5 years in Bangalore

I still remember the excitement that we had when we heard that we are going to Bangalore... and all the excitement was due to one reason - we will be getting chance to seat on a plane :)
We were 10-12 IBM freshers batch friends, came all together - saw Bangalore together. We started living in Bangalore and it was exciting as we started getting our paychecks first time... money earned by us and for us :) Then we took a flat on rent, had some fight with our flat owner - learnt how the real people are. It was good experience to experience how different people behave, how they can cheat you. Also there were others who helped us.
Its the time when a student turned into a worker, or software engineer(sounds better). When you are a student, you have lot of friends and you spend time with friends. But when you turn into a worker, your friend count decreases and you start getting colleagues - fifty percent of those will be only official. But the other 50% are more than colleagues, they become our new friends. They are the ones with whom we work and spend most of our time(provided we are working for more hours in office than being at home) , they make our happy moments. They help us and they become part of our life.
Initially all of my friends were working for IBM, but as they say "You are alone in professional life", we changed the organizations and joined different organizations and became alone.
Now most of us are working in different organizations, most of them in Pune. So it feels nice in one way that I am going back to Pune now ... But at the same time I feel little tensed, because I will be moving near to my family. So can't behave as freely as I used to:)
In these 5 years, we had lot of trips, some planned with friends and some with colleagues. I have almost seen the complete south india..... ok atleast I can say that I have put my feet on soil of each state of south India.
Before coming to Bangalore, I didn't know that Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam are different languages(remember the scene from movie Chak De about Telugu). But now atleast I know they are different and I think I can tell the language if I hear somebody speaking in one of these languages...( I think but I am not sure :).
Living in Bangalore for 5 years have changed me a lot... both in good ways and bad. Talking about good ways, I think it has helped me in my professional life, the way I talk, the way I work. No... I am not going to tell the bad change :)
After all this, I must say the people of Bangalore are very good. They accomodate everyone, they don't care where you are from and what you have and what language you speak and what is your cast. Thats why I could stay in Bangalore for 5 years without learning Kannada.
So, thank you Bangaluru... and I wish I shall come here again :) ... Pune I am coming ...

Oriya - same word with different meaning

There are some words in a language which coexist in other languages. Most of the time meaning is different in each language. Sometimes because of usage of these words create a funny situation, here is an incident about it.

It happened when I was in Denmark. Along with my 3 Oriya friends I was going to visit the ISKON temple. Oriya here means people from state of Orissa in India. So we started from our home and reached the Vanlose. We had to catch a bus from there to reach our destination, so we were waiting at the bus stop. There were two women from Somalia standing there next to us probably waiting for the same bus.

Then we saw that two of our oriya colleagues are coming with family.
Then one of my friends said - 'Kya hain yar.. aaj pura oriya oriya log mil rahe hain'. (English - What is this man, today we are seeing all oriya oriya people).

After listening that the Somalian woman looked at us, which we ignored.
Then I said to my friend - 'Han yar, aaj to oriya din hain... sab oriya log :)'(English - Yes, its oriya day... where I see all oriya people).

Like this we said few lines using the word oriya. Everytime we use the word 'Oriya', those two somalian woman would give some strange look. We didnt understand, so we just continued our discussion and ignored her look.

After some time that lady came to us and this is what we discussed.
Lady - Hey, are you talking to us?
Friend - No, why?
Lady(with little anger on her face) - Then why are you saying 'hi' again and again.
Friend - No, we didnt say 'hi' to you.
Lady - Oh, you said 'Oriya' 3-4 times, that means hi in Somalia language.
Friend - Oh, we didn't know that. Oriya is a language spoken in India by people of Orissa. We are just talking about that.
Lady - Ah, thats the case. I thought you guys are just pulling us and we felt little embarraced when you said it again and again. But now its clear, its okay:)

There are some other words which have different meaning in different language like -
Chumma in Hindi means a kiss, but in Tamil they say Chumma for saying 'simply'. Like - Chumma I did it means Simply I did it. It was
little surprize when I heard girls using that word while talking in office.

Connecting the Dots

Recently I read this article about Steve Jobs -
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/notes/santosh-pandey/steve-jobs-must-read-even-if-you-have-before/450429641487

This article is inspiration for this blog post. I have experienced similar 'Connecting the dots' funda in my life. It was when I completed my 12th Science from Ahmednagar district in Maharashtra and I was looking for admission to engineering. Among the universities in Maharashtra, Pune university is the best university for doing the engineering. There was 70% reservation of seats in Pune university(home university) for student from Pune, Ahmednagar and Nashik district. Other 30% seats were reserved for students from other universities. So ideally no student from these districts will join any college outside Pune university. But I joined Govt College of Engineering, Karad, which comes under Shivaji university and ranks around 15-20 in Maharashtra.

Once I joined college, most of the seniors and classmates would give me a surprised look and ask me about why did I do this mistake? At that time, even I didn't have any strong answer apart from one. I have got admission to Government Engineering College which costs 1/4th compared to any private engineering college. Even if I would have tried for admission in Pune university, getting admission to Govt Engineering College in Pune was impossible considering my marks in 12th:)

But after completion of my first year, I got distinction and a chance to change my college. Most of the people don't know about this rule, but in Maharashtra you are allowed to move from one govt engineering college to other if you have a strong reason for that or you have good marks. And I had good marks. So using that rule, I got admission to Govt. College of Engg. Pune(COEP). COEP is the best engineering college in Maharashtra after IIT, Pawai.

This is how the dots connect for me in my past. I got admitted to Govt. college of Engg. Karad because I was going to get transfered to COEP Pune :) Off course you can't connect the dots in future, you just have to take the right decision at current time and think that the dots will connect in future and be happy :)

माझ्या कविता

काल बागेत फिरताना ... आम्ही बनवलेल्या कविता ....

