Who we are....

Over the last 2 days I have been on a mission of searching for long lost contacts. People I shared incidents in my life with 18, maybe 19 years ago. People with whom I grew up, who I always took for granted at that age. But regardless of the extensive utility of social networks, I was unable to locate any of them. Well, the fault isn’t completely on those addictive time-consumers, coz it really is hard to remember full names from that age! And add to that the extensive collection of Indian names with their multitude of possible combinations along with minor variations which could include - the addition of an “h”, removal of an “a” and the occasional “…ia” instead of the commonly assumed “…ya” - and you have a huge database to go through. Of course even if I get a name right, identification based on their facial features would be a near impossibility as I have practically no clue what they would have changed into now. And let’s not forget the distractions posed by the empty pangs of hope that “that particular profile pic could be my friend now…or I wish it is. Maybe I should drop a message and find out. If not the old one, a new friend made.SCORE!”.

Anyhow, the relevant point here is that I didn’t make any new friends NOR find the old ones. But it made me wonder. It made me wonder about the people, the people that were around us and the people that may or may not be around us in the future. In effect it made me think about how we are, what we are…

I may sound like I’m turning 70 next month, the way I put it. But the fact is that our life, and more importantly, who we are has basically been a culmination of incidents – both big and small- over the ages. It could be as big as falling in love and breaking your heart, or as small as choosing where to sit in class. The butterfly effect phenomenon plays a huge role in making void any possible measurement of the impact of these incidents. The same circumstances would give completely different outcomes to different people. How one incident impacts a person, would depend on how he/she assimilates it. Recursively, this depends on the incidents before it. Thus, at any particular point the Past adds up, to help read the Present and thus, define our Future.

The question here is for how long does this last. Could it be an endless relation where every single day we learn? This would imply that every day we change something in ourselves. A minor touch here, a slight push there , to try and perfect who we are. As I type it, it sounds like the most possible thing but how big are these changes as compared to how they were possibly ten years ago!! Somewhere along the line the base was made; what is inside had been largely fixed and sealed. All ongoing changes are purely superficial, and sometimes just a temporary volatile addition . A change to who we are, how we think, how we react will require harder work; breaking open the seal to rebuild the base.

But on the whole, can we change who we are? Would we WANT to change who we are? What defines how a person is supposed to be? Every person is simultaneously in the right and the wrong when he reacts the way he does. He is right in his eyes since his actions are defined by his ethics, thoughts and experiences. At the same time, for someone else his actions could be interpreted to be defiant, unethical and even outright vicious. So how exactly do we define the change that is required? Aahhh..who knows J

Fighting a Block - Random BS

I have unfortunately struck a weird sort of writer’s block. Anything I seek to write comes out purely in a philosophical manner. Does this mean I have grown old, mature and more serious? Now I see why they complain about growing up!! I have been on a soul searching (coincidentally, also a sole searching, after a glass went up my leg!) mission to regain that cracking sense of humor which if applied in a 350 page book would have given me a review - “ a script so funny you would need Jim Carrey and Eddie Murphy to do justice* to the roles”.

*Fine, its for Jim and Eddie fans. A mallu version goes – “Cochin Haneefa and Jagathy”. And while we’re at it, though late, respect to the versatile actor.

So after a much needed boost of ego and patting myself on the pat, let me see where I can go with this. The need of the moment is to be able to successfully complete a post without having to refer to key philosophical words viz life, mind, chicken soup, opportunity, reason, BS, optimism, pessimism, (infact *ism for that matter.) In a completely unrelated thought sequence, notice how I have given myself credit by calling a total inability to write a writer’s block, and thus referring to myself as a writer; and consequently in the line following, highlighting that what I (may) have tried writing is philosophical, in the true sense of the word!! Desperate times lead to desperate measures I guess.. I have been out of any particularly useful ideas what with the world proving itself to be unbelievably humorous. And please note by “world”, I totally imply a set dominated by the CWG committee and its press releases. The one that ripped me up was Lalit Bhanot’s release where exceptional standard was shown, when he used the word standard 8 times in a sentence that highlighted how the Games Village was “the clean”. His reference to the difference between the cleanliness standards of the rest of the world and “the” Bhanot’s, while apparently implying India, (quite obviously a technique to enable the possibilities of a white-lie-denial), was hilarious.. Quite sadly, googling him titled him as the Delhi Games Spokesperson. With spoke(s) like those, no wonder the wheel wouldn’t move so well.

