Accounting...Hyderabadi Style

Flashback: 25th June, 2007. First day of class in CR-8 in the new campus of IIM A, the class room of Section -B PGP class of 2009. Its 8:35 am, and our protoganist, Prof M S Shriram(MSS) walks in. 75 fachchas await in eager anticipation, not sure what awaits them. He looks at the clock at the back of the class, turns to his RA and comments, "Shruti, we must take a pic of the whole class with the clock in the background. I am sure I will never again get to see a class full of students at 8:35 am". All smiles. He goes on to say, "Dont laugh, I am serious. There will be marked difference in your definition of punctuality in the second year. In fact, forget second year or second term, I promise a difference post-midterm itself". We were not really sure about it, so we just nodded along.


Cut to date. 6th August.
8:35 am: MSS walks in as usual for his MANAC (Accounting) class. 12 students in the class.
8:40 am: 23 students, RA also arrives.
8:42 am: Sudden increase in the flow of students, MSS observes and smiles from his chair. 38 students in the class now.
8:43 am: another 10 have entered, and trying to settle down at their respective places. People fiddle with their name tags, which have been transformed overnight to the likes of "tanki" (TAnuj SolaNKI) and "surma" (SURajit MAllick).
8:44 am: deluge of breakfast munching, hands wiping, half-running students into the class. The trash bin outside is working at its full capacity collecting all breakfast that could not be forced into mouths in time.
8:45 am: Last minute just in time entries...finally class reaches it full strength.

MSS begins, "Just as I said in the beginning of the term, there goes ur puncutality". Then comes the bouncer, "2T, why dont u start the class". Bewildered expression on my face is a total give-away (how in the world does he know my dorm name?!). "Why are you giving me that look? Aren't you prepared for the class?". "I didnt expect you to know my dorm name, Sir", I stuttered. "I know a whole lot of things which you dont expect me to", and after a brief pause and a wicked smile "which includes accounting." With a sheepish grin, I move towards the board.

He seemed in one of his usual good moods, which almost always spelt trouble for "the chosen one". Today, it happened to me. I started making entries on the board, with the idea that I will write out stuff before explaning them. But he obviously disapproved. "2T apparently believes in opposite of what bhagvad gita says. Gita says, "Karmanyeva adhikaaraste maa phaleshu kadaachana, while 2T is only bothered about the results, and not the karma." The whole class erupts, and I knew I had a lot more coming.

I started explaining all entries. I started in the centre board, which got filled up after which I moved to the one on the left. In the end, there was one entry which I could not explain properly, and when he repeated the question, I just nodded out of sheer desperation. MS laughs, "Thats a very nice way of answering something. Go back to your seat." I thanked heavens that the ordeal was finally over, and while I was about to sit back at my desk, "our 2T will go long way in life". "Thank you sir" was all I could say, resulting in more laughter around the class.

And just when I thought it was all over, he had one last comment to make. He was clearing the board, when he again came across my entries. "2T, you are from Hyderabad na". "Yes sir I am", not sure what that was supposed to be for. "So thats where u picked up the habit of writing from right to left"!

I always though MANAC classes were entertaining, but today I found myself at the receiving end. Not that bad actually.

Rechristened...

Wow! 2 posts in 3 days...something is definitely wrong out here. Well its not much, just that mid-term exams are going on, and one always looks for outlets to vent out frustrations in such situations. Just when I thought I had already been through the worse that could be (breaking the non-negativity barrier in an exam), WIMWI manages to prove me wrong again. Mid terms...2 exams a day, and you dont even know how long your exam is going to last (Operations was 3.5 hrs long, while computing "just" 2). MS Sriram, our MANAC (there is no "I" there) prof, did tell us in the first day itself..."Welcome to IIM A. Its the end of your dream, and the beginning of a nightmare". Now I know why he said that. More of Shriram to come in my future posts.

On the bright side, I have sucessfully managed to complete half a term here. 2 WACs, 12 surprise quizzes, 23 cases, 7 subjects and 2 midsems later, I am still here. And while I am here, I invariably become a part of the WIMWI culture. We finally had our traditional dorm naming ceremony, and after a 2 week long process, the sorting hat finally had me...

