Kolkata chronicles - 1

After I had travelled to Chennai for a day to give a training on the one and only JSF ( well that is the only subject which my bosses feel I can give training on ... ), I didnt get another chance to travel though TCS to some other locations. The Chennai travel was my first ever flight and hence I was very much looking forward to another travel. However it was in 2nd week of December 2006. Thereafter the IIMsa and other calls happened. Fortunately I came to know that I will be definitely joining a college this monsoon and hence resigned in May.

Now that they knew that I will not be here for long, my bosses decided to utilise my knowledge through various trainings. It was with this in mind that they told me to go to Kolkata to give a training. JSF requires 2 days to have a proper and complete training. The kolkata training was scheduled for 5 days. The reason being that the remaining 3 days were reserved for 2 other topics namely Spring framework and Hibernate ORM tool. (Btw JSF + Spring + Hibernate is considered to be a killer combination for creating web based applications in Java these days). Even though I had resigned and have no plans to continue working in the java space (rather tech space) in the future, I decided to learn the remaining two technologies so that I could atleast know what they are. (the more important reason being that it allowed me to stay in Kolkata and experience the place).

So I am all geared up for the travel. In the next few episodes I will start the actual travel related descriptions

Kolkata chronicles

I hope the Travels of Gandhinagar were quite interesting. I received very good comments from SV for those posts. I had travelled to one more place for training and that was the city of Joy - Kolkata.

So the next few posts from me will be on my stay at Kolkata. I have decided to name the posts similar to that of SV's chronicles. Hope to cover all kinds of details about the place in the upcoming posts.

My Travels - Gandhinagar - Part 4 - AksharDham

Every person who comes to Gandhinagar must pay a visit to the Akshardham temple.

I could not visit the Akshardham temple of BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Sanstha on the first evening of my stay. I felt very disappointed that I could not go there considering the fact that it was open till 8 pm in the evening. So I decided that on the second day, I will definitely try to reach there somehow.

I was able to finish my training by 4 pm on the second day. My flight to Mumbai was at 6:50 pm and hence I had some time with me. Hence I decided to take a risk and go to the temple to seek darshan of Lord Shri Swaminarayan. Fortunately, two trainees -(Lord Swaminarayan bless them) decided to help me out by accompanying me to the temple.



So we picked up a rickshaw and decided to go there. The GNG rickshaws are definitely slower than the petrol rickshaws. We reached after some 15 mins. A few years back there had been a terrorist attack at the temple and hence security has been tight over there. Once you are done with the security formalitites, you can go ahead and view the temple complex. For lack of time, my itenary consisted only of visiting the temple.

The place is very beautiful and well maintained. Huge gardens, amusement parks and rides for chidren, nice washroom facilities, food courts all make it a nice place for the entire family to visit. If you plan to cover each part in detail, then I suggest that you reserve you entire day for it.

I headed straight to the temple. The temple structure is quite modern yet has that old world fine art of Indians. In short, it is a very beautiful structure. Inside the temple, Lord Swaminarayan in the colour of gold sits in a relaxed posture giving his blessings to everyone present over there. The temple also has a first floor where you can read about the history of Lord and his successors - the latest being Lord Pramukhswami Maharaj. To read more about the place, go here



After looking at the Lord and getting satisfied (In Hindi... Gandhinagar aana safal ho gaya :-) ) with my trip, I decided to return. There is no direct transport from Akshardham to the Ahmedabad airport. So that was a big worry for me. But fortunately, I reached the airport well before 5:50 pm.

This is the last in the series of my posts related to my stay in Gandhinagar. Please feel free to add comments. Bye for now.

My Travels - Gandhinagar - Part 3

Now that I had reached the office well before time, I decided to explore the area. Good roads, few people roaming around here and there. Once inside the office, you are into the company land. so now newness around. I decided to straight away go to the training room and do some surfing.



Soon, the trainees arrived. Most of them were straight from the ILP and hence it was difficult for me to skip some of the topics. But I nevertheless covered the topics and they were able to comprehend most of it (Or atleast I assume so :-P) The training room over there was quite big as compared to the ones I have seen before : quite spacious with all the latest software. There were more than 30 trainees here and hence some of the machines had to be shared.

