Peep Into The Oyster

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time: Book Review

2012-01-06T23:10:00.003+05:30

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

by Mark Haddon

Published in 2003

The story opens with the discovery of a neighbour's dead dog by the narrator, Christopher. He is 15 but thinks like a child and soon the reader would learn that he is 'special' (the reviews have termed autistic). Christopher decides to solve the mystery of the murder and writes a book, recording his detection, description of the suspects and his own thought process. Interestingly, his book is actually the novel.

Christopher seems extremely logical, he sees things as they are, without biases and definitely without emotions. He digresses into interesting facts like multiplying 251 by 864 (which reminded me of CAT quants) and logically explains things like God and evolution and the universe. Those snippets reminded me of certain friends I have who would love to discuss such logic. Some facts were new to me, like Croyden's Soldiers and "spiraling" to find a new place when one has reached the vicinity. These are all explained with illustrations.

Solving a murder mystery would have been simple for such a brilliant kid, except that he is completely unable to sense human emotions. He can't sympathise with other people. He asks his neighbour to go away because she is a 'neither family nor friend' and threatens helping strangers with his Swiss Army Knife, because they're strangers. He himself doesn't feel anything when scolded by people. And yet he loves his pet rat Toby, who he explains is clean and doesn't carry Bubonic Plague, and even risks his own life to save his rat.

As the detection progresses, he stumbles into a secret about his dead mother. The truth would have affected a normal human badly but Christopher is shielded by his inability to understand humans or feel emotions. The only time he felt pain was when he was told he couldn't sit his A-level maths exam.

One almost tends to start disliking Christopher for being so insensitive and so self-centered. And yet again I found myself being indifferent to his pain when he was told about his maths exam. I felt as if he deserved it. I felt sympathy for strangers who tried to help him, characters who existed only in single sentences.

The plot is intriguing, there's not much of a mystery, its not even important. What holds on is the description of what goes inside Christopher's head, how he sees the world around him, how he misses what people see and sees what people miss. The illustrated bits of trivia also act as fillers and help sustain the readers' interest. Even then, Haddon slips at certain points, the descriptions get weak and unconvincing at times. It should be noted that the story is not an accurate description of how autistic children think and behave, in fact nowhere in the story has Haddon mentioned the word Autism. But overall, the book is readable, funny and interesting.

The story ends with an appendix explaining the answer to a question from the A-level maths exam. But what left me perplexed was the fact that how we and people like Christopher stand at opposite ends of logic and sensitivity, and how difficult it becomes to understand each other.

I commend all the parents and teachers of people with special needs, for their immense love and patience for these kids.

Travelog #7: Mumbai - 1

2011-11-06T00:14:00.006+05:30

Bandra -Worli sea link as seen from Dadar

This is my first post about Mumbai from my series of posts about various cities that I've visited.
And I doubt if there's going to be any more posts on the city of dreams.

Mumbai had been a transit point when I lived in Pune, and my longest encounter so far has lasted only 2 weeks. Nevertheless, I thought it worthwhile to write a post about my experiences with this city.

What I liked about Mumbai are the people. They're helpful. But behaviour apart, it’s a mix of people of all sorts: the uber rich and the honest, hardworking common man; the stylish to the simply dressed. I met a Tam in Chennai who spoke in Hindi and was one of the few locals I've genuinely liked. He revealed he had spent 10 years in Mumbai. I felt Mumbai kind of rubs one off and smoothens ones rough edges, so that one learns to work hard and still be polite.

I noticed how cute the street dogs are in Mumbai. They're well fed and friendly (the street dogs in Bangalore would actually chase you and probably rip off a chunk of flesh if they could).

I also liked how facilities are available till late nights. Convenient for people like me who do things at the 11th hour. But hey, its not all rosy in Mumbai. People my age love Mumbai for the freedom and the fun. They love to be able to roam on the streets at 2,3,4 am. I prefer to stay home at night. I also dread living here because, well lets face the fact, its too crowded and honestly speaking I can't afford living in this city (when I say afford I mean afford living a comfortable, private life, not afford making ends meet).

But this post's not about my views on Mumbai. I seem to be jinxed, thrice I have taken cabs in Mumbai and thrice I have had bad experiences. Somehow I ended up with cabbies who asked me the way to my destination.

Encounter #1: My first ever visit to Mumbai. I take a cab from Andheri to Marine Drive to catch up with an old friend and some pizza. I clearly say "Marine Drive" to the cabbie. My friend had told me that the restaurant was in the corner of the road leading to Churchgate railway station. The ride went fine till we reached Haji Ali and then we clearly got lost, on Marine Drive! While I looked for neon signs declaring pizza, the cabbie went took some street which clearly led away from Marine Drive.

"Is this Marine Drive?", I asked him.

"No"

"Where are you taking me then?"

"Churchgate station"

"No take me to the road that leads to Churchgate station"

"That's what I am doing!"

He has clearly forgotten that my initial destination was Marine Drive and was determined to take me to the station. I had to eventually get off somewhere, take another cab and the entire routine almost repeated itself. End result, I must have been circling the place for over an hour when all I wanted to do was go to a pizza place on Marine Drive!

Encounter #2: I take a cab from the airport to Hiranandani Estate in Thane. I clearly tell the cabbie "Thane" and "Hiranandani Estate". This was the 2nd time was going to Thane and both trips being at night, wasn't very sure about the directions. But at least I knew that we had to keep to the highway and there weren't much turns to be taken at the crossroads. As we reach Powai the cabbie asks me if he has to go straight or right.

"There's a way to Hiranandani from the right too", he says.

Unsure of whether to take or not, I ask him to continue straight.

"But there's a road from right too", he repeats.

"Ok take whichever is quicker"

And so he turns right and we enter a residential area.

"We've reached Hiranandani, where to go from here?"

"This? But this is Powai!"

"Yes but this is Hiranandani. You have to go to Hiranandani no"

On enquiring from a passerby I learnt this place was Hiranandani Gardens. The cabbie was so intent on taking me to Hiranandani that he would make do with Powai instead of Thane!

Encounter #3: This was probably my worst encounter ever, with a cabbie and I must say I was shit scared. I took a prepaid cab from the airport to for Andheri. The exact address was next to a flyover on Marol Maroshi road. The cabbie takes the receipt and reads Marol Maroshi road. What he thinks is Marol.

"Marol mein flyover kahan hai?"

"Aapko theek se pata hai to chalo nahi to kisi dusre driver ke sath bhejo"

For the love of money, he insists on going himself despite being unsure of the address. As luck would have it, it started raining on the way, disrupting both traffic and visibility. As rain intensity and temper rise, the cabbie starts cribbing.

"Kya madam, auto lena tha, itni barish mein chalana mushkil hai"

I ignore him

After much bickering he asked me to get my friend tell him the exact directions. After getting directions from not one but two of my friends, on the phone, he starts cribbing again.

"Aapne galat address diya hai. Wahan ka 300 lagta hai. Extra dena padega."

Silence while I start feeling so helpless on being fleeced.

After an hour or more of the rain outside and his angry bickering inside, we finally drive over the flyover and I check for the familiar landmarks. Now the apartment where I have to go is next to a road that runs below the flyover, on its left. The road is a dead end so one can go to the apartment from only one end of the flyover. As we drive down the flyover I tell the cabbie to take the left road after getting off the flyover. For some strange reason he shoots ahead, turns back and takes the other left of the road.

"Ye left nahi, right wala lo"

Left nor right, he gets back on the flyover and heads towards the other end. I even show him the apartment so that he understands where I want to go, but no use. Finally he gets off the other end, takes a right turn and we land up under the flyover in a very shady area of Andheri.

The irony was when we asked people about the flyover, they pointed in various directions. So what was the flyover above our heads???

I realized it was futile to get the cabbie to drop me to the doorsteps, at least he could just drop me at the correct end of the flyover. I tell him to do so and he clearly ignores me. Bickering starts.

"Kya galat address di hai. Itni barish mein ghumana pad raha hai."

"Aapko bola waha se left lene ko to roka kyun nahin"

"Arre left bola to left hi laya main!"

And then he started shouting about all the troubles I had landed him into. My first instinct was to slap him hard, punch him in the face and break his nose. But that was impossible. I calmly opened the door, took out my luggage, and told him "Jao, airport wapas jao aur araam karo".

As I walked out, he followed me and shouted about how I gave him the wrong address and I should pay him the extra money (which I checked and found that I had actually given the right address). He literally charged at me as if he would grab my collar and ask for money. A mad, ruffian cabbie shouting at me and a small crowd of equally shady guys around me. All beneath a nameless flyover on a rainy evening in Mumbai. I felt tears welling up but I couldn't have let anyone of them get the better of me. I shouted back at the cabbie, literally throwing the receipt at his face and asking him to fuck off without any money. As he glared at me for a while, I glared back, not letting him see how nervous I felt. As he drove away, a new trouble loomed ahead, how to get back to my friend's place. I didn't even know where I was, to begin with.

Thankfully, there was this guy whom I had asked the directions, and who had seen the entire fiasco. He asked me to call up my friend to pick me up, while he would wait with me. Then he walked me back to a nearby bus stop which was crowded and much safer. As it drizzled, he waited all the while till my friend came to get me.

In retrospect when I think of that night, I realize how things could have gone terribly wrong at any point of that cab ride. I was in such a vulnerable position. In my fright, I even forgot to ask the guy's name or thank him properly. But I am ever thankful to him for being a life saver on that dreaded night. Bless him!

Kyunki har ek friend jaruri hota hai?

2011-10-29T12:52:00.000+05:30

Recently all my posts have been ending up in male bashing, but I guess it has mostly to do with my own current experiences. My posts must have given an impression of me being a femjnist, a guy hater and an overly-independent (or terribly desperate?) female who is nothing but a sore loser when it comes to relationships. Not to mention devoid of talents, below average personality and sad looks, which explains why she hasn’t found anyone yet, despite touching 30? Whether it’s a true impression or not needs to be pondered some other time.

So Airtel’s latest campaign has touched the youth’s heart chords with their “Har ek friend jaruri hota hai” message. Personally I dislike today’s brands feeding the youth what they think the youth feels. First it was Fastrack which popularized the notion of flirting and trying out new relationships without sticking to one, with their "Move on" campaign. Now Nokia has unsuccessfully tried to jump the bandwagon by telling us how tough it is to be a sheep and so today’s youth needs Nokia's apps to help them follow the herd. As MTV stars get younger and bitchier and more superficial, egos and tempers soaring up as high as the girls’ shorts, even we yuppies believe everything we see.

But I’m digressing, this post isn’t meant to analyze brand campaigns, I am out of B-school, and not yet looking for a job switch to marketing. This post is about friendship, a relationship much abused by the modern world. It’s like a carpet of relationships under which every mess can be shoved. Picture this:

A likes B and approaches B under the premise of…Friendship
C wants to spend time with D but doesn’t want commitment, so names their relationship as…..Friendship
E wants to network with F but doesn’t want to sound so formal so tries to have a …Friendship

Let me remove the formal reasons why we connect with new people, reasons like career advancement, business favours and such things. Let’s focus on the strictly personal reasons 20 year olds connect with the opposite sex. No matter what the reason, in most cases it ends up with one of the two liking the other. An intimacy sets in and the “liker” unknowingly begins to expect some sort of favourable response from the other friend.

The internet has made things worse because it becomes almost impossible to break off, even when career paths physically separate such friends. The world has changed at such a rapid pace that our primitive minds hasn’t quite adjusted to it. No matter how fast we move, we still have those primal feelings and requirements of love, intimacy and acceptance. We still have the habit of talking to someone about our deepest fears and desires. If not real sharing, even the superficial yet familiar conversation soothes us.

Disaster strikes when such friendship survives the decade and enters the significant age of 30. Given a tolerance of 3 years on either side, most people end up getting married either willingly or unwillingly. It’s finally the time to let go of the intimate relationship which was so abused under the premise of friendship. Hearts break, self-images are shattered and unless an individual has a good support system like a strong passion, understanding (read open-minded) family and true friends, this would seem to be the worst phase to be in.

So what’s the solution?

Possibly start a blog like mine for mental ravings rather than depend on a person, that too from the opposite sex
Understand that everyone needs a sounding board and you’re probably that, for who you think is your closest friend
No one’s interested in another’s life unless one has an expectation. So be kind and don’t use anyone as an emotional trash can.
This one is especially for people like me who’re soon going to turn 30. Understand that the joyride is over, so detach from friends who’re intimate but wouldn’t marry you, and stop trying to find those last years’ flings and be brave enough to let go, if at all you plan to settle down.
Though the best one would be, try not to be overly intimate with anyone.

I wish someone had told me all this when I was 21 so that I could enjoy my flings as flings and not hoping something to come out of it. Sadly, I learnt my lesson the bitter way. But even now, when I have some “sticky” friends who wouldn’t let go, I have decided to let go of them.

No matter what Airtel may say, Har ek friend zaruri nahi hota hai.

An open question

2011-10-23T19:14:00.001+05:30

After interacting with a few friends and listening about friends of friends, I'm curious about one thing and I thought of posing this open question as my next post:

"Why're men so scared of commitment?"

I would really appreciate an honest answer.

Letter to the Guy

2011-10-13T12:10:00.001+05:30

Dear Mr. X,

Let me describe you first:

Name: doesn’t matter
Age: from 13 to 100
Gender: MALE
Weight: doesn’t matter
Build: Slim, Athletic, Average, Fat and Obese
Address: every nook and cranny of India
Occupation: every possible occupation starting from unemployment

Basically, you can be anyone. Only one thing definite is that you’re a guy.

I can’t do without you, you bring my morning milk and newspaper, you take me to my office in your bus, auto or cab, sometimes you operate the lift for me. At my workplace you’re my subordinate, my colleague, my boss, you even own the company where I work. You cook my lunch, sometimes my dinner too. There’s no getting away from you.

But I am sorry I can’t be friendly to you. I can’t say a courteous good morning to you everywhere. I can’t help you when you’re in need and look at me on some deserted road. I would rather stand than sit beside you on a bus. Even if you have done me no harm, I don’t like sitting close to you in a public transport.

I am wary of you, I am scared and paranoid. I have to travel to new places, live alone and take care of my affairs by myself. I don’t know whether you’re saying the truth or laying a trap for me when you stop me on the streets and ask me for help. (You had once masturbated on the pretext of asking me directions). I get suspicious of you when you slow down your bike do avoid a ditch on the road (you had once hit a girl from behind and snatched away her purse while still on your bike). I hold my pepper spray as you drive me home in your taxi after a late night flight (don’t you waylay female passengers travelling alone and rape them?). I wish I didn’t have to travel with you, I hate you when you may have innocently bumped against me (but don’t you try to touch females in a crowded bus under the pretext of the crowd?).

I can’t even love you and look forward to spending my life with you (Don’t you just want to have fun and see how it feels to just hold a girl and kiss her, instead of wanting to spend your life with her? Isn’t your fear of commitment more than your love for me? Wouldn’t you rather leave me than convince your parents? And wouldn’t you always love beautiful young girls no matter how old I get as your wife?) Even if we hoked up together, we'd end up fighting and straining our minds trying to understand each other, me trying harder than you 'coz you obviously wouldn't even care.

You may be good, but your bad side could hurt me more than your good side could make me happy. And when I meet you I don’t know which side I am seeing. So I take precautions, I would rather assume I am seeing your bad side and avert possible danger than believe it’s your good side and get doubly hurt: one from the harm you’d bring to me, second from getting fooled and tricked.

So forgive me if I look at you with suspicion, if I don’t talk in a friendly manner with you even if we met every day, if I shirk away from you in a bus as if you’re an untouchable. Forgive me if I seem distant, aloof, ungrateful and paranoid, despite all the good things you might have done for me. I just can’t get close to you, I’d rather be safe than sorry.

In Remembrance of Jagjit Singh

2011-10-11T10:38:00.007+05:30

My mother has some hobbies and favourite pastimes which never stopped, only got altered slightly with time. Before marriage, she was into philately and sketching (the latter mostly because she was studying Geography and her subject required her to draw maps and altitudes and such stuff.)

When she got married to my father, these two pastimes were replaced by books and music. Those were the days of DD1, tape recorders and cassettes. Gradually my mother had built up quite a collection of books by Munshi Premchand and Sharat Chandra, and cassettes of ghazals, mostly by Jagjit Singh. She didn’t much like the other ghazal singers because she didn’t quite “feel” their songs.

As a kid, I pretty much hated ghazals, mostly because they’re slow and boring to my childish mind. My parents had grown up in abstemious conditions and this had sort of inculcated in them a kind of self-control against over indulgence in anything. We rarely went out to watch movies; there was a schedule to watch TV (even they wouldn’t watch late night programs) and absolutely no “film” cassettes. So my mom would listen to ghazals when the mood was right, like some late summer mornings when there wasn’t much chore to do around. Thanks to her, Jagjit Singh became synonymous with my childhood; there were so many memories with his mellifluous voice playing in the background.

It was only when I grew up enough to understand his lyrics that I began to appreciate his songs. I now understood what my Mom meant by the “feel”. His songs weren’t only about the Maikhana, they weren’t only about broken hearts and lovers – both jilted and otherwise; they were about everything related with feelings, life, love, friendship and other relationships. I loved his duets with his wife Chitra. They seemed perfect musically. If his soft voice caressed you while doling out the emotions of the song, his wife’s would tickle you with its sweetness.

I had learnt that they had lost their only son. I sometimes thought this made his songs sound so genuine, maybe because he always felt the grief and this would pass into his songs through his voice. Maybe that’s why he could make people “feel” with his voice.

While others feel his passing away as a loss, I feel he did an awesome job, made youngsters fall in love with ghazals, and now that he’s left us with enough of his songs to enjoy, it was time for him to meet his son.

May his soul rest in peace, as for us we’ll always feel with his voice.

Link to his album A Milestone

Life in Chennai (Chennai #4)

2011-10-08T10:15:00.002+05:30

This post is a bit ill-timed and delayed but then while the thoughts cropped up in my mind at the right moments, I was too lazy or busy to pen them down. But for the sake of posting, I post it now, better late than never.

RIP Steve Jobs

I got the news first from FB updates and couldn’t believe it initially. The day advanced with more condolences and expressions of grief and sorrow in FB. So there, another great man died and I got introspective about where I was headed myself. It was actually a sad realization that almost everyone I know and consider worthy enough is actually doing so much better than me. I guess I ended up being depressed about my own worthlessness than the news of death itself.

Happy Dussehra

October has always put me in a confusing state ever since my childhood. Where I come from, the month is marked by major festivals like Durga Puja, Dussehra and Diwali. And while everyone around me is busy shopping, dressing up and roaming around in a festive mood, I and my family literally stand out for delayed festivities which come 2 months later.

Quaintly my office was open on Dussehra and I for once didn’t feel out of place. Celebrations were toned down either because it’s Chennai or some reasons unknown to me. I received a gift pack which I believe was intended for Ayudha Puja the day before, rather than Dussehra. Nevertheless, I was happy that I received something for free.

The gift pack contained assorted sweets and a packet of rice puffs. Plain rice puffs! I doubt if I or anyone else in my PG is going to eat it (I and my room-mates finished the can of Rasgullas in one night). Maybe I would give the rice puffs to a beggar, let him too have a Happy Dussehra, though belated.

Anna does the Bhadra Purush

The day before, my office was closed because of Ayudha Puja. Being a truck maker, it’s natural for my company to worship the God of machines and livelihood, than celebrate the defeat of a demon king from the neighbourhood. My friend suggested we should check out the Navratri celebrations.As I hummed on the phone, she assured me she just wanted to see the idol, and there was food (not Prasad), real good food. Okay! I agreed.

It was a typical Puja place, crowded, loud and stuffy. I let her go ahead and see the idol while I caught my breath in front of a huge fan. I looked around and it seemed as if Bengal had come to Chennai. Probably all the Bengalis of the city had come. I felt at home, the familiar Bengali guy, sweating in a silk kurta, shouting “tadatadi” at the equally sweaty “roll wala”, while his hot young wife stood waiting with a disapproving look, her face wet with sweat but her makeup intact.

People aside, I loved the food in the stalls. But then given that my locality is infested with vegetarian restaurants, even a boiled chicken leg would be a delicacy for me.

Plans for the weekend

I guess I have kind of settled down in Chennai. I’m comfortable with my current arrangement regarding accommodation, food and commutation. Some of the best things about Chennai are:

Lesser traffic than other metros. I have hopes of buying a car and driving it here.
Some very good places to eat. Let’s face it, the people and the weather have masked the fact that Chennai has a lot to offer to a foodie.
It’s cheap. Plus the malls have such bad collections that it’s actually therapeutic for shopaholics.
The language is a bit difficult for me to grasp, I still speak out the numbers in Kannada rather than Tamil. This filters out all the noise. Imagine what bliss it is to not understand what abuse the random passer-by just hurled at you!

