The fuss over the Beard or the Clean look

Taking it from a friends statement on his life and replacing it with a word more apt for me-

“I am CHAOS personified”

Walking out of the gates of NIT Surat for the last time and entering a world I tried and escaped from, all my life.

A similar feeling- When it was time for Pre-boards exams in 12^th, because all I feared was that hanging out with friends would reduce, will miss the lunch time gossips, will die without having a glimse of the girl I had a crush on, pressure of expectations, sudden fact of not being good at studies hitting you hard when you see the results and above all- to justify my decision of taking up Science despite of tremendous pressure from family and Extended Family.

A similar feeling- When it was time for the tests for National Institute of Design (NID), my only attempt to try and pursue something of my interest before I am pushed into either my dad’s business or to take up a run-of-the-mill degree course such as Engineering (I thank ONE of the FEW right decisions taken by me to quit Biology, else I would have ended up having more options where OPTIONS is directly proportional to CONFUSION).

A similar feeling- When I came back after appearing for my All India Engineering Entrance Examination (AIEEE) and called up all my friends to check if they had fared as bad (and they had not), staying back home locked up in my room when all friends were enjoying a free day after a long time, random surfing of institutes providing Design or Mass Communication courses, my last resort to run away from home.

A similar feeling- When the 10 days workshop at MICA (Mudra Institute of Communication) was almost over and I was giving a presentation on my Action plan for next 5 years (at 2 AM), though I knew I never had the guts of achieving any of the listed goals. This was the place I first felt like a true cartoonist, a chance of meeting people who were already making jingles, few who were already working for journals, and getting an appreciation from such guys actually helped me come up with the idea of DODO (a cartoon character) and his story. But the fame of being the only cartoonist among the 30 odd people was momentary.

A similar feeling- When after the first year in Engineering itself, I thought that the course would in no way help me to achieve what I wanted (though I am still not sure what, but I am sure it’s not related to Engineering, whatever it might turn out to be), still hoping the next three years would pass better than the first or the way Steve Jobs would put it-“Trusting that the dots would connect someday”.

A similar feeling- When after my 2^nd year all my friends were trying to get an internship/training into some technical organization and I called up some friends of mine and got an internship at “Mudra Advertising”, running around in crowded streets of Old Ahmedabad persuading Electrical shop owners to allow me to take pictures of some particular kind of tube-lights, catching strangers in parks/gym and interviewing them about their health habits, meeting owners of the restaurants where a particular kind of newly launched mineral water brand was served, to allow me to talk to their customers. After sometime I was loving it but then it was over and I was back to Engineering.

A similar feeling- When after the 3^rd year I realized that the part of being an organizer of a college event was over and I am no more expected to put up any banners and break my leg doing that, not to decide on the designs and the look of the event, not sitting cross-legged in front of a manager of a expected sponsor and persuading him to agree to our demands and heeding to none of his, not having any juniors cribbing about the work I gave them but at the end appreciating the final outcome.

A similar feeling- When suddenly you receive a mail from a school friend of yours about her getting engaged the next weekend and then it strikes you that you are as old as her and its about time to take Life as seriously and accept your parents still taking your decisions about life. The fear of seizure of the aimless wanderings and meetings I so loved.

And now it’s a similar feeling where I am almost a year experienced working in an IT company, have managed to fool myself and others in believing that I am doing good work and I am getting good work. There is again a fear of losing the trust you developed among your colleagues, a responsibility which forced you to get up at 8 in the morning, a desk which you decorated with some of your designs, some certificates and a toy basketball game, the 2 tea times with colleagues where you gossip about topics ranging from your manager to the hot chicks in Infosys.

I might not have learnt much in these “similar feelings” (because I still make the same mistakes of developing an attachment with all I meet and feeling sad after loosing them) but these sure are a few moments in my life which I find worth capturing because I just hope there’ll be less chaos at some point where the dots would actually connect and bring out the wannabe ROCKSTAR in me and I might forget all these and lose an opportunity of having a good laugh at myself. Till that time comes I still wish to keep wondering about less important things in Life-does CLEAN SHAVE or a BEARD looks better on me. ;)

Lalu, Mannu & Bush on a LOCAL CONFERENCE with VoIP

This was written long back… but as I am inching closer to completing my “Service Agreement” with Wipro these are the experiences I’ll remember forever.

