WI-England at 1? How jobless are you!

A friend pinged me to ask why I am awake at so late at night. To be honest, its a question my parents ask me & my brother all the time(although they don't remind me the time by saying "its bloody 1!"). Anyway, I replied that I was watching the 5th West Indies-England test(could've given a saner-looking excuse, but u know-"Honesty is the best policy"). And well, the reply shot back-"Now i know how jobless you are!"

Yeah i know, the story's boring. But I thought about it, put myself in the other person's shoes, and realized how totally weird it must've sounded. So to prevent such shocks to my other friends who don't already know, I open this post by saying I spend more than half my time on TV watching cricket. In fact, here are some things about me & cricket:
1. I spend more time on Cricinfo at office than I spend coding(my "core job", as they call it here :P)
2. I spend more than half my time on TV watching cricket.(as stated above)
3. Who knows which South-African has scored the maximum no. of runs against Australia in Tests? I look at stuff like that.
4. When I visit my relatives, a cricket bat & ball are a prerequisite for them to have the privilege of my presence.
5. I am not known for maintaining or keeping old stuff. But guess what I managed to preserve for 14 yrs. My cricket bat from 7th standard.

What did u ask? Do I love cricket? Naah! I just live cricket :)

Moving on, ever heard of this book called "Beyond Code"? Well look at the name, and guess whose manager has asked him to read it. And, this will slay you, I've been asked to give a presentation at office, to three parties, from 3 different countries, about some release that I was part of(apparently). At moments like this, I really wonder if it was worth being born a human. A dung beetle would've been better.

My last post was not well-received by critics. In fact, a renowned critique has advised me to take rest. Yeah ok, he's not renowned or anything. But I don't think I can disagree. I read it again, and it looks such a ramble! And, ahem, so does this one actually. So I won't make this worse. Time to go people.
Cheers!

P.S.-SA are 244/2, chasing 546 to win against Australia, with the last day remaning. Do watch it ;)

Terrorism, the industry

I wonder if terrorists have deadlines. And do they have a hierarchy as well? Like u know, there would be a CEO guy first(read Osama bin Laden). He would have a CFO. That's gotta be Dawood Ibrahim, eh? And then the organization would've verticals as well. There would be the USA, Europe, APAC(which is the biggest one, btw) etc.

At a lower level, there would be managers, leads & then at the lowest levels, of course, the cool-guy Kasabs(that would include Mujahids, fidayeens, jihadis & all those weird things).

The main areas of interest would be Afghanistan, Pakistan & India of course. For the lesser important areas like Bangaladesh & Israel, they've got subsidiaries(Hamas, Harkat-ul-Jihadi-Islam) to do the job.

They expand their scope of business as well. From killing famous ppl like Rajiv Gandhi, to killing the small fry like you & me, to again going high-society by trying to blow off cricketers' heads.

Let's come back to the deadline question. As usual, the lowest strata in the organization are the most under-pressure people. The next release(read "blast") is always a race against time. Resources are always scarce, although training programmes at madrassas are doing much better now. So there are many more dedicated employees willing to blow themselves apart these days. Productivity is measured by how many people the guy(or girl) managed to blow apart along with himself(not that it really matter after you're dead, but you dont expect a bunch of unhinged maniacs to care 'bout trivialities, do you?).

And finally, employee satisfaction! Well, one things for sure. Motivation levels are high. The Kashmir team which used to get the "Most Dedicated & Productive Team" award is set to be displaced by the "Rest of India" team when the 2008 results are announced. Productivity levels have been record-breaking. Congrats guys!

Who says terrorism isn't an industry? In fact, its the fastest growing one. The Swat area(hope I got the name right) in Pakistan is to terrorism what Silicon Valley is to computers. And hey, its beaten the recession, & is going strong.

Cheers!

Unity in diversity? sure...

A few words in the English dictionary have multiple meanings. Let's take "judge". The verb "judge", and the "judges" who sit and make decisions in courts. We, in India, have a new one, just for ourselves. Its called "outsider".

I went to Chennai last weekend, and it was as good as being in another country altogether. No trace of Hindi anywhere. From the autowaala, to the apartment caretaker where my parents stay, to the maid who works there. From what we could see, the city has 2 movie theatres which show Hindi stuff. The hoardings on the roads, the graffiti on the walls-all Tamil. As far as I was concerned, it was all cave-people drawings(well for me, Hindi is going the same way. was never any good at it, and dont read or write much of Hindi any more, either).

