They say Winning is not Important

They say winning is not important

But then why does it gives so much happiness ?

 It is true that every journey will have a destination

 But sometimes strangely the journey itself becomes a destination !

TRUST

Jane had always been the “black sheep” of her family. She came from a rural and very conservative Middle Georgia clan, and had fought constantly with her parents since she was a child. Jane wanted no part of the settled and routine life her parents had lead – she was an impulsive free-spirit who would travel to the far corners of the earth at a moment’s notice, sometimes not even knowing where she was headed, or why.

So it came as no surprise when, a few weeks shy of her 30th birthday, Jane announced that she was leaving her high-paying job at a major corporation to fulfill her life’s dream – to become a professional sculptor. She sold her expensive suburban apartment and moved into an abandoned mill in one of the rougher areas of Atlanta. She planned on converting part of the space into a full-time studio and living area.

Her parents were horrified, especially when they learned that her studio was just a few miles down the road from the county jail. And Jane didn’t see the need to rig her studio with an expensive alarm system, for her neighbors seemed nice enough. But like every other discussion Jane had with her father, his words of warning went in one ear and out the other.

So on her 30th birthday, her father took matters into his own hands and bought Jane a guard dog – a Doberman named Max from the local humane society. The dog had been abused by his former owners, and had become mean and distrustful of humans. But Jane always had a strong love for animals, and she took the poor dog into her care. In a matter of weeks, Max became very much attached to Jane, and extremely protective whenever anyone else would approach her.

One morning, Jane came home from a trip to the hardware store to find Max lying in the middle of the floor, coughing and wheezing uncontrollably. She immediately rushed him to the local veterinarian, who performed a series of tests. After a while, the vet was satisfied that Max wasn’t dangerously sick, but he couldn’t figure out why the dog was still coughing.

“Don’t worry,” he told Jane in his calm and soothing voice, “Max looks perfectly healthy. But I’d like to run some additional tests on him this afternoon. Why don’t you go home and I’ll call you when we know something. There’s no sense in sitting in the waiting room all day.”

So Jane got back in her car, made a trip to the health food store, and then returned home. As she walked through the door, she could hear the phone ringing in her bedroom. Loaded down with shopping bags, she decided to let her voice-mail catch the call. But no sooner had the phone stopped ringing then it started ringing again. Thinking it may be an emergency – or perhaps an annoying telemarketer who needed to be yelled at – Jane dropped her bags and ran to the phone, catching it on its last ring.

“Hello?” she breathlessly answered.

She was surprised to find her veterinarian on the other end. “Jane, we have some results on Max. We need you to come back to the office.”

“Okay. I’ll be there in an hour or so…”

“…No, Jane,” interrupted the vet in a barely controlled voice. “We need you to come down now.”

Jane was taken aback by the sound of his voice. She could hear the tension lurking behind his words. There was something he wasn’t telling her. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “Is Max okay?”

“We’ll talk about that when you get here,” answered the vet, his voice growing louder and more agitated. “Just get in the car now.”

“Why can’t you tell me over the phone?” asked Jane.

The vet suddenly blurted out, “Are you in the house alone?”

A chill ran through Jane’s blood. She slowly sat on her bed and replied, “Yes. Why?”

She could hear the vet taking a deep breath on the other end of the phone. Then, barely able to contain the tremor in his throat, he said in a hushed voice, “Listen to me carefully. We found out why Max was coughing.”

It was then that Jane noticed her bedroom window. A hole had been punched through the glass, and it was unlocked.

“Jane, are you there?”

“Yes,” Jane answered, her voice starting to shake.

She then noticed drops of blood on her carpet. They stretched across the room and underneath her closet door. “I don’t know how to tell you this, but what we found in your dog’s throat were fingers. Human fingers.”

As the vet spoke, Jane sat frozen as she watched the closet door slowly creak open on its rusted hinges. “Did you hear what I said? He bit the fingers off somebody’s hand!”

