The day I was smitten

I have read in literature about love at first sight, how a guy gets transfixed by a complete stranger when he lays his eyes on her. For those who follow Indian Cinema, I don't have to explain what happens next. A copy of him teleports along with his object of affection, to a distant land, Switzerland maybe, to engage in duet. J

I have always questioned the logic behind love at first sight.  I mean, how could anyone be so sure about someone who they have seen just few moments ago?

Since I have not bought into this logic, it was even more difficult for me to understand what it meant or how it felt to be spellbound. So, I associated these emotions with fantasy & continued with my life until THE DAY came.

THE DAY was 22nd October 2013, at around 8 AM; I was looking at something very small, barely 3 Kgs, my Son. I really understood the meaning of being spellbound and I became a believer.

I along with many others was waiting outside operation theatre to get the first glimpse of my son.

Doctor walked out carrying a small bundle in blue and she presented the baby to us, like Rafiki presented Simba to pride lands in "Lion King" movie. :)

After explaining the initial details of the birth (time, weight, etc...), she posed a very important question.

"Who is going to take the baby from my hands?"

Without a moment’s pause, I swiftly took my son in my arms and walked towards the hospital ward room, talking to him all along. I didn't realize I was leading a procession of my in-laws. :)

I kept staring at him and talking to him about subjects that I did not recall 10 minutes later. Such was his impact on me.

I always knew what love is. But only on that day, I realized I could love someone so much without any expectation. My heart welled up with love for him.

My wife & I were waiting for this blessing for close to 5 years. We had to endure false expectations, terrible disappointments and an inconsolable loss to have this blessing. Every time I look at him now, I realize that he is worth the wait, many times over.

I sincerely believe that every child is an angel sent by god as a gift to us, humans.

We call him Jeffrey Michael Miranda, after Archangel Michael !!! J

My affair with Accidents- Part 2

I had meant to follow the first episode with a sequel. But my interest in writing waned a bit. On my friend's request, here I am , back with the continuation of my affairs.
 
I bought my first car , Maruthi Swift,  back in 2006 I reckon. Owning a car was absolute pleasure. At the back of my mind, I had nurtured a logical thought that 4 wheeler offers more balance than bikes. Though I had obtained license to drive, I was not confident enough. My lack of confidence combined with the heavy history of accidents, resulted in new entries in my red ledger.

In the first couple of months, I had to re-paint all 4 doors of my car.  Parking space was tight in Chennai house, where i had to be precise and I misjudged. But I don't know how I managed to get entangled with the gate at my home in Pondy.  The gate was wide open and there was enough space to park a bus.

My driving skills began to improve with time , but i didn't let go my rashness.
It was a Saturday. I woke up at 6 AM in Chennai and suddenly decided to have my breakfast with my parents in Pondicherry. Took 10 minutes to get ready. I didn't bother to wake anyone up while leaving.

Drive from Chennai to Pondy through ECR (East Coast Road) is very scenic but a bit dangerous. The road curves a lot and there is no divider to separate traffic from the other side.

Road was empty, so I was pushing at a very high speed. While I was at the half-way mark, I had almost hit a guy crossing the road at a 4 way junction. I went hard on the brakes, leaving thick tyre marks on road with smell of rubber filling my nostrils. The guy was shouting at me, waving his fists. As the windows were rolled up, I didn't hear much. But I knew he was reeling out expletives. I didn't want to get involved in war of words with him. It could delay my breakfast.

Looking at him with blank expression, i shifted gears and revved past him. Just after few minutes, it was déjà vu moment with a slight change. This time it was a goat that attempted to cross the road. I started shouting expletives at the goat and it had the blank expression on its face. I was too occupied to realize the role reversal that transpired in matter of minutes, thus restoring the balance in universe.

These two signs should have been enough for anyone with half a brain. Looks like I didn't have one at all. I was driving through a narrow bridge at 90 kmph. There is a sharp blind turn at the end of the bridge. When I almost reached the end of the bridge, I realized that a bus was overtaking a car in that turn from the opposite side. This meant that the bus was on my side of the road.

If I had been driving at a manageable speed, I could have pulled my car off the road to a stop. At that speed, I had nowhere to go..

Maybe a better driver would have reacted differently. But i allowed my survival instinct to take over. I almost did a full turn of the steering wheel and the stepped on the brakes, at the same time. The car slid to the side , uprooting one of the stone slabs planted at the road sides. The impact was enough to flip the car over and it rolled down the road.