"Thou shall henceforth be known as 2T - The Sex God".

Thats our tuchchas saying, welcome to Dorm-20, the Dorm of Sex Gods.

Glimpses...

D-20 Fuchchas - The new sex gods. They will henceforth be known as ...

Now Shriram will not have to call me Vamsee anymore, poor chap always keeps asking in the class "Whats ur dorm name?". And yeah, talk about the origin of my name. Well, I can't really tell that to you. Thats a Dorm secret, and no one outside my Dorm will never know that. Its been so since times immemorial, and shall remain so. The Dorm culture here at IIM A is very strong, and each of the 23 dorms has its own traditions, rituals, ceremonies and practices. People here are never bothered with your real name, they always ask "Which Dorm? Whats your dorm name?". Such is the significance of dorm name that we know HLL head as Vindi Banga, well vindi was his dorm name here at IIM A.

Read more about the IIM A dorm name tradition on Sleepless at IIM A.

In the world of WIMWI...

I am really tempted to write a full fledged blog here, considering that this will be my first post since entering the hallowed portals of IIM A. But alas, with the mid-terms around the corner, it would be too much of a risk. But since I have managed the miracle of completing my WAC assignment before time (three hours to go!!!), I will take the liberty to put up a post.

Here is a list of some common jargons used here in WIMWI. Disclaimers, since it is not an original work. None the less, it makes a pretty interesting read. I promise there is a lot to follow, for which this will work as a reference guide. Take them at the face value now, explanations will follow in due course of time. I am off to enjoy the famous WAC run(See below) now...

Arbit (adj.: origin:: local); short for arbitrary .meaning nothing in particular and everything in general.

Assignment (n: origin:: James Bond Movies); PC lab has computer paper; groups have to meet; the Profs have to give something in order to take something; hence ass-ignments; gives rise to Newton's nth law - "thickness of the report shall be directly proportional to the weightage of the assignment".

Blackbooks (n: origin:: IIM A); collectors' items; consists of old question papers which are the saviours during quizzes, midterms and endterms; question-able methods of cracking the scene. "

Bumps (n: origin:: A'bad Municipal Corporation); if it's your birthday or in case you crack the scene , then you have had it - no ifs and butts.

Case mat (n: origin:: Case Unit); IN CASE YOU ARE FOUND WITHOUT IT IN CLASS , THEN YOUR CASE IS VERY WEAK. BT THE WAY THE UPPER CASE IS INCIDENTAL

CCCF (n: origin:: IIM A); acronym for 'Conceptual Clarity and Contextual Familiarity'; for cccf on what that means see cccf.

Chai (n: origin:: obscure); the underlying fillosophy of WIMWIans; the forum for countless discussions over countless cups; the non-alcoholic spirit of IIM-A life. Has strong associations with mess , NR and Rambhai's

CHAOS (n: origin:: Biblical (almost), IIM-A); describes the state of an WIMWIian two hours prior to any submission or presentation. Also IIM-A's organised (???) annual extravaganza.

Cogging (n: origin:: Arthur Hailey); Collaborative Operations on Getting Good Insights for Necessary Grades; on-line teaching aids for turning the wheels of one's life . Strictly prohibited in WIMWI.

Combo (n: origin:: Phantom Comics); IIM-A equivalent of Jungle Olympics; never ending source of fun, entertainment and activity in the second term, when battles are fought on an mental and physical plane; an outlet for action and interaction.

Convocation (n: origin:: Nalanda); the day when IIM-A life turns full circle; 180 degrees are handed over on this day.

Corpo Dinner (n: origin:: IIM-A), one more resultant)of mess grub; around 25 Indians go out in English suits to an American place, have Mexican and Chinese food and go Dutch; a truly global affair.

CP (n: origin:: Harvard); Acronym for 'Class Participation'; IIM's vocal support to the cause of socialism, often accompanied by its offshoots like Arbit CP, Challenge CP, RCP, ACP etc.

