A leader he will be..

Cream of the future Indian management, budding entrepreneurs, aspiring CEOs and what not!

They join all sorts of clubs, take 'initiatives', 'network' with the who-is-who of the corporate, organise 'International conference on this and that' successfully every now and then, despite challanges like the bad market, etc. Above all, they are called 'Leaders'! They got in here precisely because of their demonstrated leadership qualities.

They are perfectionists, they believe in excellence and expect excellence from others - from the school too...but

...but they would leave their room ACs on for the five hours they are in class. Why? So they find their rooms cool when they come back. Oh, but it feels claustrophobic in closed rooms. So, they would also keep the room door open. Oh yeah, the AC is still on, otherwise it's so hot! And you know actually leaving the room open is good too in a way, so you have the lobby cool too, just in case you want to drop in to watch TV for 5 minutes in the day. At least, you wouldn't sweat for those 5 minutes. And did you say about the lights? Ah! Come on you freak, how much power does a tube light consume!

Ask them where their parents live. They would give you the name of some small place near Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore, or so. Oh yes, they would recall over a cup of tea how they were always mad when the power went off for hours a night before their final exams. In fact, they got a percent lesser in 12th just because of that. This incompetent Indian political and buerocratic machinery can never make India a developed nation by 2020 if this is the state of a basic necessity as power, they would tell you. God knows what would happen to the exploding power needs of this country had the left been successful in scuttling the Nuke deal! And hey why are they not going home in the term break? Ah man, it's very hot at my home place and even the power doesn't come full day. I would rather call my parents here in one of those breaks.

Once in a while, an observer brings their attention to this and look at the humility of those leaders, they are always prompt in taking the blame, accepting responsibility. Just fast forward one more day, they are in the class, you sneak into their open door and a burst of cool air hits you in the well lit room. Laptop is on so they hit the ground running on coming back from the classes..

How I wish, we knew leadership starts from within...

A fortunate dog..

Receiving lots of wishes today, I noticed one thing - all of my good friends said "I am really happy for you." A couple could have said it as a courtsey but every one of them !

Guess I have some of the most caring ones with me. Thanks pals !

'Holy' Intentions..

I went to my children today. On reaching there, I learned that some group of foreigners was expected there. So we didn't plan anything and just chatted. I learned the names of some more children, listened to a pre-nursary kid's ABCD song, and taught some geography in the map of India to a 10th grader. I didn't tell him that I myself never attempted any single question of map in my 10th board and got 69% marks in Geography. Would have given him a wrong signal..lol. Then I corrected a long time mistake of theirs. They always introduced themselves as "I am XYZ from PQR." Today I taught them to break this introduction up into two separate sentences - "I am XYZ. (And) I am from PQR."

I asked the caretaker what the foreigners did with children. They had been coming from previous 2 days. He told me that they taught songs and dance to children and did some activities. I was excited. It was definitely going to be a delight to see foreigners meeting these children who do not properly understand english. I wanted to see the expressions of both, the children and the visitors. We chatted and in about 15 minutes, the group came. They had a translator with them who was a teenager from India.

The excitement soon disappeared and to my disappointment, the group proved to be completely different from what I had expected. Apparantly they were spreading their religion. They had many papers with their prayers written on them, which they hung on the clothesline. They had their holy scriptures, some religious emblems, and other such things. All of them seemed to be the teachers of their religion. The children were following everything they were being told to do but only few were really listening.

While trying not to be judgemental, I was really in a predicament. What should take more weight - the fact that a religious institution is providing home to those children and looking after them or the fact that in return they are probably subtly trying to influence the choice of their religion. Perhaps the first. I enquired with some elder children of the place later. They told me that no explicit instructions or requests had ever been made to adopt the religion. But with what I saw there for 2 hours, you could affect any child's choice by teaching and showing such things to him at such a tender age (2-18 years). Of course affecting this choice is not a big cost when seen in the light of what they are giving to these children. Still, what pains me is the fact that religion really means so much to some highly educated people.

I have been born in an Indian Hindu family but still never believed in any religion. My mom and dad do daily prayers and inculcated in me as a child all the good religious habits but they never tried to grow me into a religious person unless I myself wanted to, which I didn't. Today I sit with them in all the major prayers but I do not really worship or go to a temple and they are fine with it. Because I am still a sensitive and caring person. I care for human beings, for life. Religion doesn't matter for me. And still I believe in a some power which is controlling such a mysterious thing called life. I believe in rebirth because some theories really make sense to me. But these have nothing to do with a particular faith. If the argument is to grow the children into responsible, and sensitive human beings, we can just explain to them the contradictions that point at some controlling force, without any bias of faith.

