The NoMore Freebie that I Love

finally, something for mother earth to cheer about...never thought retailers would implement this government order.

sad days for those people who keep on asking for extra plastic bag. BIG Boo to those who still keep on piling up plastic pouches while buying vegitables.

Make Me Dumb

There has been number of innovations and invention in last many years and they have been presented as pathbreaking and something which is bound to bring changes and make you believe that they are extremely useful. I beg to differ on several such innovations which I see some of them as useless, totally irrelevant and never required at first place. They are just there to make you dumb.

Tablet computers, to be frank it is really good improvised invention of e-book reader but badly intended for individual consumption. I don’t get the point, why another portable instrument for internet, VOIP, watching movies, pics and running same application that you run on smart phone. Just because its screen size is bigger than that of mobile phone and you have to less strain your eyes for watching movies. I don’t see much any major motive for personal consumption for tablet computers. Tablets for the fact are designed for recreational purposes not much for extensive work or education purpose. I don’t know how many people would like to carry two devices which are grossly similar to each other, infact large number of 3G tablets can make phone call through mobile networks which reduces unique application for personal consumption for a person who is carrying a smart phone. I’m not sure how long will this fad for tablets will continue considering mobile phones itself have 32Gb memory and dual core processor blurring the capability leap of tablets. I must say tablets in coming years would have great application in numerous businesses which seem to be not at all promoted at the moment.

Another make me dumb innovation is playing movies on mobile phones. It is extremely atrocious innovation for a movie buff to watch really shrunk images for hours. Movie makers spend millions of dollars to I know the big leap of this application came when ipod was search for newer avenues to keep ever bored consumer and make people buy same device again & again. Mr jobs pushed it hard as a unattended solution for human gratification of watching shrunk images. Yeah, it is much shameful for a person who himself owns a movie studio making animated movie, but obviously what makes more money was his concern not your burnt eye or creative work becoming invisible. The only reason you watch movie on mobile phones or ipod because you are desperate and not really looking for entertainment, which this application actually kills it.

Segway is an innovation for fun and sometimes with real utility. I hate this machine for the fact that it is designed for short distance usage, which is appalling for our generation which hardly does manual work and any exercise to keep body fit, segway is killer innovation for lazy generation which even wants to avoid walking even short distances. Though, it is extremely useful for aging population.

Social networks have replaced email and are killing it, this is usual announcement and future prediction that emails are dying and eventually would be extinct in future. I couldn’t more disagree with big daddy of social networking ‘facebook’ starting email service. Emails are the safety way to get connected to anyone in the world without losing much privacy and personal information compared to social network sites. Also its almost difficult to reach out to unknown people without email, which is safest bet for such interactions compared to adding a person on your network and then there is no limitation to number of email address people you can distribute but you surely can’t add that number of people to you network. So, I don’t buy the argument to shift my email usage to a social network sites which eventually start providing emails and messenger services, the oldest way to communicate over internet.

It's Different

The first and obvious answer to how it felt being married for so many years was good. What else you here from a married man caught between marriage and question on marriage. Well after some introspection there seems to be an answer to the question, it’s different.

It might be called clichéd comment coming out of desperate need to create some distinction in your married life, but I would insist it is really different. I know most of the people count similarities in married person’s life….well to begin with its called dead. People count numerous similarities in life of several married couples everything from bored life to similar family responsibilities that make people believe that your marriage can’t be different.

Well, it might not be wrong to say that married couples face similar situations and scenarios across the globe but to infer that everyone has similar experience and hence same married life would be mistake. Situations may remain same but people are always different, so every couple would have its share of arguments and fights but when it comes to my life its always different because same situations don’t yield similar solutions and outcomes, to expect my wife never reacts on expected lines, this brings element of surprise and fun in my life. You go home thinking that you have already won the battle but when you enter the house you realize that it has turned upside down.

