Ruminations of a restive mind !!

She: I wish we get time to do more of this. It is so refreshing.

He: Yes. Let s make a vacation planner for the next 5 years and stick to it.

She: Cant you get rid of that IT lingo at least on a cruise??!

He: You are losing focus. We were discussing about how to replicate this in the coming years!!

She: God forbid your language! You are driving me nuts!! Yeah, lets plan about it once we go home.

He: I don’t feel like going home! The damn release 3.2 is going to eat all my time :(

She: Release 3.2? What is it this time??

He: It is a web based conflict management tool. For peaceful resolution of conflicts between spouses, work teams, friends, room mates etc.

She: Heh??

He: Yeah. We identified the gap in the market for a tool like this. What basically our research found is that people are losing the ability to argue and fight gradually. Due to time and distance constraints, people tend to ignore even if there is some kind of misunderstanding with someone. So what our tool aims at is to enable people to create groups with various intimacy levels. For example, intimacy level 1 would be between Work teams and intimacy level 5 may be between spouses or very close friends. Based upon your group’s intimacy level, you would get an array of emotions to choose from.

She: So what do you do once such a group is created online?

He: Well, if the groups are in place, we have a visibility window which would indicate to people if you are online. And you presence would be indicated to them in various colour codes, each one for different kinds of moods – Euphoric, Tense, Sad, Lonely, Weird, Loving and so on. The best part over here is you can tell the tool who is behind your mood, let us say anger and that person alone would be able to see that you are angry. It would help in fast resolution as the person knows s/he is responsible for it (justifiably or unjustifiably) and hence would make at least an attempt to pacify you - which we believe is the step missing right now majorly because of distance separating people.

She: Don’t you think people would prefer just talking and clearing things face to face?

He: No. Have you observed in offices how people use IM to talk to even cubicle mates? Let us say your friend in Mumbai is mad at you for forgetting her birthday. Now you have no clue you have forgotten it and hence would have no way of knowing it otherwise. Or let us say you team mate had to give you a preliminary research report on which you had to carry out further analysis. But the guy took an unplanned leave and left you to curse him whole heartedly. Now if he could see on his mobile screen that you are seething with anger, it would definitely have an impact at least the next time he thinks of such crazy ideas. Don’t you think so??

She: I see you point. But still I don’t understand how this could help in conflict management between spouses.

They obviously know the other person is happy or upset. Don’t they?

He: Yes. But let us say, for argument sake, I am jealous of you being overly friendly with some guy. As a gentleman, I would try to dismiss such trivial thoughts from my mind. I would not be able to discuss this with you without me being turnip-faced. It would be much easier for me to just change my status to a jealous code. Only for you to see! I don’t even have to explain who the guy might be. You will immediately know right??

Or let us say you had to shop alone for the groceries because I was busy and you were very irritated about it while you were in the store. You might forget about it when I come home.. So if you could just change to “irritated” in the shop, even if you forget it, I would definitely remember and ask you about it immediately or after I come home. And we could avoid this incident happening again.

She: You know what, you are right about the groceries part :P :P! But I think you have a good idea here.. But you need net on the go right?

He: Yes. We are thinking of launching the mobile as well as the web version of it simultaneously.

She: Sounds good to me!! How did you get the idea?? We don’t even fight that often!!

He: I was watching Alaipauythey (Saathiya to the Hindi junta) the other day and I realized that 90% of the problems they had were because of not coming out with minor irritations and expectations. I felt that if such a tool could be provided, it would strengthen relationships to a great extent. I discussed with my friends and they too felt excited about it.

She: I wish I had the too, now. I would have changed my status to “Bewildered”.. You could not bother discussing it with me??

