Weekend Bug Story

Date: 13th August 2011 Place: Bangalore to Davanagere

Being software engineers, bugs form important elements of our lives.

For SW-developers (bug-creators), bugs can haunt day-n-night, Monday to Friday and at-times on weekends too. I, being an electronic SW developer many a times scratch my head to identify if the bug is a result of my SW code or is a HW circuitry issue. Well, I am used to bug-haunts and so is my understanding wife who relieves me by serving our special Davanagere Benne Dosa with extra butter top-ups during weekends (Half- day sound sleep, thanks to Dosa). However, the just-past weekend I encountered a unique variant of bug and so does this story begin..

      With Best Wishes and safe-guarding Rakhi from my sister, I set my foot into KSRTC bus-stop Bangalore, to start my weekend journey (BLR to Davanagere) along with my brother-in-law (aka BIL).  With no train reservations, I was boarding bus only after about 2 years. Having got a window seat in the middle of Rajahamsa (special festive bus), I SMSed my sister for being lucky to get the seats and thanking her for her wishes. SMS sent-notification on my mobile was the last happiest moment of the day (rather night).  You know Why?? Just as our off-shore customers send bug-alerts/notifications, my sister SMSed back alerting me about Rajahamsa BED BUGS (alias., urf THAGANI in Kannada). Well, the alert was too late since our bus was gushing through Dr Raj road with half of my fellow passengers afloat in dreams. The SMS was a like a critical bug-filed on an onfield product which might result in recall of product. But, do I see chances of rectification at midnight?? Anyways, who cares about bugs (I am a SW

engineer) is what I patted myself until the first strike came on me near Yeshwanthapura. Ghosh !!, the size of the bug rattled my spirits right then, it was a Mammoth bug which carried one valuable drop of my blood in its tummy. Unaware of the menace, by now 90% of the bus-occupants including my BIL were in sound sleep. The other 10% except me were busy trying to push the mobile operator’s profits northwards. Incidentally everyone scratched their neck, shoulders, feet without paying much attention. Just as we SW developers pass our unit-test WARN messages.

      After a while, I walked my way to the driver’s cabin enquiring our driver and conductor about any bugs in the bus holding tight a bug in my fingers. They mocked at me to claim that the bugs were a past-thing. Just as we undermine a SW bug arguing to customers for having tested and closed it in a previous release. The KSRTC crews were only to trust me after I released the struggling bug on conductor’s palm and took its blood (how dare it took mine!!). The driver was shocked and parked the bus sideways to call the depot-manager right in the midnight. This is like an escalation of a SW bug to a project-champion/owner.

      Having reported a major issue, I was relieved only to return back to my seat to test and report more bugs. I killed about 12-15 of them but atleast 20 feasted on me and escaped to their safe-dens.  My new Galaxy mobile which most of the time starves for battery, did not help me take a single picture of these night-crawlers. Bug-attack, my-counter-attack went on relentlessly until about 1 O’clock when I decided to give-up and vacate my seat to occupy a place in driver’s cabin. I was greeted by KSRTC crew and offered the co-driver’s seat. I caught 2 more bugs (I got compliments from driver and conductor for this as though I was enjoying their medallions of praises) before the bus entered the streets of Davanagere. I never knew that my desire to see my 4 month old Ruthvik would take such a toll of mine. I hadn't slept even for 5 minutes properly.

      One of my relatives back in home said that she had found bugs in SRE travels before. Another complained about Mahesh Travels. I was taken aback by the resilience in us even after such experiences.  Just as my manager insists on doing a Root-Cause-Analysis of a SW issue, I thought I should do one for this issue and decided to take a stern action on KSRTC. I and my BIL (he had developed rashes on his body by

then) met depot-manager at 11:00 the following morning after a good bath and a relaxing sleep. I submitted a complaint letter for:

1)    Complete revamping of bus-seats.

2)    Compensate my travel expenses.

The manager was quick enough to act on the Item (2) but was only assuring on Item (1) because of policy issues.  However, I changed my terms to:

1)    Travelling in Rajahamsa after 15 days, free-of-cost to assess the

situation. ( The failure-test)

2)    If above ‘failure-test’ is not cleared, I would go RTI way to see

that all heads for the cause of these bugs would pay penalty.

I have got a letter acknowledged by depot-manager with his sign and seal for the above ‘failure-test’. Dear friends, please report any such bed-bugging issue in your routes to the concerned authorities.

And for Davanagere route travelers, you can send me a 'picture of bug in seats' with bus details if you notice any hereafter.