Marketics nostalgia

Yesterday, I left Marketics/WNS.

4 years, 7 months, 2 weeks. That is the longest I've EVER been in a single place. Also, the general pace of life - both professionally, and personally - had been quite high till early 2010. On the work front, I joined a small company, which had started up just a couple of years back, and wasn't fully settled - and saw it grow rapidly, get acquired by, and completely change character in just a couple of years. My own role also evolved a lot, as things changed around me.

Similarly, on the personal front - there was a lot going on. The house I live in now is the 5th I've occupied since I came to Bangalore. I've lived in HSR, Koramangala, Indiranagar and now Whitefield - and had 4 different guys as flat-mates at various times. I've made a lot of friends - at the office and outside - and also reconnected with some good old ones - and I've seen nearly ALL of them eventually leave Bangalore, in most cases also start their families.

But in the midst of all this, the one thing that hadn't changed was where I went to work (well, technically - the co. name changed and office address did shift - but it was still essentially the same workplace). For me, this job has been synonymous with living in Bangalore, and is inextricably linked with many, many memories. Even though it was my second job, I will always associate it with many firsts, which occurred during the same time. Listed below, in no particular order:

- First flat-sharing experience

- First F1 race viewed in a pub with friends. Learning that beer can - and should - be chugged.

- First F1 race LIVE with friends

- First Smirnoff/Tulleeho bartending workshop

- First party@home

- First professional crisis of confidence (thanks to Vinay CR - "Dude.... don't u know a set of percentages should add up to 100.0?". I cannot explain here.)

- First company offsite. Orange County. Director setting the pace of the party by throwing up a few hours into the trip!

- First double date (Opus. At one point, a friend-of-friend was singing and we were the ONLY four people dancing!)

- First visit to a disc, followed immediately by first midnight buffet

- First client delight

- First nap @ work

- First (and thankfully only) experience throwing-up-and-getting-carried-home-with-no-memory-next-morning at an office party! (the first Zero-G party - this is also the occasion that Neeraj, Aman and I really started being friends)

- First (and hopefully last) no-pants appearance at a party

- First Oktoberfest (OK, I'm referring to the lame Bangalore version, but still)

- First live rock concert

- First overseas trip (Hong Kong, for work, Nov 2007)

- First (and second) Goa trip. Candolim, Calangute, Paradiso, Britto's et al

- First Munakka night

- First 'sweater hatao' andolan (and several other antics by Tushar, which would be worthy of a whole, separate post!)

- First home theatre. And gaming console.

- First overseas holiday with friends

- First lone-wolf overseas holiday. London.

- First IPL game live. (Was it a date?)

- First dedicated beverage fridge

- First-ever chopsticks dandiya

- First bar at home

- First biryani at 3am (Royal Orchid, with 2 female friends, who found a naked stranger in their bed when they got home - BTW I had abs nothing to do with the latter story)

- First conference call with a girlfriend, a mutual friend and a colleague of theirs who had a crush on girlfriend (they called form their office, and yes, it was BLOODY messed up)

- First recliner chair

- First car

- First road trip

- First T20 World Cup game, LIVE

- First hiring decision

- First firing decision

- First experience interviewing potential boss candidates

- First 'meeting a girl for matrimonial purpose'

- First 'meeting the parent' (and brother)

- First gym membership

There are many more - some of them not listed above coz they weren't firsts, and others coz they're private :)

I'd like to thank all the people who played their parts in creating the fantastic memories I have from these last 4+ years - I will always cherish them!

Anyhow, yesterday, a journey came to an end - and I've not yet completely come to terms with that fact. I hope I do soon - and figure out where to head off next...

Geeky nostalgia

To those who didn't know me when I was an active programmer, some of the stuff in this post - including its basic premise - will seem incredible, obnoxious, or both. But those who did know me back then, know it's completely honest.

I saw the movie 'the social network' last night. It was quite good. As I often do these days, I looked up Mark Zuckerberg on wikipedia to find out some more about him. On the page, I came across the following pieces:

"Zuckerberg began using computers and writing software as a child in middle school...

He enjoyed developing computer programs, especially communication tools and games. In one such program, since his father's dental practice was operated from their home, he built a software program he called "ZuckNet," which allowed all the computers between the house and dental office to communicate by pinging each other. It is considered a "primitive" version of AOL's Instant Messenger, which came out the following year.

According to writer Jose Antonio Vargas, "some kids played computer games. Mark created them."

Now, I do not mean to sound boastful or anything, but this reminded me of ME! I'll explain why.

I learnt programming in BASIC in class 8 and created my own version of the 'Bricks'. Then, I read that BASIC was for amateurs, and 'real' programmers used C. So, I went on to teach myself C & C++ by reading books. In class 9, I created my own version of 'paint' (for DOS - Windows hadn't become popular until then, so we didn't have MS-Paint. Or even mice, with most PCs.)

When I was in class 11, some of my friends played a game called 'gorilla', where u basically had to specify a speed and an angle to toss a stone to hit the other guy, avoiding obstacles in the path. I couldn't beat them at the game, so I created my own version for the class project! (I still couldn't beat them, though.)

