Ticketless Travel :)

You thought software guys have big bucks and ticketless travel is a far cry for them right ? I am one who proved you wrong :)

I happened to have a quick snack one evening at Ascendas, an expensive ice cream, cheesy steamed corn and concluded with an iced milk shake. Just an hour of chit chat with friends over the snacks and whoof goes about 500 bucks! But then who cares hmmm ??!

My plan was to get back to office (my bike was there and I had got to Ascendas with my friend on his bike) and get back home. Office being just two stops away from Ascendas, Tidel park to be precise; I decided to take the train to reach the office. Accompanied by my colleague, I reached the station and thankfully a train pulled off almost immediately. In the panic to not board the ladies compartment, I almost forgot that there is one thing called a TICKET to travel by the train! But then, my colleague was keeping her cool, being a regular traveller herself, and pointed fingers towards the ticket counter. The queue before the ticket counter was a small (!! where the hell is everyone going at that late hour huh!) one with 20 people in the line!

So now the situation is get the ticket and miss the train...hmmm...I quickly weighed the pros and cons and decided to opt to travel without the ticket and boarded the train ! Just two stops, just two minutes but it looked like two decades and I was already waiting near foot board to jump out of the train immediately it reaches the station. Finally, the train reached my stop and there I was, quickly getting out of the training and running to catch the lift as if the flight will take off any moment...

Once I reached the outside of the station, I sighed a big relief and my panting became normal. I was standing in a new world (only the same old area but I visualized differently).

Finally, I managed to get away with a ticketless travel and avoid the embarassment of getting caught, fined and who knows there would have even been a news on the next day...all tamil dailies flashing the interesting story about a software team lead's ticketless travel !!

How 911 affected me!!

This incident happened when I was bound to fly from Chicago to New Jersey in the year'07. The flight was scheduled at 6:45am and I was already late to the airport thanks to the traffic. My cousin barely succeeded in getting me to the airport on the scheduled boarding time.

When I reached the airport, I was visibly able to watch a big queue standing as in our railway reservation counters. (Only difference is, this is for security check to board a flight). Seeing this, my hope to catch the flight died off. Still I kick started my spirit and asked for a boarding pass. The clerk clearly told me I won’t be able to catch this flight and it is better to opt for the next flight. I had to get to my office and just could not afford to take half a day leave. But I was left with no other option than to catch the next flight which was scheduled at 8:45am. So I had to make up excuses to my boss on the inability of coming to office for half a day. After collecting the ticket, I joined the big queue.

When I was about to be allowed for security check the Lady Security officer looked me head to toe as if looking at an alien and asked me to give my passport. Going through my passport and me for a couple of times and asking a question of which part of India, she wrote "SSSS" on the boarding pass and punched a star in that. I was wondering what is happening and but I kept my cool thinking it would be a normal procedure. After that I entered the normal security check line but she stopped me abruptly and asked me to wait in a separate area. I was getting tensed wondering what the heck is happening?

After that an officer came and asked me to meet a officer and told me " What have you done sir to get caught today? I was completely perplexed with this question and told him the only word "Nothing". After looking at my worried face (which I wanted to keep coz I dont know what lies ahead) he told me that this is a kinda routine to catch few people in random and pass through this rigorous test after the 911 incident. Today you have just become the scape goat.

Ok, then made up my mind to do whatever they asked me to do. First they asked me to remove all the accessories am wearing. Thank god they didn’t asked me to undress! After that I was asked to stand in a room surrounded my glass walls. I guess it is scanning the entire body for finding anything susceptible in the body. After I came out they asked me to open the baggage I had. They didn’t even touched my bag as if am carryin ammunition. I had a bottle of water which they asked me to throw it off. Just minutes before I had bought that but I couldn’t explain anything.

Then they saw the lappy in my bag and asked me intriguing questions as if it was stolen. They scanned the laptop too. I don’t know how it senses the contents inside. Finally they relieved me saying “Sorry for making you go through this check”

I thought for a moment, "For bookin your timesheets, why do you guys unnerve innocent people!!”

After the final check, I was relieved and had to gulp down a heavy load of water to get myself feel relaxed.

Award for me!

Got an award for excellence last friday. Thought of sharing with you all.

