The Day I killed a Bird

It was a great day as always, but unfortunate too.

I came back home, we have a lot of birds, squirrels, peacocks roaming in the Farm House.
Out of nowhere a bird appear in front of my bike, he had his wings spread and he was few inches above the ground I thought he is flying and would pass so I did not apply brakes.
I stopped few meters ahead to check. I walked towards where I first spotted the bird.

The bird was sitting idle, he looked perfectly fine. I reached out to grab him, he did not resist, he was alive, then why did he not fly when I tied to grab him. He was blinking, his neck was moving. There was no blood. May be I ran over him that caused an internal injury. I brought it with me with hopes that he would survive and will fly again after some rest.

But it died few minutes after I brought it with me. It died in my hands.
I felt so much guilt for killing a bird for no reason.

It was the same breed as shown here.

I would request all to drive a little slow in areas which have birds flying around very often.

Vivek Choudhary
I hope that bird forgives me for killing him :(

The Games Period : School Times

When we moved to Jaipur, I started school from 6th standard in DAV Jaipur. Its an average good school, nothing extraordinary about it.

I don't remember whether it happened in 6th or 7th standard.

We used to have a games period every Saturday. I was not into sports, still not into it. Major game we played was football, no matter in which team I am, I used to hang around the goal so that I don't have to run around the pointlessly given that I don't know how to kick the ball properly. I don't remember how but during one such game they made me goalkeeper, I didn't mind I sat there with some more guys who weren't actually playing. The chances of ball coming to me were maybe 30-40%.

Suddenly I saw everybody running towards our goal, the guy who had the ball and maneuvering it towards me was tall and very healthy. I knew squat about football, basically when you have to stop a straight ball coming towards you, you need to cross your arms to save your chest from the impact. The guy hit the ball really hard, and I instead of crossing arms, stood in SRK style with arms spread to cover maximum area. The ball hit me right in my chest. I saved the goal but felt my body organs moving, I sat down, it took me couple of minutes to get up again. I saved the goal for my team, for next two weeks they again chose me as goalkeeper, I knew what to do this time "let the ball pass" but the ball never came to me again.

Anyways, those were good days.

Vivek Choudhary

Batch of 2009, DAV Jaipur

My school and the ground where we played football.

Corporate Rules that you should know.

1. Take ownership. There is no blame game in corporate. If it succeeds, its everyone’s effort. If it fails, its your fault. Its not a school to push the blame on someone. Your seniors will respect you for integrity.
2. Be always smarter than your manager. If you are, then your job is secure and he will respect you. If you aren’t, be ready to listen to his taunts and degradation.
3. If it needs to be done, it has to be done. A mail pops in just before you have to leave after a 10 hour day. And it says urgent. Either you can ignore it or sit for another half hour to complete it. Your decision decides your promotion.
4. Don’t take a day off unless needed. Your hangover doesn’t count as a reason. If its a reason, stop drinking. Stop everything that makes you tired next day to miss office.
5. Be cheerful with everyone from security guard to VP. It will give you 2 benefits: 1. You would be presented as a positive and cheerful employee (and it matters) 2. You can get things does easily.
6. When in office, do office work. Its ok to file IT returns or check quick social media but don’t start making business plans for your startup or start editing photos for your candid photography page. 6–8 hours of solid office work everyday will take you long way.
7. Know your process, know your peers, know about every (most) work getting done in your building. Don’t be a stalker or a nagger. Be a curious candidate who knows what he and his peers are doing. Will help you solve any problems you face in work sometime.
8. Know your company well. Sounds childish? Trust me, most of us do not know what your company does fully. What are the product segments, who are its competitors, where is the headquarter and who is the CEO.
9. Know the current affairs. While this doesn’t directly affect your work, there are moments when you would get a chance to interact with top management and the topics leapfrog from politics to macro economic factors. You shouldn’t be a sitting duck. Your small talk can have a very large impact.
10. Focus on big picture. You are just an ordinary s/w engineer or a junior analyst? Doesn’t matter. Look at your process like your lead or manager sees. Focus on the big picture. See like a bird and work like a worm.
11. Sometimes its donkey work. Do it. I work with senior directors of billion dollar companies who make their own slides. And many times they have to spend time on adjusting the logos or changing the fonts! Part of the job. They have secretaries but on a tight schedule, you are your boss.
12. Never blame your company. Never. if you feel you are excellent worker and your current company is not supporting you, then you are free to take a walk outside. Search for a better company. And if you can’t find a job, well then, its your mistake. You are not competent enough.
13. There is always growth. You have to be ready for it. Every company has a CEO and he/she was once a junior like you. The CEO worked his way up by hardwork, talent and beating all the competition. You can also be that CEO if you put 10–12 hours a day for 10 years in a row. There ain’t any shortcut.
14. Never expect a pat on the back. If you want to go up the ladder, do not strive for pat on backs or acknowledgements for short term projects. To quote Tywin Lannister “Jugglers and singers require applause”. Rise above the competition.

Last Man Standing : True Story

This is a true story, Saturday 25th Feb'17

It was a normal day, well night because I was working at night in our Gurgaon office.
All was good, at 2:00 am I went smoking with my colleagues Tiwari and Chaturvedi after that Chaturvedi left for home, little did we know that he is going to get himself in huge trouble.

