Trouble in Desi Love - my 2015 webmark

Climate change had huge impact in 2015, Hollywood, the amazon of global movie makers, remained dry for whole year, while Bollywood had unusual drizzle of movies, I couldn’t believe that I ended up watching some of them.

Bollywood is quintessentially dishes out masala and romantic movies, most of the movies unwittingly have similar stories cleverly repackaged time again and again. A lot of stories and aspect of romance and life never see light of day as maker are not confident about viewer’s response and ROM  (Return on Movies).  This year two of the movies that dealt with romance in different phases of life had all the usual masalas.

Masaan – one of those hindi movies that we see occasionally in a decade. Masaan has both heart and soul in place and right amount of emotions, fun, romance and tragedy as its ingredient. It is a movie about perils of love in a small town India, revolving around two couples and the difficulty love brings. How unfortunate an intimate liaison would consequently turnout to be and how difficult courtship can be in a society divided on the lines of class and caste, is well depicted in the movie. Despite the seriousness of the theme movie blends light hearted romance of young generation. Life and lifestyle of small town is brilliantly portrayed by all the characters, last such movie that effectively covered the panorama with depth & variety in the story was 2011 movie Engaeyum Eppothum, which had a different take on love life in small town Tamil Nadu. Masaan doesn’t provide instant gratification like Maggi noodles, its only afterwards you realized what was served to you.

Tanu Weds Manu Returns – As love-life sometimes can turn out to be chaotic, unpredictable and devoid of all reasons and monotonous married life can be, the sum result you expect is disaster and stupidity amplified in a movie. Like all romcom movies that exaggerate the events and scenarios in life, this movie is no different from other. The movie also has almost all the elements of Woody Allen movie – characters are emotional, irrational and in search for elusive love, the only point that this movie differs is philosophical introspection and loud scenes, which makes it perfect for Bollywood. It fills all the holes with shoot & go punch-lines and impeccable comic timings of ensemble cast. For a movie to explore and perfectly mix a dreaded phase of married life with keeping Bollywood element alive is sure rare and unusual. The very reason this movie stands out among the other movies regularly dished out by Bollywood.

     

Delhi Metro Guys

Being new to delhi, metro ride throws you fascinating facets of delhi. The Delhi metro is microcosm of delhities and a ride in to the metro throws light on one interesting Species- Delhite-Men. This specie is not much different from most of male species in the country but when the landscape is of big metro cities then their public actions are rather incomparable.

On metro train it is mostly funny as you can witness Wimbeldon effect whenever a woman enters the tube filled with men but sometimes highlight the scary aspect of gender behavior. If you have an eye for detail may be you can catch some these species in action.  

The big eye ball Guy: Many of such species are visible every day on metro but what amazes me is the surprise in their eyes every time they see fairer sex as if they have seen it first time in their lives. Their reaction is very predictable, it’s like “oh, my god they do exists”. If a young female in professional attire walks in then it is fun to watch their big eye scan.

Pole dancing guys: The uniquely set of talented guys who have created new form of dancing “gazealooko” by twisting their body on the pole to get a better look of every female going in and out of the tube, though haven’t seen anybody trying upside down act. I really think these Delhi guys should get some amount of credit for the origins of twearking.

The Immobile Guys: These are totally contrasting set of guys compared to pole dancing guys, they don’t move. In fact you won’t see them moving an inch no matter who passes by, if some girl passes by then they don’t bother to step aside, you can see how pleased they are to be brushed sideways.

Goggles Wala is an evolutionary breed, one of my favourites at Delhi Metro. After their numerous rolling eyes misadventures received keep-your-disgust-to-yourself feedback, these guys smarted to a peaceful solution of glares for gaze. I sense they are the most harmless guys of the lot who actually want to remain invisible to everyone’s eyes. The only time you can catch their presence when they have to continuously turn their heads to make a dekho.

Stare-you Guys: These guys are not necessarily the ones with big eye balls. Their game is simple, just stare the fairer sex in front of them and continuously do so for the whole damn time. These guys are not amused at women, but women indeed are.  I don’t know if they find it the best way to kill the time or consider it the most entertaining part of the journey but they definitely seem to scare the female species.

These species aren’t much exclusive to Delhi, It is not much of difficult to find them in any other city, but is easier to find them in Delhi.

I find it difficult to understand guys in Delhi on the average have good looks & built and have good sense of dressing much like other men in metros, but their desperation is quite evident than men in other cities. Some of Delhi guys are much more like “Delhi Rickshawalas” who literally jump on their prospects even though they have multiple possibilities to get hitched. May be its desperation to get hitched or may its sudden rush of blood to the small brain which makes them ‘Love- Junkies’.

