Through the Looking Glass

Life’s Little lessons

2009-07-20T11:14:00.002+09:00

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!!!

2009-07-08T14:54:00.002+09:00

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?

2009-07-01T14:43:00.000+09:00

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

2009-06-24T20:10:00.009+09:00

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

2009-06-15T20:37:00.005+09:00

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

2009-06-10T20:44:00.003+09:00

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

2009-06-10T18:00:00.003+09:00

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

2009-06-08T11:12:00.005+09:00

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

2009-05-29T19:18:00.010+09:00

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!!!

2009-05-29T19:14:00.002+09:00

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

2009-05-29T03:04:00.005+09:00

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

2009-05-27T02:41:00.006+09:00

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

2009-05-24T03:10:00.002+09:00

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

Hyderabad = Mumbai???

2008-08-10T05:41:00.003+09:00

A lot of us here, who have been forced to stay shut by the incessant rains in Hyderabad over the past two days, would perhaps be asking this question. Of course, as a friend said its good for the economy that its raining, so why fret. But the question just popped up.
However its not that we have really been stuck up. Some of us ( self included) have been bold and courageous enough to weather the gods. so it was that we went out after our mid term exams, to watch this movie called " Singh is King" in one of the now shady theatres. Shady, if you compare if to multiplexes of course. The movie per se was not much to talk about, with is expletive filled songs, and crass jokes. But any movie in a group of trying-to-be-rowdy yembeah students can be fun.
The better part however of the outing was the drive back. It was pouring literally, and we were on our bike, and well we were drenched. But it was really fun. Has been a long time since i got drenched. :)

On another note, one half of what is called the mother of all terms, the third term here is over. And well touchwood, it hasnt been as bad as we were told. Sure we had our night outs submissions but were ok in terms of pressure. So what is it - have we built up ourselves to withstand any pressure or is the pressure not that much or is that we really dont care now?;). search me. But we seem to be spending every weekend just lazing the whole day, doing literally nothing and raking up excuses of rains to justify that. And its fun in itself. Quite unlike the horrors we were told of. For instance, one of our freinds today called us over to have paranthas at her place. I tell you thats the advantage of having married people on campus. :). But we good for nothings owe this freind of ours a treat now, shes been too much of a sweetheart. ah well, next time.
It looks late now and i think ill get back to something else.

adios

Catching a breath

2008-07-06T08:10:00.002+09:00

Requires time, and time seems to be something that we here dont have at all. Suddenly the buzz in the campus has caught on and you have some so many things happening that you can be a part of ( atleast theoretically given that you are not bothered about that important thing called grades) that its mindblowing. From language classes, to dance classes, to photography competitions, to speaker sessions, to recrutier events ( yes the official ones have already started) - phew!!!
And of course you have your academics to attend to. We have had some really interesting subjects this term and for me personally the phase of enjoying a class continues. I admit though that the initial classes i seemed to be getting back to my losing concentration habit, but i hopefully am back on.
Anyways coming back to the subjects, we have a course on global economics and our second professor has been phenomenal. and the most interesting part of the course is a documentary called "Commanding Heights" that talks about how the global economy and how it has evolved over the past century. Very interesting stuff. Go catch it at pbs.org.

Then we have a course on competitive strategy. With a purely case based discussion pedagogy, the course has discussed about some of the ways in which businesses in various industries have tried to strategise themselves to achieve their goals. An interesting basics course on someone wanting to know more about strategy.
For the mathematically oreinted there is the Decision Models and Optimization, which tries to use mathematical models to solve optimization problems in business. This one is a fairly involved subject, requiring time and effort to understand, especially for someone who might not have been very strong in mathematics. That said, with perseverance, one can do well. and it really would form a basic for someone intending to pursue operations.
But i guess, and i reserved my last for this, the most involved and to atleast those who are on top of the list, interesting subject has been Marketing Decision Making. And this is not just because of the subject itself, but more because of the online simulation game that we have to play. Called the Markstrat, its simulates an industry with five firms competing against each other to sell products in the Sonite and Vodite market, with a view to maximising profits. The game is extremely exciting and sees you applying a number of concepts to take your brand management decisions and all. And boy it can be addicitive to some.

Besides this, we have our student body structure in place, with all professional and social clubs formed and acitivities starting up. It sometimes does become difficult to balance one's activities with academics in this short period. But then i guess thats what a number of us here are for, to try and learn that balance. Some do well some dont but you all learn a lot.
Of course, this is the utopian veiw to a lot of things, you might say, since we are here to get the best placements too. But for the time being, id leave that in the background, and focus on trying to do the best. Aah, how idealistic i seem dont it. :). wait till i come up with the next post.

Hmmm, this ones become a little more serious than i thought. Maybe next time ill talk about what goes on in a usual class around here.

till then
adios

1/8th and going on

2008-06-07T06:15:00.002+09:00

So the first term at ISB ended this tuesday, and thats what i mean by that 1/8th. I think it was pretty decent, but then my exams are always decent, its the grades that become obscene. God do i hate this relative stuff !!!!!

I spent the past three four days basically catching up on sleep. Not that i was one of those sleep deprived zombies that could be seen roaming around the campus, but i still needed to sleep. So the day the exams ended, i go to bed at 11 in the night to get up at 11 the next morning (which essentially meant i missed another party :(). A day later i repeat the feat, this time totalling a good fourteen hours. talk about being an active MBA student.

Of course i have managed to do things other than sleep. The other day me and my quadi D went on a shopping spree, and though the motive was that D wanted to upgrade his wardrobe, it was I who ended up spending an enormous 15 grand. Of course that did include an I pod, a pair of shoes, but then again it was he who wanted to shop and he spent 1.5 grand. :D.

Then i also watched a couple of movies from my to watch list - Blood Diamond and The Pursuit of Happyness. The last one i just finished an hour back. Both of them awesome movies. Loved them.

The campus has been silent these past three days, what with a large number of people having gone home. I could not. What with a leadership session yesterday, spending just two days at home at a cost of close to 12 grand did not seem good by the MR = MC equation by any means :p. I will probably go next term end. would get a longer break then.

And now term 2 beckons, and they are saying itll be worse. I say thats when the fun begins. I mean imagine this - academics that get tougher, activities that only increase, projects, assignments, activities, clubs, speaker series and so on. what else do you want in Heaven???? :D

But before that two more days of bliss, of a party or two, some good music, and home made food at chachi's place. It Feels Like Heaven for sure.

Adios
Chaos.

What day is it?

2008-05-12T06:49:00.003+09:00

It was Mother's day yesterday. I would have said today had the clock on my mantlepiece not told me ( and glaringly so) thats its past three in the morning.
Coming back to the point, while working on one of those never ending assignments, somebody declared that it was mother's day and we ought to be wishing our mom's on the day. Now in an ideal, very different day, the day would be spent of course wishing moms, then indulging in the debates on the pros and cons of celebrating these Archie Card initiated card revenue increasing days ( at last count, i believe they had covered almost 100 of the poor 365 days in the year, am still waiting for the day when they call it Chaos Day though), and then finally not giving too much of a damn ( i mean do you really need a day to remind yourself how much you love your mom or pop or sis or bro for that matter).

But Ennada Rascala.......Mind it ( and thats a word ive picked up, about one of the most useful learnings that ive had so far, :D). This is ISB dude, and sometimes all you know is the sun went up and the sun went down. Thats all.

So its been two weeks of classes, and classes, and more classes, some group assignments, futile attempts at making sure your head does not leak like a worn down bucket all the time, and of course those moments of marvelling at how long you can stay up without sleep. I assume i still have some more energy left in me for some more marathon sessions, but its best to save your best for the worst right?

Oh and yeah, the elections for the GSB of the school are due to be held soon. Should be fun, given that i am not the one standing. You know, the humble me, giving way to other people and letting them have the chance. :D.

We had the Dumb Charades competition the other day, and well my team won. Chalo, kahin to nautanki kaam aayee. Was really beginning to wonder whether i had done anything of use in the past 25 years of my life. :-s.

But one thing about an MBA education is, and something id always like to point out, it tends to always ground you a lot. I mean you might have developed a hundred ideas about how things should be, and then you interact with people with so many backgrounds and you realise things might not be the way you perceive them. No that doesnt mean you change your opinions, its just that you begin to appreciate more about the mutiple sides of the coin.

Heavy stuff? wait lemme give you this problem about building the confidence interval to decide the hypothesis testing conducted in a controlled variable scenario with alpha , 0.000028.......:D

relax .......kidding.

Adios till another random of these responses.

Chaos

Enter the "Monitor"

2008-04-30T04:16:00.003+09:00

"Life at ISB is tough. Be prepared to lose your deep sleeps, your recreation period, change the notion of a 24 hour day to a 28 hour day.........blah blah "

Wait a minute!!!. Did anyone forget something. Did they not tell me about the abundancy of flora and fauna around. Or rather certain kinds of flora and fauna, the ones that look deadly at the very least...?? Oh yeah they did, but they said they only lived outside in the grounds, the fields hidden by tall grasses. Yeah Right!!!

So i am going back to my room after a this long winded session of classes, where i found myself revaluating (once again), whether i should focus on this field where i could hardly say anything in the class ( how about one poor word against the books being delivered verbally by some !!!), and i am totally looking forward to a cozy bed to catch up on sleep. And i walk straight into Mr Monitor Lizard, lounging gracefully in my living room..........!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now for the record monitor lizards, or atleast most of them, though carnivorous are not extremely dangerous creatures and in fact are revered as pets in some parts, ( one of them was used by Shivaji's captain to scale some fort too). And like most animals you have nothing to fear from them, and they fear you more. Okkkkkkk........tell that to someone who bangs into a 2.5 feet long slithering monster on the ground of your living room, declaring victory over the domain. ...............

And so i screamed. I screamed so loud the poor lizard lost its wits running helter skelter. My poor roomie fell off the bed he was sleeping on in his room, came running out, and then shut the door on seeing the monstrosity. And so here i was trapped in my room, with Mr lizard for company, nowhere else to go to. My room is locked with route blocked by the diligent patrol. Or so i thought atleast.
Finally my roomie tentatively opens the door and beckons me in. Trying my best to avoid Mr Lizard, i scrape through in, and we call our pest control department to ask for help. In the meantime i radio in my other roomie, who i realised is actually from the "Friends of Lizards" organization and is keen to meet the new sentry. So he is rushing over too now. In the meantime however, our keen gaurd has vanished, no doubt sensing the extra attention being paid to him. And so when the pest control guys (PCGs) arrived, armed with all the stealth equipments, our gaurd is nowhere to be seen. We take the enemy has retreated.

But were we wrong??? Temporarily in relief we retired to our rooms. and as expected dropped off to sleep. But when my roomie wakes up, and walks sleepily to the living room, he finds Mr Lizard again, this time lazily perched on the window, viewing the scenery outside serenly ( no doubt looking for his Ms Lizard). And so we raise our alarm again.

This time the pest control guys (PCGs) came in better prepared, with more sophisticated instruments ( a long hard lathi, and a cast iron pipe) and with a determined look on their faces. They literally turned over the living room, and finally found the lizard hiding in a corner. And well, they killed the lizard. But not before it fought a valiant fight. Unarmed as it was, it tried to hide, and it took the guys almost 20 mins to fell the warrior.

On a serious note, we werent particularly happy about the killing. We expected these guys to capture the lizard and release it in the open. But trust me there was this manic frenzy on the faces of the PCGs almost as if they expected a feast.

Anyways one hell of day it was. This is what is a true test of ones courage ( or the lack of it :() under fire. I failed :((. but man, so would you. For god's sake.........mujhe kya maloom kya bala this woh. And no i feel bad it had to die, it shoudl have been let out in the nearby jungle anyways.

To conclude, to the general lizarding fraternity. Next time please announce your arrival before coming. I swear ill welcome you, and feed you too ( no not me, but something better). Trust me i hate surprises.

Adios

Chaos

Dunked!!!!!!!!

2008-04-21T04:07:00.005+09:00

Yes!!!! and that too three times in a row.......even when my birthday was ages away. Once i volunteered for it as we ran on a treasure hunt, the second time was the price for watching a senior getting dunked, and well the third.......because we had won. But trust me its heavenly......the feeling of being chucked into the air and the flying through it to land into cool blue waters at 1 AM in the night.

