Lives, like money, are spent. What are you buying with yours?

Ah .....good to be back!!! It has been so long that I find myself lost among other posts...anyway ...where the hell I was ????? Well the answer is Office....this exactly the place I am being found these days ....nights. I come back home and crash .....just crash into the bed.

A lot of things happen after my last post and I so want to narrate all of it but Iam no Hemmingway....I remember only few things. I remember not sleeping for 3 days flat with coffee and a chat window and a co-sufferer for company on the other side of it, It happenned early last month when the final show down of the course I am enrolled in came down and came down really heavily in the real sense of the term. Among a lot of projects and assignments and presentations and very little of sleep and rest we almost lost it in the end when all we got from the instructor were " that-was-oh-so-not-great" looks.....our O captain my captain Hagar the "Horrible" worked so hard, she was not expecting this at all anyway we all are proud of her. And we know that whatever we did was great.

Then we partied like crazy....hang on there was a reason for it this time. Shinchan arrived with all the fanfare, the tiny little creature made everyone smile, looks really cute I looked like him when I was born is what my Nani has to say. :)

More Shinchan and the party later it's late and I am working for three more days this week ...ciao

You pay peanuts........

Anywhere I go these days I get to listen to some story or the other about people getting frustrated with their professional lives. Happening even to my closest people. Someone’s feeling the heat coz they are finding it hard to meet their numbers, someone's complaining about their KRAs being high jacked or someone's pissed simply because of our very own, the omnipresent, the omnipotent bug known as the "office politics". Minki thinks she is underpaid...well then again- you pay peanuts and you get Minkies- isn’t that right Minks!!!! (She can laugh and kill me at the same time for this)

I even heard someone complaining animatedly "....and things are so F****** strict in my office, that they expect you to report at sharp 9:30 in the morning... everyday!!!” Dude....good morning.....college over.....not for this dude obviously; I also learnt later that he considers marking a CC to his reporting manager a bloody waste of time, apart from this being a breach to his privacy as well!!!! Huh!! Huh!! Huh!!

We all are working on a massive campaign to save Pups ass in the office, he works with an insurance firm and numbers are sacrosanct there, not that he doesn't work hard, however his luck hardly works most of the times, and hey its the month end what do you expect out of an insurance guy, poor chap losing his sleep over the whole issue. Chotu ( Pups' girl friend) recently quit too, no problems of work pressure with her too, she can take the toll, I remember forcibly pulling her out of her office at 11'o clock in the night, because we didn't want to miss the last movie show. The problem..... Office’s corridor of power, especially in the ad firms... sorry if I am being judgemental.... politics runs in the blood or the on the storyboard in this case.

Sid's caught up with a wrong boss, who is hell-bent on changing his KRAs, making him do things he was not supposed to do when he was hired. And to top it all giving him unsolicited Global Gyan of sorts, the usual motivational crap. "Move out" (bold, italic, underlined) is all I could tell him..... Hopefully he is....soon.

Angies is not happy with her work coz it doesn't challenges her creative abilities, which is true, she's got this artistic bent of mind and there's no scope in her present job to explore it even more. I hope she lands up in a place where she could do that. As they say..."You can pull a person out of an artist but you can't pull an artist out of a person". Your time will come for sure and soon. :)

And Finally Mamu is not happy with her job either, you'll ask me "so what's new in it".... well nothing actually only that her job has not started yet....ya thats' right she has yet to join her first company. She is frustrated coz they have postponded her joining for a month. She couldn't take it poor girl and is off to Kerla now...... hoping to find some peace in the back waters.

My own crib-meter is down a bit for sometime, and its not even a month here so quite naturally I am loving everything at my work place... including the coffee machine...it's not long before I spice things up a bit and crib.....Minks will tell her about "despomasala" in her posts soon.


India lost the match against S.A today. I am a huge fan of Rahul Dravid the Cricketer in particular and Rahul Dravid the Sportsman in general, but Rahul Dravid the captain......not that much.....Good luck next time.

BTW, have you ever noticed during the -after match- awards ceremony.... you actually have three people who sum up the whole match for you....and in the same spirit sometime too!!!

The losing captain- Oh we started well with Sachin in the middle blah blah blah....but we lost too many wickets too soon blah blah blah... we dint ball well in the middle.... some more blahs ...Kallis played really well and more blahs... we will work hard the next time.

The wining captain - yeah the boys played really well...blah blah, Sachin almost took the game away from us....blah blah blah.......they dint ball well in the middle blah....kallis played really well blah blah. But we will not take things lightly in the next game.

The Man of the Match- Ya I started middling the ball very well as soon as they started balling badly in the middle...blah blah....it was a good batting track and sachin almost took the game away from us blah blah.....but Phillander complimented me really well (finally a new charecter)....and we will try to win the next game ....with rest of the blahs.....