An important part of any office is its support infrastructure like coffee machines and canteen,etc. This office had many options at the coffee machines: Lemon Tea, Sugarfree tea/coffee, Masala Tea and IceTea. I was amazed by the options and gleefully had Lemon and Masala Tea. Both tasted very good. The canteen food was also very good and cheap. For Rs 35, you got 2 sabjis, dal, rotis, rice, papad, dahi/buttermilk and salad. The best part was that you could take any or all of this any number of times for the amount you paid initially. The quality of this food was also very good.

My stay was arranged at A6 and A7 bungalows in the same infocity campus. Before you assume something else, let me clarify that I got a room in that bungalow and not the entire bungalow. I must admit that TCS provides very good TQs (Transit Quarters) with all the facilities like an attached bathroom and good food, AC, TV, etc. But I also assume that this must be the case in any Big 5 IT companies. Nevertheless, you must appreciate the fact that your company does care about you when you are on some visit.

The food at the TQ was also good and tasty. I always knew that the food in Gujarat is very good and I was right in that respect. The TQ also had wireless fidelity and hence I was able to access my mails and orkut as well. On the first evening I had to walk the highway to reach my TQ but the next morning the TQ housekeeper showed me another path so that I could reach my office in only 5 mins.

I think I have described quite a lot about my office and TQ and the place in general. In the next and the last part, I will write about Akshardham which is an important highlight of my stay in Gandhinagar.

My Travels - Gandhinagar - Part 2

Before reading this post, I suggest you read part 1.

Now that I have landed at the Ahmedabad airport, It was time for me to head to the company office in Gandhinagar. So I picked up a pre-paid taxi for Infocity, Gandhinagar

A few facts before we move ahead.

A. About Gandhinagar :- Gandhinagar is the capital of Gujarat. It has been named after the father of the nation - M.K. Gandhi. It is a planned city and hence at this place you will find names like sector-1, sector-2 and so on. Further there are very less traffic signals and to compensate for them, you have circles to navigate at various junctures. It is also said to be a green city. I think the reason for this would be: 1. all public transport vehicles like rickshaws and buses use CNG. 2. Planning of the city and 3. Lots of trees and gardens everywhere. Ahmedabad is certainly the biggest city of Gujarat but it is not planned and hence more like Mumbai.

B. About Infocity :- Infocity lies on the outskirts of Gandhinagar. It was an attempt by the Keshubhai Patel government of 2001 to bring IT companies to Gujarat. When I first heard about this place I expected it to be some huge complex with lots of buildings and lots of activities. But I was disappointed. It had only one building called as IT Tower 1. My company has two floors over there and plans to add one more. Besides, it has plan to develop a SEZ in Gujarat. Right now there is only one building but construction has begun for atleast 2 other towers. The infocity however has a residential township as well where people stay and that is a very good thing. It helps to reduce the commuting time. Apart from that, I also observed that since the residential was a part of the complex, there was wireless network present everywhere. That pleased me the most since I was able to access my mails and orkut which I am not able to do normally from office area.

The pre-paid taxi was quite costly (cost me arounf Rs.300) but as long as such costs are reimburesed by the company, I dont mind travelling in them.

People do say that Gujarat has really prospered in the past few years and it is growing even faster than China economically (around 15%). A major contribution to a fast growing economy is that of the roads and infrastructure. The roads in Gujarat are really good and I had a pleasant journey in the taxi as well with less traffic as well. The entire stretch from Ahmedabad to Infocity Gandhinagar was a smooth ride. Plus the rides that I have got once while travelling from Mumbai to Surat makes me believe that Gujarat is definitely doing good as far as roads go.

Well I have reached my office quite early and have a lot of time (around 2 hrs) to while away at the office.

This ends part 2 of the gandhinagar travels. In the next few parts I will describe a few more aspects of my stay.

My Travels - Gandhinagar - Part 1

Hello everyone,

Ever since I gave my resignation from my company, the bosses seem to have realised that there will be no one to look into the queries, proposals and trainings related to JSF, Java 5 and other seemingly non-preferred technologies within the Java domain. All others in the team are now working on some high end products like IBM e-Commerce or Portals like Vignette and Weblogic.

