That's Life - An Unrealistic View of Life

That's Life - 11

2006-11-28T23:12:00.002-08:00

The Corporate Coffee Rule

I am grateful to Mr. Huffman, my previous project manager for two things. He taught me how to use the office coffeemaker and he fired me from the project.

I don’t have words to describe his kind act of firing me from that project. If you worked two years in Powerbuilder Version 4, you would appreciate why I considered that as a kind act. Those who worked those two years on an ERP platform would relish the act even more.

I was on seventh heaven. I performed a neat somersault in the office and ran home! I was free. No more payroll debugging.. no more asset management. I was a free bird.

Coming back to the topic.. I learnt how to prepare coffee under his auspicious guidance. This was way back in 1999 when most corporate houses in the US still lived on semi-automatic Coffeemakers. One day I emptied the coffee pot into my cup and was leaving the room when he thundered in.

“You are supposed to prepare a fresh pot if you take the last cup.” He growled.

I was terrified and my legs began to shake. The cup in my hand found a vertical path to reach the spotless carpet below.

Mr. Huffman shook his head in dismay when I mumbled, “I don’t know how to make coffee” I wanted the Coffeemaker to open up miraculously at that time and suck me in. But I had to face it.. the ultimate truth. He told me the basic corporate coffee rule, which in his opinion was the most important rule in the books.

“If you take the last cup, you are supposed to prepare a fresh pot of coffee for the others.”

I bowed to him and followed his advice without fail. And then he fired me.

I bid a final good bye to our Coffeemaker and paused only a second to look at the coffee stain on the carpet which the janitor could not remove.

My days in the Mid West had come to an end with that incident. I found myself lurking near the beaches of San Francisco a couple of days later. The new client and the much needed new software architecture were refreshing. The first thing I did after coming to work on the first day was to check where the Coffeemaker was.

It was just a block away.

It took me five minutes to reach the Coffeemaker from my desk. I asked my manager to shift my desk.

“Why do you want to leave that place?” He was obviously surprised because he couldn’t see any reason why one would want to move away from a nice east facing Window cubicle.

“The photocopier and the fax machine are way too far from here.” I said.

He smiled, “And the Coffeemaker too.”

I smiled too.

Life had been pretty easy after that shift of work place. Then I found this remarkable pattern emerging in the pantry room. I was always greeted by an empty coffee pot. I then prepared a fresh pot, drank a cup and returned half an hour later only to be greeted by the empty coffee pot again.

It never used to happen in Toledo, Ohio - an “All American City”

I went back to my desk and took a big print out of the following message, “Please prepare a new pot of coffee if you drink the last cup.” I pasted it right next to the Coffeemaker hoping it would solve the problem.

It did.

For a few days after that I had enjoyed being greeted by some coffee in the pot. I patted my back for solving the problem so smoothly without offending anybody.

It took me exactly a week to observe the new pattern. Whenever I went to the coffee room, I sure had some coffee in the pot. But it was always the last cup and I ended up preparing a new pot every time. I thought it was just a coincidence. But I had a hundred percent strike rate with this hypothesis. The conspiracy theory was pretty clear to me.

My distinguished colleagues always left the last cup of coffee for me so that I’d be preparing the fresh pot. They came to the coffee room and if it was the last cup, they simply went to the elevator and zoomed to the next floor Coffeemaker to try their luck there.

I had spent around two months in this Coffeemaker role before I was transferred to a different location where they had an automatic coffee dispensing system.

That's Life - 10

2006-11-28T23:12:00.001-08:00

The Nightlife of Dogs

When there is a cool breeze outside, the best thing a man can do is to walk on the road instead of being a couch potato.

Of late I had really been a large such potato, though the sack of potatoes in my bank was something a sane person wouldn’t want to talk about. In spite of my association with the best software company of India (At least I’d like to believe it was) I was really earning peanuts – or potatoes in this case.

That didn’t defer me from purchasing a twenty nine inch Television. Its arrival marked the end of the healthy Venu.

The doctor, a US returned Desi, couldn’t come to terms with the reality that a man, 6 feet tall, could weigh only fifty kilograms. When he checked my blood pressure and the lab reports of my lipid profile – he had to report this as a peculiar case. Here was a man, twenty one years old and six feet tall – with severe hyper tension and an alarmingly high cholesterol level despite weighing only fifty kilograms.

He told me in no nonsense terms that I had to get rid of that television and if possible the couch too.

“Walk” He literally barked, “Four kilometers at a stretch – twice a day – Morning and Evening and stay away from all fried and oily foods. Reduce your salt intake.”

As mentioned earlier, there indeed was a cool breeze outside and I decided to alter my lifestyle by taking some hard decisions like following my doctor’s advice. I switched off the TV, got off from the couch and started walking down the road.

