Of Idly-ing away my days...

And just like it always happens to those who wait for days on end for the wait to end, my wait here at Nanjangud is now over. The last day here and post a presentation where I will talk intelligently about big savings, I can't help but think how much time I could've saved had I been doing something.. anything, much before the 7 days when I actually had some work. To think of it, as much as I cribbed about it, I did in some way do different things while here.. and very little of it has to do with work.

If I think about it, the things i'll remember most about Mysore would be:

• Hotel Nalpak and my usual breakfast of a single idly and 'mini' coffee (the best filter coffee I've had, apart from maybe the one at Murugan Idly in Chennai) and the evening dinner of a dosa or mini-coffee. The thing I'll remember is, that except for the first two times I never had to repeat my order to the waiters, they always knew exactly what I wanted.
• The Kannada jingle for Big FM in Mysore, "Keli Kelsi Life Nimmadaagasi" (I apologize for the spelling error) sung by Sunidhi Chauhan with a generous sprinkling of "Hoye! Hoye!" in between.
• My neighbour taking his son to school in the morning on a TVS XL. Despite the already crunched space, the friendly street dog staring at them longingly, is whistled at and asked to jump in between the driver and the handle, for a quick ride.
• "Don't waste water, Please close the taps" written in bold over the hand-washing area in the canteen at the factory. The taps there were equipped with automatic sensors.
• Planet X! The amazing go-karting track there, and two certificates that I won there, citing me as the "Fastest Woman of the Week"! :D
• My first 21 kms Marathon that I ran/walked/crawled at Srirangapatna
• The dog in our building called "Shiva" and it's owner who could be heard shouting two floors away "Shiva!! You Rascal!! Come here!!" (RSS members reading this are requested not to kill me)
• The one weekend when I decided to stay back alone in Mysore and watching 7 movies at a stretch, and not being able to see anything clearly for the next one hour
• That one visit to Chamundi Hills during Dussehra with friends and despite all the fog.. managing to see the spectacular sight of a blindingly lit Mysore Palace
• Seeing the Dussehra Procession sitting just a few meters away from the King himself at the Mysore Palace
• Telling the shopkeeper "Kannada Gotilla" as he begins to talk and he looks at me in genuine surprise and say " Tchhhaaaah!"
• Answering on a regular basis, questions like "what's your native?" and "You can eat rice?!" Houdu, I can :)
• Almost eating a 'boiled banana' on my way back from Kerela to Mysore
• Plucking fresh black pepper from a field near our factory in Choladi and buying tea right from someone's tea garden
• Going home and watching spiders mating on the sealing. Turning away to give them some privacy.
• Travelling in a bus from Bangalore and watching a Kannada movie where the 'evil son' puts a noose around his mom's neck, makes her stand on a drum and places the drum on an incline, threatening to kill her every now and then by gently kicking the drum which would make the poor lady do an involuntary salsa.
• ... And last but not the least, the fact that I got spurred into blogging again :)

Cyber Grime

The other day I go to the cyber cafe closest to my flat.
It's on the first floor of a fairly dilapitated building and you can reach it via a dark, curving staircase, when you reach the top the words 'INTERNET in bright red point towards the left and you walk on to a small room with 5 terminals and many stories that began and terminated on each one ;)
I sit on a system sandwiched between a kid who's playing NFS and one who's looking around to see if anyone's looking at him, looking at things he's not supposed to be looking at in the first place :)
I open Google. I'm searching for a bus that'll connect me from Mysore to Bangalore at a specific time so that I don't miss the flight I plan to take from there onwards. So I type Mysore Bus Services, KSRTC etc. Interestingly, the auto-remember feature is on, on this machine, and as soon as I type 'Mysore Bus'.. all you need to add is a 't' to that last word to know of the other more 'interesting' options that came up.
I got curious, it's interesting to know what all people wouldve searched for on this system in this quaint, palace city of Mysore.
I type Mysore and scroll down.. 'Mysore jobs, Mysore artworks, Clinical Psychology Books in Mysore, Paintings in Mysore, Mysore Gay, Mysore Dance Classes. Hold on..!!!! Mysore Gay?! ok.. Fascinating. I think about the person who made that search. Even more fascinating :)
Then we have 'Baoobs', followed by 'Boobs'. I'm guessing the searcher didn't find the former search keyword of any use.
There were a whole lot of other inappropriate searches made there, and mentioning them will not be appropriate either.
But my personal favorite, the simplest, the shortest and possibly the most desperate was a word that summed up all the desires of that person who was making the search: "Female" :))

Now a little bit about work-ut :)

I apologize for not posting for the past couple of days. Fact is I wrote a post on a trip to Kerela/TN I made this week and wanted it to be a photo blog, just that I never got to upload the pics and so the draft remains.. :) Meanwhile, let me update you about what's been happening on the work front.

After weeks of joblessness ( I feel like I've said this sooo many times!) I landed 3 projects, all extremely intellectual sounding and all pretty much useless.

I feel like a 3 year old who's being distracted by her mom "Look, there!" And I look and I look to see what's there... realising that she's making a fool out of me but thinking "It's still better than having nowhere to look!"

