First Meeting with the Manager

After the 2 weeks of class room training we had to schedule and meeting (it was called interview with Manager). This is how it goes. Friday 4 Pm.
Me and Manager and Mr X:
Manager: Hi :This is Manish from Purdue.
Me :Hi
Mr X :Hi
Manager: Here is the FRD got from the BRD, Its required to develop a portlet having AJAX capability for searching and sorting using RICO's LiveGrid. It would be Struts portlet, rather than JSP as it has MVC will be running a Tomcat instance.
Manager: We will not have hibernate facility for this. It will be hosted on my lxdm14545 box. So configure your port with the help of Mr X and may be from Monday you can start coding. Once you have tested it in DIT we will do a SIT bild and after UAT the business will test it and push it to PRD.

I remembered pk's post about Jargoneese, it was quite similar but didn't see the point why he was trying to confuse me. I was busy writing the key words so that I could do a Google search later on. It seemed like I had entered the wrong meeting room, but the room and people were familiar. I was all confused seeing stars all around.
Manger : RTFM more details. Read The Fine Manual (I was thinking of some thing else de missed something) and smiled. Realized later on why he smiled. I didn't want to show my ignorance so just nodded my head. My 6 years of study in Computers left me with only Java and Linux as my weapon. Felt like I was in a wrong company. Was I in coma when these technologies were developed? How did they hire me in the first place!!!!!

Now the brilliance of a Desi Mr X saves me, exactly read my face the judged that I understood nothing. So went to the cubicle to decode what was told by my manager and also to link my key words. Mr X: See Struts in a Nut Shell is a framework, Alfresco is a CMS ....JSP gets compiled to a servelet blah blah blah...

Later I Googled out the terms and wrote the definitions n after couple of hours I figured out "Port is a Linux box", Portlet is a small component that appears on a website, FRD is Functional Requirement Document. Business is the one who requested this feature. Struts-Liferay is where you write the logic using JSP and JavaScript (web programming languages).

Its true as they say "GOOGLE is YOUR FRIEND" ask him before you ask any one else.
At end of the day I got the bigger picture "Pull the data from Database n display it on Web and push it back to the database", its just more complicated, sophisticated 6th sem website project.

Now 4 Weeks have passed and I was talking to Mr X that the project is ready as per the FRD and business is ready to test it, If OK it will be pushed to PRD. My Manager overheard the discussion and had a smile on his face seeing me use the Jargons. Well

"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication -- Leonardo da Vinci
Not true with S/W I guess

My friend Saurab always says working in s/w company is like Cricket Captain managing his team, knowing where to place the field and whom to bowl.
Just an addition to it , its exactly like SRK managing the women hockey in Chak De INDIA.

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Aug 24th The day to remember

Aug 24th 1972, was day when first ODI Century was scored by D L Amiss exactly 35 years later Sachin missed his ton. It’s a day Sachin (rather his fans) would like to forget, Dravid and INDIA will remember,its the 2nd ODI INDIA Vs ENG, Bristol. Highlights of the day: INDIA amassed 329 and as expected won it, but by 9 runs thanks to Munaf, just gave 20 instead of 30. Sachin missed his century by 1 run (courtesy poor umpiring) and Dravid scored 92 (63 balls), Chawla beautifully bowled (KP and Collingwood). Well we have had last over histories (Chetan Sharma (Gold Medal sixer), Sri Sri Sri Agarkar (Silver Medal four), Nehra(missed Gold) and Munaf (missed both).

Harsha Bhogle once in his commentary had mentioned about "Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory"; it’s so true with this INDIAN team. These games are like one of those street fights where a "star player" intentionally takes the beating for a period of time and pretends to be down and under until the betting ratio increases and finally when instructions come in he over powers the opponent. I don't see any difference the way INDIA plays when they defend huge scores. May be just to increase the TRP rating (who knows) or keep the crowd on their toes, after all its entertainment business. I followed first 10 overs of ENG chase where Sri Sri Sri Agarkar was doing his job as per script giving runs (run daata).

Couple of hrs later 30 ball 60 runs required and 7 wickets down situation and Sri Sri Sri comes to bowl, ideal situation for him to display his talent. On a given day he can play for either team, such is his talent, he tried his best. Last over 30 runs required and munaf just gave 20. Probably Dravid knows his bowlers’ well that explains his 63 ball 92 knock.

