This is it

It was today. My last day at work. My last review. Whew! Last lunch with whats left of the gang. Ate like a pig. Again. Certainly not for the last time! My last mail to all. I wrote two lines but L, M and Z blackmailed me into making it longer. The last time i went looking for a sensor. My last snack hour. Gifts! My last speech. Which i didnt give. The last ice cream t Naturals, its become a sort of last day tradition now. On our way back, i was asked for the nth time how i was feeling. And i said - it feels like someone else's farewell. And it did. I think its a kind of self preservation mechanism developed by the mind. Its like the mind has decided - yeh bahut bada patthar hai, apne se nahi uthega, chal side se nikal chalte hain. Which worked fine till we reached the parking lot and it was time for final goodbyes.

Instead of going all soppy again, i paste for you (but more for me) the last mail.



Hi All,

Everyone expects me to ramble (after all, one who rambles on Birthday mails can ramble on anything), so i'm keeping this short. The last 5 years have been good, and if the next place i go to gives me as much laughter and learning as this one, i shall be very lucky indeed.

Keep in touch and all the best.

Thank you all,
Vinaya



P.S. Gotcha! Turns out I cant be brief in writing, even if i wanted to. This is my second job, and when i joined 5 years ago, i wondered if it would be as fulfilling as the first. Induction went on for a month and at the end of it, i was more than ready to jump in. For my first "feature" someone (who shall remain unnamed) came to talk to me and started off with - "Do you know about hash tables?" I couldnt believe it was okay to not to know them, and i'm sure some of the disbelief showed on my face. Which he took to mean that i didnt know, and started explaining about hash functions and keys, (i imagine) mentally cursing the interview process. I hurriedly assured him i knew what they were, and that is how multihash tables were born. From there, there was no looking back. I played with threads, fought deadlocks (more of them self inflicted than i'd like to admit), set fire to devices, squashed bugs, (metaphorically) bashed people up (and had the most fun doing it), made people run all around the office, and generally had a violently good time.
Thank you all for the last 5 years, for the jokes, for letting me feel a part of the whole, for teaching me, for letting me teach, for laughing at my mistakes while telling me its okay, for making it easy and for making it fun. Also for making me write this.
But i do not thank you for making it so hard to leave.

Room with a view

There is this room type thing we have built on our terrace. It started out as a covered place where clothes could hang out during the rains, but has now evolved into a kind of an attic. I have had my eye on it for a very long time. Its basically just 4 walls and a roof but i can salivate just imagining a home in it. A bed in one corner, TV in another, kitchen in another and what more do you need? The "walls" have huge openings so its a room with a view! (So what if the view is the neighbour's balcony?) As i was saying, i've had my eye on it for a while. This time, the day i got home i decided i was going to sleep up there. Its crazy what my folks let me get away with. We cleaned up the mess (i.e. threw everything inside, outside), swept the place (i had stated to vacuum , but gave up after the damn cleaner took two minutes to clean one square foot. Which might be because the cleaner is almost as old as i am, but it has made me more or less give up on vacuum cleaners altogether), washed out the dirt (taking water from the tank and throwing it all around, whats not to like?) and put the mattress out to dry. All before breakfast, mind you.

That night was going to be the night. I was so excited, i laughed at mosquito warnings and weather forecasters forecasting rains. I went and curled up with a book and the emergency lamp (nope, no electricity either). No mosquitoes. I laughed some more. Finally when it was time to sleep, i shut the lamp and within a few seconds i had two insurmountable problems. Mosquitoes, which apparently wait until dark to attack, and i needed to go to the loo. There was no way i was going all the way down and coming back up, no sir. So that night turned into yet another night.

Tonight though? Tonight is different. Tonight i have an extension chord that is connected to an extension chord that bring electricity to me. Tonight I have industrial strength protection against mosquitoes (although the mild green light the repellent is emitting does little to inspire confidence), tonight i have a laptop AND a book to keep me company, tonight i have bed covers enough to smother all bed bugs. Tonight is going to be the night!

I hope i dont need to go to the loo.

Day 3 and 4

(Because i wrote about day 1 and two somewhere but cant find it now.)

Day 3

I am ignored pretty much all morning. Except by this new kid who comes looking for me with a question.

Kid: Is blah feature supported on xyz?
Me: (who has designed and coded blah not at all so very long ago) No, not at all.

Kid goes away happy. And then i start to think, why not? I open code, i look around, i dont understand, i try to remember, i cant, i try to reason, and that works. I realize I have misled the kid. I look around for him but there are too many new faces and all i remember is the colour of his shirt. After a lot of peering at shirts, i finally find the one with the right colour.

