Livin La Vida Loca

Manish and Me

For a perenially hungry person like me, no other object has a strong lustful appeal on all my senses and emotions as food does. Actually not many objects have been entrusted on my capable hands since childhood because of the great trust my parents had on my handling skills. So the sheer pleasure and bliss of banging the family car into the ubiquitous cycle rickshaws on the streets of North Kolkata never came my way. I had to manage the same feat with the driving school car that I had finally been allowed to drive after quite a few disastrous performances with the cluth, brake, accelerator and gear combination. Well the huge hit on the back of the cycle rickshaw almost had the whole of the rickshaw puller community prying for my blood but still it was quite a blissful feat considering that I was at that point of time quite impressed with Ricky Martin's "Livin la vida loca" number. Much to my parents displeasure of spending a whooping amount for the driving lessons I never did manage to get my driving license made in the "City of Joy" as the RTO authorities did not want me to turn it to the "City of Disasters". Barring the fact that presently I do have a driving licence issued by the Gujarat government, nothing really has changed. I still am not entrusted with anything that resembles a four wheeler by any one, neither a three wheeler. And from the time I landed up in Bangalore, I have been at the mercy of autowalas who have been held prime accused for my ever bleeding pocket.

After all life has been the same as Ricky Martin's "Livin la vida loca" song in the last 10 months after Mr. Ratan Tata handed me a piece of paper that proclaimed the fact that I had finally been able to complete the degree called MBA, that was supposed to take me places without even indulging in anything as sacred as studying. And plus I had a job at hand at one of the largest software services company of India. Though I had not the slightest clue what I would be doing in a technology company considering the fact that my knowledge of technology was at the same level as Mayawati's knowledge of nuclear physics, but still who cared as long as I was being paid well for it. The first two months at Hyderabad, after joining the job was the so called honeymoon period with nothing more to worry than the ridiculous food that the food courts of the office served at night time and a test in which 95% of the batch flunked. The so called luxury of staying in a company managed guest house that had a TV, iron, electronic safe, tea maker, AC rooms and 24 hours running hot water soon came to an end with the imminent transfer after the two months of training.

That is when Bangalore happened. For a person who never did manage to have a bank balance that read anything more than 500 rupees at any given point of time had to manage with giving 40 thousand rupees as the 10 month advance. For a person who shrugged at the slightest mention of washing clothes in the MBA days and was always on the lookout for handing out his undies to the famous dhobi of IMT for cleaning (against the dhobi's washing policies) today washes bucket full of clothes on weekends. For a person who never had talked for more than a few miliseconds to a very interesting character called DJ (known for his obnoxious eating, sleeping, drinking and all kinds of ing behaviour) in the MBA days made him his flatmate and also got to know a lot of interesting things about this soul in this process. For a person who wanted to be a financial analyst during his MBA days has not even seen a balance sheet or P/L A/c in the last 10 months, leave apart any dreams of analysing it. And this happened to be the prime point of discussion when there was a mini IMT reunion at M.G Road last weekend thanks to my beloved next door neighbour at hostel called Bindra coming down from Chennai. The love hate relationship that we had developed in the 2 years of our stay at IMT had seen me writing out poems on his room's door that ridiculed his age (he was 27 and I was 21), fist fighting, locking up rooms and throwing away the keys, stealing pillows, pouring cold water on each other's sleeping face and a lot of shouting. Incidentally both of us had landed up in IT companies, me in Infosys and he in Satyam. And sitting at 20 feet high on Church Street we bunch of Bangalored souls and Chennaied souls pored our heart out about issues that ranged from the batch topper's marriage with the batch's 3rd topper called very rightly as the intellectual couple, the rishta of a guy from the Placement Committee with a girl from the Alumni Committee considering that both these committees looked like the USA and USSR of the 1980s always on the verge of a full fledged world war. The topics also constituted about people who had been almost on the verge of joining their fourth job in the 10 months since the convocation day, about failed relationships about all the fun that had literally come into non-existence after last April, about how we had stopped protesting and seemed to care the least if someone called us techies instead of managers. The pack having representation from all major IT companies like Wipro, Satyam, i2 and Infosys finally were able to solve a puzzle of why the IT tag on the forehead of an MBA was more difficult to wipe out than the "Mera Baap Chor hai" thappa on the forearms of Vijay in Deewar. The fact that spending a few years in the confines of cubicles for 9-10 hours without any kind of physical exertion and no work on the weekends makes MBA's in the IT sector less and less willing to hit the markets and haggle with the DSAs and distributor. Braving the rain and heat loses priority and the AC office appeals more to the senses and finally numbs it and one sticks on to IT with the same kind of passion as a leech on ones supple skin.

We were literally kicked out of 20 feet high after the waiters realised that we had no such plans of leaving after making us pay a whooping 4000 rupees for the damages on food and drinks. And "Livin La Vida Loca" it was again while coming back from M.G Road when the auto driver was doing a mini Schumacher on the streets of Bangalore which incidentally are narrower than the Monte Carlo race track. And before I sign off with this post I am still reminded of an incident where the Livin la vida loca concept was stretched a bit too far in this very land of Bangalore for a harmless soul like me that led to one night in a police station.....Guess I would post it some other day....till then keep guessing.

P.S. After what seemed like an eternity, I finally have a credit card...actually two considering that ICICI sent me an add on card. Pretty efficient supply chain I must say considering that the dispatch information of the same was sent almost a month ago.