Crass, huh?

God help me. I think I am turning into an animal. Its not that I am sprouting horns or anything, its just that, I have become indifferent. I dont care much about people (except a few, of course), I dont care that they dont care about me. I am pretty nasty in my thoughts, 90 out of 100 times and dont quite hesitate to implement them. I dont mind it when people tell me bullshit, I am ready to hear whatever snide comments they pass as long as I get to return the favour. I derive a sadistic pleasure in backtalking, replying with a vengeance, raising my voice and yelling at people.

I frequently misunderstand innocence to stupidity, and thunder down upon those idiots. My vision doesnt let me differentiate between a driver with an 'L' plate or otherwise. I treat them all as equals and give them hell of a time anyway. I dont find old college photos nostalgic and think "What a horrible student I was" ,when I see them. I dont like romantic movies interesting and laugh upon those who watch them. I hate those kiddies song shows on TV and swear at those little twerps. I dont care about what you think about this post.

Crass, huh?

Independence day.

15th August is our Independence day. We celebrate the Independence of our country by exercising the following rights.............

Right to spit anywhere.

Right to throw rubbish outside the window of your car.

Right to use loudspeakers that create hell of a noise at any festival.

Right to put up large posters anywhere where it says 'Stick no bills'

Right to go at a red signal light.

Right to use the countryside as your urinal.

Right to write 'I love you' on the walls of famous monuments.

Right of doing wrong?

Pyramids of Giza.

Sheaves of papers, minarets of memos, leaning towers of files and huge piles of product catalogues make up a cluttered office desk. It adds importance to your repute in the office. People start thinking you work a lot and if you add a coffee mug to your desk 'decor' and have swollen eyes, people take their hats off to 'the man who shoulders the responsibility of the world'.

But cluttered desks are actually a nuisance to others.

You approach your boss and ask him for some important papers and he points to a small 'pyramid' on his desk and says, "Its somewhere there.You'll just need to search a bit." That 'searching a bit' is equivalent to searching for a needle in the haystack. You approach the misorganized 'tomb of khufu' and slowly as you come nearer you marvel at its precise balance, the haphazard, yet perfectly sound structure and, long gone, is your faith in the laws of gravity !!! You put your hand on what could be an engineering marvel and it comes crashing down and your boss yells...."Lousy careless bugger.....Be a bit more careful will you?"

You eat the words....after all, he is your boss....and he has so carefully 'constructed' the genius creation you just destroyed !!

Ironic to your situation, the creator of the 'tomb of khufu' is able to find the paper as well as remove it from the pile without disturbing the earlier arrangement. This makes you wonder whether you have a set of the worlds most careless pair of hands or your boss is a goddamn lucky bastard that he removed the papers without disturbing any other damn paper.

Cluttered desks are good when it comes to giving excuses. "Oh, its better you take a copy of the memo from xyz. There is no way we'll find it in this mess" or

"Hey, dont disturb me right now, see how busy I am, all this paperwork and nobody files these papers."

If someone of this sort tells me that he's going on leave and that I'll find all the relevant papers on his desk........I'll be off on leave as well.

Wondering whether I should vote this year?

Elections for the 'nagar sevak' or corporator are just around the corner and campaigning is in full swing. The other day, the doorbell rang. The music was playing and no one was at home and ,swinging the steps in line with the music, I opened the door. There was a big crowd outside my house and all had worn white clothes and colourful scarves. The man up ahead was a big hulking figure with a large belly that seemed to be a 'beered' one (beer belly). 'Namaskar, me xyz, aaple aashirwad pahijet, hyaa varshi amhaalach safal kara, mat dyaa, kalyan kara' (Namaskar, I am xyz, give us your blessings, make us successful this year !!). I stood there for a minute in my half chaddis, wondering what he had said. Then I realised that it was election time and this fellow was a candidate....the 'aashirwad' mentioned was my vote and safalta (success) meant his victory.

These people take their large crowd from house to house asking for 'aashirwads'.

All candidates have set up stalls locally, with huge banners on them with their own stupid photos smiling on them. Party names have been displayed. They take up a sort of rally everyday, with their supporters shouting victory slogans and cheering their candidates. They look like a real angry mob approaching and an outsider would start wondering whether he should take cover. They burst firecrackers as they go and shout on top of their voices. They annoy you with the noise they create and you start cursing them and make vows to yourself not to vote for the candidate who creates noise. But all of them do and you start thinking that mebbe voting for any of them at all, is a bad idea. Most of us don't know what work any of them have done and, the heck.....there's no way of finding out. All politicians make promises and never keep them and that is the universal truth.

I wonder whether I should vote this year at all?

