Moving to India back from US

It feels weird starting blogging again in the new era of Tweets and LinkedIn/Medium posts.

The topic that I chose after all these years is something I have personally experienced and yet is not so common.

Me and my family recently relocated back to India from US. Wanted to share some insights around the key things that anyone should do before leaving the US. In fact most of the points below applies to people living in US as well.

There are tons of these to-do lists out there that tell you about more common stuff like, closing subscriptions, things to purchase etc. I am not going to go over the usual but will cover some of the not so common stuff which I realized a bit late.

1. Get a living trust done for your family. 
1. Add the right people as trustees and legal guardians for your kids.
2. Assign your assets to the trust where ever possible or add trust as beneficiary if applicable.
2. Get a term life insurance for 30 years to hedge against your home loan. This should usually add a premium of about a hundred or two hundred dollars to your monthly EMI. In the long term this extra few dollars will not amount to much but will give you the guarantee that your home will not need to be sold in case something happens to you. Bank will not transfer the loan to anyone else. They will require you to pay off the loan which your trustee can do with the term insurance.
3. Place credit freeze on all 3 credit bureaus for everyone in your family including any minor kids.
1. It will protect yourselves while you are out of the country and you can unfreeze it in seconds if needed.
2. Your kids can unfreeze the credit freeze themselves when they turn 18. Placing credit freeze for minor kids requires you to follow a different offline process for each credit bureau.

Survival Instinct: The act of acting without thinking

Today was our college reunion day (not the official one but just few of my college buddies only) and I had come all the way from Hyderabad to Bangalore for this and was so looking forward to meeting them all. The itinerary for the day was for all of us to meet at the Gopalan Arcade mall (which recently got opened near our alma mater) and then go to the nearby less known dam after lunch to catch a good natation.

You are wondering why I am telling you all this, well the important part of this story and the main theme of this post is what happened while we were there swimming.

The water was looking very inviting from the beginning and when we entered the water it was pretty warm and not as cold as we had expected it to be. We immediately started having fun and I started swimming in my usual coarse, uncouth style, splashing water everywhere as I swam. Inspite of that I was the still the second best swimmer in our group (Harsha being better than me because he could swim with backstroke and others not being able to swim at all :) ). Anyways, as I started swimming, with each yard I covered, I became more bold (not confident but bold because I was already confident that I could swim a little :) ). Now, after swimming for 1 or 2 laps and having assessed that the water level around the area where we were swimming wasn't too deep, I decided to swim for a longer distance. Please keep in mind that I was not aiming at swimming towards the center of the river but only in the horizontal direction i.e. along the shoreline. So, here I am swimming and swimming, continuously, full of confidence, with all eyes on me (inherently myself assuming that the depth is same as it was when I started) and then suddenly the unexpected happens.

I try to stop and I am not able to get a foot hold. My head goes inside the water as soon as I stop and I realise I am in a much deeper water than I had thought I was in.

It is difficult to explain everything that I felt at that moment but trying to just rethink that moment sends a chill up my spine. I think, at that moment my brain switched from the usual voluntary mode to the involuntary mode and there was no more logical thinking, no more planning or scolding... there was only one thing on my brain and that was to decide what needed to be done next to avoid the otherwise inevitable...

It was in the SURVIVAL INSTINCT mode.

All of a sudden, I have this the immense force from within which makes me swim (not tell me or ask me... because I have long stopped thinking, I am just acting now) with all my strength towards the shore.

"You are not thinking, you are just pushing and pushing with both your legs and arms, as fast as you can with as much force you can muster because you don't know... you don't know if you have crossed the danger zone or not. It is sheer panic that grips you."

I finally raise my head and realize that I am now close to the shore and decide to stop. When I do stop and get my feet on the ground, I... I just sit down, with my heart still thundering, my whole body vibrating, not having realised yet that what I had just faced was the fear of death.. and its consequent reaction from myside, the SURVIVAL INSTINCT.

PS: I was fine after 2 mins, calmed down and was back to swimming on the safer side of the river :).

Life at Microsoft

Hm... Its been long time since I blogged about anything after getting into Microsoft. There isn't going to be any technical stuff in this post, sorry about that ( maybe later.. :) ). When I started for this post I didn't have a topic to write about but all of a sudden I have so much to talk about that I think I can write a novel out of it.

