Minister Jam

There have been so many times, where I have been caught stranded in the middle of the road in the traffic jam, waiting for some ministers to cross. I kind of call them "minister Jams".

But I was wondering if there is any rule which says that ministers should be given the first preferences on the road or it is just power that they use for their comfort. I do understand that ministers time is more important than my time so in a way giving some preference to him might be justified, but I always wonder the fate of those ambulances which get caught in this so called Minister Jam.

I distinctly remember that sometime back when I had done the interview of traffic policeman, he had pointed out the pain and the tension they have to undergo when ministers come. Not only they have to hear all the grumblings of people, but a single mistake is like great sin.

So thinking if there are any such rules, of clearing roads for politicians, or whatever? Tried to Google, but I dont know right terms to search for this, it gives all kinds of hits. Does anyone have any idea?

Cant think of any title

When I was about to leave for US, my boss told me that if you want to meet anyone in the US office you will have to set up a meeting with them, else they are not going to meet you. I find it very odd, and I also find it very time wasting effort of syncing up time zones and playing around with outlook calender and trying to set up meetings and then rescheduling and more rescheduling.

I keep wondering that are people in US so impolite that they would not want to chat up with someone who has come from so far off for brief fifteen minutes, what kind of work makes you so busy that you cannot even spare time for fifteen minutes, What kind of planning is that, which does not allow you to share a joke with someone. yups you can be in one of those days, but that does not happen everyday. Contrast this with the case when these people come to India, most of us are like take out time to make sure that he/she is comfortable, and I was wondering why would US folks not do the same. Did they not care?

I wonder why should we when we come from India should start behaving differently when we are in US office, why should we try to dress up, and talk like the way other people do here. I think it is ok if I dont know that freeways means roads where there are no signal, it is ok not to be able to distinguish between different coins. Not to know that coffee generally here means no milk inside, and that most people here call milk the cream, and brinjal the egg plant, and the closest thing to rotis is burritos, and that I have to press the button when I want to cross the road.

But since the time I have come here, things have been very different from what people in India told me. People are as eager to chat without calenders, people are keen to accompany you for lunch, and even sponser it for you most of the times, eager to spot you that difference between octopus, and chicken, (that day the guy told me that the stuff I eat was octopus, I did not believe him though), order the taxi for you or to drop you to the place you want to go.

The other day, I went to this mexican dance festival, it was over air amphitheater, and it was dance based on themes, and the guy was speaking everything in Spanish, but thankfully the lady next to me was Mexican (And I guess most mexicans speak Spanish) and I kept bugging her, and she kept translating each and everything from Spanish to English. I even sang her "La Bamba" for her, with which she was very impressed :).

I actually dont remember why I started writing this post, but I get irritated when people try to be what they are not and expect me to do the same, because I am what and how I am, and I cant be otherwise, else I will cease to be me.

About this Blog

If you land up on this blog for first time, then you are going to get confused for sure. This blog has no specific pattern, and I do not write about anything specific area as such. Hence you will find that this blog has everything from "small stories", to "travel Logs", to "Startups" to "Profiling of some NGOs".

Well my intention of maintaining this blogs is just to share things/events/places/thoughts that I find interesting and I guess others might like to know. And since my interests are so varied there are loads of mix masala on this blog.


Many times I thought that I should split this blog in to multiple blogs, but then I am having so much trouble maintaining this blog. Will do that sometime in future, when I have more time. But soon I will implement "tags", that would make it little easier to browse.

If you have not and if you have not, you can spend some time on "Recommended reads" and on NGOpost.

One advice for potential bloggers,
For potential bloggers, do not start a blog on blogger, changing anything is so very difficult.

Cheers.
--
Goli (Edited last in Aug 08)

Things dont change much..

"Do you want to come to the bar/disc?" asked my friend

It was 9:30PM, and I had just reached US couple of hours back, and I was supposed to be to be jet Lagged... and my eyes were already closing.

"Abey chal yaar, will show you US" he added.

And you know, I have never learnt to say No to anything..

Ten minutes later we were driving, to go to some place called Santana Square. And we entered the place called Rosie, after the big guy at the door made sure by looking at my driving license if I was above 21.

This place reminded me very much of Spin in Bangalore, crowded with all kinds of people, Music was pulling me in to plunge inside and just dance, but I was little skeptical, to venture in to that sea of people, I thought it was a bad idea to come there, wanted to go and sleep. I was standing in corner, absently looking at people, clothes, shoes, and then nothing in particular.

And out of nowhere appeared this two girls, I would not say girls, or ok maybe girls, some 30'ish types, (one of them had a great smile), and they came and were like "hi how are you?", and thats it. And next thirty minutes turned out to be my best time in US till now. I started dancing, then dancing and kept on going. And had probably Don Williams seen me he would have been happy, because as he says in one of his songs..."Dance like nobody is watching" It was Hip hop... so trying all those, ya, yo kind of dance, with all kinds of stupid gestures, and smiling and laughing all the way to glory.

It is not a great thing, and you might think what this stupid gibberish is all about. But when I was just driving back home in the car, I somehow felt very good about the whole thing, I felt very happy. Images of dim lit dance floor, couple of girls, whom probably am never going to meet again in my life, I shouting them in the ears about India, and they shouting back in my ears about their stuff about US, talking and smiling about various things, doing a big cheers with glasses in hand. These images I am going to carry back home.

