Social Issues Much?

There are certain social issues that I feel very strongly about – no, not the big-ass ones like women empowerment or LGBT rights or caste-ism. There are much better qualified people to do that. 

I am the small one – I worry about social issues like, “What happened to the vada-bonda shop akka? Why hasn’t she set shop for the last 10 days? The bhel puri anna who has his shop next to hers didn’t know either.” Or like, “The neighbourhood stray dog with the mean looking scar on his face hasn’t been eating the leftover bread. Hope he is alright. Maybe his stomach is upset?” You get the drift.

That said, social issues that have been protested against / the ones that have attracted the media’s eyes have not altogether been abolished. Transgenders are still being looked down upon, marital rape still hasn’t been declared a crime, Bellandur lake is still frothing (hey, detergent companies, here is a good idea for your next ad – “Secret to Bellandur lake’s extraordinary frothing - ”).

We live in a country where people are fighting for basic rights – right to good food, right to clean drinking water, right to practice any religion, right to be accepted with alternate sexuality, right to education, etc. I have problems too, da! I am also fighting, ok? – “Oh my God, the wi-fi is so frikkin’ slow!”, or “My Candy Crush lives are over!”, or “My sedan is too big in most parking spaces!” 

Most of Westerners think of India as a third-world country. But there are three different countries within India – the filthy rich, the good old middle class and the poorest of the poor. I really feel bad about our country, man. I wish I could do something to improve… hey, Ice Age is playing on TV. Let me go watch!

After-hours... ;-)

What is deal with people who like to sit around at office long after they have reached the minimum number of hours required at work and completed all their pending work? Beats me. This guy I know works in a shift that lasts till 10pm and he ‘prefers’ (actually is fond of) sitting at his desk until after 11pm as opposed to the other (normal) people try to get the hell out of office sooner than possible. I am sure most of you have come across such specimens in your teams/acquaintance-circles. Why would anyone sit at office without any work to complete even after their 9.5hrs/day is over? The reasons I hear the most and my reactions to them are:

1. I get bored at home. We stay far away from our families and it just gets boring at home.

• Really? What about taking up some hobby? I mean, there are so many great books to be read, so many interesting movies to be watched. You could learn to play some music instrument; you could join a gym/yoga class. You could actually clean your room.
• But then, hey, the guy I am talking about is someone who hasn’t heard/read anything beyond Telugu – and I have nothing against Telugu. I consider Telugu to be one of the sweetest sounding languages. And the fact that the guy is not well-read or well-informed is more the reason why he should start reading at least now. Better late than never, right?

2. At office I get free internet. At home, I don’t.

• You stay at office so you can watch utterly stupid videos on youtube for free? Or checking out your own Shaadi.com profile (coz trust me, no one else will, if you continue to stay glued to your computer).
• What about going home and getting freshened up and heading out for a walk? Believe me when I say the world has more things to teach you than the world wide web.
• Hell, go to a bar with your friends!

3. Hey, I get free unlimited coffee here.

• Huh? Haven’t you heard of ‘Nair Tea Shop’ which is there in every gali of every city in the world? (I love Nair Tea Shops – they are the best!!!) It is an understatement to say that I think you are pathetic enough not to spend Rs.5/- (or less, depending on the size of the shop) and rather prefer staying at office to drink free chai!
• The company pays you well enough to buy a chai/coffee for yourself, I am sure!

4. I want to read a Telugu e-newspaper.

• Hmmmm, errrr, hmmm… What were you doing since morning? Don’t tell me you worked the entire 9.5hrs and had no time at all for reading a newspaper.
• Unnoda kadamai unarchikku oru alave illaya da?

5. What the hell is your problem? It’s my wish to stay as long as I want. Who are you to ask me to leave?

• Oooooh okay, dude! Chill… It is not my problem. If it is anybody’s, it is yours. Remain the pathetic guy that doesn’t have a life outside of office!
• I pity the one you are going to get married to, though.

6. I like to stay late at office.

• Well, you got me. I have nothing to say about this. If staying late at work is what your heart desires (yuck), then so be it.
• That is one statement that makes Sandhya go mute! You have achieved it, big boy!!!

So people, just make sure you are not the guy in question. I have nothing against people staying back at office after work hours if situation demands it or if there is any pending work to be completed. But otherwise, is it really necessary for you to remain at office and not have time for your family and friends and pets?

Have any of your friends told you genuine/whacky reasons as to why they stay late at work?

Enna koduma sir idhu...

