Year In Review 2024
Table of Contents
abstract
The year 2024 was a pivotal one in my life. The year was significant in terms of life transition from a college student to a working adult. After 2023 IndiaFOSS event I had pledged that I’d not set foot to banglore until I’ve started working. I’m proud that I was able to stay true to my pledge and as you will read later I set foot to banglore as a working man and also did a talk for IndiaFOSS 2024. The year was full of controversies surrounding me and the college I go to, It really was troubling times and it took a toll on my overall well being but at the same time I managed to get in touch with the roots of NITC/REC community. The dosage of adulting was pretty high as I had to get my hands dirty and get practical experience on ig all the 4 major pillars of democracy. The year showed me how good I am at raising my voice so that people will listen to what I’ve to say. I had the chance to address large crowds in different settings under different situation. If there was any kind of stage fear left in me, that’s been completely wiped out thanks to all that happened in 2024. I also managed to cross the sea and head to Tokyo Japan, marking my first ever visit outside India thanks to openSUSE. I hope you have the peace to complete the deep dive that’s about to follow.
Life at OHC Network
Job Opening Message in Team Hac’
As the final semester of 2023-2024 was about to start thanks to Faris Shajahan my senior and ex-FOSSCell Secretery I managed to find a job as a DevOps Intern at Open Healthcare Network, helping with the 10Bedicu Project that’s overseen by Egov Foundation. As a first generation IT field employee in my family I had trouble convincing that my job is “real” to my mom. When I asked her if she had a credit card to sign up for Google cloud free trial she was really concerned if I was walking into a credit card scam of some sort. I was tasked with deploying care the EMR software developed by OHC Network to a kubernetes setup using GKE and I have never had played around with GKE or GCP in my life. Edvin Basil the SSL messiah who I befriended during the DebConf 2023 gave me a crash course on kubernetes over a phone call.
Nomad Life and Fort 1F
I had chosen not to take a hostel room for my 5th year in campus and was living as a nomad and the 1F boys gave me shelter and it was from their den I managed to attend interviews and do the works assigned for my test to get into OHC. The pressure of repeating the course for the extended stay past my 4 year of standard degree course, and the feeling of burdening my mom with my college expense again for another year while I was actually supposed to support her for my sister’s study kept me in my toes and I think that’s part the reason I choose not to get a hostel room. Campus provided me with alomst everything. Library, CCC, and friend’s rooms at morning were my places to crash and get the sleep I was missing. The team was looking for a DevOps Engineer but I think they were kind enough to take me in as a DevOps intern which I’d be doing for the upcoming 3 months before I’ll be promoted to the required role of DevOps engineer. I started working at OHC on January 18th of 2024.
Living with Swathi
Shortly after starting work I had to say goodbye to my fort at 1F for reasons I’ll come to in the next section. I have this inexplicable love for all the Archie students in campus. Idk why, maybe it’s because they’re one of the most tortured group of people in terms of academic work. I found comfort living with swathi and his friends Misfar, Jithin, Aavas and a few others who were ad hoc residents at the apartment they had taken for rental. Life quickly became real that was the first time I was living in a home for an extended period of time that’s not really with my family. I managed to use my first salary from work to setup a broadband connection which made life easier for everyone at home. Morning classes and work for OHC at night made days go by fast as a rocket very soon.
Gigin Aakash and Syam
As the work started they were the most influential at day to day at work. Gigin was the engineering lead for the 10Bedicu Project and oversaw my onboarding. He really reminded me of some of my Mime seniors during my first year, his feedback ensured most of our team were in schedule, I felt he had the clear sense of idea where and when to poke at things to get stuff done and ensured the smooth functioning of the team. I was handed over to Aakash to show things around and he did a good job of clearly giving me the idea how things work at OHC. I had the most number of huddles with him during my internship period and almost everytime I get stuck or run into trouble I’d just ring him up and he was able to help me solve the issues. Syam remained and enigma for most of my time as an intern (still low key is..) Based on what I’ve heard and saw in git blame he is responsible for setting up majority of the DevOps stuff at OHC. He guided me write the terraform project for deploying care to GCP. I rarely could get him for calls and he worked late night and I’ve troubled him in his sleep wayy to many times with one thing or another… He is a part time senior consultant and watches over us like god do and he is working as an SRE at KnowBe4 in Kochi. I’ve not really been able to use his expertise much and I hope I’ll be able to get more knowledge from him in the future.
