There was a little fairy
Short and cute
With a pair of little wings
Hidden with light
Fairy roamed around for a while,
With a smile,
Every day without fail
When light was dim and life was dull
Sun came up again, Life became good again
Fairy King called fairy back
And she left with the smile
Leaving fairy tales behind
‘Hey I lost my food card .’
He stared at me , and started , ‘hey .. bliiiiiisss…you guys have to be careful with cards. Do you know , for swiping that card will not ask for credentials. Young people are always careless with money’ .. another 10 mins ..
‘What to do man I missed it ! Do you know what to do ?How to block it’
He explained me step by step with a few annexure ‘you have to block the card first, for that if you need card no. That you can get it from My pay. Then remove the card no from Mypay’
‘ hmm then’ I asked.’
‘ Then you have to apply for new card . when you get new card, you have to get in touch with HR for getting old cards money on new one !’.
‘Why do you want to get in touch with HR ? I think it will be automatically loaded in new card. ‘ ‘It will not come ’He answered.
‘Come on boss , what logic is that, Why I should go back to company HR’
He told ’hey kid, I had done it. I had lost the card last month ’
‘hmm , Logic fails at times, but please be careful with cards’ I said.
He stared at me again.
It was on a Christmas eve and for the first time, I had gone to a girl’s house with a proposal. I don’t remember, what initiated this stuff a bit early. May be , aspiration for higher studies might be the villain/hero :) If yes, comments about higher studies from a foreign county might be a catalyst!
Dad had informed in the morning that we should go to a girl’s house with a proposal. I nodded yes. All my plans for Christmas had already dropped because of some or other reasons.. Imagined how will it be… only time I had ever gone for a proposal was with my dad for one of my uncle when I was kid. That memory was vague and the uncle too was not there 
. I imagined girl will come with a cup of coffee, and will serve to all ,then mummy will say something . Mummy ! Mummy is sick ,she can’t even walk .”Dad… Is Mom coming with us ? ” I asked . ‘No, Is she required ?” . I always used to believe that some ladies from a family should accompany the group. One of my buddy too said the same thing , when his brother went with a proposal. All of his four sisters accompanied him.
“Daddy , shall I call Manju Chechi then ? ” “You check with her then.” “Hmm .”I nodded
I went to meet Mandu Chechi , Chechi was doing something . I asked her ‘Have you got any plans today, may be after noon ’. “Nothing much , but house hold works ” .Oh, that you can postpone it . “Yea , but why ?” . “Nothing Chechi ,I will just ask Mom and will call you later . “.I stared back to my house, she called me back . “Tell me why ?”.I told the same thing “Nothing Chechi, Mom will call you”. “yea , that I know . I am feeling something fishy .” she told “Manoj, tell me and go “. I told her with an embarsed smile , “Mom cannot travel and we need to go for with a proposal” .She smiled or laughed. I am not sure, I Ieft the house faster than my neurons could sense…eh!
Mandu Chechi is one of the simple, down to earth , and open personality who comes to my mind if some asks to list out .she might had a word with My mother. When I reached back home, dad told like we should start by 2:30. “Ok ” ? said I without giving him face. He asked me to wash the car then. I do remember him using car +/- 20 years , but I don’t remember washing . It may not the first time for me but quite sure it was only one in the past 4-5 years.
When I was almost finished with that , he asked me to get ready. When came back after bath, I saw my jeans was Ironed and a new white shirt was kept nearby. After school I haven’t dressed up in white . But I liked it . Then when dad came out and asked , you wore it ? it was something between question , comment and exclamation . Then I understood he had kept shirt over there by mistake. I told him like I got some other dress. “Hmm” he went in search of another shirt I guess.
We together went to pick up Mandu Chechi and by that time her husband Mathew Chettan too was ready . When I started to drive,he casually asked , “Do I need to drive ?” . I stopped and got out of the car. I just went to other side frond seat and opened the door and exclaimed to dad “Oh you were sitting here ” . It had given few more moments for them to laugh .Mathew chettan took the control.
