Zero Defect: An autobiography of a software engineer Read online

  "I am stuck here in windows testing, and I wanted to change my domain"

  "So?" I asked.

  "The manager told me that he can't release me"

  "This is a goddamn sucker account, the managers are so adamant and rude, nobody bulges. They are okay if you leave the company but they just can’t give you the release. I have no future, damn there is no future of Neptune either" "It's not even a planet anymore" He blabbered.

  “That’s Pluto” I corrected.

  "I want to get into finance somehow"

  "I am thinking about changing my job too" I declared, of-course I had no intention to do so.

  "Why do you want to do that? You are in a good vertical" He questioned.

  “Banking! " He exclaimed.

  “So, what? Being in banking doesn’t affect your bank account”

  "Besides I really don't like banking, it's a sucker, takes too much of energy, projects are really crap, it just traps you in the whirlpool till it saps you of all your life force and throw you away"

  #

  It was around the evening time I was resting peacefully on one of the sofa (courtesy of Arnav who showed me that as a potential resting place) of building one (the reception building), trying to catch-up some nap when Sanju called. "You met your manager today?"

  "I went to see him but he was busy"

  "Ok! Listen, I'll be late today, these bastards are making me work extra"

  "Because you put the paper?"

  "Yeah, precisely, because I resigned"

  "So, the manager has given me this extra load, and this will take some time to finish off" "You should go by six o'clock bus" "I'll come by later, maybe by 08:15 one"

  After thinking for a moment I replied, "It's no problem, I can wait"

  "But I'll be late"

  "I'll just hang around in the campus" "Anyway internet starts after six, and I have to check some important emails"

  "You sure, you'll be fine?"

  "Yeah, yeah, don’t worry about it" I replied.

  A few minutes later I fell into a good sleep, I even started dreaming, sofa was really comfortable for the job. But like every good thing that had to come to an end, this had to end as well. A security guard came running abandoning his post at the reception desk, "Sir" He addressed me, "You can't sleep here" He shouted so loud that I was startled out of the dreamy slumber, a weak could have had a heart attack. I stared at him, trying to understand what he just said. "Do you know then, a better place to sleep?" I asked him politely, of-course I was not serious, I was just mocking him.

  "No, sir" He replied, "But surely this isn’t a place to sleep"

  'Why?' I didn’t ask him, I knew he was just a pony following orders from his commander. What happens if a client passes by while you are dozing off on the sofa? Damn hilarious! I am sure. If a client sees that how his money is being drained, Indian software industry will come crumbling down over night. I remember in Vizag I sometimes used to sleep at desk, I guess that was an acceptable norm, but sleeping in a public eye was a big no no.

  I took evening tea by myself, and checked my office email at building-two first floor, there was nothing in my inbox. A few junk mails from HR saying road safety week dated so and so, free PUC (that green slip thing that you need to have for your vehicle otherwise the pandu screws you) camp, and how to drive safely in Pune roads etc etc. All crap basically, I deleted them at once. Then I had this brilliant idea I gotta set the outlook filter on HR mails, direct to the junk they will go then, and automatically purged after fifteen days. Great way to get rid of the nuisance!

  I noticed there was this girl sitting next to me, she was wearing those big plastic bangles right from wrist up to her knee, not knee, I mean, up to her umm... ankles. She reminded me of an ethnic Rajasthani woman, tall, wearing a ghagra-choli, and big white bangles, and holding a plate in her hands, striking gently with a wooden hammer - the drama when a boy is born.

  The girl was reading a pdf, I squinted my eyes hard in order to look over what she was reading, bad manners indeed, anyway, so I read - three table spoon of Dhania, one bowl of Suji – hey, I said to myself, it looked like a recipe, a recipe of making that yellow spongy thing, I couldn’t recall that name. I was trying so hard that she sensed that I was looking over, and there you go in a flash she quickly pressed the alt-tab, voila, it was now java, multithreading, and blah blah. I had a laugh riot inside my head, the only casualty was my sanity. Ha ha! that was some cover. Dhokla, yeah, that was the thing, Dhokla and java, ha ha! cannot mix together.

  One hour passed and I called Sanju, and told him that I am leaving by 07:15 bus, I was bored enough already. It took me about an hour or so to reach Wanowrie from office, so much traffic, so much chaos, a thought about attending traffic week crossed my mind, I sighed, an hour, phew what a waste of time.

  #

  The next day, my third day to be precise I decided to pay a little visit to the manager. I went straight to fourteen but there was nobody there in his seat, so I took breakfast and wasted some time and came back around 09:30, but still nobody. And so I went off and wasted even more time and back at 11, and finally there he was stooped over the laptop.

  He told me without even looking at me that he was busy and I should come by later, I said okay and turned to leave. But then a thought crossed my mind, what was he so busy about that he doesn't even have time to talk, I took the liberty to sneak a peak at his monitor, I saw some wavelets like sine and cosine waves, going up and down randomly on a graph. I immediately sensed that this was icici-direct he was 'working' on. Damn it, Vizag or Pune, all the managers were same.

