It was just another day in the office when I got a call from my Technical manager asking me to prepare for an interview in a couple of hours by our client. Although surprised, I felt it was best doing something about it rather than brooding away. The afternoon on the same day, I finally had the interview and well...I wasn't impressed by myself.
The next day, my TM calls me into his office with a fierce look on his face. The client had returned with their feedback and it must have been bad....with a disappointed look on his face he showed me his laptop with the mail open...it read "We would like to hire Shanim Sainul for the project at Delhi"....WTF?? a big laughter by my TM later reality
struck..."Delhi" seemed to be brightly shining on my face like a billboard in Las Vegas....Oh Boy!!!
A long wait later, I'm finally here in the capital! My first day was uneventful, we spent 2 hours going around different sectors of Gurgaon in search of my company's office there. Apparently we had taken the wrong road to Gurgaon and ended up taking the wrong turns and were in a completely different locality. Finally at 3pm in the afternoon after a whopping 2.5hrs I was finally in the office. After the initial introductions and the reinstallation of my laptop, I was heading back home. That's when I realise how different things are in this city. I had to cross over the border and hence no through taxis to the place I was put up at, Dwaraka. My manager in Gurgaon dropped me off near the border, and I decided to walk till the border and look around for a Delhi auto. Alright so I did cross the border, but not a single auto in sight...it was as if they were alerted well in advance of my arrival and decided to evade me at all costs! A lone cycle rickshaw helped me out then...uhm...yeah I was hell guilty riding on one but well he insisted and dropped me off at the nearest junction asking me for just 2Rs!!! jeez...Guilt won over and I paid him 10 bucks....which again seemed too little for dragging over 80kgs of weight for over a km. The rickshaw charged me 60 bucks and I was finally at my pal's place around 10 in the night.
The next day was quite uneventful, besides the morning ride to my client's office. I went by three modes of transport spending over a hundred bucks to finally find the place, only to know later that I was to meet my reporting manager the next day. hmmmmm...oh well it was fun and I ain't complaining :) Under my better judgment I decided on going back home that evening by the company cab....was I relieved to reach home at 6:30! The next day was much more interesting, I was finally going into Delhi and not sticking to the routine Gurgoan journeys. My reporting manager had asked me to meet him in the GK-II (Greater Kailas) office in the afternoon. Had a relaxed morning and slowly moved out of the house and took a rick to GK-II....uhm...if u guys are wondering why I'm constantly on ricks and not on buses like it was when I had entered Bangalore...well...times change and company pays ;) (atleast I'm hoping)...and moreover, there are practically zero buses from Dwaraka to most parts of the city...hence not worth waiting for one.
It was an hour long journey and I was finally in one of the most posh areas in the city. When I got the address, I was told that the place was near the M-Block market....for a moment I pictured a vegetable market with bullock carts all around and hawkers screaming out for attention....sigh...yep I was wrong. The M-Block market is anything but that...the first shop I saw CCD, followed by Barrista, and a couple of other coffee pubs..I later learnt that this is the girl hangout...uhm...youth hangout in Delhi and has some of the best pubs....pubs like Diva and rpm...yep it's a hep part of town and trust me...it's awesome....as for the babes...well all of you who've seen the forward about India Pakistan Friendship (the huge crowd of girls at a concert to be more specific) apparently haven't been to delhi!!!! The below average looking girls here are as pretty as the above average looking girls back in Bangalore....and trust me...the guys who've been to Bangalore can surely get what I mean!
The weekend was quite ok, I couldn't go out much as my pal who was to give me company had work over the weekend and we just had the morning to go places. I was looking for a place to stay so it was more of house hunting than anything else. Took a ride on "Delhi ke Shaan"...no it's not my imposter...it's the Delhi Metro!!! For those who have been to London, well it's pretty much like the Tube...isn't that enough said? The Metro is just too good, and it surely makes you feel you've been teleported to some developed nation as you enter any of its stations. The only thing that gives it away is the hindi written along with english everywhere. Travel around the city is a breeze with the Metro and I'm just waiting for the time it covers the city as a whole....the second phase of the metro is expected to complete by the end of '07. Just dropped into Karol Bagh...saw a couple of houses....uhm...rather an excuse of a structure which was being rented out for over 4k and then moved back to Dwaraka where things seemed more sensible. The story about my house hunting would be a chapter on its own so I shall refrain from going into details.
Monday was an awesome day. I had woken up fully charged up and entered the bathroom to take a bath. The "courageous" person that I was, I decided to take a bath in cold water. Filled the bucket and the first mug sent shivers all over my body....with the second...I was numb! It kinda helped actually, didn't feel the rest of the mugs of water after that...so it was kewl...literally!!! The papers finally answered my puzzling mind...it had snowed in the north and has brought the mercury down in a big way...temperatures were now lingering around 9 degrees Celsius and was expected to slide further down....sigh...sweaters and two T-shirts followed. Yep the temp had come down in a big way and I could feel it all through my journey to GK-II that morning. A small chat with my colleagues and a meeting with my managers in Bangalore later I headed to Tis Hazari, a site where I would be working to check out a few things. The first thing I did notice there was monkeys! Oh boy...yes...just outside the Metro after a 2 minute walk, the place was filled with monkeys jumping around trees! hmmm...a transition from the most modern, to the India we read in most American books. It was 6 by the time I got out of there. Took the metro to Rajiv Chowk and waited for a pal at the station there and jumped out to see CP...ie. Connaught Place. The place where Ghandhiji's assassin made plans of murder. An awesome place is the smallest compliment you can give. The circular road surrounded by both International and Indian brands can surely bring out the shopper in you...and for us misers, the Palika Bazaar opens its arms out welcoming you into its stores. The place is just beautiful!!!! And as my manager said....greenery abundant ;)
Things have just begun, I'm loving it already...keep watching this space for more...for now...ciao!!
