The Wonder Years

Xmas is around the corner

2010-11-21T10:17:00.001+00:00

Lights are up and the feeling is in the air!

Apotheosis and a maelstorm of time and destiny

2010-10-03T12:32:00.000+01:00

Nowadays it seems that we are in a swirl of seemingly huge problems. Financial recession, Middle East, the race for Oil, climate change, protectionist trade policies, markets soaring but still a sense of misery all over.As it is almost always the case there is a sense of injustice as the parties causing the problem and those paying the price are totally separate. The ones causing the crisis are being begged to rectify with even greater pay and meanwhile the guy who has been working hard on the shop floor is losing his job for apparent financial excesses of others!

And when there is a sense of insecurity, you always have really cowardly leaders (globally!) who will exploit it to the limit. So you have calls for protectionism, more walls, finger pointing and jingoistic national pride talks. A few courageous ones who step up to the task are given an incredibly hard time like currently happening to President Obama.So is there is any thing that can make the entire humanity unite for a common cause...

Yes and that can be only the question of survival. Below is really a very remote possibility. Apotheosis happily hurtling for a date with Earth and getting cosier then is comfortable:

So the date is Friday, 13th April, 2029 which is still like a flying kiss distance but 7 years later there is going to be a close embrace and we dont really need that. The last one to do so was approximately 65 million years ago and probably wiped out the dinosaurs. But hey its mankind this time around and many have referred us quite humbly the biggest achievement of evolution. The thing is even with the progress of science, technology and the ever increasing arrogant confidence that we have in our own collective intelligence there are really very few options that we have to stave this off.

Going firmly in to the realm of science fiction, one of the last desperate measures is to send a few of the humankind on an inter stellar space ship as a way of not having all your eggs in one basket or planet in this case. Problem is that the cost of such a ship in terms of resources would be so high that it would be the biggest act of generosity for the generation that does it. And that generation would never even live to see whether it would fructify or not.

Apotheosis referred to exaltation of anything to the ultimate divinity. That got me thinking that while divinity comes easily to us where most are happy to deify quite easily, generosity is a bit lacking which seems to be the common problem.

A little less deification and a little more of generosity and lets hope that Apotheosis is not too smitten by our charming Earth. We would much prefer a long distance relationship in this case!

Chariots of Fire...

2010-10-02T19:36:00.000+01:00

Alright i am back. And this time the pull is from my all time favourite lines from Blake. They are just the preface of his epic Milton but very powerful. The chariots of fire epitomise the beginning of a new campaign something fairly insurmountable but always worthy of human effort. This reminds me to glance over every preface rather than just skip it...

Bring me my Bow of burning gold;
Bring me my Arrows of desire:
Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold!
Bring me my Chariot of fire!

I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:

Good Housekeeping tips I wish some one told me about!

2010-04-09T12:17:00.001+01:00

Alright, I am living the dream. My own bachelor pad in an awesome location with a large enough TV to dwarf everything else in the living room. I thought i had it all figured out when i moved in over a year ago. And then reality struck. Started with Dishes then laundry later it was sheets, curtains, couch stains, carpet cleaning, grime!! And then all of them together if ignored for a sufficiently long time..

Now don't get me wrong, i have grown up cleaning up my own mess but taking care of a huge house was something that i never bargained for!! There are some lessons though that if i had known would have made life much easier. So here it goes for wannabe bachelors living alone:

