My Pug Marks

Other not so important news is as follows. I am limping with a completely removed nail from the finger next to toe on my left foot, heat is getting unbearable as it is supposed to be, work is hectic as usual, I don't find time to exercise, I like to sleep more and I am hopelessly stuck in a rut of work-home routine with minor hiccups like the stupid freak toe injury. Pretty uneventful as usual. What we tend to forget while ranting like I just did is that these continuous monotonous processes in life are also the driving force for us to graduate to newer and widened laws of nature - even though we may tend to resist them. It is hard to realize the importance of these circles until you find few precious minutes for yourself to think and look around. There is nothing new with spring and summer. We hardly have spring season though - summer conquers spring quickly and brutally. I happened to be loitering around lackadaisically on the terrace and found the beautiful burnt orange on t...

This thought experiment was grueling enough that I could hear the whining of my mental hard drive.  What exactly is business like?  Is it good to be business like?  Is it the new success mantra we swear by these days in the corporate world?  Does business like mean being all open and ready for business while you may be cursing the moron sitting in front of you under your breath?  Does it make you a moron if you think of the person in front of you was a moron since you may never know how incredibly talented he may turn out to be despite his rustic accent and antiquated non-corporate style?  Being suited and booted with an attitude is the only way that you can be business like or as Google's philosophy for being 'serious without wearing suits' works just fine?  Does it make a guy business like if he can talk to ten people from different strata and still actually truly be a moron? Does business like mean that you know the art to ...

As a ritual, I drop my wife to office every working day. As a ritual, we end up running 10-15 mins late. I am an owl type, hence mornings are usually slothfully slow for me. This irritates her. While she gets ready in 20 mins flat (5 minutes added, thankfully, because of the dressing table that we have now), I end up taking almost 50 mins. This also means she gets more time to sleep (aargh!). As we menace through the rough traffic & pot holed roads and reach her office, she says the same thing to me everyday. "Be good. Don't get angry!" I smile back and drive on to my office. I was wondering about this once. I was outraged for a bit - What does she mean? Am I a cruel heartless beast that she has to ask me to be good everyday? After calming down in an instant thinking she knows better, I gave it a deeper thought. In general, we forget to be good and get irritated with all the small and big things that happen to us or around us everyday. The roads are bad, the w...

I love the cafeteria on the 4th floor in my office. It may not be as funky & stylish as my previous workplace's but the view is simply inspiring. If you happen to come a bit early or a little late with fewer people dining around, you can get the window seat and eat in peace looking outside to see this. View from the 4th floor cafeteria This rugged iron structure, is probably the foundation of a work in progress (or not) building. Along all four sides are finished buildings, including the one which hosts my office. I keep looking at the rusty beams and  they still seem to stand strong. Despite all finished products around, there seems to be space for something new, a work in progress that can be shaped to a fine thing. It can be shaped to be so good that it completely shrouds the existing ones which boast of having stood the test of time. Who knows?  I like work in progress. It is always good to look forward to something new and different. What do you think?...

Image Courtesy: www.collectivequotes.com We all have our 'What the hell?!' moments, especially when life is being a trifle topsy turvy. Accept it. Passing through one of those life's curves with a terribly low horsepower, one reminisces a lot. So it was that night changing into the next day when I was on this amazing mind trip of discovering what my life has been so far. Pretty ordinary with extraordinary moments interspersed, as it turns out. Just that ordinary constitutes of 90% of it. Fair ratio, I would say. However, within those ordinary moments is where I found these 'What the hell?!' moments. Way too many of them. Being just, encouraging, appreciative and all the other so called positive adjectives go for a toss when one enters the 'What the hell?!' zone. In this zone, one tends to question the positiveness of these adjectives itself when the world has been anything but. Illustrating some of those moments are thoughtful rants from heart...

Like the pistol bullets shot At an army with swords for defense Like an expensive dairy chocolate slab Gifted to a lactose intolerant Like a treatment for depression related disorders Prescribed to the guy who acts joker in the circus Like an amusement park Filled with Dementor-like creatures Life is a simple equation Filled with many variables

Photo Courtesy: www.trekearth.com I'd sit with you Oh Arabian Sea My thoughts would sail Holding the colorful fishes' trail Calm my nerves ruptured Watching that distant ship anchored Forget my mournful days Pelting the rocks your constant waves Strengthen my emotional defense Rippled water your fence But no, I just can't sit My last local leaves in a bit

This one will definitely ruffle a few but then, it is my blog, isn't it? I actually feel like arguing but stop myself one step short realizing it may usually be futile. Cities like Bangalore, Gurgaon (yes, it is Gurgaon and not Delhi), Hyderabad and Mumbai have always faced the wrath of people working there. Most of them don't like their work cities. Most of them do not belong to these cities.  My simple question is - if you have a problem with everything ranging from traffic to rents to 'heartlessness' in here, why are you here? In questioning all the wrong things, one tends to forget that these are the cities with opportunities. They never asked to be the chosen ones but government policies, location, etc. worked in their favor. It is only the residents who realize how their towns changed into big cities which actually is the root cause of all the problems. I can speak for Gurgaon, been living here since birth. I have seen fields turn into glass buildings - a...