I don’t know it could be either, but what’s really funny that they still act like the men in 80s movies, probably Delhi Metro is more modern than large section of delhi-men.                

Gone Days of Vilayat

During my childhood foreign country had its own charm…which was mostly exotic, superior and unreachable for most of the Indians. There was skewed perception of foreign countries be it developed west or improvised east. Foreign country was fondly called ‘Vilayat’ and those came back from such places have numerous names ranging from vilayati Lal, vilayati babu or simply more abusive – vilayati !!

Most of the people knew it through the movies, and favourite among those themes were Indian going to foreign shore or returning after education from western countries. Though a hardly any movies in late 80s or 90s were not made on such subject but a lot of those telecasted on national channel during the period were made between 50s and 70s, the era when Indian looked towards west for everything.

One of most favourite themes used to return of western educated Indian to his homeland, most of it centered on all things wrong with the vilayati babus. So, a vilayati would always be drinking & smoking, bashing up the desi culture most important of all kicking the parents out of home!! Besides vilayat Indians were charmed with other thing vilayati- the gora women aka gori maem (mademoiselle), vilayati lal’s successful sojourn will involve landing up with a gora maem. So, another obvious theme used to vilayati lal returning with gora maem, who characteristically wouldn’t be much different from vilayati lal, doing everything from smoking, drinking and kicking parents. But, more publicized affair was that of vilayati wine than vilayati women.

Lure for vilayat percolated down to everything vilayati in pre90s days. Demand for vilayat made products was very high in India was used to be a matter of prestige to something valyati (yes, besides people the word was also used for objects). People liked to show-off their vilayati products to everyone who felt envious of not having it.

90s effectively killed the charm of vilayati products when liberalization of economy made foreign brands abundantly available in every corner of the country. Everyone with foreign band at home no one was bothered to show-off anymore. Now with everything made in china most of the people don’t actually love vilayati products as the used to be.

New millennium opened one more door and the charm of exotic vilayati locale was lost forever. The far far away land which was inaccessible and out of reach of common man became accessible to a whole new generation of Indian labourers known as ‘software engineer’. Suddenly more people had visas stamped on their passports and the stories about vilayat which once was prerogative of a selected few disappeared in photo albums of middle class people who photographed every nook and corner of vilayat including entry and exit points of airports. A decade later, vilayati governments fight to pitch their locales in bollywood movies as a destination even cheaper than our native hotspots for middleclass. The allure of vilayat is almost gone but not all as for everything else there is vilayati money.

A small ‘Update” and A Giant Leap

I know most of you would be thinking its too late to talk about leap year, if there was any. I’m not talking about it anyway. It’s about relationship. Once you get married and a few years pass by, then you see things stabalise around you. Its lot more peaceful as you are pretty sure when and how your partner gonna throw pan at you and you are very confidant that you will be able to catch it. Not only things stablise but also intensity and enthusiasm levels also come down, as every thing can’t remain same.

Once you are done with giant leap of slaying your bachelor life and years pass by then its very easy for everyone to sort life you or shall I say simplify it you…and the solution is always another leap (having kids). It’s the best argument, “what else you gonna do anyway”. But if you have not taken the second leap then you its somewhat different for you as you really need to do something before you start loosing some fizz.

It much like reinventing what you had already invented in your relationship (which described by women in two words is usually – stupid and useless). It’s somewhat similar like what corporates do, instead of launching a whole new version they release an ‘UPDATE’ when they are sure that their product is loosing some charm and they are not ready to take it to next level. Little bit shine over here & there, little bit re -jigging and result is an “update”.

“update” is the real short term solution to bring smile and excitement back in to the life. It’s a small step for man and giant improvement in mankind’s personal life (yeah, I get it its exaggerated). Oh, and talking about ‘leaps’, I saw leap of different kind when I visited a mall sometime back.

To my surprise, I saw a lot of the men holding their kid in hand while their better half enjoyed the outing. I had not seen so many men at same place and in similar condition (yeah its condition). I couldn’t believe it and I really didn’t want to! I cribbed to myself, how the hell men in this country took this leap of being “friendly” to their kids (all this bullshit was largely limited to movies), in my parents generation kids were scared of their father, now I see them hand in hand. Fathers were meant to be strict and scary, which always drove kids to their mothers and gave men free to do their stuff (which largely is doing nothing). Now this gone…gone forever. I couldn’t believe this leap had to happen during my generation only, couldn’t they have waited one more generation to pass by. But now, thanks to this leap by men of our country our lives are going to get screwed. Did I hear someone screaming??

