Changing times

As we see the world shrink into a global village and technology bridge the geographic boundaries, The emergence of the poorer countries challenge the super powers of the last century we are also witnessing other changes that are very disturbing. Especially the events in Mumbai in the last few weeks have been an alarm of sorts. Even the beast within the human race has become more advanced and ruthless.

Its sad to see people use religion, nationalism, etc. selectively to accomplish their selfish goals. Before I look beyond our border I feel we are not honest with ourselves. Our government is playing to the galleries when it says the same story after every blast. They have been busy covering up their own intelligence flaws. We all know there are insurgent groups within our country who exploit human emotions and play the divide and conquer policy. Some of them are hand in glove with the political parties. We need the common man to understand these tricks.

All of us especially the educated types need to participate in the public life and help the ignorant mass understand these games. The educated crowd rarely votes and are often taken for granted by the political parties. We strongly need the educated and the financially sound people to take more social responsibility especially in educating the others.

I believe our education system is more focussed towards producing many doctors and engineers who are completely driven by their material goals. We need a system which focusses strongly on value based system. Which would make our society shun the social, economic and class inequity. A society where there would be peace and justice in all spheres of life.

It is very easy to be critical and have an opinion about every other person but to change the system a we all need to work on changing the way each of us percieve ourselves and whats around us. What we see around us is a identity based politics and in a country like India there are a million identities and a billion people. You could be a hindu, muslim, christian or any other faith or any sect/caste within it. You could speak any of the 1000+ languages/dialects but we all are the creation of the same creator and have to return to the same end. We need to focus on the values that focus on truth and justice in all spheres.

In short our politics should move from identity based to value based. I feel we are indulged in a lot of mudslinging but never take responsibility about anything. We as a people as a human race need to come out of it. We are at the end of the day accountable.

Not sure if my thoughts make sense but they always haunt me and Its best I share them through my blog.

Some changes hurt

I started jogging yesterday near my home in one of the parks on rose garden road. I entered the park for the first time yesterday but I have driven through rose garden road forever. I actually dint know its real name till recently. I used to call it the shady road. because of the trees on either sides and they give shade to the entire road. At times even when it rains the whole road is protected from the rain. It is one of the most beautiful sights in Bangalore.

Just when I returned home after the jog I read an editorial in the paper which spoke about the damages the metro rail projects would cause. It dint occur to me till then that the parks along rose garden road would be damaged to accomodate the rail line and even the Jayanagar station would replace one of the parks. I always felt so good about the metro project but this thought spoilt my mood.

Now Bangalore is all set to graduate from the garden city to a concrete jungle. Im just hoping against hope that the damaged yet to be caused is minimised.

Feeling blue

First month at this new job has been a pretty tiring and hectic experience. I got into a datawarehousing project for a US based finance organization. I have been part of similar projects earlier but this one is different in its own way. Frankly speaking its been a boring experience so far. Main reason being the connectivity issues to the client network. Though the work is good it takes ages to even type a simple query and get the result.

The only interesting part in the last month has been the trip to Dharwad last week to attend Altaf's wedding. The trip was very refreshing. I visited Hubli Dharwad for the first time. The Bangalore wedding's are very different. In Bangalore everything is pretty commercial and things happen in a jiffy. Life in smaller towns is still like the Bangalore I knew as a kid.

After the wedding all of us decided to take a day off and go to Dandeli for river rafting. But no water was let out of the dam and the dam thing got cancelled. It is the second time my river rafting plan got cancelled. Anyway there is always a next time.

Of late, I have been a bit confused about most things and the distance to the office and long working hours have also made the situation pretty stressful. Even the newspapers these days carry pretty sad stories like the US economy crash, terrorist attacks and dirty politics going with it. In between all this depressing stuff I enjoyed the Mohali test victory. The Aussie dominance had made test cricket boring.

This post is very mixed up like the thoughts in my head. Hopefully before the next post I get things sorted out and write something more meaningful.

New beginning...yet again...

Its another new beginning for me. Its the second new job in the same year. Life seams the same when you move from one software services company to another. However, this is the first non Indian company I have joined. It is a bit different and since IBM is an older and bigger company I see the processes are more stable and are more strictly followed. It looks more performance oriented than my previous companies, by the look of it. But I guess what meets the eye in the first few weeks in just the tip of the ice berg.

Another interesting part has been starting work in ramazan after months of rest. And the office is 22 kms away that makes it even worse. Leaving to work in the morning at 8 and returning home at 10 pm after taravi. Its tough but better than doing nothing at home. My project is still in its beginning phase and since we have no connection to the server. Its been all planning and learning. Work should begin with full flow post ramazan.

Other than work life has been pretty slow not much on the personal front and even all my friends are busy. For now I have planned to start jogging and exersizing and a couple of trips are planned post ramazan. Other than that its been pretty easy going. I am looking forward to some action pretty soon.

