Hi Friends,

Since my official mail id is blocked for not finishing my goal settings and my client mail id is showing some syntax error(!) when I accessed it via webmail, I am sending this farewell mail from my gmail account.

As most of you don't know, writing is second favorite hobby after day dreaming. So, this is going to be a long mail and if you don't have enough time to go through the complete mail, you can simply skip to the last paragraph. I won't take it as rude :)

21st August, 2012.. Monday morning..7.00 AM.. As usual the bus I came from Coimbatore is late enough to skip my small morning nap and not enough to skip the morning session in office.. 8.00 AM.. I plugged my laptop and mobile to the broadband and checked all my social connections like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Gmail, Zedge, Google Play updates, Whatsapp, etc… 9.00 AM.. power gone.. I started to get ready for the office.. 9.30 PM.. Started from home and got struck in the traffic jam of Kuduvancheri.. 10.15 AM.. Reached office and went to my cubicle hoping that Kayal won't have noticed my absence till now.. 11.00 AM.. I started writing this mail which would turn this usual day of mine to an unusual day which I will remember to the rest of my life.

Whenever some one ask me what is my favorite past time either in Infosys or my whole life, I always say that it was my internship time in Mysore DC. I will never forget the pleasant days I had inside the campus during week days and the places We used to roam in and out of Mysore during the weekend days. Most of my college friends were with me all this time even after my college days were over and I have never felt alone. My Friends, You are the best thing ever happened to me in my life! ( Till now I'm Single; So I can say it frankly without expecting any after effects :P )

But it doesn't mean that I had hard moments after I left Mysore and joined here in Chennai. I was in bench here also for three or four months and got into an very easy project (comparatively with other projects in my apple ODC) and an easy part in it with just java, xml and sql. But I wouldn't say it was just a cakewalk for me; For many days when I switch on my mac system, I would be praying to god that my project should be running properly without any error.

******(Sorry.. Confidential !) ! This name will certainly send a chillness through my spine whenever I hear it, because most of the time it won't be working and I would be spending half of my 9.15 hours explaining others that it is not because of my code. But it doesn't mean that my code was always right and never caused a problem. I have certainly crashed the whole client server few times and after a thorough self analysis I found that the reason is, I can't concentrate on coding after the sun sets. So if you have found me always leaving early from office, This is the reason. I didn't want to make things more complicated than it was already!

And If you think I always come late to office, I have a reason for that too. During my initial days I used to come very early in the morning and leave after 7 pm only; Not because of project work, of course. Because I would be using the laundromat in the morning time and had french classes in the evening. I was sitting near Mehar that time, and If you have any doubts about how active I was, you can ask her. But later the laundromat was closed and I couldn't continue my french classes due to some evening calls I had to attend that time. But I would be always thankful to Infosys for these two things. Because without these two, I would have never able to check the top speed of my bike in early morning rides and approach a french girl in Pondicherry confidently and ask " Bonjour ! je m'appelle Tamilnambi ! vous vous appelez comment ?" (Don't get jealous.. I don't know anything else in French! )

And other question I was asked is, When I wear contact lenses and is there a pattern in it. The answer is Yes. Whenever I feel energetic, very eager to wake up early and come to office, that day I would be wearing the contact lens. If you found me wearing those, then that means I was very happy that day. Now you can calculate how many days you have seen me in specs and in contact lens.

And the final question, Why do I always busy with my mobile. Well, the answer is not because I have a girl friend; but I have a huge friends circle Whom I always keep in touch via Twitter and whatsapp. Even if I don't post anything, I love to read their posts and what they are discussing in group chats. And I love to try new mobile games and social networking apps too.

Now to thanking session. Mainly I want to thank three gangs of people.

First, My project mates: Anish, Maha, Raji, Vinoth, Malar, Raja and Vinodha; Thanks for making my work environment a pleasant one. Without you guys I can't even imagine how I would have worked here.(It doesn't mean all other people in my ODC are cruel !)

Then My lunch gang: TK, Kitty, Bannu, Renil, Pavi, Rash, Parthi, Sindhu, Indu, Suman and Sandy; You guys are the reason why I never felt homesick till now. You guys were always with me since my college days, training days and the working days here. I hope we will have time in future also to meet at least one day in a year and have lunch together.

