Friday Funda.......

Every Mumbaikar who works in Infosys Pune looks FWD to Friday... Yes! I know for that matter anyone who is working looks FWD to Friday... looks FWD to the day taht indicates the start of the time they get to relax over the weekend... away from work... deadlines et all.... But an Infoscion from Mumbai working 5 days in Pune looks FWD to the time when s/he can go home, eat good homemade food, relax, chat with parents, play with siblings (I am not sure what do 'only child'ren do, 'coz without banter, the cat fights with your siblings, life feels so incomplete :)..) Also, some unfortunate like me get excited about 48 hours of gettin to watch TV..... So, basically a blissful thot that carries you through the grind of the week....

So, one such Friday I left with a few of my colleagues in a sumo to borivli.... As we were all heading towards a happy 2 day mini-vacation, completely exhausted with the day's work/no work, we passed through the Ghats and tunnels where our only companions, radiosets, stopped working due to lack of range.... So, what do we do? In a sumo, which should ideally carry only 10 ppl, there were already 14 ppl stuffed; so sleeping was out in this discomfort (though many ppl miraculously achieve this feat as well... man they must be exhausted!!!).... this led to general small talk.. "arre aaj client ka call aaya tha... kya useless log hain na... excel sheet ke format mein font size unhe accha nahi laga so he made me sit till 6 and change that font".... This thot (clients being silly) went on for abt 10-15 minutes.... a small lull period and then someone else says, "arre infy kya sachmuch laptop de raha hai 25 years ke complet hone par??"... Big discussion... feasibility analysis.... cost per employee vs profitability of various solutions computed (i doubt if even Mohandas Pai gave any of this so much thot...) blah blah blah.... theories came in, refuted, accepted, lamented upon.... This went on about a good 45 min - an hour... but still there was time to kill with no network as yet....

So, someone asked someone,"XXXX, engineering mein tu vidyalankar gaya that kya??" And those opened doors to a flood of memories which comprise the best time we had in years.... "arre vidyalankar ke siva tu engg degree le hi nahi sakta...".... Someone said, "Vakil ka yaad hai... arre khopadi.. yeh kya hai??".... This guy added,"Viva mein kya vaat lag gaya tha na.... maine jo jo option mein chhoda wohi poocha yaar...."... this got a reply,"arre atleast tujhe jo syllabus mein hai woh poocha.... saala mere TV ke viva mein usne mujhe Zee TV and MTV ki frequencies ke bare men poocha..." Till now, I was a silent spectator to all this but then this person said something that needed my immediate intervention... He said,"tum mumbai university wale engg.... notes se padhte ho.... concepts toh zero hai... na kabhi college attend karte ho aur na kabhi pacticals khud karte ho.... i am so glad i did from pune university... atleast my fundas r clear...." For me it became a case of 'Mumbai University Engg degree' ke doodh ka wasta and I said, "boss, have a viva and give 8 days lead time to both these engg (as in those who are IT working professionals rite now)... and we'll see who does better..." (Ppl who know me, would correctly predict that this would be the only reaction I could give to such a statement :)...) From then on I got incorporated in the small talk (which wasnt a silly small talk anymore... it was something, i realised, every engineer was close to, felt so strongly about....) we spoke abt college cultural festivals, sports' festivals... the fun in organising, the last minute jhols, the boisetrous crowds, the raucous cheering for ur department/college.... thinking of everything taht moment actually gave me goosebumps.... and almost immediately, we all wondered where the hell did all this fun disappear from our lives.... We do have festivals in offices.... we do have sports meets in our office.... then y arent we having so much fun as before..... Got a deluge of answers....
"office ppl can never be your friends like college ppl were...."
"office ppl are never themselves... unke dikhane ke daat alag hote hai aur khane ke aur..."
"office ppl can never come close to u coz if there is an appraisal meeting, they will pull u down and get themselves up..."

All the responses I got were given, i am sure, after personal experiences only.... but i couldnt understand y this change.... I mean arent these same ppl who have 'jigari dosts' and 'langotiya yaars' in college.... then y cant they continue with the same thing in office? cant they get that 'cut throat competition' doesnt actually involve cutting ur peers, ur juniors' throats.... and y is cut throat competition a factor not to make friends here.... as students, did we face any less competition... few seats and hajar applicants.... (for guys even fewer) and yet we made friends.... i am sure this competition is not at the same level (as in colleges) in offices atleast..... but still this divide exists.. WHY????

