A lunch out

It’s usual in the corporate industry to have lunch out to celebrate some important occasions. Point to be noted, this is during pre-covid era.

Around 20 of us walked into a popular outlet of a restaurant chain that sells barbeque. Their highlight is itself ‘unlimited starters’. Among the 20, we had a good mix of vegetarians, non vegetarians and then one pure vegetarian, Mr X.

After settling in a corner seat away from the non-vegetarians, Mr X summoned the waiter and asked, “do you have separate veg and non veg kitchen?”. The startled waiter replied, “yes sir, we have”, pointing towards the kitchen. Mr X walked to the kitchen, saw green and brown labels separating the kitchens and came back to seat.

By then, the barbecue grill was placed, plates were kept. Green plates for vegetarians, black ones for others. Mr X summoned the waiter who was starting to serve and asked, “do you use the same rods for veg and non veg?”. Taken aback, the waiter replied, “no sir, we have veg kept on green rods, non veg on brown ones”. The waiter also showed samples of the rods. Mr X wasn’t convinced enough for he popped the next question, “so while washing won’t it get mixed?”. The waiter maintaining his calm replied, “no sir, separate kitchen, we wash all vessels, rods, spoons all separately”.

Mr X stopped his questionnaire, and let the waiter continue his task. We were served chicken, prawn, fish, paneer, cauliflower, pineapple etc. Mr X summoned the waiter again and asked for a milkshake. That’s when we realised Mr X hadn’t touched any food yet including veggies. To our query he replied, “the same waiter is bringing both veg and non veg rods, he would be holding both rods in either hands and there’s a high chance of adulteration.”

As we continued enjoying our starters, the waiter brought in the milkshake kept in a tray held by both hands. “There’s no way this could have been adultered”, exclaimed Mr X. We stayed mum.

Book Publishing

Have been contemplating about publishing a book ever since I was little. Now that my hairs have turned brown, I think I will wait until they turn white; maybe someone could posthumously collect and publish all my posts as a book.

Tipu’s Trees

During the beginning of 2021 is when I started going out for long evening walks. That’s when I started observing my surroundings, the fast moving traffic, the dark lanes, the well lit shops and ofcourse the well-trunked trees.

These trees had very thick trunks and were on either sides of the road, most of them encroaching the pavement. Considering that the roads and the pavement were built after the trees had established dominance of their spots, it felt wise to conclude that no one had dared to raise an axe to chop the mighty trees, or maybe someone did and failed miserably. Who knows!

On one fine evening walk, as I stood over the fallen leaves under the shade of one giant tree, I asked, “do you know who planted these?” My walking partner stood clueless and maybe from the tone of my question, replied with a ‘no’. “These trees were planted by Tipu Sultan when he came to visit this area. That’s why no one dared or dares to cut them”, I answered in the most convincing way I could. My dumbstruck partner queried, “so these are…?” “Tipu’s Trees”, I asserted without letting to finish the question.

Predictions

It was supposed to start yesterday per predictions made by supervised learning algorithms, however, it didn’t, it did today. Any prediction made is prone to slight errors, this is understandable. In this case, a couple of days before or after is to be expected.

I plan a lot of my activities based on predictions, be it travelling or committing to something or calling in sick. Someone could argue why rely on unreliable predictions. I say, I need something to base my plans around. Agree?

Experimental Reading

I read ‘If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler’ – Novel by Italo Calvino. It’s a nice book, different, well written. Started off reading word by word, skipping only the whitespaces. Couple of minutes later, I continued reading line by line, skipping only a few words. An hour later, I concluded reading page by page, skipping a couple of lines.

X’mas eve

“Could you be here tomorrow evening? It’s X’mas eve and it’s tradition for the family to be together”, her voice broke as she spoke over the phone. “Yes, I can, I can be there if you want me to”, quick came the reply from the other end. “Thanks”, she said before hanging the call. She stowed the papers she was holding into her bag, “this can definitely wait.”

Project Scheduling

As I sit down breaking my head with a project scheduler tool juggling start dates, end dates, duration and predecessors, I wonder, “did any project ever start, progress and complete per any plan laid out in the beginning!”

A day in my life

24 hours – 12 hours of status calls – 6 hours of sleep = 6 hours of me time.

Whose Fault?

“You rammed into me. It’s your fault.” “You applied sudden brake. Definitely your fault.” Then it went on and on.

Accompliments!

“Are you all ready to present your accomplishments for the year?”, asked the manager in a group chat. Responses from the group included a couple of ‘no’, a few ‘almost’ and hardly a few ‘yes’. Seemed like there weren’t any major accomplishments that anyone was really proud of or wished to boast about!

Looking back at 2021, what was my greatest accomplishment – Interviewing, onboarding, mentoring, invoicing, procurement? Nope, surviving through all of it!