Monkey Business This

Monkeys have invaded our apartment complex in Bangalore. A whole troop of them ranging in sizes from extra small to plus size four. I love them. They are completely fascinating to watch as they swing their way in from the trees across the strategically and illegally strung cable wires into the buildings. They are sometimes perched on the sill of my balcony in the morning, making faces at my Labrador and nonchalantly swinging away as she charges them. The monkeys come into the apartment in the mornings, forage around and try to get at anything that is remotely edible. They leave our complex after a couple of hours and spend the day in the neighborhood coming back for another raid in the evenings.

Got home early last week and was down in the park with my kids and a couple of dozen of their friends (monkeys all of them but of the human type). It was a nice summer evening, the sun was doing its bit and so was the breeze when the monkey troop came back into the complex. They normally stick to the outside of the complex but chose to come right into the heart of it that day, no doubt attracted by their human brethren.

The effect on the kids was remarkable, the impact on their parents – mostly mothers and grandparents, I guess I was the only father on show – was even more. Monkey seems to be one word in the vocabulary of all kids of all ages from 8 month old toddlers to 14 year olds.

Mon-gey, mon-gey went little Tom from Kerala jumping around excitedly, “Uncle, uncle many monkey, many many, monkeys sisteen monkeys” lisped another fellow whose name I don’t know.

All of us were watching the monkeys quite enjoying ourselves, the little boys who are quite berserk in their normal state went ape and started destroying the foliage in the garden with renewed vigor in their attempts to climb the trees around our little park.

“Nuisance!!” said a cultured voice next to me, looking at the little boys I nodded my head in agreement. It was lady A, a rather aristocratic person with kids the same age as mine who tended to set rather high standards for everything and consequently held almost everything in disapproval.

“I meant the monkeys” she continued. “ Ah!” said I guiltily, lest she think I disagreed with her. Just then one of the monkeys dropped a pigeon egg to the ground. Our complex has more than its fair share of pigeons – they spend the day cooing, strutting around busily, spreading vast quantities of dropping on the floor of the complex and taking to flight in panicked hordes at periodic intervals. Harmless beasts in my opinion, besides my daughter loves them just as she loves all animals.

“They are a nuisance too” continues Lady A, “ the society committee must drive them away, dirtying the whole place”. I interpreted this as the pigeons who were dirtying the place and not the members of our committee a rather aged bunch who by no means could chase away a few million pigeons and did not feel the need to do so either.

“ and they must chase away that cuckoo too” she continued “ silly thing, waking us all up early in the morning with its cries”. Now that was going too far. I am personally acquainted with said cuckoo – a slightly demented fellow who gets very passionate about his lady love at around 5:00 AM and holds forth in melodic expression. Many a time I have woken to the cry of the cuckoo and gone out for a walk with my dog. If you walk into a Bangalore morning at that time with a cool breeze blowing and the dawn just beginning to turn the sky a delicate shade of pink I bet you would sing out too – provided you are in love of course.

I sidled away from Lady A’s disapproval as elegantly as I could. Did not want to hear what she would damn next. But this got me thinking, many of us are like Lady A, we have so little patience for the creatures around us, so little sympathy and appreciation. I saw a sparrow in the airport the other day, thrilled me to bits but to most people it is “how do I chase that blighter away before he drops excreta on to my fancy clothes”.

Have a care my friends, have some tolerance for our fellow creatures, a sparrow is already a seldom seen sight – soon cuckoos, crows and pigeons will become rarities too. Then what, we transfer our intolerance to our fellow people – wait but we have already done that!!

The complexity of software development

A recurring and common theme in conversations with several of my friends and colleagues is the increasing challenge they face in developing and delivering successful enterprise software applications. The pressure is high as was evident on the face of a friend and neighbor whom I met walking into our apartment complex late one night with a completely dazed expression on his face. All he could mumble about was the issues of performance they were trying to iron out and his struggle to estimate if he needed additional project time. This guy is a project manager at a fairly well known technology services organization based in Bangalore.

Requirements and Synthesis

Getting requirements right is the first step in the journey of creating a successful software system. The job of defining requirements is an exercise in design and in problem solving. Analysis is often used in the context of requirements and the people who describe a software requirement often carry the designation of an analyst. Like all aspects of design, synthesis is as important to getting requirements right as analysis is. Surprisingly however, one seldom hears the term synthesis used in the context of requirements design and the lack of synthesis leads to many a requirement going awry.

Mentors

I met with a dear friend, mentor and ex-boss yesterday. Though we meet each other fairly often, it is seldom that we get a chance to sit and talk with each other. Normally there are many people around clamoring for his attention which denies us this opportunity. Yesterday however was different – we had time for ourselves and a freewheeling discussion.

Our conversation covered many grounds. We caught up on several mutual friends and associates with whom both of us interact in different capacities. It was during this discussion that the topic of mentoring came up.