Jet Lag

Jet lag is a phenomenon where a person gets from a place of one Timezone to a place of another timezone in a high speed jet, while sitting his ass off and doing nothing nothing but sleeping, eating and watching a Tiny monitor. Obviously because of the huge difference between the speed of the jet and the speed of the person’s rear, there is a Jet lag. (Note: Jet Lag is not the reason for Flight delays and Jet Lag has nothing to do with Jet airways or Jet Lite).

CODE LAG

A major section of Software Engineers travelling from US to India seem to sleep well during nights without the supposed Jet lag. This is due to the fact that they sleep at work staring at the computer. So if you suffer from lack of sleep due to Jet lag, just imagine yourself looking at millions of lines of C++ or Java code or just imagine looking at a Powerpoint presentation from your HR Department. These things knock you out immediately. I call this Code Lag.

JETTY LAG

While packing, always remember where you packed your underwear. Write it down somewhere or just mark the suitcase. You can also try to keep your underwear in the same suitcase where you carry your expensive new electronic item like LCD TV. The Indian Customs department will do the rest to mark it with a huge ugly cross mark with a chalk piece. If you forget where you packed your underwear then you may have to spend a day inside out in the old underwear, until you find fresh ones or buy new ones. I call this Jetty Lag (Originally coined by Chutneycase in a different context involving super models and what they wear and don’t wear).

SHIT LAG

Shit may come and Shit may go, but Bathroom remains forever.

So obviously whenever you get bowel movement, you just go to the bathroom. If your bowel movement had to happen only in the morning then your bathroom will disappear for the rest of the day and reappear only the following morning.

Since Jet lag confuses your whole body, it can also confuse your internal drainage system. Usually you will be in a fit, do I go before dinner or right after dinner. Do I have enough urge before dinner? Should I eat more to get the push. This my friend, I like to call Shit Lag.

Note 1: Bathrooms are not of standard shape and size in India. So if you are going to be in a place unfamiliar to you, walk to the bathroom and take a look. Depending on what you see there, control what you eat (Otherwise, be ready to sit in an awkward position in the Autorickshaw, till you reach familiar surroundings). No one knows when shit happens!

Note 2: If you see a variation in the speed of shit release (either an increase or a decrease) you are either having diarrhea or constipation and it has nothing to do with Jet lag or the speed of your rear in the Jet.

FUTILE ATTEMPTS

The following attempts will not cure Jet Lag:

1. Running in the airplane as fast as the Jet. I mean if you do this, you will practically knock over the crew selling expensive but duty free stuff, pass through the business class, break open the cockpit door and jump out of the airplane through the front glass window. Don’t try this, even at home.

2. If you are not a Software Engineer, obviously it is difficult for you to imagine millions of lines of code. You can try to imagine yourself as an Indian Govt. servant working as a Head clerk at the Treasury, sipping single tea while staring at a stack of dusty files. Sleep will come automatically.

3. Do not attempt to wear 2 underwears, to avoid forgetting where you packed. This will backfire by creating extra space in your suitcase for your wife to carry some more stuff that may increase the weight of the suitcase by 0.5 Kg, even though your underwear weighs only 0.05 kg.

4. Do not attempt to predict the time of the bowel movement. It is as uncertain as the electron in a Heisenberg uncertainty principle. If you predict a time and stay in your familiar place, it won’t come. If you predict the place where you will feel the movement, it won’t be at the right time. You have to go with the flow, I mean literally.

Super Sekar – Death of the Mega Serials

INTRODUCING SUPER SEKAR:

Sekar is an average ordinary young Bachelor. He has no six pack and is not a sportsman, but an average software developer working for a dinky little software company in Bangalore. His ambitions are not high. He likes his beer filled Fridays and yearns to win over a babe someday. He wanted to be a Superman but he was not sure if his company dress code allowed him to wear the underwear on top of his pants instead of the other way around. Like any average person, his life is a roller coaster ride and sometimes he likes to thrill himself with adventures and sometimes he falls into an adventure by accident. Gentle Ladies and Tough Men, I present to you Super Sekar and his adventurous life.

DEATH OF THE MEGA SERIALS:

Mega Serials are the Great Indian Soap opera shows that revolve around Daughter in laws, Mother in laws, Son in laws, Father in laws and their near and distant relatives. The Indian soaps that have been haunting Most Women and some men, episode after episode for nearly a decade, will come to an end.

