Snapshot

We were born. We grew up. We went to college. We thought of changing the world. We thought of leaving a mark on the world. And then we had job.

A job. An object of desire of many, despise of many, but undisputedly one of the most widely practiced means of livelihood. You wake up, go to office, do your job, come back tired, think of what to have for dinner, have dinner if you feel like it, spend a couple of hours here or there and go to sleep to begin the same old day.

Many worksites are quite different from what I suggested just now. The times are changing fast. But so much for all the hoopla, I'm still stuck in a screenshot from Charlie Chaplin's 'Modern Times'. Guess I've become a drone working to increase shareholders' wealth and increase the revenue of the corporation I'm working for. And to think of it, I'm bestowed upon one of the most coveted profiles!

Is job satisfaction just a word in HR textbooks? And the bigger question, is there more to life than a job? A couple of friends, of which one is myself and another my room-mate, the third one doesn't meet daily, and if at all, just for a few minutes. Sunday work like liquid oxygen (recall Ajit: 'Robert, ise liquid oxygen mein daal do; liquid ise jeene nahi dega, aur oxygen ise marne nahi dega!)

I know that life has more to offer. Change in attitudes, the usual prescription for such symptoms, has helped but only a little. Somebody please answer Obama's cries for 'change'!

My right eye is flickering since a few days, considered to be a sign of goodluck. Whether this is more than one of the defense-mechanisms remains yet to be seen.

Hasmukh :)

10 Items Or Less

There are things that a person always wishes to do, but realizes that he has not done all those things at all. And then there are things that a person does. So it was time I decided that I will start doing things that I've been putting on hold. Since beginning of the new financial year (because that is the way calenders work in financial industry), I've done quite a few things now that I've wanted to do since quite some time. Some of those important, others not quite important.

This is just a list of all those things, just accidentally falling in public domain:

1. Accounts

A long cherished desire to learn accountancy from scratch, a desire that we couldn't fulfill in our B-school with little time that we could allocate to it. A piquant (please don't pronounce it as "pee/cunt") subject for those even remotely interested in finance. Have slowly started it and though not going full-throttle into it, I have managed to maintain a sufficient tempo so as to not lose the brownie-points to be cliamed in a job-interview if I need to attend one.

2. Guitar

My father wants to learn Traditional Vocal Indian music ever since I can recall. I asked one of our colleagues if he knew where could I buy a good guitar in Hyderabad & what were the things I should keep in mind for that. He said that he wanted to learn to play a guitar since the past 35 years, but it might as well be another 35 before he got one. Then I saw myself 20 years down the line, wishing I too knew some music. Decided that this was going to be a key difference between me and anybody else, I went to a music shop and bought my first real six string in the summer of '09..... and then, there it was: a guitar, wrapped up in a bag, ready to be tuned with a tuner and strummed with picks; all for a nominal amount of Rs.2,600/-. So far I've learnt three basic chords, how to pick alternate strings & E phrygian scale (which I only recently found out is not a scale) ...something that seems only too fair to me to have learnt in four sittings.

3. Beach Shirt

That your attire reflects your attitude is something which came as a hard learning to me. Since then, I've been looking for a good beach shirt for me. After a long & tedious search, I found a white shirt with floral prints, loose to the core, the essence of which is pure, sinful comfort. Though friends' plan of a Goa trip is way ahead in distant future, I've already begun the preparations for the ordeal.

4. Wine

Learnt to be the drink that endows divinity to food, straight from the wineyards of Bordeaux of India, Nasik (well, Nasik is as good an option for me as I don't know the difference between the two varieties) came two bottles of wine; one red, other white. During a get-together of friends, I popped the cork and not-so-accidentally also popped by wine cherries. That broadens my alchohol portfolio to include champagne, rum and red & white wine (since beer and breezers don't qualify as alchohol). Although I still have a long way to go to fulfill my dream of getting terribly drunk once in a life, I can still boast of having reached one more milestone in the journey.

5. Stinkers

Written my first stinker mail just a couple of weeks back. A fantasy treasured in the heart since I learnt of the virtues of a stinker now stands fulfilled. However, I knew that guilt would inevitably follow, (and indeed it eventually did) I have successfully become an MS Outlook skunk.

