AGONY RELOADED
I attended my first quiz prelims in a long time.....at Infy and I was agonizingly close
to qualifying in the quiz here.the top 3 teams made it to the corporate quiz out of
around 15 teams.The team that squeezed through third had 10 and we managed 9 ,
after managing to miss out on sitters.we managed a few good ones........but...my
bad luck in quizzing continues. I remember way back in college when for the first
2 years ,due to lack of good partners, I always came close to qualifying or close
to winning and I had to return home dejected and empty handed ,but once i made
it thru the finals,after which the 3rd and 4th years reaped some money.....in the
inter college symposiums....through quizzing,adzaps,paper presentations.....

towards the end of the day , we were sending messages from my computer to
the groups here, but it turned out out that these messages were received by
the entire 13000 workforce and not just our classroom of 90 odd people.... and
so my group instructor sent us a mail requesting 3 people who used the computers
to own up as to who sent the mail......I honestly confessed and never knew that
it was relayed to the entire group,even though my message was harmless .I just
happened to post that there was a quiz on at the auditirium at 5 15....and it was
my bad luck that just when the no of messages were getting high.......my msg
popped up its ugly headed and my computer number got noted. They may be
some action.....and I am checking my office mail every now and then...........
..just to see whether I've got any mail from my superior.....

well the other bad news was of course sunday's fiasco............which till date
haunts me. nothing about the company ....though It was just that my college
friends who were to bangalore organized a get -to -gether which though was
held............but after terrible confusion caused by lack of cellphones by a couple
of people,lack of charge in my mobile,lack of talk time in my friends and lack of
any form of contact with one guy.........so finally after an amazing round of
confusion and money spent on travelling we finally met up at lalbagh gardens....

Well the only silver lining in the cloudline was the fact that I GOT MY FIRST
FULL MONTH SALARY CREDITED IN MY ACCOUNT............some reason to celebrate...eh...the damn tests and assignments are getting on my nerve......and certain other personal things which are going awry..... is making me one worried person.........

I guess it's time I stopped washing my dirty linen on the web.........and go attend
to my herculean project which needs to be submitted by tommorow morning....
and with the damn maingframes not working ,my face is in a real sulken state .

:-(

We have the 2 huge mock project's (am i being mocked by mainframes...? ) coming up and a cobol,db 2 test this week .I suddenly feel that I am getting more responsible towards life.Learnt a lot of new things yesterday from a couple of my friends........and that sure did make me have a peek at my attitude towards life ...and just do a CTRL-ALT-DEL .....and refocus my energies on my mainframes as I was just feeling jaded......after so many tests and assignments.I started off by cleaning the mess in my room and responsibly washing my clothes..........
so thats about life ..........

I met 5 classmates yesterday and that has made me releived to an extent of boredo,

the DA phenomenen

I tend to notice that every famous singer or music director is from west bengal......like pancham da,kishore da and of course mithun da.......They do seem to have loads of talent contributing ro the Indian music industry.The talent pool of the indian singing industry seems to be coming from the eastern belt of UP...meandering its way into westbengal.I just happened to notice it when i happened to listen RADIOCITY 91 FM here , on my way to work.

The weather seems to be great in bangalore,well its been like that for so many years now,but every day seems to be a new and exciting day in the offing when the lush green grass of Infy and the chill n pleasant winds along with the heady combination of the beautiful infy girls ...tends to greet one in the morning.

I have to scoot of now , as its time(CLASS BEGINBS AT 9 AM ) for a morning session of training in mainframes...I am presently with CICS ...a topic in mainframes.I am over with MVS,JCL and COBOL.still have DB2 to go after which ,we have to submit a mock project in mainframes,for which supposedly I am the group leader amongst my team mates. I was told by a friend of mine that the GL's role would be limited to ensure others complete their modules on time and I make the final presentation....as long as it has lesser technical content .....I am game for it.... and just motivating the team members ........comes naturally to me

..."MAIN HOON NAA" :-)

LAUTA DO MUJHE BEETEY HUEY DIN

I somehow I feel that I was a given an option of going back in time...I would just like to feel what it was to live 50 years back.I can imagine how R.K.Narayan would have felt it while writing his literary works.I long for those days when life was simple and not so complex and mundane as today.I feel have forgotten the simple pleasures of life like taking a walk,going to the beach or a park,feeling that warmth of the sunrise a.People these days find comfort in their homes learning a thing or too on how to combat their "saas-bahu /mamiyaar mattuponnu" matches.People share their joys and sorrows with the "glycerine " filled so called serials which depict a woman as if she was the eopitome of all sorrow ,hardwork and problems....and we people sit down trying to identify some part of our lives with it .....engrossed in the serial,which ultimately goes on to become a mega serial (eg: KSBKBT,KGGK on Star,chitti on sun tv......u name it u have it ).

