The Open Book_

My dear Madras.

2011-09-19T22:53:00.000+05:30

Change is good, but not so good. Our lives are merely an unending sequence of uncontrollable changes silently unfolding before our eyes when we were busy continually trying to control the change or change the control. At times, the most comforting thing in the world is to see something and think, "Ha! Things have not changed and I don't have to do anything about it". That forlorn feeling, that forgotten connection, that unbreakable thread, that unmistakable connection between your life that was and the life that is, is sufficient to take you mentally back all those years and force a grin on your face even if you are skipping lunch and working late on an eventually inconsequential task.

One of my friends used to say long time back, "You don't like Madras. You either love it or not". True that. Beyond the madness and the rush, the city does exude a very subtle romance that is felt only by someone who is in love with it. This city still has so many things intact that can make me harp on and on about it.

Dear Madras, you have grown bigger than I had known, you may have become sufficiently cosmopolitan, auto drivers may have started to talk Hindi, mini skirts may no longer be applicable to the '5-12 ages' group, multinational companies may call you their home, those multinationals may also install Italian coffee machines in their pantries, but, they can't change you! Only in Chennai will you see this.

Let the Cappuccinos and the Lattes enjoy the pleasurable company of a quintessential South Indian Coffee-Strong. Let them go back to the world and narrate how awesome the South Indian Coffee-Strong feels, especially to someone who calls Madras a home and is struggling to find foot in his life! Love you, my dear Madras.

Cheers!

Kuzhappam (Confusion)

2011-03-14T22:54:00.001+05:30

I am in Chennai! I AM IN CHENNAI! I am in Chennai! It is has been a few weeks since I landed in Chennai but have been busy. Seriously. Life is good and I don't know what else to say. On this blog, what better way to celebrate my recent relocation to Sambhar land other than restarting the forgotten series on Tamil serials? Here we go, this post is on the most important aspect on which the Tamil serial rides, confusion. You might not have noticed the kind of confusion I am talking about. It needs some guts made of steel and some Himalayan patience to sit through several consecutive episodes, take notes, and then make sense of them! Please remember that I have been through some life threatening circumstances when I was observing that monster from close quarters with a notepad and pen in hand. Appreciate it...

There is A. There is B. A is married to B. A has three siblings - C, D and E. B has two siblings - F and G. C, D, E, F and G are assigned random genders but it helps to be have a majority of females. Since A is married to B, it is a high probability that F is married to D! C is married to H, an outsider to the original family. G is most probably a male and is currently unmarried. A and B have a couple of kids, I and J. D and F also have a couple of kids, K, L and M. G is in love with J and she knows that. Their families have agreed to that. But K is elder to J and she wants to marry G.

I is the most undereducated in the family and he married someone, N, commensurate to his status and they have a kid O. Then there is this guy, P, who is sincerely in love with J and she knows that. P also has absolutely no chance of landing J, and she knows that as well but doesn't seem to do anything about that! 99% of the time P has a really sick and slowly dying mother, Q.

L and R are sincerely in love with each other. As if one more twist is required in this story, S wants to desperately marry L and her brother T wants his sister M. Needless to mention, R is excruciatingly poor and S is outrageously rich. L has a group of friends - U and V. V also loves R, in spite of knowing that she loves his friend L.U know it, but deems it absolutely unnecessary to discuss this trivial issue with L. R has a step mother W, who is always plotting her downfall, and a step sister X, who empathizes with R and goes against W. I don't know where, but somewhere in the middle of things there are two antisocial elements, Y and Z, trying to kill someone or the other. Somehow, just somehow, they always fail to do their job and are promptly excused every SINGLE time.

Now you would want to know why R has a step mother and what happened to her father. But as you may have noticed, I have run out of the English alphabet! Probably next time I will try to rewrite this post with Tamil alphabet. I can create 247 characters that way. Now you tell me, which part of the story did you not understand?

Here is where the confusion simply explodes, the same A to Z appear in different roles every 30 minutes. Somebody's wife in this serial becomes his sister in the some other. Two guys fighting over a same girl from 6:30 to 7:00 become business partners from 7:30 to 8:00. For all the doubts I have ever asked my Mom regarding the Tamil serial, she has had a standard reply, "Adhu vera serial da". I guess all is well until she throws tea at my face. Oh yeah, enjoy the insanity until it lasts...

...thodarum

(to be contined)

P. S - All you CAT crackers, solve this family tree if you can...

An all encompassing equation of love

2011-02-01T20:44:00.001+05:30

I started this blog because I wanted a space to express my ideas and make fun of my life. Eventually I fell in love with writing and this blog has been alive for almost 3 years now. But, as it is well documented in this blog itself, the love has been anything but constant. Even after repeated vows to blog regularly, I disappear into periods of emptiness. There would be 3 posts in draft mode, but I won't find a single word more to write! It is technically called a Writers block, but it is basically a lack of love. Now, will the same phenomenon happen when I am in love with a person as well? I don't know. There will be days, a lot many of them, when you feel like your better half means the world to you. But, will there be days when you realize that the world is majorly made of mud, dust, pollution and non-potable water? Being the engineer that I am, I cannot resist the temptation to ask this question.

Can love also be reduced to an equation, Love (t) = fn (t, 1/t, Sin t, Cos t), with 't' being the time variable?

Don't think my idea is outrageous. If numbers are allowed to be irrational, then why not this? Just imagine the possibilities. For a start, you can differentiate the equation and figure out the slope of your love curve! You will know when your love will maximise or minimise and you can act accordingly. You can integrate the equation between two time frames and find out exactly how much you will love a given person, correct to two decimal places. How simple would setting priorities become now? Excel will help you choose between marriage and career.

It does not come without a catch though. Mathematicians have a concept called 'indeterminable'. You can have an equation describing a quantity, but you cannot determine it. Mathematicians are cool, like that. What if we figure out the equation for love and then realize love, and therefore God, is indeterminable. I would rather prefer my God to be indeterminable. How about you?

An economist would agree that reality is not always morality. Even today, scientists around the world are talking about mapping a human being's past in terms of spatial and time coordinates (x, y, z & t). Their idea is, once you can zero down on a person's past through an equation, you can extrapolate that equation to determine his future. The only major problem they are facing is that the equation determining a person's past will change with every passing second and this will affect his future in a significant way. If they can find a way around it, astrology will simply be reduced to another excel sheet circulated in forward mails. Will humans ever get there? My guess is that God will let humans reach there and immediately press the 'self destruct' button for planet Earth. There is no plausible and logical counter to this argument. Will we get there in 2012? Give me a break...

Cheers!

An e mail to God

2010-12-03T16:18:00.001+05:30

To:              God@universe.gov
Cc:              Heaven@universe.gov, Hell@universe.gov
Subject:      A humble request

Dear God

Hope this mail finds you in the best of your health and spirits!

I am told that everything happens for a reason and I could learn something worthwhile out of every painful situation. Currently, I have no idea about any of those stuff concerning my life. I request you to kindly let me know if there is something I need to know but failed to pick up.

I very well know you are not going to reply back through a comment on my blog. But now that I have told you, this becomes your problem, not mine.

Anticipating a favourable response from you.

Thanks and regards
Vasanth Kumar K
You know the crap that usually goes here after my name.

'Creative' thinking

2010-11-20T14:30:00.000+05:30

Somebody once asked me why I am generally happier than the typical happy person around. I told her (or him, I just guessed guys won't ask me such questions) that is because I am greatly amused and amazed by the ways of the world and the world never ceases to interest me. One of the main reasons I am constantly amused is because, I think, in an acceptedly slightly crazy manner. These are not thoughts that will guide the course of next generation economy or solve global warming, these are simply useless thoughts.They don't serve any tangible purpose, nevertheless they are true! When I get a surging bout of creativity (aka craziness), I try to put it down on my blog. Reason 1, it gets documented for future generations to look up. Reason 2, it causes minimum damage, as only a statistically negligible percentage of humanity will ever stumble upon my blog. Now for the craziness, I mean, creativity...

When I was useless browsing the internet (I also usefully browse the internet), I stumbled upon a profession called 'creative writer'. Instantly there was a short circuit in my gray matter. Whenever some one writes, they create something, isn't it? It could be opinions, views, critique, novels, love letters or even shopping lists. They are creating something. So by definition of the process, anyone who ever wrote anything was a creative writer, isn't it? If someone is not creating something through their writing, they must be called copywriters. But doesn't copywriter mean something else? Here I am not debating upon the usefulness of the writing. On that basis, may be we can classify them as useful and useless writers. But that is a post for another day. Now, creating content and copying from others' content are all inclusive and mutually exclusive groups. In other words, if someone isn't creating content, they are copying it and vice versa. So creative writers and copywriters can very well be used to categorize all those people who write. Then for what do we use the word 'writer'? Is it a superset? Anyone?

Quite recently, I migrated my mobile number from a prepaid account to a postpaid account. Two hours after I had submitted the application, my coworker suddenly turned towards me. With a shocked expression on his face he said, "There is a buzzing sound coming from inside your head!". Yes, the damn thing inside was thinking. Again, prepaid and postpaid are two all inclusive, mutually exclusive categories. By conventional definition or by common perception, prepaid is when you pay before you use the service and postpaid is the other way around. Consider this, when the time reads 'post meridiem', it means after meridiem right? When your coworker says we will meet 'post lunch', you meet after lunch right? You also know what post mortem and post production mean right? By means of derived conclusion, 'post paid' means after the payment has been made right? No wait, that is prepaid!

Between the world and me, one of us is definitely crazy. I am just wondering which one!

I think thoda hatke, therefore I am thoda aur happy!

Cheers!

No comments...

2010-10-27T16:37:00.000+05:30

No comments, this is what you say when you don't want to say whatever it is that you intend to say but want the listener to know what you are saying is not what you wanted to say. Alternatively, it is also what you say when you have absolutely no clue as to what you are supposed to say! Sometimes, it can be both. Sadly, this was not accepted as a valid answer to any of the questions in any of the (in)competitive exams in any phase of my life. Understandably so. Imagine a professor setting up a case study for a question paper - He googles and googles, scroughes through tons of pages in the internet, picks an esoteric case, translates it from Spanish (or Greek, or Latin, or Tamil) to English, spices it up with some numbers, (in an attempt to make it more difficult for geniuses like me to pass) draws up his own conclusions and just says, comment. In the answer sheet I write,

7. b) No comments! (fyi, this is a 15 mark question!)

I would have been long dead by now. Hey, do they have blogging in Hell? Not that I will end up in hell, I am just assuming they would have everything in Heaven (including Silk Smitha). Ah, crap! I do it again. Ever since I started this blog, I have made it a point to digress everytime I start to write. And you have been reading all these! I guess it has been a scientific art to keep this blog running and I am compelled to write a blog about it. Crap, digression again. Enough of it. Now I will get to my point. Everything you read from this point below has the breathtaking potential to miraculously waste 15 minutes of your life. Promise.

The primary purpose of this blog entry is to answer the quintessential question right at the center of the need for this blog's survival - Why don't people comment on my blog? It has become a serious concern. Let us talk numbers, take a look at the number of comments registered on my 3 latest blog posts - 8, 4, 1. Power series of 2 written backwards. Statistics would suggest the number of comments on this post would be 0.5. Seriously, God, why me?

Is it because nobody reads my blog? Couldn't be so... See, you are reading it. Gotcha! "If somebody is jobless enough to write crap, there is some-(more)-body else to enjoy reading that crap", once said Albert Einstein. Apparently that is how the Universe is designed. Promise. There are plenty of people who regularly tell me personally on gtalk that my last post was awesome. Are they cheating? Could be, they are my friends after all! I don't beleive in showing off by putting up visitor counters on my blog. I also don't believe the spelling of 'believe' is correct in the previous sentence. Obviously, it is the quality of readers that matters, not the quantity, no?

After careful, painstakingly detailled and horrendously boring analysis, I conclude Google might be the reason for the reduced comment traffic on my blog. They invented the Google reader. (No, I think they bought it from someone else, but that doesn't matter to this discussion). Everybody reads the unmatchable delivery of my hitherto unheard of intellect in their google readers and goes home. They don't come to my blog to comment. For the technically unequipped, it is similar to staying 1000 miles away from someone, calling them on phone and saying, 'I am still your boy friend!' You know, technology. Actually, I think this reason can be true. But I am not alone in this. Even the Hindu and the Times are battling to somehow get people to buy their newspapers. I just want you to leave lame comments on my blog.

