My first accident

And it did happen on the independence day :)Dont really know why, but all these injuries do happen to me only on such memorable days. Guess its just to help me remember the dates better. By the way i dislocated my ankle on the day of elections. The 10th of may and now this.
Even though got just a few scratches here and there specially to the left half of my body, i am so bloody glad that my right half is safe and especially my right ankle is safe and unharmed. Actually the first thing i was bothered about after helping myself on my foot after the skid was to check on my ankle. Was relieved when i knew no damage had been done to it even though my bike was slightly conked with my crash guard completely bent.
It was the same old story... A wet slippery road, a dog just comes in the middle and i apply my disk breaks instantaneously. Thats it... went skidding on the road for a good 5 meters. i didn't know what really happened for a second. By the time i got back to my senses a small crowd had gathered by, and luckily there was no vehicle behind me cos it was already 9 in the nite and the roads were empty.
hmmmm... Dont know why, but i am so hell bent on trying to screw my whole life by such stupidity. Really don't blame the dog also because all it gave me was an anjaan ;) and i fell flat for it, on that tarred road. It was purely because there was something else running in my mind at that moment of time that was bothering me, and my mind was not one bit on the road and that is the primary reason behind the whole thing. Never should i have done that but i did it and here i am, sitting with scratches all over my body and with scratches all over my dear bike too. Hmmmm... Just as you told Bai, i don't think i gotta give too much importance to people whom i don't think can reciprocate the same to me. hehe... I always learn my lessons the hard way, and i am pretty much used to it. So its all in the game :) Hope i recover soon from this jolt.
And the best part is, I WAS NOT WEARING MY HELMET WHEN THIS HAPPENED.
God bless me :)

mail mail go away... come again another day ;)

Day four:
Another mail, but this time to the entire floor. Got a feeling Sandy was atleast partly involved for everyone getting today's mail as a general warning;) As the days go by, things are getting murkier and scarier. Another day to go for this eventful week to come to an end. Dont know what is in store for me :( I am just hoping the mail server crashes for a few days. Then atleast there'll be some peace of mind.

Out-look

The Best

Hi All,

Can we meet some time to discuss about upgrade deck / team?

Jay - I have selected Vinay, Sandeep and Wilson for BI 7.0 upgrade team and they will be working with Murali on Valeo Comp@ss upgrade project.

Ravi - FYI.

Thanks,

And the worst

Hello Sandeep

One of the traits that we would want all our consultants to develop is the ability to take up challenges and to take more ownership. Here was a wonderful opportunity you had to demonstrate these and also to learn and explore new areas. It is disappointing to see the below mail from you and we strongly suggest that you take each and every task that is assigned to you very seriously. The tasks assigned are part of a larger goal and not completing one task means not completing the project.

I would like you to take ownership of this activity and complete this by 9^th July. There will no other postponement and so please ensure that the document is complete in all aspect.

Please reach out to the relevant consultants if you need any details

Best Regards,

Still wondering how i managed to get both these mails on the same day :)

Significant improvements...

Day three:
The atmosphere has changed quite a lot. Lesser work today compared to last two days. Managed to submit few documents also. So the whole mindset was perfect after a bad start to the week.
Had started another initiative in my office recently. Something very different... something nobody else in our office had tried before. hehehe... don't worry, it is not some patent and all. Just like in school, we were asked to maintain a notice board for our floor:) With lots of articles and some fun stuff relating to SAP and our company etc. Six of us were part of it, with one of our manager's as the head. Started off with hardly anyone even glancing at it. Its very difficult to pull the crowd you see, that too without doing anything outta the box to promote it(our manager wanted us to take a laid back approach). Slowly its gaining momentum and all 6 of us got our first appreciation for this(or thats what i am believing). Got a mail today evening from the same manager asking for our updated resume. He knows most of us are anyways jobless, so if at all he takes any effort to improve our condition then it'll be nice. Anyways will know the facts only tomorrow and hopefully i'l have something happy to update here tomorrow rather than sit and crib again.

