Life’s Little lessons

So I have this young friend of mine who has very recently started working ( ulp, that “young” sounded so prophetically absurd :P, 4 years of working in the industry and you develop that cynical, superficial superior attitude of been everywhere done everything, when you are still at the same old level :P, ), and we keep interacting over the new professional life this friend is getting attuned to. And having just gotten back to working after a Yeambeah hiatus of a year, it is interesting to note buddy’s experiences and relate them to where I as well as some of my other friends were about 5 years ago. Trying to gain a footing into an as yet unfamiliar world, each day a new myth being broken and newer ones being formed, to be broken again the next day. And I guess all of us do go through the same stuff and the new ones ( this poor friend of mine :-s) find themselves being given a lot of gyaan by the so called been there done that souls around (yours truly :-s).

But the point of my post is not this. Just the other day, my friend talked about her first what she called a “small” achievement at office. Some activity that she was given responsibility of and she had executed and was happy about. And I somewhere sensed an almost childlike innocent glee in that one moment which led me to make this statement “life is all about those small victories........ and they all accumulate into "life is good" finally”

And then later I realized “ wah betelaaal, tune to ek dum super duper philosopher baat bol di, tu kahan tha ab tak, mere Socrates ki paanchveen santaan”.:D

The whole thing did get me thinking actually. When was the last time in my last company that I had felt happy. I always had found myself cribbing and complaining about a lot of things just like I guess most of us, and failed to appreciate our own small small achievements. That first well drafted email to the boss, which elicited a good response, or the first well made slide no 3 for the boss’s presentation, or a first successful follow up with a vendor. Small, insignificant perhaps, but well victories for sure. And how many times do we end up just glossing over them, in search for that really really big achievement that would get us that hugggeee promotion or salary jump of whatever. Result? We keep feeling underutilized, underachieved, frustrated and what not. And the result, we end up not liking whatever we were doing, even if we were really doing it well, and make our lives even more miserable.

Now wait, what the hell are you talking about chaos? Are you trying to scuttle ambition? You think its wrong to go for the BIG thing in life? What kind of a dolt are you?

Naah, nothing like that. I am not even hinting at ambition. God knows I have huge ambitions in life that I am working towards, and you very soon will see me at that CII awards function taking the best top honcho of the year award ( abe punter, I am trying to bribe the jury right now, sshsshh). But this has got no relation to ambitions and the like. Not even close. All I am saying, even as you work towards that great president of the biggest I bank ( errr I seem to have a thing or two for them don’t I) career, do take time out to appreciate your smaller achievements and enjoy them if only for a moment. Trust me, no one else would pat your back for these small things, they are really small, really insignificant for everyone around. But whoever stopped you from patting your own back once in awhile. Or telling some good friend of yours who you know would appreciate it, and hearing him / her applaud you for it. Its that feel good factor which would give you a high.

It wont do much, but it’ll perhaps make you like what you are doing well enough to want to excel in that. And actually do.

Sometimes i think its actually good to get that child out in you and let him or her enjoy those small small things in life even it relates to work. The child is always supreme and works best i guess. In fact this reminds me, just today a freind of mine commented on this old photo from college and asked " Bacche Chaos kahan hai tu"??.......and i actually wanted to say " sir, main to idhar hi hoon"......coudlnt truly say that though. :/

This is a post and a note for my own self. And I know you would find a lot of self help books perhaps mentioning the same old thing and this is perhaps an old wine in a new bottle story. :P. but well I liked that thought and wanted to blog about it.

And I think I owe my friend for this “sochful” post. Thanks buddy. Cheers to you :).

Hail Thy Maid!!!

Jusht Imagineeee!!!
He, (proudly welcoming her to his one room bachelor's abode) " Welcome dear, its been so long, and this is your first time to my place"
She....looks around... "speechless"
He...(showing off his room)..."see i arranged for candlelight dinner for the two" ....shows two half moth eaten candles trying to stay alive and harmless on a broken table strewn with papers and uncle chips wrappers and what not.
She... "still speechless"
He...looking deep into her eyes and at his sweetest and romantic best "yaar, tumhein to ek mahina ho gaya na in your new job, am so happy blah blah... so what do you plan to gift me from new salary, bolo bolo tell"
She...looks coyly down at her fingers....."naaa, i wont tell you it’s a surprise"
He ....even more romantically " nahin nahin batao na, kya laake doge mujhe"
She......"naaa"
He...."haan"
She...." accha theek hai suno, with my first salary...........ILL GET A DAMN MAID ARRANGED TO CLEAN UP YOUR FREAKIN ROOM.......SHEESH".
He............gaya romance paani mein..... :((

Well face it dude, we boys are plain helpless when it comes to looking after our homes or whatever you may call them ( sensitive females generally get a heart attack when we call our abodes ...“homes”). Nahin hota bhai humse. When youve been brought up by doting mothers and loving sisters (ahem, i am being politically correct i know), who go ga ga on the fact "mera beta / mera bhaiya kitni padhai karta hai, bechara kitna mehnati hain".....to you dont just learn the ways of keeping a bed clean, what the proper place of a Lays Chips wrapper is, so on. You just are used to having things in their place, all the time.

That is till the time you are not alone. Tab bhaiya aate daal chawal ke bhaav ke saath pata chalta hai the need for a good clean room and how difficult it is to do it all by yourself.

But my dear, never fear, the maid is here. Yupp boss I am telling you this, God made Mother…….and then he made the Maid …ok sad comparison. But you get my point.

So just the other day I was having this conversation with my friend who has just started working and is soon to shift to her own place, and she was lamenting about getting into the groove of looking after her house, aata daal chawal etc etc. And then she quipped "Tum ladke log to maids and all ka kaafi dhyaan shyaan rakhte ho na...unhein sir pe chada ke rakhte ho...unke bina to tumhara kucch kaam hi na chale, right"

And i couldnt help but agree with her. Call it need, necessity, selfishness or just plain old helplessness, but the “didis”, the “ammas” and the “bais” are as important a part of our hereto shabby bachelor lives as the air we breathe…….err zyaada romantic ho gaya kya?

But let me tell you about myself. In my 4 years of working at Mumbai and close to two months here, I have had a total of 6 maids who I have employed……..Abe Punter, don’t roll your eyes….. I am not Shiney Ahuja who scares the wits out of people……just that do baar had to shift place in Mumbai and here also in kolkata to nayee jagah, nayee maid, wah sunil babu, badiya hai!!!

Anyways so as I was saying, touchwood all the maids i employed were very good and helpful and well almost motherly to us poor baba log. They always seem to have that sympathy corner for “ bechare baba log, inko joote ke laces bhi baandhne nahin aate, yeh kya ghar saaf rakhenge”. So as the “poor” baba log look on in barely concealed glee, the helpful maid goes about making sure things are spick and span in the house, the utensils are kept in their proper places in the kitchen, and the cooker does not sleep on the baba’s bed, the garbage finds its way to the truck outside and does not become a compost pit for economical methane gas production.