From now on, if there are not enough comments on my blog, I will stop writing. Promise.

Alright... Regardless of whether you comment or not, I will write crap and you will read it. If you comment, I will write better crap. Comment and be a part of this legend of a blog. Offer valid only till stocks last. Conditions apply...

Cheers!

P.S - I know what comes to your mind after reading this blog entry. This has been conveniently titled to remind you that!

Universal wisdom from a Foreign return!

2010-10-05T10:31:00.007+05:30

I should have written this long back. But because of some I.T. issues (my laptop screwed up), this got delayed for more than a week. So here it goes, universal wisdom from a foreign return!

I am now officially a foreigh return. Malaysia-check, Singapore-check. I could also see parts of Indonesia and Thailand from the aircraft. But I guess I am not allowed to check those! All those of you who are singing, "Sorgame endralum...", in the back of your heads, blog high 5! Long long ago, so long ago, I don't remember how long ago, somebody told me life is all about learning. You have to learn from anything and everything you do. Continual learning is the key to life. So here goes my 'learning' out of this 2 week long trip. Of course, I see the world with my own little sunglasses (and contact lenses). Therefore the forthcoming might cause some digestion related troubles if not taken with adequate amounts of salt... and pepper... and chat masala!

1. If you desperately want to be flying 35000 feet above the sea level in real inclement weather, you better be flying over the blue oceans rather than the brown sands. That way you can be sure you won't trasform into a spectular ball of fire when you get closest to the ground!
2. The range of business attire for women can fill a pocket dictionary. The range of business attire for men can fill two sentences... with difficulty!
3. The number of pages in the above mentioned dictionary is growing. If you have a problem with it and you are a guy, you will be booked under sexual harrasement and thrown out of the company. If you have a problem with it and you are a girl, go have some girl talk. Leave me alone!
4. If you are a vegetarian, India is your country. Hold it, praise it, fall in love with it, don't you bloody leave it. According to some 'reliable' sources I have, even cows abroad are planning to abandon eating grass!
5. Rest of the world sees us an 'Indians' and we are expected to behave as 'Indians'. Insert your favourite sentence about unity in diversity here.
6. It might be a good idea to determine what is the 'Indian archetype' in all the walks of everyday life. For instance, if somebody asks you to write their name in Indian language, don't ask 'Which one?' Or if someone asks, 'Do you do this in India?', in all probabilities, refrain from answering, 'We do, they don't'. Ain't cool bro!
7. It is not such a great idea to come back and tell your friends back home that in KL, you discovered you were most suited to be a driver! Confused? Never mind!
8. What happens outside India, stays outside India. For instance, don't come back and tell dad that you want 3 wives because some part of the world still believes we Indians are allowed that luxury! And seriously, who told them that it is a luxury to have 3 wives?
9. Finaly, Sorgame endralum... adhu namma oora pola varuma... Yes, I had to say it!

If you have something to add, please do it in the comments section.

Cheers!

Thirai Kadhai (Screenplay)

2010-08-24T11:39:00.012+05:30

Disclaimer: Non Tams, this blog post might be similar to watching a Tam movie with English subtitles! Kindly adjust!

Metti Oli... No, don't run. It is definitely off air now, even the rerun. Metti Oli, literally transliterates to 'toe ring sound' in English. Wow, right? How the hell in this world does one listen to that, you ask? Me too, same sentiment! I would like to describe this serial like this. My mom started watching this, got enough of it, stopped watching it, started missing it, started watching it again, got enough of it again, stopped watching it again, started missing it again, started watching it AGAIN and, trust me, Devayani (Abi) was still trying to figure out whom to marry! I was like, 'Andava...! Thanni adichitu flat ayitiya...!'. Even if this were telecast in heaven, I guess our lady gods would have been glued to it. Mudiyala da sami!

On a separate note, I saw a serial in which this Vadivukkarasi aunty was speaking a in male voice! I was... well... umm... errr... Speechless!

Well yeah, the screenplay. I wonder why they even write it. Not this blog, I am talking about the screenplay. This blog occupies a truly indispensable position in today's society. When I was trying to draw a parallel to our serials' screenplay, the best I could find was running on a treadmill. You start running, you warm up, you keep running, you sweat, you get tired, you keep running, you are exhausted, ippave kanna kattudhe, you fall down, the machine throws you out and what the hell, you are still exactly where you started! So much of time, energy and effort wasted and only slight, minute, frustratingly small movement forward. These days they are taking small serial breaks in between commercial advertisements. My Mom usually says, "rendadhu break la tea potu tharen!" (I will make tea during the second break!). Just imagine, you can make tea for a family of four during a commercial break! Then there is this idhu varai, recap! A bloody brilliant contrivance to eliminate the need to write screenplay. Here is how it works, you show nothing today, then you show the same nothing again tomorrow! Dude, how much am I going to forget in one day? You know how much my boss expects me to remember? Your honor, as seen by the arguments stated above, screenplay for a Tamil serial is unnecessary and practically tough to find! Hence proved!

Having already established that screenplay is practically non-existent in our serials, we proceed to explore some integral characters that form the cogs on which the screenplay moves. Note to self - The last sentence was so awesomely confusing. Don't write again while watching Tamil serials. Despite all these distractions, our Thai kulam (noun, literal meaning - Mother clan, the versatility of this noun being that you can even use it on girls who are yet to be mothers, even your neighborhood one year old huggies sporting female toddler) somehow manages to grasp what is happening in the little screen! Lady gods' gift, probably!

The center of the universe for any serial is the protaganist also known as problem magnet. Somehow all the problems in the world seem to find their way to the problem magnet and the problem stream never dries up. It helps enormously if this character is a lady. Next important character in our serial is the eternal villain. He is the source of all the troubles that our problem magnet faces. He is entirely responsible for getting the protaganist the sympathtic votes from the audience. Even Osama Bin Laden may one day start talking about peace but this character is not going to stop creating troubles for the problem magnet, even after the serial ends, they just stop showing it on TV. It helps enormously if the eternal villain is a relative of the problem magnet. That way it is easier to create troubles and sympathy! This is where I am tempted to define the law of conservation of problems as a limiting case to Tamil serials - Problems can neither be created nor be destroyed. They can only be transferred from the villain to the protaganist. The number of problems in a Tamil serial always remains a constant. There is a considerable loss that happens when the problems are getting transferred and this loss is recreated as sympathy on the part of the audience. Eppudi?

Other than these main characters, you have this aiyo pavam (noun, meaning poor, character wise, not monetary wise) character. More often that not, this hapens to be the problem attracting protaganist. But if need be, it can also be designed as an orphaned child, drunkard brother, studious sister from a poor family etc. These characters are made to face pain for no fault of theirs, true to their category. Finally you have the all-in-all-alaguraja (noun, meaning I-know-it-all) character. These characters generally poke their nose into unnecessary issues, usually get things wrong and end up giving not at all useful advice at completely uncalled for situations! Then if you really want to complicate things and if you have enough budget, you can add any number of items from your grand Indian family tree. A typical Tamil serial would have a family tree problem so huge that you won't be able to solve it in CAT even if given the entire 2.5 hours! This way you can inadverdently prolong the serial from ice age 4 to ice age 6, without any screenplay, that is the important point.

For those of you who still have some place left for me in your hearts, the Malaria virus is off me and I am back to business in Bombay. Although I am still recuperating. But even the fact that I am in no way vulnerable to Tamil serials now is not going to stop me from continuing this series. Naan oru tharava mudivu panniten... sari venam vudu... After spending the last two weeks at home, I am convinced that I will have to do a piece of the audience as well. What an involvement they exhibit! Oh yeah, enjoy the insanity as long as it lasts!

...thodarum
(to be continued)

Kadhai (Story)

2010-08-13T19:20:00.008+05:30

Chithiiiiii (with 6 'i's).... For those acquainted enough with the Tamil silver screen, this word is a legend (for few others its a terror!). It was one of THE Tamil serials that was aired during, well, most of my schooling. Quarterly ended, half yearly ended, annually ended, even school ended but Chithiiiiii did not! Half of TN did not believe it could end. Most housewives truly believed the world would end the day Chithiiiiii ended. Such was the legend. Alas, even Dumbledore had to die, you know. You ask me about life after Chithiiiiii? Pretty much the same. Chithi illana oru chithappa, namma pozhappu adhe dhan pa! Dear non-Tam audience reading my blog, kindly condone the overwhelming Tam influence in this particular series of posts. After all, we are dealing with Tamil serials here.

Now that I am home and I am grounded, I get to watch a lot of Tamil serials. Yeah, one for each flavor! No, it has not been easy at all. So I decided to take notes and do some analysis. Note to self: Six years of school and six years of college without so much as a page of notes and now you are taking notes on Tamil serials, gosh! Anyways, getting back to my analysis, I decided to carefully deconstruct each and every aspect and demystify the esoteric obscurity called Tamil serial. In a series of ensuing posts, I am going to handle one facet of Tamil serial that is true to itself. Therefore, ladies, skip the next sentence. Gents, buckle up, we are dealing with truck loads of crap here!

The first facet we are considering here is the most indispensable part of any serial - Kadhai aka story. If stories are what movies are based on, then, logically, I am bound to think that a serial must be based on a novel, volumes of it actually! But this is where we are distancing ourselves as far away from truth as possible. A Tamil serial is generally based on stories that are one sentence long. Or should I be saying one sentence short? There exists an unwritten relationship between the longevity of a serial and the story it is based on - the longer you want the darn thing to run, the shorter the story you must be attempting! You remember in school you used to do this - once a chewing gum had lost its chew-ability, you used your hand to pull it as long as possible and then chew it back and then pull it again? Chee... Ovak... Disgusting, right? That is exactly what they do with our Tamil serial stories!

These guys are smart in one respect though. If you restrict yourself so much as to a story, you are reducing the scope of creativity! You heard it right, creativity. So our people base the serials on broader themes which are easier to twist, turn, manipulate and even start all over again. These themes are generally poignantly peaceful and completely family oriented. One would want their kids to imbibe all the portrayal and emulate them in real life. That would way the kids would have really meaningful lives. Typical Tamil serial themes include rendu pondati karan (bigamous husband), odukali pondati (run away bride, no no, run away wife), mamiyar-marumagal prechanai (saas-bahu episodes), sakkalathi sandai (bahu-bahu episodes), varumai kottuku irandu mile keezhe vazhkai (abject wretched destitution), theerpu sollum nattamai (your friendly next door chief justice of India for the village) and other such jolly good items. Things get really really hazy when these themes mix, match, metamorph, mangle and finally mutate. Are you still worried about your audience? Never mind, they never seem to care!

So much to the story and we have just seen the tip of the iceberg. We will slowly uncover and thereby discover various breathtaking facts and mannerisms of the quintessential Tamil serial as we gather more and more courage. I will also reintroduce to you one legend of a Tamil serial that ought to be remembered in the beginning of every post. More insightful and not-at-all tongue-in-cheek articles about screenplay, star cast, music and other such truly exciting facets of Tamil serials in the making. Enjoy the insanity as long as it lasts...

...thodarum
(to be continued)

The Welcome!

2010-07-28T11:53:00.015+05:30

"Welcome to Standard Chartered Bank." No, not you, me! Its for me. In case you did not know, I have joined SCB and this has been one statement I have been hearing a lot over the last two weeks. I have heard that sentence so much that now I have started reciting it in sleep and my room mate is scared of me. He doesn't want to talk to me after dinner! Although it does feel nice to be warmly welcomed into a new place, there is a fine line between adequate and overdose. Well that fine line differs from person to person, so lets not read too much into it.

Life has been so far so good, well mostly. I met a lot of new people who joined with me. Almost all of them were very interesting and great people to get along. (This sentence is only for those of the new joiners that will read this blog :P) I did all the fun stuff during induction (you know what I am talking about ;)). One thing that definitely needs mention is the pillows from the hotel we were put up. To call them heavenly is an understatement. Pity that I couldn't smuggle any out of the hotel. Pillow - too big, suitcase - too small, me - too disappointed!

