The Sunny Chronicles

She Cried ...

2012-01-16T21:55:00.001-06:00

Rummaging through trash for leftover food, she cried. Tears streaking down her pale six year old face, she sorted through the garbage in desperation to find a morsel of food discarded by others. She hadn’t eaten anything since morning and the hunger was now unbearable. Survival is tough for street children and she knew it, however, she was determined to not give up. One trash can to the other, she kept looking for food and she knew that she wouldn’t stop until she had fed herself. All of a sudden, under the flickering yellow light of the street lamps, a small box of half eaten chicken nuggets smiled at her. The box was torn just enough to reveal that it wasn’t empty. Her tiny hands struggled to reach the box, allowing the tip of her fingers to only touch the box but not grab it. She stood up on her toes and leaned forward as much as she could, little bubbles of saliva forming at the corner of her mouth. Nothing! The box stayed put where it was, tantalizingly close, yet so far. She jumped with all her strength, only this time her fingers managed to not only touch the box but also go through it, allowing her to briefly touch the cold pieces of chicken – but still, staying out of reach. She licked her finger tips that had touched her dinner, and felt mesmerized by the taste of oil and salt. “Another try”, she said to herself and plunged into the trash can. This time she managed to grip the box and shrieked in joy when her little fingers managed to grasp it. Smiling from ear to ear she pulled out the box and triumphantly ran towards a cleaner part of the street where she could enjoy her well earned dinner. A large and scruffy street dog appeared out of nowhere and barked loudly, scaring her. She accidently dropped the box and before she could pick it up the dog had already started feasting on the chicken bits. She just stood there, trembling with fear, watching the dog fill up his belly as hers remained empty. Born into poverty, she cried.

Looking for a piece of cloth to use as a blanket in the harsh winter, she cried. Not only did she need something to keep her warm, but also to protect herself from the lusty eyes of men. There are always many who are willing to give a seventeen year old beggar a few coins if she gave them something else. There were also others who were just looking for an opportunity to take what she had by force. Scared, she was, but also determined to not let anyone rob her of her dignity. She spotted a blanket hung out to dry on a tree by the rickshaw puller’s hut. She didn’t want to steal but didn’t know what else to do. The nights had become long and cold and she desperately needed something to keep warm. She looked around to see if anyone was watching and hid behind the bushes to wait for an opportune moment. When there was no-one in sight, she tiptoed towards the tree and just as she was about to reach for the blanket rough hands grabbed her wrist. “You thief!”, mumbled the rickshaw puller. She cried and begged forgiveness, but he wouldn’t let her go. “I will teach you a lesson, you thief!” and dragged her behind the bushes. She tried to fight him away, but she was no match for his brute strength. He cupped her mouth with his hands, rendering her pleas of mercy inaudible. He ravaged her for over an hour and finally when he was done with her, told her that he would kill her if she told anybody. Spitting on her, he walked away with the blanket. Stripped of her honor, she lay half dead on the grass, writhing in a ball of pain and blood. Born into adversity, she cried.

Driven away from the brothel on testing HIV positive, she cried. Covering her weak and fragile body, she walked in the relentless rain, desperately seeking a dry corner. With no roof over her head, she didn’t know where to go. She looked up to the skies and wondered what had she done to deserve such a wretched life. Even though she hated the brothel, it had been her home for the last several years – her only home ever. She couldn’t understand why life was so unjust that it had forced her into the brothel when she didn’t want to go in, and why it had forced her out when she didn’t want to leave. She noticed a small building and thought that she could spend the night under the stairs, but the security guard yelled at her and threatened to call the police. Rejected and shunned once again, she walked on into the dark night thinking if the release of death would be better than this sorry excuse of a life. She kept walking until she reached the steps of the Hare Krishna temple, and sat there. She closed her eyes and thought about her life and ways to end it. Born into destitution, she cried.

When she woke up, it was already morning. Some old ladies had gathered around her wondering if she was dead. They took her into the temple and fed her. They gave her proper clothes and a showed her a place where she could take a shower in private. They talked to her, asked her where she came from, and who she was. As she told her story, one of the women hugged her and said “Don’t worry now. God will take care of you now”. Over the next many days, she continued living in the temple under the care of the kind old women who nurtured her and gave her the affection that she never got from anyone. For the first time ever, she felt the love of a family. She even got a job as a cleaner in the temple that allowed her to make a living. Slowly and gradually, she started feeling at peace and settled into her new life. On the auspicious day of Krishna Janmashtami, she sat down to pray with her new family and closed her eyes. Brought into His grace, she smiled.

An Open Letter to Today’s Social Networking Kings & Queens

2011-10-02T23:47:00.006-05:00

Dear Social Networking King(s)/Queen(s),

Tongue planted firmly in cheek; mode = ON

First and foremost, let me apologize to you for writing this letter in a language that is probably difficult for you to read and understand. I prefer constructing sentences with complete words and punctuation, and I do realize that such verbose forms of communication may appear pointless to extremely busy and noble people like you. However, it is my humble request that you stay with me as I attempt to share my thoughts through my archaic and abysmally boring language.

Tongue planted firmly in cheek; mode = OFF

Confused and perplexed; mode = ON

As I surf through countless tweets and Facebook conversations, I am often baffled by this new language that you have invented. A language that some of my old-fashioned friends and I struggle to understand the point of. For example, why do you insist on saying, ‘c u l8r’, instead of “see you later”? Is the time saved on a few key presses really critical to your daily schedule of doing whatever it is that you do? Or is it your way of projecting a cool dude/dudette image of yourself into the virtual world? Shortening long words and phrases is understandable, acronyms are also fine, but what is this obsession with making short words even shorter? Sometimes, it’s not even shorter … but just, different! Case in point: ‘kewl’ versus “cool”.

And you don’t stop there. You would rather use ‘n’ instead of “and". For you the three articles in the English language are ‘a, an, d’ instead of “a, an, the”. For you ‘sumthin hapnd cuz of sum1’ instead of “something happened because of someone “. You stay up ‘l8 in d nite’ instead of staying up “late in the night”. You want to have a ‘gud lyf’ and that’s great, but I just wish that you rather had a “good life”. And what’s with you when you ‘suppalyk’ your friend’s FB comments? Is the like button not enough to show your appreciation if you don’t have any other words to contribute? Also, it doesn’t bug me when you LOL, but kindly explain what the hell is ‘lollzzzzz’? Did you fall asleep with laughing out loud?

Confused and perplexed; mode = OFF

Annoyed and irritated; mode = ON

I hate it when you say that things were ‘gr8r b4’. Remember, it’s “never” and not ‘neva’. We are “friends” and not ‘frens’. It’s “whatever” and not ‘wateva’. It’s “with” and not ‘wid’. It’s “right” and not ‘rite’. It’s “what” and not ‘wat’. It’s “today” and not ‘2day’. It’s “phone” and not ‘fone’. D lyst is far frm cmplet, i cud go on foreva …

Here’s a tip to avoid looking like a complete moron: make the extra effort to type the last ‘g’ when you feel like ‘singin wen itz rainin’, or when you use the –ing form of any word.

Annoyed and irritated; mode = OFF

Polite request; mode = ON

PLEASE DON’T TYPE IN CAPS ALL THE TIME. Please use punctuation where you can especially in a long sentence because it increases the readability of the sentence like this one and to make my point I am going to try to make this sentence even longer by saying some unrelated things that nobody cares about see you have started getting weirded out and I did this just to make you realize how disgusting it is to read such poorly constructed language. Please understand that special symbols such as the question mark (?), exclamation mark (!), period (.). etc., don’t need to be repeated a billion times to stress its importance. Do you understand ???????????? I hope you do!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Also, please realize that the period is not a substitute for the space bar. It’s perfectly alright to write a sentence like this and ……………..you……………don’t………………need…..to……..write…………like……….this.

Polite request; mode = OFF

Trying to be nice so that you don’t feel bad; mode = ON

Nobody has to be grammatically and syntactically correct all the time while tweeting, facebooking, or IMing. We all use shorthand at times. Things like brb, tc, ttyl, etc. are perfectly acceptable. The problem is when you take it too far with words like ‘wurdz’. The occasional usage of such ludicrous language is also fine, but when you insist on talking in gangsta rap format al da tym – it can get really unbearable for some of us. No, you don’t save any significant amount of time when you talk like this. Neither do you come across as cool.

Trying to be nice so that you don’t feel bad; mode = OFF

Parting words and final shot; mode = ON

Some of you may argue that why make a fuss when what you want to communicate gets communicated anyway, even with your moronic language. Fair point, but I beg to differ. There’s one heck of a difference in what you are asking me to do when you say ‘cum onlyn’ instead of “come online”.

If you want to discuss this further, feel free to write to me at: rotfl@hahaissomuchbetter.com

Parting words and final shot; mode = OFF

Yours sincerely,

Troubled Social Network User

A question with 1.21 billion answers

2011-07-10T22:21:00.004-05:00

Cool beads of perspiration trickled down a can of Coca-Cola forming a water ring on the table. The smell of hot samosas spread through the little open air eatery as the cook brought in a fresh batch from the kitchen and placed them in a glass compartment for all to see and none to touch. As soon as the samosas made their way into the public eye, an army of people crowded around the cash counter to pay and get their daily fix of the delightful savory treat. Some shouted at the top of their voices to make their orders heard, while others just pushed and pulled through the crowd to get as close to the counter as possible. A group of American tourists took a break from enjoying the samosas and whipped out their cameras to capture yet another glimpse of chaos in this seemingly maddening country called India. “Why don’t they queue up instead of crowding the counter?” asked one American to another.

Emma Jones took another swig of her coke to wash down the spiciness of her samosa. As a doctorate student studying Indian culture at the University of Oxford and currently on her third trip to India, she smiled to herself at the naivety of the American. Her professor, Dr. Avinash Kumar, had cautioned her long ago that it is futile to try to understand India from a western world perspective. Just like the intricacies of differential calculus are of little use in understanding literature, the concepts of culture and society as formed in the west serve little purpose in understanding the enigma that is India. She had long ago stopped wondering why Indians don’t queue up at the cash counter unless forced to, why don’t they answer a question with a direct yes or no instead of rambling on and sounding noncommittal with frequent uses of words like ‘mostly’ and ‘probably’, and other such things that exasperated most of the western world. She had been rather quick to realize that there was no linear model or well-defined matrix used in the study of cultures that could capture India in its entirety.

The objective of her research work was to make an attempt at identifying the strong but invisible threads that held this land of mind boggling diversity together. By now all she had learned was that India is more than the sum of its contradictions. But how could she go about understanding an ageless civilization that has educated the world’s largest pool of engineers and scientists, yet is home to the world’s largest illiterate population? How does one make sense of a country that has a vast desert (Thar Desert) in close proximity to lush alluvial plains (Indo-Gangetic Plains) believed to be one of the most fertile regions in the world? It never ceased to amaze her how a country that had the world’s largest snow covered region outside the polar caps was also one of the hottest places on the face of the planet. It seemed like any truism about India could be immediately contradicted by another truism. The truth about India, she often thought, is that there are many truths. Multiple truths - once again, a concept that perplexed most of the linearity and standardization obsessed west.

She licked the last bits of the samosa from her fingers and proceeded to wash her hands at the banyan tree next to the roadside dhaba (café) that had now become her regular haunt. A little kid poured water from a steel jug and helped her wash her hands and asked, “Very hot today, no?” She smiled and said “I don’t mind the heat; I am used to it now.” The kid just smiled and she realized that she had spoken far more English than he could understand. It always amused her when Indians used the word ‘no’ at the end of every other sentence. “You had a comfortable flight, no?”, “The taxi driver didn’t charge you extra for luggage, no?” etc. Her favorite still remained, “Please join us for lunch, no!”

