There's no work in walking in to fuel the talk
I would grab my shoes and then away I'd walk
Through all the stubborn beauty I start at the dawn
Until the sun had fully stopped
Never walking away fromJust a way to pull apart
Dehydrate back into minerals
A life long walk to the same exact spot

Carbon's anniversary
The parting of the sensory
Old old mystery
The parting of the sensory

Who the hell made you the boss?
We placed our chips in all the right spots
But still lost
Any shithead who had ever walked
Could take the ship and do a much finer job
This fit like clothes made out of wasps
Aw, fuck it I guess I lost

The parting of the sensory
Carbon's anniversary
Just part it again if you please
Carbon's anniversary

Who the hell made you the boss
If you say what to do I know what not to stop
If you were the ship then who would ever get on
The weather changed it for the worse
And came down on us like it had been rehearsed
And like we hope, but change will surely come
And be awful for most but really good for some

I took a trip to the exact same spot
We pulled the trigger, but we forgot to cock
And every single shot
Aw, fuck it I guess we lost

Some day you will die and
Somehow something's going to steal your carbon
Some day you will die and
Somehow something's going to steal your carbon
Well some day you will die somehow and
Something's going to steal your carbon
Some day you will die and
Someone's or something's will steal your carbon

Some day something will die and
Somehow you'll figure out how
Often you will die somehow and
Something going to steal your carbon
Well some day you will die somehow and
Something's going to steal your carbon

Am back to posting!!...

Operational Risk!!

Boss, all that I have done today is sit with the operations people of my division and understand their job. And half a day with them and their work has me seriously riled.
What shit load amount of boring routine monotonous work they do day in and day out. I mean, seriously! This backend jobs phenomenon is completely mind numbing. These guys keep checking papers and uploading stuff every single day! And the work doesnt change at all. Pure paperwork and system related stuff. I seriously admire them. I mean, in half a day, I was properly fried and dried listening to them explain their work, and then finally do it myself. I can not imagine doing this for more then like 20 mins.
That brings me to the question- what exactly is meaningful work? What bosses do? Or what these guys at the back end do? And I remember what a junior had told me when i was gushing about the details of my job to him- he said, good for you, but in the end-its just a job!
It really doesnt matter- you actually are a few thousand dollars in a balance sheet worth around a few hundred million bucks. It's just something you need to do to gain acceptance in society, feel productive ( minus the larger picture), and finance our other more interesting pursuits.
More on this later, a colleague is taking us to dinner. Some of the perks of work! :D

'Spit'ting Headache!

Man, Mumbai people have some huge big problem swallowing, man...they sure wont gulp down their own dirty spit... be it the normal variety or the betel-nut juice stained variety. It is surely the most pissing off thing in my life, trust me.
Be it in train ticket booking queues, or from the first floor of double decker buses, or into the marine drive sea or the local mandir grounds... they spit everywhere!!
I mean, what the fuck!!... imagine getting drenched in betel nut juice spit standing on the road waiting for a bus, and a sheepish looking gentleman looking down on you from the double decker bus crossing by your side! Imagine standing in queue quitely and someone spitting right in front of you.. imagine going to do some puja barefooted, and finding the bloody road actually bloodied by bloody pan parag juice!!
I have actually told off quite a few people, anyone and everyone who has done that in front of me... in quite strong words, if i may add....and i urge everyone else to do that same.. please dont hesitate to tick them off, preferably with a defined scowl on your face about their horrible horrifying antics... i mean, aaaaarrrrrggggghhhh!!!... i get the heebie jeebies even when i think about it!!....
I think I will start a morcha or something against these bloody spitters. Wish me luck!!