He: Haha !! You were too busy during that time and we never had a time like this to share things in open. Well, not for long.. We ll soon be one soul in two bodies!! :D

To Be or Not to Be

"It was raining outside. There was not much for him to do. He was tired of reminiscing now. He wondered if he should go back to sleep. The nagging headache too was bothering him. Probably a visit to the doctor was imminent. He must tell his parents about it. Coming to think of it, he realized that he had not spoken to them for nearly a week. In fact he had not even been busy. They had not called him and he did not have anything important enough to call them up and tell. He was worried that it was fast becoming yet another thing he was getting used to.

Distant thunder brought him back to reality. He vowed to himself that he would find time somehow this month to make a visit home. He needed some space to clear his head. Wasteful thoughts had been practically clobbering him down. The glorified education was filling him with murderous rage. The futility of the learning, the philosophy behind the course, the vainness of the whole exercise mocked at him as they had been doing for a long time now. He did not want to know how to multiply money. He wanted to know how to create money. For those who did not have it. Reinvestment of the investment felt disgusting. It did not have the nice ring to as one meal-a-day to two meals-a-day. Rice with water to rice with dal was what he wanted to know about. But nobody near him knew about it. The course refused to talk about it. He wanted to kill himself for letting IRMA pass by when it came knocking.

He did not want to be a huge failure of an MBA earning peanuts when his class mates would be running corporations. He did not want to remain wistful seeing people LIVE life. But he did not want to work towards creating wealth for those who probably did not need it. Need it as in NEED and not WANT. He was torn between the niceties of life which come at a price on one side and the happiness which comes from obeying one's inner command on the other side. He did not want to travel the road not taken. But he knew he would have to return back to it sooner than later. What he would miss lest he treads the conventional path was clear to him but the question of whether he would miss them enough to give up the life he had dreamt of while growing up taunted and tossed him. He was troubled by his own double standards. He wanted to be rich but he did not want to do what pays money. He wanted to live in Mumbai but wanted to work for uplifting the villagers. He wanted to travel the world in a cruise yet wanted to make sure no kid goes to the bed hungry. If wishes were horses, he would have owned a million stables by then."

What I personally feel is that he is making the situation too complex for himself. He has a lot of time on his hand. All he needs to do is soul-search and come up with wishes which do not contradict each other. He just needs to steel himself and make the single major decision of his life: to be or not to be. If he decides not to be, he needs to have the maturity not to be guilty or attach any moral strings to it. If he decides to be, then it is important to stick to it and work smartly towards the cause, come what may.

To be or not to be??

Betrayals !

Whether it's because of fate's design or my own error of judgement, I cannot still decide.  But in the last one week, out of the four books I read (read bought n read!), 3 were disasters and the fourth was tolerable.  Yesterday and today, I had been wasting time on Chetan Bhagat's "3 Mistakes of my life" and Arvind Adiga's "The White Tiger".. While I had no expectations from Chetan Bhagat, I expected the Booker winner "The White Tiger" to be a treat.. Especially when it is a self proclaimed dark comedy, my kind really..

White Tiger is a real page turner..no doubt. But I guess one keeps turning pages in vain, to find something which strikes a chord.. in search of something which makes sense to the reader. Tough luck there though !! What starts as a lower class servant's rants continues throughout the book, trying to deride India for everything it has either changed or is in the process of changing. The protagonist coming from Bihar calling it the darkness is understandable.. But thats where the connect ends. What do you make out when a driver gets enchanted by the life his employer leads and decides to mudrder him and better yet, justifies it throughout the book ?? Set in a first person, we cannot but look at everything from Balram's viewpoint but even then we don't get convinced that there is a real motive for the murder. Having portrayed the master as an exceptionally kind and friendly being, Adiga does not even give us the benefit of doubt that probably the ill treatment has blown off Balram's fuse. A man's ambition to go ahead in life is commendable, more so when he is from a so called suppressed class of India. But by creating a character who is so out of reality, by not having any emotion (except for being horny), or any true relationship(family or friends), the character remains directionless throughout. All he wants to do is become free from his slavery and the means is of little consequence to Adiga.

