Sunday, December 4, 2011
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Internal motivation comes from within, such as pride, a sense of achievement, responsibility and belief.
There was a young boy who used to come for regular practice but always played in the reserves and never made it to the soccer eleven. While he was practicing, his father used to sit at the far end, waiting for him.
The matches had started and for four days, he didn't show up for practice or the quarter or semifinals.
All of a sudden he showed up for the finals, went to the coach and said, "Coach, you have always kept me in the reserves and never let me play in the finals. But today, please let me play."
The coach said, "Son, I'm sorry, I can't let you. There are better players than you and besides, it is the finals, the reputation of the school is at stake and I cannot take a chance." The boy pleaded, "Coach, I promise I will not let you down. I beg of you, please let me play."
The coach had never seen the boy plead like this before. He said, "OK, son, go, play. But remember, I am going against my better judgment and the reputation of the school is at stake. Don't let me down." The game started and the boy played like a house on fire. Every time he got the ball, he shot a goal. Needless to say, he was the best player and the star of the game. His team had a spectacular win.
When the game finished, the coach went up to him and said, "Son, how could I have been so wrong in my life. I have never seen you play like this before. What happened? How did you play so well?"
The boy replied, "Coach, my father is watching me today." The coach turned around and looked at the place where the boy's father used to sit. There was no one there.
He said, "Son, your father used to sit there when you came for practice, but I don't see anyone there today."
The boy replied, "Coach, there is something I never told you. My father was blind. Just four days ago, he died. Today is the first day he is watching me from above."
Sunday, July 10, 2011
A group of children were playing near two railway tracks, one still in use while the other disused. Only one child played on the disused track, the rest on the operational track.
The train is coming, and you are just beside the track interchange. You can make the train change its course to the disused track and save most of the kids. However, that would also mean the lone child playing by the disused track would be sacrificed. Or would you rather let the train go its way?
Let's take a pause to think what kind of decision we could make...
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Most people might choose to divert the course of the train, and sacrifice only one child. You might think the same way, I guess. Exactly, to save most of the children at the expense of only one child was rational decision most people would make, morally and emotionally. But, have you ever thought that the child choosing to play on the disused track had in fact made the right decision to play at a safe place?
Nevertheless, he had to be sacrificed because of his ignorant friends who chose to play where the danger was. This kind of dilemma happens around us everyday. In the office, community, in politics and especially in a democratic society, the minority is often sacrificed for the interest of the majority, no matter how foolish or ignorant the majority are, and how farsighted and knowledgeable the minority are. The child who chose not to play with the rest on the operational track was sidelined. And in the case he was sacrificed, no one would shed a tear for him.
The great critic Leo Velski Julian who told the story said he would not try to change the course of the train because he believed that the kids playing on the operational track should have known very well that track was still in use, and that they should have run away if they heard the train's sirens.. If the train was diverted, that lone child would definitely die because he never thought the train could come over to that track! Moreover, that track was not in use probably because it was not safe. If the train was diverted to the track, we could put the lives of all passengers on board at stake! And in your attempt to save a few kids by sacrificing one child, you might end up sacrificing hundreds of people to save these few kids.
While we are all aware that life is full of tough decisions that need to be made, we may not realize that hasty decisions may not always be the right one.
'Remember that what's right isn't always popular... and what's popular isn't always right.'
Everybody makes mistakes; that's why they put erasers on pencils.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
A German once visited a temple under construction where he slaw a sculptor making an idol of God. Suddenly he noticed a similar idol lying nearby. Surprised, he asked the sculptor, "Do you need two statues of the same idol?" "No," said the sculptor without looking up, "We need only one, but the first one got damaged at the last stage." The gentleman examined the idol and found no apparent damage. "Where is the damage?" he asked. "There is a scratch on the nose of the idol." said the sculptor, still busy with his work. "Where are you going to install the idol?"
The sculptor replied that it would be installed on a pillar twenty feet high. "If the idol is that far, who is going to know that there is a scratch on the nose?" the gentleman asked. The sculptor stopped his work, looked up at the gentleman, smiled and said, "I will know it."
The desire to excel is exclusive of the fact whether someone else appreciates it or not. "Excellence" is a drive from inside, not outside. Excellence is not for someone else to notice but for your own satisfaction and efficiency...
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Of late, I am not posting in my blog as frequent as I used to post. Infact, this is my first post in the nearly 3 months. The reason behind this hibernation is my training period at Infosys. The training is over on Nov 17,2010, from which the blog would be back to normal.
Forgot to tell you, its been 3 golden years since this blog has been started. Thanks for your overwhelming support. Without which this milestone wouldn't have been possible.
Monday, July 5, 2010
I was sitting in the Personal Effectiveness class(a class of 37) and it was an afternoon. I was feeling really drowsy and would have almost slept if not for this puzzle.
We were asked to connect each color/letter to its corresponding pair using straight lines and the lines are not supposed to intersect each other at any point. The lines should not go above the top A and below the bottom B. Mohan was sitting next to me and both of us were visualizing the solution. We thought it was not solvable(atleast for us).
Pravin, she was a woman with a man's name, was the facilitator. She asked, "How many of you in this hall think it's not solvable?". I knew there must be a solution but then I couldn't visualize it. So my hand went up in a jiffy. Mohan followed me and then few more hands were raised. But, since I was the one who raised the hand first, She called me on to the stage. She asked me to just join the pairs using straight lines without worrying about the intersection part. I drew. She pointed out the problem part and asked me to think.