She started walking back through the crowded streets towards her hotel absorbing the sights and sounds around her. “The only way to start understanding India is to surrender to it and to embrace it with all its craziness, chaos, and inefficiencies”, Dr. Kumar had said. “As you immerse yourself in this cauldron of diverse geographies, multiple languages, different faiths and ideologies, you will start to realize that it is a society impossible to parameterize for general understanding. In India very few things are black or white and everything is sprinkled across a vast spectrum of grey where even black is thought of as very dark grey and white as very light grey”. Over the years, Emma had realized that the last statement was probably true. Indians did seem very comfortable with chaos and obscurity, something that freaked out most of the western world. They had even coined a word for getting things done amidst total chaos – “jugaad”. It’s a word that doesn’t even have an accurate English translation, simply because the western world probably never thought that it is possible to live life comfortably without standardization and predictability. But how was it that a civilization comfortable with fuzzy logic managed to produce the world’s largest fleet of software engineers who have to adopt binary logic for problem solving? “Yet another unresolved contradiction in the endless list”, she mumbled to herself as she entered her hotel room.

Once again it was the time of the day for the same realization to hit her once again – a realization of getting nowhere with her research work. Earlier she would get depressed when such thoughts hit her but off late she had started not worrying about it. One of the tasks that were assigned to her on this study tour was to maintain a journal and to capture her thoughts about India every day in one crisp sentence. She took out her journal and wrote – “Understanding India requires developing a comfort with fuzzy logic over binary logic, comfort with contextual thinking over standardized thinking, comfort with relative ideologies over absolute ideologies, and opening up to the notion of cyclic reasoning over linear reasoning.”

She closed the journal and heaved a sigh of relief. She had been working hard for the last few days and was going to a night club with some of her local associates to party all night. She promised herself not to think about work until the next Monday and started thinking about what to wear. As she counted the currency notes in her purse she saw the country’s national motto printed on it: Satyameva Jayate i.e. truth alone triumphs. “Whose truth?”, she wondered.

A question that has 1.21 billion answers if the 2011 census hasn’t undercounted us again.

The Leaky Faucet ...

2011-06-19T16:35:00.002-05:00

A leaky faucet in the bathroom dripped away late into the night. The apartment lay in complete disarray and the pale amber light emancipating from the flickering bulb painted the surroundings with a look of melancholy. Newspapers and magazines that were once stacked neatly, now lay strewn across the floor in a reckless haphazard fashion. Half-eaten boxes of takeaway food crowded the kitchen sink – reminder of the fact that this apartment was still a shelter to someone living. Amidst this clutter, she sat by the window with her hazel eyes fixed on the wisp of smoke from her cigarette that rose steadily at first, then turned turbulent, before finally vanishing into oblivion.

After yet another long day at work, she felt overworked and underappreciated. A casual glance into the mirror or the wall made her feel unattractive and ugly. Repulsed, she looked out of the window into the darkness. She remembered the time when she used to play with color pencils and would color all over her bedroom walls. Her parents never reprimanded her for it, rather kept encouraging and nurturing her artistic talents. She always derived an inexplicable sense of happiness, peace, and worthiness from filling up a blank sheet of paper with her creative pencil strokes. Her pretty face would glow with the dazzle of hundreds of shooting stars when she would look at a well-finished page in her coloring book. Slowly and gradually people started noticing her talent and showered her with a lot of appreciation and encouragement. As time went by, color pencils gave way to crayons, crayons to water colors, water colors to oil paint, and finally the oil paint gave way to bulky leather-bound law books.

She had never wanted to become a lawyer. Typical of middle class upbringing, she was gently nudged into becoming a lawyer because her parents felt that art could not be depended upon to be a comfortable source of livelihood. She gave in to her parents’ wishes; however, all she ever wanted to be was a painter. She wanted to paint pictures of sunrises and gardens, pictures of mothers and babies, pictures of flowers and birds, pictures of smiles and happiness. But all that was in the past now. She couldn’t even remember the last time when she had held a paintbrush. She looked at the canvas at the other side of the room. It had a half finished painting of a crab coming out of a shell. She had started working on it five years ago but had to stop it when she started preparing for the bar exam. Soon after that she was offered a well-paying job with a respected law firm and then painting had become nothing more than a totem of her childhood long lost to the harsh realities of the world that she lived in.

The faucet seemed noisier than ever. In the silence of the night the drops of water falling on the porcelain sink sounded like hailstones on a tin roof. She made a mental note to call the plumber once again the next day as she lit up another cigarette. The irritating sound of dripping water had accounted for so many of her sleepless nights. She had even had the tap replaced a couple of times but the infernal thing would not stop leaking! She took a long puff of her Marlboro Ultra Lights and looked out of the window. It was beginning to rain; pitter patter of the raindrops muffling the annoying sound of the faucet a little bit.

All of a sudden she felt lost. Painting gave her a sense of belonging, a sense of achievement, and a sense of identity. Without that she felt like just another face in the crowd who show up every day at the train station to catch the 7:55 express to work. She had never wanted to run the rat race but right now that was all she was doing. Wake up at 6, go for the morning jog, catch the 7:55 express, go to court, meet clients, and take the evening train back home to an empty apartment only to pore over more files and documents till they sapped every bit of energy and life out of her thin and attractive body.

When she had stopped painting, she had promised herself that she would pick it up again after appearing for the bar exam. After the bar there were the job interviews, and after that there were court cases after cases, each more time consuming than the last. Caught in this vicious cycle, a part of her had accepted the fact that she might never paint again; while another part still nurtured hope than one day magically she would have some enough time to pursue her passion. And then in an instant it struck her! “I am never going to have time, I need to make time!”, she said out loud as she stubbed out her cigarette and walked across the room to look at her half-finished painting.

The morning sun spilled its glorious white light into her apartment. It had long stopped raining and the smell of wet earth wafted through the open windows gently intoxicating her. She took a step back from the canvas to examine her work. A beautiful bluish-black crab emerged triumphantly from a golden shell with tiny specks of sand sprinkled across its crustacean body. Overnight the canvas had come to life and was now the most colorful and vibrant thing visible in the cluttered apartment. She felt the familiar tingle of excitement in her body and a growing sensing of tranquility around her. Even though she had been up all night painting this fabulous picture, she felt more alive than she had in years.

She went into the bathroom to wash the paint off her hands and face. The water felt cool and crisp as it washed the oil colors off her skin. She soaped her face and then pat-dried it with a soft clean Turkish towel before looking into the mirror. After a long time she saw herself flashing her natural smile and not the well-rehearsed one that she flashed every morning at work. She felt beautiful, she felt happy, and she felt content. She turned off the tap and changed into her running clothes. Grabbing a bottle of water she left for her morning jog, leaving an empty and quiet apartment behind.

Quiet because the faucet didn’t drip any more.

Chanakya Oswald Khan Returns ...

2011-05-15T19:37:00.004-05:00

Characters appearing in this story are not at all fictitious and are as real as most of the things on your resume. Any resemblance to persons living or dead should be plainly apparent if you watch movies, read the news, or have an IQ above 80. All incidents described herein actually happened, exactly like Osama Bin Laden was found, killed, and buried at sea in accordance with Islamic practice and tradition. On certain occasions in the story, the author may have taken creative liberties with names, facts, and any other thing that may or may not matter. As an Indian male living in America who has assimilated both cultures and ethics, the author feels he has every right to fudge the facts (a la Suresh Kalmadi) and then be totally shameless about it (a la George Bush).

Chanakya Oswald Khan is a man on a mission. Nobody knows his true identity, but we all know that he is our information messiah. He is a mysterious dark shadow who appears out of nowhere and disappears into thin air. Crossing through borders with remarkable ease, he owns no passport and needs no visa. Unlimited physical strength and acute mental agility are just two of the many superhuman qualities he has. Legend has it that the fictional characters of James Bond and Karamchand have been loosely based on the true life story of Chanakya Oswald Khan. Only two people in the world know his true identity and those two are never allowed to travel together on the same airplane. The world would have been a very different place today had it not been for COK and his legendary contribution to the field of journalism. For some of you who have been living under a rock and have no idea what Chanakya Oswald Khan does, here is the answer: He is a freelance reporter. Like Tintin. Only better! Without the stupid white dog.

Many government agencies, law enforcement groups, and terrorist organizations have tried to trace him. But needless to say, he still remains an elusive stranger. He recently tweeted that his only objective in life is to heal the world and to make it a better place for you and for me and for the entire human race. That tweet was followed shortly by another tweet that said, “Michael Jackson rocks”. A word of caution, for all our readers – do not try to ‘follow’ COK on Twitter. Any attempt to do that will simply crash your computer with the message that “You don’t find a COK, the COK finds you”. Living in a world where deception is the order of the day, he is working 24/7 to unmask the truth. In due course of time, he will tell you who masterminded 9/11, where is Dawood Ibrahim, what really happened at Roswell, did Rakhi Sawant really get a boob job, and if George W Bush is actually a monkey who has been trained to speak in a human voice. Every issue of global concern is on his radar, and one by one he will find out the answers to every question imaginable. Breaking news: COK has finally uncovered Victoria’s Secret!

He is smart, sexy, intelligent, charming, handsome, strong, sensitive, and everything else that you can never be. He also has a cape and a theme song. He’s like a super hero … rather, a super reporter. Striking fear in the hearts of everyone who have a lie to cover or a sin to hide, he makes the bad guys reveal the truth with his incisive and thought-provoking questions. At times, he also interviews the good guys so that their stories can inspire the world. He hounds every person who is answerable to the public and forces them to give him an interview. Let the word ‘force’ not mislead you, for his instruments of force are satya (truth) and ahinsa (nonviolence). Living life with Gandhian principles and armed with a dazzling smile and sheer brilliance, the super reporter toils night and day to make Michael Jackson’s dream come true (not the one with the little boys).

In this space, you will have the unique opportunity to read excerpts from his exclusive interviews with newsmakers across the globe. Remember that these interviews are highly confidential and classified. After you read these interviews, for your own safety, you are advised to print them out on A4 sheets and burn every single page. You don’t want to be in the same kind of trouble as the WikiLeaks guy.

Join COK as he sets about in his mission to expose the world of its shenanigans and mischief. Play your part in the social revolution by learning and spreading COK’s exploits! Always remember that COK answers no one, fears no one, and spares no one! COK does as he pleases, goes where he pleases, and as many times as he pleases. Security clearance and approvals are for the nitwits at BBC and CNN. COK lives life by his rules and after he has made a commitment, he fulfills it no matter what (of late a famous Bollywood actor is trying hard to be like him in his onscreen avatar).

Following is an incomplete transcript from his interview with Osama Bin Laden from an undisclosed location at an undisclosed time.

COK : Hi Obama Bin Laden! So we meet again. How are you?

OBL : See, this is why I hate you infidels! I bombed the hell out of your people and you still can’t get my name right! Ever since I have died, those idiots on Fox News are calling me Obama once every 17 minutes. Don’t make me come back from the dead, I tell you! I have had it with this Jihad thing. The name’s Osama, OSAMA – and you better remember it. That aside, thanks again for interviewing me. You are a great man. I am a big fan of yours! I have heard so much about you. I loved reading your interview of Pippa Middleton. Boy, is she hot!

COK : Umm … thanks. By the way, I apologize for getting your name wrong. I meant Osama. So are you really dead?

OBL : That depends on what you want to believe. I might have died a few years ago in the Tora Bora Mountains, I might have died in Abbottabad a few days ago, or I might have died in between because of this kidney problem. Or you know, I could have even survived the so-called sea burial that I was given.

COK : Hunhh … how can you survive a burial?

OBL : Oh please! I love watching Bollywood movies. I have learned a lot from Mogambo, Gabbar Singh, Shaakal, Hilaal Kohestaani, and the rest of the Bolly Baddie Gang. If the baddie dies so easily then it just means that the baddie wasn’t bad enough or the movie’s scriptwriter sucks. I have learned a lot of tricks from them. I could very much be alive right now, and laughing at you imbeciles while planning my next attack.