Me: I'm sorry, xyz actually does support blah. It doesnt support yabadabadoo.
Kid: (first looking confused and then happy) Oooh, i actually wanted to ask about yabadabadoo!

Just to rub my genius in your face, i give the right answer even when asked the wrong question. How they will survive without me i dont know.

Early lunch at kakas, i ate shrikhand! Yum! My stomach is turning into a bottomless pit. Or maybe a black hole, because everything i eat disappears. Which is the most awesome thing that could happen, i'm hoping it is permanent! I could be the slimmest pig in the world!
Knowledge is attempted to be transferred. From me standing and talking for two hours and a whole bunch of people sitting and sleeping listening for two hours*.


Day 4

Started late. I lay the blame on the Game of Thrones for being so damn interesting. Meetings. Lunch, where everyone agreed surprisingly quickly on the place and then went to another. Random reading. Review. Probably my last decent sized one. Someday i'll develop the courage to ask people to fix their indentation. Movie! In the interval L says - 4 people, and not one person had the foresight to read the review! But apparently the way we watch movies is pick a convenient time and watch whatever is showing. The movie was pretty bad but the company more than made up for it. And M probably immortalized the song Banao Banao by declaring it the song to be sung while running make. I laughed so hard at that, see, this is what i am most afraid of missing. The bad jokes and the shared laughter. I have been lucky enough at both workplaces, although in very different ways. We used to laugh like crazy even at the old workplace, but very rarely on geeky jokes. That sense of humour i have picked up here. What i'm saying is, i dont mind if at the next workplace i find my laughter over MIL jokes and baby food***, i'm open like that. Just give me people who inspire me and who make me laugh, thats all i ask of you, old man @ blue sky. Also, preferably not have the same person do both. I have found that i am very conscious around people who inspire me, laughing around them is limited.



* Obviously. If they'd listened for longer, they wouldnt have heard much. Unless i was far far away and sound was taking time to reach them**. Which i wasnt. I was close enough for them to throw tomatoes at. Or eggs, if they were so inclined. And though i would have advised restraint, i can see why they would be tempted. When they really want to hit me, when cleaning up my mess is taking over their lives, i will not be around.

** I really should make physics jokes. I'm sure there is something fundamentally wrong about that sentence, physics wise.

*** We are not there yet. Not even close ****

****You probably didnt need to know that. Sorry.

The end of an era

I'm in Pune to say goodbye to my job and i can see that it is going to be overwhelming. Especially since i have nothing lined up to go back to. Unemployment! Its strange, I certainly didnt expect that to take up so much space in my head.
I thought i'd document these two weeks, peppered with flashback of the past 5 years, but i dont know how much stuff i'll get to write about. The last time i tried that (at the end of another era), i didnt get past day 1. But here i am, foolishly making the same mistake bravely try, try and trying again.

Day 0. Left home for Bangalore Airport. Of all the airports i have been in, this is the one i call mine. Probably because the 6 hours my dad and i spent there once, waiting for our flight. We'd just fixed up my marriage, and despite the one thousand reasons to, neither of us was freaking out. We talked and sat and ate and walked around and i got to hear, for the first time in first person, a bit about the young man my dad had been. I dont know, does adult life so thoroughly wash off your youth, that even the wistfulness doesn't remain?

It started to rain on the way. The droplets started off by forming a pretty pattern on the windshield, but pretty soon were racing to the roof! Like kids released from the confines of a school bus, actually more like solders pumped up with, well, whatever good speeches are supposed to pump them up with, rushing towards the enemy, eager for a fight, eager for death. I got most terribly excited seeing that. I very badly wanted to know what happened once they got to the roof, but we were already late and i was already not helping and so i ate up my curiosity.

The flight got to Pune early. Bhai got to the airport early. I refused to get on his bike without a card bearing my name. Someday i'll make that joke one times too many and i'll get picked up with a card and flowers and then i'll have to die of embarrassment. Within 5 minutes i got a lecture from Bhai - why are you so dead and disinterested in all things technological and why do you need a job so desperately and why dont you do something interesting and if only i had the skills i'd make a million cool apps (and he would, poor thing and go mad in the process since he gets cool ideas on a daily basis). I told him i am willing to be his code monkey but he says that is no fun.

Home. And everything that implies. Parents. Bath. Grandparents. Dinner. Movie. And sleep.

Things that make my head go bang bang bang

Bang as in exclamation! For once, i am not fantasizing about shooting people.

