eligible bachelor 2

Frantic keyboarding…

Me: (to myself) wow now that’s a song I really like… not bad eh? To get to listen to this stuff after so long… and that on the monorail. And hey, the radio in this one’s real good. Hmm lemme see, this one’s coldplay definitely… the song… oh yeah… clocks… wow. Is something wrong? I mean why’re people staring me down? I’m sure I’m not humming. Giant or not, I don’t deserve to be stared at… more so considering that’s my main reason for loving this place, people here don’t interfere... they go about their lives without bothering you or bothering about you. So what’s with the stares?
Oh crap!!
That’s MY phone ringing. And here I am admiring the vocals. Heh heh.

Anyways, I receive the call and all... Deal’s that’s the deal with being in another country, your calls are so rare that u stop associating a tune with your ringtone.

Call’s from some number in Bombay that I don’t recognize.

I had had a discussion regarding morality and the dress code of the chicks here with a conservative person earlier in the day. If you can call him lecturing and me waiting for the ordeal to get over a discussion… so odd day and all… half expecting a murder or a kidnapping or some such, keeping in with the trend of the day.

Me: Hello?

Lady’s voice: haan… hello? Haan __________(real name) mr. software engineer… how’re you

Me: (to myself) sheesh if only it was murder… or kidnapping at least (out loud) oh… hello auntie… what a pleasant surprise… how’re you? How did u get this number? (to reader) yeah the same aunt from underneath the sofa. (to myself again) phew another half a minute and we’ll be at the station, cant take this much longer, the people’re still giving me the looks, aunt’s oversweet bellow which can be heard in Indonesia if a tad louder.

Aunt: So how’s life? (with a wink) Found any girlfriend there yet? (I guessed the wink… I know her quite well)

Me: Wonderful. No.

Aunt: eh?

Me: 2 questions, 2 answers. (got off the train… major relief)

Aunt: u just don’t change.

Me: neither do u auntie, u look the same ever since I can remember. (to be quite honest, she did look quite old during her heyday)

Aunt: u sweet-talker u… so tell me… how’re the girls there… u must be having a rocking time there

Now if there’s one thing worse than characters forcing their conservative opinions about girls’ dressing senses on me, it’s other characters pretending to be in with the times or ahead of it… “rocking” sheesh.

Me: oh yeah… (really couldn’t think up a better answer)

Aunt: ok listen… if you get some free time from all those ladies there…

Me: (cutting in, in a very definitive tone) not possible auntie!!

Aunt: oh don’t flatter yourself, you can’t be THAT busy either if you know what I mean (another wink)

Me: no, not that, I can’t meet some girl who’s ended up in this country for whatever reason… no.

Aunt: oh you and your assumptions… I wanted you to visit my nephew, he’s in a neighboring town… once you get introduced, you guys can catch up for company or something… and he can help out you know, if you need anything… he’s been there for quite a few years now.

Me: oh thanks auntie, you’re such a dear… you realize I was just joking all this while. Thing is I’m real busy nowadays… client end and all… I’ll see what I can do… thnx.

Aunt: His name is ______ (his name) I’ll sms his address.

Me: oh _____ (his name)!! Name sounds aweful familiar… he’s the one who’s sister is…

Aunt: yeah heh heh… she’s now left her job and is going to join _________ (MNC’s name) heh heh she’s now on a holiday and is visiting her brother heh heh

Me: heh heh how long will she be here heh heh

Aunt: heh heh for a month heh heh

Me: heh heh ok heh heh

Aunt: heh heh her name is _______(her name) heh heh

Me: (gesturing to a girl I know here to keep quiet (don’t want aunts thinking in those lines now do we)) heh heh thing is like I told you I’m real busy nowadays… I’ll catch up with _______ (prospective brother in law’s name) sometime, but not soon…

Aunt: hey hurry up no… heh heh heh heh

Me: I’ll try auntie... I really will. Heh heh

I’ve never heard of __________ (prospective brother in law’s name) and his sister… but you got to play the game to escape from it.

Aunt: wow this call’s going to be real expensive…

Me: yeah auntie, better hang up quick… nice to hear a voice from back home and all…

Aunt: hey you better visit them ok… heh heh

Me: b’bye… yeah… (can’t giggle like a nut any longer)

By the way… the noose’s tightening around me nowadays… I can feel my grip over proceedings loosening ever so gradually. Got to hold on to whatever I can grasp…

Anybody out there with an escape route that’d really buy me some time…

-KD

The city and the winds of change

Was just reminiscing on the life I’ve led. Well I finally found time to do that, as I said in my last post its been a frenzied atmosphere at work. It’s a lovely Saturday afternoon and there’ll be a lovely Saturday evening and same ways a lovely Sunday but yours truly is gonna be in office trying to get his Project out of the red. Same old story, the firefighting continues.

