Rains in Kolkata...rains in Bangalore...

Here i am in abhijit, hari, anand's place with no work. Enjoying a leisurely Saturday evening. Abhijit is getting ready to attend his friends reception. Hari went and Anand has left to repair Anand's bike (For the inquisitive, who is asking the obvious question of why Hari had to go with Anand to repair a bike; Anand and Hari are inseparable brothers, Anand does not go any where[other than his office and washroom] without Hari).

And here i am scribbling thoughts. Let me come to the topic. Before I start with the 'bakar', let me say that when Hari was leaving, I asked him for a topic, on which I can write something and this is what he told me. 'Rains in Kolkata...rains in Bangalore...'. And me being the talented guy I am i knew i can write something at least on this, somehow I'll connect this with some gyan and will make a happy ending also.

Blessed be the Lazy, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven...

I think being lazy is good. As most of the problems that we face today are because of over enthusiastic active people. Had the Megasthenes’, Vasco Da Gama’s and Columbus’s stayed at home we would have had a much better society today. Watched Helena Norberg’s Ecomomics of Happiness some days back. For the last few days I was thus observing how consumerism has taken over our mind, soul and body. And what I saw and realized out of observation and self-realization was quite alarming.

Helena Norberg-Hodge (hereby referred as HNH) made her case as she demonstrated how globalization is actually disrupting the carefully grafted local communities, cultures and traditions which has developed over some thousands and millions of years. She demonstrates how the so called messiah called ‘Globalization’, who was supposed to be the panacea of society’s ailments has actually increased manifold the problems of poverty, communalism and other social evils. Most of our society’s problems are because of causes which were sown in the last century with the advent of mass production, industrial revolution, globalization and the mad drive to promote consumerism.

The Selfish Giant by Oscar Wilde.

There was this giant who had a big garden. Many children came to the garden to play. The giant was very selfish and wanted to keep all the beauty of the garden to himself, so he shooed the children away. Till then the garden which was always filled with children’s laughter and joy became empty. All the plants started dying off. In all other gardens there was blossom but in the giant’s garden there was winter always. The giant wondered what had happened to his garden. One day through a hole in the garden some children came in and seeing them and their joy and laughter all the plants and trees also came back to life and started blossoming. The giant saw all this from his window and understood how selfish he has been and from then on he also started playing with the kids.

“What is wrong with her,” whispered Rajib in my ear, “why is she telling us these cute stories all of a sudden?”

“Class. We are going to enact this play for our annual function this year. And all of you are in the play. I want you all to participate and we’ll all have a lot of fun! Right boys?” said our Bengali teacher with a lot of enthusiasm. We did not share the enthusiasm. I looked at Rajib with bored eyes and returned me back the same look.

The curious case of Forgetfulness

I keep forgetting. I have always had this habit of forgetting very obvious things about life. On the other hand I also had this uncanny and surely weird habit of remembering some genuinely minute detail of some objects/events/persons. People usually attribute these eccentricities of people to their genes. And I can proudly say that this is one thing that I have inherited ditto from my parents. And I have already beaten them hands down in the game of forgetfulness. Because I took it to levels which they can never imagine.

In early childhood, I had a story in Bengali literature book of mine, which had mention of a very forgetful person. According to the story, this person had once gone out with an umbrella in the monsoon. He came back and instead of putting the umbrella in the corner of the room, he himself stood at the corner of the room and put the umbrella on the bed to rest.

Well the story sounded very stupidly funny at that point of time but it feels like a genuine possibility some time in my life. You must be wondering by now why I am being so hyper about forgetfulness and what disaster i have been through recently and stuff. For all of you just one request, please read on and all your questions would be answered.

The beautiful business of the Auto.

From Infosys campus, Hyderabad, to a place called Kondapur is Rs 32 by meter. The autowallah stuffs in 5 people in his shack of a vehicle and charges Rs 15 per head for the distance. That is a profit of 134% over and above the stipulated profit included in the meter fare.

Let’s delve down a bit deeper.

Typical mileage for an Indian-made auto rickshaw is around 35 kilometers per liter of petrol.

Kondapur is a distance of 3km from Infosys.

Therefore in 1 litre, the auto makes around 5 up down trips to kondapur.

Thus, for 5 trips,

Cost: Rs 70.

