....on a come back trail

Another stab at reviving this blog and my attempts at writing . Its been more than a year since I last wrote and lot of things have transpired since then.

• We won a world cup and then promptly lost to England


• Yeddi is no longer the CM and a person who was better suited to record canned laughter for sitcoms has taken over the reins of the state.


• Lokpal and second freedom struggle is in progress


• Sibal and Diggy raja have rewritten the rules for speaking without thinking.


• Ra.One became a blockbuster in terms of the jokes, tweets and online discussions it generated.


• Namma Metro finally saw the light of the day.


• Rahul baba is still our youth leader and the next great hope for the country


• Behenji honoured the F1 by presiding and presenting the trophy to Vettel (who lost the next 2 races - not that I am insinuating anything)


• Didi and Amma resoundingly slapping the Commies and Stalin


• Pawar did the opposite and got slapped.


• Reality shows and News channels providing wholesome 'family' entertainment.

Big Apple beckoned me and I obliged......

Balls ..from down under....

What ho ? my dear readers.... I believe aal is well with you. At least I haven't seen any requests for new posts to suggest otherwise.

Well lotsa things to say , dunno where to begin. Well let me dispense off with the bad news first. As I mentioned in my previous entries, I am now no longer a bachelor. I got hitched couple of months ago. I will write about the actual wedding sometime later when the pain has lessened.

I have been performing my duties of a husband faithfully..err..i.e showing absolutely no interest in what she is talking, glued to the lap top all the time ignoring her, spending more time in reading books and watching movies and of course leaving her and flying to Australia.

Yes, am in Ozland. I am supposed to be helping out the clients in specing some requirements and also doing some enhancements. But in truth I dunno what I am doing here. All those could have been accomplished from offshore itself. But I am not in the habit of looking in the mouth of a gift horse (or any horse for that matter!).

Before leaving, I had to undergo a mandatory cross cultural workshop which explained how one should behave in Australia, what to expect when interacting with Australians and Do's and Dont's etc. So I was geared up and ready for some Aussie style slangs and fun. But who ever designed that workshop couldn't be more misinformed !. In my office I have seen Asians, Indians (no they are not Asians. Asians refer to Chinese, Koreans, Japanese, Indonesians etc), Americans, Brits, Europeans. Trues blue Aussies are a rare breed and my hope of learning a few colourful Aussie slang still remains a hope..

Of all the times, I land here in the middle of winter which I must say is not the ideal time to visit. I mean its cold, overcast and rainy. How could one expect to hit the beaches ..err..work..in this weather?

The other thing is most of the attractions in Sydney are in the outdoors and winter isn't the right time to see them. There are beaches and one cant expect bikini clad babes cavorting in the sun at this time of the year. But hope (and plain lechery) makes one do strange things and I did go to a couple of beaches only to be welcomed at one of them by a fat bellied gentleman trying to work on his abs, the sight of which I hope will not scar me for life.

Apart from beaches, I visited a zoo, couple of aquariums, a wild life world which I must say was quite good. Fishes,snakes, Lizards, sharks, sting rays and of course Crocs, Kangaroos, Koalas. I have seen quite a lot of them now. One of the aquariums were also offering to put me in the shark tank along with a few sharks and sting rays just for the fun of it and for a payment of few dollars. Now I knew Australians were a crazy lot and I admire that. But they cant ask me to pay for becoming shark food. No Sir!

The other thing I did was watch Inception. Yes the latest creation from the brain of Christopher Nolan which has been making people to get in to vicious debates (often starting with questioning the intellectual capacity of one another and invariably leading to the ancestral traits) in online forums. I thought it was a very clever movie and one which made the audience to think and involve. If you already don't know, its about dreams and a bunch of people who steal or implant ideas in human brain through dreams. Though there is enough action, chases and explosions to satiate the need of an average move goer, its a movie which makes one think about the possibilities of human mind.

More than the movie, I am intrigued by the notion of one entering another's dream and planting ideas. I could make use of such a technology. Apart from making my wife think that I am the ideal husband ever and worship me, I can probably make my clients to offer me more on site trips and also get in to my manager's brain to ...well that's impossible, nothing can grow in vacuum..not even ideas...

I have been writing this for quite some days now... haven't been able to publish it till now....Meanwhile visited the sunshine state of Australia, Queensland and got a taste of the gold coast and what it offers. Visited the Australia Zoo and crikey ! they are doing a fabulous job of carrying on the legacy of the croc hunter.

Also visited the Blue Mountains, which is a great place- only if you are a strapping young lad and not a geriatric like me. Must have walked at least 8-10km exploring the forests, nature trails and of course proved that I am still deficient in the grey matter by climbing a steep stairway of about 900 steps cut in to the side of the cliff (often at the edge) and spending the next couple of days hobbling around with pain.

As my stay at down under is nearing an end, I am in the look out for the obvious souvenirs which is taking me to a lot of different places. Apart from the usual trinkets and whatnot's, here's one which will surely be a conversation piece if you display it in your living room. Any takers?

Wedding vows.....

Hmm….now now…..where do I begin…. Its been so long since I exercised my literary skills (you can laugh, I won’t mind).

So what have I been up to?….. As indicated in my previous post that I am treading the path that no man has ever willingly trodden, but inevitably ends up walking.

There comes a time in man’s life when he has to take stock of his life and answer some very serious questions. Such as..

• Do you agree to spend 5 hrs for shopping a tea-cup?
• Do you like to paint your room pink?
• Do you agree to wait for her for 4 hrs to get ready to go to a 30 mins event?
• Do you pretend to like reality shows where repeat offenders and bimbos seek matrimonial alliances?
• Will you stop visiting naughty websites?
• Will you stop ogling at girls, unless specifically asked by her to compare her with the said girl?
• And after comparing, would you agree that she is much better (irrespective of what the comparison was for) than the said girl?

