unjust time

Another day begins
Questioning your choices
A day of mindless meditations
Casting doubts on your decisions

You hear meaningless names
Sundry people around you,
Callous, with empty faces 
Gearing up for the races

In a world where
Truth and justice is gone,
Faded has the color of life
No end to this eternal strife

Storms of dust, 
Rains and rust,
Utterly lost, only to find
The end of this unjust time

Bombay Diaries #1 FOOD

Road-side food, or fast-food, or budget hotels, or expensive hotels, or 5+ star hotels or the awfully good chai-wala every 50metres, Bombay has it all.

Places I (in most cases I and S) have been to regularly for these 7 years are:

Parel : Aditi, 7 spice, Anna, Noble Tea;

Dadar: Shagun, Gold Rush, Oven Fresh, Sujata, Pritam, Sher-e-Punjab, Chandragupta, Prakash, Aswaad, 6th Street Yogurt, Grass,  Satyam Dosa, El Café etc;

Matunga: VJTI canteen, UDCT canteen, Classic, Garnish, Rasna Punjab, Madras Café, Mysore Café, Koolar, Durga Parmeshwari, Mani’s, Chinaman, Arya Bhavan, Anand Bhavan, Idli House, Relax, Ramashraya, Chatai Pav Bhaji, Café Gulshan, 5 Garden Sandwich, Guptaji’s chaat, Health, Family Park …Phewww… so many still missing….

Bandra: Candies, Pali Presidency, Papa Poncho da Dhaba, 5 spice etc. etc.

South: Stadium, JBIMS canteen, Aaram vada-pav, Aamdar nivas, Vihar, Status, Copper Chimney, Khyber, Piccadilly, Relish, Samrat, Jazz by the bay, Sardar Pavbhaji, Crystal, Bhagat Tarachand.

IIT: Gulmohar, Brewberry, H14, H6, Kresit, Papa John’s

Sion: Hanuman, Gurukrupa

Miscellaneous: Blossom (Ghatkopar), McD’s, Naturals, Subways, Pizza huts, CCDs, Baristas, Baskin n Robbins, Infinite chaat waalas, tea waalas and sandwich waalas… … phew!

These are the ones I can recollect right now. Will add more as and when…………. …..  ………….

Goodnight/day!

6-3-2013

A Random Update

So, we are re-launching a product which hasn’t been successful for multiple reasons. And mind you none of these reasons is related to the quality. The product is a premium product in its category and has been a failure, more of a managerial kind than of a technical sort! Re-launching that product has several aspects to it, ATL, digital, BTL, this, that…… what I’m concerned with is the BTL activation of the re-launch, choosing an agency, getting the stuff implemented through them throughout India within the given budget. Hah! Let’s see how it goes! I’m not here to write about it :P That’s for my reference in future.
So, it’s been like.. what … 8 days since it started. And we are making the most of it.. I mean making most of the Coffee Machine… Oh! Did you think about the Learning? :P Well haven’t thought much about that yet…. :)
A typical day of mine starts with waking up at 6:00am and re-waking up at 6:30am….. The morning rituals and bathing takes about an hour… by the end of which my tiffin is ready (Thanks to aunty :)  ). I then board a taxi for Dadar station by 7:35am.. Now what kind of taxi drivers I have to deal with every coming day, don’t ask! I rush for the 7:56 Andheri local (ie goes only upto Andheri, not beyond and therefore has less crowd) and board the particular bogie I love- “the most churchgate side” bogie :P (this nomenclature was taught to me by Vrishali- one who taught me to board locals, read the display boards, K=Kalyan, T= Thane, C=Churchgate etc…, 12=12car, 9=9car, F=fast, S=slow etc…)
The-Most-Churchgate-Side bogie would mean the southernmost bogie.. or in *this* case the last bogie! All this while I have my radio plugged in. Or at times Sango’s lectures. Depends whether I’m carrying my ipod or not.
Ok. So where were we… Andheri. Yeah. The real tussle begins once I reach Andheri, the worst place in the whole of Mumbai! Mad Rush! Mad Public! Mad Autowallahs! Ufffff !!!! So After crossing the bridge West to East, you have to stand in the queue for an auto. Because if you don’t stand, they charge you 150/- for the same trip for which you’d end up paying just 20bucks if you stand in queue! You really BUY TIME in Mumbai! Tell ya, that’s Mumbai for you! But in all of this, what I like the most is- the discipline… People here are civilized and disciplined…
The Auto running on the jagged and crooked road takes me to the place I intended to be- Technopolis Knowledge Park- in about 20mins and 20bucks! Ha! So by now I’m already sleepy all over again. So now you realize what kind of motivation is needed to get you through the rest of the day which is actually the WHOLE of it?! I go mad! One hour after I reach the office, my mind is soo turbulent.. All negative thoughts.. immense tension of deadlines.. sleeeepy.. missing home…. All of which ends up in me pressing the machine for a hot chocolate. And as I’m back to the desk, I see my buddies turning up one by one…. We slowly get into conversation and it lightens my dark blues..
All of this ends up in logging on to Facebook and JBmail :D …. And now I get all answers to the questions I used to ask to Mukul and Varun when they were constantly online during their internship :P . Funny… how it all unfolds…. Innit?!
The day goes by. We laugh. We chat. Some of us wait eagerly for the free lunch. Sometimes in between we read up stuff. We meet our mentors for a dosage of de-motivation, I do atleast! Then by the time it’s 4:30pm I am already dreaming of leaving for home.
And ssso I do at 5:00pm! I hurry for a random bus to Andheri station… I board any damn FAST local I see in the offing on the indicator.. Get down at Dadar… and back home by taxi/bus depending upon my mental energy levels to sustain patience of waiting for a bus! After all this, IF I have some sanity left, I work on stuff which I should have ideally done in the office… ELSE, I end up writing such posts! :D
Goodnight/day!

