Buono.. il brutto...

Facebooking

2011-07-07T01:32:00.007+08:00

Other day I met a guy who religiously gave me pieces (along with chicken pieces) of advice about everything that ever existed under sun, moon and Andromeda… starting from first tree living amphibians till the chicken which crossed road to reach KFC.… but one comment was particularly catchy, “In life, you either just follow others or stand out and be a Mark Zuckerberg… haa…haa…”

That was quite interesting comment… (including his ‘Raavan’ style laugh)… These days it is all about Facebook a.k.a. FB (to save word count)… it’s all about updating status, sharing photos, commenting, re-commenting, liking and again liking…

Even Hollywood folks made movie, ‘Social Networking’… (it’s not that Hollywood always makes movies on latest trends of our lives… see, we don’t have blue men with tails walking around shopping malls but we have movie, Avatar – 3D… hence the proof ). But during the dawn of PC era, Hollywood had made a movie, Pirates of Silicon valley, based on rivalry between Bill Gates and Steve Jobs… and now it is creator of Facebook.

Even, ‘I- the arbitrary’ is writing blog about FB… hua.. haa…

There are about 500 million users in one place… that means there are more people on FB than combined population of Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, Thailand, and Nepal… (it was 1 day ago… so I am not responsible if people of these places are busy increasing population, just to prove me wrong…)…. so if you are not on FB then it is as good as you are not part of these countries… (stupid conclusion of good analysis )

Every decade ends with something… Last decade ended with hues and cries of Y2K… and turn of this decade is witnessing vast people leading web (2.0) enabled social life…

Definitely FB has changed our life… soon our talks will become like this or have become like this,

Me: Machi, Want to go out for drink (s)?

Friend: No, I already had 10 beers in office

Me: Cool man… office party??

Friend: Nope… I added FB application, ‘drink till your liver falls out of your kidneys’

Let me get into my analytical shoes… and take up the useless task of classification of FB users:

- I-live-here: These people literally live on FB…“today I ate banana leaf for lunch… hee….hee…”, ‘oh!! Sensodyne toothpaste is so tasty…’ but eventually their sleeping brain wakes up and they stop it…

- U-Tubers: These people enjoy sharing videos… you rarely see anything else from these people but just videos… hope they are getting paid from Youtube for this noble act…

- Go-Getters: I hardly know any person who leads interesting life (except my friend who builds gliders with RD engines… aayeee…) to write interesting status… so these people start doing something different so that they can put it on FB… “today I ate with only two fingers”, “today I ran faster than auto-rickshaw”… if they don’t do anything different… then they search something on Google… like, translation of some old Chinese poem, or Romanian philosopher’s unheard quote… and put it there…

- Smartass: These people are watching you… and even before you finish writing your status they will be ready with some smartass comments for it… as per my micro-mini theory, usually software programmers can do this better considering their vast experience in writing comments to the code than actual code… (hee… hee…)

- Likers: These people ‘like’ a lot… for no good reason they like everything posted on FB… these are the real criminals… if someone doesn’t like your non-sense then will you do it again… so it’s not who puts the stupid status but the likers…

- Watchers: These mammals… don’t do any of the above… they strongly believe FB is for Narcissists… but nonetheless these people spend more time on FB, just to see what others are doing… they know whose relationship status is ‘God-knows’, who went to Zulu for honeymoon, who ate banana leaf for lunch… so any info about their friends will be on there key-board-tips

And me, being universal man, I fall in all categories… sometimes I put videos, sometimes Chinese quotes and sometimes aimless blogs… all in one

I am not sure if it is fad or way of life now onwards… but surely most of the things have moved to FB… like you don’t have to visit NEWS portals anymore… just follow them on FB… one of the company HR told (sheepishly) that for job listing follow us on FB… isn’t it weird??? If I want job with your company I will rather visit your company website than FB… anyway !!!

I am with opinion that everyone should be in par with the latest trends with the exception of my uncles and my family… because public forum like FB is too risky (unless FB comes up with a family version with God’s photos as background and devotional songs as statuses), too stupid (mom: you never go and see your own farm but play this stupid game (farmville) on computer) and too annoying (to answers my uncles’ questions)

My uncle (recent victim of FB) asked, “What is the ‘poke’? What should I do now?”

I told, ‘if the guy who poked you is at arm distance… then stretch your arm and give a tight slap… if he is far away wait till he comes in reach and then slap’

Anyway wind is blowing FB way… and as a farmer by blood, I believe in harvesting when wind is blowing… so I am on FB… till…

And Search is still ON

2010-07-06T22:41:00.008+08:00

Searching has been part of mankind since the time when nomadic man forgot his animal skin dress when he went for swimming… since then, we have been searching one or other thing… some people search very deep things, like secret to eternal happiness, and some people, like me, search for simple things, “hey!!! Where the heck is my towel???”

Long back people used to go to spiritual gurus, teachers or enlightened person to seek answers to their questions… but now they simply ‘google it’. In one of the pub escapade my drunken friend was shouting “after God, only Google has all the answers” (that’s kinky:)

There are hundreds of books about why GOOGLE is so GOOGLE… but I think secret behind Google’s success is as simple as finding ‘lost tooth brush…’

Classified story about inception of Google goes like this…

One fine day morning, in Stanford University canteen, two random guys called Addy and Totu were having ‘batti’ (on next table two more random guys were sitting, for convenience of my story, I will call them ‘Google boys’)

Addy: Oh damn, today again, I couldn’t find my right leg socks…see my legs, I am like posing for United Colors of Benetton, two different color socks :)

Totu: That’s usual… men are meant to lose 3 things… socks, mobile phones and heart :-)

Addy: You are right… socks are meant to be lost… but of all the things that I lost, I miss my mind the most…

Totu: I can sense that… why don’t you take someone’s help to search it???

Addy: But whose help….who is out there to help me search stupid things… who, Totu, who? (That's filmy...hee...hee...)

(The next table guys over heard conversation) Ta…da….!!!!! Google boys got the idea… a search engine… where people can search for anything and everything… (And thus Google was born and everyone lived happily after)

Google is quite smart… it remembers popular searches… and above is the snap shot of Google popular searches when I typed ‘how to’…

Interesting isn’t it…??? (Let me see what the world is up to???)

Its quite strange that most popular search is ‘how to get pregnant’… To, dear girl/ boy (who searched this)… if you are relying on search engine to find how to get pregnant then seriously you are not ready for THIS… so please don’t try it at home… after all its internet, if something goes wrong then you might end with Himesh Reshamiya or Terminator–V :)

Make love… this is tricky one… there is thin line between, making love, falling in love, being in love, in love, out love or just love love… hope you people got what you wanted to know about love… else call 18009734598, popular love guru helpline.

Lose weight…and lose weight fast???

At some turn in evolution humans obsessed with weight and oral hygiene and still lot are obsessed with weight reduction… come’on all you chubby people… you are already in shape, round is a shape… so be happy with the fact geometrically you are perfect :)

And people who are searching ways to lose weight in faster way… listen people, are you guys trying to set Guinness record or something??? Remember first of all you are fat and more over you are impatient… so you are prone to high BP… one day you will burst like water balloon… so take it slow and take it easy

Grow taller… weirdo… what you are trying to achieve… ask Giraffe what it achieved by growing tall… nothing, null, nil, zero (unless you want to get part time job as staircase)

Kiss… you definitely don’t need Google to teach you this… you need a counterpart who is proactive … so stop excessive browsing, close the browser, shutdown your computer and hit the street, go get some life and find someone… okay?

Download youtube videos, Jailbreak iphone 3gs, tie a tie and writing a resume… I have no expert comments on these… when I don’t want to play the game; I don’t even bother to check the rules... sorry!!!

You might be wondering what the heck I was searching???

I am so disciplined, with such an awesome presence of mind that I just can’t remember one or other thing…(by the way, today again, I didn’t find my right leg one black socks)

But this time I am searching for big thing… an apartment… so my search was ‘how to find a decent cheapest apartment near City Hall MRT’ :)

MBA Chronicles - uncalled comparison

2010-06-11T02:21:00.001+08:00

Mid-point crisis… this is the point at which people become indifferent between beginning and the end… like traditional Wednesday night mid-week crisis (when you are not yet recovered from last Friday’s hangover, you have to decide which pub to hit on coming Friday). So here I am at mid-point of my MBA program and indifferent between happiness of starting the course and sadness of finishing course (don’t go by my words… I really don’t mean those)

Brain teaser: If you are at INTERmediate of the COURSE then can you call it as ‘intercourse’???
[Hmmm… before you decide that I am nasty… intercourse ALSO (that’s right… ALSO) means: mutual dealings/ social or spiritual communication… check dictionary… but anyway I like your thought process, *wink* ;)]

As per great Guatemalan philosopher Socratotle, midpoint crisis occurs because you don’t have any comparison points to anchor and thus become indifferent… that’s very true as most of the time we run our life compared to others … everything runs with comparison… Oh… she has nice shoes, I need better ones, oh... he has good grades, even I need… oh you got more hike than me… and whole life revolves around proving only one point… mine is bigger than yours… and life goes on!!!

As of now I have nothing much to compare with anything or anyone… because most of the time I am so self centered that I simply just don’t care what others are up to… so I decided to go ahead and compare Engineering and MBA course… You might think what a stupid moron I am to compare engineering with MBA… it is like comparing apples with Durians… but anyway I won’t give two cents to your thinking which thinks my thinking is unthinkably moronic…

Knowledge cave#1: Durian is a tropical fruit and I feel, apparently for no particular reason it is quite popular in this part of the world… poetically it is praised as ‘smells like hell but tastes like heaven’ (and they really mean it)

It is weird train of thought but there is a remarkable difference between engineering and MBA programs apart from the fact that from engineering course engineers come out (theoretically) and MBA courses produce managers (*really???*)

I feel, engineering is more of conclusion based, not many assumptions (except that next batch girls will be much prettier than this batch), and definite answers… yup… a definite 5 decimal point precision answers… so most of the time engineers know what is happening and what gonna happen next… because they know things will work as per theory… see even stupid Zener Diode of our electronics laboratory knew that it has to undergo voltage drop at breakdown voltage of 7 volts… no further arguments… just breakdown… asthe !!!