The projects were aimed at 'adding value', 'aiding process improvement', 'analysing business profitability' and ' analysing the course of research direction'. Sounds super even now, even when I know that the value cannot be added, the process is being improved already, the business profitability is being analysed by people far smarter than me and the course of research does not exist to be analysed.

Nevertheless, I'm glad about this fake sense of being busy. And I've decided that I'm going to blow people over with my presentation! If nothing else, it'll make me feel better about the time I've spent here. :)

So a few days back, I opened an excel, made a process flow chart, asked my neighbour (an excel champ) on how to make macros. Made a few successfully, changed the colors and formatted it real nice. Added a PERT diagram (Ha! See I did some research!!) to evaluate and review critical paths of an activity and then, well... stopped.

My analysis was complete and there was still no headway in what could be done. Most people I spoke to said the improvement wasn't needed in the first place and that it would bring no tangible benefit. Well.. as if I wasn't sure of that already.. :(

But I don't let small hindrances like a futile project with a useless conclusion trouble me. I'm all set to making a ppt now. Gasifying it to the core using terms I learnt from the MBA Jargon Generator and making it sound as if I really make a lot of sense.

You know what my favorite term is? 'Continuous Improvement'.
Frankly it means you can't do a thing today to get results tomorrow. Just recommend, hope for things to fall into place and make your exit while you can.

I think I'm going to do the same.. :)

Orkut- The new face of Shaadi.com

Yeah, I know you know I finally have work, but you're not going to kill me for writing another post in office, will you?!

I drift back again to Orkut, that versatile social networking site that is doing a hell lot more that anyone ever imagined. Move over you 'Friends' and 'Activity Partners'.. Time's now to use this super search tool for finding youself a life partner!

You know what the problem with the MeetyourlifepartnerHERE!.com type sites is? They're too obvious! They're definitely not subtle and no one ever logs on without a very strong ulterior urge. My dad for one, I've heard (he would'nt dare tell me!) has been surfing a lot of such sites recently to search for a suitable suitor for me, but never really met with any success.


Well, if he ever asked me, I'd tell him to atleast do it the right way..'Pore over orkut!' What with the thousands of friends I'm connected to, and the millions more I haven't ever given a hoot about, the possibilities are endless!!

There are scores of advantages I see that orkut has, over traditional shaadikaro sites.. (not that i've ever visited such a site, and NO, shameless as I am, I won't be caught dead looking at one of those in office!)

COnsidering the amount of information available on them, it's not really that bad an idea to consider 'frandship' or more with someone on this forum...

For all those looking at 'making matrimony' on this site, here are some key pointers that may help you sieve out the pebbles from the grain!

1. Status: If a person does NOT have a displayed status of (single, committed etc) then he/she is likely to be committed because no one single would call themselves that. This is mainly true for guys!
2. Photographs: Girls, if he's put up the face/torso of Brad Pitt or Hrithik as his display pic, he definitely looks like the remotest version of the two. Guys, if a girl looks like Angelina Jolie, she may actually look like her.. but she's a guaranteed weirdo!
3. Communities: If you see, 'Pyaar Me Dhoka', 'Lover's Land Vikaspuri', 'I will never forget my first love', 'Gr8 Flirters of Orkut' or 'My Name Starts with R' as a community on someone's page, it may just be a good idea to scram from there.
4. 'About Me': Do you see a 'Lovable, cute boy', 'Sweet Punjabi Kudi with naughty mind' or 'I am a mystery??and who solves my mystery is a person who is called friend!!! So be my friend!!! Will you??' I suggest you let the mystery remain.
5. Friendship Requests: Aah.. too talked about, I won't dwell on it for too long. But I just wish that you don't entertain too many requests to 'scrape' people or let them 'scrape' you.. might be a tad painful!
6. Testimonials give a lot away as well, not just about the person its for, but also about the person who sent it. Take a look at this specimen..

ae ganpat.. chal scrap bhej..

ae ganpat.. chal scrap bhej..

ae jada joke serious thoda kum bhej..

ae jada joke serious thoda kum bhej..

thoda fan van to apun ka bhi ban na yaar..

thoda fan van to apun ka bhi ban na yaar..

ae ganpat ganpat...ae ganpat ganpat...

COMEON COMEON COME EVERYBODYCOMEON

COMEON COME BE MY BUDDYCOMEON COMEON COME EVERYBODY

{send a scrap.>send a scrap.>send a scrap.>}

IN THE ORKUT.. ALL OVER INDIA...WE ARE THE BHAI..WE ARE THE BHAI..

orkut-orkut chalta rehta hai dekho jidhar..koi scraping koi chatting karta hai idhar..

orkut-orkut chalta rehta hai dekho jidhar..koi scraping koi chatting karta hai idhar..

thoda joke-woke to apun ko bhi bhej na yaar..

thoda joke-woke to apun ko bhi bhej na yaar..

ae ganpat ganpat...ae ganpat chal... scrap bhej... ...

Am still in a state of shock.

Thank god I'm writing, else I would've been speechless!