Before the arrival of couch potato, I used to be a regular walker. I liked walking in the nights because it gave me an opportunity to breathe in some fresh air; think about life in general; ponder over my mistakes; generally introspect; and kick any unsuspecting Pepsi cans lying on the road.

It gives me immense pleasure to kick such stray Pepsi cans. I cannot tell you why this act is so dear to me… It may be the sound made by those cans or the interesting trajectory followed by them after I kick them out of sight.

This “out of sight” is a figure of speech of course. Couch potatoes in the making do not and cannot kick things out of sight. Period.

On that particular day, I didn’t see any Pepsi cans on the road. Don’t infer anything from this piece of information and publish a hypothesis that Indians had overnight become aware of their social responsibility to keep their roads clean.

The previous year, Coca Cola made a grand entry into the Indian market looking to steal a considerable portion of Pepsi’s market share. However the first year’s performance was quite dismal. They had to write off nearly four hundred million dollars.

As a result, they pounced on the Indian market with a vengeance. Their marketing campaign was aggressive… so aggressive that a local newspaper published a cartoon featuring a Coca Cola representative threatening yet another couch potato at gun point to buy a can of Coca Cola.

The result was pretty apparent that night. Instead of Pepsi, I could see quite a few coke cans on the road.

Being a staunch follower of Pepsi, I hesitated a bit before kicking the Coke can. My hero, Sachin Tendulkar would not have even thought about it. He would have bought a Pepsi – drunk it; thrown it on the road and then kicked it off with all his might. Such was his loyalty towards Pepsi.

But then, here we are talking about Venu Vedam, not Sachin Tendulkar. And Venu Vedam is not loyal to anything in this world. (Save the couch!) So he hesitated only for a second before kicking that coke can out of his sight.

A word or two should go here about the remarkable abilities of Venu Vedam. He thinks he is Ben Johnson when he runs; Sachin Tendulkar when he bats; Glenn McGrath when he bowls… and well! George Bush when he is doing nothing at all.

He knows only Ronaldo in the field of football. So when kicking cans, he normally assumes that he is Ronaldo. However reality does bite and he definitely is not Ronaldo. So the can, which should have gone out of sight – landed only about five meters away on an unsuspecting stray dog.

The sleeping dog woke up with a jolt and barked at me ferociously. I took two steps backwards and thought of becoming a Jesse Owens. But such an act might actually provoke the dog. So I maintained eye contact with the beast and slowly walked back towards a restaurant whose only customers at this hour of the night were those chased by ferocious dogs with shiny white teeth.

The helper there waited patiently for about a minute to take the order. When the gentleman who entered the café seemed to have no intentions of ordering anything, he looked outside and tried to whistle the dog in.

“Ok. Ok. One Coffee, No Sugar” I was quick to adapt myself.

He smiled and vanished from there.

The coffee was very refreshing. When there is a cool breeze outside and a determined dog ten meters away, the best thing a man can do is to sip the fuming coffee.

I loved that experience. I didn’t want to leave the fast food joint at all. My friends later raised a theory that it was the dog rather than the coffee which made me stay back in the hotel. We had a bitter altercation on this issue and finally agreed to disagree on this matter.

Eventually I had to come out of the restaurant. I cautiously stepped out ready to run back if situation demanded so.

The dog looked at me seriously. It was now fully prepared. There were ten more dogs – all looking at me seriously.

Then reality dawned upon me. I had to cross them to go home. I could see my lane about hundred meters from there but I didn’t have the guts to take the risk. I thought of spending the night on the footpath there and going home in the morning. But the patrol party might question me a lot. The dogs had no plans of going away from there.

Then I saw light at the end of the cave.

An auto driver was smoking his pipe a few meters away. I went to him slowly and told him in my broken Hindi…

“5th B Cross chalna hai”

“Hindi gotthilla” he told me without any delay.

I wanted to tell him that I too didn’t know any hindi except for that sentence but I feared that such a sentence might actually lead us both into a strange conversation about Hindi and Its Dictatorship.

“Telugu ya Tamil goththa?” I asked him.

“English gotthu.” He said trying to form a vortex ring with his cigarette smoke.

“Take me to 5th B Cross, BTM Layout” I told him after recovering from that shock.

He looked at me with a puzzled expression on his face and pointed to the end of the road.

“That’s 5th B Cross”

“I know. Can you take me there?” I impatiently asked him.

His first reaction was to check my legs. They were in perfect. He then looked at my face. It wasn’t perfect but he knew that a face shouldn’t be a matter of concern here. He then started examining my hands. I raised one of those hands and showed him the dogs. He understood my problem immediately.

