Pin Bhabha Pass.

You never conquer a Mountain. You stand at the summit a few brief minutes and the wind blows away your foot prints  ~Arlene Blum

Mountains always provide you a humbling experience, by the sheer magnanimity of its presence. Only in the docile best of the weathers, do mere mortals be able to pass through the saddle point between huge mountain ranges. Mother nature provided us on a platter, the taste of all the four seasons in a span of 6 days during our trek to Pin Bhabha Pass.

Located at the border between kinnaur and spiti regions of Himachal, the Pin bhabha pass, at its saddle point reaches a height of 16100 ft and on either side of the pass displays contrasting textures of the weather and landscape.

The trek started from Kafnu, moving through Mulling kara Phutsirang crossing the Bhabha pass to enter the Spiti region as we cross Manmurung Se, Buldhar along the deserted valley to meet civilization at a tiny hamlet, Mudh. If Kinnaur offered lush green carpet with forests and mountains standing sentinels along the path, Spiti threw at us the barren yet beautiful valley of  scree, sand and dry vegetation. How could such a contrast exist just few kilometres apart on either side of the Pass? The magic wand was swayed without a care in the world, and yet the nonchalance appeared divine. It had to be Gods magic. Join me as I savoured the divinity through my senses.

On the way to Mulling

 Just after we left the quiet yet bustling Kafnu, the paradise was ready to unfurl its splendour in front of us. The path to Mulling was specked with an oak-brown forest.  The grass and soil we stepped on were crackly beneath our feet, probably because of the recent dry spell. Everything about this forest was colossal, even the trees rose to gargantuan proportions, with their knotted arms rising as far as our heads could lift. As we marched along the forest, beyond noon, we arrived at a wide glade, where the forest trees seemed to fall apart, revealing the evening sky. There lie the meadow right in front of us. The ore gold moon hung quietly at a distance, waiting for his turn to take over the sky.  We lay our backs against the mossy grass, and watched silently, as the moon took centre stage. Dinner that night at Mulling, was an epicurean delight. If the visual appetizer at Mulling was appeasing, the main course was yet to unfold in front of us, in the form of Kara. 

The path to Kara through the meadow was straight out of a painter’s best canvas. The grass was eden green and mushy soft. The mountains in the distance had peaks that looked as cruel as shark’s teeth. That was the only part of the meadow that looked odd in some way. But it was Gods blasphemy at play, how could it seem odd? Despite the misnomer, it was heavenly. 

Serene campsite at Kara 

As I looked above, the feast for the eyes was waiting to be devoured. The sky stretched as far as the eye could see in a gigantic dome of cocktail blue, punctuated with fluffy clouds. It appeared as if the fairies dropped the tufts of cotton on their way to heaven. At the far end of the valley, shepherd herded their flock with ease and peace, knowing fully well that the intruders would stay away from Gods abode on earth. Lumbering along, gasping for breath and quenching our parched throats, we passed one scenery after another, the camera failing to capture the beauty on display in totality. As we camped that night at Kara, the creamy white ribbon of river ran through middle of the meadow, sang such a gentle lullaby, that I quickly slipped into slumber. That night I slept like a baby.

As we went through and past Kara, the landscape seemed to abandon vegetation, and started to wear brownish grey attire. The saw toothed mountains loomed in the distance. Huffing and puffing our way towards them as we had to make base camp at Phutsirang, by nightfall. The mountains on either side of the Bhabha pass, were auburn faced and brooded over the land. Just as we approached the pass, a chute of snow detached itself and went hurtling down one of the mountains. It slid over the edge and then went crashing into the chasm below. The silence that followed was eerie. Although the pass itself was all scree and loose rock, it froze our marrow to think that we would be climbing in those conditions the next day.

The Deceptive Ramp! Pin Bhabha Pass

As God turned his gigantic waxmelt- yellow coloured fireball towards the apex of the nearby mountains, we began our climb towards the pass. The mountains were gentle enough to maintain eerie silence while we trudged along the gravel path crisscrossing the altitude, gaining meters by the minute. We stopped time and again, only to look up the distance needed to cross the saddle point. The mountain pass, ever invitingly smiled, carefully choosing not to play any pranks on us. As the gigantic molten-gold fireball shone brightly against the azure blue sky, it meant we had been climbing for more than couple of hours. As our spirits started to dwindle a bit, prayer flags and the Indian tri colour at the saddle point infused new energy into our sagging legs. Power of the tri colour you can say! We marched ahead and in no time we lay our feet on the bhabha pass. The gargantuan mountains on either side of the pass, still maintained their eerie silence. Ecstatic at our achievement, we stood dwarfed, thanking heavens for its kindest benevolence.