Well first before I start, I'm sure most of you must've noticed the number of pic posts have increased significantly from my previous posts....why you ask? I got a new phone!!!! Bought the new Sony Ericsson K790i on installments and boy am I happy with my purchase!!!!!! The phone has a feature that lets you blog directly from the phone onto your blogger account and I'm finally able to express my inner most....uhm confusions? Whatever...it rocks!! Btw..the diwali special pic is courtesy of the girls living opposite our flat...those kids took the pain of making a rangoli as well as decorating their flat with all the diyas possible....we haven't cleaned our room for the past 3 months...infact i've got a spider sleeping next to me....thankfully i've learnt my lessons from the bugger back home in Kerala and I've not asked him to move off yet...but yeah..the bugger does hog the blanket bigtime....sigh....shall refrain from complaining...not interested in bites anymore...
A couple of weeks back a friend of mine, Nida, had come down from Hyderabad to Bangalore on a visit...it's been almost 6yrs since I met her last and both of us were pretty excited about meeting after sooo long...Had an amazing evening and I had dinner with her mom and family...was awesome and as we split she invited me over to Hydie....which was on my to-do list since 2002 (thanks to Akshath)...took me a week of thinking and I finally decided on making the trip after all...three days of planning and I had my ticket, a place to stay, money and uhm....oh yeah...clothes :) oh no..i didn't buy anything...just did my laundary after a real long time :)
It was a friday, I was lazy to sit in the office long and well how could you...u've got Place #3 of the "Places to visit in India" list in your mind how can you? Thankfully everyone at work was in the TGIF mood and was hoping Hosur Road's traffic would disappear for the day....but alas that was a dream which would never come true. Fast forward to the time after I managed to get Vikas to sprain his leg...alright so maybe the bugger was too busy oogling at the girls at Brigade but it was me who got him walking for over 10 mins after that :) hehe...so I finally got into the bus and was on my way to the Twin City Metro of South India...the land of the Nawabs...the Charminar and most importantly....the land of Haleem and Hyderabadi Biriyani!
A short sleep that lasted just 4 hrs later I was woken up by a gullute cop bugging all of us to show our luggage....oh crap, I knew I shouldn't have taken my shaving gel in my hand baggage...uhm...wait...wasn't that airline regulations??? phew...took me a couple of minutes to realise they were looking for bottles of alcohol and my shaving gel was safe...a couple of minutes later we had entered into Hyderabad....and well I was shocked....y you ask? For one, they actually have roads....and no not like Bangalore where the roads are mere excuses of Tar laid on minute stretches...these were 8 laned dual carriageways and 6 laned dual carriageways with over 10 flyovers in the first leg of my travel alone!....I was later informed that the city has 48 flyovers!!! My friend and I were considering putting up two goal posts on either end of the road and playing some serious football....why AP could even host a friendly EPL match for the heck of it on these roads!...HDK...now you know why all the IT honchos are moving out!
The bus went all around town and I finally reached my pal Shamju's place at Tollychowki. I was to meet Nida later that day and we decided on meeting up at Hyderabad Central when it opened. The punctual soul that I am, I left at 9:15 and caught a rick to Mehdipatnam as my friends suggested. Supposedly there were regular buses from there to Punchgutta (yep Hyd Central is out there...and no I'm not nuts to go halfway round the world and then catch another bus to Hyderabad Central).....and I believed them...true there were quite a few buses, but getting onto one was something one could never dream of. Although 10 sumo wrestlers could fit in the bus and probably wrestle their way out of tickets in the bus, there would always be close to twenty people hanging on the footboards....to get fresh air i'm assuming. And jumping into one of these is as good as being roadkill. I noticed a lone bus sitting in a corner silently waiting for its prey and I jumped in. It took a lousy half an hour before the driver popped up, drove away a demented guy who was drunk from the bus (everyone in the bus was having a laugh ragging the poor guy....and i remained the silent observer....yep i'm mallu after all)...
It was close to 9:50 when the bugger finally got the vehicle moving. I was quite psyched out 'coz that meant I would prbbly be late and not make it at 10...but wait...apparently you guys don't know what I hadn't known then...this should explain things better...in a nutshell, I reached there at 9:59....and I had a whole 60 seconds to cross the road and get to the entrance. And lo behold....the store is closed...(?????) I look around, not a soul...a security guy pops up and informs me that I'm nuts....fine so I knew that before...what gave me away? "The store opens only at 11 saar"...I call her up, and she confirms this fact of hyderabad, the city sleeps till 11am!!! sigh, an hour of walking around followed and a conversation with another Bangalore based guy who, like me, ended up in front of Hyderabad Central at an untimely hour of 10am...I'm sure all hyderabadis would be wondering what I was doing outside so early in the morning!
11:10, Nido arrives...and a quick walk around Central and we were off on our sightseeing trip of the city :) rather mine...Banjara Hills, Prasad's, Eat Street, Abids, McDonald's...uhm...McDonald's? oh yeah that wasn't sightseeing actually...that was feeding time :) Two burgers, a huge coke and fries later we bid goodbye and split.
The next day I'd decided to live the hydie way and woke up at 10am...yep I was still early since it was a Sunday and 10am was too early....jeez! The miseries of it all! It wasn't until 12 or so that I met up with another schoolmate of mine, Tariq...again in Hyderabad Central...we hung around Banjara Hills at his place, talking abt school and the guys around here...blah blah...nostalgia at its best....and I had to split to go to Paradise in Secunderabad...my pals had asked me to pop up there for Iftar....and to our surprise (and to the miseries of Shaheen) it was closed. It took Shaheen just 3 seconds to come up with an alternative, Pizza Hut Iftar Treat - Unlimited Pizza, Garlic bread and on ice cream for 175Rs only....sigh...this place rocks!!! We broke our fast at a masjid nearby and headed straight to Pizza Hut...a dinner that lasted over 2hours followed and we finally split. Shamju dropped me at the bus stop and it was back to Bangalore for me. Missed out on two things though :( Couldn't have Hyderabadi Haleem or Hyderabadi Biriyani when I was there :( Shaheen made it worse by explaining how Chicken and Mutton costs the same in Hyderabad and how they have huuuuuuge quantities of food...and this is not just for non-veg stuff but veg too....next time maybe...
The trip was awesome and since I hadn't purchased the k790i then, I don't have any pics :( Anyways, guys...I'm moving out of Bangalore soon....going waaaaay up North to Delhi...I'm sure there'll be waaaay many more posts once I get there...The southie that I am, I suck at hindi...the little I do know, is Mumbaiyya and that's unacceptable there....hmmm...in other words, loads of stupidity to follow...Keep reading!
