In Conversation with Sumana Chowdhury

Before I start I must agree that I had never hoped that I would write something of this kind. But I couldn't control myself when I read a post on one of my friend's Facebook wall. When I end I know it's not going to be something great, but just simple words which might even not last a couple of hours in your mind. Even though the name of the post seems a little flashy, but it doesn't matter. It may not have Karan Johar's flamboyant sets or style or Arnab Goswami’s high pitched voice, but it does have food for thought (at least I think that). This blog may not be about the high profile people and their ways of life, but it’s about people. It’s about us the mango people, the aam aadmi, it’s about our opinion and our thoughts, it's about us.

For all those who don’t know Sumana. I have known her for almost 11 months now and how we met and eventually became friends is a story in itself. She works for an IT giant (not the same company as mine), a bong who likes eating at the roadside jhopes, carries one of the sweetest smiles always, hates Mondays probably more than anything else in the world, loves Daniel Craig on Fridays. Has a taste of music ranging from minus infinity to plus infinity, from eastern black and white to western hip-hop. A person with a very strong vocabulary and believe me she has a way with words.

For all those working at onshore assignments would understand, inevitably the Facebook tab is always open. We don’t take tea breaks that frequent, most of the times we are into our screens probably so glued that you could see reflections of the liquid crystals on our faces. The only diversion or relaxation period is when in between of 25-30 minutes we scroll through FB for half a minute or so. It was just of those normal days at work from me when there was a huge pile of work I needed to finish and I literally don’t want to work. Anyways, to carry on, everyone has those few hundreds of friends whose posts we never miss and generally spend 60 seconds more reading it. Sumana’s post caught my attention and specially the final words “Let the positive intentions go viral !- In support”.

Probably after reading this she might kick me in my ass or point out in-numerous grammatical errors, but here goes the conversation and also a reply to her post.

The post on FB (from Sumana):
“The longest post I will ever do...and the most real too. Everyone will go through some hard times at some point. Life isn't easy. Just something to think about...did you know the people that are the strongest are usually the most sensitive? Did you know the people who exhibit the most kindness are the first to get mistreated? Did you know the ones who take care of others all the time are usually the ones who need it the most? Did you know the 3 hardest things to say are I love you, I'm sorry, and Help me. Just because a person looks happy, you have to look past their smile and see how much pain they may be in. To all my friends who are going through some issues right now - let's start an intention avalanche. We all need positive intentions right now. If I don't see your name, I'll understand. May I ask my friends wherever you might be, to kindly copy and paste this status for one hour to give a moment of support to all those who have family problems, health struggles, job issues, worries of any kind and just need to know that someone cares. Do it for all of us, for nobody is immune. I hope to see this on the walls of all my friends just for moral support. I know some will!! I did it for a friend and you can too. You have to COPY & PASTE this one, NO SHARE BUTTONS. Let the positive intentions go viral! - In support...”

My response (yet to be posted as a comment on her post in FB):
“The longest reply which probably I will ever do.... The same things read, thought and replied from a different perspective. Did you ever wonder as to why the most sensitive ones are the strongest? Because they have been hurt and yet they have managed to collect all there broken pieces together and get back to the thing called life. Isn't that what made them the strongest. Did you know that the people who have been mistreated the most often are the ones who exhibit kindness? Because they know how it feels to be mistreated, or being taken for granted and they don't want others to feel the same. Did you know the ones who were never given time when they needed it are actually the ones who take care of others all the time? They do it not because they were not given time, they do it because they know there is nothing more to life then letting a person know that don't you worry, I am and always will be there for you. The strength that you impart to the other person is beyond words could explain.

On the contrary I would say I love you, I'm sorry and Help Me are the 3 words which have lost their meanings with due time. People say it, they just say it. What's more to life then letting someone know you love them, be it your friends family or anyone you feel for. Say sorry only if you really mean it from the bottom of your heart. Say it only if you will try not to repeat the same mistake again. Don't say it if you are gonna do the same mistake again and again. When you have already said you love me for what I am to you and apologized, then you don't need to say Help Me, because I will always be there for you. Never chase love, affection or attention. If it isn't given freely by another person, it isn't worth having. If a person looks happy irrespective of the pain they are in, it's because of what they have become with what they have been through. If you still see a smile on the person's face then it's his or her way of saying that "Believe me, I will fall, that's for guarantee. But you will never see me fucking quit".

To all the people out there wherever you might be, going through issues be it family problems, health struggles, job issues or worries of any kind. Let me tell you that positivity comes from within and there is no motivation like self-motivation. Though you cannot go back and start again, you can start from now and have a brand new end.”


A few words from Joss Whedon (which now has become one of my most favorite lines) before I end this blog.

“Take my love, take my land.