Finally, I thot that its all abt acceptance.... accepting a person as a whole, as they are.... can you accept that ur senior has to be stern with u at times.... has to order you.... if you can then you can accept him as a friend.... if u do then u would eventually also have fun coz u would be urself in front of him and not pretend to be someone you are not.... can you accept that sometimes it is necessary to make someone look bad inorder to save something in a bigger scheme of things.... if u can, then you can accept that your senior is your friend inspite of a bad evaluation.... can you accept that, you need to be good with everyone but I dont need to be good in a sycophantic way (that other peers outcast you 'coz u r closer just 'coz u lick ur boss's ass) but genuinely good to ppl around.... if yes, then you can be friends' with your peers as well as you seniors.... imagine a scenario.... you were competing in exams and someone beat you and got a better rank than u... may be its coz they had better tutions, better notes, more time or any circumstantial reason..... if you could take that then y not take the fact that ur peer got a better evaluation than u... y does this have to hamper ur friendship with that person? I am not saying the case is that no one has good friends in office.... In fact my father has one of his closest buddies from his office.... but I dunno if the same is the case for ppl in the later generation.... if I take my example, I have formed new friends yes but I am still comfortable with/close to and have loads of fun when I am with my group... then be it college group or school group....

Is this possible, I dont know? Is this too much to ask... I dunno again... All I know is that it takes 2 tango.....

The way I look at this situation in hand is that instead of being genuine only 2 days of the week, I would rather accept this mantra and have an entire week where I am genuine....

Great things come in small packages....PART 2

What I took as an end of and era was actually the beginning of a new one... 2 ppl landed in pune and just to add to a feeling of dejavu they landed here in the same order as before.... House hunt escapades began.... What would you deem memorable when you look for a house.... the location you got it in, the neighbourhood, the no. of rooms in it, the type of view from the house??? But none of this mattered for us; 'coz just getting G-302, Nikash Lawns, Sus Road as an accomodation was memorable enuf.... 2 major reasons:
It involved ditching 3 brokers, gettins ditched by 3 house owners, ditching our frends and above all the hajar fites with folks at home regarding the indecisiveness..
The so-called furnished house actually became a HOME after all the paraphrenalia set in :)
My roomie said something which sums it all; " I am glad we finalised this place and even gladder that it is with u...."

It was here that we realised cooking can be fun, that cooking can be one of the ways to manao an angered roomie or to make her feel special.... It was here that the count of movies I saw in a theatre skyrocketted.... If I was feeling sad, had a bad day, experiencing Monday or anyday blues..... One solution to all.... Any show, any movie... buy the tickets to relaxation and fun :) All this was possible b'coz of our very own 'SCARLET'... A bike (oops!! a scooty) that took us thru thick and thin times... Thick times were the freedom it gave us in a city devoid of public transport and the thin times were an icing on the cake.... They added adventures to our daily mundane existence.... I mean how often would you have a bike that got punctured in the middle of the highway or it crashed down middle of no where and for no apparent reason or just refused to start :) Then of course there were Mumbai trips over the weekend, birthday surprises and the freedom to invite anyone,anytime and play the hostess...

Of course cooking was fun, but it was the most difficult thing to do when I was alone.... Yes, movies were fun but funnier was the impromptu decision making process and the smile on a face when we played blind and hit a jackpot.... Of course the bike rides were fun but the fun part became non-existent when Infy introduced concept of shifts in our lives.... Yes, the Mumbai trips were longed for but only when I had a sleeping beauty's head on my shoulder and when there were hajar arguments regarding the mode of transport to be used.... Of course bday parties were fun but more enjoyable was the person's face lit up after the surprise or her anxiety to know what presents were in store....

People say a relationship is at its peak when words are no longer needed.... Mind reading, facial expressions, the tone of the voice, reactions to a particular statement, or something as silly as time of coming back home... They served as cues to guess other person's feelings..... I think we had reached that peak here.... 'Coz here I've had the most lengthy and meaningful conversations just lying silently beside her..... Our friendship had reached that comfort level that we had started taking each other for granted.... One year of living with this person and gelling so perfectly with each other that it looked like a completed jigsaw puzzle.... One piece was my unreasonable demand and tantrums... The other was infinite patience.... One piece was a spate of tears... The other contained a protective hug, sleepless nights trying to reason out and a bountiful of courage.... One piece was my apprehension, qualms and migvings I had... The other had a panacea for all..... One piece was pessimism and atheism.... The other had huge amounts of faith; Faith in ME and Faith in the Creator..... One piece was a child who needed to be attended to everytime..... The other had only undivided attention.....