COK : Talking about watching movies, reports are coming in of having found pornography in your Abbottabad home. Any comments?

OBL : Well, it gets lonely as you can imagine. Plus, I have been waiting so long for my 72 virgins. I thought that when I finally get up there I should be able to, you know, perform. So the porn was just to keep myself in the game. Since it was a house with no phone or internet, I could neither call the friendship line phone numbers nor could I check out the videos on the internet. Finally, I had to ask my dumbass couriers to get me some raunchy Asian role-playing stuff. Now that I think of it, using those couriers for my kinks wasn’t such a hot idea.

COK : Did the Pakistani government or the ISI help you in any way in setting up your base in Abbottabad? Did they build you that huge mansion?

OBL : Hahaha! Are you kidding me? They haven’t been able to help themselves in all these years. How the hell will they help me or my organization? We just walked across the border and built this mansion ourselves.

COK : And where were their police and army while you were doing that?

OBL : We would strategically plan all such activities when the Indian TV channels would be airing shows like Indian Idol and Dance India Dance. Nobody watches Pakistan TV in Pakistan and the whole country just sits glued to the TV when these Indian shows are being aired. Honestly, I think these guys watch it illegally without paying for it, but that’s another story. So all our sneaky activities would be completed at TV prime time between 8 pm to 10 pm. Everything else would be accomplished when Pakistan would get its ass whooped by India in the cricket tournaments.

COK : So you are saying that the Pakistani Government had no idea that senior members of the al-Qaeda, such as yourself, were in its territory?

OBL : None, whatsoever. However, the ISI chief is a wild party animal. I still remember that day when we did tequila shots in the garden and then had a projectile vomiting contest. It was so much fun!

COK : You guys partied together and the ISI chief didn’t know that he was partying with the world’s most wanted man?

OBL : Nope. I was wearing a burqa. He thought I was just some hot chick.

COK : That’s hard to believe!

OBL : Yeah, he was hard. Better believe it!

COK : I don’t want to get into that. Anyway, what happens to the al-Qaeda now? Who takes over the controls? Will it be Ayman Zawahiri, Mohammad Omar, or Ilyas Kashmiri?

OBL : We are still thinking about it. We thought that we need someone who is actually a crook but has a clean and positive image to be the global face of Jihad. We are in talks with Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. Fingers crossed!

COK : But they are both Christians!

OBL : Damn it! Technicality! Hey, you have a Hindu first name, a Christian middle name, and a Muslim last name. What’s the deal?

COK : That doesn’t concern you. First tell me who’s going to be your successor?

OBL : Well, your last name is Khan. I could offer you the job if you want. Good salary, good perks, and 72 virgins! Say what?

COK : My name is Khan and I am not a terrorist.

OBL : Damn it! I have always hated that Shahrukh Khan and Karan Johar!

COK : I have a confession to make. The world was thinking that you are hiding in some cave, but obviously, I knew that you are just a few miles away from Pakistan’s capital city. I alerted the CIA and tracking your couriers just confirmed my deduction. So you can say that I am the reason why the navy seals came to your mansion to say hello.

OBL : What??? You brought the navy seals to my home??? Jesus Christ … I mean, Allah-o-Akbar! Then why is Barack Osama jumping around basking in the glory of having caught me?

COK : You mean Barack Obama.

OBL : That’s what I said!

COK : No, you said Barack Osama.

OBL : I don’t understand. What’s the difference?

COK : @s$#O!e !!!

My baby you'll be ...

2011-05-08T17:29:00.007-05:00

The gentle sea wind tossed a few strands of jet black hair across her beautiful face. The face that was once aglow with the light of a thousand smiles had lately started reflecting the bitter realities of a world that once seemed far away. As she listened intently to the sound of the crashing waves, she recalled the words that he had once whispered in her ears – “I’ll love you forever, I’ll like you for always, as long as I am living … my baby you’ll be”.

She looked around the crowded beach and saw a lot of people. They all looked quite happy to be spending the evening here away from the drudgery of work. She scanned her surroundings with the hope of soaking some happiness for herself from that of those around her and her eyes rested on a young couple who seemed to be having a great time. They held hands, talked, laughed, and kissed ... and then did all of that again and again. Seeing such couples always brought a smile to her lips, but it also induced a dull pain in her heart. While she would be happy that there is so much love around her, she could never fathom why it was snatched away from her for no fault of her own.

Many years ago, on a seabeach similar to this one, he had held her hand as they walked side-by-side mesmerized by the setting sun. He had told her that they would get married, have kids, grow old together and once their kids would leave home, they would keep coming back to this beach town every year. She remembered saying a silent amen but little did she know that the Gods weren’t listening that time. Destiny had already set the wheels in motion to conjure a tomorrow that was unimaginable to them in that wonderful romantic moment.

She missed him a lot and would think about him every day. She knew that she shouldn’t, but she couldn’t stop herself. The memories were like a savage animal who could be locked up in a cage but whose shrieks could be heard from miles away. Even though she had got rid of everything that could remind her of their time together, the memories were always present, like a silent shadow – comforting her when she was worried, entertaining her when she was bored, guiding her when she was confused, and appreciating her when she felt unloved. In fact, the memories were her slayer and savior at the same time.

She had a sip of the cool fresh coconut water as she tried to get more comfortabe in her beach chair. The sun had started to set and it cast an amber hue on face. She looked towards the food stalls and saw a little girl in pink dress, waiting with anticipation, for her turn at the ice cream truck. A tall guy, her father, stood next to her tinkering with his cell phone. I wish I could be a baby again, she thought to herself as she looked away. Life is indeed so much simpler and bereft of complications when your age in days is lesser than the number of nights you have silently cried yourself to sleep over a problem that you cannot fix.

He always used to treat her like a baby, and she used to enjoy that treatment very much. He would fuss over her all the time, caring for her when she was sick, checking if she ate timely or not, asking her everyday what her day was like, making her laugh with his silly stories and anecdotes, and a lot of those sweet little things that no grown up woman ever asks for, but many secretly desire. Once she had asked him if he would always love her like this. To that he had replied, “I’ll love you forever, I’ll like you for always, as long as I am living … my baby you’ll be”.

She wondered where he was right now. Was he married? Was he happy? Did he still think of her like she would think of him? What would it be like if they accidently bumped into each other in a far off land? Would he smile and say hello? Would he just stare right through her and pretend as if she was a stranger? Would a conversation be awkward and formal, or would it be smooth and comforting like it had always been? Does he still love me as much as I love him? A vast number of such meaningless questions ran through her mind.

At some point of time in the past, they had both really wanted to get married to each other. Destiny, sadly, had other plans. Life had changed overnight in a way that was utterly incomprehensible. All the dreams and desires that were once the secret of the twinkle in her eyes, now pierced her eyes like ugly, jagged, shards of glass. Just as another wave hit the shore, silent tears oozed out of her eyes, and rolled down her cheeks. She wiped off the tears as quickly as the wave receded from the shore.

It was getting darker and people had started to go home. She looked towards the food stalls that were still crowded and tried to locate the little girl in the pink dress. The little girl was enjoying her ice cream as her father was still busy with his cell phone. She smiled at how adorable the child looked. The child's big round eyes were shining with delight of having the yummy treat in her hands. Once again, she looked away and started thinking about the things she needed to do tonight to be ready for another busy week starting tomorrow. There was the quality assurance report to finish, the work clothes to press, the curry to be made before the boiled vegetables went bad, and a lot of other typical Sunday evening chores. She was trying to prioritize the tasks that needed to be done after she got home.

“Let’s go home, Mommy!” said a familiar voice as she looked around and saw the little girl in the pink dress running towards her. Her father, walking a couple of steps behind, held up the car keys signaling it was time to go home. She hugged her daughter and asked, “Did you like the ice cream?” The little girl nodded and said, “Mommy, since I finished all my homework can I go home and watch the Cartoon Network?” She laughed and said, “Sure honey, if you have finished your studies then you can watch some TV.” The little girl, overjoyed, hugged her mother and asked her if she would always love her so much.

To that she replied, “I’ll love you forever, I’ll like you for always, as long as I am living … my baby you’ll be”.

Travel Travails

2011-04-26T11:03:00.003-05:00

Almost everyone enjoys travelling. If you are a person with average physical and mental health, chances are you have, at some point of time in life, planned and looked forward to a trip. I am no different, but I am sure you know what people mean when they say that excess of everything is bad (except having an excess of single malts in your private bar bought from the airport duty free shops which is just awesome!).

So I was talking about excessive travelling and how that can be bad for some people. But first, we need to get through the disclaimer: all views and opinions expressed herein are idiosyncratic. You are most welcome to disagree and to have a different take on things. I will be happy to hear your views but please don’t display a compulsive need to prove and convince me of your viewpoint. Opinions are like genitals. It’s perfectly fine to have it and it’s perfectly fine to be proud of it, but please don’t try to ram it down other people’s throats unless they explicitly ask for it. It’s just rude (and unsafe).

This post examines my experience with business travel – the lead up, the trip, and the aftermath. Since I am no Quentin Tarantino or Chris Nolan, I will choose the linear and chronological narrative. It all begins with that one phone call that you get in between your 51^st yawn after your big fat lunch of hot and sour soup, fried rice, and kung pao chicken. You pick up the phone while trying to suppress the yawn that makes you look like a giant hippopotamus, and struggle to get that one word out - “Hello”. You try to sound all energetic as you talk business with the guy at the other end, but in reality you are still wondering why they put so much celery in the kung pao chicken. Somewhere in this cross connection of your mouth talking about revenues and targets, your brain thinking about Chinese food, and your fingers doing the incessant right click-refresh-right click-refresh drill … you have just been bamboozled! You are soon about to find out that you need to pack your bags (again!), waste a weekend in transit (again!), and spend the next few days meeting people you don’t know but have been told to do business with. Oh, and by the way … since you are travelling at such short notice, and being the money-wise manager that you are, you think it is morally incorrect to fly business class, even if you are entitled to do so. Why buy a $7,700 business class ticket to Toronto when an economy class ticket is available at only $900? Right? Congratulations, you have just been bamboozled (again!).

Day’s over and you are walking back to your car thinking about having committed to a trip that you had no plans of undertaking. “It’s all good,” you tell yourself. “It’s a good opportunity for me to learn and I get to see the world on company expense!” you reason. As you drive back you are making a mental note of the things you need to pack. You had planned to buy some groceries and cook tonight but now you think that there’s no point of doing that because you are going to be away for a while. So you stop somewhere and get a tomato basil soup and a pesto chicken sandwich for dinner that you can eat as you stuff your bags. You reach home and chow down the food while watching the bazillionth rerun of Friends (We were on a break, no we weren’t, Hahaha … still so funny!).

As you press your clothes and try to match ties with your shirt, you start getting really bored. You ask your girlfriend or your Mom to Skype and give you company as you stash 8 pairs of undergarments for your weeklong trip (one extra set just to be prepared, you know). Your girlfriend’s starting to get pissed off about how much you have been away lately and is secretly wondering if you are just making up these trips to be away from her (mental note – bring back a souvenir for her). Your Mom wants to know is if you have packed everything and she doesn’t forget to remind you to pack your gloves and scarf (though she does forget that she has already reminded you of that before – twice).

Next day, you rush through the important stuff at work before you head to the airport. In between the last minute meetings and phone calls, you also have to find time to set your out-of-office email response, complete your online check in, withdrawn cash from the ATM, and book a taxi to drive you to Airport Terminal E. Once at the airport you stand in line to go through security while hoping that this time your brown ass won’t be singled out for the ‘randomly selected’ checks. While everyone walks through a metallic door frame you are asked to step into a booth with your hands over your head as some x-ray device swings around to make sure you don’t have any explosives or cocaine stuffed up your bum. Yes, brown is the new black. Those guys are finally off the hook (about time, too!).