In a flash I arrived at the solution.
Pravin told me, "I didn't give the solution, you solved it on your own. All that you need is belief that you can solve the problem..." and some blah... blah...
Personally I learnt few lessons from this puzzle.
Lessons learnt:
1. Sometimes you need to bend and adjust to reach the position you want to.
2. Where there is a will there is a way.
3. Better bend than break.
PS: *I would try to increase the frequency of posts.
*Conditions Apply :)
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
This is my second short story. Hope you like it!!!
I first saw that machine in his lab. It was too big to be called as a lab. It would be appropriate to call it as a laboratory. Coming back to the machine, it was neither stupendous nor stupid. Imagine a car with a rear that was the mirror image of the front. Further the car had only one door with a small window sized less than a square feet. That was DD’s (Doctor Dhananjay) Time Travelling Machine.
“Will it work?”, I asked.
“Machines are made to work” said DD.
The smartness of DD lies in his circumlocutory answers. You can never conclude from his replies.
“Where are the wheels for it to run?”
“My machine would run in the fourth dimension, the dimension of time. Wheels are no longer necessary.”
DD didn’t appear to be a man who would lie. The words filled with confidence and arrogance… The lab filled with books with bamboozling titles… His research works stacked upon a table… A notice board with news paper cuttings of his articles… Though this forced me into believing him my eyes should have had a tinge of disbelief that was residue of overwhelming questions inside my brain.
“I think, you don’t believe me still”
“I find it difficult to believe it doctor”
“Better take a trial ride…”, he said with a smile. There was no falsity in his smile.
“Is it really possible to travel to the future that remains a mystery and the past that’s already a history?”
“Yes”
“How is it possible? Then what about Bradley Dowden’s theory?”
“Ya Bradley Dowden…”
He continued, “His logic is near perfect, ‘Nobody has ever built a time machine that could take a person back to an earlier time. Nobody should be seriously trying to build one, either, because a good argument exists for why the machine can never be built. The argument goes like this: suppose you did have a time machine right now, and you could step into it and travel back to some earlier time. Your actions in that time might then prevent your grandparents from ever having met one another. This would make you not born, and thus not step into the time machine. So, the claim that there could be a time machine is self-contradictory.’
But then you have read time travel only as a fiction. When it becomes real, it’s really tough to believe.”
“Doctor I need a proper explanation. Your round about answer is intelligent but inconclusive”, I was unable to agree with him.
“Have you read my paper on n-dimensional mathematics?”
“I had seen that paper with all the Greek symbols lying on it resembling ants lying on poisoned sugar toffee!”
“Ok. I would try to make it as simple as possible. Can you see this paper?”
“Yes.”
“How many dimensions does this have?”
“Two. Length and breadth…”
“How many dimensions does my lab have?”
“Three… Length… Breadth and height…”
“Ok. Look through that window. Are you able to see that tower?”
“Yes.”
“Left… right, top… bottom, front… back, in all these directions you are able to witness the three dimensions. How?”
“How?”
“Because you are a four dimensional being. That’s how it works…”
“Four?”
“Ya. You have four dimensions. Fourth is the time. If I want to state the four dimensions of SD (S.Deepak is my name. DD like many other friends of mine liked to call me SD), it would go like Height: 6 feet. Length: One and a half feet. Breadth: Half feet. These three are the basic dimensions. What’s your date of birth?”
“25-June-2029”
“So your current measure in the fourth dimension is the number of days or to be accurate number of milliseconds that have passed since your birth. Hence you are a four dimensional living thing… Do you understand?”
“A little…”
“A four dimensional human is able to travel back and forth… left and right… top and bottom… Listen… Imagine what a five-dimensional person could do!”
Doctor was waiting for my answer. I was thinking hard, so hard that the eyebrows almost touched the scalp. All of a sudden the bulb glowed.
“Yes doctor… A five dimensional person can travel back and forth in the fourth dimension. This means…”
“This means that it is possible to travel forward and backward in time. This machine does that. It allows you to enter into the fifth dimension. So you can travel to the past and the future. Making the future tense, present tense and present tense, past tense… Now tell me, where do you want to travel? The history filled past or the mystery filled future?”
Pandora’s curiosity looked mediocre in front of mine. I was a little feared too. If it’s possible I can go to the past. I have been spending my life on excavations and people suspecting me on under-cutting and over-cutting. I can prove them after all we archeologists were right with our discoveries…”
“Doctor I would like to travel to the past. Let my future remain as suspense.”
“Ok… Which Century?”
“Can I decide that later?”
“Ok… I understand your idea… You can enquire and go back and forth…” Doctor opened the door. “SD take your seat. Hold this.” He placed a small object on my hand resembling a TV remote, with the numbers from one to nine and then a zero and a back button. Below which there were two buttons placed one below the other very much like the volume control with a + and - sign. On the side of which there was a small 4 digit LED display. “You need to enter the number of years you want to travel and press a + if you want to travel to the future and – if you want to travel to the past. You can travel a maximum of 9999 years forward or backward.”
“Doctor my nerves and muscles are filled with excitement. I could feel the adrenalin rushing in.”
