Apocalypse of IL EVIDENZA

Dead-man walking – Life lingers

2005-06-16T00:57:00.000-07:00

My colleague Sup who sits right behind me in my office – shows me something or the other then and there and gets disappointed with my “Oh… Ok” as she was apparently expecting a more human reply with some emotions and expressions on the face. I did get double thoughts if I was actually sans emotions – so decided to dig down the facts and came up with the list of things I hate about my life or things that made me change –

1. Dependency on coffee to push my day at work
2. Making a To-Do list and making the day all the more routine/planned giving no room for something called “Life as it comes” or “Surprises” etc. [you won’t believe I actually got a print out of a document titled Anand Srinivasan’s To-Do List before leaving Pune with check boxes to tick]
3. A permanent home with usual faces around for a long time is a long-gone reality – shifting base, technology, food habits, bike and what not sucks big time and ruins the little happiness in life. Man, you can’t keep changing your personal profile every 6 months – give me a break, I want to define a “me” and it should hold good for at least a year.
4. Good-bye, Hey there, How sweet, I understand, Oh God, Ok Sure, No problem etc. – all these mean just the same “Oh sweetie, I wish I could mean all those I say but who has the time you see?”. I’m no exception to this rule, but there are times when I do crave for someone who’s an exception to this rule by my side.
5. Business gets as dirty as it can – networking, knowledge, information, aims and work has no end and this leads to a lot of confusion, dissatisfaction, miserable feeling, loneliness and whole lot of bad things.
6. All this given, I managed to identify a whole lot of things which I’m not doing and might be required to do in the future like – buying grocery, keeping the house clean, cooking (I wish God doesn’t be so cruel on me), washing clothes (given a poll, I bet this would be rated the most difficult thing to do) et. al.

Life's not a re-hearsed Puppet Show

So people don’t blame me for anything weirdo in me – the world out there is making me like this and I’m not an easy customer to just let it go and watch the way life takes me. I’ll definitely try my best to change course for I always dream (though this has dried up these days) of a life full of life – you get a knock at the door saying “hello neighbor”, watching TV Series with home made goodies after dinner, Lunch where you just eat, a friend who doesn’t say “Surprise - guess what Microsoft announces 6 new security patches out of which 3 are rated critical”, rather “Surprise – guess what, we’re going for water rafting in Kerela this weekend”, spend time talking with the family not in a yahoo chat session, talk about that one-off cousin of mine who married without telling her parents and my dad’s uncle’s father-in-laws’ cousin who has high BP and so on, read newspaper which doesn’t read “Infy comes up with 22.5% Q3 growth forecast for – market surges upwards” but “Diwakar, age 22, dark skin, 6 ft tall is missing from house – coz mom refused to cook his favorite Cheese Masala Dosa, if found please revert back to our house phone no. (Diwakar himself would tell you the phone no.!)”.

I know the post lacks clarity and is a culmination of random thoughts and feelings. But I guess I did drive the point across and I want my life to be also like this – structured and organized, yet with a tinge of surprises, randomness in it, for that is what makes life full of life. Hope I make a change in life before it gets too late – till then life lingers. This is my last post from Pune which had taught me lessons aplenty during this first 6 months of my professional life, which would make me more prepared in terms of what look for and how to deal things. Initially I was cribbing big time about Pune, but thanks to a few people (I’m not mentioning their names, for they know it themselves) who I’m sure have now made me miss this place. Thanks for everything!

Jojo’s day out!

2005-06-13T04:08:00.000-07:00

“Phew, Finally I got to taste a bit of real life” - is not something which most of us would be vocalizing on a rare juncture; why, one might even frown eyebrows at me conjecturing my simulated attitude towards life. But I’m sure this is not banter in solitude or a squiggle, for I have people craving for real-life in my office itself. Yesterday was one such day which gave me a taste of real life – I can’t believe “real” has become an adjective for life which a few years back was always real for me. My friends Richa and Mandy had invited me for a dinner to their place in Kothrud and I was near Shivaji Putala quite early. So I decided to hang-around the place and check out some shops (which otherwise would have meant some mall) and watch the various kids rides.

I was watching jojo (I’ve named this 3-yr old kid for easy reference in this blog) who was moving her head getting a quick look at the open-to-air snack vendor hard-selling his goods in paper cones, horse and camel ride bhaiyas waiting for her dad to approach them, the lady operating the hand driven space ship ride waiting for enough kids to start the ride keeping the ones already loaded wait. Jojo’s mom and dad take her to the Camel Ride reluctantly wondering if she would cry – but little jojo want to prove she’s brave to big daddy. Yet she was scared of the peculiar looking desert animal – and her mixed feeling of fear and stubborn desire to accomplish this ride was apparent. She did manage to complete the camel lap and you must see the expression of accomplishment in the kid’s face – man, for a moment I forgot everything else in world. Then jojo was taken for the revolving space ship ride, a 1000 eyes is not enough to watch young jojo anxiously searching for her mom and dad every time it revolves and gives a happy shout when she does spot every time! It was an extremely pleasant feeling watching jojo’s parents striking a conversation with another couple (whose kid was also in the ride) asking the usual questions – how old is your kid, have you booked LKG admissions etc. The otherwise serious and people conscious daddy (don’t ask me how I know) didn’t seem to have the slightest inhibitions to yell “jojo, my sweetie... Grip the bar tightly” every single time his priceless angel went past his eyes.

I did it Momy!

Jojo is then headed for a busy bazaar street and I was following the happy family. They entered a textile shop where they were received with warmth, made to sit on floor cushion and offered customized service by 3 salesmen (oh yeah, this is definitely not shopper’s stop or a Benetton – a simple shop down the street). I decided to explore the street further bidding a bye to little jojo. I cherished every step of my walk down that busy street where the aura changes with every 10 steps with the scent of – cologne in the hair salon, new clothes in the tailor shop, soap in the grocery shop, coffee seeds in the coffee shop, alcohol in the liquor shop, chilly powder in the rice mill, ghee in the oil shop, petrol in the workshop, mangoes in the fruit shop, flowers of the platform flower seller to mention a few. I call these the scent of life – I’m sure most of you would say I’m nuts to use a cliché to depict things as simple as that. But I bet this is indeed so special and a rarity to me – spending 15 hrs a day inside a totally closed and temperature moderated office space with no smell in the air and spend the rest of the day partying, shopping and sleeping like a dead man.

Then I headed for the home that Richa and Mandy shares for dinner – frankly what I was expecting to see was a room full of unwashed clothes, posters of Shah Rukh, Dravid, Ricky Martin etc. filling the walls and pizza, Lays and coke for dinner. First shock – a neatly maintained living room with no mountain of clothes, books etc., a Ganesh painting decorating the walls with no hunk and the surprises reached its peak as I watched the Mandy (she’s like me – doesn’t know to cook) served the dishes one by one. Mandy did tell Rich loves cooking, but I didn’t know it does gonna be this good. After a yummy dinner complete with desert and a special curd (which was the only thing Mandy had made ;) with chilly powder (?) ), we headed to watch F.R.I.E.N.D.S season 10 and as expected, time just flew past and I had to leave home by 12.30 as I had a presentation the next day at 8am. It was an awesome evening altogether, that I don’t understand why I am leading a mechanical life with no variety at all, when there is so much out there which is all the more inviting?

Hall of Fame – 1

2005-06-11T06:05:00.000-07:00

The following is the 1st in this new series I’ve planned that would high-light the great reads I came across in the other blogs that I check. Hope you find it interesting too!

1. This post by Mystic quotes Bill Gates in his latest speech to some High School kids. It’s a set of 11 rules which almost covers all the lessons you need to learn in life – the easy or hard way Click Here

2. This is one of the most hilarious posts I’ve read in the last couple of weeks. Written in typical Brahmin style, Srivats has done a great job in making a whole bunch of people laugh out of their hearts – for those of you who might be tam-brahms (Tamil Brahmins), you would be able to relate to it much better. Ladies and gentlemen presenting Vango Vango

3. How can my good buddy Apar go un-featured here - Check out the really cool description of stage and settings for the final moment at Jean in Paris

4. Well you would have seen movies like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, MIB and a whole lot of UFO and other strange and weirdo movies which hardly made sense! If they did impress you, check out the mother of all weirdo stories (which actually is like watching a movie as you read this) – presenting to you Sonia’s Saturday the 14th

5. I got sensitized to the world in general and the under-privileged and less fortunate in particular right from the day I started understanding this world and thanks to a whole lot of people who helped me frame a lot of opinions in life and an approach towards it. This post by Bharti is yet another wonderful eye-opener to the existing disparity and how to make an India void of it, complete with examples, instances, proofs, statistics, foresight, predictions etc. Presenting Bharti’s Hazy.. But getting better..

6. Hey folks, if you’ve not been crying for quite sometime now and in a mood to read some really touching story that would definitely make you weep with a beaming smile on your face, go for this stunning work by the smart and versatile Vivek Mohan – he brings you THE GOD in his blog!

7. Everyone of us must have gone through this at least once in our life-time and irrespective of whether you were a kid or an adult you would have felt the chill in the spine when your dentist pokes your teeth with his tongs and other sharp instruments (wonder what they’re called!) to correct them. But few would have presented a funny description of such an experience – check our Atul’s encounters with his dentist at - An appointment with Dentist

8. If you’re a techie then you’re gonna love this, for this is a cool narration of what happens during those tough times when things literally don’t go your way and finally to your big surprise everything gets fixed with a small change (or in Kishore’s case a small break!). Check out my cousin Kishore’s Hard Day’s Work

9. Men may come and Men may go, but Indians returning from abroad wouldn’t change for ever – for those who just did that high time you feel your guilt and pave the way for a change, for the rest who’d be going soon use this as the 21 commandments when you return. All it takes is just be yourself and don’t forget the ladder which took you to what you are now. Check out this hilarious post, yet driving a lot of meaning that The Mystic quotes in Top 21 things an Indian does after coming from Abroad!

10. And last but not the least – easily the best post I have read in the whole of last month is this gem of a description of nostalgic childhood and other past memories with the family and a whole lot of relatives (few of whom are no more now) by Meera. I don’t know if it was a coincidence, but I could relate to every word of this post. I guess my sweet grand papa’s diary is somewhere around in my house – now I’ve got a renewed vigor of reading it when I get back for my vacation. I make a humble request to my mom and dad to read this post – amma those memories are invaluable, never would I ever dare forget them – I promise and from the bottom of my heart I utter this “Given a chance, I’d worship those people generations ahead of me in my family, whose sacrifices define what I am today”. Check out Meera’s That’s what its all about!

