Live it up...

(This post is re-produced in entireity from my friend Big Merw's post in FB coz i thought it was a brilliant post and totally echoed my sentiments)

"In a nutshell, life is preparation for eternity. We were not made to last forever, and He wants us to be with Him in Heaven.
One day my heart is going to stop, and that will be the end of my body-- but not the end of me. I may live 60 to 100 years on earth, but I am going to spend trillions of years in eternity. HE wants us to practice on earth what we will do forever in eternity. We were made by God and for God, and until you figure that out, life isn't going to make sense. Life is a series of problems: Either you are in one now, you're just coming out of one, or you're getting ready to go into another one.
The reason for this is that God is more interested in your character than your comfort; God is more interested in making your life holy than He is in making your life happy. We can be reasonably happy here on earth, but that's not the goal of life. The goal is to grow in character
I used to think that life was hills and valleys - you go through a dark time, then you go to the mountaintop, back and forth. I don't believe that anymore.
Rather than life being hills and valleys, I believe that it's kind of like two rails on a railroad track, and at all times you have something good and something bad in your life.
No matter how good things are in your life, there is always something bad that needs to be worked on. And no matter how bad things are in your life, there is always something good you can thank God for.. (kind of like the yin and yang philosophy)
You can focus on your purposes, or you can focus on your problems: If you focus on your problems, you're going into self-centeredness, which is my problem, my issues, my pain.' But one of the easiest ways to get rid of pain is to get your focus off yourself and onto God and others.

You have to learn to deal with both the good and the bad of life. Actually, sometimes learning to deal with the good is harder.
We need to ask ourselves: Am I going to live for possessions? Popularity? Am I going to be driven by pressures? Guilt? Bitterness? Materialism? Or am I going to be driven by God's purposes (for my life)? When I get up in the morning, I sit on the side of my bed and say, God, if I don't get anything else done today, I want to know You more and love You better. God didn't put me on earth just to fulfill a to-do list. He's more interested in what I am than what I do. That's why we're called human beings, not human doings"
SO friends what ever shit u think u r in its just a test for ur character and ur goals are just getting closer......No matter what it is u need the whole universe is there to help u...just open up and see.......

Take care and enjoy every moment life offers u!!!!!!!

Flunk your engineering for the sake of your life

there is an underground saying amongst engineers. You are not a true engineer unless and until you have faced at least one back in your career. Well, I can say I am a true engineer in that sense...After all, I had three!!! :)

adversity truly teaches you like no other life situation. Unless and until you are faced with dire straits , how would you know how to conduct yourself, gather the pieces of one's life and move on to bigger and better things and achieving long term success and growth. Failure is just one of those dire straits. It's not possible to be having immense good luck and fortune all the time. Life is such that by the law of averages, you will have to face bad times at some point. and if you are one who hasn't faced any sort of tough situation before, chances are that you could just crumble under the pressure. So the faster you are exposed to failure, the better.

Flunking in engineering taught me a lot of things. It helped to prioritize work, helped me to figure out time management, helped me deal with feelings of being inferior to my peers, and most importantly how to deal successfully that with tough situations and come out as a winner. Not that I have achieved anything mindblowing in my life yet, but it has made me confident enough to think that i would be able to survive the toughest of adversities and come out alive.

of course, its a jungle out there and only the toughest survive while the weak crumble by the wayside. As did quite a few of my peers who fell into holes that they cudnt dig themselves out of , be it with multiple backs resulting in year blocks or other non-academic related holes.

They say that 'Failure is the stepping stone to success.' Don't know who said it but it must have been a wise old man.

Anyways, final point is, dont worry about the crisis that hits you today. coz who knows, it may just change the rest of your future.

Cheers

The corniest lines ever

After yesterday's relatively dark n gloomy post, its time to liven up things a bit. What better way than making fun of myself and a few friends? So here's a post reliving some of the corniest cheesiest lines that I've used/experienced/ heard being used.... :)

Line 5 is a song. The song 'inside out' by bryan adams? Brilliant song, amazing lyrics. A brilliant song to dedicate to budding relationships. The lyrics of this song (http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/bryanadams/insideout.html) are so outstanding that most of the time no more effort needs to be put in. It works! ;) . Of course, I dedicate this song only to friends that I genuinely like and trust and till date all of the women I have dedicated this song to are awesome friends with me. Athough that might change when they realise that I have dedicated this song to almost all of them ... :)

Line 4 is a line I ve used/heard twice. On a particular occasion, there was this girl who looks absolutely stunning and who had done me an a really big favour. And I went like,'Heaven must be missing an angel, coz U are here on earth with me..!! :) . and btw, just for the record, I absolutely meant it!!

Line 3 is by a friend of mine who when her boyfriend pierced his hand with a safety pin to demonstrate his love for came up with,'U can't hurt this hand .. This hand is not just yours, It is mine as well..!!

Line 2 is a line used on me by one of my former girls. On valentine's day 2000, I had gifted her with a soft toy (teddy bear) which had a lil sign on it saying, 'Be mine'...To that she responded. 'U didnt need to give me a teddy bear saying this...I am already yours...' Today, I laugh in amusement at that line but back then when I was just a kid, it seemed so candy floss romantic!!

Line 1, the supremo, the best ever line belongs to a friend of mine. Its a pretty simple line...Start talking to the girl by any means possible, then gradually one day slip in the line which goes like this,'I am an introvert by nature' But U make me feel so comfortable that i feel absolutely free with you...hehehe...You would think with a line like that no one wud ever buy it....well your wrong..The friend picked up 24 women in 2 years!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Over n out.....

Modern abuses (explicit content-be forewarned)

well for starters , I feel a lot of rage in me today, so I'll start off quoting of a song by Limp Bizkit which kind of captures my mood right now..

