The A to Z of MBA@SP

Disclaimer: " This post may seem a little vague for you to comprehend, but dontcha worry! Cause it has been written to be vague for non PGP1 junta!" :D


A for ADMAP
-> The administrative context, role, strategy and structure. Period!


B for Bistro
-> Of masala chais, Santosh, lime juices and poisson interval


C for Chaskar
-> Cause there can be no one else! Duhh!


D for Dataserver
-> Thought of putting DCP, Dimdimas, direct marketing, Dome 1, Dean's dog...but the dataserver is all consuming monster that wins handsdown


E for Economics
-> The micro, macro, Kenesian, Venetian, Persian and everything else


F for FOSLA
-> Frustrated One Sided Lovers association


G for GH
-> Black dogs, tripping power, 11 'O clock deadlines and unsafe pathways ( yo! Superman)


H for Hari Sadu
-> Dedicated to Chandri


I for IP
-> Paging for Rohit Baheti.. TIA


J for Just Chill maar
-> Yeah! That like our anthem


K for Key Learnings
-> Sum total of all DCPs in the session


L for Lokhandvala
-> Yeah, thats all we go upto and our world ends there


M for M factor
-> For further details contact Mridula Gupta


N for Neha Poddar
-> Two is a company, three is a crowd. Thus, we stick to two Poddars per batch!


O for Orange template
-> They are trying, but old habits die hard


P for PGP1
-> PGP PGP PGP1 , hoey! PGP PGP PGP1 hoey! ( No! I wont put in pedagogy )


Q for QIG
-> Where eagles dare


R for Relative Grading
-> United we stand, divided we fall


S for Sandy
-> Cause its my blog stupid!


T for Trading Places
-> Benchmark in the history of err...education


U for UN
-> No its not United Nations, its something bigger than that!


V for Vrindi
-> Hume aur jene ki, chaahat na hoti...agar tum na hote, agar tum na hote


W for Wal-zaaaaade Summer
-> Cause it just sounds so cool!


X for Xerox Counter
-> The real Information super highway!


Y for Yadava Anshuman
-> That is the last roll number dude!


Z for Zero
-> One score to rule them, once score to find them
One score to bring them all and in the darkeness bind them.

'Train'ed to travel

I go out to stand near the door. I have always loved standing at the door of a moving train. It gives a feeling unmatched by anythign else. I love the wind hoing in my ears, hair spraying all over my eyes and watching the whole world pass by as a dream. I feel good. I feel alive.

I hold the bars at the door tighter as the speed picks up. The dull suburbs of the city make have made way to teh green fields of the country side. Lazy cows scatterd over the grass, sleepy shepards under the solitary tree, an old pickup truck fighting the muddy roads.......I try to capture everything. Every scene, every whisper, every turn.....I feel time stands stillin such places. Or is it becasue I am moving at sucha high speed? I dunno. In many way, I think our lives are like train jouneys. We start at some station, some with tickets some ticketless, hoping to reach a place we have never seen before. Which compartment you get into depends on which part of the society you hail from. You meet so many people on the way, pepole whom you know, whom you dont, some whom you wud love to know and many more you better ignore. When the train starts you are all so excited, the thrill of the speed gives you such a high, the rush of blood in our heads eggs those wheels to move faster.....Its all so much fun. You live those moments, enjoy it to the hilt.....but after a while one gets different thoughts.

You look at the monotany of the train and then look up at the open fields outside. You feel like pulling that chain and running out to the picture perfect farms. You want to feel the wet grass under ur bare feet. Stray ur eyes to see the lush outfield merge into the azure sky at a distance. A lonely tree stands between u and the horizon. Graceful birds form a brilliant pattern as they swoop down to the lake....U want to be there and live the moment. But you cant! Because the train doesnt stop at ur whims and fancies!! The train is meant for everybody. But its not fair! I
dont want to keep running all my life in search of a place I have yet seen. Sometimes I just want to step back and enjoythe silence of life. Why should I travel in the stupid train? Why? Why cant i jsut walk along the tracks? I can then walk at my own pace, not the pace society wants me to moive at. I can travel at whichever time I like to. I may want to travel when the early mornign sun is kissing th virgin clouds or when the faint moonlight is caressign the still waters. Not at the time the world wants me to move! And I want to choose my own tracks, not the tracks on which I am supposed to take. So what if my tracks lead to a dry waterland or a cacading waterfall? Its my choice to tracel where I want to.

A group of enthusiastic travelers are singing at the top oif theirt voices behind me. I cant concentrate on it. It just drifts in and out like a breeze. The train gradully slows down , chugs into a remote station. Some people get out and some get in. But I am still at the door wondering where I am heading. I sigh and look down at my deet. The ground beneath is moving as a fast blur. But my feet are right there...right there and immobile. What a paradox. You feel you are reachign places in life,but in reality you are just standing where you started. Should I blame the train?

I dont know when my destination will arrive. I dont know if I will like it when my destination arrives. I dont know if I will travel alone or find someone along to share the rest of my journey with. I dont know if I will get bugged of all this running and get down at some random station to make my own path. I dont know. I dont know anything. But, I am on my way.....

A Clockwork Orange

Great movies always give me goosebumps. I guess it does for everybody. But the concept of what makes a movie great differs from person to person. I usually prefer offbeat movies, movies which are slow, with a heavy theme, intense characters, subtle undertones....the list is endless.

A Clockwork Orange is one such movie which I chanced upon in college. The opportunity cost of watching a two hours fifteen minutes when there was test hanging on my head the next day was pretty high. But boy! was it worth the time or what!! One of Stanley Kubrick's masterpieces was released in 1971 based on the controversial book of the same name by Anthony Burgess.

The name of the movie sounds queer, isnt it? What does cloclwork orange mean? The title probably was inspired by a common East London phrase, "as queer as a clockwork orange" - indicating something bizarre internally, but appearing natural, human, and normal on the surface. The movie goes with the tagline "Being the adventures of a young man whose principal interests are rape, ultra-violence and Beethoven." And indeed it does! Graphic violence, vouyeristic sex, dysfunctional teens, mindless crime and dehumanization of criminals....all packeaged into two hours of intense filmmaking. It blows your mind.

The frightening, chilling and tantalizing film raises many thematic questions and presents a thought-provoking parable: How can evil be eradicated in modern society? If the state can deprive an individual of his free will, making him 'a clockwork orange,' what does this say about the nightmarish, behavioral modification technologies of punishment and crime? Do we lose our humanity if we are deprived of the free-will choice between good and evil?

The movie set in futuristic England tells us the story of Alex de Large (Malcolm McDowell) and his droogs. The opening memorable image is an intimate closeup of the blue staring eyes and smirking face of Alex wearing a bowler hat and with one false eyelash (upper and lower) adorning his right eye . His cufflinks and suspenders are ornamentally decorated with a bloody, ripped-out eyeball.

"There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie, and Dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar trying to make up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening. The Korova milkbar sold milk-plus, milk plus vellocet or synthemesc or drencrom, which is what we were drinking. This would sharpen you up and make you ready for a bit of the old ultra-violence."

