Am I an Atheist?

“Are you an Atheist?” was the question posed to me by my sister this Sunday afternoon, which set my mind pondering on myself and my religious inclination (or the lack of it).

Those who know me for a fair amount of time will tell you that, I Never perform my prayers, go to mosque only twice a year, never talk or get involved in any religious discussion, never read the holy book etc. Just to summarize, I do not do anything that is related with religion.

So then, that answers it right. Doesn’t it? No is my answer - much to the disappointment of all those pure religious people who believe doing above actions only means “believing in God” and the absence of the same equates to Atheism.

Pardon my writing skills, I won’t be able to phrase out my inner thoughts with respect to religion, but I will walk you through different stages of my life and try to create an image that will best reflect my views on religion.

I have done whole of my schooling in a Muslim community school, where prayers were compulsory, RI (Religious instructions) subject was given high priority and other religious functions were conducted regularly. And you won’t believe me, I was almost always the topper in RI, sat in the first row for prayers, and an active participant in other religious functions.

But as years went by learning and knowing more of the religion, few self realization questions arose in my mind, such as “Why should we pray?”, ”Why should we read the holy book” etc. Firstly, “The book” is in a language that we don’t understand, yet most of the people keep reading it over and over, again and again, like a competition on who reads it most number of times –but all without understanding anything!!!.

Now, some will argue that Translated versions of “The Book” are available. Ok, so one reads the translation once, twice, thrice and understands it fully. Then why read it over and over again?
Forget “The book” – What about prayers? Again I have the same reason, that first of all we don’t understand the meaning of what we are praying, but go on doing that numerous times a day. And by the way, we people laugh when we see the “brutes” worshipping sun etc by bowing down, dancing etc in movies. In what way are our prayers different from their rituals?

Ok, so here comes a strong statement in support of religion and its rituals. “God created EVERYTHING, and so we show him our gratitude of the same”. Hmm that’s a good reason. Let’s say you did some invention and then that invention is soo gratified by you, that it keeps on telling you that “You are the greatest, you are most generous, you are most intelligent” etc all day. And recites these 100’s of times daily, and reads your autobiography daily and bows down at your feet 50 times a day and so on, rather than doing the job that it was invented for. And at the end of the day ask you to do their job. And imagine you created millions of such inventions, and they all do the same. What would be your say then?

As I used to pray and also notice others do their prayers, I realized that we (Including myself) were not praying with the feelings of gratitude and praising and thanking God, but were just performing some warm-up kind of exercises as a formality and ritual. I felt bad about this, and decided I won’t pray for formality sake and parental and community pressures.

During the same period, I also came across a proverb which read out “a helping hand is better than praying lips”, and this became my personal motto. Don’t follow religious meaningless (atleast for me) formalities, but “Be Good and Do Good”.

Then during the college days, I got friends of different communities and I used to take interest in their religious thinking and there was a period when I used to go to Churches and Temples more than Mosque in a year. But again, all through this, I kept realizing that most of us were doing these stuffs as a formality. But one thing common among all religions is the underlying fact that they urge you to be good and do good deeds. This strengthened my earlier motto, but I also had lost trust and hope on God and believed in self-help and hardwork alone.

It was during the third year after joining work, that I realized the power of God. I noticed Gods support and direction in all that I did and achieved. I used to get magical answers, directions, personal and financial growth etc. I developed a close bonding with God within my heart. I believed that whatever happens is done by God for some good which we as humans may not realize immediately. Whenever something good happened I always thanked God, multiple times, and whenever I needed help or felt down and out, I seeked out to the Almighty for help.

I still, truly and wholeheartedly believe in God and thank him and reach out to him for everything, but all this, within the heart. I do not perform prayers nor do I read the holy book. I go to mosque only twice a year. But that doesn’t make me an Atheist. It’s all in the heart. Whether others know about it or not? Whether I perform some religious rituals or not? Etc does not matter because God knows it all.