So I have resolved to step out every weekend and do something, see something. Let’s see if I stick to this resolution this weekend.

Daily conversation between me and Mom

2011-10-06T22:30:00.000+05:30

Acceptance

2011-10-01T12:10:00.000+05:30

I am human

I exist not by chance

I exist not because of the actions of other humans

I exist because I was intended to

I am what my creator made me

I am human

I am unique

I am different in small ways and in big ways

I am common, just like other humans

I am what my creator made me

I am human

I flow like a river

I pass through time and space, meeting and losing other humans

I change, my life changes but I am consistent

I am still bound with my creator

I laugh, I cry

I love, I hate

I think, I plan, I choose to live my life my way

I try to be like other humans I see

I return, in the end, to my creator

I don’t know my birth

I don’t know my death

I can’t see beyond me, what lurks in the next corner

I am unsure of humans, they’d always fail me

And so, my creator, I’ll always return to thee

P.S.: Yes I believe every word of it.

The FECal Story

2011-09-15T15:02:00.002+05:30

Once upon a time, in a forest far far away, there lived wild animals just like the ones that inhabit any forest. But they were unlike other wild animals because they had brought in a new fangled idea of living under mutually agreed and created rules and regulations.

The rules were mostly concerned about eating and being eaten, because nothing else concerned the animals - not money, property nor jobs - just the question of who can eat whom.

The reason for making this rule was that some far sighted older animals realized that their forest needed to be self sufficient else they’d all be forced to step out into human habitations for food and would eventually get killed. So these elders set the rules that the carnivores could eat whoever they wanted to as long as that particular species wasn’t driven to extinction. For example, tigers couldn’t hunt and eat deer if there were too few of them to sustain the deer lineage. Else there wouldn’t be any deer left in the forest and the next generation of tigers would never get to even see a deer let alone eat one.

A regular census was taken to identify the species nearing extinction, so that they could be spared till they multiplied and abounded to a sufficient degree. Such species came under the FEC (Facing Extinction category).

Now the FEC enjoyed certain privileges not given to the rest. These privileges were originally meant to enable the beneficiaries to multiply without any hindrance, till their population got back to normal. Privileges like easy access to food and shelter, sometimes arranged by the predators themselves, were given. Also, if a predator violated the rule and killed FEC animal, it would be banished from the forest.

Now this system would have worked perfectly. But it soon got misused, first by the pigs. The pigs had multiplied back to normal population but they were inherently lazy and hated having to run from predators. Also, they had got used to the FEC privileges, gluttons as they were, they got more food provided by the non-FECs, than they could arrange by themselves.

So they started hiding during census time so as to hide their true population. When this didn’t work, they “bribed” the census agents by giving personal favours that pigs are good at. Soon this spread amongst other FECs.

Initially the system worked as planned and everyone was happy. But soon, the herbivores realized that certain herbivore species were enjoying the privileges despite being so numerous, while their own species was always hunted. Soon every herbivore fought to get its species into the FE category. This didn’t stay restricted to grass eaters; it eventually spread amongst the carnivores too, starting with the jackals, which aren’t anyways known for their principles.

Eventually the only animals left “uncategorized” were the birds which were too high up from ground realities, the lions, the tigers and the wild goats. The wild goats didn’t fight for the categorization because they’re too wild spirited to care about rules and regulations. They lived on steep rocky slopes and were too nimble to be hunted down easily. Unfortunately, they’re also the sudden favourite of all the predators.

One day, a pack of young wolves (also FECs) chanced upon a lone goat meditating on a rocky hill top. It was a fully grown adult goat with strong, sharp horns and long legs. As the pack surrounded the goat and pounced upon it, the goat fought back, throwing the ill-balanced young wolves off the hill top and fatally injuring 2 with its horns. National Geographic and Animal Planet channels would have run a feature on this encounter praising the goat for its survival instincts and fighter spirit, but the wolves cried oppression. How dare a wild animal attack the youngsters belonging to the FEC? The case went to court.

The goat claimed self defense, but the wolves argued back that their young ones were hungry and seeking food. They had as much right to eat the goat as the goat had rights to eat the plants. They argued how a fully adult goat brutally attacked the unarmed, young wolves with its horns. After all the goat had an extra weapon (the horns) which the wolves didn’t, so it was a one-sided assault.

Now the lion king, who had to pass the judgment, knew that the FEC rule was ineffective and that the goat was innocent. He tried to acquit the goat but the wolves took it as discrimination, after all the lion too belonged to the non-FE category. Soon the case pulled in all the animals: the other animals in the FE category, instigated by the jackals of course, demanded that the goat be put to death. The goats were target everywhere; they were attacked, assaulted and killed by the FE animals, even by the deer that were like goats except for the beard and horn design.

The lions and the tigers saw the impending threat on their species too. They compelled the lion king and eventually he had to not only award death sentence to the goat, he had to declare the entire goat community as terrorists and a threat to the wild life. Not only were goats banished from the forest, they’re also to be killed at sight.

A few weeks later, the lion king decided to scrap the entire FEC rule and return back to a wild lifestyle. But the foxes, who wanted to replace the lions as rulers of the forest, saw the goat incident as a ripe opportunity, and again instigated the animals to force the king to keep the rule. But since there were only 2 categories of animals left in the forest: the FEC’s and the lions and tigers, it was decided to remove a few animals from the FEC. This was to be decided by a mutual consensus amongst the FECs.

The carnivorous FECs used brute force and threats and eventually a unanimous decision was made and all herbivores were removed from the FEC, except for some like the pigs.

Photo courtesy: http://www.lewiswaynegallery.com/john-scott-orig-mountain-goat-painting-winchester-p-4013.html

Rendered speechless

2011-09-13T13:16:00.002+05:30

Disclaimer: “Friends” mentioned here are non-fictional and very much alive. This post isn’t a personal attack on them; I believe they said it with purest intentions in my favour and that they had no idea what could be the effects on me.

Marriage piques me. Why? Well because it keeps popping out its head at me even when I follow the default advice anyone could give: believe that it’ll come on its own sweet time and that I should enjoy my life in the meantime. I enjoy my life but I still keep getting bombarded by other people’s marriage concerns which eventually leads me to my own concerns. Here’re few samples, notice how each statement rendered me speechless:

1) ME: gee I don’t know how to cook, but then I haven’t felt the need yet

Friend: but we (girls) should know how to cook, we have to marry eventually

Me: speechless (yes and I live in an age where I may remain a spinster because I can’t cook!)

2) Me: this is my boyfriend

Friend: wow he’s fairer than you!

ME: speechless (I now like to believe that’s the reason I keep listening to statement #6)

3) ME: Life sucks! (I really meant it because I had lost my father a couple of months back)

Friend: Yeah it does, I don’t want to get married, not an arranged one. My dad’s searching for prospects, but I want to marry someone I love.

ME: speechless (obviously her troubles are worse than mine; I don’t have a Dad to search for prospects)

4) Me: I wonder how every girl I know is marrying her boyfriend while mine didn’t even have the guts to commit

Friend: Find another guy, girls get boyfriends so easily

ME: speechless (you know that was not the point)

5) Scenario: after surviving the triple whammy of father’s death, financial woes and the mad years @ B-school; when I finally get back on track with my degree and a new job and met an old friend

Friend: so when are you getting married?

ME: not now, for sure

Friend: but you are getting married no? Aren’t you planning to? (Accusing tone)

Me: speechless (yeah and all the troubles in the world are nothing in front of being single)

6) But here’s the killer statement:

I love you and don’t want to miss you but I can’t marry you.

When I pleaded for a logical explanation, I got this modern pseudo-sophisticated crap: “Love doesn’t necessarily translate into marriage”.

Speechless obviously, and hurt too, more because of dishonesty than the rejection itself.

7) And here’s the icing on the cake:

Marrying is only customary and a waste of money, I have been with my fiancé for such a long time I don’t get why we need to marry even. Anyways we’re just doing it for our parents.

Speechless again.

So there, I have been subject to so many marriage related banter that my poorly developed primitive mind just can’t take a stand about this ancient custom in this modern world. Thanks to my friends, I just keep getting shoved between loving and hating my current state. When I love my current state they tell me marriage is the most beautiful thing that could happen to anyone, when I finally try to find someone and manage to say the M word, they tell me how wonderful I am and that marriage isn’t required, and finally when I begin feeling like shit more because of the confusion than the inability itself, my dear friends add insult to pain by wondering why I suck at it despite being a girl.

Post-thought: I also get glimpses of a world where educated working girls are still forced into marrying men they don’t know and aren’t sure of, but still can’t say so to their parents who arrange the marriages because of reasons like no/less dowry, a “prosperous family” or an NRI groom.

Losing virginity

2011-07-28T10:55:00.002+05:30

My first ever visit to Delhi was an official passing by, I had taken a flight from Pune to Delhi, a taxi from the airport to a railway station that was the complete opposite of its modern aerial counterpart. The Old Delhi railways station was jam packed with people from every north Indian background imaginable; and monkeys.

I took a crowded train which would easily be called a local train back home in Jharkhand or Bengal, but this was the lifeline connecting the cities of Uttarakhand to the Indian capital, and most of India. I was going to Pantnagar where my company was making a little car which had become so famous even before it had hit the roads.

The small Rudrapur station reminded of Ruskin Bond’s stories. I had arrived at night and the next morning I woke up to a crisp, cold morning. It was December after all. I walked down a broken path to the main road to catch my bus. School kids, mostly Punjabis, grandchildren of the first Punjabi families who came to Rudrapur seeking refuge, stood on the roadside waiting for their own buses. It was so…hill station like!

Pune is not polluted yet, but Rudrapur had that freshness which comes to places near the mountains. After all, it is at the base of Nainital. On my way I could see open spaces, vintage people, even vintage vehicles. A Levi Strauss and a Reebok outlet stood out prominently. They felt so out of place. But then, the townspeople have the right to wear Reebok shoes just like everyone else.

Pantnagar is adjacent to Rudrapur and one doesn’t realize when one has left one and entered the other. Just like one wouldn’t know when one has gone out of Rudrapur and into UP, on the other side of town. My hotel manager joked that the railway tracks are the state borders and if you put one foot here and another over the other side of the track, you could stand in 2 states simultaneously.

As I put my head out of the window despite the cold, I saw handcarts selling pulao rajma, puri sabji and rotis. And everyone spoke Hindi Having got used to vada paos and “Kay Karat, Kuthe Aahe” in Pune, I think I faced a culture shock in Rudrapur. But then I had spent 4 years in Bengal before Pune and well they don’t sell Pulao Rajma even in Jamshedpur and Ranchi.

En route i caught a strong whiff of biscuits and then something pungent. On the right was the industrial area with early entrants like Dabur and Brittania, and behind them Maggi and Nestle. On the left I saw real estate coming up, rows and rows of apartments and residential complexes. And there was the straight wide road ahead with a crisp blue sky above it. If one had replaced the apartments and the factories on either side with trees, Rudrapur would have looked like a virgin hill town, maybe like Jim Corbett which is only 80kms away.

Much ahead the road forked, the right one went to my plant, the left one went further ahead to Sanjay Gandhi national park. I heard my colleague saying that a Bajaj plant was coming up. When I reached my plant, it looked more like a resort than an LCV maker. The front had a garden with brightly coloured flowers and a little pond complete with a bridge and a couple of ducks. Beyond that stood rows and rows of ready to market Ace in white and Nanos in Red, Blue and Silver. I thought the shops and the offices must never need an AC but being at the base, Pantnagar gets pretty hot in the summers. I could see the mountain holding Nainital right from my office.

On my way back to the hotel, I saw the police checking trucks at the fork. “Checking for lumber theft. They smuggle a lot of lumber from the forest”, my junior told me.

I had worked in TML, Pantnagar for a couple of months; that was in 2009. 2 years later, I joined another truck maker and they had recently started production in their latest fully-integrated factory in Pantnagar. Business-wise, I would want that unit to increase its capacity and churn out more and more vehicles. But then I think of that vintage town, the open roads and the crisp, blue sky, the road that smells of biscuits, truck loads of smuggled lumber and a fast developing real estate.

Mushroom

2011-07-08T12:30:00.000+05:30

It was 7 in the evening, dark, wet and way past her snacks time. But there was no one at home to make a quickie for her. Also, there was an hour-long power cut and hence no TV to distract her hunger. She lit a lamp in the sitting room and sat outside in the verandah, watching people go by the road in front of the house.

The cat was playing in the grass and looked like a fluffy white ball bouncing on its own, in the twilight. The dog was more loyal and slumped close to her, her bare feet absently stroking his velvet brown coat. She felt safer with the animals but still wanted everyone to return soon.

She had returned from school, earlier that day, only to find a car in the porch. Her Granny had had a stroke and had to be taken to the hospital. Her uncles had gone in the car, and after giving her lunch, her mom had left along with her dad. That was 3 hours ago. She wondered what might have happened to her Granny.

Granny returned the next day when she was in school. The doctors had kept her overnight to “monitor” her and then sent her home after declaring her irreparable, well not in those words exactly. The stroke had paralyzed Granny’s lower and left body, so she’d need a support for even the basic activities like eating and pooping. And given her general health, she’d be in that condition for a long, long time, considering that she hadn’t even touched 70.

That was 3 years ago. Now her Granny had got fatter from 3 years of eating and sitting around. And has her body became fuller, her eyes had gone emptier from 3 long years nothingness. She could have delighted herself in her children and grandchildren. But a second stroke and a broken hip from a fall had left her bedridden and unable to remember recent happenings. In her mind, the ceiling was the sky and her bed the ground, the cozy mattress had given her bedsores and the covers would often get wet and smell. Her grandchildren didn’t exist and her children were still kids. Technically, her husband should have existed, given the time zone of her active memory, but he didn’t in reality and this must have confused her.

She no longer lived with Granny, but she often dropped by to see her. She didn’t know what to tell her because she knew Granny’s blank eyes didn’t recognize her. “Doesn’t Granny get awfully bored?”, she asked her Mom once. “Yes she must”, her Mom had replied. It wasn’t the reply but the tone of indifference that struck her. Her Mom, like Granny’s other children, didn’t know what else to do other than feeding and cleaning her and moving her around from her bed to the sitting room or the verandah. Whenever she got sick, her mom would fuss over her to the point of being annoying. She wondered how the same person could be so different to her child and her mother, in sickness.

But then 3 years is a long time and wears everyone off their patience. They’d sometimes get angry at Granny for choking on her food, or not being able to hold her pee while they fetched the bedpan. She wondered how Granny felt being scolded and roughed about when she had lovingly borne their puke and shit and illness when they were babies.

She thought it was human hope and expectation. We expect babies to grow up and take care of us so we take all pains for them. Also, they’ve come out of us. Senile, old men though they might have had meaningful lives are no longer useful and tend to irritate us.

As her Granny spent those years confined to her bed, wasting away physically, mentally and emotionally, so fell her neatly kept home in disarray. Tastes and emotional attachments gave way to medicines, practicality, usefulness and trash. Each “child” took away what he had always liked, to his own house. While the cat left for a better home, her dog, now perhaps an octogenarian in dog years, got dirtier and scruffier but would lie next to her bed as if attending her.

It was a typical cold night in the 4th year which was almost getting over. Granny’s son had roughly tucked her in her bed and drove the old dog out of the house because he smelled. But as the cold winds howled in the dead of the night, the dog crept in to lay by his mistress’ bed-side. He had to come in tonight because it was her departure. The next morning, they found her dead in her sleep, peacefully they thought. The dog sat awake the whole night keeping watch till she was found.

“Your children will treat you the way you treat your parents”, her mom had often warned her, whenever she misbehaved as a kid. She wondered now, if she would end up the same or try to be different even if adulthood forced her to behave otherwise.

The B'day Cake Dilemma

2011-06-28T00:35:00.002+05:30

Disclaimer: This is a fictitious piece of work. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. (Yeah right!)

A company A-soles has a policy of celebrating birthdays of its employees. Every department maintains a "birthday list" of their own members and organizes a celebration. Like every month, this March, Dept. X sent out an internal invitation to everyone working there to celebrate birthdays of the "March boys" - employees who's birthdays fell in March. Ms. Lisa was especially excited to get the invitation for several reasons:

She loved birthday parties

She was new in the company and this would be a nice occasion to meet everyone in the dept.

That sounded like the only exciting thing in the whole boring company

"Wow! Does this mean they'd celebrate my birthday next month? I'd be an April girl you know", Lisa said to her colleague Dick. Dick felt trapped. You see, Lisa wasn't a regular employee of A-soles but sent on behalf of their promoters. Dick wasn't sure if she was officially entitled to a birthday party. "I love chocolate cakes" winked Lisa, hinting her preference to Dick. Dick's spirits sank lower because he knew she was counting on him for getting the dept. to celebrate her b'day next month.

A worried Dick informed Tom, the department's unofficial birthday organizer about Lisa's birthday. "We can't ignore her birthday", said Dick. Obviously he didn't want to jeopardize his job. Actually, Dick wasn't even sure if offending Lisa would hurt his own career, since he didn't exactly know what her profile was at the promoters' and if she had the power enough to influence anyone's career at A-soles. No one at S-soles knew, but then no one wanted to take any chances.

Tom scratched his 2nd chin, wondering what to do. "I'll look into the matter", he said, more out of sheer habit than genuine intention. But Lisa's perceived authority worried him too. So he sat at his computer, opening out the Birthdays.xls file that he had created. He was especially proud of this file as he had written the Macros himself. As he entered Lisa's name and birth date, the form asked for her employee code and employee grade. Tom entered N/A but the form wouldn't work because obviously Tom hadn't thought anyone outside the dept. would ever be having a celebration there. As Tom tried to tweak around the form, he realized his brilliant piece of work was screwing him back.

After spending an hour, Tom realized it was just a stupid excel file and he could just buy a cake for Lisa. This solution seemed so logical and perfect to him that he happily forgot the matter until April came and it was time to celebration time again. "Did you buy a cake for Lisa?" asked Dick. "Oh right, I'll get her cake along with the others", replied Tom. Unfortunately, there were no others. Lisa was the only one to have a birthday in April.

The horror suddenly struck Tom with full force. It meant he'd have to invite everyone in the dept. including the top bosses to the birthday of someone they didn't even knew. Lisa had spent 3 months but no one had ever cared to find out what she did or where she came from. Tom had the following questions in mind:

How to convince everyone to come to Lisa's birthday (apart from the lure of a free cake)

How to get a birthday cake (every cake ordered was tracked to the ordering dept. and employee no.)

Cakes came in different categories according to the employee's grade (extra creamy ones for the "creamy layer"). Tom wasn't sure which grade Lisa came under.

At times Tom felt like dropping the whole idea but at other times he was worried of his own job as well (after all he was the birthday organizer). And now there were only 2 days left for the celebration. Desperate, Tom went to his boss, Harry to seek advice. Harry hadn't even known about Lisa till now.

Soon Tom, Dick and Harry held an emergency meeting to sort out the cake affair. "Well if she's sent by the promoters, maybe we can put the cake under their expenses", suggested Harry. "But the birthday celebration is our idea, we can't charge them for our internal practice", retorted Tom, knowing that this task would fall on him eventually. "Yes but don't we have the freedom to function our way? They're just the promoters and cannot interfere with our day-to-day affairs", shot back Harry. "But what are we going to do in the meantime? Even if we send a request for a cake from the promoters' office, it wouldn't arrive on time for Lisa's birthday", lamented Dick. "If they approved the cake", added Tom. As the three stared at each other, Harry decided to get a cake from the sludge account. This was a special account for feeding visitors at A-soles.

"So we're all set. Buy a chocolate cake with extra cream for Lisa's birthday. Invite people she's reporting directly to. Keep the celebration during peak working hours when rest of the bosses are busy in meetings so that we wouldn't have to invite them. Simple!", beamed Harry, gloating over an incompetent Tom. "Oh don't spare on the expenses", added Harry as an afterthought.

Tom carried out Harry's brilliant solution. He ordered for the cake, organized the party and invited the concerned people one day before. Unfortunately, as was his habit, he sent out the invitations 2 minutes before the office hours ended. So the invitees got the mail the next day, the day of the birthday party. He received a reply by Lisa's boss:

I commend you for organizing a birthday party for someone who isn't a regular employee of the company. While this shows our inclusive policy, I regret that Lisa wouldn't be able to attend the party as she has taken a personal leave.

Chennai #3

2011-05-17T23:57:00.001+05:30

When I was interning with Microsoft last summer, my friend had said that we should see most of Chennai else destiny might send us back again to cover the remaining parts. Well I don't know about her but I had either failed to show enough enthusiasm for this city or maybe I went overboard blogging about this place and hence have earned a return to one of the toughest cities to survive, not for 1 or 2 but a total of 6 months!

