Righto!

Righto, as Tony Greig would say , I leave home for Delhi for a new one all over again! HT Media beckons...
This blog will lie low for a couple of weeks while I get my bearings right in Delhi. Meanwhile, all those who keep dropping by (few and far as they may be...), thank you and good on ya mates!:-)

I leave you with the words of David Gilmour's Learning To Fly... Another ripper of a song from the Pink Floyd stable. All I can say is that it comes quite close to expressing what I am thinking these days...

"Into the distance, a ribbon of black
Stretched to the point of no turning back
A flight of fancy on a windswept field
Standing alone my senses reeled
A fatal attraction holding me fast,
How can I escape this irresistible grasp?

Cant keep my eyes from the circling skies
Tongue-tied and twisted just an earth-bound misfit, I.

Ice is forming on the tips of my wings
Unheeded warnings, I thought I thought of everything
No navigator to guide my way home
Unladened, empty and turned to stone
A soul in tension thats learning to fly
Condition grounded but determined to try

Cant keep my eyes from the circling skies
Tongue-tied and twisted just an earth-bound misfit, I."

Some lyrics huh? :-)

Migration Express

It’s hard to restrain your forever migrating thoughts. Atleast I seem be to have little control over mine. Often I begin to write about a theme or an incident and by time I have it complete, it turns out to be vastly different from what I’d begun with. Hence I am trying to make this one a little different. I guess, in this post, I will record the few things I’ve thought about writing in the last couple of days. It's gonna be a thorough potpourri or as I would like to believe an experiment... :-)

Most of us must’ve read/heard that actresses are dumb. I, for one, seldom believe in anything that I haven’t evidenced myself. However, I was presented with enough proof of the actresses-are-dumb theory on the talk show “Face the Music” hosted by Vir Sanghvi (VS) on NDTV.
He was interviewing Neha Dhupia (ND), an ex- Miss India and film actress.

VS: So which political party do you prefer?
ND: Well…actually I might seem dumb when I say this and I know it is but you know…
VS: Ah well…come on, say it!
ND: Well… I think …the Congress cos you know …it sounds “cooool” compared to the B.J.P.

How, I mean, how?
But thanks ND. That’s the dumbest thing I have heard in some time. Nevertheless, VS is brilliant on that show. He brings together a motley group of guests and anchors the show with effortless ease. This week he had ND, Scindia Jr. , a fashion designer and a band called Medieval Pandits on the show. That he can carry a conversation with four distinct groups of people and evoke a few laughs is creditable. For the record, VS also happens to be the Editorial Director of the English Newspaper division of the company I am about to join. :-)

I came across this interesting blog called warfornews on Blogger. Its anonymous owners post intra-office gossip and official e-mails from within leading English news channels in India on the blog. They call themselves spies and going by the number of people who comment on it, it seems to be creating more than just a few flutters. It’s just the kind of blog that will make any of those News Channels stand up and take notice. It’s a cliché but it’s true for this blog: You may love it or hate it but definitely can’t ignore it!
Reading it made me think maybe these chaps were a little harsh on CNN-IBN but I realized later that these guys seem to be quite unbiased and detached from all the 3 news channels. Well, I say only 3 channels cos even these chaps failed to produce any dope from Headlines Today.

Meanwhile the other day, Jerry Seinfeld’s numb response got me thinking. This was Season 6 I think.

Elaine: I have a dinner date with Jeff today.
Jerry: Isn’t he your friend? You know, you shouldn’t go for these dates with your friends. They kinda mess things up later.
Elaine: Atleast it’s more interesting than what you’d end up doing in your apartment reading a comic book or watching a game and eating spaghetti at 2 in the morning
Jerry: Umm…

If I were Jerry in that one episode, I would have responded with the calm air of a David Blaine. “Well do not forget, I choose to watch the game and prefer it over a dinner date any day!”

I have spent the last 6 weeks at home watching some sport or other on television or reading late in the night. Munching chips or biscuits at 2 a.m. and walking around the house had become a daily vocation at home. I think I will greatly miss it once I start working. Probably that’s why; I took offence to Jerry’s silence to Elaine’s condescending comment. Incidentally, it’s 2: 42 a.m. by my ThinkPad right now and I am watching India beginning to make a mess of a petty chase against W.I.
And Elaine if you listening, I repeat: Sports over Dinner Date any day!
Tennis, NBA, F1 , Football, Cricket, Fencing even Kabaddi, just any sport, bring ‘em on! I love it!!!

I happened to see “My Wife’s Murder” and I must say I was impressed. I like simplicity and realism in movies and this one had both. Capped with impeccable performances by Anil Kapoor and Boman Irani, the movie had a nice storyline and Jijy Philip has done an excellent job as a director. At the same time it also saddens me how such movies never fare well at the B.O and something like a “No Entry” does well! It also got me thinking a bit. When those criminals who have families are arrested, what becomes of their children? Do we have a system which ensures that such children are provided decent education and food?

Let me move on. I once saw a play directed by Anurag Kashyap starring Tom Alter who was playing the role of God. The play was called “When God said Cheers!” and I couldn’t have agreed more to some of the dialogues in the play. The play had only one other major character who wanted to know the reason for his existence. It was a war of words between these two characters and it left me a little fishing in the end with disparate thoughts.

I sometimes take time to just reflect on how I intended my life to be and whether it is going in the right direction. I don’t know if you have ever done this but it turns out to be an excruciatingly painful exercise. You seldom find answers to the questions you ask yourself. For instance, what exactly is the right direction in my life, or let’s say in your life?
Isn’t it a little surprising that while we don’t know what exactly we want, yet we feel perfectly comfortable telling others what they should become?

“I know Raj. He’s really good and he should become a journalist.”

How often have you spoken or heard similar statements? I myself have passed such judgments on other people. Does it mean that when it comes to understanding ourselves we are rather weak because we can hardly figure it out but we seem to know what others should be doing?

I can say at no point was I sure of myself regarding choices of careers, subjects or even people to hang around with. I wanted to be a cricketer once and a basketball player some time later. That gave way to an actor, then a priest, a consultant, an entrepreneur and for some time a journalist too. In between I even harbored thoughts of becoming a Client Servicing Director, a Film Director and in a rather imprudent state of mind an Area Sales Manager.

I mean , I have my own few dreams but...
And then there's the classic clash between 'following your passion' and 'the fear of the unknown'...

At different points in time I had convinced myself that each among those above professions was the best for me and yet I didn’t know. Even today, though I have narrowed my options to a very few, I still don’t know. I took the example of careers here because for a 23 -year old there can hardly be anything of seemingly greater importance but I have tried extending this logic to whatever I do and to put it simply, I seem to be a little ignorant of myself. Most of us only convince ourselves to do a certain set of things. Why? Nobody knows…

While eminent philosophers, thinkers and intellectuals have, over the years pondered over “Who am I”, I, an insignificant speck of dust in this Milky Way, am left mulling over “Why am I?”

You know sometimes, when you reflect and you get in a spot of bother over these uncomfortable questions, some thing within begins to pull you in two different directions. One pushes you to keep asking those uncomfortable questions and in doing so, reach those answers .And the other pulls you away and tells you to let go off such questions. Life is taking care of itself, it tells you, just move on!

Which one among those is the right way to go? Will I ever know?

Poison with Karan

I despise Karan Johar.

I used to think Karan Johar as a director is dull and would never progress beyond ending all his movies with SRK delivering the climax with quivering lips laced with a piteous mishmash of a twisted nose, glycerine-d eyes and trembling hands.

In fact, if an e-mail forward doing the rounds is to be believed, even his forthcoming film’s ending has SRK delivering the climax which means I see hardly any scope for improvement in the needlessly mawkish technique that Karan Johar employs in his movies. For a change though this time, maybe SRK’s Mom would hear his oncoming footsteps through the earphones of the Nano I-pod that she would’ve plugged in her ears. Since the Indian public at large seems to love it, so be it; no qualms.