Rush To Flush

Now that all hoopla around sania mirza and shohiab malik is over and they are done with chasing each other. I realised what just had happened and i know that it was result of being in one sceanrio that no one desires to be, i call it 'rush to flush'. It happens when you are just out of a relationship and the most unfortunate & immediate escape route goes towards another relationship.

Fall to 'rush to flush' is aided and abetted by two tools -'Stepney' and 'Open Window'. 'Stepney', as i call it, is mindware programme, it keeps tracks of all the alternate options, be it available or unavailabe in a person's life, it runs in the background while you continue your existing relationship (but remember 'stepney' turns from mindware to malware once you get married and has distructive affects). 'Open Window' as explined by our friend Ted Mosby, (in HIMYM series), is a real time relationship timeline alert tool that reminds you who has who has just moved out of relationship thus making window of opportunity open for the person.

These two tools are though independent of each other but are also complementary.Sometimes, both of these run together on same person and sometimes separaely. In case of sania mirza it was desperate need to escape from aftermath of a disastrous relationship and she turned to 'stepney' to find solace. Sohaib Malik on the other hand waited for 'Open Window' alert to make his move. Both these tools work perfectly fine until your immediate reason to be in one relationship happens to escape ruote from another, as you are emotionally drained mind plays its own game thus leading to 'rush to flush'.

I have seen it happening to two of my friends, one needed stepney and other was waiting for window to open, they hitched in this scenario dated for long even got married but still couldn't save the relationship. And,i also remember thelast big celebrity 'rush to flush', aishwarya rai and vivek oberoi; we all know the outcome. It usually follows the same pattern withperson thinking why the hell i got into this situation.

A Dog's Life

It was usual weekend morning and I was at my apartment’s gym trying to negate the weeklong affects of deskjob with some exercise. The gym is on the first floor and overlooks a large empty plot as it the case with most of the newly developed areas in the outskirts of the city. I was running on the treadmill and I saw few street dogs playing in the ground. They were having the playful start of the day, a few dogs chasing each other, time after time.

Suddenly one the dog got tired and sat down facing our gym. Soon other dogs joined the first dog and started looking at me. They saw me running; there was some distance and a huge wall between us. The dogs were anticipating the running guy will come to them and they will run after him or bite him. Then, after a few minutes and dogs still waited in anticipation that I will cross the wall and they would jump on me. Some more time passed by and dogs started looking at me with different angels by twisting their heads to make out what was exactly happening.

Dogs stood up and they were tired of watching me running but not coming to their side. I smirked, these rural dogs (yeah they became urban because city moved into it); they aren’t exposed to many things and were unaware of changes around. Dogs hadn’t seen a treadmill and they were totally amused and it was culture shock to them, total change of life style they had never seen before.

Just as I was taking shots on those newly urban stray dogs, the “other dog” came out of a big housing complex from the opposite end. I couldn’t have felt better. There it was, a sophisticated dog with knowledge of changes surrounding him, he can distinguish between marvelously carved garden in the apartment and government property, knows where to shit. I was going gaga over dogs knowledge and acquired skills, then I saw the “other dog” being pulled by his owner (dog wasn’t ultra rich, the ones with a servant attached for their service).

Suddenly, I realized his miserable life. So, the “other dog” was forced out in the morning for his morning ritual. I pity the life of “other dog”, he had not much freedom, time everything to owner’s requirement and worse – shit on time and that too day after day. I could understand that the “other dog” was under pressure to maintain efficiency in meeting timely requirement of his owner. Living shity life to shit on time, fun had totally gone out of the life of “other dog”.

By the time stray dogs had given up on me, I was no fun like rural fellas who run into them and then get bitten by them, dogs walked out of disappointment. Finally, as I completed my exercise a thought creeped into my mind about lives of rural stray dogs’ vs “other dog” and us humans. It didn’t seem much different how we live today.

Old for Gold

A lot of times we talk about face value and how everything gets judged around it. And, here I’m literally talking about “face” value, and how much it is looked upon to gauge your talent in professional world.

Most of us know about professions where looks play paramount role, in some profession its looks + smartness and for rest looks are supposed to play no role. But, Are there any such profession? I think it rarely does exist. Rarely not because people exploit their looks for success but actually how critically a profession judges a professional’s talent by his/her looks.

It was just a few months after my post graduation, my friend had mustache grown on his face. His answer to my enquiry of change in fashion was simple, he was handling his business and he didn’t wanted to look newbie and novice in business, who lacked sense of business; and off course he had to give slightly mean look. A few months later it my turn, a client looked at my colleague & me and got worried with our silly young excited face. He wanted to know how qualified we were to handle his research project.

