This is my Gift, This is my Curse

Suffer Vacations

2009-06-05T15:43:00.004+05:30

Have you recently been on a vacation?

Probably not, eh?

Because if you had, by now I would have definitely known about it. Known about it in far more detail than I would have ever wanted to.

I would have known exactly which place you went on which day though your Facebook Status Messages. I would have seen ALL the 237 pictures that you would have uploaded on the Facebook Albums by now, including those of the (highly unimpressive) ‘spectacular’ scenery, a (random) ‘awesome’ car and an (obscure) ‘legendary’ restaurant that you went to which nobody outside that little town knows about. Even you didn’t. It’s only when you landed up there that you were informed by other enthusiasts (and travel-marketing agents) around you how legendary the place is. Most likely even Wikipedia doesn’t have a reliable stub to support its legendary claim.

That’s not it. Thanks to Facebook Mobile, I would have actually followed you on your trip including knowing important details such as in how much time your flight is taking off, how effective the air-conditioning is in your hotel (and hence whether you are currently freezing or comfortably settled) and how many times you burped after having that exotic dish.

It doesn’t end there. Because of the Comments facility on Facebook, by now I would have also made a data bank of all the people who have been to the exact same place that you uploaded your pictures from. So what if they went fifteen years back as toddlers, it’s important that they don’t miss out on informing the world now that they too have been there, done that. Of course they’ll try to make it sound like the (lame) conversation below the photo is directed to you only and would vehemently deny any charges of showing off; but it doesn’t work.

The trouble is that Facebook is a like a house with glass walls; you just can’t have sex in it even in your bedroom. And in case you do, I am not the one to derive pleasure from voyeurism.

Thanks anyway for a great world tour guys! I had an awesome time.

Prologue

The author was all set to go for a nice family vacation to the Himalayas last week with all the tickets and bookings in place. Hours before boarding the plane, a polite SMS from the carrier informed him that all flight services to his destination had been cancelled indefinitely. And there went his grand summer vacation for a toss.

This blog is an outcome of his unscheduled extended stay at home in the sweltering heat with little to keep himself entertained. The multiplex owners, film producers and the electricity utility companies are amongst those who should also take the blame.

Jiski Trump uski Triumph/Jeet

2009-05-18T22:46:00.004+05:30

In case any of you have ever made an attempt to call me, you would be well-aware that I have a Trump mobile connection.

Yes, there is no doubt it sucks. The signal vanishes every now and then, the calls get dropped quite often and the little conversation that does take place is so garbled that it feels like you are shouting at someone underwater.

So, why did I get the rotten connection in the first place?

That is easy to answer - There was a time when Trump rocked. It was the cheapest connection by far and the SMS service was free. So, as first and second year students in DCE (yes, at that time there were multiple users of Trump, not just me. Those buggers deserted me later), we used to source all our humour for the day by sending ADU to 8888. Not that the jokes we received were extremely funny or extremely adult, but somehow the idea of exploiting a free service this way was rather exciting.

The network that time wasn’t that bad either. In fact, it was far better than some of the Hutch and Airtel guys who used to not visit those hostels in DCE facing the Haryana direction as each trip cost them a bomb. Their phones would involuntarily put them on roaming whenever they went that side and charge them Rs.50 for roaming. The SMSs too reached within 5 mins of sending it to anyone in those days, even on other networks.

However, that was then. Now, there is no denying that from those days Trump has only become worse, but somehow I have still held on to the connection (much to the annoyance of anybody who has me in his phonebook).

Frequent problems with the service have meant that I have had to speak to their customer care guys almost once every week. All calls on their 1503 customer care helpline have sounded exactly the same all through five years – First, some bad music comes (Sorry, before that you get through to the helpline only in some ten attempts, then the bad music comes). Then, a computerised voice says press 0 for operator assistance and then a rude, bored, tired individual will introduce himself and ‘welcome’ you to Trump customer care, inform you his ‘position number’ and ask you ‘how he may help you’. I have mechanically registered complaints so many times in the last five years without the hope of anything being resolved, but simply to do my karma as a distressed customer.

I have often been asked why I have put up with this for so long.

Until today I didn’t really have a good enough answer to this except that as with everything sarkari, Trump also rewards loyalty; and I cherish that. They give me free talktime every now and then, have made calls on a few numbers completely free and charge me almost nothing for a cool GPRS surfing experience. This by the way is not an exaggeration. But, is it good enough? Can’t the zoozoos offer the same the thing?

Not really.

I called up 1503 today to register a complaint for an exceptionally bad network failure even my Trump standards. The call got through in a single attempt and the sleazy-sounding music followed. The computerised voice asked me to press zero for operator assistance ‘at any time during the call’. I immediately did. A sweet sounding lady promptly picked up the phone on the other end and said –

Welcome to Trump customer care. I am in position number sixty-nine. How may I help you?

