Clinically Cynical

The nuisance for Influence

2011-05-31T22:46:00.000+05:30

We often tend to be too excited about certain things in life and then when the event occurs, all of a sudden all the excitement goes to cold storage, just because of some silly thing. This is what happened recently, on a scorching Friday. Along with a couple of cousins, I went to the ‘Influence Restaurant’ located at the KNK road for a rather quick lunch buffet (we’ll come to the ‘quick’ part in a bit) as there were just 4 days left for the lunch @ 199/- only offer which had been running for more than a month. A few of us (cousins) had been planning to go for the buffet since ever but every now and then the plans got cancelled due to some reason or the other. In fact, once I went to Influence with a group of friends (instead of cousins, as plans with cousins kept getting cancelled) for the same lunch buffet, but as it had to turn out, one of my cousin had predicted (wished) a bad time there for me (as I wasn’t taking her along), and so it happened, we went there (the group of friends) and figured out that there was no power and the place was as hot as an oven would be after baking for some time. So we chose to leave the place and I got back home, all disappointed and sad that, the offer will get over and I will miss out on an Influence Buffet.

So on this scorching Friday, I and a couple of cousins had finally made reservations to go for the Influence Buffet and so we did. While reserving the table, the manager mentioned ‘Sir, we won’t have power from 1-2pm, it’s the daily power cut time. Would you like to come before or after that time? We are open for buffet from 12-3.30pm’, and so since we had some other work past 2, we decided to go for an early lunch that day and decided to be there by 12.15 or so, so that we still will get 45 solid minutes for the food rampage. But as it had to be, we reached at 12.30 and every minute mattered, we thought we should rather eat fast and leave this place before the power cut, or we will be fried in the heat(they dint seem to have a generator or an inverter). But we started off trying not to hurry up too much, so that we dint spoil the experience, but still eyes were always looking at the clock after every single bite of the delicious but cold starters. The food and the service were overall good, except for the starters which got cold even though the air conditioners were switched on, only after we entered the restaurant.

The thing which really ruined my mood throughout the lunch though was not the fact that the starters were cold ( I dint care as much for that as they still tasted nice), nor the fact that we had to eat fast ( it wasn’t really the case, 45 minutes is sufficient time to eat, when you are not talking as much, we cousins were sure why we were there ;) ), but I got irritated and felt stupid for having been behind this lunch plan for close to a month, because as we were munching on our food, my eyes kept looking at the entry door of the restaurant, as not even a single other customer had walked into the restaurant except for us and that made me feel miserable. How was I supposed to be happy and excited when I realized that, I was the only one behind this lunch buffet, no one else cared about it, to turn up to the restaurant for close to one hour we spent there and to make things worse the waiter mentioned that this is not a limited period offer, the lunch buffet usually costs only this much!

I was so thrilled about this whole 199/- buffet as I was told that the buffet at influence is generally priced at 500/-, so I thought its better to grab the opportunity while it is available now. But after I walked out of the restaurant, I realized that while having the buffet my mind was thinking, ‘what a waste of money, no one around in the restaurant’, and then I comforted myself by the fact that the food was good and it was well worth paying 199/-, but still the fact that I had lunch at a place where no one seemed to have bothered to turn up while I had made advance reservations, made me feel the whole exercise was trivial. That’s how I guess we human beings are, we need to show off, to see people, to be seen by people and what not!

Today’s Favorite Line – "Do what you can, with what you have, where you are." - Theodore Roosevelt

Today’s Favorite Song – Bhaag DK Bose (Delhi Belly)

10 reasons why Kasab shouldn’t be hanged

2011-05-28T14:08:00.000+05:30

Recently a top security agency (Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP)) of the country sent a 11 Crore bill to the Maharashtra Government for the security they have provided to the state of Maharashtra and the city of Mumbai in particular as it serves as a domicile for the only caught & kept alive terrorist of the 26/11 attacks. There have been wide ranging debates in the country with regard to the amount of the bill sent by the agency and more importantly on the fact that Ajmal Kasab who inhumanely murdered dozens of civilians and cops, most of which was captured live on CCTV camera’s but still Ajmal Kasab lives a life of dignity and safety right in the heart of the financial capital of the city. Why is Kasab not hanged yet, has been the question doing rounds across social networking sites?

Upon asking this question to fellow social networkers, the tone seemed to change from anger and frustration to hopelessness, pity and mercy and that’s how the following 10 reasons for ‘why kasab shouldn’t be hanged’ have been arrived.

Helps in creating employment – A lot of people felt that, we should all be thankful to Kasab that, in the process of providing security to him, our country is able to generate a lot of employment for its youth (the ones who couldn’t make it even to the IT/BPO industry finally can try their luck here). While countries like the US where unemployment rates have been increasing gradually year over year, and bringing which under control was a huge challenge. US understood this phenomenon long back and started encouraging its youth to join the country’s defense forces and in turn posted them at far off nations in the name of ‘war on terror’ and smartly tackled the unemployment problem to an extent, India seems to be replicating that model to an extent, thanks to Kasab.

Pakistani version of Veer Zaara in the making – Ajmal Kasab seems to be the Pakistani version of Shahrukh Khan of Veer Zaara, just like how Shahrukh khan languished in the Pakistani prison in the movie Veer Zaara, kasab has been used by the Pakistani film industry to play the role of Shahrukh khan in the Pakistani remake. The film is being produced by the ISI and Pakistan government together and India can’t afford to cause a revenue loss to its neighbor Pakistan by hanging kasab, it will lead to huge revenue loss for the Pakistani government. The role of Preity Zinta is being played by the now infamous Veena Malik of the Big Boss fame. Big Boss was just an instrument to get into India officially, but she actually got into Big Boss to be able to complete the shoot for the Pakistani version of Veer Zaara while she was in India

Prison Break India – Indian television industry is known to copy the formats of television shows from across the world and present it as an Indian show just like it did with the Indian Idol, X Factor, KBC and many others. This time a very big banner has plans to make Prison Break India, while the setting for the show is perfect as Kasab is locked up and is most likely to get ‘death’ unless either some miracle happens or Prathibha Patil happens to go to her office (only then she would be able to sanction the mercy plea no?). Casting for the Wentworth Miller part is on, since Pakistan has disowned kasab, producers are in discussions with Sunny Deol for the role, so that he can either break out Kasab or get “taarikh pe taarikh” to save kasab. Indian television scene will change forever if this version of Prison Break India hits homes especially with Kasab & Sunny in lead.

Finally something for PPP to look forward to – PPP has been one of the low key people in the country despite the fact that PPP could have been the most active and talked about person in the country just like her predecessor. Now since that hasn’t happened through any other diplomatic way, the only way to get PPP have something on her table and to make her to go to office and still make the country sure of her presence and significance, we don’t have any choice but to send the mercy plea of Kasab to her office, as, if the Supreme court orders a death sentence, only President Pratibha Patil(PPP) has a say over and above that. So the only way we have left with us to remind PPP of her position and power, Kasab’s mercy plea has to be delivered to her table.

Jail Brands - The Tihar has now become the most high profile prison in the country, as a result of that the Arthur road prison where Kasab has been lodged, has lost its brand value, the only way to still keep it in the top 10, is by keeping Kasab there till we are able to get a high profile prisoner in there. If kasab is hanged, then the Arthur road prison might lose out on the only high profile international celebrity it is host to and its rankings might plummet to an all time low, therefore the only way forward to make sure of a good ranking, is to keep kasab alive and at Arthur Road. So much for ranking. Phew!! (I guess that’s a fairly simple thing, we see IIPM on newspapers everyday!)

Savings on Motivational training costs – For the hundreds of prisoners lodged in Arthur road and other prisons of the country, the jail authorities must be conducting a lot of motivational and other behavioral trainings, costing them a fortune. If kasab is kept alive, that itself will be a huge motivation and inspiration for most of the prisoners. Their faith in the Indian judiciary system will also increase. Just by keeping Kasab alive and kicking (Indian judiciaries ass), he will be able to send clear signals to the rest of the prison community that, ‘no matter what you do, you wont get punished, death is out of question, I am in fact being served delicious food, nice clothes and a personal room to myself’, such words of his itself work wonders for the rest of the prison community when they realize that nothing could go wrong for them as nothing went wrong even for such a dreaded terrorist like kasab and the prison authorities directly save a lot of costs on motivational training programs it would otherwise have to conduct.

Indian Judiciary’s reputation – Lets say the Indian courts end up giving a verdict on Kasab in the life time of a child born on the ‘26/11 attack day’, then that would act as a major remark on the reputation of the Indian judiciary which is very well known and proud over its, in a century per verdict rate of giving verdicts record. While, only close to a few million cases are pending, a quick verdict for a case of such kind in nature will act as a major black spot on the already black dress and the blind fold of the judiciary. We cannot afford to affect the judiciary’s reputation for the sake of one stupid boy gone out of his mind in a young age case.

Best Seller ‘The Kasab Story’ – If Kasab gets to remain in the prison for a few more decades(years), there is a high chance he might decide to pen down his own story which would obviously become a best seller, giving Indians the much anticipated inside story and the gossip. And then we can confer the booker or some other gallantry award to Kasab for his faith in jihad and more importantly for his survival even though there were (are) all the evidences to prove him guilty and hang him immediately. We can’t afford to miss a best seller book and a deserving gallantry award winner. There cannot be anyone who is braver than Kasab currently on the Indian soil! Killing herds of people, getting caught red handed and still living a life of pride, and making the judiciary dance around his statements as and when he likes.

India’s ‘humanitarian values’ pride - It gives India an edge over the US in matters of war on terror, India can claim itself as being more considerate in its war on terror approach as it has captured Kasab alive and kept him alive while US couldn't capture Osama alive and had also hanged Saddam unceremoniously. For India to remain at the top in the humanitarian countries list, India has no other choice but to be considerate of kasab, his young age and ignorance, so that it can at least top one of the world lists (India is not top in the corruption list also, its 87^th – surprising!).

Dialogue with Pakistan – Now that we have Kasab in an Indian prison, we still are engaging with Pakistan, talking, pissing each other off, snubbing, accusing each other and many other such acts once in a while. If Kasab is hanged, then Pakistan will have nothing to disown and then own in India (except for Kashmir & may be Adnan Sami), so to keep the dialogue with Pakistan on, at various love - hate levels, India needs to keep Kasab alive and talking!

I hope the above 10 reasons are worthy enough for us to be convinced to keep Kasab away from the hanging area, but if you think you aren’t still convinced then take a bonus 11^th reason and that will satisfy your appetite I hope.

Hangman Mamu Sigh died on 20^th May 2011 – The only hangman in the country who mustered the courage to come forward and declare that he was ready to hang Kasab any time if the verdict was out, without any remorse or fear, died recently without fulfilling his last living wish. Now that the only hangman who was daring enough to do this is no more, how are we going to hang kasab? Do you think any other qualified hang person in the country has the courage to go ahead and pursue this act? So, now even if the verdict for kasab is death, there is no way we can do it, sigh! Live Kasab Live!

P.S. - The above piece is not in any way trying to validate why kasab shouldn’t be hanged, but it attempts to bring forward the absurdities around us and how they can be linked to kasab, to still make these silly things, reasons enough to let kasab free from death, using simple satire. Sarcasm being a potent tool in this piece, I hope you could feel how an average Indian badly wants kasab to be prosecuted.

Today’s Favorite Line – "If we did all the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves." - Thomas Edison

Today’s Favorite Song – Ishq na karioy kake (Pyar ka panchnama)

The Tihar Times

2011-05-05T19:20:00.000+05:30

Special Correspondent Thursday, 05-05-2011

(The content in italics is author’s work, while the rest are parts of different news articles)

Tihar jail complex, a correctional facility at the Tihar village in Delhi, is South Asia's largest prison, with more than 12,000 inmates. An unprecedented number of well-known persons are currently lodged in Tihar, pending trial and forced into a uniformly spartan lifestyle the jail offers its wards.

The list includes former telecom minister A Raja, his right-hand man R K Chandolia, Commonwealth Games chief organizer Suresh Kalmadi, his close associates Lalit Bhanot and V. K.Verma, mega-rich entrepreneurs such as DB Realty's Shahid Balwa and Vinod Goenka, Unitech's Sanjay Chandra, and Reliance Telecom's Gautam Doshi, Surendar Pippara, Hari Nair and several other prominent people.

Lalit Bhanot and V K Verma, both accused in the CWG scams, are seen chatting with R. K. Chandolia quite often but after five more accused in the 2G scam arrived in the jail later, it has become one big group and they all are seen talking to each other in the premises of Ward Number 4 of Jail Number 3 (as Jail Number 2 which has sections from A to G is full with the 2G loot money), the sources added. "Apart from talking to each other, we have not seen them talking to any other prisoner. The new under trials have not made any demands as of now, except for cash counting machines and duplicate note detector “said a jail source.” They all are following the jail schedule. They wake up at 6am, have their breakfast, read newspapers and then chat with each other while counting as much cash as they can per day without talking about the ratio of their shares(they shall settle that outside the courts, to avoid dumping too many cases on the already super fast Indian courts).

Sources say that Mr. Raja, has been the least demanding of prisoners as he’s been busy calculating and figuring out how much money has been stashed with whom and where. “Inside the jail, no one is a VIP. High-profile prisoners are not given any extra facilities unless ordered by the court (which of course fears Ram Jethmalani, especially after what he did to Karan Thappar),”

There were no juices and nutritional breakfast for five corporate executives and they are having paranthas(with extra cheese of course) in the jail's canteen for breakfast and mess food during lunch and dinner, which comprises daal(makhani with special lasan da tadka), roti(either tandoori or rumali depending on mood), sabzi(navratan kurma and varieties of panner with a portion of malai kofta generally) and rice(Hyderabadi biryani specially parceled from Hyderabad arrives every day in Raja’s new charter). They have each been lodged in separate 10x15 feet self-contained cells (with toilet and bathroom, of course centrally air conditioned with a high definition LED TV with a Tata Sky connection, ‘isko laga dala toh life jinga lala’) in Jail Number 3. The security of their cells is also higher than for the other prisoners as they are expected to have carried huge sums of cash with them, which they probably did not find time to count earlier.

Now let’s take a look at each of the high profile inmate’s life at Tihar.

Suresh Kalmadi – Mr.Kalmadi being the latest entrant to Tihar has been found observing the Tihar jail very carefully since he has walked in and sources have seen him talking to the long time residents of Tihar. Upon questioning people whom Kalmadi had a tete a tete with, sources found that he was planning on converting Tihar to another games village, so that the Tihar Jail could host the first ever ‘Tihar Sharewealth Games’ (TSG), All the inmates are assured a chance to participate in the games as all participants are expected to get a cash prize of 1 Crore on registration for the event. Upon being asked about the funding for the same, Kalmadi seemed to be quite in control of things indicating a sponsorship deal with the corporate big wigs including DB Realty's Shahid Balwa and Vinod Goenka, Unitech's Sanjay Chandra, and Reliance Telecom's Gautam Doshi being the event sponsors while A.Raja assured to be the Title Sponsor for the mega event.

Lalit Bhanot – On the other hand Mr.Lalit Bhanot the former Secretary General of CWG Delhi 2010 was allotted a dirt-caked cell, a mattress stained with dog paw prints and a sink smeared with the spittle of chewing tobacco. Lalit still seemed to be quite happy with what he got as he thought it was still really a high standard thing in India and he felt privileged to get such nice accommodation especially after his comment on Indian hygiene in September 2010.

A.Raja - A.Raja was seen complaining to the Tihar inmates (some of whom were Dalits) that he was targeted because he was a Dalit and ensured this way that he had some support for him inside this new 2G haven he secured for himself after years of planning and hard work. Some of the inmates seemed to be really happy as they were able to meet one of India’s richest men (quickest) which otherwise would never have been possible. When a close inmate of Raja, pointed to him that, his aide Sadiq Batcha in his note wrote that he blamed nobody for his death, but that he was embarrassed by "raids and media limelight over the 2G spectrum scam." He also wrote that Mr Raja and his wife "are good people." To which Raja seemed to have whispered, “How could I have asked him to write poorly about me, Tell?”

R.K. Chandolia - Former telecom minister A Raja's private secretary RK Chandolia had threatened several Tihar officials to ensure grant of the royal suite of Tihar to Shahid Balwa of Swan Telecom as he thought it fit to ensure special allocation for his old client as he hadn’t done enough for him for the amount he received from him, so he is still trying to make good for the payment received and convince Balwa that he isn’t a Namak Halal!

As we go for print, a source close to Raja told us that, while the others were a little sad and bored all this while with not much to do at Tihar, A.Raja seemed to be quite excited since a couple of days. Sources close to him confirmed to us that it had to do with Kanimozhi having her trial in the SC. Raja hoped to unite with her again at Tihar, hoping Tihar authorities will provide a separate 2G cell for the couple who have been talked about by the whole nation for quite long.

The source also added that, the first movie Kani and Raja watched together was 7G Rainbow Colony (Hit Tamil Film) and as a result of which they chose the 2G spectrum allocation as an opportunity to use that as a sign of their togetherness, leading to they taking the 7G worth of share from the allocation and leaving the exchequer poorer. What an idea 2G!!!

© The Tihar Times

Today’s Favorite Line – Poor and Content is Rich and Rich Enough.

Today’s Favorite Song – Tu Salaamat Rahe (Adnan Sami)

It’s complicated and you are over rated!

2011-04-29T19:22:00.000+05:30

The harder I try, the more difficult you seem to me truly,

Oh baby, I am yet to understand you fully.

Trending is what people around you try,

But most of the times you talk high and dry.

I've spent a lot of time with you all this while,

At times you made me smile, at other times it wasn't worth the while.

Your yapping never stops,

As I watch one thing you say, another one pops.

Every now & then I move away, you build up a pile (of chatter),

I am always careful with what (how much) I say to you, as you seem to be fragile.

You seem to attract a lot of people hi – fi,

Otherwise who would never even pass by.

Once I sang for you a jingle, expecting that would make us mingle,

But guess what, you made me feel even more terrible.

When it comes to lying you are not really a quitter,

And to measure your honesty I don't have a meter.

Your sarcasm makes me feel so much better,

But while you are rude, you seem so bitter.

But when you are funny you are far more sweeter,

That's what makes you so complicated my dear TWITTER.

P.S. – These set of lines were just to highlight how a girlfriend and twitter if both looked together seem to have so many similarities in their attitudes and their acts. This piece can be used to explain either of them, no?

Today’s Favorite Line – We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars – Oscar Wilde

Today’s Favorite Song – From this moment (Shania Twain)

The World Cup – IPL Connect

2011-04-24T13:41:00.000+05:30

The world cup victory for

India

has been a great reason for the whole nation to stand up together and cherish the historic moment that came to us after close to 3 decades. All of us alive and kicking can now claim that we now know how it feels to have won a world cup. Amidst all these happy conversations and celebrations there were a set of, half educated, multi regional friends sitting together a week post the world cup win sipping their cans of Coca Cola (Brrrrrrrrrrrrr…!!) discussing the world cup win and on going IPL -4 and the connection between these two (if at all their could be one). There obviously have been wide ranges of discussions and arguments across the country as to who we won this world cup for? And who has got us to win this world cup? And who deserves the world cup the most in the country? For reasons more than one. This being the back drop of the conversation lets find out what these friends actually got into.

The Jharkhandi – Tum saala log, all shut up a, tum sab bawle ho gaye ke? iph not phor abar Dhoni, do you think abar team boould have played as a team? It ij hiz leadership skhills thate ghot us the borld cup. Donut phorget the captains knock in the phinal.

The Punjab da sher – Oye puttar, chup ho jao oye! If our launda yubraj not playing so well in all the matches, sadi team would have never won! Chak de patthe, nap ke killi, yuvraj ne khela aur le aaya world cup dilli!!!! Burrrraaaaahh!!

The Delhiite – Bakwaas band karo bae, aiyvain kuch bhi speak ae ja rahe ho! If our Sehwag did not give the team great starts and if our gambhir & virat did not take care of the middle order, none of your guys would have mattered. Aakhir toh sabne rashtrapati bhavan hi aana tha na?!

The Bengali – ami kya bolte ae, our Dada was the one who brought the winning spirit in to Indian kirket, and you jhealous people threw him out of the team? Ah! He is the man who still supported the team from the commentary box nay!

The Marathi – Tusa maila, bluddy north Indians salaa, listen up. From Bollywood to Hollywood, from BSE to NYSE, everything big in our country happens either because of or by a maharashtrian, in this case it was done phor Sachin and bhy Sachin. Jai Maharashtra manus!!

The Madrasi – Ennada rascala, our player played so well, he still wasn’t given many chances, you rascallas discriminating with a tammillah for a weird maliyali, we deserved better treatment. In fact this winning squad was chosen by our own tammillah Srikanth only no? he won a world cup himself & now selected a winning team! Mind it!!

The Maliyali – You see, our sreesanth had paid the coast of being hit bed(read - bad) in the phirst match by not playing in so many maetchess, see he broght luck to the team in the phinal and he bowled well also no? tell no? now what happened? Poor hard warking phello being thargetthed

The Kaanadica – saaru, wait saaru, our dravid and kumble sacrificed their place in the team for the juniors and our mallya spending so much money, he getting deepika every time to watch the match and keep the fellows entertained. Think saaru, thinnnnk!!

The Hyderabadi Nawab – Kya miiyan, kya bolte tume, humara Andhra se koi player world cup mein ich nai khela miiyan, hume kaiko team mein jagaich nahi diye miiyan! We still contributed to the world cup win miiyan, tume aisa nako karo miiyan. Bawa tum world cup humeinich dedo bawa!

As this conversation went on, each of these friends realized they now had reached a point where they needed to symbolically decide who actually would take home the honors of being called the key to our world cup win. As the arguments given by each of them were interesting, they couldn’t come to a conclusion as to who deserved to hold the world cup for the nation and that’s when these cricket freaks decided that, any how all 15 members of the world cup squad represent one or the other key cities of the country both demographically and in terms of their IPL side. Therefore they decided to dedicate the world cup to the team (city/state) that wins the IPL as each of these world cup winning players play a key role in the sides they play for in the IPL. And that’s the connect, each of the leading contributor to the world cup win is representing or playing a big role in each of the ten IPL teams. Sachin, Sehwag, Gambhir, Dhoni and Yuvraj each of them lead Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkatta, Chennai and Pune respectively, while Virat, Sreesanth, Dravid, Chawla and Ishant represent Banglore, Kochi, Rajasthan, Punjab and Hyderabad respectively fighting to claim the world cup for some city or the other that has contributed great cricketers to the country in the build to this world cup win.

No matter how we Indians try to claim supremacy over the other states or regions, we all inherently know, in the hour of need, we are all one. Especially when we tend to take the game of cricket even more passionately than any other thing in the world, that now our players represent any state in the IPL and not necessarily their own! Our divide is just in the talks, not in the hearts and that’s where cricket connects our country better than anything else, be it the world cup or the IPL!

Today’s Favorite Line – The minute you settle for less than you deserve, is the minute you get less than you settled for.

Today’s Favorite Song – Its You (Ryan Cabrera)

The difficulty in being GOD

2011-04-23T13:23:00.001+05:30

We humans always tend to ask GOD, why is he so unfair to us all the time, why hasn’t he given us all the things that we wished to have and prayed to him for, and so on, the list goes on. There are some of us who are already grateful to him for what we have and like to thank him for having given us far more than what we deserve.

But have we ever wondered how difficult a job it is to be sitting in the hot seat of ‘The GOD’? He has so many choices for every decision he takes. So many suggestions, requests and recommendations keep pouring in into his office day and night from different corners of the world and he still has to make a decision without being logically wrong, without having to lose his fanfare and more importantly, still providing a point of view that convinces us that his decision was right and the best that could have been pronounced in the given context.

The God has millions of people communicating (praying) with him every moment from different parts of the world asking more or less for the same things and this poor fellow god has to use some random matrix to figure out who out of the current devotee’s should get a wish fulfilled now. For instance at any average moment most of the people who are praying are asking the god for one of these things more often than not.

Happiness (for themselves and their near and dear ones)

Money (or other material things that could be pursued using that money)

Good Health (their own or of some one who isn’t doing well)

Success (last but not the least, be it in terms of business, exams or any other field)

Now the trouble that god is put into in such a situation is by the fact that the population of the world has quadrupled and he has a limited supply of all these things with him at any given point in time. Therefore he uses some complex matrix to figure out how to deal with the current set of prayers and starts by looking at certain basic factors and parameters to take care of the difficult situation.

He compares and contrasts the level of devotion each of his followers has and based on that he decides who among them would get the desired.
The next factor that he considers is, who among them has higher patience levels, and so he fulfills the wish of the one whose patience levels are low as he knows the other guys can still persevere.
He then also considers other factors like, when was the last time he fulfilled a wish of the people in question and so he checks the record books to compare and contrast the details of the wishes fulfilled of the people in consideration.
Then he looks at the quantum & the kind of wish this time and how eligible is the person to get the desired this time around.
And then he actually has to refer to his world planner and zoom it to that particular persons position on something like a Google map with a human view, to see, what is that he had actually planned for the person. And then he has to decide whether he would like to change the plan to suit the current prayer of the person or would he still like to continue with the original plan that he had charted out for the person, also depending on other prayers that have connection with the person’s prayer.

