A Flint for Detroit in the Waiting!!!

General Motors is out of cash. The so called experts who could not even smell the financial meltdown are claiming liquidation is inevitable for the giant automaker. The domino is waiting to cascade its effects in terms of millions of jobs to be swamped away. While the warehouses will become the haunted places for the ghosts of the subprime, the torching of the blast furnaces will probably end. The green guys will hardly find places to stack up their rebel green flags.

Michael Mooray in 1989 had made a documentary Roger & Me which had depicted the aftershocks of the plant closures by GM in Flint , Michigan. The move to close the several plants out there had 30k jobcuts and that is enough a blow to devastate the city economically. Mooray had a reason to grin as GM was making good profits then. After 2 decades the whole Detroit is waiting for the Flint stunt.

A government bailout is believed to provide wheels to the automaker amidst fears of creating a hue and cry as people bitten or unbitten by subprime will queue up for share of the pie.

While GM will be probably sailed through the turbulence ,I am anxious to find what happens to my chevy after GM’s death.

Oh Old is Bryan !!

It was a long cherished dream to attend a Bryan Adams Live Show. First time I got a chance was in 2004 when Bryan Adams was in Delhi on 7th February. It was in the financial year when we had to ponder over a 10 rupee or a 9 rupee lunch everyday. But courageously we had planned the trip to Delhi to attend the show before it was marred by some Don. Well it was this name so far I remember who had got the CAT out of the bag in November 2003.Interestingly CAT was rescheduled on 15th February and eventually we had to stay satisfied with our mp3 on high volume concert that we had organized on the cancelled CAT day November 23, 2003. Summer of 69 definitely binds us with the nostalgia of summer of 99 when we left our homes and probably never met our friends together after that.

However life gave another chance to get back to the rocks at Trent bridge Nottingham. But alas I could not find a company to the show!!!!!! Asides, To be frank I was scared of going alone as I would be dwarfed by the sixfootiya stoned firangs. And finally I had a justification that Bryan is 49 years old and it was too late to attend his concert and switched for a diwali function at an Indian Center on that day.

Guess what? Diwali was amazing with concerts comprising Ashiqui songs of 90s and later the DJ rocks with the only chun-geh punjubi songs. I was looked down upon as everyone should know how to dance, so I picked up an Eos 350D to take the center-stage profession for the official photographer of the happy wala diwali evening. This had earned me some good snaps of the beautiful ladies jumping around, me me me …. this was Diwali 2008 instead of Adams concert.I had earlier in the day bought this Motorola Bluetooth headset for the 5 or 6 songs I have in my Xpressmuzic but that too could not get me into hopping. 12 am in the morning, I attain Nirvana , DID I DUMP ADAMS SHOW saying he is OLD??? Oh yeah now I realize it was me preemptively jumping into the 30+ age arena.

Nothing can last for ever that’s why I am no more 18 till I die. Having said that, One day like Today I will be there in the next Adams show in India with my friends.

Waitlist Confirmed!

It was a long wait but still missed the moment. I was since then waiting at the platform when even it was not there. The dream came true but I was not there. Now I find I was not alone in the dream.




05 Oct- Agartala gets the first Rail. The above pic is for the arrival of the engine on 29 jun 2008.

1066-The Betray!

1066 is the only word I could utter after I regained my senses. I had fainted and injured myself earlier in the morning of 30th Aug 07.Well the best was yet to come; Apollo Delhi Emergency responded saying "there is no doctor right now; get yourself admitted to some hospital and we will pick you up". And they didn't even send the ambulance neither did they call me back.

Without wasting time anup got me to the Max Healthcare hospital in Gurgaon. I sensed like entering some IT company; later the doc greeted me. I come from a place where my grandfather died because there was no oxygen in the state and my dad was treated as a malaria patient for 25 days for gall bladder stones. For me yeah it was definitely the first prioriy to have access to proper healthcare and MAX Hospital was an automatic choice. After 4 days i walked out of the hospital without having any single grudge against the hospital or any facility. The best part were the nursing people; all are from kerala with one exception from manipur. They were at their best in commitment and dedication towards duty is just uncomparable. Coupled with the high tech gadgets life is easy definitely for them but there are annoying people who make their life miserable. And its really amazing that they choose the profession just because they want to serve mankind and left their home to pursue that.

My veins had a tough time fighting the pricks of the needles and the subsequent sodium drugs. I really screamed like an animal and finally fought it off in 4 days.

In these few days i had met quite a few cartoon characters and interesting people. One patient had got admitted himself as he had a sore throat only and finally he went mad as he was held back for three days. Another worth mentioning is a damsel who had met with a major accident. Her car was banged by a speeding wagonR and the car twisted one circle and toppled 3 times before it crashed. Three people inside came out alive miraculously.

It was like a late night tragic movie I would never like to watch again but few aspects gave me a new paradigm.

Rendezvous in Bangalore

It's an illusion
Get together (It's an illusion)
It's an illusion
Get together (It's an illusion)

Down, down, down in your heart
Find, find, find the secret
Turn, turn, turn your head around
Baby we can do it, we can do it all right

Do you believe in love at first sight?
It's an illusion, I don't care
Do you believe I can make you feel better?
Too much confusion, come on over here

…….

