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ఊరిలో పెళ్ళంట వీధికుక్కల పండగంట

An Unforgettable Anniversary Gift

[Disclaimer: I always like the disclaimers to be at the beginning, it allows uninterested audience save a couple of minutes. Coming to the actual disclaimer; unlike the title suggests, this post has nothing to do with tags such as #romance, #feel-good, #love. I think this is enough of a spoiler alert and do not wish to reveal full suspense as yet.]

Having been a happy no strings attached “Pay-as-you-go” mobile phone customer all thru, I guess I was bored of having a normal life and made this stupidest decision of splitting the phone cost and going for “Contract”.

I hate playing chess for the sole reason of it being a game where you need to think a thousand permutations and combinations before each move (we were given a chess board to play, me and my friend Mastan invented a really-rapid file chess game called Chess-Carom where you knock off the chess pieces by striking action of caroms. Apologies to chess lovers, if that breaks your kings’ heart :P). Being such a lazy thinker from the beginning, I never thought twice about this decision I made, only to realise ten days later I would be spending a whole Saturday morning writing a repenting article. To add to the misery and make me feel more gutted about, I chose this to be Tin anniversary surprise gift for my wife.

Unlike any other day, I just happened to open the Carphone Warehouse website (the only reason to choose: it is on my way to work and hence I can pick the phone up on my way back home), selected iPhone 6 model (this could probably be another reason why I am in such a pity situation; I do not belong to iSheep community, but thought my not so techie wife would be happy with the quality of pics and really cool Slo-Mo video). Out of all that were in the website Vodafone 24 month contract sounded really good deal and within my budget. All happies, did a check out like I just bought a water filter refill from online store. I knew it would take a day to get the phone and hence ordered it a couple of days in advance just to make sure I have the phone for the anniversary with all the delivery hassles or me being late from work and store closing down, etc.,. Well, the inevitable happened and next day I get a mail stating my online payment was declined and I had to phone in again and redo the payment (Phew! Well thought about! What if I hadn’t booked it a day earlier? Self-appreciation for using my miniscule brain to avoid delays) and ensured with the support guy, the phone should be in store tomorrow for pick-up who doubly reassured “Yes, Mr. Mohammad, your phone will be at store tomorrow evening”. In a few minutes I get a text and email confirming the order and next day pick up in store. (Woo hoo! Well done!!)

The next evening, I started from office just at the stroke of 5 rushed into a flower shop picked up a small bouquet and enquired at the store (after nearly 45 minutes of wait) to find out the order was finalised very late the previous day and hence it did not arrive at the store today. ‘Damn it!’ I thought, gave an unapproved smile to the equally helpless lady at the counter and returned home. Rest of the day just happened to be very normal but I was deeply disappointed although she was so content with the flowers and blessed that I remembered the date.

Unfortunately, the tragedy did not end there, next day I got the phone and I managed to pull off a real surprise with another flower bouquet and this time with the all new iPhone 6. With a lot of excitement, we opened the box, inserted the Vodafone SIM (tadaah!!!) the iPhone started. After a while of flowery circle prompting me to wait patiently, it just displayed “No Service”. I thought I should restart and I did, but still no use. ‘May be we should give it a day to set up the account’, we thought and day finished there.

It has been 10 days since this happened and my wife’s iPhone still shows the same “No Service” message. I would have spent fairly 3-4 hours on call waiting, 1-2 hours of my other phone minutes, 10-15 calls to both Vodafone and Carphone Warehouse to at the least let me know what the issue is. Strange enough but not surprising to someone who has worked on CRM Call Tracking for a while to realise they do not have a clue of what they are up to. When I call, they assure me every time that it would be set up in a day’s or two which never materialised and when the phone gets disconnected I am just an SLA put on hold or customer inputs awaiting or whatever their state model diagram indicates them to push my call to be answered after only god knows (maybe) when.

I thought may be social media should work, like it did when my Sky broadband was down during last Christmas season, tweeted @VodafoneUK @CPWTweets stating my problem. Oh yes! Definitely got the response in a day but it just ensured the problem is back to square one. After exchange of 3 tweets and 3 personal email conversations , the Vodafone representative emails me asking for the contract papers (apparently he could not locate my account in his system). Really? Is your CRM so bad that you dispatched a phone and SIM card and you don’t have trace of it? Or you have no clue what you are doing?