While most of my friends are laughing at my fate (and this has been a true test of which of my friends truly care for me), I have only a couple of points to make me somewhat happy:

4 of us 5 new recruits have been exiled to Chennai

I am the only one assigned to a glitzy office filled with eateries in several floors

No field trips (hope so, touchwood!)

Of the 4 cities on the list of probable locations, Chennai was the only one with an assured and familiar accommodation, thanks to my stay last year

So here I am, realigning my senses to the latest developments and with no better events happening in my life, I can only blog about the story of Chennai and me.

I am actually surprised, pleasantly, to hear smatterings of Hindi here and there. My new company is filled with north indians and people from my old company as well, so I don't feel that alien-like.

I have also learnt a few survival tips from my previous stay:

Learn the bus no. along with the addresses, because auto-wallahs drain people both financially and emotionally

If looking for food, walk in the streets with eyes wide open. Chennai happens to have some delightful eateries hidden in random nooks and corners. (Discovered Eatalica in RA Puram with good italian food at relatively low price. It also has quite, cosy interiors and the TV during the IPL season gives it a sporty feel. Very good for bachelors like me :). Last time had bumped into Sparky's - an American styled diner at Egmore, White Pepper - famous for their dimsums at Thiruvanmiyur, and a street shop serving awesome chicken biryani again at Thiruvanmiyur )
Ignore the looks and start talking to the security on a regular basis. They can come in handy. Last time, the security guard had offered to get my shoe mended when the bloody heel had broken off.
Network as much as possible. Start reaching out to friends, friends of friends, friends of friends of friends and so on. Actually it gets easier because outsiders take to outsiders like fish to water and there's no shortage of topics to discuss. Bitching and cursing about a common target are after all the strongest of human instincts.
Last but not the least, keep minimum expectations from the city and the smallest of incidents would delight you. Talk about the smaller joys in life!

The Perfect Shade of Grey

2011-05-15T13:08:00.001+05:30

Last night I realized to my surprise that I had gradually lost my ability to get surprised by all the badness happening around me. Bad news fails to shock or surprise me any more, rather I have started to empathize with either the victims sometimes, or the wrongdoer most of the times. Does this mean I have become bad?

Take this: when I heard about the recent Noida sisters who had locked themselves up in their flat for over 6 months, I could understand how easy it is to isolate oneself from the outside world. How many times I have experienced that lethargy in the weekends, when everything seems pointless and I just plop onto my bed sleeping the whole day, skipping food and water. Yeah 6 months is extreme, but what about practice makes perfect? (NOMsss to those sisters).

And suddenly I have found myself relating to quite a lot of US sitcoms, no not the romantic ones with happy endings, but the ones where people just go through a series of partners before finally or probably never settling down with the right person. 10 years back, I'd wonder how could anyone date so many people (in series, obviously). Now I've almost done it and it sounds like the most logical thing to do. Even living in seems like the most logical thing now, after getting a job (in order of degrees of practicality). (I guess its posts like these that have kept me still single).

I watched the movie May for the umpteenth time yesterday and once again I totally understand why that lonely girl went out and chopped off her ex and friends. I once did a project on psycho-killers for my Psychology class and could understand why they killed.

Hmm, should I be alarmed or should I continue as I am? And which is the cause and which is the effect? That I see all the badness around me and so I have begun to accept and assimilate them in my life? Or is it that all that I see around me is because it is inside everyone else? No one is black or white, we're all shades of grey and tend towards the darker or the lighter side. But is there a perfect grey too?

On a lighter note, its like farting. Everyone farts, some loudly, some discreetly. But everyone farts. :D

Travelog #6: Kolkata - 1

2011-04-06T17:24:00.000+05:30

We seldom see our own home town through the lens. Calcutta though not exactly a home town has been the first tourist destination for anyone living near West Bengal. I've been to Calcutta as a kid and visited everything it has to offer.

But due to boredom I and Mom were forced to step out and visit the same places again last month when we went for my convocation (P.S.: I got my 2nd degree :) )

This travelog cum photoblog covers only 2 of the beautiful and historic architectures built by the British: The Victoria Memorial and the St.Paul's Cathedral, which is he first ancient protestant cathedral that I've visited. It was completed in 1847 and stands across from the Victoria Memorial. It has a tower rebuilt along the lines of a tower of England's Canterbury Cathedral and the interiors have beautiful stained glass windows, Renaissance style frescoes and ancient furniture.

Compared with a local but equally ancient church, the cathedral's beautiful architecture not only depicts the importance of Calcutta as a capital, but also the stark contrast between the ruling British and the struggling Germans in India.

Queen Victoria and her Memorial behind her

A plaque at her footsteps

St. Paul's Cathedral from the outside

St. Paul's Cathedral from the inside

P.S.: Click on a photo to view original size

The Shining: Book Review

2011-03-13T21:52:00.002+05:30

Introduction:

The Shining

by Stephen King

Published in 1977

Director Stanley Kubrick's movie the Shining, based on Stephen King's novel, has an IMDB rating of 8.5/10 and features on various lists of top horror movies of all times.

Watch the movie if you haven't, read the book either ways. And yeah, ghosts too forget.

Brief:

The story is about a novelist who takes up a job as a winter care taker of an isolated hotel in the mountains. The hotel is quite old and has played host to renowned guests like 4 US presidents, but it is closed for 8 months in the winters. The young novelist decides to become the caretaker and spend the winters snow bound in the big hotel along with his wife and 5 years old son. What he doesn't know is that the hotel has a history, and his son has a special gift, and the combo a deadly one.

Review:

The movie isn't your regular slasher movie with ghosts and corpses. I mean, there is a corpse, but Jack Nicholson in his awesome form is scarier than any corpse in the movie. No, it's not blood or rotting corpse that scared me, it was Jack Nicholson, and the whole idea - the idea of spending 8 months snow bound and isolated in a big hotel. Was the hotel haunted? Was Jack Nicholson going mad? Was his son going mad? It could be anything, but the fact remains that this is one of the rare horror stories which have managed to scare the pants off me. I had felt more sick than scared when I had first watched the movie.

And while the movie remains one of the best horror movies that I have seen (though it has lost its scare factor after a couple of viewings), I must say that the movie hasn't been able to do full justice to Stephen King's original work. Yes, the novel is longer, scarier and has a much better ending (and I mean better, not happier). Also, the story explains the reasons of all that horror, something which either the movie failed to cover, or maybe I skipped.

There had been moments when I couldn't keep the book down, was compelled to keep flipping through the pages, despite getting shit scared (I had to spend one night at my friend's place because I was too scared to sleep alone yet too intrigued to put it down :D)

Chapter 4: IIM Calcutta

2011-03-08T17:08:00.005+05:30

My cell phone woke me up at 11:30 this morning, a call from my Mom. I pretended to sound fresh and busy and with a "Will call you up later", plopped back in bed, only to wake up again at 2pm with a hungry stomach, a mosquito bite and pain in my head, neck and most parts of my body. That's what a night of partying does to you, hits you hard the next day. And as I washed my face to feel better, I realized I was feeling something, in fact it was a mix of several feelings and emotions, some contradictory but each as strong as the other.


One feeling was of relief. As I saw my almost empty room, I was relieved that I had finally packed up my stuff and sent them home. And now I wouldn't have those last minute frantic packing sessions that I often have while moving. I was relieved that I am finally passing out with a job. I was reading my diary entries a couple of days back and happened to read a particular entry I made in Term 2. It was something about my confusion regarding my career choices and an ignorant but earnest wish. It's funny how you ignorantly and jokingly wish for something and then it comes true.

But the biggest relief comes from the fact that I made it. Not the job or the degree, but a phase in life when you take a decision and stick to it and survive. I was afraid of coming to IIMC, I was afraid throughout my 1st year. That was a point in life when I had just my own meagre savings to run the house and spend on myself and my Mom. I didn't want to touch my late father's savings because I was so scared, that I had started to believe in the worst. I remember regretting trying to do something I probably wasn't cut for. And failure would mean a lower or probably no job at all, a big loan and a worse life for my Mom. I am relieved today, I feel like I have swam safely to the shore through a stormy sea. I am relieved that I didn't let down my parents, my awesome cousins who have been closer to me than siblings, and many more. I am relieved that now I can take care of my parents, at least one of them.

When I first came here, I wanted to be indifferent to this place and I knew I wouldn't be let it affect my life much. I would only have batchmates, seniors and juniors, and professors, but no attachments. And then I would go.


But I was wrong and I am glad about it. IIMC was the best way to move on. And cliched as it sounds, I am going to miss it. Especially the people. Despite putting no effort and never caring, I managed to make friends. Some don't mind if I just walked up to their room for food and left, some read and actually like (or pretend to like) my blogs, some make me believe I am good and can be good references in the future (:P :D), some understood me pretty well, and some got closer so unexpectedly and some came closer after a time lag of a whole year. I am grateful that they stayed with me for 2 years despite my rude indifference, and I sincerely wish they stay in touch when I change.


There are many more thoughts, feelings and memories swelling up in my mind which I can't describe in such short space. And I really can't condense 2 years in one post. But while I feel a bit sad on leaving, I am happy this place has grown up on me.

I just hope to do full justice to my being an IIMCian.

The Seductress - 1

2011-03-03T09:20:00.002+05:30

She was a little girl, just like everyone else, but not quite. You see, her parents brought her up differently.

Her mother loved her very much but she was also very paranoid. So she tried to protect her, stifling the little girl with an adult's fear and narrow-mindedness disguised as maternal love. She tried to be her friend, besides being her mother. But she was too tired and old to run around and play little girls' games. So she taught her to read, to imagine and to dream. She pushed the little kid further into her fantastic world rather than discovering the real one.

Her father loved her too. He knew he wouldn't always be around her little girl, she'd grow up, go away to study (he wanted her to study a lot and become something), go away to work. Probably he didn't trust any boy or man could love her and keep her happy as well as he could, but he wouldn't be around forever. So he taught her things, he taught her how to repair her toys and later other things, he taught her to be independent, to think on her feet in case of any danger, he taught her to survive.

She had loving and responsible parents. Together they taught her to be a good person. Never tell lies, never harm anyone, never break anyone's heart, be good to people, and many such things.

And the little girl learnt them all.

As she grew up, she learnt that kids could be nasty in their own ways. Little boys loved to fight with each other and beat up girls. Little girls loved to be stay neat and clean and somewhat boring. And all kids avoided people or things that were different, unusual. No one likes the teachers' pet or the class topper. No one likes the kid who asks a lot of questions in class, or reads a lot of books but doesn't like to sing.

And then there's the beginning of a gender war amongst slightly bigger kids. Boys hate girls so much they wouldn't be seen talking to them. Girls hate boys equally. Both believe the other kind is stupid and useless. Neither leaves a chance at taking a shot at the other. But at least, these kids start to show signs of tolerance. One can read books, question common knowledge, dream, think up crazy ideas.

It doesn't matter, no one cares.

Idiocracy and Armageddon a reality?

2011-02-27T14:17:00.002+05:30

This post is my personal opinion, well all my posts are, but actually its more like me thinking out aloud, rather writing down as I think. I may be wrong, and I would be happy to be wrong, but the title of this post is a ringing question in my mind. Unfortunately, it has been ringing for a long time.

Excess of anything is bad, even excess of self expression and information. While a person is free to express himself freely, there should be a closed feedback loop to question his opinions and remove all misconceptions. Unfortunately, today people have attitudes and fanatic passions which makes them shut their eyes and ears to criticism. Plus there are many of this kind and the number increases through multiplication, induction and many such modes.

There are forums and communities on the net that breed and spread hatred for other communities rather than instilling pride on their own. Patriotism has often been tweaked beyond recognition to fulfill self-interests. Oh, and I wouldn't even talk about religion, its like a woman who's been and is being gangraped since eternity and will continue to be so.

As a kid, my parents taught me manners, loads of them. And other "values" about life and how I should be a good person. Now as an adult, I encounter so many people who preach but not practice goodness, some don't even preach. There was a phase that started a few decades ago about atheism. Atheism was the new "black", if you believed in God, you were either illiterate or plain stupid. Science had proved that the universe started with a Big Bang and so we were ready to accept that we too exploded from matter and have evolved from something similar to a germ. While the educated criticized the medieval civilizations of being barbaric, they themselves didn't mind scoffing off people for not thinking like them and for having beliefs of their own.

It's good to have an opinion. It is a proof that one observes, cares for and thinks. What scares me is that today most opinions carry an undertone of hatred for some set of people. Disgust and anger are 2 of the basic emotions of humans and acrid opinions rampant on the media can spread like wildfire. I don't say that a spiteful article would immediately start a riot, but it plants a faint disgust in the minds of some of its readers. Now consider the same set of readers reading many similar articles. They would be convinced that there is indeed a good reason for this hatred, even they were incorrect, inaccurate or loaded with an agenda.

So why am I scared? Because it's not restricted. I see it in people from various backgrounds, highly educated, less educated, uneducated. I see it in some of my acquaintances and I see it in some strangers. It is observed in a freelancer as well as in an institutional representative. The gist is that it is anywhere and everywhere, and shouldn't be comprehended as pointing fingers at someone specifically.

Idiocracy might already be setting in, as for Armageddon, while we may not have rains of sulphur literally, an Armageddon of sorts might come. Logic and reasoning is dying in many people. As for a better world, haven't we been talking about global warming since ages?

Photoblog: Corbett National Park, 2009

2011-02-18T06:56:00.001+05:30

Asia's first national park, spread across 521 sq. km., it was established in 1936 and named after Jim Corbett - a British hunter, conservationist and writer.

The following photos were taken by a colleague of mine during our visit in 2009.

Temple at the entrance for good luck

Statue of Jim Corbett

Our vehicle

The journey begins up a forest path

First stop: Crocodile point

First spotting: clear blue river infested with deadly crocodiles

The forest is never quite

While some locations are serene....

...Some are spooky like this solitary cluster of burnt trees

A herd of elephants

Guest house in the middle of the park

Another mode to explore the park

Forests too have traffic!

Our closest encounter in the trip

Unfortunately, the tigers of Kumaon eluded us by a few seconds. While the other group spotted the tiger, it also managed to shoo it away.

Photoblog: Ferrari's Magic India Discovery Tour 2008

2011-02-13T06:11:00.037+05:30

Ferrari conducted the Magic India Discovery Drive in Feb-May 2008, starting from the Gateway of India, Mumbai. The tour consisted of 2 Scagliettis accompanied by a Fiat 500 and a Fiat Bravo. The tour covered 13,000 kms and 57 cities including Goa in the West, Trivandrum in the South, Kolkata in the East, Amritsar in the North and back to Mumbai via Jodhpur.

Tata Group and Tata Motors being one of the sponsors of the tour, the Ferrari team visited Tata Motors' Pune plant and I took these photos during that visit.

The Pair of Red and White Scagliettis

Fiat 500

Fiat Bravo

The Cobra: Book Review

2011-02-05T23:31:00.001+05:30

Introduction:

The Cobra

by Frederick Forsyth

Published in 2010

Personal verdict: Like it!

Review:

If Frederick Forsyth has ever disappointed me, it is in his latest best seller: The Cobra. The disappointment comes, not from the quality of the story but because of the bitter truth so blatantly depicted in it. But before I go further, let me give a brief about the story.

Brief:

The President of the US, unnamed but aptly described as Obama, suddenly decides that he should stop the cocaine business that has spread so rampantly in his country and the world and is one of the biggest drug businesses and the root to many related crime. He picks up an ex-CIA special ops, Paul Devereux, and assigns him the job of cleaning up the cocaine trade.

Paul Devereux asks for complete autonomy and all the powers he can get to do the task by himself and sets forth to fight the drug cartel and the one man, Don Esteban, controlling the cartel.

The rest of the story is an enthralling description of the main characters Paul Devereux, Don Esteban and their respective team members and right-hand men. That a single man fights against the supplier of the whole world's cocaine; that a single man can get the Governments of 2 strongest nations of the world to supply him with all the money, weaponry and intelligence that he requires for his job, wouldn't fail to excite and engross the reader to keep flipping the pages till the end.

And just like a typical Forsyth novel, The Cobra has all the gripping details right from how a cocaine is prepared to all possible designs and modifications in fighter planes and the USAF's latest technology that can enable one to scan the Pacific like the back of one's hand. The Cobra is definitely a treat for the techie and the geeky lot, especially the ones interested in modern warfare.

Spoiler alert:

So why am I disappointed? Well because Forsyth caught me off guard. The story went so well that I failed to see one glitch which is so prevalent in today's world - weak governments and their political agenda. Yes, The President wanted to clean his nation of cocaine, but he wanted his chair more than that. No good comes without sacrifices, and Paul Devereux, in his mission to do his job did one little mistake - he put the President's chair at stake. So there, the story went like a pack of cards crumbling down. It shows how science and technology have advanced well enough to solve world's major problems but they aren't used because of selfish, corrupt and weak governments. Maybe it's just fiction, but I believe Forsyth wants to make a point through his latest novel that today's USA is heading towards becoming like the one in the novel. Or has it already become one?

But that's not the whole story

The Cobra further warns why countries may soon lose patriotic people, because after all, no man wants to be betrayed by the very thing he loves enough to die for. But again, there are some men who persist and stay loyal despite being betrayed by their nations. So did Paul Devereux drop the mission or did he continue to defy the President and finish off the cartel? Well I shouldn't reveal that, should I? Forsyth has managed to keep the suspense alive till the end and I am pretty much satisfied with his (Forsyth's) finish.

An expectant parent

2011-02-02T15:43:00.001+05:30

A female pigeon waits as her mate brings more twigs for their nest

The pair building their nest on a ledge

Where did those greetings go?

2011-02-01T23:01:00.002+05:30

Every year, the week before Christmas, my family and my relatives dust our respective homes, repaint if required and take out the big box containing the decorations. While items like the stars, the crystal bells and the Chinese lights keep changing every year, what's unique and still the same are the Christmas cards that people have sent to my family over the years.

As I sort out the cards, picking up the shiniest, newest looking cards to be pasted on the walls and hung from the strings, I go through all the cards, looking at the pictures outside and the messages within, both the printed and the handwritten ones. This has been like a ritual for me, and I have almost noticed a trend in these cards. One of my uncles living in the US sends us a card every year since even before I was born. The envelopes contain his address sticker and the cards are always from Hallmark. Also, all the cards belong to Hallmark's artist's series for Christmas, that is, the card has an artist's painting relating to Christmas.

Then, cards from US have changed over the years. Earlier, they used to be simple, with a matte surface, picture of Christmas bell or a scene from the nativity, and a formal "Season's Greetings" printed as the message. Now, the cards have become more vibrant (most from Hallmark), with colourful pictures and messages.

Indian cards come either from Hallmarks or Archies or other local brands. Almost all contain various versions of Santa Claus - that's India's sole interpretation of Christmas it seems, Santa Claus and gifts and a Christmas tree.

But over the years, I have been putting up the same old cards. They have almost stopped coming, only my uncle still keeps sending them, else everyone now just calls up and wishes or worse, sends an sms.

I wonder how Archies and Hallmarks are surviving today. There were times when birthdays and festivals meant loads of cards, but today they only mean phone calls and smses. Some even send a picture sms which gets lost many times due to phone incompatibility. And I feel even those would dwindle as more and more of my acquaintances are getting into the nuisance called Facebook. A post on the wall would eventually get lost somewhere. Plus it isn't as personal as getting out of the house, selecting a card with a funny message, writing a personalized message and posting it. It conveys that the sender remembered me and took the pains to send a lovely card to me. A facebook post or an sms only means that the person heard from somewhere that its my special day and just pressed a button.

Plus, cards are like stamps. They can give a lot of information. For example, why are bunnies associated with Easter or have you heard of an artist whose paintings feature soft lighting and look as if they have been photographed?

And as the world tries to run away from the virtual closeness of social networking, I wish there are still people who love and cherish real greeting cards and continue sending them out, not just to their partners on V-day but to friends and relatives too on many occasions.

Black Swan

2011-01-17T18:45:00.014+05:30

Black Swan is the latest movie of director Darren Aronofsky , who has also directed Requiem for a Dream. The movie stars Natalie Portman in the lead role and is about her character aspiring to be the lead ballerina of a remake of the epic ballet - Swan Lake. Before I go further, let me talk a little about the story: first about Swan Lake, and then of Black Swan.

Swan Lake, is a about the "Swan Queen" Odette who is actually a beautiful young woman put under a curse. The curse will be broken only if a man expresses and commits his true love for her. A prince about to get married finds Odette and falls in love with her. But the evil sorcerer who put the curse, takes her away and presents his daughter, Odile, instead, looking just like Odette. The prince doesn't recognize Odile and expresses his true love for her, mistaking her for Odette. Odette on the other hand is heart broken. When the prince realizes his mistake, he goes to Odette, but is forced by the sorcerer to keep his promise and marry Odile. The prince prefers to die instead and jumps into the Swan Lake with Odette.