Rule 1: Faster you clean up the mess behind you, lesser is the mess that you end up cleaning over the weekends.
Rule 2: If given a choice avoid white couches. However great they look, sooner or later they turn a shade of cream that will bring the whole place down!
Rule 3: If you do end up with a white couch and hence stains from hell, please don't try to just wash them using normal detergent. It will end up as a bigger stain with clear wet marks making it even worse
Rule 4: Tea coasters are your best friends. Irritating though they might be, the effort to lift one and put on the table beats removing obstinate tea stains which require an industrial strength cleaner to remove
Rule 5: Clean the oven, clean the oven! If not, very soon all the cooked food will start having the distinct smell of burnt bread!
Rule 6: If you are out of air tight containers for your biscuits, put them in the fridge. Keeps it crisp and fresh!
Rule 7: When washing shoes in your washer/dryer, make sure the dryer is off. Else your house is going to stink of burnt rubber for probably a year!
Rule 8: Generally a good idea to pile all clothes for laundry in one place rather than strewn with geometric precision all over. Takes less time to gather and you quickly know when it is time to pile them in the washer
Rule 9: You need a big enough distraction to draw attention away from the general mess that abounds in the house. A beautiful vase with flowers or an unusual sculpture normally does the trick!
Rule 10: The TV remote, laptop, house keys & a pair of clean socks should all be in the most easily located place in the house to save precious time and energy spent in desperately searching for them

Super Rule: This is most important. For your house to be clean, you need to designate a place that is the dump for all the stuff that goes nowhere in particular. More importantly, this needs to be in the most innocuous of places so that you don't have to bother some one finding it out...

Fitness Regime Part 2

2010-04-08T19:50:00.000+01:00

Registered for London Royal Parks Half-Marathon on 10/10/10. Target set for myself is fairly ambitious and would require me to be in my top shape. This would be the 2nd fitness regime undertaken after 2006. Chariots of Fire galore!

The little bird of Svithjod!

2010-02-08T17:55:00.002+00:00

Came across these spectacular lines on eternity in my latest read:

"High up in the North, in the land called Svithjod,
There stands a rock,
Hundred miles high and hundred miles wide,
Once every thousand years a little bird comes to this rock to sharpen its beak.
When the rock has thus been worn away, then a single day of eternity would have passed by!"

From The Story of Mankind, Hendrik Willem Van Loom, 1922

It struck me that life operates at such a leisurely pace and with such patience as if wanting to ensure the perfect outcome of a long thought out idea. The perfect distill! We are so used to cheap thrills, instant gratifications that subtle nuances seem to have been lost on us. Constant need to do something exciting, instant relationships, quick ladder careers, endless sitcoms, sensationalist books..Are we running faster than warranted ..

Maybe and if so then the outcomes are also slip shod and random. Almost like a perfect program, the output never betrays the code. We see it all around us. Very successful people losing complete motivation in their careers, high suicide rates among brilliant students, here today gone tomorrow relationships, very high stress related disorders in young people!

I think sometimes its good to just stop and hear the echoes of our own life and those close to us. Where we came from, where we are and where we are going. Things might look drastically different!

I am back!

2010-02-08T17:19:00.001+00:00

I haven't posted anything for almost a year. The reason is that i had taken to writing in a diary. There is something entirely satisfying in writing for just yourself. Its powerful and well sometimes you realise the absolute rubbish that you put others through.

But hey, I am back!

India

2009-05-02T11:25:00.002+01:00

Its the energy that strikes you. A force that seeks reckoning. There are people jostling everywhere, nightmarish from one point of view but unstoppable, undying and with a purpose. You know you are in India. And you appreciate this only when you have spent some time out of the country.

Yeah, the crowds only got worse, trains are more packed then ever, the roads are now crawling at a never before seen speed (i think walking is officially the quickest means), the system still sucks but India is home. Centuries of history blending in with the present to give the most amazing results every day.

Just one hour in the train, station and you see so many things at work at the same time that it overwhelms you. Normally you just tune yourself out to all these things. The least resistant path to just get over your day. But if you look closer, dig deeper you can unravel so many facets that you are amazed you never looked at it before.

This struck me one evening when i was rushing to meet friends in the evening. I land on the platform and have just missed the train. While i am waiting for the next one, i see 2 women and their 4 small girls sitting right there on the platform engrossed in their chore. Talking in my native gujarati, they are sorting out the 'bindis' to be sold to women in trains. They come over for a few days to make enough money to sustain for a few weeks and head back. Extremely tiny hands helping by methodically sorting out the hundreds of bindis to be sold later. Now it might be very easy to pity them and sympathise on them being condemned to a low life for the rest of their lives.

