Memories of Bangalore

It’s been one year since I left Bangalore and been in Delhi. However I still miss Bangalore every now and then. It’s really strange that I have these feelings now as I used to complain a lot about the city when I was living there. Although I have always considered that Pune is the best city for me to live and settle down, the three years which I spent in Bangalore while working in an IT company, have created a lasting impression on my mind and gifted me with some wonderful memories which I will cherish forever. However in hindsight, I can see that Bangalore came into my life as a rude shock. After joining TCS as a fresh engineering grad, I had fantastic 2 month induction programme at Thiruvananthapuram. I had great time there, roaming around the place and watching the splendid natural beauty of God’s own country. But one day, all of sudden, our batch was summoned to assemble in a hall and each one was told about his/her posting location by HR, without asking for our preferences. Everyone was thrown out of their comfort zones and was left feeling like a fish out of water. Only a handful of people were lucky to get location of their choice. Unfortunately I was not one of them. I was clearly disappointed to know that I have been kicked to Bangalore.

As a youngster born and brought up in Maharashtra, I had many preconceived scary notions about south Indian cities with regard to food, weather, language, costumes blah blah. However, Bangalore proved them to be wrong. The city has a pleasant and salubrious weather throughout the year. This green city of gardens and parks receives rains for almost half of the year and its always a drizzle through the day J. The mercury hovers between 20 and 35 Degrees C. If you are in Bangalore, be assured that you will never get parched in hot and dry summer sun. Also you will not be frozen to death in chilly winter days. After getting royally pampered by awesome weather of Bangalore for 3 years, I am struggling hard to adjust myself to extreme weather conditions in Delhi.

The best thing which happened to me in Bangalore is my room mates, a bunch of 5 guys who became my best buddies for life and with whom I had superb time there. Each one of them being different and special to me. Let me talk about them here. Let me begin with Jatin. He was an odd ball amongst us. A typical Delhi guy who was not an engineer and who did not understand Marathi. Poor fellow used to get irritated a lot when rest of us used to talk in Marathi. I would say he tried to come across as a strong and tough guy. But I always knew that like a coconut, he appears tough from outside but is actually tender and vulnerable from inside. He is a straight talking, no nonsense guy who has always been warm and friendly with me. He always has plans for his life and he makes sure that they come true. Contrary to the predictions made by our so called astrologer friend Tushar, he got married this year itself. He was the only non drinking guy amongst us who still used to accompany us on binge drink parties for the sheer pleasure of watching drunkards in the act J .

Bangalore transformed me from an occasional drinker into a connoisseur. The city deserves to be declared not only the IT capital but also the boozing capital of India. No where else will you find so many watering holes mushroomed all over the city. The young IT and BPO crowd who wants to relax and unwind themselves on weekend after slogging their butts off in the office on weekdays has led to opening of so many pubs and discos across the city. The brigade road, M.G. Road and Koramangala are the favourite hang out destinations for these youngsters. I have explored the city in search of new drinking venues several times. Going for drinks on every Friday night was kind of my hobby in Bangalore and waiting for the next weekend was my favourite time pass thereJ. I have been to almost every boozing spot in and around Brigade road. Be it The Pub World, NASA, Stykes, Night watchman, Hard rock café, Mojo, Flames or Purple Haze. Now this indulgence did come with its own price. It used to create a deep hole in my pocket when I used to pay my credit card bills every month. But I was a careless young chap then who used to get a decent pay in the hay days of IT industry and was ready to splurge all my money.

When it comes to boozing in Bangalore, I have to talk about Subhash, the leading tippler of our groupJ. Whenever you are with this guy, you will never get bored. This quintessential Kolhapuri Marathi Manoos with his characteristic humour and language has made a big transformation within him. In his journey from junk stuff working techie sitting in the corner cubicle of an IT company to the Mechanics lab of IIT, he has not only changed his profession but also his personality, habits and even his drinking acts. He is now restraining himself from not indulging into drinking more than once in a month or so. That is unbelievable for me! But as you know old habits die hard. So even now whenever we are having drinks together, we discussion gets carried away to the topic of women. We talk a lot about them, from the college crushes to the Bollywood heartthrobs, no one is spared! I still remember our silly argument about who would be a better wife? Madhuri or Urmila J . I don’t know how and when we started calling him Bhava (Bro! in Marathi), but he deserves to be called so !