It’s tough to believe it’s the same Dravid who scored 12 (96 ball) in the 3rd Test.

I sometimes believe that Dravid has schizophrenia, or split personality as it’s commonly called. More “filmy” its Vikram's Anniyan(tamil) or Aparachitidu (telgu) or Devgan's Deewangee. Thats my perspective (which only brings humor), in CRICKET world its called class or playing according to the condition. But the 12 (96) innings was a PITA (Pain In The Ass) innings. I was like adding salt (rather chili powder) on ENG's newly wounds. My friend Mandar mentioned that police rather than using 3rd degree on prisoners (to confess or extract some information) they should repeatedly show the Dravid's PITA innings.

But I liked Dravid's focus (series win imp 1-0 or 2-0 doesn't really matter) simple and effective strategy. More time the INDIANS play, less time the ENG will get to play, which would lead to a draw and thats what INDIA needed to seal the series. "Na bache ga time Na Phisle ga match" is apt I guess. Because he knows the INDIAN team like back of hand {rather back of his left shoulder, donno why he keeps looking there}. Because INDIAN batsman think that 2nd innings is not their's. [check out their 1st , 2nd innings average if you don't believe me], How many times INDIA have chased 150 and lost 5 or 6 wickets[check out the 2nd test match], or even some times failed to chase bigger scores[ Madras test match cachin 136 and saqlain 5 wickets]. That justifies Dravid's decision of not offering follow on and his PITA innings.

Well a good captain is one who knows the talent in his team and never underestimates them.

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Chak De Week End

I have always confronted with a Typical question every Friday "whats up for the weekend ?", and my obvious answer would be "nothing, lazying around at home". Well thats what I have been doing for past 5 weekends now. Actually realized what weekend is when I started to work. Typically or traditionally have lunch with my roomy at one of many INDIAN restaurants and end the weekend with a big sleep. My friend in INDIA Sandeep had suggested me to watch to "Chak De INDIA" in theater.

Got a call from a friend of mine to watch CDI, at Naz theater Fremont. I was eager to see Fremont (Punjab of Bay area) more than SRK. Reached around 8:30, met couple of IUPUI seniors who for a change happened to be kannadigas. Its rare occasion when kannadigas meet in U S. The movie started at 9 am, houseful as expected (SRK movie), Movie opening was good, actually bored of seeing SRK as soccer player, for a change was a Hockey Player. Typical opening, hero misses the goal at the crucial moment, he actually beckhamed and crowd getting angry and all "bull" of match fixing thing. Hard to digest fixing in Hockey!!!!!, the incident was modeled on cricket I bet. And then labeling SRK " Gaddar " was all crap, -- give me a break, may be WC and Dhoni's home incident effect.

The best scene of the movie -- SRK is being interviewed for "Coach of Womens Hockey Team", and even before committee decides SRK says "To may Nokri Pakki samjhu , aur koye to hai nahi aap ke pass". Wish I had the same thing in my E*TRADE interviews. (Exactly opposite to Graham Ford incident). The best dialogue of the movie -- "mujhe states ke naam sunte nahi, sir INDIA suniye deta hai".

One Hr into the movie, Hindi movie and no kids that can't be. We had some amazing background music from the kids, may be they heard the team spirit stuff from SRK. No sooner followed the impatient crowd, "aree bache ko chup karao ", "we did not pay for this" "why don't you bring a nanny" etc. Now they began to show some unity and integrity, shouting more than the kids. And the child's mother obviously embarrassed had to go out with the child. Now parents had to concentrate more on their kids than the movie.

I enjoyed all the three Movie, children's crying sound and parents yelling, felt so much like INDIA. Close to 3 hr SRK movie with just one song (must be a record) got over, I came out of the theater in a good mood after a long time. For the first time I was associating myself with a game other than cricket, nice for a change. Reached home at 1 am.

Next day I decided to test my car on the highway, so set out to Great Mall, Milpitas. Used to only 45 - 50 MPH, 60, 65 seemed to be fast & uncontrollable, well its 100 kph. Realized how smooth and responsive my Camry was. With Gods grace and google map reached Mall. A Typical mall with tons of people, felt like "Kumbh ka mela". After a bit of shopping I decided to find my CAR. Hmm finding my Camry in Mall parking lot in bay area seemed to be a NP hard problem. It seemed like Fractals the car patterns, occurring again and again. Scorching sun added to my agony. Out of the no where came a gentleman, I am hari from AP.

