Unabridged stream of thought...

Day1:
what goes around, comes around...I am writing this one during the busy hour, 4:00 PM, well actually not the usual busy one though but for me it is as I start my work just about then. No particular reason for the title except for the fact that it has come from subconscious self and I usually do not like to ignore what it says. This week has been hectic, especially because of the fact that this is the fourth state I have been in just the first four days. My first experience with two things, one that seemed very fake but was actually real another seemed very real but was fake. I bet you didn't understand a bit and I do not expect that you do. This is, as far as I know, just e-thinking... If I haven't teased you enough, I am going to make references to the two things I was referring to above in a couple of places through this blog and you with your inimitable intellectual power have to decipher and tell me what is real and what is not. That's it for now folks... I have exhausted both my time and creative energy to write any further. Tune in later to hear more on the puzzle.

Day2:
I Just want to know who I am...Random thoughts, Random Ideas... You never know what goes on in a human mind. It is not just difficult but also impossible to capture these thoughts and ideas in a passage. It's a very beautiful friday morning and I am as usual keeping my self busy finishing up(cleaning up) stuff for the week. A chore for me, like it or not you've got to do it. Do you ever get the feeling that the place where you belong to isn't where you want to be and the place you want to be is what you are not comfortable in. Its hard to describe this feeling unless you experience it first hand. An Alien in the land of A, that's what I call thy self and everyone similar. Most people do not realize what a great opportunity they've got in being a first generation immigrant in the land of immigrants. Most people don't understand that it is not just a new place of work but that they are experiencing a new culture first hand. I still can't convince my self that this is a completely new culture as in a way I have, we have lived all our lives either this way or aspiring to be this way. But at some level we are still different and that will never change much.

What does america mean to you?I have been trying to answer this question for the past one year and am sure every one has a different opinion about this. As with any topic about or involving Indians, this might also lead to endlesss debates about the positive and negative aspects of a country, the cultures blah...But if you ask me to stop, hold my breath and give the most genuine answer, I will say without hesitation that America is where I can be my self. This obviously is going to start a huge debate and am pretty sure I am going to get some interesting opinions from people. But frankly, thats what it is all about. For an average middle-class indian who is more often than not tied down with dogma on how things should be done, how his life should be, staying in the united states could be a relief. Thats probably true for any immigrant in a foreign land. If you are in a place where at best you know only a handful of people, you tend to be yourself in a way enjoying every bit of what you are with out caring about what others around are doing. The same is particularly true if you are staying a rural community here in the United States, where things are much more simple as compared to an average rural community in India. You can actually find that people are actually laid back, with little or no connections with the outer world at least not to an extent where those connections start interfering with your day to day life...so different compared to any village in India where an average conversation between two middle-aged ladies fetching water from a parched well or a near by creek can be about their sons or relatives' sons living abroad.
Well, almost. America is still a land of a million(3 million) indians and there still could be the usual dogma on how a boy coming here should be graduating either from a well reputed university or slogging his butt off on the well-trodden software path, on how he should not be ogling at all the white skin at his disposal... But at a certain level no one cares. You live and let live... If my recent visit to a genleman's club was any representation of this true freedom (I would like to call that). I am pretty sure that there could me more than a few of my distant or close relatives in the crowd and I would have definitely cared about this fact if it were India, but here who gives a damn. I bump in to a cousin at such a place, am pretty sure I would given the sheer number of cousins I have staying here, I would just say hi and talk as if I met him in a marriage reception.

Adaptation...

Ever since I wrote my first blog entry on this very own web address I knew one thing. This is the thing, this is where I want to end it all... I want to be a writer.

Like many things that a person wants writing is something that may or may not come in naturally. My problem with writing has been continuity, I start strong but end up either losing interest or get too engrossed in the nitty-grittys of language that i forget the essence of what i was planning to pen down.

I guess its a problem of adaptation, the topics I attempt to pen are usually more in to the realm of the abstract world and hence do not have the drama that keeps it going. But whenever I think about that I always imagine why should there be drama in what you write... there isn't enough drama in life, I am literally doing the same kind of job over the past 5 years with nothing but minuscule atmospheric changes ( I seriously consider my move to the united states no more than an atmospheric change). Really, without drama who would even have a darn little interest in reading what I write leave alone my lack of interest in completing my numerous incomplete blog entries. But, I will try... I will try to write something abstract as much as life can get. I will one day narrate stories that neither have a beginning nor an end, neither have a happy ending nor a sad ending, stories that are absolutely non-judgemental, un-summarizable yet completely believable and relatable...

Life is such a great manuscript that is written only once, no edits no rewrites...

Excerpts from this manuscript called Life can be great stories... for instance a small set of stories on the most influential people one meets in their lifetime. Most of the time these meetings last only for a while but end up in memories that are recalled almost everyday in the rest of your life. One might not do anything to relive those memories or meet those people again but they still are very cherished. The thing with memories is that they are great as long as they remain so, if you try to relive them you may not even like them anymore.



This is as much as I can write on abstract items. Hope I can do better and induce more sense in to this complex madness called life which is as abstract as it can get. I am definitely not trying to get this blog to a logical end because there is none... just like my thought process it goes on and on with minor coffee breaks called sleep....

And I arrived...

I know that I had to do this now, because now is the time I feel the pinch, the tickle and the tangle that she left in me.
Its been two months since I arrived... but somehow it never felt so until now! Whats the freaking difference between what I had and what I have, I used to think ... A Desert Valley Apartment overlooking a beautiful pool, no human voice or company, and an occassional roar of the passing Davidson... all this encompassed by big A dream.
Though you have everything to pamper your physical self(well, almost) there is some kind of a dormant unhappiness everywhere... it could be my eyes or the general status quo.
I wake up in the nights, shocked and scared, thinking of lonely Tabu running out of her house after hearing the news about the death of her husband. Imagine! what can any one do... you get out of your place and scream your witts out and the only one who can hear you is yourself... and probably the passing, spine-chilling wind.

