KAHAN THE AAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My table clock was smiling at me when my eyes opened. It was ten past ten in the morning. I got off my bed and came out of the room. The hostel seemed to be deserted and some guys were walking down the alley. They were the civil people, always on the run for projects and reports to be submitted. We in chemicals; as my brother used to say were pursuing a holiday degree in engineering. But still I could hardly find my fellow classmates round the corner. The only voice I could hear was that of a hawker who used to bring sweets and samosas; the target customers being the lazy bumps who used to skip the breakfast. The mutton samosas he used to sell were incredible. My taste-buds still yearns for the same taste. I ran down the stairs and could find him right there to hear that he was waiting for me. This is the first step to woo the debtors to clear their dues. Silently I sat down and was savoring the samosas. By the time I finished my third one , Parimal picked up another and asked what was I doing there. Many things flashed across my mind and was trying to figure out where was I supposed to be. Hey patni is on campus today and everyone has gone for that. Parimal reminded me that and started blasting me what the hell I was doing there. I told him the cut off is 70% and I am one of those lucky people who never thinks of touching that. And the enlightenment process started when he said that he just came from the PPT(pre placement talk) of the company and they agreed to a 65% cutoff. But I am still short of 0.12%, oh yeah it’s a run out. I mourned as this was the only IT company allowing the chemical folks. What was I feeling : so what I have low marks , I could have cleared this, I know who all have cleared it last time. I am surely better than them. Then I started relishing my best fantasy ever.

Cognizant (CTS) was a company which used to take chemical guys into software till the year before. And it was the day one in REC , that I knew that CTS is one of the best paying company in the campus. What else, I found the answer to the ragging question –which one is your Target Company? But alas, yeah a hindi movie twist; by murphy’s law it had to happen to me only. The company ceased to recruit anyone from chemical during my year. So what to do now, I felt bogged down and I knew my dreams were shattered as if I would have definitely cracked that. Now the interesting part is that the day is zeroing in when CTS is going to visit the campus. My dreams came out of ashes and started weaving the nets of heightened optimism. It convinced me that the selectors will definitely ask for my CV and will repent that it had been a great mistake that chemical was not opened. The junior will say we didn’t know Mr. Arnab was in chemical and apologise to the senior official of the company. I will be called from my room and they would greet me with an obliging smile and ask me “KAHAN THE AAP, kahan kahan dhoonda aapko; please oblige us, this is your offer letter”.

And on that D-Day; normal selection process went on, the company selected few of my batch-mates and left the campus. But I assure you my castle in the air was still intact with some pillars of “ifs” and “woulds.”

The same placement season revisited my life during my MBA final year. But there were no samosas this time and I had disclosed my best fantasy for the first time to my fellow kaadu friends. Alok named it as a “KAHAN THE AAP SYNDROME”. According to him we all go through this type of fantasies even if we are fairly grown up guys now. And this “KAHAN THE AAP” became the motivational statement whenever some one from us was entering the interview room. Beyond wishing him luck we used to say don worry just keep cool they will definitely pick you up, infact they had been busting the B-Schools just to locate you. They will ask you only one question “KAHAN THE AAP?!!!” and hand you the offer letter to oblige them.

Last Judgement

Sanchita could hardly realize that king khan had actually uttered her name as the winner of Little Champ while amateur Mona swept away the trophy in the Sony’s celebrity show. Electronic democracy was the facilitator for the normative selection of the winner. It is the mass who selects the winner; well I feel the mass is stupid at large. The mass is ignorant and decides to select or elect something out of emotions and diluting the empowerment with irrationality. Well Indians are better off at rationalizing their activities.

A recent survey found that 90% of Indians are in favor of capital punishment for a recently convicted criminal by the apex court. Indian democracy allows the rest 10% to go against the verdict of the apex court and create a ruckus all over. God of small things have decided to vow against the same and is busy hitting the headlines by creating a notional awareness against atrocities. And this very mass will switch their opinions if a celebrity stuck in a similar case is being delivered the same verdict. He will be soon made an apostle of gandhigiri and a widespread protest will be fathered by some political bloke. We will buy national magazines covering “unanswered questions” against the apex court and thereby straight way challenge the integrity of our constitution. Ironically there are people who will cast their votes in favour of a deported gangster who is set to contest the coming UP election.

Well if you think I am enraged at the final selection of both the shows, you got me wrong. What actually provoked me to ponder over this was Diwakar coming second and Sameer third. The initiation was probably by Sweta being a professional dancer found herself at the runner up position. In both the cases the casting was based on the emotional front, Diwakar being a blind child and Mona being the Jassi who had successfully turned all the eyes from Star Plus to Sony a few years back. The insight that advocates the decision to judge is based on the perception and the sentiments that easily overpower the ability of rational thinking.

Sometime back I was present in a courtroom where a minor was charged with consuming alcohol. The mother of the minor was leaning against the wall with tearful eyes. Now the punishment would have been some few months behind the bars but the judge ended up reprimanding him to a rehabilitation center. And on every date she used to extend the rehabilitation period for the guy. While I don’t remember the intricacies associated with the case but she extended her authority to make sure the mother’s suffering is wiped out. She was soon served a show-cause notice for the same. When I asked if she did something wrong, she replied that she was aware that she will get the notice. Still she went on; she explained: “I have a power; the power to change things for the betterment of the society. So even if I deviated from the guidelines laid down, this will meet the broader vision”. This is an ideal real life case for me where I found someone giving time to balance the power with responsibility.

