the sunshine...the novel....and the fortune i dream of.....

man is a stupid animal. And the stupidity derives from his intelligence. Wow, i am not fit to write this at this moment....but what the heck...who's gonna read it neways

well am home in delhi...in this crazy season called winter but the best part is the sunshine i get in the balcony....

the day before we had a badboys get-together...well a really small one....with S, Addy, P and me. I was looking forward to it...had not P for a long time (if we discount the skype chats from china)...and moreso cos I had not had a drink for a long long time....

but things have changed....it was not the same IMT style gathering.....we have moved beyond beautiful songs and ghalib's shayari....fair enuff....evrything has its life...but the new topics were something which made me uncomfortable.....'twas money....with five million dollar wine bills and 'leven thousand mobile bills discussed or rather flaunted....it was not the usual badboys bakar...and did i forget the case of two "dudes" who started as roommates moved on got married...got divorced and are back as roommates again...all in an year or so...the focus was all on the new lifestyle that the new money was bringing....and i just could not relate to it....it was not the others were approving of it...but they were accepting it at face value and were able to be indifferent towards it....i somehow couldn't....yeah i am a weakling...hah

i childhood there are things that are "strictly forbidden"...there are a few amongst these that most of us try out...but then there is a tiny group one understands would not be forgiven and we learn to live without it....the problem is that as much as i try and believe that i am open to new ideas the list i have built for myself is fairly long....the world today believes in shortening this list and i am too old fashioned or maybe too weak to shorten it.....but then i enjoy what i do...which may also include criticising a few things in my "strictly forbidden" list.....comeon we all like to believe money is not the thing...or atleast thats how it was in college....but the others could make strong statements putting money above all else.....

i have serious thoughts about not going to ISB now....i don't want money to be foremost....and i have not paid the acceptance deposit till now....:)....yeah 30th is the last date.....

and the day after P missed his flight to Patna....was with him till around 7 in the evening trying to get him into a train...finally managed to have him seated outside the toilet (on his bag) in sleeper class....gawd....that was one tough journey.....but then if i go to ISB would i be able to spend those hours with him....

and the day after i sat in the sunshine for 6-7 hours....reading a novel....or atleast trying to...gawd could life be better.....you read a para....close your eyes..catch a nap for five mins....and then read the next para...and doing it for 7 hours with no worry in the world.....and in those small naps dreaming of the fortune you are going to make when the days change.....and joining ISB would probably take away that dream that chance to sit in the sunshine.....that novel....i want to linger on with.....wats the point????.....but the hard fact is that i would have to join ISB....resist as I may......peer pressure is bound to get the better of me....i am real weak there...

but then someone suggested try and find a way out of the mess but to do that you need to enter the mess once.....yeah all this can be avoided....but then how'd i know that avoiding the mess was better unless i come through it....:)

Got it....

Got it??...or is it them who got me..??...yeah the ISB results came out today...and they have selected me....:)

it's kindda funny...i thought i'd be happy...not that i'm not...but the feeling of relief is what beats everything else...i've come a long way since Symbiosis rejected me....yeah they did....and did i hate my MCA.....now they welcome me to the b-school that has come out tops in the placement ranks the past two years.....do i love life's sense of humour or what....

a funny thought did pass through my mind today...now that i have proved what i wanted to (to god knows whom)....whats the point joining ISB...i'm happy with ....my job in RBI....andwith the money i get...... i can certainly do without a bigass loan....Dad says i'm scared of heights....nah...i am not....par phir bhi kabhi kabhi mere dil mein khayaal aata hai.

i've not been so tense for a really long time.....infact i can recall only once before this and that was when infatuation hit me and i made a fool of myself.....but the result has done enough to allow me to have a peaceful sleep for the first time in the past 2 weeks.

there's a lot i want to express tonight but it will just rake up stupid painful memories...i guess its enough for today.

kids growin up !!!!!!....

