Ideas Unbound

Jodha

2010-11-12T04:00:00.000-08:00

"Phir wohi shaam wahi gham wahi tanhaai hai
Dil ko samajhaane teri yaad chalii aai hai."

Somebody translated these lines from a Kannada song to me.
This one is about that somebody ..

I met her when i joined my first company in Bangalore way back in 2007.
It had been a month in the company and I had not seen a single gal to drool abt ...
From whatever trailor of my company girls i had seen in the last one month .... My expectations had really tempered down

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Just another day in my oracle training..

I was fiddling with my computer in the last row of the training room ...some internal company faculty was going to engage us for the next 2 days.
I was expecting some old hag who has no work will come up to pass her time ... or some senior guy warming up the bench will be here to give some useless 'gyaan'
Hence was I busy with my Orkut and Gtalk hoping to end my day @ The Forum mall in the evening ... (quite a sight with all those hotties)

And then a miracle happened when i was least expecting any drastic reshuffle in my life. It was the unthinkable ....
There she was entering the training room with a gait of a model, the opulence of a queen and the simplicity of Ramayanic Sita. Heads turned and hearts thumped ... she was a goddess for all famished public (me included) out there ...

She turned around to face us and i was half dead .... She smiled and everything around me ceased to exists ... nothing seemed real ...i felt as if i had smoked the 'grass' ... everything was surreal
The Forum and its hotties lost relevance ... I was in a state of euphoria ....completely doped ;-)

So she was our trainer for the day .. all smiles to the visual delight. She took control of the class ... and started dishing out technical gyaan on Oracle.
But my brain was hardly comprehending what she was saying ... i was just looking at the god's masterpiece infront of me ... and enjoying the oscillations of my senses to her rhythms.
She later started forking out some Oracle problems ... thats when i knew this was my chance (Geek !!) ....
That was one day my doped brain was functioning at the speed of light .... answering every goddamn question before she finished framing it ...

At the end of one hour of problems ... she was 'Impressed' ...felt like i had scored All India Rank 1 in JEE/CAT
[once a geek is always a geek, the comparisons are bound to be from the geek space :-) ]

The rest of the day was a haze

The Class was over and she was leaving when she turned around and looked at me ... there was a twinkle in her eye :D

Then i felt certain tremors on the ground .. the earth was shaking ... and for some unknown reason .... i felt a growing pain in my backside ...
Eyes opened and my roommate commanded .. "Maga, wake up, need to go to the Training"
... bloody bugger had been kicking me for last five minutes and grinning about it ....

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She says that i don't know her ... she is not i what i think abt her ..

Salman Rushdie recently said "Jodha was a figment of Akbar's imagination"

Is She a figment of my imagination ? i'll never know ... :-)

Tulip

2009-12-31T00:45:00.000-08:00

She is white and pure,everyone's cynosure
my heart skips a beat, when i see the tulip

I peer at her from the farthest corner,
admire her beauty with awe and wonder
Smooth on the outside,soft on the inside,
my skin aches to touch, my soul yearns too much

when i see her dressed in black,
i dont know how to react
the contrast is blinding,
my senses left confounding

Sleep is an anomaly
but its not my folly,
Her dreams keep me awake,
as I stare in the dark, agape

The beautiful smile that paints her face
Her wishful longings in profound space,
The cupid has pierced my heart asunder
In her eyes I am sinking deep down under

Couldn't help falling for her,
One couldn't help being smitten by her
she knows this, i know,
but i'm wondering wat she thinks

i'm wondering wat she thinks

A Little Push

2009-12-01T07:22:00.000-08:00

This one happened today evening while i was returning from office by the PMT bus (Yes my company doesn't provide affordable transport. But that's another topic). The bus was crowded and i had to make a short journey of 3 stops to reach my place. Took up a place near the exit and was oscillating along the motions of the bus hanging from the overhead bar. So here is the scene, one polite old lady haggling with a young guy to vacate the ladies seat so that she could give her jaded bones some rest. The guy was an uneducated rowdy without the slightest notions of civility or courtesy. It was pretty clear that he ain't gonna budge an inch.

Seen something like this a zillion times and the result well known i decided not to bother. Anyhow a guy like me without the gift of brawn should not be involved with something like this. So i continued with my oscillations from the bar immersed in my thoughts. Then after sometime the clamor of voices increased and i noticed during my oscillations that some more ladies had joined the protest. The guy was still in no mood to relent but was quite uneasy about the protest. It was then that i was in two minds whether to pitch in my voice or not (still oscillating along the bar). I had gut feeling that this was the tipping point of the whole protest, a little push and the rowdy would move out.