What I do have a problem with is Karan Johar, the person. And I am not referring to his sexual preferences. Twice on television, he has projected himself as a pompously pathetic loser who hasn’t learnt a lesson about grace and dignity ever in his entire life.

This was a couple of months back when Anisha Baig (AB) , an NDTV correspondent was doing a round of interviews with models around at the Lakme India Fashion Week(LIFW) in Delhi. Karan Johar had been asked a few questions and just while AB was beginning to ask a question to a fashion designer beside KJ, KJ snatched the mike away from AB and claimed in his hopelessly squeaky voice “I’m better than you at this cos I do it regularly in my show, so let me ask the questions”.
It was an absurd moment on Live Television. Since, it wasn’t my business to ponder on the level of comfort that AB and KJ have with each other, I pushed the thought aside that KJ was rude to AB right there despite the fact that the incident would’ve left a bad taste with any sane viewer.

But what happened today sealed that wandering thought from LIFW into confirming my belief far beyond the slightest shade of doubt that Karan Johar is an absolute asshole. He isn’t even one of those borderline cases who could be considered being accorded with the status of ‘benefit of doubt’.

Karan Johar is simply an utter burden of conceited trash of stinking pulp on the face of this planet. This is what was televised on a programme called Night Out on NDTV from the Cannes Film Festival today.
PZ is for Preity Zinta, who was with KJ:

PZ (to AB): Hey, I was looking for you.
AB: Ah, we came in after the Red Carpet.

KJ: Oh how is that possible? How come you weren’t there at the Red Carpet? (Okie, maybe this was KJ’s well meaning concern for AB but read what follows and you get a better idea)
AB: I mean, how could we?

KJ: (with a downright derisive tone) Oh, you should’ve come there…why wouldn’t they allow you? They allow us! (Giggle) (If she could, wouldn’t she come? And doesn’t KJ know the Red Carpet in Cannes wouldn’t be for journalists, least of all for someone from an obscure channel called NDTV!)

AB: Umm… Err…

KJ: I see you’ve worn a red dress yourself. You could’ve rolled it as a carpet and walked all over it. (Squeaky guffaw)

AB: (Silent and points the mike to PZ, who continues laughing along with KJ)
AB: (Finally after a bout of uncomfortable silence, with a heavy smile) Leaving aside my wardrobe, your suit looks good!

KJ: (With a pompous air of a hopeless wreck!) It’s linen, my dear and perfectly suited for this weather. (Is that the way to respond to a compliment from someone whose dignity you are yet to acknowledge? He had a chance right there to redeem himself but it seemed he’s never been anywhere close to examples of etiquette and modesty)

AB is neither a cousin nor a dear friend. And I am not getting a dime from her or NDTV to write all this. I was just another viewer watching a sham of an interview with supposedly one of India’s top directors. At which AB was trying her best to be a professional and KJ was hell bent on taking advantage of the very fact that on camera AB can’t raise a word in protest or respond in a way she deems fit to KJ’s ludicrous demeanor. After all, she was representing NDTV and not herself.

Somewhere in both those interviews, there seemed a streak in KJ that did not respect the professionalism displayed by AB and I thought it sucked!

I don’t expect Karan Johar to do a Scorcese or a Kubrick or a Woody Allen tomorrow. He has his own style of movie-making and a good number of people in India acknowledge or maybe even respect that style. If that still doesn’t make him realize how he should atleast begin to respect people in other professions, I don’t know what will…

Not only is it disappointing to see a celebrity behave in such an imprudent manner but also downright nauseating.
This was also not my original theme for my post either but I could'nt resist.

Jacks, Aces and Queens

I had been thinking about writing this one since a long time. It’s like one of your special suits that you would wear only if the boss who is supposed to promote you would invite you to dinner. Like one of the very few leg breaks that Kumble has in his repertoire or like one of the few legal deliveries Murali has in his armory.

This one’s a selected collection of the memoirs of my encounters with women. The endeavor is simply to unearth some of their mannerisms, recall some of the excruciatingly painful occasions when their sheer stupidity left me speechless and provide a handful of caveats for the simple and humble men-folk who’ve been traumatized to unfathomable depths of agony by women-kind since times immemorial. (Did you just notice? ‘Women’ and ‘kind’ did not sound nice together…) .

First of all, a quality that I detest in all women is their mushy, over-sentimental and overflowing love for kids of all ages. Picture this. You are taking out your gorgeous lady to a friend’s engagement and there is this supposedly cute new born doing the rounds at the party. No sooner have you walked in, that you are unexpectedly delimited by an entire brigade of women of different shapes and sizes because your lady has , out of nowhere, gone and picked up this little terrorist in her arms.“Aww.. shoooo cuuteeee”. Bang, comes the first salvo, followed by a barrage of similar such intonations , stretching each syllable in every word to follow and conjuring voices that resemble the sighs and cries of the wild. These women giggle and squirm, right in front of you with the joy of a flock of sheep who have just discovered an acre of their favorite grass to chew. The sight is quite unnerving to the most valiant of men.

I have never understood this undying fascination of women with kids. We men love our dogs yet none of us perform those rituals or exhibit those emotions I have just tried to capture. And doubly never so, may I add, in public. I don’t think men have half this fascination with kids, and those who do, simply toe the line of their betrothed. Confronted with a choice of either being seen as single or seen in the society as warm babies-loving men, our folk reluctantly accept the latter.

Next comes my failed research on the study between common sense and women. The results have thrown into sheer disarray all past theories of correlation, regression and all similar noteworthy statistical tools. These frightful discoveries have made renowned software makers Microsoft delve into the field of Statistical Software for the first time because the startling results have opened up an entire new market altogether. Have you ever noticed that how in a discussion, the first sign that a woman is nearing the end of her reasoning or logic, is not an acknowledgement of the same but the carefully placed punctuation of an exasperated, spiritless and sometimes nasal “Whatever….”. I don’t know of any weapon in recorded history that can counter their “Whatever...”

While I am on the topic of phrases, two more such powerful “Phrases of Men’s Destruction (PMD)” come to my mind. Right after they have unleashed a “…Whatever”, they do get a sinking feeling that they have been upstaged in the debate and women being women can’t just let things be. Can they? So they release another of those Here-I-am-listen-to-me-and-agree-blindly attempts and this one begins with: “Honey… ”. That sound, I can tell you my friend, is the first seemingly innocuous whisper of a mega-ton nuclear blast of nonsensical logic to follow, a sure sign of the impending doom of your mental faculties.

I could also never fathom how women and women alone could have the sense of moral and social responsibility to enquire about all and sundry. This , you realize when she begins her concern with the quintessentially intruding “Listen. Is it true…?” …All she wants to know is who that acquaintance of yours, whom you waved a genial Hi from a distance in that rain, approximately 5 months back , is going around with. This question, I have faced from women belonging to different status’ (Do we have a plural for status?). Spinster, Married, Just-broke-up, Just-broke-up-and single, Committed, all kinds have asked me this, about someone or the other.

Another phenomenon that I have found bafflingly inexplicable in women is their explicit denial or inability of the desire to love sports. Is it just my bad luck or is it a general rule of nature that women genetically aren’t programmed to understand and truly enjoy various sports like Cricket, Basketball and Football? On this planet, is there one and just one Sonali Chander? Give a man his daily dose of sport and you win his heart, pancreas and diaphragm. We don’t need to go to parties, malls, parks or multiplexes for our limited needs of entertainment. A television and a couch is all we need. Unpretentiously simple, I say!

Now once you are supposedly dating a girl there also happens to be this unstated and rather cold undercurrent of her ego. That you and only you have to face and that very germ called ‘ego’ always prevents her from making that daily stupid call that people dating each other keep making each other n number of times a day. And when you do take that apparently trivial step to call her, it inevitably boils down to the girl blasting you in the shrillest and
devilish of voices: “How the hell you didn’t call since so long?”
Has any well-meaning, civilized , elegant man ever ventured or deviated ever so slightly to even respond to that by retorting in whisper : “Err...What the hell were you doing all this while?"