More than that I started realizing that poeple are more or less same everywhere, a little smile and little bit of Ye Ye... gets things started. I thought that I had become very pessimistic about US, and started hating this place out of pre conceived notions. But I guess it has got more to do with your attitude then with the place. I can make it bleak, or I can make it happening. There are always people waiting to be touched and waiting to be talked to.

And I honestly that enthu and smiles of those two girls I have been carrying since, to my sales conference and to the first two days. Probably I could not have had a better first day at US :).

Lots more to write, about this trip, about divorces, tequilas, starbucks coffee, Karoke night, and hotel receptionist... but will do. Now to sleep.

The US dream...

As soon as I enter IIT, my dream was to head out of this country and go to US. All the fourth year students were doing the same, desperately trying to get to write SOPs, talking all the time about US. The mess tables were filled with stories about adventures and mis(s)-adventures of all desi babus in the US. Everything you heard looked great, US was great, India looked backward.

But I dont know somewhere down the line, as I finally reached my final year that urge completely died down, I did not want to go to US, and I think it was mostly because I did not want to stay away from my family, and I wanted to try myself at job first. But then bangy life since day one has been so happening that never really thought of going off to US.

But anyways, this new marketing job and I was all set to go to US for couple of weeks. So all this thoughts crossed my mind again, and yups I was set and excited to see this new country.

Nothing to write about flight and all, it was as normal and mundane as it is always, with the fake smiles of air hostesses (I really think that thier job is difficult), and small small packets of jam, sugar, and pepper really amuse me. They are much like used to have when we used to play Ghar Ghar as kids, just that they were not as elaborately packed as this ones.

Reach San Jose and there was this friend of mine who picked me up from Airport. And I was so impressed with the roads and all. And trust me he has such a lovely house, ample parking space, and a park and a golf course. I went inside and it had all the facilities, kitchen, hot water and everything. And it was so peaceful, I could sit there and read a book, could just go and heat something in micro wave and eat. All the technolgy for everything, life is as comfortable as it can ever get. I was wondering why dont I think of spending some part of my life in US. this place was fantastic...

But half and hour there, and I started missing something, I did not feel good about it, I was missing noise, and I was missing people on streets, and I was looking for some face to talk to, and it was not there. There was this whole feeling of loniliness that was creeping inside me. Nothing was looking interesting anymore. I did not want to call because I was on international roaming and further was sure most of the India was sleeping. So then I did what I could do best, open the lappy, connected to net, and was on Google Talk, and as always there were always couple of people to talk to :)

More later...
Laptop discharging and no power adapter and eyes full of sleep..

Once more Muziboo time...

The more I surf this website the more I love this, maybe basically because I love music, especially guitar, today since morning I have been sitting here, on my chair and just listening to the music posted, So I thought that I am going to put some of my favourites and you will surely like some of them..

Starting with the best song that I have seen on Muziboo... this is composed/sung by this girl called mimi... I dont know her but really loved it...




Then with this vocal from Prasanna....


Aadat... almost looks like real song..


Amazing vocals.. of a Rafi song



and Finally this "Dooba Dooba" on guitar... this song has always sounded great on Guitar..



Have a great weekend ahead..
:)

Delhi police website...

Recently I have found this story about Delhi Police lifting the complete website from Singapore, floating in Blogosphere.

So the story is that the Delhi Police website... which is called...
http://www.delhipolice.nic.in/

NDTV claims that the full website has been lifted up from the Singapore police website.

And early in morning I get a mail like this....

Subject: Dark side of Delhi police (Part of the mail below)
"
In 21st century, when Nations are using Internet as boom, Delhi Police cant
even get a simple website

Some of the “HOT” quotes from Delhi Police website. (followed by some mistakes on the website, which I find no necessity of putting them down here)


Read the complete striptease of website (and link pointing to NDTV article)

"

First I really dont understand what is the big deal if they copied website from Singapore police website. How does it matter? I guess everyone would agree that making websites is not the core competency of Delhi Police, they just want a place holder and fastest way to make things work. So they did the easiest thing to do. I think it is smart thing to do.

I am sure that there will be mistakes and they are going to sort them out. But I really appreciate Delhi Police initiative.


But more importantly than all this, I really don't understand why people take so much fun in criticizing and tearing apart things. I mean some of the comments on the NDTV article and the tone of the above mail for example are so bad.

It is like finding mistakes and letting someone down. I am not saying that you should not criticize, but I guess there is something like constructive criticism, "I think you it is really good, but I guess if you improve on this you will really make it brilliant ". And I really believe that even in most shabbiest of the efforts you will always find, something good to cheer, if you try to look with that attitude.

There are things that can make you feel good and there are things which can completely demoralize you. And I guess we all should make this choice carefully.

The mail early morning really put me off, and I really hate getting those kind of mockery filled, letting down emails.


PS: Actually I did look at the website and I think it is cool.... and should serve its purpose. And am also sure they are going to set all the small things all right.

Music Time..... Muziboo time...