All in all I can say one thing, maybe you won't really find your Prince Charming or Princess Fiona in the millions of people crammed on this network.. but you'll sure find a lot many more who'll definitely be worthy of a blog post if nothing else! :)

Finding me the nicotine patch!

After weeks of having nothing to do at office, the sensation of finally being entrusted with some responsibility was a huge welcome! Just how difficult it would be to get used to the idea of working is something that I hadn't really considered :)


The past few weeks had been a concentrated attempt at achieving the most out of my nothingness through a variety of well planned activities which honestly I'd begun to enjoy quite a bit. But yesterday I realised that fitting in work with those other activities would be quite challenging!
Well, I guess I should admit it finally, I'm an addict! Bloodthirsty when it comes to checking mail without reason or searching the innards of orkut for something interesting.

But why should it be this way? I mean, I were the one begging for work, telling my friends that I'd pull out my hair and suspend myself by the fingernails if they din't give me something to do in the next one hour.
And when they did give me some work, I was elated!
I decided to set my priorities right, opened a new page in my notebook, wrote down the project title, aims, objectives, the works. And then stopped. I just had to change my status on gtalk to 'Busy'. I closed without remorse the various windows that were opened on the screen.. orkut, gmail, newsofthewierd, the latest e-book I'd been reading and cleared way for all the data that is to be analysed. *Rubbing my hands in glee*

Checked my mail, the official one ofcourse, looked at the excel at hand. Ideas poured in my head. I took back that notebook and starting talking to people, discussing bottlenecks, areas of concern, opportunities, in fact I'm just about to do a SWOT on the current situation when...

... when it happens again.. that familiar urge to look up to the screen like a zombie, open the browser and log onto my mail, only to be faced with a shameful inbox with nothing new, not even spam! You try to get hold of your senses and try to get back to work, when you just realise, 'aaj orkut to check hi nahi kiya!' Blasphemy! Your hand snakes up to the mouse once again and you peek into your disappointing orkut scrapbook ('Why doesn't anyone scrap me?!'). FYI, just 2390 scraps in that book.
Like an Inferi under the Dark Lord's spell (Yes, I am a Harry Potter fan) I continue to blankly click open all such pages and files that defined your existence in office before you'd been given any work.

Hmm.. it's not going to work like this, is it? Weaning off all non-work activities is going to take some time. I guess I just need to find a nicotine patch before I give up on smoking altogether.. Any ideas? :)

Orkut Spying Made Easy!

By far the greatest source of virtual distraction in my life, Orkut has proceeded to become the prime source of keeping up with the Joneses, Jains, Sharmas and Mishras of the world. Not only does it let me keep it touch with them (well, that's only secondary!), it also let's me keep in touch with all that they don't want me to keep in touch with! *Evil Laugh*

It's cheap and pathetic and I should hate myself for it, but I don't. I really like myself above all my weaknesses.

But some time back, out sheer respect for another's privacy (and also because I genuinely had a lot of work to do) I stopped trespassing. When I came back to my old ways (aah, the lust for blood) I realised, that orkut had made life much simpler for me.

Now, however cheap and pathetic and shameful it may be, those orkut beautifiers had now made it much easier for orkut spies to get their load of gossip for the day.

I'm referring to the 'Updates from my Friends' section, where you can get to know new and exciting info about your friends, such as:

1. Someone you know who was called XYZ now is known as 'Life Sucks' and incidently has also sent you a 'Have a very Happy Diwali' message with 4 smileys.
2. Someone you know is single and not married, has updated the 'children' column to 'none'
3. Some people you know were not single and not married have changed their status to 'committed' and 'open relationship' respectively.
4. Some people you did not know were committed suddenly become 'single'
5. 'Zulu' is the language your neighbour for 12 years has suddenly started to speak.
6. Someone in your friends list has developed a new 'Passion' for 'Lazing at night after a day of hard work'!
7. Someone you know who had a crush on someone else, has written a verrry interesting testimonial for her/him :)

In short, saves a lot of time.

For those who care to protect their privacy like myself..

Orkut>My Settings>Privacy>Hide Updates

Labour Pains for 3 Hrs 42 Mins!

Foo..Foo.. Exhale.
Take deep breaths. You can do it.
C'mon, loads of people have done it before, it can't be that tough.

8th Minute of a half marathon and this is what I felt like.
I'd gone with the intention of running, (oh who am I kidding!) walking a respectable 10 kms, take some pictures and come back to sleep off the rest of the Sunday.

It just so happened that on that day I was 'encouraged' to run 21 kms and that it would be 'fun' and so I went ahead to grab the challenge, much like a mouse would agree to tear apart the next tiger it sees.

Everyone at the Starting Line. Basic instructions are given. I'm still looking at that tall, athletic girl who has the 'Bring It On!' look on her face, and that taller, athletic-er man behind her thinking ' aah, 21 km! i'm really downgrading myself this time'.

Whistle blows and I start running, keeping pace with the tall girl. I'm not all that bad. This is good. I can feel the steady running rythm building and a few people crossing me. 'That's ok, I'm only competing with myself, just keep running!'

Foo..Foo.. Exhale. Take deep breaths. You can do it. C'mon, loads of people have done it before, it can't be that tough.

