Marriages….

Marriage, according to me, is the most complex relation to get into! You would agree too!
Now that I have reached the age where I need to get into this ‘complex relationship’, I thought of analyzing it further. On my travel to office, sometimes when I am not reading a book or writing an article for my blog, I do try to think ki meri life partner kaun hogi, kaisi hogi, kahaan ki hog, gujju hogi, Marathi hogi, B.E. hogi, MBA hogi, sweet hogi, beautiful hogi, soft-spoken hogi, gussewaali hogi etc.??? (Empty mind is devil’s workshop!)
Types of marriage: broadly 2 types : Arranged and Love !

Arranged Marriages :  The one in which you are given a photo of a girl or a boy living some 100s of kms from your home, someone whom you must never have met or imagined, someone whom you must have pictured at all (the assumption here is that one normally does try to create a default image of a life-partner, because not everyone can get an aishwarya or a shahrukh!). in this type of marriage, normally the boy’s parents and the boy go the girl’s house and try to figure out whether the “other side” is apt for their status. The girl then comes out of the kitchen and brings chai, kahdapohaa, samosa, etc. made “exclusively by her” (it’s only later on that you come to know that the samosas made by her and the ones made in a nearby snacks-corner taste the same!). The boy shyly asks the girl about her name, qualification, house-handling skills, etc. The would-be-mother-in-laws interrupt to add on to the existing qualities of the boy or girl. Like for eg, even if the girl has never ever tried making “undhyoo” in her life, the would-be-mother-in-law states with full confidence that NO ONE in the whole of gujurat can make “undhyoo” like her daughter makes. That makes the boy’s side very happy. Because, knowing how to make “undhyoo” is more important that knowing basic mathematics like “3 + 2 = 5”! And yes, the would-be-mother-in-law can confidently state the expertise of her daughter’s because she knows that there is lot of time between that day and the day her daughter gets married.
The girl then asks the boy questions like “what is your favorite dish?”, “which school did you study in” , “etc. (it’s later on girl gathers courage to ask why the boy chose her, what his expectations are, whether she would be allowed to carry on with her job, etc..). The girl’s and boy’s side then sign the MoU (memorandum of understanding) that they have liked each other’s kids and would like the carry the process further.
The date is then finalized. The boy and girl start getting nervous because since the day they talked to each other for the first time and the ‘doom’s day’, they have hardly talked to each other for some 10-15 times. Both of them pray to god to assure them that the decision that they have taken is a right decision!...

Advantages of arranged marriage:
1) The level of understanding or adjustment is higher than in other types of marriages because you know that in just 10- 15 times of ‘phone conversation’, its not possible for one to know the other fully! So its implicit that there are going to be a few things that might come up as “surprise” and the other half has to take that “surprise” as if it were as simple as “sun rises in the east”.
2) You can easily blame your parents or relatives in case the marriage goes haywire!... you can keep making others feel guilty for the rest of their lives, (of course you would be the most torn-apart..)
3) there won’t be those “you have changed a lot, you were not like this before” types of fights!

Disadvantages of arranged marriage :
1) I feel that it is very important that the boy and girl know each other before spending the second half of their lives! Without proper understanding, it would be very difficult to lead a happy life…
2) knowing each other’s moods, nature is more important than knowing whether she knows how to use computer, whether she can do an online money transfer, whether she can cook “undhyoo”, whether she can speak English well….etc
3) when a boy goes to meet a girl for the first time, it obvious that the boy is going to act as if he is some saint and has never had an affair and the girl is going to act as if she were “tulsi” of Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi (those who have not heard abt this serial, pls use google!). So, the point is that the NATURAL YOU is not exposed in such short-time meetings…. This dreads me a lot!

Love Marriages : The boy is sitting on his motorcycle and chatting with his friends. The girl is going to college with her friends. Suddenly a light whiff of wind makes the girl’s hair brush against her sweet face. The boy’s eyes are about to pop out like you see in cartoons! The boy follows the girl. The girl thinks that the boy is some pervert. The boy tries to convince her a lot. They talk to each other in the class. They talk to each other in the canteen. They talk to each other in the theater. Finally either of them proposes (normally the boy does). The either one agrees. They forget that are other human beings on this planet who might oppose them. But love is undefeatable, they think. They share this “breaking news” with parents. The parents are stunned to the core. Normally the father has his dreams of marrying his daughter in a Dhoom Dhaam manner (I wonder why he won’t do so in case it is a love marriage!). a lot of drama happens in both the houses. Finally love triumphs. The boy and girl get married.

