My 4 Years with Mastek...& Continue...

     21st June, the Memorable day…Not for being longest day of the year, but for other reason. On the very same day in year 2006 I have joined Mastek and today I have completed 4 years with Mastek and journey is still continue..
     I left the previous organisation on 17th June 2006, I had only 2 days to windup all things in hostel & get ready for the new journey. There were loads of things needs to be settled down in those two days. Somehow I managed to wind up all those things and went to home on next day 18th. I had only a night stay with my family & next day Most of my luggage was packed as I hardly added little stuff to those hostel bags. I had a train booking for the Mumbai on 19th, that was the second ever trip to Mumbai (though I had been to Mumbai when I was child, hardly recollect anything…).
     Journey begun, I was accompanied by one of my friend who was working with me in previous organisation. He was familiar with Mumbai as he frequently visits it. So I was feeling comfortable. He boarded from Ahmedabad & joined him from Vadodara. We had some gossips in train followed by deep sleep. When we reached at Dadar station I was sleeping, my friend wake me up & said here we go….we reached Mumbai…..it’ was around 6 am in the morning on 20th June, little sunshine & it was raining.......
Wel come to Mumbai….after that we had to go to Vashi, so we caught local trains with two changes…that was my first ever journey with local train…it was fantastic experience…I have had seen so much crowd in early morning local trains and I realise that that’s why people say life runs with local trains..it’s life line for mumbaikars…That’s true…After about 1.15 min journey we reached to Vashi station. From there we hired a rickshaw for the guest house. My friend got off in 15 min as his guest house arrives; I had to go bit far for my guest house. I also reached to guest house, checked in & refreshed. Surprisingly I met with one of my old day’s friend on the very same guest house where my friend used to stay… …He offered me his bike also… Cool…. In the noon we (me & my friend) went out for movie. After that we were searching for tea stall as we used to have in Ahmedabad but I was surprised I was not able to find it near by the movie hall. Fortunately we found it in one of shopping centre….So….movie….biking……we enjoyed first day…
     Next day 21st, joining day…As we’re told…we reached office by sharp 9 am..then completed joining formalities..then we were accompanied by one of HR representative & she took us for a round of premises followed by lunch…As we haven’t had to do much on first day, done some tp here n there and returned to guest house…

     After few days I was allocated to one of project called SMMT. It has very tough time lines to complete. That project was in initial stage of development. Latest technology, new working environment, many new things to learn..etc… over all it was very good learning curve for me…I also enjoyed nigh outs in that project…No..This nigh out doesn’t mean any picnic or something like that…it’s for coding, defect fixing, deployment nigh outs… :) :)..we had many of them….. :)..Also must to specify that we spent many of week end working in the offices….Apart from that one thing I must say…I got the best PL of all time…The way he delegates tasks, manages issues etc…was really commendable, I wish I could get a chance to work him again !! I can say that, I enjoyed working in that project not only because of my colleagues, PL but also for those nigh outs & working weekends :)..

     After about a year offshore development got over & I was released from that project & joined new one…DSA…as a module leader. Here I got the opportunity for leading the team, prepare & review design documents, onsite offshore co-ordinator etc. . I really enjoyed this role but not as much as developer.. :)…..in this project I got the opportunity for application performance tuning, which was very interesting…I found the potential memory leak in the application , that was due to the framework which was used in the DSA. Then I raised query to solve this to company’s tech cell & they confirmed & resolved this leak in the framework. My findings were recognised on Mastek’s intra net…..Kudos for Me….. :):)..also I got the “Fire in the Belly” award for my hard work and commitment in the project….So..Again another achievement..:)..I also had fantastic picnic to SAI farm …on top of that rain had made our picnic very memorable….In this project we used to out for a lunch every Friday…So this project culture makes every "Friday as a Feast day" :)….

