy Cruze speedo and i know im covering distances fast, very fast infact, 140kmph. Having the whole of the expressway to myself decided to put the pedal-to-the-metal. The turbo boost was instant 150's came, 170's came and went, trees and buildings were passing a tad faster and turning into a speak very quicky on the rearview.

Soon the needle was inching 190's, the car was gunning for glory with all its mighty 150+ horses going flat out. I realize suddenly there is absolute silence in the car, my passengers are dead silent. The only muffled sound was that of the turbines spinning at a furious pace. I look at the needle, its 200kmph and still there is a lot of road left and strangely the car seemed to kidd me on. It was like a galloping pure bred stallion happy that its caged life is over, moving at a frantic and controlled pace with vigorous enthusiasm which can be easily mistaken for aggression. I could literally hear my heart thumping at a 1000 beats per minute as the meter now read 210kmph and was still on the upward spiral. The Chevy Cruze was infact cruzing to glory. I realize either i have to be completely mad to listen to the car or equally insane to listen to my heart to go further. I decided neither and took my leg off the pedal. The closing meter was 210 kmph and the meter had only another 10kmph left (220kmph)!

As i crawled to a steady 100 kmph i realized driving gave me a better satisfaction than anything else in the world. Also realized, life has to be never taken seriously....you make your choices and dont f*c#$%in look back!!

I am an Atheist!

She looked stunning in her jet black salwar. The fact that she was sitting on a rather drab railway bench made her look like an angel. Although she didn’t seem excited her eyes moved on a frantic pace and her senses seemed to respond to every twitch and movement around her.

I watched her transfixed and with great interest (obviously!), partly coz she had those mesmerizing eyes which seemed to tell a strange tale and partly coz I had nothing much to do and ogling at a beautiful girl is the best way to kill time. It had to compensate for the train delay , afterall it was already past midnight and my 11:30 pm train was late by another 20 mins.

She caught me looking at a her and I gave a sheepish nod to which she responded with the most beautiful smile I had ever seen. Having been fully occupied I didn’t notice the train pulling into the platform.

It was when I caught the reaction of the pretty girl in the black dress my heart sank. The same feeling when you fail for the first time, when you hear a terrible news, when you drink and end up calling your ex-girlfriend (and repent in the very next morning) etc etc you get the drift. The pretty girl picked up her baggage and with a series of animated hand movements mentioned to somebody next to her to help her out with the luggage. Yes, she was probably speech devoid, I stood there frozen, the world seemed to move around me. It was like waking up to a bad dream only to find the dream to be true. It was less than 10 mins back I see this extremely pretty girl all lively and beautiful and now I realize she is speech deprived. How can god create something this very beautiful only to deprive it so something so basic to exist in this world? I’ve always been an antagonist but that day I was an atheist!!

Vagabounds

"A vagabond is an itinerant person. Such people may be called drifters, tramps, rogues or hobos . A vagabond is characterised by almost continuous travelling, lacking a fixed home, temporary abode or permanent." - Wikipedia

No im not a vagabond, it is just a reflection of the state of my mind. While im gradually getting used to the aspect of working from Chennai and making a new set of absolutely cracking friends my soul keeps harking back and forth between Coimbatore and Chennai. Chennai is a fine city (if u could overlook the filth, climate, population, traffic jams, power-cuts, water problems....etc).

I would have been bored to death if i'd not met a few people in the recent past. We form this amazing gang of jokers who would drive down the ECR to Mahabalipuram in the dead of the nite, have a few drinks at any day of the week, go for dinner at 3:00 am, make a mockery of every member and still be able to laugh it off. So coming to the point, during the times of recession and crises in the IT industry its a welcome relief for me to share my thoughts and feelings with this set of like minded Vagabounds.

Life has been tough on me the past few months, i've been drained emotionally and physically but have manged to hold on thanks to a few good people around me. My addiction to driving/bikes/cars helps me to keep adrift of the many problems. Thanks to this gang, none of my addictions are in short supply. I get to drive the best diesel engines at breakneck speeds and no one complaints.

All this bonding is too good to be true and im aware of the fact that good things not lasting long enough but may this gang stick on.........God willing!

Some WTF thoughts about IT

This post is more of a continuation of my previous post "I wanted to be an airforce pilot".
After thinking long and hard about the goodness of being "fired" i decided to rake my brains about thoughts which we normally do not think when we are happily chewing the currency notes.

Here are a few WTF thoughts about the IT industry:

• We sit in air conditioned offices all day yet complain about illness due to 'sitting in front of the computer', jeez get a life!
  
• Our claims run to 100s of $, pounds, riyals yet complain about the company not doing enough, well did you think the company will pay for ur toilet paper!
  
• Our yearly perks are among the highest in the job market yet its always a few % less, when did you dad get his last raise?
  
• Our salaries/allowances are sometimes ridiculous for the actual work we do yet we complain about how grossly underpaid we are, tats coz Tom-Dick-Harry work for Mr.Gates and Mr.Jobs and you work for Mr.Raman Iyer trying to sell a code available on google!
  

On the lighter side:

• We get to chit-chat with the female species unlike other industries since the female in IT is considered liberated...sexually or mentally...ur guess is as gud as mine
• We get free coffee, snacks and in some cases even lunch....although most companies have stopped offering freebies now, anyways it tastes like mud most of the time.
  