Anyway, something I really wanted to say for a long time is that, moving to Hyderabad, getting to know all these people (both professionally and otherwise), making some of my best friends here, working with some of the best people (I mean people not minds, although they are still some of the best minds I have seen) has been by far one of the best things that has ever happened to me till date.

I feel like blogging about more things now, will update with more things happening here and also some technical stuff if I can get hold of any :).

I have this habit of typing "Thanks, Anand B" at the end of every message that I type nowadays, something that I have picked up with writing all those mails at Microsoft :)

Till then, sayonara friends.

Configuring linksys router with sify broadband or bsnl connection

I have chosen sify and bsnl because one is dsl and other adsl. So, you can follow similar steps if you have any other broadband connection.

For bsnl connection -

Prerequisites :

1. You need to have working bsnl connection with an adsl modem i.e. the connection will be something like this, PC <---> ADSL modem <---> BSNL connection.

Steps you need to take to configure the router :

1. First note your ip and default gateway address.
2. Next reset your ip and dns info ( in windows you can do this by selecting the option get ip address automatically, instead of manually entering the ip addresses ).
3. Now disconnect your pc from the adsl modem.
4. Connect your pc to the router i.e. one of the four lan ports ( not the blue port ) of the router.
5. now type http://192.168.1.1 in your browser. Goto setup and set the configuration of router to static ip ( you will have three options dhcp, static ip or pppoe ).
6. There you will have two parts, internet setup and network setup. Internet setup is the config between router and adsl modem, whereas the network setup is the config between router and pc. For your pc, router is the default gateway and for your router, adsl modem is the default gateway.
7. In the internet setup part, set the ip, subnet mask, default gateway and your dns addresses to the original configuration which you were using in your pc with only the adsl modem.
8. Now go to the network setup part and set your ip as some other subnet other than the internet ip you just set. In my case the internet ip is 192.168.1.38 and my local ip address is 192.168.2.1 - notice that they are in different subnets, since subnet mask is 255.255.255.0 - you will need to make changes accordingly. By default you will have your local ip address set to 192.168.1.1 but since your adsl modem has that as its address you can't set the same address to this and thus you need to change it to 192.168.2.1. Now your pc, phone or laptops will get the address of the form 192.168.2.xx
9. Now connect your router's blue port to your adsl modem.
10. Now enable dhcp in your router ( it usually will be enabled by default ). If you don't enable WEP, it will crib for the first time. So, configure it.
11. Thats it you have now setup a local lan. I am using my ip phone, my pc and my laptop simultaneously.

Sify Broadband -

Prerequisites :

1. You will need to have a working connection of sify ( the network cable ) given by them and the connection using the client should be working properly.

Steps to setup the router :

1. you will take the same steps as before i.e first note your ip, gateway, dns addresses.
2. next remove all your existing ip config of your pc.
3. Now connect your router to your pc.
4. All the steps are same, you select static ip and configure the network and internet parts. If the ip given to you by sify is of the form 10.xx.xx.xx then you don't need to change anything on the local ip address part of the router.
5. In the static ip configuration page of your router there will be an option called PPPoE passthrough. It will be disabled by default, you need to enable it.
6. Next connect the sify cable to the blue port of your router and pc to any one of the 4 lan ports.
7. Now run the sify client from the pc and connect to the internet. You are now up and running.
8. Wait forgot to tell you the main part, in sify they bind the username and password with your mac address, so you got to call your sify provider and tell him to change the mac address from your pc to that of your router.
9. If you login to your account using the client from your pc, you will be able to connect to internet without any hassles from other devices connected throught the router i.e. the ip phone, or laptops etc.

If you feel that anything more can be added to this please leave a comment. Hope this helps.

Quotes from the movie Kungfu Panda

Here are some of the best quotes from the movie,

1. There are no accidents.
2. One often meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it
3. Mind is like the water, when it is agitated it becomes difficult to see but if you allow it to settle the answer becomes clear...
4. There is just news, there is no good or bad news.
5. There is no secret ingredient, you only need to believe...
   
6. A real warrior never quits.
   

I liked the first two the most. Lots of meaning in them....

Live in the moment.....

I have heard that to see a change (from your normal mundane routine) in your life, something huge has to come your way. Well I have felt this urge to live my life to the fullest after what happened to me today and I would like to share my experience with you all.

