Coming back to Life .......

Coming back to life after a long hiatus of 2 full months .......... Lots to write but not time, atleast something will be written ...... wait and watch :-)

A Tired Guy

Tired of this grueling work involving lots and lots of programming. On top of that I have to understand the current implementation of the test automation framework as well. I don't know what is going to happen to me after I am formally moved into this project.

Long Gap

Busy as usual with lot of work in the new project. I haven't done so much coding in last 2.5 years in Wipro as I have done in this project. Lots of Python scripting. The good part about this project is that I am learning many things. Still there are lots more to be understood and done.

Vivaan - Ahh!!! What should I write. From the day he has started crawling (around 9th June) he is unstoppable. He crawls at such a pace that you can't even imagine. If you start crawling at the same pace you will be tired in a few minutes.

जीवन

शायद मैं ऐसा पहले न था जैसे अब हो गया हूँ।
जाने जीवन की कौन सी पहेली में खो गया हूँ ॥

बदलाव

वैसे तो मैं इतना भी बिज़ी नहीं हूँ की एक ब्लॉग भी न लिख सकूं, लेकीन इलेक्ट्रोनिक सिटी और मेरे पुराने ऑफिस के बीच में इतना उलझ गया हूँ के मुझे कुछ और करने की फुरसत ही नहीं मिलती।

आगे ख़बर यह है की आजकल वीवान भाई साहब कुछ ज्यादा ही मस्ती करने लग गए हैं। बस उन्हें तो चाहिए की वह हरदम बाहर ही घुमते रहें। बहुत शैतान हो गया है आजकल

हम तो बस इलेक्ट्रोनिक सिटी से आजकल काम कर रहें हैं। अपने नए प्रोजेक्ट में काफ़ी काम है और उसी की उधेड़-बुन में लगे रहते हैं। सोचा की आज हिन्दी में पोस्ट कर के देखते हैं कैसा लगता है। तो इसलिए हम आ गए अपने इस होम पेज पर.

Vivaan

He is such an adorable human being. His face shows innumerable number of expressions everytime you look at.

One moment he is happy, the other, sad,
One moment he is good, the other he is bad (no ... not really bad)
Transformation from :-) to :-( in a fraction of a second,
Sometimes he is real, sometimes he pretend.
I Feel, how I wish I was him,
Always bubbling up to the brim.
But, thats life as they say,
Never in your own way ......

Where Am I?

Its been the longest hibernation period for me from my blogosphere. I was busy shuttling between Wipro M2 and Electronic City offices as I have started helping a test automation project. The news of my current project is that its going to close in a couple of months from now. So after a long long wait of 2.5 years finally we received the news a few days back when customer's head of outsourcing was here. As a token of appreciation we got the latest model of IPod Nano 4GB. "All's well that ends well."

At home, I am having a good time with my parents who came to Bangalore on 21st May.
Vivaan
My son has started to talk in some crazy language which only he can understand. He knows now, how to get attention. He is always curious to look outside the door and windows of our house. He now has started putting his arms up in the air to let us know that he wants us to carry him around.
He is always looking towards the door and is always interested in going out.
Yesterday we went outside with him and it was raining heavily. After finishing our work we came back home. But as soon as we entered our home, he started crying. It was apparent that he didn't like our idea to return to home. All the while when we were out in the car or in any shop he was quiet and patient but all hell broke loose when we came back.

Uncertainty Prevails

Uncertain Times @ Office

Change is the only Constant

Another Monday

The weekend was pretty happening in terms of getting in touch with some old folks.

Firstly, I got a call on Saturday from Yashowardhan Shukla who was my classmate in XII th standard at Nagpur. Spoke to him after whole 14 years and was really happy to get back in touch with him. He is working with Star News as a news producer (ahh.... I still have friends out of this IT business ...)
Chatted for a while and talked about our good old days at Nagpur and the days spent in VayuSena Nagar hostel........

Yesterday I met Shipra after a long gap of 4 years (I think so). The surprising part was that she had come to Lifestyle for shopping for her marriage which is next week. Her fiancee is from Norway and he was also there with her buying some Sherwani's and Kurta Pyjamas for his marriage.....

World is definitely a small place and I am sure that people with whom we lost touch years ago will cross your way at least once in your lifetime. According to me this is one reason for all of us to live happily as each day brings something new for you.

The weekend that was

Back after another weekend. Today my son Vivaan is 0.5 years old. He is getting naughtier day by day and his screams seem to be louder each day.
I saw 2 movies this weekend -
1) One missed Call (I was thinking of watching this movie for quite some time now) - It is a kind of OK movie, not very scary but average.
2) U, Me aur Hum - Pretty decent movie with an interesting storyline. Lot of emotions weaved into the story. Sometimes Depressing but at the same time clinging to Hope. I was not sure about this movie earlier and was not that much interested in watching it, but after I saw it I had to change my opinion. Songs are not good especially when you know that the songs are composed by Vishal Bhardwaj then you definitely expect something more out of the music. Background score was by Monty Sharma (of Saawariya) and was kind of average.