Well, onto the 8th minute and I realise. It IS that tough! In fact a LOT more tough than I'd ever imagined. My stamina is un-minable and my will, dropping like the heart-rate of a patient who needs more 'dua' than 'dawa'.

'This was a verrry bad idea!' The entire crowd has almost taken me over by now, barring a few people, who probably have the same levels of fitness as me, and even that's not encouraging.

So I decide to walk it. Thankfully accompanied by my friend Sattu who would've run a full marathon had he not been injured badly, the last time he attempted it.

We'd decided to quit after some 5 kms and run back, but pride that baseless, emotional sense of completing the task at hand whether hell or high water (@#$@#%@%) pushed us to finish all of it. Winning was not important (thats what those who're losing or non-competing say!) but finishing was (cause I had to get back home!!!) so we walked..

When you're walking as far as I did ( I like how this sounds); the only hope lies in the two aid stations that you'll be crossing. Aid stations with water, biscuits and peanut butter-jam sandwiches. But even thoughts of food won't make you forget the fact that next station is 'just' 7 kms away.

7 kms means close to 70 minutes if you're walking fast and means much much more if you're walking your way back at 12:30 pm without a cap or shades or a bottle of water.. :)

Meanwhile me met 40 year olds who were disappointed they could run only 42 kms and not 56 like that 50 year old who had zipped ahead an hour back. Not good for the 23 year old walker who's taking 2 hours more to complete half the distance they ran! :)

In any case, I made it back finally, alive but unable to kick for several days I'm sure.
My friend Sattu, told me that running is like alcohol, people take it for the high.
Runner's High it's called.

What did the pains of my labour make me feel at the end of it? Walker's Woes or a Walker Without Toes? Both I guess. Someday I guess I'll look back and smile on it... (Ouchieees!!! I just got up for coffee) .. but I have a strrrong feeling it's not going to be today! :)

Humor in the times of Coup-lera

I was randomly surfing today when I came across this very interesting article on a restaurant in Islamabad called Civil Junction.

Started by Arshed Bhatti, a journalist turned civil activist, the restaurant is now preparing to evolve a Menu that reflects contemporary times. With "Well-Done Opposition" and "Spineless Opposition", both chicken dishes with and without bones for the main course that can be had with "Activist Daal Deal" or "Dhoka Dahi" adorning the menu, the restaurant is a seemingly ridiculous but a highly unconventional tool of social protest.

A country which is doing everything to muffle and bury the voice of media, a restaurant such as this is what is bringing people closer to discuss stark political issues over a "Musharraf Guespresso" or a "Vajpayee's Cuppa"

This restaurant looks to me like the Harry Potter of Pakistan, the only one that a courage to call a Voldemort, a Voldemort.

This cafe is not just an attempt to flirt with the powers that be, rather seems to be a haven for open conversation in a land where guns and lathis beat more often than tongues to raise a point.

Maybe, its unfair on my part to represent such a view, having nothing really to do with Pakistan.
But I belong to a country myself which 'boasts' of a menu with "Buddhadeb Bheja Fry" and "Yechury Kichri" among others, so is it really wrong on my part to say, "Way to go, Mr Arshed!"?

Factoring in work at the Factory

You know the feeling when you have so much work that you can't seem to look out at the rest of your life beyond all those files? Well, I dont! Ever since I came as a Marketing Management trainee to a factory to enhance my learning! Work is a luxury I don't have. Not yet atleast, and I also know that if my good friend Murphy is working well, I'll be dumped upon with some data entering challenge before I finish writing this blog :)

The good thing about being work deprived it is that you can devote all the time on hand to other things. These can be divided into 5 clear categories:

Socializing: Chatting, Email, Orkutting

Narcissistic Indulgence: Changing 'orkut photo', 'Updating orkut album' 'passions', 'about me', 'my best feature', updating birth date on orkut 3 days before your birthday to initiate greater scrap inflow

Creative Expressions: 'Sending scrapes to make new frands', Blogging

Escapades: Planning trips away from this jobless blackhole basis the best offers cleartrip can offer

Knowledge Attainment: Growth in this quarter for my company (it's doing great, maybe it's just as well I dont get any work), Checking out latest scoops on Abhi-Ash and the Shahid-Kareena-Saif trisome

Bullshit: Checking love compatibility with latest crush

So here's how a regular day will go for me:

• Walk in. Log on.
• Get coffee.
• Open two windows, gmail and orkut, check scraps, check mail. Zilch.
• Stare at the pages for long enough till a mail or scrap appears. Reply immediately.
• Don't even bother opening your official mailbox cause the only mails that appear there are system generated.
• Catch up on news. Catch up on gossip columns.
• Look around. Nope, looks like no work today too.
• Check orkut updates. Oooh someone has a new passion. Exxcittting!!
• Check albums of guys you like, guys you liked, guy your friends like.
• Log out of orkut, Log in 10 minutes later to see if there's a new scrap.
• Write 5 lines on the fantastic new idea you have for your next post, delete the last two lines. Nope, won't work.
• Go tell your HR manager you want work. He says he'll look into it. Walk back to your desk.
• Call your equally jobless management trainee friend and tell her you got a new hairdo. Listen to her say, she got a new hairdo AND lost 3 more kgs, bought new clothes, shoes AND finally has work. Disconnect
• Lunch Time. Gorge.
• Back from lunch. Read some genuine informative stuff out of sheer guilt.
• The person who orginally owns the desk has returned. Get up leave and pray for the day to get over!
  