yeah i know the heading is crappy, but then what the heck, it made sense to me these 30 seconds back and i'm now too lazy to change it. Was reading the blog of a teenager sometime back and the poor soul is trying to justify her decision of taking up a field of study to herself. hmmm...good penning down thoughts helps one organise thoughts better....but what the heck its 4 months to the boards....crap .....have the kids of today stopped running away from schools & studies???....have those goddamn books & teachers taken over the fun of these youngsters????

i don't know about them but my decision to opt for Commerce over science was pretty simple....S.....a one year senior friend...flunked in maths while trying to cover up for physics after taking up Science...and worst of all after missing our midnight walks for a week.....what the crap...i knew i didn't want to miss my walks......the 2 hours of playing cricket....and all the other stupid stuff to some goddamn physics/chemistry books....and as it was the best didn't come to commerce so it made my job of being in the top 5 in the class with minimal of efforts much more easier.....gawd it was a fabulous deal....fun for two years in school and....a chance to compete against mediocres ( i know its a cruel word...but what the heck...i ain't going to heaven anyways)...

At many stages i realised the sheer brilliance of my mind and a queer goodluck the decision brought...

they say science helps on logical building and the crap...aaahhh...i say playing cricket...scheming with friends...trying to get someone's phone numbers from telephone linemen without paying a bribe helps build better & useful logic....don't we live with humans and not machines....honestly i've won more battles against computers by thinking like a human than with sheer logic....:)..."Fool it like a human" that's what my quotation board in the Department of IT says...And honestly i can compete with any goddamn science graduate on logic....

but i guess i am digressing from the point...the thing is why are today's kids growing up so fast???....thinking of decisions which have to be taken after almost 8 months....pressure it is...from parents....friends...teachers ( i never liked the ones at school...there was this lady who wanted me to study for atleast six hours a day in 9th standard...poor sadist)....but more importantly its the desire to lead a good life in materialistic terms...and what withn ewspapers being thurst down kids throats at schools( i don't remember reading anything beyond the sports page throughout my school life...i still read the paper from the last page...:)) and they reading about the salaries being earned by freshers.....the newest models of cars being discussed in discussions at schools....these fortune pocket moneys...aaah...they want it for themselves and thus the stupid thoughts of careers in minds of 15 year olds....

come on guys...if u make ur career now when wud you have that stolen cigarette, that first peg of whisky, the first shave and the hesitant look into the mirror after that, the discussion about girls, the 15 rupee weekly trip to the burger wala....life is not supposed to begin at 15...

Yeah these are all the undesirable side effects of shining India....comeon someone take away some of the shine and give back kids the fun-years...

(g)rumblings....

so am at it again....been 10-12 days since i last made my last contribution to blogosphere where every a**hole becomes a writer....yeah even i live in the eternal hope that someone would read it someday...

Life's in a flux...or is it fluid!!!...crap...i hate these waits....ummm..yeah i am waiting for something and hopefully should know the result by mid december....CAT's been okayish this year...i think i am on the edge on one of the sections again...let's see....

our RD retired this last month....well she's ( or was) the whole & sole incharge of the financial system in Gujarat....atleast the part that is regulated...the ketan parekhs of the world obviously have no masters....nice lady...lot of goodwill....and being the miser am in praising others...i seriously think...if i retire with half those many well wishers...boy i'd have done soem good work....let's leave it there....

what else....am struggling against a few "stubbornly in coma" servers....have to set up a website...and have to install a system of funds transfers for banks....whoops...soem work in the next two weeks....but i am in no men tal shape to do it....told ya hate these waits....

have bought 6 books in the last two weeks...have read just once...so lots to do....

bas yaar...aur kuch nahi hai likhne ko.....dunno know why i wrote the above but i guess RD retiring did warrant a record...i'd like to read it some 35 years later...:)

sabir pakda gaya.....

sabir!!!!...sabir kaun???.....hmmmm

Well he is the 20-21-22.(do i care???...maybe i do) year old.... who used to sell me CDs at Lal Darwaza....well i presume gujarat is the hub of all pirated CDs originating in India....and sabir was one of the foot soldiers....i guess he was the first acquaintance/friend i made in ahmedabad...well his location was just perfect...near hotel paramount...where i get my weekly share of food( read..non veg) and he used to be just next to it....