The evenings are spent at those heavily lighted branded shopping malls ....as we flash the credit card as if it's a genie that gives us that magic wands that buys things. I somehow feel bored by the way life is going in this generation.I dont blame any body,but its just that I am feeling sick of everything that I have seen in life .Every day seems to be a "Been there done that" kind of a attitude. Suprisingly after being in bangalore for a month, I have not ventured out anywhere except going to majestic for catching thebtrain back home and once to island grounds to watch a music program.

Even though bangalore has a lovely climate,there aren't as many hangouts as in Chennai as say the Marina beach,Eliots beach ........ Somehow My idea of a hangout where one can meet friends without having to fork out heavy money , is a little different.I love the Avadi railway station for the calmness of the night and memories of the 4 year college life and of course our very own BG trains that runs from tambaram to park ,central to avadi n beyond,the british council library.. and so many.............that i cant just name.

All that youths say in bangalore as a weekend activity is "come to MG road and Brigade road to see the girls on display in the shopping malls" to which my retort was "Come to INFY , it's better ...the show runs 5 times a week,10 times more quantity and quality...
than compared to the 2 day show at Mg road." :-)

I am waiting to get back to chennai to enjoy life as simple as it was ..even if it means munching groundnuts on a scorching afternoon amidst the huge wave of crowds at ranganathan street....or clutching for that inchspace on the local trains....or biking on s- shaped roadsnear my home. Its a little lonely here as the work load is slowly getting heavier and boring too.Coding was never my interest....but what to do.....that's the only vocation I can end up with 4 having comitted the crime of doing my majors in computer science engineering.I hate going back to my room in bangalore as loads of unwashed clothes stare at me and so does the unorganized heap of things in my suitcase.

My friends here are hardcore coders who simply love coding as it comes naturally to them,and I have no one of my mentality...so its just me and my PC who keep talking.I have loads of MP3 to provide me company and of course the excellent canteens here.This is where i miss my college friends as we were on group in class who knew how to have fun with "madras university"..but fun ........relatively at Infy is different,as one feels happy and elated to have completed assignments.I was enjoying all this calling it privately "scaling new peaks" but every day being a new day and more and more assignments,quizzes and tests coming up one after another I feel like being woven into a knowledge trap where unfortunately there is no spiderman to help me get out of this cluttered mess. By the time one completes classes on Mainframes , the RDBMs tests start and so does some new assignment in some other new subject.So its a three dimensional trap that I am in ........ I am approaching it seriously as the only way out of this technical labyrinth is to follow the crowd and make sure one comes unscathed(having no arrears , I mean in the assesments ) and get a posting to GOOD OLD CHENNAI.

E N J O Y I N G Life

I have a great room mate , called sheshadri..who can be described in in one single word as assertive.I had totally forgotten about the advance that Ihad given to my house owner ,a Punjabi sikh.Thanks to seshu , he convincingly made the owner to agree after an hour's talk on when we would get back the advance.Generally these house owners promise to give u the money ,just before the day one leaves....and sometimes may refuse to give the money in time..as my friend staying below my room mate found much to his dislike. I noticed that one has to be really carefull regarding money matters especially in these PG accomadations in bangalore,or else u could be taken for a ride.Even though it remains to be seenwhether Mr Singh our owner gives us the money by december 14th, Iam sure seshu and I have atleast made it clear that we would want our advance back latest by 14th as We have our final exam on the 16th and we should get to know our respective postings by that time.

I have just been given my BOND ...or in other words my employee agreement letter which I have to sign before a notary...after which I have to send it by a courier to my dad at cochin to get his signature (surety ).....and then submit to the HRD ......thats some painful work that needs some careful attention.