"Break Stuff"

Its just one of those days
When you don't wanna wake up
Everything is fucked
Everybody sucks
You don't really know why
But you want justify
Rippin' someone's head off
No human contact
And if you interact
Your life is on contract
Your best bet is to stay away motherfucker
It's just one of those days!!

hehe...that feels better...some times nothing like music and head banging mindlessly to take the edge off..Now to today's topic....I have sworn and used abusive words for as long as I can remember. Right from my 1st standard where i remember using idiot which was the one permissible word allowed by my parents..anything else resulted in us kids (sis/bro/me) having to kneel in front of the altar and solemnly apologise to God and to the recepient of the abuse that we wud never do the same again. Then the word Bastard that made its appearence around age of 10, fuck ard 11, and pretty much all connotations that could be made using these words followed...so u had the f**ckin blowjob, the mother/sisters, the pricks, bitches, cocks, all coming in...all adding immense colour to my language...it of course helped to be in engineering where swearing in every sentence was almost a must. Poor Leticia being the only girl had to bear the brunt of listenin to every possible english,konkani and English bad word possible for 4 years. :)

Well, being the abuse connousier that I am , here's my favourite list of innovative abuse words:
1) sterilised penis of a rabid dog: This sounds absolutely amazing in Konkani but unfortunately I dont possess the prowess of Levlin who invented this abuse back in engineering to counter Amey Panvelkar's patented ....-->
2) Badkachi vavti fudd.... This is such a disgusting abuse that non-konkani knowers would be better off not knowing the translation... :)
3)Kalchi kuslele kodi: for the vegeterian abusers , this one is nice ...Literally translated it means Yesterday's spoilt curry...It came in very handy whilst dealing with an extremely spoilt brat of a girl who though no end of herself... :)
4)KLPD: for the full form, all you need to do is JFGI... (Just fuckin google it).. just the very thought of it makes u balk..at least the guys would... :)
5)For an east meets west abuse, none better than Nick's patented, you fuckin bhench**t...for some reason its much more easier to type in fucking rather than hindi/konkani abuses which sound twice as worse... :)
6) The black hole: no prizes for guessing what this refers too,,,and ppl from the kerala trip who were on the balcony wud not forget the context in which i used it either especially the person who i referred to in it..
7) The blood sucking parasite:used to refer to certain people who can do nothing other than suck the life out of u one drop at a time...

thats all i can think of right now...i guess I may lose all friends who used to view my blog, if any after this one... :) ...so i guess I better get started next on the corniest one liners/ love lines that I have used/heard used....:)

Odyssey of a Sports fan

I started watching cricket when I was 5-6 years old. My first memories of the same were Vinod Kambli's back to back double centuries and India routing England 3-0 in that series. That series set me up to become an ardent sports fan, a follower whose devotion to games has only grown as I get older.

Cricket was THE game to follow for a long time. I remember watching every absurd game that was aired on television including Ranji and other domestic forms of the game. when new players debuted for the Indian team, most of their names were already familiar to me çoz I had already followed them for so long. Hence I knew names like Amol Mazumdat, Jatin Paranjape, Noel David , S Sriram, Debang Gandhi etc. I was a fan of Rahul Dravid almost 2 years before he made his debut on the national scene.

Around 2000, the whole match fixing scandal broke loose, and I grew very disillusioned by the whole sordid scene. It was almost overnight that I lost all affection for the game as I realised what a cheap commercial exercise it had all become. The kind of emotions evoked by the game are crazy. One only had to see the firecrackers and celebrations post an India win or the tears and sadness post an Indian loss to know about this. Match days used to be non-games day for my gang as we used to all be glued to our televisions watching the game. When sportsman don't respect that kind of passion, its just a bitter pill to swallow.

Around that time, EPL was just about getting its roots in on prime time television. I became fascinated with Liverpool following Michael Owen's wonder goal for England v/s Argentina and begun to silently cheer for the team. Around 01-02, with fantasy football making an appearence and with many of us declaring teams as our favourite, I begun to honestly shift to watching soccer, I became the lone pool fan with Sid a Gunner, Nikhil, Macneal all being devils. Bruno (God bless his soul) was a lone Fulham fan due to him liking the Pizza Hut jersey.Football became a passion, a way of life.

I have been following Liverpool football club for the past 10 years now, with 8 of those being in deadly earnest where in I have learnt the club song, bought 4 jerseys and other memorobilia, known by heart every player playing for Liverpool and their backgrounds that they come from etc.. etc.. Its just a real sponteaneous thing. When they win, they can at times bring tears to my eyes. and when they lose, they plunge me into the depths of dark despair. I pray for them diligently every day in order that they win more games, and may finally achieve the holy grail of the premiership, that Rafa may be able to weave more magic. Once you start watching the game, its like an addictive drug that you can't get enough of. I have never been higher than when I watched Steven gerrard lift the CL trophy and I truly believe that my prayers had some thing to do with the same.

Updating your Goals

I am a firm believer in setting up of goals for every stage in life. Religion is one of the greatest problems plaguing us today which is responsible for so many deaths due to seeds of hatred sown amongst devotees of different religions. yet Religion is absolutely necessary. Why? Simply because if you do not have religion, you do not have a concept of good and bad, no concept of a salvation of life awaiting you in future. If there is no salvation awaiting you, then why bother leading a good life, you may as well enjoy your present circumstances coz who knows where life ends. I suspect a lot of atheists believe in this. I for one believe totally in religion and spirituality with one prominent reason being that I would like to think that life goes on beyond the grave and that there is a point to my entire existence.

so salvation is the ultimate goal. What about different stages in life.? We start off wanting a good education so priority becomes a good score in examinations, than targeting a good college , a choice of the right profession and then a rewarding career in the company of your choice. This is probably the life cycle of goals set by the average (fe)male.

Similar goals are set up for emotions and love. You tend to work towards a good marraige, a stable relationship, a good foundation for good family life, taking care of the elders etc.. etc...

Aspirational goals like building/owning your own house or more valuables, wanting to attain popularity and stardom, pursuing a serious hobby etc.. etc..