But then again, all is well that ends well. Though I still haven’t been able to get my hands on a “full stream-able video which can made to be looked like a client system or atleast something less colorful” copy of the Commonwealth games, few sections which I managed to see while swapping between that and a horribly bad Malayalam movie, were really good.. Long sentence short, CWG inauguration good, mallu movie Utharaswayamvarm suicidal!!

And since we are on the topic, CWG totally had a ossumm (mallu dictionary : n : (pronounced ohssome) : awesome) “Chendakottu” representation.. Ha! The amazing feeling you get when you realize you have seen a part of the same thing which people paid thousands for, while you were walking(rather dozing) reluctantly, half naked, next to an elephant, is brilliant. But yes, setting aside the localized smugness in seeing a huge mallu representation, on the whole India was at her best..

So kudos to India and real proud of her ability (at least to the extent it is) to integrate such a huge cultural variety. Well…hoping to be able to come up with more relevant posts and with a plan to foray into micro blogging, that’s all the BS there is for now. J

Doing the "Right" thing...

As a rule, I’m a person who hates all generalizations. But one thing I will never deny is that every single person in this world has, at least once, come across a point in his/her life when he wondered if the step he was going to take next is the right thing to do. The turmoil in his thoughts at that moment is NOT a debate between good and evil; not even of right or wrong. As confusing as that statement may be, the actual question is what defines an act, a thought, to be right. Completely contrasting considerations could be evaluated to be simultaneously right. And there is no defined process to make the decision making process any easier.

At times it is about debating whether to follow the heart or the head, both being logically adept in their own rights. For a decision pertaining to the self can any man (or woman) think in such a way as to ignore one over the other? While the latter may provide a more factual and aloof assessment, the other is emotional and subjective. Rarely do we see an occasion where the duo combines to give the most reasonable choice. A decision that effectively combines both in the perfect proportion would be the ultimate one. Sadly enough, that perfect combination is highly improbable and maybe even completely hypothetical. An emotional detachment can never be achieved in any of our actions. This would require an amnesic erasure of our thoughts, memories and feelings. In effect it is a wish to deny ourselves what we claim/know makes us, who we are.

A utopian world would be based on the fictional Vulcans, where decisions are analyzed, dissected and made free of errors. Nevertheless, emotional as mankind has always been seen to be, we tend to swerve towards what the heart has to say than the other way round. When we follow signs, have faith or resign decisions to destiny, in effect we are moving into the realm of the heart. A state where right or wrong is decided by the amount of emotional satisfaction you receive. The irony here, being the fact that any sort of comfort that the considered choice may give us is purely dynamic and the same goes for the decision taken. It is based on erratic standards which by themselves are defined by even more fickle variables. And in all we have a perfect recipe for maximum turmoil.

More often than not, there is no right or wrong. The logical choice is what is analytically absolute while the emotional one is satisfyingly complete. Sometimes the head says it just is good to go with the flow. But when there was something you wanted with all your heart, have you ever been able to truly let go.. J

Dreams - A Vent

Like any other piece of art that employs a storyline or even a basic line of thought, dreams in their own way have genres. They might not necessarily be classifiable along the broader lines of action, comedy, romance, “bollywood” style etc. but they can definitely be categorized. The major obstacle that lies in the path of this listing is the fact more than 80% of all dreams are forgotten when you wake up. But then there are the others which stay on, and more importantly are worth staying on. Any sort of categorizations that will be done by me would unluckily be based on personal experiences. It never was worth the trouble to go around asking people about their dreams. Besides such a question would elicit the more “considered” responses of “Doctor”, “ Prime minister”, blah blah..etc etc.. For the record, this is more of a personal vent than a definite analysis.