Last evening I had been to the health club here at Infy bangalore and had used the swimming and jacuzzi facilities(jacuzzi is a small hot water pool facility to warm up after a chill session with the main swimming pool).Today I plan to use the Sauna facility also to have asteam bath as soon as I finish swimming. Its time I went and hogged something .....as my stoamch feels damn empty...

Bnagalore is slowly getting chill and the weather here at night is great ...so much a releif to the warm climate of chennai,but somehow I long to get back to chennai...because a settled life there is much better than living like a vagabond here(even though I have an accomadation here).

ABSOLUTE MADNESS

Yesterday at work I got a mail from one of my friends working at HCL technologies about the marriage of the so called tamil film actordhanush and aishwarya(who happens to be rajnikanths daughter).It seems the marriage took place yesterday and the photos were instantly passed on the web. A couple of girls sitting ner my cubicle went hysteric on seeing the marriage photos ..one saying "wow","yay" as if they had just been engaged to the most handsome dude on earth. :-(

I got special attention ,simply because the mail containing that marriage picture had come to me...so people pleaded me to send them the photos by mail....and I was just dumbstruck as to why people were so mad of seeing a moron getting a married. One of my friends...had rightly sent the subject of the mail as "KORANGU KAYILLAE POO MALAE"(which translates to "a lovely flower garland in the hands of a monkey ) ...

Well I never knew dhanush had such fan following and this news would create so many ripples.all i can say is that there are far more important things in the world than such a silly piece of news gathering attention.

PS:Micheal jackson BEWARE there are more hysterical females here rooting for dhanush than for u ........GOD SAVE THEM

From the Frying Pan into the Fire

I was so relieved that I was done with a test today,but what the heck I have one tommorow...and a huge bunch of assignments to submit.At this rate when will i go back home?
I stayed back last night here to prepare for the test as the materials are on the system,but this has just gone a little far.Tonight I may be here till 9 after which I have to take the last bus from campus to reach home.

I am feeling so sick these days,especially after coming to chennai last week.The bad health has spilled over to bangalore and I am just managing to hold myself.I am not coming to chennai this week to write CAT this sunday,due to my ill health.......and as if to complement this move my instructor has given us quite a HUGE workload to be completed by monday next..........

CHENNAI BLOGGERS MEET @ BESANT NAGAR BEACH

It was great fun at the beach,but quite sad that the turn out was only 11,but if it were to be a larger gathering I guess it would have been slightly tough for every one to interact.This was the 6th official blogger meet that was happenning in chennai,the first one dated way back to june 29 ,2002 when we had a small group of 5 techies and a wannabe techie (thats me ). It in a way was a big respite from being couch potatoing at home....could get to meet a lot of like minded bloggers .There were 3 new additions this time, and as far as the old gang was concerned lazy geek, kribs ,nirenjan,dinesh and a guy called chandrachoodan came .WE had great fun giving intro's and of course eating mollaga bajjee at the beach and discussing various topics under the sun (and the moon as it was 7 30 when we wounded up ).

It was sad that my friend kishore couldnt make it,but it happens that one is busy...and I was all the more dissapointed that the people from THE HINDU didnt turn up,as I thought my URL and my photo would be splashed in the next day's paper's and would have more hits to my site.
It was good to hear from dinesh that he succeeded in mission 17 30,a "game "which i followed like he did ,most of my final year in college but didnt quite end up with same success rate as he did.Well what was the game ?? I guess all the people who came to the blogger meet would definetely knowwhat I meant......but its something that I would'nt like to put up in my blog...

so ...alls well that ends well......I am already straing to feel drowsy.....so it's time I hit the sack.

FRUSTRATED

I am finally back in Chennai for diwali,but never did burst any crackers as I was down with fever and some body complications.....I am leaving most probably by the monday lalbagh train to bangalore.I am feelimg bored as my computer at home is dead as the hard disc crashed and i am planning a complete format......to see whether any trace of life exists in my hard disc which all of a sudden says "no OS detected" .Its a pain when my friends system detects my hard-disc , but when my comp dosen't detect mine. so thats some frustration till i get my system up and running.