Speaking of phone calls, I have observed those people in a relationship frequently call each other every couple of hours. I wonder how the conversation must progress:
Guy: Hey... What’s happening?
Girl: Heey… I told you right; we are going to Pune today. We are on our way.
Guy: Great. Let me know how it goes tomorrow.

A couple of hours later…

Girl: Hey…what’s happening? We’ve stopped for a break on the outskirts of the city.
Guy: Oh Okie… Will call you at night. Busy now.

An hour later:
Girl: Heey... Guess what?

At this point the guy remembers all he can to know about the city of Pune, maybe his girlfriend saw the famous monkey, or maybe she met someone famous and finally confesses in a hushed tone.
Guy: Umm...I don’t know. You tell me honey!
Girl: We reached!!! I

Inane might be a nice word to describe this syndrome but I guess it deserves something more hard hitting like maybe a ridiculously dim-witted attempt to appease your partner. Sometimes it gets me thinking how the conversation progresses further or does it? I have seen a number of these couples. These are the few instances when I think even the guy has gone out of his mind.

Nevertheless let me return to my subject for this post. I once took out a 26 year old lady (this one’s for all who believe that women are the more matured…) for shopping in Bangalore and we went to each and every apparel showroom (Weekender, Lee, Proline, Nike, Adidas and even the roadside vendors got a look-in) on M.G. and Brigade Road. Those familiar with the contours of the city would know that not only these two streets have more apparel showrooms within a space of less than a square kilometer than any other city in India but that these streets are also awfully crowded on weekends. Our sojourn must have taken us nothing less than five hours and after all those tried tops and trousers (… and even a pair of socks I think!) she didn’t buy ,forget a top, even a single shred of cloth… We broke up the next day!

And lastly I would like to know why women feel uncomfortable in silence and have to come up with something like a “Say something…” (PMD #4 or 5?) at that exact point when you have pressed the play button in the deck with the CD of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and you begin to think that you are finally getting to cherish her company.
You know, just at that exact point of time…

Women… Duh! For the time being bring on the beer and turn up the volume!
Spurs playing Kings on ESPN!
Cheers!

P.S.
Firstly: Ladies and Gentlemen who have made it thus far.No offence please. All in good humour... :)
Secondly: Inspired by fellow blogger and PG-ite, Mukund. Also known by the alias of Darth Midnightmare… :)

When will I learn?

I think there’s a beauty to knowing something new, delving into something unexplored and learning about something that you have never seen, heard or felt before. That’s why I have half a mind to do a PhD. someday in Contemporary Theater or Behavioral Science or maybe even Victorian Literature… (Yeah, I made that last one up…:D. Someday if some of us bloggers do go onto write for magazines or newspapers, I wonder how we would make our readers realize the occurrence of a joke or the failed attempt of one, without these irresistible smileys. Would we stand any chance with the editor? )

Nevertheless, when I was at SPJIMR we had a programme called ADMAP. Different brochures had offered different expansions of that acronym and since the ADMAP brochure itself has been in WIP since the last six years, we shall never actually know what it stood for. I am wont to believe though since I was personally involved in this committee that it stood for Assessment and Development of Managerial Aptitude and Potential. (Readers from SP are welcome to give me feedback on the different versions that they have heard of…). The concept of ADMAP was to simply take learning beyond the classroom. The first time I heard it, I was fascinated for I had always believed that the classroom learning is shoddily inadequate. All throughout school and college tomes of unnecessary bits of knowledge are shoved down our throats and we are required to barf it out in the exams that follow there from. I believe that education should apart from other things impart skills that lead to employability and if that is not a natural progression, our education system fails us somewhere.

A recent MeriT Trac survey conducted in 17 different cities states that only 1 in 10 graduates (Engineers included) who apply to BPOs are ‘employable’ and that the demand for quality personnel is already outstripping supply. As a result, companies are now even looking to recruit even under-graduates.

Now, there are further two aspects to it. If under-graduates do go on to make a mark in these BPOs , there is a likelihood that they are likely to drop their education further since they see easy money in a relatively easier manner. I am not saying all of them will but what they see is difficult to let go off. I myself have been in two world-class BPOs and apart from the fact that there is a fairly decent looking crowd of opposite sex around you, ( never mind their IQ levels…) there is good food on campus , pick-up and drop to your doorstep and a decent and an assured five-figure salary that’s credited to your ATM account every month. Add to it , your own cabin with a desktop in a swanky workplace that’s air-conditioned and serves unlimited soup ,tea or coffee and it’s an enviable job that you have on your hands.

Now picture a 17-year old in Bhubaneshwar (or any Tier-2 city) who has just finished his Senior Secondary exams and tell me which of these above benefits, would you say, will not appeal to this guy. He will see a world full of opportunities and try to convince everyone around him that he doesn’t need further education. Now, well meaning parents don’t have an option here but likely to counter the arguments of the son with one of the following clumsy arguments.
“BPOs are sweatshops”
“No work happens in BPOs, beta. They are sleazy places”
“How will we tell anyone that you are working in a call-center?”

Let’s take this story further. Now, 9 of those 10 graduates who don’t see themselves ‘employable’ suddenly find themselves competing with not only their own batchmates from Commerce, Arts, Science and Engineering but also from a whole new stream of undergraduates. And a feasible option that they see to wriggle out of this situation is for them to fudge their existing resumes and get those same jobs. So much so that the IT industry has even coined a new term - "padding" for the now prevalent practice of resume faking. We have been a country laced with scams and probably this was one time when the denizens themselves decided to go for the kill.

Let’s say, now a company called X, which until now was only too convinced that India is the hub of Outsourcing, stumbles upon a drop in productivity levels because they have either employed those undergraduates or those employees who have fudged their resumes. This company sees the demand-supply gap and decides to go in for no further investment in India and takes the first flight to Philippines, China or Hungary.

India, as all of us would like to believe is at the cusp of a corporate revolution and make no mistake it was kick started by the BPO Industry and is likely to be sustained by it for atleast the next five years. A chap from the senior management of a BPO once told me that BPOs will revolutionize the purchasing power of the non-engineering graduates, in the manner IT industry did for engineers. Prophetic!

If my fictitious story above comes true even in patches, there is a good probability that the climax would be as tragic and we would have our in-classroom lectures after lectures of boredom to blame. I can say for a fact that nothing that I learnt in my B.Com helped me get those jobs at those BPOs. In hindsight, nothing would have, I guess. The only thing that I did right was to do a bit of reading, keeping a tab on general awareness and meeting new people at inter-college fests. That’s precisely why I have a lot of faith in those Inter-College Debates, Quizzes Jam sessions ,Sports competitions and Art festivals that overtly seem waste of time but they are the ones that promote a process of thinking in your minds. Burdening those impressionable minds with the Directive Principles of State Policy, The Securities Contracts Regulation Act and the Indian Banking Act is, just not the answer to quality education.

While on the subject of Banking, we had this curly-haired professor (..All right that’s not a good distinction because every Keralite is, but he wasn’t worth a space in my memory anyway) who would religiously march into the class and launch into his absolutely stinker of a drone of a voice to give us notes on Banking. There is not a single new thing that I learnt that I didn’t know when he was teaching us that. I mean a VII Standard kid would know all that too! What I find amusing today is how, if we missed a word of his daily address while furiously writing, we would frantically look into our neighbor’s notebook to complete our education for that lecture. Then we had a subject called Capital Markets dealing with stocks. That should have been one heck of an interesting subject but this professor.. Well honestly speaking I don’t even remember his teaching style. Sad eh! Considering he spent an entire year coming to our class and my memory fails me even though I haven’t had any bout of amnesia in the recent past. I guess that just about speaks how significant his role in my college education was. What I do remember though is our XII standard trip to the Cochin Stock Exchange. That was education.

I rest my case.

A Question of Art

Three days! This was a first.