I always knew politicians are geniuses at getting mileage out of another's mistakes, or out of a bad situation. Raj Thackeray though, surpasses everybody. He literally conjured a problem out of Bihar & UP bhaiyyas, made up some "Marathi manoos" horseshit, and like the famous Houdini, created a situation where none existed. What he's going to get out of it is something we should wait & watch. So, although I agree it was a bad thing to do(read this), something like what "villains" in movies would do, I am very curious about where he's going with all this. You should appreciate genius, good or bad.

So while reports keep coming out of United Nations organizations that India hasn't been able to tackle poverty or corruption or malnutrition("mal" who?), Marathis are beating up auto drivers in Bombay, Biharis are burning trains in Patna, & Tamilians are protesting for "their kind" in Sri Lanka(for God's sake!).

I read in school that India is the best example of "Unity in Diversity" in the world. Diverse, yes. United, yes. Everybody is united in the thought that they are the coolest clan around. Hey at least if Tamils were protesting for Biharis, or UP guys burnt trains for Tamils, there would been one positive out of the whole mess.

Till next time, cheers!

Yen samachaara bhai log?

Dont blame you guys for wondering what the hell I have written for a topic. But actually, its the most exciting development that has happened with me in the last 2-3 months. I've learnt how to start a conversation in kannada! So basically I can say "yen samachaara" or "yen maadta idira" or "yen vishesha", but that's my level of expertise right now.

The second update would be the fact that i've got a new job. I know there's a case for putting it on top of the "developments" list. But I am a trifle disillusioned on the job front, and so I'll just hold my judgement on this one for now.
Seriously speaking, though, this job pays well, and even though I've just joined today, I think(& hope) this one might just hit the bulls-eye on my "expectations" dartboard. And by the way, I know a person constantly coming up to me and telling me I must've been reaally lucky to have got this. Well, as some great fellow said-"If you think I was lucky, get lucky yourself".
Yeah I know. I made that up. But anyway, the end justifies the means(this one's definitely by a great fellow!)

Moving to lighter topics of discussion, how many of us remember our "last" first day at office? Well, I want to say it was fun. But however much I want to lie, filling in kilos & kilos of forms, and then tearing them out of the booklet, one-by-one, on perforations that dont exist, is NOT fun. Not by any stretch of imagination. And when the HR shouts at you to do it fast & not spoil it because she doesn't have spare forms, the fun quotient is so miniscule you'll need an electron microscope to see it.

Well, the whole form-filling thing started off with the HR person telling us not to fill in anything till she's finished describing the form. And while I obediently waited, another one shouts at me for just sitting there waiting for instructions. Somehow, I got the impression that their leaves for a long vacation had not been granted.

Then there were some funny people around. One Mr. Srinivas wanted to know if he can put his email id as the "Calling Name" at office. Sure you can dude. If you really want people to call you names, pls get in touch. A guy who was filling out forms so slowly a giant tortoise with a hip problem could out-pace him, had a very original explanation. Acc. to him, since he had been working on computers for 2 yrs, he couldn't write any more. He'd lost touch. Well I am sure there are things he hasn't done at all in his entire life. I pray he doesn't lose touch on those.

All-in-all, a "fun" day, especially if you consider the fact that I took almost all the wrong roads possible while coming back. Just couldn't keep my bike pointed in the direction of outer ring road. Deviated to old madras road once, & then decided to "detour" to whitefield.

Anyway, its 1:30 at night, and street dogs seem displeased with the lights. So till next time,
Cheers!

You blow me away!

Another day, another dollar...and another set of blasts. I dont mean to be disrespectful at all towards victims and families, but these blasts give our dull lives a very fresh and, i daresay, exciting, topic of discussion. Its almost like Sehwag has stepped in to play after Dravid in a cricket match. People talk about evrything, ranging from the possible motives behind the whole thing, to the chemistry involved in igniting the substances that caused the explosion.

Some guys at my office laughed at the inefficiency of the whole thing.
First guy: "3 killed in 8 blasts?"
Second guy: "Maybe it was jus a carelessly thrown diwali cracker that ignited".
First guy: "How did they light the matchstick in all this rain?"
Second guy: "Abey time-bomb tha, sardar kahin ke!"

Coming back to motives, the eternal usual suspects are-a terrorist group wants everybody to be Muslims(I am not really very sure wht these guys actually want. So just venturing a guess here), or Pakistan wants Kashmir. But seriously speaking, I can understand to some extent the fact that people believe that there's a God, who looks over us. Its gud for our peace-of-mind. But if somebody thinks that the idea of God is so important its worth killing somebody, I just dont get it, and I'd prefer being an atheist.

