I am the same guy who once scored 4/100 in mathematics...

I was always an average kid in academics, and my interests were always oriented towards technology right from childhood. Electronics was my big time hobby and it all began when I was in primary school. Coming from a remote village in AP, I hardly knew anything other than the huge and heavy vacuum-tube radios, farming tractors and cycle-rickshaws. No TV, no VCR/VCPs, no auto-rickshaws, no fancy cars, no nothing. This big city was whole new world for me. I was surprised to see that almost every house had a TV and a scooter or a car. Back in the village, the only time we see a car was during elections when the local politicians visit our village to buy or beg for votes. So, initially I assumed that everybody in the city were into politics. It took a while for me to realize that they were not politicians but regular people. I was curious to know about everything in the new environment. Everything from a solid state radio to the functioning of an auto-rickshaw; so, while walking to/from the school, I used to stop at every place where something interesting used to happen. Be it the army personnel training in the 515 army base workshop grounds in Halasuru (Ulsoor), or an auto driver repairing his auto in the middle of the road or the slum people extracting copper out of the junk PCBs next to our school on artillery road. Everything seemed to catch my attention other than academics.

This curiosity grew day-by-day and I wanted to try out everything that I used to see. The first such trial of mine was quite adventurous and also disastrous. When I was in my fourth standard, I stole a small bulb from a roadside auto-rickshaw meter and managed to get it glowing using some old pencil cells. For me, a village kid in the big city who knew nothing but the way to school and back home, this was as good as inventing a light bulb. But no matter what I did, the bulb never used to glow bright. I even used to wait till it got dark, switch off all lights and then try. Then a real bright idea hit me. And that was to plug it straight into the electricity socket. So, when dad was out and mom was in the kitchen, I attached two wires to the small bulb and plugged it straight into the home electricity socket, and switched on the power without a second thought. The next thing I knew was that the bulb had busted into pieces and no electric appliance was working then onwards. I thought I blew out the entire electricity grid. I was so scared that I spoke nothing about it to anybody, and behaved as though I knew nothing about it. Mom realized that the electric stove was not working, and asked for help from our neighbor. Then we realized that the MCB had tripped due to short circuit. Oh boy, that was a great relief. I don’t remember when I realized that a 6 volts bulb cannot be plugged into a 220 volts power source.

My learning that had started out of curiosity and execution trough ‘trial and error’ continues even to date, and I must say, its one of the best ways of learning to do things practically. All through my school and college days, I did a lot of things. Electricals, electronics, mechanicals, carpentry, painting (well, not the art but painting walls), plumbing etc., I never used to be scared of trying new things. I used to screw up things many times. I used to rip open many gadgets, electronic toys, almost anything that was at my disposal. I even used to go to the junkyard in Shivaji Nagar and Sunday Bazaar looking for anything that is of interest to me. I learnt many things like assembling audio systems, emergency lamps etc., and it even turned out to be revenue generating. During my PUC days in RBANM’s college, I found a like minded person in class, Sooraj Prasad. We quickly became good activity partners and did almost everything for a simple water level controller to infra-red sensors to intelligent toy cars. I was involved so much into electronics that I hardly concentrated on academics. All the while I used to fare average (between 65-70%) in academics, but during PUC, I was so much involved in advanced electronics that my academic performance went below 60%. There were many instances where my dad was called upon by the principal to complain about my bad performance. The only subjects I used to fare well were Physics and Statistics. Mathematics and Chemistry were something that never got into me, and the only chemical I used to work with was Ferric Chloride, used to make PCBs, that too outside college.

