My worst experience with one of reputed travels in India

Last Sunday I was coming from Bhavnagar (Gujarat) to Mumbai after attending one of my friend's marriage. On the way from Bhavnagar to Ahmedabad i made a call to one of my Friend to book a Bus ticket from Ahmedabad to Mumbai for me in a good Travels agency. As it was Monday i was lil confident that i will get ticket easily. A friend of mine called me back after some times and then the story begins.....

Friend called me and tell that there is a sleeper birt available in Neeta travels. When i heared the name "Neeta" i told him to book ticket. (Till that date according to me Neeta was one of famous travels in Mumbai...and I think for you its still). They charged me 800 bucks for Non A.C. Sleeper birth!!!!. I reached to Travels office and showed them my tickets...and instead of taking me to BUS they guy over there told me to sit in an auto and that auto take us to CTM Char Rasta (One of famous area on Ahmedabad-Baroda Highway). We have to pay rent for auto rickshaw also :(. Finally we reached to the BUS (Neeta's Volvo was there in my mind that time). What i saw there is a simple dabba type luxury bus (Number – GJ – 3 W 9808) with all the seats full of dust. Ghosssss…It was horrible (remember friends it was Neeta Travels).

And finally my miserable journey started. Bus driver took the bus on the way through Nadiad-Anand instead of Express Highway and he stopped to each place where he saw any one waiting for BUS. (WTF….we booked ticked from morning and someone come on the fly and got a seat). BUS took three and a half hour to reach to Baroda (110 KM from Ahmedabad).It was 10 PM and still driver was interested in collecting more Passengers (money actually) instead of make a HALT so all the Passengers in the BUS can have some food. At 11 PM he took BUS to some weird Hotel on the highway for dinner and I had worst food of my life.

After having food I asked to driver if he would again stop to each station then he answered me “Saab ye to dhandhe ka time hai…gadi to rukegi hi..aapko pasand nahi hai to utar jao”.

With my luck I was deadly tired after attending marriage; I got sleep after dinner at 11.30 and wake up when Bus reached to Chembur (Mumbai) at 10.00 AM morning (16 hour to reach to Mumbai from Ahmedabad). I got huge stomach pain after having that worst food at BEKARR hotel on highway and have to take a single day off. (Will Neeta pay my one day salary??).

This was my worst experience with one of reputed Travels in India. I really don’t know wee to complaint about these and who will hear it. I am just posting this to my blog with the hope at least no one will suffer like me next time with “Neeta”

‘Touchy feely’:: article by Chetan Bhagat

I remember the incident - I was in a restaurant and one girl in our group was especially charming. So I, like any other male, tried to put on a wooing act. You know the routine, a nanosecond extra eye contact, a few more nods to whatever she says, and attempts to throw in those one-liners which you know you wouldn’t if she weren’t there. And it seemed to be working. She leaned forward when she spoke to me, and every now and again, we’d have a small conversation of our own, separate from our group. She laughed at my approach with the fork and knife, and I teased her about her hair band, which had little teddy bears. Yes, we were flirting.

A while later, she asked me the question what did I study? I said engineering, without any particular meaning attached to it. And then like a cold metal rail, she went stiff.My jokes weren’t funny any more. Her eyes wandered to everyone else.

What was it?
Why? Why? Why?

Two days later, I still couldn’t get over my great start that had dissipated listlessly upon mentioning my education. Engineer? What was wrong with that? My mom had wanted me to become one since I was five! I had to call her. ‘So what happened to you that day, hot and cold, missie?’ And then she said, trying to be nice, ‘Well, it’s just that I am skeptical about engineers as friends. I don’t know, they can be, you know, very logical and everything…not very touchy feely’.

Not touchy-feely. Now what the heck did that mean? Well, she obviously did not mean it literally, since girls don’t really suggest that sort of stuff, certainly not in the first meeting across the table. I guessed it was something to do with feelings, sort of having an emotional side. The stereotype being, the nerdy guy who sees relationships like laws of physics, to whom love is just a bunch of chemicals going crazy in your brain, and getting to know a person means obtaining their bio-data.
It’s time to set the record straight.

It’s true that a lot of what engineers study (and they end up studying quite a lot), has to do with formulaes, laws and numbers. No matter how hard we try, some of the vocabulary we read all day gets into our language. So when my mother said, ‘Are you getting married next year or not?’ I was liable to say, ‘Well, at this moment in time, the probability is relatively low,’ and felt it was completely normal to say it. And when my sister went sari shopping and couldn’t explain the shade she wanted, I told the shopkeeper the percentages of pink, orange and red in the sari.