“Few warnings”
“Warnings?”
“Whatever might be year to which you are travelling, don’t disturb the people. Don’t fight… Please be careful about this… Don’t kill anybody!!!”
“Oh! Me killing somebody has a probability of zero!”
“But the calculations are different in the fifth dimension. You are from a different century. You should not spoil the balance of people who have lived before you. And be careful with the women. They may look pretty. Your androgen may suddenly work over time. Be careful, don’t do the ‘you know what’? All my calculations would then become miscalculations.”
“Sir. My only wife is my profession. Don’t worry.”
“That’s my worry. Any way, don’t miss this control box.” Before I could realize that the TV-remote like thing was the control box, he continued. Always have it inside your pocket. To come back, press the back button in the remote. It’s very simple.”
I sat inside the machine which suddenly resembled a cage. DD closed the door. I could see him smiling through the window. He gave thumbs up. The window closed.
The seat was cozy. A constant ‘hmmm’ sound was heard inside the machine. I took the control box in my hand, thought for a while. I should clear my doubts regarding history using this wonderful opportunity. First let me see if it works fine. I pressed 9999 and then pressed the – sign 9 times.
I was feeling the josh of travelling in a roller coaster.
Years rolled back.
I was standing in a jungle in front of a nude man and woman. OMG! I have moved to the Stone Age I guess. A snake was moving towards the woman. To save the woman from the snake, I looked for a stick and tried to attack the snake. I forgot two things first was the lesson taught by mom, ‘The ironic thing about killing snakes is that most snake bites occur during the act of trying to kill the snake! If you see a snake just leave it alone! The next one was what the doctor said ‘Don’t kill anybody!!!’
The snake looked at me. It came near me and started to hiss… Then, Speak. Was I imagining things?
“Who are you?” the snake asked me.
“Goodness gracious me. Snakes only hiss. How are you able to speak?”
“You are a smart man”, the snake said. Receiving compliments from a snake was weird. The snake continued, “But who are you? And what did you try to do with the stick?”
The snake is questioning me? Hmmm. Oh how I missed it, this must be Adam, eve and the Satan.
“Are you Satan?” I asked the snake. Was that worry or shock I could not find from the little face of that snake. There was hardly a face.
“How did you find it? You must be God in disguise.” The snake has mistaken me for the God.
“I am not God Mr. Satan. But I can do some magic.” Saying so, I took the lighter from my pocket and lighted it. The snake was surprised by the fire and quite afraid too.
Suddenly I remembered that I should not rewrite History. I said to the Snake, “Its time for God to return. Inform Eve about the apple and make Adam to consume it. All the best," I said and pressed the back button.
I was feeling the josh of travelling in a roller coaster.
To my surprise I did not return to the machine.
Instead I was standing in front of a river. I could identify the place. The Tower of London was standing strong. It must be Thames. But where is the Tower Bridge? Before that question was completed, I realized I must be in an earlier century and the bridge would only be built in the future.
A man crossed me. I had seen him somewhere. Ya it is… “Excuse me. Sir! Sir! Please wait. Are you Mr. William Shakespeare? ”
“Yes. Do you know me?”
“Sir I am a fan of your works. I love ‘As you like it’:
‘All the world's a stage
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.’
“As you like it? Thou shall not mistake me. I am not bound to please thee with my answer. I say there is no darkness but ignorance in you. For Ignorance is the curse of God; knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.”
“Don’t you speak in normal English? This appears to be ancient English. It’s too bad. Takes time to comprehend.”
“Ancient English? It is neither good nor bad, but thinking makes it so. I have not written ‘As you like it’ is all that I mean.”
“Sir!!! You would be writing it in the future.”
“Future? You predict future? Are you a soothsayer?”
“I am no soothsayer. I am from the future. I am from the twenty first century. See this, it’s called a lighter.” saying so I took the lighter out from my pocket.
“A lie like a truth will come out one day” saying so Shakespeare lifted a lighter from his pocket. I was shocked. Being an archeologist I knew lighters dated back to the sixteenth century. If I could take it from him - it would be great, I thought.
I asked him, “Can we exchange the lighters?”
He said, “Neither a borrower nor a lender be”
“Come on Mr. William. Neither of us are lending or borrowing, it’s just an exchange.”
He reluctantly shook his head. I decided to take it by force. In the commotion the control box fell down. Shakespeare took the control box. In the split second I took the lighter from him. And before I could say anything he pressed few buttons in the control box. And while trying to snatch it from him I pressed the + button.
I was feeling the josh of travelling in a roller coaster.
The tower bridge was present and the area was crowded. I went near a kid, who looked as beautiful as any other kid would be, and asked her what the date was? The kid said, “April 28, 2010”. I started in 2060 and I am in 2010. Just 50 years back. I am almost there I thought. I pressed the back button in the control box, it didn’t work. I set 0050 in the control box and pressed the + button.
I was feeling the josh of travelling in a roller coaster.
I fainted.
