Existing in Chaos

Rooting for the Slum(Under)dog

2009-01-10T15:30:00.008+05:30

Underdog : A participant in a fight, conflict, or game who is not expected to win.

Ever wonder why most of us root for the underdog, is it because those who are viewed as disadvantaged arouse our sense of fairness and justice. Its also true that we tend to believe that underdogs put forth more effort than top-dogs.We associate our selves with the underdog because of our inner urge to succeed against all odds, it's almost like rooting for ourselves.

In one study using the Israeli and Palestinian conflict, the participants were given the same essay about the history of the area, but with different maps to reference — one showing Palestine as smaller than Israel (and thus, the underdog) and the other showing Israel as smaller. No matter what scenario the participants were presented with, they consistently favored the underdog to win.

US President 'elect' Barack Obama a self-professed underdog maintained that he was the underdog, throughout the Democratic Presidential primaries against Hillary Clinton, until he became the front runner for the Presidential race itself. Then it was John McCain who took over the underdog status just before the polls in November last year. McCain said in one of his rallies in October when Obama was way ahead of him in most of the opinion polls- "I love being the underdog. You know, every time that I've gotten ahead, somehow I've messed it up". Was this his last attempt to have a fighting chance in a lost battle by way of appealing to the voters reminding them that now he and not Obama was the underdog.

Many of us including me who followed the Bigg Boss show on television last year supported the winner Ashutosh Kaushik, whose only claim to fame was his surprise win in MTV. Roadies 5.0. Ashutosh a 'Dhaba' owner from Saharanpur in western Uttarpradesh became an overnight celebrity winning nearly Rs. 1 Crore (~ $250,000/-) in prize money as the winner of Bigg Boss. He played his small town underdog image to the hilt during the show appealing to the aam janta to vote for him, and they did as we all know now. His onscreen chemistry with a former miss world also would have drawn audiences towards him who saw someone who was one of them winning the heart of a celebrity.

I recently watched "Slumdog Millionaire" an amazing tale of triumph of the underdog against a society which is not able to believe that a lowly "Chaiwaala" from the gutters of Mumbai's Slums can know all the answers to 'Who wants to be a Millionaire'.The movie however is much more than just the story of an underdog and the television game show.

Director Danny Boyle (Trainspotting) teams up with Co-director Loveleen Tandan and Screenwriter Simon Beaufoy who wrote Slumdog Millionaire with the novel 'Q & A' by Vikas Swarup as the premise to mount a truly impressive undertaking with masterful storytelling finesse.Brutal, Dark, heartbreaking and madly romantic this movie is a celebration of the Indian spirit with some great performances from all characters especially the amateur young actors. The chase sequences in the Mumbai slums and the teenage gangsters remind you of some of the scenes in 'City of God', theres even a touch of Dickens' Oliver Twist in some of the characterisations.

The music score by A.R Rehman is sensational to say the least. O..Saya and Jai ho are simply superb. Overall a great movie.

This reminds me of one instance from class 12th when I was representing my class in the intra school quiz competition. I remember somehow managing to get into the team, answering some impromptu questions my class teacher threw at me and convincing him that I was good enough to be part of the quiz team. On the day of the quiz, no one from the other teams gave us a chance as we were amateurs as compared to some of the participants from other classes who had represented the school in many inter school competitions. The look on the faces of the other teams was one of surprise and disbelief when we kept hitting the buzzer and got all the questions right. It felt great winning that quiz, that too with a huge margin, its one of the most cherished memories I have from School.

The underdog had won again !!

हिन्दी..एक प्रयास

2008-07-12T09:28:00.003+05:30

यूरोप में काफ़ी समय बिताने पर एक बात का मुझे विशवास हो गया है के यहाँ के लोग अपनी मात्रु भाषा को काफ़ी महत्त्व देते हैं। यहाँ हर चीज़ उनकी भाषा में होती है चाहे वोह सड़क पर लगे बोर्ड हो या फ़िर उनके अखबार, अंग्रेज़ी न तो देखने मिलती हैं न सुनने। यह लोग बिना अंग्रेज़ी जाने अपना पूरा जीवन बड़े आराम से व्यतीत कर सकते हैं, इतना ही नही वह अभियांत्रिकी, विज्ञान व चित्कित्सा शात्स्त्र के शेत्रो में अनुसंधान अपनी भाषा में सफलता पूर्वक करते आए है । जर्मनी, रूस, ग्रीस, फ्रांस ऐसे उधंरण हैं जहाँ राष्ट्रीय भाषा का महत्त्व जीवन के हर पहलु में दिखाई देता है। इनका साहित्य, संगीत, सिनेमा सब कुछ उनकी भाषा में इतना लोकप्रिय अवं विकसित है के उन्हें किसी और भाषा को जाने की आवश्यकता नही पड़ती।