The last two weeks have been most eventful. And I’m a lot wiser now. Really. Not buying it?

I have interacted more with managers in the last two weeks than I have in the last two years and learnt how to talk to them – the choice of words in an email, the tone of your voice in a telephonic conversation, to be persuasive in a subtle way – I am well on my way to become a manager myself. :-P But then God help those who become my subordinates! :-P

It is so funny when you go and stand in front of your manager and tell him,

Me: I just came to remind you that I’d be on leave next week.
Manager: Which days, Sandhya?
Me: Hmmm, three days and the other two weekdays are holidays.
Manager: What? The whole of next week?
Me: No, just three days.
Manager: But you won’t be at office throughout the next week?
Me: (Silly fellow, isn’t that obvious?) Hmmm, yes. I’m planning to go to my hometown, you see.
Manager: Why didn’t you inform me earlier?
Me: Actually, I did. I informed you three weeks back that I need three days leave and you actually approved the leaves.
Manager: I did?

It’s so funny when managers try to think hard, you know? The look on his face made me think that he badly wanted to answer nature’s call, but somehow nature wasn’t calling him as often as it has to. :-P And needless to say I was controlling my laughter and had to rush out of the ODC to a nearby conference room to laugh it off.

And then I headed to Coimbatore – to spend an awesome week there with Amma and Gaya and Paatti. As usual, the city was at its enchanting best - not very hot, not very cold, chilly wind and the slight drizzle and the magnificent hills surrounding the city - they are all still there. The city is just soooooooo beautiful. Since it was Navrathri time, we had visitors during all evenings to see the Golu. My cousin Nithya had come with her two daughters, aged 4 and 2 to see the Golu and the elder one – Harsha – sang devotional songs so beautifully (with actions) as her teacher (who was also my teacher when I was in school) and I couldn’t stop moving my hands in action just like her (although I stayed away from singing along for good).

For years, it has been me who stayed back while the others said ‘bye’ and left and come November I would be the one taking off – away from Chennai, away from my work, away from a lot of great friends I have made here, away from the beaches, away from my extremely patient roomies, away from a great team at work, just away from life as I have known it for 2 years now. And I do hope everything goes on well post my ‘bye bye’ from a city I have grown to love.

But of course, ‘Lighter Side…’ will still be alive and I will continue to post here – all the details about where life takes me and what it offers. And yeah, I will be available on Orkut, FaceBook, Twitter, etc. So, I don’t really think I would be missing the gang of friends I have made in the cyber world. :-)

When the going gets tough

It has been a hectic day at work with my on-site folks demanding to know the status of tickets that are pending with me, and at the same time my offshore manager asking me to work on creating a knowledge base loading me with technical jargons like cloud computing, knowledge base (yeah, right!), Drupal and a bunch of other stuff that most certainly did not sound English. At the end of half an hour of hearing such words, he goes on to clearly mention that my on-site manager should not come back complaining that project activity is getting spoilt because of this internal work. The next few days are sure going to be tighter than the t-shirt that few of the girls at work wear.

Now, to those of you who ask what I do apart from cribbing about work – I don’t do anything much, I say. Effect of watching Quick Gun Murugan, you see. I thought the movie would be out and out funny – instead it turned out to be a very loud, repetitive affair, although there are a few funny moments; like the one scene where Mango Dolly (Rambha) says she failed to win a beauty contest, QGM responds, “It is not IAS. You can try again.” And if you consider that funny, God save you!



My room mate V came back from California after an 8 week stay there and told me the storyline (or the lack of it) of Bruno. Well, to most conservative girls (I know nobody is going to accept I am either conservative or a girl, sigh!) the movie sounded sick and she said she couldn’t understand why people were ROFL for such cheap comedy. She told more about how she saw so many people kissing in public – let me tell you that this was the same person who changes the channel during a kissing scene in any movie. Well, what can I say? Time changes, people change…

Good news from work – we have finally gotten our porcelain cups back at the pantry and done away with the paper cups that were brought in last month, in a bid to avoid the spread of swine flu. I wonder if swine flu is really gone (or is in its receding phase) or we all think it’s gone because the media is not creating frenzy over it these days. If latter is the case, haven’t we all become puppets in the hands of the media?

Swine-flu alert: Wash your eyes before and after reading this!

It has been an awesome week and an even more awesome weekend. The week, as it is, was awesome not because I achieved something great at work or anything, just that I didn’t mess up anything big time.

