A Commoner’s Arena

Laptop + Coffee = IT

No…No…I am not talking about delivering a healthy baby here. I am just trying to share with you all the joy & grief of delivering a high priority, complex object in an IT industry. The only analogy between the two is the sheer amount of joy, pain and relief you feel.

So here goes my story of association with the love of my life for the past 3 months.

Few days into the new project team, I was handed over this object which along with one other related object (A friend of mine is still struggling with it and I am sure there’s no respite for him soon ) forms the soul of the project. It would not be a hyperbole to say, the project’s existence is dependent on these two objects.

Things were slow initially with objects going on hold for change in functionalities and when any such thing happens formally, most of us do a common thing: We Go Super Slow or call it Engineer’s syndrome, we get a thrill by completing things at the very last moment and take pride in procrastinating things forever . Your lead makes a remark knowingly or unknowingly regarding possible changes and you make it a point to be your best at Selective Hearing. I too being one of you all did the same and then came a day when things came bang on my head. Having been left with no choice what so ever, I began slogging day-in & out in order to complete the task.

After almost 1.5 months of struggle and hard work, when I finally understood the nitty-gritty of the object and even completed the coding, came the so called good news one day, with the manager saying: The object is gonna undergo a major change & as it is going to turn more complex, let Mr. Reliable (who as I mentioned earlier is highly engrossed in his object) handle it from now on.

Ahh!! What a sigh of relief. The same cubicle which had started appearing so dull and boring since the past one month suddenly started appearing like heaven. Feeling pity at my colleague, I could not hide my sense of happiness.

Started working on other object, took leave for few days and came back to office afresh.

I don’t know what bad did I do in my last birth or this, but the day I came back from leave, received the news of my old object being given to me again and then the same story began: Long Calls, Change Requests ,Wait Time, Free Time and in between all these, Waiting for free time

After having spent months on the object, slogging on all weekdays & weekends, having finally delivered it at 11 pm yesterday, and sitting almost idle today, I was surprised at the mixed feelings I was going through. It was then that I realized that I have actually fallen in love with it and now I hope a change request comes soon.

All through the object phase of the past three months I have realized one thing and I am sure many of you would agree with it:

‘Programming, today is a race between Software Engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning’.

The Challengers

This post is dedicated to ‘The Challengers’, the team that created history right from its inception.

I have been listening to this clichéd saying since time immemorial but could understand it in its truest sense only yesterday. We had an Intra-Company Cricket Tournament. Our team consisted of players from 5 different service lines and hence people were not well known to each other. But not even once did we feel like aliens.

After winning 3 matches, 2 of them by a very good margin, we were into the finals.

Had the privilege of beating last year’s champions in the semis. The highlight being winning that match without losing a wicket.

The final was against a good side but our bowlers and fielders did a great job and restricted the opponents to 45/5 in the 6 overs. Then came the turn of the batters. Vishvaa & Sunitha gave a great start by hitting few sixes and fours timely. Singles were coming but were not enough to gain victory and hence in a strategic move, one of the batters took advantage of the retired-hurt option. Then came on the field our team’s best player, Nive. Runs started coming in quick succession but we lost Vishvaa’s wicket soon and I went to the ground under the situation: 8 runs required of 4 balls.

The Captain came to me saying : A single or a boundary. Nothing less Nothing more.

I hit the ball for a single which changed strikes.

7 runs required of 3 balls.

Next ball was a dot ball.

7 runs required of 2 balls.

Pressure started mounting and Nive took a single.

I on the batting end. 6 runs required of 1 ball.

Nive used all her good captainship skills to motivate me to go for a six.

Though I have been involved with sports since long but will have to accept the fact that never in my life did I feel as pressurized as I did that day.

Praying for all the power of Lord Hanuman to reside on my bat for just that ball, I moved forward thinking it the only possible way of hitting a six.

Forget about it being a six, couldn’t even manage to touch the ball with my bat. Half way into the pitch, I was standing helpless thinking the match is over and our opponents were busy celebrating when I heard Nive shout ‘Run’. I, being clueless, did what seemed right then and without knowing the reason why…I ran.

When I reached the other end with the opponent team being as clueless as me, I heard the umpire say the bowler had over-stepped. Yes!! It was a no-ball. Seemed a dream then but that is all we wanted, Nive to get the strike once.

4 runs required of 1 ball.

The bowler and batter being under tremendous pressure, the next ball went wide.

3 runs required of 1 ball now.

All fielders set on the boundary.

Nive displayed great composure, proving her skills of being a National Level Player, took her time judging the ball and off it went for a huge six. It was nothing less than Kanitker’s final 4 against Pakistan in the Independence Cup. Even before it could reach the boundary, our team was on the field. It was a scintillating event. A match worth watching, worth playing and worth remembering for times to come.

Never knew cricket was so very demanding & exhausting until I played it at a professional level yesterday. Boss, you name a body part and the only thing I would manage to say is- Yes, it is paining. A team formed at the last moment with all unknown faces but all that mattered in the end was ‘We Won’ and we won it in style and I don’t feel the pain anymore

As Sachin keeps saying, No match is over until the last ball, I realized ‘Every Ball Counts and it counts more when it’s a No-Ball’

Thank You:

Nive: For hitting the memorable 6 off the last ball and make me taste the sweet flavor of much awaited victory. You made me recall the famous line of Walt Whitman’s poem : O Captain! My Captain!