It amazing that when people make you believe that your life is not going to be different, marriage turns yours life on unexpected lines. Marriage is a surprise mathematical equation, almost everyone knows the question and in fact they also know the outcome but surprise is the infinite number of ways that people take to solve it or mess it up, and believe me everyone takes his own route despite being told otherwise. In the end it may sound like ketchup slogan but its always different.

Comfortably Numb

It is surprising that we seemingly start becoming indifferent as we start growing old. We become too conscious of our environment and society and its limits even worse the perceived limits that we create. We start with our surroundings, when we don’t know the matter we don’t try to interfere in others’ arguments. Well it’s not entirely bad thing to do as we start implementing in beginning. Then we start enlarging this option and apply it more places at personal discretion wondering whether we have right to interfere and authority to do so.

As we continue to apply this non-interfering policy indiscriminately we start creating self perceived boundaries everywhere. As a result if we see some people indulging in heated argument we keep ourselves off that issue and if we see someone getting threatened or abused, we unfortunately use the same discretion to avoid being caught in a situation. Even more heinous act is when someone getting threatened or abused calls for help people back-off using the same pretext or may be its more smart to just bother about yourself. Then, we just go on to mind our own business and nothing else and nothing till it really hits us.

I used to think that this happens in India only and not elsewhere, unfortunately people across the globe have same tendency when met with similar situation. Since last we everyone has continuously watched one psycho’s greed for power has led him to butcher his own people and he doesn’t mind even firing missiles, dropping bombs from fighter planes to protect his hegemony. What people around the world do, nothing. Everyone is clueless, “can we intervene? Does that amount to interfering in a country’s private business? Do we actually have any right to do so?” world leaders can sit at UN and gossip about the situation in Libya but claim not having enough right to do anything or may be no one is bothered because it doesn’t affect them.

Politically speaking: In my country all secular parities, communist and muslim groups go on for protest if America launches any attack on a muslim nation but they all remain silent if it is by another muslim, because people care least for the lives more for the politics. All such groups are slient today in my country, I don’t want bring down the question about lives of people to a religious one, but it seems muslim life has a value only when issue involves a non-muslim on the other side.

Banglore Metro Trials

View of Bangalore Metro trails on MG Road from my office.

Mumbaikar in New York

While growing up in Mumbai, the city used to get invariably compared to other cities in the world, one of which always happened to be New York. NY it is better known always had similarity with Mumbai, both are coastal metropolis and also the financial hub of the nation.

Both NY and Mumbai are cosmopolitan cities with hugely diverse population and invites people from both within the nation and abroad as a city with immense opportunity. Mumbai like NY is a center for promoting arts & cultural activity and though NY is not big as Mumbai’s Bollywood when it comes to movies but it still makes movies and is big center for arts.

I couldn’t think of better city to compare with Mumbai until the Prime Minister of this country, Manmohan Singh, declared that he wanted to make Mumbai a ‘Shanghai’! what, who the f**k in India had heard about shanghai. Our aspiration from becoming world class had suddenly crashed to regional class. No offence to Shanghai, which now is a metropolis and hub of all Chinese trading activity. Is that what we all wanted. Mumbai may not be as big as Shanghai but for long it was world famous (not just world famous in Mumbai) as cosmopolitan and cultural center know over the world and invited rockstars and rock song dedications alike; where was shanghai then…nowhere.

Well I didn’t bother much about it as it wasn’t going to change much either our lives. But I got an opportunity to visit New York, very much a dream come true to visit a city which so many of mumbaikars always used to compare. The city seemed familiar, some roads were bumpy as Mumbai and there were some narrow lanes also much like Mumbai (though the only difference is that most of mumbai’s narrow lanes are built by Indians compared to the wide roads left by the britishers in the city). Downtown was crowded as Mumbai and if you got hit by another person in the crowd you would either not bother or would see the sorry face of the passer-by.