I bargain. With a flower seller. And win. The gym instructor talks to me in Tamil. I go to the gym with my FIL. Every time i go stand anywhere close to a temple, one of the flower sellers sitting there will come and give me flowers for free. Every time. Its like they can smell the fear. The apnapan i feel when i hear someone speaking Marathi here. The dude, at random times. After 5 years of fitting into a chat window, to suddenly see him life-size, even though he may just be disapproving of the mess that is my cupboard. How easily i can switch contexts depending on which home i am in. Like a robot with two settings - Pune and Bangalore. There are irreconcilable differences in the two settings, but since never the twain shall meet, it all works out. Money means so little to me. I still havent caught a live concert in Bangalore. I can make vadais. In principle. How easy it is to forget. And how difficult to understand. The kindle hasnt taken over my my life. I am quitting. The place that has been the biggest part of my life (well, time-wise) for 5 years now. I need people. Yet how little i do to keep them in my life. 

Excuses

The problem with food, or rather, with the making of food, apart from the fact that it needs to be done every. single. day. is the sense of  accomplishment that it gives. I have never had to cook in my life, and so when i now have to, one meal makes me feel i have justified my presence on earth. Not breakfast, breakfast is fun. But anything after that i do, and i can happily spend the rest of day basking in its glory. Which is kind of strange because i come from a family of working women, every single one of them. Whatever they have done in life, they have done in addition to making food.

My life right now is a long list of things that need to be done and are not getting done. Well, its actually not very long, if we get right down to it, there is just this one thing. Come next month and i will be done with my current job. Yes! No more working from home! Happy as that makes me, i need to make sure this doesnt turn into No more working! And totally contrary to my usual approach to things, i am handling the look for a new job thing by worrying too much and doing too little. Which you might have  figured out when i tried to pass off " but i had to make lunch" as an excuse for not preparing.

So, i need to prepare. And while i have full confidence that i'll get a job, i have close to zero confidence that i can clear an interview. Any interview. Even one for LKG. When the dude tries to help by asking me questions, i make faces and not-today-honey him. I'd like to take the high road and say the system needs to change to accommodate people like me (of whom there are plenty), but that will take time. Meanwhile, i shall have to stoop to conquer.

Reason #53 for a parallel universe

Did you stop and think, when you were young and the world seemed like a place that could be whatever you made it to be, did you think about what your actions would mean? Did you realize that just because you wanted to follow your own nose and not turn around and look at what other people were up to, the world would forever be divided? Sure, people can and do talk across the divide, nothing can stop that, but wouldnt the world have been an easier, prettier place undivided?

Tell me, why did you have to bring Endianness into this world?


P.S. If you cant answer the big philosophical question, at least tell me this. Why why why do bit fields have to care about it too? Couldnt you at least have left the children untainted?

P.P.S The only saving grace in it all is that you gave it a cool name. Even though it confuses things up as hell. But then, cool was never supposed to be convenient.

(written after the third time the author chased down packets that wouldnt show up, only to (re) discover that the IP header has bit fields that Endianness will mess up).

WFH

The next time someone tells me - whats not to like, you get to work from home, instead of my usual reaction of boiling on the inside while giving totally lame reasons on the outside, i will direct them to this post. 

Okay, so if you have never worked from home (ever) and think that it means getting to do what you want to do when you want to do it and do it in your pajamas, stand here. And if you occasionally "work from home" and think it simply means being online and the most productive thing you may have to do is call into a meeting once in a while, go stand there. Everyone else go home. 

I live in one city and my office is in another city 800 kms away. I work from home. Everyday. Everyday i get up, make breakfast, make my coffee and climb some 20 stairs to work. So far so good. I sit two feet away from the bed. And since i dont have a manager who peeks over my shoulder every time he goes to the loo, guess who is responsible for keeping me awake? Me. Thats right. I have to be the bad guy. I have to make sure i dont fall asleep, and i have to do that all day. I have to make sure i dont get lost on the Internet and forget my way back to work. I have to make sure i dont sit chatting all day. Sure, i dont Alt-tab that much, but thats because I am always watching. Even when i am in the loo.* 

I am not a very friendly person. I wont bite you, but i take my time opening up to people, mostly i also take their time. 90 percent of my social life revolves around people at work, since thats where i am 90 percent of the time. Also as i move from place to place, people from my past have this annoying tendency to move too, thus leaving me more dependent on the current office population. And guess what makes up my current office population? A grand total of me. I'm interesting, i know, but even i have my limits. 