it started around 2 years ago....i was one of his regular customers...and we had our share of discussions...if i may call them so....one being when i pestered him about why he was into this illegal business...and he pointed to the row of beggars outside mosque nearby and asked...wahan baith jaaon kya????...and another when he wanted a bank account with an ATM card....despite my numerous encouragements he could never garner the courage to go to the SBI branch barely 20 steps from his laari....

well yesterday after killing the CAT...or rather being killed...(yeah again!!!!)...went for my food...and cudn't find sabir after that....was surprised but decided to come back in the evening....again..no sabir....went to the laari which i presumed was his....and found a boy ..no more than 12 rattling the names of the latest block-busts(..or blockbusters..were they???)...i asked him...sabir ki laari yahi hai kya???....he replied...nahi saab sabir bhai to pakda gaya...uski laari thane mein hai???. ...pakda gaya???..."haan" he said....and there it ended....don't know if i'd ever see him there again...but the words stuck on....Sabir bhai pakda gaya....

but...woh bhaag kisse raha tha jo pakda gaya???...from hunger....from dependence...from suffering of his family....or maybe.a bigger crime....none...maybe all....but am sure police would have a different name for the being chasing him.....but the bigger question that struck me was...how is it that all the Cd sellers i have seen are muslims????....i couldn't help but draw parallels between the crack trade in the states and the particular community involved in that ( yeah!!! a hangover from freakonomics)....maybe i'm right...maybe not...but the fact is all the illegal work i see in this city be it selling pirated books..Cds or bootlegging its by and large one community which is involved .....this certainly couldn't be a coincidence....and the fact is the youth involved in it were convinced that this was much better than sitting in the row of beggars outside the mosque...can we fault them???...i couldn't...

well a few of my thoughts were vindicated by the report of a committee ( set up by the Govt) recently....the problem they found was lack of education primarily...and at a higher level lack of oppurtunity....but so much discrimination couldn't have been just an ordinary occurence...was this backwardness of a community planned???...i guess the case could be argued from both sides..but i refuse to believe that the problem was hidden for so long.....then what has brought the problem to light now....

well if you ask me...it is the fear of losing what we have gained in the very recent past and looking at shining india we have gained quite a lot....so the basic fear of "haves" from "have nots"..has raised its head and people have understood that the community left behind also needs to be brought to a level where it doesn't get so desperate that it attacks the " haves" to get its share...in other words make them have something..albeit a small something.... but one that makes them feel like haves and let them have something that they may fear losing....hmmmm....

Another question that sprang-up that time was..."Does the present state of muslims in India after 60 years of independence justify the creation of Pakistan?????"...well honestly i couldn't find an argument against it.....

hmmm...stupid crap....the point is sabir pakda gaya...and a 12-13 year old...sameer...or shahid was it????( who cares anyways) has taken a step out of the row of beggars outside the mosque and set up his laari which may land him a stint in the jail before he is out of teens.....

is someone doing something???....and the worst most humiliating part is that i can't do anything...coz one i don't have the courage, stamina or dedication to do something...and secondly...i can't really bring my self to say "i care"...but the silver lining behind the cloud is that someone has started thinking and the recent report is a step in that direction....rest assured i would be following developments on that front very closely....

and one more of our discussions i remember....i don't know if it makes sense here.....i remember watching a few beauty pageants and a oft repeated question is " What would you want to be reborn as??"...i have seen most of those dumb girls saying no-one in particular....and over years i have reflected over the same question and have predominantly received one of the following two answers..." as myself again" or "noone in particular, but with the same mind"....implying that most people i knew were to quite some extent impressed by themselves and were quite happy with their situations.....well sabir answered it a bit differently..." i 'd like to be born as anyone but me".....hmmmm...i guess someone needs to make the sabirs of this world love themselves....or ensure conditions where they begin to love their lives, their circumstances and wish to be born as themselves again..... anyone listening????