1. ये रे ये रे पावसा

ये रे ये रे पावसा, तुला देतो पैसा ...
पैसा झाला खोटा, पावूस आला मोठा ...

पावसाला आणायला चांदोबाची गाड़ी ...
चांदोबाच्या गाडीला हरनांची जोड़ी ...

हरनांच्या जोडीला सोल्पा नीर कोडी ...
नाहीतर ते मारतील उडी, आणि उलटी होइल गाड़ी ...
आपण खाली पडू आणि रात्रभर रडू ...

शक्यच नाही... कारण गाड़ी पावूस घेवुन आलेली... आपल्याला नाही :)


2. मी मोर्चा नेला नाही

मी मोर्चा नेला नाही, मी सम्पही केला नाही,
मी निषेध सुध्हा साधा, कधी नोंदवलेला नाही...

मी पिझ्झा खाल्ला नाही, मी बर्गेर खाल्ला नाही,
ऑफिस मधे फुकट मिलनारा, पासताही चाखला नाही ...

मी कार घेतली नाही, मी बाईक घेतली नाही,
बक्शिसात मिलालेली सायकल, तीही स्वीकारली नाही ...

मी डोला मारला नाही, मी शिट्टी मारली नाही,
माझ्यावर लाईन मारनारिला, कधी प्रतिसादही दिला नाही ...

मी मोर्चा नेला नाही, मी सम्पही केला नाही,
मी निषेध सुध्हा साधा, कधी नोंदवलेला नाही...


3. मला कार घ्यायची

पुढे पुढे म्हणता, वर्षे घेली चार ...
आता तरी लग्न करतो, घ्यायच्या आधी कर ...

लाल लाल रंगाची, मला कार घ्यायची ...
धावेल जी वेगाने, चित्त्यासाराखी ...
ब्रांड कुठलीही असो, पण मोठी असावी ...
मोडेल कुठलेही असो, पण नविन असावी ...
लाल लाल रंगाची, मला कार घ्यायची ...

स्पेशल थैंक्स मयुरेश, मनिष आणि नीरजला ....

- - - - - - - - - - - -
शशिकांत चत्तर
नम्मा बेंगलुरु

Danish Christmas Lunch and Dinner ...

Christmas... major festival celebrated in most countries of the world... Each country and community has different ways of celebrating it. And you don't need to be Christian to celebrate it.

As most of the software companies in India have clients in US or Europe, we also get involved in Christmas celebration as we have less work during that time or forced vacation or year end time .. so time to chill :)

Last year I got chance to see the traditional christmas celebration in Denmark. Like we celebrate Deewali in India, people in Denmark visit their relatives during christmas time. They have one special lunch organized called Christmas Lunch. Actually I am in doubt whether it should be called Christmas Lunch or Christmas Dinner. Because the lunch which I attended started in afternoon around 2 pm and continued till 7 pm :)

It was my friends colleague who invited 3 of us for christmas lunch. Tradition says when we go for it, each of us have to buy a gift(small gift) because they play some kind of game after lunch.

We bought the gifts and went their at 2 pm...took around 30 mins to find the house. Before going there my colleague has asked about who will come and we came to know that it will be only the family who will have lunch with us. So after our arrival they introduced us to the family which consisted of -

My friends Danish colleague, his wife, three kids, father, mother, brother in law, sister and her daughter. So we were around 13 people.

Our lunch started with some traditional danish dishes (made up of meat, chicken, fish) and traditional drink red wine. So we discussed about India, Denmark, movies bla bla bla... So slowly and slowly they started to bring new dish and new drink and our discussion continued... more dishes ... more drinks and more discussion... This continued till 5 pm....

After that we started playing christmas game where we will seat in round. All the gifts bought by each one of us and each one of them will be kept at the centre of table. Then turn by turn each one of us will get chance to through a dice. If we get 6 on that, we can take one gift from the table. Once all the gifts are taken, we will continue the game, and now if homebody gets 6 in the thrown dice, he/she can take somebody else's gift... and there the fun starts. This game is continued for some time ... They try to make sure that at the end kids get atleast one gift...

After the christmas game, we have to eat our last traditional dish.. which is similar to khir and drink red wine...

Most interesting part of the whole lunch was, we had lot of discussion with my colleagues parents. They were very nice and talkative... And they felt so nice as this was a total different Christmas lunch experience for them....

You can see in below picture about how much there people drink.... too too much :)

Welcome 2010

First of all Wish you all a happy new year 2010, filled with joy, success and everything you are looking for :)

Its more than 2 months since I wrote my last blog. And now its again time to write. In these two months I really didn't get time to write and by saying really I mean it :) Weekdays were busy in work and weekends in timepass. In weekends we played cards, watched new movies on internet, went out in the city centre and spent time there. We also watched Roadies 7.0. All these things made me busy.

But now I have got time to do things in my way, because I don't go out, I don't go to office, I don't play cards with friends.... because I am sick, I am having Chicken pox. So sad na.. yes its sad. Its like I am in a cage. But advantage is I am getting time for myself. To do the things I wanted to do and example is writing this post :)

I remember all my new year celebrations since I got my first job after graduation.... Each of the celebration was kind of different. 2005 - I was in Mumbai at my uncle's place, we had little party there. 2006 - I was in Bangalore and went in a social NGV get together. 2007 - I was in Denmark and had party there. 2008 - I don't remember it... what did I do? And 2009 - I was inside my house with chickenpox :)

But anyway each of these years were good and gave me lot of memories, lot of new friends and memorable moments with them. I am sure its the similar case with all of us. Lets welcome 2010 :)