Someone at the door....

One night of busy and tiring working day, Deepa and Mona were sleeping quitely in their respective bedrooms.
They were sharing an apartment which was in quite busy road. They never faced any problem of security staying alone in the apartment.
But on this day, something else was written in their fate.

Suddenly around 2.45 am somebody started ringing door bell.
Deepa was very shy and simple girl ...well kind of Fattu girl.
She got scared to find somebody ringing door-bell this hour of day...well ...night!

In no while, the person(s) outside started banging the door very hard.
That made her even more scared.
To make the situation worse, there was no "Eye Hole" to find out who is outside.

Her attempts of calling Mona for help was in vain as she was sleeping keeping her bedroom door locked. Deepa banged her door , called her on mobile.

But finally she gave it up thinking Mona must be drunk the last night.
But person(s) outside was not ready to give up....

Deepa could not collect sufficient guts to open the door alone and she forced herself to lay down on bed with door banging music in background.
Her mind started running in all wild directions...

Is there a ghost outside?? But does ghost really need to bang door to come inside? At least not in movies... this thought made her little comfortable.
Her next wildest fantasy was her project manager is waking her up and asking her to go to office and finish work as next day was client delivery.
Then she pushed herself in reality and In her mind, next turn was of some burglars....but what the hell burglars have to steal from a house of two spinster girls other than some empty Pizza boxes,coke bottles and some plastic chairs??

And finally that horrified feeling that some monsters outside the door want to kidnap girls and.................... made her almost freeze.

And all this while, Mona was not having slightest idea about what is happening.
Deepa finally came to a conclusion that Mona was heavily drunk last night, took a deep breathe and managed to put all thought away and go to sleep with some half a kg cotton in her ears.
Suddenly God was kind or the person(s) outside gave it up...and banging stopped.

Well... things don't remain good forever....
Again around 5 am, same banging started....

May be Mona was back to her normal SELF and got up....
She could barely open her eyes..but noticed that it was 5am.

She didn't get even a simple doubt that should she open or not....And even Before Deepa could warn her about the story 2 hours back..and she went and opened the door...
Well....before Deepa could scream or make any plans how to run, she saw a old lady outside the door....

This old lady, without saying anything, stared at both of them not less than 2 mintues, smiled and said...."I am sorry, wrong door!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Air Deccan -- Low cost airlines, are they really low cost?

I was traveling from Delhi to Bangalore on 14th May 06. My flight was scheduled for departure at 8pm.
After twice rescheduling, my flight was scheduled to depart at 9pm.

I reached airport well in time. There was no delay shown on indicators or there was no announcement of delay, I was happy that flight was on time.
There were more than 100 people standing in each queue for security check. Kingfisher and GO Air flights were delayed because their passengers were not done with their security check.
Suddenly there are so many low cost airlines introduced in Indian markets but there is no sufficient infrastructure provided to carry on their operations smooth.

Now a days Indian airports are not any better than railway stations. Why standard of traveling by Air has drastically reduced?
Making air travel available to masses doesn't mean to reduce the quality and standard of the service.

Coming back to my plight of air travel.... There were four flights of Air Deccan rescheduled for the same time or difference of maximum 5 minutes.
Flights from Delhi to Bangalore, Chennai , kolkata and Hyderabad were all scheduled between 9 and 9.15pm.
Imagine around 800-900 people waiting for boarding announcement. Forget about place to sit but there is not place to stand properly in the waiting hall.

The worst part of airdeccan is they don't give seat numbers on boarding pass, hence everybody is in hurry to get in first and get good seats.
There is only one boarding gate allocated to Air Deccan and all passengers are around that one gate as nobody has an idea which boarding is announced next.

At this point of time, Air port was worst than any most crowded railway station in India.
AC was not effective after so many people standing in same queue, no place to sit or stand properly.

In such a situation, there was no announcement for next half an hour.
Suddenly there is announcement for Hyderabad passengers. All but Hyderabad passengers are near the boarding gate.
And people were getting panic to get in and there was just scene of hay-wire.
I got to experience best example of worst management.

Funniest part is, one person came for boarding with a plate full of snack and a cold drink in a hand and asks " What do I do now?"
And a supervisor suggested him to finish that and then board. This person finishes his snacks leisurely, boards the flight and even after half an hour of that, there is still announcement of Hyderabad boarding.

Then there comes announcement for boarding of Chennai but not on same boarding gate.... Now people are running from one boarding gate to another with their bags, dragging their kids....
Kids are getting crashed and why all this?? to get a better seat. Isn't that pathetic?

I am not sure When Air Deccan will realize that they should provide Seat numbers on Boarding Pass.
I am still not able to figure out that what is the reason, that they don't provide the same.

Many people took out their frustration yelling at few Air Deccan representatives standing there.
Neither those representative had any answer, nor all this yelling helped in any way.

