Formula 1 for success: United we stand, divided we fall

Ferrari won… I mean kimi won… I don’t believe it… is that what they call law of averages??? After almost 2 whole seasons of different failures which included even parts that could not normally fail, this is the ultimate clincher… when it rains it pours… literally when it forced silly-rookie-with-big-dreams Hamilton to make that mistake of holding on to the old tires and defending-champ Alonso to slip and slide and get scared. Was it just that lady luck decided to smile on kimi on that fateful day or was it that lady bad luck was for once careless… or was it the famous Ferrari team work at play?

Ferrari have definitely come a long way, learning from their mistakes of the past. From the obvious barichello braking to the sneaky massa pit stop, Ferrari have definitely learnt their lesson and learnt it well. Not only that they have taught their drivers well too… massa didn’t even flinch on the podium… unlike barichello who murmured something about team-orders and screw-driver… sometimes it makes me feel that the main qualification for the Ferrari drivers is the absence of a vertebral column. Something that seems to be too rigid and inflexible in the mclaren drivers…

Seriously it was a case of insecurity for Alonso when there was no second driver spot in his team… the boss said both of you are just my drivers and I am not bothered which car as long as it is a merc. But on the final day the spite ran high as there were 3 guys against Hamilton one of whom was his own team-mate… well you don’t expect the dedication like the Ferrari team, but at least make it a fair fight… flanked on 3 sides, the poor fresher had nowhere to go but back and back he did… and mclaren had to have that electrical misfiring on the same day… kimi could not get luckier and try as he did, Hamilton died fighting and Alonso stayed put – his enemy vanquished but goal forgotten.

Anyways, it is again the cats, cheese and the monkey story where the monkey ran away with the cheese the 2 cats were fighting over. Hope Alonso moves on to Renault and then we would have some good racing next year. 3 drivers and 3 different cars… but Ferrari seems to be coming up with a new strategy.

Looks like they are hiring lots more lawyers who are definitely cheaper than the drivers. This way they would force all other teams out of the races by disqualifying them, and finally win the championships by default. And yes they would get the 3^rd bottle of champagne free.

confessions of a guilty consultant

i feel guilty...

i am a consultant like most post mba people and am working onsite at a client location... but before you start feeling jealous that i am in the bustling neighbourhoods of london or the orderly locales of germany and some exotic location of the swiss alps holidaying in the weekends, let me tell u i have not left the locales of india, in fact i am very much within the locales of the city i am in... ok i won't bitch about this city now... i reserve it for dinner discussions with friends...

but the fact remains that i am wallowing in a low cost center in india itself... actually it makes sense for them to cut costs because they are not the world leaders in their industry... they are only second with revenues of less than $10 billion... poor people... that is why they have their office in one of the low cost neighborhoods of bangalore which is actually a neighbour to the city itself just some 20km out of it... it is an adventure in itself going there waking up as early as 6am to begin the journey which is a nice long one with fellow workers and consultants to give you company... and with all that excited honking in that packed roads keeps you awake for the entire 2 hour journey... well simple math will tell u that we are doing just 10km/h but then slow and steady wins the race and speed thrills but kills - our bus drivers are strict followers of that even though they are eternally playing musical chair variations like catch-that-gap-before-the-honking-stops etc...

then of course after that nice journey when we reach the office location we are greeted by strict security officers who make you feel at home with their concentrated scowls when they check all the guys for the id cards. yeah they know that only the guys have the brains enough to blow up the IT offices in that tech park with bombs... girls don't... don’t think that we are male chauvinists, it is a scientifically proven fact; and it boosts your self confidence every day when you hear "sir id card id card... ok sir, thank you sir"... and the attendance register that we have to sign is a clear method of cutting costs... no elaborate silly access control systems...

even the software that the employees use makes me feel guilty... when i get the latest windows Vista and XP professional edition for all my home computers and laptops, all for free, we use some of the outdated operating systems that are no longer even supported even by die hard open source fanatics... and yes the hardware that supports it is outdated too so that there are no compatibility issues - think of all the problems we would have if we put faster hardware with slow OSes... while we consultants are given laptops with the latest hardware configurations so what if they are handed down through the generations of consultants and are prone to crash for each hand they pass into, they are still sleek laptops weighing only 5 kgs as sompareed to the 15kg monitor + 10 kg cpu that we get at onsite...