Young is not the look that most of the young professionals want and truth is that young look in most of profession is not looked upon. How many of us can ever believe most of the senior level person look at young professional and say “yeah, I think s/he handle it”. If you want to move slightly upward then young is out and mature is in. How many people ever trust young doctors irrespective of their talent? I have seen people making themselves look older than they actually are to gain trust of their patients/clients.

It’s so ironic that anyone and everyone who wants to look younger in their personal lives and does whatever possible to look young actually wants to look aged in their professional lives. Sometimes there is pressure to differentiate. I have seen young people with managerial roles trying hard to create differentiation between themselves and their team members and that begins with facial hair.

French bread is most popular it seems people take French beard route to look more matured compared to rest of team members. I don’t know how much of this effort is directed towards their bosses that help in identifying a young manager from his team or making boss believe that they have really become matured in life with straw of facial hair. I’m not sure if this one is global phenomena because if French people would come to know this then would have heart attack that people use French beard to fake their maturity and the killing part would be you look notches up older with it.

Men at Malls

A lot of those who were distraught by reading one of my previous posts asked me “then what do men actually do?” well there is lot that men do/don’t/can’t or are forced to do at mall.

Making payment was actually the thing that most of the men are proud of, though most of men still swing their wallets at payment counter but they can’t claim to be the only one as nowadays women does the same.

So what do they do?
If there are two or more guys together then window shopping and bird watching is subconscious outcome. Men don’t do window shopping but as there is usually confusion about what to buy and what not, men usually end up doing window shopping. And with women, men are perpetually confused and they don’t mind adding distraction to their confused state.

The funniest one that you will ever see is men holding women’s purse and waiting near trial rooms. Nowhere else you will every see so many men holding their partner’s purses and waiting patiently. You really got to see it, how funny it looks with so many men are holding women’s purse and are totally clueless what to do next.

Flirting with sales-woman is not habitual act for men (though, there are always some exception) but every shop expects this to happen. So, they have already worked on to steal man’s charm and when man is thinking that he has charmed the lady, the sales-woman knows her counter charm is very well working.

Walking around the shop is certainly what most of men don’t prefer especially when they don’t have to buy anything. Meandering around the shop mentally tires men faster then gym routine; you see men looking out for chair to relax. You will always find some men at a corner on chair, perfectly relaxed knowing why he is there.

What men don’t do (here) is checking out woman’s section and you would rarely find men checking out women’s clothes. If you are standing and find other people giving strange look then it is more likely that you are standing in front of lingerie section. In last five years I have seen only one person (man) in lingerie section actually trying to buy something, I could see other men at distance really wondering “what the hell this guy is doing” and sales-women was actually blushing (as they are hardly used to sell lingerie to men).

One thing that men are not allowed to do at certain malls is standing near woman’s trial room, they are kept at some distance. I can understand, men are supposed to be perverts, always looking at other women. But then, how many men would be really interested in watching their women when their comment really doesn’t count.

Woman's Activism!

Every time I enter a shopping mall I face the same irritant, and no they are not sales persons offering new schemes. If you ever go to men’s section/floor, you will find more women then men. More women in men’s section is not a headache but the women activism sure is a headache. The sense you get on men’s section is almost like it belongs to women, the smell of perfume tells you who dominates the floor, you always see them calling shots taking decision about what men should wear, which they actually should take. I can’t believe that I have seen woman actually deciding undergarments for her men (yeah and this doesn’t happen vice versa in India) and the man looked clueless, what kind of looser that man can be who doesn’t know about his undergarments.

I fail to understand one thing, how come men have really no idea what they should wear. Men’s fashion is not as complex as women’s fashion and there aren’t many frequent changes in their fashion either. Still, most of the men seem to be clueless about what to wear. Lack of sense of fashion amongst men is acceptable as lot of men have this particular quality, but not being able to make decision about your worst sense of dressing is more appalling.

Last time when I went to a mall, it was usual, women commanding their men. I saw a person being dished out number of shirts for trial, all by his wife, he got a good number of options to choose from but unfortunately none were his!!! Well, this is classic case of clothing decision made by most of men in India; they get to make none of the decisions.

Since childhood, it’s mother who makes all decision about her son’s clothing (sometimes fathers too) though kids go out but decision is generally don’t get to take any decision, this usually goes on until child reaches to college gates. In some unfortunate instance even during college days moms decide what their kids would wear, this one can still be observed in any mall in India. But, these guys are not the most unfortunate; the unfortunate ones are the guys who bring their gal to decide what they should wear. This usually is freedom time to develop your own style and sense because at next leap this freedom usually gets curtailed. I still don’t know why guys do this because girls don’t really get impressed with it but they do get idea whether guy is conformist/confrontationist (and you know who a girl would better like!).