And so we do like to keep them happy. Never argue on the salary, always address them as “didi” or “amma” or “baiji”, ask mom to get some clothes and sarees whenever she comes visiting and so on.
I think we babalog also score a point with the baby log of our age. For us “ignorance is bliss”. We never knew what worked best, we never shall. So as long as the house is even a shade neater than it was when we were alone……Hail Thy Maid………:P.
Unlike the baby log who usually would go…"Bai, tumne jo kal kadhai ko dhoya tha, usmein abhi bhi teen din pehle ki daal chipki hai”…….and so on……basically Baby Log make tough customers…..and Baba Log don’t…….so maids louuuve Baba Log……..

Anyways enough of this baba log and baby log and bai log….....bole to I might just get censored by people in this age of Shiney Ahuja……..but as I like to say always……Hail Thy Maid.

Whose Fault Is It Anyway?

Story 1

Atul had known Saavi for four years now. Same undergrad, same branch, same class – and well the dubious honor of being ragged by the same bunch of seniors on day 1 ( a novelty in itself, since they never allowed girls to be ragged by senior boys and vice versa, but then there was something different here). No wonder they hit it off together from day one. From sharing the so called post ragging trauma – which actually included laughing their guts out at all the nonsensical activities they were made to do by seniors (no, those weren’t the days of a Supreme court ban on an activity that was considered a must for breaking the ice), to forming a gang of crazy 8 that would romp the by lanes of the institute for next 4 years, to partners in crime in numerous episodes that a normal undergrad life in hostels would witness, they had done it all. Best friends, always sharing the little ups and downs of life as it came, supporting each other and so on.

Until…..

Last day of college. The atmosphere was sombre and heavy as friends got ready to bid their last adieu. Even in those hazaar “ill miss you, stay in touch, give me your email ( oh yes this was still the time, when internet had not become a lifeline, and orkut facebook were non existent)”, they all knew somewhere things would change. Everyone would get busy and soon have no time.

Those same thoughts permeated his conscience as he walked up to her. “Now or never”, said he to himself. He had waited for long. Many a times his courage failed him, but still he never gave up trying. And today, well, it had to be different.

Saavi was standing near the Nescafe – an outlet that a year back had marked the demise of the good old Satkaar café with its 2:00 am dosage of idlis, dosas, maggi, chai and every would be engineers’ daily dose of sutta. “ghosh why are all these thoughts of bhaiya coming into my mind right now”, wailed Atul as he walked upto her.

And she noticed it. She had always been the one with that unsettling sixth sense. She would guess your innermost thoughts before you even said something. “gosh not today, not today please else ill fail again”, cried Atul to himself, as he went and stood upto her.

“What is it, Atul? Ki hoya? Kaun mar gaya”, said Saavi, in her trademark bindaas style. She had always been so, and how many times had she asked this question to an equally hilarious response from Atul. Not today though. And she knew too, her eyes showed that.

“I need to talk to you Saavi, kucch baat karni hai”, said Atul. “ care for a chai at Bhatiajis”.
“ummm, ok, chal bidu”, Saavi chirped, albeit with a well hidden sense of foreboding…….
And they walked away.

Half an hour later, a visibly distraught Atul came back to the hostel and started packing. His train was for tomorrow, he had deliberately kept the reservation a day later. But he now had to leave, just leave.

Later that night, on the first floor of Sarojini Bhawan, Saavi cried. For the first time in a long while. “ how did he ever think I was in love with him? Why did he fall in love? We always were best friends, but just that, did I ever give him any other indication? So what if I shared every moment of every thing that happened here, and so what if he did the same with me? That’s what friends are for always, aren’t they? Cant just a boy and a girl just be the best of friends? Why did he take it this way? And all this time this is what he thought? Hypocrite…….nothing but a hypocrite!!!!”… Saavi’s famed sixth sense had failed her own self. And she knew she would never meet Atul again. Never.


Story 2

Four years in IT can be a very long time. And if its just one company that you have been in, it sure seems to feel like eternity. In the parlance of the famed product life cycle, end of four years its likely that you are in the declining phase of your first charm to that life as an IT professional in one of the top names in the industry – even if it hired in truckloads from your campus. But somehow, that still was not the case with Priya. She loved her job, her assignments, the challenges. It had a lot to do with the team she had been in past two years, the project that happened to be one of the most prestigious. And…… Atul!!!

She had met him on the first day in office, which incidentally was his completion of two years at the same place. And, the two hit it off together. Even though he was her project senior in the team, he never made her feel so. He had been responsible for instilling an absolute college like culture in the workplace, making it fun to work and she saw that from the word go. An absolute chilled out dude whom you only saw angry when his Pizza Hut Pizza was delayed by ten mins, he seemed to have the ability to take even the most serious deadlines calmly. And he had a way to pep up his most down in the dump colleagues with that smiling and witty comment or a warm pep up talk. Priya herself could not remember how many times she had broken down out of stress in front of him, only to be pepped up after talking to him for about ten mins at most.

Outside office, the two friends were inseparable. Always together with their gang of five, be it the Friday night pub-hopping (silly given the fact that both were teetotallers), or the Sunday evening theatre, or the Saturday beach romps oogling at girls and hunks respectively. They shared almost every moment of their lives, their ups and downs, the cheery ones, the sad ones, the crushes and the misses. And all this, with a way that never set any tongues wagging anywhere in office or outside. And yet, she always knew from day one, always had that feeling.

Today was her two year anniversary. She had completed two years in office, and as had become the trademark Atul tradition, there was a get together thrown for the same ( typical Atul, who had this knack of coming up with ideas to celebrate every moment in life). The venue had to be again one of those oft visited pubs, straight after office ( sheesh, another day of lost income for the poor pub owner, how he hated this crowd that never so much as touched a drop in his place). And well, she had decided too. She had to tell him now. “Bohat ho gaya boss!!!”, said she to herself, “yeh aajkal ke ladke, chivalry naam ki to cheez hi nahin hai koi, I think ill have to pop the question now uff!!!”. She had made her decision.

It was about 10:00 pm. They had been at the pub for two hours now. Singing, dancing, eating loads of the special cake that Atul had ordered, cracking jokes and all. Since tomorrow was office, the party had been kept at a slightly early time. And well, the energy levels seemed to be slowly coming down. Even a cool gang has to cool it off after sometime bhai.

With her mind set, Priya had been looking to find time to tell him now, something she had expected him to do really. She saw him standing by the pub, cracking jokes with the pub-owner, away from the rest. This was her chance. She walked up to him, a little nervous, a little too girly for her own self. “Oh damn you Atul, ill kill you for making me do this” , said she to herself.

He saw her walking up to him and asked, in his trademark style “Oye hoye soniye!!! Ki hoya, kaun mareya paiya hai!!! Abe aaj to tera din hai? Ais tarah moonh kyun banaya si??”. Sheesh. Didn’t he always seem to read minds. What was with him, thought Priya.

“Umm Atul!! I wanted to talk to you”, piped Priya.
“Haan to bolo yaar, kya hua? Everything alright”, said Atul, suddenly a little serious. He had noticed the look on her face.
“oh ya ya everything fine, I just …..can we take a walk outside”, she said, inspite of herself.
“Sure buddy, chalo,”. With that he walked alongside her to the door.

One hour later, the party got over. Everyone said their byes and left. Atul dropped Priya home. He still was silent. He looked at her one more time, as she left the car.