Confused??? well thats ISB for you. The tradition of dunking the birthday boys and girls into the swimming pool has been there for sometime now. And having fun dunking and being dunked is just one of the number of things i have done over the past one week here.

The orientation week that got off to a roller coaster start last saturday just went on and on. From heavy dosage gyan sessions by alums and administrators that left one reeling, to the "really really" invigorating breathing exercises, from the treasure hunt across the campus on a hot hyderabad afternoon, to the cheering of the teams on the sports, and finally from what seemed like a never ending talent night to the four all night parties thrown in, and what have you. We had fun, met new people, learnt a lot about learning and so on and so forth. And guess what, this is supposed to be just the beginning and not even the real thing.

And theres this one thing about going back to the academic world that i have always thought to be extremely relevant. Not only does one get back to the books and the academic grind, but it also is that time when you can perhaps sit back and introspect on that one particular aspect about you that you can improve on. I mean of course student life is hectic and yet perhaps you might just be able to tailor it towards building on that one thing youve wanted to. Or you might rediscover something about you that did not. In fact as i see it, its not just a professional sabbatical, but a personal, emotional and intellectual sabbatical that should do wonders for you. And yeah, at the end of it, you might just also land up with a good job. he he he.
Hang on, am i dishing out more and more gyan to you???? christ, only a week and i become a gyan guru. So let me shut and up and go off with the promise of keeping the space updated.

adios amigos

Chaos

Cheers to Student Life

2008-04-08T02:02:00.003+09:00

Errr, its a little early in the day perhaps but as i prepare to board the train to hyderabad this wednesday, i cant help feeling excited. I have been looking forward to that one last bit of student life for some time now. And though i havent yet been exactly involved my ISB class, on orkut or the blog, unlike most others ( blame it on my inherent laziness, one that i was supposed to be gettng rid of), i am more than ready to get back to the grind.
So the past few weeks have been spent getting stuff, looking for things that one needs. Got myself a new suit, a wardrobe overhaul, a new suitcase. Ya i know the books should have come first. he he. but i guess ill do that once i reach hyderabad. or maybe ill make one last trip to Nai Sadak in Chandi Chowk and get the book on accounting for my pre terms.

And yes i decided to finally gift myself a new mobile. This also means a shift from my trusty Reliance to a new as yet undecided GSM service provider. Have managed with 4 years of taunts from my colleagues at office on using reliance especially with the crude handset that i had over the past 9 months.

Anyways so wednesday ill be taking the AP express to hyderabad. That train has its own memories for me, being the first one where in i travelled in AC as a kid, when dad was posted to secunderabad, some 17 years ago. Maybe if time permits ill also visit my old school and one of my all time favorite teacher's in Secunderabad. Ah well that is it.

Ill keep looking through the glass into the kaliedoscope that promises me at ISB, updating those inklings here. I might just get that Nobel someday.

Adios
Chaos

In Between Times

2008-04-04T13:57:00.002+09:00

Yeah i am back after an exceedingly hiatus, and numerous broken pledges of going back to my dashboard with an interesting anecdote to write. Oh i had ideas, and absolutely wonderful ideas which if had borne fruit would have put me right there on top with all the bookers, and the nobels and what have you. I had actually contemplated a winner's speech too, you that boring affair which you keep tweaking to suit the occasion. will post it someday here.

Alas, it was not to be and so here i am back to what i like most. random musings that one would hardly care to give a second glance. :).
Right now i am in between times, just as the title says. Have left my job and i am about to go on to pursue my Yeambeah . And this middle age is one that i have been enjoying over the past like one month. Trust me its that phase of your life you would never ever get after college. So much freedom you could just about laze out the whole day ( as i have done on countless occasions), or roam around, visit places and so on and so forth. Its a heady mix and best left to one on how best to use it.

So i spent this time visiting my ancestral place, cleberating holi, then was off for if i may call it a "spiritual" break of 4 days, and now i am back and looking forward to celebrating my bhanji's first birthday this weekend. And yeah in between i re-read the entire Harry Potter series right from book 1. Amazing pre-term orientation for an MBA student right? he he he. Now i know the job i am going to get once i pass out.

Anyways, this was an introductory return to the scene and i make one more absolutely breakable pledge of being regular and working on those Noble and Booker prize winning ideas henceforth and also keeping you abreast with the happenings in the year ahead.

adios

Chaos

Tell Me your dreams

2007-07-31T02:39:00.001+09:00

Have you ever sat back and thought about the dreams that you have? No i am not talking about the ones that stem from your ambitions, your desires, your goals etc. I refer more to the sudden unconnected chain that props up most unexpectedly in your deepest of slumbers, and leaves you wondering what it exactly was?

One of my own favorite pass times is to sit back and think about such dreams that have remained etched in my memory. I always like to think about how they would have come, because i do think dreams are always a manifestation of something you perhaps have been thinking of, even if only in your sub-consciousness. And yet try as i might sometimes it just doesnt make sense as to where it came from.

Let me try and describe some of the dreams of which i have no clue why they occur. Some of them are amusing, some terrifying and some downright disgusting.

1) Let me begin with one that though has not occurred in a long time now, always sends a shiver down my spine whenever i think of it. As a young kid, i always had this dream, wherein i was falling, falling from a great height, and just when i was to hit hard solid ground, i would wake up, in a sweat. I never could relate it to anything. I mean everytime i had this dream, i would try and think of how and why did i fall. And i never did have any idea. And this was a recurring dream, which kept resurfacing every now and then. Now it has been some time since i have had this dream, but whenever i think of it, i still get the goosebumps.

2) I have had dreams of my close and loved ones suddenly dying. and somehow i see myself standing alone, yet absolutely dispassionate, as if death was the most mechanical and matter of fact thing to have happened. and i hate this dream. because it makes me hate my own self, to be seeing my those i love go away from me, and yet be so nonchalant about it. Paints a gory picture of my own self.

3) I do have my share of amusing dreams too. Once i dreamt i was getting married, and on the day of the ceremony i see my bride to be all upset and weeping. Why? because she lost one of her shoes, or rather someones stolen one of her shoes. So i am now runnin around looking for that one shoe here and there, and i finally manage to locate it, and when i give it to her, her eyes light up like anything. Woosh. thats about it. Funny eh? of all the things one would like to be seen doing on his big day, this really wouldnt be the thing to do. And try as i might like to see what this meant, i have no idea where i got this one from. It was like a bolt from the blue, and it had me laughing the whole day.

4) i have dreamt of trying to reach the end of the universe. And i never reach it. Because somewhere it completely shuts off the imagination, when you start to think of what is the boundary, what lies beyond the boundary and what beyond that beyond. Its like an overwhelming sense of emptiness that engulfs me each time i dream this. and i feel so small, tucked away in a remote corner of this universe.

Of course there are so many other things one dreams of, related to events and happenings in ones life. Most of them you can connect to something. But some like the above, remain just as unconnected and an enigma as you could think of. only to leave you in a state of trance everytime you that dream.

Dreamer is a self-confessed expert on interpreting dreams. he really is able to think through a lot of them, and give reasons that would amaze you. Maybe someday ill ask him to interpret some of my intriguing dreams for a change. But not now. sometime later.

As of now, would like to tell me your dreams?

Will you be My Pheerrrrrrrraaaaaaaaanddddddd???

2007-07-13T18:58:00.001+09:00

"Hi there, you are looking extremely cute, i am also looking very handsome, will you be my pheeraaaaaaaaaaannnnddd, and promise to hold my hand in everlasting pheeraaandshippp for ever and ever and ever".

Ok time out. Nothings gone wrong with me. i am absolutely normally abnormal. what i just wrote was a description of what i generally find popping up on the scrapbooks of my freinds from the female fraternity, on orkut. And though they always give me a lot of reason to literally laugh my guts out, it always amazes me as to see the law of equilibrium being so totally wish washed, crushed and marauded in this absolutely inexplicable expression of ones frustration desperation and you kow what. and well my sympathies always with my freinds who have to bear these crazy expressions and requests for everlasting relationships and all the kinds of ships that keep popping up from time to time.

And everytime i read one of these hilarious ( of course irritating if you are the receipient of the message) scraps, i am but forced to think, is desperation only a male prerogative. I mean i am yet to receive one scrap asking my hand in everlasting freindship from anyone from the opposite sex. and well people do say i am cute enough. ;P.......and none of my other bretheren have received any such requests either.

anyways so coming back to these amazing scraps that i keep encountering, and which provide me enormous opportunities to indulge in some good leg pulling of my poor freinds, let me show recount some of the masterpieces i have seen.

1) you are looking cute. will you be my freind. ( upon the recepients response, he qualifies it further as " you look like a doll".....abe kyun bechari haad maans ki insaan ko bejaan vastu se compare karta hai.....tsk tsk tsk.)

2) Aami tomake prem korbo - ( ulp i hope the bengali is correct :P...this one was one awesome scrap. direct, short and to the point. come on yaar, the fact that you are from his region, is reason enough for the raja ko raani se pyaar ho gaya thingy to happen - ).

3)Hi...i am ___, i am new to this place, and want to make some good freinds and make some good fun. will you make my good freind. will you hold my hand in everlasting phreindship for every and every. and then please scrap me back. your only ( errrr,everytime i recount this one i come up with one more version, but this takes the cake for literally showing the heights of desperation....a little more and he could beat himesh reshamiyaan in my vote for kiski-akhonsephele-aansoon-ponchon contest.)

4) Hi. Will you marry me. ( another straightforward, to the point scrap. jab miyan biwi ho raazi to kya karega qazi???)

There are many more versions of the same type. They do provide some funny situations at time, but can be highly annoying at others. generally best to ignore all those awesome scraps. however sometimes, people do respond in kind like for example this one, which actually takes all my votes for being the best response ever. it was forwarded by a freind to me.

" Did i visit your profile?NO. Did i leave you a scrap or send you a freind request? NO.Did i fall on your feet and begged YOU, whose existence i had no idea of till you left me that godamn scrap, to be my freind, or ask you to send me your "precious" friend request? NO. was my "about me" section meant personally for you? NO.Then who in the world are you to tell me which networking site to join, what to do, or even what to write on my bloody profile? Go screw yourself man, you are not even worth this reply. What do you think, i am waiting eagerly for some random guy by named XXXX ( who by the way thinks he is one up on me by dissing me about what ive written on MY OWN profile) to send me a freind request and ill accept it the moment i spot it?I joined this site to have MY freinds on my list, not have some radom strangers ( like you) leaving scraps or wanting to be freinds with me. So shut the hell up. "

Woooh.....i am sure the guy in question would have committed suicide after this. or atleast removed his profile from orkut. :P. not wait, i guess some things dont change. maybe hes desperate as ever.

Anyways, my simple advice to them out there. go get a life dudes.

and to my dear dearest buddies who are the receipients of these awesome scraps, well you know best. Ignorance is bliss. he he he. so chillax.

errr by the way princess and jo......hiyaaa.......i saaaaa yaaa on orkutwaaaaa.....and i mustaaa saaayaaaa.....you are damnaaaaaaaaa what i say yaaa........so will yaaaaaaaaaa be my pheeranaaadwaaaaaaaaaaaa.......i promise...i promise........i wont ever ask ya to gift me the harley davidsonwaaaaaaaaaa........wot say ya...i wait in eternal wait.......:P.

