Starting A New Session With Fever….

It’s been three days since I have come back from my last session in which  I had encountered an earthquake as well. Except for that, the session went absolutely fine. I met some of the most amazing delegates and it was a very big coincidence that there were 4 delegates whom I had met already in some other places. It was a very VERY fun filled 5 day long week in which there were lots of laughs but also there were many many technical discussions as well. But I am so glad that the session went really fine. Though I haven’t seen the formal feedback yet but I had been told by couple of the delegates that how much they liked the session and this short email that I got after about 2 days says a lot IMO.

Hi Aman,

Now I don't have fear from RAC.

Thanks a lot for clearing concept of RAC.

I don’t think anything else is needed to mention that the class went okay! I am so thankful to all who came and also said so many kind words! It was a pleasure and honour to meet you all and I really hope and wish that I meet with all of you once again in the near future soon!

After such a rocking week, I came back with a very happy mood and then , all of a sudden, the stupid fever caught hold of me!

It’s been 3 days since I have got the fever and I am just so sick and tired of having medicines. And the worse part is, today or I should say, tonight I am going to start a web session at 10pm IST which would go till 6am as I am going to start a new session today. There were already so many issues in the logistics for this session in addition to me not being well and I am just so worried how this session would go? I shall come to know in less than 3 hours from now but it’s not an easy thing to talk when you are not well, trust me!

Encountering The Earthquake….

Yep, and it came all of a sudden today when I was with the delegates in the session. I am delivering a very tough and advanced session BTW at the moment and the delegates are really good both professionally and personally! Today, two of them took me out for lunch and there we met one delegate who was in my session 3 years ago. Also, there are two delegates out of which one was in my session 2 years and she immediately spotted me and very kindly mentioned in the room that she was very happy when she came to know that I am the instructor for this tough course and also added that I am really good, which was very kind of her to say! There is another delegate who attended my presentation a year ago and told me today about it! So overall, it’s a great session going on, tiring but really good!

Hmm I think I have missed the point of the post. Okay, so we were in the room and one of the delegates was actually standing and explaining a concept. We were all sitting in front of him and were listening to him and my seat was in a corner , just opposite to him. All of a sudden, I felt that my chair is moving and quite heavily. Before I could say anything to anyone, alarms started buzzing and the security started shouting that all must run downstairs right away! And we all did run away to the ground floor and over there it wasn’t just our tower whose people were there but the rest of the 3 towers were also got vacant and the people of those towers were also downstairs. Though nothing bad did happen but it was a little chaotic for some time and it seemed all were a little confused and shocked with that sudden blow of the earthquake. Finally, all seemed to be settled down and we got back to our room, in one piece and finally got back to the work like nothing ever happened :=) . Thankfully, nothing did happen, in real too!

Time to go to bed as there is a tough day awaiting tomorrow!

Its’ Been A While….

Yes, it’s been quite some time since I have updated my blog. Last time, I had taken this much of leave from updating it when my dad passed away. This time, fortunately things are not so bad but still, some how I am not able to have a mental status to sit back, write and update it. Even now, when I am writing this post, a weird kind of uneasiness is there inside me. May be I am just being mad or may be, it’s just some bad time frame. Am not sure what it is actually but just know this that I am not in a good state of mind. I am not really able to spend time (quality) on my work, on doing any research or as a matter of fact, any thing productive. I know I must pull together myself and start doing my work and I am going to get back to business very soon.

Travelogue….

I am sitting on the airport at the moment waiting for my fight to be announced , which is not going to happen till the next one hour. It’s been about 10 days that I was at home and now, it’s the time to get back to the real world and work , which is required to sustain in real world.

The current moment of time is not really a very smooth one for me and my family. There has been MANY issues that have been coming and the biggest one, which is making me the most scared and tensed is the health of my mom. If you are a regular here, you might have read an earlier post where I had mentioned the same and also this that I was burning with anger because this was called or considered as “whatever” which it is really NOT! Anyways, it’s there and it’s just making me so worried right now. Just hoping and wishing so hard that all goes and remains fine. There is no more strength left in me now to even think about something even remotely close to what that I have faced in 2011!

