Old sins... they come back to haunt you. You may have spent a million days in frolic, happily idling away time or even indulging yourself in little 'sins' and sinister pursuits. But you can't escape, for nature has its own way of exacting revenge. Three quarters of a year later, inevitably all your sins come back to haunt you in the form of an alimentary canal with a loud voice at one end and no restraint at the other [from here].
During my internship, we rented an apartment close to the office and 5 of us temporarily called that place our home. In a 2 bed 2 bath apartment, I specifically chose the living room to live alone while the others split into pairs and lived in the two rooms. Oh the joys when we had first come into the room --- such a clean and spotless place! Every inch of the rooms shone: right from the kitchen cabinets to the bathroom tubs. We managed to buy the bare minimum necessary to live: a few table lamps because there weren't any light fixtures inside and a few air mattresses so that we could sleep in peace. And the rest of the place was free to use!
Oh the joys of living there! I used to get into the house and then fling off clothes in all directions, along with the shoes which I aimed towards the wall straight from the foot: something like "Look Ma, no hands!!". Chocolate wafers used to fly all around, and little somethings from our plates used to drop all the time on the carpet while we dined and watched the Simpsons. Strangely, the carpet never really 'looked' like it had undergone all that! Numerous cooking disasters later, the kitchen began to resemble a battlefield. Some tiles on the floor had been burnt from melted aluminium (don't ask me how). The oven top which was clean and white before we came had several layers of dried testimony of the various concoctions we cooked. And then the shelves where we stored the spices had all turned various shades of yellow from the creamy white condition we had found them in. Oh did I mention the various shades of molds on bathroom curtains and the different patterns of white on the mirrors? :D
But there came a time when we had to leave. And clean the apartment before we left. Boy I never realized that we actually had managed to screw up the apartment so badly! We asked each other, "Hey, where did this black stretch on the wall come from?" That one turned out to be from the bicycle that we kept in the house. Or while I am cleaning the bathroom floor I exclaim, "Hey guys, what the hell is this slippery thing here encased in swabs of hair?". Turned out that it was actually a long lost bar of soap which had since been subject to numerous washes and other unmentionable watery misadventures. We went scrap-scrap on the kitchen counter, with three guys at it simultaneously. One had a knife in hand, another a spoon and a third guy held a bleach and a detergent in his two hands while I shouted encouragements! Err.. okay, so I also switched roles once in a while. But I damn well understood Lady Macbeth when she had said, "Out, thy bloody spot, out!" :D
The important thing is: we did a cleaning job. And I should say a darned good job. Or so I thought until I came back here and then visited a girl's apartment for a pot luck dinner party. By God that place was heavenly! Even after the whole cleanup and arrangement stuff before we evacuated, we hadn't managed to make the apartment look any bit less messier than a stable. And here was her apartment: everything so much in place and nice. How on earth she managed it, I don't know. But I do know that I will never be able to do that. After all, indulging in those little sins every two seconds was almost worth the time we spent scrubbing kitchen ovens and bathroom sinks. Okay so we were haunted by a few old sins, but I doubt if we could have done anything otherwise ;)
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Mythbusters
With the new fall academic session around the corner, a few myths I feel need to be busted for people who are about to come and join various US universities.
First of all, the deal with on campus and off campus. Many of ye hopefuls might be accustomed to the fortress-like miniature city as the campus of a university, where a mighty brick and mortar fence guards the premises, and holds the sanctity intact of what you know as the 'campus'. Here in the US, however, there is rarely such a wall around the whole place. City roads often pass right through the middle of the univeristy, and the campus of the university generally is a region or a part of the city rather than a segregated block. Thus, off-campus housing doesn't mean that you are left in forlorn corners where you have to travel every day to reach the safe haven of the university. Neither does on-campus housing mean that you live in a noise-free (and noisier people free) zone. Quite the opposite, actually.
A second fancy idea that most people like to come here with is that the GRE score indicates if they will get aid, scholarship, etc. Unfortunately, it is not so. It is a complete free-for-all once you reach the university. All of us then begin from zero again. Your resume is the only thing that you can throw around and hope to find on-campus employment, etc. So whether you've landed a 1550 on the GRE or you scored a 1300 doesn't matter: being at the right place at the right time does. They don't really care what your GRE score was as soon as you touch the US soil. And financial aid is not free scholarship that you get --- you need to work as a research assistant or a teaching assistant to get the dough.