Tirupathi Trip

What is so special about a trip to Tirupathi. Every devotee is going to have a darshan of one of the richest god in the world. So you might think what is special in that?

Specialty is it was an unexpected trip and I walked all the way to the top of the hill to get a glimpse of god for few seconds.

The trip is unexpected because I went for a customer visit to see how the integration with DP and PlanVisage can be implemented. This happened all of a sudden because Plan Visage President met our chairman and made a business tie up. So he has asked someone to look into the integration part as they wanted to go live by Feb 1st.

So packed my bags and went to the customer place early morning without knowing what the actual agenda is?

After a flurry of discussions, presentations and meetings, I was relieved at 6pm. I asked the customer to book a return journey ticket so that I can reach home that night itself.

Customer gave an alternate suggestion that to visit Tirumala, since Plan visage president and his colleague is going there. After initial hesitation (since I don’t have any clothes to change) I agreed to the plan since I considered as a bad omen to disagree.

So the trip started at 8.30, went to market and bought some clothes and we reached the bottom of the hill at 9pm.

After that driver asked us to get down and showed the way how to get to the top. I was pretty amazed that we have reached the top so quickly. Only then I began to realize that we had to walk all the way to top.
This change of plans happened coz the President of Plan Visage has prayed to god that he will come by walk if the sale of their product becomes successful.

Another Surprise! So we started the journey by walk. It was cool night and there were not much of people. The journey started with very much vigor but we lost the same after few hundred steps. We gasped for breath and the legs are aching a lot, but still we didn’t took rest as time is running fast. So our friend suggested an idea of buying a Glucon D orange and mixing the entire pack in a bottle of water. It worked and we got rejuvenated ourselves.

The entire walk came around 3500 steps spanning across 14 kms and reached the top at 12pm midnight exactly.

It was a nice trip.

Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish.
Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)

A different birthday Celebration.

This time I planned to celebrate with a difference. After seeing the film "Mozhi" I wanted to do something really in that fashion. My friends really helped in making my wish come true.

Normally when my parents tell me to go to temple and get some blessings. I never heed to them. Now they are in faraway place and I don't have anyone to tell this do that do this etc. Eventhough people will say you have to become independent but there is a limit in everything which I guess will be correct. So thought why should I not fulfill their wish. So here it goes how my party went.

On that day I had a marriage of my friend to attend. So my buddies said we shall celebrate your birthday in a different manner by going to his marriage and other plans. I made only one obligation that to visit a orphanage at any cost. They said they will try our best.

So we went to attend the marriage. Groom and us are meeting after six years. It was a nice reunion. After the marriage we went directly to college where we studied. Took photos and exchanged our memories in each and every place. It was a nostalgic memories on how we are now. we never even thought we would be when we entered the first year.

We saw one professor who told my friend "you will not come good in the future" when he tried to bunk the class since the class was literally boring. He wanted to go before him in his car and wanted to boast how far we have come successful and wanted to see how his face turns. But we changed the opinion since he was with some of his colleagues.

After the college visit we went to hotel where we used to have lunch during the weekends coz the hostel food sometimes really sucks. The food tasted like heaven like how it used to be.

Then we went to tea shop where we used to have evening snacks and sat there for half an hour drinking cool drink and coffee.

After that we took a little nap and then we went to Udhavum karangal and donated some amount. We didnt play with the children since they were all busy playing themselves and we dint want to spoil the environment.

Then my friends said we shall go to temple and have archana on your name. We went there and had a good darshan close to the idol and everyone felt relaxed and delighted for able to get a good view.

Dedicated to my friends who made a wonderful day!

Multitasking

Sometimes I used to say to my friends that I'm doing multitasking. Like chatting and working, listening to music and reading etc.

Recent times I have stopped that habit when I'm working. If a person asks question, I wont respond to them unless they repeat that question couple of times. This irritates them and finally they might even go to the extent of getting angry on me. When this repeatedly happened for a while, they began to understand and they started to kid me like I'm having a short term memory loss. They will repeat the incidents which were happening for a while and why they asked a question.

This is quite funny infact and as everyone will burst out laughter.

The fact is psychology attempts to say that "Multitasking is not good for your brain" See the attached links which attempts to tell that what I'm doing is correct.

CNN Article

Multitasking

Interesting things that happened in US trip! A serious subject!