But there's a differnt dream I wanted to see too... A dream I saw through the movies and the television shows... that flaunted of unbiased friendship and love and of course the other amorous counterparts of it.
It took me two months 2 days to realize my American Dream. Long time for an average mortal one might say but I guess patience pays! So, here it goes. A tale that started of a little late on a saturday night and went on way in to Sunday and beyond ( I can still feel the effect)...

When you see so much action on TV, Internet and specially designated cinema the real thing loses the effect. A couple of minutes in to the arena and I was still amazed and was literally staring at people in disbelief. It happens I guess... but for the beers and reassuring sounds of my colleagues from work whom I wouldn't have expected to feature in my dreams, I would have never recovered my senses.

I went on to order a drink for my self and gave my self enough time to allow the environment to sink in. With every passing moment, I grew both comfortable and impatient; comfortable of the enviroment and the status quo and impatient that its not changing/progressing fast. And then she came by, moving and grooving, raising my heart rate exponentially to levels it never experienced before. And then it was done!

So far so good... an average tale with no extraordinary twist. But as I started regaining my senses, she came by again. This time to get me a drink!!! Voila... As amazed as I was I accepted hesitantly owing to my shy personality and we walked down to the bar. Quite frankly, I really could not think of a conversational topic so started off with my usual, "this is a great track... wot kind of music do you like???" Got the usual answer, "anything". It is hard to find a girl with good taste in music... so it went on for a couple of minutes, with either of us attempting at building a lasting conversation; I challenged her dance moves and she wanted me to do a dance for her...the one that's usually done on the pole right there for her and she would pay me. Huh???

And I arrived...

I really can't believe that I am going to publish this on my blog...

Hitchin', the nerd way...

It's August, that part of the year where I tend to get a bit romantic and subsequently highly frustrated and reflective. This year has been great though, no beau femme citings so far and so no disappointments... but how long will this status quo last.

Through my extensive experience in this rather cliched area I have learnt many things which weren't to be learnt the way I did. I will try to help all you readers, through this blog, to learn the art of Hitchin in a regressive fashion. If you are among those who doubt my credentials in this area of human behavioral science you might abstain from reading further, at your own loss...

I quote my self (actually Tom)..."Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're gonna get".

Take 1: Night Shuttle Taxi, getting back home on a rainy friday night.

The night was as usual, dark and tired. I wasn't definitely in my best form thanks to my engagement manager who managed to suck the last ounce of blood from my body to get his stuff done. But, there was a twist. A milk chocolate this time, can't really comment on the looks in the entirety since I got only few glimpses of it through the disperesed light entering the cab.
We were alone in the cab's rear seat and the driver was busy doin his job.
As the cab drove through the straight stretches of the road, rolled over the steep edges I felt a tingling sensation on my shoulders and realized it was due to her shoulders rubbing with mine...
Then I heard a faint voice, " So, where is it that you live???"

What I did: "If it wasn't for my stupid boss who overdoses me with work and this cab driver who keeps me rolling over your shoulders every now and then, my dreams"...

What happened: The girl acted as if she went deaf for a moment and for the remainder of the journey she acted as if I wasn't around et all...

Lesson learnt: Hmm... am still figuring out on what exactly went wrong... I guess I should stop dreamin when I can actually live 'em.

Take 2: Lift

A morose training session with a few attractive dark chocolates. Did I manage to strike a chord??? Well, the facilitator was pretty nice to me and gave me enough opportunities to exhibit my prowess...
While walkin back to my desk, I noticed that one of them was following me, probably to get back to her desk or... ahem... you know what. As she got in to vocal proximity she tried to trigger a vague conversation on a mundane topic...

What I did:
Never completed this one...

Independence...

What is Independence? What is independence?

This phrase kinda reminds me of a popular (my fav) number of metallica where a young american asks his father... What is democracy? and the guy replies ... It something about young boys killing each other.

Strange??? You must listen to track to understand it...

Getting back to Independence...
I believe, the term has varied meanings to different people. Some interpret it as just the absence of oppression while others attach a broader meaning to it.

No matter what it means do you really think that we follow it in the truest form???

Every year we hear lot of rhetoric speeches made by seemingly learned people about the freedom struggle and how some of our "so called" parents of the nation (dint want to make seperate references to the fathers, mothers, grandfathers etc..,) relieved us from the autocratic rule of the British. But do they understand that we aren't yet completely independent???

Independence in the truest form for me is total self reliance on one's own resources i.e.., living all by ourselves without interfering much with the nature (environment) around. If you've started guessing where am heading then you definetly are one of those who can think beyond these virtual boxes of countries and their independence.

Consider this, the narrow minded socio-eco-political policies of different nations are causing more distress to the who mankind now than they ever did. A country needs to show its supremacy on the others, it goes on destroying nature under the pretext of democracy and independence.

Can we sustain such an independence???

We need to understand that beyond the narrow motives of our individual nations there exists a bigger responsibility that we need to shoulder, that of preserving this planet. Because, if we don't do that, no matter how hard we scream that we are independent we won't survive a while longer...

Try to answer the question at this link:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/?qid=20060704195516AAnrdOD

Vendetta.

Irony, Irony…

Hang on for a moment and look at the world around you, what do you notice? A bunch of Ironies in each and every aspect of it…

Most people want something, but their representatives want quite the opposite. For some strange reason I find it very hilarious when Rajdeep shifts from his energetic tone and accepts defeat in front of the whole country almost every night, “But sir, the Poll results seem to be pointing something else…”

If you belong to one of the (“So called”) socially backward classes please do not consider these as my personal remarks. I am just trying to make some general statements… Before we delve with the nitty-gritty’s of the issue, I want to make it clear that I am not attempting to either support or discount the concept of reservations, it’s the inherent incoherence that I want to point at.