Advantages of love marriage:
1) You know each other very well and so you know what act of ours will irk the other half. You would try to avoid doing what the other half doesn’t like…
2) You have the satisfaction that you are spending the life with the person that you wanted to be with!
3) You are happy that you took the most important decision of your life by yourself!
(I personally would prefer marrying a non-gujju because – see, I have spent 26 years following gujju culture, now i want some change in life. I want some deviation from normal. So suppose if my wife is southie or a Marathi then definitely there is going to be a vast difference in culture, food, style of living, etc. I would love to break the monotony in life by marrying a non-gujju! Non-gujju girls, are you reading this blog?? :-))

Disadvantages of love marriage:
1) Chances are high that one might take the other for granted. (a lot of my “love married” frnds have told me this)
2) With all the good points like “sweet smile, sugar-coated giggling” might also come “hot-temper” which you would know earlier also and there is no going back!
3) “why should I adjust?. You knew me well before marriage…that time you were OK and now….” These words might resound many times in the house. Arranged marriages won’t have such excuses, I feel.
All in all, each type has its pitfalls and advantages. Its upto one to figure out what is expected in a life partner….. at least, I am trying to figure out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :-)….

All in all, I would say that Respect in the relationship matters the most... Respect for what you are, respect for your thoughts and beliefs, respect for your past  is what should be the base for any relation. Then it doesnt matter whether your life partner is a mallu, marathi, punjabi, etc...!

9.42 CST Slow – 5th bogie.

(This article is a fiction)

There are 2 dates that I can never ever forget in my life. The first one is 19th dec 2005. That was the day when I lost my vision. I lost the chance to see the beauty of this world because of one mistake of Dr.Sharma. He is one the most trusted eye-surgeons of this city. But still, God had something planned for me. HE was envious of my happiness and threw me in the pit of darkness.


The second date that I can never forget is 10th November 2007. That was the day when I proposed her and had our engagement ceremony in the 5th bogie of 9.42 Kalyan Slow. 5th bogie in a 9-rake train is normally reserved for the visually- handicapped, mentally- handicapped and cancer patients.


It all started with my visits to the teaching sessions at Rajawadi school- a school for the mentally handicapped kids.


I, Vikram Jadhav, aged 23 years, hold a BA in arts and have learned sign language and also have undergone a correspondence course for psychology. Since childhood I have had a soft corner ‘Special people’. Till date I don’t understand why God makes someone one handicapped – whether it is physically, mentally, visually,etc. That is the primary reason why I am an atheist.


She-I mean vidya-, aged 20 years, studies in Rajawadi school for mentally handicapped people. She is one of the toppers of her class. Out of the class of 28 students, I find her the cutest, most innocent and the most intelligent. The 2 qualities of hers that I like the most is her compassion towards others and her concern for everyone. I have never seen a day when Vidya had not completed her home-work. But when it comes to class-work, she scores very low. The main reason here is that she spends a lot of time in helping all her friends and she forgets that she has to complete her work too. This quality of hers is what every human being on this earth should learn. I have high respect for Vidya for these 2 qualities.


By the way, because of my compassion towards the ‘special kids’, I had taken a part-time job of teaching at the Rajawadi school for mentally challenged kids. From May 2003 upto May 2005, I taught those ‘special kids’.The school used to start at 11.30 AM. So, i used to board the 9.42 CST slow from Kalyan station. i never travelled except for the first class bogie. Vidya, the brightest of all those kids, was my most favorite student. Once, I had given a sum for all the students to solve.


Q: A tree has 30 birds perched on it. A hunter comes and shoots 10 birds. How many birds are left on the tree?


Out of 28 students, only she had the courage to go forward and solve the question on the board. She came to the board, took the chalk in her hand and took just 2 minutes to solve the question. I was so happy that she solved that question in 2 minutes. I always kept dairy milk chocolate in my pocket. I don’t why I had the conviction that she would be the one who come forward to face any challenge that I gave to the whole class. I was not sure that whether I had started liking her. On one hand I felt that it had started loving her. On the other hand my mind kept telling me “She is a mentally challenged girl. Your parents won’t accept that. And even the society wouldn’t accept that. What your relatives say when they come to know that I am marrying a mentally challenged girl?...”. But love is blind.