This is just a sneak peek into the kind of trouble we humans put god into through our daily prayers and wishes. This is just a partial list of things he has to go through to consider each of our prayers, after also carefully considering the quantum of offerings (bribe in form of nariyals, prasad and cash) we provide every time we pray. That’s why I guess there is a saying in hindi that goes on as “tum ek paisa doge, who das lakh dega” (if you give 1 paise, he will give you ten lakhs) and so we humans pursue the so called donation ritual with or without genuine interest, as this one statement really drives us hard into committing this holy offense (bribery). But what else is the choice that the poor god has, he needs some metric to measure your devotion and reliance on him and this bribery is just one of the small insignificant ways of measuring the same amidst the gigantic difficulties we have put him into, to decide and dictate the course through which every individual has to go through.

If by now, you have understood to an extent, how all your prayers are summing up as a massive problem for god, leading to him, not being able to focus on basic day to day activities and the well being of all the living beings. And how, he instead has to spend so much additional time on attending to all your prayers. And planning to change the course of action if need be depending on the real time data available to him through such prayers and offerings.

Kindly be kind to him and limit your prayers only to very essential things so that you help reducing the ever building pressure on him to perform and you rather let him continue his usual activities for the general welfare of the average living being. So instead of being self centered always and spending all time praying for yourself, seeking all of gods attention, think of rest of the world too, you meany!

P.S – This obviously is in continuation to the periodic god bashing I have been indulging in, looking at things in a rather naïve way and putting them across with certain subtleties which should be taken light heartedly rather than thinking of them as offensive statements or remarks. Most of the things stated above are facts of life, looked at from a different angle all together. Hope, you chuckled at least ones, even if you are furious at me at the end of it!

Today’s Favorite Line – You can't always get what you want. But if you try sometimes, you might find, you get what you need. - Rolling Stones

Today’s Favorite Song – Koi Kahe, Kehta Rahe (Dil Chahta Hai)

That Awkward Moment

2011-04-14T01:18:00.000+05:30

It was a usual tuesday evening, busy roads, annoying honkers, humid outdoors and a city that was as boring as it could get. Ever. He had just reached his training center, on time as always; he trained aspirants to prepare for aptitude tests as a freelance trainer. He had been doing that for close to a year, he was neither a master at what he was doing, nor did he ever plan to/ think of doing it. Still he was doing just fine, not too good but not too bad also. How could he have known that this was not going to be a usual evening?

As he entered the centre and looked around the place he saw a few newly enrolled students sitting in the waiting area. One of them in the group of 3-4 girls sitting in the waiting area seemed like a familiar face, but not sure of when, where and who, He chose to think about it before trying to approach her to clarify or find out if she recognized him. It had been a while and he still wasn't sure, so he entered the class and decided to get to business instead of breaking his head over who the person was and why did she look so familiar while he wasn't able to recollect how he knew her and what her name was. He was very sure he had seen her many many times but not recently, which should have been months or years ago. But when? Where? He wasn't sure, so he started the proceedings of the class. The girl entered the class too, much to his irritation, as her presence would only lead to, him not being able to concentrate on the class. But he dint have a choice, he had to try and control his wandering brain, which finally gave him a fantabulous idea.

He thought 'how about taking an intro of the whole batch?’ that would automatically get him some details about the girl and would probably get him an answer to the nagging questions running in his mind. So he created an excuse to make all of them introduce themselves, though he was interested only in that one girls intro, not that she was pretty, he dint even want to talk to her or something, the only reason he wished to know about her was to be able to get those annoying questions out of his head. He listened to all of their intro's and tried to act as if he really paid attention, but as much as he would have wanted to have that girls intro first he ended up giving her a turn in the end, the wait was making him impatient, and as the wait came to an end and as she uttered her name, every single question he had in his mind was answered, she kept talking about certain other things but he wasn't paying attention, he already had the complete history of the girl's association with him in front of him, his memory slot finally started working, as if the moment a file name is searched, the computer opens all the folders that contain that name, his brain opened all folders that contained her name and he immediately chuckled in amazement and let the remaining class just be while he started talking to the girl to find out if at least she had recognized him, which she obviously did not and so he quickly uttered a few sentences and names to build the connect and there it was 'The Awkward Moment'

The girl was none other than a batch mate of his, with whom he had prepared for the same aptitude test he was now training aspirants on, for the last one year. They were members of a gang of 6 people who used to prepare for the test together for hours, days and months together 6 years ago, helping each other on each others weaknesses to do well in the most coveted management aptitude test. This girl used to help him to understand a lot of things he dint know about along with the others and today he was standing on the other side of the room teaching the same friend some of the things that he in fact learnt from her. Could there be a situation more awkward in life? He had never felt so nervous while taking a class, not even in his first class, but this was different, he kind of stammered, confidence went down to an all time low, the face expression which should have ideally been ecstatic for having found a friend after half a decade became weird. This friend knew how pathetic his knowledge on the subject he was going to teach was! He wasn't sure what she was thinking or how she would react but his blood stopped flowing, That 'awkward' moment.

Today’s Favorite Line – ‘Once bitten twice shy’ is a lot better than ‘once shy bitten twice’

Today’s Favorite Song – Tune mere jana

With 'Like' to my Dear Friend Facebook

2011-02-04T14:07:00.002+05:30

Dear Facebook,

I am feeling a little weird while writing this letter to you, as I could have simply posted on your wall but I rather chose this way to express my gratitude to you for being such a nice friend to me. It’s been quite some time now since we've become friends studying in the same school ''The school for bored & nothing to doers'', you've been the dearest amongst all my friends so far. I've always fell back on you when ever I’ve felt lonely and bored, you've given me your shoulder to rest on and your wall to post on, when ever I needed either of them. In fact since I've met you I don’t think I've spent as much time with all my other friends put together in comparison to the amount of time I've spent with you.

The time spent with you is not dull or boring even for a moment as you provide innumerable ways for me to entertain myself when with you. I hardly used to have a few friends before I met you, but now my friends list keeps growing everyday, I am glad I have more than 300 friends (thanks to you) now and I can get in touch with them as and when I like to, I can also 'like' or comment on what they have to say or do. It’s nice that I get to spend most of my time with my friends while you are around; you always stay back for me. There's something I need to tell you, I think for what I am today in terms of my social life, all the credit goes to you and your networking skills. None of my other friends have had more than 500 friends at any point in their life but you seem to be universes apart from them as you boost the friendship of 500 million people across the globe, also giving me an opportunity to make as many friends as I like to through you.

Your friendship has had such an effect on my life that I even end up spending more time with you than my girlfriend and even most of the time spent with her is when you are around rather than time alone with her. While you are around I can give her all the fake smiley’s which I ideally wouldn't be able to give her while we are together physically or talking on phone, you've made life so better for me my friend. Now I don't even have to buy her expensive stuff every now and then, I can just do that with you through some applications. And you know what, last night I threw a bottle of champagne on her that made her happy and I also got her, her birthday cake with you and we celebrated it with you cos we were miles away and you my friend made this celebration possible that too with me having to spend nothing, absolutely nothing and for a change she did not crib about it. Now my girl friend doesn't get pissed off even if I don't spend too much time being physically present with her, nor does she mind if I am with my other friends, as I am always in touch with her through your mobile version. We are with one another every moment even as I get to enjoy my freedom like before.

One other thing that makes you an out of the league friend is the fact that you are the richest friend I have and I don't believe I will ever be able to make a richer friend than you. And so I request you to be my friend forever and please don't change ever for the worse like our ex classmate Orkut did just after you joined our school and we became friends. Poor fellow couldn't take the pain of seeing all his friends moving away towards you and got an F in the semester exams leading to his restigation from the school due to relative marking system adopted by the school from that year. He used to be a dear friend once up on a time but as time passed he couldn't keep up with us. All the rest of us grew up in age and maturity while he remained as he was, leading to his name being dropped from the school due to lack of performance and a laid back attitude. It’s nice to see that you are not like him, you give your best in everything you do and are always proactive (suggesting friends, adding features and applications) to stay at the top of things.

I overheard someone last week saying that you are worth $50 Billion today; I haven't had rich friends before so I am not sure how to keep you happy but I try my best to remain in your best books, so, I 'like' everything that you post/like, I share everything that you share and I add all the applications that you add, if that counts (all these things I also do to a lot of other friends, to seek attention, if you know what I mean).

Anyways I just had a few requests (points) to make before I close this letter to you, hope you would consider them in your free time.

Why don’t you add a ‘dislike’ option for comments and posts? There are a lot of people who do and say dim-witted stuff and they need to know how the rest of us feel!!
Isn’t it stupid when someone likes their own status or comment themselves? Why don’t you disable that kind of an option? It will help save a lot of irritation.
Like I said I over heard someone saying you are worth $50 billion and I also know that you don’t have a family per say and we your friends are your only family, as we’ve always been there with you and for you. So when and how do you plan to share your fortunes with us? I don’t think we are being greedy, are we? Aren’t we a crucial reason behind your success and popularity? I just happened to calculate and each of us are worth $100 a piece at this moment, my heartfelt thanks in advance, in case you are planning to write us a check some time.
Though you are so rich why do you always dress up in just a blue t-shirt(top) and white pyjamas(bottom)? Are you trying to be a simple person like Warren Buffet or something? Why don’t you get yourself something nice to wear? I know you won’t take anything as a gift from us in real.L (not even a template? :D)
Last but not the least, why did you choose to share the information of your friends (us) with third parties? Aren’t you supposed to safe guard our privacy and interests? What if your third world (party) friends misuse our private information? We are not happy with this decision of yours my friend, please reconsider the same, we are not interested in your third world friends, it would be a great feat for us even if we can manage a small fraction of your first world friends.

Hope you agree with me on some of the points above, anyways I just wanted to tell you how important a place you have gained in my life and how you are so different from all my other friends, hope you feel the same way about me too. Please write back soon to me and needless to say, don’t forget to post this letter on your wall and ‘Like’ it on mine.

Best Regards,

Loner

Today’s Favorite Line – Don't be content with Average because average is just as close to the bottom as it is to the top.

Today’s Favorite Song – More Than a Friend (Michael Learns to Rock)

Ancestral Bubble - Is Now World's Trouble.

2011-02-03T15:58:00.000+05:30

The most awaited event of the year 2011 is obviously neither the next release of Rajnikant nor the IPL (not even the cricket world cup for that matter). The year 2011 will be remembered in the history of humanity for a similar but larger feat than the one in the year 1999. In 1999 the world supposedly witnessed the birth of the 6 billionth living human and in late 2011 we are going to witness the birth of the 7 billionth living human (in fact certain agencies are coming up with precise date and time and one lucky person would be given the honor of being the 7 billionth!!). The planet earth is having to bear the load of 7 billion creatures with 5 senses or more and all the nuisance they come up with day in and day out. We have environmental issues, climate change, inflation, poverty, unemployment, greed, ego, racism and a hundred other issues to be taken care of, and as the worlds population increases these problems are only going to increase manifold.

Could we have avoided this situation through some precautionary measures some time in the history of humanity? I guess the answer is yes, if our ancestors would have been rational and practical mainly. If we have such a huge population base today it’s our ancestors who are to be blamed. You must be wondering why am I so anti ancestral?

Just try and understand the following argument to realize what led to what and why we are in such an awful situation today. Most of our forefathers and the generations that followed have had 5+ children (There are a lot of them I know of who can form a cricket team) and those children have had their own families and then their children their own families and so on. The family tree kept growing, so did the population, without realizing the fact that their actions will lead to serious issues for the generations to come and it would in fact become a threat to their own family members of the future generation.

Now lets just say that our fore fathers were rational and conservative and had control over their actions by limiting the number of children to 2 or 3, at least 40%(a random guesstimate) of the population that the world has been a host to whether living or dead today might have never been there leading to layers of generations later on. And the number 7 billion that we are talking about today would have been a distant dream. All the troubles that we have to go through today would either have been non existent or we would not have been a part of the human species to witness the same.

Now that we are talking about restraint and family planning, if some of these things would have been put into the heads of our ancestors, may be the world would have been a far better place to live in today.

The question to which I don't seem to discover an answer while thinking about the whole population explosion thing is the rational or logic behind our ancestors wanting to have too many children, what joy did they get? Most of them were neither well off, nor had sufficient resources to take care of their children and their well being. Then why did they have to burden themselves with more people to take care of leading to more expenses and worries there of? As a result of actions of these ancestors that we are talking about a lot of their children remained uneducated, were subjected to child labor, made multiple sacrifices every now and then, always lived for a share in the pie and in some cases lacked proper care and upbringing leading to not so happy lives (this is strictly my assumption, though if this question is raised to any of the elder generations the answer would be totally opposite).

Did our forefathers not see the population explosion coming up? Were they so well to do that they assumed their earnings would serve the generations to come? I think the answer to the second question is an affirmative No, while to the first one it might be a no or a may be as our forefathers themselves faced lack of resources, so from where did they get a ray of hope that the situation might improve? I guess if they had a chance to go back in time and rewrite their life's story, it would be a completely different tale and state of affairs all together. Anyways now that our futures are in jeopardize, at least may their souls rest in peace. And the ones who are still breathing – "You Two, Ours One" is the way forward (as the Chennai auto’s convey) i guess.

P.S. – The trigger for this write up was this article on TOI a few days back. The family trees above were made by the author for the purpose of illustration. Only four generations have been shown in the illustration as the author feels a maximum of four generations may only see the light of the day in a century and its sufficient to consider a century in the context being discussed.

Today's Favorite Line - "Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Today's Favorite Song - What about now (West Life)

The Gods Must Be Crazy

2011-02-01T13:49:00.001+05:30

If you were a conscious middle class consumer or if you have attended a marketing course, you would have realized that we in India have more car brands than say tooth paste brands, though the fact is that there are more people in the country who must be using a tooth paste than the number of people who buy/ travel in a car. Now if this fact has come to you as a surprise, then you'll be astonished to realize the fact that we in India have far more number of GOD brands than any other product or commodity brands and obviously so because the customer base is huge, in fact the largest in this category.

Just start counting the number of gods small or big you pray to, on an average on any given day. I won't be surprised even if you come up with a number that's greater than a dozen. The product god is the most carefully studied, researched and delivered product, or is it? The number of brands of this product must be running in hundreds and in fact certain brands have their own extensions and sub categories. Still there is hardly any cannibalization, actually there is no fear of cannibalization as multiple units/ brands can be used at any point in time, so margins might not really get affected much unless and until there is a huge let down by a brand. And in fact every now and then a lot of new brands are being launched in some part of the country or other. Some reach the masses quickly; others take a little time while certain others prefer to remain in their own territory. Starting a new brand is quite easy as no mega budget is required, just a 2 by 2 feet space and a trick or two would do to get started with. Expansions can be taken care of later as per market conditions and demand, and a large land shall be acquired to open a super center just like Wal-Mart does.

A lot of marketing and business gurus must have been boasting about their discovery of the concepts of segmentation and product family and so on, but they have failed to realize that the gods had (I know that the product god is a man made one, still I would like to stick to god being his own creator in this context) already very consciously done their human study and home work. They had already categorized each one amongst themselves as per their advanced market study, for instance they gave Goddess Lakshmi the money market, and Goddess Saraswati the education industry, lord ram the general welfare and so on. If someone really wants to understand and study supply chain management and channel management, they should take this product as a case study. In India there's no other product which enjoys such kind of a reach, they have multiple centers in every street, in fact they are connected from door to door in every home that too without using social media or a 3G network, not even a discount sale ever! Just some freebies on a regular basis do the trick. Their treasury is the wealthiest one in the world, be it recession or inflation they are always secure, they have hedged all their risk and have no down side loss, they have most prompt payment rate as well, their repayment rate is even higher than that of Grameen Bank.

They get paid in billions on a daily basis for the one and only service rendered by them - HOPE. Quite a price to pay for that four lettered service I guess. We are glad to see the product doing so well, as it can be used for various fund raising and research activities. In fact when the whole world is out of business and unemployed, that's when their demand is at its all time high and the bank balance of all these brands touch new highs. And yet god doesn't give a discount during inflationary periods even after earning extra ordinary returns during other times. I guess like all other products even god is always looking at maximizing their EBITDA and PAT.

Product design and Packaging are key elements of any product or brands success apart from its functionality and other attributes. The product ‘God’ has been designed and packed in a really innovative way across brands that each one stands out for its own specific design. For instance Lord Ganesha has been given a designer nose where as Lord Hanumans mouth does the trick for him. In fact most of these gods have various add ons or applications built in with them in terms of a creature or an instrument, like Lord Krishna has his Chakra that he can spin around as and when he likes, while Jesus has been given a designer cross to rest his back on in a stylish way, and certain goddesses have been given the liberty to use animals as their couch. Each of them have their own customized dress code and accessories specially designed using finest material available. I am just wondering, if they had annual awards ceremony, who would they honor in different categories and who would be in the jury?

The gods must have had a real eureka moment when they thought about entering the human market to provide their services, how would they have known this industry would flourish as much as it is doing in India today? They are a big failure in China, as 90% of the Chinese don't have a religion. The gods must have really gotten crazy while trying to create the blue ocean strategy for the world’s second most populous country and you bet, they have been doing a great job so far, it’s the wealthiest industry in the world today and hopefully will remain so for a long long time. Amen

P.S. - Obviously the title has been inspired by the movie. I do look at the concept of God more firmly as a product than anything else, so most of the things that have been said above are a result of the thought process thereof. Anyways disclaimers are inevitable as usual; this piece was written in a completely fun mood and was to just look at things on a lighter note rather than to make a statement or mockery of these highly followed brands. Hope you understood and enjoyed the attempt at subtle humor. Last but not the least, the names that have been taken were incidental and not deliberate to put some brands above or below some other brands,

Today's Favorite Line - "Better to do something imperfectly than to do nothing flawlessly." - Dr. Robert Schuller

Today's Favorite Song - Aye Khuda (Paatshaala)

The MBA curse

2011-01-31T18:32:00.000+05:30

How would it feel if an MBA which was supposed to make the career prospects of an individual better and boost his esteem becomes a curse for him while trying to move ahead in life post the MBA? It is the last thing one would expect out of an MBA. It’s about how the fact that the person being an MBA (or for that matter a post graduate) is used against him in various scenarios, haunting him every now and then. The MBA that was supposed to act like engine oil making the ride easy for a vehicle, at times seems to work like a nail hit punctured tyre making the ride a lot tougher due to the egoistic and other issues around (the ego & other issues acting as a nail).

The MBA in itself is not the curse, but the way a lot of people treat the ones with an MBA starts making the MBA look like the curse. The expectations and the treatment of an MBA vary widely from place to place and person to person depending on what each ones egoistic value is.

Some commonly known ways/situations in which an MBA pays a price for his keen desire to grow fast in life are listed below:- (The first statement in each set is the kind of crap we have to hear and the next one in italics is my response to it)

What? You wanna do business? Then why did you do an MBA? You are supposed to/ made to work, not own! You were trained to be a manager not a businessman/ entrepreneur.

(Now, what the heck!? MBA is just an additional qualification to learn a few things to understand how businesses run and the allied stuff, it certainly isn't insane for an MBA to dream running his own show. Why restrict his domain just to a JOB?)

What? You don't have a job? No one has taken you yet? What's the use of your MBA?

(Excuse me, if you may please! MBA's don't fall under the NREGA scheme and yet again it’s an educational qualification not a 'make me your slave' certification.)

You can make 20-25K/month anyhow; you said you are an MBA right? Why bother?

(20-25K your ass!! Those 'I don't know anything, so I shall write codes' engineers make that much today, I deserve better don't you think? At least cos I've spent a fortune to get the additional education)

So, now that you've started working, I think you'll tell me what your package is? What? Its not even 25Lakhs?! Then what’s the use of having spent 2 years & close to a million for that god damn degree?

(First of all, for the love of god, try to understand that the article you read in the newspaper about some geek getting placed at an 8 digit package is only about THAT geek, and not about the entire MBA universe. Another point you must understand is the fact that, the geeks who are getting placed at an extravagant package like the one you expected me to, stop living the moment they get placed and start working, and they stop only after they've either been fired(by themselves or by the employer) or have committed suicide due to depression or fatigue. I haven’t planned for any of those so far.)

MBA - Sir, why is my package less than half of the CA, sitting right next to my cubicle while we do the same work & have the same profile? We also joined together, remember?

BOSS - You see, the CA brings a lot of value to the table, he is a CA & you are just an mba after all!!!

(Holy Crap!! For the last 6 months, I have been teaching him, how to use excel sheet, how to make a PPT and in fact at times how to operate on the computer. And guess what, all the reports that he has sent to you so far have major inputs from me! And he brings more value to the table? Which one? If I stop helping him from tomorrow you'll realize our values, you bitch.)

You MBA's are very bookish, come out of your case study mode buddy, look at the real picture. Stop acting like a student and understand the problem the right way.

(Weren’t you the one who asked a zillion definitions and formulae during my interview while the other panelists were talking about practical stuff?! You forgot how difficult you made my life for that half hour, you loser! And by the way, you were the one who asked me to stick to the basics and take learning’s out of what I learnt during my MBA in the last meeting! Didn’t know that was being bookish!! And just to remind you, you are yourself a visiting faculty at a bschool appreciating the case study mode of looking at the problem always & recommended us to be the change agents in this aspect.)

What do you think should be done about the inflation in terms of the key policy rates? What? You don’t know for sure? Aren’t you an MBA?

(First of all, I am no Montek Singh Ahuwalia or Pranab Mukherji, how am I expected to know better when there are experts in their teams who are hardly able to do anything about it. Secondly I am an MBA, which does not mean, I should be a master of everything, spare me! I told you what ever I knew.)

The MBA is being used as a double edged sword against people like me who want to make it big ( I am not too sure how to define big) in life, at least in terms of doing something phenomenal if not anything else at least. Our knowledge is used to show us, how we can be used as cheap labor and our ambitions are used to take advantage of our financial compulsions. Our qualification is at times used as a tool to decide our fate and more so against our capabilities and intelligence. Every time we try to make a point or a contribution in our own way, we are being shot down by our artillery (The MBA) as a weapon against us, by either putting us too above in the league or throwing us deep down in the ocean to make us feel beaten. Can the world stop trying to beat us and instead understand our capabilities and ambitions instead of creating a counter productive environment like a capitalist state? I agree there are a lot of instances of a lot of MBA are doing better than they deserve, but does that mean that the complete herd is always better off? Lastly, my understanding says, most of us do an MBA for it to work as an insurance policy which could pay off like a long term investment does while it could secure us our careers and job prospects to an extent, so kindly stop cursing us using our own only real asset.

Today’s Favorite Line – "Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact." - William James

Today’s Favorite Song – Flying without wings (West Life)

From the womb of recession - Class of 2009

2010-12-29T15:33:00.000+05:30

The one thing that is really crucial while selecting a b-school for any aspiring management student is its placement record. But for the children of recession, it hardly mattered. They all joined a premier institute at a time (2007) when the economy of the world was doing really well and they hoped it would be in an even better position when they graduate or at least remain the same worst come worst, but no way could it get go down. ‘How could that happen to me’ would have been the thought on any average wannabe MBA’s mind while he/she had joined the course.

And then the so called recession did not hit the bschool located at Nungambakkam alone, nor did it hit the city of Chennai alone, how about the state of Tamilnadu, no?

India

? We are not yet done my friend! It hit placements of graduates all over the world and no one was spared. Though some of them must have got jobs, decent profiles, so-so pay packages but then thousands of them hardly had a job for a long time while the next batch was slowly getting placed. And if at all they got placed it was may be at a lower band than they usually would have got, and at a pay scale that in no way was comparable to the preceding batches, but no one could help it, we were not the destiny’s children, we were specially chosen to be the recession’s children.

We were the batch that was tested the most for its patience, skill sets, competitive spirit and above all our faith. Luckily, at least at my bschool everyone was placed, if not on day zero, at least in the months after it. But there were thousands of graduates across the globe, who either dint get a job, lot of whom had quit a job to graduate, others gave promotion a slip and so on. But what made this batch born from the womb of recession special was the fact that, they joined a bschool when the markets were at its best and they graduated right when the markets tanked to an all time low, unemployment rates soared like the sun would in the noon and the number of opportunities available were as high as the number of stars you could count on a sunny day.

One instance that stands out on my mind with regard to the placements during the recessionary period was the episode of a top investment bank that was supposed to visit our campus for recruitment on September 18^th and all my batch mates were excited and were preparing really hard to be able to ace the selection process of one of the best investment banks of the world. They prepared so much so that, it felt as if it was the only thing they ever wanted in life. I would have hardly seen them prepare for any other thing the year or so before that. But how could they have known, the company they were aspiring to work for went bust just a day before it was supposed to visit our campus. Yea, you read it right, September 17^th was the day when the Business Line newspaper that we had started reading for quite sometime then to keep ourselves abreast of the business world read, “Lehman Bros files for bankruptcy” as its top headline on its front page. Lots of dreams were shattered, lots of them more or less lost hope, but then some of us who were still out of the trap of the fantasy world of big brand ‘dream company’ realized that what had happened to us, was may be in our best interest. If Lehman would have filed its chapter 11 on a day after it recruited some of us, it would have been a much much bigger shock, cos then it would have been a case of having a job in a company that had ceased to exist. It was far better that we ‘did not have a job’ rather than ‘have a job but not have it’. In fact this was the case with a dozen or more students from a couple of other premier institutes of the country who were recruited by Lehman before it was supposed to come to our campus, I know how difficult it would have been for those children of bankruptcy.

