२०१० - २०१२

I am disappointed with myself for not writing for such a long time. It was in Jan 2010 that I posted last and life has had many turns for me since then. I want to summarize my experiences for my own future perusal and hopefully for others who find it interesting.

I brought to closure many things in Cisco and with a heavy heart left my first job - which gave me a lot more for the next couple of years during graduate school. Went out with friends and caught up with as many of them as possible before leaving the country. A lot of visits to relatives, before my first flight out of the country. Bangalore->Chennai->Brussels->NY->Raleigh, my first itinerary with some NC State students, who eventually became good friends during graduate school.

Me, with Sangu, bro-in-law & Swara

Received by my sister, brother-in-law and Swara, who came out a little early from her fun day care on a very hot day at Raleigh. Went straight home, unpacked a little bit, had great dinner and blissful sleep. The first semester entailed a a lot of fun with my sister's family -travel to DC, Wellington beach, Smoky mountains and Outer banks - apart from the many places we visited close to Durham and Raleigh. Many in Raleigh thought that my commute from Durham to Raleigh on a daily basis in public commute was ridiculous, but it wasn't bad at all - with excellent connectivity during peak hours. Looking back, I am glad I did it for the first semester and a few months in the second semester. Apart from all the fun, the stay with my sister's family was educational and was a crash course on efficient survival in the US with minimal or no degradation of quality of life :)

Second semester was miserable, to say the least. Tough coursework, move to Raleigh in between - my sister's family moved to CA -but I managed to complete it successfully.

Mahesha (not in picture) was with us too!

A key semester and some key course work, which has bought me to where I am today (in Samsung) - thanks to the association which eventually happened during the summer semester with the Networking Research Lab. Association with new roommates was an important development this semester as well. I can't believe I squeezed in a trip to NY. May not have been the best time of the year (Feb) to visit a beautiful city like NY, but we had fun in our own way. I don't know when I will visit NY next, with destiny pulling me to the west coast. May be sometime when I want to visit Niagara!

Not all the CA boys in picture-a memorable trip

Summer was a lot of fun in California. It was nice to be back in Cisco, pinging my old friends and making new ones in the Nexus 1000v team. New room mates, trips to San Francisco, Great America, Six flags, Santa Cruz, Mission Peak, Berkeley, Stanford Universities, Tahoe, Big Sur and the 17th mile drive was all fun. Weekly meetings with the lab over Skype took us forward to a workshop paper in CoNEXT 2011. I tweaked my return itinerary from SJ to Raleigh a little bit and went and met Srinath in Phoenix. We didn't do anything worth mentioning here in a public blog. Before I knew it, 3 months flew by and I was back in Raleigh for another interesting semester. I also met some key people during this period and they were all so helpful when it came to my career. I was going to be in the job market soon after my graduation and these people did make a huge difference. I was also in a huge dilemma about going through with a thesis and finally decided I should indeed go ahead.

Me & Mia,our hostess at the hostel

Summer's work payed off and I had a small publication behind my back. More satisfying was travelling to Tokyo on an NSF travel grant. A very interesting experience talking to researchers in networking and answering some rater difficult questions regarding our work. Trip was bettered by Abhisek and Vijay's company! A beautiful Tokyo hostel, weird vegetarian food full of sea weeds and enchanting Buddhist temples.  Came back to Raleigh, only to look forward to some exams and a wonderful trip to India!

A view of my house's main entrance

India was as beautiful as it always was! I had goose bumps when the British Airways air hostess announced the local time in 'Bengaluru'. I felt completely at home the moment I landed, drove my parents to Usha's wedding and called all my friends! I was excited to live in my renovated house for the first time - it wasn't fully done until after I left to the United States. Met up with most of my favorite relatives and friends, had a blast in the New Year's party in Madhu's farm (most pictures are not share-able, sorry!). We tried to catch up as much as we could in the little time we had together and before I knew it, it was time to get back. I got news about lack of funding in my laboratory and decided not to go ahead with my thesis as well.

Chilling in the cabin Jacuzzi

 I was back to a calm semester - Two courses only and one of them was my favorite - Volleyball! Apart from the interviews, the process of applying and decision making, there was nothing really painful in this semester. I was extremely fortunate to have people who believed in my abilities in Cisco, IBM and finally in Samsung! I decided after a lot of deliberation with many to join Samsung and once I made this decision a calm set in. I was relaxed and enjoying life! Cooking with friends, walks to Raleigh lake and the extended volleyball and badminton games with the intermittent projects and assignments consumed this semester. We squeezed in a memorable trip to Shenandoah and Luray, VA. Etched in memory are the wonderful friends, great cottages & the driving ticket!

Me with a fake degree - the real one's on it's way!

 Before I knew it, they said I was a Master of Computer Science. I have a Graduate degree now and I was off to London to spend time with my sister & nieces - I hadn't for a very long time. Here I am writing this from 'Great' Britain. With ample time to think about life, it's been discipline which has been shoved (doesn't come naturally!) by my parents & my stint at my sister's place in Durham, NC that has made my ride on the USA coaster smooth so far! A long way to go and there are many things to look forward to, from here on. I know this has been a boring blog for other readers - this is for me mostly. You'll hopefully see more interesting ones soon - I hope I write more regularly.

