Life's grey at the moment

This post was written yesterday at around 11 in the night or so.

I have been Mr Grumpy today at office. Although I didnt let it show I was believe me.
Am I pissed at life?? I have this one question that I must find an answer for. I cannot share this question with anybody. Its pretty confusing. Add to that the fact that I have not been assigned any work. I am a person who's happiest when busy. If I am busy I'll not find time to ruminate and questions like the one I am facing will not come to the fore. But I am not busy now. This idleness is taking its toll. Add to that the fact that I have not been sleeping well for the past few days and you have Mr Grumpy fresh out of the oven.

Have I told you I am an angry young man? Not one of those who are perpetually angry, but those who explode once in a while and God save you if you are close by. I have mastered the art of controlling this rage so if you ask my friends about this they'll probably laugh at you. But ask my dad who calls me Durvasa muni from time to time. The most recent outburst was about an hour ago. There was a bit of shouting and I lost it for a minute. The amazing part is the duration of such outbursts is inversly proportional to the intensity. I was my normal self moments later. I hate it when I lose it.

*Shuts the comp down and fades into darkness*

Me, a movie person?

Its nice to be back in the blogging circuit!

Do you know what happens when you pour hot coffee into a porcelain cup throw it out and then put some ice cubes into the cup?? It cracks up due to the extreme change in temperature!! I've had two weeks that were chockablock with esoteric technical training and two weeks in which I was more or less free. See the similarity?

If you have read this blog diligently you will remember that a friend of my bro had gifted him a slew of Salman Khan movies. Did I hear you gasp?
But as if in atonement the very same friend gifted my brother with a host of other infinitely more sensible movies!!
So the last three weekends were spent watching all of these movies!

Here are some of the movies I've watched and a one line review (Non-spoilery of course) of each of them:

Memento
the "inspiration" for the tamil movie Ghajini (wonder what Ghajini means). Well made but confusing. Good one.
The Incredibles
Very good! Much more than the usual superhero fare you expect. Incredibly funny.
The Shawshank Redemption
One of the best ones I have watched till now. Must watch!!
Final Destination
Final Destination 2
Final Destination 3
Part 1 was great, part 2 was good, but after part 3 impaled torsos, heads stuck in the lift and such supposedly grewsome things induce a protracted I've-seen-it-all yawn. Don't ever watch all three together like I did.
The Exorcism of Emily Rose
Nice one. Somehow I've grown immune to horror flicks. But this one seemed good.
Pulp Fiction
One of the handful of Quentin Tarantino movies. (I knw you knw but this guy was the one who made Reservoir Dogs the "inspiration" for our desi Kaante and Kill Bill)
Seemed mad, totally mad. But when the movie gets over somehow u come to like it.
Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind
Assaulted Peanuts (nice name na?) had written about this some time back. Read it here. I must warn you it has spoilers. The whole idea is about something that enables one to erase a person completely from one's memory and the kinda consequences/confusion it brings in its wake. Must watch.
Batman Begins
Nice one. Liked this quote "And why do we fall, Bruce? So we can learn to pick ourselves up".
A Scanner Darkly
total crap.
Rocky Balboa
Uff this guy just can't go away can he? The underdog story yet again

Eternal.... deseveres a special mention. I was fascinated by the idea of removing a person totally from one's memory. You could remove a person from your person completely and the next time you met, the other person will be a total stranger to you. But I was left wondering whether such a thing is actually worth it. One of the pros is all the pain that a person caused or is causing you could be forgottten in an instant but the con that goes with this is that all the good times will be gone too!! I think its not worth it at all! If all we had were good memories life wouldn't be life would it?

What do you think? If given a chance would you erase somebody entirely from your memory?

And yeah!! Did I tell you?
ANTHONY WON ROADIES!


PS :
This post is dedicated to a person (let's call her Anjali) who does this:
Gang of friends: "Hey put-in-a-movie's-name chale?"
Anjali: *puts on a pained i-wud-have-come-if-i-could expression*
"I am not a movie person! :-( ..... Aaap jao aur enjoy karo! :-) "

Next day:
Sorority:""Hey put-in-the-same-movie's-name ke bare me suna hai? achha hai it seems"
Anjali: *jumping around* "When are we going? When are we going?"

:-/

PPS :
@Assaulted Peanut :
If Anjali kills me after this, take care of this blog man!

Chow Chow Post

Here's what I found in one of the forwards that a friend sent:

**********************************************************************************
Dear Friends,


i promise i will follow my new year resolution with all trust and all pains.........
This is my resolution for the year 2007 ..... (Scroll down and have a look )


is


is


is

My Resolution for this Year 1024 by 768 pixels!!!!!!Whats yours ??