Alas! All I realise at the end of a grilling 10 day period. I am just a speck of dust in the dumping yard named “Customers”. I guess I am still under 14 day trial period and will cancel the contract as the Monday strikes and back to Pay as you go where I can just dump the SIM card if I don’t like the service. A quick note of thanks to Vodafone UK and Carphone Warehouse who made me realise what I am worth for them. 

చిన్నీ - నీకు ఆత్మశాంతి కలగాలని

పాల్గారే పసిబుగ్గలకేంతెలుసు
మనవి పెద్ద చక్రాల క్రింద నలిగే 'చిన్ని ' బ్రతుకులని
అమ్మ ఒడిలో అనంతలోకాలు చేరిన ఓ పసికూనా
వింత లోకపు వికటపు మనస్తత్వాలనుండి నీకు విముక్తి

ఎందుకు

నాకులము నాకులమంచు కక్షముల్నాకేవు
చట్టుబండలయ్యే నీచదువు నీతికన్న కులకక్ష్య మిన్ననుకునేవు
ఏపాటి మానవత్వంబది మంచికి చెడుకి మతపురంగు పూసేవు
సాటి వానిని తూలనాడగ యేధర్మంబు బోధించేను

ఏకులమైననేమి చట్టముల్చుట్టములైన వానికిన్
పట్టెడన్నంపెట్టే రైతుబిడ్డల రోదన కానరాని వానికిన్
ఏ దైవంబు కానవచ్చున్ పసిగుడ్డులజంపు రక్తపిపాసికిన్
భావితరమ్ముల భవిష్యత్తున్ కాలరాచు కలికాలపు గులపురుషులకున్ 

A Solar Family

One of the techniques I follow to either understand it better or elaborate to others about any concept is by trying to simplify it by comparing with concepts we are already comfortable with or things that are very obvious. This makes me to relate my understanding and bring the missing pieces together to complete a jigsaw. There are exceptions while doing so that everything in one concept cannot be similar in every aspect and well that’s probably why they are two different concepts and hence they are just metaphors. Being an IT student, OOPS (Object Oriented Programming) was something I benefitted a lot with this approach. Classes, Objects, Methods, Attributes, Polymorphism, Inheritance, etc. name a topic, I can wake up from a 3rd level of inception dream and talk about it fluently. (Ahem! I got to revalidate that statement after a long gap but yes, there I can still use my own medicine).

When I woke up in the middle of the night (3 a.m. on a Saturday morning is barely early morning) and started comparing Solar system with family and relationships [Nothing to do with Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus, honestly you might find my reading habits so bad that I could not read more than 4 pages of it, neither 50 shades for that matter]. Don’t you dare asking me now, which one I was trying to understand comparing to what? It goes without saying, I found no soul in a mood to discuss this with and hence pulled my slave (? Or probably the other way around) out and started typing…

Here we go cruising on a snail pace to the topic. If we assume Earth to be the relationship or marriage, two most important constants the Sun and the Moon would be man and wife, now who is who? My inborn male chauvinism led me to first instinct of attributing man with Sun (head of the solar family and hence, proved!) but it only took me a split second to realize that it’s a falsified attribution. Even in a single income family where the man works; he is definitely the moon. I could (or you could) convince myself I am really the Sun, but I am sure of dishonesty with self. I said moon, the reason I function is because, of the source of light energy she gives me to do nothing but going around the marriage and still appear to be bright in the night. And working for livelihood I compare with nothing, one; it appears to be miniscule given the magnanimity of the task of managing the family and two; as someone (famous?) said ‘No one recounts that he/she should have worked for an extra minute on the death bed’. Yet, I do love my work because that’s the only nothing I can be good at. Waning and waxing may not be as regular as fortnightly but yeah, waning are the days when my boss pats me for doing nothing (remember, that’s work!) and waxing, you can guess it. Just two more significant events probably are New moon days, when you abruptly wake up in the middle of a night and start writing something which no one cares of its existence and on a full moon day I would have sumptuous three course meal and hit the sac blissfully without resorting to Netflix or YouTube.