He could hardly remember a time when she had taken this long to call him. On a regular day it would never take even three hours before his cell would ring a familiar tune with the screen reading “Sonia calling”. He could almost predict it. Sometimes when predictability decides to go in for a siesta, one’s at a loss.
What was taking her this long?

He had sparred with her parents long back and there was no way he could call them to find out her whereabouts. She wasn’t responding to his messages either. Her cell seemed to be incessantly busy too. They had seldom mailed each other before but in desperation yesterday evening he had even mailed her and there hadn’t been a reply.

“Damn.” , he said to himself “Even when one has so many options to communicate...”

Sonia had shifted to Delhi for her Masters in Architecture only a few days back and he didn’t know anyone in Delhi he could call.

It was a rainy evening in Mumbai and Rajesh took a deep sigh. They say your life flashes before your eyes before you breathe your last and Rajesh could now see the days of his courtship with Sonia of the last 4 years in front of his eyes.
He never believed in love at first sight but this shook his belief. They had come seeking admission to the J.J School of Arts on the same day. They stood in the queue for only twenty minutes to collect their forms but Rajesh kept glancing at her. He wanted to ask her name but couldn’t bring himself to speak to her. He actually quite liked the way she walked- long confident strides, brisk and chin-up. He used to follow body language as a hobby and he knew this was one heck of a confident lady.

He was quite happy on the first day of college for he wasn’t expecting to see her. After all there were some seventy-five people in that queue that day and for 2 weeks J.J School of Arts has such queues from morning till evening. Fat chance. He had convinced himself that he was never going to see her again. But then inspite of all theories of probabilities – there could’ve been only two outcomes. And this was a favorable one.

They took a good 10 months before they actually started going out. She was the prettiest in the college and he knew it. He almost flaunted it in front of his friends. “You could be Tom Cruise and yet you would struggle to find someone like Sonia”, he used to tell his friends. Sometimes he even wondered if she would leave him for someone else. No one who saw them together though would doubt their fidelity for each other. They were inseparable all through the last two years in college.


He liked the way she used to glance at him during classes. Those eyes that never spoke a word yet conveyed an epic treasure of desire. Those lips that moved in a hushed whispering tone with those words he wanted to hear again and again in a class mid-way discussing Gothic architecture…

He was brought back to reality rather abruptly with the conductor announcing “Ghatkopar ala”. He alighted and the thought that had been bothering him the entire day returned… How could she not call him in three days? He should have done something today. Maybe he should have called her institute. Maybe even book tickets to Delhi. It was 9:50 p.m. by his watch now. It was late and he was tired too. His boss had given him two extra sketches to complete because a colleague had taken ill.

Rajesh had taken up work at a small architectural firm in Mumbai after graduation while Sonia wanted to complete her Masters before looking out for a job. While Rajesh always believed that the best way to learn was to work on-the-job with paper and pencil, Sonia was quite the opposite. She reveled in burying herself all day in books authored by past masters and perfectionists. This institute in Delhi that she went to was hugely respected in the student community and to get an admission there was one of her dreams come true. They even celebrated in grand style with champagne and a candle-lit dinner at “The Renaissance.” They had begun early at 7:00 p.m. He paused for a moment and smiled. It was quite a night. Her friends Archana and Bobby had also joined in later that night for the dinner.

“Archana.. I could call her.” .It struck him now.
Archana was Sonia’s friend from college. He convinced himself that this would be a good time to catch up and he could also slip in to ask if she knew about Sonia’s whereabouts. He hadn’t spoken to Archana for over six months now. “Truth be told, I don’t even know what she’s upto these days”, he muttered to himself. Hesitatingly he searched for her number in the cell.
“Ah there it is. Thank God”
“Archana… Hey...Whassup? Rajesh here… Are you about to hit the bed?”

The conversation went on for a good five minutes before he could ask the question he had called her for. It was playing on his mind all through but he couldn’t slip it in yet.
“Damn… She is so irritatingly talkative…” he was telling himself.
He could only ask her casually. He did not want her to know that he was worried about Sonia.

“Sonia…” she told him. “ Oh... she’s loving every minute of Venice...Err…Hello”

The MBA Hitchhiker's Guide

The following post comes with an inherently flawed assumption - that I have received my PGDBM degree which is still subjected to the vagaries of nature and the powers at my institute. It is an attempt to demystify some of the myths surrounding MBA education and a guideline to survive a two year journey during which one not only undergoes an emotional turmoil, financial backlash but also a personal renunciation of joys like watching cricket 24/7.

I must confess that one of the most important reasons I wanted to do an MBA was to have the security of a solid six-figure salary in the shortest possible time. It was in Standard VII when I read an India Today cover story profiling some of India’s hottest professional profiles. All of them were MBA’s from India’s top institutes. I read about this chap called Rajeev Balakrishnan whose salary at the age of 24 read an eye-popping six-figure sum. I was damn impressed by our man’s grey suit and I told myself- “Gotta be like that , Issac, gotta be like that”. I don’t have that issue with me today but yeah the color of the suit was grey. I have a tremendous memory for irrelevant details. That was in 1995.

Today in 2006, I have a black suit and I am going to pen the following words with the limited wisdom of a guy who has had the pleasure and the pain to go through two years of MBA education at one of India’s top institutes. The following 9 points are some of my most treasured gems of learning I have picked up from my experiences of the last two years. They should be applicable to any wannabe MBA or anyone who is still going through the pleasure such an education bestows. Some of them have been acquired through personal application, some through observation and some have been passed on to me by some of my gurus at SPJIMR.

1.Play the game of Last Impression and not First Impression: In MBA, the rule of first impression being the best impression never applies. Do not ever attempt to make a point at the beginning of a class if there are CP marks. Make your point when the class is slow, drab and fatally boring. This is usually towards the end of the class. People who speak early lose their recall in the eyes of the professor. There will be a time mid-way when every CP desperate guy will attempt to make a point. During these times you should simply watch the fun from the sidelines. Do not attempt to break the clutter for you will be lost and loathed by those desperate around you. Go for your kill only in times of recession.

2.Find the goldmine but don’t dig it yourself: In times of exams and tests go to the specialist of a subject for advice. Every batch has an Eco, Quant, FM and Operations specialist. If you are the kinds who never bothered to attend classes or thought of Brearley-Myers as the updated version of Duckworth-Lewis go to that expert for that particular subject. Spend time in his company. Take tips from him including the syllabus for the test. These guys are better than textbooks. Often they might also tell you the exact question that’s coming for they spend a lot of time in the professor’s cabin.

3.Keep your ego at Absolute Zero- Feel at ease to be thought of as stupid or crazy. Your batchmate or even your professors are hugely unlikely to be your employer. So if you have a doubt, ask but in private. Never take the liberty to make yourself stupid in front of 50 others. That’s dangerous. Always approach the person one-on-one if you have a doubt and preferably don’t approach a professor. I learnt on an average atleast 60% more from my peers than from my professors. How I arrived at that figure is a mystery- even to me.

4.Keep your options open; all the time - This I learnt from my stint as a Placement Committee member in Second Year. There is a beauty in not committing to anyone, learn to admire it and exercise it. In terms of electives, minors, careers and dates always keep your options open till as long as you can. I never killed my alternatives even when I was always sure what I was going to do. This is an off-shoot of the best answer in any MBA class.
Professor: So should D/E equity ratio be low or high?
Dumb Guy 1 : High because blah blah blah..
Dumb Guy 2 : Low because blah blah blah…
Smart Guy: It depends Sir..

5.Be flexible to learn : In the last two years, I have developed a huge interest in Theater, Movies, Writing and Photography. This is only because I was willing to listen and spend time with experts from my batch in each of these fields with an eagerness of a beaver and the curiosity of a 3 year old. I realized later that whenever I told myself “That’s not for me...” I have lost out on something. Some of the things I learnt from my batchmates range from fields of Oil Painting, Yoga and Astronomy to Animation using 3-D Max. There’s no limit really.