My approach towards stuff so far was to always break it down into smaller teeny weeny parts. Studying meant achieving a certain target of study material to be finished within a time frame of mins, hours, or days. I used to dream about the times when I would be able to ride a bike to college or drive a vehicle for the first time, or my first overnight with friends. Each of these things when achieved gave me a tremendous amount of satisfaction and motivation to drive further. For once you attain a certain target, there is no looking back, its a drive to go higher and beat it, and this constant self competion helps in achieving ultimate goals. So stuff like achieving an 80% target in Xth, getting a good PCM score to get into engineering, getting admission into MBA school all become simpler along with smaller achievements like just staying up all night, riding safely for long distances in not the most sober of conditions etc.. etc...

I guess the central message essentialy is taking each day at a time, setting up all that you want to achieve from it and then experiencing tremendous satisfaction and motivation at successful completion of the task . and ultimately compiling all your days together to achieve that ultimate goal of nirvana..............................

The Product Life Cycle

The PLC is one of the most simplest marketing concepts devised by the gurus. Its so easy to figure out, The 4 stages of Introduction, Growth, maturity and decline. Yet, it has so many myriad applications right from engineering to brand management. It can so easily be applied to several different aspects of product management. Brand managers would find it essential to understand which particular position of the life cycle their particular product is in , in order to undertake the appropriate decision in order to jig the brand. The wrong marketing activity applied inappropriately could result in losses running into millions and gazzillions of currency. Thats where MR comes in , of course. ;)

However thats not the point of the post. PLC could also be applied to varies stages of life. After all, the life cycle concept was probably borrowed from a human life perspective in the first place. We grow through so many stages of life. Arguably, the entire student stage of a (wo)man's life can be assigned to a growth stage of a PLC. Maybe initial time spent in each role of a job applies in growth stage too. The returns once you start achieving speed in your job would probably be your maturity stage. and when ur burned out and fed up of the job or in case the industry is facing a closedown than that arguably would be decline.

Human relationships arguably also go through a life cycle. the initial phase of getting to know some body. Thats a most exciting phase as a lot of things are novel in a relationship and its interesting to discover new and better things about your partner/new found friend. Since its a trial phase, you could also discover that the thought process is not really the same and the 2 don't really gel. Only those that cut it make it to the next stage. Then as you get familiarised with habits, a certain amount of trust and bonds begin to develop which help mature your relationship, where you can better judge a person and take a call about character and stuff.

The best relationships never die down. They can always be re-jigged up. A few marketing activies like meeting up for coffee, night-outs, drinking parties and of course phone and chatting communications are essential for maintaining the spirit.

While a few relationships may go sour and not last the distance, there's always the excitement of meeting up new people. And where one door closes , another one opens up. Where college and school life ends and the opputunities to meet up with old friends lessen, work life brings new potential friends and oppurtunities to catch up wid a diff set of yuppies including a few prodigy researchers, several diff cultures of ppl, and some with different family occupations as well like owning a traditional restaurant or a chain of stores across Mumbai.. :)

Famous feats

Lots of famous sportsmen all across the world have been breaking records of late. Usain Bolt's been thrashing sprint records, Michael Phelps been setting the swimming pool on fire, Jenson Button's pretty close to winning his first ever title. I have never ever come close to doing anything as spectacular as these guys. But some of the stuff that I've done has given me the biggest kicks ever. while they may seem unspectecular to others, they have made me happy in my own right..

for starters, I always been longing to do a road trip. In the summer of '08 , i finally got my long cherished chance when Sachit,Raveesh, Vinod, Saakshi, Mitali and me took upon ourselves the task of driving/ riding to Bangalore for summers. 800 odd km done within 15 hours inclusive of several pitstops and rider /driver changes. Me for my part did about 4 hours of driving and about another 4 of riding. must have spent another 3-4 hours as a pillion to Saakshi and Vinod. What made that trip even more memorable for me was the fact that I barely slept for 5 mins the previous night as I was so pumped wid adrenaline about the fact that we were driving to Bangalore. Lucky for us, it lasted till we got to Bangalore coz i remember being absolutely exhausted once we got to our hotel. and sleeping for 10 hours..
The return leg was equally awesome although I did get in a good 4-5 hours of sleep this time. We managed a good speed getting to Belgaum within 8 hours and then took some time tackling tough roads and ghats to reach Goa within the daytime..

The other major accomplishments were kinda drink related. Its my theory that when you start drinking, ur nerve cells are strong so they can take an enormous amount of hit without getting affected. So initially, i could put away enormous amounts of alcohol. Leading to the nights of 14 whiskeys at Anoushka's, the night of 6 whisky large and 12 pints of beer at kamaki's, the night of 14 pints at tito's., and several other (in)glorious nights...all followed by me riding back home/hostel. and touch wood , I havent had an accident yet despite doing speeds at 120 odd on the Ribandar causeway with S@C being the only pillion trusting me not to crash with me. Of course, he's never had a reason to complain. So far, at least, ;)

My Machine Design 2 paper is also something else that I am proud of. After flunking in Design 1 wid a lowest ever score of abt 10 out of 100, I had kinda hit rock bottom in engg. Thats when Ashish Prabhu, my MD sir made an inspirational appearence and under his tutelage I managed to get the joint highest score in a class of 70 students which was almost like Goa highest. :) . Think tat was one of my most kickass academic achievements, to excel in a weak subject.

The last 2 days been kinda memorable too. this diwali, me, whiny and bagati made a round trip around the Mumbai sub-urbs visiting every1's places for Diwali. 10 hours of non-stop travel on day from powai to jogeshwari to borivali to mira road and then back to borivali then malad and finally back to powai, all in the name of visiting Parag, Sachin, Rohan and Mitali for Diwali.and then today to Muthu's place at Mulund. For a guy whose spent the last 4 years on a bike or car either riding or driving, travelling by mass transport has been a sea change that i have experienced. The fact that we managed to pull it off without ne hassles was remarkable. We had awesome fun along the way as well. also a few memorable things, like when whiny boarded a train b4 us and landed up alone at Borivali station. Waiting at the wrong platform for a train for 20 mins thanks to whiny. almost getting her marraige fixed at rohan's place, etc... considering that we all new to mumbai with our families far away, it was great to be really welcomed by everyone's families with open arms and made to feel at home. Helped time pass away in a jiffy and also helped sleep like a log in d nite.. Probably will be one of those things that i ll tell my kids abt the time when u pulled of that famous feat of travelling all ard the western suburbs wid all means of public transport... :) and surviving!!