Happy 75th Aniv. To the Indian cricket :)

Saturday special- Weekly Review and some more crap

Trust me on this, nothing at all; at least nothing at all interesting happened to me the whole last week!!!! That's how sad my life is. Well apart from maybe the start-up thing finally waking up to some action. I didn't meet anyone new, I didn't go out pubbing, and I didn't even shoot the bull with Akki after office. And guess what??!! It's Saturday today and I was home before 10. Change as they say is what keeps us alive.

I don't know why but after finishing more or less with whatever education I wanted or was talented enough to get, and after getting wherever I am in terms of my career, I just want to have a lot of fun. Not that I was fun deprived during my younger (sigh!) days, I know few things about having fun. But I feel like getting my hair down (that would be a difficult thing to do in a literal sense as I have just taken my fav. Summer cut) for some years, let's say for at-least three years. I just want to go out there burn my money with my lighter and throw my credit cards at the bartender and just have fun for the heck of it.

Ask me why am I in such a hurry.....Go ahead ask! Ok I'll tell you if you really want me to. For the next three years I can safely say that I will be blissfully single, not much manipulation required here, all hunky dory. After that ok don't go ahead and ask this time. It's a beautiful institution and all that, you feel complete and all that..... Still I have my reservations against it, I most of the time agree with what Angie has to say about most of the things, on this issue even more so. I will tell you more about Angie later.


Coming back to the topic, my problem is that, even the liveliest of the people turn so sad that you start yawning as soon as you see them coming, after entering into this "beautiful institution" even when they are nothing but a mere fresher into it. I have personally seen people changing their personalities upside down sometimes down side up especially when their better halves call. Jokes apart, the fact of the matter is if a perpetual sad look on your face, the disappearance of the word " fun" an being "normal" from your dictionary and lastly your being acting like absolutely someone else, are the by-products of our final flag to a perfect "settled down" life then it's more of a "Kamikaze" act, won't you agree? Angie says you don't associate the word "happily" to "marriage" because according to her she has yet to see two people completely married, completely happy and completely in love with each other. I hope it's not true though. I at least have my full faith in humanity.

Well, while the danger of my marriage looming large over my head, I want to go out have fun so that if tomorrow I turn out be a real loser, refer to the characteristics above; I will at least have some past to be nostalgic about.

Shit I can write crap and how........ I will be in a better shape as soon as I have some oz of Alacool inside my body. Enjoy your Sunday.

The bug biting season

Last time I was bit by a bug it was very difficult for me to keep my right eye open, the latest bug which bit me is knows as the “Entrepreneurial “bug. Its sting will make sure that I keep my eyes and ears open for sometime.

I have particularly noticed in my life that there are very few things which happens with me by design, that's why I have even stopped planning.... which rocks really, well without any further delay what I wanted to say was that start up I was a part of and the client meeting which didn't happen last week, just happened today. Right after work I got a call from Pups asking me to meet at a common point so that Akki could join us too, with the client's place (ok let's call him the prospective client or PC for superstitious reasons for sometime) not being very far from my work place it was even easier for things to fall in their places.

I always dreamt of being an entrepreneur and my dream enterprise ranges from exports to restaurants to other things, the one closest to my heart is still a dream though (more later on this). So having dreamt being an entrepreneur, it was like living a dream, walking up to PC's office with the tails up and with ample fire in the belly, some butterflies here and there too.

Everything went ok, the project looked exciting, the PC is a young enterprising sort of bloke himself and is open for ideas and change, making it easier for us to make up our mind and take the plunge. With entrepreneurship comes the part where you end up burning a lot of midnight oil and looks like our time starts now too..... Let's burn those people hoo hoo hoo. Mamu was all charged up as expected and the best part is that our 25% variable partner in crime is taking a break even before the game starts. Huh!

Things are looking brighter, the grass is looking greener, and kids are looking chirpier.... Is this my new found excitement or has the monsoon really come to Delhi.........Keep dreaming :)

Saturday Night Drama and sleepy sunday

People when infuriated, tend to say things they don't really mean, they regret it later on, when all they could do really is well...regret.....


So I started my Saturday after office hours at Westside helping Akki and Monty buy things, ok wasn’t really helping but still was there with them. It was kind of unkind of them on me. All I wanted was a chilled beer and chill out talks to mark the advent of another euphemistic weekend, but there was watching people shop. Have you ever noticed when people shop they talk less and mean more as if , if they start explaining things to their children they will lose five precious minutes of their much awaited shopping fun hour. If at all you have to talk, talk of ah the colors, the Silhouettes, the cuts.


I was loitering around that lone couch all this while acquired by two rather dropped shoppers. I wanted to take a quick power nap before the fun begins, but they were really dropped. I managed to find a place to sit under an umbrella holding mannequin but I couldn't take that power nap of mine. Finally, the lovebirds managed to buy something for themselves, meaning time to bid adieu to the retail therapy.


