2 Years 43 Days!

Four more days and it will be the closure of first chapter of my professional career. On 4th Aug'03, my foray into professional life started & exactly after 2 years & 43 days, it will be curtains to my first job experience. Yes..I am joining another company on 20th of this month but i will remain in the city of dreams..Mumbai!

Things have changed a lot in these two years and from this experience behind me, I can say that doing a job is a different ball game altogether than scoring marks in school and college! In these two years I haven't applied a single thing learnt/grasped/understood during four years of my engg.! Spending 21 years in school/college preparing yourself for the job and then actually doing the job are two entirely different things. As different as theory classes and the practicals; as different as mugging up the formulae and then actually cracking the numericals in IIT-JEE exam; as different as your girlfriend and wife! ;-)

So, once in job, what are the things you actually achieve? Experience? Learn new things? become a mature person? sense of responsibility? Yes, Yes..you do gain experience, you actually learn new things, you become mature ( this can be argued..some tends to go the other way!) and you actually shoulder some responsibilities but apart from all this crap, you achieve financial independence. Now you can go to a REEBOK showroom with a fair probability that you will come out with a pair of t-shirts, now you can go to a decent restaurant and can order without looking at the right hand side column and now you can actually go for back to back movies...that too in a multiplex with popcorn and pepsi in the intervals on both the days! ;-) Now compare this with the engg. days when there used to be a dog-fight on who will pay the bill, all of Rs 16 for 8 'cuttin'...Compare this with the days when we used to go to the petrol pump after pushing empty tanked old two wheeler for half a kilometer and get a refill of Rs 15! Still..those days were better...

With this post i complete one year in the blog world and in this past one year I have met/interacted with many wonderful souls. I would like to thank all those who commented and all those who didnt comment for various reasons or various degrees of laziness but appreciated my posts.

As far as statistics are concerned, this one is my 79th post in one year which makes 1 post every 4.6 days! Not bad..

The counter is showing 13122, which indicates 36 visitors per day..Not bad at all considering that there were 300 odd visitors in the first 3 months!

Thanx all of you..

Cheers...

The Cycle...

A series with Zimbabwe/Bangladesh/Uganda/ Tongo/Papua New Guinea and he will blast the opposition scoring countless runs maintaining his average in early forties.

He will play the next on the basis of his performance in the last series and a series of low scores will follow.

He will still play the next one on the basis of his records and past performances. Another string of low scores will follow.

Then again he will be the automatic choice for the next as he is the captain of the team. He will do all kind of acrobatics on the field facing the short pitch stuff from anybody ranging from genuine pace of Bond and Lee to military medium of Styris!

Then he will sit out of some games serving some ban for slow over rate or Excessive appealing or not cleaning his clothes or not brushing his teeth and what not.

He will make a comeback after the ban and another series of low scores!

Then…..A series with Zimbabwe/Bangladesh/Uganda/ Congo/Papua New Guinea…..
And the cycle continues….

And they are shining brightly...

Away from all the glitter of cttthroat advertising & expensive coaching institutes, two men are doing their bit for the society, for the country. The men, whose actual jobs are as distince as nabbing the criminals & educating the students!

I first read about them in an article published in 'India Today' last year. It really touched me. The news appeared in front of my eyes again in June this year in TOI. They were doing their dury, quietly, and the results were there to see.

Three years back, Abhayanand, Bihar's Additional Director-General of Police (Special wing) envisioned a dream; a dream to prepare the hidden gems from Bihar to clear arguably the toughest exam in this country, IIT-JEE. He joined hands with another teacher of Mathematics, Anand Kumar. Later, Neeraj Pratap Singh (Chemistry) joined in and the faculty was complete as the cop himself took the task of teaching Physics.

Now have a look at the students: Son of a rickshaw puller, Son of a brick kiln worker, Son of a vegetable vendor and so on.

The strategy is simple. They handpick 30 students from the govt. schools of Bihar after a screening test and bring them to patna. Not a single penny is charged to the students. Even the food and shelter is provided by these mentors, out of their own pockets. And the results? In the first year itself 18 out of 30 students cracked IIT. In the second year the figure was 22 and this year 26 out of 30 students made it to IIT. The boys who were struggling to gather the bare minimum amenities for life are now a part of one of the most prestigious institutes of the country.