Not very long ago, I was having this after dinner fatta session with Prateek and Nithya, and they were telling me about having a website where amateur music lovers could upload their music. And here goes six weeks, which I spent blissfully hanging about here and there, but these guys got the site up. And they call it Muziboo (I dont know why Muziboo, perhaps prateek will be able to comment on this).

Lemme explain what this site is in this way...

As Flickr is for Photography
As Blogger is for writing lovers

So is
Muziboo is for budding guitarists, drummers and any kind of music players...

So on Muziboo, you can upload your music, and it is visible to whole lot of people and many times you get quite useful comments, good/bad/praise/junk/crap and so on... similar to blogger and flickr. But for me the biggest thing about these kind of websites is that, (that is true for blogger as well), I really get to meet and talk with like minded people. Meet people with whom i can discuss music and probably even meet up for jamming.

I am not going to write what the website has and what not it does not have, this is not the review of website, you can take a look, it is easy to use, and has everything that any such website should have.

Hold hold before you go off... and if you have headphones... I uploaded some of my stupid music as well...



So if you are music lover, i guess you are gonna like this website... so take a peek. If you have any feedbacks on the website you can mail it to contact@muziboo.com

PS: This is not a paid marketing... :( . But as a last note, i wanted to write about this, because I guess lot of us keep talking, about doing this and doing that... but this guy talked about it, put fight and has almost bought this to completion... and he is a motivation for him... and he is Nike kind of guy for me... "Just do it" types...So way to go guys keep it up.

In the mess...

It happened again.... that sunday afternoon, I was again sitting in between the mess... yups the mess of my room... I had decided to clean it. And as everytime the same thing happened, I was sitting in middle of the room, with things scattered all around me, pencils, guitar notes, music sheets, hand written notes, shells, colours, cards, letters, marbles, pearls, coffee mugs .....



Everytime I invariably open up everything... and then it is like another journey down memory lane...



There is this badge that I have, which states, Class Representative, that was way back in 8th class and that badge was made by my heart throb then, and I had preserved it, because that is the only material thing that I have of her, and that was the time I had recently read treasure Island and it was my fantasy that I should go with her to some unknown place and stay there for rest of the life.



Then I have these guitar notes, scribbled sitting at 7:30 am class with our guitar teacher. This guitar sir, had a notebook, where he had written all the songs, and he used to ask us to copy, and his hand writing was no better than doctor's prescription, that was the ritual for first ten minutes of the class, and this one fine day we were doing "Hero" song by Enrique( at that time I had no knowledge enrique, and I used to think it was Henry K), and I could not believe that the song lyrics has the following line..

"Would you mind if I touched your hips??"

It was only later that I realized that it was suppossed to be "lips"...



I have this collection of shells, that I have gathered it from various beaches... I had this photo of miss xyz and me, really cute one on one of my first trips to goa...



This crayon picture that I drew of vani Vilas dam, which I visited while driving from Pune to Bangy, and the place was so beautiful, with dam, sorrounded by mountains, which had wind mills, and I did not have camera, and I had reached home and immediately drawn it, but later to realized that I suck at drawing and it was a great mistake that I used to ask my mom to finish my drawing books..



Letters of just when i entered college, (did not have any mail id then) stating that I was so impressed with the food in hostel, sambhar and idlis... :)



There was this piece of bandage, which someone had tied on my leg, when once in the middle of the wroking day, when I was stupidly running around in the parking, and I fell full flat face down, and dragged myself along the ground for couple of feet, like the way they fall in movies, and I badly hurt my knee, and tore my jeans as well...



Dairies, colours, lots of bits and pieces written on paper, love letters, hate letters, time pass letters, letters which never found that way to post office... and so on...



And by the time I am looking at all this, it is already late, and it is raining outside, and I feel like sleeping. So as always I just put all this in the box, or rather boxes, and doze off.

The boxes have only been increasing in number as I am have going all collecting and attaching the immense sentimental value to all this..
:D

Goli

PS: Have been off blogger for a while, but am going to be back with quite a few of posts soon..

when old meets young...

Hey,

Well it all started with my and Yshesha visit to old age home (Anandaashram)... and then Reema's idea that why dont we have some sort of combined thing between orphanges and old age homes... and then pritesh on his bday introduced us to this wonderful school for street children called Annanya.... and the final thing when Shashi aunty (who runs Annanya, will write about her sometime really an inspiring story) was all enthu about it.

So we set on mission to get old people and kids together. After running around here and there to get the necessary permissions, last saturday we were finally all ready to go.

There are about 26 inmates of Anand Aashram. Most of them above 70, they have been living there for varied of reasons. (Am not going to write their stories here, some of them are really depressing, and further to do any justice to that there has to be one full blog post on that.) So at 10 in morning we reached there with the army of nine kids. And we were not sure what we going to do there. We did not organize any games, any music nothing. Just went there and then asked the kids that they have to go and talk to atleast one inmate for one hour and then come back. And thats it kids were on the job, some in chairs in corridor, some in dining hall, some in their quarters, talking, interacting, smiling. I dont want to write more about this, I think the following picture tells the story better. (Picture Courtesy Alice)


At the end we asked the kids if they would want to come back to this place and the answer was YES in unison. And as to why they wanted to come here, they have variety of ideas...