Then to my evening tea and snacks time gang: I think I have spent most of the time in your cubicles than mine. Thanks for always having an extra chair in your cubicles for me. And let me clarify you now also, that the last four in the APL Season 1 was just an accident :P I am like Sharukh Khan in 'Chak De India' and I will definitely return one day for a rematch with you guys :)

Then last but not least, to my PM, Kayal, for giving all the freedom. Without you, I wouldn't even get the confidence to write this long mail. It would have been simply "Thanks for everything" :)

And Finally to Infosys, For turning me from one Indian in 1.21 billion to one Infoscion in 1.5 lakh.

If I have missed you in the thanks section or didn't send this mail to you and you are reading this in your neighbor's screen, it doesn't mean I ignored you; I just wanted to share the happy news of me getting my dream job later than I am resigning this job now.

If you want to know more about my experience here in Infy, You can check my blog. I already posted a couple of posts and I wish to continue it since it would be helpful for my 'essay writing' paper also. And you can contact me in my mobile no whenever you want and I assure you I won't change my no ever, since that's the first unique id I have ever got. You can follow me in Twitter; I'm a big addict of Twitter and I will be online there nearly 24x7. You can send your friend requests also to my Facebook id, I won't have any issues in accepting it since all of you are my ex colleagues now ;)

In a brief note, If you have no idea why I suddenly send this mail to you today and thanking all, The reason is I left my job in Infosys yesterday and going to start preparing for Civil Service Exams from tomorrow and today I thank all of my friends and colleagues (that is you!) for the wonderful time you shared with me.

My usual Sundays have three things in common. Waking up late, watching tv till midnight and having home made Chicken Biryani for lunch. Without any one of these, it would never feel like a Sunday for me. Chicken Biryani ! The most colorful and delicious food item I have ever eaten ! It has all the spices I know. The foreigners who came to India (long before the British and the other Europeans, like Mughals, Turks,etc ) left us many important things which nearly became an identity for us now. Few examples can be Architecture, Literature, Food,etc.,. Even though I studied that all the spices were imported from ancient India to other countries, I don't know how we didn't come up with this delicious spicy food item and Muslims in middle east found it. Initially I wanted to write this blog post about Biryani in general. But after I started my research for this blog post in net, I realized that I will need more than a blog post to cover all of it. May be a separate blog will be sufficient for that !

So I take my most favorite dish from this Biryani category and will share some interesting things I came across my reading. When I say Chicken Biryani, one particular variety of this dish will come to most of the people's mind. That is 'Hyderabadi Chicken Biryani'. But do you know that there are two kind of Chicken Biryani in Hyderabad ? They are called 'Kachchi Biryani' and 'Pakki Biryani'. In the first type, the meat is marinated with the spices overnight and in the latter one it's marinated for only a short time. There are also other kinds of Chicken Biryani available all around the world. Few of those are,

Iraniyan Biryani called 'Biryani Pilaf'
Iraqi Biryani called 'Al Biryani'
Bhatkali Biryani (from Coastal Karantaka)
Kachchi Biryani (from Kutch region)
Lucknowi Biryani called Awadhi or Pukka
Calcutta Biryani
Sindhi Biryani (from Pakistan)
Memoni Biryani (from Karachi)
Kozhikode Biryani (from Kerala)
Danbauk Biryani (from Myanmar)
Thai Biryani (from Thailand)
Srilankan Biryani (from Sri Lanka)
Nari Berinani (from Malaysia)
Filiphino Berinani (from Philippine)

The list doesn't stop here. It is said, that during the Nawab period in Hyderabad, the cooks used to make 49 different kinds of Biryani. Till my school days, I knew only two kind. One is 'home made' and another one is 'hotel made' ! And the difference between those is 'home made' is unlimited; and 'hotel made' is limited to a small plate with only one leg piece and an boiled egg.

But after I came to Mysore for my internship, my knowledge about Chicken Biryani has increased more. And now I can slightly differentiate the different Biryani kinds also. For sample, If you take the Magna food court here, It has two Chicken Biryani providers. 'Madhuram' in one side and 'Pathankot' on the another side. As the names suggest, you can get southern style Biryani in the first one and northern style in the second one. Both are my favorite and each has its plus points. Madhuram's plus point would be, you can get two leg pieces per plate. And whenever I get the Biryani here, my mind will automatically go to a calculation of how many plates of Biryani they would sell each day and how many chickens would have used that day.( I have also wondered how they are getting the chicken every day, because I have never seen a meat van inside the campus during my whole stay of three months.) And the plus point of Pathankot would be it's gravy and the breast piece you get with the Biryani.

