Friday, June 02, 2006

Banglore Mail and the Dreadful Journeys !!

First thigs first.. I owe a big apology to all those ppl who have taken some time from their busy schedules , read my blogs and had commented "don make it too personal..". coz this onez the final bit of personal stuff i have with me.. and without this i won be doing any justice to my blog theme (banglore mail) at all.. Read on..
So there was yet another "S/w Engineer in the m(oc)aking" at banglore and it was none other than meee!! Initial days at office were all perfect and just like what i had always dreamt off. Days passed in a jiffy and i had made quite a number of pals by then. At last training ended and along with it our fundoo times too..It was show time then, we had to pack our bags an move on to projects... A bunch of us were interviewed by a PM and were successfully 'hardlocked' to a proj. Now for ppl who wonder whatz all this hardlock is abt.. Its yet another jargon used in this IT industry with which the PM'S glue u on to a seat in the project and make sure u are no more visible to the HR (an that expands to Highly Ridiculous), who usually are in dire straits looking for resources and are so desperate that they start locking evrybudy,be it the floor warden or the bay sweeper,never mind!!
Right then, First day at project and i realised that my dreams of becoming a "hardcore developer" were shaken up a bit and had underwent a li'l transformation by then. It now read "Hardware Keeper" .. That waz what the jobz nature, precisely was.. "AM GONNNA BE A SYS ADMIN, DEALING WITH HARDWARE !!!" Whoa.. Doesn it sound great, if not atleast for the first spell out!!!
What was more gloomy was i had persuaded my mates too, to take up this new assignment, citing that "this is going to be a gr8 challenge. We will get a lot of learning opportunities.. we'll hve helluva development work..blah blah" .. Poor ones , they had got convinced by tat speech , which usually a PM manages to give everytime, during indcution of rookies into proj and they do listen agaped and of course thrilled..

So a bunch of clowns aka sys admins were brain washed and were trained to become effective sys admins !!! To make situations more worser we were scoffed and ridiculed by some (not all, though) experienced ppl who were already present there .. Tougher times were those and some hom we managed to grit them out all with a steely resolve..

Days rolled on , we had slowly accustomed ourselves to the new environment and we were no more 'rookies'.. Boy, we did almost everything that even a few senior guys didnt try. Sooner those ppl who were laughing at us earlier and made a farce, now termed our bunch as "the backbone of the operation".. Its really funny when u realise how pplz perception change as time does..

So i was really engrossed during the weekdays and it was the weekends that put me down. Since i wasn living with anybody, weekends were damn boring , to say the least !! Just had the TV for my company plus the 4 walls.....After spending a few morose weekends there at bang , i finally took a decision. "I am not gonna stay here for the weekends, watever be the case.".. . Thats where it all started. I began to frequent the banglore mail and weekend speicalz , sparing those odd weekends where in i was bugged by my TL who forced to come for weekend works (crap !!)..

U won blv me , i wud have spent almost all my sal for weekend travelz.... Friday night was the best that i cud ever get and the sunday nightz were the worst.. Coming home on sat morning , freak out with friends, taste ur home food , meet all ur college pals , continue all those late night phone talks ..all these became a routine , rather !! On the contrary the sunday nigthz killed me..There were times when i really din wanna go back so much that, i used to check NDTV & headlines today constantly, hoping to hear something like "Rains lash banglore.. all trains leaving from chennai to bang cancelled indefinitely.." ....

But since we don dwell in a fairy land, where all ur dreams come true.. i'd pack my bags at snail pace and with not even the slightest of a smile , i wud leave for the station.. Through out the way i'll just be cribbing and dreaming of a transfer.. More agony would be waiting for me there at the station where i'd bump on a romantic pair who wud really be excited, unlike me, to travel together.. I'll let out a big sigh (what else can i do !!) and move on.. When i travel with mates , i wud rather be ok since we always had snippets & hot news to ruminate on ..

This became a vicious cycle then.. banglore-chennai-banglore.. Hold ur breath , u havta blv me . outta the total 1 year and 4 months , almost all weekends I_WAS_AT_CHENNAI , except for a coupla them (or +1 , thats the max). I had booked so much tickets between chn - bang , that the Indian railways later decided to issue a special railway pass for me (of course with concession!!). Go to the url irctc.co.in and i'm sure that , those chaps wud have mentioned my name somewhere in the site or atleast in the disclaimer.. sumthing like "Accept.. if over 18 years of age, first name not like 'Kartik' & travel plan definitely != chn - bang :-) ".. for the amount of transaction that i had performed over there.. Also If u had tried booking a ticket last year at the irctc and should u have experienced a "server busy error" ..hang on.."I_AM_THE_CULPRIT .."