The Kashmir problem, reminds me of a heated discussion(well, he was heating up, atleast) I had with a friend at Infy. He agreed that if a voting was done in J&K, they wud probably want to be with Pakistan. But his 2 arguments were tht Kashmir was like a part of the family(India being the family), and that letting it go wud be disrespectful to the soldiers who've died and who are still posted there. What I dont get is, if a member of your family doesn't want to be with you, isn't it smarter to let him/her go? And if I actually respected soldiers, I wud try to make sure their lives weren't put in danger in the 1st place. The whole thing is just not worth so many dead people over so many years, is it?

And a 3rd "dark-horse" suspect was pointed out. Isn't it possible that the Congress is doing it to get some mileage against BJP? Looking at some of our "representatives" in the Lok Sabha, one can't totally discard the possibility. Some of them have got 150 criminal cases against them, including murder! So while we sit here in "metropolitan" cities without power, roads, fuel, they take money from each other to make up their majorities. And as if that isn't enough, they might be trying to kill us in blasts as well! Let's just pray to God BJP doesn't decide to retaliate. And please do that without squabbling about "which" God is better!

These bombs, mercifully, are all "low-intensity" ones. They've been made from readily available stuff. In fact, our very own Aaj Tak can claim patent rights over these. They had aired a show where some correspondent walked around some city buying the ingredients and making one himself, after the Jaipur blasts. I didn't see the point. Any literate person would know there are thousands of ways to make chemicals react and cause a sudden burst of energy-an explosion. Why they would show that on TV and put ideas into people's heads is something I dont understand. And shouldn't the govt be banning this sort of thing, instead of harmless so-called "vulgar" ads?

All in all, I would generally agree with a friend who thought these terrorists should be publicly hanged when found. And additionally, all those human rights b*****ds who support them should get exactly the same treatment.

Cheers!

Monsoon wedding

Ever been to weddings? Of course you have. I went to a relative's wedding reception a few days back. Ok before I start, let me make something clear. I dont enjoy weddings particularly. And please dont gimme that shocked expression, as if I am the devil incarnate. They are just too crowded & tiring, tht's all.

Well this one was in bangalore itself. So I dressed up in formals(probably the first & the last njoyable part), and set off on my way. After what felt like hundreds of miles, I finally reached the place.

Before you can make out what hit you, somebody's gonna shout-"Arrey, Ashu aa gaya!!". Its like a sailor on a ship lost at sea has spotted land-"Land ho!!". Oh, and a clarification-"Ashu" is my pet name(I dont like the phrase "pet name", though). You know lately I feel frequent stiffness in my back, mainly 'coz of lack of exercise. For those of you who have the same complaint, here's a suggestion-go to a family gathering. Touching your elders' feet is going to be enough exercise, till the next marriage comes up, i.e.

With a family comparable to mine in terms of sheer numbers, and one tht's spread across such a wide geographical area, its easier to remember the logarithmic tables than names and relations. I've given up on that front. But somehow they always seem to remember me. "Arrey, kitna bada ho gaya hai!" is a one-liner I've been listening to since eternity. I used to like it initially, but I believe humans stop growing at around 21. So now I think they are just making fun of me 'coz I am thin & a li'l short.
And maybe they can sense the fear as well. "Nahi pehchaana naaa...batao hum kaun hain??". And again, I look totally nonplussed- as if somebody had asked me the half-life of radon! But I recover in a second and manage to give that innocent smile, which seems to get me thru everytime.

Not that I am a total monkey. I do remember the closer relatives. So I hang out with them. Well, we moved to food as soon we could. Preparing food that people are going to like at a wedding is like being the captain of the Indian cricket team. How so, u ask? Well in both the cases, there's no way in hell you can please everybody. But somehow, that never stops people from eating their own weight in a single meal.

We talked about stuff. By now, I am warmed up to the whole thing, and quite comfortable. But the powers-that-be have other plans. Suddenly a bua of mine decides that all of us need to dance. Well my friends already know this, but for the information of ppl who dont-I can not sing or dance to save my life. Seriously. Have you seen that AMD ad where Vishwanathan Anand plays cricket. That's me dancing. Or singing. The last time I danced was in a college trip, in a bus. The scope for movement in the bus was so restricted then, that my lack of talent was covered up. Couldn't happen here, with a place as big as a football field. So I decided to pass. Some verbal abuse("Tum mere bhateeje kehlaane laayak nahi ho!") came my way. I retaliated with an equally clever "Aapka hi bhateeja hun bua...dekho kab se kha raha hun baith ke". I dont think that went down well with her.

In between people came and kept asking to pose for group photographs, which was not an issue. I am good at standing & smiling. In fact, I think I could run for the president of the United States.

Well the party's drawing to a close now. I sleepily leave, amidst all the dire warnings that I should drive slow. By now I know the names of all my relatives, which I am sure I will remember for not more than 2-3 days. But hey, there'll be nothing to talk about in the next wedding if I dont forget them, right?