Great Food, AC and weekends…

Three things I like about being in an MNC. Food. Doctor, Me and Meeta never spare an opportunity to boast about the way this company keeps us well fed… Then there is the AC. I know you would say, what is the big deal about the AC? But honestly, for someone who is not used to the Mumbai weather, an AC is the most beautiful thing that happened to human civilization... And then there are the weekends! Infosys taught me to appreciate weekends a lot. Weekends are like a weekly festival . They motivate you to work through the week. And here, with its 5 day working week, makes me love it all the more... Add all these together, plus good pay, nice work culture and there is nothing that you would not like about it! BUT… Yeah there is a ‘but’... I still can’t get over the corporate phobia. I cannot work in a corporate setting. Despite the AC. Despite the weekends… (Anyways what are weekends? The very fact that people look forward to weekends – despite good food, despite AC - so eagerly, proves the quality of work they get to do) Reason 1: The Boss Yes the primary reason for I not wanting to work in a corporate is the ‘boss’. I don’t like bosses. I just don’t. I don’t like to take instructions. I don’t like to prove myself to someone. I don’t like someone assessing me, apart from me. I don’t like the way people work here – to please the boss, to get noticed by the boss... to prove it to him that you are worthy (of what I don’t know)… Reason 2: 8 hours People work here. They really do. But whatever work I do can be very well done in 4 hours instead of 8. Then why can’t I do it in 4 and then be free for the rest of the day? Why do I have to be here for 8 hours, even though there is not enough work to fill the 4 extra hours? Ans : the boss – to prove it to him that you are there. Working(?). That you are there shows you are committed to your work! (???) I fail to understand the logic (if there is any) behind this. I want to do a lot of things in my life. Work will be a part of it too. Those things are equally important to me. Not more. Not less either. If I work efficiently, and finish all my work in 4 hours, and then give the rest of the time for my other interests, does it by any way show my lack of commitment to work? Reason 3: work In Infosys I did testing, documentation etc. Here too I do that. I guess almost 50 % of my work here is an ‘insult to my intelligence’. When I say this, I know people in love with the corporate would argue saying, ‘that’s ok’, ‘taken’... ‘You can’t possibly get everything....’ But well… I do want everything. I do want to use my complete intelligence and yes I do want to stretch my abilities – by abilities I don’t mean my time management abilities or my documentation abilities alone.. I believe I can do work which is more intelligent. So all in all, my last efforts to fall in love the corporate culture seem to be going down the drain too. I really really had hoped I would like corporate somehow – as much as my mom would like me to like this coz she is scared of the one question that I am scared too – ‘If not corporate then what?’ And the weird answers that I give her for this question frighten her! But guess she will have to live with her fears… Corporate still doesn’t seem to be for me... PS: Any efforts by anybody to prove me wrong above are sincerely welcome.

Miss being homesick

this is what happens when you stay away from home for so many years.. you forget to get homesick at times. I mean if my summers would have sent me to gurgaon or Kolkata, i would have been hostelsick, collegesick (i know surprises me too..) but not homesick. it is wierd but it is as if there is no particular place i belong to.. no particular people i am used to. it is me, me and only me who is constant.. the rest keeps on changing.. movin.. 7 years 7 hostel and innumerable different people.. gues ultimately a stage has come when any type of constancy in my life makes me feel uncomfortable.. It makes me sad. Have I come so far away from home.. that it makes me homesick nomore? that i actually miss being homesick! I so wanna be homesick again...

In wasteness lies the beauty of life...

"There are some people who fake it, some people who try too hard to make it yet there are very few who really live it.."

This priceless quality of wasteness, in today's world of competition and perfectionism, is rare.

Being a waste simply means doing only the minimum (or even lesser) required in any situation.

Be it anything..

Now that is where the whole trick lies.

A waste, over the years, develops his instincts to such a degree that he can simply sense danger.

In any situation, a waste will keep going down n down till he smells danger and there he stops.This is the 'minimum effort level'..

And needless to say, to develop this instinct/skill is the toughest part of being a waste.

That is why some people never make it to even fake it....

A waste literally lives life 'on the edge'. When a waste does only the minimum, he barely keeps himself out of danger. He stands exactly on the periphery. It is on this periphery that each an every ounce of his effort makes a real difference. And this is exactly what the waste really really enjoys!

It is at this edge that waste gets the highest ROTI (Return on his time invested).

He laughs at those people who strive too hard to stay within the safety limits.

He simply sees no sense is putting efforts to be in the safety zone, coz the ROTI on that effort is certainly much too low!

He prefers to use it instead for some other activity. Pleasure is also a return.

He gets a better return on his time thereby. So after doing the minimum to keep himself out of trouble (but not in the safety zone), he invests the rest of his time and effort in having fun! He will do all those things that others will not, coz they are too busy fighting to get inside the safety zone! But remember, insuring yourself, reduces the return big time.