Official life has otherwise been BAU. Oh yeah, we use a hell lot of abbr. ;) You know I have been filling forms, updating details, finishing learning modules, meeting people, getting confused, feeling lost and other such regular stuff. But there is one thing that definitely stood out from the e-learning modules. There was this module on HIV and one particular attribute of HIV actually inspired me. Apparently HIV does not discriminate across country, race, colour, caste, region, not even sexual orientation! It treats everyone equally. How nice! Won't it be great if everyone behaved like that. No, not like HIV, I just mean the non-discriminatory part.

One should NEVER forget that there are ALWAYS two sides to EVERY coin. The second side more often that not turns out to be a pain in the posterior. Do you know the most dangerous thing mankind ever invented after H-bomb and A-bomb? It happens to be the bloody SNOOZE button. My trysts and the resulting troubles with the snooze button can go on and on forever. Then there is this travel part. If you work in Bombay and if your office is in SoBo, then travel to work becomes a separate distinguishable part of your life. Having already dealt in detail about travel in Bomabay here and not wanting to relive the terror through my words, I am moving on to the most notorious culprit - the rains. Actually rains deserve a separate paragraph for themselves.

It has been pouring like hell outside for the last 90 minutes now and only God knows when it will stop. That was pretty much the situation over the last month and that will pretty much be the situation over the next month. Bombay's monsoons are like a lady. Please don't mistake them to be beautiful, elegant and graceful. They are actually highly unpredictable! And when rains team up with winds, they have immense fun at our expense. Umbrellas flip before you can bat an eyelid. Umbrellas don't flip back even after everyone around you have batted their eyelids ten, fifteen times! If you lose grip on your umbrella, you will be made to look like a crazy toddler running after a confused cockraoch. Of course, you can ROFLMAO in case you are not the crazy toddler chasing the confused cockroach. But, Caution: Wet floor, ok? There is more. Even army trained mine field navigatiors can't figure out the placement of pot holes on these submerged roads. Not to mention you have to polish/wash your shoes every time to venture out. You are still wondering how you completely got wet below the belt (!!), even though you had an umbrella. You cannot figure out why that random guy designed the auto such that the driver never gets wet but you always do. Lunch table debates typically revolve around whether you drive through or swim across subways... Jolly good stuff, heh?

Well, thanks to Standard Chartered for making me an International graduate. Ping me on gtalk for further details. Here is to all the international graduates who joined with me (this time no sarcasm, ok?), you are one great bunch of people. Life has been made much easier becaue of all those faceless interactions we everyday have. Thanks folks! Thats all for now. I will keep ranting here as and when I get enough content and motivation. Till then...

Cheers... hic... ;)

P.S - For those of you who have still not discovered Google, BAU means Business As Usual and SoBo means South Bombay!

The Last Quarter

2010-07-01T14:09:00.004+05:30

I am back to blogging after a yawning gap. Truly a lot of time has elapsed between my last post and this one. Actually I might have easily forgotten that I had a blog but for those kind hearts that inquired what happened to my blog! I thought nobody read my blog (of course, except myself :P). What with the number of followers increasing but the number of comments decreasing. I guess people just want to show off that they read my blog by clicking the 'follow' button. #awesome But I was wrong. Apparently, people do read this page and more so, someone looks forward to it and someone enjoys these ideas. For all those kind hearts that never forget to remember this blog, a big Thanks! This blog also remembers you! :)

The purpose of me starting to blog is to have a digital account of my life. My blog is a chronological satire on my life itself. The idea is to provide the older me with jokes to laugh at when I eventually run out of them! Naturally, when there is nothing on my blog, there is nothing happening in my life that is even remotely interesting. That was how the last quarter was. A dumb, monotonous, routine oriented, pale 3 months fading away from what was once a pulsating, colorful life. To some extent there was a profound nothingness everywhere. Whatever you find in this post after this sentence is an attempt to capture that nothingness. Please don't take it seriously if there is nothing, absolutely nothing after this in this post!

Well, I told you there might be nothing, absolutely nothing in this post! The one good (or bad) thing that happened in the last quarter is that I turned 24! I am just getting older not any better, therefore happy! Starting a fresh life in a fresh year. Having bid adios to formal education and all its thrills recently, I am stepping into the longest phase of my life - career. Only time can tell whether times will be exciting or exasperating as they pan out. However they are, we will keep poking fun at them in this blog! And now I truly promise to do it regularly. Happy to be back blogging.

Dear nothingness, RIP! Dear world, here I come to raaak!

Cheers :)

The Un-terview!

2010-04-01T13:55:00.003+05:30

Hypocrites. Who? Us. Yes, you heard it right. It is all of us I am talking about. Think about it, don’t we do a lot of things according to an unwritten credo? Nobody knows why, nobody asks why and nobody wants to know why. We all just follow what we are told we are ‘supposed’ to do. Let me restrict myself to just one ritual we all (well, mostly) must have gone through, campus interviews. So now how many of you are smiling at your computer screens? Lies, cold blooded lies, aren’t you thinking? Yeah, me too, same feeling.

One thing I could never understand is how we were able to get away with all those lies. Everyone knows it. I know it. You know it. Everybody who ever gave an interview knew it. Everyone who will give interviews will come to know of it. Even the HR who took your interview knew it. I know I have shared my blog link on my linkedin profile. So the future HR who might recruit me might come across this. And even he knows it! Then how do we get away with it? Is it some sort of a capitalist conspiracy? Do they select the guy who lies most convincingly and with conviction? The girl anyways gets selected, she doesn’t have to lie. Chivalry, apparently! Now shall we stop calling it interview and refer to it more appropriately as un-terview?

Being the humourist, creativist and couragist I am (comedian, creator and bold dint go well together!), I started thinking how it would be if I decide to talk in an interview after taking an oath on the Bhagavad Gita. Well, find the transcript of the fictitious interview below. Warning – The transcript is fictitious. I advice you not to use it in any space other than pointless lunch table conversations. Rest is up to your risk taking capabilities. At least, I am not gonna use it.

In the transcript below, Q denotes the question posed and A denotes the answer to be given. Lets start.

Q – Why did you choose to do MBA?
A – There is no better and safer way to become rich!

Q – Why did you come to this college?
A – Well, this was my best admit card! (This was my only admit card!)

Q – Why do you want to join our company?
A – I am finding it really irritating to cough up a new idea for every company (especially when I have multiple interviews on the same day.)

Q – What are your short term and long term goals?
A – Short term – To get this job. Long term – To get a job in a profile and company I want to!

Q – Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
A – Yes, I can’t even see whether I will get through this interview or not but I will be able to see five years into the future. Perfectly valid question!

Alternate answer, choose between the two based on your courage and humor levels.
Q – Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
A – Happily married with one kid and another on its way.
Sub-Q – No, no, I meant something ambitious.
Sub-A – What I just said was pretty ambitious!

This seems more like it. Can somebody do this? Whoever does this will be my undisputed corporate hero. Lets wait for him!

Cheers

P.S1 - I wrote this blog on April 1. Join the dots if you are smart, move on to PS2 if you are not!

P.S2 - Sarcasm is not a dead art, yet!

The 'H' factor

2010-03-21T17:47:00.004+05:30

Dear people reading this, people not reading this, Barrack Obama, the pretty girl that travles with me in the same bus everyday, Lalit Modi, the unsuspecting Gorilla in the African forests, and everybody in general, my name is Vasanth Kumar and my patience is running out.

You must be wondering what went so wrong with me that I had to suddenly come out and proclaim my name. I had to. I am fed up of (almost) everyone spelling my name wrongly. For heavens sake, my name is not Vasant, its Vasanth. This is a trend I have observed especially in north India. Yeah I know, being a domicile of Tamil Nadu, the rest of India is north for me. But I still find solace by using 'north India' in the conventional sense. I don't understand what is wrong with them. What do you call that that comes after ninth? It is tenth. Not tent. Nint is not even a word! You get my point? This is how the English language is supposed to work.

Forget the esoteric nuances (?!?) of the English language. Can't you people respect somebody's name? Can't you see the e mail signature and just copy the name written there? Or are you simple oblivious to the letter 'H' when used in such connotation? Disrespecting somebody's name is as serious as disrespecting that somebody itself. When will you learn that? The worst part with this behaviour is the look on their faces as if they are completely innocent and the fault is mine to have had such a wierd name! I don't know how I am supposed to explain it to them that this is not how the rest of English speaking world (what? where does it exist?) percieves the 'H' factor. I am growing tired, really tired of this. Please spare my name!

I have nothing against north India (again) or north Indians (AGAIN!), its just that I feel like biting your head off when you misspell my name... whoever you may be, even that unsuspecting Gorilla in the African forests!

No cheers this time...

Vasanth Kumar K

P.S - For those who still don't get the drift, I am trying to stir a controversy against north Indians (oh come on...) by blaming them for their magical talent. Spread the word, make me famous. I see myself giving interviews to 24x7 news channels. Make it happen.

P.S2 - If I REALLY become famous (half hour interviews in at least two national news channels), I will sign autographs for free to all those who comment on this blog. Hurry, offer valid till stocks last!

The curious case of my fellow human's brain!

2010-03-07T19:57:00.003+05:30

Again, no blog for two months. I prefer to blame it on my tight schedule rather than on my lack of motivation :) Well, now I have motivation on my right hand and time on my left hand (I wear watch on my left hand :P), I decided to do this thing - write random things in the hope that it will come across random people's monitors when they are randomly searching the web for random items!

The last sentence was completely random. Anyways, getting to back to my story, the curious case of my fellow human's brain. We have all been told humans are blessed with a special something called sixth sense. Might be. But the problem is most of my fellow humans refuse to even accede that they have it! (No, no, not you. The rest of 'em!) Unlike that genius Calvin opting to ignore common sense, our friends ignore their sixth sense inadverdently. One leadership guru once said, "Don't ask why, ask why not". As usual, we listened only to the first half of his speech (slept through the rest) and followed it diligently. We never ask why. We never conteplate why we do stuff. We never realise we appear plain stupid in the eyes of who ask that dangerous question, why! Let me quote a few instances.

The scene is set in an airport where I am waiting for my boarding call. The aunty with my microphone finally announces my flight is ready for boarding. Immediatley everybody picks up their luggage, go stand in the long queue in front of the boarding gate. It is ok if a coupe of ladies do it, but smart gentlemen in suits doing it is just hilarious. No offence ladies. I don't mean you are dumb, I just mean it appears dumber when men do the same thing as you! Now, I have my boarding pass with my seat number printed on that. Its not like if I go late, I might see an adamant kid sitting in my window seat refusing to get up. (Even if it happens, you anyways get to see nothing after take off!) Now that I have a boarding pass, the airlines cannot operate the flight without me on board. They have to find me and throw me in. So why can't I use it as a privilege? Why should I go stand in a queue for 15 minutes carrying my luggage waiting for them to open the gates? When these people do it, it gives me a feeling that they are waiting to board a B.E.S.T. bust at Andheri bus stop, not an aircraft! Why?

This is one scene I watch everyday. Mumbai, central railway line, train compartment. From the outside it seems damn crowded, from the inside it appears half empty! Yeah, these commuters pick the most strategic position to crowd - the passage between the doors on both sides of the compartment. It causes great inconvenience to other passengers alighting and boarding the trains but they never seem to care. These are not the bunch of blithe college kids hanging on the foot board for some fresh air. I would know them, I was one of them. These are family men, mothers, grown ups, all regular commuters. They just stand there, they don't care if there is space to stand inside the compartment, they don't care if there are vacant seats in the compartment. I have to wrestle my way everyday to get off at my station. There are also other kind of people, the ones who come and stand in between seats even when the compartment is half empty. Dude, did you drop your brains when trying to board the train? Why?

There is a theory that we are living in a 'Matrix' style simulation of some extraordinarily smart aliens. Seems right! The above mentioned are just some flaws in their 'code'. Areas were intelligencce was forgotten to be programmed into the omnipotent (what?) human brain. May be the aliens' testing department is not as competent as the one at my office!

The more I think about it, the more similarity I find in humans' outlook towards brains and money. For instance, we always think we need more of both. We always think our neighbour has more of both. Even if we were given copious amounts of both we would simply misuse them and waste them. At the back of our minds we know, if not used both gets wasted and we never cared to change our outlook towards both of them! I rest my case here. Don't ask why.

