A Parting Shot

Every 1-in-a-100 child in India today is born with a cause -
That, to slog in an IT firm without a pause,
For a US, UK, or as in my case, a Chinki boss.
Appraisal, Appreciation, On-site, Award - 4 claws in their jaws.
No-peace, no-life, no-family - these remain the hidden clause.
Efficiency is must - late-nights, weekends are but workers' flaws,
"Work smart, one needn't work hard - why be an ass, be a horse!
Must keep 'em busy, for it's the rolling stone that gathers no moss."

Enough of bull-shit, I now decide to abandon the laws,
Call it my audacity, or, the empathizers may applause.
1-in-a-100 I said, you may now deduct 1 from the gross,
Blame it on my herd-mentality, for into the other 99 I cross.

flying to flee?

All omens are perfect. Got up early in the morning. It's drizzling since morning, cool, perfect weather. Watched a perfect soft-romantic, fairy-tale kind-of a movie, where u know everything's gonna be alright in the end - The Nannies' Diary. Went through few more pages of 'India After Gandhi' (everything wasn't perfect there..the imperfectness is narrated perfectly though!). Talked to Murti (d housekeeper) with the politeness of yore after quite sometime (and it wasn't a conscious effort!). It's a long weekend, today (friday) is a holiday too, on account of Good Friday..holy Good! And ofcourse, the thing that started it all - I have put my resignation at office!
Though somewhere inside there is this fear as well. The weekend is long, but Monday remains a grim reality.

Changing Times?

His aspirations have changed? He then would be Amitabh of Deewar, now when he is watching Amitabh of Suryavansham, the younger one, he can’t help crying – not at his plight but at the egoless, selfless him. It’s perhaps the realization that he can never be him. And that he would want to be him.

Am back?!

It's been an yr. now, and that's a long-long time, in every respect! I'll start afresh, i.e. without reference to my previous posts. Infact, that explains my yr. long hiatus. I promised the 3rd part of "Just Another Day..?". You may not be waiting for it anxiously, but, for sometime atleast, I was actually thinking on it. I, actually, honestly gave it many-a-tries - at home, in solitude, amidst friends, at office. Each time I gave it a different start, varying dramatically as per the mood. Each time, satisfied with the beginning, I kept it to build on it later, to only reject it outright the next-time, dissatisfied. One may wonder - what's d big deal! But then think of it this way - this is the only fairy-tale in my otherwise oh-so-ordinary life-story, I ought to be prudent in spending it! ..and so, I didn't post anything else all this while, as I was to write on this, and I obviously couldn't successfully write on this!
So much so for my alibi! Actually, Padhi aka Saab (my roomie, remember?!) left for China yesterday. The company has sent him for atleast 3 months. I have decided to make some use of my new-found solitude, than just refreshing my orkut-page hoping for a new-scrap! And this(blogging) is just one of the things in my somewhat dubious-list!

Just Another Day...?!! - Part 2 (Intro)

The ‘I’ here may not be me, but it may not not be me either… (“I” need this shield of anonymity to ensure greater honesty)

A lot of things have changed since then, a lot. Then – when I was into it (from head to toe, with heart giving a lead) – I had no doubts whatsoever that I am in love. After many-a deliberations, to my dismay, I do have some reservations now. Well, on second thoughts (plz bear with me. I am not yet at peace with the matter completely, and seek to realize, myself, while I narrate. So there are bound to be second thoughts, and deliberations, and oxymoron.), even then, deep within, I had my doubts. But, then I believed what I wanted to believe – that it is but Love! And I did my bit to convince my conscious. Afresh from an all-boys residential, and hailing from a conservative small-town, I found my guide in Bollywood. I detested songs till then; each one of it now held a special meaning for me. I would sit in the corner of the TV room, smiling at the secret messages that the songs invariably had to deliver; and at the sheer ignorance of my peers at that. I would accompany the hero in his every mission to win Her heart; and rather sub-consciously, try to emulate his efforts.
I am not going to narrate an account of this one-sided affair here, for despite all wishful-thinking this may not be different or superior to just any other love-labour-lost saga, but I intend to discuss the implications and repercussions, and the life thereafter...