So I opened my mouth to register my feeble objection to his uncivilized demeanor and just then, out of nowhere, an authoritarian voice emerged lambasting rowdy. It scared the rowdy to the hilt and made him make an exit. It took me some moments to realize that the authoritarian voice was mine and i had suddenly been elevated to a heroes position in the female kingdom. I blushed in my mind and was amazed at my own actions. But then the ladies were fawning at me to help them vacate the other female seats. And then i said in my mind "Oh no, not me". Thankfully my stop arrived , i stopped oscillating and got down from the bus. But yes i felt really good about what i had done for the old lady.

Somebody once said to me that 98% people in this world are good and its the 2% that spoil it all. But I believe these 98% need a little push from the inside to make them do noble deeds. :-)

To Drink or not to Drink :)

2009-11-25T07:22:00.000-08:00

Shakespeare would turn in his grave looking at the travesty of his famous line
After 24 years of abstinence from alcohol on the insistence of my parents, i had started to ponder whether its right to drink? I have most of my friends, my colleagues and people i know, who drink .... most of the times i do sit with them as an audience to their drunk revelry and orgies. And their continued insistence often tempted me to drink but i have held the fort till date.

In a recent discussion with a friend of mine this topic popped up ... so i thought of throwing it across to her this existential dilemma. What she said was the most persuasive and impeccable argument i have ever come across. I'll quote what she said,i don't remember the exact words that she said thanks to my awesome memory but it goes something like this....

"There is this moral code by which you live. Its in your code that you won't drink. So if you drink you break that code. And a life without a code is meaningless. If you drink, it's only for acceptance in that group,you want to be in that loop, but later on you will feel guilty about what you did. So don't drink Nikhil !!"

I said "I won't".

The Nepali

2009-09-12T00:00:00.000-07:00

This event happened about a month back but still remains etched in my mind.

I and my friend were traveling in a PMT bus on a Friday evening to catch a bus back to our hometown. Heavy rains had soaked the window seats in the bus and as usual the PMT bus was crowded and the wet seats remained vacant.

So we expected ourselves to stand till the end of journey or see if we can get lucky with any seat.
And then the unthinkable happened.... a poor Nepali guy who was sitting besides a vacant wet seat wiped out the water from that seat with his hand and moved inside to offer me the aisle seat. I sat on it promptly.

This humane gesture touched my heart deep ... the battle hardened insensitive metro commuter who would chance upon / fight for a vacant seat in a bus. Never expecting anybody to show any mercy or noble gesture during his daily commute. This was indeed a welcome surprise to me.

This could be due to his rustic background and innate goodness which had not yet been bruised by the harsh big city reality. Even today if you go to the villages in India you will find yourself overwhelmed by the hospitality of its residents. The people out there are more 'human'.

Probably that's why they say that the real India resides in the villages.

A Sleepy Night

2009-09-02T04:14:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer - This is an amateur attempt at poetry. Kindly be lenient in criticism :)

Its a sleepy night
I'm straining my eyes with all my might
there is a goal to achieve
there is work that needs to be done tonight

Unwilling is my body,
Unwilling is my mind,
My groggy eyes see all black no white ...
but there is work that needs to be done tonight

Insane competition awaits you
in this cruel world,
Precariously hangs your future bright
there is work that needs to be done tonight

Many believe in you,
its all for them not for you
Victory will be yours ,its in sight
but there is work that needs to be done tonight

The fear of failure makes you sit upright
take notice of milestones in sight
need to make an attempt,the time-lines are tight
there is work that needs to be done tonight

Thousands of nights
that follow this night
Peaceful they will be in every right
but there is work that needs to be done tonight

there is work that needs to be done tonight .....

Swine Flu ++

2009-08-15T09:25:00.000-07:00

Well, living in the swine flu capital of India is quite an experience these days ... everywhere you see human 'twitters' giving you the latest update on the state of the epidemic ...

Somebody 'tweeted' to me a day back that two people from my building have helped in incrementing the swine flu count in the city ... the tweet sent jitters down my spine ... every time i travel in my building elevator i keep getting anxious wondering if a swine flu affected had sneezed/coughed in this closed compartment ... makes me claustrophobic .. wanting me to get out of the elevator ASAP ..