The other day I was reading through my blog entries from the past and I noticed something quite odd....I'm getting serious lately :( Working in a professional organization is taking its toll on my humour and my brain!!!! Its like they're sucking away my passion to strive for perfection in sarcasm...the horrors of it all! Alright back from being a melodramatic maniac...now lets get to some serious thoughts (i mean....non-serious...uhm..whatever)
It's funny how we often think from a different dimension on things. Brings out the best in us and we do come up with the weirdest similies to life. hehe as an example, the spider who asked me for a rental contract in my house after biting me for breaking down his home (he called it "Webzy") or maybe my imagination of dating my bike....and where did all this start off...it was 1987, I was getting ready for bed and I just couldn't sleep...I started buggin mom and dad asking them what I should do and they asked me to pray and close my eyes....hmmm..tried...didn't help...and well TV was never an option then 'coz we had just two channels there (Abu Dhabi TV 1 and Channel 2) both dieing off at an early 8PM. I was in a dilemma and poof I heard a crack....uhm..no wait that was my brain churning out ideas....This was the day my Dream Cable Network began. It had 4 channels (yep quite a low number) which had action, romance, humour and ofcourse horror. I never lasted long in the horror channel but well the others were quite awesome.
Are you guys confused? Well I'll explain then...I started imagining that my dreamland had 4 channels and I could switch to any one of them every night. I began telling myself weird stories in my dreams which included a war against people from the planet "Karathonza" to a walk on the nearest burial grounds....was awesome....never had a prob sleeping from then on 'coz I would get tired making the story and would get bored after 15 mins of narration...yeah I pretty much bore myself well...
Have we lost all this now? Rather have I grown up and forgotten how fun it was to be a kid and to imagine.....uhm...guess my roomies wouldn't agree....
That reminds me of a discussion we had the other day. There was this newspaper article that talked about the mosquito menace near Silk Board flyover and how the BMP stuffed it with fishes that ate mosquitoes to get rid of it. I'm sure many of you can't relate to this, so let me explain. Silk Board has this awesome drain running from Madivala towards HSR Layout...what's so peculiar about this you ask? Well nothing much, its just that BMP ran out of funds before they could finish the project and hence the drain is open! All the crap coming in from Maruthi Nagar, Madivala, Madivala Market, BTM, Jayanagar and probably the rest of South Bangalore ends up on this drain. It does give you a high walking through there though....a high that makes you wanna kill yourself! Ironically, there are three offices of the 2nd largest IT firm in India right in front of this drain....guess they use it to their benefit....picture this...a client comes to visit the campus, he has an initial round of talks and it fails as the company is expecting waaaaaaaay too high in revenues...the client refuses....a response follows "You wanna give us the contract or would u prefer swimming there?" "Kaching!!! Contract signed" ;)
Alright now back to our topic in question...Bobs (aka Time Management), on hearing this found it crazy and said it would probably be like killing those fishes straight out. The water that runs through is no longer transparent...why it isn't even translucent and it would be impossible for a fish to survive. I justified saying it is possible, and that the fish has probably learnt its way through the waters else they were already blind and it wouldn't be anything new. Bobs said that's a crazy thought. hehe...me being me felt I couldn't just stop there....so I said...no man BMP must've given each one of them flashlights to look around...a light laugh later bobs replied yeah and they probably gave them sticks and knives to whack any mosquitoes they saw....tom added that they probably added in some Piranhas to improve efficiency...and this went on to a point where we even felt they would have monkey caps on to prevent getting a cold from the night job and would probably get free food and a cab back home......then suddenly a door opened wide....AG (a guy who sleeps all the way till 9AM eventhough his work starts off at 8:30AM) starting walking like a zombie out of the room and headed straight to a knife sitting on the kitchen desk....picked it up....and bingo...I was the target! :) hehe...
I've got another pal, Ams, whom I get into real active conversations with.....on what you ask? well its just a chain of PJs....a chain that resulted in another pal of ours, Rush, to start whacking her head on the table and almost get into tears....its funny...we were going on for over 15 mins and only then did we notice what she was doing!
So where does all this come to? Imagination ROCKS!!!! And I'm gonna go on with it....;)
It was just another day in office and well for a change I have work lately. All thanks to a training I had in the UK. And well things are supposedly gonna get worse....frankly, I'm happy....I've had my share of free time all through my life in the company and its about time I really picked up on work.
It was Friday and our Manager, the cool guy in the block, was asking us what our plans were for the weekend...i had a bloody geeky answer..."CAT" jeez...he had this weirdo look on my face which said "Don't you have a life?" hmmm...do I? I guess I do, the doc said I was pretty fine when I went for my checkup the other day. Anyways, the next question he asked us were if we had gfs and if dates were in line during the weekend....the three of us in the team had a negative in the first part of the question. He was shocked and even joked that he'd probably put in an objective for the next quarter..."Get a Girlfriend".....and well as usual...it got me thinking....sigh I wonder if there's anything in this world that doesn't get me thinking! :)
What exactly is the deal of getting a girlfriend? Spend a few months enjoying the sparks and eventually realise you weren't meant for each other. Put yourself in a lot of pressure, and emotional turmoils and finally call it an end. Wouldn't like to generalise though, I'm sure there are quite a few of you who read this who would say otherwise. But how often does it last for more than a couple of years? It starts off with a mushy relationship with loads of attention and understanding at first. A few months down the line it changes to jealousy and possesiveness and finally it just ends up in huge arguments that make absolutely no sense to the observers from outside. And at the end, each one for himself (herself).
Friends often say I have a very stringent criteria for my partner and that's the reason I've never really hooked up. hmmm...this could be true. I'd prefer a gal who doesn't bother going all mushy mushy and constantly want physical show of attention. I mean come on, picture this, you're all tired from work, your manager has asked you to stay at the office on weekends, you lost money as change in the bus (refer previous blogs) and your cellphone cuts off as you start talking to your dad and mom three thousand miles away. And that's when the inevitable call comes in and she goes "Hi janoo...how much do you love me?"....WTF??? Right so that doesn't happen too often...but hell it does!