Just Another Day..?!! - Part 1 (Prologue)

They say, words are mighty; I am scared of their limitations. True they can incite passion, carve destinies, move nations; they continue to be the most exploited of all resources at man’s disposal. But then, sample this -

A busy businessman while leaving for office runs into his son who’s just out of the bed. He brushes his hand through the kid’s hair impulsively at the sight of the cute 10 yrs old in his night-pyjamas struggling to wish him a good-morning through his wide-open, yawning mouth. Both of them smile instinctively at each other, and the dad catches the momentary twinkle in the lad’s eyes as the lids rise to meet his own... The whole sequence of events takes hardly a second. The man scowls at the driver for his shabby dress, he’s probably to receive some important guests at the airport today; and the child shrieks and run at the sight of his mother, she would force him into bathroom instantly…and neither of them, ofcourse, gives it a second thought. It’s too insignificant an event to find entry in the dad’s notepad, or the son’s new personal diary. But after an hour’s meeting (rather argument) with his impolite clients, and in the middle of negotiating terms with the revolting workers, if the dad closes his eyes with the desire of a momentary reprieve, it’s that same twinkle and the same sheepish smile that will best work to quench his quest. The child on his part is too naïve to realize his moment of bliss now, but it might have probably left a mark on his sub-conscious which may actually press sometime later when he’s on his own and the relationship’s under a lean patch; he though may not be able to relate things then, but that hardly matters.

Now how do you actually emphasize the importance of that one, apparently insignificant, moment in their life, without hoping to sound too rhetoric or too dramatic or hopelessly romantic…?! One needs to experience it to know it.

A Day in The Office

Before i proceed to assault your senses with a lengthy discourse on one of my days in office, I will take this oppurtunity to pen a few words about the irrepressible personality, who happens to be the prime moving force behind this initiative, and the fourth member of this unlikely quartet.....

Singhal to me is defined by his booming voice, its something nobody can miss. Its almost as if he has an inbuilt Bass equalizer with the knob turned to maximum. The guy's a freak, a likeable one though, i mean sample his hobbies, and this is just a sample----hanging out in crowded buses, exploring the seedy bylanes near malleshpalya, having two packets of milk for dinner just for kicks, teaching kids at an NGO(saturday mornings 8'0 clock, I know he's a little crazy), having conversations with random people at Landmark(which he says he never initiates, though I am skeptical about that), and the list goes on.......

As you can make out our man is a many splendoured personality, full of life, thats his chief characteristic.....Among the four of us, he's probably had the most workload, but I have rarely seen him crib about it whereas in stark contrast I keep complaining all the time, and the others at regular intervals.....To go with this he is a terrific raconteur, one of the best I have met, incidents and anecdotes take on a whole new dimension when he's narrating them.....

Ok I can go on and on, but i must cut short this eulogy in order to tell you about.........

Tough day in the office yesterday. It began quite normally, i had to study some project documents and attend two meetings to discuss them. Though I was more or less a silent spectator, I mean half the time I had no clue what some of them were talking about, the other half I spent realizing that my interpretation had been completely off-course, its like I was aiming for the moon and landed on Pluto, the poor ex-planet.

The second meeting was memorable in the sense that my team-mates got the first taste of my unique and remarkable ability to do stupid things. My new team consists of 14 members, which is huge, generally teams comprise of 7 members at the max. The fall-out is that we have to really squeeze and scrunch in the meeting rooms, picture the general compartment of a train. Anyway, we had a meeting room which was smaller than most. As usual I was among the last people to enter. I saw there was a crisis situation, and I love crisis situations, gives me ample scope for messing things up, if there is anything resembling a crisis I cannot be far behind to further entangle things and whip up an exotic cocktail of confusion that leaves everyone dazed. It seemed there were not enough chairs and space for everyone to be seated, I decided to take command, first I brought two chairs from the pantry and just so that nobody was left out I asked Pee-Pee ( yeah, the same PP from the Coorg trip, older readers will recognize him) to get two more. I then began to arrange the chairs asking a couple of people to position themselves flat against the wall while I went about putting the chairs in place. Having done that I suddenly realized something The problem was if you put in all the chairs the door would not open, and if you did not put in the chairs the door would open but 4-5 people would be left standing. In trying to eliminate the first problem I had given no consideration to the second one and now it stared me in the face, it was a throwback to my childhood days when I discovered mum had found out the glass of milk I had left behind the safe. Tricky problem eh!!!! I could see everyone was baffled, the two guys sticking to the wall were getting a little impatient and the three guys standing outside seemed to be staring at me with undisguised hostility. Pee-Pee was the only one without any visible concern, but then he is used to my methods, elementary as they are, he is the Watson to my Sherlock.