Finally I heard a boarding call for Bangalore flight to Boarding gate very far off. As all people were doing, I also started running towards that boarding gate.
There was already a big queue. All were trying to get in between a queue.
I was bearing all this. But one Foreigner could not bare all this and started shouting on people to respect queue.
And our Indian brothers rather than respecting his words started a fight with him.
That was most shameful incidence that A person outside our country is teaching discipline in our country.

Finally I was in the Bus which takes us to the flight. Hardly 10-15 passengers were inside, there was a loud cry outside.
One of the air Deccan representative got hurt by a bus because some other guy gave a wrong signal.
Then there is wonderful scene of big fight with slaps and punches etc among all air Deccan representatives.

Again all the boarding gates are closed. None of the flights are able to take off as boarding is stopped.
Now our bus driver gets a order to start. And he asks us... "Aap log kaha ja rahe hai? Aapko kaunsi flight mein chhodana hai??"
This poor guy has no idea that where to drop us as they were no instructions given to him as those representatives were busy fighting.

Finally I was in the flight. Though I was little doubtful if I was on correct flight or not.
It took almost an hour for all the passengers to board the flight after opening the boarding gate.

I felt relieved that finally the flight is going to take off. But that was not enough. Heavy rain with storm came from nowhere.
And we all waited till 3am in the morning in a locked flight hoping rain to stop.

Finally, the flight took off around 3.15am and after quite unstable flying, flight landed on Bangalore airport at 5am in the morning which was supposed to land at 10pm.
Thanks to Air Deccan!!!

PS: If the reader of this blog knows anybody in Air Deccan staff, please forward them this. I want to put my little contribution in improvement of Air Deccan services by giving them this feedback.

Mr. Gopinath, please read this blog!!! (And we hope some changes in services.....)

Life long friendship

I was in Hyderabad to meet my friends. We were meeting not after very long gap. We finished catching up very fast.
Then as usual we went into some interesting discussions. Ok... this time, for a change, we were away from censored topics and double meaning jokes. Thanks to Ajay's Parents.

I just challenged a concept of "Life long friendship". Is there anything called life long friendship?
Do people in today's world put that extra effort to keep the friendship alive?
These days friendship is like, you met somebody in college , that gets over after college is over.
In professional life, you meet friends, they also get replaced once the company you are working for is changed.

Everybody thought I was being unnecessarily very negative. But it was really thought provoking question. Isn't it?
I don't want to challenge any friendship or any relationship... But this is a general random question which struck my mind and which happens to be little negative.

Now a days, people are not putting efforts to save marriages, how can you expect any efforts from such people to save friendships??

This era is of easy communication with mobiles , chat,e-mails and now ORKUT.
It is so easy to keep in touch. Thanks to mobiles, we are reachable almost 24/7. But who wants to reach you??

I had so many good friends in my life. I thank God to give me such good friends.
But will they be my good friends always?

I have seen some of my friends putting that extra effort but it doesn't work one way!! Other person also needs to respond with same enthusiasm. Else eventually it dies.
It is very important to have friends. K.K.'s song "Yaaron" speaks so much truth about friendship (may be an ideal friendship).

Statistics say out of 100 people we meet, we get one person matching our frequency and that most likely becomes your good friend.
It just takes a call to keep your invaluable friendship alive..... so put in that extra and be happy for Life. :)

Technical Interview...

Ramesh's mobile started ringing Sunday morning 7.30 am. He just opened his eyes to see some unknown local number on his cell.
He just got up from desk and said hello. Desk? Anyway, Don't put stress on your brain, this crazy workaholic guy had stayed overnight in office.
Can you imagine to spend your Saturday night in office? But yes our friend Ramesh actually does it very often.

The voice on the phone said, "Can I talk to Ramesh? This is Praveen calling,I am Rameshwaram's colleague."
Ramesh was bit dazzled, thinking why this guy is calling him when he has lost touch with Ram for ages.

Praveen was very polite in asking , "Very good morning to you. Can I take your some time?" Our nice humble guy Ramesh could not deny his request though he was little irritated.
Praveen Started," I want your help. I am running in last phase of my project and Ram told me that you are very good in servlets and JSPs. I have some doubt in these areas. Can you help please?"
Was Ramesh the only person on earth to know JSPs and servlets?? Sunday 7.30 am and JSP /Servlets?? Was Google not working anymore? Were all book stalls on strike??

But all these thoughts did not strike Mr.. Ramesh's brain. And they decided to meet over lunch "TO DISCUSS JSP/SERVLETS".
Though they had decided to have lunch at "Swagat Restaurant", Praveen asked him to meet at Chandra bazar which is some 500ms from restaurant.
Mr.. Ramesh could not get the logic of this move, but as usual he agreed.