For married men the problem is very different, despite being financially independent devoid of any upper-hand from parents, he still can be coerced to accept choice of her partner. Married men gets bewildered by the consequence of saying no to his wife, anyone can guess the consequence of saying no to the parents but in case of wife consequence is always unpredictable. I kind of sympathise with married men especially the ones who are cheered at lot when they come out of the trial room and has no idea about what he is wearing, a reluctant smile and deal is sealed (..so is his misery).

I’m not pretty sure what trigger this indecisiveness amongst men, lack of fashion or lack of judgment. Though, space for lack of fashion actually never gets filled but women don’t give second chance to men when it comes to occupying the ‘lack of judgment’ space.

The Mystery Look

Just a few days back I was having lunch with my colleague and was joined by a another colleague with whom I hardly have had any interaction. The other colleague was surprised to know that I was married. “You don’t look like married”. This had happened a lot of time and it was followed by a similar reaction in all the occasions, but I hadn’t paid much attention to it. Suddenly, after lunch i thought how does a young married man really look like?

I really didn’t have the answer, how can I! And last person to answer this question would be your wife, how could she believe that you don’t look married. So, how does a person who doesn’t know the other person really makes out if the other person is married? This ‘ring’ thing doesn’t really work out in India as Indian wear too many rings (sometimes they double up on same finger!!).

So, what does? Apparently aged look may be a good proof, especially in countries like India where traditions are upheld, age and marriage are very much interlinked, and everybody can’t be George Clooney/Salman khan (old and in demand). Though, I must say that aged look can’t be strong argument in urban India as now it is at par with global trend of marriage at late age. But, anyways, this argument doesn’t suffice for young people.

Male balding, I thought could be another clue; but I read that at least a quarter of men start going bald in their 20s itself. So, young, bald and married is a weak correlation. But, my hunch is that men always resist baldness until they get married. Once, married they don’t resist this inhuman torture to their heads. And off course this argument doesn’t apply to men with congenital divorce defect.

I’m not sure if married man looks grim or aloof, it largely a media creation. Married man is always presented as tormented in visual media, which makes everyone belief that’s how a married looks. If this was true then around a billion married all over the world have be identified with a single expression. Not knowing where to look for further clue I looked other way, Google way, which has invaded our lives; surprisingly image results were totally incoherent with my expectations. They were the same images depicted in movies and magazines (and there was an unexpected discovery, I realized that in most of unchoreographed images of couples they were looking in different directions).

Well, I have realised that it is quite difficult to indentify young married man until unless it’s very much written on his face. I know this will one of my friend (who still has not changed his status on social networks) very happy that his market value is intact. I’m totally out of ideas But, I really want to know if you still find how a married man looks like, if anyone can help me out then this would be discovery than Monalisa smile.

Anniversary Special: Discovery of “LazyMan”

There was time not long ago I used to here this mythical stories married man being lazy. It was all over be it movies about couples, television or any conversation about couples that you ever overheard. Though, I didn’t believe it much.

Laziness is something which is almost impossible for a man to be unfamiliar with, throughout the history men have actually been competing with other lazy animals for dominance, so that only man survives. Dodo, one of the laziest and popular birds in recent history was made extinct by another lazy animal and most probably it was sub-species of social animal known as “Married Man”.

Laziness comes to the male character unknowingly since childhood, especially Indians, after being spoon-fed and pampered. That’s how we grow up, getting everything without having to make much of an effort. By the time man grows up he remains totally unaware of his super abilities, till he gets married off course.

For women, men have always been one dimensional figure preferably known by words such as stupid, dog/kutte, pervert, and for married women it’s always ‘lazy’. It does takes a wife sometime to realise how movable a man can be and in most of the cases they turnout to be immovable, even then this immovable property still offends his ‘laziness’ title by twisting his fingers on tv remote, on mobiles and computers.

A wife’s sixth sense comes to this realisation soon (usually after a year) that there is inherent relationship between man’s DNA and sofa design and they stick to each other. On the other hand, it is always incomprehensible for (lazy)man why things have to happen and needed to be done!! (I guess this is the reason why lazyman despite being available in abundance is not popular as spiderman or superman if someone dare shout “lazyman” for help in a public space then a lot of heads will turn on and then they will quickly turn-off as well.)

I think at this point of time wife names married man as ‘lazyman’ for perpetuity. Then, it makes appearance in your conversations, one out of ten, and most probably it is the first word that falls into married man’s ears, when he runs into argument with his wife. Soon, this word spreads like wild fire and married man discovers that it is by this name that he is more recognised in the neighbourhood and social circles. But, smartly married man makes out that ‘lazyman’ is a common noun, which he can easily masquerade in public, but at home he is more comfortable with this identity.