From the desk of a corporate woman

Yep!
Thats technically what I am now, a corporate woman!
Its been sometime since I have joined, almost a month now...a full blown job!
The hangover of my educational life remains... this coming to office and working on the comp and catching the local train back seems like a temporary routine which would culminate in me going back to campus and leading the idyllic life that awaits its inhabitants at planet-i...
Only this time, it wont... I am here for good, and this is not ending like forever...I am in this routine rigmarole for good... only I have to realize it!
Work is okay, since it hasnt started yet! I had been gloriously whiling away time till like today...from today I have some training routine starting... its again going to be timepass only, but since there would be deadlines at the end of it, I probably would throw in some seriousness to save my skin!...
But more importantly, I AM IN MUMBAI!
Boy, what a city!! It's huge, it's crowded, it's freaking dirrrrty, it's tough tough tough... and yet, its the city in which I have found my freedom!
Today I came to office in a local train for the first time, and I already had my shock absorbers in place having heard all the nightmarish stories about the famed train journey.. but it was sooo peaceful the journey, that I was kinda disappointed!.. no grand train journey story so far, but going by my luck and my procilivity of attracting the wrong sort of experiences, trust me, they wold pour in by the truckloads soon! Then the blog would come in handy, honeys...
People here are amazing, in an observational sense.. they know they have to be tough to get their way, they would stamp on your feet if it needs to be done... but they would be faintly apologetic about it.. as if, if it were some other place and time, he would have said sorry.... when you see the rush of women getting into the train, they would stomp and stab and pull and grab but never look into your eyes or even look up when they are doing so... as if to say, its not personal, its only business... all's fair in love and war, business and Mumbai baby!
For a month, I stayed at the Taj President at the Cuffe Parade... one loong month of luxury, man... the laundry service, the breakfast and the local call service was free, and boy did we make good use of it!!...
The laundry service was AMAZING, boss... I had my entire wardrobe washed out, worn or unworn, I was so impressed!... and the breakfast, man... huge amount of food, of every kind, and of every type... I honestly think I have eaten my whole life's fill of chicken sausages in this past one month! Trust me, sitting on the breakfast table, with a host of people from across the world in all shapes sizes and colours, and with the unlimited choice of food and in a freshly laundered crisp shirt, I felt like, well, maybe I have arrived... maybe this is it.... maybe I would have these many choices in life from now on...
The key word was maybe... one month is long enough for an awesome short story, but it doesnt a novel make.. I have moved in with a friend in Andheri now.. and the commute is god awful, its simply tooo long... but as n number of people have told me since yesterday, such is life honey..such is real life...
I only had coffee for breakfast today...
I had the taste of the hard life while househunting... the rates in Mumbai are not only exorbitant, but ridiculous and absurd!!... its not funny, people, when you pay 40000 of your bloody hard earned money on some shit hole of a place which actually is a box turned into a 2bhk... hopefully would get a good enough house soon, cause i want some permanence in my life.. I hate shuffling through my suitcase for everything and anything, I dont want to be living out of my bags...I dont want to be a forced vagabond!... I want some place of my own!!
But I have to mention whats stayed with me now... I have met some wonderful people in those who've joined HSBC with me... interesting, nice and fun people.... I have roamed around the city unaccompanied, suffering and surviving the people and the shit that gets thrown at you every single second... i didnt take all of it well, but well, i am here and typing... I have gone to pubs and nightclubs and stayed out dancing till 2, and I hope to death my mom never reads this blog of mine!
And I have discovered Marine Drive... whenever things get out of hand, whenever you are heartbroken, whenever you miss home, or wanna kick your boss or rile against your job, you should go there and sit on the parapet... its a panacea for everything and anything.... it seems all okay in an instant!.. Mumbai actually seems peaceful and inviting from there... the sea seems less dirrty, and more romantic.. and the rains actually add to the charm!... its my tonic, its my haven...i hope it comes to the rescue all the time!
I MISS campus! I miss all my friends, I miss the people, I miss the mess, the timepassing, the vellgiri, the late nights, the daaru parties.. the whole bloody symbiotic, cool, a world-in-itself life....I dont want to start on this anymore, since the post is already quite long... but I wanna go back for a month every year... that was normal, this is absurd.. I want that normalcy back!!
Time out now!
Will mail regularly now, since all other means of communicating to the world is nicely taken away from office... no gmail, no yahoo, no gtalk nothing... when at work, 'live' it!.. when not, piss off... quite difficult, I tell you... life without gtalk is like being vegetarian.. you can still live, but its not the same fun anymore!

Back home.....

Its been a little more than a month I have come back to Kolkata.
Yeah, its been a coming back actually. The 2 years in IIM Indore has actually been an anomaly, bot like the normal part of life it had began to seem like
Now I am home, with my mom and my sisters, and my grandmother and uncle and my dad.

It was funny at first, being back home. I felt like a tourist who had come back to view Kolkata through much-travelled and critical eyes. It was weird to have bengali spoken all around me- after these 2 years of looing for an excuse and a fellow bengali to speak the language.
Earlier the idiosyncratic bengali race seemed perfectly normal to me, now they seem like cartoons in their 'paanjabis' and their wrapped up umbrellas in hand. Kolkata was everything for me in the beginning, now it's just a stopover to (hopefully) bigger, brighter and more interesting things.

Coming home is actually like a prison term ending. I have to rebuild my life here, remember the routines left long since, and settle back into the normalcy of my situation. Yeah, there would be no coffee at 3 a.m., neither maggi nor parantha. There would not be a Siby and Deepti in the canteen to meet up with at odd hours. No Manan to tranfer songs to. NO Surya's room to stop by, and no RIcha to bitch with. No Chakri to frantically buzz for help. No Paro screaming Shubiiiiii and no Parry distributing gyan whether I needed it or not.
No Vimal and his antics (god, he is such a rockstar!), no Mahesh and our fights (although he is still keeping at it through gtalk and shitload of work!), no Anoopda and our card fights,No Shreyan and his womanizer jokes, no Tanvi and our little discussion- no anything!.
No TI, no mess, no Acadblock, no melting pot, no parties, no drinking, no internet in my house!!!
Yeah, life was normal for sure!!