their employees seem to be a bunch of people who seem to be paid very less that they cannot even afford their basic roti-kapda-makan... while we consultants strut around in business casuals and formals complete with expensive italian leather shoes (heven't you heard of the michaelanjelo brand - these shoes are available only in exclusive stores along the back alleys near andheri railway station in mumbai) with each set of our clothings costing at least a 500 bucks we see people moving around in dirty and tattered jeans and sandals... even though they say that the jeans (we can clearly see that it is some chinese brand named after bruce lee) are new and the sandals are for comfort and cost about 2500 bucks... how can brands like reebok and nike compare against michaelanjelo? and the other day i saw this girl in a very short skirt and a sleeveless t-shirt that looked like it was something that was bought when she was in primary school... i was even planning to start a small collection fund from our consulting team where each of us contributed some money so that she could buy some clothes... but she seemed happy - isn't there a saying that money can't buy happiness and I envy her for finding happiness despite her poverty...

we also get some good perks like that wonderful mirror in the restroom... it shows people distorted into longer and fatter shapes like those funny mirrors in amusement parks - only this mirror has all the mirrors clubbed into one and at different points you can see yourself in different shapes... and it even has a spot in the middle where the person in front of it just disappears... it is an amazing stress buster... but there is always a big queue in that rest room - the employees are all extremely stressed out;(don't misunderstand that the restroom is under-equipped) while we are pretty chilled out working only for some 12 hours a day, their employees are so stressed out that they have to come late to the office and leave early as well...

and what a pathetic recreation system they have for employees (apart from that funny mirror) - just one small cafeteria with a coffee machine and a fridge with some soft drinks, and carrom board and a partitioned room for a tt table... and they don't even have a tv with a good DTH connection... how long can we keep pressing F5 every 5 minutes on cricinfo... don't we have other mails and scrapbooks to check... it is too bad that we had to leave work half a day early cramming our whole team into a small car and go home just to watch a cricket match... and those expensive restaurants we go to when we feel like having a better lunch than the cafeteria food, they normally take at least 2-3 times the normal duration of our lunch hours... and this despite the fact that we go to these places only 3 or 4 times a week while all the poor employees of the client eat at the cheaper cafeteria - though the quality of the food is the same...

that is what makes me feel guilty... when the client is so poor we consultants seem to be leeching out the money from them... even though we are not as good as rajnikanth who in sivaji could make some 250 crores at the young age of 25 just writing some software code, we do make a few thousands; and if we cut down on some of our daily meals, we can even save some money every month in those plastic piggy banks... provided our government does not levy piggy-bank-taxes, these little savings will be useful during the rainy days or maybe we can even donate a part of it to that poor girl...

tondee tondee !!!

the new format of cricket has hit the screens since yesterday and all the players are clamouring for a spot in the team and all advertisers are clamouring for a spot in the breaks... though what made them go for the shorter version of the game is anybody's guess; according to a PnP theory the higher the urgency in a task, the better your results turns out. ok sorry no more gas, but at least in this current raw format i don't like it...

it reminded me of our limited overs cricket matches we used to have during our school days in our apartment complex... we had a small open space abt 50m by 40m area covered with thick bushes and weeds among the neglected coconut tree saplings planted by our colony welfare association during some emotional independence day or republic day event... anyways wot matters was we had a decent open space to play cricket... and we had a small pitch where we could play throw-matches - as in there was no run-up-bowling, but just stand at the bowler's end and throw (as in no complete arc bowling action) to the batsmen... of course we had variety bowlers under-arm over-arm leg-spin off-spin off-break leg-break hand-break jaw-break anything... and depending on the condition of the pitch - where the gardner had suddenly decided to irrigate the coconut saplings and on which area on the pitch the excess water had accumulated we used to have the runs allocation - if you hit on the leg-side you get normal runs and on the on-side you get "Gs" meaning you dint have to run for the run but instead it was just granted... and ofcourse if and when you hit a nearby window you could be declared out depending on the time that had elapsedd since the last time the tenant in that house had shouted curses and threatened to put a fullstop to our play by escalating it in the association meetings... so we batsmen could weild our willows and play within the constraints of space and place the ball cunningly so that we got the maximum "gage" (meaning maximum batting time at the crease) without getting out...

however, beyond all this what never changed were the boundaries... the locations could change depending on whether that day's puddle patch favoured a leg-side or on-side scoring, but a boundary was always the compound wall surrounding the "cricket ground"... you just needed to be lucky to hit them through the narrow trajectories through the network of saplings and grinning faces of the fielders peering in between from some of the gaps. and lucky to hit the boundary wall without the ball going out of the compound because apart from the probability that the ball could be written off due to inaccessible ditches and cranky neighbors you also got out... "6+out" was the rule and you would feel like that sure century had been cheated out of you... and since we are all lazy indians hitting boundaries without getting out was a skill that made you the most wanted player on the team... but it was largely a bowler's game as the bowlers could exploit the unevenness of the pitch and the control in the arm to suffocate the batsmen and finally getting them to make a mistake and get out...