If you can't see the bright side of life, polish the dull side, like me....

**********************************************************************************

Now I have a 100% track record when it comes to resolutions! :-)
Because of the simple reason that I have never had any resolution in the first place!! :-P

K .. bad joke! But here's what I may or may not do this year. But at the end of this year if I find that I had put my best effort into doing these, I'll be more than happy.

1. Eat properly and at the correct time. And dont be the last one to finish lunch!
2. Write good posts . (Ahem ... k this one's a goner! )
3. Exercise everyday. OR Play football as often as possible.

As you can see I dont put much pressure on myself.

The new year has brought a lot of changes in its wake. In the first week of the year I learnt that I have been moved to a new team yet again! In the short five month career I have had till now, this is my third team. It goes something like this:

Join team.
Break ice with new team mates. Go on team outing. :-)
Attend training sessions. Do a lot of study.
Attend a breaking news meeting where I get to know I'll be joining a new team. :-/

Sab study ka satyanash!! I hate these breaking news meetings!!! Hrmp! :-/

The past week has been very hectic. I've been attending five-six hour long sessions everyday. And I can't even pretend that I am listening , because firstly, the work involved is pretty complex and I have to have some basic knowledge just to go about my work in the new team and secondly we have quizzes (apparently the results will be made public :-( ). Hence the break from the tradition that started four years ago in college. To be fair the sessions are interesting, but I am actually paying attention to lectures after a long time. Hence the grumpiness.

K enough of my ranting (and yeah I have a bus to catch too)!

Happy Sankranthi/Pongal to all of you! :-)

Have a great week end!

22 not out

Yeay! Its my birthday today!!

Yeay!

Kuch sunehri yadein v2.0

If you have read "Swami and Friends" you would probably remember how Swami felt when he had to join Board High after being dismissed from Albert Mission.
That was how I felt when I was moved from the main office(MO) of my company to a satellite office (SO,if you will).
At MO I had my own Rajams and Manis (no Pea though) . At SO I knew nobody.

But as days went by, I made friends at SO too, the closet among which are AT,Bhav-Bhav and Beegee. Now AT is from Madhya Pradesh, Beege from Tamil Nadu and Bhav-Bhav is a Kannadiga like me.

Considering this one might expect a lot of "bhashaon ka adaan pradaan". Yes there was, but it started in a very wierd fashion.

Here I was sitting at my cube looking at some code and Beegee calls up. Now Beegee is a typical good girl quiet and reticent and so I was more than just surprised when she said "Eh tapori lunch?".

At lunch that day I was to know that AT had told her that "tapori" meant good guy in hindi.

And to add to that AT showed this not-so-unobvious derision to southie culture!!

Bhav-Bhav and me decided to give it back to AT (Incidentally Bhav-Bhav calls me her "Mubola Bhai" :-) )

Here's a list of things in kannada we taught poor AT.

What we taught: Barole

What we said it meant: Yaha aaiye. (Please come here)

What it means: Idhar aa be!

What we taught: Nanage kannada baralla. Nanna hitkondu tadki!

What we said it meant: Mujhe kannada nahi aati. Please adjust kar lijiye.

What it means: Mujhe kannada nahi aati. Mujhe peeto!

/* we thought of teaching him this but refrained from it. Putting it here anyways */

What we taught: Odihogona Baa.
What we said it meant: How are you?

What it means: Lets elope!

/*There were many more. Just can't recall any right now. Will ask Bhav-Bhav.*/

By the end of this session AT had seen through our ploy for we couldn't help doubling up with laughter!

Another trick we used to employ was that Bhav-Bhav or me would just say to the other:

"Sumne sumne nagu" (Aise hi haso)

and both us would laugh like mad at AT, leaving him perplexed as to what we were laughing at.

Those were the days my friend.

Just when I was starting to feel at home at SO, they moved me back to MO again.

Here are a few pics of SO.

A typical cube. (Not mine though! :( )

Ye tha gali ka road. Ek aur corridor ko ham main road bulate the,AT ne uska pic nahi liya!

Our cafe! Achha tha!

Cafe ka ek aur pic! That guy looks drunk but isnt!

One of the best things about SO was that the airport was very close by. We could actually see planes take off and land. During the first few days would rush to the nearest balcony to see it land or take off. Oddly enough before this I had never seen a commercial plane land , though I had seen Airforce jets land.

