Scott Adams knows what's in my mind!

Coincidence at its best :D
See this

"How can i lose something i never had?"

Is it even possible? Its like being in a dream in you are painfully aware of the loss, but have no idea who or what has slipped away from you. A dream in which an absence is a presence, a hole moving like a ghost in the space around you. Did i fall in love with somebody who showed me the slightest bit of attention?

Lonely. Sad. Empty. Fake smiles. Unloved. Clementine. Alone. Happy memories. Mistakes. No future. Beautiful relationships. Orange hair. Dream. Best Friends. Weird. Fantasy. Disappointment. Meomory erasing. Desperately holding on. Give up. Move on. Can i??

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind.

Errr... Swimming. Anyone?

I was sitting idle, doing nothing (as usual) when suddenly those images entered in mind.

I used to be a small kid (sic!) when I first entered a swimming pool.
With fear and anticipation, I let go of the ladders and I was there alone and completely on my own.
The instructor asked me to float and in I went. For a moment everything went berserk. I couldn't understand which way was up and which way was down. I didn't know at what angle I lay with respect to the Mother Earth. All I knew was that I was lost and I had to somehow survive. And so did I.

First lesson learnt, I was soon the king of shallow waters (thanks to floor of the pool which was just 3 feet below and easily within my reach). A friend tried to test me and dragged me into deep waters. I fought for some time and again came out, with a fist in the air.

So there I was, the king (with all due respect to HANce King) of all waters (or good times?) - be it shallow or deep.

Now starts the funny part.
Somehow, I am able to correlate the experience I had while learning swimming to that of life in general -

We leave the safe environment we grow up in, start the lonely battle, don't know which way we should head and most importantly don't know where we stand.

Slowly, every thing sinks in and we find ourselves in peace with our environment. Just to be reminded by a jolt that there are still much deeper waters to be conquered. We take a deep breath and start our journey for survival (or at least that's what people make us believe). And at the end come out victorious.

But we never ventured out of the pool. Only the size of the pool changed. We never took on the waves that hit hard on the shore. We never tried to swim across a wild river.

So, does that mean that life will also follow a similar track. We'll look for challenges but within what we describe as risk-free-environment. We'll never act wild and act as if we don't have anything to loose. We'll always have something pulling us indoors.

Think about it.

Next Up - Life and how it relates to the art of motorcycling :D

p.s. am I quitting my job? naaaah.... am too lazy for that :P

When you try your best, but you don't succeed...
When you get what you want but not what you need...
Stuck in reverse?

Recently I found out what would have, in all probability, inspired Chris Martin to pen down these lyrics. It would have been a day spent at (trying to do some) shopping!
I mean, is it just me or do all guys (and some minisule proprortion of girls) have a hard time when it comes to picking out clothes/shoes/shopping in general ? Shouldn't there be a easier way to compute the complex logic of deciding what's gonna look good on you AND is affordable? How do you know whether the next shop at the next mall isn't selling something better? And I'm not even talking about following fashion here;that just opens a whole new dimension :-(
In my case all this has had catastrophic effects. I wear t-shirts that make much nonsense; I spent upwards of 3K on shoes that look like the ones in a bowling alley; and my jeans always, somehow, become ill-fitting the moment I take them out of the shopping bag at home...

Think I desparately need professional help. I remember seeing in some crappy star world sitcom that chicks take along their gay friends while going out for shopping, as seemingly they have finer feminine tastes...
So...err...should I try finding some lesbians?!!

Of hailstorms and all that rings in my ear

Ever heard of hailstorms in the middle of May (the month when Delhi temperatures are all too eager to break on through to the other side of 50°C).

So was Al Gore really serious about all that stuff he blabbered in An Inconvenient Truth?