and this was a game where seniority played a very important factor - not because of being the most experienced players on the team, but because you could easily bully the kids into giving them the bat afer getting "hurt-retired" (which was actually pronunciation corrupted and called “attetailed” and actually meant that you could get hurt if you didn’t retire); usually this bullying was not required either as we kids are usually pretty scared of the "annas" (big brothers) who used to tower over us and usually come home to let out the steam generated at their work or college on the poor little tennis ball, swearing away over even the simplest of things...

every evening after school one of us would start the process going around calling people shouting from the groundfloor to their balconies much to the irritation of the moms who would want us to study and finish our homework etc... then we would assemble and usually the most senior players would start building the teams carefully choosing the right mix so that the team would win in the designated number of overs (usually 8-10-15-20) and at the same time there would be the least resistance to the senior players playing the maximum gage... first to be picked up would be the senior players with whom the captains were comfy with (when u grow older some prejudices tend to grow with you)... second would be some special kids... the generally accepted norm was that the kids are less dependable to score runs, but then sometimes they would click and it is just impossible to get them out on "their days"... so such kind of "kids" were the second most prefered in the hierarchy... and then would come the last preferred pawns who would be blamed if the match went down while the captain got the praise for keeping faith on these players if they won...

i don't crib as i soon outgrew my status of being a new kid to that of a most wanted player to a senior player within about 6 years, and 6 yrs is quite a short time if you look at it as 6years and not convert it into number of days or hours which definitely makes it appear quite big... it was one of the most memorable times of my childhood where sometimes during the hols we used to even play some 5-6 hours non-stop till our moms came and dragged us away for lunch and other things; and then we would be back at the ground to play until nightfall and the batsmen could not even see the arm of the bowler, in a vain attempt to disprove haisenberg’s uncertainty principle trying guess momentum and position of the ball simultaneously... this kind of play within the constraints to a very large extent did give me a confidence to play on the school team and even impress my coach with my defense strokes (learnt mainly to survive the one-pitch-catch funda)... and then of course the cross between the full power driven pull and the timed sweep shots that we used to play to land the boundary hits helped us to hit out to unexpecting fielders where it would fall just short or just beyond them and score those extra runs... and best of all it gave us a good do-your-best-and-dont-care-about-the-result attitude when we used to swing away at the ball with eyes closed putting all responsibility on god to keep our stumps safe...

which does bring me back to the T-20 that i happened to witness between SA and WI... for a moment it looked like the windies have shaken the ghosts of their past and were once again coming out to be the first to excel in the new format of the game like they did in tests and one-dayers... gayle seemed to be working out a gale and was just sending every damn ball to the fence - tearing through the ground or the air depending on what level of respect he had for the bowler... and for a time it looked as if the windies had definitely perfected the technique for winning this game and that their strategies had made an optimal consideration of the rules and had stretched and pulled them so that within these boundaries they could score as many boundaries as possible... for a moment i thought i was wrong in assuming that it resembled the cricked we used to play during those younger days and that it was a largely bowler dependant game where the batsmen were only intent on swinging away, praying with their eyes closed hoping that wood would connect with leather and send it rolling to the ropes...

but then i was right (as usual)... with gayle's strength running out he finally succumbed to fatigue and gave the ball to the fielder instead of the spectators... then the rest of the gang followed soon spending as little time as the bowlers would take to bowl a good ball to send them packing... gayle had just clicked before he finally croaked and the rest of the windies (who are not underdogs without a reason) followed suit. and then the SA's, obviously a set of better rated batsmen, proved more trustworthy and the underperforming windie bowlers failed to capitalize on a bowler friendly strategy for the game... i am not commenting on the indian team as yet, but then the "annas" of the team are not there to bully the youngsters, so i hope they at least have unconstrained fun...

i don't say i hate the format... i am not a cricketing expert to comment on the performance of the players too... in fact i wont even say that i could have scored at a better rate at my old cricket ground... the game is in it infancy and the players need to understand the spirit of the game before entering the ground with a "wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am" attitude... cricket is a gentleman's game and the game can be played that way even in the new format... just lofting the bowlers high up and praying that the ball finds the hands of the spectator rather than a fielder's can be interesting for a short time, but in the long run you want to watch the elegant strokes of timing the ball to the fence...