For 2 years i.e. during my stint at Rajawadi municipal school, I met Vidya’s mother every day. Vidya and Aunty used to board the 9.42 CST slow from Kalyan. They used to sit in the 5th bogie which is a special bogie. Aunty used to come to the school to drop her and then take her in the afternoon at 3.00 PM. Whenever I used to narrate any incident of Vidya being the best in the class, aunty used to start crying. I could understand what she must be feeling. In 2 years time, even aunty had started liking me as her son. Neither she nor I knew that I would turn out to be her son-in-law. I used to try my best to teach the kids how to behave in public, how to speak clearly, how to talk to elders, etc. But, one thing that I never had to teach them was to be creative; because I felt that they are creative people. It’s just that their creativity is different from our creativity. We all judge others as per standards fixed by society. But, people like Vidya are happy in their own world. And I strongly feel that they don’t need to be what the whole world thinks. For them, the world is how they perceive it. And perspectives are never right or wrong. Judgments are never right or wrong. What is wrong is taking a side and judging the other person as different.


One thing I hate about life is the unpredictability. I sometimes feel that God must give us a blueprint of what our whole life-span so that we can make the most out of it. And I am saying this because I wanted to do so many things before the unfortunate incident of losing my vision happened. It so happened that once, around mid 2005, I had some pain in my left eye. I went to the most famous surgeon in my area- Dr.Sharma. He had the cleanest track record until I became his patient. He suggested some eye drops. But, unfortunately those eye drops had adverse reaction on my eyes and 18th dec 2005 was the last day I saw my parents and the beautiful world around. And Vidya too. For 3 months, I couldn’t control my frustration. Was I being punished for being an atheist? I was ready to say “sorry” to God any number of times as HE wanted me to. But then I guess the blueprint of my life had such an unfortunate incident etched in it. I had to face it. Needless to say, I hadn’t been to the Rajawadi school since I had lost my vision.


4 months passed by. I was sleeping in my bedroom. Phone rang. I answered the call. On the other side of the line was Vidya’s mother. She was shocked to hear about the saddest incident in my life. I couldn’t hold my tears. Neither could she. After all I was her daughter’s favorite sir. Vidya greeted me “good afternoon sir”. Vidya’s face flashed in front of my eyes. I could easily visualize her greeting me with her innocent smile and brightly lit eyes. “good afternoon dear vidya”, I greeted back. She said “Mumma told me that now u are blind?”. The word “blind” hurt me really bad. But it was OK because Vidya said that. Silence ensued her question. Then I heard voices of her sobbing. I couldn’t control myself. I cried too.


I don’t know why, but my liking for Vidya had turned more into Love. I mean, when my vision was proper, I had never thought of Vidya as a person whom I would love and would want as a life partner. But now, with my vision lost, I was dying to see her. I was dying to take her hand in my hand and ask her whether she would like to spend the rest of her life with me! I know that my mother would have resented earlier. But now, even my mother wouldn’t say NO to my decision of spending life with Vidya. Circumstances make you change your decisions.


The next day I went to Vidya’s place and talked about my willingness to marry Vidya. Aunty couldn’t hold her tears. Both families agreed. Vidya too. I know that Vidya won’t be able to understand the true meaning of love, marriage and husband. But still, I am there to care for her and she is there to care for me. And there was one more thing that was common between us - the 9.42 CST Slow from kalyan.


Finally, on 10th Nov 2007, in the 9.42 CST slow, 5th bogie, Vidya and I exchanged rings. Now, she had one more family member to care for her life. And same was applicable for me. 9.42 CST slow, 5th bogie will always be special for me. 2 hearts melted to become one. 2 lives joined to become one.

Documentaries....

this is the first documentary in the series of documentaries on some random topics related to social topics and more....

1) this one is on ill-effects of alcoholism:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oD4upGcvp1U

NRC Colony Diwali Days…..

One of the best vacations of our school days used to be the Diwali vacation.

Diwali holidays, though short, used to awaited like an Olympic gold medal that india had been waiting for many years… I distinctly remember those childhood days when we used to build Killa in my garden. Making a Killa used to be a collaborative effort. We – Sangeeta, Saaru, Chirag, snehal, avinash, parulben and myself used to make sure that our Killa was the strongest.

Killa making used to start with first getting the bricks from somewhere. That ‘somewhere’ could be other’s garden, kachrapatti, etc. That was followed by thinking about the spacing inside the Killa. Undar kitna sipaahi rakhna ye socho. Bahar se kaisa dikhna chaiye ye socho. Mixing the appropriate amount of “matti” and “paani” used to be a decider in the strength of the Killa. Then came the decision as to kitna sipaahi laana hai, kaunsa colour ka laana hai, kidhar kidhar khada rakhana hai sipaahi ko… adjoining a Killa used to be a small pond …

The joy that used to surface on our faces was incomparable. I guess making a Killa as per your expectations used to be a big thing! Now I wonder what small small things used to make us proud of ourselves! Another memorable thing was to go around the colony to see how good and attractive others’ Killas were!