CR (n: origin:: Sholay); acronym for 'Class Representative'; generally jobless except for rescheduling classes, making farewell speeches, postponing assignments and making a fool of him(her)self in the Talent Nite.

Cribbing (n:: Oliver Twist); Continuous Ranting and Industrious Brow Beating Inevitably for Necessary Grades.

D-l, D-2 & D-ll (origin:: Louis Kahn); short for Dorm-1, Dorm-2 and Dorm-11; residences for non-males and non- resident males.

Day Zero (n: origin:: Algeber-wai mulublai); the day of reckoning for the best; genesis for some ;armageddon for any.

Diro (n: origin:: English); Big Chief of IIM-A; a figurehead who can't figure out where we are heading.

Dorm (n: origin:: Louis Kahn); they exist from 1 to 23; the epicentre of all activity in IIM-A; also residences for WIMWIans.

Dorm Rep (n: origin:: IIM-A); Chief of the dorm; arranges for dinners, dunkings, T-shirts and other common dorm inventory

Dunking (origin:: Niagara fn!!s) ; IIMA's answer to the patriot missiles ; long range aqueous projectiles aimed at an unsuspecting passerby providing source of immense gratification; this ritual for no perceivable reason, has a distinctive sexual bias.

Endterm (origin :'The Crusaders'}; the magnum opus of the coterie of professors, an epic battle fought by valiant students to stay afloat, which puts other occurrences like the Mahahharata and the Ramayana to shame; used in conjunction with other torture instruments like midterms and quizzes.

Exhibit (origin:: showbiz); Unnecessary, but necessary portion of anything attached to its end; an integral part of WAC reports and PPTs.

'F'(origin:: ancient Greek); the most dreaded grade in non-academic circles; also happens to be the sixth letter of the alphabet.

Fachchas ( origin: obfciirc); all new entrants to the realms of Louis Kahn, Vastrapur, the case method, corpodom and MANAC quizzes.

FPM ( origin: 11M A); fully paid mazaa; a four year transform which involves a fully subsidized vacation with a universal pastime called research; fine fellows they become.

Fraud (origin: RaviC, mind u, only the word, not what it stands for) to beautifully elaborate and then succinctly encapsulate first grade BS, applies to many assignments, and unfortunately, some courses as well

Garba ( origin: Gujjuland); a rollicking local dance form; an occasion for honing one'? skills in tertiary activities like dancing, bird-watching; a time when IIM A comes to NID, NIFT and CEPT.

Group Meeting (origin: Harvard); necessary part of the curriculum; when WIMWIans sit or stand or lie down and discuss solutions tor unstructured problems and dilemmas in life; in other words , the day's juice is collated, arranged and prepared ready for dispatch to community at large the next day.

Harvard Dinner (origin: IIM A); the soup that we land ourselves in on Friday nights; a solemn acknowledgment of where we derive our 'bread and butter' from;

IIM-B (origin: Indian Govt.); never heard of such a place, cccf invited. Also called Not So Well Known Institute of Management In Southern India.

IIM-C (origin: Indian Govt.); never heard of such a place, cccf invited. Also called Not So Well Known Institute of Management In Eastern India.

Juice (n: origin: IIM-A): WIMWI's own edition of the British, Hindi and vernacular tabloids put together in torture chambers called classrooms for public consumption and reprieve; no wonder Hitler didn't like the 'juice'.

Junta (origin: 1930s, Spain); we, the people, the mob, any number of guys and gals from one to infinity generally present anywhere.

KLMDC (origin:Gujjuland); Kinda' Lodge for Misled Delegations from Companies, a paid vacation for middle level managers in an amiable ambiance; for those who can't afford golf courses, crash courses are the in-thing; a classic case of mutual value addition.

Leli (origin IIM-A); ancient war cry of the masses; occurs when unwitting individual(s) have been taken (in) by a revenge seeking mob. (see tempo shout and zigzag).

LKP (origin: Louis Kahn); IIM-A equivalent of the red square; venue for convo, afternoon snoozes, photograph sessions, inaugs, rock-nites .....