So to conclude, “Am I an Atheist?”, the Answer is No. I believe in God, but at the same time I believe in doing all that we can ourselves and lay our trust in “Him” for the results. Sometimes the result may be in our favor and sometimes not. But for the long run, Gods knows what is best for each and every one of us and we need to accept the same and thank him for everything – be it within heart or in public.

Disclaimer:
All views expressed in this blog are solely my own views & opinions and do not in any way intend to represent anything good or bad about any religion nor any individual.
Note: Wherever I have mentioned “We”, it’s inclusive of “Me” also.

The Award

Looks like I have developed a habit of promising to write something and then writing something else. I have something to write now, that’s closer to my heart than what I had promised to write.

Let me take you about a year back for this. I had been sent to Pune on deputation as an SME for a MOSS project. Things started well, and as I have always been, I was bullish on all the technical stuff; nobody could stop me in my areas. I had built a good rapport with the team as well. As more and more team members joined the team, and the build phase started, I felt there were few things not right from the management of task and resources perspective.

Though I was there as a technical SME and did not have any role in the management side, I could not see wrong decisions being taken, or obvious issues being not tackled (as it affected the deliverables and deadlines) and always provided my point of view and suggestions in the daily team meetings. Some were accepted as good ideas, but not applied citing various reasons, and others were ignored.

I have this habit of trying to keep or make everything perfect, whether or not, I have ownership/responsibility assigned in that area, and that has landed me in trouble even previously. Even here too, what I was looking for is to improve the project and satisfaction of the resources, at the expense of my own relationship with the management. I did not care about my feedback or promotion.

The project kept going from bad to worse and everybody’s frustration levels were at an edge and crossed the boundaries as well on few occasions. Everybody was working like animals, and I had the additional responsibility of being the only person experienced in this technology, and so leading from the front and showing an example. But it was getting too much. A sprint can be made for 100m race, but for a marathon, jogging is the way to go. Even this was brought to the managements notice, but for them, getting the work done was top priority. Every weekend there would be a “one last push”.

But things went on; we had huge number of defects, a whole lot of change Request, and numerous conflicts within the team and between the onshore and offsite teams as well and finally the project ended with appreciations from all ends. The team won the reputed Delivery excellence award (now don’t ask me how).

By the time the award was announced, I was well back in my home location in chennai and into other project and same goes for the rest of the team. But the irony was that, nobody noticed my name in the awardees list, because people in Chennai were looking for names under the Chennai location and not other location, but mine appeared under pune location (rightfully so, but unfortunate for me).

Here in Chennai, there are frequent connects with the DU where he would give the latest and greatest news, give out awards, and tell a few good words about the winners. I used to go to each of these DU connects and stand there expectantly, that my name would come, but that was not the case. He never knew I won. Infact nobody in Chennai knew.

About 6 months went by and I had lost hope, when one day, a HR from Pune sent a mail that she dispatched my award to another HR here in Chennai. Ah! So finally it was coming. And a couple of days later, again there was a DU connect. This time, my Manager and colleague pushed me ahead of time for the meeting, and I felt there was some secret smile on their faces. I went there and stood with legs trembling (I don’t know why), 5 mins.. 10 mins.. 15 mins.. the connect went on and got over, Nothing about me or my award :( .

I was dejected, but at the same time, I thought maybe they had reserved this for the bigger occasion of Family Day, which was coming in another fortnight or so.

The next day evening, the Chennai HR called me to his seat and handed me the certificate and vouchers, in person. Nobody around to see. No good things said. No claps. :(. After, 1 year of hard-work and 6 months of wait, I got 1 piece of chart (which nobody outside of our company will recognize) and Rs.1500 worth of Taj vouchers using which 2 ppl may settle for a dinner on a weekday.

It really hurt me a lot. I had been toiling hard to get appreciation in front of the crowd. In 7 months I had put in effort much more than what I had done in past 1.5 years combined, but in-spite of that, what I got from the project was bad feedback (because I worked for the project and the resources, and not the manager) and not a word of recognition in public.