"We want to take them out for a walk"
"We want to sit and do drawing together"
"We want to come and study"

So I hope the enthusiasm does not end here... Finally we want to make it a weekly affair, every saturday we want kids to go to Anandaashram and spend time there. We also thinking that once kids get more used to the people there and develop some kind of rapport, we would try to do specific activities like teaching, drawing and so on. Well things are not this flowery flowery also, some of the people there are really depressed, and I guess it would take quite a task to get them out of their shell. So I guess still there are lots of things to do and lot to learn.

But we do think that this kind of interaction would be beneficial for both kids and the inmates of the old age home. Atleast last saturday we felt like that. So will see how it goes...

Thanks to all who made it happen, starting from Shashi Aunty, Pritesh, Alice, Maddy, Manish, Ananwita, Dhruv and to everyone else whose names I could not mention here.

I do hope that the enthu does not die...

This is just the beginning....
--
Goli

PS: We have asked all the kids to write an essay on what they saw and what they perceived. So will post that.
PS: somehow I managed to delete this post and I dont know how.. and am reposting it again... and I lost the comments... :(

GK Vale... Customer Service SUCKS

"A time when Maharajas and Viceroys ruled over us.
A time when hand-painted portraits were still the norm.
A time when photography was still in its infancy. "


Sounds familiar?? Yes this are the marketing lines of the famous GK Vale, the photo studio in Bangy. They also have this one other line "We were here before MK Gandhi became Mahatma Gandhi".

So one of this days, I also had the privilege of walking in to this great great store, as I wanted the photograph for my new ID card. And I needed the photo urgently. After all the shooting-footing of my photo done, I told him that I am in hurry, and it would be great if he could give me soft copy of the photo, I did not want the CD and all that jazz. And he refused point blank.

He was standing there jobless, he had digi cam with usb interface , he had a usb cable, I had a laptop, all that was required was to connect it. But No. In spite of all the arguments and requests he did not budge.

Maybe it is one of the written rules that they should not give soft copies to customers, though I dont understand the logic of this rule. But it was complete indifference that bothered me. It was like I don't care a shit about you. He almost said "If you want come after two hours and take your photographs, else F*&% Off"


Am not going to walk in to that store again. (Ofcourse I had to walk in one last time to collect my photographs, on top of that I dont like that photograph as well. )

I wanted to write this because one I got very irritated and second I wanted everyone to know about it. I do also hope that some kin of GK Vale should also read about this and he should wake up and do something about customer service.

I think next time am going to take a video on my mobile and post it on YouTube.. :D


--
Goli

Once upon a Time...

"
Once upon a time, there lived a great great sage, in the middle of the forest with all the lovely trees around him. He was a great archer. He had a beautiful wife. His wife was a great athlete... pre PT Usha types.

So as it used to happen this sage used to shoot an arrow, and then his wife used to run and get it back. That is why sage had only one arrow, because he did not need another one. He used to shoot and his wife used to run and get it back.

Now as it happened, one day his wife went after the arrow but did not come back for long. Sage was getting very worried and angry. His wife was very beautiful so he was getting suspicious. Finally very late in the evening she arrived. Sage asked her very angrily "Where have you been, it is almost night?", she said "Dont get angry at me, get angry at the sun, because it was so hot that my feet burnt, my face burnt and I got tired and fell down. Only after the sun went down I could do my work".

Not this sage got very angry. He knew that right in the middle of the day sun stopped for a second. And he said "I am going to teach a lesson to Sun, tomorrow at afternoon am going to shoot the sun down."

Having heard of this all the gods got very disturbed, because the sage was the greatest of archers and he was quite capable to shooting the sun down. So they began to worry. Next day sage took bath did his morning pooja and got ready to shoot the sun.

Gods came and requested him not to do this, because that would destroy the earth, but he was very angry "Sun has troubled my wife and am going to teach him a lesson"

That is when one of the Gods came and gave him an umbrella and a pair of slippers and he told the great sage "Instead of shooting down the sun, why dont you gift these to your wife"

That is how umbrella and slippers came in to existence.
"

I happened to attend one of the seminars of guy called Devdutt Pattaniak . This story was narrated then. Devdutt is a medical doctor by education, marketing manager by presentation and a mythologist by passion (that is what his website says). What I know about this guy is that he is a fantastic story teller. He made a two hour presentation, explaning the relevance of Mythology in todays corporate scenario. I liked the way he put the analogy, it was very new and innovative some of the things were far fetched, but it was full of all this kinds of story, that made it very pleasurable to sit up and listen to him, that too right after heavy lunch.

For example the above story says, "Instead of changing the world change yourself, or rather Adapt to changing world"

Anyways, his website has some nice interesting stories, take a peek. And keep his name in mind, next time he has a presentation somewhere please attend it.

The story of Lost shoe...

My shoe died. I dont complain, it had a fair bit of adventurous journey starting from US (my friend had got it), and it had been to sakleshpur trek and to Karwar, bombay, delhi, baroda, pune, hyderabad. The left shoe had kind of given up and I had to keep three of my left foot fingers at a particular angle else they would just come out of the shoe. And it became too embarrassing to wear it anywhere, because of the fear that the slightest stress and the figers would pop up.

