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.

Cauvery Tribunal Judgement and the water crisis...

For a guy like me whose life entirely revolves around really important things of everyday existence like the following:
1.Hunting for the mobile early in the morning to switch of the monotonous hum hum of the alarm;
2.Making a frantic attempt to grab a window seat in the most non-chivalrous manner on the right hand side of the company bus so that the early morning sun rays does not wake me up from the morning slumber;
3.Fretting over the regular dosage of curry patta during the breakfast;
4.Ordering some dish that resembles biriyani in every food court of my workplace at lunch;
5.Making every possible excuse to bunk the gym in the evening etc, a small petty issue like the judgement of the Cauvery tribunal did not hold much of a charm for a man on work on a Monday morning. Now, I know u guys who do manage to read the gibberish that I write over here must be thinking that what kind of a pathetic human being this ass is who does not seem to be fazed with such a major decision regarding a dispute that has run for more than 300 years and the court cases of which have stretched for more than 16 long years culminating in a final order that runs into 1000 pages in 5 volumes which when hard bound and hurled at anybody's head could have well killed him/her, inspite of being a resident of Karnataka at present. But once you consider that the guy in question braved a horrible hangover to land up in office only to find his official mailbox being migrated to some other server, his virus definition being unable to protect his PC from new virus threats, transactions he required which he did not have access to at the most auspicious moment and a whole bunch of errors that need resolution waiting for his dizzy brain to act on; you would realise how Cauvery would be the last thing that you would lay your thoughts on. Its ironic how the god of IT and networking collude and conspire against you and make you land up in a deep shit situation on the very first day of the week.

So there I was braving issues that threatened to make my existence on the project network a thing of past till I heard that the mother of all verdicts about the two part of hydrogen and one part of oxygen was out and that Karnataka was in a very bad mood about losing out to Tamil Nadu. The tribunal had ordered Karnataka to share its scoop of ice cream with Tamil Nadu and naturally like a young kid whose passion lies in licking up every bit of the icecream's existence being told to share was too much of a sacrifice that he could take in his stride. And of course the grapevine of my workplace populary called as the BB (Bulletin Board) began flooding with news trickling in about how there law and order problems were being detected in the city and some frantic mails from the HR department pleading not to spread rumors. And I got calls from friends whom I hadnt talked for months telling me to quit office as soon as possible because they had heard from some friend that riots had broken up in certain parts of the city. So the entire office made a frantic rush to the gates at 3 in the evening to get back home safe and sound. Sadly only 2 buses leave at that auspicious hour for people having to quit work for varied reasons like a sick child needing attention, a parent teacher meeting or an appointment with the dentist. Unluckily the transport department did not have the resources to accomodate a thousand people in 2 buses and the service got scrapped for the day. People who had made desperate attempts to quit office on a monday at 3 in the evening to enjoy a leisurely evening had their plans going awry. And there I was still getting calls from people I did not even remember as to how threatened my life was as I was in Electronics City which happened to be just 20kms away from the Tamil Nadu border. My life was seriously threatened, not by the law and order though but by the amount of work that had accumulated since morning thanks to a not so well done mailbox migration. A rough estimate revealed that I could only think of leaving office as early as 8 in the evening which so as to say is a very unfortunate event for a monday at work.

The situation got really out of control when the HR shot a mail saying that all buses were supposed to leave only in 2 slots at 5p.m and 7p.m and the regular schedule of every hour buses in the evening stood cancelled. The final set of approvals came from the PM when he came and convinced us to leave by 5 so that we could reach safe and sound. I made a frantic attempt to finish off the important work at hand so that I could also vanish from the scene and land up being 32kms away from the TN border as compared to 20kms. Finally bang at 4:45 p.m the office wore a deserted look as cubicles lay empty and we finally made our way to the gate for the security check threatening a project mate called Chandru who happened to be a localite. We told Chandru that if something happened to us his life lay in grave risk the next day. The lines for the security check were breathtaking. Total chaos prevailed at the bus terminal and you could see thousands of heads looking here and there for a bus they could push themselves into. Every one of the bus seemed to be packed with people like sardines. It looked like a mini Kumbh Mela which has seen itself being immortalised in the scripts of so many Hindi movies. The utter chaos at the bus stand did make it seem very much possible to lose your twin brother/sister in a typical Hindi filmish way.