I can see the future

How do you see the future 10 years from now? A borrowed perspective from Sunder's point of view with minimal editing.

Well, this mail is about what happened after GIM. 10 years down the line what happened to whom:

Parag: The tall man found his ideal “tall” pakki-Maharashtrian match within a year of completing his MBA. After having “cooked” travel plans for all and sundry for 7 years with “Thomas cant cook” , he finally decided that it was time he followed his heart. No! He was not leaving his wife J . He has now himself started travelling. He is a full-time photographer who clicks every little moment that comes by: from his 2^nd kid’s cute sneezes to his GIM gang’s re-unions J

S@C: He had caught a heavy cold (a-chee!!) in GIM. He entered the corporate world visiting schools while wearing a lal topi and true to his name as the man from nowhere,roamed all of the southern states meeting starting from Anna land... In the end,fed up of the vagaries of life and in a quest to search for his true identity, he undertook a pilgrimage to the Himalayas. After a year in meditation, the cold found him and brought him back to senses. Today he lives a happily married life in a house in Borivali and is happy to finally identify where he belongs to (unknown t me still)

Ziggy: The most loved person in the group had a dream career. She made it big in retail selling thousands of tentative DVD players which were a record for the company. After 5 years, she quit Infiniti to join Advertising only to realize that her talent lied somewhere else. Today, she does what she knows to do best. She has joined RED FM 93.5 as RJ Ziggy and is famous for the Ziggyisms. Like at GIM, she is also the sweetheart of Mumbai. Miss Congeniality.She runs a special mathemathics class for the maths deficient and is famous for proving the theory that 1 divided by 2 is in fact 3/4.

Mirella: This lady initially got lost into oblivion. She scooted off to Bangalore for a year and then moved to the Muscat after marriage. She worked for 2 companies in this time. Finally she got bored of the 9-5 job and decided to do something that would interest her. She realized that her heart was here in India where her friends were. After almost 3 years of not keeping in touch with anyone, she came back and started her Beauty Salon. Some Mirchi concepts, some of the CP and some of those old notes did help. Her first re-union with the gang was most eventful J. Now, she is the one person who goes out of her way to keep in touch with every1 and keep the group going.

Muthu: Her career took off slower than the people around her. After working for a bank for a year and realizing that it was not meant for her, she re-aligned her career. She went to her alma-mater TCS and did such wonderful work and won such accolades and went abroad some 4 times in less than 6 years and is basically filthy rich. She had an arranged marriage with a fine gentleman in the navy within a year of completing her MBA. She is one person who attends each and every one of the Mumbai Alumni meets that GIM arranges and sees to it that the Placement Cell to which she gave so much always has the support of TCS. Despite this, she is still capable of getting into fights with Patwe and destroying people's furniture in the process.

Neha and DK: Well, these two had to be spoken about together. After GIM, both of them shifted to the south where they set thambi land and anna land on fire with their passion filled romance. They dated each other for another 2 years before they got married in a grand fashion in Delhi followed by a blast in Goa. Neha worked with Vodafone for almost 7 years and earned the highest respect for her hard work and dedication. She resigned to give more time to their kids and also, to give time to her passion – gossiping and throwing kittie parties. DK had and continues to have a dream career. He started with JnJ and has slowly grown the ranks. He travelled all around the world and has been one of their most committed and important resources. Although he is reputed as a tiger in the sales world, he turns into a pussy in front of Neha's stringent command. Their relationship is reputed to be cleanliness obsessed, one that puts Monica and Chandler of friends to shame.

Chito: He started off as a Clerk (or was it an e-clerk !!!) or something of that sort. He gained immense experience in marketing and worked for 6 years.He bitched about working for this 6 years practically everyday for those 6 years to his friends. Post that, he felt that he had to give something back to his alma-mater. He came to know that after threatening to resign another 4 times, his favourite professor in college finally did hang up his boots and the college was looking for someone to replace him. Our Chito grabbed the oppurtunity and realized that he had a panache for it. He finally got the oppurtunity to flirt whole heartedly with innumerable women simultaneously and they were forced to respect him. He still can not make up his mind over which woman he wants to finally settle down with due to the disease of One-Gina. :)

Patrao – Vaibhav: The succegad from Goa started “Building bonds” but realized that some customers could be really “sticky”. He continued in his hard-earned job for 3 years but found life in Kolkata so slow and boring that he quit and came back to his promise land. He has started an “alcohol” manufacturing business which manufactures the finest blends of Whiskey and Vodka. He also supplies the same to his close friend from GIM for his business. Btw, he got married to a beautiful Goan girl who is an amazing cook. So, every time the group meets in Goa, it is an absolute treat J

Allan: He Researched the market for close to 6 years and earned enough money. His profession took him to England where he went to every Liverpool game with as much vigour that a true Liverpool fan could go with. Finally, our true Saligaonkar realized that he had had enough of this. He missed his old life in Goa and GIM. He missed home but he couldn’t say this to anyone ever. He decided one fine day that he would get back to Goa. After almost 6 months of roaming around aimlessly in Goa, he hit upon a brilliant plan when in discussion with two close juniors (or JCCs if you like ;-)). Today, the three of them run probably the most successful Event Management Company. No prizes for guessing what they named it: RaZzMaTaZz .... They organize some of the finest parties and club events. He gets supplies for booze from his old friend ‘patrao” Vaibhav. He also roped in another old friend from GIM who has now become the star attraction of his events. He got married to a catholic girl in his favourite Saligao church in a simple function without much fanfare(much like him). People who cared for him and people who he cared for were there for the special day. Btw, its been 10 years since he left GIM – Manchester United havent won a title since as Liverpool swept all trophies ;-)