The only guy in our group who had a girl in his life before coming to Bangalore was Idris. Well he had found the love of his life and we all have been witness to his Pyaar ke side effects, from the round about trips to Akola via Pune and huge cell phone bills despite subscribing to all schemes, we have seen it all. This guy has potential to shock and surprise you every time with his ideas. He will demonstrate his extraordinary genius with a superb idea now and then spoil it all with an equally dumb one in the next moment. He lives his life on his own terms and makes the most of every moment. He is always there to help you if you are lucky to have a friend like him J.

My first lessons in managing customers began well before I joined MBA course and my tutor was the tiffin guy in Bangalore, Mr. Arjun. He always had a smile on his face, never lost his temper and would do sweet talking to cajole us to make advance payments every month. He always used to employ his out of the box thinking to come up with very imaginative yet realistic excuses to cover serious lapses in his service. He would never miss on a single opportunity to make money. He was the carpenter, electrician, plumber and painter, all packed in one. The ultimate solution provider to all your house keeping problems !

Along with Jatin, Swapnil was the other member of Sarna House who was in my batch of ILP (Initial Learning Programme) of TCS in Thiruvananthapuram. Within a couple of weeks of ILP, we had become fast friends. We always use to go out together for eating, shopping, movies etc etc. He is a smart and hardworking guy who was more disciplined among Sarna house members. Not to mention his cooking skills. You got to eat poha and tea made by him in the breakfast to believe me. I still remember that in one of ice breaking sessions, he had introduced himself as Samajhdar Swapnil. He is just like that! But as they say men will always be men and this guy is also no exception. When it comes to Females, his intelligent mind is overtaken by emotional heart and he can do all stupid things in lifeJ. For example, he has changed his look forever from the day when one of the eye candy teachers in ILP complemented him about his French cut beard look. Now the complement has becomes more than 4 years old, but the beard still stays on meticulously carved out and well maintained J .

There are lots of tourist destinations and weekend trip spots near Bangalore. I have seen some of them like Mysore, Coorg, Udupi etc. But the biggest of them all , at 10 hours road journey distance is Goa ! It is famous for wine and sea. But I was fascinated by the calm, soothing, laid back life in Goa which helps you get rid of all your tensions and worries in life. Go for walk on the beach in the morning and evening, have Goan food delicacies for lunch, enjoy water sports during the day and go to the disco at night. Not to forget, drinking whiskey and beer every now and then. What a life that was! We were staying on a secluded beach, Vagatur Beach, far from the crowded ones, with an old fort nearby and lot of hippie whites around us. While strolling through small lanes of nearby market in the evening, I could see them playing guitar and singing songs, having beer and smoking grass, gambling to test their luck with slot machines and playing cards. Goa provides you an awesome experience, next to achieving nirvana J. Ask me any day for Goa and I would come jumping all over !

In Sarna House, there was a bat that would be awake till late night watching movies on TV, even if its 100^th repeat telecast. His name is Tushar. A brainy and lazy bump, who have varied interests such as Astrology, Films, cricket blah blah. I chose to call him bat for one more reason, which is his fetish for black colour clothes. I have went for shopping with him so many times and have always seen him buying Jeans and T shirts with shades of black and gray. I know him from my engineering college days. He is a nice, warm, sensitive and friendly guy. He is ambitious and confident of himself. He is quite serious and committed to the work. It might take some time for you to be friend with him. But once the bond is in place, it will last forever. During my last six months in Bangalore, We used to go for drinks almost every weekend to nearby Goguras and Madhuri Grand hotels. There we used to discuss anything and everything under the sun. Not only our hotels but our orders were also kind of fixed, either whisky or vodka with masala peanuts and finger chips. What a great time we had together in those days!

Now you might be thinking that I am so much smitten with Bangalore that I seem to perceive it as the perfect city of an ideal world. But that is not the case. Not everything is hunky dory over there. The city’s infrastructure is inadequate and not able to cope up with its exponential growth. The biggest issue is of traffic. Once you get stuck in a jam, you don’t have any other option but to pray to god to clear it soon. There are no alternate roads. The public transport is also not good enough. It’s ironic that the city which has flourished due to growth of service sector industry, gives you extremely poor services. Auto drivers are very adamant and rude. They will charge you extra fares anytime. If you go to a hotel , you will be at the mercy of waiter to take and bring your order and there is no use of protesting about delays and food quality.