At the Bhabha Pass, finally!

As we began our descent to the infinite valley down below, the longest duration of the trek for the day, lay in front of us, destination Buldhar.

The fuscous-brown landscape was cruel. Apart from 7 other men from my group, I had hardly seen any civilization for the past 6 days. It was the most desolate piece of land I had ever set my foot on. The monotony of this parched wilderness was difficult to explain. It was a cauldron of death, a bone-dry basin of vastness, silent and barren. The only visual relief being other trek comrades, who were equally jolted, by the heat and dryness. . As far as the eye could see, everything was being roasted and cooked with the same intensity. Exhausted, as I collapsed to lay my back on a dry boulder, I thought I saw a tiny bird, may be a sparrow, flitting into the little shadow created by the boulder, but it was probably another hallucination. My dehydrated brain was shutting down. The few morsels of the packed lunch that I had in the morning,   was a distant memory as I trudged towards my destination. Gods fire ball who had turned the sky crimson red, was running on the last reserves of fuel for the day.

The Spiti Valley

As the rhododendrons squash skimmed through my parched throat, I knew I wasn’t hallucinating; I had indeed reached the camp for the night, at Buldhar, a gruelling 12 hour trek across the pass, through the death valley, almost at the edge of the valley, was over. The tent pitched on the banks of a tiny little stream that snaked itself along a serpentine path, through the valley. She had somehow escaped the fireballs fury, as she was gliding along with a cheerful chime, despite everything else baked to death. How could she survive this graveyard of dryness? Surely, Gods magic wand was at play, even there, I thought. 

It was celebration time that night, the nearest civilization at Mudh, was a comfortable 3 hour trek at zero degree ramp. Sumptuous dinner, in front of a beaming, fullish moon, the party had begun. The monkey was off our back, well almost, and we had a good reason to rejoice. Nothing could go wrong now, we thought. But the weather gods had a stealth mode plan that night.  

As we sulked into the slumber, the lullaby chimes from the nearby stream, had transformed to a splatter on the tent wall. Something had changed. Although the mind was alert the body refused to support, to go out and have a look. The morning was different from the other days of the trek, no dawn chorus of nearby stream, no symphony of the mild morning wind; only cacophony of the splatter of snowflakes and the lacerating winds. We were hit by a snow storm. 

Amidst Snowfall and gushing winds

Eventuality won over hope, and resigned to fate, we decided to trek in snow, to shake hands with civilization at Mudh; a 3 hour trek from our campsite. My boots crunched through the powdered snow. The soft mounds of snow detonated like muted crackers every time my feet hit the ground. The world around us was engulfed in snow shower and gushing winds. What a contrast! Just the day before Gods fireball had beaten us down to death by his fury, and today, the bleak rays of the morning star were winking out weakly, waiting to be blanked out any minute. Fluttery snowflakes puffed down on us, permeating the chill through our skin right down to the marrow. As we plodded along the sea of snow, shivering like wet kitten, we prayed for mercy, just then, the hazy “Mudh” began to show up more and more clear, as we covered distance; a final sprint to cross  the bridge over a bulging river, to reach the hamlet.

As we almost collapsed at the entrance of the guesthouse at Mudh, soaking wet, the lady of the house, handed out a hot cup of tea and few loaves of bread. Gods magic seemed just as evident in human form, as well. His presence in both magnanimity and simplicity, made my soul rejoice.

The Gust of Wind!

Long ago when I was playing a cricket match one of our opponent batsman was hitting the ball for sixes. No, he was not in the Kieron Pollard mould, neither was he timing his shots well. But all the while that he was batting, the one thing that was helping his cause was the gust of wind that aided the ball (mind you it was a tennis ball) to clear the boundary comfortably. However, when it was our turn to bat the wind changed direction and whatever our team hit, the gust of wind pulled everything and made sure we all became out! WTF moment for all us. Whom do you blame? Who was responsible for the debacle? Was the venue a problem? Or was a problem with the ball? How much ever we cried over it, in the end, we could never get a satisfactory explanation or nothing could ever justify the occurrence of events in that match.

 

Similarly even in life, there are these gusts of wind that screw up all our preparation, all our expectation, all our dedication and make us feel horrible about ourselves, make us feel angry, frustrated. How much ever you mull over as to WHY all this happened, you always get sucked up in more self pity, hatred, anger. So do we renounce the world adorn saffron robes, and sit in himalayan caves? Or become "spirit"ual in the company of friends in the evening and wake up from different gutters every morning?

