Circle of Life

Prologue: I believe life is in the form of a circle. It is long enough to make sure every dot is connected to give you a full circle. Why I am saying this? Over the past few years, several incidents happened, which made me to buy this philosophy. This is one of them. Its not every day you find out that one of your client managers is your friend’s brother.

A few days to 29^th July 2016:

Scene# 1

A friend of mine texted that he is coming to New York airport on 21^st of August, to attend a small function at his brother’s home in Norwalk. I told him that I would pick him up from airport and drop him. His brother is now a father.

Scene# 2

A manager in my company – Mr.S, was on leave for a week. He had twin baby girls. Photos were also circulated in our office emails.

29^th July 2016:

Scene# 3

Couple of team mates who have been with this client since more than 2 years are moving out. To bid them a farewell, early dinner was arranged at a restaurant. S made it a point to have a team meeting in this fashion. As per the norm of icebreaking, S was asking our backgrounds. He already knew that I am from Hyderabad.

S   : So bharath, where are you from in Hyderabad?

Me : You have idea about Manikonda? I stay there.

S   : Which school have you been to?

Me : XXXXX school in Dilsukhnagar.

S   : Is it??!! I‘m also from the same school

Me : Oh nice to hear that!! I stayed in kothapet for about 10 to 12 years
       , after which I moved to Manikonda.

S   : Oh Kothapet???!!!! I stayed near kothapet itself. Where in kothapet?

Me : Oh…!!! You have idea about Huda Complex?

S   : Oh yesss!!

Me : XXXXXXX apartments there. 
        My entire child hood is in kothapet itself and all my friends too.

S   : Oh what a strange thing..!! 

       I stayed in Vijayapuri colony but I came to Kothapet to visit my brother 

       and sister regularly. 

       They stayed in Badam Apartments.

Me : Oh !!! its adjacent to my apartment lane. (my eyes widened)

S   : ha ha.. yes.. pretty nice…!!! In which college were you in engineering?

Me : from XXXX college in computer science. I was a student of 2009 batch.

S   : Oh my brother also did engineering!! I guess about the same time!

Me : Oh which college is he from?

S   : xxxxxx college

Me : (I started smelling something)

       This college? I have many of my friends from this college. 

       Are you sure that he is from 2009 batch? Which branch?

S   : yes.. He should be from 2009 batch and I guess its computer science.

Me : Then I would certainly know him 

       or at least my friends would know him for sure.

S   : Seriously?!! He is coming down to meet me next month, 

       as there is a get together here.

Me : (I doubt if he is my friend Mr.A) what is your brother’s name?

S   : It’s A

Me : A what ? is it A. K. ?

S   : Yes. Yeah it is..!!

Me : Ha ha ha ha ha.. I know him from my childhood. We are close buddies.!!

S   : ha ha ha ha.. Really? Oh world is too small. What a great coincidence! 

       So we have been living in parallel all these years.

Me : It’s a small world indeed..! That is a really surprising thing..!

I then remembered that I was at his marriage and showed a group photo also, which was emailed by my friend and the original source of the photo was from S.!!! I went to his marriage but I don’t even remember his face. Crazy! I was going to pick up my friend and drop him at his house.. A truly unexpected bump!

I was genuinely amused at the findings and so was he. After wrapping up the farewell dinner, he called me aside and spoke lot of things.

It was altogether a new experience for me. I am viewing the same person in 2 different angles now – one, as a hard-hitting manager and the other one as an intelligent and passionately working friend’s brother.

యెండమూరి గారు ఆనందోబ్రహ్మ నవల లో చెప్పినట్టు “అదో గొప్ప అనుభవం”

A Job

Date: 7^th July, 2008

Boarded Super Luxury RTC bus to Kodada from Dilsukhnagar bus station along with 5 friends, which was around 4 hours away from Hyderabad. Mother gave me send off at the bus station. Checked into a hotel room at about 5 or 6 PM. This was the ‘best’ hotel in that town. We were the first batch to get into it and redirected other friends also, to check-in to the same place.  I remember that we had some snacks later in the evening. I forgot my cellphone charger and bought a duplicate in a local shop, which did not work. Walked for about 2 kms. in search of a dhaba to have dinner and returned to hotel for ‘combined’ studies for a while before dozing off.

Date: 8^th July, 2008

A friend of mine had a habit of visiting temple every Tuesday. So I accompanied him and had breakfast before returning to hotel. I remember wearing a maroon colored shirt.