A pretzel and a tazo tea make the wait for the flight more tolerable. You sit and wonder when you will have enough miles to get a zone 1 boarding so that you are not one of the last people to enter the aircraft and for a change, there is some space for your suitcase in the overhead lockers. As you board the plane you hope that your adjacent seat be occupied by a hot female or just be empty, but no … that’s not going to happen. God likes to have fun, and you are His HBO. You realize you are sitting next to a woman who is neither hot nor believes in deodorants, and as if that wasn’t enough she also has a bawling baby. Just perfect! God’s just whipped up some pop corn and he’s now sitting in His La-Z-Boy and is watching you squirm and twitch all the way from Houston to Toronto. And, by the way, congratulations ... you have just been bamboozled!

Toronto’s cold and you look for your gloves and scarf. Damn! You forgot to pack it even after multiple reminders from your mother. Never mind, I will buy them from a nearby store you tell yourself (not going to happen!). The Downtown Radisson welcomes you with their well rehearsed artificial smiles and greetings, which gets a little more warm and artificial when you tell them your rewards membership number. They offer you a slight upgrade and tell you that you are going to get a complimentary bottle of 2002 Gabbiano Chianti in your room. After a thoroughly uneventful day, you are so pathetic that free wine cheers you up to the extent that you feel all is well with the world. You order food up to your room, make some calls to let people know that you have reached, and finally hit the bed to begin work the next day.

What happens over the next few days is a blur of 3 course buffet breakfasts, meetings, 3 course gourmet lunches, factory visits, PowerPoint presentations, 3 course dinners, and finally the all important post dinner socializing at the bar (that also eventually ends up as a business discussion with slurred speech). By the time you are done for the day, you have consumed close to 3,500 calories while having been just as physically active as a doorknob. Everyday is the same story. You start waiting with bated breath for the moment you take your flight back home.

Eventually, you are back. On your way back from the airport you stop in the way to pick up some dinner and make a mental note to go grocery shopping the next day. Back in office you spend half the day telling your colleagues how you trip went. Then lazily you head back to your desk to answer all those emails that you saw on your BlackBerry but didn’t bother opening because they came with 5MB attachments. Once you are done with that, you come to a very important but annoying part of the process – filing your expenses. Invariably you will realize that you safely preserved the $30 lunch receipt from the Kowloon Dim Sum Restaurant but have lost the $110 dinner receipt from Bistro 990. All in a day’s play, you tell yourself.

Halfway through filing your expenses, your colleagues stop by your office to know if you want to join them for lunch. An hour later, you have warm soup belly and as you stumble back into your office, your speaker phone crackles to life with the voice of the receptionist. “Hi Sunny! Mr. Morrison from Glasgow left you a message while you were gone for lunch. Could you please call him up to discuss your forthcoming Glasgow trip?” Congratulations, you have just been bamboozled!

Grocery shopping will have to wait.

Gratitude Lost ... and regained.

2010-08-23T12:45:00.004-05:00

Today, somehow, I am filled with a sense of gratitude. Off the top of my head here is a list (by no means, exhaustive) of things that I am thankful for –

Thank you, God, for …

Giving me parents who I can turn to for love, comfort, guidance, and shelter.
Giving me the ability to love someone with my heart and soul, and to be loved in return.
Giving me friends who make the journey of life more colorful and wonderful.
Giving me relatives who care.
Giving us Himesh Reshammiya who makes me laugh every time he releases a movie as lead actor.
Allowing me to be born in a household where I had everything I could ask for, right from GI Joe toys to the latest books.
Being born to parents who knew the difference between education and literacy.
Allowing me to take birth in the glorious land of India.
Giving me the love of all four grandparents till I was 18.
Kishor Kumar, Mohammad Rafi, Hemant Kumar, Mukesh, Asha Bhonsle, Lata Mangeshkar, Geeta Dutt, and Jagjit Singh.
Blessing me with a body that has, by His grace, never had any major physical ailment.
Giving me the gift of curiosity and reasoning.
My interest in books, even in this digital age.
Giving me the ability to make others laugh – sometimes with me, sometimes at me.
Guns N Roses, especially the troika of Don’t Cry – November Rain – Estranged.
Giving me the ability to work towards achieving my dream.
The ability to express myself through words – written and spoken.
The immense joy from the simple things in life like watching a rainbow, a paper boat in a puddle, hearing an old song on the radio, and watching a sunset over a steaming cup of cardamom tea.
Keeping me away from drugs.
Giving me the ability to store unlimited fond memories – a safe haven for the times when I feel I have hit rock bottom.
Giving me the ability to appreciate the works of Gulzar, Harivanshrai Bachhan, Paulo Coelho, and Premchand.
Giving us a Shashi Tharoor for a Sharad Pawar, a Kiran Bedi for a Mayawati.
Golmaal (Amol Palekar), Chupke Chupke (Dhamendra), and Andaaz Apna Apna.
Putting me in a position where I can give something back to the society.
Giving me the humility to know that my ignorance is infinite, and there can never be a day when I know ‘too much’.
The omnipresence of Murphy’s laws in my life to the extent that my mind is now trained to always expects the worst to happen, and on the rare instances when it doesn’t … it leaves me thrilled beyond imagination.
Making me filmy enough to truly believe in Om Prakash Makhija when he says that, “Humaari zindagi mein bhi humaari filmon ki tarah end tak sab theek hi ho jaata hai, aur agar theek na ho – matlab, picture abhi baaki hai mere dost”.
The ability to see that there is a spiritual world, beyond the material world that we live in, even though there is no scientific evidence for the same as yet. In other words, thank you God for giving me faith.
Himesh Reshammiya, once again (Hahaha!).
Giving me the ability to see that no matter how crappy my life gets, there are always things to be grateful for.

Yash-Raaz Films present, “Aarambh – The Inception”

2010-07-26T18:22:00.002-05:00

“Your heart is the scene of your match-making”.

Rahul Khanna (Shahrukh Kumar) is a skilled prem chikitsak, the absolute best in the dangerous art of Samapti. He specializes in stealing the love a person has for his beloved by delving deep within their subconscious during the dream state, when the mind is at its most vulnerable. Rahul’s rare ability has made him a coveted player in the world of arranged marriages where angry parents don’t want their precious little son/daughter to get married to their current gold-digger/douche bag love interests. He also bags tremendous business from people who feel that their spouses are cheating on them and of course from the Mahadesh Navbarbaad Sena (MNS). However, this has made him an international fugitive and has cost him everything he has ever loved. Now, Rahul is being offered once chance at redemption. One last job could give him his life back but only if he can achieve the opposite – Aarambh.

Instead of the perfect breakup, Rahul and his team of specialists have to pull of the reverse: their task is not to break up a couple but to create one. If they succeed it will be the perfect match-making. But no amount of careful planning or expertise can prepare the team for the dangerous enemy that seems to predict their every move. An enemy that only Raj could have seen coming: the beautiful and mysterious, Anjali Sharma (Kajal).

The story begins with Raj washing up on a beach and is brought by armed guards into the chamber of an elderly man. The only things that Raj is carrying are a red rose and a small bright green stuffed parrot toy. “I have seen that thing many many years ago”, says the old man pointing to the parrot. The scene then cuts to a dream in the mind of Aman Mathur (Shahrukh Kumar in a double role) where Rahul and his team is on a Samapti mission, in which an individual’s mind is infiltrated through his dreams and his love for his girlfriend is stolen. Chikitsaks and their victims sleep in close proximity with each other connected by a device that administers a sedative and allows them to share a dream world built on their mental projections. Within the dream world, pain is felt but death merely results in consciousness. Rahul carries a stuffed toy – a bright green parrot, also known as tota, to test whether he is dreaming or awake, which flaps its wings continuously or intermittently, respectively. Unknown to Rahul and his team, Aman Mathur is actually auditioning the team to work for him.

Aman asks Rahul to perform the act of “aarambh” – secretly implanting love for another person in the target’s mind. The target is Naina Catherine Kapoor (Preity Pinta) whose mind has to be implanted with love for Rohit Patel (Saif Ali Kumar), because she feels that she is in love with Aman but unknown to her, Aman is dying of a serious heart condition. Since he knows that his life span is short he wants Naina to fall in love with Rohit so that they can live happily ever after.

Rahul meets Ali Bhai (Uday Bhopra) who is an excellent dream architect and recruits him for the mission. In Rahul’s mind, Ali discovers a vision of Rahul’s deceased girl friend, Anjali that continuously haunts him and sabotages his missions. Later, Rahul reveals to Ali that he and Anjali had spent many years in a limbo dream summer camp forging their lives playing basketball with a funny Sardar kid. She used to keep the stuffed parrot to remind herself if she was dreaming or awake. After waking up from the dream, Anjali disappeared only to be never found again with the police suspecting that Rahul had murdered her and hidden her dead body. That’s when Rahul started using the Anajli’s tota in her remembrance.

In payment of performing the aarambh on Naina Catherine Kapoor, Aman promises to clear Rahul’s criminal charges. Powered by this promise, Rahul devises a layer of multiple dreams (dream within a dream within a dream within a dream …) to infiltrate Naina’s mind and plant a deep love for Rohit. As Rahul and his team enter Naina’s subconscious, slowly it dawns upon Ali and Rahul that Rahul first needs to sort out his subconscious before they can successfully complete the mission because Anjali will keep sabotaging it. Gradually it is revealed that this is not the first time Rahul is performing an aarambh and has previously done it before – to Anjali. In the past, Rahul was in love with Tina (Maharani Mukherjee in a guest appearance), when Anjali was in love with Rahul. So that Anjali does not come in between Rahul and Tina, Rahul had performed an aarambh on Anjali so that she falls in love with someone else leaving Rahul and Tina alone. Secretly, Rahul had always loved Anjali more than Tina hence he kept having recurring visions of Anjali even after her mysterious disappearance. Rahul realizes that the only way he can complete Aman’s mission is by letting go of his love for Anjali by convincing himself that she is dead because that is the only way he can get her out of his mind and not have her sabotage the mission. He recalls for one last time that he had planted a random guy’s love in her mind and most probably the aarambh failed because Anjali could never forget her love for Rahul and ended up killing herself.

Finally, the mission is a success and Naina falls in love with Rohit. Aman keeps his promise makes sure that all charges are lifted from Rahul and that he is re-united with his children. The final twist in the tale comes when Rahul realizes that Anjali is not dead …when he sees her on TV with her husband, Ajay Devcannon. At this moment, he realizes that the ‘random’ man whose love he had planted in Anjali’s mind was none other than this guy. Totally flabbergasted, he looks at his tota, in the hope that this is a dream … and it starts flapping it wings … when suddenly the movie ends; leaving the question unanswered that whether this was a dream or reality.

What an original story! Pakka superhit!

SLAP ... SWIM ... PITA!

2010-07-10T23:39:00.003-05:00

Old friends. There's something ineffable about them.

I was in Chicago last weekend and managed to catch up with some pals from the yesteryears. On my (very boring) flight back to Houston, I started thinking about how we form bonds with some people that strangely seem to withstand the test of time. We may be out of touch with some people for a long time, but when you meet them its almost like you start off where you left. No uncomfortable silences, no weirdness, no one-up-man-ship, no pretentiousness. Conversation flows smooth, just like a well aged single malt.

Life happens. We change. Sometimes so much that we are reduced to nothing but a mere shadow of what we once were. However hard we try not to, somewhere something changes ... and often it's not for the better. Reunions offer us a golden opportunity to travel back in time and provide us with a glimpse of what we once were, and then we look at ourselves now. If you feel that there is nothing good about the old you that you have lost over the years .... then all I can say is, good job growing up!