probably this is how the ardent supporters of test cricket felt when one-dayers were introduced... and when the number of balls in an over was reduced from 8 to 6... probably they felt that the new format was totally against the spirit of the game... but with time things changed... now i cannot sit and watch a 5 day test match... i simply don't have the patience... maybe soon i would lose my patience with the one-dayers too... i think i just need a little more time to adjust to their shorter time durations... till then I will accept the cheerleaders…

branded for life

what is in a brand... mbas would say that brands are an intangible entity that help you relate to a particular product in a particular sort of way and that it is the top of mind recall of a particular company's product over similar products of other companies... in short a brand is a product's identity creating the first among equals relationship in the market...

there are brands that are in fact products now - people now don't photocopy, they xerox... all low floored a/c buses are volvos... all packaged waters are bisleries... all general internet searching is googling... all mahindra type 4-wheel drive off-roaders/open top vehicles are jeeps... an mp3 player is an ipod... a piece of quality A4 paper is a bond paper... a scooterette is a scooty... any cola drink is a coke... all chocolates are cadburys... baby foods were all cerelacs and baby powders were johnson and johnson... prickly heat powders were nycils... portable cassette players were walkmans... emails were until recently hotmails... and a b-school was an IIM...

well so as a line extension on the same brand the great indian government decided to open 7 more IIMs as part of a national welfare program... this might appear to be a great idea to provide an opportunity for the millions of youngsters who don't get into the top b-schools each year... but to me it is more of lazy ploy by the indian government to fool students and their recruiters and a long term strategy to dilute the IIM brand... it is more of a ruse to fool the people into making them forget the lack of infrastructure for quality educational institutions in india... the only reason why iim students are in such great demand is because they are in such short supply... how would it be if we could convert all b-schools to iims and all engineering colleges to iits - then will we have a standardized indian population of mbas and engineers... and what is the next target - all medical colleges will henceforth be called aiims ?

i just can't accept the thought of creating a new college or taking over some old college and calling it an iim or an iit... take the example of roorkee... it was a cult brand by itself before it became an iit... now people feel cheated when they crack the iit-jee and are offered an admission into roorkee... if it is an existing college, it is a grave dishonor to its existing name.

of course starting a world class educational institution is not easy and bringing it on par with the existing competition is no joke... but then it is not a case of "if you can't beat them, join them uninvited" philosophy. how can you possibly claim that a college say opened in some remote location like the northeast, (no offense meant to the northeasterners, but then those states have been isolated due to inaccessibility) why would any non-northeasterner agree to go there and settle down there to teach? and if we argue that we will get local teachers doesn't that defeat the purpose of an iim - the brand being a global one we should at least have exposure to different regions of this country at least... or is it a plot by the indian government to release a spurious iim just to keep the people in this region happy and garner their votes?

many people in favor of the brand extension argued it costs a lot of money to setup a new world class college equivalent to the iims and in the initial years you will probably operate at a loss since not many would apply to these colleges without a brand... well i can only say that it costs a lot more than just money to build a brand like that of the iims...

what does the indian government know about education at a level that the iims and iits have achieved... just because they were initially created by the indian government they are not still the children of the indian goverment that they can decide whatever they want to do with them. just because they have a ministry it does not mean that it is qualified to make decisions affecting educational freedom... in fact it just means the opposite - just because they have a ministry, they are the least qualified. it is more of a lazy shortcut method to increase india's only currently abundant natural resource - intellectual capital. i do not wish to quote specific examples beyond the generic iims because that might explicitly portray this post to be sort of biased (which it is anyways)... but then you do have success stories of colleges extending their brand name across the world; but my counter argument is that these colleges have borrowed brand names only, and they have created a better offering compared to the existing brands - it is not an attempt to just ride on the wave of the existing brand image and cheat people...

how would it look if Reynolds called themselves parker or mont blanc… how would it be if the local udupi hotels called themselves taj or radissons… how would it be if maruti called its cars Suzuki… how would it be if hmt or titan called themselves rado or tag huer… it is not to bring out that one is a lower quality brand, this is just to highlight that each brand has its own niche in the market… that cannot be denied or taken away from them…

after all, a brand is a brand is a brand…

rain rain go away

I hate rains...

My earliest memories of rain disrupting my normal life have never been memorable... And i hate any deviations from a normal life that i want to lead... That i lead it abnormally is a different story, but i dont want anything disrupting it... I don't mind the rain... As long as it is behind a glass-sunroof, preferably slanted, above my living room while i sit in the living room totally dry with a hot cup of coffee and a louder home theater system...