Back in office

Finally I am back in office after 2 days of good training and 1 day of holiday. Tuesday and Wednesday I went to a training "Self Leadership - A Discovery". I was a very interesting training and I would recommend everyone at Wipro to experience this. It involved lots of fun like expressing emotions in colors, expressing yourself through collages etc. etc. and making presentations on "Brand YOU".
I have never spent so much time on finding myself ;-) in last so many years of my job. I am hoping to implement some of the learnings from this program. Let's see how much I succeed in the same.
Then yesterday was a holiday and I was at home during the day and went to see one of my friends Sunil Tufchi in the evening. But my son Vivaan would not let me sit there for long and he cried a lot when we decided to come back home.

Now again the weekend is here, so let us see whats there in store for me this weekend.

Learnings All the Way

Today at Electronic City Campus of Wipro there was TeS Confluence -
A two day program organized by the Testing Services Group of Wipro Technology. I have never been to this event in last 2 years but this time I thought of going there and see whats it all about.

2 Very Interesting talks were there which I enjoyed thoroughly:

1. Non-linear growth of IT Companies -- Believe me, even I was not very comfortable with the topic because it seems to be pure management jargon like topic but when Prof. Rishikesh of IIMB started talking I got really interested and involved in the talk. It was all about Growth of IT with Value Addition and Innovation.

2. Competency Development in IT Services - It was totally un-related to the topic but extremely interesting because of the person who delivered it. Prof. Sadagopan Founder Director or IIIT Bangalore. He is an amazing speaker. I had always wanted to listen to him once since I came to Bangalore in the early 2000. Many astonishing facts were put in front of us by Professor and time and again he emphasized on the Importance of Testing as a Career which was really good and would have motivated many developers (so-called) to get into the Testing Domain without thinking twice.

Disappearing Act

Wondering where did I disappear?
Suddenly Subodh is busy these days. With so many things lined up one after the another.
@ Work: Pretty busy these days as the testlink tool is behaving wierdo after a lot of trial and errors for upgrading the version from 1.7.0 to 1.7.4. Still breaking my head. Also the last regression test cycle has started after a long delay and the team needs to finish it off in 2 weeks flat. With Prashanth's absence I need to take care of all the status updates and telecons for another 7-8 days. Going to be pretty hectic.

@ Home: Vivaan & Vivaan - Keeps me busy most of the times.
I also met one of my very old colleagues Vivek Shrivastav. He is one of the good friends I have from the IMR Global days. He is still in the same company (Now its called CGI) and had come to bangalore for some official visit. I went to Purple Haze on Friday night (No, I didn't take any alcoholic beverages there) and then again met him on Sunday night at the good old Madan Pub.
Chatted for a long time reliving our good old days and remembering all our pals in IMR Global.
I got too nostalgic and started remembering my days at IMR. All the good and bad things which we did in Bombay during those days.

artmajeur.com

I have created my online portfolio containing 10 artworks at the following web-site:
http://www.artmajeur.com/subodhsoni
You can also sign my Guestbook on this site if you feel like

Boring ......

@ Office
The life at office is getting real boring these days. Nothing much to work on and nothing much to do ..... just trying to keep up the stamina to sit for 9:30 hrs. in the office.

@ Home ..... My son will turn 5 months on 5th April ...... He is getting more and more naughty everyday ...... Each moment passed with him is truly an amazing experience ...

One Missed Call

Today I saw a new movie being released .... A new horror movie "One Missed Call". The print ad looked really nice and I would not want to miss it. Atleast I should see it on DVD.
The story line was also interesting so looking forward to it.

It's del.icio.us

Visit my del.icio.us bookmarks page at http://del.icio.us/subodhsoni and see what I have saved ......

Experiments with Firefox Addons

There are some real cool firefox extensions available on the addons.mozilla.org website
Some of those which I have installed today are:
Colorzilla - Pick the color you like on any of the web-sites and use it wherever ...
del.icio.us Tag - Add a del.icio.us button to your firefox browser and save links and articles directly to your del.icio.us account.
Firebug - Edit the page on the fly .... as you browse you can save any page and edit it online as you wish ....

Anand has a Boy

Just Got the news from Anand that he has become a father of a baby boy. Another boy in the group after Me and Arora ........

Vivaan is Back

Finally after a long time of 3 full months, my wife and son returned to Bangalore. My forced bachelor life came to an end on 9th March. And, am I happy? Of course, I am.
It's so much fun looking at the kid and playing with him. He has learnt to laugh also. Earlier it was just a short smile but now it is accompanied with a huge laughter as well.

Head Again Aches

This week is not good for my health. Again had a severe headache last night and was not able to get up this morning. Managed to reach office at 1400 Hrs.

[END]Bachelor Days[/END]

My Family returns on the 9th of March 2008 and so here comes an end to my forced bachelor life. I will be seeing my son after a gap of 2 months.
Today Vivaan turned 0.33 Years Old :-)

Recollection

Some of the movies (obviously HORROR) which I have seen recently. Just trying to put the list in one place so that I don't forget ....