So off I went yesterday with one of my friends, to great old Marathalli to buy a pair of nice shoes. After a lot of looking around at the astronomical pricing of the Reeboks and Adidas, I finally settled for one nice and cute looking Levi's canvas types of shoes. Did not cost whole lots, and was quite decent, dung colour, long shoelaces (the longest that I have seen).

It took me about ten minutes to buy the shoe, and you wont believe how much more time we took to buy a shirt for my friend, hopping from one shop to another, trying to match the colour, buttons, neck, fit, collar, sleves, print, length, fabric, texture, and dont remember what more and after two hours my friend could not find the desirable combination of all of them, and we decided to call it quits. (this shopping is another experience all together, will write about it sometime later)

Exhausted we took the rick back to go home. Wanted to go to a particular shop and it was closed, then my friend wanted to buy the cake for some birthday and wanted to buy it from Swe-chei(Sweet Chariot), and we could not locate it. It was getting late and little bit of drizzle, it was getting little chaotic but finally we just managed to locate one Swe-Chi. We were having a small debate as to who to pay the auto bill, (sometimes I act nice), I lost the debate and had to pay the bill. Got down, paid, went to shop only to realize that in all the confusion had left the shoe in the auto.

So depressed, one K, down the drain. At all these times I always feel this pinch of guilt, because I start thinking about my parents, and how they have saved each and every penny to raise us. Even ten rupess means a lot of money for them. And here I was throwing 1K, just like that, by being nothing but purely careless, there was no excuse for this. Among this big guilt thought, there were these other small thoughts emerging as to when to go again to buy the shoes, if to buy the same ones or the other pair, and how long I will have to keep wearing floaters in office which I so hate because of all the dust and mud that gets in to between my fingers. Furthermore I was embarrassed at the my declining impressions over my friend, (this was the second time it had happened, last time I had lost the helmet, and then the bike key, all on same day, but found everything).

My friend suggested that I run along the road, and look for the auto guy, but I put off that idea, because there was no point running around the road looking for a particular auto, considering that all the autos look same, and I had not paid much attention to how the auto guy looked.

Thankfully though we got the cake, but would you believe it, as soon as we were about to step out of the shop, and there on the other side there was this auto-guy, he U'ed and came to our side of road "Sir, aap bag bhool gaye", We were so happy. He even did refuse to take money for the extra round that he might have had to put. I got my shoe back (am wearing it now). The auto guy disappeared, and lost himself among other autowallahs. I absolutely like the auto guys in Bangy, they rock.

So the story of shoe ends here.

Yesterday incident really made me happy :D. It was a perfect ending to a near chaotic evening.

Robert Clive..

In one of those after lunch film making sessions, when I was feeling terribly sleepy, all of sudden, I hear some discussions on some Robert Clive commiting sucide. The named looked very familiar, mentally I tried to locate where I had heard the name, thinking about any suicides that had been featured on CNN-IBN. Was he some music band guy or something, no movie star as well, perhaps a political guy.

I blurted out in class "Kaun Robert Clive yaar?",

"How did you pass out, Robert Clive, who established British Empire in India?",

Ooops, everything came back, Battle of Plassey, Siraj Ud Dullah, and so on. And he committed suicide, I did not know that. The guy who I would assume, had everything name, fame, money. He killed himself !!!

As the story goes, (I did not know most part of this story, maybe you all may know it), he was the spoiled brat, was expelled from multiple schools. He was sent of to India at the age of 18, to get rid of him, because at that time survival rate in India was only about 50%. He was posted at Madras as a clerk. It is said that he was totally depressed there and made a failed attempt to suicide.

He was considered lowly character by his fellow British, because he spent lot of time with locals, boozing, and doing all kinds of shitty things. But this is where, he developed lot of those contacts with locals, and where he discovered the way of getting things done by bribing.

It is also said that the "Great battle of Plassey", (that I used to imagine was a big fierce battle) hardly lasted for more than an hour. There was no attack from the opposition, Clive had bribed Mir Jafar (head of armed forces of Siraj Ud Dullah), and in the final battle, Mir Jafar refused to move. And the battle got over. Siraj Ud Dullah, fled, but was later captured and killed. Mir jafar became a puppet Nawab of British.

Clive returned to England, with all the glory, but was severly criticized for making lot of money in unfair ways, and he was as it seems in state of depression. He was levied with charges of corruption.

At 48 he commited sucide. It seems there was even a controversy over his burial. And after a life of establishing a British empire in India, his grave was unmarked and remains so.

The gloriouis Robert Clive, abandoned by his family, and almost like expelled to India, looked down upon by fellow people, ended up changing the face of history, but personally had rather a sad life. Almost feel sorry for him.

What you see is now always what it is!!!

I guess before you start cursing me, of this uninvited history lessons, I will sign off.

PS: Wikipedia says that "mirjafar" in Bengali is still used as synonym to traitor. Wonder if it is true.

One more PS: What I wrote above is as narrated by our film making instructor, but verified from wikipedia, seems true.

First day at school

Sunshine wrote a post on gutter baby, recalling how she had once fallen in gutter when she was three, and I have a similar story to share..

