Vissu's …

Last wednesday, when i was entering the office the security person handled me a inland letter saying ” meeku ninna oka letter vanchindi sir”.

I was surprised to see a inland letter addresed to me, usually all the letters/couriers i receive at office are bills :-).

It was from a student, named Madhu studing IX standard in the school being run by NICE organization. He introduced himself, mentions the good things happening in the school, thanks Everyone for the kindness and requests to visit the school. The letter was very well written and very impressive. I am trying to send a reply back saying ” How delighted i am, receiving his letter”.

My association with NICE started 4 years back through one of my Collegue. NICE (Needy Illiterate Children Education) is a NGO, providing complete FREE residential education for poor orphans & underprivileged children. The school located in mynampadu village in guntur, started in 2003 with 10 children and presently has a strenght of 100. The secretary of this NGO is Mr. Purnachandra Rao.

I have never seen such a simple person, spending all his time and energy for making a difference. He is the guy who is instrumental in pulling donations for the school and its administartion. I wonder, how can any person work so selflessly.

I should visit the school someday, and see all the good things happening.

In Dec’04, myself and one of my friend bought new bikes on the same day. While i selected Fierro F2, he choose pulser. When the idea of owning bike came to my mind, I just took it and did not even consult my parents. May be this is one of the Side Effects of joining your first JOB and having EMI mode for loan repayment 🙂 , (Later I have to search ways on how to convey the same to my parents). It was a pretty good bike and really felt good that I bought it.

When u love something , u really don’t care about any issues it has. Though my bike had a issue with the gears from day one, i got used to it.

For 4 years everything went well, i have no new issues. But one problem is, i am pretty bad at making sure that it get’s serviced regularly.

After 4 years and with the courtesy of the Hyderabad petrol pumps, it’s bore pisten went bad. I had to get that replaced. As this model is not available these days, it took a month to get the required part.

After one part is replaced, seems like other parts are asking for it :-). Now, I had to replace one of it’s tires.

I hope, i will continue to use this for the next couple of years…..

When i went to US in 2006, One of my colleague convinced me, that i should seriously think of buying a house. Once i came back, it happened that i saw a online ad about a Flat in miyapur and started inquiring about it. I went to see the same at around 7 pm or so and some how i just liked it. May be this is called ” Love at First sight” :-).

When i told my dad about it, he was very happy that i atleast started seriously thinking of some investement :-). Till then, he used to complain about how i am spending all my salary. When he saw the flat, he was not really convinced about my selection. Though we did look at different Flats in that area, I pushed hard saying that i liked the first one. He reluctantly agreed…

Then the process started paying advance, applying loan, doc verification etc….. With the Financial assistance of Mr P R K Raju ( my father ) and KV Kamath ( ya, the ICICI one), i got it registered on 30th Dec 2006.

My first impression of Software Engineer, when i joined CSE group in my Engineering was that he writes tons of Code.

Though we were taught about OS fundamentals, Software Engineering processess, statistical analysis etc, i thought that knowing how to write a peice of code in C/C++/Java is all that matters. For me, all subjects other than programming language were to be learnt and remembered more for getting marks, but will never be used in the software life cycle.

I never realised during college days that designing UML diagram, use case flow diagram is as important as writing Code. The only thing i gave importance other than the Code is the Flow Chart and psedocode algorithm.

But now i realise it’s not just the Code that we write, but the whole eco system around it. Starting from requirements analysis, Design, Deployment and to production support each stage is as critical as the other in their own respect. When writing code, i am sure may people like me will never keep in mind about different deployment scenarios like the cloud computing and Hosted architecture which are gaining prominance day by day.

The other BIG item which we keep ignoring is, the User experiance. For us, the technolgy we use is more important that what the user expects. I used to feel good, when i crack a piece of complex code, rather than improving the User experiance.