Donno why I replied Manish, INDIA (Chak de effect i guess), suddenly I corrected from Bangalore.

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WHAT IFFFFF...

"Mazzak mazzak me 4 posts hogaya ". Its always easy to bowl with a new ball and your strike blower on song. The real challenge is when ball stops swinging batsman start to get settled. Thats true with every aspect of life in Kannada we call it "Aramabhika Shoora". When it doesn't swing they bowlers start shinning the ball, ball some cutters, slower ones. Captain starts shuffling his field etc. You can see restlessness in the field.

We all think and follow the normal way, the traditional swing. In cricket When it doesn't swing we try the other way, the reverse swing. Lets think the other way "what if it has happened other way" or Yuh Hoota To Kaisa Hoota (naseerudin shah's directorial flop). And it would sound really funny and makes us feel good when we think about these matters. This though has came to Saurabh's (my M S friend) my mind sometime so thought of sharing it.

"Just imagine" as said in KMG.

For example what if we didn't have Himalayas protecting INDIA or INDIA had the same latitude of that of USA, then probably INDIA would end up having a weather similar to that of USA. Northern part would have the snow and 0 F (-16 C to -20 C) winter, with Srinagar submerged in snow like North Dakota. Haryana would be Wisconsin, Punjab would be Minnesota and Chandigarh would be Minneapolis(health care Industry). Allahabad with its triveni sangam (Lake Michigan) would be Chicago (windy city) IIT, Chicago would be Allahabad University.(may be similar in Desi counts). Varanasi would be West Lafayette and Banaras University would be the Great PURDUE ahah.

General Motor's HQ (Detroit) would be represented by Patna and Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar Bihar University, Muzzafarpur, Bihar as U Mich (would have made lalu-rabri proud). Moving east Assam and Nagaland would be the Massachusetts and New Hampshire, with snow over one feet all the time. Guwahati being the BOSTON home of MIT, BU,
U Mass (now IIT guwahati will deserves some respect). Kolkata being Washington DC, bit of snow and cold, having good transportation system (metro and tram). Bihar and Jharkand would be the typical midwest, boaring and filled with obese & laid backfolks (quite a bit of similarity). Bhuvaneshwar and Vizag would be the beautiful North and South Carolina, hilly and scenic beauty (again contrast). Hyderabad (famous for Charminar) would be St Louis famous for its arch, a bit of +ve correlation. Agra would be the UTAH mountains with skiing and snow boarding (hope this was true). Coming to central INDIA, Indore would be the beautiful Colarado spings. Goa would be Los Angeles beaches and party all the time. Raipur would be Kansas City bit of cold and hot, both cities being unnoticed. Amritsar and Phagwara would be Seattle and Bellevue the M S HQ would make some Punjabi's happy.

Mumbai would be the San Francisco and Pune (IT and whether wise) would be San Jose, & bay area between them, and I-101 freeway would be pune-bombay expressway. Mountain view being khandala, (then Ghulam song would be "ati kya mountain view") and Sunnyvale (suryanagar as we call it) would be Lonavala (famous for chikki). Temperate climate (55 to 75 F), not much of rain and almost no humidity (now thats a contrast!!!!), people from all over the INDIA would want to reside here (quite true in both cases). IIT Powai would be Stanford and VJTI (number 1 BE college in Mumbai) would be UC Berkley. Now that would make some mumbaikars reading this smile.
Tulzapur (home of Goddess Tuza bhavani ) near Sollapur would be Las Vegas.

Cuddalore(Tsunami hit city) would be New Orleans(Hurricane hit city) Thiruvananthapuram being Miami, Florida famous for beach and tourist place, hot all the time (Mallu's would be happy I guess). Madurai (menakshi temple) temple city would be Orlando famous Walt Disney World (want a contrast), Chennai would be west palm beach[ [what a contrast!!!] and Pondicherry as Ft Lauderdale the exotic cities. Bangalore would be Dallas-Richardson (both have IT and good weather). But DFW airpot is awesome, hope bangalore international airpot would be the same soon, all depends on HD Deve gowda and Sons. PESIT (my BE college) would be UTDallas. And IISc would be the NASA at Houston(Sorry had to fit on IISc some where went too far south). Lakshadweep would be Hawaii islands and Pakistan(previously part of INDIA) would be Alaska the 50 th state of US, (what a contrast!!!!!!!)