So my bosses decided to send me to a few places to give training on JSF. Hence I have been to Kolkata and Gandhinagar. While Kolkata was a 6 day affair, Gandhinagar was relatively short for only 2 days. Nonetheless it was a nice trip and I will write about it in this blog

There is a project in Gandhinagar that uses JSF. However, they were facing a lot of problems related to it. So it was decided that I would go there and train them on JSF. Little did they know that I have also never worked on any JSF project and hence even I would be having the same problems that any normal developer would have with JSF. But there is a difference. I do have the concepts of JSF quite clear and hence I do know some of the work-arounds for some of the problems.

The training days were decided to be on 8th and 9th June 2007. I decided to take the morning flight to Ahmedabad by JET Airways. This is the third time I have travelled by a airplane and I am loving every bit of travelling by a plane. Since I was travelling in JET after they went for a makeover, I expected them to sport their new uniforms and new things. But I was disappointed to see the same old dresses and style. However their service is quite good. Since the flight is only of 45 minutes, you can somehow pass the time in eating the snacks and looking out of the window or reading some magazines or newspapers. But if it is some long distance journey like Kolkata, then you will get bored quickly. This is where Kingfisher is really one up against JET.

The food was quite good and the journey also went off quite well. From an airplane, Mumbai looks stunning - Made up of disparate islands held together by some bridges. At night it looks even more beautiful under the lights. Anybody coming to India can easily say that it is the most lighted city in India.

In contrast, Ahmedabad looked no more than a small town from the plane while it was landing. Maybe I was comparing it with Mumbai and that was the mistake. Anyways, the Ahmedabad airport is quite decent and there were no problems in getting out of the Sardar Patel Airport of Ahmedabad.

This is the end of the first part of the series on Gandhinagar travels. In the next few posts I will be be detailing on the remaining part of my stay at the place

Review of the STAR Parivar awards ceremony

The awards ceremony conducted by STAR group to honour their favourite actors and actresses on STAR Plus was shown on Sunday, 20th May 2007. Since I had nothing to do, I decided to watch the show and see how the different soaps and programs on STAR Plus compare against each other.

This particular award show is a medium to gauge the popularity of various shows and the characters in those soaps. I was particularly pleased with many of the winners this year. The reason I will tell you a little later. Before that I will quickly tell you how the show went.

The hosts these year were the comperes of the show Nach Baliye on STAR One. i.e Sangita Ghosh and Shabbir Ahluwalia. Joining them in the party was Varun Badola. These three together made a mockery of many of the shows in the channel through ballads and mimickry. It was quite funny and entertaining. However. I wasnt happy with the mandatory dance performances provided by some of the stars of the channels. Prerna aka Shweta Tiwari of Kasauti was pathetic. She seems to have put on weight as was visible from her dress. She dances better than many of the stars on TVs these days but yesterday was a bad day for her. Hussain as always is the Hrithik Roshan of TV. He is one of the best dancers on TV right now and Juhi aka Kumkum could not match her at all. The rest of the dances were also nothing to note about.

Now for the awards. Till the past few years, these awards are actually a medium for thanking Ekta Kapoor for making people famous and rich. But this year was different. The traditional favourites: KSBKBT, Kahani, Kasauti and the other K serials could not win many. This is an important warning signal to Ekta to quickly improve the content of her many soaps. Many of the awards that the K-camp won was primarily because of their old stars and not because of their new additions. It says a lot about user preferences: Good solid content is what matters these days, not the same old sauten, saas and bahu stories.

The surprising (and positively) pack of the ceremony was the two serials which come on weekends: Prithviraj Chauhan and Ba, Bahu and Baby. Both of them together won 8 awards in total. BBB grabbed the pole position with 5 awards and Pritvi with 3 awards. I am very pleased with this because these are the only two shows that I watch on STAR Plus because of their fresh approach and good content. Both these serials have excellent performances from their actors and crisp story line. BBB has brilliant performances from almost everyone (notably the children, Gattu, Baby, Pravin, Arvind...well I think the entire cast needs to be mentioned). Prithviraj Chauhan has really good performances from the lead star cast (the child Prithvi is simply amazing) and very good action sequences. Special mention here for the Sagar brothers. While Ramanand Sagar may be respected and considered good, his serials like Krishna had become very boring. Their cast used to overact and had lots of make up. Now the younger Sagar brothers have brought a new freshness to historical dramas.

