The 44 Syndrome

Its only off late that I have started admitting it to people and against my thoughts it has started growing in magnitude after that.
The number 44 seems to have some eternal connection with me. If I recall correctly, it started happening about 2 to 2.5 years back. Increasingly I started being aware of 44's around me.
To give you a Taste of that here are a few in chronological sequence:
1)Sehwag (one of my favourites) started wearing 44
2)I notice 44 minutes on my workstation clock about 4-5 times a day without any conscious effort.
3)Was deputed to Chennai (STD Code :44)
4)Half the times when I finish calls on my cell, the call duration is Some Minutes and 44 Seconds.
5)Many of my data load Jobs tend to finish in 44 minutes.
6)I am increasingly interacting with london Users (ISD Code : 44)
7)U wont believe it My friend list in Orkut has 144 people. Tried adding friends but the figure keeps coming back to 144.

Believe me there are many more occurances.
Off late the occurance of 44 has become scaringly high.

It seems I have been 44'ed Big Time.

Mahamantri's Anecdotes

Was amazed to hear this out of his mouth, but anyways here it comes :

Office mein Manager aur Ghar mein wife,
sahi na ho to samjho Lut gayee life.
                                            - Anoop Kumar Chauhan

I admit that I have played with the words a bit to make it rhyme. But believe me "Bhaavna yehi Thee"

Chak Day !!!

Has been a good day all through, missed being an excellent day by a bit of margin. Will take this Margin thing sometime later. Lets have a look at the good things for today.
A visit back to the winchester office. Good to see so many people having lunch in the cafeteria. The reason for a crowded 10th floor cafeteria was not only the firm's growth, the major contributor was the closure of terrace cafeteria (Reasons to follow)
The session "Challenging Assumptions, valuing differences" by CSW associates at Intercontinental- the grand was amazing. The six people who were enacting situations were too good to believe that they were just acting. My personal opinion- Parimal Alok did Best.
Had my LPM review session as well (Confidential, so no more notes on that)
Coming to the reason of Terrace Cafeteria closure, as a part of Diversity anniversary celebrations they had arranged for a screening of "Chak De India" with an interactive session with a few cast members.



Good time with good company after quite some time.

Corpse of a tree

"On my return to an old known road, I witness a tree surrounded with Axes. Caught a word that a new road will be passing through and the timber may be utilized in some bridge. The next time I return, I will trample the corpse of the tree whose shade I had enjoyed."

(The above is the English translation of a piece of poetry in Punjabi that I wrote some time back. The original is available at : http://guljinder.blogspot.com/2007_06_01_archive.html )

Rendezvous with Nature

Exactly this time last year, we a bunch of people woke up (if you can call that a sleep) on the rocks half way down on the face of a 1200 Ft waterfall in the Sahyadri ranges (Maharashtra,India). It was after long that I felt the closeness to the elements of Nature that we so easily keep ignoring. The two days were a welcome break from the chaos of the Metro city life of Mumbai, that too in a Weekend break between switching Jobs. No pollution (Air or Noise), No traffic and No ringing mobile phones. It felt so far from civilization yet so close to Humanity. The dip in the bottle green water of the reservoir creted by the impact of falling waterfall was my lifes best Bath. One takeaway from living two days with bare essentials is that you start valuing things that you easily keep ignoring. Now when we are planning for a repeat Rappling of the same waterfall next month, theres a lot that we are looking forward to.
May the Mother Nature Bless us with the best on offer.

Lessons from Roadside

The other day while walking by the roadside, I witnessed a man beating the Chain-cover of his old cycle with a stone. So drowned was he in the act that it seems that making the cycle run again was the most valuable to him.I felt a pang and was thinking about something valuable to me.
Why is that what you value is away from you. Or is it the other way round? You value something that is away.

The Travel from Back end to Front End

I used to be lost in ETL Transformations, till I was Transformed, and now... I.net AM.net WORKING.net IN.net SOMETHING.net ELSE.net

Punchline : If your workstation has a Windows terminal, Microsft will make you code in their languages someday or the other.

Two Jokers

The two men team was together again on 2nd of October and the venue was R-Mall. If you would have witnessed the serious talk that was going on, never ever would you have guessed that these were the same guys who PRODUCED the IT worlds most famous mail (Arguably).
















Good time with a friend, a visit to the Gurudwara, a long walk and a Good gulp of fresh Sugarcane Juice. Cant demand more.
The day was GOOD.