The problem of being ME :-)

Gawd....Cant believe it was sept'2005 when i last wrote a blog...the other 2 posts after tht jus being cut n paste stuff :-)

hav no clue wat pushed me to write after such a long time, but here i am with my first writeup in over 10 months :-).....i Certainly don hav a clue on wat to write......though I hav a gut feeling that my spontaneity will help me get ther...am in a strange quandary here..my heart says there's a lot to write on..but i am only finding myself jus struggle to get on with writin wat shud also b a gud read not jus for me but for the rest who r readin it....is that me who s struggling for topic/words to write?? gawd...i cant allow this to happen...so here goes the writeup

I hav been thru a huge transition over these past 10 months and the most important of all of them is the fact that I am not typing this from inside the Cisco development centre in Infosys...First job change is as special as the first job....wat to expect and wat not to expect ?? new companions, new boss.....was extremely circumspect abt all this...but therein lies the exposure and no doubt it helps me mature as a professional....

With no element of doubt, I can say it s been a very smooth transition...hardly felt the pinch of working for a new organization and I ve thoroughly enjoyed these few months in my new organization.....My love for Computer Networks has grown by leaps and bounds and the work here is demanding enough to hav me go thru books, config guides, manuals and wat not...Now that s a total shift from how it was in infy, where my reading was more out of interest than out of purpose :-)......

The job hunt phase was so intense. loads of calls, umpteen interviews happened over a period of 20-30 days...yeah, that was all that it took......i still cant believe that one Monday when i took four interviews on a single day, apart from contributing a li'll to work in office :-)...Now that s serious lack of dedication if one may call it that way, but that s the way this generation behaves..Loyalty is not human but a dog s job :-)
Not sure if tat was a record of any sort for most interviews by any person on a given day :-)...but, such was the intensity of the job search....Consultants/comps kept pestering me with calls and I had realised that I had come too far that my stint in Infy was soon gonna end....After 5 offers, 25 days of monumental effort in taking interviews(not sure if i ever realised the advantage of hands free as much as i would hav during the course of these interviews..i was certainly craving for one), the day had come....Ater repeated persuasions from managers, the unyielding guy that I am managed to make them yield to my request, the promise of immediate onsite to london/US notwithstanding... :-)....Quality of work and the supremacy of the company mattered most to me than a trip that gives me money and nothin else...Not that Money is unimportant, but I can get it anytime....Moreover, I wasnt leaving for peanuts either :-)

More than any1 else, the person whom i found the toughest to convince was my Mom..For a layman/every Indian parent, Infy s up ther in their mind as a demi god among companies :-)...To my Mom, leaving it was nothin less than a fatal mistake and she would for no reason digest my decision to relinquish a trip to california sometime this year...but, bein the sort of guy that i am, i never really cared for these tools of motivation called onsite...I would rather wait for a trip on purpose(may it take longer time) in my new comp :-)

Now....that's not the only transition....My mind has gone thru a transition too....After close to 2 1/2 years, I started thinking seriously about wat I intended to do in my final year of Engineering...I had locked my passion for MBA in one corner of my heart and never gave it a chance to haunt me for over 2.5 years...but, these past few months hav been tough....those dark days of failure in 2003 flashed in my dreams;Those days when i messed up CAT and blew up the chance of getting into xlri in the interview and was in a total disarray wondering wat next....

Infy was an alternative to feel secure...but, little did I know then that Infy would not be a stopgap phase, but a career shaping phase......

After years of work in IT, I have managed to surprise myself with the kind of passion and expertise that I have in the field of networks....somethin that I would have laughed off as a big joke, if someone had asked me about making a career in Networking some 3 years bak :-)

Wat I do, Where I work are all factors that are firmly taking me away from a passion that I had cherished for 10 years.....In comparison...A experience that s lasted these past 3 yrs can easily be superimposed by an ambition that s lived in my heart for over 10 years??? Thats a trillion dollar question that am tryin to answer every day,night,dream and wat not......

After all, life s never devoid of trade offs.....Ones who havent realised it r fewer !!

Wat hasnt changed is the significance that the phrase below has in my life....this was somethin that i told one of my buddies spontaneously and was just bemused at how precisely I had described my own life :-)

It goes this way.."wat i am is somethin i didnt want 2 b and wat i wanted to b is somethin that i am not"......................It has to b seen for how long this phrase is gonna b applicable..May b for life?? or may be not ??? :-)