Mumbai Slice -- Boy meets Devil

Jan 2nd week.

Dont ask me the date. I do not remember. But this day almost set the course of my future. Some other people are there to shape your future. They even tend to shape what you are now, the way you think, the way you would respond to situations, even your habits. So why Boy meets Devil? well this is the day I met the first "fallen" Angel of my life. Why would I call him Devil? well he is no saint, n he is the Devil incarnate, or thats what he believes himself to be. Who is this? He is none other than Kamal "the Kam" Chandran.

If it was not that day, I might never have been close to this chap. I was a C / Unix person. Had never bothered to learn Java and now working on Servlets! Thats TCS for you! The philosophy? You dont know anything in a particular tech, go work on it, you will be forced to learn. Basically, you dont know swimming? go swim in rough seas. I was struggling on the piece of code given to me for fixing. This piece of shit ... I mean the piece of code, was written by some lead as a Six Sigma project of the Big boss of the client of TCS. The person was on a hurry to leave the company and left his estranged and sick baby with me. I was supposed to make this baby walk ! Fine. I am ready.I had no idea, what was in store for me. Request, Response, JDBC connections, Arraylists, Maps ..... pooh! and I thought, I dint know Java :)

I was grimacing, fretting and pulling my hair. It was about 2:00 AM and was thinking of going home. Out of somewhere, comes the devil ... and blurts out "Wht Aare Uu doin?" I raised my head up ... frankly... irritated at a sudden invasion of privacy. I saw a dark ... ultra slim chap, glasses with a no -nonsense expression . He oozed confidence and commanded respect. I could not help but whine about the project I was working on. He told me he was sitting in the office to study !!! Was he out of his mind? I thought. But that gave me a sliver of hope, Could I ask this guy to help me out of my perilous situation? The answer was... he was god sent for me. This guy a hardcore techie, a person who would rattle the working of a servlet and JDBC in a jiffy. Man! he was good. He goes through the code, every line was like walking on hot coal. He was scolding my login every line and I like a obedient student was wagging my head, understanding something and the rest bouncing over my head. But then he made the code work. It really worked!!! the baby really walked :)

Then came the sermon time. I dont remember every word, but then it has been etched into me. The essence of his lecture. I remember him talking about sincerity, devotion to work, to be the best techie around. He also talked about how the a person in his first 2-3 years should stay late, study to make himself indispensable. I must admit that 1 hour after the code worked, changed my life. whatever I am, is due to that 1 day. It was about 4 in the morning, when I left for the day. Tired but happy, content of learning something. Boy met devil, his teacher :)