My thumbs tell a tale

"It is raining outside...", said the quite boy in side on the far side of the room. "Yes it is raining outside. But what else do you notice if I ask you to close your eyes and try to remember.", I asked playing with the kid. Closing his eyes immediately and jumping in joy, the kid replied, "The water puddles on the far end of the road, the small little bird trying avoid rain and pick the insect of its beak. The old beggar, the same old who sits there every day, asking for change, the droplets on the cars parked outside..." "Wait...wait, wait.", I interrupted. "Let me see if I can remember all you said so far and find out where it's happening", as I got up from the small chair, wearing my specs and moving towards the window. What I realized it that no matter how many times I come and go by this orphanage, the kids never stop amazing me. I didn't see any of these things. All I saw waste traffic and the noise it was making. I did actually see not just felt the noise everyone was making like the guy in yellow shirt on his scooter trying to honk even when it's a red light. I didn't see the beggar, because I choose not to. But the part is in my last year of joining this visit, I've felt like this the place where my heart find its rhythm. This is the place where my mind hits the snooze but and puts the feet up. I was born and brought up in a rich enough family. I never felt shortage of anything. Also my parents not only gave me the "everything" in the world but also the gave me the average brain so I could live my life in peace. Earn enough for me and my family. Few years back though everything changed. My wife and I were expecting our first child. A miscarriag left us broken. It consumed my wife so much that she left her job, became a house wife and got herself into everyday chores. I had to fire the cook, the maid and year back my car cleaner. She instead on everything. Her mind was so adamant that because she cant provide our family a child of our own blood, she needs to be punished. I realized it too late. All I did was what every doctor told me, give her time to come out of it. Loss of child takes years to heal.I believed in them and went about my life. On a similar rainy day when I came back from office I waited for two doorbell before I opened the house with my door keys. There on the floor she was lying peacefully, in a pool of blood. Next to her was the picture of the first sonogram and a note,"May be in next life. But in this forgive me for doing this. I want to be at peace." All she could have done is shared, but I don't blame her. Now I spent most of my free time in the orphanage. I will pick a book from a friend or from a library and sit in the kids play area reading and watching over them. They tell me stories of how they want their parents to be, not all of them but some of them. The most basic God given right is to open eyes in ones mother's arm has been taken away from them. Some draw the same emotions, some speak it through their tears. They are God's angel with broken wings but they are the one who are letting me live rest of my life with as less pain as possible. A little girl, who is just about to be a teenager in few months asked me why I don't bring my wife. To which I replied, she passed away and is now an angel in the sky. She looked confused, then like an elder, came to me, hugged me and ran away to play with other kids, but sometimes looking over her shoulder. She reminded me of my wife, how she helped me out with any bad news. Secondly, she acted exactly how people in the orphanage had behaved with her. She liked to be left alone after a bad news and that is what she was doing. These kids, they have a world of their own. And as years passes by, as I grow old, waiting to meet my wife one day, I wish, when these kids steps in to our world, it is still a place to live in. ***END*** This is a fictitious story and took lot of effort in writing. First story that I wrote using my iPad and hence the title. Secondly, it was to check how good the new google blogger interface works with iPad.

Rewind'2007 - Tribute to 5yrs of service @SAP Labs

30th March'2007

Around 10:00am

Voice: Hello, Is this Arpit?

Arpit: Yes, may I know who is speaking?

Voice: Hello, I am Om Band from SAP Labs and have received your CV for post for Developer.

Arpit: Yeah. I had applied through consultant company and they had informed me about probable interview...

...continued my interview with Manager from SAP Labs. For me it was a strange as he asked almost nothing technical, difficult as I was giving first interview in 2yrs, since I have joined Infosys and upto some extent relieved that every question he asked me about the project I have been working for the past few months.

At the end of the call, I was informed to wait for response from the Management team. 

Around 1:00pm

"Let us go and watch a movie", I asked my friend over the phone.

"What happened to your interview?", questioned my friend. 

"The phone call went fine. Now the management will call...all I can do is wait. Still if we hurry up, we can watch the 300 movie show @ 3.", I replied... 

...and our batter continued till we agreed to meet @Symphony theater. The conversation was really in North Indian Hindi, most of which varied from where to eat and which of the friends in college who were couple are no longer together!!!

   

Same day around ~6pm

"Hey keep the phone with you and in case it rings, let me know while I drive." I asked my friend, while I dropped him to his house. 

"Yeah, sure! Hoping you get that call", replied my friend.

...20mins later, at Jewels D'Paragon traffic signal, as we crossed towards the mink square, the phone rang...

Arpit: Hello?

Voice: Hi, I am Ms.xxx speaking from SAP Labs from the HR Recruiting team. We have selected you for the face-to-face interview. Would you be able to come for the interview tomorrow?

Arpit: I am working in graveyard shift in Infosys, so it will be hard for me to come tomorrow, can I come on Saturday, 2nd April?    

Voice: That is fine. Please make sure you are here by 9am? 

...and so the conversation was over and I was so much excited for the call from SAP Labs. For the reason I don't find import to share, I had to change from Infosys! This was the first company I had applied and was still thinking whether to apply anywhere else. I got the call and was exited. 

2nd April'2007

...The interview happened in three stages. Two technical and one HR round. The first interview was taken by a lead (who name I have forgotten sadly). I was happy with the first interview, because the experience in Infosys not only helped, but one of the technical problem which we faced in our 'Kraft Procurement System' was asked to me during the interview! 