All these 'Other' pieces were again in that one person... The small package whose destiny was wound with mine for a short period of time..... The package who has to mkae big in her own new world..... For that short time she has influenced me, affected me and has given me so many qualities I lacked.... trying to make me a better person.... May be I have become a better person than what I was on 19th Sept 2004... 'Coz since then I was in touch with all the great things in this girl... My roomie... Shruti Rangarajan..... Now, as we part our ways, I thought it was going to be an end of an era.... But if I have got anything from the past and from her, I know it would be the begginng of a new one..... The only song I can identify with right now is:

Hum rahe ya na rahe kal
Kal yaad aayenge yeh pal
Pal, yeh hain pyaar ke pal
Chal, aa mere sang chal
Chal, soche kya
Chhoti si hai zindagi
Kal mil jaaye to hogi khushnaseebi
Hum rahe ya na rahe, yaad aayenge yeh pal

Here's wishing u the best that u always deserve...

"As you go ahead, to a great future and success stories untold
I wish you all the luck on the path you are about to unfold
When you look back there would be one person who will always hold
YOU as the BEST; a pure spirit with the heart of gold......"

Great things come in small packages....PART 1

I have no clue how mnay times in the course of last 2 years I have heard this. So much so that I've actually started believing it to some extent :) Whatever I am going to say now may or may not be understood/agreed upon by all and is definitely not new to the person I am writing this about. So then whay am i writing this?why am i penning down thots which are redundant for the person and also micorscopic for others. But there is a reason.... Like there always is for everything arnd us... The same would be revealed in the lines below.....

Has it ever happened to you.... that the 2 years of your life become synonymous with the person u spend those with and just everything gets associated with him/her? I mean every scene of your life, every happening, every other character, emotions, actions.... EVERYTHING.... everything with clear demarcations suddenly merge into this one person, one entity.... Result is nothing you mention about your life during this period is without the mention of that one name... All this happened to me... since 19th September I have been on this roller coaster ride and man it was pleasurable..... Since the day I left my protected, microcosmic world of college and set foot on a corporate platform with a professional backstage..... Everyone freshly out of college has apprehensions when they take up their first job... Its a drastic change in life.... A huge move from an infomal/casual attitude to a professional outlook... It aint that easy.... But there are always your peers you bank upon to reduce this pressure on u, to make the change a slow and steady one instead of a drastic one.... But for me things were doubly difficult.... Since apart from this pressure, on the personal front too I was exploring unexplored waters..... I was goin to live with a person I dint like and who wasn't crazy abt me either.....

But now I believe that destiny has something in store for all of us.... It has a plan, a plan which is customised for each individual... What I then took as a black stroke on my canvass of life (being in a place I dint want to and with a person I wasn't 'FOND OF') was actually a part of a magnificient painting of life.... A normal,sane person wouldnt have stayed at Anand Nagar, beyond Electronics city, Blore... But 2 extremely normal ppl, inspite of many ppl dissuading them from doing so, agreed to live at the Shenoy's.... Everything happened here... Here, at a place for which ISOLATED was the only befitting adjective.... In this isolation, we discovered each other.... We were such a perfect eg. of how you can have a brilliant rapport with a person u have never lived with... a perfect eg. of keeping the friendship string perfectly taut.... If I let lose, she would pull me up and if I stretched it beyond its limits, she would move in immediately.... I dont know when the dislike moved from hesitation to fondness to liking to love..... The incidents may or may not be monumental but the journey definitely was....

It was amidst
meals with a landlady who just loved to feed and with a landlord who loved to supervise,
my tryst with Tamil (and mind you with a person who wasn't good at it herself :)..),
a swerve in my dressing habits from good to great :),
fussing on thigns like projects and being subjected to fussing abt me fussing,
my first salary shopping and from tehn on shopping being used as a feel good factor,
huge telephone conversations (more than once a day...),
my first stint with writing letters and poems,
studies and watching convoluted soap operas together,
my first approach to Verbal as interesting,
my writing notes to myself,
me yakking away to glory just because I got a patient ear,
the caring about a person in sickness and health,
my first exposure to throw caution to hte winds and have fun and
infinite dreams................
that I fell in love with this 5 feet 2 inch person... Her patience, her fundaes.... evereything Great thing in this small package :)
And you would think that this would be the person I loved.... But in reality it was the person who I hadnt liked.... A person who transcended from a person ' I CANT STAND' to a person ' I CANNOT STAND UP WITHOUT'......

So, here is the reason why I wrote this.. 'Coz in this life U never know who can make it colorful by their sheer presence in it.... Who can make a difference inspite of being a no different (commonplace) person..... And for a person, who made a period of 1.5 months of separation pleasurable inspite of not being in physical proximity and a reason to look FWD to great times in future, deserves to be retold how much she is loved or appreciated... The future based on a tapestry of dreams weaved using choicest of words.....

This is something that can be agreed upon and also explains y this redundany aint so redundant....