But i see some thing rare. They are happy & content. The mothers are feeding them good home made food from tiffins, the kids are laughing and making jokes as well. The elder sister tenderly helping the smaller one. Now, in all my travels i have seen that majority of people go through lives being unhappy and frustrated. A smile has probably become the most precious commodity nowadays..

Maye a domestic fight, love gone bad, not enough money, enough money but no people to enjoy it with, that elusive car, not enough time, no chance to travel the world and missing home once u start globe trotting...The big 'IF' written all over.But i seldom see people who are happy with themselves and life. You can make these out easily like a ray of sunshine on a cloudy day.

So how well you are 'positioned' in life doesn't count for anything. For all those running in the rat race to get the 'most' and to get it 'quickest' it is time to stop and take a look around. The world doesn't give a damn and it is good to realise it before it is too late...

Notes from the kitchen

2009-02-10T14:28:00.003+00:00

Alright, i have been cooking for some time now and can now claim to have got fairly good at it. Though Italian is a bit of a struggle. However, some lessons are to be learnt only the hard way:

Steel vessels in a microwave lead to some pretty spectacular fire and sound works.
Using the oven to toast a slice of bread at full blast because you are late for office is like using an AK 47 to kill a mosquito!
In the above process, the time difference between a superb golden brown toast and a charred black one is usually less than 10 seconds.....
Exotic fruits at throwaway prices in the supermarket are cheap for a reason!
There is no such thing as an 'authentic Indian restaurant' outside of India unless of course you have been out for so long that it really doesn't matter
If you order curry & rice in a British restaurant, never ask them to make it more spicy. Chances are they will add as much black pepper as they can get their hands on
If you walk in to a Chinese restaurant and order something vegetarian don't be surprised if you find seafood or eggs..After all they would feel bad at serving you only steamed rice
There is no such thing as a 'good Thai vegetarian' dish or for that matter Thai and vegetarian in the same sentence is generally considered quite brainless
According to a nice establishment just outside Victoria station in London there is indeed a 'vegetarian Chicken Fried Rice' with lumps of bananas painstakingly given the shape of the chicken! Available at a special price of only 15 pounds
That book titled 'Indian vegetarian cooking for the NRI professional' is fake. It was probably written by a Marketing person who identified the most gullibe market segment!

Important notes on the multi-billion dollar business of free-range:

Free Range eggs & chicken refers to the fact that poultry is allowed to roam freely and who give eggs or their own meat quite freely and voluntarily. This is to improve the general happiness & liveliness of the animals (official definition) so much that they readily give their lives to solve the larger problem of hunger faced by mankind
Free trade coffee generally refers to the fact that the organisation doesn't trade with those employing child labourers.But there is no problem in supplying truckload of arms to such impoverished countries. After all these kids are out of work and what better way to spend time than to practice your shooting skills...

And if you ever walk in to a restaurant with special of the day as 'Pineapple Pasta' with sweet in brackets, just RUN for your life....

Rolling stone gathers a lot of miles....

2009-02-09T23:16:00.003+00:00

I am on the run again. Back in Queen's land. I remember it was 1st of April 2008, when i landed here for the first time and stood on the 'Waterloo Bridge' across the Thames. It was quite windy, had almost been run over by a high-speed bike, was sleep deprived and was damn hungry but i could not help admire the beauty of the scene. That was just the beginning of my travel haunts.

The more i traveled, more i realised how similar people are all over. Human emotions, needs, motivations are universal. Their manifestation is different in terms of language, dressing sense, greetings and also body language. So if you pick these up quickly, you can adapt to any culture, team and region quickly. You need not even speak the same language. What you require is the will to communicate, rest follows.

