Direct Dil Se

22nd July 2010

2010-07-30T22:04:00.000+05:30

One would think that this birthday when I am quite close to the big ‘THREE-OH’ would dampen my spirits on my birthday! I cannot but relate this expectation to a F.R.I.E.N.D.S episode which shows the reactions of everyone when they celebrated their 30th birthday... But my birthday was yet again an occasion to get pampered and feel young all over again…. 22nd July despite being a working day & despite the wrath of rain gods, still managed to make me smile (or giggle more likely) through the day!

So, why did this happen? May be coz things like dress codes, surprises, gifts, hugs and night-outs – still remained ‘the usuals’ at my birthday… May be coz all the relevant people in my life have their own ways of making me feel special…. May be coz it wasn’t really a day but a week of celebrations! May be coz even if I’m a pessimist at heart, I ALWAYS end up seeing the silver light on that day… And more importantly coz, it’s probably the only day when I decide to act mature and also succeed in it (For instance, maintaining a written “call list” wasn’t done AT ALL… Though end of day, I counted the number of calls/posts  (Do I see the readers nodding their head with only one statement in their mind ‘When will she grow up?’)

Anyway, without further ado & rambling, this is how 22nd July 2010 was! It started with Vraj picking me up after work on 21st night…. With my zero observation skills, quite naturally I did not realise he had changed into a different set of clothes…. Only when he pointed it out, I was like “Oh you did!!! Oh that means we are going out!!! Oh, considering you are a ‘Birla’s aulad’ it’ll be a hep hotel with candle light dinner…. Oh, meri ijjat ki waat lagegi in some 5-star hotel coz of what I am wearing… you are so rude na – why won’t you ask me to get a change of clothes too if you were planning something!” If you can believe this, I actually managed to say ALL OF THIS in a single breath!

But after the volley of statements, throughout the ride – I was guessing all the possible hotels in Mumbai where he could take me to…. I even googled and started listing them…. Vraj played his part well – sometimes ‘acted’ saying, “Oh! U r so smart – u guessed!”, sometimes just smiling as if his plan was exposed etc. … Net – Net, “Ullu banaya mujhe!” Finally, we came to this place called, ‘Dadar, Mumbai 28’! It’s a vintage hotel of sorts (as you can guess from the name) and apparently serves awesome non-veg food (which we came to know only after dinner there)! At the restaurant, I got my first gift – Godiva liqueur chocolate box! Now that’s a sweet start of the day, ain’t it?

Inside, zero observation skills were displayed yet again when I did not notice a table full of 12 odd people – my very own junta – patiently waiting for me (did I mention I got late that day too!)…. And when I did see them, I failed to notice that they were all in Red & Black, my favourite colors! Of course, GS was in pink but I give it to him since it’s a shade of Red  Shruti was there with her ‘better’ half and told me how I unnecessarily harassed her the previous night (I had called her and told her how I found out she is coming to my house and she insisted on how she wasn’t! And when I agreed to what she had to say, I sulked!)

The other jhang-bang was there too!
1. Mom-Dad (long ride from Borivli to Dadar in heavy rains and after work)
2. Shruti-Shraddha(after a night out due to exams/projects)
3. Saasumaa-Sasurji (after long tiring day with all travelling involved due to the ‘dress-code’ factor)

I couldn’t stop smiling and feeling special for the pains they took for me. After talking to everyone and hugging them, I asked “Priya kyun nahi aayi? Of course, she has to come!” And then madame made her presence felt. As usual she was like, “Arre! Tum log yahan kaise? I heard abt this place and I just came” Such a childish attempt na but if it was any more sophisticated, it wouldn't have been her

After a sumptuous dinner, which ended very fast (surprisingly considering the laughs and banter around) we waited & at 11:15 pm waiters’ got my ‘surprise’ cake! Vraj was like, “Areeeeeeeeeyyyyyyyyy! Abhi nahi!!!” and we all laughed at his reaction! Anyway, we killed time till midnight.... Can you imagine that 11 people on the table wanted to pay the bill and leave early and ONLY Vraj held the fort and made us wait.... Basu messaged saying, I’m sleeping so happy budday in advance and I called him and forced him to stay up and wish... (This is the price to pay to love me, but a small one! )Of course, he wished me at 12 else he would have to hear that till he became a grandfather

To pass time, we ordered desserts and at the stroke of mid-night (which were actually 4 different strokes – one said central railway time, one said western railway time, one said JnJ time and other said right time period ) my first cake came! I cut the cake, fed everyone, took snaps from Priya’s cam and suddenly I had a juggernaut force coming down on me! It was a hug from Namu who came from Bangalore to surprise me.... Obviously, since she is the ‘noise’ of the house, hajar awaaz happened with her arrival.... Archana wished me too (Yes! Since shaadi with GS our ‘super-early’ morning person has learned to stay up!) and then there was an unexpected caller Rahul.... After talking to him, I realised that his excitement came NOT from wishing me but hearing me say ‘shiv, shiv, shiv!” in response to him saying “chicken”!

Finally at 12:35 we left that place for Mulund! Did I mention I got my second round of gifts here  Shruti, Praveen & GS bid adieu here and we reached my Mulund house (Phulgirkars – Datars – Priya) Here I got the third set of gifts  Then after a round of ice-creams, all senior citizens slept off and we all stayed up! I was up till 4:00 am checking FB, mails etc. & at that point my old bones forced me to sleep till 7 am.... “Things well begun, day awesomely done”, I thought as I slept

Dressed up in my new clothes & got a fourth round of gifts in the morning. I came late to office and got fully drenched (Mumbai rains) in the process. As luck may have it, our administration chose to have the lowest possible temperatures that day! But no amount of cold could have doused my enthu-ness – after all it was my budday! As soon as I entered, Nupur & Manish wished me.... I had a round of calls during the day as well.... Ideally, I would have had a second cake cutting ceremony @ office but since I had joined only 3 weeks ago – no one really knew it was my birthday.... Now, I am super enthu about my birthday but going and telling people, “its my budday wish me!” isn’t really an awesome thing to do! At 5:00 pm, I left for Borivli so that I could spend some time with Namu. Aai – Baba graciously agreed to let me spend my day there! I got drenched again and because of this, I did not go to meet Nishu & Arti who had actually got candles and chocolates for me.... Sorry baccha! Will make up for this!!! We were supposed to leave for ‘Inception’ – a movie that everyone dared me that I won’t understand.... Vraj came late, rains did not stop and idea of getting drenched for the third time did not sound too appealing.... So, we ordered in, ate garam-garam food and played cards till it was 23rd July 2010 – the 8 people closest to me!

In the last ten minutes, while my father dealt the cards, I checked through the list of phone calls.... So many people tried innumerable times to get through to me and wish me.... So many of them do this year on year without fail and just make me feel special.... Amit who never once forgot to call on my budday, Ashwath who called and we spoke for almost an hour, Ninad who calls despite having a right to get mad for not meeting often even if we are in the same city.... GG messaged, mailed and called  I would have been happy knowing he remembered but he really surpassed himself when he used every form of communication! Shaw, Needs & Shruti called back-to-back and had I not known better I would have thought – “Hawww! They have come to surprise me”  (Yeh dil always maange more people so please don’t get bugged) Relatives – Maussis, Chachas, Chachis, Mamas – Minutai, Ruparel friends Pritee, Abhijit etc., JJ Medical college friends (No! I did not go there but still managed to meet Pooja) and a few juniors Mayank, Noddy, Chhallo, Ankoor, Rajant called too.... Arundhati called – increasing the number of continents I received calls from to 4

After the game concluded, Vraj and I left for Mulund.... Got drenched the third time! As I went off to sleep, I thanked God for giving me signs to tell me once and for all – “Sharmili, stop whining about being old and writing blogs like you are 65... You have a long way to go there!”
The birthday celebrations continued on 24th July 2010 when I cut my second cake – in Lonavla... Awesome cake, brilliant view, 8 people huddled up on a bed drinking cool breezers and the thought that Shruti remembered my funda of a ‘Birthday Week’ – I was all smiles again 
Such was 22nd July 2010 – as awesome as the others were and I felt as special as I did in others... Over the years, people participating in my budday have changed (since the time I have started writing this), surprises have changed, and people giving surprises have changed!!! But through all the years, a certain set NEVER changes.... May be that’s what they call a core!!! A core that is not only of people who are bound by blood to love me but also of those who love me despite the ‘consistent’ disruption I cause in their lives.

Love you all!!!

Acceptance

2010-07-03T22:38:00.002+05:30

There comes a time in life when you learn
To take things in stride and not just yearn
Life takes turns; gives chances too few
You get this and live, that's acceptance to you!

Nothing remains permanent but change
Each relationship goes through phases, a wide range
A time come when your best buddy won't talk to you
You heart would wrench but you move on, that's acceptance to you!

All your life, you continued to run a rat's race
"Important" things got left behind, you begin to lose face
Finally you stop thinking only about yourself and what others think of you
You grow up in life, that's acceptance to you!

You find love, you cherish love & you marry your soul mate
Experience ups and downs, at times feel resigned to fate
You try hard to change yourself & sometimes your partner too
Happiness comes only when you love unconditionally, that's acceptance to you!

Years go by & your age reaches its fall
Health leaves you, you cannot stand tall
In your last moments, you think of everyone who mattered to you
You close your eyes hoping you made them happy too, that's acceptance to you!

Such is Life!!!

2010-07-03T16:26:00.007+05:30

Rains through your window, greenery everywhere, cool breeze and a warm "cheese" maggi... You have snuggled up in a shawl, all by yourself in the house and its a weekend afternoon where you can do whatever you want...

I have to admit such moments have been very rare in my life... Work - office or ghar ka, Catching up - relatives or friends OR movies have just made this time impossible to attain... The last time I was this chilled out was in IIMB!!!

So, what would you do/think during this time? Most people would take a deep breath,exhale away their worries (temporarily) and become calm to get absorbed in the spectacle called "nature"... I chose to get my IIMB laptop and notes/letter out and read... The history lesson of my life people; and the only learning from it was C'est la Vie! (Such is life!)

YOU LOSE ONE:
A note written about me said, "The coldness in her fights is only matched by the warmth in her care. You have to understand her to know her. And then you get addicted!!" My first thought after reading this was who shoulders a greater burden? Is it the person who chose to leave OR I for driving this person away? The answer came when I was discussing this situation with a VERY dear friend... He said such a situation arose because I chose to not stick to the ONE motto I live by "Live and let Live"!!!

YOU GAIN SOME:
You dont know what you have until you lose it... But before it came to that extreme scenario lemme thank God for digital cameras... Some pictures speak a thousand words! And these I saw made me realize that I am among the few lucky ones who is pampered left, right and centre!!! There exist people in my life who have vowed to make me happy as long as they know me (which means for the rest of my life)... One took a silly scribbled note given to him 3 years ago and promised me to take care of me - whatever happens... One who gave a shoulder whenever I needed one... One who patiently waited till I stop fussing... One who discussed every issue I had... One who made me smile when my insides were crying... Its a "happy" bunch - we have shared everything from notes to talks and the dreams of future!!!

YOU CHANGE YOUR STANCE:
I have innumerable notes which prove I love to be "child-like" (definitely not childish)... I sat back and reflected how, of late this has been just impossible... The child in me is being forced to grow up... Call it nature of work or the expectations of people around... Net-Net - The child fights at time, thus being childish and sometimes it gives up, thus fading into oblivion... The important thing is knowing when you can switch between these two!

YOU RESIST:
A note which stated the incident of making a choice between career and personal life made me think why is this being asked of every woman! Why dont men have to have to answer this? And if say a man did make his choice, why is it frowned upon if a woman makes career as her first priority? At such times, I resist... Does that make me a rebel without a cause? Quite frankly, cause or no cause - I would continue to resist!!!

YOU ASPIRE:
I had started to write my new year resolutions on paper... Silly I know but there were so many things I thought I would do by now and I haven't done them... So many things to do and I cannot shake the feeling of "Time is slipping away"! Things when you want to do something about your dancing, about your game, about your painting or about your music... About those goals which an immature youth had written years ago...
While I kept thinking of how many things I have to do in life, I was reminded of my meeting with this 38 yr old CEO... His struggle, his conviction and his place in the society/market today made me question - would I be anyone significant in the value chain - 10 years hence - professionally? I do not have answer for it but I know what I would like the answer to be...

YOU DOUBT:
And when you think of all the thoughts above, of the success stories of others around you, you doubt! You question where you have come and what you have become till date... There is always someone who is better off than you... That's my problem - I always find people better than me... And when you feel you are coming last in this race - you are faced with a series of "What have I done in life?" questions...

Its scary to have such free time... Time when you have nothing to do... It makes you think of what you could have done differently... Could you have prevented people from walking away from you? Could you be more happy with yourself? Could you do something to lose people dear to you? And the more you think - the more elusive the answers get...

So, on a rainy saturday afternoon with nothing to do - spend your time looking out of the window... Watch the merry kids getting wet in rains, the water-logged streets, the vehicles dashing water on all pedestrians! Taking a trip down memory lane alone may not be the best thing you do...

Small Joys of Life!

2010-01-06T15:58:00.002+05:30

An instant smile lights up my face when these things happen!!! May be the same things happen with you too!!!

1. See a bus full of kids going to school, see them talking/fighting/smiling…. Take a minute of your traffic time to think about your school time/picnic time etc.
2. Cleaning your wardrobe after ages and see that old jeans you used to fit in…. Rummage through the pockets and find some note from a friend or self written to remind about some incident….
3. Cleaning your wardrobe after ages and see that old jeans you used to fit in…. You try it on and YOU FIT IN!!!
4. Hearing from an old friend after a long time and talk about absolute nonsense yet, feel content at the end of it….
5. Random bitch sessions about anyone and everyone with your friends J
6. Seeing photos from a past trip with a friend and then messaging “I miss you” only to get a call in return….
7. Getting a “I miss you” message/mail/call from someone you thought you had lost…
8. Reading comments on the blog you write (Disclaimer – not written here on purpose! It GENUINELY is a joy to read)….
9. Run for a train/bus/cab and just about making it….
10. Leaving slightly later than schedule and getting all lights green (or connecting trains or cabs immediately or even ships if push comes to shove) to still make it on time (Never happens to me – thanks to Murphy’s love for me)
11. Go to a random movie without plans and end up seeing one of the most enjoyable movies….
12. Get up late in the afternoon and realize that you can still sleep some more J
13. Read a section just last minute before an exam and it comes as a question for 10 marks and u end up scoring well!!!
14. And lastly after the genesis of 3 idiots – Seeing your alma mater in the movie and all those places where you spent 2 glorious years of your life…

I am sure there are much more... But in the mundaneness of existing, we just DON'T wait n experience them!!!

Every Guy's Dream - My new job!!!

2009-10-31T14:32:00.001+05:30

I know that every job ceases to be interesting after some time - as in a dream job is just a mirage! But I still stand by my subject line...

For me, my first stint was a dream job (all the newbie excitement) and I was in love with my company - something like Saif's reaction in song "Main Kya Hoon..." from Love AajKal... In about 3.5 months (in my second stint), I am in the same state that he was in after that 3.5 min song got over! But that I still believe that a guy would consider this a dream job!!

Why you ask? Take a look at my day-to-day conversation with "people" and you would realise:

"I need 5 girls (to be recruited) by Monday"
"I can supply (send more appropriate) 3 girls by tomorrow after training"
"Mujhe meri requirements ki hi ladki chahiye... No deal otherwise!!!"
"The girls I need should have a good complexion and need to be presentable"
"Please remove this girl. Her (selling) services aren't satisfactory"

While one may be tempted me to call my profession by a completely derogatory name; please hold your thoughts coz I am doing nothing but recruiting sales girls (promoters) for my brand!

And now the subject line would make sense!!! Coz I think a guy doing this job would keep himself and the promoters quite motivated throughout the tenure of his project (I would like to believe using strictly professional means) ;))) But mind you, such a harmless (and fun!!!) sounding job is VERY challenging!!!

The encounters in real life in my job CANNOT be simulated in any b-school class or case...

A brief background of this industry -
The temp staffing agencies recruit people on their rolls and they work as our brand staff. The attrition in this industry is around 40 - 50% (yes! if someone is doing this - they are bound to be surrounded by girls all the time)! The requirement is just 12th pass (with decent english knowledge) and these girls are primarily equipped with zero responsibility, zero accountability and zero honesty!

Some of the most interesting encounters are given below for you to judge:

5. (11:30 in the night - I get a call) - "Madam, ek baat toh bataiye! Mere na chacha ke fufa ke bete ka bhai ki death ho gayi hai... Mein kal ja nahi paungi kaam pe ma'am... aap please meri salary mein se kuch cut nahi karna, yeh toh genuine case hai na"

Later found out it was her birthday so she took off - I dont get why not tell the truth instead of killing someone..

4. (I am on a conference call with Delhi team, I get 10 missed calls from my promoter)
Me: "Haan bolo Ms. H, what happened? Any issues - 10 missed calls diye aapne?"
H: "Ma'am maine mera first pack sale kiya... Yayyyyy!!!"
Me: (really trying to be too excited for her) "Awesome!! Keep it going"

End of Day - girl sold only 3 packs coz took a lunch break of 2.5 hours :O :O :O

3. (Arbit number on my cell - I am with my manager discussing my stint progress)
Me: "Yes!!!"
Other Side: "Hi! I am Ms. Kuldeep singh... I am a customer of "my product name". Ji maine XYZ mall se aapka product khareeda tha and it has this fault (explains the fault with hajar morality things brought in. Sunaoed me as if I cheated her)"
Me: (still grappling on how is this call was routed to me!) "Aapko mera number kaise mila??"
Ms. KS: "Woh aapki promoter ne kahan all product complaints aap humari madam ko bolo - woh solve kar degi"
Me: (still wondering what the hell did I do to deserve this call and in all minds to abuse but was at my best behaviour) "Ji I will look into it and get back to you. I apologize for the inconvenience caused" Found out how her grievance can be addressed and messaged her the solution!

But why does my promoter think I am wonder-woman is still beyond me!

2. Frantic calls from a newly joined promoter
XYZ: "Madam, yahan bahut issues hai madam!"
Me: Kya hua? Anyone said anything?
XYZ: "No Ma'am... Lekin mujhe yahan koi dekh hi nahi raha"
Me: As in??
XYZ: "Madam mein yahan khadi hoon... Koi mujhe dekh nahi raha... Mein kya karu madam???"

I tried to pacify her but not getting attention was a sure stopper for her coz she left the next day - changed numbers and of course never showed her face again!

And the winner is:

1.
One of our outlet owners called, "Madam, please remove this promoter from this outlet... we do not want her..." I wondered what could have possibly happened so I asked if she was caught thieving, any jhols etc. Apparently, she created a scene with one of their staff members... To know the reason follow the timeline below:

Day 1: She reports to the shop
Day 2 - Day 4: She gets friendly with a guy and generally spends time with him, hold his hands and walks in the outlet, has lunch together etc.
Day 4 evening: She claims she loves him
Day 4 night: She sleeps with him
Day 5 morning: He comes and tells her he is married
Day 5 afternoon: She creates a scene saying you have to marry me... etc etc.
Day 5 evening: Wife lands up... More drama...
Day 5 night: I got the call mentioned above!!!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yep!! These exciting encounters are an everyday affair for me... EVERYDAY!!! My day starts off with "Arre yeh ladki bhaag gayi, replacement do..." and ends with "Aaj 6 li hai... Hopefully aur ladkiyon ki jarurat nahi hogi..."

Typically these conversations happen at office (explains why my team of 4 girls stays far away from me) or in cabs when I am travelling between agencies (explains why the cab drivers sometimes charge me less than the meter fare)... But one unfortunate conversation took place in my house and after I hung up I saw my husband standing at the door... The look on his face showed that he heard the conversation... And he just plainly looked up and said, "I am scared Sharmili!!! Mera Ross (FRIENDS character whose wife after 7 years married a girl) ho jayega!!!"

Which is why I ask the guys I know - ANY TAKERS FOR MY POSITION???

25 things!!!

2009-09-05T14:56:00.002+05:30

1. I hate to have ANY meals alone... I would prefer starving over eating alone!

2. I always love to have people around! In every school, college or workplace I have visited, I have always had 3 groups! A senior group, my batch group and a junior group...

3. I want to ensure every comfort and happiness to my parents.... I wish to fulfill all their dreams which they compromised on for us

4. The best way to convince me to do anything is to get my mother to agree to it.

5. There is always inorganic growth in my relationships! It doesnt take to long to move from hate to like to love for me.... The other way around is not as easy or fast....

6. I am VERY "un-girly"... I have to battle with eye shadows, liners, other cosmetics and accessories every time I have to dress up for an occasion

7. As a kid, I have stuck my head in a metal bars of the gate and got stuck and have locked my sister in the bathroom

8. I am very competitive and I love to win bets!!! I jumped from second floor to the first floor in hostel blocks at IIM Bangalore just to prove a point. I ate chillies (chew them for 1 min and then swallow and not drink water for 30 min) to win a small dairy milk

9. My friends govern my moods.... So, if I have mood swings, trust me a few of them have fought with me and others have really gone out of their way to make me smile...

10. I believe in theory of zero expectations.... If you dont expect anything, you will ONLY be delighted at what you get from the other person....

11. I am a bunch a contradictions! I am pessimistic and at the same time I hope for the better... So, its no surprise that while I believe in having no expectations, I may have some from certain people!

12. Contradictory to many, I think of God when I am happy rather than when I am sad. When I am happy, I thank God everyday if something comes my way.

13. True cancerian to the core, place me in an un-conducive environment, I will first fite to make things right... When there is nothing working my way, I will go deep into my shell

14. I fasted for 11 Saturdays because we won a football match - not a significant one like finals or something but a random circuit match

15. I am passionate about sports (i cried out of joy when my section won the inter-section tug of war match) and about NOT reading newspapers (barely read 3 days newspapers before every interview i attended) :) I looooooove adventure sports

16. I HATE pink

17. I looooooove riding bikes. If you see my driving crazily, its me venting out my frustration. Bike Ride is the BEST way to calm yourself down. I dream to own a high-tech psued bike and join a bikers' cult

18. I have already planned the name of my kids, who are they marrying to and what profession will they pursue.

19. In college, I was not allowed to watch movies with friends. My first movie was 4th year of engineering with 5 guys - first day first show of Harry Potter and Sorcerer's Stone

20. I hate alcohol and its smell. But when I drink on insistence, I take shots instead of sips. And everytime I get drunk, I cry keeping a particular theme in mind. These themes ranged from "no one likes me" to "i am all alone!"

21. I believe in not keeping in buffer time when I schedule a meeting with friends. Result is more often than I am last or second last to join the group. I am not late, just that Murphy is in love with me.

22. I cannot look at a flower and go swooning about its beauty or go to a butterfly/bird sanctuary and admire the beauty of their feathers. The beauty I can admire is in men (rarely) and women (often)

23. I want to have a chimpanzee or a tiger as a pet. I hate dogs, puppies, cats and kittens... Dogs sense the fear in me (more prominently displayed since the last time I was almost bitten by a dog)

24. I am very immodest. You will always see me talking about me. But I cannot gracefully accept a compliment.

25. I have got every form of punishment when in school. I have been locked in class, hit by ruler, slapped on face, knelt outside class, knelt on ground, yelled at in my class, yelled at in other class, thrown out of class etc.

I learnt in life!!!

2009-09-05T14:54:00.002+05:30

I sat on a ledge with a paper in my hand
I penned down my learnings from the times of sand

I have learnt wisdom and met the wise
Learnt to accept grey, my world was black or white otherwise

I have learnt to be compassionate with all
How to face the most unreasonable and still stand tall

I have learnt to give love to all, even those in fray
Learnt that love is freedom and NOT to keep people away

I have learnt that humility is very important
How pride meets a downfall - a thing thats very evident

I have learnt to be competitive and be the best
Its not slitting others throats but empowering the rest

I have learnt that good things happen to good people
Thats bads will never go unpunished for the mighty or the feeble

I have learnt the power of praying - its intense
Of wishes getting answered - just needing some patience

But most importantly I have learnt that people come in your life for a reason
The weeds come for months and the flowers come for a season

...Is there any answer???

2009-09-03T00:23:00.000+05:30

In standard two, I learned about a particular property of water…. It takes the color of the thing it’s mixed in and it takes the shape of the container that holds it…. Very mundane, very simple and very commonsensical isn’t it…. And imbibing this very property makes life slightly complex, if not entirely complicated….

This property of water is nothing but one quality that I can safely say, is common to everyone “living”: Adaptation…. Proven beyond doubt by Darwin’s theory of evolution and tested easily when you changed a bit of you to get accepted into a group. We have thus, evolved and adapted in varying degrees to become what we are today…. The level of adaptations could range from linguistics adaptation (where you use the slang that group uses often) to behavioral (where you tend to alter your behavior to give “acceptable” reactions to certain events)…. Every group you were a part of throughout your life would have been distinctly different from each other…. And as a result, you would have modified yourself over and over again….

Some people weed out the unwanted qualities through these adaptations and become better individuals while others go to an extreme and become clones of the most influential person in the vicinity completely losing themselves…. The net result is that there are many aspects – which are not completely you – that now form a part of your personality….

At this point, I wouldn't dare generalize but just talk about how I have adapted in due course of time (may be some people identify with it)…. During the first few years of schooling, I was with this guy who was creatively “gifted”! While I did have some potential, my association with him made my “drawings” good…. Not stopping there, I went on to take both the state level exams and clearing them… During the later years at school, my gang was heavily into sports…. Net result, I was a part of athletics teams and the football team of school…. At this point I wonder, had my group been the studious, teachers’ pets kinds or the culturally inclined kinds – would I have done these things? Is me becoming good in drawing and sports – intentional or associational?

In junior college, my group was this simple living, high thinking sort of a group…. It was with them that I was exposed to giving back to the society bit and I started to teach at an NGO…. College was primarily about sports (again my group had elements very active in it), debates (one of my closest friends was a studess in this field and I actively took part in such events) and technology (very good friends who were bonds in coding, robotics, programming)…. So, after 4 years when I joined the corporate world, I was a tomboy who was not technically challenged and a decent conversationalist (if not debater level)…. Later, my association with my roommate resulted in me going out for parties, movies, shopping extensively and becoming brand conscious (if not crazy like she was)…. My manager was heavily into history and gymming and just like that our conversations were converted into 2 hour gym sessions and reading about Roman mythology…

IIMB came and I was placed with the crème-de-la-crème as everyone puts it…. With such high standards, came a serious jolt to my personality as well. I became intensely competitive (everyone was just so good, that becoming better needed constant reminding), was prey to the hunger to make my mark (wanting to play drums, sports, dancing, FashP, writing cases, debating, making B-plans, having a good CG, being in different clubs – I seemed to want to do it all and do it well)... But the most prominent was becoming immensely practical bordering on callousness about things… My parents and siblings are still bearing the brunt of this change...

As I write this today, I am reminded of this conversation with a very old friend. She asked me for some advice and when I proffered she exclaimed, “What kind of advice is this? Sharmili I know would have never said something like this”.

I was forced to think that while I have adapted every time to find myself in this “grey” zone (sort of acceptable to all), is it the case that I have lost my “blacks” and “whites” (the core which defined me). Is it that in process of weeding out and becoming better, I have just lost what "Sharmili would have said/done"? Is it fear or is it not knowing yourself?

Even Mahabharata got it wrong!!!

2009-08-26T17:14:00.000+05:30

"Yuganta" by Irawati Karve is a novel that has caught my fancy recently. For an avid lover of fantasy fiction, me reading this book is a highly unlikely event. But on some strong recommendations I did start reading this book which is nothing but a critique on Mahabharata and its central characters... My tryst with Mahabharata was when on Sundays at10:00 a.m. in distant past, B R Chopra's Mahabharat was aired on Doordarshan. For me, it was a great epic battle and a great way to spend time with family.

But after reading this book, I must say there are so many dimensions to this epic - ones which I would have not even thought of, had it not been for this book... There are so many things I did not know, so many things that I just assumed... Inorder to glorify the Gods, Kshatriyas etc., there was so much editing done to our scriptures that it went farther and farther from being logical and we continued to blindly follow it.

Everyone would agree that this epic is all about MEN! But what is strange is that in our land where so many goddesses had existed by then, our religous scriptures do not give any power their women characters. Their role was sort of restricted to be shadowed by their husbands. The more glorious the husband, the stronger the woman. They had no say in any matter, their feelings never got voiced and their opinions NEVER got considered... Examples of this complete disregard are strewn all over the book.

Which woman in right senses will agree to be married to 5 men at the same time (there is this "boon" that Draupadi was given where she could live with one Pandava for one year and when she went to the next one she would still be a virgin - I have many objections on this "boon" but thats another topic in itself). Which woman will agree to give Agni-Pariksha and yet, Seeta gave one and then was asked to give another one for Ayodhya subjects. Which woman will blindfold her eyes when she gets tricked into marrying a blind person and yet, Gandhari did so. Kunti's life was a compromise in itself. And the list goes on...

But the most surprising part is when in these scriptures, you find the sutradhar (narrator) hinting at how these women were predominantly responsible for the great wars. How Seeta was the cause of Ramayana and Draupadi that of Mahabharata... Isn't it ironical, that these seemingly "powerless women" caused the 2 biggest wars in the history. While discussing with one of my friends, I couldnt help but wonder what if these gals had powers - like that of Kali, Lakshmi! Would the scriptures have turned out with a similar ending?

If you analyse these blames assuming that our "Gods" aren't impervious and impregnable, logic will prevail and you will see that these charges can be dropped.

Ram came to Lanka for war to rescue Seeta but the reason of the war was Ravana's desire for her. Mahabharata was supposedly staged to avenge Draupadi's humiliation in the court (under the aegis of "Dharma") thereby making her the cause. Gambling was organized to win back everything that Pandavas had earned while they were the kings of Indraprastha (rivalry and jealousy between Kauravas and Pandavas is well known to justify this cause). But according to the way it is narrated, gambling was supposed to be a ploy of Duryodhana to get back at Draupadi for laughing at him in Mayasabha. He wanted to insult her in public like she did to him.

If this indeed were the case, Duryodhan had to forsee (an improbable thing) the following:

1. Pandavas will lose money (which he could have assumed given Shakuni's prowess)
2. They would go ahead and bet land, palace and army
3. Then they will still go ahead and bet themselves
4. Finally, they wont still learn from this and would bet Draupadi

This looks like a very circuituous route to get back at her. And if this isnt plausible, then clearly she cant be the cause of the war.

