Book Review: 9 to 5 Cubicle Tales

'9 to 5 Cubicle Tales' is a chronological account of a boy who endures some testing times in his childhood, then graduates, gets into an Information Technology firm and his life experiences with colleagues & friends, frequent challenges faced and how he copes with each in this tech field. The author, Harish Rijhwani, has 20+ years’ experience in IT and it goes without saying that this book could be inspired by his own IT projects, colleagues and experiences. But you know, if I get a chance to ask him, he will admit the characters are fictitious and any resemblance to someone is purely coincidental.

Judging a book by its cover - The book cover is exquisite and very detailed albeit appearing simple and clean! The reader will understand the nuances only after reading the book. A lot of what is mentioned in the book is shown here. From the various locations that matter to IT professionals, travel, to the currency, the deadlines, errors in the code, Uno cards, the ladder of success (or failure, whichever way we look at it), love, savings, home, coffee, books and many more are depicted. Each of this aspect of an IT professionals’ life finds a place in the book!

Who should read this book - IT professionals, if it wasn’t that obvious from the title! Students planning to pursue and IT career will also find this insightful.

What's the story like – The book follows the life of a boy-turned-man, Hridaan Rajdev, who experiences a tumultuous childhood of loss of a family member, then moving to a different city with relatively less relatives (see what I did there?). The story, said from Hridaan’s first-person account, moves quickly from his childhood to his college life to starting his professional life. This is where the story opens up and expands on the numerous work-related experiences, some of which are hidden right on the cover page. How Hridaan grows from a talented newcomer to a seasoned professional in an industry that gives you a lot but also takes a lot from you making you wonder if the journey’s worth it (personal opinion: it is).

How's the writing - The book is divided into 51 chapters, each covering a specific aspect of the life of Hridaan. The author has used simple and easy to understand words to narrate the story, the surroundings, the character traits of people involved and the protagonist's notions and feelings. This makes it a breeze for a casual reader (by that, I refer to someone who's not always seeking a book to read every day). The life-arc from a student to a fresher in IT to an experienced pro to onsite opportunities is also linear and we, as readers, aren't required to 'read-between-the-lines', which is a breath of fresh air in today's convoluted and non-linear storytelling era. Description of locations, unique personalities in Mumbai and the words used to describe sounds are also well done. 'League of extraordinary gentlemen' as auto-rickshaw drivers and BEST bus-driver as someone who aspired to be a pilot took the cake!

So, what do I think – It’s a breezy read from start to finish. If you are IT professional, you will relate to mini-stories in the book and enjoy the overall premise for sure. If you are looking for a book with writing that's easy to understand and one that doesn't force you to reach out for the dictionary app, this is it. It’s been quite a while since I have gotten hold of a book that doesn't have sub-plots, characters with varying shades of gray, twists, thrills in the plot and a story that takes the reader on a socially relevant roller-coaster ride. However, there was one aspect of the writing that I couldn’t quite get used to. When a scene is being played out in your mind while you are reading the book, that scene somewhat abruptly ends and a new scene begins without a proper segway - as in a journal. I am not sure if this was a conscious decision made by the author. It took me some time to get used to this writing technique. It wasn't a deal-breaker for me though, just an observation. Personally, I enjoyed the bits where Hridaan had to sit through aptitude tests & more importantly, group discussions as it was identical to what I went through during my time. Group discussions being a 'fish market' is exactly how I would categorize the experience (with all due respect to fish markets). 

My Rating: 4/5

PS: Is it just me or did you also feel that you were 'literally' part of this story? If you know, you know.

Adios Orkut!

Life was going good. I got my first phone - Nokia 3310 (still epic!). I got my first computer (with a simple P3 processor and 20GB hard disk). College was awesome. Friends were great - all wonderful characters whom I still miss. Those were the days when Super Mario / PacMan / Sonic / Minesweeper ruled the gaming industry. I used to play Cricket and Lawn Tennis (on 8-bit video games) with my friends all day long. None of my friends in college had a girlfriend, so all of us were always free and devoid of any commitments. None of us had a need to show how many friends we had, what we thought of the other person in the same group, no one wanted to rate how cool the other person was. Life went on in a "real" social environment… 

…till Orkut happened!

