Whats with g00gle??

Why does it have to give undesired search results to my blog when there are people ready to pay to get their links displayed?

The first time i realized this was when a search for my (now former) organizations's name returned the first search result as this blog. What crap!! Shouldn't the best search engine rather point to the co's website? So.. i scrapped the entire post. And since then, was careful not to use such names in my posts. Else, insert characters in between in case i had to.

The second... when my gmail id returns the link to this place.

Third... I did not edit my name in the signature of the mail i posted in the last blog entry... and there it goes... link on 2nd page when you search for my name.

Web 2.0 denies people their privacy or the freedom to write freely. Which means i have to be careful about what i write. Which means, i'd rather not write at all, as if i was writing everyday until now.

Now i understand when those articles in employment newspapers ask you to be careful of your net presence coz people, even employers can judge you from it... and i'm anyway not too great as far as first impressions are concerned.

But what the heck!! I've decided. I'll start posting stuff again... and since its not always what i'd like everyone around to read, use my own technique. I hope i am being reasonable in assuming that it is a way to avoid those search results pointing to you, and not underestimating the power of g00gle.

Slightly insensitive... highly critical...

Wow!! these are the adjectives i got for myself from a person i 'perhaps' know best here and who 'perhaps' knows me best here... Hell as this is called. Not like i was being blasted with negativities; it came packed with lost, mature and 'you present yourself nicely' feedbacks...

Right. I agree thats what i have been since i have arrived here. What surprises me is that someone noticed. And what hits me is that it becomes a generalization, which i am forced to believe by everything i had in my life before coming to this city that it is not, though it could very well have been a specialized case at some points of time with not a lot of poeple.

Too many things coming to my mind today that i am actually writing about it.

I remember the first time i went out with the females of my course, ...hardly with any intention to see the upcoming malls of the city... rather hoping to know my classmates for 2 years better..., and we got down at a certain place and were walking down to reach a certain place and this girl was so lost, she almost met with an accident with a speeding bike while crossing the road before i called her out and as i like to believe... saved her life. Was she scared! You bet! She almost had tears trickle down her cheeks and i am sure was imagining what the consequences would have been had she actually collided with the bike until we reached the certain place and people pacified her. I had no problems with her colliding with the bike or with her lack of road sense, but the way she was scared... and the way i was mean... I told this(other) friend of mine, 'there are better ways of committing suicide... aren't there?' I am not sure how she perceived me at that moment... she just looked confused... she later asked me, you were really annoyed with her na... annoyed?? ha ha... i thought i was being comic... :)!!$%^^%

I don't know if this is making any sense and if you get the situation...
But for anyone whose reading this and abusing me... yes, i HAVE become kind of insensitive... In spite of knowing that it would have been scary shit had i(or anyone else) just saved myself from meeting an accident... i did not sympathise with the girl. Whats wrong with me? Where's the bonhomie?

Having spent a month here now, and still not caring much about people the way i used to earlier... Is it that i need more time... or that i've become too closed.... or that everyone's like that in a B-school... individualistic, as one of our profs told us... Or that its just this bunch of people i don't connect with too well... and am myself generalizing... Or that i have changed... and for the worse...

I wonder how it would have been had i met all these people 2 years back...

if i had just graduated the way most of them have and came here... little do they realize how much they care about things, how seriously they take everything and everyone, how they constantly make conscious efforts to be good to people and project a good image of themselves... and do sincerely believe that they are nice, well-cultured people and have done a great job by getting to this place... and carry attitudes shouting out the same... and also make conscious efforts to stay happy, no matter how vicariously or on how trivial an affair... its important for them to smile at their friends ALL the while... and to smug their shoulders when something serious comes up, like giving importance to any complex issue was the biggest crime people could commit unless it has certain direct devastating consequences.

I understand you all would like me to recollect all those nice quotes which ask you to smile to the world and it smiles back to you... and believe me, i am trying... but it gets on to me sometimes... sometimes... though things have started making more sense now than they used to earlier... With more people around and serious things to do... there is lesser need and no time to care about these trivialities... but i really don't want myself to turn into a misanthropist... i hope i am exaggerating and that not everyone around has the same adjectives ready for me... but i fear the opposite... or maybe fear not even having this fear... comfortably insensitive.

4th july 2007


That was then... 4th July... and i thought i'd never post it on this blog... Noone would take it well. And this would be one of those privileged posts which never get published.