A lot has been discussed, argued and felt about this class of 2009, but what is it that has transpired with respect to these children of recession should be of further interest to the world, as these are the people who had seen both boom and bust at a very young age, in fact even before the start of their career. And I thought this was the best thing to have happened to us, we learnt some of the lessons we would have learnt much later in life, much earlier than a lot of others do. Though its been a painful period of 20 months since we have started working, but we’ve grown up with a lot of learning’s that would take us a long way in the future when may be such a catastrophe hits the world again, we would be prepared far better than the rest of the crowd.

Though at a psychological level we might have had a few advantages and disadvantages over the rest of the management crowd, we have definitely lost out on the monetary quantum and the sense of security standpoint. Lot of us had got job’s on contractual basis and our fates will be decided really soon, we would stand again on the same point as we did 2 years ago, if these companies don’t make us permanent employees. It would again be a period of anxiety & patience, again trying to get a good job and getting settled down with what we would like to do, but boy! its not going to be easy. Though the markets now are doing far better, destiny isn’t always with the lot that in some sense has been rejected (if I am allowed to use that word) by some other corporate.

When we graduated I used to think that the jobs we got are the jobs that were really crucial, as companies wont really recruit in such times unless they really want people to fill certain vacancies, but for certain companies it was just an easy way out to hire cheap than in years of boom may be, though not true in all the cases. The pie chart below would give you an idea about how the class of 2009 has been doing over the course of 20 months since they started working.

It’s clear that close to 70% of them are still with the same company they started out with, but the fact is, at least a quarter of them are seriously looking out for other opportunities mostly because they aren’t really fond of what they are doing, as a process of which some of them have already changed one job (20%). The remaining 13% who are not working are the ones who have either quit their jobs as they want to pursue something else, including starting some business of their own or a completely different career or may be got married and settled ( you know what that means). Now the question is, is the story similar with other batches who either passed out before or after, I would say more or less YES, but still there are things that this particular batch is going through which others might not have gone through, things that cant really be expressed, but can only be felt.

One thing I firmly believe in and have understood through this whole experience is, destiny’s child or recessions child, as long as things are good make hay, but remember things won’t remain good or bad for ever. The markets have gotten back on track and companies are recruiting astounding number of people this year, breaking all kinds of previous records. Just be patient and give your best, recession or no recession, there is a billion plus population in the country that has to be fed, transported, taken care of and a lot of other services to be provided to. Someone has to do each of these things, so just stay active and you’ll definitely find something that you really deserve. Last thought (or piece of advice you might call it) for all management’s children would be – Stop measuring your success in life based on your CTC, it hardly matters as long as you find something that you would love to do for a large fraction of your life and a management degree is not just a gateway to a seven digit pay check always, it is a great deal more than that, if all of us realize that, it wont matter even if you were from the womb of recession. Let’s stop looking at management education as a platform ticket for the employment station, it’s rather a first class ticket to some of the best learning’s and experiences in life.

P.S. – This post was inspired by views posted in an article on Times of India recently.

Today’s Favorite Line - A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing. - Oscar Wilde

Today’s Favorite Song – Pray for me brother (A.R. Rehman)

The Wall – The Best A Team Can Get

2010-12-25T15:57:00.000+05:30

Every home has four walls to protect the people living inside, to give them the feeling of being warm and secure from external environment no matter its summer or winter, calm or chaotic outside. We make sure that our wall is as strong and reliable as possible. But the Indian Cricket Team has been so fortunate, that though it has had a lot of other luxuries, though it has had only one WALL to protect itself, but then they never felt the requirement of anything more as THE WALL that they had made sure, performed the role of more than being a solid structure, by saving the team against all countries and conditions.

Lately there have been long and short battles going on between fans of two camps, ‘The Record Holder Camp’ and ‘The Wall Camp’ and the premise of the battle has more or less been pointless, how can you compare two people who have played two completely different roles in a teams success towards becoming a top team from almost no where. While one’s career has been totally to the team, by the team and for the team and the others has been more of to the record book, by the record book and for the record book, it hardly makes any sense to compare the two. My words might sound supportive towards the wall, but that’s also cos I have been a huge fan of him ever since my childhood, while all the other kids used to admire the short guy with tall records, I felt this lean guy with strength to rescue the team from every calamity was more commendable, not that the short guy never saved the team, but if you look at the lean guy’s record in lieu of corresponding situation of the team on a given match day, you shall realize who gave it all for the country each time.

This debate has primarily popped up just because the Indian media, blatantly ignored the fact that THE WALL of the team has reached a milestone that only two other batsmen in the world have achieved and more importantly it also in the joy of celebrating the records of the little master, forgot the more important aspect of the game, winning/ saving the game, which the little master failed miserably at, though he had some control over the situation. The media frenzy has been totally towards a record that we’ve been waiting for quite some time. Taking individuals over team, where did our post match analysis and cribbing go? As per my knowledge and understanding, on most of the occasions when the little master has played a good knock the team has not won! Take each of his knocks and tabulate it with the match result or situation, and you can judge the result for yourself. What’s the use of hitting a ton, when it can’t make my team win? We won’t see Dr. Manmohan Singh as a nice PM, the moment his government fares badly? (Aren’t we doing this already?)

In order to make a few things clear as to why we respect THE WALL so much, I have compiled a set of pointers (including a few individual records) to show how strong the wall has been and how crucial a role he has played as a team player, rather than being a selfish player( no offense meant). Each of these points below conveys how important his contribution was to the success of the team (not the record books). The following points have been compiled using the Wikipedia page of Rahul Dravid.

He is the first and the only batsman to score a century in all ten Test playing nations (The little master can may be emulate this, but not break this one record!)

Dravid has also been involved in more than 80 century partnerships with 18 different partners and has been involved in 19 century partnerships with Sachin Tendulkar - a world record. (Ever heard? partnerships win you matches, centuries don’t!)

Dravid was top run scorer in the 7th World Cup (1999), scoring 461 runs. He is the only Indian to score two back to back 100's in World Cup's. (He was a contender for Man of the Series award, missed it to Lance Klusner, an all-rounder)

Dravid was involved in two of the largest partnerships in ODIs: a 318-run partnership with Sourav Ganguly, the first pair to combine for a 300-run partnership, and then a 331-run partnership with Sachin Tendulkar, which is the present world record. (Again stood besides these 2 greats of Indian cricket and let them take the lime light in both the occasions, though he was as much a part of the success)

Also, Dravid is the current world record holder for the highest percentage (%) contribution of runs scored in matches won under a single captain, where the captain has won more than 20 Tests. In the 21 Test matches India won under Sourav Ganguly's leadership, Dravid played his part in every single one of those wins, scoring at a record average of 102.84 and piling up an astonishing 2571 runs, with nine hundreds - three of them double-centuries - and ten fifties in 32 innings. He contributed nearly 23% of the total runs scored by India in those 21 matches, which is almost one run out of every four runs the team scored. (I am sure, the little master, could hardly get closer to this, contributing towards teams victory, every time! And we think Sourav Ganguly was a great captain, think of him without THE WALL’s contribution.)

Though primarily a defensive batsman, Dravid has scored 50 not out in 22 balls (Strike Rate-227.27) vs NewZealand in Hydrabad on 15 Nov 2003, second fastest 50 among Indians. Only Ajit Agarkar 67 of 21 balls is faster than Dravid. (Now I heard someone telling me, he is a defensive player. Oh Really?)

After a barren run in Test matches in 2008, Dravid came under increasing media pressure to retire or be dropped. In the Second Test against England in Mohali, he scored 136, putting on a triple-century stand with Gautam Gambhir. (Every player goes through bad patches in his career, but RD responds not by his individual score, but by his contribution to the teams cause. So stop playing god father, let him decide when he wants to retire)

He has been involved in the most century partnerships in Test history – 85, as on 23 Nov 2009. (Now, compare that with the little master’s partnerships, scoring 50 centuries won’t get the team the top slot, staying on in different conditions and making the other player comfortable to play with does!)

Involved in highest partnership made away from home for any wicket for India with vice captain Virender Sehwag of 410 runs vs Pakistan at Lahore in 2006, also, the highest partnership between a captain and the vice captain (Now, that’s a record! Breaking the opposition to pieces)

He is currently 2nd among batsmen who have scored most away runs in Tests (6430 as of April 2009). Only Sachin Tendulkar (7165) has scored more away Test runs. (Obviously the little master is a little ahead, but the difference in the number of innings and years played by both of them is quite significant a reason for the difference.)

He is the fastest batsman in the history of Test cricket to make 9,000 runs. The former Indian captain brought up the landmark in his 176^th innings playing against West Indies in 2006 and broke the earlier record of Brian Lara. (Did someone talk about his consistency?)

Partnering with Tendulkar, has scored more runs than any other pair, excluding opening pairs. They are the 3^rd best in terms of total number of partnership runs scored by a pair in test cricket. (And in majority of these partnerships, his contribution wasn’t acknowledged as much as the media always wanted to talk about the Record Master)

Dravid has faced highest number of deliveries in test cricket, more than Allan Border’s previous record of 27002 deliveries. (Staying there on the crease for the team, saving one side of the wicket when all others fail! If scoring runs is important, in test cricket staying on the crease is even more crucial.)

2nd highest number of fifties in test cricket after Australia's Allan Border (63) and jointly shared with compatriot Sachin Tendulkar (59). (Now, he equals the little master on this record, but again, how many innings of each of them rescued or put the team in a better position? Check!)

Rahul Dravid is the third batsman in the world after compatriot Sachin Tendulkar and Australia's Ricky Ponting to reach the 12000-run milestone in test cricket. (Last but not the least. Personal milestones matter but they don’t make a winner! So we mention it last, no matter whether anyone acknowledges it or not!!)

To conclude, I’d just like to say that, Rahul Wall Dravid is one amongst the BEST TEST PLAYER the World has ever seen. While RD has contributed 20 times towards the teams victory and SRT has contributed 23 times (Courtesy – Mid day Article), look at the ratio of innings played or no. of fifties plus hundreds scored to no. of times it lead to the teams victory and you’ll realize why I put RD above SRT in context of being a better team player, all over the write up. The only reason RD is being compared to SRT is, he is no lesser than SRT if not greater but like I started off, both are a class in themselves, nevertheless team comes over self, always!

P.S – This write up wasn’t intended to compare the two greats, but in the process of compiling facts and thoughts, my mind couldn’t resist answering all those record favoring and ignorant individuals ignoring the security this soldier has given to Indian Cricket for over a decade and a half, always being overshadowed by others and still never expecting acknowledgement. I Salute. I hope this write up would shut a lot of mouths suggesting retirement of RD for ever, its’ his fitness, let him take a call. You Take a Bow!!

Today’s Favorite Line – I'm not offended by what you say. I'm just glad that you're stringing words into sentences now.

Today’s Favorite Song – He could be the one ( Hannah Montana)

Phas Gaya Re Marwadi

2010-12-17T20:31:00.000+05:30

It is always perceived to be better to be born in a rich business family, but as a really old saying goes ‘the grass always looks greener on the other side’. I think (out of experience mostly) that it’s a bane in more senses than one to be born in a rich business family (this is not exactly the ‘by experience’ that I am talking about) as it restricts you from being the kind of person you like to be. Though one might argue saying, you have the liberty and the resources that one requires to fulfill his/her aspirations, the reality is generally far from our imagination. How many Marwari’s that you know have gone out of their family’s already existing so called dynastical business empire? And if you are thinking that they dint go beyond cos they dint want to, then may be you are wrong, most of them stick back cos they have to, and they aren’t in a position to question or fight back to fulfill their dreams. Their aspirations get killed just cos they have to keep the family name flying high in the field their fore fathers chose to enter, no matter whether it’s going to work in the future or not.

The family becomes so narrow minded that everything except for what they are involved in seems risky, cos it involves things that they don’t understand, people of the kind whom they have never confronted before and courage that they never had (if they had it, they would have tried their own thing, rather than following their fore fathers just for the sake of it, by killing their own talent), killing genuine talent in other fields generation after generation. It’s known across the country that marwadi’s are known to be businessmen and are known to do well in business, but have we ever given a thought to the fact that how many of them who turned out as these so called good businessmen wanted to be the same? Now just cos they are doing well, we appreciate them and that’s obviously cos of their dedication and hard work, but haven’t they killed their hidden talent in other fields of interest (just in case, this might even mean any other business than the one in which the family is already involved).

At least someone born in a family where the main source of income is from a salary and not from some business, the younger generation always knows that it’s totally in their hands to build a career, to earn a living, to gain some name and respect. An individual can start working on these things with a sense of purpose and direction in mind, though he/ she might have to face a lot of obstacles and lack of resources, but the feeling of fulfillment is always there. But if you take a Marwadi youngster today, more often than not, all the liberties I mentioned above are absent, he/she hardly has a sense of purpose at any point in life, its always filled with if’s and buts (if’s of ‘what if my family wont allow me’, buts of ‘but I really want to do this’) which never get addressed rationally (you can take my word on this one, I can write a book on this subject in fact), there’s never the feeling of fulfillment as the family never lets you do anything on your own, they always want to act like a god father, even if you don’t want one (for hell’s sake, let me get things done for myself, MY WAY!), think of making a name for your self or some respect if at all that’s possible, it always gets over shadowed by the power of money and contacts your family wants to flaunt every now and then, as if you couldn’t do anything without them (now come on, your contacts are not end of the world! I have mine!!).

How does a marwadi youngster make a mark in such an orthodox environment, especially cos he/she has to deal with people who are mostly less educated, past driven, self obsessive, protectionist, conservative and most importantly still doing good in life in their own ways? You can hardly beat them on anything and argue? You better not try if you can’t take irrationality for an answer!

P.S – There are a zillion reasons why it’s a boon to be born in a Marwari business family, I am not ignorant of those luxuries (luxuries always don’t relate to money or status, & I mean it), in fact a lot of these things lead to a better life for a person than in any other community or type of people (FYI, I am not racist, neither do I believe in caste or creed, just making a point). Just wanted to highlight this one bane, that I observe affecting a lot of youngsters including me at this point in time. If you’re wondering why Marwari specific arguments in this one, cos they are the ones whom I represent but hardly seem to understand.

Today’s Favorite Line – Opportunity paged me, tweeted me, linked me, e-mailed me, poked me, faxed me and spammed me... but I was expecting it to knock.

Today’s Favorite Song – So Sick (Ne-Yo)

Stop being scared of the F Word

2010-11-30T23:33:00.000+05:30

As humans we live every moment of our life thinking how we could make our life failure free, we always like to ride on success and when we attain success we never see beyond it. We get hungry for more, we stop realizing there could be bumps/ pot holes that could be on our way, we are so confident and over sure that, we think nothing can go wrong anymore and that’s right when we fall in to the pot hole of failure. And now this is the situation that actually decides if we have it in us to make it big from here or will we remain inside the pot hole as we never reflected up on or were prepared enough to get over the road block.

Most of the world had written off ‘The Amitabh Bachchan’ in the late 90’s as he sunk deeply into the sea of debt and the success wave that he was riding on for over 3 decades had all unexpectedly come to an unceremonious end by the bankruptcy of the company he had fielded to make it even bigger in Bollywood. No one ever thought he could ever rebuild a better ship and bounce back as a larger than life person by the kind of success he started getting in early 21^st century especially by his splendid performance as a host of KBC on Star Plus. Now the world just looks at the line graph of Big B’s fall and rise in these 2 decades while the much larger learning’s lie in the kind of things he has been through and how he got back, as they teach us, ‘why failure is important?’, ‘what failure could do to you?’.

If we use some historical data or just some memory of past and take 5 such people whom we’ve observed for years together and who have made it big in life, in what ever field or context, few things would stand out commonly in all of them, these people would have faced more obstacles, would have made more sacrifices, would have faced a lot of criticism, would have been tagged as a loser by a lot of them earlier in their life. Yet these people face all that and make it big, it’s not just about their talent, skill set or knowledge, not even experience. It’s purely about their attitude, their focus and more importantly their faith in their own selves. But for these 3 qualities, they wouldn’t have made it anywhere close to where they got. Now take up another set of 5 people whom you think you thought would make it as big, but they dint, and try to think why they dint make it where you thought they would. After a level of analysis you’ll figure it’s just because of the lack of these 3 qualities in them right when they needed it the most. They would have had these qualities in them for a major part of their life, but if they don’t possess them when they needed it the most, especially when time was testing them, they would have lost it and more often than not, never bounced back or at least back to the earlier level.

Let’s just talk about Vinod Kambli and Sachin Tendulkar, great friends, great cricketers right from a young age, but one made it as a god of the sport but the other turned out to be a sore loser. We could simply see the difference in the attitude of these two from a couple of instances, the semifinal of the ’96 world cup, where Kambli wept like a child would; he couldn’t take failure well and post that match he was dropped from the team for the next series due to other disciplinary issues. The aftermath of that match prompted us about some inherent qualities of Kambli, his attitude, his focus and his self belief. As a result of his behavior he dug his own grave and we would never see any more of him with respect to a cricketing field except for a few series till 2000/01 when he was dropped for the last time due to his inability to play short pitched balls (he never really tried to rectify or learn) and poor form. He did not know how to overcome that one weakness and his talent wasn’t sufficient in itself to take his career any forward and so he lost the race of making it big in life and now we remember him for the wrong things often than for the right things. That’s what failure precisely does to you, it over shadows all the good that you have done before.

Another interesting case in the context of failure is the apple of the worlds eye (quite literally) – Steve Jobs, someone who was thrown out of his own company, who built something great, could not keep tempo with others and his own men showed their back to him. Where did all the success go? It just couldn’t come to his rescue; he was simply shown the doors! But this man was not someone who’d succumb to such hasty actions, he still possessed self belief, he was still focused on what he wanted and he knew what he was capable of, he had the right attitude and that’s the reason we all see him back to where he belonged with products much more innovative than we could have ever expected of him (his company). That’s the differentiator between a diamond and just any other piece of stone; how the stone takes the heat and other things in the process of becoming a diamond from just being a stone, and now that is Steve Jobs for us today!

Now let’s move from individuals to corporations, what differentiates those on the top to the other thousands of them who never make it? Some of them do well for some time and then aren’t able to sustain and slowly get back to where they originally belonged, to the bottom. Now what have the corporations that are at the top done and how? What differentiates them from the ones not at the top or from the ones who lost the race by some margin? Corporations that have done well over a period of time haven't done so cos of their quality or price alone, they have done well cos competition has kept them on their toes and they have faced the competition head on with the right attitude. Microsoft for instance has been on its toes since ever not just cos of the companies that are in the same line of business but also cos of companies like Google, Apple etc, who are all in the business of technology. The fear of being taken over has always made these companies perform better than the average; they learnt rapidly from every failure and bounced back with better offerings to all their stakeholders. Not once did these companies remain in the pot hole after an accident or failure, every time they faced failure, they took it very seriously and worked back up with focus and right attitude.

On hindsight we realize that failure really plays a crucial role in determining who has a pleasure ride and who remains in the pot holes and today if I had to understand an individual or a corporation I would not ask for its track record of success, I’d rather ask for the track record of its failure, that would be a more authenticate way to assess the capabilities and the heights a person or corporation would reach over a period of time. Failure doesn't necessarily have to be big, to test a person’s capability and attitude, even small set backs every now and then can give an idea about an individual’s character. But let’s agree on one thing, Failure is necessary!!

P.S – This write up was inspired by the talk of Harsha Bhogle at IIM-A a few years ago.

Click here for the complete talk or Here for just a small bite on failure.

Today’s Favorite Line – Failure is the stepping stone to Success (class 3)

Today’s Favorite Song – Cry Cry (Jhoota hi sahi)

Lessons for Indian Cricket from Aussies

2010-10-20T14:36:00.000+05:30

Australians have dominated the world cricket for more than a decade in all the formats of the game. It has produced quality players year after year and has nurtured them and then pushed others out cos there was a lot of talent waiting outside to take up the challenge. There have been times when we have felt that even the second or third team of Aussies could beat any other top team in the world; such was their domination in the world of cricket. They kept adding new talent to their squad as and when they felt someone had got old and had to give space to a new talent who has been waiting for years, just cos everyone was in form most of the times. So the old had to make way for the new, as they were assured that even the new ones will do exceedingly well. And as a process their top players retired one after the other at the peak of their forms, Steve Waugh retired in 2004 with an 88 against India, when he in no way looked like he was old or not fit, he just made way for new talent. This process continued in the latter years as well and they kept losing top cricketers due to age and pressure to give a chance to youngsters, which worked quite well for a long time with introduction of players like Darren Lehman, Simon Katich, Michael Clarke, Michael Hussey, Shaun Tait, Doug Bollinger, Cameron White, Mitchell Johnson and many more such high quality talent.

But today we are in a situation where the Aussies have lost their domination over world cricket; they have been losing, at times miserably and at other times after fighting out hard against different teams. One could never imagine that Aussies could rank as low as 5 in the test rankings, but that’s the fact at the moment, it has slipped down from being the top team to a mediocre one. If one observes keenly most of this has come as a result of the retirement of 5 top players one after the other in a span of 2 years, these 5 are the top players in their own specific role during their time of play – Glenn McGrath, Shane Warne, Mathew Hayden, Adam Gilchrist and Justin Langer. These 5 have been match winners of Australia for more than a decade in some form of the game or other, except for Ricky Ponting who is still playing; these 5 have been the crucial factors of taking the game to

Australia

’s favor. Be it the dominance of Hayden and Langer in the batting department or the sheer excellence in the mind boggling spells of Glenn McGrath, they have all been the force behind the domination of Australia in world cricket and as a result of their retirement, Australian cricket has seen new lows in their form, that was never imaginable at least for a kid like me who grew up watching cricket in the era of these maestros and every time I watched a match Australia was taking part in, I knew the result more often than not, such was the magic of the team then. But now it seems like history, it’s hard to imagine Australia getting back to where it belonged, no matter it has the talent, but these talented stars lack the magic that the super 5 had along with Steve Waugh and Ricky Ponting (at different times).

Indian cricket is having a magical time at the moment, with it being the top test team for quite some time now and it has also shown good form in one day cricket as well as 20-20 in the recent times. Be it due to the Dhoni factor or due to sheer presence of the best batting line up in the world. We’ve always known that India is a major power in world cricket only due to its batting, our bowling has never been impressive for more than a series max at different times and conditions, specially as we play almost different set of pacers in every alternative series, our bowlers either being out of form half of the time or being injured for the rest. The matter that concerns me about Indian cricket at this moment specifically in the context of the Australian downfall is the fact that the pillars of Indian batting line up are all going to retire post the 2011 world cup that might mean the start of downfall of Indian cricket in different forms of the game. Sachin, Rahul, Laxman, Shewag might all retire in the next 2 years for sure, with their retirement Indian batting line up looks gloomy specially as we are talking about the top 5 spots in the batting line up. None of the current youngsters in the Indian squad have shown as much talent and courage to fill the shoes of these maestros.

Gautam Gambhir was in the best form of his life last year but has been a sheer disappointment this year and the less we talk about Yuvraj Singh the better it would be for him, he has just shown attitude and no character on the cricketing field and outside lately and that has led to him being dropped from the test squad already. Suresh Raina is an excellent talent, he might fill in the gap a bit but how far he will be able to do this is still to be seen. Virat Kohli has played well at times and has come to the rescue of the team a few times, but again once in a while knocks are not sufficient to fill the shoes of the fab 4. Dhoni himself has been showing no performance in terms of his batting for quite some time, as a captain he might be doing decently, but if he doesn’t perform as a batsman how far he will be able to remain a motivated captain is a big question. There are a lot of other brilliant names (Dinesh Karthik, Yusuf Pathan, Rohit Sharma, Robin Uthappa, Murali Vijay) that are in and out of the squad at different times, so its not quite reassuring that they would fill the void that would be created as a result of the retirement of the fab 4. So the batting line looks really gloomy, but can the bowling department go a notch up to fill the imbalance in the batting department? Like I said earlier, bowling is always a concern in itself, how can we expect it to compensate for the lackluster batting?! Indian Cricket should take a lesson from Australia’s recent history and do something constructive about it at the earliest else it would just follow the pattern we have observed with the Aussies.

P.S – Let’s not forget Aussies are still the top ODI team, but do you think they’ll be able to hold on to that for long? Lets wait for the outcome of the on going India – Australia series to get some idea. And obviously we have the world cup to look forward to, while teams like Bangladesh and Kenya are doing exceedingly well but teams like Pakistan, West Indies and Newzeland have their own problems in different departments.

Today’s Favorite Line – If being apathetic is wrong, then I don’t care

Today’s Favorite Song – Waka Waka (Shakira)

Kalmadi – The Unsung Hero

2010-10-19T23:58:00.007+05:30

Oops!! Is the title right? May be, We’ll find out soon.

