Hello World from WordPress

Here comes my first blog on Wordpress. And Wordpress has been smart enough to name my first posting as 'Hello World' just like any programming language has been naming(and will alwaye be doing so in future) its first program as helloworld !! No wonder, WordPress is proclaimed to be better than its rival BlogSpot by its ardent fans all over the world, I am yet to verify those claims though !!

Although I am not new to blogging, having been the owner of a blog which has witnessed some not-so-bad writings from me over past 4 years, albeit in a stop-start fashion. Ever since I turned Pro after graduating from one of India's premier colleges IIT Kharagpur with a B.Tech(H) from Computer Science and Engg, I have been fascinated towards English-writings, more so towards anything Angrezi. This has more to do with the fact that I did virtually nothing when it came to enhancing my language-credentials during my 4 years long-stay in IIT campus. But due to my lethargy (They mayn't accept it openly, but all software engineers are lazy by default, probably justifying an old proverb "one of programer's virtue is laziness") I have not been able to do so on a consistent basis. But If you still find enough reasons to be interested in my bits-and-pieces posts, you can always find them @http://www.sumansays.blogspot.com/

A word of Caution: Please lower your expectations to rock-bottom, you may very well feel disappointed after paying a visit to my blog, which in my humble opinion, can be classified along side some of average blog-postings you will find almost anywhere on the web writings. You may be one of those who beg to differ, but probably my magnum-opus (so far) has been http://sumansays.blogspot.com/2005/04/story-of-iit-kgp-computer-science.html (I am sure this post will form an interesting read for you. If not, I am more than just willing to receive those brickbats of yours. Feel free to shout and voice your opinions by providing appropriate comments !!)

Although after spending 4 and half years in India's golden-goose flagship software industry, I would be the first one to admit (I am sure there are many more in my friend-circle and my relatives alike who also feel the same way) that I have failed to justify my talents especially after being allowed to function as a one-man-army at my work, as opposed to one-amongst-the-few pawns in a big-team. Being dubbed as an IITian and that too from computer science stream, has already handed me over a distinct advantage over my contemporaries, but I have failed to make the most of opportunities that have landed my way and trust me they were aplenty.

As Kishore Biyani, the undisputed Raja of India's Organized Retail Revolution, rightly puts it in his book ''It Happened In India'" , An opportunity that knocks at your door, may not be there forever and by the time you pull up your socks and set out to chase your dreams, time may very well have turned its tide !! Well as they say, its never too late for anything, but only time will tell whether I have already missed the train to my success !!

PS: This is my first blog on WordPress :-)

In Memory Of My Mitra Akhil

Pappa, Pappa. See, I have written a small story, said a kid, about 6-7 year old, so excited at his work, that he is almost shouting, as if he made a discovery of 'Eureka Proportion'

Father replied with a cheering tone, Good, very good !!

Don't you want me to read out its content ?? Kid asks his father

Which language its written in, he asks, seemingly unconcerned about the content

Its written in Hindi Pappa, came the reply.

Hindi !! exclaimed the father. As he starts developing 'that' heavy-headed-feeling, he goes down on his knees, holding his head with both his hands.

What happened Pappa, Anything wrong ?? Are you not feeling well ?? A somewhat worried kid rushes to his father.

As he hugs his son, father says, No, no, I am OK, son. But I am having headache because of your writings. Can't you write in any language other than Hindi,Son ?? Don't you know about the current state of our "Mother-Tongue" Hindi in our own country ?? Do you still want to lead a miserable life of a hindi poet/writer just like Varmajee, BuchhiBabu and SinhaSahab did, after endorsing Hindi all their lives.

PS: This is a shameless ripoff of a similar story originally written in Maithili by one of my true friends, Akhil Anand aka Praveenjee. Just substitute Hindi in place of English and Maithili in place of Hindi, you almost have his version. I remember his story bit-by-bit, even though more than a decade has passed by since I last met him. So no credit to me for this blog, please, except for the translation-part !!

Downloading the CPU !!