I have somehow worked up the courage to say ‘I do’ to all the above questions and take the big leap.As I mentioned to my lady the other day, the below verse succinctly sums up my life till now and what the future holds for me.

“ನಿನ್ನೆ ತನಕ ನಾನು ಉಂಡಾಡಿ ಗುಂಡ
ನಾಳೆಯಿಂದ ನಿನ್ನ ಗಂಡ”

Roughly it translates to,

“Till yesterday, I was a bloke with no errand
But from the morrow, I am your husband”

Have had an interesting time since engagement. Trying to understand each other-which is very important. I guess I handled it pretty well by not responding to her messages, falling asleep in the middle of conversations, taking her to cartoon movies, spending lots of time in book and dvd shops completely ignoring her. In short she now has adjusted her expectations from me, which I guess is none.

So here I am standing at the brink of my bachelorhood, staring at the vast ocean of marital life awaiting the day when I’ll be pushed in to it without a life buoy to cling on to…. I guess that’s what adventure of your lifetime is all about…..

Too lazy to find an appropriate title.......

Yes, I wasn't here for some time now. I know many of you would have missed me just like we missed Himesh Reshamiyya's voice all these days. But as you know, Himesh bhai is back with his new voice and lo am here too.

So the last time I made an appearance here I was in London, doing something which I had no clue of (for that matter nobody had and has even now), content in cooking for my room mates (yeah, I am an expert cook and my ex-room mates will vouch for it albeit with a wince) and looking for where my next opportunity to get in to a embarrassing situation would come from. In short it was idyllic.


But that's a story of the past. Lot of water has flown under the bridge of my life after that. For starters, I have aged one more year and have almost reached the age where young girls no longer offer to modify your facial anatomy with the application of the tool used to aid in ambulation when you stare lecherously at them (not that I am saying I am one). Now a days girls give me the same respect as they give to someone who is a senior citizen, which means basically none.

Apart from that, I am back in India doing the same old thing here again. If you are the unfortunate ones who had to read through my earlier posts, all my esteemed peers, whom I look up to are very much there, offering their insightful and unforgettable advice to me. Got promotion and before you have the thoughts of increased pay check let me tell you that I am getting less than what I used to get before promotion. The guys in the finance must have been smoking some pretty strong stuff when they were coming up with the pay structure. And I had to do some stuff and say some things which to all others seemed pretty rational and logical, but earned me sobriquets like 'attitude problem', 'changed a lot' from the powers above. Well let me just say that sometimes the environment becomes charged up with sparks flying all over like the faulty transformer near my home.

All these put me in such a state that I had lost my writing mojo and was trying to look for inspiration to continue my contribution to the literary world. Then two things happened..

The first one was the fruit of all the prayers of my well wishers (dunno if I can call them that). At last I seem to have made some headway in to getting a better half and can say that it might not be that long where I can reminisce about the good old bachelor days. Now if that's not an inspiration to come up with pageful of paeans to all things wonderful in life, then I dunno what else is. Added to that the fact that the lady in question suffered through all my previous posts and had enough consideration to say that she liked them and asked me to write more. I ask 'What else a budding writer can look for in his future soul mate?'. 'A better taste in literature ....' some of the cynical among you might say. But I don't care.

The other thing is that a famous blogger and a world celebrity, whose comments are quoted in leading newspapers all over the world deemed it fit to grace his eyes on my humble blog and graciously left a comment in my last post. Though the comment was for the video which I had linked rather than my writing skills, I am a contented man. For someone who had to ask (read it beg) his friends to read his blog, this is indeed a momentous occasion . This as they has added a spring in my step and I am more determined than before to write.

Though I will have to get all my posts vetted by the censorship board (OK, if you don't understand this, you are still single) before hand and make sure I add a word of praise in each of them, I'll make sure you will still be regaled with all my experiences as I have more opportunities to make a complete fool of myself. You may ask am I not one now?, I feel there is still a lot of room for improvement and I am a staunch supporter of continual learning. Also the more experienced brethren whom I am gonna join will definitely agree with me, if they are permitted to do so ofcourse.....

Love All... especially the lady guards.......

Since I have reached a age where I have accumulated so much of experience, that I tend to start sentences with 'When I was young, it was......'. So today too am starting with a unnecessary flash back to relate few things which happened couple of days ago. So here it goes....

When I was young, I used to play tennis a lot....erm...if you could call that as tennis. Racquets made of wooden pieces and a piece of thread serving as net and a ground so uneven that there was no need to spin the ball honed my tennis skills. Of course watching the matches on door darshan and arguing with friends on who is better was another past time.Couple of my friends(who are brother actually) were fans of Boris Becker and Stefan Edberg respectively. Whenever Becker and Edberg met in finals of a championship (which they did...), my friends provided great source of entertainment by fighting so intensely that the intensity of the players on the court paled in comparison.

And of course there were the terminologies Love All, Love -30, Love-40 -- were a great source for giggling. As I grew up, I understood the game and started following the careers of the players Sampras, Steffi Graf, Monica Seles, Andre Agassi and others. And as I became wiser, I understood the nuances of the game ...err....especially the ladies matches...he he he....

Wimbledon has always been a fascinating tournament... the traditions, white dress code, royalty has made it a tournament which has still stuck to its roots. I have always liked the telecast of Wimbledon on TV. Apart from the matches, the documentaries or the old archive footage of the championships which were shown when it rained (rain being the integral part of a successful Wimbledon) were good.