India

so far has conducted a Cricket world cup and a few other sporting events of some scale now and then, nothing great or bigger apart from that. We aren’t surprised on

India

’s ability to conduct a cricket world cup, but could you have ever imagined or can you still imagine that

India

could host a mega event as huge as the ‘CWG’? Do we have the expertise, the experience, the support of all the stakeholders? (Now you would say yes, but what would have been your answer before the games started?) No matter what your answer to this question is, we required courage, leadership and faith to be able to even dream of something of this scale and size. And since we showed all of that in some sense or the other, in some people or the other, we pulled it off, don’t you think so?

Every cat, dog and mouse (tom, dick and harry is old) have been abusing and accusing the chair of the OC, the guy who got the CWG to India (agreed, it’s not his individual effort but his role was quite substantial as I understand), who fought the bureaucracy, the system and most importantly the mindset, by making us believe that we can do a mega event like CWG and that will take the sporting arena in the country to a new level by providing our sportspersons excellent infrastructure and world class atmosphere within their home to be able to compete with top sportspersons from across the world at par. If it wasn’t for his courage to take the responsibility and the risk of doing the unthinkable in

India

that too as a public project (unlike cricket world cup, which is a private entity in more senses than one) to me is commendable!

Talking about the accusations of corruption and delay, give me one concrete proof or example of the same, all the accusations that our beloved media has so far made are nothing but assumptions and hidden camera operations to try and unearth something to make a story! Do we have a single charge of corruption against him that is direct and accurate? Don’t give me stuff like ‘contracts were given to relatives’, ‘the people working in the team are all his aides’ and so on, how does it matter as far as the work is done? Give me one politician in the country who has people in his team that he hasn’t known for decades, why talk so broadly, take the example of how our country is being run, since independence our country has more or less been run by a single family generation after generation, isn’t that true? Then why point this as an issue against this chap? (Now don’t tell me that, the people of India wanted this family to. Crap!) I agree mostly on the accusations on him in terms of the delay as that led to a lot of last minute issues and fears, but is it totally fair to accuse him for this so seriously? Are we not the country where the court of law takes decades together to give a verdict on simple disputes? Are we not the country where Pizza gets delivered before an ambulance? Are we not the country where police always reaches after the criminals have done all they wanted to? Then why suddenly are we trying to act as if we were the second’s hand of a clock? Lets face it, we have never been able to complete projects on time, that’s not an excuse for Kalmadi but does that not remind you of the fact that the whole CWG organizing required coordination between various bureaucratic ego’s and stakeholders, Do I need say more?

I hate the fact that people keep blaming ‘him’ for

India

having spent 17000 crores (or whatever the exact figure is) without even spending a single minute thinking about where and how that money was spent. Most of the money was spent on the city of Delhi and not on the sporting related things, and that’s not just for the games, the money spent on infrastructure of Delhi was much required keeping in mind the growing population of the city and the kinds of problems people face in commuting in Delhi. Is CWG responsible for the money spent on such endeavors? It’s the scapegoat cos because of it the projects were taken up much earlier than they ever would have been! Delhi otherwise wouldn’t have had a metro may be for another decade or so. If the money spent on the infrastructure of the games village and other stadiums is a waste of money then we should stop expecting our sports persons to perform and win! If Kalmadi has been a cause of overrun of cost then who does each household hold responsible for the increase in their monthly expenses than budgeted early in the year? Is there no inflation or change in costs/plans when we talk about the CWG related contracts and materials. Can something that was decided years or months ago remain as it was put down on paper? I heard sometime back from someone that a flyover or a road leading to the new airport in Bengaluru was proposed to be made for 67 crores rupees by a panel that included Mr. Narayana Murthy, later that committee was dissolved due to some political intervention and the state PWD went ahead to do it and completed the project for close to 300 crores. So if that is possible with just a road, is it not possible with a games village? Use some mind if not heart!

Everyone is talking about corruption and hanging of Kalmadi, as if he has pocketed the entire 17000 crores, come on, lets stop being silly, may be there are discrepancies here and there, may be he is corrupt, may be he gave all the contracts to his aides, name me one party or politician in the country that hasn’t done any of the above at least a dozen times. I am not trying to support Kalmadi, nor am I trying to say that it’s good that Indian politicians are corrupt or we should leave Kalmadi even if he is guilty cos everyone does this. I am just trying to bring some rationale to the madness that the media has inserted into our head; our accusations seem to be statements made in a hurry. What if the audit committee finds him to be honest and find no wrong doing? I know this is too much optimism but have we not already shown too much distrust on him already! Just take a moment and find answers for these people before you defame or ill treat Kalmadi any more. The names that I am listing down are just a small sample of people who have various criminal cases or so against them, but they still continue to enjoy complete freedom and power in various sectors even though their wrong doing might have been established or proved in ways and times more than one – Lalu Prasad Yadav, Shibhu Soren, A Raja, Madhu Koda, Mayawati and many more!! Now compare these people with Kalmadi if he is really guilty and see the difference in what he has created and what these power houses have! I rest his case here. Hang him if he is guilty, beat him to death by the law, but don’t beat him to death just by defaming him before finding out the facts. And for once, just for once, acknowledge the fact that he has played a gigantic role in the hosting and success of the CWG, no matter he might be corrupt or what so ever that might be proved, but until then respect the courage and the commitment! Stop treating him like Kasab at least, phew! May Kalmadi get what he deserves, post the probe that is!

Today’s Favorite Line – There are a lot of lies going around and half of them are true (Winston Churchill)

Today’s Favorite Song – The Gambler (Kenny Rogers)

P.S – I don’t mind if I sound like a desperate attention seeker by taking a view completely opposite to the rest of the world as if I was trying to support the deeds of Kalmadi, just trying to see things from the other side as well. Let’s not forget, we live in

India

and this was a public project, not a private one!

Robot Who? Rajni?? Huh!!

2010-10-02T15:44:00.000+05:30

(Just an attempt to stay in senses while the rest of the world has gone mad behind the hype; thoughts on why I haven’t really bothered to watch the movie in the near future, at least till I see/hear a few dozen people having suffered from over expecting. So if you are an ardent Rajni fan (like I was in the past) you might not like reading this one)

Why so much hype for a film, that has a 60 year old in the lead opposite a female of his daughters age, where the 60 year old is playing a younger individual that too as a Robot?, you wouldn’t imagine such stuff even with Hollywood.

I have been a big Rajni fan all my life, but for the last 5 years or so, I’ve lost the respect and love I had for his acting (except for Chandramukhi, though I don’t think it was cos of him that the movie was a hit!) as its been quite a while that he has acted himself, the roles that he has been donning lately are all over the sky ones where he isn’t much of an importance either in terms of acting or in terms of his genuine style that we always loved about him, as the character he plays are much larger than life, beyond the reach of a sane humans understanding. It’s just his name which is bringing people to the theatres and later getting back disappointed, be it Sivaji or be it Baba, both were flops! And I don’t think bringing up his appearance in Kuselan helps his case any more, the movie was promoted as if it was a Rajni movie but ended up as a guest appearance which wasn’t worth it also! To sum things up, he’s been quiet a disappointment to me in the last few years and I am no more excited about his films specially when they are over hyped with zillions spent on the movie with less of his acting and more of sci fi stuff, where’s ‘The Rajni’ factor? Where’s his style like in Basha? Padayappa? Arunachalam? I Miss them!!

Even if the Robot was decent enough the credit I think would go to Shankar for the overall work in the movie, how much does it depend on Rajni that there’s so much hype around for it being his movie? The Rajni days are gone, let’s accept it! He is no Kamal Hassan kind of persona who picks and chooses his work and executes it in such a way that the movie speaks for itself than he being the promoter of his movie. Do we remember Dasavatharam? Agreed that it was hyped as a Kamal starrer with Kamal playing ten roles and all those talks on world record, but after watching the movie you really feel the kind of work Kamal has done in the movie, each of the character’s he played in the movie spoke for itself, at times one wouldn’t even realize if one of those characters was Kamal at all, if you previously dint know that Kamal was playing ten roles.

And more or less I guess Shankar having seen Kamal play a scientist in Dasavatharam, would have envisioned even Rajni playing one and being a smash hit, but I guess with Rajni in the lead everything else takes a back seat, no matter Rajni has something special to offer in it or not, what matters to the producer is his pay back, which is a sure thing with Rajni playing the lead, all the money invested would be back in no time, dint we see that with flops like Baba, Kuselan et al. Why does Rajni have to copy Kamal and be a scientist? Are his artificial stunts (& make up, the white hair.. Grrr!) not already enough for the audience to be able to digest? At the end of the day though everyone makes their own money, right from theatre owners, producers, the entire unit involved in the film making, the audience lose! They pay whatever it takes for them to take a first look at the over hyped stuff with an actor who has just passed an age where he could do something commendable (except for Amitabh & Kamal for their respective ages and charm) and keeps selling just cos of his past and his fans don’t want to disappoint him so they watch the same flop movie n number of times to become visible to their favorite star, how Stupid!

Talking about the ratings so far of the movie, TOI has given it a 3.5 (TOI’s ratings are always exaggerated, think of it, it rated Anjaana Anjaani 3, which a lot of other sources have rated 1 on average!, we all know about TOI’s ratings, don’t we?), a couple of other sources that I checked had given it a 3, just a ‘3’ for so much of artificial hype and money? That too I am sure was given cos they don’t have the courage to rate it down keeping in mind the mass madness for Rajni, fans wouldn’t be able to digest a low rating and if that’s not a valid point, then lets just say, the direction and the screen play of the movie would have worked in its favor. The only question I want to ask is, has Rajni been of any significance in the success of the movie per say?! Leave alone the name and his past! Talk about his performance/ presence in this movie alone. Did his acting add any value to the rating or the entertainment part of the movie? Be Honest!! Then why so much HYPE?!!!

Today’s Favorite Line – Here’s one from the Robot himself – “Buddy if I beat you, even Google wont be able to find you” (huh.. I wonder why I called it a favorite line :x)

Today’s Favorite Song – Waiting on the world to change

Mandir ya Masjid? – How about Neither?!

2010-09-23T15:31:00.000+05:30

Tomorrow is a big day for a lot of ardent believers and just another intimidating day for the rest of the country, as what ever the verdict of the respectable court, the outcome for the common man will still remain to be a creepy day. I am an ardent non believer who believes in a free nation, that we supposedly live in. My family would tell me not to get out of home as it concerns my security in case of any unforeseen violent outburst as a result of a pro hindu or pro muslim or even a tareek pe tareek kind of verdict. To add to the already sad driving experience on the dug up express ways we have across the city, (makes one wonder why the word ‘express way’ was ever used in context of Indian roads) there’s going to be slow moving traffic, high level checking and so on, to slow the pace of our lives and to make us even more furious.

It all started on a not so fine day in the history of India, when a lot of fervent heartless (I don’t know if I can call them sense less, it might demean the word sense) people (I don’t want to tag them as hindus or what ever, they don’t deserve to be tagged or known as hindu’s as well, cos I believe Hinduism didn’t teach them to do what they did and moreover it might increase the stigma among the hindu’s which they are already feeling for years I guess) demolished a Mosque which was built decades ago by some ruler. No matter it would have been the birth place of lord Ram, does that mean there cannot be a mosque or a church in the same place? Did they know for sure about lord ram’s thoughts and attitude towards Islam or about the existence or inexistence of a mosque in lord ram’s life time at Ayodhya? What these crooks did that day to this mosque was not just demolition of a building, but in fact was a grave act of breaking the law of the land, in terms of going against the constitution of the country which clearly talks about democracy and other such noble things to keep the people of the country as a single unit rather than warriors of various armies.

The mistake has been done, at some point by these so called pro ram’s birth place warriors and ‘may be’ at some point by the other sect if I can call them ‘pro revenge warriors’ wanting to have their mosque back at the disputed site. Where were these pro ram’s birth place warriors when this mosque stood tall for more than 300 years, were they busy researching the dna of lord ram to find out if he was born on that land? Even if a mosque was built on that land by a mughal in ram’s land, who says that it was wrong? Will it be a sin if I go to Vatican and build a temple in the same city? Or is it not possible for us to have a mosque at/ around the famous vaishnao devi mountain? Will having a mosque back at the disputed site relieve the muslims or will having a ram temple at the site peace the hindus? Is there no other piece of land in the country that could serve as a place of worship? Have our religions, no matter which one we believe in taught us that, god lives in our heart?

If one of these ardent groups had given up their ego, the country would have got out of this state of fear and done a lot of better things to the land of Ayodhya which has been deprived of a lot of other basic amenities due to the never ending dispute and fear of violence over the years. Can they both not come to a compromise by deciding to neither have a mosque nor a temple at the disputed site as it affects their livelihood and raises questions mark at their lives itself at times, as an eye for an eye always leads to at least one blind man. The respectable court should give a verdict that is neither pro hindu nor pro muslim, as that would make neither of them sad, cos this fight is not much to do with the existence of a mosque or a temple as I see it, it is more of an ego fight, an ego that would establish one superior over the other. A pro temple verdict would mean a defeat for the muslim’s and a pro mosque verdict would seem like a defeat for the hindu’s, which in reality is not (a defeat or a victory) to the larger section of both of these religions, except for a few thousand crooks.

To my opinion a right verdict for the disputed land would be the construction of a world class government school that provides education to the children of Ayodhya, who otherwise have been deprived of a lot of other things in life, right from their childhood and have lived around a lot of wrong influences and talks all through their lives so far. Only a school can put back their lives into right perspective, as the school can teach them the teachings of the religion of humanity, the foundation of our country, its constitution and concepts such as democracy, unity in diversity, and their fundamental rights (a lot of which they have been deprived off for quite some time now). This school could also have evening classes for the old and withered people, who have spent a large chunk of their lives fighting for their so called rights to have a temple or a mosque depending on which religion they belonged to. It could also work as a meeting point for these people to get back in touch with each others and shrug off their differences (if they as a group had any, cos of external pressure obviously). I think if things work out as I assume them to, things will not only fall back into place in Ayodhya, but also on a national level where the equation of love – hate had changed over a period of time as a consequence of the happenings at Ayodhya.

And to finally close my opinion box, I humbly plead and request all the political, religious and concerned parties, to save some ego for other issues and let the country get back into peace mode as we are already surrounded by larger than a temple-mosque ghost at a national level, in terms of naxals, terrorists and just to mention the CWG ghosts to be taken care of at the moment (I know I haven’t mentioned Kashmir, but that’s a different thing all together, again politically motivated, just like the Ayodhyan war).

Today’s Favorite Line(s) – Ram naam japna, paraya maal apna?!

- I could never make it in politics... I spend too much of my own money.

Today’s Favorite Song – Allah ke bande (Kailash Kher)

P.S - This post hasn't been reviewed even once after writing, in a hurry to post it well before tomorrow's verdict, in case something is offending or not right as a fact, please ignore/forgive, I shall take a corrective action as soon as I can/ I am prompted!

With Best Compliments - Really?

2010-09-22T19:19:00.000+05:30

Gifting is the one thing that we as humans have made a social habit, and of late it’s become more than just a habit. We tend to gift every possible person, on everyone other occasion and all kinds of things, irrespective of the fact that it makes any sense to the receiver or not.

It’s been quite some time since I have reduced (if not stopped) accepting gifts and that, I have explicitly stated to those near and dear ones who care to go buy me a gift on some occasion or the other. This might sound a little sadistic but that’s how even I feel after I receive the gift and have to fake to the other person saying “Wow!!!! It’s awesome, exactly what I wanted!!” (Huh, each word was a lie there! more often than not). I got bad reactions from all the people whom I requested not to get me anything on my next birthday; they tried hard to persuade me to accept something, at least something just to make them feel good. But I fail to understand why something I don’t like accepting will make them feel good if I was important to them at the first place. For them it might be a formality or something but for me if I don’t like it or don’t want it, I mean it!

Now there might be a question in your mind, why would someone not like getting something from someone else, specially when it is given by a dear one and especially when it doesn’t cost anything (ha! It does matter ;)). The reason is simple or you can say obvious, over the years I have received tons of gifts from a wide range of people ranging from parents to cousins, friends to colleagues and complete strangers on various occasions. But more often than not I have not liked the gift I have received no matter how expensive or how good someone else must have thought it was. It could simply be because my choice is a little different than the buyer of that gift or because it really is not a good enough thing in someway or the other. It feels like such a burden to me at times that I feel like running away from such occasions or places where people bestow their wishes upon me with a gift that I am sure I might not like. It’s a burden in two ways, first that I have to accept the wonderful thing that the person has got for me and not use it ever as I never liked it, and next it’s a burden also cos now it would be my turn to get that someone something that might not disappoint him/her as it did me, cos I know I am bad at buying stuff according to others likes and I know that my choice is quite different from someone else’s choice to worsen my case.

I say all this without a percent of poignant feeling because it is what I feel, and who won’t feel this way when one receives only one of the few things consistently over the years. Things like coffee mug, photo frame, a set of headphones and the likes, not to mention clothes of size that don’t fit or color that doesn’t suit or books that I have already read or don’t like reading and the list can go on! If you were me, you would feel the same, what if you dint like to express it. At times to make the gift look better, they personalize the stuff to make it look special. One such instance was when a friend gifted a photo frame, with a photo in it that captured the two of us, now for heavens sake, I have a zillion photographs of mine with that friend and a lot of others both solo and in groups, if I wanna go in nostalgia its just a few clicks away, why waste a frame for it? I am not someone who’s gonna put up this frame on my study table or something for my family to pass a comment on it when ever they pass by it, I never put up a photo of them for that matter.

Irrespective of innumerable requests, people still tend to be so obsessed with the idea of gifting that they tend to ignore the importance of the person who is making a kind request for the benefit of both of them. If they are scared that I wont gift them back on their occasion cos I am not taking one, please don’t worry, I still will gift you in case you are interested, else I would be the first person to boycott this useless (if not at all times, at least in routine cases) ritual.

This might sound like a very strange kind of attitude but it’s the result of years of detest built up year over year by being at the wrong end of receiving. And in case you have ever gifted me before and figure one of those things you did gift in the above list, please don’t take it to your heart (instead take it to your head and please stop, at least now). Hope that’s the worst I can get at being rude on a large scale in a public forum about this (non) issue.

Today’s Favorite Line – They said ‘success is relative’, I asked ‘whose?’.

Today’s Favorite Song – Way back into love (Hugh Grant & Haley Bennett)

Cricket in the subcontinent lately

2010-09-07T16:06:00.000+05:30

Cricket has been quite depressing lately both on and off the field.

Be it India losing to the Srilankan minnows playing without the mighty Murali but still being able to bundle out the long battling line up of India in no time (if the new kid in the block Mithun could hit a score close to 50, the batting line up could be called long I guess).

Or be it the most disappointing moment for a billion cricket followers (especially Sehwag followers), when Sehwag was denied of a century that he actually completed with all honesty (not to mention about the dishonest Suraj aka run and Dive into the sea bowler).

Or the spot fixing scam that has hit the already deep in trouble Pakistan cricket.

And of course I am not getting into the post IPL fights and controversies going on between the Governing council and the ‘main hoon Don’ Modi. Cos the moment one starts talking about the IPL fiasco the debate could go on for years (just like modi sent a 15000 page reply! that can’t be read in a decade I guess) without any result.

First things first, though India reached the finals of the tri series (with newzeland and srilanka), each one of us was very sure that India did not deserve the place in the finals but luck I shall call it, that it did make it to the final but as it was supposed to end, it did! India lost shamefully. The batting performance of the team was not just below par, it was plain simple pathetic. Except for ‘THE’ Sehwag who after quite some time has come into form in ODI’s, the rest of the team seemed to be playing cricket in their colonies, playing lousy shots trying to while away time with nothing else to do. There’s no doubt that we had the best team on field that we could have had (I know we can keep arguing on whom we could have included or excluded) as each member in the playing eleven had a considerable experience playing international cricket, so no doubt about their abilities but execution was something that looked alien to them. I don’t deem it important to comment much on the Indian bowling as that has never been something as interesting to talk about, it always has been the weakest area of the Indian team in the last few years (once a bowler does well in a series, the next thing that happens to him is injury and we don’t see him for months together or he just loses his natural good skill as he’s too flattered with the hype and money he gets to his share).

As I see it, cricket in India may soon lose its charm in the near future as team India continues to perform miserably, accusing the board of tight schedules at times and other things at other times, never getting to the core problem which is inconsistency and lack of focus. With the world cup coming up, a first round exit would be the first of these shockers that we may have to face apart from the retirement of the Master Blaster and probably two other maestros of Indian batting The Wall and Mr. Elegance (VVS if u dint get it at once). The lesser I speak about the fall of Indian cricket at this moment; the better it would be for me! ;)

It’s not a bit exciting to even think of the condition Pakistan cricket is in today. They can’t play the game against any cricketing country on their own field (I doubt if they get to do it themselves at all?) That’s just the tiniest of the problems for them at this moment. Not to forget the recent banning of ‘a lot’ of senior players for various periods in different cases and then revoking the ban on some of them and getting them back to the team instantly and just to mention, the drug abuse of two leading bowlers a few years back was like just not enough. Pakistan cricket looks nothing more than a comedy show on the television, every day you switch the television on, it reaches a new high in getting into trouble. The spot fixing report is told to be just a mole in the mountain.

In the last one year or so they have had at least 4 captains representing the national team in different tournaments and formats, with infighting being one of the major reasons of the teams’ problems. No one now wants to play cricket with them, English players in someway or the other are showing their disinterest in playing any further cricket against them in the near future at least (not to forget the world cup is just a few months away!). And as a result of the recent spot fixing allegations, a few player sponsors have immediately indicated their fear of not being in a position to sponsor these players anymore keeping in mind their own brand values. A situation where all the major sponsors call off their sponsorship deals with Pakistan cricket is not a very callous prediction to make I believe. If that happens, I don’t see Pakistan cricket getting back on its feet on the cricket field, not to forget there might be much more that could still happen to Pakistan cricket in the coming days keeping in mind how PCB is dealing with ICC lately.

Nothing is exciting talking about cricket in the Indian subcontinent at the moment, just hoping that the Champions League brings some excitement back to the otherwise gloomy outlook towards cricket.

Today’s Favorite Line – Only those who seek shall find

Today’s Favorite Song – Man Lafanga (Lafangey Parindey)

Common Wealth Games – India bula liya

2010-09-07T15:04:00.001+05:30

The most upsetting coverage on all forms of media in the last 6 months has been on the preparation levels of India for the Common Wealth Games (CWG). The negative marketing of the CWG has gone down to an extent that a huge chunk of the population has started to believe that India should never have taken up the responsibility of conducting such a gigantic event when we knew we don’t have any experience or expertise to do the same. In fact a lot of experts and amateurs have gone down to say that CWG is nothing but a quick way of wasting thousands of crores of public money, that would do no good to the population at large, in no ways except for may be a few desperately made unfit stadiums (called ‘world class’ by them selves to give it that feeling at least for name sake) and more damage of infrastructure and chaos in daily life for ‘delhiites’ for close to half a decade now in the name of development which is yet to be seen in shape.

Now I guess its time we did some damage control and focused on certain face saving events rather than reporting and promoting the other not so happening things about the games(though the fact would remain that a lot of things are not right, agreed!! But they will never be at least for these games). Now this is a genuinely concerned citizen’s appeal that instead of beating the trumpets against our own people and events, lets try and stick to the fact that this event is some thing that may either bring the country laurels or might shatter the chances of the country having any image with regard to conducting any major event (not specific to sports alone) ever again.

No matter how bad the progress of the infrastructure development projects is, no matter how ugly the organizing committee and other contractors have gotten in the process of making the CWG happen (both in terms of corruption and bureaucracy), no matter how much money has already been wasted, no matter how good or bad our own athletes are, no matter how miserable life for a delhiite has become, no matter how good you expected the theme song to be and how Rahman may have disappointed the country at that Cost. Let’s just understand one thing; this is an event that our country has promised the world that it would host & conduct to the best of its abilities by making available all kinds of world class facilities both for the athletes and for the spectators who’ll be visiting our country to witness the mega event.

So let’s just stick to this particular thought and support the cause for the country in whatever fair way that we can. If that requires us to be spectators on television or on field as per our convenience, or if that requires us to stop reporting/promoting all the shortcomings till the games are over and done with, let’s make sure we don’t do it till the closing ceremony. Now, when I say that we should not promote or report the shortcomings during the course of the preparation and conducting of events, I mean it to be paused for a while and not for ever. Do all the accusing and pinpointing the day after the games are over.

Once the games are done and completed successfully (at least to say so), open up all the files of shortcomings and corruption and catch each of the culprits by their collar and take them to task, no one is going to stop you or the care takers of law. But until that time, just keep a track of everything, so that you can open the Pandora of complaints when it won’t hurt the country’s image. It does not make sense to take them to task now, as these are the people who know the event and the plans of its conducting in and out, if they are taken to task now, the progress of the preparation for the event and its smooth conducting will fall in to jeopardy. So let the goons make merry while we worry about the country’s reputation. Once the country’s obligation is taken care of, then we can reward these goons aptly. Till then lets just follow the lyrics of the theme song of CWG ‘rukna rukna rukna nahi, harna harna harna harna, harna nahi’. Because, ‘O yaaron. Ye

India

bula liya!’