भारत में हम कितने हिन्दी, बंगाली, कन्नड़ इतियादी समकालीन साहित्यकारों के नाम जानते हैं । शायद बहुत कम। और कितने समकालीन अंग्रेज़ी साहित्यकारों को हम जानते हैं...उस सूची के लिए ऐसे १० ब्लॉग पोस्ट भी कम पड़ेंगे।
इस बात से किसी को इनकार नही के भारत में बीपीओ अवं आई टी शेत्रो की सफलता में अंग्रेज़ी भाषा का बहुत बड़ा हाथ है, पर इसका यह मतलब भी नही के हम अपनी भाषाओँ को महत्व न दे। हमे अंग्रेज़ी में आपस में बात करता देख हमारे उरोपीय क्लायन्ट मुझे कई बार यह सवाल पूछ चुके हैं के हम अपनी भाषा में क्यों बात नही करते।

यह मेरा हिन्दी ब्लॉग पोस्ट लिखने का पहला प्रयास था, में देखना चाहता था के क्या आज भी मै अपनी सोचने की भाषा में कुछ लिख सकता हूँ या नही। हम अंग्रेज़ी भाषा को ब्लॉग्गिंग की स्वाभाविक भाषा क्यूँ मान लेते हैं, आम तौर पर कोई भी अपने सोचने की भाषा में लिखता है क्यूँ के वह अपने आप को उस भाषा में बेहतर अभिव्यक्त कर सकता है। पर शायद में अंग्रेज़ी में ब्लॉग करते हुए अधिक सरलता के साथ अपने विचार अभिव्यक्त कर सकता हूँ..यह एक वास्तविकता है जिसका मुझे खेद है..पर शायद भविष्य में यह बदल जाए इसी उम्मीद के साथ। अगला ब्लॉग अंग्रेज़ी में :)

A minor hiccup...a lesson learnt

2008-06-29T23:35:00.004+05:30

Small Effort High Impact items are something project managers love to implement as part of their projects as these small items give them an opportunity to earn some brownie points from the project sponsors.
IT teams in any organisation are always trying to justify the high cost of deploying new modulues to the powers that be by citing complexity of the requirement, quality assurance practices testing efforts etc..and when they come across something which can be put into production with minimal effort but addresses a critical need of the Business team they jump on it without further thought. This works in most cases, but sometimes in their enthusiasm the complete impact of the small change is not analysed thoroughly it can turn out to be a much bigger change to implement than thought earlier.
I too succummed to such a "small change high impact" situation recently. Inspired by Amitabh Bacchhan I too thought of ending my blogging hiatus and to re-start writing on my blog. The first thing that came to my mind was to change the template on my blog to give it a fresh new feel. It was just a matter of logging onto my blog admin site and selecting a new template and I would get a brand new look for my now quite old blog in a matter of minutes.
I previewed many templates but could not make up my mind on which one will best suit my blog, then finally decided to keep almost everything same and just change the base color to Blue.

Changes done I was going through some old posts, when I realised something was amiss. The regular items I used to have on my blog were not there.I quickly went back to the html code of the blog..and then it struck me. In my enthusiasm to change the layout I did not take into account the customisations I had done to the base template of the blog, all my adsense ads snippets, my sitemeter, my google search box, my links etc all were gone. Above all I had no backup of the earlier code. The blogger.com html generator is not intelligent enough to know what content is user genereted and needs to be retained and what needs to be re generated.

Then began the frantic search for things I had added on the blog over the years - Google ads, site meter etc..However this gave me a chance to clear the clutter I was begining to buildup on my page. My revenue earnings from ads since the last 4 years have not even reached double figures :( do I really need to care about ads. So I have retained only basic advertising just to give the blog a better look (btw who am I fooling)

Yes, I too once dreamt of making millions from my blog ad empire, I was young and wanted to tryout my hand at earning a fortune with the then latest buzzword - "online advertising". Now that its very clear the my millions are not going to come from this channel atleast and the only people who will make money from those ads are the google guys, I have retained some ads just for fun :)
After spending a good part of a Sunday evening fixing my blog I was able to restore and in some cases improve the additonal content on the blog. A lesson was re-learnt in the process..Now I have a backup of the code and all the posts of the blog as well.

Lets start blogging again :)

Lost/Delayed Baggage ..a Traveler's Nightmare

2007-05-01T13:08:00.000+05:30

I used to dread this frequent travelers experience as I had heard many stories of delayed/ lost/ damaged bags from 'veteran traveler' colleagues and hoped I would not be subject to any such experience..