“Twenty five rupees.” He said.

I couldn’t believe my ears. “Twenty five?”

“Yes Twenty five.”

“For hundred meters?”

“Yes for hundred meters.”

“Are you crazy?”

“No I am not.”

“Seven rupees.”

“Twenty five.”

“Ten.”

“Twenty five.”

“This is shear exploitation.”

“Perhaps.”

“So what do you say?”

“Twenty five.”

“OK. Start the auto.”

The dogs started barking and they ran with the auto, five in the front and the remaining forming a tail. I was reminded of Buck and his troupe. The auto sped to 5th B Cross and stopped right in front of my house. I got down, paid him the twenty-five bucks and noticed a strange thing. The dogs didn’t enter 5th B Cross.

For a few moments I couldn’t understand why they were hesitating to enter that gully. Then I knew. There were fifteen dogs in my gully ready to attack them in the unlikely event of their entering 5th B cross.

For the first time in my life, I bowed to those fifteen home team stray dogs and entered my house. I call them now “The ‘Buck’ Eyes”. They may not be from Ohio… but they are as ferocious and courageous as Buck, DA dog!

Now, I bought a mini fridge so that I don’t have to leave my couch even for beer. Walking sucks! TV rocks! To hell with the cholesterol.

That's Life - Break Time

2006-11-28T23:00:00.000-08:00

That’s Life – Break Ke Baad…

Isn’t this what life is all about? One day you get introduced to a wonderful girl – next day you get transferred!

When I boarded Konark Express in Bhubaneswar with mixed feelings about getting trained in Pune, I knew that the chances of meeting Vaishali again were quite remote. Most of the Open Systems fellows were sent to Bangalore or Madras on relocation because Bhubaneswar did not have any Open Systems projects then.

Vaishali followed Nitya and I just followed my destiny.

It so happened that I never set my foot again in Bhubaneswar. I sometimes wonder what had happened to some of my luggage which was lying in a cupboard in D4, Metro Towers, Acharya Vihar Chowk, Bhubaneswar!

But that’s life. Ain’t it?

That’s Life is going to take a break now. It will be back after a brief hiatus. The protagonist of this series wants to just sit back, relax and organize the various episodes of his life in a proper chronological order.

Till we meet again friends, Namaste!

To be continued… Break Ke Baad!

That's Life - 8

2006-11-28T22:58:00.000-08:00

That’s Life – 8 A Date With Mr. Gates

Two days old on the company email system, I had already clocked about forty hours on Lotus CC:Mail. It was a divine experience. I couldn’t stop talking about this great tool which could get me a next-to-instant reply from my cousin in Seattle, Washington.

However, it was not that instant reply but the mail that came right after it…

I fainted.

Then I recovered partially with my heart beating like a jungle drum. It was a dream-come-true for me. I didn’t know how to react. I wanted to scream and shout. I wanted to celebrate it quietly. I wanted to do many things at once.

Of all those things, I decided to do something I was really good at.

I ran – This time to the Bhubaneshwar DC head, Bhaskar.

“Bhaskar!” I screamed.

He was about to munch a chicken sandwich and this startling entry of mine caused him to throw the chicken pieces all over himself.

“Who the hell are you?” He barked.

I was taken aback. Who the hell am I? Only a week ago I met him in the pantry room and I even had a wonderful conversation with him then. I think I asked him “Howdy?”He replied with a warm smile on his face – “I am good. How are you?”

How could he forget me so easily? These senior managers…

I decided to remind him – “Bhaskar, I am Venu. Remember? We met the other day in the pantry room and I asked you Howdy! And you replied –‘I am good. How are you?’. I then said…”

“Venu” Bhaskar did not let me go any further.

“Yes Bhaskar”

“Cut the crap. Tell me NOW. What do you want?”

I took a deep breath and remained calm. I just wanted to overwhelm him. His eyes would bulge, his mouth would open, he would stand up with scant regards to the chicken pieces on his body and say – “Oh Venu, take a seat. We need to talk. I think you deserve fifty thousand rupees per month. You are a great guy.”

“VENU…” Bhaskar’s stone cold voice woke me up.

“I got a mail.” I told him trying to be as expressionless as possible.

“What mail?” he was impatient.

“It doesn’t matter. What matters is the name of the sender.”

“Who is it?”

“Bill Gates” I told him.

“WHAT?”

“Yes. Bill Gates. He offered me a free copy of Microsoft Windows 98 if I could just forward his email to twenty colleagues or friends.”

There was silence; utmost silence; pin drop silence; for a few moments. Then there was a commotion. Quite a few things happened in that instant and most of it did not get registered in my brain. I found myself at the end of all these – in the corridor outside Bhaskar’s room. The door was shut right on my face.