When Pajamachaaps Reunite with Queens

During my school days my classmates were greatly inspired by a hindi movie ‘jo jeeta wahi sikandar’, especially for classification of lousy guys with low sense of dressing guys as ‘pajamachaaps’ and then there were well dressed babes called ‘queens’ after their school, no names for well dressed dudes. My friends preferred themselves being ‘pajamachaaps’ chasing queens, which I despised. I thought those days were long gone until pajamachaaps made comeback. I’m not talking about myself, neither my friends nor colleagues, it’s about my organisation.

Sometimes back my organisation merged with a company that is better know in the public eye as a ‘media’ outfit. On the D-day, when all employees came together to celebrate the formation of new company, my colleague gasped while looking at the employees of other company. They were starkly different from our fellas, who are simply dressed but largely with no sense of attire to be worn in corporate environment. I guessed the other guys needed to project image for being a media outfit; I could see my colleague almost felt like pajamachaaps not because of one or two persons but because it was the crowd. I know how dangerous crowds can be, if you ask a Mumbai teenager which college he wants to go, it wouldn’t be collage’s acclaim or toppers’ list but ‘the crowd’!! Man, crowd really psyches you up. I knew that this newly acquired ‘crowd’ had over-glossed us, it was creating clash of class in the newly merged environment, “we are better than those types”, which people do to get upper hand.

Anyways, employees started getting swapped in new setup. But, despite intermingling you could still identify ‘the crowd’. One of my colleagues hated it, while my other colleague started to enjoy the change, suddenly grass was greener on the other side, and remarkably he identified ‘the crowd’. As it happens in the movie, ‘queens’ really didn’t look up to the ‘pajamachaaps’. In all this I realised that there was uncanny similarity in their attire, it was their style. The style made all the difference between the old fellas and newly acquired fellas. It was as if they had special induction lecture on corporate fashion, what they can wear and what they can’t; which shades of eyeliners would do and what was strict no..no. Nothing like it ever existed in the subconscious of employees of my pre-merged company.

I didn’t feel bad until after a month, when I realised that spiky hairdo of a guy survived for more than a month. This never happened in my five year career that a hairdo survived the corporate dictate. Maybe it was too much of shock values for old fellas of my organisation, may be no one gave damn to the five year old hair style, heheeehe!!!

Unfortunately, our old junta is still pajamachaap but some are happy with ‘queens’ around them. ‘The crowd’ still thinks (I believe that) they are ‘In-thing’ in the new company. Superiority and inferiority of egos gets settled in same old way, one-upmanship of work. The company still remains worried about the bottomline as it was before this brief period of honeymoon. As it happens in corporate marriages some people shine while others whine and a minuscule of us are just there to enjoy it!!

The Syndrome

It was late in the evening and I was surfing through the television, Seinfeld was on a channel. Despite watching the series numerous times, I again hooked up. Seinfeld is kind of spiritual…ageless body timeless mind, nothing changes over period of time. Seinfeld was facing “you gotta watch the baby” problem. He was bugged with friends inviting him to watch new born baby. That episode reminded me something similar, the numerous syndromes that I observed in young people and my friends, in particular.

Just few years back, some of my friend suffered from “when are you getting married?” syndrome when they got married. One of my friends got severely affected by this syndrome. His obvious question on every call used to be “when are you getting married?” After a few friends got married, I realised that it was odd-man out feeling that made him constantly ask the question for assurance that he was not alone. Anyways, my friend’s question to all of us was answered after some years.

By the time I was married, he already had headstart….. to another syndrome-”when are you having baby?” he had worked out all timelines (no, I don’t mean time to make call to us), the human clock, biological clock and most importantly family clock. Earlier he wasn’t persistent with anyone. But, now he feels the need for all of us to join his club simultaneously. Now, we hear all the clocks and amazingly I also had to hear the dialogues that even my parents haven’t said to me. The trouble with this syndrome is that the only time it gets cured when you join their ranks and in some severe cases people become of them and also act like the ‘syndrome’ guy.