Engineering course really didn’t give much space or time (even though it was 4 year course) to discuss… (Or is it that my friends and I didn’t do it). I don’t remember discussing why we use ‘if-else-default’ condition rather than ‘this way - that way - highway’ condition… it’s not that engineers are not much intellectually challenged with their course but we largely trust others' inventions, discoveries and theories and save the time…(what is the point in reinventing wheel… just ride the bike and reach nearest pub… that’s pretty smart haan!!!)

Engineers (at least me) are intuition based people… intuition is nothing but fastest way of reaching conclusion by skipping intermediate steps… if conclusion is wrong then simply call it ‘draft version1.0’ and restart one more round of intuition… :)

But MBA is totally different story… it’s about assumptions and discussions… and hell lot of discussions… and challenging idle brain cells to think a lot and listen a lot to others’ points (at times bullshit)… I strongly believe that discussion is good way of looking an object from multiple angles with multiple lenses (wow... i am so, so involved…)

There is inherent problem with discussion… because ‘it depends’… it depends who is there in discussion, what they want to discuss… are they interested in solution or just love discussions… and most importantly, ‘when is the presentation deadline??’ :)
When there are more exceptions than rules and more opinions than information then discussions tend to happen and conclusion becomes distant dreams…(like my dream of dating Megan Fox… woo…woo)... That’s the reason (in class) we are taught that ‘it’s not about arriving at conclusion but process behind it’…(managers always have some explanation in hand… pretty smart haan!!!)

In short, management is about systematically deducing a process (with discussions) considering all risks and rewards (with some more discussions) and arriving at conclusion (wrong one…oops…)... If deduced wrong conclusion makes even the slightest of the sense then call it ‘new business model’ :)

So hope that explains why engineers don’t appreciate managers’ methods of working… its not just pay scale but they are fundamentally different… that is the reason why engineers and managers never understand each others' words though both are talking in same language… and that explains why few of my friends laughed when I told that I will do MBA :)

PS: Here I am engineer with half way MBA…. Hope to bridge this gap :)

going no where

2010-04-01T16:07:00.001+08:00

You always need a good friend around you… with whom you can talk for hours without making any sense… you can talk more about nothing than something… so here is one of such conversation:

Sam: I watched this movie called ‘Shutter Island’… psycho thriller… you finish the movie and you just say ‘oooh…. What was it?? And go back and see it again’

Me: It’s my daily experience… most of the time, once class is over… I feel, ‘what the heck was that’… but only difference is that I won’t go back and read again :)

Sam: Learning is not everything… Experience… experience, that’s what you get when you don’t get what you want… and experience build character!!!

Me: What you want me to do with all those experiences??? Eat them with bread??

Sam: You can write a book… though

Me: My stupid blogs are more than sufficient to ruin my future wedding… and if I write a book, people gonna throw stones and chase me away like street pig…

Sam: Pig on the road… now you are making me nostalgic…

Me: But I hate all those pigs which use to run on roads…

Sam: But here you don’t see pigs… not on road at least… haa..haa… But you don’t eat pork, do you???

Me: Aaah…. I am strictly vegetarian… I eat only vegetarian animals... haa..haa..

Seriously, pigs are good tutors, they teach how to control bike

(And a legendary moment of pause…I bet our brains were just sitting idle)

Me: Sometimes I see these flying pigs… do they signify something!!!

Sam: I bet your pigs drink Red Bull…. Remember red bull gives you wiiiings!!! I believe pigs learnt flying much before the cows did… but which one you see depends on what you drink…

Me: Vodka mixed with beer makes me see flying pigs…

Sam: Yeah… Vodka and beer… that’s nasty… try whisky and beer… much smoother you know… it was patented by our Teja… remember???

Me: Yeah… But it is quite costly here… everything and anything… every time I need to buy something… I just can’t help but convert the amount to INR…

Sam: See the positive side of it… your mathematics is improving especially ‘multiply by 33’ program :)

Me: Positive side!!! That is what we talk always…. See the positive side, bright side… just think better part of the worst situation and sleep

One more moment of pause… I bet still our processors were in sleep state…

Me: You think money is *that* important in life?

Sam: Of course ‘No’… money is not that important unless you have plenty of it with you… :)

Me: I feel I am pretty rich compared to 40% of the world’s population… you know what some people in Brazil live on less than dollar per day…

Sam: That’s bad… but Brazilian samba dance is good… awesome… I feel they should reach football finals…

Me: I am not particularly interested in football… but I did dance once… and my moves were ‘awesome’ compared to that of washing machine…

Sam: Never mind lah!!! Life is pretty much like machine here… 99% percent of the time it is god damn boring...

Me: I know… It’s the problem with system… I rather like chaos like the way it is in back home… anyway this is systematic island :)

Sam: yes… island!!! Man… you should watch ‘Shutter Island’… awesome movie… you will not realize what it is all about!!!

Me: Haa…haa...very true… like this conversation of ours... I don’t know what it is all about :)

[That was just excerpt from talk between Sam and I… of course we didn’t talk this much nonsense at least Sam won’t talk :)… but yes, we did cover all these topics :)]

MBA Chronicles- Decent Start

2010-03-06T15:43:00.010+08:00

I am so confused and clueless… it’s not writer’s block but I think I am becoming too conscious about my thoughts and words these days… after the controversy about one of my earlier blogs (ironically, the controversial blog is the most popular one), I am trying to control my flying thoughts but for a guy with abundant sarcasm and cynicism its little difficult… but I will try my level best :-)

Here I am one more time, after turning the page… doing my MBA on an island country. Looks like I have strange connection with islands, then Japan and now Singapore. Actually I am not a sea loving person (philosophically seas/oceans are quite complicated for me… don’t ask why/ how… just read on :-), I rather like mountains but whenever I step out of India, I land on an island… I know few of you are praying that next time I should land on Antarctica…Hmmm…

My student life is somewhat different than my friends’. Most of them went to West and I decided to go in opposite direction (now don’t give me super logic that earth is round and whatever goes around comes around). Anyway east is east… close to home and close to heart :-) I had this stereotype picture about studying abroad… wearing big Jackets, cold weather and snow (thanks to pictures posted by my friends)… anyway I don’t like cold (Oh… my God… I dislike more things/places/people than actually I like) so here I am on humid island… except air-con and ‘rum on the rocks’ most of things are hot here (I am just referring to weather :-)

In this student avatar few things have changed… Like I have lost sense of dates (no… no… this is not island effect on my cerebral appendicitis cortex). All dates look same to me now. When I was working, I used to wait for month end, the salary day... Of course for a person who was earning 6 million INR per month it must be big day… right?? (Oops... I think I ignored the decimal point :-). Anyway 30 or 31 or 1st were motivating and the most beautiful dates for me… Hurray!!! 24 days to go for salary. But now 30, 31 and 1 are just three consecutive days of calendar (in fact numbers, of which a number is prime). I have stopped counting and waiting for month ends… Now all I count is the deadline for the assignment.

Weekends… there are no more weekends… need to read every day. Things just go on and on and on… Remember the gazelle which wakes up every day morning in planes of Serengeti and starts running to beat the fastest lion… yeah… right… I am feeling like that Lion which wants to catch at least the slowest Gazelle :) Things move fast… so need to catch up with lots of things…

I got chance to work (to be precise, study) and interact with people who are not software engineers… being in Bangalore and being a software engineer, most of people I knew (except my family and relatives) were either software engineers or security guards of my office… good to meet people from different professions… Still I believe software engineers are special race :)

Few months back food and beverages were not a major issue for me… if I think, even today they are not… but now I am surviving on loan and sudd...suddenly I feel guilty that I am spending a lot (can’t help this feeling)… so can’t spend like good old days and can’t spend loads of time in search of new restaurants (which was my favorite sports in Bangalore)... In great Chime Tester Santossss words, “now I am just another poor man in rich-man’s country :)” [Still Maggie has not become my regular food]

After living in big apartment for years today I am sharing place with 4 people, no more free incoming calls and I wait till 8PM to make or receive calls, regular idli-vada-sambhar have become exotic now, forget the Tata-sky I don’t even have TV to follow up the Roadies, now I watch movies (clips) on youtube… friends who were just bike ride away are now portals on facebook… Oh… by the way… before coming here or even before applying for University, I knew this is the way it will be and I was/am ready for this… but most important thing is I am learning… I am learning new subjects and concepts and I am liking it... sometimes I feel topics are in Hieroglyphics... but when damn Sphinx can understand Hieroglyphics then MBA is not that hard for me… aag hogli matte… :)

Turn the Page

2009-12-09T02:33:00.004+08:00

“You get a job, you become the job” – if this is true here I am Mr. Piece of Un-compliable code or Excel sheet with utterly unhelpful data :)

It’s been more than five years since I am working as software engineer… I have seen companies, met different people… some good (whom I admire), some gifted (whom everyone admires) and some jesters and nosy colleagues (not worth mentioning in this nice blog), I did different kinds of tasks (good, bad or ugly… it’s just a job)… but at the end of the day I am just a simple plain software engineer…

Many times I felt like one of those regular rickshaw drivers, who don’t know anything more than driving rickshaw… and same here, since last five years I knew nothing more than SOFTWARING (if this word is not registered then I am gonna get patent for it :). I share few more traits with rickshaw drivers… like; I am greedy for hikes (it is deserving greed… you pay nuts then you will get monkeys to do jobs :-), even rickshaw drivers charge more than meter bill and still keep all change(chillre)… For the slightest reason I feel annoyed and frustrated, similarly, hardly you see any happy faced rickshaw drivers… And most importantly even I like listening to loud Kannada songs (dhinga chikka… dhinggg) :)

Life is like a book (Sometimes I wonder that my life is more like question-bank with one question after other…). Anyway now it is the time to turn the page. One more day and my existence as software engineer will cease to exist… I will no more be the job I do (because technically, literally or simply I will be unemployed) but all new me, my, myself… One more time I will be student :-)

Learning is continuous and whether I like it or not life will teach me lessons… but I decided to make this learning little professional… by attending regular classes, doing assignments and ultimately by writing exams… Frankly speaking it is quite exciting and strange feeling to go back to school again… because last time when I was in class (in engineering), most of my professors were of my current age…haa…haa :-)

Happiness of my first pay-cheque (it was a cheque as bank account was not opened yet… still wondering where I deposited that cheque?) , frustration of missing on-sites, fun of coffee breaks, fights over appraisals, pay hike parties, slight crushes which crashed like bad code (SW engineer is always SW engineer… you can shed away your engineering job but can’t throw out engineer inside you… after it is hard earned degree after tremendous lab and viva tortures), people who were nice with me, people who inspired me, people whom I had to tolerate and people whom I don’t even bother to ignore… all contributed a bit towards shaping my personality…