A very broad classification for dreams is fictional and non-fictional. As per my own dictionary¹ these, respectively, imply those that involve random people whose face you can’t put a name on and those that concern you and familiar faces. The former rarely involves the dreamer and would usually turn out to be amazing “dream stories” . Now ..how shareable these stories are would be governed by their ability to get past the average censor board. The key factor about these dreams is that, on a daily basis they would not affect your real-life; they would mostly be whims, imaginary stories, fantasies, random scenic locations. All thought up and perfected to give your senses a treat. The second kind of dreams – the one which accounts for you as a key character - on the other hand gives more of an emotional bias than a sensory one. There are the weird dreams which you wake up from feeling..wellll..weird.. You wonder why the dream took the direction it did; why the characters were who they were, how that could apply to your activities that day. Have you not had one of those days when you dreamt about a person who might have been a casual acquaintance in a more than casual setting? Imagine the feeling you felt on waking up to realize who it was. That’s the feeling I am talking about! Worse, are the dreams, which make you feel good. You wish you would not have to wake up from them. These non fictional ones don’t just tingle your senses, it gives you an emotional satisfaction which can or cannot be attained in real life. But when they may not, that’s when waking up is going to be a big pain! The story may not linger, the characters may fade away but inevitably the emotion you felt will stay with you, as a haunting tease. What gives it the killer touch is to want the dream all over again knowing completely regarding its authenticity!!

It would not be too much of a generalization to state that every individual has had instances where he has dreamt about something or possibly a part of it before it actually happened. For a fact, I have 6? Ya 6 I believe.. situations where I’ve dreamt and felt it, before or while something happened. Deciphering dreams, Dream interpretations, dream dictionary..there are hundreds of theories flying around about dreams. Most people believe that our dreams are related to our last possible thought before entering deep slumber. But personally, this phenomenon has not been the case. The dreams have proven to be random, erratic, and totally nonsensical at times!

The question is..how much would you trust a dream? Is it a sign or just a passing thought… Would you be able to know what in your memory, was a dream and what was real life? Dream on….

*Author swears inception did not have any influence on his thoughts and the post is purely based on circumstantial situations.

Ref 1 : Lined up in posts to come – “Making my own dictionary”

Complimenting - An ART!!

They say it’s the thought that counts. From years of experience, I can confidently say “I couldn’t disagree more!!” It is apparently an art you really have to master to survive in the world. I’m not talking about honing the hidden sycophant skills or trying to be that detested person who’s got his lips all over the wrong cheeks! Even a casual day’s conversation does not seem to pass off as reasonable unless it is inundated, at least ever so slightly, with a few words of praise. The whole deal becomes troublesome when the target of the compliment tries to read- in to the casual statement. There are 2 possible scenarios which end up making the whole art of complimenting a topic to be discussed:

1. Too Little Too Late – Let’s say you want to appreciate it, him/her. But you’re not the typical compliment giving individual. Inevitably whatever you say in an attempt to make it a casual statement would be preyed on as being too little. Worse yet would be the interpretation that since you have not praised it high and far, you must DEFINITELY be making fun of it!! I have tried to explain, without much luck, to many people that my art of complimenting would involve subtle hints and rare direct comments. Never works out though.. You really have to put it across in words that could put Keats to shame! That brings us to the second scenario…

2. Too Much – Now if you fall under the category of people who genuinely want to compliment, then you have to be careful about your intended target. There are cases where the statements would be unadulterated , “from the heart”, but still will be twisted and construed to be taken as an insult or a mocking. But more often than not, the intended target would appreciate the comment. This is the basic “funda” behind compliments wherein people ALWAYS want to feel good.

This evaluation will lead to the conclusion than in reality it might be better to be artificially mocking than genuinely casual! J

It is not just giving a compliment that’s an art; receiving one too is quite a pain to master. Many a time I have been told how smart and handsome I am but I just don’t know how to take all that attention! Who are we kidding! But I assume the point is made. There are the sorts who would grill you till you make a compliment and then others who wouldn’t know how to react for a genuine one. What would a normal response be to a genuine compliment? The various interpretations that can be derived due to the many variety of people around, risks a response to be limited to a murmur and a shrug. But then again, even that would come out as a haughty wat of putting “Oh..I know!.what to doooo…”. How about the casual harmless ”thankyou”? But then again, that too comes off as “ya ya…I completely agree I’m awesome”. Then, there is the other group who will deem you as the worst thing that happened in this world after Edward did to the Vampire clan. Irrespective of whether you perceive them to be deserving of a compliment or not, you HAVE to say it! They rarely have an issue with responding to appreciation. If they do, it would be the funniest thought process conceivable :

*Before Compliment : “Why won’t he say I look good. Disgusting Guy”

*After compliment : “.Say something.. say something!!" "Aww...Teehee.” *giggle**giggle* *PUKE*!!