Hero ban gaya zero :((

2007-06-27T15:54:00.001+09:00

Haan yeh main hoon, aur main chilla chilla ke keh raha hoon yeh baat. Beta mumbai mein ho to kabhi bhagwaan indra se panga nahin lena. aur agar lena bhi hai to remember you are not a Sunny deol or the more in fad Rajnikant, who can with all those gravity defying stunts silence all their enemies.
To keep a long story as long as possible,

Hua yeh,
ki pichle shanivaar,
nikle hum apni dhanno pe sawaar,
powai se colaba,
guitar theek karwaana hai tha pucca irada,
naa poochna kyun gaye itni door,
humein bata dete hain ishtyle maarne ka hai dastoor,
socha dhanno pe dekh humein sawaar,
bagal mein daale hamara guitar,
kya maaloom ho jaaye koi haseena hum jaanisaar,
to issi khwaab mein mashgool ja rahe the itni door,
ke beech mein bol pade meghdoot,
aur bole to aise bole,
ki reh gaye hum to bhochakke,
par aji haan herogiri chaayee thi hum par aisi,
ki bole beta date raho maidan mein,
hogi jeet tumhari hi,
to bus chalte ja rahe chalte ja rahe,
na baarish ki chinta, na girne ka darr,
chale ja chale ja rahe,
ki tabhi aaya humko dhyaan,
jeb mein hain hamari jaan,
yaani hamara pyaara sa mobile shreeman,
kahin paani se ho jaaye na iska naash,
daal diya guitar ke bag mein usko,
ki bachega paani se woh,
lekin hai re hamari kismat,
pahunch ke colaba khola jo humne bag,
paani ke saagar mein gote laga raha tha,
bus phir kya tha,
teen din,
teen din bade saahas se lada hamara mobile,
par honi to kucch aur hi thi,
ho gaya woh veergati ko praapt,
aur tab se bus issi ke dukh mein ji rahe hain,
na mili haseena, bahaya itna paseena,
aur kar diya 5500 rokre ka chuna,
chalte chalte phisal gaye so alag,
to doston mere,
agar is sadi hui kavita ke ant tak aa hi chuke ho aap,
to sunte jao yeh aakhri alaap,
chalo rehno do,
phir bataonga, abhi nahin ban raha yeh alaap.

P.s - i know this post sucks big time. My apologies for the extra headache. dispirings available on the house. :D.

Orkutting Chirkutting and all

2007-06-08T11:20:00.001+09:00

Ok i am right now in a hurry to rush to office, but i just had to write this, after the news i read, with an agency set up by the Indian government called the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team, thinking of banning the site orkut, following attacks by some senseless people because of derogatory communities / comments on some personailities etc.

And i guess i am disgusted. I mean what the heck? this is a world of more than 5 billion people, if i am not wrong, a decent ( correct me if i am wrong) percentage of that are now logged on to the net now, and a significant chunk of that would perhaps be on orkut. Now all these millions of people have different opinion, tastes, lines of thoughts, some intellectual,some downright pervert, and so on and so forth. so? Some crazy dimwit decides hes had enough of treating of a particular personanality as a God and decides to create a community to lambast that particular community. Crazy enough, as if it should in any way affect that personalitys ways of going about? or better still another jerk creates a " we hate so and so country" community and another couple of jerks join in. So?

We get all perked up and agitated and want the site to be banned? is that logical? i mean you dont like a community, dont access the webpage, dont read the comments. Why get so hyper about it? Just because someone writes something wrong about my country, or my religion or my god, or my role model, does it mean its going to change my faith/ leaning towards. True even i would perhaps get hurt, but so what, am i supposed to vouch for a uniform civil code thingy here.

And on top it all, rather than streamlining these silly protestors our good old authorities want to ban the site. Simply because its free, it does not want to take any actions, because it respects everyones lines of thoughts / opinions ( even the perverts if i may say so). Fine enough boss.

For a lot of us out here on orkut, the site is a means of getting in touch with long lost freinds, catching up with them in this world thats fast running away like a Bullet train. we really dont bother what else goes on here, and if someone amongst us even does, to him his space, so long he/she does not expect us to follow suit. Plain and simple.

To be sure, there are more important things, such as school going children getting addicted and wasting hours on the net when they should be studying / playing etc. that is a matter for parents to deal with. and parents could perhaps be given a slight education on what the site is and what so many other sites are. In fact strangely enough no one has paid heed to the fact that the site also has a number of pornographic communities that are more harmful atleast for the young impressionable minds, than some silly we hate you-you hate us stuff. Perhaps that age old adage of Sex-Sells stops people from looking at that aspect and checking ways to stop that menace.

Anyways, its been a long rant. I sincerely hope that people start to look at the broader picture than such stupid miniscule thingies. Off late this narrowmindedness on major issues seems to have really caught on like a wildfire everywhere. would write something on that later.

Mere desh ki authorities, mature for a change pleaseeeeeee.

Of Heroes Warriors and Paladins

2007-06-07T00:36:00.001+09:00

This ones dedicated to my own self. I thought about doing a little bit more of self praising and self patting on the back. and so took this test at this site called howtobeahero.com.

and well the results you can see on the right hand side.

Did i not tell you i am the epitome of humility. :D.

p.s. - you make the test at the site indicated. However, a working knowledge of Harry Puttar and Lord of the Rings is a must.......:D

Mujhse Dosti Karoge?

2007-06-03T15:39:00.001+09:00

I tell you i always admire the grit and patience and you know what of my bestest freinds, for the simple fact they have me for their freind. No, no i dont mean i am the meethi churi kinds who will take a freind for a ride, but i do have some peculiar things up my sleeve, which well sometimes could just be handful. and though its just me out there, i just thought let me see what i can say about my own self.

Let me now begin.

1) I am Selfish - Period. I am one of the most selfish blokes around here. and i consider it a virtue.Everything i do, i do it for me ( a nice modification to the Bryan Adams song there aint it). No i mean it. If i ever i told you, that look this is what i did for you, and this is how you got back to me, please feel free to come over and give me a tight slap. ill take it. because i firmly believe that no one does anything for anyone else in this world, except for his own self. And so when i make some good freinds and try to maintain contacts through and through, i do it for my own self. I do it, coz those few best freinds somewhere are making my life more meaningful. Thats about it. a plain simple selfish reason.

2) I am highly demanding - So the next time i go over to her place, princess has to find me a cute bengali kudi who also is a vegetarian. Dreamer had to actually get a harley davidson and a mercedes when i met him. See it told you? i am really demanding.

3) I am highly emotional and temperamental- Yep i am. and trust this is one facet i wish to change albeit not completely. Sometimes, high on emotions makes me lose sight of the bigger picture and focus on trivial petty matters. and that is really not very endearing to you my good freinds i guess. and guess i look upon my freinds to help me change this aspect to that extent.

4) I am a patient listner - Yeah this is something i can say i am proud of. i generally am a patient listner. subject to point no 5, i can listen to you at length, whenever, whatever the time or place maybe. And even if i may not understand your point of veiw or exactly agree with it i will atleast listen to you, subject again to point no 5.

5) Advice is the only thing in this world that is free - i could be a poster boy for this "give advice always" campaign if and when initiated. like i said in point no 4, i can listen to you at lenght, but you have to listen to some of my advices again and again. Some may be rational, some a little impractical given that i am not one in the actual situation, some perhaps downright senseless, but theyll come. small, big, fat, thin, black, white, grey, all kinds of advice. philosophical, personal, professional, i give advice. They say in fact i could become a counsellor someday. trouble is, how many clients would i have?
And no i do not take it personally if you do not follow my advice. Of course you are in for it, if you continue to pursue that eye-candy i have been eying for sometime now, and which i advised you against it. Other than that, as long as you listen to me, its ok.

6) I am crazy - yep you heard it right. i am crazy. downright crazy. and so i keep doing all sorts of things. i have been nominated for lecturing on " how to give anonymous calls and scare the hell out of people"..........." how to send anonymous gifts and then act hurt when you realise, the person has not understood who it is (after all aur kaun hota princess??)"........this is just an example of some of the acceptable craziness i indulge in. the unacceptable ones? suffice to say my freinds know it.

7) I am a humble soul - Oh i am the epitome of humility. i mean i could go and be nominated for the most bakwaass blogger in the world and you will never come to know, except from my own mouth. i mean it. with me you will never feel as if you are walking alongside a walking-talking bragabond. unless of course its the 5 year olds bicycle race that i won the other day, by dressing as kiddo in chaddis and tshirt. after all mere chehre se meri umar ka pata nahin chalta. :D

Oh hell i wanted to complete ten points and now i am falling short of three. let me see, can someone help me complete them. but for that youll have to be my freind.

to kya aap mujhse dosti karoge? :). A huge bar of chocolate for the ladies who come forward, and a mug of beer for the gents. errr, could i add a good negotiator as one of the other virtues to that list. tell tell.

Yeah!!!!

2007-06-01T12:58:00.001+09:00

This is going to be long....so bear with me. and i offer a compensation to you....a huge bar of chocolate for the ladies........and a mug of beer for the gentlemen. :)

Now ive been wanting to go for management for a long time, is something thats a given. why did it come to me? well, to be honest, when i first entered class 11th, and during one of those substitute classes where a teacher would come and not teach, coz the regular teacher was absent and someone was required to take her place. so now this teacher of ours, she was talking about the CAT exam and about the iims. and as we starry eyed kids listened to her, she told about how tough the exam was and the interveiw and all, and i was like i will give this exam. it might seem silly, but at that time i had already decided on pursuing my engineering, had started my jee preparation ( i didnt work hard enough to crack it, is a thing ill always lament, though i made it through REE), and so i thought CAT would be the next thing after engineering. And there it lay. However, there was nothing i knew really about the MBA. i just knew CAT then.

As time progressed, i managed to secure a place at roorkee, and well it was a disappointment that i was not doing electronics engineering there. and so the days passed with me studying chemical engineering, somehow not really liking it. i finished the degree with a not so great grade, got the job and all. In between, i had gone through the usual stage of deciding what to do, weighin the GRE, ( i actually took a summer project to impress a professor who could give me reccos for my MS application, and actually started studying for GRE, before leaving it :DD), then leaving it for CAT preparation in final year, and then finally deciding to forego MBA till after a couple of years of my job.

Anyways so here i was into my job, with usual gammut of working, then cribbing, lying useless at times ( i once compared myself to the peon in our site office and how we was doing more work than me) and planning for my mba. Of course by this time i had finally started understanding what management would mean. But then wherever i read, whatever i heard, the main talk was on Finance and Consulting as the two "hot" things to pursue. The million dollar dreams being dished out by the IIMs generally seemed to be about I-banking or consulting and the likes. or atleast that is what i saw/heard/read.

As for me, i was unclear about what i wanted to do. I-banking? Share markets? Consulting? Marketing? what. and i was never able to decide. i always thought i would leave it to after i actually made it to a b-school, after i had been exposed to all they had to offer to me. And when someone asked me, i had a ready answer " I have my options open".:DD

Now its been three years out of college. and past two years have been spent chasing this MBA dream, without too much of a success, except of course for GMAT. and now i have finally belatedly started the process of applying to foreign B-Schools too. and that has perhaps instigated in me this process of thinking. One thing i find good about this process,which perhaps is very different from the CAT, that the process actually makes you think about a lot of things. and some thinking never did anyone any harm. :P

And so out of this thought process has finally arisen something. Something like a spark, how long its lasts is something time will tell, but lets see. Perhaps its got to do with the industry that i am in, or whatever, but one thing i know for sure is i am not going to be driven to Finance. I somehow have a feeling i can never enjoy the job. I might do really well, but somehow it doesnt attract me. And add to that, the stories about zero personal life ( i am always very particular on that,) and i guess that is not something i want to do.

No wait, why i am first writing about what i dont want to do? why not write what i want to do? simple, because perhaps its easy to discard things you think you wont like quickly. :)).
Having said that, i have been analysing myself off late. and something tells me i am the kind of person, who likes to be in the thick of things. Who likes to take the decisions, the strategies and would like to direct the actual work that generates the value. I am the kind of person who wants to be part of the action, not advising on the action (Consulting) or handling the fruits of the action ( money). Of course thats a very very laymannish description of what a consult guy or a finance guy would do, and i am not belittling their activities, they do a lot of whole lot of important stuff, but still its not the real thing, is what i feel.

Right now i am in an engineering and construction firm, and after an initial year of execution of projects, which i admit i had not liked back then, i have been in marketing for projects. and i yearn to go back into execution. because thats the real business we do. I am not too much into generation of business as into doing of the business, is what i am beginning to feel. that is what attracts me. it might be a case of the other fruit always being sweeter ( i did detest execution in the beginning, but then i had been thrust into a project in the middle when it was only going downhill, and the activities given to me were not good enough, as i see when i compare them to what my juniors get in new projects when they join), but something tells me.