  About 960 students from different colleges gathered in Madhira Institute of Technology & Science for a campus recruitment drive by a leading MNC. We reported at the college by 9 AM and registered at the reception. There was a presentation before the first round of screening about the company.  I remember my friend and myself exchanging glances during the presentation. During the screening exam, I thought, I wont get through this and would start preparing for my post graduation entrance seriously. I slept during the exam too. Lunch followed and each one of us was on the same page – we won’t get through the exam; if he cleared, he would be the luckiest person.

At around 3 PM, students gathered and were waiting for results. The HR was starting to announce the registered numbers. My heartbeat fastened with a small hope that my number would come out.

Surprise!

Mine was the first number to be read out. I gave a shout and ran towards the HR team. On the way, couple of my friends gave thumbs up and I waved them back. I was escorted to the interview room. I was asked if there is any need for refreshment and there would be an interview immediately. I said I was ok and ready to go. I called up my mother and broke the news that I cleared the first round of screening and now heading for a personal interview. My voice was shaking and hands were shivering. It was the first time to give a personal interview.

Left my bag at the door and entered the interview room which is a computer lab in the college. Two elderly persons were sitting at a table. They asked for my resume for which I had to go back and fetch it from my bag left outside. This could be seen as a negative point, I thought.

The questions I could recollect:

Tell us about yourself,

What activities have you taken up at your college

How did the coordination of the annual paper fest go?

Did you face any problem?

Do you admit that it is your failure in not foreseeing the problems?

Couple of situational questions

Hobbies.

Do you know about the author Salman Rushdie?

“Thanks for your time and you can wait outside now”

I came outside to see that my friends were waiting for me. I was confused when they asked me how did the interview go. I may not make it, was my answer. I was asked to take a seat along with 4 other candidates; one was a girl in a white dress with long hair.

HR came out with a form. After I submitted the form, filled in with my details, all 5 of us were called in a room. There was a brief intro and the HR announced 3 names and asked them to wait outside the room. HR congratulated the 2 of us for making into the company and will look forward to see us to join them soon after our engineering. She wished us all the best and asked us to keep up good grades in final year also.

I came out joyfully and informed my friends who were still waiting patiently for me.

The return journey to Hyderabad seemed to take days. By the time I reached Hyderabad, there was strong wind and no power in my house. I explained every thing in detail about all the activity happened.

I joined the company on 22^nd Feb, 2010 at their training campus. The rest is history.

Probably this was one of the earliest incidents where I was genuinely happy and enjoyed the nick of the moment.  For a lot of normal guys, like me, getting placed in a huge MNC with world-class training program is like a dream come true. It gave many things professionally and personally helping me to mature in every possible way.

I don’t know what would have happened if I was not selected on this day. You never know.

In Will Smith's words: "This little part is called happiness"

P.S: I still do not have the slightest clue if my answers were that accurate that I was one of the 5 out of 960 students to be clearing the first round of screening. I would say it was pure luck and predestined.

Dreams Unlimited

What is with me and dreams?? 

I get some dreams, which make me feel that they are real and happening when I am dreaming. This keeps my mind busy for some part of the day which is good but some dreams are really disturbing. I even dreamt that I am running naked on a busy road. Thank GOD.. dreams are dreams and they never get real.

I feel Déjà vu sometimes. Do I have any hidden power and I am not able to explore it? Ha ha ha

I wanted to share dreams, which kept me thinking for a loooong time.

Dream 1 - on early morning of 11th Nov, 2012:

Even though I was working in a corporate company, I was selected as body guard (me as bodyguard..!) for opposition leader of a prominent National political leader and present CM of one of the Indian states who is getting ready to face elections for 3rd time. I was wearing a safari suit and was escorting him to the convoy waiting at the building entrance. The building entrance had 4 or 5 lengthy steps and lot of flowerpots dotted the edges. We were on 3^rd or 4^th step when gunfire started out of nowhere. He was escorted into the building and a bullet hit me in the stomach. I was down behind a flowerpot and then fell unconscious.

The next scene was in a hospital room. Couple of doctors, 3 men in white kurtas surrounded my bed. Heart beat rate monitor was beside and I was on ventilator. On the top, news was shown on tv about the incidents happened.

It seems I have seen the gunmen and that I should be killed – This was the conclusion from the 3 men and the doctors were given instructions to inject me something which would kill me slowly. They still had plans to kill the leader. The doctors went out to fetch it and then the 3 men followed.

As my father came in to visit me, I was shouting at my father to take me out so that I can reveal everything and the leader could be saved.

---- The End ----

Dream 2 – middle of 2007-year and early morning:

This was filled with suspense and my body was sweating when I woke up.

