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.

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.

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 !!

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) !!

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..

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. 

Nomads

Last friday, when i got bored of working continuously for past three hours, i decided to take a short break to have a walk to the parking lot of library (from where i work most of the time). Two bicycles were parked by the library's entrance. The handles were hinged to the main door of library, and a couple, in their early 30's, were sitting under the shaded area by the entrance to avoid the direct sun. It was an unusually hot day for a typical February day in Florida. While i was looking at the unshaved beard of the guy and the girl, who was eating a bowl of half-cooked rice in a transparent bowl filled partially with water, a small dog came waging his tail around the parked bicycles. The couple had attached a small cabin to tow with their bicycles for their pet.

I approached the guy who was still looking lost staring at his dirt-filled nails under sun. He signaled me to tell that they both were deaf, so couldn't understand a word spoken by me. I, somehow moving my hands randomly, asked them from where were they riding the bikes, He told they'd been riding their bikes from Georgia and South Carolina's border and were planning to go till St Pete's beach (roughly 70 miles south from their current location). Upon asking further, he told that they were basically from New York and drove down in car to Georgia. They sold their car in Georgia and from the money collected, bought a pair of bicycles and other stuff to sleep at night. They had tied a tent and few clothes at the back end of one bicycle and the dog's cabin was tied to another. They had a box full of rice in the tied cabin and i assumed they were munching those uncooked rice from the bowl half filled with water. They were talking to each other using hands. I asked how do you manage to eat and sleep while riding bikes for days. They understood what i was asking after attempting repeatedly to convey. They were eating the rice from the box and were sleeping in tent in parking lots at night. No wonder looking at their faces and clothes, one could assume they hadn't had shower for over a month.

I offered them to pay for their lunch, though not in a forthright manner to make sure not to offend them with my offer. After thanking me couple of time for the offer, they graciously accepted it. I took my car from the parking lot and went to the nearby subway store. It was still around 2 in the noon, so there were few in the queue at the store. I packed two separate subs, asking them to put everything they had in store. When i came back to library after fifteen minutes, they were still sitting on cemented floor outside the entrance. The girl was playing with her dog, while the guy went to the restroom to wash his face. They thanked me a couple more times. They told me they're planning to stay at St Pete's beach for a month and then would head back to NY on the bikes. Since it would be summer by the time they'll start riding up north, the weather wouldn't pose much difficulty for them. While still surprised with their decision to ride all the way up from NY, I came back into the library slowing walking towards my desk. I was happy i could help them (though in smallest possible manner) with one-time's meal for a day on this arduous journey of theirs.

Out of cocoon

Finally out of cocoon after a 7 month long hibernation. Life is still moving at a sweet little pace; at a pace where one can enjoy the journey and can't get bored by the dullness of slow pace. Few months of hard work again ignites your hopes of achieving what you couldn't do so far in life.

And i can see myself standing on the verge of the door of opportunity - raising my hand to knock on its door. Only God knows if it will open or will remain shut just like the door of so many dreams which i wanted to pursue but couldn't.