Sunday 21/06/2009 11:00AM

I am here finally back to writing, after a long break, let me check when was my last post.. 20 days short of an year that i visited this page ha !! its not too much, but yes i was little busy, a lot happens in a year, i fell sick during november, got admitted into hospital, circuitcity(my previous account) got bankrupted(its back now operating with online stores though), m0ved into a different account in work where i  joined a team of almost 20 dba’s (thats a great change for me, to be part of a team, as  i used to work alone in all of my previous assignments. It was really weird in the beginning, first 10 to 15 days to go to office daily and to communicate with so many people!! but now I’ve become quite comfortable with everyone in the team, who would have known that i am funny with people around !!:) ) I vacated the room in bangalore where i was staying with our graduate friends from past 18 months or so, got a break for myself from my bestfriend, Changed into a new 2bhk flat together with Arun and now here i am in the city of nawab’s to provide training in db.

well, the training schedule is for 3 weeks and i have only one week of stay to go here in hyderabad.. practically in the 2 weeks that i have passed, i have not been to any place apart from shuttling between guesthouse n office in hitec city. There isn’t any time to roam around during weekdays, i had to provide training from 3pm to 9pm IST and then had to attend to my account work rest of the night. After the first week of training, i had to go back to bangalore and by the end of 3rd week friday, night i would start from here, so this is the only weekend (or only sunday, since i have slept thru saturday and killed entire day until night, when i met up with another colleague and his friend for dinner and drinks ) i have got to feel hyderabad.. well so i have decided to go out now and then continue this post after the day is over (saved the post as draft )

Monday 22/06/2009 03:41AM

Continuing from above..

All about Training

Okay, Sunday is over. And i am back in guesthouse trying to finish this post. so let me start with obvious things.. I have managed to complete db2 training for 2 batches, that said i barely managed to cover all topics in db2. People who attended the training are supporting SAP on oracle and since they are expecting migrations from oracle to db2 on most of their servers, they desperately wanted to get hands on db2. So was i told, but then i came to know that on the first day in training that management perspective on the idea of this sessions is totally different. According to them, people attending the sessions have already gone through an initial training on db2 (to me most of them doesnt seem like they had initial training) and these sessions i provide are suppose to teach them advanced troubleshooting and prepare them to start working on db2.. The management here expected people to do their certifications in db2, after listening to one week of classes! which i think is too much pressure on them and yes on me too.. I felt they were being pushy, but then its their decision and I am no one to judge it, all I want to do is  to try and share the most with them and make them atleast comfortable with db2. Ah!! Enough of this crazy prologue to the training.

Alright, let me tell you what these sessions meant to me. I always secretly thought about teaching, I even imagine /day dream sometimes myself standing infront of a class and presenting something innovative to think about. So obviously, when my previous manager asked me to take this job, i didnt think much. Before these sessions, i had an opportunity when i joined my company in bangalore to train a batch of freshers, who were junior to me. (since i wasnt allocated to any project at that time, they had assigned me and 3 more people to take sessions to fresh guys, and based on positive feedback from those sessions I was later assigned to a project (Britannia)! which turned out to be a great experience for me) And even though I am a shy person if you dont know me, and had my own fears about public speaking, I did give myself into it once i started saying something about db2. Part of the reason must be that i like db2 so much that i forget about the fear of facing people, whatever the reason is these sessions are great experience to me and helped me a lot to overcome stage fear to considerable extent. At this point, i remember an embarassing incident from my engineering days, during final semister, when i went up the stage for the first time ever in my life to present my seminar on Wi-Fi technology infront of my class and lecturers in my department. I can still remember how big a disaster it was, I had prepared so much on the topic, and all i managed to say was just to read out the headings of the contents i wrote down!! While words were stuck in my throat as i was standing on the stage, i still remember i couldnt recognize any face in my class.. I was not staring at anyone of them, my mind was just blank.. Finally i just came down from the stage, somehow managing to give an end to that jarring incident. Now all that has changed i suppose, thanks to these sessions. I have to thank so many of them at my workplace for this, coz directly or indirectly they are responsible for the changes in me.