Their escapades know no bounds. From torturing a old drunkard lying on the sidewalk while singing Molly Malone, to having a gang war with the with Billyboy and his droogs, enjoying the country air in a stolen Durango-95 and the ghstly rape of the elderly Mrs.Alexander. Mr. Alexander is assaulted and kicked on the floor by Alex who ironically punctuates his rhythmic, soft-shoe kick-dance with the lyrics of "Singin' in the Rain." The scene is one of the most disturbing scenes in the film, with its juxtaposition of the familiar lyrics of playful music from a classic film with slapstick comedy, brutality and horrible ultra-violence:

I'm singin' in the rain, Just singin' in the rain...
What a glorious feeling, I'm happy again..
I'm laughing at clouds, so dark up above..
The sun's in my heart, and I'm ready for love.

Let the stormy clouds chase, Everyone from the place
Come on with the rain, I've a smile on my face.
I'll walk down the lane, With a happy refrain
And I'm singin', just singin' in the rain.


All this harmony among the group members is broken when two of his droogs take offence to Alex's overdominace over the group. So when the guys are again on one of their violent sprees, Alex is made the target of their scorn. The murder of the catwoman by Alex using a Beethoven bust turns out to be the turning point of his life. Betrayed by his friends Alex lands into the hands of the police. There inspired by the chaplin to pick up the Bible, Alex relishes the violent bits of the old and new testaments and fantasizes himself to the Roman soldier torturing Jesus to his crucification.

When there is an open offer, for a crimnal rehabilitation program Alex volunteers to get himslelf out of the prison. Fed with an experimental serum, he is forced to watch clips of high violence and pain, with his eyes clamped, straight jacketed and helpless. These repeated images of blood, gore, genocide and rape are shown with Alex's favourite music Beethoven's Fifth symphony played in the background.

"Very soon now, the drug will cause the subject to experience a death-like paralysis, together with deep feelings of terror and helplessness. One of our early test subjects described it as being like death, a sense of stifling or drowning, and it is during this period we have found that the subject will make his most rewarding associations between his catastrophic experience-environment and the violence he sees"

Made "a free man" and trained to become docile and harmless, Alex is destructively robbed of his individuality, personality and humanity by being transformed into a 'clockwork orange' - a compliant and mind-numbed citizen. He is displayed in front of curious audience as a reformed item who now would not hit back at a middleaged homosexual yelling at him or would not be aroused by a shapely naked young female.

He walks back a reformed man, only to find that society thinks otherwise. All his old sins come back to haunt him, his family, the old droogs who are now cops, the old beggar on the road and finally to Mr. Alexander. Fate takes him back to the husband whose wife was raped and murdered infront of him , the husband who drives him to commit suicide. But Alex fails to kill himself and lands up in the hospital all bandaged and wound. Only this time to be manipulated by the goverment minister who uses Alex to prove that the government program was a huge success.

Thus ends the movie. It ends throwing open a lot of questions. Questions about teenage violence, families, the police, rehabilitation of criminals and society as a whole. And the answers? Kubrick leaves them open for the viewers and the society to find........

Free Time??!??

My Schedule for this week.

Tests and assignments:
11th - A Probable quiz by SD on hypothesis testsing. 10 mins. Make template.
12th - Submit People and Performance assignnment - Kirk Stone Case
13th - Opearations Management Test - 4 Chapters from Chase and 1 by Fitzsimmons
14th - IT in Business - Level 1 and 2 DFD groupwork submission
15th - Communication Skills - Report writing assignement ( 25% weightage out of full course credit)
16th - IT in Business - Test on chapter 9. Possible inclusion of chapter 3?
16th - Macro Economics - Saturday quiz
17th - Opearations Management - Assignment submission - Computering Clearing case

Macro Economics - India 2020 case : next week date unsure
Marketting - Sector analysis - IT Hardware : next week date unsure

People and performance - one quiz and mid term in the next ten days.
Opearations Management - 3rd test expected shortly after the 2nd test on 13th.
Quantitave Methods - Expect a quiz almost everyday afternoon.

Normal pre-reads for all classes.

Commiittee work:
Finish concept paper for BhavITva (slated on Nov 25th),
Finish mail ID creation formalities.
Tuesday commiittee meeting : Prepare points
Contact NASSCOMM for Western area head. Pitch for Kiran Karnik.
Meet Joint Director for further inputs.

GaSP: ( Guild of actors @ SP)
Meet Uma Narayan for script
GaSP meet for deciding play and core commiittiee formation.

What is free time? no idea sir! Havent seen it in this part of world for a long time now.

An ode to good ole whiskey !

As an initial disclaimer let me categorically state that I do not drink and whiskey here has got nothing to do with alcohol! Whiskey is my friend. Lets call this good friend of mine X. ( duhhh... I cant gv u the real name! ) . So whiskey is like a secret identity thingy that X has and its a lil secret only we share. More like Calvin and Spaceman Spiff ! :)

So this whiskey character was quite a new being and was an instant hit between both of us. And when you have a unrelenting B school breathing down your neck, pushing you to your hiertho unknown limits of endurance, its only such little joys in life that make your existence meaningful. The crux of the issue was that Whiskey was funny. The origin of the chareacter was funny.The whole damn concept was funny. And boy! did we laugh along with it or what! Till tears ran down our cheeks and stomachs pained with all the incessant howling. We found something to help us break free and clinged onto it. We were on a mindless high.

Now you might be wondereing what the hell is all this about. What it is about, my friend, is should one let go of all senses when he/she is on a high or try to bring in bring in rationale and common sense what ever state one is in. If you are looking before you leap even when you are on a mindless emotional frenzy I guess it doesnt make much sense right? I mean, if you tried to get in common sense there, it wouldnt have been a frenzy in the first place!! So there we were in this zone, laughing at even the silliest reason, trying to make sense out of random senteces and having a ball of a time. And it was in this zone that I told something which I shouldnt have. It was in a flow of chaos and I just pandered to the thought. And it turned out to be a big mistake, cause X took it badly. X knew that I hadnt meant to be derogatory, but the fact remained that the statement I made was acerbic and it hurt. It wasnt even one of those stupid mistakes which you realise you have made the moment it comes out of your mouth. It just happened! And I take full responsibility for my mistake.

I feel life is such a big turncoat. There we were one moment, at the peak of talking gibberish and having fun and the next moment it comes crashing down to an ackward silence. Its not fair. People should not be made resposible for what they say when they are not thinking about what they are saying. I feel that. But the truth, unfortunately turns out to be the exact opposite. It DOES matter what you say and people DO get offended by what you say. I realized that at a cost. The cost of not getting to share awesome fun with Whiskey anymore!!! Well, I am lucky X decided tht it will be the end of Whiskey and not the whole friendship as a whole. Uff! narrow miss. Well, I guess its one more lesson life has taught me.

RIP Whiskey! I will miss ya. :(

P.S : It reminds me of strip where Susie goes "Sticks and stones may break my bone but words never will" and then realises the truth. God! I feel there is a CnH strip made for every situation possible in life.

The show must go on..................