Whether I liked my job or not… at the end of the day (to be precise, on the salary day) I was happy to have one… Everyday morning after almost dead-like sleep, I knew where to spend rest of the day (of course @office). Though life is uncertain but I was pretty much sure that I will meet my friends (hope they are not on planned sick leave :-), I will be forced to finish my work and I am eligible for unlimited free coffee and a group insurance…

Tomorrow onwards few granted things and few people of my regular life will become part of the stories of my life experience with no homily morals… but just consume few more bytes of my brain… but thank you guys for occupying my empty brain bytes… Thank you very much for being part of this journey… and hope to be in touch with you people when I am all set to turn the page :)

Generally I finish my last mails with this line:
If someone throws Lemons at you, Don't make Lemonade... Think out of box... Ask for Tequila and Salt :)

Resignation

2009-11-18T18:55:00.013+08:00

It was quiet for a year or so… Thanks to recession, not many people showed their gymnastic skills by jumping around the companies… Slowdown was bad for lots but it was hidden boon for few, it made few people happy… Managers, who dumbly believed that their good for nothing leadership is holding back the ‘resources’ and HR people, who thought employees are happy with their blood sucking policies…

But time is changing again… Companies are opening up and providing arena to my software-engineer friends to show their jumping skills… And I am glad to announce that I am one among the few guys who resigned this year from my department… haa…haa… I always knew that I am good in resigning…

Question: What is that invented immediately after companies started?

Answer: Resignation letter :-)

Resignation is integral part of my generation… my father worked 25 years in one place… For person who has resigned 4 times in last 5 years, staying at one place for 25 years is like spending few hundred million years watching Saans Bhi kabhi Bahu thi :)

I always believed that resigning is an art… though you can never become Da Vinci of this art but you can try your bit… Here some tips from Mr. Adi, the man who resigned 4 times in last 5 years:

* Resign on Mondays... Every one hates Mondays, including your manager. So there is no harm increasing her annoyance. Good thing about resigning on Monday, whole week will go in meetings, negotiations, so total time pass.

* Never resign on Fridays… you will forget that you have resigned after 2 beers of Friday night party… so fun of resignation will vanish in hours.

* Have lots of meetings with your managers… its fun to watch them talk about unheard opportunities, untold promotions and unplanned challenges… more meetings more you get sense of your importance [last deserving feel good factor].

[Resignation negotiation meetings are not better than discussing ‘why did chicken cross the road?’… may be it is hungry and heading towards KFC or may be it thinks road is for crossing… how does it matter???]

* Always roam around with big broad smile on your face after resignation… you should send encouraging waves to your colleagues… what- a-bliss to resign from this company… right?

* Think about farewell mail… start working on draft version of farewell mail as soon as you resign… it is important. Farewell mail should have words which should refer bastards as bastards without calling them as bastards… effectively use Latin, Greek, French, Chinese or Hieroglyphics words… more confusing the mail more information is conveyed.

* In team meetings talk as much as possible about process improvements… after all you are quitting. Even if your plans are implemented, your ass will not be on fire.

* Don’t spend too much time on exit form... your feed back paper can be used as substitute for toilet paper in next recession time… no need to prove or convey anything… just walk out :-)

There is nothing personal about resignation… Its part and parcel of software engineer’s job… we come, we see and we jump… up… up and away :-)

good OLD

2009-09-20T14:13:00.001+08:00

Long back… man was very busy in doing interesting things… like inventing fire, dancing around fire, inventing wheel, and then inventing 3 more wheels (for Theju’s car)… inventing words, especially abusive words… later man got busy in building Pyramids, and waging wars (sadly even till today he haven’t stopped this bad habit)… And one day man got really really bored of all these things… and invented TV (hurrraaayyyy…)

I am one of those guys who have utmost respect for this invention… it’s not idiot’s box in any sense… today with hundreds of channels, thousands of programs… starting from cookery shows to tear showering daily soaps… reality shows to news… TV is full of something (not necessarily useful). If you are a software engineer and especially a bachelor software engineer… I bet you will share same views as mine :)

But things were quite simple few years back… there was only one channel... or in fact TV was synonym for Door-Darshan (or vice a versa)… some news, some nice homely programs and lots of ‘sorry for interruption’ or ‘rukawat ke liye khed hai’ screen… Round the clock non-stop blabbering was remotely relevant then… even DD people used to sleep along with transmission… Luckily, I belong to the generation which has seen good old DD… I have seen Ramayan, Mahabharat and ever thrilling ‘Byomkesh Bakshi’ and Sundays I used to get up early for ‘Rangoli’ and then Jungle book, Chandrakantha… I am not sure whether for good or not… that time we had only two options, either DD or go out to play/study…

Why the phrase good OLD things??? Is it because we like old things or because we like the same things better when we become old???

Today there are so many programs that I loose track what to watch… after browsing number of channels; I end up either watching History Channel or F TV (yes… my tastes are miles apart). Imagine one day if all channels disappear from air… and all you have is DD to watch…. Hmmm… big deal… life will be same with one less confusion, ‘which channel to watch?’

DD was government of India channel… so viewer used to watch more or less what minister of broadcasting wants to show… Some might claim that DD had unilateral view of government... but what is happening now??? Every one is broadcasting something or other but in any case things are far from truth. Thanks to people who have more opinion than information and unfortunately they are running this business… In the name of right of expression or intellectual liberty things are going too far, too bad and too ugly. [I am just being diplomatic here and don’t want to pin point any examples…]

What is similarity between Reality shows and today’s news channels??

Answer: Both are staged, tailored and censored as per editor/lobbyist.

So be it good or bad… once DD stood for TV… and last week good old DD celebrated its 50^th birthday (Happy belated birthday, DD). Door-Darshan was started with aim to broadcast information… now we are in era of information… so broadcast unbiased, authentic, truth… Someone has put lot of effort for us by inventing TV… so please don’t make his invention an idiot’s box…

Sorry for interruption…. Pyaaaaannnnnkkkkkk…..

hitch HIKE :-)

2009-08-01T00:28:00.006+08:00

Its been long time since I posted… anyways don’t expect much from my side… after all I am not Paris Hilton to have 3 love affairs and 4 p*rn videos released in couple of months… (so sad nah…)

I had resolved to post at least one blog every month but I missed my deadline badly :-( But this is the good thing about working as software engineer… even you miss a dead line still you ‘don’t mind’, knowing that deadlines are part of life and there will be incremental releases :-)

You guys won’t believe but I was facing ‘writer’s block’… yup… in broad sense even we, bloggers, are writers, though I never heard any blogger getting Booker for his stupendous writings :-(. It’s not that NOW my life has become bland or not that I am so much involved in ‘Rakhi Ka Swayamvar’ that I forgot to post here… just I was waiting for some change to trigger me to write… being software engineer i need push to do something something sensible…

Finally after bankruptcy news, low on cash and sales things… I got the hike… How much??? Shhh… don’t you know it’s confidential and I can’t discuss that with you… but in short my hike is as good as winning 50 paisa in lottery... anyway in the time of something is better than nothing... anything is OK.... and how am i feeling??? Hmmm.... feeling 'as usual'… That is one more thing assoicated with software engineer… over the period of time everything around us becomes so usual/ stereotype that sometime I don’t even bother to ignore/ notice things… Getting bored, getting pissed off, and getting hikes, friend’s friends going on-sites, friends leaving company…. Every thing is usual…

So as usual I got hike (of this year)... and... and... (after a paragraph distance) i am in party mood... so if any of you are celebrating your birthday or anniversary... or just feeling that your HR girl got married... then here i am waiting for invitation from you for the party :-)

Thank you - Arigatho

2009-04-17T01:16:00.009+08:00

Since quite some time I am caught up with ‘thank-you’ syndrome (though publicly rarely I show it). Thanks to all those award functions, starting from Oscar-BAFTA to our local Filmfare - cine awards, for infecting me with this syndrome. I find awards functions are quite nice, whether true from heart or not… people are eager to express ‘thanks’ to every other person… In any average award function there are only three kinds of people… one who read ‘thank-you’ note after getting award, one who’s name is mentioned in that ‘thank-you’ note and one who cleans the mess after award ceremony is over…

I, the 'thank-you-syndrome-infected’, wanted to read out ‘thank-you’ note… And… and finally I got the occasion to read out that ‘thank you’ note… yes... my blog site’s hit count has crossed 1000 :)

So here I am expressing my heartily thanks to…
- Blogspot.com, for providing place to usher my thoughts. In software engineer’s stereotype life apart from kitchen (where one can try different weird recipes) blogs are only place where one can express ‘self’… I am here not to make sense all the time… I am here just to see how many of you can take sense of my non-sense and laugh.

- Mr. Laxman, for writing first hate message on my board… I appreciate your hate for my writings… I know God-must-be-drunk is quite weird… but didn’t find better name… anyway ‘what’s there in name?’… right???
[Oh…I deleted that hate message :-)]

- Guys and gals from 37 countries who visited my blog site… cool… I got a hit from ‘Azerbaijan’… thanks dude for improving my knowledge… now I know about your beautiful country ‘Azerbaijan’

- High school English teacher, for teaching me English… though I use coarse, sarcastic wordings to express my dry jokes…

- Weird surrounding and different kinds of people around me, for giving me chance to observe things in my own multi-dimensional way and scribble my thoughts here… special thanks to reality TV shows such as M TV Roadies, SplitsVilla and news channels which have more opinion than information

Last but not the least (in fact most importantly), thank you very very much, to all those people who came out bravely to vote today, in those violent areas…
And advance thanks to everyone who gonna vote… ACHCHE KO CHUNEY… SACHCHE KO CHUNEY… (Vote a good person… vote a true person)

Cheaper world

2009-04-10T17:41:00.003+08:00

In great investor Warren Buffet’s words, “sell, when others are buying and buy, when others are selling"

And looks like everyone in Bangalore is selling one or other thing and at cheaper rates… cars, flats, clothes, ash trays, underwears, socks… you name it and you will get some discount… If some are selling things at discounted prices then some are giving lucrative offers on purchase… If you just pass 10 shops, at least 8 will have board of discount offers… people are so eager to sell that one of the hoardings read, ‘buy 1 flat and get another flat free’. (Of course conditions applied)

Freakonomist sarcasm: The item you want the most in a sale will have 'no-discount' tag or will be out of stock.