Me and my brother being the first generation in my dad’s family tree to even go to college, he always wanted me to become an engineer, while my brother was already into commerce stream. He used to always compare me with a relative of mine who was studying engineering at that time and always wanted me to be like him. Looking at my bad academic performance, he forced me to attend tuitions taken by an aeronautical engineer working for ADE. I never liked that person at the first instance itself because he used to smoke at least five times in a span of one hour, and when he spoke, the whole place used to stink. Each time he thought us something, I immediately used to shoot back many questions out of curiosity, as I was more of a practical learner than theoretical. So, he complained to my dad that I was asking too many questions and causing delays in his sessions, and that the other students were getting affected. I quit going to him anymore. The other students in the tutions used talk something about CET and IIT. Frankly, I never knew what all that was about until the middle of my second year PUC. With a great deal of effort and many lectures and beltings from my dad, I somehow managed to get 61% in PUC, and I also took up CET after I realized that it was the entrance exam for engineering courses.

My CET rank sucked, and I never got any seat in Bangalore. The only option for me was to opt for a payment seat in Electrical Engineering at Tumkur. We even paid the fees. But when we came back home and started to think of the consequences of our business if I stayed outside, the proposition seemed very risky. Moreover, an educated relative of mine told my dad that electrical engineering was not worth studying when the whole world was into Computer Science. My brother too was undergoing courses in Computers outside the college. So, the next day we decided to that I will not take up electrical engineering. I dedicated that whole year to our business, and I seemed to enjoy making money both from our business and my hobby. But my dad never liked to see me with those electronics stuff as he cited that as the primary reason for my low grades and bad CET rank. And, I agree that it was the reason. It was after a few years that I realized that the amount of practical knowledge I had in electricals and electronics was something that even most fully qualified engineers lacked.

After a year spent at home, I was then looking out for admissions in the regular science streams across many colleges in Bangalore. Then something happened in my life that would change my life forever. Christ College; I got an admission for Bachelor of Science (Computer, Mathematics and Statistics), and I never knew at that point that it would change my life forever. And the reason they gave me an admission for that stream was because I had Statistics in my PUC and had also fared well in that subject.

During my first year at Christ College, I wanted to excel in statistics and make a career in that field. Computer Science was something that I was learning for the first time, and I did not have much interest either. Mathematics was something that I dreaded the most. I would do anything to even score the minimum marks in that subject. But I had maintained a good impression on all the lecturers as being studious and punctual, always seated in the first row for every lecture. I was very quick and intelligent in statistics, and was the only student who boldly said that I was interested in making a career in statistics. My statistics department HOD was very thrilled and happy to find the only student interested in making a career in statistics and not Computer Science, as all the others. I must confess. I had spoken too early. In all the internal exams, I used to fare average in other subjects, while I used to either fail or fare very badly in mathematics.

As days passed, my interest gradually shifted from statistics to Computer Science, with all the logic gates, micro-processors and semiconductor memory. I realized that Computers had a lot to do with my hobby, electronics. While the others in the class found it very difficult to understand all those capacitors and logic gates storing the information in the form of electricity, it seemed to be a cakewalk for me, having worked on the timer ICs and the switching transistors . Immediately, I became one of the favorite students of my CS department HOD, who used to teach Digital Electronics. The same happened with the C language. Many of my classmates used to struggle with C pointers, while I used to learn about them almost effortlessly. Soon, I was considered one of the geeks of the class. I passed my first year with a whopping 78%, my all time high.

In the second year, my dad brought me my first personal computer. The then state-of-the-art Pentium PC with 32 MB RAM, 2 GB Disk and a Samsung color monitor. Clocking at 200 MHz, that was the fastest PC in my entire friends' circle. It used to compile and run C graphics programs in fractions of a second. I was thrilled, and all my friends were envious. I used to have lots of friends coming to my house to see and work on the system. With a PC at my disposal, I dint have to travel to NIIT Computerdrome in Shivaji Nagar to try out my programs. I started spending so much time coding in C that I used to sometimes forget to eat, and I had completely orphaned my electronics hobby. I had all my interest diverted to CS, and hardly concentrated on any other subject.