A young girl sets her foot in tirupati railway station to do some research on tirumala – the amount of people visiting for the darshan of the Lord, from which location they are coming, and lot of other details.

She boards an auto and asks him to suggest a good and comfortable stay for about a week. She then tries to strike a conversation with him to know about the city, the people and activities going on. The driver starts feels weird, as this is the first time he sees that a girl, travelling alone is staying in a hotel.

She is shown a room very small but neat enough. She starts the day with her material for collecting the data by visiting the bus station and then the railway station and then laddu counter. All the places are heavily crowded.

Wherever she goes, the people being questioned by her are surprised why is she collecting the details from them. She received curious looks, puzzled faces, and long stares from each of them. All around, some kind of suspicion starts building up.

She then sees a huge departmental store. The ground floor was having normal daily provisions and the upper floor had all the pooja items. She enters the store to see that its empty, tries to find some one when she is attacked.

The person hit her from behind; be her instinct or her luck, she turned back at that instant and escaped the hit on her head. She ran into the store where all the provisions were lying around in racks. The person follows her, grabs her neck. She retaliates and hits him. The scuffle goes on for a while; the girl is getting weaker to hold him off. She then grabs an oil bottle made of glass (keo karpin was the oil name) and tries to break on his head. She is successful in her second attempt.

The man goes down in pain, blood coming down on his face.

---- The End ----

Dream# 3: in the middle of the year 2007:

3.45 AM was the time when this dream woke me up. I was disturbed. I could still feel the aura of her around me even after I woke up. I tried to check if the face was matching any of the girls I knew but did not find any familiarity. I do not even remember the face after I woke up. This dream of mine lingered in me for many days.

The person  : myself

The scene   : a hill station (of course with dense fog) with a black, clean tar road

The time     : early morning 6ish.

The activity : Jogging (I do not in reality)

The dress    : jogger’s dress, a light color hoody and shoes on

I love early morning jogs. The air is fresh. People and dogs are still sleepy. Paper and milk boys roam around. Its much peaceful in a hill station. Sun light just starting up.

I was in my usual jogging routine. I am here on some official work and would be leaving in some days to come.

While I was reaching my guesthouse, I noticed a small group of boys harassing a herd of sheep. They were throwing stones, pulling the tails. I shouted at them to get away from the herd and continued.

The guesthouse was a group of 4 or 5 rooms. The open place is filled with creeper plants acting as roof for the patio.  Behind the guesthouse were hills.

I was about to enter the house compound as I noticed a girl standing in the open place

Oh.. so this is the girl who my friend introduced 2 days ago as his sister was my thought.

She was in a simple cotton punjabi dress yet elegant. Do not remember her hair if it was long or short. Bright face. Good height.

She said hello to which I reciprocated with a smile and then went into my room.

Probably after 2 days or so it was raining heavily, I was returning to the room as I noticed the girl standing outside and searching for her keys.

“మీరు లోపలికి రావొచ్చు.. ఏమీ పర్వాలేదు”

“లేదు.. నేను తాళాల కోసం wait చేస్తాను“

The last thing I remember is having bread for dinner and then dozing off after in the room. 

She was in my room and woke me up. Told me that I was down with high temperature since 2 days and had not eaten anything.

She brought hot rasam and rice in disposable cups and I was about to have it when she touched my forehead to check the temperature.

---- The End ----

 P.S: Who is the girl?

Why do I hate my job these days?

Honestly speaking, I used to love my job till a while ago, even though I never had an ambition to become a computer engineer.

-- I loved all the learning during my first 2 years on job.
-- I loved leading a team
-- I loved being the onsite coordinator and dealing with the client and to manage a team back at offshore after coming to US.

The reasons are:
-- Not receiving due recognition for work
-- Fight for leaves
-- Not being in the right project
-- Personal life being impacted sometimes
-- Unplanned work on weekends

In other areas like cinema, sports or politics etc, probably the person would instantly recognized for the success where as in software field, I did not find it instantly. It’s not an overnight process. This could be the main reason why the new dislike for my job.

Moreover, I am in a service-based company all through. If I was a part of a product based company or a direct Client Company, the experience would have been different.

This perception of mine may change if I get a right project. Apart from working in an office, I don’t know anything else for my living. I guess I would be in this field for a while.

Retrieved from my favorite Ram Gopal Varma's blog. Not sure of the source:

“A lion wakes up everyday and starts running after a deer to survive. A deer wakes up everyday and starts running from a lion to survive. So the point is that it does not matter whether you are a lion or a deer. You just have to keep running.”