Ulta Run at 10K

Running 10k was quite a different experience in Bangalore. I don’t know if it was fault of my company or the sponsor of the run, I got a bag full of chilli powder, pasta and not to mention the most useful item-soap. Probably they thought precipitation and scorching sun will make me use it. I never got it why anyone would like 1kg on his back to run 10k. So, I ran but carried only my little i-pod to minimize the load on my body, I didn’t wanted to look like those wannabes who can’t run without music but probably I looked more like them. Just after completing a kilometer most of the people realised two things, one, that 10 km was big distance and second, the usual Bangalore problem-planning and execution. A lot of people cribbed why it didn’t start a few hours early. Anyways, their anger was cooled down by hurling mineral water bottles on runners. But, so many plastic bottles dismayed all those environmentalists who were running for it. 2km down the run, people started kicking those plastic bottles, though initially I didn’t mind it but when it started hitting me then it really bugged me. What bugged me more was that with every kick on those plastic bottles the whole ‘clean Bangalore’ thing got booted big time.

After 3kms some people realised that they had phones with them, so people got busy with their phones. I overheard one fella, in his slowmo walk, lecturing someone how important this day was for him and how much he was doing for it, I really could see it. Some people started clicking their memorable photos of the event, missed having not brought my phone, but not much longer ‘coz media was there motivate everyone. Whenever and wherever cameras appeared people started running and showing how motivated they were!! A lady even ran in other direction following cameraman, people were busy asking which tv channel was covering them; some even called up their family that they were LIVE on a channel. After realising how entertaining run was, a few kms through the run I also realised how it brought people together. While running, we asked each other how many kms had passed by, then suddenly other two persons realised that they were from Microsoft and Yahoo. I saw rivalry fading into friendship; they even started discussing their work. I never realised the potential of networking in such places. I didn’t know how many from our HR team were running, but came to know that head hunting sure has immense potential in these runs. I even tried finding someone from same industry but unfortunately there were none in the sight, I could only sulk.

My best part of run came when we entered Cubbon Park; there was a group of cheerleaders cheering the runners. But runners noticed them only when their ‘HUHAA HUHAA’ was reciprocated by barking dogs!! Laughter came out inadvertently. Well I took that moment to thank all the dogs; afterall this city has gone to dogs. Just a week earlier I had to take their permission for running in early morning or even late night. I walked 3kms to be identify by dogs of my area on first day, else I would have ran that 10k on last Monday itself. I thanked them for their grateful gesture.

SecondLife: New Wave, My Predictions

More than three years back, someone started a virtual life community, SecondLife, where anyone can create his/her virtual persona/character and it develops a community. Soon I forgot about it, but it didn’t end there. A few months back, one of my friend came and told me how much he loved Secondlife and how it had evolved - you can buy a piece of virtual land, so many companies had opened virtual stores and virtual shoes, cloths could be bought for your virtual life; they even started their own currency. He loved it so much and had become addicted to it. This was frustrating to me, why the hell people were spending so much time to make themselves up in virtual life? What gratification they got doing by wasting time in creating virtual characters and dressing them up.

It was freaky to find so many young people indulging in it and mostly Americans; I lost no time in terming them as childish and the ones who were more hooked to the virtual life than the real one. Anyways, even that didn’t put the issue to the rest. Few days earlier I saw a report - some hotshot from IBM was telling that they had developed a system wherein people can send sms to virtual characters and users could also transmit the sms to people using their virtual life characters, and added that this would set stage for next level evolution of communication in virtual and real world.

Well, when I thought this fad would die its natural death, it came back and probably it may grow even bigger this time. Then I started thinking what else it could evolve to? So, here is my take on what this virtual world can evolve to! People would surely enjoy reading and sending sms for time being through Secondlife though such effort may not last but who knows it may evolve to mms video massages of SecondLife characters speaking to you. If something like that happens I bet it would be a big hit, people would love watching animated videos of their characters. I guess most of people would be sending weird and freaky massages, specially the times when people are angry with someone.

But what if SecondLife also becomes an alternative to e-cards and people start wishing each other through their characters (specially those valentine ones, guys would get a better tool to purpose- really hidden virtually visible), I think that will nail e-cards business out of business. If something like that ever happens it won’t be limited to a few such offerings. If people become so hooked to sms on SecondLife then they might also like reading their massages on SecondLife with each character reading out the massage, what if you open your mail and your boss says “you are promoted”, I believe such stuff would be a real rage and it would pose serious challenges to e-mail providers like yahoo or hotmail.

Such developments may lead to a lot of such companies starting up their own virtual life portals to protect their market. I know most of you people now will not believe if I say all the social network sites may start using virtual life characters to make it more exciting or SecondLife itself may become social network site like Orkut where every user would have animated character and can talk to other, I know its kind of weird but it may have a future prospect. Then the real and virtual life would get immersed(or, shall I say, messed up) in each and there would be a thin line to differentiate.

But this is not all, my biggest out of the world idea is, if companies start verifying virtual characters just like the online signature and then you can shop online in real life using your virtual life character, man that would be massive, it will blow everyone’s mind. I know most of you reading this may feel like banging their head on wall but what if it really happens, I know most of it wont happen any soon but probably some will in next few years.

