In home town

Left FIC and now working at a new company at Mumbai. Very busy with shifting and setting up the life. No time for blogging or even checking important emails or replies. I shall be back on scene by Month end.
P.S. Wish you all a happy new year. (Couldn't personally reply to mails received)

All roads lead to Mumbai

This is the city that raised me.

I'll be visiting the city of dreams. Wanna enjoy every second there.

'Cause it's a bittersweet symphony this life

Trying to make ends meet, you're a slave to the money then you die.

"I must have done grave sin in my last birth that I landed in Bangalore." this would be the biggest understatement that I would have in my life. This city is said to be IT capital on Asia. This is also the worst metro city in India. It lacks everything that you should expect in a such a kind of city. 24x7 clean running tap water, roads, traffic manner, good housing, wide roads, electricity, affordable and good transport, hospitals, police stations, fire brigades, eateries serving at least good south Indian food. It lacks everything.

Life has come to a stand still coming to Bangalore. I have not made any good friend after coming here except a few whom I knew before coming to Bangalore. Two close friends were lucky enough to move back to Pune or Mumbai. But, sadly I'll be here for long time to come. At least employer is good and paying good too even though there is turbulence in USA Real Estate market. No company would take me. I could be having one of the shakiest retention record in India, specially in IT. I know ITeS can beat me by large. A friend of mine has never completed training in last eight jobs in two years, but he is still surviving. I can't survive long in IT if I go this way. Guru, a warehousing professional working with Covansys (ex-employer) for 7+ years, suggested me during my last days, to stick with a company for 3 years at least, else I'd never get good role after having 10 years of experience. I think it is all coming back to me.

I pity myself and everyone who has come to Bangalore for any reason and suffering. May God help them being strong! Amen.

Confession of a Innocent mind

This year, I footed the bill of Christmas party. That was great to meet all friends after such a long time. When the party was to start, Neil told me that Merv had called up when he was coming home after mid night mass. When Neil said that Ashish was giving Christmas party, he was laughing for 5 minutes.

I thought to irritate Sa by calling her at 3 AM in night (Matchbox twenty suggestion - Baby, it's 3 AM and I'm must be lonely). She didn't pick up the phone. alright, I gave her a another call at 4 this time, but still no reply. I thought record my voice to play that to her sometime later. I spoke a lot. Just heard the conversation, only first 20 minutes. Total is almost an hour. Well, I can't really disclose anything of that recording. Waaaaaaaaaaaayo tooooooooooo personal. Mostly full of a some particular words (I don't swear). I need not tell all these to Sa soon explicitly as I have told to her, but I never packed all those things together. I still need to listen 50 minutes of conversation. Don't know what I spoke also my voice sounded totally differently.

Bombay is the best. BEST is Bombay

I just spoke with my father, few minutes back. I wanted to get a confirmation about the new cell SIM activatation, as due to terrorist threat verification and activation takes time. Duds/Thugs still manage to do away wtih it. I have had some terrible time in Chennai and Bangalore as I was not having any means to call up my family. Though in Mumbai there was none. When I was speaking with father, there was BEST bus (Mumbai public bus transport, needless to say, really best in Asia) in background honking. BEST buses have a pecular horn. Just reconnects me to my city. In fact, Bus is the first thing that I would think of for Mumbai as city.

I'm flying to Mumbai in evening. Hope there is no much work. Last time due to terrorist attacks in High Couts of U.P. state, security check in took me almost 2 hours (usual time 15 minutes). Three days back, threatening mails were received about IGI (Delhi Airport) bombing. Hope I get clearance soon at airport.

After a real long time

Today was going to be a hectic day. But luckily it wasn’t. Last evening when I finished CMAS LoanIQ audit, I realized that lots of binning was not so good. But I was happy to as it was for the first time I was performing Audit independently. Mani was not leave. This Audit is too good. I haven’t received any feedback/comment on Audits I had done in last two days. Damien and we were too busy to waste time on this. He was assigning new work as we were proceeding with the tasks. I corrected the Audit. For correction I took a bit of time as even one variable is not so properly audited, whole audit has to be run oven again. Not really a painful thing but why to have iteration. I already had enough of iteration and now know how to capture variables properly.

Just at 12:15 we get a mail about status meeting to be held on November 9^th. I immediately replied to Damien letting him know about it. He immediately posted a meeting request for 12:45. Well, no one had his home number and around 15 minutes were spent locating his number. I asked Mani about the mails to be replied to Rong and Eddie, so that he has loan and vector “scored” file for audit ready when he comes back to office on Monday. Now I have a big job: Population Report. I have never seen and worked on it. All I know that Mani uses an Excel file for report. With lot of limping I finished the performance report. It took me triple time then I had expected for myself. Mainly due to COLUMN Names having spaces in it. It already delayed the audit and also the population report. It is good that I’m seeing a tough time. It will make me good.

Rajendra, whom I had requested to change weird of storing date to perfect one, wanted to leave and he had not completed what I was looking for but had almost solved the pain. It took me just 30 minutes to workaround the numeric dates to be perfect in chart. There are lots of problems when we show month in a Pivot chart. One can play around with its format in Report but in chart it is painful and if I get text in chart, sorting is jumbled up. Hats off to Rajendra for helping out in this time. He has also created some more pivot reports and chart which are eye candy. Even the people in PartyGaming PLC could not make such graph.