But my most favorite place for Chicken Biryani is Amoeba food court. Here the Biryani has rich masala which makes it more spicy and yummy. Also this place have introduced me to more varieties of Chicken Biryani than I have ever came across outside. The few of the Chicken Biryani available here are Hyderabadi Chicken Biryani, Chicken Dum Biryani, Chicken Palak Biryani, Chicken Onion Biryani and Sindi Biryani. Even though I could find only minor differences in these dishes, all of these are my favorite and each of it has its own taste which I won't forget for the rest of my life.

And when I think of Chicken Biryani, my thoughts are not only about the taste, but it's also about  few of my favorite movie scenes. The first one would be from 'Cheeni Kum' where Amitabh Bachchan praises Tabu's Hyderabadi Zafrani Pulav thinking that it's from his hotel's kitchen. The argument would be about a small thing that the sweetness in the Biryani is less. But as a food lover and movie lover I could feel both the sweetness in this scene.

The next one would be from 'Rab ne Bandi Jodi' where Shahrukh Khan comes home after a successful Golgappa  competition with Anushka Sharma and finds out that she also cooked Chicken Biryani for him to celebrate her success in dance competition. He will try to eat all of the Chicken Biryani by himself so that Anushka won't feel bad and also not find out that he's her dance companion. This was one of my favorite scenes in this film since it has both my favorite Chicken Biryani and Sharukh Khan in it. 'A One Ji !'.

Last but not least, this dish also reminds me of Altimate Star Ajith Kumar ! Yes, from the tweets of Venkat Prabhu , I came to know that during the shooting of 'Mankatha' they used to have 'Thala Biryani' which was cooked by Ajith himself ! And one of the co actor in this film, Vybhav said in an interview that when he refused to have Biryani since he was on a diet, Ajith took him inside his caravan and made some other dishes for him which has less oil. This shows his humility and also his passion in cooking and sharing that with others.

Thala Biryani

So, when I eat Chicken Biryani, I don't feel only the spices in that plate but also all these spicy thoughts inside my head. It improves my mood and makes me feel light and happy. Hope you also have a favorite dish like this and have some interesting history and lovely thoughts behind it just like mine.

Post Script: When I went to home last week, I had a unique Biryani from my mom. I named it as 'Beans Chicken Biryani' since it had more beans than chicken in it. Even though my mom argued that she mistakenly put the beans in Biryani, I still don't understand how she mistook Biryani for Sambhar !

Pre Script : This blog post was written on 18th Aug, 2011 when I was an intern in Mysore.

After a week of just 'swipe in' in the morning and 'swipe out' in the evening, i was totally bored and little depressed with my monotonous life. So when my friends asked me whether I would like to come out to visit few of the temples nearby, on Varalakshmi festival day, I literally jumped into the opportunity. So after our office hours, we took a bus to Vontikoppal. After entering into the temple's sanctum ( karuvarai ), I realized something which was a shock and also a surprise to me. I didn't know what to ask from god !

   Before I explain more about this episode, I should give you some recap about my belief or view about god. For that, I have to give you a small intro to my parents views also. My mom is a very devoted devotee to all the gods in Hindu religion. Daily early morning, she visits the Vinayagar temple near my home and after that she does some poojas in our pooja room also. She also fasts on every Thursday mornings,New moon(Amavasai),Full moon(Pournami), etc etc. Since my dad was working in a different city during my childhood, I spent most of the time in temples with my mom than in playgrounds with my friends. She never runs out of requests to put before god. As per her view, everything happens because of god only. A few examples could be How she got her job, How she and my dad met, How I was born, How my dad got transfer,etc,. Each one of these has a long story behind it and i will probably explain more about these in my future blog posts or in my autobiography !

When coming to my dad, he's totally opposite to my mom. The only reason for him to visit a temple would be either the famous sculptures or the prasadams of that temple. He's always interested in some of the 'isms' like Marxism, Communism, Capitalism,etc,. So when I'm not in a temple with my mom, I would be probably in some meeting with my dad which would be about one of these 'isms' i mentioned above. So during my childhood, my every summer trip's main goal would be either covering all the temples in that area or to attend a meeting there or both.

So after all these confusions in my childhood, I decided that my view on god would be " May be he is there somewhere, Or may he is not !". And I have no hope that I will come to a conclusion and change my view in my life time. So, like a typical human being, When I am happy I don't care whether god is there or not. But when I'm in trouble (Most of the troubles I faced till now are something like, going to school without doing homework or not performing well in the class tests,etc only), I beg for god's help and then show my anger on him when he doesn't provide much help. Next time my prayer will start with an apologize note for my previous insults.