On the way , I had briefed to Mandu Chechi about the girl. I went to her profile and read out all the details with my comments. I showed her photo to all oeveryone. I was not listening to their conversation. I heard something Mathew chettan saying about researches on diesel engines. Rest part I can’t recollect .
Both dad and Mathew Cheetan had some idea about the location for the girls house. I too knew the place , It had brought me some nostalgic feelings. Dad just told that is the house. “Oh I had came here !.” Chettan exclaimed. “I had came here for the purpose of introducing new branch, inaugurated. He (girls father )had some bad time with some banks , so it was not a good time for me on previous visit “. “Oh , Man ” I thought .
I was thinking what to say her. I had no clue what people say ! I just had asked Mandu Chechi , she just told me . Mathew chettan was the expert, and had proposed lot of girls , Check with him .. He looked back with an embarrassing smile. I thought of being Santosh pandit for a while . I thought of taking her out from the house to show the road .. Do you know , this the road I had lost a bet, just between cup and lips . Once I tried to break 100 km/hr on a 180 cc bike on this road but failed . No , she may not be interested . or maybe I should skip the boring Ice breaking part for her and come to point directly .I thought of saying like ‘I don’t have much to say , my dream is to settle down in my native , my locality. or else I would like to stay with parents. If that is an issue please let me know. You got to ask something?’ . then I thought of winding up and stepping back to the room
We entered the house , Girls father took us to drawing room. A bit later her mother too came to that room. Then there was a silence for a min. Then dad asked something I guess. Her Mother was staring at me . Three times are looked at her, I guess she was staring at me without a blinking eyes. I felt a bit more uncomfortable and looked her father. He seems to be cool. There a few conversation about a couple of topics . When something related to banking came in, Mathew chettan got gripped. I just looked Mandu Chechi , and we smiled each other .
I could hear TV was crying loud .Mean while Aunty , girl’s mother , went out of the room and came back with coffee and cake. Someone switched off the TV.I could see , her brother , stepping down the stairs .within a couple of minutes later he came to the room and went back quickly . I wondered what the girl was doing , she might be sleeping . But I had seen an laptop opened over dining table, was she really sleeping?
The girls stepped in on 4 inch heels .I just wanted to tease her “Is that 4 inch included ,on 160 cm height written over matrimonial site ? “.She stood over one end of an long room, I felt as she was looking to sit down.. At last her mom asked her to sit. I was almost frozen and went to peek of my uncomfortable zone. I was like .. what next?
All were chatting, topics got exchanged from one to another. It came to on church now! I just asked like “is that church near the fire station?” As if to confirm, it . “Yes” someone confirmed. I was well aware of the place , That road was well known among my friends for bypassing police checking. I just wanted to talk something.
I looked girl again , I could see she had a bit of nail polish . Her hand was shot , but her biceps seems to be strong for a lady. She had drawn eye liner and I could say she had dressed up fast .On this point, Mandu Chechi asked , Do you want say her something ? before I could a think anything, my reflex in panic had signed No to chechi . It was only time I had eye contact with the girl. Had she got anything to say ? damn ,it was too late . I too wanted to talk. But the panic run made everything go wrong .
Within another couple of minutes we started back, on the way we had discussed every word they spoke ,and the common questions they missed ! As my part I said , girl seems to be humble and simple with a good personality and from a decent family , what else we should look for ? “She is older than you”, someone said . “Hmm” I nodded. Yes she was , but just few seconds.
I have watched Steve Jobs speeches live you dreams to some college students in youtube(stanford commencement speech 2005). I “liked” it for all the shares I had seen in fb . But it might be hard for Indians to live their dreams for their dreams are not theirs!!!