With the steady increase in the number of people traveling these days there is a lot of pressure on airport infrastructure across the world to make sure the baggage is managed/transferred to their respective flights. Frankfurt Airport is a major hub for transfers within Europe and to North America, it handles around 200,000 pieces of incoming and outgoing luggage in one day- each of which reaches its destination within 45 minutes - all this is possible using an automated conveyor system that reads the bar coded information on each baggage tag and directs it to its destination. During this time the ISO 9001:2000 certified system also calculates the shortest route to the destination extraction point.

And as luck would have it my first brush with delayed baggage was at Frankfurt airport, but I still believe the claims of Fraport AG which manages Frankfurt airport about their sophisticated baggage system as the issue with my luggage was caused due to a booking error.

Before I talk about my delayed baggage experience I'll narrate a few narrow escapes.

The first one was in October 2006, I was returning from Lagos (Nigeria) to Mumbai via Dubai by an Emirates flight, it seems I had stuffed the bag too much or that that bag suddenly decided to retire. The timing wasn't right for that as Lagos-Mumbai is almost an 18 hr trip including the stopover in Dubai and any bag which decides to give up in that sector is bad news.Well somehow the zipper of the bag gave way and it opened during transit with the lock in the zipper still in place it simply lifted from the sides as if wanting to take off on its own and not wait for the 8+ hours in Dubai. Thanks to the Emirates ground staff in Dubai they put the bag into a giant plastic bag.
I arrived in Mumbai unaware of the plight of my poor 3 year old bag..time ticked by as I waited for my luggage..and when the crowd started thinning around the baggage claim area and the minutes passed by, I started getting a bit anxious. I tried to think of pleasant things and made small talk with Sunil my colleague who was traveling with me.
When finally the belt stopped..I knew this was it. I went up to the lost luggage counter and was about to fill in the form when I thought of looking for the bag one last time...It was lying there in the corner in all its misery wrapped in a plastic body bag..ready for its last journey.I checked if everything was okay and somehow managed to secure the bag again with the zipper. Narrow escape I should say.

My next brush with the lost baggage situation was in Muscat in early March 2007.
I had taken a Gulf Air flight from Bangalore to Bahrain via Muscat, there were just 7-8 people who disembarked in Muscat, I was feeling happy that I'll breeze though immigration and be on my way to a quick nap before I start work. In the baggage claim area there were hardly a dozen bags doing the rounds on the belt...my new black 360d roller bag wasn't in sight.
The belt stopped, I located the lost luggage counter and informed them the details..they made a few calls and they asked me to hang on. After 15 mins, what seemed to be an hour the belt started moving again..with just my bag on it. It seems someone overlooked the Muscat tag and the bag was on its way to Bahrain, before it was retrieved in the nick of time. False alarm this time.

Then came the D day..
The 'Law of Averages' caught up with me and I finally lost my baggage(temporarily though) for the first time.
This was in late march 2007, I was on a 4 day trip to Brussels via Frankfurt on a Lufthansa flight from Bangalore.
Due to some last minute confusion on the flight timings the Lufthansa ground staff in Bangalore 'through' checked in my luggage to Brussels on the 9.40 AM flight from Frankfurt to Brussels, but somehow couldn't give my boarding pass due to some technical hitch as I was also confirmed on the 12.20 PM flight which wasn't cancelled as yet. I was told to collect the boarding pass in Frankfurt for the onward journey.
When I reached the transfer desk at Frankfurt airport they had no clue what to do with my situation. They directed me to the Ticketing counter where I paid some flight change charge and got the boarding pass for the 9.40 Am flight with less than 45 mins to go.
In this confusion my luggage was held by the system as the boarding pass issue didn't update in time. I reached Brussels around 11 AM but my baggage stayed in Frankfurt. I filled my first lost luggage application, and it seems it was quite a regular affair for those guys as they handled it quite efficiently. I was told the luggage will be delivered to my hotel by 4 PM..
With a heavy Ultra Sparc-Sun Solaris laptop server and a few documents in my hand baggage I was not carrying any personal stuff with me, I but somehow survived thanks to the Hotel. However I got my baggage only by around 8PM..paying the price of a last minute change when I could have reached Brussels with my luggage by 1.30 PM had I not decided to change to the 9.40 AM flight..

But as they say in Spanish 'Todo es para bien...siempre' - "What ever happens..happens for good..Always"

Maybe it was better to have learnt about the process...with Lufthansa than with Biman Bangladesh.

Holy Kingdom

2006-07-17T14:24:00.000+05:30

My visit to Saudi Arabia in March this year was my first visit to the middle east, not counting Dubai and Bahrain airport transits as a visit.

The King Khaled Airport in Riyadh was once the largest airport in the world and the vast landscaped interior courtyards, the huge terminal buildings and the numerous moving walkways are the proof for it.