Cheers! :)

P.S - It seems if I don't blog for a long time, I compensate by writing a long post!

...and we are done !

2010-01-06T19:50:00.004+05:30

The last time I had to write a similar post I started it with, 'all good times come to an end'. But now I am starting with, 'all best times come to an end as well'. Its done. The blissful stay at a slice of heaven on earth, NITIE, is just about to end. Now I feel like that F1 car that rammed into a wall! Lost, confused, sad, out of shape and out of comfort zone. WTF!

You tend to notice that you are growing up when you start losing stuff. People lose youth, people lose free time, people lose freedom, people lose brains, and some people lose hair! Now I have lost one thing that I have had since my very early days of childhood, formal education. It feels really awkward. No more waking up late, no more bunking classes, no more classes, no more hostel rooms, no more getting dad's sign in report card. But on the flip side, no more attending useless classes for attendance, no more insane writing for 3 hours in the name of exams, no more assignments, no more homework.

Everybody has gone through college. Everybody knows how it feels to get out of college. So I will stay out of the touchy-feely stuff here. My kith and kin have always asked me what was my biggest value add in MBA. I've always maintained a modest, 'I don't know', and its true. I seriuosly don't know. But I am sure about one thing, the experience here was worth screwing 18 months of my life. Seriously I never imagined I would get to share my plate with a Delhi-ite, share my glass with a Odiyan, party with a Punjabi, get drunk and blabber to a Marathi manoos, teach Hindi to a mallu, watch a goult movie in Mumbai with a confused Kannadiga, get bumps from gals for my birthday and many more! I am definitely much more sophisticated and refined than what I was. I guess that was the biggest value add.

Well, even a thousand pages wouln't suffice to describe the 600 odd days spent here. But even in a sky sprinkled with sparkling starry moments, some stars do sparkle brighter than the others. The crazy room mate, legendary 422, awesome 4th floor, overwhelming tam gang, kickass fourth hostel gang, rocking PMG, dangerous baba's office, pond, night outs, maddu mess, insane parties, nescafe, ten people sitting in a dinner table meant for four and things like these can even stand the test of amnesia. I have friends from all parts of India! The humble fact that I am carrying more than 32 GB of photos out of this place sums it up!

It would be sheer betrayal if I don't mention Prerana here. If Prerana'08 redefined the concept of hardwork and responsibility, Prerana'09 redefined the concept of struggle, setback and stress. Prerana is not an event, its an institution unto itself. The most meaningful thing I've been a part of in NITIE has to be Prerana, not even the MBA. Prerana taught us a lot of things which cannot be put in words. Although what takes the cake is the scientific art of handling the dragon! NITIE rocks, Prerana double rocks!!

I am emotional, I am sleep deprived, I have nothing to do, I am leaving this place is less than 36 hours, I feel like writing about NITIE for hours. I rather choose to end this post here as it is wrong to try and fit every emotion into words. No human language is capable of doing that. It would only distort those emotions. Let them be unsaid and better remembered. I minced my brain really hard to come up with a simple sentence to explain it all and I think I succeeded. All those of you who cared and shared, thou shalt never be forgotten!

Pepole going through this blog, kindly take out a minute to comment. That would remain as a proof that our lives were intertwined at some portion of the space time continuum!

Cheers

P.S - Things are really changing. After a really long time, I am going to sleep before midnight!

P.P.S - On second thought, certain things never change. I am yet to submit assignments worth 80 marks! NITIE rocks, in past, present and future!

BEST... Or is it?

2009-12-02T19:42:00.006+05:30

The first time I landed in Mumbai, my friend said "We will go by BEST bus". The moment I saw the bus, I said "Good one bro! :)". He replied, "Dude! That was not supposed to be a joke". Oh!

This one falls under the category of 'unintenionally funny'. You think of some cool thing, give it an awesome name but in the end it falls flat, even funny. Mumbai's BEST, is one classic example. I don't blame them either. When you gotta manage such a huge city, you tend to miss out somewhere. Some aspect, some area, some system, some random thing doesn't get the attention and it stays a part of prestigious history. Now lets take a look at why BEST buses are not the best (not even close :P)

First impression... was a worst impression. Even my school bus sports better style damn it. Painted red, absolutely cuboidal, looking like straight out of a museum...! When rest of India is going for low floor, air suspension, ergonomic seats, bright colors, our friends at Mumbai never felt the need for all those. I guess these buses are a part of their tradition. You might catch an enthusiastic guide say someday, "You see the Taj, it is older than the Gateway of India. You see that bus, it is older than the Taj" :D

I lost myself in the beauty of the bus as it crossed me. Suddenly I realized I had a bus to catch and... WTF! There is no route number at the back! Are we supposed to randomly run behind buses, overtake them, check the route, and then climb onto them? Are Mumbaikars such good athletes? Or is this some sort of practical joke? Just imagine how it will feel if you finally overtake a bus, but its not the one you want and the driver grins at you and says, "Gotcha!" When I enquired about it further an effervescent college kid said, "The route number is there on the left side of the bus". So what dude, I cannot overtake the bus from the left. Traffic rules don't permit it you know. :)

Somehow I got onto a bus and one look inside told me that the bus might actually be older than the Taj. When I purchase my ticket comes the next surprise. Everything on the ticket is printed in Hindi, even the numbers! Beleive me when I say its been 17 months in Mumbai and I still have trouble deciphering numbers in Hindi. I've used the word decipher in the previous sentence intentionally. I suggest carrying a number catalogue with you to help you out. But there was more. The price printed on my ticker was Rs. 6.86. Seriously, six rupees eighty six paise. Do you guys really live in prehistoric era? Thankfully there was no 'Please tender exact change' board put up in the bus :)

Not that Mumbai is otherwise perfect or for that matter any city is perfect. They all have lots of scope for improvement. But what got me going was the name given to these buses, BEST. Although these buses go a long long way everyday, they still have to go a long way before they can become what they are called, BEST.

Cheers :)

P.S - BEST stands for Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport!

Need to bring private capital to finance higher education in India

2009-10-21T10:33:00.000+05:30

The following article written by me was published in the Financial Express newspaper national edition dated 19 October 2009. Online copy can be found at http://epaper.financialexpress.com/FE/FE/2009/10/19/ArticleHtmls/19_10_2009_010_003.shtml?Mode=1 I can discount one thing from the list of things to accomplish in this lifetime. Alright, now the article,

Education sector, like any other in India, invariably stares at the same horizon – one billion people and counting! When exploiting economies of scale is one side of the coin, the myriad challenges faced in reaching the masses becomes the other daunting side of the same coin. Before attempting to answer the question posed, let us define the boundaries of the playground. For the sake of this analysis, any kind of formal education undertaken after 12 years of schooling has been considered as ‘higher education’. The ever rising applicants/intake ratio in all the top notch institutions of India has indicated the clear inability of the government to provide quality higher education. Can the time tested solution called privatization be applied to education sector? Probably yes, but only in certain pockets.

If we look at our government’s spending pattern towards education, lion’s share is allocated to the top institutions offering professional courses such as engineering and management, majority being government institutions. Other disciplines such as arts and sciences receive very little funding from the government that they can even be termed neglected. But it is a fact that no country can survive with engineers and managers alone, whatever their levels of competence be. A developing country like India needs scientists, lawyers, farmers, artists and philosophers in same numbers as engineers and managers. It is time for the government to seriously concentrate upon hitherto neglected disciplines and lend them a helping hand.

In order to do that, the government simply cannot redistribute the allocation of funds because it will stall the development of the top institutions which can be detrimental to the nation building process. So there is a clear need for generation of extra funds and this is where the private sector can pitch in. But the problem is private sector is interested only in commercially viable ventures. In other words, private sector will be interested in financing tech schools and business schools only. This is evident from the sheer growth of private engineering and management colleges in India. Here 2 ways of bringing in private capital exist – setting up private colleges, bringing alternate revenue stream for government colleges by way of consultancy and training programs. The government should strongly encourage the latter and undertake a regulatory role for the former. This would both decrease the stress on the government and ensure availability of quality education.

The government should consider the extra funding thus generated as savings and reinvest these savings in building a strong arts and science base because at this moment it is these courses that need utmost attention. There is a need for extra funding in these sectors whereas the funding can be generated only through professional courses sector. Thus there is a need for bringing private capital to finance higher education but what is more important is an intelligent redistribution of funds. If the redistribution is not proper, the chasm between professional and non-professional courses will continue to grow which is not a good sign for tomorrow’s India.

Paradigm shift

2009-10-07T19:17:00.003+05:30

Our upbringing in this world has been shaped by many conventions, many of them dictated by a lot of paradigms. The problem with these paradigms is that they are suitable only for the contemporary times in which they were told. They are never updated. How about updating some of them? Yes, it is time we say the unsaid, add disclaimers wherever necessary, clear some confusions and change the unchanged. Here is a sincere attempt to modernise some of the well known paradigms. You have all rights to use them at will. Oh yeah, comments in line :)

Failure is the stepping stone of success, only if you step against it! you gotta work baby!
Don't count your chickens until they survive for at least a week! competitive environment boss :|
Don't count your chickens until you are done with your chicken soup! you naughty boy ;)
A bird in the hand is better than two in the bush, only if it won't poop on you! gotcha...
The way you look at a glass half full or half empty depends on whether you want it to be completely empty or completely full! this did not occur to me when I was drunk :P
Silence is the only thing that can be misquoted in any number of ways! be careful!
Men are from Mars, women are from Venus, Apes are from this place, Earth! now tell me, where are you from? ;)
Don't go where there is a path. Instead go where there is no path and leave a trail. only then someone will be able to find you and bring you back!
The early bird gets the worm, the last bird gets the sleep. Make your pick.
Nobody travels on the road to success without a puncture or two. remember, no stepney allowed! :(
Hope is a good thing and no good thing ever dies. we hope so! :)

I think now these are contemporary. Nothing is left unsaid and hopefully nobody can sue us for not providing the disclaimer. I will again come out with a different set of paradigm shift once I figure out enough paradigms that can be shifted.

Cheers!

P.S: If you want to shift any paradigm, you can do so in the comments section! :)

Fly - Flu - Flown!

2009-08-19T04:10:00.009+05:30

Wierd title? May be, yes. But thats the truth I have been seeing over the past 2 weeks or so. The swine flu has got so much attention that I won't be surprised if the past tense of fly is henceforth spelt as 'flu'. But is all this hype justified? Absolutely not. For the sake of convinience, let us look at the case in the eyes of a solitary individual, holed up in a corner room, in an obscure location, in one of the buzzling metropolis - myself!

Some day 3 weeks ago, swine flu broke out. And what followed was pure mayhem. Nobody understood what was happening. Nobody knew what to do. Nobody did what was suppossed to be done. Now, the virus has dissappeared. Just like that! But the point to be pondered is how we responded to the issue. One person got into a hospital and the N95 masks became ubiquitous. Seriously, from when did we start respecting a stupid virus? Did anybody look at its side effects? Some guy stole buscuits from my neighbour. We couldn't even find out who it was as he was 'masked'! ;) One banner in some website read, "20 people get swine flu, everybody puts on a mask. Millions die of AIDS every year. Nobody puts on a condom." Agreed!

I have heard that we are living in 'information age'. Thanks to swine flu, I understood the full meaning of it. Every two minutes some mail relating to H1N1 virus popped in my mailbox. Even people who have not sent me a 'hi, how are you' in years started sending me H1N1 awareness mails! For the sheer lack of a much larger term, I have to call this an information overload! The spreading of these mails actually challenged the spreading of the virus! I heard someone saying the virus lost to the mails! :P So much unnecessary information on dos and donts that I forgot which was which and happily committed a few donts! If only, the virus had known this... :) But seriously, one thing that apalled me is nobody ever forwarded so many mails when there was a blood requirement or some charity happening for some orphanage. God save our generation.

Talk about the media. These guys exploit the one marketing strategy not taught in any B school. If it is controversial, it sells. If it is novel, it sells. If it is both controversial and novel, it sells big time! Every other news channel ran and reran news items about H1N1. I hope there was no saas-bahu serial episodes revolving around swine flu! ;) The only thing these media houses could have done extra is to interview the H1N1 virus itself. This could not be done as the virus was 'busy travelling'. :) Discounting this, the virus got more publicity that it would have ever imagined in its wildest dreams! I am still waiting for the day when our media 'grows up' and starts acting maturely.