I feel even more pleased since I feel vindicated by the awards given to these two serials. I can justify that I am actually watching good content on TV and not whiling away my time. Further they have beaten the traditional heavyweights, the K-Serials and that has pleased me the most.

Some updates regarding my MBA

Hello everyone,

It has been a while now that I had posted something. SO today I will just let everyone know what I was upto in the [ast 1 month.

I had GDs and PIs lined up in February and March. So I was busy waiting for their results to come. Of all the interviews that I gave (well there werent many when you look at some of my friends' schedules ), I felt I had completely messed up the NITIE interview. Even the first round of SPJain was not so great. I didnt get much of a chance to showcase my abilities in that interview. I wasnt so positive about these two. But when the results of those interviews came, I was surprised. I had expected that I would not get a call for the second round of SPJain interview. But I got a call for the same. Similarly for NITIE I had expected that I would be somewhere in the waitlist. But I was in the final admission list of NITIE.

Now the second round of SPJain interview was far better than my first round. We had a GD in that round as well and I contributed well in that GD. I was able to answer quite a few questions.
So when the final list of admissions from SPJain came, I was shocked to see my name not even present in the waitlist. Such are the strange things that happen. Good surprises come from the least expected places. I had not expected NITIE to be very positive but that was the only positive thing that happened.

I also had two IIM calls : B and K. But I had got these calls since I had applied under OBC category. I had very good percentiles in two sections but missed out on VA section. When I appeared for the GDs and PIs at TIME as a part of practice sessions, I realised that I am quite capable of getting into the IIMs. I went ahead and appeared for the GDs and PIs for both the IIMs. They went quite well and I was postive that I would get into one of them under the OBC category. One disclaimer here: The OBC category students have almost the same cutoffs as the general category students and so claiming that they dilute the quality of IIMs will be like an insult to those students.

Unfortunately, the SC brought out a stay on that OBC quota and with it, my dreams of being in an IIM were washed away. Anyway, I am looking forward to joining NITIE unless something positive happens which is quite unlikely.

There is one more twist to this tale. I also face the prospect of landing up in JBIMS. Now that is a also a very good institution. It has put me in a dilemma : JB or NITIE.

As of now, my inclination is towards NITIE but as the days pass by, the urge to go to JB is also increasing. Lets see what I decide. Till that time, its bbye from me.

Comments as always are welcome. Also if you like please suggest your preference for the MBA institute: NITIE or JB.

Objective analysis of Indian cricket after the World Cup Debacle

Hello everyone!!

The current world cup has brought cheers to some countries and despair to some of the biggest followers of the sport that is cricket. While it is nice to see nations like Bangladesh and Ireland, we also need to realise that it is also because of the lack of application from their highly ranked and over-hyped opponents i.e. India and Pakistan respectively.

Status before the world-cup

India before going to the world cup had won 2 one day series one against West Indies and the other against Sri Lanka. However both these victories were on home soil and also against second-best teams. Sri Lanka did not have Vaas or Murli while West Indies were also not having some of their key players like Sarwan. On the other hand we fielded our best sides against them as well.

If you go back little further in time, you will realise that we had lost to South Africa and West Indies before that and also to Australia in Malaysia. So we are not performing upto our abilities since the past one year now. So it shouldnt come as a surprise to us when we lose a few matches in the world cup...instead they should be expected from our team.