Tight security and the tough looking airport police greet you at the emigration counters, this in a way symbolises life in the KSA and you encounter several such situations during your stay.
Riyadh is a modern city, an oasis in the middle of the desert but there weren't many trees around the place, you can sense the urban sprawl with its dull beige colored buildings that dot the landscape.
The Olaya district in the city centre is abuzz with commercial activity, huge malls, commercial complexes line the roads leading to the 302ft tall skyscraper the 'Kingdom Centre'. There is a high speed lift that takes you 99 floors in 1 minute and the view of the entire city from the viewing bridge is breathtakingly amazing.
There is something in this country which I feel is unique..and that is the strict separation of the two genders. They have separate multistoried 'Ladies (only) Malls' , Ladies only floors and Family hours in common entry malls. The food court outlets in the general area are also divided in gents and ladies sections.

Life in Saudi is measured mostly by Sharia, or ultra conservative Muslim law, of which the Saudi version includes women not being allowed to drive, wearing the 'abaya' (traditional floor length long sleeve garment, what we call the Burqa in the subcontinent) at all times, forbidding all alcohol and virtually all other Western “vices”. Cigarettes are about the only vice allowed in the kingdom. There are no theaters, no public bowling alleys and no bars or nightclubs. Some hotels have private bowling alleys, and some larger 'foreigner' compounds have a small theater for movie viewing.
The foreigners also have to abide by the dress code of the land, I would see a group of white women go out of the hotel with the the Abaya and head scarf (the hijaab) every morning however the viel is not required to be worn by westerners the local women were 'vieled' most of the time.

Islamic law dictates 5 prayer times a day; sunrise(around 5.30 am), mid morning(around 12:30 pm), midafternoon(around 4pm), and midevening(Around 5.30pm) and late evening (around 7.30pm). the timings are indicative for the subcontinent, these timings differ as per the daylight timigs for the region. In most Middle Eastern countries when the prayer calls are given the faithful go to the mosque and perform their ritual prayers and then return to work or whatever they were doing at the time of prayer call. Businesses continue to operate, and life goes on as usual.
In Saudi, however, when prayer time comes, the entire economy comes to a halt! Restaurants shut their doors, the streets are deserted, shops down shutters or shopkeepers simply leave them open and go to the mosque when its time for the Salah (Arabic for Namaaz) things come to a complete stop until the prayers are over . People plan their day out in the public or downtown around the prayer schedules. I met a couple of westerners who said they carried a prayer schedule with them at all times. Here I saw more mosques in that 1 week than I had seen in my whole life put together. There were mosques in every lane, every commercial establishment including petrol stations, Banks, Hotels and even shopping malls.

The people take their religious duties very seriously and being in the 'Holy Land' of Islam's two greatest symbols is enough incentive I believe for people to be religious and they would still do it even if its not enforced strictly by the “Mutawwah” (Religious Police). I saw the Mutawwah in our hotel lobby and the restaurent a couple of times. Once when we were in a food court at a mall and it was time for the late evening prayer I saw a was a priest followed by a tall man in uniform(mutawwah) who were ordering people to go for the prayer, though we were left alone as we did not look as locals I felt a bit intimidated by their behaviour and the reactions they evoked from the people they confronted.

The cars were big, powerful and beautiful and there was a clear sign of a throbbing oil economy everywhere. With a litre of petrol costing an equivalent of Rs. 8, you dont have to worry about the mileage of ur 4.2 Litre SUV. Boys as young as 14 could be seen zipping down the roads in their GMC V8 monsters. There was oppulence everywhere..except in the middle class south asian neighbourhoods, the narrow, dirty lanes in those areas were like any street in central Mumbai and I felt safer here than I did on those superhighways and upmarket districts of the city. I still dont know why I was uneasy when I was around the locals, maybe it was the unkown language, the strict code of conduct or the feeling of being looked down upon as second class humans...
It was a relief when I stepped into the boarding area of the airport past the emigration counters. this was another world altogether, you could see many uncovered female faces, the westerens had shed their abaya's and were back in their skirts and tops....I felt like a free man again !!

UnGoogled !!

2006-04-10T20:46:00.000+05:30

Thomas L. Friedman's book "The World is Flat" mentions In-forming as one of the Flatteners which have made the world a flat place and brought an equilibrium in the world where a University Professor in Cambridge has access to the same amount of research information as a kid in Cambodia.

With the kind of information now available on the internet it is almost impossible to go around without a search engine. If you are not using any search tool you are bound to get lost in the labyrinth that is the internet with its seemingly infinitely intricate network of the web equivalent of alleyways and streets.Its not similar to getting lost in a big city like New York where you can get around by asking locals and Indian taxi drivers for directions.

