Mere Jeevan ki Naiyaa...

Bhagwaan jee, aisa mere saath kyo decide kiya? Maine peechle 1 mahine se aapse kuch nahi maanga, maine socha uske birthday pe mehnga gift kharidne ke liye paise maang lunga. Nahi dene the to theek hai, lekin meri waat kyo lagaayi?



Oh this is so bad. I had so many things planned for her birthday. Oh yes I had. Okay if not so many than at least two. Gift and Dinner. Sacchi mucchi. I was feeling happy and excited. But the planets you see. They just cant see good things happening to VVS laxman and me. Laxman bhai went to south africa with all band baaja and got first a ball duck and just before we could have a gala time on her birthday cheeku went out of bombay for a training.



Dil ke armaan aasuon main beh gaye,

aur hum yaha guldasta pakde reh gaye.



And as if judaai ka gum wasn't enough, I have my end-terms starting the day she would be back. Garibi main aata geela.



And if even that was not enough, my life between her leaving and coming back is miserable. The mornings no longer start with a melodious scold, a sweet hit of the pillow, a tug of war of the blanket and my finger in the hot tea. I now wakeup to two miserably ringing alarms or a baai ringing the door bell or I dont wake up at all. I somehow manage to get in and out of bathroom in time, but my habit of forgetting the essentials outside is leading me to a lot of embarrassment especially with the maid around. (I wonder i should start keeping a pile of newspaper in the bathroom.) And then I... Hai Ram, Mujhe sharam aati hai.



I make it to the insti only 15 mins late. Life has moved from ghar ki chai to ek cutting on the tea stall, from garam garam jaykedaar ready khana to sabji laana, cook ko bulaana, aaye to theek nahi to hotel main niptanaa, from home sweet home to a something thats looks similar to a hostel room (I hope cheeku is not reading), from an excuse to rush home to majboori of going home..... life has taken a U turn and I feel I am driving wrong side. All in all I am waiting. Waiting for her to be back and bring my life on the right track.



O mere jeevan ki naiyaa beech bhanwar main gud-gud gote khaaye

jhatpat paar laga de, o cheeku paar laga de....

Don ke dushman ki sabse badi galti kya hai?

Don ke dusman ki sabse badi galti kya hai? Yehi ki woh Don (movie) ka end samajhne ki koshish kar raha hai. By that logic I am one of the "Don ka dushman" trying to figure why Don did what he did? I wish the movie ended before its final twist. Par shayad Don ko tweesht in the tail bahut pasand hai. Isliye pura 360 degree tweesht kar dala. By the way, With the exception of khai ke paan banaras (club remix ?) - that too in with a UP crew in malaysia (total lack of imagination) - I like the music and singing. And I think I would spare myself from getting into the whole non-debate of Sharukh is better or Big B is.

In the mean while, There has been some disturbances in my blissful schedule of wake up-go to class-sleep-wake up-go home. The disturbance came in the form my tryst with Passport office of Mumbai. After visiting the place I feel customer care employees should visit passport office every now and then. It can be excellent crash course training patience and how to survive rude , dumb and misleading people. I mean I was lucky to get in and get out in as short as 7 hours. swear I would rather listen to non-remix Himesh Reshamiya 10 times in a row than visit the passport office. If the former is merciless torture the latter is fatality.

By the way, in the short whiles that I have been awake in college I have listened to the lecturer in economics. After careful evaluation of her teachings and a few hundred sincere attempts to make sense out of them, I have come to realize that this world would be a better place to live without the Economists and Economics. I mean Physicists would turn in there graves if they listen to concepts of velocity of money being number of times money changed hands in a process. All Maths and Logic goes for a toss in the economic equations. Here is a funny one, the salaries paid to Indian politicians by some freak logic and freaker economics contributes to GDP. No wonder its going at such a good pace. Perhaps The only thing good about an economics book is that the number of sharp curves one can see in an economics book can give Jennifer lopez an inferiority complex. To top it all here is my personal favorite line from the subject, In the long run, we all are dead.

As if thats not enough we have business communication lectures. If one sincerely attempts to follow all principles of it he would only be able to write a perfect letter at an age when the only letter he would need to write would be - an application to God for filling up a vacancy in heaven. Nevertheless, if one has to live in a bee-school he has to bear with the stings ;-)

Of Temple, bhooth,beaches and ulcers

Its always a great time. The one just between the exams and the results. My Exams are past. The day they were over the feeling was similar to the one that comes when the nature is calling and you cant receive the call because you are in a meeting. It keeps vigorously vibrating somewhere in your stomach nevertheless, Until the blissful moment of release, when you feel a couple of kgs of extra baggage you were carrying all this while in your intestines has found its way out. It feels so light now, after the exams that is.

The weekend after the exams was good. I went to Hari Hareshwar with Cheeku and friends. The name of the place itself suggests that its renowned temple and I visited for asking the Gods; "Please flood the Exam office in my college. All my answer copies are kept there. " I am sure God would listen to me. I have read that god listens to those who pray for others. Arey bhai ... my prayer was meant for my teachers who are about to read my answers naaaa , you silly.

Me and cheeku had good company, abhi, dipsi, sanjay bhaiya and keerti di. By the way the whole trip was planned in a very chaotic manner. We could not find a travel agent willing to lease us a car and a driver. The rains gods to be blamed. All cars stuck. Finally we managed to find an decent car and an interesting driver. On our way, He told us about a ghaati which has a ghost of a budhiya and boodha coming between 12 and 3 each night. The story went like this:

me and keerti di: ha bhaiya, kya keh rahe the bhooth ke baare main...
driver: kuch nahi sahab... jaane do
me: arey bhaiya, batao naa, aisa bhi kya hai...(i was already reflecting on the movie kaal, lekin yahaa to bhoot do hai, ek couple)
After a lot of urging from us to speak and from dps to not speak (she was chanting hanuman chaalisa alll this while) bhaiya finally spoke.....
Bhaiya: yaha ghaati pe roz raat ko ek boodha aur budhiya aate hai, lift mangte hai aur gaadiya rokte hai. Koi daya karke baitha leta hai to fir gaadi ka accident ho jaata hai yaa fir passenger gayab ho jaate hai....