Different people, Different perspectives...

Take 1: I am standing just outside my building talking on phone to some hdfc bank guy. One of the manager who's name was in the cc list in yesterday's mail and who had a talk with me about yesterdays issue just passed by. looks at me... a sheepish and irritating smile was there on his face. As though he achieved something great in life. Then he says, "good work yesterday... !0:30 in the nite and all, hmmmm". He just got onto my nerves that minute, but what to do. helplessly smiled back as though i was the big culprit in yesterdays crime and they won the war they had declared against me. I predicted this laugh from their side yesterday itself when i wrote, didnt i?? sometimes my assumptions do turn out right bob :)

Take 2: I am ripping on my bike. Its around 8 30 in the night and two of my colleagues are getting married tomorrow and we are really running late to attend their reception. Suddenly my phone rings and i pull out the phone and give it to amru who's sitting with me on my bike to check who it is. To my surprise, it was the same senior manager who had sent that mail to me. Stopped bike and picked up the call and he inquired about whether i was coming for the reception and when i would reach and stuff. Nothing much at all. But if you look into it deeply, there was no need for him to call me in the first place. I don't remember when was the last time he had called me on my cell. Somehow made me feel that somewhere deep inside he felt bad for what happened yesterday. Felt much better after that. We didn't speak a word about yesterday even after we reached there and were casually talking and having a bit of fun. Had the urge of wanting to go tell him the whole story from my perspective, but somehow could not muster the courage to do it today. Anyways happy my relation didn't screw up on a long term basis with him because of a silly incident. It might have been very difficult for me to face him in office from now on. But that one phone call changed it all. A phone call which otherwise would have been forgotten overnight, will be remembered for a while now:)

The Best and the worst!!!

