Yes, it has been a very long time since I have updated this page. Lots of things happened in this span of 3 months. Heavy rains in Hyderabad, a trip to Delhi, a miserable salary hike, few good and a bad movie, a satisfying run, lots of driving, and the most important of all – shift in the project which is now taking up most of my day( and nights) with time left only to sleep. The last couple of weeks have been less hectic than the usual 13-16 hrs at office.
On 11th July this year, I completed 3 years in my company. 3 successful years in the renowned IT industry. I still remember the first day. We were a bunch of young kids freshly out of college walking into a big hall of a semi-constructed MKD office with dark leaky corridors. With ambitious dreams in our eyes and raw energy, we were raring to join the rat race along with scores of other rodents ;) When I look back at those 3 years now, I realised that it hasn’t been that bad after all. Though the initial one year wasn’t good with a perv-psycho for a manager, lots of dirty politics and plain shit work, the start of second year changed it all. A new project and an onsite assignment within 2 months was more than I had asked for. The next 15 months in Finland were one of the best days of my life – got to visit some amazing places, made very good friends, experienced extreme climates and divine natural beauty - Mother Nature in its purest form (which I am sure I won’t experience again). Working at MDP after coming back is now less frustrating :)
I recently had a first hand experience of the BPO industry when I visited Delhi to give training to a few call center people for some project requirement. Even they have strict norms to follow, even the have to undergo trainings before joining projects. I came across a few of them who are technically very sound and take extra effort to do background tech readings etc. But they have strict working hours which they don’t violate, unlike out flexible one which can range from 8 to 16 hrs. And one more thing I found is that they are usually loud people, maybe not all but most of them. A small cafeteria with hardly 10 people sounded like a fist market!!! And also this was the first time I visited the new Hyderabad International airport. Man, its just superb, amazing, sexy to say the least (I have a limited superlative vocabulary ;) ). It is of top international standards and no doubt the best we have in the country currently. It reminded me of the Helsinki Vantaa airport. The same cleanliness, the same silence, devoid of the maddening crowd generally found at an Indian airport. I just hope they maintain the quality in the long run.
Talking about Hyderabad, the traffic and road condition in the city is getting worst day by day. If the congress government comes into power again this time, I am sure the city will be back to the stone ages. Most of the roads in the city are in a bad state and the authorities are waiting for the monsoon to end to start the repair work. Luckily for them, the monsoon doesn’t want to go away that early this time. Most of the thook-polish patch work done gets eroded once it rains the next evening. Driving is becoming a pain in the wrong parts of the body. To get away from all this madness, I tried the MMTS for a few days. Man, it was peaceful. No pollution, no driving headache, no bad roads, no getting wet in the rain. But it has a very big problem. FREQUENCY!!! Like everything else planned by the government, the frequency of the MMTS trains is bad. No, it is outright UGLY. 1 train every hour from morning 5 to evening 9 - simple. No peak hour considerations, no lean hour considerations. 1 train every 1 hour. Its somewhat similar to the Madhapur traffic polices idea of regulating traffic flow - 10 mins of red lights and 10 mins of green lights. So if I miss the 8.10 am train, I have to wait for the 9.20 train. (oh, thats 70 mins isn’t it). So I reach office at 10.45 thanks to the brilliant idea of some nuthead to have the Hi-tech city station 4 kms away from the place it is named after. I struggled to get up early and catch the 8.10 train and reach office by 9.30 for a month (or was that only 20 days). Since healthy habits don’t stick on for much long, the routine of getting up early was soon lost in oblivion. So I was back to getting up late at 7.30 and 8 and back to the old, dusty, bumpy, muddy, chaotic roads. I wish to return back to the smooth railway tracks soon– maybe from the beginning of next month when I go get my monthly train pass renewed again :)
When the talk is about modes of travel, I could not resist from mentioning that my baby touched the 30,000 mark on its odo this month even before its 3rd birthday. Look at her, doesn’t she still look young?