Take me where I cannot stand.

I don't care I'm still free,

You can't take the sky from me."

Images from Archive:

The Diary of Deployment: (Frustrations and Commitments of a Developer)

The clock was ticking 11 PM and I wasn’t feeling sleepy, not even a percent. My nights extended deep down into darkness every day. My daily routine had been so for almost half a year now. The platinum application of my body my brain was sending me mixed signals knowing what lay ahead. But I was in no mood to catch even a few hours of sleep.

RSE and DEMAJ were glued to their systems in the large hall of my apartment which was in terrible shape. REBAN was in the kitchen trying to cook something decent so that we could keep our engines running. Given the pressure he had been through for the past 2 days, he should be in his bed and not in the kitchen was what, was going through my mind. His entire team, his colleagues, his managers would be sleeping in their cozy beds and there he stood cooking for us. At times we hardly realize what small little things people do for us, most of the times it goes unnoticed. But yet again I knew this was my extended family out here. I’ve got your back mate, went without saying, with us.

I sat there staring at my blue, black and white tandem screen which had been my soul life from the time I had landed in Aarhus. This was not what I had imagined while I was gearing up for my onshore assignment. “Grass on the other side is always greener my dear” was what SHGH always told me. She was damm right. As we have a human life cycle we also have a life cycle in IT (and I am not talking about the software development life cycle), no-one ever told me that. I wonder why the company doesn’t put in a specific clause for every project that you are gonna join. We defy every law of Mother Nature, nine moths absolutely no, every six months we go into the frenzy of producing something else, something new or adding organs to something already created, providing accessories to an organ in order to achieve something else. Six months have passed when we first started the process of creating the new child called R19. Requirement gatherings, HLD’s , DPD’s, workshops, defects, code-fixes, endless sleepless nights, blame games, escalations and meetings is what it took to reach here, the days of deployment. Six real hard months of continuous labor pain was what it took to reach where we are today. Innumerous teams involved in different phases. The PM team, the BA team, Release Management, Deployment Management & the Deployment team plus the higher management (everyone talks about them even your managers or the HR’s but no one has ever seen them, guess someone like BIG BOSS) have been the fathers of the child.

Who is a developer, is what I ask myself almost a million times every day. I am yet to figure out the answer. And where I stand today the only answer I have goes like this:”A developer is a person who does not have a personal life. A person who’s life is someone else’s owned. If bachelor will never get married. If married is having a screwed up personal life. A person who’s weekend is as ruined as his/her weekdays. A person who’s professional life requires him/her to work and prove that they have been working 25 hours out of 24 hours to achieve a good annual hike”. The only people who come below a developer in an IT firm are actually none. Even the cleaning staffs, the securities are vendor managed. The lowest in the hierarchy yet the strongest ones. The ones with the least to loose and the maximum to gain. The backbone of the entire infrastructure on which the IT is thriving.

When reality hits, it hits real hard. When I look at my watch now, it shows 1:00 AM and I decide to pamper myself. On the way to the kitchen to refill my glass and enjoy the luxuries of a Tennessee whisky, I find my buddies RSE and DEMAJ wired up on different calls corresponding to their deployments. I find REBAN sitting with DEMAJ helping him out with ORACLE. I keep standing there frozen seeing the scene. It’s madness. I am blank with nothing in my mind. Suddenly I realize that all of them are staring at me and it is then I realize my phone has been ringing. It’s 3^rd of KJA’s call. I immediately call up KJA and my absence from the hall goes un-noticed. RSE and DEMAJ go back to their systems. KJA’s deployment is done. A smile with a sense of satisfaction runs my face. A dear friend’s achievement is almost equivalent to your achievement. My glass is refilled and JD goes back to the shelf.

I walk back to my workstation. I don’t even have a peep to see what my friends are upto. I know they won’t rest till they have nailed the smallest bitch of code written by someone or by themselves. I know the Spartans are out there fighting and my mind knows within a span of some hours, I would be joining them. There is absolutely no feeling. I place myself on my chair and lit a fag so that I can drag myself into a world of illusion, where everything would be owned by me.

My phone starts on again. This time it’s the alarm of 3:30AM waking me up and asking me to buckle up for the task ahead. My friends TACHA and SHHCH are already on their way to an early Sunday down back in offshore. I know it’s not about them or me, it’s about every individual, every developer who has put in all his/her effort to make this release a success. As I stand there looking at myself in the mirror in my washroom, a flurry of questions rush through my mind. Is it all worth it? Will the amount of money I earned compensate for the losses? Will the satisfaction of work done compensate for my happiness? Will my closest buddy ANVEN forgive me for not attending her marriage or helping her out when she was alone? Will the developers get as much appreciation as much they are thrashed during their failures? Will they even be remembered once they move out of the account? Will I be able to make up for the time I missed spending with my loved ones? Is it all worth it?

