Wars – Nothing but Pain

How it will be to leave our country and be in some other place where the air you breathe is not yours,
the wind that caress is not yours, the sky you see is not yours?
You can't go to the place where you spent your childhood?
How it will be to leave all your friends, lovable ones and your properties and flee away one fine day?
They would've left their friends, their favourite tree/plant or their much loved stuffs.
Will they know when they will be able to go back to their place?
Do they know where they are heading?
Do they know how their future will be?
W/ a heavy heart and like a bird which doesn’t know its destination, there they leave...
W/ tears that couldn't get those answers but more questions, there they leave...
Leaving all they know and loved, there they leave...

Is this the case in one or two countries? How many people? How many of them become homeless
every other day, how many of them become refugees every day? Do we know?
Do we care? Do we bother?

What we did from our end? We see news everyday in TV and newspaper and continue w/ our day to life.
It’s just news for us. But for some people, this is LIFE. This is their day to day life.
For us, it is just some hot news sitting relaxed on our couch we sit and watch the news. Yeah, we are just common people; we can’t do anything to stop all these. We get up, go to office, crib about work, crib about food, crib about managers, compare our 60k salary w/ 75k salary and speak all day about our worries.
We forget that people are there who doesn’t even have a job, who doesn’t have a dress to wear, no home to get back in the night, no food to eat. We don’t care about them. Yeah, I am also like you. Shouldn’t we feeling guilty? We are cursing god that we are not born as Tatas or Birlas or Ambanis. But we should be grateful right that we are not born there and torn into pieces physically and mentally by wars?

We are just normal people. We just know only to crib. When will these sufferings end? When we will understand that love and Peace? When we will learn to love people? When we will stop the war?
Isn't wars are just political dramas and common people doesn’t get anything from wars
Except troubles and pain?

Travel - Mantralyam, Panchamukhi and Bitchalaya

Swami Ragavendrar – heard about swamiji so many times, but never felt like seeing him or visiting that place. Suddenly, my life got changed and prayed to every god on earth for my loved one to get well and Swamiji’s name strike in my mind. I prayed to Swamiji and thought of visiting Mantralaya.

I am here in Bangalore for over 4.5 years but never even thought about visiting Mantralya. Suddenly we decided about going to Mantralaya on May 1st 2008 and we went and searched for tickets. Luckily we got tickets in KSRTC. Though trains are available to Mantralaya we didn’t got tickets in that short span. KSRTC has very good bus services available to Mantralaya. We booked a sleeper coach and it was @10pm from Majestic.

May 1st was a Thursday and that too Eka Dasi and moreover 4 days holidays was also there. We inquired in the Matt which is in Jayanagar 3rd block regarding accommodation. We got to know that they have stopped advanced booking long time back. We didn’t have any clue whether we will get accommodation. But something said us that we will sure get accommodation.

Mantralayam is in Andhra Pradesh and it was said that it will take around 10hours to reach. But to our surprise, we reached next day morning 5:30am hardly 7:30hours travel. We went to 2/3 hotels and asked for rooms to just take bath and get ready. Surprise!! So many rooms were available. But they charged atrociously. Either by seeing us or special day. Whatever, we inquired in 2/3 hotels, bargained and finally got a room in one hotel and paid 75bucks per person for taking bath and getting ready.

Good we reached early. By 7am we were ready and we were in temple premises. Not much rush, but then so many folks were already there taking darshan. We went and had darshan. Till 8am there were no special entrance so we entered through VIP entrance and had darshan second time. No pooja was performed that day cos of Eka Dasi and no prasadham was distributed. We got pooja items, got Mruthika[ holy sand from Swamiji’s tomb] and got idols inside the temple premises itself.
After breakfast, we all are set to visit Panchamukhi and Bitchalaya. Share Autos are available but will take time to start until it gets filled up and you will be squeezed completely. So we hired a Shared Auto exclusively for ourselves. For panchamukhi and Bichalaya we gave 300 bucks. Could be costlier. But no other option that day, since so much rush and no one was ready to come anything lesser.
We started to Panchamukhi in bumpy roads properly breaking our back. I thought anytime I will fall from the auto. Mantralaya by itself is a very small village and so as other places. May month, sun was @ his peak and we were in Andhra  We got roasted properly. It was nearly a 1 hour journedy and we reached Panchamukhi. It’s a hanuman Temple.
Swamiji did thapas[penance] for 12years and Lord Hanuman pleased w/ Swamiji appeared before him. Lord Vishnu also appeared before swamiji along w/ Lakshmi devi and gave darshan. Then Swamiji came to Mantralaya and attained jeeva Samadhi. You can see a ‘Padaraksha’ Shrine and some natural rock formations like ‘bed/pillow’ and ‘aerial vehicle’. There is one temple for a goddess named ‘yarkalamma’ which is a naturally formed rock idol statue. One can also see the foot wear and gadham of Lord Hanuman in the temple premises.

Then we visited Bitchalaya. This is the place where swamiji used to do thapas and it is believed that every night, Swamiji comes here from Mantralaya in the form of ‘jyothi’ – light. One can see a ‘tulsi Madam’ carved out of a single stone. Bitchalaya lie in the banks of River Tungabadra and it’s a very calm and serene place.
We spent nearly 3.5 hours in visiting these places and came back and settled in Mantralaya. There are not many places to see in and around Mantralaya. So if one reaches early and has their return ticket booked around 9pm or so, they can book room in the morning, visit Panchamukhi and Bitchalaya come back and take rest. Else you have to sit in the temple premises only as we did. The temple closes by 2:30pm and re-opens by 4pm again. We had one more darshan of swamiji in the evening and started back by 7pm KSRTC bus. The Rajahamsa bus we travelled reached Bangalore by 3:30am itself.