I respect this institution very much for what they are doing for these children but it disappointed me to discover that their intentions lack logic. Investing those 2 hours telling them about rebirth could have fascinated every one of them present there. Teaching religion would hardly add any value to their lives.

That means I am religious afterall...

Mathematics is a religion.
That a number multiplied by 1 will give the unit digit of the product as that in the number itself is something you were told to accept without questions. Just as you were told to believe in 'his' existance without questions.
That's why it's very much a religion. Or else what reason can you cite for 2 plus 3 being 5?

That your mumma told you so when you were young?
That Ms. Farzana told it to you at Greenwood Public School?

But you just believe it, don't you ! As much as you believe that someone exists who made this logical living system.

That's why most dissenters find it a religion. And it is the only religion that has been free from violence and dispute through the ages. It's the religion practiced by the largest number of people. And it's most logical of them all. Once you start believing some of its basic prophecies, everything begins to follow logically.

What to do in the 'Red Light' area...

It's been 2 years to me traveling 12 Kms to office and back home everyday and whereas it was hectic in the beginning, I accepted it in due course of time. That was when I started observing other people on my way. And by now, thanks to the observer in me, I have about half a dozen trends on my book.

Whereas a few of them are disturbing, the most recent one is the funniest. So, if you feel bored waiting on traffic signals, this funny one would help you enjoy your time on the red lights. Oh yes, you would be able to observe it only on two conditions. One, you are in one of those tier 2 cities like NOIDA that have started to have some organized traffic but still don't have proper traffic law enforcement system. Two, you yourself wait for the traffic light to turn green before you cross the signal. Of course, we both know that you do. I just mentioned the second point for the sake of completeness.

And let's not forget that the people in such cities are mostly middle class educated ones, true ambassadors of Indian culture. This poor creature's observation is about the behaviour of those ambassadors on traffic signals in such places. It's frighteningly simple to observe and is, somewhere, a menifestation of a child in all of us.

When the signal is red and the timer beside it shows more than about 40 seconds, you may easily notice even the slow ones hesitantly seeing both ways and jumping it as if it doesn't exist. 'Well, what the hell, if I wait for it I'll be late for my daughter's tuition classes. And anyway the road is not very busy at the moment', is perhaps what goes on in their minds.
On the contrary, when it shows less than about 15 seconds, even the speediest of those responsible dad's would screech the brakes obediently. You might find them even respecting the zebra crossing at such instances. Needless to say, a sense of self righteousness or may be a contentment with fulfillment of their duties as a citizen of the country is what inflates them with self-pride at such moments.

I tried to observe the behaviour for between 15 and 40 seconds too but couldn't make out any specific trend. If you can, please don't forget to put me a comment here. Will you !

'Original Sodium'...

I hold product designers and campaigners in high regard because their mind works 24x7 for new ideas and most of the good ones play with human psychology. But this one has been perplexing me for some time recently.

Here is one new-comer to my gym whose jacket always brandishes the label of 'Original Nike'. One big mouth in my office also sports something which displays another 'Original' attached to its name. This is not very uncommon in branded apparels these days. Perhaps you have guessed by now that what catches this poor observer's eye is this word - 'Original'.
It's been attached to the actual brand name as if the fake ones would have ethics enough not to attach this to their own stickers or tags. And in that light, I wonder how this benefits any of the two, the manufacturer and the customer.

Similar is the case with holograms. I see so many books having a fancy line written on their cover page to the effect of warning the customer not to purchase the product if it doesn't have such and such hologram. Now what use is this? Are the publishers assuming here that the fake ones are stupid enough to print this kind of line on their fake copies of the same book and still not attach an almost similar hologram ! Who, anyway, ever 'wastes' his effort in looking at the hologram from 3 different angles to see if it indeed shows up that publishing house name in 3-D. And in the end, after all, it should not be too difficult for the fakes to get the hologram copied as well.

I would be obliged if any of you product designers or amateur observers could find some time to enlighten this poor observer on this, if you yourself happen to be more fortunate than me to have its answer.