The day started off brilliantly when the first thing i saw when i switched on my comp was a mail from my Manager, which called for a meeting and surprisingly the meeting was to deploy all of us finally onto a BI project for which we have been waiting patiently for the last 12 months. But the joy of getting a project was short lived when there was another mail within 5 minutes which stated that the meeting is canceled for now and rescheduled for a later time. We were so close to getting that break which we've been waiting for a very long time and now its just a few more anxious days until the verdict finally comes out. we later got to know that the reason for the cancellation of the meeting was because of our new "pool structure" in our organization. Since all of us were part of the north american pool and since the project is based out of the french pool we supposedly cannot be involved in it unless our pools are changed. And changing pools is not that easy a job. So our first project has almost slipped out of our fingertips with us knowing very well what will happen to this project now and it is inevitable. Now i feel it would have been good to get noticed really early in your company for your technical qualities rather than for your sporting qualities.
The second part of the day went on pretty well. Had a small meeting with our "would have been project head" and he really sort of impressed all of us with the way he carried himself(finding a smart knowledgeable senior guy in BI had off late become a really tedious task). He gave us some work to do and we were working on it on a very tight deadline. so devoted most of my time in that. Also moved around with a lot of caution today after we got news that we were getting very bad reviews from our managers(never in my wildest dreams thought i could have been one of the reasons).
But the last third of the day literally killed me off. Got a mail from one of my senior managers asking me to take up work given to me more seriously and finish it on time, and that such behavior is not accepted from any consultant of the company. It also had few of my previous mails attached which was part of my conversation with a senior consultant i was working with. To cap it all it had some of the top managers in SAP on the cc list. So what actually did i do to attain such wrath. Its a long story.
Let me go back in time. It was around ten days back that all of us were sitting around our cubicles and just having some casual talk. Suddenly this colleague of mine, Miss P comes to me with a senior looking guy. She introduces me to him and there started my bad time. Miss P very cleverly made it look to me as though a senior manager(whom i respect a lot till date) has assigned me some work under this senior consultant guy. Even though i was not one bit familiar about the nature of the work, i nevertheless accepted it cos in our present state any work that way coming our way was to be treated like gold. A few days and a few discussions later with this SC(senior consultant) i sort of understood what i am being asked to do. It looked very simple when he put it to me, and even i acknowledged that in the beginning. But i know for the fact that having never worked on Abap in the past one year and my Abap knowledge being almost nonexistent, i knew i had a mountain to climb even though all i had to do was documentation work. But this documentation work required quite a bit of in depth Abap knowledge. Initially i took it up with lot of interest but soon realized that without knowing the concepts behind all that i am doing i am never going to be able to make a perfect document. So after completing four out of the six documents, i shot a mail to the SC stating that this is all i could do and please make someone else do the rest. someone who is well verse with all this. But he reverted asking me to just complete the whole thing since i have already completed most of it and to take Miss P's help if necessary. Miss P, trust me knows nothing. But she pretends as though she heads half the projects on my floor. quite an achievement for someone from my batch. So everytime i ask Miss P any doubt there is only a "this is very easy kano" or a "i've not worked on this man, don ask me" as reply. All that she's tried explaining to me is nonsense and i still don know if she really knows what exactly the requirement is. Over the next two days i tried various means to finish it, even by talking a guy who's well verse with Abap and making my team leaders explain what exactly they want but to no avail. But the final nail was smashed when i somehow managed to complete the whole document and send it to the SC. But after a day Review of that document comes, but from an unlikely source. From Miss P. i was shocked when i opened the document. There were the silliest of possible mistakes which makes no difference to the document highlighted in blue. Do this, do that, this is not there, that is missing and a lot of such nonsense. That really pissed me off. i really wanted to know how qualified she was to review a document which i sent which really needed an experts opinion. i knew my doc will contain mistakes, but the ones she pointed to were mind blowing. So decided not to reply to that mail and told her personally that i don think i am qualified enough to make further changes. in the mean time i finally got some official work assigned to me from the BI side and was very happy to do something on that front. The next day i get a mail from the SC stating that this is not how we wanted the document and you can ask us to take you out of this assignment if you further cant assist us. and replying to that mail in the affirmative was the biggest mistake of my life. never knew that in corporate terms "tell me if u want to leave" means " if you leave u'll have to face the consequences". so this is what led to me getting that mail today. and there were also further activity and discussions among the managers due no my blunder which almost buried me alive on friday evening when i got a call from one of these managers almost threatening me indirectly.
Finally went and spoke to the senior manager in the night after Mr SC and Miss P had left. Appologised to him and asked him what i was supposed to do. he tried explaining to me, but by now i was almost overcome by emotions. just could not believe that the same manager whom i worked with day in day out for almost two months and whom i thought understood me well took this decision to mail without even speaking a word personally to me. I know i am not that good technically, but i never thought after the time we spent in Tech-ed he could ever question my integrity. but he did. dont know if he did it to threaten me or dont know if he did it to teach me a corporate lesson. it did hit pretty hard, and it did hit where it hurts.
Sat back till 11 in the night and almost completed it the fresh document. actually it was almost the same document but just modified and i am pretty sure if the right people check it this wont be rejected. The people involved might laugh thinking how they got this still-fresher to do the work by just threatening him. But thats not the case. I firmly believe that if you are working under the right ppl you will definitely deliver the goods, and any time i work for this particular manager i automatically tend to give more than a 100 percent come what may. But when ppl fail to understand that. it hurts.
The major problem is that we are still not given any official work and many like Miss P know this fact. so we become easy prey to such cheap tricks when they want to outsource any of their dirty work to us. and we being helpless due to lack of work cant show ppl like her the finger. Isnt all this what we call exploitation??? wonder which court i have to go to find justice!!!

Is Leaving Arsenal A Good Idea?