Switch on your television these days and all you can see is hundreds of young people dressed in their pristine aprons shouting and desperately trying to make their point heard. Not a new phenomenon one might say, “It is the same old tamasaha, Medha Patkar did it sometime back too”. But isn’t there an anomaly in the entire event, a Hunger strike by a veteran (at the art of it) caused so much uproar in the system making so many political, bureaucratic and theatrical personalities reach for her to convince her and make her withdraw, where as a Hundred medicos striking didn’t get much attention beyond the electronic and print media.

Why are our politicians so oblivious of the situation? Till date, I haven’t heard a single politician coming out in the open and commenting (leave alone supporting) the issue. The answer might be simple but is it easy to digest? What is happening to all the mandate of the students and community that is protesting? Their representatives who should have been talking on their behalf seem to have held their peace and let things happen.

“This government does not seem to understand peaceful protests, all they need are people like the Naxalites and the Maoists” – An agitated student who was manhandled by the policemen in Mumbai. Though this was an emotional statement, it can be an eventuality considering the levels of frustration in today’s youth.

“People should not be afraid of their Governments, Governments should be afraid of their people” - ‘V’

Long Time...

Long time…
For patrons who, despite my sloth or rather inability to add any new posts, continued to visit by Blog… I promise to be more regular in enriching your lives with my little tales of sorrow…

… It’s been 2 long months since I used my numb fingers to key in anything on this Blog. It was due to the new phenomenon that predominantly gripped the software junta, Orkutting. Am not sure whether I am the first person to coin this word but yeah, I am sure that it’s pretty much engraved on every young person’s mind. If you are someone who haven’t heard about it then may be you should get your Carbon Dating done… Who knows you just might be older than what you think you are!!!

I really don’t relish dissecting behavior of the masses but this one aspect seems pretty obscure, why is there a sudden surge in the interest of people in Orkut? Do we see a pattern emerging? Or it is just a mass hysteria? As I was told by a psychologist, most of the humans’ feelings can be attributed to Hormones, and so does this sudden desire to display one’s personality and know about others … Now, it’s a matter of debate on which one of the hormones is causing this imbalance. From my observation I understand that it has got something to do with an amalgamation of adrenalin and estrogen/ testosterone … Well the basis, as one might ask, is my observation…

Most scraps, sparing those serious/personal ones who for all I know shouldn’t be on the scrap book at all, can be classified in to 2 categories…
1) Hey, What’s up? Types…
Very informative, the response to these scraps can be of specific interest of Stalkers…. My personal favorite.
2) Can you be my dear friend? Types…
Hilarious… It clearly displays how some people can completely kill their ego and conscience to get to the opposite (or in some cases same) sex.
“hey, we were born in the same year, can we be friends?’, “Hi, We share the same last name, can we be friends?” and this is the clincher, “Hi, There are many ships, but the best ship is Friendship… Will you be my friend?”

I believe that what you score on your scrap book or your friend/ fan list is directly proportional to the quality of your photograph… People don’t seem to give a darn about the person behind it; all they need is a photograph which is appealing. So, what does one do when he realizes that he’s not an Orkutable (read as Marketable) material. Simple, he/she either changes the photograph to one of a good looking person’s. The key here is to select a person who is both disturbingly good looking yet not very well-known.

And if you have to please someone with your (pretentious) sweet words, Orkut provides for it too… through the testimonials. Of the 100s of profiles I have been through not one person had to say a bad thing about his/her friend. Well, even if they did, they usually kept it well hidden under the creamy layer of ostentatious praises…

If you’ve started thinking that I am completely digressed… May be I am, Courtesy Orkut!

Roots...

Quite often caught in the vicious circle of our personal motifs we forget our past, our roots, our very cause of existence. Through my prep for a B-school interview I got the opportunity to re-discover my past and I must say it was one hell of a journey. Though I pretend to be very humble most of times I can’t do it in this particular occasion because it’s just too big to be humble about (I am contemplating a movie once I have enough resources to fund it).

To begin with, my fore fathers were prosperous diamond merchants. They migrated to Nalgonda district from southern Coastal Andhra’s Nellore district 400 years ago. (Source: My great grandfather’s personal diary).

Though there are a number of anecdotes that I could narrate about the family I want to talk about one particular person who I find, besides my grand father, very intriguing. Shri Raavi Narayan Reddy, born in the year 1908, he is someone every person in the family now and for generations to come will look up to.

I guess it was the era, the period of freedom struggle that inspired many a young person like my great grandfather to leave lives of luxury and jump in to active public service and politics. Born in a family of a prosperous farmer and Zamindhar he had every luxury available but he chose to leave all of them behind to fight for his people. Besides being an active participant in the Civil Disobedience Movement he was also the pioneer of the Telangana Peasant struggle, which was also called the Andhra Mahasabha.

Under Nizam's rule in the native state of Hyderabad, the atrocities of landlords on the peasants knew no limits. `Vetti' and all other types of levies would be arbitrarily and forcibly imposed upon the rural population. Landlords' goondas armed with lathis, swords etc. would enforce the orders and wishes by beating up peasants and murdering those who resisted. The Nizam's administration and police invariably sided with the landlords. The Andhra Mahasabha as a mass organization started building up the resistance of the people. To ensure security for the people and leaders from the goondas of the landlords, the Andhra Mahasabha, which by then had come to be led by the Communists, started organizing squads and arming them with lathis. The struggle against landlords' atrocities and levies soon developed into a struggle for land. This implied a fight against the prevailing law as well as Nizam's rule, which as already in full support of the landlords. It is thus that the full character of the Telengana armed struggle developed. It grew into full-fledged guerilla warfare against the armed forces of the Nizam.