When you ask for it, more often than not, you are ready for it! So they definitely know what to say.

This post is definitely not a lesson on giving or receiving a compliment. Coz frankly, I’m the last person you could approach for that. But before signing it off , here are the NEVER MIX and MATCH combinations.

· Never mix and match a person who compliments less, with a compliment seeker. If this ever happens, you are in for a lot of complaining and accusations!

· Never mix and match an extensive “complimentor” with one who can’t take it. Misunderstanding and misinterpretations are inevitable.

So bring it on! I can take it. Compliment me all you want!

P.S : The dripping artificiality in this post makes it one of my worst ever!

Of Queues, Lifts and Dimwits

Running out of ideas always leads to the desperate effect of having to mix a few smaller ones. With the “Random Thoughts” series boring even me out, on a second read, I thought I’d account some view points on everyday matters that we talk about. Another topic to be handled was “Toilets, And what we do in them”. Well…not exactly a part of my daily conversation as they are of my daily activities but when it came up, I really did have some ideas of my own. But that’s a story for another day...

DISCLAIMER: Opinions listed below are sadly made from observation of Indians

From casual analysis and jobless statistics taken from across work, malls and any reasonable conglomeration of human beings which I have attended, there is good reason to believe that the act of having to wait in line for your turn is somehow a herculean task for them. There are a few possible scenarios where this impatience is highlighted and really gets on your nerves.

Scenario 1: The Normal Queue

Now here we all are.. Waiting in line for our turn to get a ticket, get some food etc. And in comes our protagonist. Now there are terms such as “like he owns the place”, “like it’s his father’s house” etc which can state in a clichéd manner the arrogance involved, but let’s go deep into that dimwitted skull of his. What would a person, who cuts in, actually be thinking?

JA: Ooohhh.. There’s a huge line of people standing. I wonder whats up?

*Notices a girl 100 meters away looking in the completely opposite direction

JA : She looks cute! Must play hard to get… I’m so smart..

*Reaches the end of line

JA : Wow! There are 23 people in front of me. If I walk ahead 8 spaces there will be 15 in front of me and 8 behind me. I wonder how many people will be there in the queue at that time.

*Moves ahead 8 spaces by just barging in

*Counts on fingers

JA : Now there are 24 people in the line.Dooooooddd awessssommmme! This is fun.. Should try again.

And with this retarded line of thought, which in his mind seems purely logical and quantitatively practical, the hero cuts across 23 stunned faces to discover its always 24. At this point he realizes he’s at the head and does not require any more mind numbing exercises to keep him busy and carries on with the task at hand.

(Adaptation is purely author’s imagination. Expectations have been kept at maximum)

Scenario 2 : The Double-Ended queue

Now sadly enough, there are times when the head of a queue cannot be specifically pointed out, especially if you are new around. These can get really irritating if, at some point of time, there are 10 people on one side and 2 on the other facing the initial group like someone called for a Wild West shootout! The reasoning capabilities of the duo would amaze you and I can’t even bare to imagine what goes through that head of theirs. You end up wondering whether the whole point of standing in the queue all this while was to be given the honor of coming face to face with these stunning minds. There they stand with a smug smile which could almost be interpreted as “Bwahahah… Noone else saw the shortcut. I am so sma…” *SLAP*. Totally worth it!

Scenario 3 : The Lift

Now the final group described here are the lift takers. These again can be split into 2 groups which sometimes overlap to create an unbelievably arrogant bunch of lift “goons”.

The first group consists of the ones coming in. You don’t need a phD to know that a lift is smaller than the waiting area and people who want to come out would definitely prefer to be out. Unless you happen to be really good looking and of the gender that interests them, rarely would they want to wait and watch how you enter before deciding to walk out themselves. But as fate may have it, this train of thought never passes their impatient minds and they just assume that anyone who wants out should have taken the floor above.

The second group makes up the Ronaldos of the lift. You know that pose he strikes before taking a free kick and also of the arrogance involved in it; well that’s exactly how they stand at the door of the lift.
Anyone who wants to go out will have to go “over their dead body” or will just have to wait for his floor. You could also try crawling past his legs but then you have to watch out for the entering goons.

The scenarios listed are definitely not an exhaustive list but they ARE some of the highlighted ones. Usual lines which you could use at such scenarios include : “Excuse me.”, “Please stand in the queue” or the typical Indian, “uhh..Halo mister??”.

