Nostalgia

It’s been quite a time since I left the college. Here is a extract of what I wrote as I was leaving the place.

“Now when I look back to the days of ragging, classroom fights, surviving quarrels in the group, fighting with friends and then buying them cold-drink to say sorry, endless nights of staying awake and just killing time talking playing guitar and making others life hell, doing classes just because the teacher is cool and bunking as we didn’t like the teacher, parathas at the canteen, trade fair, autoexpo, doing assignments (coping them) and most of the time not doing them at all, mass bunks, exam fevers, photocopying notes, one night studies, exam day, saying “Mai nani hota pass”, viva-voice, result blues, parties for apparently no reason, silly games invented to kill time, sports, cultural fest, movies, tillu da dhaba, having crush on every other girl, playing in the rain, solving issues among the love birds, comprehensive strategies for future life, planning and re-planning what to do with life, Valentines Day, holi, rose day, chocolate day, wish we could celebrate kiss day, diwali……”

I was able to put in most of the things, at-least I thought so then, but now I felt like adding a lot more to it.
Well when I saw this I feel like reliving those days again. And then I get a question “why do we grow up?”

Words worth

There was a time when a friend of mine was preparing for the GRE and he bought himself a book by Barrons. It was told to him that apart from math’s he needs to work on his vocab and some 3500 words of barrons was more than enough for him. (Here I would like to tell you in advance that it was as thought he has a queue type memory. You know first in first out with limited storage space. This meant that he would memories a word, and in doing so forget a older word he had learnt once.) So he embarked upon a journey to learn all the words in that book and in the same time forgetting what ever he had learnt till then. This of course was a nuisance as he started asking for the meaning of the words commonly used in day today life. Words like “imposter”, “stoop”, “triumph” and some times words like “being”. Now explaining the 1st set is easy, but how do we explain “being”. And that to when the person is adamant that we tell him the dictionary meaning.
One fine day when we were blabbering something on success and failure, my newly enlightened friend spoke up:
Frnd1: Failure is not a word that is present in my LEXICON.
Me: You mean your dictionary.
Frnd1: No! I mean Lexicon
Frnd2: What’s that?
Frnd1: (now with a bright smile and a look that meant we are a useless lot) Lexicon is what lexicologist writes.
Frnd3: (rolling his eyes… actually we all were rolling ours) and who is this lexicologist.
Frnd1: Makes that book with all the words and meanings in that.

By this time we all were frustrated and we left him to him.

There was one more incident that happened and this time Frnd3 wanted to know a meaning of a word. (Now let me point out here that we are a lazy lot and we can’t open up a dictionary (Read Lexicon) and see the meaning but we ask the person working on words (Read lexicologist).) The word in question was “Evanescence”. This was an easy word for Frnd1 doing all the mugging up of words and he said promptly. “Fugacious”
Frnd3 was perplexed and asked very politely along with some swear words what this new word meant. This time Frnd1 was in a fix for some time but then with twinkling eyes he said “Ephemeral”.
Frnd3 had given up hope but just for the heck of it asked Frnd1 again to explain all the 3 words. This unfortunately my Frnd1 didn’t know.

Result: Frnd3 beat Frnd1 up and I help Frnd3.

After getting beaten up many times my friend Frnd1 had stopped showing off his words worth powers. Good habits are hard to break! And so one fine day to some conversation Frnd1 said, “Oh! I know that’s an oxymoron”. Without missing a beat another friend pipes up “No! That’s not an oxymoron you are. You and an Ox and a Moron”

There are many more such instances but let me stop here before the post becomes too long.

PS. Do take part in the poll if you haven’t yet taken part. The results will be published once the poll is over.

When your kid smokes

IT Company! This brings a picture of people coding or testing away at a feverish pace, groups brain storming on bugs, team meetings, discussion on tomorrows technology and apart from all that and more it is know for people smoking away and making the friendly cigarette wala rich.
Pick up any company and you will see a cigarette wala outside the on a cycle catering to the nicotine needs of the junta (People). Before you know it he starts coming in a luna then opens up a shop nearby and keeps growing his empire.

Today just like a usual day we all went down to the shop and there we met a guy from our team who was not smoking. He is a non smoker. So we asked him what happened. His story was the usual too. Dad caught him smoking, thrashed him and he left the dam thing. That’s when another guy looks at his cigarette and said “Wish my dad had slapped me, he didn’t and the effect of the scolding was not as long lasting as his (the guy who didn’t smoke).” That’s when it struck me and I asked this question.

What will you do when you catch your kid smoking?

After this I kept asking this question to many and got various results.

Think about it and let me know what you think of it. You can post it as comment or take part in the poll coming up shortly.
I am still confused as to what I will do. But being to the place where I am one of the smokers I seriously don’t what my kids to take it up….

Project planing and Marriage

Let me start with an apology, for the delay in this post to come up. Actually I got caught up in lots of things (some call it live) and couldn’t keep up with posting. But now I am back… and I agree it’s after more then 2 months but never the less I am back.

Coming back to the topic. In last two and half months I came to know of many well know and many lesser know love affairs to have changed to a marriage alliance. Add to that a large chunk of my friends I knew of sending me there wedding invitation. Suddenly IPL, movies, freaking out on weekends, and many more activities took a back seat and marriage was the order of the day/month for the guys getting married.

Recently I also had to attend a training set up by the HR of the company for brushing up the rusted brain. And in that Project planning or SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle) was a part that was taught to us. The teacher who came to teach us was fundo. He starts of the class by asking us where does the SDLC start and end. And we all in a monotone, bored, lazed out and bugged voice said “Project Proposal and Delivery of the final project.” To this answer he said in a very amused tone, “And imagine the human life cycle starts at Delivery!” During this class I couldn’t help but to think how the SDLC is related to the life. Below is the sort of notes that I made in that class. I am putting just a small bit here so that this post does not become as boring as the class was.

Project Identification:- This is what is called finding the right girl. May it be love, or arranged. This can be finding the suitable boy too.
Project Proposal:- This is the part when the actual proposal happens.
Now here the feasibility study in case of software is already done in 1st part. But in life most of the time the feasibility study happens at this stage. This is true for the love (well to some extent). But in arranged marriage scenario the feasibility is done in the first step. (At least a part is already done by parents)
Agreement with Customer/Partner:-This is where the major stake holders meet and formally discuss the project and all the things related to it. So the Parents, elders in the family, the girl and the boy meet for what we know as “sagai.” Many times its also called a “roka.”
Project Kickoff:- Now that all the inputs are taken and all the formalities done, its time to formally start working on the project. This is project kickoff or what we can say as marriage.
Project planning:- Planning and re-planning goes on through out the full life cycle of the software and the human. Things like project scope, resource planning, cost management, time management and many more things come into play.
What will we do after marriage? (project scope)
We need to make space for parents. (Resource planning)
We need a policy for kids. Save for home, car, what’s the monthly budget…. (Cost management)
I need to finish my work and be back at home early and then go to shop grocery. (Time management)

Ideally no project can go as per plan and the same is true for life. In fact when ever you plan, life happens. Before you know you would be expecting parents. The full planning goes haywire and immediate crisis management takes the place. This goes on for quite a while. (At least till the kids are on there own doing good at job.) And then things settle down. The cycle repeats it self and this time kids are planning.

I can go on and on but let’s face it. I really can’t make this post too long or you won’t read it. So let’s close it here. And let me know what you think about this whole thing. And in the end I must say that the SDLC is being developed form the real life cycle.