Now I know that typical list will have 10 items, but I'm not inspired by "Dasvidaniya". Instead, I'm inspired by "10 items or less", so I'll just stop at 5 for now. Hoping that the future brings more beginnings than endings...

Hasmukh :)

A New Beginning

"How much will you experiment with your skin?" asks the lady in the idiot-box. Since I neither have the financial muscle nor any hope that my going to the stupid skin clinic might bring any change for the better, I decided that I wouldn't experiment anymore with my skin... after all, unlike Micheal Jackson, I only have 3 layers to spare!

But tell me, isn't it only this trait of experimenting which makes the Homo Sepian Sepians higher to other species (or at least so is the mass credo)? So I thought of experimenting with my food for a change. Now what is the favourite food of a bachelor? Omlet...! (OK, not much room for experiments for me here, because apparently, cocks do not lay eggs.) The next best thing: for all these years, they've asked for only 2 minutes of our time... yes, you got it right! MAGGI!!!

I was just finishing it when I thought of making some little changes, so there opens the cabinet, out comes my chef's hat, I fling the door of the fridge in one smooth motion & my of-late-pre-programmed-to-reach-for-my-favourite-item-in-the-fridge-since-last-week hand reaches its destination. The product which scarcely needs any more variety in usage, a dream of marketeers to work with, a sauce which goes with almost everything, a form of most widely relished sweet & it also has as many health benefits as the taste & flavour...sauce nahi boss, it is a chilled bottle of "Genuine Chocolate Flavour Hershey's Syrup"! Oh the brown bottle, oh the round cap, oh the thick-brown-non-stop-zig-zag-almost-erotic flow of the nectar, oh the dulcet sound when I stop squishing the container... (if only I were a woman, I might have had an orgasm) but alas, only chocolate lovers can understand the poetry in dark chocolate.

Now I'm also a painter of the James Pollock school, with only chocolate sauce instead of paint & my once-masala-flavoured Maggi instead of a canvas. I manipulate my chopsticks to let the confection get evenly distributed on each and every strand of the now divine Maggi and enjoy it while it is still warm. And having had a scrumptious portion of the same, I have the generosity of giving out the recipe for the greater good of mankind, abstaining from becoming a millionaire by selling this idea to lots of dumb people who would pay for crap like this for they are too tired of using their brains.

I, the undersigned, hereby invite you to share your secret recipes & ingredients to make your Maggi better, so that we all can live to see a better tomorrow (and please give tomato ketchup a break you morons!)

Hasmukh :)

Power? Really?

Of late I've formed a rather dismal view of this world. I've finally realized that the thoughts that we've been fed all day long, day in and day out, that "You can change the world" sometimes seem to be very hollow unless you have muscle strength.

Alvin Toffler in his book "Power Shift" articulated on the 3 basic sorts of power: Brute Power, Economic Power, Knowledge Power. He said that the days to come, the world shall be ruled by those who have the Knowledge Power, but I strongly disagree and believe that Brute Strength has always been, today is & shall continue to be the strength that supercedes all other forms.

Imagine a millionaire with a gun on his head: who has more power? Now if you talk about "knowledge" as a source...what will a "knowledge worker" do when he's in the place of the millionaire?

The governments of the world are powerful because they have brute strength. During the days of cold-war, the USSR had a much more versatile arsenal of traditional weapons than the USA. USA on the other hand had a similar advantage in the nuclear weapons category. But what made them the both more powerful than others was that they had the weapons & others did not. If someone says "Oil is power", ask him what happened to Iraq, Kuwait, Vietnam and so on. The wars involving these countries might not have had a significant conclusion, but it very well proved the point that having oil doesn't mean that your right to live will be safeguarded.

I guess the only weapon that can over-rule brute strength is the “Perspective Gun”. (I must say, this has been my dream superpower even when I didn’t know of the existence of such a weapon, even though it is just fictitious; after all, to make others look from your perspective is the best thing to do to control the world!) It is described in “Hitch-hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” as the ultimate weapon. Whenever fired, it makes the subject see things in perspective of the one who fired the gun. Apparently it was invented by angry housewives, who were tired of using the phrase “You just don’t get it, do you!?”

I have harangued too far. My only concern is that with all the governments laying down the foundations to a police state (oh please, give me a break, don't you tell me I'm wrong. If you're so strong, prove it by leaving a comment.) what is the common man's life becoming like? Can I really change the world without brute force?

