On Monday, when I met some students who evaluated our product, I wondered what made them stand out from the rest of the graduates in the field. And I found one answer in what they were doing at that moment: interacting with people in the industry. Industry exposure is an area Indian universities need to focus more on.

On Tuesday, a day that ended on a sad note, I learned of Leela’s sister’s unfortunate condition. Tragic and extraordinary. Tragic not just because of the sudden turn of events for the worse – how one’s life can change in so short a time! – but also because of the manner in which Preeti first contracted her illness. And extraordinary because of the strength and resolve that comes across in an account written under those circumstances. I was reminded of one of Leela’s older posts where, recounting the remarkable attitude of her friend Ro, she wrote: “People with the real problems are busy counting their blessings.” Those words were in response to someone else living through a difficult time; now Leela, passing through a very difficult phase herself, shows no trace of self-pity – instead she is counting her blessings, seeing beauty in human compassion, expressing gratitude towards all her well-wishers. Remarkable, in every way.

On Wednesday, while waiting for the dentist to come and fill the cavity she had cleaned a little while ago, I thought of how her daily work consisted of helping patients – her customers – by solving their problems. Over a career spanning a few decades, this is what a dentist does: solve problems, day-in day-out. And how different we in the software industry are, where the general tendency – among developers in product-based companies – is to create products and (preferably) leave the problem-solving part (labelled “maintenance”, as if it were inferior to “development” of new products) to someone else. Another difference: being a dentist implies independent work throughout (where growth is defined in terms of the number of customers you serve, and the depth of your expertise in your area of specialization), while working in a software company implies working in a organizational hierarchy (where growth is linked to your position in the hierarchy, so you would rather climb up the hierarchy than specialize, a tendency that results in most programmers nurturing dreams of becoming a manager). I then wondered to what extent these attributes – like “independent contributor Vs player-in-a-hierarchy”, which are closely linked to one’s personality – are considered by someone deciding on a profession. At least, I never thought of such aspects back then.

On Thursday, when I was finding it hard to concentrate in the afternoon, I was reminded again of how the language barrier can at times act as a shield. An year ago I could work undisturbed sitting in the midst of a few German colleagues arguing passionately over a technical matter: the background noise made little sense unless I concentrated, and I was shielded by my lack of understanding of the spoken language. Now-a-days, as the barrier gets smaller each passing week, I can no longer easily summon the weapon I earlier possessed: sentences spoken within earshot make sense and trigger a reaction, and it takes a effort not to listen, not to get disturbed.

On Friday, while watching Swades again on DVD, I was struck by the distinctive character portraits, a feature it shared with Lagaan. And to me, at that moment, those portraits seemed to convey that there is always a place for everyone, true to one’s nature, and how important the place is depends on which world you view the place in, on whose story you view the character in. The postmaster who wants to bring Internet to the village, the dhaba-wallah who wants to open a dhaba next to a freeway in the US, the colleague at NASA who works on a complex project involving satellites – all have their unique places within the story. Their role may be small, but that is only because the movie is Mohan’s story. Had it been the story of the postmaster, his role would have been magnified. Find your unique place, the movie seemed to tell me, and don’t lose sight of whose story you view yourself in.

It was a damp, cloudy morning; traces of overnight rain were visible on the street and car windshields. The neighbourhood green had turned glossy, and all this morning freshness made it seem, for a moment, like Kerala. I picked up the newspaper from the letterbox and returned inside.

Few things can match the leisure that seeps in as you settle down on a Saturday morning with the weekend newspapers on your lap. While weekday papers are full of news that ring with a tone of immediacy, pages of the weekend edition – with essays on art, culture and society – convey a quality of slowness and relaxation, as if in writing these pieces journalists were taking a break from their regular news-articles. You would not notice the difference if you hadn’t read the weekday editions; a weekend acquires its quality of leisure from the busy week gone past.

After breakfast – toast with cheese and tomato slices, and grape juice – I drove to MacroMarkt, a nearby super-market. I had to collect a few digital photo prints ordered some weeks back, and since this was my first attempt at using this channel (of uploading photos to their website, and later collecting prints from the store), I approached an attendant. He was an old, bespectacled man with a shock of white hair, and the warmth in his “Was kann ich für sie tun?” made me forget for an instant that he probably repeated this line a few dozen times each day. I asked where I could collect my prints. He appeared surprised, and replied that photos from film-rolls were all kept “hier” – he took me to the section – but added he wasn’t sure if this was what I was looking for. I thanked him, and after a small search found my prints. When I crossed him on my way out of the section, he wanted to look at my envelope. He then read aloud the letters “Online print 10er Format” and smiled, nodding to himself, perhaps happy he had learned something new this day.