Is it so hard to find someone who would understand you and could read your mind like it were their own diaries (true this ain't possible at all times)? One who doesn't have a care in the world and doesn't filter you based on your caste, colour, religion or zodiac sign (reminds me of lage raho munnabhai :) ). One who'd have had a long day at work and yet want to hang out with you to take a long walk, talk and get home with a smile....or maybe spend an evening bowling just to get the spirits up. One who wouldn't hesitate to go out horse riding (yep...i've suddenly got a craving to go horse riding...still trying to figure when and where though), bungee jumping or try something absolutely new in their lives. And yet beyond all this still realise that life's just not about fun and involves responsibilities...to their parents, family and friends. yep....my friends are probably right...I do think too much and hence remain single...
So is cutting all this down for the initial sparks in a relationship worth it?......I wonder
Yes, I'm a victim of the CAT disease too. I've begun my pursuit to the IIMs, the most prestigious B-Schools in India....and well...I'm losing out on the race in a huge way! I start off with a relatively good percentile and as the weeks go by, my results seem to be deteriorating...blame it on the fact that I'm not preparing well while everyone else is! So now, I'm working on Plan B and Plan C. Shall refrain from explaining what those two plans are for the time being, lest I mess up those two as well....which I will!
Its a loong holiday and well I ain't doing much here. On realising that I was leading a miserable life by sitting home doing nothing...alright alright so maybe I was doing something...moving on...yeah so as I was saying, I decided to head to Coimbatore and meet up with my ol' schoolmate Gayatri, who promised me a bunch of books to prepare myself on a tests related to "Plan B". After a loong and bed bug biting journey of six hours, I was finally there. We had a ball of a time and managed to watch KANK (aka Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna...trust me I was repeatedly screaming out "Kabhi tho Alvida kaho"). The movie starts off with a pretty good note. Rani looks hot!!! and well I'm sure all the gals must've felt Abhishek was the "hot" one....I would know...there were four girls around me who kept oogling at him...and how would I know this...hehe...guess whom I was oogling at ;)
Trust Karan Johar to come up with a highly over budgetted fantasy movie in which everyone around lives in castles and works in high rises with the view you'd die for on a concept that well...at times is pretty controversial.
His first being the "love begins with friendship" which resulted in a massive turn of events for most guys and gals who were best friends...it took just 3 hrs and a lot of mushy mushy hindi dialogues and running around trees and playing basketball for them to realise they were in love! (Ref. Kuch Kuch hotha hain for more details). This time around we have a wild extra marital affair to talk about. There were parts of the movie i liked though...the first being Rani, the second being SRK being slapped (HARD!!) and the third, Abhishek's constant faint scenes. Now what's bad abt it? Well for once I thought SRK started doing something he was always good at...being the anti-hero and not the guy who everyone loves (Refer...uhm....ok i guess all his movies have a typical "Rahul" who's loved by everyone and he uses his masterpiece dual expressions in numerous permutations and combinations for a 3 hr movie) but I was disappointed...guess Karan Johar just didn't like the idea of keeping SRK upset so managed to end the movie with a moral that we should encourage extra marital affairs and infact once you divorce your betraying husband/wife, ensure that they meet and have a happy life together.
Oh well it was timepass so no issue :) Work is finally on the horizon with my boss having given me a bunch of stuff to get done by Thursday....kinda makes you feel important for a change..hehe I've got work after 10 months!!! yipeeeee!!!
Signing off for now....as I've just run out of topics to crib about...uhm i mean talk about :) catch u all laterz
Hey guys....hope I haven't dissapointed all of you with a very short post earlier. The orkut one ie. Been too busy trying to have a life and well just realised I didn't have one.
The past few weeks has been a world of changes. For one, I had a lovely birthday!!! For all my readers who don't know when that was, it was on the 5th of July. The day...rather night started off with my mom calling me up at 12 in the night...she sang me the birthday song while my roomies were busy plotting on methods to pick and kick me on the ritual "Birthday Bumps". Mom kept the phone with the last words being...tell your roomies not to hurt her little son....and yes they didn't listen! Bang Bang Bang and well there were many more, I just lost count. Finally they pick me up and wish me a happy birthday.....for the record, this was my first birthday when I got the bumps. Usually its the summer vacs or something like that and the Bumps are delayed till school reopens....uhm...well that kinda makes it worse though.
It was a lovely morning, Bangalore was smiling at me with its cool breezes and fresh (well almost fresh) air. Got calls from all over India, thanks to my friends being spread across geographies :) Ofcourse calls from family too. My orkut scrapbook was overflowing with messages and so was my mailbox. Thanks to my company's portal and orkut, everyone around remembered Shanim was born 23 yrs earlier on the same day.
As usual there wasn't much work and I kinda left off early to meet up with a friend. A real cool pal of mine...and well mind you, she's got a pinch that stings baaaaaaad!!! I ended up with a scar on my arm thanks to her....bet she's enjoying reading this. Got home a notch late after doing a bit of shopping for my sis and mom as I was heading home that weekend. And the surprises just didn't end, my roomies got me a cake from CCD and although it didn't last long and was more on my face than in anyone's stomach, it was absolute fun!
Getting back home for the weekend was all the better. My second sis, Sanee, managed to arrange for a Birthday Cake from the US! I got to cut a birthday cake with my eldest bro in law (his birthday falls a day before mine) with my family watching over and my cutest niece singing the Birthday song along with her mom, my sis, Saina :) This was probably best week home I had in a long time...and probably the best birthday too!
But well...life isn't just about happiness is it? Its been 23 yrs that I've spent in this world, and well I've been thinking....thinking a lot lately. Besides this blog and a bunch of smiles, I've achieved nothing! There's this huge void in me and I can't understand what its for.....and no its not the void that pops up everytime you breath in air....but something a lot more confusing. Everyday I wake up to the world with a joke on life, and well have been looking at my life as one big comedy show. The world and God as spectators, having a ball of a time seeing me make blunders every second. From the days when I forget to fill fuel on my bike and drag it for over 2kms uphill, to the days when I go to my manager and utter something utterly irrelevant, its been just a joke.....yep that's my life....a joke. I don't aim for anything, I don't look at myself doing something good, and I don't bother thinking of something to make this world a better place.