Now, the most awaited part: The Sun, how much can you write about the supremo of any species. She manages the system, earth rotates around her and hence the moon. We might start under the assumption that Sun is taking rest during the night, but as you start realising the fact isn’t so. The moment Sun rests our solar system ceases to exist, this is neither an understatement nor an overstatement. What about the seasons? They are probably different moods of the Sun; it starts with spring when the Sun is in real good mood. Everything seems to be so beautiful; daffodils, lush green trees, bright days, and all good things we can ever imagine. It is warm but not hot, cold but not chilly, drizzles but does not pour down. Then comes summer, burns down a bit of energies, when it appears to work hard and sweat a lot, still feels good maybe that’s when earth is more productive and you wait for autumn to arrive. Yet another beautiful season, it starts getting cold and gives a break from working out; things will start changing again, it may look beautiful and relaxing but constantly reminds of the winter setting in at times with heavy downpours and flooding. And then arrive cold freezing days, a different pasture on the canvass of life, its white but not so bright, looks good but feels chilly. A calm period probably the days when we don’t talk. Hence, they are different moods helping the relationship in their own way of revolving around the circle of life. Every season has to start and end like any mood there is no escape; sometimes it is wintrier and sometimes it is torrid but there are fillers in between which soothe in every season, we know for sure the tide will change and days will become better.

The next interesting part in a family are obviously the kids, bloody hell they are like tiny meteors. They create a bang on impact on the earth, they often create tremors but they do leave beautiful patterns on the earth which makes it look more meaningful. The moon is usually very concerned and edgy about these eerie creatures as they always creep the moon out of the mind, making it think like facing a bullet point blank but in reality that would be missing the moon at least a million miles away of which the Sun controls meticulously to land in the right areas to create a meaningful pattern. Once they whizz past the trembling moon, moon is the proud owner and gets a blush every time it sees them (always from a fair bit of distance).

Then comes other planets who are the family and friends who observe from a distance, and keep moving on in their own orbits. An honorary (pure pun) mention about the Haley’s comet (the in-law factor) which comes in regular intervals and scares the hell out of everything but never really endangered.

As the Saturday morning gets bright and my head becomes light; it is worth mentioning about my own beautiful and loving Sun that she is the best Sun in the world that happened to exist and I love her every bit. The meteors seems to be waking up; I better get back to sleep!

Acharya Devo Bhava

On a day which connects a true sense of belongingness between a student and a teacher. A special day on which, we struggled big time to be in the shoes of a teacher (some of them truly mimicking them with their favourite mannerisms). It was a learning experience, to showcase what it is really to be facing the crowd which I never dared during my school days and was an utter failure when I finally managed one in my 1^st semester of PG. The fumble I can still remember in my deepest of dreams.

Well I may not be from a crème de la crème IIM/ IIT but a microorganism in the zillions of IT crowd. Still everyone’s got a story and everyone gets inspired and I am still in pursuit of what inspired me and in the process of learning to become one.

In a country where 80% of the times it was predictable at the time of birth what is the extent you can study based on your family’s social and financial status (I am glad that this trend is on a decline now and I wish to be part of the society on the day it is disproved and invalidated). I witnessed this teacher in an education society who dared his guts to defy the odds and bring back these privilege deprived straying ducks back in the line of schooling.  A true example of actions speaks better than words and words do inspire many such actions. “Dear Mastan sir, May your soul rest in peace and be the guiding light for many who are walking your path”.

Stereotypes are well mocked in many a ways, but I have seen the flipside of it has given out too many positive results. A mathematics teacher; he would never need a compass to draw a circle or a ruler to draw an immaculate straight line. V.B. Vallabhacharyulu a name that has tagged many like me to a perfect 100 in the subject he taught and felt prouder than us when we achieved it. “I never took the cash prize you announced in the class but Sir I have taken more valuable lessons of life. I never stopped practicing basics since then. If not this world can have more teachers like you, may you be blessed with same energy and enthusiasm to make maths a subject to like rather than run away from it”.

In the era where intelligence of students is ascertained by marks aggregated rather than the consistency shown in the marks, languages as subjects still remain a burden on the students and let go off once you enter the university campus. Seldom does anyone realise the importance of developing a student in a language he/she speaks at home. I was shocked at my own observation when I was telling a bed time story to my kids that I have learnt 5why technique of 6Sigma in my childhood when my great-granny told me that story (A King and his 7 sons).  Learning mother tongue definitely improves rationale of thinking and makes you more logical. I may not be even eligible to make an observation in the current world which is vrooming at millions of miles per second, but give it a thought on where are we heading and how long does a foundation-less skyscraper can ever sustain (don’t believe? Read the newspapers again). “Dear N.V. Sharma sir, I can never express how fortunate I am today to have learnt a language from you”. After my schooling it took almost a decade and half to have seen Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik propagating similar ideology, hope this will turn our heads back to concentrate more on the foundation.