Dear Reader,
Thanks for patiently reading my story. After that, I was lying in a hospital bed. When I gained my conscience I explained my story to the doctor. I asked what the date was. He said it was 21-June-2010. I could not find the control box or the lighters in my pocket, without them no one was ready to believe me. After a series of tests, the doctors concluded that I was affected by Paranoid schizophrenia. I cursed them and argued that I am normal. The doctors once again examined me and concluded that I am a rare case with rare delusions. And I was shut up inside a mental asylum. I don’t belong to this decade. I am 5 decades ahead of you. If you find that TV remote like control box with the LED display kindly provide it to the mental asylum and prove that I am from the future. I would be very thankful to you if you could save me. The address of this asylum is…
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………
As I was about to finish this, the door opened. “Hello SD! Oh! How did you get paper and pen and what are you writing?” The doctor snatched the letter from me. He read it, laughed at certain points. He said, “Hallucinations helps being a writer, you need not imagine, it naturally comes.”
‘This is not imagination, this is my real story’, I wanted to shout at the doctor. But then shouting will just result in an injection that would make me sleep. So I was quiet.
Hope somebody gets my story someday and saves me. Till then I would be waiting in this asylum.
The End
Click here to read my first short story - The Infinite Loop
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Virtuoso `10 is a national level technical symposium that's held at my college on Feb 11 and 12 by the department of Computer Science and engineering and Information Technology. I had designed a game called cyber cipher. Take a look at it!
Virtuoso main site Link: http://www.virtuoso10.com
Cyber Cipher Direct Link: http://www.cc.virtuoso10.com
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
December 7, 2009
Me and Karthi had planned to under-perform in Infosys. To get into Accenture. Karthi woke me up at 7:00 AM. Then I was exploring my new Nokia 5800 Xpress Music set and it became 7:50. I started to get ready in a hurry. It was 8:15. My mum scolded me for not having the breakfast and packed the breakfast into my lunch box. I took it and then left to college. It was 8:28 AM when I reached College. I entered the auditorium by 8:32 and the pre-placement talk of Infosys began at 8:40.
All I can say was, Sharanya who was from Infosys, gave a better speech to that of Mr. Vishnu of Cognizant. And Infosys's campus was like a five star hotel. Or some Sahara project. But I was not really impressed with the growth of the organisation when compared to Cognizant it was pretty low. Though it has more employees and is older of the two.
Then the test began. There was an application form to be filled. The designation was System Engineer. And the hall incharge was giving too many instructions to fill out a simple application form.
The test began at 11:00.
The test began. I got the information that the cut-off was 50% of the marks. So I marked 10 to 15 right and 5-10 wrong. In english. The exam was damn easy. If I had solved them seriously, I would have scored lot of marks for sure.
Then came Maths. There were 30 questions and time was 40 minutes. And all the questions were a real cakewalk. Here too I did the same(left few as I did in English). But for time pass I solved all the questions in the rough sheet.
After the test I called my dad. He said that since you marked 10 right, you have a chance of clearing the round. I was afraid whether I would clear. And after lunch Me, Karthi, John and Aravind Babu met our staffs and informed about our Cognizant placement. Then the results were announced. My fear became true. I was selected for the next round. I was confused whether I should perform well in the interview or not. I spoke with my parents and took a decision that, I should perform well in the interview.
"Fate only takes you so far, then it's up to you to make it happen"
All the persons were interviewed one by one. And I was the last person to be interviewed. I was initially in panel 7. Deja Vu of Cognizant. But then changed to panel 3. My interviewer was a lady who was about 45 years old.
It was the first time I was being interviewed by a lady. My guess is that she is a brahmin. She atleast looked like one :-)
Interviewer: Good evening. Take your seat.
Me: Good evening Ma'am.
Interviewer: Think you must be tired waiting so long.
Me: Not really Ma'am. I had a hearty lunch. And was just relaxing after that.
Interviewer: Did you perform well in the test?
Me: No ma'am.
Interviewer: Did you prepare well for the test?
Me: No Ma'am.
Interviewer: Then you must be lucky enough to attend this interview.
Me: Yes Ma'am. But I had been preparing aptitude since my semester holidays began on November 24. Too much of anything is good for nothing. So I stopped preparation on Friday and took some rest. Probably a weekend off.
Interviewer: Hmmm. I had gone through your resume. It appears that you have done lot of projects.
Me: Yes Ma'am. I am very interested in developing projects, because I like to explore different technologies and different domains.
Interviewer: Are they part of your academics.
Me: No ma'am. Developed them out of own interest.
Interviewer: You have consistently scored scored 90+ in tenth and plus 2. But it seems that you have lost around ten % of your marks in College. Do you think 81% is good or do you repent that you could have done better?
Me: Ma'am I am interested in projects and devote lot of time to that. But that doesn't mean I have had a serious dip in my marks. I want to maintain a balance. Where I learn technologies, domains as well as my syllabus. I planned to maintain a decent percentage and I hope I am doing that.
Interviewer: Other than Projects, what do you do?
Me: I write novels.
Interviewer: How many have you written?
Me: Two.
Interviewer: Best of the two?
Me: Mystic Murder.
Interviewer: Mystique or Mystic
Me: Mystic the one with the C.
Interviewer: Interesting. Any sports?
Me: Chess.
Interviewer: Anything outdoor.
Me: I play table tennis. Oh thats indoor too. Hmmm. I play gully cricket once in a while.
Interviewer: Tell me about any hurdle you faced during your projects.
Me: Spoke about PEARL. The requirement problem. Waterfall model, Win-Win Spiral model, importance of documentation and lot of such stuff.