I could never learn tables beyond 10.
I could never mug up the points for the 5 year plans.
I could never correctly remember which Moghul emperor came after whom.
I could never calculate the molarity of a chemical correctly.
I could never appriciate the 'beauty' of algebra, however hard my teachers tried.
I could never mug up anything beyond the 'Rama shabda' properly.
I could never draw the butterfly as it shd be, in my lab records.
I could never calclulate the rate of water flow in those pipe problems.
I could never differenciate between Frost and Yeats.
I could never recall which Kannada Jnanpeeth awaardee wrote what?
I could never write down Fridel-kraft's alcylation reaction properly.
I could never fathom the real purpose behind the Laplace Transforms.
I could never decipher the basics of signal processing.
I could never understand the real reason for having a star-delta starter.
I could never write a doubly linked-list on my own.
I could never realize the importance of the "professional way of working".

Yet , here I am. Somehow surviving to fight another day. And now, I am going to do my MBA.

I dunno how to prepare a balance sheet.
I dunno how to use statistics for data interpretation.
I dunno why we should learn opearations.
I dunno anything beyond calculating simple interest.
I dunno an iota abt supply chain management.
I dunno how am I going to survice the next two years.

Lord forgive me, for I know not what I am doing!

Kodachadri ahoy!

After many rounds of mailing and arguing, we finally landed up in Kodachadri for the 2 day trek. Kodachadri is 11 Kms from the holy city of Kollur,Shimogga. The trek is arnd 7-8 kms totally and the terrain is moderately difficult. From the starting point an hour and a half's trek will take you to a small dingy hotel where u can refill. And from then on its a trek of arnd 2-3 hrs depending on the size of your group. There is a PWD guesthouse atop, but we preferred to stay at the "Bhattara mane" which is affordable and good. A trek of arnd half an hour more will take you to Sarvagna Peetha, the top of the range, where u can see the sunset. The sunset and the sunrise are things one cannot afford to miss here. I am just concentrating on the pictures in this post rather than content.

Starting point.
L-R: Dubuk, Muppy, Varun, Sauraja, Ntini, Chet, Lamp and Sujam

Mera wala Green
The sunrays playing hide and seek with the foliage.

Our refuge
Bhattara Mane

Living on the edge
Check out the different shades of blue near the horizon.

The zillionth pit stop!
And a gazzilion lts of water along with it.

Perfectly at home!
What happned in the woods is strictly among ourselves.

Anywhere I roam

The trail is a nice combo of dense jungle and beautiful grasslands.

Picture Perfect!
Pretty clouds before the sunset.

Paagal Junta

Where is the sun setting pheephul?

Gollum's backyard!

And then the mist decided to butt in!

Once in a lifetime

The perfect setting. The sun was ahead of us and the mist behind.
Our shadows are formed bang in the middle of the rainbow. :)

Kodak Moment
Sunset 1

Somber Sun
Sunset 2

On top of the world
Sunset 3

Intezaar

Awaiting the sun!

Sunrise!
Aaj ka breakfast ho gaya maamu!

Rolling stones

The trek back.

Cant stop admiring right? So what the hell are you doing? Pack ur bags and leave! :)

God is real.......unless declared int

A priest goes to a barber for a shave. While shaving the barber says "You know I think there is no God in this world!". A little offended, the preist asks him why. "You see IF there were a God, there wouldnt have been so much pain and suffering in this world". The priest doesnt says anything, pays his bill and moves out. After a cpl of months, the barber sees the priest on the road. He has long tresses and a beard almost upto his chest. And then the priest says "You know, thre are no barbers in this world.". When the bewildered barber asks him the reason the priest says "You see, if there were barbers in this world, I wouldnt have such long beard and unkempt hair". Rubbishing his theory, the barber calls him an idiot. "You didnt go to a barber. Its ur fault. How can u say that there are no barbers in the world!!". The priest smiled at the barber and said "Its the same with God, my friend. He has always been there. You just didnt go to him".

Sounds very nice, doesnt it? But I am sorry to say that I have to go with the barber's logic. If there were a God, there wouldnt have been so much pain and suffering and pain in this world. And if he is there, where is he? or what is he? Why isnt he as obvious as the barber? Firstly is he human like or jst some omnipotent power? If He is some kind of power, it will for sure be one helluva energy form! But if its jst energy then it wouldnt be able to think, judge and make decisions, can it? So he may be human like. If hes human like,God shd be either male or female. But again being one is exclusive of the other and hence God wud not be all powerful. Or is God jst a concept? A manifestation of all the fears and insecurities of man? Or is God so preternatural and inconceivable that he doesnt fall under any known form or image perceived by humans. If so, obviously all interpretations and descriptions made be humans before is totally wrong and gratuitous. So categorizing him under any column would be impeding his other capabilities.

I am a Hindu. I belong to a X caste, Y subcaste and Z community in tht order. I know several ppl who swear by the HXYZ lineage and consider all others who dont fall into that category the absolute scum of the earth. Tht wud pretty much amount to 99.9999% of the world!!! And all HXYZs worship only one God who has taken some particular avataar! They are averse to even to acknowledge the other Avataars of the same God!! So does tht mean the there si a God A->Avataar B who looks after all the followers of HXYZ and there are same God-different avataars or totaly different Gods for any other HABC or HPRQ? And what about ppl who are Muslims or Christian or Jews or Sikhs or Buddhists or anything? Does tht mean one God is different from the other? Or one is more powerful than the other? So if one changes his/her religion from X to Y does God X drop him from his list and doesnt care about his/her wellfare? It all sounds too vague!

When ever I have such a logical arguement with my mom, she snubs me out at the end saying "U wont understand! U shd hv the faith!". So it is a sin to be logical when ur religious? Do i have to blindly accept to facts, ideas and priciples thrust upon me? I never liked math all though my education. Not because I could not do it, because I was doing it without really knowing why or what I was doing. I was told that the differntial of e^x is e^x! I really didnt understand why there was a differential in the first place, where we wud apply it in real life, what 'e' was! what really happens when e^x is differentiated and what consequnce does it lead to if its differential is itself! I was told this and I blindly accpeted, wrote the same in all exams and passed them. I was never fundoo enuf to understand the expanatioan and more importantly the cimplication of each of these concepts. So, I hated math! The same with God! I am unable to fathom all the different concepts behind the faith. I will have to let go of all my doubts and curiosities to believe some fact that originated from humans themselves. But ppl initially thought the world was flat, ppl though tht metal can be turned into gold and ppl were wrong! So, what if I am following a concept really bizzare and baseless, a concept derived by some abstarct thought of some lonely human! Like Dan Brown telling the world that wht they hv been believing tilldate abt Christ is not the truth at all, but ppl hv been following it blindly!

Ppl pride themselves on being religious and God fearing! I have neither pride nor remorse in calling myself an aethist. I believe that there is no religion or God who can tell u anything better than being good and doing good. But if u can help me find my way and disagree with the barber, do let me know what I hv to do!

No mans land

Every one has his or her own place in office. The big bosses hv their rooms, the aam junta cubicles, the receptionist has the lobby, the blah blah blah. But if there is one place which belongs to noone and everyone is the lift. Its a really funny place to err..hang out.

Based on the lift mentality, there are 3 kinds of junta in office. First are the "oh-look-at-me-I-am-so-health-conscious" ppl who swear by only the stairs. Second are the "I-will-move-only-at-the press-of-a-button" ppl who will die before climbing the stairs
and third are the ppl like me "who-prefer-the-lift-but-dont-mind-taking-the-stairs". Anyway, everyone of us gets into the lift at some point of time. And unknown ppl r thrown into each others company, forced into a tiny enclosure with high levels of close physical proximity much to their dislike.

