Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Its time to move on

It all started in the Summer of 2008. Since then we were unseparable even though there were some gaps as I was busy with my personal and professional life. I had a great time spending time with it. Recently I have felt that it was time to move on and try something new and different.

Yes I am moving away from blogger to wordpress. I have already exported all the content (both personal and travel blogs) into wordpress. My new address will be http://palwai.wordpress.com

I might miss this space but at the same time hoping that I will have a great time with wordpress.

Monday, June 21, 2010

Its June

I know its an accurate yet pointless title. The fact is I have been real busy all these days and I wanted to write something here.

For last two months I have been working even on the weekends and the schedules and unplanned work is killing my sleep. I have so many complaints from family and friends that I am not being in touch with them. I guess I should convey these messages to my managers.

This month has been special so far as it was my parents 32nd Successful Marriage Anniversary. Even though I was not there I was hoping that they would have a great time and celebrate many more anniversaries. Its also Father's day this month and it would have been great if I was there with my dad. Last but not the least, Its French Open, NBA, FIFA & Iphone 4 release.

I also saw some real good movies this month which includes Prince of Persia, Karate Kid and Toy Story. I also saw Raavan which was badly made. For the next whole week I will be again busy with my work schedule. Thats all from me now.

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Filling Timesheet is Painful

The most annoying task for any resource in the month end would be filling in their time sheet. Having worked for some of the largest companies, I have seen really monstrous time tracking systems. Every employee thinks that they are frankly Painful, horrible, soul crushing, and pointless. No one likes time sheets.

I have seen those tensed faces during the month-ends as people have to clock the each and every minute they are in the office and also have to justify their work for those hours. I am not sure why managers think that any resource can actually justify his work for all the 8 hours.

I have also seen some managers resort to public humiliation to get their employees to submit their time sheets on time without any discrepancies. Even though we are at work busy doing a task given by the same manager, he still insists in submitting the timesheet on time.

Below is one such conversations which I have actually had on the floor.

Manager: Where is your time sheet Sudheendra?
Sudheendra: I’ll get it to you.

Manager: But it was due two hours ago.
Sudheendra: Yeah I know. Look, I’m really very busy, and I don’t really have time to figure out all that I did in the past week and fill it in the time sheet.

Manager: Do you want to get paid?
Sudheendra: Do you want me to work or not. Of course I need the salary. Look, I’ll get it to you, I just need some time to finish some things given by YOU.

After all this struggle, one questions that always recurrs while filling the time sheet is:

Hey buddy, Do you remember what we did last week?

In a place where we do multi tasking and work on many projects, I guess our memory about the tasks done would often become blur. I know we all are intelligent and have started writing about all these tasks in a Excel sheet to have it for reference at the end of the month.

But after doing all these exercises, justifying all those tasks each day for all 8 hours would always be a very big & tedious task for the employee.

I am now ready for the comments from the managers :-)

Thursday, April 29, 2010

Rain Rain Go Away


Its been raining at irregular times and intervals for the last 2 weeks in Singapore. We have planned for camping this weekend I don't want rain to spoil the whole plan. The first thing that came to my mind was the rhyme which I learned as a kid.

Rain Rain Go Away, Come Again Another Day

Hope to have a great weekend.

Monday, April 26, 2010

Blogwriter

Testing blog writer app from Iphone

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

My Best Friends Wedding


As a child, I moved a lot because of dad getting transferred every now and then. I was never so comfortable making friends where ever I went. I always had one or two friends where ever I went. When I came to my high school, I came to Hyderabad and got settled there. It was in my +2 that I actually started making friends and socialising. It was day 1 at Special Coaching center where I met my best friend Kishore.

From there it is now a journey of 14 years of relationship. I still remember the day one in my college when I sat besides him and slept during the class. We quickly hit it off and our friendship grew into the odd man-love, that cant be explained, but just understood. There were many funny, sentimental, serious moments during these days.

I have planned many things for his marriage, right from when to go to Hyd to what to wear in the marriage. I was never interested in staying in the wedding for the whole time. But as this wedding is special and interesting for me, I wanted to experience each and every aspect of this marriage and be part of most of it.

The day has come and on April 3rd, Nandu got married. I will post the marriage details later. But right now I am very happy for the couple and just waiting for them to land in Singapore while they are on their honeymoon trip.

Monday, April 19, 2010

Nice Weekend

All these days I have been busy because of one project and one tough user. Frankly speaking had a tough time at work last one month. I felt this weekend was great and relaxing after a long time and hence thought it was worth sharing with everyone.