 

Imagine you are writing an engineering exam and as usual you have no clue as to what is asked in the question paper. Most of the engineers experience these WTF moments in the exam, when all that you have studied is for that god damn 35 marks, and in all combinations of permutations, you calculate that there is a high probability that you dont get to cross the border. Also, imagine that because of the little punya you have earned by not thinking about that cool babe from the other department, during exams(Why not from the same department? well, ask the guys from mechanical department :D) GOD sends you a genie at that most opportune time! Now the genie is a DIGITAL electronics PhD holder, who only understands boolean logic. he either answers WHY type of questions or HOW type of questions. Unless your immediate goal is to become a spiritual leader, your immediate question to the genie would obviously be to HOW to answer the questions and pass the exam. The WHY questions can be saved for the beer sessions with the friends in the night.

 

So friends, instead of mulling and crying over why somethings happen only to ME, it is always advantageous to think and work on HOW to solve/handle things in life, that were screwed by the gust of wind!

 

Finally, is the gust of wind always against us? Ask the batsman who became a Kieron Pollard working model for a day, in that cricket match ;)



Drive Day!

Windows rolled up, A/C on, tune up the radio station, put the seat belt on or rather force the seat belt around a bulging waist line…say bye to a smiling wife…recheck whether the laptop is kept in the car, comb 4 or 5 strands of hair, 4 or 5 times so that they don’t reveal the shiny bald head, set the rear view mirror…the car has been obeying first part of Newton’s first law for more than a minute…waiting for an external stimulus. Knock knock at the window…the smile of wifes face has become inverted, time to stop whatever I was doing and set the car into motion. Just as I exit my street, the GOW(Garbage On Wheels) maatha has parked her push cart right in the middle of the road and wandered off to collect garbage. Typically at the beginning of the journey, I am at my patient best, so smiling at everyone around, wishing everyone a very good morning, I wait for the maatha to arrive. Its only when people behind me start honking thinking that I am not able to move my car out of first gear, the man ego is hurt and I am all ready to showcase my car squeezing talent. Only in such situations do people turn good Samaritans, guiding you up to the last degree of accuracy, that you don’t scrape the edge of car parked right next to your squeeze path way. When the big ass of the car is out of the squeeze zone, the GOW maatha walks in and pushes the cart aside, looking at me as if to say I have created the huge jam behind me. No expletives exchanged, just stern looks as I move on. Peace prevails and my attention is drawn towards the RJ who blurts out absolute non sense for 15 mins after a 3 and half min song, “En nim maneli thindi? Naanu beligge indha thindi ne thindilla gottha?… neevoo thindi thinnadhe office ge hogtha idre, elli hogi thindi thinbahudu antha break aadmele helthini….dont go anywhere!, kelthaane iri…”. “Big Jams ellidhe antha ee haadu kelkond banni amele helthini”. And that “amele helodhu” happens after the song, which itself appears a flurry of commercial breaks! Finally confused as to when this “amele helodhu” will happen and whether she told about the traffic jams or the songs and the picture of a jackass appears in my mind, I change channels and finally stop at vividhbharati, the no nonsense radio station. If they say they play 45 mins of good old kannada songs, they keep their promise. Just as I finish this daily chore I enter a hilly terrain, enroute to my office. 

I think my generation is the blessed one to bear the brunt of infrastructure development activities in Bangalore. All the metros, all the underpasses, all the BWSSB development activities have happened during the time my generation has started working, or in the middle of their career. Could you not shift it by couple of decades? Never mind, the male gender never complains. Hence, my journey into the tough terrains of  north west Bangalore begins as I enter the hilly terrain courtesy the main road being blocked for an under pass construction, and the BWSSB also deciding to showcase their plan execution skills in the by lanes of that crowded locality. 

Picture this, as I carefully take a turn keeping a hawk eye on the end of the busy hilly terrain road, a vegetable push cart vendor is busy negotiating with the lady in front of her house. A cute college going girl who has L board written all over her scooty, sparing only the helmet; barely able to touch the ground with her feet trying to balance the scooty in its static position, manages to stop her scooty right in front of my only available path way through the hilly terrain. And for all that disclaimer filled act of hers, her response was a smile (meaning to say…all the fault was yours moron, could you not wait until I completed my death defying act and crossed this road?) No romantic song playing in the background… Controlling my frustration, I try to smile and guide the girl out of my pathway, when a hardcore Shankar nag fan (nothing to demean the iconic actor) comes in at 45 degree angle and occupies the only 1 and half feet available between my car, the pushcart vendor and the cute scooty girl. A perfect situation for 4 of us to lay a charpoy and play rummy. Wonder whether the girl would know how to play? Never mind, Time for expletives. Except for the vegetable pushcart vendor, all the 3 of us could honk our hearts out. The only person who could move in the reverse direction with ease was the push cart vendor and he obliged. As the path got cleared the girl looked at me menacingly as though asking “If you don’t know how to drive then why did you take this route?”. I smiled back as if asking “Can you please lend me one of the many L board stickers you have put on your scooty?” This mute conversation through telepathy reached the ears of our Shankar Nag fan, and he zipped through the 2 feet gap that was now created. Path cleared, time for me to hit the accelerator as I have lost time. As I roll up windows, and tune back to Vividhbharathi, Yesudas sings “Idhu entha lokavayya…..”. 