Black Swan is about and almost a modified version of Swan Lake. Natalie Portman's character Nina is a beautiful and talented ballerina who according to everyone is fit for the role of the White Swan (Odette). The ballet's director wants to produce a new version of Swan Lake where the same ballerina plays the roles of both the White and the Black swans (Odette and Odile). He picks Nina as the Swan Queen and pushes her forward to stay delicate and pure as she is, but get sensuous and evil to become the perfect Black Swan onstage.

Nina obviously hasn't seen much of the world, nor of herself, but she wants to be the perfect ballerina and doesn't want to let go of her title as the Swan Queen. As she pushes herself against her parental bondages, her own inhibitions and external threats from a competing ballerina, she goes insane and the movie keeps flipping between reality and Nina's insanity.

If you have seen Requiem for a Dream, be assured that this movie is going to engage you and influence you in a similar way. When you'd think the story is getting predictable, it'd surprise you with a new twist. Over all, it keeps you asking "What next?"

Besides the story, what makes Black Swan so amazing is the brilliant cast: Natalie Portman dances well like a ballerina, she is genuine as both the Black and the White swans and an over stressed delusional girl chasing her ambition. Her competitor, Mila Kunis (Jackie of "That 70's Show") as Lily, brings the balance as a fresh, carefree, helpful new ballerina wanting to support Nina but threatening her unknowingly. Barbara Hershey, playing Nina's dominant ex-ballerina mother, reminds us of those typical strict, dominating , widowed/single old mothers who drive their daughters insane in psycho movies like May and Carrie.

Black Swan has great visuals just like Requiem for a Dream. There are the ballet sequences and erotic incidents between Nina and her director, Nina and Lily, and Nina and herself; and scary scenes of Nina's delusions which may make your hair stand up. But my best part of the movie, apart from the story is the brilliant music which includes Tchaikovsky's pieces from the Swan Lake, especially "Lake in the Moonlight" towards the end of the movie, when reality and delusion mix up in Nina's head and the stories of Black Swan and Swan Lake converge.

Ad made for CRY

2010-12-29T10:02:00.001+05:30

Ad that I made for a competition by CRY. It was kind of an impromptu ad conceived, made and submitted within 3 hours. All images and music are collected from the Internet.

Winters 2010

2010-12-28T17:17:00.000+05:30

How I made myself comfy this winter:

Basking in the sun on a hard wooden chair, 6th term is pretty lazy so far

Warm woollens of crazy shapes and colours at night

गुलाबी धूप

2010-12-10T18:52:00.007+05:30

आज सुबह सुबह जब आँख खुली

खिड़की से परदे हटाई

बाहर एक हलकी धूप निकली थी

घने काले बादलों से जूझती हुई

पिछले हफ्ते से ठण्ड कुछ बढ़ गयी थी

हवा कोहरे से सफ़ेद हो गयी थी

पिछली दो रातों के बारिश ने मानो

एक ग़मगीन चादर बिछा डाली थी

लेकिन आज कुछ बदल सा गया है

मानो कापती हड्डियों को किसी ने सेक दे दिया हो

आज सुबह एक गुलाबी धूप निकल आई

घने बादलों से जूझती हुई

In fond memories of all the winters I have spent:

Studying in the garden, preparing for exams, and falling asleep in the warm sun
Lying on the mattresses kept out in the sun
Spending lazy afternoons sprawled out and reading
Feeling relieved to get out of the classrooms and into the playground during "Games period"
Afternoons spent with family preparing for winter weddings
Sleeping on haystacks during visits to grandma
Cursing the bone chilling winters of hometown but missing it when in places with warmer winters

Customer Service

2010-12-05T12:44:00.003+05:30

Guest house manager @ B'lore: M'am, are you okay sharing your flat with 2 guys? I'm very sorry about it.
Me: You haven't left me with any choice, have you?
Manager: I suggest a better flat of ours for you.
Me: Tell me about it. Manager: It's in NGV (National Games Village), you can avail our membership facilities like outdoor dining, gym, parlour & swimming.
Me: And?
Manager: There're 3 guys in the flat, they've occupied the bedrooms with attached bathroom so you'll have to use the bathroom across the living room.

When corruption is better than cure

2010-11-03T11:45:00.014+05:30

A few months back, the Ranchi administration suddenly caught the reformation bug and decided to implement a couple of reforms like raids in public offices to curb bribery and demolishing encroachments on the roads, each of them leading to more problems than ever.

How does removal of bribery add to our problems? We've all seen the famous "Jaago Re" ads against bribes and corruption. Sitting in a big city, saying bribery is bad is the most logical thing to do. But the common man would tell you it's the most illogical thing to say in smaller towns & cities of India. Here's how.

Prior to the reforms (which are temporary of course) all government paperwork like documentation of property, income certificates, domicile proof etc were done through middlemen who'd take "commission" for themselves and the parties involved. This was a tiered structure were the lowest member interacted directly with the public (or customer) and "passed" the file and part of the commission upwards, till it reached the PA or secretary of the actual officer. The commissions were directly proportional to the no. of parties involved and depended on the nature of the work to be done. This corruption had been existing for so long, that it evolved into a perfect mechanism and for the experienced citizen, it almost seemed transparent. Commissions were almost standardized (the middlemen have to give competitive rates to attract public) and the customer could get an estimate of her total expenditure.

So what's wrong with the anti-corruption raids? Well the problem is that it is an incomplete solution. It is like treating the symptoms. From the administration's point of view, the middlemen are the main problem and so they should be stopped. But it clearly forgot to see why the middlemen were operating in the first place itself. It's the officials who're the main problem, followed by the system.

Now that the middlemen have stopped operating, the public has to carry it's own file to the concerned officials. We are well aware of Indian bureaucrats and their attitude. A PA or a secretary has his own way of buttering up the official and getting him to sign the papers. A common man has no chance of getting the official read his files, even if given an opportunity to stand in his office.

Add to it our arcane system and laws, which make even a routine procedure take weeks to complete. Plus there's the follow up to do. There's so much of backlog that one has to constantly keep "pushing" the file ahead to get the work done. A common man has neither the time, nor the stamina (in terms of patience, money & strength) to do it all by himself. The actual work may be so paltry that the total costs would be too high. Result: the common man may just chuck the whole work, that's how many people live with incomplete or no documents & unpaid property taxes.

There's yet another problem. Youth from smaller cities generally study and/or work outside and would be living outside for the major part of their lives. They're attached to their hometowns only because of parents and property. When such people have to get some official work done, they have to rely on the middlemen. Money is not an issue here, time and convenience is more important. And if your next question is "What about the poor man who has little money?" Well all I'd say is show me a babu who is listening to a poor man.

If only the administration realized this and implemented a complete reform instead of stop-gap solutions like customary raids. Until then it had better let the (corruption) market prevail.

I wonder

2010-10-22T14:36:00.001+05:30

I made a decision

I think I had a dream

I left my nest

I took the flight

I lost some people

I left few paths

And now I wonder

Was it worth it?

The Church without a Spire

2010-10-18T18:16:00.003+05:30

As the story goes, this 1845 Church, built by the German missionaries, lost its spire when it was shelled by freedom fighters. The Church has been renovated time and again, but the spire was never rebuilt, probably in memory of the past. It has now been declared a historical monument for several reasons.

Google Plate

2010-09-22T19:04:00.003+05:30

Google has come up with yet another search improvisation, the automatic page refreshing facility (refer: http://www.google.com/webhp?sclient=psy) which changes the page contents as one types in the keyword, thus eliminating the need to hit the "Search" button. One step further towards laziness.

What will they think of next?

Should I love my dog or my man?

2010-09-13T01:56:00.001+05:30

Note: Pardon me for yet another mindless ranting which turns desperate at times and sexist at others. Though I expect brickbats, criticisms and snobbish pitying, I honestly and shamelessly announce that these thoughts often come to my mind and I write them now in my blog.

We’re all well aware of the fact that most couples are unevenly blessed with physical attractiveness. Often the hot chick gets a geeky guy and the sexy dude ends up with the girl-next-door. Rarely do we find both the guy and the girl smoking hot or attractive. But then, we also know that looks don’t matter, it’s something deeper, something like matching of views and all that stuff.

But I’ve also seen couples whose tastes or views don’t match very much. And still they fall in love and get married and I hope will live happily ever after. What sticks them together? Please don’t give me the “opposites attract” argument. We all know it doesn’t always work. I mean if one is passionate about dogs, one can’t really marry a dog-hater without first suppressing one’s love for dogs. Now replace dogs with music, literature, travelling, belly-dancing even friends. It’s all a matter of trade-offs, whether one wants to spend one’s whole life with one’s dog (passion) or the best person available at hand.

Before I invite more brickbats from readers about maligning guys, let me be honest and say that I am wary of guys. Being the only child and brought up in an extended family of mostly female cousins, I am the least tolerant about guys. And though I may not have much appeal or charm or anything else to offer myself, my upbringing of 26 years has developed in an instinct to detect the flaws of any guy I see, pretty much just like the instinct that makes us detect foul odour much quicker than a pleasant fragrance. This reminds me of Chandler Bing, who kept turning down several women because of minor flaws, and feared that he may have to spend the rest of his life alone.

I wonder if it’s just me or does everyone feel the same at some point of time. I wonder, what makes people decide finally when to ignore their instincts and “go for it”. I wonder how some girls can go for the obviously obnoxious guy. I wonder how Chandler could keep falling for Janice, and how could a hot Rachel love a nerdy, awkward Ross. Is it blind love or a logical compromise?

And then yet another thought has struck me, which hasn’t started to alarm me yet. A year ago when I was hit by a personal crisis, I realized that I may hit rock bottom, but I’d always float up eventually. This can turn into a suicidal tendency in the sense that one fears nothing at all. So what if the fear of having to spend my life all alone goes away? Will I ever be able to pick up the man at hand instead of my dog?

One evening in Joka

2010-09-09T18:34:00.004+05:30

Silhouette

2 lovebirds and a sulky lover

A bottle full of bliss - 2

2010-09-06T19:35:00.002+05:30

Mahesh told his wife about the contractor and his intentions. Despite her refusals, he convinced her finally that selling their land was just an option, “Just in case of tough times”, as he put it. But they weren’t tough times that took away his land. Over the years, big requirements like his elder son’s marriage, building additional rooms for both his sons, money for his son’s new garage, gradually took away a big chunk of his land plot by plot. As for the needs, they weren’t really fulfilled.

His son merely talked, but was really a drunkard like his father. Mahesh never really knew where all the money for the garage went. His naïve son had probably wasted it all on greedy friends. But then he never really was a hard worker and could never have been able to run the garage.

His parents had married him to a girl from the neighboring village. She also worked as a construction worker in the town nearby. Since she earned, Mahesh’s son stopped going to the garage regularly, depending on her alone. Disgusted, she left him. They had barely been married for 3 months.

Years had passed by, Mahesh and his wife had grown older, though still in their late 40’s, they were pretty old as a farmer and a construction worker respectively. As Mahesh sat in the shade, the effects of alcohol gone already, he wondered what he would do. All the plots beside the highway had been bought off first, and houses built on them. All the plots on the inside remained, surrounded by houses and very narrow paths for access. Even those plots were being bought now for housing. Mahesh’s parents had been buried in a corner of the original farm, but today, the graves were surrounded by houses. He hadn’t sold those plots, no one would have bought the graves anyways, but no one could access the graves anymore. Mahesh wondered if he was already sitting on his grave.

Munna, his youngest son came singing, dirty from playing on the roadside. Mahesh got up and slapped him. “Wash yourself and go to school! I’ll be checking on you so don’t you dare run away.” As Munna washed his feet still crying from the beating, Mahesh resolved not to sell the remaining plots anymore.

Note: While several stories continue on similar lines, the govt. & the urban intellectuals merely contemplate as to where and how did a major portion of the cultivable land go.

B'day gift 2010

2010-09-02T18:57:00.002+05:30

Went home last week on my first ever term break and finally got my b'day gifts from Mom. For the uninitiated, those pearls are real.

A bottle full of bliss - 1

2010-08-27T12:47:00.001+05:30

Mahesh sat outside his house in the only shady spot of the courtyard. His wife’s voice was still ringing in his ears, jarring his brains because he had spent the whole night drinking. It was 7 in the morning and still cool, though Mahesh could sense a warm day ahead, and knew the approaching summer was going to be very hot.

He was in his early 40s but looked much older; his limbs were hardened and twisted with years of hard labour in the fields. He tilled his father’s land along with his elder brother. His wife worked as a construction labour in the city. His eldest daughter had just turned 15 and had started accompanying her mother to work. His son was 13 and worked in a garage nearby, his youngest son was 10 and spent his whole day grazing buffalos, visiting the school only for the mid-day meal. Like all the other villagers, Mahesh and his brother grew paddy and seasonal vegetables during the rest of the year. Unlike their father, the brothers didn’t rely solely on their crops for income, apparently there was more money working as a construction labour or a garage mechanic.

Farming had become less attractive. It required hard labour, the elusive rains could badly affect the paddy yield and there was lesser income compared to the time & money invested in. Also, the brothers felt they had far too much land than they could handle.

Mahesh tried to recall what his wife had said while leaving for work, but his head hurt too much. He gawked at the highway in front of his house. The highway was the result of a spurt of development projects initiated by the newly formed government. The govt. had taken land from the villagers; it took Mahesh’s land as well, and compensated everyone handsomely. Like everyone else, Mahesh and his wife made plans as to what to do with the money. They could use some of it to repair their house before the rains, they could buy a rickshaw for Mahesh or they could keep some in the bank for their daughter’s marriage. But Mahesh and his brother decided to celebrate first. A series of drunken nights followed and soon the compensation didn’t seem so much after all.

Life had come back to the same track of hard work and enough money to make ends meet. The highway had brought along with it trucks & traffic and the rest of the city started trickling in. Vijay, his eldest son talked of opening a shop near the highway. “My friends say even a cycle repair shop will flourish here, we can open a garage here right in front of our house”. “We can open a small hotel also”, his daughter contributed.

One day Mahesh saw a man, who looked like he had come from the city, strolling around, gazing at the fields beside the highway. Mahesh walked up to him. “Who owns these fields?” the man asked. “Different families, it’s not owned by a single person.” “Yours too? He asked further” “Yes, I have two plots here and some more inwards. My brother also owns some plots.” It turned out that the man was a local dalal and he told Mahesh how their lands could fetch them good prices. After he had left, Mahesh pondered over what he had said. He liked the idea.

(To be continued :) )

Sex and the City - 2

2010-08-20T16:32:00.005+05:30

I had started watching the series once again from the beginning, and I should say that I enjoyed it as much as I did the first time. Yes, this series is on my list of "Things I'd never get bored of". Every time I watch this series, I am tempted to write something. But I don't because I neither have the resources nor the talent nor the creativity to write something interesting.

Still, am writing this post, inspired by the series, because a thought struck me after watching one of the episodes, and because I had already posted something on Facebook, and so decided to publish my other mental ramblings on my blog.

2.5 years ago, I was watching completing the series and the ladies' romantic roller coaster coincided my own break up. I had written a post then: Sex and the City. I was reading it today, and find it funny, how things haven't changed 2.5 years later. Am still single, but not confused about life as before, as for love - I realised that its great to be hopeful and positive, not because of the belief that the belief itself would come true, but because of the fact that having a hope is a proof of innocence & vulnerability and it is a good feeling to know that one is still human enough to be naive.

Oh and here's the thought that had actually come in my mind: Watching the series twice I can only conclude that the take away is if you keep running after love and your man, you're gonna annoy him & lose him. Play cool and give him his space, and chances are you may still lose him.

Some things are best left outsourced, God bless arranged marriage!

Music for the soul

2010-08-07T11:16:00.016+05:30

Like they say, nothing can cheer you up like good music. I too have a song list fit for every mood, but none have really given me goosebumps like hymns.

Hymns have been my favourites ever since my childhood, partly because of the grandeur of a properly sung song and the surroundings. I've always been fascinated by the lyrics, the most beautiful lyrics have originated from times when people were in trouble, facing death, loneliness or war. Add to that a scottish bagpiper or a pipe organ and the song played solemnly by a military band. Here're 2 of my favourite hymns:

Amazing Grace

Abide with me

One of the first hymns to be sung by adults, that I had fully memorized as a child. Like most hymns, this is popularly played by the military and during funerals, but what struck me as unusual was that it was Gandhi's favourite too and is still played by the Indian military.

The Roller Coaster Ride (My personal soul curry)

2010-08-01T02:13:00.014+05:30

This post is not another sad mourning of my father's death but it’s about my Mom whom I had ignored in my father's grief.

Ever since my father passed away, I've been experiencing a number of emotions ranging from grief, to anger, to guilt, to fear, to insecurity, to denial.

My Mom is a very fussy, protective parent and I do believe she loves Dad as much as she loves me. No wonder then, that she was my first concern after hearing about my father's death. I feared that she'd break down or something worse. But she was amazingly strong, calm & composed. I can’t replace Dad but I try hard to do things he did, but I keep getting haunted by one or another negative emotion every single day. Mom on the other hand has been full of life, optimism and cheer.

After Dad’s death, we had a lot of legal formalities to be done. I had to join school and I couldn’t be of much help to Mom. I was a bit worried that Mom was suddenly required to do all the legal & official formalities in the midst of mourning. But she went out, met people, took counsel from my relatives and got all the formalities done one by one. Considering that she is a housewife and had never went out much as Dad did all the outdoors work like paying bills, buying stuff etc (But he also had a foresight and had shown Mom how to pay the utility bills, the bank work and everything else), this is quite an achievement and I definitely have no right to crib about being alone and having to do everything by myself.

Mom has an amazing level of faith & optimism. She always looks at the bright side of things. We have a rite that when a family member dies, the family does a "Thanksgiving" in the Church. This had always sounded weird to me, why thank for the death of a loved one? I was angry and asked this question to Mom. She explained it this way: My father had a wonderful life, not that it was bereft of difficulties and struggles, but he was happy and contented. He was able to fulfill his dreams, he even had time to pursue his hobbies, he was able to help people and they remember him for it, he had a lot of friends. He had lived his life in a better, if the not the best way, and people like him don't like to have to rely on others. He definitely wouldn't have liked spending his old age living alone, not able to do any chores around the house, not able to ride his scooter, too weak to do anything and having to rely on others for even the basic activities. He has left behind fond memories of himself. Just like there's a good life, so is there a good death and that is why family members give thanks that their beloved died contentedly with his friends and family around him.

I’ve often questioned the usefulness of things, sometimes to the point of utter Nihilism. I haven’t lived my life to the fullest. I’ve been procrastinating, cribbing & sulking. I’ve been so wrought up that I’ve never really let my hair down and enjoy for even a day. I’ve been so impatient, always in a hurry to grow up and get somewhere.

Mom on the other hand has become more outgoing. She visits her friends and neighbours, tends the garden that Dad tended earlier, reads books, watches movies and plays games on the mobile phone. One fine day while talking to her, she told me that she had gone out with my cousin and saw a fair on the way. My cousin wanted to see it so they went there and took a Roller Coaster ride. Mom really enjoyed it.

Here I was, hacking away at my life and sulking in my youth, and there was Mom, taking up her responsibilities but living her life as well. I don’t know what drives her, she misses Dad but she remembers him fondly while I’ve been letting his memories eat me from within. I guess it’s a love for life and lots of practicality that enables my parents to withstand a lifetime of difficulties and they survived because they’re happy, happy at the things they had and not chasing mindless things.

It’s difficult to stay sane and optimistic in this rat race where everyone keeps cribbing for the smallest things. And anyways when trouble comes, all common sense goes down the drain. In all this emotional commotion, I’ll always remember Mom’s roller coaster ride to help me focus on the important things in life.

Note to guys

2010-07-24T00:50:00.002+05:30

Disclaimer: If you’re a male and think that some of the descriptions given below match you, then my mission is successful.

Additional Disclaimer: Before you jump out with "there're good guys as well and you're a bitch" responses, please note that this post is not a generic post and is about a particular type of guys or particular aspects of guys.

A guy can choose to spend a major part of his life ignoring females but sadly this doesn’t happen for the females. I’m writing this post out of my experience with guys, and because I feel some of them could do better with some good advice. So here goes:

Not everyone is out there to make new friends

Even if the profile reads “I’m here for networking”, it’d most probably mean that the girl wants to network with people she already knows. So even if she is your friend’s friend, she has no obligation to befriend you especially if she doesn’t know you. So stop flooding her scrapbook/wall with references and the desperate “Fraandship” requests.

Persistence doesn’t help always

I often get repeated friend requests on social networking sites. You see, there’s a reason why the girl refused your request the first time. And that wouldn’t change with repeated requests, it’s not a case of typical Bollywood movies where the couple hated each other first but fell in love over time. So stop trying and get a life.