I vividly remember rain disrupting my cricket-match schedules, my weekly school library book-issue schedules (i was a book-aholic then) and then the usual going home schedules... Yuck !!! Wading through all that floating garbage and diluted knee deep sewer water - something you get when you mix the two extremes of purity...

It is not that rain is always bad... I do remember once when our school announced free 5 marks per subject - that is a whopping 25 marks in your aggregate for all the dedicated souls that came to school on that rainy day. Probably that was the only time i was in the top 3 of my class much to the chagrin of the usual class topper who failed to turn up from his flooded home some 20kms away... Long live our vice-principal who had to take that decision (and risk getting a beating for giving away free marks which she did get obviously) since our principal too was stuck in the discomforts of her warm home... And then there was this continuous set of holidays for almost a week because of heavy rains and we school kids could stay at home and watch tv during the day and play carrom and sleep late snuggled under warm blankets and anytime we wanted we got hot mom-cooked food... My most delicious bread and jam was the free one on one of the rainy days when we were stranded at school and our management was contemplating if we should continue staying in the safety of the school cold and hungry or we shud make the arduous journey to our homes where hot food and concerned moms awaited us... And who can forget those amazing schumi drivings in the rain soaked f1 races or the million-zillion times where india must have been bailed out of a sure shot no-longer-embarassing defeats in the cricket grounds... Or those amazing floods in mumbai that saved me escaping my birthday bashes...

Coming to the trigger of the post - it rained yesterday; and yesterday was the day i decided to take the pleasure of driving to work on my bike... After a not-so-harrowing-but-in-fact-slightly-pleasurable ride to work i was looking forward to a similar ride back home... All the while no one had noticed the ominous black cloud creeping up above us... So there was the black cloud hovering above me like the alien space ship in “independence day” getting ready to fire the primary weapon at the precisely pre-decided time when i would be out in the open... And i oblivious to all this plannings decided to beat time and reach home before the rain could catch up with me... How naive !!!

So i get out of the building as it was not even drizzling when i was getting into the lift at the 5th floor... And at the ground floor it starts a heavy drizzle... News travels real fast... And so i decided to go back to the safety and dryness of my otherwise cold office... I take refuge in the library and 2 newspapers later i see the rain having let up slightly... I go for a coffee at my cafeteria and i watch the parking lot for sometime at something weird but unable to understand what it was... Then it struck me - a dry patch was not getting wet... That meant the rain had stopped and the rain gods have heard my prayer... So trusting of me... So i rushed out wearing my rain jacket just in case. But by the time i reached the ground floor the rain clouds were firing on all guns...

I waited for about half an hour hoping it would accept my acknowledgement of defeat, but then looked like rain had declared war... So i decided to brave my way through on my trusty bike... So i walk to the parking lot dripping wet already, so that i did not feel the tingling sensation once i sat on the wet seat... And off we went into the rainsoaked night...

Thick rain had made it impossible to see through my helmet visor and i lifted it to expose my face to the fury of nature... (i wont call it mother nature becos mothers are supposed to be benevolent and understanding... And always ready with a hot cup of coffee). So i make it some distance after which i had to remove my specs too as they were made of the same material as my helmet visor (though costing many times more per square inch) to enable relatively increased visibility... After passing lots of blurry signboards i somehow managed to trust my instinct - i was sopping wet anyways, another load of water for some more time is not going to make any difference... And my rain jacket was all bloated up with the water it had so meticulously soaked up and my arms were like two pipes pouring water like a chennai metro water tanker all the way...

Somehow i managed to reach home and parked my bike with some difficulty in the cramped and waterlogged slush... I trudge up the steps to my room-with-a-view... And it all stopped... The absolute silence was like paying its respects to the ordeal i have been through or maybe the martyrdom of my laptop, mobile and any other remotely screwable high value electronics...

I hate rains...

free-wheely in bangalore

this weekend was as hectic as any other... it was the usual slow_starter_build_up_to_a_peak_just_b4_hitting_the_bed type of a weekend... notice the underscores instead of the hyphens and the unnecessarily sudden abbreviation in a stupidly long word... i didn't intend it, but am too lazy to englishify it... and it is just an indication of the training on the software i went through last week (more on this later)...

anyways coming back to the status report of this weekend, there is a significant milestone reached that should help me cover many more miles... yup my wheels finally touched down (or should it be touch-downed) on bangalore roads... nearly a month and a significant portion of my bank balance later i finally got my NOC stamped on my bike's documents and got it booked on road cargo to bangalore from chennai...