Reasons for the downfall

While it is difficult to point exactly where the problem lies, there are a few reasons that come to mind quickly

1. Lack of motivation: The team needs motivation to perform. Our team no doubt had goals and objectives but when you are under tremendous pressure, you are bound to falter at some point in time and unfortunately it happened at the wrong time for us.
2. lack of sporting culture: A nation needs to have a sporting culture which we simply do not have. A very good example would be the Australians. It is not just in cricket that they excel but also in hockey, rugby, swimming, tennis and athletics. Similar is the case for other nations like New Zealand and South Africa.
3. Over dependence on one sport: In our country we only concentrate on cricket. In contrast other nations concentrate on other sports equally as well. While having such a case is not a problem, for a large country like India in terms of population it also means that we simply do not excel in other sports at all and bring back the previous point
4. Excessive hype: It is fine to label our players as stars, care needs to be taken that they are not over-hyped and raised to demi-god status. Unfortunately in our country where there is lack of real-life heroes, we quickly make a hero out of a player even if he has one good innings.
5. Media hype: Media is responsible to a large extent for this hype. especially the Hindi news channels. I seriously doubt about their journalistic qualities when they call for extremely harsh measures like removing the entire team just on the basis of one or two losses. Have they made any analysis before coming out with their suggestions. If they are so good at making comments why dont they themselves become cricket administrators
6. BCCI: The Indian cricket administration is equally responsible for the current mess. The entire setup is wrong which allows for many inefficiencies to creep in. Good cricket requires good infrastructure (Coaches, grounds, training materials, etc) and other facilities. No doubt about the raw quality of Indian cricketers but if they are not polished further, there is no scope for them to excel at the highest stage.

There are many more but let us now also look at the reactions from various quarters of the Indian public.

Reactions from the Indian public and my responses to them:

1. BCCI: Only one thing to these group...shut up and resign. This would be the biggest gift to Indians. Let cricket be administered by cricketers not politicians and businessmen.
2. Sponsors and advertisers: Please reduce your spending on cricketers. There are better things to do in life other than getting these blokes to advertise for you. Even if you want to make them your brand ambassadors, make sure they dont become complacent.
3. General public: Please be rational in your responses. I know it is bad to see our team lose but that doesnt mean they are not humans. Please protest peacefully and protest in meaningful ways (Described later in the article). Burning posters, pelting stones, processions and detroying public property simply shows that we as a nation are not yet civilised. It also shows that we are still an uneducated society when it comes to such issues. We are simply making the players move away from us rather than support them in this hour of crisis. Do remember that these same players have played some really wonderful innings in the past and under tremendous pressure. Just because of one or two bad innings we cannot simply drop them from our team.

Ways to protest:

Use Gandhian means to protest against our team's dismal performance

1. Do not use the the services and products endorsed by cricketers. There are many substitutes available. A realisation will dawn upon all of them- cricketers, sponsors and the media giants that nothing can be taken for granted
2. Avoid watching matches
3. Avoid going to grounds if possible

There will be many more ways to protest.

Message to Indian team:

Team India, it is okay if you lose matches after fighting hard for victory. But abject surrender is not acceptable. Do realize that you are here to play for the country and not for your sponsors and other businesses.

Lets hope that the team rises from the ashes and starts performing even better from here on.

Wishing all my readers a very happy new year. i know I am a bit late but please forgive me for that. I was reading Mr Karan Thapar's columns on Hindustan Times website and came across a funny message. I will put the link over here since pasting the content over here might lead me to break some copyright laws which I don't intend to. I especially want all of you to read the new year wishes sent to him by his relative. They are very similar to the agreement message that we get when we install some proprietary and licensed software.

I really admire the person who has created that particular new year message. Here is the column. Enjoy!!!

Misuse of Power

We all know where the Iraq war is headed. However a certain person still believes that he can pull about a change in the situation at ground zero. Such optimistic thoughts are necessary but only to a certain extent beyond which the best thing to do is to accept the truth and move on. Unfortunately Mr Bush doesn't agree with the rest of America. He has decided to send more than 20000 troops to the graveyard that is Iraq. We all hope against hope that the new war policy will bring about a change in that country

The above instance is a case study of how people at the top can misuse their power. Such people can be found at many places. Bush was just one example. Closer back home in India, the situation in Uttar Pradesh is quite similar. The law and order situation is totally out of control in that area. No wonder, we find cases like mass murder of small and innocent children and the apathy of the police force for such crimes. Similarly, nothing is done to avoid the stoning of travellers at Agra. Similar situations are present in other states as well. One more example of such misgivings is in Goa where all the parties have come together to do rampant and uncontrolled development at the expense of natural environment and the scenic beauty. A few years back, Mr Narendra Modi, the chief minister of Gujarat had carried out similar atrocities against the Muslims in Gujarat.