I was confused. Who the hell did he think he was dealing with? Bill Gates selected me personally! I would rather resign this job and go to Microsoft. Mr. Gates would offer me a great job there.

Furious I was; I took a white paper, scribbled my resignation and knocked on Bhaskar’s door again.

He opened it and shouted, "Now what?"

"Here is my resignation Bhaskar."

"What?"

"Yep I am quitting."

He read aloud my resignation letter,

"Even though I've been chosen personally by the Chairman of Microsoft, Mr. William Gates III Junior, SoftSol has failed to recognize my worth and treated me like dirt. I would like to quit my job here as a software engineer trainee and join Microsoft where I would get a red carpet welcome."

He looked at me with complete disbelief in his eyes. I was stern and was least interested in analyzing his expressions this time.

He picked up the phone and called CCD. Vaishali appeared in no time. She was concerned.

Bhaskar tore my resignation letter. “Explain about the Bill Gates Win 98 email!”

Well, what followed next was quite inconsequential and easily guessable. Vaishail laughed; laughed and laughed.. And whenever she saw me in the office, she would burst out laughing. I couldn't show my face to anybody. I didn't come out of my cubicle for a long time.

Then one day Bhaskar came to my seat and told me that it was all right. Only three people knew about this episode and I shouldn't sacrifice my social life because of that.

I almost fell on his feet. He looked like Sri Venkateswara Swamy. He blessed me and disappeared from there as quickly as possible to avoid more sentimental scenes.

To be continued…

That's Life - 7

2006-11-28T22:56:00.001-08:00

That’s Life – 7 Mail-O-Mania

So I walked into SoftSol in Bhubaneshwar one fine day. A word or two should go here about my computer awareness. Though I could “crack Unix passwords” in college, I knew nothing about desktop PCs and Windows OS at that time. Internet and Email were not even heard of. (This was in 1998).

When I got the appointment order, I sent an inland letter to my friend who was working in a rival software company – “Dear Satish, Great news! I got a job in SoftSol. In a few more days I will be having my own email id. Then I will upgrade it to Hotmail.”

That pretty much sums up my Great Internet Dream.

Within one week, I realized that e-mail was something special and that e-mail didn’t use houseflies for sending information. (In Tamil, ‘ee’ means housefly.)

They gave us our email ids. I didn’t know what to do with mine. It was like presenting a Television set to a Mexican cannibal. He poked it with his dagger and when the Missionary switched it on, the cannibal was terrified. He ran away like a .. well a Mexican cannibal… from the camp. People gossiped that the Missionary was later eaten by the enraged cannibal. There is at least one reason to believe this story. The Missionary was never seen again.

I of course, did not run away from the computer but I didn't touch the email application (Lotus cc:mail) for a week. I stared at it from a safe distance.

What was it? How good it was? Would it crash my computer if not properly used?

(Later I found it could. I will explain it some other time.)

Manjula laughed at me the following Monday.

"Yeeks.. You don't know how to send an email?"

That was indeed insulting. What could be more insulting to a guy than getting a remark like this from the most beautiful girl of the batch?

I was determined to explore this enigma called email. I had to do it one day anyway. I double-clicked on the icon 'Lotus CC-mail' half expecting a loud explosion. The coffee cup I was holding almost fell on the keyboard.

My God! What if it made me invisible?

I put the cup away and waited for the explosion.

It didn't explode. It just asked me for my password. I called up the CCD (Computers and Communications Dept.)

"Vaishali CCD Operations" a sweet voice answered.

I took a deep breath, introduced myself and told her that something had gone terribly wrong with my PC.

"It's asking me to enter some password" I told her.

There was absolute silence for two minutes.

Then the sweet voice boomed again, "Enter your password."

"What the heck is my password?"

"How do I know?"

"I don't know either."

"OK.. You've never used mail before?"

"I have.. I have used mail all my life .. Since I was a kid."

"Really?"

"Yep! My grandmother used to send me jokes and other stuff."

"Your grandmother!"

"Yep! Such a nice lady she was.. Even when she was eighty years old she could find time to send me jokes."

"Wait... Your eighty year old grandmother could use the email application?"

"Application? What application? Address change?"

"Err?"

"Yeah I think she used an application to change her address once.."

"Venu!"

"Yes Vaishali"

"I think we need to talk"

"What do you think we are doing now?"

"We are gibbering Venu.. That's what we are doing."

"What do you mean?"

"Wait a second."

A minute later she appeared in front of my desk. Half an hour later I stared into her eyes with hero worship.. err... heroine worship. "You are great Vaishali."

"Nope I am not."