I remembered a earlier event in the pune project as well, where they started a “Star of the Week” award, and I was the first one to receive it, but I was given it like a formality and nothing was said about what for it was given to me, whereas the others were given with words of praise for the effort.

There was another occasion in the same pune project where our TL was awarded a prestigious People developer award, and he was given the same in a large gathering of about 100 people in a hotel with words of praise (those words actually belonged to me, but showered on him, as if he did all those stuff!).

Fine, so back here in Chennai, I was feeling too bad and went home and started saying how I felt, but I noticed, Mom was deep inside TV and Father busy with food. Sis was split between TV and food and it didn’t look like anybody heard or cared. That just broke me down completely.
The next day I put this as headline in my MSN status message, but I got only a couple of pings on the same. I told my counselor and he felt bad and said he will talk with the HR and DU. One of my friend told to write this episode out and so here it is.

It’s about 10 days since the above episode and there’s no update. But theres surely a learning and that is: "Noboday cares about your problems, you need to take care of them by yourself".

Before closing this, It would be a wrong on my part if I did not mention about the good things that happened to me while I was in the pune project. I made a number of very good friends- friends with whom i can talk on my favourite topics, friends with whom i can converse in my mother tongue(hindi, gujrati), Friends who would join me for an outing-just because i should not feel bad/lonely. And yea, I went to a lot of wonderful places around and had great weekends.

If you have been part of this and have any comments or opinions or a different perspective to the same, please feel free to provide the same in the comments.

Ooty Vacation Trip - Day 1

Well, It was Friday the 12th of Jun, a much awaited day for me and our family. Around 4, I left office and reached home at 5.30, and then started all the packing. We all were excited. This was the first time the whole family was going for an outing and that too Ooty – the queen of hill stations. All the arrangements were already done, from train tickets to room booking to list of places to visit etc.

At about 8 we started from home and caught the 3rd class AC compartment of 9’o clock Nilgiri express train to Mettupalayam. Night there was nothing much to see or do and we slept and woke up in the wee hours of early morning next day. It was a exotic view outside. Sun peeking out slightly from behind gigantic mountains on one side and greenery all around with dark blue skies on the other hand.
We reached Mettupalayam at 6.30 am. We could see the historic 100 year old Toy train on the opposite side of the platform. But we had not got its tickets and had to catch a cab to go up. The rates were flat. Rs.600 for Coonnoor and Rs.800 for Ooty. The cabs were available right next to the railway tracks. We caught a cab up to coonnoor and all along the way we had our eyes wide open as well as kept the camera shutters blinking, as we enjoyed the sharp twists and curves up the majestic mountains and the glorious scenery alongside for about an hour.
After reaching coonnoor we had another 15 mins of travel to the place where we had booked our stay. It was a serene and cool location away from the main center near TanTea factory on tiger hills.
As we got out from the car, we saw a beautiful cottage right in front of us. Large rose coloured flowers greeted us at the entrance. Believe me, It was the most lovely house I had ever seen. We passed the garden lawn in front and entered the house and saw the rooms. It was all feeling very royal, as it had turned out much much beyond our expectation. We had got a home rather than a room and more importantly a home with a garden and a swing outside in an exquisite atmosphere.
The plan was to stay back and relax that day at room and go for sightseeing from next day. The day was very chilly especially for Parents who had come to such a place for the first time. They spent most of the time under the bedsheet shivering in cold.
We had a very delicious breakfast and lunch ordered from the home owner itself. Evening we went out for a walk around the picturesque tantea plantations. All we could see around was tea plantations, even in distant hills. Here again, we kept our camera rolling. We saw quite a few different birds than what we are used to seeing in the city. After about an hour of walk, we returned back. That was all about the first day. The next day we are to go for Coonnoor sight-seeing. Catch the same in my next blog entry.