More enraging is the false protrayal of India to the world. Where the heck do we still have malls where men without shoes or T shirt are not allowed to enter? Or which village has bonded labour these days forcing children to skip school and work?? And do we ask somebody with a surname Halwai,"Are you not from the caste which makes sweets?? What are doing here as a driver?". I mean, it so set in the past.. Yet the same India is shown to have Sahara Mall in Gurgaon. 

Common baths, Common sinks etc are a way of life in India. It does not apply just to the a driver from the Darkness. . So many young men and women in India live in hostels far awya from home sharing everything from baths to clothes with strangers.. Adiga makes too much out of these everywhere.,. Obviously India cannot provide a duplex apartment to a school drop out from Bihar.. I doubt if America can too. Balram has reasons enough to count his blessings and has not a single valid reason for contemplating the murder of his master for a second. Yet that is what he does.. Calling himself the White tiger, an animal born only once in a generation it seems..As much as I have read, White tigers are results of genetic mutation and has nothing special to its credit.. We have white cockroaches too in fact.

Predictably, the dark side of Delhi is explored completely.. And all the while you keep wondering what makes him overlook everything that is good about India and falsely claim  a lot of things which stand out due to their artificiality. May be because everone is so overwhlemed by the Indian growth story and to be heard over the crowd you need to shout something which is different. And so the inexperienced and ignorant Adiga chooses to bring down India's image with falsity and exaggeration.

And when I came to know that it had won the Booker, I had a moment of self doubt where I thought that my verdict has gone awry.. But internet told me that almost all the Indian critics have lambasted the book and almost all the white critics have found it very exceptional (balm to their white ego).. Check out the links for polarised views and you would know what I mean.

http://www.hindu.com/lr/2008/11/02/stories/2008110250010100.htm   and

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/09/books/review/Kapur-t.html?_r=2&oref=slogin

When I was opening the book , " 3 Mistakes of my life",  I was sure I was making a mistake too.. His books are better left for times when you are travelling in a crowded bus with an annoying uncle asking you about why you are working out of Tamilnadu when there are so many software companies in Chennai or why you studied in Jaipur when TN has 236 engineering colleges. But being the loser I am, I had no company but this book 2 days back.   I challenge you to find a single Indian parent, who after reading this book would let his/her daughter go to tutitions peacefully. Hitting on a professor's daughter, hitting on a student/best friend's sister.. I dont know what would come next in Bhagat's novel..hitting on ur own daughter??  I don't know what makes him stoop so  low?? Does being the most widely read English author in the country makes him dilute the content for the masses? Or is it the lack of the content itself? India's own Mills and Boon is how he can market himself successfully. A new pair, but the same old mindless love stories under the guise of something new everytime.. It is entrepreneuship this time!!! 

The book is a collection of all the incidents which shook Gujarat in 2000 - 2001. The Bhuj earthquake, the Godhra carnage everything has been brought in to lend credibilty to the narration.. which unfortunately does not happen. The story is so hollow and so pea brained. A kid in a story writing contest might come up with a story like this.. Yeah, but for the censored parts he is becoming the face of... We expect more from an IIT IIM grad.

The third was something the shop keeper shovelled into my throat. Some debut writer about IIT life (not one more plz!). It s called "Anything for you ma'm". The lesser said about it, the better. Someone aspires to be like Chetan Bhagat too :P !!

The fourth is by my favorite author Mary Higgins Clark.  "You Belong to Me". A good thriller .. Only that I guessed the killer right after he was introduced to the reader and I kept turning pages in vain hope that she would somehow twist the story and my guess would be incorrect. Alas! What pleasure reading a suspense novel when you know who the serial killer is !! t least I expected better motive for the killings but she let me down there too.. Pretty lame ending.But stands out compared to the remaining three.