As luck would have it, I landed here in the UK, just in time for the tournament and last weekend I made my exodus to Wimbledon to the hallowed turfs of the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club to watch this year's championships. To enjoy the complete experience of Wimbledon, one must camp out the previous night in the queue to get tickets for next day's play. It has been the tradition and me coming from a very traditional family didn't want to break any traditions during my pilgrimage to the temple of tennis. So I left office on friday evening along with few like minded friends and reached the Wimbledon Park, where people form the queue.

The park is about a kilometre and half from the stadium. As we entered the park, we noticed that people had already formed the queue and pegged their tents. We too joined the queue and were handed queue cards, which is basically a number showing your position in the queue. Based on the number you get, one can get entrance to the centre or the court numbers one or two. We were as usual late and were saddled with numbers which would not have given us entry ti the main courts. And as we did not have any tents, we weaseled or way in to a tent of one of our other friends and settled for the wait till next morning.

The weather was very good for a British summer day with no hint of rains at all. And people around us were in the mood. They had set the tents and were very much enjoying the atmosphere with ample assistance from the various beverages of the alcoholic kind. As the day came to an end, the enthusiasm of the crowd became directly proportional with the amount of the spirits consumed. Our friends too, not to be left behind launched themselves in to the middle of the happenings with abandon.

We met a couple of interesting characters . A couple from New Zealand who in their highly 'spirited' state took sympathy on us - a bunch of guys- and went upon a mission to find us some girls. They scoured the length and the breadth of the park and came back with the locations of girls. They were kind enough and offered to accompany us to them and help us get acquainted with the girls. Though the offer seemed exciting, we had to politely decline it as it was time for us kids to go to bed and we snuggled in to the tents and attempted to sleep with the uneven floor below us and the cacophony of the revelers outside and the snoring of a friend (who complained that he would not be able to sleep even for second with all the noise outside and promptly fell asleep within a minute) inside the tent. I spent the night equally distributing my time between finding a comfortable position in which all parts of my body felt the same kind of pain due to the floor and listening to the babble of folks outside.

The next morning we packed our tents and stood in the line to start our walk towards the stadium. And for once luck seemed to favour me and we got the tags to court number 1.the walk to the stadium took couple of hours and after a elaborate security check we reached the ticket counter. After seeing the amount I had to pay, I doubted whether getting entry to court number 1 was good luck or not. I had to pay as much as my day's allowance I get here !.

The stadium is pretty awesome. With the centre court and 19 other courts spread all over, its a place to visit for any tennis fan. Though I had visited it when I had been to UK last time, its completely different when the tournament is underway. Spectators thronging the courts, waiting for the players to show up with autograph books in their hands. Food stalls with the traditional Strawberries and cream and the official drinks Pimms No 1. The shops selling ridiculously priced merchandises.

We strolled around the stadium taking in the sights. One other major attraction at the stadium is the Henmen Hill which a small hill in front of which a giant screen telecasts the matches being played on all the courts. People sit on the hill drinking, eating watch the matches. And its a sight to behold with thousands of people staring at the screen and erupting whenever their favorite player wins a point.

Summer in Britain this year has been an unusual one. With no rains and temperatures reaching 31 degrees, people are complaining of the oppressive heat. This is also affecting the way they dress. To paraphrase a popular saying 'hemlines do rise with the rise in temperatures', and Wimbledon offer ample proof to it. We had tough time in deciding what to look at, the matches or the haute couture of the ladies.

The security in the stadium was pretty good. There were male and female security guards all over keeping an eye on things. And I believe the criteria for selecting the female security guards was to find the most prettiest girls and deck them with guards uniform. All the female guards I saw were more suited to walk on a ramp rather than stop a trouble maker. I guess the rationale behind it was the ruffians intending to cause ruckus would be spell bound by seeing these guards, that they will forget what they came to do. At least I forgot to close my mouth after seeing a couple of female guards.

Another attraction was the promotional stall of HSBC where 3 nubile things in short skirts were clicking pics of people holding a racquet in front of a blue screen. Then their photos would be morphed with a tennis court back ground and copies were given out to the people. Initially we thought that they are charging money for it and decided 'who wants such fake photos?, only foolish tourists would go for it' . But when asked we were told its free and we too stood in the queue. I posed as if I am waiting to receive a serve. After sometime we went to collect the photos expecting pictures which showed us as real tennis players. But talk about anticlimax. One of my friend looked more like a police constable chasing the lovers out of park with his lathi. Another looked like he is swatting a fly rather than playing a tennis shot. One more was doing a dance move and I looked like a moron who was standing to receive the serve facing the audience with the court behind me.

There were also other freebies being distributed around ranging from free sunscreen lotion application by girls(which some of my friends went for many times) to free distribution of things useful to ladies (one of the guys went to get that too, but was politely told that it wasn't for men).

Then we partook the traditional dishes of Wimbledon, strawberries and cream and not to forget Pimms No 1, which is the official drink. Having heard a lot about it, I was keen to taste it, but its price made me think twice. For that price I could have bought a crate of drinks outside. Then I hit upon a idea which only a true Indian can think of... Ask the girl at the bar to serve a 'one by two' (or cutting in bambaiyya slang) Pimms. The way she looked at us when we said her to split a drink in to two was worth looking at. She asked us to confirm our age !(thinking that we are a couple of underage kids trying to get a alcoholic drink). Once she was satisfied that we were adults albeit a bit mental, she served us the drink. It tasted good with a hint of spices and citrus fruits and did not taste anything like alcohol (not that I am an experienced hand in that area). No after effects too..err.....seeing two balls being hit by the players on the court was more due to the heat.... I think.....

And as the sun set at the stadium, we set off towards home carrying with us some incredible experience and thinking why we too cant have beautiful girls as security guards in India for sports tournaments.....