The Unexpected Guest

It all began in the first week of September. I was in pune on deputation – a term given to working in other location for a company on company expense. It was beautiful and chill Saturday morning and I had just woken up lazily, thinking all the while how to spend the weekend. My roomie had left for home previous night. I was really feeling lonely and boring and wanted to break free. Make some friends. Talk with somebody. Home sick. Call it whatever it can be termed.
Past few weeks and the near future (The next few months) were looking really tight as far as work was concerned. I had been hitting office at 9 sharp, and returning back only around 12 at night. This Saturday I had fought and got a permission not to come to office and relax.
I got this sms from my younger sis from our home in Chennai- “We ve got a parrot home.. roamin freely, sum one has cut its wing..”. This set a multitude of thoughts running around in my mind. At first I felt very good that we got a parrot at home. Felt sad that its wing had been cut. Felt good that it was roaming freely in home and not caged. Felt sad that I was not there to witness all this.
When all this settled down and later when I called up home (we had kindof made a habit of talking once a week around what’s happening) and spoke, it was all about the parrot. Except for the formal “hi, how are you” the rest was all about the parrot. How? Where? When? What? Why? And just everything about the parrot was told like a running commentary. Initially it was nice to hear, but suddenly, I felt like it was taking away my space. I did not even get a chance to tell about how I was feeling? What my plan for the weekend was? The latest movie that I saw(rather didn’t saw)? Any alliance news? Etc..
Well, that put me in a low. But I thought since it was new, they are very excited. In a couple of weeks everything will be back to normal.
The next week still it was all about the super-hero: parrot, and the following week too.
And finally, there was a long weekend coming up. 5 days including optional holiday, but I got permission only for 4 day, and I booked for flyback to home for the same.
I reached home at night. After the formal, how are you’s, the question arised “you din ask wherz the parrot?”. Well, as I entered the home, I had seen in one corner of our bedroom, a small square box like covered with cloth on top, and I had immediately known that it was the parrots cage. Well, nothing much special that night.
As you would have expected, the parrot stories never seemed to be ending. Whole day we(yea, even me too- without any other option) used to look at the parrot and what it does, how it does, trying to make it talk, etc…
All four days went like this except occasional other talk. And finally time to leave without me having told how tired and lonely I was feeling. But as luck may have it, flight got cancelled and got tickets for next day. This additional day was an horrendous one for me. Already I had enough of parrot and was eager to go back to pune and relax but had to stay back at home.
Now- that is 5 months after the above scene, I am back in home past 3 months. Pune project over, and the Parrot is our main time pass J. He has become like a family member. Roams and flies freely around inside the home. Starts talking non-stop as soon as we go in front of it and stand. I and sister fight for who will give food for it, who will put him in cage at night, who will carry him back to hall when he flies into kitchen. He has become such an integral part of our family, we feel blank thinking what will happen if he flies away one day. How will we spend our time.
This is the analogy of life. Most of us do not like change in life. We are so possessive about our friends, relatives that we do not want anybody else to take them away from us. But we forget happiness multiplies and sorrows divide when shared!

Busy few weeks

Well, it has been quite a busy time past few weeks. But well worth it as there have been good things happenning around along with some bad things as well.
Going back a couple of weeks, there was a carrom tournament organized in our company, and it being one of my favourite games, I participated in all categories and came out in flying colours. Runner up in Mens singles and Mixed doubles and third place in Mens doubles.
I really had to win these and prove myself in the sports area, as generally everybody had a impressions about me as one with technical and work minded person. Another compelling reason for me to push myself to win in this tournament was to introduce myself to others here in the company. Now you may wonder what non-sense is it. Well, actually I was away in another city of project work past 7 months, and a lot had changed here and when I came back very few people knew me here.
Another major thing going around currently is the "appraisal" feedback cycle. And as one would expect, lot of last minute politics or games going around. People trying to impress their managers by doing all sort of thing. And one such thing is submitting "Assets"(resuable code/tools). My previous project team mates started submitted assets of what not! and by virtue of me having had my hand in every code piece in that project, most of the assets also got registered under my name also :-).
Well, if that was not enough, I got another opportunity to prove myself. One of our colleague got into a single handed project and was struggling a lot and it reached a stage where senior managers had to intervene, and finally I was sent to resolve the issues. 3 days and everything back on track :-) and appreciations from everywhere. But recollecting those 3 days, first day didnt go back home at all - worked 24 hours!. Next 2 days went back home after 12. all these days lunch at 4 and dinner at 11 or no dinner! But all well worth it!
And of course, IPL2 going around, there is lot to watch out. My favourite teams - Chennai super kings and Kings XI Punjab, still not on roll, though having very balanced side.
Lot of other small small things going around, all in my favour and so it has been a great time past few weeks, but on the downside, I couldnt write my next article. I have a bit of draft written, but not enough time to finish it off...
Catch you all later....
Have a good time.