  I took a tour of the building, climbing up other floors; basically they all looked the same, closed doors, a guard sitting outside with a register and a pen in his hand. On fourth floor I noticed a bunch of chairs around a round table and some newspaper lying around, I sat down and started to read. Since main paper didn’t interest me, I picked up the more interesting Pune Mirror and started reading, the headline was a techie had made a mobile app to calculate auto fares, all you have to do is type in the meter reading and the conversion rate, rest of the job it does for you. I felt it was incredibly smart, both the guy’s app and the crappy journalism.

  After some time I went again to him, irritated he told me to go and find a place for myself, wherever I can find an empty space, finder’s keepers, I looked around the floor, cubicle by cubicle I began scanning, I noticed there were five people sitting in one cubicle, five goddamn people, instead of the usual four, it seemed that like in our country there was a population problem here as well.

  I found a seat, finally, but the only problem was that it was a scanner seat, meaning it was located in a dull corner and had a scanner attached, people came there to scan their high school certificates, which they needed to apply for higher education. Perfect use of company time and resources!

  “Whatever!” I said, and grabbed the chair, I opened the firefox, and installed the stumble-upon plug-in and began surfing, after all I had to save myself from boredom. And so I stumbled upon on one site to other and an hour or two passed and on the web I learned some really useful stuff like different ways to piss off at the neighbor’s yard from the confines of your own yard, hundred things to do to irritate people while you are in a lift, how to talk in a robotic voice in seven different languages and yeah interestingly how to get to know more about the girl of your dreams without letting her know.

  All that time I was studying and learning, few people passed by my table, and gave me a really bad stare like they were gonna eat me or something. I don’t know what started it but I started to have that eerie feeling, I felt like an orphan in the city and in the company of tens of thousands people. Sanju was super busy, so couldn't talk to him, Arnav's manager was in today and so he had to cover yesterday's ground as well, so he was off limits too, I didn't even think about talking to Neeta, she was off my list already, and besides them I didn’t know anyone. I had to do something, I had to make friends, quick.<
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  And so, finally I mustered up the courage and drew my cell phone out, got to talk to Ishika, I didn’t even tell her that I was coming to Pune. But then how could I? She cut herself off and set herself away from me. I looked for her number in the directory but it was not there. And so I thought about calling Ashutosh, he must have his number, although he had persistently denied that in the past, I got to take him in confidence and convince him – so I started thinking like what was his thing, his vice – that’d break him.

  In the evening when Sanju and I were taking a stroll through the colony road, I called Ashutosh who once again refused to co-operate. I was frustrated-ly infuriated but Sanju took my mind off, he asked me what that book I was writing was about. I really had no idea so I just made something up, I told him it’s going to be a very simple story and yet very bizarre something that would mystify people for years and years to come, something which defines a generation, a new wave, thought provoking, baffling, each time you look at it you’d see something new. And while I was talking I painted in the air with my hands, with each stroke I brought to life a character of my story, with each splash of the color their lives, there worlds were created, with each rub of pencil sadness and happiness were chalked on their faces, and so they’d continue to live with their mundane existence.

  I would have gone on and on creating every inch of the details of this world if not for the call that I received from an unknown number "Hello…" the sweet, serene voice said on the other end. She was calm, and I was cool too. Sanju asked me, why I was shaking. “No, I am not” my trembling lips replied. There was silence on the both sides before she spoke again, “Hello”

  Her beautiful face re-appeared across my eyes, she was laughing, she was running away from me with her long flowing black hair swinging sideways. I was running toward her, a sun glowed brightly behind her and I saw her only in flashes, appearing disappearing with rays of light. She had broken the silence after such a long time. I immediately knew my purpose, why I was in Pune, there was no doubt about it anymore.

  “We have to meet” I declared, there was no time for chit-chat.

  "How about we have a lunch tomorrow?" I asked her.

  "Lunch?" she said, "What are you saying?" She said, her voice clearly confused. My god she didn’t know I was in Pune.

  "I am in Pune, Ishika, don’t you know?" There was a silence on the line for a minute, neither of us spoke. I thought, she thought I was joking.

  "I got here on Sunday night"

  And then followed a spate of complaints, "You didn’t even bother tell me, you were coming" "You leave as you please, you come as you please? Do I really matter to you?”

  "I wanted to surprise you" I tried to make up. But I knew it wasn’t the truth. I should have said – “she wouldn’t care less”. She never answered my messenger pings or to my constant emails. She distanced herself from me, and now she wanted me to inform her? She must be crazy.

  "You know you succeeded, I am surprised, such an important thing and you didn’t feel like telling me" She sounded really agitated. I decided to ask her again, "How about a lunch tomorrow, I'll come to phase-2"

  "I wouldn’t be able to I am super busy" She said "Rain check? I’ll give you a call" and she cut the phone. It was not a complete loss at least I had her number now, I looked at the number it was a land line. I called back on it but it was picked by the company reception, she was calling from the office. I was confused, just as you must be right now, I felt angst and despair of a hopeless man.