The 'will to comunicate' is so important because many (or most) people i see have switched themselves off. They are so enamored by their own self that they fail to notice people around them living just paces away. It has become a routine existence to drift through and just survive.

That is why people go so much importance to 'feeling alive' in special moments. It is strange how ALL the other moments have just flown by 'without feeling alive' . The question then is do we realise that it is 1 life, 1 chance to do what ever you ever dreamt of. Then it doesn't matter how much money you have, how big your achievements are or how beautiful people think you are. If you don't feel alive enough at this moment, then probably it is time to stop, take stock of things, maybe look around and say Hi to the person next to you if nothing else.

The Rolling Stone

2008-08-29T18:20:00.004+01:00

I thought the writing bit was done. It wasn't that i ran out of inspirations but the impulse was absent. Trust a few authors to rekindle that. Those that make you think, introspect, ponder and force you to pick up the pen! Arthur Conan Doyle, Tolkien, Victor Hugo, Tolstoy and the most recent Joseph Conrad.

I have been at home now for almost 2 months feeling so comfortable and laid back as if i have never left this room for many years. It is that nagging lazy feeling that you get when you feel the absence of the zing in your life...It is quite surprising considering the past one year!! So i sat down and listed all the places that i have been over last one year and especially since working for TAS...

India

Lucknow : Aaah campus, my heart & soul
Mumbai: Lifeline, connect to all that i am and will be
Pune: Notable for TAS induction and the resplendent TMTC
Bangalore: It is difficult not to fall in love with the weather, cloudy, windy, its a crime to be single in this city! Plus i had damn good company here
Chennai: Let me put it this way, doing retail market research in this town is not a good idea
Kolkata: Just two words, Laid-Back, City of gardens and yeah beautiful people!
Delhi: Awesome parks, best roads in India but could use some Mumbai junta to spruce up things!
Babrala: A haven in the most notorious district in India
Jamshedpur: A glimpse into what Tatas really are, the Tata Steel City and i absolutely love the Tata Stadium, i have probably run over a 100 kms in this place!!
Mithapur: The most beautiful coastline i have ever seen!! Plus we had some very company and made some friends for life which was totally unexpected....
Junagarh: I will explain Juna in gujarati is old and garh is Fort!
Mt Girnaar: 10,000 steps. A humbling effort to climb them
Gir Forest & National Park: The abode of the lions but sadly we saw none in our safari
Rajkot: The city of morning jalebi ghatiyas and terrible heat in the afternoon. Rode half the city on a bike with some of the worst street driving possible
Dwarka: The city of Lord Krishna, awesome temple!
Amboli: The place with the heaviest rainfall in Konkan and also a city among clouds during rains...
Madgao, Goa: My all time favorite destination. Retirement plans are definitely ON for this place

Abroad

London (UK): Definitely one of the most vibrant cities in the world
Edinburgh (Scotland): Simply breathtaking
Sterling (Scotland): William Wallace!!!!
Port Talbot (Wales, UK): Land of meadows, hills and of course Corus
Scunthorpe (Lincolnshire, UK): Industrial 'Garden' City, some good forests around
Amsterdam (Netherlands): Also known as Sin City! If you want to foind out what you really desire, take $ 100 in your pocket and let loose on these streets...
Haarlem (Netherlands): It is a quiet town for quiet people
IJmuiden(Netherlands): The source of river IJ (eye)...
Utrecht (Netherlands): The city of my sis Dharmi, jiju Kaushik and ofcourse Vidhi!
Zaandvoort (Netherlands): The city of the beautiful beaches
Den Hague (Netherlands): The cosmopolitan city of Netherlands
Frankfurt (Germany): The land of cross-over flights!!
Koblenz (Germany): The industrial city and of course Corus

So there it is 30 cities, 17 in India and 13 abroad is where all life has taken me over the past one year. Definitely some doze to shrug off that sneaky feeling of laziness that was just crawling over. God Bless TAS :)

Where merit is cheap and politics sells

2008-04-10T15:58:00.002+01:00

India has proved it again. The Supreme court has approved 27 % additional quota for OBCs in all the premier institutions in India. The last vestiges of some intellectual fervor present in these institutions will all but vapourise. Institutes like IIMs, AIIMs, IITs are some of the last few places where an Indian could think of going by giving even the international institutes a miss. They are simply good because of the quality of students going there and the environment present. Where they lag far far behind other institutes is in infrastructure. One look at international campuses will show all the difference.