Silence for a while. Some more silence. Darna Mana hai for some and darna zaroori hai for others. Jaise taise ghaati paar ki. The night was dark, it was raining and for most of the journey absence of any creature resembling human outline, added a lot of flavour and imagination to the classical oration of driver saab. So thinking about kaal, bhoots and cursing the maharashtra tourism for not having proper signboards, we reached Hareshwar.

The place we had initially booked was in all probability made for shooting of Ramsay movies. It was in such isolation that even the bhoots would think twice before going there. Considering the existent centiments of the truly afraid females and disguisefully nervous males we found another place to put up. Hanuman jee could now relax as the vigorous calls he was receiving from us had now stopped. The rest of the night all of us were peacefully asleep except for....... that was a good guess.

Incidentally there was a bright and brilliant beach also in Hareshwar. There was greenery, mountains and a big ocean. A scenic and engrossing beauty unlike the other beaches that I have seen where the beauty is confined to the blondes lying around and the only people enjoying are the massage walas. We thoroughly enjoyed photography, dips, unsuccesful attempts to float on water (abhi and me enjoyed some desperate attempts to swim in some in which unfortunately we could cover no physical distance) and last but not the least the tasty saline water because of which 4 of us now have ulcers in the mouth.

By the way, ulcers have not been all that bad, cheeku feels pain while speaking which has ensured a tranquility at home and life, until ofcourse today when she has audibly recovered enough. (you will trust me if u look at the time this was posted.) think i should close this down. Cant give so much pain to my readers in a single post. Bottom line. Hari Hareshwar recommended. Go there. Hope fully the right people will catch mouth ulcers for you too... ;-)

(Closing prayers: Oh God, May cheeku not read this post)

Zindaaaaa hoon main

Sorry, really sorry. I dint turn up for long here (and according to a lot of you, it was for good.) But I have been busy with a whole lot of exams and assignments and what not? So what makes me come back here? After all, I have an end term exam 10 hours from now and here I am writing this post and listening to Indian Ocean.

The answer lies in the fact that I have a marketing end term. Open book format. Doesn’t require studying, just press on the gas and drive your way to glory. One of my friends just described marketing in his own way : “I am not able to study this subject for one night.. How do people specialize in this...... it’s like having a woman as a wife who is not even good for a one night stand” but then that’s that in life, you have to have a lot of one night stan…. uh.. no… , I mean you need love a lot of things, which you otherwise love to hate. So if you are a boyfriend and you want to keep it that way, you need to remember the birthday of her family, cousins and their cousins and there family. Bypassing that subject for safety reasons, I would try and take a digression. After giving so many exams on subjects I don’t even have the remotest idea of; like the one today, legal aspects of business; I am now capable of giving writing a six page answer on any damn subject. Gas is the buzzword in the exams here in B schools.

Any way I would better get back to my subject now. The bloody grades are relative here. So I need to have an optimism of Vinod kambli, who still wishes to come back in the Indian team, to study this subject called marketing. This post is short (read: timepass) just to convey that Bruce almighty exists and is alive and would keep turn up here in some time, till then its time for me to give some gas on marketing and for my friend to give it a one night stand.

Haai ree meri kismet

You know, some people have this uncanny knack of the getting into trouble without having to make much effort for it. If ever there is a merit list being made of such people, you would definitely see so many familiar names for instance; Sorrow ‘big mouth’ Ganguly, Natwar ‘Oil’ Singh, Jagmohan ‘CAB’ Dalmiya, Jaswant ‘Mole’ Singh, , Rakhi ‘Mika’ Sawant, John ‘Indian Summers’ Wright et al. By the way, I see a very familiar name positioned not far behind Ganguly and just a sniffing distance away from Rakhi. Mine. But I assure all of you and cheeku all the more that I have a better sense of self control then Mika.

Nevertheless, I do get into trouble. With ease. Just this morning I woke up to a not so different morning. Everything was pretty familiar. I mean I woke up when the alarm rang, I stopped it and slept again. I woke up again when cheeku took the blanket off me. Then I folded my self in a serpentine fashion and slept again. I woke up again when she shouted out loud in my ears. Then I took the pillow and put it on my ears, covered my face and slept again. Then I woke up finally when she put my fingers in a hot cup of tea. This I dint sleep coz things were getting hotter you see. After 25 mins I saw myself neatly dressed and combed (Things actually have changed after marriage) all set to leave for the Insti. You see, it was a usual morning, but only till here.

I went out of the flat, climbed down two floors, realized I had forgotten the keys and climbed back again to get ‘em. Then I went out again, climbed down, reached the main gate of the building and it started raining. Yeah, you guessed it right, I dint have an umbrella. Well, in Bombay you can expected all things to go wrong when you least want them to. I challenge you wont find a public toilet when you’ve got the nature’s call, so you would take a auto, rush back home, answer all the calls and guess what you see right in front of you on your way back at the same place from where you started a small room with a “Sulabh Shouchalaya (Public Toilet)” board hanging on it. Anyway, I was determined to not go back to the flat to pick up an umbrella and so I rushed out to find an auto. For a change, I did find one in reasonable time.