Interviewer: How did you source this project?
Me: Spoke about my fracture and how I got this project.
Interviewer: So you source your projects out of accidents?
Me: Yes. But it would be better to say. I source my projects even out of accidents. I believe in the philosophy- All is for good. So my accident too was good. Because I learnt lot of things in that project. And even when I was being administered with local anesthesia. I was observing how an instrument was fed with data. The nurse was entering as Deepak Senthilkumar RTA Male 18 in my first name. Though there were text boxes provided for the entry of gender and age. And a checkbox for Road Traffic Accident (RTA). That's when I understood the use of data mining! And how the operators feed the data.
Interviewer: Are all your projects Software.
Me: No Ma'am. I had developed a project called Informative Bus Details for Public Transport office. Normally in any bus station, the driver has to get out of the bus, sign a register enter the in time and out time manually. but in this project, the driver would possess an RFID card. And the details would be detected when the card is in the proximity of 2 metres.
Interviewer: Seems like a novel idea. Have you applied patent for it.
Me: No Ma'am. I got that idea by browsing through internet. It is not my idea. I developed the project just to explore the possibility of COM port communication and interaction with hardware. But I have presented a paper called Graphentication of passwords. Explained it to her. Said, her that she could remember the figure 5 better than the letters 'five'. She agreed. And said that I am planning to implement it as a part of my final year project and planning to apply patent for this project.
Interviewer: Do you know how to apply patent?
Me: Yes Ma'am. In Government College of Technology Coimbatore, there is a department called Intellectual Property rights. I have to apply it through them.
Interviewer: Are the technologies .NET, J2EE part of your syllabus.
Me: No Ma'am. I have had C# .NET in my syllabus. But the projects were in VB .NET.
Interviewer: Did you attend any class for that?
Me: No ma'am. Google is my tutor. I download the tutorials and learn the language.
Interviewer: What about SEQUEL?
Me: Ma'am I have not heard the term. I dunno what it is.
Interviewer: You have mentioned the back end as My Sequel for couple of your projects.
Me: Oh! MySQL. Fine. I dint know that it was called as Sequel ma'am. I have learnt a subject called Database management Systems and in that I had a lab session. I learnt oracle there. MySQL and oracle have similar type of queries. But I prefer mysql because it is free and it can be easily integrated with PHP.
Interviewer: Did you do any project in that Database lab?
Me: Yes ma'am. It was a mini project. Where I had four members in my team. Since the time was less and everyone had to participate in it. It was a simple vb application to conduct a quiz.
Interviewer: You have decent percentage, develop projects, write novels. How do you find time for all this? You spend 8 hours in college. And you have to commute from your home to college.
Me: Ma'am most of the projects were developed on weekends and Semester holidays. Regrading the novels. I work with the plot during the semester and write it in the semester holidays. I have 40 days holidays usually. That's more than sufficient. And for academics, there are study holidays. And during internal exams itself I would have finished around 80% of the subject. So that's easy too.
Interviewer: You have mentioned three memberships. What have you done.
Me: I have been part of an event called Virtuoso 2008. I was part of the organising team for the events Best Manager and Software Presentation. Other than that, in the last semester we have conducted Intra Virtuoso an event for our juniors in IT and Computer Science.
Interviewer: This interview is about you. What's that we?
Me: Ma'am. We means, Me, and couple of my friends called Arun and Karthikeyan. To make a good cup of coffee we need three key ingredients, Milk, Sugar and the Coffee powder. Each one has it's own part. And to make that event successful we were the key ingredients. Each one had his own part. But because of the effect of synergy our collective effort was amplified much higher when compared to our individual efforts. There were totally nine events and we were part of all the nine events.
Interviewer: Name few events.
Me: C-Debugging, Cyber Cipher, Technical quiz, Web Desgining
Interviewer: Leave alone that we part. What was your contribution?
Me: In the past, there was lot of paper work involved in the event C-Debugging because all students would be interested in that. There will be lot of participants. hence more photocopies of the question paper. Further the correction was time consuming. To reduce all that, I developed a simple application in VB.NET for the prelims of that event. I took five days to develop it and two days to test it. Around 200 people participated in the test and the it was a success. Other than that, in an event called Cyber Cipher, my friend developed the application and I developed the Content for the application. Explained the Donald Duck level in Cyber Cipher and said there were totally 15 puzzles like that and I developed them.
Interviewer: I think I am done with you. Any questions?
Me: Yes Ma'am. I spoke with my seniors and my relatives before attending Infosys. They said that the training was over six months. But it was the best company to work for if you need immediate-onsite opportunity? In the pre-placement talk it was mentioned that the training was for just 16 weeks. Is it true? Is there some fast track to quickly finish the training and enter into project team.
Interviewer: Regarding training, it is for 28 weeks. 16 Weeks was before 2 years. And regarding fast track. Yes, you can enter into projects if you perform well during training, may be within 3 to 4 months. And regarding on-site opportunity, you need to be lucky to get. It depends on the business requirements and your luck. Any more questions?
Me: No Ma'am.
Interviewer: All the best Deepak. I had a very good time interviewing you.
Me: Thank you Ma'am. I had a good time too. May I know your good name Ma'am?
She thought for a second.
Interviewer: It's not the part of my protocol.