Around 3 am Tiwari got a call from Chatur that he is in a hospital and injured. Something bad had happened. Tiwari told me and we left on my bike, we reached Agarsen Hospital in Dwarka at 3:20. I don't recall the last time I hit 100 on my bike, but that night I did (not bragging just we wanted to reach asap) we had no idea what kind of injury it is, how serious things are. A lot goes in your mind when you are in a situation like this. When we reached, there he was in the ER, his jacket and shirt soaked in blood. It was a terrifying experience. He was beaten by 12 guys.

Here goes the story of what happened.
 "The cab dropped him at Dwarka Sec-1 Red light, his home is at walking distance from there. 2 guys approached him asking for time, and he told them the time. Soon he realized he is surrounded by guys from all around, they tried to snatch his phone, but he refused, then they put him down and started beating him in whichever possible way, he was hit in the entire body by kicks and punches, he fought back, then one guy took a stone and hit him on the back of his head. After realizing that this has gone too far, they fled as he was bleeding badly. The injury is deep inside the head as the stone was subjected to of sharp edge, They were unable to rob him of his phone, watch, or Thinkpad.
He got up and rushed to the police station which is also nearby. They took him to the hospital"

Our manager Amandeep reached there in no time, then we took him to Venkateshwar Hospital as no surgeon was available at Agarsen hospital. They took him in and currently is under observation for 24 hours.

The takeaway from the story is not to surrender, I know many of you will think he should have given them his belongings, but untill when, every time someone will try to rob you, you can't keep surrendering to them every time, one day you will fight back, so why not make it the first time?

Here's to our brave friend Alok Chaturvedi.

Chatur at Venkateshvar Hospital

Vivek Choudhary

Time

A long time ago, I saw a movie "In Time" the idea/concept behind that movie was mind blowing.
The currency was time, like 1 hour transferred for a bus ride, 1 hour for a drink etc.

The movie was good, I applaud the person who came up with this idea for a movie. We in real world deal with money as currency, which is very practical since we don't have clocks embedded on our wrist like they had in the movie. I have studied few things about the concept of money and how it works, the inflation etc. But a good definition would be money buys "experiences", A Rs 100 note can buy you a coffee, or alcohol. Its totally your decision.

We take time less seriously than we should. I respect time, you already know about my 10 years theory. As a result I am punctual and finish my work on time. Think of time as 4th dimension, well it is not scientifically proved yet but I believe in it. By every second passing we are moving close to our death, make sure you do all that you want to do, make time for it. There's no point regretting later.

Try to save time, it is just like money and even better than it.
Remember Money can't buy time.

Vivek Choudhary

My First Visit To a Church

I am a Hindu by religion but I love and respect all religions in the world, be it Islam, Sikhism, Christianity. I have been to a Sikh Guruwara (Bangla Sahib) and it was a wonderful experience. But don't know why I wanted to visit a church since a long time. I had seen it in a lot of movies, the place, architecture, I used to wonder what would it feel like to be at such a place. I used to think of it as Lotus Temple (New Delhi) 

I wanted to go with a friend, a friend that is of same intellectual level as me, so that he would understand purpose of my visit to a church. I contacted my friend Ayush Wazir, who is a wonderful person and a great guy. He agreed and we went to Cathedral Church of the Redemption. But for some reasons it was closed. We were disappointed and decided to go to Visit to Rashtrapati Bhavan museum but it was closed too. There was huge crowd due to Mughal Garden opening. Mughal Garden opens for public during this time and due to great variety of Roses it attracts people.

So totally disappointed me and Ayush were ready to go home but then it struck us that we has seen another church in google maps. That is Sacred Heart Cathedral, New Delhi we booked an auto, there were two girls and the the auto was headed to nearest metro station. We offered some more money and he agreed to drop us at Church first. When we reached at church, we realized those girls also changed their mind and they decided to visit the church (Not with us) 

So we reached at the church, we were mesmerized by the beauty, the adventure to see a church, (for a moment there I felt like Al Pacino approaching church) so we went inside. It was wonderful, the prayer was going on, we spent 30 minutes kneeling down and listening to the  prayer and teachings. It was peaceful and we felt really good. Then we came out, we lit few candles in front of a mother Mary statue.

Every religion teaches us something, learn and find out the purpose why you are on this planet.

Vivek Choudhary  

Nocturnal Animals : Movie Review (No Spoilers)

I watch a lot of movies, like you eat food daily I watch one or two movies daily. To tell you the truth I am 98% done with IMDB top 500 be it black and white, foreign movie, etc I have seen it all. I am not saying I am special or anything, there are a lot like me, hell maybe they've seen top 1000. There are many movies I like and watch over and over again.


Nocturnal Animals (2016)

So I started watching this movie, A girl who is now married to someone, receives a novel from her ex husband She starts reading it, the novel is so intense and contains a lot of dark emotions. Story of a man who was travelling with his daughter and wife, things turn really bad when some goons stop their car. I won't reveal any details. But know it, Jake Gyllenhaal's acting moved me. This man is awesome, Donnie Darko, Nightcrawler, Enemy, Southpaw, he is just getting better and better.
Watch this movie for a sweet revenge of an ex husband. If you do not understand how novel is related to the story, email/comment/tweet me I will explain it to you.

This is one of the best releases in 2016
Other notable movies are La La Land, Deadpool, Batman vs Superman, The Nice Guys, Hell or High Water, The Accountant, Sully.

If you doubt my judgement, just go with your instinct my friend.

Vivek Choudhary
I acted in few plays on stage so I actually know something about acting.