Now each one of them will have 27 % additional seats with almost the same infrastructure. One cannot imagine the overload on the already over strecthed infrastructure in these places. This is being done in the name of oppression and also in the name of humanitarian needs. It is all being done in the name of stinking bloody politics......Where you tell some one with 99 percentile to wait and admit some one else only on th basis of caste.

I am not against helping those who are oppressed. But, caste is not the way to do that. Recently while doing a project in rural gujarat, we realised that in about 42 villages of that area majority (80 %) were of general category. They had unimaginable hardships in life, no drinking water, no proper food and medical facilities. These people had 2 school rooms for over 400 kids being taught by just 2 teachers. Help them first, give them at least water to drink and yeah, give them a fast track full scholarship route to higher education. But admission is based only on the basis of merit.

What are we telling our future generations that it is provident enough to be born with a certain surname and it is alright not to be working hard...What do you tell some one from a middle class family who studies hard enough but only misses out on a life time of education ...Help some one like Kashmiri Pandits who have had a life on the run for a long time and have settlement pangs in a new world...Help out people who are landless laborers who do not figure out in any electoral lists but are in dire need of help..

No, but we shall eternally be grateful to caste politics. And people will even rush to take credit for such an action..

Rural files

2008-04-04T15:02:00.002+01:00

It is strange how we take many things for granted in our lives. We never know the situation when one has to walk 2 hours to get drinking water from a muddy lake, watch your kids drink that and then those kids walk 4 kms one way to the village school where there has always been 1 teacher for all 7 standards and everyone squished in 2 rooms.. All this and the main occupation in the area is baval (wild shrubs and weds) cutting. Average daily wage Rs. 20 ($ 0.5) Well, that is life as usual for Okhamandal area in gujarat.

Inspite of all this, they would offer you tea when you go and insist on that. Will get chairs form their neighbours for you to sit and talk about their life in the village.

But not even for a second think that people are dull. This is a place where women of the village form Self Help Groups (SHGs) to make daily savings even of Rs 10 or so, continue to do that over a year and then give loans to those who require it and earn interest on that. Beat that!

Living life in total isolation is also therapeutic. Away from all friends (though had wonder ful company there), away from the usual haunts in cafes...But pure life in outdoors, by the seaside, a lot of think to mull things over and just be by yourself

That is probably what reminds you of vast English country sides, Sir Arthur conan Doyle's words or J R R Tolkien's imagery..

P.S. Next stop: London

Mithapur

2008-02-16T10:13:00.006+00:00

Location: Mithapur, Gujarat.
Work: Plan to make nearby villages self reliant in 5 years.
Duration: 7 weeks.

A day before leaving for mithapur, i travelled 5 hours in a flight for Mumbai-Lucknow-mumbai, sat at the amausi Lucknow airport eating fried peanuts waiting for a delayed flight, listened to a bemused flight captain letting his heart out on the in-flight announcement for 20 minutes (no kidding), wrote an appreciative letter to the flight captain on a tissue paper (no kidding again) to which he conveyed his thanks for 10 minutes again on the in-flight announcement system....returned home at 2:30 AM to unfinished packing and left again for Jamnagar the next day at 9AM. In short arrived in the 70 year old Tata Chemicals, Mithapur quite frustrated with life and quite unsure of what to expect.