Patwe: Allan made a dream move when he roped in this man into RaZzMaTaZz. But this happened much later. Patwe started off slowly and struggled for almost a year post GIM. He got into tours and travels, education as a chemistry teacher and then tried his hand and his much coveted FMCG sales market. He decided to take a break in Life to decide his life ahead. This is when a re-union of the group happened at Chito’s place. Allan asked Patwe to join in and do what he was remembered for in the 4 lines written for him in the candle-light ceremony. Patwe knew from that very moment that this was his passion. He has now become the “the official bartender” for all RaZzMaTaZz parties. Btw, he still carries his guitar to every Razzie party hoping to get a chance to play it. And even to this day, he still manages to play that one tune only ;-) ... now, the event in his career that has surprised(and maybe even shocked!!!) all his friends è Patwe fell in Love.... the only and the most unlikely person in the group to do so ... (and not with a Tall, dark and Handsome ;-)) ... When it came to it, he actually fought with his parents and did all the necessary drama and finally got married to her. Btw, his other Love(Tall, dark and handsome) is still there, though slightly tattered and old. And he still follows his third and most important Love for which he could hold a fan for ransom – ManU.

Rohan: He had the most eventful career of the whole lot. He got into Advertising and made it big. He created some of the most wonderful ad campaigns and made a lot of moolah. Women were always an integral part of his “work” ;-) .... Btw, he kept taking women out for first dates. He worked in Advertising for 4 fruitful year... (well fruitful in every sense : 42 successful ad campaigns, added 40 more first dates).. He then went off on a complete tangent. As “flirting” was innately a part of him, he began flirting with his career. He began the Footloose Academy for Performing Arts which taught people to dance. Over the years, however, he found something missing in the “first dates”.... He remembered GIM and realized that there was no one competing for “market-shares”. He then stopped taking women out for “dates” since then. He has just recently finished compiling a book “Why not to take women out for dates” and has sent it to his old friend and “closest” rival for proof-reading ;-) ... Btw, he still remains the only person in the group who decided to remain single

Its been 10 years since they spent their best 2 years together. Such has been the impact of those 2 years that they make it a point to meet atleast once a year. And when they meet, it seems like it was just yesterday that they left college. The good old days are remembered, old dialogues and stories are re-told, professors are imitated, old songs are re-sung.... when u see all this, you don’t know whether to laugh at the fact that a bunch of Top Managers actually turn into college kids or to cry seeing the emotion and the attachment that can bind a set of individuals to their alma-mater.

Today's post

This page is temporarily unavailable as the author is busy trying to use his creative noodles to figure out captions for his orkut profile snaps that he has uploaded in bulk. All readers are welcome to browse through the snaps instead.

Cheers!!

Stereo-typing

Yesterday's post was on the longer side so today's aim will be to keep it short and sweet. After all, Shweta keeps insisting that I practise writing gyaan in smaller sentences as clients have no patience to read big paragraphs and sentences. So here goes.

The other day, my boss asked me casually, so what did you do on the long weekend? then before I could answer, he launched into a tirade of how I must have sat at home and drunk my feni and how I could be satisfied as long as I had alcohol by my side. I enjoy the occasional drink but Feni!! I am not such a bebdo!

People type cast goans so easily. To everyone else outside Goa, Goa is the land of sex, sand and sun, the land where alcohol is cheap and people are cheaper. In B'lore , people assumed in GIM, we could attend classes in bermudas. people bunk lectures all the time and live at the beach. I mean, come on, get a touch of reality!! We are easy going, life is slow paced but the average goan families are super conservative. All the hip-hop life that every keeps hearing about is mostly lived by the tourists that visit here and the college crowd belonging to Xaviers and to a lesser extent Dempo's/Engg & Medical colleges etc.

Goa is not the only state to be type-cast of course, Punjabis are loud,heavy drinkers who love to party and can never be taken seriously, Gujju's on the other hand are most miserly and are gurus of the stock market. Southies speak in a strange accent and everything that they say sounds like yenda binda anna panna wateva..or as we used to make fun of Muthu,'Yenda bangeera, nhad bageera, haiya haiya!!'. Chinkies are hot and forward, Mallu men are perverts, Tams are ultra-conservatives and extremely rude, Delhiites are arrogant, rich pricks who think they own the world, Maharasthrians all run around saying Jai Shivaji, Jai Maharasthra!! hehe...At this rate, you never need to get to know a person. All that you need to ask is which state a person is from and you can draw up a character portrait from that..

I remember my 10th standard NCERT biology text-book. Each and every disease mentioned in the book had to list some areas where the disease was found. There was one common sentence for all the diseases, 'This disease is found in places so and so and also in some parts of Africa'. You never needed to know places for the diseases. All that you needed to write was , found in some parts of Africa.

Moral for today: Never ever ever visit 'Some parts of Africa!!!'and for god's sake, please get to know people for what they are rather than forming an opinion on them purely based on the region that they come from.....

Defining a woman

Read an article on today's newspaper about ,'the curious case of Semenya' .World athletics chiefs will meet this week and attempt to do what no one has achieved in history — determining exactly what makes a woman. hehehe...Gud luck on dat folks...there's a reason why the definition of a woman has never been achieved..While the context in which the article quoted the line was different from mine , the fact remains...Understanding a women ..In theory, just a difference of a hole versus a pole (sorry, I can be a bit crass at times)..but in actuality.....woahhhhhh!!!!

There's a reason why men can't understand women....plain and simple...some times women can't understand themselves!!! and when they can't understand themselves then how could we poor men???

