Back With Smiles But....

Yes I am back today. It was a LONG tour as I normally go for a 5 day schedule but this time the schedule grew to 8 days and there was 1 more day added to that because I had to travel on my way back to see a friend who just got married. Besides that long number of days, I was supposed to handle three different modules this time in front of very talented bunch of delegates which is adequate enough to make one feel nervous. But at the end of the program(s) , all were smiling and that's a sign that things did go "okay" :-).

The start of the tour was not very much hectic as I was not supposed to take a flight this time. I was going to Gurgaon this time which is just next city after New Delhi where I go all the time over bus. The same was true this time too that I took bus from my place and headed for New Dellhi. From there, I had to take a cab which would had taken me to the client's guest house. I was given a room which otherwise was okay except just one thing that it had a single bed to sleep which I never am comfortable sleeping upon and 2nd ( and I guess, a bit more important) , it had no television :-). Yes, tv was in common room where I certainly could go and see it but the issue as its the cricket mania going on over here in India for the Indian Premier League(IPL) so I thought it would be a little hard to ask people to switch it off and let me watch stuff of my choice and that too when I would had been the only asking to "not to" watch cricket :-). So I just chose to stay in my room after the session, a good choice which I think now I made as I was getting extremely tired after the sessions, that much tired that I would just come back and would go to bed immediately before I go for dinner! So it also was fine that there was no tv in my room as it would had just distracted me.

Delegates were just so nice and lively! Its always rewarding when you get a chance to share thoughts with people who really are listening to you very carefully and are willing to even share their thoughts about the same topic. It was a good discussion that did happen in all the 3 modules , especially one over the last module where we had a talk about the usage of Materialized Views. No , its not the way to look at the materialistic things but its an object used in Warehouse Databases. It was a good discussion that did happen for this topic, I certainly can say that I did enjoy that discussion. Though, in the end , there were couple of good comments which delegates said to me but for me , one comment stood apart from all which I guess am really not worthy off but still , I am really grateful that a very senior person thought like that for me and said it in front of all. What did happen that in between of my sessions, I do share couple of external web addresses which I feel can be helpful for the delegates for learning and exploring the stuff which is there in the book. I always feel that the best way to learn and to make people knowledgeable about the stuff is not just to explain them what's in there in the book/material which they already have in their hand but also to tell what are the other places where more information about the same topic is available. Learning is sharing and sharing is learning, that's what I believe in! So as like all the times, I did share couple of book titles , web addresses this time too , surely enough, also did talk about the people whose websites/ blogs I was sharing. So when I was talking about a website, a delegate who himself is a very senior developer and a senior manager by designation said, one day people would talk like the same about you too Aman! WOW! Now that's some thing which I guess, is one of the best comments I have heard so far for me. Just for the record, I am not at all worthy enough to be even thought like that, let alone about getting a public comment like that but still, I just say my heartiest thanks and appreciate it that that delegate did think of me so highly and said this much about me in between the session. I know nothing and for a guy who doesn't know anything, this comment means a lot, I mean it!

So finally, after a long but exciting tour, I am back home. I guess, this should have made clear about the "smiles" which is a part of the title of this post. So what about the "but"? Well, there are certain things which are very much wrong that are happening in the family. Those are making me so much upset, worried and to be honest, scared too! So though that I am happy that the tour did went well, I am still not able to smile the way I should be doing! I just hope that nothing wrong does happen and everything would just get fine as soon as possible. And this must happen as early as possible as the more delay would happen for it, the more worse impact it would have over all in the family. I am off to bed now as my eyes are burning because of not sleeping. Tomorrow, I need to go and see a colleague of mine for some official work and it would certainly not look nice if I would sleep in between of the meeting :-) . So time now to close eyes and at least try to sleep. Hope sleep too does find its way towards my eyes.