That's what's happened just now!! Gotta go :)

What's in a name? Ask Gothi!

Whats in a name anyway? Random letters put together to give an identity to your existence. Quite often, these very random letters make you want to jump out of your existence, or end the existence of another.

Puzzled? Let me tell you what I'm talking about. My name is Priyanka Gothi.

And basis seasons, times of the day or mood swings of people, I'm called Gothi, Goths, Gothu, Gothax, Gothamma, Gothika, Goat, Goatee, Ghoti, Godhi, Guthhi.

Ans there are those who love to give their priceless two gold coins worth of comments on the names of others. For instance, the rare few who chose to call me Priyanka, hardly ever fail to remark, "Oh.. Priyanka, as in Priyanka Gandhi? Or is it Priyanka Chopra you like?.. Hehehe" .. Well.. hehe.. I just laughed my Gut(hi)s out on that one.. :)

And there are those who are ready with a critique on your name,. I met a gentleman in a train once, we were exchanging regular pleasantries when he asked my name and as i soon as I uttered it, he went "chhheeeeee, itna old-fashioned naam? main to kabhi apni beti ka naam yeh nahi rakhoonga, baad me mujhe kosegi aur bolegi kya bekaar naam rakh diya!!"
Well...

No one in my family ever really got used to being called Gothi, My aunt, when she was getting married was escatic about that fact that "I'm not going to be a Gothi anymore!!" Its another thing she became a Ran-a-de soon after :)

Another issue, we (and here I speak about the entire community of wierd-namees) face is that everyone in the house, would be called the same. My grandfather and grandmother are Mr and Mrs. Gothi, my father is called Dr. Gothi, My mom, Ma'am Gothi and my sister and myself .. just Gothi!
I found this is the case with many such unfortunate souls as myself.
We had a friend in college called Abheishek Chatterjee, popularly known as Chatty, people would call his home and ask his mom who picked up "Aunty, Chatty se bata kar sakte hain?" Aunty would say, "Beta, is ghar me 5 Chatty hain.. kisske baat karni hai?" :)

But there are positives to even names like ours... for one, it's really easy to spot people..

Looking for your name in the rail reservation list? Luck be with you if you are a Sharma, Verma, Gupta or Jain.. you'll be looking up and down for hours and still not be able to find yourself. Gothi, on the other hand, is right there.. the lone warrior, the one of its kind, almost jumping out of the sheet so that you can spot it. Sure, it may be spelt as a Ghoti, Goti or Gati, it still catches you eye, which is the purpose of the whole activity in the end, isn't it?

Well, sometimes I think I'm lucky to just have Gothi and nothing more terrifying. I knew a family in Bombay with a last name of "Galakaatu", apparently some ancestor at some point of time had cut someone's throat, so they called themselves Galakaatu to pay penance for life! Phew!

I'd rather not even be a Tyrewala, Flatswala or Treasurywala. Makes people judge you a lot I believe. We had a Kelawala in our college, his birthdays were a nightmare as he was quite unimaginatively showered with bananas, banana chips, banana milkshakes despite his futile protests. :)

Names it seems strengthen personalities rather than identities. I remember a girl in school who was called Honey, who started calling herself Aishwarya after the 1994 Ms. World contest :)

So what's in name again? A lot has to do with our own prejudices I guess.

Quick questions to test this:

What would sound better as an industrialist's name?
Raj Singhania or BrijMohan Chaturvedi? :)

Who would sound more credible as a doctor?
Ashish Upadhyaya or P.K Girpade?

Who would sound more sturdy as an army man?
Colonel Ranbeer Singh or Colonel Roomi Tyrewala

Who would you believe more as a teacher?
Malathi Balasubramaniam or Pammi Khanna

Which would sound more like an actor's name?
Rajiv Bhatia or Akshay Kumar
Haribhai Patel or Sanjeev Kumar
Yousaf Khan or Dilip Kumar
Amitabh Shrivastav or Amitabh bachhan? Haiiin??

So there's nothing in a name eh, Mr. Shakespeare? You should have known better!! :)

Birthdays- Targeting Mass vs Niche!

All birthdays end up being just a little less exciting than you dream in your head, and if you rank it, each birthday is just a little duller than the other.

This year I got to spend my special day in a factory. Yes the same day that comes every year to remind me that I'll have to live with 13 year olds calling me 'Aunty', that I'll have to move aside in a party so that 'the kids can dance' and that falling hair can no longer be blamed on 'the quality of water' :)

Now, I dont generally go around with a utopian, kites-flying-in-the-blue-skies-as-people-march to-the-tune-of-Happy-Birthday-bowing-to-me-as-they-pass, kind of an image.. but I do expect something special.. like a small party maybe..

