No, no, no! This isn’t the end. I’m not done with you yet!

This thought crossed my mind, as I stood there with lots of smiles on my face and a weird pain in my heart. People usually say, “Those who smile much, are sometimes hiding great pain”, and today I realized this quote coming true and I was the patient. I stood there watching the happy yet very painful scene, speechless.

Suddenly all memories which were still bracing in my mind started flashing in my eyes and suddenly I asked myself, whats that in my eye? And to my astonishment a tear was sparkling in my eye! “Little filmy na”? But sometimes some farewells can do this thing to you and today’s was one of them. A newly made fren of mine, who is very Sr. to me (Director - Marketing) as well as whom I respect so much will leave the Co. forever and start her new adventure. So, I thought it was the right time to gather all the memorable moments I spent with her. Here it goes…..

I first met Beena (now I took her nameJ), when I wanted to organize an event. Like an Oasis in the desert or like a ‘Selaginella bryopteris’ (Sanjivani Booti), Beena came and helped me. She not only helped me but made sure everything went well, and even made me a Champion of her existing Community (Bookfish). But things dint end here, she was always there to help me when I needed it and also I consulted her 1-2 times for my personal problems to which she gladly helped and eased my worries. Sometimes, in much little time some people can help you to the extent that you start admiring and start learning something from them and here was a perfect example of that.

Again, after some days I came up with an idea of organizing a new event, but this time I knew to whom I should contact first, and again as expected Beena did wonders for me. She set up a meeting with a very high profile person (Mr. X) in the organization and helped me throughout the meeting and made sure the person was convinced with my idea! I dint had the words to thank her at that moment, but felt like she was a ‘little angel on my shoulder’.

But as they say, ‘Goodie Goodie things don’t last for long’ and when I was just starting to learn something, came the shocking news of her resignation. But I had no sadness around me now, since I know how to stay in touch with people and how to maintain the thin line of bonding. It’s like a French phrase, "C'est la vie - Such is life", and now I could see how true it was. Just when you want some people to be around you for sometime, you get separated from them. Same came true in my case also.

In the end, I would like to say something in her own words “I don’t like Farewells”

May be this is not a Farewell at all, but may be a start of something incredible….

Last thing before I close the blog:

B – Bookfish

E – Enthusiastic

E – Energetic

N – Naive

A - Adorable

Grim Paths of the Internet

Ting! I saw an email popup on my screen. I jumped to my mailbox to see whose email it was and after finding it to be of no use I deleted it. Suddenly I realized, “what about the other emails I have in my mailbox?” “What about the billions and billions of emails people have in their inbox all around the World?” “What about the terabytes or I should say petabytes of space they consume?”

These days as more and more lives are converting from the so called Paper-Life to E-Life and many new websites/portals/blogs coming up every day. Each day billions of webspace is consumed by these websites and by the people who enter their information and stuff on it. But the saddest part is that everything starts off very well, with people visiting these websites again and again as they keep on updating the information. But contrary to a phoenix which burns itself into Ashes and comes back to life again, people stop visiting those pages after some time and slowly happens what was inevitable. All the moments/feelings which they had shared with their close buddies come to demise. But the end is not here. These all pages keep on floating into the deserted corners and forlorn paths of the webspace. I still, very well remember many websites/portals on which I made my account and provided all the information it asked and I filled all that with sincerity and enthusiasm but as it was destined I never went back to those pages after some time.

Ironically, that’s not the case with Paper Life. As the days pass, people get more and more attached to the pages on which they had written their experiences, poured out their soul into those pages and people try to cling to those pages for the rest of their life and keep them as memoir.

So, may be it will be a good time that we went back to those pages that we had made for a special memory and make something useful and worth remembering out of it.

Yearned Journey to Home on broken Leg!

Disclaimer: This is neither a counterfeited title from any book nor I am being either funny or sarcastic here. But this is what exactly happened.

Let me rewind my memory disc a few weeks back so that I can recite my tale. Ahha! Got it. Now we are on the right album. Let me play the tracks and you will witness the series of events that took place. But before that, a friendly yet necessary advice - please put on your seatbelts/helmets otherwise you may also be the victim (just kidding).

Journey Begins……

Track 1 - Monday Morning Madness: Tring! Tring! Tring! “Solu Wake up!” Alarm clock was ringing madly and slowly I opened my eyes and looked at Alarm clock. 8:30 AM. Shit!! I was supposed to reach office till 8:30am. To add to my woes, it was winter morning which can make even a cheetah, lazy. Time for ‘Getting ready in 15 min’ schedule, I thought. And so, on 8:50am, like a rider of some MotoGP race I was racing with time, cutting shortcuts from here and there on my way to office. Suddenly, I saw an open Manhole and with screeching sound my bike came to a halt and out of nowhere came a bike & hit me on my ankle and the very next moment I was on the ground, with my bike on me!