Since the route is through Adoni, we reached early else could have been extended to 1-2hrs extra. The temple is just 100mts away from the place where the KSRTC bus stops and it’s just a small village. No need to pay to auto walas to reach temple from bus stand. And we heard that all these places are Naxalite areas and we came to know only after visiting. But no problem happened in our trip. Swamiji is there to help us  overall, a nice and must visit religious place.

Nothing but Software - Appraisal Time Now :-)

Disease – Appraisalosis
Period of Disease – Occurs every 6 months between Dec - Jan and Apr – May [majorly depending on the place of survival]
Symptoms
1. Irritation about future happenings
2. Mind will start searching for justifications
3. Getting prepared for boxing
4. Enemies will suddenly appear and mostly will wear Manager mask
5. Relationships breaks
6. Sudden inquisitiveness about others and brutal satisfaction on other’s losses
Precautions
Nothing as of now. Everyone who is in s/w should go through it. Cursed. No Escape

This is May 2008. Symptoms started on others. I am in peace. Eternal peace. I am not disturbed. Funny :) I am not irritated. Wow!! I am not interested in fighting. Cool :)
I am smiling @ people who can even lower my rating purposefully. Great :):):)

Am I tensed? Am I nervous? Am I worried about my rating?

NOPE, NOT AT ALL ... :):)

Is anything wrong w/ me? AM I OK? Will people be thinking that I’ve gone nuts if I don’t show any symptoms? :(:( Now that worries me...

Why am I like this? Might be this is my ...wait I am counting....8th appraisal yeah  4.5yrs in a company. That’s the reason I guess. Got used to this 

I remember my first appraisal :) Still fresh in my memory.

It was Apr 2004. I was being told about this appraisal process. First hurdle I faced was “Filling up my tasks” Good!! That confused me. Though I worked for 2/3 months in a project. I was still in confusion, what are my responsibilities. What I did in these 2/3 months? Yeah, Big question. I approached my senior guy and asked him...

“Hi eee...... [eeeiii. Did my smile showing up that I came to him for some favour?”
“Hi....”
“Busy??”
“Its ok. Tell me”[anyways you’ve troubled me, go ahead]
“Actually, this appraisal. I want to know, what we should fill in the tasks column”
“hmm..Fill the tasks whatever you did”
[I didn’t know that right. Then will I be filling your tasks or what]
“oh okie. I got it. But what to fill?... means exactly?”
“whatever you did, you fill. Okie”
[wow!! That’s a great answer...grrhhhh!!!]
“hey thanks! Thanks for the information”

I don’t understand what satisfaction these people get by making us to take a run around w/o giving straight forward answers. I remembered this
“Software folks shouldn’t code straight forward and anything that can be done w/ in 2 lines of code should at least run for 2 pages”

I thought might be this guy is that software guy they are talking about. Two days went by I didn’t fill anything in the tasks. Open the appraisal form and close it back. Like a spy, I kept on watching others and peeping into their monitors when they open their appraisal form. I will get alarmed when I see someone‘s screen glows w/ that blue colour form. Stretching from my chair abnormally, doing acrobats and all possible tricks, I ended up finding only one task 

Then spoke w/ my batch mates who were in the same boat as me and finally filled up something. Then the biggest thing was self-rating. How to rate myself? I never did that before not even in my mind or heart. Now in a form and that to submitting it to some person. I thought I am the noblest and straight forward person ever been born on this earth, trying to the truthful, I gave a self-rating of B [which means ‘Met Expectations’] and submitted to my manager.

I was so happy w/ the way I filled my form and about the genuineness I showed. I thought day and Night about the appreciation and accolades I am going to get during appraisal. I rehearse led about explaining them to my friends and consoling them about their bad appraisals. Then the D-day came. My manager called me for appraisal. I stood up from my desk, gave a wide smile to my teammates and entered into the conf room hiding all my tension and nervousness.
[ My teammates gave a grin when I went, I didn’t understood that signal that time  which I did later]

I entered. I didn’t know what happened for nearly 1 hour. Like a rabbit got caught in a Lion’s den
I was chased end to end and torn into pieces  I got the lowest rating which I didn’t even dream off. My manager convinced me that I am a horrible resource and I am unfit to be in software. I came out to realise that are much more wounded preys like me hee hee all my friends and we felt a crude happiness that everyone had that rude shock treatment.

My first appraisal was a heart broke to me; I fought to the core and came out losing the battle. Second appraisal, I felt very disappointed and they played a new game named ‘politics’ and before even I get ready, I got plasters and came out. Third appraisal gave me a thought like “Will these things also happen???”

No..No I am not going to say about all my appraisals. Now one of my recent appraisals went like this..
“This is your appraisal form. Are you ok w/ it?”
[Like a Buddha w/ peace in my face, I smiled @ my PM when he gave the form to me]
“yeah Its fine”
“Are you ok?”
“Yeah! Absolutely fine w/ me”
[He got confused, why am I not fighting after entering the boxing ring]
“Sure????”
“Yes”
“ok...”
[He gotta confusion of his lifetime, thinking what I will do next? Will I escalate? Or will I leave it as such? Why I am not fighting back? What could be my plans?]

First time, I started liking appraisals  Appraisal is a formality which occurs @ some time and the results are pre-determined well before the actual tasks are planned and it purely depends on person and not the tasks or talent. Well briefly..Appraisals are person oriented evaluated based on persons and not the work you do :):) So.....just keep smiling and let it pass by :-D