Aamaal ka talism hai nairang e zindagi...Taqdeer kyaa hai, gardish-e-lail o nihaar kyaa....."Sajid....."I heard a faint voice.....I was testing a piece of software our group had written..I turned around and saw Sethig (pronounced Sethi jee...thanks to a certain policy of our firm to refer to people by their login names,which in turn, are derived by a particular amalgamation of the first and the last names, she earned her due respect in classic Indian Ishtyle...) laughing away to glory with her hands over her mouth...Shock,disbelief and finally hysteria showed over her face.....Last time I had seen Aishwarya Rai wearing a similar expression after winning the Miss World title.....Right beside was Krovid (Pronounced Krovi Dee...I know I know......A name like that would put classical psychedelic rock bands to shame....) looking aghaaaast....I went over to their desk...They asked me to look at a certain mail on his outlook....The subject said "It matters not how strait the gate"......I knew the sky had fallen..These brave words were spoken by the poet W.E.Henley...And now,again by me....And apparently I made sure these words didnt go unnoticed or unheard.....
One of my test programs had generated a huge set of mails and spammed nearly 50 employees within the firm,some of them belonging to the top management....I had forgotten to turn off the mail option which was one of the parameters in our program, which in turn lead to the catastrophe.....I had written some 75 testcases and most of them failed....God knows what would have happened,if all of them passed....And the interesting(forgive me for calling it interesting) part was,most of the mails that spammed the top brass were sent on behalf of Krovi. And he sat there smiling...I couldnt assimilate his mirth....It reminded me of Boman Irani and his laughter therapy in Munna Bhai...
Then our project leader made his entry....For a moment there was a complete silence, noisier than a cascade.I began to fall apart...I mean,I simply cracked all over like a piece of old furniture.I remembered the last time I received a spanking.I was in class eight.My teacher beat me because I spilled ink on his shirt.At that time we derived tremendous amount of pleasure thru' such innocent and asinine acts...What will my PL do? Will he ask me to kneel down with my hands raised up....or will he ask me to write "I wont do this again ever in my life" in my notebook a thousand times?? the latter was quite acceptable....Kneeling down in office in front of all the employees is not a great idea I tell u......Fortunately,he didnt resort to either of these...Contrary to my perceptions,he just came to my desk,went thru' all the spam mails,noted down the mail ids of the recepients from the header and later mailed everybody on the list,apologizing for the unintentional act.He assumed total reponsibility for the incident..Later,he came to my desk and asked me to be careful with the system in the future....I heaved a sigh of relief......
I assume I had been absolved. A lesson had been learnt.But only after the damage had been done.
It matters not how strait the gate.....
How charged with punishment the scroll....
We are the masters of our fate.......
We are the captains of our soul.....