Me and my flatmate were finally able to push and shove and get ourselves into an already overcrowded bus. It was quite a new feeling acting so very unsophisticated in the company bus and pushing and standing on people's feet. Normally the bus journey from office to home is the most boring of things with about 75% of the junta passing on to a deep coma kind of sleep only to wake up near the Silk Board flyover some 11kms from the office and the rest trying to struggle to keep awake by reading some novel or simply cootchie cooing with their respective lovers on the phones. For a human like me who has been used to literally playing gang wars by throwing bottles and bags and even bricks if one was fortunate enough to get it, and hitting up people to get a seat in the school bus for some 14 long years this journey seemed to be a relatively non risky affair. But Monday at work was different from the other days. It was a back to school days experience with bags being thrown here and there, 4 people sitting in seats meant for three and a hell lot of noise and jokes being cracked here and there. The jam packed bus finally left with me being the third person sitting on a two seater barely managing to get my ass to not fall off the seat. Once on the Hosur Road life seemed to be as normal as possible with all shops having their full shutters up and no visible signs of any disutrbances. So it was definitely a false alarm that had made me leave job to be done early on Tuesday morning to save myself the agony of getting abused by the client. The rest of the journey back home was pretty much chaotic with me slapping the bus wall in the typical style in which a Kolkata conductor would stop the blue and yellow painted tin cages that play on the roads of the City of Joy, in a frantic attempt to stop it for people to get down. I got complimented by a girl for the valiant attempt of stopping the bus in the typical Kolkata way. The compliment sounded something like "He just does it the conductor way at Kolkata". Not going into the intricacies of how higly she regarded my skills of being a conductor of a bus, it was a compliment and I basked in the glory of the same.

Finally home came and unlike Hosur Road which was much closer to TN than BTM and still had shops with shutters open, the shops of BTM had merrily downed shutters and had merrily gone off to sleep. Well finally the water issue did land me in trouble not for the riots that never happened but because of the fact that we had completely run out of drinking water at home and the shop that gave supplies had merrily called it a day off. The drinking water crisis at home did make me feel concious about the 270 TMCFT that Karnataka was getting as compared to the 419 TMCFT that Tamil Nadu was getting. Maybe if I was in Chennai I wouldnt have had to face a drinking water crisis as Bangalore offered me one yesterday. Its time to stock up Bangalore junta for the bandh on Thursday. Is the IT city going the Kolkata way now?

Shop till you drop...oops bore!

The wardrobe section of the room I stay in, yah exactly the same one where a mouse had taken shelter for a happy one month before I finally was able to find out the mystery behind the "rat-a-tat" sounds the wardrobe made and was able to drive it out of the house needed a desperate revamp. Well not that I am one of those shoppers who would love to splurge a mini fortune of their hard earned salary on buying clothes keeping up with the latest fashion trends and stuffs that Vogue magazine portrayed as the latest collection but still considering the fact that for the last 4 months I was actually surviving on just two formal trousers, when my office wanted me to wear formal clothes for 4 days in a week it was quite necessary that I do something to put me out of this poverty of clothes. Even the security guards who wore the same uniform everyday seemed to have a better assortment of black trousers as compared to the only one that I had. If the black trouser was a human with real feelings and emotions it was sure to come out in an open rebel for overuse and overexploitation. Considering the fact that all the stores had their year end sales running and all stores shreiking of offering 50% off with a miniscule "Conditions Apply" print that needs a magnifying glass to view, it was an auspicious time to go and eliminate the poverty stricken condition of my wardrobe.