Everyone is ready to sell to make ‘some’ money in this economical hard time but purchaser, following the proverb ‘save it for rainy day’, is not ready to take out penny from his packet in this time (In SW terms it is classic example of dead-lock :-)

With so many discounts and promotion prices…I feel world around me has become cheaper place… not only in terms of materials but ironically also in terms of people …Yes… it is general election time and leaders (self-proclaimed) of biggest democracy of the world have started their cheap dramas and cheap speeches… if some wants to cut hand, other wants to cut fingers… if some wants road-roll the opponent the other is giving money to buy votes, if some one promising rice @ 2rupees, few are giving color TVs to forget the old promises… looks like politicians are competing each other to fall the chasm of ethics… bloody hell :(. Things are cheaper then why not enjoy it… so I have switched from ‘Reality-shows’ to political news (to get my dose of cheap thrills)…

Oh… by the way… I bought Whirlpool fully automatic washing machine at a discounted price… why??? I need it, it is cheap, it has ‘lucky-draw’ offer and more over some one has to buy when some is selling… so that is my small contribution towards moving economy :)

Mood of the day: Generally Fridays are nice (TGIF)… and holiday on Friday is like getting 90% discount… so Happy Good Friday… or should I say Better Friday :)

Freakonomy - Fool's day

2009-04-01T02:37:00.005+08:00

Wondering what is the link between a fool and finance… apart from the fact that few fools of Wall-Street have screwed up the finance… Hmm…. Financial year begins on April 1st, the ‘fool’s day’ :)

Out of 365 days of the year… why on fool’s day financial year begins… is it mere coincidence or a cosmic conspiracy by Martians to make fool out of earthlings???

April 1st is spent doing pranks, spreading hoax… everyone get their share of joy… but looks like this time around only companies (especially finance fellows) get lion’s share by fooling us with rumors of hikes and bonuses…

Anyway I am gonna stick to spirit of fool… oops… sorry… fool’s day… and wish you all happy fool’s day and New Financial Year (one and the same)

Haan… In good old fashion, for this New Year (financial a.k.a Fool’s day), I have made some resolutions
- Will not believe in salary hike letters unless it is deposited to my account.
- I am not gonna entertain talks like “my friend’s friend got 40% hike” or “my friend’s friend got bonus” unless your friend’s friend gives me treat :)
- If your friend’s cousin is going for long term onsite then please don’t share the news with me… when I become jealous, I become violent.
- Will be in ‘Don’t-panic’ state till my company locks its doors and sells my PC
- I will be more focused… I am gonna ignore all the news about bail outs, rolling heads, mergers… all I focus is my pay, my EMI and my account balance.
- Will be more social… will attend all functions, parties, get-to-gathers in which I get free food and drinks.

Fool proof wisdom:
Every man is a damn fool for at least five minutes every day; wisdom consists of not exceeding that limit.

Small is revolution

2009-03-26T01:53:00.000+08:00

There was a time when things grew in size… Dinosaurs, Pyramids, Eiffel Tower, Coliseum… even a compound wall was built in such a scale that people call it 'Great wall of China'… once upon a time a computer used to occupy whole building… and suddenly everyone decided to make smaller things… small PCs, Laptops, small cars… mini-meals… and suddenly people started thinking, “small, indeed is the revolution” and some became technically-philosophical to coin the quote ‘world is becoming smaller’

Macro became mini, mini became micro and finally micro became NANO… Yes, Tata’s dream car, NANO, world’s cheapest, small car is launched… but it always takes a BIG dream and BIGGER thinking to make these small things…

Will this small car gonna change the automotive world???
Some say yes… things will change… may be one might have noticed that big gramophones were replaced by i-pods… Some say NANO will not change anything… they have plenty more reasons to say NO… after all appreciation and cynicism are two faces of same coin…

You buy it or not… Nano has already changed lot many things…
- It is hot topic for 'analysts' to study ‘impact of NANO on middle class’
- For environmentalists it has already raised pollution concerns…
- For my roomie Gubbi it is example for Fortune at the bottom of pyramid.
- For politicians it is one more issue to do circus.
- For bloggers and TV channels, one more topic to fill their spaces with reviews and views.

I am not gonna buy it… but NANO already made its small impact on my thinking… Now as I am totally convinced that era of cheaper, smaller technology is here and to keep up with the fashion… I am gonna think discrete, try to find fun in small things and also I am gonna write nice, funny, small blogs…

color...color

2009-03-11T16:36:00.000+08:00

March is colorful month… thanks to festival of colors, Holi… but looks like I am not gonna enjoy this time… I have God damn office to attend… I love holidays… but this time no holiday on Holi-day :(. I really hate festivals which come on weekend (what is the point of having a holiday on a weekend) and I really, really hate festivals which fall on weekdays and my HR thinks we should work on that day… Anyway recession is not a nice time to live your life on your terms but agree to what your company says… so I will be sitting in office staring my monitor pixels… still I would like to thank my company for providing me COLOR monitor :)

Why we play Holi… it is the time when we let colors take over our true shades… we may be anything from inside… selfish, jealous, stupid, arrogant, nice, innocent, bustard, bit*h but under the cover of bright nice colors on face, we can be totally different person… was it philosophical.... haan

Colors are so colorful right??? But colors stand for different things…
Colors convey message
- Danger Red, Love red (Danger == Love???)
- Lonely Blue, Dark Heart, ever Green. Gay pink
Sometimes Colors speak more than words
- Traffic signals (red, yellow, green) say you to stop and go (though no one follows)
- (Infamous) pink slips and Pink Chaddis

Sometimes colors are never really stand for colors… When I say Forum is colorful place, it is not because of United Colors of Benetton shop… but babes of Forum :0)
Small Assignment: Decode this line… My company is not a colorful place!!!

Everyone loves colors… imagine life without colors... Don’t pump blood to your brain to imagine colorless world… Just turn off color of your TV and watch M-TV… You got it, man… Watching colorless fashion shows are as good as drinking warm beer with broken straw :( so thank you very much Mr. X who invented colors.

Like different shades of colors, different people have different ways of celebrating festival of colors… students will have full blast where as software engineers send colorful forwards… and yesterday I saw on TV that even politicians celebrate Holi, just to hide their cunning faces from voters :-

Bollywood films are biggest takers of this festival… Simply it is the most celebrated festival in films… in 70’s, it was virtual rule that every film should have a song on Holi, where in actor and actress splash colors on each other… and express their loves in colorful and wet way… And hope you guys remember the evergreen dialogue from the film, Sholay, “Holi kab hai? Kab hai Holi?”

How I USED to celebrate???… Oh… that was long back... in College… so many colors, many more shades, hell lot of fun, ear drum tearing laughter, shouting and buckets of colored water… and ultimately all drenched shirt hanging to the tamarind tree of hostel :-

Anyway with time things change… so I am no more in college and my good OLD friends have really become OLD… So we celebrate HOLI in mail chains, forwards and SMSes… Whatever it is, the SPIRIT of festival remains HIGH.

Wish you happy and colorful Holi - and let there be colors in your lives :)

piSSed oFF :-|

2009-02-21T16:30:00.000+08:00

Smoking reduces life by 5mins, beer reduces life by 10mins... but what about working day.... it reduces your life by 9-10 hours... and guess what... this week I am going to lose few more extra hours of my life by working on… I am not workaholic but today it is god damn working day.... and yes... I am pissed off.

Do you know, as per the world famous survey (which I did last night), 'I AM PISSED OFF' is the most commonly used line among English speaking vertebrates… I LOVE BEER and MY JOB SUCKS stand second and third… (Oh... I LOVE YOU… that’s for dumb population)

Pissed off… sounds like some medical term… but widely used by us, software engineers!!!!! Not sure when it was coined but was mentioned in 1984 book 'workers at risk'… (Very sensible...who else than workers will be pissed off)
Useless Info:
Pissed off (adj): Aroused to impatience or anger… e.g. I was pissed off by her snootiness.
If you are really really pissed off… use more pissed off/ most pissed off… not pissed ON!!!

Why I get pissed off??? Really… do I need a reason for that… since the day I am working as software engineer, I feel it is my legal right (and most of you agree…) to get pissed off. I bet very soon it will be included in the list basic rights given to us by constitution…
'Amendment No 8765.32: Right to be pissed off' :)

Given every slightest reason, I can get pissed off… and if I don't get reason, I simply search one to get pissed off, and if I can't search one then, I simply get pissed off for not having reason to get pissed off… Ufff… (Am I addicted to it???).
Fortunately I find hell lot of reasons to get pissed off... If I don't find the news paper in door way, if my apartment lift isn't working, if mallu uncle of bakery gives less tea for 3 Rs, if traffic police gets hold of me for license, traffic jams while returning from office, if cafeteria 'rasam' tasted like beetle juice, seeing nosy colleague wearing yellow socks, if not much babes to see ITPL mall... so on... so on...

Reason for getting pissed off can have circular logic… when petrol rate reached 55Rs… I was pissed off as 'life moving' fuel was costlier than 'intoxicating beer'… and when petrol rate decreased… I was annoyed again that I have to pay more for 'air polluting' petrol than 'life soothing' beer.

Insane Discovery: Kangaroo rats never get pissed off… as they don't drink water!!!

Reasons for being pissed off can be contradictory… I get pissed off with questions.
- Why are you not getting married? Do you drive on other side of the road?
- I heard your company is bankrupt…do they pay you salary or give money plants?
Sometime answers drive me crazy…
- I like you… but you look like my cousin (when I gave pink rose to a girl on rose day)
- You get hike depending on market rate (are you talking about fish market?)

'Sharing is fun' that's what we were taught… that is true… there are things which gives pleasure when shared .. like your work (when your alcoholic colleague shares it) or last peg from your friend… just like that… even annoyance can be shared… if you think getting pissed off is fun then sharing it with others is euphoria…
- You are not happy with the fact that there is no hike this time and when you share this with your friend who is already annoyed with job cuts.... and imagine the fun of together scolding companies, economy, bailouts, Lehman brothers ...

Insane Rule: A person remains in state of pissed off unless he is provoked and become more pissed off or soothed by looking at a looser who is most pissed off than himself/herself.