On 11th July this year, I completed 3 years in my company. 3 successful years in the renowned IT industry. I still remember the first day. We were a bunch of young kids freshly out of college walking into a big hall of a semi-constructed MKD office with dark leaky corridors. With ambitious dreams in our eyes and raw energy, we were raring to join the rat race along with scores of other rodents ;) When I look back at those 3 years now, I realised that it hasn’t been that bad after all. Though the initial one year wasn’t good with a perv-psycho for a manager, lots of dirty politics and plain shit work, the start of second year changed it all. A new project and an onsite assignment within 2 months was more than I had asked for. The next 15 months in Finland were one of the best days of my life – got to visit some amazing places, made very good friends, experienced extreme climates and divine natural beauty - Mother Nature in its purest form (which I am sure I won’t experience again). Working at MDP after coming back is now less frustrating :)
I recently had a first hand experience of the BPO industry when I visited Delhi to give training to a few call center people for some project requirement. Even they have strict norms to follow, even the have to undergo trainings before joining projects. I came across a few of them who are technically very sound and take extra effort to do background tech readings etc. But they have strict working hours which they don’t violate, unlike out flexible one which can range from 8 to 16 hrs. And one more thing I found is that they are usually loud people, maybe not all but most of them. A small cafeteria with hardly 10 people sounded like a fist market!!! And also this was the first time I visited the new Hyderabad International airport. Man, its just superb, amazing, sexy to say the least (I have a limited superlative vocabulary ;) ). It is of top international standards and no doubt the best we have in the country currently. It reminded me of the Helsinki Vantaa airport. The same cleanliness, the same silence, devoid of the maddening crowd generally found at an Indian airport. I just hope they maintain the quality in the long run.
Talking about Hyderabad, the traffic and road condition in the city is getting worst day by day. If the congress government comes into power again this time, I am sure the city will be back to the stone ages. Most of the roads in the city are in a bad state and the authorities are waiting for the monsoon to end to start the repair work. Luckily for them, the monsoon doesn’t want to go away that early this time. Most of the thook-polish patch work done gets eroded once it rains the next evening. Driving is becoming a pain in the wrong parts of the body. To get away from all this madness, I tried the MMTS for a few days. Man, it was peaceful. No pollution, no driving headache, no bad roads, no getting wet in the rain. But it has a very big problem. FREQUENCY!!! Like everything else planned by the government, the frequency of the MMTS trains is bad. No, it is outright UGLY. 1 train every hour from morning 5 to evening 9 - simple. No peak hour considerations, no lean hour considerations. 1 train every 1 hour. Its somewhat similar to the Madhapur traffic polices idea of regulating traffic flow - 10 mins of red lights and 10 mins of green lights. So if I miss the 8.10 am train, I have to wait for the 9.20 train. (oh, thats 70 mins isn’t it). So I reach office at 10.45 thanks to the brilliant idea of some nuthead to have the Hi-tech city station 4 kms away from the place it is named after. I struggled to get up early and catch the 8.10 train and reach office by 9.30 for a month (or was that only 20 days). Since healthy habits don’t stick on for much long, the routine of getting up early was soon lost in oblivion. So I was back to getting up late at 7.30 and 8 and back to the old, dusty, bumpy, muddy, chaotic roads. I wish to return back to the smooth railway tracks soon– maybe from the beginning of next month when I go get my monthly train pass renewed again :)
When the talk is about modes of travel, I could not resist from mentioning that my baby touched the 30,000 mark on its odo this month even before its 3rd birthday. Look at her, doesn’t she still look young?
I still find her beautiful in a crowded parking lot and she rides like a dream, smooth and silent (I should admin it isn’t as silent as it was when it was new, but silent when compared to other junk out there on the roads). The first time I spotted a Unicorn was in my college parking lot - a blazing red one with aftermarket bullet-hole stickers on the tank which looked very real, I just loved it. I knew I had to own that bike. My college parking lot was THE place to spot new 2 wheelers in the market and I am sure the red one was one of the firsts in the city. But then, I had to wait for more than a year to get the purchasing power to buy it (though I was still short of 4K for the auto start model and had to opt for the kick start – sounds so silly now). It was Pal’s birthday on 7th October. I slipped off from office in the afternoon. Mom and dad were away in Delhi for 3 months and I was staying alone then. I packed all the cash in a blue shoulder bag and after 30 mins, I was the proud owner of the blue babe – (now don’t ask me why I chose that odd colour, maybe Nanda Krishna can answer that ;). I went back to office that evening. It was Dandia night. We had a blast in the MDP lawns.
