I was born a cancerian in 1978, a little overweight, dark-skinned and the only boy among three children. I have 2 elder sisters who always tried to make me believe I was adopted or that I was found in a trash can in the muncipality dump. I was a silent kid, had very few friends, read comics when I was awake and dreamed about them when I was asleep. My favourite subject at school was Physics, taught by my favourite teacher Appu Sir. Despite my aptitude in physics, I wanted to be a doctor of medicine and I almost became one. Then the twists of fate made me an engineer, a software developer and now a blogger (these are not mutually exclusive).
After my brief struggle with learning medicine, I embarked upon a greater struggle learning engineering. I still remember being taught C++ in my first semester. The specific topic was arrays and the teacher was counting array members from zero. I really couldn’t understand why she was counting from zero when all my life to that point I always started counting from one. The teacher surely didnt understand the reason either, because she was angry when I asked her my doubt. Teachers always get angry when you ask them questions they dont know the answer to. That is a fundamental theorem of life I have established to myself through my keen observatory skills. I wouldn’t know the reason why computers count from zero till I study Microprocessors in my 4th semester. I am forever indebted to my Microprocessor teacher for firmly walking me through the process of learning programming. I had learned C++ in my first semester but I couldnt write a single program on my own, thanks to the skills of our excellent teacher as well as my whole hearted disinterest in the learning process. In my Microprocessors class I learned to program in assembly language and suddenly everything made sense. I must be a bottom-up person because I wont understand the whole until I understand the parts.
I hated maths in school because I couldn’t find any practical value in maths at that time. When I found that maths could be useful in real life, it was already too late. I sometimes take Thomas & Finney’s thick book on Calculus and enjoy the smell of a book unused – it gives me a tremendous satisfaction to smell the difficult math, solving them was never an option. So study your math or be a loser – take the lesson straight from a loser.
For completeness I should also say I hated History, Geography, Political Science, Economics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, English, Malayalam and Hindi. I loved the P.T (physical training) period where we could play cricket, football or more often seven-tiles, kings or similar advanced games. There was only one P.T period in one week and we always looked forward to it. The teams would all be chosen beforehand to avoid any latency and everybody would be pumped up with excitement, waiting for the biggest event of the week. Sometimes a teacher would unilaterally decide to take an extra class during the P.T period. Those were the biggest disappointments in my whole academic life. I am sure quite a few would agree.
Compared to my younger years, now I have much more friends, know a bit more about life and laugh a lot less. I love (in no particular order) playing chess & badminton, listening to music, reading books, hanging out with friends and browsing the www. I write software for a living and sometimes for fun. I blog mostly to annoy my readers. My favourite music bands are Black Sabbath, Mike & The Mechanics, Hootie & The Blowfish, Marc Cohn, Aaron Neville, George Michael, Bruce Springsteen, Michael Bolton, Richard Marx, etc. My favourite authors are Bill Bryson, P.G.Wodehouse and Vaikam Muhammad Basheer. I love Calivin & Hobbes and Dilbert.
Currently I reside in the beautiful Pacific Northwest city of Seattle, which is surrounded by the majestic Olympics and Cascades and the Puget Sound, making a living by writing code, fixing bugs and introducing some of my own. I mostly use C# but sometimes I have to tread the dark dungeons of C++. Although I loved C++ in a long forgotten previous life I hate it now. I also churn out a lot of SQL queries and they often piss me off like hell.
The wish I could write as amusingly as Bill Bryson and sing as soulful as Aaron Neville.
I think life is more complex than it needs to be. Well, I was not consulted on its design.
I have no ulterior motive in writing my blogs. I just write them for the happiness that I get from a creative endeavour (just how creative you decide). I dont want to sell my ideas to you, but I would like you to know what my thoughts are and where I stand on certain debatable issues. I would like to know what you think about what I think, so please dont forget to leave your comments.
I owe my friend Tejas Patel for the inspiration to start a blog and my friends at Tavant (especially Binil) for keeping me going.