Interview....had it....

hmmm...had the interview yesterday....in Mumbai....maan the city is dirty...everytime i go there i know i would never want to stay there for long....luckily reached in the morning and had a return train at 10 in the night....

the interview was at 4:40....wierdness again....my name was put in white font on a white sheet....what the heck....i cudn't find it there...the ppl called up hyderabad and were told of the error in printing....aur upar se saala hotel waala was outright rude....bloody hell...interview nahi hota to ek do dilli style gaaliyan suna ke aata....

the interview went fine ( well atleast i think so)....my low work-ex seemed to be an issue....what the heck...three years of managerial experience in the central policy making body of the world's largest democracy is less....whatever..le's see...if they take me...good for them...if they don't...well their loss would be bigger than mine...:)

they haven't ...they have....technically not as yet....

hmmm....weirdness and i go back a long way. Would share those past stories fursat mein. For today though the ISB interview story would do fine.

I had given my choice of interview centre as New Delhi. Some queer luck the interviews for Delhi clash with CAT ( told ya weirdness has a bond with me). I called up ISB and enquired if Delhi dates would be changed as the CAT (& mouse) game is played by almost 2 lakh aspirants every year and cud be that some other Delhi fellas are in the same boat as me (trying for the IIMs again). They Informed me it may not be so. I dropped them a mail to change my location to Mumbai (which are scheduled a week earlier). Got a self generated mail that admissions office is busy and would get back in a few days. I called them over the telephone and requested them to help me. They advised me to put in another mail and within two days i got a mail saying that my interview location had been changed to mumbai in the "backend".

Well yesterday they gave out calls for mumbai and lo-behold my status hadn't changed. Was I upset or was I upset. Went for an early lunch and in a rage ate 7 pooris ( I had been avoiding them for 3 months as I was trying to be in shape for the interview). Came back checked my status again...same response. Gathered some courage and called up ISB. A lady answered the following is the conversation

Me : I believe the list for Mumbai interviews is out

Lady : Yeah it's just been released.

Me: Apparently it seems I have not been shortlisted, but i had changed my centre from Delhi to Mumbai, I hope there's no confusion as regards that coz my status hasn't changed.

Lady: Status is same??? ( was I talking in Hebrew!!!!)

Me: Yeah it shows application is to be evaluated.

She asked me for my details and told me to hold the line.....the next five minutes were really long...she came back

Lady: The status would be updated by the evening and you'd know whether you have been shortlisted, waitlisted or rejected.

Me: can't you tell me now??? ( Why did she make me wait for those torturous five mins???...ladies and torture have some stupid link)

Lady: We are actually a bit tied up...it'll be nice if you could call up in the evening....( bloody hell...isn't 4 in the afternoon ...evening???)

I hung up.

the next 10 minutes i decided the course of life for the next five years with a lot of twists and twirls being planned. the biggest trouble was whom would i marry...coz maan ne kaha tha agar padhna nahin hai to shaadi karo....ufff bharat ka abla purush

and then my mobile rang...the number was from hyderabad....i picked up....the admissions manager from ISB...Rohit?? ( he said)

Me : yes

ISB: Where are you?? ( now how would that make a difference)

Me: I'm in Ahmedabad...workinng with RBI ( as if that would make him seek forgiveness...hah!!!)

ISB: apparently, we are facing a problem as we can't find a slot for you in Mumbai

Me : Sir!!!!....you mean i have been shortlisted?????

ISB: yeah...you don't know...but Mumbai seems to be a problem

Me: I'd have it in Delhi then....( I would have gone to mars if he had told me to)

ISB: No No give us a couple of days let's see if there are any cancellations....we'll try and fit you in...

Me: right sure...I'll give you a call tomorrow
ISB: yeah right


hmmm...i did call them today they still don't have a slot for me. I tried to help them by suggesting Pune. " It's worse there", they told me. They told me to call on monday and check up...

