Recently came to know about ‘I paid a bribe‘ initiative form a Bangalore based NGO Janaagrah. Here you can report incidents where you had to pay a bribe and blow the whistle. I like the idea of reporting the incidents where you actually did not have to pay the bribe. So these guys are not only pointing fingers but also appreciating the individuals/ offices which say no to bribe and do their jobs honestly.

I am not sure if this will help actually solving the problem, but it is definitely a good first step for a country like ours where corruption has become a part of life.

After trying to stop spam comments on my own, and failing, I have opted to install the third party captcha plugin.  Using Recaptcha plugin for wordpress. Let’s see if this can solve the spam problem.

Sometimes things go terribly wrong. Its life, it is not meant to be perfect and smooth. When everything around you start falling into pieces, you might feel now this is the end of road, but actually it might just be a small hurdle and who knows, it might actually be a new beginning.

I remember a very beautiful incident in my life. I was working on an important project as a technical lead with a team of 4-5 developers. The day we moved the application to production; it bombed. Nothing was working. It was an important multi million dollar piece of software, which we had tested and retested multiple times before moving to production, but it refused to work on the d-day.  Obviosly clients were furious and emails started pouring from each side. As a tech lead it was my responsibility to make sure no technical issues should be there so I had a strong feeling that my career is over. My reporting manager would give me a call anytime and.. no idea what was in store for me. Anyways I tried my best to fix the problem, meanwhile I got calls and emails from client managers and directors, discussing issues, setting up meetings. But my manager never contacted me.

So the next day in morning, I went to my manager, thinking that he might actually have not read the emails. I was at his desk even before he came and waited for him. I was ready to take the responsibility of whole thing and was ready for any consequencies. So when he came, I tried explaining him the issue, but he told me that he had seen emails yesterday. So I asked him 

“So what should I do now?”

(He, matter of factly) “Go and fix it!”

Thats it. Does he not understand the problem. I might lose him business, client might now want to do business with us again. So I again tried to emphasize on the seriosness of the issue. He just  told me

“Kamal, you are handling that project and I trust you. What ever is required to be done,  you will do it. If we lose business becuase of this, I will not care as I know you tried honestly. so Go and fix it”

Wow! I was so amazed and felt very  confident after that. Afterall, if such an experienced man is telling me to fix it, there must be a solution out there. So I went back and met with all  the managers from different teams and asked for help. To my surprise, everyone was more than ready to help  me and my team. It took us 3-4 days, but we were able to fix the software. And while we finding the fix, we actually came up with many new processes to make sure others do not face similar issues in future. So at the end we were appreciated by the clients for our sincere efforts. The  project which we thought would lose us business, eventually helped us improve our relationship with clients.

One very important lesson of my life I learnt from this incident, that even if the problem you are facing is scary and you are sure that this is end of road. Think again. There must  be a way out. After all, every  problem has a solution, and who knows, what  looks like a problem, might  actually be an opportunity. So whenever such a problem comes, I just tell myself, “Go and fix it”. cos there is no other way to deal with problems.

Nayi Subah hai, Chal uth naye safar  ko chalen
zindagi udasi ke pehloo main padi achchi nahi lagti

behtar hain toofan se takra kar bikhar jaayen
kashtiyaan sahil pe khadi achchi nahi lagti

Everything was planned. I was dreaming about driving back to Delhi, my home town, from Chandigarh, while singing “Country roads! take me home. To the place I belong”. But as always is the case with my life, I had to prepone my travel date because of a family urgency. Drove at 120 kmph on Delhi – Chandigarh highway. And finally I am Delhi.

After 3 and a half years. Out of which I spend some part in Bangalore, some in U.S. and last 11-12 months in Chandigarh, I am back home (laut ke buddhoo ghar ko aaye). Things were not always as I expected, infact they never were as expected. But still.. main zindagi ka saath nibhata chala gaya…

Spammer bhaiyo aur behno.. please stop sending spam comments. Evertime I check my comments section, it is full of spam. ‘Get hot date’, ‘cheap Viagra’, ‘Free nude ladies’. Abey characterless aadmi samjha hai kya.. aur koi link chalta bhi nahi hai isme se..

Koi baat nahi beta.. aise aise filter lagaunga na.. ke reverse spamming ho jayegi, aur tumhare mail boxes bhar jayenge spam mail se.. and I am serious..