Hope you enjoyed every bit of the Best of the blog posts I’ve read. I’d keep coming up with more in this series as and when come across enough good posts – people in the blogosphere, keep challenging your creativity, set new limits and make me come up with a lot more in this series!

Battles, Blood Shed, Weapons – But fear we not

2005-06-10T00:22:00.000-07:00

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high...
I don’t know why he takes me every now and then to the predator’s hands – but God had made me in such a way that I cannot do anything to stop this brutal sacrifice and gore. To be more correct, a series of genocide attempts on me and my friends committed as frequently as once a month – for no sin that we did. Is there no one to question this blatant violation of the rights to be ourselves? But we tolerate all the torments of the sacrifice for the sake of one person – to make him happy. Yesterday was one of those days of sacrifice when…

He walked up to the usual podium of destruction and flagrant blasphemy of sympathy and all we could do is just sit and watch the game which is too biased against us – which we don’t mind for his sake. Today was one of those unlucky days when we have to wait for our turn to get ourselves chopped and watch the rest of the unlucky ones getting chopped under our very eyes, repeatedly without any mercy. The setting was soothing to coax him to take us to death ring – a soft music of “dum maro dum” in the radio, cool air-conditioning, and erotic magazines to flip through. It seemed as if he was telling us “hey have your last bit of fun before you get crumbled into millions of cut pieces – he he he [in a devilish tone]”. But we could do nothing but meekly accept our fate and wait for the moment of glory of the impending massacre.

Bloody Battle sans Fear!

The moment finally did come – I was busy comforting the rest of the less brave folks of my category telling them “Just close your eyes and pray to God and things would be just fine and would get over in a jiffy”. It started pouring heavily (despite we staying inside a closed chamber – for reasons unknown) as if the Gods have given a nod to begin the ritual after an ablution of the scapegoats. I shouted signaling the commencement of The Battle – an unfair battle (which technically is a genocide or sacrifice), which we accepted for the sake of him. We could hear the knifes clanging, two men of valor discussing destruction tactics – one suggesting all the approaches and the other selecting one particular style of destruction of his current preference. We all closed our eyes praying we should not die or deform or change appearance because of this massacre, for we still want to keep him happy – even if that meant we undergoing more of such gory anguish. He nodded his head in acceptance, the radio still playing to his favorite tunes, the water still flowing through our body, the air still chill, the slayer rising his weapon, we shouting “Anything could happen, but fear we not” – the barber made his first cut through us the hair.

A Tale of Six Cities – Hi-tech and Down-to-earth Hyderabad!

2005-06-07T11:26:00.000-07:00

Hello Folks, I’m back again with the 4th in the series of the tale of six cities – a juxtaposed journeys to some of the popular cities of India that I made over the span of my internship here in Pune (strangely not included in this tale!). It was 8pm on a Thursday evening and I’m still in the office trying to fix an unending list of bugs in one of the most ambitious projects in the history of my company that was strangely allotted to an intern – I (don’t even think that I’m a great geek from this). I have a Volvo to board at 8.30pm from Aundh and I’m yet to inform even my PM of the off I’m gonna take on Friday as I knew it for sure that he won’t let me go otherwise, given the timing and the critical nature of my project which had made me mad and crave for some break by then. At that point, too many thoughts were running in my mind and I was walking to and fro in the corridors and finally decided to move out of the office without telling anyone personally. Well a dozen calls from office, stress levels at its peak, kilo lines of code eating my brains, James Bondish efforts to reach the Volvo made my run-up to the trip that I’ve been looking forward for quite a long time – of course to meet some of my sweetest friends whom I wish could stay with me forever.

My mind oscillated with the usual stars and constellations in the clear dark skies taking me to a world of its own and the occasional horns from the Lorries reminding me of the painful earth and it took quite a while to get myself off the infinite loop of thoughts my brains were involuntarily processing before I sunk into the blanket only to wake up to the shout of the conductor announcing the arrival of Ameerpet. I got off and reached my cousin Deiva’s house. Deiva had always been a loving, caring and smart big brother for all of the younger cousins and Jegan and Prasanna (two other cousins of mine) had come from Chennai to spend some cool time together – now its like four cousins each having his own constraints/work pressures cared a damn to come together and gear up for some real fun together!

Char Minar

Day:1 We went to Old Hyderabad and checked out the famous Char Minar (four minars) from where the Modern City of Hyderabad came to existence – I was lucky to get permission to go to the top of the majestic structure. From there we went to a huge and old mosque nearby – It was burning hot and the floor where we’re supposed to walk bare foot was like fire. Yet I was sunk in relishing the dull beauty of hot weather, the old cleric’s recital of The Holy Quran in a dragging tune, men with white caps performing their daily namaz and women in purdas and kids running around – for reasons unknown, I wanted to stay there glued to this scene for quite a while as my mind was completely at peace and thoughts totally streamlined and eyes focused despite trying weather conditions. Deiva then took me to the famous Bangle and black metal Bazaar and we got some bangles for my mom and my 3 yr old niece. I was simply dumbstruck at the way the people (read as women) coming there bargain the bangle price and I almost fainted when I saw Deiva (he’s a guy only) bargaining better than a sweet Hyderabadi woman! Deiva took me to a Market Place in Secunderabad – it’s been ages since I ever shopped a veg/fruit market, thanks to the invasion of organized food/grocery outlets (or food chains). But my (self proclaimed) civilized brains suffered humiliation as I was walking in admiration of the charismatic vendors, perfect synchrony of activities despite the seemingly random chaos, choice aplenty, the big daddy walking with his kid who keenly observes all that his dad does, a spirited vendor giving 10 bulleted reasons for a 2 rupee hike in the tomato price per kg and lots more – I couldn’t understand the mad craze of the affordable few of the city throwing money in the “so-called” organized food sector as against to the cheaper option which is better than the former in every way possible. Back at home, Deiva suggested me an old Kamal Hasan blockbuster Salangai Oli [E: The Sound of Anklet] instead of my usual late night choice - a Japanese/English horror DVD over a kur-kure and pepsi. After the movie, I slept with the thought of how substandard movies these days have become.

Day:2 The day’s agenda started with we getting the tickets booked in the IMAX theater in the Prasad Multiplex for the 3-D movie Polar Express. In the ticket counter I met Hari and Nithya (both BITSians) out of the blue. Then we went to the Salarjung Museum, which had a huge collection of sculptures, paintings, other artifacts and the famous clock – I hit upon Aditi Nath, Vasutha and the rest of the DoT (BITS) gang there, again out of the blue! Prasanna and Jegan had no clue how I was able to spot some BITSian wherever I go – something that would happen only to a BITSian! We returned to Pizza Hut where I’m scheduled to meet Jimit (my best buddy), VP Marketing of AET Solutions – we both spent time laughing, crying, babe watching (?), bunking classes, brainstorming, bugging each other’s happiness, playing ludo in class together back at Pilani. It’s been almost a year since Jimmy went to US and now I met him to realize time has flown by, we changed a lot, yet I felt the most comfortable with good old Jimmy! By 6pm my cousins left for joining Deiva to book tickets for the Laser Show in Lumini Park and I was in Lifestyle (Begumpet) to meet Becky, GG and Jyoti. By 7pm I was still hanging out with my favorite friends in Coffee Day (Somajiguda), when I got a good 3 phone calls from Deiva asking me to hurry to Lumini Park for the Laser Show – I had to ditch Roma and take a rick for the Laser Show which was marvelous mostly about the history of Hyd. From there we were headed for Taj Tri-Star for an evening dinner – though dancing was banned by Govt rules (weirdo) the music was cool and we headed for Prasad’s for the movie. IMAX experience did live up to the expectations, and the 3-D glasses added to the movie experience, which left people making desperate attempts to touch the dinosaur, snow, and other characters on the movie which appeared as if it was all around you nearby!

Hi-Tech City

Day:3 We started the day with a trek to the famous Golkonda fort which is built by many rulers of the 15th century AD. My body which was stiff with my “18 hrs a day sitting work”, made it very difficult for me to climb up. We also went to the Birla Mandhir from the top of which you could see a lot of Hyd. Tank Bund and Necklace road were so cool like Marine Drive in Bombay. We headed for home to take some rest to leave for the NTR Park in the evening – when I saw Roma’s message. Then I went to Jubilee Hills Coffee Day to meet up with Roma – I was already guilty for ditching her (unintentionally though) the previous evening. Banjara Hills, Jubilee Hills and the road to the hi-tech city are some of the coolest places in Hyd and Bangalore, Pune has quite a lot of things to look upon from Hyd (esp. the wide, neat roads, efficient public transport, down-to-earth cost of living). I met Anam, Roma’s younger sister whom she bullies (otherwise Roma is so sweet) and the discussions revolved around her PS1, my PS2, hospital horror novels by Robin Cook (given the fact that she’s doing her PS1 in Global Hospitals), OASIS Pilani Plans and lots more, when I realized it was 7pm and it’s time for me to catch my returning Volvo to Pune. I told Roma; “I don’t want to leave Hyd to office in Pune” may be a hundred times. I had to race against time and make more James Bondish efforts to reach the Secunderabad station to bid goodbye to Jegan (who got nervous as I was carrying his Nokia 6600) and Prasanna!

Finally Deiva dropped me in the place where my Volvo came and I only gave a smile to my big brother who is one rare person you could find in this whole world who would do everything possible to make his loved ones happy. I sat in my usual window seat with the usual stars giving company – I closed my eyes visualizing all that I did in the last 3 days with a mixed feeling of satisfaction (of having met all my lovely friends, cousins and visited all places in Hyd except Film City) and heavy heartedness (about my impending day at work in Pune!). To summarize the whole travelogue – I went to this place called Hyd to meet my loved ones and fell in love with the place, would definitely go there again for a longer stay.

P.S.: Anam, I’d definitely come back again to Hyd for a longer break/work and this time I’d see to it that I spend more time with you. Roma, please don’t ever take your bike without elders and don’t bully your sis. Becky, wish we could have spent more time and don’t crib about PS1, have fun and your sweet was good. GG, all the very best for your masters. Jyoti, I’ll definitely make it for the APOGEE when you’re gonna win BOB! And finally Jimmy, man I miss you terribly and I long for the days we spent in Pilani to come back – Please don’t ever change!

All the Heroics to meet my Sweet Buddies!