But then, when hard luck makes love to you, it makes sure the climax is a delayed and lasting one. So then just before a flyover the rickshaw walla informs me he has broken some clutch wire and he can’t climb the flyover. Shittt, was the first thing I pronounced. Nevertheless, intellectually acute that I am, I immediately thought of a simple solution; to payoff this rick-walla and get into another one. Outside the rick, it was pouring heavily. I saw an empty rick passing-by I stopped it and thought that’s it, I am done. As I as I moved my hand towards my rear pocket I realized I was actually done. There was no wallet in my back pocket. I called back home to check whether cheeku is still around and if she could come atleast halfway to help only to find a ‘no answer’. Finally, I took the same rick home took the wallet. My prudential safe came into play by then and I took an umbrella just to make sure things don’t get worse. I paid off the rick and took another one to reach the insti 15 mins late. For a change, I had some fortune; I had company of another of my class mate and somehow I was allowed inside as well.

Just as I right this blog I realized, it hasn’t rained today from the moment I picked up my umbrella. You see, that’s Mumbai for you…

U & I... in this beautiful world (Part 2)

 

U & I ..... in this beautifull world

 
 
 
  

A new beginning...

Change is difficult to absorb especially when its for the worse. I used to have lots of spare time in my recent life. So much so that i could afford to compete for slow cycle races with ants and win them. But there is something about this city bombay which hurries me up. Uncomfortably so. Now i have no time to stand and stare. I need to wake up early morning even before the hens of chicken vendor near by, then take a 60 second bath , chew some bread and rush out to be in the institute at 9.00. I swear i would forget to wear my pants someday.

Its only because jupiter and mars have aligned themselves and Pluto and saturn are at 312 degrees to each other that has created just the right planetary position for my finance lecturer to fall ill and thereby resulting in a free lecture which I am aptly utilizing to write this blog. Speaking of planetary motions relating to human actions, the best logic that i have heard till date in favour of the argument is that moon can move and affect tides on earth and human body is 70% water so it can as well affect human actions. So don’t wonder when something happens as stupid as you dashing into the traffic police with your bike when you don’t have the papers or the license. It was the moon which did a small tap dance , you silly.

Speaking of the events that have happened between my previous and this post are that i have got married and had a trip to himachal pradesh and part punjab. It is when you marry that you realize that marraiges are so enjoyable when someelse is on the hot seat. You can eat, wonder and do as you please. But in my case the planets had decided that my time was up and yamraj was already on his way in his ferrari to welcome my bachelorhood to his hometown called hell. So there was me married to this beautiful lady, feeling happy about the past , okay about the present and sad about the future, especially of my lady dearest's .

For those bachelors who have a weak heart and a weaker spinal cord, Marraiges are a tough affair for you would need to take the ashirwad of atleast 1257 people whom you might remotely recognize or may you would have last met them 3 births ago. I would be so inundated with ashirwad that i was thinking there must be a crowning glory on my head now and a super protective halo which would protect me from all evils.

Just by the way , i discussed my blog with my lady dearest and she started wondering who scores more on uselesness me or my blog. She is still wondering, in between she has preferred to remain unidentified on my blog but then we settled for a nick name. I think she is very cute and the most suiting nick would be cheeku, The cute little fruit.

I must tell you that cheeku is very particular about my appearance which i had never bothered bout before. So now a person who assumed face creams to be dedicated female product is applying Garnier to his face. My hair which were happily lied in the direction of their choice and were masters of their will are now stay neatly and uncomfortably together in a direction of cheeku's choice. My bath's are much more sincere and I pray the day dosnt come when she washes me in the machine with some surf ultra. Never the less, she has promised to not rinse and dry me in the machine.

Taking wedding into our stride cheeku and me started for Punjab, our first destination being chandigarh. We dint realize we were in chandigarh to the point when we read “Jaspinder loves Prabhjot” inscribed by a passionate couple on a tree trunk. Being in Gujarat I was used to “Jignesh loves Jalpa” but this was first time I read such a dramatically different and resounding inscription. I recommend Chandigarh and you will realize its dinstinct beauty in the form of rock garden and lake and the people, provided the relative larger personality doesn’t intimidate you.

From then on we went to various places in HP namely Shimla, Kulu, Dalhousie, Dharamshala, and Manali. The most remarkable ones were Manali and Dalhousie. At Rohtang pass, we spent a lot of time in the playing with snow, skiing, running around, photographing the scenary and sneezing. (Pics in the coming posts). Dharamsala was good for the health resort that we stayed in. We were treated to live ghazals from the locals singers and I even did a philmi stunt of dedicating a song “Na kajre ki dhar, Na motiyo ke haar…” to cheeku but cheeku failed to appreciate it and I got a strict warning to not repeat it again. I humbly agreed with my head down and hands folded. I bet she was a school teacher in her last birth.

Despite all the scolding and an occasional beating, It was a blissful state of being that I enjoyed in the trip. There was one instant when planets decided to give me a chocked nose, some fever and physical weakness as well and we were required to start 4 in the morning for a 10 hour drive to a hotel at parwanoo. As i somehow managed to sleep a caring affectionate hand on my eyes and other caresing my hair gave me a tremendously soothing heavenly feeling. The hands were of cheeku and the time was 2 AM.

Well, thats what makes a married life worthwhile despite all the scolding, beating, garnier cream , forced neatness and all other things.

Rohan Shah (1982 - 2006)

The words in the title can be written on the gravestone of my bachelorhood, which has 3 days of life remaining. Somehow, there is no feeling of getting nervous or overexcited-ness in me as of now, despite this being my first marriage. Let me see how things change in the days to come.