Having said all of that, Now I have come to a decision that my thirst for teaching has been quenched enough due to the 2 weeks of training !! one would think, what happened all of a sudden.. well let me explain, 5 to 6 hours of standing and talking everyday, then the most important one is to go through the same stuff for the next batch of guys in the 2nd week !! God, i hate to repeat the same things,  that too coming back to the same point within a span of one week, and I get irritated by the fact that i have one more week to go through all of them again!!! I would definitely be relieved by the end of next friday. Now I realize, how tough it is to teach the same text books year after year for the new set of kids!! Without those patient teachers, we would be lost. Imagine what would happen if nobody wants to teach and mentor anymore!! I bow to All  Teachers and Guru’s who take pleasure in guiding the children and prepare them to face the world. I have got kinda bored due to this repeatitive classes and i have decided not to take up such assignments for sometime. I would be better off just doing my work, rather than getting tired and bored on something that i am not even being paid for..

Hyderabadi Biryani and its after effects !

Okay, I was definitely excited to comeback to the city. This is the capital of my native state, so why wouldnt I be excited? but i have to say that i am not very much impressed with some things here. Let me start with the things that i didn’t like. First of all, Language. I mean one would expect to talk or communicate in regional language telugu when they visit hyderabad!! which is not true at all. And i for one was expecting to speak in telugu when i land here. As its the place ruled by Nawab’s, its natural that most of them here speaks Hindi rather than telugu !! But thats not all, people who doesnt know any other language but telugu, and who come and settle here also tend to pickup hyderabadi hindi very soon.. I have to say that, i am disappointed in speaking nothing but hindi through out my stay. It feels like i am not in andhra at all, what difference is there in bangalore n hyderabad then, atleast in bangalore i speak kannada if i want to catch an auto.. And the accent of people here when they speak hindi or telugu is different, telugu obviously comes out in telangana Yaasa. Blame me for expecting to speak in telugu in hyderabad. Then the next one on the list is traffic sense of the people. I agree that Bangalore traffic is far more worse due to their limited infrastructure, but hyderabad has got huge space, there are abundant free spaces between offices, houses here, something not possible in bangalore. But yet, traffic police are less effective in hyderabad. I noticed that, people just havent yet developed the sense of personal responsibility here. They drive and jump signals, as and when they want, and i think nobody even thinks about the traffic discipline!! When you go to any malls, forget about queue, hyderabidi doesnt stand in a queue, he is a king, he just pushes and goes forward. And then one more important and obvious thing i couldnt help to hate, is Climate.. it just takes 5 minutes in auto from my guesthouse to reach office, and after that 5 minutes, I would get down auto as a 5 foot 8 inch walking roasted chicken!! And when i mention about the hot weather to one of the fellow colleague, He calmly said, its just tip of the iceberg, and there isnt much heat now since summer is about to complete !! THank Heavens I have not faced the wrath of sun god.. So i have decided that, I would relocate to hyderabad, only when i am able to Rent or Buy myself an AC house and AC car to commute here.. otherwise no chance of coming here. I dont want to be a new item in the menu of kentucky’s fried chicken.

Well, coming to good thing about hyderabad, its their FOOD .. Hyderabadi’s loveeeeee Food, not just hyderabadi’s, all andhra people love Food i think.. The canteen in the company itself holds a variety of items, i had chance to have bonda’s, dosa’s, chats, biryani in the company canteen itself!! Which is impossible in Bangalore.. they just shell out a puff and a juice and charge you a cool amount for that in bangalore:). Instead people in hyderabad demand good food i think, and the quantity of food they serve, as correctly noted by my good friend murthy is also far more compared to other cities. And then there is famous Hyderabad Biryani, which is a brand in itself wherever you go. Also, the Rates of Cinema halls, Multiplexes is less compared to bangalore!! cant help noticing that fact, being a frequent visitor to movies.. And the recreation places inside the city are far better compared to bangalore. In Bangalore, its just malls and shopping and hanging out at cafe coffee days, it becomes little boring after sometime. You have to venture out of bangalore city now and then to escape from the city walls closing in on you!! But thats not the case with Hyderabad, It has huge space, so many  places you can visit without putting a hole in your pockets, and where you can have very good time. This city has its identity, whatever it is, It has nativity.. THat is i think something that is not so much visible in Bangalore, due to the fact that it has become mixed up with many people coming from many parts of the country.. And thats exactly what i Love about bangalore too.. it is a cosmopolitan city. (I love to see people from different cultures n different places come and adjust with each other at one place, that tolerance towards other human beings no matter where they are from, and what they do is what i love most)