But this year, my unfortunate location (in a factory 3 kms from the highway, 25 kms from the nearest big town, 116 kms from the nearest airport) ensured that all signs of a party without a trace.. sank. It looked sad, and all I was looking forward to was going to a mandir for puja in the evening or stealing discarded Milo from the plant.. when suddenly.. the old grey cells twitched.. (yeah kiddos.. this one still works) ;)

A few months ago.. before I anticipated this turn of events.. I'd hidden my birthdate from public view on orkut.. thinking its ridiculous to coerce people into wishing you like that. But sitting alone in my room.. with my hands on my chin, two days before day zero.. I thought.. whats the harm?

I decided to launch a teaser campaign, with a blink-and-you-miss flashing of the date, when yours truely wailed her way into this world.

The target group for the marketing plan; kith & kin, friend & foe and anybody else I may or may not know. Create noise, mass market the concept, consumerise your day of birth..

It seemed to work, atleast for the 3 hrs I let it display before I hid it from public view again, ashamed at my slimy attempts to gather more wishes..

On D-Day, with only the niche target group (the regulars) calling.. I decided to crank it up a notch and put a status message.. the original version of which was "Wish me you morons, its my b'day" however.. discussions with saner well-wishers forced me to put up a subtle yet suggestive message.. that didnt really suggest much, being as subtle as it was..

In the end, I realised that you gotta go all the way if you want more wishes than the candles on your cake.. gotta earn it like everything else.. or just be really really happy that you still have the 'regulars', the old chips off the blocks, the ones who'll always be there, and the ones who'll send in that cake and flowers and make sure you feel like you're on the top of the world everyday :)

Deviyon aur Sajjano! Welcome back after the break!

Hmmm.. what can a 'blogger' say about her long, baseless absence from a blog she started on her own of her own will? Nothing, except for hoping that the next post will not be 6 months later :)
Life's become interesting these days and probably that's the reason I didnt get time to sit down and reflect.. Am working with Nestle these days or the "Sunrise company" as is more popularly known in the parts of Tamil Nadu where i hower these days.
I joined Nestle partly because it was a great brand, partly because it sold Maggi and partly because it would get me marketing sooner than other FMCGs. 4 months of hardcore sales later, I'm afraid I've been converted to the unglamorous, ground level, grindingly real and really grinding world of sales. My appreciation for the function is doubly so because of the fact that I learned it in a part of India where I couldn't ask a question in a language they'd understand and where their answers were more like questions themselves.
This helplessness is what pushed me to learn tamil and so I marched towards Landmark to buy a English-Tamil book.
But u know what.. the enthusiasm for referring to such books dies down pretty soon.. Imagine someone asking you 'whats the time' in tamil and instead of looking at your watch, you're flipping through 300 pages to tell him the right answer!
But not referring to books has its cons as well.. I remember being locked out of my flat once, so I went down to ask the watchman if he had an extra key.. Only when I rushed down I remembered our man spoke Tamil alone.
Being the queen of bravado that I am, I put some tamil words together in my head and blurted out " Neenga duplicate key irruke?" Which clearly is respectful, but means "Are you a duplicate key?"
I figured out that I'd said something not quite right only when he rolled his eyes at the bizarre questions of the 5 foot nothing girl standing before him :)

Sales in Tamil is not so difficult initially.. All you need to know are a few sentences like 'stock irruka?', 'stock illaya?', 'ellamey fresh stock irruke?" . Unfortunately, the more confidently you utter such phrases, the more the retailer would be convinced of your prowess in Tamil and start relating his life's woes in one swift shot. It is for moments like these that you should also know words like "Appadiya? (Is it?)" and "Aama (yes)" which you can interject with along with a sympathetic nodding of head.
Ofcourse there's the more likely occasion of you not having to speak any tamil whatsoever when you enter a shop, identify yourself, and are greeted with a highly pleasing sound of "Vanda, Vanda, Vanda" (Don't want) in a tone so frightening that you'd be scared to cross his outlet the next time.

Unfortunately its time to say 'parkalam' to TN now as my sales stint winds to a close and I'm pushed into factory stint at Nanjangud, Karnataka.
So will manufacturing coffee in Kannada be as much fun as selling it in Tamil? Let's see :)

I will be back!

After recieving extensive criticizm by the single reader of this blog about not writing enough, I have now been stirred, if not shaken out of my state of dormancy and hereby solemny pledge that from now on I will write regularly about whatever interests me in the humdrum of post MBA life.. :)

Who's normal?

Ehsaas, is an event that was organized by our college to celebrate the talent of differently abled kids. The function saw many kids with varying disabilites perform dances and skits with full gusto. Looking at them I began to think that its so ironic that these kids who need perpetual support are seen to be disadvantaged as opposed to us 'normal' people who long for support perpetually.
It's like they use a crutch and we long for one despite being able to walk...
We were asked to perform as well, and we couldnt do without taking cues from the paper with the lyrics while singing unlike those deaf kids who danced flawlessly without any prompting.
Thats why I like the term differently abled... they sure are.. and more abled in many ways than the rest of us..

Disshturbing!