6.Play to Peer Pressure most of the times: I had been told in school to carve my own individuality and not be guided by peer pressure. Conversely, in a B-School, I believe Peer Pressure is an element that one should exploit wisely. So if in a Costing Viva there are 110 before you who have told you that they have said that Cost Control is better than Cost Cutting and you have reason to believe them and you are the 111th, do not , I repeat do not take a chance and play the hero to say the converse. Follow the crowd for something called Relative Grading will plunge you to depths you would have never imagined existed. I used to do a quick poll before any individual assignment submission to gauge how many are actually submitting on time and if a substantial part weren’t going to, I put on my earphones back on for that Quentin Tarantino flick, I’d left mid-way.


7.Don’t take anything at face value: This I picked up from a Harsha Bhogle videotape in our library. If something is coming your way and it seems too easy, question its validity. So even if you are mid-way understanding a concept from the batch topper and you are grasping it easily, question him in between. If you thought you calculated the Black-Scholes with real ease in the examination don’t sit back and relax but speak to a few people around you .Chances are you screwed up big-time and that means managing better impression in the eyes of the professor from next class. (Refer Rule 1). I once thought I had a real easy Costing paper and came out half an hour before the allotted time only to realize later I missed out on the last Question that was listed on the second page of the question paper.

8.Speak it out in the hostel rooms: If there is something that you vehemently disagreed with in class, don’t let it play in your mind but speak it out in the mess, the gymnasium, the nearby bar or in your hostel room. I can never under-estimate the wisdom I gained from thrashing things out with my pals outside the classroom. We never reached a consensus and that’s exactly I value those heated discussions right up there in my takeaways from SPJIMR.

9.I am not like everybody else: I said play to peer pressure most of the times but when things were going to have a greater impact on me and these related to career choices, I was happy to let go of the crowd and tell myself that I wasn’t like everybody else. Placements are the craziest time in a B-School because the stakes are really high and you would see people around you apply helter-skelter to companies and you would be tempted to do so too. Know yourself well and when you feel like taking that step that 30 others are taking around you and you don’t have a reason as to why “ Me too?” pause a second and tell yourself “ You have a right to be different from others”. If that doesn’t still soothe your nerves go right ahead and as I said previously exploit the power of peer pressure. It never let me down. On an average people would apply across 4 different sectors and 12 companies for Final Placements. I applied to 2 sectors and 6 companies. 2 of the companies did not even shortlist me. I came out more than fine in the other 4.

“Truth be told,” Harsha Bhogle says “Management is fantastic general education”.

If you don’t try too hard, just let it be and have a smile on your face most of the times you will do great!

A Shot at Time

19th March, 2006

It was a typical Second Year BH afternoon. Match on TV on 4th floor and a few guys were glued to the screen eating the best Vrindavan had to offer. A few others ought to have been roaming in Infiniti Mall around the same time and a few others must’ve been trekking their favorite hill in some God forsaken place on the outskirts of Mumbai. I deliberately choose to exclude the valiant eight who had courageously started music classes for they acted like misguided missiles for most of their initial classes for they were never sure which instrument to pick up for a start.

I belonged to the group on the 4th floor and food had just arrived.
“ I hope we have’nt ordered much” – Martin’ s typical concern
“ Nahi bey.. khatam kar lenge”- Gan’s typical reassurance
“ He has given some extra spoons” – Amitesh typically ogling at what’s extra and can be packed off to his room.
“ Oye .. koi nahi yaar .. rakh le .. aage kaam aayega”- Anurag Agarwal’s typical shooting off the hip.

Pause.

Anurag Agarwal hesitatingly … “ Par .. aage kab kaam aayega” ?

Our time at SPJIMR was gone.

It was the last lunch the 6 of us would have together and it had just struck us then. Everyone paused for a couple of seconds and at the same time Dravid pulled off a blinder at first slip and the conversation veered to how Ganguly was still a better captain than Dravid. Funny, sometimes how conversation changes gears more effortlessly than an SL 500.


Nevertheless, I was going through some early photographs of our lives here in 2004 and that’s when I got the idea of this post. (I was thinking about writing an SP swansong anyway. It just hastened the idea.) Photographs form a great way to treasure memories and I do this little exercise every time I look at one. I ask myself “What was I exactly doing then?” or “What I was thinking?” or “What did I do right after this photograph was taken?” I deliberately don’t do it every time because it’s amazing that when you start thinking about the context around which that photograph was taken you are drifted back in time. You start thinking “then and there” and in some ways you trigger off a time machine in your head and get a shot at playing around with something that always seems to play around with you.

There’s this wonderful quote about Time I read recently. It said- “Time is the best author of all times; it always has the perfect ending”. This brings me to the central point of this post and that is how our 2 years at SP were always challenged by time. Deadline for submissions, Deadline for GH (yes it did affect some of us at the BH), Last date for registration, Time limit for presentations et al.

Time seemed to have us in captivity for ever and we swung along with time. We swung wild and wise, smooth and hard, long and slow. Until 17th March, 2006 happened and suddenly, we found we were not being swung anymore by time. No need to rise up at 8:25 for that 8:30 test, no need to copy at the last minute from the Dataserver for the submission time that’s already past an hour and no need to bang on the bathroom door of the neighbor who has decided to use his time in the bathroom to clean an extra undergarment during his bath.

Every time I have slept during an afternoon in SP, I have had only two kinds of emotions when I woke up, either of dread or excitement.
Dread, if there were an assignment, presentation, test or exam the next day.
Excitement if there was a “Party”, AKB, Farewell, Spandan or Gasp meeting pending. When I woke up on the afternoon of 17th March, I had neither of these emotions and it didn’t quite feel right.
We still went for our evening stroll that always had the intrusion of a spicy Vada Pav on the way and we didn’t have an urgency to come back to the hostel. We were quite happy about not coming back in a hurry but I guess somewhere deep within we dint quite relish this feeling. There was no challenge of Time facing us.

Sachin might still bring about his sparkling century in Adelaide in a second innings where India is chasing 318 on the 5th day and India might win that game in 2007 but then his time would have gone by then. It pretty much has by now.
When Ivanesivic finally won his Wimbledon, he wasn’t crowned as the greatest player to have won it so late but as someone who’s had a dream fairytale end to his career. George Foreman inspite of having won a title at the age of 40 is remembered more for his brushes with Mohammed Ali in the seventies. Citizen Kane might still be given a Best Picture Oscar tomorrow but it will seem a mere consolation.

Hence I have begun to suspect that all accomplishments have a context of time and so do personal challenges. No one gives a dime if you become India’s best actor by 55, you earn that title by 35 and whole of India will stand up and applaud. It probably explains why Naseeruddin Shah never got his due recognition from the man on the street. I can watch a movie in peace at home nowadays but watching a movie within 120 minutes with an exam the next day was what gave an extra kick. When one’s accomplishments are crunched with the context of time not only is peer recognition supreme but so is personal satisfaction.

My belief is that if you want yourself to be the best you can be you should challenge yourself against time all the time. Having a time block is a sure means of giving in your concerted best within that time span. I can imagine that such a generalization would not hold true for all professions but I sure can say that limitless pondering over that piece of painting, that classic masterpiece of an ending and those nervous nineties hasn’t done anyone good.

Back to the Future

I walked into the Placom Office yesterday, January 30th,2006 at 9:45 a.m. and my Placom work has just got wrapped up for the day today on January 31st,2006 at 2:45 a.m.

Yeop.. I do think it's screwy but I also think I am loving it!: )

I would love to be this busy every day of my life , six months from now! :D

Still loving it!

Maybe , just maybe RDB was better than Goodfellas. ;)

I am kinda relating to a lot of things said and unsaid in the movie..

For instance..

Kya bataoon Maa kahan hoon main,
Yahan udney ko mere khula aasmaan hai,
Tere kisson jaisa bhola salona jahan hain,
Yahan sapno wala,
Meri patang ho befikar,
Udd rahi hai maa,
Dor koi loote nahin ,
beech se kaate na...