During this time, we had a new mathematics lecturer who used to think that I was very good at the subject until reality dawned upon her. She was distributing the mid-term exam papers in the class, and announcing the names and marks out loud to the class. My close buddies Janu, Sumitra, Sunil, Sandesh and all others scored high grades as usual. She then announced my name. I stood up, right in the first row. She was shocked to even read out the marks. It was 4. Yes, 4 out of 100; she couldn’t believe herself. She asked me again and again if I was Murali. I said, ma’am, that’s me, and those are definitely my marks. It became a big topic of discussion in the staff rooms. Everybody in the mathematics department used to ask me only one thing. If I would ever clear my final exams in that subject, while the lecturers in other departments where happy that I used to out-perform many of my friends in their subjects. And in computer science practical sessions, I was always the numero uno. And to everybody’s surprise, I cleared my second year with 74%.

Christ College has something good and in a way special that even most of the engineering colleges across the state do not have. Overall development of a student, and an exposure to the industry and healthy competions in curricular and extra-curricular activities; regular inter-collegiate competitions in technical and cultural fields used to give us a lot to learn. I used to proactively involve myself in every activity and every competition. Soon, I was known for winning in every competition involving computers. This was not just in our college, but I won in many such competitions held by many other colleges across the city. Soon, I was known as a geek not only to my class, but to other departments too, including MCA, MBA, BBM and even the Hindi Dept. Everybody used to approach me to get software or websites developed for their respective departments. All this exposure, my knowledge of electronics and the ability to learn things very quickly catalyzed the growth of my skills. Our Hindi lecturer, Senthil Kumar, was an young and enterprising lecturer. I got to meet and interact with many professionals and celebrities from the art and technology fields. I was closely associated with him and we worked towards creating a brand image for the department, which then became a benchmark for other departments to follow, even to this day. In just three years, I had changed from an introvert to an extrovert. I had spent a year at home cursing myself for being such a failure who could not even manage an engineering seat. But towards the completion of my bachelors degree, I was a changed guy. A guy with a never ending positive attitude, high levels of technical and interpersonal skills with the confidence and ability to take on any competition head-on. Taking initiatives for doing new things and activities had got deep into my blood. I was then campus-placed to my first job, as a trainee in a company that developed networking gear and software. So, my involvement with electronics never seemed to end, in one form or the other. And as ever, everything that involved electronics and computers became more of a continuous and easy learning, than something that required me to torture my neurons.

Today, I am here writing this, at the end of my six years of career involved in the design and development of high-end communication gear, transporting terabits of data every second across the globe through copper, optic fiber and satellites. Though not an engineer by academic qualification, I have out performed every engineer I have ever worked with. And, the company that I worked for until now is the one that literally invented all of these, right from the first breakthrough in solid state electronics, the Transistor, to the revolutionary LASER. The world’s most acclaimed and respected research laboratories. I guess I don’t need to mention the name.

I am the same guy, who was refused to be thought in tuitions by a perpetual smoking addict. I am the same guy who scored 4 out of 100, in mathematics.

All that I ever did and still continue to do is to never kill my curiosity to learn about anything that interests me. My only suggestion to anybody reading this is, never kill your curiosity, even if it involves risks. Because, Curiosity breeds Creativity.

I really pity today’s city kids.

I am sure many of you have seen Malgudi Days, and some of you may immediately recollect those golden days of childhood and relate to the simple kid on the show, Swami. Whenever I see that show, I feel as though my life is being screened on the show.

I remember all those days when I used live in our village until my age of seven. I used to run behind my grand father following him to our farm house where we had buffalos and chicken, corn and cotton fields all around the farm house. There was this small stream of fresh water flowing all along the fields and we had to walk on a very narrow stone-slab to cross the stream that was about two feet deep and 6 to 8 feet wide. Everybody now says that I am very fast in everything I do, and still perform accurately and consistently. Well, I guess that trait of mine has developed right from my childhood, and every time I fail, I learn something new that helps me do it better the next time. All this started at that tender age. Every time I used to run behind my grand father, invariably I used to end up falling into the stream while running over the narrow stone slab. At the age of 5, many would have turned hydrophobic. But that’s when I lost fear of water. Initially my grand father used to help me out of the water, but after few times I learnt to get out on my own and continue the run. After a while, I could run on the narrow stone-slab without falling. At that age after all the falls continuous running, I was neither hydrophobic nor tachophobic.