Today’s Favorite Line – Have faith, when you have nothing else!!

Today’s Favorite Song – Lehrein (Aisha)

Broadband access a legal right in Finland, we still lack sanitation!!

2010-07-06T18:31:00.003+05:30

In the first week of July providing high speed broadband service to all the citizens became a legal right in Finland. Just while reading this peace of news from a national daily, I was wondering we at India are so, so backward that we still haven’t solved our sanitation problem leave alone technological stuff like broadband and 3G or 4G.

This particular news item on Finland was of significant importance to me more than others as, if things would have happened as planned for me a year ago, I would have now been almost enjoying this right (not as a citizen but as an employee of a Finnish company though). And there I would have wondered about having high quality broadband service while we in India still suffer from low quality voice calling to say the least. We at India are still ages behind if we compare ourselves with countries like

Finland

in terms of technological innovation, human rights, crime, employment, infrastructure and many other parameters.

How will we get ahead while we have nefarious animals in the form of humans in our country killing innocent youngsters in the name of honor? If that time and energy was spent on doing certain other productive things for one self as well as the country, that would have fetched them and the country some global honor may be, and saving both them and the country some crime, brutality and sharp minds. Anyhow such is the kind of treatment one could expect in a society(country) that is uneducated at large and is tied in the bonds of self proclaimed tradition and other nonsense of past.

We lack so many basic rights as humans that broadband is still irrelevant to more than three quarters of the population at least. How can we think of broadband as a right even in our wildest dream when we seem to have nothing in place to even make a connection available in almost half of the living area of our population? There is neither the infrastructure (roads, power and so on) nor the education required with a huge chunk of the population to be able to access broadband services even in case they could be made available by some miracle.

So let’s make sure we give sanitation and education as legal rights at the earliest to all the citizens and then we can become eligible of dreaming about broadband services or other technological innovations in some portions of the country to start with per say. And then we can think of people moving around with latest gadgets in their hands downloading stuff from the internet early in the morning instead of them moving around with broken dirty mugs containing contaminated water walking towards the railway track to unload the stuff they managed to beg, borrow or steal the previous day to feed themselves. And that day we would also already be seeing tidy kids with clothes on their body, oil on their hair, with polished shoes and instead of dirt and grease on their hands (from being bonded labor) we may expect a book or a newspaper at least, to start moving towards being one among the best countries to live in, in the world.

P.S - While writing this post, just a second before I was about to finish writing, there was a power cut and I lost the document as a result ( I forgot to save the same while typing). Fortunately I managed to get it recovered, else living in one of the best cities of the country, I would have had to curse the infrastructure even more than we usually do for it is of no use having a broadband connection at home when such power cuts interrupt my work to the extent of almost losing it. Grrrrr...!!

Today’s Favorite Line – The slower we move, the faster we die.

Today’s Favorite Song - Allah ke bande (Kailash Kher)

Marriage – an institution of 'love' or 'Coercion'?

2010-05-26T01:24:00.000+05:30

A lot has been happening with regard to marriages recently and a huge chunk of population in the country is still way behind in BC (read – Before Christ) times in terms of their attitude towards it.

Of what I have learnt and understood of marriage in the 2 plus decades that I have lived, it is an arrangement where a male and a female start living together, to share their thoughts, lives, relatives and a lot more and ultimately for reproduction i.e. to help the world go on with enough number of people living on it at any point in time (to continue legacy’s, to put it differently).

In the past, marriage was more about some older generation people having not much to do in their free time, so they spent quite some time to find an ideal ‘family’ (mark my words here, they looked out for a family not a bride or groom) for their boy or girl ( I literally mean boy or girl here, it wasn’t man or women, heard of child marriage?) and once they found a family that they thought they would gel well with, irrespective of the fact that whether the boy and the girl would be able to spend the major part of their lives together ‘happily’ or not. All that mattered to them was their compatibility with the other family and certain other material things, to put it graciously.

If we talk about marriage today, the context is completely different and rightly so to an extent*. It’s an institution through which 2 humans of different genders spend a majority of their life together, for which they need to like and understand each other, so that they can bear with each other and can be there for each other at times good or bad, happy or sad and simultaneously can help the world have more people to live in and happily if possible.

The most important criteria today for the younger generation to get married is love. If they think they don’t like someone, they will seldom marry him or her (as far as they are courageous enough to speak up to the otherwise egoist world about their choice & liking). While we still are fighting the likes of khap, intracaste, inter caste and so on. We hardly seem to understand the logic behind such traditional burdens we are carrying. Some religions/ castes are against inter caste marriages, some are against intra caste marriages and some are against love marriages to be more specific. To my mind all of them are wrong and are only selfish and cruel to the right of ‘loving’ (can I call it ‘living’?). They want to compromise with lives of others, supposedly for the sake of some self created/felt honor. They are imposing self created beliefs which mean nothing if thought rationally about.

Let me pose a simple question to solve a major part of this marriage riddle. Did Adam and Eve know their Caste/religion/gotra? We have come a long way since Adam and Eve and we have learnt that they are supposedly the ones who began reproduction in the universe of humans. It is our older generations that have created such sects and sub sects as we have increased in numbers in the world. And to put it bluntly, they have done so to serve their own ego’s, selfish benefits, likings and many other such individualist reasons. Why should we continue with such illogical practices that have been imposed up on us? We are following it just because we have never questioned their existence at the first place.

I have observed some positive change in the younger generation recently, though only a few instances, they look to me like a huge step towards a better future. It’s about couples abstaining from mentioning their caste in certain places where that information is sought. Not just for themselves but even for their kids. In one particular case a couple did so because the husband is a muslim and the wife is a hindu, so they simply dint want to decide what caste their kid wanted to belong to. They thought that it was his choice whether he wanted to be known through some caste, if at all or doesn’t want to flaunt one like his parents did and he could take that decision the day he is grown up and mature enough to take a call on this divide and rule game. But the couple had to face a lot of problems before having made their point clear and still face tough situations at various places.

My thought on what should be the deciding factors for a marriage are summarized below, though we still have problems including dowry, domestic violence, female foeticide and many more such problems looming our society at large even today. In an ideal society we must, just let ‘love, liking, compatibility and understanding’ take over ‘caste, creed, greed and religion’ while choosing a groom for a bride or vise versa. As the former are the most important ingredients in any relationship and not the latter, which are just artificially created barriers that most of humanity still fails to understand fortunately.

* Let’s not get into the same gender marriages, which if not mentioned to do the least here while talking about ‘marriages in today’s context’ would be utterly ignorant of me. Though I am completely against that idea as its against the law of nature and so I think I would like to not comment much on it as I am not supposed to make judgments on other peoples lives, they know their own life and world better I guess.

P.S – This post was triggered by the incessant inhumane acts of the khaps in the northern part of the country, highlighted in the media lately. Such devilish acts must be condemned and the people behind these ideologies (at least the idea of taking lives, if nothing more or less) taken to task.

Today’s Favorite Line – Competition in life is necessary but in love, it just might be fatal.

Today’s Favorite Song – Love Don’t Care (Firehouse)

Grow up OLDIE and let us too!!

2010-05-25T01:41:00.001+05:30

We often complain about progress in a lot of things in our life as citizens, as humans. We say the government has not done much for infrastructure, for education, for poverty, blah blah blah, yap yap yap, buk buk buk. Hold on!! Have we ever thought about ourselves? How far have we progressed in our thinking?

We are still the same old British ruled creatures who keep getting imposed up on. The only difference is, now the imposition is more to do with thought process and its outcome and not as much of slavery as during British rule. We haven’t progressed even a mile in terms of maturity in thinking, in thinking ahead, in adapting ourselves to the changing time and ways of living. We still take all the shit that people around us give, just because they think something is right, are we obliged to take it as they give it to us? Let’s stop taking it!! Who do they think they are? They aren’t doing any favor by sharing their wisdom or experience. They are, simply said, just dumping their own view on us by exhibiting it as a ritual or so. It’s a plain white ‘lie’, is how I see it.

Lets take a few examples of how things have changed in decades and how different things are perceived now vis a vis how they were being perceived in the past supposedly.

Disease – It’s easier to start with a topic that at least most of them would agree with me on. If someone would have uttered the word ‘cancer’ a few decades ago or for that matter even a few years ago, it would have meant only one thing to anyone whether literate or illiterate, the word would have only related to end of life, ‘death’ (whether soon or a little later). So generation over generation, people started believing in that and lost hope. Scientists around the world have been working hard to find a cure for it and thankfully to an extent there seems to be some relief and cure for some of them who caught this deadly disease.

But today if one utters the word ‘cancer’, ‘death’ is not the first thing that comes to ones mind, its dialysis, treatment, cure, hope or life that comes to our mind. To quote an example we can look at the story of Lisa Ray, we read and understand that she fought the battle and survives today trying to lead a better life. There are thousand such stories today and the numbers are just going to increase manifold in the coming days. I guess the older generation better start believing in the future and the youngsters who are working hard to make it a better one.

Cricket - Now coming to a sport that a large proportion of the country follows. If we would have spoken about cricket say 3 decades ago, we would have nothing more to talk about than test match, bouncers, West Indies, defensive batting and so on. No mention of the terms money, cheer leaders, doosra, sixers, 20 – 20, power play, day – night games (in fact soon we are gonna have day- night test matches!). It’s clear that with time, we have come a long way. A lot of things have changed and a lot more will change with time. But if we still keep talking about how a team batted for 3 days continuously in a test match and the match ended in a draw, people would laugh at that team and of course us; it’s not the way we play cricket now. So instead of complaining about how people/money have changed the game, lets take what’s more relevant today and how to make it better with how its working better today. The veterans have no other work, they have already retired, they are obviously expected to speak highly about the past, but how does it matter? They aren’t the ones who are gonna play the game now, are they? So it doesn’t matter as much as to what they felt like while playing the game then and what they miss now.

Communication – Our grandparents would tell us, we used to write letters and it used to take 2 weeks or so for it to deliver and so on. While our parents would tell us we used to make trunk calls and at times we had to wait all day before we got the line free and so on. Now with the launch of 3G technology, we can communicate live from anywhere at any time seeing each others face and for as long as we want. If an oldie still is against such stuff because he/she dint have access to it during their times, ask them to get a life now! We have it now, are we still supposed to listen to those people who don’t even have an idea about what we are doing, why and how?! Think of a scenario where instead of these oldies grumbling about the advancement and the way youngsters use it, start trying to understand it and use it for their own good. But no! They have to impose their thoughts (wisdom), don’t they?!

Marriage – Its one of the things that we are most backward in our thinking till date about. We to an extent have progressed in our approach with a lot of other things mentioned above, but when it comes to marriage we are still old wine in old bottle stuff. We have neither changed the wine, nor the bottle (if that sounds like a saying at all). Earlier it used to be 2 families getting together into a relationship through 1 person from each family and the affair would be concerned more with the families and not the bride and the groom whose lives were at stake ultimately, but the oldies wouldn’t care less.

Now marriages are more concerned with the 2 humans whose lives are going to be affected the most and we seem to think that’s the better way to approach this institute of love and life. But can we ever get rid of caste, khap, honor killing, sati, child marriage, female girl killing and so on? We have all these problems in abundance even today across the country. Can the thought leaders of such chauvinistic attitudes ever find a rational behind their acts? Where have we progressed in these issues yet? We are still many centuries behind with our approach to these issues of immense importance to every individual life on earth. It’s all just because of the thoughts of the older generation who are so myopic, that they don’t want to see progress; they can’t bear a better life for the younger generation, because they themselves haven’t lived one, how can they see their younger generations live happily after all?

Education – To my understanding, the older generations studied only for one reason – to secure a job. There was no other meaning to them when it came to education. It did not mean progress or innovation or growth or intelligence or wisdom and so on. All it meant to them was, ‘it’s going to secure me a government job’. A good proportion of people in the country have realized how important it is for them to enroll their kids to school, instead of using them for chores or working on farm or doing some kind of bonded labor. But there is still a majority of population spread across the country which doesn’t understand and realize the importance of education and how it can make or break lives in today’s context. Children are still used on farm or as bonded labor (agreed that in certain cases it is because they can’t afford it, but it’s not the same in all the cases, I guess we needn’t worry about it now though, RTE has just arrived). This requires a radical shift in thought and attitude towards the life of our beloved. Education would certainly lead to a better life no matter where one lives, what one earns or thinks like. Need I mention about the reservation system we have in our country that the older generation has believed in firmly for the last 6 decades and more, which is literally killing the country and its younger population in some way or the other. The more we dig deep into the reservation problem the lesser it is. It is such a big mistake the government has down in decades and more so lead by a lot of old generation power houses to seek votes of people whose lives they are working to not be better off ever, so that they keep getting their votes for ever by highlighting the reservation favor.

We need a huge thought revolution (like the green revolution), which puts sense into millions of people who are fooling and billions of them who are being fooled by a lot of bigoted people. We need to adopt progressive thinking, the world is changing a lot for the better and even more for the worse, but we need to still adapt to it for the better, by not staying regressive. If we stay regressive worrying about the world getting worse, we’ll get no where, we need to understand that first.

It’s a humble appeal from a novice to all the oldies out there (across classes, castes, generations, colors, genders, regions, professions, literacy levels) – Please kindly stop imposing yourself and your thoughts on the younger generation. They don’t need your wisdom; it is no more relevant in today’s context. So kindly get with them and acquaint yourselves with the current trends and try to work together for a better life both for you and them.

Today’s Favorite Line – The older I get, the younger I want to be and the younger I am, the older I want to be. That’s life!!

Today’s Favorite Song – Man in the mirror (Michael Jackson)

Why blame the IPL

2010-05-12T23:37:00.000+05:30

If players don't perform to their potential in under pressure situation on tracks that don't go with their comfort zone, is IPL responsible?

Who is to blame when you play only 2 seamers and rest slows bowlers on tracks that suit pace men more. But for Suresh Raina and to an extent Rohit Sharma (for a lost cause) all other batsmen failed in the World Cup. What happened to our Pathans and Yuvrajs and the captain cool himself? All of them failed miserably. Most of them were disappointments even in the IPL except for a couple of knocks here and there in a dozen plus games played by each of them. So did IPL sway them to continue their poor form? Not at all, it gave them a much required chance to have some match practice in fact, that too against the best bowlers from across the world. The same Mallingas, Mathews and the Pollards are the ones whom they played with and against.

If IPL is responsible at all, then have a look at Mahela Jayewardane, no one in their wildest dreams could have ever thought this guy could adapt so well to this format and win games for his team almost every time with brilliant knocks. Now you should also say IPL is responsible for giving him such a nice platform and opportunity to let him tune himself according to the games needs. There are many other players who continued their form from IPL or bettered it in the world cup. If Indians couldn't do it, it’s not for the IPL to take the blame. In fact the top 5 batsmen in this world cup at this moment are all who played in the IPL as well - M Jayewardene, KP Pietersen, C Gayle, J Kallis and S Raina.

But was it not known even before the start that Indians are miserable against short pitch bowling? So why select people who are not time tested with short pitch bowling even if it was the shortest version of the game? The team selection was not to be made based on IPL like conditions for heavens sake, the world cup is being played at the Caribbean land!

The team failed in several departments including poor captaincy by Dhoni, picking wrong sides, choosing to bowl when anyone on earth would have chose to bat, selecting more slow/spin bowlers in the team when the conditions are tailor made for pace men. It couldn’t have got any more worse.

Indians performed miserably on the days when they needed to fire all guns. The crucial thing for a team playing any tournament is its fitness level and the performance of every individual player on the match days, which in India’s case was lackluster and so it lost and that it rightly deserved to say the least.

Let’s stop using the IPL, its money and the late night parties as an excuse for a blunder which the players did on the field.

Today’s Favorite Line – ‘Patience is not much about waiting; it is more about how one behaves while waiting’.

Today’s Favorite Song – Aye Khuda (Paathshaala)

What's Superior - Religion or Law

2010-05-08T00:26:00.001+05:30

This is a very very tricky question; the answer more often than not would be different in different contexts. But it’s a really important question at this moment in India.

We all, in our lives as civilians are expected to follow or abide by two things as per our social setting, religion (am taking the discretion of treating caste also as a part or an equivalent of religion as it’s just another form of division) and law. There are two interesting cases that India at this moment is debating and arguing about, two completely different contexts but they both involve religion and law as the center piece of the argument and more importantly life of someone at stake as the backdrop.

Case 1 - A boy and a girl from certain rural parts of the country love and marry without approval of their families and society. As they married with in their family (they are siblings), it was out of question for them to seek approval of any of the above before their wedlock. The khap panchayat sees it as dishonor to it and ordered killing of the couple for this misdemeanor wholly supported and backed by the family of the guy/girl. When the doors of justice were knocked at some court, the honorable court condemned the ruling and act of the panchayat. (For complete story here)

Case 2 - A 20+ guy from across the border infiltrates into our country and mercilessly massacres dozens of lives with his companions and unfortunately (for him) survives while all his partners in crime die in the process of this mini war. After playing hide and seek in his response to the Special Court trying his case for almost a year and half, he finally is found to be guilty of the crimes he did which the entire world saw bits and pieces of every now and then on different forms of media. He manages to get a death sentence on several counts, bringing some sort of closure to the kith and kin of the victims. Majority population of the country is praying for his execution immediately without any delay for him to play any other games with the friendly law of the country (he was given the food he liked in jail, he got a lawyer for free to prove he was innocent, though all of us knew he wasn't innocent, more over he got such a royal treatment, on day of the verdict he appeared in the court in a nice white kurta pajama. Human rights people got him nice treatment from the cops & what not).

Both these cases deal with death as the verdict, in one it’s given by a caste based outfit and in another it’s given by the body of law in the nation. As far as I've known and learnt, no religion teaches to kill, none of them teach 'an eye for an eye' behavior. But still the khap panchayat managed to kill young guys and girls for loving and marrying in the name of honor, in multiple cases. Whose honor? For whose sake? They only loved, they only got married, and it’s in order with the civil society's code of conduct. Why worry so much about caste? Is death the only way out? Will they get back their honor by killing those innocent, loving humans? All this was done and the law of the land couldn't do much, instead the khap panchayat advised the judicial body to not interfere, such a shame. This is a total disregard and ignominious behavior towards the legal system of the country. How do we punish them?

In the second case, though majority of the population wants kasab to be hanged ASAP, there are a lot of people who are actively lobbying towards banning or revoking capital punishment in the country. They say, our religion and leaders (spiritual) have not taught us to kill. We have always been taught to be merciful, to transform people from being wrong doers to being good humans. The judge while giving his judgment mentioned that reforming kasab is out of question, he is a killing machine and deserves only to die. In this case death has been awarded for killing, contrasting to the first case where death was given for loving. But now law sees killing as the only option while religion says reform is still a way that could be tried. We shouldn't start this game of tit for tat or tooth for tooth.

I am very confused as to what my opinion on the second case is, while am very clear to my mind that in the first case killing the young couple was the most brutal acts of crime post Hitler era. While the killing spree that kasab and his team went on for was as atrocious as it could have got, for which reason my mind says kill kasab, hang him, hang him now, don't give him any more time, he has already got 18 months of extra life, he should have been shot at site the day he was caught (not that we have got any extra ordinary links or clues while having him in our custody, he has been taught well enough to hide and die rather than speaking the truth). But heart says did your religion and gurus teach you to be supportive of violent acts? Agreed that this violence is to kill a killing machine and is also endorsed by law but don't we think so much even before hurting an ant in our daily life? Now we are talking about killing an adult. Will this do any good to further terrorist acts or will it deter them from pursuing such inhumane crimes?

The side affects of executing or not executing him could be any of the following as far as my mind can think.

If he is not hanged, his handlers would use this as an example to enroll many more kasab's into their gang by assuring them their lives even if they were caught (just like kasab).
If he is not hanged, they could do a kandhar type hijacking they did few years back to get him free and then we'd lose both justice and may be lives of our loved ones as a few paid their lives during kandhar.
If he's not hanged, we'd have to take care of another terrorist in our already overcrowded jails, we'd be spending money on his life for several decades, that money could be used for some developmental activity in the country to stop terrorism. We have already spent a lot doing a fair trail while keeping him alive and in the pink of his health.

If he's hanged, may be LeT may plan another attack to show retaliation and revenge(his hanging is a non incident for them to cut down their terrorism, they sent him with a plan for him to die after the attack, unfortunately for them their plan failed in his case causing some distress)
If he's hanged the confidence level of the Indian citizen in the law of the land would increase manifold (it already has to a great extent as we tried kasab very fairly and are giving him what he deserved best - death)
If he's hanged may be many other criminal outfits will take a lesson out of it and slow down on their delinquencies.

There can be many more arguments for and against the life of this animal in the form of a human. But I am not really able to decide what’s superior to me, Religion or Law; head says the killer doesn’t deserve to live but heart asks, is that the only way out? This is a real life test and let law take its own course and religion do its own thing. After all law says – Satyamave Jayete and religion says – Live and Let Live. Neither is worth ignoring, so let’s just be truthful and accommodate nice things in our life, as truth has won its battle and justice has been done, now it’s a test to our religious beliefs, is this man worth to let live? I don’t have an answer, do you?

Today’s Favorite Line – There is anger or sadness behind every smile (mostly)

Today’s Favorite Song – So Sick (Ne-Yo)

What about now

2010-05-05T15:13:00.001+05:30

I was the topper in high school…

You were such a nice guy when you were a kid…

I will be a billionaire some day…

You are spoiling your future…

To all these statements I have one question - What about now?

What are you today? What do you think today?

Are you happy, successful, well mannered, responsible, etc today? Now?

I basically subscribe to a school of thought that doesn't believe in past, doesn't listen to or agree with what the ancestors or earlier generations did or thought. It doesn't matter what and how they thought about certain things and how they dealt with issues or circumstances.

They did what they liked, the way they liked! They must not have necessarily followed or agreed with their own ancestors. None of us actually ever bothered to check that, not that we could check it actually. So why are we being forced to follow them or their thoughts/views?

They had their reasons for doing the things they did the way they did.

They got back home before sunset because there wasn't light in their times, so it was best getting back home safe early.
They dint go to disco cos there wasn't one.
They woke up early in the morning because they had nothing to do till late in the night so they fell asleep early and weren't feeling sleepy anymore in the morning and of course since there was light only in the day they better did what ever they wanted to in the day. They walked miles cos there wasn't a vehicle back then or they couldn’t afford it, if at all there was one.
They used to talk only for a short while on phone because it either wouldn’t get connected for long or it was costlier than robbing a bank.
They ate more natural stuff because they hadn't invented the stuff used to make these junk/fast food which got invented much later.
Who said they dint have ailment like sugar, bp and so on? There wasn't a lab out there for them to checkout so they never knew and just lived with it in denial.

It’s all rubbish when people use past instances and future predictions to dump their views on you.

We get home late cos we are busy meeting friends or doing our own thing as evening is the only time we get after office/college, why not use that time?
We get up late cos we hardly slept for a couple of hours by the time they woke up, don't we need some rest? What’s wrong if that's our lifestyle in the changing times?
We have the convenience of transportation so why not use it?? What’s the point in comparing by saying ‘in my young days I used to walk so many miles', who cares?
We talk on phone for long cos it costs just a handful of peanuts worth money to talk for a while.
We consume more of junk food cos we have improved taste buds than they probably did, is that our fault really?
Disease was not uncommon during any period in humanity and neither will it be in the future, so why always crap about it?

Talking about the future, no one knows what’s there in store for us tomorrow. We could be anything, anywhere, we just never know. No amount of experience can predict tomorrow in these times when change happens like the speed of lightning. So no amount of gyan on future is of any use, its better they rather shut it.

I firmly believe, the younger generation is a victim of false information and self opinionated guidance which doesn't necessarily have a empirical evidence from past and even if it does it is most likely going to not work in the future, cos with time situations and a lot of other things have also changed. Experience is the most irrelevant thing in today’s context. What you do or be now decides your now, not someone else's experience from past is gonna do any trick. In fact the use of past examples is a trick to fool you, to get your actions and thoughts under someone else's control. The older generations are just adamant and dictating which is neither good for them nor for the younger generations.

Respect for all is the call of the hour. So stop getting fooled by useless wisdom from the creators of history at their own will and handle your situation your own way. All you need to be asking yourselves when ever in doubt is - what about now?

Rest will following automatically!!

P.S – This is just my take on living, probably it feels harsh and rude but don’t forget that’s how life is. If humans are not easy on change they either will be left back or will keep fighting their ego and get no where. I guess older generations should get a little easy on the younger ones so that we could live in a better world where the thought divide is not as large as it is today. This is just an attempt to bring to fore a certain common examples that everyone could relate to, can come up with many more examples though, but this probably is not the right way or forum, one sided affair. Just wanted to emphasize on the importance on now and progressive thinking.

Today's favorite line – Past is a cheat and future is a liar.