Today was like just any other day and my friend Rakshitha calls up and tells me that we both and her friend shall go to college in her new car ( Alto - I think it was her birthday gift, anyway ) and collect the hall tickets. She was really excited to show her new car and I was skeptical at first but then thought what the heck and agreed to go to college with her.

Well... we go to college get the hall tickets, talk to few friends there and leave for back home and while coming back.... wait before you read ahead I need to tell you how we were seated in the car so that you get the whole picture. As you all know it is right side steering in cars sold in India, anyway rakshitha was driving and Rahul Bhuptani ( her project partner ) was seated beside her and I was seated exactly behind her in the back - the right rear door is just to my right and there is no one to my left. Now, where was I... ya, so we left college and as we neared Nayandhalli signal she tried going past a truck by overtaking from the left ( which is not legal by the way according to traffic rules here ) or maybe the truck was going to right, anyway as we went past the truck, the left front wheel of the truck came within inches of the rear right door of the car i.e. next to my window. I am sitting there looking at the mud guard (front left) of the truck and thinking... "should I wear the seat belts.... ?", well then thought that she knew what she was doing and thought otherwise and started enjoying the music. Later as we reached Vijayanagar she was trying to overtake some BCC truck and he kept on blocking her, so she tried to grab the first opportunity she got and she tried to overtake from the left but in the hurry she didn't notice the rear side of the car....

The main idea of this entry is for you to imagine what happened so I will paint you a much better picture. The truck is on the right side of the road and our car on the left side and she is trying to over take the truck from left side and change the track to the right side. She has crossed only half way and without realising started steering to the right. I am sitting there looking at the left front wheel ( actually it was the black mud guard ) coming really close to the door i.e. towards me. I am sitting there looking at the truck's wheel, thinking "should i tell her to move left" and before I could say anything she rams the car to the truck i.e. the door beside me. Man.... I have never seen or experienced anything like that in a long long... time. I am looking at the wheel and it jams straight at me ( car's rear right door ) and that is the not the end of it, she starts panicking and starts moving the car towards the truck instead of going away from it, well rahul took the wheel and pulled the car to left and parked it. We then went out to check the door - well the door was pumelled in and she had to take the car for replacing her door later on and luckily no one was hurt.

Well... this was the second time I have experienced anything like that and I don't want it to be ever forgotten and that is why I am writing it down here. Anyway the main idea of me blogging was to tell you about how I felt after this incident. Interestingly I wasn't scared or panicky but was really excited and happy. I was excited because it was something different from the mundane life and happy because I will never be able to have such a close experience and live to tell the story another day, not even if I want to have such an experience.

After that I have realized the meaning of the phrase "Live in the moment" i.e. you never know what is in store for you when you leave your home, so live your life as if there is no tomorrow :-)

I know it feels kind of cliche when you hear it but the realization behind it is something everyone has to have once in life and the sooner the better :).

Living in the future

I have been living in the future for a long time now. What I mean to say is that I have been living with my dreams for a long time. You know... everything like, learning to play guitar, learning how to swim, having a pet dog etc. Every time I come close to doing any of this, I just will postpone it for the future, so I have been living with the hope that one day in future, I will be able to do all this and more.

I have tried many times to make this work but I have never been able to make this future of mine to become the present but I will never give up, one day i will have a pet dog no matter what( maybe after I become a software engineer and have our own house etc etc ), one day I will learn to play a guitar and some day I will do all those crazy things that I have always wanted to do.

I think the reason why my future can't become my present is that I am making the wrong choices, taking decisions which only take me far off from my future. If I want all those things to become my present then I need to make time for them and that means prioritizing things. So, you see we came to the first point again and when we prioritize we start thinking of future ( of yours and your family ), your work, your life in the long run and have to give up some of the recreation and stuff in life and this means that all those dreams of mine will be dreams for ever.

The biggest question mark facing everyone is "life", so lets see where it will take me and how things will go for me.

Me, My life and My brother

I am blogging after a long time. This time i want to talk about the greatest gift my life has given me - my brother. Before I tell you more about my brother, let me tell you something about my life and how it got influenced and continues to be influenced by him.

