Mr. Anderson...

It was my 12th standard board examinations. I knew I had every chance of maxing my computer science test. But when the results came in, I was 11 marks short. That changed my life. If I had scored a full, I would have built a Sandcastle becoming the greatest computer hacker in the world and as a consequence I would have enrolled myself into computer engineering.

So I went on to study Chemical engineering and Physics and learnt some valuable lessons for life; one of which was life lesson 2.

Life lesson 2: Physics in college is not the same as physics in school. Generalising the rule: The subjects that you thought you liked and were good at, at school will be the subjects that will make your life miserable at college and thus the subjects you will come to dislike.

Computer programming turned out to be one of them. It will be an understatement if I said I was hopeless. I never made double digit marks, could never write one error-less line of code (One instructor remarked in an open book test that if I had opened the book during the test, I could have atleast got one basic line correct. I started off the program with an studio.h instead of stdio.h. Studio seemed logical to me than the stdio gibberish.) and at most times managed to make the default marks for attending the test.

Now, here is a confession. Many young and attractive married women have been asking me how an intelligent, gifted, sensitive and capable man such as I am never had a girlfriend at college.

Because I was having such a good time entertaining everyone around me at the computer lab with my ingenious logic and computer vocabulary, some guys who were jealous of me printed several copies of my programs and distributed them among the ladies.

If you can not write programs that can not run or atleast amble, you don't get a job. If you didn't get a job you don't have money. If you didn't have money you don't have me.

And so I didn't have a girlfriend till the end of the second year and therefore I didn't have a girlfriend all through college. But what about my 3rd, 4th and 5th years? Don't come to a conclusion until you have understood life lesson 127.

Life lesson 127: All women you desire are taken before the end of second year of college.

Later that year, word spread that someone had hacked into the university network and went to places never gone before, seen things never seen before and touched things never touched before. In a matter of hours there was a Robin Hood, a Mr. Anderson and a William Wallace; all simmering in one body - mine. I was the world's best hacker I would have dreamed about. I received more than 700 love emails in the most exquisite and gratifying language I have ever seen women write.

My account was seized. My activities were monitored. I was bullied to submit in closed room interrogations. My weekly long distance telephone calls with my parents were tapped. But they couldn't move a muscle in me. They were all exasperated and almost given up when one genius in the group had the brains to look at my computer programming test marks. None about nine. They let me free.

Life lesson 1983: Everything happens for the good

It was then I decided I will no longer have anything to do with software. And so for four years since I started work, I managed to hide myself in power points and spreadsheets until a few days ago.

BB: So Raja, you are the best man around here for numbers and spreadsheets. We would like to built an excel based tool that will be programmed to turn all our bad businesses to good and good businesses to better. And I would like you to work on it.

Well, they say life is a circle! Should that be my life lesson 0?

BB* - Boss's Boss