The drive to Heidelberg reminded me – yet again – of how rapidly Spring had covered all traces of Winter; it seemed difficult to believe that this green landscape was snow-white only a few weeks back. Does Spring lie hidden in the earth, waiting to burst forth? Or does Winter, tired of making nature shiver, recede on its own accord? I had written of the sudden and beautiful transformation brought about by a snowfall; this changeover into green seems equally quick, and beautiful. How dull life would be without seasons.

The sun had slowly broken through the clouds, and I found Heidelberg wearing its best outfit: streets filled with locals and tourists in summer clothes; a lightness in the air; a spring in every step; gaiety all around. The charm of this city can never wear down.

At the library I returned my books – with a fine – and borrowed a couple more. I usually spend some time reading in the library, but on this day I wanted to be outdoors (one does not get many sunny weekends here). I walked over to the edge of the Neckar, and sat on one of the benches with a nice view of the river. There were some kids playing football on the stretch of green in front. Further ahead a group of canoe enthusiasts were preparing to enter the river. A pair of geese flew across a little above water, wings skimming the surface. A couple took photographs with the river as background. Cyclists, joggers and pedestrians crossed by, sometimes leaving snippets of their conversation behind:

“…auf der anderen seite…Neckar…”

“…I almost brought the roof down….”

“…ich weis nicht warum…”

I sat there for a while, enjoying the sun’s warmth on the back of my neck, reading and looking around. It was a lovely Saturday.

My dear wife Colours said goodbye to me yesterday. Don’t get it wrong – she was only leaving for the U.S, to visit her parents for a week. And if you are wondering if this has anything to do with the change in the template of this blog, you couldn’t be closer to the truth. The blog template reflects my present state – Colourless.

Last week I cancelled my subscription to the Fortune magazine. It was a tearful experience. The online cancellation form indicated that Fortune was sad to lose a customer like me, and asked for a reason for my cancellation. The reasons listed were the usual formal ones (couldn’t they think of something like “My dog doesn’t like the taste of the magazine” ?), and unable to find one that applied to me I chose “Other” and clicked the “Submit” button. They weren’t satisfied. The next page displayed a large box with a message that repeated their sentiments on losing a customer (They really regretted anything wrong they might have done to me, the message said) and invited me to write an essay on why I wished to cancel my subscription. I wrote, briefly, that my local library had recently subscribed to the magazine (which was a lie, of course; they had been getting the magazine all along), and clicked “Submit” again. This brought me to a page with another message that described how much they regretted breaking this relationship, and how much they would miss me. If I still wished to go ahead with my cancellation, the message said, I could press “Confirm”. I thought for a while – a few weak moments – and then, summoning all my determination, I clicked “Confirm”.

I slept little that night, thinking of a Fortune employee verifying if any library in my vicinity had recently subscribed to the magazine. I expected a mail next morning that informed how pleased Fortune was to revoke my cancellation since my reason had proved false. It’s been a week since cancellation, and I have received no such mail.

The real reason for my cancellation was hidden in a stack of old magazines I spent sifting through last weekend. Among them was an old copy of The New Yorker – dated June 2001 – purchased at an airport in the U.S. As I browsed through the magazine, reading some articles and looking at the cartoons, I realised how little of good journalism had come my way of late (my failing, of course) and how satisfying a few hours with The New Yorker would be, each weekend. The decision was made in that moment: Fortune out, The New Yorker in.

That copy of The New Yorker had an amusing “antidote to ‘The Elements of Style’ “. It began: “The reader of the fifth edition of ‘The Elements of Style’ will find many of the rules changed from the previous edition. The elementary principles have been modified as a result of the recent discovery that a talent for composing complicated prose early in life can stave off the onset of dementia or Alzheimer’s later in life, or, at least, make it much more difficult to detect – a fact that writers can ignore no longer.”

The article went on to list a few new principles of composition. It suggested that people should employ fancy words, should use “the fact that”, should express co-ordinate ideas in different form, and should not underwrite (“Rich, ornate prose is hard to digest, fattening, and sometimes nauseating, but it is very, very good for you”). It also gave some examples; here’s one:

“The Mother Superior tried a little harder to explain to the pretty dissappointed (but not really that dissappointed) Dick that Sister Jane, perhaps for her own good, had been sent kind of far away.”

I have a copy of the fourth edition “The Elements of Style”, but this fifth edition seems to hold much promise. I wonder when they’re publishing it.