On my official front:

1. Having a SOFT TALK (LIKE HARD TALK) with chairman in ma hotel room and he came back enquiring about me in front all the big shots in one important meeting.
2. Having a discussion with VP and CEO regarding ma future on where I need to be. In US or INDIA.
3. Giving a demo to Senior VP & COO and able to make a considerable impact amongst people that I'm little worthy.
4. Able to help my boss and COO in their product selling.
5. Got a good job offer to stay back in US which I have delayed for the time being.

On my personal front:

6. Become a most talkative person in my team.
7. Become a matured Ping Pong player.
8. Learnt some interesting card games Roulette, Blackjack and Poker (Not only James Bond can do, even me too)
9. Touched Golf, Tennis and swimming. Just to get an idea on how it looks like.
10. Started to speak out what I think.
11. My Boss did a good marketing for my website. It became popular amongst people in here. I should thank him for that. (Hi boss: Anyways even if you argue, i would like to tell that only because of me you people have started thinking of how to be in personal life ;) )
12. Went with Spiked hair to watch movie where President also came along with his family!! How much GUTS I had!! Think about it.

License to Kill - 2

I was goin in 40kms (very high speed for me coz of the experience) and these cows as usual was going to cross the roads. So i asked my master whether we shall wait for the cows to cross or go through. Master tells me " Arre Sajith you can easily cross this c the cows are 20 ft beyond dont you have sense to calculate this". I thought why the hell did i posted this question to him. Anyway i had fears in my mind but i moved on.

Suddenly the cow boy makes some noise "kkk kkk bruaaah" thats it all the cows started running like they caught a mad cow disease. I dont know what to do now i pressed on accelerate button instead of brake so my car is also running mad so i took a wild turn and went on rampage spree hitting the nearby dustbin (plastic) etc and i dont know what happened then coz i closed my eyes fully (its best way to avoid watching horrible things right).

Everyone nearby came and asked anything happened to me then only i realised am still unhurt. I cant blame anyone coz if i have to whom i have to 1. master for giving the decision or 2. the cow boy for makin such noise or 3. the cows for running mad.
After this incident if i happen to see any dog or cow or sheep ill let them pass the road then only ill move on even though they are miles apart (similar to the diesel engine oil advertisement - lorry driver allow the cycle to overtake him).

License to Kill - 1

This happened while i was learning to drive a car. Everyone will have some kind of experience to share while learning to drive. Me too had.

I was learning to drive the car in the 100 Ft road in velachery at 730 in the morning. At this time there wont be much traffic. So i was comfortable riding the car and ill drive as such i was a pilot of airplane. Eyes glued on to the roads so much that even the pebbles were visible something which you can see only if you use the lens. ( See how much concentration am having). One more thing ill drive the car very slowly like a bullock cart so the master will scold me that you better go and ride a bullock cart itself. It will just pass through my ears like a breeze.
Everyday near the rathna cafe some cows used to pass the roads every morning i dont know why they cross the roads (coz there is no place nearby to gaze upon). Sometimes it will be 1 or 2 other day it will be 6 or 7. I think they are going for a morning walk like oldies used to in beaches.

This particular day was quite normal and i was little bit comfortable riding the car. But still have one hand on gear and other on steering wheel and one foot normally focussed on break if not accelerated and other on clutch.


Hear it

Periodic Table Amazing!!

Back to School Days. Think which subject will be your toughest. For me it was Chemistry.
I dont know is it coz it did a lot of chemical reactions in my stomach before going for exam or benzene ring looks like a hang for me.
Sometimes even steam came out through my ears the moment I saw the question paper.
It reminds me the very first day of chemistry class. I think it was 8th or 9th not very sure on this. Teacher comes with a big stick in hand (tall enough to his height). I thought may be he is a P.T sir, going to explain us how to play polevault. To my sadness later point of time I came to realise that he is a chemistry teacher and what he is carrying is a periodic table. The chart looked nice and i really enjoyed watching it like a poster of cinema star. Later he told that we need to memorise those elements in the periodic table, i thought of running out of the class. I cursed the people who discovered the new elements and made my life miserable.
Finally i stood by my fate and mugged out upside down and came out unscathed and all is a different story altogether.

To refresh yourself just go through the periodic table seen in the pic. Its really different from the usual ones.

PeriodicTable