Hasmukh :)

Vitamin M

This is my first Third Party Publishing; and to think of it, I'm not even charging any royalty for that! Actually one of my good friends has written it. I hope you'd enjoy reading it as much as I did…

The power of money:
Believe me you don't own it.
It owns you.
It makes a slave out of you.
During my high school days I used to write compositions and essays on the very very familiar and global topic "The virtues and vices of money".
At that time I used to think how can money be a vice, when I dint have the money to buy that Westside tshirt or when I had to compromise on that Kwality walls gaddi waali orange candy even if I fancied a baskin robins choco almond.
Those were the days
And now ……These are the days
I just love the last day of the month
Waiting eagerly for that beep on my cell telling that it has arrived.
That thing..for which takes 30 days to earn but only 3 days to spend…
You should see the grin on my face …while walking in the ATM…as if I am I big time queen and with one sweep of my hand,…I mean my card…the money pours in..
As if it were a magic…just clap your hands….the money arrives…just clap back again..and it disappears.
And then after you punch in the 4 little sweet words….in the machine…no no..its not I love you too…its your 4 digit pin number…dodo….
So so as you feed in the numbers..the noise that the machine makes…..while throwing out the money…is so so…..like honey on my ears…not that I would actually like honey on my ears….
Anyways….
Talking about money…
Why is it said that money cant buy happiness….
I mean…its so easy to understand see….
I have money ..i go and buy clothes….i am happy J
I have money and I go and throw a party to my best friends at aromas of china.
They are happy . they are happy so I am again happy.
I have money so I am sponsoring my parents tickets to Disney. Seeing them so happy …I am very very happy now. J J
What more could I ask for!!!
So doesn't money buy happiness?!
Yes it does…

Once again, going back to school days & nursery rhymes, the consumerism theory can be best summarized as:

To office, to office, to get a fat pay-cheque;
Home again, home again, without a penny left!

It has been over a month that my account experienced an ECS for the first time. And I could feel the joy with blood gushing in my veins as I punched in the numbers **** in the ATM. (So now you know my code, don’t you?). As the account balance numbers popped up, it was as if by magic that there was a tremendous increase in my bank-balance from where I’d left it.

But happy times don’t last forever. As soon as I go home, the land-lord is waiting in anticipation of rent and then there are bill to be paid for cell-phone, electricity, etc. which teleport my soul from the magic land of jack’s beanstalk and I once again start waiting for the day when the miracle of salary shall manifest itself and give me one more reason to live. In the hope that that day arrives soon…

Hasmukh :)

Antim Pag

I walk into the hotel room and turn on the TV to know more about the singular event on which the relations on the largest & oldest democracies of the world depend on, at least upto a certain extent. Just guess what’s going on? I bet there isn’t a soul who doesn’t know about the event by now so I’d not go into those details. However if you’re a part of the unenlightened clan, its not too difficult to jump sides. Sort of things being said today have more or less a negative connotation. Why so? Was it supposed to be such a big secret that MPs are bought & sold? Or have a page or two been drawn from the “Melodramatics for Dummies” of Bollywood?

I’m watching NDTV LIVE and the discussion is just copying thoughts out of my mind. A gentleman says “I don’t think the people of this country are shocked, I think they’re having fun!” Indeed I am doing just that. In fact just now I was thinking about it writing the same thing down in the blog & quoting Frank Zappa saying “Government is the Entertainment Division of the military-industrial complex.”

Far from hitting a nadir, the Parliament has graduated today. It has mustered the audacity to admit what it’s incumbents have been doing all these years behind closed doors. It’s definitely a happy day for the Indian Political Scenario on the whole. I welcome it with all my heart. I do not say that such scenes should be repeated, because it is just another excuse for wasting more time, not mentioning walk-outs and adjournments; but there is certainly no reason to term the incident as unhappy. I guess the only ones who do that are the ones who see themselves into the matter directly or indirectly.

While I desperately wait to see what happens to the vote today, which as I expected has been postponed and the house adjourned; it seems to be highly paradoxical & risible comment to end on the note I am thinking of ending it on: “Long Live Indian Democracy! Jai Hind!!!”