LSD (origin: 'TheBeatles); stands originally for' Literary and Symposium Desk' but literally the symposium part is non-existent.

MAD Club (origin: IIM-A); stands for Movie A Day; but often Xceeds one's XXpectations.

Management (origin: Gujjuland); what one tells the auto driver when you want to get to IIM-A; not to be confused with anything else.

Marketing (origin: Indus Valley Civilisation); if it's not finance it must be; governed by four P's, especially during placement - Please Pardon Poor Percentages; also the name of torture instrument used by PO, Vyas and Jain Baba.

MF (origin: IIM-A); stands for Marketing Fair christened 'Insight'; where the companies use WIMWIans as guinea pigs for trying out new ideas and the WIMWIans use local junta as guinea pigs to try out their fledging skills and all the junta not doing serious work enjoy themselves immensely.

Midterms (origin: 'The Crusades'); See endterms.

NID (origin: 'Govt. Of India'); Place forming a mutual admiration society with WIMWI. They admire the , way our campus is built and we admire the way they are.

CT (origin: local); Where WIMWIans mortally wounded in the mess, retreat in the night to assuage grumbling tummies.

Nightout (origin: 'The Owl and the Pussy Cat'); doing something you should have done earlier, at a time when you should be doing what you did earlier, (see WAC).

Open Book (origin: smug Profs); Kind of exam in which cogging from a book is allowed, but in which you can't figure out which chapter. Or if you know the chapter you must have brought the wrong book. If nothing else you've come to the wrong classroom. See cogging.

Operations (origin:World War II); nothing medical There is a rumour that it used to be a substitute for Finance and Marketing, but you shouldn't believe everything you hear.

Pantry (origin: Louis Kahn); A. small room in every dorm. Some of these actually contain Ossum food.

PGP (origin: PGP office); Presently Grilled Prisoners. (See endterms, midterms, quiz, assignments).

Postpone (origin: Mojo); Something that is done to assignments, classes, quizzes on pretexts like Talent Nite, LAN crashes and a general attack of lethargy.

PPO (origin: P&G); Stands for 'Placement Panic Over' or 'Persistence Pays, OK?'.

PPT (origin: Placement Office); Stands for 'Please Pay "Ttention'. Sadly, very few comply and the rest pay up 250 bucks each.

Quiz (origin: Charles Daley); Like any other you have seen. Puzzling questions, limited time, makes you wish you knew more and of course the quizmaster's decisions final.

R.As (n: origin: 'The Mahabharta'; Lord Ganesha being the first one); People holding the key to a good GPA and must hence be kept in good humour. Attendance, CP and exam marks are in their hands. Behold them in awe and handle them with care (see GPA, CP, cribbing).

Rambhai (origin: Gujjuland); One man institution outside WIMWI who could teach a course or Wo if he had time (see marketing, chai).

Rem (origin: 'the Bible', 'The Second Coming'); Replay in slow motion for those who missed action the first time round.

RG (origin: The autobiography of Daintier Benz); I know what it means but why should I tell you ?

SAC-C (origin: The Chancellor of Exchequer); WIMWIan equivalent of President, Pope and CEO rolled into one. In short a position in which you can sac, see?(see WIMWI).

Soapbox (origin: Hyde Park, London); Place where some people go to speak and rest go to have fun.

Tucchas (Origin: Paradise Regained by Milton); the Gods in WIMWI

Ramp (origin: Stanford Univ. USA); Architectural marvel for foreigners and NID-ians to gawk at and for WIMWIans to climb, (see NID). Now notorious for parties

Summers (origin: Revolution of the earth round She sun);Hot season in preparation for which people wear blazers and ties .

Systems (origin: Mckinsey's 7 S model); Like Operations a rumoured alternative to Finance and Marketing. Most WIMWIans don't believe this to be true. (see operations, marketing, finance).

Talent Nite (origin: local); High point of the first term. An elaborate exercise to get to know almost everyone in your section and to see your CR make a fool of himself, (see CR).