A Puurrffeccct Ten!

It’s been a long time and I thought it won’t be until placements get over that I would get a shot at writing a post. The following post is more out of the kick and excitement of a day well spent and written just to record the fact that I really liked a Hindi movie today after ages and just when I had given up all my hope on Bollywood. : )

During my stay at S.P Jain I have graduated from an elementary education in movies to what I believe right now stands at a post graduate degree. Though this education has been mostly in English movies yet I have been fortunate enough to watch a few decent Hindi Movies on the way. And pretty much like an academic stint, the movie education journey has had both good and bad days. I happened to see “Rang De Basanti” (RDB) today and it’s turned out to be one of those days at the college that couldn’t get any better.

Sometimes I wonder what the objective of making movies really is. Is it for laughs, tears, wows, education, awareness, outlets for creative ideas or just for the personal gratification of the director? Like all good things in life often it’s a combination of more than just one of the above objectives. It’s rather difficult to achieve all of it together. Rather, it’s easier to achieve either of these objectives single-mindedly. Like a rip-roaring Golmaal that would have you in splits from the first scene till the last. Like a grim Ab Tak Chappan that’s replete with merciless killings. Like a tragic Black that made you thank God for the fact that you have eyes to see the things and people around you in the world. Each of these movies would make my top 10 list of best Hindi movies on any given day.

The essence in each of these movies lies in story-telling that's realistic. So much so that you could look at your own life and say : “I could make a movie on what happened to me/him/her/on that incident” or " That's happened to me" or " Shit! It could happen to me" . And often a good story is one that has shades of earnestness, solemnity and cheer. If success and good times are to be felt sweetest it better come post a battle, a loss or an anguish. A laugh that resonates loudest is often from the person who has been through the worst of times. Hence if I liken it to the art of story telling, a good story teller should be able to weave through as many shades of emotions as possible. And hence I think I have fallen in love with RDB. It’s got all the shades of an average 21-year-old’s life. Getting drunk, aimless, a passion for something , that something that one is always searching for but no one knows about, an apathy towards the system, a love for friends, a love lost, a will to win and an attitude to lose.
No songs and no multi billion business deals - there are none in real life.
Loads of mirth, togetherness and absence of parental restrictions- always the case in real life.

There was no protagonist in the story. Everyone was. And on top of replicating to perfection shades of the lives we are going through at this time of our lives, the story mirrored movie- making at its best. Slick cinematography, a stunning cast, undying lyrics, vivacious music and flawless direction. All of this sliced with a message, should you have time and breathing space to absorb it.

A movie with laughs, tears, wows, creative visuals and a treatment by the director that I truly loved and respect. A complete package and all of it in Hindi from the stable of Bollywood. Hard to believe but true!

I saw Aks a long time back and thought it was a poor imitation of Fallen. Now having seen Rakeysh Mehra deliver RDB, I badly want to revisit Aks. : )

Booksie

I was never a much of a books guy. When I look back and think as to why I never read many books when I was a child it was simply because I hated sitting at one place. That’s why I was never good at Ludo, Carrom, Monopoly, Chess and reading books. We had enough of books at school; I mean really enough of them and with every year in school passing by, the pile on my study table used to get wider and heavier. So I did not read. I used to be on the streets playing Cricket whenever I was free. Or I used to do a Bradman knocking a tennis ball at the backyard of my home leaving stains on the wall which I am sure used to give more than just sleepless nights to our landlord. Those days the only books I read were Tinkle, Tintin, Super Commando Dhruv , Phantom and Mandrake.

But I knew reading must be good in someway or the other. Infact as I grew up I found myself surrounded by more and more people rattling off reading as a hobby when asked about their favorite pastime. I joined college and one fine day I thought I should start preparing for CAT. So I joined Career Launcher and then I got to know reading books might just help. It did not come naturally to me so I had to push myself hard, really hard to start serious reading. I used to think people who mentioned reading as a hobby had to be sissies. It’s a beautiful world out there under the sun. Loads of people to meet, things to talk about and places to go to. Why would anyone trade off all these things and read and only read inside the four walls of a house?

It used to darn painful for me to pick up a book and acknowledge that for a few hours I am going to give up so many things in my life. Most things in my life begin with Cricket, (most of my English essays in school did) so I thought I should begin reading books on Cricket and Cricketers. It would be less painful that way and the British Library in Trivandrum had a good collection. I told myself that the poison of reading I was about to unleash in my life would be slow and it would be easier for me to pick up this evil habit this way. I began with a few autobiographies. Allan Lamb’s took about a week. Jonathan Agnew’s less than that. Botham’s not more than 3 days. Sobers’ took 2 days. And then I picked up Sunny Days and then Idols and then Not Quite Cricket and then The Record Breaking Sunil Gavaskar and then Azhar by Harsha Bhogle and then Sachin by Gulu Ezekiel (he stars with Sachin in a recent MRF Ad). It was not so bad after all. The Cricket angle was helping it. I also congratulated myself in being smart enough to tide over this crucial decision in my life in a fairly elegant manner. And in between I came across Sir Neville Cardus. I still stop in between reading his essays and gasp for breath and resume reading. They are brilliant! Then I read a book called A Soldier’s Diary by Harinder Baweja, a first hand account of the Kargil war and that was something! We meet people who change our lives, we see movies that have an impact on the way we perceive things and we read books that change the equation of reading.
A Soldier’s Diary did it for me.

I started clinging onto fiction now. And since it was the CAT phase and you are not acknowledged well read in the management community unless you read it, I read the Fountainhead. I vividly remember sweating it out. It was terribly long. It took me a good four months to finish it. Never had I inflicted so much duress in finishing one book. Dominique Francon, Peter Keating , Guy something, Howard Roark and that verbose Ellsworth Toohey. One never meets people who can talk like Mr. Toohey in real life. It was fiction at its best in terms of language. But in terms of plot and the storyline it was only mediocre. The only fiction that I was really enjoying was Wodehouse and Conan Doyle’s. So I went back to autobiographies. Atleast, I thought I will get to know about something that truly existed. What fun in reading stories when you can watch them in movies? But the more and more I read about successful people I realized that all of them, I repeat all of them were voracious readers. All the impressive people I met were well read. And here I was still in college and still being such a whimsical reader. So I pushed myself harder to read more and it evolved into a love-hate relationship with reading. I loved it when I was not reading.

Everyone knows being vegetarian is good and smoking is bad. Yet the world has millions of smokers and non vegetarians. To me, reading posed a similar dilemma. I knew it was good but I had problems adopting it. And then one day I went to Higginbothams on M.G. Road at Bangalore and I spent almost an hour with Sandy that day flipping pages. I suddenly felt like buying some of the books. Part of the stimulus was the fact that the store had a cricket magazine worth 585 bucks. I began visiting it more often. And I started picking pirated copies off the streets in Bangalore and then I visited Blossoms a super duper book store again in Bangalore. It got me the one book called Spin and Other Turns I was looking for ages. I made friends with the owner and thus reading began.

I still am not a voracious reader but I guess I have come to the stage where I believe I am not missing out on much in the world when I am reading. I go to stores like Crosswords when I have not much to do nowadays and I almost wish Crosswords existed when I was a child. They have put up good sprawling stores all over the country and I think they are really doing our nation a favor by atleast getting some of the children and teenagers today off the internet, the video games, the saas bahu stuff and the absolutely crappy movies that Bollywood is dishing out. No Entry , Bunty Aur Babli ,Dhoom , Veer Zaara and Waqt were only box-office hits .Period.