Later that night, priya cried like a baby. “Why, oh why? How could he be so insensitive? After all that sharing of every moment, of every up and every down, how could he just say we are good friends? He never saw this did he, does he not have a heart? Everything he did, was just as a friend, a bloody goddamn friend? No hes not a friend, hes a hypocrite, a damn hypocrite that’s all”…..with that she cried herself to sleep.

Two days later. Atul left the company.

Postscript – the two Atul’s are different. I just liked the name so kept it same.

To Them - from School

The main aur meri tanhayee times in progress currently have given me a lot of time to reminisce and think about a lot of things, remember and relive a lot of moments ( ya ya, i am a baccha of the past, ) and in all that there are some people, who have stood out. My closest coterie of buddies so to speak. theve been with me through times thick and thin, have laughed out the loudest with me, listened to the craziest of cribs at the darkest of times for me, in short been a part of my existence. ab doston hoon to main bahut emosional, but somethings cannot really be described. What can be done is to talk about this coterie of mine, that i keep closest to my heart.
People, i present to thee, the bravest and strongest and amazing souls to have ever walked on this planet in a zillion years ( they braved me dude!!!). And i start from school days.

Tapori Gang
1. Don Bhai - Class 9th. First day first period. i enter a class consisting of students from all the 8 sections of my erstwhile class 8th. Most of them we had hardly interacted ( inter section politics u see- we were not to have freinds outside our sections). And i see this man in the last row. With a dark stubble, a prominent moustache and looks that then were deadly. and was i taken aback. Yaar yeh to pucca don hai. isse panga nahin leke ka - pitai ho jaayegi. Ulp!!!. I dont think i ever spoke to him for first three months, mostly out of fear. And then when i did, well itna galat to kabhi einstein apni theory of relativity mein nahin hua hoga. For M was anything but what i had thought. One of the bestest souls around, sharafat ki moorti, the greatest musician i know till date and one of my bestest freinds to date. Weve been through so many things together - from santoshi maa's hilariously stupid skits for which he had to always compose the one song "jan jan ko jagana hai, dhara ko swarg banana hai", to cribs about JEE and the others, to college time reunions to our always under planning trip to Goa. I just love this man. aajkal yeh duniya ko naye naye fashion ke kapde pehnane mein busy ho gaye hain ( maane retail business mein hain), isliye apne chaddi doston se baat nahin kar paate. but he rocks for sure.

2. Mozarts twin - Tall, lanky, with fingers that could do magic - be it the spinning cricket ball or any instrument - musical and scientific. An amazing knack of finding his way into the ladies changing room on pretext of finding his own bag during annual functions ( yeah, mahashay ko itne joote kabhi jeevan mein nahin pade honge, jitne us din)..... he discovered the way to gobble up food from lunchboxes in the last row even as teachers taught us kinematics and calculus - and the world was never the same again. Another partner in crime as we trudged daily to our coaching classes not knowing what lay ahead. And one of my always cheerful always smiling freinds ready for some good fun any time. But boss isse zyaada debate nahin karne kaa - you can neva beat him on that. We once fought for 3 hours at the loudest pitch of our voices....on one of the silliest topics at 'Don Bhai's" place, and i think Don's young sister suffered a mental shock that day. poor thing had an exam the next day. :-s. the result of the debate. Abe doston mein kaise haar or jeet. :-s. Vaise aajkal yeh compooter abhiyantriki mein ek naya revolution laane pe kaam kar rahe hain. :).

3. Mr Cool with a capital K - Banda yeh bindaas hai. I swear. A freind once quipped about him " Yaar is munde ko kyun humne school mein raakhi baandhi thi, he definitely was not the raakhi type material".... hamare group ka mascot. You run a 5 Ton tanker over him, and hell get up and say - wanna play ball? Always the one to enjoy a good life and never ever fretting over anything that strikes him. i mean we all have at one point cribbed about life - boss, job, relationship etc etc. Not him. Hamesha chilled out rehne vaala. There have been times when i have been down and have called him and have just generally spoken to him about nothing in particular. and yet after that i have felt good. talk about positive energy. Aajkal yeh apne naye naye yembeah ke dwaara duniya bhar mein consulting tabahi macha rahe hain. :-s

4. Moti - I know ill get mauled by her for calling her this, but i just cant help it. :-s. a terror in school and Mozart's twin will vouch for that ( iske terrorism ke kisse bacche 6th class mein padhte hain). Ladkiyon ki gangleader no 1. and then times changed, we went our different ways. yet the one person i have been most in touch with throughout. from college, to mumbai to ISB to now. Shared all our good times and bad, so much so that one time, i was thought to be her proxy boypheerand and she my proxy girlpheerand. The initial one year at mumbai would have been a nightmare for me if she werent there. weve roamed across nooks and corners of the city - from nariman point to bandstand ( me oogling at skimpily clad females, she oogling at bare chested males :-s), romped the malls, gone on guilt trips that made princess ask us to melt in guilt when she was in pune and so on. Ive shared all my ups and downs with her and looked to her for all sorts of advice, and she has done the same to me. and we carry on, the bestest chaddi buddies that ever walked. Now, A proud mother of a bratty 8 month old who i swear will grow up to be like her, she plans to fly away to the US with her hubby, but not before she comes down here. Oye, aaja chup chaap, nahin to maar khaayegi. :D.

5. Princess - Sigh.....i look at her and bite my tongue .......mue kis nazar se tujhe se 12th mein yeh shaant swabhav ki lageen theen, jo tumne inhe autograph book mein yeh padvi di thi :/. I mean shaant and her are like two poles north and south :-s. Dekho bhai duniya mein do tareeke ke log hain - ek woh joh princess ke haathon hazaar dhamki kha chuke hain, aur ek woh jo nahin khaa chuke hain. Jo khaa chuke hain woh jaante hain ki hum kya keh rahe hain. This powerhouse of my buddy surely packs a punch with her antics and crazy ideas. She invented the idea of threatning and cajoling her friends to take her along with them on their respective honeymoons!!!!......and well main kya hi bolon. and yeah you would almost agree, what with that innocent dimpled smile and doe eyed look on her face ( innocent,.....sheesh). She will call you up all the way from pune, listen to what all fun you had which she missed, and then make you feel you should drown in guilt. She will compete with you on "who can write the longest and lengthiest email on the crappiest topic on earth". And then, my second agony aunt after moti, she would be there to listen to all your rants, and always there to give well thought advice, as long as its not past 11:00 pm ( arre madam ki beauty sleep nahin disturb karne ka, the only 4:00 am buddy who is fast asleep at 11:00 pm). My cutest best buddy who again has been through with me all these years, she complete this tapori bunch of five from school that i have.

Love them all very very much and heres to them and to us all. Hail Taporigiri. :-s

Humpty Dumpty

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
humpty dumpty had a great fall.

Dunno why i suddenly have this nursery rhyme playing in my mouth over and over again. But i need to kinda reword things here

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
humpty dumpty had a great fall,
broken humpty put his blame on the wall,
dumpty did not see what it was for all,
did he not try the balancing act,
realising not where was the fat,
he should have been wiser for sure should have been dumpty,
and seen his head was all but empty,
thanks to thee the fall was not bad,
but humpty is a little sad,
pray for humpty that he may,
rise again and not bow in dismay.
for humpty dumpty is to climb another wall,
and again go through it all and fall,
coz humpty dumpty sat on a wall,
humpty dumpty had a great fall.

adios
chaos

Day 3 @ Kolad - of valleys, and rains and fumes and grooms and of ASK

If i look back, i think this has to have been the most happening day of the trip. Too many twishts and turns, exacerbated by our in born Consultants - the ASK consultancy group and you know what you had in store.

