Magnificence of the Taj Mahal

The Taj Mahal needs no description. Standing tall and beautiful in Agra, the marble wonder has been recognized as an UNESCO World Heritage Site. Thousands of tourists flock to visit the Taj Mahal every day. I had an opportunity to visit the Taj Mahal today. Here's an snapshot of the magnificent structure. Pictures speak more than words do!!!

The First Temple of Modern India

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru described as them as the 'Temples of Modern India'. Conceived in the pre-independence period, construction work started in 1948, project commissioned in 1963, standing tall and strong across the Sutlej river even today is the Multi-purpose reservoir @ Bhakra, Himachal Pradesh. A little downstream of the Bhakra Dam is the Nangal dam. Together known as the Bhakra-Nangal Project. An interesting thing is that though separated by only about 16km, Bhakra & Nangal lie in different states. Nangal is now located in Punjab. Though at the time of conceiving this project, Punjab included the whole of Himachal also.

Pandit Nehru had given immense importance to the construction of this project as it was evident from some of his photographs kept for display there. Whenever any foreign leaders visited the country, Pandit Nehru took them to Bhakra and proudly showed them the project under construction. The leaders who visited Bhakra included Lord Mountbatten, the then Queen of Iraq, Marshall Tito and others.

The most striking feature of the project is the Gobind Sagar reservoir, which has an area of about 166 sq.km. The massive artificial reservoir created on the upstream side of the Bhakra Dam is one of the largest in the world. The reservoir water is used for irrigation in the states of Himachal,Punjab,Haryana,Delhi and even as far as Rajasthan, which is mostly a desert. What a visionary Idea!!

As I went from the dam crest to the bed level(about 500 ft) by means of an Otis elevator, installed way back in 1963, I could feel the pressure drop and disturb my ears (the same kind of effect you get when you fly in an aircraft). The powerhouses installed on both the left and right banks were capable of producing about 1300 MW. The view from the dam crest was awesome. This concrete dam stands testimony to the work of Harvey Slocum, an American dam-builder who had no degree in engineering or any great qualifications to boast of. Only experience and judgment was used by him to build those massive structures.

A statue of Pandit Nehru stands there, overlooking the dam. He called them as the 'Temples of Modern India' . But I would say that it was the first step towards becoming a super power. Pandit Nehru liked Robert Frost's lines "Miles to go before I sleep". Well, it's still valid - there are miles to go before we sleep.

Incredible India!!

First of all, I had never traveled outside the four southern states of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra and Kerala. Hyderabad was the most distant location that I had visited. Only geography text books taught me that India is the 7th largest country in the world. But how big is that? I got to know that when I started my journey to Noida for joining NTPC Ltd.

The Tamil Nadu Express train that I was traveling in started at about 9.40 pm from Chennai Central to Delhi. Past the busy streets of Chennai, into Andhra. Ongole, Nellore, Cuddapah and Vijayawada at about 04.00 am the next day. The train reached Warangal at about 2 pm in the afternoon, Napur in the evening and Bhopal at about 7.30 pm. The journey from Nagpur to Bhopal near the Bundelkhand region was very scenic. It was the monsoon season and the rains had increased the greenery everywhere. Grass seemed to grow even on rock!! Fertile lands seemed to spread all over the area. It was such a visual treat to watch!!


Through Gwalior and Jhansi, I reached Agra at about 4.00 am the next morning. Faridabad and the H Nizammudin Stations followed. The traffic near the Delhi circuit seemed to be very high and trains had to stop in order to allow others to cross. Trains too had to deal with traffic jams!! At about 9.20 am we reached NDLRS on platform number 12. Porters wearing red shirts were more than happy to carry my luggage. After denying their requests, I went towards the Pre-Paid taxi counter to book a taxi. A swarm of taxi-drivers surrounded us asking "Kahaan jaaogi bhai?". One even asked "Enge poganum?" I was stumped. How did he identify me as a Tamil? Later I realised that almost all North Indians could identify a person from the South very easily. I decided to book a pre-paid taxi to Sector 16-A, Film City, Noida, where the Power Management Institute was located. It cost my Rs.550, roughly one fourth of the cost of the ticket from Chennai to Delhi. Through the Yamuna bridge and the ITO, the taxi driver took me to Noida.