Guess its time something changed. Time I grew up..........time I thought of what I want in life....and time when I decided on ways to chase that dream of mine....
For all those who know me well....stop laughing!!! :) Fine so maybe I just can't grow up so might as well quit trying. I'm sure the day I get married, there would be a case against my parents for child marriage ;) A kid I am...and I guess its never gonna change
Its been ages since I penned down something and well I apologise for the same....was never in a mood to really write.
A few days back I was just browsing through a few of my pal's scrapbooks on orkut.com and well I was having a ball of a time laughing away. There are waaay too many ppl who are jobless in this world and this is just proving the same. But hey, they do deserve some credit, it does take a lot of courage to come up with the most corniest lines ever. I've picked up some of my favorites and am putting it up for you guys....Enjoy!
"To our dearest ministers, I'm pretty sure you ain't listening to us but what the heck...if you really want to do something, do something that would help our nation rather than rape it of its good. Bring in scholarships for those who do well, you want OBCs and SC/STs to get a bigger share, then give it in terms of scholarships rather than reservations. Remove our country's biggest hurdle, the caste system, once and for all. Its been over a thousand years and it still lingers in our nation, you are just making the whole system more concrete by doing this. Give aide based on the present financial status of the person rather than ancient castes which should no longer be relevant in our country!"
The year is 1947, our leaders stand proud and announce that the Republic of India is now a reality. No longer will we be ruled by a queen residing in an island nation over 7000 miles away, no longer will we have to listen like slaves to men and women from a different nation who claim to be our masters, and no longer will we be split up in the name of caste, colour or creed......or so they say!
A law was then put forward, to bring up those who suffered in the name of castes, by which Scheduled castes and Scheduled tribes were given priority in both education and jobs to help them climb up the ladder in a society they were long forgotten in. 59 years hence, we have politicians who believe everyone in the nation is now equally backward and handicapped and they too need help. The solution? Reservations for OBCs!
Isn't it time we woke up to reality and re-assessed where we went wrong? 59 years and things haven't changed? Doesn't that seem to ring alarm bells telling us we went sorely wrong assuming reservations were the answer. And yet its being implemented once more under the pretext that things will work out this time around. Come on! This ain't some sort of video game where all we have to do is move a dial and things just seem to work out. Real world scenarios ain't about just increasing or decreasing things, its about working out solutions, something our present politicians just run away from. Guess thinking is too hard a process for them..it would actually involve some work.
A recent interview of our HRD minister proves how incompetent our ministers are. The guy didn't know what percentage of the country are OBCs and yet he intends to increase reservations to a value much higher than the percentage of OBCs in the country! What's worse? Its just reservations...if you can't get a person to complete high school with good grades how can you expect him to study a course that even the best in the country end up dropping out of. Not stereotyping here, there are quite a few brilliant SC/STs and OBCs in our country and I'm proud to know many. Without competition however, they're minds are left to idle their way through education and pretty soon it will cover the job domain too. Are we really helping anyone in this context? I doubt it. Our minds excel only when placed in a situation when its challenged. If it isn't, we're just animals...or worse "bots"....we don't think, but just let others think for us.
The whole quota fiasco has now entered its second phase, job reservation in private firms too. Supposedly our Minister of Social..blah blah (I really don't care what they call her/him) had asked all private companies to implement reservations in their job recruitment practices. This will be monitored for 2 yrs and if it isn't implemented as they see fit, they will impose a law forcing them to do so. If this ain't a threat, I don't know what is! Freedom in our country seems to be a mirage at present. Equality... a distant dream....and what's worse? The opposition is quiet. They say the parliament is accountable to the people...yet I don't see that happening....
If this is Democracy..somebody please tell me what Dictatorship is please?
"Could you teach me a little bit of that subject. I can't seem to understand how we do that" he said and without hesitation she agreed. They moved to two empty seats in their college classroom and started engrossing themselves in intense studies. Exams are nearing and its not easy to mug up the whole course material without some help. An hour passed and suddenly the room fell empty. It was just them and then suddenly he held her hand and rubbed it around his body moving it closer to his privates. The girl was shocked and tears popped out of her eyes when she realised what her "friend" was doing. She pleaded through her tears to let her go and pulled her hand back but he wouldn't stop. He slowly moved his hand around her admist the tears and her pleas to let her go..."No...No!...Please Don't..." He wouldn't stop...and then he heard someone coming and let go off her and she fled.....her tears flew fiercer than a river during a flood but she couldn't complain for he had a girlfriend and she was too innocent at heart and couldn't hurt someone by telling her girlfriend how ruthless and pathetic he was. Time passed and the hurt girl continued with her life, suffering all the pain she had gone through and the incident just never leaves her, haunting her everyday as she sees him sitting on the other end of her class....tears escape her eyes everytime she thinks about it...yet she can't speak it out and ease her pain...
Why is this world so cruel???? Rape attempts happen all over the world every other day. These days 4 yr old kids aren't spared either....I had to learn that the hard way when one of my best pal's sister was raped and murdered. And the court of our beloved nation let them go 'coz they were juveniles! If I were the judge I'd probably put the kids into prison and put their parents in too. Are we guys that bad? Can't we think of anything besides sex in our lives and constantly abuse the fairer sex? Life just doesn't seem to be fair.
How many of you girls reading this can relate to incidents like pinching or fondling in public places by strangers around you? Or even further a casual touch on the wrong parts with all the wrong notions by guy friends of yours?...or worse...an attempt of something a lot more serious? Why haven't most of you voiced out your pain? Do you think the respect we have for you will die down 'coz of it? Get real ppl, its just gonna get better and we'd probably help you fight it. It took one of my friends 10yrs to tell her parents of being molested when she was a kid...I'm glad she did. Most don't and things just seem to get worse for them in their lives.
People often condemn my religion and its concept of Hijab. I'm no religious preacher but there's one part of the hijab that most of you might have not heard of. The first part of Hijab is meant for the guys and not for the girls. If a guy were to see a girl who is provoking his desires he should not look at her and keep his eyes down. The covering up for the girl and the scarf is the second part of the Hijab. Its funny how only the second seems to be practised now.