Learn your limits

It often happens that a girl adds a guy she doesn’t know because:

a) They have a lot of mutual friends

b) They’re from the same school/college/work place or any other group (both online and offline)

The reason the girl has added the guy is sheer politeness and a possible case that the guy may be a junior or something like that. So just because the girl accepted your friend request doesn’t mean that she has become your “friend”. This poor word has been so badly misused by guys and networking sites that one dreads to call one as a friend.

You are just an ACQUAINTANCE so stop trying to chat with her and expecting her to talk to you like a buddy. She’s a girl and not a bot programmed for satisfying your perversion, so stop bugging her every time you see her turn “green” on the chat list.

That leads me to yet another related point mentioned next.

Learn how to talk

And am not talking just about language, it’s also about your tone and your manner. Just because the girl starts talking to you doesn’t mean you get all forthright and/or vulgar and talk to her like you two grew up naked together. She’s a girl and not your best guy friend. Haven’t you ever heard about respecting people? Or were you brought up in utter neglect and abuse and so have grown up unable to distinguish who’s human and who’s not?

Being cool doesn’t make a girl a guy

Just because the girl said that she’s cool doesn’t mean she has given you the license to get all vulgar with her. So stop treating her like a guy and subjecting her to all the verbal trash that’s spilling out of your rotten mind. No matter how cool a girl, she can never match your limits of abuses, dirty talking and dirty behavior. So respect her feelings and try to find out what she’s okay with and what she minds. There’s a high probability that you’re so full of yourself that you just couldn’t see her objections.

Single girls do exist, even at 26

Just because a girl is living away from her parents doesn’t mean she has a boyfriend. There’re many girls who are single, by choice, and weren’t waiting for you. So stop battering her with the either-you-must-be-having-a-boyfriend-else-let’s-hook-up. If she’d like you, she’d do something about it, so stop repulsing her.

B’day, Mid sems, Party

2010-07-18T12:38:00.014+05:30

B’day

It’s a bit late to write about my b’day this year, but my exams were starting a week later and I was a bit busy. Moreover, there isn’t much to write about my b’day. I was a less happening than last year. In fact, I dreaded celebrating my b’day because of our insti culture of writing fames about the b’day boy/girl on his/her b’day. Those fames often end up being defames and so I didn’t want to seem like a loser in public, especially with the new batch joining in.

Plus there's this horrid "tradition" of putting cake, cold drinks and other things over the b'day boy/girl as if to ensure he/she takes a bath at least on the b'day. What a mess :(

My b'day last year

Alas, some friends are just impossible to convince, so there I was, dreading my fames (thankfully they're okay, am sure no one must have read it) and heading down to cut the cake and get "caked". I hate b’days, I hate any occasion where I’m the centre of attention (unless it’s a prize distribution ceremony of course). People get stage fright, I get party fright, just standing in the middle of a crowd, and celebrating something that’s sheer accident by nature and no personal achievement on my part.

But I’ve actually enjoyed some of my b’days. The latest one was celebrated in Pune. My roommate had gone out with friends the night before, so I had nothing much to do at home. I cleaned up my room, read a book and fell asleep. I woke up suddenly, someone was ringing the doorbell so frantically. I was too sleepy to even get alert and check out who was outside. I just opened the door, and there was my roommate and friends from office.

The next day, I and my roommate went to take our MOCK CATs, more friends and wishes at the CAT centre. Then we went shopping, and returned on time for my b’day treat. A small group of friends, good restaurant and a bottle of wine, I enjoyed my b’day treat. I miss those guys :(

Anyways, I spent my b'day this year attending a double lecture at 8:30am, and then slept the whole day, watching Mary Poppins in between, and the Argentina-Germany FIFA match. What better way to spend a b'day? And no, I didn't go out to celebrate and I missed a lot of calls made by people to wish me, I'm very sorry about that.

Mid sems

The 4^th mid sem of my IIMC life came and went, and I’ve improved a lot over my 1^st year self. I don’t get panic attacks any more, I don’t make exams an excuse to hog out at the night canteen, and I am more relaxed than before.

I’ve also started ignoring FB and gtalk status messages during exam time because all my exam taking friends have gone bonkers at that time and crack the worst PJs. As if that’s not enough, they force others to read the PJs and post their comments. Heights of frustration!!

My friends cracking PJ's during exams

Thursday is a bad day for exams to end because not everyone shares your party mood. I hadn’t had an outing this whole term so I was determined to go out and watch a movie. I wanted to watch The Last Airbender but it had poor ratings. Toy Story 3 had no night shows so we ended up watching Knight and Day. It was hilarious, so I can’t even say that I regretted watching it.

Parties

Did I tell you that I haven’t attended a single party in campus ever since I came here? At first I thought it was because I was mourning for my Dad. But now, I think its not the grief but the fear. Yes, I think I have a party-phobia. I’m just scared of dressing up and going in a crowd of people having fun and enjoying themselves. I’m scared I might get left out while the rest are having fun, and then I’ll have to pretend to have fun myself. But then who cares? But then why go if no one cares? To have fun? Well I can have fun in my own room watching South Park. Oh well I am hopeless, I just don’t know how to have a good time. I might as well take up other forms of enjoyment, like sitting in my room and watching a movie.

Missing Dad

2010-07-08T18:17:00.002+05:30

Its been over a year but the memories are still so fresh - hearing the news in disbelief, rushing home hoping its a bad prank, looking at him hoping he'd just wake up somehow, the final adieu. A whole year has passed, with alternating moods of denial, grief, acceptance and getting busy with my own life.

But still there's a void somewhere, a nagging guilt of not having done anything.

People say I should move on. I have a whole life ahead, new people to meet & befriend, a family to raise. But I don't want to move on. I don't want to look forward to new people yet to come in my life when the old memories are still so fresh. And I want them fresh.

Right now I can only hear his voice in my dreams sometimes, and from the memories playing in my brain. But I dread the day I'd forget his voice, when his memories would become a blur and he'd stop coming in my dreams.

If only I could give up all the people in my life right now to get him back again....

Death on Facebook

2010-07-04T22:29:00.009+05:30

(Click on image to enlarge)

Know me better

2010-07-04T16:47:00.023+05:30

A lot of you would find this post odd, and think that I'm nuts or stupid, but I recently realized that my friends don't really know me. Not that it bothers me, people like me are too boring & insignificant to pay attention to, but its the misrepresentation that bothers me. I realized to my horror that people are grossly misrepresenting me.

So here's a brief guide about me, and I sincerely hope people keep it in mind before telling someone else about me.

Myth: I am a geek and a (hard core?) gamer

Truth: I don't know how I got labelled as a geek. Probably because I kept my CPU cabinet open in summers, or because I said I liked geeks, or because I once said I wanted to be one myself. Well, one needs to do real geeky stuff to be considered one, and watching The Big Bang Theory or installing softwares by myself doesn't make one a geek, and I AM NOT!!

And what's with this gamer tag?? I played a computer game on lan once in 3rd year, that was 5 years ago!! That doesn't make me a gamer. And God!! I'm living with a laptop without a mouse. I don't care about the graphics card. How does that make me a gamer? So stop labelling me one.

Myth: I am a cool person

Truth: Just because I don't blow up visibly doesn't make me a cool person. That's the last thing I am. I like courtesies and I HATE bad manners. I hate guys who think I'm cool with vulgarities and get even more informal and dirtier. Trust me, I like men to be gentlemen and women to be courteous. I know its old-fashioned but that's what I am.

Myth: I am a tomboy
Truth: Just because I don't act or dress up all girlish; don't have a fetish for shoes and don't go on shopping sprees often doesn't make me a tomboy. I am not girlish but am not tomboyish either. As for spending like a girl, I don't spend because I don't have the goddamn money. So don't brand me a tomboy just because I'm surviving on a couple of sandals for the past 2 years and don't buy flashy shoes with cute bows.

Myth: You know everything about me
Truth: Trust me you don't. No one does. I like to compartmentalise my life. My family, school friends, colleagues, Kgp friends, IIMC friends, they all are separate groups and I make sure they don't mix much. What my school friends know, my other friends don't. So you got the idea. So just because you saw one aspect of me doesn't make it the full picture because the other part of this aspect is known to someone else. So stop being a know-it-all.

Myth: I know nothing
Truth: I have certain skills which I can show and some which I can't. But yeah, I admit am not good enough in anything to win a prize or something. But hey! am not a vegetable. I know karate, I write blogs, I click pictures, I travel, and I occasionally make cartoons and paintings. But I also know how to play the organ (and I taught it to myself) and was learning to play the guitar (lack of both instruments have stopped me from demonstrating my musical skills). And I can make terrariums (google it) and have been procrastinating making a mask. So I know stuff. Oh! and I solve cryptic crosswords. Oh, and did I tell you that I am perfecting my ambidexterity?

Spare me the nudes!

2010-06-21T11:20:00.025+05:30

Disclaimer: Apologies in advance, if you are one of the people described in this post

I like water bodies like waterfalls, rivers, lakes, seas and oceans. Having spent all my life in terrestrial places, I seldom let go of the chance encounters I have with water bodies. Plus, I am a romantic at heart. I've grown up reading western stories where kids spend there vacations in the "good ol' watering hole", build sand castles on the beaches, go on fishing camps with there Dads and so on. So when I go to a river, I like to paddle in the cold running waters; when I go to the sea beach, I like standing in the waters trying to maintain my balance despite the waves and feel the sand slipping from under my feet. Not that I do this at every water body I find, company and occasion matters too!

I also like taking snaps of beautiful places that I visit. Sadly, in India, the water bodies are not so photogenic. Take this for instance:

This is a snap one of my colleagues took when we went on a trip to Jim Corbett. This place is actually very beautiful, even though the waterfall being pretty small. Its cool and refreshing. We so wanted to take a good shot of the fall, but no matter what, my colleague couldn't avoid those undies clad men in grotesque forms. I mean, dude! The place was swarming with men of all ages, in all shapes, sizes and levels of obesity, splashing around in their underwear (some in bright blue or red ones!!). And not to talk of kids, some weren't wearing anything at all! Imagine doing that in Niagara. I understand the humble Jim Corbett falls is no match for the magnificent Niagara, but if it were possible to bathe in the Niagara, would it be as attractive being dotted with ugly naked men splashing around?

And what's with guys defiling every waterfall anyways? They usually don't like bathing, they're lazy and yet they'd religiously stop every time they accidentally spot a waterfall on their way to a trip and get into it, losing their lives some times.

Beaches are another spot grossly exploited and defiled by people. I went to Chennai this summer and the only sea view I actually enjoyed was the view of the waterline from my office. I could see only the various moods and colours of the sea, sometimes contrasting and sometimes merging with the sky above. The crowded beaches were hidden from my view. Going to the beaches was a pain. They're crowded, I'd to walk for a long while on sand before I could even see the water, there was sand everywhere, and the shore was covered with people.

One evening, after a busy day at office I thought of spending some time on the Marina beach before heading home. I hated the whole experience. The beach was crowded, mostly with families; there were kids as old as 10-11 playing in the waters buck naked; and middle aged couples holding and pulling each other into the waters trying to stand up despite the waves. Add to my misery, since I was sitting in a relatively quiet spot on the beach, there were couples looking for "quality time" and who chose to ignore me. So much for tranquility by the sea!

I know while I sound rude going by outward appearances and everything, I too have a right to enjoy nature at its best without being disgusted by nature at its not so best. Especially when the latter part can be removed. Now you'd say that if I loathe people so much I should probably shell good bucks and visit a private or a virgin beach, or go abroad. But I, like today's consumers, always want more value without wanting to shed extra bucks and so have the full right to crib about the bad view.

Am glad they've prohibited swimming in the campus lakes. I can always look at the waters from my room

and enjoy the view.

Photo courtesy:

Above: Corbett falls by Kiran

Below: Lake in IIMC by me

Random musings illustrated!

2010-06-12T00:31:00.015+05:30

One fine day, I realised that I'm slowly turning into an unsocial person who easily gets bored by most people and is too lazy to pursue hobbies or other productive activities. after a hectic day at work I would eagerly look forward to rewarding myself with a Zinger burger from KFC. Situations had worsened to that limit where Friday nights didn't mean an outing or a date, but a quiet evening all by myself with a burger to excite & entertain me. If only my close friends had as much reach as KFC outlets.

Every time I come home, I find random corners of our frontyard coloured brightly with the flowers of that season. This summer, when the rest of the frontyard looked barren with dead brown grass, there were these 3 plants in full bloom. After all, they're my Mom's favourite pastime and her pride.

I had got a set of laptop accessories which I seldom used for the past 2 years, save the mouse. Just today I discovered that the set had a cool USB night lamp for using in zero-light. Now I can peacefully work on my laptop in summer nights with the lights switched off. Cool in all ways huh!

Delhi: Rajdhani - 2

2010-05-28T07:33:00.045+05:30

If you were to close your eyes and listen to his howling, you’d think he was being strangled to death or something but the truth was that one of the policemen had just grabbed the scruff of his neck. Though they talked dirty, they didn’t physically assault him. Still, the captive screamed as if he was being murdered in cold-blood.

We’re to reach Delhi in the afternoon, and we hadn’t got proper sleep because of the bawling baby. So the police sent the captive to the top berth, handcuffed him, and sat down. The young officer was carrying his laptop and switched it on, his juniors looking at it with curiosity.

Officer: बहुत टाइम है अभी, दिनभर क्या करेंगे? चलो कोई मूवी दिखता हूँ लैपटॉप पे

Cop 1: कौन सी?

Officer: Titanic देखि है?

Cop 1: साहब ये English film नहीं देखनी, कोई हिंदी है तो चलाइये

Officer: ठीक है, हम तुम देखते हैं

Now I hadn’t seen Hum tum but thanks to them I too listened to the whole movie, since they had pulled the curtains together. After Hum Tum finished,

Officer: अब Titanic देखोगे? तुम तो आधी पिक्चर में ही सो गए

Cop 1: नहीं साहिब, बहुत नींद आ रही, रात को बच्चे ने जगा दिया।

Officer: बच्चे ने तो सबको जगा दिया था, कैदी को ले जाना है की नहीं?

Cop 1: आप हो न इधर। वो ऊपर बैठा है, सब क्या करेंगे जग के, मैं सोता हूँ साहिब

Officer: तुम Titanic देखोगे?

Cop 2: नहीं साहिब, मुझे अंग्रेजी नहीं समझ आती

Officer: अच्छा ठीक है, photo दिखता हूँ तुमको. ये मेरी ट्रेनिंग की photos हैं

Cop 2: ये लड़की आपकी दोस्त है? Police में है!

Officer: हाँ मेरे batch में थी हम सबको एक प्रोग्राम करना था तो हमने डांस किया था

Cop 2: अच्छा है आप लोग का तो, ट्रेनिंग में मस्ती भी हो जाती है।

Officer: हाँ यार बहुत मस्ती की हमने। अब ड्यूटी बजानी है लेकिन। अब Titanic देखोगे?

Cop 2: अरे आप देख लो साहिब, मैं ऐसे ही बैठता हूँ

So he started watching Titanic but soon skipped to the end.

Officer: अच्छा end देख लो, देखो कैसे जहाज डूबती है

(Screaming, Music) Cop 2: अरे बाप रे!

Officer: सोचो ऐसा सच में हुआ था.

After about an hour, the sleeping cop wakes up

Cop 1: मस्त नींद आई। अब इसको देखता हूँ

So he climbed up and the moment he touched the captive’s hand, he gave out a series of blood-curdling screams

Cop2: अरे क्या कर रहे हो? दिल्ली तक रुक जाओ

Cop 1: मैंने कुछ नहीं किया साहिब, सिर्फ हाथ ही तो पकड़ा और ये चिल्लाने लगा। क्यूँ बे? खून करके भगा न तू? कैसे किया था खून? कौन था तेरे साथ? बता नहीं तो यहीं ढेर कर दूंगा, बता!!

(Scream scream scream)

In fact he screamed so much that the cops guarding the doors also came up to check out.

Officer: अरे छोड़ो उसको, कुछ खाना है की नहीं? (to Samosa wala) 3 जगह समोसे दे, उधर मेरा फ़ोन है वो भी ला दे, और बता कितने पैसे हुए?

(mumbling) Officer: अबे मजाक नहीं कर रहा, वो मेरा फ़ोन है, ला इधर, और बता कितने पैसे हुए

The poor samosa wala was caught in a dilemma, should he ask for money? Or were they having fun? After much threatening, he finally accepted the payment.

Unfortunately, our train was running late and we were to reach Delhi in the evening instead.

Another round of interrogation and screaming.

Officer: तू फिर लेट गया!

Cop 1: बहुत देर होगी साहिब, क्या करूँगा बैठके?

Cop 2: तेरे साथ तो कैदी भेजना खतरे से खली नहीं, जब देखो सो जाते हो!

Cop 1: आप हो न साहिब, सब जग के क्या करेंगे?

Finally Delhi arrived, I heaved a sigh of relief.

Cop 1 to convict: देख, यहाँ हमने बड़े प्यार से पूछा और तुने इस्पे ही रोना चिल्लाना शुरू कर दिया। ठाणे में जवाब नहीं दिया तो सही में पिटेगा। तो अब ठाणे पहुचने तक तू सोच ले की क्या बोलना है, वरना तेरी खैर नहीं। चल रोना बंद कर अब। ये ले बिस्कुट खा।

Convict: नहीं साहिब, ठीक है।

Cop 1: अबे खा ले, ठाणे में कुछ नहीं मिलने वाला। ले packet पकड़ और खा लेना रस्ते में। और देख, सच सच बता दे, बच जायेगा। वरना वहां मर पड़ी तो हम कुछ नहीं कर सकेंगे। चल अब।

Officer to Canadian: Okay Mr। ___, it was nice talking to you. See you in Canada!

Note: Though the whole incident was scary and traumatic (trust me, their dirty talk and the convict’s screams weren’t really entertaining), when I look back at that journey, it was actually funny in a way. True that we get wary of policemen, but they too have tough lives and the pressures push them towards corruption. I got to see a quite different side of Indian cops, young, aspiring, considerate.
The convict had committed a murder in Delhi and had escaped to Ranchi. These Delhi cops had come down to take him back from their Ranchi counterparts. Some facts like the cops’ actual posts might be misrepresented because I really wasn’t paying attention to that.

Delhi: Rajdhani - 1

2010-05-25T07:52:00.005+05:30

This incident happened during one of my train journeys to Delhi by the Rajdhani. As I’m getting old, I’ve started opting for the side berths due to the following reasons:

The lower berth in an AC compartment is a luxury: full privacy with the curtains and 2 windows to yourself
I can keep checking my luggage just under my seat
I don’t want to embarrass myself by trying to climb the upper berth and getting stuck due to old age and/or obesity

This time I had taken the side upper berth. As I tucked away my bags and settled down with a book, I waited for my co-passengers to come, especially the one in the lower berth. I hoped for a young, decent guy (an eye-candy during a journey has never hurt anyone) but all I got was a pale, bald but young Canadian had come to see India. Just as I had started to ignore him and looked outside, I perceived a khaki mass of policemen passing by, only that the mass had stopped beside me. As I turned my head towards them, I realized to my horror that my other co-passengers were going to be 3 policemen.

They’re pretty chatty, like all policemen are, I dreaded my journey which hadn’t even begun. All I had to make me happy was Advaita Kala’s “Almost Single”. The train started and evening turned into night uneventfully. But I was still uncomfortable having to travel with policemen. Crazy thoughts raced my mind: what if they made passes at me? What if they arrested me for not “obliging”? What if they shot the Canadian too?

Just as I was trembling at these thoughts, I heard someone say “Excuse me”. I looked up and almost screamed on seeing one of the policemen standing so close to me.

Can I use this power socket to charge my phone?

(I was speechless so I nodded)

I decided to call it a day and climbed up, more for safety than for sleep. The trio was actually a young officer fresh out of training, and his 2 juniors who were much older in age. I also learnt that they’re taking a criminal to Delhi, the captive was to join them en route. The officer was probably waiting for me to move because he quickly took my seat below and started chatting with the Canadian.

It was late at night when 3 things happened:

The train stopped at a station, a fat female entered their compartment and announced that they’re occupying her seat. Probably she’d never have dared using that tone on a policeman but then I wouldn’t blame her for not expecting 3 of them to travel in a train. Groggy eyed, they politely tried to explain to her but then her husband rushed in to drag her to the “right compartment”. Amusing huh.
At around 4-5 when the deepest sleep comes, a baby started crying out loud and its entire family of 4 together couldn’t hush it up. The child had woken up everyone on the bogey. Damn kids!
At around 6-7, I heard howling and pleading. Sleepy as I was, I dreamt that those 3 “had got” some poor woman. But as the howling got louder, I knew it was for real and out of curiosity I peered down from the curtains – the captive had arrived.

(Part 2)

Delhi #1

2010-05-18T11:28:00.002+05:30

Delhi - 1:

When I think of Delhi, I think of Sonia Gandhi, Red Fort, food, Chandni Chowk, their garmi & sardi and rapists. And since I’m not much of a food buff nor a history freak, I’ve never really looked forward to visiting Delhi.