Vishvaa: For coming out as a good all-rounder and heading us to the finals with your batting skills.

Sunitha: For being the best all-rounder. For being so energetic all through the tournament despite being a mother of a 10^th std kid. For showing that age is no bar when it comes to do something you enjoy doing. Sorry, if writing this made you feel old.

Shruthi: For being a great wicket-keeper. For being a part of the only hat-trick of the entire tournament and for being attentive behind the wickets all through.

Ambika & Tamanna: For turning up at the last moment and making our team complete. For being great cheer leaders on and off the field.

Nithya: For saving all the boundaries during the finals and covering up for all my misfields so very well.

Ramya: For bowling superbly well and for making our victory historic by taking the only hat-trick.

Pallavi: For saving all the boundaries at the slip and for sweating in the sun when you could have very well been celebrating your b’day in an a/c room.

Swarna: For saving crucial runs and bowling well when the team needed it.

And last but not the least

God: For providing Nive vocal cords strong enough to shout ‘Run Priyam’ and for providing me with decent auditory tubes to hear her shout between all the chaos of celebrations and confusions prevalent in the opponent team.

It was great playing with you all. I loved being a part of the winning team to the core.

Into The Wild

Directed by Sean Penn, Into The Wild is a movie based on a novel by the same name by John Krakauer. The novel was an expansion of Krakauer’s article ‘Death of an Innocent’ which appeared in the January 1993 issue of the magazine ‘Outside’.

Link To The Article

Into The Wild recounts the true story of Christopher McCandless (beautifully played by Emile Hirsch), a student-athlete at the Emory University who at a very early age of 20 shuns all elements of luxury and pleasure, burns out all his identification papers & credit cards, donates $ 24,000 to the charity ‘Oxfam America’ and sets on his journey into the wilderness.

After graduating in1990, Chris set off on a two-year journey which took him from South Dakota to Southern California, from the sea of Cortez to the Alaskan wilderness. During the journey, he faces flash flood & lack of resources but his unaffected delight in nature keeps him going on the voyage of self-discovery.

Chris is believed to be highly inspired by writers David Thoreau, Leo Tolstoy and Jack London and proclaims himself to be an ‘aesthetic voyager’. During his voyage, he adopts the pseudonym ‘Alexander Supertramp’ and the movie describes his journey in the form of chapters like My Own Birth. Along the way, he meets a series of characters that shape his life.

The screenplay and cinematography of the movie are great and Eddie Vedder’s music certainly adds to the theme of self-discovery, two of the popular songs being Guaranteed and Society.

Few dialogues of the movie are awe inspiring. My favourite being Lord Byron’s

There is pleasure in the pathless woods;

There is a rapture on the lonely shores;

There is a society where none intrudes;

By the deep sea and  music in its roar;

I love not man the less, but Nature more.

and

The core of man’s spirit comes from new experiences.

Sean Penn has tried to take a neutral stand on Chris’ ways and presented him the way most people perceived him. Few people find his ways illogical as he carried no map, compass or even the basic trekking gear…and therefore is believed to have invited death.

Though the end of the movie is tragic , but you will definitely fall in love with the spirit of the movie…and that is what makes it a great watch.

Into The Wild

Few facts:

• The reason of Chris’s death is still disputed but his official cause of death is starvation. Few people speculate the reason behind his death to be ingestion of toxic potato seeds which he came to know of later from the book on local flora & fauna that he picked up during the starting days of his journey.
• On August 12, McCandless wrote what are assumed to be his final words in his journal: “Beautiful Blueberries”
• On his last day, he tore the final page from Louis L’Amour’s memoir, Education of a Wandering Man, which contains an excerpt from a Robinson Jeffer’s poem titled “Wise Men in Their Bad Hours”:

Death’s a fierce meadowlark: but to die having made

Something more equal to centuries

Than muscle and bone, is mostly to shed weakness.

The mountains are dead stone, the people

Admire or hate their stature, their insolent quietness,

The mountains are not softened or troubled

And a few dead men’s thoughts have the same temper.

On the other side of the page, he added, “I HAVE HAD A HAPPY LIFE AND THANK THE LORD. GOODBYE AND MAY GOD BLESS ALL!”

• His journal consisted of entries covering 112 days. He lived in the bus for 113 days.
• His dead body was found more than two weeks after his death in a sleeping bag by few hunters. His body weighed approximately 30 kg then and was found on September 6, 1992.
• The Fairbanks Transit Bus used by Chris as shelter during the major part of his journey, became a major tourist destination by the year 2002 in the Alaska region.
• It is believed that Chris could have saved himself easily had he done a little research before taking off on this journey as there were cabins stocked with emergency supplies within a few miles of the bus.
• Chris tried to return to his family but the river he came through easily once was impassable because of a flash flood and he was forced to return to the bus where he finally died a painful death. Had he carried a map he would have known that a hand-operated tram crossed the river ¼ mile from where he attempted to cross. He left the map he once possessed on the dashboard of a car he took lift in.

A self-click of Chris which was found in the camera in the Transit Bus after his death