The world seems to be going to the dogs and nymphomaniacs....and I'm getting pissed with life 'coz of how many of my friends are being victims of such crazy acts.........
As I say..."Life's a Crazy MESSSS!!!"
After a lousy post...I'm back :) Apologies to all those who'd gone nuts over the last post...to tell you the truth, I have no idea what was going on, guess I was just disturbed...uhm....but then again, I always am....
Pepsi Cola, Pepsi TV and now Pepsi C.....uhm...naaa lets not get into that. That was a topic I had already talked about in Sam's blog. SRK seem to be on a roll now. He had a ball of a time with a number of chicks posing next to his nude body in the bathroom for Lux explaining how his skin's beauty was from it and now he's out as a couch potato in the Pepsi TV ad. Awesome concept I must admit, drink Pepsi and all channels become Pepsi TV...hmmm...do I see a lawsuit coming up? Enough of the guy who has just two emotions pasted on his face which he uses in a number of permutations and combinations to generate "sad, upset, happy, romantic, constipated, nausetic.." and various other emotions to perform award winning movies.......somebody please buy brains for all those jerks who actually judge for movie awards...they really need one and seem to have lost it after the last David Dhawan movie.....speaking of which...where is he???
Gangster, the music of which had blown me away, and the acting of the lead female which has kept me away from the theater for a while now. Alright I do admit, she has her good points...for one she dresses well..except in the hot scene with Emran will-scr*w-anything-that-moves Hashmi....wait...she wasn't really wearing anything then....aaah! The movie started off pretty good and I was hoping it would be a good one for a change...but I was disappointed. I expected more with all the hype going on about it. hmmm...but then again guess I was still all high after "Ice Age 2". The censor board must be pretty happy with all the E.H movies coming in, they really needn't watch it and just stamp in an "A" on the certificate. You can't expect him to go around in the movie without doing something to the lead female which would eventually lead to adultery right? Its against his way of life. He was born with just one mission in life...cause adultery and prove that there is absolutely no use of condoms...speaking of which...couldn't Kangna Raut think of protection? Come on..with the keep away from AIDS and soft drinks messages Pepsi has been giving out...someone's bound to notice!
There's a huge commotion about quotas these days in India. Some hilarious ones being, what if we had only OBC and SC/ST doctors treating politicians and blah blah....We are splitting our country and loads of other things...yep guys I'm very much against the quota system but seriously take a look around, we've been splitting up with every second of the day. Be it quotas in education, the income divide or even the never ending arguments between religion. One of our arguments led to us breaking up with our brothers and uhm...no i can't call them sisters...and ur bhabis ;) from pakistan! Its kinda shocking how the media there potrays our country to be blood hungry of all muslims and everyone in our country wants another country of their own. Hilarious statements keep coming around forums all over the internet about the same. I really can't understand what's with the hatred.
Getting back to quotas, ppl all around who don't seem to understand what the comotion is all about, well its something that's been in everyone's heads for a while now. I for one, am part of an OBC community and although I'd be the last person to be complaining, I'm not happy with the system where true competition is not being welcomed. We don't need you to keep aside a seat for us and the various other communities in India but what we need is a more sound education system and scholarships for those who perform well. This can be implemented with a higher regard to those who have greater challenges in their lives, which maybe physical, or monetary. The only reason why the whole caste system still seems to linger within the minds of everyone in our country is probably 'coz of the reservations that the earlier govts had introduced...something that needs to be wiped out at the earliest! Bring in more quotas and we're just gonna get all the more angry.
Well I'm signing off for now and shall be back with more later. For now, its Tata bye bye see you from me :)
I'd been on a short trip to my hometown this weekend and it was real good. Both dad and mom had come down for a vacation and being there felt great. But alas...good things never seem to last long and I had to return on a Sunday evening by the low-cost airline we call Air Deccan. Not really low-cost since I had to shed some Rs.2.9k on the flight tickets thanks to me being extremely late in booking. I realise now that procrastination doesn't really help.
Dad and mom dropped me off at the airport and my journey began. A quick walk through check-in and the security got me into the passenger waiting lounge...well obviously I don't like attracting too much attention while I travel, picked up my copy of the Alchemist, which a pal of mine recommended and forced me to try it out....(hehe rather advertised it well...Sheetal, you seriously ought to go in for marketing, coding ain't ur area of expertise..marketing surely is!)...alright so back to wat i was doing...took the book and pretended to read as I observed two real cute females who were flying along with me :) yep...I just can't concentrate on a thing...The reading never really worked there in the lounge...but hey it was an effort...
They finally asked us to board the aircraft. I don't think many of you have flown in Air Deccan, if you have...try skipping a few lines. We fly in ATRs from Trivandrum to Bangalore....all small sectors have tiny planes while the big ones like the flights between Mumbai and Bangalore have Airbuses. This is a aircraft's equivalent of a rickshaw. Ofcourse its not that bad, it does carry around 40+ passengers and is sufficiently spacious. It does have a low roof so I end up head banging quite a bit....and yes my bag never seems to fit in the overhead cabins.....speaking of which, that bag never fits in any airlines overhead cabins....someone remind me to get a new bag!
The plane being small doesn't have seats reserved as per your boarding pass...you just sit in any seat you like...more like the ol' cinemas in india where you run in the moment they open the doors and jump to your fav seat and book all seats around u for ur friends claiming that there are ppl sitting there (and argue like so "Can't you see...there are people there...to which the person sighs and moves on thinking as he does on how he missed seeing a human being on a seat!). Yep pretty much the same scenario with additional headbanging. So I finally pick a seat...thankfully a window seat...sadly on the wrong side of the aircraft...it faced the west and the sun was setting...the bugger didn't let me open my eyes till we decided to land....yeah i know we have the shutter there but hey...I wanted to observe nature's beauty...which again didn't make much sense since it was cloudy all the way.....now why didn't i put the shutters down....hmmmmm.....I really need to get my head checked!