     Binding all these wonderful memories I moved on to another project "Service Support" yes..That is at on site…UK..after being at offshore for around 2 years, that was the first opportunity to go abroad…so was very excited about it…rest all you know…I’m still in the same project…Enjoying uk….more you can find at my previous blog "My 2 years in UK".
I’m not sure if I wud not be in Mastek then wud I get this opportunity or not?...
God knows !!
     Few things which worth mentioning about Mastek…”Monthly meetings”, We usually have somewhere at ville parle or ghatkopar in a big hall…. here all mastekeers used to get together…cultural programmer, occasional speakers, new joinee’s act/dance, direct talk to company’s head…etc… that was very exciting…...we really enjoyed that a lot…after the meeting we used to have free snacks with monthly magazine…

     “Runtime”- we have a culture in mastek that every year they plan for a day or two day nigh out for employee with their family members….that was awesome thing…I have attended three run times…that was fabulous…One of run time they invited KK..that night was amazing…And in another run time we had Shaan to rock all of us….that was also fantastic…and the third year I have enjoyed at onsite...
So I can say…”Runtime is always a Funtime !!”. These are among few good things about mastek & mastek culture….I’m really lucky to be a "Mastekeer" !!
     I’m thankful to Mastek for cultivating my carrier & giving me this opportunity. I wish all the best to Mastek & hope I would continue my journey with it as long as possible !!

Stay Tunned,
Pritesh

My 2 years in UK….An exciting Journey !

Today is 8th June 2010, if we backward the clock for two years then on the very same day 8th June 2008, I was landed in UK.
     Journey was started from Mumbai – Heathrow; that was the first ever aero plan trip in my entire life…My flight was from Mumbai around 1:30 pm. I still remember some of my good friends were there to send me off…It was fantastic feeling, mixed with fear. Actually I never had an experience how to check in, what is boarding pass, what to do after arriving airport etc. I was very nervous about the journey. By bidding bye bye to my dear ones at airport I entered in airport. Somehow I managed to check in, got the boarding pass…. completed the first step of the journey, it all went very smoothly…then plan took off from the Mumbai airport to Heathrow. – World’s busiest airport.
     After around 8.5 hrs of journey via “Virgin Atlantics” I arrived to Heathrow airport – one of the busiest airports in the world. It was around 5.30 pm Local time and I had to wait until 9.00 pm to get next flight to Leeds/Bradford airport. I explored Heathrow airport for few hours, after spending few hours at airport it was around 8:30pm & just half an hour for the next flight. I was amazed by the sun light at that time, I have had never seen such sun light at this time in the evening..over here it’s summer time & usually sun sets at 9:30 or 9:45pm, which I was not aware about…It was very sunny…Sometime I was confused whether it’s day or evening….But it seems usual after some time….after half an hour I boarded to flight…it was around 45-50 min journey from Heathrow to Leeds/Bradford. And I reached around 9:50 pm. By then it was bit darker & feels cold as well…here I was expecting cab/taxi as we used get outside the airport in India, there were few of them at there but all were pre-booked. I was not aware how to book the cab, so I called up my friend over here & he advised me how to do that. Thanks to him…finally I hired a cab & reached to the guest house, by now it’s 10:45 pm.. I rang a bell & door was opened by one of guest house mate. He welcomed me & asked for dinner, so kind of him. I wish I could have accepted that offer but tired me, no other option except having a rest..So I just had a glass of water & headed straight to my room….Feeling tired & sleepy..So went for the sleep… well come to UK…. :) :) 
     Next morning – very sunny, bright day, I woke up without alarm and with the intention not to reach late to the office on the very first day, I got ready. All of a sudden I spotted a clock in the guest house….I was totally shocked….it was 6:45 am in the morning & I already got ready for the office, but I supposed to leave at 8:30 am…so now what?? Again the sun light made joke of me…ne way…lessons learned…. :)…then I started to iron my clothes & I had ironed few of my office wares…so it was really a fantastic starting in UK…..
     Now after that daily routine life has begun…office – guest house- office….there is no internet, channel etc. in the guest house so it’s kind of boring specially on weekends….but we could not help it… Initially I had been in guest house for around 1.5 months…here I have learned to cook…”Chhole” was the first dish I have ever cooked….that was fabulous & mouth watering….I’m not joking but every guest house mate praised that….though I was not really good at cooking at that point of time( but now I’m :) :))….After that experience, I have started enjoying cooking…I had tried various curries, dal, pulao..etc….
So I can say that my guest house was the "lab of my cooking experiments".
     After 1.5 months in guest house, I have rented an apartment – “42/Velocity North” near to my office & city center….I was accompanied by two of my old buddies…we shared the apartment (“New Satyam”) in Navi Mumbai as well…We started loving this place…..we all had reminded our old golden days when we used to enjoy in Navi Mumbai…few months later one more our Mumbai flat mate joined us…so now we all fill like ”New Satyam”…Gang is back in UK !! we all had fantastic time being here..we used to enjoy every week end…roam around, etc…We had visited many paces in uk, europe….
First year was fabulous with all….I have never thought that I would ever complete a year in uk….but surprising I did….
     Time passes, day by day….I was bounded with daily routine life…..week day office-home-office & weekly shopping, cleaning on weekends…May 2009, I had some tough time as all of my roommates were asked to go back to India…those days were tough….but We could not do much about that…then I have started searching for new roomies…I got two new roomies….we stayed in the same apartment to complete our contract….as soon as our contract got over I left that apartment and managed accommodation to one of my friend…& that was for temporary one month. Here I got new place to stay..it’s wonderful row house….I always wanted to stay in such house in uk & finally wish comes true….This places is far from our office…but why to worry, when we had a car…..actually I don’t own the car but my friend do…So every day journey begins from mast drive to office….that was very fascinating…we used to play songs in the car every day on the way to/from office…I remember the song “Kuch Iss Traah“ from movie 8*10 Tasveer…..every day that was the last song we used to play just before the crossing near the house with loud volume..I loved that….that was a fantastic month…but every good days comes to an end…..
     “8/Velocity West” - a place for nomad called me. Yes, I returned to velocity flat near my old apartment. This is one of my close friend’s place…..Till date I have been enjoying here….don’t know till when..of course because of the uncertainty of work & apartment….my land lord has been trying to sell out this house since long but fortunately he has not get any customer till day…that’s cool….at least for us…. :)…Initially we were three of us who were sharing an flat but after two months one of the friend has got another contract near to London so he moved….till then, we both are sharing the flat.
Here as usual life started as usual…because it’s very near to office so we have our lunch at home only…that is really cool thing about being in velocity…
     It’s second year in a row in UK & it is a great feeling to be here…life is so easy &usual over here..I have not felt real pressure of work (excluding some instances.. :))..On the key note, I must say that I learned various things, earned money, and explored many beautiful places including heaven on the earth - Switzerland. I got the new vision to see the world. My hidden ability to cook has also emerged. (proper marriage material…I must say :))…It’s unfair if I won’t mention about British Weather, it is one of the un-predictable weather in world….it is the mixture of ice cold winter, cold & warm spring, sunny-hot summer and rain could be in any season…. :)….however you have to live with it !!


