Thursday, September 14, 2006

IT...I see...

Two more days and I will be a month old in Pune and two more days and I will be a month old in this company too. In this one month, I have worked for the company as much as Mallika Sherawat did in “Myth” and a little more than what Lara Dutta had in “Fanaa”! So that way, I have contributed as much as Mohammad kaif had contributed in his last 4 innings for India.

In the last one month, I became familier with the term called “bench”. For the non-IT guys (Like I was till a month back), it is a harmless piece of wooden furniture languishing in all government schools and offices. But for the IT guys, it has a different meaning altogether. For “kuch karke dikhana hai” type of employees, bench is far more dreaded than asking them to drive in death well while for the laid back kinda guys, it’s an official status accorded to them and they are blessed to get the salary for surfing, chatting and spending plenty of time in food-court ogling at the girls of all dimensions discussing their lipstick color and the size of heel!

And in such a privileged period, I had a change to have a glance at the monitors of others and here are the exclusive results of the study (I thought of giving these ‘exclusive’ results to Aaj Tak or Channel 7 then dropped the idea because they might run the news with captions like “IT companies ka pardafaash” or more innovative “Nanga sach IT ka”)

On the monitors of 20% of the guys, you can see the homepage of intranet all the time. It seems it’s the only URL their explorer permits. They are so glued to that homepage as if it is hosting the revealing pics of the latest bombshell in the campus!

Then there guys who are busy shooting mails to all the females they know within the campus with the hope that someday he will get a chance to have a coffee with one of the ladies all alone and not with the group of other 10 guys. Then there are other fellows busy chatting on the internal messenger to the guys and gals who are sitting at a stones throw from their desk. These constitute another 20%.

15% are hooked to their cell phones or the landlines. If they are just holding the phone and not saying a word, wife is there on the other side. If there is complete silence from both the parties on either side of the telephone and if the parties have a ‘Julia Roberts’ smile on their face, they are the lovers and if they are shouting their heart out you can guess that either someone is trying to sell a credit card or trying to stuff some loan!

10% don’t have any idea what to do while sitting on their desk in front of their computers. They try to click on all possible pixels a screen has to offer with a deadpan look.

5% don’t know what’s their role in the project.
5% don’t know why they are in the company
5% don’t know why they exist on this planet.

Above three varieties constitute a total of 15%. They spend their time doing pee, sipping tea and taking photocopies of articles such as ‘speaking tree’ and ‘teachings of Osho’.

Rest is 20%. These are those morons who can breathe but their souls are dead. They work with a “Tsunami swept away my home yesterday” look. They earn for themselves, for the company and for the rest 80%.

I am yet to figure out where do I fit in this company!!!

Friday, September 08, 2006

The drama of Vande Mataram

Do you believe in God? If yes, have you made it a point to light a lamp in the morning in front of the idols?

Do you love your parents? Silly huh? But do you go to them everyday in the morning to say that you actually love them?

Do you think a soldier sings Vande Mataram everyday, without fail, just to prove that patriotism flows in his veins?

If No, then why this drama of making Vande Mataram mandatory in schools? Do you think that those who will sing Vande Mataram from now onwards will be more patriotic than those who choose not to sing it at all? If yes, then check your credentials. Have you sung whole of the national song, at one go, in your entire life, ever! And above all, do you know the Sanskrit lyrics and the meaning of the song?

Singing a song cannot make you a patriot. Same way, not singing it doesn’t make you antinationalist.

It’s a feeling which resides in ones heart, his love for the country and respect for the motherland.

And for all those who want to make it mandatory citing that it’s our ‘national’ song, here is the argument. Hockey is our ‘national’ game run by one maverick called KPS Gill. Anyone bothered?

Cheers

Thursday, August 31, 2006

Change again!!

Last 3 months were like a roller coaster ride for Mumbai. Rains were so bad on some days that we kept on getting messages from BMC (Bombay Municipal Corporation) Commissioner that heavy to very heavy rainfall is expected in next 48 hours and all the news channels kept on flashing "Milan subway dooba" & "Khar subway main paani bhara". These incessant rains made Milan and Khar subway household names along with Kurla, Kaleena and Sakinaka!

Quite predictably though, every time after the BMC Commissioner's message, rains stopped and a dry patch followed.

During one such dry patch, I read this on rediff.com,"Monsoon not likely to revive in next 8-10 days". Predictably again, it rained non-stop for next 5 days and again Milan and Khar subway managed to come into limelight on TV although the lion's share of the limelight was taken by Rakhi Sawant-Mika kisses. On India TV, it was (Lion's +Tiger's + Elephant's) share.