2005-05-30T22:25:00.000-07:00

It was 7.30pm as I was winding my day fast as per plan to leave home early and get the tickets booked in the Volvo to Hyderabad where I’m scheduled to leave on Thursday evening to meet some of my dearest people. When I was about to press ctrl+alt+del, Rahul looking like a NFS Driver with his helmet and jerk came back to the office with the alarming news that it was raining cats and dogs with heavy lightning every 1 minute. My heart sunk hearing the news, for I didn’t want to give another excuse those who’d be expecting me in Hyd saying I didn’t get the tickets. So I decided to wait, hoping the rains would stop soon – But I had no clue of the impending disaster…

The clock struck 8pm and Manoj who was more restless than me to head home as he got 4 calls already from his wife, did the job of opening the windows and stretching the hands and head out at regular intervals. By 8.45pm Manoj emphatically announced the rest of the unfortunate bike riders of my office “People rain gods have now given a go-ahead for our journeys back home!” and the people shouted “Hurrah, let’s get started!” and with helmets clanging and jerks zipping the four bikers moved to the lift.

After saying Goodnight to the rest, I started my bike in the end and took a full lap of the basement to finally reach the slope (inclined at a good 45 degrees) that would take me to the road. I took the usual 120 degree turn to reach the lower end of the slope and switched to 2nd gear to accelerate through the 3 meter stretch of the slope when my bike skidded due to the watery surface which eliminated the little friction my worn out front tires produce even on a sunny day. I tried to gain back control – but the bike was only turning its weight on my right leg and I realized there is no point to do anything smart there. So I switched back to neutral and pressed both my brakes to avoid any big injury to myself and damages to the bike. It did help a little, but the bike which by now had ascended a good 1 meter, started sliding downwards, much to the agony of my legs. I then managed to jump off my bike and the chowki who was running all this while finally arrived at my bike to help me out. I felt fine, and hence I started driving again this time much more careful and reached halfway through to my house when it started pouring heavily again.

I had no option but to keep driving as I was in the middle of a main road and I was completely drenched in seconds – so there is no point in stopping now. On the way I stopped by an ATM to withdraw money to book my tickets – as I drew my cash and started out I felt something wet in my legs when I pulled my pants I was stunned to see a couple of cuts bleeding. “Oh my God” – I said to myself and started driving again. I finally reached Aundh where the booking offices of Volvo buses are – and got my tickets booked. Phew, a sigh of relief – at least something for all the pain I took. As I started my bike to Baner (where I live), the rain got heavy – this time with eye blinding lightning and deafening thunders. Water in my specs started diffracting the lights that I see from the vehicles coming – making driving all the more difficult. So I had to remove the specs and drive, which was not easy either. I was actually very scared as I drove my bike through the water logged roads with lightning making things very bad.

Finally I did manage to reach home and changed clothes and headed for Chaat Ghar – my usual dinner place. The Punjabi uncle (the proprietor of the place) was as warm in welcoming his usual customer as he always had – this time doubly caring on seeing my small bandage in my leg which was visible as I was in shorts. Chaat Ghar Uncle’s wife all of a sudden appeared with hot vegetable soup (for which I wasn’t charged) to make me comfortable! There are always a few people I hit upon wherever I go that keeps reminding me that – Good people are always there everywhere, but in very few in numbers. That dinner was clam (but for the sound of water dripping everywhere), none to give me company (but for my clear thoughts), cold (but for the warmth of the food on the table and the people around) and my mind empty (but for the satisfaction of me being bold and able to handle tough conditions).

P.S.: I would like to thank from the bottom of my heart - Saurabh Singh, Kishore, Aditi Pany, Divya, Sandya, Suprita, Sonia, and Santosh for calling me up and offering immediate help. I know you people would always be there for me – and this is one reason I any day confidently say the one thing that I cannot live without in this world is “My sweet Friends”. Thank you so much guys – You rock!

The B School Says… - A Story

2005-05-28T23:38:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time, in the happy techie kingdom of Bangalore there lived a handsome, 6 ft tall, 345 pounds, 14 inch chest, the Boogle Coding Contest Winner – the 40grand/month earning Dipro Technologies employee – The Frock (Background Music: The Frock Codes..[10 times]). The Frock finally arrives at his desk in Dipro and yells out “If you could craaaaaaaack what The Frock is coding!” and sits on his chair and gets up after 15 hrs during which the only part of his body which moved were his fingers.

Day in and Day out, The Frock worked with rigor, sincerity, and pride and had always treasured these attributes of his – only till a new employee called The Freak joins Dipro as a fresher (2 yrs junior to The Frock). Now The Freak works in a team that is lead by The Frock. Oh yeah, The Freak also deserves an introduction like The Frock – Around the same time, in the cool babe kingdom of Bangalore there lived a smart, 5.8 ft tall, 180 pounds, 10 inch chest, the TITS Tilani Lowest GPA Contest Winner – the 40grand min of flirting and chatting/month spending Dipro Technologies employee – The Freak (Background Music: The B School Says…[10 times]).

No you don't have to wear the mask!

The Freak – many think had managed to achieve everything (including his job in Dipro) in a freaky fashion. But The Freak knows, how foolish people are – for he knows that even though he seems to have lots of fun and works less, he works smartly and is very clear of what he wants to do in life. The Freak unlike The Frock, wants much more money, doesn’t want to work under someone for a lifetime, and wants to travel places, meet people of different cultures, and do business across the globe and lots more. In short, to summarize The Frock and The Freak,

The Frock – 9-5 job, a happy small family living in a calm house in the suburbs, a good small car, weekend movies, stay in touch with family and friends
The Freak – 19*7 week, an understanding family living in the pent-house in Bay Area while at business and Farm House in Venice while at vacation, a sporty BMW, weekend so what?, vigorously network with Big people all the time

That said, The Freak decided to change his manager The Frock for the good. It wasn’t difficult for the street-smart The Freak to win The Frock’s confidence and trust and in a month The Freak became The Frock’s favorite team member and their relationship was getting closer from PM-fresher to good friends and much more. They started going together out for a walk down the lush green lawns of Dipro in evenings when The Freak started driving the point across. It all started as fun when The Freak started saying that “I eat the way the B School says, I work the way B School says, I’m taking Scuba Diving classes coz the B School says, for God sake – I take Salsa Classes (and pulled a couple of muscles) coz the B School says I should, I take a lift instead of steps (Oh my God) coz the B School expects me to make use of the available resources optimally, and literally I do this and I do that – why because the B School wants it that way.

It was all fun and they just laughed out together for no reason, but slowly The Frock started realizing what he’s been doing thus far would lead him to no where and the passion in the eyes of The Freak now seems to have really motivated The Frock to aim higher in life and made him believe there is nothing like “my cup of tea”! Slowly but steadily, The Frock changed and started being much more dynamic and flexible and this resulted in a dual result – transforming Dipro into an organization with the steepest learning curve for all on one hand and indulging himself into diversified activities giving The Frock a larger sense of work satisfaction and a feeling of living life to the fullest extent on the other.

Moral: Never become too busy to sit down and do some soul searching and identify what is that you want to do in life coherent to your capabilities and natural strengths. Life out there could be maddeningly busy and routine, but it’s your ability to squeeze time to pause and figure out the distinction between your need and want, makes you a class apart and makes you truly realize you’re potential.

The B-School Grady

2005-05-28T05:17:00.000-07:00

Warning: People who are aged below 18 years are advised not to read the following lyrics for it might contain usage of words that are inappropriate to your age.

Disclaimer: The following rap was written in good spirit of driving the point (whatever it is) across. Resemblances to real-life characters or incidents are mere coincidental and no pun intended. Usage of sentence structures from existing musicals could be digested for I don’t see any commercial benefits of this rap in the foreseeable future and neither the content that follows is copyright protected nor am I entitled to license this material to be printed/emailed/copied in any kind of storage and retrieval systems.

The B School Grady!?!

May I have your attention please?
May I have your attention please?
Will the real B School Grady please stand up?
I repeat - Will the real B School Grady please stand up?
We’re gonna have a problem here..

Oh yeah.. he’s what I’m talkin’ bout..
The wanna-be B School Grady tout..
He get up in the mornin’
And works till the evenin’
Starts dreamin in the night
Of makin’ to a B School - he might..

[Chorus]

He might.. He might.. He might.. He what..?
I bet the 70 pound extra padding of my ass on that..
I could see ya rubbin’ eyes
But I could tell ya guyz
That the dirty moron workin’ all time..
Would just listen to a play school rhyme..

[Chorus]

A rhyme – did you hear that honey?
For who I am – your fair AdCom Lady..
So what white ass? Why should I listen to you babe?
For I’m gonna f*ckin’ decide ur B School fate
Aoouch.. No no no.. don’t phunk with my heart..
Oh baby I trustya.. But u gotcha make a promise on ur part..

[Chorus]

On ur part, a promise – le’me get it straight..
Burn ass, you don’t – in losing ur job fright..
Open eyes, you would – to the under-privileged
Build venture, you could – for you become the most-privileged
In short live up to passion, thou shall – do all this, if you
On the horizon, Harvard is child – may The Force be with you!

--END--

Well, that was a small attempt to write a rap! Now what would follow this is another result of the new factor that has started determining the way I live - The B School Factor! The next post would be a STORY! So watch out for that - till then goodbye!

Blog and Beyond!

2005-05-25T04:21:00.000-07:00

Actually I was quite surprised to find 3 news items in my CNN Top Stories feed on something related to Blogs/Bloggers. I’ve always thought of the changing net life-style (I can’t believe I’m using this term) of people after the advent of these web logs (or blogs). Blogs as all know let people to tag all their experiences, opinions etc. which in addition to acting as an outlet for opinionated people, has the potential to influence the blog readers’ thoughts and perception framing. I don’t know if the concept of blogging has caught up much in India – but it’s so much a craze (read as life-style) in the US that something related to blog makes news virtually every day! I’m quoting some of the hot news articles that came of late associated with blogs –

Blog Marketing: A new arena is opening up in Internet marketing via the blogs. Google encourages using Google Ad Sense in its BlogSpot blogs and now rivals Microsoft and Yahoo are also planning to launch relevant ad services to their blogs Read More
Blogging as Citizen Journalism: A new paradigm in the field of journalism/writing is being created with the advent of blogging. But we have to accept the fact that there is always a relation between Bloggers and News Media – the former is dependant on the latter to come up with opinionated stories in blogs. They need to co-exist any day Read More
Blogs displacing the face of Media: Blogs are now spelling fear to all the major news agencies like Reuters, AP etc. Reason – Media provides what I call “raw facts” and “systematic analysis”, where as what a person gets to read in a blog is “processed stories” and “opinionated analysis”. Now the latter does better in framing perspectives in the reader. That said, it’s difficult to say that a person would still go for reading a news portal when he has the option of browsing through a bunch of well written blogs. This issue was clearly visible during the recent Bush-Kerry poll contest in the US where bloggers assumed a powerful stature of manipulating the minds of the electoral American voters – by closely following the news stories and then amplifying the hell out of them in a style that would make an interesting read, which any reader would hope for rather than a dry collection of facts Read More

Blog and Beyond!!