You can survive though without a search engine, memorizing or saving your most often visited sites in the favorites list of your browser. If you use a web portal you can get access to free email, news, movie clips, music, e-shopping all in one place and there wouldn't be much need of pretty much anything else.But if you want to look up some information and want instant results without having to read through hundreds of probable websites you will require a search engine.

I and hundreds of thousands of people around the world use a search engine on a regular basis looking for any and every kind of conveivable information that a human mind can think of. Yahoo, MSN and Google being the most commonly used search tools.

Google by far exceeds any other search engine in terms of popularity with its ability to bring up the most relevant sites from your search key words. Larry Page and Sergey Brin ( Google Founders) challenged the way traditional search engines worked on the internet looking for key words from your search.Google follows a Page Ranking technology (a mathematical formula ranks pages on the basis of how many other web pages are linked to it ) that combines with an analysis of page content, which determines which pages are the most relevant to the specific search being conducted. This enables Google to return the most accurate and relevant results.

I cannot imagine a world without Google nor can most of the post Year 2000 MBA passouts who have referred/copied/pasted/lifted most of their assignments/term papers/project reports from the results available from Google.

On an average I would do about 10 searches on Google and the max could be as high as 30 a day. I have searched for things and got results for most abstract things.I lookup words, phrases, history, geography, technology and even news on google.You can say I am a FAN of the whole concept that Google is all about with Gmail, Orkut, Picassa etc, all Google products adding to the whole experience.

Now imagine in the year 2006 a person working for one of the top IT companies in India in a managerial position that requires sufficient amount of Functional and Technical knowledge. What are the chances that he/she hasn't yet heard about Google. I would say almost negligible, that too if that person does not have access to the Internet, does not read any news paper and never watches the news on television.

I recently had the honor of meeting such a Google ignorant person ( who has full time internet access and is understandably quite well read too) who had not even heard about Google.
In a meeting I asked that person to look up some thing that we were discussing on Google, it came as a shock to me when i was asked to spell it for her. I had to explain what Google was and what it can be used for. Its almost as if not knowing Tarla Dalal when you are running a Cookery school.

I can only imagine what that person has missed till now, an entire phase in technological advancement has passed her by without she having the faintest idea if such a thing existed. Had she been in any other industry it would have been perfectly okay for her not to know about Google.When you work for a world class organization that is one of the flag bearers of the Indian Technological revolution the world over, this cannot be excused.

I hope with her initiation into the wonderful world of Google she has attained enlightenment from the darkness of ignorance and has taken to Googling by now and www.Google.com has replaced www.johnabraham.com as the first site on her address drop down.

PS: Images of John Abraham had started to load onto her laptop's internet explorer screen during that meeting- ofcourse by mistake - to her sheer embarrasment.

Status Update !!

2006-01-01T19:54:00.000+05:30

December was a very eventful month...

- traveled the length and breadth of the country.
- spent most of my savings,
- met almost all my relatives, whom I hadnt met in years.
- got myself a completely new wardrobe....well not completely but almost.
- put on a made up smile for more time than i have done in my entire life put together.
- got a 3 hr movie shot with me as one of the central characters.
- was the centre of all attention in my family for more than a month.
- was stuffed with fattening food till i choked.
- felt anxious, sad, elated and happy all at the same time.
- bought my first, (can u believe it) "scooter".. a Honda activa actually.That was the official end of my biking days :(
- became a double from a single. :)

In short I got married !!!

Efharisto Polli !!!

2005-11-19T20:45:00.000+05:30

The Thankyou was long due....but i didnt want mine to be lost amongst the official congratulations..so i am posting this now [though the text has been ready for almost 3 weeks now]

I would like to take this opportunity and congratulate each one of you who have contributed to the successful cutover of Aspis Bank to Finacle Treasury.

What a better way to thank everyone..than ones own blog...i can throw caution to the air and write whatever i feel like..without having to worry about email/offcial/professional and all sorts of etiquettes and also be safe from the hazard of offending anyone.I just want to put on record [even if its on my humble blog] the contributions of individuals who have contributed in their own way to this project.

So without further ado...lets begin -

Samir Gokhale : Samir joined us in Athens midway during the UAQ phase,Since Day 1 he handled the entire GL setup [The specs for which kept changing everymonth].He was instrumental in analysing some very critical issues [Net Accruals,F&O accounting and many more].He brought with him an amazing body of domain knowledge from his vast banking experience that gave no chance to the users to question the authority of his analysis.His long and detailed explanations on every issue helped us get out of many sticky situations.

Deepak Grover : Deepak was our inhouse "Swift Customisations" expert. He handled all kinds of customisation requests from the users and managed to meet all the requirements of Target, Hermes and Cedel messages apart from standard swift messages.His work on Reports and other interfaces has been near perfect.