All this discussion now seems rather out of place, doesn't it? The thing is, I got sensitised to these observations only after reading this book. Thanks to critical works like these, I actually questioned some of our religious writings.

But it is alarming, that the 2 oldest Hindu scriptures, Bhagwad Gita (which is the second largest widely read book following the Bible) and Ramayana give this treatment to women. A treatment which is logically erroneous!!!

Knowledge is power but such critical works are unlikely to reach the scale that these scriptures have attained. Isn't it worrisome that people will grow up always assuming that women caused these wars???

My First L-Square

2009-06-28T21:44:00.000+05:30

There are some moments in your life which you remember like they happened yesterday.... Even if - in bigger scheme of things they may not be the most significant or momentous moments of your life... But there is just something that makes you wanna repeat them time and again in your mind and just like that they become memorable... With new faccha batch having their first L-square just yesterday, I spent about hours thinking about how mine was...

Dressing up for L-square - a concept whose gravity I did not understand till I attended my first one... When I had come in just "lame" casuals with no cosmetics used, I saw the shimmer and the glimmer in every PGP1 girl's dress on the floor... People would here think, I'll feel out-of-place but those who know me thats the case most of the time so it wasnt a rude shock!!! The actual shock came when I saw the PGP2s (my friends' who I was hoping to dance with) drunk with no ability to grasp anything sane... All they did was blabber, hug everyone in "huggable" distance and fall (in my defense - it was the first time I saw them like this... And those were the days when I actually yelled at my friends for "losing control" - me being a tee-totaler)...

First L^2, people tend to flock to the ones from their wing, to the ones from their section or to the ones who happened to be in the same group as their outbound group... Incidentally, I had the combination of all 3 in one who I had hit it off very well with... She was "THE HOTTEST" girl of our batch and we liked each other (I sure do hope so) But coming with her had its downsides... A drummer just kept displacing me and dancing with her.... (First L^2 is also the time for PGP2 guys to test the waters ;)...) I tried shooing him off thrice (he is a good friend now but back then I dint know him) but he was persistent...

I danced with her and some other people for sometime, but could not help disillusionment creeping into my moods.... I went off to the A-first terrace that overlooks L^2.... If someone hasnt tried this, should definitely do it once... It looks awesome!!! The lights, the motley of colors and the people in their groups.... Its a pleasant sight....

Although heavenly, there is only so much time that you can see the same people from the top... It got lonely soon and I kept feeling my first L^2 wont be too awesome... Just when I thought I should call it a night, it took a turn... An accquaintance who was a fellow VP contestant came up to me and we had a conversation... I was wondering why would anyone come here and somewhere hoping he was having as lousy a time as I was having... But it was chivalry that got him there - did not want to see a girl alone... (yes! PGP1 guys are very chivalrous in the first few weeks :D...) The conversation was all over the place... About IIMB, about perceptions, about people... About dreams, hopes and realities... And just like that I made a new friend...

L^2 mean fun, dance, daaru and music to most people... And I would say that L^2 was fun for me as well but for very different reasons... I got the pleasure to dance with the most sought after girl in the batch (later who was my constant dance partner for a specific song)!!! I got to see how much my friends care about me (they bothered to send me messages the following morning saying they were sorry to ruin my first L^2 by not dancing with me)!!! And finally, I understood how just random talking could make a just about OK L^2 into one which is worth thinking about!!!

Btw, the next first L^2 (my juniors') I played the role that my seniors played but I did dance with my juniors (even if they were unknown) And just like that, her (junior I danced with) first L^2 became fun coz of that moment when a tipsy PGP2 offered to teach and managed to teach 2 dance steps to her :D:D

Yesterday it was my home.... Today I'm just a guest...

2009-06-28T19:58:00.000+05:30

As I sit in my guest house today, I keep thinking to myself - what makes you call a place a home? Its the people, its the environment, its the memories.... Naturally, I found myself asking the question, "So, if I remove the people and if the memories get tarnished, will the place cease to be your home?" While the answer seemed very evident, I decided to put this hypothesis to test...

In my life till date, different places have become "homes" at different points in time.... First is obviously the house I was born and brought up in... Then comes my school - 12 years of my life and 6 - 8 hours everyday... that's a significant chunk of your life... Never really thought of VJTI as my home... While there were most significant memories and very significant people associated with those 4 years - I still do not get the "homely" feeling... Then was the house I shared with a dear friend during the time at Infosys.... IIMB - for all that it gave me and finally, the place I live in after 18th April 2009!!!

Now, my first home is actually a place where my parents live... While I would want them to stay in the house I have lived for good 24 years, if they move - "my home" moves... In case of school - the teachers who taught me, who are responsible for me turning out the way I am today - are no longer present in school... While I still love my school (I go to the annual day celebrations if I am in town) I just cant associate with it anymore... With VJTI out of my list, Infosys rented apartment was a home coz of what Shruti and I did while we were there... And I come to same conclusion as in 2 cases before - my experience there was defined by a person not so much by memories...

Coming to IIMB as a home - there exists an irregularity!!! While memories have faded into oblivion (some willingly, some forced), some bonds still exist.... I love people looking forward to me coming down on campus and I love the hospitality I get... When I go there, I still love the ambience the place offers, the night outs the place brandishes, the nerves of steel that get developed looking at the placecom board (the one where I saw my seniors getting shortlists - my friends and me getting shortlists and my facchas getting the companies they ALWAYS wanted), the profs who still are keen to have a dialogue, L^2s and stories with each one of them, the intensity involved in the throwball - TOW - baski matches...

And yet, this home is ephemeral - a life of 3 years only... It is bonded with the people who were there one year before me and one year after... But more importantly its the memories which play an equally important role... My senior came to campus this year and found himself reminiscing the time he had there but he dint want to leave my side coz to associate with this place as home he needed both me (a familiar face) and his memories... Another friend - a batchmate - said, "its feels weird to make an appearance on campus often... What if people think - kya jab dekho campus aa jaati hai..."

How is this home when I think twice before coming to it?? How do I have people, the memories and yet "home" isn't at IIMB once I pass out.... Why cant I live at IIMB for days together without giving it a second thought.... The place I owned till April 2009 is a place I am a visitor in less than 2 months....

Its an "AND" function PEOPLE AND MEMORIES to make a place call home - coz with memories your mind is present and with people your heart is....

Days that were - IIMB rocked!!!

2009-04-06T20:48:00.000+05:30

I locked the room... 3 posters on the wall and the curtains I picked from MARS (in the first week at IIMB) is all that remained in K-213... Everything that can be associated with me... K-213, the room I called my home for last one year... The room where I laughed, cried, studied and partied... K-213 where innumerable pizzas were ordered and cheese maggis found their way at un-godly hours... And just like that, IIMB got over for me...

As I looked back, my last glance at the gate, before a decrepit auto rickshaw sped off to Bangalore train station, I couldnt help but think of my first day here - 22nd June 2007 - when Shruti and GS came and picked me up... I went to the hostel office and apprehensively picked the C-312 room chit (my abode in the first year)... I went to my room on the third floor, only to find myself ragged in the very first hour coz stupidly enough I went and introduced myself to my seniors... Little after ragging, I met with my wing mates - as apprehensive as me but not as stupid coz they did not make the mistake to go and talk to seniors :D

25th June 2007 when the college started and I saw the first glimpse of Gundu Rao (he was directing us to different rooms in order to avoid delays) - little to know how significant he is going to be in IIMB life... If I could depict how I felt as the auto moved through Bangalore traffic, it would be similar to screening of a movie.... Visualize motley images just running past your conscience.... The first week sessions, first L^2 and the millions after that, the first class when I slept and was almost threatened to be thrown out to most other classes where I slept on the first bench, the first club elections and the events organized or participated in, summer experiences, hectic schedules comprising quizzes, midterms, end terms, last minute project meetings and presentations and the hajar sports competitions (inter-IIM and intra-IIMB) - innumerable memories just came rushing back.... But you know what is the best part of IIMB - it is the fact that not just the firsts but the whole gamut of things remain memorable... Every friendship made, every fight fought, every competition played and every festival/event organized - everything leaves such an imprint on you that as I left, I could not help but wonder, if I would EVER be able to adjust to the "normal" life that would follow as I start working...

It is therefore, not a big surprise that most of us after leaving IIMB, find ourselves bored easily!!! (just read status messages on FB and you would know) After these 2 years, life outside IIMB just doesnt seem "interesting" enough.... While it is true, I may have slept through most of my weekends or holidays at IIMB, just watched some soaps after downloading from DC++ or just strolled on campus with friends - but these so-called "mundane" activities still feel more FUN as compared to what we are doing at our respective homes...

And it is this "bond" that will make me keep coming back to IIMB... Every chance I get!!! My happy place would always be those strolls after leaving K-213 on a fantastic "Bangalore" weather day... Seeing people play on the football field, passing friends at Athicas/mess and then just walking around this magnificent stone structure surrounded by greens... The mere thought of this sight just calms me down... 2 years - that's all it took... The time spent at IIMB would live forever in my heart!!!

With this hope, I live not free!!

2009-03-30T19:41:00.000+05:30

Of sleepless nights and crying in pain
Of every effort going in vain
Of taking me to greats heights and under the bottom of rock
Of me being an ass and made a laughing stock...

With this feeling, I live not free
Don't know what else I have to see!!

Days go by and nights come along
Try as I may,they seem too long
Sleep like a baby, a phrase I have heard before
Its been ages since the last dream, a wink or a snore...

With this effort, I live not free
Don't know what else I have to see!!

Each trip down the memory lane
Full of laughter, cheer, angst and pain
Each memory thought of, is like re-living them
Every moment in the present then, is never the same...

With this burden, I live not free
Don't know what else I have to see!!

And then one fine day, you think of times ahead
Of the words not spoken, of the future unsaid
A silent prayer on your lips, saying all will be fine
You think of new places and people, you then don't whine...

With this hope, I live not free
I hope its something I'll be able to see!!!

Compartmentalisation!!!

2009-03-17T20:12:00.000+05:30

When I was in school, many terrible things happened during "crucial" (as a kid, the intensity of cruciality just changed) moments of my life... For example, my exams were going on and there was a death in my family.... I was in a school play and I came down with jaundice to lose the lead role... I was in a dance and I was down with fever only to look the worst dancer in the photographs (well, I couldn't back out as it was a day before the actual event)....

So, there are 2 kinds of pains that are inflicted on you:

1. Physical pain which has very definitive means of reaction (give in to disease or fight against it)

2. Mental pain which may seem very abstract to handle, but frankly, has very definitive reactions to it as well (get affected by it or not get affected by it)

Thus, in the examples I mentioned above, I did take definitive actions... I fought physical pain once, I gave in the other time and finally, I did not get affected by the mental stress that a 'death of a loved one' brings with it. But as time went by, I have realised that there are 2 types of mental pains too.

1. Mental pain due to unavoidable circumstances with nothing you can do

2. Mental pain due to material circumstances (like people around, events around etc.)

I always prided myself on how I handled my life in case type 1 came into my life... I could VERY EASILY compartmentalise the pain and handle my responsibilites (as a student, daughter and otherwise) like I would have done in normal circumstances... For example, the way I handled my exams in event of whole family grieving.

Handling type 2 of mental pain was also straight forward for me till date. If you ask me, say you are stressed because of a very close friend in need... There is NO WAY in hell can you compartmentalise then... Similarly, say you lose a match (and if luck has its way, its an important one)... It is impossible to avoid the shame, guilt, sadness arising out of this loss... Your friend is in pain, for family member is in the hospital getting a crucial operation done.... These are places where you can make a difference or places where you can have a positive impact by your presence. Till date, I strongly believed that in such cases YOU SHOULD NOT COMPARTMENTALISE!!! So, it's OK if your work gets affected by this pain (in fact, I would go to the extent of procrastinating things if its possible) or if your "enjoyment" gets affected by this thought... (Kindly note, the circumstances which get affected may always not be negative or grave like work related, fulfilling your duty etc. ... They could as well be rosy circumstances like a picnic, a celebration, a festival etc.) Thus were my fundamentals for good 26 years of my life and I functioned well with the stated reactions (ironical in cases where my work DID get affected but you get the point)...

A recent conversation with a friend shook this belief that I actually hold dear... While knowing that a close friend is in pain, this friend of mine actually compartmentalised things to "have fun"... There is no denying that their bond means something to him but still he could compartmentalize... I couldn't help but ask him, " dont you owe this much to your friend?? dont you think your bond actually deserves this - with lack of any other word - mourning?? dont you feel guilty to have fun when you know this friend is in huge pain??" And his answer surprised me... He said, "I am with a different set of people, in a different context and I ought to make most of it..."

So, im stuck in deciding the actual course of action now (and only because I believe this friend of mine handles things very well)... Is it ok to NOT COMPARTMENTALISE and actually give some importance to things where you can actually make a difference and do something about it.... Or you just COMPARTMENTALISE coz finally, its pain and you need to only deal with it in one way - not get affected and give the context more importance!!! Till date I did the former but now have also burnt my fingers (figuratively)... Should I do the latter or not?? If I do the latter, will I be able to do it, that only time can tell....

Sharmili unveiled!!!

2009-01-19T15:03:00.000+05:30

So, as a part of Managing Your Career Growth (MYCG as we call it) we had to take this strength builder test. I started this test with the same cynicism as I do any personality tests because I believe these tests just are a function of your frame of mind when you take the test. But, these results astound me.... I showed it to a couple of friends who know me well and they were like with some minute exceptions, THIS IS YOU!!!

Here is what this strength builder assessed me as: (btw, this is primarily done to ensure that when we take up a job as we leave IIMB, we map our strengths to the roles we apply so that we are satisfied in the job)

Includer

“Stretch the circle wider.” This is the philosophy around which you orient your life. You want to include people and make them feel part of the group. In direct contrast to those who are drawn only to exclusive groups, you actively avoid those groups that exclude others. You want to expand the group so that as many people as possible can benefit from its support. You hate the sight of someone on the outside looking in. You want to draw them in so that they can feel the warmth of the group. You are an instinctively accepting person. Regardless of race or sex or nationality or personality or faith, you cast few judgments. Judgments can hurt a person’s feelings. Why do that if you don’t have to? Your accepting nature does not necessarily rest on a belief that each of us is different and that one should respect these differences. Rather, it rests on your conviction that fundamentally we are all the same. We are all equally important. Thus, no one should be ignored. Each of us should be included. It is the least we all deserve.

Empathy

You can sense the emotions of those around you. You can feel what they are feeling as though their feelings are your own. Intuitively, you are able to see the world through their eyes and share their perspective. You do not necessarily agree with each person’s perspective. You do not necessarily feel pity for each person’s predicament—this would be sympathy, not Empathy. You do not necessarily condone the choices each person makes, but you do understand. This instinctive ability to understand is powerful. You hear the unvoiced questions. You anticipate the need. Where others grapple for words, you seem to find the right words and the right tone. You help people find the right phrases to express their feelings—to themselves as well as to others. You help them give voice to their emotional life. For all these reasons other people are drawn to you.

Competition

Competition is rooted in comparison. When you look at the world, you are instinctively aware of other people’s performance. Their performance is the ultimate yardstick. No matter how hard you tried, no matter how worthy your intentions, if you reached your goal but did not outperform your peers, the achievement feels hollow. Like all competitors, you need other people. You need to compare. If you can compare, you can compete, and if you can compete, you can win. And when you win, there is no feeling quite like it. You like measurement because it facilitates comparisons. You like other competitors because they invigorate you. You like contests because they must produce a winner. You particularly like contests where you know you have the inside track to be the winner. Although you are gracious to your fellow competitors and even stoic in defeat, you don’t compete for the fun of competing. You compete to win. Over time you will come to avoid contests where winning seems unlikely.

Woo

Woo stands for winning others over. You enjoy the challenge of meeting new people and getting them to like you. Strangers are rarely intimidating to you. On the contrary, strangers can be energizing. You are drawn to them. You want to learn their names, ask them questions, and find some area of common interest so that you can strike up a conversation and build rapport. Some people shy away from starting up conversations because they worry about running out of things to say. You don’t. Not only are you rarely at a loss for words; you actually enjoy initiating with strangers because you derive satisfaction from breaking the ice and making a connection. Once that connection is made, you are quite happy to wrap it up and move on. There are new people to meet, new rooms to work, new crowds to mingle in. In your world there are no strangers, only friends you haven’t met yet—lots of them.

Achiever

Your Achiever theme helps explain your drive. Achiever describes a constant need for achievement. You feel as if every day starts at zero. By the end of the day you must achieve something tangible in order to feel good about yourself. And by “every day” you mean every single day—workdays, weekends, vacations. No matter how much you may feel you deserve a day of rest, if the day passes without some form of achievement, no matter how small, you will feel dissatisfied. You have an internal fire burning inside you. It pushes you to do more, to achieve more. After each accomplishment is reached, the fire dwindles for a moment, but very soon it rekindles itself, forcing you toward the next accomplishment. Your relentless need for achievement might not be logical. It might not even be focused. But it will always be with you. As an Achiever you must learn to live with this whisper of discontent. It does have its benefits. It brings you the energy you need to work long hours without burning out. It is the jolt you can always count on to get you started on new tasks, new challenges. It is the power supply that causes you to set the pace and define the levels of productivity for your work group. It is the theme that keeps you moving.

Life goes on!!!

2009-01-16T22:56:00.000+05:30

As you grow older, you realize one thing - you may whine, crib or celebrate but LIFE just moves on!!! While there may be many opportunities you don't convert and many that you just crack, as you move on, all these past experiences fade away into oblivion... They serve as those anecdotes you share with your friends on a reunion or with family when you give gyaan.... On a contradictory note, till date I always thought that everything we do in life contributes to a bigger picture.... So, if I am going through a rough patch, I was led to believe that it is that black border of a bigger beautiful portrait - not pleasant by itself but very necessary to bring out the beauty of the portrait....

As you must have guessed, I have not figured out what life is all about... I always grew up in a competitive context so, Life to me means feeling that I am not a failure and thats all... No! - it moves on, no! - there is light beyond the tunnel etc. theories. And herein lies the core issue. Success for me is relative.... It does not matter what I achieve unless in a context I am better than most. Thus, what life means to me ironically, is determined by others. Strange isn't it!!! Therefore, while I have been an athlete, a dancer or a club president, it does not matter if I have not handled one aspect of my life well.... 'Coz when I pit against my peers at IIMB, my peers from VJTI who are in completely different setup (its like comparing apples and oranges) or anyone who can be remotely connected to me, I always tend to find people many times better than me.... Thus making me feel "Life Sucks!!!"

And once I get this into my head, no other rational thought has any space to make its presence felt... Then comes a teeny voice in my head (after days of incarceration) saying C'mon Sharmili, Move on Woman!!! And just like that, I am back to being my bouncy self.... Emphemeral as it is, this stage lasts for sometime till one more comparison - and I am back to the "Life Sucks!!!" mode. Point of this post, there are many things in my life to make me feel happy, lucky and on the top of the world.... There are many times the rational thoughts mentioned above enter my head.... Yet, I find myself in bouts of low confidence, self doubt, lack of faith etc. I am waiting for a moment when I actually practice what I preached here (in the first paragraph)... Not for the sake of being proper but 'coz, that I believe would be when I actually graduate to the next level of maturity!!!

Chilly in Chicago!!!

2008-12-26T20:20:00.000+05:30

I reached Chicago, met kiddo and guess what - I FROZEEE!!! There was snow everywhere.... Kiddo told me winters are depressing in Chicago and so people needed some cheering up... Which is why there were Christmas lights wherever I went... Beautiful it looked :)

I went to kiddo's apartment and the first thing I did - turn on heat to level 5... This dude was like Sharmili, in my stay here for 3 months - I have never required so much heating :))) Anyway, some more jokes on my (Mumbaikars - later on generalized) cold withstanding abilities... Anyway, we spoke through the nite, saw some of our snaps (you know - its so silly - the concept of seeing the snaps you were a part of... But trust me - it just got back the whole experience and happy feeling back to us...) Then we called it a nite and I told kiddo to NOT wake me up early...

Next day I got up at 12:30 - wooooow!! what a feeling - I had almost forgotten it... And then kiddo started fussing... Get ready!! We are late!! etc... Everything fell in place, we got "Metra" to Michigan avenue - one of the coolest places in Chicago... My sense of USA traffic was completely distorted after coming here... Cars very close.... Cars honking... Cars not letting pedestrains go first... Everything was anti was I had seen in other places... Anyway, we went to Hancock towers - sat in the fastest lift in North America (I would have said world - but kiddo insists on these technicalities), got a mind-blowing view of Chicago outline....

Next we went to Millenium park... Well snowing had dampened the main attraction there, Cloud Gate - which reflects the entire skyline of Chicago... We still took pics coz the structure was magnificient in itself... Btw, the bags you see in our hands here, are the awesome deals we got on Disney soft toys (the big red bag), Guess watches (cant be seen) and Disney doll stuff (Pink bag - which kiddo bought NOT ME)

Then was the MOST exciting part of the trip... So, people who know me - KNOW that adventure, sports etc things excite me the most... So, while I did enjoy all the sight seeing, ice-skating was the BEST!!! And it was difficult too... I fell down 5 times, got hurt at places I cannot mention here but finally, I managed it - took 2 rounds of the entire ring without holding anything and fast and without stopping... I do agree that I was still very clumsy as opposed to 5 yr old kids who managed to be better than me.... But I was VERY VERY HAPPY!!! Would have stayed there longer but we were tired and we still had to see another place... We went to Navy Pier which was closed due to winters or some reason so while I could strike it off the list of things to see, I dint really get to experience it...

Then came the second highlight of the trip... We cooked... We dint have an elaborate kitchen like my mom did but we still managed to get our act together :)))) Woooow!!! Having garam garam Indian food (awesome food made by kiddo primarily) and watch friends with friends and heater on (last detail is important for me :) is an awesome feeling... Its like eating garam garam pakoda and chai on a rainy day with your family.... Get the picture!! We were too tired to do anything else after the entire day of sight seeing... Slept off to get up LATE again :))))

Next day started with seeing GSB Chicago (now renamed as Booth school of business) , eating the famous deep crust pizza (which we could not finish - the smallest size) and running to get a shuttle to the airport.. Oh btw, it was interesting that I spoke to Gau that day, spoke to Rekha after hajar years (I am still surprised she remembered me) and guess what, my trip back to San Francisco was going to be meeting her.... I was so glad that whole thing worked out...

I took flight out of Chicago (Goodbyes are sad - even if you know you are going to meet the person in the next 2 days) and landed in San Fran where I met Rekha and Guru (her husband)... Man!! It was so awesome... I dint have any camera to take a pic with them (sadly so) but it was good fun... Rekha made Pav Bhaji (so Indian food on 2 days... Yeee!), we spoke through the night... Their house is just awesome (they bought a new one) and immediately I told Guru that he should talk to my sister who can help him decorate it... Anyway, after lot of talk (some of it involved around how I just assume things will fall in place when I am travelling and how I havent really planned a lot) we went off to sleep... The next morning I took MRT (Mass Rapid Transit - a sort of metro) from a place close to their place (Fremont) to airport.... Flight was on time, I checked in to get down at Singapore - the last place I was visiting in the trip.. Oh, in order to avoid jet lag issues, I saw 8 movies in a row on the flight and yet, I was not sleepy when I landed... Like Sudha said - it beat the purpose of not being jet lagged :)))

I met Sudha at the airport and went to her new apt.... Next day - went to Mustafa's (the only place I had not visited in SGP), set up her room, met Vikrant and Ashwath (after a long time) and boarded the flight to India....

Back at home... Phew!!! Queues, Indian faces and delays... I was at home... In those 2 weeks,
1. I saw 6 cities,
2. Visited 12 airports,
3. Saw the best sides of people who I met after a long time,
4. Actually bonded with the Stanford students which is THE POINT of the exchange program (My status message for a couple of days was I dont want to leave Stanford people)
5. Did sight seeing, went on rides and walks and
6. Had tons of memorable experiences which are not restricted only to this blog but there for life....

Easily one of the best things that I did while at IIM Bangalore - Enroll for the Stanford Exchange Program...

Sleepless in Seattle

2008-12-26T19:12:00.000+05:30

The last leg of my tour was visiting Seattle and Chicago... Now, people often ask me - "why wouldn't you see San Diego on west coast instead of going all the way to east coast for 2 days?" My reply to that is that my parents were comfortable with me going to places where there were people with me.... Unfortunately all my VJTI, Infy and other friends were in India at the time when I was there.... I had to make use of best of available resources (Now, I sound like an MBA :)...) So, yes! I went to these places and as expected had an awesome time :)))

Seattle:

I reach Seattle airport and I am constantly in touch with Gautam who was supposed to pick me up from the airport.... Now, this had to work real time as he dint want to park his vehicle and therefore, could not wait before time... So, finally he says he is close but doesn't know where I am standing... I tell him what I am wearing (I was actually very visible with the only one in 4 layers, cap and gloves...) and suddenly 2 people come up to me saying, "Madam, there has been a security threat - please come with us inside - NOW!!!" They expected me to panic but I was purely amused.... Some random Indians, showing their IDs and saying "I AM in a security threat..." Please tell me who would be so arbit as to threaten my existence ;))) Anyway, so after a while they say its fine and I come out to see Gautam and these guys (his friends) getting into the car... I was like "IT HAAAAAAAAAD to be U... WASTE" Anyway, after having a good laugh and these guys cribbing - I wasnt scared enough - I went out for dinner with Gautam... Megha was in touch with us and we were likely to go clubbing with her friends downtown.... But, plans changed and I had dinner and headed home with Megha where we had a good chat till about 3 am after which I slept... (She continued to entertain her guests and I dont mean ME :D...)

Next day - Sunday - We went to this breakfast place Gautam suggested - after getting lost due to directions HE GAVE - and me saving the day by guiding Megha to the right road.... Good food as usual in same quantities and then we went to Snoqualmi (I hope I have spelled it right) waterfalls with Megha and her friends... Oh btw, before we went - I ate Matar Paneer made by Megha and I was quite impressed I must say... Kids these days have good culinary skills... The waterfalls were awesome... Arnab (Megha's friend) led us to this small trail where we went thru woods... And as expected this guy was upto NO GOOD - Scared the hell out of Megha and me by jumping in front of us from behind a bush... All the guys had a good laugh and as expected - Megha kicked and abused him... Anyway, a contented lot came back from falls (Megha was the most happy coz she got to drive an awesome car) to have dinner with Gautam... Good food and we came back to Megha's apt to play poker... Good fun!! These guys (the profesionals) were like let's play with money... Megha and me - amateurs said NO!!! not with money... But they insisted and finally guess what happens - All of them go broke and its between Megha and me - finally won by Megha.... AWESOOOOOME FUN!!! Then Arnab - I must say had an awesome time - I am sure Megha wont want to associate herself with this but she HAS to know she was a major part of this ;)

Day two in Seattle was a day when I went camping by MYSELF - Sharmili's Day Out!!! Can u imagine - I did not get lost, I did not get caught by Police and I managed to see everything I (actually Arnab helped me with this) wanted to see... Used public transport, walked, shopped, went on cruise (Argosy Cruise), took self photographs (at Pike Place Market - the place mentioned in FISH! and Seattle Public Library - seeing which I feel in love with the city) and finally managed to meet Gautam at the place decided (Downtown - Opposite Macy's - 4th Ave and Pine St.)... Yippie!!! I was more excited by the thought of doing it alone than the thought of seeing these places... After dinner at a good Indian restaurant - we called it a day (Megha wasn't feeling well and everyone was tired after a full day's work..).. Oh! I forgot to mention 3 things...

1. Sireesha kept calling EVERYTIME while I was there... Dont know if it was a kind of check mechanism madam had put in place ;)
2. Kiddo was so worried now as to how to better the time at Chicago :)))
3. Spoke to people back at home and missed them...

The next morn I left for Chicago... And bid my farewell to Megha at the airport where she dropped me... A 4 day trip with this girl and thats all it took for me to miss her so badly when I came back home :))

"Official Reason to go to USA" - Stanford Trip

2008-12-26T00:49:00.001+05:30

After a very very tiring but equally exciting trip to LA, LV and GC, we reached San Francisco :) Phew!!! This is not because of being tired but because on the way back - 2 amateur USA drivers - Megha and Sid, drove along with Chatty.... Well, I would be nervous but I was sleeping away to glory - preparing for the hectic one week ahead of me.... We reached Chatty's place in SF by 11:00 pm or so and then were all raving about his house.... Very neatly kept, very well equipped!!! Spent some time on his playstation, listened to "Desi Girl" which was by now the trip song and some silliness on "Buttons!!!" (Megha was speechless and so were others but for VERY different reasons)... Anyway, after a good night's sleep, we all woke up and these guys dropped me to Stanford (Special mention to Megha and her Polka-dotted pyjamas :)...)

Day 1:
So, I reached after breakfast and immediately left for the Oakland Raiders game... 2 good things happened before I left:
1. Sid finally got to meet Kate and appreciate what I had mentioned about her
2. These guys saw my room and it was so mind-blowingly awesome that they were jealous (I got happy - ha ha ha)

"American Football"- All I can say is its an interesting game.... But unlike a continuous Indian game (football and cricket) this game keeps halting... Not like Basketball - where you stop game due to line cuts or fouls but like on principle... I cannot explain the game here now, but it was an awesome experience... Of course, I saw the cheerleaders and how they keep crowds entertained in this game....

In the evening, our hospitable guests divided us in groups based on the cuisines we wanted to eat. J'ai mange italien :))) (I speak French and not italian :)...)

Day 2:
3 lectures, 2 company visits and 1 game and dinner was the plan for the day.... Dean of Stanford - David Kreps came to give us a lecture on Stanford and its history.... During the lecture, it became clearer that IIMB is like Stanford and IIMA like Harvard... Culture, teaching methodology etc... Which is why I think, there is a Stanford-IIMB program and not a Stanford-IIMA program...

After this was a lecture by Mr. Guy Kawasaki - A successful VC and famed author of book including Rich Dad - Poor Dad!! Enlightening lecture and a very interesting person, in his
opinions and his style.... I took a liking to him instantly....

Finally, the academic session ended with Prof. Carole Robin... Importance of feedback was what she covered in the lecture...