It is very easy to pull the God the way I want .Most say Whatever I see is ,because of him. I see lot of good ,yes bad too. So depending on my need and want I can paint him. Why do I write it ? Don’t know , may be little talks between friends .Since I can paint Him how ever I want, I don’t want to paint Him.
One day , in little talks , I saw how He was rendered. Well, Mr. God are you so conservative?. People say you are a Mighty, and if so conservative why don’t you destroy everything you don’t like – your people say you don’t like. I do tease you at times, opps most times . Will I be in your hit list?
I do know there are hell lot of things which I don’t understand. Should I say the thing which I don’t understand wrong ? Why can’t you stay in peoples heart ?I like to see you in white dress with long beard , with a golden spectacles and with long stick , helping around . But Why do you come with dress that don’t suit you at times ?Is it because you rush out when it not pleasant. Does our little hearts wake you up from your nap ?
Are you the mighty Creator limited by your names ? Why do your creator say I should change ? Why can’t you be my friend as the way I am ? I do no harm for any and I hope by yourself ,you too don’t. I don’t intend to change ,Come ,get me , if you are Mighty enough !
To understand the bug I am going to write, let us run around N.D.A first. This was found while I was working with a reporting application. The application can be briefed like, It will generate reports base on the template user selects to give. At times, performance of the system varied depends on load .Some time less patient chaps , used to run a template multiple times while application is processing the request. One of the tricks architects used was like when user is generating a report from a particular template , for the same user , the same configuration templates cannot be run . Few more updates – the application can organize the templates into folders and there were multiple ways to run the report. Application even allowed the user to run folder or folders.
Base on this requirement (trick), while running a folder I noticed some times the, same configuration reports can be run multiple times . From a little R&D it was found that the folder could run from one of the icon in the configuration page. This was however not reproducible for any templates, or not even from any other run buttons for the folders. This was reproducible bug but still a random bug.
This exception was reported as a bug. But replay was just like It should not be a bug because the run icon which I claim to cause bug and the run button below which I claim to work calls the same function. The only difference is it both call from different part of the screen , from different objects by using same parameters. I really felt , I had asked for trouble. I retested it and found it was working as I reported. Now had to convince the other end. I thought of sending the recording screen and then sending it across. Due to some constrains I was not able to do so. So I was forced to do more investigation and noticed just for once I was able to reproduce this bug from RUN button below. I became quite sure this bug exit for this button too, but more confused – why is it so?
Latter I was able to constantly reproduce this bug from Run icon. I noted that I was clicking on the button at a particular time, ie notification was sliding down the status bar. When I was using button I was not able to see the status bar which was on top of the page. Using this timing of silding notification , bug was generated from the button. This was reported again and finally, stake holders had to agree this as a bug
Base on this requirement (trick), while running a folder I noticed some times the, same configuration reports can be run. From a little R&D it was found that the folder could run from one of the icon in the configuration page. This was however not reproducible for any templates, or not even from any other run buttons for the folders. This was reproducible bug but still a random bug.
This exception was reported as a bug. But replay was just like It should not be a bug because the run icon which I claim to cause bug and the run button below which I claim to work calls the same function. I really felt , I had asked for trouble. I retested it and found it was working as I reported. Now had to convince the other end. I thought of sending the recording screen and then sending it across. Due to some constrains I was not able to do so. So I was forced to do more investigation and noticed just for once I was able to reproduce this bug from RUN button below. I became quite sure this bug exit for this button too.
Latter I understood I was able to constantly reproduce this bug from Run icon. I noted that I was clicking on the button at a particular time, ie notification was sliding down the status bar. When I was using button I was not able to see the status bar which was on top of the page. Using this timing on mind, bug was generated from the button. This was reported again.
With a lot of dreams, I accepted an offer in the new
company. With that my life was changing. Better salary , better brand name
company , automation project and lot more . with these dream I came to
Chennai. It was in fact a bit hard for me to get adjusted with City life all
alone.