Just when I start picking speed From terrain filled by lanes to parent vehicle filled school lanes....I slow down again as I watch these small kids wearing bags equal to their weight clinging on to their parents, sitting at awkward angles in the backseat of their scooters. The parents with the zeal to be on time to the school, oblivious to the way their kids are seated, drive at reckless speeds (by reckless I mean even speeds of 40kmph are dangerous when you have kids on board, especially on two wheelers). I get shit scared when I pass next to these two wheelers or when I overtake them, and thank almighty for passing through scot-free every time. 

Falling prey to competition even Vividhbharathi has resorted to 15 mins break with mindless recipe programs, which are neither here nor there in terms of content or presentation. So as I change the radio station, Indu Nagaraj sings “odu odu odu odu mundhe nuggi odu…”. What an inspirational song, I say(at least for that moment), I downshift and press the accelerator and make quick work of passing through another old Bangalore locality. Barely into the second para of the song, I join a serpentine queue along the Sankey bridge all the way to the Bhashyam circle. I play wicked here, just to get ahead of the queue. It’s easy to identify them, drive very close to an audi or a chauffeur driven car, they will give you way, or find a sedan or compact hatch driven by a lady (I mean no disrespect to them, they drive much safer than men), and just get close to them, they let you go. But as I do all this, I am never into the opposite lane, all this antics are done at the left edge of the road, where there is space slightly more than that available for our auto rajas :)

Weeding through the clutter as I go past the mekhri circle underpass I join the “u never know” traffic on the new airport road. Time to ease into cruise drive, (i.e reach the 4^th gear for the first in the travel distance of 10 kms from my house). I am just at the border of the speed limit on this road, and yet people honk me from behind. The reason being I am on the right most lane or the speed lane. As I am being pushed from right most lane to left most lane still maintaining my speed of 60 kmph, I keep wondering how these two wheelers manage to drive at such reckless speeds in all lanes. And then we have these messiahs of marauding in Volvo buses, who are ready to French kiss your cars ass if you don’t give them way. Jostling for space, bullying small cars and respecting hatchbacks, and staying away from Volvos and TTs I finally hit my lane to reach my office at Manyata Tech Park. Just as I park my car in the basement, the RJ blurts out “Adhe office canteen oota thindhu thindhu bore aagidre, ivath madhyana elli ootakke hogbeku antha helthini, keltha iri….:)”

Note: This is typically what I go through during my normal drive to office which is approximately around 14 kms from my house near Rajajinagar.

Bari B.E.

When a People’s Educational Society tries to produce “qualified engineers” through an Institute of Technology, what happens? For the frail boy, who was drilled with multiple choice questions for his preparation for CET, this descriptive question sent his mind orbiting into history, which was just 6 months back, yet, to him, that was history. He thought and thought and finally he could not think any further, he smiled back at a group of senior students, standing just outside the entrance of the college he had joined on that day. 

“It results in an oxymoron, you Moron!” shouted a senior looking student. When you don’t understand the question, it is understandable. But when you don’t understand even the answer, then you know that the situation is sticky. The only word that the boy understood in the whole answer was the word “result”. Fearing the “result” of this interaction with the seniors, he tried to sneak through. When a group of familiar faces are standing up against a new face, it could mean only one thing to the security guard who was standing at the gate. As he hastened the steps towards the group of boys, the bigger boys made a hasty retreat while the boy unable to decide whether to run or stand there, was looking around for cover, when another frail looking boy whizzed past him in his moped. Sensing that this boy should surely be a fresher, the boy followed this moped whizkid to the parking lot, where an elderly gentleman was ensuring that vehicles are parked in an order. “Boys, centre stand” he kept yelling repeatedly. In utter shock, the boy checked himself around his waist and below, to check if everything was in order. After an emotion of  shock, amusement, realization in that order,  the boy realized that the gentleman was referring to “vehicle’s centre stand” and nothing else. The elderly gentleman was insisting that the vehicles to be rested on their center stand so that more vehicles could be parked.  The boy completed the ACT, and quickly asked the whizkid, “1^st semester?”. The other boy enthusiastically said, “Yes, E&C”. The boy felt he was meeting his long lost brother, who had separated from him in the Lalbagh flower show. (Back then, flower show was the only place chaotic enough to get lost in namma Bengaluru. If it was a present day narration, Silk board traffic junction, would add more drama and trauma to the “bichade hue bhai” saga ) .