• Some lucky folks get to travel in business class
• Some lucky folks even get fuel allowances
• Some companies have the most beautiful HR girls
  
• Some lucky folks get to work on exotic onsite locations.....im in Saudi Arabia, and tats NOT Exotic!
• Everybody gets food vouchers....err i would have preferred drink vouchers
• You can hire a houseboat in Kerala for a team meeting as part of the 'stress-free' work week program wherein you actually...hmmm. Furthermore, its paid for by the company!
  
• Laptops/mobiles are part of the salary package.....if you try a bit harder the HR's personal mobile number aswell
• You can go out with ur mates (read as team in the claim sheet) and get drunk on a team nite out.....ofcourse, paid for by the company
• If your have the right connections, ur techi wife will be ur team member on an onsite project in Switzerland...now thats a WTF moment!

But the biggest boner is that, all of this counts for nothing when your fired due to 'non-performance' in the middle of an onsite-honeymoon in Europe with your colleague(read girlfriend)! IT folks need to understand that 'there is nothing called a free lunch'

I wanted to be an airforce pilot!!

I had to rehearse 15 times before i could tell him the dreaded words.... 'Ur fired!!' Pink slips are a favorite phase among IT employers with all the recession and stock markets crumbling. The worst part is, inspite of the guy being a permanent employee he cannot challenge the decision. Simple reason being, the pink slip is a one way ticket to eternal bliss!! The pink slip has more clause than the Constitution of India.

I had to ask this new join guy to leave the project. There were the usual Ifs,buts, maybe's, ....and all the usual statements. Although he took everything in his stride, acted normal and tired to keep his keep arm from not impulsively smacking me, i swear i could hear him mouth a four letter word. Hey but who cares, today its him, tomorow its me!

To be fair, very fair that is...the guy is just 24 days old in my project, he's joined the team at the very last phase. The project is for Aramco which in itself is like a complex bureaucratic govt office with about a million systems/servers/networks and architectures. How could i expect him to deliver with so many constraints and giving him very little time to get accustomed to the Saudi way of life?

Yes, its unfair, yes its bollocks, but who the hell cares? 'IT' for all its shining glory on the facade has a dark dog-eat-dog side which nobody notices until this bloke called Recession happily strolls along every 8 years and unleashes the dirter side.

My company is hit and fairly speaking, all my colleagues kinda look forward to the dreaded word. Wish i was selected for the Air-force when i finished skool, too bad the selection guy asked me to run 3 bloody miles in 2 fuckin mins...wat am i?? Superman!!

So, I decided to take up the next best job in the world "Sitting in front of the computer 14 hrs a day"!! Now how does that compare to shooting fighter-planes for a job!...sucks eh??

Daybreak

The AirIndia flight to Chennai from King Fahad Intrnal Airport was bang on time, its a 4.5 hr flight across the desert and the Arabian Sea so no spectacular scenery and moreover i will be flying just about midnite. Decided to eat the airline meal and have a nice nap till i reach chennai.

Of all the flying i've done this one had a suprise in store for me. I was sitting besides the window (i always shamelessly ask for it in the counter). Just out of the blue i gotup in the middle of my nap and witnessed an awesome sight of nature at its finesse. The sun was just about to rise over the horizon, the sky was splashed with a beautiful hue of orange/purple/yellow. A streak of bright white/orange extended right across the horizon announcing the impending arrival of the Sun. Wat a sight to behold!! In view of the pleasant surprise my brain started to rewind.

To compliment the mood, the mp3 was playing some soft romantic number and i was going nostalgic over moments which i never thought i could recollect. All the romantic misses, crushes, getaways, college friends etc etc... it was like a flood of thoughts and i was reliving my childhood and college days. I was day dreaming until the sun rise was no longer romantic and started turning out to be hot instead. Similar to life........ "No good thing lasts forever!"

Note: The photo was taken by my mobile and does no justice to the spectacle

Gone are the Tigers!

The Lankan army has decided not use heavy caliber guns on the civilian population caught in the 6 sq km of land. Instead they have decided to use smaller guns to limit colletral damage. WTF!! The damage has already been done.

Im not pro-LTTE and neither am i a supporter of the Rajapakshe regime, but its a real pity to see the once famous LTTE being trashed in their own backyard, ofcourse India and other countries have given 'tactical' support to the Lankan Army but still to see a once prominent fighting force which had a fully functional Naval and Air wing and which controlled one-third of SriLanka being pulverised so mercilessly is truly spectacular.

I remember the late Anton Balasingham's comment about the assasination of Rajiv Gandhi 'It was a mistake which is regrettable', Mr. Balasingham if you were alive today you will notice what this mistake has caused to your organization, LTTE and the tamil people in SL.

Civilians have been ruthlessly killed among the fighting and its no suprise that both the govt and the LTTE have been blamed. The govt on their part do not allow any bloody journalist or foreign body to operate in the conflict zone making a fair judgement almost impossible. Btw, the lankan govt has never been fair to the Tamil people hence the whole reason for this confict!

Now that the LTTE is crushed and no longer considered a true blood fighting force what is going to happen? Wat about the millions of tamils who have left everything and moved into Army territory gonna get? Will they be given back their properties in LTTE controlled areas? Will they be resettled in a 'strategically' safer place so that they dont regroup? Will they get employment? Will they be allowed to lead a normal life like any sinhala? These are millions of questions which need to be answered.

Like any conflict the world will soon forget what happened in SL, but the suffering Tamils will still be searching for their lost lives and limbs.