The second round was again by Om Band (yes the same person who took the tele-interview). He came up with the standard Manager-asking-technical-question. What is difference between so-and-so? What has higher performance? etc etc

The fun-bee was the manager round by Abhishek. After the general questions about what he thought of me (read between lines: Am I insane enough? Or insane overboard) I was asked to told my three good and bad things. I had already prepared five (even though some of them weren't completely true). The last part was funny though, when asked if I had any questions, I asked tongue-in-cheek, "What is the dress code in SAP Labs?". As coming from Infosys, which keeps it's developer in FULL FORMALS for 4 days a week (including 2 days with Tie), it was more out of curosity. Abhishek replied, "Yeah there is a dress code - Please wear something and come."...took me a little 5-6secs to really react to it.

9th May'2007

...First day in SAP Labs...Scared & Relaxed at the same time! Mostly spend the day loitering in the campus and learning about the policy. Induction was on the way and we were taken to 'Palm Meadows' for the beginning of our journey!

9th May'2012

...Beginning of the 6th Year in SAP Labs. Entered office with my regular time of 9ish am. Got occupied immediately, fire-fighting the same way as for the last 5yrs. Left late in the evening...seeing the changes that has happened in Labs and in my life, I walked to the back gate, where my wife came to pick me up! Life has changed, we have grown old! 

Time Flew!    

Ignorance is bliss

Another loss, another moment of despair, from the highs of 2011, to the lows of 2012, Indian cricket can really take us on a rollercoaster ride of emotions. But for few it really isn’t so bad. They get on the rollercoaster when the team is doing so good, even my 90year old granny knows it and the moment the ho-ha around the game dies down, they are off. One of the examples is my wife. For her ignorance is bliss. When she consoles me about the loss, “You aren’t playing there? Why the sad face?” I wish she could understand what Rahul Dravid said at the Bradman oration. Every victory in cricket, fought hard by 15 men on/off field, is a victory for all who had, have and will have the never ending love-hate affair with the game. My wife will not understand that while she sees only loss in Sydney and the second loss of the series, I am thinking far ahead about the loss that might come our way in Perth, considered to be the fastest wicket in the world. The feeling comes from the knowledge of the game, though we wish for nothing short of a miracle.

Her ignorance about the game is what will give peace to a fan. But we all really can’t change our self. A game which has been the blood-stream of the entire nation, when people came out to street to celebrate our world cup heros (2007 and 2011) as if the next day, Bangalore won’t have traffic jams (actually it was Sunday after 2011 victory, so the traffic jam would be worst, a day after) or whether the corruption will reduce a bit. Every single thing will be the same only the joy of being called world champions is like sweet nectar. Still any loss hurts the same way, be it 1996 WC semi-final or 2003 WC final. We need to take the sweet and the sour together. That is how the world famous Thai curry is made and that is how the love of our game is.

I feel sometimes I could so easily shrug off the loss, like my wife does and move on. But how can I do it for the game which has left so many imprints on my life. Twice I broke my teeth, one got a swollen eye, bloody nose from fast bowler bouncer, innumerous times hit in the groin and finally a broken finger (still crooked in shape) which finally told me that the love can’t always transforms into talent. The imprint of the first cover drive of the fast bowler at school, imagining Rahul and not Sachin standing next to me saying, “Keep doing that for a million times and then little more and you will get there.” Or when I took my first dismissal as the school keeper, imagining Boucher patting on my shoulder and saying, “Nice catch, but you got lucky the ball stuck in the glow. Don’t get up fast, stay low so the movement is much better. Watch the ball till it thuds into your glows”. These are dreams while I soiled my clothes for my school team or when I played for my company’s team (for whatever brief time it was). The feeling of your team mates hugging you tightly because you have pulled of a miraculous catch inches of the ground, the feeling of the last ball thriller where you run out the batsman when he need one run to tie the game, these are memories flowing in our blood stream. My mother used to say, “As a healthy kid, you rarely had fever. But when a close match is going on or Sachin is nearing another hundred, you seems to have 100, 102 fever”.

With age we get attached to so many new things & we let go of something (like driving a bike), but if there has been any constant in life, that got to be Cricket. From as early memories of Hero Cup semi-final & final in 1991, to the World Cup in 2011 it has been two decade of heartbreaks, tears of joy and loads of “jaadu-ki-jhapi” with friends. I was alive when India took the first world cup in 1983, but of course at that time I was more bothered about pooping, sleeping and getting fed. West Indies came just after the victory and white-washed India in a five match series (or was it 3, not sure). History was bound to repeat itself. This time the location was reversed and of course a different team. India won the world cup in India, but got a white-wash in England. There are so many such incidents which remain in our subconscious and to ignore them just isn’t possible. We are somehow have been injected with the bug of “cricket”. There isn’t a remedy to it, even if it existed, none of us would take. It is the talking point in coffee corner, screaming scores across our cubicles or tapping a total stranger at the transit lounge to check the match score on his laptop (did that at Qatar airport while returning from Europe when I missed the first 2011 WC India-Bangaladesh match)

In times to come, our heros, our role models will retire. Dravid, senior to Tendulkar will be remembered as one sticky jam, who has dug deeper and got India out of the hole so many times. Laxman, the nemesis of Australia, will be remembered along with Azaruddin for his flicks against the turn, especially against legendary spinner Warne. I can’t say anything about Tendulkar, our own Demi-God. Like in my religion, we only pray to GOD and not discuss about his way of life. He and only he know what it is like to charge down the track to McGrath and hit him out of the ground. Only he knows that even a sand-storm in Sarjah can’t prevent him from hitting six against the wind. May be in time to come the game ‘cricket’ can be renamed and called ‘SACHIN’ or may be the ‘cover region’ will be called ‘sachin region’ in future. And when he goes on to score his 100^th hundred (we waiting), once again I will be screaming on top of my voice sachinnnn…sachinnnn, knowing that ignorance isn’t bliss, it is feeling of the game (now delivered in HD) which completes us all.

- Written on the 4^th morning of 2^nd Test between India vs Australia 2011-12 series.