Then there was a sudden Shiv Sena band for one day. The effect of the band was severe. Cruel guys announced band in such a short span that this poor soul had to spent the entire day on 2 cups of tea as all the hotels and restaurants were affected.

Two days later, bomb blasts took place in 7 local trains. I was fortunate enough not to be on one of those trains as I was supposed to take one of the same trains and on the same route. Many innocent souls lost their lives that day.

Then one fine day, sea water in Mahim creek turned sweet and as this was the effect of one mazaar of one of the Muslim saint near to that place, Hindu gods didn't lag far behind. They started drinking milk! Look, even Gods have healthy competition going between them! ( For more sexclusiveand exclusives on Rakhi Sawant's day to day life, pls watch Rajat Sharma's India TV..Non Stop)

Amidst all this, I switched my job..Yes,again! And with this I left my beloved Mumbai. Am no more a Mumbaikar. Am a Puneite now!

To be continued...

Moonie: look, I kept my promise!

Saturday, August 12, 2006

COMING BACK ..SOON

The writer of this blog was sleeping since March..
Somebody just woke him up..
Now he is itching to write crap again...

LIFE IS LIKE THAT is coming back...SOON...

Saturday, March 25, 2006

but the memory remains!

I was without any project for whole of February and half of March. My honeymoon period ended abruptly four days back when I got the call from my boss who assigned me one of the most ‘hopeless’ projects on earth. From now onwards my office will be in Churchgate. I know, the crowd of that place is such that a 25-year-old guy like me can make his day just by roaming on the streets whole day, watching Bombabes, but this poor soul will be slogging hard in the office to earn his livelihood. God...Why don’t have Gates as my surname!

It was around 2:15 PM when I started for my lunch today. I was strolling on the road in search of a decent restaurant. But this Mumbai heat can sometimes be too harsh on you. I know, Delhi is much worse. Still the humidity here can make you feel as if you are soaked in a jug full of boiling water. I barely walked for 50 metres when the heat forced me to a shady restaurant nearby. He was serving in ‘thali system’. It means you cannot order the food of your choice and you are forced to eat what is being served. No matter if it contains the most alien vegetables on the planet and two tea spoon full curd which can be mistaken as slightly thick form of butter milk and not to forget half cooked chapattis and a glass of water straight out of municipal water tank added with a few drops of soya oil!

Anyways, after the thali system, it was the coupon system. You need to buy a coupon from the counter before you can fill your tummy. The thali was costing an amazing 18 Rs! Imagine..in 18 Rs he was promising a dal, two vegetables, curd, papad, pickle, 5 puris (Yes not chapattis) and full plate rice! I was totally amazed at the price and that amazement lasted for exactly 7 minutes when I realized that the only thing on which the guy compromised was ‘quality’. Yes, quality stuff along with quantity exists only in Chor Bazaar of Delhi.

This cheap thali reminded me of my engineering days. All through four years of college, there was a constant competition between all of us on who can find the cheapest place to eat. Every month or two, one of us used to announce proudly the name of one shady reatsurant after another where we could fill our stomach in as little as 20 Rs, 18 Rs and even 15 Rs! (No,we were not regular at such places! It was just for fun and visit to such places were one-off) The price kept on dropping till Rs 15 after which we thought we touched the limits until this guy, Ankit, came up with a steller 12 Rs thali! And yes! He became regular at that place too! Just to save money for his astronomical cell bills! The guy is printing dollars in US now!

Memories refreshed…

Sunday, March 19, 2006

Any Idea?

Just realised that i have lost all the 'haloscan' comments (made by u and replied by me) from all the archieve posts...

Any idea how to retrieve them?

Friday, March 17, 2006

Kalyugi Swyamwar!

When did you hear about a 'Swayamwar' last?

I watched it last on television. Yes! I was about 7 years old then and it was in Ramanand Sagar's 'Ramayana' where Rama broke Shiva's bow to win Sita's heart.

But this is an era of reality television and the Real Swayamwar is here!

Cheers!

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

The naked truth!

Now this is something interesting!

Naked wedding photos are the hot new trend among young couples in once deeply
conservative China."Some photo studios are just going too far. They allow young
women to have their photos taken in bikinis or with nothing on at all," said an
irate woman from the Anhui capital of Hefei. "I hope the authorities will do
something."

Something too hot to handle for conservative chinese!

Read the full story here.

Cheers..

CRAP...

It’s my B’day today. Yes its no. 25. You all can pour your wishes in the comments column! Going by the piece of statistics that an Indian male’s average life expectancy is 65 years, I have already lived 38.46% of my life! And yes..i am actually feeling that i am growing old!

