BEING IN TWENTIES - SOMETHING

It is when you stop going along with the crowd and start realizing that there are many things about yourself that you didn't know and may not like. You start feeling insecure and wonder where you will be in a year or two, but then get scared because you barely know where you are now.

You start realizing that people are selfish and that, maybe, those friends that you thought you were so close to aren't exactly the greatest people you have ever met, and the people you have lost touch with are some of the most important ones. What you don't recognize is that they are realizing that too, and aren't really cold, catty, mean or insincere, but that they are as confused as you.

You look at your job... and it is not even close to what you thought you would be doing, or maybe you are looking for a job and realizing that you are going to have to start at the bottom and that scares you.

Your opinions have gotten stronger. You see what others are doing and find yourself judging more than usual because suddenly you realize that you have certain boundaries in your life and are constantly adding things to your list of what is acceptable and what isn't. One minute, you are insecure and then the next, secure.

You laugh and cry with the greatest force of your life. You feel alone and scared and confused. Suddenly, change is the enemy and you try and cling on to the past with dear life, but soon realize that the past is drifting further and further away, and there is nothing to do but stay where you are or move forward.

You get your heart broken and wonder how someone you loved could do such damage to you. Or you lie in bed and wonder why you can't meet anyone decent enough that you want to get to know better. Or maybe you love someone but love someone else too and cannot figure out why you're doing this because you know that you aren't a bad person. One night stands and random hook ups start to look cheap. Getting wasted and acting like an idiot starts to look pathetic. You go through the same emotions and questions over and over, and talk with your friends about the same topics because you cannot seem to make a decision. You worry about loans, money, the future and making a life for yourself... and while winning the race would be great, right now you'd just like to be a contender!

What you may not realize is that every one reading this relates to it. We are in our best of times and our worst of times, trying as hard as we can to figure this whole thing out.
We call it the "Quarter-life Crisis."

FATE DETERMINES WHO COMES INTO OUR LIVES.....HEART DETERMINES WHO STAYS

Hehe... got this as one among 30 frwds that fill up my mail box everyday. but somehow liked it because if not everything, most of it that you read above i could relate it very much to my own self. Its all in the game :)

Engineering or your child’s happiness???

Sitting in the air-conditioned room and staring for upto ten hours a day at the monitor sipping on mug after mug of coffee. This is life for you in the software industry. So looking back at all those years, and trying to figure out how exactly I got here. Around four years back it was, the day when the CET ranking was out. There were very few options in front of you. So just as all my friends did, I too decided. That I want to be an ENGINEER. I took that decision partly because I was not well aware of all the various other options that lay in front of me and partly because most of my friends and seniors were also doing engineering. But in most cases it’s the parental pressure that leads many aspiring students to forego their dreams and take up engineering because all the parents are looking for at that point of time is a safe future for their kids. And what safer way, than becoming an engineer with a hefty pay cheque rest assured when you complete your degree.
So there begins the tedious journey of four long years. At the end of it all some succeed and others will be written off as failures. Now let’s look at the other face of the coin. 4 years, 64 subjects, 14 labs, 130 odd internals, many seminars and a project. Getting thru all this unscathed is a very big achievement indeed. But if you look at the reality, if you have specialized in anything other than a computer science or an information science. Be it mechanical or electrical or electronics or for that matter any other branch. Not even a single percent of what you have studied in all those subjects in your four year struggle called engineering will be implemented in your software professional life. And now since IT is such a boon, all parents want their kids to join the IT industry come what may. Because that’s where the growth is. That’s where the money is. That’s where the future is. Or that’s what they think.
So why did we in the first place have to do an engineering??? If we are not using a single thing we have studied day-in day-out for the last four years. What was the whole purpose of cajoling a 17 year old kid into doing an engineering? Was it just for the degree??? Or was it the money an IT professional is paid??? Or was it just for the parents to tell proudly “my son’s an engineer”???
Whatever be the case, kids these days are not like how kids of their age were 5 years back or 25 years back. They start dreaming about what they aspire to become when they are really young and they work towards it. They have the technology to back them and they have the self-belief to help them reach their goal. All they require now is the help and support of their parents. Your daughter might want to become a pilot or your son might want to become a professional footballer. All that’s required of the parent now is to act as the stepping stone to your child’s success. I know so many parents of many more aspiring young talented kids will be reading this. It’s a request to all of you. Never ever compromise on your child’s dreams for a mere engineering degree which will land him a techie job about which he will crib for the rest of his life. Let him live his dream. At the end of the day you child will make you proud. As Aamir Khan told in Tare zameen par “every child is special”.

