Bored? No. Blessed.

I'm dead bored.

I've been on the first shift for the last two months. My work gets over at 2pm, after which I have a heavy lunch at the office cafeteria and head back home.

This is where the problem begins. I finished my last book, one by James Herriot, yesterday night. Now I have nothing to do. No book to read, no computer to tinker around with ( on account of my laptop's motherboard having given up the ghost ), and worst of all, no company as everybody else is off at their jobs. I'm just lounging around on my bed, playing mp3s on my phone in the background while I tap away this post. My tennis classes don't begin until Saturday and I can't buy my next set of books until I get my salary at the end of the month, which is in another two days. So I guess I'll have to rough it out for two days.

You know, I've wished many a time, to be able to spend time like this. Where my time belongs solely to me. No deadlines to meet, no chapters to cram, no work to finish. Just to be able to sit lost in thought and allow your mind to wander along any path of its choice. Its a luxury really. But unfortunately, when we ARE able to do that, we call it boredom. So I believe I should be savouring these moments and filing away these memories in my memory palace, available whenever I want to reexperience them, a lot like Dr Hannibal Lector in the Silence of the Lambs ( the book, I've never seen the movie ). I shall proceed to do that now. And if you're reading this post, now is a good time to step away from your computer/cubicle/desk and go to a window and look out. At the wonderful sky, with its billowing clouds, at the trees, the birds. Close your eyes and hold that image in your head a moment. Take a deep breath and realize how lucky you are, if you're able to forget your worries, atleast for a moment. It means that no matter what, your life isn't too bad. There are many who can't put down their worries for even a moment, so you're blessed indeed. Amazing isn't it?

PS: I just realized how my mood changed as I was writing this post. I started off feeling bored and have ended up feeling like I'm in rapture! And I think this post reflects that change. Now I better get back to enjoying the sheer feeling of being young, alive and active.

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Sent from Amit's Motorola A1200, one helluva phone!

So its been some time...

Life, for me, has changed a lot since I wrote that last post on how I managed to sleep during my night shifts. I did 2 months on the general shift after that and am currently at the fag end of my 2 months on the first shift. I bought a lovely little wonder machine called the Pulsar 200, learnt that you can have fun in Chennai too if you know the right places, got a salary hike after my confirmation appraisal at work, renewed my acquintance with VC++ and have begun to read voraciously. I've also learnt a lot in these past few months, and perhaps, become slightly more cynical and sarcastic as well. The rose tinted glasses of a naive young man fresh out of college are definitely off for good.

My bike is a wonderful little darling. Fast and ready to cater to my every whim at the slightest hint. And stylish. Very very stylish. Being able to pull out of a traffic gridlock with little or no effort, while leaving everybody else behind is definitely good for the soul, not to mention the ego. And then there's the stoplight phenomenon. People come up to you at the stoplights and want to know everything about the bike. I dispense knowledge with a condescending look on my face and then, when the light turns green, leave them to breath my engine exhaust. Its a lovely feeling, to be able to do that.

As for reading, I've decided to spend around 1000 to 2000 bucks a month on books. This is something I've dreamt of doing from my school days, and I've managed to accumulate quite a library now. And I'm trying out new authors as well as buying some of the classics I've always wanted to read, but never got around to.

Then of course, there's my guitar. I bought one when I was in Hyderabad and I like to think I'm steadily improving, though my room mates might say otherwise. I can play Hotel California pretty well now, though of course, if my room mates hear it one more time, they'll probably puke ;-)

I played tennis for two years at the Trivandrum Tennis Club, back when I was in high school. Even though I never did learn to serve properly, I still love the game and I brought back my old trusty dunlop racquet when I last visited Trivandrum. A friend of mine and I have been going around all the Tennis Clubs here in Chennai trying to decide which would be the best place to join, and I found a place today, that holds much promise. So, if that works out, thats one more thing I can strike off from my list of things to do.

Yes, life is good at the moment. The only dark cloud on the horizon is the untimely demise of my heavyweight HP laptop. But I'm trying my best to get it fixed, so THAT cloud might vanish soon enough. I thank God that I'm a happy and content man. Work is good, social life is good, I wear informals to office on most days, I get good food and am able to manage a good night's sleep most times, even though I have to be up at 3am in order to get to office at 5, when my shift starts. And I've found a good church to go to. I'm definitely counting my blessings!
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Sent from Amit's Motorola A1200, one helluva phone!