And that is where the wastes triumph and the others lose.

Of course very few apart from the wastes themselves realise understand this philosophy and therefore are blissfully unaware of the opportunity cost of their overpriced safety.

Of course a few privileged people like me, who get to work with the wastes, realise the magnificence of this simple philosophy. This is when the wasteness is said to have rubbed off onto them too.

However, there is a continuous struggle between the waste and the non-waste, especially when they are to work on the same thing. This is where the genuineness of the waste is tested.

With two entirely different philosophies at work, one can imagine what would happen of the work!

In this quest, the non-waste puts in his best effort to do the work his way. To do so much that it is well inside the safety zone, and pushes the waste to do so too.

A fake waste will give in at a point in time but never a genuine waste will succumb to it...

In fact he will show the non-waste the fun in keeping things ‘on the edge’. Of course, the non-waste will refuse to acknowledge it at first, but over the time, the true and genuine beauty of it will dawn upon him in full measure!!

It is at this point that the waste has his laugh....

When he sees that he has managed to show a person a more fun way to live life..

When he realises that he has proved it yet again that......

... In wasteness lies the beauty of life

Any resemblance to 'The Waste', who i have been working with since the past 1 yr, who gave me a learning experience not in how to do things, but why it is best at times to not do them, is not coincidental...

Seriously a 'niche' lesson that was I must say... :)

friends

I wrote about my teacher, i wrote about my parents.. i wrote about my life and my God.. I did not write about my friends.. Wherever i went, i have always had friends who were classified crazy.. and 2 gems in this category are Neha n Raji (names have not been changed to protect identity coz honestly, they take pride in being called mad..) Whenever i write a post on my blog, i wait for raji to comment.. and the last post i wrote, i got pure gaalis for my post.. her perennial conundrum has been, why do you think so much? why? why? why cant you simply be happy? and i tell her i am.. but the poor female worries.. and then takes a promise from me that i would write a happy post.. i thought i will write a post dedicated to this crazy female called raji... i though of what had we shared in those almost 10 yrs that we have known each other, and i am amazed it has been only 2 yrs that we have really been together! i mean after that it has always been a long-distance relationship ;) but what a relationship it has been.. we have shared innumerable secrets.. and coz these things cant really be put on a blog, i will write of the other things that we have shared - crushes... (yeah i know raji will say i stole the idea.. ) We, alongwith 5 other girls in our class in JC had a crush on 1 guy.. imagine 7 girls, 1 guy... we did all sort of crazy things, right from signing on his roll no everytime attendance passed our bench first to downright adam-teasing at times.. we would fight to park our bikes next to his, and we would at length discuss him right in front of him! Today when i look back i wonder, why exactly him?? i mean really.. he is so dumb!!! but naah at that time, it was 'him' all the time.. i remember when one day raji saw 'dumbguy' with his girlfriend and came us told us, all so dramatically and we were all so heartbroken... :) not that we gave up on him.. but still.. and then one fine day, there was this another fellow.. honestly he was the most handsome guy we had ever seen in our college.. and he always wore clothes in the combination of 'blue and white'.. and contrary to our 'mr.dumbguy' this guy was damn smart.. 'blue n white' knew exactly how handsome he was and therefore was a snob.. there was this once when i was going on my bike with mom sitting wid me, and 'blue n white' crossed us.. and boy oh boy, i kept looking at him till my mom had to tap me from behind n tell me to 'look in front while riding' we were so mad that we would, during the 12th paper, run to his classroom to have one look at him, for good luck!!! :):):) i mean really, for all the good luck that he gave us, he passed 12th std with 45% :) and then to continue the streak of craziness in my life there came neha.. now she deserves one (or in fact more) entirely different post(s) altogether in my blog... its been wierd but it is as if our lives are linked.. me, neha and raji.. whenever i want some (un)sound advice, i can count on these two.. whenever i want someone to assure me that what i am doing is not bad, i call up these girls.. they are exactly those friends who will stand by me when the whole world will shun me coz i am doing something stupid.. and surprisingly, we always find ourselves going through similar phases in life! i therefore pray that these two girls be forever happy, (for my sake)... I have marofied a lot of senti to neha, when we left coep hostel, i mean all that rona-dhona and senti gifts and cards and what not... to tell her what she meant to me n what she will continue to mean... but i never really got an opportunity to do so for raji.. not that i intend to do so now, but yeah all i say is thank you both of you for adding the widest and the brightest streak of craziness in my life, it scares me to think that without you, i would have been a completely normal female!

I would have been...