I chose PCMB in my PUC because my brother told me to do so.
I joined Shastry Tuitions because of my brother.
I covered java and cleared SCJP before my engineering because my brother told me to do so.
I chose computer science branch because of my brother.
I joined RV college because of my brother.
I went to fests, participated in programming contests because he told me to do so.

Not only this, every decision in my life, no matter how small or how big, has been taken after consulting with my brother. Me trying for MS, joining Microsoft, giving interview for Google; everything is because of my brother.

He has been there whenever i need him no matter how busy, how difficult it is for him. You see... every step of my life has my brother guiding me through it and I can't even imagine what would happen if he were not there for me.

When it was decided that he has to go to US, I felt that i would lose him but I have never felt him away from me even for one day. We only talk over phone now but I can still sense the same care, same anxiety, same love whenever I hear his voice over phone.

I don't pray to God for anything for me because he has given me everything in the form of my brother and my parents. This post is never ending and the above list will keep growing but I lack words to describe his love.

Will write more when I feel like writing. That's all for now folks...

Downloading rpm packages using yum - part II

Once you have done the steps mentioned in my previous post then you are one step ahead of collecting all the packages you need to install the application on some other system.

But the problem is the sub-folders under the cachedir will contain previously download packages too and you have to manually separate out those downloaded in the previous yum install or update which is very tedious. I wrote a shell script to do just the job we need but it is not modeled to handle error conditions, so here are the steps you need to follow,

1. first of all it is used to install a package and not update, if you want to update a package and get all this done from the script then you need to change the command in script from "yum install $1" to "yum update $1".
   
2. say you want to download the xchm viewer for your system
   
3. you first type the command "yum install xchm"
4. it will search for dependencies and take you to a prompt saying you want to download it or not, say no. If you get any other response from yum like saying "Nothing to do" then don't proceed any further.
5. now execute the script with xchm as the argument, i.e. "./yum.sh xchm". It won't ask you this time if you want to download the packages or not.
6. It will create a tar ball of all the packages downloaded and will place it in your home directory.

It is a very simple, unsophisticated maybe inefficient script but I don't think we will be using it for mission critical purposes :) . Download the script here.

PS: Remember this always, it is need which drives innovation.

How to download rpm packages using yum

Yellowdog Updater Modified [ yum ] is used to download and install packages from various repositories. The main advantage of yum is that you can keep track of packages installed and update them as and when necessary. There are a lot of things you can do using yum like auto configuring the update operation, downloading packages from specific repositories, etc. I won't be delving into all that in this post.

Here I will tell a very simple yet one of the most sought after tasks that you can do using yum, i.e. to download and store the packages needed (including the dependencies ) so that you needn't have to download all the packages again if you want to do another local install of the same package.

It is very simple actually, all you need to do is change an entry in the /etc/yum.conf file. You need to set the keepcache entry to 1 i.e. your yum.conf file should look something like this after you have changed it,
[main]
cachedir=/var/cache/yum
keepcache=1
debuglevel=2
....
....

if keepcache is set to one then the packages downloaded will not be deleted after install, they will be placed in sub-folders under the cachedir i.e. /var/cache/yum in this case.

you might want to look at this post too - Downloading rpm packages using yum - part II

Linux over Windows - A callow developer's choice

I have been thinking about this for some time now. What will be my answer if someone asks me why did I join Novell, why do I pride about it and for knowing about Solaris (maybe not so much but still... ), for being associated with a company like Sun which is supporting open source with such vigor these days.

I am no expert or any kind of an authoritative person in Linux to fill this post up with so much technicalities that it becomes evident that I must like Linux very much to have spent so much time with it. My view is of a callow, I have been using windows from the time I can remember of having a computer in my room and I have been introduced to Linux only say for the last 2 or 3 years. What is it then that makes me like Linux so much ?

Have you ever taken up Microsoft Certification ? Well, I haven't but my guess is you would have to know quite a lot about various Windows based tools like Windows Server, Visual Studio etc etc. Lets say you did learn all that, now do you feel as if you own it, as if it belongs to you, as if you are the king of the OS ? No, it doesn't feel so. You feel as if you are cooperating with something or someone to get your job done.

Lets have a look at Linux, when you sit in front of the Linux command prompt based terminal and type away commands, being pleased with yourself and of course impressing yourself that you can do what an "expert in Linux" can do. You feel it is yours, it belongs to you, it will obey your commands; as if you "rule" it. All this because it is open source.