I blushed and hung up the phone.

Gym-boree

2009-05-15T00:25:00.006+05:30

A few months back I had caused a sort of flutter amongst my friends’ community through my post ‘Ballpark Figures’, which was a description of the different kinds of kids I saw while pursuing my pseudo-exercise routine everyday in the neighbourhood park. The excitement about the post wasn’t to do with the quality of writing or the keenness of observation exhibited in the post but almost entirely about reliability of the plot in the first place.

Somehow it is difficult to digest for any person who knows me well that I have also occasionally indulged in activities marginally inclined towards physical fitness. The interesting bit is that I don’t really blame them. A quarter of a century of excessive consumption (of not-so-healthy kind of food) and over-exploitation of a contraption called the bean bag is compelling enough evidence to confirm their doubts. But guys trust me, I wasn’t lying.

And now, here’s the latest....I’ve gone a step further....I go the gym now...Everyday...8.30 AM to 9.45 AM. Hell yeah!

Now that we’ve set the stage for some drama let me introduce the characters to you. In the following lines I intend to describe to you the amusing and interesting types of (fitness) freaks who I run into every morning. Needless to say, observing them is far more engaging than struggling with dumbbells and push-ups and embarrassing oneself in front of the local studs.

So, here we go...

Type 1: Mrs. Shalini Gupta (housewife)

Mrs. Shalini is the ideal sundar aur susheel grahini (the sundar bit is usually highly exaggerated) in her late-thirties who has just begun to explore possibilities of an outlet for herself outside the kitchen; a place which she has very masterfully run for over decade now (and in the process doubled her weight since the time she got married. This is her own confession, not my fancy). She has probably been introduced to the idea of a gym by Mrs.Sharma in her neighbourhood, who in turn got to know about gyms from her visiting NRI relatives (distant ones obviously) last summer.

Mrs.Gupta has spent significant time in making her sartorial choices, exclusively for the gym. Tight black slacks and a huge pink t-shirt (with big white polka dots) which reaches up to her knees is what you’d find her most commonly in. Unfortunately this selection of hep clothes accentuates her well-rounded personality much more than actually concealing it.

Mrs. Gupta obviously definitely doesn’t like her mini-Jayalalitha look but doesn’t realise that she needs to work a little harder to get rid of it; and simply smelling the air inside the gym won’t help. Alas, the temptation of exchanging notes on what’s happening in Balika Vadhu and what all she’s planning to arrange for her younger child’s upcoming birthday party with a like-minded colleague (gym kitty circle if you will) while sitting on an exercising-cycle is far stronger than the actual need to peddle the cycle for which she pays the gym guy. Even that, I presume is a very tiring activity as it is evident from the frequency with which she seems to wipe some imaginary sweat from her face using a small pink hand-towel fifteen times in as many minutes. Did I also mention the sips of water she takes from her own bottle every now and then which she religiously brings everyday from home? Obviously, the mineral water dispenser in the gym can’t be trusted as it doesn’t have the anti-swine flu upgrade patch.

(In case you are getting the idea that I am being a janani and eavesdropping on ladies’ conversation, then you’re wrong. The likes of Mrs.Gupta block any gym equipment which has a provision for seating for really long everyday and its unlikely that they’d budge unless you stood on her head and made a dirty face. In the process, you may inadvertently be exposed to the content of her conversation)

Type 2: Rajveer Yadav (pet name: Sonu)

Actual name changed. Pet name also changed, for security reasons of the author not so much the subject. As a matter of fact, I don’t even know what this guy’s real name is but I am sure the aliases given here are not so off the mark.

Sonu is the quintessential Delhi gym guy with his roots in an adjoining state beginning with H. He’s tall, has a perfectly chiselled body replete with six-pack abs, rides a yellow motorbike and stinks. Only if he didn’t walk into the gym wearing a black vest and a red cap which has probably never been washed in the last decade then the transmission of the stink can be slightly subdued, but who amongst the lesser mortals has the balls to give him any advice.

Your average Sonu is a serious body-building enthusiast and from childhood his tongue is trained to pronounce the ‘body’ in ‘body-building’ the way you and I would pronounce bow-dee. (So to reiterate, he has a great bowdee not body.) All bowdee builders in the gym seem to follow a particular jargon unique only to them. They've invested so much time in building their bodies (sorry, bowdees) that they feel like hitting (maaro-ing) everyone and everything, including their own exercises and muscles. So you'd commonly hear our bowdee builder ask the trainer - Aaj mein biceps aur chest maar leta hun? phir bees double-fly maar lunga? Theek hai na bhai?