-> Case 1: No one knows anyone
So what do u thn? Its considered rude to stare at each other. But with ppl stepping on each others toes, there is nothing more u can actually do. So ppl follow a carefully crafted recepie of staring at the display without blinking, seeing their feet making intersting patterns on the floor and putting their faces up at the fan with their eyes closed faking the deepest meditation. I do none of these. I stand at an alcove and observe ppl doing all sorts of funny things.

-> Case 2: Some one remotely knows another
Yeah. They will hv some remote common thread. First they will smile at each other, nod and then start the most irrelevant conversation ever.
"So, is Jeff still in ur project?"
"Jeff?"
"Jeff Paddington! He used to sit next to my friend who worked in ur project for 15 days."
"Oh he was in my previos project! I heard he left the company after the product crashed, joined our competitiors and then came under a bus and died"
"Oh cool !"
It doesnt matter who Jeff is, where is is, what he is. What matters is tht both of them somehow thing he could be a link they could cling onto before they get to their floor. I am sure that if they meet each other some time later in the life they wud hv the same conversation.

-> Case 3: Every one knows every one
This is the worst scenario if ur alone in the lift and it is attacked by a whole army of ppl from the same team. The easy peace is shattered by hundred voices richocheting off each other generoulsy peppered with shreiks, a load of giggles and conversations. And then sudenly get off at some floor to let you to your peace in the lift again. Its like a sudden downpour tht lasts for only a cpl of minutes, drench every one caught off guard onthe road and disappear.

->Case 4 : The mobile ringeth!
Whatever happened to "I am in the lift. I shall call u back in a sec!". No Sir! First the silence has to be shattered with some bizzare ringtone so loud that the guy in the next lift should get startled. I get to hear all stories from 'how Vidya lost 5 kgs in 3 weeks via VLCC' to 'wht Ravi is going to cook for dinner' and from 'why SAP is the in thing now' to 'how websphere is hogging the middleware market'. Seriously, hv ppl lost public sense?

->Case 5: The ride with the celebrities
Its not daily that you get to meet the who's who of ur company. And when they do get into ur lift u curse urself for wearing floaters and jeans to office that day. Every one tries to look as professional and focussed as possible. I had the chance to ride with our country HR head and the was I was dressed that day , I was jst hoping he wouldnt ask me if I was working in the pntry or somthing. The next level of celebrities are the HR females who would never bother to stop and look at you otherwise. In the lift they hv no ther option. So I had my fifteen seconds of fame when I managed to talk to one of them. It doesnt matter if all I said was "Can u press the 6th plz" and got a pretty smile in return. What matters is tht it was only the life that gave me the opportunity I otherwise wouldnt hv got!

Life is amusing with so much happening happeing in and arnd the lifts. I am thankful tht lifts dont hv a mind of their own! Cant help but think of Zaphod and the lift at the Heart of Gold.

Marvin	Hello Lift.
Lift	(Soft muzakky sort of voice) Hello. I am to be your elevator for this trip to the floor of your choice. I have been designed by the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation to take you, the visitor to the Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, into these, their offices. If you enjoy your ride which will be swift and pleasurable then you may care to experience some of the other elevators which have recently been installed in the offices of the Galactic Tax Department, Boobiloo Baby Foods and the Sirian State Mental Hospital, where many ex-Sirius Cybernetics Corporation Executives will be delighted to welcome your visits, sympathy and happy tales of life out in the big wide world.
Zaphod	Yeah? What else to you do besides talk?
Lift	I go up or down.
Zaphod	Good. We're going up.
Lift	Or down.
Zaphod	Yeah, ok, up please.
Lift	Down's very nice.
Zaphod	Oh yeah?
Lift	Super.
Zaphod	Good. Now will you take us up?
Lift	May I ask you if you've considered all the possibilities that down might offer you?

............................................................................

What more can I say? thodi si to "lift" karade!

Hermione, I'm signing up for SPEW!

Some wise guy told " A perfect summer day is when the sun is shining, the breeze is blowing, the birds are singing, and the lawn mower is broken."

For the past one week I :

-> Got up at six in the morning to prepare my brother's lunch box.
-> Dropped him to the school bus daily.
-> Made our beds.
-> Went out to buy milk and curd.
-> Took the trash out.
-> Stashed old newspapers and magazines in the closet.
-> Put the dirty laundry for wash.
-> Got the washed clothes pressed.
-> Went out to buy vegetables.
-> Prepared hot dinner every night.
-> Checked all doors and fastened the windows before hitting the bed.
-> Shopped at Foodworld for the week's supplies.
-> Cleaned the living room, the balcony and the kitchen daily.
-> Never missed feeding the fish and cleaned the fish bowl as well.
-> Didnt play badminton a single day. :(

Its was only for a week that my parents went out for a vacation and there I was buckling under the strains of resposibility. I wonder how my parents haven been doing all this and more for the past twenty five years, without grumbling even once and THEN heading to work. It made me feel so guilty that we had taken them for granted. Now I realize, its not such a easy job running the house! Its really frightening to accept teh fact that someone is really depending on you completely. I dont think one needs to do amazing feats in life to be recognised and put on the pedestal. To me, my parents are my real life super heroes!

I just hope that I have a kid who is better than what my parents managed to have.

Masterminds India

I had been to one of the institutes yesterday to recruit some freshers into our company as contractors. Conducting interviews, I must admit is one of the most intriguing and refreshing experiences one can have while working. That it allows you to pander to your sadistic impulses is also another big plus of doing them. Here are some of the snippets from yesterdays comdey of errors.

"Hi. I am Sandeep. Please Sit down.So tell me something about yourself"
"Sir, Myself Rajat."
"Umm..Go on!"
"Sir everything else is there in my resume"
"Well you should have something else to say about your self"
"No sir! I am not an interesting guy!"
(Whew! Talk about first impressions!)


"Ramya, tell me what's a Zombie process?"
"Sir, child dies. Parent doesnt know what to do!"
"But what is the issue if you have them?"
"Yes sir! Parent doesnt know what to do."
(Damn! Dont all parents in the world complain that they dont know what to do about their child!")
"Lets try to get to the answer. Tell me what is your favourite sweet."
"Sir, Gulab Jamoon"
"Lets say Ramya, that you have a box that can hold only 10 jamoons. But unfortunately three of them are spoilt..."
"Like some one has eaten them Sir? They will spoil the other jamoons also Sir"
"Huh??!! However!!!! Say three are spoilt. You have three good ones with you now. Can you put them into the box now?"
"Yes Sir! I will remove the bad ones and the put these inside".
"Good! With Jamoons you can. But can you do such manipulations in the process table of the kernel?"
"Sir?"
" Try to draw a parallel with the zombies processes. They are like the bad jamoons, arent they?"
"I didnt get you Sir."
"If the process table is full of zombies, and space runs out can you fork new processes?"
"No Sir!"
"So could you understand the problem now?"
"No Sir!"
(Damn! She's the one supposed to be explaining. Not me! I stopped that interview)


Favourite hobby:
Candidate A: Playing Chess
Candidate B: Chess
Candidate C: Chess
By then, I was sure that the intitute had driled into them to put such "intellectual" things in their resumes to impress the panelists". I was sure that even the next one would have put up the same thing on his resume.
"Umm..I see in your resume that your hobby is playing chess"
"Yes Sir"
"Can you tell me somthing about Sicilian defence?"
"No Sir"
" Whats en passant?"
"I am sorry Sir. I read all these things in my early semesters. I dont remember."
"Hello! I m talking about chess here."
"Oh! Sorry Sir. I dont know."
"But you have told that its your favourite hobby"
"Yes Sir. But not playing. I like watching it."
" you like to WATCH chess???!!! How can you watch when you dont understand it? It must be the most boring game to watch on earth."
"No Sir! That is my hobby"
( Interesting! So if this qualifies as a legitamate hobby, I will tell ppl my hobby is sky diving. Only watching it of course!")


