continuation from Diary of Anonymous Cubicle Dweller – I : Mysore

The F1 Club

In Mysore we did not have internet access and only way to ‘kill’ time was to browse through ‘personal pages’. There were many games available, most popular were Stick Cricket, Gold Mine and Chopper. But the thing that attracted me the most was F1 Club at Jaykrishna’s page. I logged into it and was amazed to see the quality of content. When I joined it just had ~200 members. The most interesting part of club was Fantasy League, where we used to form teams, predict and after every race would check our standings. Newbie section contained details on aerodynamics/mechanical aspects [flash demos], F1 facts, statistics and a lot more. The bulletin board was much better than the BB we have.

Just after 2nd anniversary of the club, we had to shut it down as JK moved to secured location. But by that time, the club had moved from personal pages to Sparsh>Clubs and has reached a membership of more than 3000 users.

Anonymous Cubicle Dweller

After training I was posted to Bangalore, it was time just after ‘the 2005 flood’, city was messy and buses used to take ages to reach Silk Board. First day at office was a long wait; I was assigned to ‘research unit’ and was excited to work on something interesting. We had to wait till 4 PM to meet our HR and then I was told that I have been placed in J2EE team.

I was allocated a cubicle; I was sharing it with a very senior employee. He asked me few questions about Java and then gave me a set of presentation to go through, I read those presentations more than 20 times in next 2 weeks and did not understand a single word. No one used to talk, not in my cubicle but also in surrounding cubicles. Everyone would be in place by 8, leave by 5 and no one ever talked. I was confused, everyone around were senior employees whom to ask my doubts, and how to tell them that I am so dumb that I can’t understand anything at all.
In the bus too, no one used to talk, everyone seemed to be tired and lost. I was not happy and was not expecting this kind of life. But things changed as other people joined the team, groups started forming and people used to talk. But a bigger things was about to happen and that will change a lot…in next part.

The journey started three years back; that was one of the greatest moments of life. This was my dream company and whatever I was standing outside the gates of famed campus. First day, Ali and I were just looking around amazed by the beauty and facilities. Next day was the induction, sitting in front row (but one) we (Geo, Cijal, John, Ali, Owais and few more) were mesmerized by presentations and were dreaming of a bright future.

Training days were awesome, staying in a (~) five star hotel, doing some easy assignments, going through ‘champak’ and clearing exams, ordering pizza on every Raceday and kicking out roommate so we friends can enjoy F1. The basketball tournament where we had India – China in finals was amazing. Spending most of the weekend in the pool or bowling alley and going out to Dhaba for dinner…OMG! I am going to miss all that action.

I still remember the first salary, it was in 4 digits but still it felt like a treasure, I wanted to go to Strand and spend everything (and I almost did it). I bought my first digital camera and used it to cover Mysore Dussehra and Vintage car show.

The Gurukul : Gurukul – The GEC newsletter was the first assignment that I got involved in. The team was full of editors but there was not a single designer, I joined the team and had to release in 3 days. Amee, Kedar and I worked continuously for three nights and got it released. Its release on 5^th September (teacher’s day) in front of a Chinese and Mauritius batch was one of the most memorable experiences. I met a lot of people while working on Gurukul and a few became friends for life.

Harsha tagged me for the expansionist Meme. Here it goes:

Please thoughtfully consider the following, and choose one item for each of the categories below. (Be sure to describe your reasons for choosing)

One religious work from a non-familiar tradition you’ll read:

Zen. No particular book as such, but I want to read more about it.

One music video–that you like–from your “least likely to listen to’ genre:

Not technically a music video, but I did like the video of Wesley dancing in his college. And since I don’t listen to Tamil songs, it fits the “least likely to listen to genre” bit as well

A book from a genre you almost never read, that you have read, or you will read (promise!):

Fantasy Science Fiction, I was never a fan of that. Only books from that genre I have read are Hitchhiker’s Guide and Eye in the sky, which I did not like much. Would love to read more from Philip K Dick as his movies have impressed me a lot.

Somewhere you’d never thought to go on holiday/vacation, and why it might be fun to go there?

I have thought of vacationing at every place in the world, so it’s a very hard question for me to answer. Most probably it would be to climb Mt. Everest.

A specific food you’ve never tried, but will because of this meme, honest!:

Vegetarians always have limited option, so not much choice. I would like to try each and every variety of fruit that we get.