Post this we went to "Whole Foods" where I ate Mexican food (henceforth, whenever I mention food - assume its Mexican or Italian) coz vegeterians rarely have too much choice and people like me who hate Mushrooms - even lesser choices :)))) And American portions are HUGE!!! Poor me... I could NEVER finish a single meal coz one small burito was like 2 meals for me :((((

Facebook where we learned about their culture and NUMMI - the Toyota and GM alliance where we actually saw a car being made in 54 seconds thru JIT system... It was fascinating to see the importance Americans give to culture and perfection....

Then was the BEST social activity ever... We went to Dave and Busters - a mall sort of place with games... I won so many games, beat Vickram in car racing and shopped for sweats :))) Good fun...

Fully satisfied I went to my room (aweeeeeesome bed - did I mention) to get myself all buckled up for even more hectic schedule the next day.... Oh, before sleeping I had to read a case for my classes the next day :((( (will anyone say I was on vacation - oh! I wasn't right... oops!..)

Day 3:
CEO of PepsiCo coming and tellin us how Indra Nooyi was a right choice of a leader.... Man!! that was inspiring... A sales class by top sales executives in Bay area telling students how to improve sales effectiveness with live examples and IHI case being discussed by the case writer himself.... The academic sessions were on a swing...

After lunch we went to IDEO - a design consulting firm... I saw the designs and I coiuld not stop thinking of Namu... She would have looooooved to visit that place... I wish she gets recruited there... It was fascinating... I took some pics for her... Hope she likes them....

We had free time then to work on our projects, after which we went for dinner and drinks with Stanford junta...

Day 4:
This was all-in-all a social visit... Stanford people took us to some tourist destinations in San Fran... I shopped again for a jacket - considering I was cold despite wearing 4 layers... Awesome deal I got on a black fleece jacket and got good deals for both Vickram and Bala...

Went to Pier 39, boat ride, cable cars, Union Square, Golden Gate bridge etc... Photos and more shopping done and we came back tired to the room... Other guys went out pubbing but I stayed back as I had to prepare a case for the next day - CEO of cisco was coming and I dint want to look stupid...

Day 5:
It was an all-in-all academic day...

After an ok-ok lecture by the head of Dodge & Cox, we had an awesome case discussion by Prof. John Morgridge - ex-CEO of cisco... Mindblowing session... I strongly believe that even if the prof is brilliant, the person coming himself and teaching a case written on the decisions he took, makes a huge difference... completely satisfied, I spoke to him after class and he asked my name... shook hands with me... and patted me on my back for a nice question... Wow!!! it was the highlight of my day...

Then was my career counselling session with Virginia who I had met in India earlier.... This session was mainly a feel-good session for everyone but the pessimist that I am, I felt bad :(((( But thats not important...

Lise Buyer - by far my most favorite lecture - showed us a very unique perspective in life by sharing her learnings from the finance career... Here again, I was putting awesome CP... I just realised... When there are such inspiring people in front of u, you automatically feel like asking them questions...

Chairman of BCG then came and gave us gyaan on how is consulting adapting according to the economic downturn....

Prof. Brady came and spoke about US Elections and how the process is conducted... How is the 2 party system eficient... The discussion concluded on lauding India for having so many diverse parties and still maintaining democracy...

A not so useful international communication session concluded the day after which we left for Leo Joseph's residence - an Indian GSB Alum who hosts SAIL students every year.... Interesting person again!!! He likes an idea, starts a company and then sells it off for a hefty amount for a living... Then takes a break for a year or 2 till he finds the next new idea :))) In short, rich man with an awesome house, lovely family and an pleasant demeanor.... We had a wine tasting session here where, Aurelia - a wine consultant demonstrated her proficiency in knowing wines by their smell, color etc... It was so much fun... Everyone came up with random ingredients based on the smelll and I JUST CUD NOT differentiate between the different smells... All smelled the same - BAD!! It was then I realised I HATE wines :))) After dinner at Leo's I went home whereas others went clubbing again...

Day 6:
Second last day and it was the first time when I got late, missed the gang and had to go on my own to the company we were visiting... Pacific Biosciences, the company was awesome apparently but I dint quite understand anything due to the delay... After this, we went back to campus where we made our presentations... We had a small photosession with the insti photographer, a Career Life Vision lecture by Prof. Andy Chan and attended the L-square equivalent of Stanford - LPF... It was here we met other GSB students and spoke to them in an informal setting...

We went for dinner at a restaurant on campus and generally bonded with the Stanford counterpart by discussin hajar issues...

Day 7:
Last day with them... They had their exams so all of them couldnt join us to the Monterey Aquarium... Good place... I saw a diver feeding the fish LIVE and I myself took behind the scenes tour where I could feed the fish :))) Americans make an experience out of everything... The way they explained everything to everyone, the way they go out of their way to make tourists spend etc. all is very comendable... I keep feeling that people in India should learn this... First we dont have such places, and the little that we have like Essel World - the staff is so curt and not helpful... We have a lot to learn - really...

After this we went Bowling!!! I sucked at it :((( Wonder why??? I did play decently but here I was like awfulllll.... After this I left for Schwab (the place where I stayed) to collect luggage and leave for domestic airport to go to Seattle...

It was a fun week - right mix of acads, corporate and social activities... I think such exchange programs are so much better than those 3 months one... I mean you dont get homesick and you still enjoy... Yes, you have little sleep but I think you can do without it - after all you ARE DOING YOU MBA :))) More about the latter part of the trip follows...

Wild Wild West....

2008-12-01T10:46:00.000+05:30

So, after such a warrrm welcome, does ANYONE need anything else to brighten up their day... Nah!!! The day had awesome things in store for me and so did the entire trip... But just one thing that was negative and was common thru out this trip....
1. I was coooooooooooooold... And therefore, I was troubled...
2. And I troubled kiddo the most who really did not know what more could he do....

Disneyland
As usual, I did something unthinkable :) I arrived from India and left directly for Disneyland :))) No time to recover from jet lag, no time to get ready (tho I did freshen up at the airport)...
Comfy shuttle ride till Disneyland after which I got the first excitement of using credit card Vraj gave me.... Yeah!! it worked :))) Then from the 3 options available, we selected Disneyland coz we wanted something veryyyy authentic Amrikaaa to make the trip memorable (tho as I told kiddo that it was memorable coz I was with him).... Then we saw all the things there.... You know that s the good part about kiddo.... Like me he also has this "paisa vasool" funda.... So, he dint like say chal na - lets not see this.... He was like we are paying so much so we need to see everything :)) and I liked that... So, yes - these 2 crazy people from India saw the whole of Disneyland (we actually marked every place we say on the map they gave us to enure we dint miss anything) and finally, at midnight took a taxi to Hollywood where M was waiting for us.... And ya, we were so fortunate to have a Disney parade and a fireworks + "Fantasia" show being performed that day for the first time.... So, huge majja came when we could actually see all Disney characters (in human form) walk down in front of us telling us their stories :))))

Universal Studios and Santa Monica
Reached Motel 6 at around 1:15 am and were fully exhausted... We hardly spoke in the car and after reaching we dint stop talking :))) (M was meeting kiddo after 2 years) General chit chat, catching up, spewing hatred for terrorists etc. after which we slept (I dont even remember when I dozed off)... Started off our day pretty early around 8:00 am with Walk of Fame.... As I have told hajar people, walking stars drawn on the ground isnt too much fun.... But - no one believed me... And guess what!!! Kiddo sees those stars, I say its walk of fame - he says "Pagal hai kya!!! Its a spoof on the actual walk of fame...." Ha ha ha... Finally, we clicked snaps with random stars ONLY to make kiddo happy that we actually saw a landmarkish place :))) Had a heaaaaaavy breakfast (its worth mentioning coz I have never had such a huge omlette like I had thr), we took a cab and got fooled... went to Santa Monica coz of some stupid driver's ultra stupid calculations and then clicked some aweeeeeeeeesome pics... After this went to Universal studio where I showed my awesomeness again... Collected some discount coupons which gave us $8 off on every ticket... (thats substantial you know) Then we saw the studio tour, Jurassic park, Simpsons (where we were plunged down from haajr feet in air), Mummy ride etc. Each of them was aweeeeeeeesome and more mind blowing than other... One day is just not enough for Universal... Esp when it is a holiday and EVERYONE seems to have come there... It doesnt help either that it closes at 6:00 pm and not midnight... Anyway, fully satisfied all of us met C who was supposed to drive us down to Vegas....

Las Vegas
First impression - WoooooooW!! All lights of USA are used up in Vegas.... Second impression - it is made by engineers and most probably from IITs - coz everything is a duplicate here... Fake paris, Fake NY, fake Disneyland etc. Then went to our hotel - thanks to M - we were put up in MGM Grand :))) That was awesome too... We booked the room for 2 only and then had to smuggle other 2 in... So, guess what we did... Me and M pretended to be the 2 people staying there (and the reception guy says - I am going to make sure you girls have an awesome room so that you can have loads of fun... I mean - how corny is this... I think he assumed me and M were lesbians or something :)))...) Anyway, then we got kiddo and C to join us after all procedures were done... Then we went to the LV strip... Slept around 5:00 am and then left for the Grand Canyon trip later in the day.... After the trip when we were back in Vegas - we gambled, we lost :(((( But, we realised how these people make money... When you are at high stakes game - more waitresses come and offer you free drinks so that you put more money to try and win.... We were at Blackjack table and we got drinks.... We came at 1 cent slot machine and no waitress showed up :))))

Grand Canyon
It was a trip which people like me cannot appreciate it to the fullest... Nature, power of nature, beauty of nature etc. gets lost easily on me... But kiddo did a fair bit of job making me all enthu for the trip... The first place where I was late.... First place where I wore 4 layers of clothing and was still numb... The first place where I slept for hajar hours (Kiddo will say I did that over the entire trip after this :)))...)... It is beautiful no doubts about it... But I wish I could either have the money to do the helicopter ride or the boy fat which allowed me to do river rafting :))))

Drive back to San Francisco
One seasoned driver and 2 novices split this journey which culminated in an AWESOME apt and an AWESOME time listening to buttons, talking to friends on phone and good times concluding with some nice pictures taken....

This was my last day with the 3 fun people I met for these 5 days and who ensured I have loads of fun and loads of warmth (thru their actions and thru the warm clothes they kept givin me ;)...) C drove me down to Stanford where the "official" exchange program awaits me... I had an AWESOME time - with people close to me, with places full of life and finally at a time when I had not too many worries bugging me.... I dint whine at all in the entire trip (cold whining not included) and that speaks a lot about the trip (people who know me - KNOW its a big deal...)

Sharmili chali Amrikaaa!!!

2008-12-01T10:25:00.001+05:30

SAIL - 2008.... First part of this program was painful when we had to juggle our classes, submissions, not get attendance for bunking for a legitimate cause and finally entertain our guests from Stanford.... But the second part - IS BLISS!!!

So, after a memorable visa trip (I stayed in a 5 star hotel, had a chauffer driven car at my service and had awesome time with GS), I was all set to go to Amrika.... My trip was planned well - thanks to the hajar efforts put in by my awesome "kiddo".... Packed bags in one and half hour - thanks to 2 back to back end term exams and left ON-TIME with Vivek and Shyam....
Random things then happened as soon as I started my journey and till the point I reached LA Airport...

1. Cab driver - Random that he was - kept unnecessarily talkin to me... and me more idiotic insisted I sit there on the front seat beside him... (Well, in my defense - I did not know this was goin to happen).... And icing on cake - he was drunk tooo (Now, plz ppl - dont panic on reading this... By drunk I mean social drunk not "I cannot drive well" drunk)

2. Dingy Dhaba - I was hungry, but more than me was Shyam.... Thanks to huge tax and rentals, CCD at airport would be extremely expensive... So, AWESOME me came up with a brilliant idea of eating at CCD before we reach airport.... Net result - Ate in a random, shady looking dhaba.... Good part - AWESOME food at a very reasonable price.... Good part 2 - Driver dint charge waiting time :)
Bad part- shaaaaaaaaaaady place but thank God I was with Vivek and Shyam....

3. Immigration Hassles - Despite having done eveyrthing right, I was asked to wait for 30 min before the immigration counter.... Thanks to the jhols Vivek and Shyam did :)

4. Charger Woes - What was exciting during the wait mentioned above, was me talking
continuously on phone to P and saying things these guys were scandalised to hear :)))... Me dying to find a charger at the airport in the loo which apparently doesnt receive power (2 cleaning ladies told me this after I waited there with the charger plugged in for 5 min), me rushing to get security checked - not because I wanted to be on-time etc. but coz there was a charging station in the waiting lounge.... Me using the one-rupee wala phone after haajr years :)))

5. Time trouble - And where I was short of time till now, in Singapore I had excess time - for 4 hours dint know what to do... Surfed, frehshened up, roamed around, tried to shop, drank coffee, woke up S in middle of night to talk, etc. Time JUST DOESNT GO when you are all alone....

6. Too much food - Singapore airlines believes everyone is from Somalia and they need to be fed... While I was desperately trying to not be jetlagged, one meal after another was shoved into my face by the stewardesses.... Finally, when I just managed to get deep sleep, air hostess wakes me again to get down at Tokyo for a re-entry in same plane again.... I till date have not understood what was the purpose of this....

Finally, it was 10:30 LA time and I was there, with kiddo waiting for me with a sign - "Welcome to America Shamu.... Love Kiddo" and just like that all the random things just culminated into a BIIIIIIIIG SMILE....

More about the trip.... Laterssss....

Beauty and the Beast!!!

2008-11-14T02:03:00.000+05:30

Its been a while since I saw an animated movie with an underlying message... I love animated movies... I know I am too old for them but still its my favorite form of movies... I can cry after watching a senti scene in an animated more easily than what I can when say the Rang De Basanti senti scene is shown to me... They connect more easily - dunno y, dunno how...

So, while I was watching the movie "Beauty and the Beast" it just occurred to me, our life soooo needs to follow this principle in practice... We did learn in school that we shud not judge the book by its cover but we do that inevitably... Now, I am certain EVERYONE knows what this movie is all abt but my parallel is not so much on the same lines... Although the underlying thought is the same.... In this movie, it took display of a selfless, lovable heart of the prince through his actions to make the girl fall in love with him... And these actions were good enough to overlook the hideousness that his appearance was... How many of us do that? And our judgements are not only based on appearance.... Grades, Job, Societal Status, Manner of Speaking, Fluency (accents), Company of people, etc. all are used... How many parameters do we use to evaluate a person??? How many people actually think of actions of the person before writing them off or making them friends???

It doesnt make sense to talk about the world in general, so I will take myself as an example to prove what I am trying to say.... How many people who have met me will think I have a good heart??? That I am a good person??? I know of instances when people have adored me for something... But at the same time, I know of instances when they hated me - to the extent of saying "Sharmili, your friendship is not worth preserving!" What baffles me is that if its the same person and if no "bad deed" is done then why would there be these polarised views???

I have often been accused by my friends that I have this huge,unwanted urge to be liked by everyone.... My reaction to this statement is - why not??? Why cannot I expect this small thing from myself? I mean after all I do not know of any concsious incident of malice and anything happening unconciously should be pardoned in any case.... And if its not a characteristic flaw, then isnt this "hatred" an example of judging a book by its cover? Am I getting judged or disliked coz I am too outspoken? too extroverted? too insignificant? too dumb? too intimidating? And if these are indeed the reasons then what have we learnt from the messages we have been taught since our childhood?

If now as a student, we judge a peer - how are we sure of objectively evaluating a person during our corporate life when the stakes are actually very high? You will learn from experience - people say! But wont it be easy to just not make these hasty judgements now? I know of a person who doesnt really judge anyone - always believes that there is a positive to everyone's thought and action... Who always thinks from the "other person's perspective"... I have myself made fun of this person at times - saying he goes overboard trying to "NICE" to everyone but isnt that something we should do... Not be nice but atleast form judgements only on some substantiation...

Can we really look at the beauty within - beyond the very visible "beastly" traits? Do we give people a second chance?

Its that time of the year again!!!

2008-11-11T00:54:00.001+05:30

While it is true that IIMB is by far the best time in our lives, it is also true that few of our worst memories will be associated with the institute.... Summers is one such process.... Summers @ IIMB is by far the most stressful time in the lives of every student here.... It strangely alters your perception about yourself and not always for the worse.... Whats stranger is that everyone KNOWS its a short term process, everyone KNOWS that its not the end of the world and everyone definitely KNOWS that one process cannot undo the things achieved till that point in life... But despite this knowledge, I know of cases when those 5 days really broke a student beyond repair....

It is during this time that you see the most beautiful side of people where they would go beyond their means to help you out... On the other side, you see the darkest side of human behaviour where competition is actually interpreted as slicing some person's throat to go ahead....

And why exactly is it so strenuous - its coz everyone @ IIMB is a super-achiever.... Some great at academics - those 9+ pointers from IITs and others at sports, quizzes, dances etc. So, it becomes very difficult to think that you are the so called "an average" or worse still "below average"... From the day you come here, you get slotted.... Into study groups, into case groups, into project groups, etc. And how do you decide this? Of course compatibility is taken into account - but strangely - one of the parameters of compatibility is grades, achievements etc. (basically how stud are you??) Its strange coz in my life I have never seen or fortunately experienced anything like this... But this is digression from my main topic...

So, coming back to summers.... When I think of my summers - these are the things I remember:

1. My awesome seniors standing beside me - during prep staying up with me till 3 am, giving gyaan after reading the spiteful newspaper, before the D-day shopping with me to make me look presentable and during the process - helping me dress up, getting things for me, making me comfortable, making me not lose hope, sitting with me for those long hours of waiting for an interview, helping me avoid breakdown at some points and finally partying with me on L^2 post the process...

2. My batch mates - more importantly this one person - who helped me thru my prep, who held my hand when I was falling into darkness....

3. My confidence levels - which were so volatile that sub-prime affected indices were put to shame.... One case cracked - super confident other screwed - im down in dumps...

4. Those one-liner mails who have made my heart skip a beat... That rush in front of the shortlist board.... That happiness when you see your name... That sadness when you dont... That terrible feeling when you make it and your dear ones dint...

5. Finally, the endless patience my family members, my fiance showed to my tantrums, mood swings and bouts of irritations...

Finally I got through the process - SOMEHOW!!! And now as I look back 2 terms ago, I think I fall into the category of people adversely affected by summers.... Ghosts of the past at times hound me.... Should I have prepared better? Did I not do market entry cases properly?? Should I have worked more on personals.... Something as silly as - should I have worn a skirt??? I mean I laugh at myself in despair when these things still SOMEHOW become parameters for judging myself.... Why does this performance affects the way I evaluate myself.... How does this one thing just NEGATES everything I did earlier...

But my summers is time past.... I always thought that what I felt was unique and NO ONE goes through that.... I am in second year now and I see 270 juniors going through the same thing I went through now.... What I HOPE and I PRAY is that the way I have interpreted this outcome for myself - NONE of the facchas do...

Happiness is a mirage! People keep chasing it but it still remains unreachable!!!

2008-10-20T12:31:00.000+05:30

The topic was my gtalk status message and in about 15 minutes after I put this message I had a huge argument with a friend of mine.... He is a very dear friend and though we did not reach any conclusion per se, strong personalities that we are - we were stuck on our respective POVs. Pasting the snippet of the conversation and let you decide - which side are you on!!!

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Sumit: why do you say its unreachable?

Sharmili: coz it is

Sumit: i totally disagree

Sharmili: ok

Sumit: its all in the mind

Sharmili: u r entitled to ur view

Sumit: you can be as happy as you want to be

Sharmili: hmmm… u DO agree no one wud want to be sad

Sumit: yeah

Sharmili: so then when u want to be happy and u arent

Sumit: you WANT to be happy

Sharmili: due to external factors say

Sumit: but you are not ready to work towards it… as in you is not you

Sumit: there are always external factors to make us sad but knowing how to content oneself with small hapinesses is what most ppl are incapable of…. look at you and me

ppl die to be where we are, ppl die to be us….

Sharmili: no they dont

Sharmili: trust me..

Sumit: i know a lot of ppl wud die to go to iimb…. 1.5 lac ppl take the cat every year…. 10 times that number dream of going to the best engineering insitutes in the country

Sharmili: dude its high time we stop patting our backs for one stupid break which got us here

Sumit: im not at all pattting our backs…. not at all…. im telling you to appreciate that stupid break…. when we get stupid bad lucks we get sad then why dont you get happy with stupid breaks?

Sharmili: its been done with and gotten over with...

Sumit: yep! i knw all that

Sharmili: its like saying when u were 2, u rocked

Sumit: ive lived 3 yrs of life after iimb and i hardly call myself as an iim person anymore…. but thats not my point…. my point is not patting my back and resting on laurels…. my point is that you are being unfair…. you look at external factors and get sad but you dont look at the good factors and get happy and what you are is the same as what everyone else is

Sharmili: wht if there R NO current good factors

Sumit: cmon…. are you dying of hunger? did you have a rotten childhood? have you been lucky in love ever?

Sharmili: sumit, i am eternally glad i have had this life

Sumit: then learn to appreciate it and learn to be happy

Sharmili: thats not the point

Sumit: it IS the point

Sharmili: stop getting philosophical

Sumit: you are better off than 60% of the world population

Sumit: this was a philospohical question i thought… sorry if i misunderstood

Sharmili: its all relative… ur universe is 60% les happy than me…. mine is 40% above me

Sumit: and being better off as compared to 70% or more than the world’s population is reason enough to not crib

Sharmili: u get happy by looking at ppl less fortunate… i get sad by lookin at 40% above me coz i feel that i am a good person and I dont deserve this

Sumit: no i don’t…. you dont get it do you? by looking at them I don’t get happy abt me…. i realize how lucky i have been… this is a response to the external factors that you talk about when you consider external factors then you should consider them fully…. consider all external factors - your family, your socioeconomic background etc.

Sumit: on any level matierialistic or unmaterialistic i find it unfair that someone like you shud be unhappy and i find that you dont appreciate what you have got

Sharmili: u r HUMAN… u cant be bubbly all the time… u cant be all chirpy all time… its forced and u would still want to do it for SOMEONE

Sumit: no you can be! it might be forced for you...but dont generalize...i know ppl who are not that way…. i live for myself and im v v happy

Sharmili: well good for u… i live for myself too and i DO GET bouts of sadness – external, self inflicted, concocted – I dunno

Sumit: i do have times when im down but i wudnt say im unhappy then and i wouldn’t say happiness is unreachable… im able to get out of them easily…. Being low is a state of mind- happiness is an attainment….

Sharmili: wht makes u think WHT U AS A PERSON do others will

Sumit: no im not saying that…. you passed a statement that happiness is unreachable…. i thought you were doing exactly the above… generalizing for the world what you feel and i disagreed so i pinged you

Sharmili: i dont get whr ill see this getting attained… yes i have happy times…. yes i have awesome ppl arnd me…. yes hajar ppl caare abt me… but rite now i think its unattainable...

Sumit: are you happy overall? forget the current low state…. i honestly think irrespective of whatever your current state is you shud have attained happiness

Sharmili: its not everlasting dude…. i havent said i never attained..

Sumit: it is not acceptable- knowing what all you have got that you are unhappy…. but i know your past and what you have possessed all along

Sharmili: past is passed... its a feel good factor for those who want to dwarf their current under achievements with past achievements

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Contradictions? Double standards?? Stupidity???

2008-10-11T23:54:00.001+05:30

I am writing after a hectic day and an even more hectic week. Ideally would have slept but just cant stop thinking.... Considering I do not have anyone to talk about this right now and that no one will have the bandwidth to hear the blabbering mind, I am relying on readers of this post (imaginary in case no one reads this) to just hear me out....

So, I effectively believe in and strongly implement in no expectations policy but then I just think I am deluding myself.... I mean a small thing like "Sharmili - you sing horribly (which is a fact btw)".... If it comes from a certain person, I will take it but when it comes from someone who I expect to appreciate (despite the harrowing time of listening to me), I would go at lengths to make them feel miserable about not being "nice" to me....

That's the deal with me, I would make a person feel miserable, and ya - this works only for those close to me - if they bug me.... I mean how ironical is this.... Would you actually trouble a person closest to you??? I can understand taking them for granted - yes, that does come with proximity with a person - but troubling them.... I wonder if anyone reacted in a similar fashion with me, would I be in a position to take it???

Even the smallest thing like talking to me on phone.... If say someone is talking to me on phone, I would expect UNDIVIDED attention and would actually get offended when s/he talks to anyone other than me.... But, then countless number of times the "hassled" me has hung up on people or fought with them for calling at a wrong time.... Suddenly the change of rules is OK!

I am a victim of "being the hub" of the relationship as well. What this means is that say there are 3 friends with me being one of them and others A and B.... So, friend A should tell me and I would then tell friend B. It cannot work if B comes and tells me something about A without A telling me... I get mad - as childish as this sounds.... IT DOES!!! But what is interesting is that if I were a spoke in say another relationship, I still would want the hub to tell me directly and not another spoke!! I am not sure if I am making sense?

But, in essence what I can tell you is that I am famous for making things complicated :(((

So, at this point you know what my natural reaction is? It is to wonder - if there is any good left in me - if there is ANY reason why people should still like me and consider me as a friend!!! Or how much more time will pass by before they just give up on me?? Some have, Some wont and some may be.... Its all about a PUSH!!! Which direction would that push be in, will be determined by how insecure I behave in a relationship!!!

Strange - you would think I would NOT know this and therefore react in a certain detrimental manner.... But, what do you tell a person who knows and THEN doesn't bother???

Going OUT of your way

2008-07-26T23:32:00.000+05:30

Errr! This blog is not an original idea but the feelings with which it is written are very original. One of my jaans did this for me and I thought that I ought to do the same for this person. And therefore, this blog! It is long due and cannot come at a more appropriate moment. So, here as I am done with all exams and am listening to "Kahin toh..." from Jaane Tu... (lovely song I say) and am writing this. It is about this person called Sidharth Gupta! I met this guy at IIMB and I became friends with him. As time went by, his image changed from a brilliant orator to intelligent person to a wonderful friend. I have no clue how we moved on from just caring for each other to taking each other for granted.

As time went by, this bond grew stronger. Then came summers and after a hiatus of 2 months, we met back @ IIMB as "seniors". 2 things happened. He became a DML, that is Director's Merit List - the top 10 of the batch. I was so proud of him that (at the risk of sounding stupid) I could cry with pride as he took his certificate from Capt. Gopinath. I was very happy for him but deep down a little sad about my sheer lack of achievement. So, what finally happened was me being extremely happy for him and he being sad for me (He dint give up on me then, nor has he given up now - hopefully). The second thing that happened was he got a PPO. Kiddo! I haven't told you how proud you make me with all these achievements! I haven't told you how I knew for certain that, if anyone could make that CUT, it would be u :)
So, here is a big CONGRATULATIONS!!! for both these successes.

But why I write this is more to commensurate your efforts to make that special VDO for me on my birthday! For others, this VDO contained all those who I would have sorely missed not being around on my budday! So, this dude coordinates with my school friends (Gaurang), junior college friends (Priya, Aniket), college friends (Basu, Archana), jaan (Vraj), my seniors (Shruti, Needs, Shaw, Neetu, GS) asking them to send me a video recording wishing me personally. Isn't that the sweeetest thing to do for someone. The thought itself was soooooooo sweet. But in typical Sid style, he saw it to completion (as expected of him). He went thru hajar trouble to first collate these separate videos and then form a brilliant one with a theme. Just to mention a few jhols, some - published on youtube and he recorded off the comp, others cut the video and mailed in parts which he collated, he selected pics to go with individual videos, some were using web cam and he sat through the whole msg recording on this side. Silent all the while to avoid disturbance in the video quality. And mind you! this is all done secretly - avoiding me as much as possible. Anyone who has been to IIMB would know - how difficult a task it is for him ;) All this to put a smile on my face and (as I was completely unaware of this) during this time I fought with him for givin me less time :( Sorry Kiddo!! Next time tell me and do this - it'll make your life easier :P

So, bas! Not only did I smile but I cried as well. Not once but thrice - it was too overwhelming. (Of course, I was alone when I did so). And I was not the only one crying. Shruti saw in office and cried. Needs too, Shaw almost. I showed it to Neha (my mentor) and she was so touched. Yes! that was the impact. Thanks a ton dude.... You have no clue how much this means to me and how long will I treasure this.

You R the BEST!!!

Connect???

2008-07-01T16:39:00.000+05:30

How do we connect to people? Is it a conscious process we use to weed out the undesirable and select the ones we connect with or is it a completely "i think itll work" process? Is it a process where I look for someone who is LIKE me or someone who is completely UNLIKE me coz I need variety in life? Why this random blog and even more random questions is because I have time on my hand and recently dont seem to connect the dots of connect with people....

So, till date my theory was I like people who completely dont like me. There is this need to impress on them that I am quite likeable and haveable as a friend. Yes! call it this stupid need to be accepted or this stupid need to prove others wrong. So, a person P and a person S hated me while in junior college and engineering college and I made sure I am good friends with them. How did I make this happen? Well, when you ARE with the person ALL the time, they rarely dont like you - considering I am not all that obnoxious. I have to also give in to the fact that YES, there were circumstances which made me be with them and hence the "Connect"...

Then as time progressed it was more of a conscious decision... My gang in VJTI though just happened. I try and see what was the common thing that connected us but guess what - there aint anything! We had the most serious of people (A's, Y, N, Vy) and the most chillest of people (B, J, S, A, H)... A who I loved and S who I hated.. we had Ash who would arrange lectures and we had Arch who looked for reasons to bunk :) Beside this, there was a gang of seniors... Nothing common between Sum, Sud, P or others... But consciously was with them... Y? Not a clue! Then there was V with whom I went about a complete circle... From the most conscious decision to be or not to be with him and a completely unconscious one of having him in my life or not... So, except for V, I think we had mostly narrowed down to a conscious process of "connecting" with people... Qualities of people were NOT even considered...

At Infosys, it was pretty much - who I was working with and who was nice enough to talk to me :) But frankly, D, K and S that I think are my friends from Infy are completely unlike me and YES, consciously I am friends with them... So, there goes we still maintain the theory from college...

Then came IIMB where this S - from the point I met him there was this huge urge to be friends with him... Y? Well he was EVERYTHING I was not... He was elegant, intelligent and an orator who would floor people by the first word he spoke... Yes! for a social embarrassment like me - this was a BIG thing! We indeed are friends but at this point I dont know if there was this conscious decision or unconscious one. And I dont know if it was the first impression that did the trick or just the kind of person he is? Then there was this gang of seniors I was with and as expected we just happened... Nothing spectacular done on either side to be with each other... Emotional bonding grew by being beside each other during trying times and I believe that was it!

