Thursday, July 13, 2023

Alternate Universe (AU)

It is real. Turning over 35 now and teenage years feels like a dream that happened in an alternate universe. The excitement of a new job, of a new car, of a new city - all wither away with time. All that is left are the mundane chores keeping you busy and weeks are passing away in front of your eyes as if watching the endless green fields from a moving bus. Is this going to be my life for the next 40 or 50 years?

No. Most likely no. Hopefully no. One needs to find new ways to make this life as beautiful as it seem it was in the teenage years. Some have the confidence [in their 30s] which they lacked in their 20's, some have money, some have the flexibility - one can put these newly acquired resources to good use. 

As far as I'm concerned, I want to explore this world more. With all [money, confidence and flexibility] on my side this time, I want to go on the paths never travelled before. I don't want to wait till my retirement years, as those are as far away as are teenage years [or even more]. After sometime, these 30s would also exist in an alternate universe and then these fairytale trips would also feel like a distant memory, but will have a picture or two from that distant memory. 

Sharing one which already feels like a distant memory to me.



Sunday, April 17, 2022

Mountain life

 After living for almost 10 years in Florida and exploring umpteenth of beaches, we have finally managed to move to the mountains of Utah. Driving thru 10 different states in six days, we finally managed to reach SLC first week of march. Now living in an Airbnb and still trying to find the warmth amidst the snow storms.


This is our car, which had never seen snow ever before, drove thru the black ice of Wyoming, dirty slushy snow of Colorado and finally managed to bring us to Utah..


Tuesday, August 3, 2021

Miami




Miami, a city, only 4 hours away from my place. Yet sometimes I miss visiting it. Last 3 years, I made frequent visits to Miami for visa, flights and cruises - yet never stopped even once to adore the beauty of this city. This time it was all about watching this beautiful city lightening up as the sun sets, restaurants filling up quickly to fill the place with joy and laughter. Dancers and actors performing their tricks on the ocean drive with mild summer wind blowing from the ocean's surface. Fancy cars stopping by the packed clubs to drop or pickup their fashionable owners. The city has its own charm like no other. 

Only this time, I didn't sit in a restaurant to get engulfed in conversations and laughter. I sat at a distance watching this beautiful city and admiring everything it has to offer.

Friday, July 23, 2021

Feeling accomplished

There's a classic Bollywood movie '3 Idiots', which most of the Indians have definitely watched more than once. I'm no different in this respect and must've watched at least 30-35 times. In the movie, the lead actor [Aamir Khan] sarcastically tells the girl [lead actress - Kareena Kapoor] not to marry another guy who has come to India for match-making. Aamir Khan tries to convince her by telling that this guy is a stupid fellow. "He did his engineering degree from India and then went to US and got his MBA degree. If he really wanted to get into Business or Management, why did he opt for engineering in the first place?". 

I'm feeling the same emotions after recently finishing my MBA degree (I opted for it after doing Bachelors and Masters degree in Engineering). Still all I see in front of me is a dark and long tunnel with no end. Moreover, even the actress got convinced in the movie with Aamir Khan's logic and left that guy for good. 

PS - I also got an expensive watch [as a graduation gift]. I never fail to announce its price tag anytime someone complements me for my watch.


Thursday, January 14, 2021

Lohri 2021

Lohri has always been a special affair to me since childhood. Buying kites from a local store a day before and making sure all kites were dry [and ready to fly next morning]. Getting up early on Lohri morning and visiting temple to setup the Ramayan puja - another event so freshly engraved in my mind.

Coming home by 10am and seeking approval from Grandma to go on terrace to fly kites. She would try to postpone it by half an hour so it gets little warmer outside and in the meantime I'd finish my breakfast. Once the meals were taken care of and sun shining brightly outside the window, no one would disturb me until the lunch [another assumed promise]. I would fly kites [and lose most of my bought lot] until noon and then would take couple of hours of break to again visit temple.