After India achieved Freedom, there was a conspiracy to keep the Hyderabad State (the largest native state in British India), as an independent entity right in the centre of the country. The Telengana struggle led by the Communists fought against this conspiracy of the Nizam, his Razakars and armed forces, his landlord supporters etc., incurring huge losses in lives. It paved the way for Hyderabad’s accession to India. The Struggle which went on from 1946 till 1951 when it was formally withdrawn was one of the most heroic struggles led by the communists. It was a battle against feudal oppression rampant in the state. About a thousand Jagirdars and Deshmukhs held one-third of the cultivable land, or 10 percent of the landowners held 80 per cent of land while 23.77 Lakh families (at that time) had no land at all. The fact that the Hindu feudal lords joined hands with the aggressively communal Razakars revealed the class nature of the struggle.

In this Telengana struggle, more than 4000 communists and their supporters lost their lives, but they could liberate 2,500 villages from the autocratic and oppressive rule of the Nizam, distribute about a million acres of land and eradicate `vetti' (forced labor). Among the 4000 people who lost their lives were people from my family. An inevitable bye-product of this struggle was the land struggle, the distribution of land belonging to the Jagirdars and landlords. The Bhoodan movement launched later by Vinoba Bhave was admittedly an aftermath of the Telengana struggle.

"Our movement which had begun with abolition of taxes, forced labor and with distribution of landlords' lands went ahead with the people distributing thousands of acres of waste, fallow and peramboke land. They took to cultivation of those lands. Lands enjoyed by the landlords with false revenue certificates were taken over and distributed. A ceiling on landlord's holding was fixed and the rest distributed among the people, particularly among agricultural workers and landless poor. All the lands, implements and cattle of landlords who were allies of the enemy were taken over and distributed. Documents of debts with moneylenders and landlords were destroyed and such debts made infructuous. Hundreds of quintals of food grains were taken over from the godowns of traitors and given away to the people. Wages of agricultural labor were raised. Toddy tappers were given toddy trees free of cost...” etc.
- Raavi Narayan Reddy

Post Independence he was elected to the first Indian Parliament as a representative of the People’s Democratic Front party. It is said that in the first general election he got more mandate than Pandit Nehru! He subsequently served a term in the A.P. State Assembly and then another term in the parliament. He passed away in the year 1991 at the age of 86. He was conferred Padma Vibhushan, the second highest civilian felicitation, in 1992 for his extraordinary contribution to the nation. He also received an Honorary Doctorate from Andhra University and a Kala Prapoorna for his proven inspirational literary prowess.

A simple search on his name on Google gave me around 130 hits, this alone indicates what I missed all these days. Though there is a lot left for me to learn and explore about my family and it's roots I believe that I made the right start and I suggest, if possible, everyone who’s reading this take some time off from your busy schedules and look back, in to the glorious past of your respective families, states and nations. I am sure you will find a lot of interesting stuff that will inspire you.

Some links:
Obituary Reference from the logs of the Parliament of India:
http://parliamentofindia.nic.in/ls/lsdeb/ls10/ses1/01110991.htm
Other links:
http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl1523/15231020.htm
http://www.solidnet.org/cgi-bin/agent?RedHistory/012=026.doc

Give it a thought!

Quite often I keep calling people who speak about Hindutva, religious Jingoists, intolerant mavericks etc.., but truly speaking I am one too. And I guess its time Hindus shed their pseudo secularist attitudes and think beyond their personal interests, into the interests of the religion.
The question we are asking today (If I can use the Rajdeep Sardesai phrase) is – “Are we Hindus too lenient about our religion?”
The bomb blast at the Sankat Mochan temple yesterday took lives of over 20 people and more importantly shattered the belief of a number of Hindus. This may not be the first such context to discuss about the atrocities against Hindus and Hinduism if one can remember the blasts in Delhi a day before Diwali or the Akshardham attack. I bet no one can dismiss these acts calling them as separate and disconnected, a closer look would clearly show that a definite pattern is emerging – A pattern that is indicating the eventual attack on the entire religion.
Just like the previous instances these attacks will also be quickly forgotten and people all over will get involved in their daily chores, trying to make this country and the planet a better place. Not that I am against that but, before doing that why don’t we remind ourselves about our basic responsibility, that towards our tradition and our religion. If we don’t do it now we won’t be left with any!

Indiyeah...

http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=1674437

Joey???

Question that can shatter your very core. Somehow many people refrain from discussing such things in public, but I can't.
Last few days I've been asked to answer many questions, Why this??? Why that??? Sometimes by people who deserve to ask and most of the times by people who do not. But there was this one TIME person who said... "u do not make much sense, but somehow people always do not interrupt when you speak"

"How you doin???"

PS: Shud have published this on the 19th of feb, better late than never...