Me: Fine Ma'am. Thank you.
I don't remember how long the interview went. When I came our of the interview room, time was 7:12. From my classmate Gayathri Lakshmi's information, it seems that she went in at 6:40 PM. I was called within a minute she was called. So my guess is around half an hour. i still can't believe that this interview went for so long!
I didn't prepare a second for this interview. But may be because I was really relaxed for this interview, I think I gave my best ever performance in this interview. I have attended two mock interviews and Cognizant. I don't think I have ever spoken this much in any of the other interviews. May be my friend Gokul Krishna's words sub-consciously had an impact. After Cognizant interview I was speaking with him. I said that his English is better than mine. I usually think something then think the suitable words and speak and it results in a split second gap. Its not in case of Gokul. He said, "It's because you think and speak. I just speak". The split second gap was not there this time around.
Coming back to this interview, I thought I had given a really good performance and was confident of getting it except for the last part where she refused to disclose her name.
But she didn't refuse to pick me. After two hour wait my name was announced in the list of people who were selected.
Two placements in my hand. This was the day in my life I became really happy after 3 and a half years (After getting Admission into Kumaraguru College). 2009 is turning out to be a fabulous year. I was quite worried that I couldn't clear the Subex written round. I started to doubt on myself and my luck. And I was under enormous pressure of getting into Cognizant because, I was worried that 'if Cognizant doesn't pick me who's gonna pick me?' After that, Infosys happened like magic. I didn't comb my hair properly, my face was oily. I didn't wear my sentiment green socks and my sentiment white shirt :-( But my confidence level was pretty high.
When fate has decided to give something for you can't change it. Its all written already!
In the film-Matrix, there is a dialogue:
There is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.
Knowing about Infosys interviews and attending it did have a difference!
Alas! Forgot to mention that this interview happened on December 7 and my lucky number is 7! Coincidence may be!
Saturday, December 5, 2009
I wanted to share my interview experience with you. December 3 was announced long back as the first round date. My semester exams were over on November 24. And I relaxed for a couple of days. Then downloaded Vidathu Karuppu (Marma Desam) series and watched it. It was Saturday, November 28, 2009 and I was watching Vidathu Karuppu still. Sunday morning I woke up at 9. I planned to start with aptitude. I was trying out the cube sums and syllogism rules. And I watched the film departed once again(I have so far watched it 4 times). I have developed a strong liking towards that film! The day was over. I received a mail from the placement cell that there was a pre-placement talk from Cognizant on December 2(2:00-6:00 PM).
November 30, 2009
The next day I planned to go to hostel and prepare the technical stuff along with my classmate John(he is THE technical wizard of my class). Karthi was to join me as well. There was an interesting question in the model question paper that the placement cell had mailed us.
Why result is different for:
1)
int x=5;
int y;
y=++x + ++x + ++x;
2)
int x=5;
int y=++x + ++x + ++x;
In Type 1: Line 3 is treated as an expression, and based on the “Operator Precedence” the increment [ ++ ] operator takes precedence over summation [ + ] operator. Hence in the expression, the increment operation is done first, and then the summation operation is done, thus the output of the expression will be "24".
In Type 2: Line 2 is treated as an assignment statement, and is hence evaluated from left to right. Thus the value of ' y ' in this case will be "21".
We started by discussing this question. Then we moved to data structures. When we were half way through data structures me and Karthi left for lunch. And though we retuned to the hostel by 1:15 itself, it took us another one hour to start again. We finished Data Structures and then moved to Computer Networks. In CN we brushed up the concepts like OSI layer, Topology, and other important concepts from Wikipedia. Then we started Operating system by 6:00 and finished it by 7:30. I was feeling very tired. But was glad that I learnt lot of stuff that day.
December 1, 2009
Then on Tuesday, I was just maundering over Database management system concepts. And resumed with aptitude.
I was searching for different formula and successfully stumbled upon this,
If a cube has n sides and all sides are painted and if it is cut into (n*n*n) identical cubes, then it has:
cubes painted on 3 sides: 8 ((n-2) power 0)
cubes painted on 2 sides: 12 ((n-2) power 1)
cubes painted on 1 side: 6 ((n-2) power 2)
cubes painted on 0 sides: 1 ((n-2) power 3)
Probably this was the only new thing I learnt that day.
December 2, 2009
The next day, I spent on my projects. Browsed through the code of all my projects. Fine tuned my resume and left to college. I reached at 12:30 in my college. Had lunch and was chit-chatting with Karthikeyan, Sathish alias(Sathish alias is his nickname) and Arun. The pre-placement talk was scheduled to begin at 2 'O' clock. But it never really began until it was 3:15.
There was a video display about Cognizant and Mr. Vishnu, the Vice President and Head of Coimbatore division of Coimbatore gave his speech. He was speaking about Cognizant, their policies and stuff like that. I don't know if it was the acoustics of the hall or the time. I was feeling damn sleepy. But tried with all my concentration power to focus on what he was speaking. After he finished his speech, there was a Q and A session.
I felt that my college mates posed senseless questions. Few like...
1. Is there a rejection panel during interview?
2. What do you provide for recreation to your employees?
3. Do you really recruit non-technical(OMG!) students?
and many more....
But Mr. Vishnu answered them patiently! This man has amazing patience.
