Today was like any other day. After not finding anything interesting in the usual meals of cafeteria, I decided to take a masala dosa. As I was waiting for my turn to get the dosa, I saw a familiar face. "Is he Pinal Dave?"
It was indeed Pinal Dave. First I thought "should I talk to him?". But then thought "He might be having thousands of fans like me. Why should I bother him during his lunch time".
But curiosity took better of me. How can I miss a chance to meet my technical world Idol. How can I let go of an opportunity to at least talk to the person who has inspired me to learn sql server and performance tuning.
I went to him and asked "Aren't you Pinal". He neiher was neither shocked nor impressed. Off course he would be encountering this almost every day. (He is a known personality among SQL server developers. Google any sql related problem and first few results will be from SQLAuthority blogs. )
He said "Yeah I am Pinal".
I introduced myself. But I was completely at loss of words.
Not sure what to say and how to say. I just managed to say this much “I am big fan of yours. I have been inspired a great deal by you.” He said thanks.
Again I asked "How come in Microsoft?"
He said "I came for training."
Then he asked "What are you doing here"
I told him "I work for Infosys and currently working as vendor for MS"
Then he told me that he is going to join Microsoft soon.
By then our dosa was ready. I got mine and he got his.
I was then wondering should I ask him to join us for lunch? or should I let him go his way.
Then he said He needs to find a place to sit. I got this opportunity that probably he doesn't have company and hesitantly asked "Would you mind joining us for lunch.” He accepted.
After settling for lunch and introducing him to my Infosys friends (Asha, Sowmya and Vivek) I started asking him questions one after another. All the questions that ever ran through my thoughts whenever I read his blogs.
And definitely this was my first one: How do you manage to write one blog every day. It’s really difficult to be consistent to write something every day.
He said: Yeah It’s a taxing job to do. Even simplest of the post takes 2-3 hours to write. The post he wrote yesterday took him more than a day. And he mentioned that he would be completing 1600 blogs the tomorrow.
Next question: Does he keeps his topics piled up at once or is it that he gets ideas on the fly?
He said: mostly for next 2-3 days.
Next question: Does he write all of them at once or one each day.
He said: For next 2-3 days.
He told about how he is learning new things like we do everyday by trial and error.
Even he finds his work monotonous sometimes.(Till today I used to think his job is very exciting which gives him opportunity to travel so much and meet so many people and exchange ideas).
He was very humble to say that he is not a native English speaker. (In fact I have been his follower because he writes in a very simple language)
He even showed snap of his 16 month old daughter.
He was really happy to share the info that his previous days' blog hit-count is 42,000. I was shocked. 42,000 hit count for a one blog in a day!!!!!!!!!!. That’s’ amazing.
I had asked him earlier that I want to have a photo with him. But later I forgot. Somehow after lunch he managed to find me and reminded me of the photo.
During the whole lunch I did not feel for once that that I have met him for the first time. The whole conversation went like meeting a very close and old friend after a long time and catching up.
Overall a memorable experience and I am very much thrilled.
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