Will we ever get hit by a meteor and start living in thousands of small Earth's that will take birth due to the collision?
Planet US will attack on Planet Iraq with troops having to fly hundreds and hundred of galaxies away.
Planet India will send its cricket team to the cluster of planet dust know at the West Windies.
I'll hit a lower low :P

*disclaimer - all that is written above fully complies to the little red book on Ethics@MostlyHarmless

Ahem ... v3 ;-)

Yes yes I'm back. Thank you! Thank you! I know your fingers must be trembling with excitement and you must be sending quiet prayers saying thanks to the gods above since your wish has finally been granted and all that. The credit for my return must go to Bertie who off late doesn't miss a single opportunity to compare me to an uncharacteristically lazy specimen of the female section of the canine family.

As ZZ9 rightly points out the flurry of random posts by Bertie off late has completely disrupted the think-write-read-comment cycle whose periodicity, in my case, had started showing a strong correlation to the position of the earth in its orbit around the sun.

It is not that there is nothing to write about which has kept me from posting on this blog, infact, it is just the opposite. Life has been such a blur the last few months with all the sleeping, partying, working and driving that I havent had the time to sit down and ruminate over the various events which keep whizzing by. It has been this rumination which has made my posts such fun to read in the past (people keep telling me how modest I am all the time :-)).

Life, in the recent past, has turned extremely strange. I still havent come to terms with the fact that I will be going back to being a student after 2 long years and will no longer be a part of the work-force. I often find myself wondering if I can ever get back to my full student form again since work seems to have done a good job putting my already few and sparse little grey cells to sleep. Assignments, exams, no money, no weekends etc seem scary to me now but somehow I am really looking forward to that kind of life again.

- "Your plastic pal who's fun to be with"
(c) Sirius Cybernetics Corporation

Hmm...
So it's been quite a while since i wrote my last post here...and it's not because the time in between hasn't been worth writing about! In fact...so many things are happening right now that, frankly speaking, my lazy and accustomed-to-slumber-mode brain is spinning, unable to cope up with the things happenin around!
Firstly...these flurry of posts by Bertie has completely thrown me out of sync. In the past few months I had grown accustomed to one bluesy post a month routine here at the blog...where i'd spend a week thinking about a post...another writing it...the next one reading any new posts...and the last was dedicatedly reserved to reading-n-writing of comments . But alas..things here have changed, and all I can hope for is another year of hibernation from Bertie once he returns to helL ;)
Secondly...there's the other flurry...of mails in my inbox from the Ko-rr-icode yahoo group. Here again, my 2-3 mails-a-day inbox is being tormented to 100+ mails from an excited bunch of people...asking anything and everything that comes to their mind.
Add to this the anguish of missing out on a europe tour with the family...and the weird feeling associated with living in a hostel 2000 miles away from home for the first time in my life, with Komrades at the Kampus of Ko-rr-icode in Kerala.....phew!
No wonder I feel like a doped out junkie most of the day...

Conspiracy Theory

There is a conspiracy against me and i'll tell you why. Recently i had the first ever heartbreak of my life. You must be saying its shoo unfair, itney haseen mijaj ka, mazakiya ladke pey.

Say whatever, but i was recovering in my own way, consciously avoiding anything even resembling mushy stuff. That meant leaving dirty, smelly socks in my room, watching 1980s hollywood movies about college, the type that is unapologetic, raucous, cheap laughs for cheap-laughs sake, male-bonding fraternity kind of cinema and was turning in at night, reading my copy of "340 reasons not to have a girlfriend".

Also, unintentionally, for some insane reason, i'm being nice to most people. So much so, that my mom must probably be saying,"This boy is the apple of my eye". In other words "Yeh ladka toh meri aankhon ka tara hai." Although, come to think of it shoudn't it be "Yeh ladka toh meri aankhon ka seb hai."