The ground I walk on..

Testing if photo blogging will work..

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Sent from Amit's Motorola A1200, one helluva phone!

Its alive!

Count Amicula : Muhahahaha! It works Igor, it works! Now onward we march, to world domination and free pizza for all!

Igor : Yeth mathter. I want mine with werewolf topping, do you think we'll get that mathter?

Count Amicula : Indeed, Igor my faithful friend! The world is our oyster, which we shall pry open with our Mings!

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Sent from Amit's Motorola A1200, one helluva phone!

MoBlog

The Blindfolded One, one of my fellow brethren of the EZX cult ( Don't know what EZX is? Go google. ) told me yesterday that he's begun to blog from his Moto Ming. That got me all fired up, so I spent around an hour getting the native email app on my Ming to work with GMail. And this post is the first fruit of my toil. Now, pardon me while I keep my fingers crossed and hit 'Send' while muttering my prayers to the god of the GSM..

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Sent from Amit's Motorola A1200, one helluva phone!

Learning to Sleep...

As I've mentioned before, my company is a great company. They know that most workers tend to feel drowsy after a nice heavy lunch at the cafeteria or after sitting in front of the computer for 4 or 5 hours. So what did they do? They went and bought chairs that actively discourage people from falling asleep on them. Good for the company, bad for me.

I really hate these chairs. Why? Because I'm of the old school. I like my chairs to have a seat, a back, four legs and nothing more. In case such a chair is not available, I'll prefer a rock to these new fangled pseudo-chairs, which you need a degree in rocket science to actually make it sittable in. These chairs have a gazillion levers and buttons. One to raise the seat, one to lower it, another to tilt it, one to raise the arm rests, one to change the inclination of the back and countless others. I suspect that these aren't mere chairs, they're actually living alien space ships capable of faster than light travel. They're just lurking around here in disguise, gathering data about life on earth. One day, we'll all come to our offices to see that all our chairs have gone. Instead of celebrating, as would be our natural reaction on seeing this happy occurance, we must realize instead that the end is near. All those spaceship-chairs have zoomed away to their home planet to bring back hordes of deadly fighter chairs to take over Planet Earth and enslave the human race. So treat those chairs with respect and kindness. After all, you can always badmouth them when they aren't looking.

Anyway, coming back to the point,I generally feel sleepy around 4am, after which I like to take a good solid nap until around 6am when the first buses start. My work gets over at 2.30am usually, so no, I do not sleep on company time, in case you were wondering. On the first day of my night shift, as I settled down into this alien looking chair to catch my Zzzz's I made the startling discovery that they weren't meant to be slept in. But I tried my best, and after a few intimate encounters with the floor, decided that I should look elsewhere for comfort. So I slept for around half an hour on the table, which really wasn't comfortable at all, and then spent the remaining time walking around bleary eyed and cursing loudly to myself.

On the second day, I realized that the urge to sleep at around 3.30 to 4am is a natural inborn human urge. What else would explain the loudly snoring guy sitting in the cubicle 2 spaces ahead of me or the three or four other tireless IT executives minutely examining the floor in one corner of the office? So, on the second day, I did a bit of reconnaissance and observed how more experienced night shifters manage to sleep. And I learnt quite a bit. For example, I learnt that if you weren't squeemish about sleeping on the floor, you could just turn over one of these horrid chairs and use the backrest as a pillow. But I don't want to sleep on the floor. Not after some of my team members claim to have seen rats in the office. I don't know if they were pulling my leg, but I really think that them pulling my leg is much more preferable to having a rat biting your toe off. So I had to figure out a way to sleep on this chair. After many vain efforts, I resigned myself to the bleary eyed-cursing loudly routine which I seemed to be getting good at. Thus went the second day.

And on the third day, much experimenting, and a few bruised elbows later, I figured out the most optimal method to use the chair so that it doesnt hurt you when you sleep. It didnt involve AutoCAD drawings, but it almost did. The position being too complicated to explain without diagrams, I shall not even try. Suffice to say that I slept like a baby. So soundly infact, that my Team Lead came and woke me up at around 6.30am when he came for his shift.

And I've been sleeping happily everafter. Give me two of these horrible chairs and a desk, and I can sleep and dream in a way that you can't even imagine. So if you ever happen to be at the Satyam Perungudi office some time after 2.30am (God forbid), and you hear a loud grating noise shaking the building, do not fear.

Its only me, snoring happily.