All the kids in the village (including me) would be at one single place studying, playing, fighting, climbing trees, swimming in the lake holding buffalos’ tails, playing hide ‘n’ seek in the fields spread over hundreds of acres, chasing foxes away from the cattle, while our parents were busy working in the fields. Our school was run by the village panchayat and funded by the state government. There was a single room and a single teacher for all students from class one to class five. Students of each standard used to sit in one row each in the room, all on the floor. No footwear, no benches, no lights. English was something alien and unheard off. And what was the motivation for us to go to school while we could have all the fun out in the fields? Mid-day meals. Yes. We would sometimes forget to carry our slates or chalk, but never the plate and glass. We used to get to eat hot rice with either dal or sambar, and curds.

Our parents used to go to the fields as early as 5:00 AM as they had to walk for almost 10 kilometers and had to reach before the first rays of the sun to avoid walking in the scorching heat. So, we used to play till 9:00 AM, pick up the school bags (made of fertilizer/urea bags) and head to school. Each row of students used to get attention for a while, and then we were on our own while the teacher was attending students of the other rows (standard). We used to read, write, talk, get punished and finally the lunch. School used to close by 4:00 PM, and the rest of the day was for us to play, loaf around the entire village until we were hungry. We used to get so much tired by evening that the only thing we did was to have a cold water bath, eat our dinner and sleep before 9:00 PM. No TV, no big homework; perfect life for a child.

Life for me changed a little after coming to Bangalore, but not the fun, sports and all the games we used to play at school and after school. In fact, I used to get to play more variety of games here in Bangalore than my small village. Things have changed a lot now. Back then, when we were playing all games on the streets, what we were doing was not just building ourselves physically, but also building ourselves mentally, psychologically and scientifically, but without our own knowledge and consciousness. Now when I sit down alone and think of my childhood, I realize how much I learnt in all those seemingly simple games and sports. How much it has helped me build myself to what I am today. There are many more like me out there who may or may not have realized it consciously, but are highly successful. If you have seen the behavior of animal babies in the wild, you will realize that their seemingly playful acts and movements are nature’s way of training them for the tough life that lies ahead, be it the hunter or the hunted. Our life is no different, as long as we don’t interfere with the nature’s way.

Let me bring couple of those to the foreground and highlight what the city kids these days lack and how the parents are interfering with the nature’s way of making them fit for the survival. It could be due to the ignorance of the parents or the unrealistic and unhealthy competition that is built into the urban society.

We used to play with marbles on the streets wherever there was little shade from the trees. At that time, what mattered was winning more marbles. A healthy competition was built into our group. We used to win sometimes, lose sometimes, and when lost, we try better the next time. We were ignorant of all the tough life and competition that lay ahead of us in the future. For that moment, filling the pockets with more marbles was all that mattered. In the process, we learnt some skills; concentration, aiming, judgment, decision making and subconscious calculation. If I had to strike a marble few meters away with another marble in my hand, I had to subconsciously calculate the distance, the accurate direction, the speed at which I should strike and when to strike. The same applied when I had to hit one marble with another such that the later goes into a small hole. There was so much skills and talent required to achieve this. And playing it again and again over the years only perfected the skills. Does Tiger Woods do anything different?

These days, I hardly see any kid with marbles in the hands. Instead, they play pool on the computers. They need no special skills to win a game because the computer does all the calculations for them. After a while, the game gets so mechanical that it hardly has anything new to learn. Instead, if he was out there on the streets playing marbles, he has to play differently on different surfaces like mud, cemented roads, dynamically change strategies to win under different circumstances, and above all, he gets to grow normally under the sun, fresh air below the trees and not end-up being a couch-potato.