Based on my 24 years of collective years of wisdom, here are some of the things i notice abt them

Women have to obsssssesss about their weight...Am I looking fat?? Oh..I am so fat....God , I cant eat that, It'll make me fat....Whiny's first line when i met her for the first time in Mumbai was, OMG!! look at my cheeks!! i have become so FAT!!! Its a collective thing ...All women have to obsess about weight at least once in every conversation and I mean every women!! Lemme see, so far collectively I have heard Eds,Bunny,Ash,Angel,Ziggy,Dusk,Ru,Whiny,Marta,Henry, Half-ticket (names changed to protect privacy) all complaint about their weight at least a million times inspite them being absolutely beautiful and having several admirers would sell their body parts to be with them...An example of this would be Whiny who looked absolutely gorgeous today!!At least thats what the guys outside Mocha's thought who kept giving her the check-out look! :)

When it comes to abusing, most women tend to shy away. Its like they have to conform this societal demand that you frown away from abusing most of the time. When you abuse in front of them , they will be like sheesh, what a disgusting fellow..Kitna Vahiyat Ladka hai... :) ... Of course, you have this alternate set of women who think as a rebel they should add abuses to each and every sentence... Like the girl who sat in the Goa bound bus behind me who went like, What the Bloody fuckin yaar, we're going to fuckin Goa yaar, waha pe hum mast bloody mazza karenge yaar, fuckin mazza..yaar...

Women have to hold hands all the time and go to the bath room together...Its an absolute must!!! hehe... memories fly back to that time in bangalore where at breakfast, 4 women went holding hands together to wash hands..hehe...and then a fifth was needed when one of the four spilt chutney up her new blouse, to emphatise and wash her tears!!

Women gossip...!! Oh yeah, men gossip too but WOMEN GOSSIP!! When it happend with the guys, its just that its over a beer when you are just chilling that certain topics are just casually discussed. Its just a surrounding thing..Its like frenchfries..You eat them to pass time..A side dish for the main course.But with women...it is the main course...I know women who had specially set aside time and venues to share the latest happenings around the place...and by chance if they got to know some particular news later than a rival, they will be all shocked and go like, HOW COME I DIDNT KNOW ABOUT THIS!!!!!

Sex is big for women...I mean really big...Most of the women I know would never be able to have sex for kicks and through flings. For guys , sex is big too but at the end of the day its just a natural act of mating. For women, it gets really emotional. I know several women who have stayed on in bad relationships purely because they had lost their virginities/ had a physical relationship with their boyfriends. Being a guy, at the end of the day, its just sex, but for women its S-E-X!!! While sex is important, at the end of the day, its the total package that counts and if a couple can not gel together than in my opinion they shouldn't. Its just easier to move on rather than trying to stay in a relationship that frustrates both members and eventually results in worse relationships with each other.

Punctuality?? whats that?? Some women believe that its their right to be fashionably late..10 means 10:30 at least... Planning any mass event with friends absolutely has to take this into consideration.. if you have some place to go and you have to make sure that you reach in time, you have to set a deadline about 1 hour in advance to the time that you actually need to leave. this ensures that your date/ group of friends think that they are being fashionably late and you can make it to your event on time.. :) ..

Listening to a women says is not about just listening to her. You have to also understand the hidden underlined statements. Some times, I don't want to talk about it means I want you to ask me about it a million times so that I know you care.. At times, you are anticipated to know about things that may have happened in your absence without the woman in question telling you about and the other people who know about it being people that the woman has met only once in her life and will probably never ever meet again. Can you imagine? The only other person who knows about the issue in contention is some one whom you dont know at all!!

I always have wondered about a few things that guys do that women frown upon but probably do themselves secretly as well. At least its my theory , they do...But as I run the risk of alienating myself from the few women who I absolutely love if I put my thoughts out in public domain, guess I ll have to keep that to myself. I already run the risk of a few choicy words for some of the stuff that i have already put up...

The aim of this post was to have a bit of fun mocking a few friends of mine. In actuality, women were God's gift to mankind. No man is complete without his woman by his side. and the strongest and sternest of men turn to putty in front of their respective spouses. or as DK used to put it, Sher toh saat baje ke baad billi ban jaata hai...I respect every woman for their character, their poise and grace, their intelligence and their strength which often exceeds anything that a man is ever capable of.......

Peace...

The World's most feared disease

I don't have any stats on this, but a thought just crossed me today that depression must be one of the biggest killers in the world today. Death due to suicides is one of the major reasons for mortality all across the world. Add to this, deaths caused by people suffering by depression who in order to find solutions indulge in activities under the influence of alcohol and dope and destroy their families and friends. Road kills, robberies, crimes, just a whole lot of stuff..The whole picture is just scary.

What could lead to depression? I guess multiple reasons, personal stuff like losing someone loved, traumatic and life changing events like losing a job, personal injury..Its just a whole can of worms.
Some people learn to deal with and move on. these are the stronger ones. Some need support to do whilst the less fortunate ones just fall apart and just get torn apart by the tide.

Some of the means and methods that I use to feel better when I am a little messed up in d brain include just taking a break to think to myself...Used to love sitting up at Sinquerim and watching d sunset...Sinquerim's probably the best place in the world. At least in my biased opinion, it is!!

Talking to a close friend also helps. Or some times when you don't wanna tell any body anything but you just need to talk than a call to old friends helps a lot. Catching up wid folks you haven't met in a while but just needed to get back in touch with.

I been blessed with the gift of some great friends, some of whom I don't even need to keep in regular touch with but whom I know that just one phone call and they'll be there for me if I need too. Being so presumptuous about a friendship is obviously not right as you can't go running to friends only in time of need but its great to know that someone's got your back if you ever need it.

Being religious helps too. If there's no one else who cares, at least you know that God does. Prayer is a very powerful tool and medium and one that should never be underestimated.

The reason for writing this post was coz I was feeling a lil under the weather today. The reasons for the same are pretty much contagious amongst all us guys from Goa staying in Mumbai right now who miss their active social life that we managed to pull off in Goa but are confined to match boxes right now.. However, life goes on in the city of dreams. After all, change is the only constant in life and only those who adapt survive.... :) ...Tomorrow's another day and a new challenge...