What did I do? Nothing! Seriously! I did not go home. I did not waste money on a mask. I had cold but did not take any medicines. I roamed all around campus, ate out, had cold drinks, ice cream and what not. This is my way giving the 'F' word to the virus. :D "Catch me if you can" ;) But the worst part is, the two week break given has made me so darn lazy. I got used to all the nothingness. I want no class, no attendance, no tests, no work. I want to jus keep on sleeping on my (un)comfortable bed :P

Last thurday things started turning around in campus and from yesterday it is almost back to normal. It read some report stating WHO has predicted a second outbreak of H1N1 and the second innings can be worse than the first. I can't confirm whether its a genuine report or some news channel trying to sell the controversy. But if at all there is a second outbreak, only god know what will happen...

Cheers!

P.S: I wrote the first para of this post a week ago. H1N1 has made me so lazy that it took a week to write the next few paras! :)

A long walk in the woods

2009-08-06T23:15:00.005+05:30

Amidst the extraordinarily boring repetitive life, a few days do stand out. Days that make you do something that you usually don't venture into. Days that satisfy your eclectic desires. Days that refuse to fade into oblivion. Those are the days in which you actually live, not just pretend to do so. Such days have to be etched in memory and savoured forever. What other way could be better than blogging to do that. Photographs capture only the cosmetic appearance of your personality. Words convey the essence of your soul. Here I have tried my level best not to lose out on any dope from the scintillating Matheran in monsoons. But it is never complete without a visit to that place.

Matheran is a miniscule hill station on the outerskirts of modern day Mumbai. Motor vehicles are banned on the top citing pollution. So the only transport options available on top are horseback and foot. Vehicles are allowed to ply upto a ceratin point close to the peak though. There are 22 odd view points for us to feast upon the unintoxiated platter of beauty nature has to offer. But as majority of the populace chooses foot over horseback, the number of points that can be covered in a day is limited to 4 or 5. But we, the brave and curious explorers, decided to go one step ahead and cover as much as possible. I am proud to say, we did cover a total of 8 points, some of them mind blowing!

We got up at 3.30 am reached Matheran by 8.30 am. And the journey started! The best description I can give to what followed is enchanting woods, enticing nature, sizzling rains, walk through the clouds, peek into the heavens, a crazy trip accounting for an awesome sunday! It was the first time in my life where I spent a whole day getting drenched in rain again and again. The first point we reached was named Monkey point. It offered an amazing view of the valley and plains below. There was something magical about the view. Or so I thought only to be disproved later on the same day! After the ususal frenzy about photographs was over, we proceeded next to Echo point. To say the views were breathtaking is an understatement. Lush green valleys, deep gorges, clouds floating at one hand's distance and a waterfall. "The act of waking up at 3.30am is gratified", I told myself. But the Echo point never echoed.

Next in line was Charlotte lake. It is a huge lake on top of a hill fed by rain waters, which in turn feeds a giant waterfall. Tourists are permitted to bathe in the overflowing waters and when did we ever miss a chance to have fun! This experience was the icing on the cake. It was just mind blowing. We spent an odd 20 minutes in the water which felt like hours for us. Next in line were 2 important things - Lord's point, suppossed to be one of the best view points in Matheran and Lunch! We were disappointed at Lord's point as cloud cover refused to budge and all we could see was glittering silvery grey. So we headed straight to have lunch.

Post lunch, we decided to pay a visit to the One Tree Hill point. This a funny place where you get to see a huge hill with only one tree on top of it! This was the best place on Matheran and it is situated in the southern end of it. If at all, you go to Matheran, don't miss it. This is a place where clouds play hide and seek with you! Yes. One minute you see silvery grey clouds, next minute you see incredibly deep valleys, next minute it is the picturesque town miles away and next minute you can't even see your fellow mates! Man, you have to be there. "The act of waking up at 3.30am is completely gratified", I told myself again.

On our way back, we stumbled on a path that would lead us to what was Belvedre point. As our batteries were nearing red zone by then, some of us were diffident to explore it. But the sign that read "Belvedre point. 2 minits" motivated us to go there and witness something that is simply not possible. As we started nearing the Belvedre point, it started to rain heavily. But something caught our eye, the rain was coming horizontally as if someone was shooting water bullets at us. We went further to investigate it and... abracadabra! There was a waterfall in which water never fell! Winds were blowing at such high speeds that entire water was sent backwards to where it came from! I know it is hard to believe this. For the skeptics and the admirers, I captured a video of this incredible natural phenomenon. Contact me for the video and see it for yourself!

After this the agenda was to go home. But reliable sources gave us the information that there was one more place, Lucia point, worth visiting. Some of backed out saying it could become dark and we don't want to be late. But a group of 7 nature enthusiasts headed straight to Lucia point. Believe it or not, it always pays to go that extra mile, in this case, literally! Lucia point is situated on the highest elevation on Matheran. You can see the tops of smaller hills from here and the winds are so strong that if you jump, you will land a few centimeters back. This is a narow cliff with nothing on 3 sides, not even railings! The most dangerous venture limit is decided by your confidence and courage. And yeah, there is no hide and seek with the clouds, you just walk through them. Clouds are all around you and visibility at times reduces to near zero! It was getting both dark and late by that time and our batteries were almost exhausted. So we had to start the return journey. It was a long, painful walk back to the taxi stand, aggravated by the wet jeans and wind cheater. Somehow we managed to reach the taxi stand and subquently NITIE.

It was a day of sorts. I got up at an hour I usually go to sleep, did a lifetime of walking in a single day, took bath in ice cold water with jeans on, pushed myself to my physical maximum, walked through scary forest pathways, interacted with mother nature face to face, had lots and lots of fun and returned with a rejuvenated mind. Not to mention my jeans that were completely drenched every half and hour! The day will never get over without special mention to two people - 'Akash'pedia, for taking the responsibility of guiding us although he knew nothing in Matheran and Mr. Pandey, for never failing to take the wrong route in every possible juncture! Next day, I slept completely and when I woke up I just had could, cough, fever, body pain and killer ache in the legs. All in all, it was a day that deserved to be remembered and it will be!

24th Moonsoon...

2009-07-14T22:22:00.011+05:30

Well, where do I begin? Actually, I began long back! On a beautiful Friday morning, just after the dawn broke, I began this journey called life. Fast forward 23 years in time, I am here, enjoying my 24th monsoon. The journey has been fairly eventful, I would say, and mostly nomadic. I have lived in 7 different towns and cities, 3 of them being metros and that journey had taken me from a refrigerator to a microwave oven! Will discuss that in detail in another post. After seeing both sides of the coin, the national capital on one side and an unknown obscure village on another, during those 7 stops, I think I have to divert my journey towards better known towns and lesser known cities to completely know the amorphous amalgamation called India!

And now about my 24th monsoon... It is not even raining cats and dogs this time, last year it was pouring buffaloes and dinosaurs here :) Generally, poets use either summers or winters to count years, but I prefer monsoon as it was the first season to welcome me into this world. A small emotional attachment! And also, summers and winters have a different connotation in NITIE! So let me stay clear of them. Beautiful rains, chilling breeze, sleepy lectures, and heavenly NITIE... but I am not able to enjoy any of them to the maximum. The simple reason being 'quarter life crisis'. :| I have started getting the feeling that my life, to a large extent, resembles this blog post! Both of them started just for the heck of it, both of them are going nowhere, both of them will end at some point of time, and only a small percentage of humans will ever know that both existed! Ironically, I also have a feeling that there is light at the end of the tunnel. But as Navjot Siddhu says, let it not be from an oncoming train!

I have already had an year in a B school. I have learnt enough to approach life managerially. ;) This is how it goes. Assuming my lifetime to be 72 years, I am standing at just past a quarter in Q2 now. Wow... Dissection of a quarter into sub-quarters! Somebody is gonna become a management guru very soon :D Anyways, my first quarter was majorly successful. By the end of Q1, I had reached where I never thought I would. Logically speaking, Q2 would be for raising the bar higher, Q3 for consolidation and Q4 for... whatever is left. I had almost certainly raised the bar in Q2. But this I-still-don't-understand-it recession crap played its cards against me and put me in a fix. So what? The game is still open. Lets wait and see who wins...

P.S: For the benefit of those who don't know what quarter life crisis means, you can find it here

Fake MBA Student!

2009-06-20T11:56:00.007+05:30

The IPL season 2 was a resounding success, at least as they say, and took cricket to hitherto unscaled heights, whatever that may mean. One of the main reasons for the popularity of this IPL was undoubtedly the 'Fake IPL Player'. In my opinion, this guy had the best IPL!

And, the two months of internship completely spoiled me. I am no mood to work now. I just want to enjoy my life. In order to achieve that objective, yet sustain minimum damage to my life, I created the character 'Fake MBA Student' in the emptiness of Gurgaon. FIP and FMS have a lot in common. In fact, FMS has been built completely on the lines of FIP.

Lets explore the persona of FIP first. This guy is a part of the team. He attends all practise sessions, team meetings, parties bla bla bla. He goes to every match but doesn't play any and later blogs about it. And the best part is 'he gets paid' for all this. :o Isn't it awesome? In my native language it is called 'karumbu thinna kooli', meaning getting paid for eating sweets! As I call myself a vesatilist, I thought why not adapt these characteristics into my walk of life to create FMS. FMS has been crafted keping in mind all the above mentioned details.

Our Fake MBA Student, will join the institute; attend regular classes; do all the assignments; promptly go to every exam hall but he just won't take the exam! And the best part is, just as FIP gets paid, our FMS will get his MBA! :) What say guys? The best part of this concept is I am already fully qualified to become FMS. I have a blog, an awesome one at that. ;) I am publishing most trade secrets(!) to you guys. I do all that mentioned above. I just have to stop taking exams to become FMS! :D But in this country that has been ruled by red tapism and bureaucracy, one person can't do anything. I need your support to realise this revolutionary concept. All my brethren, I ask you, for nothing more than your voice and support for an innovation that will no less than revolutionise management education around the world! If there is enough support, we can even ask AG to submit a proposal to the acad section. ;) On my 23rd birthday, I place this as my wish in front of God. Lets keep our fingers crossed and wait for his approval.

From
Vasu

To
God

Respected sir
Sub: Fake MBA Student
I request you to kindly go through my above mentioned proposal and magnanimously grant the same. I also want you to know that I am asking this for the greater good of all MBAs around the globe. There is no selfish motive in this.

Yours truly
Vasu

Cheers

P.S: IPL refers to Indian Premier League, FIP refers to Fake IPL Player and FMS refers to Fake MBA Student. I am not liable for any other association you make :)

Jobless at job!

2009-05-25T11:44:00.012+05:30

Some time back, Rat wrote a piece on few things to do when one sits jobless. But by jobless she meant having no job, by will or by force! In that case, there is no problem. There is nobody to boss you around and you have all the time in the world. You can do anything. But what if you have a job but are jobless at it. So many constraints are thrown in. You have a boss to whom you have to report to. You must at least act as if you are doing something. You have to do that acting inside a four walled office. You don't have a choice of timing. For instance, I have to be jobless from 9:30 to 6:30, no matter what! So, in order to help my fellow comrades who find themselves in more or less the same state, I decided to compile a list of things one could do (read as things I do) when one is jobless at job. Attention people who are passing out of college and joining some IT company this year, start taking notes :P

Browse the internet. Yup, there lies a huge storehouse of information, both useful and useless, that is enough to keep you engaged for several lifetimes. But try to find out useless information. Its more fun that way :) How to find it? Of course, Google is your God. Warning: Highly addictive and interesting in the beginning but gets boring and dumb sometime later.
Coffee time. One of the classic excuses to waste time. This works even if you are not jobless. In case you are jobless, make this exercise interesting. Make it a point to have every variety in your coffee machine once a day. When you are in office, coffee machine is your girl friend, visit her every hour. If you can extend every coffee break to half an hour, abracadabra, half a day is gone!
Eat slowly. I mean the lunch. Take your time, enjoy your food, come back late. Go to the food court when it is most crowded, therby eliminating your chances of returning soon. Who knows, you might even get to meet that special someone! ;)
Chat. Chat, chat and chat like a girl. Google is like a Hindu god, it has a family of smaller gods that are equally helpful and the world's favourite is GTalk (may be lord Ganesh :)) Use it to the maximum. Ping people whom you have not pinged in two lifetimes. Bug them until they block you. Comment on everybody's status message. Chat with your relative in the US, chat with the guy in the next cubicle. Chat until your keyboard breaks! Warning: This plays dangerously with other people's patience. Be ready to be beaten up!
Talk, for free. Don't register your mobile number under 'do not disturb'. Let them call you. Have fun at their expense. Make the conversations as romantic as possible. If a girl calls you, ask her if she will marry you. And the best part is you don't have to worry about losing your callers this way. There are a whole bunch of people giving free credit cards or with new mobile schemes or offering pension plans or some crap for which they will always call you. Have fun :)
Extracurricular activities. You can always indulge in extracurricular activities like playing games, watching movies etc. They say extracurricular activites lead to overall personality development. Don't ask me how, I have absolutely no clue! Warning: These stunts are performed by highly trained professionals in nonsupervised environments. Do not try these at your office! :P
Sleep. What? Do you want me to explain how to do it? Come on. This is the by far the most gratifying timepass in the world. The best part is you don't even feel time passing by! Warning: Not required. I know you guys have been doing this from school. You must be experts at this.