Revenue: 75*10=750.

Profit: Rs 680.

Assumptions: 1) auto driver enjoys life and does not make more that 5 up down trips.

                            2) His vehicle needs a maintenance of Rs 30 everyday.

                            3) He does not work for more than 20 days in a month.

His monthly take home is Rs. 13000. Considering that he did not go to engineering college he has saved some 2-3 lac Rupees with which he can buy another 2 autos and rent it out to a driver. If he keeps 50% of earning for himself then he earns Rs 13000 for the 2 autos. Considering he did not also go to MBA college, he had saved another 7-8 lacs, with which he can buy another 5 autos which gives him another Rs. 37500.

Thus at the age of 23-24, he can easily earn Rs. 63500 per month.

I am 28 and an MBA, and I am feeling like an utter fool. This calculation cannot be true. Where did I go wrong in the logic? Wait till I find it and come back.

Shit, this cannot be true!!

That day when I flirted with poetry...

A Hypothitical Situation
Place: Hypothepur.
Location: Campus of a college, Room in 6th floor, 2nd bench.
Weather: cloudy, stormy wind, drizzle is on.
Situation: A class is in progress. The protagonist dozes of. His friend in the next seat pokes and wake him up. He wracks his brain for methods to keep awake. He picks up his pen and poetry flows out like water flows through a hilly cascade in full monsoon.

.....

Bald head with
a beard on the chin,
A little more fat
and he'd be Alladin's Jin.
Have you seen Dufus
of that show "Duck Tales"?
Dufus is now talking
about how services sells.
There he is lost again,
out of the window he stares,
Then he dances, makes faces
and strangely glares.
Voila!!Raman wakes up
and asks a question,
Is it a question? A Statement?
We wonder in vain.
Sir has no clue either,
about the question or the answer,
He says something, raman nods his head,
it's all a blur.
Singapore Girl, Ramdev Baba...
I really do not care,
The class goes on like
a boring nightmare.
He checks his laptop
making last of his points,
Everything seems blurry
like after 4-5 joints.
I so want to go
and dive into my bed,
Sleep in peace with
all tension out of my head.

*Resemblence with any real life character or situation is purely coincidental.

LA DON BOSCO LIGA

Don Bosco School, Liluah, Virtus et Labor, Mrs Maiti's Disciple 1st, Discpline 2nd, Discilpline 3rd...they form some of my most cherished memories. No, i don't remember my first day in school, but one thing i do remember is that i did not cry, i was actualy very excited. Dad took me to a smiling, bearded old man,'This is chacha, and everyday u are to take his bus to school and return to him after the classes.'


My uncle, borda for me, used to take me to the bus stop on his cycle (this continued till my 10th class). From there chacha's bus to school. School was from 9 to 2:30PM. And school was fun.

Today I am only left with some scattered memories of primary school. Actually our primary school and a major part of high school revolved around football. We played football all the time. In the morning we got some free time before classes started, then there was the small tiffin(15 min break after the 1st 3 classes), big tiffin(about 50 min break after 5th period), and another half an hour before senior school got over. We filled these free time with lots of football. We played with small rubber balls, balls that were actually made for cricket. Sometimes even tennis balls. In senior section it was on very rare ocaasions that we actually played with the object that is actually globally known as a football.

We had two almost fixed teams. The main players of the opposite team were Tanmay and sinchan. Whereas our team had Rakesh, Arindam, Rahul and me as the main players. Other players used to come and go. These were tales of primary school. In high school, all of our students got jumbled up in sections. And these best friends of mine became a bit scattered. Rahul and me were great buddies in primary school. We shared a great understandin in the field also. Same with rakesh and arindam. High school saw new friends coming in. And old friends drifting apart.

Slowly the warring football teams evolved into a bengali and a non bengali team. Almost always, the bengali team was much stonger the nonbengali faction. And we had to lend them players to maintain a balance. As a rule we always won.

We had a strange custom in our football. Let me elaborate on the bell stucture of our school. Big tiffin ended with a bell. About 5-10 min after that bell was another bell by which we were all supposed to be in our respective lines in the assmbly hall. If you are still found to be loitering, dire consequences await you. So coming back to football. As soon as the first bell was rung, football transformed to rugby. The person who had possesion of the ball in his foot used to pick it up in his hand and made a mad rush towards the opponent goal. And it was then that anarchy used to break loose. Torn buttons, shirts, sleeves were commonplace occurances during the rugby period. Thankfully this rugby lasted for only 3-4 mins, because we all had to return to assembly hall by the 2nd bell.