Flying kites is my all-time favorite sport, and many kids in the block would dread the day when I used to go onto the terrace of my building with my kites and the “manja thread”. “Manja thread”, is a special thread made out of the ordinary cotton or polyester thread with a special process. The process in itself involves a lot of time and skills. The items required to prepare manja may vary a little from region to region, but the basic requirement is the same. We need to stick real tiny and well ground particles of glass onto the cotton or polyester thread. For that, we used to go around the neighborhood looking for old tube-lights, bulbs etc, that was easy to grind. Once we had sufficient quantities of them, we used to use flat granite stones to grind the glasses into fine powder. Once the glass power was ready, we used to boil a substance called “vanjra” (a sticky substance like rubber) in water and add a good color to it. Once this mixture reaches the boiling point, we take it away from the heat source and make sure it’s not diluted too much, else it will not be sticky enough and the glass powder will not stick well to the thread. Once this preparation cools down, we pass the thread into the mixture and as the wet and sticky thread comes out, we lace it with the fine powder of glass. Once it dries, we roll it on to a spindle. With this special thread and sufficiently big enough kite, we were ready for the war in the skies. Believe me; the thread is sharp enough to cut any part of the body, telephone cables across buildings and any soft object that comes in its way. And that’s exactly what it’s meant for. Cut. Cut other’s kites in the sky to prove your supremacy. When kites are flying and you believe that your skills and “manja” is better than others’, then you entangle your kite’s thread with another’s and allow the kite to go ahead pulling more thread from your spindle. This creates a sawing phenomenon and cuts the other’s kite. But, always be ready for that surprise. You me be the hunter, or the hunted. However good your manja is, it will become weak after a few battles, unless you are intelligent enough not to use it more than a few times.

There are many things involved in emerging as a winner. A lot of science is involved and analytical skills are built. Geometrical size and shape of the kite (more surface area on the kite creates more tension on the thread), wind speed and direction, distance of the target kite, the length of the thread you have, the angle at which you kite if flying, and the weight created by the tension and distance of the thread. The distant the target kite, you will need bigger kite to maintain the tension on the thread and supremacy in height. It’s like a cheetah moving slowly close to its prey unseen, and finally sprinting the final distance with a surprise attack. You need to be precise, quick and maneuver the kite with such great skill that your opponent stands no chance of winning.
How many kids these days have ever seen a kite? A little more sunlight and they stay indoors. A little rain and they stay cozy at home munching on junk food. I, along with a few old-timers like me had organized a session in our colony to teach kids to fly kites. I was really shocked to see that many kids dint even know how a kite looks in real and how it even flew. All that they knew was, “K for Kite”.

Such seemingly simple and regular games and sports played and enjoyed by kids in villages and rural areas involve such high-levels of science, skills and talent that they aid in the overall physical and mental development of the children at the right time. The kids in the cities are so much mechanical and lazy that they are seen outside only waiting for their school busses. We used to walk 15 kilometers up and down each day to school. Today, many children don’t even walk that distance in months. They need pick-up and drop door-to-door. Most of them cannot see without lenses, lack the amount of physical fitness and resistance that kids in the villages and rural areas possess. Parents think that energy drinks and calcium pills can substitute natural growth. They think that chavanprash will boost their immune system, while the lab tests by a famous TV channel on few such ayurvedic preparations have proved that all these so called immune system boosters have high levels of Mercury, Lead and Arsenic content that are dangerous for human body. They think that once a year summer-camps can substitute the gradual and constant development over the years. They think that 15 days of cricket camps will make them fit enough for competitions. They think that coaching them in a different sport every summer will make them the masters of their lives. And why do they do all these? Not because the kid is really interested in taekwondo or kung-fu, but because their neighbor’s son or daughter is going for those camps/classes. They want their kids to study in “International Schools”, why? Because their neighbor’s son is going there, and why their son should be any less in the rat race;