So now I know (or atleast have been told) that i have been shortlisted but have no intimation in writing, I could have my interview in mumbai or delhi. my status on the site is "Further updates would be available once the application has been evaluated". The status has remained same since the past 15 days or so...but I experienced a series of highs & lows with the same thing in the last 30 odd hours....yeah it's the weird that happens to me.....:)

my day at the railway station

well...interesting days happen every day in India....the day was monday....yeah the one that just went by....

had to came back from home after the Diwali break....had a train at 8:00....by some queer luck the traffic on roads was non existent and i reached the station (Delhi Cantt.) by 7:20.....asked my folks to go back coz the wait seemed to be too long....and i don't mind some time with myself once in a while......

the station is a smallish one....well compared to Delhi standards its tiny.....the platform was no.3....the usual.....i found a bench under a light....and sat there looking at my surroundings....the delhi chill had started and the weather was....ummm...well beyond pleasant more towrds chilly.....two gentlemen hopelessly drunk sat next to me.....interesting conversation....they discussed the traders bandh and shop sealings in Delhi.....they seemed to be employees of a sealed shop....their talk on the delhi economy was quite informative...it actually gave insight into the world away from the glamour of malls that all of us expect in place of the shops they work in.....they also had a few choice words for the government which are better left unrepeated....

well they tried to make conversation with me trying to drag me into the conversation...better sense prevailed and i did not take their bait...they thought i was snooty....hmmm...well ok...in hindsight the decision proved to be ok as the two ended up arguing and breaking into a small scuffle....

i decided to change my bench and moved onto another one....to be safe i pulled out a book and tried to read it.....an oldish gentleman came and sat next to me.....and the first question was....."arre yeh 7 baje ki rewari wali gayi kya??".... i tried to explain the time was 7:30 ....he repeate the question..."na time nahi pooch raha hoon train ke baare mein pooch raha hoon"....i said " mujhe nahi pata"....guess the best way to end the conversation....but the gentleman wudn't back off.....he tried to make conversation....i replied with hmmms.....but i came out much wiser about his wife's ( who seamlessly became my maasi)...cooking...his two sons...and their studies and the subsequent jobs.....and ofcourse that stupid 7'o clock train that went on time that day.....

a different train came from the other side coming from rewari and going towards new delhi.....it's starange how looking at a movingtrain can make you dizzy..don't believe me???....try looking through the windows of a moving train when you are sitting on a platform.....:)

people started moving out.....people most coming back from work...with tiredness writ on their faces....discussing everything from the cricket team's "bakwaas khel" to the price of the pouch they were going to buy from the "theka" outside the station.....the scene was very different from the glam world of malls and delhi markets my eyes are most used to.....this was the other side....The leeward side of "Shining India".....

i saw a pretty girl....smiling at me.....the gentle man next to me warned me uttering a chaste word that made me understand clearly what the girl's profession was......well u guess it....

then the announcement....the Ahmedabad Rajdhani was delay by 30 minutes......the gentleman complained to me that this would mean his train to rewari getting delayed....his ire was against all those souls who travel in rajdhanis and thus get the precedence over the poors like him who travelled in passengers.....i got to understand how the govt's greed was making the poor more poor in his discourse for the next twenty minutes....

i kept gathering the views around me....a beggar whom i had refused twice was having his evening tea at a nearby tea stall.....our eyes met for a secon and he gave me a happy grin.....i saw a child holding one hand each of a boy and girl(must have been his parents) walkingaway blissfully....i say a boy and girl coz they looked so young....yeah they still marry them off young in India.....

Did i forget the mosquitoes who had a feast on my body for those 75 odd minutes....maan they were real vampires.....

thankfully my train came in at 8:40 and i could bid goodbye to my companion on the bench who by now seemed least intersted in me......

interesting experience though....

i the backward.....

yeah it's started to happen....those witty tenagers have started puling fast0ones on me.....and i'm flabbergasted....to say the least....they say its the process of being backwardised.....yeah i'm getting backward....

well the process is not new....my grandparents experienced it in their sixties......my parents in their forties...when we kids took control and told the elders what new could be done and they, with some difficulty, accepted it......but wait a minute, what the heck, i can't experience it at 25....

but the world doesn't care......the pace is scorching......

to say the least my young cousins arethe modern day experts..right from choosing a mobile phone to which bank to have a credit card from....they are the people to be consulted....coz they know much more than i do.....gawd when did that happen!!!!