Quick introductions completed, both the boys stepped into the classroom of wannabe engineers who would be their classmates for a period of 4 years, if destiny smiled on them, or more if destiny frowned. Having studied in a college which was “socially networked” the boy found the camaraderie a bit pale in that class. Not that he had romance oozing out of his twig frame, but he was of the opinion that a congenial environment that provided an opportunity look for a soul mate in a bunch of classmates would do no harm for his engineering degree. Little did he know that even a completely congenial environment, only to study, would not suffice to earn an engineering degree. 

By the end of the first week the moped whizkid had made friends with students coming from his locality and the frail boy made friends with a soft spoken nerd, who smiled more than he talked. The boy quickly realized that the need of the hour was a bench mate, more than a soul mate, with whom he could talk and try to understand what was taught in the class. So the frail boy always ensured that he sat next to the soft spoken nerd. Although he couldn’t decipher what the nerd wrote because of his cryptic handwriting, the nerd was kind hearted to “teach” engineering concepts whenever asked for. Because the frail boy was a cricket fanatic, his adventures in the college cricket tournament, made him acquainted with other cricket fanatics of the class. One of the fanatics was a non-obvious nerd talking to whom the frail boy felt that the non-obvious nerd was really good at everything else other than studies, which the non obvious nerd comfortably proved wrong, throughout, with the results of 8 semesters of engineering exams. His little asterix friend who was his “sleeping partner” during their journey to college and back home, was also in the nerd category, did appear that he was indeed studious. (Before we conclude about their “partner preferences”, let me clarify that these two had the innate ability to doze off to slumber in any given physical position when they were traveling to college and back home. No amount of jostling in the bus would put them off their balance. This equanimity had its bad effects as well; they would invariably get down couple of stops ahead of their intended bus stops while traveling back home.) 

Few months into the first semester, the moped whizkid had got around him a group of boys, and had even managed to strike a deal with a bajaj scooter bairagi that they would commute together in each other’s vehicles on alternate days as they were from the same locality. After getting introduced to the bairagi, the frail boy learnt that the bairagi had made an unsuccessful attempt at the great escape from the college through a mutual exchange with any engineering seat in any college from his home town.  

Making friends is not only a matter of convenience but also a connect that you instantly feel when you meet the person. Being on the same side of the city also helps, but is not a demeaning factor. So this connect amongst this bunch of boys, had made a group out of it. The soft spoken nerd and the non-obvious nerd always were above the distinction margin by some distance. The whizkid and the sleeping partner were no pot heads either. That left the frail boy and the bairagi languishing in the bottom of the group with regard to the semester scores. However, one thing was common for the group; nobody was interested in the rat race for marks. Because few were clearly ahead in the rat race and few were never even in the list.  A couple of local trips later to far off dhabas; the group had started to crystallize into a fixed number and they had started moving around in unison. 

During the second year, Bairagi discovered a human sloth who was apathetic towards the general activities of the class, which was only when he was disturbed from his slumber during the long marathon sessions of electronics classes. Bairagi was generally interested in such new species, and with his networking skills got him introduced to the group. This human sloth was apparently a victim of a “lost and found” scenario. He was “lost” for options in the process of seat selection in CET counselling and “found” himself studying in the college that was supposed to be a school of engineering. For most of us, this was a “school” for engineers. When the sloth was not sleeping, he listened to rock music and occasionally used “agile” methods; of physical activity like playing cricket, trekking etc. 

The group was a mix of extremes; a human sloth and a pocket rocket co-existed with equal ease. Everything about the pocket rocket was fast……right from his furious running….. to his speech. It was only after lot of interactions with him, that the group realized that his mother tongue was Malayalam, but was talking to us in Kannada, our local dialect all the time when he was interacting with us. Pocket rocket could get away with the filthiest of expletives, because the edge his tongue fluttered at such speeds, that it went on to become the communication data transfer speed benchmark for Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution; aka EDGE!!