It was that kind of a situation, something had to give. My alert mind open to the possibility of further mayhem immediately provided me with a text-book disaster solution. I picked up one of the chairs and began to hand it over to one of the guys sitting at the other side of the table. That guy was taken aback to say the least, his eyes seemed to be barking---" What the fuck do you think you are doing?". I was in no mood to be intimitidated by barking eyes and scowling faces, I had half a mind to tell him—" Come on dude, do it for the team put the chair in your lap, and one guy can sit there", I mean he was acting as if I had told him precisely that, when all I was asking him to do was to hold the chair for a little while so that everybody could come in. No sense of co-operation, and they talk about being a team player. The strategy was to make people sitting on the other end of the table to hold the chairs and then usher in everybody standing outside and then arrange the chairs and finally sit down and start the meeting. It was based on sound logic and bound to succeed. Fast-forward five minutes, everybody was in the room, four people were holding chairs at one end and a minor army was clinging to the walls. People passing by and happening to glance inside made little effort to conceal their amusement. I get really pissed off by this kind of behaviour, I mean these guys on the outside, they don't know anything and based on superficial knowledge they are prone to come to the wrong conclusions in no time, bloody idiots. I am telling you, it's so damned discouraging.

I am made of sterner stuff though, I am used to it, geniuses are never recognized in their lifetimes, and so I paid no attention to the smirks of these wise guys.

In the meanwhile another problem had cropped up. Now that everybody was inside, I suddenly had another realization. Frankly, I don't know what the deal is with realizations, I mean they almost never come at the same time, to me they don't, they wait and take their own time in arriving at my doorstep at irregular intervals. It's jarring to say the least, and puts paid to the best laid plans. The realization this time round was that there was no way all the chairs could be placed in the room with everybody inside. Why was god doing this to me? I was at my tether's end. My normally fertile brain was running out of ideas. However I had one last ace up my sleeve.

I told pee-pee and another fresher to move out, then positioned two chairs in the space they had vacated, asked two of the guys standing to sit down there. I then put one of the chairs in front of the door, half-opened it and asked one of the guys standing outside to come in. He was in the process of somehow trying to squeeze himself inside, making faces and all, contorting his body, who told you to eat so much…………… And then………

Another team-mate arrived, bloody late-comer acting smart, asked the contortion artist to step aside and then calmly swung the door outwards, just like that, it was like Blane doing one of his tricks …There was a collective sharp intake of breath, I mean actually there was not, it was an un-taken intake, more effective, hangs longer in the air and sort of chills the atmosphere. To make my victory complete the guy even made a perfect wise-crack---"There's always an easy way to do things"…. Yeah, right. How was I supposed to know the door was BI, what are the doors coming to these days, you simply cannot distinguish the straight one's from the you know. It ruddy swung both ways, no Fucking morals.

The meeting finally commenced around 30 minutes late. The team lead said that since a lot of time had been wasted today, we would just have a brief introduction and have the major discussions the next day. I don't know why, but the whole time he kept staring pointedly at me.

Once we were outside and out of the ear-shot of the other members, PP burst out into a prolonged fit of laughter, so much for sympathy. I dunno what Shakespeare meant when he said something about a good deed shining like a candle in the night in a naughty world or something to that effect, must have had too much to drink, it does not work that way………

The Description

Well dis description was certainly overdue. We've already had 2 posts (n unless some measures are taken, i'm afraid that could be it!! but i'm hopeful against it!)
Let me begin with d title - "Hamlets of a hamlet flock together!". Modern-day Hamlet that's what we all are! We almost always have an opinion on everthing..we kno wat was to be done, n where n who has erred. But almost as certainly, we wud stop at that. Why shud we bother to bell d cat?!
We'r 4 college frens, from d same college, working in d same company n putting up in d same house..but that's where d similarity ends! We differ in our likes-dislikes, priorities n opinions (or d lack of it!), n that's d best part of d whole arrangement (unless, i.e., d disparaties turn sour someday!)!! We are -
*Ankush - he's a real technocrat, speaks real sweet (that is d way he speaks. Content?! that's a different matter!), n yeah, a real brooder, he thinks a lot, wud like d life all planned (I luv to read n mock his daily time-tables)!!
*Ashwin - Reading is his life-line, n writing, a natural repurcussion (though a different passion is fast takin over his heart, or rather his lungs!). A no-problem guy for he'll never come-up with his own plan lest it contradicts urs(n not that he has none)!
* (Priyabrat) Padhi - he's called 'saab' for his aristocratic tastes! he sounds a practical man (wud never interfere in other's business unless called for, looks lost in his own, anywaz!), n i took him for that, until i got to kno d other him!!
* urs truly - n me! well i'm a self-centered person who loves to talk of himself (as my postings wud shamelessly reveal), n it's not that modesty forbids me, yet, u see, u wudn't like to hear me go at length in my own praise, n there's very little i find in me worth condemning!! So Ashwin has kindly agreed to give some insights on me in his next posting, but mind u, don't believe every word he has to say of me!!
As to the blog, it is to discuss our priorities, pour our feelings, note our broodings (ankush u listenin :)) n to give our expert opinions on each other n d world at large...
When I came up with d idea (pay attention, ‘I’ came up with d idea!!), I found support in Ashwin (writing is his passion n then d guy isn’t averse to such meanderings either). ‘Saab’, well he regards the idea to be another of my constant bullshits… but then he too doesn’t mind scribbling now-n-then (that I conclude from those large Orkut Testimonials he has written for his frens). He is subject to large mood-swings, n that makes me believe he may write a Post during one of d “high-tides”!! Now Ankush…well, he wud certainly have much to say (c’mon he thinks so much!), but d guy doesn’t regard writing as one of his many forte’, n a topper that he is, he may not like to enter a venture where he is unlikely (in his opinion) to excel. But he does have regards for relationships :), n he may agree to Post on our pleas! As for me, I wud love to write n have a lot to say, but lack patience, nevertheless, will make it a point that I do Post regularly…!!