Here are some pics which highlights our day at the Wimbledon.

Don't ask me what to do with 2 men and a van. They are available and its left to your imagination

Our tent... 5 of us spent the night inside it in various positions (sleeping I meant)

Inspired by another blogger who is on a mission to introduce people to the various urinals and paintings in them across the world, here is one which asked you to aim at the painting of the ball. I startled all other men in the toilet with my flash photography and fortunately no body took me for a pervert and kicked me out.


As the pic itself says, that's it...enough of wasting time reading this.... do your work

PS: I seem to have forgotten to write something..... blame my age.... aah yes...we watched a few tennis matches too.... they were good.

Unnecessary update for the week gone by.....

Another week gone by in this country and though nothing of any significance transpired in my mundane life, there are couple of things which I feel - as a responsible blogger - should be reported.

First and foremost work, as I mentioned in my earlier rant, was going no where. With no one knowing what to do, I spent the week doing something which many things which in the final outcome may or may not have any value. So the powers above decided that its high time that someone with more experience can come in and do things better than what I am doing now... yeah do nothing in a better way !. Well all I can say that, if there is anyone who can do nothing very well, he is the right person for it.

And I have settled nicely once again....Started to inflict my culinary skills upon my flatmates and they are gracious enough to eat them with out complaints. But I do hear some moans from them in the morning. They are a great company and adventurous too. getting in to ladies changing room in a swimming pool by mistake and look as if nothing wrong has happened is a walk in the park for them. And they say its better than going in to men's changing room where lets just say that things are not easy for the eyes.

By the way if you guys saw the T20 match of India against West Indies, you might have seen me on the screen jumping around. I might have been cheering at the fall of an Indian wicket. But that was just for to get my self on the screen. I go to watch my first match in a stadium and that too at the Lords and I should have known, with the kind of luck I have, India lost. Though there was no dearth of entertainment. Sozzled cricket fans shouting, some Indians with their accent shouting 'We want six', which sounded entirely different and made people around think of another favourite past time of Indians other than cricket.

Weekend consisted of kicking a room mate for getting a year older. Visiting Hyde Park, which I must say is a pretty good place. Boating in the lake was a interesting experience. Looking at all the birds (I strictly meant the non flying ones) around was a invigorating experience !.

Dinner at a Indian place which was specifically designed to the goras resulted in the waiter explaining us what each dishes are - dishes which we have been eating all our lives !. Then a walk to the Leicester square, to Soho (now that's a place which one must visit to get a glimpse of the London's night life and also the place where you get to see people of various nations talking to you in Hindi asking whether you need the services if the ladies of negotiable affections ) and Piccadilly Circus bought our day to an end. But not before witnessing some serious public display of affection by a couple in the railway station which really left us ruminating..... why the heck we cant do that?.......

Musings of a muddled mind.....

Stepping down from the Srilankan Airline flight (it was a kind of boring flight) on to London bought back a lot of memories. Almost a couple of years ago, for the first time in my life I had left my home and came over here to London. As I set my foot again, all the previous encounters, adventures, experiences flooded past me like the flashback of a B grade bollywood movie.

My regular readers (he he....are there any?) would know all about my experiences the last time around. So I got down of the plane went to immigration again dreading what might go wrong. What happened is something known as anticlimax in english grammer circles. The lady at the counter just checked my passport and stamped me in to the country without any questions. I am not at all complaining mind you. I am happy that there were no problems. But sometimes when life becomes so simple and easy, you tend to wonder if there is something else round the corner waiting to bash your head and take away the joy you had earlier.

So I was in London and after a brief period of roaming up and down between the Departures and Arrivals to find out the way out of airport(I somehow even managed to stand in a queue which was departing,not to outside, but to Cambodia. Some extremely helpful airport personnel intervened in the nick of time), I finally made in to the taxi and reached home sweet home. The same place where I stayed during my previous sojourn. I must be very grateful to my friend who allowed me back in to stay after all that he went through the last time.

After spending almost 20 hours travelling (including the time I spent in Srilanka waiting for my plane, listening to Sinhalese language which by the way is a cross between tamil and some chinese, Japanese kind) one would think that taking rest would be the logical think to do. But then thats what normal people do. What did I do?. I head out to play cricket. You see the weather in London at this time of the year is so unLondon like. Clear skies, bright sunshine with day light till 9 PM and pleasant temperatures make people to head out to open spaces and then lie there under sun at various stages of disrobement. I saw lissome lasses sun bathing at the park and they were a sight to travel weary eyes. But beside them were the boy friends with enormous paunches (and unfortunately uncovered) that they covered the girls both from me and the sun . I had to put extra efforts to take a peek at them.

Where was I?...ah yeah looking at barely clad girls...erm... playing cricket at the park. After a intense 4 hours of trying to run behind the ball, giving reasons for getting out in the first ball, blaming the pitch for all the wides bowled my first day in UK ended.

As for the reason I came here, started of work and there is nothing much to talk about it. The client doesnt know what to do and if you guys had closely followed my earlier posts, you would easily surmise that my management has little clue of whats going on either. So am sitting in office wondering why the hell was I sent here.

As the saying goes, never ask why when a unknown girl kisses you (coz she may tell you that she was drunk at the time and kissed you only to win a bet), I am not asking why was I sent here, but just enjoying the days......

So before I sign off, I leave you with this remarkable artist whose existence was unknown to me and was introduced by one of my flatmate.







If any of you know where I can get hold of the cinematic masterpieces of this thespian, you will be rewarded handsomely.....

Travelling in the time of recession.....