Next, it is a dream quote back home that the American people are not hardworking and that the desi junta really show them what hard work is all about. Over cups of conversation in roadside tea stalls, I have seen highly informed opinions that these people are dolts and they can't even do a single thing themselves: apparently it is all done my machines and computers. It is a very romantic idea --- I agree, like the MS Word Easter egg that was 'discovered' by some Indian engineer and "even Bill Gates" can't figure out why that happens etc. Forget it, people. I have found the Americans here to be very smart and very very hardworking. You can't even imagine the amount of hours they can put in to finish papers, the kind of lengths they go to in order to understand a single derivation of an obscure paper. Almost always their company is good and accepting --- there is a lot you can learn from them.
Finally, some people believe all they see on the movies. Hot chicks in skimpy clothes hanging at every corner and winking at you, or otherwise cool hunks waiting to propose to you from their Harley Davidsons --- sorry, they don't exist. On a typical campus, you'll find the undergrads going "Like, totally... man... I was like... dude..." and the grad students running from one end of the campus to another telling the tales of their woes to anyone and everyone who cares to listen (or at least pretends to). You would have imagined it is all a party and booze time once you land and that is what you will do most of the time once you are here. Sorry, honey --- you will spend most of your time poring over research papers and books and finishing assignments. So all ye hopefuls who dream about getting laid, sweeping others off their feet or getting swept: let those fantasies rest. You aren't getting any ;)
First of all, the deal with on campus and off campus. Many of ye hopefuls might be accustomed to the fortress-like miniature city as the campus of a university, where a mighty brick and mortar fence guards the premises, and holds the sanctity intact of what you know as the 'campus'. Here in the US, however, there is rarely such a wall around the whole place. City roads often pass right through the middle of the univeristy, and the campus of the university generally is a region or a part of the city rather than a segregated block. Thus, off-campus housing doesn't mean that you are left in forlorn corners where you have to travel every day to reach the safe haven of the university. Neither does on-campus housing mean that you live in a noise-free (and noisier people free) zone. Quite the opposite, actually.
A second fancy idea that most people like to come here with is that the GRE score indicates if they will get aid, scholarship, etc. Unfortunately, it is not so. It is a complete free-for-all once you reach the university. All of us then begin from zero again. Your resume is the only thing that you can throw around and hope to find on-campus employment, etc. So whether you've landed a 1550 on the GRE or you scored a 1300 doesn't matter: being at the right place at the right time does. They don't really care what your GRE score was as soon as you touch the US soil. And financial aid is not free scholarship that you get --- you need to work as a research assistant or a teaching assistant to get the dough.
Next, it is a dream quote back home that the American people are not hardworking and that the desi junta really show them what hard work is all about. Over cups of conversation in roadside tea stalls, I have seen highly informed opinions that these people are dolts and they can't even do a single thing themselves: apparently it is all done my machines and computers. It is a very romantic idea --- I agree, like the MS Word Easter egg that was 'discovered' by some Indian engineer and "even Bill Gates" can't figure out why that happens etc. Forget it, people. I have found the Americans here to be very smart and very very hardworking. You can't even imagine the amount of hours they can put in to finish papers, the kind of lengths they go to in order to understand a single derivation of an obscure paper. Almost always their company is good and accepting --- there is a lot you can learn from them.
Finally, some people believe all they see on the movies. Hot chicks in skimpy clothes hanging at every corner and winking at you, or otherwise cool hunks waiting to propose to you from their Harley Davidsons --- sorry, they don't exist. On a typical campus, you'll find the undergrads going "Like, totally... man... I was like... dude..." and the grad students running from one end of the campus to another telling the tales of their woes to anyone and everyone who cares to listen (or at least pretends to). You would have imagined it is all a party and booze time once you land and that is what you will do most of the time once you are here. Sorry, honey --- you will spend most of your time poring over research papers and books and finishing assignments. So all ye hopefuls who dream about getting laid, sweeping others off their feet or getting swept: let those fantasies rest. You aren't getting any ;)
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Consulting vs Core Product
The placement season is around the corner for many people, a few juniors have been asking me whether it is better to go into the software industry and join a consulting company or a core product development company. While answering this question in itself is not possible, my experience in working for both a consulting as well as a core product development company might be able to give a few pointers about what to expect in these respective organizations.