Not that we cared. But it forcefully entered our lives. I used to get repeated reminders of people in my address book that s/he has joined Orkut and is waiting for me! That's right, waiting for me to join them. I just met them a couple of hours back and now they were waiting for me on a strangely named website known as "Orkut". These are the same friends who didn’t wait for me in the bus stand so that we can catch the bus together, but were waiting "endlessly" on social media. That time, we didn’t know anything about social media. Orkut was just a website where you need to register ourselves and share some information in public domain. 

Now that Orkut is nearing its scheduled end on 30th September 2014, I am experiencing a strange sense of loss. I don’t use Orkut now. In fact I haven't used Orkut for the past 5 years. But it was part of my early 20's and hence it matters. Those were the days without smartphones. There were no apps. Internet Explorer was the most reliable way to explore an enchanting new world of Internet. Orkut became one of the most critical parts of the puzzle that partly made us who we are.

Some things in Orkut that I will cherish all my life – 

1. Testimonials: We all like to show-off, don’t we? Even the most introverted type has an innate desire to be known by those around him. And what better way than testimonials! Orkut took this concept to an all new level and introduced this feature as part of their offering. This allows friends to write testimonials for someone and it appears as part of the profile, once approved by the recipient of the testimonial. Writing and receiving testimonials were a craze during those times. One usually used to reciprocate the gesture. And we used to cherish the “kind” and in most cases “flattering” feelings our friends had towards us. I, for one, will surely miss this feature. It baffles me why Facebook did not opt for this feature!
2. Who viewed your profile: In other words, intrusion! But we didn’t mind. Orkut had an interesting module where you used to know who just viewed your profile. It perfectly targeted the human curiosity factor. That’s also one of the ways you can find friends. They view your profile and you add them, in case they didn’t initiate. If you opt out of this, no one will come to know you viewed their profile and in turn, you will never come to know who viewed your profile. Now that I think of it, I am glad Facebook didn’t opt for this feature. Its more of a bane than boon.
3. Scrapbook: Exactly what the name suggests. Write what you want on your friends’ scrapbook. Your popularity used to depend on the number of scraps you had vis-à-vis your friends. Some smart ones (me included) used to delete our scraps once the purpose is served. Deleting the scraps also used to shield me in the scrapbook popularity index! C’mon, I don’t want people to know I am less popular than them. They say, “try try till you succeed; else remove all evidence that you even tried”.

In more ways than one, Orkut made the first step towards social media till Facebook took it to a totally different level. And now, as we speak, there will soon be a new social media platform being made in some college project somewhere around the world. Personally, I wanted to continue on Orkut, but all the friends I had on Orkut were moving to Facebook and I was left with only two options - either to stay on Orkut without updates and interaction from friends / move on to Facebook. Like most, I chose the latter. 

When majority followed the new leader, Google eventually decided to post this message to signal the end of an era - 

Nevertheless, a big thank you to Orkut for all the wonderful memories. And as you move towards the fag end of your product life-cycle, may your URL rest in peace.

Book Review: Complete / Convenient

First things first. Ketan Bhagat is actually Chetan Bhagat's brother! Secondly, their writing is as same Chalk and Cheese. So this is not a "same type of book" from people with the same surname. I am not so sure I understood why the book is titled "Complete / Convenient". it could be a rhetoric question asking the readers if they prefer a complete life (in home country with extended family, true friends and a stable job) or a convenient life (including living in different parts of the world and experiencing different / difficult situations). The tag-line "there is more to men than bromance" points in that direction too. The book cover is divided into two parts - one Indian and the other Australian.

Target Audience:

1. Information Technology folks - for you will know what it means to stay at onsite.

2. Punjabis - If you are a Punjabi, you'll love it for sure. This book is all about them and their lifestyles written in a humorous way. 

Plot: The reader is introduced to Kabir, the central character in the plot. He is in love with Myra and hangs out with Ramesh and Tejas. He works in Satyamev, an IT company headed by a certain Raju (co-relations anyone?). Kabir is one the outstanding performers in the sales team. He is immediately called to Australia for deputation. Ecstatic as he is, he unknowingly / indirectly informs Myra about being together. Myra understands this as a marriage offer. And there you go! Before Kabir leaves for Australia, he marries Myra and takes her along with him. That's when the novel really starts. From searching for apartments, friends, places to hang out, friends / colleagues to hang out with, new account for Kabir, everything starts with a mess. But everything finds a way too. Kabir and Myra realize that love before marriage was a lot easier, living in India with family was much better and so on. The internal fight between career growth and family forms the rest of the story.