Ramesh drove down and reached 10 mins before time and Praveen reached at 15 past 2. After waiting for almost half an hour, Ramesh was dripping with sweat.
In spite of being so hot, Praveen insisted to park the bike there and walk down to restaurant ...... totally nonsense isn't it?
Waiting for unknown person to discuss technical issues, then waiting for half an hour...and finally walking in hot sun...What a crap!!!

Finally there were on lunch table, they discussed about their family backgrounds, job , salary and some other crap things. Weren't they there to discuss JSP/Servlets?
Praveen offered a cigarette, he asked ramesh for a Beer as it was getting hot outside, but our Gentleman refused.

Then a Technical Interview went for around 45 mins. But None of the question were like kind of questions which Google cant answer.

Finally all confused about this purpose of meeting, Ramesh paid the bill and left.
He never got answer to his questions about that visit until he got married.

After marriage, he discovered that, the person who came to meet was His wife's some distant relative who had come to take his matrimonial test.
Now all his questions were answered. Praveen asked him to walk in the hot sun because he wanted to see if the Guy walks properly or not?
He offered him beer to see if the GUY drinks/smokes or not? He made him pay bill to see if he is earning enough to spend money like this.

And that was the day when he realized, now you need to give Technical Interviews to get into the company called "Arranged Marriage"... A company from where it is almost impossible to resign...

Worst Day in Software engineer's life

It was a chilly, sleepy , boring Wednesday morning in Bangalore when I was starting to my office at around 9 am.

On the entire way , I kept blaming the heavy traffic of Bangalore. Finally I reached office after long journey of 45 minutes.

As a typical software engineer, first thing what I did was..... As you all(S.Es) know, I opened my mailbox. To my surprise there was not even a single mail. I opened my gmail inbox. It also showed "No New Mails". Then I went for a coffee hoping that when I am back , I will have few messages in my inbox. But no.

Suddenly I started feeling that I am so unimportant. Nobody remembers me, likes me, bothers about me...etc etc.... It was such a horrible feeling.

I was desperately waiting for a notification saying "1 new mail". But No new mail was coming and that was putting me into depression.
Once I thought, What is there to get depressed about? Oh my god! but I could not help myself from getting into depression.

I was not able to concentrate on work also. I started hoping that by 11am all friends will be in office and I will chat with them which can help me to get out of depression.
It was 11am but nobody turned up. I waited till 11.30 still nobody turned up. I felt like calling my friends and asking what's the matter.
But a wise "ME" told that no, keep patience. Suddenly a thought came to mind, Have they blocked me? Oh my God! but why? Am I so boring??
Do I bother people a lot???

All my colleagues were also pretending (my interpretation) that they are heavily engrossed in work. Don't they have 5 minutes to talk to me?
What was happening to me? Why all of a sudden, everybody has abandoned me , started ignoring me? I was feeling so useless !!!
I had already started questioning my existence on earth. etc etc...

All of a sudden, a mail came... I got so excited. But it me put me off when I read the subject line "Account request denied".
It was also an automated mail that to a account was denied. Couldn't they create my account, at least to make me feel little better??? So mean!!

I tried calling Shiva and as usual , he did not pick up the phone. What was happening to me??
Then I opened my messenger again. Few friends were online, but they had statuses like "Working" , "Busy", "In Meting" etc...
And these were people who hardly work. Actually I tried pinging them also but no luck.

Something made me to check up my own status on Yahoo. I was petrified, when it read "Dead".
I was so shocked to think when did I die? I was blank. It was as if I have lost my power of thinking.
I could not believe ...I WAS DEAD. My life was over. My role on earth was over.
I had gone into PAST TENSE. How could it be? I kept on wondering, How could it be and that to without even a notice.
How God can be so unfair????

And suddenly somebody started hitting me. It was my MOM saying, "get up fast! Getting late for office!"

A Date with the Naxalite!"

That was really chilly afternoon in Jagdalpur town of Bastar district in Chhatisgarh. We were in chitrakot forest to see kanga river and kangera caves. I just turned around in 360 degrees and only one thing I could see is "Trees" and some creepy sound. I didn't even bother to investigate where it is coming from. Frankly speaking, I was actually scared to discover that.

Then our car stopped at a check post of chattisgarh tourism. We completed some formalities of paying fees and feeling some forms to get a guide. This guide, Apparao, a very thin, small creature was carrying a halogen lamp kind of a thing and one torch. I felt like asking him "Bhaiya, should I help you to carry that lamp? But the sophisticated person inside me stopped me from doing that.He gave us a blank look and sat in back seat of our car. We enquired and came to know that he is pretty new guide who joined just 2 months ago. I got a small doubt about this tiny creature but then I just dismissed my thought by thinking what this "skeleton" guy can do to strong people like us.