Our Tree

...And one by one the birds fly to their respective trees

Some nearby, some to other countries,

Drenched with nostalgia and memories,

The pain of parting doesn't start to cease.

Chirping, giggling and tweeting,

The fun had no ending,

A picture painted perfect and serene,

Had to one day change the scene.

How long gonna stay away. No clue.

Who'd then as effectively lighten the dark blues,

Who'd digest your stances however obtuse, 

And still be with you throwing sweet abuse

Can't let you go, dunno how to hold on

What if we never return to 'our tree' we so long lived on

Tell me there won't be a time we moved on

I'll be on the same tree... Waiting for you all.

Goodnight/day!

In sanity !

Writing after long.. Blame the overrated course called ‘Yem Bee Yea’, otherwise I’d’ve been an established author by now with 100 books published :P Ok sarcasm n jokes apart, Today I’m gonna talk some sense. Or something that I think is sense :D
You know… We all aspire for things in life...! To become this, that. To get here. To get there. No, there’s nothing wrong in it. One must…. I say…… aspire, dream and work hard for it. I have learnt it the hard way. Point I am going to make here is not to discourage one from working hard. But this will certainly soothe pain of those who have aspired for something but achieved something lesser. Believe me, it happened for a reason. It is not about accepting the defeat. It’s just about facing the reality.
So, we aspire for things in life. Right? But on what basis?
We evaluate whether our abilities, capabilities are enough for us to get there, thus considering only those aspects of ourselves which are positive. But I feel, what we eventually get is something that also takes into account our negatives. This is where my philosophy of life starts, I have learnt this from experiences- personal and around me. So my examples would be related to engineering, MBA, PG entrances to put it broadly, cos that’s where I come from as on 7-2-2012. :P 
So, It’s like looking at a company and analyzing it. You are awed by looking at the assets and come to establish that the company is doing good! But the picture is incomplete until you check its liabilities and check whether company is able to pay back the debt while in the condition it is in.
Or….. say it’s like looking at a PnL statement… Looking only at the Sales Revenue is not correct. You also need to account for what’s your ‘Cost’ to come to the actual Profit—i.e. what you are actually worth of.
Similarly, rather than only concentrating on positives, one must also consider negatives while expecting something in life. Now, one is not so capable of evaluating oneself so critically as to get a true picture of what he deserves. So leave it up to Him i.e. God !
To substantiate this with an example:
Take my case, I thought I am fairly good to crack CAT and therefore I took the exam with an expectation of getting into an IIM. I certainly expected more than what I could perform/resist/realize. Or, say, I did not consider my drawbacks but only strengths. Fine, but what I landed up with finally? ---> Something that was in equilibrium with what I am. Something that suited me. Something that matched my personality. Getting into IIM would have meant staying away from home. But today where I am, I’m not actually away from my home (just giving an example, eh) … And who took care of it? HE did! I got something that did justice to my positives but also by taking into consideration my negatives.