Wait guys, I want to click

As a lady watched we climbed in through the other side of the vantage point. Though not a notable face, I watched her for she was the only soul watching and I desperately needed a reaction; I could see an amalgamation of shock and amazement in her eyes, for obvious reasons.
2 hours ago, Main entrance: Ravi and Chandra were desperately trying to finish the rather unusual no. of oranges they had bought in the tribal mela, probably to impress some of the ladies there. I tried to pull out my camera to take some pictures of the main entrance not knowing that all the effort with the camera will be futile*. Kallu, with his usual sense of hyper gaiety, was trying to adjust his camera memory card which BTW was enough only to accommodate a few more pictures while helping Ravi in Operation Oranges. Abhi and Chaitu again were busy with their own Charge Coupled Devices. For a moment I thought that we looked like a bunch of freelance photographers trying to get a desperate breakthrough story in a rather morose historical cave.
Operation Oranges was partly successful. Ravi decided to dump the remaining as he realized that eating any further would infuriate Abhi – the beast, probably the only one of its kind on the planet. We passed through the electronic, bar code driven entry gates and entered the main arena. I must admit, Mr.Naidu did a decent job. A bunch of guides, all dressed in gray uniforms were waiting for their share of Bakraas near the entrance. We picked one to guide us through. He introduced himself as Jairam Singh, an Oriya settled in Borra.
Our first visit to the Vantage Point: The view was magnificent and complete with a fresh water stream, mountains and deep valleys. As we enjoyed the view I noticed an old board anchored to one of the nearby rocks. The board read, Warning: Do not enter the water stream. It is known to have whirlpools. Caverne extraordinaire: Jairam with his peculiar accent narrated the history of the cave, manipulating facts to try and induce some sort of interest into his audience. I do not want to narrate either the story behind the discovery of the cave or the formations cave it self because they as usual are magnificent human interpretations of simple nature. The only interesting aspect is that they stood undisturbed from greedy human interventions for the past 150 Million years (at least board read so).
We walked through the cave listening to Jairam's blabber and doing the thing we were the best at. Clicking. Well now that I mentioned about Photography I can't resist but mention about Chaitu A.K.A Govinda, his extraordinary apetite for photography and his weird eye gear!!! You've gotto see the pics.
So we clicked everything that walked, crawled, stood straight or lied flat, with and without us in the foreground. Damn these Digital Cameras there is not importance left for Photography anymore.
The Two Caves: On our way back to the entrance, Jairam made an offer, rather a challenge, something our crew couldn’t resist. He pointed towards two caves which he referred to as left and right cave. He then narrated a rather bizarre story about two British explorers who tried to explore the right cave but never returned and as always we decided to buy trouble for 200 bucks.
My heart was screaming bloody Mary when the others decided to accept the offer. I was sure that something weird was going to happen, but then I gave in owing to the peer pressure. We had to trudge through a pile of plastic and wrappers (I guess these would stay for another 150 million years tooJ) before we could reach the entrance of the cave that was so dark that I could not something that was even a feet away. The only thing I could hear was the hysterical laugh of Kallu and repeated assurances from Abhiram. Some people can never give up their instincts, I thought. As I struggled through the first climb (my slippery sports shoes didn’t help me much) when I saw some light. It was Chaitu’s face lit in the dim light of the Camera LCD. He shouted, “Wait guys, I want to click”. For a moment I thought I should reach for a stone and fling it towards his head, but resisted. Every climb from there on seemed formidable and adding to my woes were Jairam’s untimely comments about quicksand on the right, my shoes and burps of hysterical laughs by Kallu.
Finally we made it we were out of the cave. After clicking a few more photographs (that was our primary goal remember) we slipped through the edge of the mountain to reach a, the water stream. I sighed in relief, exasperated with my decision to join the meaningless adventure I swore not to repeat any such act in the future. Having decided I wanted to enjoy for every bit of the effort I put and believe me, the stream was worth the effort and I guess it was so due difficult path.
Jairam signaled that it was time. We rose from the river filled with contentment and pride for making it through. I was particularly happy for overcoming my worst fear, and making it through. Unaware of the climax I innocently enquired about the way we would take to go back. Jairam with his usual, dull composure pointed towards a 300 ft Rocky hill. I was shocked, but then came the infamous statement from Jayaram*** which could have made me climb Mt.Everest with great ease. Pure survival instincts or male ego, I was better this time. We climbed the rough terrain made of marble (as if that was solace) barefoot and made it.

Our second visit to the Vantage Point: Definitely something I will remember for quite sometime. And considering my acute acrophobia it was quite an accomplishment to climb up a view point which I would otherwise view only from the other side of the railing.
And guess how did we celebrate….

We clicked. *I accidentally formatted my memory card.
**For a detailed description of the trip refer to Kallu's blog.
***"Kya Sir, Andhra ki ladkiya bhi yeh asaani se chad jaate hain..." I will never forget him for saying it:@

And life goes on…

Thought I would write a lot about my recent trip to Vizag and Tyada, but can’t. The day I landed in the city, I heard something that shook the ground off my feet. A little girl, one of my cousin’s children, succumbed to leukemia. All this happened in a matter of week. A seemingly healthy, 10 year old girl, learning basketball and excelling at school is down with mild fever and within a week things unfold and the disease shows it worst face gripping the little life and the ones around her.

Aspirations, dreams of a bright life are ripped off in a single blow and the worst was yet to come; the painful treatment. I do not want to provide facts and figures, coz they really do not make any sense once life is lost. The thing that troubles me is that while I was busy getting on with the chores of life, trying to make a difference, trying to fulfill my ambitions and goals, fighting my petty wars, someone, far younger than me, was fighting the worst battle ever; the battle for survival. And yet I couldn’t do much.

Life goes on….

Outsourcing

After my disastrous performance in CAT, I realized that there is not much left for me in this country and it’s high time I leave.
Having said that, I want to clarify that I love India and more than anyone else I want to prove it to myself that I do.

Last week was hectic. On Tuesday, I got a chance to meet and dine with some incredible people, people whom I could only imagine to be with in my dreams. I am not talking about either Kate Beckinsale or Salma Hayek but Akshaye Bhargava and Venkatesh Ramod. Obviously, I am nuts. You do not know who they are and they do need an introduction, unfortunately. Akshaye is the CEO of Progeon (the BPO Arm of Infosys) and Venkatesh that of Nipuna (the BPO arm of Satyam).

I met them and a lot of other top notch CEOs and COOs over lunch in the Sheraton. Sounds like a dream sequence from a regional film? It was surely like that. I must thank Sriram, one of my acquaintances in Infosys who arranged for it. Before you start envying this less fortunate soul, let me reveal that I got some passes for the Indiatimes BPO Conclave – An annual event conducted by the Times of India Group to facilitate thought provoking discussions on the BPO and ITES industry.