But before i get there, just a quick recap. So we started the day with the usual PT and the usual groaning. I think the first signs of the genesis of the ASK were shown here. you could see the ASK in S waking up as he tried to show his disdain to the whole stretching thingy going on. So when the instructor said "Pull Left" he pulls down and is like " Abe tere ko direction se matlab hai ya stretch se, ab ho gaya!!!!".......and so on. I swear you really had to see S in action.



Anyways next up we went for this valley crossing session. For all of you thinking about daredevil commandos crossing a 1000 foot deep gorge on a wire to raid the Villain's castle and rescue the damsel in distress, and then fighting over which one of them gets to marry her ........hold on........aisa kucch nahin hua yaar. We went to our old lake, where they had put up long rope across which we had to cross over a harness, or rather were pulled across. A shade disappointed we were for sure. We had an earlier option of a trek and we thought that should have been the one exercised. But then no point, we still had our fun, mostly frolicking in the water after our mandatory crossing.



Oh and yeah, we did have our debrief session in the morning, which went typically smoothly. Having been given the warning look by buddies around, i for once shut my trap for a longer than expected time. :).



So after the crossing thing, we got back, were told to change and pack up for our trip back, get into travel clothes and come for lunch. Most of us did that, except for the lucky few. Why? Let me tell you. But first let me also tell you, that we had been in the jungle past 2 and half days, most of our clothes were soiled, we were not carrying our entire wardrobe, and we had to also make space for some decent wear to go to Phirangi Paani on way back. ( P actually wore proper club wear so to speak, the cool rich dude i tell ya).Given the above, well we were mentally all already on the bus back when we came back from lunch.



But hello, our dear instructor had something else in store for us. One final game, of making a hexagon with ropes while we were all blindfolded. The catch " Boss, the environment would change in between"!!!!, aaah, why did we not notice that comment. Because you see the moment we started playing the game, all blindfolded and all, well..........it started pouring...........no seriously, Indra Bhagwaan apni kumbhkaran ki neend se jaage aur unhone apna inbox dekha with a number of prayer requests from a certain crowd in a motley jungle, praying for some rain aur aao dekha na taao, lage bajane dhol......matlab baarish yaar. :(



To hua yeh ki hum the apni aakhri bachi jeans aur kabhin jaane layak shirt mein, jeb mein tha hamara mobile, dimaag mein aaya khayal us puraane expereince ka (Hero Ban Gaya Zero), aur bus ho gaya dimaag kharab :(. and to be true i was not the only one. Khair, socha hamare instructor saab kucch to daya karenge, but naa.......jaage Indra bhagwaan the, yeh thode....lage rahe beta khel khelne mein.........yeh nahin socha ki unka khel kitni maasoom zindagiyon se khilwaad kara hai.............sach kahoon mujhe us khooni, vehshi darinde pe jo rosh aa raha tha ki bus............the game went on, even as all our hopes of making it to a certain pub with all the good looking ladies et al seemed to be swept away.

After a while the game ends and we all rush back to our debrief room, and somebody asks me......."how was your hexagon"??? to aap ko kya lagta hai main kya boloonga.............. of course " I DONT BLOODY WELL CARE"..........Y tells me he feared i would commit murder at that very instant. well i had some sense not to do that as yet.

But i tell you the very next instant both Y and myself had the urge to just about commit that same sin. And no we would have been called martrys for that. Why? Coz we go in, the instructor looks at us, looks at the situation, our drooping faces, and asks " So what is the EMERGENCE from this"^R%^&#Q@#$#$#$@#(&$*(,.......... abe ravaan ke vanshajh, bheegi hui jeans mein thithoorte hue bacchon se poochta hai bata teri ada kya hai :( :(.........

anyways, somehow we still sat through the session. and trust me i really havent got anything against our ravaaan ka saatvaan vanshajh, but this was too much. :(.



Anyways so we left the place, pretty tired and a little aloof and lost and what have you. But kehte hain na, bhagwaan ke ghar der hai andher nahin. Jab jab dharti pe zulm, badta hai, ek Ajooba paida hota hai, jo in zulmon ka ant karta hai.

In our case, well it has to be the ASK consultancy group. They redeemed us, rejuvenated us and what all. A firm started by the the indomitable A, S, and K together, the trio had their own version of Jay Leno and Oprah WInfrey and Junta ki Adalat and what have you, with each of us being made to sit on the hot seat and asked .......well..............absolutely politically incorrect questions.......and i am being polite. It was hilarious the whole way it came out. and the way these guys handled each question and counter question was like too much........let me try and sum it in one line

"If you dont answer well screw you, if you do, well still screw you"......and boy they did......koi nahin bacha..........sabka parda phaash kiya gaya is adalat mein................and well we had an awesome time. both the victim and the audience per se. The whole journey back was all about this.

and boss what energy the trio seems to have. I made the mistake of asking them after dinner ( this at 11:30 pm in the night, when we had been on the road for 4 hours, in a restaurant for about 2, and were returning back), as to why they were silent now. bus bhaiya, ho gayee kahani chalu, i just had to somehow run away. But anyways thats the way it came about.



All in all it was an amazing 3 day outbound trip and we had an awesome fun. In fact the entire induction program was good. Over the next two days we had more presentations and all and i think we could take them a little better since we were a little more chilled out as a group. and like i said to them earlier, Y and R, take a bow, i personally enjoyed the whole thing, and i am sure the others did too. Our group and especially ASK, take a bow too, you were outrageously hilarious and awesome. got some energy levels up for sure.



So thats about the whole thing. I am back in office from today, and well have been a little lost. maybe missing the group a little, but i hardly knew them, i mean just about 7 days right? well i guess sometimes you get used to a level of energy and camaradrie and you feel like having it for that one more bit.

thats it for now i guess
adios

chaos

Kolad Trip Day 2

Trust me, when you have been running around like your ass was on fire, from one activity to the other to the next, you dont know what hits you when you reach the tent and before you know it, you are snoring away to glory.

Exactly, what happened to most of us at the end of first day. i think most of us had no idea of our bearings physical and mental and we just flopped like dry sacks onto our respective beds, caring nothing but for Chandamama if you know what i mean. :).
By the way, did you tell you of our failed attempt at playing a prank on the ladies of our group, . To my credit, i humbly accept defeat. and to the ladies credit, well they werent taken in, even by a fear as mortal as being bitten by fiery king cobra. Or maybe they were too tired to really react to whatever we planned. For the records we did plan out some more, such as the one with a Vikram Betaal type Betaal springing on one of the unsuspecting victims from a tree in the dead of the night. Me thinks we should have been more adventurous :P.