Tempo Shout (origin: The Paleolithic Age; origin: of spoken tongue); tribal war whoop emitted by groups of WIMWIans, apparently without any provocation, rhyme or reason (see Leli, zigzag-zigzag).

Tower Lawns (origin: Louis Kahn); used by WIMWIans for playing football and hockey, general junta for lazing on and cows for grazing on.

Vastrapur (origin: unknown); Small unimportant village in a small unimportant town in Western India.

Vet (origin: Blue Cross); The medical man about town. Short for 'veteran doctor' - contrary to popular opinion. Met when you report a stomach upset , the main symptoms of which are over-sleeping and inability to attend classes.

WAC run (origin: local); strange ritual held nine times a year in which WIMWIans remain awake all Friday night and start running madly at 04:25 PM on the next day. (see Nightout).

Welcome Night (origin: local); Traditional event to see how well a PGP 1 can sing when two hundred PGP 2s are yelling.

WIMWI (origin: extremely local); Where I Mingle With IIM-ites.

Wing (origin: Louis Kahn); View of the campus from the wrong side of the LKP.

Work-ex (origin: Newton's Third Lam); After which some people come here for a two year break.

Zigzag-zigzag (origin: Tempo Shout); Description of the path to success and future glory from here. Part of tempo shout, no doubt for that reason, (see Leli, tempo shout).

Summer Vacation

I know I am into job now, and unlike back in school or college, there ain't no such thing as a summer vacation. But then, some habits die hard. So I decided I need a summer vacation this time too, albeit not one that stretches over the whole of summer. My cousin's marriage was the official reason, just because you need one to get leave. Frankly speaking I was just bored of waiting for my results, so just wanted to chill out at home. So a two week leave was what I finally managed to eek out. How ironical is it that people generally take a break to "chill out" in summer?!

So first stop was home sweet home, Hyderabad. First few days were spent hogging on mom's gastronomical delights and gaining all that I had lost over the last 6 months in just 6 meals. Eat-sleep-TV-comp-eat-sleep again. Throw in a couple of long drives and a few movies, life simply doesn't get better than this.

Now when u think of summer vacations back in school days, it usually involved lots of TV, cricket, fighting with Brindle, going to granny's and meeting cousins. Of course, that was almost 8 years ago and I hadn't been to granny's since. So I decided to make the trip this time.

They live in this village called Vuyyuru some 20 kms from Vijayawada. Mom would insist that its not a village, but it is definitely where u get to see rural India. Here are some thing characteristic of a trip to Vuyyuru:

1) Tiled roofs : Certainly not something to be seen easily in cities.

2) The box-shaped cycle rickshaws : A unique characteristic of Vuyyuru, I bet not many of you have seen this.
3) Sugarcane laden bullock-carts : The life-line of Vuyyuru, connecting the farms to the sugar factory.
4) Hand pumps!
5) The best respite from the heat - Goli Soda.
6) And finally, the sign boards....

P.S. : While I was busy capturing all this, the IIMs finally declared their results.
Yours truly is headed for IIM A!
Looks like my association with Gujarat is going to continue for another two years.

Me & Blind Date

When IBM posted me in Pune in early June last year, it gave me a chance to reunite with lots of my school friends. I had lost contact with most of them when I left Nagpur almost 5 years ago, but thanks to Pune being the IT and educational hub, most of us landed up here. Orkut, of course was always there to help out.

It all began one fine day, when we were all hanging out together. Since we were meeting after a really long time, there was lots to catch up on…junior college, graduation, jobs etc etc. Eventually the conversation moved to past/current girlfriends and boyfriends (as the case may be). One by one, they all spelt out their stories. When my turn came along, I just told them that I don’t have a girl friend right now, and never had any in the past either (which is true!). They refused to believe me, and insisted that I was not being honest. To end the argument, I passed an oft used remark “All I have is useless friends like you who do nothing to help me in this regard”. It was a sarcastic comment which generally doesn’t yield anything. But this time, someone actually took it seriously.