Hehe… when mummy suddenly came and asked me to write an article for her office magazine, the first thing I did was to google to check if I could find something good there. Last time I was asked for something like this, I quietly whacked an article written by a CMRIT lecturer in our annual magazine and handed it over as my piece of work. And as luck would have it, it turned out to be a hit. (God only knows where that lecturer actually whacked it from. Hehe). After some hardcore hitting the net, could not find anything worthy. That’s when this topic struck to mind. Something that might make an impact with the audience and probably hit them hard because this is what is reality. And all of us realized it a little too late. No point talking about past now. Lets wait and watch how well its accepted by the audience. And if possible might come up with something meaningful for next years edition too.

- Sandy the Engineer

Cheers guys...

posting for the first time when drunk. so its fun to sit and type the post out when the lights are off, and all thats there is the roshni of the monitor reflecting on the keyboard and you tend to get a slight feel if you have dyslexia. as a result any spelling mistakes or grammatical errors to be ignored by the reader.
was supposed to go out for dinner last nite itself to celebrate me becoming a year older, but the unpredictable bangalore weather put paid to that plan. so was still confused whether to ask sanjay to get his car or not when he asked if we gonna dine together today.
anyways decided to go ahead with the plan, the five of us. went ahead even though i was just wearing an arsenal jersey and shorts and normal hawai chappal. so boys were confused if any big restaurant would let this shabbily dressed prick in. never quite decided where we wanted to go, and ended up in a posh looking place(bob was feeling embarrassed to walk in with me since i was dressed just for the occasion). hehe... but after 15 mins of dialogue we decided it was not the right place for us and boldly or shamelessly(watever you call it) we walked outta that place. so headed straight to cosmos which was our next destination, the sports bar. but bob my dear was not happy with the idea and kept sulking till we reached there. lol. but trust me, end of the day he was the one who liked the place the most :) called kartik to join us and he did too. nice ambiance, sexy weather and a calm and quite place. a perfect destination for us loafers to have a blast. and so we did. kept downing quite a lot of alcohol and just loved to pull each others leg at the smallest oppurtunity we found. whether it was kicking taklu's ass by talking about his height or waiting for anantha to make that small grammatical error when he talks so that we can take his trip, it was pure unadultrated fun.
got back to drdo riding an apache for the first time, since the owner of the bike was driving the car back. was good fun trying out a new bike when drunk. so sort of proud of myself for completing the task successfully :) then took a stroll down the roads of drdo to get back to normal before getting home. and then confidently rode back on my bike.
but had made a big blunder earlier by not carrying my house key along, so poor mummy was waiting for me to return home without sleeping. anyways it was a good day on the whole. lunch with parents and dinner with guys whom you are sure to have a blast with. had great fun guys with your company. we did have a blast. cheers.

Another year older :)

23 jahre alt...

Treasure hunt @ Capgemini

When our very first plan of using the service elevator itself backfired, we thought its just gonna be a repeat of the last week where we sort of dug our own graves with some judgmental errors. But luckily for us the whole event was called off that day due to some technical difficulties as they call it.. Hehe…

Note: hereafter building 1B will be referred to as SUN and building 4B as MOON.

Clue 1: Go to the fun floor on SUN and find your next clue with a man who has 10 calendars on his desk.

Clue 2: Go to the person who arranges your travel and accommodation in MOON.