Trains were crowded and people less bothered & talkative than in mumbai but coaches much better than our still in 70s train coaches. Stations were similarly ugly though somewhat better managed and people stood in similar fashion awaiting trains as in Mumbai. With so much similarity minus the slums/BMC/corporators&contractors , I felt much at home though couldn’t deny that shanghai probably beat both NY and Mumbai with its massive infrastructure creation. It is not the infrastructure that excites politicians in India but the intention to control lives of people much like in shanghai, unlike the Mumbai and NY ability to attract remain open. Thankfully it worries less for very much non-resident mumbaikar like me as shanghai is shaped by who dictate it but NY and Mumbai is still shaped by the people who make it…well almost.

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.

The Dragon Tattoo Girl

Girl with the Dragon Tatto is one of thriller movie that also turns out to be hard hitting unlikely take on religious prosecution, misogyny, sexual exploitation and dealing with fascist family past. Movie revolves around an idealist journalist entrapped in his own scoop against a company and awaiting his impending imprisonment. He is invited by a living industrialist living on a private island who wants the journalist to investigate supposed disappearance/ murder of his niece that happened 40 years back.

Jurno is struck by the challenge to investigate a 40 year old case totally written off. He tries to investigate the case but finds no headway but realizes that his computer has been hacked when computer hacker provides him with lead that seems to have connotation of religious persecution. He confronts his computer hacker who turns out to be a young girl with troubled past, he offers the case which is reluctantly accepted by her. They move together to resolve the case.

The movie is slightly slow in nature and takes its own time to establish all the characters and set up and sometimes you wonder where all this is leading to but it doesn’t looses grip. Even the industrialist and his family members who themselves are part of suspects are painfully described and their embrace of Nazi philosophy.

The discovery of religious quotation as inspiration for similar murders in the past sets the movie into investigative mode and much like investigative journalism it relies on past records of public events and audits of financial transactions of a company dating back to 40 years to track the movement of suspects, which I believe would have only been possible in a developed country.

Finally the jurno with help of his unconventional hacker cracks the case, but if it disappearance or murders that is thrill to watch. Amazingly the movie has very old school treatment as it doesn’t end there but it resolves all the conflicts of the characters and subplots at the end be it jurno’s revenge at the dubious corporate house or the hacker’s resolve of family past.

I read that Hollywood is going to remake this classic move in its own fast paced style which may skip some of the brilliant episodes of the movie and its gritty portrayal of characters, I know movie would become a hit but people may never be able to watch the original cult movie simply because it is unheard in non-hollywood environment.

The Shallow Life of Camera Pics

It was airport and two guys were sitting asideme with some distance. They were waiting for their flight just like me, to kill the boredom they took out their camera and aimed it on themselves to make it look cooler- their boring lives. They picked up poses one after another, put on their shades, little brood and there it was the pics that they wanted to put on social networking site to show the world how cool their lives and times were. It was apalling but not unusual.

Just sometime back on friendship day I was passing by a mall near our office, there was group of school kids celebrating friendship day, which involved taking pics of themselves, a guy was busy adjusting rose in a fashionable way between the lips (I still don’t know why loosers use red roses on friendship day) and his PYT on one hand, the moment he clicked his pic I knew he got it, the coolest pic for online snob..to get trail of comments and to boast how cool it the moment was. They all seemed busy in making their moments look cool rather than making it cool.

In last few years ever since digital camera have invaded our personal space with shoot, store and forget mode made it easy to click numerous photos and moblie phone cameras have added to the woes even more. Every one nowadays clicks more photographs than usual even at the times uncalled for, even i have done it on some ocassions and we all have developed a habit of piling up photographs. Social networking sites banking clicking frenzy of this generation allow uncontrolled numbers of uploads.