Now, I am a senior at B-school... There is this S I connected with. Now, she is NOT like me. I mope, she laughs.. I hug to show care, she kicks to show affection! Despite this, I always thought I will connect with her but I dunno why we dint become good friends in the first year. "Connect" took 2 drunk girls blabbering to each other :) So, there is this move from conscious decision without person qualities to unconscious decision considering person's qualities to unconscious decision not considering person's qualities... Then there is this N who I am friends with. More so its mollycoddling her, protecting her and just making her feel comfortable.. I dote so much that at times I think I overdo things. I HAVE been warned by people that I do this but I cannot help it. "connect" here was that SHE IS LIKE ME!! I would go to the extent of saying that she is like my Alter-Ego! So, somehow I feel this urge to protect her - like my seniors did to me :) I want her to not make same mistakes I did, like one of my seniors (G) wrote on my wall. So, there we move back again to conscious, considering qualities of the person and wanting it to be similar to mine.

So, I still dont know what makes me like a person but what IS clear is that once they are in my circle, I stand by them with the same ferocity as I would stand by my family :D Should they evaluate being with me? I LEAVE IT TO THEM!!!

Its all about loving your parents!!

2008-05-19T11:06:00.000+05:30

As sidey as this Karan Johar movie line sounds, it is something that I would want to use to dedicate this 50th post to my parents!! Like every milestone (big or small) wouldn't be possible without them, similarly this inconsequential one (reaching 50 posts) would not have been possible if they hadn't tolerated the late night lights kept switched on (that's typically when I write my blogs), given me a broadband connection only coz I asked for it (when there were more pressing matters they had to attend to) or say gave me awesome education, supported me on every decision I took etc. So, YES I am writing this post about those 2 MOST important people in my life (mind you NOT one of the most important BUT MOST important).. There is NO man in this world who would measure up to my father and NO lady who would be as gracious as my mother is... When they show in these teen flicks, how these kids are ashamed of getting their parents to a friend's place or embarassed to hug them in public - I often get confused coz NEVER was I ashamed of my parents and I'm hoping never were they to have me as a daughter... It was with them that I did not experience the concept of "GENERATION GAP". Their adaptability to everything that is thrown at them is one of the reasons why their life stories and what they do now becomes so inspiring for us, the reason why we have good friends but they still remain as one of our BEST friends.

Talking about my father first, he comes from very humble beginnings... He was the youngest of the pack (4 brothers, one sister) and had to fight it out for everything... His family's financial condition needed him to work instead of studying but HE knew the importance of studying so fought with his brother (my grandpa left us when my father was just 10 years old) and completed his education till std. twelfth... He wanted to study further but then had to give in to the pressures of his family and start working... So, in his inheritance - all he bequeathed was responsibilities, hardships and loads of criticisms for not listening to his elders... So, from a small village in Nanded he landed in Mumbai to make it big here... I have seen the earlier places where he used to stay... One room which served as kitchen, living room, bedroom and dining room... One room which held my grandma and him (mind you! inspite of not being well settled he took the responsibility of looking after my grandmaa - of course she did help him in terms of taking care of household chores etc.). Before this house there were instances when he was alone and had to stay on the platform, bench in park etc. while he hunted for a job (he could put up with his brother but he would get cold stares or some nasty remarks about not getting a job and he had a lot of self respect to take this). So, before he got a job in MTNL in 1973 this is the list of things he did... Sold cards on the road, sold cricket match tickets, worked in the a steel factory, founded one steel factory. This is really an inspiring story. My father and his friend started this company called A to Z steels as partners... He saved on all the money he had (money was saved by say not having evening tea, walking till his house to save ticket money etc) and executed his first order. From then on he worked for 3 years where the company grew from its first order of 180 bucks to an order of 30000 bucks... At this point in time, he applied to this government job and got selected... There is a rule in India that a government servant cannot have another job (not even part time) and therefore he had to dissolve his partnership... This company - a fruit of his labor and hardwork - still exists and has a networth of crores... Sometimes he still wonders if he should have fought with his brother (who believed a secure job is better than a risky business) and continued with the business... It makes him sad at times but he is very satisfied with the levels he has attained in his life... Of course, he still remains very ambitious and at the age of 55 he is more ambitious than anyone his age!!! He bought his first house in 1980... He married my maa in 1981 and had 4 daughters in due course of time... Not once has he faltered to give them the comforts which he dint get... He has never once undermined the importance of education and ensured all of them get quality education... He was far sighted enough to start saving at an early age to now meet the expenses of the family of 6 (he has one daughter doing his MBA, one an architect, one doing medicine and one in standard 12th)... I have no clue how he manages every June to pay these exhorbitant fees for everyone and yet manage his household expenses... Our house is entirely a ONE MAN's show... From necessities to luxuries - EVERYTHING is managed by ma paa... Strong believer in neither be a borrower nor lender be - he has NO liabilities or debts... He has helped all his siblings - monetary or physical help - whenever they needed... He took care of his mother from the day he came to Mumbai till the day she left us... As cliched as it sounds - my father is really like a coconut... Huge temper so would say the nastiest things to people who mean a lot to him, be extremely tough in dire circumstances but if any of his loved ones are in pain - HE cannot stand it... I had a fever of 104 when I was young and both my parents dint sleep till it came down to normal... My sister had this small lump at the point where her nose started... Docs said its a tumor and needs to be operated.. He was ready to bear all the expenses but when he took a second opinion - he realised surgery wud not help... He went barefoot to Pali (a famous Ganpati temple lies there) and fasted for many days... Today there is no lump and she is one of the better looking sisters... The architect was a premature baby - wasnt going to survive on delivery - my father ensured that she gets the BEST in Mumbai.. She was under observation, in an incubator with many docs monitoring her condition for almost 5 days after which she came out... Now, she is not only healthy but also his favorite (when I say this - I am sure he will not agree but his attachment to her is VERY visible). There are many such instances where this man that I know as my father did exemplary things... I dont know if, as parents, I would be able to do for my kids but I am certain their grandpa would do EVERYTHING to make them feel the most amazing grand kids on this planet :)))

Behind every successful man lies a woman!! And my father's exemplary achievements would not have been possible without the unstinted support of my maa... There are times when I get super bugged with my father (read - the tough exterior part) but my maa NEVER leaves his side... She gets dragged a lot into these daughter-father fights and poor thing strives hard to not take sides and solve the issue... She will defend my case in front of him and his in front of me... This lady who comes from a similar background as my father (father expired soon, lived with her brother, could not study despite being so bright and got married to come from a village to a huge city like Mumbai) never once let me down. She was my friend when I wanted to discuss something and a mother when she had to guide me. In true sense - She is ma FRIEND, PHILOSOPHER and GUIDE. Her story also truly inspires me and probably is the reason why I am the way I am. My mum in std. tenth lost her father. She moved from one city to another. In std. tenth she changed schools. She did not have books to study from. So, she would borrow them from this friend of hers - study while she was sleeping (and in the street light - since her family could not afford electricity or more oil to let the lamp burning whole night) and then return the books in the morning while attending school... Despite this she secured above 60% which was a big deal then. When she bore 2 daughters, she went and completed her B.A. Going to classes in the evening all the way in Ruia, Dadar (and this was after cooking lunch, taking care of her in-laws and daughters, preparing dinner) to come back in the night - study for sometime (if we dint cry and bug the hell outta her) and then get up in the morning to continue her routine again.. All this only made the importance of education instilled VERY strongly in all of us. She became a housewife to ensure that her daughters get personal care and attention during their formative years... She balances everything so beautifully - her house, her family, her relationships with dad's side/her side/friends etc. Even my uncles and aunts praise her a lot (these are the people who are generally sitting to point out faults in others) and we cannot but feel the pride of being her daughters. What she means to me is completely cannot be expressed in words (though i have tried to write something in this post - http://sharmiliphulgirkar.blogspot.com/2007/04/mothers-you-can-never-predict-their.html)

I can go on and on about them but I still would not be able to do justice neither to the hardships they faced nor the perfection with which they have brought up their family. When I do start my family I hope I learn a great deal from them. With the amount of hardships in my life reduced by 90% (thanks to their efforts) I still have a lot to learn. I am still not sure if my kids will grow up to learn, respect and behave the RIGHT way like we do thanks to they instilling those values in us. When you have a child - his/her entire life depends on you - you have a great responsibility and one wrong move can ruin his/her life. And yet this odd couple (they are as opposite as it can get) in their twenties from a small town in a huge city managed to make their 4 daughters responsible ladies with a class who have been given the freedom to do whatever they want and who know to bear the consequences of their actions.. I believe even a standing ovation cannot give them due credit for this feat :)))

I will put an end to this blog with a thought that I will implement till the day I live - I hope ma and paa that WE ensure that NEVER again in your life - would you face hardships again!! Love u so much!! Thanks for everything!!!

Comedy of Errors

2008-05-17T18:05:00.000+05:30

When I was in Std. tenth, I had a lesson in Marathi called "Me stadium var match pahato" (roughly translated it means I watch a match at the stadium) Basically it was about his trials and tribulations when he went to watch a cricket match at the stadium. I had vowed then - that I will NEVER watch a cricket match at the stadium - it wasnt worth the effort (clearly evident in the pain the author had to bear). Later on in engineering - I had a cricket crazy group but still we would go to this friend's place and watch a match together - wear blue tees, carry a blue flag, paint our faced in the tricolor etc... Every six/four was a celebration and every wicket we expressed frustration. But it was loads of fun - only because we were at this friends place - eating his mom's home-made delicious cakes and other junk food... In a nut shell, IT WAS COMFORTABLE!

Thus, my interest in cricket was ALWAYS driven by my friends - who were crazy about it... And this was the exact same reason I got emotionally blackmailed into watching the IPL - Mumbai Indians versus Knight Riders match at Wankhede - and the worst part of it all I PAID FOR BEING TORTURED :(

So, Girish asked me to come over and I agreed (read - emotional blackmail for not calling at 12 to wish him on his budday) to leave early and join him for this match. Gaurang and a couple of his frends were joining us... Then I had to refuse my office people who were giving me a 3000 bucks ticket for free (read Girish - so much for the love i have for u)...
I left office and missed a colleague who was going to go to the same place and left at the same time in his car (i used public transport to get there) - Strike 1 I say...

I went to Churchgate and the comedy of errors began... I was supposed to get down at Marine Lines but got a fast so got down at Churchgate (CG)... Gaurang gave me directions and asked me to walk towards Marine Lines (ML)... Now, I figured if I have to anyway walk to ML station - why not take a train to ML. Took and I came there, only to realise both of them came to Churchgate to meet me :( At ML, I waited for a train and got down at CG and again missed Girish (who was on the west side and I was on the east)... Sadly due to the huge numbers present there - mobile networks were jammed which further added to confusion... Finally I met both of them only at 7:15 (40 minutes late from what I had expected) - Strike 2..

Then we went to the Tendulkar North stand for which we had tickets for and as expected we dint get seats. We were standing for an entire match in an extremly crowded stadium and were suffocated by Mumbai heat... Strike 3

Finally the Godforsaken match started... I wondered why did I pay for this... I was standing all the time (thanks to the management which gives out 1000 tickets in a stadium which can seat 500) and we couldnt even see the players clearly... The people around me were like arre wah - some XYZ is standing at deep mid off (excuse me!) and Sachin is in the first slip etc... I also wondered how exactly did these guys see the ball? As for me, I could see the ball in bowlers hand - then him throwing it - then it was a blur till it either went for a 4 or into the fielders hands...

So, why was I there?? I couldnt see the ball, I couldnt differentiate between players (of course 2 teams had different jerseys so inter team differentiation was easy :)..) and I am not crazy about cricket... All the time I glared at Girish for making me do this... To add to my woes - the audience wanted to do a stupid Mexican wave thing - so the idiots sitting in front of me periodically got up to throw their hands in the air to continue the wave... I AM an enthu pot - so the first time when it happened - I was quite kicked and did my bit for the wave but these people continued it for what 5 rounds - dont you think thats too much? I wonder if they saw the entire over that happened during that time (psst - arent people supposed to watch the match when they are in the stadium).

So, this is for the audience bit... The match itself was quite insipid. Now, I am no ardent fan of cricket but little that I know a match esp. a 20-20 match is exciting when there are a lot of sixes, a lot of runs and a nail biting finish (something like 1 over 15 runs etc.). There were new records created here and not the most nice ones... We had:

The Lowest score in IPL (67 all out)
The Slowest 50 in IPL
The fastest ever win in IPL (in 5.3 overs - which was good because I had to stand for less time)
The highest number of catches - The idol worship that Sachin enjoys was something that dawned upon me when I saw this match. Those catches were the easiest catches anyone can take but Sachin was praised immensely for this - which is strange coz they werent any challenges (which merits this praise btw). This done - when he came on the field to bat - the crowd went mad... The gave a standing ovation to him EVEN if he hadnt hit a single ball. (I do not doubt the fact that he WAS a great player but now with his form, I think he needs to prove himself (like all players have to and like Ganguly still needs to) before he gets so much credit for nothing).. Now comes the icing on the cake - this "GREAT" batsman got out on a DUCK... Brilliant bowling by Shoib Akhtar... So, first when Shoib does come to field at the boundary - he gets brickbats... some words uttered cant be even mention on this forum... Second, everyone goes Sachin dint play now coz he doesnt need to... He is giving a chance to others to win the match coz its such an easy target.. WHAT the f#$^$%@? How can ANYONE be so blindly worshipped? Jayasurya who is probably older than Sachin performed brilliantly, Pollock who is of the same era as him bowled magnificiently and yet people choose to talk about those idotic catches that this "AWESOME player who got out on a DUCK" took.. Disgusting that a team is symbolised by this one person - its a sad state of affairs!!
Highest number of sixes by a batsman (thanks to the 2 measly sixes that Jayasurya hit which gave him this title)

So, thats about it... At the end of the match, I was tired, sweaty, disgusted and extremely bored.. The only entertainment of the day was being with these 2 idiots - Girish and Gaurang :) and those 30 minutes we spent talking at Marine Drive... Ya of course - the cheer leaders from Calcutta could be also included as the high points of the evening (btw - Mumbai cheerleaders sucked and so does the song mumbai has as its IPL anthem). Thus ended my day - had to wait for 20 minutes at Churchgate to get a train and I finally reached home completely exhausted at 12:30...

Came home and I decided that NEVER will I go to watch a cricket match at the stadium again!!!

Local Trains – They predict the PULSE of Mumbai!!!

2008-05-12T18:38:00.000+05:30

Out of sheer boredom and reluctance to read newspaper (which btw – is an occupational hazard for me) – I am writing this blog as the only form of entertainment I can have at work. I am done with my part and am waiting for the highly coveted BBG access. Oh btw – for non I-bank mortals – BBG is Bloomberg – a sort of database with current market details etc). So, what should a person do – when there is no mail access – talking on phone for extended period of time in office is considered to be unprofessional and when you are bored.

I decided to write a blog. I know – painful as it may be for people who read it – but good thing about blogs – U ALWAYS have an option of NOT READING. J so, what should I write on? My past few blogs have been abysmally depressing – so I figured why not a cheerful one. But while indulging in this monologue (I often do that) I realized it’s difficult to write a cheerful blog when you are sooooo bored. Therefore, a thoughtful one instead – raise a few questions – give gyaan etc. I mean isn’t that the easiest thing to do on planet earth and something that EVERYONE likes doing – GIVE GYAAAN!!! So here are my 2 cents of Sharmili wisdom (read at your own risk – people knowing me know that wisdom and Sharmili is something similar to the story of a sword in a monkeys hand J…)

These days I travel a lot by local trains in Mumbai. When I was young – a loooong time ago that is – I used to travel everyday by local trains from my house to college, classes, parties etc. For me – some of my best friendships have been formed while traveling on trains. I used to have these random bets saying I would go and talk to this complete stranger for say 10 minutes or say till next station etc. and it used to be fun. One of the outcomes of this bet fetched me a friendship band on friendship day you know J In some cases, people hated me during these journeys (read shruti), some simply adored me (read the girl who gave me a friendship band – I am old u know – don’t remember her name), some got to know me (read sudha) and some became friends for life (read Priya). So, the moo point of this is trains were synonymous with friendships and fun J

Now as I leave the train of the yore and come to the present – a worldwide phenomenon (world here restricted to people using local trains) is listening to music or reading a newspaper while you are on a train. There would hardly be a person without those earphones and glares (typically used as a hair band) or the infamous TOI/pink paper in their hands (me try very hard to be in the latter category but somehow reading newspaper is not too exciting – like my bets earlier were)… Now, the compartments are QUIET!!! The only sound made is by local trains passing alongside. It’s strange! When I was a teenager (would like to bring to notice – that this was indeed a long time ago) – I used to get yelled at for being loud or boisterous and disturbing the peace of the compartment with my gang – but now I die to hear some friends just randomly gossiping about college or just talking about how life sucks (btw – that still remains my favorite timepass J… just need an audience and I am at my best)

So it got me thinking. Recently I have had the feeling that Mumbai is changing – from a very friendly cosmopolitan city it is moving to a more individualistic, space loving city. I am of course too immature to even state this with confidence or dole out the implications/causes for the same. But it’s a little disconcerting. And this is not restricted to local trains only. Kids these days are rarely seen playing. They would go to summer camps (a new phenomenon that has struck Mumbai) or have sony play stations, go to malls, spend time at McDs or CCD (its almost impossible to get a place during summers or weekend at these joints) or watch movies at adlabs. Of course an outcome of greater spending power but is it a better way of spending time?

And of course this environment gets to you – so there are times when I would prefer my parents giving me space (a concept which EVEN my 5 year old niece demands) or listening to music/watching something on my laptop instead of chatting up with my friends/relatives.

Somewhere I have too become individualistic. I feel sometimes that I too would probably react the same way to kids making halla now as those aunties reacted when I was a kid. But some wise man once said – ALL for the BEST!!! So who am I to question that now!!!

A test or A punishment?

2008-05-08T23:41:00.000+05:30

Everytime I cry a little
Eveyrtime I die a little
Everytime I explain answers to myself a little
But yet next time, the event repeats itself a little
Everytime I do things wrong a little
Everytime I screw things up a little
Everytime I vow to do things right a little
Yet everytime I lose more than the previous time a little
Everytime I pray to God a little
To end this suffering in my life a little
Evertime I ask him for some mercy a little
Everytime I ask him one final shot to settle
But everytime he give me some hope a little
Only to end up again hurting my loved ones a lot
What did I do to deserve this
When will this suffering end
When will I feel good and chirpy again?
When a change for me will God send?

Journey from Misfortune to Windfall

2008-05-03T19:44:00.001+05:30

While I just lamented about how I feel helpless and puny, less than 24 hours ago; what I am writing now is exactly its opposite feeling I felt today!! Somewhere I take this as an incident which substantiates the fact that life follows a Sinusoid - you have days of crests (high points in your life when everything works well) which would be followed by days of troughs (low points when you would feel you should not exist) but be rest assured coz crests ARE going to emerge next... So, when I had doubts about if I am a person at a right place, at a right time yesterday - they just were resolved today!!!

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After a lot of deliberation, I decided to not go to work (because I had to work a little on my report) and instead go to the Barcap versus L & T cricket match at the Oval :) (sounds so psued na...) Even though late - I was there to cheer for my team.

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So, at the match (T20 match) we set an impressive and formidable target of 185 for L & T... Now, with 3 wickets down the audience (ME) was getting restive.. So, I got talking to Sushir (one of my colleagues) and this friendly talk soon became a finance lesson first and then got converted to gambling (which everyone in finance does - like Sushir put it - if you are risk averse - you are in a wrong profession :)...) So, after explaining the bet to me (He had to go short @ 50 rupees per minute if the time taken for match to wrap up is <> 45 min... After a lot of cheating (which he chose to call it as I kept changing clocks - the one running fastest was the one I wanted to take) and miscalculations (stupid me - on settling on one clock I stupidly calculated 10 + 45 = 50 (got reminded of CAT days) :(....which lost me 250 bucks btw...), the match last over finally was being played on the ground...

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Now, ideally an over takes around 3 minutes to complete... Given the fact that there were 4 minutes less for me to break even - I was praying that something happens and the time gets extended... And guess what... Ball 1 bowled - Wide... Ball 2 bowled - Wide... (Sushir had torn his hair apart...) Ball 3 bowled - hit for a 4... (now we were comfortably winning - so the 4 was not so disturbing from the company win POV... but that was good for me coz the ball went faaaaar away and took a few more seconds to retrieve) Ball 4 bowled - dot ball... Ball 5 bowled - hit for a 4 which unluckily landed where the audience was sitting... Sushir was fast enough to run give the ball back to get the game started... Ball 6 - awesome ball - wicket taken... (this is again good for me... batsman walking out - batsman walking in takes time....) The time count is not told on purpose coz the end result would be sweeter to hear then... Ball 7 - dot ball... Finally the last ball of the innings - I was praying for one more extra but then I thought lalach buri bala hai :D... It was a dot ball and the game was finally over... Net result - Barcap won the game by more than 82 runs.... As for me, I won 200 rupees (since the 5th minute was not complete - I did not get a 50 for that...) So, had I calculated properly - silly that I am - I would have won 950 bucks :( but clearly destiny had another lesson in mind (other than reverberating the fact that I make silly mistakes) "lalach buri bala hai..."

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Of course I could not accept the money - so I refused to take it... Then all the others were like he would have taken it had you lost and its difficult to get money outta him so you might as well take it... Get a vada-paav for office people if you dont want the money for yourself :))))

End of the day - I had 200 bucks in my hand (if I do get vada - paav - I will end up spending much more) , I met one of my friends for lunch and had an awesome time, came home and spent time with my family and had a great time here too :))))))))

Why cant days always remain at the crests??? Are troughs really necessary????

From Indifference to Ignorance to Apathy - Salaam Mumbai!

2008-05-02T23:26:00.000+05:30

Before you read any further one fact about me - I am very proud to be born and brought up in Mumbai... Like my orkut profile says - I am a Mumbaikar to the core... But there are many things I do not understand about this city... You wonder and you wonder but you dont put a thot to something; till you experience something that forces you to give your mindshare to this issue/event... So, here goes - the cliched melting pot called Mumbai - saw the city come to the rescue when bomb blasts hit the trains - and also saw the Jayabala Asher incident where no one helped and the J W Marriot incident where everyone kept quiet... And while I praised and ridiculed the city when these incidents did happen - tea time conversation - thats all they were...

But then the other day I came in the 8:41 Virar fast from Dadar and I was forced to think... On a different tangent - Mumbai mein everyone runs... U see me running everyday at 7:39 in 3 inch heels to take the 7:40, I see an old lady running to get the bus and I see a bus driver slamming the accelerator to make it through the signal as it turns red... So, yes - it is a fast city... And now this very haste also results in some unwanted acts by Mumbaikars... So, back to my story - 8:41 at Dadar which is 8:55 at Andheri... Day would have been a routine mumdane day if 2 men wouldnt have entered this WOMENS first class...

For all those who do not know the legendary Virar - even if its 1 am in the morning that train is crowded... So, yes this train was crowded and here is the apathy that I witnessed - only one lady was opposing it - fighting with them... asking them to get down... Finally, when they dint pay heed to her - I said something... another girl started... They said - "hum log staff hai - we can come here coz we couldnt get in the gents first class..." I was so irritated... They had the gall to say this... Imagine what nerves they had when they stepped onto this compartment... They would ve thot "Chalta hai... Ladies hain - kya karengi..." And which to some extent is true na - for starters - how many women spoke?? Next - they did travel to their detination in first class... Third - nothing we did served to get the right thing done...

The point of the blog to ask all you people - what are your limits? how much of beauracracy can u take? What all things can you tolerate? I tried to do my bit - try and be a responsible citizen but in the end - beauracratic procedure won, my tolerance gave up... Makes me feel terrible inside - then should I assume that those ladies who dint leave their seats (afraid to be standing till their destination later) are dead inside? would they have kept quiet if it were their daughters instead of me and that girl? and when will i keep doing something and then finally end up dead inside... and if this continues - will this city ever see someone doing something just for the welfare of others? Pareto principle - making yourself better off without making society worse off - can this happen ever in Mumbai again? I am a pessimist and the sad state of affairs only fuels this further so what I would do instead is tell you how this story ended and then as usual I will end this on questions coz - i for one do not have answers to those... may be someone reads and helps me figure things out for me... so this is what I did -

I asked for his IDs - he flashed them but for a time where no details could be taken... only for a fact that his first name was Jayaprakash and that it was indeed a Government ID... we tried to take snaps so that we show it to the station master at Borivli and they leaned outside showing us their backs... I called the 24 hours railway helpline - to call security at Borivli Station (the next station where train was supposed to tkae a halt)... They assured me that someone will be there and when the station came no one was there... Those guys got down and stared straight into my face and smirked at me... I felt puny.. Helpless... The Virar train started and all those ladies went back to their soap discussions and other conversations like nothing ever happened... There at the station were these 2 girls who started the fight for everyone feeling shitty about themselves... Still not giving up - we went to 4 office - station master, railway security, station manager and finally the deputy... no one did anything... kept passing on the buck... finally on insisting - that they check if these guys were police atleast (off duty may be) he said police station jaake aap check karo... I did get the details but at that point is where my patience wore off... after a 12 hour day at office, I really dint want to then get hassled by a policeman... I asked the girl if she needed the details coz I knew I would not pursue it further and she took them from me...

I dunno if she will do anything about it, but if she does -kudos to her spirit... as for me - I am currently wallowing in self pity... :( But tomorrow again - I will be running at 7:39 to take the same 7:40 train...
The main question then remains: Am I still really PROUD to be a MUMBAIKAR?
Beats me!!!

No time but just couldn't stop writing

2008-03-21T13:17:00.000+05:30

My time here @ IIMB has been terrific... I mean, yes - it does have its downs (a lot of them actually at times) but the ups more than compensate for it... So, while I have been cribbing that I do not have the time to write anything, today I just could not resist as I browsed through my blog... I have 3 unwritten blogs - First Week @ IIMB, Summers experience, life in general at IIMB etc... So, finally I decided to put an end to this eternal wait for getting a right moment to write a blog and just started typing (so what if FinDev is staring right at my face)... So, what I am going to write about is this one aspect of IIMB students life - Bidding... We do that for eveyrthing... Bid for hostel rooms, bid for courses, bid for the number of students in the club, bid for money you want for your club - everything... And mind you, every such bid is associated with a lot of tension and hajar emotions... So, last 2 days in a row we were subjected to THE BIDDING process...

Day before yesterday - ACAD Council Opens the Bid At!!!!!
What do you do when you want a course very badly and 100 others want too and the professor is ready to only teach 75 students... The only fair way to get those rightful 75 is bidding... So, I was the lucky one with only 2 out of 6 courses to be overbid (overbid - numer of applications exceed the cap placed by the prof)... There were people with 4 courses overbid and some unfortunate ones who did not get their course floated (course is not floated when the number of students applying is les than 20)... Amidst these extremes, here was I who prayed that 2 students somehow drop from the BFMS course which I wanted... The other course prof was nice enough to extend the cap and thus was normally bid...

So, stage one mock bidding - everyone gets an idea of what is the general preference of the batch (in terms of which courses they want and which they dont)... Stage 2 - actual bidding - same results... Stage 3 - voluntary swapping for students who change their mind and go for underbid courses (this is where I was waiting for 2 students to opt out)... Stage 4 - After stage 3, we still had 4 courses overbid so bidding process where you allocate 1000 points you have on the subject you desire the most... Its like auctioning - highest bidder wins... So, if you have more than one subject overbid - your points split amongst those subjects and you stand to lose... Stage 5 - tie between people who have same number of points bid... the subject still overbid... So, random allocation... Thanks to excel for the RAND() function which came to the rescue... Finally, Stage 6 - here the top 70/75 (depending on cap) are taken and granted the course... The misfortunate ones go to Stage 1 for a new course...

Agreed finally it did come to luck but there is no other fair way to give courses to students... You could do something like US Univs have - first come first serve or prof selects the students etc... But they are very subjective and do not give every student the same chance as this method (however cumbersome) gives.

Yesterday - Hostel Room Going, Going and Gone!!!
This is where we first year students select the rooms where we want to live in our second year after we come back from summers... Like in most issues, here too there is a demand supply mismatch... I owuld not even venture into guys hostel allocation which is nothing but huge... So, sticking to that fraction which is one fifth the total population - 51 girls in 51 rooms... Now, the process goes as 8 girls ka groups get allocated first, then 4 girls and then those hapless souls who are with no group... So, initally we were a group of 4 girls frantically trying to get the number to 7,8 or 9... MBA really spoils you because for something as simple as getting a room, you start applying probability theory, game theory etc... So, using one such theories 2 groups of 4 combined (Neha, Reema, Kinjal and Sharmili with Ritu, Aastha,Smriti, NikkySoo) to get the highly coveted K block... First there was a system which said - you give your first preference and if no one bids for it, you get it... The theories were at its best in this phase but to no avail... We still ended bidding for a block which was contested by anohter group... Then some sense prevailed and the bidding for hostel rooms came down to lottery system... Each group nominates one person to go and pick the chit... Who goes from our group now? People asked me to go but just picture this - 7 girls are looking upto you to pick one of the first 3 ranks in group of 8 and you end up picking rank 8... Would you live in peace the rest of your life??? Knowing this fully well, that I cannot do it - considering my luck (there was high probability (here I go MBA again) that I pick up 7 or 8).. So, we had the Jhansi ki Rani of our group Ritu Mittal daring to get us those coveted K blocks... And man she was lucky... We got rank 2 and hence K first which was NICE!!! The group who picked rank 1 could not stop cheering for their group leader... And so couldn't we... Then the hostel secretary wrote - Ritu and Group againt K first and we were so happy to see that one cannot imagine... Of course, there were downsides were groups 7 and 8 got wht they did not prefer, some spilt... Hue and Cry about how our hostel secy sucks (which always happens.. We Indians very easily blame the system and people in it when we dont get what we want), how the process is not fair etc. After the girls rooms were sorted out, guys started which was even more messier...
But at the end of the day - I had the block I wanted, with the girls I wanted the block with and with the guys of our group just a floor below...
Alls well that ends well people say... So, atleast for me these 2 days ended on a high note... And with this content feeling I came to check my mail which had our QAG (a sort of monitor but for a partiuclar subject) mail saying our FinDev marks are out... Now, you know that every crest is followed by a trough... Without even looking at my score I am certain its a trough that I have to face :(
So, thats all for now...
FinDev awaits and guilt feeling is already cropping up for wasting so much time instead of reading FinDev...