Another peculiar habit our bowdee builder here has is that of feeling up his chest in front of the mirror every five minutes and having a little conversation with his own reflection for a while. I reckon this is when he’s imagining standing in front of the Fash-P team of DCE and walking down the ramp topless amidst a roaring Bawana crowd going hysterical over his hoat bowdee (err...hot body).

This act of narcissism is usually followed by another one. That is, lifting of that black vest we talked about from his left hand and counting his abs with the index finger of the right. As you may have seen, any gym has mirrors on all four walls, so when this is happening you are surrounded by at least 20 images of Sonu and no less than 120 ab muscles (20 X 6 pack each). Believe me, it is not a pleasant site!

To be continued...

Still to come – Hunney Singh and his gym buddies

Old Nimbu Paani in a New Bottle

2009-05-09T14:28:00.006+05:30

7'up did it, so why can't I?

For a while now I had been contemplating changing the look and feel of this blog. In addition to the summer drying up new ideas for posts, I had increasingly started feeling a little embarassed and a little irritated about the way my blog looked. Hence, the new look!

First and foremost, the previous version was designed so as to somehow maximise revenue from ad sense. It doesn't work. I mean it works, but it works at such a painfully slow pace that its not worth pursuing. Moreover, off late the main ad block on top was showing a 5cm x 5 cm image of L.K.Advani in that wierd about-to-go-to-potty pose, replicas of which are anyway spread across the city, and I was in no mood to aid the BJP in its campaign efforts. So I did away with it!

Now the three vertical ad bars that you notice on the right are purely kept for cosmetic purpose so as to fill in the space in the right column with something colourful. You really needn't be nice to me any longer by clicking on them. I can live without those extra pennies, thanks.

The bigger and the more important change is the background and colur scheme. I wonder what went through my mind when I first put it, about two years ago. For some weeks now, those green and yellow polka dots had been reminding me of a pattern off a baby's underwear....definitely not worth keeping any longer!

I have also made some changes to the about me section, but those are rather minor, too hard for even the most ardent follower of this blog (if one exists) to notice. I realised I needed to be slightly more politically correct as I join work and hence the needful has been done.

Besides, all this I don't think there anything different here. I am still the same, my sense of humour (or the lack of it) is still the same and the older posts on this blog are definitely still the same.

So if you were getting excited about finding an all new avatar of of this blog (the gift?), then sorry to disappoint (the curse :P).

UK not OK

2009-03-27T18:00:00.013+05:30

On a recent visit to my blog (mostly to procrastinate academics since exams are so close) I was amused by the latest ad flashing on it. Right on top - by the UK Border Agency.

This is the very agency which came into effect on 1st April last year all of a sudden and played havoc with a lot of student internship visas for MBA students just days or even hours before people were to board their flights to Heathrow. As was probably expected, I had landed up in the thick of all this drama that time and had even expressed my rants and rumblings on this very blog.

Now, exactly one year later, these guys are actually advertising on my blog, almost as if to take my case on an old joke.

DON'T click on that ad! I don't care about the adsense revenue I'll lose. :-P

Chuddy Buddies

2009-03-15T09:32:00.009+05:30

Last night I met 6 of my friends from the school gang. Some of them after more than 6 years. We laughed our hearts out, took each others' case (obviously some people gave more than they took), talked about recession, girls, teachers and our queer experiences of life in the last 6-7 years. It seemed like the conversation just flowed from where we left it last in 2001 and there was just no gap in between.

It was only once I returned home and lay down to sleep that two interesting realisations dawned upon me. First was the sheer diversity of the fields we had all branched out to. In the group now, there was one archeologist (who digs caves around the world like Indiana Jones), one architect (with fundas on life much like Howard Roark), a journalist with the Telegraph (and I am inclined to believe that the place his family hails from and the choice of the newspaper he works for are in perfect harmony not merely by chance), a guy who sells television broadcast equipment in cities like Nairobi, Dubai, Dhaka and Colombo, a nice soft-spoken guy in the sophisticated & clean business of real estate and property management and of course yours truly. Its amazing how the starting point for all of us was exactly the same (Class XII D - more commonly called 'Computer Science wale' in school) and how divergent our directions led us thereafter.

As I was pondering about this, I was thinking as interesting as it was to learn about what we were all doing professionally, how utterly inconsequential it was to the way we bonded. It would have probably not mattered had all of us been engineers, doctors, poets or even traffic policemen - we would have still managed to laugh on the same instances from school days, still found the same things amusing and still managed to create the ruckus that we did in the restaurant we went to.

When you've been with someone as he has transitioned from his knickers to pants, there's little he can do in life to impress you a lot, and vice verca.

And that is indeed something special!

Forbes Probes

2009-03-04T13:04:00.004+05:30

My morbid fascination with the recession continues. And perhaps, I am not the only one in this. Some of the world's top publications are coming up with "new & innovative" stories related to recession. From tracking the richest, biggest and the brightest in the world of business, Forbes has now come up with a "Layoff Tracker".