Everytime I have to go to the Andheri railway station in an auto, I come across this well placed board near S V Road:

Goreya Bone Setter, Geeta Saw Mill Compound...

Disturbing, eh?

Missing Delhi winters!

I'm sitting in Mumbai on the 26th of December and it doesnt seem even miles close to the winters I'm used to from Delhi.
Sure, the weather's nice and global warming is getting Mumbai closer to Arctic winters more than ever, but I still miss the Delhi winter chill, and the hours spent on the chhat gorging on guavas, oranges, peanuts and loads of revdis and gajaks. I wrote this blog, because as I sit in sunny mumbai i was just reminded of the popcorn and peanuts cart that this man used to drive by with in fron tof home every winter afternoon I can remember. We'd run down from the balcony, take 10 rupees worth of hot popcorns, (kept warm by a earthen pot with burning coal in it). It would almost be 2 bagfuls and we would nervously balance them, careful not to drop a single precious morsel. It would then be taken to the kitche, where my sister would warm up some butter, empty out the popcorn into big bowls and pour the golden yellow butter liberally all over them, till they glistened and reflected the blurry winter sun.
Well, ya its another thing, that gymming and aerobics have become essential for a healthy existence now after those years of buttered pop corn! ;)
But, never mind.. memories like those still melt in my mouth, so its all worth it in the end I guess..

Bean Bags Anyone?!

If you've ever come to Mumbai and traveled from anywhere to anywhere by road, you are bound to have seen the message

"Bean Bags
2640 7383"

It's spray painted in purple or black across all the walls, flyovers, asbestos sheets, houses, shops, unused cars or even people who haven't moved in a few days!
I believe its the single most effective viral marketing tool employed by any one in such an ad-cluttered and competitve environment that Mumbai has.

Who are these people who are so desperate to sell bean bags? And why?? Do they foresee some great natural disaster the shocks of which could be cushioned only by a bean bag?
Or did someone gift them a lot of paint spray cans this Diwali?
In any case they've been painting the town a dark shade of red like there was no tomorrow
But then there's another question.... how do they go about it?
Since the handwriting is more or less the same in all the signages, either its just one very efficient person with a lot of spray cans or an army of a few hundred that were trained to spray the message in the same font every place between Thane to the airport.
In any case they're doing a great job of building a long lasting and consistent brand image.
The last question I have is.. are they really selling bean bags or is it bean bags that they're looking for? Are we supposed to call them if we see a bean bag lying unattended?
No clue. Maybe I should call and confirm my doubts, just that I fear I'll end up being in a bag if I express so much curiosity about bean bags! :))

Watched The Motorcycle Diaries last night...

I'm not a biker, or a man or an Argentinian and there was very little I thought that I'd be able to relate with in the movie. However, it was completely unlike I thought
Its exactly the kind of movie that makes you feel terrible about watching a movie when u'd rather be out there doing what they're doing. Travelling across borders, meeting different people, talking to them about their problems and realising that your own problems are as significant as a flame next to a forest fire...
The movie is based on the bike travels of Che Guevara and his companion Alberto Granado, the Marxist revelutionary, author of many books on guerrila warfare and an icon of the socialist revolutionary movements much before he was summarily executed at the age of 39.
I unfortunately, am ashamed to say that I knew nothing of this man as I watched the movie, it was only later, when I went to Wikipedia to look up the cute guy who played Guevara (erhm.. we'll talk about that later) that I came across this brilliant picture of Ernesto Che Guevara. Extremely familiar, not just because of the fact it had been used in ads across the globe (something I like to keep a track of) but also because its very difficult to forget such an image. It is the picture of someone who is looking ahead even as others are looking at him. He's a revolutionary and there is a sense of mission that possesses his appearance.
Maybe I'm blabbering, but then its my blog, thats the least I owe to it! ;)
Anyway, to begin with, the movie was visually stunning. It was a journey across the cold Atacama desert, the dusty plains of Argentinia and the meandering roads of Chile.
However more than that, what strikes you is the distance between how much the haves have and how little the have-nots get a chance to move towards the better.
Anyway, the movie was a great eye opener of sorts. Guevara moved out for a trip that turned out to be the biggest learning experience of his life. Maybe that's something we all need to do. Maybe we need to look at thinking about what we want to do before just making the decisions of our life. We just keep jumping into one thing from the other. From school to college then onto the job, we dont give a thought about what it is that we really want to do.

Maybe we should take a break, take a ride, meet someone we'd wouldve never met otherwise, maybe we should talk less and think more, walk till our feet our sore, maybe we should listen for what they didnt say and try not to answer every question that comes our way..

That way probably we'd be able to know more about ourselves and see where in life we'd be happiest...