Its easiest when i'm coding. Coding is a solitary job. All the big decisions involving other people have been made. It is interesting too, so i dont have to watch myself so much. But i code at the best 30-40 percent of the time. What when i'm designing? When i need to talk to people, either to consult or to simply discuss? What do i do when what i see as a beautiful idea is actually unnecessary or maybe even dumb, and all i need to see that is to talk it out with someone? What about all those ideas that come from irrelevant discussions? Testing is worse. To test some features, i've actually had two desks spread out with equipment and then some. I need to run all around to tweak the setup, how can i possibly do anything on that scale sitting from here? Fortunately i havent had to, and what little i need, i have great people to help, Nevertheless my testing becomes pretty contrived at times, and it doesnt give the same joy as having tested with the real thing. 

And lastly my most biggest problem. Do you know what i cherish most in a workplace? More than the money, more than the work? People. People i can learn from, people i can look up to, people who amaze me with their ideas and their approach, people who make uninteresting things interesting, people I can work with in such a way that the whole becomes more than the sum of the parts, people who solve half the problem simply by asking what happened, people who appreciate all this and so on :) That is what i miss most of all, me sitting within these four walls. 

* What happened one day when i gave in and took a power nap (gah how i hate that term). My FIL came in to give some CDs that he had bought. And caught me napping. Now imagine what they must think i sit and do all day. They belong to a generation for whom sleeping on the job is a crime, done only by the most worthless people. Its mooching off your employer, next only to stealing from his pocket. If you think i am getting carried away, maybe this will help you see the point. This one time we got back from a 2 day, 90km cycling trip on Sunday and everything was sore on Monday. But Monday is Monday and we both went to work. MIL was feeling very sorry for her son, and was telling me he should have rested today and gone to work tomorrow. I jokingly told her dont worry, he will sleep it off in the office (i mean the dude has a sofa right behind his desk!). That was taken as a pretty serious attack on his character, which was then stoutly defended. Now you see?

Notes from dont ask me where

Is a holiday about doing new things in new places or doing old things in new places? Like getting lost on a rusty TVS in new lanes. Or reading a book (on the kindle! on the kindle!) sprawled on a new window sill. Pigging out in a new restaurant. Snoozing the alarm 25 times on a new bed. Or does it have to be completely different from your routine to feel like one?

Wow, she thought, never seen a lizard with such interesting patterns on its back. As she looked closely, she realized it wasnt a lizard, but a frog! Climbing up a wall! Actually climbing, not randomly jumping. She didnt know frogs could do that. No one seems to have told this frog it couldnt, she thought. And then looked around to see frogs all over the bathroom wall. Behind the heater, on the shower, everywhere. She would have killed for the attached bathroom she rejected yesterday, too taken in by the spiral wooden staircase that led to a room in the loft to bother about a bathroom. Well, she had what she paid for. She asked the frogs to please stay up the wall while she rushed through the quickest bath in the world. Fortunately they were domesticated enough to understand.

The world cant seem to make up its mind about whether i look like a tamilian or not. All my life i've grown up with the image of TAMILIAN stamped in large friendly letters on my forehead. Some people seem to be able to see that, i get random strangers coming and talking to me in Tamil. Some people dont, this one guy asked me in broken english "Which is country" and wouldnt believe me when i said Tamilnadu. Not even after i spoke to him in Tamil. Apparently i look French.

One of the books i read was the Phantom Toolbooth. The dude one day suddenly remembered he had it and jumped up and down insisting that i read the first chapter and for some reason only the first chapter then and there. I didnt, but i did start on it later. What a book, whataay book! I want to tear lines off it and paste them all over the place so i can see and not forget. Its a children's book thats filled with "wisdom", delivered in such a way that it (mostly) doesnt feel like you are being lectured. Like, Milo, our hero is lost and this guy Alec tells him - Being lost is never a matter of not knowing where you are, its a matter of not knowing where you aren't. When i finally "got" that sentence, i wanted to jump up and down, for now i know why i feel so lost - i dont know where i want to go!

Another thing from the book that has firmly lodged in my mind. The king has ordered pastries from the half bakery. Milo wonders what the half bakery is. Someone explains it to him - the half bakery is where half baked ideas come from! They are very tasty, but they dont always agree with you. When i read this, i was bang in the middle of one of my half baked ideas and i wanted to laugh out loud in the bus. All my ideas from now on are going to be poked with a knife or a knitting needle to see if they are well done. I'm not saying i wont have half baked ideas, but at the very least i'll know what i'm getting into.

There is this bird making knocking sounds. At night. And another that makes whistling sounds in the morning. Because living in the middle of nowhere isnt spooky enough.

Next is what

By popular demand. What? Bhai asked for a post, and he is popular, okay?

So, Presenting... the Partner! *drumroll*

(The effect of which might be diminished by the fact that 90 percent of the people reading this were supposed to be at the wedding. The remaining 10 percent, i hope you die of shock. Or have a heart attack at the very least.)