Changes yet again

Lots of new stuff has been happening around me of late. First of all, its my last week in Satyam. I will be joining IBM next week. This was expected as there are no projects in my area of work in Satyam Bangalore at the moment and sitting on the bench sucks big time. Well, how life in IBM will be again depends on the kind of work I'll have to do there. I feel its another decission with an element of risk. Lets see how things go.

Life has been pretty slow till now. Since June a lot has happened around me but not much with me. I guess I expected it to go really fast since I joined Satyam but its not exactly been as per plans. Either things go too fast or too slow. Thats expected in the IT industry. One good side of changing the job right now is that this ramazan will go pretty peacefully. First week will go in my notice period and rest within the first few days in a new company. I hope it will be a peaceful and blessed month.

For now, I just want to start afresh in a new job. I expect some action post Ramazan both personally and professionally. Watch this space for more updates.

Kerala weekend

It was a much needed weekend after more than two months of highly inactive existance. Toms got married on saturday in Kottayam in Kerala. Toms was my colleague in TCS and Ive been out of touch with most of my TCS colleagues for the last 8 months almost. It was an interesting reunion.

Sarfraz, Manoj and I met in the Bangalore railway station on friday evening. Tom's roomies Adarsh and Smitesh also joined us. We met them for the first time. The train left Bangalore station at 5 15 PM and it was a pretty interesting journey. Manoj and I dint get a reservation initially but managed to get our waiting list reservation converted to a sleeper berth. The journey was pretty good. We all had a lot to catch up about. Especially with Manoj. Both of us left TCS and we realised that its the same story anywhere in the IT industry.

We reached Ernaukulam in the morning around 6 and took a bus and walked till we reached Ettumanoor. Got ready and went to Tom's place. We had a traditional mallu breakfast of Appams with curries. Tom's home and surrounding areas were really spacious. I really long to live in such open spaces at some stage in my life. The speed(lack of it) with which the life moves out there is really good. I might plan another holiday there.

The wedding began at 10 30 AM in the church. It was the first christian wedding I attended and it was very different from what I expected. I had imagined the kind of weddings shown on TV. The wedding was very simple but the hospitality was unmatched. The wedding ceremony lasted for almost two hours. After which we had a very good luncha nd headed back to our room. Smitesh and Adarsh left us there. They had some other work to catch up with. Sarfraz, Manoj and I slept till late in the evening. In the night we went out and had our dinner in a restaurant called Shalimar. The food looked good but the coconut oil smell made it taste pretty ordinary. It was a good experience walking through a mallu village without knowing their language.

Toms arranged for a vehicle for us the next morning to check out Kumarakom. We were accompanied by our driver Kochi and a guide Shiju. We were very lucky to have Shiju with us as he could speak Hindi.We left at around 9 in the morning and had our breakfast on the way. It was a simple south Indian breakfast with a unique Kerala flavour. I stuck to my favourite appam's. We reached Kumarakom around 11 and had a 2 hour long boat ride. The weather and the backwater sight was really breathtaking. We dint have much time but the ride was amazing. I could see many house boats and other cruise options. I long to come and see them again whenever I get another chance. We stopped in the middle where we tried some local fried fish. It tasted very fresh and thats another reason I have to go back to Kerala again. However, one thing caught my eye is the weed growth in the back waters. It has the potential to destroy the natural beauty we have but we see absolutely no action by the local government to address the issue.

After the boat ride we left back towards Kottayam. We had a traditional fish and rice lunch Kerala style. Manoj and I took the 4 PM bus back to Bangalore and Sarfraz left towards Chennai that night for his US visa interview. The return journey was a very painful one. It lasted about 14 hours and even the AC bus drive was very bumpy. Overall it was an interesting journey and hope more of them with my friends in the near future.

Change needed

Its more than two months since I returned home. It has been perhaps the slowest two months in a very long time. Even more so because the previous four months were really eventful. Everyday in Japan was eventful, one way or the other.

However, there have been certain interesting events I have to mention. First and foremost, the arrival of Faisal(sister's son) has been a very happy moment for the entire family. Especially to see him learn new things and see changes in his size and behaviour is really fun.

Next important event is we moved to a new home in JP nagar. Its a big change since we lived in T block since the last 21 years atleast. I remember Kulsum was born and around the same time we came to our T block home(I was 5 years old then). Now Kulsum is in her final year Engineering.

The new home is very good. My dad has put in lots of effort time and money into it. I must say it is a dream home but still all of us miss the old home very much. Especially the T block neighbourhood was the best we could have asked for.

As they say every good thing comes to an end and every end is a new beginning. Life has begun afresh in our new home and looking forward for some developments on the professional front as well. After absolutely no work since reporting in the Bangalore office and getting a couple of interesting offers I am in a fix what to do. I have been thinking a lot about moving on and starting afresh. It definitely is not an easy decission to take.

Its time I consider all possible aspects and outcomes and take a decission with ofcourse help of God Inshallah things should work. I am sure all things will have stabilised before I update my blog next time. Bye till then