The shopper's syndrome

When in a clothes store
u see numerous shelves
and find that for each design you choose
your size is not available
then that's what's called the shopper's syndrome

for if you stand out of your body
and observe that mysterious creature
you would find him going through the heaps of designs
to see if each of them contains his own size
and if one is unavailable for his own
then subconsciously for him, that was the one he wouldn't have missed otherwise !

CATastrophic moments

"Abe tu ullu ka patthha hai kya ?" prom pinged me on Gtalk.
"Kyun maine kya kiya jo gaali de raha hai?" I replied wryly.
"abe gali nahi yaar...puch raha hun" He immediately went into damage control mode.
"hahaha...kya tarika hai poochne ka !" I didn't make his life easy.
"yaar confusion mein hun isliye…" replied an embarrassed Prom.

Prom and I had known each other for just 3 days now and here he was, asking me such a question matter of factly.

I had logged onto the T.I.M.E. chat forum for CAT 2007 with a different name this time. 'Ullu ka Patthha' instead of my usual name 'Sodium'. And he had realized it within minutes, by seeing my scores and by the secrets of him that I had started spilling there. He was goaded into catching me privately on gtalk when I innocently asked him what had happened to 'crab' (F) he was talking to, the previous day, just when he started taking chances on Neha.
Poor Prom !

That was three days after CAT happened. We settled scores on gtalk and went back to the T.I.M.E. chat forum. Prez was telling Neha that with her scores she could safely expect 2-3 IIM calls and that she should start preparing for GD/PI. Man! I was awestruck by his amazing cognitive abilities because just about 10 minutes back he was asking Prom and me in desperation about his chances of getting a call. And guess what! The difference between his and Neha's scores was just 1 mark. So here he was, now prophesizing to the girls about their chances of making it. This world is a big chess board I tell you and every pawn is trying to con the other to its ends.

By the way, Prom's full name was Prometheus Unbound. We 'lovingly' called him Prom. And soon we had shared secrets, pertaining to our girlfriends you see. So what if I don't really have a girlfriend. How would he know online if I tell him I am a hunk, always surrounded by cool chicks!

I went for a tea and when I returned, Prom had gone. It would be known later that his boss had been standing behind him for about one and a half minutes while he had zeroed in on catty who had just logged in and wanted to know if it would be a sin to expect a NITIE call without a work-ex. Yeah, it was noon time and we were all in office making the most of our employment benefits. Poor Prom! I thought again.

Anyways, I resumed my chat with Ruthless. He was another geek scoring 136 and worrying if he would be able to secure an IIM A call. Gee, everybody has his own worries. Here we were, willing to flirt even a black hole to secure a single IIM call and there he was, worrying over IIM Ahamedabad. Ruthless assured me that at my scores, I could keep my fingers crossed for a couple of calls from the 'lower' IIMs.
A truck ran over my feelings trampling my most cherished dreams. Immediately afterwards, Ruthless logged out. It was a clear cut case of hit and run. Somebody forward him that mail which taught the reader never to scoff at other's possessions, for that could be all they had.

Prometheus Rebound logged in.

"Hey! Prometheus REBOUND!" I exclaimed. "Is that you my dear Prom"

"Haan sodium, main hi hoon" reminded me of that dialogue Amir Khan speaks to Kajol in Fanna, "haan Ruhana, main hi hoon"

"Hey, how do I believe you?" I started using logic.
"Remember Priya, Sodium? Yesterday?"
"Eh…!" And all my logical abilities were put to rest. The chat room was full of current opportunities and too much was at stake to show over smartness at this moment.

"My dear Prom, I love you!" and the matter was put to rest.

He would sometimes log in as Prometheus Unbound and sometimes as Prometheus Rebound. I tried to spot a pattern but was promptly reminded of my handicap when Catty asked me on the forum regarding my percentile last year in Logical Reasoning. I gave up. He still comes sometimes as Unbound and sometimes as Rebound.

"Prom, you read the previous few lines. Ruthless told me I stand a chance in the 'lower' IIMs"

Prom burst out laughing. My feelings were mercilessly trampled again. This is a mean world. My IIM was a lower IIM !

"Hey all! Can anyone tell me what are my chances of getting a call with QA 38, DI 52, VA 34" someone had logged on by the name of Anjali.