And all this thinking has made me realise, its general management and operations is what i am looking for. That is where i wish to go. A position which asks me to manage people, manage resources, handle day-day to day problems in an organisation as it strives to achieve the goal. And someday down the line, i wish to digress into the social sector.

So thats what ive been thinking of late. and that is how my search for US Bschools is progressing. for once finally i am a little clear on what i wish to do. Again i still do not have a definite career path. but where in what direction it is heading seems to be clearing. There are still a lot of uncertainities there. but still something looks to be happening.

So thats about it. And now that the long thought process is over. you can raise you heads, relax your eyes, stretch your muscles, shake your head, wonder at the accomplishment of having read such a huge piece, and go over for that bar of chocolate for the ladies and that mug of beer for the gentlemen respectively. On the house absolutely. Kiska house?? arre tera aur kya nahin to mera kya.......huh.

Chaos

Roasted, Fried and Grilled :(

2007-05-06T02:35:00.000+09:00

Yikes!!!!!!
Those three words kind of describe just what i am feeling right now. Its getting hotter by the day here in Mumbai. And must say this happens to be the hottest of the three summers that i have seen here. That is not to say things could not have been worse. In fact they already are up there in the North. And guess i should have been used to it, having stayed for the most part of my life up there in delhi and roorkee.

During my second year of college at Roorkee, we had stayed back for doing a project during the summer vacations. The project in itself was a sham, coz me and my partner ended up chatting away to glory all through the day in the lab, managing to even cause a minor fire in the laboratory, and irking the lab assistant, more so because we never did manage to do the mandatory Ganesh ki pooja as he so wanted. Anyways, during those summers i stayed on the second floor of the hostel in a room situated in an aptly called "Boiler Wing'. Why? coz the wing literally faced the brunt of the sun day in and day out. In the morning, you had the 10'0 clock sooraj maharaj beating down on you while the evenings had him glinting wickedly through the rear windows of our room. Result? even at 12 in the night our rooms felt like the insides of a microwave.

Compared to that, its better here. and yet i am cribbing. cant help it th0ugh. cribbing comes second nature to me.

Anyways, its been sometime since i wrote something. so again, a multitude of unconnected thoughts are springing up in that two and half kg mound up on top of my anatomy.

I had a busy day today, after office that is. Was supposed to go attend an admissions information session of ISB ( Indian School of Business Hyderabad), but skipped it, and instead chose to sleep away the lazy hot afternoon. Then got up and did a little bit of cleaning up of my room. I swear my home looks like a temporary war ravaged shelter for a thousand refugees. and i am looking forward to the day when i can change places and live by myself and at best my one roomie. 4-5 at times guys living in a two bedroom house, well you know how it can be. and there was a time i used to pride myself on being neat and tidy. Anyways, so i did some cleaning of my table, my computer speakers and all. Then since our maid is not here, so made some food for myself and my roomie, washed some clothes, had a nice cold bath (the water did feel cold), and then served self and my freind some dinner ( errr, ladies if you reading this, its basically to impress on you the good husband material that i make). and now i am sitting here trying to make some sense of the nonsense that i have been writing.

Ok cut it chaos, you really have nothing to make of the thoughts rushing by out there. Wind up and go to sleep. there should be a better time to write something later.

Good nite.

Shit happens!!!!!

2007-04-07T03:28:00.000+09:00

Yeah it does, and it does to almost everyone on this planet.
So i was kinda taken aback when while chatting with an old pal of mine, he suddenly uttered to me, he couldnt believe shit could happen to me. Woah !!!!!!

Am i that special or endowed by the good lord, as to always be in his favorite books and never go through tough times at all??

Well yeah, i have been fortunate enough that the first half of my hopefully long life, has passed off mostly smoothly, with things pretty much always ending up good for me. And, yeah well, theres always scope for improvement, and one has always a thousand desires at any point of time in life,and he works towards them, or atleast dreams of seeing them fulfilled, or when he cant do anything about them, of hoping things would work out. But then things sometimes just go against you. And depending on your level of tolerance, you would or would not classify that as 'shit' happening to you.

But the fact is that shit does happen, and i guess its important for a lot of reasons. The very least i guess, is for you to appreciate what is the good that exists in here. For you to touch base with yourself, for you to realise that you are but a miniscule in the big big world, and much as you might not like, there are things are not governed by only what you like or dislike. Sometimes, guess it happens just to get you back to your ground, to your roots.

Having said that, it still is important to work yourself out of that 'shit', and try it does not happen to you again. Atleast not that type of 'shit'. a different one perhaps. but definitely not a repitition.

Woooh, i have perhaps never used one word so many times in such a short conversation. now thats some record of sorts.

You

2007-04-02T23:38:00.000+09:00

Chanced upon this poem by Rilkes at a freind's blog. beautiful, i must say.

You who never arrived in my arms, Beloved, who were lostfrom the start,
I don't even know what songswould please you.
I have given up tryingto recognize you in the surging wave of the next moment.

All the immenseimages in me- the far-off, deeply-felt landscape,cities, towers, and bridges,
and unsuspectedturns in the path,and those powerful lands that were once pulsing with the life of the gods-all rise within me to meanyou, who forever elude me.

You, Beloved, who are all the gardens I have ever gazed at,longing.
An open windowin a country house-, and you almost stepped out, pensive, to meet me.
Streets that I chanced upon,-you had just walked down them and vanished.
And sometimes, in a shop, the mirrors were still dizzy with your presence and,
startled,gave back my too-sudden image.
Who knows?perhaps the same bird echoed through both of us yesterday, seperate, in the evening...

Lets talk about the Birds and the Bees shall we????

2007-04-02T14:44:00.000+09:00

Yeah, you heard it write, i want to talk about this. In fact i want people around me to talk about it, and the very important issue of sex-education in schools. because they ( the Maharashtra government that is), just last week banned it. Reason???? its against social values, against a 5000 year old culture, against the wishes of parents, who would rather let their children grow up all confused about their very own existence,or take recourse to misleading sources of information on the net and all, thereby creating bigger problems.and no, they are not the first, there are a number of other states that have already banned this.

Its silly, to say the least. I was just having a conversation with my father, who himself happens to be a doctor. And i am fortunate to have been born in a family where at the tender age of 14, when i went through the changes that nature hath in store for me, my father made me sit down and explained a lot of things, and gave me some sound advice. I am sure my mother did the same for my sister. And i was also fortunate enough to have a biology teacher in school, who when teaching this NCERT chapter called Life Processes II, that talked about the human reproductive system, explain it as clinically and scientifically as possible, without resorting to being emabarrassed ( we had another teacher in the same school, who would leave the chapter to be read by students themselves). And today as i talked to my father, he told me about how as a kid himself, he and his brothers and all used to be flabbergasted at the way things moved. They used to have no idea of what was happening, they were confused, scared, to the point they thought they were "sinned".And they had no one to help them, for that was the way society was then, closed, with fathers and mothers rarely talking to kids openly. The society was good in its own other ways, but atleast in this way there was something wrong.

50 years down the line, the story i guess continues. Atleast thats what one gleans from the reports that appear in the news. The repercussions though are far more serious. Children grow up confused, unable to go to anyone at times, resorting to questionable sources of information, and in the worst of the cases, become victims of child abuse, many a times at the hands of thier own relatives. A recent study published here in the Hindustan Times indicated, India had one of the highest incidences of child abuse. A simple solution to this problem was this subject of introducing education in a structured manner to school going children. I read report of a school starting almost from class 1, and progressing to impart knowledge based on the child's mental and physical progress. the younger kids are first taught about differences between a good touch and bad touch, and all. I liked the system, atleast on paper.

But now that has been banned atleast in this state. The reasons, to the say the very least, are absurd.They talk about preserving the culture of the country against westernization. Bah. Strange it is, that some of the actually bad things have been beautifully imbibed into our system, with hardly a whimper, while the certainly better thing is being cried foul against.

And the worst part that i read, was that parents are against the subject. I do not know how true it is. But if it is, well i hardly can believe that we have progressed. I mean for politicians to claim all this shit, is understandable, they always like to use culture shit to get votes. but for so called educated parents ( i do assume parents sending kids to school, and good schools, atleast have some level of awareness and education), to behave such, is sad.

It is an issue that is serious, that is deep. and i guess it requires gargantuan efforts by doctors, physchologists and the like to change the mindset of the people at large. Only then could the governments be made to change stance.

Till then, its sad, perhaps very sad.

A new love affair

2007-04-02T14:37:00.000+09:00

Yeah i am in love.
Shes smart, shes stylish, i love the sound she makes.
Shes got all it takes........to make a great bike. yeah, i finally get to own a motorcycle. In college, i did not have one, coz they banned them. for the first two years of office life, i was unsure how long i would stick in one place, so did not invest. Now finally i get to it.
Kudos, to a long and wonderful affair with my own Dhanno.:))

A new beginning

2007-03-24T14:40:00.000+09:00

Aah, it sounds good now. For sometime now, ive been thinking of giving a new look to my cherie here. so i decided to rename her, gave her a new url and change a few things around. She looks pretty now doesnt she?

Welcome aboard dearest.

Budday hai ji

2007-03-21T00:17:00.000+09:00

Its my dearest buddie's birthday today.And just as i was wishing her today, i just got transported back in time, aeons ago, to when birthdays used to be so much fun. A gala event to look forward to. The preparations for the same would start days in advance. With mummy first taking us to the new clothes store to buy us new clothes, a sparkling new style frock for my sister and a brand new pair of those jeans shorts ( oh were they in vogue then) and a t-shirt. The two-three days before the d-day would be spent, crafting all the invitation letters. I still remember the trademark cards. A coupe of baloons with the bunny in between. Then going all around the colony inviting all your freinds. Papa would be busy decorating the house with baloons and those red and blue and yellow and green colored paper strips. and a lot of other things. of course with our bhaiyas help. In fact when i was in roorkee, we had Phoolchand and suresh bhaiya, who were experts at conjuring all sorts of baloons. and then papa would chalk out all different sorts of games to be played and prizes to be given to the winning children. and of course there was the return gifts to be given. Celebrating a birthday was a project in itself, and the deadlines had to be met. The repurcussions could be disastrous you see.

On my eigth birthday mummy did something special. One, we celebrated my birthday and my sister's birthday together. and mummy learnt some new recipes for cakes from Rashmi aunty. in fact they together baked two cakes, a bunny rabbit shaped one for my sister and a long train shaped one for me. the train had one engine and three wagons attached to it. It looked beautiful but the bunny was even cuter. and i remember getting jealous at my sister.

Anyways, so thats how it used to be. on the day, you would go to school wearing one of those new dresses. Teacher would make you stand in front of the class while everyone sang happy birthday to you. and then you would go ahead and distribute toffees to everyone. Evenings would be great too. the party, all the kids partying around. you the center of attraction. everyone giving you all those presents you could not wait to open. and dare if anyone not come without a present. boy i was so devilish, that once a couple of my freinds they came to the party, but they did not get the present. and i went up straight to them and gave them that look before asking " where is my present"...........i still remember the scolding i had got later from papa. and it was lesson in manners too for me. That was papa for me, loving always, but quick to set me right if i did things wrong. and of course so was mummy.

Well, to end it all, birthdays were always that much fun. Of course, as we grew up these things seemed kinda arcane. The home parties gave way to outings,the toffees to a treat for freinds at the school canteen ( the wearing of civil dress to school had been done away with much earlier), and when we came to college, to more elaborate katao the budday boy/girl plans.

Yet those early birthday parties remain my sweetest memories.

Anyways, this post is actually dedicated to my dearest buddy. dunno why today suddenly brought back all those memories. :)). A very very happy budday to you once again buds.

Chaos.

Exquisite is the word

2007-03-20T04:43:00.000+09:00

Trust Pritish Nandy and team to showcase emotions in their truest sense. And showcase they did. "Just Married". A beautiful and poignant story about two souls and their relationship, from complete strangers to sudden bonding by the system of arranged marriage, to the intial apprehensions to the new life, the getting to know and understand each other, the slow build up of trust, despite the one off tiff. A tiff, that is short lived and yet is natural when two people come closer and try to get on. But all this kaleidoscope of emotions, was portrayed in a way no other movie i know has done. Simple, yet touching.