Around 4ish - once the sun's brightness had withered down a bit - I would go on terrace for another round of kite flying. This time would come down only after finishing all my lot. Once in a while, I would get fortunate enough to come down from terrace with more kites. By 7pm, everyone would gather around the bonfire in back porch to celebrate Lohri. In my mind, I would still be counting kites which I can fly the next day. 

The day wasn't over yet. Dinner would be followed with yet another visit to temple to celebrate another round of bonfire and Lohri. By this time, it'd get considerably colder than daytime. Thinking about the kites I won and lost that day - and how I could have saved my favorite kite with a newly learned concept - I would fall asleep to enjoy another day.

The charms of Childhood !!

Friday, April 10, 2020

Perfect summer, i alwasy wished for !!

This pandemic, Covid-19' has brought an avid reader out of me. The reader i always wanted to be on peaceful weekends. The reader with couple of good books and far away from the maddening crowd. The reader to whom parties don't interest anymore.

This summer i was hoping to at least catch up on 3-4 books given my less-than-busy-schedule at work and MBA classes. As soon as this pandemic broke out, all my work and study related travel came to a halt. Without wasting any further time, I ordered couple of books in second week of March. Already into the second week of April, I've finished three books and two more books are already on my way through postal services.

And the best out of the lot is 'Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine'. This summer, I'm going to fulfill my wish of sitting all weekend at home with a book in hand and no one to disturb (except, of course, my wife) !!

Monday, October 8, 2018

Pursuing dreams

Crossed the 30-age mark. Well settled in my job, been working with same firm for more than 6 years now. Bought a house and cars. Living the life in my own self-created bubble. Too cosy to come out of it. A bit too common, isn't it? This happens to everyone at a stage in your life.

Around last year, this same bubble of getting too comfortable started creating problems. Problems like when you've nothing to do on a weekend, when all you've left on your plate are parties, groceries and vacation trips. Seems good to be true, but after a while you get bored of it too. Then i decided to take a step out of this comfort bubble. Ummmmmmm - MBA or switch jobs or take a new position in same company? Let's go with the first.

Got all the deadlines and school rankings sorted. Gave the GMAT exam after 6 months and applied to couple of schools. Finally gave in-person interviews after visiting campuses and finally started another phase of life this august: MBA from Carnegie Mellon. August went hard. When you're no more in the zone of studying for past 5 years and all of a sudden, you've 4 pending assignments and case studies to do every weekend; you know life is going to get harder. Next two and a half years are going to be busy with an MBA and on-going job. Juggling with all the work travels, studies, spending time at home, parties. 

But just like any other phase of life, this too shall pass..

Tuesday, May 1, 2018

Work in vain

Working in the software industry has taught me one thing very clearly: Nothing remains same. The code or the product on which you're working so diligently might be obsolete next month. All your linked software apps would go obsolete with it. All the third party vendors serving your software product would also lose their contract.

In some other part of the world, there'll be celebration events held to celebrate the success of a new deal. Some people will be celebrating the success of promotions or attractive bonuses, while some would be staring hard at the lines of the obsolete code figuring out what went wrong. But this is the cycle of Software product. All your past years of working on this product, your pending fixes, your upcoming meetings and newer release versions; everything would go down one day.

So then why waste your present on a product which has no future? Why waste your nights and weekends on a product, which may not see the light of next day?

When i joined my company almost six years ago, i thought this product would stay here for decades to come. Nothing will change, this business will run as it is running now for years to come. After all i had seen people retiring in my team working on this product for last 35-40 years. My idea wasn't wrong, but my approach was. The product will stay in market for how so ever long you want it to be, only if..

Only if it keeps transforming itself with the demands of new world. Everyday you've to work your way up, a step ahead of your competitors. Everyday you've to unlearn thousand old lines of code and learn a new thousand lines; and again unlearn these newly learned lines by next year. This is the only way the product might survive in this ever-changing market.