Track 2 - No! No! No Plaster Please!: Phew! Not even a scratch, Wow! I said and stood up. But Damn! I was so wrong. Next moment a very sharp throbbing pain arose and I was again on the ground. Till this time, there was a huge traffic jam. Without thinking much I asked the other bike guy to leave and my roomie took me to a nearby hospital for first aid. The doctor started his standard procedure and after 2 X-Rays and 3 hours it was confirmed that I had a swelling in my bone and had to undergo Plaster Treatment to avoid fracture development. What a perfect way to start to start the week! Fuck!!

Track 3 – Fortuitous Fiesta: Lost in the thoughts while lying on my bed at around 12noon, my fren Puneet asked, “Whats’ Next?” I replied coolly, Home! So we informed our colleagues and he went off. Feeling bored I switched on my PC and suddenly a thought came to my mind. Let’s tell all my frens about my mishap. These days Facebook comes in so Handy! Within no time, I took a picture of mine and uploaded on Facebook. Suddenly, my phone rang and on it flashed my sister’s name. “Ankur, you are coming home within a week, I will talk to dad and he will arrange all the flight tickets, Make no delay” And so my Fortuitous Fiesta had started.

Track 4 – Heavenly Haven: So, with Broken Leg I finally set out for my yearned vacation at my haven. First I went to Bombay wherein my cousin came to take me and then I was off for Airport. Next, I took a flight and within few hours I was landing in Delhi. My sister was waiting impatiently for me. She was elated to see me walking though with much difficulty. A royal treatment was waiting for me on the Airport premises wherein I got assisted by 2 men who were sent by my father which took me safely to my home, my Haven!

Journey of Infosys

The journey is over
Will miss the days which were dear
People who are very near

I spent sleepless nights and day dreaming
Used to say “Mysore, you will see me coming”
Mysore was Heaven on Earth
Lucky I was to get a berth

Days were very busy in training
Used to spend whole day Zzzzzzzz-ing
A new life was taking a perfect shape
With all new frens and a wonderful place

Fun was Counter-Strike
Used to play day and night
Life-Savior was “Gazebo”
Everytime I used to go

Then there were tests and compre
Used to feel dead like dead sea
Coz all Qs used to look like tag “Marquee”
To which all my CS frens used to agree

As winter came things began to change
Friends used to say “Now-a-days you act strange”
For I had found (Special) someone
She was like winter day with a bright Sun

Days kept flowing like a silent river
End of training was very near
I could see eyes full of tears
With heavy heart I used to say “Cheers!”

Finally the sad-day arrived to say final depart
Coz a new life was about to start

I saw all together new place and faces
With many new open races
I got a project of testing
That used to leave me sometimes complaining

Then there was WFP, Firewall and NAP
I used to feel I was falling in a big trap
But Still I loved to work here
Coz I had many new frens to cheer

2 years have flown by but the memories remain
some faces and names will always stay the same.

When I will look back, I will cry
But it’s time to say final good-bye

Am I a Failure?

There are times in a person's life when whole world seems to go against him, nothing goes according to the plan, all people turn their backs and it seems like all the energy, zeal and confidence is lost and the person looks down and asks the obvious - Am I a Failure?

Every part and aspect of life has been coined in pairs like Good/Bad, Action/Reaction, Happiness/Sorrow, etc. But as a normal behavior humans always tend to overlook the murkier part of the coin and always find themselves engaged in the brighter side of the coin. But still life is full of all colors with different shades to it. That’s the reason there are sometimes success in life and sometimes failures. Now, the only question that came to my mind while thinking on this was – Why Do we fail? The instant and obvious Questions that would tend to answer this Question would be - Is it the lack of efforts that pulls us down? Is it someone else being better than us? Is it things that didn’t go the way we wanted them to? It’s like a whole new book that can be written on the causes of failures. But when I carefully thought on the granular level I got a very different and quite strange answer – “Fear of Failure”.

I thought very hard on this and found some contemporary facts, which every single individual on this earth would have sometime or the other in his life wanted to think of.

Most of the times we fail in our life not because of the fact that we didn’t put our 100% efforts or someone was better than us, but mostly due to the reason that we feared failing. Just think of one of your failures and think what if someone would have come to you and would have said “You are free to fail” I bet the outcome would have been different. I am sure that if any time in our life when we had a tough time and if someone would have said, “You are free to do whatever you want and do not fear the result” we would have done wonders. Ofcourse we could have failed there also, but we would have played the match with the confidence we never had earlier. There is a very strong bond between “Being Yourself” and “Fear of failure”. If anytime in your life you dint fear failure, then that was the time when you were completely yourself. That was the time when you had stopped thinking of the outcomes and failures and you were in the arena with the only motive of being yourself and getting to the best of it.