If you want to know more about me, ask (no, I wont tell you my bank password).
All content here are copyrighted. Means you have the right to copy anything you want. I cant imagine a reason why you would want to do that though.
Hi PC,
Though PC is mostly referred to a Personal Computer it is pretty synonymous to your name. The rate at which your thoughts are flowing you can probably copyright the Acronym for your name.
It was interesting reading through your blog. Was able to catch up with a lot of things I missed as I moved on with my life from Bishop Moore to Bangalore. Though Bishop Moore is a school and Bangalore is a City, Bishop moore was a city for my in my child hood. I think its not necessary for me to justify the most obvious explanations.
Wonderful… I was thinking where would I start and I am still starting.
Anyways,
There are so much to catch up on and I give you the due credit for encouraging me to start, though you didnt have that in mind when you created this blog.
Reengineering Life..!! (like lal Salam)
Hey dude, am very glad to see a comment from u on my blog.. what is happening at ur end nowadays ?
Actually you were not found in the muncipality dump, you were found in a bamboo basket in “achan kovil aarr”. This came in the news paper and achan and amma saw the news and adopted you. They named you as PC – Pallani Chellan
Since your sisters are elder, they should be knowing whether u were adopted or found in a trash can or in a bamboo basket….though from ur photo, it seems it was someone in Taliban who dumped u:)
The new expansion of PC is great… ur sister’s best?:)
Randinem thozhikkum njan.. nghaa..
look who’s calling me CRAZY!!!!!!!!!!!
Font matti.. ippozho?
I just put the font and color according to my mood at that point of time.. thats why.. Anyways its ok to give opinions and this time it was quite acceptable .. Thanks
Hey.. I said no in a mild and diplomatic way and now i feel so relieved.
me n my sis used to tell my brother that he was found from a municipality trash dumb… we were 2 sis and a bro..
…i think its universal for younger brothers with 2 sisters older:P
Ellam dushtakal thanne… :p
Hey PC. you have pretty interesting blog. nice
Thanks Ravindran
Deepa chechi you should tell this story earlier “achan kovil aarr”. njan na nayi poyyeee ne.
Helpful blogs to nourish my day, keep writing PC, someday I shall review these in my office with my colleagues.
I hope you understand I mean you no bad-will. I’m a fifth generation American Engineer who will not be encouraging my kids to go into this field.
My uncle was on the original team who created the C language and I taught myself to program when I was 8(basic) and created my own assembler at 16. I am currently unemployed after training an H1B visa holder to use the software I wrote to take my job at my former employers.
If you are immigrating to or have immigrated to this wonderful country I wish you well. If your just here to take my job and my children’s future away….
Now this is exactly how an about-me should read like! I havent been to the posts yet. If they are written like this, I am going to be another annoyed regular reader!
Thanks for the kind comment Chris
nice dude
Don’t listen to the haters on your blog. People with H1b’s are well-educated, law-abiding, and have a lot to contibute to the U.S. Your kids are typically smarter and more well-behaved. You add diversity and culture to our communities and have a positive impact on our cities and towns. Keep doing what you’re doing and don’t let these ignoramuses hold you back.
-15th generation American
Pradeep chathaa…. Good to see your blog. Well kept. You were a silent guy at school?? Cannot believe it. Ithra pookiri aaya nee silent aayirunno?
I miss those *fun* days in Tucson of wondering whether or not we were going to keep our jobs for the day. As you already know I took off as quick as I could after the project went haywire. Anyway it’s great to see you landed on your feet! Did you ever get your dream car? Give me a call sometime! My number is the same.
Hey – I’d love to trade links with you, do you have any desire to build a network?
Eric
Nice blog man. I felt it was a very fresh read. I am a software engineer myself. But I like how you don’t just talk about software in your blog. Its random and creative, and that’s what makes it interesting. It gives me the heartening feeling that there are others like me.
Do keep writing PC
P.S. Don’t worry about your sisters. I have two elder sisters as well. They do all of it because they love you
Thanks Aditya