"Hey hiiiii Anjali!!! Congrats, you are getting 7 calls. Start preparing for GD/PI" the message took some time to display as Prom and I had hit the jackpot at the same time.

The enlightened soul..

Oh I love this lil brother of mine! In fact even more than love, it's the respect and admiration for a few of his qualities that now serve as an inspiration for me.

I first visited him the day he was born, a tiny baby. Unfortunately, he was mentally retarded by birth. But I realize now, after my first hand experience with this little enlightened creature, that mentally retarded are often gifted with other virtues and insights into the philosophy of life.

Years passed and the next time I saw him was when he visited our home with his parents, when he was about 7 years old. The first time I experienced his philosophy in that young age was when his mummy interrupted our game to put on the shoes on his feet because it was getting cold in the evening. The game was interrupted and his mummy was also talking to my mummy while putting his shoes on. In her conversation, she took a bit more time than usual to put the shoes on and pat came the scolding from this little busy bee to his mummy...

'Aloo Patthhi !'

'What was it ?' we asked his mummy as she immediately halted her conversation and put shoes on his feet first so that he could go back to his game.

'He just called me pupil of an owl. He can't pronounce it well. This is what he says. I don't know who taught it to him but I am unable to stop him from saying that whenever he is dissatisfied with something.' She told us.

'Wow !!' I exclaimed to my lil sister. Now that's what you call attitude. She agreed.
After all it had been our long time desire to be able to accomplish something like that, but you see...out of 'respect' we could never. That that respect was wrenched from us by brandishing the sticks is a different matter.

Years passed again and we kept in touch with them through letters and lately through phone. The incidents continued pouring in and my respect for him grew. Sometimes these were at school, sometimes at home and sometimes in other situations.

And what impelled me to write this on my blog was something that he finished just a week ago. He is now about 15 years old.

His mummy arranged a home tutor for him as he was not performing well at school. One day, the teacher asked him to prepare for a test the next day. His mummy told us that he worked hard that day. He prepared that day for the test. And wrote the test the next day. When he had finished, the teacher checked it. Chhotu had performed about average and the teacher gave him 9 out of 20. Chhotu then asked the teacher to give him a 'Good'. The teacher refused. Teacher said that the performance was not up to the mark. Chhotu requested again. The teacher told him that he didn't deserve a 'Good' in this test. Now this was enough for this lil enlightened soul. He worked hard the whole day and here the teacher told him that his hard work didn't deserve a 'Good'!

Chataaaaaaak ! Chhotu immediately dispatched a right hander to the teacher's left cheek. Now that's what such insensitive teachers really deserve.

If any of you has experienced a mentally retarded kid then you know when they do such things, they do them with full force and surprisingly, their full force is more than that of their normal counterparts. I could imagine the impact of that slap. The teacher left the job.

How many of us go to the school, tuitions and college and keep our day to day grudges with our teachers and professors deep within our heart and later pass out with a heavy heart. Remember how we feel then when later in our life we meet one such professor who didn't spare a single ordeal to us and we could do nothing about that. This...precisely this...is what I respect the most about chhotu. He doesn't carry load with his heart. He balances score when the game is on and at night sleeps with a clear conscience.

Last night, after hearing this, when I went to bed, my conscience was even heavier than usual, for not just the load of unfinished businesses but the load of a flawed philosophy and cowardice bugged me. Never change my dear chhotu. Perhaps you don't know what kind of life you are inspiring us all for!

A heretic's confession...

What is CAT but a delusion of Indians with the perceived grandeur of their mental prowess!

What do the CAT 'bellers' gain but a few material assets, whose significance lies in their individual perceived notions of achievement, a delusive spiritual advantage over their brethrens, and a pretty bum for a girlfriend determined to be their wife! The last one is of course a gain whose danger doesn’t depend on individual perceived notions but is a fact as plain as the rising of sun in the east, democracy of the west and spitting of Indians on the roads!

Who does CAT appeal to but only masses that are an arrangement of bones and flesh driven by herd behavior and without something as a sense of want and want not!

Where does it lead them to but a land of fanatics for two years and forever!

What does it produce for an end product but the likes of the sub prime mortgage crisis!

Buddhha mil gaya...

“How long have you been doing it?” He asked me a week back on his first day.

“Four years now.” I said then.

“Have you done it in your young age uncle?” I asked him with appreciation today.