I got to doing the things I didnt in Indore. Like read newspapers ( I read around 6 a day now!), like watching TV (which is such an eyesore anyway!), reading fiction (did I miss that or what!!), going to the local mall for movies on big screen (nothing beats dolby surround sound!).
Like smsing people i would meet within a dozen metres of my room. Like going for walks every morning. Like missing campus like crazy!

Yeah, I am in transit. Yeah, there is this strict clampdown on 'unrespectable things' here at home. True, most of my friends are not here, and the ones here are mostly not friends.
But it's still home. The unfamiliarity goes away in days. You then realize those 2 years that were so special because they were exceptions. Nothing comes close to being home. To the comfort, to the security, to the familair faces, and to the normalcy.

Yeah, I am so glad to be back. Even if it for 2 months.

'Guru Bhai'

We went to watch Mani Ratnam's 'Guru' today....loads of us together packed in the same cinema hall...

Mani Ratnam is brilliant, if you ask me....I dont remember one movie of his which didnt leave a lasting impression...okay, so 'Dil se' was a little half baked and definitely awkwardly concluded....I adore the rest....Yuva, for example (although having an exaggerated climax) was so true to the idealistic life our fathers had thought of back home in Bengal, that I would so relate to it....the notion of clinging onto the idea of being the Jesus of the masses...of being rich and brilliant and talented, and purposelessly so ...and finding your passion in trying to change the world...I love the romantic ring to it, and the fact that I have heard so many stories about it in my childhood....

Anyway, the movie 'Guru' is almost entirely based on the life of Dhirubhai Ambani...the main protagonist is also called GuruBhai...its a story of one man on a mission, and in a hurry to get there...he wanted to do 'biznisss' (with the god awful gujju accent)...and his life was determined by profits made...shrewd and extremely cunning about subverting rules and license raj regulations ....he had interesting ideas of going against rules, man....of buying 6 spinning machines and 6 as spare machines, not paying duty on the spare 6...and then using them in the factory as normal machines anyway, doubling output...ingenously unscrupulous!...

But India adored him. He was the darling of the masses, mainlly because he showed them the glory of profit-making. Indians used to look down on such commercial pursuits as running after profits and all that...banias and traders were necessarily uncouth and unsphisticated and greedy...it was an almost an insult, being called a bania....

But he made making money appear romantic...that unabashed pursuit of growth and returns is the way to get to your dreams....India woke to a totally different agenda....

When stories of his shady deals and underhandedness came to the picture, there was public outcry....India does claim to have an exalted sense of morality....but once he was exonerated to an extent, the adulation came back and came back stronger.....he was every aspiring middle class guy's hero...and he was protrayed like that in the movie....

About the movie, I loved the first half....the narration is always free flowing...the events very very clearly linked....and the characted are consistent and well fleshed out....every one has enough to do, and they fit seamless with the narrative...actually, you dont judge Mani Ratnam by these factors anymore...I think he has gone beyond that....

The acting, well... Abhishek Bachchan is a ROCK STAR..he is brilliant in the movie....no one could have done it better, I think..his gait, his mannerisms, his dailogue delivery, his gestures..I think they were awesome...and of course, Madhavan-sure, smart, confident and very very calm....very neat performance....Surprise!!.. Mithun Chakravarti, awesome turn as the upright editor of the independant who loved GuruBhai but fought him in public over his scruples...I dont know why Indian Cinema doesnt afford roles of such meat to people of his age and experience...my god would they be a treat to watch....

Among the women, I really like Vidya Balan....I think she is funky and smart and not self conscious...she's someone I would like to hang out kinds...very small role, mainly as a counter to Madhavan in his crusade against Guru...but good enough potrayal of a lively, chirpy girl suffering from multiple sclerosis disorder.... Ash, well...it surprises me how much she gets to cry in every movie man....its like she is every director's favourite actress when it comes to spraying out emotions....the role didnt demand much, and she did it okay....actually, I am not a great fan of hers...I think she feeds off her looks too much and she takes it as her duty and her obligation to be extra feminine and graceful....you cant do that, and yet be believable, you know...

Anyway, Ishu raised this question that if this guy is so unscrupulous, then why did the mass adore him anyway?...