Then there's the fun part too ... the things that haven't changed. The buffoonery, the ability to just sit and yap all day long about nothing at all, the annoying-to-the-fiancé homo-erotic jokes, and the old unresolved friendly fights and banter. There are very few things that feel as deeply relaxing, serene, and exhilarating at the same time! One of the things that I am sure all of us have done at some point of time is create a buzzword/phrase/gesture to be used in a particular situation, which is like a private joke between a select group of individuals. To everyone else it is annoying and lame, but to the inner circle it's hilarious. When the "inner circle" meet after many years, not only do they pay homage to these private totems from the past but may also add some more to the existing list ... much to the future annoyance of others (those who don't know the origin of the joke) in whose presence these jokes will be cracked later.

When I asked my buddy in Chicago if we could catch a movie after dinner, he said "SLAP"! That's right, that was his answer! SLAP was his developed-on-the-spot acronym for "sounds like a plan"! It might be weird to you, but it had us rolling in laughter for some inexplicable reason. Soon, we had SWIM for "see what I mean", and PITA for "pain in the ass". Every time one of us used these acronyms it sent the gang into a fit of laughter. Was the joke that funny for three adults (all MBA's from premium B-schools) to giggle like a bunch of school girls in pink ribbons? Probably not. But there's something unknown (to me, at least) about our shared past that makes such jokes funny.

... and that's why I used the word "ineffable" in the first sentence of this post. That and the fact that I really like the word.

Knowing how hardworking some of you are, I know you are reading this at work. I am assuming if you had the time to read a blog post while your boss thinks you are creating shareholder value, you will also have the time through the day to think about some private jokes that you shared with some of your close friends in the past. If you are reading this at home, then try to think of those jokes and those buddies right away. Try to recollect some of those memories, and then drop a line to them saying "Hi ... it's been a while! Let's catch up sometime!".

For those of you who don't GAS (acronym for "give a shit") to this kind of stuff, well ... all the best! But for those of you who do GAS, here's some unasked-for-advice: please don't fool yourself into believing that you will do this "over the next weekend" ... do it now! How do I know that this thought crossed your mind? I took a SWAG (acronym for "scientific wild ass guess").

The sparkling brilliance of Madhushaala

2010-06-16T10:21:00.008-05:00

देने को जो मुझे कहा था,
दे न सकी मुझको हाला,
देने को जो मुझे कहा था,
दे न सका मुझको प्याला;

समझ मनुज की दुर्बलता मैं,
कहा नहीं कुछ भी करता,
किन्तु स्वंय ही देख मुझे अब,
शर्मा जाती मधुशाला।।

75 years ago, a 28 year old Harivansh Rai Bachhan, created something extra-ordinary. A collection of short Hindi poems that has captured the imagination of a nation for three quarters of a century. Madhushaala. The ultimate philosophical literary work in Hindi that speaks about life almost exclusively through its extensive usage of metaphors.

When I read the above poem the first time, I found it so brilliant that I must have read it at least 6-7 times over and over again! There are many things in this world that we desire, and we try our best to get it. Sometimes (even with our sincerest efforts), we don't get what we want. If we can't blame ourselves, our typical response in such a situation is to identify someone/something to blame, like maybe our boss, friends, parents, etc. . We try to vent out our frustrations and disappointments by blaming them for being the reason that we couldn't get what we wanted. By doing this we allow anger, resentment, and malaise to buy prime real estate in our hearts and live there permanently. We get caught in a cyclic vortex of blame games and name calling because, lets face it, we are not so perfect ourselves! It typically becomes a chicken and egg discussion ...

A: "I could have got xxx if only you would have ..."
B: "Well, I would have done that if only you wouldn't have yyy ..."

Isn't it? How many times in your life have you blamed someone for you not getting what you wanted? Has getting into an argument allowed you to feel better? Did it take away your disappointment? Did pinning the loss on someone's forehead decrease your heartache?

Some consider forgiveness, as a sign of weakness. I don't think so. It takes far more courage to forgive someone who has wronged you, rather than to kick him in the solar plexus. When you kick someone, you give him yet another reason to be upset with you ... hence reducing any possibilities of reconciliation and also of salvation of the thing that you are upset about losing. In some cases your kick can fear motivate him into behaving as per your wishes, but it is a well-known fact that the effects of fear motivation are short lived and sooner or later you will be facing the same person, with similar thoughts in your mind, but blowing your top over an entirely new incident. Gandhi had said that when someone slaps you, offer your other cheek (when you are confident that you hold the moral high ground). When you forgive someone, you are actually sending across the message that you realize that the other person is only human and that he is prone to all the drawbacks of his species. After undergoing a process of realization and actualization, the perpetrator's understanding of his wrong doing is more sincere, deep, and long lasting.

I argue that the greater one's loss, the more one should react with benevolence. This will make the other realize his mistake (maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday), and your compassion towards him will disturb him much more than a kick ever would. Your compassion towards him will be a kick to his spirit and consciousness, and one day that person will feel guilty about what he did to you, and will then either apologize to you for it or in repentance, he might try to salvage whatever you lost. I am sure that you will agree that either of the last two will be far more satisfying from than the hollow relief one gets by verbally/physically lashing out at someone.

Will it always work? No. Not because this process is flawed, but because of our mortality i.e. the limited time we have in this world. The self-realization of the perpetrator that has been sparked by your benevolence may take any amount of time. Sometimes it may take too long and you may never get to see the remorse in the other person's eyes. However, one of the biggest positives of this process is that, if you get to see the other person's remorse then you can safely assume that the transition is permanent.

So is it worthwhile to try this approach to life? I think, yes. You don't lose anything and develop a greater chance to win the other person's respect and to achieve a more permanent transition in the other's thought process and consciousness. And who knows, if destiny smiles ... your forgiveness may also have the power to trigger a reverse chain reaction that may allow you to end up with something that you were once upset about losing!

A-Z of Bollywood Cliches ... Part One

2010-05-27T16:59:00.018-05:00

Everyone knows the common ones, viz. "Kutte, kaminey main tera khoon pi jaoonga" or "Main tumhare bachhe ki maa banne waali hoon", etc. So, I will try to stay clear of those and take a look at some of the less common ones ...

A is for ...
"Ab inhe dava ki nahi, duaa ki zaroorat hai"
Translation: Medicines could only do so much, now he needs prayers.
Frequency of use: Extremely high in the 70s and 80s. Declining now.
Explanation: Typically said by the a middle aged man wearing a white coat and a stethoscope. Even if the beneficiary from the aforesaid prayers is dying of lymphosarcoma of the intestine, the stethoscope is mandatory.
Can be substituted by: "Ab sab upar waale ke haath mein hai"
Translation: Now everything is in God's hands.

B is for ...
"Bas ek baar ... bas ek kaar keh do ki tumhe mujhse pyaar hai"
Translation: For once ... tell me that you love me.

Frequency: Quite high in war movies. However, when creatively paired with other cliches it can also be used in revenge sagas or in tutti-frutti love stories.
Explanation: The lovesick hero will utter these words of passion before he goes off to defend his country in war or rushes of to do something that is make-believe very important. Invariably whatever he is going to do will be selfless in nature. This dialog is often followed by a slow love song sung by the heroine with short montages of the hero off on his "mission".

Can be substituted by: "Mujhe kuchh nahi hoga, tumhara pyaar mere liye woh kavach hai jo mujhe maut ke mooh se bhi kheench ke tumhaare paas waapas layega."

Translation: Nothing will happen to me. Your love for me is an armor that will allow me to return safely into your arms from the gallows of death.

C is for ...
"Chillao mat!"

Translation: Don't shout.

Frequency of use: Any movie that has a patriarch will have a version of this dialog.
Explanation: Used more as a threat rather than as an advice or request. Generally, an authoritarian figure will say these words and more-often-than not will say it at a pitch exceeding 103.7 decibels. These words are generally spoken inside enclosed spaces such as in the living room of a mansion or in a really large office. This allows the words to echo and the camera immediately takes 3 closeups of the speaker's contorted face from different angles.

Alternative: "Khamosh!"

Translation: Silence

D is for ...
"Dhokebaaz! Maine tumhe kya samjha aur tum kya nikle"

Translation: You cheat! I trusted you and then you stabbed my back.

Frequency of use: Pretty low lately, given the fact that treachery and deceit is "cool" these days. However, back in the 80s you couldn't even make a mythological movie without this dialog.

Explanation: A naive girl who has been taken for a ride by a Casanova will say these words when she finds him putting the moves on another girl. Also cried out by the trusting business tycoon who went away on a long trip by giving his deputy the power of attorney for his entire business, only to find out on return that the deputy has now fraudulently taken over everything he once owned.

Alternative: "Aastin ke saanp"

Translation: Difficult to translate!

E is for ...
"Ek mahal ho sapnon kaa"

Translation: I dream of a house of dreams.

Frequency of use: No good movie has this dialog. Most bad movies have it. You guess.

Explanation: The girl or the guy will utter these words in a tender romantic moment when the couple is dreaming of a future together. Invariably, the writer puts this line into the script for melodrama and to play for contrast, because soon one of them is going to die. The house of dreams will remain a figment of imagination in a metaphorical, but clichéd, way. Oh yes, a dreamy love song has to start playing within 71 seconds of this dialog being spoken.

Alternative: "Hum apni duniya basayenge"

Translation: We will build a world of our own.

F is for ...

"Fizaon ne fir se apna rukh badal liya hai"
Translation: The winds of change are in motion.
Frequency of use: Potentially huge. Can be used in stories about business rivalry, ideological clashes, love triangles, and social uprising.
Explanation: Any story that involves two or more people competing against each other has a version of this dialog. Generally spoken by one of the competitors before he unleashes some action that for-a-while puts him ahead in the race. If this dialog is spoken in the first 30 minutes of the movie, the greater probability is that the underdog will win. If spoken in the last 30 minutes, the speaker wins.
Alternative: "Mausam badal rahe hain"
Translation: The weather is changing. Don't we love metaphors?

G is for ...
"Gaon ki gori"
Translation: The village belle.
Frequency of use: Done to death till the mid 90s. Declining now.
Explanation: Well, technically speaking this isn't a stand alone dialog. It's more of a personification of a cliched character. Typically the gaon ki gori is one that dresses up in lehenga-cholis, reveals ample cleavage, gets soaked in water every time she is near a pond/river/pot, has the local goon lusting after her, has a fat sidekick who has been thrown into the story for comic relief, is the lead dancer in the group dance act during the festival or the wedding celebrations, and has a razor sharp tongue that often gets her into trouble. Sometimes, this village belle will travel to the big, bad, city and will magically transform into a Paris Hilton overnight. One thing that never fails to surprise me about these girls is that even though they often live in villages where they have to fetch water from a well or a brook, they always seem to have perfect eyebrows, manicured nails, and waxed hairless arms, underarms, and legs.

H is for ...
"Haramzaade"
Translation: Bastard.
Frequency: Off-the-charts!
Explanation: Often confused as a mere cuss word, this word has several profound applications. The obvious situations where this word is used are right before the rape scene (said by the girl), before/during/after a fight scene between the hero and the bad guy (said by the hero), right after an accounting fraud has been discovered (said by the boss), and many more such obvious situations. However, when the hero (or one of the central characters) is an illegitimate child then the word develops undertones that may lead to a melodramatic flashback or a philosophical discussion, sometimes even a song!
Alternative: "Gandi naali ke keede"
Translation: Can someone help me with this one? Some statements don't cross over very well into a different language.

I is for ...
"I object, your honor"

Translation: I object, your honor :P

Explanation: Court scene. If the hero's lawyer objects, the objection is over-ruled. If the bad guy's lawyer objects, it is sustained. Simple.