Having seen a brief outline of recent trends in blogging, it’s relation with media and it’s impact on general population – we need to start thinking on what this all would evolve into, in the near and far future. I read about bloggers association/communities formed in different places and they discuss issues related to blogging. When I tried to think on these lines something hard struck me –

Would a day come when news services which would then be used heavily and mostly by bloggers and the general public (read as non-bloggers) become users of blogged content?
If the above mentioned day does come, would the news agencies stop providing any free content and charge for the exclusive raw news content they provide these bloggers? Now the bloggers would still continue to give free access of blogs to the general public coz there are too many people in the blogosphere that competition would gravitate the prices to zero dollars. So the bloggers would still get money through Ads to continue their paid news subscriptions and provide free blogs.
Finally a fundamental thought, would the present diversity of netizens and non-netizens take a shape of bloggers and non-bloggers in a world which has virtually no non-netizens?

THINK – to make the blogosphere a better place to live for you and me!!!

Biography Service Outsourcing (BSO) – Is it the next IN THING?

2005-05-23T03:14:00.000-07:00

I was having a small discussion with my co-employee on which movie to go on a Sunday evening and then hunted for movie reviews for Subash Chandra Bose, where the discussion moved to biographies. It also coincided with me writing a post for my blog – and this combination spurred a radical thought in me. Would writing customized Biographies in print for general individuals like you and me, become the next IN THING like how the hitherto unknown phenomenon called Social Networking, online networking, blogging etc. became popular for no reason.

Speaking of blogging, why would one want to tell every good/different thing that he does or thinks to every one in the world all of a sudden? Until a couple of months back, I never felt the need – but now I could hardly stop blogging. I’m not trying to gain attention by telling all the cool things I do or showing off my writing skills or bring out my sense of humor or feel at peace by broadcasting my creative thoughts or consider this a requisite to be in my cool gang where everyone blogs. But there is something in me that make me bringing out everything out of me in my blogs – to an extent that I now even consider this a responsibility on my behalf.

The next Business Paradigm?

And when it comes to Social Networking – who felt the need for staying in touch with friends on an everyday basis irrespective of where they are, and who taught us to join/form communities to collectively raise a common opinions, and what made us to generally browse through people’s profiles and make new friends of similar interests out of the blue? Perhaps, human beings had the inherent nature for doing all these things, but never managed to put it across in words or thoughts and the non-availability of a supportive environment (like Orkut) only made things worse. But the smart Google brothers and a few other competitors who pioneered the new field of social networking and blogging, had the foresight and ability to spot the map between the human urge and the missing piece and thus created a new need altogether.

This is a great management paradigm – when you feel there is no need for your cutting edge product or services go for the kill and create the need if you are confident that your idea would sell. On these lines, I see a foreseeable future when having a book on one’s own biography a fashion/attitude, just like having a blog or having a virtual social network presence. The reasons that support my stance are as follows:

Since our previous generations didn’t have to bear the brunt of information overload, they had the blessing of masticating the cool events of the past (which were also limited) lying on a rocking chair at the age of 50 plus. But clearly that is not going to be the case for us, for I could hardly remember a bulk of the events that happened to me 10 yrs back! So I see a need here – a need to have a chronicle of events happened to me as a youth (or any other stage of life for that matter), to keep and cherish at any later point of my life or sharing it with my family (especially my kids) and friends.

It could be you there in few yrs!

Imagine a world where you could just pass your book say “Anand Vol-II (18-28 yrs)” to some one say my son on his 18th birthday! Imagine a scenario where you have a family and friends stack in your home library – just like you maintain business cards or online address book or blog lists. Imagine a world where when you look for a bride/groom all you have to do is exchange your books and get back after say a week and make a decision (of course integrity of the individual on whom the biography is based is a factor of concern, for I could still write everything that Bill Gates did and impress my bride. But this is just one way of getting to know each other). Imagine a world of knowledge, information, a society with a holistic understanding of each other, a happy society for one knows what one’s strengths and weaknesses/good and bad are and much more. The results good be breathtaking – like reduced crime rates, better rewards for the better you, more friends of your type and so on.

So my dear blog readers - start thinking! If this is going to be true, we the good bunch of creative bloggers (since there is not existing bench mark or industry standards for blogging, I assume the right to call myself a creative blogger), have a great opportunity ahead. How? – I could see a lot of entrepreneurial ventures coming up in the field of customized biography writing and the logical result – tremendous increase in the requirements for creative writers, people who could put feelings and emotions that means a lot for a person into words. That’s where we have a stake! I assume that a good majority of human population would seek these Biography Service Outsourcing (BSO) firms to get their books done and the BSO firms would in turn look upon us to get those millions of books done. This is similar to CK Prahalad’s Bottom of the Pyramid concept – mass production [versus] Production by the masses. Here in Book Business it would be – One books sold a lot [versus] a lot of books sold once! Assuming a person would order for more than one book on his own biography, it makes more than perfect business sense to me

Work-o-manic Inertia - A Tired Soul’s weekend mornings!

2005-05-22T04:04:00.000-07:00

Hey folks, I’m back again – this time with a very subtle theme which most of us might come across yet fail to take a grip of it. Well, I’m a workaholic professional working for 19 hours a day on weekdays (on work, organizations, my start-up idea etc.) and 10 hours on weekends. So that leaves me with a body without much life or verve, when the weekends I crave for all the time finally arrives. When it does comes, a phenomenon I coined called “Work-o-manic Inertia” sets in, which gets you on your foot early on a weekend morning too, make your fingers punch the virtual keyboards, makes your thoughts racing, puts your mind on an infinite for-loop – much similar to the effect your body gets on a typical weekday but slightly reduced in virulence, for you know your PM is not gonna bug you today!

We call this Mad > Madder > Maddest!

So what about this post is what you’re asking right – I’m just putting forward a sequence of things I do invariably on the weekend mornings. Saturday wake up at 9AM with a satisfaction of Monday still 2 days away and unbothered of the mountain of unwashed clothes, off I make my way to E Square (a multiplex mall in the heart of Pune) to find a familiar bunch of early risers –

Few techie like people in shorts’n’addidas gear (apparently after a workout in the Endurance gym/health spa in E Square) wiping the sweat as they head for the ticket counter
A few oddly spotted couples giggling and talking some crap which could classified in the top 10 “World’s least worthwhile things”
A gang of cool (read as hot) girls (guess they’re from the nearby Fergusson College – me>BITS alumnus and SD>IIT-D, IIM-A alumnus self-proclaim ourselves as honorary alumni of FC for no reason), still half asleep adjust their hair and lipstick in the mirror of the scooty
There is a cool daddy with his boisterous kid booking the tickets for the special children’s 11AM show screening all cartoon and sci-fi movies
And those cool looking dudes and girls who work in E Square in a sleek blue jean and white T, come to take their respective positions in ticket counter, food courts and so on. They look so cheerful, happy, and friendly and seem to enjoy what they do. At times, I even thought of taking a part-time job in E Square

Sunken in thoughts and flashing images of the usual kind of people passing by, I get my tickets booked and move to the Bean Scene to grab my cup of 400 ml coffee with whipped cream. Taking that and a print out of some business/technology article (which I take every now and then and keep it for a weekend read) I move to the balcony. With the right hand grabbing the florescent marker and left hand the coffee, head full of thoughts, eyes tracking the other morning java people I take a series of deep breadths and complete my coffee and articles in synchrony. Then I stand by the pool table and watch a couple of boards, before moving to Crosswords to check out some books and DVDs and then off I go for my morning show.

Cheeash! Coffee, article and the eyes tracking!

After the movie gets over, I move to office to reply to emails, fill in my movie review community in Orkut, compile a few documents for the organizations I’m a part of, blog a while and then off I go for a walk down the park to organize my thoughts and do some soul searching. Well I can’t believe my weekend schedule is as hectic as that – now all I’m asking for is a way to break the infinite for-loops my mind entangled to if I sit simply on my bed and an end to the restlessness and inability to control the racing mind. I hope to settle scores with my impatience, rush, crave for more, doing everything all the time etc. and learn to stop and go, for the afore-mentioned qualities is already having a run through my health and is now slowly consuming my sense of humor – the only thing that is still left in me, which stands proof of my human DNA.

Vulcanizing the Nerves – when things just don’t go right

2005-05-14T22:34:00.000-07:00

I was prompted to make a quick post on something that is very common in all human beings – going through a patchy phase, when I was myself under one such extended grill a while back. That 1 week when things just didn’t move for me taught me a lot of lessons which I thought would share with all of you. Last week was one of those “swimming in troubled waters” phases for me due to problems almost everywhere from my project in the office to my bike to food, what not. But I’m a happy man now, having lived through the week. Here is my description of the last week and what I learnt from that!

It all started on Monday when my Project Manager announced that I should complete my mammoth project by Thursday when my company is giving a presentation to the Japs to secure a deal. I was coding at unusually maddening pace which raised my blood pressure, stress levels and breathing rates to all time high. For the first time in my corporate life, I was feeling the stress, pressure and tension which my mom and dad had lamented a million times when I was a kid – I had no clue what the big fuss was all about. Now I can’t believe I’m no exception to this eventual result of any dirty corporate jungle. I was losing sleep in the nights and kept thinking about my project even at lunch and dinner spoiling even the little relaxation time I had. I could feel my heart very close to my throat and was swallowing saliva and gasping short breadths out of my mouth quite frequently.

Kick Ass dude!

I thought I’d stop doing what the others do – and try to act intelligently here. As a result, I called my fellow Tech gang for an extended lunch at a place called Roopali a good 3 kms from my office – to forget the office environment for a while and come back refreshed. I parked my bike at the end of the parking lot and had a great lunch and fun, only to find my bike missing in the place I parked when I returned! The rest of the gang already left for office assuming I’d be coming too – but I was stuck there with Ranjit. After enquiring I came to know that my bike was taken by the corporation people to the Deccan Gymkana police station for crossing the parking boundaries – more trouble. At that point, I was feeling damn pissed and the existing project woes looked compounded on the face of new troubles. It was already late to get back to the office and now we had to take a rick to Deccan and negotiate the bribe with the guys there to get back my bike. I was sweating big time as I opened my wallet to find no cash there. Damn, I had to take another rick to a nearby ATM to draw 300 bucks to rescue my bike and it was late noon when I reached office. I was totally zonked physically and mentally that I could hardly concentrate on my work post-lunch and it was 6pm already and I did nothing at all. I decided I’d do as much as I could and come early the next day to finish the remaining.