SO ke terrace ka view! Ek hasin shaam as AT put it.

Good bye SO!

Since the last post

Finished a two week long induction training course( It sounds like some outdoor obstacle course doesn’t it?). The course involved day long lectures ( euphemistically called presentations). Had lots of fun. So did four of my friends who shared the last bench with me! ;-)

Been to an outbound session near the banks of Kaveri with 33 other freshers. Had loads of fun. Made lots of new friends. Among other things jumped from a 65 feet high branch, constructed a rope bridge between two trees and actually crossed it too. And did I mention a game we played ,which invited (incited??) a three hour long heated and insightful discussion from the facilitator?. If you ever play a game where X and Ys are involved, choose Y,all the time. Guess this calls for a separate post…..

Ajji (granny) got her cataract operation done (while I was away at the outbound :-( ) and struts around in her new shades. ;-)
She says she cant see clearly , doc says it takes time.


The very first project of my life as a software engineer got stalled(or “put to a logical end at the design phase” as the management would have it). My colleagues here started talking of layoffs and how I was much better off than them because I am a fresher… Amidst all the uncertainties , our fears were at last laid to rest last Thursday. There will be no layoffs ,atleast in my team ,although the future of other teams working on the same project seems uncertain. :-( I really feel sorry for these guys. The amount of effort and the passion with which they put it, surely makes this very hard to bear.

The last event will have three consequences. Firstly all of the study and rampup I put in , in the last two months ,not to speak of the trainings I undertook for this project, adds up to zilch. Secondly, I may be moved back to the old office where my pals work. :-) Thirdly, till I am assigned another project, I am totally free (well almost, my company expects me to acquire new skills in this period of lull. Aint blogging an art form and hence a skill too??). :-)

Diwali this year was a low key affair. But it sure brought back lots of memories.. Like the time when bro got hurt while trying to light a flowerpot and fifteen minutes later our neighbour’s son lit the same flower pot (and got hurt needless to say).
Nice memories …..

Operation Chubbyface

I eat at my own pace (read slow, real slow). And my friends are happy. Why? Here’s why:

After the prodigious task of deciding where to eat and what to order in order to satisfy the eclectic appetites and yearnings of the diverse juntha, that I refer to as friends, we settle down to lunch/break fast (and on rare occasions dine) together. Now my friends eat at an insanely quick pace (or that’s what I think) ,and before I can say “gliba”, are done with their food.

Now comes the best part. While I battle my food bravely(did I hear somebody say patiently?), these guys get to do what they do best. P gets to use his razor sharp wit and has us in spits, Anju gets to take retake no 3 (man this will get me into trouble) of the-exciting-story-in-office, Su keeps count of the retake count and points it out rather politely (punctuated with a polite laugh that is so characteristic of him) ,T laughs at almost everything, Aragorn swings between alphenlibeying* and occasional sabotage of other people’s food and Di takes in all of this like a sponge and laughs randomly at a joke cracked at the other end of the table!! Now if that isn’t quality time what is?? So now you know why these guys are happy.

The situation at office is different. No, I haven’t started eating like all of you do.( The times they are changing my friend, but yours truly remains the same vintage self he was.) I still eat slow. But I am concerned about my office-lunch-mates.

While I battle my food (literally if I happen to have the cafeteria’s food) these guys finish their lunch, sit back and talk. And sooner or later somebody brings up office talk which figures around the no of bugs X’s been allocated, the enormous work and the looming deadline that Y’s battling and so on. And I am concerned for these guys, for office talk if taken in large doses has been known to affect humour, health and personality. So I look at the state of these guys’ plates and when they are about to finish, I remark at the enormous amount of food my dear mom has put in my dabba and wind up.

What this means is that I end up half hungry half the time and everybody from my chahcha’s mom-in-law’s second cousin to my very own brother remarks at the un-chubbiness of my state of being.

What’s the solution?
Operation Chubbyface

Now they are two reasons to embark on operation chubbyface. The first is apparent from the above. The second is due to the realization after much research that female juntha has this annoying habit of choosing chubby jokes over skinny blokes.

Here’s the details.

Its pretty simple actually. All I have to do is use the panacea that my Ajji (granny) keeps recommending; which is EAT EAT and EAT!
So I plan to eat my fill at every alternate hour and stuff apples and juices and chocolates and bondas and pani puri and ….. into my apparently lean tummy. So what if I am hungry half an hour after lunch? The next snack break is just half an hour away,,,,

Can I hear somebody laughing all the way to the bank??
Phalo phoolo café wale bhai sahab!