I do not know how many people experience this.. you do things coz u feel it has to be done, that it is the only right thing to do, coz your heart tells you so.. and then you sit back, to analyse why exactly did your heart say so! and now that you have listened to it, and acted the way you have, will you ever regret being impulsive? This is exactly what i am doing now. Was just going through the album of a friend in IRMA. And as it always happens with me, I realise that i would have been there. In those photos. standing with my arm around smriti... outside the mess, cutting cake for someone's bde.. I would have had a completely different set of friends. Life would have been so so different. Just 1 decision. and there r loads to come. Scares me to think "now i am going to make decisions bout my life.. and it is going to go the way i make it go!!!" damn damn scary. one decision and here i am @ bajaj. What made me take this decision? i must confess, it was impulsive. My logic said stay, do not go.. my heart said go... it was as if it said "Go... u dont know what is there.. i know better.." I wondered how could that be possible, but i did not argue. coz i have stopped arguing with my God. but i know i still have not come to accept his absolute supremacy in terms of my decisions. even while coming to JB, i fought.. i gave my sound logic of how it would surely help me better if i stay back.. in the long run... but still it said.. "go" and here i am. if i would have not come to JB, i would have looked at the website and wondered, well i would have belonged here.. i would have though of mumbai and would have thought.. hmm... 1 decision and i would have been in mumbai... now, for every decision i take, will i be going through this depressing process? yes it is depressing. will it so happen that one fine day i will be so happy with my life that i will look back upon something i gave to be whereever i am and say "hmm... oh thank God, otherwise i would have been there!!!" will it become so routine to make big tough decisions that i will actually stop getting into this process of looking at where i would have been had-i-taken-that-rather-than-this?? I do not know. Landmark forum told me to be into the decision that i took coz i took the decision. but it gets tough. you really cant help but wonder "what if...?" today i wonder, "what made me give up AI?" i say again it was God who told me... he dint say no.. but he dint come alongwith me. This one decision was the toughest one in my life... uptil now. 25 days of turmoil. sleepless nights.. depressing mornings and listless days... and then one day he told me he aint thinking it is a good idea. and there it was! oh so clear! he dint say take this up.. he said dont go for it. and i did not. uptil now, i have never regretted any decision my God took for me. and i sincerely pray, i never ever regret this one too... lot at stake, left a lot... a dream washed away.. a dream given up on... in the hope to create something more beautiful, in search of new dreams, new wishes to ride upon. the path is dark, unknown and hard, the road more travelled though it is, my dream is distant and blurred.. dunno where i am heading towards, dunno where i go from here.. but my God has told me to do this, and that is what i have done, laid my faith totally onto him.. the day he disappoints me, there wont be any me..

Yaadein

Regatta again on the KB day this year.
Yes 9th March, for the KB team of 2003, is celebrated as KB day.
This year is therefore special for all those 30 participant of the best KB that COEP boat club saw.. Got calls from friends saying lets go attend this regatta..
Lets have fun.. lets live those days again... but...
 himmat abhi nahi hai jane ki phir waha..
darr is baat ka nahi ki hum waha jayenge kaise darr is baat ka hai - hum wahase wapas ayenge kaise? 
duniya nai ab basa chuke hai hum.. us mod se aage aa chuke hai hum..
zakhm jo dil pe lage the wo abhi sukhe nahi hai par.. sukhne se pehle hi khul na jaaye, is baat ka hai darr.

My Teacher

I was in sixth, he was 60. He, my favourite teacher, and I, one of his favourite students.

He would ask us to meditate before he would start his class, and what meditation lessons they were!

He would ask us to listen to all the sounds in the surrounding, right from birds chirping to cookers whistling. And then relax...

We would of course giggle all the way through those meditation lessons.
Yet he persisted.
He had been a scientist in Germany.. His wife a dancer.
I have never seen a man more proud of his 'girl'. Yes,  that's how he would talk about of his wife.
He is also my senior from engineering college. He,from the centenary batch, and I from the sesquicentenary one. 

He is my mentor, my Guru, my first real hero, my friend, philosopher, and guide.
He was the one who taught me how to fight boys who would tease me. He taught me that different is cool. He taught me how to believe in myself.

He was one of those people who believed in me.

He, somehow I feel, can see through me, even today, like he could then.
He knows me like no one does.

Today I met him after 4 years.
I really do not know what made me walk up to his place out of the blue today. But I did. And I knocked.
As he opened the door, I realised he looked as handsome as always.

'Olakhla ka Sir?' I said.

'Arre Pallavi! Mag olakhla kai!!' is what he said, and I felt extremely happy and guilty.I should have come more often to meet him.

But he was only so glad.
I asked him about his health. "Good" he said.
"and how is ma'am?" I asked. 

And then there he was. After all these years too, the same principles, the same rational words of advice, selfless and sensible and so apt!

I many a times wonder what has made me the way I am. And today I partly got my answer.
75 he is today. But still he keeps himself busy with counselling parents and kids. 

