Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Reflections, Frustrations, Ramblings...

Another year has passed. Another year closer to death are we all. Oops... enuf of this cliche.. kuchh kaam ki baat.

Waise dekha jae to... it's indeed another year less from our lives. Another year that we have wasted (mostly). What high expectations I had from this year; nothing came true (well, a few did). The year began with a sudden change of technology in office - 4 of us found ourselves engulfed in black/green screens... finding our way around heaps of code written in some ancient language (although HSBC wouldn't exist without it!). Then a change of team, putting us 4 into a typical developer role instead of the so-called Architect stream that we got hired for. I mean, why pay us loads more to do the same work ? but why should I complain... hehe....

Months kept passing and when May came , CAT was on our heads (to be precise, shunting around inside our heads) forcing us to make some plan. 'Ab to IIM jana hi hai, bas!'. How lame of us to talk like that.

July was supposed to be a good news month in the sense that salary hikes were round the corner. Alas! HR got too lazy and July's salary didn't reflect any ounce of increase. After rounds of mails, August finally gave the good news - a solid 18% hike... thank you very much... HSBC isn't that bad after all...hehe...

Back to the para before the last one -> Padhai start hui.. TIME's mocks... slow start.. then it went well. Good percentiles were in place. Bye bye, Pune.. Ahmedabad, here we come ! LOL..

Independence Day, 2 Oct, Dussehra all went and now CAT was on our heads. I took a solid 3 weeks off from office .. Diwali till CAT. Diwali was fun (except for those aunties who were throwing bombs by hand while ours were going kaput!). It was probably this period that was supposed to do it or me. It managed to do something, although entirely different.

CAT went and a first look at the paper threw a large stone at the glass walls of my future! Phir kya tha. The 'entirely different' came true. As we say, the loneliness got to him; I believe these 3 weeks of sitting alone at home got to me! What plans I had after CAT. Entry into MBA with 2 yrs job ex. Out of college, again, at 26.5. Marriage at 27 ! (more on my love life, or the lack of it, probably in a later post...hehe...) But as they say, nothing is what it seems; so was my case. All plans down the drain.

Now that I think about it, its that two and half hours that can change one's life. And this life changing series of events doesn't happen with everyone. What if almost 6 years JEE crack kia tha leaving behind the 1,50,000 odd kids ? With the CAT, it's not the same. Not all IITians can goto IIMs. The sooner this fact sinks in, the better it is. Of course, had I got a call, you wouldn't be reading any of this consoling.

Ab kya kar sakte...hmmm.... Onsite next year. 6 months. Manhattan. Yippee!! That was the one thing to think of and console oneself, although it's not all in place yet! Hmmm.. another thing was there too. I bought my first what could be called a gaming rig. 22" monitor, awesome gfx card... full eye candy... and sorry McDees for stealing ur punchline.. but I'm loving it !!!

A tiring but great fun Matheran office trip, a CSR dam building activity, a birthday bash come and go and we are at the last day of the year. Here again all plans are washed out and we enter the New Year on the road !!! (Dinner got over at around 11:55, what superb timing). Then an awesome cake........yummy..... some chit chat and here we are 2 0 0 9 !!!