I realized that the greatest treasure of life lies with Failure rather than with Success. It is – A chance to do better, A chance to be what you wanted to be, A Chance to go back and make things right. I realized that failure is just a word unless we attach positive/negative to it. The moment we start thinking failure as a negative aspect we stop thinking beyond failure. But when we are ready to look beyond the failure and treat failure as another chance, we start making our life better. We start thinking of innovation and we start to think what we never would have thought.

I guess, if somewhere in anyone’s life people would think the way I am able to, they would always be able to answer the Question – Am I a Failure? I guess the people would be able to answer the question with a positive reply.

Scattered Pearls

As the aurora’s silent melody in the air was slowly getting filled up by a piercing sound coming from horizon, I lazily lifted my head towards window to get a clearer view. I could clearly see a twinkling and glittering jet zooming from my eyesight leaving behind a trail of white, densely coagulated gases forming a continuous line in the air. Suddenly I was reminded of a shooting star silently falling into deepest mysteries of sky with lightening speed. The thing to note here was neither zooming jet nor shooting star but the fact that things come and go, events occur and vanish but they always leave behind what can never be forgotten and changed.

I could now see a very blurred yet very strong alliance between what I just saw and the event that I was about to witness today in my office. One of my colleagues and dear friend of mine today would leave the office arena forever and would join the bevy of some of the best brains of world to pursue the management career. I could sense that it was always predestined to occur, something which was already written long time back into our destinies. Human beings being selfish by nature always try to gather as much they can from the moment for future retrieval, and I was no exception to it.

I now started to imagine our first acquaintance and first time we enjoyed together with all our friends. The very first thing that came into my mind was “Farmville”!!! Yes, this was the topic of our first talk. Since I used to spend most of my time in green/lustrous farms I had grown, I knew some tips/tricks to excel in the game. So we often used to talk as to how one could advance to the higher levels in minimum time frames given. Often some of the other players also would join us in the discussion and the time would just fly. Sometimes we all (our common friends) just used to chat and always used to crack jokes or do some pranks with our friends.

Sometimes, these little-little happy incidents make a very deep and permanent marking on our brains which like a ‘chronic’ strengthens with time. When together, we always engage ourselves in fun embedded arguments and always enjoy/cherish moments together. But now as time to depart was closing in, I could see an irony hidden deep in this foreseen event. I know that soon some of our other friends will leave our group and will take a different road in their respective journeys to fulfill their dreams and wishes. But no matter where they go, no matter how many new people would join us, their empty spaces would always remain vacant. It was like a chain reaction which had started and would go on and on, till the time I would be chosen in round-robin to say my final good-bye. One day we all would be separated and scattered by the mighty “time” in the open field to make our own ways for our future.

As the first rays of sun started to fall on my face I slowly got up with heavy heart to make myself ready for the office and for the farewell.

“Why does it take a minute to say hello and forever to say goodbye?”

Testing Is In the Air – Weekends Welcome Me!

As most of you have guessed it’s a blog on those 2 damn days (11th-July and 12th July) of my Project, the so called PLUTO. I am the proud Owner (Tester to be true :-D) of the 3 components and I always finish my task on time. But hey hey! This blog is neither about my Project nor my work. This is about those damn 2 days!

This whole story started when I got a critical update and I had to verify whether everything was okay or not. So I started well before and I had planned to complete it till Friday. Everything was fine and I was happily and smoothly sailing on the boat. I had to verify this update on all of my 3 Components but still I knew I could manage. My over-confidence was boosted still more when I finished testing on 2 of my components and I thought now only “Firewall” remains. But then as the weekends approached things started to get a bit difficult and I could figure out that my sweet honeymoon will soon be over.

Matters became more complicated when it came to my surprise that I had to verify the update on all of the 3 platforms available. Already I had 2 scenarios to test and then 3 platforms total made the count to 6 and I knew it could easily become overhead for me. So I told them that nobody in this world would be able to complete this much testing within such short specified time limits, but I got the obvious – “Everything is automated, you can do it“. So I fancied and told myself that I could finish. As Friday approached things started to get worse. It was found that our lab dint had the appropriate connectivity and also some Viruses were happily finding their Sweet Homes in our testing machines and then my wonderful dreamland came thrashing into pieces in front of me when I discovered that I will not be able to complete the testing. Getting nervous I came to know that I may have to come on weekends to complete my testing. But it was already very late and I knew I had to come. The last nail in my coffin came when all the connectivity suddenly went out! Alas!

So, I packed my bags and left for home. Then came the weekends and I suddenly felt that the Testing was in the Air, when all of my frens were getting relaxed and chilling on weekends and I was stuck with this Damn Testing. There were no ACs running as it was weekend, also I could not find anything fit to eat and on top of that there was no cool water to drink. It finally took me 2 very dear days of a week and then at 10pm (from 2pm-10pm everyday) in the night finally I came to a stable level where I could say that there was nothing to worry and we could signoff on Monday. Then on Monday till 1pm in the afternoon I was able to finish off my testing and could sign off the same.