Kudos to the most spirited team I have ever seen!!!

2007-12-12T21:18:00.000+05:30

I would classify today's tug of war event as by far the most important event of intersection sports and one of the most momentous moments of my life. I could not stop writing about this event, one because I have never gotten so excited post Samhar and second because I have never seen such highly spirited team - like EVER!!! It was a game that was packed with so many emotions that I cannot begin to tell. Some of the highlights of the event - if anyone had missed it.

The Team Selection

So, the normal day starts with the usual cop fin lecture, continues with MPPO group having 107 slides to be presented and then by a marathon marketing lecture. Little did we know that this seemingly long commonplace day had loads of energy and ethusiasm in store for us. At 7:30, the team was in throwball court for the Tug of War event. Trials were carried out to get the best 6 players - who were within the weight limit to play for us. Poor Gauri was the one against whom everyone was tried and tested. Sec C was on court and suddenly PMS enters and displays her might. Last minute subs and Kinjal was replaced with PMS. We won the match against B fair and square.

The Problem

As PCN would say - Shit hit the roof after the match. Yours truly displayed her complete lack of mathematical skills because in the heat of moment of getting the best team, we crossed the weight limit. We were the first ones to admit our mistake, apologised our mistake and waited for the sports council to give a decision if it was a re-match or a disqualification. Incidentally, it so happened that Sec B was also overweight and therefore, it was unanimously agreed that we would have a rematch. Before the rematch, there were some bickerings about parllax error in weighing, availability of flat surface, zero error adjustments etc. So, along with my maths skills, my physics fundaes were also revised today :)

The Rematch

Match 2 started with Shruthi not playing the first pull. We gave in to the sec B team but this did not dampen the spirits. Shruthi agreed to play and resumed her position in the front and pulled victory away from sec B team, when they were only a few centimeters away. Hats off to this girl's spirits to one - not have given up realising that we were almost out and two - come and play disregarding her health and keeping the team above it. Of course, hadn't been for the support of the other 5, the front person could not have succeeded alone. After the impossible win (as many spectators later called it) the third pull was a cake walk and then the look on all these 6 girls faces was priceless. I wish at that point in time I had a camera to capture - the victorious smile, the satisfaction of winning fair & square and the determination that we have to teach a lesson.

The Finals

There was a really long break before the finals started. We were playing with no substitutes and not with the winning team combo. In addition, the fact that they had 6 pulls as opposed to 3 that the opponents made things even worse. This game requires hajar strength and we had exhausted ours in these 6 pulls. Yes! the things did look difficult at that point in time and I was dying of hajar guilt. For one, I kept blaming myself for making them go through the torment of a rematch and second for actually thinking that instead of playing the finals, we give them a walkover. Gold glitters the most when it is heated the most.The girls fighting it out (for whatever position) in today's event would have been the only befit ending to this trial by fire. And this was where I learnt the third lesson for the day - place the team above an individual. Kudos to Kinjal to place the team over her beliefs, to come to aid when the team needed the most and finally to NOT give up whatever happened. I'm not sure how many would have done the same thing you did for this section. First pull - Aastha displayed an awesome initial pull to make sure theu get a run for money. However, luck did not favor us and we lost. The bigger problem was Tanu got hurt in the process and we were thinking of calling it off at that point to prevent injuries to others. Thats when the entire team amazed me again - because not only did they play but they won. Aswathy in the front did an awesome job of not letting go and Devi anchored superbly from behind. I almost saw PMS, Gauri, Aastha and Kinjal at 20 degrees to the horizontal to get maximum force. The determination paid off again and we got the final chance to win the event. Similar effort again, this time sec D got a wee bit closer to winning but the team proved their mettle and won...

Aftermath

I do not know how the team would have performed had Shruti been there. I do not know if I would have made any difference, had I been there. I do not know if we had not gotten the weight wrong in the first place, whether we would have felt better after winning the finals. All I know is that if any team deserved to win - it was SEC C... And I do not say this because I belong to this section. Sportsmanspirit and Skill are the two most fundamental things that are tested in any field (events, rules etc become secondary then) and that makes a sportsperson. I proudly say that I have met 8 such true sportspersons who come 10 on 10 on both these parameters.

PROUD OF U!! You were responsible to get a smile on my face and owe you one for that :)

Memorable Samahar!!!

2007-08-17T21:08:00.000+05:30

This is not my article but a snippet from the article a friend from IIMB wrote... Its about the Basketball Match between the IIMC and IIMB teams @ Calcutta... The Girls' Baski Team rose like the Dark Horse towards victory adding their bit in the 7 - 4 win over Calcutta!!! Here is how the snippet about Baski Girls goes:-

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Basketball (Girls):

Arguably, the fate of Samhar 2007 was decided by this memorable performance displayed by our Girls Basketball team. Purely going by the average height or weight of the two teams, no one would have given our girls a chance. But our ‘5-feet-someones’ displayed steely resolve, relentless stamina, and exemplary grit to overcome all their “short”comings to register probably the finest moment of the Sports Meet.

Led from the front by Nupur Kalgaonkar, the “Girl from Kolhapur”, the team had a clear mission: don’t let the ball reach the opponents. They snatched at the ball, jumped in unison and did a lot more than what had been seen on a Basketball court before, and, importantly, never gave possession of the ball. In between all the drama, Anjali scored from a free throw to take an early lead in the match, and the score after 2 quarters was 1-0. Another free throw in our favour, and this made the score 2-2 at the end of the 3rd quarter, with everything to play for.
The 4th quarter had some heart-stopping moments but nothing to add to the score. Just when the spectators were getting ready to go into extra time with only 28 seconds to go on the clock, the ‘oh-not-so-shy’ Sharmili Phulgirkar somehow stole the ball from the opponents, raced towards the basket, defied all odds, and actually put the damn thing in the basket, a feat she never achieved during any of the practice sessions!

A special mention for Nidhi Gupta, whose defence was impeccable, and whoever she marked visibly felt awfully stifled! The match was also memorable for the celebrations after every basket, which reminded one of goals in footer matches! (this comment is coz the score was 4-2; yeah! yeah! i know reminds you of a football match score!!!)

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The entire sports meet remains a memorable experience... The girley gossip we indulged the first night, the practice sessions we had a week before that, the cheering squad and its importance, the bonds that were made stronger after the meet, the rain dance in the end where we let our hair loose and finally the BIG cup in the team's hands which just made the entire exercise worthwhile and bore sweet fruits for the pains we put in....

Three Cheers for IIMB- Hip Hip Hurray!! Hip Hip Hurray!! Hip Hip Hurray!!

Aila - Kya match Tha!!!!

2007-07-12T19:10:00.000+05:30

The first event at IIMB which really got me excited :))))))))) The names might not be familiar but the mood is!!!!
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The phrase - A cricket match is not lost till the last ball is bowled actually proved its verity in yesterday's match. The girls' cricket match between the PGP1 and PGP2 girls was not only very exciting but also surfacing of hidden talents of our batch... For all those people who missed the extremely captivating match, here is a small account -

Amidst the confusion of having the event or postponing it, I finally got a message from Parul (lot more about her later) saying the match is @ 11:30 pm and the team is ready. As budding managers, we meet just about every deadline perfectly, so both PGP1 and PGP2 girls brought in their teams on time.

The match began with Parul and Ragini opening. It was nothing short of Virendera Sehwag and Sachin Tendulkar opening. Sixes, Fours, Running between wickets was fantastic. Then on Shruti's (PGP2) bowling, a stupid tree came in the middle giving Nidhi a very easy catch and sent our very own Ragini back :( Then came Madhumita who gave the same support to our captain (Parul) who only spoke the language of 4s and 6s. The highlight in their fielding was a spectacular catch taken by Mansi Gupta (sideways, lower than her knees) which unfortunately was on a no ball. This stroke of bad luck proved deadly for the PGP2s, since Parul was unstoppable after that. She had got a chance and she meant business!! So, finally after 6 overs we were 119 with the fall of one wicket.

With full confidence, our side came to bowl. We had set a very difficult target and that only boosted our players confidence. Mansi Gupta and Saumya were their openers and Sarbjeet our bowler. Mansi hit 6s in first 2 balls and after which Sarab changed her bowling line. Mansi came ahead and tried to hit the ball which happily went into Madhumita's (wicket keepers) hands who was prompt enough to get her stumped. Third ball and one wicket (one of their good batsman) down and our confidence was on cloud number nine. Then came Saumya who miraculously changed the game from 12 for 1 in 1 over to something like 88 for 1 in 4 overs. Man!! would we lose the match :O Tension on both sides. With the huge number of 6s hit, 32 in 2 overs and Saumya being there, it seemed feasible.

Next over by Sarab and the scene was 19 off the last over. Parul came to bowl in this high pressure moment. The first ball bowled and a 6. The second one went off to the boundary. 9 runs off 4 balls - VERY doable. Neha doing everything to ensure Saumya is on strike and here she was. then the next 3 balls were dot balls. Parul finally got the length right. So, one ball and 9 to win - the match was ours. The celebrations already started among the PGP1s and just then, Saumya hit a 6 on a no ball. The result - 1 ball to go and 2 runs needed. And just when we thought the match was lost, Parul came up with an awesome ball, bowling Saumya off the last ball to get us on the road to victory!!!!!!!

Kudos to the entire team! A special mention to all the guys/girls who stayed up after a looooooooooong day to cheer the team... It DOES make a difference!

Expressions

2007-06-07T01:43:00.000+05:30

You go to any card shop - archies, hallmark - and you are bound to see one section called - Expression Greeting Cards... The cards of this genre - express things that you never verbally say (lack of courage or opportunity)... I found myself going to that section when bang came a mother's day, father's day or sister's day etc.... Was it coz I wanted to give flowery cards with poems or roses or Anne Geddes babies??? But this might not be the case since more often than not, I ended up buying a very simple card - its crux being - thanks for everything you did in my life and for being there or a plain I love u... Funny, aint it! These are the very people closest to me and I cannot say a simple thanks to them or a I love you to them!

What kind of a coward am I; I need a card made by a stranger and a day started by another stranger to tell them that they are appreciated, that they are special!!! To add to this miserable feeling, I am not even sure why did the firangs come up with this day... Every year I decide to check it up and every year after the card is given - this mission goes into oblivion! This makes me such a bad person - doesn't it? And given this very logical fact - why aren't these people doing anything about the bad person in their life??? Hasn't my mother completely lost it with my cribs and my ingrate nature? Hasn't my father lost his patience with my impertinence? When will my sister quit shopping for me - despite me not showing any enthusiasm for what she shops? And a scary thought comes to me - what if all this I mentioned above came true? The answer to this is very evident too - I'll DIE!!! Coz there would be no support system that helps me survive... Not remotely belittling the presence of friends and relatives in my life... But when the central existence of your life loses meaning, nothing else can help...

And so its very easy to take them for granted - Coz they are there - ALWAYS... A strange kind of love that has developed, over the years, with the sense of belonging and the knowledge of blood ties that bind us all... This love is well aware of its destructive power as well as its constructive powers and this makes miracles happen... There is this very sticky glue of acceptance that is the core of these relationships! So, if I move on to the next THE MOST IMPORTANT relation in anyone's life does this theory hold true? The relation is Spouse, isn't it? So, can we actually expect someone who has lived the formative years of his/her life in different surroundings to reach the same comfort level w.r.t how much to be expressed? Everyone, in their own right, does the same things to their families - then - can they do the same thing to each other and survive?

How important is expressing in this case? Does expressing on only few occassions suffice? If not, what is the point when you know that you have expressed enough? What if these points dont match? How do you cross these turbulent times to reach the ultimate halcyon in your lives? I know the answer of most of these questions is going to be - its dependent on the people involved.... Also, simple maths tells me that for this relationship there are more means to express (physical and emotional) and more time (considering average life of 60 years still gives this phase 35 years...)... Yet, we hear an anomaly - increasing rates of divorces, fights and misunderstandings blown out of proportions along with decreasing number of long lasting relationships...

Why does this happen? The simplist in me begs the answer to the following question - Why cant equations just be as simple as they are with our family... Why do we complicate the matters when a new person enters the core... Family and Friends just seem to do fine with or without the expected levels of expressions - then why does this ONE relationship get affected so much by it.... It works for family coz of the reasons cited above... In case of friends, even if they do get affected by this - I believe the repercussions of a broken friendship are a layer above the core and this helps absorb the undesirable change much better...

A dear friend always tells me - its easy to point of faults, its even easier to ask questions but what is difficult is giving a way of handling the same... I am not going to be presumptuous and trivialise this issue and come up with some scotch tape solution... But I feel what i say below works as a solution for everything.... I feel that just going and shouting helps - Go out there people! Talk, set your expectations right and make sure there are no loose ends coz they would then take the form of unrequitted EXPRESSIONS that cant close the loop.... And the argument will begin all over!!!!!

Jolted back from Inactivity

2007-06-02T01:19:00.000+05:30

The inactivity was partly due to a sudden transition on a personal front (moving from a professional to a student) and partly due to my uncanny knack of getting things done in a complicated way... Gimme something that can be easily done and be rest assured that I can easily complicate it by introducing hajar variables... Sad story of my life but true...

A trip to Singapore had been planned since April first week... It was May last week that I finally made it there... But, this trip was wrought with hajar complications...

First - Tickets!!! My agent (ticketing one) suddenly got very busy and could help me out only by Monday (which was 21st May) I strongly believed that this is very late considering a 30th flight I wanted to take and the visa wasnt stamped... couldnt possibly book before that (as you all must ve wondered) coz my last date was not getting finalised... So, till those formalities were done, I could not go ahead with the booking... So, I asked Vraj to get it done for me on a Friday!!! (since monday seemed too close to the departure date) Smart, you wud think! But, the stupid Malaysian Airlines have no E-ticket and they courier tickets only to US addresses forced Vraj to order to his addr and then courier it to me (which reached only by Friday).. However, the itenary was sufficient enough to get a visa and it served my purpose...

Second - Visa... By now you would have thought 21st I shud ve started the Visa process right.. But, my agent (yup this is not the same person...) had to go on a 2 day leave the same week :( Net Net - no visa process till 24th and tickets were in USA... Finally Visa process was about to start (meaning docs were all given) and my agent says it would be better if Sudha sends a signed invitation... She sends... But her affinity for June (her bday) and July month (my bday) came into picture... Instead of saying 30 May to 6th June, she writes, 30 June to 6 July... So, poor thing had to fax the copy again... Many such docs made Sudha run in Singapore and me run from bldg. 14 to bldg. 1 a lot on the 24th... Finally, everything came thru and Visa was supposed to be with me Tuesday (29th May)

Third - Perhantian trip (highlight of the trip - one of the top 10 most beautiful places to visit as per TIME magazine) - This required me to start a Malaysia visa process.. Docs should be same except for ticket difference n that invitation letter... Everything was in place but one issue... Passport in SGP consulate and we cannot start Mal visa till we get it... It takes 7 dys to get Mal visa so in no way could I start visa process for Mal... But good news... I can get on entry since I am going for only 2 days!! Great luck I thought... Told Sudha and waited for passport to come through...

Fourth - ECNR - Chat with GS... on 28th May

Me - "YEEE! I am coming to Perhantian... Cool na"
GS - "what about visa???"
Me - "on arrival"
GS - "Cool, so have an ECNR right..."
Me - "excuse me - ECNR?????"
GS - "arre, its a stamp - blah blah blah - you need it to get Mal visa.. Should take around an hours time"
Me (slighltly panicky but firmly) - ok! can do it on Wednesday.. (confirmed with agent - personal presence not reqd)

Fifth - Forex - Cannot get till you get a Visa... So, cannot happen before Tuesday! But, got everything arranged so that it wont be a fight on the last day...

Finally the events that followed were -

1. got the SGP visa on tuesday but in Mumbai...
2. ECNR process was supposed to be started by Girish with an authority letter from me.. But, Mal e-ticket was not allowed, train tickets were not correct, personal presence wasnt there, TIME wasnt there... SO, after a fight (in SGP, Pune and Mumbai) we realised we cannot get it done :((((((( As depressing as it sounds but the Perhantian trip got cancelled... All the snorkelling dreams went into drain... And to add to my variable list, passport was with Girish in his office in mumbai...
3. Forex did not come thru to Pune in time before I left... So, had to collect it from Mumbai house...supporting docs copy (passport, Visa and itenary was with me in Pune...)
4. Last day at work was incidentally the same day of my flight... So, major running around happened and finally finished all formalities by 3:00 pm only... which made it impossible to reach my house by 6:00 when forex came to my house...

So, the vairables involved in this trip -
- Me in pune... had to make it to airport by 9:00 pm sharp as that was checking time (despite leaving 1.5 hour after the planned time)... On my way, volvo bus broke down, AC stopped functioning in the claustrophobic bus, landslide happened at the ghats on the way - leading to a major traffic jam...
- Girish in his office with my passport... I think its somewhere in South Mumbai...
- Dad with forex and bag - Coming from Borivli.. Now, getting forex also was a herculean task for my father and stud that he is - he could get it done... No docs were present at Borivli... So, finally after some phone calls he got it done.. Btw, my phone battery drained out - so during this time I (who had all the information) was out of reach...
- Namu coming with my clothes that I had to change (was in office formals since came directly from office) from Borivli... Clothes needed some altering and were at the tailors place till 4:00 pm...

I am sure by now who survied this account of terrible planning have concluded that I havent made it to SGP... And even if the optimistic folk believed that I made it, they must have thot - with the highlight trip out of the plan, the trip wouldnt have been too much fun... And all must have agreed the dire need for me to do some management course... C'mon - I must have got atleast one right ;))))))

But, here is the reality...
All variables converged @ airport at 8:40 (before time - in my case - is a big deal)... Me changed into jhakas clothes and got all the things in place... Came to SGP in one piece (despite this my first flying experience, despite having connecting flights - not direct ones and despite the fact that had Sudha not come @ airport I would have been completely lost... But nothing that my pessimistic brain suggested happened and I reached safely... Today is the third day (this was when I was supposed to be back from the ful-filled Perhantian trip) and the fun hasnt still stopped... Is it because of the place, the people, the excitement or just a change - I do not know... But, fact remains - that I am having fun and am all geared up to learn management lessons after a refreshing, badly-managed break :))))))

And finally the winner is!!!! (Part 6)

2007-05-10T17:00:00.000+05:30

Its amazing how you can remember something despite the huge time gap between the events... I was supposed to write about my interviews as and when they were done but superstitions prohibited me from doing this... I wondered how could I conclude these interview excerpts until I know the definitive result... So, after I got my results I started to write about my interviews... I thought this effort would not be as comprehensive as compared to writing about the interviews immediately after they happened but I was surprised with the outcome...

When I started writing about them, I was actually reliving those experiences... If I believed in time machines then I would have thought that there is one in my house... Coz, it had transported me back to that place and time when I was taking the interview...

I am not sure if this experience helps anyone but just writing about them gave this 3 year journey a perfect end... A perfect result where I was in the b-school I always preferred... A perfect example of how never-say-die attitude works for anyone and everyone... And finally a perfect feeling in my heart...

So, brace yourselves gentlemen - this dudette is all set to rock IIM Bangalore :)))))))))

Pit Stop 3 - IIM Lucknow Interview (Part 5)

2007-05-10T00:19:00.001+05:30

This blog should actually be called - "What not to do in the interview..." coz this penultimate interview in reality and the last blog of this interview series was the worst interview ever... This one was on 3rd March @ 10:00 am @ Dadar... Reaching there was no problem since I had already been there for the Bangalore interview... However, the scenes from the past haunted me (IIM B interview experiences) when I realised that this interview is also in the same room as the first one... A little scared (superstitions took over the practical mind) and completely feeling inferior (just before the GD/PI I met people with 100 percentile and 99.97 percentile which cause dmy 99.63 to look puny..) I entered the GD... The topic did not allay my fears... It was "The first myth of Management is that it exists..."... Ok, this was not only a weird topic but the people around me were so loud that this weird market turned into a fish market... Fish Market - When everyone screams and makes themselves heard but heart-of-heart know they are talking crap.... So, basically it transforms to who can make bull shit heard more in the people who are talking the same... And it did not help that the group consisted of 11 people...

Spoke something - its my nature to not keep quiet; if there is crap discussed I discussed the same, if not i let him be... Came out of the class with a completely frustrated feeling... Have you experienced that feeling when you are completely dissatisfied when you indulge in a colossal waste of time argument... Yup! thats what the feeling was outside room, after the Lucknow GD... I was 10th in the group and since the interviews were in order, I had a looooooooong wait ahead of me... But to my great surprise, every interview lasted maximum of 15 minutes and in about 1.5 hours it was my turn for the interview... I was happy that finally my turn came and I was happy... But little did I know - 'happy' was last thing that I should have felt for the kind of interview that I had...

I - Good Afternoon, so Sharmili - do you know that there is a movie of your name?
M - Yes sir!
I - who are the actors?
M - Shashi Kapoor and Rakhee
I - who is the director?
M - I dont know
I - Producer?
M - I dont know...
I - would you agree that the word 'sharmili' is used in many songs
M - yes sir!
I - so sing 3 songs with word 'sharmili' except for 'o meri sharmili'
M (well I know hajar songs - great ones, good ones and crappy ones... But suddenly I blanked out... I couldnt recollect any) ummmm...
I (waited for exactly 20 seconds and went ahead) - Ok, leave that... Sharmili I see that you have not made good use of your abilities
M - I am not sure y are you saying this.. I do not understand...
I - well you go 90 in tenth, 93 in 12th... But only 73 in engineering... You did not use being in VJTI to your advantage..
M - Sir! I have been in top 5 when I scored 90, top 5 when I scored 93 and also top 5 in engineering... So, I believe that I have utilised my potential...
I - I see you have done business french... What is it?
M - explained..
I - ok, tell me what would you say for, "I want to do business with you in French"
M (French is very confusing but I had an A grade... I was not best but this I should have got it) - Je voudrait vais business avec vous... Sir, I do not remember what is business in French... (Btw, this sentence was completely wrong... This roughly translated means I wish to go business with you... :(((...)
I - So, what is the conversion rate between rupees and francs?
M - Dont know
I - Rupees and dollars?
M - 43.95 (full to guess kiya..)
I - are you sure or just bluffing?
M - sure (I wish he had not read the paper... Later on found out it was 44.90.. I was close I thot.. Did he buy it was my next thought)
I - Infosys is taking a big loan from world bank - what is it regarding?
M (I had read that infosys is looking for an acquisition in Australia.. So, figured it would be for that purpose) Told this reason...
I - oh, so world bank gives loan to infy???
M (wanted to hit myself so badly...) Oh no sir, World bank gives loan to central banks of the countries - not individual companies...
I - Hmmm... So, who is the chief commissioner of india?
M - dont know
I - who is the deputy then?
M (thinking if I dont know this one, would I know the deputy duh!!!) - Dont know...
I - take a guess
M - Renuka Chowdhary (who I realised in few seconds after saying was Women's welfare minister...)
I - Thats wrong... But if you took her name.. tell me 3 women CEOs of the world...
M (gettting excited coz this would be first question I would answer correctly and he broke my thoughts by continuing the sentence...)
I - tell me 3 women CEOs of the world except - Indra Nooyi of Pepsico and Kiran Majumdar Shaw of Biocon...
M (laughing outwards, cursing inwards) - Sir, you took the names of all the ones I knew :(((((
I - Ok, tell me any one...
M (still couldnt answer..)
I - Which was your favourtie subject in Engg?
M (I had prepared this one..) - Logic Circuits...
I (interviewer confused... he did not expect this answer...) - Ok, Ill ask you a maths question... Gave me a 2 X 3 matrix and asked me to find the determinant...
M (now I knew, I couldn't find the determinant.. It was not possible but I could not tell the reason why... So, I tried to use my brains... (extra shanugiri is what I did in short... Thinking aloud...) Well, I cannot find the determinant.. So, I would mutiply this matrix with an identity matrix (since A*I = A) and convert it to 3 X 3 matrix...
I (an amused look on his face...) - What are you doing??? You know you are not close to giving me an answer, right...
M (completely exasperated..) - Sir, I know I can solve but there is something thats not correct... But, I cant tell you what...
I - what is the requirement for finding the determinant?
M - It should be 3 X 3 or more...
I - Right, it should be a square matrix...
M (Oh, ya.. thats what it is called... I knew it but did not know how to say it... what a rubbish thing to do...)
M - trying to still smile despite a disastrous interview...
I - ok, Sharmili you can go now... Please send the next person in...

Learnings from this Interview -
1. Know everything about your name - and if you are one of the unlucky ones like me who have a movie with the name - then God bless you!!
2. DONT show your extra smartness by thinking out of the box when its not required...
3. Smiling and laughing with the interviewer doesnt help... If you suck, you still do... The only thing that can get you out is knowing stuff
4. Stress Interview (thats what everyone told me my Lucknow interview was) doesnt work out if you dont get stressed (which was also something that everyone told me - people who have stress interviews are tested to check if they retain composure under stress)... You still need to know everything they ask...

Needless to say, you guys must have guessed by now - I did not make it through the Lucknow interview...

Pit Stop 2 - SP Jain Interview (Part 4)

2007-05-08T19:50:00.000+05:30

SP Jain generally has a group interview.. No GD so this was good... But they have 2 group interviews... Every year they had it on the same day but this year they had it on 2 different days... One was 24th Feb @ SP Jain and the other was 24th Mar @ SP Jain again... The first one was 8 am in the morning (which I feared that I would sleep during the interview - never a morning person).. the second one was at 9:30 am (which is still decent).. What made this entire process difficult was that there were 20 seats (for the course I had applied) and around 250 - 300 calls given out for the first round...

First one - Sleep me reported dot at 8... thanks to the Virar fast which got me to Andheri in 12 minutes else I would have been late... Document cheking... I did not have my score card... Man!!! this is the second consecutive time I do not have necessary documentation... Went to the students who are arranging this and asked them if the admit card would do... They agreed.. Phew!!! That was close... I was in the first group to be called... I had 3 marketing, 2 finance, 1 operations and me (doing IM) in the group... We entered... Again a smile on my face... I was first in the group when we sat in a semicircular arrangement... So, the first question... Tell me about yourself...
M (happy that finally this question which I had prepared around 7 versions for was asked) - told
Everyone also answered...

Now, the questions were asked to one person and then passed... So, there might be no connection in both the questions...

I - Ok, sharmili - tell me your most significant achievement in work?
M - told
I - What was the failure that you had faced and what were the learnings?
M - told (actually these were from the form we filled and were asked by the student @ SP Jain)
I - Sharmili you read right... Tell me 2 things you would do to increase speed of reading?
M - First you dont read out aloud... read in the mind... Second - increase the span of your eyes... This is a long term approach but works...
I - So, your hobbies include poetry... Can we hear one of them?
M (well I know she wants to check if I am bluffing but how the hell do I remember a poetry? - Made up a poetry on the spot... ) This poem was written after the bomb blasts that recently happened in Mumbai local trains... Its about a suicide bomber...

I am sitting in a train thats about to blast
Seconds away nothing will remain - not even its cast
There is happiness, chatter and laughter around
In a few moments - there would be no sound...

(Now, I am no Wordsworth... Cannot make more than 4 lines on the spot... But the madam seemed satisfied)

I - There is a project with no process in place... You have to put a process in place... How would you go about it?
M (Giving global gyaan) - I would analyse the pain areas... Then the reasons for the pain areas (gave some examples from personal experience) Use some already existing process and customise it if possible... But if not, I'll discuss the process to be started in detail with the team members and then unanimously implement one process...

That's it... The first interview was done and it was better than IIM B, I thought... I made it through the first round
_________________________________________________________

The second round started with me taking a panga with a senior student... My interview scheduled at 9:30 did not start even at 12:00... I went to him and I said if this frustration makes my interview go bad then its your neck on the line (not that could actually happen but said it anyway)... So, finally around 12:30 my interview started and this time a group of 4 people - all from IM - went for the interview... Now this interview was more of a discussion... The professor would give a topic and would ask all the 4 of us to speak...

I - Dont you think IT is so hyped up... I mean people do not have basic necessities and all you guys do is keep talking about IT as if its a biiiiiiiig thing... IT has not helped the actual India...
M - I do not agree sir... An instance where IT has impacted and helped the masses is how banks now work... IT has automated most processes, opening an account is easier, loans are made more accessible to people which in turn helps to provide for the basic necessities you just mentioned...
I (grilled others on this and asked a new question) - What are your views on child labour?
M (before me - this other person on my panel said that youth in the city is not as aware of this as those in towns/villages.. somebody else said that this problem can never be eradicated..) (Speaking when my turn came) I disagree with both the views mentioned... I hail form a city but I work from an NGO who works on educating under privileged children... We also conduct vocational training where we help their parents get jobs thus reducing the need to getting financial help from their children... and even if this is on a small scale now, continued efforts in this direction will help address the problem of child labour...
I - Pick a political issue all over the world...
M (everyone selected one thing or the other.. I selected India-Pak tensions)
I - what is the real problem?
M - The problem stems from the Kashmir issue primarily... Emotional baggage prevents a good decision making process... Some more gyaan on this topic...
I - What do you think of all these TV Serials that have come up... What kind of effect do they have on the people?
M - They have reduced the time families have togehter... They have reduced the playing time for kids who chose to watch TV over playing... etc...
I - Tell us about your family
M - Told
I - What is your idea of God?
M - It is a force for me which makes me believe that once I put in every effort from my side then the result would be taken care of by him... It is a belief that good things will happen to me coz I am a good person...
I - You are in a church and this one person is smoking while the sermon is on... What would be your take on this situation?
M (before me people said something like he has a freedom of expression so he can smoke but he shud realise that he is disrespecting the father... Someone else said if I am there for the sermon I would pay attention to it despite the disturbance!!) - (I again disagreed with both of them)... I said that he should not be doing that since he is not only disrespecting the father but also invading other people's space by disturbing them by smoking... So, if he intends to attend the sermon he shud put out the cigarette else should go out smoke, finish it and then come to attend the sermon...

That was it... They thanked us and we left... Felt a little better after the interview but later realised 90% of the junta had similar interviews and with 20 in 400 seats chance - I did not know how should I categorise my interview...

But, I got through so I guess what I did was acceptable...

The final pit stop... the next blog...