Travelling was indeed a common interest for the group and had testimonials to prove; a successful new year celebration at Yercaud, an “economy pleasure trip/pilgrimage” to Goa followed by kollur, hornadu and Udupi :) and an economy trek to Mutthatthi all during the third year of engineering. 

By the end of engineering, the bonding between each one of them in the group had become strong enough to last for a lifetime. And indeed it has; almost two decades of friendship and not even a slightest sense of disconnect. We may go months together without talking to each other, and every time even after a long gap, the conversation just flows as it was like we had spoken yesterday!

If not anything else, engineering has given each one of us the best bunch of buddies for a lifetime. Everytime I get a call from anyone from this bunch, I can hear Bryan Adams belt out, “You've Been A Friend To Me” in my ears, and my first word is always “Helo!” instead “Hello” :D

A[V]I

Note: I don’t intend to name the pseudo names I have given the characters in blog. I am sure, everyone who was a part of the bunch would identify the person……and to others….well, it doesn’t matter!

First Love, Second Tryst!

Having worked in a start-up firm for more than half a decade an important lesson I have learnt over the years, is whatever you do make it saleable! This lesson has become so-much second nature to me, that it inspired me to name this post such that it would lull some of the readers to click on this blog post, with the hope to read something spicy :) about my rendezvous with destiny!

Getting closer to mid-life brings forth a plethora of crisis scenarios which manifest itself in various forms. Bulging waist lines receding hair lines impossible deadlines lead to lot of horizontal lines on the fore head showing lot of evidence that age is catching up. Although these lines don’t cause havoc, before getting a horizontal line on the ECG machine, an urge to do lot of things just one more time pushes us back in age and makes us believe I am not that old to try this! Let me give this one a try and see how it goes. This “try” for me, has many activities in the bucket list like camping in a tropical rain forest, a wild river rafting, a tough trek (ok…not so tough may be…but a moderately tough trek), a “running all the way in a completed marathon”, experiencing paranormal activity, a competitive cricket match....to name a few. Being in an “organized industry” the managerial way to do this is to make a TODO list, put a deadline and knock off the easiest ones first! For a person who is neither organized nor has any managerial traits, destiny had to make the first move in presenting an opportunity to knock off these TODOs one by one :). So, it happened that a cricket tournament was announced in the organization I had recently joined, and somehow an invite to join the cricket practice popped up in the outlook e-mail. Teary eyed, when I was just about to think how pro-active the HR team was, in looking into the “hobbies” column of my employee record form to find out I play cricket and inform the concerned people in the business unit I work for, I remembered that I was constantly refreshing the cricbuzz app scorecard in my phone, during the very first project introduction meeting with the head of department. May be someone sitting next to me saw this endearing interest, and promptly updated the “concerned” about this concern of mine(about the cricket score) which I was more concerned about, rather than the project. I have to wait till my appraisal meeting to know the repercussions of this “concern”. Well that’s for an another day, but yes, coming back to the cricket practice invite, I was thrilled to know that I would be presented with another opportunity to knock off “the easiest “ item in my TODO list. How easy was this easiest…..? Read ON!

“Hi! Do you bat or bowl sir?”…. an easy full toss question probably 15 years back! But now? “I used to bat and bowl…”, I said hesitantly….not an encouraging answer from my end….so the captain popped the next question, “when did you last play, Sir?”…. when I looked skywards to come up with a number….the captain realized that I was probably going to say something in the range of multiple of decades, he blurted out “We need 11 guys Sir, and participation is important” :). That was more than encouragement. For a person who considered himself Wasim Akram of India, this was slap on the face. “I am a left arm bowler, fast J” I said. The captain smiled. “Every drunkard thinks he is rock steady after his drinking session” lines might have flashed in his mind. “OK sir, please bowl let us see!”. Time to mark the run up. I started walking with the ball in hand. “Sir where are you going?” shouted the guys from a distance. Oh no! everybody thought I was leaving the ground! Relax guys, that was my run up. Ok, people realized that this was in the Shoaib Akhtar range. Let me tailor it down a bit, I told myself. I don’t want to be panting even before reaching the bowling crease! The run up which ambitiously started off almost near the boundary line, ended up starting just behind the umpire. OK, Practice done, a left hand bowler is an automatic selection and since the pace was OKish, they thought I would be a good addition to the team. By the way, I batted much better than I bowled and they unearthed an unlikely pinch hitter in me. Opening the batting in never my cup of tea, I suggested. “Sir since you bat left handed, they will bowl wides to you and automatically it will be an advantage”. A right and left hand opening combination always works out great sir!” That worked out great only if the opening batsmen were ganguly and Tendulkar or jayasuriya and kaluvitharana. Except for the pruned moustache of ganguly and bald head of jayasuriya I had no semblance with either of them. I dint have enough logic to argue, and it was an opportunity for me..so I said OK and thought about crossing the bridge when it comes.