Good question, methinks...my take on it....he had introduced India to the charms of making money and having vision ...and that too, really quickly...people soon realized that money is a means to happiness..or at least, marrying you daughter off or buying your car to make your lives easier....and he made the money for them...and he was one of them, a coming-from-nowhere bum chum who takes over the industrial world...he fought the original family wealth patriachs...somethign everyone in newly independant India wanted to do....he had a romantic, aspirational halo to himself...he became everyone's favorite success story...obviously, people in important positions wanted him to be exposed and wanted his spiral to curb....but the masses wanted to believe this was possisble without any shadow of doubt...they wanted to believe him, and so when he was exonerated, they fell right back on his lap....his story has the same irrationality that adds the spice to every Indian story worth telling...and a very good one at that...

Now, after writing loads on Gurubhai, I shall go on and research on DhiruBhai...I want to know more about the man who is an icon beyond comparison in India....I know very general stuff about him, but now it seems his life is worth knowing more about..

Tata!

'Whats your status?'- Part II

You find inspiration in a variety of places
In city buildings, or in people's faces
In the cradle of nature
Or in status and stature
In what you do, or where you go
What inspires you, you never know!

Gtalk has this wonderful little feature called status msges...you get to put words, lines, poems, quotes, commentary, dialogues , anything..right alongside your name and your picture..damn cool, like a personal hoarding of sorts....and its customizable..you can write what you feel today, what happened yesterday, who said what, any poem you liked, any thing you wrote yourself....you want to announce something, well, you go right ahead!!....all our fest organizers use it sometimes to declare or announce events and all....so, its cool...

sometime back, i got this panic attack to write.....not just anything, but specifically for status msges...its like a regular chornicler for me.....i would write them, and buzz my friends and ask them to check them out..shameless self promotion...in a way its written for me by me, but i would solicit some praise and some comments through them...:P.... and the friends generously did what i asked them also..too cool!

i have them all saved, and here they are.....if anything or anyone of them is reproduced, i shall seriosly sue for copyright violations...you cant take away from me what may be a major revenue earner for me in the future.... :)

• The first: This was written when one of my juniors was in acute discplinary problems...he was going to be expelled for sure, for a crime which was as myriad as they come....its the randomness of everything which made me write the poem...and i quite like the ring to it...and guess what...a friend in SP Jain management school actually had this as her status msg for some time...and when i enquired where she got it from, she said she got t from a friend who got it from one other friend who got it from another....so basically, its spreading!!!.....:)

Life like’s that,
A pat on the back,
A shrug of the shoulder,
A big trouble holder,
A twinkle in an eye,
A deep deep sigh,
A person you love,
A wonder treasure trove,
A choice too many,
A bet on a penny,
A wish so true,
A missed chance to rue,
A tit for tat,
Life’s like that.

• Second: Never mind the background, I simply like this little piece (grrrrrrr Siby!!!)
  

I don’t know what went wrong,
When all seemed to be on a song,
The song lost tune,
Cut, dry and prune,
Stranded on the street,
Skipping too many beats,
The hurt doesn’t end,
The words don’t bend,
You need to know why,
It’s this awry,
Answers don’t come,
Reasons, none,
You get up and go,
Think, ‘I loved him so’

• I am not laying out any dope on this also....!!

It’s like the thought you can’t think,
It’s like the clue you can’t link,
It’s like the answer you can’t cheat,
Or the crush you can’t meet,
It’s the turn you can’t take,
Or the illness you can’t fake,
It’s the truth you can’t disown,
It’s like feelings you don’t own,
It’s like a habit you can’t give up,
It’s a mistake you can’t pull up,
You never know what it is,
And that’s the way you like it!

• This one is for the only one who understands it in the world...i hope he reads it!
  

Beaches and Peaches,
Hits and Misses,
Honeys and Moneys,
Riders and Spiders,
Bonds and Ponds,
Girls and Pearls,
Goods and Hoods,
Thighs and Spies,
James and Fames,Asses and Lasses

• Taking out the frustation of resumes submissions and placement talks and company analysis and thinking about the future, here is a piece in revolt. :)

Its war, isn’t it?
Looking to fit right in,
A race to the finish,
Aggression, the only wish,
Impression is key, friend,
Its like tactical points gained,
Friend or foe, no matter,
It’ your career on a platter,
Struggle, get ahead, compete,
Vie, impact, fight,
And in the midst of it,
Do try to meet and greet,
The person you are,
It’s is not that far,
Because tomorrow who knows,
You’ll have less friends than foes,
Then you might regret,
Missing yourself somewhere

• The last one for now. This one was written in angr over a course's group meeting and all. Regular routing that is, but since i was in such a flow that time, even that became inspiration for a rather insipid peom...

Sometimes, the best thing to do,
Is to polish your own shoe,
Not look at the shine of others,
Or their mother and their fathers,
In the end, it’s your walk,
While others talk their talk,
So, rid the dirt stuck like glue,And polish your own shoe