Now-a-days, i realised that unless the End User enjoys using a particular product, its not really doesn’t matter how much effort/tecchnolgy you put in to write it. I really appreciate Google in this, they just make things so abvious that as a end user you dont need to put in much effort to understand what they want to convey.

Though i wrote this long describing various things, i bet myself that i will only look at technical feasability rather than user experiance when some one asks for any new requirement.

Hope, i will be more End User biased rather than techonolgy biased 🙂 .

Ya, I mean పులిహొర.

I don’t know the exact English Term for this, but from my child hood days i got used to this English Translation. It was rather very simple పులి + హొర ( Tiger + Food) 🙂 .

This is one of my favorite Food items for which, I can even sacrifice Biryani ( vegetable, to be more specific 😉 ) .

Especially whenever i go to any temple, i first check if i can get పులిహొర at the prasadam counter. In tirumala, there will be seperate queues for each type of prasadam like purihora, doddhojanam etc, i used to check which line has పులిహొర and make sure that i am in that line.

The other thing is whenever we used to travel, my mother used to make పులిహొర for eating during the journey. I used to enjoy a lot. పులిహొర with curd is a deadly combination.

And BTW, i recently saw a movie in which the HERO’s ambition is to start a పులిహొర Center. What an Idea Sirji…

Now my mouth started watering and seems like i need to request usha to prepare it.

My Grand father lives in a nice little village. Most of the Son/daughter generation got moved to nearby towns or cities like vizag or Hyderabad. As it is a small village everyone knows everyone there. My grandfather house is surrounded by houses which belong to some way or the others to our relatives. My grand father’s bothers and cousins all live there. I used to go there regularly during my school day holidays. As I moved to college and career life the frequency got reduced.

As they are all in their 60s, they have a routine relaxed life. They all sit on a varandah talking about local politics, reading new papers and inquiring where abouts of people who pass by . Whenever I go to my grand father’s village, I go to there meeting place to say hello to everyone. They all treat me as their grand son and show there affection.

Here are some interesting questions, I used to get

1. Heard that u guys earn five digit salary, how much is yours ?

   I try to avoid answering this, with a smile. They used to press me and if a say a number, that gets compared with the one of there some relation who earns more and an immediate recommendation comes ” Why don’t you Join my grandson’s company, he earns more !! “

2. How come you did not meet my Son, he also lives in Hyderabad?

   As most of their son/daughter stay in Hyderabad, this is one more question I was asked very frequently. I try to explain , that i live in one corner of Hyderabad whereas his son lives in the other which are 30 km apart.

3. Where do you work ?

   I will give my company name and address. Then the below question immediately follows…

4. Did you not try in Satyam, my grandson works there, Shall I Recommend ?

   For most people in our area, software company means “Satyam”. Now I get a series of questions why I did not try in Satyam ?. Now I get a reference for a Job in Satyam :-).

5. What do you do?

   This is the most trickiest question… As I work for RIM service provider. I try to be over creative and simplify things by saying ” if a computer has a problem/issues in USA, then we fix it from Hyderabad”.

   Then immediately I get this ” So you are a Computer mechanic. Our Sinu( bike mechanic ) repairs bikes and you repair Computers”

   I end up saying ” Exactly :-), you got it right ….”

   I like their enthusiasm to do good for you. They are always there to lend you a helping hand, though it may be just words.

   I wish all of those people, have fun as long as they live.

Now a days, i am really fascinated about the use of the this word. I thoroughly enjoyed mahesh’s dialogue in pokiri when he asks illeane in the lift ” పర్లేదుకదా …!” .

After the Satyam fiasco, whenever some of my family friends, relatives call me, the first thing they ask me is ” Satyam పర్లేదుకదా …!”.

When we call friends and plan to meet, we force them to meet but at the end we ask them ” neku పర్లేదుకదా …!”

When usha cooks some variety dishes and when i have my first bite, she innocently asks me ” taste పర్లేదుకదా …!”
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Now i keep asking this post readers పర్లేదుకదా …! 🙂