Big innings...

June 2006
A final admission in to one of the biggest business schools in India, new friends, a new place, an MBA, I had so much to look forward to. But the nagging thought in my head reminded me that it would not be easy staying apart for two entire years from my parents, my bike, my room and a thousand other things I was addicted to. I was so going to miss home, I wondered if I'd be ok staying away.

June 2007
An impending end to a summer internship at Bangalore, my home city, and another year waiting at XLRI. I feel terrible that I just have a year to go, after which I need to come home. I yearn for the stale mess food, the late night maggi, the sleepless nights and all the things that make life normal at XL. I so miss the place and I don't need to wonder. I am definitely not ok staying away from XLRI.

Yes, I am the same person. But things change, you know...

Small piece of life!

You know a day has gone well, when you go to bed smiling. But when you wake up at 6 am with the same smile and look forward to Monday morning as well, it's definitely more than just a good day. It's a phenomenal weekend!

To a much awaited weekend, add two scoops of (death by) chocolate, a bowl of wierd-named noodles, two glasses of milk shake, three hours of shopping, an hour of mall-hopping, some long conversations, 50 kms on the bike and just a hint of late night dancing. And top it all up with some magical company. What you get is a brilliant weekend!

Thank you! Thank you!

PJ Puram!

I was having a completely arbit conversation with Shrik last night and it was one of those 'rare' occassions when both of us had completely lost all sense of logic. We were cracking the unfunniest jokes and yet laughing like Russel Peters was performing on stage. My jokes are of course unmentionable, but here is a tough one from Shrik.

What would you call a cylinder with radius 'z' and height 'a'?
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A pizza!

For the uninitiated (those who don't hang around with people like Shrik), check your 12th std text! Go figure...

P.S: Thanks for making me laugh all the time Shrikant! What would I do without you?

Ta Daa!

I sit here everyday, with restricted internet access, a lot of time to kill, no supervision and with an intention to write. But as soon as I do so, something in my brain constantly tells me that I just haven’t got the flow today, the subject is boring, I am writing for too long and maybe I should just try doing something else. And everyday I tell myself, who cares! Nobody visits this page and even if they do, who cares! But I generally lose it somewhere and I close the page without saving it.

Today I have decided to blurt out everything I want to. After all, if I am the only one reading this, then I have a 100% fan following. I have an interesting life, I have cool friends and I have brilliant opinions too. So…why not?

Speaking about an interesting life, I have an adventurous job. Each day I battle for my life, clinging on to the few inches of safety I am (fortunately) provided with. I travel far away on mountains and rivers, scream my lungs out, battle it out with my deadly enemies and look forward to doing the same the next day. Yeah yeah, in between I work on excel sheets for 10 hours in an AC office, but the ride from home to office and back is indeed scary. And yeah, only if you want to, replace the mountains with road humps, rivers with gutters, screaming with silent prayers and the deadly enemy with my suicidal driver. And looking forward, to absolutely not!

I also hang out all the time with two of my grooviest friends. Both of them are unusually interesting, intellectually brilliant and the most fun people. We spend most of our time watching South Park or movies like, ahem, Pirates of the Caribbean, and the like. We zoom around on bikes late night and eat out everyday. It is a good life! I accept that most of our hanging around time is inside the classroom, we study quite a bit, occasionally eat right-outside-campus dosas and that the 3 of us struggle on one bike, but we do have our share of good fun. Our intellectual talks are mostly useless arguments on movies, non-vegetarianism and coming on time for mess dinner. But the two of them are studs, they each have a girlfriend of their own! You can’t take that away from them. (I know what you are thinking, yes, both of them are guys).

While I am getting old, I am mostly involved in activities that include trying to write, pretending to work, sleeping with my eyes open and copy pasting excel sheets. I used to love watching cricket, (I still do, actually) and I completely worship The Wall on my wall. I do have my opinions and thoughts, but we’ll save it for another time, shall we?

Dad and daughter talkies

When I returned home at 8PM last weekend I was dreading a backlash from dad. He instead just asked me which movie I’d been to. I looked at him cautiously.