Several TV channels have not been revealing the latest ratings for their Soap shows. It has found that there has been a start of steady decline of soap viewership right around the end of 2005. Media executives have been scrambling numbers and conducting surveys after surveys to find out what is wrong – is the relationship drama too boring? Do we need to add extra marital stuff? Do people need some explicitly revealing scenes? No was the answer for everything. Perhaps it was the new breed of reality TV shows, but they were not sure either. Till this day the executives are running around like chickens with head cut off and cannot come to any conclusion for this cause.

Super Sekar during his regular friday visit to the pub bumps into a Page 3 crowd which incidentally has some of the media executives. He speaks to these executives but no one seemed to divulge any information to him even after getting hammered with 5 shots of tequila. They just cursed Sekar with profanity and asked him to stay away. Super Sekar was really pissed, not just from the lousy pitcher beer, but for the treatment that he received from those executives and he is determined to get back at them.

Super Sekar decides to look at the market directly and hence he spends a few hours eaves dropping on the viewers and finds out what people were talking about. He travelled in his hypersonic jet to the heart of Chennai at T.Nagar and hears an interesting conversation, as he eats his Sambar rice for lunch “To Go”ed from Saravana Bhavan.

“I like his way of bringing out Humour in everything, that is the part that makes me want more and more”

“Clearly, he has the motivation of entertaining people. Do you know if there is anyone who writes like this?”

“Yeah there are quite a few, Here it is, I track them in my bookmark and visit each of them everyday without fail. The comments section is the best part, that is where all the riot happens. Total time pass”

Super Sekar jots down a few notes and flies in his jet to Mumbai. It was around afternoon at about 3PM as he enters the Dalaal street, the home of Indian stock market. He spots a conversation between two stock brokers and settles there, munching his Vada paav bought from a Push cart shop:

Broker1: “Ab ye dekh, yeh Chote khan apne Kutte ko Badshah bol raha hai” (Now Look, This shorty khan is calling his dog the emperor khan)

Broker2: “Are main inka bachon wali khel nahin padtha hoon. Apun to Bade miyan ka padtha hoon” ( I don’t read these childish fights, I read the Big Guy’s)

Passerby: “Hey guyz, leave those stuff. Did you see how RGV got back at his critics, man that was some juicy stuff”

Super Sekar notes down a few points after hearing the conversation and looking at the monitor full of red colored numbers and arrow marks pointed downwards. He takes off in his jet to the Capital city of the country, New Delhi. He buys a mug of Sweet Lassi on his way and parks himself by an apartment at the 3rd floor. He overhears the conversation of two housewifes:

“Has she delivered yet?”

“She must have, She is past her due date. May be she is still in the hospital that’s why she hasn’t written anything yet”

“Refresh, hit refresh, keep hitting it”

Super Sekar notes down what they were doing and walks away. He stumbles upon a flower pot in the balcony and breaks it. “Who is there” the housewives shout and Super Sekar quickly jumps into his jet that was floating in mid air by the balcony. The housewives see this and pick a small pebble from the broken flower pot and throw it at the jet, and it lands right into Sekar’s shirt pocket. Sekar doesn’t even realize this and he simply concentrates on turning on the jet and flees from the spot.

From there Sekar flies straight down to Bangalore for his final analysis and confirmation of the phenomenon. He lands straight into the campus of the biggest IT office in Bangalore (not his), gets off his jet and runs around the corner of the building carefully hiding himself. He steps on a box on the way. Sekar being the curious type opens the box and is shocked to find a bomb. With his Super duper Bomb diffusing skills he cuts the red wire, blue wire and then a magenta wire and stops the bomb from exploding. Sekar gets up and walks off to continue his mission while just then a security guard walks by and notices Sekar walking away from the box.

“Hey hey stop … you” cries the Guard. Sekar flees into the building up the stairs.

“What the hell was he doing with the power meter that we replaced!” exclaimed the Guard looking at the cut wires.

Sekar slips into a cubicle and tries to snoop in on a conversation. it was around 6PM now and the IT employees were now in a complete chit chat mode. He knows why they do not leave office at that time as they were trying to beat the traffic. To kill the time it seems they were doing the universal time pass task of IT employees – Browsing.

“Ha ha … That was a funny one, let me forward it to my friends.”

“Hey forward it to me, I am going to post it in my blog.”

“In your blog? no way I am going to post it in mine. If you want you can link it to me”

Sekar finally comes to a conclusion as visible in his clever wicked smoldering smile. He has now got what he needs, writes down a few conclusion points and runs away from the place. The security guard comes running down the pavement shouting “Hey, Stop” but Sekar quickly gets into the lift and goes down to the basement where his hypersonic jet is parked. He gets on the jet and starts up the engine. The security guards now gather in a gang and try to chase Sekar in their jeep. But due to a massive difference in horsepower between the ordinary jeep and Sekar’s hypersonic jet, Sekar gets away so fast that he can’t even hear their shouts. He hardly gives them the time to even recognize him.