If you think of it seriously as we are getting more and more advanced our means of entertainment are getting more and more gibberish. It’s a pity that a movie like No Entry grossed 40 Crores in India alone. If you look at the pie of a 16-25 year old’s spend on books in real terms today and five years back it would not be a surprise that the spend was higher 5 years back. I recently interviewed atleast 50 people in that age group from the cities of Chennai and Mumbai. 3 of them said reading was a top hobby. When I was in my college almost everyone said reading was a top hobby. It could be a small-town big-city comparison funda too yet I don’t think that is a statistic to be proud of. I think it was Francis Bacon who once said that reading maketh a complete man. I think the author was right. That credit should not go to Raymond Suitings.

I would not change many things in my life. It’s spanned out pretty well till now but if I were asked to go back in time and change one thing about myself, I think I would ask for a better appetite for reading. I think it’s beautiful. I would have also wished for more and more Crosswords. Nothing like reading a crisp new bestseller off the shelf for FREE! :)

Lately

Just happy that Brian Lara has got in right against Australia after 9 innings Down Under. Undoubtedly the best batsman of our generation, miles ahead of most contemporary batsman and a shade better than Sachin.

And wasting a lot of time at :
http://www.flickr.com/photos/issacmj

No, we dont allow

“We don’t allow this”, the assistant to the principal said.
“Oh Okie... Can I speak to her?” I asked.
“But she won’t allow. We don’t allow this”
“That’s fine. All I need is just to get to speak to the principal”
“I will ask her but as I told you we don’t allow this”. And she went into the Principal’s cabin.

This lady was getting on my nerves.

It was the all too familiar tone of negation and disapproval. I was outside the door of the principal of one of the more prominent schools in the city. And I needed permission to interview 3-4 students from this school as a part of my project. I had already conducted about 80 odd interviews by now. Consumers in the age group of 14-40 years were my target respondents and I had also interviewed 12 students from 3 different schools in the city of Chennai .With this school, I would have finished my quota of school interviews in Chennai.

The assistant went in with my college ID and my bonafide certificate and I saw her speaking to the principal from outside. She came out after a minute or two and said “You can go in”.
Okie, I said to myself. Here’s my chance to do it in style and rebut that assistant. Come on baby, let’s roll on, let me get my familiar pitch in place, get the approval of the principal ,get the students, make them laugh and smile at my questions and lets be done with these interviews in no time.
Sometimes I am too optimistic.
Surprisingly it always pays off. Well… almost.

“Yes, please come in”
“Thank you Ma’m. My name is Issac and I am from the …”
I generally take about 50-60 seconds to get the entire story in place; this was no different and I pause after that.
Pause.
“I see but we never allow this”.

Now this was different. I had been to 3 schools already and no principal gave me this. Not even an All-Girls school’s principal. This was a goddamn co-ed. I made an alteration to my pitch.
“This is for an academic project Ma’m and I have already been to other schools and...”
“We don’t allow such things. I am sorry”
Such things?!?
Her tone suggested that she was taking me to be a 22 year old assassin with a pen and a writing pad in hand.
“Yeah, we don’t allow any interviews with students”
“Ma’m, I would not take more than 15-20 minutes and I need only 3 students”
“We don’t allow. I am sorry”

I don’t know where exactly I picked up the habit but I love having fun while the situation is serious at times and this seemed to be a good setting.

“Well Ma’m, can you give me one good reason why you don’t allow such things?”

I loved that look that she gave me next. Priceless.
More so because I am sure she was not expecting a question like that. And now that I was rejected anyway, I was having my share of fun.
She gave me just what I expected as a reply, “No, we do not allow our students. That’s it. Other schools may do that, we don’t”

I really needed a reason though as to why I would not be allowed to interview the students. At times like these I wish the Right to Information Act be applicable to private institutions also.
It was not a surprise that I would not be allowed to interview the students. I too understand. They have their own right to reject but I was getting irked by that “we-don’t-allow” drone.
I came out, took a bus to another school and got my 4 interviews of school students completed. No harm done.

What happened though is, I think the symptom of a larger malaise (and unlike in other cities probably the only one) in Chennai.
We don’t allow.
We don’t allow to kiss .We will arrest you for vulgarity.
We don’t allow dancing in pubs. We are closing down the pubs.
We don’t allow screening plays like Vagina Monologues. We will burn the theater.
We don’t allow people to talk sex and virginity. We will take Khushboo to court.
We don’t allow newspaper editorials that hurt us .We will take N. Ram under custody.

Liberalism is a way of living not a fad. And it hurts far fewer people than the devils allow one to imagine. Forget the 21st century modern India talk and think about it.
Would you rather get summoned by a court for talking about virginity in a free nation that practices freedom of speech and expression as a fundamental right or would you rather remain silent and not talk about things that you think might be true. So if kissing, dancing, screening plays is not allowed let’s know why they are not allowed. And let’s also know why they can be allowed. Let’s talk about things and respect people who talk. Differ, Contest, Argue but respect people who talk and don’t slam a PIL for God’s sake because when you do you stifle the next voice who wants to talk.

We have always been a shy nation like our cricket team until Mr. Ganguly came out on the Lords Balcony in the summer of 2001 and took off his shirt. I think that day he also took off that shyness from every modern Indian cricketer. But everyday life is not like cricket and as a nation we need to talk more, we need to get ourselves heard, we need to shout. I love the fact that more and more news channels are sprouting up for these are mediums through which we can be heard and I love every time a sting operation is conducted. Someone is telling us that things are not right and the more we know things are not right we get a chance to correct them.

My friend Anish once came up with a gem in one of our everyday conversations. He said “I think there’s something screwed up with our value system; sex is a taboo for us and yet every single day we as a nation produce more humans than anyone else in the world”.
With things like these we confuse the world what we stand for. Thankfully we are still a fairly young nation and I think we really need to allow ourselves to talk to get rid of such contradictions.

A Few Good Jobs

The following post coming three weeks into my project could get you a lil worried about my state of mind in my incumbent company. To soothe the fears of my well-wishers let me at the very outset say that the following post bears no resemblance to any real life situation I am facing now. Any inference to such resemblance hence is purely coincidental.

I have tended to believe that for a job to be well done or for a relationship to prosper there is a spark that needs to be present. A job could pay you the best in the country but if that spark is absent it’s just another job. It could very well have been the filling of the petrol tanks of ongoing vehicles at a gas station at the same level of wages.

You could be out with Salma Hayek on a moonlit night but if her speech and manner makes you yawn you could very well have been out with a hag on the same moonlit night.

Not all of us are lucky enough to get a job with that spark and it’s not too unnatural for us to crib about it. Employee turnover (or attrition for the need to stay in vogue with the latest HR nomenclatures) is a reality every organization faces. And this is because of this spark that some people do not derive from their jobs. They get bored, fed up, disappointed, irritated and look for greener pastures elsewhere.

But if one does have that spark factor in his/her job it is unlikely that he/she will ever leave that job. Nothing else could explain M.F.Hussain still painting his canvasses, Dev Anand still directing movies and R.K. Laxman still drawing caricatures. Or Brian Johnston holding his mike for 48 years, or Sean Connery still acting or Madonna still singing.
Why even, Mr. Buffet still investing, Mr. Gates still thinking and Ms Paris Hilton still laundering. Okie, pardon the last one.

I have also tended to believe that whatever life offers you, there is atleast one soul who’s got a better deal and atleast one soul who’s got a worse deal than you in this world. So if you think you have got one helluva boring job, I thought it would be nice to know what could be the most boring jobs in India and presented below is my list in no particular order.

The Coast Guard: It’s in everyone’s best interests that he does not come into action. He spends his time gazing on the beach and watching hordes of travelers come and go by. Usually he has an umbrella to himself and every once in a while a kid waves him a Hi. I once observed him at one of the beaches in Trivandrum; he dint have a thing to do for the three hours we spent there.

The guy distributing pamphlets on the roads: This chap is handed a bunch of catalogues or pamphlets early morning by his employer for a day and he keeps handing it over to people walking by. Most people don’t even look him in the eye, worse - some do and take a copy and throw it on the road without a peek.