Clue 3: A person who manages recruitment, and whose name rhymes with pony. The first letter of his name is the 19^th alphabet. In MOON.

Clue 4: The person who manages fun and games in the MOON.

Clue 5: A puzzle
None of us remember the exact question, but if I am not wrong the answer was 3100 which we cracked pretty easily.

Clue 6: A puzzle
The third number is double the 1^st number and the fourth number is double the second number. The difference between first and second, and third and fourth is 1.
Find the cubicle number. 4^th floor MOON.
Hehe… best part about this clue was that the clue itself was printed wrong. Wasted lot of time here.

Clue 7: Go to the first lady sitting in SUN

Clue 8: The only guy sitting with a cap on the trust floor in SUN.

Clue 9: The only women member of sociozone from SUN and also a member of the women’s council. 7^th floor SUN.

Clue 10: The treasure is buried under the Eiffel tower.

Next minute it struck to Wilson that there’s a painting of Eiffel tower in our cafeteria. So we made a mad rush from the 7^th floor of one bldg to the 6^th floor of the other. When we reached there, it was all quite. Very few people. Found a guy from HR dept standing in front of the painting. After validating all our clues, he asked us to wait. Slowly many other teams arrived with their final clue to the same spot. We were still not sure if any team had finished before us. So just kept a low profile.

When they finally announced it, there was wild celebrations and high fives exchanged. We went forward to collect our so called treasure. Thought it might be a some tiny gift, but we could not believe our ears when Manu announced “the winners get five thousand worth gift vouchers from forum”.

Oh ho, all the running around for the last 45 mins didn’t go waste after all. We were so thrilled. And the audience could not believe the treasure was really worth 5K. We could smell so many asses burning now. Hehe… the reaction of one of my colleagues summed it all up when she said, “If our boys would have been there, we would have won easily”. Those words are still ringing in my ears. Lol. But who cares, we have the money in our hand and that’s what matters. Was a treasure worth hunting for.

Congratulations to all my teammates who ran with me from one building to the other. After all it was a test of fitness more than the mind. Another feather in Sir Rodney's cap and more publicity for the brand name "Sap United". Well done guys

The team :
Wilson Paul Archit Agrawal Vivek Ganeshan Deepak Pai and Sandeep Balan

erfolgreicher abgeschlossener Deutscher

Lesen 9/10

Horen 13/15

Grammatik 14/20

Sprechen 9.5/15

Gesamtmenge 45.5/60 => 75.833%

ich spreche deutsch, Danke.

AC Milan 0 - 2 Arsenal

Its not easy to beat the defending champions of the champions league. It becomes even more difficult then to beat them in the San siro. now its even more a herculean task to beat them at home considering the fact that AC milan have never lost to an english opponent in the champions league at San siro.
So when the wonderkid Fabregas had the ball in the net from long range after 84 mins. Finally a sense of belief was there that from here on they cannot lose. Till that very moment the memories of that agonising miss from Adebayor when he rattled the crossbar with a pointblank header in the stoppage time in the first leg a fortnight ago kept coming back to haunt me. and when Fabregas himself struck the crossbar just before half time, i was just getting the feeling that its just not gonna be Arsenal's day. But it all changed in a matter of seconds. Walcott then beat Kaladze for pace and helped Adebayor score Arsenal's second. Game set and match.
Kudos to the performance and determination of the team. They just outwit the champions in every department of the game, just as Team India had done to Australia earlier in the day. At the end of the day, as the pundits called it, the youth n exuberance of arsenal overcame the experience of milan. Similarities again to the match played earlier in the day. coincidence i guess. In the end the living legend of football Paulo Maldini could not lift another champions league since this is his last season of club football. hmmm... again there seems to be similarities to the earlier game. hehe. similarities or not, Arsenal pulled off their most memorable win since beating Inter at San siro 5 seasons ago. hats off to Flamini for nullifying the effect of magical Kaka. They've proved to all their detractors that they're no more KIDS. They belong here among the CHAMPIONS.
Proud to be an Arsenal Fan... Arsenal Forever........

