Life's Like This

Can you remember the song 'complicated' by Avril Lavigne? Starts with the line that I put as title. I don't claim that's a nice title, but when I think that I'm writing on this blog after a year-long lay off, I thought about putting some sort of summary of the experiences I had in this long year. I'm indebted to the people who introduced me to this habit of writing blogs, and I must agree that this is a nice way of expressing one's thoughts.

When I look back 1 year in the past, when I wrote my last entry in this blog, how much different I was. I was a student in IISc, a place I can never forget. Still today, I look at my company id card and try to find that "student at IISc" me in the photo (the photo was taken before joining the company, hence ...). The world at IISc was quite different, unrealistic at times, like white gaussian assumption for any noise (for those who are new to this term, white gaussian is the simplest of all noises and so amenable to analysis), we had no chance to get a feeling of the real outside world, people within the campus were more than obedient and helpful. Maybe it felt more so, since I hardly used to step out of the campus during those days. Apart from academics, all facilities were too great to my eyes. The institute and its professors asked us to be precise and detailed even if our area of study is not too large.

Things changed quite a lot after leaving the institute. We already were brainwashed, so attitude was difficult to match with other things. But this was interaction with real world, and that is where everything boils down to. I remember the first month of relocation to the newly found apartment, rent so high that I needed to borrow money from home (a sheer disrespect, after all why job if you can't be self-dependent!), cooking initially with barest minimum indredients and inexperienced two fellas making a junk broth or a sabzee that we could hardly eat. After all, it was quite tiring to come back from office and cook, we always ascribed our inablity of cooking to this particular event.

Luckily we got a cook after one month, and a kind-hearted neighbor, whose refrigerator we can use. God is good, the first month's salary came, and we were overjoyed. This was also a nice experience, which was new to my life. Well, we declared that the real world is also not that bad !!

Now comes the office, first time entry to an office like Cisco's is memorable for everyone. Shining, glittering, put any number of adjectives, beautiful HR folks welcomed us with plenty of colgate smile, and we were assigned to the teams and got introduced to them. I consider myself lucky that my first manager told the realities about the industry life. One suggestion I still follow: "Do your assigned work without being attached to it", a harsh truth, but yes, true. I was surprised to see the nicely maintained labs with million dollar routers and switches, even the workplace is neatly maintained. So neatly that if you spill a drop of tea at the tea station, at least 4 people will rush to the place as if some accident has happened and will shine the stained floor until you see your reflection in it. I started 'learning' how things work in industry and how they feel about the research community as a whole. I started observing both sides of the coin. I should acknowledge Cisco for supporting my travel to Athens for presenting my paper with Prof. Kumar, this event I can never forget, and will mention the details of that in a separate post.

All were going right in this first quarter, company's income was good and we were happy with the amenities. Then from somewhere this demon called recession turned up. How he came, what he wants, I don't know, but this demon swallowed lots of jobs in US and other nations. Thank God, India wasn't that affected till now, and that is how we survived.

The city of Bangalore has at least two facets, I have seen in the northern part, where IISc is located, the atmosphere is quiet, cool, people get enough time to think, concentrate and work. On the other hand, the eastern part, which is the location of most of the IT companies, has a different flavor, this flavor is the characteristic of any modern city. People have large difference in work, lifestyle, earnings, which reflects in the way they behave. I have seen certain people shopping in nice shopping malls don't bother shouting at the poor shopkeeper boy. Certain people can't quench their thirst until the waterbottle is made of a certain multinational brand. On the other side, certain people strive to put hand to mouth. Well, all these are part of life and that is how I touched the 'real life', and it touched me.

In essence, I found this life to be similar to a 'Tabla' playing, it lives on beats, and missing the rhythm will throw you out of the race. While the life in IISc was like playing a 'Sarangi', the quiet pathos was mesmerizing and the melody replaced the rhythm.