"No no .. You are great.. You set up my email. That is a great thing you know."

"Nope Venu, I just reset your password. I did nothing else."

"Where did you learn all these things Vaishali?"

She looked out from the third floor window. Then she looked at the parapet wall. And then she looked down at the concrete basement. Then she shook her head.

"SoftSol taught me all these things Venu." She said slowly.

"Oh" I said, "Did they?"

"Yep they did."

“Wow”

“Yes! Wow!”

"Then why are they not teaching me those things?"

She looked at the parapet wall once again and walked up to it. "You don't need to know them Venu. I am here to help you only."

"But you won't be there with me throughout my life Vaishali, will ya?"

"Excuse me?"

"Thanks for the help Vaishali."

"Venu"

"Yep Vaishali"

"Who interviewed you during your recruitment?"

"Arinjay Jain"

"Oh! I see."

"What?"

"Nothing"

"I smell fish"

"Cook it Venu."

With that she was gone.

To be continued…

That's Life - 6

2006-11-28T22:54:00.000-08:00

That’s Life – 6 The Innerview!

The interviewer from NFCL – a No Nonsense guy – asked me exactly five questions.

What is a transformer?

Something that transforms energy.

What is the difference between star and delta connections?

Star is open. Delta is closed.

What is Thevenin's theorem?

Err?

OK.. Tell me Ohm's law

E=CR

What is E?

Electromotive Force.

You are selected.

Thank you.

That’s how I started my wonderful career as a proud electrical maintenance engineer in NFCL Kakinada. It was about six months of climbing prilling towers and cooling towers when realization dawned upon me one dusky evening. I was asked to check a motor on the top of the second prilling tower. This was an eighty feet structure and the elevator was out of order.

At a height of twenty feet: Microprocessors and Microcomputers are lovely. They are God-send.

Forty feet: Computers are the best thing happened to humanity after Edison’s bulb.

Sixty feet: I may be a good Electrical engineer. But I can apply these electrical principles in software and thereby produce software systems of practical use! I should be using the knowledge acquired in B-Tech to help my country progress. I should be writing code for real-time embedded systems. Information Technology is the only channel I should watch!

Eighty feet: Besides I would get a handsome salary!

Two days later, I stared at a Walk-In advertisement by SoftSol. Six of us boarded a bus from Kakinada to Vizag. It was a great experience. We were given about eleven puzzles to solve and fortunately I could solve about three of those puzzles. How I got short listed for the interview remains a mystery to me till date.

Mr. Arinjay Jain, the guy on the interview panel smiled broadly when I walked into the interview room.

“So Venu, I have a question yaar!”

“Yes sir”

“Can you tell me how we can receive a BBC transmission from UK on the radio without any need for an antenna whereas to catch a TV signal transmitted from Madras, we need a big antenna?”

I took a deep breath. I knew it was all over. I told him weakly, “I don’t know. It is a communications question. I am an Electrical and Electronics engineer.”

He was taken aback. “You mean you don’t have any communication systems at all in your syllabus?”

“No”

He didn’t know what else to ask. It was pretty obvious that he didn’t know anything about Electrical systems. So he took one long look at my resume and asked me about Virtual Reality on which I had presented a paper in the prehistoric times.

I told him what Virtual Reality was all about. Dr. Ivan Sutherland would have suffered a real massive heart attack if he were in that room that day. However as a matter of fact, Arinjay Jain knew nothing about this great technology. So he offered me a job gladly because you know! Very few people knew what Virtual Reality was at that time.

To be continued…

Episode 5

2005-07-18T08:53:00.000-07:00

An Assembly Affair

Aditya Balasubramaniam couldn’t believe his ears when I told him what was wrong with me.

You have high BP at the age of 19?

Yes!

Who told you so?

Mr.Arun Ganapathy MBBS.

To hell with him. Let us get a second opinion.

And so we visited another doctor. I was least interested in the proceedings because I was sure nothing could save me. I was dying. I had to die. It was my destiny.

The doctor looked at me seriously again. I smiled. I knew what he was going to say.

There is nothing wrong with your BP levels.

What??

I checked it thrice on three different days and at three different times of the day. Your BP is just normal.

But...

Get another opinion if you want.

So we went to yet another doctor and spent about a month on the diagnosis. The result confirmed that my blood pressure was as per the book.

So I stopped gulping down the Inderals. My pulse rate improved and I started looking healthy. Nirmal was back to his senses. And he got back his fame. He was the guy who could repeat the SI definition of "second" without blinking an eyelid. It is the time taken for an electron in the outermost orbit of a Caesium-133 atom to make 9 billion 192 million 631 thousand 7 hundred and 70 transitions.