I surely was a misfit I neither belonged to the media nor the ITES industry, but, as the meeting advanced it proved to be interesting even for an outsider like me. Definitely, time well spent. Though I cannot quote everyone, among the no. of CEOs, Founders, CIOs and CFOs who spoke during the meeting, I can surely quote some.

Akshaye Bhargava – CEO of Progeon.

Profile: 22 yrs with CITI Bank at various levels. He was instrumental in setting up the E-Serve Customer Care (A Captive unit of Citibank). A finalist at the ERNST&YOUNG Entrepreneur of the Year Awards.

Educational Background: PGDBM IIMC

Views on BPO Industry: He was specifically optimistic about the future of Indian ITES and BPO industry and explained his optimism with objective reasons. (According to the latest NASSCOM Survey Software exports will touch an approximate 300 Billion dollars by 2010).

One important aspect of his analysis was that of the decrease in working population (25-40) around the world by 2020. Surprisingly, according to him, China would also have a scarcity of labor. And you know who clear winner here is…

(... come on Indians keep up the good work).

He also prophesied that Captive companies (BPOs of large Multinationals like HSBC etc..,) will do better than independent BPOs.

Raman Kumar – Founder & CEO, CBay Systems (A niche health care BPO)

Profile- Founded the company in 1998. Has over 22 years of experience in managing various public and private enterprises.

Educational Background- Masters in Organizational and Management studies, Yale University.

Views on BPO Industry: Mr. Raman Kumar, apart from briefing us about his and his company’s accomplishments, introduced us to something called Niche outsourcing and the pros and cons of it. He also explained his journey in founding a BPO, the research, marketing etc…,

Anthony Joseph – Director - HR, Convergys

Profile – Prior to convergys he served at sumilar positions in Deloitte and EDS.

Educational Background – MBA from XLRI, Jamshedpur.

Views on BPO Industry: Anthony Joseph was particularly candid in replying to questions about attrition rates prevalent in the industry. He spoke about Branding of a company, employee satisfaction among others.
One particular statement, I remember jotting down in my pad and probably will remember for a while is “Brands should tickle both the external and internal customers of an organization. Brands should reflect the true values followed by the company and any effort to disguise will eventually fail”.

Take away from the meeting: Apart from the scrumptious network lunch the meeting was definitely an eyeopener about the immense opportunity in the field of BPO and KPO. The only thing that is essential here is a creative idea and thorough research to implement.

Current Music: U2- I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For

Feel my Love

Past few days have been different; an amalgamation of both sorrow and happiness seems to have taken over me transforming my perception towards life. People say that I sound utterly irksome when I talk philosophy. Excuse me guys, you should think of coming back to this space later, I bet you will have a tough time resisting a tearJ.

All these days I’ve been using my Blog to publish stuff that that might interest others without realizing that it’s about me and my state of mind. Better late than never…

Have you ever felt that whatever is going on in your life is a part of a huge conspiracy, a conspiracy that the almighty carefully crafted only to ruin you?

I do, whenever something that I really long for does not happen, whenever I stand in front of my office building at 730 in the morning not knowing whether or why I should enter it. People keep reiterating that I should shed my pessimism and try to be optimistic. Crap! I definitely want to, given a chance or a reason.

I saw a girl, a girl with no name, place, religion or sect (atleast not to my knowledge). With a little knowledge of her first name I started pursuing a research. These days, thanks to the numerous online communities and blogs every person has a presence on the web, atleast most of them do. Software Life gives us very little oppurtunity to pursue anything interesting and a research on the web to find someone you like is always a welcome for it gives a strange sense of Kick or High something probably only a qualified CIA agent can really articulate! Anyways, its simple, atleast I find it to be. All you need to, is to have a good sense of judgement and guess, atleast vaguely, the objects (that is what I will be calling her from now to help the female patrons relate to the thesis) interests.

But this particular case, the object was surely a tough nut to crack for one reason, it had varied interests. And thats precisely why I am pursuing an entire story for it. A seemingly innocent, cute looking, highly articulate, socially responsible, knowledgeable and funny object. A personification of perfection and definitely an endangered species in these times. I would have shared the photograph but won’t, for obvious reasons (there’s loads of competition guys!!!). For a more accurate description of the object please refer to one of my previous posts.

I will not reveal the process I followed either, but yeah, I promis that to do so as soon as I get the much awaited patent for the same. Patrons can definitely contact me with their requests, I promise to deliver excellent results at nominal charges.

The research culminated after I found the objects personal blog on the web and much to my surprise and shock it was taken! And the point that it was has made me long more for it.

I do not see reason why I should I be pursuing this blog further but for myself, neither my family nor my friends seem to reflect my thoughts. What I am doing here is troubling yet another beautiful piece of electronics that’s in front of me. I do not give a damn; let it burn in hell. I will continue to pursue it and the blog.

Current Music: Selections from Balaji Pancharatnamala- M.S. Subbalakshmi

The Beauty killed the Beast

Human emotions have always intrigued me but this time it was an ape that did the job. KING KONG a remarkable motion picture which conquered millions of hearts since it was first made a 73 years ago (The original was made in 1933) not only because of its amazing visual effects but also because of its striking Humanness.

The movie set in the early 1930’s is a story of a struggling actress and her tryst with the mighty Kong- an ape like no other. Anne (played by the beautiful Naomi Watts) is a performer who's just lost her livelihood, she meets a creative movie director (played by Jack Black) who casts her for his new movie. The movie which is to be shot in an undiscovered island Far East proves to be a big disaster when the crew is attacked by aborigines. Anne is abducted and offered as a prey to the King. Fortunately the king is charmed with Anne, so much so that he not only saves her from other creatures of the land but also falls head over heels for her. The lady too starts liking the king. Surprising! Well, who wouldn’t fall for a man who could take over 4 Tyrannosaurs to save his lady? But Destiny plays villain; the director decides to drug the king and transport him to New York. And there he is, chained and showcased in the Broadway in front of a huge gathering.