Sekar flies off straight to the head quarters of the TV channel where the executives who humiliated him in the pub, were working. He peeks through the window and sees the executive sitting in his chair holding a cup and thinking seriously. He picks up a piece of paper and writes down a line quickly. He tries to look around for a weighty object and lo behold finds a pebble in his shirt, a pebble in his pocket thrown at him during his trip to Delhi. He picks the pebble and wraps it around by that paper and ties it with a rope from the Saravana bhavan Parcel potlam (Pack) and gets ready to aim and throw at the executive. Right then, he gets a wicked idea, a what if?

Super Sekar breathes in steadily and firmly. He places the tiny paper pebble bundle in his rear and with the power of the reaction between the Sambar rice, Vada paav with a neutralizing effect of the lassi generates an immensely pressurized gas in his stomach and propels the paper pebble bundle with a loud powerful fart. The bundle flies off in a trajectory in the direction of the window, the executive just then puts the cup down and starts a big lazy yawn. The bundle still flying crashes through the glass of the window and lands straight into the mouth of the executive.

The executive chokes a bit and manages to pull out the bundle from his mouth. He reads:

“It’s the blogs stupid!”

He then wonders, “Hmm… what’s that smell! and What the hell is a blog!”

Super Sekar gets on his jet and flies away as the camera zooms into his wicked smiling face and then into his eyes that seems to say “See you all Soon, Folks!”

SUMMARY: This is an imaginary story to describe how the Blogosphere is gaining popularity among the Indian Media audience and how the Television Soap shows are loosing its luster due to it. The characters and incidents are purely fictional. You should have found that out as soon as you read about Hypersonic Jet in the hands of a Software Developer.

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Wounded Then, Wounded Now

Venugopal Narayanan is an Accountant at the Royal Treasury of the kingdom of Pallavas. He was a talented young man and led a principled life. His morning routine was getting up to half hour of yoga at 6AM and then bathing in the river for 20 minutes as he practiced his singing. He then spends another half hour walking to the Palace to start his work for the day. King Mahendra Verma Pallava took care of his officials very well. Gopal, as he was called by his colleagues, was very glad to have a breakfast and Lunch from the Royal Kitchen.

The same Venugopal Narayanan in the present day works as a Software Developer at one of those big buildings at IT Corridor in Chennai. He wakes up as early as 7AM gets ready in an hour and eats in a small restaurant outside his apartment complex and starts off for a 1 hour ride in his bike to his office. His lunch is usually in the office that serves a variety of rice items in small quantities or steps out for an Andhra meals. Gops, as he was called by his colleagues, was very glad that he has a decent job, earning decent money.

Gopal is having a busy day today. They were getting close to the Royal Budget session of the year which means he had to work harder on the numbers as the staff would have to face the yearly audit by the minister. Gopal usually spends a good 1 hour eating his lunch, but he had to cut it short to 30 minutes and get back to his calculations. As the afternoon passed, Gopal’s friend had to leave soon for the day as his wife was in labour. Gopal took over his friend’s work and stayed a good 2 hours late to finish up before tomorrow’s audit. It was 7PM and it was now dark outside. He had to walk back to his home in the dark, all alone.

Gops is a manager’s favorite. He can code as much as 40% faster than his peer programmers. He likes to take additional responsibilities and so he was working harder to get everything ready for this weekend’s project release. Ever since his co-developer Madhavi had gone on a Maternity Leave, He had been working an hour late everyday and today he stayed back a full 2 hours late. He finished his dinner at the office and wasn’t ready to go until 10PM.

Gopal borrowed a lantern from the Security guard and walked home. As he got out of the palace, he felt unusual silence. He was not used to going home at this hour. The roads were empty and the air was filled with the noise of crickets, which was the way he identified silence. Gopal is a brave man but he was afraid of dark. Perhaps a feeling of not knowing what’s ahead and around, makes him afraid.Gopal treads for a few minutes carefully holding the lantern. He hears a rustling noise of the leaves and turns his head towards the noise. It causes 2 seconds of distraction making him look away from the road in front. But those 2 seconds were enough to make him miss a huge stone lying on the side of the road. Gopal stumbles upon the stone and falls on the edge of the road and rolls over to the side into a ditch and hits his head to the wall of the ditch. He sprains his legs and is unable to lift himself up.