Over the past few days there has been a lot of speculation about a host of Arsenal players planning to leave the club for greener pastures elsewhere. This is nothing new to the club with similar situations cropping up at the end of every season. Mr Arsene Wenger finds relatively unknown talented kids and turns them into superstars and these superstars decide to leave the club to bigger clubs just to earn a few extra bucks. Its the same this season too, with Flamini already leaving the club and Hleb and Adebayor soon to follow.
So when i was just whiling away my time going thru articles on Goal.com in office, came across this very interesting article written about players leaving Arsenal and to be very frank i was very impressed with the article because it made a lot of sense. Will paste the link here and you read and enjoy and also decide for yourself for example if a player like Adebayor is worth what he's being offered.

http://www.goal.com/en-india/Articolo.aspx?ContenutoId=747107

One year of joblessness, nevertheless a great experience...

coming up soon...

10th may to 10th june

Finally after 31 days, the cast is off my leg. Don't think its the end of the ordeal though. got so used to the crutches and not using my right leg, that i am not even able to place my foot on the ground due to pain and stiffness. So guess it'll take a few more days to get used to walking on two feet rather that three.
But the worrying factor now is that the shape of my leg looks very bad. looking very pale and weak and slightly deformed too. There's hardly any flesh remaining on the already fleshless right leg of mine. All thats remaining are the bare bones now with the calf muscle performing a complete vanishing act, thanks to my fiber optic cast. So to rebuild all this and to get back to normal shape will take some time. Very realistically speaking getting back to walking normally might take another week or so and the next time you see me score a goal with this right foot of mine will surely be after around six months. Hopefully sandy puts on some body mass also by then :)

Langda Goda at work...

Two days in office, and it was not one bit easy with this leg of mine. Never actually intended to go there until I had this cast off my leg. But could not afford to exhaust all my leaves which i had accumulated over the last one year. So decided to finally get back to office. If not for the whole week then atleast for two or three days (and manipulate my presence there for the rest of the days). Had actually planned of going by the company cab, but that was always going to be a pain to go wait at the stop and then rot in traffic for 40 minutes, the same distance which I’ll cover in 10 minutes by bike.

I decided to go dressed for the occasion because I knew I’ll grab a lot of attention when I enter my floor on three legs. Had not worn a pant for almost a month since my injury(don't start getting ideas, i am always in shorts these days), so full excitement mein I wore a brand new pant which I had got stitched for vishu but had never got a chance to wear it. Also didn’t wanna hamper the company dress code. So went with shoes albeit only on one leg. So that completed my Langda Goda look :)

Went riding pillion on Anand’s Unicorn holding my crutches in hand which in itself presented me with some sympathetic stares from passerby’s. They we looking as though I was some permanently handicapped guy who’s lost his leg for ever and feeling sorry for me.

Sitting in my cube was never easy with the limited spacing considering I had to take special care of my leg. Somehow managed to sit thru till lunch by going thru the three hundred odd mails which had accumulated in my mail box over the last fifteen days. Also had to give a status report of my leg to every person who just happens to pass by my cubicle and sees me handicapped. Lunch was a big pain or as our boys at work call it “A Big Rodney”. Had to go to the cafeteria when the whole office will be there for lunch and it will again invite lots of attention, not that I don’t like it but still it’s a pain when that attention I am gaining is totally out of sympathy ;) on top of that our very own director was trying very hard to shoot a documentary of this Langda Goda as he was making full use of his half lakh phone to capture my walk right from my cube to the cafeteria. Basically one big Bakra they were making out of me, and I was so damn helpless cos I even needed the help of both my hands if I needed to walk properly now with these crutches. Or I would have shot them all. Hehe.

The second day was a bit more boring but we finished it off by lunching outside in a new Punjabi place that had just opened outside our campus. Good food it was, and i was happier because i was eating out after a very long time. Reached home early on both days fearing rain. Actually rain was more of a reason to escape early rather than get bugged any longer. It was adventurous though it took a slight toll on my leg with my leg getting numb at times cos of lack of blood circulation and resulting in a slight bout of headache. But anyways had to take the chance so that I don’t lose out on any more holidays since lots of trips in the pipeline in the near future and thought these leaves which I save now will come in very handy then.