"Let me give you practical example. Say I have an application running and it can authenticate users who have a vaild login and password. Lets say there is somw command like" connect to" which you can use on the shell prompt to connect to it. Now, I want to see how many users can the application simultaneously authenticate. You should do this using shell scripting. There is no need to write the script. Just explain how you will approach it"
"Sir, ummm...I feel...err...ther are two main things here. umm..the number of users and the time to connect at."
"Lets say its 3 PM and 500 users."
"Ok."
"For exapmle just think that the application is something like Yahoo mail."
"Sir, there are two important things here. Time and no of users."
"Agreed. But how will you approach it?"
"Sir.Does it have to be 3 Pm? Not any other?"
"Whatever time you want. It doesnt matter".
"And only 500 users?"
"Any number you want. Yo choose"
"Sir, according to me. There are two imporant things. number of users and.."
"Yeah, yeah ! I know. Time!!...we have agreed upon that already! Just tell me how you will approach it."
"Sir, I feel the only two factors are......."
( I recalled Asterix and the big fight then. Vitalstatistic has to fight some giant dumb Gualish cheftain to proove that he is still the worthy cheiftain of his village. ther is no way he could have brought that guy down without the magic portion. So, he pratices to run and on the day of the fight he will run so fast all over the ring his opponenbt gets tired of chasing him and collapses. So I guess, even this was a strategy taught by the institute. Just keep giving the same line till the panelists get raging mad and move to the next question!")


"Can you explain the sequence of compilation, till you get a .o file?"
"Sir first you have to write a program!"
(There! Just shoot me! I cant take it anymore)


Well what more can I say? If you are bored of your routine, work is no longer interesting, you feel no one treats you with respect...simple solution. Go take interviews!

Of uncles, aunts, clear lines, testing jobs and boring weddings!

I dread weddings. After the 'K' soaps on cable TV I think they are the most boring ordeals on earth. God!I dont even want to think about a wedding in those soaps ! Anyway I was asked to apply a couple of days leave this month to attend my cousins wedding and I was left with no other choice but to capitulate.


The first thing I have to brace myself against in any wedding is the army of Kangevaram clad aunts. They mob you, they quiz you, they evaluate you and most importantly they bore you. Every other aunt who comes up looks at me and says "Look at you. You were such a tiny baby playing on my lap. Now you have grown so tall". I had to control myself hard from quipping" Thanks Aunty. But, since the last time I saw you, you have err...grown pretty big yourself !". Arent all babies supposed be tiny when they are babies! Duhhh... Anyway the next embarassing question targetted is "Do you remember who I am?". I have recorded over a period of time that I have only four options as answers. So the next wedding I go to I will make 4 placards and hold them up as applicable.
1. Of course I do! You are mymost favourite aunt ever!
2. Umm..I sorta recall your face, but not your name ( then I will draw a stupid grin next to it)
3. No you are so boring that I chose to forget you.
4. Dont know and dont care.
What a bore!

The next pit stop are uncles. Now uncles are a far superior breed of animals. Not because they are, but they think they are.
"Hmmm..So ur going to do your MBA huh?"
"Yes Uncle"
"In SP Jain is it"
"Yes"
"Information management"
"mmm"
"I know my friend's neighbour's third cousin's dog's ex-owner's step son who went to IIM-A"
"Umm, good for him"
"So, did u hear about X's son" (lowering his voice) "I heard he got a job in testing" ( flashing a condescending sneer)
"No uncle"
"Are you in testing"
"No uncle"
At that point I really wanted to say "Do you even know what testing is? Who put this ridiculous idea in your head that testing is a sad job? Or are you so brilliant that you graduated out of MIT with a PhD in Nuclear Physics? Didnt you write B.Com twice?". But I knew a debate was useless, so I just played along.
"So is your son in testing uncle?"
"No no no!He's not"
"Then what is he into?"
He had no clue for that answer. Only thing he knew was that his son was not in testing. So I saw my opportunity.
"Oh! Then he must be in re-testing!"
"Re-testing! what is that?"
"Oh! thats the role given only to the extremely fundoo and skilled s/w guys."
"Oh! I am sure he is in that then"
What a bore!

The next question I have to brace myself is about my wedding. For time immemorial any wedding I go to, there will be a set of people who go "umm, so when is yours dear? or now is the right age for you.". And with all my cousins getting married they have changed it to "Oh! so your line is clear now!" They spice it up with naughty smiles or a nudge with their elbows or a wink of the eye. Line is clear!!?? God! As though I have been waiting all my life for my cousins to get into wedlock and the moment they do I will run out of the hall, grab the first female I see on the street and say "Hi! I am Sandy and my line is clear now. Will you marry me?".
What a bore!


Now for the ladies, obvioulsy there are endless things to flaunt there. Sarees, bangles, gold chains, ring, silverware, new hairdos, sandals, gifts et all. Now the menfolk just stand here and there, loitering judging the other guys by instinct. But now there is a cure for that as well! No need for guessing. "Show me your mobile phone and I will tell you who you are" is the latest proverb going around. Does it have bluetooth? plays MP3? extendable memory? how may pixcells? N series? blah blah blah...I had dropped my mobile on the road that evening and a car went on it. So it certainly didnt help boosting my image up over there.
What a bore!

Did anyone actually go there to watch the wedding? Wish the bride and groom happy married life? Well i guess such things are way down in the priority list. And if you invite me to your wedding and I dont turn up I guess I dont owe you an expalnation now.

Say Cheese?

" While there is perhaps a province in which the photograph can tell us nothing more than what we see with our own eyes. there is another in whichit proves how little our eyes permit us to see."

-Dorothea Lange, (1895-1965) Photgrapher.

Indira Mariyappan (by Arko Dutta)

The fateful day of December26th, 2004 the great Tsunami struck the coasts of Cuddalore. Indira mourns the loss of her sister-in-law, her only source of support. Deserted by her husband, she lives with her brother, struggling for her survival.



Winds of Change (by Cheryl Diaz)

Standing proudly, 10-year-old Uniss Mohammad Salman was among students returning to Al Amtithal Elemtary School, one of the first in the city of reopen after the invasion of Baghdad.



The Afghan Girl (by Steve McCurry)

She was one of the world's most famous faces, yet no one knew who she was. Her image appeared on the front of magazines and books, posters, lapel pins, and even rugs, but she didn't know it. Now, after searching for 17 years, National Geographic has once again found the Afghan girl, Sharabt Gula with the haunting green eyes.