'So, how does it feel?' 'Oye hoye, shaadi shuda insaan!' 'You're married, waaaaaaoh!' 'Congrats! Your prison term begins now!' 'It must be bliss now... but wait for it my friend' No amount of italics or bold fonts can justify the knowledge, the pleasure, the displeasure and many such feelings to which I am innocent to that people express when they come to know that I am the newly married guy. I am partly to blame for that. I couldn't resist expressing my happiness and excitement to everyone and anyone I have known for 20 minutes or more. But it did not take long for me to realize that it was a grave mistake to do so in a 'connected everywhere all the time' world. You say the M word and people have all the gyaan to share with you. Like they have been married forever to know everything or if it is a kind of a cheap course that everyone has a doctorate in magna summa laude. Surprisingly, I did not know there was such a study optio...

Residents of Gurgaon would definitely know about the electricity woes here, summers being a nightmare at times. Good old days of the city being quiet and simple are gone. It is now touted as the 'Millennium City' and the 'City of Malls'. Millennium City because it still faces the problems only heard of in Millennium B.C. and City of Malls because that is probably the only weekend getaway people can have. Anyway, coming to the point. With a recently changed electricity meter (it literally burnt up in flames) and a jugaad fixed transformer, our woes were alleviated to a small extent. And then it happened. Of all the things, the house bell stopped working. Of course we can do without a bell for some time and trust me we did too. Mom's patience with our lack of interest to get it fixed was running out. She kept saying that she would shut the door at the stairs (we live on first floor) and if anyone comes, he will go back as we would not be able to hear him! We laze ar...

The new job saw me going to Hyderabad for a fortnight's training. It also gave me a chance to visit some good old friends of mine who have been working there. It used to be a refreshing change at the weekends after a week's training sessions and being unknown to the city.  After the regular Buddha  statue visit at Hussain Sagar  lake which everyone who visits Hyderabad, I was shown around the impressive building which my friends call their office. And as we were sitting in the cafeteria talking of times new and old, a very interesting piece of discussion ensued. My little chubby and cute friend from college asked out of the blue -  Do you all know that Dosa  is actually Dosai?   Rest of us just gave our eyebrows a little tilt in our minds and one of us said - Yea well, it is how people prefer to call it in this part of the world. What about it? My little friend being adamant to prove her point explained us with words and action something that kep...

And as I drive on an empty dark road Radio playing slow beautiful songs My mind wanders away from menial To us and how it all happened Like an old wine Beautiful thought Growing older and better The way we met and things turned around Like a stuck record Beautiful music Playing the symphony  Melodies to my heart The way we met and things turned around Like a grandfather's clock Beautiful mechanism Cogwheels fitting perfectly Like our fingers intertwined The way we met and things turned around And as I halt and return to present Focusing back on the menial I save you in my mind For another time

Image Courtesy: Wikipedia Just came after a show of 'Surrogates' at the PVR in Ambience Mall, Gurgaon . Liked the movie. If we come to think of it, it does send shivers down the spine with all this technologized incentives that we keep giving ourselves day in and day out. My friend Nikki talked about our addiction to web and social networking with hardly anything 'social' left in it for it is behind the veil of cyber names, cyber games and I daresay cyber jobs. I, myself am looking forward to a career in Marketing/Branding/Retailing associated with Social Media and associated technologies. However, there needs to be a line that definitely needs to be drawn to keep it from becoming our madness. Surrogates takes it a step further - talks about building perfect 'us' as we would like the world to see us. So you sleep and rest in a cozy home all day - hooked into a system and a perfect you, who never gets old goes about doing your daily activities. You can cho...