This is all I could think of. I have implemented almost all of them to varying degrees of success. The effectiveness of each option is determined by so many localised factors and so I cannot guarantee anything. I would suggest, implement each of them on a pilot basis and go forward based on the pilot test results. Good god, seems I have already become a manager...! And yeah, imagination is the only limit to innovation. So imagine, innovate and don't forget to update it in the comments section. Lets spread the knowledge...

Cheers :)

A grown-up thing!

2009-05-08T16:43:00.007+05:30

Here is the plot... I am currently stationed in Gurgaon, doing my summer internships, for a period of two months. I stay with a couple of batchmates. Corporate life is kind of the same. Office starts at 9.30, ends at 6.30 and life has become a lot more monotonous. And with me being the eternal hardworker, I generally reach home before 7 pm. From then on, waiting for the clock to show bedtime can be quite an ordeal. That too given the fact that I am neither committed nor married, killing time is tougher than killing myself! Actually I have put in a lot of effort to become either of those, but to say they have been futile is an understatement. All that cannot be described in a blog. I have to write a novel. Will write it after I actually get married. The novel 'My stepping stones of success' will be released as a commemoration of my success! :)

Lets get back to the story now. As I was saying, passing time has become really really tough for me and it is being aggravated by the lack of internet. There are a few tools to help me though - the table top and the lap top. The first one is a TV and the second one is a computer. (With quite a number of dirty minds reading my blog, I have to make myself clear ;)) But a continuous dose of either of them for 4 hours is beyond the tolerance level of anyone. So we often take a stroll around our place.

I know what you are thinking. 'You are 24 years old and still going for late night strolls with guys?!?' All I can say is, lipe eej haad. One day one of my roommates said there is a Porsche parked close to the place we stay. We decided to check that out and directed our legs to stroll towards it. We saw it, admired it, dreamt of buying it etc etc. Then we discovered there was a children's park right behind it. Given the fact that only people who are either jobless or have girl friends are up at 11 pm, the park was completely empty.

We decided to relive some of our childhood fantasies and went to the park. Boy oh boy, did we have so much fun? Yeah, we did. Swings, see-saws and slides. They just rock! Swings are stil the same going back and forth, but a lot more fun. Three 23 year olds swinging merrily into the depths of the night is quite a spectacle :D But the slide was a lot more scary. It was not even as high as me. But it gave butterflies in my stomach. It was that friendly old slide. The one I had conquered umpteen number of times when I was a kid. The one in which I disregarded the ladder and went both up and down on the slide. The one which was sooooo high but was scaled by the courageous me! I guess some of the friendly ones turn scary when you neglect them for so long. And not to forget the see-saw. The mere thought of being on it makes me smile. How happily did we go up and down without realising that was what life is all about! But there were only three of us. So one of us had to do see-sawing that Zoozoo style! That was great fun and we even took turns at it :)

It was just a matter of 30 minutes or so. But it gave a memory for life time. We grown ups doing crazy things in a children's park, in the darkness of the night, oblivious to everybody and later blogging about it. Hmmm... Hey, do you think the title of the post doesn't match it's content? I don't think so. After all,

What is the point in growing up if you can't be childish when you want!

Cheers :)

P.S: Pray to God that someday I get to write that novel. You know what I mean...

The flip side of it...!

2009-04-22T18:17:00.005+05:30

Hi folks!

Long time, no blog. Now, time for blog! It has been more than 2 months since I wrote a piece. Life is actually funny. Taking into account all the nothing I was doing over the last two months, how come I couldn't write a blog!!! In fact, all the nothingness I was going through was the sole inspiration for my previous post, I just couldn't follow it up. But I do have my reasons. Laziness, bad internet, no internet etc etc. Even now, just as I had finished typing the first few sentences in this para, somebody had a problem with where I was sitting. So I had to move to a new place with all of my laptop ensemble causing an interim delay of 20 minutes. Yes, the same kind of delay caused in the M.I Vs C.S.K match. The only difference being that I cannot call this senior manager a dog! ;)

The happy thing is most of my bloggie friends remembered me. Some asked me to write a blog, some enquired why I was away from blogsville and some were even happy thinking that I had quit blogging! Not so soon, darling! :) As I was doing alomst nothing useful during the last few months, this time I am gonna write about the only time I was doing something, the third module exams.

Here is the background of the battle. This module had only 7 papers. But factoring into this the number of electives being offered ensured that there was a certain degree of mayhem in the timetable. This is where people we must realise the limitations of us being human beings and the profoundness of chaos theory. After all the fuss we created about the timetable, who had the final laugh? Neither of us! :P The insiders know what I am talking about!

Let us now forget the background and enter into the actual battle. Unfortunately this time I had to write 4 papers in the first 2 days. And that experience rendered me, well, almost dead! What else do you expect? Twelve hours of insane writing in two days! At this juncture I would like to confess that I had not even written 3 full pages over the previous 3 months! This was very similar to that Barney Stinson running NYC marathon and the result was also pretty much the same. I couldn't move my ring finer and my little finger was by itself not moving... :( Thanks to the amount of preparation I did, this task assumed himalayan proportions! I not only had to write insanely for 12 hours but also had to think on my feet (rather think on my seat). What to do, it is very tough to copy in our hall and so one is expected to come up with the answers on his own! One of my batchmates, G, solved this problem to some extent by an ingenious suggestion: 'when in doubt, write both the answers!!!' And G, I must say it did help us :) The remaining papers were not an issue as there was sufficient time available. But this time around I felt the exam week was a little bit less strenous than the last two. I don't know the reason, I just felt so.

How do you liven up boring times during the exams? Read along... I am notorious for playing crazy games in unaccomodating situations. And here is the game I play with Ashish during exam times, who will finish the exam first. The rules are simple, whoever finishes the most number of exams first wins. In this series I almost won by taking a 3-0 lead. But Ashish fought back well to level the series 3-3. Two of those three times, I crafted my own defeat. This is why they say, you must know a bare minumum before entering the exam hall. At least you will know when to stop answering a question and proceed to the next. I precisely didn't do that. Twice I wrote and wrote and wrote that I overshot the 3 hour limit! My first time in NITIE :O Well, it all came down to the wire in the decider. Fancy a guess as to who won? Yeah baby, thats right :) I survived the couple of hours thriller to a nail biting finish and a scintillating victory... My opponent put up a good fight though. Dude, there are two more series left and you definitely have the caliber to win. Seriously. Better luck next time.

Thats it for now folks. Finally I broke the jinx that had kept me unblogged all these days. Sorry for the really long post. Long time pent up energy started to flow once the valve was opened. And I now promise to be more regular in blogging. So keep tuning in...

Cheers :)

Nothing... Seriously nothing!

2009-02-21T19:57:00.006+05:30

Nothing... Of all the good words, not-so-good words and not-at-all-good words in English, I had to select nothing to title my blog? So, what am I gonna write here after titling it nothing? Is there anything left for me to say about nothing? Why are you still reading when you know this is about nothing? Why is the page full of text even though it is nothing? What exactly do I mean by nothing? What do you understand about nothing? Why am I talking so much about nothing? Am I obsessed with nothing? What the hell is happening to me? Ah, nothing!

When I searched dictionary for nothing, the first result that came was 'no thing'. Big deal, it just inserted a space in my search string! I tried asking some of my friends what does nothing mean. After some brain whacking thinking, few of them came up with an ingenious answer. They said '....nothing'. It is true that we use so many words in our daily life that we get used to them and they pop out more like an involuntary response than like an outcome of thought. We seldom contemplate what exactly these words mean or how deep that meaning goes. At times, we know these words so much that their profound meaning means to us, but nothing! Since I had nothing to do, I decided to do exactly this. I decided to think about one word, its meaning, how it is perceived, the way it is understood and all such things and... I chose nothing. To put it in a nutshell, I am going to dig deep into nothing and find out something about nothing.

Nothing, as I see it, is a sense of emptiness. It cannot be defined. It is just the absense of everything. Just as Albert Einstein said, cold is the absense of heat, dark is the absense of light, nothing is the absense of everything. It is a void. Though nothing is actually nothing, it may take everything to acheive it. Try filling a room with absolutely nothing. Try thinking about nothing except nothing. All day long, try doing nothing... It is so difficult to acheive, though it is nothing. But in our daily lives we choose to think nothing as the absense of not everything but something and that something is so commonplace that we regard it as nothing. Think of it, how many times do we use nothing when we actually mean nothing and how many times otherwise? We also try to use nothing as an excuse when information security is needed. I don't know how many thousands of times I've heard this conversation: What are you doing? Nothing! Many a times the answer given, nothing, itself is sufficient to convey to the person that you were doing something. The human brain, on an intuitive level itself, seems to know that we can't do nothing. Well, I end my odyssey into nothing here as I have nothing else to say. May be next time I will talk about something...

P.S: I made you read so much about nothing and I hope, for the first time in your life, you don't regret it!

P.P.S: Time could be usefully spent on nothing too, after all!

P.P.P.S: Hmmm... Nothing!

From Kalyan to Kanjurmarg in a 0615 local!

2009-02-01T04:00:00.026+05:30

Preface:

Bombay, the maximum city... The city of innumerable dreams, immense possibilities, unlimited growth and an uncountable population! The same city that on one side gives space for numerous dreams to unfold, on the other side becomes more congested than ever. There is only one way left for Bombay to grow - skywards, that is! So what keeps this unimaginably huge city moving? It is its famed local trains. Here is a small episode from that never ending journey of wheels, a small dedication from me to the lifeline of Bombay...

Prologue:

This blog will strike a chord in a hearts of few and terror in the hearts of few others! Yup, traveling in Bombay by the local train (henceforth referred as local) is a very nighmarish nightmare. Discovery channel says the train coaches in India are designed to carry 1500 people at a time. Although, during peak hours Bombay locals carry more than 4000 in a single coach! Hold on, this is not some optimization concept or fail safe testing but a helpless situation. If you have to come to send off someone, you better stay as far away as possible from the tracks. Otherwise you will be ushered into the train by the enthusiastic(!) junta. If unfortunately two trains come simultaneouly on both sides of the platform, its a high probability that you will find yourself on one of those trains. We recommend carrying an extra minimum travel ticket. Just in case. You also have the option of standing on the foot bridge itself and waving to your dear ones. Just to be safe. But neither will you know where they are nor will they know who is waving to them! But that is a different issue altogether, and let us not get in to it. So much said, now get ready to take an exciting ride from Kalyan to Kanjurmarg in a 0615 local!

Logue:

The scene is set when I was returning to NITIE from home after vacations. My train had 3 stops in Mumbai - Kalyan, Dadar and CST, in that order. To reach NITIE from any of those stations I had 2 options. 1. Take a local to the nearest station and travel by auto for the remaining part 2. Take an auto all the way. Part of my biography reads four glorious years at Chennai. So local trains are not at all novel to me and I decided to take option 1. Moreover only option 1 does justice to what I call myself, an explorer. Both my engineering and managerial brains agreed that I have to get down at Kalyan. Thats because Kalyan is a terminus I can easily get a seat on a train. Also I will have to come back along the same track if I go to Dadar. So I got down at Kalyan and waited for the train that will take me to Kanjurmarg, the nearest station to NITIE. FYI the time was 6.00 am.