This is not a modern phenomenon. It has started right from prehistorical times. In the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, we saw how those in power turned evil and hence needed to be eliminated by God himself. (pardon all female readers, in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, the God was a male). There are many such cases all across the world. Who can forget the atrocities carried out by the Roman empire against Jesus Christ either?

Misuse of power happens in a variety of ways and to various degrees. Let us take an example of a person at a corporate office. If he/she is a boss, he can be partial to some of his subordinates and totally ignorant to others. In a particular example, the boss wanted a new cabin all for himself. he decided to shift the entire team to another place. Not only did this cause a huge exercise in transfer of people and goods but none of his team members were happy with the new place. Neither were the people displaced from there happy at the new location. All this exercise for the comfort of just one person.

There can be much more but right now I am falling short of ideas and thoughts. As soon as I get more thoughts on this, I will add it to this article.

Finally it is over!!!

Yes it is over... I finally took the SCJP certification on Friday 14th July 2006. It was at the prometric centre in Andheri-east. I first came to the office, had a nice breakfast given by mom and then left for the center. The center is quite good and the people are very professional and supportive.

It has been a long journey. When I joined the company, I was straight away put into Java CoE(Center of Excellence). It was however a very disorganised entity. No guidance of any sort to us beginners and we were sometimes supposed to resolve queries for technologies which we had not even heard about before. So we concentrated on many different things at different points in time. No focus and no attention on any particular domain or technology.

Slowly but steadily we learnt a few basic things related to Java and then soon we started preparing for Java certification. But it soon took a backseat as I was told to prepare a KSS on JSF. I got deeply involved in that and hence certification took a blow. After that finished, I got involved in portal training. The portal technology helped me to make sample applications using BEA weblogic portal and I also helped a colleague in her real life project.

After that we again started studying for the certi. We had to start anew as the tempo had gone down and we had to refresh ourselves on the minor details. But it was shortlived as we again went into a training and then into a project. I got involved in another KSS this time on Java 5.
I also gave a presentation on Internet and web technologies to a group of librarians. I also got a chance to work on proposals which was quite a new experience. How new business is achieved and what are the finer details in making a proposal to the client. We didnt won that but still it was fun to work.

Soon after that we demanded to our PL to give us some project experience as we felt that just sitting here wont give us any experience. He relented and brought the concept of 50-50. 50-50 simply means that half of the time we devote to Java CoE and the remaining half of our time is spent in a project. The client was a Travel management and foreign exchange company. We developed the audit trail module. It was a great learning experience for me and I finally worked on a proper project. I also came to know that I can write decent code. At the same time we also continued our SCJP preparation. THe project got over in the first week of July. Now our efforts were entirely concentrated on SCJP 5. I finally gave it and passed with a score of 94%. Its a great feeling as I had really worked hard to make sure that I get a score above 90%. I did face some difficulties though. For instance, there were very few mock papers available for SCJP 5.

Now I am thinking of taking a nice break. Not sure where to go but will have to decide fast.
Bye for now.

funny thought on a software developer by Dilbert

I read the blog entry from Euxx where he had posted a funny entry for software developer. It is of Dilbert:

My dog was tired of hearing me whine about my job, so he became a billionaire and bought my company and fired me

Finally some creative work

Its nice to be back!
After many days i am writing something of my own. In the past few months alot has changed about me. previously i had hardly ant knowledge of Java. now i do know a lot about it and also some related technologies as well. Ofcourse I don need to know them since my Job profile is such. I have to keep tracking latest trends and technologies. So now i not only know Java but also some of its rivals. What this had done to me is that I am a jack of all but master of not. But i dont mind being that for some time.

What i have observed is that Blogs are a really good source of information. For much of my work i get knowledge from there. No wonder Sabeer Bhatia also started his own blog Software blogeverywhere.com.

I studied Java 5 recently and I am really impressed with it. It does make life easier for a Java developer. I was initially confused with the entire J2EE thing because of the sheer number of terms and acronyms it had. Fortunately the new Java Specification does make life a bit easier if not totally simple. When you look at Java's EJB3.0 you will get an idea.