Alright people - I am back here! After neglecting my sweet little blog for quite some time, I couldn't just let it be in the name of work which I in any case procrastinate upon. It hasn't been easy - trust me. A Roller Coaster ride yea, but add to that the dilemma of knowing that somewhere, there is an loose screw on the rails which may or may not fall off when the coaster passes over it. WTF! Here are the biggest WTF moments that are happening: 1. Surgery in lower back. I mean low low back. Wound is supposed to heal naturally to prevent recurrence. WTF! Why the hell couldn't they stitch it??? 2. It got better. Nice. It healed. Very nice. I was happy. I took the bus to the city from my campus. The God-forsaken Sus-Pashan Road [may the builders who stole charcoal from it rot in hell!]. My back could not bear it. Wound resurfaced. WTF! 3. Sem 3. Welcome to the most gruelling curriculum ever. I mean, I know I am in a B-School where we are supposed to slog and study hard, but g...

Hi all! It has been some time and lot of things to talk about since I wrote here last. Here are a few things that have been going on with me, for good and not so good. I somehow managed to finish my internship at Wipro Technologies in Bangalore. Two month stint was a pretty good experience at office. It was like a two month job, team was awesome and work was good! Bangalore as a city has a very different feel to it. A feel, which I was not used to and don't feel like getting used too. I was putting up at Electronic City there which is like an IT City at a little distance from the main city itself. Something like what Manesar is to Gurgaon or Gurgaon is to Delhi. So, as it happens, a major chunk of IT junta, which is also a major chunk of junta residing in Bangalore get up early on weekdays and move to Electronic City. In the evenings, they go back. Essentially, this city sleeps early and wakes up early too! Quite unlike me. Anyway, moving on. I had to find a decent place for my...

It happens at times, that a particular date holds a very important place in your life. The reverence to the date increases if it is just another date - not your birthday, wedding day or any other day which in itself is of importance to you. In the same manner, unknowingly, 4 th of June became one of the most important dates of my life. The feeling obviously can't be mutual but I can try to elucidate its impact and significance in my life. 4 th June, 2007 It was my last exam of my last semester at my graduate college. Well, as it tuned out, it wouldn't be so. Let us just leave at that. 4 th June, 2007 I met someone. Very unexpectedly. Thanks to the cosmic charge and the complex algorithm that google must be using on the click of 'next blog' that my blog turned up, and not that belonged to someone e lse . Thank you Google - let us just say that you have given me all the pains and pleasures that are important to my life. And reminiscing a bit... 4 th June, 1989 When I...

Did you finish the homework? What is that you shirk? Did you drop the mail? Aren't you drinking milk - you look so pale? Did you oversleep? Why is that you weep? Did you finish the assignment? Was that another rule that you bent? Did you harm that man? Did you bunk for that Goan sun tan? Did you get a good GPA? Your attendance is low, what do you have to say? Did you watch three movies back to back? Who will complete that project and create faff? Did you spend night on phone? Why do you use such a harsh tone? Why are you so lax and lazy and slow? Haven't you got anything better than my brains to mow? Did you complete the circle of life? Hold on! I haven't decided what radius to strike!

As I was whiling away time on net, a friend of mine asked me what I have been asked so many times since I have landed in an entity called a 'B-School' - Is MBA tough? Frankly speaking, I find this question tougher to answer than whatever I have faced in an MBA. So, I thought I would answer it in the same old manner, giving gyaan and making it sound the way it would induce a WOAH!!! What fun, right? This is what we all have been doing. Why? Coz everyone does it. Why does everyone do it? Coz well, no one wants to forget the effort or the fluke as the case may be that pushed them into the ivy league. It is like sucking that sweet grape for eons to suck out the last of the sweetness molecule from it. Coz had they not made it, that very grape would have been the sourest thing ever! This time, I begged to differ from the normal gyaan session. Why subject this guy to the trauma when he is eagerly awaiting his GD/PI results. I also did not have the time for it. MBA is as difficult as ...

From Vatican to Venice Discovering every crevice Gusts of wind hit my face Sloping down the Danube Trudging the Alps few An unknown force pulls me through Crossing virgin hills Talking to little known streams Everyone has a story to scream Must I walk? Must I sweat? To reach where my heart feels wet? Striving without focus Moving my limbs When pain is pleasure And everything else ceases to matter Depravation hits Bring with it satisfaction A fulfilled cause Formed from all fractions Should I exist? In this baneful truth Where no difference lies In couth uncouth Strings act in matrix symphonies Words hit from time chiselled phonies Fractured dreams Long breathed heaves I can't but exist... Coz life runs that watch on its tight held wrist.

It all happens the way it should, And our desire won't change the way it would. Tyres keep rolling and planes keep flying, But no thought for the 'n'th man dying. Sun does rise and so does moon, Both set too, like a flame perished with no fume. Masses trot in chaos endless, Bio rots in digs boundless. Life flourishes in kaleidoscopic domain, love,lust,fear,motive,happiness,contentment and pain. A symphony so divine that Mozart would gaze, Bard would die in search of the perfect phrase.