The Migrant Mother (by Dorothea Lange)


This California farmworker, age 32, had just sold her tent and the tires off her car to buy food for her seven kids. The family was living on scavenged vegetables and wild birds. Working for the federal government, Dorothea Lange took pictures like this one to document how the Great Depression colluded with the Dust Bowl to ravage lives.


The Food chain (By Kevin Carter)


Visiting Sudan, a little-known photographer took a picture that made the world weep. What happened afterward is a tragedy of another sort. The image presaged no celebration: a child barely alive, a vulture so eager for carrion. Yet the photograph that epitomised Sudan's famine would win Kevin Carter fame - and hopes for anchoring a career spent hounding the news, free-lancing in war zones, waiting anxiously for assignments amid dire finances, staying in the line of fire for that one great picture. On May 23, 14 months after capturing that memorable scene, Carter walked up to the dais in the classical rotunda of Columbia University's Low Memorial Library and received the Pulitzer Prize for feature photography.
Two months after receiving his Pulitzer, Carter would be dead of carbon-monoxide poisoning in Johannesburg, a suicide at 33. "I'm really, really sorry," he explained in a note left on the passenger seat beneath a knapsack. "The pain of life overrides the joy to the point that joy does not exist."



Tiannenmen Square (by Stuart Magnum)

A hunger strike by 3,000 students in Beijing had grown to a protest of more than a million as the injustices of a nation cried for reform. For seven weeks the people and the People’s Republic, in the person of soldiers dispatched by a riven Communist Party, warily eyed each other as the world waited. When this young man simply would not move, standing with his meager bags before a line of tanks, a hero was born. A second hero emerged as the tank driver refused to crush the man, and instead drove his killing machine around him. Soon this dream would end, and blood would fill Tiananmen. But this picture had shown a billion Chinese that there is hope.


A heartless city

The raging mob burns and pilages all that which comes its way. This soot-stained , terror ridden face of Naseruddin Qutbuddin Ansari, a 29-year-old tailor, was the defining image of the horror of the worst religious riots in a decade. He firmly believes Muslims and Hindus will unite in Gujarat on Thursday to build a better India.



Lost Souls ( by Caroyln Cole)


Kinny Kanneh, age 9, was wounded when mortar rounds landed in a Monrovia refugee camp run by the American embassy. Refugees descended on the capital to avoid fighting, but the violence followed. Pulitzer Prize winner in 2003.


The melting girl (by Nick Ut)



Nick Ut : " The picture shows Kim, when her skin is burned so badly. Behind Kim, you see all the South Vietnamese armies running with her, together. She looked ever so bad - I thought that she would die.

You know, I had been outside the village that morning and I took a lot of pictures. I was almost leaving the village when I saw two aeroplanes. The first dropped four bombs and the second aeroplane dropped another four napalm [bombs]."

P.S: Kim Phuc now lives in Canada.



The execution (by Eddie Adams)

With North Vietnam’s Tet Offensive beginning, Nguyen Ngoc Loan, South Vietnam’s national police chief, was doing all he could to keep Viet Cong guerrillas from Saigon. As Loan executed a prisoner who was said to be a Viet Cong captain, AP photographer Eddie Adams opened the shutter. Adams won a Pulitzer Prize for a picture that, as much as any, turned public opinion against the war.


Forgotten Heroes (by David Leeson)

Staff Sgt. Lonnie Roberts stands at attention as troops from the 3rd Brigade Combat Team pay last respects to their fallen comrade, Pvt. Gregory Huxley, during a memorial for the 19-year-old in Baghdad. Pulitzer Prize winning photograph

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. But these snaps are more than that. They are stories by themselves. Stories of hope, joy, despair, love, pain, and everything under this sun. People photography gives me such a high!

Nostalgia

Nostalgia


Float purple in the air
I try to write
This mess off my head.
No poet am I!
Just a thought
afloat....
A bubble
That refuses to burst.

Singer or thinker?

I finish playing my badminton for the day. Head back home. Switch on my Creative Zen and clamp the earbuds. James Hetfield blares into my ears. I sing along.

On a long and lonesome highway east of omaha
You can listen to the engines moaning out as one note song
You think about the woman or the girl you knew the night before

But your thoughts will soon be wandering the way they always do
When you’re riding sixteen hours and there’s nothing much to do
And you don’t feel much like riding, you just wish the trip was through
Only if I had playedthe drop shot more delicately
Damn! I always get screwed at the net.
Next time I should try to push it back to the backhand corner...

Wait! what happened to the song I was singing??!! Too late....Hetfield has made way for Jimmy Page now and I am sure that I cant sing along with him as well. This has been my issue for a long time now. I can never complete a song in my head. My mind wanders too quickly and too wide. From drop shots to cost accounting, from Ice Age 2 to the pretty girl in my floor, from what I would do to my sworn enemies to why I like apple juice. Its like an endless and senseless chain.

I often go to one of my friends home and I dunno why most of the times I go when he is taking a shower. And he would be crooning so loudly that people down four streets can listen. One song after another, he finishes with the utmost ease. Does it mean that he has switched it off upstairs? Or he can sing and be with Jane Goodall at the same time? I definitely cant. The only sound you can hear when I am in the shower is the water hitting the floor. Sigh! There goes my singing career!

When all his brothers are lying dead at the Enchanted pool, Yudhishtira is asked by the Yaksha

Oh Kuntiputra, kimsvidccheghrataram vayoh
kimsvidgurutaram bhumeh
kimsviduccataram ca khat
kimsvidccheghrataram vayoh
kimsvidbahutaram trnat

( Oh Son of Kunti, What is weightier than earth?
What is taller than the sky?
what is that which is fleeter than the wind?
What is more numerous than grass?)

And to that Yudhishtira replies,

Mata gurutara bhumeh
Ktatpitoccatarastatha
Manahshighrataram vata
Ccinta bahutari trnat

( A mother is heavier than the earth,
A father is taller than the sky
The human mind is fleeter than the wind
And thoughts are more in number than the grass)

How true! So who are you? A singer or a thinker?

A 15 minute Nirvana!

Its evening. The world has turned into a shade of light orange. The electricity in the air is palpable. The wind which was gentle now picks up speed. The clothes hung on the neighbour's roof flutter wildly, wanting to break free. The birds start chirping excitedly. The old newspaper man on the road quickens his pace. I rush to the balcony, leaving behind the book in my hand. The wind chime in our balcony breaks into an oriental serenade. A stray plastic cover on the road silently rises in respose. Like an expert dancer who glides effortlessly across the stage . It moves, sways and prances around gleefully, beyond the reach of the excited dog below. Then then after a while, as though it felt bored, it silently settles down on the street. A few leaves now takover the stage. Not elegant ballet girls, but like the new breed of energetic vibrant dancers. they wildly chase each other in circles ans rise higher with alacrity. Yes! its going to rain now.

I strech my hand out to feel the drops. Nothing yet. But I hear the thunder. And then comes the flash of lightning brightening the dull facades around. The wind picks up speed. And then it starts. Tiny aimless drops at first. Sporadic and quick they are signs enough for the dog to get up and take shelter below the stairs. The smell of wet earth is intoxicating. I try to gulp as much air I can before my lungs would burst. And now the drops get bigger, gathering momentum as they come down. Its pouring now. Everytime it rains I try to listen to the different sounds the water makes. The chatter on the window panes, the hissing on the hot tin roofs, the splatter on the narrow steel railings, the babble in the gutter. Nature has music. We just dont have the time to appriciate it.