It was way back in 1983

As it so happened, we have recently moved in to the new house, my paernts had bought a house (just 85k !!!). We were among the first to occupy a house in that colony. And all around our house lot of construction was going on. Among the other things getting constructed there was this one rectangular gutter. For some vague reason on that day, they had kept it open. Me and my elder sister were jumping across it (along the shorter side). Each trying to tell the other , "If you can I can too". And then my sister just to show how big and how capable she is, as compared to me jumped along the longer side as well. How could I stay behind. I wanted to do the same, and bang I went inside, with my head hiting the edge of it as told later to me, with blood dripping nonstop from my head.

I dont remember anything after that, neither does my sister remember anything. I guess she would have just gone inside shouting and calling for mom. My mom says that they took me to the doctor, (our next door was a doctor). And saved me.

But as a momento of that incident, I still carry this deep cut on my forehead, whose reference I have given in infinite forms that I have filled. While people may search for their unique identification marks, in split second I say "deep cut on my forehead).

I have only two photos of myself, which dont have that cut... :D

Now that I am at it, there is one other incident that I vividly remember, that is my first day at school.

I was all in tears, I never wanted to go to school, but my papa would not take anything. I got ready to go to school but with the condition that papa was also going to stay there with me all the while, but somehow smart as my papa is, he managed to dodge me and disappear and I was in this room with all the kids and monstrous looking spectacled teacher. I did not talk with anyone, and finally this teacher cames and asks me my name and I say "Rajesh", (Yups Rajesh is my real name), and next she askd me was my surname. I had no idea what was that supposed to be. At home they had made me momorize my name, fathers name, mothers name, all about pencils, slates, bicuits, but never this surname.
I still remember that scene so well, teacher bending over me trying to catch it at all I muttered soemthing, wondering if I was shy, afraid, with green and white oil painted school wall in backgroud, with other kids staring at me, some even laughing and giggling at me, I was terrified as hell, wondering what was gonna happen to me, papa was nowhere to be seen.

For that one moment, I hated my papa with all my might, why did he not tell me. Where had he dissappeared. He had broken his promise and he was not there, I was never ever going to listen to him again. Probably I would never even talk to him again, but for one moment I wanted him there, to come and open those iron gate and take me outside, I wanted to be home and play.

I dont remember anything after that, just that one teacher took me somewhere and I was again made to sit. And I guess I sat there, crying all the time, looking at the door, just waiting to see some familiar figure there. Forming all those schemes to take revenge from Papa. And go and tell mom, about all the things that had happened, I was sure she was never even going to send me here again.

The confusion, which I learnt much later from my papa, apparently was because they were planning to divide the batch in to two classes and as is the case always there were more than one Rajesh, they wanted to know my second name, so that they could put me in right class.

But as it turned out later, I hardly went to the school for more than a week. I was always full of tears and would break into crying everynow and then again. Teachers also got sick me. My parents got me out of school. And I spent one more year at home, playing, and blissfully Njoying. Next year they got me admitted directly to U-KG.

Even now, when I go back to my hometown, and I meet some of our old family freinds, they keep telling me about those days, and wondering how I ever managed to study to be an engineer.

Smiling cockroaches...

Have you ever seen a smiling cockroach... or for the matter of fact an irritated, or angry or happy or sad or any kind of emotional cockroach. Have you ever bothered to figure out? I wonder if they exhibit any such emotions.. why this questions popped up because I was just looking at the way, everyone at my home takes extreme pleasure in crushing this poor insects under the chappals, and whatsoever that they find, not that I am a big cockroach fan and that I would love to keep them as pets, I dont like them that much because they are ugly, especially their colour, I wish that they were more colourful or atleast have some other colour other that stupid orage'ish brown. But I was wondering if cockroaches instead of running around here and there like idiots, could do something with their antennas to amuse people, I guess then people would not be so harsh to them. Imagine as soon as we switched on the light they would, instead of running around, would do something cute, as if saying "Why did you switch on light, we dont like it", by moving their antenna in some way or walking in someother manner, or doing something different rather than running away blindly. I guess they could stir our emotions too, and then we would not be shovering chappals over them.

I was just wondering, why we feel sorry when we see dogs getting killed and chickens and goats getting killed for food, I guess that is only because they have learnt to do some actions which sort of stir our emotions and we start feeling sorry for them. Like dog wagging their tails and goats with always that so called sorry looking and innocent face. But most of times when we see the cockroach have only one thread running in our head, find something before it vanishes and satakk... missed... another satakkk.., gone and then we feel happy and think that we have accomplished something.

Hold on... please dont label me as cockroach activist. Dont start forming images that when you come to my home you will see cockroaches sitting and having a merry time on my bed and in my bookshelf. It is not like that. Whenever I see one of them, depeding on my mood and availability of appropriate weapon, I too do also do the same. And as such I am now staying in a newly constructed house which as of yet remains as one of the unconquered territory by these species.

But it is just that yesterday, at a friend's place, the death of one of this fellows with a chappal triggered this chain of thoughts.

Anyways, have a good week ahead :D

Anandashram....Old Age home

Ever since Tejas (my old company ) moved to Bannergatta road, everyday while passing by that road, I used to see this board "Anand Aashram, Old age Home". This was like Aug 2005. And since then I had always wanted to go inside it once. But as idiotic as I am, who wants to do 100 things in life and hardly manages to do four or five of them, I could never make it there.

