HJUNOTTSMANATHR - a tribute to my wife

The beast wakes up yawning, into the blog-world, after months of deafening silence. Hi folks. Hope you all are doing just great. Thanks. I can hear your “How are you?”s. I am just doing fine too.

We both thumbed up to each other for a hitchhike to a life-long ride together. And you know what? That hitchhiking worked. Not before a month, we were “in hiding” or “hjunottsmanathr” which refers to “the abduction of a bride from neighboring village.” “His friends assured his and her safe keeping and kept their whereabouts unknown. Once the bride's family gave up their search, the bride groom returned to his people.”¹. But we let our stakeholders know our whereabouts. And we called it “The Honeymoon”.

Let me tell you that this pilgrimage of a different kind was a treat served to the self. We trod by varied means to reach what I call the most beautiful place I had been to, Manali, Kullu District, Himachal Pradesh, India. At the dusk of the second day of reaching Manali, I decided I write a chronicle.

The Chain of blogs following this one, will indeed speak the breadth of the journey, though not in its entirety ;) I earnestly owe to dedicate these to my wife, the progenitor of the very thought of seeing the very place.

So keep your fingers crossed. I am coming ...

¹ Origin of the Honeymoon Tradition

Waiting at the bell

[Disclaimer: This is an imaginary piece of work in its entirety and does not have any concurrence with any of your real-world instance; If any of you found this similar to any of your real-life instances, I assure you that it is purely a coincidence.]

Waiting at the bell, she conquered

her wheting desires of a sweet call;

seconds … thirds and fourths ran

clogging and never like a water fall;

she began to wait for hundreds of dozens

of time-units that steadied with a crawl;

not a call yet, not a tone yet.

She waited to conquer -

She waited to conquer -

Waiting at the bell, she conquered

the memories of her recent past;

her loved one soothing her in all happenings

that weren’t bitter and never last;

she roamed her living-room for she would hear

that 'tring' beckoning her fast;

she was happy 'then' and never now,

She waited to conquer -

She waited to conquer -

Waiting at the bell, she conquered

a message from her next born one;

took the instance to her credit and

moved a bit far to her loved one;

she probed him: ‘where is He? Is He there still –

as his call would be prompt in any case,

even if it has a fee’;

She waited to conquer -

She waited to conquer -

Waiting at the bell, she conquered

with her saying: the deed weighs a trivial pound,

but the heart and the mind for that endeavor

do weigh a trillion, two cents-per-cent;

he was awed for a while, caught in ignominy before

steadily buzzing that he had work;

she too wanted to say that she has one; but

She waited to conquer -

She waited to conquer -

Waiting at the bell, she conquered

a thought – uneasy and not so congenial;

she uttered to ‘end it all’ – does it endorse

a solution? she unfelt so, nevertheless, asserted otherwise;

he was shocked, and she was emotion-struck;

priceless liquid crystals rolling over his cheeks, and

hers was denser – all these sentiments were over the wire; but

She waited to conquer -

She waited to conquer -

Waiting at the bell, she conquered

the inquiry about a piece of paper, dated a week back;

neither a sniff, nor a whisper hung around

when the issue was at the rack;

she mumbled that this subject existed during their biking along the streets, but

all through, his discussions deficient in talking about it;

His panting consequential of rapid cycling forbade his speech? She guessed;

still she inquired of his hidden openness; and

She waited to conquer -

She waited to conquer -

Waiting at the bell, she conquered

a giggle from him for her query

being – ‘Is she worried in your absence?’ After moments

of over-working thought processes, the reply quoted ‘I don’t know ’;

she found the answer long back and kept saying ‘It’s there in thy mouth;

and I shall never want to hear them unless thou shall deliver’;

his words coagulated and his breathing pendulum sped;

priceless liquid crystals rolling over his cheeks, and

hers was denser – all these sentiments were over the wire; but

She waited to conquer -

She waited to conquer -

Waiting at the bell, she conquered

and stumbled upon the sniffles of his weep;

for a moment, she felt her world was dying on her earpiece;

even, his universe was muted amidst a few hundred decibels polluting around;

he unwrapped his biological warmth from within, opened his mouth: “I Love Thee”;

priceless liquid crystals rolling over his cheeks, and

hers was denser – all these sentiments were over the wire;

moments of silence, moments of tranquility, moments of smiles

contaminated by the left-over sobs filled their cosmos; seconds … thirds and fourths ran;

She conquered;

yet she was conquered.