The Poor Lost Soul.

Yet another day, in the US. Yet another night shift for a poor lost soul in India with only pictures of his client company's products to comfort him.

Every evening at around 5pm, he sets out, risking the heat, the humidity, the traffic and the general bloody mindedness of most of the people around him rushing to get home. He trudges along the paths and dusty roads towards the bus stop so that he can catch a bus or an auto to office. Along comes an auto driver, one of those rascally bandits who specialize in daylight robbery, and asks him where he wants to go.
"Perungudi" says our poor lost soul.
"Ukkaru" says the auto driver.
Poor lost soul looks momentarily lost as his befuddled brain flips through the very thin tamil-malayalam-english dictionary in his head.
The rascally bandit begins to understand that this here is no common person. Here is a victim ripe for robbery. He begins to use sign language to indicate that the poor lost soul should step into his parlour.
Poor lost soul understands that the auto driver wants him to get in and sit.
He asks "etharey aakum?" And from the auto driver's blank look, realizes that no matter what people say, most of the really useful words are not the same in malayalam and tamil.
His tired brain begins rifling through the dictionary again.
Finally, he says "Evalo?"
Upon which the auto driver says "Enpathu rupaa, 80 rupees." and begins to recite that great essay written by the Father of All Auto Drivers Everywhere. It involves a lot of sign language as well. The poor lost soul grasps a few concepts; like "heavy traffic", "very long distance" etc.
The poor lost soul takes out his ragged bulging purse and begins the arduous task of finding money in between all those ATM slips and bus tickets. That is when he remembers he did'nt get his salary this month due to "procedural delays in the processing of his reimbursements." and that he's a very poor man, unless people start accepting ATM slips as currency. He sighs. He looks at the auto longingly and signs to the auto driver, that he, being a poor man, cannot afford 80 rupees. He realizes that some concepts like "poor" and "afford" do not translate easily to sign language. He sighs again and walks away. The auto driver curses him for having wasted his time and drives off. But the poor lost soul is not concerned about curses especially if they're in tamil. He doesnt understand them anyway. But nevertheless, his brain takes out another small, tightly bound book with the words "Restricted - under Parental Guidance Only" in large red letters on the cover, and files away the tamil curses for future reference and possible usage. He ends up standing at the bus stop for another 45min before the bus comes. Thus begins our poor lost souls day.

Another day. Another podi dosa for dinner. Another 10 or 20 so-called-coffees that night. Another million people with a zillion problems who expect you to solve them.

And that is only the tip of the iceberg. To really enjoy this blockbuster superhit show, watch this channel everyday on weekdays, at 5pm. Cry with the poor lost soul, laugh with him (rarely, and mostly cynically" and sweat with him (no puns or innuendos intended. This is Chennai. Here, sweating, like breathing, is considered one of the vital signs of life. Any person who does not sweat in Chennai is probably an alien wearing human skin.) Live the life of a Support Engineer.

PS: Actually, its really not that bad. Work is great, but my social life sucks like an old man with no teeth trying to eat an apple. But things will improve. Let me just get my bike. The new black pulsar 200 that has my name written on it. Yes, i did that on the fuel tank, when i went to their showroom and the security gaurd wasnt looking. I tried to rub it off, but it didnt go. And then...

Chennai!!!

Finally! After countless days of waiting!

No, its not the Second Coming, but its close, I've finally landed a project. It's in Chennai. For people familiar with Satyam, my circle is HCU-CES, sub circle SCM and the client I'm working for is a major chocolate and confectionary company. Sounds great doesn't it? But then, I'm doing shift timings, I'm on the night shift right now, and Chennai is more humid than a bluewhale's armpit. And no, we don't get free chocolates, so don't ask. And even if we did, what makes you think I'd give them to you? :)

I've been in Chennai for around 3 weeks now I think (Yes! I think!). The first two weeks were the most comfortable. The company pays for accomodation for two weeks, so I stayed at a hotel. A/C room, cable TV, a nice bed, fluffy pillows, enough to satisfy a simple soul like me. But then, after two weeks, I was brutally kicked out onto the street with all 5 pieces of my absolutely uncarriable luggage. That's when I realized that maybe, instead of having spent the weekends snuggling under the blankets with the A/C on high, I should have been looking for a place to stay. Anyway, as luck would have it, I found out that a couple of my college mates stay at Velacheri, which is rather close to my office at Perungudi. And so I barged into their home, and have taken over the best spot to sleep in, right under the fan. But all wounds take time to heal, and it'll be some time before I forget the comfort of that A/C room. In fact, there are nights when I silently weep when I remember how happy I was there, and how there were times when I felt too cold and turned the A/C off. Right now I sleep on the floor, with as minimal clothing as possible and right under the slow and loudly complaining fan. And I still wake up from nightmares where I wander lonely as a wisp of water vapour through the polluted skies of Chennai, having completely evaporated as I slept. No, there are no daffodils here to chance upon, just open stinking sewage canals which are the arteries of any big city, and the polluted dusty air, which is the fragrance of civilization.