* What's alphenlibeying?? You better ask Aragorn

Random ramblings of a lost soul

Overheard at office: ”I have twenty boyfriends but only two girlfriends”. Bhai Casanova ka koi connection hai tere saath??

Got to watch “Who lamhe”, the tagline’s very alluring.

My dear old Salman-fan brother just got a gift from his friend. Six DVDs full of Salman movies and songs.

The best plan of action to keep Belgaum inside our side of Bharath is to close down Bangalore city for a day. And to air only kannada fare on a day when you cant step out.And to make people work on a Saturday in compensation. To hell with Vatal Nagaraj!!

Heard of a band called Goo Goo Dolls? No? Join the club because I hadn’t either. But these guys have written this wonderful song called Iris. Just listen to it if you can. (Drop in your mail id I’ll mail it to you.)

Why do people write songs with the words “tere bin” , “judai” , “tanhayee” and "yaadein”?? Can’t these people stick with “tu cheez badi hai mast mast” ???

“But for misery there would be no humour”, said Mark Twain. How true.

Have to go to office tomo! :(

Kissa badal gaya

It has been almost two weeks at this new office. Yes I admit I was totally pissed off at being "moved " here cos among other things I missed my buddies and this new office is way too far from my place than the old one. So it didn't come as a surprise then that the first two days here were a real pain.

In fact the first day here was a first half-day. I was happily idling my time away at the old office assuming I'll be moved at the end of the month or even later. I should have continued doing the same I guess. But the teeny weeny conscience I have forced, me to call my manager of my own accord. He told me he'd been trying to contact me all the time (and that's probably why he wasnt there at his office when I went looking for him that day. Imagine him yellin hindi-movie-style strider kaha ho tum!!) Che I shouldn't have called him cos he then went on to inform me that I'll have to leave the old office right then, period!! I put off going to the new place till I had lunch (which usually means ,for me , a delay of an hour) and after the rona dhona of judai, (naaa just kidding) was off to the new office.

The auto guy I picked for this noble duty of ferrying a newly joined maasoom fresher to his sasural, if you will, had no idea where my new office was. It was after an hour of suttyfying (roaming without sense of direction that's kanglish maga!) we (yeah auto-guy and I were a team now) that we ended up at towers. Uff at last here it is I thought. But the towers housed no office of my esteemed company. I called up mu buddies back at the old office and asked them the address of this place (yes I was dumb enough not to note the address when I left) and found that the off is at supreme!!! back to the auto and after half an hour's suttyfying we at last found our destination. Guess I will be the customer of the year for that auto wala...I paid him a whole day's collection in one go!!
Any hopes of moving back to the old office were dashed ,when I asked my manager (who works here) about this small "issue" of mine. She looked at me as if I had just killed three people by biting them on the leg (if that isnt wierd enoughfor you you better go for audition for pysco 3) and said "NO".

The trip back home was even more horrendous, cos yours smart truly got down at a stop that was around 10 kms from the stop yours smart truly had to get down. Are bhai mai kya karu, sab flyoverek hi kok ke hi to aulad hai!!
I wont bore you with the traivails of the second day. You may conclude safely that I was totally pissed off and consideredthe whole episode extremely unfair.(More unfair than this guy's plight who fights a whole series of WWe survivor series matches, wins and then gets a ticket to "Himesh Reshamiya-Live in concert")

What brought the turnabout in my attitude and perception was a story a friend of mine related (and a bit of soul searchingif i may add).
Here goes the story:
" A gentleman with enough wealth to make Azim Premji feel like ,umm lets see.. me, once threw a party at his huge mansion and iinvited everybody on the city's who's who list. Every body on that list as well as the who's he list turned up that evening...And more than a few college going guys too (free me khana aur coll wale na jaye to??) ... As the evening unfolded, our rich guy called for everyone's attentiontowards his huge swimming pool... The whole pool was filled with all kinds of reptiles and lizards (add whatever makes you squirm here..)This rich guy valued courage over everything else. And so he announced a grand prixe for any man or woman who dared cross the pool.The grand prize would be one among the rich guy's money, his mansion and his beautiful daughter."
" For two mins there was utter silence and then...SPLASH .. some guy had just thrown his hat in. After making Sunny Doel's machoishm look sissy like, the guy emerged from the other side of the pool.The rich guy was elated and then asked our hero "Young man, you've made me proud... What do you want? My money, my estate or my daughter?" The guy went on to reply "Just tell me who pushed me in!!" "

Now that you've clapped (or booed in case you'd heard this before), let me tell you my friend's take on this story and how it applies to my predicament...