Alternative: Are you kidding me? It's blasphemous to even think that this dialog can have a substitute.

Translation: Sind sie vich verarschen? (German for "are you kidding me?")

Frequency: Every movie with a court scene WILL have this dialog. Period.

J is for ...
"Judwaa bhai/behen."
Translation: Twin brother/sister
Explanation: Once again, not a dialog but an interesting species only found within Bollywood. You CANNOT have a twins story that does not involve a few cases of mistaken identities. You CANNOT have a twins story that ends with the two walking off in different directions. One HAS TO BE an absolute introvert and the other, an out-and-out extrovert. If there is a bad guy in the story, he WILL kidnap the wrong twin. There WILL be a happy song that the twins will sing together wearing dresses that are in absolute contrast with each other.

K is for ...
"Kutte, kaminey ... bhagwaan ke liye mujhe mujhe chhod de"
Translation: You bastard, leave me alone for god's sake.
Explanation: The quintessential precursor to a rape scene. Invariably followed by either the girl getting raped (with most of her clothes on), or by the dramatic entry of the hero who will pause to cover up the girl with his jacket before bashing up the goon. It's uncanny how the hero always remembers to wear a jacket on a night when any girl might be about to get raped.
Can be substituted by: "Nahinnnnnnnnnnnnn"
Translation: Nooooooooooooo. Also commonly used when someone dies.
Frequency of use: High.

Part 2 will soon follow ... Till then hit me with your ideas that I can use for L - Z.

Quarter Life Crisis 2.0

2010-05-25T23:39:00.003-05:00

Some of you might be thinking that I have gone loco with this quarter life crisis bit. Maybe. For those of you who don't understand what the hell am I talking about, good for you. I hope you don't have to worry about it and my best to you to settle down in your adulthood in full cheer and joy. To those lucky souls, my advice is don't waste your time reading this post. I am sure there's much more fun stuff to do than to hear a 20-something-straight-male PMSing about life!

Those of you who do relate to what I am talking about, read on. In my opinion we grow up in a society that trivializes the emotional. Add to that the massive paradigm shift in the way that we interact with the world and manage social relationships in this Facebook era. Wasn't the world a simpler place to live when Apple and Blackberry were just fruits? In today's world, displaying your emotions in public is considered a weakness. In fact, this message is hammered down so hard into our minds that at times we suppress our natural responses to thoughts and situations so that we don't appear weak to ourselves ... even when no one is watching! And, that is exactly my concern. The word 'crisis' has an ominous ring to it, and our knee jerk reaction is to debunk it's presence in our lives because it makes us feel that something is wrong with our (desired) oh-so-perfect existence. That's why I will not be surprised if an overwhelming majority of the people our age reject the idea of facing a quarter life crisis right now, even if they are. If you are not sure if you are actually experiencing this crisis, or not, here's a simple test -

1. Do you get the feeling that the pursuit of your peers is useless, because they never seem to reciprocate in the way that you want them to?
2. Do you, at times, think about how much time you have left in this world and what you intend to do with it ... without coming up with a satisfactory answer?
3. Have you started noticing age catching up with your parents and other relatives, only to get a feeling that one day they will be no more ... and before you know it, it will be your turn?
4. Do you trivialize your achievements in life, and get a feeling that it was "no big deal" or you just got "lucky"?
5. Do you feel unable to appreciate yourself and are far too critical of yourself (and others)?
6. Do you feel that there's something missing in your friendships and relationships?
7. Do you, at times, experience boredom in social interactions? For example, you are at a big party and all you want to do is sit in a quiet corner and drink your single malt?
8. Do experience a strong sense of nostalgia for the days gone by?
9. Do you continuously re-evaluate your close relationships, as if asking yourself the question, that does the other person care about you as much as you would like them to?
10. Do you feel that most people around you are leading a life much less complicated than yours? And, if you spoke to them about it ... they would, at best, lend you a patient hearing without quite understanding the root of the issue?
11. Have your opinions, just like your likes and dislikes, gotten stronger ?
12. Have you started creating a mental list of things that you want to do by a certain age, like get married, have kids, own a home, start your own business, etc. ?
13. When someone you know does any of the aforesaid, then does a part of your mind ask you the question, "I wonder when will I get to do that"?
14. Do you feel frustrated at the way the world works, and get a feeling that many things in life are just so pointless?

If you haven't experienced any of the above feelings, ever, then that can only mean that either you are Gautam Buddha or you have refused to grow up. Either way, I am not jealous of you. I think that this quarter life crisis is a rite of passage that we will slowly but surely get through. With flying colors. Horrifying, as it is right now ... one day it will all start to make sense.

The only thing I am concerned about is our tendency to deny facing a crisis. There's no way we can fight an enemy if we don't look at it in the eye. If we are able to talk to our loved ones, about the things are bothering us, I am sure that's half the battle. It's really important to get over that mental block that one should not share his insecurities with anyone else.

And, that's what I have done! Paulo Coelho once mentioned that writing is an acceptable form of undressing in public. That's me. Straight from the heart.

20 somethings: To quote Charles Dickens, It was the best of times, it was the worst of times!

Quarter Life Crisis 1.0

2010-05-24T22:44:00.004-05:00

"The Road goes ever on and on

Down from the door where it began,
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many path and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say."

- The Lord of the Rings, Fellowship of the Ring, Book 1

Where is it all going? Why are we here? What's the point of it all? What is the secret to happiness? How screwed up is my life? Is there hope for recovery? Do all my peers feel the same way or is it just me in this dark abyss? How do I turn this around? How do I go back to being the happy-go-lucky 21 year old that I was? When will the sun rise again?

Life is a funny thing. It somehow knows what will make your gut wrench. One fine day, out of nowhere you find yourself amidst a crowd but still weirdly alone. And then these thoughts begin ... the more you think of it, the more terrifying it becomes. Once you start thinking about it, you cannot stop. It's always there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you crazy.

You wonder that how and when did you become so neurotic and creepy. You think and think, but are unable to pin point any specific incident that tipped you over from your happy self to your current state. Lately, you find yourself worrying about anything and everything under the sun. Most people a generation elder to you told you that once you finish your education and start working, the REAL party time in your life begins ... and continues till you decide to start a family. So how come you are not enjoying your current life as much as you had expected that you would? What went wrong?

Welcome to your quarter life crisis. It's real and it's here. It's a nasty SoB, but the good news is it will go away. One day.

Guilty as charged

2010-02-04T19:09:00.003-06:00

Hey there !

Yes. You are pretty darn right. I promised a few months ago that I am "back with a vengeance". But I was not. Hence I have decided to not make any tall claims this time, but to quietly work my way into earning your trust again.

So how have you been?

Long time ago ... in a land far far away ...

2009-11-07T22:27:00.003-06:00

Hello World!

Wow. It seems like ages since I was last here. And so were you.

Well, there's never a good reason to be MIA and this time it's no different. I guess I got caught up with my T3 finals and then with my awesome three month long India trip (also called summer internship). After returning to the US, I have been neck deep in my job hunt and consulting assignments.

But now, I am back. With a vengeance. Watch this space!

Finding the Purpose: A Journey of Introspection and Self-Realization

2009-04-21T20:15:00.015-05:00

Why do I love Calvin and Hobbes? Is it because reading it reminds me of my childhood days when life was much simpler? Or is it because its creator, Bill Watterson, does an excellent job of portraying the complexities of life through the innocent eyes of a six-year-old? While I am not sure about the answer to that question often I, just like Calvin, find myself wondering about the purpose of my existence. The last nine months of my life at the Mays Business School have offered some vital clues to that puzzle and I now feel that I am a lot closer to solving the puzzle than I ever was.

Self awareness is a critical precursor to deciphering one’s role in the circle of life. Being self aware means knowing certain inherent things such as your strengths, weaknesses, sources of motivation, etc. However, most of us are not tuned to the voices within us that often tell us very clearly where our strengths and weaknesses lie. Hence, it is a good idea to take a trip into your inner world to find out certain truths about yourself that we commonly feel that we have no time for in our day-to-day life. It is this journey into the realm of one’s mind that is one of the most rewarding and exciting trips that a person can ever undertake. For me this journey was punctuated by numerous aha moments as I unraveled facts about myself one-by-one.

Undertaking this journey would have been a lot tougher, though not impossible, without the tools that were at my disposal such as the Birkman, the energize/drain journal, and the StrengthsQuest assessment. These tools gave me valuable feedback that helped me both, reaffirm some views about myself and also question some things about myself that I always thought were true. Overall, I am extremely pleased that I got an opportunity to undertake these assessments as it has made me more aware of my strengths and shortcomings.

I always knew that some of my biggest strengths are communication, positivity, strategic thinking, and my ability to turn thoughts into action (activator). However, my biggest strength, as pointed out by the StrengthsQuest assessment was input – indicating an insatiable thirst for knowledge and a desire to learn new things. Now that I think of it, I realize that I have always been a person who can spend hours at a stretch surfing the internet and reading about things as diverse as Roman history to the latest developments in the field of medicine. I can recall that I once told my supervisor at my previous job that I would rather have a “broad-and-shallow” knowledge base rather than a “narrow-and-deep” focus, while justifying my candidature for a new job profile within our organization.

A complaint that I had with my software job was that it did not offer me enough opportunities to learn new things on a day-to-day basis outside of the world of technology. Realizing the fact that a typical software development job would never be able to offer the continuous sense of novelty that I seek, I decided to get an MBA to facilitate a career shift into the world of media and advertising where opportunities for continuous and diverse learning would be far greater. Somehow, I have always been reasonably good with numbers and technology despite my dislike for jobs and courses that involve detailed technical and numerical analysis. When I decided to make a career shift, I was plagued by the concern that was I leaving something that I am good at, only in the hope of catching a unicorn? Looking at the StrengthsQuest assessment (that did not list ‘analytical’ as my top strengths) gives me a tremendous surge of confidence that I took the right decision and has also opened the doors of my mind to consider some career options that I had previously not thought of.

I remember my father telling me about a cognitive psychological tool called the ‘Johari Window’ when I was a child. That was when I came to know that there are things about people that neither they nor the people around them know (the fourth quadrant), and that thought made me extremely uncomfortable. Being the inquisitive person that I am, it has always been my endeavor to learn as much about myself as I can possibly learn by seeking constant input from the people around me. For a person who is obsessed with learning something new about the world every day, it is not shocking that he is equally obsessed about learning new things about himself!

None of my other strengths surprised me and were largely expected. My past record speaks for itself and clearly indicates that communication, positivity, strategic thinking, and my ability to turn thoughts into action are indeed my biggest strengths. The past nine months in a business school have encouraged me to keep walking on the path that I have chosen and have convinced me even more that I am playing to my strengths. Encouraged by this positive reinforcement of my self-evaluation, I see no need to readjust my career plans. I strongly believe that we are all born to accomplish something. Before we can do that, we need to have a clear goal so that we can work towards it. Identifying the goal is the toughest part of the job, and sadly this is the part that most of us fail in. Someone once said that “a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” In my opinion, the first step is getting to know yourself and chalking out a career path that is in perfect harmony with one’s core strengths because therein lies the key to happiness, satisfaction, and success. All one has to do to achieve the aforesaid is to pay a little more attention to the details, just like Calvin.

My Manipal Days ... Aankhon mein hazaaron sapne !

2009-04-18T17:10:00.002-05:00

2330 hours.

Today I spent close to three hours reminiscing about my long-gone engineering days.

The beautiful college campus that we loved loitering around in, the college canteen that made the most delicious chicken momos , the electronics lab that gave us sleepless nights, the library where some of us tried to study, the courts where more people played the guitar than badminton , the boys hostel where the sun would never set, the football field where many games were won and lost, the little telephone booth in the garden where many love stories blossomed, the watering hole called Thapa's where we would get drunk, the seventh floor boys hostel terrace where people smoked half the cigarettes manufactured in India, the beautiful little temple that is one of the most peaceful places I have ever been to, the Teesta riverbed that was one of my favorite places for an evening walk ...