Those were days when I, in my gallery and Saaru and Sangi, in their gallery, used to keep chitchatting while exploding laxmi bomb, lavangi, etc. Anaar, chakri, rocket, sound-bomb, sootli bomb fodne mein bahut maja aata tha..! igniting a rocket at early age used to be a sign of bravery! Kids used to like hearing statements like “ baccha hai , fir bhi darta nahi ..mann naa padega”..!! and the same was applicable to sootli bombs. Igniting Sootli bombs used to be another testimony to the fact that you were brave!

Playing dabba-ice-pice used to be a pleasure. And not to forget chor police. Wo roll ka chota chota dabba jeb mein rakhna… wo actual lagnewale pistol lena,….!

How can I forget the “Sursuri”! The best thing I liked in diwali fataka celebration used to be making the tree in my garden sparkle with a number of lit “Sursuris”. Jagmagaataa hua tree!!

Another thing that is worth recollecting is eating diwali sweets and chivdaa and poori… not to forget the exchanging of ‘Thaali’ with all the people you liked very much. My mom used to warn me every time I went to give a Thaali to others -“ aamaa thi khaato nahi”.. . :)…I was a foodie! So such instructions were necessary. Chori tab pakdi jaati jab White steps pe ‘Karanji’ ka discussion ho aur koi mummy ko pooche “kya manisha, ye time karanji nahi banaya tune?” And then mummy used to realize that those transmission losses were caused by me!!! :)…

Baaki sab aunties ne kya banaya hai wo khaane mein bahut majaa aata tha. Dear Vatsala aunty ki ”chawal ki kheer” mein kuch alag hi maja tha! Yesterday I had been to Saaru and Sangi’s home and it was so sweet of aunty to make “chawal ki kheer’ for me  :)…

NRC colony – Navraatri and Dusshera

I left colony somewhere in 2001… and 8 years have passed by since I have last played Garbaa or Dandiyaa or Heench in Navratri. The simple reason for this is that I have spent atleast 15 Navratris on the CN Garbaa Ground and I could FEEL the vibes coming out of that ground… be it those days when we, as kids, use to just run around playing Chor Police around the CN 6, Parking Lot, other CN buildings and the Substation and so on and so forth…

I used to love Navratri for a few reasons. Being a gujurati, it had to be my default MOST Favorite festivalJ. A more powerful reason than this was the variety of PRASAD that we used to have in those 9 days. I loved the CRUSHED GROUNDNUT + SUGAR wala Prasad. I used to be crazyyyyyyy for that Prasad. Suppose Bhatt uncle gave this Prasad to the people standing near the Main road, I used to make sure that I also sneak into the crowd over there…then I used to sense ki Bhatt Uncle kahan jayenge.. the most of the times I used to make out ki uncle kaunse group of people ki taraf jayenge, I used to run to that group of people to get Prasad once more!!!.. I guess AMBA mata didn’t like my greediness and cursed me that I will never lose weight, however hard I try to lose weight!!!

I enjoyed playing Garbaa and all.. Ritesh Upadhyay was a pleasure to be watched. He and Tappaj used to play like crazy. The extra gravitational force on my body prevented me from hopping like grasshoppers… (while playing Heench, it pays to be hopping like a Grasshopper..!). The last reason was the party that we used to have on the last day of Navratri. We have used to have Pav Bhaaji or Paani poori, or Bhel or some delicious thing on the last day in the CN 6 ka Mahaila Mandal Room.!!! (Tikku miss ke baaju wala room.)

Another sweet thing that I can recollect is the visit to company in Dusshera. I guess it was only this day that the Gates of NRC were open to anyone who was interested in having a tour of the NRC Company. In 26 years of existence on this planet, I happened to visit the company just once. I went with my father. Ritesh Upadhyay accompanied me. Actually speaking, I didn’t understand much about the machines or anything in those days. It was just that I was proud of the fact that my dad knew so much about machines. He was in Nylon Plant then. Other co-workers used to look at me when I accompanied my dad and I used to strut while touring the whole company. Even though my dad wasn’t among the top bosses of the company I used to feel proud when someone referred to me as “Ambalia ka Beta”. I am sure that, up there in Heaven, my dad must be missing these wonderful days in colony, as much as we miss him today.

Golden days in VJTI

“Hi. I am Dipen Ambalia from VJTI.”

9 years have passed by since the time I first spoke this sentence. Till today I feel proud of the fact that I am a VJTI alumnus… and will be proud of that fact for years to come.

