My trip to Dum Dum

I had gone to Dum Dum , this was the first time, I had gone along with Ma, Sonamoni and Ritu all along. Normally , Ritu and I go seperately, as our leaves never synchronize. This time, it did for some other reasons, but I was very happy to go to home and enjoyed every bit of my stay. All the childhoood memories, passed by in my memories and I revisited every part of my life , in the house I had grown up in.. my childhood, my education, my fights and quarrel, nostalgic memories surfaced up .

I took a snapshot of my house and posting it below .

Summer of 2009

The Summer of 2009 has been really cold for the entire world. It is a crisis after 60 years and it shall probably be remembered for some time. Lack of vision has left many people the poorer, and a handful of them have survived the recession – probably either by bailing out ( and travelling in private jets ) or by keeping the boss happy ( however it may be )  .

And all that baggage ….

Today I just happened to visit the web page of the last organisation I had worked with , and found it having a fresh look . There was the RSS feed, the podcasts the Corporate blog .. everything “seemed” in place.

There was a podcast on a Refactoring given by a  very senior person. When I was in the organisation, they also had an imported book on the topic, but the book was always tucked neatly in the library shelves. In fact no one bothered to look at the book , for obvious reasons. Its amusing to see that a very senior person of the organisation should come out with a topic which was had been there for the last decade.

I can only conclude two things from this ; either they are really getting to know the topic ( which I think is not the case, as my experience has taught me ) ; what seems more of a genuine reason , is probably the client has asked about it .

3 years without Baba

Ritu wished me Happy Birthday, around 1 am . I received SMS from Mejomama on 21st morning, and Rangapisi called me up to wished, but Baba was not there. Three years have gone by, and I miss him so much.

Cherish the life we had

The economic crisis had brought with it many ups and downs, downs are the most, and ups are that people has realized that software jobs are not only roses, it has thorns in it.

Ritu was thinking about quitting her job, but this economy has made her think differently . Maybe she shall move again to somewhere with her posting, and I shall be working somewhere else. Sonamoni shall be living either with her mother or father - it feels very bad, but thats how it is.

Maybe someday we shall live together again.

Alone

In my childhood days , reading proverbs and wise sayings , was one of my favourite things. I was a subscriber of Reader' Digest and I still remember a proverb / wise saying that sounded so much true today .

"When you laugh the world laughs with you, When you cry you cry alone."

Maybe people shall distance me in the near future.

Its so true - Money Speaks.

A Little Dream

The date and time had been fixed for the meeting. It was very nice of hin to talk to me again after 6 months .

I and Ritu were there in Mumbai at that time , and she had kept the clothes which I should wear and go for the meet. I went there and had a chat - everything was perfect. I was shown the labs, and the STP's and everything looked interesting.The most interesting was that, he said me that I shall get the kind of role I am looking for - that of a Technical Architect . I came back home and told Ritu that things looked okay ; just waited for the day .

The offer letter was there in my inbox after a couple of days - both of us felt very nice. It was the start of a new journey - a very exciting one for me.

During my stay in Mumbai, I enjoyed every moment working for this organisation - the work was challenging, and so were the people . At times I felt , this was what I always wanted.

But Ritu was carrying and posted to Bangalore, so I requested for a Bangalore transfer. I got it after some time. This time I felt more grateful to the individuals who helped me , and it was etched in my mind - there are companies who understand the need of their employees.

Life went on in Bangalore for both of us, amidst ups and downs. But still everything looked good. I was getting loyal towards the organisation. I always thought of doing and did , - what shall make the organisation proud - rather than thinking merely about myself . I wanted to make this company more better ..... well I never understood the twists of the tale .

I understood some parts during my appraisal process. This was my second appraisal, and I filled up the forms diligently wrt to the work I had done . What I received from my colleague after 3 months - well let me keep it to myself. I had worked wholeheartedly for the project, and the reward I received, was not at all fair. The Mumbai guy could not say much, as I was out of Bangalore, but I felt very down --- I was just made a scapegoat.

Then came the US travel, again I did the same mistake - worked diligently and spent sleepless nights trying to figure out things, as I had been made a individual contributor for a project, on a technologyI had workd only for 3 months . I took this in a positive way, and continued the journey ; also informing my seniors that I am new to this technology and cant give my 100%. He said its okay, and we shall listen to you .

After one month I came back to Bangalore, left for Mumbai after one day - leaving my entire family in Bangalore -- had a dream in mind , that I can carry out this project in Bangalore . Again I did not know - my travel to Mumbai was a candy . With the passing days in Mumbai , the candy did not taste sweet anymore -- people made it bitter.

After all the hard work I had put in , one day I was informed that I am not needed in the project anymore - and I can go to Bangalore. I was speechless for sometime - but it was the truth.

The dream that I started with , ended on a bitter note on 13th March 2009. The project is still going on, they were supposed to form a team , - maybe they have done so also - but I am not there .

I always dreamt .... and dream even today ... not sure what tomorrow brings for me.

.. .. , yet I'll dream ,
A little dream as years go by ,
Now and then there's a fool such as I .

Stranded for one day at CDG Airport , Paris

My trip from Detroit to Paris was nice, except for the fact that my inflight entertainment system was not working. But I was spending my time chatting with the fellow passenger - he seemed a nice person. He was from Nigeria, now working in Detroit as a physician , going to meet his parents in Nigeria. I had a good sleep and the flight reached Paris at around 8:40 am local time. My next flight was to Bangalore, from a different terminal and just 1 hour after .

So I went out from the plane, took the shuttle, and then reached for the other flight. As I was walking through the corridor, I reached out for my passport in my waist bag. My waist bag was not there !!!!!!!!

I was a bit nervous, as I kept the bag always with myself, and it had all the important stuff, like the passport, flight tickets, some money. That morning itself I had kept the flight tickets in my shirt pocket - so my tickets were there with me , but my passport was not .

I hurriedly went up to the Air France desk , and told them I have lost my passport. The lady said me , "without a passport, you cannnot board the aircraft". Added to that I did not have a Schengen visa , so I could not go anywhere out of the airport. The lady enquired the shuttle buses , and one of them informed that there were no such bag in the bus. My last hope was the second shuttle, which did not call for the last 30 mins, and henceforth the lady from Air France took me to the police where she narrated the happenings to them. They had spoken in French so I could not understand the conversation. I was not in a mood to understand any conversations.. I was only wondering if I could ever go back to India, and when the lady was speaking about the embassy ... I was getting more nervous. I cant describe what went through my mind at that point of time .

I was stranded inside the CDG, Paris Airport ... hoping to catch the next day's flight to Bangalore.

Leaving for Bangalore - the first leg

Earlier Baba had told me several times, when he was posted to Calcutta from Delhi, he did not have sleep that night . I always thought that how can this be possible . On the night of 31st Dec 2008 I also had the same feeling - I did not sleep till 3 am that night.

Today I had left Milwaukee at 1:40 pm for Detroit. In the ticket the arrival timing at Detroit was displayed at 3:50 pm.But on asking a co passenger of mine she replied Detroit is 1 hour ahead of Milwaukee, and the trip duration would be for 45 minutes . I reached Detroit in the scheduled time, and had 2 hours of spend. I started spending the 2 hours visiting shops, checking out the duty free shops, and roaming around . My next flight was on the same terminal/ concourse but was 40-45 gates away ... it was an Air France flight on A60 . Even though I had arrived in the terminal well before time ,I went in for the NWA express train, which was an unmanned electric train connecting terminals.