“By any chance did you go to a Kannada movie?”
“No Dad, I don’t have any kannada friends.”
“But you could have taken them anyway. You could have translated for them”
“Err... Dad, I am not a big fan of Kannada movies”

There have been numerous occasions when my Dad has uselessly tried to convince me about the goodness of kannada movies and why I need to give up all the other recreations, to support my mother tongue. (Unlike my dad, my mother doesn’t actually support the language lividly, but still I am supposed to call it so). When I glare back at him at every statement, he resigns to the fact that the 70’s will never be back again and gives excuses for the TlQM (Total lack of Quality Management). Some of them make sense, but there are others which are so senseless, that they can be mistaken for kannada movie plots. Read on…

1. The multiplexes have come in and movie watching has become more expensive. Kannada cinema has been forced to raise its standards. It has to be given some time. Now is just the churning time, hence movies are crappy.

2. When Rajkumar was reigning, there were no other movie stars. Hence, now there are no sons of movie stars to take the legacy forward. Hence movies are crappy.

3. There are hardly any kannadigas in Bangalore. Kannada movies are trying to satisfy the needs of the “Indian-movie-goer”. Hence movies are crappy.

4. All these Tamil and Telgu movies are stealing our stories, actors and songs. Hence movies are crappy.

5. With all these one ways in Bangalore, it is tough to get to a decent movie hall in time. Nobody gets to watch movies often, hence movies are crappy.

6. There are basically two markets for kannada cinema – the software engineers in America and those who couldn’t make it there, living in Karnataka. It is tough to please both. Hence, movies are crappy.

7. When a kannadiga goes to a theatre he sees a poster of Titanic and a local movie. It confuses him. All this computerization… Hence movies are crappy.

8. I know the movies nowadays are bad, but Rajkumar just passed away. Give the movie fraternity some time to recover… it’ll take a couple of years. Then see the difference.

Every time he does this, I sympathize with dad, and give him a fake smile. This time I plopped down next to him and said, “I agree, Dad… I just watched Spiderman 3.”

Contingent nuptials

It is scary how the time spent at one's job is proportional to the level of craziness one adopts. I like my job here, but I am scared to like it too much. Especially after I heard a colleague talking on the phone a few days back.

"No! No! I am going onsite only for a few weeks. I'll be back here soon. I am getting married next quarter!"

Never mix work and domestic life my friend, don't go down that road...

A journey from the unknown to who cares...

Coupled with the fact that my Prof gave me a poor grade in the subject, I hereby declare research as the most useless activity, business or otherwise. I don't think anyone learnt much in the 30 hours of low-volume droning. I apologize Sir, but I definitely did not "Get the point!". But I am not biased towards funded research only because of the course. I picked up these three studies, reported today in the paper (the one that has more scantily clad ladies than heinous crimes in it).

Are women more into toyboys?

"The days of seeing a woman on the arm of a man old enough to be her father might soon be over, for an increasing number of the fairer sex are ditching sugar daddies for toyboys, if a study conducted by the Office of National Statistics, in the UK, is to be believed"

Ok, seriously, why would anybody want to spend money to find out the above "fact". Plus, like the topic of the research isn't compelling enough, they show a picture of a non-bald Britney who forgot her pants, with the guy she apparently first did it with. And they promote the findings of the research like they have discovered the true meaning of life - Women are attracted to younger men, because they are more fun, better in bed and make them feel confident. Bah..

Nemo can find his way back home.

"Scientists studying pristine coral reefs in Papua New Guinea found that 60% of clownfish journeyed back to their tiny home reef after being swept out to the ocean as babies. They injected female fish with a trace of isotope which finds its way into their eggs, and can later be observed in baby fish"

Why?!? Why, oh why! Why would you follow those tiny little fish in that wierdly named country, to see if they went back home? Hasn't Pixar informed us of it anyway. Why would you inject artificial liquids into the supposedly 'funny' fish to find out something so not worth it? What would your tell your wife that night?
"Oh baby! I found out today, that baby clownfish can find their way home."
"Really, honey?"
"Oh, just 60% of them though"
There are btter things to do in the world, get up, get going!

Doing good makes you feel good: study

"Pat Tillman left the NFL to enlist in the Army and fight in Iraq and Afghanistan (where he was killed), but socialite Paris Hilton continually pursues 'a public life of shallowness' What makes people more happy?"

First of all, I'm sorry Pat, you had to share the same paragraph with the hotel waitress. Secondly, these people actually quizzed 65 undergrads for several days on the internet to figure out that meaningful activities, such as helping others, listening to friends and pursuing one's life goals make people happy. Do I need to say more?

Prof Nuclear Country, are you still going to try convincing me that research is worth the journey?