She told me that my condition was similar to the guy who was pushed in.. It was'nt that guy;s choice was it?? But eventually it boils down to survival and coming on top,,,So whatever may be the circumstances , just give your best and you'll cross the pool, she said.

Hmmm nice thinking na..(I know you never figured that out from the story.. did you?)
So I am a new man ... The same office doesn't seem so forbidding and I have started enjoying my stint here as well :-)

I still miss my buddies but then I have a job to do..

Birthday Blues

The day I had the privilege of visiting RGIT was S’s birthday.( S is a class mate of mine from school). And I got to know it was her birthday, when she called me in the morning and asked me to be at her place for the treat. Later in the day RGIT left a lasting impression on D and me, and I was back at my home by 5. I wasn’t too keen on S’s treat cos firstly I never knew it was her bday before she told me, secondly we have renewed our acquaintance only a few days ago in that reunion and I thought it wouldn’t be that great barging onto her treat, thirdly I had no gift for her.
Just when I thought she would have forgotten that she invited me (believe me I have been ‘forgotten’ quite a few times :-P), she calls me and insists that I be present (aint that sweet of her). I though I might as well take Kirik along but he was busy so I am off to her place alone. Chungi (who knows S better) was stuck at office and told us that he’ll be able to make it only by 9.
Believe me it isn’t easy striking up a conversation even with your old class mates after six long years (unless you are a female). I must have repeated the words “Motorola August 9” at least a hundred times. So I sit there smiling, laughing at all the jokes and leg pulling going on around me (lots of it goes on I was to learn) trying to be as inconspicuous as possible.
One great thing was that I found a person who could eat more slowly than yours truly! That’s D folks. Just when I thought I wouldn’t be the last one again, S’s mother forced me into a second helping and I was the last one again (Duh!). By this time I’d exhausted all points of conversation and was a lame duck all ears.
Just when I thought things couldn’t get any weirder, I found that I was the only one who hadn’t a gift to give and these guys have this weird idea of calling out the names of the people who contributed to the gift-for-the-bday-girl fund!! I sunk deeper into my chair wishing for the evening to end right there!! That was embarrassing moment 2309.
At last it was over and I guess only a person as stupid as I am would write such a post …..
Hmmm whatever….
And history repeats. It was M’s birthday on Aug 15 of all days! And again I confess I didn’t know it was his bday till he called me up and asked me to be there for the treat. And again I’ve renewed M’s acquaintance only a few days back.
Hmmm something’s wrong ( or is it?).. I am getting treats free me!!!
Chal yaar… Never look a gifted treat in its mouth.. (Duh!!)

What do I do?

What do I do?
The first day at the Compnay ended with a bang. Mr. V met me at CVR and told me that I was going on a team bonding/building session for two days the next morning. I didn’t know what to say, and so had to go through with it.
The next morning had to get up at 5 30, (such a pain!!) and had to go all the way to CVR campus. Then we were off to Angsana, this spa resort not five kms from home.
The team( CDMA) is great. Met all kinds of people, the sweet ones, the career oriented ones, all kinds. This was the second time I have had to spend more than a day with complete strangers, the first being the SSB interview at Mysore. I am not a natural conversationalist and it took a lot of time to really get to know my team.
Over these two days we were made to play all kinds of games. A nice way of getting the bonhomie going was to divide us into groups of three and making us share such things as our most cherished childhood memories, one or more dilemmas that we may have faced, our achievements (mine was zilch in this case) etc. Other things like synchronized dancing, a lunar version of Lost etc added a dash of excitement.
The second day involved lots of introspection. We were made to depict by way of a “dramatic” skit, the undercurrents of the company. I thought it was just for fun, but was rather astonished by the way our ‘take’ was interpreted by the HR and the Managers. Hmmm why were we asked to make it ‘dramatic’ and then made to listen about we deviated from that utopian ideal??
Later we had a postmortem session where each side (the two being the developers and the managers) were asked to list out what they would do and what they expected of the other to achieve that ideal.
Meanwhile met my sub team called AS. The up side is that it’s a great team and I’ll work with C/C++. The downside is that I’ll probably have to move to Marathahalli which will mean I’ll have to travel over 30kms just to get to work. Man maybe if the place had a name that sounds better, things would be a tad better; whoever thought of ‘Marathahalli’?
I have to talk to my manager and sort out issue out.
If I have to move to Marathahalli, then we may be forced to move out of dear old Yelahanka after all. Having spent all my life here , that wouldn’t be a walk in the park would it?