Anyways the point is i was doing fine. Then why you must be wondering am i through this blog hell bent on popularising my latest book "Getting over heartache in 21 days for dummies". Blame what happened in the morning today. I got up in a cherry'ol mood. Conviniently ignoring the fact my pillow was wet with my drool i'm up and about with a confident air, ready to face whatever this world throws at me. Have breakfast, mummy ko bye karke aur papa ki blessings, apna basta leke nikal pada listening to one of my favourite inspirational songs on my mobile,

Risin' up, back on the street
Did my time, took my chances
Went the distance, now I'm back on my feet
Just a man and his will to survive

Fast foward some 10 minutes later.....

I'm in my office cab sitting quitely, minding my own business. I should have recognised the early warning signs, as 3 of the 4 songs played in a segment called foreplay (??) on the radio were of the mushiest kind. Then it happened. The lady sitting infront of me suddenly started to look out of the cab putting tremendous strain on her neck in the process. Now she is not hiven to such a tendency, she's pretty, seemingly smart, dresses well, perfectly nice female probably in her mid-twenties.

She then pokes her female friend sitting on the front seat and coos,"See that white car infront, there's Blah blah (her husband) in it....see see...can you see him?" The other female didn't quite share her enthusiasm and didn't really think it was the same as sighting of a rare, exotic, almost extinct bird. She seemed a bit cheesed off at the unwarrented poke i think. So, she simply mumbled,"Oh! He leaves at the same time as you?" Sitting at the back, i raise my eyebrows, talk about obvious questions.

Anyhow that chit-chat dies down after couple of minutes. We are at the Dwarka-Kapeshra crossing red light. Now, let me tell you as far crossings and red lights go this is hardly a romantic setting. By now she can take it no longer, gives the old blighter (in the white car) a call."Hiii !! I just messaged you. Didn't you get it? My cab is behind your car. Nahi just behind...oh you can see me...hehehe...(frantic hand movements going on). Chalo byeeee!!" And then she waves that typically girly goodbye. The one where the fingers come down one by one slowly.

She then sat through the whole journey with a goofy smile, her eyes rolling in their sockets, and her face had taken on the colour and expression of a devout tomato. I could see she loved like a thousand bricks. Ah! life.

Marriage...eh!!

Seems like it is fast developing into a national past time these days. Discussion in offices over coffee, TV coverage, newspaper headlines, actually getting into one seems to be very much the rage.

Well you can hardly blame me for adding as somebody once profoundly remarked, fuel to fire. The Ash-Abhi wedding, impending nupital of cousins....hell even my best friend is getting married soon. So why the heck is it eating me so much, you may venture to ask?

Is it cause i see people cozy and happy together (atleast on the surface) while i like Schumacher in his prime am heading towards the dangerous curve of life called mid-20s at breakneck speed. Or that my younger cousins are attaching the words "old ancestor" in their warm salutations while greeting me. Or that just the other day i saying to my aunt, "Young Rahul would do well to concentrate on his studies rather than the girls in his engineering college."

Probably, although you might think that i am a tad overreacting in feeling like an old sock in the bottom drawer....hmm...who knows...but things to ponder on....in the meanwhile time to put on my jammies, hit the strip clubs, enjoy the lap dances and burn rubber with my ferrari.

I recall having rather interesting conversation regarding marriage last year. The characters in the conversation being me, aunty K and a guest appearence by me mom. Now aunty K is as far as people born before Goa was liberated (somewhere in 1961, you morons) a pretty jovial and light hearted creature.

In the noraml course of events i rather enjoy having a conversation with her. However, that day there were weightier issues on her mind. She was looking for suitable matches for both her daughter and son as they both were rapidly slipping past the acceptable marriage age in Hindu middle class families. Resolution of the Kashmir imbroglio wouldn't so much as registered a blip on her radar.

So here goes,
Aunty K: Sunn beta, you free naa? Internet laga dey....V (her son) key liye ladkiyaan dekhte hain. I knw this site.