Pit Stop 1 - IIM B Interview 14th Feb 2007 (Part 3)

2007-05-08T16:00:00.000+05:30

What a date to have the interview :)))))) And I do not mean it in a positive way... The first drawback... In our company we have something like a leave planner where we update our leaves... So, to my luck - 2 people from the team took leave on Valentine's day... The next unfortunate thing was - it was me and another guy from the team... Oh man!!! The team had a gala time bantering, badgering and teasing the hell out of us!!! If any of you guys thought that people in big IT offices act all mature and professional then you think wrong... These guys had a field time when both of us applied for those leaves on V-day...

Anyway, moving on - I thought the first thing in the interview would be why is Valentine Day celebrated? What is your idea of celebrating this day? What do you think about Shiv sena's reactions to this day etc... Well, Wikipedia and google were very handy and all these answers were done... Then why I would select IIM B, other typical MBA questions, Infosys news (which I kept feeling appeared often as if media knew it was my interview coming up so I be max occupied), some current issues etc...

Went to the interview (scheduled at 9:00 am at Dadar) decked up in a nice salwar kameez and looking my formal best :) After reaching there, read up stock prices of Infy, Sensex closures, Headlines etc... The group was called - case study was about to begin... Said the penultimate prayer and went in... The case study was about some people going to South Pole for an expedition - basically showing the different styles of leadership... Now, this discussion in the 17th century and we were asked to give advice to the next indian leader going there... My entire prep (in the first 2 min was with this assumption) and we were all set for the discussion... Just as it started - one guy assumed that this advice is present day and he pointed out a gamut of devices that can be used... And the whole group discussed that... Shit!!! I have no points - panic set in... Ordinarily, I can get groups' attention - I could have said we can look at it from this POV - but some mental block just debilitated me... I did not say anything... I was pretending to listen intently (coz we had to write the summary individually later) but racking my brain for a new point... 15 minutes passed and I realised that I have had a not so good GD... Tried to maximise in the written summary and wrote all points (MoM writing during telecons helped me here)

We came out (I was fourth to be interviewed) and I was trembling... Was it coz the AC intensity was high or was it coz of my performance in the GD - I do not know... But next hour or so went in calming myself... Read up all the papers present there... People came out and everyone pounced on them to ask what kind of questions were asked.. RG giri (a very IIM B concept - not helping or rather misleading your competitors) started here itself - coz they were very vague... Did not give proper questions... My turn came in - prayers again and I went in... A nice smile on my face...

Prof to me (looking through my documents) - "You have not got your degree certificate..."
Smile went away - color drained off my face...
What crap!! (in my mind) - Oh, is it (to the prof).. "Actually I checked the list and this was not specifically mentioned... I am sorry"... Prof - "Dont be sorry, just make sure your certificate copy reaches the institute asap..."

Ok, so tell me - What is the optimisation that you hav done in your project?
M (ok this is my turf :)...) - Some gyaan about reduction in time of delivery...
I - explain in detail
M - did that....
I - why management now - after 2.5 years at Infosys...
M (again happy that he asked something I had prepared) - Global gyaan on how betterment of profile, better opportunities etc..
I - So, how many of the founders of Infosys are managers?
M (first time cursing my company founders for not doing an MBA) - I said none...
I - Oh, there you go - it is not needed...
M - I said it was not that competitive then... It is very competitive now and this gives me an edge...
I - Oh, is it.. So, do u imply that in this generation NRN and others would not be as successful
M (getting defensive) - No! I did not intend to doubt their acumen...
I - Ok, let it go Sharmili!! So, if this is so important then why doesnt Infosys start a Mgmt Institute?
M - Coz it is a S/W IT company... the requirement is more for SW and not the managers...
I - Do you know Infosys is recruting people aggressively?
M - Yes, we just had a batch of 2000 people join Mysore DC (this was total fart...)
I - So, just as they have a prog where 4 years of engg is condensed into 4 months, they can have 2 yrs of mgmt condensed into 2 months and produce managers itself... Why wudnt they do that?
M - mgmt is a genralist stream.. The only reason they could condense this training coz it is stream specific... They only teach one stream and not the entire engg syllabus... But his cannot happen in mgmt...
I - Rubbish - Why would a HR guy need financial knowledge?
M - Coz he needs the knowledge of balance sheet to know how much he can spend on HR policies...
I - Ok, Marketing guy - why would he need Finance gyaan?
M - Same reason... He would need to know how much can he spend on his campaigns...
I - Just let it be Sharmili - you are not going anywhere with this... Ok, now tell me how has being in Infosys helped you evolve...
M - I have got the technical knowledge as a trainee, a testers knowledge in my first project (how I need to be thorough etc), and team skills as a team lead...
I - give examples?
M - gave
I - ok! tell me one thing... If you work for more than required hours in IT industry would you do a better job?
M - More hours need not mean good work... But if utilised properly it would translate to more work YES!
I - Ok, so when you hear that India is a services country... Her manufacturing sector is weak - then why do we not use this policy and help our manufacturing sector grow?
M - It does not only depend on the Labour factor... Utilisation of machines, demand of H/W etc all influence and hence we cannot use this model...
I - Ok, leave that too... Tell me, what is the advice you would give Nandan Nilekani to improve infosys?
M - I have seen that the rate at which people in company are growing - infrastructure is not... So, this results in many disappointments and hence reduced motivation levels.. At no point do I say stop recruiting but this skewed ratio of development needs to be addressed
I - What infrastructure is needed? Computers are getting smaller... (then he himself says) May be the people are gettting bigger... (laughs.. me join in too)
M - second reason is that if resource alignment... It is not addressed properly and hence it affects motivation levels again which results in bad work... Like freshers are in large number but trained on platforms differnt from the ones they are working on... Middle level management is extremely in low numbers etc.
I - Dont you think adhering to values is an issue?
M - I do not see that... I, myself, follow the company ethos with rigor...
I - Ok, tell me who would follow more rules? Senior Mgmt or Juniors?
M - Senior Mgmt..
I - Then dont you think this should be answered?
M - But this stems from dissatisfaction and that is due to reasons above...
I - But still you should enforce values... So, Sharmili you are into Social Service...
M (getting happy coz he again entered my domain... it was like a lalllu ball which I would toss for a sixer) - Yes
I - Tell me the names of 2 social reformers from Maharashtra
M (in my mind) - What??? Social reformers??? Names.. Names... (to the prof) Please give me a minute... I should be able tosay something..
M - Baba Amte (thanks to the tenth standard lesson... I remebered)
I - Good, so what does he do??
M (completely blank now... I remebered the lesson, its name, his name but no hint about what he did... Took a random guess) - He cleans (Man, what a lame answer...)
I - Cleans what???
M (thinking - arre wah, my guess was right... he does clean) - Streets - He cleans streets (crossing fingers)
I - No, No... I think you are mixing him with someone else... Ok, what about the second one...
M (gave up) - I really dont remember now...
I - Does the name Anna Hazare ring any bell???
M (well I did hear about him) - I have heard about him..
I - good, tell me what he does now?
M (arre, yeh mujhe mera kaam chhodke kya pooch raha hai?) - No clue sir...
I - ok, does <> (i dont remeber what he said - but it was some drive name that Anna Hazare has started) ring any bells?
M - No (my faking had gone too far... couldnt risk this now)
I - Ok, last question Sharmili... How badly do you want IIM B?
M (should I give a smart answer, a witty reply, an earnest reply??? think think think.. couldnt come up with anything funny or witty so just said) VERY BADLY sir...
I - thanks Sharmili, please sned the next one in...

And I came out... people pounced on me too... No presence of mind questions, no silly questions, no current affairs questions... Plain simple - they wanted to know me...

Did I give them a satisfying answer to their query? Did they think I was capable? Frankly, then I did not think so... All, I could remember were the mistakes I did and how I could have answered this better...

But I guess I did give them something concrete... Coz I converted the call... :)

Qualifying Rounds - (Part 2)

2007-05-08T12:51:00.000+05:30

This section is the preparation for the actual interview... I had a series of mock interviews... The experience proved only one thing... That I am a very contradictory person - based on the answers I gave in the interviews... In one mock interview I was boring and in the other I was interesting... In one I was extremely clear about my career path in others I was silly and had no clue where my life was heading to... Given below are some excerpts from my interviews (of course the interesting ones - mainly where I acted silly)

Interviewer (hereon referred to as I) - So, Sharmili who is the vice president of India?
Me (hereon referred to as M) - Bhairao Singh Shekhavat(BSS)...
I - Sharmili, its late BSS...
M (gasping) - Oh!!! I did not know...
I - So, sharmili who is the VP of India???
M (confidently this time) - Late BSS...

Interviewer couldn't ROTFLOL (roll on the floor laughing out loud) otherwise he would have... All he said was Sharmili since when are ghosts presiding on important chairs...
__________________________________________________

I - What is your favorite subject?
M - Maths
I - ok, tell me the remainder when you divide -17 by 3
M - remainder is -2
I - So, sharmili if this is the state of affairs in your fav subject then I wonder what it would be in the non-fav ones...

This came from the person who got a 98.50 percentile in Maths... Just for the benefit of those who are strongly on my side and think answer is correct - then no it isn't... Answer is 1... Remainder is defined as the first positive number after you divide which is less than divisor... So, 3 * -6 = -18 which gives remainder 1 for -17...
_________________________________________________________

I - what is the average annual income of an Indian?
M - 2500 USD (guessed)
I - well, if that were the case sharmili - we would not be called a developing country

Later on I found out it is 2500 Rupees = 350 USD... There is a limit to faking man!!!
______________________________________________________________

Of course there were management interview specific questions like - Why do you want management? How would you describe yourself? etc... I am not writing about them coz I knew those and I could crack them decently and would not be interesting reads....

There was others like where I was asked my idol, my role model, basketball dimensions (how will this make me a better manager??), conversion of inch to centimeter(yes, because at some point in time every manager needs to use this), how many steps I took before coming to the room (do you not realise that when a manager goes for any presentation the first question is how many steps did he climb...), how will I manage my personal and professional life after marriage(I wonder why only girls are always asked this question??? I mean, dont guys marry too??? What makes them better at managing personal and professional life??? Is it a fact or just assumed since we are a male dominated society??), mention all the stations between Virar and Borivli - in order (I want to tell them that if I really become a manager - 99% I would not be in that area and even if I am placed there then I would use a car ;)....) etc....

First set of questions - a sensible and an intelligent person should not answer the way I did... Wonder why my brain just blocked sensible responses and gave out completely dumb answers...

Second set of questions - no longer an indicator coz most of the students prepare this so well that you cannot make out who is being genuine and true and who is fake and rehearsed...

Third set of questions - I know it is for checking the presence of mind or how do they candidates react to stressful situations... I agree it is important for a manager but I still dont think this is a good way to check... Atleast I was flabbergasted to suddenly move from Indian economy to what is the dimension of the basketball court... And clearly this showed in the confidence levels with which I answered this question...

The learnings from every interview were - I am terrible, I have low confidence levels, I cannot lie - since my eyes reveal it, I need to work on my current affairs, I need to work on academic subjects, I speak in a roundabout manner etc... This evaluation, in a way, helped me since I did not become complacent - I kept working on my answers, working on my foibles...

But I keep wondering is would I be better prepared for the interview if I had one good post interview evaluation???

The actuals coming up in the next blog....

Race that began a loooong time ago!! (Part 1)

2007-05-08T11:42:00.000+05:30

This statement is not to suggest that Narayan Kartikeyan has competition in F1 race!!! But the race that I mention is the 'rat-race' that I was a part of for good three years of my life... Some magazine mentioned that by 2020 one in every 5 people would be an MBA or would have taken the exam for MBA...

I have contributed to these statistics for quite some time now... I have taken b-school exams for different institutes... Sometimes did not clear the exam, sometimes cleared the exam but not the interview, sometimes both... I had decided that this year was going to be the last year I take this exam - CAT... I have been trying to bell the CAT; but for some strange reason - it kept going further away from me - like a mirage... So, finally I decided that my perseverance (which is my strength) needs a check and practicality (displayed very rarely) should get priority...

Thus, geared up for the exam - one last time... Always thought that 10th maths and basic english could never be so difficult... And it came as a surprise to me when I actually needed 3 attempts to clear this exams despite toiling hard... I have first hand experience which prove that 10th and 12th boards were easy... And with time my intelligence should have grown making it even easier to crack this exam that was based on this syllabus... But, it just did not happen...

So, finally D-day arrived and I took the test... Every year, I checked my score - analysed - referenced - cross referenced... The scoreboard showed the following:

Year 1 - 99.32 percentile - two calls - not converted
Year 2 - 96 percentile - less said about it the better...

So, this year no analysis was done... Frankly did not even understand how the paper was... And did not make an effort too... Call it superstition or whatever... Finally, one unexpected day the results were out... The updated scoreboard had one more entry

Year 3 - 99.63 percentile - 3 calls... Fate still to be decided...

What was different, what clicked, what worked??? Now after the results, I can answer this - as an afterthought... But definitely not after the exams...

Thereafter prepared for interviews... For that section read on the next blog...

We live in 'Present' or 'Past'

2007-04-17T12:05:00.000+05:30

This blog may be well beyond the purview of an engineer whose only experience is in the IT field but yet I would like enter the realms of the mind. I would like to explore the unexplored depths of the power of the past over the present or even the future. This topic is something that most psychiatrists work on for a major part of their life. And I have no doubts that neither can I match their proficiency nor their expertise on "how human mind adapts to experiences from the past?" Therefore the content of this blog, I would confine to my experiences - involving other people or involving me - and ken of my knowledge.

Case 1 - I get wronged in past so I wrong the people in present to seek revenge...
This is a section which mainly belongs to the serial killers n psychopaths... I have read many articles on how they are made. These articles were omnipresent (and also caused a spark of interest in junta) when we had cases of beer man killing rampantly in the city or that of cannibals in the country... Most of these articles stated the same observations... These people have traumatic experiences in the past, get abused and thus believe that the only way to undo the wrong is by seeking revenge... result - what they experienced, they make others experience... Not only do they have extremely justifiable reasons for this but also a flawless method of execution and marking their victim... They have no empathy, remorse, anxiety or guilt in relation to their behavior. In short, they truly are devoid of conscience. However, they understand that society expects them to behave in a conscientious manner, and therefore they mimic this behavior when it suits their needs.
Further reference - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopaths

Case 2 - I want my kids to be what I couldn't be
This is something I came across while I was reading Erich Segal's novel - "Doctors"... A kid commits suicide when he cannot come in the top ranks of the class.... He succumbs to peer pressure and kills himself coz he cannot fail... On further investigation of this suicide - comes a startling discovery... His father did not come in top ranks during his lifetime... And wanted his son to do so... So badly that if his son failed he was whipped... So, to make his father love him, the son set to accomplish his dream... And when he failed, he couldn't face it and killed himself... In this case, you reach a point where you fail to live upto the image of your parents' past that was created for you since your childhood... With the increase in competition, the number of suicides has always increased... May be each individual was a victim of this case... As a student, I did live in my parents past too but somewhere my father eased the pressure by being extremely understanding...

Case 3 - I live in anti-past... I am traumatised/disgraced by it and want to live a life completely opposite to it
This is something I have actually experienced in my life... I was in third standard when I pronounced something incorrectly and the whole class laughed at me... Trauma - is a relative term... For some it would be a loss of someone dear, for others it could be a harrowing experience... At the age of 10 years, the class laughing at me was traumatic for me... So, unconciously I placed a lot of importance on pronunciations in present... I would argue, go at lengths to find out the right pronounciation - which to a normal person seemed fanatical... But that was me, trying to be perfect in pronunciation - an 'anti-past' life in the present.... Similarly, different people have different ways of reacting to this case... Some will take learnings from a broken relationship in the past and do everything possible to do something contradictory in the new one... Some get ridiculed for say, thing A and result would be that you either know in-out about A or go so much away from A that it doent bother your life anymore...

At this point in time, I have seen or read about only these cases... Are there more ? - Certainly but I have not experienced them... But, what I do realise after seeing 3 cases is that you should try to not place so much importance on the past deeds... Goals that are missed, experiences that have resulted in loss - monetary, physical, emotional or status related... Consciously avoid it and definitely if it is having a -ve impact... All you need from the past is the learning - not a reason for your survival in the present, not something that you have to work on in present... Just a thot...

"Make each day count... Do not waste it on doing things from past but plan for the future and live for the PRESENT!!!!

Very Inspiring

2007-04-13T13:06:00.000+05:30

FWDs are something that an IT professional does to while away his time when he is on 'bench'.... For the fortunate souls not in IT, "on bench" is a term used by us when we have fought to get a person allocated to our project but have realised that we have no work for him.... So, effectively what happens is that he comes to office, warms the chairs and then goes away happily at 5:00 in the evening.... In the process of warming his benches, he sends/checks forwards... chain mails, inspiring mails, jokes, blogs etc... One such inspiring mail when i was on pseudo project (psued way of saying on bench) is the one below....

Dunno what I liked about it... the cute girl, the simple message or just the fact that the message was very relevant to me at that point in time... Hope you guys like it tooo.... And be brave... (if you dont get this - its coz u havent read the content below yet :)....)

Inaction breeds doubt and fear.
Action breeds confidence and courage.
If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it.
Go out and get busy.
Take chances, make mistakes.
That's how you grow.
Pain nourishes your courage.
You have to fail in order to practice being brave.

Mothers - You can never predict their reactions!!!

2007-04-04T01:32:00.001+05:30

No!!! this is not a blog on the mahanta of mothers... It is definitely not to impress the importance of mothers in a person's life... Coz, there are no words that can do justice to that... And there is not a single article that can cover all the points of the greatness of the beings called 'mothers'... This blog is about how inspite of living with this person for about 24 years of my life, I have not been able to foresee her reactions!!! This is about how 'Mothers' can surprise you with their actions - right when you feel that you know her and can predict her reactions.... Inspite of having being born from within them, inspite of knowing them all your life, despite confiding in them as a friend, philosopher and guide - they continue to amaze us... I know many mothers in my life (my friends mothers, aunts etc) but mine is the queerest of the lot :))))))) (Well most kids would have the same opinion, I believe)

So, Mrs. Shital Phulgirkar became a mother of this terror called Sharmili when she was just 22 years old... And from that point on, not only has she guided me thru the 24 years of my life but has been my greatest strength and my closest aide... When I was 22 I threw tantrums and was as immature as a school kid - but my mother, at that age, ensured that I was groomed well... She made me learn - taught me - helped me transform into a socially responsible, intelligent individual... During these years, I have also tried to understand her.... I have known her to be a mature, sensitive person who cries when someone dies in a movie.... I know her as a very reasonable person who is extremely adaptable to change... Thus I never had to worry about generation gap when it came to her... I know her as a person who respects the value of education and the value of her values... A person who knows when to give space and knows when it is necessary to encroach on it... And most importantly, one who always kept her family's well being above her.... Thus, knowing these characteristics about her should give me a fair idea of how she would react to a situation right... But sadly, it doesnt!!!Coz, this lady continues to amaze me with her responses...

I was in school and I wanted to join Karate classes... No reason why she shouldn't allow me right!! But she refused - reason - I might get hands on practise of Karate moves on my sisters... A valid concern - yes - but would I really do it? And even if I did (kids at that age are dumb) wont she successfully stop me??? But "NO" was all I got... During my tenth standard I was supposed to go for a 3 day camp with other girls.. Now, tenth standard is a crucial year so I had expected her to refuse directly... She asks me if she sees this as something that can affect my studies... Eager to go to the camp, I assured her that it wont... And she agreed.. Just like that... In college, I wanted to go to a movie with my friends after the exams... Not a big deal I thought - may be she would give me time constraints, type of movie constraints... But she refused... Whatever were her reasons then, but it was a very small thing and she surprised me by refusing... It was a reaction which I hadnt expected... After about 4 years, around the same time, my sister who was in tenth standard (still in school) asked her permission for going to a movie with friends and she agreed... I guess on some level she opened up to this concept - realised that she was being unreasonable or a tad bit overprotective (and thank God for that)... A trip to Goa was planned... 5 days!!! 20 people which included only 6 girls... I was sure that my mother, who did not allow me to go to a movie with guys, would never concede to me going to Goa... But guess what, she was one of the first mothers to agree to send me there :))))))

I am now a professional... I am independent and she respects that... But she still is an integral part of my decision making process.... So, I wanted to taste Breezer (translated to Alchohol for her inspite of chintu percentage of alchohol in it) on the eve of International Women's day!!! There was a Pajama Party in my house and I just wanted to be a good hostess by giving my guests company... Of course, before asking her I had told my friends that I would not be drinking (anticipation of her reaction)... You cannot possibly go and ask your mother - "Mom, we have a pajama party and I want to indulge in drunken revelry (which would be her interpretation)..." But I still dared... I mean when you expect a NO already, it becomes easier to handle responses... Atleast I would have been happy about the fact that I tried... So, I dailed the number and asked her - only to be stunned for whole 2 minutes... She agreed... She said, "so long as you know your limits - I do not have any issues..." HOW COOL IS MY MOM :)))))))))) Of course, I did not get drunk that day - just tasted a lil of breezer and then slept off... But the fact that she agreed makes me respect her immensely....

And a final thing that made me write this entire blog... That incident would require some background knowledge... My mom never allows either of her daughters to travel alone.. She gets paranoid... becomes a worry-wart till the person reaches the destination or back home... So, I was 90% sure that she would disagree and reject the proposal of me going to Singapore alone to meet my friend... Undeterred, I did not try a round about approach but a direct question "Should I go?"... And by now you guys must have guessed what she said... She said "Of course, you can... If you think you can handle being in a foreign country and get all the formalities done before the time you can go?" this was like an icing on the cake... A person who dint allow me to go to Shimla alone, allowed me to go to Singapore... Of course the trip is still in the offing but its a great feeling that my mother actually took a decision that agrees with me :)))))))))

So, I present people - my mother... Who sometimes acts as if she is from the 22nd century and is all liberal... And sometimes as if she is from the 14th century and is parochial in everything she does... But, inspite of all this I adore her (everyone adores their mothers)... I love her immensely and I do not see anyone who can meaure up to her persona... If I am even one tenth of what she is; my daughter/son would turn to me as I turn to her and be as proud of me as I am of her...

It takes one mother to know how any other mother would function and decide... As a daughter, I have a tried to understand her and predict her actions... I am not 100% successful but may be someday in future, I would do that successfully (after I become a mother myself)!!!!!!!!!

Alchemist versus Murphy

2007-04-02T23:52:00.000+05:30

"Whatever can go wrong will go wrong, and at the worst possible time..." Sounds familiar? Righly guessed - our very own Murphy's law... I am certain that most of us have been victims of the validity of this law... For instance, how many of us badly want to reach on time and got stuck in a traffic jam or fell ill when we had an important interview, a fully planned outing or a party to attend... Leads me to believe that most of us have experienced the regularity of this irregular law... And for strangest reasons this law always gets applicable to me... My plans are always minute by minute when I have to meet my friends - meaning there is no concept of buffer time to allow inexplicable delays... Those timelines would work 99.9% of the times (which speaks of the efficient time management) but say I want to really be on time for this party thingy and this party would inevitably fall in that 0.1% zone making it impossible for me to reach there on time... And then people accuse me of being tardy... What they dont get is that it's Murphy conspiring against me... :)))))))

Reading is one of my hobbies like that of zillion others... I like Fantasy fiction in particular but I am open to reading any book, if someone recommends it... So, while reading this one highly recommended book I came across this sentence - "When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it..." When Paulo Coelho took us through the journey of Santiago in The Alchemist most of the people just believed him... A story wrought with fortune tellers, dreams, travel and hardwork the story does seem believable... But what I liked the most about this book is the strong message it sends - dare to dream...

But reading this line just made my life more confusing... I managed to find ample examples of Murphy's law and its relevance in my life but I just couldn't get anything for The Alchemist Law... Could it happen that 2 laws with universal applicability are just not applicable to me... These seemingly contradictory laws that govern the universe but not my life... So, here I was; trying to find out how to relate these laws to my life :-
One which said - if there was one way to go wrong, you will go that way
One which said - if you are on a way, whole universe will conspire to lead you the right goal...
I am neither bold enough to question the validity of these laws nor am I foolish to ignore them... In an effort to find a resolution, I stumbled on this line in wikipedia about Murphy's laws and I realised where I was going wrong... It said that interpretation of Murphy's laws depends on one's outlook and attitude... One interpretation is sour and the other is an affirmation of the predictable being able to be surmounted, usually by sufficient planning and redundancy... This same rule applies to other laws as well...

Then was it that my interpretation was incorrect of these laws??? Was it because of my outlook that I got confused??? I mean my pessimism clouded my life so much that I refused to see the brighter side of Mr. Murphy... When all the time I blamed him for making laws that govern everything that went wrong in my life, I failed to see the learning... The learning to make sure that the things that went wrong once; could be avoided the next time... And working on these lines, I would have eventually reached a stage that would have led whole universe to conspire to give what I wanted outta life...

Thus, every law just fit perfectly... What I kept thinking were contradictory laws actually complemented each other, enmeshed deeply within the power of interpretation.... And this interpretation was the very basis of every law that came into existence... Newton interpreted the "Apple falling on his head" and made a Law of gravity... Einstein wanted to interpret behaviour of particles at speed of light and formulated Law of Relativity etc...

So, having interpreted this, will my life become easier hereon??? Will I finally reach the stage where the only law applicable to me is that of The Alchemist's??? I do not know but I am atleast happy that I figured something constuctive instead of plainly cursing Murphy all the time when things went wrong...

Wondering -

2007-03-23T14:47:00.000+05:30

There is a constant fight that always goes on between logic and emotions, between reason and religion, between the heart and the brain and plethora other yin-yang forces... Yin - the bright optimistic subjective side and yang - the factual, cold and pessimistic side... What I am wondering is when do I know which force am I supposed to listen to? And even if I do decide on one force, how do I know it is correct?

Logic tells me that India's chances of winning the world cup are slim but faith (or rather blind faith) makes me watch each match with enthusiasm... On the other hand, my heart tells me to take a bike and go to Goa but brain tells me that the idea is not only weird but also not viable....

If there is something I desperately want or someone I desperately want to be with and the odds are not in favour of that taking place, what will I do? Will I still hold on to the thing/person based on only subjective parameters which I want to believe in (and want them to be true under any circumstances) or should I just take statistics into account and forget all about it? One- is this easy and Two - is this correct?

Thus, comes a conundrum which I am faced with time and again. When do I listen to something that cannot be substantiated and lacks substance and when do I go to facts and let them have the final word??? And what happens if I listen to the one I am not supposed to and end up making a huge mistake or just raising my hopes in vain which would then lead to a crash....

At this point in time, I am unsure of my very purpose in life, my future and my goals... I am confused as to what and where I would be like in 5 years down the line.... This uncertainty makes me want to predict my future - something that I believe is basic human nature.... But I have had so many predictions by now that I am as lost as I was at the start of the exercise...
Therefore all I can say is, I have finally succumbed to the inevitable forces of fate and destiny....

A sane person with a perfectly logical POV and rationality has just decided to leave some of my very critical decisions to abstract parameters... to fate, God, destiny etc when I have the power to shape up my own... Am I imbeccile then??? But all I know at this point in my life is that, no facts and rationales can later on answer or explain the vagaries these uncontrollable factors enforce on your life...

Is this the right thing to do - I do not know - I am still wondering!!!

Its simple to be happy but difficult to be simple

2007-03-21T09:20:00.000+05:30

I heard Rajesh Khanna say this sentence in Bawarchi, "Its simple to be happy but difficult to be simple" and my brain got food for thought! Why is it difficult to be simple? Is it because we lack the basic definition of 'Being Simple'? This is how my definitions for 'Being Simple' varied over the period of time.

Definition 1: Simple is someone who isnt extravagant. Someone who lives a life within his reach. Someone who isn't brand conscious and does not indulge in frivolity.

This led me to believe that being simple is being someone who has a decent income, is usually wise with money and would not spend 2000 bucks on shoes or 15000 for dinner at Taj. I fit the bill when I was in college. I was all the above and more. I was also socially responsible (meaning I gave back to society whenever I got a chance), I would spend time with friends and family (mostly indoors or once in a while a Shiv Sagar restaurant for special occassions) and was a part of the missed call giving people (so not too high mobile bills). Was it because I was a student with lack of funds and did not want to burden my father with unnecessary demands or was I really simple?

But then I joined the IT industry and I became the part of the yuppy 'gen next' people with cash on hands. I gifted my sister with a cell, my mother with gold set and a microwave, my father with the music system (branded) for our car, went to concerts, got my hair straightened at a branded parlour(which is a very expensive thing to be done) and I have lost the count of how many parties I have been to. Does that mean I am no longer simple? On the same lines we can then say that - a person who earns say 50 bucks in a day and spends 25 bucks on desi daru would be more simple than say a person who earns 15000 a month and spends 250 on a glass of champagne. Can we really equate monetary strength and standard of living with simplicity? Am I not the same person around 3 years ago? If I am (which I am certain of) then why do people around me feel that I am no longer simple. Stumps me and so it makes me want to change the definition of being simple - just the way scientists would do - one theory failed so develop a new one which supports the existing phenomenon.

Definition 2:Simple is someone who is not complicated. Someone who does things in a simple way, someone who has a simple funda in life - I speak my mind and I am clear about issues in my life.

Fairly direct I would say. Thus, a simple person then would mean who is honest and forthright, someone who leads the life their way(irrespective of standard of living), Thus, I could wear expensive Nike shoes and yet be simple. I can tell what things upset me and what dont. What issues I can handle and what I cannot. I can decide how much I spend and how much I can indulge. I dont have to worry about hajar parameters that could affect my living. Thus, an uncomplicated life - and so I am simple. And this definition makes yours truly simple with or without money. But this also makes all business men not simple - they have to worry about profits, markets, prices, reforms etc - and this I agreed to. This made politicians and people in media not simple which was my idea too. But, this definition made Mother Teressa not simple - since she had to keep worrying about many issues in life and did many very complicated things which a normal person could not do. This was something that made me want to change this definition. Mother Teressa is simplicity incarnate. So, if a definition doesn't include her as simple ought to be changed.

Definition 3: Its your ideas, your purpose in life and your character that you have make you simple. And it is possible that you alter your character and still remain simple.

