My Thoughts !

Few weeks back I've blogged What's Next? and then the answer for that. I was a little disappointed. I mean, I was asked to join the team for making the GUI happen. There was a failure effort earlier and so I was not allowed to take any bold decision of changing something afraiding that it might not go. With much less resources, a cryptic code base of the existing GUI to understand and very difficult deadline, we did do a wonderful job of making it happen. When I asked 'What next?' I thought that I would get a better answer. After all, I didn't demand a hike or a change in designation or to lead a team or to own a module. All I asked was 'What's next?'. And I was shown the door. Neither did I get a hike when I joined iView nor when I left iView and joined voicewing. Now where is the rewards for my efforts there? I was wondering and the answer came from a different place. Magesh, the guy from the onsite iView team.

Magesh & me always have skirmishes on what to do in the GUI. He would say struts and I would say no and go ahead without it; I would say no to JAX-RPC and he would go ahead and create the contracts with other team for that; and so on. Finally it all went to a point and then he either left the team/asked to leave the team - I don't know which actually happened, but he was out of the scene. Then it was all my decision of what to do and what not. Almost everything was smooth after that. Few clients had a chance to work on the GUI, while it was in testing and their manager gave a very positive feedback about the performance, look and the usability of the product in a manager's call. Post production, it is still running without much issues. As our Director said, 'I didn't hear anything about the GUI so far, means its sailing smoothly'. Now I joined a new team and then our man Magesh comes out of the blue and offers me a job in a startup company. Now isn't it a little weird? I did a lot and the one's who actually got benefited, showed me the door. On the other hand one who was literally kicked off the team by me, is opening up a better opportunity for me. With more than 150% of my current sal (grrrrrr. the hr people here already complain that I'm over paid) and a designation of Tech Manager with my 2.8 yrs experience, this looks like a very good one to me. Now I'm trying to find out a reason why I should stay back. Not sure of what I'm going to do. As usual, let me see ...

The first time I heard about this book was from Jo. She said its a very good book. Its written by a IIT guy. It said 'What not to do at IIT'. I've asked Jo to get me the book, but meanwhile, iView team presented it as a parting gift to me. I was getting bored at my new desk waiting for a PC to arrive and so started reading this. Only then I knew its not about the author's life in IIT, rather its a novel :-) I started it yesterday around 2.30 PM and before I left the office by 7, I've almost completed it. The flow was so perfect and you would get immersed into it once you start it.

This is all about life of 3 guys at IIT. Alok, Ryan and Hari. The whole book is written in first person in the view of Hari. Half of the book is very fast moving and the rest is comparatively little slow.

The novel starts on the first day at IIT and ends at the last day of their course. All thru the course, these guys get a GPA as 5.* out of 10, while the toppers get 9.*. And that's why the name of the novel is "5 point someone". Each of them are different type of characters. Ryan, the smart & cute guy, comes from a rich background; has no responsibilities and never worries about anything, including writing back to his parents abroad. Alok is just opposite background. He comes a from a poor family; cares about his family and has a responsibility of his sister's marriage & dad's medical bill. Our man Hari is just in the middle of them. All he needs is a good grade in exams to get introduced to one of his Prof as his daughter's boy friend. Now with different backgrounds, different characters and different responsibilities how do they manage to get out of IIT and were their goals satisfied? That is the story line is all about.

When reaching the end, I was reading the convocation stuff, I thought it should have ended in a much more practical way, rather a little dramatic. I guess the author &// reviewers also felt like that and so he changed it as a dream of Hari and moved towards a bit more practical one. On the whole, the book is a very good read and worth of that 95 bucks you are going to pay.

Thinking on my college days, I've spent 6 long years in two PSGs. First 3 yrs with PSG CAS, where education & discipline is a very distant goal & you can virtually do anything you want. And the other 3 yrs at PSG Tech, where education & discipline is the primary goal. With completely different environments and people with completely different mind sets, the transition was little hard for me. But no matter whatever the environment was, I still my good friends from both institutions and definitely had fun and enjoyed both. May be one day I'll write a book on "What not to do at PSGs".