Is it wrong to get pissed off??? (Repeated questions also drive me nuts…)

Not at all... virtually we have every RIGHT (and practically LEFT also) to do so and it is fun. Why not... it is the meta-state in which you can avoid unwanted people (don't come near me, I am in bad mood).... you can avoid work (I will do this task tomorrow... I am pretty much pissed off today) or you can simply write a blog about stupidest topic so far called 'PISSED OFF'... :-)

Blisss WEDS trick

2009-01-29T00:32:00.004+08:00

Achtung: This is work of fiction and handy work of burnt brain cells… my would-be-wife please don't read it seriously.

"Marriage is very tricky" - I am not really good in counting… but I think its 9th time my friend (Married And Confused... MAC) mentioned this line in last 4mins... I just assumed that it is new wedding bliss...

Last November, I could really tell 'marriages were in air'… as I attended lots of weddings, receptions and engagements… I felt as if ‘best deal’ sale was going on for marriages… yuppy... loads of free food :)

In (now married)Bhatta's words... "You may deny or may be selective about accepting reality... but truth is 'It's the time' :-).
He is right... my family is taking marriage issue seriously… more than them my relatives wants to see my wedding… either they think it is first of its kind… or they want break from daily operas and look for new time pass…

But... am I ready for it??? In some sense (probably non-sense)… Yes, I am… of course I have nice job (though my company needs bailout every weekend to run projects), I lead quite stable life (though Saturday morning I need strong lemon soda to remind myself that I am not Katrina :), I am responsible (shit… power cut.. didn’t I pay bills, again?), I am matured (just read this blog :)

Me: "How did you decide to marry the girl whom you are married now?"

MAC: "Oh… when it happens… it just happens"

Me: "Did you say shit happens? Or plainly you meant… if anything has to go wrong... it will go wrong??"

MAC: "Noo… Noo….. Marriage is tricky, you know" [this line is still sounded like the one which you hear from dumb news reader… you don't know if it is true but it is repeated all day]

Useless quote: I heard it from greater than greatest person that marriage is like buying mobile phone… once you get one, you always feel, if you waited some more time, you could have got latest one at much cheaper price" [may be this guy was hit badly by his wife after marriage… so my would-be-wifey… this is not my feeling… but just quoting it]

Do I fit in girl's requirement??? So decided to ask my friend who coincidentally Born As Girl(BAG)

Me: "So…your parents must be searching groom for you?"

BAG: "Yes… they started long back… but even I need to decide who I should marry"

Me: "So you already got one… or have a requirement for that"

BAG: "I have requirements... He should be tall (giraffe make good husband???), dark (yes, Obama boys), handsome (it is subjective)… cool (I am), calm (depends), silent (while sleeping)…"
If you combine all these traits all you can visualize is the 9 feet statue of Shivaji Maharaj standing in the circle :-)

Useless quote: I am not afraid of terrorist… I am already married :-) [Does this fellow who quoted this line wanted to spread fact that his wife is actually a BOMB :-)]

Even we guys will have requirements…

Me: "How did you decide to marry the girl with whom you are married now?"

MAC: "See… girl should be sensible, caring, less spending, and less talkative, less annoying… but we are grown-ups… so do we believe in these myths??? Noo…. Noo… so follow one standard rule, marry the girl who is good looking… you know it’s quite tricky :)"

Drastic changes… that is what I fear though I always tell 'change is good'. So what can be those changes??? I have to get accustomed to more laws (mother-in-law, father-in-law, brother-in-law), I have to accept permitted non-changability (starting from hair style till job, I need Vito from my wifey), can't flirt with her best friend (lose right of creativity), have to tolerate her cousins (apart from my already existing nosy cousins), learn to be patient (have to wait months till she goes to her parents house and I get chance to booze whole night :-)

Me: "Do you feel the loss of free will?"

MAC: "noo…noo… not at all… free will prevails… but hers…"

Me: "I am sorry… so was it good as bachelor?"

MAC: "Earlier it was my PM who used to control my free will by giving me hell lot of work, it was my company HR who controlled my free will of dressing… but NOW my WIFE controls it… but see the positive side, someone inside my family exploiting my free-will not out siders:-)"

Like two sides of coin… every head has a tail…(whatever that means)
There are some positive things about marriage… I can go places (buy cooker in commercial street and to buy its gasket go to Jayanagar), I can become Neil Armstrong (will get chance to go honey-MOON), I can increase my list of people whom I can hate and use bad words (my cousin-in-laws included to the list now), will have more social life (though might lose few of my good old ever laughing friends as SHE will hate them for sure) but will get chance to know more girls (her friends)… so as per my calculation I will be knowing more girls after marriage than I know as bachelor)… I can be excused from late night work at office (do they make married guys work late night???... at least I never seen)

Me: "Our ancestors never got married…. But some-how evolution took drastic change and humans started marriages… at times we hate it, at times we love it… we take it lightly and yet we are serious about it…Right… bro??"

MAC: "That's very well said… Marriage is very tricky, my boy"

Me: "I shouldn't ask this… but I can't control it anymore… Is marriage so magical that you actually call it magic trick?"

MAC: "Noo… noo…. my family TRICKED me to get married… otherwise, I was happy singing, dancing, shouting, drinking bachelor :-)"

Freakonomy - TGIF :)

2008-10-11T23:31:00.002+08:00

'Wall-Street' crisis… Lehman Bankrupt… Bailout plan… Dollar surge… commodity prices... crude… interest rates…. What is common in these words? No cherry point for guessing that 'world economy is getting screwed'. These are the new topics of conversation for people… Now days you hear these words in any place where more than one person is present (anyway I don't talk to myself sitting on commode)… starting from tea shops to shabby bars, from office cafeteria to late night parties… people love to talk about these things.

The topics are so famous that people have started using these words in popular lingo… The other day my friend was complaining that his girl friend is giving him only one smooch per week and she is blaming that rise in prices of essential commodities is reason for this cost cutting :) Anyway I asked him to invest in 'other' mutual funds to balance the total smooches. (And… my roommate used to tell that I don't have sense of market)

And you really don't have to know why bankruptcy happened or what bankruptcy means… All you have to do is remember the words… today morning I had interesting conversation with the bakery 'mallu Uncle' from whom I buy my daily dose of nicotine and caffeine.

Mallu Uncle: Bailout is very small (with clear dissatisfaction on face)

Me: Really…???

Mallu Uncle: 700 billion is too less in America to bail out so many people.

Me: 'So many people'? I thought it is for companies.

Mallu Uncle: You software people don't know 'generator' knowledge of markets… In America there are famous brothers called Lehman Brothers like we have 'Kaurava brothers' here… They did something and people put them in Jail…and America is bailing out them from Jail… they are famous I guess, I think they are cousin's of Bush.

Me: Oh (I couldn't tell much)

Mallu Uncle: Just imagine how much is 700 Billion

Me: Please shower me with that knowledge!!!

Mallu Uncle: It is very big money in India… If I have that money I can buy all the coconuts of Kerala, all the lungis, start at least 1500 bakeries and produce at least 4000 Mallu B-grade movies starring Shakeela.

I just said kudos… and made a small pact that I will be actor in one of the movies and came to office. (even i need a backup plan when recession stuck :)

Today morning one of my uncle called me to ask 'am I going to office?'. (Is it uncle's day, today?) On inquiring he told that GM share is all time low… so will the office be open? That was so weird, right? What GM shares have to do with my stupid tasteless job? After all I am a developer… A developer's job is to make the girl pregnant… that's it. It is job of business analysts, marketing people to carry baby for 9 months, go through the pain, pay the bills and deliver it safely… [That is most simplified corporate hierarchy lesson by Gowda (Popular belief is that he is one among those nasty Lie-man Brothers). Hope now you mammals know, 'what they don't teach in Harvard' or you can simply say why Gowda shouldn't be admitted to Harvard :)

Here is the PJ question: What is common between Lehman Brother's and Ramsey Brothers. Ans: Both scared shit out of the people… one in market and one in TV shows (Ramsey brothers produced Zee Horror Shows and plenty of horror movies)

As I was talking about economy in office cafeteria, I see most of my peers sitting grimly and talking about market crash and Sensex drop… so I dared to ask one of my nosy colleague, " how much you lost in market?" With grave face he told, "No, I was planning to put some 5000 rupees if market was good"… [kutta saala… Khaaya peeya kuch nahin aur bottle bhi nahin thoda]. Anyway this is nice valid time to spend time in cafeteria... "Global economy is down.... so do you think your 10lines of code will make difference.... so why work, sit here.. let's enjoy coffee" (one among 351 reasons to call ourselves as cheap labors :-( )

And let me keep quiet about the blond female, who comes to cafeteria with pink color coffee mug, who told me that she always liked movies produced by Lehman brothers but recent movies are not good so they bankrupted…. Listen you stupid brainless female they are Warner Bros not Lehman bros.

One more PJ question: Why it is called as SENSEX? Ans: After every RISE, it follows with DROPS :0)

So today is sufficiently a bad day, GM shares have reached all time low since great depression, major companies have lost money and all major indexes are falling… in short global economy is getting screwed... but still there is hope… today is Friday, so go home drink properly and God damn get drunk to the core, pee from balcony, steal neighbor's clothes, bite your house owner's dog, and don't do anything which makes slightest of the Sense…. The second (list) thing what they don't teach in Harvard :)

Economy is like driving a car in a tunnel; if you lose control the car will hit one side wall and bounce and hit other wall but ultimately will come on track… so cool.

Eclipse

2008-08-03T18:24:00.000+08:00

“What’s in the name?” – Was it Shakespeare or Sex-spear? I think it did make a difference. Names do matter; in today’s digital era people are more worried of identity theft than of contracting Gonorrhea. [Okay… this is not from some useless survey shown on news channel…]

Anyway, having such a cool name, Aditya, is really pleasure. [I know most of you envy… anyway better luck next time]. Apart from ‘cooler’ side, my name has least scope of getting ‘basterdized’. [If you are trying to work on it… please keep the research to yourself or pass it to your kids in a WILL]. Aditya can be just called as ‘Adi’ (which I prefer) and some other forms, (which are not necessary here)
Trivia: Even Adolf can be cutely called as ‘ADI’; I am referring to Adolf Hitler. [Check Wikipedia if you don’t believe me… here]. So is I an Aryan, or a Nazi, or may be a ‘furher’ or just a beer loving German.s [Beer loving part is common…]

It’s not that I am loving my name since the time I was born… with a background of Kannada schooling and having beta-dyslexia syndrome in understanding English grammar (even today I think ‘conjunction’ is a train station near Darjeeling), so writing correct spelling for me was next to walking on mars without shoes. So I always hated spelling of my name which had so many letters (boss, 6 is half of a dozen, ok… that time I always wished to have a simple name such as RAJ (SRK impact on my growing brain cells, that also before I passed my Paanchvi) or something which is more simpler, like ABC. Anyway with the time, my English improved (you can witness it in this blog… where I use amazing talent coarsely to make dried out jokes (sometimes died ones too) and to analyze ignorable irrelevant issues such as this one about ‘name’), and now I can write my name 546730 times in one hour without any spelling mistakes [try doing it in status meeting].

