Hometown visit and leisure overdose
The visit to my hometown was nice while it lasted and now, the hangover has passed too! Work had been silently piling up on my desk while I was away and suddenly, it seems that I’m neck deep in work! Not that I’m complaining though. The thing with holidays, vacations and hometown visits is that one tends to overdose (and overdoze??). The result of all that oding is that I now want a break from breaks, leisure from leisure. My boss was delighted to find me in such a state and promptly welcomed me back with more work!!! I have gone back to working on the grid. We are in the process of becoming a contributor to the euindiagrid, one of the two major grids in India, the other being Garuda. Even as work on the euindiagrid is in progress, my boss has set his sights on the Garuda grid and sees me playing a key role in that initiative. I’m looking forward to that. The learning potential is practically endless.

I’m sorry
On a sadder and more regretful note, I was supposed to help out a colleague of mine from C-DAC Bangalore in his own grid related efforts, but a personal setback put paid to the plans to help him out. I have not even been able to give him a proper explanation and I dread to think what he will be thinking about me. I hope to get back to him and tender a full explanation and an apology as well as an offer to help him out as best as I can from where I am.

I’m happy
Back at office, my juniors have completed a first round of training exercises and have begun to work on small real-time assignments. I really love the concept of real-world real-time assignments as small as they may be, they give the solver the satisfaction that his code has been put into real use. If one contrasts it with an assignment for the sake of an assignment, there is no comparison whatsoever. I already see the change in their outlooks and attitudes as they come to grips that they are now expected to start contributing actively. I love NPSF!

I’m hopeful
At the C-DAC canteen (grandly called the C-DAC Roof-top pavilion) where I take my lunch and dinner most times, I was approached by a canteen assistant and a security guard to help them with their English speaking and reading skills respectively. Today, I exchanged casual banter with them in English, translating the words into Hindi over dinner. I also asked the security chap (Satish) to read the sentences written on my identity card, which he did a pretty good job of. Satish is way ahead of the other guy (Jeetu), in that he can read and write all the alphabets of English correctly and is even able to latch on to the pronunciation of groups of characters. I have asked him to commence reading English newspapers and write down the spellings of the words that he cannot pronounce. I’m sure he will have a long list initially, but he seems to be a fast learner. I hope Jeetu too picks up things from Satish. I’m hopeful that these two guys will learn to read, write and speak English to a decent extent before long.