Anyways so day 2 began with the usual morning PT so to speak. and this time it was a yoga session. Boss, try stretching your limbs here and there and thither, something you havent ever done before and then listen to the instructor go "Push Push Push, more push".......yikes.......at one point if felt as we were all females in labour, with a doctor on our head.............sheeessshhhh. and finally the instructor says........"Lock Lock" whatver that meant. I think someone did shout " arre boss, lock hi hai sabkuch ab unlock nahin hoga"....... but it was fun actually the whole thing. Most of us started feeling so young and glowing didnt we.......atleast the parts that could still feel something :D.

Anyways so the next high point of the day was a raft building exercise. so we were these two teams competing to get an orange from a hirtherto unknown king to save our respective CEO and for that we had to build this raft and then cross over a lake to reach the island. Was an interesting activity what with our attempts to build a raft while another part of our team tried to negotiate for a consultant. We got one to help us make the raft, while the other team used their own brains and did come up with a sturdy design - what if it toppled the first time??? Post the raft building a rowing exercise ( which was i admit a little disappointing since most of us thought it would be white water and all, whereas we hardly went across some 25 metres of a still lake), we had a good swimming session in the lake which was fun.

We also had a debrief on this and it kinda got to me this time. Apparently the point that we missed in the competition was that one team had to get only the orange peel while the other had to get the juice. so were supposed to have collaborated and not competed and thereby reduced our bids from US$ 6 billion to INR 1100??? ( dont even ask me to explain that). and the whole lesson being WIN - WIN approach works WIN-LOSE doesnt??? arre boss, yeh kahan se aa gaya.......too much ho gaya was the discussion i tell you, and well i think most of us still dont agree :(. anyways, so much for the win and the lose.

Post the above debrief we had a series of games played. pretty neat and enjoyable games, which worked best when we kept our mouth shut and worked rather than making whole loads of noise. so from trying to carry a basket ball balanced on 12 strings to walking on australian planks so to speak to the TT ball and pipe game, these were interesting..........

The last event for the day was this movie called " The Ghost and the Darkness". Pretty neat movie starring Val Kilmer, Michael Douglas and set in the 19th century if i am not wrong. The best was the cinematography of the lions. they looked so majestic. for the others the story is about a man who is building a bridge across a river and is haunted by the prospect of all his men falling prey to man eating lions.

Now for me the only thought i had as i went to bed - Boss three games, and one movie? imagine the discussions during the mandatory debriefs? i mean i am all for debriefs, i love participating in them, but trust me yaar........sometimes a movie is a movie is a movie....... period.
anyways this has a reason too.

adios chaos

Hail the ASK Consultancy Group - Day One

Hmmm!! civilization at last!!! or atleast the luxuries of some source of communication that was missing past three days, access to my laptop and network for my phone that however has been giving me sleepless nights........hanging from the hangman's noose and refusing to go beyond the clear white screen on start up. I told you, i am always happy with the simple paanch hazaar vaala baat karne vaala phone. these funky gadgetry monsters do me no good :(.

Anyways before i digress too much, well we had gone away from civilization for a three day trip to this village in Kolad, about a hundred kms from Mumbai. Oh ya, i have been in mumbai ( my original karambhoomi so to speak :)), for a week now, as part of our company's group orientation program. and well i thought the outbound trip was one worth mentioning about.

So Day 1 started with our 3 hour trip to the camp. We left last thursday, a motley group of some 26 odd people led by our organizers, the Omnipresent (boss with his towering personality, you cant miss him) Y and the demure yet power packed and indomitable R. The trip was short yet sweet albeit with the dosage of the typical antakshari, from heavy ghazals to the cheeziest and sleaziest govinda numbers. I mean the range went from heavy duty numbers like “Hosh Vaalon Ko Khabar kya” to the mithunda flicks like “Atariya pe lutan kabutar”…….you could feel the depth of the gang I tell you.
On another note, Id like to believe this was also the time when the seeds of a soon to be extremely successful startup were being sown. More on ASK later though. They deserve a separate post per se. :D.

Our camp was set on top of a hill ( came to know of this only on the day when we were leaving though) and consisted of tented accommodation plus a pucca conference room and some ground for exercise. Having first located our tent ( which was quite luxurious contrary to our expectations) and settled down, we had our first session in the evening, that of a usual round of introductions, with everyone introducing someone else. What made it interesting was the fact that a certain bollywood actress and actor came out to be most in demand for partners on a trip to Hawaai. I am sure our instructor spent a better half of the night chalking out a rigorous schedule for accomodating the actress and actor into our oh so busy days. Then of course there were others who revealed there first love for Tuntun, Ajju Bhai et al.

Anyways so after a fine dinner we tucked in for the first day ahead, which promised to begin early. 5:45 am to be precise.

Now I am not telling you my weight, but damn it ask someone like me as well as the rest to get up at 5:30 in the morning and go for a round of PT and jogging and all, and you know whats in store. :(. I mean what do i say. but well we did begin our mornings with the round everyday of the three days. so the first had a couple of rounds of jogging followed by exercises to stretch hitherto unknown parts of your self. As one of us quipped later . “Only now i know i have 207 bones"!!! The extra one because magically, new body parts seemed to be growing these days. But I tell you we did realize the awesome physical condition we all were in. I mean 30 mins, and the combined power of our heavy breathing could have caused a storm in zulu land. :D


Post breakfast, our first session was one of splitting the group into teams that had to “Compete” in and Extremely “Collaborative” Manner in a Win Win scenario. No comments on this though. But yeah we had our teams formed - the wild, ragged, absolutely crazy Junglee Brigades, and the even crazier, whackier "Fundoo Pandooz". With slogans such as "Jhinga Lala Hu, Sharam Haya sab chhhodd do, Fundoo pandooz ko phod do", and "Screw it just do it"......you only missed a couple of spears and some war paint and some knives around there i think.

Our first outbound activity for the day was, rock climbing and rappelling. we were ( or atleast i was :(), a bit disappointed as we did not go for an actual mountain climb rather just had a vertical about 35 feet high man made wall ( wait, i never said i finished climbing it), to climb. But it still was fun nevertheless. Ab main apne baare mein to kya hi bataon, matlab saamne deewaar thi, uske saamne main tha, bus deewar main chadne hi waala tha, ki .....kambhakt yeh bhaaribharkam shareer beech mein aa gaya. Varna woh deewaar aaj tak bani nahin jo hum chad na sakein. The bottom line being i did not go beyond 5 feet i think. :(.

But we had a few others who did it. In fact our first climber almost finished the climb in first attempt, before missing the last bit ( he went on to finish the whole thing again on the last day). Then we had S, who climbed the damn thing like a monkey, hopping from one side to the other with some agility. I swear i should call him the monkey man :D. But he was good. The others also gave really good shots at the activity, differently reaching heights.

The rappelling was a comparatively easier activity, and well i sort of redeemed myself i one way, by successfully trying out the commando style one where you had to literally walk down the wall, facing downwards instead of with your back. It was scary to say the least but well we did it.

Post lunch, there were two activities lined up. One included building a tent with your team lined up and with hands and legs tied to each other such that only the ends had one leg and one hand free. Boy it did seem quite a task. And the way we moved trying to accommodate both ourselves as well as the hazaar suggestions each one of us had, it was stupefying :D. We almost had the tent erected upside down, before some saint realized the folly and directed us. But we did manage to do it, albeit after the other team.
Another activity we played later was that of the game of mats, where the team was split into two columns, and the two had to cross over each other. If you have every tried the frog puzzle on your MS Excel, when you were supposed to be working in office, youll know what I mean. This one took us awhile to crack, and in fact at one point three of us were sitting simply scratching heads and trying to remember our earlier endeavors. But thanks to a few more saner souls we managed to do this one too.