Our car started moving towards Kangera caves, it was around 10km patchy road from the tourism check post. The driving was not simple through that dark forest and shabby roads. Slowly we started conversation with Apparao, offered him some chips, fruits what we were having. We gave him two chocolates when he told us that he has two kids. I really felt pity when he told us that he gets only Rs. 15/- per trip and whatever "Bakshish", he gets from the tourists. I had decide that I will surely give him 100 rs. to this poor guy. We saw one Government Guest House on the way, which was locked. I just wondered who comes and stays in such a lonely place middle of the jungle. We came to know from Apparao that You can see tigers and panther if you stay here overnight.

Ours was last trip for Apparao for that day. Before coming to this place our parents have warned us that beware of "Naxalites" as its a naxlite area and take good care of yourself. We didn't give much importance to this as we thought, parents always has habit of over worrying for their kids. I asked Apparao, "Are there any naxlite in these area?" He said, "No madam, those are only in Dantwada area. You don't have to worry at all." I felt at ease after Apparao's word of confidence.

We had finally reached those pitch dark caves. Oh my God! It was so scary... You cant see anything if you don't have that lamp along. The path was so slippery and uneven. At the end of the cave we started feeling saphocated and Apparao still had enthu to show those shapes of this Imagination. "Madam, see this looks like "crocodile" that looks like "Lord hanuman" etc..etc. I was really not interested in those shapes. I wanted to breathe some fresh air. We finally came out after 15 mins of struggling for walk. I took a deep breath and I felt little better.
It was getting late. Actually It was Just 5.15 pm but in that Jungle it felt like 7pm. We got down at Kanga river. Clicked some photographs and suddenly Apparao vissled. We were stunt to see four armed people around us. They had a gun, chain, knife with them. I really got sacred.

Next moment I saw Apparao running like anything and two of the naxalite holding shiva's both the hands. I was about to faint and something hit my head from behind. Next when I woke up, it was pitch dark. I started screaming and somebody switched on the light and I realized that I was in backseat of the car and Shiva was in front seat. I was totally clueless to what happened.

Then Shiva explained me that they took all our ornaments and hard cash. He just had to let them go, otherwise they wouldn't have bother to murder us. They took music system in the car and then punctured the car, so that he should not be able to follow them. After they took their sumo and left. He was not even able to note down the sumo number as it was very dark by then.

That was the most terrifying night in my life. We had to sit in the car without food, water and light. We had to sit in pitch dark so that none of the wild creatures comes and tries to kill us. We sat whole night next to each other praying God that we should reach home safe. I couldn't sleep a wink though I was tired. I was crying the whole night and he was being strong enough and trying to keep me cool. Poor guy, he was also scared like hell but was just not showing it.

Thanks to God! We could see next day Sun rising! And even we reached home safe....
I just thanked God for keeping us safe and preyed for "Apparao's" safety.

After few day, I was shocked to see one photo with a Headline... "Five Naxalite group looting tourist Caught in Bastar" .. More shocking was "Apparao" was the person standing in the middle of those five people.

Technology sucks

Imagine you have to cancel the trip because you forgot your mobile at home????
Isn't it frustrating??Yes... I have done it once in my life.

Well there are reasons for that...totally unexposable....

Ok let me tell you the story...and then you can try finding out the answers yourself...

Once upon a time.. ;) .. well it was just two months back...
I was not in office on friday because I was traveling to Agra(My office colleagues.. please read as I was not feeling well).

I actually called and told manager that I have temperature and I will not be able to come.. He was kind enough to ask.. let us know if you need any support from our side...

I took flight on Thursday night and reached Delhi. I was about to board train for Agra and I realized I have forgotten my cell at my (boy) friend's room.Well, my parents were thinking that I am on official trip to our Chennai office... :)

Now we both in total confusion that should we continue our journey or get down and go back to the room...Totally mess up... and as usual I was blaming him :).. I accept, girls have this habit.

Finally we decide to got down..and the reasons we had to get down...explains why technology sucks.

I had to call office next day, saying that I am not feeling well.
If I call from Agra, they will understand its from outside and will know that I was lieing..thanks to mobile Caller ID feature.

My parents will call my colleagues/ friends if they cant get me on my mobile., which is even more terrifying...
And Even I cant call them ..again thanks to Caller ID on our home land line.

In mobile world.... at times, its really tough to lie :)

And all of above.. We canceled our trip and I don't know fortunately or un fortunately I came to know that there was no reliance network in Agra... and My cell would have been anyway switched off :) and that day also nobody from home/ friends called me, not even a single call from ICICI bank ...

Had it been that technology was not so advanced to give Caller ID feature...
I would have seen Taj mahal..which I have never seen till date..

Thats why, I say... technology sucks.
Believe me, it does.