I am Back !! Well, almost !! (Not sure how many of you have been waiting for this day)

I will be the first one to admit (albeit a bit hesitantly) that I myself have been a silent spectator to my own blog,which was written nearly four years ago with such an enthusiasm and which somehow managed to attract rave review comments from its few-and-far-between readers. Plenty of water has passed by under the bridge, ever since I started blogging. Back then, I wanted to prove a point to some of my critics that despite being a solid Bihari (no mixing-up with other state cultures) coming from an all-Hindi background I was still good enough to write and write good in English. Now situation is a lot different and I have (probably) nothing to prove in terms of my language credentials, having been able to survive , rather thrive , in the corporate environment for more than 4 years and I am sure you will agree, communication (oral as well as written) plays a significant role in your career-growth.

Even though I have been leading a decent life(At times painfully-slow in terms of monetary and professional gains) during this time-period, few of my friends (most notably Ritu and dear friend Shivraj) have told there are still enough ebb-and-flow moments in my life, warranting a documentation of sorts. So after deliberating for a while, I decided, probably its high time I should resurrect my blog. So here is a piece directly from my old college days

A normal chit-o-chat is going on inside the class-room. I have been a witness to so many of them being a back-bencher all my life. We are in the middle of a 5 minute break, guaranteed to provide some sort of respite to helpless students, who are preparing themselves to tolerate their not-so-favourate teacher for next one hour. The teachor himself is busy, sipping a full cup-of-tea during the break and occasionally going through the cheat-sheet that he brought along with him, when he entered inside the class-room. All I could make out of this conversation is "Internet is coming at door-steps of each and every individual" staying inside the campus, goes without saying only those chaps who already own a PC :). Trust me there are not many falling outside this class..After all only a fool would say no to an opportunity of buying his life's first Personal Computer at half its original price (half of the cost was to be generously borne out by its rich Alumnus members and two of the PSU banks, having branches inside the campus, are more than willing to finance the rest-half)

Ever since this news broke out inside the campus, this has been the talk of the town, finding mention almost everywhere, be it inside the institute-campus, hostel-wings, class-rooms, college-canteens and even during defecation in toilets, when students patiently wait in a queue for their turn (You may find it surprising, but back then we didn't had too many of them, probably 1 or 2 per floor accommodating about 30 odd students)

Here is a verbatim script of this conversation which lasted about a minute of so.

Rajesh: You know within 2-3 weeks time all of us should be able to access internet sitting inside our rooms.

Suman: Really !! (He is probably unaware of WWW mystery and find this hoopla surrounding computers and more specifically Internet, somewhat amusing.Since he hadn't had any encounter with a computer key-board till date, We forgive him for his naivety.

Abhi: Yes, I also heard that from some of my seniors who are involved in this project, that it will be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 365 days an year.

Rajesh: WoW !! This is unbelievable. Life will be so easy for us with internet at our doorsteps, wouldn't it be ?? No more standing in the queue outside CIC(Computer and Informatics Centre) rooms, waiting for guys to hang up inside(who are busy doing all sorts of unproductive things that you could possible do with Internet)

Abhi: Haan, we should be able to download and play our favourte songs, softwares we always wanted our computers to be loaded with, newspapers/magazines (including archives) we wish could be available to us anytime we feel like reading, computer games that always fascinated us.

Rajesh: Yes, the only thing missing from our armoury would be a CD-Writer. If we can have that, we will have almost everything in our arsenal.

Suman: Are Kuchh nahin, Internet rahega to CD-Writer bhee download kar lenge (Nothing to worry about folks. If we have internet, we should be able to download a CD-Writer from Web !!)

Abhi: Haan aab tum kuchh dinon mein CPU bhee internet se download karna (In few days time, you go ahead and download CPU using Internet !!)

As the entire class-room burst into laughter, Suman is left somewhat confused, wondering if he passed off any foolish remark or said anything wrong !!

PS: Suman is an IIT KGP Computer Science Grad, who was in his later half of 2nd yr UG, when 'this conversation' took place. Presently he is working in India's own Silicon Valley Bangalore for a Fortune 100 company based in California. Back then he was wet behind the ears, but is now confident enough not to be afraid of locking horns with IT industry vetarans.