Pheww..This is the longest blog post I have written so far, consisting of almost 2000 words. If you happen to read it till here, you might have been bored and pissed off…or you may have like it (am I being over optimistic ?). Whatever it is, just let me know. Let me stop testing your patience further and stop it here…Byee!

P.S: Well, I have not written abt the place and people with whom I spent my maximum time in Bangalore. The place is my Office there in Whitefield and the people are my office friends Pradeep, Sumesh, Sindhu, Hari and Kishore. All of us had joined the same project as freshers at the beginning of the project itself. During first few months, we were all trained in CAD/CAM and later put into different work groups. But there was always the common thread joining us together. And yeah, as rightly mentioned by Pradeep in the comment, I spent the maxium amount of time with him in the project. This guy, with a smile on his face, is a chatter box who can do non stop bakaar all the time. But he really makes you feel comfortable with him. Thanks to him, I used to take atleast 3-4 smoking breaks in a day even without lighting a single cigarette in office :) He is a funny and humorus guy. But, at the same time he takes his work seriously. We had amazing work co-ordination between ourselves. Many times we have seen movies together by bunking office after lunch. But then, a lot more times, we have also slogged through nights to complete project deliveries . I am lucky that from my Bangalore connexion team, along with Subhash and Jatin, Pardya (aka Pradeep) is also there in Delhi. Looking forward to meet you soon buddy !

Oh my Sweetheart

She is the sexy dusky skinned well endowed smart looking whore standing on the roadside. Truly professional, she is ready to go with anyone who can pay her price. She dresses well with bright colours like green and blue and her clothes are often embellished with silver and golden frills at the top or bottom. Every time I pass her, she always seems to entice me with her inviting eyes. I first met her when I was in my engineering college. It was an unexpected encounter when my friend introduced me to her in the broad day light afternoon. It all started off with a casual hook up. When she first kissed me, I hated her. But as time passed, we started meeting often. I being a reluctant young boy then tried to act as a hard person to win over. But she being an expert lured me into falling in her trap. Every time when I am depressed, when I am jubilant or I am just getting bored, I dream of her with a naughty suggestive smile on her face and her open arms eager to hug me.

She is smooth and seductive. Her touch is sensual and her kiss is so moving. When I am lying in her arms, she makes me forget my worries, relieves me of all stress, liberates me from the melancholy, morbidity and mundanity of life, makes me laugh and then I sleep like a 2 year old baby holding her tight. She is strange. Every time I do it with her, she reminds me of my lost love even when she is caressing my heart and seducing my mind. She is submissive and shy in the beginning, but as the passions reach pinnacle, she becomes wild and takes control of me. She is insatiable. She consumes me completely and still craves for more of me. She is bitchy and audacious. She is promiscuous and flirtatious. She plays games with my friends even when I am holding her hand in a party. She sometimes embarrasses me with her tricks. She fancies of group orgy with many mates and is jealous of other hookers. Sometimes I hate her, sometimes I love her. But the fact remains that I can't live without her. The next day morning, when I wake up, when the carnal desires have vanished in the morning light and the lust has given way to love, I want to hold her hand with mine. But the whore is already gone, leaving me alone sulking deep inside!

People call her bottle of whisky, vodka, rum or wine. I simply call her sweetheart !

P.S. This post is written without consuming alcohol at all :D

Lessons from Corporate World

If you are working or you wish to work in the corporate world in future, here are some tips for your success or atleast survival :