One continuous and well at times stretched factor during the entire trip was the debrief session following every game or activity. And i dont think i remember it with as much fondness as i would perhaps remember my first date with my girlfriend ( if i had one that is), but well yeah it was fun to discuss, and dissect and analyze every aspect of the activity. So we went from a simple objective of climbing a damn rock to relation with the self to fear to psychosis and mitosis and meiosis and win win and win lose. I tell you boss, the intelligentsia of the world would have been stunned at the depth of the discussions we had. We had all the answers to every problem in the world. And no i am not being cynical. I got to be crowned the Arbit CP as well as the Desperate CP King re :), an honor i missed during my ISB days.

Evening was a skit performance by each of our two teams – Jungleez and Pandooz that is. While the Jungleez performed to the tune of “Sholay Rewind” ( my buddies at ISB, take a bow, I took our earlier idea and used it again here J), the Pandooz made a new version of “Mahabharat ki Ramayana”. Both were awesomely hilarious ones. Sholay had its origins in a similar skit I had staged at college but this one was crazier by far. From thakur wanting to get rid of the suave smart and ex Ibanker Gabbar, to Jai Veeru convincing Basanti that Thakur was the best man for her, to maulvi lining up for mausi, to Kalia finally running away with mausi even as Radha implored Jai and Veeru for neglecting her, wooh, I don’t know what we were doing. But it was amazing simply. Never knew, we could come up with so many ideas, and such an impromptu performance in a space of about an hour and a half. Awesome.
The Pandooz had their own version of Mahabharat Ki Ramayan. Another hilarious endeavour with a plot that I would like to keep under wraps for fear of being hounded by the Hindu Fanatics I tell ya. I mean………we had to somehow just stop ourselves from dying laughing. Just kinda got me back to old engineering and MBA days. Sigh!!!!!!!!!

Anyways, so that’s how the day ended, with some bonfire music followed by dinner. Pretty hectic, lots of activity and great fun. We had two more days to go, and were waiting to see what would go.

The next day shall follow. But before I go, I must do this…….Hail the ASK Consultancy Group.

Adios

Chaos.

Leaving Base Camp Dilli

This will be a long one.
Yes. you heard it right. I shall soon be severing that long winded connection with delhi for good. Or will i? Its been 17 years of having a focal point, or a vector out there in delhi, from where i have moved here and there before always coming back to the same place. but now the point should be shifting for good. atleast for the time being. and its a good time i think to go down that memory lane ( i think i always end up liking to live in the past rather in the present - must say an irritating quirk of mine).

So it was in the summer of 92, that i first landed in the city. My father had just got posted to the city and we were to stay in guess what? The good old Red Fort. Those were the times when a small military unit stayed inside the grand old fort, a scion of the old British Era. And so we would too. Obviously it was surreal and most of my soon to be freinds refused to believe it. In fact i still remember being taunted as the so called "Prince of Red Fort" even a year down the line, by my Maths teacher ( the only maths teacher i ever hated, but thats another story). My first impression of the city was at best daunting. Delhi can be tough especially if you are a small town kid. and though we had come from secunderabad, it still was different. My first challenge was the school itself. From a small army school in secunderabad, i was now going to the Army School here in delhi which had close to 500 students per class, split into more than 8 sections. And all the kids seemed so good, so smart, speaking english fluently ( yup, that was a major thing for me then and remained for a long time, since i was bad). Did i have an inferiority complex? I still remember the first one week i dreaded going to school. the 5:30 am rendition of Om Jai Jagdish Hare at a temple nearby my house, used to be like a call to death for me every morning. And i think i spent the first week in the school sick bay everyday, with complaints of stomach ache and what not. But then as they say, everything does change. and so it did. Slowly, i managed to set in well in the school. I made a few good friends and well joined a so called gang, led by the smart K, the teachers pet, the good in sports dude, popular with all people around. Talk about being in good company. :-s. But then yes, i also started doing very well academically and that helped a lot. Involvement in extra curriculars like debates etc started and soon yes i was enjoying myself in school. By the end of the year i was yes at home in Delhi. Thus began an affair with the city.

While we stayed in Red Fort, we were kind of cut out from the real army life in a cantonment, especially in Delhi. But father always tried to make up for it, taking us to the officers institute for swimming etc. Every weekend, we would go to India Gate after dinner, and that was an amazing time, running around in the gardens around the monument, playing with balloons etc. Nirula's ice cream became a household popularity with fortnightly trips to the parlor in connaught place. Those were the days of seeing DDLJ in the crowded Golcha Cinema of Darya Gunj, then going out to have awesome kulfi faluda in the nearby dirty street of the market. This was also the time when i saw my first english film in a theatre " Mission Impossible"......boy was it tough to follow the dialogues. You see unlike most kids my age then, i did not have cable tv at home and so was left out of the Star world and other series then.

Anyways so the years passed and i moved into class 9th. This was where i made my closest freinds to day. M, K,D,S,V . We all have stayed in touch ever since and even now are. touchwood. we all always agree on the fact that the next two years were the best time in our school life. Of course, i think i missed out on some of the fun that these other brats had, since i used be a little as D called me then " Snobbish in nature" ( yeah i have it written right down in my autograph book)........always a stickler for rules blah blah......playing the cruel monitor to the hilt and failing to bring an sort of discipline at all. And so yes i did miss on some of the fun, but nevertheless i had my share of fun too. I could write a hugggeee post on those two years and also the next two too, but i think that will wait for awhile but suffice to say now that we had fun.

This was also the time when delhi started to really become a base camp for us. Dad had got posted to Jhansi, and mum chose to stay in delhi for my and my sisters education. Anyways so post my 9th class exams, we moved to Sheikh Sarai, in South Delhi. This was the beginning of a new phase for me. From being a protected army brat, who had always had someone to do his work, i was now learning to do stuff by myself. you wont believe it, but this was the first time i travelled in a DTC for myself. First time that i went and stood in a line to pay electricity and other bills. First of a number of things. I had always marvelled M at his independence and ability to do things at a much younger age. well finally i was going through the grind myself too. And all this while, the city watched, from a distance or sometimes closer too. it had been 5 years in the city and well i was calling it home, exploring newer aspects of it too.

The next two years passed in a whirl, what with engineering entrance preparations, the rigours of class 11th and 12th along with the associated fun too. as the seniormost class of the school, we had our share of fun. and yes by this time i had left my fascination with rules etc far behind. so even though i was the school captain, i would join in all the clandestine activities too :-s. One reason why i didnt work as hard or did as well as i should have in the entrance etc. Anyhow, time flew, and soon we were nearing the end of our school. In fact before we knew it we were out. into the world. we all went our separate ways, to different colleges and universities, with a promise to stay in touch. and well Delhi served its place well. the Homing ground for all our beacons as we tried to make sense of the world that lay beyond.