ideally it should have taken just a couple of days and i should have received the documents at my office desk without any trouble and i should have comfortably travelled to the cargo office in a local bus for some 5 bucks and taken possession of my bike, but then my planets and numbers would not let me live an easy life (and this is another topic for my pending blog posts and i wont dwell on this now... i have to complete my short and sweet post for today and hit the sack for gruelling work starting tomorrow...)

and yes so finally i am the proud owner of the roads of bangalore... and i felt on top of the world riding my pulsar... the flyover might have contributed a little to the feeling, but who cares... i have my bike now and screw those autos and buses... now i dont need them no more... and that thought in itself was cause for celebration...

and wot better way to celebrate than catch a movie at one of the only malls in bangalore (ok... i wont bitch about bangalore here, maybe some other post some other day... i am too happy to do that now.) my friends had booked tickets for die hard 4.0 (notice the intended pun for the software type numbering)... anyways, we had to travel to koramangala to the forum mall to watch the movie... i have been there couple of times and this time i had decided enough is enough... i have my bike and i wont pay through my nose to the autowallas nor will i take a stupid bus and walk some 2kms from the nearest stop...

so me and another friend, who i had to convince real hard to come with me promising that i would drive slow (as if i could drive fast in the roads of bangalore... ok ok not now!)... we were off, and traffic was pretty light and we made good time reaching the place in some 20 mins flat... and i was happy that my bike has still not lost its punch and we still made a good team though a bit rusty after inaction for nearly 2 years... and slowly we inch our way to the entrance to the parking lot for the mall...

my happiness was shortlived as the arrogant guard there would not let us in... well since that was the case with everyone, cars and bikes alike, i decided to forgive them with the understanding that it was a genuine lack_of_infrastructure problem; we moved on to the new parking lot we were directed to some half a kilometer away... and there the #*(#!^@ imbecile of guards were not letting any two wheelers in because the parking lot was full...

i felt like getting off the bike and blowing my top at these guys, but then today was a super_good_day even though i had not seen 5 red cars in a row, i had gotten my bike today... and i wont let anything spoil my good mood... so i took a u-turn and decided to park my bike at some spot at some other building nearby... luckily there was a footpath converted to a parking lot right opposite to the forum mall... i appreciate the initiative of the citizens in times of crises like today, screw the pedestrians... they can walk on the other side of the road anyways...

well that was it... i made sure that i parked my bike well deep inside the cluster so that at least it wont be the first to be towed away and went in to watch the movie... of course whenever there was a break in the action in the movie i chanted a prayer under my breath to tell god to play security and watch over my bike and make sure it was there till i returned...

well when i finally left the mall 4hrs later, i could see my distinctive number plates from a distance and thanked god for the good job he had done... and yes the icing on the cake was the "NO" i said to the #*(#!^@ autowallas... the ride home was brilliant with almost zero traffic on the roads and we rode back nonstop... and we also managed to take a detour to hunt for some icecream and coffee which we would have sacrificed if we should have walked all the way...

"FUN CAME !!!"

a hair raising tale

for some people it is the electric chair, for some it is the dentist's; for me it is the barber's chair... my nemesis for life forever gives me a tough time in society's acceptability list... one that causes my near and dear to join in the fray of shunning me...

i like having short hair... i had always wanted to join the army/navy or the airforce... i was fascinated by their haircut... but since IT needed me, i decided to make that supreme sacrifice, and settled for the local barber to gimme a feel of the army every month or so that my modest compensation package would allow...

but then to my parents it is a sin to cut my hair before it is at least 6 inches long or the time since the last cut was 6 months - whichever is later and that is when it will appear to them as if i might need a haircut... and even if it is longer than that it is a sin anyways... i have tried to argue with them that it is not actually as short as it looks to them and also vaguely hinted at getting their spectacles changed, but no use. a sin is a sin is a sin...

and it is not just my parents... somehow people have this fascination to comment on freshly cut hair... the society is against losing hair... probably it is the inherent fear of baldness that makes people happy that there is voluntary bald cut that they can make fun of...

i am also rarely satisfied with my haircut... very rarely do i get out feeling ok after that last snip after which everything went wrong... right from the point i decide to go for a haircut, my unruly hair seems to behave as if it is a naughty kid frightened to submission by the doctor's needle or the bogey man... i really begin to have second thoughts as to whether i really need a haircut now... but then i tell myself, that once i decide not to go, my hair will grow doubly unruly... so i go on... and the barber goes snip snip snip and i am happy that things are going on fine... and actually my hairstyle is looking much better, though he has not yet done upto my specifications... i even consider asking him to stop right there and jumping out of the chair... then there comes that deadly SNIP... after that there is no turning back... it is a classic case of the 2 cats and the monkey story... then depending on whehter the place has an airconditioner, the damage control happens making u look like you have just visited tirupati or like a football star with that small tuft above the forehead in an otherwise bald pate or just accepting to preserve whatever is left over and maybe next time will come faster...