GitHub Video and OpenAI and Banglore
After I started my work at OHC we were featured by Satya nadella from Microsoft during his India Tour, An article by OpenAI and one of the most viewed Video posted by GitHub is about OHC network and the 10bedicu proejct. We got to go for our first team meet during the GiHub Constellation and that’s when I got to first meet all my team members. The Chief Architect of OHC Bodhish Thomas aka Bodhi had a talk during the event and the GitHub Video was showcased during the event where the keynote speaker was Thomas Dohmke the CEO of GitHub. I took my cycle to Banglore for the event on train and man I loved filtering through the banglore traffic with my sleek human powered two wheeler. We met Srikanth for a team meeting where we discussed a lot about the future of care and catchup on lott that happened recently, Overall the first Company outing was eventful.
Intern to Engineer and CoCo
after 6 months of being a DevOps intern I finally managed to get promoted to the DevOps Engineer role which I badly wanted. The news was delivered to me by Gigin during the catchup call with Bodhi who resumed working on Care full time after a break. Bodhi wanted me to have a plan for my future and see how I could better contribute to OHC, The following days the team picked up a lott of momentum as we started to build out HMIS and completely rebuild care from the bottom up. Along with Bodhi Vignesh who was also there from the start of OHC Network / Coronasafe and the Senior expert of care backend rejoined and throughout the last months of 2024 practically build care from ground up. We adopted plugin architecture for care, and now rolling out microfrontends for frontend plugins. As 2024 ends care is up for a major remodelling. We also managed to get an office space at kakkanad. Collective Coworks (CoCo) is pretty nice and working from office did boost my productivity. besides the fact that I have to communte roughly 15 KM the overall experience was awesome as I could see my coworkers in their true form rather than their “Work mode”
To 2025
I believe it’s way hard to start working as a DevOps engineer compared to other general software engineering roles. You could have zero privilleges and zero access and still manage to easily contribute to any Open Source project and if you are good at it you can be recruited to a company. My role on the other hand feels like a deal with the devil and stakes are higher as a DevOps person as I have access that are to be used responsibly. I had serious amount of growth in comparision to where I started off last year this time. But still that doesn’t really give me any excuses as I still have to get better if not the Best at what I do. With the Kerala Palliative Grid and the upcoming major deployments in other states I hope to gather more insights and exposure to make myself more reliable… Reliable enough to call my self a Site Reliability Engineer someday L: )
Ears I’ve And The Minds I’ve Captured
Ramarajyam Shenanigans
Unoubtly one of the biggest highlight of the year and arguably my life. After starting my work at OHC on Jan 18th I headed home for the weekend. In the news and social media the news about ram temple was on loop. I didn’t really care that much tbh. I think I saw a message circulating in some of the whatsapp group about the “Geetha Quiz” Organized by Science and Spirituality Club. Later that evening I started seeing images and videos of indian Map painted in safron color, and students chanting “jai sree ram” around it. The “elite admin” of campus was present throughout the event and was for in support of all that happened that day. I felt an urge to respond to what happened, which threatened the secular fabric of the instituite which was already in bad shape after a series of Hinutva sponsered events that had took place with the undying support of the administration. This includes but not limited to an event conducted by “rss” inside campus in which local rss leaders came to campus. pictures of NSS volunteers were taken without permission and posted in rss social media outlets which triggered an indefinete hunger strike to put admin to it’s senses.