Harish Jindal : Harish was our offshore development/implementation support, He handled all the implementation support activites wonderfully along with his tireless efforts[Working on Greece Time] on the development of reports with Deepak.

Meena Nambiar: She was the single point of contact for the implementation team to raise issues and follow up on the same.Her efforts in doing a first level analysis for many issues and also helping the testing team test the released patches for the timely delivery of the patches has been very helpful for the implementation.

Shreyas B.T : This young Turk from FT Engineering arrived on the scene just before the start of the UAT [The most testing and critical phase of any implementation].He blazed through multiple EOD's and cracked issues with an "Indiana Jones" like zeal.His expertise on Finacle Treasury added a lot of muscle to the implementation team as he gave us an "insiders" view of the issues.His "Banglorean Sambhaar" was a hit with the team as were the amazing pics from his digicam.

Abhishek Khare:He provided the initial framework for the implementation with a detailed CSS and BPD.His work on the approaches to handle MM Swaps and Synthetic Swaps for Aspis with a little tweaking to existing deal types was simply remarkable.

RSR :His involvement in Aspis,started with his inputs on the Reuters MRI way back in June when he was still in Japan.RSR has been our engineering Support anchor and has turned around issues with a dazzling display of brilliance and dedication, working late nights to release those critical patches that went a long way in closing issues in time.

Prasanna Durga :She provided us some very important fixes for swift and was always patient to answer all our seemingly daft queries on swift and many other setup related issues.

NNP: His very presence as the release manager for Aspis,brought about a confidence in the entire team.NNP gave us direction and his valuable inputs whenever we required.
Manikaran Singh, Sameer Agarwal, Archanha Sambamoorthy, Ritesh Bisht have all worked in the background for analyzing and fixing Aspis related issues, their efforts and contributions are well appreciated.

Bikash Agarwala whose awesome code has inspired a lot of our customisations.His modular approach to development makes most of his code reusable with minimum modifications.Whenever we found ourselves in a tricky situation...the first thing that came to our mind was "Check with Bikash"...

I would also like to thank Chetan for his inputs and guidance on the data migration strategy.

Finally i would like to thank Sathish Swaminathan for providing his guidance and inputs for the implementation and making sure we always had the final goal in mind.

I would appreciate comments on this post from you all

Is dignity only "skin deep"....

2005-10-31T22:20:00.000+05:30

When we are in India..we differentiate people from the way they dress, grow facial hair and what other accessories they sport on their selves. By looking at some one you can [most of the time] know which part of the country that person is from etc.

When you are in a foreign country [read western country]...these distinctions cease to make a difference.there we all "brown beings" are the same "South Asians"...If we are Indian, Pakistani ,Srilankan or Bangladeshi it doesnt matter to the average Caucasian.

The color of your skin determines how you will be seen by your fellow earthlings..our identity is the race we belong to.

I haven't come across any instance of racism in Greece as yet..though we have been referred to as Bangladeshis or Pakistanis quite a few times.Infact a lady at a bus stop asked me if I was from Egypt [That could be because on my distinctly Semitic nose].

There is one particular incident that has inspired this post and which I wanted to share for a long time.It happened at the Thira harbor [In Santorini], we were waiting for the "Flying Cat" fast boat to take us to Mykonos from Santorini.
We were all standing in a queue in front of a group of English girls ( aged aroung 25 i guess), as we were moving towards the boat, i overheard one of them telling their friends that she was scared.She then pointed towards us - 3 very brown (from the August Greek sun) specimens of Asian males- then her friend said "C'mon, This is not London,don't be silly".
This was around a month after the London Metro blasts, I guess that lady will have the same feelings whenever she encounters Asian men..who cares if they are from India or anywhere else.

This incident gives a glimpse into the psyche of the average westerner..and the way they look at us.

Well its a reality we all will have to live with.....

Santorini and Mykonos

2005-10-29T21:54:00.000+05:30

Well this is not my farewell post on greece..that can wait till next week..

To start with our trip in August to the exquisite islands of Santorini and Mykonos was really a memorable experience. Both these islands present two very different aspects of Greek Islands.

Santorini offers one of the most spectacular landscapes in the world. The villages in this island are situated on cliffs and offer breathtaking views over the caldera of the submerged volcano. In Ancient Time, the shape of the island was circular. The volcano's eruption was so strong that the centre of Santorini sank and created a crater in the middle and created islands around it. Being in Santorini is an experience. The picturesque villages built right on top of the Caldera, the white houses and the blue painted windows fight the reddish black rocks which rise from the deep blue sea, in a synthesis that post-impressionists would envy. Across the world the blue domed churches of Santotini dominate Greek imagery, the sunset as seen from the cliff side at Oia is considered as one of the best in the world.