Me and a friend start walking around the township and see a sign saying 'Seashore'. On walking for 10 minutes we come upon this huge white sand green water beach. Well, life does throw some pleasant surprises!

I am here for 7 weeks to work for Tata Chemicals Society for Rural Development which works for nearby villages. Gotta prepare a business plan to make them self-reliant within 5 years. Big talk for a just-out-of-college MBA grad but lets see.

P.S: the white in the sands are actual sea shells and not the plastic bags that i am used to in bombay.

Chariots of Fire again!

2008-02-13T04:27:00.006+00:00

The frequent readers would have been aware by now that the author is in love with the activity of running inspite of being a literal load on mother Earth. After running in way too many geographies like ring road of IIM L, the vastly populated and polluted Juhu beach, the Tata stadium at Jamshedpur, Grater Kailash community park in Delhi, Cubbon Park in Bangalore, Bhawanipur in Calcutta, Babrala, Pune and Chennai, the author felt confident enough to put up an attempt for the Mumbai half marathon spanning 21 kms.

So there i was in the huge crowd of about 7000 people mostly from the 40 plus age category on a chilly morning in Azad maidan Mumbai. It is a sublime experience running with such a huge mass of people, its inspiring in a way that is not expressible sufficiently. Now the thing with running at marathons is that the first 25 minutes are a breeze but then every gasp of breath, every stride, every second is an effort. And amid this, if you see a 65 year old man (not kidding at all) panting for his life but running past you with ease, it makes you feel like a cute little girl with pony tails.

But then the perspective changes as you trudge along.

Slowly time stops, every metre is an eternity and you know that you are running on some store of energy that was hitherto unknown. You are on auto pilot and unable to stop. You also realise that all this is possible because you are running only for the sheer pleasure of it.

It is not for a prize, any position or even for a social cause. You also realise that how futile is our race for most things in life. The absolute rat race for marks, ranks, right jobs, climbing up the corporate ladder, more money. You shudder to think at things you so easily sacrifice to attain these. The price of which you will realise only much later in life.

Also, how simple it is to find out the things that you really love and do them. It only takes a little courage to go away from well laid ruts and try to explore!

In the spirit of new exploring, a few lines from Jerusalem!

Bring me my bow of burning gold!
Bring me my arrows of desire!
Bring me my spear! O clouds, unfold!
Bring me my chariot of fire!!

Vagabond.

2007-08-28T18:12:00.000+01:00

Strange thing is travel! i mean extensive travel...It puts things in perspective. Just travel for the heck of it. Initially one looks for comfort..Nice place to stay, nice food, good entertainment. Then one gets used to it. Then one starts looking for exhiliratio: damn good party, night outs, movie marathon. Then thats over too.

Then it strikes you. Something is missing. Aah,and that is the huge comfort of daily life at home sweet home. No, you cannot just plop down at your home and declare to people that you had a loong tiring day. Strangely, family listens to your every word..You come back to an empty house where there is no one to listen to your own self pitying BS. Its not only that, you have now got to prepare your own food. Its not a fancy event where there is a proud mother behind to say, 'Damn good beta' an you can conveniently eat what she cooked just for a backup. Here, you got to eat it too.

Amid all this, things start taking shape too. In your head that is. It is not necessary for all, for some the mumbo jumbo of staying alone does give exhilirating glee for days on end. But then, people have heard of psychiatric cases where things explode one fine day.

Anyway, you realise the economy of your actions, time, money, others time. And you realise what you really want in life. You strangely realise what you really want in life. It all seems clear . Home, family and friends get an all new meaning.

A thank you from a stranger now seems meaningful, helping someone stranded in a new city seems most logical, giving money to somebody who genuinely seems to have forgotten her wallet doesn't seem suspicious, people in city with a genuine language problem is NOT FUNNY, finding some one to trust in a new place gets a new meaning, finding a decent place to jog is well lucky, finding a place where you can feel closest to home is priceless!! Cos you have been there and done that.