I realized that what happened inside campus must be challenged and for that I decided to stage a peaceful and silent protest. I posted stories up my social wall announcing that I’ll be staging a protest against what had happened inside campus. I proclaimed that I’ll be sitting infront of the Main Building with the boards that says “India is not ramarajyam” to mark my dissent. I was still at home in kochi at the time I decided this and travelled overnight to calicut. I met with kailas who wasthe speaker at the time and was already under intense pressure just because the fact that he pushed for an internal SAC enquiry on what had happened in campus. I gathered a few cardboard sheets from the leftovers used for the Tathva to the Moon event. At roughly 8 AM I started my protest along with kailas. after a while kailas had to leave for tathva related works and I was proceeding with my solo protest. after a while a group of students approached me. They tried to enquire what I was doing.. they wanted me to stop…. They started to use force and took the plackards out from my hands and teared them apart. Security personels started showing up.. but just stood there as they harrassed me. I was furious and I kept on creating new placards which they again teared apart. Things started to get violent as they attacked me on my way to create a new placard. I was tired and was in pain from what had happened. The group went back to their hostel thinking they’ve won. On their way back they attacked kailas as well. saying “How dare You ask questions???” Both of us were in great disappointment thinking of what just happened. Some of my juniors informed others what just happened. And people started coming in hearing that I was attacked. I called swathi and he also came to my side. People showed up more and more in number. They helped me rewrite more of the plackards.. for 3 of the plackards the violent mob had discarded 30 more were put up and people more in number showed up to offer their solidarity. The same violent mob this time with more number again showed up and attacked us tried to destroy more of the plackards… to which we resisted and chaos broke out more security, staff and police showed up trying to diffuse the situation. The registrar himself came to us and asked us to do whatever you want outside campus but not inside to which we clearly said, what happened yesterday was inside campus and this will also happen inside campus we’re not gonna go back..
after a long time of chaos and moment of tension the crowd was dispersed as the violent mob agreed to go back… more celebrations, “jai sree ram” chants and pooja’s inside campus occured afterwards again with the support of the administrative personels. I went with swathi and asked him If I could stay with him as I felt the campus I love isn’t safe for me anymore alone at night.
The Discilinary Committee
Later that week Me, Swathi, Kailas and few others were called upon for enquiry. I was called in to be spoken to alone and by the tone of the questions it was crystal clear that the disciplinary committee wasn’t there to really look into what happened. But to enforce it’s punishment which they had already decided. People including Praveen Shankaran and Rajanikant were hell bent on not listening to what I had to say and forcing me to speak such a way that I’ll sound guilty. This was finished after a series of to and from unfruitful exchange and then others were asked to attend the meeting after me.
Suspended For a Year
On the evening of January 31st a public email to all the students were sent by the DSW Academic Suspension, One Year, - Mr. Vysakh Premkumar [B190622EC]. I started getting multiple calls from different people. I was overwhelmed. News channels started reporting what had happened, call from news outlets, seniors ranging from the one’s I know to the ones’ who’ve left campus a decade ago started pouring in. Visible disgust and anguish was felt among students against the unjust decision. Reply mails started coming from mostly the pHD community. Later the night Had a call with amma just like a normal day… and she called back shortly after finishing the call after knowing what had happened… Amma was distressed, I tried my best to console her, reassured it’s gonna be okay… SAC kept discussing about what can be done. they decided to do an emergency meeting and then proceeded to draft a demand to reconsider and went to the dsw office to submit it. at 11 AM next day. Prior to this a circular was released by the Registrar that restricted any events and gatherings which led to the cancelling of tathva that was supposed to happen the same week. I felt like I’ve spoiled the dreams and hardwork of all the Students who had worked their asses off for tathva.. It was more painful than being suspended that the people I stayed with, Team tathva was the ones who were most affected by my actions. SAC had called for participation of students at 11AM to show strength and I was under the notion that I had already been villainized succesfuly by the admin by their order to cancel tathva. I kept telling myself who’s gonna show up for someone who stole their fests from them.
at 11 AM a group of people came and they along with SAC to submit the letter.