“You twisted your ankle?, oh no wait, I think you have a catch because you squealed while sitting….why you are not able to squat on the floor, standing up every minute as if you have cramps? You cant even lift your hands properly any problem with your shoulder? Why are you walking as if you are going to deliver a baby in the next half an hour? Whats the matter?” about half a dozen questions from my better half when I did the following actions: a. Remove my shoes b. Change to comfortable home dress.

“I got selected for cricket team and today was the first day of practice!”. Wife smiled. That night I smelt more like a bottle of amrutanjan, tiger balm and volini put in one. Alarm and wife snoozed at exactly the same time next morning and pushed me out to go for a jog. Felt better and this temporary morning ritual for the next few weeks converted me from a grounded lambretta to a “good to run for a day” old bajaj scooter :).

On the day of our first match, I was the first one to reach the ground. A center pitch with clearly marked inner ring and the boundary line….. a neatly watered pitch so that its not dusty, hmmm I was impressed. A 10 over a side match in a knock out tournament format. We lost the toss but were invited to bat first! The strategy for the first few overs was to keep out the good balls and score just ones and twos…..and if you are not panting for breath run the third as well… and punish the bad ones bowled at you. The emphasis was on quick singles which basically meant that you ensure you reach the other end. If your partner dint make it, bad luck. But don’t be so slow off your blocks that you would be shaking hands at the middle of the pitch giving the opportunity for the opponent team to “choose” whom to run out! So the partnership started very well…as per plan….we dint want to lose any wickets and we dint lose any in the first four overs. But one problem was the run rate was gavaskaresque. Few insects and flies had fallen prey to my tremendous bat swing, furious cover drives and wonderful pull shots, but the ball always landed in the wicket keepers hands. For a person who believed in hand eye co-ordination to send the ball to the orbit, the most important thing is that both the hands should have co-ordination first to make sure that the bat stays in the hand, because in my attempts to hit the ball out of the ground, the bat had left the hand thrice… narrowly missing the square leg umpire once, the wicket keeper once and bowler himself caught the bat once. To make the team members sitting in the stand feel that I failed to connect the ball, just that one time, I kicked the pitch, shouted expletives at myself and generally tried to look focussed and was worried about the test match like run rate. But when it became an every over ritual….the opponents found great benefit in having me at the crease than getting me out. When the first wicket did not fall even at the beginning of the 8th over, we decided we need go to into overdrive, which basically meant that even though we dint touch the ball, we just run, hoping that they run out either one of us. Now the immediate agenda for the both the teams changed completely. Ours was to get out and theirs was not to get us out. We achieved our agenda first J. In the remaining few deliveries, the other batsmen hit the ball with more frequency than we hit flies, so the result was a respectable target of 65 runs in 10 overs.

Defending this target is challenging enough for international bowlers, but not for non professional players like us, because the batsmen are also in the same league as the bowlers. Four of the opponents’ pot-bellied batsmen rolling like casks between the wickets were run out and few of their good batsmen hit the ball so accurately, that it landed right in the butterfingers of our fielders, who managed to latch onto the catches. So when an exciting finish was on the cards, their team discovered a Michael bevan in a broom stick wielding messiah whose main agenda was to make the pitch sparkling clean while batting. So he swept all the balls that were bowled at him so cleanly that the ground staff thought that he would cost them their jobs. As an addendum to his cleaning job, he ensured that he won the match for their team as well! Though a bit unhappy about the result of the match, I was mighty pleased that I got an opportunity to tick the easiest of the TODOs in my bucket list. For all my batting adventures, the captain who patted my back said, “Its ok sir, you stayed at the wicket throughout the innings, all that you needed was a bat with a wider blade. Do you play badminton as well :)???”