I am watching the video which tells you what to do if the flight is about to plummet down to earth (i don't know why they scare people with those warnings. But they do put the fear of God in you). Now if you are wondering what I was doing getting scared shitless in an airplane, let me take you a few days back and start at the beginning....

Now that the whole world is still trying to decide whether we are in a recession or have we experienced the worst and moving towards the - give loans to everyone without checks - era once again (at least am getting 3 calls from various financial institutions daily asking me to take money from them. Probably they haven't heard about this slowdown).

All companies are in a financial freeze mode where even if you gotta travel to the restrooms, you have to get an approval from at least 3 VPs. But lo I was asked to travel !. When my manager asked me to travel, I said 'no thanks, I don't wanna pee now'. But he said that I have to go to London. Since London in our local slang has an entirely different connotation which is no way near to the capital of the United Kingdom and more nearer to bowel movements, I politely declined the offer again wondering why my manager is so concerned with the well being of my excretory systems. More over I had been to the old blighty about 2 years ago and the chances of me going again was as remote as Royal Challenngers of Bengaluru making to the finals of IPL. But we all know what happened and I was really flying again.

It so transpired that a new business opportunity arose and our management in their infinite wisdom agreed to send associates to UK as soon as possible(as if all we had to do was to hail a passing auto rickshaw and ask the driver to take us to London. Mind you knowing our rickshaw drivers, they may agree to take you to London, but not to Lingarajapuram. But that's an entirely different story altogether).

Without knowing the latest visa procedures and company policies, our managers asked two of my colleagues to apply for work permits. Since the policies had changed, it appeared that the work permits would get processed only after 4 weeks and our clients were hopping mad at the delay, a search was done to find people with valid visa to leave instantly. My manager was the first one to put his hand up and claim that he had a valid business visa. But he was asked to look for other candidates (I guess the clients had a good laugh). I on the other hand had a work permit for couple of months and a valid visa too and I was chosen to be the err... Chosen one !

I was told on thursday evening to leave on saturday and after the usual long list of processes and medical tests (where after sucking what amounted to a couple of litres of my blood for various tests, I was declared medically fit to travel), I got my tickets.

I was being sent to London through Colombo and after the recent developments in the emerald country, don't blame me for being apprehensive about the flight plan.

When I announced at home that am going onsite, the reaction was 'not again!'. Where my parents are trying hard to get me hitched to some poor girl, before the kids of my neighbourhood start calling me a granddad instead of uncle ( am past the age of calling anna, if you haven't noticed). And here I am flying off. They weren't too thrilled about the idea. But what ho, duty calls and you gotta make some sacrifices in the line of duty and if it means escaping..err...delaying getting married for some more time, then so be it. Not that I had a long list of girls desperate to marry me.....

The day of flying and I with my usual bunch of friends headed towards airport. The new one, which I had just seen earlier and not entered, beckoned me. As we entered the airport we saw some stalls of Karnataka tourism displaying various things. Thinking that its the usual pitch to attract tourists, we headed to towards the check in counters to look for the time when my flight will be called, something made us stop at our tracks. There was a stage and around it lot of people wearing dancing clothes, a lady in green saree, people with traditional music instruments, a lady in green saree, people in various costumes and did I mention a lady in green saree?. Removing all thoughts of checking the flight time, we walked towards the stage to check out what it was all about....ok more importantly to check out the lady in green saree.

There were no short of admirers and wherever she moved, at least a dozen pair of eyes followed her. We being the perfect gentlemen we are, just sat around looking at the whole spectacle of her moving around gracefully and a bunch of males ogling her with their mouth agape.... No I did not ogle..but I did notice that she was quite an eyeful to look at..

It seemed that the Karnataka tourism was showcasing the culture of the state and as a part of it there were programmes daily at the airport (and yeah ogling at beautiful girls is a part of our culture). The lady in green saree was compereing the programme. It started with a rousing Karaga dance where the dancers moved around the airport lounge dancing to the tunes of thamate. Many of the passengers around were amused by the spectacle and a few annoyed (yeah, they were the ones who hated our culture). The foreigners as usual were excited running around with their cameras to capture the real India and what more they got to see it just as soon as they landed in India. I saw some of them after seeing the whole thing, walking back to ticket counters to book tickets back to their countries as their purpose to visit India was accomplished just outside airport. I mean while thoroughly enjoyed it.

Remembering time to time that my actual reason for being at the airport was a tough job with all these cultural extravaganza around me. And then the lady in green started to announce a bevy of performances. Though seeing her just speaking was nothing short of a visual delight, the first performers, the thamate (which by the way is a traditional percussion instrument) troupe was outstanding. As they performed, one would just want to dance with abandon to those earthy tunes which no world renowned musician can create. I had a tough time switching between watching the performers and the lady in green.

The next performers were the kamsaale group, who along with singing, also dance with playing small cymbals. Their moves were so complicated and sometimes dangerous that wearing protective gear to ones nether region is a must if you have to avoid injuring your manhood. Nevertheless, there was no two words about the performance..yeah just one word...outstanding.


Here was a perfect example of what is generally known as irony. Me being in Karnataka all my lifetime never once bothered to see all these art. And there I was watching and appreciating the performances, just when I was leaving the country !. The lady too was encouraging the crowd to applaud and also to get their pictures clicked with the performers as this was a one of a kind opportunity. That got us excited and we were about to rush and get our snaps with the lady, but stopped short of of doing it due to absolute lack of nerves.

Meanwhile the lady in green had realized the presence of an extremely handsome man at the premises and started throwing sideway glances at us. And I believe if my flight had not been announced, she would have surely approached us to have a word or two (might also would have talked at length, cursing us for ogling at her as if she was the last female on the planet). I would never know as I had to leave just a group of bharathanatyam dancers were enthralling the crowd. Remember the earlier sacrifice in the line of duty?.... Yeah made another tough decision and decided to board the flight after all.