Chennai is a huge city. And following some unwritten law of nature, which says "Kick him when he's down", most of the distances you'll have to travel will be too short for an auto and too big to walk. And then of course, there's the blistering heat, and the persistent humidity that follows you around like a fly following a piece of dead meat, if dead meat could walk around, which we all know doesnt happen, right? Wrong! There is dead meat that walks around. What else explains the phenomenon called Adnan Sami? Hehehe, just kidding, I actually love his songs. Well, he's not in Chennai, so there won't be any flies harassing him anyway, so the question does not arise.

I think my brain is completely wired after a sleepless night which I spent drinking some strange brown liquid that comes out of the coffee machine when I press the button labelled "Coffee", but which doesnt taste like any coffee I've drunk before. Today was my first day on the night shift. Yes, an oxymoron, get it? first DAY on the NIGHT shift? Har har...Well, thats better than any other kind I always say...atleast its an OXY-moron. If it was a Carbon MonOxy-moron, then it would have contributed to global warming and the melting of the ice caps and we would have had to ban it.

Man, I really need to get some sleep. I think I'll be blogging a lot more constantly from now on. I mean, here I am, sitting jobless and not able to sleep because my company has knowingly provided semi-intelligent chairs that give you a crick in the back as soon as you doze off, what else is a guy supposed to do? So blog it is.

Hopefully, the next post, which I shall write tomorrow, will make slightly more sense, but I wouldn't count on it. No, I havn't smoked anything illegal, its the coffee here, I tell you.

What's Going On?!

"Hey, where did all your old posts go?"

I've been trying to reinvent myself for some time now, and that somehow meant that all my old posts had to go. I've got them all in my Gmail account for those days in the future when I want to see what life was like back in the beginning of the 21st century. But they won't be coming up here again. I just realized that to break the funk I've sunk so deeply into, I needed to do something drastic. And this is part of it. All those old posts were just weighing me down and holding me back in a manner I just can't explain. Besides, my blogging had slowly turned from something I did purely for my pleasure into something where every post began with an apology for not posting more regularly. Its funny actually. You start blogging for yourself, because you like writing. Then people start coming to your blog, start commenting, and slowly the reason you blog begins to change. You begin to blog for the people who turn up to read. Not that there's anything wrong in that. Its just that I've realized that I write my best when I write for myself.

What made me do it? Well, I think Angie's partly responsible. Her first post on the new face of her old blog set me thinking. Especially this line that goes "..someday you will take pride in who you really are, and not gather your identity by who's reading you and who's not." Go read the whole thing if you want to make sense of it, a lot of it echoes my feelings exactly and she's put it in words beautifully.

So god forbid, you DO want to read one of my earlier posts, forget it and go rant on her blog here. :)

Now, I think I should set some guidelines for my posts, something that should give a structure to everything I post here and a few do's and don'ts. I think I'll probably keep adding to this list as I come upon more things I love, hate or want to include.

1) Proper Capitalization. Which means no more "i went to the shop". It'll always be "I went to the shop".
2) I hate sms language. Words like 'wen', 'y', 'frenzz', 'thru', 'hav', 'cmon', 'der', 'gettin', 'luv' etc. will never appear in these hallowed pages except as part of a direct quote or maybe to be ranted against when I feel like.
3) No more hasty posts. Every post should be debugged ;) thoroughly and reflected upon, before it appears on the blog.
4) No joining sentences together with "......" unless it actually adds something to the flavor. Great big grazing herds of full stops were a common sight in most of my old posts. They become extinct, or at least 'greatly endangered' from today.
5) No more posts that look like Corinthian columns. The Enter key must be used once in a while to split the post into readable chunks a.k.a Paragraphs.

Well, that's all I can think of, now. But this list will certainly grow.

<:o)