It would have hardly rolled 4 times in a matter of seconds before it stopped. For me , it was the longest moment. Everything inside my car was air-borne. I felt like a rag doll in a crazy kid's hands. That is the only moment of nothingness i remember till date.

When I came to my senses, the car had stopped with the driver side on top and I was hanging there. I unbuckled my seat belt and tried to open the door and window on my side. Both were jammed.  I started feeling claustrophobic , so I even attempted to break the window with my hands. It didn't pan out that well. So I tried the window behind the driver's seat.  The stone slab that the car had hit, had shattered the glass cleanly. I pulled myself out through that opening.

The engine was still running and there was smoke. I was afraid that it might burst into flames. Effect of watching lot of Hollywood movies, you know.  :)

I went back in, the way I had come out to remove the key from the ignition. While I was in, I remembered to pick up my camera and mobile. I made couple of calls. First one was to the number listed in the toll ticket and gave them the exact location of the accident. Then I called my dad to inform that I was okay but the car was not that lucky.

Ambulance came in 20 minutes..I didn't even a scratch on me. So , they spent the first aid time to explain what I should do after an accident. I got the number to towing service from them and arranged for the car to be towed to the nearby police station. I called my dad again and asked him to come with Car documents. The tow truck and my dad had to come from Pondy, a good 60 KMs from the accident spot. So , I had nothing to do but wait..

I took pictures of my car from various angles and perspective. I was narrating the story several times to the locals who gathered. Some of them offered me country liquor and I politely declined.  I quickly got tired of repeating the story. So I walked up the road and sat on one of the stone slabs. Occasionally, a car or share-auto would stop, asking me about the people who were injured in the accident. Got to know from them that the turn was famous accident spot and people involved would loose at least an arm or a leg.

My dad , my brother and his friend reached the spot and we all waited for tow truck that came at noon. We towed the car to the nearest police station at Cheyyur and waited till 5 PM to file an FIR for insurance claim. Sub-Inspector in that station was too busy settling a local dispute of some sort.. He asked me to come on another day to file FIR. Maybe , he needed quality time to coax me into paying bribe for filing FIR.

I reached home at 6:30 pm.. I started at 6 in the morning to have breakfast with my parents. But I had my dinner with them instead and I am not complaining at all.

At the time of accident, the car was 7 months and 1700 kms old.
I had to dispose the car for good and till the claim was settled, i paid EMIs for the loan I had taken on for the non-existent car.

It took another 8 years for me to drive again and own another car.

Vibhor

I reached my office in Australia & I was swept by the Tea Sapti wave on the very first day.

I am quite comfortable in an alien environment & I can get along with people pretty fast.  But I didn't want to impose myself on the first day. So I was being the silent observer [ not for long ;) ] weighing up everyone in the team, during our tea break.

That is when I noticed a tall guy with an imposing demeanour being brash in his conversation with the guys & they were enjoying his diatribe. Strangely, I started liking it too.

I don't know how long it took for me to feel very comfortable in his presence. All I know is that it was the shortest period in my experience.

Our friendship progressed from strength to strength & my admiration for him grew exponentially. Most of my best memories in Australia would involve him.

I realised his real charm when he left us to join another company. Marsden tribe that was so active and boisterous had suddenly become silent for most parts. Smiles on the team's face were less frequent. People became endlessly busy in work or busy pretending to be busy. :)

Let me be the first to admit that he was the team's lynchpin. People, when around him, seem to have more fun than otherwise. He has mastered the craft of raising us to excited state of energy. I observed that many in the team looked up to him for more than technical inputs.

God has blessed him with charisma and he is making the most of it. :)

Office setting was just a rehearsal studio for his theatrics. If you want to see him at his best, you will have to witness the spectacle he creates in the grand stage, the cricket field. :)

I love him more for his on field persona than his explosive & destuctive batting.

His statements are equivocal. He is equally vocal in praising or criticizing someone.

He is very creative & articulate. His abundant creative energy usually gets channelised in coining nick names. He is a pioneer in that field.  I always end up laughing my guts out when i hear those legendary names.

If he reads this post, he would be extremely dissapointed because his name has appeared only once in the title of this post. And "Ctrl+F" on his name, would have returned blank so far.

So , as a last ditch attempt to make him happy....

Vibhor, Vibhor, Vibhor, Vibhor, Vibhor, Vibhor, Vibhor, Vibhor, Vibhor, Vibhor , Vibhor

Managers - Useless Relics

I really pity any fresh engineer who joins an Indian IT organization and happens to reports to the most common breed of managers, THE UNINSPIRING ONES.