Now that the second has been formally defined, let me state that the rest of my college life was pretty monotonous. My thirtieth first love – Nitya - got engaged to some bespectacled Bay Area Desi. I shed a tear or two when I got the news and surprisingly I had to really fight hard to get the third tear out of my eyes! It was instant closure on Nitya.

In my final year, our professor came up with a very interesting project for us, "Digital Computer Simulation of a three phase Induction Motor" I was pretty excited and almost ran to the university book center to buy every "Computer Graphics" book in the store.

My professor looked at those books in icy silence for one full minute. Then he looked up at the sky. I looked at the sky too. It was a splendid day. The blue sky with all those tiny white clouds was really beautiful. I enjoyed the view but something at the back of my mind was trying to tell me that the professor might not actually be relishing the pristine beauty of the sky at that moment. I turned my attention to him.

He was staring at me now. I smelt fish.

"We are not going to do any graphics stuff" He managed to tell me finally.

"But you said we were going to do a digital simulation of the 3 phase induction motor."

"Yes"

"What does that mean?"

"It means you are going to write a program to solve a couple of simultaneous equations, a couple of partial differential equations and print a couple of hundreds of pages containing numerical data."

That was perhaps the most boring project I had ever attempted to do. I could not show my face to anybody. I was ashamed and those computer graphics books laughed every time I looked at them. I returned those books to the store and firmly told my professor that I wanted to work on some real stuff and not on a number crunching application.

“Very well!” He said and put me on an 8085 Microprocessor project instead.

It took me quite a while to figure out that the deceivingly simple-looking “2 multiplied by 2” program was one of the difficult ones to write in ALP 8085. I missed the MULT command of x86 terribly. But then I had to live with 8085 because my professor had generously put me in this so called real stuff.

Finally after a few months I could trip a circuit breaker if the line voltage exceeded a certain potential. That marked the end of that project and I was more than relieved.

Well, it was during the final viva voce that I realized the glaring error in the circuit diagram. Had the four diodes really been connected like that to form the bridge rectifier, there wouldn't have been any output – rectified or not!

The guy who did the viva voce smiled a little when he saw the circuit diagram. I sank into the chair and wished I died at that moment.

But I managed to pass the examination and I bid a final goodbye to 8085.

Sometimes I feel I shouldn't have left 8085. But of course when I remember the sixteen line program for multiplying two 8-bit numbers without the carry! I feel I'd done the right thing.

It was partly because of this experience and mostly because I loved my three phase induction motor very much that I, the righteous Electrical Engineer, decided not to look at useless software companies during the campus placements. I wanted to work and die an Electrical Engineer.

Nagarjuna Fertilizers and Chemicals Ltd, a urea manufacturing concern in Kakinada Andhra Pradesh decided to interview me one fine day.

To be continued…

Blood Pressure

2005-07-18T08:48:00.000-07:00

That’s Life – 4: Blood Pleasure

I logged into my session and wrote a simple script that acted as a “fake front end”. It looked, felt and smelt like a HP UNIX Log-on screen. I ran the program on all the terminals in the computer center. The unsuspecting Nitya would come at eight in the morning, enter her login details and my program would promptly save those details in a text file and kill the session! Poor gal! She just couldn’t realize that she had been phished!

I had been admonished by the system administrator as well as Adiya Balasubramaniam for this phishing act. While our SysAdmin, a good friend of mine, agreed to take it easy, Aditya practically lynched me for taking the hackers’ pride to the cleaners.

“This is the worst approach to get the passwords. This is insane, indecent and a shame on all of us – Hackers. This is the dumbest way of doing it. Don’t you dare call yourself a hacker!”

However, the fact remained that I could crack Unix passwords. I did it. Maybe it was not the most elegant way of doing it but it served my purpose. I knew Nitya’s password and that was enough for me. My self esteem had gone up by leaps and bounds after this incident.

So Nirmal – the arrogant ‘quizzing dude’ – ultra thin and ultra hi-fi – the most talked about guy (at least I thought so) in the class – Quad Erat Demonstrandum.

Unfortunately none of these accomplishments seemed to impress Nitya - the only girl in my secluded world of fantastic dreams. I wanted to talk to her but I didn't. I wanted to walk with her but I couldn't.

My life – in general – had always been a series of interesting events evenly spaced out on the time axis connected by an unnerving thread of boredom. After the Unix episode, the thread continued for an eternity! There wasn’t anything happening. Same old day, same old people, same old Unix, same old Venu!

God! Gimme something new!

This, He did. He gave me something new and very very interesting as well.

The doctor with a very serious expression on his face asked me – “How old are you?”

“Nineteen” I told him.

He nodded and stared at his notes.

“What is wrong, Doctor?” I asked him.