It's worth a look -

http://www.forbes.com/2008/11/17/layoff-tracker-unemployement-lead-cx_kk_1118tracker.html

Ballpark Figures

2009-02-06T23:27:00.013+05:30

After two decades of procastrination, one habit that I am finally trying to get into now is some physical excercise every evening (OK, wipe that smile off now, I only said I am 'trying'). So, in order to feel like I've done my health-conscious deed for the day, I make a little trip down my apartment near DU to this small neighbourhood 'colony park' where I practice my intense fitness regime.

More interesting than the two-count jumping jerks (it always sounded like "jumping jacks" on the loudspeaker when our physical education teacher used to make the whole school do this before morning assemblies during winters) and the toe-touching (which I barely manage with the edge of the nail of my middle finger intersecting the curve of my big toe just about tangentially) are the sights and sounds that I see in the park everyday.

There's a tree on which no less than five peococks live, all of whom descend on it together at 5:56 PM everyday (believe me, its quite a sight). There's a family of monkies which stretches out and relaxes at the end of the day near that tree (I mean the actual animal here). But what is most amusing to watch is the group of little kids who play and run around like crazy all evening in the park. Watching them play, fight, argue & shout while I pretend to be in the middle of some callisthenics has provided me fascinating insights into organisational dynamics, division of roles and power structures even in that group of kids, which is a great reflection of how we act as adults.

The bully (or the guy who does major dadagiri) is the easiest to spot. He even looks slightly bigger, usually wears black and talks the loudest. He always has a sidekick, (the loser) who has no sense of identity of his own and derives all his confidence from his status as the official armrest of the bully as the latter orders around the other kids. While this happens there are always these two girls who stand at the corner and share their disgust with each other about the bully's behaviour in English. They always seem to be more fluent in the language than at least the bully (whose dad probably runs a flourishing business in Karol Bagh, but has only done a B.A. pass course and hence has limited linguistic abilties in foreign languages).

Then there are a couple of kids in the group who are out there only because their parents want them to go out and play everyday. They personally hate physical activity, don't really have the confidence or the motivation to make themselves heard in the group and usually get out on a duck. They hence, spend most of their time fielding on the fence and occasionally bowling a "baby-over" or two or throwing an odd "try ball" as the 'captain' takes a water break. (My guess is most of them grow on to become engineers from NSIT.)

The other interesting thing about watching these kids is that after very long I am hearing words and phrases which had ceased to be a part of my everyday jargon long back. It's amazing how some words and heuristics have still remained the same as they were about twenty years ago and have possibly existed for many decades even before that, despite the kind of exposure to technology and media that these kids have.

Pukam-Pukai is still the preferred way to identify the seeker (or the den or 'denner' as we popularly call it in India). However, if someone joins the game late the seeker is spared of the agony of running around alone with the supeceding rule of nayi ghodi, nayi chaal which penalises the newcomer by making him the seeker straightaway still (come to think of it, its not a bad way to ensure compliance - everyone would try to be on time this way).

Games like Vish-Amrit, Oonch-Neech-ka-Papda (as a kid I used to think there were some racist undertones about this game) and Chhupan-Chhupai (in which the den always cheats by skipping numbers or counting only multiples of ten when he's supposed to count from 1-100) are still as popular as they always were. And the kid who owns the stumps when they play cricket is suddenly reminded that his mother had asked him to come back early that day and finish his homework the moment he gets out even now.

It's incredible how much has remained exactly the same about kids now and the time when we were all 2 feet tall like them..... And then when we grow up, I am not sure what we do wrong with ourselves that we find their routine activity fascinating enough to be able to blog about it.

Of MBA Grads and Social Networking Sites

2009-02-06T21:43:00.009+05:30

If Facebook revealed the stats of who uses their photo album feature the most, there is one group of people who will definitely make it to the top of that list - Indian B-School graduates, Batch of 2008.

Every single day my Facebook homepage tells me how who amongst this newly graduated army of yuppies spent his/her time (and money) the previous evening. So thanks to the ever-updating online albums, I have seen detailed photo essays of a hundred and fifty new year bashs, umpteen trips to Hardrock cafe in Bombay, a gazzillion house parties, evenings at fancy lounges & fifty different weekend trips to Goa.

Thank you very much, but it's getting very boring now. They ALL seem to do the same things, hang out at the same places and I think even look almost the same. All the girls have suddenly simultaneously acquired a 'taste' for dresses and short skirts. Most of them look horrendous in them, they just don't seem to be able to carry them off well; but its not their fault that they're wearing them, they need to exhaust the monthly limits on their platinum cards everytime - so they HAVE to go for the 'hep' stuff. And the guys - they all try to pull off that cool-banker-after-office-hours look - striped shirts and steel grey trousers with sleeves folded and uncombed hair after a long day's work of putting formulas in excel sheets and exchanging fifty unproductive mails on Outlook Express (accessed through their company-gifted Blackberries if you like).