So a few days later, B offered to set me up on a blind date with a very good friend of hers. B thought that she would be a good match for me and we might hit it off. Though initially taken by surprise, I thought that since there is nothing to lose, why not give it a shot. I agreed. B refused to tell me anything about her, except her name and the fact that they were very good friends. Also, I was supposed to make it a formal date, complete with roses and chocolates. I reluctantly agreed.

Now B was supposed to decide on the time and venue and let us know, but she suddenly disappeared for a few days due to some work. Meanwhile she (my to-be-date) managed to extract my mail ID from one of B’s forwards (smart eh!) and sent me a mail directly. Though we initially thought of meeting over a weekend, I had some other plans for Saturday and she was not free on Sunday. So we decided to go out on some week day itself. The plan was for a movie and dinner, but between us we had already seen everything that was worth watch (which isn’t much considering the kind of movies coming out today). So it was to be just a dinner.

I was there at the decided place on time. I did not take any flowers for her, but I did pick up a chocolate. I was not sure what kind she liked, so I picked my favourite (Mars). I thought if she doesn't like it, I can have it myself. She was late as expected. (Why is it that girls can never make it on time?). Expecting this, I had picked to meet at crossword (smart na). Having not seen each other before, I was wondering how we would identify each other. The problem got solved when she gave me a call as soon as she reached the place, and at that time she was the only person around talking on phone. After the preliminaries, she suggested that we go this restaurant called ‘Horn OK Please’. All my previous attempts to get into this place were futile, since this place is horribly crowded over weekends. But this time, I managed to find a table. It was a dhaba theme restaurant, complete with artificial truck tyres. It was only after we occupied our places that we realized that we were both non-vegetarians, and this was a veg restaurant (bummer!). We got this table near a nice waterfall and keeping with the theme of the place, we ordered makkai di roti aur sarson da saag. She had never tried it before, so I suggested that she should.

B had not told us anything about the other person, so we had to start from scratch. During the first few minutes, I felt like I was back at one of the B-school interviews, trying to tell her everything about myself. Both being from Nagpur, we did end up having a lot in common to talk about. We ended up having a nice conversation over a surprisingly delicious dinner. The bill came. I offered to pay, she offered to split, I didn’t refuse. The dinner was followed by desserts at Naturals (the real ice-cream of Juhu scheme) after which we said our good byes and headed home. Thus ended my first blind date ever. I did have a good time, and I must thank B for this. She turned out to be a true friend.

Btw, this story is like one of those which we read in our Moral Science subject when we were kids. A nice story, followed by a moral. And this one is for all my female friends out there :

Take a cue from B…

My LOC (Love O' Cricket)

Meet MELLO...the official mascot of the 2007 cricket World cup.

Oh yeah…its world cup time again. The greatest cricket carnival has its stop at the Caribbean station this time around. And as before, Indian cricket team (oops! Make that Team India, else it may be considered blasphemy) is expected to come back home with the title. The great Indian fan has come to expect nothing less, specially after the team’s performance in the last world cup, and even the recently concluded twin series’ against WI & SL. I am one such fan too. And like everyone else, I have my own opinion on various matters.

First of all, it is sad what happened to Bob Woolmer. Though it is still not clear whether it was due to natural causes or homicide, cricket lost a great champion. I am a big fan of Hansie Cronje & Woolmer, for the way they made South Africa such a force to reckon with, without being nasty. (Sunny bhai, I am with you on the Aussie thing. Nice guys need not always finish last, as Roger Federer would demonstrate.) Its pains me that neither of them is alive today. May they rest in peace.

India’s loss to Bangladesh has come as a rude shock to the Indian cricket fan. The extreme reactions that it invoked were totally unwarranted. People say, “With all the experience we had, it’s a shame we lost.” I say, we had one bad day. Absolutely nothing went right for us that day (except for Zaheer and Munaf’s batting “exploits”) and such days are not uncommon for us. Also, give some credit to the Bangladesh team. They played superb cricket in all three departments and they displayed superb spirit too. Its not that it was totally out of blue. They defeated the mighty Aussies not so long ago, and begin the world cup by beating New Zealand. Kudos to their coach Dave Whatmore, who is once again showing his magic after SL’s ’96 triumph. Another testimony to what a good coach can do.