Tribute to my 2600

When I went that day, was still undecided about what exactly I was looking for. There were two of them from which I could choose. One was a nice glossy thing, shining brightly and asking me to grab her and take her home. The other was a quite little thing unassumingly standing in a corner. I was in a dilemma about which one to pick, but my friend had warned me not to trust the glossy thing because he feared it will ditch me soon and move away from my life. So after some thoughts and afterthoughts, I took the one whom I thought will accompany me for atleast a few years. And so it has. Two years its been from the day I first saw her. And she still smiles back at me every time I look at her. Guess have not spent a single day without her the last 731 days. It is like I am handicapped when she’s not around. she's never spoken to me till date but still she shares my joys and sorrows. She’s grown old now. Having a faded look about her now and lots of injuries caused due to my butter fingers. I know eventually I will discard her but still those memories I’ve shared with her will always remain. Come March 3^rd 2009, I surely will have a new companion. But my first love has definitely served me well.

Reincarnation - Sandy to Sandeep Balan

16^th February 2007

7: 00 pm

Do I have to go tomorrow?? Was it my name only that was on the list?? What if it was not mine?? Won’t it be embarrassing to just go there and comeback??
Anyways whatever happens, can’t get any worse that the day when I didn’t get into the Indian software giant Satyam na. This is anyways some small company only, so let me try my luck. If not then something else is awaiting you sandy.

9: 00 pm

All the documents ready. Okie let me not tell anybody I am attending the interview tomorrow. Unnecessarily will have to take the friends sympathies and the mother’s sorrow if I don’t clear. Enough explanation I’ve given to people after failing to clear each of my earlier tests with fate. So better keep mum. As mummy tells. Whatever happens happens for the good.

17^th February 2007

7: 30 am

Sandy, is there any interview today?? How come you are dressed in formals??
No mummy. Have to give a seminar today, that’s the reason (had to lie even on that day).

9: 15 am

Hey Suyash, have you checked the list dude?? Any confirmation if it was indeed my name on the list??
No dude, nothing till now. Actually no other Sandeep S seems to be there in our college and these company guys anyways don’t have the original list with them. So you don’t worry. Just go give it your best shot.
Okie Suyash thanks.

10: 30 am

Last group for group discussion. 6 outta 10 from CMRIT. Topic: Euthanasia.
Hard fought battle for supremacy. In the end 3 selected.
Counted myself lucky as I was one of them. The other 7 were as good.

12: 00 pm

Room no 305, my very own classroom. Don’t know if it was luck, but ended up with an electrical engineer as interviewer for my tech interview. Just the stroke of luck I was waiting for. Never has any interviewer made me that comfortable. Poured my heart out for the next half hour. And never have I spoken so much truth in any of my earlier interviews. Came out of the hall almost hundred percent sure that I’ll clear this round, but worse things have happened to me before. So just managed to control my excitement. Deepak Kasturi was indeed a gem of a man.

12: 20 pm

What happened Vikas??
You’ll have a HR round in sometime dude. So be prepared.
So does that mean I’ve cleared tech??
That I am not sure dude, but it almost means you’ve cleared.
Hmmm… control yourself sandy. It’s still not over.

1: 10 pm

Excuse me maam!! May I come in??
Have to accept she bambooed me, roadies audition estyle.
Found a negative trait in everything I told positive about myself.
Somehow wanted this to end quickly. And then.
The unthinkable happened. Sandy popped again.

Interviewer: do you have any questions??
Sandy : yes maam, what technologies does ACCENTURE work on?????
Interviewer: what?? Accenture???
Sandy : Oops. No maam. I meant Capgemini.

That moment I thought it’s all over.

1: 30 – 3: 30 pm

Switched the cell off
Was kicking myself for screwing it all up after giving a flawless performance all day.
The wait was madness. Two hrs felt like two years. Tried taking a quick nap. Was virtually impossible. Sandy, keep your cool. It might just be your day.