Jane still didn’t answer. In the darkness of the closet, she swore she could see the hand of a large man, blood dripping from where his fingers had been gnawed off. And on his arm was the orange sleeve of a prison uniform.

“There’s somebody here,” Jane whispered into the phone.

“Get out of the house, Jane! For God’s sake, GET OUT OF THE HOUSE!!!!!!!”

The phone line went dead.

As the vet as was not able to reach Jane, he immediately searched visitor’s database for an alternative number, luckily Jane disclosed her parent’s details to which, vet called to inform that Jane is in danger.

As soon as Jane’s parents learnt that she is in danger they got an idea, they thought this is a great opportunity to kill her.

Yes! They wanted to kill their daughter and put the blame on someone else.

 Jane’s father Tony was on his way to put an end to Jane’s life the reason being, Jane was an adopted child but Jane was not aware of this fact. Many years ago Jane’s real father who was a drug addict and a dangerous convict decided to give all his wealth to Mr. and Mrs. Tony and in return requested them to bring up Jane as he did not want his daughter to be embarrassed about being the daughter of a criminal, but now as she had grown up he had to transfer entire wealth to Jane which made Tony angry and provoked him. Tony was not willing to give away all the treasure but instead was ready to kill Jane.

Meanwhile Jane knew that she is not alone in her house. There is a genuine fear inside her, the fear of unknown, and the fear of her life in risk, she is under a severe panic attack …

Jane missed her dog Max badly and she also wished that her parents would come and save her, the irony was her father Tony is indeed coming not to save but to murder her ,Jane is extremely nervous; she knew that a stranger in a prisoner’s uniform probably a prisoner from the nearby jail is in the house. In anxiety and confusion not knowing what to do, she rushed to the basement to hide

It seemed as if she will surely die now if not in the hands of the prisoner; she would definitely die in the hands of her father who is steaming in to kill her, the prisoner whose right hand with no fingers is soaked in blood holds a pistol in his left hand starts’ looking for Jane. After searching top floors of the studio he slowly goes down to the basement, Jane reacts quickly eludes him and flees towards the Main Gate shouting and screaming for help.

 Someone Please Help, Please Help!

At the same time, driving with head lights on and with great speed a Car honks at the main gate, it was none other than Tony. Jane finally felt happy and relieved thinking that she is safe now.  But as soon as Tony comes out of his car he takes out his handgun and starts firing at Jane.

Jane is scared to death, she is unable to understand what is happening, she for a moment thought that Tony is firing at the prisoner but could not interpret why the bullets are coming at her; she runs away from the car now and goes towards house again.  This is the first time she sees prisoner’s face, immediately the prisoner screams Jane please move away.

For a minute Jane is baffled and mystified. She has no clue why her father Tony is firing at her and how did the prisoner call by her name!

It is  completely chaotic out there.

Out of nowhere the prisoner picks ups his pistol with his left hand and fires twice accurately straight into Tony’s head. Tony is laid down on the ground.

In tears Jane shouts daddy! Daddy! She runs as hard as she can towards Tony. Fuming with anger and in complete rage, Jane picks up the gun lying down and points out at prisoner and questions

Why did u kill my dad?

The prisoner drops his pistol and says baby I am your real dad .please trust me. Believe me, Tony has adopted you and now after so many years he now wants to kill you. He loves your property not you. Trust me dear. Trust me for once.

Jane does not believe the prisoner and shoots at him. The bullet hits the unarmed prisoner in his heart.

Jane’s real father who actually saved her from Tony in his last breath says

“Please take care dear. I love u my angel. Sometimes one needs to blindly trust.

Good Bye!”

New kid on the block

 I wear my heart on my sleeve

Though naive, I believe I can achieve

When mind and soul converge

I am sure new thoughts will emerge……………………………...