After a long procedure of settling down and a take off later, I finally opened up the book, and this time started reading. Yep the girls were still there but they were beyond my vision owing to the poor design of aircraft seats...how I wish they were designed like trains :(
The book is about a boy who ventures out to the unknown to live his dream...a dream that told him of treasures on the other side of the world (well almost)...and how he worked his way there through all his troubles...walked away from the person whom he'd fallen in love with just to live that destiny and not spend his life regretting he hadn't tried. The book really moved me. And well it got me thinking. I can't seem to figure out what I dream of....what I aspire...my life has no definition. I live in the present, plan too much in the future and now I've realised, I've lost all creativity and along with it....my dreams. The boy...an educated shepherd leaves his family and prospective career to travel along with his sheep. His dream tells him his treasure awaits him much farther away and he persues his quest...leaving his sheep and his country to a strange unknown land where ppl speak an unkown tongue...crossing dangerous deserts and living through numerous miseries to live his dream......
"I may have left my family and my.....fine i don't have sheep, but well I've left my family and come into a strange land to persue a dream...which....i don't think belongs to me. I don't know what I dream of....I really don't know what I want..." Crrrrrk..."Ladies and Gentlemen, we are now approaching Bangalore Airport and will be landing in a short while...." That broke my thought and as I looked out I saw the beautiful city which I now call my own...I landed and I saw her...she smiled and there was a spark in the air (fine it was lightning but hey gimme a break...i need to add some pizzaz into the story)...we were moving onto the bus that took us to the terminal and a minor miscalculation in the trajectory of my bag's path as i put it down resulted in me almost hitting her.... A "Sorry" and a smile later she looked into my eyes....and returned the smile...stealing looks in between a crowd of ppl where there was barely a volume of space for a hungry mosquito to jump in on his buffet dinner...something seemed to be happening. We finally alighted at the terminal. I slipped...yep as usual...and managed to control my fall as she giggled at the sight. A slow walk into a smoked terminal (nope it wasn't on fire and there wasn't a guy trying to make the whole scenario more romantic by placing a fog machine but our dearest BMP had a wild idea of blowing in pesticide smoke all over the terminal....you could see numerous moqsuitoes running around trying to find the word exit written somewhere...i believe some where trying to help the others by flashing fireflies who appeared in the midst to assist in the easy evacuation...it was a depressing sight.....I was blinded and with all the might in my navigational skills found the baggage delivery area and the story goes on...). She stood a few feet away from me and chatted with her pal as I waited for my luggage...a few looks were exchanged...my bag appeared and the fog subsided...I moved off with a final smile and was off in a rickshaw to my apartment....
......and once again my quest to determine my dream was lost somewhere high up in the air never to return.....for a while atleast.
A whole five months have passed since I joined my company its been one hell of a ride. A good one at it :) After a month long training we were made to put our learnings to practice. This involved skills on kite flying, dancing, and screaming the hell out of our brains with the Rock Concerts followed by strenous physical torture on the basketball field, and the TT tables of the campus. The fun was short lived though. They had then realized that although our skills in the above were great, we were far from their desired requirements on the IT front. And poof...another training. And now another....which will be followed by another and another and another.....basically its just gonna go on till they are certain we have brains. Sigh....a never ending scenario in my case. Its what one would call an infinite loop.
Start -> Does Shanim have the required intelligence? -> * If yes, Place in project ; * If no, Place in training -> Add another training to list -> Repeat query, if no re-iterate, else case yes.
Basically I've never been able to reach the "case yes" criteria as of yet. Hence, I'm enjoying the training :) But hey I ain't complaining, I'm joining my time in the company, its an absolutely lovely place to be in, not just for the chicks, but for the work culture and every bit of the company. Uhm.....guess I haven't mentioned the company's name yet have I? Its none other than the third best IT firm in India, the Rainbow flowered Wipro Techonolgies :) The place to be in!
Last night I'd met up with one of schoolmates at Indranagar. Sundays do change the whole traffic scene in Bangalore. The roads are more or less empty, and I love riding around in my ever-loving CBZ then. A quick trip on the Inner Ring road and through CMH, I finally got to where we had decided to meet. "Cake Walk" was our destination but to our luck, it was full. We decided then to move onto the Cafe Coffee Day at CMH - Full again, 12th Main...full....100ft Rd....Full...finally after a long ride into Jeevan Bhima Nagar CCD we found a space to sit! Phew! And this is with Coffee Days ever few metres in Bangalore. I wonder what it would have been without them. hmmmm....yeah I guess the Barissta at Leela would overflow then. Oh well back to what I was getting at. We had this conversation that kicked off with the traffic at Bangalore and moved onto VAT and Power distribution in India (which according to a mag which he'd read is poor in india with approximately 50% loss in distribution alone!).
What got most of my attention was his conversation on the traffic scenario. Its true, Bangalore does have its share of good roads, why it has good roads all over and not just in select regions but the catch? All roads lead to Rome they say, in Bangalore, its more like "All Roads lead to a galli". Wide roads that have over 3 lanes suddenly disappear into tiny half laned roads with the same volume of buses, cars and ricks plying. Its more like a funnel trying to stuff in as many cars as possible to their destinations (A good example beng the Inner Ring Road as you head towards Koramangala). What more, we have a junction or a traffic signal every few metres, on an avg 500m apart. Yep, these are the reasons for our gridlocks.
"What about Hosur Road?" would be your question. Yep that was mine too :) Local traffic and the devious plan on BMTC to place all bus stops immediately after a junction! We spend over 10 minutes waiting for all the bikes, ricks and tempos to cross over in a junction...say in Singasandra and just as we assume the road has been cleared for movement, a BMTC/Tamil bound bus decides to stop and take in passengers, taking in not just the hard shoulder but the left lane to prevent anyone from moving ahead.
For the first time, I seem to see a solution in the right direction by our govt. They're off to build an elevated highway. But what I can't seem to understand is that why couldn't they think of this ages earlier? Did they really have to wait this long?? Bangalore, 5 yrs ago was probably the best place to be in...lovely roads, great weather, beautiful green promenades, shady trees, sparkling lakes and the works! Now, when you think of Bangalore, you think of cars, bikes, cars, bikes and more cars, and dust all around. A prayer goes out to all those who decide to take the Hosur Road to work (Electronic City ie.) for we may not know which Hosur bound/Wipro/Infy bus or truck would run over him. Quite a contrast won't you all agree?