Until but yesterday one friend of mine, showed similar interest and immediately off we went, yesterday evening after office. Actually you are supposed to take permissions to visit there, but when we reached at round about 6 the office had already closed, so we just walked in to the gate and there were couple of old man sitting there and yups minutes later we were talking to them, about weather, about our natives, about Bangalore city changing, and so on.

Later on one of the guy, took us to his quarters. His wife was watching TV. The quarter was just one single room about 10x10 feet, with attached bathroom. He said that he paid about 1.2 lakhs for that (it seems they have to pay to construct the room, which remains theirs till they are alive and then goes to aashram), and he was paying about 3k per month (for both of them) for other facilities (like food and water and all).

He was telling us about his job, he was a retired railway employee and had a pension, so in a way he was like self dependent. He had two kids, son in mysore and a daughter in Bangalore. He said that he spent most of the time doing, actually doing nothing.

The place was very nice, and green and silent. But there was this feeling of abandonment there, feeling of being cut out from the world, which was very sad. This is bang on Bannergatta road but I wonder how many people walk into those gates.

Listening to him, I kept wondering how it would be to live without a aim or aspirations, when sunday is just like monday and everyday is just like any other day, when I think about myself, I always have this small things in life which i keep looking forward to, like am going to bombay next week (for some customer meet) and there is this film that I have to make as a part of Film making course at CFD.

You might get the feeling that I am talking like a Buddha, a spoiled brat who goes out for the first time goes out to see the sufferings. Not it is not like that. These people are living very comfortably, good food, resonably decent medical facitlity, good atmosphere, but I guess it is a quite a different thing to be lonely, and the feeling that you cant do much about it.

Ok coming back, we spent about an hour there, talking to couple of people, could not talk with others because most of them knew only kanada, (and I was ashamed to admit that I have not learnt a word of kannada even after close to five years in Bangalore)

I came out feeling little weird. Wondering if I could do something about it. They had everything there, carrom, library, chess etc. But somehow they had lost enthu to do anything. They just want do nothing. I dont think I can blame them, because I guess sometimes circumtances, the feeling of hurt, the feeling of being left out, might just kill your spirit, and it would take a lot to rekindle that.

Can you please write it and give me...

Recently, I have realized the power and effectiveness of the statement "Can you please write it and give me"..

Let me explain...

I have registered for the BSNL broad band connection nine months back and have not got it yet. So I went to customer care, and asked the lady behind the counter about the status, and she very casually asked me to go to some RTNagar exchange and find out.

"Why cant you do it?" I asked..

"Nopes we dont have any person here who is responsible for the internet connections" she said

"Can you please write it and give me?" I said , "Please write that a customer has come to enquire for net connection and I cant help but ask him to go to some other place"

"No I cant do that", She said

"Why not?" I asked

"Because I am not responsible for the net connections" she said.

"Ok in that case, please write and give me that Customer Care is not responsible for net connections, for this kind of things customers are required to go exchange and find out", I persisted, "See, I dont want to complain, but just I want to figure out where I have to go for what"

Thats it, she started calling some numbers, gave my details, retrieved the information and told me.

Never mind what the information was, but I got some answer, and I avoided running to someother place.

This is the third time that I have employed this technique, First at the railway reservation and second at ICICI, and this time here.

I guess it works because people are afraid to give in writing, because they know that it is their responsibility and they are just running away from it. So if you persist, they would solve the problem for you.

Please use this freely, you dont have to be rude and all. Be nice and very straight. Trust me it works....

Cheers..

My First Job...

"
The sanskrit exam had just ended, and it was the last exam of 10th class and I was feeling very happy. Finally had finished school, and probably would go in to college. From time I had started watching movies, and seeing all the heros having so much fun in college I always wanted tobe in college.

But at the same time somethings were troubling me. The community in which I grew up, there was a rule that everyone does business. Other career options were unheard of. All my friends were planning to go with their fathers/elder brothers to their own shop/business and learn to work. But sadly my father worked in the bank, and he did not have business. So I was kind of stranded. So I wanted to find out what I wanted to do in life. Vivek, one other friend of mine had same problem. So united in our problem with the anxiety of uncertain future, we thought that we should start finding a job for ourselves.

We looked up in papers and found this particular sales agency which wanted sales executives. Next day we ended up in this sales agency. I dont even remember the name of it right now, the only thing that I remember is that the owner of the sales agency (as was murmured to us by the other guys who had come there), was a young man of 25, and he had started it when he was our age, and he had reached a level where he was earning lakhs of rupess per month. WoW.

There was supposed to be interview as well, and first one for us in our lives. Both vivek and me were nervous, vivek had even tried reading up all the maths and all. But we just cleared the interview, he did not ask anything. He only explained that we were supposed to do door to door selling. He explained how we could sell more and more and keep multiplying our return. He was so casual and looked so cool. Instantly he became our hero, and we wanted to be like him. He was so smart and a great man. We were wondering why his name had never figured in papers. All of sudden felt that we had found our career option.

Next morning we were supposed to go there at 8 and start the work. We had decided that we were not going to tell our parents, because they may stop us from doing this. We would tell them later, we were sure that if we were able to earn enough money, then they would feel proud.