Friday Nagaraj gave his birthday (which was actually on Apr-8th) party at Khalsa Club (Our favorite hangout place for long time because of its nice food and sensible rates). While coming back home we bought a carrom board and were ready for action. We played till 2AM and went home.

Saturday started off with some nice food and then went on playing carroms and watching movies. In the evening, thanks to Santosh, we all started running. We ran for around 3KM and then walked for 3KM. On the way back we went to Harry's had couple of beers and had dinner.

Sunday early morning I, Swetha & Surya left for cycling in the Pasir Ris Park. We did cycling for around 10KM and then went to friends room had nice lunch and went home to sleep. In the evening again I, Swetha, Nagaraj, Santosh & Amarnadh went for cycling. This time we went to Changi Village and the total track was 20KM. On the way back it was very nice experience to pedal the cycle in the rain. As it was raining we decided to have some nice pakodis along with couple of drinks. We went home had egg burji and pakodi along with beer.

At the end, the weekend was over with Deccan Chargers winning the match and earning a place in Semis.

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Long Time No See


Yes, Its been quite sometime that I wrote in this place. I cannot blame anyone this time. There was a lot happening in last 2 months both in personal and professional life. I did not get proper time to sit and write here. Hopefully in the next few days I will be back into my blog world.

What's happening at my end
- Celebrated First Anniversary
- My birthday
- Cursed manager after the appraisal
- Going to India again this month end
- Working late hours .. coming early to office .. its been quite hectic
- Playing lot of cricket these days

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Happy Birthday Swetha

Its been surprises all the way for Swetha since day she married me. Now before you jump for conclusions, these are all pleasant surprises. This time was about her birthday. Swetha's birthday was on 18th January which was Monday, so I thought we will celebrate on 17th so that we can have enough time in partying.

I and Surya planned things in such a way that Swetha had no clue about what was going on. We all were behaving as if we forgot about her birthday. We had sumptous biryani prepared by Rakesh at 230J. Then we went to see yet a disaster movie of NTR, Adhurs. It was already 9.30 by the time movie was completed and still Swetha was waiting for a sign from me and friends so that some one would say it out. But everything was taken care so well that everyone acted well.

Meanwhile Surya booked a table at Sapphire in Jewel box which had a greate view from the top of Mt. Faber. We took a taxi from the theater pretending that the Nagaraj was giving a party for his promotion. We went to the restaurant, had nice food, drinks and we enjoyed the cool breeze and view at the top. It was around 11.30PM when we decided to leave, its then that the steward got the cake (brought by Santosh) from behind and kept it before Swetha. The expression on Swetha's face the next moment was priceless.

She was very happy the way I have organized the whole thing. Since then everyone is asking what gift I have given to Swetha and I have been replying the same, "I have given her sweet memories to cherish".

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Happy Married Life


I am dedicating this space to my good friends Rinesh and Shradha on occasion of their marraige and heartfelt wishes to the couple. I think this is the only marriage among my friends where I have attended all the functions and parties. I was there right from Mehendi, Sangeet, Marriage, Reception and Bachelors Party. I had a great time and met my good friends from engineering.

Birthdays of the Month


I have tried to retrieve and remember the birthdays of all those people whom I know and who are born in January. I wish all you many many happy returns of the day. Some are belated and some are in advance :-)

Madhavi - Jan 2 (MIS)
Praveen - Jan 5 (Goldstone)
Kalyan - Jan 8 (MGIT)
Venkatesh - Jan 8 (Goldstone)
Karteek - Jan 11 (SRMJC)
Ramya - Jan 11 (My Sweet sister)
Suman - Jan 14 (MGIT)
Rasika - Jan 15 (MGIT)
Nagoor Basha - Jan 15 (Goldstone)
Sreedhar - Jan 15 (MGIT)
Dhananjay - Jan 16 (Goldstone)
Sangeeta - Jan 18 (Good Old friend lost in time)
Jayanth - Jan 26 (Common friend)
Sandhya - Jan 26 (MGIT)
Satish - Jan 28 (MGIT)
Sharon - Jan 31 (MGIT)

New Year Resolutions


As I do every year, this year also I took some resolutions and trying to follow them.