So, yes, the partner. Who shall henceforth be known here, there and elsewhere as the dude (Because, you know, everything else about this blog is so anonymous). I live in his home (naturally), i work from his home, and omg, creepy as it sounds, uska ghar hi ab mera sansaar hai :P Not the least becasue i'm in a new city (Hi Bangalore!) and have no idea what goes where. Seriously, that is what i find to be the most disorienting of all. New home, new people, new language, new role - all fine, but a new city that i have to get used to? Nooooo.

I should have cracked under the strain of wearing so many saris, i didnt. I should feel a bit lost and out of place, i dont. I should be devastated, i'm not. I should be deliriously happy, i'm not. I'm... normal. I think tomorrow if i wake up as a man in the Bahamas, i will still be normal.

Because it sometimes feels like a new me in new life, where none of the "facts" from the old life need to be true, i say "Hello World!"

Ooh, look what 2011 is doing!

Its just the second month and i've already taken two leaves. Both last minute oh-i-wont-be-coming-tomorrow leaves, which is not so good. But neither of them were oh-i-am-too-bored-to-get-out-of-bed, which rocks! If you dont get why i am jumping about this, i present to you my 2010. In which i must have taken, oh, 3 leaves? 2 of them because i was bored.

So, yes, 2011. Keep up the good work! And try not to make a philanthropist who donates all her leaves to the office charity out of me, yeah?

Yes, again!

(To post something, anything, in the hope that it will over-shadow what in the light of the day seems an embarrassingly naive outburst from yesterday.
Umm. I really should stop writing SoPs for my posts.)

So. We were kidding about existential crises the other day (i dont remember the context, but it could have been about how the product builder couldnt build the product anymore and imagine the size of that e-crisis) and i got to wondering about the things in my life that should be going through the e-crisis.

1. my phone
On my birthday a couple of days ago, i got more calls than i get throughout the year. That might actually be true, modulo telemarketing and what time are you coming home calls. I dont organize using my phone, i dont make calls, i cant dont surf. So basically, its a Rs 10,000 alarm clock. That, thanks to my brothers constant yelling, i now have by my side at all times. People selling insurance can get to me at any time of the day. How they must love me, the telemarketers. Also,
Oh how blind that love must be
As to most of them
I still am
Mr. Vinaya N.

2. my orkut account
If it cannot connect me to my social network, if it cannot warn me of approaching birthdays, if it cannot show me baby pictures or trip pictures or home pictures, really, why does it exist?

3. My weekends
Weekdays are easy. Weekdays have structure, they have purpose. Weekdays are when we are animals, doing what we are programmed to do - providing food. Weekends are when we get to be human, when we get to rise above our programming and do what we want to do (unless you are one of those who are providing for their food by doing what they want to do, in which case, bye, i dont want to talk to you).
There was a time when not having a structure to the weekend used to be enough. Not anymore. There was a time when entertainment used to be enough. Not anymore. So, what is it that i want to do, what makes me human? *shrug*

4. The adult inside of me
Inspite of fast approaching ages that need 6 bits to be expressed, i do things like taking a mug shot with the wafer on my birthday cake as the name plate. (Trust me, it sounds funnier than it looks. Its got me in profile, not something recommended for those of delicate composition). I regularly skip while getting down stairs. I got a Tintin DVD set as a birthday gift. I absolutely dont mind playing hide and seek with kids. And you better not get caught with me near a construction site with sand that can be jumped upon... All of which would have been fine, well, weird but fine, if i had also taken on some of the responsibilities of being an adult. No thank you, i say, when adulthood beckons with the promise of freedom. 9 cases out of 10, i am happy to be led. It is that one case, however, that might end up making an adult out of me.

We interrupt our regular broadcast of silence to bring to you a realization

(Seriously. Its been so long my browser has forgotten the address of my blog.)

Remember the story of the rakshas who had his jaan in a tota? And how to get to the parrot you had to cross seven seas and climb seven mountains and break seven cages and stuff? Well, i realized today that if you put your jaan in a tota, you have no choice but to imprison the poor thing! You cant tell it to fly free and then worry yourself sick every time you hear, or dont hear, the flapping of wings. So think before you do any such thing. Its not fair on you, its not fair on the tota!