Here is my “2 years in Photos” :
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=prit.shah&target=ALBUM&id=5480504054218361041&locked=true&authkey=Gv1sRgCJ3g6OC857eGVQ&feat=email



But in these two years, I have missed my family, friends & India the most in every moment. Especially on festivals like Diwali, Uttarayan, Rakshabandhan, Paryushan, etc.I have missed them very badly. I wish I could enjoy that with my family, friends in India…..Any way…that’s the way you have to live with it…. otherwise return to Swadesh…. !!:) :)


Running 2nd year in UK (who ever thought of it :)) and don’t know how many days, months, years still to go !!!


Cheers,
Pritesh.

Wonderful Wales…

 Yes, back from picnic….It was fantastic…enjoyed a lot !!
         
          We started our journey from Leeds on Saturday 29th may, around 8 am, though it was late by an hour. Some of our friends were supposed to join us from Milton Keynnes (MK), so we headed to there and picked them. On the way to reach MK, we had a funny incident, what happened was, we put down the post code for MK railway station in sat navigator & after few miles it showed that you reached your destination, but the fact was that there was neither railway station around us nor any body, it was kind of jungle… :):)…We all were expecting railway station at that post code..so we all were surprised & laughing…from there only we realise that we don’t have to fully rely on sat nav otherwise we could end up in jungle …hahaahah….anyhow we found the railway station & we picked two of our friends. Now all of 10 were boarded in the car….& all were excited…after few hours of journey we all were hungry & wanted to stretch out our legs…so we had a small coffee break at service station. We had coffee, some snack & charged up again…