I am sure that there would be hundreds of VJTIans who would echo my feelings…

My stint with VJTI started in September 2000, when FE Electrical began. Kaustabh Chakraborthy was my first friend in VJTI.

I was a bit nervous on the first day because I knew that VJTI was known as a abode of scholars. We were made to sit in the ELR2(the ELR nearest to the Quad) on the very first day.The first day passed by just taking look at other classmates and trying to figure out whom to approach for friendship. Slowly and steadily I started interacting with classmates other than Kaustabh.

The whole FE was spent in the walls of MLRs. I guess it was MLR5….

We were lucky to have had great professors like Bhatt sir(for BEE), Mokashi sir (for Mechanics), Chaudhari sir( electrical networks) , etc…

We had some 8 subjects in the FE…Amongst all the subjects in the FE, Mechanics terrorized me the most… even after joining a crash-course for Mechanics, I crawled to getting pass-marks in mechanics… I had got 43 and 44 in mech 1 and mech 2 respectively….

The thing that bugged me the most in the FE was the submissions..i still wonder why does the system have submissions as an integral part of the system even when they know that the submissions are merely a copy of an original one!!..like in our class, Kaustabh, Prashant pande, Aniket mahulikar, shruti rangarajan were the OCOS (Original-Creators-Of-Submissions). If these OCOS made any mistakes, the same mistakes percolated through the submissions of the rest of the class.!!! So, while KC, Pande, aniket and Shruti created the original copies of submissions, the rest of the class prayed to God that the OCOS didn’t make any mistakes!

Otherwise it would be a re-work for all…!! By the way, no one ever copied my submissions. The simple reason being – I used to eat away many lines, paragraphs, formulas while writing the submissions, assignments, etc… I was an ultra-lazy person… and I knew no one ever cared about the content of the assignments, submissions, etc…

Quad was my most favorite place in the whole of VJTI campus. The simple reason being – it was an airy place..mast HAWA aati thi…and you could see a few beautiful faces…

Another place was the Canteen. I distinctly remember the times in FE (2000) when the canteenwala, used to give away snacks for free after 5 PM… Bala, Madhav, I and many others used to take advantage of this ThanksGiving offer!! The samosas were really good…

One more unforgettable place was Mhatre’s. hundreds of students must have bought sheets, floppies, pens, pencils, etc from shops adjoining Mhatre’s. Mhatre ka Samosa sahi tha…!!

I still remember the time when the results of FE were displayed on the near the entrance of the college. There was this huge rush to see kaun pass aur kaun fail aur kaun topper!!!

I was just praying to God to just help me get pass-marks in mechanics. And I did pass. That day I strongly believed that God did exist!.. I was more anxious about the results of FE than I was about the results of 12^th std., because in 12^th I had worked and I knew what kind of questions would asked (thanks to hundreds of questions papers that we solve in 12^th) . under normal scenario, I should have been devastated on the realization that I had scored just 59 %...but there was this big relief that I didn’t get any KT… from that day on, as far as engineering exams were concerned, I knew that my target was first to get 40 marks..then then upar se jo mile wo BONUS!!! J…

I can never forget the electrical lab. To be very frank, I m lucky that I didn’t get selected in any Core-company while campus selection. Because, my electrical-ka-knowledge was so poor that I would have surely been fired..!.. Luckily I got placed in Polaris Software… living in the software world is very easy. Believe me.,. I have completed 5 years in IT now!!! It rarely understood ki current kidhar se flow ho raha hai aur kidahr jaa raha hai!!... I felt on the electrons!... MAN, don’t they get confused ki kidhar flow hona hai!!!

And I was not the only one… there were others too… and to my shock, those have survived 5 years in Core-Companies..!!.. I feel that they must have mastered the art of fooling clients and bosses.!!... I have thoroughly mastered the art of fooling bosses. In IT, I feel, its easy to get away by giving flimsy excuses like – “actually, I going through the whole code so that I come to know how much will my change affect the whole system “ or “ I am thinking of a better flow, I am sure I will come out with something which requires less time and effort and gives better results”…etc..