In winter people would say we going to Chennai to get some heat, definitely people of Bangalore will not agree with me. They are forced to go to Chennai for VISA.
Hope this simile blog would charge our geography, if I missed out any places please do comment it in pair and I will fix it.

Also do comment which do you think is the most contrasting thing.

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New Ball swing FUNDA -- 2 perspectives

As in Test Cricket they say "As a batsman you got play new ball carefully negotiating the swing" I have been negotiating the first 3 weeks at E*TRADE with ease and confidence without any hiccups and edges.

In the name of training we had each team bombarding technical jargons and abbreviations at us for the first 2 weeks. Starting with Precise Questioning and Answering(P Q & A ), where we are taught how to ask precise question. They asked us to frame one question from each of the 7 categories on every single statement. The good part is that when you ask so many precise questions about one sentence you understand it so well that you have less questions later :) . Its an indirect way of looking at a sentence from all 360 degrees. It really makes sense using these PQA 's in our real life, as our communication eases and each person know what he wants and whats he is expected off. We are asked to frame questions individually, in groups, and in mixed groups. When one does the same task individually and in group he/she realizes what team work is all about. Its a real pain believe. What you think is right some one will object it.

When we were going through these sessions, certain hilarious moments of how Mandar (my X roomie) and I were answering precisely to people came into my mind (People of Canal Square will know that pain that we caused :) ). These sessions had so much impact on me that, when I met the HR she asked me "do u have a SSN ? ", for which I said "yea"!!!!!! Soon realized that she was expecting my ssn no, I tactfully said "effect of PQ sessions". Later on in the week we had "TECH" training, where directors of each team would come in and bombard with abbreviations which they expected us to know!!!!!!! The only precise questions that each of us had were "Where does this fit into E*TRADE architecture ?", each framing in their own ways. Because if we didn't ask questions when all are expecting, it would give a dent feeling. So each one of us were busy preparing questions. And I am famous for asking questions .

Next we had some hands on experiences where we "build and run " (past tense) some code. The best part of E*TRADE is that they use LINUX (RHEL 3), this saves a lot of money. I was really excited to work in LINUX as I hate the "MicroSoft" env. The strange and sad part was that, out of the 13 NCA's only 3 of us knew LINUX and I was a pro and other 2 were supposed to be Network Admin ( so they had to know LINUX ). At last my stint with LINUX in Masters turned fruitful. In the training sessions I realized that good engineers need not be good teachers. The was one person who was reading the slides. I had enough of slide reading in M S and B E. There was one NCA who would sleep and snore, but when he gets up would ask a question to show that he is awake (nice strategy!!!).

The most hilarious part of E*TRADE is that the cubicles have good IP address type numbering system. Say 5.1.438 is my cubicle. ( 5 for Menlo Park (city) , 1 for first floor (ground floor of INDIA) and 438 my cubicle address). The weird part is 438 and 437 might not be adjacent. It took me 30 min to search my managers desk 5.2.105 from 5.2,104 . So each person has his own way of identification, some use printer room or some use rest room as their reference point. And we have DNS in the name of receptionist who would give the layout of when asked. Other day I was chatting with a co-worker regarding some issue. He asked my cubicle reference point I said 1 floor coffee machine. He later messaged me saying that he was waiting there for like 20 min. I soon realized that he had recently come from INDIA and was still in ground floor first floor concept. For the first time Emergency assistance number has now changed to 9-911 from 911 !!!!!!!!

The other side of new ball, --the bowler's perspective, after certain overs the bowl doesn't swing, similarly after second week bowl didn't swing for me either. Had meeting and appointment with various managers, got the project requirement, did lot of reading, had to install and configure hell lot of stuffs, all expecting me to be productive now.

Well when it doesn't swing try cutter and slower ones. Or introduce spin (the load takers). Which means time for some hard work!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :(:(:(:(:(.