At the bus stop

Hmm, it was an ordinary days beginning. 6 am, alarm rings and after snoozing for a couple of times, I wake up and went through the daily chores – brush, bath, food and get ready for office. I got ready just on time and started off for the office bus pickup point – which was actually a regular bus stop 5 mins from our home, on the main road.


There was a slight breeze of cold wind hitting on the face. As I reached the main road, I could see the old concrete bus stop on the other side of the road some 20 feet away. It was held by three pillars, and had space just enough for about 10 persons to stand – but anyway, that was the more than enough as it was not a major bus stop. It was yellow in color and looked about 10-20 years old. It had a concrete base about half a foot high, and the pillars were surrounded by large square seating blocks.


As I was crossing the road I noticed a fair girl of about 20-25 jogging, in black t-shirt and pyjamas. That was unusual. I had never seen any girl jogging here. And I can say that because I have been living here past 20 years and going to that bus stop past 3 years. Well anyways, times are changing. People are changing. I continued to walk and reached the bus stop.


This bus stop was not that clean a place, but fine enough to sit and wait for 10 mins. There were all kinds of posters pasted on the wall behind the bus stop. The posters ranged from movies, politics, news, computer course ads etc and they were all one on top of the other fighting for space. There were few more people in the stop. Mostly the locals – in lungies.


I looked at my watch and it told me it was 7.15 – the official time for our bus to come, but as you would expect, there’s always a difference between the official time and the actual time. But no qualms though. I would rather wait 15 mins for the bus than miss it by even 1 min. The road was already buzzing with sounds of all types of vehicles rushing across in both directions. The road was wide enough to hold 3 buses in parallel, but generally this road will be overcrowded during the day time between 9 am to 9pm.


The climate was still bit cooler than it usually is, but the sun had come out and was casting long shadows on the road of the buildings behind the stop. I could see about 1.5 in the direction of the bus which was not to be seen yet. But I saw a boy coming from that side. He seemed to be 20-22 years of age and was wearing a plain cream colored shirt with dark greenish pants (which seemed to be his uniform). He had an old fashioned cloth bag hanging across his shoulders, and it didn’t seem to be heavy. He was wheatish in color and a bit heavily built. He reached the stop and stood in front of my view in the direction of the bus.


A local MTC bus came along and stopped. A few thai’s (local household workers) got down from the bus. They were all dressed in old faded multicolored sarees and were talking all together at the same time. I doubted anybody even heard what the others were saying. Not sure if they were quarrelling or discussing, but they were talking in Urdu language and so I was able to grasp a few words such as “Kya ma”, “Aisa kaisa karleko”, “kaiku ba”… They kept walking-talking and vanished away in a nearby street. I noticed a few black burkha clad girls in the bus apart from the common locals. Most likely students of SIET college. The bus went off and the boy was still in the stop.


The road was abuzz with other vehicles. The sound had increased now and it was really irritating, but we have kind of got used to it. Every now and then a share auto would slowdown/stop nearby expecting people to use their services instead of waiting for the buses, but nobody seemed to be interested.