Kong, who lived like a king in his land is reduced to a mere visual spectacle. But still he longs to catch a glimpse of his lady love. Frustrated with the separation he breaks open the chains and goes on a rampage in New York in search of Anne whom he finally finds.

The movie ends with a spectacular shot over of the Empire estate building and the subsequent death of Kong; again trying to save his love.

Probably the beauty did manage to slay the beast (with in).

The subtlety in depiction of human emotions, the melodrama and the romance between them are truly marvelous. Though the movie boasted of a number of Academy award winners/ nominees etc.., the real hero was different, someone who can never be captured live.

Viewing advice:

I would recommend this movie to all those who consider them sensitive.
People who try to dissect the chemistry between the lead characters or those who try to arrogate the presence of Sears’ tower in New York may abstain.

In the name of secularism...

Am really not sure on how many people who are reading this will share such strong feelings as mine. If you are one among them, you can comfortably certify yourselves brain-dead and stop reading further!
Secularism -– in the Indian context is to protect the interests of the minority, however eccentric they are, at the cost of the majority. Though we observe this, we remain oblivious, too busy with our mundane shit trying to make another penny by licking any filthy ass that lets us do so.
If you started thinking, this guy is nuts, give me a minute and I will prove how numb you are. I saw something today, something that shook me to the core. It was a huge hoarding of SaddamHusseinn, displayed in front of a popular mosque in a minority area of the city. There were a couple of others with me, who dismissed it to be something very unimportant not because they were busy trying to finalize nuclear policies, but because they had to catch a quick nap. I started thinking, where are we drifting? And more importantly, was I over reacting? I guess not.
Touch down In**, and what do I see a bunch of people busily preparing for the upcoming festival of another minority community. Why? They aren'’t sure why. Some, so called progressive thinkers may contest my stand in the name of secularism. Then, why not celebrate our festivals with the same zeal? Hypocrites! I guess it's time we try to be true to our religion, and then think about feigning secularism.

HOWZZAT! Or did we get a chance to say that...

People often accuse me of being very morose when there is no need to be so. Well, this time, they won’t. Though there is no room for humor since we lost the match, it is funny in a different way. As one of our able commentators (and ironically, the umpire too) put. “This match wasn’t won either by runs or wickets”. Well, I must tell him, brother, we are different.

Fundoo! Don’t know what they meant, this game of cricket was mutilated until there was no essence of the game left in it. Well, I cannot understand completely on why I signed in for it. I guess it was due to one of my able friends who decided to form a team, motivate and ultimately ditch us for attending his “moo bola” sister’s marriage. How can someone make a sister in college? Guess what he would have said to her – “Hi, Can you be my sister???” Anyways, he’s different ;).

It was chilly winter night (and I am going back to my usual morose narrating self), and we, after endlessly discussing strategies for the game (some even scripted songs to boost the team morale) decided to gear up for the match. I hopped into my Nikes and track pants; I guess I was using them for their true purpose for the first time. As we walked towards the stadium, I could hear some of my teammates narrating their victory tales, and some humming a famous song from Lagaan. Cricket, even if played with the dearest of friends for fun is taken too seriously in this part of the world, I thought. As we reached the well lit volley ball court transformed into a cricket pitch we found that it was already occupied. The referee quickly tried to sum up the absurd sounding rules. As we waited for him to finish, we exchanged silent albeit hostile glances with the opponent team. We won the toss and elected to bat and all our batsmen did a fantastic job taking the total net score to 67 in 7 Overs losing 0 wickets. Surprising! The rules were like that. So far so good, things were to change now.

Our bowlers (including myself) swore that they have done formal bowling for their respective college teams before. Some even went to an extent of revealing their past associations with some of the national players. Just when our captain thought that we are in safe hands, our motley crew started revealing their true colors. For a moment, I got confused on which team we were playing for. I promptly walked to the bowler to remind him of team diligence and the negative aftermaths of match fixing.

Things didn’t change. I guess the opposite team adopted some kind of voodoo technique to alter the thinking pattern of our bowlers. After conceding over a half century in extras we finally completed the match 14 minutes late.
We lost, with dignity!

Perdition, Our Destination...

Over a billion Indians, a problem or an opportunity...

A topic for which die-hard indian optimists say latter and so-called "pessimists", former. I feel it isn't even a topic!

Well the rationale behind such a feeling is not new. It is all pervasive but most of us choose to be comfortably oblivious. A close observation of small, mundane things like the condition of the travellers in the public transport or even the traffic on the main streets in the town should help the uninitiated understand what we've embarked upon. Any one with a miniscular amount of imagination can extrapolate the aftermaths of such a huge population explosion. It really scares me, imagining the conditions that we would need to endure 10 or even 5 years from now gives me nightmares, literally.

Why do we indians, who take pride in our mathematical and calucational capabilities not understand the simple effects of population. Is it because of our uncontrollable sexual urge, this isn't completely true. A recent survey conducted by a "good for no other thing" national daily suggests that we are among the last few countries in that context. So, where do all these babies come from??? Does every f*** in the country mean a baby. If that's so, probably, the goverment should revamp their condom campaign roping in live models to display the pleasures involved in love-making with out resulting in a baby.

I feel, that the core cause for this is a mad rat race. A race every indian community is indulging to increase their numbers. Muslims (Spare me for being blatant), i believe are told in their religious meetings, "Bacche Allah ke den hote hain, hum bas une darthi par lathe hain" - so go on friends, keep indulging. For an average indian, giving birth to a child is as important as it is for a stray dog. No one tries to waste their otherwise busy brains to think what will be the repurcussions of bringing a life to this planet. Can't blame a individual, it's in the system. Every male with the ability to reproduce aspires to be a father, if not for anything but to prove his manhood.