And then there are the more complicated ones :

- “You think we are standing for fun?” (Cliched)

- *Handing cash to guy : “While you’re at it could you get mine too?”

Well there are lots I’m raring to try since I regretfully face a lot of them. So if you got any more, keep them coming.. J

By the way I never say I’ve not done the same (though I always try not to) but then again I already admitted to be a hypocrite. Bwahahah…

Shanker

Fanfare makes a fair fan???

So what exactly is it that gives people this all-so-famous fake feeling of ownership. To begin with I have to admit that I am not a hard core supporter of any team; in any sport. Unless there is India, an Indian or a fellow mallu (Indian again but with deeper traceable roots allowed) involved I wouldn’t exactly be able to pick a team. But extreme peer pressure and the need to have something to look forward to while tipping my drink, always makes me pick a side.

All games which don’t involve our country require me to go through a tedious process of elimination to choose a team to root for. Now for the record, this does NOT involve morsels of food placed in boxes within my reach. In the case of such a situation arising, the decision would be purely based on quantity, given that the quality is maintained the same.

Anyway…. I do not consider this “inability” a curse; (No! I am not referring to the morsel-craving; back to the game) I would rather say it’s a relief, since on the occasion of a defeat to the exalted winner- of the aforementioned nomination procedure - I can still go on leading a normal life without feeling the need to proclaim my ability to play better than the players who live by it. I am also lucky to be exempted from that feeling of ownership I was talking about, where I have to deal with the pressure of “My/Our team is playing today” , “We always come back from behind” or worse yet the decisions such as “I think we should play XYZ instead of PQP today”!!!

The enthusiasm shown by these kinds of “fans” (read multitalented personnel who can pitch in as player/coach/owner) can only be understood with the ultimate ability of imagination and spirituality, to the extent of nirvana, which cuts you off from the real world. Their(senseless) belief that the team they support and they themselves merge into one, can only be compared to the Supreme Being concept of the fictional planet Gaia of Foundation Series*. The sadder thing though is the non-existent timeline for these nerve creeping fans. Not even the players would bother about that 32^nd minute mistake made 3 years ago. But our folks would hear nothing of it – a victory is an expected elation while a mistake is an anecdote for life! A conversation over coffee would be decorated with “My team…that day…”..”We should have scored”..Even the lower limit of the year of birth would not hinder their memories what with “WE” winning in 1912, 1956, 1987 and not to mention 2034. Obviously 2 of these would be a deadly disastrous combination – “We got you”, “You shouldn’t have done that to our player” and an occasionally entertaining throw of punches.

Though I complain, I have to admit the watch wouldn’t be a fun occasion if 70 odd people sat peacefully sipping their drinks, with as much interest as Sachin Tendulkar would have in proof reading this post! BUT...then again..”Get a life!”...Well all I can say for now is “Whatever keeps you happy”; as long as it is not in a normal being’s face.

I’ll tell you one thing though, WE won in 1975 and again in 1983 too.. (Go google) J

*FOUNDATION SERIES: A MUST READ for sci-fi lovers.

P.S: Why the heck does WORD check think I would prefer one or three dots instead of 2?..

Shanker

Race of Life

There is one point that we all can agree with. The world is a race. Every single person is running his/her own race. The difference is in how we perceive the race. For some it is a sprint, where your target is the person in front of you. A relative race; where you judge your performance by a scale graded with the names of every single person around you. The second category is running an Endurance race where they push themselves irrespective of where they are in the larger race. Each day they set a higher target and victory is gained irrespective of who was competing along with them. A majority of the world is toned to fall under the former category, where they are made to believe that their success is not in doing their best, but doing better than the best.