Hasmukh :)

Must Love Dogs

Mark Twain said, “Take a hungry dog, feed it & it will never bite you; that’s the principal difference between a man & a dog.” Its about two hours past midnight and I’m having a strong urge to write about the female dog I met on the weekend. By far she was my closest encounter of the canine kind (on the happy side).

I’ve always been impressed by this supposed-to-be-feline-predatory-creature, though why it is called so, I never examined for myself. For once, I knew that whatever the creature’s prejudices towards cats, it definitely is not a friend if you’re 12 years old, it’s the 5:30am, it’s the Gujarati New Year in the chilly winter and the odds are four is to one & other five of theirs are on their way. That fateful day, my cousin brother, who has the portfolio of pranks much more diversified when compared to a margin investor like me, saved the night for me (yeah, the dawn hadn’t cracked yet! And you thought I can’t get up before the sun is halfway around the world?) This was the moment at which, the K9’s canines couldn’t breach my epidermis, but they sure did invoke their fear in my mind.

Since then, I’ve been wondering how can a dog be man’s best friend? I’ve gotten over some of my fears by learning that one is supposed to stand still and let the dog smell you (so the datum is fed into the bio-sensory security systems predating the invention of wheel) instead of running helter-skelter and giving the creature all the more reasons to attack you. The first dog to smell me when I stood still was Brownie…

And then there was Lassie… (the slow-motion dream sequence starts now) I visited my friend in Delhi for the weekend and met his so-called-sister, about 7 months old, white Pomeranian. I am a “quick learner” on my CV, so I employed what I’d learnt just about 6 years ago rightaway and let her smell my feet. At this point of time I was a bit skeptical about her intentions to lick me, but she fortunately didn’t (ok, I’m just a novice, haven’t achieved that high a comfort level, shoot me; because apparently, shooting the dog is a violation of animal rights!)

It was then that classical conditioning awakened the Pavlovian Dog in me. I learnt to love Lassie, because I was desperate to be with my friend & he just wouldn’t let go of her. In course of the weekend, I became used to Lassie so that all my fears regarding dogs were overcome. I used to pat her, scratch her throat & even let her lick me! Though she jumping on me is still out of line, but I wonder how long it would take if I were to go visit her once more.

The inscription on the grave of BOATSWAIN (Lord Byron’s dog) reads:

Near this spot
Are deposited the Remains of one
Who possessed Beauty without Vanity,
Strength without Insolence,
Courage without Ferocity,
And all the Virtues of Man without his Vices.
This Praise, which would be unmeaning Flattery
If inscribed over human ashes
Is but a just tribute to the Memory of
BOATSWAIN a Dog,
Who was born at Newfoundland, May, 1803,
And died at Newstead Abbey, Nov. 18, 1808.

Little known fact here, Lassie Senior just died a couple of months back. She didn’t have the funeral like Boatswain, least of all a tomb, but her name still lives on in form of Lassie Junior, who is credited to a major extent for helping me get over my fear of her kind and letting me inch closer to my long cherished dream of having a dog. May Dog bless us all…

Hasmukh :)

Sloppy Sunday

Well, today is a lot different in my life than all other days. All these days I've been holding very strong views about almost anything, provided I cared enough for holding a view. May it be the Indo-US nuclear deal or the World Gourmet Summit 2008 in the midst of international food crisis. I used to wonder how can people be so indecisive about issues.

However, I am having the first sunday on the job. Got up late after a long time and don't feel like going for hygiene activities (read bathing, which by the way, I'm highly pirticular about) after the clock has struck 1:35 p.m. And now I think that it doesn't matter if it rains outside or heats up like an oven, I have no intentions as of now to go out anyway. I don't care at this point of time if Soniya Gandhi leads the country or Manmohan Singh does or anybody else for that matter. It doesn't matter to me much if the people really believe about Global Warming to be true or not. I believe the only thing that matters to me right now is the mood of just doing nothing after a long long time. As one of the advertisements of the recent Shoppers Stop campaign goes to say, I’m “enjoying doing nothing” after eons together.

So living up to the feeling, I'm just going to let you imagine the feeling of doing nothing at all and them multiply it by a few hundreds. You anyway don't have anything worth doing if you're reading this in the first place, so I have firm reasons to believe that I'm being successful in my attempt to make you experience what many of us call "vellapanthi".....