So here I am sitting at the Bhandaranaike International Airport Colombo, waiting for my connecting flight to London (yeah I crossed Indian ocean and landed in Srilanka while writing all this), musing over the happenings of last couple of days and wondering what the future will throw at me. Whatever it will be, be sure of hearing it from me....

PS: waiting at Colombo airport is so boring after all the excitement at Bangalore......

Gaddi gyan...

Confessions of a newbie manager......

Its been so long since I wrote. And I guess you people very happy all these times. But I an back to inflict more pain on your senses.

What with the change of role making me actually work (if you can call what I do as work and as opposed to troll through websites or write blog) in office and the usual year end appraisal process (which was no different from previous ones. My views on my performance were agreed unanimously by only me and everyone who mattered thought otherwise. ), I couldn't find time to write.

There has been a significant change. A change, which will have considerable ramifications. I have become the part of 'management' now. Excel sheets, power point, emails are my daily bread and I consume them with liberal helpings of meetings and calls.

Now I tend to speak in a language which will make messrs Oxford and Cambridge to sell more of their best selling paperbacks. Also my sentences are formed in such a way so that the audience completely lose track of what I am talking about, which very well makes them to think twice before coming to me with their problems next time.

I have also developed this tendency to call people in to meeting rooms and discuss things at length, even if it’s just to say 'hello' to them.

1. I am now a big fan of conference calls. Like to send meeting invites.
2. If I don't have a reason to send an invite for a meeting,
3. I just send an invite to people for a meeting to decide on topics for subsequent meetings.
4. And yeah I have started to express in bulleted points


Now a day I think that my team doesn't work at all and are whiling their time away, while am working my ass off. The whole project is surviving just due to my efforts.

Whenever somebody comes with a leave request, I tend to tell them that taking leave is tantamount to a crime. If they say that their relatives are ill, I counter with 'don’t you think I have ailing relatives, do you see me taking leaves?'

I have also started talking about good old days in my previous projects whenever someone comes up to discuss some pressing issue, I have now learnt to talk about everything else other than the issue at hand. Usually I talk about what happened when I was at onsite or my previous project. My audience is so stunned by my hot air, that they forget why they came up to me in the first place and return wordlessly.

Most of my free time is now spent with other managers. We trade war stories or try to outdo each other by highlighting all the pains (both literal and figurative ones) we have. We also compare the length and girth of our styluses (before you start imagining disgusting things, I am talking about the styluses of our touch phones) and claim superiority over the other.

By the way I bought a new phone which has so many features that I dunno what to do with and am typing this dirge on it. It has a windows OS, but surprisingly there is no control alt delete buttons on the keyboard!!.

Sorry, I digressed; the nub of the matter is that I have changed. Am not the genial harmless idiot whom you all knew and loved (ok I am stretching a bit here-call it artistic license). Now am an idiot with powers to inflict misery on others. You people should bow before me and be afraid, be very afraid……

another gloomy post....

I know, off late I have been writing only about my work and nothing else. There is nothing else happening in my life, that would make me to put it on the web for your consumption. Hell, am not even getting in to funny or embarrassing situations so that I could offer you people some laughs during this period of general slow down. And better not ask about my progress on acquiring a mate for life, its a story which has no climax in near future...

Now that companies are laying off people, you see lots of stories flying around with news papers each day publishing the number of victims who are handed pink slips in various organisations as if these companies are competing in firing people too. Though the companies maintain that they are not firing people and those who are being sent are under performers, the stories you get to to hear from friends tell a different story. Apparently there are no fixed criteria for laying off people.

So here is my lame limerick on lay offs

Its the lay off season

People are fired due to recession

If you question and throw a fit

They say that twas because of your outfit

HR not liking its colour is also a reason

.....dire times

My English vocabulary was enriched by a new term over the week. "Involuntary Attrition".....
Go figure it out. If you do, then tell me if a chill ran down your spine.....

..to blog or not to blog...about manager log....

A friend forwarded me this link in an obvious reference to my habit of putting all the shenanigans of my highly regarded managers in to blog.

If what he article says is true, then I am in a soup. As it is I am being accused of not doing any work and just coming to office to sit in a chair which would make any ergonomic expert to go in to a bad fit just by looking at it and sleep. If my managers, by any chance get to know about my blog and read all the outstanding things I say about them, I would be kicked out of office in lesser time than it takes to say 'Freedom of Speech'

But and its a big but I must say, only if they understand what I have written in the first place. There is a high probability that after reading it, they will come to me and ask me to explain what I have written as they are managers in the truest sense and have developed a skill of reading through pages of documents without understanding a single line or misinterpreting and making a mess of it.

The article also mentions that 'if the blogs are popular and generates substantial traffic', the retributions are severe. My blog is not popular and the only traffic it generates is when I visit it many times daily in a desperate hope that someone would have read the the blog and left a lot of comments. The upshot of that is it increases the number of hits and my hits counter looks respectable. I also have this hope of some head honcho of a publishing house would read my blog and impressed by my literary skills offer me a lucrative book deal(he..he..that would be the day !.... the day that head honcho got his head examined I mean ....).

But its always better to be safe than sorry. So here is a disclaimer. Going forward, if any post appears in the blog, which you feel is remotely similar to misadventures of personnel in higher echelons of corporate ladder, please note that it is of completely fictional nature and in no way connected to people in real life. It takes place in a fictional world inhabited by fictional people working in fictional organisations who are getting screwed by fictional managers.

Now that I have put such a ironclad disclaimer in place, here's one more fictional tale.