He sighed, “Your blood pressure levels are a bit too high. In fact very high. 200 by 100! At the age of nineteen.”

Why?

Perhaps it is your Kidneys.

How?

Perhaps you should get yourself examined thoroughly in Madras Apollo.

Well, when I walked out of the campus hospital that day with a bunch of Inderal tablets in my hand, everything looked quite different. I was kinda detached. I spoke to none. The high blood pressure thing had killed the enthusiastic Nirmal. Even Nitya could see something was happening to me.

Why are you so dull nowadays?

I am dying. Believe me.

Come on!

I stopped attending the classes. And I was convinced that I had lost both my Kidneys. My legs started aching. My heart grew heavy. I couldn’t breathe properly. My stomach ached and my little finger could not move at all. My pulse rate came down to 52.

To be continued…

Episode 3: Close Encounters With Unix

2005-07-14T23:24:00.000-07:00

That’s Life – 3 Close Encounters with Unix!

As a rule, I had spent most of my free time playing with the minicomputer in our school trying to get some hands-on. It was a time when everyone worth his salt was able to “crack Unix passwords”. So I wanted to do it too. It might be a very simple task because everyone else seemed to have done it. I didn’t want to be left out of the Hall of Fame!

It wasn’t easy for me. The procedure to crack those passwords was a well guarded and well kept secret. People wouldn’t share it with you unless you promised them a treat in Quality Inn Bliss – which none of us could afford anyway. The pocket money per month was close to fifty rupees of which 40 were spent on movies.

Like the divide between Haves and Have-Nots, the divide between Hacked and Hacked-Nots had become quite big. I desperately wanted to cross over to the elite panel of the Unix Hackers Club. I would spend hours in front of the Unix terminal with all the Unix books I could lay my hands on.

Quite a few times, I had asked my classmates – They would simply laugh at me – “Oh look at this item! He scores 87% in Microprocessors and still doesn’t know how to beat a Unix computer! Ha ha ha!”

I was ashamed. It was reason enough to commit suicide. What was the point living in this world if I couldn’t manage to do such a simple task as cracking Unix passwords? That too when every Tom, Dick and Harry (Not to mention the street dog we aptly called Montmorency!) had done it.

BUT HOW?

One day, I could no longer bear it. I couldn't sleep. I got up from my bed at two in the morning, took my bicycle out and peddled furiously towards our computer center. I wanted to crack the passwords at any cost that day.

Of course it was UNIX and I couldn't have succeeded in my attempts to hack it if one Mr. Aditya Balasubramaniam (May his tribe increase. More about him at a later point in time.) were not seen in the university canteen sipping coffee at three in the morning.

'You know Nirmal! I will tell you what your problem is. First thing - You should not have got 87% in that God forsaken paper. What were you thinking man? It is worse than flunking! Anyways, good that you got only 50% in Mathematics – 4. That is better. Whole lot better you know.”

I coughed a little and politely asked him to talk about Unix passwords and not about my academic excellence in B-Tech.

“Oh Yeah! I am coming there. You know what your problem is? I will tell you what your problem is. You tend to follow the highway even when you are trying to beat the system. Remember, you are NOT Rajinikanth. So leave the highway to him and take the crooked ways. There are hundreds of such routs. THINK!"

I thought then. I sat in front of our library (Affectionately called Taj of the South – inside the university campus because of its unnecessary dome.) on the grass and then 'thought again'.

It was four in the morning. There was a cool breeze; a breeze that would make the sailors happy; a breeze that traveled all the way from Seven Hills; a breeze that carried me a message from His Holiness Venkateswara Swamy. I strongly believed it was He who told me how to crack UNIX passwords.

I ran.

I covered the distance of one kilometer, in the second serious sprint of my life, in five minutes. Only later I would realize that I had actually parked my bicycle in front of our Taj Mahal.

To be continued…

Episode 2: Wonder Years

2005-07-14T23:23:00.000-07:00

That’s Life – 2

It is said that everyone reaches his/her peak of academic excellence at the fag end of their education. In my case, the reverse was true. From my Einstein days (Oh how I wish I had remained an Einstein forever!), my academics had been on a steady decline. Some of the landmark events during this journey –

87% in Class 7
79% in Class 10
Failed in Intermediate (Plus Two) Mathematics. Scored an unbeatable 41 out of 150, a record in my college.

My career would have stopped right at that point if it were not for Shri Nandamuri Taraka Ramarao, known as NTR, who in all his wisdom thought of a beautiful concept called Instant Reexamination for people who flunked in not more than one paper. Thanks to NTR, I did not lose an academic year.

I cleared the Instant – got a great rank in the state common entrance test for engineering admissions and walked into Sri Venkateswara University, Tirupati in late 1993.