Now it does not all mean that one becomes St. Patrick with a halo on the head and holy water in your hand. Far from it. But you do realise the limits of your vagabond life. You strangely appreciate it and moreover get used to it. Somehow that is the bigger learning than anything that you pick up...

Give to me the life I love,

Let the lave go by me,

Give the jolly heaven above

And the byway nigh me.

Bed in the bush with stars to see,

Bread I dip in the river

There's the life for a man like me,

There's the life for ever.

The after...

2007-05-30T05:26:00.000+01:00

Hear closely an its quiet, no blaring music, no drunken brawls, no H9 guys comin an yellin 'H 10 ki maa ka....', no quirky neighbor who would listen to Bhajans at 3 AM an then graduate to highly obkectionable videos by 7 AM, no assignments, no exam tomorrow for which you don't have a clue, no batch meetings on 'serious issues', well this is called home. Its comfortable, warm and its back to civilisation with a bang...

Before you know it you have passed one complete time of your life and are headlong in to another.

Its been 2 months and i thought many times to update the blog...It was titled 'The Wonder Years' cos the first series that i downloaded an watched on campus was the same. Somewhere it also became a metaphor for the times spent, literally the wonder years.

Life is now spent in meetin up people an yeah jogging on the beach...

Really the Wonder Years...

2007-03-25T19:29:00.000+01:00

Some things just strike back to you..It was 2 years back when i first landed in Lucknow and i wrote my first post!! It went something like this.

July 2005 i wrote....
I have realised that its a new system, but i will have to adjust pretty quickly and give my best.I will have to have infinite patience to cope and shine out here. i am realy hungry to perform. Thats the difference i have seen in me for quite some months and i think its time to perform.

Well now after 2 years I realise what helped me achieve all that is just having that hell lot of patience..while working on all the activities, with all the different sort of people, those frustrations, times when everything went wrong and also times when things went remarkably great!!

Having identified that patience is the only thing to quietly keep on moving ahead despite everything made ALL the difference. I had also decided to lead a very controlled an disciplined life for d 2 yrs which also helpd immensely..

So what went right along these 2 years.....Firstly finding awesome friends for life, the quiet confidence to work in the first year, world class act at Summers, the Einstein award, the ALCOM work, the groundwork at Student Council, NYCC and yeah all the Jogging!

All along there was just this mad rush to do some excellent work, to push the limit and see what comes off it. Well things fortunately turned out to be good, with help from excellent people along the way...Lady luck did smile a lot!

It was all with some really bad times, lonely times when everything seemed downhill and those jogs to let things go.

Anyway time to move on! Back to my cool life in Bombay fr good...Time to look beyond and i already see Bigger things to be done, better challenges to fight for and yeah i am getting a good feeling about it!

Signing off!

2007-02-27T06:35:00.000+00:00

Today officially signing off as presi. Handing it over to the new guys around. That marks the end of my student affairs. Mad rush, with too much squeezed in . It has involved a lot of sacrifices in terms of time spent with friends, enjoying...The time could have been spent with some great people on campus, some more personal time. But it has been worth it and sometimes it is necessary to just know how far can you go! It is also important to stop there and quietly turn back

This day!

2007-02-26T14:34:00.000+00:00

Today i ran for 15 kms non-stop in my campus. The largest distance that i have run so far...
Feel like Forrest Gump just minus the girl who screams 'Run Forrest run'. No luck yet in that department!
Good to have pushed it finally!

Chariots of Fire galore....

2007-02-24T06:12:00.000+00:00

Bring me my bow of burning gold!

Bring me my Arrows of Desire!

Bring me my spear! O clouds, unfold!

Bring me my Chariot of Fire

I have been jogging now for 4 years. Over these 2 years at IIM L, people have seen me sweat out 2 rounds on the ring road almost every single day. This has been inspite of maddening amount of work, sleepless nights and exams.People have indeed wondered about this mad habit of mine (especially if you don't seem to be loosing a lot of kilos!)