Coming back to the point , I was just thinking about the city I decided to make my home 3 yrs back. It’s a good city to be honest, my parents are happy and my better half happier. What about me? Well I’m ok with it. It’s a good city, its given me my bread and butter. So I can safely discount the morons that control the place and get along well. Guys like komodo , AHAK , GAG, Watson, The wise one come like a whiff of fresh air in a place that reeks of coercion. That reminds me , the coming week is gonna be AHAK’s last in the city, he’s moving back home.

Coming back to the city, the locals call themselves “Punekars” and for me that’s worse than an expletive. The main thing that ails the locals here is that they insist on living in their “Glorious” past. Glorious no doubt it was but Resistance to change isn’t an asset these days and localites here consider it as a positive attribute. If that’s nothing to go by, they fall short by miles as far as adapting is concerned. Warming up to people around you is not an attribute you’ll attribute to a “Punekar”. They’re an intelligent crowd no doubt about that (quite a few of them at least) but then according to the average “Punekar” there can not be anyone else other than them or for that matter they all say “There’s no world outside Pune”. It’s this frog in the well attitude that I disagree with.

With all due respect to the city and its heritage, there are quite a few places of natural , man made and historical importance and beauty alike where you can go and unwind. These are a few places that actually grow on you and you feel at peace with yourself. You don’t need an OSHO for that.

Was just talking to a colleague the other day regarding the BRT system implemented here on some road. For purisits the BRT is a bus service that runs point to point. That isn’t harmful right?. Trouble is it runs halfway thru the road creating bottlenecks for the already congested traffic and the ever irreverent motorists find their way onto the BRT lanes and create an unholy mess. The civic administration has really come up with a novel way to reduce the population as daily almost half a dozen people perish in some accident on those routes. Slow , but effective. Now the civic admin is considering screwing other routes with their BRighT idea. They had a news item on that in the paper the other day. Now here’s the difference. If this was Mumbai or any other city such a lousy idea would’ve irked people no end and they would’ve taken on the administration forcing them to withdraw such a looney idea. Now this being pune, they’ll let the administration carry it out and then start shouting. That’s the way of the people here.

The “Punekar” is of the opinion that the city should be closed to all coming from outside , another aspect of the coercive attitude I mentioned at the start. Once such person happened to come across me and mentioned in exactly the same words and this is the conversation that ensued.

Him : People coming from outside have screwed up the city. They should be stopped.
Me : Sez who? Indian laws never say anything of that sort.
Him : They should make a law which bars people from entering and settling in Pune.
Me : And what would that solve?
Him : at least we’ll save our culture.
Me : culture? Where? What’s that? Where do I see it? And how are you gonna save it?
Him : don’t talk like that , you say it coz you don’t belong here.
Me : I pay my taxes to this cities Municipal Corp. So I belong here as much as you do.
And moreover I think its time you changed. You better learn to adjust to other people. You wont be able to withstand the wave then you’ll be swept away.

The gist of that conversation was probably what I intended to say. No matter how glorious your past was or whatever , lets leave it and set aside petty issues. With the kinda global village we’re developing into , its time we learnt to accept change. Coz the wave that’s coming if we don’t learn to surf then we’ll be swept off into oblivion with nothing but the vestiges of a glorious past to savour.

-Antya

Fortnightly updates

Am back again.. I am tired of saying it again so much so that saying it time and again would give the terminator a complex. A serious one at that. Been too busy and all that sort of crap. God bless Komodo who keeps thinshark going.

2 weeks back I was asked to change my profession. I turned firefighter coz they brought me in for firefighting. Techie to solutions designer to firefighter all in a days work. Do it or Do It they said. And I chose Do It. 2 weeks I’ve been oblivious to whats happening around me. But while I was at it here’s what I picked up.

While I was at it some holy cow or should I say bull chose to impersonate a dead saint of a warrior clan. As we have it in our country anything related to saints can result in violence and this time was no exception. Up north they burnt and killed, property and people respectively. The dude who was caught impersonating did all that needs to be done, i.e he apologized and retraced his apology a couple of days later. They even had a Punjab bandh yesterday but the issue hasn’t died down. Probably after a decade or so the people there seem to have a lot of free time on their hands. The only positive outcome of all this mayhem was that I learnt a new term “Dera Saccha Sauda” loosely translated to “Lair True Transaction”. Whatever that means.

While they were at it our blue eyed band of cherry chucking models beat mighty Bangladesh in their own country. And as it always happens, we always eulogize a butcher for killing his cow. This time was no exception. The only exception that seems to happen these days seems to be in code ever since they started code cleanup here.

Then one fine day when I had a bit more free time I happened to switch on the idiot box. The nasal crossbow is coming out with a movie “Aap Ka Surrroooorrrrr” with an equally pathetic punchline (ask GAG he knows best). He was judging a once brilliant now crappy music contest and ended up quarreling as they always do on reality shows these days. A news channel proclaimed that he was doing this to generate TRP for the show as he’s being paid 14crores to be a judge on that show. But honestly the guy can act. He doesn’t need to act like a moron. At that he’s a natural. But he can act like a serious demented potentially parkinsonized person which can give any S R or K a run for his money.