But fate seems to drag me to my worst nightmares so one fine afternoon, I was informed by my boss that I was to go to Uttarakhand and stay there till further notice. And as there’s no airport in Pantnagar, I was to take a flight to Delhi and cover the rest of the journey by train.

I haven’t really seen much of Delhi, all I’ve really seen is the Airport-Mehrauli-Old Delhi railway station routes and the Qutab institutional area, thanks to my IIM interviews.

First visit – Old Delhi:

I was in a pretty bad mood during my flight to Delhi for several reasons:
1) It was December and I had been forced to leave a warm Pune for the freezing North
2) I hadn’t been informed in advance
3) The prospects of staying close to UP and travelling via Delhi didn’t really sound exciting
4) I didn’t know when I’d be returning

Delhi airport was a welcome sight, though I don’t really remember much of my first exit from the airport, but I do remember remarking that it was so big and better than all the airports I had seen so far. The new terminal 5 had opened up during my visits and I must say it is actually magnificient & state-of-the-art terminal. One actually feels pampered waiting for the flights, atleast I did.

Our train was to leave from Old Delhi railway station so the long taxi ride turned out to be a kind of sight seeing. The crowded Old Delhi area was exactly what I thought about Delhi, in the good sense. The crowded Meena Bazar near Jama Masjid pn the left and the Red Fort on the right – I was seeing the Red Fort for the first time ever!

Old Delhi Railway Station:

Old Delhi railways station was a shocking sight to me. I had expected it to be like its aero counterpart but I had missed the vital word “Old”. It was old for sure, but it was dirty, crowded and had monkeys! Yes, there were monkeys on the roof of one of the platforms and would occasionally climb down. Whenever you’d see an expanding gap in the middle of a crowd you’d know that it was a monkey climbing down for grub or because it was being chased by a larger monkey.

The platforms were jampacked with not an inch to spare. You’d be lucky to stay attached to your luggage and if you had more than one piece of luggage, then God save you! The crowd was a true representation of N. India – Punjabis, Haryanvis, UPites and of course Delhiites. N. India and especially Delhi seems romantic from a distance and here I was, bang in the middle of my romance and being pushed and shoved around.

Our train arrived and the people boarded en masse, pushing and shoving because they didn’t have reservations and there’s a mad clamber for seats. Luckily we had reservations. My train journey began and so did my romance with Delhi with a series of subsequent visits to the city.

Kids and Babies - 2

2010-05-12T11:01:00.004+05:30

Dad! I need colour pencils, not crayons.

I want sketch pens, not colour pencils. (and then the subsequent demands for sketch pens, water colours & poster colours.)

I don’t want a bag with straps, I want one with buckles (and then the subsequent demands for more advanced school bags)

I don’t want a fountain pen, I want a “Chinese pen” (and then Pilot pen, ball pen & God-knows-what!)

And then as I grew up, I constantly demanded for toys & games I’d never play with after a month, new comics that I’d finish in one night, dresses that looked good only on displays but bad on me, food that I’d never be able to finish and zillions of useless hobbies I pursued.

When I was a kid, my home was still simple - an old fashioned wooden cradle which I never used even as a baby, few dolls since I didn’t like them and such things.

Today when I look at brand new babies at people's homes, I get confused by the sheer baby-stuff they own. Cradles or baby-seats or whatever, they are so complicated (the whole contraption must be bigger than a 4 year old!), several flavours of baby food, multiple varieties of baby oil, baby powde and baby everything.

And these only increase further as the baby grows. I dread having a girl and I dread having a boy either. Both are high maintenance expensive species. My parents may not have cringed at my useless demands but I definitely would. The first poster colour my Dad brought for me was finished in a week on paper butterflies. But if I give my kid a poster colour, I’d expect them to last a couple of months at least. Sadly, kids defy logic of all sorts when it comes to spending (I being a female do the same but still a credit card deliberately hidden somewhere helps me control my problem.)

I think I’d make a bad parent, I won’t have the patience to teach logic to my kid nor the heart to let it splurge my money as if there’s no tomorrow. It’s not about money or the lack of it. Even if I’m blessed enough to be earning sufficiently or more, I still hate the idea of wasting money for no reason.

And then there’re things that I could never do for my kids. When I was small, my Dad proudly showed me his instrument box from college days (it was by V. Perumal Chetty & Sons, a famous and probably the largest stockiest of stationary in old times) and a beautiful Sandalwood pen. The compass & dividers were not like the present day designs. One had to insert a pencil lead instead of a pencil, into the compass & the needles of the dividers were removable. I took the box and pens to school the next day - the compass got broken and the pen & the divider needleswere lost forever. I also lost one of the two clutch pencils he had. Now if my kid broke or lost some fond article of mine, I would really curse it to death.

So, as I have already said before, I don’t think I’d ever make a good parent. I neither have the tolerance nor the big heart my parents had. And looking at today’s kids and the way the world is headed to, I'm pretty sure I'd only raise a bad, ungrateful batch that would either give me a high BP and a stroke in my 50s or leave me unattended in my 70s.

Sadly, at 25, when every birthday takes me closer to my kid, one year at a time, I can only wish I never have one or else get married to someone who really loves kids and is rich enough to raise them.

PS: I dread parenthood & marriage so much that I still can't believe my friends are getting married and look up to them as if they've accomplished the impossible. Bless them all!

Summer beauty

2010-05-07T22:07:00.003+05:30

Taken from my PG @ Chennai

Chennai #2: Crossing the hurdles

2010-04-29T14:02:00.002+05:30

My joining had been postponed by a day so I utilised the extra break looking around Egmore. Whenever my father took me to a new place, he'd scout the locality for utilities like bank/atm, post office, bus stop/stand, laundry & general store and draw me a map. Now that he wasn't here, I copied google map and scouted the locality.

My office is located in Mylapore, and has quite a view from the 6th floor. On the first day itself I had trouble focussing on what my guide had to say as I kept looking at the mesmerizing deep blue waters beyond the Marina beach. I could see the caterpillar-like local train crawling amidst the tightly packed buildings, the indifferent sea and an idle ship or twobreaking the horizon.

As I mentioned earlier, commutation is one major problem in Chennai, but I think autowallas in big cities are all the same. One could spend one's whole month's salary on autowallahs, it was the same in Pune, its the same here. Only problem is, there aren't many running autos in Chennai, unlike Pune. The caretaker at the guesthouse had told me I should pay no more than Rs. 40. Easier said than done! The first day I shed Rs.80 eitherways for a mere 15 ride to the office. Add to it the 100 odd bucks I was forced to spend on food. At this rate I'd end up spending more than I was going to earn. That was the first and only time I felt depressed in Chennai.

After a couple of days, my desperation and anger pushed me into the ultimate step - bargaining and finally taking the bus. I didn't care my being an outsider, I didn't care about the harsh sounding language, I just stood my ground and said that single figure I thought was just. Result: I managed to bring down the rate by 25%.

Bus ride:

I love bus rides, so much that I actually hate short bus rides. I loved the 1hr rides in Bangalore. Bus rides in Bangalore had taught me a lot of things: how to find the right stop in a new locality, how to snatch seats in a crowded bus, the intricacies of bus routes and sub-routes etc etc etc. I put all this gyan back into practice in Chennai. After a few strayed trips, I had now solved my problem of commutation. The only hurdle to be crossed was food.

The final hurdle:

My colleague from IIMC had found this PG in a place with a strange name. She was all praises for the PG: acco, food, laundry, net, cable - all included in the 6kpm rent! Plus the friend thrown in for free, what else could I want? I went to check out the place, to my shock she hadn't mentioned that the room was to be shared by 4! I was too old for this, I felt. But again, desperation and loneliness forced me to shift to this PG. The cable TV in my room, the net + torrent combo and confirmed long bus rides had taken away the last bit of my inhibitions about the 4 bed sharing. The final hurdle had thus been crossed.

P.S.: Trying to learn a few keywords and this comes as a nice reading :) - http://sunshinenjoy.blogspot.com/2010/02/language-of-andre-pandre.html

Chennai: Part I

2010-04-21T14:35:00.012+05:30

Arrival @ Chennai:

When I was first assigned Chennai location for my summer internship, my friend was elated because she felt her 2-yr long exile in Chennai would be partly justified by my undergoing a similar suffering. Because of that and after reading Chetan Bhagat's Two States, I boarded the flight with a heavy heart and expected the worst at Chennai, the epitome of anything remotely S.Indian and the last place any true-blooded N.Indian would want to settle in. I was welcomed by the Bay of Bengal, which was as dark and gray as my own mood. I had never felt so home-sick in my life.

But those were just my fears. I had entered the city with such pessimism that everything seemed only brighter. I had read and heard about the scary auto and taxi drivers and so I took a prepaid cab from the airport, wore my "You're-the-greatest-species-on-Earth" expression and remembered to say "Thank You" to everyone whome I talked to. Luckily, the airport attendant and the taxi drivers were polite people and thus I was welcomed at Chennai. Beginner's Luck!

Life @ Egmore:

My first stay was at ICSA (Inter Church Services Association) guesthouse at Pantheon road, Egmore. (Note: If you're a Christian and have to visit Chennai for a few days, this is the best place to stay @ Rs.400/day twin sharing. You'd need to contact your Church for booking.) Pantheon road is a bit expensive place to stay at. But it also is a good place for a single person like me to roam about. The Govt. Museum was at a walking distance and I had planned to visit it in the weekend.

My only problem there was food and commutation. ICSA doesn't serve dinners so I had to search for food every evening and thus I bumped into Sparky's, a genuine American diner, on Easter.

Easter @ Chennai - The future Padre & Sparky's:

It was Easter and I've never been able to celebrate it properly ever since I left home for studies. So I decided to go to the Church and also meet up a "Padre-in-the-making" whome I had come to know while searching for accommodation. The church was located in the theological college campus where he was studying. I had never met him and was expecting to meet a 30-something man with a serious face. What he really turned out to be was a cool dude with a longish hair, wearing a black tee and a hairband, and perhaps only a couple of years older than me. The churches are catching up with time finally!

That evening I decided to have a nice dinner and so set off to find a good restaurant. And then I saw this diner called Sparky's with a tagline: "Never trust a skinny chef". And true to it, every member of the owner's family was fat and friendly. Sparky's is a nice place to hangout, whether alone or with friends. Its designed just like an Americal diner with the walls covered with photographs and posters of Elvis Presley, the US states, popular sports teams, license plates of all the states and other such memorabilia.

They had an Easter buffet for 350/- or something like that. I barely remember the spread which I think was a variety of bread, chicken and veg. I had to settle down with the regular menu but the single homemade veg sandwich that I had was enough for my dinner. Overall, I loved the crowd and the ambience.

As I walked back to my guesthouse, I went to Alsa Mall. There was a bakery that I had seen earlier in the day and they had Easter eggs. So, I bought one egg for myself, as a more proper way to celebrate Easter.

Cosmopolitan

2010-04-11T22:13:00.000+05:30

My friend asked me if I’ve become a Tamilian, staying in Chennai, or still a Bengali, studying in Kolkata. I replied I’m neither, I’m a Cosmopolitan.

Let me introduce myself: I was born in Ranchi, brought up in 3 cities: Bangalore, Jamshedpur, Ranchi. I did my graduation in Kharagpur, and am doing my post-graduation in Kolkata. I worked for 2 years after my graduation, where I was based in Pune, for an upcoming project in Singur, did my training in Bangalore and almost got posted in Pantnagar.

I still say “Hum”; I say “(aayi) shapath” in exclamation; I constantly shift between “dada” and “bhaiya” while addressing drivers; I instinctively blurt Kannada when confronted by any S.Indian language. My surname misleads people into thinking I’m a S.Indian, and people have said my face looks either Bengali or Telugu.

So here I am, a budding cosmopolitan, slowly assimilating the cultures and languages of the places I visit and growing to love all these places. Times have reached when I meet people from various places and can say to them “Hey, I was in this city for a while and I liked such and such places”.

Now that I’ve claimed that I’m a budding cosmopolitan, I wonder if this career would come to a stop and I’ll get grounded in one place. But much as I hate travelling, I can still come up with some optimism. But while my travelling continues, I’d write a travelogue, about the places and people I’ve come across so far.

Quarter Life Crisis

2010-04-05T19:25:00.001+05:30

Its official now, I am suffering from QLC. I realized this sitting alone in my room in Chennai. Chennai – it’s the 7^th city I’ve visited for official and educational purposes and 10^th city I’ve stayed in, in my life. And after travelling and living alone so much, I still haven’t got used to my loneliness. It hits the hardest especially while travelling, I see families and couples travelling together in trains and planes, where are the single working women? And I wonder if this lifestyle is going to be a permanent affair for me.

I’m now a half MBA and still wondering if it was a good decision. Tata has pampered me so much in the last 2 years that I feel like I’m roughing it out all over again. And am scared of the future, would MBA really make my life better?

I remember going out to the city in Pune, late one evening. I had no idea how to return home and I was asking auto drivers to take me to the bus stop that would take me home. And then I took the wrong bus and got off at a completely different area. I reached home late; I was cold but alert, ready to kick the driver if he tried to kidnap me. And as I walked back home, I wondered if I’d ever have someone to take me home, if I’d ever stop being alert and for once have someone I could rely upon.

I look at my girl friends around and find them so strong, so confident, so ambitious and so successful. What’s wrong with me? Am I scared? Am I tired? Or am I just not cut for this kind of life? I don’t know what I want with my life. I thought I knew what I wanted, till my father’s death, not now any more.

That’s another queer thing, my father’s death. I guess my all my enthusiasm went along with him. Now I only wonder, “What’s the use of anything”? I’m just going on, leading a life without passion. Surprisingly, my Mom has emerged as the strong woman, more confident than I could ever be. She enjoys life, finds happiness at the small things, and constantly shows me how to look at the bright side of everything. And I, a young independent, working woman (let’s ignore the MBA for a while) am suddenly envious of a middle-ages housewife who has just lost her husband.

I’m pathetic but I’m scared, scared that I’m losing something; scared that all my life I’d end up doing things on my own. I feel I’m no different from when I was a baby kept in an incubator where my parents and relatives couldn’t hold me in their arms but just look at me through glass walls. I’m still the same, leading my life far away from family and loved ones, with only a few minutes of telephone calls.

And all around I see families and couples, and I wonder what if my whole life becomes a never-ending series of travelling alone?

The day the elephant ate goats

2010-03-30T06:29:00.006+05:30

This is the story of a small vanishing village, vanishing because it was located outside a city and the city was slowly eating into the village. But no one mourned about it, not even the villagers, because the intruding city brought with it new vistas of development and employment.

The village wasn’t the only one losing its fields and green patches, even the state was slowly losing its green cover in the name of development and that’s probably how this incident happened. The state has a dense forest cover which is home to elephants. But due to deforestation, large herds of elephants travel from patch to patch in search of food and shelter, often crossing highways and accidentally entering villages.

It was one such trip where a young elephant got lost from the herd and entered this particular village. It was that time of the day when the men are out to earn their livelihood; the children are in the middle of their games and the women at the peak of their daily chores. Not only did the elephant stray into the village, it also caught the smell of a locally made alcoholic drink. Like men, elephants are also attracted to this drink, and like men, elephants can get ‘high’ on it. Fear and the alcohol made the elephant confused and it started wrecking havoc, stamping down mud walls, pots and pans, thus terrorizing the villagers.

A family had recently shifted from the city to live in their newly built home. They were one of the first families to move in from the city and so were a cause of curiosity amongst the villagers who weren’t accustomed to big homes with brick boundary walls.

So even in fear, the village women thought on their feet and found the best opportunity to enter this home which they had always wanted to see. They banged on the gates of for help:

A: A mad elephant has strayed into the village, let us in!

B: But the elephant can come here also!!

C: The elephant is breaking our homes and utensils; let us stay with our children here

B: Okay you can let the children stay here, but why are you coming in?

A: Don’t you know? The elephant has gone mad, it ate 4 goats!!

B, the lady of the house, couldn’t refuse them and opened the gates, and all the women started entering the house and straight up to the roof. This served several purposes:

a) They’re safe from the elephant

b) They could see their homes from the roof

c) They could show other women that they had entered the “building” as they called it

d) They could enjoy staying up on the roof of the “building”

e) They finally got to see the house from the inside

While the elephant trampled further in confusion, the women brought their children into the house and the roof seemed now more like a picnic spot: women brought food and drinks for themselves and their children, they shouted at their older children to stop wandering and “come aboard”, they sat and gossiped and enjoyed the view, leaving the problem of the elephant to their men folk.

The chaos continued for about an hour till someone got the sense to inform the police. Now, the police are infamous for never arriving on time for humans let alone an elephant. But the police arrived promptly – 3 police jeeps led by a female inspector. A female inspector giving orders to chase an elephant was yet another spectacle. But probably the people were distracted now, searching for their own family and livestock gone astray.

The drama ended after 3 hours. The incident made small news in the next day’s papers but was a big talk for the villagers for a long time. And even today, the lady of the house cannot help smiling whenever she remembers of the day the elephant strayed into the village and “ate 4 goats”.

May

2010-03-07T05:06:00.005+05:30

Watched the trailer of the horror movie May and fell in love with it. Desperately searched for the movies in the lan but campus lan sucks when it comes to good stuff. Had to contend with reading its synopsis at IMDB. And I still wanna watch the movie.

May is quite different from the usual horror movies. Its not all blood and gore, it is romantic and sad. It beautifully shows the pain and suffering of a lonely girl rejected by all, her failed attempts to make lasting friendships and her final solution to her problem. May is the latest addition to my list of beautiful bizarreness after "The Blue Bedspread".

My favourite part of the movie was the ending, where her "Perfect Friend" - the doll that she has made, comes to love and caresses her.

P.S.: I watched Kartik calling Kartik yesterday and today I've been watching this video from May on repeat. Watching such movies always make me worry what if I end up like one of them?

PS: wrote this post a couple of months ago, and watched the movie finally

Kids and Babies

2010-03-04T22:26:00.009+05:30

A thought struck me after watching a couple of episodes from Coupling and Scrubs - why do women want to have a baby? I mean those 9 months of pregnancy do weird horrible things to the body, carrying a foetus around for 9 months is no fun, labour and childbirth are so painful and fatal and if the mother survives, can scar her or leave lifelong complications.

And the weird thing is that despite going through all that pain and complications women want another child. They never seem to get enough of the ones they have already. Why on earth?? An explanation was given on Scrubs that a woman forgets all the pains of childbirth and so wants another child. But what's wrong with the one she already has? Isn't one enough?

I don't wanna have kids because:

1) They're high maintenance assets with long gestation periods and uncertain returns in the future

2) I don't wanna clean baby poop and all the baby mess

3) Pregnancy & childbirth are inhuman

4) Boys are energetic brats and girls are annoying

5) My own life's a mess, why should I take the responsibility of another?

6) Kids would give me chicken pox

7) I can't bear that my body would be undergoing all those horrors. In fact the very thought of a living thing growing inside me is spooky. Its like having a tumour with a life of its own

8) I'd be trapped for life taking care of them. I'd lose my freedom.

But then a part of me thinks like any other woman. I've seen so much of the world and am gonna see so much more of it, that I would want talk about it and share it with someone. I would have someone my very own. Nothing can be more reassuring than knowing that there's atleast one person who thinks you're his world.

[Meme]: Untitled

2010-02-24T23:43:00.005+05:30

This is a humble attempt at poetry after being tagged by Fundoome. And while she and Borna have done a great job, I doubt that I have managed to bring any sort of abstraction in this poem.

Tree monsters in the backyard

Dark alleys in the house

Two shining dots in the kitchen

Maybe a ghost or just a mouse

Secret hands under the covers

The albino cockroach under the sink

Moonlight streaming into the dark room

Did the mirror just wink?

And just as droopy eyes close

Feel my hair slightly move

Was it a draught or a hand?

Too scared to see someone above

I float in the air

Watching those two sleep

I soar high above the roofs

And nose dive down deep

Open the old wooden chest

A key, a whistle, a uniform

Here, I’m a policeman

Here, I’m a Mom

The nightly ordeals

Flying dragons and whispering dwarves

The ghostly moon shimmers still

A million silken scarves

A knee jerked, a sharp breath

A sudden thud, a rough land

Open my eyes but close again

On feeling the assuring hand

P.S.: If this looks like an abstract then good but actually its a collection of some of my childhood dreams and nightmares.

Stay connected

2010-02-11T19:56:00.005+05:30

I opened my gmail only to find an unusual page wanting to show me features of Google’s latest brainwave Buzz. No thanks, was what I opted for, hoping they’d leave me. But no, the next day I find a new link along with my folders – Buzz. And when I visit it, there’s already a list of 20 people following me! I pictured an elf (I think if they existed they’d be as annoying as Kreacher) sitting on my shoulder coaxing me to use their latest product. And that’s just a farce ‘coz whether I say yes or no, the elf will make me use it somehow.