When I look back at the days spent at Manipal, I cannot help but feel exhilarated and depressed at the same time. The explanation for the smile is pretty obvious, I had one hell of an amazing time and I am thankful to God for the truly exhilarating experience. However, I cannot help feeling depressed because I don't know if I will ever be able to re-live those four years again. Before leaving for engineering school, I never thought that life there would be so awesome! But it was, and that thought helps me paint an even brighter picture of tomorrow on my mental canvas.

They say that the best things in life are unexpected. Amen !

My Texas A&M Days ... We Bleed Maroon !

2009-04-18T16:32:00.001-05:00

My current allegiance is to the Texas A&M University. While I love it here and there are a zillion things that I can say about it right now, I would rather wait till I graduate. I guess often one doesn't realize the depth and intensity of his feelings about something/someone till he is away from it. Wink ;)

Till then, enjoy this beautiful song that's pretty much the A&M anthem.

कहाँ खो गए फुर्सत के वो पल ...

2009-04-05T00:29:00.002-05:00

रुक नही सकती मंजिलें मेरी ,
इस खुले आसमां में मेरी एक उड़ान बाकी है ।
इस ठहराव को मेरी हार ना समझना ,
अभी पिछले उड़ान की थोडी सी थकान बाकी है।

... एक अनजान शायर

Approach with Caution: Dangerous Monday and Tuesday Lurking Ahead !

2009-04-04T00:16:00.001-05:00

Term 3 Mid terms are here.

Why they have decided to schedule 2 three hour long exams on the same day is beyond me !

One, ours is a 16 month accelerated MBA so life is as it is very tough.
Two, they now want to make us go through six hours of exam torture on back-to-back days.
Three, classes resume from Wednesday.

If you are reading this, I urge you to be good and do good. If not, not only does your ticket to heaven gets canceled but also does your ticket to hell. Instead of walking on red-hot coals in the Nether World, you will be banished to a B-School ...

I didn't bargain for this !

A handful of spice in a mouthful of food ...

2009-02-26T01:11:00.001-06:00

0149 hours.

Let's face it. We Indians cannot cook without spices. Some of my American friends tell me that I do not put spices in my food, but rather put food in my spices. Well, I know better than to argue with that !

Last time I had some of my American colleagues over for dinner, and they were all left red faced and sweating. Looking at them I really felt guilty of trying to kill them and that was when I thought that I had gone easy on the red chilly powder !

After sampling various cuisines from different parts of the world, and after numerous trips to the local supermarket, I firmly believe that no other community spends as much time in the 'spices' alley as the Indians. I once saw a girl pick up 17 different types of spices, and couldn't help but notice, that she also had a large pack of toilet paper in her shopping cart. I was really tempted to suggest her to also buy a fire extinguisher because the toilet paper was sure to catch fire the next morning.

Eating spicy food is in some ways like weight training. On Day one, you struggle with the 20 pound weights and after a couple of months you are pumping away to glory with the 50 pound dumbbells. Ditto for a Nigerian friend of mine who at one point of time found guacamole extremely spicy, but now dips his crackers in habanero salsa ! What helped him achieve this transition ? Indian food ! Now that he is comfortable with the fiery salsa, his Everest is to eat a portion of Kolhapuri Chicken (a freaky traditional Indian chicken preparation that even I cannot eat) all by himself.

I have some more of my American friends coming over for dinner tomorrow. Let's see if they are up to the challenge !

The menu -
1. Tandoori Chicken
2. Fish Tikka
3. Kadhai Chicken
4. Vegetable Jalfrezi
5. Alu Matar Bhaji
6. Naan
7. Pulao

A dangerous game is about to begin ...

सिन्धु भर सागर की तल्हति से बिन्दु भर मोती ...

2009-02-23T22:51:00.001-06:00

2323 hours.

डूबते हुए इंसान को तिनके का सहारा मिल जाए तो उसे कठिनाई से लड़ने के लिए एक नई आशा और उम्मीद मिल जाती है। इसी आशा और उम्मीद की तलाश में कभी मैंने कई पर्वतों के शिखर और सागर की गहराईयों को नापा था। उस खोज से तो मुझे कुछ ना हासिल हुआ, मगर इस बात का एहसास ज़रूर हुआ की आशा और उम्मीद की किरणों का गौमुख हमारे ह्रदय के किसी कोने में है।

शायद ऊपर लिखे गए वाक्य और नीचे लिखी पंक्तियों में कोई सम्बन्ध नहीं हैं। मगर फिर भी, ना जाने क्यूँ, कभी कभी इस दिल में ख़याल आता है ...

कोई दीवाना कहता है, कोई पागल समझता है
मगर धरती की बेचैनी को बस बादल समझता है ।
मैं तुझसे दूर कैसा हूँ तू मुझसे दूर कैसी है
यह तेरा दिल समझता है, या मेरा दिल समझता है ।।।

मोहब्बत एक एहसासों की पावन सी कहानी है
कभी कबीरा दीवाना था, कभी मीरा दीवानी है।
यहाँ सब लोग कहते हैं मेरी आंखों में आंसू है
जो तू समझे तो मोती है, जो न समझे तो पानी है ।।।

समंदर पीर का अन्दर है लेकिन रो नहीं सकता
यह आंसू प्यार का मोती है, इसको खो नहीं सकता ।
मेरी चाहत को दुल्हन तू बना लेना मगर सुन ले
जो मेरा हो नही पाया, वो तेरा हो नही सकता ।।।

भ्रमर कोई कुमुदनी पर मचल बैठा तो हंगामा
हमारे दिल में कोई ख्वाब पनप बैठा तो हंगामा ।
अभी तक डूब के सुनते थे सब किस्सा मोहब्बत का
मैं किस्से को हकीकत में बदल बैठा तो हंगामा ।।।

श्रेय: डॉक्टर कुमार विशवास

Term 3.0 Day 1 Review

2009-02-23T19:50:00.001-06:00

Yawn.

That sums it up.

Back with a vengeance !

2009-02-22T17:42:00.002-06:00

I know ! I know ! I was MIA for the whole of term 2.
And I regret that. Truly. However, I am back ... this time with the fiery determination of the 38th Governor of California !

Term 2 is done away with. Term 3 begins, and what a term it promises to be ! Management Accounting and Finance II are staring at me right in the face :(

Thank God for my specialization course in services marketing. Guess, that's the only course that will keep me interested in this relentless 16-month academic pursuit that will make me a Master of Business Administration.

Hmmm ... there's also this course in corporate strategy. Don't really know how that will turn out. Guess the buzzword here is wait-and-watch ...

Recipe: Term 2 Salad

2008-11-08T19:18:00.001-06:00

Ingredients -
1. A dollop of Operations Management (INFO 614)
2. A quart of Corporate Finance (FINC 612)
3. A dash of Managing People in Organizations (MGMT 614)
4. A hint of Management Information Systems (INFO 612)
5. Competitive Negotiations : To taste
6. Business Communication : Handful for garnishing

Procedure -
Just toss all of them in. Keep up (try to) with the reading. Remember (try to) at least the title of the article by the time you are in class. Stay awake (try to) in class. Prepare (try to) for the quizzes. Submit (try to) assignments on time.

And you have the salad ready ! Enjoy (try to) your term 2 !

I miss you.

2008-11-07T23:49:00.001-06:00

My Granddad.
My favorite person in the world.

I used to call him "Dadaji" (Hindi for Granddad). On 7th November last year, he left us for his heavenly abode. Not only do I miss him, but also wonder if he remembers me wherever he is.

I have friends who never saw their grand parents. Their knowledge about their grandparents is derived from other people's memories and family albums. I am really thankful to God for blessing me with a life wherein I had the good fortune of being doted upon by my grand parents. To me, its a very big thing.

As I think about him today, some childhood memories flash in front of my eyes. Those lazy summer evenings when I used to pester him to tell me stories, those trips to the fruit stall to buy mangoes, those little things he would buy for me every time he stepped out of the house, those scooter rides to his office, those cricket matches which he always let me win, those coins that he always gave me to buy candies, those evening walks in the Kolkata monsoons, those little pearls of wisdom he gave me when I did something wrong, those magic tricks that he never failed to amaze me with, those plants in his garden that he watered everyday, those ...

Dadaji, you are my hero. If I end up achieving even one-tenth of what you did, I am sure my grandchildren will be as proud of me, as I am of you.

Term 2.0

2008-11-06T07:53:00.001-06:00

The wheels of time keep moving. It only seems like yesterday when I landed in the US of A and yet, here I am today getting ready for day 1 of class for term 2. Yesterday, our grades for term 1 were announced and with that we now officially have nothing to do with term 1 or any of term 1 subjects. Adieu ACCT 610 !

Term 2 ... here I come !

MBA term one: It was the best of times; it was the worst of times

2008-11-03T20:35:00.001-06:00

2048 hours.

Charles Dickens, unlike me, never went to a B school. One of us is a respected novelist, while the other has to be coaxed to write anything (earlier by his mother and now by his business communications professor). However, both have something in common. Both have looked back at the past and felt the exact same thing: a paradox about the time that went by.

Thinking about my first term at the Mays Business School induces a churning sensation in my stomach generally experienced after a rollercoaster ride. The exhilaration of having achieved a long time goal (getting into a reputed management program), the excitement of experiencing a new land and culture, the apprehension before the mid terms and the horror of looking at my accounting test scores are a few random examples of the diverse feelings I have experienced in the last few months. When life throws so many things at you, all at once, you are bound to learn something new. The three most important lessons that I have learned so far, would be -

1. To keep up, you have to stay ahead.
There is always someone who is better prepared for the class, for interviews, and for life in general. Trying to keep up with them is a strategy that will seldom result in success. Being proactive, pushing your boundaries and making a consistent effort to deliver above expectations is a much better way to keep up.

2. If you are not careful, your strength may become your weakness.
Overconfidence can ruin a lot of things. It is essential to "sharpen your axe" to ensure that you maintain your competitive edge. Complacency is a breeding ground for future failures. A subject that you once thought you could breeze through, might just turn out to be your Achilles heel.

3. Movies are most entertaining when the incomplete assignment is due tomorrow.
Most battles are won or lost in the last few hours. A job that has been started in the right earnestness should also be concluded with the equivalent enthusiasm. Life has a tendency to throw something at you just before you finish your masterpiece. One should expect the unexpected, and be prepared to resist the temptations that may arise in the most crucial moments.

I am of the opinion that experience is the name men give to their mistakes. That makes me a very well experienced person who has erred, and has learned. With the lessons that I have learned in term one, I am confident that I have a lot more to look forward to in term two.

Here I am. This is me !

2008-10-28T18:31:00.001-05:00

1833 hours.

FINALLY its over. Oh yeah ! MBA Term 1 Finito !
Have a lot of plans for the rest of the week. There are so many things that I need to do. I have to do nothing, and then do nothing, and then I have to finish doing nothing.

It's going to be legen-wait for it-dary. Legendary !

28th October 2008

2008-10-28T02:49:00.001-05:00

0257 hours.

It's an important day. Very.

Reasons -
1. Diwali !
2. Exams get over !
3. Accounting exam !

1200 hours today will mark the end of a grueling trimester. Term 2 doesn't start until the coming Monday. Ah ! It feels so nice to think that after another 9 hours I will experience freedom for the first time in the last 3 months. At the stroke of the noon hour when the world toils, I will awake to life and freedom !

But, before that there's an exam to take care of.

Question: What's similar between Diwali and an accounting exam ?
Answer: Fireworks.

Randomness Unlimited

2008-10-25T20:34:00.001-05:00

2034 hours.