The water is rushing down the street now. From every staircase, every tree, every nook and corner water gushes out. A rapid stream is formed on the street. The leaves and the cover are no more to be seen now. I wonder about the rains in the mountains. Our Lives are so much like the water which flows down them. When we are born, we are like those tiny drops ...innocent and beautiful. And then we grow up like those wild rivulets, fast, energetic and making new paths. Then when we develop like the rivers on the plains, slow, huge, focussed and life sustaining. And then we fade into oblivion like the rivers joining the endless oceans. And then, I dont know, maybe, grow into the tiny droplets and rain on the mountains again.

I cant contain my excitement anymore. I rush up to the terrace. I spread my arms and rise my head to the sky. The water hits my face hard. Almost like a splinter. IT cant see anythig through my glsses now. I can feel it running down my neck, my back, my legs. I shiver for a moment in the cold.,but then the water soothes me. I feel purged, I feel fresh, I feel...alive! The rain has thinned down now. I slowly walk down the stairs. The water droplets are glistening like tiny pearls at the tips of the leaves. The trees seem to be smiling. People are slowly moving back onto the road. The lazy dog however prefers to stay on the cozy rag below the stairs. My mom yells out that coffee is ready. I give a huge sigh and walk down the stairs.

Its a beautiful world. :)

Metrosexual me!

"Why dont u get ur hair straightened?" quipped my old pal Tejas! "hmmm..straighten my hair..never occured to me before !"..wht the hell...no harm in trying I thought! ( but wht did I know!)

My sense of fodeboring should have picked up when I saw the name of the place. It was not Style Saloon or Citizen hair stylers..it was XYZ Men's parlour!! why parlour!?? I had bnever been to any parlour or anything remotely close to it. So was a bit jumpy whn i got in. He was there! on the sofa! lookin as though was some FBI agent waiting for me since ages! he had tht "aah.. there ur !" look on his face. I thought of introducing myself but thn I felt in such places anonymity was a better friend. " Hair straightening!" I hollored. u know, like those mezosoic cavemen whose vocab was restricted to "dhhhh..foooddd"...! It was more or less like tht. He didnt say a word..jst jerked his left hand towards the chair, tied a big maroon silk cloth arnd my neck. And thn it began..............

First he measured my hair with soem weird measurement n thn got out a bunck of taccky clips! N thn he started putting the clips around my hed ina circular fasshion. Good tht I had removed my glasses before he did tht. I myslef would have burst laughing at my reflection I am sure. I bet I was looking like old hag with her stupid hair in the Mask ! Anyway, thn he got out these sachets and started applyin it to the hair which was below the clip. That cream smelty like a combination of burnt coffee, hydrogen sulphide and rotten eggs. I almost puked! "Anything wrong Sir?" quizzed the concerend voice behind.."Umm..no..nothing". He applied 5 full sachets on my hair for a good 15 more minutes. I was sure I would be the first person to die because of rotten smelling hair cream! Anyway, after a while, he said it was done to my great relief! Yeah! like hell it was!

He then brought out a huge thing! yeah..i dont know what else to call it. It was like a huge tranparent dome on a high stand with wires dangling everywhere! He placed it over my head and then switched it on! "Shit!" I thought. I have seen these things ! In those afternoon soaps!! with all those bitchy ladies who go to the parlour n thn hack evil plans to seduce someone pativrata's husband! I didnt dare look up and see if there was anyone else there. God! If anyone from my gang had seen my like tht thn....." U have to sit for oaff hour sir" he said to my utter horror. Sit under tht steaming bowl with yucky smelly hair and clips all around....doing what? contemplating the differnt ways of shooting myslef in the head??. Thump!!! he dropped magazines on my lap! aaarrgghh! gr8 this gets even btter i thought. Now I sit there an read magazines.!! Opened the first one! " I am a 53 year old woman with two children. O flate my perios have....." yucccckkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk! wht the fuck? I turned the mag back arnd and to my utter horror saw that he had given me Femina!!!! "Six sexual tricks ur make ur man ecstatic"......."Accesories for todays trendy women"........i didnt dare read the rest of the topics! I was furious! "Look here man! I have come here to straighten my hair! period! what the hell do u thingk i am??? U think i hv no other job but to sit here on a saturday afternoon with smelly hair reading Mrs. Chopra's menopause!!! I am GUY for God's sake..gimmie Sports star or AutoIndia or some bloody mens magazine!!!!"...yeah..Iwanted to say all this..but all i managed to squek after swallowing my pride was "err..do u hv some thing else"!!!! He thrusted Outlook into my hand and I desparately drowned myself in tht.

After the longest hald hour in my life he took the wretched thing off my head and said it was time to wash it. Thank god! Time to get the stench off my hair! He washed the ..err..very long tresses with some shampoo I had never seen before. The funny thing is that whn evr u go to a fancy saloon ( yes, thts my way, thank u!), all the stuff they use will have Arabic words or some weird script..i dunno Voggon or something! jst to say tht, hey we use all imported stuff, so this is a hep place n so u will have to pay half ur salary for this hair cut!Anyway he washed the whole gaddoam thing off, but I could still smell it. "its still smlleing yucky"..I complained.."I know !" he smiled".."it will be there for a cpl more days"!! Bastard! smiling at my fate!!! I thought he must me some sorta sadist who took pride in the fact tht he is going to mk all guys so replusive to things in the world, living or otherwise... n thn he will be the last standing male on this earth who is not stinking and he will be made the King of the clean world! "Sir we offer many other services. Would u like to pick a package? A facial maybe! with pure hearbal extracts. Spots, pimples, dark circles under the eye..everythign will be gone Sir! I will give a massage as well!!! " ..i was boiling...."Look here pal, I came to this stupid place with the stupid idea of getting my stupid hair straightened!! u jst shut the fuck up and do what ur asked for!!!".....No this is not what I said..this is what I thought while going back I shd hv told himm...wht I DID manage to blurt out was.."err..some other time maybe".. SOME OTHER TIME!!! wht ru? insane!!!

Anyway, I was of th opinion that the ordeal was over when he brought out a small iron box! Well! wht the hell. This has to be the weirdest day of my life..He is goign to IROn my hair!! i had lost all courage by thn. Do wht u want pal I said..jst be done! And after tht came the big one! He brought before me some conditioner ( agn with arabic crap all over it). "Sir this is a impppoted conditioner... for damaged, treated hair..it is a must sir..will cost u only 200 Rs more"..wht the hell i thought..despatare to get the smell outta my hair, i capitulated. he put tht arabic goo all over the head agn and for my gr8 relief washed it in no time." There ur sir! he told me holding the mirror behind my back. Given tht I had not worn my glasses, it made a weired picture and I quickly added tht it was puurfect!" I was ready to pay him and mak a quick getaway when it dawned upon me tht the whol cost had some to one grand!!!! damn..for a whole year I was feeling clever that I had saved 300 bucks not goign tot he saloon n there it was !! 1K blown over in 2 hrs! I had never dreamt tht I will be ever paying in a saloon with my card! Anyway paid the whole amount and then asked for the conditioner. The guy looked confused. "wht conditioner, Sir". I pointed it to the bottle on the table and he replied "yes sir, I applied tht, didnt i?" ..thn it hit me! like a rock! he wasnt selling me the bottle! He had charged me 200 bucks alone for jst putting tht shit on my head for 2 mins!!!!!!!!! Never in my whole life haid I felt so STUPID!!!! I walked out, 1k poorer, emenating a horrible stench, with trashed male ego and ah yes, straigher hair!!!