The 9-point quiz on road rage.!!!

Do you do the following?
1) Does your heartbeat and pulse go up the moment you drive your car round the corner?
2) Do you wish at times that you had a monster truck or a road roller or better yet, a demolition ball?
3) Do you play GTA san andreas and idolize the character who mercilessly drives over pedestrians?Do you wish you could do that in real?
4) Does your middle finger go up in a salute to someone rather too quickly when driving a car?
5) Do you hurl the choicest abuses in front of your parents, colleagues, friends or complete strangers when you're driving, to a complete ass walking in the middle of the road?
6) Do you feel sadistic pride in having overtaken some car, and having squeezed it for space?
7) Do you feel a jumping joy in ur heart when an autorickshaw driver is hauled over by the traffic policeman?
8) Do you care less for your bike side mirrors, as long as it hits someone hard enough to teach him a lesson in non-hasty and careful ways of crossing the roads?
9) Do you fail to feel amazed by the fact that your car doesnt even have a scratch, let alone a dent or a blemish, even though you drive your car alongside the craziest and the nuttiest drivers?

If your answer to any of the above questions is a yes......congratulations and welcome to the world of road rage. Everything is fair in love, war and mumbai streets !!!

Lack of enthu.

For starters let me tell you this....I am in quite a strong, hateful and edgy mood today. I cant say that I didnt laugh today at all. But this was a day when I laughed with devilish satisfaction. More of the sneery, smirky, smug, sadistic type of laughter. As I was telling ron, one of my best friends, I hate when people dont show enthusiasm. Enthusiasm of any kind at all.
Its not that I deny that some people dont have many activities, hobbies or interests. But then its impossible for anyone to have no topic of interest at all. You might say that they have interests other than your own. Possible. But some people, just go in a trance like state and seem to be staring at some sort of void in the air, when you are speaking. After sometime you start feeling whether you yourself are talking in an alien tongue or whether you are a brainless git.
The reality dawns upon you later on and you realise that the person with whom you are speaking with, lacks enthusiasm in any topic you come up with and he is the one who's a brainless git.

Cruel world.

There are times when you feel totally dejected at certain 'aspects' in life. You always try to forget them, saying to yourself what good will it do by remembering them? But they keep coming back to haunt you. At times you'll feel that it would have been so good if it was different. You dream about the difference. But in reality, aspects of this nature never change. People are 'kind' enough to bring those depressing matters again and again and keep reminding you what you are trying to forget. So it is difficult for you to forget at all. Especially if they are brought on by people who you trust the most to understand your feelings. These are the wounds which never heal. You carry them off as permanent scars. Nobody will support your views. Nobody can understand them. Nobody will understand this post, and what it is about, anyway. Sob !! Its a cruel world.

A pouring out of frustration.

There are some people in this world who, I wish, would shut up and mind their own bloody business. They have this infuriating habit of poking their nose into matters which are strictly out of their territory. Its one thing to be mildy curious and another to be overtly inquisitive. Also, I would like to tell some of these 'some people', one day that, they should not mix personal and professional life and keep the two apart. A fellow I know, seems to be judging how my personal life would be, based on his experiences of my professional workmanship. He even has the nerve of telling me his totally inaccurate conclusions. If it were not for the fact that my hands are tied right now, I would give him a piece of my mind in the form of an angry retort. The bastard. He tends to think that he is the 'coolest dude' which is quite untrue, in fact quite contradictory. If he was the coolest, I think the definition of 'cool' itself would change. Right now, I wish that he has an upset stomach 24 X 7 till he drops faint in his own pool of poo. Yeah, that was disgusting, but then you have an idea about how disgusted I am, by his behaviourial characteristics.

Waiting for a change that never came........

I have felt that, there is some thing, which should have been different than what it is today. I have worked hard, gave sweat, blood and tears, and tried my level best to change it, but to no avail. It remains as it is. I prayed hard, hoping that some day it will change. But it seemed like God was being unfair to me and the prayer fell on deaf ears. I felt bad, went mad with anger, got frustrated, even depressed at some point of time. I was patient, I was optimistic, I had hopes, but that ray of light never came, it never gave me joy, never illuminated my path. It simply rejected me. It simply dodged my way as if daring me to change it. People were harsh on me, they didnt care about what they said about it or who they were saying it in front of. So many of them misunderstood and gave superficial judgements.....never thinking for a moment how I must have been hurt by it. In the end, I learnt that, that one thing would never change. It is like a lifelong and permanent wound which cannot be healed. I have to stop being bothered by it, I have to accept it at its face value and to ultimately laugh it off every time, I am reminded that it will never vary. Nobody would be able to make out what that one 'thing' is, that I want to change, by reading this post. But anyway......I dont expect people to understand what it is........because nobody has really understood what it means to me and how deep the wound runs.