Now the newspapers also have something to write about ... for the last whole week they have been doling out 7-8 pages/day on Swine flu ...

Everywhere you see people wearing masks/kerchiefs knowing/unknowing the futility of this self inflicted torture. It gives you a false sense of protection .. in turn mental peace ... it is similar to believing in God ... which also gives a (false) sense of protection (from the evil) .. sorry for the small digression but the atheist in me cannot resist :D

All i am hoping is they shut down the city for a week and i won't need to go to office ;)

Strategy Blog

2009-07-19T00:30:00.000-07:00

A few students of Batch of 2009 from across IIMs have started a community blog - Strat . In with a central theme - Learnings from Management and the strategy behind the same.

its a good read .. have a peek

brief about the site

Strat.In stands for Strategy Invented, Strategy Indianized, Strategizing!
Today the web has made huge strides in replacing the traditional media and blogs have become ubiquitous. We, some of the recent graduates of premier institutions in India wanted to contribute to this revolution. We felt that though a lot of people write about technology and even business, but the strategy behind them is rarely discussed. This is our attempt to discuss the strategic decisions and management issues faced in India.

Mundane Life

2009-06-26T00:31:00.000-07:00

working has been such a pain these days , i don't feel like going to office ,
there is nothing to cheer about in the office , no good challenging work , paltry salary and to add the misery no interesting "stuff" in office.
Life has become mundane ,Get up , breakfast , bath, reach office by 11AM, check mails , delete them , try to read newspapers, lunch , office work , timepass , leave at 7pm. come home tired (i really wonder how i get tired even though i rarely work) , pick up a CAT book , try going thru it , pick up a novel to read , and dose off while reading it.

Nothing is being done out of interest .. just out of need .. money to buy daily rations.

I want to really dedicate good amount of time on weekdays to CAT prep , but i can hardly do so ....

I think of quitting the job but who will pay the bills ?

Intellectual Prostitutes

2009-04-09T22:47:00.000-07:00

I fondly remember discussing with Girish in college canteen that once we are out of the college the world is ours to conquer ...
The college felt like a jail when we desired to be free birds ... we wanted to 'change the world' ... 'make a difference' .. blah blah blah
Both felt like Julius Caesar and pronounced "We will come,we will see,We will conquer".

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

Today its been four years since that discussion with Girish and I wonder "I have definately come,I have definately seen, But do I really want to conquer?"

Is there anything worthwhile to conquer?"

In India IT is considered the best job to have but nobody except the ones in this industry are aware of the Darker Side.

The MNC IT company I work for stinks of mediocrity .......... every senior guy is looking to save his ass and fatten his paycheck without any significant contribution to himself , client or society.

Everybody wants to go 'Onsite' and stash money into their bank accounts by behaving like beggars in foreign lands ....

No wonder they call us The Third World.

And the most interesting part of going 'Onsite'

Q. Wat qualifications u need to go 'onsite' ?

1. Intelligence – Not applicable

2. Engineering Degree – Everybody has it (Ur Manager can be a Diploma/MCA/Bsc)

3. Expertise in applications – Somewhat (U need to have the keywords in resume)

4. Computer Science Engg. Degree – Wat , Come again ? does that make any difference , we are in Application Maintenance and Support.

5. Number of years of Experience – Oh Yeah !!! Thats the only thing that matters - They want to know for how many years u have been a nincompoop.

Ahh !! this frustration is getting to me ......

Life has come to a standstill, time is moving on but the space i'm in is the same ...

I wonder why the best minds in India land up in this world class highly reputed organization .... and do toilet cleaning work for the Europeans and Americans
This is a backoffice where we are subjected to do menial jobs that curb our innovation and fresh ideas ....

We are all "Intellectual Prostitutes". (Sagar, Thanks for this term).

I'm in a tunnel

2009-03-27T23:21:00.000-07:00

i look behind and see ... there is nothing but darkness..
But i have walked thru it ...

i look around me and see .... there is nothing but darkness
But i have to walk thru it ....

i look ahead and see ... there is again darkness ...
but also there is a ray of light coming in from the end of the tunnel

this ray makes me walk and keeps me in 'pursuit of happyness'.

I Decide To Write

2009-03-23T02:52:00.000-07:00

Its been a long time I wanted to start writing and finally I have arrived .. :)

So wat do i do with this blog ..... probably write stories .. my opinions ... my experiences .. lets see not yet decided..

But I'm glad i have started ....

Okie ... see you then ..... i'll try to come up with something substantial to write....