He had been coming to our gym from last one week and was more than 70 years old. Though he had a protruding belly now but for his age he had an amazing stamina. He did all sort of exercises. And that’s what told me he must have been a veteran in the field. Those old people who sometimes come to gym do the regular fitness exercises, not the butterfly for that middle and side cuts of chest, not the front and back pulley for wings, not abs in their 70’s.

“Young man, when I was your age I was an amateur boxer and a body builder.”

“Wow!” That’s exactly what I had hoped from him.

“So what have you done Uncle?”

My question was not that weird but he gave me a blank look for a moment. I couldn’t make it why. I don’t know what he thought of me.

“I am a civil engineer.”

“I retired as the chairman of CPWD. Many of the bridges that you see in India have been built under my supervision. I have been head of several committees to set syllabus of civil engineering courses in various universities. Till recently I was the project leader of Mayur Vihar extension of the DND flyway when I developed some health problems and had to quit active working. Now I am consultant to various government bodies.” He told me over the next few minutes in several breaks between our next exercises.

“My God.” “You are quite an achiever Uncle. Why do they keep you working even so many years after retirement.” I had stopped doing the Squats now.

“You know there is a dearth of experienced professionals in government projects.”

“Yeah.”

But something had started bugging me. This man is 70+ years old and is a civil engineer. How many universities in India gave a civil engineering degree back then.

“Where did you do your graduation from Uncle?”

The expressions on his face suddenly became nostalgic. You could see that sense of belonging of his to his alma mater when he thought of his moments of graduation after so long. Perhaps no body had asked him this question for a very long time. Perhaps a dust had accumulated over all those memories of his young years. Perhaps their place had been usurped by the realities of a practical world in all those years.

“I did it from the erstwhile University of Roorkee, now the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee. 1964 batch.” said the voice brimming with proud, respect and pleasure at the recollection of old memories. A smile on his face. Eyes looking into the past.

Time is an endless phenomenon I tell you. Years pass by. People come and go. Young become old. Generations change. But some things stay. Some things see everything else going by. Some things make lives.

40 batches had graduated since then. What I was thinking of was the 41st batch. He went on saying many other things.

The paths would not be the same. But I was staring at my future in a way.

Mera US...err Bharat Mahan !!!

We shout that rhetoric about 'Great India', 'India Shining', 'Mera Bharat Mahan', 'The great Indian Culture', 'The great Indian Legacy', 'Argumentative Indian' (and while saying so projecting Indians as having an inherently logical bent of mind and basing the reason of sustained democracy on this) , etc., yet most of us today want to emulate Americans. Why?

Perhaps rightly so. For the most prized virtues of humans. A free life, a liberal and tolerant society, for the largely unpretentious way of life of theirs, innovative and independent thinking and what not. You name an area of human behaviour where Indian are doing better than them today.

One problem, then, is with the rhetoric about priding ourselves on our false sense of greatness and morality. Patting ourselves on the age old legacy which can do nothing for us today. It's failing to even inspire us today. The problem is in deluding ourselves. And then, when I tried to brush this off by saying that the younger generation was being more practical about it, came the independence day and I was perplexed to see all those colorful handwritten slogans of Great India, Mera Bharat Mahan, and proud to be an Indian on big charts pasted everywhere in our office. And the people writing them were our young generation...the more practical one. I wondered if any of them ever gave it a serious thought that what exactly is it today that is an evidence of India being great? True I am born an Indian and I do love my country. But that for emotional reasons. My family is here. My sweetest childhood memories are associated with this land, with all those pit covered roads, and rural dust. I learned what life is in this country and from its point of view. My love is precisely because of this. But otherwise, for a moment, disregarding the emotional attachments and on any logical grounds, I flounder to find even a handful of good reasons for considering India a great country in today's perspective.

1. Look at our farmers committing suicides and what everyone is doing about it? What the ancient great India can do about it today?

Our governments are setting up panels to propose remedies only to be ill implemented either in the lack of funds or the lack of will or because of rampant corruption. And what are we doing? You and I? Cursing the government? Why don't we join some NGO and try to do something about it the way Arvind Kejriwal did for RTI ? He was just like you and I, an IIT engineer, not a tailor cut-out by birth for social causes and politics.