It was a meeting of a serious nature. The future of the team was being discussed. With the current prevailing economic conditions, rumours were flying around that the team may be dismantled, so that there wont be any dent in corporate salary. To put all these rumours to rest, a meeting was requested by the team which was diligently ignored by the management until the team had to threaten to stop sending all excel reports to them.

Once the meeting commenced, the team started putting forth their immediate concerns, their day to day issues/challenges and what the future holds for the team.

The managers, being ever astute started talking of how things were in their last project, how they implemented processes, how they improved things single handedly and many such things which would make one feel that the entire organisation is surviving just by the virtue of their presence in the company. Ok, its another thing that the team knew why exactly these managers had to leave their old project and take up roles in the current one. Its a different story altogether.

But the astonishing thing was the dedication one of the manager had put in to the job. Apparently he had consulted his great grand mother for suggestions and the team was stunned to hear that the great grand mother too had some very definite views on how to manage a team.

The outcome of the whole meeting was that the team is still in the dark regarding their future, wondering what just happened in the meeting and the managers patted themselves on their collective backs for one more successful handling of team issues.

Fable time again......

My initial foray in to writing in Kannada. I must say this has created quite a bit of flutter in Kannada literary circles. The Kannada sahithya academy has sat up and tooknotice of the new emerging talent. Moreover prominent writers of the language have heartily welcomed my entry and many of them have expressed that with writers like me attempting to dish out mind numbing rubbish will make the patrons of Kannada literature to realise that there are so many better works in Kannada when compared to my writings. They hope that this will actually boost the sales of their works. All I have to say is that I am privileged to have made some contribution to the literature and humbly accept the accolades.

Now I am back with my latest in lingua franca. Though its not an original of mine (do I hear sighs of relief out there ?), I feel that its very funny take on the current state of affairs. And as all good satires must do, it raises some very relevant questions.

Apologies if you have already read this as a forwarded mail, cause I too got this from a mail.

Ant & the Grasshopper... This is a fable which most of us know.

The Ant works hard in the withering heat all summer building its house and laying up supplies for the winter. The Grasshopper thinks the Ant is a fool and laughs & dances & plays the summer away.

Come winter, the Ant is warm and well fed. The Grasshopper has no food or shelter so he dies out in the cold.

Now here's the politically correct and sensational version.

The Ant works hard in the withering heat all summer building its house and laying up supplies for the winter. The Grasshopper thinks the Ant’s a fool and laughs & dances & plays the summer away.

Come winter, the shivering Grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the Ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving.

NDTV, BBC, CNN show up to provide pictures of the shivering Grasshopper next to a video of the Ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.

The World stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be that this poor Grasshopper allowed suffering so?

Arundhati Roy stages a demonstration in front of the Ant’s house.

Medha Patkar goes on a fast along with other Grasshoppers demanding that Grasshoppers be relocated to warmer climates during winter.

Amnesty International and Kofi Annan criticizes the Indian Government for not upholding the fundamental rights of the Grasshopper.

The Internet is flooded with online petitions seeking support to the Grasshopper (many promising Heaven and Everlasting Peace for prompt support as against the wrath of God for non-compliance) .

Opposition MPs stage a walkout.

Left parties call for "Bharat Bandh" in West Bengal and Kerala demanding a Judicial Enquiry.

CPM in Kerala immediately passes a law preventing Ants from working hard in the heat so as to bring about equality of poverty among Ants and Grasshoppers.

Lalu Prasad allocates one free coach to Grasshoppers on all Indian Railway Trains, aptly named as the ' Grasshopper Rath ' .

Finally, the Judicial Committee drafts the ' Prevention of Terrorism against Grasshoppers Act ' [POTAGA], with effect from the beginning of the winter.

Arjun Singh makes 'Special Reservation ' for Grasshoppers in Educational Institutions & in Government Services.

The Ant, fined for failing to comply with POTAGA and having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes; its home is confiscated by the Government and handed over to the Grasshopper in a ceremony covered by NDTV.

Arundhati Roy calls it ' A Triumph of Justice ‘.

Lalu calls it 'Socialistic Justice ‘.

CPM calls it the ' Revolutionary Resurgence of the Downtrodden '

Kofi Annan invites the Grasshopper to address the UN General Assembly.

Many years later

The Ant has since migrated to the US and set up a multi-billion dollar company in Silicon Valley.
100s of Grasshoppers still die of starvation despite reservation somewhere in India ...
And because of loosing lot of hard working Ants and feeding the Grasshoppers, India is still a developing country!!!

Q & A......

Q: When is the right time to leave a project?

A: When you inform your PM that you have completed 3 years in the project and he retorts that you have not contributed nor added value to the project(that too right after spending 3 hours on creating a presentation which was supposed to be prepared by the PM).

A: When the client is showering you with choice expletives and the PM is hiding behind the client with a stupid grin on his face trying not to be too conspicuous lest the client may turn his ire towards him (No fault of yours and the PM had agreed to a insane request by the client without even consulting you on its feasibility)

A: When the client is very happy with your performance, but your own superiors express doubts over your work and accuse you of fudging data.

Q: When is the right time to go mad and kick the shit out of your superiors?

A: When you are informed that you are ineligible to become a PL as you are not of the required designation in spite of possessing all other requisites (You haven't been moved up in designation because of a company wide promotion freeze and your superiors know this very well).

Q: When is the right time to take a break from work?

A: When you try to enter your home, by swiping your company access card against the key hole at the middle of the night(You being perfectly sober and under no influence of hallucinogenic substances).

Prayer for managing.......

The inspiration behind all the bright ideas [sic]

The source of all jargons

The provider of reasons for schedule slippage

The originator of various excel sheets and reports

The foundation of ASAP reminder mails

The spring of eternal meetings

The guide to all low appraisals

O manual for managers, I hail thee.

