CH 1: Questions

“All is programmed for you”.

This is what every person who enters through the main door on north side would read once when they entered the firm. The gold plated letters where used welcome everyone to the Gooogle world. The geek god was revered here and ordinary people would just stand in awe ofthe glittering gold that made them feel so unintellectual. Geeks language was a trait used by gooogle to gain upper hand when making business deals with others and these words had become the general norm of every deal and used to appear in everything from desktop to documents.

They were working in the same team and both used to chit chat at the coffee table every afternoon. It was 15 to 25 minutes break where they used to discuss all sorts of things together. Today's topic of discussion had popped out when Venkat saw one of those business papers and asked these questions to John.

Is this really true? Is everything really programmed? And all that we do is to follow the execution path. Is that all there is to it? asked Venkat looking very engrosed into the words written on those papers.

“Yeah mate the boss has got everything figured out for us. He knows what task to assign us for next week and the next one after that. He has got everything figured out and all we have to do is to complete the task given to us. Damn this Alex!” replied John.

The coffee session end after 10 minutes and both went back to work.

On the way home Venkat couldn't stop thinking about what John said to him during coffee session. Venkat was referring to life when he had asked John about this question and though the answer that John gave was in reference to Alex. Things made sense to Venkat when he attached GOD in place of Alex.

But why would god want me do this when I don't want to do this myself?

Venkat wanted to become to become a police officer and serve the place that had given him so much in his life.

But just days before his attending the interview Venkat got into accident and accident left him slight limp. His was forced to study and take up a flight to US. Although not a huge fan of computers himself Venkat became a software developer and his dreams of becoming a police officer had to be put off. His route to US was without any trouble whatsoever and everything just seemed to fall in place for him to become a software developer.

He just couldnot accept that his life was "programmed for him to be that way". Is was not agreeable to him. Not just this big one but other small incidents too like when he got all the assignment of Gooogle Mantra when Victor had made all the efforts to get it or when got the credit for a team job, made him feel as if thing were not under his control. He always got the feeling that outcome was beyond his influence and that someone else was affecting it.

Is there a hidden secret to my life that I ought to know? thought Venkat. Is this mysterious force just going to be someone whom I have never seen just heard about. Is my life already programmed by this force.

"I have to find out more. Just accepting the situation is not a solution. No not for me".

Story

One thing common about everyones life is that its full of incidents. Incidents happen and leave thier impression on peoples life. Often we find ourselves saying “This was not supposed to happen to me” or “May be it was meant to be that way”. A cobbler becomes a rich merchant or on the flip side a rich man looses everything that he earned. These are big incidents that leave there lasting impression on ones life. There are other small incidents too like “a person forgetting his wallet” or a “programmer finding a solution for his problem in google”. These small incidents occur more frequently and leave their effect for a short period. But all in all incidents affect our life in some way or the other.

The story is about Venkat, a mathematician from IIT Kanpur who is working as computer programmer for Gooogle, the internet powerhouse that has become the face of entire world wide web. Venkat believes that there is a reason behind the incidents that happened in his life and starts on a journey to find that reason.

What was supposed to be small trip of sorts soon unravels into a mind-boggling journey of a world or science that had never been explored by many before.

Prologue

Why is this damn thing not working when I need it the most. Everything thats happening today is completely messed up. May be, I was supposed to go through this bad day. This mantra thing is becoming a real pain in my butt. The door opens and Alex enters into the room. Alex is Venkat's manager at google.

“Hey Venkat! I hope its done”.
Venkat stutters a bit and says, “Well its almost complete” .
“Good! your Gooogle Mantra is going to be a sure hit among the masses”.
“Yeah but i have to get this bug fixed first. Its killing me”.
“May be I can help. Let me have a look .”

Both go through the code and Alex smiles and looks at Venkat. Its turns out be a very silly mistake. Both of them have a laugh about it and Alex leaves the room. Venkat falls back in his chair and starts thinking.

"I knew this had to happen today. But thank god i can go home and get some rest now. Lets hope there are no more incidents while driving. I never saw this coming but hope theres no more of it. I hope I don't spent my entire life sitting in front of this stupid box and keep doing the same thing to earn my daily bread.”

After few days Gooogle Mantra is released and once again the world looks to be becoming more smaller day by day. Thanks to Gooogle for their effort, today they hold the baton of making world a smaller place.