A memorial

They are many great television series that ran on TV. Some of my favorites include the wonder years, different strokes, small wonder, friends, that 70's show, happy days, boston public, x-files, and a lot more... I recently got my hand on 3 whole seasons of boston public and started to watch the series again. As I watched it, the enormous sacrifices made by teachers in order to spread the light amongst their students dawned upon me. Teachers work donkey's hours and earn a pittance only to get brickbats thrown at them and everyone criticizes them for not really bein good enough to do anything else and hence having taken up teaching as a profession

The more i look back, the more I realise the influence of several teachers have had on me in the past which have helped me become the man I am today. Miss Winifreda from high school, who was so dedicated to her job as a teacher that it over rode her personal life. Students are her life, and she is a brilliant educator in the subjects of Social sciences and english that she often conducts. She also understood her students really well unlike most other teachers who would just probably find us weird or bad influences.

Mrs. Natarajan , my SSCE Examination tutor was another brilliant teacher who shaped my life. Had it not been for her discipling in ensuring that we learn, I would probably never have studied or been serious about my approach/routine of studying. She helped me learn how to study first and then helped me assimilate all the required information for the examination and helped me clear with flying colours.

Ashish Prabhu, my Engineering design professor was almost an angel in disguise. A gold medallist from Karnataka university, he could have easily scored a high paying job in the industry or perhaps joined a better paying institute/ university but he instead chose PCCE. I had just flunked the Machine Design course with one of the worst personal performances that placed me amongst the lowest of my batch mates in terms of examination marks. He inspired me and taught me how to use my design handbook that helped me move from the bottom of class to the very top just in the matter of 3 months which gave me an a huge confidence booster. He was also instrumental in my taking up of an MBA course as he guided me towards the same.

These are just 3 of the faculty members who paved my life. I don't know if they'll remember me but I will certainly remember their contibution in me being able to earn a decent living. And I owe them a big thank you for the same. I hope to inspire some one else too in the future and help them resolve their lives. IMS was a small step towards this. Hopefully I can do it successfully on a larger platform

I'll end this post with a big thank you to all the teachers who have taught me for their contributions and all teachers in general for their dedication, effort and love that they put in their jobs.

Dedicated to the memory of Mrs. Aloma who sadly passed away due to cancer a few months ago. May her soul rest in peace.

Mastercard feelings

I have always like the ad by Mastercard where they go,'There's somethings money can't buy, for everything else, there's Mastercard.' I can often identify with some of those so called 'things'. The smell of the earth after the first rains, the freshness you feel after a long sleep when you are dog -tired and haven't rested for ages, a nice cool shower to the above situation, meeting good friends after ages and catching up on all thats been going on, time spent with family, sitting at Sinquerim watching the sunset whilst sipping on Shantaram's wine in the company of the cousins, etc.. etc.. The list is endless if you sit down to capture this moments. Today, I experienced one of these magic moments when I finished 3 major tasks at office by completing a report and an analysis and delivering a client training successfully. While its not a big deal by itself, after the strain of the past week, its a real pleasant feeling to just chill , relax and think of nothing ahead other than the weekend. Friday evenings are truly the best times and most awaited of the week surpassing the actual saturday and sunday itself....!!

Life- A musical odyssey

The sense of sound and music is a wonderful gift given to us by the supernatural one. Music, and songs can define so many moods. Just by listening to a song that some one is playing, you can understand the kind of emotions and mood that the person is in. There is a song and a tempo to match every kind of emotion that a human being passes through ranging from rage, anger, sadness, fear, to peace, nostalgia, happiness, excitement, joy, from depression over losing a loved one to happiness over a successfully broken relationship :), eg. 'You're not my kind of girl' by the band Zero.

Looking back on the last 24 years, there's been a constant change in the music that I listen to. Some wise man truly said that the only thing that is constant is change. The earliest songs that I can remember listening to were an old tape of nursery ryhmes that were passed on from my bro n sis on to me. This was way back in the late 80's! I was abt 4-5 years I think than.

Through out the 90's, I remember being a devoted and dedicated hindi music listener. Thankfully, puberty struck and i grew wiser. :) nevertheless, those 90's days helped me many a time in surprising folks during Antakshari sessions.

Around the late 90's, I begin to listen to retro and pop music. I remember listening to the boybands and thinking wow, this guys are great. I remember a conversation i had with 2 of my friends , Ashwini and Siddharth where in me n Ash were defending the back street boys against Siddharth who professed to hate them.hehe...Sid killed me for that in engineering later when he n every1 else made fun over the same fact. But it wasn't so bad coz, the god of guitar and rock in PCCE, Danny denzongpa,(name changed to protect privacy) himself confessed to being a huge N-Sync fan who bought all their tapes and practised to dance like them...

Engineering brought yet another taste change as I started listening more to metal and rave. Engineers always seem to have this taste for heavy metal and rock for no apparent reason. All the great rock fests in India are all at college annual fests. Head-banging was in!! memories of those 4 years will forever remained engraved in my mind. Especially the 10 from the final college day snap, but that's the subject of another day.

Post-engineering and during my one year at IMS, i developed a liking for old school rock, good old ballads from the 70's, 80's, 90's. Its still a very prominent part of my playlists today and most of them form a folder called All time favourites on my c-drive.

Lately, I been listening to a lot of Indian rock. A lot of really talented good bands out there who have written some really good music. Music from Zero, Parikrama, Motherjane, Rainbow bridge, Junkyard groove, Metakix, Vayu, Prestorika ... the list goes on...Also listening to a lot of bass driven tracks by Artic monkeys and Red hot chilly peppers etc...

Indian music is definitely on its way up. The only problem is that in India, the only music that sells casettes is hindi film music or indipop. The english rock acts either have to sell their souls and play hindi songs or else they languish in anonymity known to only a few faithful followers. These guys are forced to play covers of all popular english tracks originating from other countries and are barely allowed to play any OC's. and that's sad coz they make some really brilliant music.

Here's hoping to a change for the better for the Indian rock scene. After all as I said earlier, the only thing that is constant is change...

The Five Most Coveted Super-powers

Every kid has dreamt of being a super man/woman at some point of time during their childhood. .If you haven't than you have had a very deprived childhood. :)Some folks like me never stop dreaming. But than I still, of course think of myself as a kid. 18 till I die!!!