Gops is used to driving back home at nights. A busy city like Chennai always had bright road lights and people moving around until 10PM, Just like Bono sings – “In the city of blinding lights”. So there was nothing to worry about except uncertainty. The roads were where the scariest of the accidents took place. Gops was driving back home in a one way street and quite unexpectedly he saw an autorickshaw coming towards him from a No Entry. Only 2 seconds he had to correct the course of his bike. But 2 seconds were too little for him and the autorickshaw to adjust as Gops goes too wide and falls into the middle of the road. A speeding bus comes from his behind and the driver of the bus notices Gops and his bike. The drivers takes aversive action that makes the bike, fall prey to the behemoth. Gops has enough time to roll over but only so much to leave his right leg to be run over by the bus shattering into pieces.

It was painful for Gopal to even lift himself up. He tried to use a cloth torn out of his dhoti to stop the bleeding from his head, but in a few minutes he went unconscious. There wasn’t much loss of blood, but it was enough to knock him out. There was no one in the vicinity. Gopal was all alone unconscious accompanied by the noises of cricket, the occasional breeze rustling the leaves of trees. After about 3 hours, a passer by in his bullock cart notices the broken lantern on the road and follows to the ditch. He sees Gopal lying there unconscious and without a second thought he bends down and pulls him up. Gopal was still alive. The stranger freshens him up with some water and cleans the wound. Gopal is then put in the cart by the stranger and is taken to the doctor’s home to treat him.

Gops was surprisingly conscious and was able to look at the pieces of his legs even in the sheer pain. Gops tries to stand up on his one leg and collects the pieces, still crying aloud in his pain. With the pieces in his hand he looks around. There were about 10 pedestrains who looked at him but were not willing to help him up. A cop comes around and marks the area as the accident spot and gets busy diverting the people and the traffic. The bus and the autorickshaw involved in the accident flew away from the spot. There were a lot of vehicles passing by that side, which had the civilized lot like the doctors, engineers, lawyers who were slowing down to look at Gops but none of them stopped. There must have been a 100 onlookers in a span of 1 minute but no one wanted to help Gops. Gops catches an autorickshaw, probably the only kind soul, who agrees to take him to the hospital. It was the hospital where his uncle is a surgeon. Gops is immediately taken in and operated on. The pieces of his legs are put together and his uncle takes care of him very well.

Gopal was thankful to God to send a passerby at that time of the night. Gopal thanked the stranger for saving his life. Gopal lived his life the fullest from the next day onwards.

As for Gops, There was only one thought in his mind. He wasn’t thanking God or thanking his Uncle or thanking the auto driver who brought him to the hospital. He would do that later, but right now he was pained by the fact that there was no one who cared about a stranger in distress. He could not even imagine what would have happened if he didn’t have an uncle as a surgeon in a hospital. It took several months for Gops to recover but the pain of his fellow human beings leaving him by himself when he was a victim of unorderliness for a fraction of a second left him scarred.

In an advanced civilization with a lot of people around and a lot of advanced technolgy on hand, Gops was left to stand on his own. Gops became stronger and lived his life as a brave young man achieving all the dreams in his life.

“Software Engineer”ed cooking

I was wondering what would happen if Cooking is treated as Software development, following all the Software Development Life Cycle steps. To keep it gender neutral I will use terms like Honey and Spouse to refer to either sex.

The Non-cooking spouse sends his/her requirement for dinner to the Cooking Spouse via e-mail:

“Honey, I would like Venn Pongal and Sambar for tonight’s dinner. Luv – XXX”

Cooking spouse replies to the e-mail:

“I am sorry but your requirements are unclear. What kind of Sambar do you need? Do you also need Coconut Chutney? I know it is not mentioned but I have to ask to keep my customer delighted”

Non-Cooking spouse now gets careful and writes up a Requirment document and sends it to the Cooking spouse, the excerpts of the document is given below:

“Objective: To have dinner tonight

Requirements:

Req 1: Venn Pongal made using Sona masoori rice with less usage of Pepper corn and more Ginger. Rice has to be slightly over cooked for better taste.

Req 2: Onion Sambar with bits of carrot. Sambar can be made using MTR Powder if home made powder is unavailable. (Note: Use less tamarind paste as it will be too sour from me).

Platform: Standard Indian Kitchen with Standard Crockery items.

Contact List: XXX – +91 123456789.

Constraints: Internet Recipe References strictly prohibited. Use Mother in law’s provided Supplemental copy of Cooking for Dummies along with the Encyclopedia of South Indian Cooking by Grandma.”