This is just my opinion as to why I like Linux so much over windows, that too in such a short time. Maybe this is the reason why so many developers opt for Linux over Windows but instead of accepting that Linux is good they besmirch Windows and gloat at it.

Another Extraordinary Common man - Abhishek Kumar Sinha

First time you look at this guy you will describe him to be reticent but look closely and you will notice that he perspicacious too. By just looking at him you will notice that he is an IIT product ( to be precise - an aspirant ) but unlike most IITians he has virtues lacking in most human beings.

If you get more acquainted with him you will realize that he is at least 10 to 15 years elder (not in literal sense though ) when compared to others of his own peer, seeing the way he thinks or acts in various situations. One of his greatest virtues, is being calm even in most difficult situations and my guess is that life itself taught him to be the best of it. He is a consummate survivor and has been through stuff ( hurdles ) which we keep seeing our heroes in typical hindi movies go through, most interesting thing is that he "wins" in the end just like the hero in the movies we watch. If you are fair, like to pick up challenges, solve puzzles and of course need some space from others, willing to reciprocate too in the same sense then you will like him at first sight ( contact ). He is always focussed unlike most of us who keep living in dreams and enjoying most of the time. Keeping all these aside I like him most for his modest and honest nature, I keep turning to him whenever I need an honest advice on some thing and I am really happy... no proud to say that he is my friend.

I am not a veteran writer so please forgive the lack of emotion ( if any ) which I wanted to add to this epitome of the biography of my friend.
[PS: took the photo from his orkut album]

EggClock - A countdown timer

It has been a long time since I have blogged about anything. There is a lot going on presently in my life, my placements has started, I am doing a project, preparing for GRE. Things apart, I still blog and will continue to blog.

From the moment I won my Nokia N70 till now I have never felt any feature lacking in my mobile. Earlier today when I tried to set a countdown timer in my mobile, I couldn't find one. After trying for some time I felt that I was missing something and searched in google for help. There was the biggest shock, the mobile with all these features does not include a very essential personal management software namely, Countdown timer.

I searched in net for a long time till I found the necessary software. It is called EggClock. If you google for that name you will find it. Anyway here is the link,
http://freenet-homepage.de/hskopp/eggclock.html

It is a niece piece of software, short, simple and meets the requirements (Atleast for me).

Chickamaglur Trip

Me and four of my classmates had been to chickmaglur last week for a two day trip. We had a whole lot of fun and since this was my first "legal" trip it was more special for me. It was all Harsha Valaturu's idea from the beginning. My relatives stay in Chickmaglur, So we had asked them to book us a nice hotel for staying and hire a taxi/vehicle for the trip. By the time we went there everything was setup and we didn't have any problems at all.

First day we went to Kemmangundi, Kallathgiri , Baba Budangiri, Bhadra Dam. We first went to Baba Budangiri where we saw the water falls ( Manikya Dhara )



Saw some nice sceneries there,





next we went to the famous Baba budangiri cave. From there we went to kemmangundi where we didn't find anything interesting other than some flowers and see-saws.



Our next stop was Kalatgiri which was the highlight of the day. Here there is a temple in front of which we have a waterfall ( small one ) we climbed up over the falls to explore more. It was kind of our first trekkin experience so everyone liked it the most.







Then we went to some mess in Tarikere where we had our lunch ; the food was nice there. Our next stop was Bhadra dam, since the dam was closed for visitors we didn't get to see much there. Apart from that we got see the water near the dam , take some pictures and we wounded up for the day.





Back at our rooms we watched Prison Break series just to kill time. I forgot to tell you that we contacted our friend Manoj Kumar who has an estate in chickamagalur and was present there for vacation. He had come to our room that night and we had a lot of fun.

Next day started with many promises, we first went to Manoj's estate,





from there we went to Muthodi forest with a lot of expectations. We went there at 12 noon but they said that we would be allowed to go in only at 4:30 pm. Since we had nothing to do there we climbed down the slope by the road to the stream flowing below.





Me and adarsh were the ones pioneering there. Others just were apprehensive as to what would happen and stuff. Anyway it was our best experience of the day - i should say.



While climbing up we took a different route and we couldn't locate the road beside the stream, so a lot of anxiety was there as to what has to be done next. Up from there we did remove our shirts to free it from the thorns and sticks stuck to it due to our trekking while coming back from the stream.