So much of peer pressure, so much of an unrealistic competition at a very young age, when they should be out there playing and let nature aid their growth instead on drinks laced with chemicals and artificial nutrients. They have such weak immune systems that the medicine industry selling over-the-counter drugs are making tons of money. I don’t ever remember going to a doctor except when I injure myself seriously during sports or a major fall from my bicycle. Why do the parents want to push the limits? What do they achieve? They just bring up another individual who will only build more such unhealthy competition, raise introverts who lead a mechanical life. These are the people who cannot change the flat tire of their car when they grow up. These are the people who will grow up to be pessimists. They are the ones who dare not question the wrong in the society. They are the ones who prefer to be one among the crowd. If this continues, India as a nation may become rich because they run their brains in a direction that they are told to, but can never dare to do things differently. They never fight for their rights expecting somebody else to do it for them. Why, because they never did anything on their own in their childhood either. Even the cycle they used to ride around the house was transported to their home in a car.

What we need now is not mechanical and evolutionary parenting, but a change. People who revolutionize and get back to the natural ways of parenting; we need parents who can dare to let their children to do the learning naturally and not spoon-feed them. Parents who don’t think letting a child play in the mud will make him sick; parents who think that outdoor sports are better than computer games; parents who realize that only academic percentages don’t make a complete and intelligent man, but the natural survival techniques will. Because, however powerful a computer is, it only does what it is told to. Even the most intelligent computer on the planet is only “Artificially Intelligent”, while the human brain has the power to learn, innovate, redefine the normal and invent. There is no point in training a child to reinvent the wheel. He will end up doing only that all his life which has no real use.

Software Industry: the real life behind the scenes...

Ever wondered if all the software engineers are really successful in life? For that, we should first define life. Everybody has their own definition. Let’s try to put a few common aspects and frame a simple definition. First and foremost, three meals a day, then a good shelter, clothes, good health, some funds in buffer for difficult days, friends and family. Let’s call it as a good social circle. So, most of these would be of no use if you do not have the health to enjoy the wealth, and the time to spend with your family and friends.

Let me give you a real picture from one of the many teams I have worked with over the last six years, and then you can decide if they have been really successful or not (including me). I will not give any analysis or share any of my opinion, which may influence your decision. You can decide it for yourself.

One of the teams that I worked with had about thirty people, with age groups ranging from fresh graduates to senior people who have put in more than fifteen years in the industry. There is a huge divide in the way each of these people look at and perceive things, the way they respond to situations. Those on the lower end of the age group are the ones responsible for the booming food and entertainment industry, fast sales of labels and branded (read imported) goods. While, those on the opposite end are the ones responsible for the unrealistic growth of the real-estate prices and traffic jams due to high volumes of four-wheelers on the roads. And the ones in the middle group contribute towards both the segments partly.

So, what has this got to do with our subject of interest? To understand that, let me pick one individual from each of the three groups, and I will alias their names to Mr. X, Mr. Y and Mr.Z, representing the fresher (early 20s), the around 30s guy, and a manager (mid to late 30s) respectively.

Mr. X comes from a middle-class family; he’s had his share of fun and struggle in life until he got this tag of a "Software Engineer". Overnight, his meagerly pocket money morphs into a whopping "five-figure" pay package, as the media puts it. The guy who used to think twice before even treating one friend in college now has enough luxury (read money) to treat the entire friends-circle on the first month. Every evening seems like a Friday evening, with brand new bike, cool shades, weekend trips, parties, movies etc., Reality strikes after the honeymoon period (3-6 months as a fresher), and then realizes that he no-longer can afford to party everyday. Not that he gets paid any less now, but because the MNCs that pay huge pay-packages extract every penny out of the so called engineers. Also, the number looks big on paper, but the Income Tax reduces that number substantially. (I still wonder where all the Tax-Payers' money goes, because I still ride on the same pot-holed roads, and inhale many other poisonous gasses along with a small quantity of oxygen that keeps me alive... anyway, lets discuss this later and get back to our topic). These MNCs have offices across different time-zones, and every engineer at some point of the time or the other, has to sync-up with his counter-parts across the opposite side of the globe. So, no more free evenings because of tele/video conferences, virtual meetings, product designs, coding, debugging, listening to the swear-words of angered clients, fixing their problems from here, internal competition (unhealthy in most cases), struggle to prove to his manager (Mr. Z) that he is the best, aiming for higher annual pay-hike percentage, extra perks etc.