I know its a great feeling to earn your first few salary cheques, but its incredibly funny to see the effort that these guys make to tell the world about it. Of course, they'll claim they're not intentionally trying to tell everyone that they've started earning....they're just 'cool guys' who like to 'hang out with friends' a lot (work hard, party harder?) and that newly acquired cybershot 'just happens' to be there in their pockets every single time!

So what's wrong in all this? And why am I sounding like a cranky old man complaining about someone else having fun? Don't get me wrong...I am not. Really. Neither am I against their exploits, nor do I find social networking sites annoying - both help me pass a lot of time online these days and I have to admit its tremendously entertaining at times. After all, for all you know they maybe the last bunch of such entertainers the world will see for a long time to come now after the 'entertainment' their predecessors have had in office all these years.

If you're passing out of a B-School this year when the global economy is in such fantastic shape, you know what I am talking about.

A Question of Conduct

2008-11-25T00:57:00.003+05:30

Watch this video of Ram Jethmalani bashing Sagarika Ghosh over her questions on his professional ethics on defending Manu Sharma -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpQNfLdAyg8

Tell me who do you think is (more) guilty of professional misconduct...the famed lawyer or the activist journalist?

I'd say tough call.

Global Electoral College

2008-10-02T23:56:00.003+05:30

It feels good to be blogging again.

Check out this cool poll the Economist is doing to predict who would win the US Presidential Election if the whole world was to vote. As of now Obama is winning hands down.

http://www.economist.com/vote2008/

National Holiday Thoughts

2008-10-02T16:58:00.002+05:30

It's fascinating to note that the US Senate has cleared the nuclear deal with India on Gandhi Jayanti.

Altough I am very much a supporter of the development it would have been interesting to hear Mahatma Gandhi's views on the issue today.

Pakodas on Wall Street

2008-09-30T23:19:00.006+05:30

Today during a discussion for our final projects our Strategy Professor was stressing on the importance of formulating accurate hyphotheses and analysing them correctly. He was talking about how people draw flawed causal relationships between mutually exclusive statements and end-up with outrageous results. The analogy he drew to explain this was rather interesting. Here's what he said -

"Suppose the null hypothesis states that 'peococks dance when it rains' and the alternate hypothesis states that 'pakodas are fried when it rains'. Listening to this the more naive amongst us would conclude that 'pakodas are fried everytime peococks dance'. "

The description obviously made several of us chuckle. He continued, "Why are you laughing. This is a serious point." Seizing the moment to drive home his point (while simultaneously taking a dig at the Wall Street collapse) he said "And it's precisely how financial markets work. Isn't it? This is what is derivates are all about."

Point taken Sir.

Truth "OR" Dare

2008-08-31T00:21:00.006+05:30

Last year first question in our Operations paper was - "Operations Management has no real life applications. Comment". My flatmate, who was incidentally a champion at the subject had emphatically started answeing the same by stating "Yes, I agree. Operations Management has no applications in real life".

We then spent the remainder of that year mentally preparing him to write the paper again as his impeccable foresight into the subject matter was certainly going to infuriate the Prof. and his answer sheet was likely to be fed to the dogs of Kamla Nagar. By some stroke of luck however, he passed the subject (I think nearly topped it too!).

Last weekend, interestingly enough after almost a year of this incident I actually find myself in agreeement with his views. The following was how my schedule looked like last Friday-Sat -

Anyone has the most feasible solution to this one?

PAGE 3. And 4. And 5. And 6. And 7….

2008-05-30T10:13:00.002+05:30

Bombay is the home of the Page 3 Culture as we know it. There’s a Page 3 Event or a Page 3 Celebrity or Page 3 Celebrity Wannabe just about everywhere.

Hence while we have one out of the seven-eight pages of HT City and Delhi Times dedicated to the party & celebrity circuit, here in Bombay one whole supplement dedicated to that everyday. And on most days this supplement is thicker than the main newspaper. I am also sure that the number of ‘journalists’ hired to cover the Page 3 Beat must be larger than that of all the others put together in the ‘editorial offices’ of these newspapers.

ALL pages look the IDENTICAL. They are full of dozens of pictures of parties and events with hundreds of (presumably intellectually challenged) people clad in (atrocious) fashionable clothing flying kisses to each other for no apparent reason. Every single day.

The newspaperwallahs could probably number all pages in their publication just 3 from the first to the last and I am damn sure it would go unnoticed.

Commuting in Bombay is so Easy!

2008-05-28T13:54:00.003+05:30

Ya Right.