The next morning I started from house early at 8AM to do last minute debugging, when I found the back tire of my bike punctured. I was psyched why nothing seems to go fine for me – now the whole world to me seemed a very bad and dangerous place to live. I had no clue what to do – whether to mend the tire or guss it a take a bus to office. I then decided to remain calm and make rational decisions. I enquired where the work shop was and got a guy who removed my tire and took it to the workshop for mending. It took 30 min on the whole and I was off heading for my office by 8.30AM. I reached there and started making a conscious effort to take deep breadths with the nose all the time and drink water every 10 minutes to keep stress under control. I also greeted every person in the office with an emphatic Good Mornin’. That actually worked, I was coding at peace and corrected a lot of bugs and had something to show my PM by end-of-Wednesday!

If it takes a Hitler to do something, bloody become one!

But that small experience taught me a huge lesson in life:

Accepting the fact that life is full of alternating ups and downs, highs and lows, good and bad news, happiness and sorrow and so on.
The incidents that happen around you is just a passing phase – but what is common is “you” who get modified with every incident in your life. So make all the incidents a learning experience irrespective of how good or bad the incident is.
Consider the bad incidents as a game you play. For example, view them as a rigged cricket match where you defeat the opponents by your over-whelming skills and getting double honors for winning a match which was rigged against you.
Realize the truth that at the end of any bad patch you would invariably see LIGHT if you pass through that phase shrewdly. And that sigh of relief would be a hundred times better than a feeling you get after an easy success. This would make you feel happy if you feel you’re in a patchy phase.

Well those were some of the derivatives I managed to milk out, from my patchy phase last week and the conscious efforts I made to overcome that. One good thing that goes un-noticed in the going through such patchy phases of life is the effect which I call “Vulcanization of the nerves” which makes your nerves steelier with every bad phase you cross, making you a better prepared for tackling the impending patchy period. I could see a person attaining a stage where he doesn’t discriminate events are good and bad after a certain point – and this stage could be reached after years of experience OR much quicker than that if you make a conscious effort every time you are in a patchy phase! So people go cracking your bad phases and emerge quick winners of life! After all no one has time or patience to wait long!!

A Tale of Six Cities - Peaceful and Serene Nagpur

2005-05-14T05:10:00.000-07:00

This is the 3rd in this series of “Six Cities adventure” I had in a short span of time this year. This time I would talking about my first ever journey to Nagpur – a city which I always wanted to visit for a lot of reasons. Of the 15 train journeys I have made across the length of the country, I crossed through Nagpur at least 10 times. Although, I’ve been to Nagpur more than 10 times, all I knew about this city is its platform no #6 where the TN Express halts for half hour, the VadiLal ice creams, oranges and Haldiram’s sweets we get on the platform. Never had I been inside the city.

I made a sudden phone call to my cousin Janardhan who has been working in Coal India Limited, Nagpur for the past 15 years or so. It’s been ages since we ever spoke and he found it very difficult to even recognize me. Having exchanged quick pleasantries and detailing him my weekend plan in Nagpur, I booked my Volvo tickets to Nagpur. I landed up in Nagpur on a Saturday noon under the sublimating sun, when Jana came to pick me up. We were complaining weather as we headed for his house in Hill Top – I wasn’t actually complaining coz 3.5 yrs in Pilani under a temperature range of -4 to 52 degrees had made me insulated to any climatic fluctuations.

Nagpur - refreshing!

On reaching home, I was psyched at my inability to identify his kids Anusha and Sheena! I saw them last some 6 years back and time has changed a lot. After talking a lot on the old days – how life has changed a million times for him and me over the years, we decided to go for a movie WAQT and soon we were standing in a queue for tickets, when I realized how much dependant I have become on flashy multiplexes, food courts and other metro stuff. I felt I was in Stone Age when we had to climb 4 floors to reach a balcony seat and felt like fainting in the midst of a boisterous gang at the ticket counter. After the movie (which was a hopeless one), we headed for a restaurant serving Rajasthani cuisines in silver wares. I was stunned when I came to know a lip smacking buffet dinner served in style by waiters in traditional marwadi costume costs a meek 80 bucks! Finally I started realizing how great life was before the invasion of western junk food stores and hi-tech multiplexes. I can’t believe I’m quoting an experience of having watched a movie in a 800 seated auditorium which had fans, un-branded pop corns and coffee, balcony seat for 35 bucks and a ambience-rich dinner – as RELIVING THE PAST. Time is ticking fast and so are the changes in our tradition-rich, culture-rich, history-rich nation – I make a humble request to people at large to control your expenses on branded/imported stuff and support DESI goods which is cheap and of great quality. For Christ sake, our children shouldn’t read the things we cherished as a kid in their history books and laughing about them with their fellow pupils.

That night I had a heavy sleep glued to the thoughts of a fast-changing India and about those who’re left behind in this 100 m rat-race, only to feel the jerk of my cousin as early as 6.30AM with the smell of decoction dripping down to the lower compartment of the coffee filter. I was almost about to shout “Are you people humans?”, when I realized this was the common scene of any typical tam-brahm house. Who taught me to bull-shit the glorious morning and people serving heavenly coffee with love and affection, enquiring if I had a calm sleep and the tune of the radio singing M.S. Subbulakshmi’s “Suprabadham” in the back ground? I took bath in cold water at 7AM and sat on the newspaper with hot idlis being served on plantain leaves! Jana and his wife had no clue why I was feeling as if I was in heaven for the little hospitality of theirs – obviously they have no clue of the 18*7 work routine, mechanical life and infinite social obligations I’m subjected too. For them, I’m a good old Anand – a kid who studies regularly, get early in the morning, obedient and a food lover. I didn’t want to spoil the few heavenly moments of the past I’m re-living there.

I was trying a lot to strike a conversation with Anusha and Sheena who shied away with the Enid Blyton books I got for them, seeing a close relative of their dad after a long time. This is supposed to be a common phenomenon amongst kids, which I thought for a second as irrational (God spare me and the rest of the confused Indian youth). Then we all left for Sheena’s school as a happy family where a proud Sheena was standing in-line to collect her Incentive Prize for IV standard. My eyes had an effect of a “red-hot iron rod being immersed in water” effect on seeing the cute primary school kids all around! That night we went to a hill temple dedicated to God Aanjaneya in Adarsa (40 kms from Nagpur) – I realized I was going to a temple after almost 5 months (a deep sense of guilt in the head and emptiness in heart came to me, for no reason).

Family re-unions - would this become archaic english?
Jana and Sujata (his wife) felt my behavior so strange – Jana asked me why I was remaining so calm and awestruck. I thought I shouldn’t spoil the mood and decided to talk about the stars and constellations, as the SKY was hyper-clear on the hill and the kids were also interested. From my experience of the Astro Club Sessions and the company of Astro-Physics Gods back at Pilani, I started giving them a lively lecture of the different constellations, their history, and other galactic phenomenon. Every one looked at me awe-struck – with Jana asking how I gathered such an expertly information? I didn’t want to tell them “This is not great Jana. After all, I’m left with just this – a head full of information overload and a body without any life”. Rather I just gave a smile at them, and Jana gave back a smile which I knew meant “Oh God people are changing fast, taking the generation gap to historic highs”. On our drive back, we continued with our past tales, sending the rest of the gang in the car to deep sleep!

That was Nagpur for you guys – clean roads, very less traffic (which people who have not seen Bangalore or Pune say is lots), less pollution, low cost of living, nice people, lots of centers of learning and much more. The time came when Jana dropped me to the Volvo stand where I’m scheduled to head back to Pune. Just before I entered into the bus, I gave a tight hug to him saying thanks a lot for the last 3 days (as my eyes got clogged with tears for no reason) and “It’s our pleasure. Keep coming often!” said an emphatic Jana. I was thinking looking at the sky through the window of the bus – that there are people still who care about your genuinely for no special reason and let’s not carry such people to history books. Guys please, let’s change for the good and make India a better place to live (I really don’t know how much I, on the 1st place be able to change given the maddening routine L I just pray the God).

A tale of Six Cities – Smooth and Saucy Bombay!

2005-05-08T00:28:00.000-07:00

This is the 2nd post in this series – about my Bombay trip the 1st of the series of trips I’ve been making after I came to Pune for my Internship. I went to Bombay a couple of times from Pune and both had its bit of interesting stuff to share with you. Even the very thought of Bombay would give us all a rush of adrenalin, dream of making a great living irrespective of one’s social strata, buzzing with activity, business capital of the country, only place where you can spot a man coming in a Mercedes and another in a bicycle together in a dhaba or pawn shop or paani puri stall; the list goes on. I’d say Bombay is to India as what New York is to the US. So this city had always pulled me whenever I plan to travel some where.

Viva Bombay!!

I started for Bombay on repeated request from my cousin Suresh who lives in Kandivili. Suresh is a top management professional at the NABARD, RBI working at the costliest real estate and Financial Hot Spot of India – Nariman Point! The last time I came to Bombay during my school days, Suresh showed me around Nariman Point – the BSE, RBI HQ, NABARD, Taj, Gateway of India etc. At that point, I used to dream, dream BIG, and tell to myself “One day I’ll own the largest sky scrapper in Nariman, maneuver my BMW across the houses of the corporate bigwigs, flash my Rolex as I enter the corridors of Taj facing the Arabian Sea meeting people from across the world and doing business”. Suresh interrupted my dreams asking what I was thinking – I replied “Nothing Uncle, I would be back to Bombay again”. Perplexed Suresh didn’t quite understood what I really meant. Though that dream as a school kid is yet to be realized by me, I could confidently tell that I’m doing all the right things to reach there.