I was always fascinated by automobiles since I was a kid, so my senses automatically get attracted towards them. There are so many things which happen naturally to me even if I don’t make any conscious effort – like I get excited every time I drive a car model for the first time, my head starts guessing the bike model listening to its engine note, it tries to guess the car model while staring into the headlight beam, getting goose bumps every time I listen to a V8 roar etc. I am somehow more attracted to the classics - real metal, chrome and mechanics than to fibreglass plastics and microprocessor controllers. I am the kind who loves the sound and smell of the blue exhaust of a 2 stroker, whose heart skips a beat at the sight of a blue & black RXZ (with front disks), who would pay to ride a Shogun today (I was a schoolboy during the gun’s glory days, so never got to ride one. It had a tacho in those days !!!!!!), who enjoy the pull of a RX100 in 3rd gear, who likes to listen and read about the legendary RD350 (and still desperately finding an opportunity to drive one), who loves and respect the good old diesel Ambassador (my childhood dream of driving an ambassador is still not fulfilled though it came close when I drove my uncles Contessa Classic recently – another beauty of a car). I know it sounds silly to all the people who are not really tuned on to that frequency. But I am sure there are also others out there of the same tribe who are nodding their heads and smiling at themselves reading the above lines. The kind of people who have reached such stages in driving (pleasure/hysteria!!!!) where they become one with the machine – like the nerves and arteries extend into the steel of the bike and it becomes an extension of the body– when they don’t have to make any conscious efforts to drive the machine, just like you don’t when you walk or run.
OK, I am getting a little carried away now. The above paragraph was not there in my head when I sat down writing this blog. Maybe because its 2 am on a Saturday morning and I am sweating even though I have a blocked nose and a bad cold from the past 2 days. I don’t even want to read those lines again lest I end up deleting them :)
I was always fascinated by automobiles since I was a kid, so my senses automatically get attracted towards them. There are so many things which happen naturally to me even if I don’t make any conscious effort – like I get excited every time I drive a car model for the first time, my head starts guessing the bike model listening to its engine note, it tries to guess the car model while staring into the headlight beam, getting goose bumps every time I listen to a V8 roar etc. I am somehow more attracted to the classics - real metal, chrome and mechanics than to fibreglass plastics and microprocessor controllers. I am the kind who loves the sound and smell of the blue exhaust of a 2 stroker, whose heart skips a beat at the sight of a blue & black RXZ (with front disks), who would pay to ride a Shogun today (I was a schoolboy during the gun’s glory days, so never got to ride one. It had a tacho in those days !!!!!!), who enjoy the pull of a RX100 in 3rd gear, who likes to listen and read about the legendary RD350 (and still desperately finding an opportunity to drive one), who loves and respect the good old diesel Ambassador (my childhood dream of driving an ambassador is still not fulfilled though it came close when I drove my uncles Contessa Classic recently – another beauty of a car). I know it sounds silly to all the people who are not really tuned on to that frequency. But I am sure there are also others out there of the same tribe who are nodding their heads and smiling at themselves reading the above lines. The kind of people who have reached such stages in driving (pleasure/hysteria!!!!) where they become one with the machine – like the nerves and arteries extend into the steel of the bike and it becomes an extension of the body– when they don’t have to make any conscious efforts to drive the machine, just like you don’t when you walk or run.
OK, I am getting a little carried away now. The above paragraph was not there in my head when I sat down writing this blog. Maybe because its 2 am on a Saturday morning and I am sweating even though I have a blocked nose and a bad cold from the past 2 days. I don’t even want to read those lines again lest I end up deleting them :)
But life nowadays is so practical – I drive a soft sounding 4 stroker with a butter slab of an engine & gear box and a 1300 CC petrol hatchback with so much electricals that the doors & windows cannot be opened from inside without having the micro-chip embedded key inside the keyhole.
