My Valentine's day

During college days, I used to hear from others that Valentine’s Day is the most important day in lovers’ life. It's the day when many people seem to have conveyed their lovers, how they love them. So special is the day, I saw many students take off and go out with their gals or guys. Guys and gals in college used to talk a lot about this particular day, even if they don’t have anyone whom they are in love with. To me, it is one of the days that everyone at that age relishes. I never looked forward for this day as a special day. But it is not the case with, 2006 February 14^th.

2006 Valentine’s Day is so important to me because my life was going to be changed. I was going to get something new in life. I was going to have what I wished for. I was caught up with lot of tension, as I told what I had in my mind and was waiting for a response.

Yes, finally I did tell what I had in my mind. It is left to the concerned person to consider and take necessary action. I know the concerned person would love to have me, but there are other factors that have to be considered. I communicated the message couple of days back but not so loud and clear. But it was on this day, when I conveyed it loud and clear and was awaiting a response.

After my ILP, I have been waiting for this moment. It is almost two and half years now and I guess it is a long wait. I also sometime think that it is worth a wait because during this wait time, there were many things that I learnt. Many things happened that groomed me to match, groomed me to understand better, gave me lot of time to think and think and think and take some steps.

But above all, these things kept me away, literally far away. Except for few occasions, I have never been close to, never got a chance to talk that language. But this never kept me away from thinking, thinking about it all the time, all the day, all through this two-and-half year period.

Everything was in the hands of the concerned person. I wanted to know if the person is thinking about it or is trying to take some steps. I was awaiting a positive response. As time passed by, I wanted to call and find out what was happening at the other end. But I also thought I had to give adequate time to think and to proceed. Probably the concerned person would want to discuss with someone, someone who can help in this.

I was carrying the cell-phone in my hand, not wanting to keep it in my pocket, as I don’t want to loose any more time in taking the phone out of my pocket, when the call came. Half a day gone and I did not hear anything. With lots of hesitation, I finally decided to call up and find out. After coming to the apartment for my lunch (I actually was not feeling hungry, but just wanted to join my roommate Jinu John) I called up the concerned person and the conversation gave me a hint that it will be a positive response. But I know that I can not be sure until I actually get the response. After a brief lunch break, I went back to office and as I did from the morning, I was carrying the mobile in my hand and was awaiting THE response.

Time passed by and no calls yet. From 2pm to 6pm in the evening, I did not get any call. I was tensed, tensed to the core, but did not show up that much. Everyone around me was thinking that I was normal, but only I know how much tension I was in. I can not explain the tension in words. Those few hours went as if it is a life time. I can see myself biting my nails like anything and end of the day I had absolutely no nails left. J I am all the more curious to know the result.

Now Feb 14^th had gone without any answer. Yes, the Valentine’s Day is gone and I have got no response. Days are moving fast and I had no clue as to what the response is going to be. To me I had arrived at a point where I am ‘okay’ with anything, but I wanted a response. Finally it’s on 16^th February 2006, that I got a response and the response was a half negative and half positive.

So this is it, I have to work in USAA – LIFE Development and not in USAA-Bank. “I tried my level best and so did Rajesh. Sorry you have to work in Life”, Dharma messaged me. This is half negative because I am not going to work with Dharma and Rajesh atleast for the new few months. It is also half positive because USAA-Life has got many Java projects where I can go and fit in. I can finally become a Java developer and try to be what I wanted to be.

Prelude:

As you may be aware that I started with a project in the requirements gathering phase at offshore (India) and continued to analysis phase, when the project was scrapped. Then I got into another project for less than three months before being sent to onsite. In that project I was mostly into testing. After coming to onsite, I have performing the role of a Business analyst and wasn’t doing any kind of development.

As I grew up, I always wanted to be a developer, as I feel and so I proclaim that I am a good designer and debugger. But I never got a chance to work in a development project as a developer. I have been trying to get into the role of a developer for such a long time.

It so happened that I was getting released from the business analyst role on February 17^th, 2006 and wanted to join a good Java Project. I contacted my previous boss Dharma (even now I consider him as my boss/guide) to take me into his project. He is the ‘concerned person’ that I was referring to. On February 10^th 2006 or so, I conveyed my wish to join his project and from then on he was trying his best to get me into his project.

When I was performing the role of a business analyst, I learnt a lot about the project, how to work, etc. I also had adequate time to prepare for SCJP and cleared the same with a good score.

From the above prelude, it is clear that I was always talking about getting into Dharma’s project. If for some reason it sounded something different like, I proposed a gal or something, it is not my mistake. You can read it once again and you will know what I was actually talking about.

Have fun...