I watched Hancock, the other day. While the movie was dumb, it got me thinking again on if I were a super-hero, what powers would I possess?? On the basis of my 24 years of life, here are my most recurring superhero fantasies

1) Invisibility: Every guy must have wished that he were invisible at least some time in their life especially while in their adoloscent stage. I have often wished for this power while on the recieving end of a firing from parents, teachers, senior peers and now superiors at work. Also, for entrying parties/ places for free, to sample life and culture in techni-colour, to spy on girl friends as well as friends to know what they are really saying about me , etc.. etc... :)

2)Jumper: Watched the movie Jumper, in which the hero has the power to magically transport himself across spaces and thus travel distances across the earth in the blink of an eye. Would love to have this power while travelling back from Mumbai to Goa or indeed from work to home. Anything to escape the daily trains!!!

3) The World's most gifted athlete: No true Indian would not have imagined himself playing cricket for India and making a magical contribution, be it in batting, bowling or fielding. From what I heard from unfortunate souls who went to watch the recent flick 'Dil Bole hadippa', Rani Mukherjee apparently helped make India make 160 runs in the last 10 overs with one wicket in hand... hehe.. My only thought was, why stop at 160..The makers of the film should have gone for 310 in those 10 overs!! (50*6+10*1 singles at the start of the over to give back the strike to rani).. Maybe the makers thought that this would be impossible unlike the actual story!!

Coming back to the dream, I have imagined myself in every sport possible, a super goal machine for Liverpool running in from the heart of midfield, a champion all-rounder for India, the guy ho transforms the Indian football team into world champions, the alternative sports champion who sets track and field and swimming world records at every event possible..blah blah...The dream goes on!!!

4) The fourth most recurring dream is musically inclined, I have often dreamt of myself being this star musician who could play every instrument and indeed even multiple instruments !! I often wish that i had taken up guitar/ drum lessons as a kid. This dream is probably one of the most achievable ones coz there aint nothing stopping me from starting to learn even today. Just need to make the effort and time to start learning and practising. and then maybe one day some one would consider me with the same amount of adulation that I hold for Joe Satriani and Kurt Cobain and many many many others.

5) The last dream and the one that I wish for the most, is for the power to turn back time and control it to make youth and childhood last forever. Still missing and longing for the good old college days back in GIM although its been a good 7 months that we have been out now. Some how a part of me still believes that its not really over and one fine day we'll all just return back for another term. This period seems like a summers period back again...well, if Only................

What If Eve hadn't eaten the Apple??

We all know the story, God created man. he was sent into the garden of Life (which is some where near modern Iran/Iraq according to the bible), He created Eve to give Adam company. The snake influences Eve to eat the fruit of wisdom (which resembles an apple extremely closely btw). Men becomes ultra-wise and can think for himself.

Now, what if we had never eaten the fruit of wisdom??

Well, making a list is always more fun so here goes the top of mind 10 things that would have happened.
1) Sex is normally the first focus on every guy's mind so obviously we would have fornicated with multiple partners. (No faithfulness required) . Free for all, any time, all the time. (Its scary to think what the population would have been like)
2) No formal school , no 9-5 jobs in alien cities...
3) we would have been naked all the time.!
4) Jungle rules would apply and Might Is Right would rule over democracy.
5) we would all fall asleep at 7 pm once the sun goes down...
6) Women would not be able to gossip about what somebody was wearing for a party, what they should wear, how many times have they worn it before, which movie they liked blah blah blah..
7) there would be one universal language and culture. no issues of caste, creed, religion and all the social divides that we have managed to cook up.
8) The world would be big again as most human beings would be regional living out their lives in one zone without knowing about the existence of other continents and territories
9) A world without multiplexes, fast food, cinemas, traffic jams or indeed vehicles, no television or any thing else that we take for granted today.
10) This post would never have happened (No languages, no internet, no evolved thoughts )

This post is open to further editing.

Coming Soon----------> Stereo typing

The Five Golden rules of local train travel in Mumbai

1) For a crash course / practice on how to board any local train and to deal with any volume / type of passengers, the easiest way is to travel the Central/ Harbour line route from Dadar to Mankhurd. A week's travel on this route is enough to make any train traveller a seasoned practitioner in the art of catching a train.

2) Thou shall not dare to board a train while passengers are still getting down:- Unless you want to risk the choicest of abuses and a few kicks and blows, never try the former mentioned.

3) Boarding a fast train to Virar and trying to get down at Borivali is a sin:- When they exist seperate fast trains to Borivali, trying to board a Virar fast will register you instant dislike in the eyes of many a fellow traveller. In fact, they may flat refuse to give you way. unless you have fellow brethren from your state whom you can plead to in your mother tongue , do not attempt the same.

4) Fixing a schedule: After travelling for about a month or so , a pattern begins to emerge among your train journeys as you automatically figure which train best suits your timings in terms of various criteria of schedules, crowd , time taken etc.. Sticking to the schedule makes most sense as it lends a certain amount of familiarity amongst your motions.

5) Battle of the sexes: While it may seem that travelling with a platonic friend makes perfect sense , in a train it does not. sheer volumes of passengers with destroy the platonic friendship between you as you discover far more about your friends that you would want to know. this is especially true of second class where intimate positions are generated that would put the kamasutra to shame. The ladies compartment was made for a reason and for those reasons it is best to travel seperately. for lovers, well its just another excuse to hug.. :)

The Beginning

been thinking about starting a blog for a long time but never really did so... Kept thinking whether would ne1 wanna read nething that I write? Than lightning struck me (or maybe just an ordinary thought) as I realized who really cares, If I wanna write, I should go on and write.. Freedom of Speech... Zindabad... So from now on, here goes...All future stories will be based upon personal or situations faced by friends in day to day life with all incidents hence forth recited meant for personal enjoyment and not to cause humiliation or hurt anyone's sentiments intentionally or unintentionally.