Ok, just one last paragraph on this topic – the Big Y’s new FZ16 is amazing. I saw the ad on the TV today evening. They boys at Yam are back, back with a bang (read R15 & now this), back to where they belong, back to ruling the roads again. For 65 grand, it’s a steal man!! (Idly bhai, this is the one for you. Please don’t delay much). And finally, the biking scene in India is hotting up. Just have to wait and watch for the response from the stables of Bajaj and the mighty Honda. I am rubbing my hands in glee. Maybe its time to sell off my blue one horned mythical creature and go for this blazing red Y beast :)
Now finally a change of topic. Many road trips coming up in the near future; at least planned for now :) - the first one being to Kuntala waterfalls next weekend. Hopefully I will recover from this cold and fever by then. There is another one planned to Nagarjuna Sagar but not yet finalized. I also plan to visit Bangalore sometime soon just for fun and to meet up with friends. Hyderabad is getting boring lately ;)
Movies Covered:
Ready (telugu) – Good and a timepass movie. Still running successfully at Shanti Narayanguda even after 3 months.
Singh is Kinng – Utter Crap. The most overhyped movie of recent times. Walked away 30 mins before the movie got over.
The Dark Knight – Good. I went with lots of expectations after seeing it overthrow The Godfather from the top slot on the IMB list. It wasn’t bad but wasn’t that great either.
Rock On – The movie was worth all the media hype unlike Singh is Kinng. The songs are not that great but the movie on the whole, the story, the acting, the theme is amazing – a good Hindi movie after a really long time.
Waiting for The Righteous Kill to hit the theatres – capturing two Gods in a single frame happens only once a decade.
Here are a few nice pic to sign off with. They were taken on an early December morning at Stockholm - “Facing the Baltic” theme. I have so many of them. The first one is under a very very big Christmas tree (which is visible at the top right corner) and the second pic is of one of the many boats and ferries lined along the Stockholm’s long sea-front. I still regret not visiting this beautiful city a second time :(
Now finally a change of topic. Many road trips coming up in the near future; at least planned for now :) - the first one being to Kuntala waterfalls next weekend. Hopefully I will recover from this cold and fever by then. There is another one planned to Nagarjuna Sagar but not yet finalized. I also plan to visit Bangalore sometime soon just for fun and to meet up with friends. Hyderabad is getting boring lately ;)
Movies Covered:
Ready (telugu) – Good and a timepass movie. Still running successfully at Shanti Narayanguda even after 3 months.
Singh is Kinng – Utter Crap. The most overhyped movie of recent times. Walked away 30 mins before the movie got over.
The Dark Knight – Good. I went with lots of expectations after seeing it overthrow The Godfather from the top slot on the IMB list. It wasn’t bad but wasn’t that great either.
Rock On – The movie was worth all the media hype unlike Singh is Kinng. The songs are not that great but the movie on the whole, the story, the acting, the theme is amazing – a good Hindi movie after a really long time.
Waiting for The Righteous Kill to hit the theatres – capturing two Gods in a single frame happens only once a decade.
Here are a few nice pic to sign off with. They were taken on an early December morning at Stockholm - “Facing the Baltic” theme. I have so many of them. The first one is under a very very big Christmas tree (which is visible at the top right corner) and the second pic is of one of the many boats and ferries lined along the Stockholm’s long sea-front. I still regret not visiting this beautiful city a second time :(
Phew, it ended up on a completely different note than what it began with. I am sure I have bored most of my regular audiences with all the motor-crap. Hopefully the next post will be a travel log with some nice waterfall and green landscape pics.
Flowerpot will be satisfied with this post. She has been pestering/threatening/demanding me to update my blog nearly every time we talk :)
Ciao
~NK
4 comments:
awesome post mate!!!!!
Talking about finnish people & hyderabad climate. My finnish clients wanted to feel the peak summer of hyderabad. They wanted to get tanned!!!. They said hyderabad's a pretty crowded place & animals running wildly on roads. Yes, its common for us, but they have seen animals in zoo only.
yeah, 3 years on, we have learned how to dodge those damagers now :), though they always have the upper hand.
MAN bikes...... yamaha has a hot head runner now. start saving moolah for the next yamaha. Check out the yamaha's MT bike on their indian website.
Ahh you are perfect automobile enthusiast, even loving the roaring sound of rx-100 is like music to ears.
keep the good work err post ;)
Nice Blog!!!
bro nice blog........
inspiring me toooo
to write a blog ...... but i think i need some lessons from you before i start
nice post, well written :)
get well soon !
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