The story. The boy and the girl meet at a common wedding, but no interactions. The girl is surprised her freind has become a bride without even knowing who the man is. The boy is equally astounded his freind has come from the US to become the groom without knowing who his bride his. Ironically, the boy and the girl find themselves in the same situation, wherein they are engaged after a while, without knowing each other at all. They voice their apprehensions and yet finally bow to their parents wishes and get married.

The movie explores the relationship as it develops between the newly wed over their honeymoon weekend. The intial formality, the girls inhibitions, the boy trying to understand her, the final breaking of the ice between the two, a small misunderstanding, a little bit of pain, as the two want to make-up but find it hard to do so, and yet the finale when they do start believeing they are made for each other. All this, beautifully woven into a poignant story. and interspersed by the romance between the 60 something couple out to celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary, and that of three more couples. All in relationships of a different variety. yet bonded by that common thing, love and respect for each other.

And yeah they show the mellowness of age. when the protagonist, in a moment of frustrating at having had a tiff with his better half, asks why do people get close enough, if it only has to become a habit......why do people love if it just ends up becoming a silly habit. And the old man replies " If it had not become a habit, i would not fear for her when she gets sick, i would not get scared at the thought of age creeping on her".

A must see, sweet and wonderful movie this one.

Chaos

Whew!!!!!!

2007-03-20T04:27:00.000+09:00

Its been a whirlwind of an extended weekend. Extended, because monday here was a holiday on account of Gudi Parv, the marathi new year. Well it was actually not extended for me, coz i was working till late on saturday night.

But its been a whirlwind for a different reason. And thats coz i met neha and pragati, my old school buddies. Neha had come down from bangalore for an official trip to pune so she came over here. And so the three of us got together and had some real nice time. But well, not before some other excitements, like me getting held up in office for a time longer than i thought, neha getting delayed at her office, and starting late from pune and reaching late here in mumbai, my indicating to her, that i might just get a little late in picking her up, and she getting all red, rightly so. Then my asking her to stay at my place for the night, since it was too late to drop her at her guest house which i did not know the exact location, and then when she agreed, to very calmly leave her alone and go back to office coz the boss called. Boy, I could just about picture her, ready to tear me apart with something. But well, you know me, i am a devil. and i do like to take advantage of the fact that my freinds are all gems.......errr and i know you too are one, and will not show this to neha. promise???

So moving ahead, we had a nice sunday evening together, chittering chattering about all the things that life had to offer, and that we as young 5th class kids did in school. I for sure must say these two freinds of mine have a strong memory. goes to show i am getting old. and i better do something about it. And yeah we had a photosession all of us. Just about brought the whole of mumbai to a standstill, with these two dudettes and the stud along with them. Lolzzzzzz. it was actually crazy, all of us clicking snaps like mad while we waited for the local at bandra station. and we did allow one uncle ji to explore his photography talents.

The evening ended with all of us landing at pragati's place for some time, me showcasing my horrible dancing skills, and finally bidding the two ladies good night, before i returned to my den.

And today me and neha, we went to watch this movie that both of us really liked. and the movie deserves another post so ill write again a little later.

a wonderful weekend, lots of lovely moments and all caught within myself to savour. It sure is great to meet old time buddies. Makes you want to come alive all over again.

Chaos

Yes!!!!!!!!! there are no supermen

2007-03-15T03:53:00.000+09:00

There is this funny yet sad thing that i have been noticing for some time now. all around me i see a lot of people with failed relationships, with things that did not work out between couples for some reason or the other. and while i am no one to comment on what was right or wrong, i do notice one peculiarity. And that being, the guy always being the one in the wrong.

Till sometime back, i also saw it this way only. i would always see my own bretheren as the ones who would by their crass nature spoil relationships and all. yes i did that. and yet today i read this one comment somewhere on a post of another spoilt relationship ( i am sorry if i am rude in counting out the relationship, but having seen so many, i cannot but view it absolutely dispassionately). and while there were a lot of comments about how the boy was absolutely crass and all and people said things to the extent that the lady was better off without him, i read this one comment, which talked about looking from the boy's angle. and that set me thinking.

We all are humans, we all have emotions, boys or girls. so why is it, that all the time it is the boy who gets painted as the evil was a first question i asked? and just like that comment, why is this not brought out that he also has to have balance between his family and the one person he now loves. And if he unable, to strike that balance finally decides to choose the family, why is he made to be the one who is in the wrong. whereas, if the girl does something similar, she is shown to be in the right. after all family matters.

No i dont intend to play a blame game here. i dont want to pit one against the other too. and i do have the strongest amount of disgust for some of the guys who have played real truant. i know some have.

But sometimes relationships going just fine also break off. and while it would be very easy to put the blame on the guy for being insensitive, for not taking a stand ( especially if he was the one who took the first step), if one were to look at it a little more dispassionately, one would realise that really speaking no one would be to blame.

Sometimes, circumstances just about arent in your favor. and then, since the breaking point has to be some reason, it takes the form of ( unfortunately so), the boy taking some unreasonable stand. True, here in lies the inherent emotional immaturity of the boy who is not able to balance things as well as the girl of his age. a girl would be much more emotinally mature and stronger than the boy her age...more specifically this tender age of between 23-25.

Its very easy to say that one has to keep a distinction between the different catagories of people that you love, as in your family, and then the one. But here when you are talking of an amalgamation of the two sets, will it anyway be simple?

This is not to say that reasons given by a person are correct. no they are not. but then as i said, sometimes when it has to break, it will break. there are things that will be in your control and things that will be not.

at the end of it, i guess its only the circumstance that you can actually blame.

Its easy to paint one as the victim and the other as the criminal. to be frank there are no vicitims and there are no criminals in this game. all are just........humans........humans who falter, humans who make mistakes, and sometimes those mistakes hurt others too. yet humans who learn from those mistakes.

No man is complete without his woman. So also no woman is complete without her man. Nature has built us so that both complete each other. And so we keep looking for that half our lives. Sometimes we find someone, who we think completes us. and sometimes we make mistakes in that. And sometimes even when everything works all right, circumstances do not. so we loose it. and then we get into this blame game.

I have as yet not seen one story where a guy is portrayed as the victim. i am sure there must be one there too. but again, the same argument should hold true. Circumstances.

Guess there really are no supermen. And when failures do happen, its circumstances that govern more than anything else.

chaos.

Dark Side of The Moon

2007-02-19T20:07:00.000+09:00

I must admit at first, that i am quite new to the Pink Floyd scene, and i should have let Neeraj write this first, as the numero uno Pink Fan here from our batch, and one of the lucky few attendees to have witnessed Roger Waters live at mumbai ( of course, we were there too). But as luck would have it, i am here on my computer while he is right now lounging at the Nirmal Lifestyle mall, so i get to write about it first.
So here goes. This Sunday, was the performance by Roger Waters. It was billed only Dark Side of the Moon, however he played a number of other songs too, most notably his own solo ones. Anyways, beginning from the beginning of the euphoric end, we as in myself and my roommate reached Bandra MMRDA grounds here and met up with Neeraj and his school freind who also had come for the show. having got in quite early we settled down to watch the show. There was no seating, but then seeing the no of speakers around and also the two large screens that would afford the veiw of the stage, we thought it would not be that bad. The show began band at 7 in the evening, with the band initially playing some jazz, and some retro and well as new-age indi pop. Simultaneously, ( and this we only realised a little later), the main screen on the stage showed a very old classic radio in a small room, complete with a bottle of whiskey and some cigarettes and an ash tray. ever so often, a hand would come and tune the radio, in sync with the change in the songs being played initially. and then it started, as in Roger Waters came on stage and started hi part. He had with him, one person on the drums, one on guitar and one on the saxophone alongwith three ladies who served as the chorus.
The performance began with some songs from "The wall-final cut". I had not heard most of these so could not connect with the lyrics though the music was awesome. of course the sound system featured the trademark sounds of planes and bombing and all. Then came the ever so longing " Shine on you crazy diamond", with pictures of Syd Barrett on the main screen. This screen served to really connect the songs with photos and shoots kinda portraying the mood of the song being played. So with every song you could literally feel it happening. "wish you were here" was good and so were the other songs. Another notable feature was the Pink Pig Baloon, which was kinda indianised, with graffiti mentioning stuff like " Do away with the cast system" as well as the usual " Bush must be impeached". Was good that one.
After about an hour and a half the group took a break for 15 minutes before coming back to playing what i had come for " Dark Side of the Moon". And were they good? Breathe simply took my breath away. So did the others "on the run", "time", " money" "Us and them" " Eclipse" etc. Their were some changes in the music, changes and enhancements that simply made the expereince a "wow". All the songs had the audience swaying from head to toe. and so did we. Having listened to this album, more than any other i really enjoyed each one of them. When the final words " theres no dark side of the moon, in fact its all dark" rang out, we thought it was over. But then as one of my seniors wo saw the same concert in the US had said, Roger Waters came back again to play " Another Brick in the Wall" and one more song before finally closing it out with " Comfortably Numb".
Was just amazing the show was. The only Disappointment? they should have allowed us to carry cameras, simple ones that is. I wanted to click so many snaps. Guess its time i got a mobile phone camera. Neeraj had one but due to lack of battery we could only take a couple of shots. Still all in all, a memorable expereince.

Random

2007-02-19T20:06:00.001+09:00

No wonder i called this random paths. Look at the last two posts. One goes east the other west.

Life is Phoenix

2007-02-19T20:04:00.000+09:00

I don't know why I have opened this document and what I am writing. Call it a multitude of things I want to right about, or call it a zero I have. But I just want to write something. There are different kinds of people in this world. Some who stay quiet, keep it all to themselves and move about with nothing but the fire raging within themselves. And there are those like me, who see no merit in keeping it to one's self, especially when it has no form ( which is the specific case with me). They take it out, examine it, turn it around, and view it from a kaleidoscope of emotions to see whether it makes sense. And if it does they see what to finally make of it. Guess both have their merits and demerits, but for my kind of people, what the world sees of us is as big show off kind of cribbers. I must say the former conform to a more courageous and better type, because they, in their silence are able to give form to the fire within and get something out of it. Its like how pressure and heat within the core of the earth's crust maketh a diamond. Release it out and all you have is a volcanic eruption which can do nothing but destroy everything around. Yeah destroy it does, but it does leave a fertile ground, with the lava sowing the seeds for a brighter future. The past however, is wiped out. Or so it seems. Because it keeps lurking right there, ready to spring upon you when you are not guarded.

Anyways, I actually am a big cribber. I do crib a lot about the situation around me. I keep analyzing and analyzing and over analyzing situations till they start to make a contorted sense which to me seems good. They did not say for nothing that I could make a good scriptwriter for one of those nonsense saas-bahu rhapsodies. That I am not one, is thankfully a good thing.

And today I am in a big mood to crib about everything. In fact no, I am in a big mood to crib about my own self. I somehow can't seem to understand what kind of an individual I am. I know it sounds strange from an individual who sometime back wrote something about how he was learning so many things especially after watching that movie by the name of Lakshya. But coming back to the man that I am, I am confused. Confused as to where I am headed. I take a decision and I am not able to reconcile everyone to it. I do things in full knowledge of the consequences and then crib when the consequences happen. Then why did I take the decision. If I am the one who continuously harps on being practical, then why do I follow myself to take a decision that somewhere is bolder, more ambitious and is perhaps not steeped in this thing called practicality? That emanates from a certain corner of the human anatomy which gives rise to the best and at times the worst of what they call emotions. That involves not me alone, but others around me too, other much better individuals in all sense of the word. Aah, practicality, now that's an interesting word. Years ago I remember, I used to keep doing strange things around me. I used to take strong stands, and when asked why I did not do it the practical way, I used to boast that only when you are impractical does change happen. Big words, I must say, but yeah I stated them. And no it was not only a boast, but a genuine belief in that statement. And yet today I harp on just the opposite. So what has changed the circumstances or me? Well, no points for guessing its me. In the crudest of the terms, I could say one tries to act like a chameleon because one wants to be practical. Well maybe I am one too.