We had great moments and great plyers in our league. Rajib, Santaneel, Ritwik, Subhayu, Abhishek, were other stars that our league was proud of. Rajib was famous for his 'Gola' shot. That was a directionless, meaningless yet immensely powerful shot. The diretion of the shot depended on the direction he was facing when he recieved the ball. If he was facing the side line, he would hit it towards the side line. If he is facing his own goal he hit it towards his own goal. And he used to hit it with so much power that it was actually like a canon ball. Hence 'Gola'.

Arko and Soumabho were famous for thier bull like tussle. Both of them were huge. And invariably, both were placed on opposite sides. When they came face to face, the ball was lost somewhere and they were left wrestling each other like two sumo wrestlers or like two african bisons.

Ritwik used to run like a bull. You give the ball to him and he used to dart through the field like an angry bull. He was always as straight as a dart.

Subhayu broke his leg sometime in between. In the later stages of his healing process he used to walk around our goal with that plaster in his leg and any stiker from the opponent knew that they may as well have thier leg broken if they get a kick from Subhayu. The safest defender our team ever had.

Subhayu once hit the ball very hard and it landed perfectly on the head of some faculty of the technical section. It had definitly hurt. He pocketed the ball and waited for the culprit to come forward. A ball those days used to cost 2 rs. But even that was a luxury for us. after a lot of pocket hunting we realised that the whole team did not have a cumulative amount of 2 rs. And we sent Subhayu to face the noise. And he did go to that sir. And came back with a solid print of a hand over his cheek. He was bhagat singh imporsonated for us.

Kuntal was the mudmaster. He was a average player in ordinary. But he rose to extraordinary echeleons of football as soon as it rained. He was a wizard with the ball in the mud. He slided and slizzled past hapless and apprehensive defenders to safely deposit the ball in oppenents net. He was the MVP during the monsoon.

In monsoon most of the times we used to play in the assembly hall. However this was not allowed. Balls often drifetd in to the technical section and was gone for ever. On quite a few occasions people were caught and punished. Me? Well, i was a 100m sprint specialist.

Football was what we went to school for, atleast till ninth grade. Actually after all this football, the fittest of us became extremely tired. This showed during tutions and homework. As board exam neared,parental pressure increased, chaos increased in life. And hardened footballers slowly started to lessen their zeal in the field.

I too took sanyas dring my +2. I plyaed on rare occasions. But the madness remained. Football had crept in our veins. Whenever i see a field i feel like jumping in. Whenever i see people playing football in that field i stare at them, till they move out of sight. Football still causes viens to become excited. It still causes the adrenaline to rush. Today, my legs shout with protest and plagues me with muscle pull, strain and stuff whenevr i become ambitious enough to step in to the field. But memories of that time of 'soccer all day' never fails to bring a smile in my face and cheer in my heart.

I wish we could take the field once again, one more time and see to the end of that non bengali team, or that team of sinchan and tanmoy, once and for all... What say rakesh, rajib, arindam, sourav, subhayu, santaneel, ritwik....What say guys???

(If all of you were in our team then who hell was in thiers????)

Hyderabad Blues....

This one is called . . THE BIG BANG...

Yes that was his ambition. To become an astronomer. In his early days, the sky fascinated him. So, in moral science class as his teacher asked, what do you want to become when you grow up? He said, "I want to be an astronomer." Sounds boring. Sounded interesting to him then.....


Well as fate would have it, he turned out to be a short, fat, mechanical engineer, who converted to software industry. Sounds even boring?? Well it really was.... :(

It is 6 'o' Clock at hyderabad now. And the hero of our story is waiting for completion of the mandatory 9.15 hrs in office. He minimises the window, stares at the desktop for sometime. Nope, hopeless even the scecnic beauty of the himalayas fails to motivate our hero to work some more. He gives a cursory glance towards the bottom rght corner of the screen and does the calcualation that he has been doing every 2 min now, frm 5:30 pm.