A sport or game you really hate, or haven’t tried yet, but are willing to give one more go:

American football, I don’t hate the game, I love watching it but have never got a chance to try it out, will surly try that. Or possible I will try Baseball or Baseketball

A style of dance you probably won’t try (we won’t make you promise on this one):

I will never try any form of dance. Probably sometime, I might dance the ‘There is a scorpion in my shirt and I can’t get it out’ dance.

A career job you don’t feel you’re suited for, and why:

I can’t be a Pointy Haired Boss, mainly because I don’t have pointy hair.

An item that’s “thinking out of the box’ for this meme that hadn’t been included:

This meme could have questions about your wild wish or weird wish. Another question would be If you had chance to choose your name by yourself, what it would be?..

It’s there’s one thing in life you wanted to do, and will do because of this meme, what will it be?

I would love to participate in extreme sports, but I don’t think I will ever get a chance to do so. I will definitely try to do some cycling related stunts.

I tag Wesley, NutC, NB42, Prazy and everyone else.

Excerpt from a GSB student’s blog :

Because of this place, I will graduate with a changed mind, a changed perspective and a changed heart. I will take that into my workplace, into my relationships and into my community. Because of my fellow classmates and those who came to Stanford before us, I can change the world around me. I used to think the GSB motto, “Change Lives, Change Organizations, Change the World,” was lofty at best and unattainable at worst.

I was wrong.

After reading this I could just say WOW! He just explained everything about the Stanford in such a simple way, amazing! Isn’t this kind of experience we want from our colleges? Isn’t this what we want to do?

And a question to myself : Isn’t this worth waiting for, worth trying hard once again?

For last few months, weekends have been a bit boring for me, as most of the friends from college have either gone on-site or have gone for higher education. But this weekend was AWESOME! AWESOME! It is rare that in just 48 hours all the hobbies can be taken care of.

Weekend started with a marathon five hour chat with a friend, there was a lot to discuss and it a occasion when friends from other side of the world can chat with you.

Saturday morning we (rb, prsn and scorpion032) went for Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary on a photography trip and shot a lot of birds and few crocodiles too [pics and details of the trip coming soon].

Sunday morning there was nothing to do and Prasoon and Me where thinking how to kill time, we checked online and found few movie tickets available, we made a run for it and caught the ‘Speed Racer’. For Speed Racer I just have one line, it is the the Chocolate Factory of Willy Wonka for the racing fans.

Evening there was GP and there is nothing better than watching it with f1 passionate friends. At night there was a party and we ate like crazy.

What a weekend it was, travelling, photography, F1, cricket, food, movies all in one go. And the best part of it is that nothing was pre-planned. This weekend I got the much awaited mail too, am so excited.

Geo, great friend for last seven years is leaving today for his MBA. Memories go back to college when we used to sit together in class and joke around full day. During cricket matches we will stand around at the local coffee shop and watch match while sipping lime juice, When there was match is Cochin we will guys will go together early morning and find the best places in stadium, if it was exam time we friends will sit together and he will make us understand difficult subjects like DSP and Software Engineering, when our exams won’t go well he would be the person to write a petition to Controller of Exam and we will put our signature.

Here in Bangalore we had to lot of fun too, at work and at home, studied for GMAT, applied to colleges and handled rejections, played a lot of games including Brian Lara Cricket, Geometry Wars, Burn Out and Collin McRae Rally, went for cricket match, made some funny videos, started YAP, built (tried) Web2Live and saw a lot of movies.

He has this amazing multitasking ability, during college exams he will come to our place, watch a movie with headphones and have a book in other hand and still managed to understand better than all of us. Now days he listens to podcast, reads feeds and watches cricket match at the same time and you ask him any question he would be able to answer. He is a gadget freak and owns a lot of gadgets and whenever we wanted to buy something he would be the person to consult.

He is a great guy, a genius who can go through all the information available and can summarize in the best possible way. I have learnt a lot from him and will surly miss him a lot.

Good Luck Geo as well as Cijal and Lipika, hope you guys have lot of fun.

Geo’s response : Thank you Veetrag for such a nice and touching tribute. Although its a bit Hollywoodish, because it doesnt point out my flaws and blemishes, but the I dont mind. I ll be Russell Crowe in Cinderella Man, or A Beautiful Mind.
Thank you everyone else for your wishes

All-genius, All-buffoon

I wish to incorporate many qualities from Feynman’s life, either it be his free spirit nature, out of box thinking, pursuing interests in many varied fields, to make things as simple as possible or his approach towards life.

For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled. – Feynman in his report to NASA about Challenger Disaster.