The world hasn't really ended and there's always a second chance, lets just all pray that things do get better and the present HDK govt. keep their word on bringin back the Bangalore that we all once knew to be the "Green City of India"
A long conversation with a friend made me realise how narrow minded the whole world is....
It all started with a lousy forward which involved a kid's hand being run over by a vehicle all 'coz he had stolen food. The blame was targetted on Islam and the muslims who enforced the punishment on the poor kid. Kinda shocked me actually, seeing such a forward was nothing near amusing and I still can't understand why the acts of fundamentalists end up being blamed on the religion. I responded (yep the idiot that I was...i actually did) by saying that it was not the religion but the idiots who felt their religion preached violence and nonsense. This resulted in a huge debate on how that person's religion (not mentioning names or religion) was superior to others. Ok, it kinda got far and I had this lousy taste in my mouth at the end of the day....
First and foremost, I'm no orthodox believer of my religion, but the essence of my religion or any religion for that matter is nothing but love. Impart love, do good and be good. Although all religions seem to impart the same thing, why do we argue over the fine prints of the religion and make a big issue of the same? Does any1 have a clue on this?
I'm an Indian. A land where almost a zillion religions (literally) survive together and our laws promote secularism. But hey its not like we don't have our share of problems, we have our Muslim Leagues, VHPs and a billion other extremists who test the country's secularism but hey...wats the deal?? Why bother with such lousy arguments?? Life has better things which are far more important than religion. What makes a billion ppl around the world argue on religion and make a big deal out of it i can't seem to understand. Take a look at the US for example. All muslims according to them are extremists Jihadi terrorists. And this about a religion that talks about love for all humans.
Sigh...oh well this is more or less a lousy topic, but I just had to get some steam out. Oh well...sorry guys, shall get some better topic next time around..
Hey ppl...yep i know its been a while since I last posted something significant...so let me attempt something :)
Last evening was great...barring the cold that I caught in the night walking around in the terrace of my flat...yep I was nuts to walk around in the cold for about half an hour doing practically nothing..but hey...we are talking about Shanim here...let me get back to what I was trying to bring out here..."Rang De Basanthi" happened yesterday...roughly translated as "Give me color Basanthi"....if I've made a bunch of heads spin in confusion by what I just said its a movie guys and a really good one at that! Alright so I'm gonna give you an idea of what the movie is...India has a wonderful history, a history that most of us are proud of, on how we managed to get the British colonists out of our nation after a 200 years struggle....and what worked was non-violence. Our freedom fighters did a great job by sacrificing everything they had just to give us the world's largest multi party democracy.....but what we are with right now is not a democracy, but more of a democrazy...
The movie brings out the patriot in us, the guy who sitting behind most of our heads wondering why we are doing nutty things and screwing up our nation instead of actually doing something to make it the best in the world. And we needed a bunch of kids to come out into a revolution and kill a minister in the movie to awaken us. But guys...seriously, is that the solution? Killing a bunch of politicians? Yeah...all you end up with is a name that you are a terrorist and a traitor to the nation.
True we are in a country of free speech and a lot of things along with that, but free speech just causes more confusion to an already confused nation. We have corruption out here that reaches all the way from the roadside beggar to the journalists who bring us most of the news. Wouldn't want to speak too much about our journalists, they seem to be running out of topics to talk about that they've actually come up with some of the most hilarious reasoning for issues that pertain our lives here (with reference to some guys working off TOI). Hey I ain't saying the whole country is a mess, but we have our share....and we have our share of greatness....thank you NDTV for bringing the best out of journalism in india.
There have been a billion and one comments about me complaining of everything under the sun. Why do I do that you ask? Well I'm frustrated. Our country doesn't deserve the treatment we give it. Our country would probably be the only country in the world who's so obsessed with everything and anything that comes with a sign that says "foreign". In a country like Britain, they shy away from all products that are not "British"...some of which aren't half as good as the foreign counterparts...I know of many restaurants out here in India that actually charge you tenfolds for something that has imported written on it. What's with us?
Now this would get me a free visa into the world of Shiv Sena and the million others who talk about patriotism and swadeshi blah blah. Hey I don't believe in that. We need all the foreign influence we can get in our country, 'coz that's the best way to learn and work on our own. As an example, look at the car industry...if it wasn't for competition from the likes of Toyota and Honda, we wouldn't have seen a Mahindra Scorpio....or for that matter a Bajaj Pulsar (one of the best bike in india purely designed in India...atleast I was told that). What we guys lack is the drive to do anything in the country we call our own.
Where have we made the mistake? Blame the govt...they don't do anything for us....i beg to differ, they've given us education, good (atleast some) roads, freedom to do anything we want...even get to the parliament and scream out our views or spit on the roads and get away with it. If there is any1 to blame it would be us, our education and everything else.
We have been told, from the moment our minds can recognise an apple from an orange, that the world in india can be taken for granted. And our minds are moulded to mug up anything and everything that has the word 'Text' on its title. We haven't really given the oppurtunity or the freedom to think for ourselves. I remember when I was a kid, I had written an answer for an exam on my own with the end result more or less the same as what was written in my classwork note book (yep we had a bunch of questions which were pre determined as important by our gurujis in school) and I was scored low for the same. When I had asked for a feedback from my teacher on the same, the response was that it wasn't the same answer as that in the classwork book.....come on!!!!! Thankfully my lecturers and teachers in the later years were the kind who encouraged me to think and bring on my own thoughts in the books rather than a bunch of nonsense in our texts...
So where have we lost it? We have lost our imagination. Even the IT industry that our country is so proud of is doing more or less the same. The prime of our imagination is when we have just joined a company fresh from college....when management jargon hasn't taken over our minds and what are the jobs we are alloted? I'm sure most of you would agree when I say its either documentation or some unworthy jobs....thankfully I haven't yet been put into a project so I can't really say where I'm headed. Everyone in our country is here to jeopardize our imagination and they are pretty much succeeding in the same.
Oh well...I may just never end with my cribbing....but someday I hope...I too would be able to leave a mark on my nation and the world as many in our country have.......someone like a Bose maybe....or uhm....Sabeer Bhatia? Oh well...life's just begun...I'll get there....
Peace out ppl
