Hallucination Headquarters: The Miraculous Kukke Trip

In midist of Q4 the peak for Amazon and ambitious targets, I applied for a leave. The leave was granted under one simple condition, finish the task assigned before going on leave; including development, testing and deployment. I had to agree with some doubt in mind and a pair of fingers crossed behind my back, coz I needed to make the trip to Kukke Subrahmanya with my family. This was my first commitment after I joined Amazon, so there was that fear of not being able to finish on time, in which case I'd have to cancel the trip, which was almost impossible as all the bookings were done. Also I couldn't leave the work unfinished for 3 reasons:

1. It's my first task, a chance to show that hiring me was not a bad decision; and the first impression does makes a huge difference and goes a long way.
2. The task assigned to me is very important, though not too complex; as the other components being developed that are very crucial for Q4 depend on my component. And Q4 is very important time in the US retail market. It is said that retailers make enough during just few days in Q4 to compensate for all the losses they for the entire year.
3. All development happening for Q4 was high visibility. Ppl in management were directly involved to monitor the progress. Any kind if delay would be questioned and analysed.

So, in short there was no way I could screw up. With little understanding of the system, it was hard for me to even find alternate plans or finish things faster.
The time I had was 3 weeks to complete dev, qa, integration and prod deployment. Against all odds and with a few surprises on the way and disappointments in life (normal for anyone), now I'm traveling back to Bengaluru from Kukke after a wonderful 2 days of darshan and poojas along with a very happy and satisfied family. It seems quite miraculous to me that all of it was possible.

While that seems like a miracle to me, my family sees a dream I had as a miracle. We came to Kukke for a shanti pooja coz a cobra which entered our house back during my school days in my place, KGF, was killed by the ppl who came to capture it while it attached them. In my dream, last night, I saw a cobra getting out, from inside the room that I was in, through the window. It seems mom had been praying since the pooja to give us an indication of success of shanti-karan. Yesterday was the pooja and this morning I told her about my dream. She and dad were really happy about my dream, as its an indication that the snake had blessed us and left us in peace.

As for me, I couldn't ask for more, a happy manager and a happy family is all a man needs to feel content in life. So, these are few of those miraculous days that I shall remember.

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