Then the noninclusive growth. What great is he who is content to see one of its hands starving and paralyzing while the other hand grows stronger. How powerful such an asymmetric person can be in crucial times is any body's guess. Those who have studied the growth of Japan, South Korea, Singapore and the likes would most obviously see the differences between their and India's path.

2. Look at the state of education in our country? and then look at the way we are trying to make it better...the reservations instead of emphasizing on primary education.

3. Look at the booming IT industry of India. Now that's one area which makes every Indian proud today..right? But not the people who reject anything based on mass opinion until it's logical to them. I'll tell u a model of mine to facilitate seeing the kind of work we are bringing from all over the world to our IT companies in proper perspective.

US is a rich household whose members work in big and quality firms and do quality work. When I say quality I mean some work which appeals to the unique human capability, it's brain. And when this household goes about its daily chores, it produces some waste, some garbage, some dirty dishes to be cleaned, some dirty floors. Here's where India comes in. We go knocking their door and offering to clean-up their mess, washing their dishes, sweeping their floors for much smaller amount than the person in their own area would ask for. What else would they have wanted ! They are in. When they earn 35000 a month and buy their child a laptop, an N73, a Skoda, we take home Rs. 1000 and buy our child a balloon, a Nokia1100, and a second hand Maruti 800. And despite this we happen to be better off than most of those living in our colony who are using their old bicycles and who were not fortunate enough to beg a work in the US households. That's the quality of work we do and that's the comparative amount we get paid for this. And then slowly when traders everywhere begin to see us being able to buy all those second hand Maruti 800s and Nokia 1100, they begin to see our rising prosperity (??), they hike the prices of everything for us too (read inflation and currency appreciation) and then we can not even buy a Maruti 800 because our wage remains the same (Why? If we ask for a higher wage they would be happy to kick us out altogether and bring someone by the name of Okawa Hounsos, an African, to do the same).

4. Look at the way our intellectuals are hostages to their language and everything associated with them. Of course I agree it's good to try to pick up everything good but then first for God sake we must accept our own weaknesses. We must drop this rhetoric about our sacred relationships when we know in the corners of our minds that a DPS MMS scandel is going on in every college and every senior school these days in all cities, big or small. The difference is just that these children are sensible enough not to send that MMS to their friends. I repeatedly write in my posts the use of English language between even the spouses in as private places as one's bedroom. Now this is something that need not be emulated. Whereas English is a great language, it by no means is a better way of attaining a better standard of living, or an even higher intellectual level or whatever such people might think it capable of doing for them than our Hindi is.

5. And then look at the extent to which we go copying them in their language. Our version of christ is our own God. Right? but look at so many of us saying 'For Christ sake' whenever we get chance. For God sake pal, you worship a God every morning. Use your mind a bit. Another one in this category is the word 'Christened'. In various news columns and from many people I hear the sentence like 'XYZ was christened as ABC'. Now what the mindless thing to say for us Indians that is. Their ceremony to name a child involves inducing it to Christianity from that day on. In our case a child belongs to its dad's religion from the day it is born. As with Western society, in India too the same applies to non living objects too. Whereas a Robotic Arm Software might have been christened as RoboArm by students at MIT, it would be named as RoboArm at IIT, how can you christen it if it belongs to the religion of the majority of Indians. But that would have been thought by us, had we applied our 'Argumentative Indian' philosophy to this sentence too. But who does. The Americans use it. I watched it in the latest hollywood blockbuster. It sounds urbane. Hats off to ya pal ! I bow to us INDIANS. India is great.

Predicaments of a loser

'Sir tomorrow onwards I would give you a missed call 5 minutes before I am about to reach here. If you are coming then it's okay else you give me a missed call back' Said Guddu, the driver of my office cab as I got into the cab, late by 5 minutes. Mine was the first pick-up.
'Yeah. Sure' I said and grunted to myself. 'How would he know' I convinced myself.

'Arre yaar, your pick-up is before mine. Please give me a missed call when you are about to reach here'
'Yeah sure Anjali' Anything for you. I didn't say the second line as I watched her with admiration get into the cab. That she was expected to know this didn't occur to me mesmerized by her rare-engineer-beauty which had permanently reserved my dreams for itself.

'And yeah Sunita, give me a missed call when you go for lunch. I'll come with you' I overheard the receptionist with bob-cut hair say to her friend over the company phone as I passed the reception desk on my way to my shared cubicle meant for one, occupied by two. Cost cutting you see. Rupee is appreciating.