With Vasu, Varsha & Anu at Covent Garden

विचित्र |

Somebody just left a comment in my previous post and deleted it !

Wonder who it is ! It's not happening the first time.

Well life's busy as usual. Thinking a lot these days and feeling more positive. I am perceiving people to be happier than usual. I guess my thoughts are less convoluted these days...

Another close friend on the brink of marriage and another landing on a summer internship. Hope there are more pleasant days ahead :)

२००९

2009 has been a pretty dull and uneventful year. I did take an important decision about my career, but 2010 will determine it's fate. Work was pretty much a line paralleling the X-axis. Stable, with some minor shaky organizational changes and tremendous work inflow. It was still horizontal, because I did not do anything exceptional. Just updated my resume and felt a pseudo-good feeling.

This was, however, a special year to a lot of close friends. That made it a little special for me too. People pursuing career decisions and others getting married. Some eventful trips in this year as well. Saw some new places including Goa, Chikmagalur, Puttur, Mangalore and to end it it Pondicherry, which I have officially removed from my map. Year ended with Madhu making some effortless Pulao. Sorry, Pulao effortlessly ;-) And of course, back to back movies.

2010 is scary. Intimidating even. No resolutions made yet, but I am looking forward to a year, which could potentially twist my fate both ways.

Happy new year folks !

गमन :

It is amazing to see how people crave for recognition at work. Recognition in this post's context, is sometimes synonymous, in a degenerate case,to attention. Recognition for some is a promotion or an appreciation award, a great bonus or just a pat on the back. A lack of it simply leads to that person questioning himself/herself "Why am I doing this ?" and summarily to deterioration in performance. The perception also varies for those at various levels/grades. It takes a lot of self-motivation to gather oneself, when you know you are not amongst the one recognized for your efforts. The vital part of the above observation is comparison. The most likely reason you are wondering why you are still undertaking your thankless job, is the very sight of somebody else being thanked. Seldom does one give a thought on why the other is thanked. Even if sufficient reasoning is present to support the others case, the mind is conditioned to shoo the thought.There are other cases, of course, that are favorable to you and more weird cases where none are recognized, leading to a general discontent. I have seen 'em all. Some resign to destiny, some are incisive enough to drive their case forward to ensure recognition and the rest quit. I will give you zero bucks to tell me which category I fall in. I personally feel(although I can't myself), every one should do all the above, just that, it should be right place and at the right time.

चित्त विश्राम्यतां - Resting my mind !

Work has been busy, there is a critical case in progress, yet not so busy, since the issue does not happen very easily and there is not enough data to debug.

My mind still continues to be busy, lot of thoughts cris-crossing, mostly focused , on what I am going to do soon in life and some random. And I am blogging now means, there are random thoughts flying by.

I have been keeping myself busy, even during my free time these days. It is important that I am doing that, since my friends I catch up with during these free times are no longer around. Even if they are, they are all busy too ! I am still catching up with one of them, since I have started to hit the gym. I have had enough of feeling unhealthy and seeing nine in the tens place on the weighing scale. Seeing Srinath occasionally is all the more inspiring. Two weeks of gymming has bought eight in the tens place, but I still see nine in the units place :(

Looking forward to friends coming down from Mumbai during Diwali. There will probably be a trip and I want to do a really well planned one this time. When I mean well planned

, I want to foresee most importantly the dry days :)

Auxiliary fun in life is thoroughly enjoyable only if the main line is settled, calm and collected. Lot of work ahead, especially to feel the contentment I want to experience starting August , 2010.

Climbing up hill, but I have company.

एकोहम

I came into office, fresh. The climate was gloomy, but my mind was still fresh ! I was coming back after a long weekend. I had a gala time, all by myself. Did not meet a single soul, just me and my parents at home. It might sound depressing, but I loved it.

Well coming back, I came to my cube. I was early as usual and there was nobody else. Everybody around me was taking off further, on the occasion of another long weekend coming up. i thought it will be a miserable day at work. But I liked it as well.

I probably have to realize what the picture says some day. May be not solo, but just with a

n elite few alter ego's.

Hope this happens some day and I am as invisibly happy as this person in this picture is.

ThanDe - MagaLu

I finally saw the movie Abhiyum Naanum ( Tamil ) / Aakaashamanta ( telugu ) during the Dussera festive season. Yes, I saw both versions. I don't know why, but I simply loved the movie. It was fun, it was real and very well made. Most characters in the movie, including Prakash Raj, play villain roles. I must say, the entire team did a wonderful job in their respective roles.

Prakash Raj, needless to say is a wonderful actor, but he did an excellent job with such a soft role. Trisha, did a great job as well. I especially liked the scene where she confronts Prakash Raj and tells him that she is disappointed with him, the reason being his behavior after she reveals that she is in love with a Punjabi.

More than the movie, I loved the essence. It had a unique flavor and it had a unique interpretation. Father's and daughters are always very attached. There is something unique there, but what it brought along was a philosophy of the ephemeral things in life. There is this element of possessiveness in every relationship that people simply fail to recognize it. We generally find it very hard to let go, gracefully, things that are very dear to us, whether it is a substance without life or a person.