My week goes something like this – Monday and Tuesday – I think and re-think about how I spent the weekend gone by, what I shopped for or what movie I saw or where I roamed around or what I ate and think about blogging about it. Wednesday – I start making plans for the next weekend; after all it is now only 3 days away. Thursday and Friday – I work hard to implement the plans – calling up friends, convincing them, booking tickets, arranging accommodation (if need be)… Phew!!! God, I wish I were as organized in my work!

Throughout last week, I had an additional fear too – the fear of the flu. Agreed it is a pandemic, agreed it is fatal, and agreed it is tough to control the spread of the virus in a country like India where it is crowded everywhere – but the media didn’t have to blow it up so much. For 5 days all I could hear, see and read was swine-flu related deaths. If I didn’t open any newspaper’s website (just to stay from all the swine-flu news), my super-intelligent friends would send me mails after mails telling me how many times I should wash my hand everyday and how I should use a tissue paper while sneezing/coughing (!!!) like I didn’t know that already! And what is with all these masks? My office had made it mandatory for the cafeteria folks to put on masks. On Friday, I was munching on a sandwich early in the morning and choked on it and started coughing to relieve myself. A member of the cleaning staff asked me to put on a mask while coughing. I just choked on some food, for crying out loud!!! What the hell… As Vadivel would say “Nalla kelapparaingayya beedhiya”…

For the weekend, I and 3 of my friends had gone to Yelagiri hills - a not very-well-known hill station in Vellore district – about 4 hours drive from Chennai/Bangalore, not as spectacularly high as Ooty or Kodaikanal, not as many places to see, but it is the nearest getaway for people who love being in the hills. The best part was the trekking trip on Sunday. It was an 8km (up and down) trek to a temple on top of a hill and offers a nice view of the villages and farms downhill. The worst part of it was the steps – whoever asked people to build steps (with slippery rocks) all the way to the temple! It made the trek very boring – it was as if I was climbing the steps to Marudamalai temple. But yeah, it also made me realize how unfit I have become. For the amount of trekking I used to do when I was in Coimbatore, this one should have been a walk in the park for me. But sadly I was panting barely half a kilometer into the forest. One person I am sure who would have actually had it easy would be my Paati (grandma). At 87, she is still the most energetic and active person I have seen! Touchwood (I don’t know why my hand went to touch my head almost involuntarily when I said touchwood!)

After the trip, I had to bunk office yesterday to think and re-think about the weekend and today I am blogging about it. So my work for the day is done! This week, I don’t have to plan for the next weekend because I am going to Coimbatore. So the plan is just to eat and sleep – during the rest of the week and the coming weekend. Until then, chao!

Of Hari Sadu and the rest of us...

2 years of working in the IT industry has taught me a lot of things, besides writing really confusing emails, even more confusing self-appraisals (which I like to call self-aapu), where to keep my mouth shut (yes, I do that sometimes) and some stuff like that. But more than all these, I have learnt to observe people – you do not have much choice when you are on bench for almost a year before you get your first ever project. But hey, I am not complaining. I, in fact, liked the observing part so much so that I wish I was on bench and there was no recession ;-)

There are different types of people in the IT world. There are a few similarities – they all have the dog band (company ID card) around their necks, they all wear formal clothes (although a lot of them look funny in them), they all are good at staring at their computer screens (work or no work) and they all are in the process of losing their sense of humor (if you didn’t at least smile to yourself until this point of the post, I bet you are a part of the great Indian IT field).

And yet, there are so many different kinds of IT professionals.

The “Visionaries”: These are the ones that always think, feel and breathe their projects. You can usually find them sitting at their desk with their heads so close to the computer screen that you think he/she has a romantic affair with the monitor. At the cafeteria, they tend to sit alone, have lunch (while replying to business emails through their blackberries/laptops) and leave - all without attracting much attention from anyone nearby. Chances are these people were toppers in their colleges. Chances are they are already/soon-to-become project managers, who expect/would expect their subordinates to be like them too. They are well on their ways to become “Hari Sadu”s (for people who don’t know Hari Sadu, you are already becoming one. So please watch more TV and catch the naukri.com advertisement or at least google ‘Hari Sadu ad’)

The “Friends”: These are the people who like to spend time with their friends so much so that that is probably the only reason they come to office. They do complete their work on time and efficiently so (although they seem to hardly do any work from the outside), but would rather hang out with friends after work hours than romance their computer screens like the Hari Sadu’s. They are very good team players and make friends with everyone around them very easily. At the cafeteria, these people make the largest group, taking a lunch break of over 2 hours and a tea break of 45mins (twice a day). Chances are these people were the most popular guys/girls in their college. And there are lesser chances of them becoming project managers; although they could consider taking up a job at the Human Resources.