Yesterday, I flagged 32 auto-rickshaws before one finally agreed to take me back from office.

P.S: I actually counted. Normally, I manage to get one in 12-15 attempts.

The Greatest OS in the World!

2008-05-26T09:07:00.004+05:30

This is a screenshot of the fabulous Windows Vista early Monday morning from my laptop.

Full marks for speed and accuracy.

(Click to see a larger view)

P.S: Vista Rocks! ;-)

60 killed, 100 injured in Jaipur blasts

2008-05-13T22:44:00.005+05:30

Post removed temporarily as it is eliciting a strong unnecessary reaction from people without a sense of humour.

LondON-OFF-ON-OFF-ON…

2008-04-12T23:12:00.001+05:30

The saga of my love-hate relationship with London this summer continues.
First, I was slated to go there for my internship, then there were some complications which made it uncertain. Then when those were cleared and I was about to board the flight the project was called off suddenly.

Then again I was to start off in Mumbai coming Monday when out-of-the-blue I was offered another project in London with Tetley just this morning.

And this time I may choose to not take it up and work on another assignment instead.

Lets see what her majesty has in store for me tomorrow.

LondON-OFF-ON-OFF-ON…

Bhagti Phirti Thii Duniya Jab Talab Karte The Hum...

2008-04-10T22:31:00.012+05:30

I had been pretty excited over the last few days about my upcoming summer assignment. I was allocated a fabulous M&A project in England with the Tata Group and was all set to fly this Saturday to London. I was looking forward to dive into the work quickly with all my visa, tickets, forex, trenchcoats and everything else in place. The excitment of the challenge and force of fresh aspirations had really kept me and everyone around me going over the last few days.

Then all of a sudden things turned around with one phone call last evening saying that some new permit rules have come into effect beginning 1st April 2008 and that the project will not materialise. There was no way to make it work now and I would have to settle for another assignment which didn't sound even half as exciting as this one. To be quite honest, my disappointment is hard to contain now. What seemed like a brilliant opportunity to compensate for some professional disappointments of the past slipped away in a second and I could do nothing about it.

I can't say that this is the first time I've felt this way; about being denied something I worked hard for and really wanted for myself, at the last minute. My professional pursuits more often than not have met with roadblocks like this, most of which I have little control over. But that's a separate story and not of relevance here.

The good thing about such events is that they are usually followed by a period of discussion, despair, anger and disappointment which is when someone comes up to you and shares a thought which tends to stay with you much beyond the disappointment. It could be an anecdote, a poem or anything else, but it usually gets internalised in a way that makes you understand life better and internally become a stronger human being; as someone who is more resilient to the ups and downs that life has to offer; as an individual who is more stable and calm in success and failure alike. It is this that compelled me to write this blog post.

This time it was a sher someone told me this morning, which so beautifully captures the truth about life. It isn't a rhetorical two-liner to cheer oneself up but it very succintly conveys a message that is essentially very deep, an explanation of life as it is, a meaning which even texts like the Bhagvad Gita try to convey. It goes like this -

Bhagti phirti thii duniya jab talab karte the hum

Jab se nafrat ki hai maine bekarar hone ko hai

The world evades you when you chase it, and falls at your feet when you refuse it.

Come back to this couplet when you are in an introspective, philosophical mood and you'd realise how much sense it makes.

Here's wishing everyone - Godspeed.

The End is Here. Say your Prayers!

2008-03-09T18:52:00.005+05:30

What you see above ladies and gentlemen is our death sentence written in ink. 8 exams in 9 days in what is supposed to be the toughest semester of the course. We need a day at least for our 'last minute' preparation and we don't seem to have it this time.

That's it, its all over.

May we all rest in peace.

P.S: Applications are open for the best spots in the graveyard to be created in the Hindu grounds. Hurry!

Sunday Sentiments

2008-02-17T15:46:00.001+05:30

Today is Sunday. What’s amazing is that today, it even feels like a Sunday. While the former does make an appearance every seven days or so, the latter is an idea evades me more often than not. And hence, to make the most of it I am back at my often ignored space on the World Wide Web.

As I sit with my feet up on a chair in the balcony of my apartment slowly, I slowly turn the pages of the Sunday Hindustan Times. An occasional vehicle passes on the road; the sound of its horn comes softened through the layer of trees in front, and sounds mildly pleasing to the ear. This quintessential Indian morning road sound is my only connection and relation with the existence of a world outside my balcony today.

For the last few months, I have had the pleasure of living on Mall Road in Delhi (not New Delhi, this is the original “Delhi”). It’s not like living on Mall Road is like owning a bungalow on Aurangzeb Road (moreover, I only share an apartment here with my batchmates), but still the ostensible relation of the “Mall Road” of any city with something significant, historical or otherwise does make me feel a little privileged.

