Sehar

Went to watch Sehar starring Arshad Warsi & Sushant Singh at 'Swagath' with Ajay, Sid & Soumya's gang. I had expected the movie to be good & it lived upto my expectations.

It's great to see that these kind of movies are getting made (the film has a debutant director), & that we have at least some flicks not following the standard formulae. Also, Dolby sound really completes the movie experience. This was amplified by the fact that the movie has no background score whatsoever ....... there's just the raw sound of guns going off. The climax is especially gripping. I always knew these two were good actors & they've delivered great performances this time too.

It was a good outing considering it cost only 40 bucks. PVR's weekend rates of Rs. 150/- for Dus put paid to my plans for seeing it on the big screen.

Just Another Pub

Anupam relented to Sid's request & gave us a 'first salary' treat at 'Just Another Pub' ...... ya, that really was the name of the place. It was an OK kind of place & the song selection included pop, unlike Styx where rock rules.

India were playing Sri Lanka in their 1st ODI in 3 months. Greg Chappel's appointment seemed to have made no difference as they again went down, although they did narrow down the contest somewhat. I can't help but think that the old 'core' of Sachin, Ganguly, Dravid has to go if India want to do well in the 2007 World Cup. Right now, I'm not too hopeful for this team.

Lucky Ali

Sid, Ajay & me were walking back home after lunch at Bengaliana when I see this guy driving a Mini & looking vaguely familiar. Ajay says, "Abe dekh, Lucky Ali !" & it sure is! It's the first time I've seen a celebrity when none was expected (I've seen Mike Gatting & some other English cricketers at Keenan Stadium, JSR & Euphoria at Bitotsav '04).

He parked his car there itself & started talking to someone on his cell. Sid whipped out Ajay's Samsung D-500 & even took some pics (which got the car perfectly but not the man himself). Soon he finished his conversation, took a U-turn & was off.

The one thought that came into my mind was that if you are creative & manage to hit big time, you've got lots of money coming your way. Maybe it was because of the Mini.

Su Doku

After 2 unsuccessful attempts, I managed to solve Su Doku (Times of India No 47), on the 3rd try. Admitted the level was easy, & I took all of 30 minutes, but it was still a great feeling.

My 1st project

Name: C-Force database migration (Oracle 9i, Oracle Lite to MS SQL, MSDE 2000)
Client: Shell

I am supposed to do black box testing on some stored procedures.

The cold is not leaving me. It continues to make life miserable.

JAVA & me

This sucks. Apparently there's no work for 'JAVA guys' like me in this VB centric ODC.

Typical reaction .......... nice smile ........... So what is your technology? ........ It's JAVA ........ Quizzical response ......... JAVA?? ........ confused ......... but we do only VB here ......... hmmmm .......... reassurance .............. okay, okay ........... hmm ........... okay ......... back to their work. O God, why me??

Newsreaders

Mishal Husain (BBC World) & Nidhi Razdan (NDTV 24x7). Two of the best newsreaders today (literally & figuratively).

I am billable !

Today is my first day at work as a billable employee.

Bangalore Times

I'm posting away for lack of anything better to do.

Training (or whatever little there was of it) was cool. We were in exalted company (the likes of IITs(Kanpur, KGP & Roorkee), NITs (Suratkal & Soorat) , MNRCE & BITS, Pilani)! Is that something or what! BIT, MESRA you certainly have a rep.

Dhyani's bought a Samsung D-500 @ 17,000/-. The thing has everything except FM. Pritish has taken a 3 year loan & bought a Zen. Pity he doesn't have a garage to keep it in.

Commuting to & from EC is a pain. Slow moving/jammed traffic is de-riguer. Sid & me have travelled on 4 buses in 3 days but still can't find one that stops close to the house.

The sights & sounds of Bangalore have me dreaming of the time when I'll have my own Toyota, Nokia, duplex, Compaq, hot babe....... not necessarily in that order.

Posted!

Sittu gets our internship days' office (BP, Tower 5).
Sid & Sweta get Shell, Tower 6.
I'm thrown off to Shell, Tower 11. Absolutely no known faces, unfamiliar office architecture, no terminal, new technologies, wonder how long I'll survive in IT?

God, be with me!

Expenses

Dig at Koramangala @ Rs. 2000/- p.m.
House deposit @ ~ Rs. 17,000 one time
Bus to work @ 1000/- p.m.
Food @ ~ Rs. 3000/- p.m.

At this rate, nothing's gonna be left at the end of the month!

A tumultous start

It's been one tumultous week. Can't write in much detail as I'm posting from the library.

The joining made me one of a kind. Out of the 100 odd who joined WIPRO on 8th July 2005 at the sarjapur Campus, I was the only one who didn't get the ID tag since I hadn't taken the B.Sc I & II certificates. Besides, they found a problem with my bank guarantee. Bad start would have been an understatement. After returning empty handed from Sarjapur the next day, I finally managed to wrangle my ID from Ashok (from training, E Block, Ground Floor) on Monday morning, joining the training at Electronic City after half the day was over.

Our comm skills training (termed 'IMPACT', dunno why) was pretty good.

Tensions seem unending, my bank guarantee, our PG dig, Sittu's training jhamela, Princi wanting to move out & as if all that ain't enough, TEDWEB says my location is in Hyderabad!

One thing I'm sorely missing is the 17.86 GB of music on VroomMachine.

Last day in JSR

Sid n me leave for Ranchi at 3 p.m. From there we catch the Hatia-Yesvantpur at 10:30 p.m. & hopefully reach Bangalore by 4:30 p.m. on Thursday. This therefore is the last post from my beloved hometown. The next post shall be from the I.T. capital.

The memories remain

Was taking a round of New Town when I was passing 'our' old cricket ground next to D5-25 (Abhishek's former house). There it was plain, green & unoccupied. Something made me stop the bike & take a long wistful look at it.

The bare patches where we had the batter's & bowler's wickets were long gone, apparently, there aren't enough school going kids in the colony any more (the company's closure has taken it's toll). And to think of the time when our gang used to have running battles with Bunty's gang & the C-Type gangs for control of the pitch! It was almost as if the empty ground was signifying the hopelessness prevalent in the colony.

Thoughts of the good old days came flooding back, thick & fast. Swapnil, Abhishek, Abhijit, Bittu, Nittu, Jolly, Krishna, Bunty (Sandhu) & Bunty (Singh), Bablu, Alok, Jeetu, Deepu, Harpreet, Amlaan, Anand.........all the guys who had ever been part of the myriad sporting contests that took place there.......cricket, football, hockey, hide n seek, maara-piti, pyramids, commandos........God knows what else!

For a moment it seemed they would all come right out from behind the bushes & the walls & start the games all over again.......but then a passing biker honked & reality kicked in.

Memories, memories.........they are the only things that remain. Thank you God for letting me experience those wonderful days of adolescence. And thanks even more for the memories.......they'll remain with me......for life.

That sinking feeling........again

It's sinking in now. My days of lording it over D4-13 are numbered. Playing endless hours of EA Cricket '97, Carmageddon, Operation Blockade, Z-Ball, F-22 Lightning & NFS will soon remain just a fond memory. As will listening to random picks from my 17.86 GB (at last count) music collection. It's gonna be a whole new chapter in life. God help me!