So Shantaram and Sea of Poppies are waiting to be read.They won't disappoint me for sure ! The only book I have enjoyed in the last three weeks is Stephenie Meyers' Twilight . A dracula love story. Quite a page turner. And quite dark too. But the second part is so badly written. You's think the dracula himself was forcing the author to come down with the sequel. But wisely I did not buy it but managed to download the  ebook!

My gambles have gone horribly wrong. Hope its the time for pay off :) !

Catalyst on a boring day :)

The smirk is back.

There is a leap in my steps.
Constant flip flops inside
Some violent somersaults too!

The Tamil song in repeat mode
Dusting memories of yesterday..
The beauty of the lyrics
Creating a musical cascade within..

The key has been found
The lock has lost its value now!
The gush is exciting and familiar
Started on no less than a fourth gear!!

The constant hum disturbs hardly
Rather energizes oddly,
To match wits and class
To raise brows and smile!

An alert spine and a quick pulse
Sweaty palm just inches away
"Fantasy", you say?
"Most probably", I say!

Web is a blessing
Allowing me to stare at you from here!!
Much the same way I had
Without your blushing acknowledgment though :D

"Its weird", don't you say?
For a line to throw open the flood gates
But how do I care?
It brings me joy from nowhere!

This feverish excitement in all my joints
And the accusing heart making "its points"
No doubt are crossing bounds, but..
No complaints if I m entertained a few more rounds :)

To Bombay, With Love

The semester is coming to a close and this is to everything I have given up for it!
This is to those good days at work
The bad lunch and a fruit plate
The cheap, sweet tea
The tons of gossip to go along with it
The dingy apartment
My dirty bed without a cover
Books with yellow pages and faded prints
My laundry bag full of CAT material
Far yet close room mates
The late mornings
My love affair with The Times of India
Long baths with loud 9XM
Expensive deoderants
The leisurely Saturdays
Juhu's clay and calmness
Corn and groundnuts
Little Italy and New Yorker
The mystic ISKCON
PVR and Crosswords
Our own Bombay Blues Thali
Goodluck's upma
Fat Wallet
Breathtaking Bandstand
Tawdry bric-a-bracs
Sweaty locals
Stolen rides on the first class
Paan Spit and Pirated CDs
Wada Pav and autorickshaws
Shopper's stop n FabIndia
Mochas and Subway
Impulsive purchases
100 Rupees t-shirts
The 200 auto-fare on them
Rare visits to South Bombay
Wanderings along the Causeway
Second hand book stores
Fast food next to the urinals
Magnificent theatres
Concerts and Pop shows
Ogling at the mischievous couples
With a sigh of longing and a relief of staying clear
Occasional crushes in office
Of them moving on
And me too...
The monstrous city
Its neon flashes
Incessant rains
Wet dupattas on my chair handle
Night stays with friends
Oshiwara
Ahura Centre
Wet afternoons & Curd rice
DDLJ and K3G
Radio Mirchi and Red FM
Love Guru
Monthly drama for paying rent
Cold conference rooms

The feel of the I-card around my neck
Dirty puppies
Myself
Life..
What was and What is.

What is luxury for you and me?