Another 65 year young gentleman (at the time he was teaching us) who looked at life utmost positive attitude than anyone else I have ever seen till date and my inspiration to be a teacher someday in life said ‘If you can inspire one person in your life, you are successful teacher’. “Yes Prof. Subba Rao sir, you did”. I was shell shocked and almost had a celebrity moment when in the evening crowd at Canary Wharf station a random guy stops me, says ‘I know you sir, you have taken a class on Software Testing at Cognizant Academy’ I recollected a moment later, which was like a 4 hour session, 8 years back? (I should be either too good or so terrible that he remembers me after so long. I am taking it on a positive note since he didn’t beat me up in the crowd and disappear :) )

Last, but my first ever teacher, “Dad, every time I made a terrible mistake you told me a story that made me think. Many of those, I still remember to date and I will tell my son when he reaches an age he can comprehend. I wish I had inherited 1% of your logical brain, lateral and rational thinking”. 

Stay Technical – 3 ways to be technically inclined in manual testing projects

Spending years in software testing brings me to write this. One of the most common aspirations in a team which is involved in manual testing is, “When do I get a chance to do Automation or Performance Testing”? It also has a most common response, “We will see if there is a chance, we will let you know, meanwhile why don’t you get trained on some tools from the training department”. I do not have a count of it, but I have seen this kind of conversation in almost every catch all meeting with senior management. I also do not have statistics but I cannot be a million miles away if I say that its back to normal after the session is over and figuratively it would not exceed 5 – 10% of the instances would turn out to be that the person has met aspiration.

It is a good sign that thought of getting technically inclined has passed thru the mind but what is the effort put in to materialise that thought into action. Well, the most common excuse would be I have attended the trainings and repeated asked for change in the project but I was not allowed to pursue my aspiration due to project pressures. Given the fact that there are not many slots open for automation and performance even to these days (agreed, we are making progress in improving automation; but I would bet all my money on we are not where we wanted to be on automation front. Blame it on timeline pressures, cost pressures where management thinks any spending on testing is mere waste and testing is just done for the sake of it without any real purpose or objective. I would prefer to stay away from that discussion for now).

I believe that is enough said on the problem statement. Let us now move on to the section that matters the most. What are the alternatives? How can we stay technical even if the project does not have much to offer?

1)       Excelling in Excel: No matter what type of project we are working on, testing has something always to do with excel sheets. It offers great features if you can explore with VBA. For example, working on a project which has a lot of permutations and combinations of test data to be used and you need to write optimum number of test cases, generate them using a macro.

2)      Make your own reports: No matter how much of flexibility is provided by the Test Management Tools, there is a definite need of tweaking required in your daily reports, weekly reports or the test summary report. Often it is quite laborious and by the time you finish your report editing, there is a strong likelihood that facts would have changed in the tool, which makes the reconciliation task before sending the report quite daunting and often ends up in a night mare. Have you ever tried customising the reports with a single click using the querying features of tools? (This seems more relevant if you are using HP ALM or its predecessors, not to mention MS MTM which many test managers consider ghost in the nightmare for its reporting capabilities). All you need for doing this is basic programming skills and decent querying skills. Give it some fancy name and logo; add it to the organization’s assets. You are celebrity!

3)      Proof of Concepts: If you have spare time in projects (don’t bother if you are bragging about how difficult it is to manage with your “strict” deadlines), ever tried doing a small proof of concept using a freeware tool (please ensure you get appropriate permissions) to automate some of your daily tasks. Management wouldn’t see that as a big crime (as long as you get right approvals to proceed) if you can deliver them some time-off from the testing schedules. Moreover, you can always boast about the effort savings by extrapolating the figures. Win-win deal and you have some coding to do as well.

Well I guess enough of options for who actually want to give it a shot. For those who look for more, would never do it even with 1000 other options.  Better not bother about them. Apologies if that sounds to be sarcastic and pessimistic. I am paid to be pessimistic :) 

[Also shared on LinkedIn]