Ok, what was special during the journey? Though I felt like being in a strange land, a sense of deja vu, engulfed me. Something was similar throughout. Yes, the people, the agricultural land, the dirty drainages, crowded railway stations, bus stops, road-side vendors the bumpy roads(not in New Delhi), all remained the same. India looks the same in every corner. Unity in diversity, that's what people called it and it seemed very true.

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The tough decision..saying bye to Trichy..

Now that I had graduated from NIT Trichy, one of the country's prestigious technological institutes and got a decent job, the tough decision was to leave Trichy. Right from my birth I have lived in this city and it suddenly became very difficult to believe that I got to leave Trichy soon.

The offer letter from NTPC Ltd came in mid-June and there it was. I was supposed to go to Noida for a medical checkup on July 13th and subsequent joining on July19th.
I could not easily digest the fact that I had to leave soon. Many things would never be the same for me again in life. The calm and peaceful life, unabated love and care of my parents, the quarrels with my brother will be sorely missed. NITT, Octa,BHEL Mhss,St.Josephs' school, BHEL Township,Ezhil Nagar, would only bring memories of a happy, carefree life.

But life is like that. You got to move towards greiener pastures. So on 10th July 2007, I set out to Delhi. The 0910 am train(vaigai express) for chennai would start from the Trichy junction. I along with my parents,brother,grand mother set out at around 0730am for the railway station. It was most the painful moment in my life. I had to leave my home. Had to bid good bye to our house which has witnessed almost 17 years of my life.

At the railway station I met my friends Irshad and Prabhakaran who were also traveling with me for Delhi. Deepak and Ratheesh were also there to see us off.The train had come and I had to leave. My mother started crying and my father tried his best not to. With their blessings and tons of advice I bid them a tearful good bye. The train started and there onwards a new phase in my life too. There I was in the train traveling like the Alchemist seeking his treasure..

Last semester in college...Bye Bye..NITT

Come January 2007. A new year full of expectations. This is the year I gonna become a professional. The transition from college to corporate is going to take place. But where? That has not been decided yet.

Immediately after Pongal, it was Global Analytics visiting the campus. Filled with eagerness, I decided to give it a go. The written paper was ok. A few math problems and a few puzzles. They shortlisted about 10 people and my name was on the list.!! Finally I have broken the jinx I thought. But wait there's still an interview to face.The interview began with the interviewer asking about the tic-tac-toe puzzle and a few algebra and geometry and probability.I had floundered them all! But managed to impress him with the approach and agve some good answers to some management questions. I was called for the second round. After that I realized that my performance was not good enough. When I realized something, it was always true. Luck never played a part in my life. I was not selected for GA.

Futures first was the next company scheduled but they had postponed their visit by 3 days. NTPC was schduled next. This time I was in a bit of confusion. Did the IOCL experience teach me a lesson? Did I get that lesson? Nevertheless, I decided to give it a shot.
NTPC had no written tests and there was only cv shortlisting. I was called for the interview directly. The interview went quite smooth. Concrete tech my favorite subject. But the interviewer gave me structures. Quite easy questions regarding determinacy and stability, Maxwell's Reciprocal Theorem..Why NTPC instead of IBM? Were some of the questions raised. I managed to impress them with my diplomatic answers. I felt I had done well. But only on that evening I realised that I had managed to clear!! Yes this is where my career is going to take off. NTPC Ltd.. India's Largest Power Generation Utility.



