This is the End....

"This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end "


That's how the song begins. It tells you, "This is the End". Seems ironical that the first line of the song, its beginning, talks about the end. It's not that ironical when you look at life. At the beginning of anyone's life, one doesn't know what will happen in the future. Everything is uncertain except for one, THE END. Yup, the only certainity in Life is Death.

I have never seen death closely. I have been kept away from it. Some of my close ones have embarked on their next journey, but I was nowhere near to bid them the final goodbye. And that is why I am afraid of it so much, that I avoid it. I dont know how it would affect me. But I know it would. It affects us all, in some way or the other to know of a person's death. This is something unknown for me, and I want it to be unknown for as long as possible.

"Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end
No safety or surprise, the end
I'll never look into your eyes...again ....."

Never. For Gone he is. A week after his terrible accident on the intermediate ring road, Shashank Upadhyaye is no more. All the plans, everything which he had have gone with him. Forever. That's what hits you the most. It's effect is permanent.

I had known him since my first year of engineering. Though we lived in the same hostel, I hardly knew him for the first few months. He was mostly locked up in his room, studying, isolated from the rest of the world like a hermit. However, in the second semester, I got to know him as he was a very good swimmer and wanted to participate in the swimming competition, whose organisation was being assisted by me. His worry at that time mainly was his branch, "Industrial and Production". He wanted it changed and so was always studying hard. I still remember the disappointment on his face when the first sem results were out. That was the day when the competition was to be held. He had managed 3.5 or so and was disappointed that he would be stuck with IP for the rest of the four years. He did not feel like participating. I tried to cheer him up a bit so that he would participate. He came to the competitions . A few days later, the list of people whose wait-list for branches had been cleared came out. Shashank got Electrical. You should have seen him that day. It was one of the happiest days of his life. After that we bumped into each other now and then and I had good conversations with him about various things ranging from Swimming to Subjects(we were in the same branch)to teachers and anything you can think of that 2 people from the same college would talk about.

The day you get your first job, is again a moment unforgettable for anyone. The same was for him. I had congratulated him when he was selected by Perot Systems. It was also a turning point in his life, or so people who were around him more say. After the placements, he changed. Everybody in MIT does. He started enjoying life, so to say. I used to hear about him and his girlfriend, when he was doing his project in Bangalore.

That he already had an accident in Bangalore, didnt deter him from driving fast, as I found out when we were returning in his car from Legends of Rock after watching Argentina lose to Germany in the Quarters of the WC. Driving over 80 kmph, after a couple of mugs of beer is not funny at all. But who is there to tell you of the risk you are undertaking? You are so high: on beer, on the song "ya ali.. yaar pe qurbaan.. " playing at full volume and the rest singing along at the top of their voices, and on the speed of at which you are travelling, that to think or talk sense is a far cry.

"Lost in a Roman...wilderness of pain
And all the children are insane.. "

Yes. Even after graduating from college, we are still children, and we are insane.

"There's danger on the edge of town
Ride the King's highway...,"

A danger which we don't realise...

"The blue bus is callin' us
Driver, where you taken' us ......
. C'mon baby, take a chance with us .."

And if someone talks sense, to play it safe, that's what we say. C'mon baby, take a chance with us ..

"This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end "

Now, he is gone. But he has left us with a lesson. "Don't drink and drive". I guess its tragic incidents like these that bring some sense to us. How many of us have made the same mistake so many times? Yet, it has taken the demise of another for us to realise our folly.

"It hurts to set you free
But you'll never follow me
The end of laughter and soft lies
The end of nights we tried to die

This is the end"
Goodbye, dear friend. May you rest in peace.You will always be alive in our memories.

Robbed in Bangalore..!!

Hi...If you live in Bangalore, then you must be knowing what I am talking about. Its very unsafe these days to venture out alone. Crime is on the rise in Bangalore. At least that is the impression you get reading the newspapers. You thought you were being helpful when someone asked you for a lift. Beware of the hitch-hiker. Roberries by people who hitch-hike is on the rise. And if you thought that the damsel in distress is harmless for a machismo like you, I am sorry dude. I have heard of robberies where beautiful ladies ask for a lift and the next thing you know you are dropping her off where armed members of her gang are waiting for you. You dont need to carry cash. Your Debit Card is enough. You will be more than willing to part away with your PIN number with a loaded gun or a knife aimed at you. People who tried to fool around by giving the wrong PIN number have had their fingers chopped!! Or so I heard..!! Of course if you are like my flatmate then you got little problems giving away your PIN number. In case you are wondering what kind of a person is my flat-mate who parts away with money so easily, let me tell you a thing or two about him. His salary is spent in a matter of two days of being credited. The rest of the month he borrows money, and for Food we got SODEX-HO's..!!So it's a robber's bad day if he cathches him, coz he is not what they would call a Good Catch.