Then there was quiz session, where there were questions about Cognizant and people got caps when they answered it right. I knew the answers for couple of questions. But never bothered to stand up and give the answer. A munch or perk would have motivated me. A cap? no way! Finally there was a passion video, shown about Lance Armstrong, a gymnast and Kapil Dev.
It was 4:45 when the program was over. I reached home and started preparing the aptitude question from TIME book. I really prepared well. I prepared 4 books of TIME. It was really easy.
December 3, 2009
The next day morning, I woke up, brushed through different coding problems and binary problems. Went to Arumugam Student's centre(in my college), that's where the exam was scheduled.
I had to fill out a form(much similar to my resume, except for the projects section). It had questions like what would be the qualities of a good software engineer? How do you think you would be a good software professional? etc.,
The test began at 10:00 and ended at 11:10.
There were three sections. Quantitative aptitude(25), Verbal(25) and Logical reasoning(20).
The test was very easy and there was no single question from what I had prepared!
I performed well in the first and the last sections. English was always a doubt. It depended on the cut-off. I knew I can make it if the cut- off was around 10 to 12.
I heard from Arun that the cut-off was 7. I was quite confident of clearing the round but never admitted it to anyone!
The results were announced in mic. and it was quite a long wait before my name came up. It was second in panel 7. Panel 7... Ah! May be luck is in my side, I was born on 25, my lucky number is 7 and my panel number was 7. Coincidence may be...
I came home. Watched the highlights of Indian innings where Sehwag was rocking with a double century. And then slept off by 8:00 PM itself.
December 4, 2009
Woke up early in the morning(4:00 AM) and prepared Object oriented Programing, revised operating system, networks, data structures, database management system, checked out my project codes and modules, and finally studied C.
I left to college. Interview began at 10:10 for me.
My interviewer was a very warm person. He greeted me by standing up from his chair, walking towards me and giving a firm handshake. And the little nervousness I had while entering the hall had vanished completely. I was feeling very comfortable. He resembled my friend Vikram's(thenga) brother and was a left hander.
Interviewer: Introduce about yourself.
Me: I am Deepak. blah.... blah... I have developed 9 Projects.
Interviewer: We'll go into projects later. Tell me about your family, hobbies.
Me: I am the only son to my parents. Hobbies...hmmm... I write short stories, novels and poems.
Interviewer: Novels... Tamil?
Me: No sir, in English.
Interviewer: Oh! Have you published.
Me: Should search for a publisher. But one novel is ready for publish. Planning to publish soon.
Interivewer: Whats the name of the novel? What's it about?
Me: Spoke about Mystic Murder
Interviewer: Why Cognizant?
Me: Mainly due to a senior, a super senior actually... She gave very positive feedback about the work culture in Cognizant and her experiences. And ofcourse the growth curve that I saw in wikipedia and during the pre-placement talk. Where it moved from 1 billion to 2 billion and so on exponentially. Other than this the enormous customer-base that Cognizant has is amazing sir.
Interviewer: That's cool Deepak. What's the name of that senior?
Me: Sowmya.
Interviewer: Where does she work?
Me: Chennai.
(All the while the interviewer was looking at my resume. Thank God! He read through all my projects)
Interviewer: Seems like you have done a pay roll software.
Me: It started off as a pay roll software sir. But with 6 iterations and 6 versions it has now become more of a HR software.
Interviewer: HR?
Me: Employees joining, leaving, attendance management, Performance appraisal, salary, leave, rating of employee...
Interviewer: Oh! Thats great! What language did you choose for this application?
Me: VB .NET.
Interviewer: Ok! Then tell me the difference between VB.NET and VB.
Me: Spoke about CLR for sometime. Then suddenly realized that I needed to give the simple answer- VB---> Component oriented, VB.NET---->Object oriented. When I was about to start with exception handling....
Interviewer: Fine Deepak. What do you know in DBMS? Just write down in this sheet of paper, he said, handing a sheet of paper.
Me: Started with files, tables.
Interviewer: Fine Deepak. Just write two tables, fill it with data and show a primary key and foreign key in those tables.
I started explaining as I was filling.
Interviewer: You fill and explain Deepak. Meanwhile can I have a look into your file?
I understood that he wanted to occupy me with some work while he was skimming through my file.
I started explaining the tables I had written. He said, just tell me the primary key and foreign key. I replied.
Interviewer: Deepak. You say a good software professional must be innovative. Can you give an example where you have been innovative?
Me: Explained about my paper called Graphentication of passwords, where i had proposed Google earth to be the password!
Interviewer: What do you think about recession? How it affects student community?
Me: Spoke everything I knew about it from banks, companies to Anna university Counselling!
Interviewer: Deepak do you know what SDLC is?
Me: Yes sir, SDLC means Software Development Life Cycle Process.
Interviewer: What are the SDLC's you know?
Me: Waterfall, win-win spiral, Spiral, Iterative, Prototype
Interviewer: What SDLC do you think Microsoft would have used to develop .NET?
Me: Iterative.
Interviewer: Reason?
Me: Explained the logic behind versions, bugs, problem with sun and such stuff.
Interviewer: Would Microsoft be tempted to use waterfall model for .NET development?
Me: I don't think so. Waterfall model is not for complex projects. It is for simple projects.
Interviewer: Where can you use Waterfall model?