B A N G A L O R E D

I am staring at this dumb monitor for the past few hours with the music in the background (mp3 via the system headphonbes). Its simply because we have a test on RDBMS on wednesday and I have to study and a host of other activities to do ,so kind a lost in sleep .............

1 eat
2 complete the camera roll (18 more pics to go )
3 redo the assignments before the tests,
4 read the trainee material ...
5 cancel my chennai train/bus tickets...depending on my waitlist status
6 give a bag of my friend to her ,for which neither she finds the time to collect it,nor do i find time to give it.
7 keep track of my medicenes,that I am supposed to eat.
8 wash the damn clothes
9 pack my bag to chennai
10 clean the room out of the mess it finds itself in.
11 gotta write the mock tests and practice atleast basic quants for CAT.
12 stop falling asleep every now and then........


with so much to do in 48 hours , life is sudddenly staring at me......."what the heck are u doing "

nemma uru benguuluru

That seems to be the popular phrase here on radio city 91 FM here in Bangalore.I have no choice but to adopt this tagline till the 15th of december ,supposedly when my training gets over here.I have been put on to the MAINFRAMES stream as my specific stream,which would start on november 16th, soon after the diwali holidays. Our generic course training is nearing an end on wenesday the 10th with the mega credit test of RDBMS which i believe is slightly tough.

This morning I had been to a coroprate quiz called equinox which had a series of quizzes ...the music quiz,geography quiz,sports quiz,general quiz,IT quiz....etc.. Seeing the poster at my canteen in infy i thought this was going to be a really good quiz with all kinds of lighting and sounds as is every quiz in chennai (namely oddyssey quiz,landmark ,ET and so on ), but this turned out to be a case of sour grapes as the no of teams that turned up were very less and each team had to fork out 1000 bucks to particpate in the team. I had no idea How Infy selects the candidates for these quizzes as the company pays the money generally,but they happened to pay teh money for 2 teams who had been selected from a prelims that had been held in our auditorium just a few days back,which I obviously missed :-(

I somehow found that the quiz totally lacked enthu as there was no music to suggest that something was going on in the auditorium. there were 8 and 9 teams respectively for the music and geography quiz ,but the sports and general quizzes had a little more ,close to around 15 teams out of which 6 make it to the finals.

If one happens to be a seasoned quizzer then its really a means of some easy money as the quizzes arent that mentally draining like the open quizzes in chennai,which attract quite a crowd.


Any way a bigger quizzing treat is on the cards tommorow with the biz quiz at IIM B with dear old DEREK O BRIEN donning the quizmaster's robes.


The weather seems really great at bangalore,but one irritating fact is that the damn clothes dont dry earlier than three days..........so much in contrast to my singara chennai,I'm fully with the maxim "THE GRASS ON THE OTHER SIDE SEEMS GREENER" with respect to the the fact that I miss chennai when i am in bangalore and i feel bangalore would be so much better whn the scorching chennai sun burns me.

other than that ,life's still chugging on......on a so called weekends wchich i prefer spending in my INFY campus rather than being at my accomadation.I 've got bored of going out shoppping,so haven't really had that interest to explore the city. I some how find it suprising that quite a lot of people are present in the labs today , because we have our big comprehensive test coming up on wednesday and i am looking forward to it and the journey back to chennai that evening (on the 10th) .

SOLD A DUMMY

There was this offer at infy that if one bought 2 tickets of value rs 200 for the SONU NIGAM show last evenng at bangaore's palace grounds, that one would be getting a free T shirt from cafe coffee day.I payed 400 rs and got the T shirt and the 2 tickets,thinking I can always persuade some one to tag along with me and recover 200 bucks on the sale of the ticket. Suprisingly none of my friends in bangalore wanted to go for the show as they were
1 lazy
2 not interested
3 scratching their heads........

I went alone and had the other ticket lying waste.To my suprise the show went on till 1 am in the wee hours of today morning.But i decided to move out at 11 pm itself to catch the last bus home, and instead of driving a profit ........i was submerged in a huge loss


200 * 2 = 400 rs (show was OK )
70 rs for auto from show place to majestic at 11 pm(@ double rate)
100 rs for sleeping in a yatri nivas bed , as no bus services past 11 at bangalore.
50 rs calling friends and asking them whether they were interested in coming
hmmm....................