I remember the good ol’ days when orkut and gmail used to be fun. But now with a zillion networking sites popping up and me getting mature (or so I hope), I have kind of lost my interest in these sites. I had once joined Facebook, and back then it used to be an irritating thing. It had umpteen games and silly quizzes and loads of invites. The worst thing about Fb is that they just don’t let you go. Even after I had closed my account, my Fb profile still existed and my details “Googleable”. Years later I was forced to join Fb again because all my friends were there and it is still irritating, though at a lesser degree, maybe because I learnt how to disable notifications and block people and applications.

And yeah, I’ve also opened accounts on Twitter & LinkedIn. I also pleaded for a Google Wave invi but never figured out why to use it, and whom to use it with.

Networking with people is one thing, keeping in touch with schoolmates is wonderful, but I don’t understand why I have to keep giving live updates of my life. I’m reading a book by Ayn Rand; I dozed off in class today; I’m going to Mumbai; I got wet in a freak storm…….. And then the photographs – my snap, my dog’s snap, by husband/bf/friend’s snap, our snap together, our snap hugging, our snap cooking, our snap doing nothing, my home décor, my bedroom, my kitchen……….gimme a break!!

Once upon a time, when I would google my name I’d find it in my insti admission list, and later insti placement list. Now when I do the same, it shows my profiles from every goddamn networking site I’ve joined. It’s like am sitting in my room but the whole world can see me. Gmail’s got this new feature of automatically adding addressees to one’s gtalk list. Now I’ve got my batchmates and seniors looking at my status messages. I can’t even display my blog link on my status message in peace.

The only features I love till now are Blogger and gtalk status messages. My blog is still private and read by close friends who matter and has been my favoured mode of expressing my views. And I love the witty one liners people put up on their statuses. For the rest, I would prefer to “talk” to people around me.

Getting older, getting worse

2010-01-26T19:09:00.002+05:30

I was talking to an old friend a few weeks back and realized how much time had passed since we had last met. Old memories started gushing in, old friends, old times, old crushes - yes, I had a few of them and for an unsocial, introvert like me, I pretty much managed to get involved with a couple of them :)

I had met those guys at around the same time but my relationship with each one of them got closer one after another. So basically it was a series of infatuation-breakup, proposal-refusal and proposal-acceptance-dating-breakup. My friend had reminded me of these guys and the series of events that had made my boring life a little eventful, and I spent some time trying to analyze the entire thing.

I was pretty naïve way back then. No wonder then that I was excited about the relationships I remember I was terribly sad on both breakups and had resolved never to get into a relationship ever again. This was not because I was hurt and suspected all guys of breaking relationships, but because I felt the very idea of loving more than one guy is disgusting.

Today when I think about it, it all sounds pretty stupid. I mean I still talk to them but I don’t feel anything now. I look back and I can’t imagine myself getting serious and committed to any one of them, or any one for that matter. Not because I am hurt or anything, but because people are equally nice and equally bad and its difficult to keep loving someone forever! Marriage is a mere convenience and a social requirement. Love and marriage needn’t go together and am pretty much comfortable to this concept which had disgusted me only a couple of years ago.

What’s wrong with me? Nothing scandalizes me anymore, nothing seems wrong. Everything’s normal – inter-religion marriages, homosexuality, marriage at 40, sugar-daddy’s, teenage sex, live-in relationships - anything is possible in this world and everything’s fine!!

I am gradually getting more and more selfish, self-involved and am slowly abandoning all my principles about life. When I was a kid, I’d pity a roadside beggar and wonder why people never helped them. Today, I’m just like those people, pretending to ignore the beggars, pretending to ignore anyone who needs help.

I remember being a sincere kid at school, taking everything seriously, always doing the right thing. Today, I find out ways to get things done in the quickest possible way. I can lie with a straight face, I can be adamant at times, I can make promises without intending to keep them. I don’t care about people’s feelings; I assume we’re all on an equal footing, some more than me and I can be as aggressive as I can.

5 years ago, I was this ideal daughter aiming to be financially independent and take care of her parents. Today, I don’t care about parents, I’ve so much to do with my own life.

I’m gradually losing my principles, shedding my responsibilities and abandoning all sense of right and wrong. I’ve grown up all right, and definitely for the worse. But then that's the fun part, the fun of breaking rules, searching and applying new alternatives, making my own rules and living life on my own terms. Everything’s fair not just in love and war, but in life itself. I love growing up, am not getting worse, am just getting better at being interesting and I look forward to more of life.

The Misunderstanding

2009-12-14T23:35:00.001+05:30

She had dreamt of the perfect romance, no, not perfect but flawless. It could be different, even plain ordinary, but it was supposed to bring sweet pleasures to cherish later.

She sat there, now, reminiscing her girlish dreams of 10 years ago. She had fallen in love alright, but it was the confusing, modern day romance where people just go out together, deciding on whether they really love each other or not. She reflected upon their relationship. They had been friends, and then they became a couple. But were they really in love? There had been excitement over the proposal, just a mere disbelief and then the weird shifting of expectations from a dear friend to a lover. Friendship is a terrible thing, it creates an illusion of love when there actually is a comfortable zone of intimacy that gets easily misunderstood.

It had been 2 years of their going out together. They liked each other, and maybe loved too. It was a comfortable setting except for the awkwardness of a pre-existing friendship. The future loomed before her and she sat wondering where she was headed to. She thought about her life, her dreams and aspirations, her career; and decided that there was still time for her to get married and settle down (about 4-5 years from now). It was a long time; would he be there for her?

“Where are we heading for? Have you thought about marriage?”, she had meant this, “Will you marry me after say 5 years, when both of us have got settled in our professional lives? I just need an assurance that you’ll still be waiting for me.”

What he understood was this, “Will you marry me right now?”

And so he replied, “I don’t know, I never gave it a thought. I’ve got a long way to go. Maybe I’ll never marry at all.”

They never tried to understand each other and broke up, forever wondering why it had happened in the first place.

Post #103

2009-12-06T18:03:00.005+05:30

Ok, its exam time and so my mind's running overtime churning out all possible thoughts that are strictly non-academic. And then I realised it's been a long time since I blogged and people might forget me if I didn't post sooner, so here I am writing out bits of crap my mind just generated.

Was reading my Dad's journal, actually read it when I was at home in May (thought my Mom would like to keep it more than me), discovered that he was an avid cricket fan and had closely followed all the matches. I wonder what else don't I know about him, and I realised how little time I had actually spent with him despite living together for 18 years.

Now that Dad's gone, I have made it a point to try to spend at least 30 mins everyday with my Mom (on call obviously). Realised we have so much in common: we like to play PC games, we like comics (fav ones being Archies, Tinkle, Tintin and Phantom), we have similar tastes in music (Country and Blues), similar hobbies (stamp collecting, photography and journal keeping), same movies (She loves the Bourne series!!).....how much have I really inherited from her!!!

And then there's this mad trend going on in the social networking world. As someone rightly said, Orkut is turning into Facebook which is turning into Twitter. And though I hate the latter two for all the useless functions they have, since the world's going mad about these two, I think my favourite version of Orkut will soon become extinct. (Who wants to get min by min updates of your friends' each and every action??) I guess even the cyberworld has proved me to be a socially challenged person.

and talking about companies, discovered a strange thing between HP and Kodak. Both are openly fighting and blaming each other over their printers. HP's new ad openly hits at Kodak. Why then does it give Kodak cameras for free with HP Pavillion and Compaq laptops? Did Kodak hook up with HP because it doesn't have cameras of its own, but is reluctant to let go of its printers? But then, why is HP after Kodak printers when there're bigger players like Canon and Ricoh? Hmm, will find out after the exams.

Started playing Quake again (my lappy can handle it much better than my old PC). Am still great with the rockets, pretty slow in my movements, and randomly lucky with the Rail Gun. Just wandering through the maps makes me nostalgic :D

And talking of nostalgia another thing hit me. Was doing some php coding for a blog and needed help. Luckily an IITian (R) came to my rescue. And its amazing how he solved my problems minimum communication and accurate results! Boy! I love geeks!! My old belief that a "Geek boyfriend" would best suit me stands true even today! (And it reminded me of all the Kgp geeks I have come to know :)

Sigh! Winters remind me so much of Kgp! Ok, have blurted out enough, time to get back to some studying :)

Classroom musings

2009-11-12T12:32:00.000+05:30

Prof. in Macro Eco class: Consider the example of a man giving salary to his hired cook. Now if he marries her, he won’t be paying her for her services anymore and there would be a drop in the nation’s GDP.

After-thought: All the married couples should get divorced so that the alimony contributes to the GDP.

Taking stock

2009-07-24T02:03:00.001+05:30

This post is a stock-taking post of my life as well as a celebration of my completing a quarter of a century.

I wouldn’t describe my entire life, rather the few incidents that are significant.

1) New-kid-in-the-block syndrome: I’ve spent a major part of my childhood coping up with it. While this makes some people extroverts, it only pushed me further into my fantasy world.

2) DAV KDPS: This was the first best thing that happened in my life. Firstly, my nomadic life had come to a temporary halt for 5 years. My school life had started on the same old path but took a new turn, rather came to a proper completion – not many friends of the new girl – very good result so friends started increasing – more interactions and stronger friendship – passing out but the contacts remain. I made my first very good friends here – Priyanka, Ranjeeta, Aditi. Had real fun with some people – Rakesh, Saurabh.

3) IIT Kgp: I never admitted the fact that this was one of the best things that happened to me while I was here. But this admission grows stronger with each year. Until I came here, I was this over-protected kid who was too impractical to survive. Kgp came both as a shock, breaking some of my misconceptions on life and depressing me in the process as well as a pleasure, introducing me with a herd of like-minded people and some more close friends.

4) Paltan: I hate it but I know I like it so much that I always miss it whenever I go to a new place. And I know I’d rely upon it (or a part of it) to share my happiness or my sorrows. The best part about it is I can be as stupid and pathetic as I can be and still feel better about it.

5) TML: I have no regrets about joining TML. And that’s because it was a temporary phase of my life. My memories with TML are as significant as my career with this company. But I wouldn’t talk about the latter part.
My getting a job was the best thing that happened to my parents so far. For my father, who had to take VRS prematurely owing to his poor health, my getting a job was a dream come true. I still remember when he accompanied me to Pune, he told me his being able to educate me and bring me so far was his biggest achievement. I wouldn’t say I had done well, I still curse myself for not having done better; but this incident is memorable to me because that was the only time my father had a heart-to-heart talk with me.
That I was finally earning had lifted my biggest regret of having to depend on my parents and being a burden on them. This had haunted me all through my childhood. For once, I felt very light.
All the sudden travelling and uncertainties involved in the work had erased the last feeling of attachment left in me. I no longer cared about where I lived, whom I lived with (mostly no one) and what lay ahead.
I also had my first break up. The irony is while I didn’t feel very special about my first love, my first break up was terribly hurtful. More so because it wasn’t just a love lost but the disillusionment of a precious belief that certain things are meant to be perfect and one can’t afford to do any mistakes. Maybe am still too attached or maybe am just naïve but I still can’t digest the idea of moving on and finding someone else. Maybe filling the void is worse than letting it be.
The 2nd memorable incident was my father’s death. Before him, I had lost my grandmas and an aunt. It was like a race between me and death. How much can I connect to a person before death took him away and left me with a lifetime of guilt of not getting closer to that person? And while I was focusing on other aspects of my life, my father was one and it felt like a hard slap across my face. All my life I had wanted to do things for my father, give him a comfortable life in return for all the troubles he had taken for me; and when I had got close to doing this, he had left me forever.

6) A new perspective: It took a tragedy to make me realize that all my life I had been complaining for useless things. It took me more than a month to realize my father had gone. It still feels unrealistic sometimes. But now I know the worst has happened to me. And now am ready for anything.
It also brought me closer to my mother and made me a more responsible person. No longer do I behave according to my whims, I don’t complain about petty things anymore, and despite everything, I have a happy feeling at the end of each that I still have my mother and I did everything I was supposed to do.

7) IIMC: Circumstances stole away whatever excitement I should’ve had about joining IIMC. I came here benumbed, not wanting to think about my situation. I can only say that I’ve no time to fear, no time to cry and no more wants. I just want to stretch myself to my limits and beyond. I won’t complain about anything because my father never did. And I’ll take care of people and fulfill my responsibilities just like my father did.
I won’t write what I want to be in the coming years, I wouldn’t commit to things so soon. My life’s filled with 2 voids – one can never be filled, and I don’t want the other to be filled. For the first time I’ve realized the power and the beauty of being alone and I want to live like that forever.
And I’ve realized that it’s petty to keep complaining and getting emotional about things in life. It’s wonderful to be strong and to take care of someone.

Now is the most crucial and doubtful phase of my life. Either I lose everything or gain a very important thing. But I’ll stop thinking so much and just do things. I’ll celebrate the smallest of my accomplishments, connect with everyone from my past, and prevent everything that would make me regret later – only this can help me survive this phase of my life.

Individual living

2009-06-28T18:30:00.005+05:30

Earlier we had joint families where we had grandparents, parents, uncles and their families, unmarried aunts; and lots of siblings, cousins and nephews.

Then people started moving out, living with their wife and children. Also people started having lesser no. of children, ideally 2. The concept of nuclear family came with an average size of 4 people.

Today we’re drifting further apart. Most children are working outside after finishing college. The concept of shared apartments and live-ins are quickly catching pace. People are also marrying late so major part of the 20s is spent either in hostels, company guest houses or shared apartments.

Even after marriage, people tend to live in a separate place from their parents. And then there’re the extreme cases where even the married couple are forced to live in separate cities because of work and the children go to a boarding school.

Joint families gave way to nuclear families. What do we have next? Individual living a long long time later?

Cursed and trapped!

2009-06-02T10:58:00.001+05:30

I hate myself. I hate myself for not being able to express myself, I hate myself for being trapped in a person who is not me, trapped in a group where I just stick out sorely or am totally ignored. Sometimes I feel God made me without a planned, maybe He was confused Himself.

I hate for being a girl and not being as emotional and sensitive as a girl is supposed to be. I was reading my scrapbook and many people have said that I’m a strong and tough person and they admire this quality in me. I hate the words tough and strong. Being strong means people would never care for you. “Oh she’s bold, she can manage it alone”, “Oh she’s cool, she won’t mind it”. Gosh! I’m not cool, I do mind certain things. I’m not strong, I have my own insecurities and I too am vulnerable.

Sadly my problem is I carry this thick invisible wall around me so that people never know the real me. As much as I dread being left alone, I feel equally sick in company. If I crave to share my feelings with someone, I equally dread opening up to someone and being so vulnerable before him/her. What’s with these opposing forces within me that just torment me day in and day out? Why can’t I simply cry out and get over with it?

I see girls around me, how come every girl find a shoulder to cry upon? Why is every girl so beautiful and loved? And why do I end up being the cool buddy, “fun to hang out with” for guys and the “ideal strong woman” for girls? Why can’t I find one person at hand who wouldn’t make me feel ashamed to feel vulnerable and cry? For once I want to drop all pretensions and express what I feel.

When my father left me, I’d cry myself to sleep or cry in solitude. Yet whenever I’d meet friends I’d get into a cheerful mode. I hate that! No matter how hard I’d try to be sad or serious, my mind would turn into a stubborn cheerful mass, making me laugh and crack jokes. And when at nights I’d be alone in my room, I’d be myself and cry like hell. And when I do manage to shed a tear or two in front of someone, am lectured upon to be strong. Heck! I don’t want to be strong! For once I want to be held tightly, hugged and allowed to cry my heart out. Not for the sake of crying but for the assurance that someone cares for me.

Seems like I’ve a curse upon me. A curse that keeps the real me hidden away. No one really bothers or cares about it. And while girls around me find a shoulder to cry upon, I only live on tormented within but wearing that stupid unbreakable mask of coolness and strength.

Why do you worry?

2009-05-04T18:28:00.002+05:30

Why do you worry?
I’m not yet a burden on you
You’re my dear girl
And I’ll always take care of you

Why do you worry?
I’ve taught you the ways of the world
I provided you the best education
I’ve ensured that nothing remains there

Why do you worry?
I may not have taught you everything
But I taught you to keep alive
Forever, the hunger for knowledge

Why do you worry?
You may be only a girl and weak
But I taught you to be mentally strong
And be able face all the troubles in life

Why do you worry?
I may not have left you a millionaire’s legacy
But I’ve taught you everything it takes
To earn and build a legacy of your own

Why do you worry?
I didn’t bear a son to protect you
But I won the love of enough people
To become one big family for you

Why do you worry?
I may not have given you a comfortable life always
But I taught you the attitude
To be happy & positive come what may

Why do you worry?
That I didn’t leave you instructions?
I lived my life as an example to you
You’re my daughter and you’ll know what to do

Why do you worry?
Why do you think you’re alone?
I taught you to be kind, honest and helpful
And the virtues to win true friends and true love

Why do you worry?
That you couldn’t do anything for me?
You’re my greatest joy and turned my dreams to reality
You’re the joy of my life

Why do you worry?
That you couldn’t give me things?
I’ve gone to a place where no grief or disease can touch me
You needn’t worry about me anymore

Why do you worry?
You’re my daughter and my son
I know you can take care of your mother
I know you won’t be helpless

Why do you worry?
Where I’m now, I’ll always watch you
I’ll watch you succeed in life and prosper
I’ll watch you lead a happy life

I’ll watch you fight your battles and overcome all sorrows
I’ll watch you get out of troubles yourself
I’ll watch you and know there’s nothing I didn’t do for you
I’ll watch you and bless you
Why do you worry?

I know this may sound like a badly written poem. But it’s written straight from the heart (though the feeling may have got lost in translation) and dedicated to my Father who passed away recently. He used to say these things when he was alive.

Post# 102

2009-03-15T23:04:00.000+05:30

“Why do you want to do an MBA?”
“What’re your alternative career plans?”
“What is your aim in life?”
“Why do you want to study in IIM when you can continue with Tata and get a chance to go to Harvard?”

I’ve been facing these questions during my interviews, either having to write down in forms or asked personally by the panel. And no matter how many times I come across these Qs, I’ve never been able to come up with a convincing answer; an answer that convinces me, that is. I mean, how many people are really clear about themselves and what they want to do with their lives? At least not me.

When I was in my final year, I wasn’t sure whether to study further or do a job. Till last year I was determined not to do an MBA and just yesterday I returned after giving my last IIM interview. If we go back in the past, then I wasn’t sure whether I should try to go to IIT (this was in Std. XI). In Std. XI wanted to study commerce just because everyone wanted science and I wanted to be different. So basically am quite unsure about my own life and choices. Its as if the choices fall in my path, or circumstances lead me to them. Whatever it is, its not because I was passionate for it. I wasn’t passionate for science, for IIT, for a job, for IIM. Gosh! Am I passionate for anything?

When I look at my friends I wonder how they know what they want in life. How did they know they wanted to do MS? Did they love studying so much? Or are they driven by a bigger goal? Of doing research or teaching or whatever people do after MS? How does my friend realize that he loves trading so much that he now wants a career in finance? And why am I still not sure whether I really love the automobile industry or the mfg sector in general? Love is a stronger word? But do I like it even?

Which leads me to yet another question that has often nagged me – “What do I want to do in life?” Basically I have never given it a serious thought. I’ve attempted to get an answer, many times. But often I wind up with the following points which most of you would find pessimistic:

1) Why the hell was I born? I definitely hadn’t asked for it!
2) Now that I was born, why couldn’t they simply program me with the purpose of my existence (just like they load computers with softwares) Life would have been easier that way.
3) Since I didn’t want to come down here in the first place, why do I have to work to survive?
4) Why wasn’t I born an animal with minimum basic instincts to survive? Personally I admire the rules of the animal kingdom – survival of the fittest, literally. And look at humans! Even failures and beggars live to a ripe old age. What crap! I mean why can’t losers drop dead? Then they wouldn’t have to bear the pain of the realization that they’re losers in life. Sensible no?
5) No matter how hard I try, I’ve realized I’m socially challenged. I lack proper communication, not that I can’t hold a conversation, but I definitely can’t sense emotions and all that. I’m that kind of person who won’t be able to do a thing if her best friend started crying or was in trouble (I can’t console people or show other emotions which people find pleasant).

There’re several such points which only drown me into further gloom and confusion. I mean, I definitely don’t see life as being beautiful, life is not God’s wonderful gift and I definitely see no reason why to cherish it. The gist is – how can I, who doesn’t understand the reason of life, make out what to do with it?

No amount of logical reasoning convinces me. In the end, the above mentioned points sit deep in my mind. I guess the best course would be to stop pondering over crap things like life and just do whatever comes to mind - be it good or bad. But then I was doing just that when the IIMs restarted it all.