Mall Road stands at the interface of a historical past and a vibrant future. While the first is substantiated with the presence of umpteen little monuments from the Raj era in and around Mall Road, the swanky metro station right under my apartment block is a cogent reminder of all that is fabulous about a modern city. It’s a rare luxury to be able to catch a rickshaw and a metro from virtually the same point anywhere in the world I think.

A large proportion of the people who live around here are academicians or retired government officers and contribute to a general air of sobriety and calm. It’s not hard to find Fabindia clad people thronging this place either which is a very heart-warming site for me, coming from the background that I come from. I’ve also come to know that Rahul Ram (from Indian Ocean Band) stays somewhere here though I am yet to pester him for free passes of his next concert.

Some of the other fabulous things about Mall Road are Chacha’s Chhole Bhature, Vaishno Chaat Bhandar and Bille di Hatti, places at an arm’s throw distance from here which for decades now have welcomed generations of indulgent Delhiites in sumptuous meals. In a while I am going to step downstairs and visit the little tea shop right outside the colony gate which makes the most fabulous coffee and bread pakoras in the world, which are best enjoyed in our balcony blessed with glorious winter sunshine and a gentle breeze.

Well maybe I am making too much of a deal out of this lovely Sunday afternoon and mulling over things which may sound rather insignificant to you, but the point is that it’s on little occasions like these that you realise that it takes very little to make one actually happy and peaceful with life. One begins to understand that there’s a lot more about life than what can be accommodated on a two-page CV. And finally, that it’s true when they say that some of the best things in life actually do come free.

Ironically enough, I will go to an MBA lecture tomorrow so that someday I earn enough to be able to afford all this.

I See I See It's a Cruel World

2008-01-18T23:13:00.000+05:30

I just discovered a place which has perhaps the highest per capita intellectual density in the world. And also the highest per capita insecurity, short-sightedness and the ability to double-cross and back-stab in the world. It's also the place where you can trust nobody, there are no friends and people's looks can be really really deceptive.

It's Freakin Manic Stupidity out here.

The Life & Times of Orkut

2007-12-25T19:39:00.000+05:30

There was a time when Orkut was the centre of our lives. The sole purpose of our online existence seemed to be Orkut.

Scrapping people. Seeing what others are scrapping to other people. Scrapping people to ask why they are not scrapping. Scrapping people who were scrapping just to say that its nice that they are scrapping. Scrapping people to wish them on their 1000th Scrap, scrapping to congratulate them on their 2000th scrap. Scrapping to say hi, scrapping to say bye and scrapping to say just about everything. There was a phase when scraps had replaced all other forms of electronic communication - email, chatting etc. all included. Not to mention the race for milestone scraps like 500, 1000, 2000, 3000 and so on…

Then there was the contraption called the profile picture. This was what defined every opinion we had of our physical appearance. Pictures after pictures were clicked specifically so that they could be put on Orkut. What really mattered was that you looked good on your orkut profile picture even if you looked no better than Shrek in real life. The profile pic was our one chance to show the world how 'cool' we were, and nobody gave up on the opportunity.

Besides an exhibition of one's physical beauty, the profile pic and profile name also had another useful err… use. Showing off. If you had recently been abroad or bought a new mobile phone or found a new girlfriend, you just had to show it on your profile. So those who went to New York would promptly put up their picture in front of Statue of Liberty on the profile, those who visited Paris would have "Moulin Rouge Conquered" as their status name and those who were giving CAT would have some lame status name like "Belling the CAT" or something just so that the world could know. This would be followed by a flurry of scraps asking the person concerned about his/her latest exploits and with great pleasure he would spend hours replying to each scrap individually. And this was at a time when you couldn't even reply directly through scrapbook, and had to go through the painful process of first going on the profile then clicking on the scrapbook, then typing the scrap and then clicking submit. Just imagine, how much time we had back then.

Then there was online flirting which kept people hooked on to Orkut. On one hand were the respectable women we knew who were forced to change their profile pics and put their passport size photos in their place because everyday they would be bombarded with a million "wanna be my frand" requests from the online equivalent of roadside Romeos. On the other hand, were people like us who exploited this very weakness amongst the best of men and created fake profiles and helped facilitate online ‘relationships’, having an incredible amount of fun in the process. It was amazing to see how easily people fell prey to this. Anyone from DCE remember Gittii and Neha_Tulip85?! Sorry guys, It was just some of us from the hostel.

There was a time when the Orkut phenomenon was so huge that entire governments got involved in it. Our own government banned a few communities because they became a breeding ground for terrorists (ok, that’s a bit far-fetched, but you get the drift). Orkut had a role to play in murders, scandals and what not. It made front page news regularly and was the undisputed king of ‘social networking sites’.