In a consulting company, the first thing you learn is that the customer takes the highest priority over anything else. If you promise the client that you will be able to resolve a bug in the next 24 hours, you better do it within those 24 hours. Your word, either on a telephone conference call or via email, will become the law. The brand image that is built for a a company is based on these aspects of its individual employees: and thus what will be drilled into you is the professionalism expected out of everyone. On one hand you will get exposure to a variety of technologies, right from open systems and Java to the legacy mainframe jobs, depending on the project you land into. On the other hand, you also have the chance of landing into the maintenance projects. While many curse this brand of projects, the fact is that you have a more than 50% probability of landing in some such project wherever you go. At a consulting company, you will have chances to go onsite and have a free world tour on the company budget. You will have frequent conference calls, you will also get to all sorts of project commencement and release parties. Keep in mind that your interaction with other project teams will be limited to social gatherings or the lunchtime chatter: very rarely will you interact with the people from the other team in a "technical" environment, so to say, except a few borrowed subject matter experts at times. But you can also attend a lot of trainings in different spheres (if you have time, that is) and you can also switch companies every 2-3 years if you like until you find a place that pays you enough and your position on the corporate ladder is also something that suits you.
At a core product development company, on the other hand, the first thing that will hit you is how you are contributing to the larger picture, to the organization as a whole. You will find that you will interact in technical discussions with a lot of people across a lot of teams. The diversity of the work along with the little ways in which you get to contribute to the big product as a whole will be, to say the least, humbling. Unlike consulting companies, you can suggest innovations in design and implementation, and can actually try out various ways of doing the same thing (akin to the famed 'research' some of you dream about), and you will have the freedom to do these. You will have fewer conference calls, and will be more concerned with the development at your local center. Also, most of the big core product development companies have their own proprietary extensions to standard softwares, such as their own Java classes or their own operating systems, etc. So while you will gradually gain expertise in them, your chances of being able to switch to other similar companies will also go down.
To conclude, thus, I'd say that you should choose well if you have a choice, that is. The pay will be similar in either place, although the core product companies tend to pay a little more. You will have ample time to prepare for your MBA/MS dreams if you wish in both these places, and you will also have a good life outside the 8 hours at office, if you so wish. The only difference between joining these two types of organizations will be that your career will take off on very different footings, thats all.
In a consulting company, the first thing you learn is that the customer takes the highest priority over anything else. If you promise the client that you will be able to resolve a bug in the next 24 hours, you better do it within those 24 hours. Your word, either on a telephone conference call or via email, will become the law. The brand image that is built for a a company is based on these aspects of its individual employees: and thus what will be drilled into you is the professionalism expected out of everyone. On one hand you will get exposure to a variety of technologies, right from open systems and Java to the legacy mainframe jobs, depending on the project you land into. On the other hand, you also have the chance of landing into the maintenance projects. While many curse this brand of projects, the fact is that you have a more than 50% probability of landing in some such project wherever you go. At a consulting company, you will have chances to go onsite and have a free world tour on the company budget. You will have frequent conference calls, you will also get to all sorts of project commencement and release parties. Keep in mind that your interaction with other project teams will be limited to social gatherings or the lunchtime chatter: very rarely will you interact with the people from the other team in a "technical" environment, so to say, except a few borrowed subject matter experts at times. But you can also attend a lot of trainings in different spheres (if you have time, that is) and you can also switch companies every 2-3 years if you like until you find a place that pays you enough and your position on the corporate ladder is also something that suits you.
At a core product development company, on the other hand, the first thing that will hit you is how you are contributing to the larger picture, to the organization as a whole. You will find that you will interact in technical discussions with a lot of people across a lot of teams. The diversity of the work along with the little ways in which you get to contribute to the big product as a whole will be, to say the least, humbling. Unlike consulting companies, you can suggest innovations in design and implementation, and can actually try out various ways of doing the same thing (akin to the famed 'research' some of you dream about), and you will have the freedom to do these. You will have fewer conference calls, and will be more concerned with the development at your local center. Also, most of the big core product development companies have their own proprietary extensions to standard softwares, such as their own Java classes or their own operating systems, etc. So while you will gradually gain expertise in them, your chances of being able to switch to other similar companies will also go down.