Everybody was there except for Swap and Minki, stuck in office apparently. By the way the rooftop thing got cancelled on account of humidity, nobody seems to mind though, why would anybody if you have a AC room with blue neon lights (ya Akki shares his flat with two outlandish college goers) and good music, with a domestic aid who talks a lot but gets Beer and food on demand, as a value add. Amidst the fun and frolic and funny Sid's anecdotes arrived the missing members, all exhausted and beer thirsty. Minks doesn't need drinks to get her going, she can talk crap anyways.


Between my 7 and the 8th beer something happened, I don't remember clearly but I heard gunshots (later I found out it was only Minks shouting at Sid for something), then I remember my self in the car going somewhere with Minks then coming back , Swap talking about his life with nobody listening. Sid asking for more beer and when we had none, was ready to go to Gurgaon to fetch some more, no one allowed him to do that eventually.


Suddenly it was Sunday morning...Afternoon, yes afternoon. Nothing happened for the whole day except for a splendid credit card deal I pulled out. More later on this. For the first time in months I didn't step out of my place. Ma couldn't have been much happier.

Saturday Special- Weekly Review

Ok, so from now on I will do a weekly review of my week every saturday. Why this saturday to start something so auspicious!! Well, because I am working today but why , why ..... :( tht's to do with my joining a new place where my boss wants me to mug the whole business in no time so that he can milk money,as simple as it sounds. What he does not know though is that his new " coolie" has acquired certain expertise in wasting productive air-time ( heck, if they dont use this term... the way it's been used here). Will post the whole service range very soon for everybody to use.

Ok the Weekly review:

Monday: Office, tried to get freindly with all the people in the office. Succeded intermittently. one lady though looks and talks to me in such a fashion as if I have taken some substantial loan from her and absconding since!! I don't know why but she treats me like a big loser. Sigh! Maybe because of the perpetual female urge of kicking a male ass made me her latest victim. I understand having kicked all the available male asses (which is not in abundance in our office appearently) you don't have much to explore.

Went through the whole process understanding and service matrix ( blah, blah, blah). A normal monday all in all.


Tuesday : Refer to "Monday" last para. Replace "Monday" with "Tuesday". Met Akki after office, glad to learn that I am partner in a new start-up which involves Akki and Pups other than me!!! Thank god, I would have died if they made me meet the client and say ok so you are a part of the company deal with the jumbo now, very much possible when these above mentioned junkies are around. Infact there was a scheduled client meeting as well the next day which never happend thankfuly. I am excited, even though I know that I will be doing the chunk of shitty work and these two guys would just gas around. I hope to start this without further delays.

Wednesday: The most dreaded day of the week, the mother of all weekdays, the never ending, the saddest the gloomiest. The day when the ennui of a week reaches its crescendo, I dislike it for one more reason, I have to attend the class of the program I am a part of, and our instructor thinks that the only purpose of our lives is to write assignments for his class. I like going back to the class but sometimes it's just too much to handle. Spoke to mamu after I reached home. She wants to be a part in our start-up too. No worries I can outsource a lot of work to her :D....good for the business too as she is more content and less or no guess.

Thursday : Some stupid bee hit me between my right eye and the ear. My eye got swollen like anything, I looked more like a junior artist from " The Pirates of the carribean". Managed to get sympathy looks from everybody in the office...no no I was coming to that, nothing can deter my fav. collugeue from giving me that nasty look of hers. She stood there looked at me blankly like ...so?? you want me to be nice with you and smile at you just because you are being stung by a bee!! Not that "She's got a smile that it seems to meReminds me of childhood memoriesWhere everythingWas as fresh as the bright blue sky"....but I just want to see as to how she appears smiling. Don' see it happening. Anyways, met Akki and Monty after office and they had their ususal doses of small fights-for-no-reasons. Bugs me big time but I love them anyways.

Friday: A haaaa!! It was raining here in Delhi and how!!! Friday cometh... but cometh with bad news, a guy who was in our team in office has put his papers and all set to leave, not however, before giving me the complete download of the clients he was handling so that I can take over because he was instructed to do so.. phew.... basically in layman's terms..... my shitty time starts now. Just two weeks old and all set to die.

Scotch session with papa.....he got all inspired and tried his hands on chicken tikka masala after watching Vir Sanghvi's latest show. Didn't come out that well, although he is a super cook, absolute perfectionist and the best thing... he passed on the legacy to me, so that makes your's truly a pretty decent cook too. The scotch was still the scotch though, ever so smooth.mmmmm.

Saturday: This guy who was to give me that download, was one maverick of a number cruncher man. I spent my day analyzing the things he did in the last one year and it was crazy, he did stuff like store optimization in the most complex manner. I am so disoriented, the heat is obviously on.
And there is a party at Akhil's rooftop, the view from there is breath- taking, infact I am late and they have called and cursed me for I don't know how many times so I am going now. Catch you soon.