Chalo c u later... i m writing this from my office machine since the software on my machine has gone to sleep.

Some Truths...

This is a forwarded joke which I received recently. Since I have nothing worthwhile to write about. I would keep the blog updated by posting something funny.

Here is the funny mail...

1.) U use phrases like "No issue s" and "Value addition" in everyday parlance. For e.g. When talking about your doodhwalla, U say, "His milk does zero value addition to my health but he is the only guy around so no issues"

2.) Ur prime source of entertainment is the forwards send to U by friends w hose faces U cant remember.

3.) U drink more tea or coffee than water.

4.) U keep trying to shut down ur home computer by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del (used to lock office comps)

5.) When ur mobile rings at home, U rush outside to receive thecall.

6.) When U make calls at home, U accidentally dial "0"to get an outside line.

7.) U haven't played Solitaire with real cards in years.

8.) Ur last crush was a girl in HR, ur current crush is the new girl in HR and all ur crushes in the future willbe girls in HR.

9.) U spend the entire day reading forwards, smoking cigarettes, drinking tea/coffee and playing T.T. and then complain about the late working hours.

10.) Ur important 'meetings' usually comprise two or three people max, including yourself.

11) U secretly prepare for CAT only to find ur PL sitting behind you at the exam.

13.) U keep pressing Ctrl+Enter wondering why your gmail is not going.

14.) U email ur mate who works at the desk next to U.

15.) As U read this list, U r thinking of sending it to ur friends who are also in IT.

16.)U r too busy to notice there was no line no. 12

17.)U r not sure so u scroll back check it .

18.)And now u r smiling!!!!

LOL....

Am sure u did steps 16 to 18.

Interesting article on Consulting

Hi friends,
Here's an interesting article on "consulting" companies:

Read it
Its pretty thought provoking. Do read it and respond...bye

A day at an Indian wedding

well it seems i have nothing else to do when i go online...no wonder i m writing my third blog within 4 days...that must be a record of sorts for me...didnt go to the office today as i had to attend a wedding...(not mine stupid).

as per the IST u reach 1 hour behind the original scheduled time of 10 am...this is where it all starts...as soon as u enter the wedding hall all attention turns towards u...prospective father-in-laws constantly try to be cosy with u..they try to extract information regarding ur job, salary, education and other things important...if they like the trailer they will try to get ur number from ur parents or some other contact...U feel so frustated that u wish u could tell all the lies in the world (egs. I am the don of my area...I left studies years ago to pursue a career in gundagiri..etc..etc) but u cant... for it may really affect ur future prospects...

moving forward...u sit at some obscure location where there will be few disturbances so that u can calmly chat with ur friends if u have any over there...(it becomes even more difficult if u have none)...u simply wait for some refreshments to be served..juices..samosas..etc. The waiters are constantly roaming around and seem disinterested...some of them can be seen yawning

meanwhile the groom waits in the center(mandap) waiting desperately for this rituals (vidhis) to be over so that he can now enter the happy world of married life...giving him futher trouble are a few photographers and cameramen who constantly advise him on poses and shoot like FBI agents...While all this is happening, the groom's brothers and sisters try to show off their clothes and whatever else they have to display(accessories ....)

suddenly the bride arrives...the paparazzi shifts their attention to her neglecting the groom all of a sudden...The bride enjoyes her moment of undivided attention...the pose advisors among the paparazzi are back as well...

the turn of events become even more intersting if u have a foreigner among the crowd...he will simply look confused ...try to grasp whatever his happening around him and in the center...he even brings a camera to shoot but gets confused in what to shoot...

soon the rituals start and u are now engrossed in the world of mobile games(thanks to the inventor of a cellphone...we always have an alternative)...after sometime u realise that people have started having their lunch..and u also set out for that great Indian wedding lunch...

Now that u have had a good lunch u simply want to lay on ur back and have a nice sleep...but that u cant at the venue so u simply give away the gift that u have brought for the invitor ...say some nice wishes and head back to ur home for a nice afternoon sleep....zzzz.z.zzzz

Have sweet dreams...good zzzz....zzz...zzz

Dropped.........Ganguly

I was recently having a look at some of the current affairs that are on everybody's mind these days...but none of them have hogged more limelight than the Ganguly issue...