So, his life is confined to his house (don't read 'home') and office (second house?) and the crazy schedules. Weekends do come to the rescue. At the least, in the middle of all these irregular schedules, weekends are regular. So the parties, personal work, banking, friends, family, fun, movies et-all gets pushed to the weekends. And to plan all these and balance things in the available duration, he spends a lot of time and energy. So, he actually burns himself out in the process of planning his "Personal Life". And, in most cases, after all the plans are in place, they never get realized because he ends up at the office on the weekends too. Why? Because Mr. Z, his manager, was stupid enough to commit unrealistic dates to his clients. He too has to prove his role and presence right.

Is this what we need to work for? Do we need so much of an effort and energy to plan our personal life while still in early 20s? And at the end of all this, he is neither another Einstein nor a Newton. He's just another ordinary software engineer among the millions. Probably, one in a million manages to get a single patent for his work that could be used as a reason to justify all the effort and sacrifice of the "Personal (quality) time".


Now let’s move to Mr. Y, a technical lead, who has gone through the phase of life that Mr. X is going through right now, and has adapted himself to the industry, and tuned his personal life to suit his work-schedule. (Is something wrong here? I thought it has to be the other way, anyway, lets proceed) So, his schedule is very close to that of his clients'/counter-parts' across the globe (he will know the night watchmen of his office better than his wife and kids) as he is the single point of contact for his team. So, he 'motivates' his team to do more work, assigns them modules, gets work done, and synchronizes with his clients and/or counter-parts across the opposite time-zone. Look at his accomplishments, had a few visits to the US/UK, owns a house, a car, beautiful wife, a young child and happy parents who proudly claim among their circles that their son is a "Successful Software Engineer". He is so much INTO this life that he has 'no way out'. It’s similar to the "Abhimanyu's Chakraviewh" from our great Indian epic, The Mahabharat. But who would ever like to get out of such a comfort and luxury? Well these days, many want to, but cannot. Why? Let me take you a little deeper. The house he owns is on loan, the sedan he drives is on a loan, life and health insurance for the family are paid by the company, and so many other dependencies. He cannot afford spend one single month without the pay given by the company. So, he's got into a devil's snare that only has an entry but no exit.

And if all these were not enough, he has hardly had any quality time with his family and friends in many months. He can hardly make time to even drop his young child to the play-home. All the time he spends at home is only for sleeping and refreshing. Even if he takes a vacation, he has to move around with an official phone and laptop, and constantly keep in touch with the office. What an irony. Technology that was supposed to make things work quicker, better and give us more "Personal Time" is actually screwing it all up. All this begins to have an impact on his health, negatively. He hardly has any physical activity, any good diet, and above all, irregular sleep cycles. His immune system is weak, making him prone to a variety of deceases and he cannot withstand the changes in climate. So, all the leaves he is entitled for are spent on resting during the sickness. No wonder this industry terms them as "Sick Leaves". You see, they expect you to fall sick ATLEAST 12 times a year. And as if he's not had enough of it, he has back pain, wrists are no longer powerful, muscles are sore, gets tired if he takes the stairs instead of the elevator, and retains absolutely no energy to spend with his family once he returns home everyday. And the weekends are spent resting and making up for the sleep lost during the weekdays, that too if he manages to stay away from office. He tries to fight it out and even thinks of changing the industry, but it’s next to impossible.