This time, I went to Suresh’s house as a just-graduated professional, with more matured plans. I spent some time in his house talking about the good old days, piling on the home grub (it was Pongal eve, so had really yummy food). Then the professional in me made me restless at home – and off I left for Goregaon checked out all the hep and happening malls, multiplexes of Bombay. Then I got a lift from an IIT Bombay friend of mine, to Powai from Goregaon to meet a couple of professors and others – a part of my routine networking. Then I headed back to my uncle’s house late in the night and got reminded that I promised to hold Kaushick (8th grade kid of Suresh) Math lessons. With all due respects to the teaching community, I always had this feel that teachers at most schools don’t make the students think and inculcate originality and REAL intelligence. Kaushick’s math teacher was no different – so I covered percentages, interests, and probability, time and speed problems in a 4 hours session. [Look at the end of this post for a special announcement from me]

The next time I went to Bombay was with my fellow office gang. The previous night at 12 in the night we were in Sheetal Palace, Pune for a birthday treat given jointly by Mallay Mittal (he’s now in Haas School, Berkeley) and Rahul. The treat got over by 2am and we made a sudden plan to go to Bombay for a breakfast in Taj, yeah I repeat JUST for a breakfast in Taj – sponsored by Saurabh Devendra Singh (SD). The next day morning at 6am we were off to Bombay in a couple of cars. I got the smell of “Street Smart Mumbaikars” when the guy at the toll booth received us with a 50 rupees balance before even we could take out a 100 bucks bill to pay him! He gave a wily smile telling “Bhai Saab, yeh Bombay hai!!”. “Phew”, I said to myself blaming my slow and structured thought process which I’ve been considering so great and preserving for all these days!

Finally we managed to reach Taj after asking almost a hundred taxi wallas, who gave a grin as we asked them “Bhaiya, yeh nariman point kahan hai?” – that’s coz it’s like going to Paris and asking “Bon jour monsieur. Ou est tour de la Eiffel?” [which means – Good day sir. Where is the Eiffel Tower?]. After spending a while in the grand lobby, checking out the various stores and restaurants there, we finally decided to roam around the Marine Drive till it’s time for a buffet lunch. But me and SD were doing quite different things – people watching! One of my most favorite past times, this time got a lot more interesting with people from across the globe – An English man being briefed on India by an Indian family, a confused Japanese couple struggling to make their point to the cool looking receptionist, a patience-less westerner doing business with his Indian partners (I presume so) and a couple of Estonian hot babes (how I knew they’re from Estonia – intuition!!) DIGIKing all over the lobby before making their way to the Tourist Volvo waiting outside Taj. SD and me were longing to take some pictures with them (how cheapo of us!), but managed to just SECRETLY shoot some cool (you know what) shots in the handy cam!

Estonian Babes??

After a cool lunch, which poor SriRavan..Oops..SriRam Murthy refused to have coz of his Saturday Fasting (the reason, people say is to make his dream girl accept his proposal soon), we headed for Café Mocha to have some coffee and shoot more of the SECRET handy cam shots! Café Mocha is a cool place – the most popular hang-out of the Bombay teens and it lives up to its tag line “coffees and conversations”. You also get to smoke some of the best of straw berry flavored hukkas here. Let me make it clear – Mom and Dad I didn’t smoke! After that we headed back to Pune and disaster struck to our car when one of its tires blew off as we drove at around 120 kmph in the marvelous Western Express highway. Since the spare tire was also hopeless, we need to get it mended but the problem is there is no U Turn possible in the entire 250 Km stretch of the expressway. Then the brave Anand (me) and Murthy (ravan!) got a lift in a Huuuuuuuge Cargo carrier and reached a Motel 5kms away where we were reached with a Sharukh ishtyle “Prem na gariya ki tum bi ta gariya chalo” reception from SD for our supermanistic (u kidding?) efforts in getting the tire mended! Yeah, we did have our bit of fun in the Lorry ride, the chut conversation with the Sardar ji driving that mammoth animal in style and a garbled radio hooting some “bhale bhale” song.. one hell of an experience!

Well, there ends the Smooth and Saucy Bombay episode! Just like any story ending – “we then reached Pune and worked there happily, the end”. But the point being, the lure of going back to Bombay and having a taste of the busy streets, money madness, dalal street, paani puri, Shivaji Burger (or vada pav), street kids, dharavi and much more! The next in this series of “Tale of Six Cities” would be “Peaceful and Serene Nagpur”. Till then it’s me Anand signing off!

P.S.: I'm working on creating study modules in Math and English for the slum kids and other children in a way that would make them think on their own. I'm also planning to start conducting classes in a nearby slum in Pune - just waiting for a marati translator to join me! Interested people do get in touch with me.

Office Tales - A Walk to Remember

2005-05-06T08:55:00.000-07:00

The Dog-Girl!!

Coming up on the lines of the Office Tales Series, is a new post “A Walk to Remember”. This would be an answer to the question which all those in my Yahoo Messenger buddy list would have – What’s happening at exactly 6pm when my status message turns to “A Walk down the Park”. Well I work for more than 18 hours a day on professional work (which is application development) and social commitments (replying to emails, organizations I’m part of, networking, blogging etc.). So, I need breaks at regular intervals for saving my sanity. One such break is “A Walk down the Park” at 6pm with a couple of fellow employees. Initially I thought I was just going for a walk, but a lot more started happening and hence I thought I should blog my walks!

There is a small but beautiful park near our office. We, The Three Techie’ters – Anand, Rahul and Basav head for the park to talk something that has some life in it, which we do only in this half hour stride in any given weekday. Days rolled by and this routine of ours went on uninterrupted. Now as Basav who is on a girl-hunt to marry, decided to do something more than just walking – being sensitized to other people (rather a few of them;) ). We being a part of the awesome threesome, decided to do just that as a group. So the next few days rolled by doing research, analysis and coming up with ratings like AAA, AAA-, BBB (these codes follow the same logic as the ones that US Bond rating agencies like S&P, Moody’s, Fisch comes up with), keeping in mind of a range of parameters of concern.

Finally like every rating agency does, we got mature enough to spot the good and bad ones and started to enter the next logical phase – making investment decisions based on the ratings. Investments here is just our time (people don’t exaggerate things here; seriously we didn’t plan anything more). Rahul and Basav as usual decided to make me the Lab Rat and there started our Beta Testing. After a huge deliberation, we decided to take a shot at an AAA rated (this is the highest rating that could be given) person – a girl of course. And I started taking deep breadths, thinking if I would spoil the really smart techie impression I have created thus far amongst the other park frequenters.

But in order to maintain my “dude, I’ve seen it all” attitude, I decided to act cool and natural and started walking in the opposite direction approaching the Dog-Girl who comes everyday. She is the hottest of the entire 6’O Clockers – the good thing is that she is single (a conclusion of our extensive research), but the bad thing is that she roams around with a frightening dog (usually girls prefer those softie cutie sweetie Pomeranians, but this female is different). So I felt a couple of butterflies in my stomach and suddenly my tongue went dry, air nearby turned vacuum making my nose hunt for air, the cool evening breeze brought sweat in my forehead, started feeling my weight go down as if I’m under water. Phew, I’ve become a half fiction writer, trying to describe my run-up to that babe.

The ever-systematic and organized Anand, did ZERO ground work on how to begin the conversation! Finally, I managed to say a quick “Hi” to her and the dialogue after that is as follows:

Me: Hi there!
She: [looking back to confirm the hi is for her] are you talking to me?
Me: Hmm.. Well.. [I never thought this much even in my projects] I guess so!
She: [gave a perplexed look] *frowns*
Me: Should I answer the next logical question, “Excuse me, do I know you?”
She: Wh..Wh..Wh..Whaaat? Hmm.. ok, why dontcha tell that as well
Me: [for a sec I thought I should be speaking of all the techie wiz stuff to impress her, but she looked all too dumb to appreciate my prowess in some crap] No not till a while back. See I have a dare to perform, are you game?
She: Are you kidding? But what is the dare like?
Me: I need to get your mobile number
She: And.. I mean why do want my mobile no.?
Me: [Its 2 minutes now since I started the conversation] Well, we come every day from our busy schedule to spot you for our research, and end up waiting for a while to spot you. So I thought I could give you a call to confirm when you’d come on any particular day and then start from office!
She: [apparently freaked out by that reply] Very funny. What sort of research are you doing neways?
Me: [would she believe if I say we’re implementing a Moody’s rating procedure’s people rating version??] Wrong question – it’s a trade secret. I’m yet to get a reply for my question.
She: Well, not today. Bye!
Me: Okay bye! Good bye to you doggie!

And then pretending to speak on phone, I walked back jubilantly back to the stunned Rahul and Basav, who couldn’t believe what they just saw! But we soon resorted to an artificial silence as she walked past our park bench – the dog tried to escape her clutches, apparently to get a good grab of my flesh (who knows the dog might be her dad bread;) ). After we made sure she left the park, we got back to our post-experiment discussion to discuss the results. The all too enthu’d Rahul and Basav having found a new-found strength after my beta run success, were dying to listen to my scene-by-scene narration of the episode. And I decided to make it public by blogging it, so that the world could benefit from the beta results of our 4 month research. I told Basav “Hence proved” – then “heuristics works here to research” quips Basav and then “you guys are talking Hebrew” said a clueless Rahul who could not think of anything that is not machine/code.

A tale of Six Cities – Adventurous Delhi Trips

2005-05-05T00:44:00.000-07:00

NewDelhi
New Delhi has been having a strange relation with me – this is the city I have visited the most number of times, but haven’t quite explored it for all my visits have been quick business sojourns. In the past I have been to Delhi en-route to Pilani or a number of times for my SimCATs. I would like to talk about a couple of the most adventurous Delhi Trips from Pilani I have ever had.

It was 3.30AM on a shivery winter morning – I walked across my wing to the extended RP new wing to wake Burra and Jayant up. Then we trio - headed to our CAT group leader (supposedly) Vivek Mohan’s room in the front wing where the Qualis driver would be knocking his door in vain. So far it’s been a familiar sequence of events and the topic of discussion is as usual – who’re the girls joining us from Mal this time and the whether. The Qualis after picking up the girls from Mal stopped in a Reliance Petrol station some where between Pilani and Loharu, as usual. The topics of discussion in the Qualis ranged from old TV commercials to poetry to horror movies (esp. Joy Ride). I and Vivek were sitting near the driver. Both of us had taken Cold Pills that put us to sleep by 5AM. We didn’t realize how big a blunder, not keeping the driver engaged was. To make things worse, Indu and Chitra asked him to reduce the volume of the Punjabi songs he was playing as it was disturbing the much required sleep before taking our SimCATs. At around 5.15AM, the disaster struck and I woke up to the screams of people at the back and a sudden forward lift of the Qualis. I was stunned and speechless to see the driver dozing over the steering wheel and the car going over the mud embankment at a speed of 80 Kmph, and overturned sideways completely and was going forward in the inertia with the top side skidding over the mud pavement. Luckily it came to a stop just before hitting a tree which would have sent the glass windows break on our faces. Gautam Patil, in panic mistook the rear blinkers in the cracker mirror for fire and started shouting “Fire..Fire..”. For a moment, I thought I was going to die and I couldn’t even scream because I was ice-cold in fear. Jayant and Vivek the guys having nerves of steel and loads of presence of mind, got out of the broken windows and helped us out. I was sitting on the ground waiting for some stretcher to take me to the ambulance, when Vivek gave me a jerk saying “dude, we’re all okay and now you better get on your foot”. We were all bleeding, but didn’t feel the pain as we were totally numb in fear and cold. Finally we sought some comfort in the place of an old woman and man, after walking for half hour to find the nearest civilization from the accident spot. After a mammoth lamenting and a thorough postmortem of what went wrong lead by Aparajit Ramnath, we reached back to Pilani to face the bureaucratic shit under the clutches of our chief warden and Dean. People enquired us and tried soothing us down, but life was very different for all of us who went on that fateful Joy Ride (?)