there was a long standing joke about boys and girls take a fresh haircut... while it is just a polite "haircut?" type confirmation that gets a nod as a response from a guy to the girls gossiping about their neighbor's infidelity for an hour starting with a similar innocent question... but that is not actually true... though the timelines might be, guys can be as nasty as girls in telling you off that the haircut is not good... but then the guys dont realise that they are throwing stones from a glass house and to girls you cant say anything...

i dont claim that my haircut is a perfect one making me look handsome and ready to be cast instead of brad pitt in troy or that ash would fall for me instead of AB... just that it is hair today which will start growing from tomorrow... if it doesn't, there is always the tirupati cut to drastically reduce your sins...

it happened to me !!!

the key to all happiness

it was a very normal day... i got up at the usual 7am (yes that has become usual now...) and caught the bus to work... stayed there from 9am to 615pm during which i did everything possible - wondering why gtalk was not working only for me, trying to understand whether the user manual was stupid or trivial, drank tea, ate a heavy breakfast and an even heavier lunch, refreshed my mail folder a hundred and fifty times etc, not necessarily in that chronological order...

so in a very normal way i reached my drop point feeling all tired after a hard day at work choosing to ignore the make-you-fly-for-sometime kinda bumpy speed breakers on the way back... while walking back that 200 meters to my abode, i slipped my hand into my pocket and frantically searched that 4inch deep cloth bag in disbelief... my key was missing... the only key to the only lock on my only door was missing... the key to my hopes of catching a short nap before dinner was gone... i did vaguely remember a distinctly rattling thud as if something had fallen out of someone's pocket after a particularly nasty bump, but i was preoccupied with my plans for the snooze that i chose to ignore that... now i could not forgive myself for that fleeting moment of weakness...

well, anyways the MBA in me did not let me brood over the spilt milk or in this case the dropped key for too long, and i promptly called up my landlord and told him of my predicament... but then my great overlord Murphy decided to have some fun...

the call got disconnected due to his inability to hear me properly over the traffic he was driving through... but i thought he said something like he would check if the key had a duplicate and would call me in about 15 minutes... so in order to kill time i decided to call up some long overdue friends... the first number was switched off... the second was no longer in use... the third was busy... i got tired... looking around for someone to kill... oops, someone to help me kill time...

there was this poor neighbor who had bunked office as he was unwell... we had a long chat where we exchanged each other's bio-data... then again murphy wanted me isolated perhaps and this guy got a call from his long lost sweetheart to whom he started explaining what insurance was and how he sold it to poor unsuspecting people... anyways i looked at my watch and my cell phone's call register and calculated that there was still some 10 minutes pending for my owner to call back in his promised 20minutes... so i decided to try my luck again with other friends and i dialed... one of them did pick up the call and said he was on his way to a conference call with his clients in the USA... curse the indian economy that is so dependent on the USA that it does not even allow a guy in distress to call his friend...

so then i tried another and then another and then another and managed to squeeze some five five minutes of their time... that is when you realize that everyone is busy either going home or some other work related work... when you have your key the world goes home with you, but when you lose the key, you lose it alone... so i have managed to excruciatingly complete some 15 minutes of my existence... and i decide that my landlord's grace period is over and i dial his number... that is when i get the rudest shock - "the number you are trying to reach is not reachable"... even after 15 trials that guy is still in some unreachable location... was he unreachable by chance or was that his ploy and had gone into hiding hoping that i wud leave my stuff inside the room and return to my hometown so that he can rent it out to somebody else...

i then try the other number, a relative of my landlord, but that is another recorded beep this time - not even the mechanical monotonous voice... the number is busy... finally after frantically alternating between the unreachable landlord and the busy landlord's relative, i finally manage to get through to the relative... who is at an undisclosed location more secret than Area51 some many many miles away and it was impossible for him to come over... and he promises me that he would get in touch with my landlord... but before i could warn him that he was untouchable, the phone was hung up...