Our stay at Santorini also took us to some amazing black and red pebble beaches..which are unique in themselves and come as a surprise for someone like us who expect typical white sand beaches.

Mykonos on ther other hand is a cosmopolitan island with a lively and most varied nightlife in the Aegean. A barhopper's paradise Mykonos is also notorious for its gay club scene..Its a place where you let your hair down and party like theres no tomorrow...its got something to offer for everyone. Mykonos is also a grand example of unique cycladic architecture set around a picturesque fishing-village bay. Totally whitewashed organic cube-like buildings fit closely together to form a kind of haphazard maze of narrow alley ways and streets.Its many well preserved windmills and hundreds of tiny red-roofed churches adds a flavor of culture and custom to the scene. Put this together with all the island's other qualities and it is no wonder Mykonos has been often named "the jewel" of the Aegean Sea.

With no hotel available [It was a long weekend in August, the peak season for Mykonos]..we managed to rent a Car and sneaked into a camping site for a shower, then it was all partying till the around 8 am the next day..

Thats all the partying we have managed in the last few months, the Last 2 months have been the most tiring in this project..well that phase of any project squeezes the juice out of even the most seasoned implementors.

We started the parallel run in late September...now when i think of it..its a blur of issues, frantic phone calls from users, patches, updates n meetings.We managed a relatively issue free Cut Over on the 20th of October 2005.After that it was time for the customary "We are Live !!!" mail...n the long list of congratulatory mails followed as if on cue.
The entire team has worked really hard on the project...It requires a dedicated post to list down the detailed contributions of all those people...

Catching Up !!

2005-07-23T22:50:00.000+05:30

My last post was almost a month ago...have been completely caught up in chasing and closing issues in the SIT. Things seem to be in control one moment and its chaos the very next moment...These are testing times for all of us...not only because the testing is in progress but also cos its testing our nerves.

It was Deepaks Bday on the 4th of July, and we had a small party on the balcony.. Ursus Roter shots being the highlight of the evening...we also managed to smash the centre table glass that brought about the official end to the festivities for the night.

The Bank invited us to our first classy glimpse of Athenian Night Life on the 9th ....it was a party for the banks project team at "Acrotiri" an upclass Lounge and Restaurent[image attached]...it was right besides the sea, the cool sea breeze added to the pool side, candle lit atmosphere...on the other side of the pool there was a rocking party in progress where the young n trendy were having fun..
After some very expensive Greek red wine and 4 courses of delicious greek sea food in diff forms we were all ready n heady for the party...

Have seen Sarkar,Paheli and Dus...Dus was very dissapointing to say the least.

Nishith was instrumental in getting me the "Ek Anek Chidiya" video..remember the one which we all have seen on doordarshan as kids...it took some really dedicated googling by Nishith to get me the video.

The summer is here..n Greece is sizzing at 31 d Celcius, feeling at home though with the hot weather.

August bekons us with promise of more hot weather..a break in the project n the prospect of a small trip to Santorini and Mykonos if we can manage it...

Had a lot to write...but with this log gap...have not been able to put all my thoughts online.

But thers always hope...

Kefalonia

2005-06-24T21:54:00.000+05:30

Greece seems to be on holiday already...and its just June end.The Greeks take their holidays very seriously, something we are not used to..Holidays for us are either Religious or Govt, never planned.I see most of the guys here planning their August break, booking tickets on ferries to their favourtite island getaways...

We visited the Acropolis on the 12th..my second visit..but this time i had to pay my way in.
The "Free Sundays" rule is applicable only between October and March.

Finally managed to get the Vcd's of "D" , "Bunty aur Babli" with "Parineeta" as a bonus..fromour Pakistani friends in Pssiri.

Last week we got a long weekend on account of the Orthodox holiday of "WhitMonday" - just checked the name from the sd_calendar_dates table in the Finacle Treasury database.

Couldnt get the ferry tickets booked in time for Santorini or Mykonos - two very happening islands.We went instead to "Captain Corelli's" island of Kefalonia in western Greece.
It is the largest island of the Ionians - Islands in the Ionian Sea, and is considered as one of the most beautiful and authentic ones. It's a mountainous island with impressive landscapes, dense vegetation, long golden sandy beaches, a nice capital, traditional villages, beautiful orthodox churches, archaeological ruins, Venetian castles, a National park etc.
"Corelli's Mandolin" by Louis de Bernières was set in this island, which later got made into the Nicholas Cage n Penelope Cruz starrer "Captain Corelli's Mandolin". I have neither read the book nor seen the movie..though i would like to watch the movie now...n see Sami again in a diff way.

