It has been an incredible 5 years. I was quite actively blogging about 5 years back when I was a college student preparing for my final semester exams. Now, I am just a Software Quality Assurance guy. It has been an incredible journey.
Completed my exams by June 2006 and had a beautiful couple of months before I moved to Mysore. I was spell-bound when I saw the Infosys campus for the first time. Another first time happened during my way to Mysore - I read a book. It was Chetan Bhagat's '5 Point Someone'. Came out of Mysore after a month and a half as a '5 point nothing' - well, that was my CGPA - as high as you could get.
Mysore was fun time. Never knew I could write code in Java. Learned lots of new stuff. Made plenty of friends - mostly from the northern part of India. Some said - I speak very bad Hindi while others differ. What do I say - the jury is still out on that. Completed the training and passed the compre with flying colors. In the meanwhile - I came first for the first time in my life in something. It was programming fundamentals test. For some reason, I came first. Still no idea how that happened. As they say, you make your own luck.
Chennai was my next destination. Got my first posting there. It was not fun to reach sultry Chennai after being pampered in a wonderful - heaven-like - campus for more than a month. Made good friends with couple of mallu guys - Sreejith and Sreenivas. Perhaps it was them getting transferred to Mangalore DC that prompted me to really go for a transfer to Trivandrum. Perhaps, it was something else. Somehow, after just 4 days in Chennai office, I got transffered to Trivandrum.
Next destination - Trivandrum? No. It was not meant to be. I was transferred into the QA department - that is how I ended up being a QA guy. Had to attend some QA specific training in
Bangalore for a month. Bangalore being my second home, I was happy to go there. So, was it a month in Bangalore? No, it was not meant to be. The training started the day before I reached B'lore. By the way, it was called Bangalore back then - before the soul-sucking forces changed it to Bengaluru.
So what happened next? I wanted to come back to Trivandrum. But, my manager in TVM convinced me that it was a good idea to go to Hyderabad for a month's time and then come back to Trivandrum. I obliged. So for a week, I was in a project - recieving Knowledge Transfer to migrate the development from Bangalore to Trivandrum. That, ladies and gentlemen changed my life. From October 16 2006 Monday to October 19 2006 Thursday, I was on a project. Oct 20 being Diwali, it was an off. I travelled to Hyderabad on Saturday.
Reached
Hyderabad, on a fine Sunday morning at around about 4 am. Never been to this place. Was not sure what to do. Took a cab to the Infy campus - all the time praying that the driver - who looked crooked - does not 'kidnap' me and keep me for a ransom. Somehow, I was paranoid. I reached campus soon and was more than happy to pay him 400 Rs.
Hyderabad opened an altogether different world for me. The training was pretty casual. Nothing much to do. A lot of my training day friends were on bench in Hyderabad dc. Had quite a blast for the month that I was there. By the time I left Hyd, made quite a good number of friends - and improved my hindi speaking abilities. Left for Trivandrum on Nov 15 with Jayesh - another malayalee friend whom I met in Hyderabad training.
Reached Trivandrum back on Nov 16th. Wonderful experience it was. I was around most of the development centers of Infosys in South India in 80 days. Have been writing this post ever since. Only now it materialised. I wanted to name this post 'Around the South in 80 days' - inspired by you know what. But, the day never came that I write something on my blog. For some reason, today I feel the energy and desire to come back to writing stuff.
Trivandrum was altogether different experience. The work was good. It was slow initially - but got the opportunity to work with some of the nicest team mates. Going to office was fun - just like going to college was. Since it was mostly internal projects - the schedules were not too hectic. Still, we used to push ourselves to finish things on time. Life was good. 'Work hard. Party harder' was our motto.
January 2007 came - and so did my bike. It was wonderful. It was something that I bought for myself with my money. Well, something that I would pay the EMIs for. Honda Shine - that was the bike. I was not a good rider. But the bike was very good. I loved it. =)
The first project began on Nov 17 2006 and lasted till December 2007. Then I moved on to perhaps the most interesting and most passionate projects I have ever been involved in - a data warehouse testing solution. It was a ground up activity. New team, new faces, fresh code to build.
It was wonderful. This experience moulded me into a better Java developer. Project was hectic - not because of managers. We pushed ourselves. Eventually, it all came through wonderfully. Two years down the line we had our first implementation. I had a wonderful team to work with. Loved the work. Work was all that I wanted to do at times. For some reason, I started liking the design of applications - not that I was very good at it. I understood that a good and scalable design goes a long way in implementation. Some of the designs I did, were pretty good. I came to know about these things from much better folks than me about a year after I did them. Serendipity - thats what I would call it.
Anyway, bigger things came calling for me. I had to go to Bangalore to perform the PoC for a project - for a month or so. From start of April 2009 to Mid of May 2009, I was in Bangalore. Had a fun time there. Came back to Trivandrum on the day UPA II came to power. Shashi Tharoor was the MP from Trivandrum. One of my wishes came true!
Few more months of hectic work and then I was off to Pune. This again was for a PoC.
Pune was very kind to me. Made more friends. Had a blast. And finally, got an opportunity to visit the US of A for a project there. And guess what - it was the first implementation of the product to which I gave a lot of heart. Came back to Trivandrum for 5 days before I left for the US.
Camarillo, CA - thats the first city in US for me. November 6 2009. Life was great. It was tough initially. Some folks helped me out in getting a house set up and running. Searched for roomies was on. As they say दूंदने पर खुदा भी मिलता है, तोह roomies क्या चीज़ है. Found roomies and plenty. I was searching for just 2 of them. At one point of time, I had 5 roomies.
The experience I gained was intangible. The money though was very tangible. 10 months there and I came out a new man. I never knew how to make a cup of tea or a coffee when I was in Trivandrum. But, when I left Camarillo after the project, I was a good cook. My parents were quite happy to hear that. That was all that mattered - keeping my parents happy. Again, as any other place, met some more great folks. Some of the folks I met here would remain my friends for ever.
Trivandrum beckoned on September 19th 2010. Landed on the airport at 5 am. Three hours at home made me bored. After all, I have been calling home and talking all over all the stuff I do regularly. What more should I talk now? Left for office the day I arrived itself. By lunch time, I got another project for which I needed to come to the US of A. They wanted me to go the next day. But. I didn't heed. Waited till the weekend to leave.
Danbury, CT - that was where I would work on
http://volly.com Life was good. Work was and is continuing to be hectic. But enjoying the bits and pieces moments that life is throwing at me. Learned the fact that one could think about the sad stuff and cry or think about the good stuff around you and be happy.
I chose to be happy.
There are many firsts that happened in the five year long journey - first book, first salary, first bike, and many more. I will write about them in detail in future posts. Signing off till then.
Adios,
Shyam