New company I got allocated to a new project. Unlike expected It was pure manual testing project in a new domain. I started to feel bad,but got adjusted soon. The KT was funny thing which contained, 30 + 30 mins of conversation and 80 hour schedule. Application was not that much complex, ignoring data outputs made it more simple. Another high light was everyone was least bothered about the project .Office hours, though extended at times , was simple because I was able to do silly task of running the Sanity test cases. Nothing more was assigned to me , nor I asked. Main task will be reading the task mail and Sending status mail back to my lead.
Thus 2 months passed by.
One fine day , I understood release was postponed due to some
defects. Latter I found defect leaked can be found from my end. What the
hell ? How do I know what more to test? I will mostly have the task of running some test cases and that is what I do for many days. At time I will write some test cases and all these stories was known to my lead. But when the leakage happened I was many times pointed without any shield. This made clients ran a check in my reports and found I never had sent any mail to clients. Only mails I used send was to my lead without ccing anyone.I had many counter questions ,haven’t got a chance to start
Life was starting to change again, now I have responsibility
of the project. I had to take care of clients, their expectation for me. The
bad mark had broken the shell of my comfort zone . To start with the project,
again I started to modify the test case again. The sanity suite was reinforced
with more test cases. I just felt , conversion of smoke to sanity had happened.
It was shocking to see there was no documentation available in
the project .No one near to help, because I was the only tester and rest all
where clients sitting miles away. Mildly pushed for documents , but never
worked out. Expected task was very simple , test toughly. To be frank I never
knew application more than a few things
This was very same time , I start interacting a few S/w Consultants. To my surprise , I was getting answers which I can’t understand. Mostly I will get pointed some links or videos. But I never gave up. I will go back until I feel, I got what he was saying. By some day official matters to came across our little chats. He pointed me to agile s/w dev life cycle and couple of things. I felt like , testing definition was redefined into commonsense and communication
Gradually I stared more working with a few clients with more
intensively. Started to extract requirement document from their memory. I felt communication happened between clients was though conversations mostly. Miles apart I had no choice of over hearing to know what is happening. I started to experiment with new concepts like risk
based testing, or other ways known as bit of commonsense with some name. It haven’t worked out , since clients never commented on the spread sheets prepared.
Once in a conversation one of the client had given me the
greatest motivation. He conveyed me , after testing from our team , when he
starts testing , within first ten minutes, he had reported new bug. Not just one time, but for all release. I just felt like he was giving license for me to do whatever I want. I felt he just told me, your team is crap and you are standing at zero.Don’t worry from there you will never go down again
I started over again in another angle, I started exploring the
application without test case. Started to catch on cosmetic bugs, I took on alignment issues, I took on context, I had revenge on help documents. This might not a success story but I became more matured.
From there I had few tips of requirement stuff for the new
release. I charged on them , and interacted with clients and got a few tips where should I search for bugs. This worked out to an extent. Along with this what I was putting suggestions for changes, it was very difficult, many time Got rejected but a few had worked. This had impacted me with a mark of high Bug
rejection ratio . For my precaution I checked with clients and notified my manager.
Another way of finding bugs was getting into exceptions of an business rule and pointing it out. Going into extremes worked at times. Another shots worked were on the contradicting functions
Thus one release had happened, but I had seen Client raised one
bug on the last day review .But still it was far better than my first release
.More over I am quite sure we had broken his 10 mins barrier for the first time
.I know all these changes was seeded and fertilized by the S/w consultants I was speaking
At end of ten months, today I stand at the verge of another Release,
I am not quite confident about it. But we have hundreds of test cases and a few
test suites to convince manager. Better exposure, to meet client’s expectations.Challenges stands for stable environments and better visibility on the other end. I wish one day, we could completely justify what we are paid for. I am scribbling it hoping one day, it will help someone helpless.