Me: I had developed a project called ICAL(of course with Karthi and Arun). Which is a simple internal mark calculator with a relative booster like if the top mark is 15 then it gets boosted to 20. 10 gets boosted to 15. In that, the requirements were 3:
1. Collection of the internal assessment marks
2. Calculation of the total internal marks
3. Relative boosting
And I submitted it to a Microsoft contest called S2B. Where I had to develop it using Waterfall model. And all the phases were finished at one stretch.
But when I was developing a project called Pearl (Payroll management and Employee ARchivaL), I collected requirements from a particular person, who had given me the requirements but resigned when I next went there. Then explained certain nuances of the project where I was unable to implement waterfall model and instead I had to work on Win-Win Spiral model and it wasn't a true Win-Win Spiral model either. I had to mix it with Prototype model. For faster delivery of the software.
Interviewer: You say that you are the only son to your parents. I cannot guarantee you a job in Coimbatore. Would you shift your base?
Me: Definitely sir. That wouldn't be a problem at all.
Interviewer: Ok Deepak. I am done with you. Do you know whether Sehwag scored a triple hundred?
Me: No sir. Yesterday evening he was 284 not out. That's all I know.
Interviewer: Thought you would be knowing it. Didn't your friends message you?
Me: I had my cell phone switched off sir. I hope Sehwag scores another triple hundred and adds a really expensive dish in the menu card of his hotel :-)
Interviewer smiled.
Interviewer: Do you have any question for me?
Me: Sir? If I join Cognizant? How would you like me to spend the next six months? Should I learn something? Like I have heard that Cognizant works on mainframe?
Interviewer: Just continue your routine activities and enjoy your college life. Eh Deepak! I have the form that you filled yesterday. That's enough for me. You can take back the resume you had given me. I will place it in your file. It was nice talking to you Deepak.
Me: I had a very pleasant experience too sir.
After a firm handshake I started to walk back. I turned back and asked him.
Me:May I know your good name sir?
Interviewer: Shyam.
Me: Thank you sir.
My interviewer was the kind of dream interviewer I could ever imagine off. He was very friendly always smiling at me making me very comfortable.
I left the hall. I was confident of getting placed except for the one incident of him returning my resume. It was sowing some doubts in my mind.
Interview was finished in 22 minutes for me. I came out at 10:32 and nearly after a nine hour wait, I heard that I was selected.
My friends Karthikeyan and Johnson were selected too.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Kung Fu Panda
Mr. Ping: C'mere, c'mere. The secret ingredient is... (Pause) nothing.
Po: (Completely surprised) Huh?
Mr. Ping: You heard me. Nothing. There is no secret ingredient.
Po: Wait, wait... It's just plain old noodle soup? You don't add some kind of special sauce or something?
Mr. Ping: Don't have to. To make something special, you just have to believe it's special.
(Po takes the Dragon Scroll out of the cart, looks at the blank surface and sees his reflection; he now realizes what the scroll really means)
Po: There is no secret ingredient. (Turns back towards the Jade palace)
Fight Club
Tyler Durden: You're not your job. You're not how much money you have in the bank. You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You're not your fucking khakis. You're the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world.
Narrator: When you have insomnia, you're never really asleep... and you're never really awake.
Narrator: [about the soap] Tyler sold his soap to department stores at $20 a bar. Lord knows what they charged. It was beautiful. We were selling rich women their own fat asses back to them.
Narrator: When people think you're dying, they really, really listen to you, instead of just...
Marla Singer: - instead of just waiting for their turn to speak?
Tyler Durden: The things you own end up owning you.
Tyler Durden: Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken.
Narrator: I'll tell you: we'll split up the week, okay? You take lymphoma, and tuberculosis...
Marla Singer: You take tuberculosis. My smoking doesn't go over at all.
Narrator: Okay, good, fine. Testicular cancer should be no contest, I think.
Marla Singer: Well, technically, I have more of a right to be there than you. You still have your balls.
Narrator: You're kidding.
[Poem on Narrator's computer]
Narrator: Worker bees can leave. Even drones can fly away. The Queen is their slave.
Skin Deep
Dr Westford: A scorpion who couldn't swim asked the frog to carry him across the river on his back. The frog said, "Do you think I'm crazy? Halfway across the river, you'll sting me and I'll drown." "That's not reasonable," said the scorpion. "If I sting you and you drown, I'll drown too." Frog thought about it, he said, "Climb on." Halfway across the river, the scorpion stung the frog, and as the frog was drowning, he said to the scorpion, "But now you'll drown too." The scorpion said, "Yes. I know." "That's not reasonable," said the frog, and the scorpion replied, "Reason has nothing to do with it. I'm a scorpion. It's my character."
Zach: "What the fuck does that mean?"
Angels and Demons
Camerlengo Patrick McKenna: Do you believe in God, sir?
Robert Langdon: Father, I simply believe that religion...
Camerlengo Patrick McKenna: I did not ask if you believe what man says about God. I asked if you believe in God.
Robert Langdon: I'm an academic. My mind tells me I will never understand God.
Camerlengo Patrick McKenna: And your heart?
Robert Langdon: Tells me I'm not meant to. Faith is a gift that I have yet to receive.
The Davinci Code
Robert Langdon: Why is it divine or human? Can't human be divine?
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
