Oh, the cruel life!!

Finally the facts are beginning to sink in. Seems I am facing the biggest failure of my 'planned' life. Maybe not to someone else, but I guess my planning has been wrong at some place. While my colleagues at office are contemplating the hike, seems like I may have nothing to look forward to. Seems my faith in people being fair is not holding good anymore. Not that I am very naive, but I always thought everyone has a better side and it always comes into play. I thought the same when I was joining this company back, but after 6 months and rumors of no increase in pay or promotions and no judgment to my work done currently, I am really at a loss. I know I have done my work well and also gone out of the way to do things (at the expense of my personal life) and it will be the same in any other organization too, now or in future. But then I will definitely feel cheated. I've been pretty laid back regarding the 'money' matters and soon I'll be crushed under the weight of my attitude and the company trying to take advantage of me. Not to mention the salary gap between my peers and myself (which was not much of an issue till now as I was content with work, but then the gap is becoming at a distance of a few light years). Maybe I should seriously contemplate trying for that opening at Intel that a friend was telling me about. Of course there is gain for him, but then I too will be compensated better, atleast twice better. Even though the primary aim of my MBA was the work I wanted to do, the hidden motive of 'materialistic' wealth is going to catch up faster. I'm still not happy in this rat race (something my dad always ridiculed me for), but I think there will be a time when I give up my principles for my selfishness to survive. And then I know I will not be this 'nice' person anymore (not that being 'nice' has done me any good other than the good friends I've made). My wife is already angry with me for various reason and one of the thing she resents is my love for the work I do and the long hours I spend at office (time cheated away from her). I know she understands me perfectly well, but now I think she is right. At the moment, both professional and personal life are in doldrums and the reason (sadly) is ME!!! Whats good if I'm in charge of every thing when there is nothing but poverty in my kingdom?? Well I know the fact about fighting spirit and all that load of motivational series thoughts, but suffer when I, myself am the root of it??

Given to the foils of time,
And shattered like plate glass,
I imagine unconsciously -
Darkness now lives at daylight,
And shadows turn to ghosts
And while pretending to sleep,
I realize - Nothing is what it seems anymore.

Its true, its real - I'm living in a dream and weakening the foundation of my future. Maybe its time I stood up to ask for myself and take decisions centered around me. Let me think it over and till then see if my principles hold water!!

Life in "New York" of India

Firstly, my sincere apologies for not posting in the last 15 to 20 days of which half the time I spent in Mumbai (in fact this post is from Mumbai too) . I am here for the design of a project. In fact, my nomination here was based on the pick of the straws and as luck might have it, I came up with the shortest one. The reason?? Well this city has no soul, full of disconnect, extremely high pollution (maybe in further Health Insurance policies, they should take into account the number of times one visits Mumbai) and the water supplied is considerably hard being near the sea cost (it results in rampant hair-loss!!!). Only those who can absorb these anomalies, can fit into this city (which is actually over 12 million people). Hey, I am more human than they are!! For a culturally gifted country, Mumbai is almost a confusing place - exposure levels are at the highest, smoking is a way of life, celerating all festivals are a must but then communalism also runs high, highest amount of young couples (I've seen) are here and most of them are immature in many ways (though I'm no judge of maturity, lot of incidents opened my eyes on this) and of course a extremely high cost of living (surprisingly, this is overlooked and lavish spending is a way of life - man, what a lot of money people have here!). Being in this rut of a place, especially without my wife and moreover the tensions at workplace - well there is nothing else logical than to hate this place on the planet. It wasn't this bad even when I was in Princeton!! And to compound all the irritations, the road I take to office (of all the good roads in Mumbai) is under construction (part of the governments 'Golden Quadilateral' project) and every day, twice, I am tossed around like a ball in the back seat of my ride. Wonder why is this a 'heaven' for the 12 million+ population??
And coming back to technologies, now my battle is with JSF. Barely had I managed to do something with JSR 168 and WebSphere Portal, I was "crowned" the expert to now add JSF along with them. Another fight, but I guess that's how the software community works. And I definitely like it, which I guess helps me boost my enthusiasm. And somehow, I have a feeling this time the wall is much higher to scale and I might find myself in really hot water!!
Apart from that, there is this book titled "5 Point Someone" by Chetan Bhagat - a masala, fast paced, enjoyable book. Its a good book to spend some time on for some hilarious anecdotes and an embedded love story. Other than that, I'm currently reading "Pillars of the Earth" by Ken Follet. Will give comments on that soon. Otherwise life is moving fast and I'm all excited to be going back to Bangalore this weekend and then relaxing since this weekend (as well as the next) is a long one. I also promise to blog more often too.