Another 1 hr has to be spent..then he can go back home. Lie down embrace the only lover he has, close his eyes and relax for some time. He would mumble all his days woes. But for his chivalrous character he would have even shed some tears embracing his lover. He simply loved his pillow, the only lover in the world our hero has at present. :'( ..

The article he was reading mentioned that every now and then, you should try to focus your eyes at the farthest object that you can see from your cubicle.....Just to reduce strain in your eyes...strain that is generated when you stare at you monitor for a long time...

The farthest thing??!! Can he see the sky from his cubicle?? he never noticed or tried...he suddenly wanted to see those varied constellations that he once searched in the night sky....ursa major, minor, andromeda, hydra.......when was the last time he looked at the night sky for those???He could'nt remember...He suddenly smiled, laughed at himself.....the farthest he could see was the HR's cubicle, yup his PM's cubicle was also visible......The Sky.....nowhere in sight..........

ATHOS, PATHOS AND CHAOS
eWork - no works. That’s how my project is known among onsite folks. What is eWorks? Well it is a cluster of 7 applications which are used for tracking various marketing needs in . (This is how I introduced my project in front of the client during their recent visit to Hyderabad).


- What is work that u do from here?

- We maintain and support these 7 applications. Add new functionalities to the already existing applications in the form of change requests, handle several data issues, and take care of tickets that the actual users raise when they face any problems while working with the applicarions.

What followed was a twist of the lips and nod of the head.

- Great said todd. Keep up the good work. We depend on you people. A forced smile and then they move on to the next cubicle.

Big deal!! They go back home with remembrance of several brown girls in salwar kameez and even more blurry brown faces of over enthusiastic, smartly dressed guys who talk in a funny English accent about God knows what….But they love India, Poor hungry India. Incredible India!

That was my fifteenth, in a row. A big wide one, bringing tears to my eyes. The yawns are going beyond my control. Tears are now flowing down in a steady stream from my eyes. Suneela notices that.

- Why are u crying? What is wrong? She is epitome of concern and care.

Rajeshwar, rajesjwari every pounces on me with interest.

- i am sad, says i.

- Do not joke, since u have come back from home, u have become quite, u do not speak so much, and now u are crying. What is wrong?

- i bbbbroke up with my gg ggg girlfriend...i cannot control myself anymore..i break down..sob sob...

Show is over. People go back to staring at their respective monitors while the restless hands plays on the hapless keyboard.

The startling green of the Khajjier valley stare at me from my desktop. There was a light drizzle. Annie stayed back in the car. The great boss(a frnd) lingered through the pine his lower back imitating a pendulum in action. The umbrella looking teenie compared to his humungous physique. Borda, sourav,

me ventured into the wet meadow. A little appehensive of the tricky mood of the many roaming horses.

Sourav unleased is always a treat to watch. He was dancing and jumping in the rain, borda always edging him on, reminding me of mera naam joker. I the quintessential photographer, was ever alert of the crazy antics of sourav and borda, to capture them in my camera.

It was fun, dancing around in the rain, barely using our umbrellas. Mountains have their own serene, mystic beauty in the monsoons. The huge moutains playing hide and seek with the clouds, creates an eerie atmosphere.

A cup falls and breaks somewhere in the floor. Some people clap and rejoice at the destruction. The species who can rejoice at destruction. We all rejoice at destruction. Not only Taliban or Al Quaeda. Some rejoice when their worst enemy gets destroyed in that football match against that some XYZ team, some are more sadistic and rejoice when they could successfully decimate some foriegn captives. Animals are much simpler. They only know love or hate. They do not know to disguise love with hate or hate with love.

My desktop again stares back at me. Almost with a sarcastic laugh. It's the laugh which the girl gives to her endless list of lovers, who know she'll never be their's. Khajjier mocks me. Tells me. O u pseudo adventurer..that is all u will ever have of me. An hour of ur life u have spend in admiration on my meadows. u have admired my grass, my mountains and how those clouds flirt with me. Then u capture me in a camera. Sit in that sophisticated cage of ur s. And u think of me. If u like me so much, then come to me...profess u r love for me..and stay close to me..and i'lll show u that i can also love u back. I may not be the brainy, self rightous species u r. But i have my ways..I can make u happy...come to me..if happiness is all u want.....