that was the last straw... i prepare myself for the worst situation... i anyway live on the terrace, so i can sleep there in the open air... in the early morning it would get a bit cold, so maybe i can wake up and exercise... only it would be a bit uncomfortable but that is alright... i would have to take the next day off and maybe around 10am go hunting for a lock breaker... as in a key maker... i would get him to come to the house and make him make a duplicate, i would pay him some 200 bucks... my friend spent 250 on a similar occasion but i will bargain... shit this 200 bucks is causing a dent in my budget... and i will have to eat at less expensive places... and worse i may not be able to save enough to buy a new bike if i keep repeating this... oh if i cannot even buy a bike i cannot even think of buying a nice apartment on the 4th floor on the outer ring road... the real estate prices are soaring... oh man !!!

while i was just bordering on the edge of hysteria, i see a dark bulky figure moving up the stairs... when the face became visible in the moonlight i let out the biggest phew that i have in my whole life... it was the landlord... my SAVIOR !!! but the suspense was still not broken, and i half expected the door would be... but luckily murphy decided to focus elsewhere and we did manage to find the duplicate...

maybe that dream house on outer ring road is not just a castle in the air... maybe there is some hope yet... and I will make a few extra duplicates of the keys, just in case…

babes bulbs bells booms barsaat breaking mirrors and other bajaofying musical instruments

I recently saw a few movies – no central common theme except that the characters in it find “true love”… what is disturbing is the modus operandi of Mr.Cupid who announces that they have found their destinies… people seem to know the “ringtone” of Mr.Cupid… precisely put, people have set the ringtone of Mr.Cupid themselves…

In some cases it is people playing the violins behind them… then in some cases it is a guitar or the piano or the bagpipes (some arbit musical instrument of their choice)… then in some cases it is a combination of 2 or more senses… like bulbs lighting up around you and bells ringing… and if u are in love and you throw a walnut at a mirror on the wall and if it does not rebound to you broken into 2 neat halves and instead breaks the mirror… or else it might even rain whenever your love is near you, and/or something equally disastrous can happen… and in some cases it is just a boom… a boom as in a bomb blast boom… only this time it signifies the birth of a new relationship and hence it is good. And I think it is imaginary as it happens to only those people who are struck by cupid’s arrow, but I can’t be sure.

And that brings me to the big Q… how do they know it? Almost all the above scenarios have happened to me sometime in my life… like the other day I was at the temple at around the evening aarti time… and then all of a sudden the lights were switched on and the bells began ringing… there was no mistaking… but when I looked around, I realized that I would be better off accepting my mom’s minimum quality standards for the arranged marriage… ok, the setting might have been wrong, but my experience at the shopping mall setup was also not positive… there were just too many girls…

And then the other day I was in a music store on a sudden impulse to buy a guitar… and I had taken a friend along who played the most wonderful piece of music on the guitars he was testing out… sadly the shop had only male customers at that time… and trust me, I am not gay.

The case of the cracked mirror is absolutely a tale of woe – I can be assured of at least 7 days of hard time with my mom if not 7 years of bad luck… let alone me finding myself a bride by saying “mirror mirror on the wall, sorry for cracking you up with a walnut, but use the part of you that is not yet broken and show me who is the fairest maiden of them all…”

If it were to rain everytime you are with your true love, maybe it is better to stay away from marrying him/her… how would it feel if you had 365 days of rain in your city… people would just curse you (unless of course you live in Chennai). And for the disasters there is no place where people would welcome you with open arms… not even Chennai, unless it is rain.

And the boomtime… not a very happy tale either… so how do total non-believing ignoramuses like me get to know when the cupid’s arrow finds its mark… I don’t think the arrow hit will cause a stinging pain or like in many poetic compositions, does it cause a major pain in the chest region? Is it a sign after you see a girl or a sign to see the girl? And is the feeling simultaneous – probably not, because Mr.Cupid can use only the same arrow and if would take him time to aim and shoot… (I would not hurry him, lest he shoots way off target.) if it is gonna be delayed, can we know what is the maximum time lag…

A very depressing situation indeed…

But there seems to be a silver lining… a light showing the path in these very same movies… people who are together (like friends), tend to get the same kind of signs – as in a guy whose friend had a violin ringtone, would get the same violin-wala ringtone when he is struck too… and as in the case of bulbs burning and bells ringing, the only criterion is to find some place that always has these kinds of accessories hanging around like some Christmas shopping area… and of course, a friend who has found his love in the same way…

So, guys anyone who has had a good ringtone assigned to Mr.Cupid (and has got the call preferably) kindly leave me your orkut ID in the comments… I will add you as my “best friend”… and girls can leave any id – maybe we can discover a new ringtone together… or should I ask Rahman to compose one for me… ?