With the new stages in life, I started facing new problem with my name… Interesting but unavoidable fact is that ADITYA coincidently starts with letter ‘A’ and which, coincidently is the first letter of English alphabet… although I never wanted but my roll number was first in school. [That’s the reason why they named me ‘Aditya’, at least in roll number I should stand first].

And in college, I was first among the 4 students (roll number wise of course, other things in which I aced are censored, again). Can you believe there were 3 Adityas in first 4 roll numbers (in fact in first 100 numbers :-) … In college because of this 'A', i always became victim of first batch labs and vivas.… and most of my marks were screwed because of this opening ceremony at labs, thanks Mr. ‘A’…

But in this professional career, name doesn’t have much importance, if you think rationally; even whole body doesn’t have any significance… In poetic phrase I am just ‘another brick in the wall’ (even pebble sometimes) - we are just resources (for management), unlimited rice-sambhar eating dinosaurs (for cafeteria manager), road Romeos (for those f*ck all Forum mall babes) and for rest of the world we are ‘software engineers’. [Inside I am Aditya… did I become too emotional here… sorry babes]

I don’t know why I am talking so much of non-sense today (today is not my birthday and not even Bhukamp’s)… may be the eclipse effect on me because of the name Aditya (Sun... somehow i connect the things which are really don't have connection)… may be. Anyway I am taking extra precaution, as soon as i got info about ‘Grahan’, I stole some empty cement bags from a construction site (next to ITPL) and stitched a nice condom shaped 'anti-radiation’ suit for me, just to avoid bizarre radiations.

Technically, traditionally, mythically we shouldn’t consume food during eclipse… so I am already loaded my stomach with lots of food, even if eclipse lasts till Monday I don't have any issues :0. And i heard there is nothing written about consumption of beer or smoking cigarettes... so go ahead and do it (my beliefs are with you). And it is perfectly okay to have sex also... so no issues, go ahead do your might... anyway what the max can happen when you do things you are not suppose to do during eclipse... you will mutate, may be become hulk or spider-man or Hancock (whatever it means)... but still monday morning you got to come to your fu*cking (fucking, that's the word) jobs...
As a orthodox person (which I pose as, when it gives me sufficient reasons to skip work), I am leaving for home early, as I want to take bath, once the the eclipse ends and perform some Pooja… (no, my neighbor’s name is not Pooja :)… anyway good point of becoming orthodox person, I didn’t do any work whole day just because today is Eclipse day and I was supposed to do some CPP Unit testing in IBM Eclipse project… In the clash of faith and technology… faith is the winner…

tata (if someone says 'birla' and feels proud of it then dude... eclipse started working on you)

dreamZzzz unlimited

2008-06-30T22:01:00.001+08:00

I woke up with bad headache... felt as if anu malik is trying his hands on hard metal. I closed my eyes for sometime... 'sleep angel' might have already decided to wake me up... anyway the daily pursuit of bread and jam has to be started... So reluctantly i gathered my 'will' and got up from bed...

As per routine collected the news paper from the door... and as usual I gave a glance on the opposite flat door with the anticipation of seeing that babe who lives in that house. And as usual disappointed with the ugly closed brown door....

While reading the crap things in news paper... my cell indicated of new SMS.
I thought, must be one of my friends who is traveling in company bus with mammoth reluctance to move his ass towards office and is spreading the bad Monday morning mood with some nonsense message. So I decided not to entertain stupidity of any sort at this hour...

But again i changed my decision and decided to check SMS... thinking that someone has sent a nice wish to me ... wish me... for what??? it isn't my 'happy' birthday... not anniversary (oh.. i am not married also)... so what is it that i am receiving at 7:20 in the morning...

I checked it... It was from unknown number.... and it started, "GM, Adi. I know its weird, i read ur mail n realized that i should give myself a chance to understand u. may be u r the one i am looking for, tanx for everything, ur help, ur patience to hear me. i want to meet u, take things further... it is too early but I L U... i liked everything about u... ur bike, ur stories, ur escapades, ur machi, ur totu, ur paddu, ur FIL, ur athani, ur moods, ur shayaris, ur blogs... ur GMAT, ur theories, ur laughter, ur jokes, ur ridiculous blush, ur milds, ur beers, ur stupid dressing sense... and ur affection for me... :-)"

Getting romantic message from unknown number is like winning 50 paisa in a lottery. May be it is some kind of joke... politically incorrect joke... or a technically incorrect one !!!!!!

I was reluctant to call back to that number... just don't wanted to make fool of myself on Monday morning... I know my friends won't wait for 'April 1st' to make fool of people.... when you have friends who are like you then you tend to get suspicious about such things :-)

With big questions and slight happiness in mind i took bath... and in next 15 minutes i read the same message again and again (more than 20 times...). It was incomplete in sense... it kept on returning me void, kind of dangling pointer... (a true sense software engineer, i am, who thinks everything in terms of code) What is that mail, which i wrote and to whom.... thanks to saturday night bliss.... which made me forget pretty many things :-) That is the problem with having crush on more than one... and try to be senti with each and everyone when HIGH....

Before locking the door (to go to office), I decided to have a cigarette (for the road, as I say)... sitting on the staircase, I decided to read the message one more time... (for the road :) May be will get some hint in it... it still seemed like Da Vinci Code... wanted to trace it and if it is a boy then decided to kill him.... i made a 'to do' for the day...trace the person from office number... :-)

Cell beeped...
"I'm coming to bng to meet u... landing @10AM... hope, u be there... love u, r*s*ena :)"
[Name is hidden for the sake of the security of my future kids]

&*&$^! ^&#$^(*&^ &*%#@!) ^%^$#$***@
I went blank... i didn't know how to react... what to reply... i thought i am wandering in some wild dream... pinched myself... oouch.... very much true it was...

What will happen next??? ... but at least now, i need to meet the girl from airport... the girl, whom i had met couple of times... i liked her in the very first look... somehow i liked her... her eyes, her hairs, her lips, her smile, her ear-rings, her hindi... her favorite one line, 'I love Rhotak'.. she was/is perfect...:) Most of the people won't agree but i felt that she looks like Vidya Balan...
So i headed for the airport... and its long way... and i made sure to buy red roses for her... lots of roses... (though I felt reddiness of those flowers were dim compared to her smile) and while riding my bike I could visualize her face... and it brought a shy smile on my lips... and may be a euphoric sense, as monday morning i was not only skipping the office but meeting someone who made my day (may be coming years)

I'm gone see her after 3 months... I knew that I will miss her before she left mysore... so I had copied her 'stamp size' photo from her Orkut profile. Anyway in that 10x26 resolution photo no one can make difference between ape man and I. But somehow i could fill those blurr pixel with my imagination... and make a picture perfect :) I looked at the watch... it was still 8:30... and the song which was playing on i-pod... "Tu hi meri shab hai.. subah hai.. tu hi din hai mera..." really synched with my mood.

I was thinking of her so much that I couldn't even see the traffic signal going green... and was standing in the front row of traffic and holding the traffic on ransom of my thoughts.
'HONK... HONK..... HONK.....'.... a majestic truck started honking for the way.....

And I woke up....
With alarm sound... Checked the time, it was still 7:15 in the morning... "Oh god damn... monday morning...:("

PS: I decided not to watch Vidya Balan movies/songs or Jab We Met when I am alone :-)

It's raining man...

2008-06-07T13:14:00.000+08:00

Rain and our family have long romantic love-love relation. My ancestors, who were landlords (sort of), always prayed for the good rain. [Am I lying…You can see photo of my great-great grand father dancing like Aamir Khan of 'Lagan' for rain in our family album] But brought up in Metro City (sort of again) I didn't inherit any of those farming or rain god worshipping tendencies in me. So I really never cared much whether it rains cats or dogs or it rains rums or beers. And being a 'bath' repellent and special thanks to movies like, 'Mungaru maLe' (means Monsoon Rain) and it's pointless moral, 'prithi madhura tyaga amara', which can be basterdly translated into English as 'Love everywhere, sacrifice is underwear', I never had a good feeling for the rainy season.

Monsoon is here… may be in advance… thanks to global warming or whatever [I over heard few people talking that victory of BJP in Karnataka polls is the reason] or God must be in hurry to finish of his pouring job in this part of world.

Some years back (ok… lot many years back) when I was innocent kid (assuming that all kids are innocent), rainy season had different meaning for me. It was great time, thanks to all that mud and water on road where I used to play with paper boats. We knew TITANIC then only (even about those painting scenes… advantage of being brought up in a Metro City), as at the end of the day the game used to end up in drowning other's boats :)

I think most of you people played in rain… not sure about people from draught lands of Orissa, Rajasthan and Gulbarga:) Really those were some really good 'wet' memories…

Thanks to the British officer (it was popular belief that my school was built by Phirang… if you see my 5th standard class teacher, you will believe the rumor) who had built our school before independence, which used to pour in synch with rain… so we used to get obvious holidays. Apart from this rainy season always offered me more reasons to bunk school, 'sick leave'. [Most of the time, my teacher used to take sick leave giving same reasons as I used give]

Even knowing the 'Titanic', instead of becoming a painter, I ended up becoming a software engineer. And now things are different… whether it rains or not, whether its earthquake or tsunami, I need to go to office. Actually once my PM had threatened me that, 'Even if you die, I will dig you out of the grave, drag you to office and get the work done'. [She didn't knew, my ancestors have developed the fashion of burning the dead people].

Anyway most of these managers think there is nothing wrong with rain and people can come to office. Obviously those who commute in car (office bus or cab) can feel so. But imagine commuting on bike in this season, the rain, the mud, cruising BMTC buses, my colonial cousins (software engineers like me) on their bikes and a wet HOT babe on Scooty (must be HR of another company)… Oh... my God… everyday I feel like James Bond with unnecessary adventures.