'Something is really wrong with this guy...now he is blankly staring at his desktop'

Fanning to glory.....

Lately, I was finding myself wihout any topic to write about. And when I had a good topic to write about, I had nothing to write about, about that topic. Sounds psycho?? Well, can't help it.
I decided to look around me, pick up the 1st thing that catches my attention and start writing about it. Let's see.
Hmmm..there is one very interesting subject. The brown Fan. No can't see the brand from here. But there she stands still and proud and looking down upon us. There are two of them in my room. Yes, both are similar. Identical twins.
This is a species which is always sitting above our heads. I bet they think that they have higher status than the other types of fans like the pedestal fans, the hand held fans, or the small portable pocket fans. Cieling fans are like sitting on that high pedestal above all other types of fans.
What do they do? They rotate. And by that they manipulate Pavan Dev to human benefit. These faithful Pavan manipulators are quite man's best friends during the summers. They had a 100% share of mind and share of heart till those silent killers called ACs started taking over the human mind. But whatever substitute you build, they all has some variety of the fan in some form or the other, embedded in them.
They rotate in all their glory and gives heavenly pleasure to the protagonist who comes to its patronage drenched in his sweat and misery. The humans get ecstatic with pleasure as that soft/hard burst of wind(depending on the speed set in the regulator) carresses them with thier careful touch. Where else can you actually regulate the amount of pleasure you would want to have? Regulator zindabad.
The sun rotates, the earth rotates, the fan also rotates. The earth rotated and the humans survived. Then came global warming. Then the fan rotated and humans kept on surviving. They wait inside the closed boundary of walls, wait patiently like like an ideal housewife for the tired human to come home and take some moments to solace under your patronage. They only operate to give humans some pleasure. Otherwise they are a silent spectator of the great play called life going on all around them.
They see so much drama, chaos, all taking place right below their eyes, and yet they keep silent. They only move when the same human asks for some breath of solace and pleasure. And them it rotates, rotates with all its force, trying her level best to comfort the human below.
Keep rotating in all your glory, you enigmatic rotating, Pavan manipulator. Ms Fan we are all your fans.

Still in pursuit of happiness...

It was dusk, the sky was clear, our solitary protagonist was brooding...the master brooder as he always is...

All I wanted to be was happpy...and all i wanted from people around me was that they also remain happy...i wanted them to like me, i wanted everyone of us to be happy, so that we can all enjoy whatever time we spent together with lot of joy and merrymaking…
What do I want from life?? I want to be happy …and how I plan to do that I have no idea..some people say you must have a knack for something, find that something out and do that. You will be happy..…but what if I never find out what I am good at…….when I was a kid, primary section, I wanted to be an astronaut. In secondary school, I wanted to be a professional musician. At the same time I also wanted to be a professional footballer.
I guess that was the last time, in high school, that I nurtured some serious ambition.
However I became something pretty different.
I turned out to be an engineer. Then I went on to work for an entirely different sector. And now I am studying business management. Marketing.
Where will I stop? What will I end up being? I have no idea.
There are people, friends, acquaintances, who are so focused about where to go and what to do with their life. Sometimes I envy them for the certainty they associate with themselves. For the focus they have towards any particular goal. However, sometimes I pity them. It’s no fun reading a novel if you know what is going to happen in the last chapter.
I have lived and accepted my life as it comes. Every day has been a new, exiting game for me. There are challenges all over the way. Sometimes you solve them right, sometimes you are dead wrong, and it is then that you analyze and find out for yourself what the ideal answer should have been and apply it on the next occasion you get.
I guess it is okay if you are not sure about what you can do. That can have two explanations. Either you are good at nothing or you are good at everything. May be I am an allrouder who can do anything that is given to him(there are 2 things which I know I cannot do:1 – dancing, 2 – playing carom). Only time can tell. Till then let’s enjoy life as it comes….majja nu life..

Walking back to the future....

"Always tell to yourself, if I can't then who can. Afterwards be humble enough to say, if I can then who can't"-Anonymous.


I quote the first part of the quote to myself everyday. That happens to be purely my personal way to motivate myself. The first month was off, even before I had time to comprehend its arrival. I had been wallowing away in my 'home sweet home' for a month, after tendering my resignation another month before. Well, I wanted to work till the last day, but somehow my manager seemed very relieved the day I announced my intention to resign. And due to some sinister reason he released me a month earlier than what I expected. Recession I guess.