Anyways, thankfully we havent had any such experience in our almost 3 month long stint in the Silicon City. However, I have had some similar experiences here.
It wasnt what people call robbery, but I do. And it has happened to me thrice now.

As People are scared of guns and knives, I am shit scared of one more thing. It's a weapon which beggars from outside Bangalore have started using very effectively. I feel threatened and a chill runs through my spine whenever I see it. Just the thought of it sent shivers down me as I looked around to see if there were any present in my room. Phew!! i can continue writing now..

Confused..? Well, this very deadly weapon I am talking is none other than..... the slithering COBRA... Come every weekend, and I am scared of going out of the secure confines of my apartment. For out there, they are roaming, waiting, hunting...This is a kind of beggary I have never seen before... Or would you call it begging..? I believe its more of a robbery.. They come towards you, seeing the fear in your eyes... They read your mind... "Please, dont open the lid of the casket..Please",you beg. And that's when they do that revealing the encircled Cobra, lying as if asleep. You freeze for a moment as you realize the imminent danger that's there in front of you. And then the NagaRAj starts to wake up.. showing signs of life... OOPS.!! Better get out of here soon..You ask the snake-charmer to close the casket as your hands move into your pocket with your eyes fixed for an imminent attack by one of the deadliest snakes in the world... You grab hold of whatever change comes to your hand and take it out... Seeing that his objective is fulfilled, the charmer closes the casket and takes the money from you. You dont bother to count how much you gave. You just heave a sigh of relief.. And move on...



Well that is what has happened to me thrice in Bangalore... People talk about about robberies in the night at Gun point at desolate places... I was robbed at 10:00 am in the morning in the busiest of places at Snake-Point... What is the government doing..? How safe are we today walking down the streets of Bangalore..? No one seems to take notice of this menace except me, once again forcing me think.."Has living 3kms. from India's largest Mental Asylum for more than 10 years really made me paranoid..?"

Training ends...I get commissioned on Monday... part-II

Did you read the post below...?? No..? The read it first...Read it..? So now you are wondering how come Sassy Boy ended up in the army.. ? Well, I am still in the software industry..(alas!) but isn't it interesting how similar they are..?The life in the army and the life in the Software Industry..

Any new recruit who gets in the army or the industry goes through a compulsory training.. Of course training is difficult from the life you were having earlier(We got up and slept at times we thought ridiculous in our college days.) But as they say..it is the best time you are going to have in the industry....Life in combat is not at all easy.. well..neither is it easy in projects...

One thing that you will notice in new recruits that they are so goddam confident about themselves initially that they think they can take on the world.... everybody wants to be where the action is.."I want to be in the regiment where i get to see some fighting... ".."I want to be in the Development team of the company.."..Similar thoughts, isn't it? But as you undergo training, you begin to hear stories from the battlefront.. And then some people would rather have a testing job than be in development..

IT-Training has another interesting similarity to Combat training(maybe that's why they call it Combat training in some IT companies)..As in combat training you are taught different skills to fight and survive, you would realise that that's what happens in IT-Training... .NET, JAVA,Testing,UNIX,Mainframes etc. are nothing but different weapons which you must have trained on to survive in different scenarios.. pretty much the same as in the Army...

Hmmmm...Interesting...Isn't it..? However, there is one huge difference between the two.. There are martyr's in the army... but no such thing exists in the software industry.. Its survival of the fittest out here.. And if you aint fit, then you wont survive... Not for long... So...Stay fit.. !!

As for me... Well, lets see what's in store for me..?

Training ends...I get commissioned on Monday...

Hi there.. Ya.. My two month long training is over...and I get commissioned on Monday... I heard from a friend who is already on the frontline that we got some important missions ahead of us. .. Boy.. Now that should be fun.. I hope... Many of the soldiers already on the front line say life aint easy... and when I look at them..I tend to agree.... If training was tough then what would the real thing be like.. "We are pampering you in training... Life out there is a very different picture.. And I aint Bullshitting you man..!!" That's what our General had to say...He sure wasnt Bullshitting us.. . He said that though we had an extensive weapons training, the real thing is pretty different.. It's easy to fire a Gun in training...but firing it in a battle is a completely different proposition... We are inexperienced... Maybe better equipped and trained..but inexperienced... and experience counts in Battle... that's why they say..learn from other's mistakes as much as possible... and ask questions.. however stupid it may seem..ask them ...for even a stupid question may save ur life in the battlefield.. the only stupid question is the one which is never asked... hmmm..interesting... I was assigned my Regiment the first day of training... I really dont know what kind of missions we will be assigned but it was really helpful...I see the rest of the guys in training.. everyone anxious which regiment will they end up in... Some are keen to go to the frontline and assault.. the rest would rather be support or other services.. The next few months are sure goin to be interesting.. As i say nowadays.."I am Lost in Transition.."