Writing: Author has adopted a simple way of narrating the story. The writing is simple too. There are regular comparisons between living in India and overseas, their pluses and minuses. So, people who want to relocate can easily finalize their decision after reading this book! Even the people planning to relocate overseas can go through the different arguments you will eventually face. After reading the entire book, I thought the story could have been accommodated in about 275-300 pages. The author has explained every situation / surrounding in so much depth that the reader might feel off-track in between. That's the only minus point of the book. And yes, Ketan has a different writing style with less masala than Chetan.

Overall, the Bhagat family lived up to their reputation of publishing a gem of a debut novel. This one is as good as Five Point Someone. Now the challenge is to upheld the same quality in Ketan's next novels, if he is planning to.

My Rating: 4/5

A satire on how to solve world problems

Friends meeting after a long time commands discussion on a lot of topics. Like girl-friends - for those still single and taking their time, marriage for those who tied the knot, cricket, college times, pranks et al. But there's still a level of decency and diplomacy maintained in the get-together. There are some who don't want to behave the way they used to, when they were in college - now that they are supposedly 'responsible' and have a family to support. There are some who don't care about what others think and are always themselves. And then there are the other guys.

These guys need something to get going. Its like we need to start the machine (for Mechanical Engineering guys), switch on the plug (for Electrical Engineering guys) connect a cell / battery (Electronics) and boot your machine (Software / Hardware). There's only one thing that can turn them on (not literally though). A glass of Beer!

Now to the topic of this post - "Solution to World Problems". Once everyone is literally elevated to seventh heaven after many 'pegs', they are capable of viewing the Earth and its problems from a 'birds-eye' perspective. And the moment a problem is identified - a plethora of solutions are discussed and finalized upon. Following are some of the topics discussed and the response we get to hear in such meetings:

1. Fixing in cricket - The world knows about it guys! Everyone knows. Fixing exists in Cricket, it exists in all sports. It's like playing God! You know the result and manipulate it in such a way that it favors you. Its like drinking - I know what I want to drink, I manipulate (cocktail) it in such a way that it favors me - simple! I am telling you, there's only one solution to this. Instead of banning match-fixing and conducting probe, conduct a probe on why rest of the people are not fixing matches, on why matches are being played without someone fixing them. Ban people who are not fixing matches. Cricket lovers across the world will be confused. You ban chocolate and people will eat more chocolates. You ban spitting in public places, holi will be played that day.You ban people not fixing matches and no one will ever fix a match!
2. Same sex marriage - You see, it's all about being brand-loyal. I love a brand. I prefer drinks that belong to a brand. I don't care if the brand is feminine or masculine. I would like to believe it is masculine as it makes me more masculine. Hey, that's the solution. If two people like each other and make them feel what they want to feel, where's the issue?
3. Terrorism - You see, the problem is not as complicated as the news channels and the diplomats understand it to be. Two brothers had a problem, they fight. Their egos clash - it is normal. They have their own families. After the two brothers die, their families fight. Now you have multiple egos clashing - which is even more dangerous. Their families have their own families and the cycle goes on! All we need is for someone to bring them together - across the table - to have a free dialogue! And you need a catalyst to destroy the mindless egos inbuilt in them since the time one could imagine. What's the catalyst? Drinks, of course! Friendship is just a peg away! Bring the terrorists and the 'anti-terrorists' together, include a catalyst and bingo - the world is a better place to live again!

Pic was taken when some of us topped college and went to celebrate it.
I so miss those days!

PS: This post is dedicated to all my close friends, most of whom enjoy their beer and know how to entertain people like me! And yet, never forced me even for a peg and always allowed a non-drinker like me to be a part of the group. Needless to say, you guys are the best and I enjoy every single moment with you.

Also, I don't subscribe to the solutions I mentioned above. The solutions have sarcasm written all over it. All you need is to 'Read it with a pinch of salt and a glass of beer'.

Back to being responsible in life.

Cheers!