19^th March 2009

7823_22.bin & 7823_final.pcap

Solved my first ticket(actually the closest to solving one in all my tries). It was regarding a conference call( they call it Local Conference.. I wonder why ;) )

Scenario-

Bush on his last visit to India heard a lot about Lalu turning around the fortunes of Indian Rails and Bush in his last bid to save his ass (after his Afghanistan blunders) wanted to follow a similar model in US with the trains there making huge losses every year. Thus he calls up Manmohan Singh to arrange a conference call with Lalu.

Now Mannu first calls Lalu with an invitation for conference without Lalu knowing that Bush is going to join along. Then Bush receives his invitation from Mannu. Then Mannu suddenly presses the ‘Join’ button and Lalu, Mannu and Bush are put on a conference call.

Leg M, assume its Manmohan Singh- has 3 codecs G.729, G.726 & G.711A(the initiator of the conference)

Leg L (Lalu Prasad Yadav)- A handicapped leg of the conference with only one codec G.729

Leg B(George Bush)- Has only one codec- G.726

Codec- Assume it to be a language… M understands English, Hindi and Bihari (yes Lalu and Mannu have been chaddi friends, it was only when Mannu decided to be a finance minister and Lalu decided to do a finance ghotala, they had to part ways)… L obviously is a Bihari and B understands English(and maybe some Urdu from his Pakistan connections but we’ll ignore it for once) … So M acts as the interpreter.

Client says- When the conference is established after sometime B speaks in English but for some reason M ignores him and replies in Bihari.. thus B is unable to understand and goes off the conference

In Layman terms-

The client believes that Manmohan does not wish to give out some internal policies to Bush and abuses him instead, in bihari. But Mannu does not know that Rabri Devi (Lalu’s wife) had done her MS along with Bush and thus he knows a bit of bihari.  Thus Bush feeling insulted and frustrated leaves the conference immediately.

My observation- M is a nice guy(everyone knows that) and understands the criticality of the conference and thus passes appropriate messages to both the persons.

In Layman terms-

Mannu is a smart guy and is also a close friend of Rabri thus knows about all her pre-marital affairs and thus continues talking to Bush in English avoiding suspicions by Lalu about Bush-Rabri affair.

I spent 10 days understanding the behavior of these people and for me all were nice to each other… understanding how vital it was and continuing the peace conference… but the client being adamant on his point wanted me to visit his office 20 kms from my place and test it along with him so that I could see what he had reported as an issue.

Ketan( my Team Lead ):You have this last day for the tests here, else you need to visit their office… and that’s one hell!!!

Me: Sure I’ll have my final tests along with Sourabh( my other TL ) and let you know.

Testing Session with Sourabh: It’s working fine( the conference is not consistent In Layman Terms- Mannu is a b@$t@Vd and insulting Bush)… What were you doing???

Main ghabra gaya… Sahem gaya… ab to watt lagi

Had a chance of running a few more tests before Sourabh could return from lunch… I was unable to reproduce the scenario, i.e. I was unable to see any problem with the conference, as observed by Sourabh

Observation(First in Layman terms):

But suddenly Mannu bored by long conversation between Lalu and Bush and realizing that this would continue for long, goes back to his reclining chair by putting the phone on SPEAKER so that he could easily help interpreting. But to his surprise Bush felt insulted by the indifference shown by Mannu, takes it personally and leaves the conference immediately. And this is when Mannu actually ABUSES Bush.

Frustrated with switching between handsets every now and then, LUCK BY CHANCE I put the Initiator( M ) on speaker… AND the voice path goes down between B and L. So the problem was when the initiator changes the device… in this case from handset to speaker.

This issue had been raised 6 months back by @V@Y@ to my organization. It was tested by both @V@Y@ Development team and my team… I wonder how every person testing this always switched the device and I in those 10 days of testing never for once did so.

That’s DODO J…

Lesson Learnt-

Trust your bad luck… cause that is the only companion you’ve had all your life.