In the one hour I was with him, he told me to decide what my life is. Whether it is 'principle centric' or 'happiness centric' or anything else.

I told him 'principle centric' is too tough. He said it isn't. I feel there are very few people who simply talk my way.
And he is one of them.
He then asked me to read a few books. All sensible philosophy.
According to him, I must always maintain mental and physical health. Physical, by doing Yoga daily and mental, by reading atleast 2 pages of 'sense' each day.
He then said he believes in strength of character than strength of personality because strength of personality needs external approval.
Strength of character comes from within.

He then again gave me the same confidence that he had always given me about myself. 

With a warm hug, a pen and lots of best wishes, I left from there.

There are some personalities who come into your life and leave an impression so lasting that you can feel their influence in your thoughts, decisions and actions.

Kolhatkar Sir is one of those people in my life.

I still remember my first day in his class. He told everyone that I had come for tuitions though I scored about 80%. I was amused. Because 82% in 7^th was a taboo in my house and so I had been sent for tuitions.
But he seemed to believe they were too much for tuitions! My first lesson in self-confidence, that was.
He was one person who always wanted to see my name in print in newspaper, and when in 10^th I did not make it, I felt bad because I had failed him, but when in 12^th I did manage to make it, I made sure I went and met him and needless to say he wasn't surprised.

He always told me to do something different in life.
"Engineering is for the mediocre", he said. "You should become a scientist".
I think this itch to do something different comes from there.

Today was a day of realisations for me.
Today I did something I should have done long back.
Today I met my dear Sir.

A race to lose

The world is out there fighting a rat race,
each one outdoing the other, 
but no one really knowing wat they want
even when they are the winner... 

One fine day then, they wake up 
not too soon though i must say 
to discover that they have lost that one beautiful life 
fighting for what they never wanted anyway 

but when they realise this, its too late 
and all they can do is be resigned to fate 
Is there anyone who stop by to question, 
the stupidity of our daily actions the senselessness of our fight for perfection? 

you've got only one life to live, 
live it such that when the time comes and 
ur whole life flashes before your eyes 
let thr not be any regrets but all along only smiles :)

My maa

Main kabhi batlata nahi, par andhere se darta hu main maa.. Main kabhi dikhlata nahi par teri parvaah karta hu main maa.. tuze sab hai pata hai na maa.. Mom knows everything. I dont have to tell her when i am feeling low. I dont have to spell it out when i am happy. She knows. She simply does. I so vividly remember the day she left me for the first time. At the COEP hostel gate. She was standing under the street lamp, waiting for me to turn around, but i did not.. coz i did not want her to see my tears.. tears of the daughter whom she thought was always the bravest of her kids. I cried in the bathroom everyday for a month after that.. i also came back running home to her.. i crept in her room @ four in the morning and cried to her saying i never wanted to go back... I cried on the phone. i cried all the time. The change was so difficult to take. her bravest daughter was the weakest indeed.. I missed her all these years.. Its been more than six years since that evening under the streetlight when she bade me good bye for the first time.. when this home became a vacation home for me.. but even after all these years i still miss her everytime i am away from her.. I still cry myself to sleep at times.. I still call up to cry to her at times.. i dont care if she thinks her bravest daughter has failed her.. afterall i feel she always knew i wasnt the bravest afterall and so she always made me think i was.. so that i would indeed be brave.... I miss her all the time.. All the time...

forgot something..

why do i feel like i am not me? what i am going thru right now and the way i am reacting to things and they way i am handling things this aint me. I already feel alienated. from my God. its like when you forget something important at home and come a long way with a feeling that something is amiss and you only realise a little later that you have forgotten something. Well, i have forgotten my God. I was a little too wrapped up, my life a chaos, my head a big muddle and honestly i had gotten some airs bout myself. I had decided something for myself, without even asking what my God thought about it. I think my God is becoming a little cautious about my continuous experiments with life. He finally is tightening his reins on me. He is now pulling me to correct directions. Does that mean i am getting closer and he doesnt want me to lose it NOW... He realised i am being stupid and still thinking like a irrational kid in engineering when i decided to fly high in the sky, when i set for myself some targets that were not 'me'.. targets that i was never meant to be.. targets that were in contrast to what my God is and what i am. Yet i set those targets, much to his defiance, he protested.. i ignored. i told him that u know nothing, and u are pulling me down. It hurt him but he let it go and stood by me.. coz he knew a day would come when i would write this blog.. I realise that the aim that i came here with, the aim that brought me here from IRMA is not what i am pursuing right now. It always takes a nice spanking on the butt to come fact to face with some hard facts and i got quite a few of them lately. I got carried away with the flow. I decided to change myself and i decided for my God too, without asking him whether he wanted to change. I came a long way and thot my God is walking with me, but here i stand with a feeling that i have forgotten something home.. Its my God i miss the most out here.. I need to go back home to him..