My Pug Marks

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...

How irritating is it to get a phone call when you are in that last hour of your sleep on a Saturday morning? Worse, if it turns out to be your mobile service provider wanting to confirm if you would want to upgrade your 3G plan (which in any case sucks with most providers in India!) Even worse, what if it turns out to be someone important, like your boss? Now you don't want to sound totally sleepy - do you? What would he/she be thinking of you if he were to ask, "Were you sleeping?" at 11 am in the morning? (And, this is judgmental attitude is especially true of older white haired balding bosses!) Well, here are a few tips to sound all alert & morning crispy when actually you would have killed him for ruining your sleep on a Saturday morning. They have worked well for me, hope they would for you too! - Take a deep breath, let the phone ring for a few seconds so that you get a chance to clear your head (hope you did not have much alcohol last night). T...

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?...

I have always been passionate about long drives. Sight of a meandering endless road in front & in the rear view is pretty exhilarating. However, with the increasing fuel prices and my Ford Figo Petrol being a big time guzzler - I haven't been able to follow my passion like I wanted to.  However, a recent Friday night got better of me and a bunch of friends and I decided to try out the new Yamuna Expressway and zoom of to Agra for an early morning visit of the Taj Mahal. What followed was simply legendary! My respect for the guzzler went up a notch as it hit a comfortable 170 kmph without shuddering or much noise. It was steady & handling was superb (that doesn't mean that the petrol bill came down!). Driving at almost 3 km/min with not a car in sight or rear view is something that one needs to experience himself. And when a car was actually visible now and then - it was an altogether different feeling to see it vanish at such a pace in the rear view - feeling ...

Image Courtesy: http://myluckylottonumbers.com Who doesn't secretly wish to inherit a large some of money from some dead distant relative you don't even know of? I definitely do. It wouldn't hurt to get a cool crore cheque along with a loving message from someone whom you barely knew. And everyone has their own theories of what one would do from such a windfall gain. Shopping, paying back loans, traveling the world, buying new cars, homes, land - on the moon even! Personally, if I get to inherit a crore - I would do the following, in order of importance: 1. Pay my debts 2. Shop for good clothes & shoes (for all those guys smirking, have you even checked out the latest sports/formal shoes out there?) 3. Take an year off from work and travel 4. Buy amazing gadgets 5. Invest (of what remains, if at all) wisely Since I don't know of any rich distant dying relative who has a keen interest in being generous to me, any idea as to when w...

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...