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 :)