As I prepare for the accounting finals, some journal entries come into my mind that pretty much sum up my experience with ACCT610.

Dr LateNightsStudies ALot
Cr I-dont-understand-accounting A-lot-more

Dr TimeValueOfMoney ThisSucks
Cr WTF-is-wrong-with-this-balance-sheet Happens-a-lot

Dr WriteWhateverYouKnowOnTheAnswerSheet GenerallyVeryLittle
Cr Marks-Receivable Generally-even-lesser

If you think that I have flouted the basic accounting principles by debiting and crediting different amounts, you can stuff it up the GAAP in your posterior.

Guns. This world needs more guns.

What the FAQ !!!

2008-10-24T16:03:00.001-05:00

0011 hours.

Q. What happened ?
A. Got screwed in my statistics finals.

Q. Why ?
A. My prep wasn't great but it wasn't so bad either. Prime cause for the anal pain is the significant difference in difficulty levels of class problems and the exam.

Q. How did the others react to the 'anal pain' ?
A. Some were seeking solace from the fact that others did poorly, so they managed to smile in the light of relative grading. Some looked as shocked if they had just seen Rakhi Sawant fully clothed. Some were nonchalant and looked resigned to their fate. I think I was the only one abusing out loud.

Q. So you had a bad exam. Implications ?
A. Always knew that this course will only yield a final B grade for me. In that sense, dont seem to have lost much. Of course, there will be hell to pay for if I end up getting a C.

Q. What next ?
A. Economics and Accounting exams on Monday and Tuesday. This weekend is going to be sooo awesome.

Q. If you could go back in time and change something what would it be ?
A. Would really like to electrocute the person who motivated me to get an MBA, and I would also like to blow up the computer that conjured up my 740 GMAT. Had I scored something like a 450, I would have been sitting pretty in my old software job, away from this crazy management world.

Q. You have just been cribbing and cribbing all the time. No more questions for you.
A. Thanks ! You can just FAQ OFF !

Is raat ki subah nahi

2008-10-24T02:49:00.001-05:00

0300 hours.

Exam starts in another 6 hours. I might have just covered 50% of the syllabus till now. Deep into the the night, this zombie works on ...

Sleeping is a useless activity.

Statistics: The Last Race

2008-10-23T16:26:00.001-05:00

1634 hours.

Probability theory, regression & optimization: Take me in your arms !

Requiem for a dream.

2008-10-23T13:34:00.001-05:00

1350 hours.

The A in Marketing dream is over. I goofed up.

Got a relatively simple case about some twerp who wanted to make contact lenses for chickens. Yeah, thats right. Let me say that again: contact lenses for chickens. Bloody crazy shit !

We had to do some analyses - SWOT, 5C, Porter's and take some decisions - pricing, promotion and segmentation. All that to make a chicken wear some contact lens.

I could'nt finish the exam in time. Left a 35 marker almost untouched. There's no way I will be scoring anything more than 60 on this exam. Celebrated this joyous event with some chicken pad-thai for lunch.

Off for a little nap. The next bit*h in line is statistics.

One more time : Some shithead wanted to make contact lenses for chicken !

Off to war 1.1

2008-10-23T07:51:00.001-05:00

0803 hours
MBA Term 1
Final 1: MKTG 613

... And so it begins ...

Koi hamse jeet na paaye, chale chalo chale chalo
Mit jaave jo takraave, chale chalo chale chalo

Bring on the case !

Numb and brain dead

2008-10-22T23:39:00.001-05:00

2344 hours.

Nothing makes sense now. I am reading a marketing problem and analyzing it from an economics perspective. I think that's a signal to call it a day.

Lots of stuff pending. Especially, the bits about pricing and Roger's Framework.

Hope to be up by 0600 hours tomorrow so that I can squeeze in some 90-100 minutes of revision.

Zzzzzzzzzzz....

4Ps, 5Cs and 6Ms

2008-10-22T18:34:00.000-05:00

1845 hours.

Taking a tiny break from the world of Kotler and Drucker.

Preparing for a marketing case exam is sooo different from preparing for other subjects. There's no point reading the class discussion case studies because that's history, and no point reading the case solutions because that's history as well. My prof says that this exam is to gauge your progress in the understanding of fundamental marketing concepts. Didnt he just evaluate that in the quizzes and the marketing project? Then why the exam ?

The answer to this question, like a zillion other things in life, will probably appear with with some more maturity and time.

Back to work.

Panic Station !

2008-10-22T14:41:00.001-05:00

1446 hours

I have no freaking clue whats going on in statistics. Portion covered after the mid terms apparently was taught in Swahili and Hebrew. There's no way a Hindi speaking dude can understand that !

The portion before the midterms was probably taught in a now extinct language. Apparently, I knew that language on the day of the exam, but now I don't. I think I can now appreciate the bollywood melodrama of the 80s, when an unimportant character would open his eyes and say, "Main kaun hoon ? Main kahaan hoon ?"

Talking about movies, another song plays into my mind when I look at the chapters I had prepared for the mid-terms, "Sab kuchh alag hai ... sab kuchh naya hai ... kuchh to hua hai ... kuchh ho gaya hai."

Damn, I should start my marketing prep now. Lunch is a bowl of cut fruit. Boo !

Simulation modelling sucks

2008-10-22T11:38:00.001-05:00

WTF ! WTF !

This INFO-610 course is weird. Dimitris Bertsimas & Robert Freund (authors of my stats textbook) are weirder. And, of course, MS Excel is weirdest !

Man, I guess I cannot be a statistician even if my life depended on it.

Joke:
Q. What does a Gujju mean when he says, "Mero dikro States ma gayo."
You think: "My son went to the States".
The real thing: "My son failed in statistics." Touche !

Just got another 3 hours before I start to study for marketing.

Subah ho gayi mamu !

2008-10-22T08:44:00.001-05:00

0857 hours

Have woken up, but damn, feeling so sleepy. Wish I could sleep for another couple of hours.

Have my marketing finals tomorrow. Not going to start studying for it till 1500 hours today. Gotta do some statistics now. Breakfast is going to be an awesome maggi topped with mixed vegetables and scrambled eggs.

I hope I do well enough in Marketing to get an A - something I feel I deserve !

Finals Ahoy !

2008-10-22T02:18:00.001-05:00

MBA term 1 finals are here ...
Marketing, Statistics, Economics and Financial Accounting.
Gawwwwd !!!

Its 0234 hours and I still have oodles to cover. God save me !

I am off to bed. Gesundheit.

To set the ball rolling ...

2008-10-22T02:10:00.002-05:00

Studying for my finals right now (which start tomorrow), so cant write anything creative right now.

Here's the first post I ever wrote ...

A new day, a new beginning ... and I guess a new world. This is my first attempt at blogging. People who know me personally would find that strange, because blogging has been around for years and I am a perpetual netizen (Hate this word). For them, I have these five words -
1. Did
2. Not
3. Feel
4. Like
5. It

What makes me "feel" like blogging today ? Frankly, I do not know. I guess, today is just like one of those days when you wake up and say "I am going to clean my room today" and you do it. Your mom's surprised, Dad's giving a sly smile and your dog (if you have one) starts yelping, as the clean confines of the room make him feel alienated.

Its a blog and you are probably thinking, that why am I not coming straight to the point ? What is it that this guy wants to talk about ? Am I right ... You bet I am !

You know, I am writing this because I have nothing to talk about, or is it that I have too many things to say and do not know where to begin ? Hmm ... Have to sort this out ... need to talk to myself. Hey ... have you ever spoken to yourself ?

Me : How you doing ? I am writing my first blog and cannot think of a suitable topic. Can you help ?

Myself : Am fine. Thank you. What about you ?

Me : Just chilling dude ! Listen, I need some help with my blog.

Myself : Why are you always in such a hurry ? Its been a long time , since we had a chat. Just because we reside inside the same body, we feel so complacent about each other's presence. We hardly ever talk, hardly ever spend any quality time with one another.

Me : ... Jeez ... You complaining like a woman !

Myself : No-one is complaining. Am just reading out the facts the way they are. The two of us are supposed to be two sides of the same coin. But now it looks like the two sides are two separate entities of their own.

Me : ... Umm ... I am not sure whether I understand you.

Myself : Of course you do not ! Here ... sit down and listen to me patiently and do not interrupt me. We will think about your blog later. You seated ? Good !
Remember the Keanu-Reeves movie The Matrix ? If you can recall, in that movie everyone had 2 forms - One was their true self, revealed only to them and close ones ... and the other was their digital projection into the Matrix, there for all to see. That is exactly how it is now. You are the projection of yourself into tho world. What you are, is a mixture of (1)what you want to see yourself as, (2) what you want others to see you as, and finally (3) what you actually are. Whereas I am insulated from the outer world. I am very simply just what I was destined to be. And that is, YOUR true self.
The two of us are so similar and yet so different. You do not like listening to heavy metal , but still you do it because you are scared that your friends will call you a queer if you listen to soft, mushy stuff. But you do it anyway, trying to give them the impression that you are enjoying the guys screaming at the top of their voices. Smoking makes you cough, but still you do it ... because smoking makes you look macho. Keeping long hair, irritates you and makes you sweat ... but still you have this long mane, because its the so very "in" thing now. You are just following the herd blindly without listening to me - your inner self. Trust me, a few years from now you will be far happier if you walk on the path that I tell you rather than the path you are currently treading.

Me : Oh ! Come on ... you are not telling me anything new ! I know all this crap ! Even I have thought about what you have just said. Its just that, I often feel I should get in touch with you because you always tell me the right thing to do, but somehow I am always short-changed for time.

Myself : In today's world you will never get time. You will have to make time to converse with me. You keep putting things off by convincing yourself that I will do it. But the truth is that time keeps flying by. And then one day will come, when you would have buried me deep in the sands of time and you will be left all alone in a dark room full of shadows of things that might have been.

Me : Are you sure about what you are talking ? Your words are hardly coherent ... I am now totally confused that what is it that you have been wanting to tell me ...

Myself : What I want to tell you is that, keep in touch with me. I am just asking you for 10 minutes of your time. 5 minutes before you go to sleep, have a chat with me. Tell me what all you did, what all you said, what are your dreams, what do you want to achieve, what are the things dear to you and the like.

Me : ... Umm ... That sounds like a good idea but what about the remaining 5 minutes ?

Myself : Haha ... Don't you want to wish me good morning and tell me what are the things you plan to do during the day ?

Me : Yes. Sure. Ofcourse I will do it !

Myself : Do this without fail daily, and one day you will get to meet a a very dear friend of mine, his name is "Conscience".

Me : Will do dude ! You know its nice speaking to you after such a long time. Please do not mind my saying so ... but I think I have forgotten your name ! I am sorry !

Myself : It was nice talking to you too. I have not spoken to you in as much detail as I would like to, but I intend to do that in 5 minute capsules every morning and night starting from tonight ... and my name is "Prayer". Do not forget it this time. I got to leave ... as for now goodbye !

Me : Bye ! ... Hey, just a minute ... I thought you were going to help me with my blog!

Myself : I just did ! Cheers !

Revival

2008-10-22T02:05:00.002-05:00

After a very long time since my last post ... I am back !

The Phoenix

2007-05-14T02:55:00.001-05:00

A palate of sunshine, and a fistful of stars ...
A ray of hope amidst the trauma of psychedelic wars ...

The juvenile cajole of the neighbourhood parks ...
The fragrance of youth, memories of the college wall marks ...

Melodies of the night, dusk and dawn ...
The poolside games and picnics on the lawn ...

The days of warmth, the nights of rain ...
Some bitter-sweet memories dipped in smiles and pain ...

The lonely nights crawl, and the days fly by ...
But amomg the ruins, moves a shadow thats my ...
With the hope and belief, that one day victory will be mine ...
A new sun will rise, and all will be fine ...