Lead me kindly, amidst the maze of work,

Lead Thou me on!

I am in the dark, and I intend to be so,

Lead Thou me on!

Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see reason

Lead Thou me on!

To the top, without having to perform

Lead Thou me on!

Redeem my sins by punishing my subordinates

Lead Thou me on!

Riding on others work to managerial heaven

Lead Thou me on!

Amen

P.S: The ''Lead me' verse is adapted from the Lead, Kindly Light written by John Henry Newman and

image courtesy: Amazon

P.P.S: For best results its been advised to recite the prayer daily preferably during work hours. The manual should be used as pillow for absorbing all the enlightenment available in it.

The tales of brave watchmen......

Another weekend gone by and I am suffering from a splitting headache. Though I wish I could attribute it to weekend binge drinking, the actual truth is I spent the previous two nights guarding the worldly possessions of my friend's family, who had traveled out of town.

Along with a friend I performed my duties assiduously and stayed awake late in to night. To kill time we embarked on a highly philosophical debate which was intellectually stimulating and enlightening. Though the conversation often veered towards the fairer sex and our experience (actually the lack of...) with them or the statistical analysis of the anatomical features of various female celebrities, it was all done with a purely philosophical point of view.

As we sat there, I started reminiscing about our past watchmen experiences. Me and my friends have been doing it since we were kids. Most of my neighbours felt that by asking us to sleep over whenever they went out actually kept their house safe. Little did they know that we were in fact the sort of people who should have never been allowed inside the house in daytime, let alone in the night?

Before you people conclude that we hauled off all the goods in the house as soon has the owners turned the corner, let me explain. We were kids and the most important thing we got when we went to these sleep over was the freedom. We were the masters of the place and as everyone knows when there is freedom, you always are up to no good.

At one of the houses there was VCR and a TV game system. This was our favourite house to 'guard'. We were always waiting for them to go on a vacation. We have spent quite a few memorable nights over there. Playing games and watching movies on the VCR was the favourite past time.

Playing Cards, Carrom and other board games were mild enough time pass. But we were never satisfied with that.

Making crank calls at the middle of the night to random phone numbers always guaranteed for a belly full of laughs. Even though the person at the other end of the line who had been roused from sleep did not think so.

Then there was the raiding of the kitchen. Anything that was edible wasn’t left out and we also cooked making abundant use of all the ingredients available. In many cases, the first thing the house owners did when they returned was to run out to get provisions....Ok I am exaggerating. Sometimes the owners made sure that there was nothing edible left before they departed. Such lack of trust was deplorable.

Another thing was learning the lyrics of the songs which we had seen 'muted' at our homes due to the fact that they were broadcast under the moniker 'Midnight Masala'. Well what can I say?. The nights were long and one had to make do with whatever TV channels like Surya, SUN, FTV offered to keep oneself awake for the greater good of the society.

Of course no thief has dared to enter the houses in our watch. Probably the level of noise we made deterred them. Its not that we have always enjoyed our outings. There were times when I have spent whole night scared shit less due to some mysterious noise outside or a cat setting off a car's burglar alarm or a dog howling the whole night.

Over the years we have mellowed and not withstanding the protest of everyone else, we can hazard to say that we have become wiser. Now whenever we perform these guard duties we just watch a movie or read a book. When there is nothing else, we embark on philosophical musings.....

New Year's here.....

To the faithful readers(he he he....) out there, Wish you all a very Happy New Year....

Does spending the new year's moment in office banging my head to resolve a critical outage(not to mention being frustrated and depressed in general) means that I would be doing the same the whole year?... Scary...very scary.....

Update: After a bit of thinking (yeah I still do it sometimes), I guess it wasn't that bad. Considering the current scenario, spending New Year's moment is office is the best thing to happen. If the belief has any truth in it, my job is safe for the year :)

Musings......

Festive season is upon us and my office has a Christmas tree displayed in the reception. To go with the general mood, its a recession hit tree, with no pointed tip (probably the top half is being displayed in another office as a bonsai Christmas tree) and just a few balloons as decoration.

Some time back my CEO had made a statement on the current economic conditions and had mentioned of 'unprecedented times needs unprecedented measures'. This led to wild speculation among us, there by dropping productivity instantly.

One of the unprecedented measures was announced recently and that was

"We have prohibited Chewing gums across all our facilities. Request you to inform HR about employees not adhering to the policy."

Go figure that one out for yourselves !!. I guess our management has really found something of benefit from this. Otherwise they wouldn't have come up with such a bright idea to fight recession when other companies are firing people and cutting increments and perks all around to make ends meet.

Cost cutting has hit us so badly that people are using office printers just to take official print outs and they are printing on both sides of the paper !!

On the personal front.... Was suffering from severe cough from couple of weeks. I sounded like a asthmatic donkey whenever I coughed.

At last decided to visit a doctor and headed towards the nearest clinic. The doctor is a family friend and when I told him my symptoms, he looked at me for few seconds and asked 'Are you married?'. My reply in negative caused him to go in to a litany of how one should get hitched at the right age and how he was already married when he was at my age and so on.

I sat there with a bewildered expression thinking whether my bachelorhood was in fact the reason for my severe cough . I had to assure that my very first task after stepping out of the clinic was to get married before I got a prescription from him.

Moving on to some cheerful news.....

hmm.....can't think of any......hopefully the festive season brings some reasons to cheer.

Family times ahead.....

Question: When does your company realize that you have been working too much and have not spent enough time with family & friends and then insist that you take leave to spend quality time with your near and dear ones?

Answer: When recession hits and the company is forced to shut down operations for few days to cut costs.