Kefalonia has one of the most famous beaches of Greece. Myrtos being one of them. It's a beautiful golden sandy-pebbly beach surrounded by vertical rock cliffs where the waters look as if the blue colour of the sea was mixed with bleaching water. It is really impressive...The island also proposes many other beautiful beaches. Some of these beaches have also been awarded by the Blue Flag, the European guarantee for their cleanliness...
We reached Sami a port town on the eastern side of Kefalonia from Athens on Saturday afternoon, got ourselves a furnished "Studio apartment" ..We visited the rare geological phenomenon of Katavothres, where the sea water pours into spectacular tunnels to reappear at lake Melissani (a semi underground lake with amazing colour waters) and also Drogarati cave, a large stalagmitic cavern with magnificent acoustics.

Next day we rented a Car - a Hyundai Atos [Santro in India] and went to the beach of Myrtos..which was amazing in all respects, the sights of an European beach has lots of things to offer than just sun and sand : )
Next went to AntiSami beach nearby...A great Greek experience in all...

The UAQ finally came to an end...with lots of accounting related issues raised..been a busy week this one..reached home around 10 daily.

Well the good news is the Reuters MRI interface is finally up...it felt real good to see those EUR/USD rates flicker in the FT MRS screens.The INR is getting stronger by the week...not being unpatriotic but that does not bode well for us, our onsite allowances in EUR will take a hit withthe EUR slipping..i just hope it doesnt go below the 50 mark..

Now my passport says i can stay in Greece till 25th sept 05, but still no sight of the work permit..

The SIT starts next week...hardtimes ahead. "

Athina

2005-06-11T20:17:00.000+05:30

Within the sprawling city of Athens it is easy to imagine the golden age of Greece when Pericles had the Parthenon built. When the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides were performed in the Theater of Dionysus. And when democracy brought all citizens together to decide their common fate on the Pynx Hill.Athens is built around the Acropolis and the pinnacled crag of Mt. Lycabettus, which the goddess Athena was said to have dropped from the heavens as a bulwark to defend the city. The suburbs have covered the barren plain in all directions and the city is packed with lively taverns and bustling shops.

Athens is not what it used to be. It is better. What they did to Athens to prepare for the Olympics turned a city, known for its faults as much as its assets, into one of the most walkable, livable, exciting, art, music and entertainment centers in the world.

The Metro, Coastal Tram and Buss services are very effcient to say the least..

Athens is a unique mix of Ancient and Modern Culture, here you see the anicient ruins along with the fast life of any modern European city.

Havent been to any party hot spots in Athens yet, though i plan to visit atleast one and find out for myself whether its wild night life reputation is well earned or not...but theres still time for all that.

The project at Aspis Bank, the reason for my "Business" travel to Greece, is going smoothly till now, we will finish the User Aquaintance exercise by the 17th, and then we move into System Integration Testing that going to be a tough one with many interfaces to take data from.

Today we plan to go to Pssiri, i badly need a haircut, and thats where we can get the cheapest haircuts. Why ?? well its an Asian locality in central Athens where you can find Bangladeshis, Pakistanis, Iraqis and a few Africans too...Bangladeshis by far are the largest in number followed by Pakistanis, havent seen many Indians though. The haircut costs 5 Euros, as against the regular 10-15 Euros charged by those ubiquitous Salons.
The area is identified with shady activities that is so very "Asian", you can see people in small groups bargaining for smuggled Cell Phones or the odd handy cam, the sound of a patrol car gets them scampering for cover...

We also found a Pakistani CD shop, that guy can copy any [Well almost any hindi or english movie] you can think of in minutes and whats the price... Its a mind boggling 1 Euro per movie... I couldn't ever imagine getting a pirated copy of a latest Hindi movie for a buck, its cheaper than Mumbai.
Last week was Gangster week at our apartment with "Satya" and "Company" played back to back. today hopefully we should lay our hands on "Bunty Aur Babli", and "D" too if we are lucky.

Will catch up sometime next week .....

Restarting

2005-06-08T23:17:00.000+05:30

I am back again on blogger after about 2 years...had created the blog in 2002 after reading about blogging in Chip magazine..but then could not update it and then lost interest.
Now i feel i am ready to blog my thoughts and hope to update the blog as regularly as possible.

Its been almost 3 weeks since I came to Athens, the weather has been great till now....
But the guys here tell us that its going to get hotter as the summer progresses...

It felt strange initially being in a place with so many "White" people speaking a language that was Greek[i had to use this one] to me...but that was in March when we had come here for the first time, for the Business Process Definition phase of our project at Aspis Bank.

This time around the city looks more familiar...and warmer [literally] than it was then...
Though still i constantly feel like the "Odd man out" when i am on the streets, at the super market or on a bus, but i guess thats because i havent been to many places [in fact none] where there are so many people who are from a different ethnic background [race ..if u may]

More about Athens and my project here later....