My home is now pretty much stuffed with people. There is more noise inside my house then there is outside arjun singh's house at the moment. Just By the way I hate him for doing this reservation act. He should have known better than this. Now the meritorious candidates in prestigious institutes would be even less in number as the hair on arjun singh's head. He needs to apply thanda thanda cool cool navaratan tel on his head and rethink reservations. That would indeed be favorable for the student's community and his hair.

Back to my home, people are expecting me to somehow look darned smart in the function and thus I am being chucked into the men's beauty parlor every now and then. The person their subjects me to some real smelling thing he calls bleach cream and then all sorts of facial stuff and I hate him for doing this 3rd degree torture to me. By the way, due to this I realized what it feels like to my readers in reading my posts.

And then I was informed today that there is ceremony tomorrow at my place where several females from our society and castes and all have been invited to apply haldi and kesar and other such yellow stuff to me. They call it nilhane ki rasam. Now that's what I am really afraid of. Till today the exclusive rights to give rohan baby a bath were with my mom, and mausi and … okay that's it. But now a whole parliament full of ladies can claim to have given me a bath… that's disgusting yaar, seriously… And I really don't know whether I would look fairer after coming alive out of this rasam but I will sure look yellower.

I think all this ritis and riwaaz have been written by some frustrated gentlemen trying to take revenge with the present and future world spending their last time in agra's mental asylum. One of the riwaaz is that my lady-dearest's bro would pull my ears during some ceremony, So what that I have already set a deal out with him but not everybody can. .. frankly speaking I would have preferred a Christian style marriage for more than one reasons.

Well, if you really force me to point out something good about what's going on here then I would say I love the sheer spirit. There are so many people all enthu about the whole thing and willing to take responsibility of arrangements doing stuff, spending quality jolly time together. I think its really worthwhile to be a part of such masti, not at the cost of your own marriage though…

Taking a break...

Right-ho! My last day in office today and then I go back to my hometown Ujjain tonight. My Ghar-parivar has been enjoying for the past 6 years with me leaving home for engineering and then my job. Their entertainment took a rare-break only when I came back home in leaves. May be they find me as dumb and boring as you people find my blog, nevertheless I won’t spare you coz I will keep writing and I wont spare them coz I will keep going home.

You are perfectly right in thinking that I have gone nuts coz I have. Simply because I am going home after a long time. The only occasion when I have wanted more to be at home was when my class teacher was beating the hell out of me for watering the plants in the school garden with my own nitrogenous fluid.

Well, Ujjain is a holy city with a lot of temples and religious value. So to get good internet service there one has to go to a temple, pray and then offer some food to the beggars outside and wait for god to take notice of your abysmal state of disconnectivity from the rest of the world. Still I would try and be online some times but my readers can enjoy this break.

Just by the way, I would be going very close to action, come this june. I am going to Srinagar and the valleys. No to jump off, you silly. Just for a vacation. May be I can consider joining some anti-terrorist group there. All I have to do to bore them to death is make them read the stuff I have typed in this and previous posts. So my post from there should be a COOL one. Literally.

That reminds me, considering my writing abilities, I have got a surprisingly high number of visitors on to my blog. Some of them have been generous enough to comment on my posts. (I hope the money reached you guyz – 50% advance, baaki meri post padhne ke baad). I must thank all of them for being here (anusha, kobra, xpressions-and-her-son-rohan, rose, innervoice, sneha, vivekanand, shekhar, sneha, all anonymous and all whose names I am dumb enough to forget.) I promise I would never threaten you guyz again if you keep coming here and keep commenting.

Back to my trip, Come 10 june and I would be in bombay, to educate myself in NMIMS. Well may be then I would learn to write good posts. Till then enjoy the break.

My Last week in office…

These are my last days in office. No, I am not being fired. Neither is the office going shut for not sustaining profit because of me and alike who have worked (or rather not worked) here for 2 years. Just that I am leaving. Not that I could not bear my boss or vice versa (we share a better rapport than ganguly and chappel) but just because an angelic gentlemen who came to test me and some other equally bad candidates for an admission in MBA at NMIMS had favorably responded to my bribe attempts, kidnap-your-daughter / transfer-to-sukhliaa-gaav dhamakis and death threats. I don't know whether he has been fired from his job since but I hope for the better.

Nevertheless, I am through with this place, well almost. The days gone by have been pleasant for me atleast. They have not been able to get any work out of me till-date. The kind of person that I am, (SMART LAZY BUM – read this if u are clueless) I have never been too much into books and that renders me as good at technical as Inzamam is at English. Still I have derived some non-technical learning in this 2 year stint. Let me record these for my future reference :

1. DON'T CALL PIG A PIG : If you see your colleague who scores a perfect 10 in uselessness barometer and gets paid more than you then you need not let him know how strongly you feel about him being a pig. But then there are people like yours truly who cant resist kicking an empty pepsi-can lying on the street. So considering this strong desire, your best attempt to vent your emotion should sound like – "Hey mate, your workability potential shall be increasingly optimally utilized when we exchange a few notes on how scholes' work-life-balance matrix concept juxtaposed with phillips' vertical job enrichment theory result in higher employee efficiency."

2. BE GOOD AT PRESENTATIONS : I would rather prefer to be handcuffed in kaal-kothari and listen to 3 hours of non-stop ila arun songs but not give a 30 min presentation on "Increasing project planning efficiency by utilizing prima vera". But hang on mate, if you got to get that fat-as-yokozuna performance allowance, then you got to give the presentations. Its OK if the only thing you know about prima-vera is the spelling (that too in hindi), but you should seem to know a lot about it. "Confuse, if thou can't convince" is the motto.

3. SMILE : There can be circumstances when your trouser zip has kept your internals ventilated by humbly staying open with the lower part of the shirt popping out through the gap and you realize this only after giving a seminar to 100 employees OR your wife has started the morning by hitting you with all the armory available in the kitchen OR in the worst case, you have forgotten to wear a trouser -- then even in these circumstances, smile and if you can't do it naturally then force a smile.