And this word "practical" - its a beautiful word for people like the above, perhaps the weakest souls that roam on this earth. They just keep talking about how they want to do, what they want to do, and still find myself absolutely incapable of taking any direct step in a particular direction. So what they do is rely on time, and say that time and tide shall show where it all goes. And they keep harping on this silly thing called hope.

The other day I had an argument with a senior who said she would prefer calculated optimism based on proactive action to mere hope, which she likened to being the tool of a petty gamble. So am I a gambler? A gambler who put his odds on a bet, to see how it would turn, and now with almost all cards out, knows that his hope is not working out, and yet is waiting for someone like a Shakuni to throw in that heavily loaded dice that turns things in his favor. Again, it's like you cannot yourself load the dice, you have to rely on that someone else. And that someone never comes, and you keep hoping and cribbing about it, asking for time, which is always a precious quantity.

Spineless, gutless I must say. I hate em. I hate em like anything. They blabber to the world all the greatest philosophies in the world and when it comes to acting out on their own, they don't. All they do is keep waiting for that one instance. Which anyways doesn't come. Sometimes I like to ask, why do such people exist? Maybe its because the good lord has in his balance sheet a record of good and bad, and so that the good does increase so much as to become boring, they keep some of these souls. Guess finally they too have a purpose. They are actually not purposeless.

But something somewhere tells me, even these people one day turn to the other side. when they realise they do have some spine there, some gut there. maybe when the last feathers of the phoenix burn out the beginning cometh. See, there again i see hope.
Guess life is a phoenix.

Chaos

Thoughts

2007-02-19T20:02:00.000+09:00

p.s. - this was written some time back. i just did not get the opportunity to post it

Its about half past twelve in the night and I have just got up after an
absolutely terrifying session of ‘The Omen’ on my laptop. Guess I am a
little late in watching this movie, but for its worth it, it was a
little scary. Of course at the mature ( I know some people would scoff
at that, but yeah I just realized I am 24 plus so I ought to be mature)
age I am, I should not be scared. Anyways, that’s not the point why I am
right now on the laptop. I have not been influenced by the devil to make
me stay awake when I should be snuggling into my blanket. It just so
happens that I am copying the movie lakshya onto my laptop and while it
gets copied I just decided to write something. Its been a while now.
This movie lakshya happens to be one of my favorite movies for a
different reason. The plot is set around the armed forces and for a
change they have stuck to the basics of an army life, without resorting
to a lot of rhetorics and mistakes ( colonel wearing a corporals uniform
and so on). The reason I like this movie, is because it makes me live
even if virtually, a life I dreamt of living as a kid, that of an army
officer. A dream that still refuses to go away, despite all the
practicalities of life that i am in. A dream, fresh from the eyes of a
star struck young boy, watching in awe those smartly dressed young men,
marching to the tune of Beating the retreat and numerous other parades,
the passing outs at the IMAs and the NDAs of the world and so on and so
forth. Of course what i am now, you wouldnt beleive an ounce of what i
said. Yepp, it is true however. I always did want to be one like those
brave souls. For some reason I don’t know, this movie does it all the
more, make me want to go there. Maybe it’s the music. I don’t know. An
army kid I have been all through, and now sometimes it just about feels
a little strange. I mean a couple of years from now, there would be none
of that life, that is once my dad retires. I know I would never have
been able to stay on as an army man for long ( atleast that’s what maa
has driven into me), yet that life has something in it.

Its been a rather long month this past one. Lots of happenings,
mishappenings and all. Office was never as hectic as has been past
month. And no I am not complaining. It feels good to have worked hard. I
was kind of very cozily settled into a rather mundane routine here in
my company. So for a change we really worked, nights, holidays, Sundays
and all. The whole also helped me get over some of the personal tensions
I had. Some failures I encountered. I must admit I am very bad when it
comes to losing. Or atleast I was till this time. I do claim I have
learnt to accept and go around searching ways to turn things around. But
yeah only time and a further setback will really tell whether I have
learnt. The process has been painful, for me yeah, but more so for my
loved ones, my parents, my sister and some of my closest pals, who bore
the brunt of my shall I say moods.

And now that I see it, I realize that always however big I consider my
problems to be they are always very small compared to what those around
me go through. The lord has been good to me all the way. And guess he
just wants me to get a little stronger and learn to fight out things. As
I see back I really have not fought much this while, with things very
much getting to me quickly.

Aah I like this song quite a lot. Ahem it’s a little censored coz it
talks about the sutta, and what happens when a smoker does not get his
daily dose of sutta. No am no smoker. But I like the music. I have
similar feelings for one another amazing song by the same group. Put it
on your laptop when you have a deadline to finish and you don’t have
time and everything is operating according to Murphy’s law. I swear this
one will help. It helps to channel the tension out. Try it. Oops, sorry
ladies this ones not for you though.

And in other news I am going to learn the salsa. Oh yeah I am , believe
it or not. I have bribed/cajoled/threatened a close friend of mine to
accept me as her partner. The only thing that remains is to make her
sign the consequential damages clause with me. You see I do like to
“throw my weight around”. So that risk needs to be covered. And my
friend she happens to be a good lawyer so I need to be careful.

Hmm, a lot of thoughts completely unconnected to each other, what say?.
I could go on. But ill stop here. More next time when I really have
something to write on. In fact I do have, but don’t know how to put it.

chaos

Silence

2006-09-07T23:57:00.000+09:00

Just one of those days when i am sitting a little late in office. But the difference is that i really have no reason to stay late. i have some deadlines but that doesnt mean i need to burn the midnight oil. and yet i just dont feel like getting up. I am finding something here that hasnt been with me for a long time now. Silence.

Its been a long while since i have felt this. The overwhelming power of silence. And today, i am feeling it, taking it in, drawing a long drawn draught. Awhile ago i was working and listening to some music, and reading a few beautiful blogs. and then i stopped. I stopped working, stopped the media player, closed the blogs. and just sat.

Except for one more of my freinds, there is no one out here. and since he is busy doing some work, there is no conversation to make and so i am sitting in complete silence. oh of course there this ricketty old fan ( the table one mounted on the wall), with its continous whirring sound to give me company. Other than that. Silence.

Its not that i am in mood for an introspection or meditation or any of that sort. In fact these days i rarely feel like doing that. I am not even thinking about anything. Am just taking in this silence. Its calming , soothing to me.

Silence is beautiful. Sometimes i just walk out of my room in the dead of the night, and roam on the streets, when there is no one out. Just watch the buildings, the trees, the lights, all silent. Nothing. and then the solitary shriek of an owl that breaks it all.

and there are times when even in the midst of the greatest amount of noise you feel it. Sometimes even in the rush and the crowd and it all, you feel the silence around. You feel you dont connect to it all. But thats because you are connected to yourself.

A lot of things, a lot of emotions, a lot of feelings, ambitions, reactions, all mixed to color your life. and everything then colored by this one force. Silence.

Of Railgaadis, the lower berth and the Parsi aunties

2006-09-06T18:21:00.000+09:00

I am fond of travelling by trains. I simply love it. Not for me the get up , get down and before you blink your eye, you are there, air travel so to speak. True of late, i have been travelling more often than not by air, but its more of a necessity than a fascination. But given a choice i would travel by train.

In fact i keep telling myself the reason why i have so far not gone to the US of A while so many of my freinds have been there and back is because Indian Railways has still not started its special Rajdhani Express from New Delhi all the way to New York. I am waiting to be the first passenger on that.

And when it comes to getting a seat, i simply love the lower berth. Oh to sit on the window seat and watch the entire world speed by, the forests, the fields, the cities, the typical ways the sounds of the gaadi change when you travel over a bridge on a river, the hundreds of smells in the air as the train stops at a station, its all bliss.

As a kid it was always me and my sister fighting on who would get to sit at the window seat. and being the elder one that i was, i generally had to give in to my sisters demands ( psst, hope shes not reading this)

When i grew up and started travelling alone, i heaved a sigh of relief. Atlast i could travel on the lower berth and sit at the window all to myself.

Alas!
It was not to be. It just so happens that when you are travelling alone and are a bachelor male like me, you will always end up getting Side upper berth. and if you have someone ten times your size ( and i already am fat), sitting on the side lower berth, you cant even get to sit for sometime before bedtime on his seat.

But this last time that i was travelling from Mumbai to Delhi and back i decided that i had enough . I bribed, threatened, cajoled my travel agent and finally managed a lower berth in the main compartment for both return and onward journeys to myself. And i felt like standing like Leonardo Di Caprio on the Titanic and shouting " I am the King in the World".

So you see there i was on the d-day all happy, at the railway station when i would rush to my bogie, my compartment. And i did walk in like a king to meet his subjects and his queens. And then........my heart sank.

Giving this young king company in the compartment would be two lovely parsi grandmas, one lady with a son who wanted to be an IITian, and a young chap from the navy. Now i dont have anything against my fellow passengers except for the fact that you already know you will have to give up your much desired lower berth to the aunties, who have been givenn the upper berth which they cannot climb due to their age.

And give my lower berth i did. so did the other young chap. I mean i am all for helping people and especially the elders but yaar ek gal dasso.............kissi ko meri lower berth se kya dushmani hai bhai. Bachpan mein behen ne nahin baithne diya ab autiyaan nahin baithne deti.

Anyways so there i did the good deed, much to my dislike and the journey went on. And it would all have ended on a solemn note but for the fact, that the two aunties / grandmas seem to have taken a liking to me. Now i know i am fat, but am not so uglily fat as to look sick and in need of urgent attention.

And so it was that i lay shocked and astounded and all the other eds, when one of the aunties called out to me a half hour before we were to reach Delhi station and gave me a loooong lecture on how i need to take care of myself. And the crux of that looong lecture was...."GET MARRIED SOON"...........your wifey dearest would take care of you...give you proper diet,....make sure you exercise and blah blah blah......wooosssssssssshhhh. all i could do was just listen and say hmm, aah and all that when the whole of me wanted to run away. Naah.....it was not that munna raaja sharm de naal laal pila hoya paya si, ki aunty ne us di shaadi di gal ched di. Par yaar take a chill man. Ek thi meri daadi, ab ek ho gayee aunty.........somebody tell me ki kya mere chehre pe likha paya hai " Single Desperately Ready to Mingle".

Anyways i know the aunty meant well. and i really liked the aunty. in fact both of them. they were not the typical naggin ladies who would keep telling people not to disturb and all. In fact they made good conversation and it was an interesting journey.

Just that there were two sore points..........My Lower Berth and of course "Shaddi kar le mere laal".

Mummy.....if you are reading this...i promise. Ab main roz gym jaaaonga. next time aunty wont say anything to me.

adios.

Run

2006-09-06T16:52:00.000+09:00

I borrow this title from Neeraj's poem.

Have you ever had this absolutely innane urge to run?

to run and to keep running forever. Run, no not because you are escaping from something ( you never achieve that by running anyways). But run just for the sake of running.

Run hard, run as fast as you can. Feel the blood rushing in your veins, the wind beating against your face. Feel the muscles strecthing, aching ( for someone like me, errrr, it happens a little too quickly :)), the body breaking. and then when the body finally wants to give up, you want to carry on a little more. so you force it to go on and on.

Its exhilarating. to do something only for the sake of doing it, not because you want to use it to achieve something. To do something like its the only thing left to do.

Just run.

Oh well, right now i might as well just run for my "billi".

Life...........You Sang to Me.........

2006-09-01T03:31:00.000+09:00

Its close to midnight, and i am still in office, which is a little unusual for me, because i rarely get to stay beyond 5 in the evening at office. But had some work and just about wrapped it up. and thought to drop a few lines before i say goodbye.

I take the liberty of an empty workplace to let my computer play Marc Anthony's " You sang to me", for me. Its a beautiful song. Beautifully sung, great music. Strange that i never ever listened to it before. and now i cant stop listening to it the whole day. The song just does something to me. And no its got nothing to do with the fact that its a very romantic number. It just is cheerful, shall i say. lifts one up.