The worst part of the day was our tour inside the muthodi forest, all we got to see there was some deers, elephant droppings and ofcourse some monkeys. Above all we paid around 400 Rs for that ( what a waste of money ).








Anyway from there we went straight to our rooms and again watched half episode of prison break, packed our things and left the same night with Manoj Kumar.

The rest of the pictures are here PicasaWeb Album.

This was our first trip by ourselves and after this we have madeup our mind to have more of such trips in the future.

Induction Programme at Sun

Just after my exams we had this induction program scheduled at Sun Microsystems Office at Divyashree Chambers. Campus Ambassadors from all over India attended this program.

It was a great experience for me since i got to make many new friends. There were presentations , demos conducted during both the days by highly specialized programmers working at Sun. It was a great experience to learn from the actual developers of the various products. Above all this i came to know how it feels to be an IT professional.

We also had a tour of the Sun Microsystems Office ; their labs, support and services department etc. It was great to see the servers ( Niagara ) running with my own eyes.

Apart from all these it was also the valuable information imparted to us during demos about Solaris, NetBeans which are driving me to learn more about them.

We as Sun Campus Ambassadors get a lot of free resources, study materials etc. We also get paid 8000/- per month. Our job is to see that more and more students know about solaris, netbeans and other Sun products and also start using it ( don't forget i am the "ambassador" of Sun ).

I plan to provide my fellow students, faculty with many opportunities and benefits like,

1. Getting a lot of study materials for our college by enrolling our college for the SAI.
2. Obtaining discounts for students who wish to take up certification and also provide them with required learning materials.
3. Getting them guidance from experts working at Sun through User groups etc.
4. Conducting contests with attractive prizes to be won.

I really am apprehensive about what is going to happen when college starts and i will have to give a seminar to an audience full of seniors, lecturers and others.

Sun Campus Ambassador - Confirmed

I got a call today from Sun Microsystems telling me that they are sending the offer letter to the college and i need to pick it up from there and mail them the fully filled confirmation letter back. She also informed me that the join date will be 11th Jan 2007 but the real fact is I don't know what is my job actually.I feel a little nervous, a little apprehensive but everything apart it just feels great.

Sun Ambassador - Telephonic Interview

Let me first tell you people some background information as to what this is all about.One day it was announced in our college that there would be a test conducted ( C Programming contest ) and the toppers may become Sun ambassador who would get Rs 5000/- per month. So, everyone was excited including me and we took the test that day.I waited and waited like a month for the results ( actually only for a week or so but it was one of the longest weeks.... ) and finally the top 10 were listed and i was 2nd in the list. Finally out of the 10 only 3 people were selected and their names were sent to the sun microsystems Co. who would conduct interview to select the Ambassador.I was one amongst the selected.

That was like a month ago ( maybe even more ).Today all of a sudden some lady ( with meeky voice which i can't hear ) calls up and tells me about the telephonic interview which has been setup at 5:15pm today.This was my life's first interview and that too an interview where the outcome of the interview would be judged by not my facial expressions but by my voice.That was when I wished I had the sweetest, most calming voice in the world but everyone including me know that it isn't so. Well i was really tensed as to what they might ask and stuff. So, i called up my "Champ" friend Abhishek and asked him what to do. He was nice, filled me with confidence, told me not to worry so much even if i didn't know the answer to any question he asks all you have to do is end the answer with a positive note. But for me it wasn't sufficient so i called up my cousin and got some suggestions from him also. Then began the waiting part. I told my mom not to disturb me and started practicing what i needed to say to the interviewer when he would ask questions. The time of interview i.e. 5:15 came i kept my mobile in front of me waiting for it to ring but all of a sudden my land line rings and i run like hell and pick up the phone.To my surprise some lady again asks for "Anand B".I am like this is it..... but all of a sudden she says that she is calling from Way to Wealth. So, i tell her that i am busy and hung up the phone. The funny part is i never get a call from sweet ladies and when i am expecting an important call i get such calls. Well, then started the waiting part. I waited and waited till 5:45 or 6.Then i called up my friend who was also selected and asked him whether he had got the call or not. He said that he didn't get any calls. So, i felt real angry and so started playing games to vent out my anger anxiety. I played continuously till somewhere say 7 and all of a sudden i got a call from some unknown number over my mobile, I wasn't even ready to take up the call. Then the interview starts..... he started asking me the usual questions as to have you participated in any group activities and stuff. The interview session went on and on. I screwed up some times and I did make it right at some places. Apart from that the interview went fine. I had a bit of fear in the beginning but it was limited only to the beginning of the interview. Once the conversation began i was myself again.