4. SATISFY THE JOB : This is important. "Thou shalt satisfy the job before the job satisfies thee." Searching for job-satisfaction first day in office is like looking for 3 years pay in advance. Be good at what you are doing before you ask for doing what you are good at. If you do the opposite you typically realize that your skill set is null set.

And then there are some minor common-sense points which off-course everybody would take care like – "not asking your bosses sweet-sweet, kuchee-kuchee PA for a coffee despite the highest urge to do so" and "not discussing cricket while boss is discussing non-existent profit" and off course "don't keep a Sharon stone wallpaper and Pam screen saver". Pretend to be a good boy even if you are a bad man.

Yeh khana hai yaa…

Just had lunch. I ate something the caterers here in office call food and expect me to believe it as well. I must appreciate their guts though, which can only be compared with pravin mahajan's lawyer who goes on record saying his client is "mentally ill". Neway, I expect pramod mahajan to get well and sort out his brother and the lawyer and the mental illness (if any). But I think I need to check out this caterer's kitchen. While the others are still eating let me go and observe the cooking that's going on in there.

I look at the cook in his kitchen, which smells radically similar to a hospital's general ward. He goes about to cook in a manner comparable to scientist working on a formula for a chemical weapon in an underground chemistry lab. While in his innocent dreams he is blissfully ignorant of the pressure cooker delivering whistle after whistle loud as a mill-siren. Just before the cooker goes bonkers and blasts he suddenly wakes up from his dreams like someone who after listening to a Jagjit Singh gazal has just flipped channels to find Navjot Singh Sidhu. He switches off the gas. I am thinking had there been one, the scene would have been strikingly similar to what they used to show in Jaspal Bhatti's "flop-show" where Bhatti attempts some chemistry only to blast the beaker and comes out with glass pieces and white chemical all over him.

While he goes about cooking his dal look-alike in the utensil of the size of a bathtub, I take a peek at the rest of the menu. There lies the good old bhindi distastefully mixed with aloo. Still a better combo then Nagma and Ganguly I guess. The salad contains 5 kg of chopped cabbage mixed with 2 slices of carrot, which one has to be lucky to find out. The Muter-Paneer is all-muter-no-paneer, I bet the best of underwater swimmers wont find any. Finally, there is the forsaken curd, which seems to be lying there from the nineteenth century.

With no more motivation to move around further, I leave the place trying not to think of what tomorrow's ordeal at lunch table would be like. While crossing the dining hall I see a part of the crowd still eating and I pray they never visit the kitchen or else…

Me, Myself and Irony

There is something that has more irony to it than ganguly getting clean bold, blaming the pitch for it in the press-conference and being reminded by the journalist that the ball was a fulltoss. And that something is that I am constantly looking at the gmail chat bar for the past half an hour only to find nobody online. And whenever I go for a meeting or something even more useless but madatory then my best buddies would have their names bright and sparkling accompanied by the green ball. This leaves me with one less choice for wasting my time.

By the way, there are several measures of high quality waste of time. One is what I am currently doing. For an unfortunate reader who will put in "protinex powder" in the google toolbar and arrive at my blog, I am taking the pains of putting down this post. Anyway, I am sure blogging community would be going by the rational that god wasted his time big-time to manufacture something as a terrible a waste of time as Homo sapiens, it automatically confers the right of wasting time to us.

So herez my tribute to the global-time-wasting community : "5 terrific ways of wasting time" in descending order of popularity.

5: CHAIN EMAILS & FWDS : Irritating, disgusting and frustrating added together and squared would not describe the feeling you have on receiving an email saying "Yahoo would close its service if you don’t fwd this" or "Bill Gates sharing his wealth" or "Nokia distributing free phones" or "your next 3 wishes will come true if you fwd this to 27 people." The fart jokes that not even santa singh laughs on and the PJ series are even worse.

4: MESENGERS : This single most coveted waste of time for office goers. From Advani to Adnan Sami nothing would go un-discussed. The chats can range from how-to-kill-our-boss to come-to-the-parking-lot-at-4-when-noone-around depending on the mood, person and gender.

3: ORKUT / HI5 & LIKES : As if all the messengers were not enough, chatting through scrapbooks can be a real pain-in-the-lower-back, six inches below the belt. (I thought of writing ass, but I avoid profanities in my posts and so there is no instant in this post where I have written - ass) People associate a lot of passion with number of friends they have in their connections and so don’t wonder if you get a friends request from the person who asked you the directions towards the nearest loo in an apparently urgent call of nature.

2: BLOGGING : There is no more satisfying way to torture your enemies then writing your totally unnecessary , undesired and unsolicited opinion in 7648 words on how you feel about an even more unnecessary, undesired and unsolicited issue like "lakme-wardrobe-malfunction" and forwarding the link to them. Moreover, every tomy, pappu or hariya in the blogging community who have just read the book "11 ways of coming out of depression" will, with all their sincerity give there two cents on life, death, angel, evil, suppression, depression and human philosophy which if god-forbid Ayn Rand or any of her students read would depress them enough to make them jump off patronas towers.

1: READING MY BLOG : I know nothing else would compare favorably with this . The people who agree can jump to the comment section and the people who don’t can restart reading this post.

Me, office and a cup of tea

Unless you have a handkerchief clad Mallika Sherwat wallpaper on screen, it’s hard to keep your eyes open after a heavy lunch. I would have tried that novel idea today had this been my last day in office. Unfortunately it isn’t. Novel ideas don’t have a place in corporate world anyway, so I am resorting for a regular wake-up maneuver…. A cuppa tea…

As I sip this cup of tea, I have only one plan for the next half an hour that is to do nothing. So I am just looking around throughout the 359 degrees. No I am not a santa singh renowned for his geometry. I removed the one-degree angle towards my boss who reminds me of work. My office isn’t that photogenic a place and my colleagues aren’t walking the ramp at lakme fashion week… This brings me back me back to good old computer screen.