To conclude, thus, I'd say that you should choose well if you have a choice, that is. The pay will be similar in either place, although the core product companies tend to pay a little more. You will have ample time to prepare for your MBA/MS dreams if you wish in both these places, and you will also have a good life outside the 8 hours at office, if you so wish. The only difference between joining these two types of organizations will be that your career will take off on very different footings, thats all.
Monday, August 06, 2007
Bless those search engines
When I had published this list of bizarre search engine queries, I thought they were the weirdest ones you can come up with and land on my blog. But, as always, life never fails to disappoint. Ladies and gentlemen, presenting, another set of queries that led to this blog, grouped together for common answers:
Interracial fantasy stories; Desi fantasy ladki; Life porno ee: First of all, an ROTFL... okay now let me catch my breath. For the love of all blogdom, what exactly did you expect to find here? Inter-racial fantasy stories? My dear dude/dudette, all those hot blonde chicks you see in the movies don't even give a second glance here towards me, let alone the fact that they are surrounded by tons of Salman Khan replicas. So 'inter-racial' fantasy stories will remain just that --- fantasy! And if you were searching for desi ladki fantasies, you might find yourself suddenly a deeper shade of beet red than those actual beet ads if you happened to know anyone else's fantasies but your own. Hah, from these searches I feel as though I might have a career as a porn star as well... err, "creative" writing star for life, I meant! EEeeeeee :P
Couple nude bangla wife pictures; Dating married woman site in kolkata; Divorced men Indian: Whoooo hahahhaa.... my dear reader, I had just threatened to become a pimp in that post I've linked to: I haven't actually become one! See, on one hand someone was searching for divorced Indian men, and on the other hand someone else was looking to date married women in Kolkata! So don't you see the "nude bangla wife" connection ?? (Err, "divine" connection, that is). See, all you need to do is to find each other; and not necessarily through this blog. You know, in this age of Web 2.0, you can do that on any of those million fraanship sites mushrooming everywhere of which I receive 20 invites daily: any one of those will suffice. Do I really need to know the details?
Discovering that a trusted friend backstabs you: Yeah, buddy... Brutus borrowed the dagger from me personally when he went to stab Caesar. That spear is available on demand when you want to stab your best friend: but remember, only backstabs are allowed. If you try stabbing from the front, that dagger becomes a duck and goes "quack-quack"! Oh, by the way, if you've been the fool that got yourself stabbed, then your orbituary is already here. No need to discover anything any longer... your epitaph will bear testimonial to the fact that you did discover this blog before the final decision to end your life in protest against such atrocious writing.
The gropers handbook of tricks: Oh yes, thats right! I almost forgot: I have perfected the subtle art of groping and have published the handbook of tricks. Very briefly, you need to sneak up on the victim, preferably in full public view where everyone is maintaining a good deal of personal space. And then once you are in front of her, jump in and go about your task like there is no tomorrow. Which, if you think about it, is true --- I doubt if there will ever be a tomorrow for you if you do that! ;)
Desi guys; Desi romeo; My kind of guy poem; What is my kind of guy: See, you can always trust Mr. Google! You were searching for the perfect guy, the perfect desi romeo. And you wondered aloud, what would your kind of guy be like? Google devta answered your query, brought you to my blog (like Lord Shiv from Sholay with Veeru providing playback). Lady, look at the divine omens: open your eyes and look how the stars are conspiring and pointing to you, time and again, that you don't need to look any further. Thou knight in shining armour is here, o damsel; come with me and I shall take you onto the flight of a lifetime... *sigh*. There is no need to fear, underwear is here!!
Okay, now for the one-line answers to the 'lesser' queries:
Midnight driver guide: Yeah of course, given my driving skills, who else could be a better guide?
Disco thake in surat: Abe, kamse kam discotheque ko disco thake to mat bana!!
Black bharatnatyam pics: Tai, kath... theyyy, katt!