My most ambitious 'game' program was a simulation of a game of football, which I created between the class 12 exams and 1st year of college. This was inspired by EA's FIFA RTWC '98, which we'd all enjoyed over the last few months. I still remember - when I 'ran' the first version of the algo, all 20 players converged on the ball in 1 second, and also the 2 goalkeepers 2 seconds later. Over the next few weeks, I'd improved the algo enough to make the game somewhat realistic and even fun!

In college, I heard Java was the next big thing. So I taught myself that next. My girlfriend at the time was quite fond of playing 'snake' on her Nokia. One jobless weekend, I created my own version called 'Happytrain' - for the PC. For this, I have proof! Below is a screenshot of my program.

The 'snake' is replaced with a chain of emoticons who look 'happier' as the chain grows. You try and pick up happy-lookin icons, and avoid sad-looking ones (make you shorter and less happy), especially the skull (instant kill).

(Updated on 2/18/13 - you can now download this game here. Just unzip the downloaded archive, and run the extracted file named 'HappyTrain.jar'. If it doesn't work, you probably need to install a JRE)

So, what else did Zuck develop? Ah yes, a messenger, and a social networking site. Well, I did too.

During my college days, we didn't have internet connectivity in our hostel rooms. We had to access the internet either from labs, or cyber cafes. Cyber cafes were expensive - too expensive if you wanted to chat with ur steady girlfriend everyday. (My parents once got worried that I'd picked up a drug habit, coz I kept asking them for more money!). And most labs had blocked Yahoo, MSN and other popular 'messenger' programs. So, I decided to create my own messenger application, which they wouldn't block coz they wouldn't know about it!

Not only did I create my own messenger program, I added features that none of the existing programs had at the time. The most important among these was the ability to set your 'visibility' level individually for each contact. At the time, MSN messenger didn't allow you to chat with anyone if you wanted to appear 'offline'. Yahoo messenger didn't have this stupid restriction, but you could either be visible to everyone (including annoying relatives), or invisible to everyone including your girlfriend (who was also invisible to avoid relatives, so you ended up not talking for 15 precious paid minutes, as both thought the other was running late). I fixed this in my program, a good 2 years before Yahoo introduced individual visibility settings.

There were no noteworthy 'social networks' back in 2001. Friendster was the first in 2002. Facebook and Orkut didn't happen until 2004.

In 2001, when I was designing my messenger, I also included concepts of 'community' and 'profile'. The 'signup' process for new users asked for some information to share with the 'community'. I was going to give users the option of specifying personal details including relationship status and selecting some of this info to share on their 'community member profile' page. Check out these screenshots:

Yes, I had done all this in 2001. The colors used in the above screenshots are evidence of my youth at the time :P

In 2002, I also won a 'special mention for a brilliant single-handed performance' during 'Java Jeopardy' at IITM's Shaastra (one of my proudest moments, because it was a contest between teams). Then I entered the final year of college. Time for placements. I knew that I was - and had even acknowledged by many - one of the best programmers on campus at the time (even though I was NOT enrolled in the Computer Science course). I assumed I'd get picked up by one of the many software cos. If they'd really been looking for the right talent, I would have. I didn't. And that was the death of a programmer. I went ahead and enrolled at a business school.

Anyway, cut to today. Zuckerberg is the youngest billionaire, and worth ~ USD 25Bn at the age of 26. I'm a 28-year-old nobody, sipping vodka and blogging in Bangalore. Something went wrong somewhere.

Love Aaj Kal - Episode 1

Meenakshi was stunned. In their 5 years together, he had never put his arm around her with people around, or held her hand, or done anything that could be described as a 'public' display of affection - no matter how lenient you were with the definition of PDA. And now... Of all times - now?

'That's a first', she said after recovering her wits.

'What?'

'This', she said turning her head to indicate his arm.

'Yeah, so? What's the big deal? We ARE still a couple.'

'You've never done this. It was always "log dekh rahe hain, lets behave ourselves"'

'What nonsense?! We used to sit like this at Elliot's beach all the bloody time'

'That used to be in the afternoon, on weekdays, in Chennai. We used to meet there only because no sane person would ever get on that scorching sand in that sweltering heat. With people around, you never even held my hand!'

'I'm sure I did. Don't exaggerate', he said, sounding a little defensive.

'Why, just last year you came to Delhi and we went to Nehru Place to buy something...'

'Graphics card. Nvidia Ge-Force fx 5200. Generation 5. It's not just some random comp part - it's a kick-ass graphics card. You know my comp was the only one in the hostel which had more than 100 fps for UT?'

'Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Geek-fest.' Pause. 'You ran from shop to shop, without even bothering where I was! When I complained about it, you held my hand like you were going to solder it, and let go in a few minutes saying it wasn't the right place for that sorta behavior.'

'It wasn't, seriously. Nehru Place - Computer parts market in Delhi - NOT a place you hold hands'. He made the idea sound completely ridiculous.

'And a DTC bus is a place where you put an arm around my shoulder?'

He paused.

'I don't care.'

'Yes, and that's a good thing', she thought, 'but too late...'

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