Where do I belong?

Mind interrogates: “Why do you spend too much time on trivial ideas? Because you want the output the way you like or just because you want others to hold you appreciating? whatever … you belong to me”.

Care mumbled: “Helping is your forte, son. Keep it coming”.

Self Confidence immediately counter-argued: “Self-help is the best help. You are always my cup of tea … oh sorry … I am your cup of tea … Come on, never bother, it’s one and the same”.

Guesses assured: “Be it bad or good, You always do me … ha ha ha … Hope I don’t sound too bad or too obvious” [smiles with a grin].

English scribbled: “I want you to be my steersman; but you abscond every now and then!”

Energy jumped up: “You belong to the food, thought or food for thought? No, No …” [Being possessive] “You belong only to me”.

Simplicity yelled amidst an uncharacteristic asphyxiation: “goh goh doh” [coughs] “You belong to me, dude! But … to hell with your writings”.

Money was tormented: “You say you are not really interested in me! What the heck am I doing inside your wallet that is so hot at your back?”

Immediately Love enquired: “You belong to Theism or Atheism? I think you go with the latter …. Hmm I am confused, you brat”.

Hard work was dropping a ‘Hi’ to my commitment: “Huh, you are still with this chap?”.

Anger is infuriated now: “Don’t you belong to me, time and again?”

Darkness was afraid: “Why are you here? You don’t dare to drive me away.”

My failures are amused: “How did you ever survive?” [Interruption from cockroaches]

Cockroaches asserted: “You are the worst nocturnal beast I have ever seen” [runs away into his grove owing to the fear of being stamped to death].

My failures gave a laugh and continued from where it left: “How did you ever survive? You belong to this world, buddy”.

I grunted: “Ooopps! … Still they call me 'buddy' ?”.

Success was proud and responded to Failures: “You know the answer now? It is because I am his den”.

Time screamed out loud: “I would have made you stay in that den longer had you kept catching me. But I am running away, you lazy goose”.

Twists-in-life screeched: “Still, you belong to your instincts, man”.

[Silence for a long time].

I gave out a sigh of relief: “Phew … At last they let me think where I belong!”

[I was thinking for a couple of hours]

“I do belong to all of them, don’t I?”

Dream, and most importantly don't forget the dream ...

'Cruising on the 580 at Pleasanton, gorging in the cafeterias at the Hacienda Drive, Playing Tennis in the Pleasanton Recreation Park, Evening stroll around the Avalon Apartments, coordinating the offshore team and gazing at a time-sliced mainframe session would have happened to be mundane ...' read the first few lines of my professional resume heading for a quest for 'life' six months ago. For those who are 'lighter' in their profession, read 'life' as 'change of job'.

The year 2006 saw a sea change in my life spurred by the sad demise of a beautiful chapter which I opt not to delve into. The dark waves it brought along also carried some photons of light emanating from the 'not-so-cache-hot' (Linux kernel guys can readily appreciate this phrase) neurons along with. Yes, the battalion of photons carried with them, the DREAM of my life. I had a chance to realize that I had not forgotten the dream. The Dream was 'to give life to Machines' :) Technically, this encompasses a lot of jargons.

In my boyhood, whenever somebody asked me ‘What’ I would want to be in the future, I would jump up with my crisp voice, burning few extra calories: "I want to be a scientist". From my tenth grade till I stepped into my college education, I was shrieking to my peers that I would do Research in Genetics, one day. But the convoluted episodes of the drama did not put me there, but elsewhere. Whom am I to blame, when the directors of the drama is TIME and ME? Those wonderful episodes of the drama will be screened later on, in the forth coming blogs. After all that happened, I was in the 5th semester of my Engineering course in Computer Science. I was fascinated to plunge into the Programming of Machines and I used to talk about Robots and those intelligent "oids". I never knew the terminology "Embedded Systems" and "Real Time Operating Systems", then. All I knew and assumed was that an 'elf' program is running in one of the processors inside those machines. When I dug into the subject, my eyes lit up. I made up my mind to be a part of the elite world that programs Machines.