And when it comes to the wishes, I never had problems because most of the time my mom would be there to suggest something. It was a long list and these are the few I can remember now,

'My dad should get transfer...'
'My parents should get their salary increments in time...'
'My parents should get their GPA,PF,etc...'
'My dad should complete his Ph.D successfully...'
'My mom should complete his Ph.D successfully...'

Obviously these are from my mom's side; My wishes were differed like these when i grow up..

School:
'I should get first rank in class...'
'I should get more that 450/500 in 10th...'
'I should get more than 1100/1200 in 12th...'
'I should get a good college in counselling...'
’I should get C.Sc department in that good college…’

College:
'I should get more than 6.0 CGPA...'
'I should pass in all subjects...'
'I should not get any arrears...'
'I should get a job in campus interview itself...'

So, after getting most of my wishes in my life, here I am with a good job in a good company. And also in a place where I'm not sure what I want next ! When I do a brainstorming session inside my brain, these are the wishes I could think of.

Should I ask for a salary increment ?
Last month I got only a few thousands in my bank account as stipend for being an intern and this month I will get double than that as a trainee and next month I will get a few more thousands increment as an employee. So naturally I'm getting salary increment every month. Moreover after seeing the quarterly report of my company, I should be thankful to them for not revoking my job offer, before I ask for an another salary hike.

Should I ask for promotion ?
I haven't even finished my first month in this company; still I'm in my training place to know my production unit and the posting place. And life is not a song comes in Tamil films, where you can reach the top position from bottom within 5 minutes. So I should wait for a long term for this too.

Should I ask for an onsite opportunity ?

Even though I was not confident of my English before, my successful speech and 85% marks in Professional Skills Development has increased my confidence now. But asking for an onsite opportunity as soon as I joined in the company doesn’t feel right. I feel that I have to prove myself in offshore before expect an onsite opportunity.

Should I ask for a new car ?

If my dream car is a Tata Nano or Maruti 800, it would seem fair. But unfortunately, as a fan of James Bond and Transporter films, My dream car is a BMW; or an Audi. I know it’s a very big dream for me. So I have a backup dream car also; It’s a Skoda. After doing a rough calculation,

If I save my salary for 3.5 years without spending even a penny, I will achieve my Skoda dream. So if I ask for a BMW or an Audi to god, he will directly appear before me and ask, “Unaake ithu too mucha theriya ?!!” ( if he is there somewhere !)

Should I ask for a mobile ?

I bought my Nokia X6 last September after a huge fight and two days fasting against my parents. So when I put my idea of buying a Samsung Galaxy S II from my first month salary, My mom started a non stopping lecture (she’s a lecturer in a Govt. Arts College; So giving this kind of lectures is not new to her ), about how we should save our money and reduce our expenses from our first month salary itself. After hearing this lecture for nearly an hour, I even started questioning myself whether I really need a new mobile; But, as soon as the 30 second ad of S II comes in the tv again, I totally forgot this one hour lecture (power of advertising ! ). So asking for a mobile, would be like asking for a 10 million bumper prize in lottery even without buying a single lottery ticket.

Finally, Should I ask for a girlfriend ?

First of all, asking for a girlfriend to god won’t be appropriate. He’s not a marriage broker or a host of some dating website who can help me to hitch with someone. But if I convince myself that he won’t feel bad about it, and willing to help me in this, I’m not sure whether having a girlfriend is a boon or a bane. When I see my friends who are committed or who believes that they are committed, they seems very happy with the all cozy moments in food courts and the ‘kai veesamma kai veesu’ walking they do 24x7 inside the campus which is longer than even the security guards who are on duty. It looks very exciting from a particular distant; but totally opposite from near. If they spend 10 hours of the day speaking in mobile, then the other 14 hours spent on messaging. Also the boys have their other duties like following their girlfriends like a bodyguard where ever they go, recharging for their mobile even though most of the time you will get only missed call from them,etc,. Some of these committed people may argue that there’s a happiness in all these. Even if something like that is in all of these, I’m not sure whether I’m ready to live another person’s life also with mine now.

So after thinking about all of these for a long time, I came to a decision. Next time I go to a temple, first I’m going to thank the god for giving me this good job and also add that I would be more thankful If he clears my mind to see what do I want next in my life !