Amar Gautam

At the school they taught me to follow the rules; in the university, they said, “Rules are meant to be broken!” Believe me, since my first day at the school, I have been breaking rules and I strongly propagate that you should try and break rules…

Rules evolve when a conclusion of an experiment, not necessarily scientific though, are established. Those conclusions are sometimes backed up by scientific findings or sometimes by personal perceptions. So in basics, rules are establishments. Establishments could be anything from – “Follow this standard template” to “This is the best design pattern you should use” or “You should not say ‘No’ to a customer”.

We come across very few people who actually challenge these establishments. But obviously you will ask me, “Why would you want someone to challenge an establishment when the life is just okay with them?”

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Recently I happened to visit a couple of colleges and universities in India for an industry-university connect program. I was very excited as this was the first time I was about to visit any university since the time I graduated and became a full time software professional.

I had a lots of expectation! During my times, we as a student were keen to know a lot of new things. Whenever someone from the industry came to talk to us, we were full with questions to ask. We were curious and the kind of enthusiasm we had is hard to describe. But the visits I mentioned earlier shocked me. The students were least interested in what we were talking. We were holding a contest for all developers. But no one was interested or aware except a very few of them.

Later I was talking to the contest program coordinator at my organization. She happens to be a girl studying in 1st year computer science from an university in USA. She came to India to work with our organization as an intern. The main responsibility for her was to conduct a programming contest and coordinate the activities. [Read More...]

When you ask a girl to remind you something, this is what happens. The best part is she remembers that there was something to be reminded.

Beware if you have this habit of asking your girl friend or wife to send reminder mails.

My Newphew recently turned 3 and was ready to go to school. As a norm in Delhi, kids are interviewed in various schools. So here is what one of the interview looked like -

Question 1. [Teacher shows a picture of a leaf ] What is this?
Answer : [The moment he saw, he shouted at her.......] LEAF(What an answer?!!!)
 
Question 2. [He already got busy with the toys around] She said…. “Nilay, What are you doing?”
Answer : “No Puroo”[he meant it's not Nilay, it's Puroo. Puroo is his pet name]
 
Question 3. Can you sing a rhyme?
Answer : [After a long pause.... ] “Hmmmmmmmmmm……. ummmmmmmmmmmmmm Ajaa ajaa Dil Michode…….” [Ashamed my sis-in-law said, "Do you want to sing Incy wincy .... or ABCD?"] he says, “Ummmmmmmmmmmmmm ABBBBBBBBBCCDDD” [He started singing in loop, pausing in between]
 
Question 4. [Teachers shows a picture of grape] What is this?
Answer : Potato………[After questioning again] Ummmmmm Potato…..
 
Question 5. [Teacher shows a picture of carrot] what is this?
Answer : Parrot…….[She asks again] hmmmmmmm….. Parrot.
 
Question 6. [She switches over to colours] What colour is this block?
Answer : [He answers right......] Red Blue Orange
 
Question 7. [Puroo asks...] Where is the balloon?
Answer : Teacher starts to laugh….

Apart from my regular responsibilties as a Senior Software Engineer, I am also the Software Confinguration Manager (SCM). Being a SCM is not always so easy when you have a global team spread accross the boundaries and working in various time zones. Sometimes I get irriatated by the way teams treat a configuration mechanism or tool. But during the days I work on such issue, I always thought of educating my teams to work in a better collabarative manner. So through my experiences I bring you some best practices that I follow and could be useful to you as well. [Read More...]

Today is 15th August, India’s independence day. We are moving to 63rd year of independence. When I look back and see, I feel we have developed a lot in terms of science and technology, space technologies, satellite communication, medicine, defence capabilities and the way of life as a whole. But certainly we still have a way long to go ahead. I always feel proud to call myself an Indian. But at times when I see something very bad happening, I feel is it this independent nation that Mahatma Gandhi fought for. We definitely paid a huge price for independence but just being independent is not enough. Only independence will not help and rather we need to be codependent on each other.

Last night I was talking to my friend Mudit and was sad to hear a revealing. The very evening Mudit went to the railway station to see off his fiancee. While in his return when he crossed the main entrance of the station, he found an old lady lying down on the side of the road. He got curious and asked people around about her whereabouts as she did not look a homeless lady. Everyone there was ignorant of her and no one knew why she is lying there. Someone said that she was there since morning. After an examination Mudit found that she was dead. [Read More...]

It has been long time that I wrote something on my blog as I was busy with more important things in my life. But the situation I see here in my own city has forced my to hit the blog to convey what I feel about flu in Pune and in India.

Last week when all the news channels were flooded with the news of the first swine flu death in India and that was in Pune, I started getting calls from my family and friends. They asked my well being and gave a long lecture on how I can prevent myself to get infected. All of them was easy to follow except one – The Mask! [Read More...]