The “Snails”: These are the kind of people who are extremely hard-working and sincere in their efforts. In fact, they work as if the company’s profit depends on just what they do, but are not fast/ efficient enough in their work. They also, like the Visionaries spend very little time at the cafeteria and slog for long hours and still end up working during the weekends. They were probably not very bright students in their colleges either. Neither do they make good team players as their speed slows down the team. Tough luck, people!

The “Kids”: The freshers. They are just out of college; they think their managers are “cool” people (oh puhleeeze); they think their company is the best (oh puhleeeze, again); they are hyper-active and enthusiastic; they are generally found lunching/taking a break with their college-mates (who are still in the same location) and sending Good Morning, Good Afternoon and Good Evening and other equally dumb forward mails and make complete use of the internal email portal. They are forever online on the internal communicator and have at least 3-4 chat windows open – in short, they are still kids and think IT life is actually like how they show it in the movies. They have a long way to go before their eyes open up to face reality.

The “Players”: These are the ones who are eternally on the bench. Your truly was a part of this group until April 2008. But then, I had to start working (big sigh…) Anyways, the only things that interest this group are blogging, surfing the net pointlessly and downloading small flash games (remember Copter, Bow and Arrow, Beat Him, Sudoku and the rest). I can hear a lot of you saying that this is exactly what I still do at work, but hey I am in a project now and there are no complaints on me (really, ask my PM)…

I am sure there is the whole “Others” category – people who don’t fit into any of these or are a part of more than one category. But this has been a long post already and I should probably save my words for a next one.

Nocturnal? Not me!

Last week I had to work in my first ever night shift and I was as nervous and excited as my friend when she was ponnu paathufied - the traditional “seeing the bride” ceremony before a marriage where the groom’s immediate family (of at least 30 people) visit the bride’s house and ask the bride to do everything from sing to dance to even code a bug-free Java program (God, I am never going to get married) to climb Mt.Everest (That, I may be able to achieve). Anyway, I had a longish weekend from Friday evening to Monday night. And finally, as with all weekends, Monday (night) too came too early.

And I was at office sharp at 8:30pm, waiting for my first ‘ticket’ (To know what this ticket means, read: ITMARK me!) with all the curiosity of a little pup in a new home. And then work started flowing my way and never stopped until it was 6am the next morning. It was as if I was bowling the best I could, but I had an in-form Jayasuriya batting; with my captain shouting (swear words, obviously, duh...) at me at regular intervals. Talking of which I am thinking of the Indian Cricket Team’s performance (or rather the lack of it) at the ICC T20 WC, which I shouldn’t be unless I can afford my posts to contain really objectionable words.

2 nights passed by without any major hitches and on the 3rd night, it was a little less hectic and I was a little more hungry than usual. At around 2-ish in the night, my stomach started making these strange noises, not unlike Barkha Dutt does on her shows. Also, I realized it was as empty as her head. I then understood what they meant when they said “Empty vessels make more noise.” However, I was prepared for such ‘situations’ and had bought a bag of Potato Chips (I could actually use a lot of calories, you know) for the night and started munching on it like I’ve never seen food before. I felt quite full at around 3-ish (actually, the chips packet had become empty) and I headed to the pantry to have some tea. On the way to the pantry, I was startled by a hyper-active frog and almost fell down (which was so not funny!). Apart from the frog thing, there was nothing much eventful that night.

The next morning, I slept till 10:30am and then got up to have breakfast (No sir! No matter what, I never skip food) only to find my stomach turning and twisting and before I could know, I was puking all over the place (quite disgusting, yes!). But still, I went ahead and had some curd rice and was about to take a bath when I heard the water pipe farting big time; there was no water in the tank and there was no power to switch the motor on – which also meant no sleep during the afternoon. We (I, the cute-guy-next-door, his roomie, another neighbor) did everything we could from bringing an electrician to calling up the EB folks and nothing worked (I could actually understand how helpless Dhoni felt during the WC matches).