Sunday Superbrunch – Cartoons, Movies, Gaming

Hmm.. I dont know what i am rambling about here, just going on saying some stupid stuff about what i feel about hyderabad. okay, let me quickly finish this post by taking you through what i did on sunday.

Before i started writing this post and saving it as a draft, i started the sunday like any day with browsing the channels of movies n cartoons on tv as soon as getup. There it was, on cartoon network, continuous episodes of ben10 alien force, and i started watching it without looking at time.. Oh boy, how much i love cartoons!!!, i would have to definitely write a post on Cartoons separately. So around 1pm, i started from guesthouse, and reached prasadz (thats the only multiplex i have visited in hyderabad). Had a mcchicken meal, and went to movie counter. I didnt had plan to go to movie, I actually went there to spend sometime playing video games, but then at 2:30pm, there was a show for Prayanam movie, so i took it, then spent my time in the gaming zone of prasadz.. Meanwhile, I called my colleague and we decided to go to XMen-origins in IMax-Bigscreen for 10:45pm show. So i had to go for a movie to kill time till night, i dont wanted to come back to guesthouse.. so i took prayanam tickets. That movie is a decent one, though comedy didnt work greatly for me, and i did feel little bored at times, it did had you guessing about what would happen next.. its good to see that, directors are now atleast considering psychology when writing their scripts. There is a character in the movie who is psychology student and starts saying about how people would react, although all the things that he would say are again Filmi style.. atleast its a starting point, where people may try to see the character beneath our skin. And i didnt like the characters of hero or heroine either, they are unreasonable, as in any telugu love story. By the end of the story, director has to show happy endings in such a fantasy love stories.. But what happens after they get together..no one tries to show that, No one lives happily ever after!! And our moviegoers eat anything that they are fed.. so they should be fine i think.. I would sincerely hope, our directors can do much better than this, not just show hero n heroine, but dwelve into their psyche, and explore and present their characters infront of audiences rather than showing the things by their facevalue.. okay anyway, after the prayanam movie at 5:30pm, i came out of prasadz and went to Lumbini park, played net-cricket for a while, and boarded onto boat that took me to the buddha statue in between hussain sagar lake. This is the first time, i have seen this 70feet buddha statue upclose. Then came back to Prasadz multiplex around 7pm, and again went to gamingzone(more funtime).. then while looking around in Prasadz, i came through certain store called “Ludu’s “.. Thats one fantastic theme store, Loved it totally, they have PS3, XBOX 360, and Nintendo WII consoles and games you can play on a 50 inch flatscreens, and they have a restaurant opening soon with home theatres in the coffee shop!!! They charge you 40 bucks for 15minutes of gameplay.. I played NFS and Tennis on Xbox n Wii respectively, on a 70 inch LCD. Also their main theme is about  intelligent gaming for children, what they call it as edutainment, they have games with building blocks, and puzzles which would improve creativity in a child. And they have membership options too, with which you get around 200 hours of free gaming!!:) That’s a Fantastic store, and i would definitely visit it when i come back to hyderabad in August for Ram’s sister marraige. Then I had my dinner at Ohri’s food court in prasadz, amazingly they had variety of combo’s in their menu. I never had food at Ohri’s chain before. After dinner, it was time to pay a visit to Hugh Jackman, and i didnt like the movie much, it could have been much better, but any fan of X-men or woulverine character can sit through the movie i guess. I didnt regret watching the movie in bigscreen.. So that was it. That ended my sunday and experience in hyderabad. I came  back to my guesthouse at 1am Monday. Its time to sleep. Gotto go, another week, another monday, another post.. till then …