Regarding health:
- Drink plenty of water (I am already doing it and am continuing that this year too)
- Eat more fresh fruits and drink juices (I am doing it everyday)
- Avoid non-veg where ever possible (Avoiding on weekends is a little tough though)
- Avoid alcohol (Strictly following)
- Sleep for 7 hours (Not happening)
- Take a 10-30 minutes walk every day (Not happening)
- Smile and laugh more (I am always smiling)

Regarding Inner soul:
- Make time for prayer everyday (Yes, since yesterday)
- Sit in silence for at least 10 minutes each day without doing anything (Not happening)
- Call family often (Yes, everyday)
- Stay in touch with friends and family

Regarding personal growth
- Read more books than I did in 2009 (Going on)
- Dream while I am awake (Not happening)
- Learn a new thing everyday
- Read before you sign (Added yesterday)
- More blogging

The list would definitely increase as days go on and on

Lessons Learned the hard way


There are many lessons in life that we learn from parents, friends, surroundings, situations etc naturally. But there are some lessons which we learn the hard way.

All my life I have never cared about cross checking anything or anyone because, I always felt that the whole world is standing on faith and belief. I have filled so many forms or signed so many bonds and contracts without reading, took so many cheques and money from people with out counting, etc. I did all this by beleiving the other person and have never failed or have been betrayed or fooled.

There are some incidents which change the way we think and the way we look at the life. One such incident happened in my life and I have learned this lesson the hard way. I have been overbilled on my two mobiles for 700 dollars just because some idiotic salesman has not ticked a small box and I signed it without properly looking into the form.

From now on I will definitely be skeptical when I am filling the forms, signing the contracts or dealing the money matters.

Makara Sankranthi Subhakankshalu


First of all I wish you all Happy Makar Sankranti or Makara Sankranthi Subhakankshalu.

Today morning I reached my office desk and my desk phone started ringing. I was surprised to see the call from my colleague Vijay who is from a different team. I thought he was calling with respect to cricket practice this weekend. To my horror, here goes the conversation

Babs: Hello

Vijay: Good Morning Sudheendra !!!
Babs: Good Morning Vijay

Vijay: Today is some festival in Andhra right?
Babs: Yes, its makara sankranthi or pongal for some people

Vijay: OK, Why do you celebrate this festival?
I was bowled right on the spot. I just knew that we eat sweets and fly kites.
Babs: Hmm, I dont really know the exact reason Vijay. I just know that we fly kites. Sorry.

Vijay: Who is the right person to find out?
I thought Google or Wikipedia in my mind. I was not sure if any other telugu people knew about this and I didnt want to embarass them. So I said:
Babs: Vijay I will find out and let him know.

I immediately opened Wikipedia and Google and parallely called dad. Dad was sleeping as it was too early for them in Hyderabad.

Dad: Hello Good Morning nana
Without saying a word I started off:
Babs: Dad why do we celebrate Sankranthi?

Dad: Today is the day when Sun moves from one Southern Hemisphere to Northern Hemisphere. Also today transition of the Sun from Dhanu rashi (Sagittarius) to Makara rashi (Capricorn) takes place. Farmers do harvesting and get their harvest home on this day.
Babs: Ok dad thanks. Shall talk to you later.

After talking to dad and reading online, I got a fair idea on why Sankranthi festival is celebrated. I called Vijay and explained him the same. Below some more info on Sankranthi for people who are still not clear about it.

Sankranti is celebrated for four days in Andhra Pradesh:

* Day 1 - Bhogi Panduga (Bhogi pandga)
The first day of festival is Bhogi. At dawn people light a bonfire with logs, old mats, clothes and other such things that are no longer useful. In many families, infants and children (usually less than three years old) are showered with fruit called "Regi Pandlu", that is the Indian jujube fruit. It is believed that doing this would protect the children from evil eye, called "Dishti" (from Sanskrit Drishthi: sight) .

* Day 2 - Pedda Panduga,SANKRANTI (Surya)
The second day is Sankranti, also called "Pedda Panduga",( literally, the big festival), when everyone wears new clothes,pray, and make offerings of sweets to God.

* Day 3 - Kanuma Panduga (Kanuma)
Kanuma Panduga (Kanuma) is not as widely celebrated, but is an integral part of the Sankranti culture.

* Day 4 - Mukkanuma
Mukkanuma is famous among the non-vegetarians of the society. People do not eat any meat or fish during the first three days of the festival, and do so only on the day of Mukkanuma.

Sankranti usually means all the four days together. It is celebrated in almost every village with adventurous games in South India. Whether it is the cock fights in Andhra, Bull fighting in Tamil Nadu or Elephant Mela in Kerala, there is huge amount of illegal betting but the so called tradition continues to play a major role in the festival. Another notable feature of the festival in South India is the Haridas who moves around begging for rice wishing luck.

Monday, January 04, 2010

Happy New Year - 2010