In reality, my jogging is the only thing that has kept me going in life. It was "Swimming" when i was a kid. Swimming out for 1000 m non-stop was exhilirating. But then due to an unfortunate change of address, I could swim no more. Then i found myself near to a beach and started jogging! And there my love for running began.

When you run along an empty stretch of road, you just feel like you are tearing the wind apart. The feeling of just you on the road is amazing. It has never failed to refresh me whenever i needed it. I still remember there was a day when i was simply incosolable. And i made sure no one knew about it barring those who could make out. And i had a slew of meetings to follow where such an attitude would not do. I just ran straight out for 10 kms, when i simply could run no longer. I was all right and back on a bang.

So whenever some one feels a desire to go so fast that not even a whisper can reach without your express permission, RUN, like when you were a kid, like an untamed horse that owns the meadow down below and the stars above. Maybe you will know what i am talking about.

P.S. Those in love with running must watch 'Chariots of Fire'.

Signing off!

2007-02-10T13:24:00.000+00:00

Time to sign off from office.... What began in the first year with ALCOM, then controls, NYCC, Council & mentorship almost ends... Damn hard work, countless hours but have made friends for life who i know would stand by me wherever i go and whenever i call.. That is my pay off from this place. Not a job and not a fat pay check!

Adios to all the work...

Some recent pics....

2007-02-10T13:13:00.000+00:00

Beautiful flowers in the IIM L campus & a snap of me n my room

You can't lose when you got nothing to lose!

2006-12-11T06:33:00.000+00:00

Well you trudge, run, exhale, whisper, enjoy, whimper, love, be loved, hate, repent, salvage, weep, crave, pray for that one thing and basically live through each day of your life. The parody of all the actions, events, learnings that you pick up on your way just seems too huge in hindsight. But whats the catch?

But what would you gauge it all against feeling great about one's conquests, successes, relative happiness( MBA spoils you for life!) , that perk, that babe, your dream car, house, your love of life (or so you thought, cant help be the cynic here)... !!!! Hardly!

The only thing that matters is whether you feel good about the way you travelled your journ, or you repent some steps along the way. The only thing that would matter is your satisfaction that you lived each moment and secondto the full and basically steered your own way. You did not just float along with your self ego, that comfortable feeling or just plain lack of guts..

Most importantly would you risk it all again, when it matters or you would rather fade away..I know that i would risk it all again, put it up at stake for the sake of a few. Well these few are all that matter in life! Some people that you know, trust and sometimes depend with your life. Time and again i have realised this is life. I would rather have my coterie than a huge gathering!

It feels good to know that after 5 Terms here i can say that i have found some people like that. Some radically different, and some so similar that it rattled me at first :)

It was one hell of a hectic term with a thousand things to do and much more. But regrettably i did not do 2 things which i had decided. Guess i never will..

The friend that WAS.

2006-12-10T01:11:00.000+00:00

Today i got to hear that a friend of mine from Engineering passed away. She was one of the liveliest persons around. About a year back she met with a car accident and had gone into comma. After the initial trauma, she started recovering and responded to her name and music. We had assumed that it would take long but she would recover. But the fight ended yesterday...

It feels strange sitting thousand kms away and in the midst of this apparently busy schedule. You feel numb that a person whom you have seen so much for over 4 years is suddenly no more. It is like a bundle of dreams, ambitions and energy has been just nipped in the bud. Maybe things happen beyond for a good reason, just may be. This is the second news of death i have had to hear this Term, may it just end soon...

----
"Aaj hi to bas jaage hain;
kyunki kal to sirf ek khwab hai,
Jeena hai zindagi to aaj jee lo;
pyaar karna hai to aaj kar lo,
Aaj zindagi ruki hai tere liye;
Koi aaj ho tumhare raaho main,
Kya pata: Kal Ho Na Ho"