but you scartch the surface and you realise they are half cooked brownies and are yet to understand the usefulness of details....well but then they call it collateral damage.....their understanding of cost benefit analysis as a concept is much better than what my teachers at college had....oooffff.....

trust me till date, i have not been able to convince my father of the benefts of a credit card.....but those 15 year ols bulldozed me into appreciating the benefits of using a bluetooth enabled camera to make phone calls over the simple device i have been carrying as a mobile phone for the last 4 years.....

but his late night session with myself has thrown up a unsettling question.....does this change in products used also bring in change in way the world thinks....has materialism really taken over the way the youngsters of today think???...and in this race am i getting left behind with the old world ideals of makng the best use of resources and only taking up the things i can find a use for??.....

the answer is quite unique.....this change of life style...this coming to prominence of trivial things has been happening for centuries....my grndparents appreciated the use of ATMs very late in life.....my parents find it difficult to purchase on credit when they can make payments in cash.....but noneof them stopped the next generation from using these articles....my parents use ATMs....i use credit cards....but they were firmly rooted so as to not be overawed by these things around them...this was coz they at some point in life realized that getting backward didnot really make that much of a difference and they accepted that they did not want to change beyond a point....but i find it difficult to accept it.....for heavens sake they in their fifties & forties could accept their inability to change, i at 25 am finding it difficult to be sucked in by materialism (well that's the way i percieve it).....but then who cares about what i feel........like it or not...as i resist ....I am being backwardised

but there are warnings real big warnings......i wll try and find answers to these and keep u posted.....but till the time i get them....i'm not buying a camera to make my phone calls.....:)

DO i have to name everything...???

Another Sunday passes...nah another week passes.....people feel i am good enough to teach them how to get into Harvard...:)....Success or the impression of it causes people to take note and give you the so called Midas touch

But then that's the way the world is...Success for everyone is what they want in life and if someone else achieves it he is a genius and if the other goes substantially beyond it, he is GOD...yeah....its that hollow....then what exacly is success...

Well I tried to find an answer....success is probably simplicity....the freedom to sit out of complicated races....the freedom to take a call on not competing....or the freedom to not have your actions judged by others....I can think of two people who have achieved it

One is an author somehwere in the hills who says he that in his childhood days he sat on a wall watching the natural beauty around him. An Aunt of his wondered what the little child thought sitting on the wall for hours at length. The author reveals he thought of nothing...yeah nothing...He says he still does it at the age of 70 odd he sits on that wall and stares into wilderness thinking of nothing....That's the freedom of detachment...the freedom of laze....the freedom of living life where nothing matters...to me that is success.

The second is a nameless sadhu serving in a remote shrine without ne cause. He lives there througout the year and helps serve the devotees who throng the place every year. Noone knows his name. No one thanks him. But he goes about doing his job dutifully. He eats in the community kitchen and sleeps in any corner he can find. this is again freedom.....from past...from people.....from reactions....this is also success.

The next logical question is why can't I achieve it.???...Well I have an answer after about two years of pondering over it....The reason- believe it or not- is "peer" pressure. Just because the people i Know are earning high...i have to earn high...coz they have the X car...i need the Y....If they had been earning lesser maybe i would have been happier with less...but somehow deep down i am competing with them..if not proactively i certainly don't want to be less than them. The weakness or the sheer stupidity of all this is, that despite knowing it I can't break out of it....but then knowing what is correct is also a sucess in itself...albeit a small one....( Dil behlaane ko Ghalib yeh Khayal bhi achcha hai...:-))

The first one...

Hmmm....where does one start....
OK life's actually in a quandary.....i thought ihad cracked it three weeks ago....hitting a 740 in GMAT....but maan who pays for my MBA.:-)

Ne ways have started the process....the ssays are a killer....comeon man...accept it that we are all in it for money....why do u want stories.....

Wrote the first draft today am not convinced myself let alone convincing the ad-com....people say delay it by an year.....yeah maybe would do that....

Am tired...half asleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep........nah.....fulllllllllllllllllllll