It was an old tradition then to get ready for the rainy season… my grand-ma used to prepare pickles, papad and some all things, which are useful for the upcoming rainy season. My grand-ma has given her contribution towards the meaning to the proverb, 'save it for the rainy day'.

Now, things have changed… now we have thousands of retail shops to get these things… as an orthodox grandson, before start of rainy season, even I start preparing my list for the season (as its our family tradition), a car (for dry commutation to office) and an umbrella (again for dry commutation, especially when I need to walk to Mallu bakery to get Tea).

Anyway I can't afford a car (though, I work with biggest car company, General Motors) and I can't use umbrella on my bike (after all I am not Jackie Chan to ride bike with open umbrella)… so ultimately I end up my list with only affordable and useful thing…. Dozen of underpants… (After getting drenched in rain, I think, you better know why you need stock of this).

The fury of wind (I heard few ITPL babes have flied away like glider with their 'Dupatta' open) and intensity of today afternoon's rain... made me swing into action fast… so this weekend you will see me in some posh shopping mall and buying dozens of cheap underpants for the rainy season.

Anyway I am planning to carry few brand new ones (underpants, in my bag) to office everyday for next few months (just in case… ready for morning rains)… so if you are in ITPL and if you got wet while coming to office, then you know whom to contact :)

Accidently (batte) HARRY :)

2008-03-27T01:16:00.000+08:00

Everyone who walks will fall and so I did too, I fell from bike (No, no... I was not walking on bike). How, why, where that is not important in this blog…

It was not my first or the scariest accident which is worth to be updated in blog. [Once I went under a moving van… thanks to Tejaji and his bike riding skills]But this is the only accident after which I was admitted to hospital and first time I had CT scan.

CT scan is really scary shit especially if you are a ‘Bollywood movie buff’. When I was inside that tube like thing… I could imagine all those movies where in hero is put under CT scanner and comes out with some unheard weird ‘alienized’ brain problem… and he becomes love-psychopath and sacrifices his feelings and starts acting like a ‘sophisticated pimp’ and make sure that before he dies he fixes his girlfriend (a cute actress) with a hunk. [Anyway I don’t have iota of girlfriend and I don’t know any hunk also :)]

By the way my CT scan report was not scary; I was told that my brain fissures match with those of George Bush, Pamela Anderson and Michael Jackson. [Anyway I am glad that after E&C engineering and 3-4 years of ‘software slaving’ and unlimited love crashes, I have something called, brain :)]

I underwent lots of tests (whichever covered under Infy medical policies) like X-ray, Y-ray, blood test, urine test, HIV test, BP test, integration test, Confirmation Test, black box test, functionality test… haa…haa…
After those tests I got admission to general ward. (Feeling of receiving hospital ‘admit’ card was not different than receiving E&C engineering admission card… trust me). To reward my effort I was given a pair of blue pajama and shirt… :).

Tip for hospital 1: Whatever they give as uniform, wear it… don’t ask “Do you have M-size in this?” or “I like rosy pink… it sends positive waves”… Otherwise ward boy will give a look of ‘what a creep’ to you. [But same can be used to ‘hit’ a Mallu nurse: O]
Tip for hospital 2: Never get admitted to hospital and that also to a general ward… Lot’s of people will be there and most of them will be interested in ‘talking about nothing than something’.

Seeing me alone two aunties came and started enquiring… OMG… sometimes I never understood why people ask personal questions and that also with smile as if it is their right to know… and more than that to a stranger (that’s me) who had met with an accident… ‘What’s your salary?’ ‘Where do you stay?’ ‘How much you save?’ ‘Are you married?’ [Is this a question? I prefer more decent form of this question, “are you virgin?” :)]… My God… I decided to end that untimed, un-aimed, unnecessary conversation… so gave excuse of headache and slept.

I woke up with sound of some ‘female voices’ and more than that a different slang of Kannada… (No, no…It was not ‘Havyak Kannada’ :) and I opened my eyes to see this linguistic miracle… I was impressed (and immediately had crush also) when I saw two Mallu nurses (I hate to refer them as ‘sisters’) were talking in Malluized Kannada (Kannada words but Mallu accent). That was too good… Hail MohanLal, Hail Mammoti, Hail Shakila… Hail all those Mallu Blue Films which I watched in hostel…:0

Hmm…It was quite a good relaxation/rest time for me in hospital… I didn’t have to move from my bed (ok…6 times I had gone outside hospital for fag), I didn't have to think about how to spend the weekend, I could think of all the things which I never did (transsexual alien behavior, marriage rituals of ‘Zulu’ tribe) and people will come to see me with fruits and ‘get well soon’ cards. [Ok, last one didn’t happen… If you have friends who are just like you then no point in expecting ‘some things’ or ‘anything’]

Our (mine and my friend’s) world runs on simple rules: fruits are things which are used in Kannada ‘hot songs’ (like putting grapes on navel of actress…etc, etc), drink juices only to get over the Saturday Night hangover… and greeting card is costly, and no one is worth it :).… So my beloved friends who visited me at hospital laughed on my state (I had done this when ‘Bhabhiji’ had met with accident… irony is that I was admitted to same hospital), few took my snaps in their mobile 'cameras', and few discussed whether my scar will vanish or not (just to make sure whether I can still replace Puneet Rajkumar) and some invited me to come to 'pub' if I feel ok by 9PM (My beloved friends) :)

The rest of the story is already part of stereotype in history… I was discharged, I came home… my friend’s thought I was worth that accident as it taught me lessen (I am not a student anymore to learn lessens… right?) even now I tell my manager that I have impact on my brain and doctor has asked me not to take stress (to escape from 'hard' work), I get scared to ride my bike in ‘meta state’ (i no more feel invincible), my hospital bills are not yet settled, I had spent 400 bucks on my bike repair and got a scar on my for head (kind of local Harry Potter)

Is it moving.... yaa, it's not Traffic :)

2008-02-07T01:01:00.001+08:00

[Dedicated to Sabka Bada Bhai, Totu and his timeless quote “Riding is my passion”]

After spending time in ‘virtually traffic less’ Mysore, I started realizing ‘how the Bangalore traffic congestion has impacted me in last 3 years'. It’s something like, ‘More you hate something… the more you remember that thing’… (Whatever it may be…haa…haa), so being in this ‘virtually traffic curfew affected’ place, I miss IT… I think, apart from the beggars (eunuchs are the new addition) near the traffic signal (stranded traffic is their work place), I am the only person who likes those jams (now, I guess)… those never changing ‘red’ lamps, those stuck cars, ever fighting ‘angry faced’ rickshaw drivers, careless police mamas, helmet clad un-aimed (or miss-aimed) techies, ‘pretty cute things’ riding behind their boy friends bikes, sleeping employees in company buses… Oh… that is some complex composition of variety of life at one place :)

But unknowingly we forget to appreciate the ‘daily villain’ of our lives… which is filling our lives with adventures and challenges… Traffic Jams, which induce, the ‘go get it’ attitude in my (our) post-working hours (when I was in Bangalore…)

But… But… How???.... Check out further, my cute readers… :)

Sitting in cubicle you may not be able to write algorithm to add two integers but surely this traffic will make you compute complex logic patterns, extravaganza travel (shortest path) algorithms… right???
“Show is at 6:30 … which road I should take to reach Forum in 43mins? Let’s go through Koramangala, even if I miss part of the movie, the view of ‘Pretty Cute Things’ on road will compensate it :)” (…mission impossible 3.1)

Day long fights with manager on appraisal, cancelled on site chances…. But Bangalore traffic teaches how to keep alive the ray of hope…
Oye... It’s raining… I can’t go on bike... Hope a ‘friendly behaving manager uncle’ gives me ride in his car…. “Excuse me sir!!! Are you heading towards PuttenHalli?”
“Sure… One day I will buy a car like that” [after a ‘honking’ SUV cruised next to you… this heights of hope will flash even if your current ‘take home’ salary is not enough to ‘take you home’ also :) …. Adakke taane hope annodu, machi]

Even after tiresome office coffee breaks and long lunch hours, observation skill will reach pinnacle of it's performances…
“Macha, her skirt was till knee high” [speed of bike or frustration of jam doesn't fade your observation skill]
“Did you see that hording…? Katrina looks soooo sexy in that, Na?” […namma, boys never miss a chance :)]

Sometime you learn life’s biggest lessons with cheap homilies in pondering traffic :)
Imagine you are stuck in traffic signal... you are frustrated that your ‘orkut’ status is still ‘single’ (after 25.3 years of existence) and what is this? …… You saw a good looking aunty is sitting in car with a beta version of ‘baboon’ kind of uncle…
“What an amazing aunty in the car!!!… Bloody uncle… My God, every one is up to money these days… I think it’s an ‘arranged marriage’ :)”

It reminds you of your old friend or may trigger new love ventures…
Imagine bus is not moving…. Anyway nothing much you can do for time pass (if no good looking girl in bus…) then…. Of course you will check the contact list in your cell phone for time pass… yes... yes… haan... haan…. Oh, let’s call….
‘’Hi Amit, how are you, maga... long time haan?” [Good old friend is happy that you called him after months… may be he will pay for your beer when you meet him next time :)]

“Hi, Lachchi… I was feeling lonely… so thought of you… ” [that’s it… ‘Lagi to Lagi Mohammad Ali’… either a good deal for a movie and dinner with her on weekend… then I analyzed the third kind (like RDB style) … after all, she has Airtel connection and yours is Airtel to Airtel ‘free’ corporate connection :) … haa...haa… [Khaya piya kuch nahin… bottle bhi nahin toda… phir bhi total time pass hogaya… :)]
…
..
If I am paid to write on this traffic (may be only BMP can sponsor, to create nice image about infrastructure and congestion problems)….I can give 94001 reasons... why I (subconsciously, even you guys) love traffic jams… so don’t hate the traffic congestion… just think, even you are part of this problem… anyway when you can’t find the solution… then enjoy the problem itself :)

[PS: I am leaving for Bangalore now… Hope no Goddamn traffic jam near Forum…. Haa... Haa]

Dooorada Betta....