Alaap

To start from where he left... We could well see him scribble into his laptop, but then that’s his favorite past-time, busy writing on anything and everything…I will come back to it sometime later though. The point here is, I didn’t know he was writing a post, and it wasn’t disclosed until he bloody shut his lappy. Good that he didn’t let me see what he did write, inspite of my pleas, for I was then sure to get down to get back at him (I’m trying to do away with this habit of settling scores with people), and would have spent an hour or so preparing a befitting reply to his statement. I deem it better than otherwise, because of what employed my time instead!!
After they, Ashwin and Ankush, locked their door from inside (that I may not return to squander what was left of the night), I too returned to my favorite occupation at this hour, the Idiot Box! I detest it, demonize it, and yet devour it with delight. I hate it because it is gnawing my life-time when I feel I can make a better use of it, mocking at my attempts to abide by some schedule or time-table, and, most of all because it’s a proof that I do not command a complete control over my bearings. But I love it for what it has to offer me. I watch only movies on TV, all types and any kind. My qualifiers for a good movie aren’t the Humour, or the Action, or dance-song, or even the actors or story, though they all indirectly contribute to what I am in turn looking for in a movie – an evasion – an alternative to the world. (But hey, don’t classify me as a loser, a cynic. Mind you, I do not seek an escape, but an escapade!) An alternate world does not mean a “Matrix” or “The Truman Show”. Also, the events or the repercussions might be completely illogical (as is the case so very often!) for I am not interested in the story (where is a story anyways?!). I am interested in characters - their emotions and passions. Larger-than-life or just a next-door-guy; the most sophisticated-kind or a naïve, simpleton; an introvert or the bubbly-types; a winner or the underdog…anything will do…just build a character that can intrigue me, appease my emotions, and, you have me hooked. I will then gladly (in fact, sub-consciously), live his dreams and die his deaths with him!
So at around 1.30 in the morning when they slammed the bloody door on me, I sat on the sofa watching Amitji-starrer – Alaap. Well, I’m not discussing d story here, but a few insights… The very first thing that gets u….err..

Hey did I tell ya, I’m a very, very impatient guy. I started with fervour. That movie, Alaap, really touched me and I wanted to discuss it with u…but beating around the bush, my patience has already run out. If I wait to finish it before posting, I’ll never get to post it!! So I’ve decided to post it nevertheless. Maybe I will discuss d movie some other time, n then I’ll get straight to the point without further circumlocution… as for now u atleast got an insight on me!! But I’ll still like to end with a dialogue from d movie (may not be exact) – “Main toh Alaap hun. Gaana toh alaap ke baad shuru hota hai… Mera beta mera geet banega!”

Varun Singhal

The title of this post makes it very clear what it is going to deal with....I was planning on writing this tomorrow in office and quite possibly the topic might have been something else, however when at one in the night your ears are being assailed with theories dealing with castration of bulls to turn them into cows, I thought I might as well blog....

This whole idea is the brainchild of Mr. Moustached Single, the theme here is communication between four people staying and working together... I know a blog might seem an extra-ordinarily round about means of communication considering the fact that we happen to be spending most of our time together, but singhal believes it will work, and one thing I have learnt over the past few months is never to question his wisdom........

For me though giving a hands up involves an ulterior motive, writing happens to be something I enjoy, so this will give me an oppurtunity to indulge in it.... I can crib all i want and also get some of my own back as far as these three blokes are concerned....

I have been meaning to go to sleep for the past hour but as you can make out havent been able to do so....There's a damned meeting in the morning....I think I will go to sleep now, i meant to talk some more about single, however now I feel I 'll do it tomorrow....Atleast the blogs been kick-started........