As a result you go anywhere you would find someone busy clicking pics, you go to restaurant/pubs/parks and you would see not just teenagers but everyone (except the really old fellas) busy clicking pics. Now everyone is so much busy in faking the moments on camera that they less about enjoying the moment. Not long back I could look into pictuers and fondly remember the event or the moment, it didn’t matter if I had posed for it or not, a simple photograph used to remind all about the event even those which we forgot or missed to catch it on camera, but now it doesn’t seem to me that people would be able to recall their moments as we care less about it and more about the people would be watching those pictures. Now people are clicking picuters to make it memorable to others than to themselves; it used to be said picture would tell you thousand stories, not any more.

Who killed the Music Channel?

Now everytime you tune to your music channel you are surprised that it hardly has any music. It has been quite some time that most of music channels have turned to reality and youth programming and have almost shunned the music which they used to concentrate on. It had started last year when most of the biggie music channels started focusing more on youth related reality tv programs.

Most of the music channels for long time were suffering dearth of music related programs; music companies were bankurpt of reapated remix albums that they had dishedout for almost a decade (most of which had remained unsold) and then item gals who had seduced buyers to boring remixes had moved on their skimpy showcase to reality tv.

Music companies had stopped producing independent music which resulted in vanishing music stars, their stingy sound bites about their album & music videos. So, music channels had lost their item gals, trashy pop music videos and they were left with bollywood movies and music.

Music channels turned with vengence towards bollywood and then almost every channel had similar programming, literally a killing proposition for viewers as they were left with watching same movie promo and movie related programs distruted by movie producers. After a while, music channels were reduced to bollywood promo channels and music was replaced with snippets from latest movie songs.

Unfortunately, almost all news channel, entertainment channel and gossips channels were broadcasting the same program. Music channels had to make last ditch attempt to save themselves so they ditched music to stick with their viewers. Music Channels died so that channels can survive.

Auto Drivers Customer Support Message

Bangalore Auto drivers message to its patrons post fare hike !!

Humpty Dumpty and Humpday

An artist (Andrew) knocks the door of his old pal, Ben,a married man, instantly reconnects with him baffling his wife. His wife tries to comes to in terms with being sidelined in her own home, while the guys bond over conversation. This is amongst the movies which are largely build around conversation, also my major motive of watching this movie. Most of the conversation based movies are largely upredicatble, you don't know where conversation would take the movie to, but in this case, you do.

The couple in the movie are conventional people, who are brought up on conventional line of thinking and living such life, i.e. Finding job/other half, getting married, buying house and planning kids. Suddenly, our pal Ben is overwhelmed with the life, lifestyle and work opportunities of his artist friend; in comparison his life is pale.

Ben warms upto the life of artists and over the conversation decides to be part of the of a movie made exclusively for a film festival that no one has heard of, all he got to do it tell his wife and if she is okay with it. One conversation leads to another and the baffled wife comes to know her hubby wants to make an “porn movie” and amazingly she is the one who tells that the movie fest is all about pornography least about art, which our fren Ben defends as artist's reinvention of pornography as art, an “alternate porn or art porn”. She asks her husband why he suddenly wants to make a porn movie, and like all normal people who are trapped in their conventional role and life, her husband is totally clueless why he wants to make an porn movie.

The most freaky part of the movie: the last part of the movie turns out to be the most freaky part of the movie. The two guys meet to make their porn. Well, i didn't tell you the kind of porn they want to make for art's sake; it's straight guy gay porn, yes, if this sounds freaky to you then you should see the last part. I was praying for lack of action, which would have made it kind of difficult to watch and digest. You would have to watch it to know if my prayers were answered or not. The two straight guys talking about ways to ignite chemistry create attraction and the reason & necessity for making such movie makes even more freaky conversation.

The Smartest thing: the whole damn movie is about a person's or writer's idea about two straight guys attempt to make gay porn for art's sake and the whole conversation which any one would have gone through while pushing this idea and the director amazingly turns this whole idea and conversation into a movie.

And finally, i really never heard of this art porns, i was really laughing at it being casting couch tapes of indie movie producers (anyways all porno producers are independent). But, damn if anyone has, please bring it to light.