I pity them because these fresh engineers learn the work way of life observing their manager. For most of the engineers, it leaves a lasting imprint on them. They will start affecting those they will lead in future as well.

If we don't break this chain, we will end up with more uninspiring managers, generation after generation.
I think it might be too late already as we get to see the clear signs of that in our industry.

Attrition is at an all time high and is totally out of control. People keep changing jobs. You see more traffic between the organizations of same level than JFK airport. :)
It looks like only a recession can curb this trend.

Organizations are finding more and more difficult to place the right people for the right job. To top it off, the right people who are already in the right job don't want to continue any more..

Customers of these IT companies don't find any value other than cost benefits. Frustrated with the so called CMMi service of the companies , they start their own development centres. Increasing presence of MNCs in Bangalore's Electronic City & on both sides of IT Highway in Chennai are the testaments to this fact.

What will happen if this trend continues?

Indian IT companies will be reduced to the level of sub contractors who gets to do all low intellect jobs or survive being worker unions..

It is not difficult to figure out how we got here in the first place. All credit should go to our managers, the uninspiring ones.

The uninspiring ones treat every team member, just as a resource and the loss of a team member for them is more to do with loss of billing than anything else. "Giving stick" is a very common phrase in their vocabulary.

The T-rex of this uninspiring breed are the ones who sincerely uphold the notions of profitability that are so very prehistoric.

It was a rude awakening for me when I had to work with such dinosaurs who treat customers & high billing activities as "Cash cows" and for whom "customer value add" means anything that increases the project's profitability.

When you loose the focus on service and look for money in everything, you tend to become defensive, better ideas take back seat and so does the team's attitude towards work.
Value creation becomes a far cry in such teams.

Organization should device ways to identify these uninspiring ones and take away people responsibility from them. They must put these dinosaurs out to pasture.

In their place, we need empathetic leaders who foster the individuality of members and harness the collective energy of the team towards the singularity of project purpose.

In teams, dissent should be regarded in the same breadth as consensus.

After reading this post, if you think I am dreaming, so be it. Such dreams provide welcome escape to me.

It keeps me sane.

Hybrid Ideology : Religion with Objectivism

I am a man of faith. I believe the hand of god in all events that come to pass.
I am also inspired and influenced by Objectivism, a philosophical idea from Ayn Rand.

Objectivism, as an idea, enshrines man's ability to produce, to create and it eulogises mankind's greatness.
According to her, collective ideas, compromises and organised religion are the arch-enemies. Why?
Because their principles  like "Sacrificing an individual for common good", "group consensus on an idea" , "humility" are hurdles for man's greatness.

If I had asked Ayn Rand to choose "Darth Vader of Objective Universe", she would have replied "Religion", without missing a beat.

Having said this, I re-iterate that I love both religion and Objectivism. In fact, I believe that these idea complement each other.

For some it might be difficult to accept my stand. But the same person would have shown high level of maturity on a different debatable topic, "Darwin's Theory vs Genesis on evolution".

Even though we don't have irrefutable proof that universe was created in one big cosmic explosion, we are pretty much confident that the universe was not created in 6 days. :)
We still are mostly religious. But, how did the majority come to this level of acceptance?

The newer generations are taught about Darwin's evolution along with Genesis from their childhood.
Even without theological or scientific explanation, they are able to digest the essence.Why?
Because as kids we don't resist new ideas, we are information sponges at subconscious level.

Only when we attain the so called maturity (so very overrated !) , we become like a dried clay pot, resisting further moulding.

So, for someone with an open mind for new ideas will understand that both objectivism and religion can be embraced without conflict. He can even find interpretation in one, supporting the other.

Only message I get from Genesis is that the whole world was created for mankind and man is god's best creation.
If we don't get into the argument of who created us, Isn't this the core message of Objectivism?

We have to take these two ideologies and form something infinetely better, sort of a hybrid.
This should help us focus on achieving personal goals through strong conviction and introspection.
When events spiral out of one's control, keeping faith on higher power can only help us shore up our resolve to handle the eventualities.

We are living in a world of hybrids now.
A hybrid Ideology can only be good for us and let us push for wider acceptance of it.

My affair with Accidents - Part 1

In my life so far, I have been involved in countless vehicle accidents. There were so many crashes that I lost track of the count. All I remember now are major ones, where I escaped with minor injuries.

I don't think I have had any luck at all when it comes to winning a lottery or even a raffle ticket.
When i think harder, I have been blessed with abundant luck where it matters, with my life.
People say cat has nine lives.I must be related to cats in my earlier birth. And, I have been living on my extra lives from a long time ago.