First of all, remember that you are a smart ass.You are highly intelligent and knowledgeable person. Saying 'I don't know' is a taboo.
Most importantly you are always busy...nope..extremely busy...at least you have to pretend to be very busy. If you are easily accessible to your juniors, you don't deserve your job.
You always drink your coffee in your cubicle. That makes others realize that you are busy.
You are always working on critical and confidential projects.
You should not provide clear , detailed instructions to your juniors. That makes his task less challenging (easier in other words) and devoid him of freedom of thought and actions.
You should be attending lot of meetings. At least four a day. If you don't get sufficient meeting invites in a day, you arrange a meeting yourself. Unplanned meetings always catch attention of others and invites for the same are always precious. Meetings are always to be held in meeting rooms only. Sitting in the cubicle and discussing does not meet the corporate world meeting standards.
Global gyan is a virtue to possess and practised but should not be preached i.e. you should always discourage others from practicing it.
You are always expected to address your boss as "Mr. boss". That is a sign of respect (and a way for pampering his ego).
At least one excel sheet and one ppt should always be open on your laptop. If you are still using a desktop, you are fooling yourself (you are not the corporate guy ).
You should be getting at least 50 mails in a day. If you don't, you are facing the challenge of oblivion.
You should be really good at multi tasking. You should always take your calls while working on your system.
You ask your junior to work only when it is a super urgent task with tight deadlines. Such work pressure helps you to keep him on his toes and improve his efficiency. After all deadlines are called so because they are supposed to make someone dead if he misses it.
Appreciation is the fundamental right of your superiors and a highly sought after incentive for your juniors. Make sure that your appreciations are always based on this discretion.
The thumb rule says that in the morning, the least important person in the office should be the first one to enter it. The more late you can afford to come, more important you are.
This rule is simply turned upside down when it comes to leaving the office. If you don't work till late night, your commitment to work is questionable. Your stay in office is considered to be directly proportional to the amount of work you do, as your efficiency is always super high.
Don't forget that you are expected to be working 24X7. You also need to make sure that your juniors also work 24X7. If you can't assure that, you are not fit to be the manager.
Cynicism and criticism are essential qualities of successful corporate person. After all only experts can find out flaws.

MBA so far

I am almost through half of my MBA course as my third trimester is coming to an end. From last few days one thought has been haunting me like never before. I don't know how to express it most effectively. Anyways, here it is ..
When I came here to do MBA, I was expecting that I would experience a tiring and thoroughly satisfying Intellectual Orgasm in doing this course. However I have realised that forget about the orgasm, I am not even feeling the erection out of it ! The global meltdown and bleak, uncertain future frustrates me more. And when I think about it, I could blame myself more than anything else for this state of affairs !
Earlier I had heard many stories of MBA students slogging day and night in their libraries and hostel rooms finishing assignments and working on presentations. But my own experience has been quite contradictory. Here I am keeping my self busy by indulging in many activities apart from/other than study.
My laptop has become my sweetheart here and like a mother of a new born baby I cant keep it away from myself for long time. I almost feel like crying if it stops working. But what am I doing on my laptop?? Here is the laundry list..
The top most item on the list is Music. My laptop has helped me to transform my interest in music into a passion. Thanks to 24X7 wi-fi net access, I am downloading all kinds of songs from bhoole bisare geet of binaka geetmala days to current English chart busters.
Next comes Films. Although I was never a movie buff and I still watch less movies compared to my friends over here, its relatively quite high compared to my earlier life.
Although my real life socializing has declined significantly after coming to Delhi, it has been more than compensated by my virtual life socialising.Be it Gtalk, Yahoo msngr or orkut. They never let me feel lonely and I spend many hours chatting.
Last but not the least is my newly found addiction. It has overtaken me completely. Its the high I get out of blogging. Defying candid opinions of my friends about my blog being mediocre and boring, I keep on posting my entries. Try to attract eyeballs by adding pics and other gadgets and attempt to accidentally direct someone to my blog site by promoting it through unsolicited mails, status msgs etc. But can you really blame a guy who is inebriated due to addiction. However I am sure than I am not the only one hooked onto blogging. there are thousands others like me in this virtual world.
And what about reading online newspapers, journals, tracking sensex, preparing reports and ppts? Well those are the activities for the stereotype MBA students. Mavericks and rebels like me don't indulge myself in those morbid and mundane activities. I always rely on my self proclaimed high productivity, my extraordinary and time tested Jugaad skills and natural ability to do nonstop bakar.
Now lets return back to the real world.
Alec smart once said that most of the innovations in this world have been made by intelligent and lazy people . On this basis, I think of myself as an innovative person. However, my friends turned critics don't agree with me completely. They are not sure whether I possess the first attribute but are quite sure about the second one. They corroborate it by saying that I am a dirty bump owing to my seldom washed clothed, my bathing on alternate days and once in a week shaving schedule. But they fail to understand that I am making a style statement here. That I am a rough, rustic and austere guy. I am saving water and electricity by bathing less frequently. Besides washing clothes several times make them look old and leads to colour fading. Now some people compare my room to a garbage dump yard as my clothes and books are spread all over the place. My cup board and drawers are over flowing and the newspapers are lying all over (although I rarely read them). But such a random, non regimented and flexible system is more stable, convenient for user and keeps everything at same accessibility.
That's all for tonight. I have had enough of blogging for the day. Its 1:30am and I have to start reading for 2 quizzes on 2moro. Wish me good luck. Byeee :)

Random Ramblings

You are holding me with my arm and we are walking on the busy street..
In between I look at you and you look at me.
You smile with a blush and I stare you again.
Your eyes are beautiful and there is no pain.
Your skin is smooth and your lips are tender.
Your face is cute and your hands are silver.
You dress simple and yet look like an angel.