Shit happens.

Shit happens. That is what happened today. I would'nt say the day was one of those 'miserable days' when nothing goes right but then there are days when you wish that particular events would go right or 'wouldnt go at all' (wouldnt happen) , but, unfortunately, they go bad. Started off with the usual stuff.....my boss blaming me for all the shit thats been happening in his professional life. But, this was, of course, a perfectly normal start to a day......nothing unusual. Then I started filing some important office documents. I started sorting the stuff and then removed some papers which were old. I kept these papers separately and later tore the 'pile' of old papers........... or so I thought.........coz later, I realized to my dismay that I had torn some of the latest documents. A lot of time was wasted in getting copies of the new documents and ultimately I had wasted more time on the task than I actually should have.

A few hours later a friend of mine called up from abroad. Unfortunately we couldnt hear each other because of bad mobile network transmission. I couldnt call up my friend again...coz I changed my sim card recently and the ISD gets activated after 15 days of purchase. I couldnt call up from office because casual ISD calls are not permitted. I could have called from an ISD booth, now that I think about it...........but anyway.......I was too lazy to get my ass to go an ISD booth and I forgot to call up from home!!!

A friend of mine was supposed to go on a 'date'.......with a girl who was his childhood friend but whom he was meeting after a long time...... the girl didnt come alone..... but brought her niece along. He didnt have a problem with that and although he did say......that they chatted like old friends.........I am sure he must have been a 'bit' disappointed when he heard it from her on the phone that she was bringing her niece along!!!

I met a school classmate after a long time. He has newly joined our gym. I know I might sound a bit of a meany saying this, but.............HE WAS THE LAST PERSON ON THIS PLANET I WOULD HAVE WANTED TO MEET !!!! I tried to avoid him, but my gym is quite small and there arent many people around at the time I do my workout. I think I'll have to change my gym timings from now on.

Overtime

Working in the office on a saturday is never by choice......for me atleast. We have 5 official working days. So coming to office on saturdays is either due to excess of pent up work loads or simply due to the orders which cannot be defied. Bachelors like me come sleepy eyed to the office on saturday. Most of us look as if a zombie has taken control of our bodies. Sleeping till late hours of the morning, afternoon naps or matinee shows on TV, the hot steaming home cooked lunch, perhaps a movie later on in the evening........all these happy thoughts are snatched away by a 'working saturday'. Some people like to think that working on non official days in office has its merits. Like work can be done efficiently, because there are less people around you, so no one can trouble you. I have also met those dumbsters who say that coming to office is fun because you get to sit in air conditioned environment, get free coffee and also get to surf the net at company's cost and for them there is nothing better to do at home too. A big boo to people who think that way. In mumbai, traditional thinking is on the lines of 'If-you-sit-late-in-office-or-on-come-on-non-official-working-days-then-you-are-really-working'. This kind of thinking is crap and I hope that it is changing. What I feel and have always felt is that work is something which has to be done only for the sake of earning 'the big M' and that work and ambitions should not take your life away. It was a different story when our folk generation started earning. They had to work like hell to make ends meet initially. But now as India has grown as an economy (Pre-current-recession), we should be working comfortably. Just as there are a minimum no. of working hours in a week, so should there be a maximum limit.

TV at its best.

Was watching 'The wonder years' today. Must say it was a great series. Had watched it when it used to be aired on Star Plus (Star Plus of those days was a 100 times better and a 1000 times watchable, all mothers would disagree!!!). The best part about the series was that you could relate your own feelings and incidents to those that were a part of Kevin Arnold's life (A bit different, as I didnt have a pretty girlfriend like 'Winnie Cooper'!!!). So I remember being glued to the television with my sister who loved the series as much as I did.

Another one was 'Full House' in which characters like DJ, Stephenie, cute little michelle, their father (played by Bob Saget), Joey, Jesse and Rebecca (Wow!!) provided us with the family entertainment.

I am a fan of FRIENDS. Dont need to say much about it. Almost every average teenager or adult who watches TV must have watched FRIENDS. Joey Tribianni was my favourite character in it.

Apart from this i remember watching cartoon series like He-man, Centurions, Johny Quest, Speed Racer, Ducktales, Talespin. There was also a series which used to be aired on DD. It was called 'Giant Robot'.

Among hindi ones......Dekh bhai dekh and Zabaan Sambhal ke.

And if there is something I would always enjoy watching..........it would be 'Tom and Jerry'..............it defeats all!!!