Cooking spouse gets enraged by the non-standard compliant Requirement document and insulted by the Constraints statement, conducts a review with the Mother in Law and replies back with 10 defects and 15 corrections. A review workbook is filled and filed for Auditing purposes. After a few rounds of email the Spouses agree on what has to be made for the dinner.

Cooking spouse now sends an estimation workbook totalling the cost of the project as $400.

Non-Cooking spouse is now completely bewildered looking at the figure and hence resorts to a phone call over email:(N – Non-Cooking Spouse, C – Cooking spouse).

N: “Hello dear, How are you?”

C:”I am fine, whatsup?”

N:”What’s with this $400?”

C:”Estimated cost for today’s dinner.”

N:”But we are in India, why did you bill it in $?”

C:”We need to think global, so we should only transact in $”

N:”But can’t you use the money from the House eating budget Bucket?”

C:”No, that is not applicable for special requests. If I use that bucket you will be eating leftovers from afternoon lunch”

(N is caught in a diplomatic documental evidence loop)

N:”But Pongal won’t cost $20 even in a Five star hotel”

C: “Oh $400 includes the cost of Father in law even though he is in your hometown and doesn’t contribute anything, Phone support with Mother in Law and a new innovative idea for dinner making – iPod. Yes It includes the cost of iPod and it is just one time cost. I believe I can cook better if I listen to music while cooking. It will improve Quality Standards”

N: Sigh …ok!

The Cooking spouse finishes the office work and heads home to perform the design and implementation of Venn Pongal and Sambar. On the way, Cooking spouse collects the check for $400 and stops by the store to get the iPod. Cooking Spouse makes the Venn pongal sambar in an hour with the power of iPod and that is the only mention I am going to give above the actual cooking, to keep it realistic with Software Development. (Development is the peaceful, less noisy phase to the outside world. No one knows what happens during this time, only when things go to testing and production everything comes out!).

In the middle of cooking, the Non-cooking spouse calls up home and says “Hey, Can you also make Coconut chutney please? Just thought I would like that too with Pongal”

Cooking Spouse: “You will need to raise a change request and will have to pay an extra $20 for that and it may not get done until tomorrow morning. Is that ok with you?”

N: “phew! Never mind!”

Cooking spouse makes a mild noise “Meoow…Meooww…” and the neighbours cat comes to the window thinking “It’s time for testing!”. Cooking spouse feeds a little bit of pongal to the cat and monitors it for 5 minutes. The cat is all merry and goes home unaffected and the testing is certified.

Dinner is now ready and served:

N: “Honey, the pongal is wonderful. I am completely satisfied”

C: “Can you please fill out the feedback form for Customer satisfaction? Also please send this in an email,so I can send it to my Manager (Mother in Law) for an Award and my performance review for the year”

N: “Oh, but I had to add one comment. Sambar needs a little bit of salt.”

C: “I had followed your requirements word by word and it was assumed that we will use Standard amount of Salt for the dishes. I will have to analyze the problem and then will look into it.”

N:”Can we simply not add a pinch of salt to the sambar and kalakkufy (mix/stir)?”

C:”I will have to open a conference bridge with the mother in law and my mother and find out the severity of the problem. Only then I can decide what to do”

(N keeps eating slowly…)

(Conference bridge is open)

Mother in Law: “Lets start by systematically analyzing the problem. Has N fainted?”

C: “No, N is still wide awake munching down the Pongal”

Mother: “So this is definitely not a Severity 1 (High severity) issue then! Is he atleast choking, begging for life, anything at all?”

C:”Nope!”

MIL: “It is not even Severity 2 (Medium Severity) then. We have to categorize it as Severity 3 (Low Severity) and you don’t need to fix it until a week. That is what the service level agreement says”

(N keeps eating and is almost done now)

C says to N: “Did you hear that? I don’t need to fix it until next week!”

N mumbles as he finishes the pongal and C finishes off the pongal too. N fills the Customer satisfaction form and gives a 9 out of 10 rating.

N and C walk to the bedroom and crash. Now, in Software terminology Crashing is not good, the program needs to keep running unless it is Microsoft Windows. But since it is life and cooking, Crashing after dinner is perfectly ok and is a sign of successful cooking.

So, My dear fellow Software Engineers, just be glad that Cooking is not handled as Software Engineering.

My beloved Non-Software Engineers, from this please understand the frustrations we go through everyday. Also, Please don’t take any clue from the $400 estimation, it was just a joke, you won’t get an iPod for Cooking.