Now, I am looking at the screen but not seeing it, trying to get lost in the air of thoughts, catch hold of one and spend some time with it. So, basically I am thinking of what to think of. At this point I am as tempted to go back home as Ganguly is to go back to the pavilion. Ganguly is lucky for he can surrender to temptations at will. Nevertheless, I have to sit. So why not sit and observe people…

After spending some time observing people one can broadly categorize them into the following categories,

1. THE HUM-HONGE-KAMYAAB ENGINEER:

These types are the ones who would go to Hawaiian islands, sit on the water-front with their better halves with a mug of Caribbean bear and discuss India’s nuclear power situation. These were the ones who used to do all the assignments in college and the rest of the class used to copy. They would always stand second in merit in their schools and colleges, (the topper would typically be a smart lazy bum who crammed all the IMP questions the previous night) Melody here is defined as the sound of servomotor. If you dare ask them what turns them on, the answer would be a cathode ray tube.

2. THE SMART LAZY BUM:

These would typically include people like yours truly, whose only serious attempt on an engineering concept was to calculate the tensile strength of Pamela Anderson’s bikini hooks. These people are great at two skills of management, one is relegating and the other is shunning. Bravery here is to sleep when boss is giving a presentation. Their skill-set includes taking away credit for good job done by THE-HUM-HONGE-KAMYAAB-ENGINEER.

3. THE BLACK HOLE:

I am totally perplexed by these species for they tend to be physically present and mentally absent everywhere. They seem like a toxic celestial dump of energy and the air of drowsiness around them is infectious. They can live for 47 days without making a sound and can stay put for 34 days without moving from their chair.

4. THE BEAUTY MINUS THE BRAINS:

These self obsessed females are living in notion that everybody in the office is staring at them. They tend to check their appearance every 43 seconds and they add to the decoration of the office. MS Word is their idea of a high-end engineering software, formatting becomes a high-tension, pressure-cooker job and Piping diagrams here are cute. They are brilliant at talking provided they are not talking engineering.

5. THE ONCE-UPON-A-TIME TYPES:

These are in the 50+ something bracket. They would call an emergency meeting and talk for an hour about how their son got into IIM (it would actually be IMI or MII or something else which they suitably rephrased) They would boast big-time of there been-there-done-that incidents on the name of experience sharing. Retirement is impending, almost arrived and if it doesn’t come soon enough there would some others who would gladly take VRS to avoid the pain in ears.

Did you hear that…? A ONCE-UPON-A-TIME type just called THE SMART LAZY BUM. Well, if you are confused then I will give you a hint - My boss called me. There are some other species remaining to be described but I better hear out my boss till he is 58 or else…

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Disclaimer: Nothing personal, just fun.
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The Jungle

It seems so good when seen from far,
But when you peep inside everybody is at war.
The Jungle is beautiful, deadly at times,
Filled with guilt, grace and innocent crimes.

Getting inside the jungle is very easy,
But once you get inside the path becomes hazy.
You pass through creatures both friend and foes,
Be prepared for stares, glares and woes.

The frightening silence in the brown and the green,
You will have dangerous encounters even if you are not too keen.
Enemies will befriend you and friends might stab you at the back,
But the experience is great; you can still have a crack.

Jungle seems never ending and the going gets tough,
At times it would be smooth or else will be rough.
The sounds and the shrills with a hint of black sky,
It can be so chilling and gloomy that it will make you cry.

The death of life and the life of death,
A little bit of nothing might end your breath.
The journey goes on, people come and go,
Some will laugh, some will cry but at the end, all will bow.

The air, the water, the fire and the earth,
You don’t know when your death is at birth.
The trees, the mountains, the river and the falls,
No matter how much you try, it’s the Nature that always stands tall.

The law of the jungle is that the jungle has no law,
You will be executed for what won’t be your flaw.
The life will hate you and death would make love,
Apply for a place in the heaven up above.

Even before you know, you might be a prey,
The only way out is pray, pray and pray.
The life is short and it may be all over,
There is no second chance; it’s now or never.

No one comes out of the jungle safe and sound,
If you are a coward then better go around.
The jungle is dirty, full of hate and hurt.
Love and loyalty are the values in dearth.

The journey is eventful, full of pleasure and pain,
So many tried to understand it but all in vain.
You have everything to loose but nothing to gain,
Still people come to the jungle again and again.

The jungle we are talking about is the jungle of life,
Those who succeed are the ones who strive.
Virtues will be tested and morale may be down,
Life is a circus with fate as its clown.

Don’t get disappointed, as the jungle is fun,
After all bad weathers, there is always the sun.
We all are together in this jungle of despair,
To face all the challenges of life with dignity and flare.

***************************************

The above piece of creativity has been authored by Vandit Dixit and Rohan Shah (Blog Owner) at the last bench of an ongoing class in an engineering college.

Your feedback would be a pleasure

My life this week.....

The biggest challenge in my life for the past week has been drinking protinex milk, consuming bayer's solution (and not vomiting thereafter) and eating threptin biscuits regulary for reasons I cant totally disclose. I would only say this much (for I am loyal to my audience) that my near and dear one(s) want me to grow up (read: out) fast...... unfortunately for me diametrically so.....