And slowly came an empty train. But, how the hell? Before I could pick my luggage all the seats were occupied and by the time I got on to a compartment, it was full. I had to make myself comfortable(!) near the doors of the compartment. That was the only empty space available :( It was an early morning train and it had to be free. So I asked a fellow passenger, 'is it always this crowded?' He replied, 'ya, this train will mostly be this free' OMG... :O All I could do was utter under my breath, WTF! Yeah, there I was standing in a train, at the starting station, at 6 am, so crowded that I couldn't even move properly! Can it get any better? Actually it did. I had already worked out when Kanjur will come(Thanks to Google!) and so I was a little bit happy. Some time later my fellow passenger asked me where I need to get down. When he heard Kanjur he said, 'Kanjur is just 2 stations away. You got luggage, you better start moving. Or you won't be able to get down.' Are you kidding me? I am 22 years old. How long is it going to take me to move from one end of the compartment to another, huh? Unfortunately he was right and fortunately I could get down at Kanjur with all my luggage intact and laptop in single piece. They say an experience is worth a hundred lessons. The lesson for me that day? Read epilogue :)

Epilogue:

Traveling in Mumbai, especially by local trains, is neither a science nor an art. Its a war! And you, learn from my mistake!

Post epilogue:

Of all the 24 hours available in a day I chose to write this blog at 4 am. Yeah my biological clock has gone haywire. Nowadays it seldom shows sleep. I am not just another insomniac. I have become an insomaniac! More about insomania in the next post. Stay tuned...

Its me signing off, ladies and gentlemen. Good night. Or should I say good morning? Whatever... :)

The Journey Home...

2008-12-20T21:19:00.011+05:30

This post is dedicated to all those who live away from home...

"The journey home is never too long

Your heart arrives before the train

The journey home is never too long

Some yesterdays always remain"

Simple, but meaningful lines from A.R.Rahman's Bombay dreams. It is a strange feeling. I don't know how to express it in words. I am handicapped by the sheer incapacity of any human language to accurately describe complex feelings arising deep inside our hearts. All I can say is, it just happens as those lines say. The simple thought that you are going to be at home in some time make your heart feel that it actually is at home. The rushing memories, the forlorn feeling, the gushing happiness, the aimed-at-nowhere smiles, the ethereal sensation... Hmmm. I felt it most recently stronger than anytime before.

The stage was set 3.5 weeks (am an engineer :P) back! Though I had been home just about 2 months back, there began this strange desire to get home. And for things like these, obstacles on the way enhance the effect! We could not have had a better fuel for our fire... Yes, the bad old exams were back!! :) If you want to know how big an ordeal exams have become to me nowadays check out a blog article a few 'page-downs' away. Again the same old story, 5 days and a lot many exams! Add to this, absolutely no mood to study :D If you have 2 things to look forward, one so-good (read going home the coming weekend) and other not-so-bad (read exam next day), which one will you choose? For us the choice was so simple :) Oh yeah, it was us not just me!! The whole campus was feeling it the same way. Nobody was even bothered about exams. The questions asked in the corridors changed from 'Did you study this chapter?' to 'When are you leaving home?', mess conversations shifted from 'subject 1 or subject 2?' to 'bhai train or flight?'. They say, Do as Romans do in Rome. The whole NITIE was not studying, so didn't I! If I was half the reason for my not studying, my room mate was the other half. This is what happens when you get a roomie with a great frequency match. Your frequencies match and.... what else, resonate! (engineering brain, I can't help it!!) Adi, I don't know how many more modules we are going to end up screwing and still smiling! But not many left! We had fun alright. The useless chats in between study breaks, the long slide gazings that usually end up in 'mama nothing went inside', the screw-this-i-wanna-go-home outbursts, the nescafe coffee breaks which usually last longer than our single-stretch-study-time, the going home discussions regardless of what exam it was... dude, we had a great time at 422! Thanks for being with me and supporting me through the testing(!!) times :D We will face the next storm together!

The exam timetable actually added icing to the cake. The exam on the last day 'Procurement and Materials management' was the ultimate paper. Nobody knew what to study and nobody seemed to do anything about it. NITIEians can vouch for it. It just got over. Somehow. And suddenly it was time to go home! I was smiling all the way from Mumbai to my home. The reactions of my fellow passengers made me smile more :) No dear world, MBA has not yet driven me mad... Hmmm, I went home. But what did I do? Eat, sleep, pick up and drop mom from and at office, watch movie and occasionally tv, do some grocery shopping, scold my sister, travel a little and WTF!! They said it was over. Those 15 days had just flown by even though I had nothing to do and was bored like hell. I was at home doing nothing useful and I am back here doing nothing useful again. Why did I even have to come? Can't I do that 'nothing useful' from there itself? Crazy world, just doesn't understand my profound thoughts! Hmmm... Its just more than 24 hours since I arrived here. I don't know when the next official holidays are. But I have started to think about my next trip home now itself! The journey home is never too long, your heart arrives before the train. But this time my heart chose to stay behind instead of travelling back and forth!! :)

And yeah, I have added a new feature called 'reactions' to my blog. You can find it right below the post. Use it!

The DREAM code

2008-12-07T15:01:00.011+05:30

Dreams, a rather abstruse but fascinating dimension of the power of human brain, is a difficult topic to write upon. On any average day, I would say writing on dreams is not my cup of tea. But today I had a dream that has prompted me to do this piece of writing. I don't know if a person who reads through this can identify with the fascination that dream left me with. Nevertheless read through. This is an interesting journey into my brain. Everyone of us have wondered what causes those little movies to run through our mind when it is suppossed to be resting. It is another big surprise that we are not able to remember all of it. A colleague of mine gave an explanation to this. Dreams are a result of the subconcious brain. When we sleep only the conscious brain goes to sleep but subconcious keeps awake. This subsoncious fellow, a rather dumb one, tries to make sense of whatever info concious brain had processed. Since he is dumb he uses improper logic and creates senseless videos that get screened inside our skull theatre as dreams. Till yesterday I thought this could be true, but today I say this could be the most plausible explanation for dreams. Here is the dream I had and its signifance.

I am roaming in some place in Bombay where I meet Adi and Sambit. They are buying shoes. It is afternoon time and we decide to lunch together. But they both dump me and run away in a bike. I am worried about eating alone and lo there comes Sankara. We both go to lunch together but he chooses to have just a black currant ice cream. We then decide to take a walk. We keep on walking and suddenly reach a small pond. By now Sankara has disappeared and I have a group of friends with me. After exploring a bit, we find out the pond is an extension of huge lake and there is also a dam on the other side of the lake. My friends decide to get to the other side of the dam. But I don't go with them as the width of the dam is so small and I fear I may trip into the water. After some time I start walking alone. At the middle of the lake, I find the dam to be transferred into a railway track and a train is coming towards me. I cramp myself below the tracks to let the train pass. Suddenly I find Joey's leg is caught in some barbed wire and I help him out of it. Then everything goes black and soon after I woke up.

I got this dream at around 12 noon when I was both hungry and sleepy and not sure which one to handle first. All characters featured in this dream are real and I interact with them on a day to day basis. All the words in bold above are a direct reference to what is going on in my life now.

Adi & Sambit - Two of my best friends at NITIE and with whom I interact the most. Adi is my roommate and Sambit is my neighbour + team mate
Lunch - It was 12 noon and I was really hungry when I got this dream
Bike - I miss my bike so much and I think everyday of how to bring it in here
Sankara - He is coming to India on Jan 1st and I am drawing plans to meet him
Black currant ice cream - They gave us black currant ice cream in the mess instead of the traditional vanilla
Small pond - Obvious reference to the NITIE pond
Group of friends - I remember everyons's face. It is the same group with whom I play MAFIA every night
Joey - Nowadays I have started watching a lot of FRIENDS

This is too much to be true. Direct references to all that is happening in my life right now! Yes there are some bits that don't fit into the jigsaw puzzle. But they could be a deja vu. OMG! Are our brains recording all that we do? Some sort of a log file! If so how big is it and is there a way to find what all is recorded in that till now? I used to advice people I know to develop thinking capability. But people, think twice before you decide what to think. Your brain is recording all of it. I am absolutely enthralled after this experience! Dear Sigmund Freud, I have really started to feel the power of human brain. It now seems, after all, those super computers are no match for the human brain. But there is a obvious question that crops up in my mind. Why us? Oh god, why did you make the human brain so powerful? Is it because humans would achieve unprecedented levels of advancement in science and technology or is it because at some point of time these so called advancements would wipe out human race from the face of earth? Was it given as a means for unravelling all the mysteries around us or a means for effecting self destruction? If I ever get a chance to meet god and ask him this question, he would perhaps say, "BOTH!!".

Ups and Downs of life...

2008-09-20T17:06:00.006+05:30

The say life is full of ups and downs. Hmmm... for the last few couple of weeks it really was so. Stress - up, sleep - down. Tension - up, rest - down. Work - up, energy - down... and it all ended it Temperature - up, B.P - down :( yeah it was an experience to be cherished(!?!) for life time. Btw any takes as to what caused all this? No chocolates for guessing right... It is the EXAMS. But what is the probelm? Have I never heard of exams before or have I never taken exams before? Why did they cause so much trouble this time? I finally discovered I am now grown up. Hey world, I am 22 years old, how do you expect me to take exams at this matured age?

Discoveries aside, my purpose of writing this blog is different. I just want to know the person who invented the concept of 3 hour written exams.Newspaper ads and TV commercials are beond my affordability. So I decided to place a blog ad for this ;) Friends, I appeal to you, in case you find the person who invented the concept of 3 hour written exams, just pass on his details to me. I have some issues to set straight with him. I have had enough from this guy's invention. Its a pain... really!! Till some time back, I had thought I cant get any worse. But actually, IT GOT MUCH WORSE. They keep saying you need to improve in life. But this is not the kind of improvement you would wish for even in the stupidest of your dreams. From an exam a day, we had improved to 8 exams in 5 days. The timetable read 2, 1, 2, 1, 2. At first thought I wanted to run away. But then as I have already written in m previous blog a few lines below, I am gifted with never say ___ attitude. So once again I fought with valour on and on and... (8 ons in all) and got low BP. But the worst part of exams is that you go through the pain once in the exam hall and you go through the pain once again when you get your marks. Do we care? Not at all... :)

Midnight masala....

2008-07-11T00:40:00.005+05:30

Let me start this blog with a question. What do you do at midnight? Tell me what all can you do in the middle of the night? I give you 10 lines to think.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10. Time up....
Know what I am doing at near midnight for the last week? I am attending interviews... :( Can you believe it? But yes, thats life in a B school. NITIE is the only b school that is mostly run by students (proud to be a NITIEian). This place has got committees and secretaries for literally everything, right from who decides which company I will get placed to who decides who will cut the grass in the football field....! Committees are the life line of NITIE. No commitee means no NITIE. Needless to say, you would have undestood by now that I have been attending interviews for these committees. Arey yaar, kya baat hai? Hamara colege mein bee commitees hotha hain. Usko bee selections hotha hain, hain na? Nahin. NITIE commitee selection process is on par with CAT selection process...! We submit our CVs to various commitees we wish to join. After that they conduct 2 rounds of interviews to select the best out of the best talent. The worst part is that they conduct interviews at off business hours.. Oops.. off college hours. :) The interviews start at around 7 in the evening and go on and on. Again comes the same old story. My name entitles me only few of the last slots in any lexicological queue. Dad and Mom, why did you name me Vasanth? Can I cut off that V? Asanth would seem wierd, but at least it will bring me on top of the attendance register. Hmmm thats my headache anyway, let me go on with my story. As I was saying, my name would always crop in the end. Some of the slots I recieved were 12.30 am, 2.20 am and the best one 3.15 am. In any event there are bound to be operational delays and that meant by slots would get pushed by at least another half an hour :( How do these people expect me to attend an interview at these unearthly hours? The time I spend yawning will be more than the time I spend speaking... Given the fact that I am a professional sleeper and I have seen sunrise only a handful of times in my 22 year life span, things become the most horrendous for me. Thank God, I had applied only for 3 committees. Can you imagine my plight if I had applied for all 9? What I wrote in my previous blog would have come true. I would have gone mad. But as the world knows, Vasu has been gifted with a never say die (oops i said die..!) attitude. I went to the battle field armed with full hand buttoned, tucked in shirt and formal leather shoes (at 3.15 am) and tasted victory in all the 3 battles. Now its time for the second round of interviews (oh god, not again) The same story repeats again - 12.30am, 1.30am and 2.00 am. The last 2 being on the same day, today....! As you know, I am gifted with the never say ___ (:P) attitude. So here I leave, to the battle field, to fight with valour, to defend the questions and to come back with victory....