…….

…….

…….

It's all an illusion
There's too much confusion
I'll make you feel better
If it's bitter at the start, then it's sweeter in the end

(Get Together by Madonna- Confession on a Dance Floor)

Escaping the razzmatazz of the daily work is always fun but its exciting when it promises you a retreat to your friends. For those who couldn’t make it to the assemblage in blore this weekend, it was a life time miss and if that makes you jealous it serves my purpose.

The “focus” was definitely pawan’s marriage but it was the rendevous at the dance floor that we all enjoyed to the fullest. Few of us had embarked on Friday morning itself and were stuffed with malpoas at pawan’s in-laws. In the evening I joined the party and cheered Pawan for losing his bachelorhood. And it took less than 5 mins for all of us to come out of the corporate shell and get back to basics. We all had bid-adieu to pawan and traversed through the city to another end of Karnataka to Menon’s place. Well in anticipation Menon had shifted the whole of Sab-Millers inventory to his house which was supposed to be in a residential area. After a round of rejoice we realized Deep and Shashi have just arrived at pawan’s place. Back at pawan’s place, few of us sat by him till 3 am in the night for moral support and I was as usual irritating him with my customized gagged up questions. Finally King Kaadu came back to menon’s place and on our effort to maintain a zero inventory at sab millers we all were at work. By 4 am, Deep realized he has to be in London the next morning. So sreejit was asked to be at Paddington station the next day. In this attempt Shashi also remembered he has to be in Wimbledon for the final and Alok wanted to be in the British Grand Prix. I called up again to communicate the update and sreejit got the background music as kaadus broke into huge laughter. In the morning we all experienced the transition of night to dawn after ages. We moved to the triple 7 day. We all had a mega kerala brunch at a kerala restaurant with loads of kerala paratha and chicken.

The day was by default a sluggish one. After a long bakar session at shashi’s place I had a small nap. I woke up in the land of utter confusion. And there were thousands of options for the next move. As the kaadus were dispersed at different parts of the city; the coordination was again creating confusion. After dealing with confusion for the whole evening we banged into a pub called “Purple Haze”. This was the first time kaadus having a party on a dance floor other than our most beloved floor “mudra”. Hosted by Shailu and Dhanuja apparently for their marriage; the party was the best we could have. Beers and tequilas flowed like niagra broke loose and really it was an illusion to be with all my friends at one place. Danced and rocked the floor to the greatest extent we could stretch ourselves the most. We received a compliment from the manager “ Aisa group abhi tak nahin dekha ke pub ko disc bana diya”.

Well the most amazing thing happened in the parking lot. We tried to barge in a swift and its alarm went off big time. That proves we all were high by that time. Now Kaadus were heading to Shashi’s Place. Shashi’s roommates were asked to be prepared for the unexpected. We all just managed to slip in shashi’s house and to my utter surprise there were lots of food already waiting for the demons to come and savour. And Shashi proposed “whisky, rum or vodka??”. Deep started focusing and we had to finish off another inventory. Again booze flowed and Rajesh menon and Alok drank till six in the morning.

Awesome is the only word I can find in my vocab to describe the whole event. Sky full of thanks to Shashi, Gopal and Rajesh for the end-to-end supply chain management. Also special thanks to Bhavana and Dhanuja for bearing the jungle kala kauwaas ( kaadus). My best wishes for all of you.

Hope fate gives a chance to repeat history again.

Chopsticks!!

Down the lane when we reached Mainland China, I was very excited by the ambience and the encounter with a newest brand in the restaurant segment was really much awaited one. While seated I was waiting for the menu of the Chinese New Year, one of the red capped guys had put a small dragon shaped china clay beside the plate. It was impossible for us to comprehend what that was meant for. A cup of tea was served before he gave each of us a pair of chopsticks. Sudipta sipped the Jasmine tea and told us that the dragon was the chopstick rest.

I knew I have entered the applied physics laboratory where the pair of tapered sticks is my apparatus. And this was the first time I am doing the experimentation though I wanted to impress upon the onlooker that I am quite familiar with Chopsticks daring him not to jump to the conclusion by looking at my nose. But the curiosity of judging my applied physics ability compelled me to victimize the cabbage salad. After a series of futile attempts I suggested if we could ask them how to hold the chopsticks. Siddharth just came from Singapore with hands on experience on the apparatus and he showed me how to hold the sticks.

You hold one stick as static for the support of the other one which move to pick food from the plate. I could realize its not applied physics but it was more of a team work between the two sticks. One moves and picks with the trust that the other will give the support to accomplish the objective. Defying the laws of applied physics, it was quite exciting for me to savour the Chinese specialties with the strategic HR funda.

This was indeed a self realization for me that I have evolved from being an engineer to explaining things in the usual MBA way.

Now I developed a wish of getting a pair of chopsticks. I knew searching it in the market would turn out to be a futile one, so I decided to ask a pair from Mainland China itself. With some more HR fundas and a catalytic effect from Sudipta, I managed to get a pair of chopsticks from the manager.

I know what you might be thinking; yes next time u visit my place you will be served food with a pair of chopsticks.

** Special Thanks to Supriyoda and Pralayda for the excellent hospitality extended by you.

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.