3: 45 pm

Results time. Yahoo. No jokes. My heartbeat had stopped.
Reading the names out one by one.
Have experienced all this before, and had reached that state where I thought never will my name figure in any such lists.
Don’t remember the first two names called out.
Then Amritha Tejaswini
Anish Ninan (was next to me, smiled at him with great difficulty)
Sandeep B
What??? Did they really call out my name???
Anish assures me it was mine. Again heartbeat stops.
I’ve got a JOB. It’s still not sinking in.
Is the wait really over?? Have Capgemini actually recruited me??
By then all names called out. Few of them had their heads in their hands, and the rest off the heads were jus waiting to pop off their shoulders.
There were wild celebrations. Hugs exchanged.
Sandy, u’ve finally got a job. Hmmm… still it’s not sinking in.

5: 15 – 5: 40 pm

My most memorable walk ever from HAL Police station stop till my house.
Have never felt happier. Walked like a king with head held high above the shoulder.
But still didn’t call home. Wanted to witness that special moment.
Got some sweets on the way back. Surprise surprise.

5: 45 pm

Mummy was on terrace.
Went to the terrace. Mummy was surprised to see me there.
Asked what the matter was??
I didn’t know how to tell it, words were just not coming out of my mouth.
Hesitated, and then gave her the sweets.
And told her. Your son has got a job mom.
She could not digest what I told. She asked again??
And I told her the same again. I could see the tear in her eye when I put the sweet in her mouth. That moment. It finally sunk in.
That sandy had actually got a job and what it means to the person who was always waiting to see that day for the last 22years. Thanks a lot mom.

It has been exactly one year since, lots of things have changed. A carefree sandy has now become a corporate sandy. Added responsibilities, commitments, priorities in life. But I love life this way. Been one year since my life took that drastic U turn. And it truly made me believe that someday all the hardwork you’ve put in life will bear fruit. So learn to be patient.

Congratulations Sandeep Balan. Hope you have a great career ahead. All the very best dude.

Better done than said...

Just about a week back, I was on cloud nine. Was made the captain of the first ever Capgemini football team in the weirdest of circumstances. And to put the icing on the cake, scored the first ever goal for capgemini and ended the match with a hattrick. But afsoos ki baat hain ki we ended up conceding four second half goals and drawing against an IBM team that didn’t look half as good as us. But still I had a feel, that our team had finally arrived on the corporate scene and greatness awaited us. Hehe.. but I was mistaken or rather I can say that my conclusion was premature and thoughtless and reality beckoned us not too far away.

Two more matches to go. Win one of them and we are thru to the next round. Sounded very simple. No fuss whatsoever. But our wicked yet practical minds were taking us on a different route. We were overconfident or ignorant or god knows what, we thought we’d walk thru our 1^st match against Sankalpa and so a lot of analysis were being made throughout the week as to where we’ll finish in our group etc etc… so we came up with a plan to play badly in the second match of the day, lose it and finish 2^nd or 3^rd in the group so that we get easier opponents in the next round.

Hehe… but life aint that simple. We lost our 1^st match to Sankalpa software( funny name for an IT firma) by the odd goal in three, that too the goal coming off a penalty before the start of the game because the opponents turned up late to the ground. Pathetic performance. Especially by the captain, who saw the best and the worst of his games in his 1^st two corporate matches.

So now just one way out. Beat Samsung next, or go home losers. And that’s exactly what happened. Though it was a much improved matured performance, we still lacked The FITNESS The EXPERIENCE The COMPOSURE to pull off a win. And the end result the same as previous with identical scoreline. Capgemini had come and gone in a flash, nobody even noticed them. Time to pack up and say goodbye to the 1^st tour without even getting to play on the final day of the event. As the captain always says “Its all in the Game”. Time to move on and look ahead and play better ball next time around.