Ohh, By The Way Don't tell his employer, about this episode, for his employer may find this a strong enough reason to hand him a pink-slip during these slow-down times !!!

What a Touching Story !!

Hats off to Jagran for the following piece !!!
http://in.jagran.yahoo.com/sahitya/?page=article&articleid=713&category=1

(Before navigating to this page, please download the Hindi font from jagran website )

After a long time I came through a really nice piece of hindi literature on web, fully relevant in today's fast-track materialistic rat-race world. After reading it I
really got emotional about my parents and relatives (I am pretty sure you too will feel the same way) who want your time, company more than anything else(Read money).. Believe me I am shaken deep inside because whatever has happened in the aforementioned story, I don't rule out the possibility of happening the same in my family too, if I keep on doing the same thing, whatever I am doing right now(working in the software industry),for the rest of my life.

The story ends like this
Having realized that all through his life He ran, ran and kept on running. But finally when he sees his 'chachi' flying to heaven in a flash, he realizes his mistake and finally just repeats a poem, his chachi used to tell him during his childhood days

Hirla Jhool Ge Sajni
Bihan Hato Pawani

(Oh, my dear, my beloved friend, let's enjoy and have fun, tomorrow is the festival (but you mayn't be alive to witness it !!!)

PS : I am back to my blogging ways :):)

Attending A South-Indian Marriage

Whenever you think of a marriage(Not your marriage off course!!!) there are only two things that comes into your mind :- One is the different kind of people(read nice good-looking girls) and the other is the delicious food waiting for you...(Ummmmm..That is too tempting...I am already licking my lips on the prospects of attending a marriage back home in September)

But pretty recently I have had a very contrasting experience regarding the marriage but "unfortunately" it was a south-indian marriage(Tough luck south-indian guys!!). And i would love to share my "experience" with you all.

I leave my place Bangalore with my battery fully charged up for the marriage..Ohh marriage..So many people..So many pretty girls to watch out for..Who knows..Apna Bhee Sikka kahin Jam Jaaye..Apna Taaka Phit Ho Jaaye...So I reach the station well before time, take the train and leave for the "destination". Next morning I reach "the" place. Although I have a well-drawn map and complete address of the place where I was supposed to go, but then my geographical skills are so poor that sometimes I am confused whether sun rises in east or west!!

And to beat it all I was supposed to go to a place named as WadaKancheri not WadaKaancheri(Plz Note the subtle difference between the name of places!!!).There is only one letter difference between these two places although they fall on either side of railway station around 20-25 KMs apart. So you take the the bus, you miss the pronunciation(Either your tongue deceived you or your accent didn't come out properly....or You are feeling dizzy...or whatever) and U can be sure that you are in for some serious trouble....You will be in a place which has got "almost" the same name as your desired place but u are only 40-50 KMs away from the place u would have been!!!!

But then God is there to help out poor souls like me.While being in the train I built friendship with a guy who happened to be from the same place as my destination and has been working in Intel for 2-3 years. I was impressed with the knowledge that he possessed about some of the software tools that are used so frequently inside out organization. We had quite some topics to discuss and we hardly slept through the night. In between, he offered an assurance of sorts that I won't be lost on this heaven-on-earth land. So at least now I was certain that I will be able to attend the function in time.

Then comes the food....In our college days we used to take Idli and all the junk stuffs quite fondly...But after coming to south I really doubt whether any one of we north-indians has got still the same liking for Idli and all?? Here u struggle to swallow(swallow is the most appropriate word for these south-indian shits!!!) even a bit of Idli but at the same time you see people finishing off 10-12 idlis in a flash taking it in big gulps as if it's some pious !!

Disclaimer: This piece is meant only to hurt the individuals esepcially the south-indian ones and if your don't feel hurt by the same while still being a south-indian(I think i am talking of a miracle) then feel free to give me the feedback regarding the south indian marriage !!!

This is not finished yet, hope to complete this one very soon. I hope I am done in by my memory as this marriage took place more than 4 years ago. Watch out this space for more