But what am I doing at 3:25 AM? Because the friends who celebrated my B’day at 12 are already in the third hour of their sleep! One showing his 'not so graceful' tummy in full view while the other is having his mouth wide open. The reason is my buddy Anurag. Yes! My mate on all the bike trips! The guy will be landing in another two hours after 8 months of exile in Saudi Arabia. I know I cannot get up at such inhuman time like 4 AM, I decided to give sleep a slip! And what better way to keep myself up than to write this crappy post! ;-). But one thing is fore sure, we will definitely be heading for some place this weekend!

Hope you all enjoyed your holi..
Cheers..
PS: Here is last year's B'day post!

Being Narain Karthikeyan...

Being Narain Karthikeyan : I had a chance of watching this interview of Narain this noon with Anuradha SenGupta on CNN-IBN and once again I realized what this ordinary looking guy from Coimbatore has managed to achieve. I know, an 18th place finish in the over all driver’s race and ending up among the points in just one race, that too because of sheer luck does not make a good score card.

And why I am writing all this when he wont be driving any of the F1 cars on the race day this season and is just the second test driver with Williams and is having a pretty uncertain future in the sport?

Now consider that the guy comes from a country where till 5 years back F-1 was as alien sport as Sepak Takraw and where the infrastructure for the sport is still negligible ( if one is sane enough to exclude Go-Carting as the preparation ground for F-1), this guy has already achieved a lot. Now take this, there are more astraunauts than F1 drivers till date. Now this shows how difficult is the task to break into that elite group belonging to a country where all the sports, barring tennis and cricket, are as extensively covered as Kabaddi by the media. He has managed to put India on F1 map singlehandedly.

I just hope he will manage to impress the right people with his stint as second test driver with Williams and will be on track again next season.

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

Irony

I was surfing cricinfo site today and this thought crossed my mind!

13th March'2001, the day when VVS Laxman started the ground work for his epic 281. And on 15th March'2001, India scripted one of the most improbable wins ever in test cricket.

Ironically, after 5 years, the same guy was warming the bench in Mohali!

Thursday, February 23, 2006

Must Read...

..Just finished another chapter of the novel, Maximum City, by Suketu Mehta. And with it, finished Part-I of the book.

Now i can say its a must read for any non fiction lover. A remarkable account of BOMBAY.

Thanks RS.

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Low waists and Tank tops!

31st Januray. The day when I finished my project in Hyderabad and landed in Mumbai after 18 days. Cut to 20th Feb, 20 days since then and I am really an employed berozgaar! I am not doing any project as there is still some time for the new one to start. Nowhere to go (Not even office), No big “To Do” list, No real work apart from sending a few official mails and couriers and drooling over Bombabes (the word which I read in ‘Maximum City’ and instantly fell in love with!) on the road.

Mumbai changes so much in so little time. I was at Phoneix mills yesterday and before that I was there on 14th of this month. Statistically, I was visiting the place for the second time in 6 days and in a span of 6 days, the number of Sheravats and Dhupias around me doubled! May be it was the weekend effect. The most intriguing subject for me these days is the low waist jeans (Look what berozgarri can do to you). Yes, I am talking about the apparel in which you find it hard to conclude whether it is worn at the start of the waist or at the end of it. Most of the time the ‘Low waist’ ended up as the ‘Lowest of waist’, atleast in Bombay. You don’t trust me? Go and check the phoenix mills compound!

Then there is another member of this family of clothing called Tank Tops! This is another variety where the apparel manufacturers have come out with amazing precision as far as the length of the top is concerned. They are just long enough to force these females to adopt various positions while sitting and walking to show you that glimpse of their waist and they are just short enough to make them uncomfortable at times and force them to stretch it a little long, leaving all the males in “Yeh dil maange more” mode!

And on personal front, I have successfully added 45 days to my life per year. And considering that this Mumbai pollution and population will allow me to live for 40 more years, then I have literally added 4.93 years in my life! How? Pretty simple, for the past 3 days I am getting up at 7 and going on a walk instead of the usual 10! That’s like saving 3 hrs a day! I am leaving rest of the calculation to you as homework. ;-)


Cheers..

Wednesday, February 01, 2006

Vande Mataram

Yesterday, I had a chance of watching this short programme on Channel [V] called I[V]Q. In this, the lady was asking a simple question to the public on street. She was asking public about our national song. And here is what I saw.