Not my spritz of perfume

I have been thinking of buying a perfume for my sister for a really long time, not that she stinks or anything. Just that I thought a nice, expensive perfume would be a decent, if not a fitting gift for her wedding. So I dragged along my friend, who I believe is the closest I'll come to anyone who can distinguish between a CK and a Chanel, and we went to Shopper's Stop to test our sense of smell.
'Would you like to try a Chanel No. 5?' said the woman who's face I cannot recall. Before I could say a yes, with a single swift movement she shook the bottle and sprayed from it on a strip of paper and shoved the strip beneath my nose.
I took a deep sniff and let the scent fill my head, gave a profound, thoughtful expression and said in the most sophisticated voice I could muster, 'Smells like an amrood'.
Lipika, my friend, took the strip from my hand and nodded in approval. Yesss! I wasnt as unskilled as I thought in perfume identification.
Over the next hour or so, we allowed perfumed strips of paper along with beans of coffee to be stuck under our noses. The coffee beans were meant to ensure that we dont confuse the subtle fruity woodiness of 'Sentiments' by Escada with the flowery woodiness of 'Signature' by the same brand.
Unfortunately, my not so trained nose could only pick up the guava smell from each scent, that none actually claimed to offer..
Looking at our (read, my) perplexed expressions, the salesperson asked me if I would '.. like to see AC me aake?'. 'What the hell is the dude talking about, we're in Shopper's Stop and the AC is working just fine!' Lipika, unfortunately did not look as startled as me and said yes we'd like to.
Maybe thats some perfume code that you need to crack before they let you buy any branded fragrance, i thought. So he took us to another corner and even as I was wondering that the AC is no better here than it was where we were earlier... he took out a bottle, 'Issey Miyake'.. " a 40 yr old classic perfume". I was ashamed at my ignorance, but did not let out a hint of it to the salesperson. We dont want perfume that is that old, I thought and asked him if he could us something new, flowery and woody. The last two words having being added to my vocabulary only in the last hour or so.
We finally came down to two choices, both by Escada, one very expensive, the other not so frugal a purchase either. Time was now to make a decision. Something I've always been terrible at, especially when it demands me shelling out a lot of money to purchase something whose value I will perpetually question.
To make my job simpler, I called my mom and asked her if my sister needed a perfume, and would appreciate it amongst all the other gifts she's recieve.. (hoping throughout that she'd say no!) But my mom said, sure a perfume is nice, just dont buy something too expensive.
Bingo! The golden words had been uttered and as much as I told my mom that she should stop being miserly and let me buy something expensive and flamboyant for my only sister's wedding... somewhere I was happy that I will be have to pay 700 rupees less.
I know its cheap and I know I shouldnt be so stingy, but I think the stench of the money-counting Gujju genes in my blood far surpasses any fragrance I will ever decide to buy.

Learnings from Madhupur

I'm in the 5th trimester of a fairly well known b-school in India and anyone who's been in one knows its absolutely the most lazed out time of life. An average day includes 2-3 movies, around 12-15 hours of sleeping and if the day is really hectic, then maybe an hour long lecture..
Life is good and I'm following this schedule very strictly. Saw a movie called 'Somethings Gotta Give' yesterday, fairly interesting though a lil incestuous with the guy (Jack Nicholson) making out with the daughter (Amanda Peet) and then later on with her mom (Diane Keaton), but then when was incestuous not interesting..
The movie is pleasant though, which is surprising, possibly because it was a romantic comedy and lately I've been driven to watch those very intently. They are comforting yet, disturbing in a way with all the gooey mushiness that encompasses the people who fall (or rise) in love. So much that nothing is clear, and everything is seen through rose coloured glasses (that may be the filter used with the camera but who cares). In the past two months I've seen over 12 such crazily in love kind of movies, some diabetically sweet, others which confused 'awesome and totally hysterical sex' with love and some that were genuinely nice.
But the one that tops my list is a romantic comedy that I havent seen yet and incidently, wasnt supposed to be a comedy, but since I've heard so much about that movie, I can visualise it in all its glory despite having spent 175 bucks in a multiplex.
Vivaah, the journey from engagement to marriage is the movie and is what I believe the manual for all the women who wish to get married in the next few hundred years.
A shy girl ( please note, shy equals never letting the man you love see the color of your eyes, coz ur eyelids are never raised high enough and your decibels should be just loud enough so that he can hear you murmur those three golden words....' jal lekar aaon?')
But then I guess, thats how Madhupur girls are raised, and if you'd read the controversial article on Forbes by Michael Noer on how career women make disastrous wives., you'd nod your head in approval. (Must read by the way, makes for a great conversation!)
The article starts with "
Guys: a word of advice. Marry pretty women or ugly ones. Short ones or tall ones. Blondes or brunettes. Just, whatever you do, don't marry a woman with a career."

So you can well figure what its about.. it says that women who dont have jobs make better wives, mothers, home-makers and in essence all men should keep a safe distance from those who do.
So what it is it about shy, murmuring women who's shopping haunts are the 'gali ka mela' and who think kissing will impregnate them, heir colony attractive to men? A question I've been wondering about since a really long time...
Is it the Indian culture that they've been marinated in that makes the guys like them? Maybe it is their nauseating shyness that makes them think 'mujhe haq hai?'
Maybe its their attitude of never questioning the status quo and always going the 'chup-chaap aansoo pi loongi' way, that gives a sense of power to the man.
Maybe shutting up and not having an opinion is what you need to get a man.
Maybe I should just stop writing this, douse my face in a litre of make up and murmur my way out of the hostel...
Will let u know if it works!