Paying the Penalty

It’s not easy watching two of your fierce rivals face each other in a champion’s league final. I still believe that Arsenal deserved to be playing this match, but for that fateful night in anfield where “the tale of two penalties” combined with some utter foolish defending put paid to our champion’s league dream. Anyways after a season which promised so much and which ended with so little I’ve sort of stopped expecting too much from my so called young team ;) so Man U went on to win the title too after we blew up a five point lead with ten games to go. Has been a lucky season for Man U too. Guess it’s the Munich disaster that’s acting as the catalyst. And I really hate to see that prick Ronaldo bask in the limelight. I know he’s talented, he’s got good skills and now he scores goals too. He is definitely the best in the world at present. But I still HATE HIM.

So the stage was set, in the capital of Russia for the greatest prize in Europe. Whatever the outcome of the match, the trophy was definitely returning to England. Man U vs Chelsea to crown the champions of Europe. A big match it was, the only reason that I didn’t wanna miss it. There were not too many surprises in the team selection with Man U opting for a 4-4-2 and Chelsea a 4-5-1 with Dogbra as their lone striker ;)

The match kicked off after the traditional opening ceremony and stuff and it was played on a slightly under prepared pitch with the players loosing their footing on more than one occasion. The initial exchanges were won by Man U with them taking a deserved lead in the 26^th minute by who else (the footballer I hate the most). Chelsea somehow hung on for the rest of the half and as luck would have it found the equalizer thru Lampard in the injury time of the first half. The second half was evenly fought with Chelsea having a slight upper hand but nothing productive happened other than Dogbra hitting the woodwork once. So the match went into extra time. The tired legs of the players were clearly evident as the sheer intensity of this big match had started to take its toll on the players. Lampard struck the bar with a cute shot on the turn towards the end of first half of extra time and by then Chelsea might have started to feel that the trophy might just be theirs for the taking.

Then with minutes left on the clock and a shootout looking inevitable the worst happened. After 118 minutes of great entertainment for the 80,000 odd spectators inside the Luzhniki stadium and millions of them watching it from home, 2 minutes of absolute nonsense from the players of both sides spoilt it all. And from a personal point of view I hold one Mr. Innocent looking Carlitos Tevez responsible for the whole incident because it was truly a mark of unsporting behavior from his part which led to the provocation of many Chelsea players. A scuffle ensued with lots of pushing and shoving with most of the players getting involved. And as an end result Mr. Dogbra (another player I have a strong dislike for) got the marching orders for SLAPPING Vidic. A moment of absolute foolishness from a player who’s always been a fool ;) and I believe that might just have been his last match as a Chelsea player and it ended in disgrace.

So another Champions League finals heads to a shootout and the odds were heavily tilted in favor of Chelsea as they had one of the best in the world in front of their goal. But nothing is a guarantee when it comes to Penalties. The one who keeps his nerves comes out triumphant. Its fun to sit and watch the match as a neutral since there is no pressure whatsoever on you. I could imagine the tension and anxiety on all the Man U and Chelsea fans. The first few penalties were well taken and I was over the moon when my only prediction of the match came true. "That my dear Cristiano Ronaldo is going to miss his spot kick". I somehow had a gut feeling he will miss and so messaged some of my frens some of whom were Man U supporters and the others Chelsea, about my prediction. And when Petr Cech pulled off a brilliant stop to deny Ronaldo, I am sure every single one of those Man U supporters would have cursed me and I was elevated to the status of GOD by the Chelsea ones. That minute I thought the cup was now Chelsea’s to lose. And that’s exactly what they did. When Mr. Chelsea John Terry finally walked to take the decisive kick my memory went back a few years to the FA cup finals when the then Mr. Arsenal Patrick Viera took the final spot kick against Man U and sealed the cup for us. Never in my wildest dream did I think Terry would miss his kick. But that’s what happened. He wrong footed Van der Saar but lost his footing just as he kicked the ball and his shot skimmed off the outside off the post and Man U were given a reprieve. A lifeline which they used to their best effect.