1. 90% of the public replied Jan Gan Man. 89% of them were dead sure.
2. Jan Gan Man was closely followed by Saare Jahan se accha.
3. One of the female’s reply was Mile sur mera tumhaara
4. Some so called elite find even these questions funny. One such guy’s reply was Kajra re!

And here is the winner…

This lady described how Saare Jahan se accha used to be our national song till the time mile sur mera tumhaara came into the picture and robbed its status. Currently latter one is our national song!

Alas! Only a handful replied Vande Mataram!


Hats off to Bharat ki Janta.

Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Back in Bombay..

* This post was written two days back when I was in Hyderabad. Now back in Bombay.

Date: 28th Jan’06

Another post after another long break but this was a pretty justified break. During December and January, I practically lived in a suitcase. It all started with an official visit to Chennai which lasted for 9 days and ended on 15th Dec. After that I was on leave and visited Delhi, Gwalior and Indore for 2, 6 and 3 days respectively and now writing this post from Hyderabad where I am stuck since 14th Jan! I hope to touch Bombay this Tuesday or Wednesday. All in all, these were interesting two months, which saw me visiting 6 cities and even touching three metros in a single day!

Let me add that although I love traveling and seeing various places, these visits were nowhere near the fun I had with Anurag during all those bike trips! Anurag will be back from Saudi Arabia sometime in March and he has already conveyed his crazy idea of traveling to Pushkar on bike from Bombay, a journey of 2200 Kms to and fro. I know I will be dragged too!

Chennai was an interesting city. My hotel was very close to Marina Beach. Yeah, the same beach where deadly Tsunami struck. The language problem grabbed me as soon as I landed there. Most of the guys understood English but not the Taxi and autowalas and although I knew a few words in Tamil, they were more of “ Naan Unnai kadalikerein “ (I love you) and “ Nee rumba aragha iraka” (You are very beautiful) kinds which I could not use with Autowalas for obvious reasons. If any one is planning to visit Chennai in near future, beware of these autowalas. They are ever ready to charge you an astronomical sum for any diatance greater than 10 meters and they don’t even hesitate to ask you more than the agreed sum as soon as you get down from their aero plane. I had this experience with atleast 4 of them and atleast two of them ended up abusing me for not succumbing to their demand, which I didn’t mind because the language was all Tamil stuff! But it was a different story altogether at my workplace where I met a number of genuinely helpful guys. I didn’t get much time to explore Chennai but I did enjoy my stroll on Marina beach on a lazy Sunday where I managed to click a few snaps too. So, for sight seeing and other stuff, Chennai will have to wait. Till then, it will remain a metro for me just because it was a part of “Chaar mahanagron ka taapmaan” at the end of news on doordarshan when I used to watch it.

And finally I bought “Maximum City” by Suketu Mehta, suggested by RS in one of her comments on this blog ages ago. Bought it after paying a ‘phenomenal’ sum of 600 bucks. ‘Phenomenal’ cause this afternoon I received an SMS from my dear friend Abhay that he got the same book in 200 bucks from the streets of Bombay! (Of course the pirated version) Some people have strange ways of making you feel idiotic and jealous! I just hope his is not a hardbound version!

Cheers…

Sunday, January 08, 2006

For all the cricket buffs...

Most of you must be familiar with Amit Varma’s blog India Uncut.

He is in Pakistan for the next one and a half month to cover Indo-Pak cricket test series.

And yes, he has already started churning out his interesting, first hand stories on his blog. So, all you cricket buffs out there, stay tuned.

Life is beautiful...

One of the best things that can happen to you during your stint as a bachelor and staying away from your family is your parents / your flat partner’s parents visit to your city. Right now, my flat mate’s parents are here on a short visit and man what a turn around they are doing to our messy flat. I can see a whole lot of new things right from bed sheets to new chairs, from dustbin and brand new broom stick to a whole new setup of kitchen! Even the Loo’s hopeless 60 watt bulb has been replaced with a glowing white light beauty! It’s been just three days and I am already feeling as if I am staying at somebody else’s place! What more, there are still 3 days to go!

How come I was staying in such a mess before they visited us!

Thursday, January 05, 2006

Black in TIME's Top 10 movies of 2005

I got this link from Sambhar Mafia's Blog.

Black has made it to the top 10 movies for the year 2005 in TIME magazine.

For me, it was easily the best movie of the year, miles ahead from other movies.

Strangely, few wise men thought of sending 'Paheli' to the Oscars.

One last chance...

The owner of this blog is one of the most irregular blogger around.

I guess he should write and obituary to this blog soon...

On second thoughts, i guess he deserves one last chance. He just conveyed to me that he will be regular from now onwards...

Cheers...