Train to Nowhere

On my trip back to Hyderabad, a man came and asked me if anyone was sitting on the opposite seat, hearing “no” he sat down. He enquired when train would reach Hyderabad as he was taking kids to enroll them in a madarsa at Hyderabad. My radars caught those words, I had a look, a look seeking lots of answers. Just a few days back media was splashing mews of poor socio-economic condition of muslims in the country and once again the popular (and politically beneficial solutions like reservations were sought). I had lotsa questions for this man, but despite knowing that almost none of madarsas did not provide for any certification exams, I asked him so they have any provision for SSC or HSC exams, thought it would probably make him realise where he was heading kids to!!!
He plainly said NO, even those which let students to appear privately or open school, fair miserably coz students were never prepared for it.

I further asked “How they compete, don’t they feel lagged behind?”
He replied awkwardly “its Religious education”. Then TTE came and made perfect interruption. Later that man got busy with his religious thread.

I felt loss of chance to ask him and convince him to better take kids to some other school. After all how many madarsas and students do we actually need to keep religious knowledge alive? Do we actually need these students to pile up over existing levels of Maulvis?
Will madarsas ever produce best architects, Sufis, poets, scientists and industrialist. Isn’t all this is required by so called muslim world. How come getting away from it, will do well for them.

Few weeks back, I saw a talk show; it had around 50 muslims comprising audience to discuss their financial condition. It was hard to believe that only 1 in 50 had life insurance, none had medical insurance, almost none of them wanted to take loan for any purpose and some even felt bad at interest being credited to their account on their on savings. Now, tell me what exactly government should be doing? Doling out financial incentives, provide for reservations or simply try to change their perspective and economically integrate them. I know what most of you exactly think that government would do !!

Men will be Men

It was 8 in the night on Wednesday, 23 and I had crossed the main road after coming out of my office and was waiting for auto rickshaw. There were men and women waiting for the rick too, but I was in hurry. A shared rickshaw came, a man was already sitting. I asked the lady lady if she wanted to get in. she nodded “NO”, I got in. not loosing a moment another guy got in and then we looked at the lady and realized how mean we are, so both the guys (not me) got down and then sat aside the driver, I shifted to right corner of the seat, and then we again looked at the lady but she didn’t respond and seemed not interested in taking the rick. The guy on the left side of driver quickly jumped back to his seat and then another guy rushed to grab the last place. Auto was filled in with men and then it moved. I was in too busy to understand why that lady didn’t get into the rickshaw; I was looking for the restaurant where I had to get down to attend my roomie’s birthday party.

I reached the place and met my roomie and his friends, there was one, yeah a single, and I mean both - one and single, gal in the entire gamut of guys. The place was restaurant cum bar, so guys quickly got involved what they wanted – alcohol. Smoke and booze created all together different atmosphere for guys. Sometime later guys asked this gal IF she was feeling out of place (every one had to ask for the sake of it, like we didn’t know). What gal could answer?

At that point of time it struck me why that LADY didn’t get into rickshaw. The LADY didn’t want to seat herself in middle of the seat (probably thought of getting harassed), so, she declined it first when I offered her and then we didn’t leave her any option. Even after we made adjustment it was thoughtless concern for a woman. It never concurred to me that women have to tackle so many issues for almost everything they do. I don’t know if any men ever thought how it would be if they always have to protect themselves from getting harassed anywhere. Men don’t have to be bothered in man’s world, though they may show concern about other half but always forget to be thoughtful about it.

Nazi Indians on the web

I'm quite new to this online networking thing that has become rave nowadays. i joined this site, orkut, as it has most of my friends online. the website got lotsa communities created by its members which you can join in and further network.

I was horribly surprised to see a 'Nazi Community for good of world' and to my embarrassment that stuffed with so many Indian members. I couldn't get the fact that how could Indians, whose cultural symbol was stolen and tampered by the white supremist ever become so sympathetic to their cause.

The list was full of indian dumbasses, actually dicks, who thought that i made them look cool to be on some anti-establishment site if they couldn't make it jihadi websape; like arabs and paki islamist and intellects. You can see their profiles; a set of losers wanting to do anything to get attention, hopelessly tryin to look like american teens.

I don't know why Indians are so good with their ignorance, how could you fall for such totalitarian and exlusivist political thought that teaches only hatred and tyrannical views against one community. Actually most of them have never done any good in the public life and have grouse about corrupt system in their surrounding, which they believe can be overran by such extreme political program.

I feel that everyone checking out such links and its members should definitely bash up their profile to make them realise what they are doing.