For more of perfecting the art of fooling bosses, you can visit my blog

http://dipenambalia.blogspot.com/2009/09/perfecting-art-of-fooling-bosses.html

I hope you liked my blog. It’s just that in every recounting of tales, we relate to those tales and feel “are ye to mere saath bhi hua hai”..!!!... I would urge every VJTIan to mail me his/her such sweet memories so that I can compile them in the “Memoirs of VJTIans”. As per my calculation, out of the 6000 people that I have reached through orkut at least 200 should care to mail me their tales and assuming that their tales are at least 5 pages each, we should have a PDF of 1000 pages by the mid-december. Believe me, reading others’ tales is as much satisfying as recounting yours.

this is the sample of "Memoirs of VJTIans"...

http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B1jyiNagGvmDNDNiODU4ZTktMGJmYi00NGI4LTgxYzgtY2QyYjA3NDVlZjVk&hl=en

If you are convinced about the idea of having a compilation like “Memoirs of VJTIans”, then please help me in spreading the word about this compilation that I am trying to create. If you have any doubt or queries, you can contact me on 9975420605. Or mail me at dipenambalia@gmail.com

Please take out time to recall those good old VJTI days and mail me your sweet moments. Every moment shared is like a moment lived again.. And I am sure that even you must have felt “Are ye to maine bhi kiya tha… mai bhi aisaa hi karti thi….maie bhi lecure mein sota ha.. Etc…!!

Recall a moment, recount a moment….relive those moments…!!!

Perfecting the art of fooling bosses

Yesterday while I was introspecting about my 5 years in the software industry, I thought of a few things….
The first thing that came to my mind was "During office hours how do I get time to enjoy life...?"..Does that mean that i don't have work ....?Or is it that i am too efficient?.. Neither of the options seems to be correct to me... Its just that i seem to have (nearly) perfected the art of fooling people ...!!..(touchwood!! :-))
At a macro level, I feel that we spend every single day fooling others...be it our Superiors or be it Subordinates...
Being a Software developer this is what I could think of....
As far as Fooling Superiors is concerned -- Being normal human beings as we are, we have a tendency of shirking work and taking out time to relax. From that angle if you see, you just need to act well. And I mean ‘Acting’ for real. Just act as if the work given to you is actually difficult and will take lot of time. And if you ever feel the need to communicate with your superiors, use the expressions such as:
"Ya sure definitely..."
"No Issues"…
"Ya sure I will get it done by Tomorrow EOD". (Tomorrow never comesJ)
"Actually I am checking out the impact that this small change will have on all the code..."
and the last but not the least
"Ya, I am going through the whole code so that in future if there are some changes then I should be able to handle them well. So it will take some time..."

Believe me, these Excuses do work. These are tried and tested formulae...!!
As far as Fooling Subordinates is concerned:  I can't give many tips because I haven't got any Subordinates. I am at the lowest level of the hierarchy. I am a software engineer.L. No one listens to me. Only the Office boys and the Canteenwallas listen to me. So if I am in a bad mood, I go straight to the canteen and order something and try finding faults in it; faults such as "Namak jyaadaa hai..."(this is so damn salty!!),”teekha kum bola tha” (I had told you not to make it so spicy!) or "Kadak Dosa bola tha , ye itna naram kyun hai..."(I had specifically mentioned that I wanted a thoroughly baked Dosa. Why is it so soft?) And the Canteenwalla meekly listens to me. It makes me relieved. haaaaaaaah!. kisiki kaa gussa kisipe! L (How does it matter!!) J People at the lowest level are normally dressed down. Like if my Project Director gets grilled by the Top Management then we software engineers get grilled the next day! Its what I call Propagation of the negative energies in the Top-Down order...don't I sound like some BABA (on some ASTHA or SANSKAR channel) guiding his disciples? J
In general , if you want to survive in the software industry then try the following 12 commandments.!!

The 12 commandments of working…rather acting are:

1) PIXEL COUNTING: Just keep staring at the Monitor as if you are trying to fixate your mind on something and are thinking hard about some issue related to your office work. I know that it might sound like a dumb suggestion because the other person (probably your project manager) would feel that you are counting the pixels on the screen. Be sure that you don’t overact because you will be highly embarrassed if he comes near you and asks for a small piece of paper and then writes a number like 860x680 pixels….and then he leaves, smiling at you…I am sure you would wish that the water bottle on your desk had a circumference of 40 inches(this is waist size of a normal software engineer!!) so that you could jump into it and end your life to get out of the embarrassing situation …and don’t worry , no one would care even if you disappeared into the bottle because anyways you were not working…right?

2) SCRAMBLING: Whenever your Project manager comes to your desk, get up instantly and start scrambling as if you were trying to fix something wrong with the PC. Stretch yourself a bit and try touching the cord connecting the Monitor and the Mains supply and then shake your Monitor a bit and then show a bit of frustration on your face as if your monitor does this kind of treachery everyday. If this is not enough then lift your keyboard and then check its connection with CPU. If you still find that your project manager has not left then take the ball out the Mouse and then try to clean it, until the project manager feels guilty of wasting you time and leaves your desk so that your may continue your work peacefully.