The other adventurous trip I had was when I was returning from Pilani to Delhi after APOGEE 2005. I was with Rebekah in the front of the Ambi and Harsha and GG were in the back. We landed up in Janpath and had a great grub at Saravan Bhawan and picked some books in the platform stalls. After waiting a while for taking the car off the crowded parking lot, I suddenly realized I had just 40 minutes left to board my train! The driver says it would take 60 minutes to reach Hazrat Nizamuddin station! I got nervous because I had to be in the office on Monday after 5 days off. Becky didn’t want me to go back to Pune, so she was so happy (at least she managed to show off like that) and I tried my best to pose a cool look. The driver was racing against time and I was at the edge of my seat – the only other occasion I get such a rush of adrenalin is while watching a close Formula 1 race. We got there at exactly 3.01pm and the train’s scheduled departure is at 3.00pm. Me and Harsha ran to the platform to find the train standing. After a huge sigh of relied, I boarded and asked my friends that I was on time – they said, “Dude, the train started 5 min. back and stopped again!”. Call it my luck or anything – But I was so happy that I made it to the train.

Well, that was just my experiences in Delhi recently. I chose this thread – “A tale of 6 Cities” because, I’ve been traveling quite a lot – almost every weekend to all these cities. So I thought I should blog my experiences in each of them. The ones lines up in the subsequent posts are: Smooth and saucy Bombay, Nostalgic Bangalore, Peaceful and Serene Nagpur, Hyderabad, Marriage @ Madras! So people watch out for my blog and they’re all lined up with some cool experiences to share with!

Marriage Service Model – Life at the fast edge

2005-05-04T07:54:00.000-07:00

Marriages - The Fate?

The computer clock strikes 6pm and a bunch of programmed robots claiming human beings set out of the office for a walk down the park nearby. Unfortunately, I was also one of the robots. The topics of discussion would invariably something as lifeless as – Beta news, Microsoft white papers, performance issues in projects, US Bond markets, Brazilian IPOs and so on. But this time the machine cluster (our group), reverberated shock waves when RFC SectorDriver (BasavRaj) announced his hunt for a girl to get married. A series of “Whhhat???” echoed from RFC RelVal (myself) and RFC CapFlow Master (Ranjit). After a 2 minutes processing time, the Machine Cluster got a new lease of life and looked like human beings for while – and there started this discussion.

Basav, a 26 year old fellow programmer analyst complained that his parents are wasting a lot of time, money and energy in the name of finding a bride for him. Having worked in cut-throat deadlines almost perpetually in the office, this un-organized “Girl Search Protocol” drove him nuts. We all seconded his opinion – how on earth could a task be executed without a plan, design and documentation. Ranjit could still not understand why should a lot of time (the most important of the 3 resources spent), be spent on an activity for which the Return on Investment (RoI) is an unknown. It was at that point, we decided to chalk down a plan that would revolutionize the marriage fixing process to suit the needs of today’s professional and sat down thinking on a park bench.

We decided to follow the principles of Management to organize this seemingly chaotic service and revamp all the resource intensive activities.

Proposed Changes:

A Marriage Analyst working for a Marriage Services firm makes the map – the anonymity of the clients is preserved and the analyst would have access to JUST the parameters of concern to execute a transaction (here it’s marriage)
A physical meeting would be resulted only for potential transactions. The meeting would have a 10 min. power point presentation (the marriage plan) by the bride and groom, followed by a 10 min. group discussion on covering all the points in the agenda, and finally a joint conclusion is arrived at. If the conclusion is a transaction failure, either of the clients would give their feedback on what led to this conclusion so that the approach could be improvised for the next potential transaction

Now having differentiated a couple of the key elements, we also drew a conclusion that this would help both the sides to be precise, to the point and discuss things of high priority than beating around the bush. This would also save a lot of resources as most of the initial research and mapping is done by the Marriage Analyst. There could be a better Marriage Service Model – but the point I want to drive across is it’s high time that we organize this whole activity to save a lot of resources. The social networking portals and other marriage enabler portals are doing a fantastic job in the right direction. But they have to make the next big step of integrating the stand-alone personal profiles to, and end-to-end service leading till the point of making a marriage decision. I see a huge opportunity for such a business model across the world. I invite people who share this vision to get in touch with me to discuss more on this front and if possible come up with a Business Plan – I’m sure we’re going to invite a whole lot of angels and VCs (or Marriage Capitalists in this case!).

P.S.: Basav was dying to give me a personal interview of the pain he has been bearing for the past 2 years now, so that I could blog that also. But I preferred not to interview him because that would be just ONE person’s views. There are a lot of other stories of 26 yr olds in a similar situation. But I guess what I have blogged is to some extent relevant irrespective of what your story is.

Chandramukhi - The Thalaivar Magic

2005-04-25T07:46:00.000-07:00

Thalaivar Super Star

I'm just sharing what my relative told me about his experience of watching the movie in a theatre in Manhattan, NY. This would explain how crazy Rajni fans are. First of all if you think giant size cut-outs are found only in India, change your mind - for they paid a HUGE rent to NY Administration to hold a RajniKant cutout outside a theatre in NY. This is Day1 of Chandramukhi's release - 7PM (NY Local Time). About 900 people mostly the Indian Techie with family have already crowded outside the theatre for a 8PM show. The die-hard fans leading the proceedings starting with Milk Abishekam of the Rajni cut-out. Then a Hindu panditji invited from the Murugan Temple in Washington DC after ablution’ing himself publicly in front of a clueless American public, started with the Kumb Abishekam of the Rajni Cutout (remember, this privilege is usually given to only the Gods and Goddesses).

This ritual was followed by a Karpur Aarti by some chosen Rajni Maniacs. This was taken along the queue for people to receive his holiness Shri. RajniKant's blessings for bearing the impending shit inside the theatre. Then the whole of Lincoln Square reverberated with Thalaivaaaaa and SuperStar Valga hoots by Rajni Cheerleaders. Half hour to go for the ultimate moment - and the next ritual starts.

A Techie who had flown all the way from Richmond to NY emerged from the sea of core RajniFanClub members. He is the Chief RajniFanClub Architect (his not-so-important other profession is Chief Research Architect for one of Microsoft's premier products in their HQ at Richmond) who is bestowed with the honor of breaking the huge Pumpkin with a camphor lit top making the hitherto clean motor way leading to the famous Armory Square full of broken pumpkin pieces. This was followed by the 108 Coconut Breaks right outside the Loews Theatre. You must have noticed the literally shocked security men trying their best to protect the Glass Doors od Loews with their shield - which they till date have made use of only during terrorist threats or potentially dangerous uprisings. Thankfully, NYPD didn't change the security alert indicator from Green to Red.

Phew, that was the grand entry into the hall that premiered Chandramukhi. Inside the madness knows no bounds. Bits and pieces of instances that happened inside the Audi are as follows:

Rajni introduction scene: Usually men of valor dust their hands after doing some bravo acts. But our Super Star dusts his feet staying in air for almost 30 seconds. He dodges chain attacks supposedly quicker than Neo managed to dodge the bullets, 6 men around and He defies gravity to hit all of them in one go and lands on the ground smoother than a Boeing 707 could. And you must have been there to see the crowd uproar who were speechless for a moment struck by His heroics, which is supposed to be 3.7 times quicker than a Jackie Chan stunt.
But He is also a human being. "To Err is human" - so Rajni gets a small hit when he was busy shooing the other villains. About 50 people rose from their seats and moved to the screen to help Rajni out and hit the Rajni offenders. God knows how the well-literate Indian Techie for a moment thought they could go inside the screen and help Him out.
His youthful romance: When out Hero, who obviously knows every other musical instrument in the world starts singing and dancing to coax out 20 yr old heroine in style, the middle aged Techies (hold your breadth), stood on the leather dressed seats and whistled - much to the agony of their helpless wives. The wives' complains was: I've trained my kid to behave well and this is live demonstration by Dad on how not to behave. Magic Struck Dad smiles and tells his wife and kid that this is Thalaivar Movie and you have to be another Rajni Fan to understand this feeling.
Saravanan (Rajni's name in the movie) - his friend introduces as a psychologist who got a gold medal and some prestigious American Scholarship in the USA. And one Chief Technology Officer of a Silicon Valley Embedded Systems start-up shouts Thalaiva, we're nothing in front of you. Nee Valga (Long live Rajni). Would you rate this heights of Simplicity OR Madness?
The Most Learned and famous mandira vaathi (ghost buster) in India tells this I see a shining light on your eyes and it immediately struck to me that You're no ordinary person. I respect you a lot. Without You, I cannot drive this Chandramukhi's spirit from this house and a couple of RajnioManiacs discuss "Thalaivar thalaivar than pa. Even I could see the greatness in his eyes!" and the other gives a nod.

The typical Indian Wife and the ABCD (American Born Confused Desi) kid sat clueless till the end of the movie which they hardly made sense out of for 2 reasons a) The ho-hum of the fans made the State-of-the-Art DTS Dolby Sound Technology look like a stone age voice processing tool b) the story wasn't normal either. Thus the great movie came to a great ending. Watch the movie for yourself to relive the Rajni Magic that I have tried to portray in words.

A Journey to Remember!

2005-04-25T00:31:00.000-07:00

That Rainy Trip!

Sitting on the Upper Birth of the Sleeper Volvo headed from Pune to Bangalore, I was browsing through a bunch of successful HBS and MIT Sloan resumes which put me down to a great extent as I looked at my own against them! So my mood already beaten up by non-stop work back in Pune suffered a second beating – at that point I was only hoping that Bangalore proves to be a refreshing break. Being a big-time chatter box, it’s extremely difficult to sit simply with none to talk with. I was beginning to get restless, when I started getting the smell of the hitherto dry earth.