Me vs my home computer

My dad brought me my first PC when i was in the ninth grade, just short of the age of 15. From then on the home computer has been my best friend and my worst enemy. Or should i say home computers. Yes, coz just as life changes so do computers and so have mine. My relations with my home PC have always been thru the ups and downs. More thru the downs than the ups. I have enjoyed games on my PC just like I enjoyed surfing the net. Its always enjoyable to play the games on the comp which you cant play in real life!!! For example, you cannot drive vehicles and knock over peds who frustrate you with their impolite ways of crossing the roads, but on the PC, you can hit them, crush them with your car, even chainsaw them to a bloody death!!!
So talking about PCs, yeah, they give you the enjoyment, but when it comes to reliability, I would rate assembled PCs below any of the other electronic appliances!!! You people reading the post can only imagine the number of times….. I have changed some hardware, formatted my PC’s hard disk, installed the OS, partitioned the disk, defragmented it, scanned it for viruses and last but not the least kicked it in utter ‘disgust’ (That would affect hardware, but I did it only with my 2nd comp’s CPU!!!). Computers never cease to perplex me with their astonishing abilities of crashing, that too at the most inconvenient junctures of time. Last week when I was mourning for the sad demise of my 4th CPU motherboard, one of my friends went superstitious and suggested that it would, perhaps, be better if I installed my PC at another location of the house. “Tere comp ke jagah kaa vaastu barabar nahi hai.” Maybe he’s right!!

Lets get drunk? No way!!!

There is one more thing which pisses me off. I dont quite oppose the idea of having 'daaru' , but then for some people its a 'let off'. They drink when they are emotionally upset. They'll go on harping about, how a large quantity liquor will give them a 'kick' and make them feel normal again and drive away all their worries. In my opinion this opinion of theirs is nothing more than 'bullshit'. Some feel like drinking when they are elated....theyll go on like.....i am feeling elated......its a reason to celebrate......lets have daaru!!! Then there are these types who'll get absolutely 'drunk' which leaves them weaving to and fro. In the end there are always friends who'll leave them home or who'll take care of their sorry state!!!
I dont say that i'm a saint.....i have tried all varieties of 'hard drinks'....but then for none of the reasons stated above and neither have i got drunk anytime and had my friends leave me home!!!
There will always be people who wont quite agree with me or with any of my above opinions.......so what? I dont give a damn!!!

Meetings and presentations

Been writing this post after quite a long time. Last time I wrote a post, I was in another country and it was a sunny day. This time I am in my home country and it’s a rainy night. US and India are two different countries with different cultures. No one, who has been to both these countries would waste their time comparing the two, because there is no comparison. Life is very different in US and India. Anyway, I resumed office last week and was quite happy to see ‘some’ of my colleagues in office. Some of the travel descriptions which I should have written in my blog when I was in USA shall be written later, that is, when I feel like re-visiting those memories!!! So anyway, the first day I resumed office, my boss told me to attend a vendor seminar on ‘lightning protection’ equipment. It was an interesting seminar…………………………………………………and so I was told later, because I did not hear anything……….i was busy sleeping!!! It wasn’t jet lag, it was either the soporific power of the presenter’s voice or the topic was simply boring. Meetings and presentations have always been a bore for me, however short the length. I am never one of those who carry a note pad, to a presentation to note any important points. I sit in a place where no one can see me, so that when a slide show is going on and the lights go out, my head starts drooping. Whenever I am in plain view of the speaker (rarely), I try not to sleep……..in doing so my mind starts wandering to far away places……….like the office canteen where tea is being made. I start wondering when the tea is gonna come. When it finally comes, and I drink it and somewhat come out of my stupor. I had once even played games on my mobile, when a vendor seminar was on and it was much more exciting!!! My friend once suggested that we play tic tac toe, during our group meetings. We will be trying that out soon!! Another method of timepass during a meeting or seminar is ‘chatting’. Same as chatting online. The only difference here is that u have to write on paper. So when I want to ask someone “How are you?” I write this down on my notepad and show it to him……..he reads it and writes his response below. This way we can chat without disturbing anyone!!! Hahahahaha!!!!!

The ultimately annoying people.

Have you been in the company of those ultimately annoying people…..who are bent on boring the hell out of you? Who ask you stupid questions and leave you highly ‘amazed’ by their superb ability of inventing the silliest jokes; jokes which don’t remotely make you laugh, and yet you feel like laughing at the sheer afterthought of how silly the joke was? Who always prowl nearby keeping an eye on every movement you make……or try to ask you questions that make you feel as if you are being cross questioned and investigated by the FBI? Who try to ruin your day by telling you that he / she has some work for you and that has to be completed within the same day…..and this happens everyday? Who don’t pay attention to what you are saying, when you are saying it and after you have said, they come to their senses after a long daydream, and ask you to repeat the whole thing again? Who make personal attacks at you and other people? Who talk behind your back and talk sweetly in front of you? Who have no other interest than to work and gossip about others lives and their activities? Who asks you questions and and then asks the same question to others just to verify that your answer matches with his or visa versa?