So after office on Monday, I rushed to Forum and in a shopping effort that resembled winning the hot seat in the fastest finger fast, I was done with shopping for a whooping amout of close to 3500 rupees in a matter of less than 40 minutes and I had 3 T-shirts one which had a beer mug all over it, 3 formal shirts and 2 formal trousers to flaunt. The entire swiftness of the shopping episode reminded me of a disaster that happened just after the end of the mid term exams of the 4th trimester during my MBA days. An episode as much disastrous as being forced to see a movie with Jayalalitha as the female lead gave me a rude shock and petrified of shopping. The disastrous event was accompanying Gundu Patas a.k.a Aarti on one of her shopping sessions. A bunch of 2nd year MBA students who had all intentions of getting wild after a torturous mid term that had taken all its toll on us we landed up at Centrestage mall Noida. The journey part of it is also worth mentioning when you consider that Nishant's dilapidated Maruti 800 did not give up with the likes of Madhavi, Nami, Aarti, Anupama, Akshara, Nishant and me packed like sardines in the red 800. I was precariously seated somewhere in between Aarti and Nami's lap and I could not stop my head banging into the ceiling of the car every 3 minutes. Once in the mall, while every one of the other girls went to shop in Westside I was hijacked off the group by Aarti to go shopping with her. I thought it would be a regular thing which would max stretch to hopping around 3 or 4 shops and would result in a purchase decision. It started off with Westside where Aarti spent some half an hour giving me logical explanation about shaded, hues, cuts and styling. Though it really did not make any sense I just hoped she would like something. And she did like two tops on display and I felt the same as Dada would have felt on striking a century on debut and was rejoiced at the prospects of having a half hour shopping spree. But alas it was like getting bowled at 99 when she uttered in Tamil laced Hindi "Haan thik hi hai! Par utna khas nahi...Aur kahin chalkar dekhte hain.." I did not realise what I was getting into. It started from the ground floor of CSM(Centrestage mall) and went up to the 5th floor. Any store that seemed to have anything like clothes behind the glass veiled doors was Aarti's destination. We went to every branded, unbranded, semi-branded, in-house branded store. Pepe, Levis, Lee, Scullers, SF and a lot more of them just came and went on path for that one perfect top. Finally after 2 whole hours of running up and down the entire mall and visiting every store that it housed Aarti finally declared that enough was enough and she was going back to Westside to buy the same top that we had seen at the onset of our shopping excursion. I was speechless, dumbfounded, angry, tired and was bored as anyone who had had the luxury of listening to Vajpayee's ramblings for more than an hour. Finally Westside sold one more of its tops and I wasted close to two and half hours of my time running around the mall.

Aarti was full of praises about how I had not complained and how I was not the typical male who hated the favourite recreation of girls i.e. shopping though deep down I had this strong desire of choking her with the same top that she had bought. Now it is true that mom had well prepared me for all this kind of shopping excursions that females usually undertook by taking me shopping when I was just a child and finally treating me to an icecream, but still wasting so many precious hours of life over a top and that too without the regular treat of icecream was quite a painful torture. From then on I was the proverbial messiah who would go on any kind of shopping trip with any female species provided the female species did not force me to buy anything for them or for that matter me. Going shopping with Anu would involve a lot of approving and disapproving. Usually it only lasts one or two shops but she tries out a lot of things and always asks for approval. She took me once to a jewellery shop to get the upper cartilaginous part of her ear pierced. I was pretty much psyched out by the entire exercise and at one point of time I was assuring her and her dad on the phone that things would be ok though I was not at all comfortable seeing the rather horrific sight of seeing the cartilage being pierced through. Last time she came to Bangalore she was contemplating on getting a tatoo done and I was contemplating a sudden heart attack to avoid the torture of seeing a shreiking Anu and pacifying her. Then there is Akshara who shops more like a guy, never spending more than a few mintues finalizaing any purchase. I was overwhelmed when she was done with her shopping in less than half an hour. Then there is Sree who would give me a frantic call at all desperate moments to accompany her shopping. Last time was some 2 days before the new year eve when she desperately needed party clothes. Now my social standing is such that no body really bothers calling this rather abominable creature to anything that looks like a party. So hunting for party clothes was quite a disaster with me and her going down and up Commercial Street and Brigade road finding that ideal party dress that could bowl any guy out on new year's eve.

So finally I am most grateful to these women in my life starting from my mother who have made me immune to the shopping virus. A special thanks to Aarti who tested my patience to such great extremes that every other shopping excursion seems to be a cakewalk after CSM. I do not know if the patience of accompanying a female species would still persist post the very horrifying event of marriage when I would have to swipe my credit card out of a feeling of chivalry. Oh by the way forgot to add, even the ICICI credit card I applied for has not reached my hands though they shipped it ages back. As usual its stuck between Chennai and Bangalore...And I am still credit card less...anyone listening out there??

Weekend of House hunting and a gorgeous movie

The utter irony of life much ironic than being head butted twice like Materazzi is to be awakened again bang at 8 in the morning by the maid again on Saturday. This time I could not resist myself from shreiking a few obscenities which I guess she never did understand becuase of the communication barriers. Couple it up with the mission that I had on Sunday and I finally realised that the entire weekend was spent in waking up early after sleeping late thus missing out on cruical sleeping time. The only time I remember myself getting up early on a Sunday was in Class 11 and 12 when I had to go to this chemistry tution coz my parents and near relatives and the neighbours and their relatives and anyone in the ecosystem in which I survived and thrived never gave up on convincing me about how much an engineering degree would help me acheive a plush job, a good looking wife and much more. What they never told me was what being Bangalored was, about the ten month rent advance which is never negotiable or about what damages one's taste buds undertakes when it is subjected to a regular dose of Idli and Sambhar. Much to my parents and relatives and neighbours and their relatives displeasure I never did become an engineer of any kind but I still landed up in this southern part of Bangalore in a company that has more than 90% engineers.