Just this morning i was having a long winded discussion about life and its idiosyncracies with a freind. A number of points we touched. Talked about negativity and positivity and the likes. About aims, hopes, aspirations, love, and so on and so forth. And i made a statement i had concocted some time back to him " Negativity has an aura of romanticisim that is irresistible, and yet i prefer the mundane positivity of life". Wont go too much into it though. had a long innings on that.

Tonight, i am feeling good inside. about a lot of things. About life in general, some special ones in particular. and that includes self too. Its like you get to speak to some people, some close ones, your dearest freinds, who touch you just at the right moment, the right chord, and you just wish you would fly out to the clouds.

Life does have its own ways. One moment, you think it couldnt get worse. and next, it couldnt get any better. Maybe its lifes way of telling you, bear with me, i have my own idiosyncracies. But i am with you. I love you and i am always with you.

to you my dear life, to you sire and to you princess.........i raise a toast. Let the music flow.

Adios for the night..........have a new mission to complete before next summer now.:)

ciao

Whew

2006-08-29T14:22:00.000+09:00

That was one heavy post. Maybe its because i just realised that i cannot get away without working in office forever. :((. The force of that is just too much to bear. Ab mujhe kaam mil gaya hai. And so before i get so so neck deep in work like the rest of my better freinds that i vanish, let me write to my hearts content.

I saw Breakup the other day. Decent movie must say. And kudos to Jenny darling for taking up the project. The first part was pretty decent and though the second half was long, what was best was the ending. Something our KJo and party could never dream of, because they still beleive its always Forgive and forget in a truly Indian hindustaani parivaar. Agreed the movie here was not set in an Indian Household, but well its true here too. Things broken do not get back. and thats what the movie was about. Wont count it amongst the best, but did like it ok.

In other news, i just realised that i have a very few years of the life i love left. My grandma called me the other day, and dropped the bomb ( ouch, was that the It i was talking about :((). and i thought it was only the ladies of my age who had to go through this and not the munnas like me. tell you what, i am soon going to meet the Shastriji who made my Janamkundli , and bribe him a little ( haan haan, woh buddha ho gaya hoga, to kya, everthing has a price)....and ask him to put a couple of rahus and ketus here and there, and touch up the whole stuff.......bus dus saal ke liye setting fixed. Phir Main aur Meri tanhaai.........wah wah.

My plans of ending up on the bargad ka ped next to my freinds' homes are taking strong shape these days. I keep goofing up big time, and am soon to get killed and end up a ghost. and then i shall roam the world on the bargad trees outside each and every home of my freinds. Not that they are really worried about that. They know they committed one original sin, having me as their freind. and well they gotta take it.

Ooops, now i see It coming again.......and i got to rush before it again engulfes me...like a thousand tsunamis and god knows what.

ciao

It

2006-08-29T13:45:00.001+09:00

All this while he had known it would happen.Expected it to happen. Steeled himself for it to happen. But never estimated the force with which it happened.

It came all of a sudden. A tiny spark, a miniscule hint, a single word, a silent whisper. and he knew it. The realisation hit in. Maybe it was because he had gotten himself accustomed to it, to picking up those clues, that he picked it up where noone else could. Maybe it was a sign from above.That its time. Time to let the truth out.

But the force of it.Something like a thousand tsunamis crashing onto a solitary island.it swept away everything, everything damn thing that came in its way. Leaving not even a trace. leaving him dazed and dazzled by its very brilliance, a brilliance he could do nothing about but admire, brilliant even in its destructivity.

But it couldnt sweep everthing. something remained. Like the tiny pea on the princess's bed, that did not let her sleep. Like a thorn that refused to go out. A nagging pain. a tiny whimper.

Life goes on. Its the same street, the same home, the same black sky and the same blue sea. The same voices, the same laughter, the same crude jokes, the same burning ambition, everything the same.........and yet.....

Not everythings the same. The sky that is black is deathly, the blue sea does not shine, the voice is faint inspite of being loud, the laughter like a shattering glass. The jokes, cruel in their humor. An ambition that stays only because it has to stay. A life that goes because it has to.

A tempest of thoughts these, that engulf him, as he sits on a solitary spot in the midst of the beach. A kid is playing ball by the sea-shore. He kicks the ball high in the air,the ball flies more than he imagined it could.......and lands on a thorny bush.....and kaphut goes the ball. The child is shattered. He bursts out crying. He cries aloud for a long time, and then goes silent. He walks over to the bush, and takes what is left of it in his hand. Silence. A long suffocating silence.

2006-08-12T13:59:00.000+09:00

"Subah subah ik khwab ki dastak par darwaza khola,
dekha ........................................"

This nazm by Gulzaar sahab has always evoked strong emotions within me. However with due respects to him, today that first line acted as an expression of an altogether different reaction. I opened the daily newspaper and as is my usual wont was going through the usual items and paused to glance at my horoscope when i read this

" Romance takes a beating today". and i kinda jumped. first reaction " subah subah akhbaar ki dastak pe panna palta to dekha, us paar se ek dhamki aayee hai mujhe".

Now someone please tell me, for some poor soul, all time member of the FOSLA ( Frustrated One Side Lover's Association if you please), where will something take a beating when when it does not exist. I assumed it was a warning for myself to behave or else risk being beaten up with sandals, or shoes or what have you.

The icing on the cake was when i shared this apprehension with a freind of mine and she very sweetly replied "Agar ek sandal pade, to ask for the second one, mere kaam aayegi". :((. Yeah buddy if you are reading this, well, i am just looking for the right requirements as of now.

Anyways, so this was the beginning of a glorious day for me. Now as i was again browsing through this harbringer of doom for me ( newspaper if you please), i come across this article which says that the I&B ministry has decided to ask all tv channels to apologise in public for airing all those oh so very offensive advertisements.

Now i have stopped having any political leanings for sometime now ( my mother has been after my life, because i lean a lot while walking), but somehow this great government or rather all the present governments in different parts of the country never fail to amuse me. They seem to have all the time in the world for moral policing of all kinds. And some times i just sit up thinking, how come a stupid advertisement on a stupid pair of pink polka dotted "chaddis", really offend my moral sentiments. Or how will banning an advertisement on Mc Dowell's somehow stop me from drinking my guts out, if i were one of them ( for the record i am a total teetotaller).

Ok i am all for decencies being maintained and all, but arent our mummys and daddys there to do make sure we see the right things. ( i happen to be one of the lucky souls, who has a couple of good angelic freinds who also make me shut my eyes when watching MTV at a McDonald's restaurant at Mumbai Central). why does the uncle at I&B want to become my dad. In fact my dad stopped doing it himself long time back.

anyways, its been a long tirade on this topic. and i do know one more guy writing on this issue, that too with a language handicap as mine, will not tilt the scales in favor of like minded people. But i seriously would like to believe all our nations troubles are over, what with the govts having nothing to do except to tell me what to see, what to eat, what to drink, how best to frown when my lady freinds visit this temple somewhere ( man, this is something i could write reams on, it is so gross in its idea) and so on and so forth.

meanwhile i think i shall now go back to sleep soon, and this time wait for a real dastak on a real khwaab and no not one with sandals, .......sigh..........

ciaos

Nanhi Kali

2006-08-08T13:23:00.000+09:00

This happens to be one of my favorite songs. My dad used to sing it to me when i was a kid. as i lay across his chest, the gentle rumbling of voice and the up and down of his chest as he sang to me, would put me to sleep in a twinkle of an eye.........sigh.....bliss

Nanhi Kali ( from the Hindi Film "Sujata")

hava dheere aana
nind bhare pankh liye jhoola jhoola jaana
nanhi kali sone chali hava dhire aana
nind bhare pankh liye jhoola jhoola jaana
nanhi kali sone chali

chaand kiran si gudiya naajon ki hai pali - 2
aaj agar chaandaniya aana meri gali
gun gun gun git koi haule haule gaana
nind bhare pankh liye jhoola jhoola jaana

resham ki dor agar pairon ko ulajhaaye - 2
ghungharu ka daana koi shor macha jae
daane mere jaage to phir nindiya tu bahalaana
nind bhare pankh liye jhoola jhoola jaana
nanhi kali sone chali hava dhire aana

The Rickshawwallah

2006-08-05T13:43:00.000+09:00

I saw him first in my first year of college. Short, dark, with a large moustache, stooped back, he stood outside our hostel "rajendra bhawan", ready with his rickshaw. Ready to offer his services to the motely group of Facchas as we were called.

The first day me and my roomie used his rickshaw to travel down to civil lines to make some purchases, we were caught by a group of seniors who made us get down and ragged us. For the next one month, we of course were never allowed to use rickshaws and had to do all the walking around the campus.

After that however, it was always " Bhaiya, civil lines chalo", " Bhaiya, library", or simply " Chemical Department". And he would simply smile and start on his way. Oh and he always had a word of greeting for us. Always would ask us how we were or something. I remember once i was talking to my co-traveller, and mentioned something about the army, and he immediately butted in, saying he used to be a Subedar in the army. And then he started recounting somethings. Of course, restless as we youngsters always were, we rarely listened to him with full ears as he ranted about. So after awhile he would go quite.

There were times, when i did chat with him. Especially when i was travelling alone. And he would ask me " babuji kaise hain, padhai kaisi chal rahi hai" or a typical " kaafi dino se baithe nahin aap".

There were other times when if you got on his rickshaw, he would smell of alcohol. Those were the times he was quiet. He would just go about doing his job. drop you at civil lines, or the library or if you wish at the girl's hostel. And once you paid, he would salute in his trademark style and just cycle away, unless someone called him.

Years passed by and we kept changing our hostels from rajendra, to ganga, to govind finally. Every year one could find him waiting at the gates of one of the hostels. Like so many other things , i guess he too became an integral part of my college life. And when i left college, like the rest of the things, i found myself missing him too.

I bet hes still there, waiting as always at some gate or the other. Someday ill go back to my college meet him and well say " Thank you". He might not understand. Or maybe he will.

Rain Teaser

2006-08-05T13:18:00.000+09:00

As i stepped out of my home to go to office today, it started drizzling, and by the time i had managed to catch an auto to my office, it was pouring. In less than 15 minutes, within which i reached office, it stopped. As suddenly as it had begun.

That is the rains here for you. Of course you can discount the 944 mm floody downpour of last year or the 150 mm one this year beginning which sent everyone into a tizzy. Barring these few, its always a quick heavy downpour and then a slow slight drizzle. A teasing drizzle. A taunt, a wink and a smile. and then a loud laugh, again followed by another taunt, a wink and a smile. It goes on forever.

I guess its the games that gods play. They sure do get bored up there dont they. So they like to have a little fun with us mortal souls on this land. And Monsoons are the best time i guess. So you have heavy downpours someplaces, while the rest remain parched.

At places, you have eyes dry in anticipation of a few drops, while at others, eyes that dont open at all, so heavy it is.

And yet the season brings with it so many different colors. You see the kids dancing around, trying to keep their paper boats afloat. The elders of homes sitting in their balconies, watching the slow pitter patter. The smell of hot tea and luscious pakoras. That couple sneaking out for a little time alongside the stormy sea at the stand. Of course you also see the nuisance that the concrete brings, the noisy road snarls, the lone vardi vaala trying to put somesense, the delays and all.

all combined to give another kaliedoscope. Serene at times, wild at others, and yet always a cute little game.

Cheers

Eyes

2006-07-28T19:15:00.000+09:00

To the One
Eyes full of mischief,
eyes full of laughter,
eyes to cause every heart to flutter,
eyes with an innocence, of the dove that flew,
eyes with a warmth of the spring air that blew,
to change the face of the cold earth due,
eyes with the fragrance of a thousand wild flowers,
eyes clear like the sparkling brook, with the black of the sky,
and the white of the clouds,
eyes deep like an ocean,
eyes mystic like an abyss,
the beholder hath a magic,
that charms an old rustic,
eyes that mirror the pretty beholder,
may the shine stay forever and ever,
the persona grow stronger and better,
to conquer the dreams that the eyes reflect,
and make every one come true with a zest,
a prayer a wish for the beholder,
that comes from miles yonder.
Eyes.