Yet, ladies, I don’t think we’re bad at relationships, love and getting to know people. We too, can be touchy-feely, as that is part of our education as well. The reason for this is that most engineering students live in the this ‘touchy-feely’ thing. Relationships.

Imagine eating, sleeping, brushing your teeth, bathing (ok rarely this one) and partying with the same people all the time. So, when you are kicking that bathroom door down for the tenth time, or when you stand in line for ‘gulab-jamuns’ in the mess, and when you are done with the vodka bottle and sharing all your secrets, you know it is good practice. Yes, hostels maketh the man. So, next time you are in a flirtatious situation with the techno types, go on, flirt a bit more. Of course, I am biased towards my kind, but if you find the conversation turning too geeky, just ask them, ‘So, what were your hostel days like?’ and chances are, you’ll see a heart behind the calculator.

Coming back to my missie, I thought of what would make me win her over. Flowers… too cheesy. Music… don’t know her taste (nor trust mine). Teddy bears… don’t even go there.Desperate for some good lines, I just turned it right back at her. ‘Yes, I know what you are saying about engineers. The thing is, unless people with depth like you start hanging out with us, we won’t get any better. Can you meet me some time for some touchy/feely… oops, I mean coffee/tea?’

She giggled. When they giggle, you have won

What shoul be a sccessful tester

Source : thinking tester

• Self Driven or high levels of Inner drive for learning new things – No fear of unknown.
• Spontaneous – Thinks on the feet – Good in emergency response.
• Agile and adaptable.
• Love for Science (Physics/Chemistry), Mathematics and Philosophy.
• Love for problem, Puzzles.
• Hunger for self Expression – Writing, speaking.
• Organized Skepticism and constantly challenge their own thoughts

U Me Aur Hum

There is a good movie released 3 week ago. "U me Aur Hum". There was a nice line in the movie stating "Sometimes journey will become liong due to distance between two...." At the same time my mind strike that how its affecting in our work place. what i thought about that is.....

As per my view this line is perfectly matching to our work place our working style. We always working in a team but every body are working for individual (either for money/knowledge or whatever). Thinking that “Only I have to grow" take us to long journey.

What I have always observed in an organization (No only in V2!!) is understanding between QA and Dev. Although a team is said to be a combination of QA + Dev, but the fact is something else. When you compare their understandings, mentality etc we find a huge difference.

It’s the work nature which is forced to glue them together, but not a natural thinking in real sense. We find always a DEBATE mood when two comes at a single stage.

That affecting ultimately to the work we are doing and one more times a looong journey.

What’s the reason for that???

Some of the lines from Developers

"It is none of your job to know how did we write the code, all that you have to do is go and click some buttons!"

"If I do (UNIT) Testing, what will you do?"

What we are throwing back as the answers. Trying to produce more and more bugs and make a bug report as rigid as possible? (Without analyzing any root cause for that bugs). Have we ever sat with the developers and try to analyze Priority/Severity of that bug/release?

Guys is this the QA what are we doing?? Or is it the SDLC they are following?

That always creates distance in a team. And only we have to pay for that and we are paying (long nightmares, Huge pressure and of course poor Appraisal!!!).

Guys….Always try to co operating with your team and shortening your journey.

A Story of a Tester

On a dark and foggy night, a small figure lay huddled on the railway tracks leading to the Mumbai station. At once I was held back to see someone in that position during midnight with no one around. With curiosity taking the front seat, I went near the body and tried to investigate it. There was blood all over the body which was lying face down. It seemed that a ruthless blow by the last train could have caused the end of this body which seemed to be that of a guy of around my age. Amidst the gory blood flow, I could see a folded white envelope which was fluttering in the midnight wind. Carefully I took the blood stained envelope and was surprised to see the phrase "appraisal letter" on it. With curiosity rising every moment, I wasted no time in opening the envelope to see if I can find some details about the dead guy. The tag around the body's neck and the jazzy appraisal cover gave me the hint that he might be a software engineer. I opened the envelope to find a shining paper on which the appraisal details where typed in flying colors. Thunders broke into my ears and lightening struck my heart when I saw the appraisal amount of the dead guy!!!!! My God, it was not even, as much as the cost of the letter on which the appraisal details were printed.... My heart poured out for the guy and huge calls were heard inside my mind saying "no wonder, this guy died such a miserable death"... As a fellow worker in the same industry, I thought I should mourn for him for the sake of respect and stood there with a heavy heart thinking of the shock that he would have experienced when his manager had placed the appraisal letter in his hand. I am sure his heart would have stopped and eyes would have gone blank for few seconds looking at the near to nothing increment in his salary.