Mechanics who fill tires: I bet it should be interesting should he overfill any of those tires with loud consequences but these chaps are too efficient for that. It’s amazing how he never ever makes that mistake; another of those unnoticed operations that run at greater than Six Sigma. (Why dont we study them as a case study but will sure take notice should Prince Harry come and extol their capabilities is something I shall take up at a later date.)

Guy stamping envelopes with the P.O Seal at the Post Office: Seriously, one after the other, how can you keep doing that an entire day and for an entire week and then week after week!!!

The table cleaner in a restaurant: A dirty towel, his customary weapon along with a plastic or aluminum tray. Wipes in different styles, leftovers of different shape and sizes but that’s all his job description allows him to accomplish.

The doorkeeper at corporate offices: His job is to open the door every time someone comes or threatens to come his way. Since the door is a modern marvel he doesn’t have to push it back. The door automatically shuts in poetic motion and our man starts waiting for the next man to come his way.

The ticket checker at Multiplexes: This is an offspring of the increased spending of the modern Indian Consumer on watching movies in Multiplexes. With so many screens around no one ever knows which the right screen is .So we have an assistant in uniform whose job is to utter any of the following sentences over and over again."Go straight Sir, first screen on left”, “The Screen on your right Ma’m, once you reach the end of the alley” or “It’s the one on the left, besides the popcorn stall over there.”

The Driver: His skill in dealing with all the other vehicles on the road is matchless. But once he leaves his Saab in the morning at the office , he has to spend and entire day waiting for his boss to come out of the office. Worse still, Murphy’s Law tends to wreak havoc with him at times. His boss often comes out or summons for him at the only moment when he decides to go out for fag.

The HT ‘Let there be Light’ teaser campaign: This was in March in Delhi when I saw a chap on the bridge near the Sarai Kale Khan Bus standing blindfolded on a footpath holding a placard that read “ Let there be Light” . This was in the morning at around 9 a.m. on my way to the office.

On my way back at 5:30 p.m., I saw the guy rooted to the spot.

Thank God, you have got a great job and now get back to work! : )

Home again!

Am kicked about this break after a breakneck last four months . :)
And am feeling bad about leaving SP again for even 3 days!

And rrreeaallyyyy looking forward to watching the Second One Dayer of RoW Vs Australia with my ol' opening partner Jubin at home.

And Sis is not going to be home...
And Dad isnt the greatest cook in the world. : )

A First!

Interviewed Subroto Bagchi in Room #223 , Hotel Leela ,Mumbai

My first big interview , caught on camera.
Lasted 10 minutes.

The kick of having done it still lingers. :))

Gosh ! The World!

The world.. the world ...Ever thought about it?
It's so truly Goddamn funny!

Things that start and stop on their own, things you cant help and things you cant decide...

Funny, plain funny!

On Cricket- I

Starting with this post, a new series of my views on the game of cricket, on some players, on some of the issues the game's facing and the never ending controversies. This is something I used to regularly do in college but got cut off for a while . Back on air now. : )

On Gilchrist:

Gilly has a style of his own. He would'nt kill you but just hit you.And for some of us that's a pleasure. Cuts,sweeps,pulls,straight drives and more cuts,sweeps,pulls and straight drives. Before you would even acknowledge his presence on crease, he would be on 20 odd and by the time you have a plan he's crossed 50. And by the time you figure the plan's not working he's making the common man on the ground outside the stadium find the red cherry he's just dispatched over square leg. A tremendous asset to any side with a lightning batspeed and an even faster walk to the crease and back when it comes to that.

He is acknowledged as one of the top batsmen today but contrary to what some seem to believe I dont subscribe to the view that he's the best around. Contemporary cricket does have atleast 4 batsmen who would rank ahead of Gilly in my book. I am a huge fan of his batting style but not his batting. For he can still be more menacing than he currently is.

He is mercilessly destructive for a bowler's morale and I said it elsewhere that where Gilly fails to make it to the top league in my book is because the bowler is always in with a chance with him unlike a Lara or a Sachin or a Dravid or Vaughan who once in for some time would make you toil for their wicket.

The recent Ashes Series was the first one where he failed throughout. And this was a quality attack he was up against. It would be interesting to see how Gilchrist deals with this failure at an age when many others think about quitting the game. Importantly , it would be interesting to know how the Aussie Selectors intend to deal with him, with Brad Haddin waiting to take off should the flight of Gilly be cut short by the selectors. This is pretty much a deja vu for me for not so long back I prayed that Healy make runs so that Gilly would'nt come and take his place. I dont think it is that stage yet when anyone needs to pray for Gilly but yes for the first time in his career Gilly will have to give 'hitting the ball' a thought , something he is not used to and something he should'nt do.

Gilly's batting has been, for the millions of his viewers, all about unadulterated joy, uncomplicated hitting and uncensored flamboyance. And I hope I dont have to start offering my prayers for him anytime soon. Over the years he has cracked some stunning centuries and here's my pick of the lot:

The one in Mumbai ,against India in the 2003 season shud stand out cos of the sheer devilry of heaving Bhajji over and over again against the spin on a dusty track.

The one in Hobart, against Pakistan because it came against a top class attack and because he was batting in the fourth innings and contributed to one of the highestrun chases in history

The one in Durban ,against SA for effortlessness.(fastest double in tests). I remembering him heaving one off Boje over midwicket, a wild sweep and then he stood up to push the ball suggestively in the air so that it could hit one of the billboards that could have earned him some rands.

Easily the most destructive in World Cricket, destructive to a bowler's pride, to a team's morale and injurious to the very health of a bowling team supporter

The Comeback of the First Ones

Everything in SP is coming right back at me.

It started off with AKB, then Freshers, then Teacher's Day celebs, then the Football Match, GASP and everything else. This isnt much of an exception, it is a way of the world.

In Evam's Indrajit, the recurring theme is that of how the world goes round and round and round and how people fit in patterns in their lives and go on to live happy with it. Some of them want to jump out of the pattern and form a pattern on their own but often it never works out. One tries jumping out of the pattern but its far too encompassing and comforting. Its tempting to stay in the pattern and dangerous to move out.And so life moves on , round and round and round

When you draw a circle there is a starting point and it meets that very point to complete it.Thereafter if you try using the compass to go all over it again ,it is'nt half as interesting as it was to draw and go through all the points the first time. For there's something about the first time...
The first rain of a season, the first century, the first kiss... everything about the first time is well... special! So when it comes all over again does it feel as special?

Probably yes is one view.
After all how can you explain people like me who still love it when it rains in Mumbai irrespective of the many first times, how can you explain Sachin (not until recently) still being as pumped whenever he scored a century and how can you explain Emraan Hashmi's kissing spree (pun intended) ?

Nope, the first time is the best one and diminishing utility thereafter is another view. How else can you expain breakups in marriages, how can you explain people sending their parents to an old-age home after a certain point of time and how can you explain Paes and Bhupathi parting ways after having won 4 grand slams. If for them, the subsequent ones would have been as special as their first one, they should'nt have split.

So which side am I on? Actually both of 'em...

The smell of my first salary's crackling notes that emerged out of the ATM when I put that rectangular card in the machine for the first time was unbeatable.No other subsequent withdrawal had that jazz to it.
The first four that I hit in every innings of mine on the ground in whatever level of cricket I play gives me that punch that the subsequent ones can probably match but not surpass.
The first pair of branded shoes I bought are still kept at home, they dont qualify by definition to be called a "a pair of shoes" yet they always stay near my bunch of CD's and Books.

If now I am asked what is that one thing that I would do over and over again and yet get the same spark, I dont have an answer. Infact I would'nt know until I go over it again and again.
But I assume there are some people with whom I can spend a lifetime and want to spend another,
I assume talking about cricket would be another vocation that I would want to be in over and over again.

Hence should'nt the ultimate purpose of our existence be to direct all our energies towards these assumptions that each of us has? If we are'nt, its probably because the pattern is indeed far too encompassing and comforting. Its tempting to stay in the pattern and dangerous to move out.And so life moves on , round and round and round.