As I step out of the shower ready and armored for my fight, for my time, for my deployment, I know this is not the end, this is just the beginning. There will be many more R20’s and R30’s on their way. Many more developers sacrificing their personal lives in the name of professionalism, onsite’s, ratings & hikes. Is the new sun going to bring a new brightness or will it be followed by new defects, rollbacks & high priority incidents. The time shall speak for itself.

As I gear up for the final battle of the year (I know I will succeed) Harivanshrai Bachchan’s words speak aloud in my head “In the rush of life where was the time to sit somewhere and think, whether what I did, said and believed in, was good or bad” ………….

My deployment starts in 5 minutes at 4:00 AM.

Thanks for being a part of my life.

I always wonder what a kind of person i would be if you would not have come into my life. Can anyone count and tell me as to how many people they would have met in their lifetime, i don't think anyone would be able to do so. We remember some and we forget some, don't we? But then people always come into your life for a reason, a season and a lifetime. When you figure out which it is, you exactly know what to do.

When someone is in your life for a reason, it is usually to meet a need you have expressed outwardly or inwardly. They have come to assist you through a difficulty, or to provide you with guidance or support, to aid you physically, emotionally, or even spiritually. They seem like a godsend to you, and they are. They are there for a reason, you need them to be. Then, without any wrong doing on your part or at an inconvenient time, this person will say or do something to bring the relationship to an end. Sometimes they die, sometimes they just walk away. Sometimes they act up or out and force you to take a stand. What we must realize is that our need has been met, our desire fulfilled; their work is done. The prayer you sent up has been answered and it is now time to move on.

When people come into your life for a season, it is because your turn has come to share, grow or learn. They may bring you an experience of peace or make you laugh. They may teach you something you have never done. They usually give you an unbelievable amount of joy. Believe it! It is real ! But only for a season. And like spring turns to summer and summer to fall, the season eventually ends.

Lifetime, relationship teach you a lifetime of lessons; those things you must build upon in order to have a solid emotional foundation. Your job is to accept the lesson, love the person (anyway possible) and put what you have learned to use in all other relationships and areas in your life. It is said that love is blind and friendship is clairvoyant.
Always remember life doesn't give you the people you want. Instead it gives you the one you need - to teach you, to hurt you , to luv you and make you exactly the way you should be THE BEST.
Thank you for being a part of my life....

This is how WINNERS are MADE..........

Life is Tough that's given.
When you stand up, you gonna be shoved back down.
When you're down you gonna be stepped on..
My advice doesn't come to you with a lot of bells and whistles...
Its no secret.. you will fall down, you will stumble, you'll get pushed, you'll land square on your face
But everytime that happens, you get back on ur feat
You get up just as fast as you can
No matter how many times you need to do it...
Remember this - Success has been and continues to be defined as getting up one more time when you have been knocked down
If experiences taught me anything
Its that nothing is free and live'n ain't easy
Life is hard real hard, incredibly hard ...
You fail more often than you win, nobody is handing you anything..
It's upto you to puff up your chest, stretch your neck and overcome all the difficult..
The Nasty, The Mean, The Unfair......
You want more than you have now ... Prove IT
You want to be the best there is, get out there and earn it
Once you decide that, you will know where is it that you want to be
And you won't stop pushing forward until you get there ..
That's how WINNERS are made
At the end of the day, success is what we all want,
We all wanna win and the race will be won.... There's no question about that
So come on get out on top, run faster, dream bigger, live better than you ever have before
This is in you , You can do this
Do it for yourself, Prove it to yourself

This is how WINNERS are MADE

LIFE is too short to be SAD... so be HAPPY

As we grow up, we learn that even the one person that wasn't supposed to ever let you down probably will. You will have your heart broken probably more than once and it's harder every time.You'll break hearts too, so remember how it felt when yours was broken. You'll fight with your best friend. You'll blame a new love for things an old one did. You'll cry because time is passing too fast, and you'll eventually lose someone you love. So take too many pictures, laugh too much, and love like you've never been hurt because every sixty seconds you spend upsetis a minute of happiness you'll never get back.

It when days become weeks .. weeks become months and months become years.... You LEARN

After a while you learn the subtle difference between holding a hand and chaining a soul. And you learn that love doesn't mean leaning and company doesn't mean security. And you begin to learn that kisses aren't contracts and presents aren't promises. And you begin to accept your defeats with your head up and your eyes open, with the grace of an adult and not the grief of a child. And you learn to build all your roads on today because tomorrow's ground is too uncertain for plans. After a while you learn that even sunshine burns if you get too much.

So plant your garden and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.

And you learn that you really are strong.

And you really do have worth........