I guess it's time to ask our selves:
Are we are misusing freedom? Do we deserve the independence?
And Remember, we do not have much time, coz if this continues it won't be far when nature decides to get even.

Right next door to hell...

Sounds spooky? Let me take the honor (bestowed on me by myself) to present to you one of the most fascinating stories from College. It was narrated to me many a time by a number of my beloved friends (and also foes).
It was a dull Sunday afternoon, some time during our 1st semester exams and I, as usual was sitting in my room cursing the upcoming exam, the course content, the faculty and also to an extent myself, for not doing things on time. My room, being the most accessible one in the hostel was one of the most frequented and popular places in the hostel - could be called a proverbial Times Square, New york of the hostel, "if you stay long enough in room 64 in Cauvery, you would have met everyone in the hostel". Though this proved to be a real pain in the ass then, upon retrospection, I feel that such frequent visits by people from various backgrounds endowed me with ability to handle different kinds of people. Just then, one of my frequent visitors, Das - the quasi Tam Bengali (he wasn't sure about his own ethnicity) walked in with a so called "terrorizing" story.

At first I didn't give in, but as he narrated it to me I started believing in it. He sure was convincing. "Do you know this?" Das started. "Why do you think Room 41, the room next to mine, is not allotted to anyone?" I thought he was nuts. He went on "It's because it's haunted, a lady was raped and subsequently murdered in that room and it has been locked ever since" He swore that he got this story from a credible source. Though I did not believe in it at that moment, it was always there at the back of my mind whenever I visited his room, especially if I did so late in the nights.

It did not take much time before it became a well known phenomenon in the entire hostel, a favorite topic among late-nighters. And one of the last few people who came to know about it was Mohan, Das' hallowed roommate. Mohan was a typical panty waist, with little or no courage especially in matters of the supernatural realm.

Things returned to normal within days after the story broke out and it was soon forgotten by most of the hostilities, except a few who probably remember it even now. The exams seemed more intimidating than a horror story for others. It was during a cold winter night during the 2nd semester when everyone was reminded of the story, again.

Before, I narrate this incident, which I wasn't lucky enough to be a part of. I would want to introduce some of the main characters involved and ofcourse warn weakhearts to abstain from reading further!

Firstly, Dasarathy A.K.A. Das, a seemingly confused rock star and a self confessed balm addict (just like me).

Siddharth A.K.A. Baalu, well nothing's really weird about him except for his hair.

Kashyap A.K.A. Mota, my favorite, can't resist but laugh in his company.

And

Finally, Mohan, well, you will get to know him.

This gang with a few others (not very significant to be mentioned in the story) decided to hit a movie theatre on a Friday evening to watch a latest flick in Gandhi class. Bangalore has a weird theatres' system with exorbitant prices and atrocious conditions and we, students always preferred the cheapest fare (A.K.A. Gandhi Class). The movie was great, the dinner at RotiGhar scrumptious but all these things ate up a lot of time. It was half past midnight; the last bus to reach R.V. had already left Majestic. Since most of them were new to the city they did not have an idea of either the transport system or the city in general. One of the prudent members, who was familiar with the local transport system suggested the late night Mysore passenger. After a series of arguments and counter arguments the idea was accepted. The gang embarked the night passenger at the city station.

The train reached Kengeri Satellite town. Kengeri being one of the closest towns to RV, was a well known place which students visited on weekends for replenishing their supplies of noodles and tiger biscuits, and of course for haircuts.

It was 1 o clock and since there was no other mode of transportation available, they decided to walk the approx. 2.5 kms stretch between kengeri and RV. The stretch between RV and Kengeri had a well lit portion through the well inhabited colonies followed by a deserted patch with huge intimidating trees and finally a railway track. And typical to a small satellite town, people over there preferred to sleep early.

The roads were deserted but the thoughts going through the members weren't. The group was split into 3 subgroups depending on the eagerness of the memebers to reach the hostel. The first set of people including Mohan were eager to reach the hostel had mixed thoughts about their academics and the deserted surroundings. The second set, was busy trying to catch a nap as they trudged the way. And the final set, was busy laughing, talking and discussing out babes from college. Das, Baalu and Mota were among the third set.

As they passed through the deserted colonies and reached the open area the heartbeat of each of the member started rising. Only one thought dominated all their minds, "what's going on in the fast approaching graveyard?"

Soon they reached the place, mohan was the first to cross the place and as he approached it he increased his pace. Das, Mota and Baalu stopped their chat to concentrate on the speed. No one wanted to spend time there.

Suddenly, something hit Mohan on his head, he noticed that it was a rather unusual looking stone. He dismissed it to be an illusion and started walking again, a bit more briskly now.

The group reached the hostel and after saying cursory goodnight to each other they went to their respective rooms. Das, mohan reached their room and as they enetered the room mohan narrated the stone incident. Das was too sleepy to listen so dimissed it as an illusion.

Next morning, mohan saw something that shook him completely. He was try to set his cot and when he lifted the pillow found the same stone under it. He did not have an explanation, so did Das. But Das speculated that may be its the ghost next door that's trying to make a point. Reminding people of it's presence. The news about the incident soon reached everyone in the hostel. Mohan received incessant enquiries about so much so that by dusk, that day he was out of his wits. He decided to inform his pop who was 2500 kms away and take his advice.

I reached their room at about the same time to enquire about the story. I wasn't the first to do so, there were a number of his close friends in the room already. There was an unusual gaiety in the room, I couldn't quiet comprehend on what was goin on. One of the patient souls there spared sometime from the revelry to explain me.

Somethings may never have a rational explanation. As I sit alone at half past midnight to pen this story, my thoughts are still wandering around that haunted room. Perhaps with a sense of nostalgia!