'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".