WEEPING ENVIRONMENT

WEEPING   ENVIRONMENT

Weeping environment pleads today for help

Only to find everyone busy to destroy it themselves

It thinks while world is so big why is human thinking so small

Why it is not their responsibility to protect nature above all

If Industrialization and urbanization have made us first in race

Then why it is the poverty population is still the curse of human race

While people are at war for conquering a simple piece of land

Floods, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are unable to withstand

Deforestation, Ozone depletion, Water crisis is nobody’s concern

Cut throat competition is an excuse to let the flora and fauna burn  

Indiscriminate use of fertilizers and pesticides have gone berserk

Very soon the granted beautiful serene landscape will be out of work

Not every mistake can be undone and be given a second chance

Global warming and Environmental conservation techniques have to enhance

Time is running out, to save mother earth is the need of the hour

If not the next generation will be ashamed of human resolving power   

WHAT MATTERS IS.....................

What matters is not your Role but your Goal

What matters is not your Designation but whether you’re an Inspiration

What matters is not your wage Hiked but by how many you’re Liked

What matters is not your individual Brilliance but your team’s Resilience

To single out an incident, a project or an event over the past 18 months would neither give a precise reasoning of the effort nor will it be rational but YES

We did slog and stretch beyond the call of our duty during deployment, release, throughout critical phases and also when some of our team members were missing , just that every time it was given a new name  as optimization , production issue, severity and priority, deadlines etc….

The above mentioned catastrophe is what most of us in TCS do and is probably also expected out of every TCSer. From design to deployment it asks for commitment at various levels and by performing all the assigned tasks we anyhow not only make a difference to the team’s objective but also to our respective bank balance on the last working day of the month but the real difference is when it brings a transformation in an individual, gives that kick to come back next day morning to complete the task and to take that so called ownership.

 In my opinion Ownership is when one feels like:

 “It’s my Application.

  It is my Module.

  It is my Test case.

  It is my Design.”

Since last year I actively participated in development, unit testing, manual testing, automation, performance optimization, documentation, excel reporting, delegating, research, analysis, build, competencies and many more. Never did we say NO nor did we ever gave an excuse, from a complex domain dependent change request to unit testing of UI, from verification to validation, from compatibility of browsers to automation of the entire application. We were flexible and we made huge difference in being good enough to adapt, perform and excel in whatever was thrown at us.

It was very much like the game of chess while in chess a pawn can only be pawn and a king can only be a king BUT we played the pawn, the queen, and the king. We delivered everything that client asked and expected out of us; we worked like a horse, served like a pawn and felt like a king. Our biggest strength of the team and the greatest difference we made together was in being flexible by placing project needs ahead of personal preferences.

There have also been times when we did fight our ego

I am a Developer, Why on earth I have to do this?

I am this, how can I excel at that?

Why am I being treated the way I am?

They got everything for nothing and nothing for everything I am?

All the above questions were answered the moment I dropped I AM from it, before I realized that I AM being troubled by these questions , all of sudden found that it’s a grand and fantastic release, there was sense of achievement everywhere . I did not enjoy the victory as much as others only did then I learnt the culprit was “I AM”.  For a seed to be a plant it can’t be all on its own, the contribution of the soil, environment and most importantly the persistence of the seed to stand against all odds will eventually make the difference it needs to be a plant, it is needless to mention who is the seed and what is the environment.

Seldom do we take wisdom from technology to character, in being able to adapt to different tasks it made a difference to our attitude and helped in our corresponding personal lives, I started thinking where else can I contribute , how else can I make a difference to my family. I confess this with lot of pride and honesty that while technical capabilities and proficiency in adeptness made a difference to this project; coincidentally working in this project has brought and made a difference in my own life.

Every day we contributed in some or the other way, it never mattered how big or small it is, how good or bad it is, what always counted is our sincerity and loyalty towards team’s goal. The biggest reward or the greatest honor is in the process of making the difference to the project we learnt so much that it actually made a difference to us.

I am elated and fortunate for making a difference until today.

I hope and wish to make a difference tomorrow.