Now, getting an oppurtunity to ogle at pictures of babes on the internet with official sanction, jumped at the chance and chirped,
Me: Haan aunty, jaroor. (Trying to sound cool, not over enthusiastic)

For one, the number of profiles of prospective grooms far exceded the ones for brides. Blasted twisted sex ratio in this country. So aunty suddenly changes track and decides its better to go through the groom profiles for her darling daughter. So then we proceed to go over them in some detail. Not an enjoyable experience to say the least. Aunty K was on fire and like a dragon slaying all in her path and rejecting prospective grooms with:

- He's too fat
- What will my daughter do married to a teacher ??
- Hmmm....decent...but the salary...
- This one is the best: He seems a bit old, my daughter loves to dance...i don't think isko dance vance aata hoga. Say what aunty, for all you knw he's Prabhu Deva's dancing coach!! (I swear this one is true)

An already dark day is getting gloomier :(

In the meantime darling mommy comes into the room and chimes, "Abhishek, you seem to be awfully interested in all the girls. Hai! Iss ladke ka kuch nahi ho sakta."

Before i coould spring to my defense, aunty K comes to the rescue,
Aunty K: Kya baat kar rahe ho didi, kitna accha ladka hai. IIM mein jo hai....(then turning to me) beta tujhe apni shaadi ki koi chinta nahi karni hai....IIM mein jo hai (again!). Sunder ladkiyon ki line lagegi iske liye toh.
Me: (Smiling like a contented teenaged girl having just bought the latest shoes from the mall.)

Two obseravtions here,

1. Wow!! finally i found the answer to the question that has proven to be a downfall of many, thinking about which many a night has been spent in agony...."WHY MBA ??" And as it is with the tougher questions in life, the simplicity of the answer is beautiful.

2. Thousands like aunty K spend spend hours data mining relevent marriage information. For crying out loud, why the heck does someone not developp some marriage index or rating ? Talk about a business oppurtunity going a begging!!

MBA => Mediocre But Arrogant

With the IIM results being finally announced last week just got me thinking about my own admission last year. Like a true blue MBA (even though a half baked one as yet) i like to hear myself talk. So the naive lil souls joining a MBA course would do well to read on with max concentration and those who dunn particularly like the variety (ie MBAs, justt incase u other morons didn't get it) enjoy some laughs at their expense.

These were the words that hit us, around 270 unsuspecting souls, sitting starry-eyed, straining our ears to hang onto every word of what was being said in the orientation programme. This was the opening slide of Rocky's talk. Now Rocky belongs to the rarest of rare species. Profs loved by students, by most atleast and one of those genuinely good teachers.

Before that Dean Academic had in a rather stern voice and grim manner of long time employee of a funeral parlour, told us about the rigour and challenges that the PGP programme at one of India's leading educational institution throws at nincompoops like us. She might as well have been one of Berite's aunts, looking like one who eats broken bottles and wears barbed wire next to the skin (to complete the picture for you). Then there was the Placement Chairman along with 7 of the finest students of the senior batch (Pcom as they are known, more on that in some other post), who reassured us that we will have good placements and they would need our cooperation in that. (I know i'll ahev good placements, but tell mewhere would i be heading to, the trading floors on Wall Street or consulting fortune 500 clients in Tokoyo or London)

Well, now that i am in Placecom and know the system, those were wise words. Infact next year am already dreading that i will have to stand while he speaks infront of the fucchas. But i do find it a bit weird that one of the first speakers you listen to in a new college is the Placement Chairman!!

Anyhow, getting back to the originally point....Rocky told us the right things what every MBA grad needs to hear and remember.

- Use the tremendous resources and infrastructure usefully
- Study hard but equally work on self development
- Utilise your time in a worhtwhile manner
But most importantly,
- Never take your self too seriously (we MBAs are given to such a tendency)

This is ofcourse not his original term. It is the title of a book by Abhijit Bhaduri about his life in XLRI. Haven't read the book so can't comment but heard its decent.

Teachers like Rocky are as rare as a good fielding Indian side. In our regular huffing and and pretending to have a busy life we often forget to appreciate them. As one of my collegues wrote in the feedback form at the end of his course, "The trip to helL was made worth it."