So Sunday was mission day for the sake of a tortured soul who was sick and tired of staying in a rat hole sophsitcatedly called a PG and eating blobs of red and green mass which was called food. She wanted an accomodation in a rented appartment in which she could sleep, cook and call her parents to stay and invite us without getting the customary stares and comments which are so common in a PG. The first phase of the house hunt was to find the broker who had successfully made us walk across almost all lanes and bylanes of Indiranagar in a kind of a wild goose chase. Finally he showed up at the designated place close to one and half hours later than the designated time without even an apology for the late arrival. Then started a round of house hunting which took us into narrow alleys that led to dark and shady houses without cupboards and horrible sanitation facilites. And the charges for these prized accomodations never seemed to reach anywhere below 5k per month accompanied with a statutory 10 month advance. So we saw small house with no cupboards, large house with lots of cupboards but disgraceful toilets, shady house with no light, house with a big bore well in the vicinity to fall into and the exploaration continued. Even the broker gave up after some time handing us onto some other broker guy who was supposed to show us his assortment of appartments to be rented. Now this guy no doubt had his marketing fundas in place. He tried using phrases like safety, security, affordable, good neighbourhood etc which did impress us and finally he showed some really good and affordable places at Domlur. And finally one was selected alas the bliss of finding a "mahal ho sapno ka" was cut short when the broker called in the evening to give us the bad news that the stuff had already been taken. So an entire day of running around, auto hopping, visiting all sorts of shady places didnt do any kind of good.

The best part of the day was the lunch we had at the rather special Bengali restaurant called 6 Ballygunge Place at Indiranagar. Being a Sunday afternoon every one of those pampered Bengali wives who do not like to waste their Sunday in the confines of the kitchen had decided to throng the place. The place was teeming with all sorts of happy Bengali faces and Bengali music and lots of bulky looking pretty females mostly married in their best of attires. Me and house hunter looked in our horrific worst with all the running around that we had subjected ourselves to on that day. No doubt the Bengaliness (if there is any such term as outrageous as this) of the place made me a fan of the restaurant. Even the unfriendly "Excuse Me" at the entrance of the restaurant by a pretty and loaded with attitude thing nor the bulky body of a self righteous female draped in a jeans that could have fitted two like me gave me the jitters and I thoroughly enjoyed the entire experience. The feeling of being a Bengali at heart and specifically a Bangal overwhelmed me when I saw that they also surved a dish called shutki. It is usually a preperation of dried up Bombayduck in lots of spice and the pungent smell is definitely not for the faint hearted. If in Japan Sushi rocks then in Bangladesh Shutki is very near to that. Food that day consisted of Pabda mach and Mutton which I dug into with my hands. After all it was not one of the etiqutte training courses in my organisation. After all Bengali food was best enjoyed with hands and there was no need to feign any of the table sophistication I was so unused to. The family on the next table to us was seen throwing ugly glances at us as they struggled to have Bengali food with a fork and spoon.

And finally because of a very decent caress of lady luck on me I found myself sitting in a movie hall watching the Leonardo Di Caprio starrer Blood Diamond with a bunch of very talkative Delhites, the house hunter and a lady who was very badly bitten by the shopping bug. Actually another guy who was supposed to come had incidentally dropped out after he got too many calls from mother nature. The movie was really worthwhile for the 200 bucks I spent on it and I was not seeing cribbing about the price that I had paid for the same. The movie was one of the very best that I had seen and for the very first time Leonardo seemed to have left his kiddo looks and acting style to really do a great job as a diamond smuggler. The movie was about man's greed, the effect that capitalism does, about lives that were lost in the unknown, about how precariously the balance of life and death exists in some countries torn apart by civil war and finally about the love for a family that can make a person do anything, even change the way the world things and take a stand against what is wrong. And finally the movie is about starry eyed people who dream of diamond rings who know nothing about the immense amount of innocent blood that is lost to give the pure crystallized carbon its sparkle. Please do not buy Conflict Diamonds is my earnest request to everyone after seeing this movie.