However, something happened today that forced me to get back to this... another adjective... someone here says he is scared of me... what do is say?? $%^&@^^% Does that indicate that my misanthropic self is getting the better of me and the consequences are even uglier and oozing out? Though in this 'i'nteresting case, there exist alternate reasons, however strange they may be. But this reminds me of another of my classmates describing me as having a teacher-like attitude... that was way back.. during one of the intros with some of the seniors... But the doubt remains... ye ho kya raha hai yahan? koi samjhaayega? Either these creatures are wierd or i am becoming a wierd creature. And not to forget a scary one. Do i have to live with this kind of inconsonance of thought around?

My last day at *H*C*L*

The mail i wrote...

Hi All,

I've been delaying this since too long and still don't know how to write the customary good-bye mail. As you might already know or must have guessed by now, this mail is to inform you that I am leaving *H*C*L* Technologies to pursue a few goals in my life.

It's been 2 years that I joined *H*C*L* as a fresher and I guess it's natural to be nostalgic when I think back about the time gone by. It's been my pleasure to work with 3 different teams and in the process learn from all of you, my seniors and my peers. And I'm grateful to you all for all the learning I gathered by staying and working with you.

I also have to appreciate the patience and goodwill of my colleagues because I feel it often was the case that I made mistakes and blunders and they helped me out. Hence I have realized a lot of strengths and weaknesses in myself after staying here and have also enjoyed a lot of good times, laughter, lunches, tea breaks, chain mails, jokes and what not, the memories of which make it difficult to leave this place.

I love to write mails and can go on and on, but I would just stop here and say that I love to receive mails too. And for any future mails, since this id would no longer be accessible, please use my personal id : ---------

Also, please fill in the attached xl sheet and mail back to me so that I can keep myself updated with your contact details. Also, any feedback, good or bad, is welcome from your side and so I have added a column for that too in the xl sheet, don't forget to fill that up.

Take care and keep writing…

Thanks and regards,

Shwet@ Agr@w@l

[30th May 2007]

Yes, its true... life seems pleasenter in retrospect... I always weighed my options before taking alternate routes to leave this place. Doing something else vis-a-vis staying here... but i seldom realized the emotional and habitual attachment i had developed with it over this time period of 2 years....

The last day spent here makes me remember everything even more fondly.

Did the last minute handing over... Then had lunch... which Aachin insisted on calling the last lunch as if i was going for crucification after that... Then took a lot of time to write the simple mail above. And then took a lot of time figuring out who all i need to send it to... didn't want to miss anyone, so it ended up being a loooong list...

And this bunch of office colleagues, whom i better call friends now... gathered around my cubicle and asked for a treat. But wait, this was different... unlike most requests for treats that i had seen in office, this one was genuine... I thought they would ask for it for five minutes and then disappear...(not my fault... it was habitual... happened all the time...believe me or not) but... demands... talks... laughters... 5 mins... demands again... jokes... bye byes... 10 mins... demands yet again... ha ha... am i shameless or what?!!! 15 mins... they just didn't go... they actually wanted it no matter what... Thats the beauty.... they were friends now, not just colleagues... not the kinds who didn't give a damn whether someone stays or not. And so we had it... not a proper party like the one i had already given to my team mates but a very small and makeshift one.. as small as it could get... very bad on my part, but very sweet on theirs... coz what followed was not just samosas n cold drink n the pastries(makeshift cake) they got for me, but also a lot of chit chat... I describing them in one and only word and they doing the same for me...

Here are some pics....


Since it was already evening and time for office buses to leave... we ended the short n sweet party and i returned to my seat to read and collect the replies i had got... which were unexplainable... would i sound immodest if i say overwhelming?

Well, the day was almost over and i had not done half the things i had to... So, started taking my data and mails backup etc... thought i'd leave at 7... no 7.30... no 8... no... this day wasn't finishing.. or did i not want it to end... finally started leaving... and why! didn't we want pics of the team on my last day... lolz... so there we were, forgetting that it has been a long day and we need to go home... clicking pics yet again in office... hushhhh.... don't tell anyone... cams not allowed inside.
Here you get to see them... my lovely n lively team in what we used to call the 'M*S*N lounge'



The K3G retake and the right one with my two sons... i was supposedly their office mom...








Then took some in the conference room... where we had looooong meetings and con calls...
this one is turning out to be my favorite...

And this one with Upasana's calligraphy...

Would end this here, i know its abrupt... and late too, like most posts in my web log. This post was meant to be posted in the beginning of last month... However, today seems to be a good day to post it, coz even though it was what seems ages back that i last went to office, it is today that i am expecting i would be finally relieved from the company... how and why that happened is another long and bugging story...

[Ha ha ha... wondering about the gaps??? I couldn't place all the pics since i don't have a lappie as of now... would do so when possible]