Mother was staying back in Noida ( where we had shifted soon after my 12th), this time for my sisters 10th and 12th, and so despite having gone for engineering to Roorkee, i had my base at Delhi / Noida. the city itself started undergoing changes with newer flyovers, newer roads, the metro construction and all. And i somehow managed to stay in touch with its pulse. On vacation trips to the city, we all school freinds would catch up, since we all came from different parts of the country back to Delhi. I made my first Barista trip here, even though we preferred to just have a glass of water instead of spending 70 bucks for a coffee. For us college brats, nothing like the pleasure of a 10 Rs Cold coffee and 7 rs Sandwich in one of the corner nooks of connaught place. and coming from roorkee, Baristas and all were a luxury still. By this time my father had moved to Jammu, and my mother continued in delhi. she had her school job, and my sister her school and then her college.
t
he years moved swiftly by, with most of the action now in Roorkee. 4 years of learning, making mistakes, new freinds, misunderstandings, sorting out misunderstandings, crushes and misses, drama, and a little bit of acads :). and all this while i would keep coming back to Delhi, to check how it had been when last i left. with bi annual trips to my old school as well as reunions with school freinds, somehow the city remained alive for me.

After graduation i got a job and moved to Mumbai but the affair with the city continued. In fact i was now embroiled in the Mumbai Vs Delhi debate, starting on the Delhi side of course. years have now passed and i am still in the middle. I grew from hating mumbai to loving it but that didnt mean i liked Delhi any less. every 4-5 months i would continue to make visits to meet parents. of course beyond it the charm slowly started withering a bit, more because my freinds had gone out, things were new everytime i came, new roads, new happenings etc. Yet the thread remained all through my 4 years at Mumbai. It was again like come what may i would go back to delhi some time after all.

Past one year and more i was in hyderabad for my MBA. Papa had been transferred to Delhi about a year before that and so what had been a base camp was again our main place. We were now based in Timarpur, near the Delhi Universitry North Campus. This is a picturesque location, a proper forest in the midst of the concrete jungle. I have gone for long morning waks with dad here and loved it always. Mom continued with her school, sister had started working in delhi itself and so we remained entrenched firmly in delhi. Of course i was out, but yet like i said would always come back to the city.

Couple of months back, sister got married and moved away albeit to another place in Delhi itself. Brother in law works in delhi itself and so does she so she will stay on.

Me? I am now in Kolkata, and would have been looking forward to calling base camp D again. But not anymore. Heard the news that dad just got posted out, and this time finally after 17 years, mom will also go with him. obviously it doesnt make sense for her to stay on, what with sister gone away, self away as ever. She had continued in delhi for her kids, who now are settled or in the process. So she will now be with dad.

For me this does herald the end of somethings. Delhi will change in more ways than one and i still find it difficult to describe exactly how. Of course its nothing too big, really change is what is life is all about and you move on. From school to college to first job to mba and now to the new job. And yet a part of me has remained in Delhi all these years, a connection that grew stronger with every passing moment, every time we shifted from one part of the city to the other. Now somehow, it seems that part is going to be removed. And i feel slightly lost at times. just a simple strange feeling so to speak.

Goodbye Basecamp Delhi. or atleast that part which lay for so many years.

chaos

50 and going strong!!!

This happens to be my 50th official post on this blog. 50 posts in 5 years since the blog started. What a milestone to achieve and what a speed at which i reached it. Ravi Shastri would have been proud of me. in this age of T20, i am like the age old tortoise of the 1950's test cricket. slow and steady.
Neva mind. ill reach that century soon too. and to think of bloggers who clock more than 100 posts in year. my speed relative to them? Calculate karo na yaar. and tell me too.:)

till then this calls for a celebratory champagne. Yipeee

Chaos

Khai Ke Paan Benaras Vaala in Kolkata

So you see i have very recently shifted to Kolkata, and am still getting to know the city. Till now, despite a number of people telling me otherwise, i have found the place nice and beautiful. Maybe coz i did not find myself alone, having some of my closest school buddies here or joining a firm that....cross my heart is still quite people and HR freindly. and i am still exploring the city. and have not faced the monsoon, the water logging etc as people tell me.

But this post is not about the city mind you. Ill do that some other time. This is something more basic and begins with a simple question.

Have you ever faced that situation where in trying to be extra cautious you actually end up making even more sillier mistakes than possible? well heres one of them.

So two days into the city, it was my closest freinds wedding. and me and my other freind went to her place for the wedding and had an awesome time. The next day was reception at her inlaws place and we attended that too. In very short, two simply awesome days of reunion cum wedding celebration and everything.

For me now, this being the first bengali wedding i was attending, i was quite inquisitive and curious about the slightly different customs followed from the North Indian weddings that i have generally attended. at the same time, well atleast in my mind even if needlessly, I was a little conscious about not doing or behaving in any manner stupid or silly. not that i should have been worried, after all it was my bestest buddy who was getting married . But then call it a quirk of the mind.

So there i was, on the day of the reception, at her new home,. We had just finished an awesome dinner, topped it with a great kulfi and were lounging comfortably, me, my freind S, the newly weds and few others and chatting about this and that. And there comes the final thing to round off the dinner - a smoothly packed "paan". Now a paan is nothing but just that..........a paan........ as the wiki would define it - "Sweet" (meetha paan): Betel leaf with neither tobacco nor areca nuts. The filling is made up primarily of coconut, fruit preserves, and various spices. It is also often served with a maraschino cherry. "

Par nahin bhaiya hamari aisi kismat kahan. bataya to tha hum the extra observant, extra cautious and overtly careful. Somehow or the other it got into my head that this was a special paan served only in Kolkata which had to be had in a different way. for the information of the readers, this one had just been specially wrapped in another leaf and tied with a small ribbon. Frankly speaking nothing unusual about it. Nothing except of course to me.
Thence came my moment.
I tried to unwrap the upper leaf, but somehow couldnt locate the actual paan inside. so i was confused. Now please, do remember my slightly conscious state of mind ( which is more of a bad excuse for what happened :-s). So I kept sitting with the paan in hand trying to quickly think of a way to have it without looking silly. and somehow the brain was not working.
And then.......Suddenly it struck me........the right way of eating the paan that is!!!!!! and i had my eureka moment of the day...........so very comfortably i sprang up, lifted the packed paan in my right hand, looked around comfortably and with that crazy winner's look..........popped the pack straight into my mouth........after a full 5 mins of debating that is...And there i stood with that winner's look savouring that surprisingly different tangy taste of the leaf and trying to make out the gulcand and the other things in between.............

That is when i noticed S looking askance at me with a very puzzled expression. He seemed to have been observing me since i put the packet into my mouth.........and then he came upto me and asked..........." Dude, tune bahar ka patta kahan phenka"........and i was like " patta........kaunsa patta?"

And then it struck me................arre bhaiya i had been hallucinating........kolkata or delhi or mumbai ...........a paan is a paan is a paan..........and i had just had one with the outside wrapping leaf............ :( :(......boy did i make the laughing stock of the evening :(.........

My only salvation........
1. I was not the only one. My partner in crime and in fact the one whose act i actually followed ( yeah the eureka moment did not come all by itself)......was his majesty our dear groom himself..........
2. As a concession, we both got to have another delicious paan.......to humne do paan khaaye bajaaye ke ek......nice idea na. :D
3. I have become phamous in kolkata now. Next day i had gone again to meet my friends and aunty, the groom's mother came up to me and started speaking to me in bengali. now i am still a learner......the farthest i have gone is "aami bangla jaani na"........but i knew what aunty said immediately......from the twinkle in her eye...
she said " Beta, have the paan without the wrapper :-s".....