          Super Saturday, it was not great atmosphere in England as well as in Wales as predicted…we had some rainy patches throughout the way to Cardiff…After around 4.5 hrs of journey we reached to Cardiff (Capital of Wales), & we did check in the hotel….hotel was good we had 5 double rooms…we got fresh & rested for some time….after an hr or so we all were ready and as per plan we have started to explore Cardiff….There was a beautiful garden nearby our hotel it was just about 5 min walk…so we roamed in the garden and then headed to visit Castle..Though it was not worth enough to spend few bucks to visit castle..so we had a look of it just from outside…we also had photo session there….Now it’s around 5pm in the evening…everyone was hungry…so we had some snack in burger king…after spending an hr. at Bk, we moved to visit Cardiff Bay…which was just 20-25 min walk from city centre…..I asked everyone whether they are ready to walk that much or not by considering the weather conditions..but everyone was very much enthu to walk…so finally we started to walk towards Cardiff Bay…..it was a fantastic sea bay, adjacent to good bar & restaurants….we went for the horse ride as well…it was really good time….we enjoyed a lot..After finishing ride we had a long walk to the bay & explored few good places around the bay..Now it’s dinner time…near the bay we managed to find good Indian restaurant…although it stated “Indian Cuisine”, it was Bangladeshi owned restaurant….. ……Restaurant has good ambience, very good food but the only problem was that, “price” – it was too expensive…it cost £2.50 for 1 roti… generally roti used to be cost you around 0.50p or max £1, u can imagine how costly it was….but any way we ordered limited curries & finished a costly dinner .. After having dinner no one was really wants to return to hotel by walk, so we asked our driver to pick up us from hotel & we reached hotel in around 15-20 min…Long journey, few miles of walk & so finally we all were tired by now and called it end of day …. :) :)…
         
          Sunny Sunday, yes next day morning we got up & ready for the adventurous sport..First thing I did after getting ready that, I asked Chris – our hotel owner/manager regarding nearby places to visit which we may not covered in our plan, he suggested few places but due to time constrains we could not cover that..
Anyway, then we all headed towards the adventurous sport place where we booked for Quad Biking. By seeing bikes I was not very much excited, because it was very small like it’s for teen agers. But after mall training on that bike, I realise that it’s not for teen agers  …it was very difficult for me to ride the quad bike, initially. But after few rounds somehow I managed to get hold on it. But that was too late…I probably the last one in my group of 5 ppl to complete it. Any way it was unique experience. After that we went to see beautiful beaches..so we moved towards Swansea, Mumbles, Gower…which has got fantastic coast line beaches..we have visited 3-4 beaches which were on our plan including some snacks at Mumbles Pier..But the Llangennith Beach was the fantastic one, which has white sands, fantastic & clean beach area, we really had good time over there. Most interestingly, when we were approaching to Llangennith Beach, here again we have been following directions of sat nav., we could not see beach at all…we were just seeing mountains, green trees, town & villages..At some point we realised that r v on right track or may be trapped somewhere??
But thanks to sign board on roads, we somehow managed to reach to the beach…and after reaching there we realise that that’s the place where we could have spend a day or two, including camp fire..near the beach there was fantastic campaign site, we love to do that but didn’t possible because it’s pre-booked…but all together it was worth visiting Llangennith Beach. From here we went back to hotel, picked our luggage & checked in to new service apartment. Here we have splitted in two groups first group has 6 ppl in one apartment & other has 4 ppl. Our apartment is just 2-3 min walk from the hotel, so we 4 reached there. After having bath I with other friend headed for dinner. In fact we planned to get the dinner at one apartment & had dinner together..till finishing the dinner it was almost midnight & we were required to leave to our apartment… it’s time sleep..good night !!

           Mast Monday, the last day of picnic….we all got ready by 11 am & started our return journey with the breakfast near to our apartment. Now it’s time to leave Cardiff, we direct headed towards Bath, beautiful city in the south England. At bath we saw The Royal Crescent & bath museum…also roamed around city centre..Which is very different from the other English city centres.. it has bit ancient roman touch…beautiful valleys…lakes, churches..It’s worth to visit beautiful bath…really enjoyed !! Now that was the last place to visit in the picnic, we headed towards MK & two of our friends has train, bus to catch from there. So we bid bye bye to them, had some snacks at sub way & then we were on the way to Leeds…Finally we reached Leeds around 10 pm…here where we all departed & gone to home with the fantastic memories of “Wonderful Wales”.