When we are empowered to decide the best talent we seek refuge to emotional rationalization, and from God of small things we graduate to infiltrating the sanctity of the highest institution the judiciary of India.

I spent my weekend over this but had an extra burden of a curiosity of what actually did Brian Lara tell Pietersen after the latter sailed England to victory or did he end up at the receiving end of “ Don ko Pakarna Mushkil Hi Nahin Namumkin Hain”?

Journey is the Reward

Adi’s thunderbird rolled in to pick me up to proceed for a pre-planned trip to Nagarjuna Sagar. It had been a long time I traveled in a group to fulfill the exotic desires of my nomadic chromosomes’. All of us killed the Saturday morning sleep at its infancy, and as we stepped in to our cars the sleep turned phoenix was ready to overpower the enthusiasm. Well I got the Alto’s back seat and leaned much comfortably to escape the razzmatazz of the daily work schedule. The harshness of the landscape was gradually gentled with green and this is what makes me nostalgic about the plush flora and fauna of Tripura and Bangladesh. Unlike the very familiar bare rocky hills of Hyderabad scarred and pitted; the hills here are lustily enjoying the green trees and bushes spread across. Couple of hours of drive and we realized we might not be in the right direction, we decided to have the breakfast. After a little Googling we drove across an internal road which stretches to the highway to Nagarjuna Sagar. Small pockets of inhabitations by the side of the jungle and the barren lands compel me to say the whole India is so similar. Though 16% of the world populace resides in India nevertheless there are such scantily populated places. While it was the time that the school children were flocking around in groups and running behind your cars, the ambience spelt out that people of different communities lived here happily. I was very much engrossed in thought when a jolt got me back to the highway and we found that we had made a full circle as I could find the wine shop I spotted sometime back and realized that we have to take the same route carefully and find out the point where we missed the diversion. This time we were smart enough to guide the other cars too. We rushed across the landscape and got the highway. Soothed by the air conditioner and bored by the monotonous landscape I fell asleep before I was awaken by Vignesh; to my utter surprise I could see an ocean and discovered that this is the Krishna river. We stopped to get a splash and swirled back after one of us found a crocodile floating; obviously after the board read “beware of crocodiles”. And we knew we have arrived and having all the fun possible at the spot we started back. Oh how could I miss the lunch; had some fresh water fish fry and was really excited. While I was bare feet, I decided not to get the furnace heat of the stones torture my feet and all others sloped down to the river. Then we were in the cool, green ambience of Nagarjuna Sagar and the waterfalls lashing out the dragon’s breath. On the way back to Hyderabad, we took the same route and the same internal route was strikingly an alien land for us. The only thing we could see other than the headlight was the Moon. We wouldn’t have been surprised if a tiger howled or some naxalites fluted their instruments. During the journey the weather changed, the beauty of nature changed and time began its insidious creep before we finally came to a halt. The protagonist being Change , we enjoyed a lot and started yearning for the next venture soon. Quitting mother natures lap we leaped back to our bed at night and the next morning it was the tiredness which helped the phoenix to keep me shackled till noon.

DOR

“Too good, Infact its ten on ten” these were the words from the lips of Anirudh after coming out of the movie Dor. I was awfully amazed by the same and was still under the effect of a great piece of work. Nagesh Kukunoor, a chemical engineer turned filmmaker gave me a chance to align myself to the same league for a second. There had been articles criticizing his failed efforts of making crossover films before, finally he actually came up with a commercially hit Iqbal. Dor might not be a box-office hit but it definitely compels me to appreciate Nagesh’s efforts to come out of his comfort zone and follow his true dreams. With his handful savings and loans he made his first low grossing film in India “Hyderabad Blues”. Definitely the hassles were many compelling the distributor to give way free tickets for the start up crowd. Well that was a 17 lakhs and a 17 day shot movie which had packed theatres for more than half a year across the metros. But Nagesh did succesfully come a long way from Hyderabad blues to Dor with many ups and down in between. And finally Dor is something he created to establish himself as a class story teller of real life empathetic emotionally filled experiences or may be the way of life just as honestly as Ayesha Takia was depicted in the movie without any makeup. Nagesh’s entire journey reminds me of the guy in Paulo Cohelo’s “The Alchemist” who had left Spain literally to follow his dream across the deserts where no one he knew could guide him to the destination. I don’t know if anything similar happened with Nagesh that the whole universe conspired for him but he did establish himself as an apostle of courage to explore the power to follow you dreams and accomplish it the way u want it to be.

I am often tempted to change my course of steps and follow my dreams but then before I leap I should settle with some comfortable corpus; may be 5, 10 or more ambitiously 2 years but not now. Nagesh had left a career what is lucrative to the rest of the people as that ensures a safe and settled life. This is in fear of the sufferings one can undergo to follow something in an uncharted territory that most of us are busy in establishing a sustainable comfort zone and that might in turn kill your never followed dream. This has got a domino effect and it cascades to your wish that your child will accomplish your dream while you kill his/her dreams too just because of your selfish attitude of playing safe. Santiago was the hero who started the next morning and Nagesh is the real life Santiago.