Today's favorite song - What about now (Westlife)

Summer of '09

2010-04-12T01:15:00.002+05:30

Date: 10 – 04 – 2009, Time: 22.00 hrs

This day and time, a year ago I boarded a train for a quick trip to my native and to see a lot of saints, relatives and of course temples. Wondering why I am recalling this particular journey? Because the reason why this journey was undertaken never got off the mark, though the journey happened and happened quite satisfactorily. I did all the things that I was set out to do. Just dint do what I was supposed to do after this journey, what I prayed for and met people for during this journey. I was supposedly set out for Finland after this journey but who was to know a journey right after the end of the start of a summer at one of the best places I've spent 2 years of my life got over. I was supposed to fly and not just fly; it was supposed to be a Finnish start for all that I hyped it. I thought it was going be a start of scaling new heights, how about a flying start to an upcoming career and a life time opportunity?!

So, as planned the trip to native and north India for other purposes happened and so did I join my Finnish company, but not quite yet, I had just joined the Indian office of the Finnish Company and awaited my visa and other documents to be ready for me to leave for my Scandinavian endeavor. I was supposed to wait just for a week as told initially, week turned to a month then to 2 and not too late to 3 and some more and then came a day when I stopped fighting!!

No it wasn't a fight with my colleagues or anyone; it was a fight with myself. Every single day was a challenge, during the day the challenge was to kill time, to keep away boredom and to avoid stress, stress of not having much to do in fact anything to do. Each of those 109 days took a toll on the tiny little brain that I have to think and better myself on ways to while away time and feel normal because, if that didn’t happen I would feel unproductive and useless and so I did, did all sorts of stupid things to while away time, always sad and upset. That was supposedly a flying start to a dream career!!

The moment the digital clock on my office pc turned to 18.35, I hardly took any time to leave the lavish premises of my work where I seldom worked to go to my home sweet home which I was gonna supposedly miss for the next year or more and there I was at home close to 7 with a dull stupid day at the back of my mind, with a mild head ache and of course the war that I was having within my brain which asked me a single question in different ways and contexts repeatedly all through the day and night :- Am I going to Finland? Should I? Does my mom want me to? Will my dad be ok if I go? Is this the career start I even thought of/wanted? What if I don't want to go? How do I make things at home easy if I really am going? What's good/right for me? For my family? When will I come back? Or will I? The head felt like a complete army is shooting at me from all possible directions and all at the same time continuously and neither was I a Jackie Chan or a Rajnikant to be able to save myself from even a single bullet of these questions that were shooting my head.

Pressure kept mounting day after day as did my preparation and the delay in the process of obtaining the required documents. One not so fine morning I was late to office, (not that I was on time any other day) as my boss and team had arrived before I did and to my surprise(was a shock actually) the process of obtaining the documents for my travel were almost done (something that hadn't even moved for almost 100 days) and this news was given to me by my boss himself waiting for me near my desk for me to arrive for the days work(he kinda thought I was working) and congratulated me and asked me to be set to leave anytime in the coming week! Instead of cheer there was fear kinda expression on my face with a made up smile which did look fake though it got over looked because of the summer heat that I was entering the office with already some sweat. The fear was of the unanswered questions I had in my mind that got triggered every now and then and now it was almost time for me to answer them and zero in on something else I was up for a big disaster with in. I was about to explode any time soon, it was time I took a decision, the biggest ever decision of my life till that day.

The days following that shocking news got even tougher, pressure built on as at the one end I was just getting set to leave and was shopping and packing and meeting and what not, all the things for me to leave for Helsinki and at the other end my mind kept fighting the same old questions and thoughts and it sort of found an answer which was a very daring and bold one. Not many were going to back it except a few who have been vouching for that answer for quite a while and many others who shifted from support to retaliation and vice versa making things worse for me mentally. But I knew I had to take my own call, no matter who thought or said what, it was my heart and mind that had to decide and so I did.

I decided to give a pass to a career start that lot of like minded and/or like aged would envy. For me my family came first. As I thought if I can help things remain normal at family level I could figure out something for my career and concentrate on it better than worrying about both(which I was literally doing for the 3 months that had passed) and being bad at both. It was a Sunday that I had decided to be the last day to take a call and on Monday morning I would go ahead and communicate my decision to everyone concerned, whether they knew about such thoughts earlier or not. It was going to be the toughest day and meeting of my life. I had to tell my boss that the faith he had in me and the resources that he had spent on me were all going to be a waste as I was not in a condition to take an abroad assignment due to family concerns.

I wouldn't have been embarrassed with myself any more ever than that day, I could hardly manage to see anyone in eye and neither could my voice go beyond a certain level. I was feeling that low and embarrassed, but my boss treated this whole thing extremely well, he dint speak a single word in anger or disappointment which was a bigger shock for me than the shock that I was already in by doing something which I never imagined I would do so early in my professional career. He in fact asked me to stay back in the company at Chennai itself and take up some other profile, but I had other plans in mind long before I took this decision. I was so embarrassed that I couldn't imagine working at that place any longer. Not only because I wanted to do something on my own but also because I never again in my life wanted to go through the same kind of embarrassment.

So I called it a day for my professional working career that day. I knew this was going to be my first and last employer, I never wanted to work for too long and especially for someone else whom I am not sure how comfortable I would be with. So with a really heavy heart and mind I walked out of the office finishing formalities generally that take quite some time in a matter of few hours because I wanted to be saved of those questions and gossips and self respect issues and boy I guess I did well, the fear and worry that I was carrying in my mind for the last 100+ days had gone once for all in a matter of few hours and you bet that I was relieved, though I dint know what I was gonna do the next day, I was sure I had nothing to worry about, the guilt pangs remained for quite sometime but I at least could catch up some sleep after having not slept like for ages, worrying every night about what was in store for me in the near future and how was I going to handle it and that night I slept, I slept like a baby. No worries about the next morning/ day at least. A break from a lot of tensions and the everyday mental agony, that lasted indeed for more than just a summer. That was my summer of 2009!!

Epilogue – The next morning after I quit my job, I woke up a little late than usual, it was a phone call that woke me up. To make things even weirder it was one of my uncles who I respect a lot who called and said ‘Now that you are not going to

Finland

and you say that you want to do your own business, I have an opportunity for you right away!! Why don’t you go to

South Africa

for some export business??’ Its but obvious that I shot his request down at once!! After a struggle of almost 6 months on going abroad or not, after rejecting a hi fi opportunity to make things comfortable at home, I got another abroad opportunity right away.. bah!! I was not even over the guilt pangs of the previous days happenings and here I was with another chance to fly, a flying start again may be. That’s how life gives you what you don’t want the most when you don’t want it at all..!!

P.S – Just got the courage to put all this down in writing, it took almost a year! Keep watching this space for more on the last few months as a continuation to this, post summer ’09 & the big fat entrepreneurship dream – in the making, coming soon!!

Today’s Favorite Line – Silence speaks volumes, if you can comprehend!!

Today’s Favorite Song – Catch my breathe (West Life)

I feel numb

2010-04-04T18:25:00.003+05:30

You think that I don’t care,

But that thought isn’t fair.

Its not tat I’ve forgotten,

It’s just that my feelings have rotten.

You think that I am not hurt,

But believe me I am a hiding expert.

I said that I’ll always be there,

Whether you give me happiness or despair.

I’ve always tried to be funny,

To bring a smile above your chin(ny).

And I miss that smile,

Cos I haven’t seen it for a while.

You never had to lie,

For I was never going to be a spy.

For believing in u was so dumb,

That’s why today I feel numb.

P.S – Sometimes its fun to write such sadist lines, doesn’t necessarily have to relate to the writer. Work of fiction.

Today’s Favorite Line – Maafi talaafi kar li, minnat bhi kaafi kar leee, kho dia phir bhi.. tujhhe…!

Today’s Favorite Song – Fool Again (West Life)

What’s your BET?!

2010-04-02T16:41:00.001+05:30

It’s been a while, since I am upset

Cos I look for freedom, which I don’t get

These are the days I don’t wanna regret

The worlds watching, with both eyes set

I’ve already wasted a lot of time, but I don’t fret

I’ve not earned enough, to wear a bracelet

One day ill be a big shot and I’ll own a jet

It’s up to you what you wanna interpret

I need to work hard and focus on my target

And I’ll soon start, what’s your bet?

Today’s Favorite Line –Khushiyan aur gham sehti hai, phir bhi yeh chup rehti hai.. ab tak kisi ne na jaana.. Zindagi kyaa kehti hai..

Today’s Favorite Song – When you love someone (Bryan Adams)

Head I win, tail you lose!!! Huh?!

2010-04-02T16:37:00.003+05:30

Ever thought or felt being treated in a way which otherwise is claimed to be taboo by others? Fortunately or unfortunately we are living in an era (not that things were different earlier) where there is bias and prejudice every now and then. Be it in the outside world, or at home or at office, every damn place ill treats! At times it gets really annoying to make things simple and straight, to correct the people who ill treat, but it sort of seems useless at other times and we just move on.

People take advantage of your silence and you still wouldn’t care much about fighting them, it’s not worth it you think and move on. I guess that’s how it is, I’ve been taking it and guess will keep taking it as long as I don’t loose my cool (fingers crossed, am getting impatient very easily lately though). Just thought of venting out certain instances where I’ve faced or seen double standard treatment.

You must have heard this saying ‘a crowd in a train/bus feels sick but the same thing in a club feels happening’, this one is a really common thing the elder generation keeps saying. But what about this, when elders play divine/religious songs at home on full volume that’s a real good thing, but if you do the same thing with the music you like, you get a million things to hear and you end up being called a nonsense person. Tell me one thing – Both are one or the other forms of music, you like one and I like the other, you like to play your favorite at peak volume but if I do the same I am called manner less and many better adjectives! Why?!

Ever missed your friend(s)? Ever felt them missing you? Ever stayed out of contact for sometime? Guess what?! What ever the case may be, just because you were not in contact and you intentionally or otherwise dint get in touch with the other person. Just because you are polite and you agree to your mistake and apologize for the same, does that mean you cant/wont ask the other person why did he/she dint bother to do the same? It takes 2 hands to clap. If the other person is so bothered and concerned why dint they get in touch instead of just waiting to put the blame on you one fine day. It works both ways my friend!!

Ever got a dose for having spent that paper thing with a bespectacled old man looking beyond the purview of the glasses? It’s sort of a human tendency to always think that one is right in doing what he does but when a second does it, the second is wrong!! To put it simply if they spend, its necessity and if you do the same its extravagance. Only if someone could define and correlate ones necessity to someone else’s extravagance. It’s all in the thought!!

It’s a Double Standard World!!!!

P.S – Just a couple of instants for now, have a few other in mind.. will post them too soon.

Today’s Favorite Line – At times the equation of life is so weird ‘Give, give give and then? Forgive!! ’

Today’s Favorite Song – Tu Salamat Rahe (Adnan Sami)

Worst time to live in this world

2010-03-23T23:30:00.003+05:30

We seem to live at the worst of times in the world. I’ve heard people saying ‘you couldn’t have lived at a better time, these are the best times for the kind of opportunities and growth India in particular and the world in general is witnessing’.

I feel its one of the worst times we are living in, decades later when we shall look back and talk to our next generation, we’ll have to put our head down in front of them for the kind of things that are happening during our lifetime (specially during our youth). The country is building various foundations or examples at this point in time which may not only spoil our future but also the future of the generations to come.

This state (its capital specially) in the country attracts the most money from across the world for various sectors which majorly imply finance and entertainment. But there are few anti social elements (according to me they are anti social!) in this state that is against even their own brothers from the other states of the country to live and work peacefully. How does this country grow? They don’t let a person call the capital city by a name he likes to, they don’t let a person release his movie just cos he feels in a certain manner about certain things, and they don’t let the god of cricket claim that his country is first for him and not his city. What the hell to do they aspire? What do they think of themselves and their own people? They mustn’t forget that their state today is what it is not because of its own people; it is more because of people who have got together on their land from across the country and the world. If they decide to call it quits, not even a dog will pee in their state.

Last week the CM of this state came up with a disastrous proposal of creating reservation in education for students of their own state, and students who were either not born in this state or whose parents haven’t been living in this state for at least 15 years will have to fight for a place in the limited space available after the reserved seats irrespective of how good or bad they are vis a vis the other students. I just for the sake of it hate the word reservation at the first place! How the hell in this world are we supposed to breathe freely? There will supposedly one day be reservation even to breathe. What are those students going to do whose parents get shifted to this state for work by their respective organizations? Their capital attracts the maximum number of people from outside, what do they do? Is it just to ill treat outsiders and make them suffer and spoil their future like this? What about being fair in this globalized, competitive world? There was another proposal a few weeks back that said; to obtain a public driving license a person must be fluent in terms of reading and writing the local language of the state. How fair is this? Think about the hundreds of Indians who are taxi drivers abroad! What if those foreign countries ill treat our citizens like that when we ourselves are treating our citizens this way?

This was just about one state, now lets get to another state, this being the largest state of the country on various counts, attracting the largest number of members in the parliament. The CM of this state has been throwing away money like it grows on trees. Making a history, for herself and her party by building statues and what not of her own late leaders and herself by wasting crores of rupees that could have been used for various developmental activities to help bridge a lot of gaps in the state. Why isn’t she adhering to any constitutional body? Why no fear? Why can we as citizens do nothing but just watch such extravaganza? If this kind of waste of money was not worse enough, her party members have been garlanding her with crores worth of cash just for nothing. Why do we just read about this, talk about this for a couple of days and forget? How long will the judiciary and other powerful elements of our country remain corrupt and silent? Even after seeing such instances how come people still vote for such hypocrites? Our children will laugh on us because all this is happening during our lifetime! How will we face that moment, that day?

Talk about terrorism, we during our life time so far have seen almost a dozen blasts across the country, we have hardly been able to get hold of even a few of those masterminds, they keep repeating their acts time and again and even we forget the act over time (except for the friends and family of those who lost their lives). Some day it could be to one of us, none of us are prepared to face that day and neither do we want to prepare ourselves for such a day. 26/11 happened and one of the terrorist was caught red handed, but its been more than a year now since that fellow is being treated with respect and grace in our own prisons, he changes his statement every now and then and our courts tend to believe him every time. Don’t we trust the evidences available and our own officers who caught him red handed for us to be able to pronounce a judgment to punish him? His own country disowned him for once. He is playing around with the law of our country, his bosses must be making merry and encouraging more fellows into such crimes giving an example of this fellow saying ‘see nothing has happened to him, he is having the best life, good food, good protection and lots of amenities. Could there be a better life?’ why is a criminal of such big notoriety enjoying a damn respectful life? Such elements should be given the worst kind of punishments which act as an example for others to think a million times even before setting out for such inhumane acts! And I seem to have heard this inhumane soul has been getting amenities inside the prison in terms of human rights and so on, there can’t be a bigger joke in this country in our life times.

There are lots of other such gruesome things happening around us in the world, these were just the top of mind recall ones on which we almost have lost hope and sight. So I firmly believe we are living in the worst era possible in this part of the world. Where will money and opportunity get you while such freighting things keep you worried all day and night!! I’ve lost hope of a good life in this world at least as of now..

Today’s Favorite Line – Music is the best soother, through weakness and strength, happiness and sorrow, for better or for worse it will always be there for you.

Today’s Favorite Song – Waiting on the world to change (John Mayer)

Journey on Indian Rail – Fun on the run!! (Day 2)

2010-02-20T23:28:00.000+05:30

The next day started quiet differently with beggars and hawkers of all kinds that you would (not) like to see, from people who would sing, clean the place, show their physical disability (& later appear normal on their return, tats once their collection time is over), to people who were absolutely fit and fine but lazy enough to work (tats what easy money makes u – lazy!!). The most annoying amongst all these people was a group of errrr transgenders. I was completely annoyed by them, not for the fact that they were doing the vasooli kind of stuff but it was more cos of the method they adopted to forcefully make us pay them. The 3 of us (friends) were sitting doing our own things (listening to music, eating, reading) when this human came to our berth and demanded money, we remained ignorant, not in the mood to give even a single penny, when really insisted up on, one of the friend picked up a nice piece of apple and said ‘wont give money, take this if u want to fill ur tummy’, which got refused instantly and to not waste the time and energy anymore that moron of a human being, raised the bottom of her sari till knee high ( obviously indicating to us that, if u don’t give money in a jiffy, this level could go even higher!! Grrrrrr). Totally frustrated by the act, we wanted to get rid of her (for the sake of convenience and for the fact that she was wearing a sari, no offence meant), so I quickly took out my valet and gave a Rs.5 note, which she dint like, but I some how managed to communicate to her that, that’s what is all the change that I have, she thankfully obliged and moved on.. Jeeeeeezz!!

As this session of stupid drama started to fade, came the most interesting part of the journey, u enter Maharashtra and u get to drink this special brand of tea called ‘chaudhry ki chai’. Man!! if u could find a person selling tea any better I’d give u all the wealth I have. These set of people start someway like this at the other end of the coach ‘Chaudhry ki chai peeeo, chaudhryyyyy ki chai peeeeelo’, ‘achi lage toh paise dena, nahi toh paise mat dena’ and the best one amonsnt many other 2 liners, which hits u hard, real hard!! ‘achi lage toh peeo, nahi lage toh khidki khula hai bahar phek do’. Ever heard a marketer/seller be so tough to u, he’s sure u wont dare him by saying u dint like it, remember u r in Maharashtra!! This friend actually wanted to have a cup of tea, so he stopped the chai wala ( I was seriously in the mood to mock at him, just by buying a cup of tea and telling him I dint like it and then throwing it out in front of him, but sense still prevailed so I managed to stop myself from getting into useless trouble! :D ) and got a cup of tea, when asked how it was, he managed to say that it was really nice. (am not sure if he really liked it or did he sense what kind of crazy ideas were going in my mind and so avoided telling the truth ;) )

The chai wala left and then came a young guy (10-12 yrs old) with a hell lot of key chains and other kid’s games; he had an accent and attitude of his own to sell those beautiful key chains for rs.10 each. My friends did buy a few key chains from him; both cos they wanted to help the innocent lil kid plus they really liked a few key chains from a huge variety that he managed to carry on his small shoulders. One friend also bought a couple of JLo ( just a few ppl know here wat it means, so pls ignore wat JLo is, I just couldn’t resist myself from using the term though ;) ) kind of mobile pouches, but I was wondering why he would buy 2 pouches? He told us, he was buying them for his wife! But why 2? Won’t 1 do?? Oh then we figured he bought 2 of 2 different colors, ah married he is now, obviously understands that women like to match things to their clothes (sorry dude I doubted u unnecessarily ;)). Do I need to mention he bought a purple and a pink one.. God!!!!! I thought it was just girls, see what marriage does to men…! And then since we had bought enough from about a 100 rupees or so, we started doing time pass with that guy, seeing key chains just like that to kill time, for which that small lil kid gave a fitting comment ‘lena hai toh lo saab, kahli pili time pass mat karo, aur bhi dhanda karna hai abhi’, my o my, 12 yrs old he was I thought!!

Last thing I’d like to mention about the journey is again about this same friend, we would have laughed at least for 15 mins non stop at this particular incident. There were these set of ladies selling a floor mat kind of thing which we use for sitting on floor at home. It was made out of some different material and did look really nice; it at least looked costlier than what this friend bought it for. He bought it for Rs.10 each and asked us what we thought it was worth, to which we unanimously said, must be about Rs.20 each (conservatively) and he was glad that he had bought something nice for home and tat too cheaper than what it looks worth. Once his purchase was over, just a minute later the next lady selling the same stuff entered and started shouting ‘2 for 15’ ‘2 for 15’, one must have looked at this friends face, he already felt cheated :D. this wasn’t the end, a few minutes later the next lady entered the coach and yes u have guessed it right, she shouted ‘2 for 10’ ‘2 for 10’. There couldn’t have been a better expression on some ones face to make us laugh anymore that day: D hilarious!!

Tats what Indian railways makes ur journey – Hilarious!!

P.S - Quiet a lengthy post, guess i need to work on making my posts shorter!! thank god I got the idea of splitting this post into 2 parts :P

Today’s Favorite Line – Honest people have a value, corrupt people have a price.

Today’s Favorite Song – Anyone else but you (The Moldy Peaches)

Journey on Indian Rail – Fun on the run!! (Day 1)

2010-02-20T23:23:00.000+05:30

What’s the first thing you should expect when ever you board an Indian railway coach? Chaos, Quarrel, filth, strangers or entertainment?

Wondering why entertainment also features as an option u got to choose from? That’s cos that’s wat a journey using the Indian railway provides you, that too without any additional charges! Great!! Aint it?!

This is about a train journey that I undertook a couple of weeks back to and fro Ahmedabad. It was not my first journey, but still I feel every journey with Indian railways leaves you with unique experiences and this one couldn’t have been any better in terms of free entertainment. Let’s see what kind of entertainment this journey was filled with…

The journey had just begun, it was not even 30 mins since the journey started, I was travelling with 2 other friends of mine and apart from the 3 of was there was an old man sitting opposite to me. The 3 of us were randomly exchanging pleasantries and wondering to ourselves how we were gonna bear each other for the next 7 days, when this old man out of the blue started speaking looking at me. At once not sure whether he was speaking to me or to one of the other 2, I just looked at him and turned back to the conversation with my friends. But then the old man wasn’t done speaking, and I realized he was saying certain things about me, he said ‘you have a flickering mind, its really difficult for u to take decisions generally!?’ I looked at him for a moment but I still couldn’t care as much and turned back to my friends. 5-10 mins had passed and the old man started again ‘who asked u to wear this ring? R u wearing this on ur own or did some astrologer suggest u to? Please show ur ring to me once’. This time again I wasn’t really listening to what he had to say, but he kept saying things to somehow grab my attention, but this time he had gone beyond just speaking! My mind was raising different questions ‘how can a person u don’t even know ask u to remove ur ring?’, ‘who is he? Why is he making statements about me?’, ‘why is he just talking about/to me, why not the other 2?’, I was really confused, but I decided to act as if I wasn’t interested (I genuinely wasn’t anyways!) so I told him that I wasn’t supposed to remove my ring under any circumstances, but he kept pressing and finally said ‘don’t worry, just remove ur ring and hold it in your own hands I want to show u something’, I was still in dilemma, every now and then we keep hearing about stories of how people get cheated while they travel in a train, but the old man sure dint look like someone of that kind, but how could I be so sure, no one has it written on their forehead. So I obliged to just show some courtesy to the old mans requests, removed the ring till the tip of my finger and held it there tightly pressed with an other finger (so that, just in case even if he had a trick to snatch it away from me he cant that easily, smart enough eh?!), to which he said ‘can u see some dust inside, u should wash the ring regularly so that u get the real benefit of the ring’. I wore the ring back immediately and sighed to myself ‘huh, he could have said that even without having me remove the ring’. I once again shifted back to the conversation with my friends and the old man kept speaking every now and then interrupting our talk, till he finally got down at a station after some 7 hours. And before he left, he told us everything about himself and had enough content to boast about himself and also made us nod at a lot of things he had to say. My friends got interested in his talks and they did show their hands to the old man to know their future. I remained indifferent so that neither I would be sad if he said something that I dint like nor will I be over excited for something good that was supposed to happen to me in the future (it’d get boring to know about something and wait for it everyday to actually happen!)

Part 1 of our entertainment filled journey had just got down, now we were again bored and in came another gentleman in his 40’s, he took a seat next to me though he dint have a reserved seat anywhere around us ( that’s the kind of courtesy less ness u can expect in India!), a friend of mine took the pain to ask him if he had a seat reserved or not, to which this gentleman raised his hand like the congress party symbol signaling to my friend that he need not bother about that and just stay put with whatever u r doing (now that’s another thing u should know while ur travelling in Indian trains, u need to just bother about ur own seat, at times u wont get even that..). Then this gentleman was kind enough to grab a copy of the business magazine that I was carrying with me lying in between that man and me. No, I dint bother to ask him why he had picked it up even without asking me, I know Indian travel culture really well, when ur travelling in Indian public transport system, everything that u carry with u is also for other publics use, u shouldn’t raise an eyebrow if u want to have a so called ‘Happy Journey’, plus I was already too occupied with my tryst with Nandan Nilekani’s ‘Imagining India’ I dint have to imagine any differently by interrupting both my own reading and the gentleman’s pursuit of looking at pics in the biz mag!

As the day passed, the charge in my mobile phone eroded faster than time, so I thought of getting my phone charged from one of the charging points ( there r 2 points in each coach supposedly) in my coach. But it was not surprising at all to find that both the charging points of my coach weren’t working, so I thought I’d check it out in the next coach but not as exactly expected out of the 10 coaches that I quickly checked out, only 1 point was working!! I had to wait just for an hour to get my turn since by then the most of them travelling in the train weren’t aware of this condition of the train. Luckily I figured this out early and spent almost 2 hours to assure myself that my phone battery would last for another 28 hours that I had to spend in the train. From the time I had started charging, people from across the train had started looking out for charging point and they enquired with me how long I would take, to which I had a standard answer ‘just some more time’, I had waited long enough to give it to someone else so early and easily ;). The charging incident was not just about the waiting time or the non functional charging points, it was also about the way I had to charge my mobile ( was literally holding the charger into the socket for the 1hr tat I charged my phone) and about the constant nagging by the people to remember their face and give them a chance to charge their phone after I was done! (Why would I bother who does after me?! Fight till u either break the only working charging point or be patient and get ur work done!!)