Hmmm... This one looks fine... Business men are simple because they have a simple purpose - profit and so long as they are not criminals. Mother Teressa is because she wanted social reform and went to any length to bring about betterment if her people. I am simple because I want to live my life according to my means, have fun alongwith being responsible and stick to my core set of values. This definition kinda includes everyone doesnt it. And yes it is difficult now to be simple because
- not everyone can pass every test their character is put up against
- not everyone can be focussed on the purpose of their life all the time
- and not everyone always have clear ideas in every situation because life has this uncanny knack of confronting you with most unexpected ones

And the Argument Continues....

2007-03-08T13:14:00.000+05:30

International Women's Day - 8th March.... We gals decided to spend this day by indulging ourselves... We dressed up in our best, were going to go out in the evening and booze and watch F.R.I.E.N.D.S all night long... So, with this entire plan fixed from around 3 days ago; we came to office on 8th March - all excited.... Huged each other, wished each other and complimented on how we were looking all stunning :)... Later in the day, an inconsequential action of a fella forwarding a mail about the importance of Women's day to the guys of the group, started a war of words.... The battle of sexes.... Mails were exchanged and power of words was used to kill... An excerpt from the argument:-

The forward (Deepti) said something like God is definitely a man coz he does some things (like not listening, he has a final word etc) which a man does and women are angels coz they care and make world a better place to live in... So, happy women's day to all God's angels...

reply 1 (Kartik) : Lol… We are so the image of God…I’m God.. God is great :)
And btw.. I fail to understand this women’s day concept.. Do the women want to be noticed only today???? Are all the other days man days?? Calvin fans … Today is a good day to exercise G.R.O.S.S (which incidentally means Get Rid Of Slimy girlS)

reply 2 (Stella) : U guys are so pathetic…..so bad tht u do not hv a day decicated to men….how come no day dedicated for the MEN????......ill tell u y….cause ur not worth it…… :)
N just for the record... u r not GOD…neither are u created in God’s image…DEVILS!!!....n created in devil’s image n likeliness……

reply 3 (Siddharth) : GOD or DEVILS…still v r revered…

reply 4 (Kartik) :
Every dog has its day...
But MEN don’t have a day dedicated to them…
But today is Women’s day..
So women have a day dedicated to them
Hence proved that ………………… :)))))))

reply 5 (Sharmili - was not active since was not at my desk... Pounced on the opportunity to argue) : International Men’s day is February 23rd…. the logic given by Kartik is more befitting for this day since the genders match too :) Also, its pitiful… These ignorant souls do not know they have a day for themselves…
Being commonplace comes with a heavy price – IGNORANCE!!!!!
About the God thing!! I dunno what gender s/he is!!!
But what I do know is that First god created man and then he got a BETTER idea :))))
From Wikipidea, the day is copied from women and is not even international like ours is :)))))

reply 6 (Kartik) :
Deepti: God is a male.
Sharmili: “About the God thing!! I dunno what gender s/he is!!!”

The above 2 statements just proves that females cant agree on nething… I wont be surprised if Stella comes up with any other logic…Ohh…God definetly didn’t do a good job the second time… I think God also suffers from beginner’s luck ( ref: The Alchemist)… the second time the enthu just wasn’t there….

reply 7 (Stella) :U didn’t celebrate casue u didn’t know it…..Seriously miserable souls…ur just existing…not lliving ur life…. Look at us… being a woman …v r so proud of it….tht we want to celebrate it n let ppl know……
U know the saying na……Man was a draft…woman was the final masterpiece…..Wish god had destroyed the draft after the masterpiece…..
No jhol…no tension…..n it wud have been a real blessing

reply 8 (Sharmili) :
Please let us agree to one Universal Truth - Men exist coz of Women...
So if we are what Kartik is trying to prove we are – then guys just follow the suit :)))))
I like what was said in Jurassic park –
God made Man,
Man made dinosaurs…
Dinosaurs killed Man
And woman rule the world :))))
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Of course this reply wasnt left unanswered... The darker sex had something to say which resulted in more mud slinging....

As always, this small argument made me think and blog it.... I wondered to myself what makes the guys indulge in this mud slinging?? How can they ignore the fact that they have always seen their mothers do so many things which their fathers dont do... I love my father and he has ensured us security through all turbulent times... He has a pivotal role to play in what I am today and where I am today.... But when its 2 am in the morning and my stomach starts hurting or I cant sleep, the person I think of is my mother... Is higher EQ (which mothers/women are supposed to have) the only reason for that?? I dont think so... Its just what my mother symbolises... Hajar patience and hajar caring attitude... I am sure all guys have gone to their mothers time and again... If not mothers then its a wife... Thus, despite this knowledge how do men still undermine the position of women in society? Is this society called a male dominated society for any reason other than their higher numbers? A man learns alone but a woman educates the family is an axiom now for betterment of families... Then why are states still grappling with female foeticide, dowry deaths (though I believe they have reduced), low sex ratio, bad treatment of the girl child??? Just celebrating Women's Day internationally is really not making anyone aware of the importance of women... It has become a day for having some activities for the elite strata of the society... A get together similar to one we girls are indulging in... Of course not to add the guy bashing we all resorted to... And if the significance of this day gets restricted to this, I have to say that the battle between sexes will only continue....

Rang Barse!!!!

2007-03-05T19:43:00.001+05:30

This Holi I experienced how this festival of colors not only makes you colorful (coz of the layers of colours on u) but also ur life... it gives you a perspective... This is a narrative of a day which gave me a positive outlook towards life and exposed the wild side of seemingly normal and civilised people :))))

Every holi (I can recollect) I have played with my school friends. And every holi with them - had no plans, no organisation and no coordination. That's the deal with my school friends.... They are the most unorganised group I am in but also those with whom I have max fun. Probably being with them during my formative years; is how I get my funda of 'On the Spot' fun :))) Never doubting that planning makes it much easier to have fun but I still like this element of uncertainty and spontaneity. Although, I wont deny that this very behaviour has also gotten to me a couple of times. Anyway, after having a horrible week and an even more terrible interview, I wasnt really looking forward to Holi!!! I mean how much of a difference can a couple of colors and some water make (yes! i was at my pessimism best).

Due to the lunar eclipse the previous day, I had to have a bath the first thing in the morning (some mythological thing my mother believes in)...
So, the scene is - its Sunday, I am tentatively going to play holi (tentatively coz I dint get thru Gaurang's number and I had no clue what the plan was) (Also playing holi wud necessitate having a bath again) and I am getting up early and having a bath... It shouldnt be a big deal I know, but all who know me would understand my harrowing experience ;) Laters, all chintu-pintu of the building, dressed up in their worst, went to play holi... fearing that I would mother them and spoil their fun I refused to go down to play with them... Then a group of Auntys came and pulled me outta house... And here I was drenched and pink + blue + black on me... And then just like that school gang made an appearance!!!

they were sporting yellow, red and all possible colors... after ensuring that we all look like the band of brothers (and sisters) we set to wish everyone's parents.... walking with them was fun, just catching up on lost time (we rarely talk to each other so often...) we went to Tejal deeds house, then to Girish's house and followed by Manoj's house in the same bldg... As usual, girish - the socialite had hajar places to go and hence we were supposed to watch time - which again we never do... Sheetal didi was without Vishal Jiju - so she was at her nuttiest best... she starts tearing Sunil's shirt for some reason (which she later explained as trying to find places to put colors)... Naturally we joined her (we rarely get to do that :)..) then came Mithun's shirt and Girish too (whose tee was very strong and we cudnt tear - this madu actually pays well for his clothes :)...) Not satisfied with this, she went organic... There was mango shake that Girish's mom served which was thrown all over us... Thandai served met the same fate.... Tired of Sheetal Didi's wild wild behaviour we decided to give her a taste of her own medicine... Me and Shivangi dragged her (later Girish carried her) to a place full of muck and she with her branded capris (which she kept cribbing abt later) were completely immersed... No wonder they say revenge is sweet :)))) A quickie to Gaurang's place where finally mud was removed and we looked more civilised than nomads :))))

After this the only this that came to my mind - Can married women have wilder fun only in absence of their counterparts? The sheer difference in the way Tejal deeeds and Sheetal deeeds played Holi made this so apparent.. Would I too do the same? Is it society that expects you to do it or is it the fact that u conciously remind urself that u r mature and responsible? Well men still seem to have wild fun after marriage too...

The school group dispersed and I went to a rain dance party with my junior college group... Music (loud and fast - my kind), water flowing and I suddenly felt light, relieved... Felt that the weight of the world does not reside on my shoulders... Dunno if it was the people or the place... went to priya's place later to wish her mom n sister (a ritual I do every year).... Finally when i came home it was arnd 3 pm and food was waiting for me... I was so famishd that i had lunch without cleaning off the colors, mango shake, thandai, muck (remains only) from myself (Yuck!! is the only response I got from anyone who knew this) Thus, effectively HOLI which reluctantly started at 10:00 am, finished only at 5:00 pm (after a bath which took one hour)... So, much for not wanting to play holi :)))))))

What actually made the difference? Was it meeting so many people (going thru the same trials and tribulations), just talking to them? Holi colors? Music which always acts as a healer? Or was it just a break from the monotony that my life has been sujected to? Was it that for once I was carefree, forgot all that could go wrong and just had wild fun, plain no strings attached fun???

Evening too we had some games in the building where I made aunties run (some game we kids and all moms played) and we played antakshari between the 2 generations (which was not concluded... they had a huge repository of old songs and we had old (thanks to remixes) and new ones) I realised towards the fag end of the day, I was more responsive, more responsible and started a fresh evening with an even more fresh outlook... tried to sort out my issues, treated myself to good music and sitcoms and helped my sister with her studies... Its been 4 days and the effect still hasnt worn off.... Somewhere the pessimist in me has gone under the layers... Will it surface again? I know that it will... Will I tackle it again - I know I will - but may be it wont be holi this time....

Bottomline - Changes are necessary... Either in form of doing something different or interacting with someone different... Just the thought that others go through the shit that you are going through makes you face ur fears and inhibitions boldly... On the other hand being in a monotonous life just brings negative energies on the table - whoever u interact with and whenever u do it....

'To Be' or 'Not To Be' Yourself

2007-03-01T16:28:00.000+05:30

Every relationship has 2 kinds of people in it. The first kind is the people who pamper…. The other is the ones who get pampered…..
The interesting traits to be noticed in these two types are:

Pampers [referred to as PS hereon] –
Listens to everything the other person has to say
Is more expressive, more romantic, more vocal
Is more understanding and more receptive
Calls very often
Always wants to be a part of the other person’s life – through all the trials and tribulations
On a materialistic front – buys gifts, takes out for dates etc…

Pampered [referred to as PD hereon] –
Throws tantrums all the time
Can get away with hanging up as per mood swings
Low on expression, less vocal
More aggressive, more demanding, more dominating, more space giving
On a materialistic front – Same as pampers (may be at a lesser frequency)

Therefore, as you can see PS essentially acts like the glue keeping the relationship together. They kinda make up for the affections of both the people in the relationship. This is the very core on which the relationship functions and stays stable. Problems creep in when PS starts expecting the similar things from PD. It’s not that PD don’t want to fulfill these expectations. But by the very definition, they are programmed to not function that way. Quite naturally, expectations don’t get fulfilled. PS feels betrayed and why shouldn't they? They are investing their entire energy in this relationship but the returns are few or none. But do we really blame the PD for this? Now if PD changes to match those expectations then isn’t this a negotiation. Isn’t this changing to something you are not?

I always believed that love is accepting a person as it is. But trust me! It’s nothing remotely similar to what I have said in the previous line. In fact it is a battle. A struggle to make ends meet. Mainly starts after that rosy period; when you are faced with the hard reality of time, changing priorities and distance. And it isn’t always the PD who becomes the reason for the outburst. There could be a case when PD may think that PS is just too emotional, too clingy, too not space giving. Just not his/her kinda person. What do you do in this case? Yet another negotiation??????? Or just part ways??????

What makes it even weird and a puzzling mystery is that the same person, who is a PS in some relationships, is the PD in others. Yet after seeing both the sides of the coins, people still have these differences. They have squabbles from minor points to major issues. How do you then still keep the relationship blooming then? How do you know the traits and yet be unreasonable? It’s not that you do not trust, yet you do not understand.

How do you tackle this issue? Where do you find answers for them? Why do movies do not show all these real life love stories? Why do they propagate the myth of girl meets guy, guy fights junta to get the girl and they live happily ever after…In reality.....

Loving is easy, fighting for love and winning it is easier but living with the person you love and still have the same amount of love for that person is what wears you out!!!!!

Inspired by 'Music and Lyrics'

2007-02-28T17:01:00.000+05:30

I've been lucky to find my man

Very lucky to get full support, yes! he can

Life is better this way

Smiles around and fears driven away

I wanna be with you forever

I dont wanna leave you, never never....

There is love now in my life

Its smooth sailing, there aint no strife

There is someone walking with me always

There is no parting of our ways

I wanna be with you forever
I dont wanna leave you, never never....

Life never stops, it moves on

We may fight as we move along

But there is one thing I clearly see

You are the best thing that happened to me

I wanna be with you forever
I dont wanna leave you, never never....

There are times when life would be full of confusion
Faced with problems with no solution
But you would always be my strength
To make this work, we would go to any length
I wanna be with you forever
I dont wanna leave you, never never....

Dreamz Unlimited!!!

2007-02-20T12:27:00.000+05:30

Websters defines Dream as ‘a series of mental images and emotions occurring during sleep’. And psychologists say that ‘Dream is a manifestation of intrinsic desires of the real world in the surreal world one conjures up while sleeping’. 99% of the times I do not remember but the 1% that I do remember, my dreams act as a window to show what can go wrong in an important phase of my life. Being an alarmist (I won’t say a pessimist because I only suffer from a paranoia that things will go wrong), I always paid heed to the signs sent out by my dreams.

For example, I was preparing for this very important exam and just a few days before the exam, I dreamt that the paper is going well and suddenly my watch stopped. Now, if anyone has taken CAT they would know that without a watch this exam is a futile effort. Every section needs to be timed; every question has an allotted amount of time. I woke up startled, sweating and hajar scared. So, scared I was that I actually wore 2 watches when I went for the exam (you should have seen the look on people’s faces when they saw a sensible looking nut with 2 watches). I would also like to mention about the additional care I took to ensure that both watches show exact time; till the last second.

Same thing goes with this other dream where I thought I am going for an important interview and something happens to get a stain on the dress. I got so paranoid that I actually wanted to carry a spare dress. Thanks to the persuasion efforts of my mother who, sensibly enough, allayed my fears and did not let me do something silly :)

Anyway, so as I mentioned before dreams have always warned me; of the likely or the unlikely dangers. But there are some which, due to the lack of a word now, are plain weird. I mean just hear this weirdest dream and tell me what warning should I get from this one?

I am sleeping (in my dream) and my mother wakes me up. She gives me some funda about how some lunar movement has caused the moon to come in some position and has aligned with stars favorably. I have started to wonder (in my dream) why she is delivering this astrological lecture early in the morning when she uttered the following words – “Because of this we have preponed your marriage by 2 weeks. So get up, today is your wedding day”…. She said the above sentence with such poise that I was surprised that why I could never be as self assured as my mother. But giving this situation a moment, I was not supposed to be calm. I mumbled something in protest (which wasn’t effective and hence I do not recollect) but she just asked me to get up and come down where some beauticians are waiting for me. Completely flabbergasted, I came down to call my younger sister who is the person my designer and stylist for some fashion advice :) And lo behold! it seems she is on her honeymoon. I get more confused. How would she be married before me? Even if she is, why is she not there when it is the most important day of my life? Perplexed I look around when I see my other sisters playing hide-n-seek. I am very supportive of kids playing (considering these days all they do is video games, computers and TV) but was that the time and place? I still try to compose myself and I call my close friends. All of them get very irritated that I informed them so late about the wedding. I try to tell them that I myself came to know a few hours ago (as absurd as this sounds) but they don’t listen. They say they won’t come. So, here I was having a wedding with my sisters not around or playing, my mother completely worked up with the arrangements and my friends not present on the occasion. I was sucked into the black hole of confusion. And suddenly comes a thought; like a flash of lightening. Does the groom know that the wedding is 2 weeks earlier? Did he get the ‘Two Weeks Notice’? I was just about to go and ask my mother that question (in my dream) when my mother woke me up (in real life). Am I thankful for that? Was I prepared to hear what happened about the groom? I still do not know.

I told my mother and we had a laugh about it. I told my friends who cancelled on me (in the dream) and they are all amused. But coming to my funda where my dream sends out warnings for me; all I can think of are as follows:

· DON'T PREPONE YOUR MARRIAGE - whatever be the reason
· Make sure your younger sister gets married after you or doesn't go out anywhere within 3 weeks of your marriage date
· Let your sisters play as much as they want so that they don’t end up doing it in your wedding
· Make sure you talk to your boyfriend/to be groom daily when the marriage date gets fixed
· Tell your friends that they are supposed to show up within 2 hours notice :)
· Most importantly, DON’T LET YOUR PARENTS GO THROUGH LUNAR MOVEMENTS AND STAR ALIGNMENT :)

Visa Power - Go Get IT!!!! Part 2

2006-12-16T15:41:00.000+05:30

I come home... Tired... not due to work but due to the extreme thinking involved to remove mehndi in one day.... So, I sat with Surf Excel, Rin, Cinthol, Dettol Liquid Soap, Dove and a bucket of water... I have never in my life scrubbed my hands so much... I mean it was like washing my hands for the centuries to come.... I kept checking to see if it was light but time and scrubbing made no difference to the color... So, i decided that if I do not look for 15 min may be a miracle wud happen and mehndi wud go off... But after 35 - 45 min of scrubbing, nothing had happened.... I decided to ditch the effort and went off to the party... tho everytime my hands came in front of my face (which I now realise happens a lot... I mean its just impossible to ignore your hands :$..) I thot abt my mehndi, my interview, my life........

12th Dec - 09:30 hrs - Mehndi still no signs of being lighter.... Tho the scrubbing had made the fingers other than the index finger lighter :(.... I come to office and I am talking to my OSC... I inform him about my absence tomorrow due to the visa interview in Mumbai... So, he is like " arre wah!! ur visa interview... cool hai.." So, without even taking a second breath he shoots questions at me...
"What wud be ur salary while in US?"
"Who is your employer in US"
"what will you do if your client fires u"
"who will you report to?"
"how many ppl will work under you?"
"what are your responsibilities while u r here?"
"What is the name of I797?" etc etc etc... I am speechless... I dunno what to say... I ask him, "Y are no questions about ab initio?" He is like " you dont know about these... you havent read the FAQ document.. You havent seen the papers... you dont know about ur client..." I am shit scared now.... I take some pointers from him too (I dunno how many ppl I had asked questions) and then get on with my work... CAlled Ashok... Again no answer... Undeterred I went to the Visa dept... I asked them about the mehndi... they said no issue.. Strike 1... I asked about the session.. they said after 2:30.. Strike 2... I asked to check my papers... they put them in order... Strike 3... Finally they tell me to just make sure the checklist they have provided is taken care of...

18:00 hrs - My session was cancelled... Ashok was never available... I checked for the checklist... I fired printouts... Printer wasnt working... went to the next bldg... got the prinouts.... So, finally I left work with docs (which I believed were complete) and with many people wishing me luck....

23:00 hrs - I am at my house and I realise that I do not have the interview letter mentioned in one checklist after the checklist I referred... Oh Sh$%!@... Called one person who guided me and thus got the soft copy of the letter... But no printout... Called 5 frends who had printers but all of them had to malfunction at the same time... Y god Y??? I tried not to panic but it refused to leave me... Finally I decided to burn a CD with that doc and take a print tomorrow morning.. C'mon!!! its Mumbai... Cybers open by 9:30... So no big deal... So after settling that, checking 4 times if any other checklist is present, I moved to the final step... Go through the hajar docs... Then get some information about the client, company etc... See all the forms, their names and their purposes... See information like pay, reporting authority etc... Thanks to my OSC, I was a student again ratoing revenues, roles, caps, functions, names etc.... Slept at 02:00 hrs...

13th Dec 2006 - 09:20 hrs - Left home... Going to Bombay Central takes 45 min... so even if I had to reach by 11, I left early (people knowing me would find this to be a surprise....) News!!! Cybers close to my area, on the way to station from my house, all closed.... Sh@%$!! One big detour by my dad (thanks to him who seems to know every nukkad and the shop on it like the back of his hand) he took me to one which was open... I was happy but it was short lived... The cyber had Adobe 3 and my doc was of Adobe 7.. It cudnt open.. Sh@!#!! Went to another... he had Adobe 6... What has happened to Adobe 7... Why dont people keep upgrading their systems... The doc opened with errors but a printable one.. So, took the print out and finally reached station to get 9:57 semi fast and got a fourth seat 2 :)

11:00 hrs - went to the VFS bldg, checked in my bag and awaited my turn.... Finally entered the consulate bldg and went for a security check... Met a gal called Sheetal on my way and we got quite friendly... Man there are a lot of people who want a US Visa everyday (and I do not mean just IT Industry) :) There was this aunty (abt 60 yrs) in front of me for the check.. When the metal detector went over her parts of body the kept beeing.. She had something or the other always beeping... It was hilarious... Wud ve lafed hard otherwise but was still tensed abt my finger prints... So, finally when I got to the finger print counter, i apprehensively placed my finger on the scanner... Breathed a sigh of relief when my finger print got accepted... :)))))) My number came just before the lunch hour set in and I was asked 4 very simple questions - Do u work for infosys? Is this your first job? What tool you wud be working on? Explain that tool function to me... Thus, I entered the consulate at 12:05 and left at 12:17....

So, all this jhanjat for 12 min.... :O I wondered if all the panic, anxiety and stress was needed? But lessons learnt in this process:
1. 35 - 45 minutes of washing hands with the complex mixture mentioned above doesnt harm your hands.
2. Adobe is not backward compatible
3. you can reach Bombay central in less than 45 min, haji ali juice centre is very close from station and US Consulate is very famous since my taxi driver got it easily
4. DO NOT LISTEN to everything ur OSC says and last but not the least
5. Getting a US Visa aint that difficult.... :))))))))

Visa Power - Go Get IT!!!! Part 1

2006-12-15T20:42:00.000+05:30

For all the ignorant and hapless souls who are not in IT industry let me make one thing clear. In Indian industry, which works on the 'Global delivery model', getting a Visa is not a big deal and it does not necessitate an applause or a congratulatory note. But, looking at how harried I was, I very well deserve this note.... To know more, read on -

Every confirmed employee applies for a Visa and so when I applied for it, I was not too kicked about it... I mean why should I be. Its not distinctive but another trait of the herd that I am in. So, with zero enthusiasm I filed in my papers - for the forms sake. But little did I know, that this would be a rough ride :)

So, the process is I submit my docs to company, they courier my petition to consulate and then I get a stamping date and eventually a visa (hopefully I am smart enuf to clear the interview). So, this is how my hurdle race began coz hurdles seem coming everywhere possible. A rush for filing petitions started which resulted in premature closing of the cap.... So, the cap closed on 26th May and my papers got filed on 27th May... "Chalo!!! Mera America ka sapna adhoora rahega yeh saal"; I thot but I wasnt particularly dejected or anything (thanks to my extremely low enthu levels)... Forgotten all about my visa, I start my daily work and one fine day I get my work permit number.... If I had an ordinary name, i wud ve to check this twice or thrice to know if its me... But clearly, my unique name made this exercise redundant... So, hajar forms to fill now... DS-156, 157, some silly questionnaire etc... As usual my enthu levels ensured that I just about meet the deadlines for every phase.... Meanwhile, HR department noticed my inactivity and I started to get mails to move my a*@!&$... Shuchi, one of my colleagues who had her visa stamped by then, had to put through a lot with me buzzing questions in her ear all the time (amidst SEV 1 IMRs and COGNOS Servers going weird)

Finally, I give my papers to the Visa department waiting for them to block me a date... Here's a catch, the date has to be taken within 7 days else the online forms you fill expire.... And guess what... Visa Dept successfully gets my account expired.... :( So, the hajar line form to be filled again :(( Did that and finally got a date 13th Dec 2006 - 11:30 am slot... Phew... One job done...This was done in the second or third week of November so clearly, by the time December came, the low enthu levels plunged lower.... Now, the visa department gives all the documents arranged in the order... U just have to collect those, attend a briefing session given by them and then go to the interview and get visa... Hajar ppl did it before me, so I knew nothing could go wrong with me... But, life has an uncanny knack of teaching me lessons I dont want to learn...

11th Dec - 16:00 hrs - I got a huge set of docs... in the order specified... My briefing session got postponed... Still as cool as a cucumber, I came to my desk, put everything in the drawer and started my daily work and very easily forgot about the Visa thingy (In my defence, that visa dept guy said, "arre dont worry... just check the checklist and get the originals... everything ele is taken care of...") So, I had nothing to worry... also, y get scared about the interview... that firang wont know as much about the work as I know... isnt it?? Then, I was talking to Shuchi on what possible things should be taken care of before the interview and she was giving me the procedure to be carried out there... There was a mention of finger printing analysis and how fussy these Americans are abt it.... And we both looked at my finger stunned... I had mehndi on my hand... and guess what!The color of mehndi was darkest for the index finger which is to be used... A lil panic set in... call Ashok (Visa guy..) she suggested... I cud not get through to him... I called Sangeeta... Another friend who had her visa interview done in the past... She said there should be no marks on the finger... Panic!! Anxiety!! Sweat!!! In the middle of december that too... I sopke to every girl on my floor on possible ways of removing mehndi in one day.... people lafed... gave suggestions... ridiculed... and tried their best to help me... Deepti called her father who assured me nothing would happen... But my silly dimaag kept saying - "of course he never put mehndi na... how would he know??" It was 7 in the evening and the situation was - I had the docs but no session, I had a cab but mehndi on my hand and I was laid back before and now I was laid under lot of stress.....
(CONTD...)

A sneak peek in the 21st century

2006-12-11T01:58:00.000+05:30

Lo behold people! its the 21st century,
Its the mark of good times and end of misery....

Its the century where everyone is in a rat race
A race behind happiness, is the only case
But all you achieve, all you get, you still are dissatisfied
Nothin serves to keep a smile on your face.....

Lo behold people! its the 21st century,
Its the mark of good times and end of misery....

It is the time when everyone is very smart
Everyone has knowledge filled in many carts
But when it comes to application in real life.
Most of them end up falling short....

Lo behold people! its the 21st century,
Its the mark of good times and end of misery....

It is the time when people have many friends
But the time of loneliness never ends
We have many gadgets to keep in touch
But the wishes to our beloved we rarely send...

Lo behold people! its the 21st century,
Its the mark of good times and end of misery....

It is the time when people act very mature
We are able to handle relationships of long distance nature
But the high divorce rate paints a different picture
Like a house of straws, relationships rupture....

Lo behold people! its the 21st century,
Its the mark of good times and end of misery....

Its the time when we have world at our finger tips
We get things as soon as the word is out of our lips
But with all this technology,came many scams
One person's scandal acts as the others quips....

Lo behold people! its the 21st century,
Its the mark of good times and end of misery....

It is the time when people fall in love easily
The flexibility and liberal attitude is present in every family
But at the same time people have become very individualistic
That the concept of 'joint-family' now seems silly....

Lo behold people! its the 21st century,
Its the mark of good times and end of misery....

It is the time when people are taught that they have same status
With same opportunities across all stratus
But yet some people have reservations in place
Denying many their basic rights based on caste, creed and status....

Lo behold people! its the 21st century,
Its the mark of good times and end of misery....

I live in this era and this is my fate
I wanna think of positives, in this poem, to state
But I am out of ideas and none have come so far
Can you people help your mate.....

Lo behold people! its the 21st century,
Its the mark of good times and end of misery....

LDRs - A Way of Life!!!

2006-11-21T15:38:00.000+05:30

You talk about the 21st century and you think of globalization…. You think about how the world has come closer due to 3 letters www (world wide web)…. How people in another continent are just a phone call/email away…. How shopping, dating everything is a click away…. No, no!! I am not here to rant about the advantages of internet or the globalization era that we are in…. I am here to talk about a very different aspect of globalization… the way it has influenced lives…. The way it has made people drift apart…. And I am not talking about how people have become machine oriented and lost out on human interaction in their lives…. I am talking about the excessive dynamism that has become a part and parcel of this globalized world…. Confused eh??? Well, what I am talking about is in terms of relationships…. Today around 90% of the relationships are LDRs – Long Distance Relationships! Your boyfriend is in US studying and you are here, your fiancée is working in UK with you being in India with his parents or your husband is on an assignment in Japan and you are in Singapore for a marketing job? How many such incidences do you know? How many such people have you met in your life? I doubt if my parents have come across the same number of people as I have in my short life of 24 years.

I don’t know what I should attribute this to? Should I say it’s because women are being more career oriented? Or is it because of the open mindedness of men to accept women working; not only working but also go places when the job demands? Should I say that people in relationships have become more mature and more accepting now? Or should I say that they have adapted themselves in this race for the survival of the fittest? Or is it not one cause but a mixture of all these? Whatever is the case, LDR has become a way of life and people have accepted it. I may or may not get my prince charming but I know for a fact that I will get married and I know it with even more certainty that there will be a time in my life when I will be staying away from my love/husband/fiancée… That’s the current situation…. But I have also noticed that in spite of this resigned/fatalistic/necessary acceptance, marriages are made with the same old rules…. The parameters are the same. “Ladka shehar mein rehata hai! Ghar hai! Accha kamata hai Etc” But are these sufficient? Shouldn't these be revamped to match with the current trends? What is pertinent now is to know how long will he stay there? If he plans to move, what happens to his better half? When in future kids would be involved, how would he plan about their future, career? What happens about the old parents who would need someone to look after them in old age? I don’t see these parameters being considered a lot these days or am I just turning a blind eye and being my ignorant self?

Let say, finally you get a suitable consort (whatever parameters you chose is completely your prerogative isn’t it) and then you are married or atleast committed. And then comes the fatal blow! You have to go somewhere; she has to go somewhere etc. Now what keeps your relationship ticking? Skype, calling cards, everything under the sun is used to keep in touch but can this replace the human touch that you have now gotten used to? But still I see people going strong. I know of my friends who are still going strong for about 6 years now, after committing to each other and since then living apart…. It must be taking strong will power and all the determination in the world to keep going isn’t it? And after this hiatus when you meet the joy knows no bounds…. And its happiness everywhere…. It’s like a perfect ending to the trial and tribulations that you were exposed to…. In fact now when I ponder it’s probably this happy thought gets people through….