There was a street cutting across right next to the bus stop and as I was leaning forward and backward to get a better view of whether our bus was coming, I noticed a girl of about 5.3 in finely striped blue color “bohra-burkha” with pink color flowers embroidered around the borders and a medium sized (enough to carry a notebook) pink handbag hanging on her shoulders coming to the bus stop. She was milky white in color and oval faced. She was taking very small steps and as she walked, she was constantly looking at the ground except raising her eyes every now and then for few glances around. She too stopped at the bus stand a few steps away from me. Suddenly there seemed as if I was in a garden full of roses. She seemed to have put on a very strong perfume of rose fragrance, and I, having allergy with strong perfumes got irritated. I quickly took out my kerchief and kept ready in my hand, in case sneezing starts.


I looked at my watch, and it showed that just 5 mins had passed yet since I came to this stop. Another local MTC bus came along and stopped, and now our “Food uncle” (as I call him) got down among few other people. He was a short black man in lungi, half folded-over. He unloaded 1, 2, 3, 4…, 5…, 6 and 7! Heavy utensils from the bus. They seemed to contain food especially sambar and idlis as the aromas indicated. It suddenly made me hungry though I had bit of food from home. Anyways, that’s usual. He is a regular. As soon as the bus went off, a rickshaw pulled up to him and they both began to load the utensils – a large long bucket kind-of vessel, a large pot, few round utensils, a few nylon bags etc into the rickshaw. The rickshaw got almost full and there didn’t seem to be any space for the food uncle to sit, but somehow he clambered in precariously and placed his legs one on each side of the rickshaw such that none of the items fall down and off they went.


As I turned back in the direction of the bus, I saw that there was a woman now with the boy in uniform. She was dressed in red-orangish saree, roughly worn and was trying to explain something to the boy. More like asking sorry and that it won’t happen again. But the boy seemed to be getting irritated and was not giving any heed. Looking more carefully and trying to hear what she was saying, It seemed that she had brought his tiffin box and he was not ready to take it. It was becoming a scene here in bus stop and everybody was watching it.


At a distance, I could see a yellow colored bus coming. It had its college name written in bold white fonts on all sides. It stopped in here and the boy got in – without taking the tiffin box. And the mother kept looking in sadness. I could see lot of sleeping faces inside the bus through the windows. This is expected, as the college is quite far away. Moments later, his mother walked away slowly.


Now there was a lady police in the stop. She was about 5.7, wheatish in color and was looking very sleepy with heavy eyelids. She also looked a bit tired as her face showed. This is not unusual, since there is a women’s police station nearby and perhaps she is returning back after night duty.


There is another bohra burkha clad girl coming from the other side. She is not that fair and is about the same height as the other girl waiting at the stop. Her face is full of pimples. Her burkha is pretty much same as her friends (as they turn out to be). They gave a smile to each other and had a very loose handshake –rather just touched finger tips and then touched their hand over their eyes and lips. They started talking very lowly in gujarati.


On the other side of the road I noticed an auto rickshaw overflowing with school kids and their bags, tiffin boxes and water bottles hanging all around. I wondered how they managed to adjust like that and more-so on how the parents sent small kids like this. Just as the rickshaw crossed, a mother with two small kids in school uniform was visible. They were carrying heavy bags – looked heavier than the kids themselves. It was a pity watching them carrying that load- and not just carrying but studying that as well. But as the saying goes “Survival of the fittest”, they will have to undergo all this to become competitive in today’s world.


Another MTC bus comes along and stops, and both these bohra girls and the lady police get in. The bus is largely filled with black burkha clad girls. Some with only their eyes visible, and some having their face visible. The bus goes away and the stop is empty now – except me.


I got an unpleasant feeling that the bus might have come early and I would have missed it, so I quickly rang up one of my friends in the bus and she told me that “the bus is almost reaching my
stop”. And yes it was. I could see it at a distance.

Well, that ends my “At the bus stop” experience for the day.


Coming up next – In the office bus….