My salute to the vision and to the three men.

Read the full story

1.www.rediff.com/news/2005/jun/20iit.htm

2. http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=76655

Classical Dilemma!!

It was yet another rakhi for me away from my family. Its been a little more than 6 years now since i left my hometown. The distance which was approx. 550 kms for the first 4 years during my engg. days streatched to more than 1100 kms in the last two years. Out of the last three years, i could make it to Gwalior only once on rakhi. Coming out of the statistics, I received my rakhi well on time. To be precise, i got it on 17th, good two days before the festival and as an ideal brother, i dispatched my sister's gift on the same day.

After receiving it, everything boiled down to finding someone to do the honors on the D-day. For this purpose, female species were kept out of the question for all the obvious reasons. The only two targets in my mind were my two flat mates. As soon as i came out of the bed on 19th, i realised that i will have to wait till late in the evening as both of my flat mates were already off to their offices! The first of them, 'A' came back at 8 PM and i pounced on him to get the rakhi tied.

Now here is the scenerio that has prevailed!

1. He is officially my sister and i will have to protect him.

2. Going by the customs and traditions, I am also his sister as i tied the rakhi sent by his sister.

3. Two males are now sister to each other.

Now have a look at this..

4. My wife will have the option of calling him either 'Jeth' or 'Nanad'.

5. I can be his wife's 'devar' or 'Nanad'.

6. My children will have the liberty of calling him either 'Tauji' or 'Buaji'.

7. And I can play the dual role of 'Chacha' or 'Bua' at the same time for his children.

And i thought its just a matter of tying a thread on wrist!!

Happy Independence Day...Part-2

I never thought of writing part-2 of the previous post. But i am not the one who just turn deaf ears to such a statement by an innocent boy of that age. I decided to confront him again at his hotel. I couldn't do it that day itself as i was too surprised by his statement to react.

I was there at his place again day before yesterday. He came to take my order and i started:

Me: "Haan bhai...Gaye the kahin 15th ko?"
" Arre maine bola tha na..main nahin jaata.."
Me: Zara samjhaoge kyun nahi jaate?"

At this point another 13-14 year old, Jai, who is also working there (Came to know about his story too..That later) intervened and an entirely different story came up.

Jai informed me that the muslim boy is not an Indian! "Then who is he?" I asked. "He is a Bagladeshi"

So the boy turned out to be an illegal immigrant! (Thats a different issue altogether..) and he informed me that he is returning to his country next month.

So probably, in a way, the boy was justified when he said he doesn't go for flag hoisting. Probably he wanted to convey the message that he is a Bangladeshi and not an Indian. But in the process, he just took an entirely different way to convey the same!

Cheers!

Happy Independence Day...

I am a regular at a hotel ( a small one ) as far as my dinner is concerned. He serves delicious paranthas. The chap, who actually serves us, is a little boy with dark complexion and of medium height. He must be all of 14 years.

Last night i was at the same place along with my friend 'A'. Now, he is very good at striking conversation with anybody and anybody around. As soon as the chap took our order, 'A' asked him "Aur beta, kya plans hain kal ke? kahin jaa rahe ho jhanda lehraane?"

His reply " Nahin nahin, hum nahin jaate na..."

Here i joined. "Jao na..jaana chahiye..dekh kar toh aao kahin.."

and he replied "Arre..main muslim hoon na!"

I found myself devoid of any reaction.

This is what lack of knowledge, lack of awareness, complete ignorance and external influences can do to you.

Happy Independence Day...

Passwords!!!

1 Computer password

2 Lotus Notes Password

3 Clarity Password

4 Sap Password

5 U drive password

6 Yahoo mail Password

7 Rediffmail Password

8 37 mail password

9 Blogspot password

10 HDFC net banking password

11 ICICI net banking password

12 HDFC ATM Pin

13 ICICI ATM Pin

14 Demat account Password

15 ESS portal password

16 Naukri.com Password

17 Monster.com Password

18 Sify net Password

19 Gyanmandir portal Password

How the hell one can remember all these!!
This poor soul has lost 4 of the above listed 19 in the last two days!

Come here to pay the condolences...