Road trip

There is this bachcha in the office see, and i'd been eyeing his cycle for a while now. Today, during our customary post lunch walk, one thing led to another and by the time we were back on our floor, we had exchanged keys, him and I. I was to cycle my 11 kms, my bike would take him his 12. After which, he asked me 10 times if i was sure knew what i was doing. I asked him 15.
I left work "early" (it was already dark outside, so really, there was no point to the early), went to the parking lot and then realized i didnt know which cycle was his. I called up all people that were not him to see if anyone knew. I was advised to take whichever cycle opened with the key. The first one i tried opened and i was off! Some distance later, when i tried playing with the gears i saw that the gears were only one side of the bike. Now, i'll be the first to admit my memory has somewhat disintegrated with age, but i was reasonably sure the last time i was on his cycle, there were gears on both sides. I looked at the gearless handle to see if there was any way the gears could have fallen off. Finally, i stuffed by ego and called him up. He laughed, told me his was a Firefox, told me to hurry back in case the police were already there to solve the case of the missing cycle.
A swap later, i was off on the right bike. My dabba bag hanging on the handle and my "purse" twisted all around my neck so that i could get to my phone and change radio stations. 'Cause you know, what is a road trip without music?

Yeh jo des hai tera

By the time it ended i was on the main road and sorely missing the mirrors.

Rukumani rukumani...

It is Rehman's birthday today and all radio stations were going nuts. Which meant the songs would be okay. I came to the Symbiosys hill slope and almost died. Once on the other side, i couldnt believe the song i was hearing! On my bike, i would have sung along at the top of my voice but now, i did the best i could.

Tu ek resham puff dor pant
Teri chal damn ashiq pant uff
Teri zulf ghani

I crossed the big University signal and a bus crossed me. It was all downhill from there.

Ajj din chadheyaa

A little ahead, i crossed the bus.

Hamma hamma

The bus again! And it came to me, a flash of knowledge from a long forgotten era, there was a time when i knew what nuisances buses were, as surely as i knew the sky looked blue. What else had i lost to the years, it made me wonder.

Muquabala Muquabala

Seriously?? Picasso ki painting mera peecha pakad ke??

Aaha! Almost home.

Roo-ba-roo, Roshni.

Well, that wasnt so bad.

Chinnamma chillakamma

I'll stop with a story that song reminds me of. Long long ago, in a age when i used to go on trips, we were on one in Matheran. And my friend, in what i can now with confidence say was an attempt to flatter, called my other friend a chipkali (lizard). On investigation, it was discovered that he meant to call her a titly (butterfly). We spent a lot of the time on the slopes of Matheran (seriously, have you met a more boring hill station??) singing Chipkali daboch li maine. Eww. It seems to have worked however, since him and her are now happily married and leaving no continent untouched!

Its been a while

And its the end of the year. Usually around this time i pop up to wax cynical. This year too, that was what i was going to do. But it is also the end of the decade! And that is special!

Because evolution gave us 10 fingers! Ha!

I dont know, maybe it is. When i look back at me in the year 2000, i see a little girl in a little college, very confident that she knew nothing anyone would pay her to do. Not just that one, i can now stand here and laugh indulgently at almost all of her fears and doubts and questions. Not because i am an over achiever, but because i was rather a dork back then. This doesnt mean that i am now doubtless, questionless or fearless. Its just that now I struggle with a different working set of doubts, fears and questions. What hasnt changed is my strategy of dealing with them - one learns to swim when pushed into water. At the end of the next decade, i hope i am laughing indulgently at me, and ready with the next working set!

And now onto some random.

I finally started on the Wheel of Time series. If i'd known the series is called WoT, i might have started it earlier. I'd bought the second book in the series more than a couple of years ago but hadnt touched it, waiting for the first one. The library to the rescue! Its a good book, even though it drags a bit. I also got to meet the tropes of epic fantasy writing - unlikely heroes, get separated, make long journeys where not much happens, ridiculous odds and the Dark Lord - sound familiar? Still, thoroughly enjoyable. I'm fondly fingering the second one now, wondering if my infatuation will carry me through its 600 odd pages.

I fell flat on the road. Carrying two bags and a laptop. For no reason at all.

My teeth have been aching for attention. They were the only part of my body that had withstood the ravages of age. Sigh. Each member of my family has their own dentist and so, i have 3 to pick from. Gah. I hate choices. I have picked the least convenient of them three.

I (well, we) made mocktails! At the mocktail making competition. As part of new year celebrations in the office. And won a consolation chocolate. And realized that i might actually enjoy organizing games more than playing them. The fact that we got disqualified in all the games it was possible to get disqualified in might have something to do with that realization.

Its idiotically cold, my city. The coldest it has been in 20 years, they say. On most days i still manage to get myself out by 6.30 and in the gym by 7. Except for my weekly bunk, which can fall on any day of the week, sometimes two. The gym, surprisingly, is not not boring. Yet. At the end, this one instructor asks us to hold our hands behind, bow down and thank the Almighty for giving you such a beautiful life. One of these days the Ennhh in my head is going to escape.