P.S – The post has already reached the 2 page deadline, so I rather split it into 2 parts and call it day 1 & day 2! ;)

Today’s Favorite Line – There will be no reason for love, if there is a reason, then it wont be love – Shakespeare

Today’s Favorite Song – Soniye Hiriye (Shael)

Life in a Bschool beyond classes, cases and grades!?

2010-02-18T15:47:00.001+05:30

Every individual has some instance or happening in their student life which they cherish for all their life and boast about it whenever possible. If there has been one such thing in my student life, it without any second thought has to be Abhyudaya.

Getting admission into a premier bschool is a dream of thousands of youngsters like me. But after crossing all the hurdles and getting into the bschool the next challenge is to find yourself in that over hyped crowd, people with white hair (work experience), people with gold medals & national ranking ( in academics, sports & what not!), people with different ambitions and attitudes, one seems to be lost. There is this feeling of doing something by which you could stand out, make a name for yourself and be recognized!! No one’s out there to help you, no one to tell you what to do and how, one needs to get there and do it by one self.

September 2007, I was wondering sitting in an Abhyudaya meeting listening to the Coordinators, I am here without any work experience, without any gold medal or national ranking to flaunt, not even an attitude to show! What do I do? How do I make myself known? When’ll people start recognizing me? I am not even a club/ committee coordinator here. And that’s how and when I started getting involved in the organizing of, one of the finest Bschool fest of the country. And since then I was convinced to exert all my skills and energy to make this event the best.

It was just the 3^rd edition of the event, but the previous batches had set such a nice platform for us that it never felt like it was still in its early years. Abhyudaya was already an established brand across bschools in the country, all we had to do is keep up the expectations of the world. Must sound easy, but for the kind of standards in place, it required real effort and time. Being in a Bschool one is expected to be in class most time of the week or doing assignments or solving cases written by the best nerds of the world sitting there at Harvard. To which I thought this is something that every other batch mate of mine is doing, so I decided to differ from at least a huge number of them and chose to simultaneously work with the team that was working towards the success of Abhyudaya.

Not knowing even a bit about how events are organized, what all goes in the backdrop behind a successful event, I was quite eager to learn it all myself and that sure did take all the time after classes and in fact lot of time during classes as well (multitasking my friend!!). Grades and sleep both started going south, meetings and tense situations started moving north, friends and family started moving east and west randomly. But all that was well worth it. Learned a lot of skills and lessons that a lot of other friends dint quite get a chance to learn, even though they secured outstanding grades and long horns.

People management, funding, planning, compeering, politics, soft skills, execution and last but not the least calling for/attending a zillion meetings are all things which others would have started getting used to only after they started working in organizations, but I can proudly say I have done all that while doing my MBA itself. And my concerns with regard to being recognized and standing out in the crowd got addressed just because of Abhyudaya. If today I have an identity w.r.t IFMR and people connected with it, its precisely because of Abhyudaya. I am sure all my batch mates, seniors, juniors and IFMR staff would agree with me on this.

Enough said about my own experience of Abhyudaya, I have seen it growing year on year for 3 years now, both as an insider and outsider. This year it looks and is much bigger than ever. Astounding participation and sponsorship, interesting set of events, the number of people behind the show during my batch was just 1/3^rd of the number now and so is the level of the event (multifold bigger).

I just wish the event reaches greater heights and goes on to become the best management fest of the country in the years to come.

Here’s wishing the team and all the participants’ good luck!!

A new dawn has begun – Abhyudaya!!

P.S - This post is coming now cos Abhyudaya is happening this year on Feb 20 & 21 and the same write was also posted on Abhyudaya's official blog.

Today's Favorite Line - There is this thing about people who mean everything they say, they think everyone else does too...!

Today's Favorite Song - From this moment (Shaina Twain)

My name is SRK and I am not a FATTU!!

2010-02-14T22:25:00.001+05:30

The only second movie* in my life that I watched first day (not the first show though) that too after trying multiple times and ways of getting tickets and waiting in the queue for more than half hour (something which I hardly like to do). The movie was extraordinarily rated on TOI (5/5) on the morning of release and also got a fabulous review on Headlines Today the previous night, convincing me to try for tickets first day itself, that too this being a come back flick of Srk-Kajol duo, made it an even more not to miss kind!

The movie though is well made, with really nice acting by Srk and show stealing music by SEL (the ‘tere naina tere naina’ keep my head filled though I don’t have a pair of headphones on my ear!!) and obviously the central theme of the movie about all muslims not being terrorists keep you glued to your seat, still I felt something was missing in the movie, certain parts of it seem not properly connected/ conveyed, and the sequence of events is also confusing on a few occasions ( at least to me).**

MNIK owes a lot to SS & its chief BsT for the publicity it got without spending that extra bit on the additional unplanned promotion of the film. No one so far has dared to stand up so firmly against the old diktats of Bombay ooops Mumbai, which Srk quite well managed to pull off with support from across the country (indirectly only).

And talking about the issue on which SS has targeted Srk and his film, I was watching a talk show on some news channel and happened to get really nice thoughts on the issue and the general reaction of educated youth of the country (remember the majority population in the country is of youth and their voice almost means country’s voice!!)

One gentleman said, since BsT has targeted Srk for making a comment which intended to invite Pakistani cricket players to India for the over hyped IPL, then he should also be targeting the respectable Government of India, its PM, President and the cabinet as such for inviting Pak for peace talks at the same time. If Srk inviting Paki’s is wrong then how can the honorable Govt of India alone be right in SS’s eyes??

One youngster from the audience also mocked at a SS member who was taking part in the talk show via video conferencing, (guess he was scared to be present there, knowing how wrong his party is and what his condition would end up being if he came to the studio in person) this youngster said the SS member something like this ‘Sir, I represent the educated youth of the country and you could well see how you and your party has become a laughing riot stuff in the country as you must have seen even during the show now, take this as a lesson and get wise!!’

Coming back to Srk and why he is not a Fattu, he chose an incredible subject for his movie which people across the world feel and want to convey but fear to do the same. He would have said this one statement a zillion times in the film making it clear enough for everyone across the world ‘My Name is KHAN and I am not a Terrorist’.

Remember he was frisked at some airport in US some time back, he also made sure he gave a glimpse of that to everyone on how he was treated (or better put, how US officials treat people on such instances).

Next he handled the SS issue really well and stood firm with his beliefs and statements by not budging to the threats given by BsT and his troop. Remember last time when our own Mr.Johar personally went to apologize for something even sillier (I get a feeling that Srk must have got some pressure from karan to apologize so that the film doesn’t get affected). But Bravo Srk! He stood to his guns!!

Finally to close this up, Srk said 2 sweet little words to all the ‘sickos’ which I loved the most ‘Shut Up’. I guess that sums it all up.

* First one was ‘China Gate’, yes of the ‘chamma chamma’ fame, that too two shows the same day

**That’s all is the review I could manage to write, just as an attempt though.

Today’s Favorite Line – ‘khush hain hum, kyunki hum phool nahi jo murjha jayen’

Today’s Favorite Song – Tere Naina (MNIK)

IPL – Intentionally Paki’s Left??

2010-01-31T23:43:00.002+05:30

Let’s stop blowing it out of proportion!!

Few deserving candidates dint get an international job that would have earned them a fortune in case they got selected. But the companies were/ are more keen on their own profit maximization which while recruiting these candidates may become a little uncertain. That too when the companies have a lot of other good candidates to choose from, then why knock the doors of uncertainty?!

Does the above statement make things any simple? We are talking about IPL and it’s strictly business!! Be it the BCCI, the franchisees, the players, the sponsors or for that matter even the cheer leaders! Everyone’s there to make money and not for the sport as such, so when its business stop talking about emotions and relationships.. all that matters is the moolah!!

Why can’t someone concerned come forward and make such statement and shut the discussion and debate once for all? We all know the above statements are the exact reasons for why the things are the way they are. We all know that no one ever wanted to snub Pakistan or any other country for that matter. So why play this blame game?

Maybe Aussies coming to India would become uncertain if the franchisees seem to think so, Shiv Sena can’t be taken as lightly, though their nephew has been much more disastrous in the recent times. Everyone is aware of the kind of security threat that increases in India if the Pakistani players are around, specially after the Mumbai attacks. The threat is not internal alone; it could also be to the Pakistani players. Who is ready to take a risk that puts questions to lives?! No sane businessman would do that.

Agreed that the Pakistani hockey team is expected in India very soon for the hockey world cup that India is hosting, but don’t we know the kind of differences in attitude and money these 2 sports have. So its useless to argue and point fingers.. Let the businessmen stand up and say what they did and why instead of making this a political stunt.

I do feel bad for the Pakistani players, especially cos they were the ones who played exceptional cricket in the previous editions (am not as interested or convinced about their T20 world cup win to be a reason for the inclusion in IPL, both are 2 completely different set of events with a lot of difference in the stakes that they come with).

So lets just talk straight.. lets not go round in circles to each and every person concerned and then make an issue out of their statement (Yea, I do mean the statements from IPL chief, GOI, GOP, Franchise owners including Pretty oops Preity, sllipa… ouch Shilpa, and none other than the KKR top shot SRK and many more)

P.S – I know it’s a real tough kind of an attitude that I show while writing this, but I think its rather good to say what u feel than to play the blame game and create excuses. If someone would have taken such a stand long back all mouths would have been shut by now across the country and beyond!

Today’s Favorite Line – “Nothing is interesting, if u are not interested”

Today’s Favorite Song – Little moments like that (Brad Paisley)

2009 – The year that was but wasn’t

2010-01-29T18:34:00.002+05:30

Be it the stock market, the bullion rate, the popularity of Mr.Tharoor, the brand value of Mr.Woods or the activity on this blog, 2009 was a really volatile year. Highs and lows everywhere, so how could I have remained unaffected. One of the most volatile years in the 2 plus decades that I’ve lived so far. Gave me a lot of highs and as many lows if not less. Just a small flash back into the year that started with a lot of hopes, expecting certain important transitions and much more.

The year was obviously going to bring certain important changes into my life, as I was fully aware that the end of the first quarter would also bring an end to the 2 year post graduate program that I was undergoing and yes I did manage to get a degree and have become a so called ‘MBA’. The one question lingering in a lot of minds during the first couple of months of the year sure had to do with just one thing – WHAT NEXT?!?!?

This one question had (& has) a lot of significance to my life for the coming years and may be even more. But suspense and patience have been 2 crucial things in life and as ever have been ruling my life till date. With the completion of MBA a lot of things were expected to be different but nothing was certain, no idea about how things will change and when. All I had to do was wait and watch and at times ACT!! Which I did and yes quite strangely with respect to most of the things..

(Finally!!! Yogesh Chordia MBA ;) :P )

Who knew that the year would end up being as volatile as it did in most of the things/ people I was concerned with. Every other thing I used to do or be a part of hit a low and a high this year. Just a quick recap of whatever things I could remember and make public ;)

Ever thought of having a so called “best job” or a job that a million would die to have?! I did secure a job which turned heads!(damn.. look at the times we r living in! it was girls who used to turn heads but now its jobs! Sigh…) There were times when I never had a job and people used to get concerned about the careless attitude that I carried though I dint have a job. Securing the job was a cake walk but taking it up was a real tough call (one would have expected the situation to be vice versa in such a recession hit world economy). The story doesn’t end with the HIGH that I secured a super duper job, it just begins there! How about putting my papers just a week before I had to board that flight to reach the 2^nd best country to live in the world, the toughest & the biggest decision of life till date!

High – Securing an international placement offer, taking up the job, waiting for the visa to process for 104 days and killing time on the internet for as many days while getting paid ( I know that’s something anyone would envy!)

Low – Quitting this international job on the 109^th day just a few days before a new journey that I was getting prepared for during the last 100+ days. Even worse was the feeling of being irritated of having nothing to do during these 109 days in office but having to still go there every day for 6 days a week just for the sake of it. Killing time became a challenge every morning, noon and evening. Life seemed to be even more boring than what monotony would make it and finding ways of still keeping me going became the priority over and above the confusion and tension taking the big decision ‘whether to go to Finland or not’. Those 3 months sure did take the hell out of me, the mental pressure was horrendous!! ( Gosh!! Seems theres more pressure while u don’t work than while u work, I still don’t work.. think abt the kind of pressure I live with ;) )

High – A whole lot of friends to talk to, to go out with, to share things with and most importantly to be in contact with. Missing them was out of question, keeping in touch happened so naturally.

Low – Keeping in touch became a thing that was required to be mentioned to (& from) a lot of them (in fact almost all of them, irrespective of whose ever attitude was the cause). The friends that used to occupy most of the time in the day almost disappeared from the ‘things I did today’ diary in the latter half of the year.

High – Involving myself in ever other thing tat was happening was something but natural in the first half of the year, ‘things to do today’ always was a long list. There was hardly anything that was going around me and I wasn’t involved in it.. (I know, people liked to tell me ‘stop poking ur nose everywhere’)

Low - As the months passed, specially after the first quarter of the year the list kept eroding and there were hell lot of days when the ‘things to do today’ list almost wasn’t even thought about, leave alone having something to do! Cos I actually dint have anything to do..

High – Going out, watching movies, treats, get together(s), been long time lets meet ups (long time = 1 week), lets discuss/talk, were things that happened so very often that at times I had to ask myself ‘if I was going out too often? I guess I need to spend some time at home also!’

Low – Watching a movie after more than a quarter of the year was no big thing, going out required a thought, treats and get together (s) were mostly missed with ‘I guess I wont be able to make it’, lets talk/discuss kind of talks never happened only, in fact even phone calls and messaging hit an all time low!

High – Started driving my car after really long, though not yet back to road as much as I should have been, but this happened after a lot of patience and overcoming the usual laziness. Might sound really silly but think of it, having your driving license for like 6 years but not having driven even six times since then! (u’ll know why this is a high once u read the low)

Low – Met with accidents twice this year while riding my bike (Activa of course). Though neither of them were fatal but minor injuries kept me off for some days.. Though I firmly believe and understand that neither of the accidents were cos of my own driving skills or attention, a lot of people have given me left and right on my driving. So obviously the reputation of mine as a driver lost credibility significantly, making me even more lazy to start driving the car again.

There are so many other things that were as volatile as a few mentioned above, but I guess I’ve already reached the 2 page limit I set for this post.. so I rather stop :P

P.S – this one should have come at least a month b4 it has actually come, but tats how things r these days.. laziness is as high as like at the peak of Mount Everest (if tat makes sense ;) )

Today’s Favorite Line – I've thrown my words all around… But I can't, I can't give you a reason..

Today’s Favorite Song – Behki hawa sat ha woh (3 idiots)

ANYWAY

2009-12-28T00:00:00.000+05:30

ANYWAY….by Mother Teresa

People are often unreasonable, illogical and self-centered;

Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;

Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some genuine enemies;

Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and sincere, people may deceive you;

Be honest and sincere anyway.

What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;

Build anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous;

Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, will often be forgotten tomorrow;

Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;

Give the world your best anyway.

You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God;

It was never between you and them anyway.

P.S - This for a change is not my own work, liked this poem a lot, so thought must share it with everyone.

Today's Favorite Line - At times i prefer to talk to the wall, am at least sure i dont have to except a reply/response

Today's Favorite Song - Last Resort

The Great Fall of 2009 - TELandHRA

2009-12-25T13:54:00.002+05:30

(I guess its fair that i start calling Andhra Pradesh as Telengana and Andhra Pradesh (TELandHRA) now itself when ever we talk of a united AP)

There have been various incidents in 2009 which have put India down as a country, but yet there have been a lot of other positives which sort of made up for the negatives. But the state that had one of its worst years in the recent times could be none other than Andhra Pradesh. A state that looked to be one of the fastest developing ones, one which attracted people and money from across the world for the resources it had to offer. Everything was going on well, lots of money, employment, tourism and what not.

But as the saying goes ‘Well begun is like Half done’ (here obviously it dint begin well so this worked out in the opposite way!), Andhra kicked off its year with the disclosure of one of the biggest Corporate frauds of

India

in ages. The company that used to be pride of Hyderabad was involved in a huge accounting fraud. It pulled down the high flying flag of not only IT but also of Hyderabad! If there was any company that would come to anyone’s mind if u mentioned Andhra/Hyderabad, it would be none other than ‘Satyam’. This was assumed to be a one off bad thing that happened at AP.

But who was to know that this was just the beginning of a, to be not so good year. The first half of the year went on with news reports claiming different stories and figures about the Satyam scam, people were scared about their jobs, many even tried to leave Hyderabad to get a better job elsewhere. By the time the State and Central government tried to bring some sense back and got things resolved in the state who was to know that the state would lose its savior (to say so!). The second half of the year gave AP an even bigger shock in the form of the demise of Mr.YSR, which was another blow to the state which hadn’t completely recovered from the Satyam fiasco.

Hundreds of suicides happened across the state which who knew was to be followed by protests across the state to push Mr.YSR’s son as the next CM. The race for the next CM began and the number of MLA’s and leaders flying to and fro to 10 Janpath increased manifold as the state started facing what was to be another wasteful political clash within the alliance that was running the government. Centre kept its cool and has remained with its make shift CM till date.

The race to the hot seat hadn’t resolved and the state was still having a lot of unrest going on, while there were a lot of like minded people with vested interests who wanted to make use of this situation to bring back a five decade old issue which could have been on hold for another 10-15 decades per say. The state is seeing clashes day in and day out while the year is yet to end.

The separation of Andhra into 2 states would create a lot of operational and other issues which could do more harm to the state than the violence that these parties are doing to make their point. Our Home minister did a blunder by making an announcement without consulting the concerned parties and the larger interest of the state. He seemed to have succumbed to the fast that Mr.Rao managed to pull off with well planned violent acts across the state using students and other forces.

( Image Courtesy - http://www.ndtv.com/news/images/story_page/map1story.jpg)

There couldn’t be a year in recent times when Andhra had such huge lows and we haven’t even dealt with their Maoist and other issues per say while thinking about other macro things that have popped out at may be a not so good time.

To me, it seems like the start of the fall of a great state that Andhra Pradesh has been and to be more precise the happening city that Hyderabad used to be. I guess that would go to the newly formed state of Telangana( sort of seems to be unavoidable to me looking at the political stakes and scenario in the state now, though I wish it never happens and AP remains united) and who knows what lies ahead for Hyderabad? A round of many other problems( Various international companies are already rethinking about their plans of Hyderabad and AP as such) or some stabilization in due course!

Today’s Favorite Line – If everyone cared and nobody cried, If everyone loved and nobody lied, If everyone shared and swallowed their pride, Then we'd see the day when nobody died…

Today’s Favorite Song – Everything I do, I do it for u ( Bryan Adams)

The specimens called FRI ENDS

2009-12-22T00:29:00.001+05:30

Can it be rephrased as free ends?

Just a random thought and an urge to write something and I ended up with this basic question.

Why do we need friends?

You’d say ‘a friend in need is a friend indeed’

You’ll say we need someone to talk to, someone to share our thoughts/feelings and so on.

You’d say you need company to go out, to shop, to explore places, so a friend could be the best person to fill this place

You may also befriend someone because you have similar likes/dislikes

You always get to here goodie goodie stuff when u talk about friends and having friends. You’d also boast for the kind of/number of friends you have.

These same friends though are really essential part of our lives, they aren’t at the best of their behavior and attitude some time or the other. You take a lot of shit.. from different people in different ways at different times. Its about how patient you are, how long are you ready to hold on and give your best. Through these ups and downs you still try to continue being good/best/nice friends.

Like above I ve put up a few lines that come to ones mind when you think of friends in a positive (normal) way. What if I play around a bit with my thinking process and try to recollect instances and ways when I haven’t really liked or understood these specimens whom I call friends.

These specimens show the maximum attitude, at times even more than they possess.

All their ego comes into forefront with you, as if they were Sachin Tendulkar of Cricket or Aishwarya Rai of bollywood.. reality check pleaaaaaaseee!!!!!

Talk about the word ignorance and I bet the dictionaries of the world can rephrase the meaning some how and include the word friend in its explanation. They’d ignore you as if you never existed or were never noticed and then pounce back on you accusing you of being ignorant! Crap…!!

If there is a last person from whom you must expect something, then it cant be anyone else than for a friend. Do all that you can, be as good a friend tat u can be and whatever, but never ever except something, that is if u don’t wanna be disappointed..!

Remember the last time someone hung up a call on u? I can bet it would have been a friend!! No one else in the world would be nice enough to do this.. They can hang up on u whenever they like, as many times they like! All u get to do is take it!!

Wait a minute, hanging up is just one part of the story, the other part is even more funny.. they wont take ur call, fine they are busy, they wont return back that missed call also!!

Did I say missed calls just now? Ouch. Wait…!! Where do I fit in unanswered text msgs and gtalk pings? And what about those BRB’s which at times seems to one like ‘Bye!! REALLY BYE!!!!’ and not whatever u thought it meant all this while, cos they never come back! They are so damn busy tat they don’t even afford to answer you back.. True enough.. it’s a waste of time and energy to respond to some crap you’ve sent. They rather not do formality..

You could have had the best of the times of ur life with them but at times you also tend to get the worst of the treatment u ever deserved. You try, u try hard, u give ur 100% every time, u get taken advantage of, u get diplomatic answers, u get ignored and u end up seeing them changing over time (obviously for the not so good) and all u get to do is, Take it all! Just sit back and watch… and what do u do finally?? Give UP!! Either the friendship or your own ego/attitude/ self respect (now this is exaggeration)!!!

Someday people will realize your worth. They have always needed u and they’ll need u. and then u show them!! Wat it takes!!! But why would you? If u wanted to, u would have already..!! So u just go with the flow, and understand that its FREE ENDS!! Meaning either of the person are free to do whatever they like, how ever they like from their end!! No questions asked! If required only answered or better put explained.

Anyways everything is not just one sided, there are various things above tat even you do at times and even you receive from these over valued people called Friends. Anyways world cant change, you got to have friends and live with what you are and what they are.. Rest is individual traits.

P.S – Just an out of the ordinary way of venting it out, held this in drafts for quite long. Finally thought its ok to post it, anyways who cares?? :D and for heaven sake don’t ask me questions like what/who triggered this post, am not gonna answer. To check out a couple o f other posts I’ve put up on friends, use these links.

Games Friends play

Friendship as a Commodity

Today’s Favorite Line – I’ll be friend to my friends who know how to be friends

Today’s Favorite Song – Teri meri dosti ka aasaman ( Radio)

Mein shayar toh nahi....!!

2009-11-06T01:38:00.001+05:30

1)
Rabba kabhi kisiko, kisike karib na karna
Rabba kabhi kisiko, kisike karib na karna
Dooriyan Bahut tadpati hai
Aur jo kar dia agar karib, toh phir kabhi door na karna
Aur jo kar dia agar karib, toh phir kabhi door na karna
Tanhaiyaan bada rulati hai..
Bada rulati hai…!

2)
Har haal mein haste rahenge hum..
Har haal mein haste rahenge hum..
Chahe khushi ho ya gum
Har haal mein haste rahenge hum..
Woh bhi bina piye whiskey ya rum
Har haal mein haste rahenge hum..
Kya hua agar hamari aankhen hai nam
Hamari baazuon mein abhi bhi hai dum
Har haal mein haste rahenge hum…!

3)
Mat kijiye itni meherbani
Humne dekhi hai aapki beimaani
Haan in sabki wajah hai hamari naadani
Phir bhi dil hai Hindustani
Phir bhi dil hai hindustani
Phir bhi dil hai hindustani

P.S - Written long back, wanted to add a few more, but couldnt.. will some time later.. And though all the above may sound too senti and lousy kinda stuff.. its ok at times to just pour down watever.. will try and come up with better ones sometime.. and FYI am in no Gham to have written all this...!! bas it just got written :D

Today's Favorite Line - Actions Speak Louder Than Words

Today's Favorite Song - Who the **** is Alice

Habits?? Not me!!

2009-10-28T01:11:00.003+05:30

When’s the last time you heard/said something like this…

- Hey it’s Friday, time to booze. Let’s go!!

- Its 3(pm), why hasn’t the tea come yet? My head will tear apart, I can’t work!

- I need to fag. Too much tension today!!

- Let’s have pan/gutka before going back to office.

- Wake up, its 8!!!!! I always wake up at 6 sharp!! You are a lazy/good for nothing

- Its 2(pm)! U haven’t had lunch yet?? I always do lunch at 1

The list can go on, but the point I am trying to make is, there are small small things we do in our day to day life and we, over time become so adamant over them, that we forget why we actually did it the first time or over a period of time.

Let me answer (back answer) each of the above statements the way I see it. Though I wouldn’t be able to say the same to someone on face, cos am not expected to be rude, but here I have the freedom to do what I like, so I better take advantage ;)

- Why be so fizzy about a Friday night?? U have the whole weekend just in case u need to booze. U sound like, it’s the last Friday in ur life when u say u wanna booze cos its Friday! Life is yet to go.. Things are yet to happen! Booze as and when you want to, no ones stopping you!! And just to remind u there are 6 other days in a week apart from THE Friday!

- Oh you mean if u don’t get the usual cup of tea at 3, ur brain stops working? Get a life! If u want a break ask for it… don’t blame the poor brain.. its anyways hardly used.. why waste a cup of milk and that black color thing into your body? Just go have a break!!