Special thanks to VV and NPS (S/w consultants)
I started with the title Ram speaks , but just then remembered the instance that happened in kerala. Then instance by which a proffesor lost hand , actually chopped off , for using a Gods name in a question paper. So I renamed the title to My friend Rams Speaks.Any way I am also using a confusing name, so tought of precausion. Now those who does Gods bussiness , with his rented armory , will know I am not writing about Lord Ram. They should be aware Manoj and Lord Ram will never be friends, never ever can be friends. Don’t ask why again.Because a Christian guy and Hindu God can never be friends. Those don’t agree won’t have a sword and other will have no reason to use it
Let me start again. I met Ram in my new office and after a couple of months we became friends.He is funny guy reminds me of my friends in college. But not always , he is teataller. This word is an enchanement to my vocabulary from a martirmonial site. Some fine lady had wrote over there like , she is looking only for teataller.Good luck , lady . But I wonder how people find a guy is a teataller or not. May be like Mixing tea with alcohol and giving to drink. First time user will puke and they will judge he is a teataller. But what if someone pukes because he is taking tea for fist time ,then too they will judge for teataller. Is this variation of justice called social justice?
Ram never smokes, nor he drinks. He reminded few of my friends in that aspect. For break ,most of my friends from college had the habbit of taking some snacks , at times a cegretee too. Cegretees are just to inform others ‘hey we are here’. The fumes will message, yes , like old times.
I always took it a as pleassure to convey Ram , how good it was when I had a beer. Though I had no intension to make Ram drink , I wanted him ask for one. One day I told Ram , Life is to enjoy . if you are not enjoying life there is not point in living. If there is no one to admire beauty , the beauty is useless . so what I say is when see a rose you should admire its beauty,when you see a smart chick you should look at her , similary you should enjoy liquor for life . ‘Yes, I will admire the beauty of the bottles’ said Ram
To be frank ,I opened an account here just to write just one comment. Now I feel, I
should scribble something . May be today I should write a letter to a friend
Dear Neel ,
If you feel bad, I am not sorry. If you feel glad, I am
certain I too will feel better. I know, it is late , but still I feel I should
express. I am around only one point if you want to be close, be close.
I feel it is very kind of you to call me tambi .All I want to
say is if you want me to be your brother, be my sister. I remember in my collage
days, not much people care for me , off course family was there. May be none of
ladies out of all, in my class or college never cared ,I was kind of stranger
for them. Ignorance is not all ways
polarized, after graduation I understood, I don’t even know name of everyone in
my own class. When I stood I on steps of my collage for the last time, I knew,
I enjoyed a lot and missed a lot.
When you say sweet jokes ,or annoying one , or of your classic master piece
- stupid things , I felt good. Though I am not good in responding, you make a
lot of difference. You should know you are the first one who tagged a rakhi for
me. I never expected something of that sort in this life time. May this make me
to look into your cubicle in the morning and confirm you are there to annoy.
Do you remember one Monday you were one leave, very next day
showed up and said you were sick on the previous day. My mom used to say if
habits don’t suit the body and climate, health will be bad. She used to say
hell lot of things, who does remember Mahabharata of Advices. I do remember the
very next day, the Wednesday was public holiday. At time the joy of holiday
brings is very great, even better when if not well or lazy. Next Thursday you
haven’t showed up again. Were you sick on that day too ? Don’t you ever felt
God is not that much good? I had felt at times. Few mins after early night I
noticed from miss call list , you had
given me a call. It was not a usual , are you ok ? Do you want to go
hospital? Do you need any help? Why haven’t you answered my call! Again I did
the same and you too did the same. Why are you not answering my calls? You
don’t even reply my message. Were you conscious? Or lying on floor hoping
someone will come
When I checked with one of my friend, I understood you were on
vacation and travelling to Capital. Wow that is cool! You could also use the public
holiday too. But why did you call me? Yea, I know you where on roaming and running
on last paisa of your balance. For all my friends who are going to read
this, please stay close, if you want to be close
Thanks ,
O T M