As in a fable ,where everything ends on a positive note.. this blog is also gonna do.. After constant pestering , bickers and 'I_AM_GONNA_QUIT' threats , i managed to obtain a TRANSFER... Know wat, the first draft of the letter that i was abt to send to my HR , giving a reason for a transfer read some thing like ..

"Hi,

The reason for the exigency in my relocation to chennai is that, i am exhausted, boarding the
banglore mail and all possible special trains , that southern railways had introduced for
reducing the congestion between the 2 cities and have exceeded the quota for maximum
number of tickets that can ever be booked by a individual bet 2 stations. As a result of this i
have been denied a ticket to my home town. Sensing the ultimate danger that i could never
board a train back to chennai , i request you to kindly gimme a relocation asap..

Regards,
Kartik

p.s : I have attached a mail from the Chief station master, banglore city with this, that will give
ya more insights into the issue..

"
:-)... Keep smiling..

8 comments:

KPR said...

Hey Karthik,

Ur blog n its posts r well written da...and nice tht its personal...blog is a space for u to write watever the hell u want to write so thr shudnt be any restrictions on it.....

But i take offence to this post...Dont tell me ur time in Bangalore was tht dreadful.....we bangaloreans r known to be frendly n making u ppl feel homely....if all who came to work here ran away like u than bangalore wud not be so congested like it is now...overflowing with outta town people so much tht no place for its residents like us.....

Do u mean to say tht ur time at Accenture-Bang3 was sooo horrible??? Werent we frends? Dint we ever have good times????? Was there no good memory of ur time in bangalore?????
Ponder on tht......!!!

On the flip side u were too leniant with ur comments on the PM and team lead...they surely were a worthless bunch in our project....thts y i guess most of the team like u n me quit the proj n run like there is no tommorrow
:-))

Kartik said...

He koyel, thanks for the comments. Pondering over on what u said, right proabably i shud have mentioned more abt office frendz and those cherished times , but know wat pessimism got the better o me here.. Though i beg to differ with u in one point.. ask Ppl in banglore, who've come from other states , i bet they will surely express their displeasure in staying over there...I agree bang is congested like hell now,but the reason for that is IT's mass expansion and ppl have no other go but to come outta their home towns and get settled there unwillingly.. I've heard this from a lota ppl.. Also don tell me that all bangloreans r known to be frendly n making ppl feel homely.. In fact its the tamizhians who get attacked first whenever therez a riot or political outburst. This is a very well known fact and highlights the kinda hatred that ur state ppl, do have against us.. No offense meant against any single person , juz a general thought!!

KPR said...

ada paavi....nanna irupiya? lol
Thts not true buddy...bangaloreans dont harbour hatred against u ppl...we r too classy for tht....u must be taking abt rural karnataka ppl....but in the entire india we kannadigas r comparitively mellow....ask anyone bangaloreans r a class apart...even our rickshaw drivers r courteous n polite....thts basically our nature....u mean to tell me tht in a riot among 100 attacked(for eg) if 15 happen to be tamilians attacked on the road...ppl go n ask if u r a tamil n then attack...wat rubbish...it so wud hve happened tht unfortunately they wer at the wrong place at the wrong time...thts all...u being educated n also having ppl like me as ur good frends n havng been in bangalore shud not harbour such notions in ur heart.....let peace prevail....!!!!! we r good frens afterall.....even after this comment right???????????? (me panicking)......lol

BadhriNath said...

wow wow. what happened in the comments. The post was good but this kittu payyan made comments a serious one. bad fella.

I know that S.Rly got richer caus of u and ppl like u. ask lalu to atleast give u a ladu for the yeomen service u done. ;)

so thus ended banglore mail travels.. a short blog. Hope u will continue postng. what say ?

Kartik said...

hey bat.. wantdly made the comments look like serious da. Know wat argument brings the best outta person !! Juz love arguing with this mate of mine called koyel- a very good frend.

Anonymous said...

very useful post. I would love to follow you on twitter.

ANTI "Banglore Mail and the Dreadful Journeys !!" said...

UR BLOG IS IDIOTIC!

AKSHAY said...

i gt hardlocked to a project that i dont wish to go...wt could be the possible reason that i will tell my POC so tha he rolls me off from the project.