Two defeat’s in a day were heartbreaking enough, but the third one literally killed me off. Never expected Arsenal to get run over that badly at Old Trafford. 4-0 was too much of a drubbing to digest. Might be the injury worries, or the champion’s league at the back of their minds. Whatever it was, it all went awfully wrong for Wenger and his boys. But have to accept it did hurt more that finishing at the bottom of the table leading my company team. That always gets me to think. Why do I give so much importance to someone else’s playing football than to my game. I might never be able to answer that.

But at the end of the day, I know I’l get another chance to lead my team sooner that later when lots of things can be set right.

And I also know that we’l get another shot soon to break that cocky Nani’s legs since we are going to Oldtrafford again in two months time.

So will be waiting to see who celebrates first.

Sandy the Capgemini Captain, or Sandy the Gunner. That only time will tell.

Entschuldigung.....

Guten Tag, Herr Balan.

Guten Tag, Herr Agrawal.

Wie geht es Ihnen?

Danke, sehr gut. Und Ihnen?

Auch gut, Danke.

Course Content : A CUSTOMISED GERMAN COURSE

Date : 22nd Jan08 to 27th Feb08.

Timing : 9:30a.m to 11:45a.m (session will be 3 times a week on mon, wed and fri)

Trainer : Vijaylakshmi from Max Muller Bhavan

Venue : Conference Room 11, 6th floor, Campus 1B

After mastering the art of speaking five languages fluently, never expected a chance for the sixth one to come up so soon. But when the chance came by, didn’t wanna let it go. Not because it was something I always wanted to do and stuff, but just cos sitting in office idle for long periods was turning out to be hell even though I’ve made sure I am not spending more that 5 hrs at work on any given day. So German it was, A self nominated training which was luckily approved by my manager which I thought will never get approved in the first place. Always knew knowing German will be helpful in someway in the future. Still its more fun, just to blabber out a few words in German to the kids in Drdo for whom all this is Greek and Latin. And then laugh out loud. Cheap Thrills you see.

Reached the first class late by ten mins, courtesy forgetting to carry my ID card for the first time in my corporate career. Guess I was too excited about what was scheduled for the day. Was expecting to see a Tall Curvy Phirang in her late twenties with blonde straight hair dressed in formal shirt and a mini skirt welcome me with a smile when I say Enschuldigung and enter the classroom. But that was asking for too much. An Indian in her mid thirties was there addressing the class which was already crammed up for lack of enough space.

The crowd was mainly the experienced lot of P3’s and P4’s coupled with a few of us P1’s. Always wonder, why is it that this so called senior crowd mostly consist of dumbskates who act and behave worse than school kids as Herr Agrawal puts it. Possible that we are the smarter lot. Or guess, indeed we are the smarter lot.

Session starts off with our introduction, then the Guten morgen’s and the Guten tag’s followed by Ubungen {which means a few exercises by the way}. The P4 next to me who was my partner for the day always seemed to have innumerable doubts. In between Herr Agrawal also succeeded in pulling off a Yapan trick on me in one of the exercises we were having. And to finish it off the ZEHLEN session and a few mouth exercises which were bare necessities cos words sounded more difficult to pronounce than it had ever been in Malayalam. All in all a good two and a half hrs of time pass in office and then we can always spend the next two and half hrs trying to converse all possible nonsense in German to our dear colleagues. So hopefully by the end of it all should be able to update my Orkut profile and add a sixth language to the languages known column or atleast should be able to produce a few small blogs completely in a language which both my blog mentors will no clue about. On 28^th February, u’ll find a hoarding near the basketball court in Drdo which says…………..

40 days……. 40 phrases…………..

I don’t like to show off, but its only natural to feel proud about.

Comeback

This is no post which explains my absence from the bogging circuit for the last six months, nor is it a post which portrays exactly what I did in those last six months. But this is just a way to encourage myself to write something more and give me a kick start, because every time I sit on my bed, with Kishore playing in the background and keyboard in my hands, I somehow convince myself that today’s not the right day to restart the updates. Its more of sheer laziness than anything else. So have made up my mind to update more frequently from now on. There were quite a few blog worthy episodes in the last few months. Will update them all in due course of time.