We cross the road and I buy you an ice cream.
You always order butterscotch which is favorite of mine.
I mess up my ice cream and you wonder every time.

We stroll into a park and see the kids playing around.
You kiss and hug a baby crawling on the lawn.
The baby smiles and you are happier now.

You tell me so many things about your life, but that goes in vain.
Because I listen to your voice and not what words you explain.
You giggle when you come to know all I done as insane.
And now you hold me again.

I move close to you body and look into your eyes.
I remove your hair band and play with your hair.
I hold your face in my hands and your heart starts beating fast.
You tell me something in my ear and I close my eyes.
you now quietly disappear from around.
Suddenly I get a feeling of deja vu in my mind.
I hear Justin Timberlake saying in the background
"What goes around, goes around, goes around
Comes all the way back around ".

Slumdog Millionaire is awesome !

The heightened interest of westren world in India is manifested by many films made recently by several western and NRI directors with themes based on Indians. Slumdog Millionaire is the latest one in this series. It is based on the book 'Q & A' written by Indian diplomat Vikas Swaroop. Since I have not read the book, I can not comment on whether the director, Danny Boyle has been successful in accurately translating the book into film or which one of the two is better. But Kudos to Danny Boyle for creating an awesome film ! True to his reputation, the film has been directed exceptionally well. It is a story of an impoverished slum youngster, Jamal winning on the tv show 'Who wants to be a Millionaire'. With each question of the quiz, the story takes you to different incidents of his life which have helped him to answer questions correctly. However this extraordinary success on the game show lands Jamal into trouble with suspicions



of cheating in the game. Anyways, some scenes of the film touch your heart and make you realize and appreciate what a struggle it is to live life for such children from slums. But you never feel pity about it and believe in the strength and courage of characters to handle all situations. The film has a fast paced story line and a bit of humour sprinkled in between. The performances of all artists are amazing especially the kids have done a brilliant job. No surprise that the film has won 4 Grammy awards and 10 BAFTA nominations so far !
The other films which I have seen recently include Australia, The man from earth and Taxi driver. On a scale of 1 to 5, I would rate them as 3, 4 and 2 respectively.

Annual perdiction: Movie time

If the first few days of 2009 are any indications of the future and specifically rest of the year, I would say I have become a couch potato (bed potato in my case) watching movies one after the other for endless time. With the economic slowdown, I guess, its natural for a person to indulge in reel world and get rid of tensions of real world. Anyways, my movie watching spree began at the end of 2008 with Ghazini, one of the most awaited and talked about movie of 2008. But the movie did not meet my expectations. I would say its a bad copy of the cult film 'Memento'.
For me it was a long movie with over stretched end with lots of crying and shouting in between. In Memento, the director has been able to turn a nonsensical story line into an extra ordinary fiction with the idea of shooting the film in reverse chronological order. That keeps the viewer engaged till end. However, Ghazini lacks this quality. It seems the director was in a dilemma as to whether he should make a total romantic or an all out action movie. In trying to conjure both, he made a film with distinctive patches of romance and action stitched together. On music front, Rehman disappointed me. Except 2 songs which I am sure will fed away from popular imagination in 3-4 months, rest songs are just ordinary and forgettable.
Next in my list of movies is one more movie shot in reverse chronological order i.e. 'Irreversible'. The dark movie with nerve wrecking scenes of a gruesome killing in the pub and 9 minute long terrible Rape scene shot in a subway, evokes extreme reactions in viewer. It reminded me of Bandit Queen, another disturbing movie. Many scenes here start with wide rotating camera in dimly lit background, triggering dizziness in your head and strain on your eyes. But the film does not loose its intensity till end and grip on viewer's attention. And the end is a pleasure for eyes with full display of perfectly carved out Monica Belucci in her most natural form :p This reminds you that you are watching a french movie after all :)
The best movie which I have seen so far this year is Slumdog Millionaire. I think it deserves a separate post. So bye for now. Will write more on tomorrow. Goodnite...