This is basically an acid test to know whether your project manager wants to let you work or not. Because the more time he spends around your desk, the more time he would be wasting of his useful resources. I am assuming that at least your Project Manager assumes that you are a useful resource for the project. But yes, one thing’s for sure that he will always call you a USEFUL resource in front of the Client (however stupid you may be!!!)

And anyways if your PM has a heart of a normal human being then he will realize that this all stupid acting is what he might have done few years ago, when he himself was a software engineer. So this type of acting will surely help in shooing away your Project Manager away from your desk.

3) READING NEWS ON INTERNET: For those who can’t do without the daily peek at the news on the news sites, for them there is a very simple idea. Copy the contents of the page that you were reading on the internet and the paste it on the text pad/notepad. Act as if you were checking out some logs to find out the error that occurred in your code. Project managers love employees who try to find out the problems by knowing in and out of the logs generated by the application. Normally Project managers would tend to move away from your desk if you have opened some logs. Because no sensible boss would like to disturb his subordinates who are supposedly working. ”Why waste their time by asking them something irrelevant” -- is what your boss would think and then he would move away. And then you can again do a “alt+tab” and keep enjoying the interesting content on the net…! (Anyway, anything on the internet would be better than the ‘copy-pasted variables and functions’ in your code…isn’t it?)

4) HAVE SOME APPLICATION-RELATED WINDOWS OPENED: The ones like Eclipse (for java developers), Visual Studio (for DotNet Developers), Google with some search related to some very obscure word...Preferably of some exception like null pointer exception/ some other runtime exception…(I would not write much about exceptions, because even I am not sure exceptions and how they are used!!! I am a very bad programmer. Thanks to Google, I have survived my time in this industry.)

5) SCRIBBLING: Whenever you see your project manager approaching your workstation, get a pencil and a paper (preferably one that has something scribbled on it because otherwise that would mean that you have started thinking just now) and start drawing some circles with something written on them and then connect those circles by unidirectional and bidirectional arrows meaning that you are trying to create some kind of innovative solution for a common repetitive problem occurring in the application. Beware about the fact that overdoing of drawing circles can also be harmful incase your project manager asks you about the circles that you just made. And yes, don’t draw too many circles, because that may make your Project Manager believe that you want to change your profile from being a “software engineer’ to a ‘Cartoonist’. Remember one thing- Excess of anything is bad.

6) LOOK OUT OF THE WINDOW: One of the best ways to avoid your project manager is to look outside of the window (You will be lucky to have been sitting near a window). Lower your shoulders and then have some worn-out look on your face as if you have had spent sleepless nights thinking about some really out-of-the-world bug. It should never have crept in your code at least (because the same code worked for your team mate…anyways you didn’t make any logical changes. You just changed the variables from x to a , i to k , and j to m…etc..You start wondering whether changing the variables changes the logic of the code!) Assume such an expression on your face till the time your Project Manager feels that you really have been bugged by the Alien-bug. Just don’t turn around to see if he is there. Just check in the reflection in the glass walls…(I am assuming that your office at least has some glass construction near the boundaries of the office which does make your office an OFFICE and not a JAIL…anyway, cubicles are enough to make the software engineers feel that they are trapped in a jail…!!)

7) HAVING A BAD DRESS SENSE: One of the best ways to avoid your Project Manager is to have a really bad dress sense. Normal people don’t like people who have a bad dress sense. This is just one more test to see if your Project Manager is normal .Suppose that you have a very bad dress sense. Then even if your boss wants to talk to you or insists on your presence in every meeting then be sure that either he/ she is not normal or he/she likes you… (This can be a problem if there is a male-male or female-female combination...!)

So wear something like red jeans with yellow shirt. Odd enough to have the top-most tapori (of your area) feel ashamed of his dressing sense. And as an icing on the cake, you can wear Kolhapoori Chappal that will complement your Tapori look. I can bet my whole career on the fact that your boss won’t ever think of hanging around your desk.

8) WEAR THE SAME SOCKS EVERYDAY: This is one of the tried and tested formulae to keep everyone at bay…There is a saying - ”An apple a day keeps doctor away” On the same lines, I have made a saying- “ The same socks everyday keeps everyone away”…even your colleagues will dare not come near you.. The smell should be so awful that even the strongest and the wildest bison* should drop dead by your presence for 5 seconds in his vicinity.