Two days in a workshop called 'Luxury marketing' has made a style averse me more averse to it! Though the seminar was supposed to be 'marketing luxury' in all the segments one can think of, it was very heavily dominated by this one particular brand - Louis Vuitton, towards which I was apathetic till a few days back, and towards which I am allergic today. Watches, Bags, shoes, perfumes, hand-kerchiefs, goggles and many such petty items took a disproportionately large amount of attention. I love all these, no doubt. But there is a huge question as to whether these deserve the money they charge from the consumer as well as whether it would at all give me any kind of satisfcation if I break my head to position them as a superior offering to the Cindy Crawfords ( for the sheer lack of knowledge on anyone more recent) or Mahendar Singh Dhonis of the world. Even if someone pays me my weight in gold as my monthly salary (which would leave them with no operating profits I am sure :)! ) I would never ever go into this for the simple reason that I can't convince anyone to be fooled by this when I am as unmoved after 16 hours of listening to this, as ever. I am not a communist, no way! But there are definitely a lot of better ways in which one can spray such money around. Though books win hands down, travel, photography, musical instruments, new gadgets are far better a way to spend money and reap benefits. Whether I keep my smelly leather wallet inside a Louis Vuitton bag or the fake Diesel bag bought near Andheri Station, it is not going to affect the way I feel about myself. Damn it! Why do you need a stupid bag or a shoe to give you confidence in yourself? Why do I need to announce that I have arrived, by tip toeing on a Prada Pencil heel?? How can I someone to define me by what they see on my body? Do you neot have anything to be proud of yoursrlf other than the shoe you own?? Is Paris Hilton the smartest person alive?? What has the world come to? HOW CAN ANYONE BE SO SNOBBISH & HOLLOW?? AND WHY?

I am not trying to act a noble soul, but it was just beyond my tolerance to sit through a thing like this, listening to people selling 3.2 lac watches. I felt cheated from within, when I thought, "Why did I CHOOSE to learn all these?". Learning new things are interesting, but this wasn't. If I have that kind of money, I know a hundred good ways to spend it. Thank God for the social consciousness my family has put in me. For all I care, 'Luxury' to me is having confidence in myself, irrespective of how I look or what I wear. And hearing the definition over and again that luxury is anything that is 'Exclusive', I really know that my self-image is a huge luxury. Not many seem to have it. At least, we were shown only those kind of people for 2 whole days. Sick.

My real luxuries are as follows:
1. Good books. Getting them as and when they are released.
2. Leisure time with your family & friends.
3. Being able to reach home whenever you are needed.
4. Knowing what exam you have tommorrow.
5. Coffee and Hindu in the morning.
6. A husband who loves literature. Tamil & English.
7. A healthy family ( a huge luxury. I know how an illness has an avalanche effect in terms of bad mouthing your family members.)
8. Good food.
9. A job which satisfies you by challenging you everyday.

That more or less covers most of my luxuries. Though not in the exact order they are in my mind. Of course, that would be too foolish to give the order ;) ! Knowing me in and out is a definite luxury I cannot offer to everyone !

A Prisoner's Diary - Part 2

Looking back at the three months spent here..
Losses:
1. Family & Friends (very important). Haven't spoken to a lot of them even once during the last three months. Not having too many friends here does make matters worse. I miss the camaraderie of being a part of a closely knit group. I have been used to it both in college and work :(
2. Good food: I never ever imagined that I would miss the food I used to cook !!! But I do. The food we get is remotely fit for human consumption. And Bombay has given me the taste for good food... I have immensely enjoyed eating out there.
3. Time for reading good stuff: I read all the day. But enjoy a mere 5% of it (optimistic estimate). All those nights spent reading some real good books, where I used to wonder if the dawn swallowed some hours of the night. Those classics and thrillers, M&Bs and fantasy seem a distant dream these days.
4.Time for myself: Time for walks, taking leisurely baths, praying quietly in a temple, sitting idly in the beach, listening to a distant bird or simply lying down staring at the roof..
5. Sense of doing something: As long as I dont know why I am here, there is not a lot of sense cribbing about this. I used to enjoy my work at TCS. I used to feel that I am doing something which is of direct use to someone and indirect use to me. I might not have admitted this before but the only thing which had dissatisfied me there was the absence of a clear growth path for people (Please God, let me not sound like someone who has read a lot of HR :D). My only hope hanging loosely is that my close friend and my cousin find the finance subjects very interesting and there is no reason why I would not soon.
6.Weight: A quite a lot of it. Dont ask me how much!

Gains:
Enough of cribbing. Now to the gains.
1. Stamina: I have developed an amazing stamina these days. I work for the whole day and still have the energy to lie down with a novel before sleeping however late it be.
2. Assignments: Not a gain in the conventional sense, but a gain nevertheless :) :) !
3. I am thinking hard.... hmmm...hmm..Laptop probably?! Can't think of anything else to fill in here. Hopefully, the days to come might provide me with something.