Is it easier to set a target independent of you or to compete with yourself? A motivated sprinter would definitely make it good due to the abundant sources of targets available. But what exactly is the level of satisfaction here. With the whole concept of “the grass is greener on the other side”, wouldn’t it just be an endless series of seemingly sadistic victory dances only to realize there is one more “better” to best. The endurance racers on the other hand achieve an easier satisfaction with just being able to reach their set target. Well, the major fault here is that since the target is set by youself, your “laziness/motivation” plays an important role. Happiness, to the grade of ecstasy, could be achieved by just being able to wake up early or pass an exam. But then there is also the factor that a motivated Endurance racer always knows the target. The factor of ambiguity which can be found for a Sprinter does not exist. Here’s where I pull out an analogy which I assure you is NOT taken from personal experience. It’s a typical case of a fat guy running a marathon as compared to a seasoned runner. The former is just happy to be able to run an extra mile each year while the runner has set himself a higher target. On a quick look, it may seem like the runner is at a higher “success level” but let’s consider a few factors. The miles covered by the first guy do not change over the years; his competition is constant – himself. Now add in a new runner into the marathon, one who’s been working hard to beat our seasoned runner and you got yourself a whole chase going on, where each year, one of the two is definitely going to be dissatisfied with his performance.

While our super go lucky hero is content with himself, being able to stay on his feet after quarter the way!.

You can imagine a dumb content smile here considering the plump guy is always the dumb one on TV..What’s the deal with that anyway???

So here’s the question, which one is right? Then again there is always the fact that right and wrong is a purely relative concept. So which one would YOU say is right? Compete with the world? Or Compete with yourself??

Live YOUR life.. :)

Shanker

WAY of the MALLU....

It’s basic mathematics. The Indian population seems to be on a constant rise and the ratio of mallus you knock elbows with on the road as compared to others, seems to remain a constant (or even higher). Considering the fact that the percentage of mallus remain the same (or even more) even while the absolute number of Indians is increasing, and the claim of 100% literacy, it all boils down to one logical possibility – Sex education is not part of the Indian “literacy” syllabus.. But wait, I digress.. It is not the number that amazes me, it is the wide distribution of the “mallu” clan.. Of course; if you want to find one, the most logical search locations would be every nook and corner of the 14 districts of the Mother-ship – Kerala, and its annexure the “GELLF”. It is ALSO quite obvious that given the abundant sources, a normal human being (non-mallu one) would be glad not to meet one when he’s ambling down the road miles away from the aforementioned locations. But the law of inevitability states that, “If you’re on earth and minding your own business you will inevitably pass a mallu”. Being one myself along with the added advantage of staying with most of the various kinds of mallus – northie mallu , NRI mallu, Konkani mallu – it is only basic courtesy that I provide a handbook for.. “THE WAY of the MALLUUU”..

Lesson 1

Identifying a mallu

1.Food: one word : COCONUTS….

2. One of the simplest ways of identification, is a unique clothe style called the “lungi” or its formal counterpart the “mundu”. In general both can be defined as : “Hanging piece of clothe starting from the waist - covers till legs when worn normally, but can be folded up at times of aggression, casual walks or for intended “cool” looks.” Differentiating a lungi from a mundu is just a matter of identifying the maximum number of colors mixed into a design that can only be found in some psychedelic Media Player Visualizations.. But wait! Its not as simple as it sounds. There is a specific way the lungi is tied in kerala.. See picture for future identification reference.

3.He’s not wearing a lungi, but you think he’s a mallu? Talk to him… A classic touch which mallus give to their pronunciation of words is a complete inability to stop breathing sound, even when the word has ended. The Result : Words with “sound tails” . You’ll hear a lots of fooduh, drinksuh, whatuh…

4.You think there’s no lungi and the word-brake system is flawless? Keep Talking! Just try to make sure he uses words with the proper “identification vowels”. Things you could look out for: Modification, pollution, parents - Watch out for the totally unintended “ohhh”s of realization and the “aah”s of retardness if you stop them at the right places in the middle of these words.

Another technique to identify a mallu is to get him to meet another one. Now here are some characteristic conversations you may hear.

2 MALLUS

Mallu1 : Hi. I’m from Kerala

Mallu2: Ohh. Evidenna (Where from? )

M1: Ohh…malayaleeya, le. Njan Cochin. Evidenna? (Oh..malayalee,uh? I’m from . Where you from?)

Its like peace wont settle into their mallu reunion unless they assure each other they are not neighbors* or long lost brothers!

*Neighbor(in mallu) : anyone within 20km from your home town.

Mallu with NRI Mallu

Mallu : I’m from Kerala

NRI Mallu : Oh. I’m a malayalee too.

Mallu : oh.nice. where from ?

NRI Mallu : Dubai (or Oman, muscat etc..)