It’s going to be a LONG travel with two connecting flights and I am just really so tired right now. There is a two-day nation wide strike going on and due to that, there was a lot of rush on the road of cars and other vehicles as the public transport vehicles were not moving much. The driver some how was trying to impress me with his driving skills and also was trying to meet up to the time that I had asked him for me to reach at the airport and I can just say, there were moments when I was just so horrified! At one instant, we had almost hit a vehicle next to us but the driver saved it some how. Not sure should I consider this as his good driving skills or reflexes or poor driving skills since he was over speeding on a national highway? Be it whatever, I am on the airport and hope there wont be any more surprises as there is a very tough session that’s ahead of me.

OTNYathra Delhi Event Is Done….

Well, I just got back in my hotel room after some really REALLY good things! One, I got a chance to attend the sessions of the some of the biggest and the best names of the database world , Hans Forbrich, Lucas Jellema, Raj Mattamal, Murali Vallath and Edward Roske. Two, we all just had dinner just a while ago and three, well , it’s about me but anyways , my presentation went well! Sort of enough reasons right! And it all happened at the kick off of OTN Yathra at New Delhi!

I reached here at Delhi yesterday. Though Hans and I think Lucas were already there but I had to go for an official meeting and I started for that as  soon as I reached at the hotel-in about 15 minutes after reaching the hotel may be. That was not at Delhi but was at Noida so it took a lot of time in the cab to go there. The “meeting” turned out to be a tech interview of mine which the customer sort of wanted to do and though I was okay with it, I some how felt a little insulted when there were some questions which were really really simple and shouldn’t had been asked. And just to be fare, I think I did fumbled on question myself too. After about an hour, I was free and then it was the time to head back to the hotel and this time, it took much longer to do that because there was a lots of traffic on the road which wasn’t unusual but was very tiring. Anyways, when I checked in my room, I called up Hans to check about dinner and he mentioned that Lucas is also there and we are good to go. So three of us went to have dinner. We are right now in the hotel Country Inn which is at a very nice shopping mall Select City Walk(probably the best mall of New Delhi) so the idea was to see if there is some place interesting at the mall or near by where we could go and eat. After doing a little hunt and of course, asking people, we finally got at Punjabi Grill. It was expensive but the food was excellent. Since Hans and Lucas were absolutely fine with the North Indian cuisine, we ordered couple of items and believe me when I am saying this, the food was excellent! It was a great dinner in which besides the food, we all talked a lot. It was my first time to meet with Lucas( I had already met Hans and I shall write about it in another post) and he is just awesome! So witty, absolutely honest and rather simple person and just for the record, he is probably one of the best experts for the ADF technology in the world. After about 2.5 hours, we were finally back in the hotel and there we met Murali. Since I believe we all were tired and a quick cup of tea would had been great, we all went for it and we got a place on the roof top. It was my great honour to be there with all these great experts and now, since it was already late, we all headed to our rooms as we had to kick off the OTN Yathra’s first event which was happening at Gurgaon. It was going to be a long, tiring but exciting day and we needed some rest before it for sure!

The day started quite early for us as we left for the venue 7am, Hans, Lucas, Murali , Raj and me. It was a little difficult to find the place but we were there without being completely lost. We were expecting about 100 people who registered and about 74 showed up eventually. After the welcome note, it was Hans’s presentation which was the first one for me to attend and it was just superb! Not only Hans has immense technical knowledge, he has a very fine art of presenting the topic and making sure that his message goes to the delegates in an easy way. After Hans’s session, I picked up Raj’s APEX session. Though I knew about Raj that he is one of the foremost experts in the world about this technology, I never got a chance to see him presenting and boy, he is just amazing! Really really really passionate about this technology and loves to share his knowledge. The audience has no idea about APEX and he had another presentation made for the conference which he stopped and started out with a really basic yet interesting one which was about the introduction of the APEX along with demonstrations. If you haven’t seen him presenting, you won’t be able to guess it but he is just superb and swift that if you would miss out for a moment, it would take a while to catch up back with him. The session was so interesting and the delegates were so into it , it actually went about 30 minutes ahead of the schedule and because of that Murali did cancel his session. Murali and me did an open Q/A session and then we were off for the lunch break.