That night, again I was at office at 8pm and called up my PM, who has been extra-ordinarily kind and gracious and supportive (I hope he reads this before writing appraisal comments) and told him (actually, reminded him) about India and power cuts and took leave for the rest of the week and bunked night shift. Now I am back in the day-shifts and am sleeping through the day at work (which is not very unusual), but unable to sleep during nights (and that is killing me). And I feel so bad for my BPO friends. May God give them the strength and courage to go through with it. :-)

ITMARK Me

The past weekend was one that made me extremely happy – a weekend filled with hugs and kisses from my family – mom, sister, cousins, uncles, aunts, and grandparents – it made me very happy to meet so many relatives after a long time. I had a great time – cousins pulling my legs, talking about everything from movies to cricket to hot gossips! It was the perfect weekend…

When everything is going great guns in my life, there were a few moments which made me go “What’s wrong with me?” All such moments were because of my work place practices. It amazed me to know how much it has changed the real Me.

Things to prove I am an ITMARK (IT equivalent of AGMARK) software engineer.

1. I was at the ‘Sadabhishekam’ of my grandparents and there was so much smoke coming from the homa-gundam; I started wondering why the smoke-detectors work only during fire evacuation drills.
2. The other day, when I returned home from work, instead of inserting the key into the key-hole and turning it, I reached for my ID card to swipe it to open the door and wondered where the swipe machine went.
3. I stay far away from my mom and always talk to her over phone. Now she is in Chennai and for calling out to her when she was in the kitchen, I shouted “hello amma” instead of “amma”.
4. I write “Pls do let me know if there are further concerns” in personal mails.
5. My idea of flirting has become, “Which technology did you say you are working on?” (No wonder the cute guy next door runs like crazy in the opposite direction when he sees me walking towards him)
6. I am in a Production Support project wherein we resolve any ‘ticket’ raised by the user when they face any issue with the data in the database/in the application. It made me nervous when my friend said, “I have ‘tickets’ for the concert”. I started thinking about how to resolve it.
7. My roomie was looking for one of her DVDs and asked all of us to search for it and I said, “I’ll google it right away” without thinking. I was glared at by all of them.

God help me!!!

Aaarrrggghhhhh...

I caught a severe cold from my friend and have been making strange noises (read: like a frog during mating season) for almost a week now and no amount of milk with turmeric powder and pepper has made it any better. I have become the butt of so many jokes that my room mates are planning to publish a collection of such instances.

The house I stay in is a big one divided into 6 portions – 3 in the ground floor, 2 in the first floor and 1 in the 2nd floor. I and my friends live in the ground floor. One of the other houses in the ground floor is occupied by 6 Telugu-speaking guys (hereafter referred to as the “guys”) and the other ground floor house has a Bengali husband and wife (21 yr old girl, just married, can speak only Bengali, no English, butler Hindi). The house owner stays in one of the first floor portions. The motor switch is inside the owner’s house and my owner aunty has a big problem with her hearing (she has a hearing-aid, but I have never seen her using it).

Now, our house and the guys’ house are separated by only a thin wall and we can hear whatever they are singing (which is not very pleasant to hear, trust me). During the IPL, they were staunch supporters of the Deccan Chargers while we were supporting Chennai Super Kings. On the day of the first semi-final – between the Deccan Chargers and the Delhi Daredevils (in which Gilchrist showed no mercy on any of the DD bowlers), I had a chat with one of the guys. He was obviously very happy about Gilchrist’s form and told me DC will win the cup. I was super confident about Dhoni and Co. that I told him, “No way, CSK are gonna win. Last time we came so close. This time we are not leaving without the cup.” Sigh!!!! We didn’t even make it to the Finals. The next day (after Chennai lost to Bangalore) when we met again, he gave me a sarcastic smirk. I should have been furious, but I didn’t coz, let’s face it, the guy was cute!!! ;-)

My room mate is travelling to the U.S. for a couple of months and we wanted to make her feel how much we were going to miss her, so we decided to treat her and let her pay the bill (ok, I can hear that “idhellam oru pozhappah?”)… We decided to keep it simple (month-end, you see) and agreed upon ordering pizza. I was given the task of calling up Pizza Hut and placing the order.

Pizza Hut Guy (PHG): Hello, Pizza Hut. I am Nixon, how can I help you?
Me: Hello! I am Sandhya. I am calling from Tiruvanmiyur. I wanna order pizza for four people.
PHG: Could you please repeat your name again?
Me: He can’t even get my name right. OMG, how am I gonna tell him what Pizza, what toppings and everything? I am Sandhya.
PHG: Ms. Sandhya, can you please give the phone to someone else (veetla periyavanga yaaru kittayavudhu phone-ah kudu paappa)
Me: ?!??!??!?

:-( :-( :-(