And then there’s that awkward pause where Mallu waits for the NRI to realize his intentions of asking the question were as explained before, at the same time recalling which of his mother’s uncle’s son’s in-law’s friend works in the same place. As soon as NRI Mallu realizes his mistake and utters the name of the biggest city within 50 km of his actual place, the mallu bonding starts and the NRI prefix is lost into a happy reunion.

And to top it all, we have the irresistible urge to zoom in and congregate with anyone and anything that seems even remotely mallu!

And some Malluism :

1.No place, work or title shall be left unexplored

2.Every famous person worth something would have their roots, really deep down somewhere interacting with one mallu or the other

3.Mohanlallll. Mammoootyyyy

4.Where there is land, there is a malayalee and hence a Kerala restaurant.

Well no offense people.. I’m one typppickal mallu and totally out of ideas for now. Until the next time.

Tataa…..

CORPORATE LIFE - People

So I’ve already had a post on what I learnt from 6 months of corporate life. They were more of observations than any good guidelines. Considering the fact, that I’m nearing a year into “office life” and also, that rarely do I get the urge to blog now - owing to the slow decomposition of my remaining brain cells – I have decided to come up with this post. The original plan is to provide a “things to do” that is conventionally not given out in the Corporate Handbook.

But first another piece of observation. There are broad categories into which the people at work can be classified into:

1. SMILE acquaintances: People you have never met but you just end up smiling to, holding the door for or saying an occasional “hi” to when you pass by. These people are generally not even in your service line. You just happened to smile at them one day and now you just have to keep it up!

2. WORK acquaintances: Yes, I agree. All the people around are at the same work place as you are. But there is a general category of people who you can specifically call “WORK acquaintance”. Those under this category are the people on your floor/service line/ Line of Business (whatever you call it) but not directly related to you. You have been introduced to them but you never really had to interact with them. He/she just happened to be a friend of your “PROJECT/TECHNOLOGY acquaintance”.

3. PROJECT/TECHNOLOGY acquaintance : These people are your direct point of contact for anything and everything related to work. You may or may not to choose to hang out with them outside office hours. But during office hours they are your closest “friends”. Usuall, more out of helplessness than choice.

4. WALKOVER acquaintance: Your bored. Your fed up and you just want to quit! That’s when these people come handy. These are the people you can just walk over to….chit chat for a while..have a few laughs with and return to your seat.

5. WHO-THE-HELL acquaintances : Never seen them before and you’d think that every single time you see them,UNLESS you end up smiling at them or vice versa. But you get the point…

6. POC acquaintances : In a world with loads of skill distributed in a completely erratic and illogical manner you are SURE to be the Point of Contact for something. Even if it is “the guy with an extra pen”. So these are the people who keep coming back to you for the reasons you “excel”.

7. WORK-AND-OUT acquaintances : Your buddies at work. These people are the ones you would choose to hang out with inside OR outside at work. If you were living in a sane world with no cubicles, no bores (a noun implying a person) and no work – these are the people you’d call - friends.

P.S : The various categories listed are not purely exhaustive. I'm guessing it covers up a large part of the people around and on most cases the categories overlap a lott!!

DISCLAIMER : These are opinions and categorisations of the author and not to be officially recounted

Well, guess this post turned out longer than I thought. Well I’m saving up the “guidelines” for another day in that case..

Adios
Shanker

Just a hypocrite....

I did not cry but nor can I say that tears did not come to my eyes. Call me a loser, call me a sissy. Call me whatever you like but for a fact I know what I actually am. A pure hypocrite. This blog is not a review of the movie at which my first sentence holds good : “My Name is Khan”(from the epiglotis). This is about something I realized while I was watching it. The tears or the feeling of sadness(to put it a bit manly) were NOT for Kajol or the suffering Khan(who, I have to admit, pulled off the role pretty well but at the same time gave me the image of not having to work too much to “act” new). It was not about the loss of a son or the life of a mentally challenged character. It was about the plight of the world. The acts of cruelty, the misunderstandings and also a feeling of detached pride in random acts of unity. Scenes portraying the patriotic, nationalistic and stray incidents of unity and courage always gave me goosebumps and what can be termed as “welling of the eyes”. For those of you who did watch the Khan as Khan flick, some scenes I can quote as examples are 1) the search at the airport, 2) Sam’s incident 3) the Georgia incident : not Shahrukh going over but when his relatives, and friends come to help. At the same time the scenes which irked me included the US teacher talking about “Islam” and the talk by the “doctor” to inspire Jihadism but there again the correct interpretation provided by Khan gave a sense of righteousness to the set. It is not religion, it is not nationality, nor race, colour, language that diversifies man. It is the good and the bad. Quoting another famous flick “You either die a hero or live long enough to be a villain”. The same way as absence of light is darkness, inaction or the absence of good is bad/evil. But I shall not stray into my “philosophies” on religion or “humanity” in this blog. Throughout the movie I felt that sadness due to the stereotyped portrayal of a specific set of people; be it religion or color.