Hasmukh :)

___________

P.S.: Yeah, I was too sloppy to upload the post so uploading it at midnight!

Sister's Keeper

Sanmesh Kalyanpur, 13, was escorting his seven-year-old sister Sanjana home after school through the flooded streets of central Mumbai one wet July afternoon last year, when she suddenly started disappearing into the filthy water. Luckily the two had been holding hands, and Sanmesh instantly tightened his grip, preventing her from sinking further.

Sanmesh realized that Sanjana had stepped right into an open manhole. "I’ve got to pull her out", he thought, his heart beating wildly. "Otherwise she’ll be sucked into the hole and drown."

His right hand still gripping Sanjana, Sanmesh reached for his sister with his left and began pulling her. But suddenly, he slipped and fell, his left leg entering the manhole and his right leg buckling under him. To his horror, Sanjana had disappeared in the water.

Fortunately, Sanmesh, a star batsman in his school’s cricket team, hadn’t lost his grip on his sister’s hand. "I can't fall into the hole too", Sanmesh thought, as he desperately groped in the water with his left hand for something to hold onto. Fortunately it closed around the manhole cover.

Carefully, Sanmesh manoeuvred himself into a sitting position on the road with his legs in the manhole, without losing his grip on Sanjana. His arms were aching now, for adding to Sanjana’s 25 kilos was her schoolbag strapped to her back. But with one quick jerk, Sanmesh managed to yank Sanjana out of the water, and, coughing and spluttering, she fell on him, her head on his chest.

As Sanjana, clung to her brother, like a baby monkey holding its mother, Sanmesh bent backwards until he was almost lying on the road. “You can let go of me,” Sanmesh told his sister, “you’re safe now.”

Sanjana pulled her feet out of the manhole and stood up. Then, as Sanmesh, extricated himself, and stood by her, Sanjana began crying with relief. Holding each other’s hands tightly, the two walked home. Luckily, both children had only superficial injuries. And although Sanjana had swallowed a lot of dirty water, she wasn’t any worse for it. But for several nights, Sanmesh couldn’t sleep properly. “Sanjana and I fight a lot,” he says. “She’s a really mischievous kid. But I can’t bear the thought of losing her.”

-Surekha Kadapa-Bose
---From READER’S DIGEST-July 2005.

Hunger

The photo is the “Pulitzer Prize” winning photo taken in 1994 during the Sudan Famine.The picture depicts stricken child crawling towards an United Nations food camp, located a kilometer away.

The vulture is waiting for the child to die so that it can eat him. This picture shocked the whole world. No one knows what happened to the child, including the photographer Kevin Carter who left the place as soon as the photograph was taken.

Three months later he committed suicide due to depression.

http://www.worldsfamousphotos.com/stricken-child-crawling-towards-a-food-camp-1993.html

I received this photograph in a forwarded email sometime back. I wanted to show it to somebody, but couldn’t find it in my hard-drive or in my inbox, so I googled it out. There are quite a few copies of it on the internet, this is the link to one of them.

Everybody of is debating on the page about what is wrong with the system, what needs to be done, what are the duties of the world bodies, rich people who don’t do enough charity and who knows what not. But I want to ask these people, “Did any of you ensure that YOU don’t waste any food?” If you do it & further ensure that everyone you know also doesn't waste any food, in the long run the Aggregate Demand is going to come down drastically. If everybody who eats decides to purchase only that much that he sincerely wants to eat and doesn’t waste any food, this is going to save the life of a significant number of people every year who die of hunger; one way or the other.

“Lofty ideals” you’ll say. I know that charity begins at home, so I’ve made every effort to ensure that I don’t waste any food and also try and ensure that everybody I know doesn’t disrespect or waste food in any way whatsoever.

I’m not asking you to give me blood, time, devotion or absolutely anything at all. All I’m asking is for you to promise me that you’ll not waste any food, ask for only that much that you’re going to eat and make sure that everybody in you share a table with, does the same. This is the least you can do to (literally) save the world.

I may not be alive to see the day when nobody dies of petty reasons. Nevertheless, I would still want that day to arrive. Hope that it arrives soon & further hope that you have a positive part to play in it.

Hasmukh :)