But college life had more than just companies to offer. Pragyan, Nittfest, Moments all gave me indelible moments to cherish. More than anything else, it was the togetherness that I enjoyed with my friends. Few hours spent at Lapis, Pearl hostels seemed to matter a lot. Octa kept saying good bye to me. Finally with a lot of pain, bid good bye to a lot of friends. Thank you NIT Trichy for showing me all these nice guys. Wish them good luck wherever they are. Even after semester exams got over, I kept visiting college along with my day scholar friends. Pain aind it was real pain to leave college. In the end of it, I graduated with a CGPA of 8.39. Missed a Distinction by 0.11 but that doesnot matter really. Good bye NIT Trichy and NITTians.

Year 2006 a lookback...

What an year 2006 was!!! 2006 began with the cpc's conducted by the seniors. Exams, exams and exams daily was the norm.Preparation for placement was in full swing.My aim was to do well in all the three categories 1)Apti 2) Tech 3) Software. Could not shine too much in the apti papers but did exceedingly well in the software paper. My tech knowledge was ok and since I never prepared to sit for a tech company, I did not give much importance to it. By May 2006, it was all over. CPC results were announced and I finished third in the class.Ok, done with the cpc's and it was over to the farewell and send off parties to seniors.They had helped everyone in my class to prepare for placements.

Come June 30 2006 and it was placement time. I was in the final year then.The placement started with CTS being the first company to visit the campus. I was waiting for my chance. It was IBM. They had three profiles. GBS, ISL and ETS. ETS was something not related to a non circuit student. But I was longing to go to ISL. Though from civil, I had a lot of interest in coding and wanted to get there. But they did not open that profile for non circuits. Man proposes, God disposes : How true!!! But GBS wasn't bad either. I decided to sit for IBM GBS and I got placed. The interviewer (also called Karthikeyan) was very cool. Why IBM? Why not L&T? Why Civil Engr? Why NITT? Favourite dos game? Willingness to work on mainframes? were some of the simple questions asked.The date was 14/7/2006. The day I got my first job.

Immediately after getting my first job, I got an opportunity to sit for Yahoo! India. Though I was not a computer science student, I got this opportunity because I belonged to the webteam ( a group of guys who maintained the www.nitt.edu site) of my college. Y! had two profiles to offer. One was Y! Engineering services and the other was R&D. I opted to go for the Engineering services profile as it was something I loved. The question paper had questions on Linux, PHP, SQL and PERL. Though I did not know much of PERL, I managed to do the rest well and got through the written test. The interview had two rounds. Much of the questions in the interviews were from the written paper itself. The interviewer also put forth some networking commands in Linux, which I did not know. The most important thing they look for is a good project. Do something worthwhile and you will be benefited a lot. I lacked a good project in PHP or Perl, thats what let me down. I was eliminated from the interview in the first round. Nevertheless I felt proud that day as I did compete with Computer science graduates and MCA's of my college!!!

Next company coming up with a dream option was ORACLE. I always wanted to crack this company. Be it OSSI or EBIZ. I had practiced some PAC papers. The paper given was also a PAC one. But the real challenge I found out was time. There was not enough time to concentrate on all parts as the sections were timed. I did not guess. That proved to be the biggest mistake, I ever made. There were no negative marking, so I should have guessed. 94 people were selected and my name missed out from the list. This was the biggest blow that I ever faced in my life. I  could not control my emotions.

But NIT Trichy always gives you many good options. This time it was Manhattan Associates. I knew that this company was coming a week before and started preparing. Heard this company expects a lot of s/w stuff and I was pinning my hopes on Java esp. Their written paper was very tough. Similar to CAT. But had no negative marking. Again I repeated the same mistake I made in Oracle. Did not guess. I had to pay for this heavily as I was not shortlisted.

In between IOCL visited our campus and I decided to sit for it. During the interview only I realised that my orientation was not toward tech really. Anyhow I learnt an important lesson:Don't try to exceed your limitations.

Did not get a chance to appear for any other companies. Had resigned to my fate then. The semester exams wer coming up in November and I decided to learn something. The holidays followed and nothing interesting was on. But who knows year 2007 might have some surprises!!!