2008-01-14T21:00:00.000+08:00

Again one more 'worthless working day' and my mind seem to be enjoying the tremors of last weekend hangovers... As I am not able to think beyond three zeros on this junk design, thought will put some of my floating thoughts on paper, not that my extraordinary genius ideas will be lost in this cubicle but nothing gives me more pleasure than spending time in accomplishing a pointless 'motto' :)

Sometime back (year or so...), on a day which was nothing special than usual useless working day at Bosch, I thought ‘I should go for MBA, MBA is good for me', in fact I felt that MBA is good for all living creatures.
And of course every determination comes with a bundle of distractions and confusions...
So as soon as I decided to do MBA, I could see ‘Everest’ of questions... when, where, how, why and what???
And obviously I needed suggestions...’Bitti’ suggestions...’bitti” but not so 'shitty' suggestions... I needed a beta version of 'asterix', who can give me suggestion without himself getting confused. So that's my roomie... Gubbs, once upon a dude senior of our college but now I don't have proper definition to describe him... Sometimes when I see him after my late night sessions, he looks like a rhombus to me [Yup... he does....]

Me: "Gubbs, MBA maadoNa antha idini... nin en helthiya?"
Gubbi: "ninage gottirbeku nin yaake MBA maadbekanthiya antha"
[That is what I wanted then, a super genius room mate and 'unhelpful' piece of question]

Like the icing on the cake,

Gubbs: "what are your long term goals...?” [Interesting...very interesting… Sometimes I love such moral science questions]
Me: "Andre..." [Whaaaaaaaaattttt???? Just in case]

Gubbs: "where do you see yourself after 10-15 years down the line?"

[I always thought it is a HR round question...with a standard answer, 'I will be working as PM in YOUR organization' (with mutual understanding clause). As HR person knows, people join the company to quit but still it’s her duty to ask this 'utterly stupid question' and it is our 'ridiculous' responsibility to answer. [aadre this is not interview... so have to be sure...alva?]

(Continue...)

Me: "professionally or personally"? [Thought will tackle a clear question!!!]
Gubbs: "Professionally, lo..."
Me: "Oh...."
[After thinking a lot... I couldn't think of anything solid... Means….I wanted a lot… I wanted 7figure salary (without decimal point), super private jets in my garage, may be yacht with babes...etc…etc...Etc... ]

Me: "Gottilla lo..."
[I am not guilty for my bland reply... After all I am not Neo-Nostradamus…. stereotype software labor and useless corporate culture have restricted my view and plans till next weekend... and here the question is, after 10years!!!!]

Gubbs: "if becoming PM is your goal then don't do MBA, anyway you can become PM after 4-5 years"
[Haaaan... that is true. Compared to the baboon, raccoon or gibbon brain people I have seen in this industry, I am like ‘Bradman’... So I can become PM any day... so Gubbs is right!!!]

Gubbs: "If money is reason then don't do MBA, you can earn in other ways also"
[Really…??? I always thought money (in dollars) is the motive behind higher education... or my roomie is trying to suggest me make up some extra bucks either as smuggler (only option here is to smuggle the mouse of PCs…)or as Gigolo!!! (Only SATISFACTORY job around... I guess)]

Me: "adu nijane"
[Thought, will avoid lengthy debate on importance of money… as I hate anyone talking bad about money :)]

Gubbs: "actually heLbeku andre.....MBA dalli....bla...bla... and…"

[Trinnnng... my cell phone rang (as I can’t translate the multi-frequency multi-tone synthetic ring tone of my cell phone into words on paper... so adhering to orthodox Trinnnnnnnggg)]

(After 2 minutes of talk, which was more or less like ‘bar coded’ information... with words like... 'vyavasthe aagide', 'asthe', 'aag-hogli' placed in a sentence without any grammar...)

Me: "Gubbs... amele MBA discuss maadona... boys wait maadtha idaare... nanu hogirthini"

[To get some salvation]

I happily left the house (as I had taken the first step towards MBA that I talked about it… Hope u know, “Greatest journey starts with single step”) and Gubbs as usual got busy in some browsing activity (may be he felt relieved that his brain eating ‘Zombie’ room mate is gone)... and my 'long term goal' discussion stopped there for that night as I left the place to attend my 'short term goal'.

Now and then I talk about this topic (MBA and long term goals)... and I happily spread my confusions to others by giving them information bits/bytes which I have acquired from Gubbs. Haan... I have a list of preys also… I insanely motivated few guys to take up the GMAT... Haa... Haa... And still I am not sure of my looooooooong term goal :)
And God damn, I am not able to think what I will be doing after 10 years… (May be writing one more Blog then… wish I had a long term plan 10 years back :)

PS: Gubbs got MBA admission in Oxford University, UK and…haan... finally I have booked the date for my GMAT...

Lost Samurai and 'Window' to the wOrld

2007-12-20T17:57:00.002+08:00

“English... English is ‘window’ to the world” – my primary school English teacher used to tell. As I studied in Kannada medium, English used to be one of the complicated things which ruined 10% of my childhood :(

English is quite difficult language, most of us agree. I know people, who can’t under stand English movies without sub titles. That is OK, I guess; English ‘IS’ difficult, even Japanese feel so…

There are hundreds of reasons I can count, why Japanese can’t speak ‘understandable’ English. And I strongly believe that it is everything to do with their own language which is so complicated, and jumbled that poor guys won’t be able to understand any other languages. Japanese have three scripts to ‘happily’ confuse themselves, Hiragana (to write Japanese origin words), Katakana (to bastardize the foreign loan words) and Kanji (a symbolic script which looks like window panes with hats and spider legs).

More than that, I can count thousands reasons why, I can’t speak Japanese!!! As the part of conspiracy of deputation hype, even I was ‘forced’ to learn Japanese Language but after few weeks, I surrendered my ‘worthless effort of understanding’ to this language.

If someone decides to sell ‘impossible’ in a packet, then it can be named as ‘Japanese Tutorial’, as no one can read or write it and no one can understand what Japanese are speaking. So without any proper ‘verbal’ tool, I entered Japan. That was not a big deal; even Columbus didn’t know tribal languages when he was set on the voyage to unknown islands… right?

On those cute little islands, I realized the importance of ‘noises’ coming out of mouth. As most of the time, we (me and Japanese) didn't understand what we are talking... So I had to rely on my acting skills to convey my words.

Japanese don’t have ‘L’ (‘R’ is used) and ‘Th’ (‘S’ is used) in their Altaic Originated script, this ‘loop hole’ lead to confusing and hilarious conversations. 'Thank you' becomes 'Sankyu' and 'Election' become 'Erection'... (You can easily say, Japan has erection once in 4 years... haa...haa... :)

Now let me introduce you to the art of bastardization of the foreign loan words. Japanese happily stole words from English, cooked them as per their need and derived a script also to write it. [I bet Japanese Linguistic specialists were quite jobless]. The only intention behind this Katakana script is to force the foreigners to spend hours on trying desperately to figure out which of their own words it is which is ‘aped’ miserably. Like Kohi (Coffee), Fanu (Fan), Tobago (Cigarette), Cheezu (Cheese), pooru (pool)… etc.

Sometimes i wondered why Japanese have to make something like language so complicated... one fine day, I bought a news paper (to check 'Manga', Japanese violent cartoons) and my God!!! First of all news paper was in Japanese (which I can’t read anyway), more than that it will be written vertically (up-down) and ‘to add spice to adulterated food’ have to read it from right to left [Reverse way].

I can’t use the phrase ‘out of blue’ when Japanese peers used to speak some funny English. But most weird one I ever heard/ read; when I was leaving Japan, I got a ‘Sayonara’ mail from one of my peer, which read: “Aditya-san, you must feel hard when go from Japan” [What the heck!!! Was he really meant, me to have a HARD while leaving Japan, Why…Is this kind of semi-ethnic ritual on this island before leaving the country…?]

By the time I left Japan, i really felt English is not necessarily window to the world :)

Lost Samurai and Discovery Channel

2007-12-07T16:55:00.001+08:00

Like every other weird kid, I used to like playing with creepy creatures (including my cousins and ‘nosy’ friends) like worms and insects. With age, I stopped playing and started watching these weird creatures on ‘Discover Channel’.

While I was leaving for Japan, the only encouraging statement I heard was, “you are non-veggie, so you can easily survive”.
But every word of encouragement shattered on the very first day in office. I had to take help of two of my friends to crack the ‘Hieroglyphics’ menu.

Me: Is this the menu? [The prototype of food items will be exhibited]
Dhana: Yes, Thambi. The items, calories and price [proudly presenting himself as ‘menu’ cracker]
Me: Looks weird, na??
Subbu: Taste will be same [and a smile of ‘can’t help it’]
Me: Which one should I take?
Dhana: Take this one [pointed at something in bowl, Dhana had capabilities of eating anything]
Me: Hmmm [Thinking…what the heck is that floating thing?]
Subbu: Dude, take this. It looks OK [pointing to some other thing.. Later, I found out that Subbu was good in choosing wise in limited worst options]

And then…..
I was given with a small rice bowl and a half-cooked fish. To add agony to the misery of my hungry stomach, I had to eat with ‘chopsticks’. Rice was really sticky which can be used as substitute for ‘Fevicol’ and fish, fish was not cooked properly, its eyes were out and I felt they were looking at me… if I had gazed it for few more seconds then it might have yelled back “asshole, what are you looking at like a pervert?… are you a fish ‘rapist’?.. Bloody eat me fast, it pains when half cooked”.
That was creepy feeling. I was hungry like a pig so I cut down my flying thoughts about fish and ate it. Like this everyday at canteen used to be an adventure in its own sense. While surviving the office canteen, I thought it was my pay back time to all the sins I committed.

Whenever I had been to office parties, I used to recall ‘good old’ Discovery channel shows as all the creatures which I had seen on the documentaries used to be on our dining table. I don’t know how they catch these things and how they derived a ‘recipe’ to cook these weird creatures (actually speaking 'recipe' has just virtual meaning in Japan) I think cooking method is simple, catch the creature and serve it...

I ate my life’s most interesting things in ‘Izakai’ (traditional Japanese bars). I call it interesting and thrilling as I never felt that my food will jump out of the plate. Most interesting items were live octopus, and half grown frozen duck...
Thanks to ‘evolution of my eating habits’, within few days I adapted to Japanese food and slowly started feeling that I will pass the survival test and in reality I aced in it. Surprisingly, I gained 4-5 KGs in six months, as I ate everything and anything which I saw on dining table [fight of survival started and ended in my stomach]. Even today when I watch Discovery, I remember Japan, office canteen and office parties!!!