1. Sweeny Todd - The Demon Barber of Fleet Street --> Different but not of my type (Its a musical. Yes, it doesn't seem to be a musical from the promos but IT IS ONE). So you need to be a person with a liking to this genre of Hollywood movies.
2. Gothika --> Average, Horror. A girl possessed with a spirit
3. The Invasions --> OK, Sci-Fi & Horror. Some really really weird concept of a virus entering in human body which is not found on EARTH. It genetically mutates the human chromosome & screws up everything.
4. Hell's Gate --> OK, But do'nt remember that much.
5. I Know Who Killed Me --> Average, Horror, Was good, but sadly I didn't get the ending(I guess its a common feature of all horror movies, so as to keep the curiosity alive. It will make you come back and watch its sequel)
6. The Cave - I don't remember, so definitely not worth watching.

7. Some More ...... May Be ...... I am Forgetful

Lucknow '76

Yesterday, I saw a play "Lucknow 76" at Rangashankara. The actors were excellent and in fact they were outstanding. But the sad part is I was not able to understand the play in its entirety. When I say "its entirety" I mean it. The setup was from the pre-independence era in Lucknow. There were certain scenes/acts in the play which were very impressive in terms of the performances and the dialogs, but overall I could not understand the connection between the various scenes.
May be I didn't have that "sense/aptitude" to try to reach to the real meaning OR may be the director was not able to convey his thoughts and understanding in a manner which everyone could understand.

Monday Blues

I got up with a severe headache and could not come to office early. Then some how I managed to reach office at 1:00 PM and then tried to work. Somehow Monday mornings are never pleasant for me.

Blogging from my mobile phone

Now i don't bother even if my organization blocks these blogging websites like blogspot.com, i can post from my mobile phone as well. Although i am not sure if i'll be able to upload images or not.

I have another web-site

Thanks Google !!! I have one more site of mine, http://subodhsoni.googlepages.com

Chitrakala Parishad Again

I went to Chitrakala Parishad again this Saturday (09-Feb) to see an exhibition of paintings and photography. The Photography exhibition was absolutely stunning with the theme being "Nature, Landscapes & Animals". I went with one of my friends, Maneesh. The paintings which we saw were really good especially by the 3rd Year students of CKP. I really liked the paintings done in acrylic for which the theme was "Expressions". Each of the painting costed Rs. 25,000/-

A New Day

Beginning of a new day,
Get going in your own way,
If things get too rough,
the going gets really tough,
But, as some seers say,
Don't worry about the past,
Don't think about the future,
Just have faith and enjoy today !!!!

Finally Traded

So, Today I was able to start stock trading on ICICIDirect.com !!! After a 1 month long wait of account opening/verifications/ and what nots, I am "IN" in this game.

www.ArtWanted.com/subodhsoni

Recently I registered as an artist on www.ArtWanted.com, which has a huge collection of art in all the possible Mediums like oil, pastel, pencil, acrylic, mixed, pen, ink, charcoal, water colors, etc ... and Categories like portraits, landscapes, still life, illustrations, photography etc. etc. .....
I too have created a portfolio. Please visit my portfolio @ www.ArtWanted.com/subodhsoni
Currently I am a free subscriber but I am thinking of subscribing to their premium membership (as it costs $5 a month, which converts into Rs. 200/- and that seems to be a decent amount) so that I can upload multiple art works of mine. Presently I have uploaded only 3 works. The free membership allows uploading only 3 images a month.
It seems to be a good site for selling art as well. I am not sure if PayPal has an India subsidiary. If it does exist then I am surely going to put up my art for sale on ArtWanted.com

Overall, you get to see a lot of good art on this site

From Bilaspur

Posting this from my wife's place. I am currently in Bilaspur and enjoying the winters here. Will be starting from here on 19th and will be in bangalore on 21st :-(

Holidays !!!

The holidays for me are starting from today evening. I will catch the Rajdhani express today evening at 8:00 PM from Bangalore City railway station. I will be at Chhindwara tomorrow evening at around 8:00 PM
24 Hours of grueling journey with a great reward ......
Be back on 21st.

A Week More

As the holiday season gets to an end for the whole world, it starts for me :-) from 10th Jan 2008 to 21st Jan 2008.
Next Thursday I would be leaving for my home to meet my family. It will be exactly 1 month after which I will see Vivaan. My wife has been telling me that I might find lots of changes in him since he has now grown up (he is 2 months old now !!!). I will wait and watch. I might be missing from the blog scene for a couple of weeks, but I think that's OK.

It's a new year - 2008

This is the first post of this new year. Last night I had a good time at National Games Village New year celebrations. Then I returned home at 12:30 a.m. and went to another friend's house (they stay in the house opposite to our house in HSR Layout). There we chatted for another 2-3 hours and then exhausted I came back home at 3:00 a.m. and slept for good. As expected I got up at 12:00 p.m. this morning (or afternoon).