Scribbles of a Lazy Geek

October - Yes, the festive season is near. In the morning, when you wake up there is a cool breeze that is blowing. You slowly try to ease your way out of the bed and crawl into the bathroom for the shower, only to turn the shower On and stand next to it trying to muster up the courage to get into it. The water is cold, and you are probably too embarassed to start using the Water Heater, yet. You wait until you realize that you are getting late for office and then dash into the shower and out of it as quickly. So, the hot and humid summers are gone. In the evening there is a very pleasent fragnance from the flowers on the trees. That pleasent smell (for lack of a better word) reminds you that the festive season is here. Diwali is coming soon! Suddenly, you have a smile on your face. There are a countless feelings which you feel during this time of the year. It is a sort of a high you wait for, all year long. There is an old Maruti Suzuki advertisement which starts coming every y...

No, the post is not going to be what the title may have suggested at first. It's a little different. With the advent of Facebook culture, you now know who has just lived the 'Best days of their Lives'. I know people, who have just finished college and are talking about how these 4/3 years were the best days of their lives and they are going to miss it so much. I have also been part of this, I remember how it felt when college got over for me. Its a very similar flow of emotions which you see very often when a phase/period of life ends. The phase/period I am talking here is like college getting over, school getting over, change of city/country etc. You can see how people get senti about it, worried about losing touch with friends, anxious about how life is going to be from that moment onwards, emotional about the good times and tensed that Life is not going to be same ever again. But, what is common amongst all of them is that these same people would have said exactly the...

Below is the last day email, I sent when I left Infy - Subject - See you soon Let me try and keep it short and crisp. From Mysore to Bangalore and then to Chandigarh - I now move back to Delhi, leaving Infosys after a short stint of about 4 years. It is just my co-ordinates which are changing, I stay the same.   It took me 2 attempts to get into Infosys. Well, it took me 2 attempts to get out too. :) For the first attempt - around 35 from our class in college sat for the Infy recruitment drive – 7 cleared the written, and out of them only 1 was rejected in the Interview. I was the one, probably not good enough as somebody judged. What all happened in between those two attempts is a long story, and what happened after I cleared in the second attempt is an even longer story, so won’t get into those details J. Nearly 4 years in Infy, Just One project, Lots of great memories (well, some not-so-great too – but I’ll take those in my stride), I met some wonde...

If you work in an IT company, you know what I am going to talk about. And, if you work in a Company where the strength of employees is on the higher side(such as Infosys, TCS, Cognizant), then you probably would relate to this post even more. Being in an industry where people switch jobs every couple of years, brings with it many more things other than double digit salary increments. It brings along attrition in the company and many ‘Last Day’ emails. For the uninitiated, let me try and explain what does a ‘Last Day’ email typically mean. It is a medium for people to tell others that, I am leaving this company and if you need to stay in touch with me, I am sharing with you my personal contact information. Throw in a little bit of emotions and gratitude towards the company and colleagues and this completes a typical Last Day email. However, people many a times tend to go overboard and ‘Last Day’ emails are no exception. It is quite difficult to categorize Last...

Just imagine, you meet/call some friend whom you have not talked to in a few months – and somewhere in the conversation, when the ‘ Aur suna? ’  moment arrives, instead of asking ‘ Aur Suna? ’ he asks you – ‘ Aur shaadi kab kar raha hai? ’ (When are you getting married?). Yeah, that’s when you realize, the time has probably arrived to bite the bullet and take the plunge. P.S. – Yes, this is as close you get to how an anti-climax would be for this post. The idea was not to end it this way, but as always I decided to play/write safe :-/ Sometimes, weird thoughts do come to your mind about how things would be when you finally do get married. I can’t take responsibility of myself, how can I even think of marrying someone and take her responsibility as well? But, then I think about it – I also used to wonder “Why would anyone ever pay me to work for them?” when I was in college. The thing that worries me the most about getting married late is, that all my friends would be...

Move over the Quarter Life Crisis, that’s passé! This is a new sort of crisis I am talking about here. Often undermined, and never reported. Every distant relative keeps asking your parents, about your marriage plans. And, all the jobless neighbors all of a sudden know some ‘well-natured’ working girl who is just by-chance of the same age-group as you are and is Single. Yes, this is what happens when you are 26 and still single. Welcome to the Mid-Twenties’ ‘ Single ’ Life! Most of the times, it’s the fairer sex, they say, goes through such things. But, what the poor guys have to go through is more often than not, never thought about. Who should read this Post, and why? If you have been married for a couple of Years or less (You found your Love in your classmate/college-mate/office colleague etc.)– You are probably one of my ‘Just-Married’ Friends. Read on, you might not have experienced this yourself, but, it’s important you understand what other poor souls go through. Don’t you rem...

Kaisa raha?(How was it?) A refresher before I begin the post :) – http://pushpreet.blogspot.in/2008/03/aur-suna.html Another one which falls in this list is ‘Kaisa raha?’ You can fit this question anywhere in any sort of situation, when you have nothing else to ask or talk or probably you don’t have anything to start a conversation after the guy has come back from a vacation or a trip to some place. Invariably, whenever you meet the person you end up asking him/her .. “Kaisa raha?” and the standard reply you get is “Badhiya (with a smile)” I have seen people fitting this question in probably many situations, and sometimes it gets a bit awkward for the person who has to answer it. Picture this – A guy comes back from his marriage leave to office, and he meets 20-25 people. And, out of those 25 people he meets, the first question 15 of them asked him was – “Kaisa raha?” I mean, come on – the guy has just come back from his honey moon, and you ask him “Kaisa raha?” H...

So, if you wonder what is so special about this day, apart from the fact that it is the Republic Day of India, that I religiously try to write a post about this day every year – then let me clear a few doubts this ‘Chabbi Janvary’. ‘Chabbi janvary’ is how we pronounce ‘26 January’ in Punjabi. The first time I wrote the ‘Aa gayi Chabbi Janvary’ post (in 2006), it was just a post with a title which I thought sounded funny when written- it’s ok, now even I know that it aint funny. The second Year – well, I somehow just remembered that I had written a post at this time of the year, in the previous year – so, I titled it ‘Aa Gayi Chabbi Janvary firse’ (It’s 26 January again). The third year, I forgot to write on this day. I again remembered it in 2009, and titled the post as ‘Aa Gayi Chabbi janavary … is baar 2 saal baad’ (i.e. after 2 years). In 2010, I had again forgotten, but Amitesh reminded me of writing it .. only then it struck me that, people actually remember that I write a...

Ok, initially the idea was to write a post about the Infy to CTS experience – but then I choose not to complete this one. Because, I can write about the Infy experience for pages at a stretch but dont want to write prematurelly about CTS.  Later, I thought about writing about the previous year as a whole, but whenever I started writing it ended up ‘From Infy to CTS’ post. I made two good attempts to write this one, and numerous short and half hearted .. naa .. not half hearted, just short attempts where laziness took over earlier than most times. I have now realized that I wont be able to complete this one, or even if I manage to complete this one, it is going to be too long. So, what I’ll do is post the two drafts! For a change let’s see how the drafts look when they get published unpolished :). So, here it goes – 1 st one (this was drafted sometime around late November) – Back to Delhi – and an End of a 4 year sti...