Morning, and we were handed 10 packets of dining table mats. Each packet was to be sold at 100 rupees, and 10 rupees was my earnings from the same. We were even made to wear the tie. And we were asked to memorize something to the effect.. "Maam, we are from DontRememberTheName company and we have this ....".

May, Gujju land and tie, but somehow these things did not seem to bother us, we were just thinking that this was the thing to get into. We were just looking at this as a great opportunity to become rich. We would sell lot of dining table mats, and make loads ofmoney. Even 10 sets sold would give us 100 rupess, which did seem lot of money. It just meant selling one set an hour, which did not look difficult. Further still everyday the item seemed to change, dining mats one day, dining set other day, books on third day and so on. It looked so exciting. We had even decided that after some days we would carry different items, so that we could sell one or the other.

So out we went, we figured out a locality that we had to go and we started. Went from house to house, we had a little tough time in figuring out most of the times weather the lady washing clothes outside was the kaamwali or the house owner. But we kept on. Sometimes lecturing only to realize that we were talking to kaamwali, but then we would start again.

I remember one particular house we went, were after the intial lecture of introduction, the lady asked us to wait. We were hoping that she had gone to take money, but instead she got in her hand a similar packet of dining mats, and they looked spoiled and badly damaged, "I had bought it last week from similar guys like you and now in one wash it has got spoilt, please take this and give the money back". Ooops...not knowing what to do, both vivek and me broke off in a run, and ran away from her house as fast as we could. Did not stop until we reached the next street. I still dont know why we did that, but I guess we were afraid. Afraid that she would snatch a good packet from us. We did not want to get in to 100 rupees loss. 100 rupees was loads of money at that time. We stood at the corner of the road discussing about how we are going to deal with this situation. Wondering if we were cheating people. Wondering if the lady would have send her son to follow us.

We started again after sometime, but somehow the rosiness of the whole business had disappeared. We were begining to feel tired. And started wondering why could we not go back home and watch DDLJ.

At the end of day we had sold three packets, made thirty rupees. The owner of that company, our Hero of the morning, (I say hero of the morning, because somehow in the evening things did not look same, we started doubting him, his success) told us that we had done great, and tomorrow we should sell more.

From next day onwards we never went there. I guess that I decided salesmanship was not the right career for me. I dont even remember what I did for rest of the vacation. I guess spend it with TV, cycling here and there, and so on. Wonder what I did with those fifteen rupees (that was my share).

But I still think about that day. That image of me and vivek with mats in hands and the face of that lady are still fresh. I guess I learnt the importance of money that day, learned to respect my parets for taking care of all my needs and pocket money.
"

Sales conference with Jeans-Tshirt ??

I never understood why is that blazer with leather shoes and a suit is formal, whereas a tshirt-jeans is not formal. I keep wondering who defined all those things. Why is it that when people are expected to go for seminars, they are supposed to wear these so called formal clothes. I think if I ever become a CEO, I would go in jeans and tshirt, or may be a kurta. As long as I am neatly dressed, I dont think it should be of concern to anyone.

Same goes with eating as well. Have never been able to realize the fun of eating with knife and fork. Have found it more cumbersome then useful. I mean nothing wrong with that, but eating with hand should also be equally good. I guess it should be left to individual choice.

I remember the first time I had gone to Montreal-Canada on account of office work, I got a nice yummy chicken leg piece for dinner with a pizza. I could manage pizza with knife and spoon, but simply could not figure out how was I supposed to eat the chicken piece with fork and a knife. I told my host that in most of India, we would rather eat it with hand, and then I ate it as I would nomally would by holding it in one hand and nibbling at it. Actually that did trigger off a nice conversation, about India, and how things are the way they are and so on, which in turn actually did help me a lot in later days. Now actually when I recall that day which is still so fresh in memory (because that was my first time abroad), I was wearing bright red Kurta that day. That facinated my host to no end. And the conversations kept becoming more and more interesting, as the days went by, starting from food, to clothing to marriage and to basically everything. The best part of all this was that, this fellow took me for one full day trip of Montreal just before I was about to leave, the trip started from harbour, to church, to shopping, to dinner and finally ending up at a disc. (would blog some other day about that). Wonder if I would have even been able to strike a conversation with host, and subsequent friendship, had I been busy trying to look like one of him, trying to be so-called formal and ceasing to be myself.

Coming back, why do we still follow the tradition of wearing ties and learning to eat with spoons and forks and knives? In some companies they even give the training for the same. Wonder how many people wear tie by choice rather than by compulsion. I dont know why cant we be ourselves. I also hate the gowns that they give us in convocation, we have pay something for renting that. I dont know why. I guess it would still be very nice if everyone could come neatly dressed. Ok..I guess uniformity is required, because it gives a very pretty picture, but then it could be kurta-pygama as well, which I guess everyone would have one at home, and which would be useful later as well.

Imagine May, 45 degrees, small dusty road, a bank on side, and poor employees forced to wear a tie. It is ridicolous! This is not orginated in my brain, this is what happened to one of my fathers friend, where the bank he worked for all of sudden imposed this dress code for ties.

I guess we should all be allowed to be ourselves.

By ourselves, I dont mean Indian, or Gujju, or Hindu, or corporate or anything. Just someone whom we call "Me" "myself"