Anyways, the pace of the MBA course gave me a sudden jolt. We were expected to be studying 13 subjects all in one go. In engineering we had 6 subjects/semester. Somehow I could never remember the names of even those six. And now I had 13 to remember. The number 13 scared me.It reminded me of friday the 13th. It's the unlucky number. The teachers scared me. Surprise tests and all. My peers scared me. They seemed to know everything under the blue sky. It was amazing how every week we had classes of 13 different subjects. So much of knowledge was continously being bestowed on my hapless self that I always felt six feet under a stack of incomprehensive information. I felt as if I was in the open seas in a derelict canoe facing 13 tsunamis coming towards me.


I guess 3 years of smug life in a cubicle had made me too comfortable. Because within 2 months I found that it was not all that scary after all. The people around me were human too. A bit of smart time and resource management was all that was required. Well it happens to be a fact that there seemed to be lots tornados and eartquakes waiting for us during the next two years. But all that was needed was some sincere hard work. After all, as Thomas Alva Edison once said,“Genius is 1% inspiration, and 99% perspiration".


B-School life is all about living life to the fullest. There is hard work; along side there is lots and lots of fun. College life just for another 2 years! Couldn’t be better. In a span of around one and half month, we had had outbound trips, cultural fest cum competition (our very own AARAMBH), classical music programs, rock shows, extempore competetions, the list is already quite big.


It is all about enjoying whatever you are doing and doing whatever you enjoy. Umpteen number of activities is always going around in a B-School. It is all about getting involved and bringing out the best in you. B Schools are said to be grooming ground for budding managers. Yes, that is the ultimate goal, but the bottomline is to groom yourself. To find out what you are really good at, if you have'nt done that already, because more often than not, this is the last platform you will ever get to experiment with yourself. This is the ground to plant the seeds of ambition, bestow upon them the water of innovation, groom them with sincere determination so that the budding managers can bloom with grandiose. It is time to try out something that you have never tried out before. And always tell yourself if I can't then who can.

In Pursuit of happiness…

It was as if that the castle of my heart has been all morose because of her absence. Then there was news that she was coming back. And then she came, with all her grace, with that charming gait, stunning everyone around her with her quintessential beauty.
“She’ll be coming round the mountains when she comes,
She’ll be riding six white horses when she comes.
Yippeee yi yi yippee yippee yi”
Everyone rejoices at her arrival. The trees salute her with greener leaves. The clouds, her guardian angels, always roam around to keep her safe and sound.
Monsoon has come!!
The sudden squeak of the microphone breaks my flow of thought. I came back to the harsh reality. The reality of competition, the rat race for jobs, MBA, entrepreneurship, Capital Markets, statistics and bitter ugly rivalry in all spheres of life. There is no time to sit and brood about the beauty of nature. Everyone is running. People are running towards some unknown invisible magnetic force whose nature nobody knows. Some say they are running in pursuit of happiness. Some are running for recognition, fame, money. But at the end of the day all someone wants to be is happy. So it would be fair to assume that we are running after happiness. But at the end of the day are we happy? This entire saga of struggle, the study, the competition, the sleepless nights does it all make us happy?
I do not know.
Yes, we are happy when we achieve something. But sometimes I think that it would be so much better if I could leave everything and settle in some small village, with a river nearby. If I could watch sunset sitting beside the river with no worries in my mind.
But reality does not let us paint such a romantic picture. Reality has mosquitoes which tend to come and scare of people who would be watching sunset beside the river.
“Let’s take 10 mins break and then we’ll resume with the subsequent portion.”
People scurry out of the class. Some hurry to the loo, some to grab a coffee to help him combat the torturous boredom of the class. I wait. Wait and watch those incessant drops of rain coming down from the heavens. Yes even the heavens are crying on the sad plight of the human race. The race that had advanced so much, that they have forgotten that the basic right of all beings is the right to be happy. The dark clouds roam about menacingly over our head posing. A harbinger of some great calamity. A possible check to the humans who are becoming menacing to the earth’s existence itself. The heavens keep on crying on man’s plight, on the sad state of God’s favorite creation.