Brahmi girl pictures: Sorry, she's booked for tonight. :P
Nude roomie: Heheheh, my roomies were NOT pleased to know of this query! :D
Non veg sms: Okay, how about this: I've lost it! :P
Miti drink nude: Huh??
Swimming underwater fully clothed: Splash-splash, chhalaak-chapaat!!
Parna+Sushmit: May the two of you live long, my dears... my best wishes are always with you. Tell me this, though --- did you two happen to meet using any of the queries above? :D
Interracial fantasy stories; Desi fantasy ladki; Life porno ee: First of all, an ROTFL... okay now let me catch my breath. For the love of all blogdom, what exactly did you expect to find here? Inter-racial fantasy stories? My dear dude/dudette, all those hot blonde chicks you see in the movies don't even give a second glance here towards me, let alone the fact that they are surrounded by tons of Salman Khan replicas. So 'inter-racial' fantasy stories will remain just that --- fantasy! And if you were searching for desi ladki fantasies, you might find yourself suddenly a deeper shade of beet red than those actual beet ads if you happened to know anyone else's fantasies but your own. Hah, from these searches I feel as though I might have a career as a porn star as well... err, "creative" writing star for life, I meant! EEeeeeee :P
Couple nude bangla wife pictures; Dating married woman site in kolkata; Divorced men Indian: Whoooo hahahhaa.... my dear reader, I had just threatened to become a pimp in that post I've linked to: I haven't actually become one! See, on one hand someone was searching for divorced Indian men, and on the other hand someone else was looking to date married women in Kolkata! So don't you see the "nude bangla wife" connection ?? (Err, "divine" connection, that is). See, all you need to do is to find each other; and not necessarily through this blog. You know, in this age of Web 2.0, you can do that on any of those million fraanship sites mushrooming everywhere of which I receive 20 invites daily: any one of those will suffice. Do I really need to know the details?
Discovering that a trusted friend backstabs you: Yeah, buddy... Brutus borrowed the dagger from me personally when he went to stab Caesar. That spear is available on demand when you want to stab your best friend: but remember, only backstabs are allowed. If you try stabbing from the front, that dagger becomes a duck and goes "quack-quack"! Oh, by the way, if you've been the fool that got yourself stabbed, then your orbituary is already here. No need to discover anything any longer... your epitaph will bear testimonial to the fact that you did discover this blog before the final decision to end your life in protest against such atrocious writing.
The gropers handbook of tricks: Oh yes, thats right! I almost forgot: I have perfected the subtle art of groping and have published the handbook of tricks. Very briefly, you need to sneak up on the victim, preferably in full public view where everyone is maintaining a good deal of personal space. And then once you are in front of her, jump in and go about your task like there is no tomorrow. Which, if you think about it, is true --- I doubt if there will ever be a tomorrow for you if you do that! ;)
Desi guys; Desi romeo; My kind of guy poem; What is my kind of guy: See, you can always trust Mr. Google! You were searching for the perfect guy, the perfect desi romeo. And you wondered aloud, what would your kind of guy be like? Google devta answered your query, brought you to my blog (like Lord Shiv from Sholay with Veeru providing playback). Lady, look at the divine omens: open your eyes and look how the stars are conspiring and pointing to you, time and again, that you don't need to look any further. Thou knight in shining armour is here, o damsel; come with me and I shall take you onto the flight of a lifetime... *sigh*. There is no need to fear, underwear is here!!
Okay, now for the one-line answers to the 'lesser' queries:
Midnight driver guide: Yeah of course, given my driving skills, who else could be a better guide?
Disco thake in surat: Abe, kamse kam discotheque ko disco thake to mat bana!!
Black bharatnatyam pics: Tai, kath... theyyy, katt!
Brahmi girl pictures: Sorry, she's booked for tonight. :P
Nude roomie: Heheheh, my roomies were NOT pleased to know of this query! :D
Non veg sms: Okay, how about this: I've lost it! :P
Miti drink nude: Huh??
Swimming underwater fully clothed: Splash-splash, chhalaak-chapaat!!
Parna+Sushmit: May the two of you live long, my dears... my best wishes are always with you. Tell me this, though --- did you two happen to meet using any of the queries above? :D
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