Now I have huge task for playing around with SAS® dates. I have to map lots of fields to a source file based on some criteria, but SAS dates conversion is a tricky thing. I could not do it w/o some guidance; at least for the first time also there were SQL included in this. I am still not well versed with hand writing SQLs, though I’m too good in troubleshooting it. I decide to send a mail with status and leave, even though that was just 4:15. BTW, whole floor was empty by lunch.

I come home by 5:00. Had to rinse cloths for a week, they were lying in bucket without any attention. It had started generating a characteristic bad odor. It happens if let your cloth soaked for 7 + days. I decide to do it after cleaning the home. Took me around half and hour to do it. I stay alone in a 3 BHK (1600 sq feet) flat. I rinse the cloths but don’t let it hang for drying. I consider letting cloth dry in night a bad omen. So not room but the bathroom where cloth were lying had that smell, though its intensity was not so worse.

On even of Diwali, I must eat something good. I was bored of eating in US chain restraints. So I decide to ride 7 km to go to a Vada pao shop. I was not hungry so I didn’t find Vada-pao really good. I had a Grill Sandwich too. This shop in Indira Nagar (Mumbai Masti) serves ethnic Mumbai Vada Pao. I like it a lot. Had a stomach full of junk food.

I used to write my blogs locally and intended to publish them when having got internet connection, but I lost all those blogs in a HDD crash. But In brief, I have started working for a Mortgage Analytics company. I’ve just completed 3 months over here. I have finished more than 3 years on MicroStrategy now. Mervyn, whom I consider my best friend, has got married now. Randolf’s dad, who is a real noble soul, had gone into coma and after having recovered had lost his 15 years memory. Miraculously he has completely recovered. I think God for this. Telis uncle is the most harmless (world is rude) I have met in life. My nephew Utkarsh has started talking a lot and can talk non stop. I subscribed to LinkedIn, my only subscription in last 7 years after Google. I’m too much concerned about online privacy. I know Google is the Privacy beast. I’ve rented a flat close to office. I’ve got all things here including a DTH connection. My marriage plans are in full swing. Parents are seeking all proposals very seriously. He won’t get time for me, but these people he has lots of time. I just hate it. Last but not least. I feel my father loved his grandchildren (my nephews and nieces) more than me and I just feel damn damn jealous. I have first right of their love and affection. He had gone to planetarium with them, where I could go only because of school trip.

Mumbai ka trafic mashaallah

Yesterday I had gone to attend a schoolmates sister's wedding. Hate not to go out on bike, but decided as I had no idea about the place, which came out to be true. I had not been to that area ever before, never had to. Well, got out by 7 from home and by 7:15 I had a shave. Reached bus stop to go to Ghatkopar (E). While traveling on bus (340), I spoke with Prafful if he was free to meet up. We had not met for quite some time, but he had office. Reached close to NASEOH, where the wedding function was going on, by 8:25. Thought to get a bouquet. I opted for a orchid flower bouquet for Rs 250 bucks. Finally managed to get one and reached the place by 9:15. Met the bride and groom. I was pleasing surprised that she remembered my name. We had never seen each other. As I had seen my friend Sudha going out just about to meet up bride, I decided straight hit for dinner plate. When I finished sweets (I eat sweet before meal as sweet increases your hunger) and a chapati, I saw her coming back. We were really surprised because we had never thought that we would ever meet up. We got the reconnection due to Orkut. I believe time was less. She asked to finished the dinner and then meet up. I finished the dinner. Something that I really like about wedding parties is that no one stares me for my unusual way of eating. Call this the bad effect of pampering. I had food and left soon. I believe that was good as Sudha must have been damn damn busy with her own relatives. I know it very well how busy you can be during wedding parties. At the time of leaving party, we planned to meet up with all classmates before she leaves back (on 11th feb).

After this the agony starts. It was 10:30 when I left. I was not out of time so decided to go by bus "somehow" (I was not knowing the place at all, so which bus to take and stop was totally deserted). I waited for 5 minutes and decided to take a rick. I had traveled just 200 meters and on the flyover there was a jam. It was damn irritating. Took me 10 minutes to get out of that traffic and the stupid Maruti Swift driver who was just ahead of us really gave the driver a harrowing time. It was past 10:45 and the road connecting Chembur and Ghatkopar was crowded. Mainly due to people jamming into No entry zone. I was shocked to see all that. Never thought people in Mumbai also do it. The the road that lest you cross Ghatkopart East to West was pathetic experience. There was three lane traffic in the no entry against us. Wow.... India teri jai hai... I reached Ghatkopar station by 11:15, a distance that would take me just 5 minutes on my bike on a zerotraffic day. Well, worst was ahead. The link between LBS Road and Asalpha which is a vital road is just 30 feet wide and mere 15 meters away from the corner there was a punctured rick. People looking to cut across all lanes adn take left right and center. Woof... There were some gentlemen who were managing the traffic and they did a pretty good job. Finally even that traffic got over. I had never thought that anyone on Sakinaka junction would ever dare to cross lights, but yes, when bus reached Sakinaka signal, there were so many bikers who jumped signal. I wised the bus crush these guys. One of them actually stood right ahead of bus negotiating the traffic, coming from right (direction) side. Driving dangerously is cool, breaking singanl is not. I just checked my watch. It was 11:40. I was shocked that such a small journey took such a long time. I reached home at mid night. For first time in life it took me more time while returning back. People in India need to improve their traffic sense a lot. I have broken lights once because I was confused if the signal does exist. Generally there is free left turn leading to high way. I go for a tea break with my teammates which is a one way. But I see a biker and have seen even buses and trucks in wrong direction. who just f*** up traffic. one bloody god damn guy screses up the whole lane in other (correct) direction.