Thought jam

It is times like these that finally make me realise why the concept of work as opposed to the concept of "sitting idle" had to be invented. Beyond, of course, the whole I-need-to-fill-my-stomach-so-I will-work-for-it. I don't think I can just sit idle and not do anything at all - even if I totally intend to. The millions of thoughts and opinions and judgments that pass through my head even as I try to take in the world around me and digest information flowing in from everywhere without someone or something to vent it out on...

...like the time I read the email on party celebrations after everyone at my college had found a job despite the gloomy cloud of discontent engulfing most of our minds.

...like the time I sat at said party sipping a Mirinda watching everyone get drunk and dancing away to glory; and wondering how alcohol makes people forget pretty much everything. 

...like the time I watched one ex-consultant advising another to-be-consultant on God-knows-what; and wondering how they could even confer given their fundamentally different persuasions. 

...like the time I traveled home after said party in an auto and wondered what the deaf, dumb and handicapped old man selling coconut water outside our campus would have to say about my job, the recession and the whole why-can't-India-grow-at-8% worry.

...like the time I watched the Rasna kid energetically shout "Papa! Swimming!" on television and then a teleshopping ad on Vibrating Sauna Belts; and worrying that my interest was gradually shifting from one to the other. 

...like the time I watched Charu Sharma simply tear apart the Indian bowling attack for its lack of consistency and dedication and its total sloppy fielding; and wondering what the fuss was all about after we beat New Zealand by over 84 runs without losing a wicket. 

...like the time I switched off television after said match and pondered on whether I should write my research paper on how Duckworth-Lewis is the CAPM of cricket. 

...like the time I simply stood all clean, doing nothing for ten minutes, in the midst of half naked colorful bodies and listened to a remark from someone: "Yaar, aaj kisi ne holi khelaa hai toh tumne ! " 

...like the time I did ten rounds of cleansing over and over again with detergent, shampoo, toothpaste and soap to get the color off me; and wondering if the whole purpose of Holi was to reiterate the importance of bathing, and whether the British would've called it Shower Day if they had gone on to adopt it.

...like the time I put up a totally colored picture of myself on the Gtalk client, and received at least ten remarks saying "amazing pic" or "superb pic", when none of my formal or cool-looking profile photos ever earned that remark. 

Thought jam. All in a day's work. 

Used to winning

Black circles on a white sheet

No room for the sleepless cheat

Soft scribbles of graphite racing against time

Tom, Dick and Harry want to be in an IIM

Done with all the apti-tests

Wowed the profs with gyaan and jests

All three were living the great Indian dream

Just when it looked life could get no more gleam

They say free lunches don’t exist

The lavish dinners had to have a twist

Tom liked neither the consult jargon nor bankers’ show off

Harry had no clue anyway; At Dick they did all short of scoff

Dick wanted nought but grades

While Tom was a jack of all trades

Child in a toy shop, put fight, the mentors told Harry

Markets are freezing, they expounded, be wary

‘Twas time to buy jacket and sweatshirt

TDH wanted to, with fachchis, flirt

Pre placement offers were cause for celebration

In times of sinking banks, frauds and inflation

Alas, fate had different plans

Tom threw out the beer cans

It was September; Dick Fuld had spoiled his party

Sans grades, would they still think him a smarty?

Dick did all the studying

Projects, contacts, string pulling

Luck seemed evasive, but he said he’ll defy providence

We’re used to winning, we’ll make some sense

And Harry, he had some clues now

For banks and advisors he had no respect

The Duke song told him to be a brander

Unilever, P&G, There were none any grander

Recessions are bad; firms don’t hire

People speak of joblessness; Placecom is on fire

Harry is a consultant; Dick’s back to a bank

Tom’s dreaming of getting killed driving an army tank

Dark circles no longer on a sheet

They’re on our faces, having been browbeat

Losses hard to digest, all the purses thinning

Hoping against hope we’ll be okay, ‘coz we’re used to winning.

Commandments...

...that twenty two years of protoplasmic existence and nineteen years of formal education would have sidestepped if it was a different place, or a different time...

...that is there is no substitute for good friendship. Real dosti is when you have filled in a bucket of water from the last running tap in the block, your friends choose that time to wake up, and you split it four ways between the shaver, the loo-goer, the face-washing attentive front bench sitter and yourself.

...that being kiddish is fun as long as it is endearing and people appreciate that. There are of course, places where you can’t afford to be thus; you can identify these places by lack of endearment.

...that there is joy in disorder. Be it in the two week long unshaven face, the room that hasn’t been cleaned for a month or the pile of clothes and shoes that are mingled with one another all over the room floor. Of course, there is joy in the rearrangement of things so that one can start messing up all over again.

...that fighting with a friend is a dream, but stepping in between two fighting friends is a nightmare. Because it reminds you how much you care about that person and you stop yourself from saying so many things that come to mind.

...that there is value in setting store by values. Even if you sound like your principal or headmaster from high school. It helps in avoiding identity crises.

...that there is merit in being a Jack of All Trades. Or trying to be one, at least. You must always play musical instruments, write poetry, convert poetry to song, study for 10 hours a day, take a break by playing badminton, teach math to juniors, play music again and end the day with studying for the end term on the next day.

...that Murphy was a genius and one who does not bow to him ends up at the wrong end of His laws. Then again, maybe every end is a wrong end. 

