(This is the story behind the reference to tea in this earlier chapter of the memoirs.) The phone rang as I started shutting the front door behind me. In one of those momentous decisions that define history I overrode my initial inclination to continue on my way out and stepped back in and picked…
Science fairs for high schoolers were an annual affair. A large area with a perimeter of school stalls showing off hand-made experiments with charts on the walls, manned by eager young scientists, also contained a refreshment area. It was great place to meet students from other schools. I stood there chatting with a…
Ashok found Meena fascinating. She, Meena, liked Jethro Tull. Ashok’s tastes were more Donna Summer’s gasping, moaning, sex-drenched disco. But Meena was friendly, liked Ashok’s company and a movie or two together ensued. One day, I was asked if I wanted to accompany them, in my usual role of chaperone for the Other…
Things went back to normal after An Inauspicious Start. Of course, normal was the new normal which wasn't quite the same normal as the previous normal. Progressing pregnancy dulled the pain of financial doom. Sometime in the 3rd month we had signed up for a 5-day package at Woodlands Nursing Home in Alipore.…
Shortly after the "Hello World" episode, the startup shutdown. Cast into the wilderness, not yet 27 years of age, boasting a pregnant wife and mounting debt caused by 3 months of no pay, I drifted out of the corporate world. Disillusioned by the posturing, the politics, burned out from nearly 5 years of…
Read Part 1 Read Part 2 "Well, I'll be damned!", I said. "This looks just like a GW-Basic Interpreter. Where the hell did you find this?" "Well...", he started. "Never mind, everyone go away and leave me alone. I need to think." I waved everyone away. On my table in those days always…
Read Part 1 No, you're wrong. It wasn't my COBOL code, or my system design skills. The floppies were not corrupted, I could see the data outside my code with tools I had. As more boxes were delivered, I went down to ask for tea and a conference with the accountants. I took…
In the spring of 1987, I was lured away from my employer, a fast-growing, much respected Indian IT company by a startup. They offered double the salary, nice. A department to run, nice. A chance to put my reputation as a crazy, wacky and arrogant solver of weird problems on the line and…
About a year after the wedding, my wife and I moved to a small flat, (apartment, if American). The area of Calcutta known as Lake Gardens sounds delightful. In reality the lake was man made, access to the area was via a congested level crossing of a busy commuter line or a massive…
Sometime in the past, we had listed a series of things we could chat about and we asked our faithful, feckless, faceless and fearless readers to vote on them. And no one voted for Fish. And none of the regular contributors to this blog (!) could remember what the hell the intent was.…