Edited to add: I donated to Wikipedia! Not much, the minimum only, didnt even come to a thousand. And felt like a hero! I inspired one other to donate, and felt like the hero's sidekick! I also caused another to pause and think about donating. I felt like the stranger in a movie who makes a random comment that changes everything!

I wasnt going to write about this, because like big phillum stars, i dont believe in talking about all the good in the world i do. But Wikipedia is still short of donations so i thought i should give it a shot. If like me, you usually read their message and move on, classifying it as Someone Elses Problem, do pause and consider. I dont think i know anyone who cant afford a thousand rupees. And i'm sure we all agree that the world would be a better place without Jimmy Wales face staring out of Wikipedia!

"I think" this will help

in what you are trying so hard to feel - senti. Thats not why i'm saying it though. Ahem. Here goes.

People are leaving. I dont like it.

Talks

I heard myself speak for the first time today. As part of a recording for a presentation that has been plagued by bad luck of epidemic proportions. I sounded like a child! Why no one has ever told me that, i dont know. With a tinge of Maharashtrian accent*, if anything. Very surreal, the whole hearing oneself speak thing. There was nothing at all in the recording to tell me that it was me speaking. A little bit like when you sometimes look into the mirror and dont recognize what you see.

Presentations. Sigh. I wonder if i'll ever get used to them. Takes me about 4 times the time it should take to prepare. Like Calvin here, it takes me an hour before i'm done griping. Then another hour of getting scared. Then i meander through the material, mostly keeping off the main road, getting lost in the lanes, some of which lead to other universes where the audience is very interested in some personal anecdote precariously connected to the presentation material. Finally, when its just about too late, i gather up whatever thoughts are closest and go talk.

The end result is not as bad as it used to be a long time ago, but its all magic to me, really, because i dont seem to have learnt anything about how to get there.



* Which doesnt mean much, other than the very obvious fact that i absorb the stuff around me. A few days ago, i invented a litmus test for determining the place you belong to. Famous people of whichever place make you feel a teeny bit more irrationally proud of their achievement than the rest, that is where you belong. If someone from Pune (or Maharashtra) achieves something - i feel nothing irrational, though i've lived here practically all my life. But talk about Rehman or Hariharan or V Anand or (you were waiting for Rajnikant, werent you? Ha!) and there it is! The feeling of a tiny bit of their glory being reflected off me.
Idiots from everywhere though, I treat the same.

Zarin made me want to write, with this post of hers. She has taken really good care of the celebrations, what i'd like to get into is the treasure hunt part.
Long long ago when i was at Persistent, some people had organized a treasure hunt as one of the games in a week long celebration of something i dont remember. (Pooja? Harsh, if you ever wander here by mistake?). Though i sucked at it, i really liked the whole idea. So last year when we were to have our annual Diwali thing, i thought i could try that here. With Zarin and Mohsin getting involved, we pulled off a pretty good hunt, i think. Naturally, we repeated the exact same this year too. Minus Mohsin, either because he figured his demotivation (thats what he claims to be there for) was not motivating enough, or because it worked too well on him.

The game in short. There are teams. We give them one clue at a time. Each clue leads them to some place in the office building, where they find a chit of paper with a number written on it. They come and tell us the number and we give them the next clue. First team to get all the clues wins.

The unimaginably stupid thing we did last year essentially boiled down to this: We gave people chits with questions written on the front and answers written on the back! Yes. Fortunately, it wasnt that obvious. Only one team realized it half way through (and made full use of it).

The clues this time:

1.




The easiest (in hindsight. When we are coming up with the clues, we have NO idea how easy/tough/confusing it is going to be).

The Answer: The VoIP phone in the conference room on Alpha (the first floor). Thankfully we found an acceptable image for P :D

The story: We were hanging around in office late Tuesday, waiting for it to be deserted but that was not to be. So we took our chit to Kumar the office boy, no, the office man Friday and asked him to stick it in the conference room. He went in and then realized someone was actually using the conference room. He very casually picked up some random notebook and a tea cup lying on the table and stuck the chit under the table on his way out! The resourcefulness of that man, i tell you. Also, i went in to double check on the chit early Wednesday morning. He had hidden it so well, i couldnt find it!


2. बेहरा कौन


My favourite!

The answer: Oh you want a clue? Translate the first word.

Done?

Yup. Defcon!


The story: Not too many teams got this one without the clue. The best part was explaining the clue to this guy, who represents us at Defcon every year and whose desk the clue led to!