Polka Dots

2006-07-13T18:42:00.000+09:00

Polka dotted pyjamas colored pink,
could they ever make me think,
put me completly on the brink,
leave me without food and drink???
and yet today, the polka dots,
as i call them have brought,
a state from which run i cannot,
it all began on one sunny friday,
with me and my freind chatting away,
when suddenly to me it struck,
the polka dots might have gone bust,
leaving their owner in the dust,
i asked my freind if she was aware,
or a part of the conspiracy that was dared,
she said she knew not what i said,
was upset with the whole episode instead,
so dear were the polka dots to her too,
so a search we decided to do,
from BOM to BANG,
to the revered land,
the best of agencies the best of the troops,
marched with us boot to boot,
countries and lands we traversed,
in the search that cost us dollars,
we had no luck we had no success,
but give up we could not,
the future rested on our search we thought,
and then came the big judgement day,
when we thought we had found our way,
the dots had been spotted at a strip miles away,
However elation was not to be,
it was rumour we were made to believe,
but we know thats not true,
there were there for a moment sure,
but like the mystic who comes and goes,
they vanished without any show,
leaving their admirers on their toes,
Till today the polka dots remain,
a treasure we searched in vain.
and yet now sometimes at night,
i wake and look to my left and to my right,
coz the dots call up to me to come and see,
in all their resplendant glory to thee,
its a mission that start afresh i must,
find the polka dots i must,
will you my dear freind lend me a hand,
to restore the old glory to that band,
of the good old Polka Dots.

The Day After

2006-07-12T14:47:00.001+09:00

Day After,
A city shell shocked,
a fabric shattered,
by nature & by godmen,
and now by terror,
a heaviness in the air,
of frustration and despair,
a pall of gloom,
and impending doom,
the cries so far,
ears they jaar,
heart they rent,
a why i ask,
and yet in all this dark,
i see a light,
of the spirit that is human,
a guiding beacon,
the defiant silence,
the will to fight,
and stand upright,
and while at it to help those one might,
of few words more action,
the mob that helped,
its limping back,
it will come back,
a prayer for the bereaved,
a wish a desire,
let us spare,
the wrath so dire,
a wish, a prayer for the ones gone,
and strength to those left here,
Amen.

p.s.- dedicated to the innocent lives lost in yesterdays terrible blasts in Mumbai. May the souls rest in peace and god give strength to those bereaved to bear the loss with strength.

A little bit of me

2006-07-11T20:08:00.001+09:00

p.s. - i am republishing something i had posted long back and inadvertently deleted :). now a little updated

A liitle bit of me I have been looking at numerous places where they ask me to describe myself, and i find myself not being able to do the same. eventually i end up carping the same old stuff, stuff that 90 in a 100 would be using, something on the lines of " am still confused, am trying to find myself and such".
Now the very fact that i have been carping such stuff makes me think do i really do not know myself? Can it be possible that 22 years after i came into this world, i have no idea what i am, who i am, and questions of the sort? or is it that i am trying to hide myself behind a facade? does that then mean that i am scared to show myself to the rest, either because i fear the rest shall reject me or because they might harm me if they know what my real self is? whew.............that seems to be a really disturbing thought and would undoubedtly show me as suffering from a really serious case of self-deprecation.
However, coming from a science and engineering background ( though the latter is a little suspect), i have always believed, that in most critical situations the conclusion that is the simplest is generally overlooked, and only later does one realise that indeed it is the right conclusion. I shall make no mistake of that sort here. So let me simply dump the higly complicated analysis as of above, and think for a moment of a very simple reason, for my inability to describe myself. simply put difficulty in articulating in a concise form what i believe i am or worth or whatever.
Hmm that sounds pretty ok now. Now that i have solved the initial problem of why i am unable to answer such questions, let me see if i can now try and actually answer the same.
About me. Well to start with, i am in the 23rd year of my so far not very long life, having recently passed out in chemical engineering from a reputed instituion, and completed two years in the corporate world.

Life so far has been good. School, college, all have passed in a roller coaster of sorts. I have had my best times, my worst times ( which actually were not that bad, only they seemed so at that time), have learnt quite a few things and yet feel there is so much to know, have changed myself in many ways, even though inherently i still remain the same.............................a completely excitable, quick to temper, kid who is trying to grow into a man, and slowly but surely succeeding at it too.

I have a pretty large circle of freinds and yet when it comes to it, the number with whom i have a really close relationship are simply put countable on ones fingers. My buddies from school are perhaps the best. have 5 best freinds from school who have continued even after we passed out from school, went to different colleges and now working at different places. then there are another 5 -6 from college. Not that it really surprises me or makes me feel bad. at the end of the day, actually one gets to have only so many freinds. i mean look at it this way, there is also a limit to which one can expand ones horizons. plus i am really happy to have such a coterie of great buddies.

Yet there was a time, esp in college, when i used to really go out of my way when dealing with freinds. and what used to happen was that when my expectations were not fulfilled i used to get depressed. It really took me a long-long time to get over this kind of a mental makeup. But finally i did manage to do it. Thats one of my most important learnings from college. i could in fact write a book on the same. But i guess i wont do that here.
School and college have been very different playing and learning fields. Let me elaborate on the same.

I spent a great time in school. Was among the toppers in my class, pretty good in co-curricular, kind of a cyanosure of teachers eyes. All in all had a great time. Learnt quite a few things, though when it comes to the practical ways of life, there i did not learn much. Maybe its because we were so well protected from the outside world. We had our parents, our teachers and then our freinds whenever we needed them.
Perhaps the most important aspect of life in school was the element of innocence it carried. whatever we did, at the end of the day, there were no hidden agendas, nothing.
and then those golden days ended. and we came to college. that was the first time i went out of home and stayed alone. Thats when i can say the real lessons in life as a whole started for me. Perhaps the biggest lesson for me was how to become more and more flexible in ones approach to life. that was one thing my parents had always told me i lacked. here i did develop a lot of sense of flexibility.

Of Course, i also had some setbacks. Academically it was all the way down the ladder. i simply did not study in college. Got involved in emotional distractions and wasted a lot of time. Looking back, i almost yearn to go back and rectify this perhaps the biggest mistake of my life. This unnecessary emotional distractions was one hell of a bane for me. Cannot blame anyone else for the same. But yes i should never have done that. Anyways, as they there is always a rise after a fall. So at the end of the day, i learnt my lesson well, my academics though they suffered but i still go a decent grade and finally landed up with a good job in the corporate world.
College life indeed has taught me so many things. In fact there are so many things that i am still trying to inculcate into my life. Havent really succeeded but i hope to do so soon.

Its now been two full years in the corporate world. The learnings here have been basically more of a professional sort. The one thing that i have been learning more these days is how to handle your finances when you are your own manager and not your parents. ha ha ha ha.

Sometimes, when i look back, i feel pangs of nostalgia at the times spent. So many times do i wish i could go back and relive all those moments at school and college. so many times, have i wished to go back and change things. But then whats done is done. I guess my emotional quotient is a little too high for todays world. but then thats the way it is. maybe with a little more time, that will lower.

At the end of the day, i find myself asking myself, do i really feel i have anything to regret???? No, an emphatic no. I might introspect on past doings and misdoings, but thats all part of life is it not. Misdoings are for you to learn from and make sure you dont repeat, not to brood or regret upon.
Life goes on, like a song,
adios
Chaos

The Sunset

2006-06-18T16:08:00.001+09:00

As the rays of the setting sun,
prepare to say goodbye for the day,
they stop, they halt and listen to what she has to say,
her voice is music, her face brings a cheer,
the rays beg the sun, let us be here,
this moment is one to savour for ever,
the sun says come again with the moon,
and shine on her that her radiance may,
spread cheer and happiness on all with her today.

Rang De Basanti!!!!!!!!!!!! - Thumbs Up!!

2006-01-29T19:36:00.001+09:00

It has been a while since i have posted something out here. and i decided to start my regular posting ( yes this time i promise to be regular), with my own reveiw of a movie that i saw recently.

Rang De Basanti, is in one word a Good movie. A novel plot, beautifully sketched out, comprehensively acted out, amazingly scored in music and what have you.

Sue, an english filmmaker comes to India with a dream to make a documentary on the Indian Revolutionaries Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, Rajguru etc. Shes inspired by her grandfather who served in the Indian prison where these revolutionaries were lodged, and wrote a diary on his daily interactions with them. She chooses for her cast a group of collegians from Delhi, comprising DJ, Sukhi, Aslam,Karan,Sonia and Lakshman Pandey.

Its a group that any youngster would connect with. Wild, fun loving, with ideas of their own that are yet still in the making even if they appear permanent. A group that tends to live for the day and then wait only for the next. Of course you have Pandey as a fanatical Hindu nationalist but he has a change of mindset as the story progresses. So do all the others as the movie within the movie completes. The mood changes with the death of Sonia's Fiancee Flt Leiutenant Ajay in a Mig 21 Crash. The events that unfold thereafter are poignant and tragic leading to a an emotional climax.

What i liked about the movie as i said before was the portrayal of the idea. The way the flashback of the Indian Freedom movement is gelled with the story of the current is simply great. In fact i did not realise in the beginning why it happened but when the end approaches you know why it was done.

All the performances are strong, and you can beleive it when i say even Aamir Khan cannot overshadown his co-actors here. Of course credit goes to him too for his own portrayal of a Punjabi brat ( DJ), but the others are equally strong characters. The music is one more point. AR Rehman shows once again his genius.

Its a beautifully made movie, and as commented by one of my freinds, one hell of a movie after Dil Chahta Hai.

Of course just as anything cannot be perfect and i do have a couple of points. I thought Anupam Kher as the industrialist father and Om Puri as Aslam's father were wasted. i mean you cant give such measely roles to such great actors. but then thats just a point. Then i also thought maybe the part about the crash and the subsequent actions should have been given 15 more minutes. it was kinda abrupt.

But as i said before, nothings perfect, and hell i am also not a perfectionist. I really enjoyed watching the movie, and i plan to watch it once more with my family when i go back hom in Feb end.

till then
Kudos

Frankly My Dear I dont give a damn

2005-05-26T12:30:00.001+09:00

I guess that is what Mr Rhett Butler would have said when queried about why the movie " Gone with the Wind", was not selected by Time Magazine as a part of its list of the 100 greatest movies of all time so far.

And hes right. Why should he or for that matter even Margaret Mitchell give a damn about the same? The reason why i ask this is because of many articles appearing in the newsprint about how surprising or shocking it was to note that the movie does not appear in the list.

Let me look at it from two veiwpoints, first the hypothetical vewipoint of the author herself, and then from that of the selectors from time magazine.

For Maragaret Mitchell, she created a masterpiece, a great novel, that enthralled and continues to enthrall readers worldwide. she wrote a book that was named as the most widely read book after the bible. All this is very very true, but at the end of the day, other than of course the actual feeling of a contentment at having created something fabulous ( in this case a great story), would possibly greatly override all the accolades showered by the rest of the world. for is it not true, that if one is not happy with ones own work, would all the accolades really matter?

As Ayn Rand would have probably stated, the work itself would be the greatest accolade possibly to the worker. So i really dont think maragaret mitchell or for that matter Rhett Butler would give a damn.

Now lets come to the selectors. Of course Gone with the wind is a fabulous novel, a romantic masterpiece. the story is beautifully written and the plot is great. But at the end of the day, its precisely this- a beautiful though sad love story. Thats it. And the movie also is just that. If you look at it from the critical angle, i dont suppose one could really find any piece of cretivity worth voting it as one of the great pictures of the century. Or anything that would have a profound impact on someone.

I suppose the selectors were probably looking for movies, that were masterpieces in terms of creativity or imagination or the effects ( for the techno age of today), or human emotions, or situations or history. In terms of that Movies like Schindlers List or our very own Satyajit Ray's Trilogy including Pather Panchali would have figured. Not a plain old flick like our GWTW, which is what it is at the end of day, made out of a great book, even though it has enamoured audiences the world over, though definitely less than the book itself.

But then reiterating what Butler said " Frankly, i dont care a damn". Neither should anyone else. The books great. thats what matters.