! My Heart's Child !

27 th October 2010
1800 hours
Panaji – Goa

As I am going through her pictures, I could literally see her growing up all over again. Today was a very important day in my and my daughter's life. Today she had gone to answer her interview for her Kindergarten admissions. Full day I was with my fingers crossed, hopping that she will clear it, or shall I say knowing that she will clear it, I know you people will be saying that Every mother says that her child is the best, But believe me no one other than a mother can know her kid better. She is the only one who knows her kid in and out, her weak points and strong points both. And the same applies to me, I know that my baby like all other kids has some weak points here and there, But they are negligible compared to her strong points. Her strong points are she is sweet, cute , smart, active and she has the flow of thoughts that is unmatchable to many other kids of her age. In short she is a fast learner, and it is my strong belief that as the time passes she will go on improving. So after listening to all this, don't you feel that there is no way that she wont clear this interview?
Now, I only hope that the principal takes the right decision....
For last two years,before she came in my life I worked hard on different projects as a QA Engineer which were so very much different from each other. I always tried to give my best in each and all of them but never really got connected with any one of them. And down the line in this journey I came across Goa E-Governance projects. Yes Goa E-Governance projects! Most of the QA team members then, did not like to work on Goa E-Governance projects.
The reason behind this is still unknown to me. And so with all sort of warnings, I started my new venture on Goa E-Governance projects, The first Goa Project that was assigned to me was Excise(Headed by Paa) and while working on Excise, I had this lovely opportunity to work with some of the best coders of our company Mr. Rajendra Barve (My Paa) and Mr. Harish Usgaonkar(My Bhaiya). By the time my tenure on Excise was over, Bhaiya had become my favorite coder and I hoped that in the near future I will get one more chance to work with him. Later, I was shifted back to Gateway Project.
After some months, we got the news that two more Goa E-Governance projects will soon go into production or speaking from my point of view, will be released to QA soon. The names of these two Projects were Zila Panchayat(ZP) and State Directorate of Craftsmen and Training(SDCT). I also came to know that ZP will be headed by Darshan & my Paa and SDCT by Bhaiya and there were good chances that I will get a chance to work on either one of them. Both of this projects were headed by my best friends or shall I say my family members, so, I used to call both of them as home productions.
I was happy that I would be able to work on one of these projects, but whenever I would think about it, I would vote for SDCT over ZP as Bhaiya would be coding it and as I have told you already I loved the challenge of finding bugs in what he had coded as it was indeed a difficult task. But when the time came ZP was assigned to me. At first I felt bad as if I had missed my chance, but then ZP changed my thinking forever.
In the month of October last year, Sir called me, Suprajit and Masha. Masha was supposed to lead our QA team for this project, and told us that we are supposed to start writing testcases for ZP. So from that day onwards ZP was officially given to us. We started writing test cases by referring ZP documents. By doing so I started knowing the project better and better, I continued doing this for nine months. Many things had changed in these nine months, Masha had left the job and Suprajit was shifted to development (ZP team). So for quite some time it was me, me and only me with my ZP. For these nine months together with ZP, I had worked on other projects too, But ZP had already started being special for me, something that I got connected with might be because it was the first project that was with me for such a long time, or might be because for the past some months, I had read ZP documents so many times that I had started knowing it very well, or might also be because of the reason that most of the developers in ZP team were my good friends and was owned by my best friend or might be just because we were meant to be connected.
Sounds weird right when someone says that she had got connected to Project? In the beginning even I felt so. But then on day when I and some of ZP developers were discussing some things regarding ZP it just came from my mouth that ZP is my baby and till date it continues to be the same ZP – My Heart's Child!
And believe me, I sort of believe in it. Before ZP, I was never passionate about any of the projects. It's true that I didn’t take any project lightly though, always tried to give my best, but ZP was totally different. Like any and every mother would, I wanted to see it growing into the best, and in the month of June this year when ZP was finally released to the QA, I was extremely happy. Now the QA Team for ZP consisted of Priyanka and me. The first version of ZP that was released consisted the technical section, I must say that it was designed and coded quite well. The hard work that the ZP developers team had put could be seen. Hats off to them! Paa was given the responsibility of technical section, he had given his best for this project. I had seen him working real hard. With that release, we started a rigorous testing mission, I call it a mission because we left no stone unturned for the betterment of this project, neither from development side nor from QA's side. Release after release, we were given a highly improvised version of its precedent.
Second version had Accounts section together with changes and bug fixes in Technical section, The third release was made up of Establishment section together with enhancements in previous two sections. For the third release three more members were added to our QA team, Darshana, Pritam and Sunny. All three of them were new joinees, but I must say after some guidance they had done exceptionally good work. All together, we had five such main releases and then subsequent point releases.
After each new release, my baby was becoming more healthy and beautiful. She had started growing up slowly, just like a human kid, she had started going through different stages of life: sleeping, sitting, crawling, standing and speaking with every new release and now after subsequent point releases, she could be compared to a three – four year old girl, who had so many things to speak, so much to explore and was ready to face the world, learn new things on her own.
Internal demos had already taken place, the management had appreciated the project and efforts of all related to her a lot.
But today is a very important day, Today Darshan had taken her to the Department for Demo ( Kindergarten admissions) where they will go through its properties and give their judgment (Approve/reject or tell us to do some changes). I know there are no chances that they will reject such a lovely project, but still, I am curious and waiting to hear the good news that it is Approved.
The time has come when my baby will face the world on its own, without our support, She has to join the Kindergarten now as her first step to new life, where she will be taught real time scenarios and the ways to face them.
Like Every mother my blessings will always be there with her...
…..Love You ZP...Seriously Do.....