That’s where I come in. On reading an article related to the Indo-Pak venture “Aman ki aasha”, I realized more than half of what they wrote was true. I would recommend the article for those who are interested. Our image of a topi(Taqiyah in Arabic) wearing man with long beard and robe has been combined with the same images of that person sitting around tables hatching plans to blow up a landmark. The media, movies and every single form of communication have shown remade “adaptations” of these images. Regardless of the number of disclaimers on being shown these two images side by side any person would just “logically” reason out a bunch of crap. Why not a man with a tshirt and jeans? Why not a guy in a coat?? It’s an image that generates a thought; an idea. I am not going to use any general terms here. Coz on contemplating at the end of the movie, I realized one thing I am just a HYPOCRITE. Just a day before I had these “fake emotions” flowing in, I was roaming around Hyderabad . As usual, lost and far from home!(I seriously should get a GPS and map while driving). At a point where I was definite I was going the wrong way, I stopped to ask directions. The person I happened to stop near was the typical stereotyped “long beard, topiwala” and my first response was “Would he really give me the right direction”. Disgusting. For the record, the way I asked him or talked to him did not get affected by this and he was a very pleasant man. Then WHY this stupid misconception. Why that thought!! Even after the movie and on hearing about the Pune blast my mind rushed to that spot. He was getting off a scooter. Boom!! This is me. I give a load of crap about being righteous, about being against religious fanaticism(which I strongly AM against) but at the same time I think like this. I fear/doubt an image. Why is it that we are made to believe that he or any man who looks like that can’t be our neighbor, manager or friend! It is not just the world that bothers me, nor the media. Right now it is me. And how much of a hypocrite I am. To all those people out there to whose images I have attached incidents : I can’t stop thinking or imagining but please accept my apologies.

P.S : I know for a fact, i do not speak about just myself here.

Later,
Shanker

Lessons learnt in the Corporate

Some things I learnt in the corporate world

1. If you are early your manager will definitely be at his seat.
2. If you’re late and rushing to make it in my time your manager will be late that day.
I SAY: I have no idea how this works and I should actually be happy since it’s actually better than having it the other way around. But it kind of gets on your nerves when you are just rushing to make it on time and reach there to realize no one is there yet! If there was some form of consistency, things would have been a lot easier at work.

3. There is always someone else in the bathroom at any given point of time during the day.
I SAY: This is another thing I don’t get. Irrespective of the number of people on the floor on a given weekday there is definitely going to be

a) Someone else in the bathroom when you enter
b) Someone entering the bathroom while your inside
c) Someone pushing the door while your pulling it to go out

It’s not like I take THAT much time!! And I’m just talking about the basic usage here!!

4. When your boss comes up behind you, it would inevitably be seconds after you minimize the actual work you are supposed to be doing.
I SAY: You know what I’m talking about. Regardless of how hard you were working, the moment you decide to take a break would be the moment that “rarely visiting” super boss of yours decides to make an appearance.

5. If you change screen in a hurry to hide what you were doing you’ll definitely end up with something worse.
I SAY: Although I have to confess that this could be a direct cause of the multiple useless tabs I keep open, it really is irritating. When you’re in situation 4 and you just want to act busy again. No amount of ALT + TAB will get you to your actual work!!

6. For any given day, the time spent for lunch by your manager and team is inversely proportional to your own lunch break .(This is only applicable if you aren’t eating with them)

7. If you’re in a hurry the elevator will stop at the maximum number of floors.

8. If there are 3 or 4 rooms in a line and you have booked one of those for a meeting, 90% of the time the room you booked will be occupied and the others will be free!

Well that’s about it for now. The corporate life has corroded my senses. Got a few posts on hold… Later then..