Yeah, it started getting gloomy, windy and in a jiffy it’s pouring all the way. Sitting on the upper birth of this coach, I felt I was flying and I couldn’t resist taking my eyes off the bunch of papers I was holding to take a peep at the window. What I saw was stunning – Sky giving a mighty white smoke stares, yellowish brown mountains at a distance, thick green trees brushing the sides of the bus, water splashing the tires of the Volvo, U bends making the diaphragms shrink and relax in a steady rhythm and the lightning flashing around giving the whole nature-show a celebrity status! I really got on a high with Hare Rama Hare Krisna on my headphones and the rain drops kissing my neck through the small gap in the window. At the moment, I badly wanted to just hop out of the bus and jump with bare foot in the clay. I wish I were a poet to portray the different purge of emotions that arouse in me in analogy to the elements of nature which were at its best.

Blame it on my luck, whenever I travel, I get families with small kids who keep on crying or crib for something that the parents blatantly reject resulting in the resonance of the children’s vocal chords in full throttle. This really pisses me off, although I’m otherwise a child lover. The typical parents this time too, started scaring their kids telling stories of rains and land slides and this seemed to work in making the kids to behave properly as they’re now scared! But I never understood this logic of telling stories or exaggerating reality to the kids in order to keep them from screaming. Why don’t they tell them what actually happens or the reality?

Finally after a violent 2 hours, the rains stopped which gave way to a pleasant wind that carried the smell of fresh timber (I strongly thought it was smuggled timber) in it. Finally it took a while for me to realize that I was totally refreshed and in high spirits after that rain. Why don’t it rain all the time? As I was still sunk in melancholy thoughts of my Enid Blyton days and how I miss them, it became dark. At about 11pm I woke up by the glare of the full moon sailing from behind the clouds (I know it’s the other way round – I’m trying to be poetic here. Oops!). The moon under the control of its captain (the rocks of the moon appearing as a face), took me along for a sail in the troubled bergs of clouds to almost all the passing clouds of my life till date! Wow what a stunning half hour that was. I didn’t know when I slept – I opened my eyes to hear the conductor shouting Majestic Circle and I realized it was time to get off the bus.

Office Tales - Workaholics Survivor Kit

2005-04-17T04:55:00.000-07:00

Google Results for Workaholics

At lest the Google search results gives me some sort of an encouragement that this is not a strange word anymore and my MS Word also accepts this word – which means there are a lot of people out there who belong to this category of humans. I knew I was a workaholic even as I was at college – but I was so much into everything in life that I never found time to really understand “How to lead a happy life being a workaholic”. I just wonder at those people who seem to manage with everything and yet lead a happy life. But things have changed now – armed with the Google search results and lots of determination to bring a change in myself for the good of people around me, I bring out my research findings to the fellow Workaholics fraternity to get benefited.

Most of the counselors and stress research institutes would give mama’s advice like “Spend time with the family and friends”, “give yourself a break or vacation”, “stop drinking too much coffee and try fruit juices”, “there is a lot more things to life than just work” – being a workaholic myself, I do understand your feeling that all these simply do no good. The fundamental problem is we could simply not stop doing work to heed and implement to those adages and words of wisdom. I would simply say “Country and Golf is for the grandpapa”, “Sitting on a couch and talking things that don’t concern my work/business is like spending time under water without oxygen”, in short - I’m too impatient to do anything that doesn’t add value to me and too obsessed to stop doing anything that’s adding value to me!

So fellow workaholic would ask me “Buddy, what’s the solution?” – The good thing is that I finally manage to find out the solution! This would work, because it’s definitely not gonna ask you to stop/reduce your working routine (eh, nor your coffee). I have come up with a list of must-haves for the workaholics in a Workaholics Survivor Kit:

1. A beautiful and colorful ceramic mug – this is important for this is the “object of desire” for you. So it’s important that it is colorful and soothing to the eye. In the world of workaholics, this is called Fuel Tank
2. A clock/watch with no hands – Ordinary human beings would say “It’s time to work” after seeing the watch. But for the chosen you, “it’s always time to work” so all you need is a watch that has a seconds hand – so that you don’t forget how fast is a second
3. Frame you photo at home – since you’re always out in the office, you’re family might forget how you look like. So the next day you reach home, you don’t want your wife ask you “Yes, who do you want?” right.
4. Waving hand on a stand and recorded Goodnight voice – when the other normal colleagues at office leave home on time, you waste precious time saying good bye and waving hands. So this might help save that time.
5. Butt Protector – this is the most important accessory you need. “I’m working my butt off for my company” – not anymore.
6. Mid night oil – please have a lot of this stocked in your draw because you must have enough to burn the mid night oil everyday.

Finally, on a serious note please don’t think being a workaholic is a very dangerous way of life. The very fact that you’re able to work almost perpetually everyday suggest that you’re body isn’t complaining much. And you don’t have to feel so guilty at times of not pleasing everybody because of your strenuous work schedule – for it’s impossible to please everybody all the time. But just don’t forget to send a sorry note for the all those you’ve ditched or kept waiting! After all, we’re not maniacs to fail to realize that there are people around us who care about us and expect us to be there for them!

Office Tales - Radio Kaam FM 24, Tune In

2005-04-13T04:48:00.000-07:00

I just completed a relatively tough project and as I was planning to relax for while, I suddenly got reminded of someone who stood company with me in all those trying hours at work – My Windows Media Player! I really cannot think if the pace at which I code without music would be anywhere close to my pace with music. I simply cannot imagine a day at work without Pink Floyd, Enigma, Bryan Adams, U2, Elvis Presley, Bon Jovi etc. Then I was wondering what the relation between music and work was. I’m presenting a few ideas that emerged as I was thinking at my desk!

Music is not directly related to work – like an Elvis Presley track on the background doesn’t ensure you would crack all the bugs. The reason is obvious; there is no relation between performance of brain cells and your favorite tracks. But still, how do I manage to work fast when my ears are plugged with headphones? The answer is – remaining plugged sets a constant tempo/rhythm for your brains and when you get used to this rhythm everyday while working, this morphs into something called your “Working Frequency”. This works well than without music because; one would concentrate better while you are in a predictable constant frequency – which is not the case with the workplace noise/silence.

Blessed with the working frequency, I work fine everyday – but just like all great things, it doesn’t come without its negatives. When I head back home (mostly late in the night), I have energies only to have my dinner and crash on the bed! Now, what happens is a phenomenon called “Musical Inertia” – your customized brains now search for its usual music feed. But alas, its time to sleep after a tiring day’s work honey and music is the last thing your heart would seek. Since your heart and brains have conflicting wants, you end up changing sleeping postures, adjusting head position over the pillow – in short, all but sleep.

But I still go for tuning in to the Working Frequency and so would my growth and productivity hungry company. In short the above effect amounts to – A commercial tax paying organization making extra money out of music. This is like the other resources that the company is using in order to make money, just that the Music resource is not taxed! Don’t you think we and the company should pay a Music Tax? The companies gaining out of employees using the Working Frequency should at least do its bit, by buying original Music CDs and stopping Music Piracy. After all it’s a win-win situation for all – I get to listen all my favorite tracks, work well, get paid well and the company gets benefited by a happy, satisfied and a productive employee!!

Office Tales - Application Vending Machine (AVM)

2005-04-09T02:28:00.000-07:00

After a lot of deliberation, I'm here writing my blog (read as Online Open diary)! I'm now supposed to be a confused professional, fresh out of school, with opportunities luring from all directions - wondering which career path I should tread! I'm stuck between two thought a) Cool college days b) an inviting hectic professional life! A sense of wisdom does strike me now and then suggesting me "life is full of such transitions", I'm now on the verge of another big one!

Now one might question my sanity, looking at the Blog Description and title. Well, that just reflects me - thinking of some complex, weirdo, at times stupid analogies for hitherto silly things in life. I'm these days concerned about quite a few things in me. I always knew that I'm a workaholic - but I never did just ONE thing all day, like I'm doing now. The correct name to be bestowed on me at this time frame is "Application Vending Machine (AVM)". You could even consider that this blog is a result of a dire urgency in doing something different in life.

The little time I'm free, I spend it with my computer networking/blogging and working for a couple of NGOs that I've joined (Asha Foundation, Dream India 2020). I must admit that I'm going through a phase of life where I'm finding it extremely difficult to simply stop working. I could attribute a lot of reasons to this - I’m in the steepest part of my professional learning curve, none of my closest chums are here, very high ambitions etc. Coz of this, there are a lot of disastrous effects in me - the time i used to spend on spirituality/meditation/temples has reduced to zero, flirting/crushes - I’d say what are these?, Food is something to keep my system running, Coffee has replaced water as the most voluminous liquid that i drink, I feel my body as stiff as a flag pole (you have to just sit for 12 hrs a day to know what this means) etc.

After reading all that, one might ask "Are you dumb to carry on with life this way?". The answer is Yes and No. No coz, I'm still rational to crave for a change - Yes coz, I'm helpless. Why helpless? - Life now is moving so fast that before I could sit back, think, analyze and make a change to it, something else comes ahead leaving me void of "time". One might say it's a lame excuse - but I'd say definitely not for a person who spends the whole, i repeat the whole of Sunday just sleeping, coz sleep is restricted through the week.

Having lamented so much, what do I expect? People, who go through this page, would either be a person who's yet to pass this phase - my juniors OR passing through this phase - of my age range OR passed this phase - my seniors. You could all do your bit by sharing your views on this "Life of an average Indian Professional" and how people live it with happiness and satisfaction!

2005-04-08T22:46:00.000-07:00

IL EVIDENZA
SUMER is located in the Southern half of modern Irak. Its climate is hot and dry, its soil is windswept, it has no minerals and very little stone and timber - indeed, a land doomed to poverty. The Sumerians, nevertheless, were a gifted, energetic people, inventive and resourceful, who with the help of irrigation and a pragmatic way of life turned this deprived land in a Garden of Eden. The picture shows you Inanna, the Great Sumerian Goddess of Love and War - this was got from under a tree, a single tree, a huluppu tree Was planted by the banks of the Euphrates, which was pulled apart by the whirling South Wind aInanna.
Why this pic? - It was a tradition for the Sumerians to come in front of the huluppu tree where the tablet was buried, and pour the truth and knowledge and reach immortality. I'm here to do just the same - share my experiences, musings, knowledge in the presence of Inanna and invite the rest of the world also to share your views/comments here. Welcome to my Blog!!