To bhaiyon aur bhaiyon ki beheno.....sun lo meri baat...paan hota hai paan.........chahe woh banarsi ya allahabadi ya kahin ka ........sab ek hai......i know the true blue connousiueers ( pardon the speeling) would disagree..........but for me its all the same......no more thinking re baba.......


adios
Chaos

Munna tum bade hoke kya banoge

This is a question that every child here has to learn to answer faster than any other question in the world. aur aajkal ke zamane mein to the answer assumes gigantic proportions with the frantic parents already having made plans of which pre-school, which school, high school, engineering college, mba institute to go to before the poor kid has even opened their eyes.


But then there was that time, a not to far away, when such questions brought forth innocent replies. So when asked this question first as a 5 year old kid, i would give a well rehearsed answer, taught in advance by mamaji - " i want to be a fire engine driver"....much to the chagrin of parents. Never mind at that age i had no idea what that even meant. :). and i think this stayed with me for quite some time.


Now of course i am one of the typical types, who took science, did engineering and then got an mba and is trying to make sense of how it all fits into his life history. not that i really regret anything. But for sometime now, i was just wondering what i could say if the almighty himself had come up to me and asked me " Munna tum kya banoge bade hoke" and promised to grant the wish come whatsoever.


So well in the hope that time and tide may still turn and i may yet get to draw up this list for myself or atleast live some moments, heres the list.


1. Army officer / Air Force Pilot - "Ladkiyaan to faujiyon pe marti hain" :-s......so said Sukhi in the movie Rang De Basanti. Guess that reason would hold some fort now, but not back then in the age of innocence ( i am still innocent and a sharafat ki murti sacchi). Back then it was all about being that brave young officer, fighting and killing all enemies with his guns and planes. being an army officers son helped make matters more clear. of course as days progressed, things changed, but given a chance, i would still like to fulfill that ambition.


2. Halwai - oh boy that sure does find itself on top of my list too. Naah not that sophisticated hotel management kiya hua chef. i am talking about a proper dhoti banyan clad, huge paunchy halwai. :). dishing out the most exquisite dishes and eats and sweets known to man. or maybe ill let go of the paunch and keep the rest. this serves two things - one my love for cooking and as well for eating......one problem though........with my appetite that i have........what will i serve the customers........errr.......bad business to be in. :P


3. Neta - he he he. with the number of class monitors, and class reps and school rep positions that i have taken, i think netagiri could come naturally to me. and given the unusually high moral standards of todays leaders :-s, i might just make the cut. one problem though - they say am a little too nice for politics.......but ahem.........what they dont know is......Jai Pakhand hamara naara hai......netagiri hamara hai...... :P......


4. Guitarist / Singer - I know princess, dreamer and others would smirk at this.....but sacchi i can sing.....even beyond the bathroom.......i even tried for the music section in college but was undone by the fact that one day before i irritated the senior during ragging :-s, and calling him Meethi Churi....never did my section at IITR see a more enthusiastic singer in the group meetings ( they had to literally stop me in final year from stealing the show from juniors) .i also had a guitar that sadly but valiantly gave up its life while fighting the mumbai rain.....(refer "Hero ban gaya zero")......but i can sing.......la la la la aha haha aha aha..............so be sure to look out for a Rock On soon....... :D

5. Underworld don aka munna bhai - oh ya this one ambition struck me and my roommate sometime during the hot cruel months in mumbai when we were downright frustrated with jobs and months of CAT prep. bus.....man kiya.....bhaad mein jaaye sab........yeh kaam dhandha sahi hai...........Bhaiiiiiiiii........the big boss........ imagine the power, the luxury etc etc.......naam bhi soch liya tha humnein......we would be the M gang......munna bhai gang......and no i am not referring to any of those Sanjay dutt inspirations. this would be the absolute mean killing machine.....ruthless....shady........with the slogan " Jai Paakhand" from mumbai to everywhere would the roots spread..........alas dil ke armaan aansoon mein beh gaye.......kyun? will tell over a cuppa koffee sometime.

6. Actor - Kutte, Kamine.......main tera khoon pee jaaonga.............haan haan main hi hoon dharmendra ka asli vaaris.......bula lo saare lawyers ko........... :-s......well nautanki mein to have been as expert since school. people call me dramebaaz for the over exaggerated emotional drama i perform at the drop of a hat. so this would seem a likely profession. and given my other ambitions of being the underworld bhai this would make for a double role. din mein hero .....raat mein bhai......kya samajh mein aayee...... ???

7. Writer / Poet - i have had my Nobel Prize acceptance speech ready for ages now. why else would i even have started blogging. i always knew i had that golden talent. :-s. they make golden frames of writings and posts. having written 2000 word emails on the crappiest and most nonsensical topics on earth, i now claim to be a thorough bred writer. ask dreamer, ask ripples, ask princess and they will testify. this is one career i could mint money in..... :D

8. Stand-up comedian - Yeh mera idea nahin hai. but my roommate once said i just need to stand up and people would start laughing......... so there goes......yeh bhi hamari lisht mein aa gaya. sacchi main kaafi humorous aadmi hoon bhai......... :-s......and a narcissist too at that.

9. Fire Engine Driver - coz mamaji said so. kucch to baat hogi unki baat mein :).

10. And last but definitely not the least.......Mr Bekaar - aur kya.....kya jeevan mein kucch banana zaroori hai.........mungerilal banke haseen sapne lene mein kya buraai hai........ bus roz ek naya sapna.....poora din ho apna........ not bad eh :).

To bhai logon yeh poori hui hamari lisht.........dekha aapne the copious amount of talent that goes wasted in this one soul. alas, instead of the above, here i lie, sitting in an office, doing what an engineer turned yembeah is supposed to do.......day dream :D

so munna / muniya, kya banoge bade hoke.......let me see what the following may have to say

1. Dreamer
2. Princess
3.Ripples
4.Surabhi
5. A Journey Called Life

adios

Chaos

Rise of the Phoenix

It does sound melodramatic doesnt it. But i cant help it. After ages and months of thinking and procrastinating, i finally am back to writing something. In all these months, a lot has happened. From completing what i atleast currently call the last leg of acadmia at ISB, to landing with a job after a few tense months, to my sister's wedding, to landing in kolkata to start afresh in the professional arena, to attending one of my closest freind's wedding, to seeing a strong stable government come to power after decades. Quite a bit i guess, and i am only trying to wrap it up in one line.

Now lets see. I did have a few ideas and thoughts which i wanted write about time and again, and i kept procrastinating. But the ideas remain, so over the next few posts i would try to put them down.
I seem to have developed this what many would call irritating habit of living in the past :). so i begin to reflect only on the moments gone past and not while i am living them. Alas, this will carry on i guess into the blog, so you may just find quite a few recollections of memories et al here.
But first, before the rise of the phoenix becomes the flight of the phoenix let me welcome my own self back here. Heres to a better tryst with the blog this time.

adios

Chaos