This is me helping some team get to the place:

Me: translate the first word
Some team member: Dumb?
Me: (wanting to him STM then remembering that when i'd originally made up the clue it was goonga kaun until Zarin saved me by correcting it) no no
STM: Mute?
Me: (shakes head)
STM: Deaf?
Me: Now join the two

It doesnt make any sense to STM. He gives up. But i dont.

Me: Come on. Just translate the first half.
STM: Beh? Beh?? Forget it, i'll talk to my team members.
Me: Noooooo dont go!

Yeah, when i set out to help help an old man cross the road, he is sure as hell going to cross the road.


3. Neil Armstrong, Yuri Gagarin, Hillary and Tensing, ???, Shantanu


The Answer: This person from our office who had biked to Leh Laddakh this year.

The story: Not much. Almost everyone got it. Shantanu, who had gone up to Everest base camp, was Zarin's brilliant addition (even though he had left much before she joined). It got the focus from space to our office.


4.



My second favourite, and the one that caused most confusion!

The Answer: No, not the second floor. The conference room where we hold all our Beta upgrades.


The story: Every chit has a number for our convenience only. Since this chit had just one symbol, the number (52) suddenly became very conspicuous. Everyone assumed it pointed to some location on the floor. My desk was ransacked because it was number 252. There was a tiny slip of paper on my desk with a 10 digit number written on it that people assumed must be the thing. I have no idea how it got there. No really. I only wish i was that devious. Others called up extension 52 which happened to belong to one of three people in office at that time who were at their desk. A laptop with asset number 52 was thoroughly dissected.


5.




The answer: Net inside the office i.e. the table tennis table.

The story: This was the first clue to get cracked. That team, despite repeated instructions to not disturb the chit, tore it off and got it along to proudly display to one and all. Of course we sent them back. After that, not too many people got it.

6. Denmark @ office

The one that no one got!

The answer: Clue? That place in office that keeps going under water. Yeah, the parking lot.

The story: At one point, 3 teams were stuck at this clue. Firstly, apparently, water is not the first thing people think of when you say Denmark. Its milk or chocolates or even people from the office who have recently been there. Oops. Secondly, there are three or four things that go under water. Thirdly, the chit in the parking lot was very well hidden.



Who knew i'd enjoy making people run around so much! If the 10 year younger me could have seen me that day, she would have simply stood in open mouthed amazement - I was telling an office full of people what they should be doing! She'd also be appalled at my inability to speak more than two sentences in English. If the 15 year younger me could have seen me though, she'd understand. She was used to hearding a society full of children into the chosen game of the day.

Turbulence

This guy comes to town to launch his book. I'm undecided about whether or not to buy it. He reads out a passage. I end up buying two.

The book being marketed, Turbulence, is on display everywhere. I pick up a copy to get it signed. I'm wondering if i have to buy it first. According to the insides of my head, its a big loophole in their system - what if i get it scribbled on and then not buy it? Apparently they dont care. I loiter around him. He notices and asks if i'm waiting for... I nod and hand over the book. He writes my name and starts to draw something, possibly to give me time to say something. I focus my everything on the drawing, like i'd driven all the way across town to see him draw. He shows me the drawing and says - its a really bad cartoon of a superhero flying at you. I look at it. Yes, its really bad. It looks like a moose - is what i want to say. But i dont, because i dont trust those sentences to come out like that. Bad. Moose. is what i expect to manage. Instead, i giggle in what i hope is an intelligent manner, thank him and walk away.

This is what i would have liked to say if, you know, i had been less me. I love you books. I've read the first two in the GameWorld trilogy. I bought the third one a couple of years ago, but decided on a whim, to read it only when i'd steered my life out of this by-lane it was stuck in. Thank you for writing two more books and helping me cheat!

Here, have a biscuit

It started out as comfortable silence. After all, we have known each other for 7 years now, this blog and I. However now, it threatens to become indicative something deeper. I'm beginning to question if there is anything i can say to you, blog, given that 90 percent of the people who know you also know me. Lest i go too deep into the question and find answers i dont like, let me tell you about my latest gym.

- Its pink. Yes.
- It doesnt have a treadmill.
- Just as i was about to get onto this one machine, the instructor asked me, finger on the ON switch, with urgency and abruptness and utter lack of context only justified if the fate of the world depended on my answer, if i was married.
- At the end of the workout, I was asked to thank the almighty for something i didnt quiet catch, but i suspect might be something more substantial than a good workout.
- The notices around the gym? Pink. One such notice says in soft pink tones that the management can and will break your bloody locker if you dont take you damn stuff out.

But, but. Its different. And that might just do the trick for me.