(*---If you are unable to imagine a strong and wild bison then you can have your Project Manager in place of the “the strongest and wildest bison on earth”…This substitution sounds good enough… isn’t it? J)

9) ALWAYS KEEP YOUR WATER BOTTLE HALF FILLED:

Don’t worry I am not going to talk about the “half water beaker filled-optimism or the half water beaker empty pessimism”. Whenever your project manager is at a distance of 15 to 20 meters from your desk, you get up to fill up your usually half-filled water bottle. And when he is just 2 meters away from me, you tilt my head up to drink the remaining water in the bottle. So by the time you finish the 100 ml or 200 ml water that you had purposely kept in the bottle, you (my project manager and you) have finished crossing each other on your way. And then you are safe…and some other Cubicle-king or queen gets screwed up. Who cares as long as you are safe? J.

Spend around 5 mins near the water cooler and by mistake if you see your boss again coming to the water cooler then immediately start shouting at the nearby standing office boy for some imaginary negligence of his. Your boss will see that you are really very angry at something and so, I am sure, he won’t dare to play around with a wounded lion/lioness (Again, my assumption is that your boss is a normal human being. I keep on mentioning such assumptions because “BOSSES” and “NORMAL HUMAN BEINGS” have very little common in them…as little a similarity as there is between a wild African rat and a cute pacific dolphin….!!Don’t shrink your eyes…I know that there is not much common thing in between in them except that they belong to a class called as “living things”.. J)

10) GO AND TALK TO A COLLEAGUE ABOUT SOME CODE:

This type of acting hinges on the premise that “No one on this planet called earth knows everything.” So it means that you being a normal software engineer, you would not necessarily know why a null-pointer/memory-low error occurred; which will lead you to take your colleague’s help. So when you are at your colleague’s desk, it shows that you are not a very adamant and egoistic worker who does not talk to his team mate even though he doesn’t know a thing or two. Even though your boss is talking to your team mate, chances are good  that he is simultaneously analyzing whether you are actually coordinating with your colleague to get some software-bug killed ruthlessly….So use proper hand gestures to show you are really frustrated with that software-bug and are seeking a full-n-final solution to get that software-bug removed. But, one word of caution, don’t overact. If you say something like “Oh...yes that is why there is a null-pointer exception” and give a gesture as if the work is going to get completed in half an hour then be sure that following things will happen once the Project Manager moves away from your place:

a) You will get a mail asking you to take the next task in one hour or so because your Project Manager interpreted your reaction as though you will finish the work in half an hour and that you could start your new task in some time…!

b) You have created a bad impression on your Project Manager. Because when you were at your desk you didn’t know how to get that software-bug killed. But only when you consulted your colleague did your query get solved. So it was your colleague who has lots and lots of knowledge to solve queries from stupid co-workers like you. So it was your colleague who did the bug fixing and not YOU..! So…ultimately be ready for a bad appraisal, my friend!!!!...

11) TALKING TO A TELEMARKETER:

Once you see your boss coming, the easiest and the fastest thing that you can do is picking up the phone on your desk and then uttering the words like “Which credit card? What’s extra in your credit card? No thank you I don’t want the card..”…and then finally bang the phone and turn to a colleague and say “ ye credit card waale bhi naa…!!! ” indicating that if anyone disturbs you in the midst of something very urgent then you get annoyed and then can surely not care to start a fight in the spur of the moment…your boss will quietly move away from your desk and will come to your place once you cool down.

Be sure that you try this trick on a phone at your desk and not on your mobile. Imagine a scene when you got up from your place and then were talking on your cell phone to some telemarketer and then suddenly your mobile starts ringing…your colleagues and your boss start looking at you (as if you were some exotic extinct 3 legged dinosaur* suddenly appearing in front of them). I am sure that will be the most embarrassing moment in your life. And you would go to your desk and wish your tea cup were big enough to let you drown in harness…

[*--- If you have any problem imagining a 3 legged dinosaur then imagine a 4 or a 6  legged dinosaur …I don’t mind… J]

12) RESTARTING THE SERVER: Once your boss comes to your desk , before he could ask you anything throw at him the question “boss, can I restart the server?...actually I feel that I have solved the bug that you had assigned to me yesterday.(Note the use of the word “feel”...because if you have actually solved the bug in less time then it wasn’t really a big fat bug which needed your attention and which could have been solved by any moron. Needless to say that you will immediately get a new bug assigned.) “So should I put a mail to all users of this server that I am about to restart it?”---this question will make your boss feel good about you because normal morons work on local machines and not on SERVERS…You are one of the few softies who work on servers. Be proud about it. Though you know what the truth is! Anyways what is more is important is what your boss feels about you than what you feel about yourself!