Edge of darkness

Edge of darkness (EoD) is definiltely not the most awaited movie but what made me watch this movie was the name associated wiht it, it's Mel Gibson movie. In past few years Mel Gibson's name is more or less associated with gritty, violent, gorry and dark drama kind of movies.

EoD unlike such movies in many ways, its neither dark nor that violent, though it has some blood sprouting scenes in the movie. The movie largely deals wiht Mel's character coming in terms with his daughter's murder, pyschic-spiritual angle, which involves hallucination.

The other angle involves Mel's attempt to investigate his daugther's murder, which turns boring. The most amazing point of the movie is one of the sub-plots, US government sponsored company assembling nuclear arsenal with material brough from other countries, thus absolving US from blame in case such weapons are used.

Frankly, nuclear weapon could have been major portion of the movie, it would have been more gripping movie. But the movies losses its steam by focusing on Mel Gibson's coming in terms with daughter's demise and really slow pace of investigation. At end of days EoD is long boring movie, it's definitely not for those who want to catch up typical clone of Mel Gibson movie.

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.

Fool's Day by Politicians

This is for what should be a poster for April Fool's Day celebration by politicians ( if they ever do it to common people). Mr Politician got his name well explained by his workers but forgot got to explain the first two alphabets of abbreviation- N.A HARIS,

which stands for Not Applicable.

The Show-off Toyz of Next Decade

Saw an advt on tv with tag line what was cool yesterday isn’t cool today. True, what was rich man’s prerogative is common man’s mat today. So, in 80s when most of people had black&white television richer ones had VCR and telephone. Then in 90s when most of the people owned VCRs richer people had LD players. So what gonna be rich person’s toys in this decade. I have some of my guesses.

As technology is changing fast there are less chances that any consumer durable product will be top such list as we everyone has seen that how three different products like telephone, music player and camera, all of which were not owned by common man, has now combined into one and is owned by almost everyone. So a phone or mobile equipment is less likely to make it to showoff list.

But, some thing like electric sports car will definitely make it despite any advancement in technology or even with existence of conventional fuel based models if they survive the government onslaught on fuel efficiency.

Air travel has become less expensive compared to what is used to be two decades ago. Not much fad remains in air travel especially in India. I guess the outer space travel tour will be the fad in this decade. It’s cool and it’s expensive, chances of its cost becoming affordable wouldn’t be arising in a decade or so.

Robots, yeah its not a new stuff to this world but it isn’t not much popular either (Japan being sole exception). A good advancement in robotics has led to increased interactivity, mobility and their ability to multi-task, I bet more people will have robots in this decade.

Holographic projection tv, I thought it was fringe of my imagination till I googled it for good. Amused but not surprised that as a concept it already existed. Though, it will take time to come out may be by end of this decade. I would love three dimensional hi-definition holographic images, i would be real surreal everything.

My favorite concept is of smart phone with all the applications - universal remote, air conditioner control, lighting control and all electrical controls. But, then it would still be commonman's handytool (not my problem) than show-off piece.

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.

Thought for New Year's Eve

Today is the last day of the year and usually it’s the most overhyped day of a year on account of future excitement and largely as a cut day for partying. This over hype to enjoy the last day and to welcome a new year plays on everyone’s mind. I have also been part of this hype on numerous occasions.

But, this year has been quite different since the beginning and even the last day is turning out to be unpredictable with rains washing out everyone’s plan just like it did throughout the year. This year has been bitter-sweet for me and most of the people I know. Some good things started, a lot of things sustained and a hell lot went haywire. Unhappy, angry, despair, confused, lost, unwarranted changes and unfulfilled promises, this year was filled with all these elements.

So much going in a year, and the year itself not living up to expectations, when everyone was actually betting on it. I don’t know how much it’s worthwhile to place another bet especially for some one Indian like me. After all we have so many calendars in our country and there are so many new years going throughout the year. I think it really doesn’t matter which calendar year it is but sure time does matter and good time really does matter!!

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.