I would bypass the mystery and simply jump into the challenge. For one, Its tough to wake up 8 in the morning for 8.30 office and arrange for a hot cuppa milk in a room where there less water to drink then 50 kms into sahara and where kitchen platform is used to keep shoepolish and brush. So the next option is to arrange for the milk in an office canteen. But its not easy as it sounds... At 24, I might pretty young by my office-colleagues standards but not young enough to carry a protinex box like a kiddo through the middle of the office towards the canteen. I avoid being the cynosure of all eyes and give people their daily dose of gossip. Moreover the nosey canteen wala pries into everything one does there and I want to avoid questions that hit my sense of adult self-esteem for a home run.

I have tried quite a few dumb things over the past few days like ... but I took this job as a challenge. So, sample this piece of creativity, I took some protinex powder, wrapped in a paper paper, ayurvedic medicine style. Took it in my pocket and answered the expected question from the canteen wala that its a ayurvedic medicine. You might think that there is hardly any creativity here to jump and shout about but considering the kind of pressure I was under, it was stupidly tremendous feat. Its like taking a catch inches away from the boundary on the last ball of the over when the bating team needs a couple to win. And guess what, I am going to do an encore for some days (months) to come....

Regarding bayer's solution and threptin, yes its sore... its easier for sourav ganguly to face shoaib akhtar then for me to consume a teaspoon full of a medicine. I hate doctors, medicine and hospitals you see, but then I just gulp it down my deep intestine trying to avoid my tongues ordeal altogether....

So much for my near and dear one(s). Yes, they are demanding at times and they do ask you to things you dislike, "for-your-own-good" (they tend to forget that good is a relative word and the definition varies from person to person) and take away your freedom but then , Freedom is being free from your likes and dislikes and love is to keep 'em happy at all cost and means.

This post is my tribute to them,

Burrrrrpppppppppp. Excuse me,,,

Cheers,,,,

Is GOD a movie-director?

Well there are times in life when you feel just that. Or how else would one explain the occurrence of events in one's life which have more tragedy then a Rajendra Nath movie or more comedy then Hrishikesh Mukherjee's Golmaal,,,

Now that you are constructively confused, I would elaborate an event in my college life which has an element of both tragedy and comedy or rather tragedy for me and comedy for my friends... So here goes....

Venue: The allay towards canteen, SGSITS, Indore
Characters: Vandit and Yours truly

My friend Vandit and I were as usual deliberating on the subtleties of life on our way to Canteen in the lunch hour. All of a sudden this character pops up like an error message. I don’t exactly remember his name but for the sake of the story let’s call him Hari. He doesn’t look like he is a from our college, has a shabby appearance, seemed like hardly-educated, mill worker types… moreover he is looking for something….. BLOOD.

Now, before I proceed further I must portray the state of exasperation that ensued every lecture that we used to attend. Therefore a virtually lukewarm reason to forgo the class was enough to take us to red-hot excitement.

Now Hari comes to us as we were just about to enter the sanctum sanctorum of SGSITS canteen. He speaks to Vandit. (he apparently is the more cordial of the two of us and people tend to go by appearance) "Bhaiya, there is my Chachi in M. Y. Hospital, who is in urgent need of blood." he says. "O +. Around 500 ml".

"OK. We will do something. Don’t worry," says Vandit. After sincere deliberation, application of thought and stretching the imagination beyond normal horizons Vandit realizes that the ‘O +’ blood that Hari requires is flowing right there in his veins, gushing through his arteries.

God has been kind enough to Vandit as he has been in possession of a voluptuous body since quite some time. He wouldn’t exactly mind giving away 400-500ml of blood that too for a noble cause. (You can argue whether the noble cause here is blood donation or bunking the class) So in his typical congenial manner he consoles Hari "Bhaiya, Don’t worry. I am O +. I will donate the blood." He exchanges contact numbers and proceeds. WOW, Hari must have google-searched before entering the college.

I was still wandering whether Vandit is serious about what he is saying. The kind of physique, that I had one would feel that 500 ml of blood for me could be anywhere between a serious to fatal amount." Still vacillating in lurches of thought, we proceeded for the canteen. There wasn’t any discussion on this topic for the rest of the day.

Next Morning, 9.00 AM. My cell phone rings

– Vandit Calling… –

Me: "Hi", I say
Vandit: "Good Morning"
Me: "So, what’s up"
Vandit: "Well, I need you to come with me to M.Y. Hospital. I am going to donate blood and would require you to drive me back home." Read this criminal sentence of his twice, you would discover the fun later…
Me: "Oh, OK. I thought you were semi-serious about it. Frankly, I forgot about it."
Vandit: "No, No… I called Hari, yesterday. He looked really worried. It’s a serious matter and we should proceed immediately. The doctor wants the blood by 11.00 AM" (I doubt till date whether he called Hari or vice-versa. Anyway, I don’t mind giving him the credit for what he was willing to do for Hari.)
Me: "Right then. 15 mins and you can pick me up." (I said that thinking that was my contribution in the social cause.)

Vandit arrived on time. He told me about the previous evening. We started towards the hospital on his bajaj super. I was on the pillion seat.

I thought Vandit must be a little afraid and I don’t blame him. The thought of a Stainless Steel syringe entering your body like a straw, and sucking your blood like watermelon juice can be intimidating. He required to be cheered up.

Me: "I hope you don’t have HIV+," I said jokingly.
Vandit: "You know what happened yesterday," he said simply ignoring my novel attempt to cheer him up.
Me: "What," I said not amused at being ignored.
Vandit: "Papa called yesterday from hyderabad and I was telling him about donating blood and he said that as far as he remembers my blood group is B +. I knew that wasn’t right but I cross- checked and confirmed with Ma. It was O +. "
Me: "You don’t have any blood test report of yours," I said quizzically
Vandit: "Tried to find it, dint get it. But come on man, I ought to know my own blood group"
Me: Chuckled an artificial laugh..