After the lunch break, it was Edward’s presentation followed by Hans’s double presentation of two hours which was really sad for me because my schedule got collided with his session. Yes. I did present too and to my surprise, there were few folks who did come to my session. In addition to the others, Lucas, Raj and later on even Murali also did join (which was really nerve cracking as he is The Man when it comes to RAC). But thank god that all went well and I got a great feedback about the presentation, both from the audience and also from Lucas and Murali which was VERY encouraging and relieving for me to hear!

Finally, it was the evening time and it was time to close the day which went really great! To my surprise and happiness, there was one, yes one person which did come from Chandigarh too which was excellent! I would love to give a session and/or to arrange the same kind of event in the North but I am not sure how well the people are going to appreciate it and it’s important because without the audience, there wouldn’t be a point  of arranging an event isn’t it? Anyways, that’s for the future and it looks promising because if it’s one guy today, there may be 10 tomorrow. After a lots of picture sessions, we were now back to the hotel.

Since we were all very hungry, we again decided to go to the same Punjabi Grill and it was again good and it was just so excellent that I could get share the space with all these guys which are not just great experts in Oracle database and related technologies but are also absolutely awesome human beings too and I am so glad and honoured to have them as my friends and mentor! Now, it’s time to have some sleep and tomorrow, I shall be heading to home. It’s too bad that I won’t be able to catch up with the rest of the tour because I got work to do but I believe, it’s going to be a great event and if you are in any of the cities where the event is going to be, try to be there and attend it! You won’t get  a chance soon if not at all, to meet such experts and hear from them face to face! 

Just So Damn Upset….

I know that I had mentioned in my last post that I shall be writing about my Singapore and Hyderabad trip. That didn’t happen because since last couple of days, my mom is not well at all! And it should be able to express it well that doc has asked me to get few things done ASAP and also have asked to come down to the hospital again for checkup of her in about 2 weeks. I won’t mention here that what’s really happening at the moment but what I shall do mention that I am so damn upset about a comment which ended up with the bloody “whatever”. Not everything is so damn small or non-important that it can be just summed up by whatever! How much it hurts , pains to lose your one parent and being scared, worried  with every passing breath about your mom, it’s not something that can be considered to be called “whatever” damn it!

It’s not easy to make me upset but the issue is, when  I am, I really am!

Happy Birthday Dad….

I reached Hyderabad yesterday morning after finishing a 6 day, long and hectic session at Singapore. I am supposed to start the new session from tomorrow here. I shall talk about the Singapore session in the next post because today something far more important is there. It’s my dad’s birthday!

Yes, it’s my dad’s birthday. It’s his today, my uncle’s tomorrow and mine on 22nd. I went to temple today morning and did prayed to God to bless his blessings on my dad and wished dad happy birthday! I saw a movie today where a guy was telling his dad that how it would matter to him only what his dad likes or dislikes and anyone else doesn’t matter to him at all! Also, how his dad hugged him and how stronger he must have felt in being his dad’s hug! Yes it was just a movie, I know it but it just shattered me and the same happens now at so many times, on so many different occasions. It’s not possible for me to explain that how it feels to see my dad not here, to express that I can’t/won’t ever be able to get my dad’s hug, celebrate his birthday and some times, combine mine and his together to celebrate like we used to do many times. None of that can happen ever now since God has taken him from my mom, my sister and me and it just hurts so damn much, so very much! It really does!

Happy birthday papa, I am missing you so much! I am missing you so much today, I miss you every single passing day! Whenever I call home. I have to stop myself to say to mom that where is dad, want to talk to him! I miss you at so many times, so many moments, we all do, so much! I love you so very much!

All in the family used to be very happy about this coincidence that 3 birthdays are in a row, especially about my dad’s and mine. Don’t know that now, whether I shall be able to feel any happiness that my birthday is coming! I don’t now and I won’t too! I just can’t!