Hibachi - Japanese Style Restaurant

Hi everyone,

This is my first blog ever. I have been thinking about blogging for a long time now. But for some reason or the other, this got postponed and atlast the time has come now.

Many things happen in life, but few things make a good impact in us. Certain things change our character, our way of living, the way we communicate with others and sometimes us in total. The change may be good or sometimes not. One such good change happened to me is this onsite trip. This trip taught me a lot in life. I have been exposed to many new things and I am seeing a different dimension of the world. I learnt a lot in this trip, from living away from my family to staying with friends and from cooking to tasting different foods. These are something normal to most people. But this is something new to me.

After coming to US, I have tasted food varieties from all around the world. This includes Mexicon, Italian, Middle eastern, Chinese, Mongolian, Greek, French, Thai, Japanese and ofcourse American. Mexicon is my favorite as in my opinion, it's taste is close to Indian.

It is going to be almost a year now (i came here on 08th February 2005) and I never had a chance to visit a Japanese restaurant until 05th Feb 2006. Yes, that day we had our dinner in a Japanese Steak House called “Shogun”. For those of you who don't know (or who forgot because I left you all an year ago) I am a vegetarian. What do I eat in all these restaurants? All veggie food only. Finding which one is veggie in a long list of items in the menu card is not as simple as a google search. Let me explain those in a separate blog in future.

Coming back to Shogun, it is a modern 'Hibachi' restaurant. (Now you know the reason for my blog's name) What is so special about an Hibachi restaurant? 'Hibachi' is a Chinese word. 'Hi' meaning Heat or Hot and 'Bachi' meaning bowl. 'Hibachi' meaning 'Hot bowl'. This word is taken by Japanese. A Hibachi is a Japanese traditional type of heater. Modern Hibachi restaurants usually feature a table wrapping around a good sized grill where many people can eat at once. The hibachi chef performs the cooking in front of the diners at the table and often does so in a flashy manner.

In Shogun, they have many grills (or what we call as stove) and each of those grills are surrounded by table space for serving the food. A waiter invited us in, with a friendly, warm smile and took us to one of those tables. The very look of the restaurant was a clear indication that the restaurant is not a classical restaurant. The menu had many items listed and we were wondering how much time the cook is going to take to cook those items.

We ordered Pepsi for drinks (soda – a traditional American drink you know) and Teriyaki Mushroom and Chicken Yogashi for appetizer. For the main course we ordered Chicken Teriyaki plate, Vegetarian plate and Hibachi Chicken plate.

After a short waiting, a cook came to our grill. He started cleaning the grill. Wow, the way he started was too good. He started by playing with two cutleries, throwing them, catching them, spinning them, making varieties of sounds with them. All these happened just for a short interval of time. Then the cook started cooking one dish after the other. As and when the cook completed making a dish, he served them to our plates.

It was great to see how the food is cooked. Generally, people used to say that it is better not to see how the food is being made in restaurants. But the specialty of the Hibachi kitchen is that we can enjoy seeing the way food is cooked and the cooking process. Not to forget that we learnt to make fried rice from one of the chefs, not because they taught us, but ofcourse by looking at them cooking. Later, we tried making something like fried rice that turned out to be something else. That is a different story altogether. Poor, my room mates, they had to taste it.

Coming back to the restaurant, once the cook finished all his cooking and serving for us, we four started eating the delicious, freshly prepared food. Hibachi way of dining is totally different from the traditional dining. I am planning to take all of my other friends here in San Antonio to this restaurant, as I know they will all love this new way of dining and the new kind of restaurant (atleast it is new to us). Above all the food is prepared in Japanese style. I could not find anything like frogs, snakes, etc. which people say are the major food items in Japanese cuisine.

This way of dining is not something new to Indians. This is something we find in many places in Chennai, where a old woman will be sitting right in the pathway of the road. With couple of kerosene stoves, she will be making items like Dosa, Appam, etc. People used to go sit around her and order whatever they want. She prepares them in front of the customers and serve them. But that is something we choose to ignore and just pass by. When the similar thing is done at a larger scale within a restaurant, we (atleast I) tend to appreciate it and praise a lot about it. Though I say this, I actually like the name and thought that I could use the same name to my blog.

Why is it “Hibachiway”? Because, I am planning to present to you my writings as and when I write them and I am planning to write them when the audience are around (though not literally around). Above all I am planning to keep things little hot and spicy like the Japanese items that I tasted in that restaurant. I don't know what exactly the 'hot and spicy' mean in this context, but whatever it is, I am going to present it to you directly. It is your fate to read it and provide me with comments.

In a heroic manner, I say “This is not an end. This is just a beginning of a lots of blogs”.