Finally, let me take you into the life of Mr. Z, a manager. Some of them happen to go through the above two phases to become a manager, while some have come from different industries to become managers here, given the fact that Software Industry has really grown only in the last 10-15 years. By this time, Mr. Z has undergone all the fights and struggles and even tried a lot to switch domains, but he's realized it too late. So, he has given up the fight and has compromised with the situation and life as he has a family to look after. His children are now in school, and he cannot risk their education by moving out now. At around 35, he looks like he is 45, and has not much of spirit left in him to do anything revolutionary. The adrenalin does not rush up any more. He's compromised and accepted to just float along the stream like a piece of dead wood. He's diabetic, got high-blood pressure, has hardly any resistance and immunity to common ailments, and makes full use of the medical insurance every year (Now you know why these companies insure the employees for such big amounts). He cannot see clearly without his costly lenses, cannot walk more than half a mile, cannot sit in a place for more than 30 minutes, and hardly gets to interact with his school-going children, when this is the time they need his attention the most. He wakes up after they leave to school, and returns from work after they sleep. He cannot make it to their school for any kind of functions, sports day etc., Why, because the day his son is proudly receiving a prize for faring well in sports, he is busy making plans to bid for a new project that would rake in a few more millions in revenue to the company. Has he gained anything in this process? Yes, more appreciation from the upper management, more reputation, but only at the cost of the growing distance between him and his family members. He has made so much money by now, but everything is spent on maintaining his health and keeping himself alive with an effort that is not justified in any sense of the word. What is the use of staying alive with all the money when he does not have the health or energy to use it and live life? What happened to all the plans that he once made as a fresher in the industry? What happened to all the dream vacations that he once planned of?


Being just one among the thousands of managers in this industry, life goes on for him without a real challenge, without a question. He is a manager, but will never really make it beyond that. A few dare to become exceptions, but right from day one, challenge and change the routine to really live life. They are called heroes. But there are only a handful of them, and they go on to become the top-dogs of the packs. The real kings of the prides. They are the ones who dare to do things differently, right from the day they step into the industry. They decide their destiny, and chase their dreams without compromising on either their health or their personal life. They master the art of living with the right balance between work and personal life. And that’s exactly the reason they become highly successful. "The real Successful Professionals".

This is from my real life experiences in the industry over the last six years. Now you decide who is the real successful person, and if you really want to be in this industry. If yes, as what? One in a million, or one among the million. Your life, you are the master.

My first blog ever...

I just created a blog page, and when I got to this page to write something, I realized that I am better off in communicating verbally, and the only stuff I can write endlessly is about the technical world I work in... but then, I said to myself, "I will try my best to keep the technical nonsense out of these pages and write more about my experiences, life, travel and adventures".

I was never a good writer.. yes.. all the school and college exams are proof enough and needs no further explanation. But my friends and colleagues would acknowledge, that when it comes to technical stuff and official communication, I am the best. So I thought I would as well try to import some of those skills into these pages and write some non-technical stuff atleast once...

Even as I write this, I happened to catch up with two of my classmates on orkut, and was really happy that technology is really bringing people together virtually. But what an irony, its really taking the human-touch, feelings and emotions out of relationships. People who use these (I am no exception) forget the importance of emotions and expressions while communicating. No longer we look into the eyes of the person we are communicating with. People express liking, love, hatred, friendship and try to build all sorts of relationships over the passive communication media, void of all emotions.. hats off to technology...

Today is "Friendship Day", and I am supposed to go out to meet a few school-mates, but instead I am sitting here and writing a blog.. why? becoz, my school-mates are too busy with their own lives, and have no time for a get-together unless its planned atleast a week in advance. How I wish we could go back to the days when we neither had the computers nor the internet, and we had to go to our friend's house to copy the homework or meet them over for a sport on the streets.. now, people use google to complete their assignments and play online games.. and at the heights of it all, is the outsourcing. Hope the day never comes when relationships too get outsourced. Sounds funny and unrealistic? Well, its a mad world out there, anything can happen. Just wait and watch!