My rating would be a 5 point zero, in the scale of 1-5 :-)

In a previous blog I've said that I'll talk with the director get to know what I'll be doing. Nothing got changed. I was again mapped in the same project, which is quite a surprise for me. I've clearly said that if there is no new work coming, I'm not interested in working in this gui. No new work coming, still I was not moved to another module. Then the first option remained for me is to look into some other team. Murali suggested me a team where they were looking for 'people with spark'. But the trouble was its not java but .net. I thought for a while, and then accepted the interview. To my surprise, the interview was not much technical. I was given some puzzles to solve. I've not solved puzzles for a long time and I'm not very good in that. Surprisingly, I did clear the interview. After me clearing the interview, my director gave me more options and was willing to move into a different module. But it was a little late I guess. By the time, I was prepared for the move. Now the official process is over and I'll be shifting tomorrow to the new team. My new project is about voip over dsl. Check this. Although I've not assigned with any particular work, I'll be working to enhance the system and provide new features. The sad part is that my new seat is in the TNagar office and I've to commute into the city. The good part is so many shops around for food :-)

Two days back, around 9.30 PM Ravi got a call that one of our team mate met with an accident and is in a hospital near Thiruvanmiyur signal. As we know him, he is a really tensed person. He actually over reacts for few silly things and will get tensed easily. He is an absent minded person (than me). So the first thought that we had was that he might have driven with some other thread in his mind and might have made the accident. However, last week only me and him went and bought a helmet for him and so there will not be anything serious. But there was a surprise waiting for us in the hospital. He was not admitted in the hospital. He was simply sitting in the ground near the gate and crying. He was not having any injuries in his body. His friends who were there said that he was crying for more than an hour and was not responding to any of their questions. No one knew what exactly happened. All they know was that there was an accident and looks like he was not the reason for it. Someone else who brought him here was the culprit and he is already in police custody. Now nothing to do, we tried to enquire him, which was a useless effort. I thought that he is in shock and will be recovering in the morning after a good sleep. Only when we lifted him to take him into the hospital, we noticed a small swelling in his head. That's when we realized that things were little serious. We immediately took him to Apollo hospital in an auto. The doctor in the emergency ward arranged an ambulance to take him to Apollo's neuro specialty hospital in Mount road.

There, a CT scan was performed and the doctor showed us the blood clots in this brain. Its not very dangerous, he explained. It will heal in a week or 10 days. But if more blood goes into the brain, then he is in serious trouble and we need an operation to cure him. He said its good to observe keeping him in the ICU. We agreed and he was admitted in the ICU.

Meanwhile, we were able to collect info about the accident. Looks like he went to meet a doctor for something. After that while he was crossing the road to take his bike, he was hit by another bike. It was a small accident and a small injury. Only thing it was in a very wrong place. It was a direct hit for one of the blood vessels inside the skull and it got puntured. If not hit on that particular place, he would have got up in the spot and scolded the guy and walked to his bike. But things doesn't always happen right.

The news about his health condition, we got the next day, was little different. The other doctors said that he needs an operation to get cured or else it will be dangerous and the same day evening, they performed an operation as soon as his dad & bro arrived from Madurai. Today we went there to meet him. He was in a little pathetic condition. His hands and legs were tied to bed, because whenever he is conscious, he tries to remove the bandage in wound around his head. The good thing is he is able to identify us (he was not identifying his dad or room mates yesterday). He was clear when he talked to us. He asked us to untie him. We have to explain him the situation, and getting tensed is no way going to help him.

Its sometimes very difficult to face this situation. One moment you are walking in the road, then you wake up only to find that you were hit by a bike and had an operation in your head and for around 2 days you were in an unconscious state. As I told earlier, he already over reacts to silly things and he could not even digest that it has happened to him. After talking to us, looks like he understood a little that staying relaxed is the only way to get out of the ICU. He seems to understand it. He is clinically alright, but mentally he is upset. Lets see what happens in few days.

Meanwhile, if you have faith in God or prayers, please pray for him.

For a long time, I've not written a blog about a book or movie. Let me try to post more. This week was a Multiple Personality Disorder Movie week for me :-) Happen to watch 'Anniyan' in the weekend and 'Hide and Seek' during a weekday.

Anniyan is yet an another Sankar's movie. Every scene and every frame is crafted in a grand manner with perfection. Add Vikram's perfection to it. The movie is a real feast. Especially the songs. The first song 'kumari ...' was not a very good one, but the location and picturization makes it a very good one. The best visual treat is the 'randakka, randakka' song. Every frame is colorful to the lowest detail. For example, for the line 'tentu kottai interval muruke', Kamal, Rajini and other actors faces are drawn on the big rocks in the background. It would have at least taken 2 days to paint them and it is shown in the movie for 2 seconds.

Forget the rich presentation. The story line is very new to Tamil cinema. In like the 'connect the dots to get picture' section in some kids magazine. All along the movie, Sankar leaves some dots. Finally in the climax, he gives us the hint to start the drawing and ends the movie. Puzzled, if we think back and connect all the dots, you will see the real picture - Ambi is not having multiple personality disorder. He just acts like that so that he punish the people and to marry the gal he loves. I had lengthy arguments with my teammates and have to prove this theory. Only Dinesh got it before I said. Others were surprised by the hidden story line.

If you have watched this movie, think about the possibility of Ambi not having disorder and still you didn't get it, watch the movie again to get the dots.