It took a world record thrashing of Bermuda to cool the tempers back home. Indians are good at accumulating these records. India always likes to be in the record books, it doesn’t care which end though. I am sure there are as many records made against the Indians, as there are those made by them.

It has all boiled down to the crucial India vs Sri Lanka match now. There are numerous permutations and combinations being discussed on TV channels and TOI. But the bottom line is, India HAS to beat Sri Lanka. And the implications of this results are mind boggling. If India fails to make it to the super 8, 150 million dollars worth of advertising revenue is at stake. There was a banner during the Bangladesh match that aptly summed up the kind of reactions Indians can expect if they return home soon. It said, “Go to Barbados (venue for our super 8 matches, if we qualify) or stay in Trinidad (Our current base)”. And Greg Chappell would definitely face the axe.

Personally I have something at stake too. My long time judaii from the idiot box was supposed to end come the world cup. But the Bangladesh defeat has put things in perspective. Dipayan says, “If India doesn’t qualify, then why bother”. I just hope India does a repeat of the ’99 world cup, where they thrashed SL under similar circumstances. Else, this picture might actually turn out to be true. (I dont want this road to the Indo-Pak peace process)

So, in chorus with the Pepsi Blue Billion, I go “Uh Ah India, Ah yeah India” (Whatever that is supposed to mean!)

Mera Pehla Project - adhura nahi raha.

Arrive Online….that is the name of my recently concluded project here at IBM. And how appropriate it is for me, considering that it was my first ever project in my professional career. And being a web developer, I can actually say, “I have Arrived, Online!”

On the occasion of the successful release, I am both delighted and pleased. Last night, I logged on to internet at home and hit the URL(Check it out here). And there it was, the pages that I had developed with my own hands, now on the internet, ready to be used by thousands of people and making life that much simpler for them. Let me tell you, the feeling is absolutely fantastic. Probably this is what job satisfaction feels like. I know I have written blogs earlier which are published, just like a website. But this is something which will actually be useful to lots of people.

I am not going to get into the technical details of the project, but as I was just chatting with Prabhat, he suggested that may be I should blog my experiences. Not a bad idea. So here’s the whole story.

It all started one fine day in October, when I was on “bench” and had no work at all. “Tring-tring” rang the phone, and that was my call of reckoning. The news was that there was someone who wanted me to join his team and work on a new project. I was introduced to the team, and thus began the journey. Starting from acquiring the requirements from the client, designing the pages, working out the nitty-gritties to learning all the processes that one has to go through while coding, every phase of the project was new to me, so I was continuously learning something everyday both on the technical front and also the ways of IBM. There were lots of ups and downs, delights (when some new idea begins to work) and the frustrations (when something goes wrong and you have no idea why it is so), it had the whole package.

When I was in the college, and we had our placements going on, I often wondered why these IT companies are recruiting on such a large scale. This was true with every company, and across the country. I also wondered why there are hundreds of such companies out there, and how do they all manage to survive. Every third human being in Pune is an IT professional, and I am sure the case is the same in places like Hyderabad and Bangalore also.

Today, I realise how tough it can be to design a software application. It took us almost 4 months to build an application that had basically just two main functions, and some 20 odd pages. Considering the rate at which internet is exploding, no wonder the industry has such huge requirements.

P.S: Why this title? Well when we were working on a dummy project during our initial days at IBM, the person who was incharge was giving us a tough time. One day, he explained that almost 80% projects in the industry end as failure, either due to financial constraints or due to time constraints. Ofcourse we never validated his theory, but today I feel like going up to that guy and say.."So you were saying...". He is onsite now, so I am deprived of that sadistic pleasure :-D.

Also, there is a reference to K2H2 too, SRK was all over TOI today, courtesy filmfare. Speaking of which, Hrithik Roshan Best Actor for Dhoom-2!!! Gimme a break...