The ganguly issue has been dragged for so long that now i hardly ever go beyond the first paragraph of that news item...according to me he has been dropped for good...he should realise that himself that he is no longer required and should better resign gracefully...

if he does this then he will do a "Sonia" in the field of Indian cricket...Each person has a period where he shines and later he has to pass the baton to someone else...Ganguly should do exactly that...look at Steve Waugh...he knew his days were numbered in the Australian test squad...so he himself retired at the end of the 3 test series in 2004...and everybody know what a splendid farewell he got...Unfortunately I doubt whether he (in fact anyone else after Steve Waugh leave aside a few) will get a nice farewell.

Ofcourse he has done a lot for the country in the 5 years when he was the captain...he braved many tough situations and instilled a new found josh in the Indian cricket team...took the tam to the world cup final of 2003...won many test matches...supported newcomers...and many other things...

But then facts are facts and they speak truth...Ganguly over the past one and a half years was becoming more of a liability than an asset like in the late 90s and early part of this decade...He used to score big runs only against the lowly teams and performed indifferently against better placed teams...Differences were bound to increase with the induction of Greg Chappel. The latter being an Australian was obviously not going to keep quiet...

Of his recent form, the records speak for themselves...he has not been consistent at all...even the Kolkatans know deep within their heart that he is not performing consistently...But then any body can be bought for a few bucks to hold demonstrations against any one...personally i support his dropping from the playing 11... as Dravid says, the best playing 11 need to be selected...

Getting a bit technical

Hi folks ...nice to be back after some time...i work in the j2ee field these days and it has been a mixed bag for me till now...I was also a bit busy in december preparing for my prsentation on JSF...now dont ask me wat that is ... i m not going to explain it after already explaining it two to three times to various groups...

But that made me realise one thing...technical blogs are everywhere...and they are USEFUL...i found them really useful for my presentations...now i have made it into a habit to check out on various technology related news...

Moving on, i also have to keep myself aware of all the latest technology trends and whats hot and whats not...i have to give suggestions as to what would be better to use in certain scenarios. we developed 2 Proof Of Concept applications one for JSF and the other for AJAX... although the second one is not by me...but i know it how to make simple AJAX applications...

the softwares that we use are also big and heavy and consume a lot of RAM. that is one of my grudge so far...otherwise they are good to use...BEA is being used currently for working with portals and IBM websphere was recently used for JSF besides eclipse and exadel...i found idea from intellij also quite nice...

in all these i forgot that i have still to give my scjp exam...i get involved in all other things as mentioned above so much that i have completely sidelined myself from this original goal...neways i m now confused whether to give scjp1.5 or 1.4...well lets c..i also felt that i should start my own technical blog...but better sense has prevailed and i have now such plans in the near future..

c u later ...otherwise it might bcome a bit of overdose of technicality from me...BYE

Bus karo.........

i know many ppl will think this to be another post that is copied from somewhere....but believe me this one is cent percent written by me...

neways work in office is boring...we go there look at others around us who also are looking at ways to find some work...(ya thats true everyone seems to be free)...i go in the morning to catch the company bus ... this bus is quite OK ...the FM radio in the bus is as usual pathetic but atleast u can sit properly n comfortably...reach there at around 8.50 am...check mails n chat with ppl...the day goes off n evening falls...after that we wait for the 6.30 pm bus which arrives as usual empty and in a bad state...this bus is particularly bad...in fact the seats really make u feel sorry for ur asses... the driver also drives like a truck driver composing his own truck driver music by blowing the horns incessantly...he fails almost everytime to hit some other vehicle (poor guy...seems frustated with his family that he wants to cause his own accident)

well if i have brought out this topic on buses...then how can one forget the mention of BEST buses...they r a nightmare to roam in especially during peak hours in andheri-east...also their new starline buses are either crashing like my company's sw or not seen...

buses in trivandrum were much better in that sense...much better ventilation...much faster at the peril of others...empty roads...

neways it feels nice to tyope a few words after a loooooonnnnnnggggggg time.Enjoy and bye...