 
A[V]I

The Commitment

An electronics graduate by chance and a technical manager also by chance (a true Piscean to the core, all that I would love to do dream, drive and drink (oops I am teetotaler!!!) and get paid, if possible ;) for all this), I end up explaining concepts to my juniors who for all their experience, tend to get hazy in remembering fundamental concepts in electronics/embedded systems. The juniors whom I interact with, are not mint quality developers fresh from college, but are moderately experienced men with traces of white hair around the side of their head or with a crescent moon hairline on either side of their head, making the corner sites shine more in broad daylight or with men who reveal an ever increasing full moon when they bend their head! Heck, I am talking about married men, those who are in the initial phases of their wedded bliss! Now, this breed of people is often caught in the perfectly imbalanced position of having to balance romance, life and work in that order!  Often caught up in catch 22 situations wherein they may have to leave early from office to keep their dinner date promise with their loving wives, or work late so that their weekend is not eaten up by the stupid working-now-not-working-later code! To add to the existing misery, they have to handle that over enthusiastic fresher nerd who for all his bookish intelligence, cannot rake up the ideal piece of code, that “just gets the job done for now” or that beautiful damsel who for all her googling skills cannot come up with the appropriate keyword to look up for that piece of code on Google amidst all the tabs amongst Facebook, Twitter, Gmail etc.., or that ever whining software developer who raises the white flag at the drop of a hat waiting for the senior developer to come to his rescue, sitting in front of the monitor with the look on his face saying “You say, I type!!” 

I feel sorry for this phase of life of these individuals, who are neither here nor there in the hierarchy of authority; small enough to be bullied by manager and not big enough to bully fresh mint developers! Not that these guys are not smart but their perfectly pruned brains gather dust and some fundamental concepts start appearing hazy, and just when they appear to lose ground either in front of their bosses or in front of their junior, the carpet is swept right off their feet, making their life miserable. Not having time to brush up with the books, feeling squeamish to ask the junior, and not dare to ask the seniors they whine and worry in that whirlpool of constant confusion! Being a manager it is my first and foremost duty to weed out the cobwebs and provide clarity to my immediate juniors. Once this clarity is obtained, it proliferates down the hierarchy and we would be speaking of win- win situations all round, and yes, a perfectly balanced work-life (whatever it means to whomsoever it is concerned)

A page long prelude and I am still miles away from the actual topic of this post! A typical managerial attribute that I have picked up over the years :D. Anyway each one has a style of explaining concepts to people, and my way would be to give an example that would hit that sweet spot in the cerebellum and get what I am trying to explain in a jiffy! And it so happened that my immediate junior could not get the concept behind the contents from a datasheet of a micro controller and hence had trouble in getting that piece of code implemented from his juniors. Fearing that he would lose guard in front of his juniors he kept delaying the implementation until it started showing the red flag in the schedule. (All managers are familiar with that tiny red flag in that Microsoft project planner!!) So understanding his predicament I started the example.

Mr.Potato, I know you are married and hence will give you real life example that will instill this concept so firmly in your mind, that even after your death you can explain this concept to Lord Yama to get it implemented in his embedded system products, if he uses any! 

The day after your wedding, when you are soaked in the beautiful smile of your wife, in the over enthusiasm to start a conversation, assume that you make an inadvertent promise that you would take her to out for lunch and a movie the weekend you come back from your honeymoon. That happy endearing smile on your wife’s face would ensure that nothing would be able to stop you from keeping that commitment! When you actually go to a movie and treat her to the grandest lunch you can ever afford, she is all smiles and expectantly looks at you in your eyes! You don’t have a choice but to commit to the next movie and a lunch in a weeks’ time! So every time you go out to a movie the next weekend you must and should commit for the next weeks agenda! Whatever the agenda it may be, but commit you must! Be it a movie or a lunch, or that vacation you promised once every 3 months, you would not dare to skip the committed date, would you??  

Slowly I continued, now assume that due to office pressure, bowel pressure (remember, you ate like a pig during the team dinner on Friday evening) or some other pressure you miss that committed date and time, what would happen? She would be unhappy is all that he said, not revealing the repercussions what that missed commitment would have! Bigger the commitment bigger the repercussions! Mr Potato’s eye brows started to relax and the gleam in his eyes started giving me the confidence that he was getting the concept! His gleam had given way to a big smile revealing all his teeth, an indication that now he had got the entire concept; but not the one to accept that the example was in perfect correlation with concept, he retorted with a question! Why to commit when there are chances of failure? Better not commit at all, he tried to walk away with the verdict! To hell with the example I thought to myself, the concept was for a fail-safe feature to be implemented in the product, and this was only an example to use it. Fear of failure should not keep you away from commitments, I said! I have another example for that, but that would not suit this concept! Have you got the concept now? Yes yes, nodded Mr Potato! Please get this implemented before you forget about the concept and start thinking about the commitment! Sure sir! 

Next day, the WATCH DOG TIMER feature was successfully implemented in our product!!!

NERD INFO (Not so nerdy if you are into electronics/embedded systems): The WATCH DOG TIMER is a fail-safe mechanism used in embedded systems, which prevent the system from total lock up. They need to be fed with a value constantly at defined time intervals, failing which they reset the system :).  

A[V]I