2008-12-09T12:08:00.000+05:30

It’s funny how one makes a plan and then such unexpected developments come up that the whole planning goes haywire. But the fun part is coping up with those unexpected changes. And that’s what I’ve been doing ever since TML, Singur shut down.

I had given my CAT test centre in Kolkata, everyone in Small Car had done so. And after moving back to Pune, there was that eager wait for the admit card, with crossed fingers that it reaches in my hands safely during its twisted route from IIM-C to my parents at Ranchi to me. But where would I be, Pune or Kolkata? The card arrived at Ranchi so late that there was no time for getting the centre changed to Pune. So began the travel plans to Kolkata, how many days of leaves to take, fingers crossed again that my boss be kind enough to approve of my attempt to leave the company. Next decision: whether to take a train or flight, this considering whether I get a companion for the journey or whether I can afford the flight tickets (the miser I’m, I’ve a different definition of affording anything). Luckily I got company for both to and fro journey. Plus the high flying costs made even the 3rd AC tatkal reservation seem dirt cheap. Oh the bliss of earning money!

The train journey was fun. We reached Kolkata, checked in at hotels convenient to us. The test went I dunno how. The surprising thing is Kolkata seemed beautiful to me for the first time. I had always found it pathetic when faced with the prospect of having to live and work there. But now, when I was conveniently placed in Pune, I found Kolkata a very nice place.

The second change occurred at the workplace. It’s like dating and getting married. Initially the workplace seems all rosy and pretty good. One has high hopes and aspirations and great plans of the “future together”. But after a long period of familiarity, one gets to see the ugliness and the imperfections which lead to doubts and frustrations. I had thought of working another year, paying off my debts and then decide whether to study further. But now, out of sheer boredom I find myself desperate to escape back to the campus, debts or no debts. How one’s goals change so abruptly with current situations!

It’s that time of the year when I start feeling festive. I wait for this month the whole year, to spend Christmas with my family. The shopping’s done, the travel plan had begun, I was preparing the best opening line for yet another long leave, when I got the notice of having to move to UTK in 2 weeks. And just when I was coping with the first shock, the second came that I’d be going on a 10-day trip the very next day. Either I’m so important that I’m sent for work so urgently and immediately, or I’m so unimportant that no one cares to inform me about such tours where I’M INVOLVED.

So there goes my vacation, I’m going tomorrow. The gifts I bought can be couriered home. The laptop I had given for service will be delivered today. The tailor can wait. The camera that was supposed to be delivered around 29th will have to be redirected. It’s fun to see how things fall into place even under sudden change in plans. No wonder Tatas closed one plant to set it up elsewhere. It’s in our blood, you see!

My only solace is that there won’t be much celebration at home this year. No fetes, no gatherings, the Church won’t be decorated this year. This is in mourning for the victims of the Kandhmal violence. They’re still hiding in jungles to save their lives, while I may be put up at Ginger in UTK. In their comparison, my unexpected changes are very pleasant.

Rediscovering relationships

2008-11-24T14:49:00.000+05:30

My nephew:
I have a nephew only a few years younger to me. He and his younger sister are my favourites among all my nephews and nieces, partly because they’re only a few years younger to me, and partly because we’ve spent some of the best times of our childhood together.
Being the only child and very shy, I could never get comfortable with my cousins because I often had this feeling that they were one group comprising of their siblings, and I another group, and in no way could I ever be a part of them. But these two were different, they always made me feel like I was their own elder sister (but of course I hated being called ‘Aunty’ at the tender age of 7).
I remember looking forward to summer vacations, when cousins and nephews and nieces would come to Ranchi to visit their parents or grandparents, even great grandparents. These two would also come, and they’d specially come to my house to play with me. They’d bring their latest toys and video games and I never minded sharing my toys with them. Being a bit tomboyish, I loved playing with my nephew, more than with my niece, because girly games have never appealed to me much. So I and my nephew played everything from ‘Calvin and Hobbes’ style space voyages, to shooting plastic bottles with toy guns, to videogames, to cycling, to cricket. Thanks to my nephew, I spent lots of time playing cricket on the fields with boys. He was my companion in every wedding in the family, when we could spend the time chasing each other, or opening gifts, or doing the night-before-the-wedding preparations. During Christmas, we’d fire crackers together, the loudest and the most colourful bombs, bursting them near girls and ladies, catching them off their guard ; inside holes in the fields to check if a snake or a rat would come out; making noise to the irritation of all the elders in the house.
Another favourite game of ours was the “space voyage”. We had an old broken down military radio which was very big and had lots of controls. It was kept high on a shelf, along with other electronics junk – a picture tube, an ammeter, a soldering iron and paste, a box full of resistors and capacitors, old stripped off transformers......that shelf was the control panel of our “spaceship”, and a bed heaped with blankets served for our seats. Together we had spent many a hot summer’s afternoon perched on top of the blankets, tweaking at the old radio’s knobs, muttering out commands at each other, pretending to explore the universe, gunning down imaginary aliens, and then spend the evenings, describing our aliens to each other.
July monsoons turn nasty in Ranchi, it rains cats and dogs and it rains for several days without a break. Add to that bad roads and power cuts, and any housewife would dread having to host a birthday party in such weather. My mother had often told me it would be pointless giving a party because the guests would either be late or be unable to make it at all. For a child of 8, a small dinner at home just with the family sounds the most pathetic way to spend her birthday, but my nephew and his sister were always there to celebrate my birthday. And with those two, it felt much better than having a hoard of kids singing ‘Happy B’day’ while I cut the cake.
As we grew up, we became busier. Studies took their toll and we had no time to spend vacations in such a carefree manner. What with my extra classes and preparations for board exams, I had no time to play cricket. The old radio lay forgotten. School gave way to college, new people, new friends, and new thoughts. There was no time for nephews and nieces. Something else had happened, we had grown up. Teenage boys no longer play with their aunts; they go out with their teenage friends, guys. While I had fallen in love with my life, my nephew had fallen in love with bands and music and art. We got busy in our lives and rarely talked to each other. Something happens to guys when they grow up, they avoid their family members and relatives and love to spend all their living moments with their friends.
It would have been the same this time too, but I had to buy a hard drive and there was no one who could suggest me a good shop, than my nephew. As we shook hands formally (and we had always believed that one shook hands with distant people, not with one’s close people like father, mother, brothers, sisters, and each other). We talked about computers, accessories, my job, his band, my friends, his friends, my life, his life. And slowly it was like before, only this time he showed me his music collection, instead of toys and video games. We went to buy my hard drive, the space trip gave way to a car ride. And he drives very well. We went to a party later on, and just like old times, he was my companion in the occasion. We sat together, talking, not having to be pestered by old relatives and their uncomfortable questions. My short vacation was fun.

2008-10-22T15:05:00.000+05:30

I am back to Pune after a frustrating month of uncertainty in Kolkata. And I can't say that I'm back to square 1. It feels like even that square 1 progressed somewhere ahead of me.

When a college grad joins a company and becomes a part of a new project the following emotions run through his mind:

1) Excitement because of first job and the status change from a dependant student to an independant professional
2) The feeling of about to step into uncharted waters in the company
3) Excitement that he's a part of such a famous project
4) New found enthusiasm to do something groundbreaking in his own field (a sudden rush of patent applications from other depts. is partially responsible for this enthu)
5) Eagerness to get the work done quickly and witness a brand new plant emerge out of the blueprints

For the past 1 yr. I had similar feelings. But the uncertainty of when to move became unbearable at times. Especially when one is forced to lead a spartan life because one knows one has to move to a new place. A scooter, a TV, a fridge, a bean bag, even a utensil had to be kept on hold because we'd bemoving to Kol soon. That soon had grown from 6 months to 9 to 12. And when it came, it was a relief. Aleast temporarily. Now I could have a house of my own, well a rented one but I'd furnish it as I pleased. Every other day I'd plan the interior decor of my rented house, vacations I'd spend with my parents at home, places in Kol I'd take my parents to.

And what about the project? The main project itself was one of its kind, and my dept. was bringing another new first in the country. 9 months of planning and now we'd be doing the execution, installing and operating what we'd planned. It was so exciting to see the plant in Singur, to visit all the shops (I knew all 5 of them like the back of my hand and they're just like the blueprint), to see the lines and conveyors running according to the plan. Another important moment when our first equipments had been unpacked and installed in he first shop. I had wanted to see this new production method in actual practice. Was it really as good? And there're so many other questions, some big some small: what would be my next job responsibilities? How would I handle any problems in this new system? Will there be new people in my dept.? How will my office be? .......................

We knew about the rally starting from 24th. But then I was in denial, things would be alright, won't they? They didn't. Within 5 days the plant had closed. Inititally there had been trainings but then even those ended. People were sent to other plants, those who remained worked from guesthouses. Days gave way to weeks and then months. Initially I was excited and anxious to read the plant related news. But later they became so mundane. Something within me felt stifled and suffocated. Once again the uncertainty had come down upon us. At first I was optimistic that we'd get back to normalcy. But after a month, when nobody knew what will happen, or what's our next task, my patiencehad run over. I hated the city, the whole place. I wanted to get out of this stagnancy. No wonder then that when the pullout became official, I was rather relieved and happy, despite the knowledge that I'd once again go away from my parents, and once again lead an uncertain (time wise) life living out of my baggage.

Am back at Pune, once agian in an empty sparsely furnished flat. No TV, no scooter, half unpacked luggage strewn all over the floor. As for work, am starting it all over again. Studying new shop plans and chalking out a plan for implementing my system. And even though I try not thinking about it, I get disappointed that the previous plans couldn't get executed for no fault of ours.

People had worked hard for more than 2 years and the dream was snuffed just when it had become a reality and was about to function. And now we have to start again.

Feels like having had a still birth.

It's better this way..........

2008-09-09T20:04:00.003+05:30

Hello! My name is ________. I'm 9 years old. I live with my Mummy and my Daddy.

Daddy goes to office and Mummy stays at home. Daddy often goes on tours. I miss him when he's gone, but then he brings me gifts when he returns and then I don't mind his having gone away. Daddy used to be fun when I was younger, but nowadays he gets angry if I ask him to play with me or to take me out on a vacation. Mummy is boring. She doesn't play with me. She doesn't tell me stories like they show Moms doing in TV. She keeps telling me not to make noise, not to get my clothes dirty and not to play with other children in the neighbourhood. Nor does she let me go out of the house on my own.

Mummy doesn't bring home a brother or a sister, even though I've asked her so many times.
I get bored staying at home with only my parents. Mummy and Daddy don't take me out on vacations and I have no one to play with. I want someone to play with, someone to talk to, someone to be my own. Mummy says I'm better off this way. If I had siblings I'd have to look after them and get scolded in their place.

Daddy gets transferred and we move a lot. I hate new places, new schools and new classmates. The teachers are scary and the kids make fun of me and don't play with me. Instead they point at me and talk amongst themselves. I want a friend of my own. Mummy says it doesn't matter. She says they are bad if they don't include me and I should not play with them. I am scared to go ahead and makes friend with them, and even if I do and invite someone home, Mummy scolds me for doing so. She doesn't let me play even with the servants.

We live with my Grandma now. I love this place because Grandma has 2 dogs and I play with them everyday. Mummy hates dogs but Grandma is her Mummy so she can't scold Grandma. Kids at my new school make fun of me because I don't talk to them and play only with my dogs. But I don't like talking to them. They find me boring because we have no cable TV so I don't watch serials, I don't watch movies, I don't have the latest toys and stuffs nor have I gone out for picnics or vacations. I tell them about my dogs but they don't like dogs, like Mummy. But I love my dogs. They play with me, they protect me and they don't laugh at me for not knowing things.

I'll be 10 years old next week. I have prayed to God for a brother or a sister, anyone will do. I have also asked for one best friend in my new school and one best friend near my house. I have also prayed for a dog of our own so that when we move to our new house we can take our dog with us.

I am 19 years old now. I still have no siblings, though I have stopped asking for one. I have no close friends, my classmates still find me weird, even wicked. And I have no dogs. Sometimes, I still wish I had one of the three: sibling, friend, dog. But I have got used to being alone. It's better this way, just like Mummy says.

A Lesson

2008-06-21T16:51:00.000+05:30

Grandparents are interesting only till fairy tales fascinate us. Everything about them seems like something out of a fairy tale, their silvery hair, their pale wrinkled skin, their thick glasses, their old clothes, their old stories, their old house, everything seems to have come from a world far behind us. And just as we grow up and fairy tales make way for comics and video games, so do they get replaced by school and friends and people of our times and age.

My father’s house was in village near the neighboring town only. It was pretty close considering the fact that all three of us used to go there on our brand new scooter, when I was small and light and so were my parents’ schedules. Back then my grandpa’s house seemed like a dream to me, mud house with mud tiles, rustic kids and their rustic playthings, a real big river and not a puny nullah behind the house, big fields of maize and paddy and bright fish in the well.

My grandma wasn’t quite a story teller like my Nani, and I honestly don’t remember talking much to her. She was pretty old and bent 90 degrees at the waist and was perhaps the most wizened woman I had ever seen. That’s all I remember of her. As years passed, I grew up and we all got busy. Our annual trips to the village on our two-wheeler gradually became bi-annual and then even that stopped. My parents were too busy to go, and the absence of urban pleasures kept me away.

I went again with my father, when I was in std.8. There was no occasion, not even a summer vacation. We went because my father felt I hadn’t met my grandma for a long, long time. I agreed because it was only for one day. We went, I started feeling homesick already, rustic sunsets always make me feel insecure and gloomy. Grandma was too delighted to see us so unexpectedly. She went about the house showing my father her cupboard and her belongings, her old eyes twinkling with excitement just like a little kid’s showing off his new toy.

We sat outdoors for tea, and my father and my grandma talked about all things. She was telling him about her neighborhood and my father about his. I wasn’t much of a talker then and didn’t know how to carry on a conversation. On my father’s cue I invited her to our new house, though we all knew she was never going to come. She told me her old bones would creak and why don’t I draw her a map to show her all the rooms and describe our new house? Adults would say anything! I left them to their chat and went off cycling in the fields; as if that was the sole purpose I had gone there.

When we returned home, my father asked me if I had drawn the map for her. Was I really supposed to that? Did it really matter? Grown ups sure are confusing!

Several months passed and we all got busy. One day while in school, a message came from home that my parents had to urgently go to the village for my grandma’s burial. Village? Burial? Of course people die suddenly, don’t they. My parents would be back next morning and my cousin would be staying over, I’d be safe at my home and have Chinese food for dinner and a movie to watch. I’d be bunking class now on the pretext of the burial. I wasn’t quite close to my grandma and I wasn’t really going to miss her. Why was I sad then? Genuinely sad? As if I was supposed to do something that I didn’t do? In our subconscious had we all sensed this death? Had my father known that he might never be see his mother again? Did grandma know she won’t be seeing us again, and so she should see her eldest son’s dream house through his daughter’s drawings and description? And I was cycling in the fields when I had got the chance!!

My parents returned next morning, not weeping but with grave faces. They brought home a rusted old trunk containing my father’s books and stuff from his college days. My grandma had kept preserved them carefully, not a worldly treasure but definitely an emotional one.

She had known she was going to die that night. She remembered all her children, her grandchildren and their children too. She had said a long prayer seeking blessings for every single person. For us, she had blessed that house she had badly wanted to see, she had blessed me, who never showed it to her.

I cried that night, not because I wouldn’t be seeing her again, but because I never fulfilled her wish. It must be a terrible feeling to have children but to have to yearn to see them, their family, their happiness and their accomplishments.

It is quite an old incident, but the lesson stays fresh in my mind even today. I get back to everyone who matters the world to me, and I to them.

BTBG #3

2008-06-08T15:20:00.004+05:30

Nostalgic? Amnesic? Or simply Indifferent?

2008-05-19T16:16:00.002+05:30

Its the beginning of summer, the end of college life and everywhere my kgp final year acquaintances are lamenting this fact whether its status messages in gtalk, blogs, albums in orkut or direct phone conversations, the focus is on the sad realization of having to leave close friends and a lot more.

As emotions grow heavy on them I keep wondering what is it that they love so much. And why is it that I neverfeel bad when leaving, be it school, home, college, friends or anything else?

1) Is it the lack of charm of that place or people?
2) Or is it simply my own insensitivity against being charmed that I don't feel sad on leaving something that is actually wonderful?
3) Or is it the defense mechanism of my mind to grow numb of the facts as the time to leave nears, so that I don't realize the whole fact and thus feel no sadness? (Something that comes from constant shifting from place to place and the subsequent reconditioning in childhood.)

One reason might be that my attention span and my tolerance level are too low. And the narcissist that I am, I'd love nothing more than I do myself. I get fed up with people and places very soon and start yearning to break free and move to newer territories. Its a surprise then that despite my indifference I actually have so many good memories to cherish and people who call me their friend and vice versa.

Let’s take home for instance. I’ve been brought up under so much fuss that it had become my dream to live all alone since I was in std.8. And even today I don’t miss my parents or crave for home despite the occasional bouts of loneliness and bad moods. But still I love my home and my parents and happily cherish the memories of spending summer nights outdoors with my parents, our garden and everything else without really wanting to get back to them.

Same goes for Kgp. There had been bad moments when I would get the blues and hate the place, and there would be happy moments where I had loads of fun with friends. And even today, I cherish those memories, I live those moments, vividly running through them in my mind, and yet I don’t feel like going back to Kgp or meeting those friends ever again.

Distance is a good thing because it only shows the picture’s beauty and hides all the small flaws. It’s the same with memories, they only show me the happy moments and hide all the bad things which made me hate those moments in the first place. And I know if I got back to them, I’d see all the flaws and hate even the otherwise pleasant memories.

Heck! I am getting all philosophical and boring, but the fact is that I’m like a traveler in time, enjoying the present, uncertain about the future, and collecting souvenirs from the past, never wanting to stop. The side effects: I live in those memories and don’t pay heed to reality or the present.

A Few good Men - 2

2008-04-13T09:18:00.000+05:30

Just when we start feeling we’ve seen too much of violence and evil around us and stand alert against suspicious strangers, one unexpected act of kindness catches us off guard and reminds us never to generalize people and have a pessimistic view of the world around us.

After saturating my brain with news of theft, murders, robberies, bloody street fights and all sorts of crime in the papers daily, I had begun to assume that all men of a particular kind were dangerous and perfectly hopeless, this little unexpected act really made me feel guilty for coming to such a conclusion so quickly.

9:45pm on a Friday, when I was having dinner with my flat mate, the doorbell rang. Surprise! Because no one really makes such late night visits to our place, and this was an urgent ring. My flat mate opened the door and it was our neighbour, phone in hand and worried to death. Being a s.Indian, she couldn’t understand the speaker’s rapid Hindi with a Marathi accent.

I took up the call and learnt that this stranger had picked up a cheque that our neighbor had dropped accidentally, instead of dropping it into the cheque drop box at the nearby ATM. Supposedly he took it home and called our neighbor. I thought he’s a kind soul. Sadly he was staying 3 km from our place and wanted us to pick up the cheque then and there (at 10pm!!). That’s quite impossible for us because: 1) Only girls were staying in the block. 2) None has a vehicle of her own. 3) It was 10 at night and too late to get an auto to his place. 4) He hadn’t given his proper address and it’d be pretty difficult to track him down even if we reached there somehow.

Taking charge of the situation, I asked him if we could pick up the cheque the next day at a more convenient time. No, he said, because he was going out of town the next day. Now what?
Nothing. I’ll tear off the cheque so you wouldn’t have to bother.

The nerve!! He was one oof the rudest, most irresponsible men I had ever met. Instant opinion. On top of it he had started cribbing about having to call us and his phone bill.

Cut the phone!

My neighbor tried in vain to call her male colleagues so that someone would go and take the cheque from him. Sadly she couldn’t get to anyone. So it was upto us, rather me, to negotiate. Much as I hate having to talk to men of his kind, I had to. No choice. It was a matter of 8k from a second party.

20 mins later I called back. Surprise! He agreed to come to our place. After giving him my address and directions we waited with crossed fingers. Would he, won’t he? My neighbour and my flatmate had already wondering how good he was, but I had my suspicions.

I’d call him up every 15 mins and he always had one thing or another to do. After an hour, he arrived with two friends. And yes, he had brought the cheque. And he didn’t look like the lecherous rogue I expected him to be. He sounded rude on the phone but now all three seemed polite. And they returned immediately, no complaints, nothing.

Things ended well, but I felt bad for thinking bad about them. I realized good people needn’t always sound polite and well mannered. We all have our trying times and tempers tend to foul up.

I guess I’d think twice from now on, before forming an opinion.

BTBG #2

2008-03-29T15:10:00.002+05:30

BTBG (Beyond the Blue Gates) #1

2008-03-23T13:26:00.012+05:30