When I hear this, I wonder how would have our parents generation reacted to this kind of situation? They strongly believe in spending time together…. In being with each other…. My mother has been with my dad wherever he was transferred… she agreed to stay back for our studies, apart from dad, when our studies were important…. Will we do this? And those were the days when this dynamism was much less? Can we cope up with the pressures and still do justice to our relationship?

It’s a scary thought but I am sure that life would find means of progressing…. Or rather the optimist in me is forcing me to believe that we will stick with our counterparts through thick and thin despite the impediments that come our way….

Enough is Enough!!!!!!!

2006-09-23T00:17:00.000+05:30

Imagine that u are in a new city and u suddenly get stung by a bee or bit by a dog or just happen to get viral fever. Now no one you know in that new city is a doctor, so u hunt for a doctor nearby. Now, when you go to a particular address, you see 2 sign boards. One board saying Dr. XYZ, MBBS, MD, PHd etc. and the other saying Dr. PQR, MBBS. Without even a second thot, you wud go to the first one, isn’t it? So, we have established that the doctors are more trustworthy and more able when they have more degrees.

Now take this scenario. There are around 30000 students passing from 12th in Maharashtra every year. With some taking BCom, some BE and some want to do a noble thing and they take up medicine. This seems no big deal just outta junior college. But later in life what must these students thinking when they see that their peers have started getting a 5 digit salary even before they are out of college. “Patience!” the medicos convince themselves and continue with their stressful life.

We often hear IT people facing increasing amounts of stress these days. Atleast they are getting well paid for this.... But no one seems to have mentioned abt the stress that the medics go thru... The emergency calls, the 24 hour duty turns, the late night outs for studying followed by an exam and a grueling 8 hour emergency turn. Isnt this what is called stress? Well, everyone safely assumes that they are doctors and hence they have to go thru this to become able doctors.

Thus with zilch social life and with a huge trauma associated with patients dying, abortions, neurotic cases, dissections, taking the history of psychopaths and the monotony of internship these few brave souls complete their graduation. With the knowledge that their engineering counterparts have earned enough, got settled in life and even started a family, these doctors now start the next grueling phase of their life, MD studies.

They are sitting for a complete year at home, amidst the books doing nothing but going thru the 4 years syllabus in detail again to clear this exam. Like any competitive exam, this one is tough and comes with the same scales of success, around 3000 in 10 lakh students. And if you want an admission in the top 3 – 4 colleges, then the number is first 300 in 10 lakh students. Inspite of these odds and the associated huge fees, these doctors toil hard day and night to just get a degree which convinces people that they are good too.

Then comes a big political decision - 50% reservations to make sure that everyone gets equal opportunity. I am not even going to venture about the validity of this decision but this forces the medicos over the edge… the only thots now are, “five months now, lets study hard… The odds are now 200 in 10 lakh… So without wasting any more time, its back to studies again… better and harder….” Then comes another decision, without MOship government colleges students cannot appear for CET… the cream of the batch who took admissions in govt colleges was getting penalized for their brilliance…. This clause was only for these students and not other private college students….. So, in effect for these students - the one exam for which a year drop was taken, the one exam for which last few months meant nothing but being between books - was now out of bounds for them... But masses have a different opinion... They say that they have to do it… they signed a bond for it…. Isn’t medical profession a noble one? These government college students get subsidized fees… This is what they should be doing in return of those liberties they were given…. I agree that all these points are not only valid but also right….

But cudnt this be timed better…. Cudnt this be done at a time when their studies were easy going…. When the pressure dint demand 14 – 15 hour of everyday study? Cudnt this be done during the early 4 months of the one year drop instead of the last 4 months? For the students of course, life which had just suffered a deadly blow, now suffered a fatal one…. “Doing MOship in the last 4 crucial months is stifling my chances of getting a good seat…. Doing MOship in these months is going to make me lose a seat and hence not become a doctor ever… Doing MOship is going to convince my parents to stop my studies and get me married off…. I want to do an MOship but cant this wait till its after this one exam that I am studying for…” etc are the only thots around…. the only ray of hope, a petition gets filed and the only one way out of this mess is to pay one lakh…. And these students agree to do it…. Outrageous, isn’t it….

But can you imagine how much these people were pushed over the edge that they agreed to take this step…. This step effectively makes their one question in the exam worth 300 bucks…. They already were pressurized due to the competition, then reservations added to it and finally this 1 lakh payment added icing to the cake…. Of course…. Adding to this is the belittling of people and general public looking down upon them for not serving mankind…. But just question ourselves, aren’t we being unfair? How much can we expect from some people who actually gave up the comforts in their lives to become a part of this noble profession.

I just hope we don’t push them so much over the edge that they start to regret the decision they have made and make sure no one else they know makes the same mistake again that they did………

Silence speaking louder than words!!!

2006-09-21T21:54:00.000+05:30

This is me and I am a suicide bomber
God please make my will grow a little stronger
Here I am in the train that'll blast
In a few seconds, nothing will remain, not even its cast....

There are so many ladies in this compartment
Listening to their talks is a form of an entertainment
Some talk about soap operas from the previous day
Some of the dreams that, in the future, lay....

It's so difficult that this liveliness will turn to ash
But I have to fight against the people who think my country is trash
I have been taught that this is the only way to seek justice for us
This is the only way of salvation for us...

But are these the ones really to blame
Or are those who behind them, the politicians lame.....

I dont want to hurt them
I dont want to cause pain
In seconds away now, many will lose
Their mothers, sisters and beloved too

But if I dont do anything soon
My country will grow up as the meal of these goons.....

Please God when you measure vices & virtues in the heavens above
Please add one more virtue for all who come now
For in a very little time, they made me feel alive
For the first time, I felt like a human and not a bee from the hive....

And therefore as hard as I may try
My heart doesnt stop to cry......

Instant Khichidi

2006-08-28T16:59:00.000+05:30

When anyone asks me to describe this generation in one word, the only word that comes to my mind is INSTANT! Or may be FAST! I really don’t know what to attribute this to? Is it a personal thing or is it the marketing and management techniques that this generation is exposed to or is it the competition and peer pressure that they experience!

No, no!!! Neither am I behaving as an older generation representative nor am I meting out this judgment to everyone except me. I am just saying this out of experience. Out of my observation. This ‘Instantness’ is observed in every walk of our life. Let me take some amount of your time to explain. ‘Coz this is something that I cant to instantly :)

The other day I was talking to my father and he was saying about how he has 40 years of work-ex and I told him, I am tired after 2 years itself. He said, to reach the salary I am getting now, he had to slog and toil for 15 years or so. And I find myself cribbing about the 5 figure salary that is offered as a compensation for my non-existent work.

At the same time, I cannot think of being with one firm for more than 3 years as opposed to his faithful service in same firm. I want an instant rise in my position. I want an instant raise in my salary. In our IT sector, the best way to reach the highest echelons of a company and to get an awesome salary is work in one company for 3 years, join the next one as a lateral. Then work here for say another 4 years and join the next company as a PM and so on. INSTANT you see! As a result of this in 10 years, I have everything (monetarily at least) and I may work for say another 5 years and then get tired, resign and lead a peaceful life (some give back to the society to make up for the lost time they spent in the industry). And really, what do you look forward to? I got the money essential for a comfortable life, I got a house, I got a family and I got respect. Everything before I turn 40. Why would I work then?

Something else that asserts this feeling is ‘INSTANT FOODS’. I have never seen such a huge rise in the INSTANT foods in this world. You are staying alone; you have guests coming over and have no time to cook or you are bored to cook. What do you do? INSTANT foods!!! ”Bas do minute” foods are pervasive in this generation. Of course you order from outside. It’s more INSTANT! There were those days when making paneer matar would take half an hour of shopping and 45 minutes of cooking to make it delicious. Now it takes 2 minutes to immerse your INSTANT paneer matar packet in hot water. I may sound a bit traditional when I say this, but these foods have not been able to replace the delight you get when the audience likes your hand cooked food and I guess they never will. Also, home delivery has taken its toll. I actually remember this instance when I ordered from a shop for around 3 months and had never paid a visit to the shop even once!

This ‘Instantness’ has crept in sports field as well. The Instantness of knowing results is changing the face of world sports. The days when 5 day test series were seriously watched and religiously followed are by gone. Now the attention spans are so small that even ODI is falling prey to this attitude, giving way to 20-20 cricket. I am no connoisseur of cricket but I still think that it’ll be difficult to cherish the quality and timing of every shot in 20-20 cricket. Football premier leagues are also falling prey to this ‘Instantness’ of results.

In relationships too, the parameters have changed drastically due to this attitude. A ‘Successful’ marriage is one which lasts for 5-7 years and which ends on a note which doesn’t kill either if the spouses. So, having arranged marriages or long marriages are all ‘OLD FASHIONED’. The romances, falling for someone is ‘INSTANT’. It starts as early as 7th standard. Again, I might sound on the conservative side but its way too young to have relationships by then. If I don’t understand myself clearly by then what would I understand a relationship of two people?

I don’t know if it’s the environment or we becoming so result driven that everything else is taking a back seat is the reason for this attitude? But everywhere we see aggressive marketing techniques used to get instant results. Codes are debugged; patches are fixed to get instant results.

I am sure that there are many other instances but the ‘Instantness’ to finish my work refuses to exercise my grey cells. I can’t think of anything else, but if you do, do let me know!!!!

Yaad ayenge woh pal....

2006-07-27T18:29:00.000+05:30

What is ‘special’? How would you make a particular event special? If given a choice between selecting one from all the special moments of your life, which one would you choose? How would you rate one event as more special than the other? For all these questions, as of now at least, the answer for me is My Birthday. It is the day that celebrates my very existence! Now why should you believe that my birthday is truly ‘THE ONE’…? Well in this respect I can safely say that, “ Apun ko 24 years ka experience hai :)….”

In the formative years of my life, it was special because it was a day when I would wear ‘colored clothes’ (those days that’s what we called Non-Uniform clothes) to school, distribute sweets in the class (which made me feel that I ruled the class then) and one day when no one would or rather was allowed to yell at me :) then in college it became special because of the hajar parties I had, the many surprises and even more gifts…. But now it is special to me, because this is what people around me make me feel on this day. Everyone would go that extra mile to make me smile a little longer through the year!!!! I always acknowledged this sweet thing that everyone did for me every year but then some part of me always wanted to keep these moments not only in the by-lanes of my memory but also as instruments giving me vicarious pleasure when the chips were down. That’s when I started to pen down my thoughts; something like ‘Memoirs of Sharmili’ if you may say so.

Frankly I don’t remember exactly when I started to write down everything that happened on 22nd July…. But what I do remember is that as time went by I added new dimensions to this habit…. Slowly I started to try and stay up the entire day…. An hour spent sleeping was an hour wasted of my special day… then I started to note down every call, every message and every wish that I got (as childish as it my sound)… but I had a justification for all those who told me that this was childish…. That it is always nice to know that so many people took time out of their hectic lives and thought of me on this day and they took pains to just to pass on their good wishes to me… this is definitely something that adds to the specialty of the day, doesn’t it?

So as birthdays passed my, these parameters remained the same but what changed were the goals…. Meaning initially I stayed up for 19 hours, then 21 hours and finally reaching that golden number of 24 hours…. Similarly for the wish list…. First it was just a list of names who wished me, then became a list which had to cross a magical figure of 100 and finally it became a list which assured that the names of all those in my close circle wished me…. But the most satisfying part were the write-ups…. Every tiny detail was entered in them…. Friends gave a surprise visit or a surprise party, a friend who overcame all the long distance difficulties just to ensure that their gifts and wishes reached me on this day, a family who did everything in their capacity to brighten my day, flowers which were sent at my doorstep early morning so that their freshness freshens my day….. Though time dimmed the luster of the gifts, dried the flowers in the bouquet and reduced the impact of the surprises, they have become immortal through those word documents that I kept as birthday-records…. So true and so real are they that if in 2006 I read what happened in any of the years before; it would be like reliving that day again!!!!

So in these 24 years I have had awesome birthdays but I have also had many troughs when I felt unhappy, many reasons to crib, many instances when I felt extremely unlucky…. I know this is in accordance of principle, happiness and sadness alternate each other, but it is very difficult to be practical then…. But in these harrowing times; it is the affection of so many people, the love and the thoughtfulness of all who care; that the support of Lady Luck, that I felt then, carried me through these lows till the next year, when the supplies got replenished twice as much ON THE SAME DAY – 22nd July!!!!!

HISTORY - Still a Mystery

2006-07-20T18:49:00.000+05:30

Scene 1: Outside the Balak Vihar Vidyalaya High school (My SSC centre)…In March 1998, under the blaring sun; here I was, with 8 pages clutched in my hand and pacing back and forth in front of the school gates…. On those 8 pages were dates, printed front and back…… Before anyone gets me wrong because of the above statement…. Explicit mention just to clarify things…. I hadn’t started dating so early in life and I don’t think with the guys in my school; the number of dates would have been so high….. It was the History exam for SSC board and those papers included all the dates in our textbook that I had scribbled away to glory… Nah!!! Trust me…. This was not my favorite pastime back then….. It was, actually for a very silly 2 mark question no 1 – C in this paper, I distinctly remember, that I had put in so much effort….. In my defense (so that I don’t sound geeky and loserly), those days we were told that 2 marks were very important in this exam…. They could make or break your career….. So this marathon effort…. Now back to my scene…. I was busy rattling off dates in the air… Quit India movement – 1942…. Gandhiji went on a fast – 19XX (it’s humanly impossible to remember that after so many years…) Gandhiji protested at Lahore – 19XX, Gandhiji presided over the Indian National Congress meeting – 19XX….. A parallel thought occurred to me….. Man!!!! Gandhiji was a busy!!!! He did so many things in life… I appreciate all he did but couldn't he just leave the 10th textbooks alone…. I mean did he have to write about everything he did and when he did in those books….. 16 years ki jaan and 1600 dates yaad karne ko …. Its blatant extortion of children’s brains…. Thought interrupted….. Mithila comes, same confused look borne by her as by all the students present there…. “Shamu, civil disobedience movement chya veli, kiti national congress chya meeting jhalya hotya???? Aani kuthe????...” and then both of us tried to rattle off the answer…. We used to call this discussing, in the days of the yore :)….

Scene 2: Inside the classroom….
Finally the moment of truth arrives…. The paper just one bench away…. I got it… started to write vigorously….. Question 1 A – fill in the blanks…. Cake walk…. Question 1 B – match the columns….. Man could it be any simpler….. And then the question for which I had taken so many pains….. It was a record that since the inception of this question in our syllabus, I never got it correct…. So I was more determined than ever to get it right this time… after all I had written 8 pages and I had read thru them enough number of times… (For me that time, ‘rataoing’ was the best form of studying :)…well there was nothing to understand in these dates anyway….) so these were the 4 dates our of the zillion I had written…. First session of national congress…. Gandhiji on some vague fast…. And some 2 other things… the gray matter refuses to help me in this case…. I thought and I finally decided on one order…. No no, this fast was for this movement which was after this session…. Oh… and here came some new order…. Tried to make a mental image of those 8 papers….. I just wanted to see the order of dates there in those papers (they were in chronological order you see)….. May be this new order….. I really think those 8 pages helped me…. Coz later in my life, mathematics taught me that there could be 4! = 24 arrangements for that question…. And I had only around 8 in my hand….. :) It was getting difficult….. “It’s fine!!! Don’t panic shamu…” I told myself….. “Come back and do it later….” After that followed a string of give reasons… answers in brief…. Answer in one sentence…. Etc…. History section done, I came back again to my conundrum….. Looked at it yet again…. First order seemed correct… Was about to write that order when a new dimension presented itself….. Panic… Anxiety…. Stress….. “After civics section” I consoled myself…. I couldn't let those 2 marks go now, could I??? Civics section tackled… some parliament related gyaan….. Done with ease and speed…. Went back to the only question left…. 10 min more for exam to get over…. Please God!!! Why isn’t this clicking….. Gandhiji #1@%$$!#..... History
@#!$$^!..... Ok ok…. Last 5 minutes…. Finally entered the answer….. The first order itself….

Scene 3: Outside the gate… after the paper…
“Ae Mithila, ti order kay hoti ga????” She said,”I think ABDC” (or something like that which wasn’t what I wrote….) “Oh, mala vatala ADCB….” Finally when the results came, I know I had messed up the order….. History marks obtained gave a clear indication of this…. :(

Scene 4: My desktop as I am writing this!!!!
Now sitting here, I am wondering whether that incident made even an iota of a difference in my life. I am doing just about the same thing as I would have done if I would have got those 2 marks more…. And even more than now, HISTORY still remains a mystery for me…. I mean no disrespect to our great leaders….. In fact, I am a proponent of their greatness for what they went through…. The torture, the pains, the struggle….. I am not sure if I could do anything like that if I was present then…. There are no words that can express how grateful I am to them for the freedom they gave me…. Also I am smart enough to know the power of history on present….. The fact that there is democracy, use of English, rights/duties… everything is due to history and I am not ignorant of that….. But in spite of all this, one question still puzzles me…. What was the purpose achieved by knowing when Gandhiji broke his umpteenth fast…. Or for that matter who was the first viceroy of India???? How knowing this fact affecting me??? Knowledge is power but this power is helpful only in certain quizzes (though they form a set of very rarely asked questions)… and I am definitely not a quizzer…. Then why god why did I waste that time….. If I had been so wisdomous then (I am assuming I am one now…), may be I would have had many hours of peace….. I mean can you fathom the amount of time saved if I did not have to make that 8 page document (front and back)…. And to add to my woes, get everything wrong…. Which led to added time wasted, cribbing about getting the things wrong……

Hopefully this will prod the readers (especially those in tenth) not to waste such valuable time in life on those 2 marks :) a valuable lesson learnt I say… :))

Finally down with a high FIFA fever!!!

2006-07-11T12:08:00.000+05:30

I was a strong believer that you can never enjoy watching a sport more than playing it…. As a result I have never followed any sport religiously…. And in this country of cricket crazy fanatics, I found myself to be an oddity…. But the Quarter final match of FIFA World Cup 2006 altered my perception and exposed me to that dimension of sport viewing which corroborates the use of adjectives spine-chilling, exciting, nerve wrenching, awesome et all…. Germany vs Argentina…. I remember the match so vividly…. Not only because it was the first sport match which kept me at the edge of my seat but also because it was also my first encounter with experiencing all the emotions vicariously which I have always experienced as a player….

I was a U-16 football player so a football field was not an unknown arena for me… I had tried a couple of times to watch football before…. But ended up watching either league matches or some weak teams playing on the field making them boring, reaffirming my opinion that watching a game is boring…. But little did I know…. Agreed that matches are more exciting when the stakes are high…. But if you get involved in the game, every match could get exciting…. So this is how I got hooked onto the World Cup…. Just like everyone in India did…. A huge football wave surged in India where the only idea of sport was CRICKET!!!! Tennis had recently started off due to tennis sensation Sania Mirza but it died down as suddenly as it had started….

Now India was never a footballing nation…. So, the skeptics thought of this as being a following the crowd to be in the trendy, elite group trend…. In fact I had a discussion with one such skeptic…. He asked me a question, “what happens if the 5 penalty shootouts also even out and the score is tied at 5-5?” I told him that the next penalty shootout takes place and goes on till it gives an uneven score…. Then he said that one of his friends who thinks he is a great footballing fan told him, the 6th kick has to be taken by goalie and then everyone in the team takes it…. And then it’s a rematch…. Also, he asked around 10 more people and ended up with 10 different answers…. That’s when he said “No person knows all the rules here and we all ape to be football lovers…. How can you love a game without knowing the rules??? Just imagine watching a game of chess without knowing the rules…. How absurd will it feel?” I then told him then that the knowledge of basic rules should be enough to make you love the game…. You are fans and not players to know the entire rulebook for the game…. Basics like what a penalty is…. You should know what a free kick, yellow card, red card et all are…. You should know the dribbling rules etc…. and this information is good enough to like a game…. You don’t have to watch hundreds of matches to know Zinedine Zidane is a great player…. You see his skills on the field in only one match and you instantly know that he is one of the great players who command respect…. Not knowing, the game rules, doesn’t change the fervor with which you follow the game… what should get to you is the frenzy, the tension…. He said, “You don’t have anything at stake coz India is not involved… so it feels weird to choose any arbit team and cheer for them… And most probably the team chosen by you girls will have the cutest players…. Also I wonder where all the football fans go after the world cup…. The euro cup never invoked such enthusiasm and that time too, the same teams were involved”

I answered all these questions to the best of my ability and knowledge (limited due to the 'RECENT' football following) and yet he was skeptical... i even told him that there is always a first time for something... unless you do it once, you cant dream of doing it again.... but all in vain.... And this made me realize how difficult it is for a nation, with a parochial mindset and which doesn’t play many worldwide known sports, to accept that people can just suddenly follow a new game…..

It’s a vicious circle followed…. No sporting heroes… So no following... No following… So no one takes up that sport... So no heroes…. To add to this, we Indians are so result driven…. India won some hockey match and hockey grips the entire country…. Indian goes in F1 racing and suddenly everyone watches F1 with more zeal…. Indians come and win some title in tennis and we are watching tennis till the player retains good form…. Later this following goes into oblivion….And that’s exactly where this football fever is different…. It’s different coz for once; we are watching something with so much zeal without waiting for heroes from our country to take this game up…. In fact with no stakes involved, we are actually in a position to cherish the game…. We can watch a game neutrally and savor all the good things from both the playing sides and condemn all the bad things…. On the contrary this no stake involvement may be the factor that boosts people to take up football… May be then we can have a team which can go somewhere beyond leagues…. I mean despite the lack of involvement of our country, it did cause the masses to pick up football viewing inspite of the odd hours, dint it?

I also realize that the problem with football in India is not dearth of talent but it’s the system… Administration which has almost destroyed hockey won’t let football flourish too…. But may be with so many people talking about football, so many gully matches getting played, the administration won’t be able to ignore it for a very long time…. After all in a democracy don’t the people turn tables!!!!!

My only dream is to watch India play world cup football…. Korea, Angola could do it then why cant we? And when we do play; if we even reach till the top 6 positions, ill be very happy…. Coz asking anything beyond that may label me as a result driven supporter too :)

Friday Funda.......

2006-06-28T18:41:00.000+05:30

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

2006-06-19T11:15:00.000+05:30

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

2006-06-16T12:34:00.000+05:30

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....

Antithesis of LIFE!!!!

2006-05-30T17:15:00.000+05:30

Everyone in my life will vouch for the contradictory traits present in me; be it family, friends or colleagues. This aspect of my life is very starkly observed or rather is something that involuntarily just comes across people I meet. So what contradictions are these?

Starting from the external, superficial stuff and to name a few; I love sports and athletic activities but I HATE walking, jogging, strolling. I always favor gals (bordering on feminism) but share a better rapport with the guys in my group. I would love to go out and freak out with friends but my idea of an ideal weekend is sleep lotssss, watch TV and laze around at my place. I love to cook but I often get bored to cook. I am very conservative yet I am most comfy in jeans, don’t mind late night outs with my friends, don’t mind guys staying over at my place (something which contradicts a traditional mindset). I often get troubled about this. I wonder which one is the real me? Introspecting all the time to find the answer but never once did I stumble upon it!

One day I spoke to one of my friends about his work and he told me that his pseudo name is John Lincoln (he works for an international BPO). I was outraged. If someone calls me Sharmila instead of my correct name I expect the other person to apologize and here is my friend; who is being paid for hiding his identity. Who is attending classes to lose the Indian accent and put on a Brit/American one! Who is getting holidays on Christmas and who wishes his clients on Valentine’s Day and Thanksgiving! On the other side of this spectrum lie the RSS/Shiv Sena party people. They have these centers for cultural studies and preservation. Here they are taught how Valentine’s Day is invasion of western culture and how they should abolish it. Taking the same idea to the next level, here we are in a globalization era. A wave; that has lifted the economy and as a fallout ‘Us’. Because of this wave I see myself spending around 2 grand in about 2 days (sometimes even one hour – impulse buying) and yet there are 50 percent or more BPL families whose annual income is somewhere around this figure. The economists say that we have come to a plastic age (debit cards, credit cards et all) where you are assured fluidity of cash, so that you never fall short of finanaces when it comes to the DRESS you just fell in love with or SHOES you just cant live without. But there are people who let alone the fact of possessing debit cards but are trying hard to get a few coins in their piggy bank everyday....

The climate in India is ‘conducive’ for investments and developments and yet here I see that agriculture is still our main occupation and investments or improvements done in this field are negligible. There are suicides because the rains failed; there are murders because the crop of that person was better. I see the younger generation knowing what the problems India is facing, knowing what can be the solution to the issue and yet I see Brain-Drain, I see people saying “Isss system mein hi kharabi hai… India ka kuch nahi ho sakta…” I see students all over India coming together standing united and then I see our very own Govt. turning a blind eye and a deaf ear to them and still implementing Reservations! There is a huge hue and cry on environmental/conservation of wildlife issues and yet we go ahead and rush into signing treaties with IAEA and becoming a nuclear power (the biggest threat to a safe environment); rampant hunting of animals for pleasure, for decorating ministers’/celebrity suite. Nothing is stable in the money markets and yet the stocks are rising. The number of girls succeeding in SSC/CBSE/ICSE or junior high is more than the guys and yet girls are being compromised on( increasing number of dowry deaths, Husband beating up his wife, Rape) is omnipresent. Still there is a village in Rajasthan where the prenatal deaths occur if the child to be born is a girl child. Security has increased, newer and stricter laws are made and yet the incidents of Rape cases have increased and the number of accused convicted have decreased. Women are getting empowered; they are getting better jobs in myriad of fields. They are striving for equality with men and are coming very close to it. And yet an educated woman compromises when there are clashes in the house when the alpha male ego is hurt (I wont say this is the case all the time but it is most of the times)

Thinking about all this suddenly the contradictions in my life seem very puny, very inconsequential, very small; I have a choice now and I have to take my step to make it asap..... Coz here we are living in a country where there is one birth in very 3 minutes thereby adding one more person to become a part of this contradictory climate....

Say on an average I live for 50 years. I will still possess only so many contradictions (of my character and by the country) but around 10512000 (@ 1 per 3 min)people would be born till then to become a part of the hajar new contradictions this country is going to offer them in addition to the contradictions of the character they build for themselves in their life!!!

Can we really do something so that atleast half of those 10512000 are not subjected to the turmoil which I am sure most of us go through!!!!!!!!!!!

F.R.I.E.N.D.S

2006-05-09T10:27:00.000+05:30

A man is judged by the company he keeps…. And so is a woman…. If this statement is true then this leads to the most contradictory judgments about me, my character…. Coz I have many-many friends and they have such disparate characters…. So if a person has to judge me, how will they? Will they see a common linkage between my friends and try and associate that particular trait to my character…. I’m befuddled….. U don’t think this can be the case then just go through this and u would know y I am so muddled….

I am sure everyone has different groups…. I mean there is a school friends’ circle, a college group, an office group, a local train group for that matter etc…. so as is the case even I have such friends’ groups…. But an exception in my case is that for every group in each category, I had a senior group that I was a part of too…. So my life is reaaaaaaaaaaaallly complicated ;)

So as I said, my school group…. We r a bunch of 8 people… The way I see all of them is that they are a bunch of people very liberal and trendy….. at the same time they have a structured set of values when it comes to family, religion, festivals etc…. I mean we go to discs, we go to temples, we booze but we also give up if one of the friends is not present, we would go out of the way to help others at the same time be very protective of each other…. Et all…. And we have grown as individuals…. From silly kids being very competing to teens going through rough times to matured people always there when the other person needs someone…..

Now my school senior group….. I don’t have much to say about this one though coz we disintegrated pretty soon… kinda lost touch… the last thing I knew about them was that they r either getting married or they r cruising through their career…. They were the ones responsible to shape me up…. Somehow being with them gave me courage…. Made me meet challenges head on….. But if I have to associate a particular trait to this group it would be a rebellious attitude…. To believe what u think and not what people want u to think….

Then my junior college group…. It started off with 4 people branched out now to about 15 people…. This is one group which strongly believes in simple living high thinking….. Their idea of an outing would be everyone (with parents in the group…) going to some place…. cooking together…. Going for walks… playing cards or other indoor games and of course catch up on each others lives….. Like one BIG Family…. Going to a disc would be an outrageous idea coz I am not sure how many people will dance or drink???

Thankfully I was in junior high for only 2 years so couldn't really get to know any seniors then :)

My Engg college group….. we r a bunch of 20 fellow class mates who are in one big group but somehow there are still factions….. strong contradictory characters have been very dominant so the group hasn’t coalesced into one…. As a result this group has many different aspects…. It depends on what faction is dominant or what are the circumstances around… We could be nerdy at times, rash at times, extremely tech-savvy to extreme aversion to technology, have a sporty attitude towards life or gossip/bitch about everything and everyone in life, be very aware of current affairs or be extremely ignorant of life around…. All in all they are somewhat similar to my school group but with an additional thrust on career….

My senior engg college group…. Not so much as a group since it’s just 2 or 3 of them….. I was cited so many times with them that I was often confused to be a part of their group…. They are extremely objective, extremely organized….. I have seen them get obsessed with say a project wit the same zeal as they would be for a person…. Viability of everything is of vital importance….. I mean doin nethin for just kicks would be an unthinkable idea for them…..

So now what exactly is the judgment doled out to me????

Am I rebellious or am I conservative, am I trendy or am I simple, am I practical in life or am I lost….. For some reason I can relate to all….. All the disparate qualities of these groups and yet so relatable…. I don't know y I became friends with them…. Just thought that they r like me…. Like they say IT JUST CLICKED….. But in the process did I become like them???? I mean I was conservative but have started being liberal about things…. I have become extremely tech-savvy, I have understood that playing cards with friends on an outing is as much fun as going to a disc with them…. I have started being a stickler where necessary….. I have learnt to think for myself….. et all…..

Makes me draw parallel with the TV series F.R.I.E.N.D.S…. extremely disparate people but always there for each other….. each person has maintained their identity yet some effect of the group has rubbed off on them….. so when I see Rachel being organized (just like Monica…) I feel well that’s just like what happened to me…. I became friends with all these people because of the CONNECT I felt with them and with time I have grown, matured and sifted out some of my flaws by takin the good things from my ‘Friends’…..

An impulse tells me to ask them, “did they get any good things from me being a part of the group???” and the same impulse tells me " OF COURSE!!! :) "