          Few things I must say about this trip, first foremost I made 4 new friends…. And I came to know my planning ability….actually I had prepared a whole literary for the trip & everything happened was as per the plan…so feeling sense of satisfaction….:)

Bye Bye,
Pritesh

Time to Bag Pack….Ready Steady & Go !!!

Yes, summer has started….nice, warm & sunny days..Time to enjoy !!
Summer is been the great time to be here in this country…very sunny & warm weather during this time..After having dark, chilly, cloudy in sort pathetic winter…it’s great time to enjoy…here sun rises early & sets probable late evening..
So over all full day of sunshine...
Also we have holiday at the start of May & end of May.
Now in coming long week end i.e. 29/30/31st May, I have planned to visit South Wales. It’s been a year that I have gone for any picnic….So finally I am packing my bag & getting ready for Wales (South part)….Hope it would be nice picnic.
There are new people coming with us whom I never meet…so let see how it goes..
Will write more about this after returning from Wales...

Stay tunned,
Pritesh

આનંદ ની વાત !!

કેટલાંય સમય થી હું વિચારતો હતો કે લોકો ગુજરાતી માં બ્લોગ કેવી રીતે લખે છે....શું તેમની પાસે કોઈ સોફ્ટવરે હશે? મને પણ ગુજરાતી માં બ્લોગ લખવો હતો પરંતુ કોઈ ઉપાય મળતો ન હતો...
મને સૌથી વધારે આનંદ થતો હતો જયારે હું મારા ખાસ મિત્ર અનિસ નો બ્લોગ વાંચતો હતો....હંમેશા થતું કે હું પણ ક્યારેક ગુજરાતી માં બ્લોગ લખીસ...અને હા આજે એ દિવસ આવી ગયો છે કે હું પણ ગુજરાતી માં બ્લોગ લખું છું. આ શકય બન્યું તો માત્ર મારા એજ મિત્ર અનિસ ને લીધે જ...એને જ મને આ ઉપાય બતાવ્યો. કેટલું સરળ છે હવે ગુજરાતી માં બ્લોગ લખવાનું....
અનિસ તારો ખુબ ખુબ આભાર...

મારા જેવો કોઈ જેને કદાચ ઉપયોગ માં આવે એના માટે નીચે એક લીંક છે :
"http://t13n.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/blet/docs/help_gu.html"
તેમાં વિસ્તાર માં આપ્યું છે કે કેવી રીતે તમે પણ ગુજરાતી માં લખી શકો છો....
(હું નસીબ વાળો છું કે જેનો મિત્ર અનિસ છે પણ કદાચ બધા ને મારા જેવો મિત્ર ના પણ હોય :) :) )

ખરે ખર આજે ખુબ આનંદ થયો....
મારો આ ગુજરાતી માં પ્રથમ બ્લોગ અનિસ ને નામ...આ જ છે આનંદ ની વાત !!

એજ લિખીતન,
પ્રિતેશ.

I Voted in UK Election 2010!!

Yuppeeeee..............Finally I voted.....
This is the first time that I voted....
I lost all opportunities to vote, for one or other reasons...but this time I made sure that I won't miss it...
It was amazing experience...In fact the atmosphere is totally different as compare to India.
Here it was very quite voting. People sincerely queued up for voting. The most surprising thing is, there was not a single security guard posted at the booth, which is total contrast to the one in India..Apart from that other interesting thing was that, it's manual voting.. no voting machine. People used to vote their candidate by marking cross sign against his/her name on the ballot paper through pencil & drop it into the ballot box.

Pritesh

Fabulous February.....

Year's shortest month is about to an end...every month should be like this only..so quick....
As such nothing much more happened in this month but.....Me & my roomie has enjoyed a swayamvar season 2....which is lots of entertaining...we really enjoyed...many people didn't like it but we really enjoyed....for us..it's pure entertaining...
There are few tips we learned from that also...hmmm :) :)....

Also we enjoyed one of my friend's birth day this month.....it was amazing...we really enjoyed most...infact my friend get surprised by seeing the gift...it was one of the unique from all of us..as usual.. :)

Month has passed with no happening...but the last day of the month would be fabulous....will have
Holi celebration at temple and followed by fantastic dinner at friend's place...


Pritesh