While I mourned for him, for a second my hands froze to see the employee's name in the appraisal letter... hey, what a strange co-incidence, this guy's name is same as mine, including the initials. This was interesting. With some mental strength, I turned the body upside down and found myself fainted for a second. The guy not only had my name, but also looked exactly like me. Same looks, same built, same name.... it was me who was dead there!!!!!!!! While I was lost in that shock, I felt someone patting on my shoulders. My heart stopped completely, I could not breathe and sprung in fear to see who was behind......... splash!!! Went the glass of water on my laptop screen as I came out of my wild dream to see my manager standing behind my chair patting on my shoulder saying, "wake up man? Come to Opera meeting room. I have your appraisal letter ready"!!!

InSoLaTER - An Independent Testing Service from Infosys

Source : indiatoday

In a bid to tap the $13 billion software testing market, Infosys has taken the wraps off a new outsourcing venture-InSoLaTER.

Infosys Technologies has launched an independent software test services offering, InSoLaTER (Infosys Software Labs for Test Execution and Research), targeted at software development firms. The company has already set up a full-fledged offshore laboratory in Bangalore-enabled to conduct tests on most hardware and software platforms and on all available browsers-at a cost of $1.5 million (around Rs 7 crore).

R. Arun, associate vice-president of Infosys and in-charge of the project, says, "Software testing typically accounts for 15 per cent of the total cost of an application's development. According to market research firm Gartner Group, the testing market is worth approximately $13 billion (Rs 62,000 crore). Our endeavor is to capture a small chunk of this huge market."

How is Infosys placed vis-à-vis other players in the market? Arun replies, "Our processes are based on our CMM Level 5 best practices, which allow our managers to start with the best-of-class practices and to constantly improve upon them as a project progresses. The various types of independent test services we offer include functionality, performance (reliability, availability, stress, load and volume), security, usability and certification." Arun says the new unit will contribute a revenue of $12 million (Rs 57.4 crore) in the current financial year itself.

India's Role In Software Testing

Source : cxotoday

As per an IDC report, almost $1 billion of the estimated $13 billion global software testing market is accounted for by Indian companies. With the concept evolving considerably in the recent times, CXOtoday explores the industry and its future prospects in India.

"With software tools changing its landscape, testing has become a specialized discipline and is growing faster than it was even two to three years back," averred Shashi Reddy, CEO, Applabs Technologies.

He feels that CIOs are now beginning to understand the benefits of testing and are investing heavily in it. As a result the opportunities have grown substantially in recent past.


Speaking about attitudes towards software testing market, Oren Ariel, CTO and Chief Architect of Mercury Worldwide commented, "With an increased realization of the potential hitches that defective solutions can create, testing software is preferred to risking its failure later. However, despite growing awareness, software testing is still not a prioritized strategy for many enterprises."

"Many business applications are not tested properly before being released into market. As a result companies suffer due to application downtime. This becomes a key concern of the CIO," he added.

Meanwhile, India is becoming one of the leading destinations for offshore testing, with market opportunities for the offshore software testing companies currently at $2 billion, and expected to rise to $8 billion by 2008.

Arun Ramu, Head - IVS group, Infosys, perceives an increased reliance by global software vendors on India to save costs in terms of logistics and time
"The potential that exists in the software testing space is similar to the offshoring model offers. Our global delivery model has been a competitive advantage in the software testing space too."

Neeraj Singh, Test Project Leader, IBM, pointed out that quality of testing an major CIO concern. Hence, vendors are trying their best to optimize testing through several tried and tested as well as innovative techniques.

On other recent trends he pointed out, "Most organizations are also realizing that software testing is becoming an independent professional discipline. It not only brings objectivity and transparency to defect reporting process, but also improves the core business strategy."

Customers are ready to get their software tested by a company that has not played a part in the development process. Moreover it reduces costs by deploying cost-effective models and perceived risk of outsourcing testing is low, he remarked.

While traditional Indian software service players have concentrated on the BFSI domain, Mercury and Polaris have gone way ahead to address multiple segments such as wireless, mobile and embedded systems.