The Night We Won
I was restricted entry to campus effective immediately but came in to collect the suspension letter. Unknown to me the students were planning to organize against the injustice stronger than ever before. A meeting was called at the central circle by SAC and students in large number unseen like ever before including pHD’s to the UG first years showed up in large numbers… As I came to the MB lobby people looked up to me and I felt more or less like harry back at Hogwards, before the final battle. ALl of them knew me, all of them even tho they had stuff to do decided that it can wait and showed up for me, to date I can’t find any other instance where I’ve felt such class consciousness. SAC had a plan… I was merely a spectator. For long the administration has won, they’ve bend student’s according to their will. this time it was different. everyone who showed up sealed all the gates of campus. They strongly proclaimed No passage until the discriminatory order is taken back… Everyone sat in rajpath sealing the gate meanwhile hell was breaking loose outside campus as the student political organizations kept on with their marches. The Mime team and the streetplay teams performed and for me those performances meant lot more than every other events where they were performed. at 10 PM that night.. the admin was forced to sign the order that will revoke my suspension and that was one of the peak euphoric moment of the year. In the past 5 years I’ve seen many struggles many protests for which almost were systemically dispersed and leaders hunted down by the administration. But that night admin had no choice but to suffer a loss.
Aftermath
This wouldn’t be the last protest I’d be part of nor the campus will witness. The chaos ensued throughout the sem and more dictatorial decisions were taken by the administration… The cases me and Kailas have filed still hunts and hurts some of the students who attacked us… I face another disciplinary action taken as a revenge… I’m just ghosting and pushing all these to a point so that tommorow’s me will better handle this..
In front of the Crowd
From addressing the students gathered to block the gate for revoking my suspension to share the victory news and more of them later on for the protests that followed I got to experience what maybe only few of us were lucky to experience. The feeling of expressing what a crowd wants to hear moreover what each of the individuals in the crowd wants to say outloud through me is a unique experience. I didn’t have fancy words or complex message to send to the world… My messages were simple and I managed to send thenm to the ears and then hearts of many. I’ve faced huge blows and even today the entire sets of incidents really left wounds that are hard to heal on me. But I had my people, I had NITC in it’s essence wrapping me around in a blanket of it’s love warmth and care and that really is good enough for me. I scored a 100 out of 100 in public speaking for the year and I went on for more challenges. KochiFOSS, IndiaFOSS and openSUSE asia summit at Tokyo were my 3 major talks for the year and I did my best to capture more minds with my talks. (PS: I’ll really try and get my tokyo blog up soon….)
Miscellaneous
Love Life
I think I might have lost what I found a year before… Low key discovered I have a Raj Koothrappali element inside me. Wine’s my new best friend…. 2024 one of the resolution was to really flirt more to which idk maybe I did given the fact that I was busy with life altering events. Tried the Memes dating app and found a match… thought it might be a Kadhal kanmani, ended up not.. I think I did a good farewell OK kanmani style so there’s closure there. Not to mention that the old ghosts still haunts me… What could have been is a Heavy burden I do not wish to carry but am forced to… I think I might have even the spoiled the taste of a good kunafa with that load of scraps. Now 2025 surely gonna be interesting I hope… ..
Operating Systems
2024 i switched from my broken Frankenstein Debian Sid Hyprland installation which was held together by timeshift rsync and ducttape to super solid Debian 12 with Gnome.
I stayed true to gnome for a good amount of time.. PURELY BECAUSE I WANTED TO GET MY WORK DONE… Gnome did well.. and later I started using swayfx as a side and low key switched entirely to swayfx. My 4-5 year old laptop started acting wierd and showed rainbow coloured screens probably due to hardware failiure.
Switched to M1 Pro mac late October and It’s been a delight using it. I love it more than Windows and It’s smooth and God I love the speakers to a point I don’t use headphones anymore. I still use nix-darwin to get some GNU/Linux goodies for my cli. Kitty still is the default terminal and Vanilla vim with my custom config which 2022 me wrote keeps my works going.
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