Sallam Bombay, Salaam Bombay.....

2008-07-06T23:29:00.001+05:30

Ha ha ha... Mein bee ek B school student ban gaya... :)
Yes. Now I am sitting in a B school, NITIE to be more accurate. But then from where did I get enuf time to write this blog? That secret is published later in the blog :)

June 18 2008: 6 pm : Bombay Santa cruz airport
I landed with great enthu and glitter in my eyes. The Bombay traffic made it null and void. It took me 2.5 hours to get to NITIE :( I walked up the 94 steps on the first day with gr8 excitement. Just 1 hour later, they said my admission formalities were over and I could leave. Arey c'mon, it was Thursday 10 am and my classes were beginning on Monday morning. Wat was I suppossed to do till then? They could have asked me to come on Saturday right? Wrong. Those 3 days became the most eventfull days @ NITIE till date.

Our seniors wanted us to meet them at 6 pm at the Bady court. Dont imagine things linking bady and court. We mean badminton court. It was a fun filled evening when we introduced ourselves and everyone was pulling each other's leg. Midnight striked, so did terror in our hearts. Seniors gave us a case study to do and the deadline was jsut 12 hours away. Boy, that was terrific I should say. Sitting in a group untill 4 am with everyone struggling to keep awake :) Somehow we managed to submit it. And do I have to say that we did not get selected? hee hee.... :D

The next morning happened to be my biggest exploration trek in my life... We went on a NITIE campus tour :D I should say the view from the top of MDP hostel was breath taking....! I am so worked up here that I dont remember what happened after that. The only thing I remember is that we again slept very late.

I dont remember exactly when, but one day we played football. Floor against floor. Most of you guys would have seen our team photoshoot on my orkut. Anyways participation is more important than winning right? Now I leave it to you to guess result of that match. Hmmm slowly, very slowly time dragged on. Still 1 more day was left in the induction (heck...) The assignment senior's had for us that day was we were supposed to design a mutual fund. They were benevolent enough to say that we could make any assumptions we needed and did not lay any constraints. But it makes no difference to a guy who does not know the a,b,cs of finance. A large storm cloud loomed over my head. Oh God, a third consecutive night out. :( The only good I got out of that night out was that I learnt something abt mutual funds. I think the seniors have something against me. Yes, they did not select our mutual fund too :)

It all got so heavy that most of us bunked Sunday's treaure hunt and ended up paying a huge fine for that... Aha, see I completely forgot. There was a quiz too. Know what? Our team came up third in that. Hey god promise yaar. Believe that... :)

We have now reached the end of our induction program. After so much work for the last 4 days, all 4 being night outs, we finally got a chance to enjoy ourselves. There was a bon fire that evening... After a break of 1 year, Vasu came back to form. We danced, danced and kept on dancing. Pics already uploaded on orkut. Before we went to get some sleep before our classes began, we asked our seniors why did they have to make the induction this tough. Everyone had the same answer. "You have to expect the same for the next 2 years." Thats it. My heart shattered. My dear friends, if by any chance I go mad by the end of my MBA, you guys have to take care of me..... OK?

Cheers

P.S: I wrote this blog at 2 am :(

This is my Infy.....!

2008-06-10T10:55:00.001+05:30

All good times must come to an end. So does this one. I am writing this blog 3 days before I am going to quit Infy, my first employer.

It all began on 23rd July 2007 @ Mysore. A sultry Sunday marked the beginning of my corporate life. I would say the beginning itself was unique. Yes. Tell me which company will make its employees stand in hot sun outside the company gate on the very first day? Infy did. Wow… I had my breakfast at 6 am on the train and it was 8 hours before I could at least see some food :( Hmmm no one can go back and change a bad beginning, but everyone can start today and make a good ending. 700 odd people started that day.

Early next morning, we were all pumped up. Why not? Somebody was actually going to pay us for whatever stupidity we were blessed with. Then we were made to go through several ppts in the name of induction. Never mind, we had 4 yrs of experience in handling those. Yes, engineering only :D Induction was too boring, but they said it was the only free time one gets in Infy training and it was almost true.

Then started the mandatory, boring, generic training. You are supposed to master(…!) the basics of computer engineering in 2 months. We did. :) Actually I did it with a li’l glitch. I flunked for the first time in my life :( But then failures are as important as successes. So forget it. Our batch was blessed, I would say. We stayed 2 months outside the campus and 2 months inside. That was the best mix one could expect. We could enjoy the splendor of Mysore city at the same time exercise our rights over Infy’s facilities.

Though I had CAT coaching classes over the weekend, I enjoyed as much as I could. Late night movies at the multiplex, full hogging at de cheap Dhaba, fruity at Gazeebo, once in a while thanni party at Ambrish dhaba, quick breaks at Loyal world, late night tennis, midnight badminton, cricket at hostel TV, FC2 lunch… the list in endless.

After I completed my generic training, I received the shock of my life. I was put into PLES unit. Don’t know what is PLES? Don’t worry; half of Infy still does not know what it is… Btw it is the engineering services wing in Infy. We were supposed to take another 2 months training in PLES about aircrafts. Hiya I am an aeronautical engineer. That status enabled me to clear training without studying (read without attending classes ;)) PLES training was a breeze. It just went by. Actually we had so much fun and I can’t disclose all that publicly. It classifies as classified.

By the virtue of so many prayers right from my birth, I successfully cleared my training and was posted at Bangalore. It sounded funny when I joined my team at Bangalore. Wont it be funny if the whole team is in bench? And that includes my PM too!! After about a month, our team got a project from Airbus. They called it luck. I dint tell them it was because of me :P Like the squirrel that helped lord Rama, I helped Airbus to make their giant A380 fly better. Believe me, it is still flying fine ;) Hmmm the time has come for me to bid adieu to my first company and chase higher dreams of life. My stint at Infy, though short, has been nothing short of a roller coaster. All these days, I wanted to quit to do my masters. Now the time has come , but… Let silence fill that sentence.

FROM : Up above the world so high....

2008-06-02T12:25:00.001+05:30

It was my first night flight.... Hmmm whats so special about it? Take off, cruise, and then land. Big deal.....! Nopes. There was more to it. It was not actually a night flight. I was going up when the sun was coming down... In short I was flying at dusk. I had to fly from B'lore to Mumbai for an interview. Since my role in my project was so critical (...!), I had got only a day's leave. So I decided to leave after office hours and hence had booked for an evening flight. Dont be surprised when I say the flight from B'lore to Bombay took 1.5 hours and my travel from office to airport took almost the same time. :( I live in B'lore, you see. After completing the formalities I was on the plane. I forgot to mention that I had got a window seat :D Its always fun for an aeronautical engineer to be in a window seat and observe the flight. Hmmm slowly the plane came to the runway, picked up speed and whoa..... took off :) Only then did I notice something. Storm clouds were forming in the sky. So were they doing in my stomach. Much to my relief, our captain assured us that we wont have any problems whatsoever because of that. The accent was fairly eventless and we climbed right through the storm clouds. Then on the flight radio they said it was raining in B'lore. I looked out of the window and hey what was that....!?!?! It took me sometime to comprehend that sight. C'mon yaar , how often do you get to see rain from a top angle? ;) Seen "independence day"? The clouds over B'lore skies sort of resembled it. It was fun to watch rain that way, I would say. It seemed like a giant taurpaulin roof that was leaking all over :) Oh nature, how beautiful can you become..? Nature answered me with a sight that can never be erased from my memory. I am still thinking for a word to describe it to perfection. Just as the sun had set, colours began to splash over the sky and it resembled one of those paintings in Taare Zammen Par. And finally as it became dark, I saw the biggest rainbow of my life. This time not because of rain, but because of sun and air alone. Yes scattering, diffraction, bla, bla, bla had joined hands to produce the biggest rainbow. The whole horizon was painted in seven colours. You need a thousand eyes to cherish that sight. Hmmm I had witnessed enough that evening and I wanted to rest my eyes a little. I had an interview the next day (if you remember). Slowly I started dreaming zzz.... I was so obsessed that day that even in my dream I was flying over Bombay. My dream captain said "We are going to land shortly. Fasten up your seat belts." Suddenly my neighbour shook me out of dream world. Actually those words were not uttered by my dream captian but by my actual captain. We were actually approaching Bombay airport. ;) I peeped out of the window and was literally shocked. How the hell is he going to find the runway in this mess? What if he gets frustrated and lands it in the sea? I dunno swimming. Arey yaar, even I forgot that I was an aeronautical engineer! I remember reading something called Instrument Landing System in an aircraft. Phew.... I was safe again. I closed my eyes to reduce the effect of reduced G forces and after sometime as gracefully as an Eagle, the aircraft touched down. The pilot applied full brakes and it came to a screeching halt. The moment I came out of the aircraft and smelled Bombay air, I wanted to sing "Pudhiya vanam, pudhiya boomi...." (For the benefit of those who do not know Tamil, its a Tamil song meaning "new skies, new land...") How much had technlogy advanced... Just 80 minutes back I was in B'lore and now I am in Bombay. Wow... But I had realised something else that evening. How much ever technology may advance, man can never match the beauty of nature. Nature's beauty is beyond wordly expression. I shouted, "Hey mankind... you may be foolish enough not to enjoy this beauty, at least dont spoil it." My voice got drowned in the metro noise...

My worst Bike ride :(

2008-05-28T10:44:00.002+05:30

Where did it all begin? Right here at Infosys Multi Level Parking Lot. A chill breeze that blew when I started here told me something more was yet to come. Just a few kilometers onto the highway, the rain gods opened the sky. Aha, it started to rain, and I love rain (who does not?) But I wanted a place to hide from the rain. All I could find on the deserted Bangalore - Hosur highway was a railway brige....! :( I chose to stay under that bridge as it gave me a 50 - 50 option. Half rain, half shade. I thought of waiting till the rain subsided, but it never seemed it will. In fact the rain started turning into a deluge. Oh my god, my home was 20 kms away. I decided to put to test my riding skills, I valiantly started by bike in the rain and off I went. Only to find out how stupid my decision was. The rain jus got harder. It felt like some unknown person was pelting me. :( But as I am gifted with this never say die attitude, I continued with my ride. Only to find my decision was stupider this time. My inability to see properly (read spectacles) rendered my ride horrible. Though I had my helmet it was of little use. If I put on the visor, I could not see properly. If I remove the visor, I could not see at all..! Same case with my specs. I then decided to scrape my attitude when I was completely wet and was shivering (actually trembling). As I could not ride any further with my trembling hands, I stopped near a shop. You can imagine how wet I was when I say a small pool had formed at the place where I stood near the shop. Aha, there was a tea shop there :) Hot boiling tea in the rain should be sensational feeling. Wait a minute, my wallet was safely tucked inside my bike and I did not dare to venture into the rain again. Only then did I remember my mobile was also in the bike that was in the rain. Thankfully my mobile is safe now. Even after what seemed eternity, that I spent trembling, rain never seemed to cease. It was already getting dark and I had to reach home before it was too dark. You know how tough it is to ride with both rain drops and headlilghts cutting across your eyes. This time wind gods joined the fray. Already rain rendered my visibility to zero and now wind was literally toying around with my bike. I was not able to cruise at more than 30 kmph. Twice I was put at almost dead situations. Thankfully disk brakes were invented and that is why I am writing this blog now. Phew... After a long persistant battle, I reached home. Know what? Rain stopped just as I reached home. This was the worst ever bike ride I have been through. It felt like a battle. Every inch of my body is paining :( Hmmm, I have decided. No more biking to office till next summer. I cant and I wont survive this again.