“I said on the eve of the game that we wouldn’t let the memory of the Busby Babes down. I think fate played its hand, just as it has all season. We had a cause today and that’s important. Causes are hard to fight against. People with causes become very difficult to go up against. Fate played its hand today when Terry slipped.”

- Alex Fergusson, Man U Manager

That literally summed it all up and when Mr. Sulk Anelka missed his kick, that was the end of a Chelsea dream and I am sure every single Chelsea fan would have been in tears looking at Terry and Lampard weeping inconsolably. I was in a similar situation two years back and I for one know how it feels to lose in a champion’s league final. Well played guys. It was a great game to watch. Didn’t have the heart to look at Man U lifting another trophy. So switched off the television set and went off to bed even as my inbox was getting flooded wit lots of Hail Man U messages. Hehe

And I am really sorry if I hurt the sentiments of any Man U fan for referring to Man U as Man U in the whole post(read in an article that its like insulting the club by referring to Manchester United as Man U) hehehe… somehow I love to take a dig at Man U at every single opportunity I get. Arsenal forever.

and its aftermath.....

Note : recommended to read "The Incident" before reading this post ...

It’s been 10 days now. Since the first mistake of my life. Hehe. I really don’t know if it was, but I might have got influenced by the book I just read. So was it really a big mistake??? Hmmm… I really cant tell now. Only time will tell. Or rather the performance on field will tell. But as of now, all those thoughts are like a few light years away. Just wanna get back on my foot and start walking as before because trust me, sitting at home all day long doing nothing is a pain in the ass.

So how really am I spending time is the big question… actually there are lots of ways to spend time. Sitting on orkut in the morning and chatting with a fifteen year old kid who has summer vacation. Or read some books, a habit which I had sort of given up around a year back ;) busy corporate life you see, don’t have time for novels and stuff. Or sit and read innumerable football articles and blogs on goal.com. Frankly speaking this was exactly what I used to do sitting in office also whole day. Hehe. One of my best time passes is watching all those English movies that I’ve got from my pals and dumped at home. Don’t think this break will be sufficient to finish all of those considering my monitor faces my window and so watching the movie during day time is never an option due to the glare factor. So not more than one movie a day, but have watched some good ones already over the last few days. Another good way i spend time during day is using my dear 2600. Chat for hours on phone with all the well wishers who call to enquire about my condition. Or probably the best thing to do will be to sit and update The Distant Echo. Which I’ve not being doing off late. I’ve been lagging quite a bit on that front, so should be able to make up for it now. So lots more in the pipeline and will be posted soon.

I’ve never been a TV person, so hardly switch it on that too since it’s the off season for football also. But still watch an occasional IPL match or a mal movie on one of the channels. Sitting whole day in front of the comp can get really bugging. So a slight change. But with all the maintenance work on the power grid going on over the last few days, there’s no electricity most of the time. So no Comp and no TV. Just rot sitting idle.

Friends often visit on weekends, so then time just fly’s by. But cant expect anyone to come and always give you company everyday rite. So gotta live the solitary reaper style life for the next few days. How I wish I was still staying in Drdo.

Visited the hospital yesterday and finally got the complete cast for my leg, that too a fiber glass one. Was in a lot of dilemma whether to opt for PoP or fiber one. Opted for the latter in the end and I am feeling much more comfortable with this cast. So guess the right choice was made. But the poor doctor missed out on some easy money there after he tried real hard to convince me to get it done at home so that he can make some pocket money rather than the hospital authorities eating all the money. Poor souls got to do all this for a better living after slogging for 5 years and spending a fortune doing MBBS. Sometimes feel we engineers were always safe on that count.

Anyways another 10 more days, guess I gotta continue this routine. Then will hop my way into office. I might have become an expert in using my crutches by then.

Only big miss over the last few day was not being able to make it to Sowmya’s engagement, the first one in my friends circle. But no regrets, could not afford to screw this beloved right foot of mine and end up staying at home for 3 more weeks. So wishes to the couple through my blog. Congratulations Sowmya and Sandeep. The last sentence might just raise a few eyebrows ;)