But the receptionist was supposed to know. It’s her job to speak. And by the way everything of her tells me that she is going to take part in next year's Ms. India contest. These are the basics.

'Hi dada' A chat window was flashing in the status bar of my desktop showing a message from my sweetheart of one year who was with me in my previous project. No ideas you dirty mind! I am still single and looking. His name is Ravi. Ravi Agarwal.
'Hi dada. Kaise ho' I replied.
'Wah dada. Late again'
'Yeah. So many mummies in our cab. Got delayed'
'Hehehe dada. When you are free, just missed call me. I have to discuss something with you'
'Yeah dada' Tum bhi !

'Hi Bhai. Why did you pick up the phone. I don't have balance. YOU are expected to call me. I was just giving you a missed call'
'Ao okay. You put it down. I would call you' I apologized to my sister as I looked at my phone in desperation. Yeh Bhi !

That's 'Missed Call'
a noun
a verb
and who on earth says it's an adjective phrase!

Loser!
I wrote under my name on a paper pinned to my cubicle wall.

"the 'below post' for those whom I hate the most.."

One of the things I hate the most in the daily official mails is the use of the word 'below'.
Some gems from the mails in my office inbox:

1. "Today work on yesterday's issues as mentioned in below mail..."
2. "In the below figure I mention the problem I am facing..."
3. "Below solution doesn't work..."
4. "Please accommodate the below list of people to the Tuesday training session..."

Spicing up all this is the fact that while writing such sentences these people think that they are writing perfectly correct and, to my horror, even elegant English.

What made me cry my throat out was the fact that those people did NOT change their usage when I patiently explained two of them for an exclusive 5 minutes that 'below' is an adverb or a preposition rather than an adjective. The legends apparently convinced themselves that so many people can not be wrong. Where do YOU come from loser !!! Who the hell are you to teach us how to write official mails when we have been in the industry for n times the number of years than you have been !

Very well; I accept my defeat pal.

So why the hell do I freak out. That’s simple. In my usage of the language I mostly rely on my instinct whether the sentence SOUNDS and LOOKS correct or wrong. After reading this usage of 'below' almost DAILY for the last 2 years I fear that one day, somehow, I would subconsciously start finding it correct.. :( !!

Another of my sorrows is the use of verbs 'do' and 'does' by those legends. So many times I have fought my instinct to pull my hair off my head when I read the mails using, not to mention with all the styles of font and colors, -es with do (=does) for the plural subject !

1. The two approaches does not work here.

2. Satya do not want you to work on this project.

Their logic is simple. Singular goes with singular. Plural goes with plural. What's wrong with YOU you know-it-all SOB !

And I am silent sitting in front of my computer in a 3X3 cubicle clutching my hair. Hats off to ya sunshine !

And the list doesn't end here though. Start counting them in your inbox and there are as many of them as are the integral Pythagorean triplets in mathematics. I would better leave them for my daily morning dose than live though all those here once more :( !!

India meri jaannnnn...!!!

Whenever I wonder about the rain drops on my hands and the helmet windshield on a bright sunny day on my way to office or back home...


... I look up gratefully at the sons of my land who then happen to be driving the lorry beside me !!!

9 Things I Hate About Everyone

1. People who point at their wrist asking for the time... I know where my watch is pal, where the hell is yours? Do I point at my crotch when I ask where the toilet is?

2. People who are willing to get off their a** to search the entire room for the TV remote because they refuse to walk to the TV and change the channel manually.

3. When people say "Oh you just want to have your cake and eat it too". Damn Right! What good is cake if you can't eat it?

4. When people say "it's always the last place you look". Of course it is. Why the hell would you keep looking after you've found it? Do people do this? Who and where are they?

5. When people say while watching a film, "did ya see that?" No Loser, I paid Rs. 250 to come to the cinema and stare at the damn floor!

6. People who ask "Can I ask you a question?"... Didn't give me a choice there, did ya sunshine?

7. When something is 'new and improved'. Which is it? If it's new, then there has never been anything before it. If it's an improvement, then there must have been something before it, couldn't be new.

8. When people say "life is short". What the hell??? Life is the longest damn thing anyone ever does!!! What can you do thats longer?

9. When you are waiting for the bus and someone asks "Has the bus come yet?" If the bus came, would I be standing here???