Well, he said the results of the interview would be out in 2 or 3 weeks but the important thing which i learnt today was that facing an interview for the first time ( that too over telephone ) is a real challenging and tough job.

Departing - My heart cries against my will

Well before i go into the topic of this post i would like to recall the article which i read in times of india recently.It was about blogging and the attitude of present day bloggers.The diagnosis says that nowadays the blogs relating to politics, current affairs, education etc are rare and those which deal with "About Me, my life and incidents in my life" are on rise.So I have decided that from now on i would try my best to dedicate this blog to what ever new things i learn in linux and networking ( I started to work on linux seriously just 1 month back.So, you can expect nothing much but a novice of me ).

Coming back to the topic of this post, my brother has left for US to do his MS in networking.I will be frank here, I love him , respect him and without him i wouldn't be what i am today.I really had thought (decided ) that i wouldn't feel sad on his departure ( bcoz i believed that i was manly enough ) but i couldn't control myself.Maybe it is because neither of us i.e. neither me nor my bro had left to study in hostel during our educational career till now and so we never had to stay away from each other.Now that he has left i miss him very much and the irony is we never used to talk much once he joined IBM.He used to come home at around 9-10pm and would have been really tired and so we couldn't devote much time for each other.But now i feel as if there is a very big hole in my life.Anyway, I will try to fill this gap by trying to be busy with my comp.

And lastly, you can expect something nice from this blog from now on and not just "About me" stuff.

Definition of Survival

According to me "survival" ( literally meaning "to live" ) does not hold the same meaning for everyone.It differs from person to person.
Basically from my point of view, survival is "not accepting defeat". You survive or wish to survive in this world because you have a grand cause to achieve, a big goal to reach, someone to chase, a specific purpose in life to pull through and to do all this you need to cross the big ocean of possibilities and chances.

you ( I mean everyone in general and reader in specific ) never would have believed in God if not for problems that come across your path in your life.

Here is a excerpt of the dialogue that took place between me and my friend Chetan,
Chetan - do you believe in God ?
Me - yes
Chetan - then convince me that God exists.
Me ( thinking ) - What the hell ... What to say ???

you can or will believe in God , hoping for the impossible to happen i.e. believing in miracles to occur of nowhere which would help you in surviving ( i.e. in simple terms, helping you in achieving your goal ) if and only if you have problems facing you in your life for which you can't find the solution.
Hence according to me without the element of purpose there is no meaning for survival i.e. in other words the correct synonym for 'survival' is 'purpose'.

The purpose in the life of a dedicated parent would be to guard his/her child against all obstacles and give him/her a bright future. The purpose in life/goal of a student would be to get 1st rank or to just get good marks. The purpose in life of a good husband would be to protect his family.
The list is endless and every single person wishing to 'live', to be specific 'survive' can be added to the list, since every such person has a purpose in his or her life.

Alohamora.....

Somebody told me once that doing the same thing again and again and expecting different result is the definition of insanity. Well my life just broke all the rules, my life got freed using the same key agian this time i.e. it gave me a new result with a new range of possibilities in my life and the key being the same old VTU.

You might be wondering as to what is the topic of this post. It is very simple i.e. we got our 3rd sem results the day before yesterday, I was expecting a considerable score but I scored 80.22222 ( infinite no. of 2's - not one less ) % with 52 in EC ( haha, life rocks ) , 100 in MATHS( surprise ), 64 in OOPS ( life sucks ), 55 in DSC ( made me go insane ).

At that moment I felt like hitting something (or) breaking something ( ofcourse something not too costly ) to let go of the frustration but then after listening to my friends' scores I consoled myself, since some have got backs, some have got less than mine and some got more. All those who got more marks than mine have been deleted from my buddy list....... joking yaar.Those are the ppl who give a purpose to my life.Well now that my mind is open for all possiblities ( failure and success ), it will be difficult for fate to surprise me ( haha ).