My very first day in this lovely university deserves a few keystrokes here.

'What is your name?'

'Venu.'

'Where from?'

'Nellore. Heard of it?'

SLAP!

'Amma!'

'Say Sir at the end of each sentence.. And don't kochchen me!'

'Yeah.. yes sir!'

'So what is your name again?'

'Venu sir'

'Sir Venu? Are you a knight?'

'No sir.. My name is Venu, sir'

'That's better. I don't like this name.'

'Sir?'

'Choose something else.'

'Sir?'

SLAP!

'Urgh...'

'Choose another name.'

'Nirmal, sir'

'Good! Now run around the campus shouting that you are Nirmal'

'Sir.. please'

SLAP! BANG.. DABB...

'Yes sir'

And suddenly God appeared in front of us from nowhere. Since we the lesser mortals would be vaporized if he showed his true self, he assumed the form of our college principal. The guy in front of me vanished in a jiffy.

'What are you doing here?' asked God.

'Aw.. err.. ??'

'Get into your classroom now!'

He saved me that day from shouting from the rooftops that I was Nirmal. However the name stuck on. People called me Nirmal or Vedam… but never Venu. In fact very few of my Engineering classmates knew my first name.

So, Nirmal had become quite famous in his college for no apparent reason. People just wanted a bakra and Nirmal was the obvious choice. He was too tall, had to be content with a twenty twenty vision only through a pair of corrective lenses and moreover had always 'thought' about something or the other.

In addition, this item knew what a time cone was.. and when he managed an 87% in Microprocessors and Microcomputers in which the university first student could get only 62%, it was proved that Nirmal was Mr. Nobody-Mess-With-Him!

To be continued…

Episode 1: Genesis

2005-07-14T23:19:00.000-07:00

It was a quiet day. There weren't any thunderstorms and there certainly was no big bright heavenly star hanging from the sky when I came into this world on the 8th of March 1976 in Nellore, Andhra Pradesh. It happened one night! And it could have happened any other night.

When I was four years old I could accurately reproduce the Telugu alphabet and this was not by any means an ordinary achievement. I was hailed as the Einstein of Modern times. People used to remark, "Venu could reproduce all letters of the Telugu alphabet and you know, he is only four years old. He will definitely become a scientist one day."

That, my dear readers, is the only notable achievement in my life. I didn't become a scientist and am not even a relative of Einstein.

Speaking of alphabets brings to mind a funny situation. I was four years old and was in pre-school. The teacher, a very pleasant lady indeed, wanted me to write "a aa i ee". (అఆఇఈ)

I started quite confidently. "a" was easy. "aa" was even more easy. "i" was a little difficult and "ee" was surprisingly difficult. Now was the turn of “u"...

"u"?? How the hell should I write "u"?

It was in the middle of December and I was sweating like a pig. The teacher’s pleasantness vanished all of a sudden. In fact she disappeared into thin air and Maha Kali replaced her.

I was trembling.. I couldn't write "u"... Oh God! What should I do now?

I heard a voice then… a booming voice it was. It told me what to do in situations like that. And when I followed those heavenly instructions, I was little aware that I wouldn’t be able to pull off such a courageous act again in my life.

I ran. Wind in my hair and certainly no sand but just concrete at my feet, I ran like a Cheetah – out of the classroom leaving the bewildered Maha Kali and the envious classmates behind – through the Gate of Destiny, our school gate – into the Free World, the cramped street.

I ran like an Olympic Runner – The rewards of which I would bear later. My mind preset and my body taken hostage by the subconscious.

I ran like there was no tomorrow into the afternoon Sun much to the shock of the onlookers. I ran with little respect to the traffic on the street. I cared a hoot for the unfortunate vehicles plying on that route. My mind was blank. My post was home. And I reached it in ten minutes. Quite a spectacular touchdown it was, considering I was only four years old then.

I entered the house.. Gasping and drenched in sweat. My mother was taken aback.

Within five minutes of my grand entry into 1032, Pogathota, Nellore – My elder brother – a class five student of the same school - rushed in totally thrilled and definitely not concerned. Maha Kali dispatched him duly to check on me after my unprecedented sprint from the school.

What did I do?

Nothing.

Why did I run home?

Because I didn't feel like staying at school.

Spank Spank..

Waaaa!! Sorry! I'd never again do that

Nope! I know the roads are dangerous. I won't repeat it

Spank Spank!..

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA...

My dear reader, that was exactly how I started my schooling. Education in my case was inseparably bundled with schooling. Mark Twain wouldn’t approve of it. But that was how I got educated! By going to a school and memorizing the answers to previous years’ question papers.

To be continued…