Papa Kehte Hain...

I had initially titled this post "Appa Sonna Pechu", but since Papa Kehte Hain happens to be a popular song (besides being a not-so-popular movie), I decided to have it as the title (though the grammatically correct version would have been "Jo Papa ne Kaha" or "Papa Kehte The") for obvious reasons of increasing viewer count and curiosity (by a stretch of conceivable imagination).
Ok, so this is not going to be a touchy recollection of how we forget our dads and remember their thoughts and words on Father's Day or their birthdays or when they die (ala Vaaranam Aayiram). I forgot when Father's Day is, my dad's birthday is on Jan 31 and he is very much alive (and kicking ;-). It's been almost 5 months since I started working and let me tell you - software development for financial firms IS demanding. Probably not especially demanding, since I have no idea of how hectic coding in proper normal software companies is, probably it is in fact. But that's the impression I got here, especially since there's millions of bucks on the line of the software that we write here (currently, I'm nowhere near the line of fire). Still, take nothing away from my performance. (In general) Popular opinion exists that I am a relatively bright fellow who will find his way in more-or-less most places in the world. Ok. But I've been lazy enough for most part of the 4 years of my BE to not spend enough time with code. I believe one of the essential aspects of good coding is that you sit with code - even for highly intelligent souls (I am categorizing myself as moderately intelligent, out of modesty or truthfulness or both, I don't know). As far as my Master's was concerned, I fell in love with Theory here (I was infatuated in India) and fell all out for Cryptography and Network Security-centric Game Theory, Theory of Computation, etc. Somehow, I focussed and was interested in CS-theoretical subjects rather than project-based ones. So not much compulsion to sit with lots of code.
Or this whole issue might not have got anything to do with code at all.
Which is where appa comes in. I am not crudely implying that I have become dumb wrt intelligence. I am not sure I have become less sharp (which is a possibility though). So when I get screwed royally at work, I just have to attribute it to lack of coding skills. I mean it when I say I get royally screwed - some of the coding issues, I feel so damn dumb. Somewhat retarded too. I don't know if it's my colleagues who end up making me feel like that, but I really stutter and feel awkward a lot of times...have been, at least. Which, in a queer sense, somehow rewound the clock to some time around 2000-2005, when I had a partially tempestuous time with my dad, mainly due to academic reasons. Well, there was not much of an issue otherwise, but since the 10th-12th std school-phase of a normal middle-class guy is so crucially important, there is not much to life than academics, during this phase. And since my dad very much believed in my brightness, my regularly appalling and horrendous academic performances left him in utter distaste over me. Again, this might or might not be directly related to what I am going to say, but my thought-process included this bit of past, hence I trust my mind to think something relevant (not sure again :D). So yes, given this not-so-happy stuff between me & my dad besides my bright nature, plus the major fact that I was/am horribly impatient in expecting people to understand things, there were a lot of times when I thought my dad was dumb. I really felt that it was the most obvious thing in the world and my dad didn't grasp it first-hand. (Note here that though my "bright" nature failed my academic pursuits brilliantly, it did, somehow, maintain the light in general issues of life...and to a very faint extent, the thought that "intelligence leads to impatience/arrogance" was true in my case, though to a much lesser extent of intelligence, mediocre amount of arrogance and overwhelming dose of impatience). This actually started to happen quite regularly, especially during my 12th standard (when my academic non-performance was at its peak). I literally used to wonder how my dad could fail to understand what I was saying when it was oh-so-obvious. Then, like all dads, he used to say - "You also one time coming, that time you realizing, now you not understanding," obviously in much better grammar. Though I was not stupid enough to think that I was immune from going through that phase, I hoped and prayed I wouldn't have to go through that. But it seems I am precisely undergoing that kind of treatment here. Now, though, another line of thought has cropped up - that I am OB-adichufying at work [:(]. Which is, again, not entirely true, because I am beginning to like I am doing, and I am really REALLY learning a lot. But I am slow, I am taking time, that probably pisses my manager/mentor(s) off, so sometimes not much work, so browse -> more irritation. Still, my feeling of dumbness was/is true. Of course, I don't blame my manager/mentor(s). In a sense, I am hoping that feeling kind of spurs me on to learn more.
But yes, it did rewind the clock by a few years. I still hear my dad. Again, I don't say what he said has exactly happened, but the symptoms are remarkably similar. Which prompts me to quip - "Paatti sonna pechai thattadhe, Appa sonna pechai marakkadhe."
:D Some thought, eh?

PS: By the way, for two specific souls, I just noticed that my blog contains exactly 2 posts each on Cricket and Politics - one of those on cricket was more out of a national controversy (Bhajji slapping Sreesanth) than something regular - this, out of 30 posts totally. Quite funny actually, considering that the politics blog compared to mine contained 7/11 posts on politics and the cricket blog contained 12/27 posts on cricket. Chippu vandhudhu Chippu.
Oh and btw, this post isn't politics or cricket, right? ;)