I also remember the craze for Orkut Fans amongst people. The more the fans, the more awesome a person you were supposed to be. So people used all sorts of means to increase their fan count. Some of the standard techniques were “you become my fan, I become yours”, “I will write you a nice testimonial, will you be my fan” and many others. There were also communities on Orkut tricks which helped people increase their fan count, scrap count, sexy rating, cool rating and what not. It didn’t matter if you were a geeky programmer or an online loafer, at some level you always made use of these techniques or at least wanted to use them to ensure your Orkut profile was the envy of your neighbour’s.

In nutshell, Orkut was a cool place to hang out at. Communities, friends, fans, enemies, scraps, testimonials and all that came with Orkut kept people engaged and hooked on the phenomena for a substantial time as its creators had their cash registers ringing happily. But now, the times have changed.

Orkut is no longer the craze it used to be. My personal scraps don’t increase by more 1 or 2 in the whole week. The situation is the same with most of my friends I am sure. Often even these scraps are group scraps sent by people saying stuff like “Hi, What’s up?” or “Happy New Year” and not intended to communicate with people personally. Standard methods to attract Orkut traffic like changing your profile picture which till about a year back would guarantee a flurry of scraps don’t seem to work their magic any longer. People have started checking their Orkut accounts only as often as they get their hair cut because they know Orkut isn’t the same as what it used to be. The old-world charm is simply missing.

Well, for all practical purposes Orkut is heading towards a gradual but certain death. It’s anybody’s guess how long it will be before it ceases to exist permanently.

Good or bad, exciting or lame…whatever it was but Orkut was a phase in our lives we can’t really look back and ignore. It provided us hours of fun, excitement, moments of joy and even hope and despair.

Here’s to the wonder that was Orkut….

May its sourcecode rest in peace!

Definitely NOT Gas

2007-12-02T20:10:00.000+05:30

If you've been following this blog, then by now you would be pretty annoyed with my obsession with the word gas and the umpteen references I have made to the idea in my various posts. Well, if that is the case, then don't worry, this post isn't about gas. It's about something which is far away from that.

By the end of this post you'd probably think that reading it was a waste of time since there isn't any particular reason I am posting this, but for the fact that for a rare occasion in my life, I actually feel a little intellectually stimulated. (No, however much we want to believe, those all night GC sessions in the hostel were not really intellectually stimulating, we just thought they were at that time!). There's a common notion that people who've reached way up in their lives just gas around, or basically talk global and hardly make too much practical sense. I too feel the same way most of the time. However, in the last week or so I have been gladly proven wrong.

The reason for this is one debate I attended at IIM, Ahmedabad last week and some speeches I heard today at FMS's own convention at the Sheraton. Some of the people I got a chance to listen to over the last few days include Swaminathan Aiyer (of Swaminomics fame in TOI), Montek Singh Ahluwalia (the second most famous blue 'pugg' in the country), Kiran Karnik (President, NASSCOM), Vijay Thadani (President, NIIT), Bakul Dholakia (Director, IIM-Ahmedabad) and Arun Maira (Chairman, Boston Consulting Group-India, whom I was fortunate to hear twice within a span of a week, once in Ahmedabad and then at FMS today).

That's a pretty heavyweight list if you come to think of it. The beauty of the thoughts expressed by these fine gentlemen lay in the simplicity of their great ideas. They didn't really require fancy power points or prepared scripts to drive home their points, rather what they wished to convey flowed quite effortlessly. And it would not be an understatement to say, that each word that came from them was measured and meaningful. It was definitely NOT 'gassious' as one would wrongly presume judging from the stature of these people and the formal sort of occasions at which they spoke.

A debate between Swaminathan Aiyer and Arun Maira moderated by Bakul Dholakia and a discussion between the latter and Montek Singh Ahluwalia is pretty much as good as you can get anywhere in the country, or perhaps even the world. This is perhaps what learning outside the classroom is truly about...hearing people who have the gravity of knowledge, the depth of experience and a fanstastic ability to communicate which is a result of the first two.

I maybe writing this post in a frenzy of over-excitement and actually may not end up acting on anything that I heard from these people and the tales of their speeches may just end up as stories which I narrate of 'my academic years' to my children and grandchildren, but what can't be challenged is the fact, that as I was hearing these people, I was compelled to think. And think about things which I would otherwise never would and that in itself is a hallmark of a great speech.

If vicariously feeling what I am trying to communicate through this post isn't quite very exciting, I can understand; but, here's a request - if you do get a chance to hear any of these people anytime in your life, please do make use of the opportunity. I am sure you'll agree with me then.

P.S: Here's a little quiz related to this post, as a tiny tribute to the wonderful people I had a chance to hear -

Interspersed through the post are the pictures of the various people I mentioned in the post. Just tell me who is who?