The hospital arrived. By that time, we had received the phone call from Hari, who told us the pathology lab's location and that the doctor was ready and waiting for us. We rushed to the place.

We arrived at the laboratory. There was a glass partition separating the testing area from the waiting section. I waited outside and Vandit went in. I could see him and the glimpse of fear on his face that he was trying to camouflage and so could the doctor. He was trying to keep him cheered up…

God bless M. Y. hospital and the Indian Cricket team, the former for having a TV in a pathology lab and the latter for playing decently in Vandit’s hour of agony, which to an extent mellowed the fear..…. It was about time….

The doctor followed the usual practice of testing the blood for suitability and fitness. He asked the regular questions of – when did u last donate – types while taking the blood sample out of Vandit. He took the sample under the microscope and after a brief study, gave a least expected reaction, "Your blood group is not O +, Its B +."

Vandit was not amused. There were two voices ringing simultaneously in his mind. First of his dad’s who had given him the same information as the doctor and Second, his own, ‘I ought to know my own blood group.’

I walked towards Vandit without any precise questions in mind, simply bewildered. Before I could utter an alphabet, both Vandit and the doctor turned towards me and asked the ugly question, "What is your blood group?"

There are some questions in life, which you wish you dint have an answer to, even if its an exam. But I simply wasn’t fortunate enough… The answer was O +… I wonder till date, how I pronounced that immediately, as if it were an external viva and I would buy myself a neat 25/25 to have said that.

It was too much to bear the shock. I required being brought back to my senses to think of something to avoid this. But I could not. I saw Vandit, externally serious and internally amused. It was he who would drive me back home now. Damn it….

The doctor gave me 10 mins to prepare myself for the altar. We went downstairs. Vandit bought me a juice, (God, I would have bought him two, had he not called me in the morning today)… I prepared myself, tried to be brave boy, thinking of how Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and the likes had given their life for the country. Nevertheless, they hadn’t donated blood…. I thought while going back to the lab.

OUCHHHH, the syringe went inside my veins and slept there for what seemed like eternity. I saw the bottle getting filled up with my precious blood. I thought I would require being at total bed-rest for a week or so. Man, how I wanted my blood back into me.

We drove back home. The pain was no more there in the arms but very much in my psyche. Vandit was kind enough to arrange a dinner for a few of our friends at his place and he says it was in my honour…… Well…

So, what do you say, is GOD a movie-director?

HURRRRRAAAAAYYYYYYYYY..........

Raise a toast,

Got the Narsee Monjee result yesterday and God wasnt it pleasant surprise (modest expression, is that!)....and am I not breathing a sigh of relief..........

With a rank of 13xx and 87.79 marks in the writtens it was half the battle lost... but GP/PIs did the magic, scored a whopping 84/100 in those to get a total 171.79 and merit rank of 109, Man i must have really cracked the thing...

When i look back, My GD was fair to good (offcourse i realized that only now), i was the second one to speak and first one to make sense, people were tending to loose the topic in the GD, rather than speaking on the topic, they connect the topic to what they know something about and speak on it... Its like you gotta write an essay on a cow, but you only learnt bout tree, so write that cow is tied to tree and then go bang bang about the tree... Mind you, m not a GD cracker by any stretch of imagination, but thats what i felt bout it...

My interview was decent.. they asked me all the general questions, bout Indian economy, my achievements and what would be my return on investment in MBA and does that investment makes sense.... In retro I realized after giving these MBA interviews that these people also look at passion as an important parameter... you gotta believe what you say... and put it strongly... not thump-the-table stuff but should kinda reflect in your voice modulations....

I am giving a lotsa expert-insights which i dont exactly have the right to just after my first call-conversion but hell this is my blog.... so I can give as much gyan as i want... isnt it?

Well, I havent won an academy award but nevertheless i dont mind giving a short speech. So here goes.... I am blessed to have a real cool set of people around me...pa, ma, sis, aarti, piyush, punit, jinal, siddharth, shant, vandit, devashish, milan and all those whose name i am stupid enuf to forget... Owe a lot to all of you and luv ya all...........

wait for my next publication...
--
Rohan

My GD PI calls and status

Calls and Status

IIFT (Delhi): Dil ke armaan aasuon main beh gaye...
IIFT (Kol): CONVERTED
NITIE: Coveted but not Converted
IMT Ghaziabad: CONVERTED
IIT Kharagpur: Surprisingly not converted
NMIMS: CONVERTED
SIBM: Luckily, dint get through.
SCMHRD: Dint get through
NIRMA: CONVERTED

Lets see what future holds for me...

What the #$%* is a Blog??

This is just for some of us who dont know what a Blog is? (I didnt know much myself) I hope it helps.

Blog is short for weblog. A weblog is a journal (or newsletter) that is frequently updated and intended for general public consumption. Blogs generally represent the personality of the author or the Web site.

A blog is basically a journal that is available on the web. The activity of updating a blog is "blogging" and someone who keeps a blog is a "blogger." Blogs are typically updated daily using software that allows people with little or no technical background to update and maintain the blog.

A blog is information that is instantly published to a Web site. Blog scripting allows someone to automatically post information to a Web site. The information first goes to a blogger Web site. Then the information is automatically inserted into a template tailored for your Web site.

Hey and if any of you want helpin setting up your own blog just tell me and ill do all i can.

Bye
Rohan

Hey everyone!!! :-)

Hey there,

Thanks for visiting my Blog. I just created this place so that anyone and everyone can not only know but share his opinion on whats happening with and around me. Do post about whats happening with you and i am open to comments on whatever i post so lets BLOG away to Glory!!

Bye take care.

--
Rohan