By the end of my 6th Semester, I have already decided what am I going to do for my curriculum project, assumingly, the first in the college to have done that and for sure, the first in my class. By that time, I was already talking about Embedded processors, Artificial Intelligence, RS232 Programming, Assembly Language, Flash Memories, Interrupts, and the many blah blah of that ecosystem. I ended up doing one of the most successful Projects of my institute, in the final year. I was DREAMing all the time hoping to get 'life' into this elite world.

I knew that many more convoluted episodes are in the offing. This time I was the Director. All those energies (partly from 'elsewhere') tried to smash my dreams of getting into Embedded Systems and were victorious for good long time. And as I had indicated in the first lines of this write-up, I ended up working with one of the renowned service corporations known for its Mainframe projects world wide. I was working in one of those projects, maintaining a Patient billing Module for a Healthcare Provider in the US. The Work procedures I was involved into were regarded as highly mundane in this world. Nevertheless, most of the software services in this country that is regarded as the "Knowledge Superpower" are bundled-up humdrums. I want the reader to recall my boyhood Proclamation: "I want to be a scientist". My Dream equated to a rail route to the Cape of Good Hope, but the reality, only to 'The Sahara'; Note that a 'strong' pun is intended here. :)

Having said all this, it was this 'Sahara' that earned me the daily bread for more than 3 years. My dream of "Being in Research", Sub-dream of "Programming the Embedded Systems and imparting Intelligence to the Machines" (Please be knowledgeable that the word "Programming" means a lot more than just "coding") weren't in the context, at all. With an offer to go on a Business visit to the US of A, and the ensnaring fortunes it would bring along with such "long term" visits, My dreams were already taking a brisk walk towards the graveyard.

Then, It was during "the End" days of 2005, all those energies that were trying to smash my dreams were becoming lifeless. Something banged on my head, heavy and strong; it was nothing but the wobble that my Dreams created when they got the message that all those antibodies-against-my-dreams are running out of arms. Suddenly I felt that I had received a tremor. It was indeed, a 'nice' tremor, in a not-so-nice situation. All those neurons that held my dreams intact, were suddenly brought into context. They became 'cache-hot'. Now, I believe that all the non-computing fraternity can also appreciate the phrase. I am in deed, happy; Happy for everybody understood the phrase 'cache-hot' and more importantly, for I am able to tell to you that my Dreams have become 'cache-hot'. I feel that I have got so much obsessed with that phrase, I have decided not to mention it, henceforth :)

I did "Dream, and most importantly don't forget the dream" thing. (The words "don't forget" wholistically mean a lot more than their literal sense.) I was all set for a change from the domain of Largest of computers (Mainframe computers) to the domain comprising the smallest of computers (Embedded devices); Please note that I don’t want to generalize that all Embedded Devices are small. But the transition would be huge and I was prepared for that change. Many questioned the pragmatism of my decision. But I remained pragmatic and knew that I remained pragmatic. And I was 110% convinced that customary labour, conventional intelligence, non-strategic approach, volatile devotion and relenting response to failures are NOT going to take me there. I emerged from the pavilion to play the innings of my life.

A year of tiring transition from the world of Mainframes to the World 'Embedded', during which I encountered a good number of ABENDs/crashes :) passed by. Every time a crash happened, I got back to my basics and steadied the ship. At the Midyear of 2007, I was given the deed of office as "SENIOR ENGINEER - R&D Services" at Mindtree Consulting Ltd. Now I am on course, working in the 'embedded' ecosystem; the ecosystem in itself not embedded, but always emerging.

I am just perching on the lower branches of the Dream-tree and there is a long way to go; But I am sure that this is the way to go. Hence I discovered the statement: "Dream, and most importantly don't forget the dream".