My mom tells me that even as a kid, I had a habit of tripping on my own legs. I was the last person to be entrusted with anything that can break or spill..and that too, only if no one else is there to do the chore...

My falls started to aggravate as I kept graduating from walking to cylcing, cycling to riding a moped, moped to bike and finally from riding a bike to driving a car.

According to me, a fall from bicycle is not serious at all. So I don't remember specific incidents..
Some might ask, "How can you generalize? What if the altercation had been with some heavy vehicle while riding a bicycle?"

Peculiar as it might sound, in most of my accidents, no one else will be involved. My bike or car will sustain damages  & I will carry injury..Other people normally get involved only to help me out.

This means I can't even blame anyone for my accidents. ( I know..It sucks !) Still i do my best to blame someone or something, usually it will be slippery roads (with a little embellishment along the way). :)

Once, I was riding to office in my brother's Pulsar ( yeah ! the one with disk brakes !) as my bike had some problem.

Normally , both front and back brakes in my bike are very weak. For braking, I apply both front and back brakes at the same time, to squeeze the max from them.

At this juncture, I also have to admit that I have a habit of going to auto-pilot mode from time to time while riding bike, which means i stop focusing on the road and my subconscious rides the bike. :)
Now don't be afraid to hitch a ride with me in future...I can assure you all, that this auto-pilot stuff happens only when I am riding alone.

On that eventful day, I came back from one such auto-pilot mode, I applied both the brakes forgetting that I was in Pulsar.
Laws of physics took over, I was thrown in air and was sliding on the road with my face making contact with road..
Good that i was wearing my helmet and visor was closed. In the end,  I was dragged long enough for the helmet to slip off from my head and I ended up kissing the road just for couple of seconds.
I returned home with twisted bike handle & busted lips, as a souvenir.
At home, when I saw myself on the mirror, I resembeled a desperate vampire who bit his own lips, out of thirst.

Another time, while taking a turn in a busy signal , I slipped from my bike. Just like that!
I quickly picked up my bike and my pride before the signal from the opposite side opened up. I went to office with torn pants..
This time i was in full senses and I didn't know how I could fall in a turn that i normally take every working day of the year.
I was trying to recollect if I was missing a bit. Then it struck me hard!
On that day, I had picked up my bike from service center before coming to office. That's it !

I normally fall within a month of servicing my bike or car. This is also another reality. Don't search for logic..Just deal with it, OK?

So, these two accounts are ample proof to my claim that my affair with accidents is not a complicated love triangle..
It is a love of traditional kind..Accident and I are the only parties involved.

I was lucky in both the cases to escape with a burst lip and torn pants, as they happened at peak office hours in busy highway.

I kept falling at every opportunity I got and I showed no signs of slowing down whatsoever...
I suspected that i was priming myself for bigger things...

Perfection - A Myth

We see more and more people joining the band wagon, trumpeting about perfection or the lack of it.
The real question is , why do we have imperfect systems? Is it deviation or norm ?

I believe that it's the latter. Let me build my case.

Imperfections have helped people to develope tolerance and tolerance is a VIRTUE.

Imperfections bring the element of uncertainity that makes life interesting..

Imperfections NEVER cripple us.
They just build up frustration towards the system that are easily relieved from time to time, through power cycling..


Power cycling/reset is the act of turning a piece of equipment/system and then turning it on again. Mostly, the reason for reset is to recover from an unresponsive state of its mission critical functionality.

In the past , reset was always used as the last step recover from a failure and there was a stigma attached to it. Thanks to Microsoft, people were generously encouraged to take this route.The convenience of power reset caught on the other platforms, devices, equipments.

Nowadays, anything run by software (which is pretty much everything) are subjected to reset. It has become the first step to recover from any crash. This has played into the hands of developers  & creators, for they keep building imperfect systems.

I started cursing Microsoft for standardising "reset culture" and destroying mankind's movement towards perfection (How Naive??).  Then I realized that even the most amazing creator had got the hang of it... :)

Every life created in this universe comes with the creator's gaurantee of vitality. But quite so often it ends up malfunctioning. In the event of non-recovery , the plug is pulled and the life is created again with a bright new set of hardware.

I should have seen the god's hand in imperfections.

Paradigm has shifted.

Now, I started reading "Imperfect" as "I'm Perfect" and I feel great about it!!
 
Embrace Imperfection and you will be at peace with the world and self.