  I Begin

  I wouldn't like to drag you in an emotional melodrama but my father did suggest me to join our family business which is the general store that he opened after his retirement from the accountant job he held in the local degree college. He joked that my math was only good enough for the job but not for a job. On the other hand my aunt didn't suggest or request anything but insisted and even cried when I didn't bulge. I was determined I had to start a new life, a life which involved no involvement of my father. So, to tell you the back story in a back story I completed graduation like an average surviving struggling Joe from an average school with just enough grades to keep me in the hunt for a job.

  I shifted from open fields of Haldwani to the narrow lanes of Delhi, being a fresh graduate and unemployed was probably the worst job in the world. I remember, it was a pretty nasty summer the mercury was about to break out of the thermometer. The guy who used to skip showers even when going to college was now forced to shower twice a day, what a heat the earth was boiling, as if earth’s core had come upto earth’s crust.

  As I stood at a local bus stand near the corporate Noida, I saw bunch of people walking by wearing a elegant tie on a full sleeves shirt, a side leather bag in their hands, and an id-card hanging around their neck. This is what I wanted to be - a proud employee, a bread earner, a working class hero.

  The frustration was getting on to me, I couldn’t take this bare heat anymore, I was having difficult time finding a job. There wasn’t anything that I did not do, I networked furiously everyone in my college alumnus knew me by the irritating guy who keeps them calling.

  Meanwhile something completely unexpected happened - I found this guy called Himanshu, we were travelling in the same bus to Gurgaon from Haldwani, so I called him up. I remembered he had told me that his cousin worked in some blah blah software firm, I told him that I was coming to meet him at his Gurgaon office address. It was cloudy and overcast but I had decided I’d go. After beating traffic and crushing crowd in the DTC buses I finally reached his place, only to find that he was not there. He left little early the guy from his office told me, I was disappointed, but not angry, fate had something else in store for me. It started to drizzle when I began to walk back, I was standing on the highway, looking ahead, waiting for the bus to come, but it was only the rain which was coming.

  A thirty something guy was walking by holding his handbag over his head and I don’t know why but couple of guys around the street started pushing him, the guy was big and all but scared as hell, maybe they had an old animosity. I was standing under a shed of a motor shop, something just possessed me, believe me I had been a real coward all my life, but at that instant some kind of energy just filled me in, involuntarily I picked one of the big mechanic wrench and walked toward them, my face was so stern as I would kill them. The two guys backed off a little when they saw me, and then they just said something to the guy and left. I watched him pick up his bag, he came over to me and thanked, I was not interested in knowing what those goons wanted and neither did he had any interest to explain me, he thanked me wholeheartedly and gave me his card and left.

  Out of my habit to call people I called him the very next evening, it turned out he was on a business trip, and he was as my luck turned out on a recruiting mission for his firm, they were visiting campuses he told me. When I told him that I was looking for a job he promised me that he’d do something to help me, I was little disappointed to hear that frankly, come on the guy was on recruitment trip and I was a candidate - a life saving candidate. I expected him to do much more than just an empty promise, I forgot about him as soon as I put down the phone, and moved to the next person on my list. But only a week later I got an email from a software firm – hold on your breath – yes the mighty Corporation. I had cracked it - I was invited for a written test coming Sunday.

  I studied like hell for a week, I bought books to sharpen my aptitude, I prepared for the written test which was a sort of screening for the interview. The math made me feel like hammers hitting on my head from inside. English was torture and all more confusing to a non-native and non-convent school goer.

  Finally, the Dday arrived and I went to this school feeling all blue, and my worries increased many fold when I saw a huge huge crowd - a sea of people. All this people are here to take the exam? and here I thought I was someone special, the spell was broken.

  Anyway so I took the exam it was not that bad, I was prepared, I did like eight out of ten question
correctly while I attempted the other two questions anyway. After aptitude test there was a test for English, which I was done in like half an hour, I submitted my test and walked away.

  I slept under a tree on the big playground while I waited for the result; the result had to be announced in the evening. The noise woke me up, I checked my watch it was six-thirty already, I went to the boards that were put near the main gate of the school, I waited for people to leave. I went in when the crowd thinned out, some were crying, some were joyous, I checked the first board and then moved on to the second and then to the third, there in the third one my name was there somewhere around the bottom. I had got in, I was not sure what to feel, and how to react, I was standing numb. That night when I went back to my room, I couldn’t sleep much.

  No wonder only one percent of the candidates were selected from the written test which were then interviewed. A week passed but there was no mail for the invitation to interview, ten days passed and the misery continued. It was nothing unusual I thought and I resumed my daily routine to go to the companies knocking at their door and distributing my resume like fliers of a tele-brand.

  But as the luck had it the Lord Ganesha was on my side and my interview was scheduled in some place in Delhi, it was some cultural center in probably some diplomatic posh-est part of the city. It was bit difficult to locate the place when all the lanes looked exactly the same and there were no markers, I had to cover all the distance on feet.

  After an hour of circling around I finally reached the center, it looked like a tall building four-five storied. I still had plenty of time before I was scheduled. I was hell nervous and badly wanted to get rid of the butterflies. And what could possibly be better than to smoke it out? I had earlier spotted a cigarette shop round the corner.