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Yet another Camry Hits the road

Well another aspect of DESIGIRI is buying a Honda and Toyota cars, I am a Desi so I began my dream car hunt right from day one. I checked out cars.com and craigslist.org ( be careful while typing it ) for accords and civics. Found a decent one posted by individual sellers who sell it much cheaper than dealers. There is a saying every dollar you save comes with a dollar worth of pain. The biggest problem is contacting the owner and asking for VIN, its like SSN. It would have complete jataka of the car right from day one. Looking for Honda and Toyota cars all u expect is a desi or a chinki seller. I had a hard time as I had only chinki sellers. The communication goes like this "Hello I am interested in buying u r car, can I get the VIN of the car ?". After a brief pause the reply was the paraphrase of what I said, "So you are calling to get the VIN ?". Donno y chinkis always paraphrase before they answer. After checking its carfax I got an appointment for the test drive. I had rented car for the week end. I didn't have much success neither I liked the car nor the price in all the occasions. One the way back along with my friend Yogesh we gave a visit to the Toyota of Steven Creek, fortunately he had some Honda as well. Here I liked the cars but not the prices. We desis always want good things at low price [:)].

The dealer start talking, looking at me realizing that I am a desi ,obviously a software Eng "Which company do u work sir ? ", " I said I work for E*TRADE ", he replies in a tone that would make you feel in satva asman (seventh heaven), "E*TRADE ha big money sir, why do you what to buy a used Honda, go for brand new one , it must me peanuts for your salary" or else U can go for BMW or AUDI. I can get you a good deal on that as well. As if I earn a million a year!!!!!!!!. Finally a found a 2001 Accord Lx with 54 k at 13 grand. And we Desis never fall shot of bargaining and dealers know that. We started "You know I am just out of college and have huge student loans, just came to cali and blah blah ". We started to make the atmosphere bit gloomy by tell out dard and dukhi kahanis.

He started with 13k we said 11k, as kbb (kelly blue book)of the car is around 10.5 and we liked the car so I didn't mind paying a bit more for it. He said 11.5 would be his final price of the car. I desperately wanted that car for 11k, so I told him will contact my brother and discuss about it. Basically we wanted to buy some time before we made the final decision. He was sharp "Can u call u r brother now ?", i was sharper " he lives in NY and they are 3 hrs ahead of us, so I don't to disturb at this point". It was 8 pm by then on Sunday and obviously we didn't expect any one after that, and people wont come on Mondays, so thought that car would remain there. I drove back peacefully thinking of bargaining for 11.2 or 11.3 and make a deal. I had the most peaceful sleep that night. Next day morning I was so excited and thrilled, called up the bank for loan which was pre-approved. At 2:30 pm I got a call
essa :"Hello Manish how ru ? this is essa from Toyota ", I was so excited .""

essa : I have a bad news for you, the car got sold right after you left, some Indian liked the car and bought it for 11.3k, U know its bay area good deals don't last long!!!"
Probably some other desi would have used a better strategy and purchased it. I was literally into tears, It was the saddest moment of my life. "Delays are dangerous" its true. I called up my friend he could not believe it nor could I for the next 3 days. Every time I saw an accord, my heart missed a beat (even now some times). Then I remembered the munna bhai song, "Agle din aiswarya ayi one"(hospital scene).

Next Saturday I rented a car took a look at Palo Alto Toyota, He had couple of civic and accord which I didn't like. Suddenly a Teal blue color bright glittering 2000 Year Camry caught my eyes, with only 43k mileage (odometer) it was love at first sight. Went for a test drive along with the agent, It drove smooth, good handling, not the kind of pickups accords have though, but decent one. Saw the car fax single owner, but the price was the big barrier 12k, It was 9:15 on Saturday and this had come to deals 2 days ago, and was not posted in any of the ads yet. I told him I will come back tomorrow as I needed to consult my friends. Saw the kbb and rechecked carfax, decided that I would start from 10 k and would endup atmost 10.5 and finish the deal.

Went at 11 am on Sunday , test drove again, AC was good, it had a CD player AM/FM and more imp cassette player. Again the same old bargain shit took place and deal was over with 10.6 K plus 3 months of warranty on the car. The complete set of formalities was over by 2 pm, and on Wed Aug 1 ,after getting insurance from All State drove my Camry back home.

"I am a proud owner of Toyota Camry LE, even though its termed a desi car" after all I am DESI !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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