Criticism.

There are some people who just love to criticize the efforts put in by others. Its one thing to falsely praise others.....but then its even worse to disregard good work.....and instead criticize that person for a single shortcoming and overlook the positive side of his story. A person who always gives out negative and discouraging flak is a pain in the neck and a reason for someones unhappiness. There are some who might argue that constructive criticism helps.....true, but then constructive criticism should come after words of encouragement and appreciation.

Boredom to eternity.....

Sitting in my office typing this post.........getting totally bored.......feeling royally trapped and been staring at zombies who are working overtime.......Behind me are two stupid nutters who are discussing on the top of their voices something about killing their clients.......wish i could join them .....but then i have other clients to murder........even the hum of the window ACs is getting on my nerves........i just looked into a mirror and am looking like a banshee without her wail......my only source of timepass is food....which arrived late thanks to the canteen fellow who burnt my toast......i wont give him money even if he begs for it........the idiotic office boy just punched my papers on the wrong side....and on top of that he dropped them and made it worse by not organizing the papers page wise...........Thank god the canteen fellow brought me my coffee......atleast itll help me keep awake........

Time: The healer or the killer ?

When you want something and its due to come after a few days…..,ever had the feeling that those few days seem to take forever to pass by?. The time seems to stretch towards an eternity. Neither can you make the time pass quickly and neither can you supress the desire. It’s a kind of ‘suspense’ which numbs you, becomes intense, and sort of eats you up. You think about it day in and day out and perform your routine activities mechanically, without really putting your mind to it, as your mind is wandering elsewhere on that ‘something’. You feel frustrated as well as excited in a manner in which it would excite you when a friend tells you that he has a pleasant surprise in store for you!!!
Have you ever felt anything like this?
I have, in fact I am feeling it right now!!!! They say time is the healer. At such times, time is the killer!!

TV serials suck.

It was a Wednesday evening. My neighbor, an old lady was having some trouble tuning the desired channels on her TV and had asked me to help her out. She has an old Onida TV, which does not have a remote control and is literally falling apart. So after coming back from office I decided to take a look at her TV and help her with the same. Just as I was about to ring her doorbell I heard some noises……….some lady screaming at the top of her voice. I thought for a moment that it was my neighbor herself. My senses went on red alert. Grabbing the nearest heavy object I could find (there was a wooden plank on the parapet.) I rang the doorbell urgently. My old neighbor opened the door calmly. She seemed to be alright!

Aunty : Why are you holding that wooden plank son? Were you going to hit me or what?
Me: I thought you were screaming aunty………that’s why I thought some intruder must have entered your house…………
Aunty: No No. The TV volume is too loud……..you must have heard Phoolsi screaming.
Me: Who is Phoolsi?
Aunty: She is a character from the serial ‘Kintu gunga kuta bhi kabhi bhonkega’.

These serials………they are a harrasment to people like me. According to me TV serials should be banned. They are full of scheming, plotting and anti-social men and women who have no better jobs than to think and do evil. Murders are very common in TV serials. Sons of the same mother seem to appear out of nowhere!!! (legal or illegal sons ) Plastic surgeries are also a regular feature.
A plastic surgery is generally not a part of the original story. Whenever an actor wants to call it the quits from the TV serial (because he himself is frustrated by the fact that the story is going nowhere and hes dead bored and wants a change.) the shows producers and story writers create an ‘accident sequence’ in the TV serial wherein the actor undergoes serious injuries and his face is disfigured………. then comes up the new face, the new actor…….after the plastic surgery!!!!
Camera angles and background music are such that they create a dramatic effect for the ladies who watch these serials.
A serial always portrays good characters and bad characters……….the good characters are the ones who suffer a lot. After being afflicted with a lot of attrocities……they finally either die or come to their senses and become badder than the bad characters and start their revengeful tactics. In addition to this a TV serial also portrays some characters whom I would categorize as ‘simply hopeless’. These are the ones who are too good…..saints more like. They would take anything lying down, without opposition.
All in all TV serials / soaps suck. They are dead hopeless and very irritating. The background music makes me want to blow either my TV down or my brains out.
Unfortunately most of the ladies (moms age) watch these and love them too……who the hell created the concept of a TV serial anyway?