More recently yesterday the most comic thing. Dawoods sister was finally produced before court and she came up with a brilliant idea. She sent 2 veiled women running towards the court and when the media ran after them she with entered the court in a veil. Media realized albeit a bit later and they said “she sent 2 lookalikes to fool us”. Moral of the story “all veiled women are look-alikes”.

Maninder Singh (former Indian cherry chucker who got hit for sixes often and hit a six once and now is an umpire in Super Sixes) was found with cocaine ½ gm they say. Well finally he’s got his place in the sun.

Firefighting is almost over at my end now which is why I chose this time to write. The gory details will soon follow. Will shortly be back with more stuff.

Cheers
Antya

PS: And just a bit from memory “The Norman Chief was called ‘Timandahaf’”

Gems & Misc

Got to say we guys have been remarkably lucky about certain things. One of them being hilarious sentences/dialogues that we come across in our work place(s) on a regular basis.
As you’d know by now, we guys were in the same team and all… and there were quite a few unbelievable sentences that’d come out of nowhere during discussions, ponderings etc. We call them gems, and generally used to relive them one those rare occasions when we used to end up drunk somewhere and looking at the stars (or the ceiling fan if the party was indoors). Oh and we used to have many such which didn’t involve us at all but were spoken in our vicinity and qualified anyways.

And this series is for that,

Watson: (to PM) but ma’am why’s the data on 23-Apr being treated differently as compared to say 15-Sep
PM: that’s because we have a different treatment for the future and the past records. The records of the current day are equivalent to future records…
Watson: but ma’am, at some time the future HAS to become the past right?


Something that happened just now (not involving me)

Teammate: (to local net admin dude) Hey man, why’s the network gone all slow?
Net admin dude: hmm I guess it’s because the network is taking time.

Toocleverbyhaf

Well yeah I’m an asterix fan. Absolutely love the puns there… Have been reading the comics since not sure when, but I still love them nonetheless. Started off with liking the bashing up part which was fun (way back I tell you)… then found the variety amongst the gauls interesting and then it’s the sarcasm that had me.
Oh yeah, lets not forget the detail in every pic.

Anyways for those who don't know much about Asterix, Toocleverbyhaf is a Norman character. All Normans have names ending with ‘af’. There’s this part where chief Vitalstatistix finds it damn funny and describes it to a whole set of gauls (naming them in the sentence) each of whose names end with ‘ix’.
Actually, you know what… just check it out... no point in me describing it here.

And if you feel enlightened or just extremely happy about having come across a work of genius and feel like thanking me for that, you can do so by buying me a set available in any of those bookstores. I kinda miss the comix most of which were extorted from me by extremelypompus aunts or overlyjelus neighbors. Damn.

Spurius Brontosorus is a roman legionary btw heh heh.

Anyways, that’s completely besides the point here. And kindly adjust… there are certain things I love and cant stop raving about…

back to the topic,

Was having this conv with an old friend of mine. He belonged to the crowd in poona I mentioned in the prev post.

It was about the enemy. The enemy nowadays isn’t a single entity. It’s more like a cloud or a fog which for some reason is infectious.
It’s about the toocleverbyhaf characters in the real world. No they aren’t the enemy. Every time I see a bright young newcomer in the job scene, I try and protect that person from the rest who’d be out to get his/her head by default. It’s more of an instinctive thing. To try and blunt out the sharpness for a while… until people begin to feel comfy around him… no lemme rephrase that…
To try and blunt out the sharpness for a while… until people begin to feel ‘safe’ around him.

It very tragic, considering things should actually be the other way round. We ought to be presenting such people to the world instead of hiding them from it. These are the people that end up doing something. Not the unworthy, frightened clowns who’re so steeped in the ‘cover my ass’ attitude that they’d find the normal definition of a job quite idiotic.

Ok I somehow don’t feel like using expletives at the moment.

On turning around and looking at the way my career’s progressed (I know it’s an odd time for that, I’m just 25 and it’s a Friday morning), I guess I’ve been real lucky to have 2 men who shielded me in a way. (the conv was with one of them)
Anyways, if toocleverbyhaf is a problem, then what isn’t?

Reminds me of a weird incident involving antya.

Antya’s all furious one day when a news site was blocked. He checked with the ‘blocking agency’ of the company (they probably did have a broader job description, but then blocking sites was the only thing they seemed to do). Now when antya’s angry, he’s quite vocal about it and very eloquent I assure you.

And the reply he got was… “We block the site with the max product of user count – time - frequency”
He was stunned. What completely beat him was the fact that there’s always going to be some site or the other that tops the results of the formula and hence has to be blocked. Does that mean they’ll drop everything?

In a similar sense, if they manage to eradicate one toocleverbyhaf, another one would turn up. If another one doesn’t, then one of them automatically qualifies as the toocleverbyhaf to be dealt with next. So will this last like forever? Will they keep trying to get rid of anybody who’s smarter assuming he’s going to replace them? (putting it bluntly)

I’m really not sure about that anymore.

KD

p.s. this one's for my first team in particular and anybody who assiciates with what's written here in general.