Mah all time fav poem!

Invictus

by William Ernest Henley; 1849-1903

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the Pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate;

I am the captain of my soul.

Trivia: this was the last words of the Oklahoma bomber, Timothy McVein before his execution. What a travesty!

Floyd to the rescue!

"This is a high priority issue. The deadloack in the database is occuring repeatedly. If this continues we might end up losing the contract. What we can address right now............."

I'm staring hard into my monitor... Can hear the buzz of the processor...Or is it in my head? Someones mobile jars out a sad version of "Bin Tere Sanam"... I look around. Blank faces are relfected on screens all over. I hate this AC ..makes me feel ..unreal. I want to hear something pleasant, something real...like the rustle of the leaves being carassed by the evening wind, I want to listen to the water as it dances through the rocks, I want to listen to the woodpecker on the tree....I want to ...........I hear only the keys being thumped on the keyboard....

"We are moving from a shared delivery model to a shared task model. It is being tried out for the first time in Porting Factory. This model will increase the visibilty of the contributors and is going to facilitate cross technology exposure and most importantly......................"

I am beginning to get restless. I try to sit eract in my chair, with the back fully rested against the support...but thn I see more cubicles and more screens and I get more depressed..so I decide to sink into my chair...I shd go so low that anyone seing the chair from behing should not be able to mk out tht someone is actually sitting there...but agn, tht would add to my already sinking feeling...Man! I cant take it anymore.....I need an outlet!

"To reiterate what we had discussed in our last meeting, the project plan would be rescheduled to fit the new developments. This would have an impact on the regular deiverables. This extra effort will be billed as per the ICA guidelines and then......."

Gimmie a .45 ! quick! I wont aim! randomly I will shoot! at anything, anybody, anywhere..in the cubes, in the lobby, the lift, the canteen....Hollen Collfied I am with u. Lezz kill all these fucking morons.!!Let the blood spurt...on the walls, on the screen, on these stupid self help posters! Lezz end this farce! lezz get real....lezz ......

and thn I remember Floyd....aaaah yes, Floyd.....Floyd always has the solution. So, I put on my headphones.....and gradually fade into oblivion..........

There is no pain, you are receding.
A distant ship’s smoke on the horizon.
You are only coming through in waves.
Your lips move but I can’t hear what you’re sayin’.
When I was a child I had a fever.
My hands felt just like two balloons.
Now I got that feeling once again.
I can’t explain, you would not understand.
This is not how I am.
I have become comfortably numb............................

Just another day in paradise!

Yesterday, I woke up with my blood boiling. The previous week had played host to a series of events which questioned my worth in many different things. So I decided "THATS IT! No more will I be a loser, No more a wimp, No more a pushover, No more a non entity! No more will I be told wht to do! Yes Sir! Meet the new, confident, succesful me!"

I wanted to enjoy the morning with the paper and a hot cuppa coffee. So , I dragged myself outta bed and asked my mom for raison d' tere. What I got in return was a cold sneer and a lpiece of her mind as it was already 9 in the morning and she was all set to go to college. Left with no other option , I had to enter the kitchen to do the honours myself. Well, there are lotsa stories which revolve round my dexterity but lets jst agree to the point that when it comes to do anything with the hands I am quite a sight to watch. So I started with making it, the I nudged the cup by mistake and the milk was all over the place....and thn it started "look at u...24 ys old and cant mk a cup of coffee...At ur age I was married and running the house...i had cleanedup the whole palce..and u hv messed it up totally....blah blah blah "

And thn it was my dad's turn. I was in a training some time ago and was not in office for a whole week. And for my great luck, tht was the time when the Payables team here in office had sent a mail asking the everyone to delcare their savings investments. I missed tht window and there I was standing with a sheepish grin on my face in front of my dad when he asked me about it. "You hv absolutely no responibility!! When the rest of the comapany has done it why not u? U shd hv talked to those ppl later. In the 30 ys career I have never missed a single filing. Look at you, jst in ur third year and ......nowadays youngsters hv no value for money...blah blah blah".

Well nxt stop, office! My TL was keeping quite busy and asked me to prepare the weekly status report. Our team is getting all ready to fly to Germany agn and every one was running up and down the whole of last week behind the travel desk guys. So, literally there was very little work done. I wondered for a long time wht to put in the report..there was absolutely nothing!!! So , i deleted lot of the earlier tables and fields and made some very general statements here n there and mailed it to him. And thn in aminute he pinged me back. "Sandeep can I have a word with you?"..and so the tirade continued.." I understand that there are no points to be listed under the action items column, but tht shd not stop us from projecting that we r putting in productive 8 hrs everyday. As a services comapany, we need to be in constant touch with the customer and add value to his business ventures. Its going to be very difficult for you if u continue with this attitude whn ur a manager. See, such things no one is going to teach u in any business school..these are nuances u learn only after working as a manager. A weekly status report should talk about what the action items of the last week were, wht targets we met this week, thier deliverrables and what we plan to finish by when in the coming time. If there are any dependacies or bottlenecks we list them in the order of the decendinding priority and blah blah blah"


And thn finally I went to play badminton in the evening, the only real joy in for me in the whole day. I was a busy last week for me and I could not play a single day. So, I was a bit rusty in the first cpl of games with a lot of shots not going where I intended thm to go. I was playing with this lady as a partner yesterday and I shd say tht she is not among those players who sill set the court on fire with her game evn after some 50 yrs of playing!! Anyway, ppl who hv played with me will know tht my game is very suicidal. I always go for high risk, high difficulty shots , kinda like Marat Safin! If it comes off, it looks spectacular, but most of the times it doesnt!! and I end up looking very silly missing lollipops, hitting a drop shot which doesnt evn travel half my court!!! So, with the combination of high risk shots and my long absence from the court, I as in peak form yesterday in the court. Even if myooponests had tried theri hardest, they couldnt hv lost. So, our lady here got irritated topaly with an idiot like me and of all teh ppl in the courr she started advising me "look, dont go for drop shots every time..if the cock is lobbed up in the serve go to the net and smash it..blah blah blah"....


At the end of the day , I thought "aah, who am I kidding", recalled a CAlvin strip and went to bed with a smile.

Rock-shasa Reloaded

Hello pheephul..... Encouraged by the high levels of joblessness at office, occurrences of interesting events and in pursuit of the eternal quest of clearing the mess upstairs, I have decided to start blogging again. If u r down ,sad, depressed, frustrated and pissed off with life, visit http://rock-shasa.blogspot.com/ . No, its not going to solve ur problems, but it might make u feel better, whn u see tht someone else has had a worse day!

Cheers
Sandy

Current mood: Excited