A day in the passing !

1 WAC submission

2 FCQs

Both core subjects tat we came to know now!

Inspite of being told yesterday that we have a language and core subject.

Had to attend the first class without getting attendence :) ;) !

Huh!! The grind is getting stronger day by day :) :) :) !!

A Prisoner's diary - Part 1

Its more than 2 months since I gave any attention to my brain child :) !

Most of you know what I have been doing in the interim, and for those who don't, here it is! Lured by things I cannot articulate coherently, I started preparing for various MBA entrances and got through where I am holed in right now. And believe me when I say that these two months have been the busiest days of my life so far. One thing which comes close is the initial training or ILP as they call it, sponsored by TCS. I now realize what a child's play it had been!!!

My typical day starts sometime between 7:30 - 8:30 and goes on till 2 without any kind of break. Why? Because I need to spend my break time in our library. No. You are wrong :) ! My library does not stock best-sellers. Bring your eye-brows down. I will tell you what happened. Actually, we are serving a detention. Me? Can I ever break a rule to be given detention?! Nope. At least I won't be stupid enough to get caught. But what happened was some kind souls in our batch decided to go to the city guns blazing and asked their friends to give them proxy attendence. Big deal?!? Yep. In a management Institute. Its not engineering days anymore. Cool. So, here s the whole batch serving a detention of clocking in 20 hours in the library every week.

Is that all? No. Last Saturday, we had a FCQ and the second half of the classes got cancelled. Benevolent professors are a rare breed indeed !!! Having been quite regular to the library the past week, some 15 of us decided to go and watch 'Jaane tu..'. Some 15 minutes on the way to the theatre, came that howler (just reminiscing about those old days spent reading Harry Potter) which said, 'Batch Meet by You-know-who @ 4:15 pm'. Huh?! We were in the cmapus from 11 to 4 and no one had any idea about the batch meet which was to take place. But a half day off is so rare here that we decided to cary on..Anyway, it would have been useless to return. At 5:15 someone relays the breaking news: 'The batch has been grounded for 2 years!!!' What? What for?? No one knew. We spent some frustrated minutes using all the swaer words from our repository. On ourselves.To have been stupid enought to come out. Again came an angel's voice over the phone,'Don't worry. We have not been grounded after the batch-meet. Grounding was supposedly in place from last week itself'. Wow!! We all jumped up. Then realised that either way it meant that we are not to step out of the campus. This place can do strange things to your reasoning. May be bacause, you see weird reasoning by people all around you.

So, what now?! We fought our case on the grounds of being unaware of the rules and tried to use the instrument of logic and reasoning as much as we could. But defence counsel could not match the reasoning prowess of the prosecution. So, here we are, with an extended detention of 32 hours per week!! As I am writing this, I am already feeling better from within. Of letting the outside world know about what goes on inside a concentration camp:) ! I might be dealt with for spreading infamy, but your head throbs as long as it stays just within you. So its OK I guess. Have a quiz in some 15 mins. Then back to the library. hahaha :)!!

'V' for Vendetta ??

Scorching heat
Freezing cold
Gutsy typhoons
Shattering quakes

Magnitudes are beyound your imagination.
Triggers are beyond your comprehension.
Dont try to get even.
You wont be spared to regret even!

Thresholds have been crossed
Treasures have been lost
Reckoning is not far away
Unless you plan to mend your way.

Respect nature.
Acknowledge the right to life.
Live in harmony.
Ratify your need & not your greed.

Bring down the abuse.
Listen to the warnings.
Observe the anomalies.
Fear the ramifications.

Care about something other than you.
Be in harmony with the things around you.
May be.. Just maybe there is still time.
To stop the jaws closing around your neck and mine.