- Go burn the buck in ur wallet if u want to. Why create imaginary tensions just cos u wanna burn some freaking thing and make some circles in the air? Anyways the tension u r talking about is not present now.. Will come soon, if things remain this way!

- How will that betel powder help the delicious meal tat u just had? Or how much better will u be at work if u have that green leaf? Ur tongue deserves better things and do u still remember the last visit to the dentist? Guess ur planning another visit soon!

- Now who is to blame if u aren’t sleepy past 6?? At least let me catch up a few more dreams! Anyways nothing great is happening in real life.. let me be happy in the dream world at least. Anyways will have to wake up once the happy dream gets worse…

- In which book of history is it mentioned tat lunch should be done by 1pm? I guess we eat cos we are hungry and not cos something was cooked in the morning and is gonna be thrown out if I don’t eat by 1. So ill eat when am feeling like. What’s the hurry anyways?

Though the above back answers seem to be rude and stupid.. The point I am trying to make is, in life when we like to do the things the way we like to, then why condition our brain in certain ways? Why cant we be open minded always and do things the way we like at that very moment? Why fix things like ‘I booze only on Friday’s’, ‘I drink tea 3 times a day’, ‘I have 3 meals a day’, ‘I leave for office sharp at 8.37’. Why cant one booze on a Monday at times? Why cant one have tea as per the mood on a particular day? Why 3 meals a day? Cant I eat 4 times someday? Or 2 times when I don’t feel like? And why do we give this crap that I leave for office at X hour and Y min, why cant I leave for office as and when am ready and feeling like with some deviation now and then.

It’s good to be disciplined, I don’t deny that. But the point is, we condition our brain so much that we forget the basic motivation behind doing something. Life is not too long to be so adamant and rigid, lets be a little flexible. Let’s wake up at 6 some day, at 6.45 some day and if there’s not much to do at 8 that day. I think we kill creativity by being so inflexible, we kill our own likings and priorities in life due to our stiff attitude.

More over if one is used/ addicted to something; it brings a lot of disadvantages with it. For instance if someone has the habit of having tea 3 times a day, though its just a matter of 5 rupees per cup/time, it means one ends up spending 450 bucks for sure on tea in a month (tea is just an example, u can substitute anything else and calculate accordingly) which means 5400 bucks on tea in a year. Just for instance if I say, what if at times u have tea only 2 times a day or even once when ever u don’t really think u need it? What if u have coffee instead of tea sometime? And how about a pack of biscuit at times with the tea/coffee? Think how every other day would be different! U get saved of that boring cup of tea which even the person who makes it, makes it half hearted! U don’t even know if he/she made it long back and served u now.. Knowing for sure that ur anyways going to have it!

I think when we start thinking this way, we may end up saving a lot of money if we don’t get used to certain things in life. Plus we also get to have variety in life and anyways no ones really bothered if u r perfect or not in having tea at 3! I guess things in life should be done out of genuine need or wish and not because someone else does it this way

While thinking about all this, I just got a counter argument from some corner of my brain. Is it good to be moody? What about discipline? What about planning? Can being an instant person lead to disappointment in certain things?

All said and done, I feel it’s worth giving ones brain a chance, to think and do even small things in day to day life. It’s at least better than blindly doing something without even knowing why! As far as we can do things as required without much deviation and without getting addicted to anything I guess its fair enough to let the brain decide what’s to be done and what not every now and then.

P.S – I guess I lost track of something I wanted to convey somewhere in between, anyways the main point am trying to make is, lets keep our life Addiction free!! Be it consuming habits or for that matter even people or money… Live life every moment…!!

Today’s Favorite Line – Sometimes u feel like giving a damn!! But when u feel tat way, tats not deserved!! Even tats too much to give!

Today’s Favorite Song – He could be the one (Miley Cyrus)

Nobel Peace Prize 2009 – Mr. O_AMA, why not?!

2009-10-20T09:58:00.001+05:30

With the Nobel Peace Prize being awarded to the Prez of the US of A, the world seems to have changed to one, where one gets rewarded based on promises and manifests rather than performance.

Since when have we started trusting people just based on their words? Even corporate houses pay huge bonuses based on performance to their employees. Nobel Peace Prize being one of the top honors in the world, bequeathed by the Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel. Such an honorable award being given just based on hope & expectations and not based on past work, and it now being justified by the recipient as ‘call for action’ is all really surprising.

Anyways you would have read a lot in the media about how surprising and blah blah this is. I have a different view on the total thing. Though even my view is of a critic but with a little out of the box thinking! Let me get to the point straight!!

How about giving the Nobel Peace Prize to Mr.Osama (yes u read it right ‘oSama’). Since Mr.oBama has been awarded the same based only on hope and as a call for action.

Can’t we start expecting that Mr.oSama and his troops would stop terrorism and will promote peace instead? Can’t this work even for Mr.oSama as a call for action to stop terrorism and start making efforts towards making this world a better place to live in?

May be such an award can work as some kind of a motivation for him and his camp as well. After all it is THE ‘Nobel Peace Prize’! Honor me with the same and I shall work all my life to make this world a better place to live in.

May be, just may be, it rings a bell in Mr.oSama’s head and he starts working towards peace rather than Jehad and all that. He must be having links with other top terrorists of the world and he can also help in dealing with them to promote peace. Anyways all this cant be expected out of Mr.oBama, cos he wont be having contacts and good terms with all such anti social elements. So I feel such an award for ‘call for action’ should be conferred on someone who really has the resources and capability to act.

I would rather have voted for Mr.oSama if the award had to be conferred on someone based on expectations and call for action (per se)! I guess he would act and act faster than Mr.oBama could! Remember, he has a lot to take care with respect to the US economy and the Wall Street turmoil, including giving jobs to all, health care, and so on. Where is the time to promote peace??

Today’s Favorite Line – If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion

Today’s Favorite Song – Iktara (Wake up Sid)

Wake up Sid!!

2009-10-16T16:34:00.000+05:30

If you are thinking this piece of writing has got anything to do with the movie, then STOP right away. It was just a trick to catch your attention... Am not yet that smart to write a movie review (though I know your expectations about my potential are high ;) read on and am sure you are going to be disappointed)..

Now if as per the title if it’s not about the movie then what is it about..? Haha guess what? Unfortunately this time its about me (:P since am out of news for long now, thought may be this is some way to get back ;)). Anyways I am sure by now you’ve decided to close this page. But wait a min!! What harm if u go on reading a little more since you’ve already tolerated me for so long. So better stay tuned for a little more (I guess, now tats some marketing ;))

Now coming to the point. It’s been more than 2 months, since I am having the pleasure of dictating the terms of my own life. No pressure, no deadlines, no office (I know the first 2 take care of this.. Still.. Having to go to office itself is such a task!), to sum it up.. No control or discipline or monitoring of any kind.

One hardly gets such kind of an opportunity. I have never been so free and useless in over 2 decades of my life (as a kid I used to be controlled by my parents for everything I did, at least now that’s not applicable as much).

So what does one do when he has nothing to do??? No plans, no where to go, no commitments, and most importantly no immediate expectations!! You'd probably say.. I'd go for a vacation and have fun, refresh and all that... But I like always chose to differ (just for the sake of it to say so ;))

I preferred staying back at home.. Doing nothing.. Obviously if u wake up at the time when others are having lunch.. What do u think u can probably do??? Yea I know you'd suggest me to go and have lunch! Haha smart u r, tats exactly what I do ;) (Now don't start assuming I do that straight out of bed, I obviously do the basic things one does every morning). Now you must be thinking, woke up.. Lunch done.. What next??

Did I a few weeks back say I never spend time watching the idiot box?? Hah just for a change I‘ve started wasting/investing time watching the idiot box.. Sigh..!

Then what?? Since eyes are tired after having watched living Dracula’s on the stupid box (why call it idiot always??) its time for a quick nap! (Does 2hrs also mean quick?? ;), to me it does!)

Now since u know almost everything about my usual day... Let me tell you one incident that triggered this post... One not so fine evening (about 6pm) my phone rang. Dreaming big time, during a usual quick nap. I thought it was a Saturday, then realized no it’s not cos I went for a movie on Saturday. So I concluded it was a Sunday. But then got reminded that on Sunday I wasn't at home at all!! So how can I be having a nap?? Now with no other option left, had to assure myself that it was a freaking Monday!

Getting back to the ringing phone, I took the call. It was from an authoritative person and I picked it after it rang for long, that too after so much confusion about what the day was (and why & how was I so free that I was having a nap?!). I ended up saying 'Good Morning Sir'!! The dumbest thing I ever done in my life!! Though the authoritative person was dumb enough to care or pay attention to what I said. I felt freaked out! And thought its time to 'Wake up Kid', enough of the laziness. Also recollected that I was doing things I hated most when I used to be occupied.. Including watching the idiot box and taking a stupid afternoon nap! Cos am some one who believes, afternoon nap is an indication that either you have gotten old or you are a housewife or a kid. And since I got my senses back, I thought I’d post this thing here!! And hence it’s titled Wake up Kid!!

Today’s Favorite Line – Being frank is always better than being falsely sweet.

Today’s Favorite Song – Hey there Delilah (Plain white T’s)

Mind your LINGO!!

2009-10-08T12:39:00.003+05:30

No am not talking about interpersonal conversation.. use whatever language u want to.. uh uh… sorry pardon me.. use only marathi when ur in Maharashtra!! (Apologies to the ones whose sentiments got hurt when I said ‘use what ever language u want to..’ ) I forgot that though we have the freedom of speech we still have ardent leaders (don’t be surprised am calling such a loser, a leader. he/she is still the leader of some front) who insist we speak the language they want us to when in their territory or context.

Infact one is also not allowed to use old names of their own city when the new name is in existence. Poor Mr.Coffee with diKAshAN (now don’t tell me the spelling is wrong!!, I know u r smart enough), was witty enough to apologize immediately (obviously he dint want any of his latest films getting banned or whatever, mind you I used the word banned and nothing else tat is illegal ;)… I have to play safe too u see :P). So better watch your words, you never know when, where, who is listening to your crap!!

Now this was about anyone speaking and one person retaliating. And then you fear for life and livelihood. There is another place and context where you need to measure each and every letter you communicate.. And in this place one person speaks and a thousand retaliate… ironic but that’s the fact of today’s high tech life we live…

No business class tickets for the ones who guessed it right! Yeah.. am talking about our dearest Mr.Twitter!! ( I don’t think anyone else whom I know/heard of ever deserves this name more than this person). One thing that he could do to increase his pay cheque every month is ask twitter to pay him some royalty/goodwill.. for the publicity and name that twitter got cos of him. It is just tremendous!! (though it generally is the other way round.. but in this case he helped promote twitter more than the marketing honchos sitting in that multi storied headquarter)

Anyways getting to the point.. Does any other top official in the country have the GUTS (in bold) to speak their mind in a public forum? Tat too in writing?!! This person does, obviously thanks to twitter for such a facility and a fraction of a million people following each and every character he writes. Be it a humorous comment on austerity or on the teachings of the father of the nation or on the amount of work pending in his office… ( is any of tat ur business??!! Get a life!)

But does that mean we also need to draw a line somewhere? Not necessarily!! We are a democratic country with ‘freedom of speech’ (at least tats what I learnt in my civics classes!). As far as one is not hurting anyone (obviously that doesn’t mean you can’t say what u feel cos someone else feels otherwise), not just ending up doing just the talking and no work at the end of the day!

By the way before I close this piece of writing, I must make you aware that am not following this person on twitter! I feel its too much an effort for me to log on to twitter and follow the process to follow him, I’d rather get the latest updates with the latest comments on those updates and the analysis of all this in the leading dailies every morning (how convenient you see!! Thank u media! ;) ). Sometimes I just wonder, is it the media using Mr.Twitter to fill their slots or is Mr.Twitter using the media to be one of the most well known Twister.. oops Minister!!

Anyways all I would say is “Mind Your Lingo!!”, someone somewhere is watching you and u never know when u get bashed up for any word tat u blurt out intentionally or otherwise.. Hope some media takes notice of me too… I ve not been careful at all!! Why would one be if that increases the probability of getting free publicity ;)

Today’s Favorite Line - You try from your side... If you feel they are not responding then chuck it.. they just don’t deserve it…

Today’s Favorite Song – More than a friend (Michael Learns to Rock)

In god we believe… But why??

2009-09-29T22:17:00.002+05:30

Never seen, felt or known… just heard and nothing else but brainwashed…!!

What if for once I say there is no god?!?! Universe runs on its own.. there is nothing called luck, prayer makes no sense.. what has to happen happens.. what we do or be decides the outcome and nothing else..

We have been cheated all our life just to assume there’s someone watching and creating whatever.. all these miracles that we never understood are no miracles, they just happen because they are bound to. Now don’t ask me who decided that X or Y was bound to happen.. sometimes people do feel miracles happened or god appeared or whatever… its just like a magician fools us by his tricks.. some human is playing the same game and giving all credit to god and indirectly brainwashing us.

What if we stop praying and start believing that there’s no god (are there not atheist in the world? Don’t they have luck? Don’t they live life happily/sadly just like you and me do??).. its all an illusion!! All these days we were fooling ourselves..!! Tough thought but there is still some sense in this piece of nonsense.. why always think conventionally and as taught by others.. world is out there only to cheat u… once u start believing there is god then u need to chose of which religion/caste, what subdivision in tat caste/religion and so on.. its all too complex.. lets just assume there’s nothing called god…

People say there is only one god.. Jesus, Ram, Allah are all one! Then why do different people call them by different names? And pray in different ways? And fight over things like, should there be a temple or a mosque here?? Let me tell you, all this is done by we humans, some human tells us ‘ram is our god’ and we follow ram. Some other day some one else says ‘Jesus is our god’ and we try to find reasons to believe him.. its all stupidity!! Utter nonsense!! If its one super power (god) then why a million names? Or if its multiple super powers.. Who is the biggest one? Who decides? Who over rules the other and why? Does it depend on ones fan following? Or do we need to send some sms to ‘55995’ (or some crappy number) with our option and the one getting the highest number of votes wins and proclaims the throne of being ‘THE GOD’. Its all we humans who have created these brands called ‘Ram’, ‘Allah’, ‘Jesus’ and million other such small and big brands.

Yes agreed all these mega brands were humans some day (even this is something heard and known from people, may be we can accept at least this, no proof required ;) ) and they lived their lives in a really good way, did nice things, sacrificed worldly pleasures, did meditation or other such things. But how did the other humans living along with them or after them come to know or decide that these super humans became god? (did they visit heaven or hell to find out if X or Y is there or not?? Or did these super humans come back from hell or heaven to inform the world that “Yeah!! I am your GOD, pray to me” or what ever) Even they were just another set of humans like you and me. Even you and me do great things in our day to day life and may be what we are doing and did is also great, so will even I be called or known as god, if am able to convince a huge chunk of population that the things I am doing, the powers that I have are extra ordinary.. So will I also be pronounced as god?? (LOL :D, super weird thought :D)

When something good happens or when we succeed we thank god.. we say.. god u ve been so nice to me and so on… we thank him in different ways… why don’t we curse him when we are sad, when things go against us and when the world seems to be against us.. why cant we say ‘god you are a loser, u dint give me something I think I deserved…’( we were never taught to do that by those people who brainwashed us, as that will start affecting that particular god’s brand u see). Am not saying we don’t complain, we do complain, we don’t show the other extreme way of reacting like we do when we are happy and good things happen to us.. why does god always get thanked for the good that happens while when something bad or wrong happens.. people say its your karma u have to face it.. so cant we say its your karma also when something good happens instead of thanking god..?? When its only about the karma.. why all that importance to this illusion called god?? Why do we offer material things to god? (Prasad, flowers and many other things including Vitamin ‘M’) does it mean we are trying to please or bribe that super power when we need something? If the super power is really bothered you’ll get what ever u want/deserve! We do lot of such nonsense, just assuming and presuming what ever some priest says… why wont he ask you to offer such things when he would get a decent ‘Dakshina’ at the end of all that (no offense meant) and many such material benefits (needless to mention)

There’s no incentive or rationale for me to think that there’s someone called ‘GOD’ sitting somewhere there in the blue sky. May be if the so called god can wave to me some day from the sky, ill try and think of ways to convince myself that there is someone sitting there, watching us! But Nah! Wait a minute, in this era of science and technology, where going to moon is a hobby a million people have developed, may be some human will reach the blue blue sky and wave to e from there, am I supposed to take him as god?? Lol in tat case Neil Armstrong and many such others can claim having been god for a while.

This is such a weird thought I can keep on going with arguments endlessly because there is no rationale or scientific evidence to convince me on this!! Am just plain simple confused.. not that I don’t pray (infact I did just before I started writing this piece :D) or am not an atheist, its just that its all weird!!

P.S – I hope this piece of writing is being taken lightly, I still have my senses in place.. thought I could make this one a lil humorous while making my point.. but failed in tat attempt.. still.. its been fun thinking differently for a change.. really helps at times!!

Today’s Favorite Line - I'm gonna try in the future, not to live in the past..

Today’s Favorite Song – You are my only one (Yellowcard)

New Reality Show!! Any takers???

2009-09-22T00:02:00.001+05:30

The answer to the above may be both yes and no by almost an equal number of people. Though the truth is that, we Indians are sort of bored with the number of lousy shows being aired day and night. But still we seem to pretend to others and to ourselves that we really miss X or Y show.

Let me get to the point.. Its been quite a while since I stopped watching television ( but for times when I don’t have any other lousy thing to do in the world or may be lets assume checking cricket scores or news headlines once in a while as an exception). I may be an extreme case, its just that I don’t buy all that hype and drama which is made up to fool u and me (mind it, I don’t watch so I am still not a fool ;) ). I was just wondering what has happened to Indian television, every second channel I tune in to either shows some female Dracula or some reality show which makes its participants/judges portray things the way they aren’t ( am not getting into swayamvars at all). And this is when I started missing days of my childhood when I used to watch shows like ‘Bonkesh Bakshi’, ‘Hum Paanch’ and so on.

One lousy evening I finally had nothing lousier to do, so as expected I switched on the Reality box (I guess its time we changed televisions name from idiot box to reality box!!! :D, now I know tats an out of the box idea.. appreciation welcome :P). So while trying to get the best out of the gun used to shoot as many channels we can per second I ended up at this channel which actually changed the face of television a decade ago. Yea am talking abt Star Plus, it launched a show called ‘Aap ki kachari’ a couple of months back and trust me, for a change I stopped firing!!! I placed the gun beside me for a while to see, what actually is the first top Women Cop of the country doing on the reality box?!! Is this another reality show?! Is this another show doing some swayamvar?! (:D) and yes all the above questions had a half yes as the answer!!

Kiran Bedi is back, this time being the first one on Indian television giving judgment, giving justice. Must be sounding weird!! Justice and judgment on television?! Tat too in a reality show kinda set up, such a brilliant concept and most importantly the outcome. Aap ki Kachari is the first ever indian television show which does something ideally a court would do. It calls people having problems in their life, be it a domestic problem, problem with neighbors, marriages at the verge of coming to an end and many such issues we see and hear day in and day out in our life and the Indian courts with more than multi million cases pending not being able to pronounce justice. Aap ki kachari is acting like a fast track court, taking arguments from both sides, people representing themselves instead of appointing lawyers.

Kiran Bedi acts as a devils advocate and tries to talk out the differences of the concerned parties and more often than not helps in working out an amicable solution. One good thing about the show is, it does not impose any judgment on the people participating. Bedi makes sure that both the parties are mutually convinced about the solution worked out. The icing on the cake is Aap ki kachari also provides financial and NGO help to make sure that the solution worked out is being carried on as discussed by the concerned people.

One would argue that, there is already a show called Aap ki adalat being aired on Indian television for many years now hosted by one of the most versatile journalist of the country Rajat Sharma. There is a major difference in the format and deliverables of both these shows, as Aap ki adalat ends up more like a talk show in a court room kind of set up while Aap ki kachari goes much beyond discussion. It educates the viewers about important acts relating to certain issues after each show and so on.

One would also argue tat, may be most of the cases aired are set up (fixed) or may be on the show people agree to the solution provided while in real life they don’t follow the same. But I still guess it’s worth the effort to make people solve their problems much quicker than one would be able to if they knocked the doors of Indian courts otherwise.

It feels nice to see this show, to see the problems aired live on television which we otherwise see at times in our neighborhood, most importantly cos here we see them getting solved. That’s what matters at the end of the day! Hats off Kiran Bedi and the producers, for a change I try to watch tv at times when this show is being aired on Star Plus at 8pm on weekdays.

Today's Favorite Line - A lot of trouble in the world would disappear, If people were talking TO each other instead of ABOUT each other.

Today's Favorite Song - Ye Dooriyan (Love Aaj Kal)

Just like that on sports

2009-08-21T23:11:00.002+05:30

For a change i ll start with a sport other than cricket...

I think we should seriously consider using the word "Boltning" instead of the word "lightning". This guy(Usain Bolt) is just amazing!!! he breaks his own record in 100 meters(by a big margin) and says he never thought he'll be able to do that on the day the race was conducted.

Then he takes part in the 200 meters race in which after having broken another world record he says i was not really prepared(fit) for the race, wasn't even sure of winning. Now am not sure if its his modesty or what?! but man this guy is just too too good!! breaking record after record when he says he isnt really fit!! then what if he was fit and prepared?!! I first noticed him during the last olympics and was eagerly waiting for the current games and there he is.. back to get the record writers busy changing details. its just Boltning!! like federer became fedex i guess lightning will slowly become boltning.. atleast for me...!! (more cos i am the one who coined this name :P)

Now lets talk a lil about cricket!!
As the decider of the ashes is on... i heard this game is one of the highest bet game of all time... Like many others even i wish Freddie ends his career on a winning note with a winning performace but i'd like Aussies to retain the ashes. though this aussie team doesnt have any of my favorites except Hussey who went back to the pavilion after scoring a beautiful duck. I miss watching Haydo and Gillu.
Anyways Aussies are on a backfoot now and its certain that this test is going to produce a result, sitting besides the tv am not sure whom to support, all i know is i wanna see Freddie firing all his guns in the second innings both by bat and ball. Its gonna be an action packed game for the rest of the 2 days... till then fingers crossed!!

Today's Favorite Line - 'You cheat me once, shame on you; you cheat me twice, shame on me'
Today's Favorite Song - Masakali (Delhi-6)

Games Friends Play

2009-08-20T23:00:00.002+05:30

Now this post is triggered by a book that am currently reading “Games Indians Play” (now this is one way I say am reading something ;)). Though in the book the author uses a lot of tools like economics, mathematics, statistics, psychology, finance, game theory, behavioral finance and lot of other such subjects and concepts that I never understood, I am gonna just use 2 tools – Reality and Assumption (yea I know u’ll say assumption is one thing most of the above subjects use, but its ok, I have to copy at least something from the book right?!)

So let’s see what kind of good/ bad/ funny games friends play!!

(I’ll use he instead of always saying he/she, though it may be a specific he or she in certain cases, still let me just stick to he… it’s a lot easier to abuse a he than a she u see :P)

- When he says “fine”… its simple, he just wants to say – lets not talk about it anymore… whatever!!

- When he says “I’ll try”, he means “am sure I won’t”.

- When he says I’ll call u back – he just means “why did u call??, anyways bye!! And don’t call back!!”

- This friend wanted to convey that he got engaged (met him after a long time at a party)

He – hey so u engaged??

Me – no not yet..

He – oh!! Y??

Me – nah I just finished my mba… so (now come on, am not over age, that u r Y’ing it like that)

He – ok cool… anyways that pretty girl in white there… she’s my fiancé!!

Me – oh congrats!! Nice ur engaged (now I know why u Y’ed me like that)

- When he says “ill be there in ten mins, just left home”. It means - I just thought about getting ready so how about seeing u there after an hour (at least) or so?!!

- When he says “keep in touch”, it just means – I won’t, so keep in touch if u like to.

- When he says “I don’t give a damn!!”. This time he means what he says :D :D

- This friend wanted to know if I had a girl friend!! (I wish!! :P)

He – how’s life dude

Me – usual yaar, nothing much.. ok ok

He – so wat else?? wat r u doing these days??

Me - not much yaar! routine life, office-home (as if u dint know!)

He – oh!! So how many girl friends do u have??

Me – LOL!! I wish!! Why would I be talking to u now, if I had even one?! So do u have any??

He – yea man I have 2 -3 !!

Me – oh wow gr8!! (now I know, u just wanted to rub it in!! and at least be sure if the no. is 2 or 3 dude!! :D)

- When he says “sorry I forgot”, he means “what if I remembered?, I just dint want to …..!!”

- When he says “nothing much”, it just means – there’s a lot, but nothing worth telling u!

Will try and add more of these soon, just a short peek into friends mind this one ;) I have just read few pages of the book so far, so will be able to add more once I get more things to copy from the book!! :D

P.S – Any statements resemblance to any one either friend or foe is purely coincidental. You should have read it at ur own discretion ;) and now don’t start interpreting each statement I make the next time we talk!! I am no game!! :D

Today’s Favorite Line – When all eyes are on u, don’t close ur eyes, instead put on ur coolers! U’ll look cool!! :D

Today’s Favorite Song – Lonely (Akon)