...that when unfair play happens, it is always paid for. When the bad man pays for it is not under your control. But you can rest assured that he is always charged net present value.

...that because of the above, there will always be disappointments. It gets scary when you don’t screw up once in a while as there’s some huge impending disaster that is the sum total of all your experienced joys.

...that no matter what happens, there is hope for all of us at the end of it all. 

 

Twenty Five Things

This is the result of a "I-am-jobless-so-I-should-do-something" disease that Facebook has been spreading round friends' circles. In a desperate bid to kickstart my blog, yours truly plagiarises his own writings from the past, and experiments with the different channels to reach the readership market. Here, as they say, goes.

 1. The first alphabet I could read was B and not A. 

 2. I always loved watching mythological serials made by Ramanand Sagar. Especially the part where two arrows with different colors meet in the air and one blows away the other. Someday I'll join the Indian Army and retrofit my regiment with longbows and super range arrows. 

3. When in Class 2, I was hauled up for indiscipline. My crime was that I tucked a wooden scale halfway down my schoolbag and ran up and down the corridor pretending to be a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. (I always liked playing Leonardo. Unfortunately Michelangelo, Raphael and Donatello did not get caught and they have no memory of the incident whatsoever.)

 4. Ever since I read the word "cynic" I have wanted to call myself one. It sounds so much more cooler than "erring on the safe side". 

 5. I love ice cream, chocolates, Kinder eggs, cold fruit yogurt, Indian liquid sweets and Indian solid sweets in that order. I despise anything spicy or hot unless there is something sweet or cool to follow it up. 

 6. My closest friends will tell you I am very religious, God-fearing, and essentially believe in miracles. 

 7. I am emotionally attached to dramatic and unrealistic movies like Harry Potter, LOTR, Kung Fu Panda and the whole host of superheroes. I anyway get to see so much of realism around me - why bother looking at it on a screen. 

 8. I think social inefficiency and inequality is an absolute necessity. Otherwise there wouldn't be any rags-to-riches tales (Which, I must say after today, can be made into movies and be the substance of other rags-to-riches tales.) 

9. My mom tells me I used to amuse myself at the age of 2 by creating a ruckus and tapping everything around with a spoon . Including the gas cylinder, the floor, the tava, the window sill, the wall and also my own head. My grandmom likes to think it was hidden signs of my aptitude for music; how I wish she recruited at IIMB. 

 10. Having grown up in the Gulf, I always like to pronounce it GeLf, and love to make fun of all of them MeLLu GayrLs. (The capital L is to denote the different pronunciation in most south Indian vernacular languages. MeLLus will be understanding. )

 11. I have this crazy fetish to do well and be top-of-the-class all the time. After they started despising that attitude as "RG", I pretty much gave up. 

 12. I have watched F.R.I.E.N.D.S. over 20 times and I could watch it forever. While I'd love to be Chandler Bing, the Facebook app "Which F.R.I.E.N.D.S. character are you?" thinks I am a Ross Geller. (How many times will I assert that I am not R.G.????)

 13. I am a sacrosanct vegetarian who loved dissecting frog and cockroach thigh muscles and observing them under the microscope. It is the only part of biology that I truly miss. 

 14. Through school and college I have always been branded as the numbers guy. I tried to get rid of that by writing long, painful blogs. Hasn't helped one bit. I still screw up all the "globish" courses. 

 15. I simply adore C language. My favorite dream in 2nd year was to wake up and start speaking C with everyone. 

 16. I am the only cricket lover in my family who adored Rahul Dravid when everyone was mad after Sachin. I practically jumped for joy when Rahul scored his amazing innings at Adelaide, and it almost broke my heart when they said all those mean things about him after WC 2007.

 17. Much as I hate to admit it, I love to make fun of my friends. I don't like people who can't take jokes. I also don't like people who are all "khadoos types" and "always sad sad". 

 18. I'm practically the worst cribber you will find on earth. When friend A goes to friend B to crib about life in general, friend B in general will console, etc. If friend A comes to me to crib about life, I crib a hundred times more so he suddenly starts feeling blessed, fortunate and happy. 

 19. I love legacy and heritage and all those age-related emotions. I am the kind of person who adores memorabilia, can get very nostalgic and would rather be in a company that lasted 200 years than in one that lasted 2. 

 20. I like to say friends are one of the most important things in my life. But somehow I always find enough excuses to escape dinner and lunch - so I really don't think I'm justified in making that statement. 

 21. I am a very big self marketer (Is that MBA-jargon for show off?). For instance, I spend more time publicizing my blog and making all my friends read it than I spend actually writing it. 

 22. Very few people know that I love dancing despite the fact that I can't dance for nuts. Same holds true for singing, bowling (as in red ball), computer-gaming and so many other things. 

 23. Because of what I said in 22, one of my best pastimes has been playing cricket with an imaginary ball in front of a mirror, and replicating Dravid's strokes. I'm surprised I haven't broken my window or my TV screen or any such stuff.

 24. My ambition in life is to create something like the Matrix, only with Nazgul in it instead of agents, to invent the magic wand and incarnate myself into this make-believe world as Harry Potter, the saviour. At the end of that incarnation, evil will have reached an all time high and therefore I will be sent back with greater powers (even as Gandalf in LOTR was) and this time I will truly save the world. 

 25. I have spent over an hour writing these 25 things and people who don't comment are going to face my cribbing. (Refer #18).