They say that- Jo apni marjee se nahi hota, wo USKI marjee se hota hai and that is always better.
That’s soo true. And believe me… USKI marjee is actually a complete package for you! The most you can do, to increase the odds of getting closer to what you expect, is by augmenting the positive part of you.
Ok. Having said that, I don’t mean that one is less capable than someone else. Everyone has his core competency which is different from others’. So, what if the person sitting next to me in my classroom is wonderful at understanding the financial statements and I am not….! It’s ok. As I said, everyone is good at something or the other. I take solace in the fact that I can write philosophical blogs and that’s where he struggles :P …. I hope you get the point I’m trying to make :)
A linear combination of unit vectors is always unique, like, all faces are made up of eyes, nose, lips, eyebrows etc… and yet everyone looks unique. How? Its linear combinations of these various unit vectors!!!! :) Vector logic applies everywhere. And to all !
Homework:
Then, Think why all Chinese look similar?? :P :P
Goodnight/day!

DisgrAce

Life has it scornful way
Of putting things on display
Gives an Ace, so you 'all-in'
And then snatches everything away.


When you are ready to fly up high,
Past comes forth and blinds your view,
It's all black now, nowhere to go,
Just one more way of,
Life mocking you.


(incomplete..... will complete it some other time)


Goodnight/day !

On a somber note....

We often keep great expectations from others but in the process we fail to comprehend that everyone can make a mistake. Behind the façade of brilliance, there can be a person who dithers, makes mistakes and acts like a complete foolish. And for this very reason I find the word "perfect" actually ‘overrated’. Have you ever thought how fantastically boring a person will become if he meets all the 'set standards’ of the term ‘perfect’ on every aspect of his life?

I always feel that people expect a lot from others and recommend a lot to others. ‘A certain someone should have done this.’, ‘A certain someone could have done better than this.’ WHY !! I find all this completely pointless. But hardly anybody will agree with me on this, I know. What people see, what people interpret is superficial. What lies inside for each one of us is different and of equal essence, not less, not more than anybody else's.

Life is more profound. There are many good things about being the person you are, and one should be thankful for it. There are thousands of people doing the things they are fantastic at. Dancers, singers, writers, poets, philanthropists, managers, entrepreneurs are staring at your face. Businessman cannot mock a dancer for no acumen of doing a business, right? More common examples of successful accomplishments, if you will, are the moms and dads who have given all their life to bring up their kids into good beings. An entire life spent towards realization of a solitary goal or a few goals really proves the worthiness, doesn’t it?

In general, people judge too much based on the more trivial attributes of a person. It’s the coffee cup they look at, and judge, and fail to realize that the coffee being served to you all is just the same. It’s just that some of you have got more expensive cups than others, but how much of a difference does it make as long as the coffee you are having is the same? If this is complied with, then why do people with great coffee-mugs shun those with fractured mugs?

Think.

Goodnight/day

(Thanks to Aniruddha Kelkar for the coffee-cup analogy)

15-12-2010

Back in time...

Delving into the memories,

I smile...

And wish if i could

Turn back to a page

And rewrite it with a little change

Beseeching to slow down time

For me to frame the words right

To confess to an ex-desire about the feeling

That was difficult for my heart to keep in

Or going back to the dance floor,

With my buddies & friends,

And complete the unfinished dance step

With all grace and elegance

Or moving back in time and shout

The three magic words- 'I Love You', out loud

Then capture the smile on his face

And melt.... as he holds me in embrace

.

.

.

Forever and a Day !

Our eyes met

And world began to disappear

"Wonderful tonight"

The only words we could hear

You held me close

My heart began to race

A picture of our life

My mind started to trace

Like an angelic star

Crooning to my soul

No matter how far

You make me whole

If ever you doubt,

This is all i have to say

I will love you,

Forever and a day !

Don't know what to say...

There are people in this world who are really sensitive at heart, no matter how they look prima facie, they really feel the pain when they unknowingly hurt anybody. What we normally encounter are the people who are really indifferent to others’ emotions or pain. I have a long list of such people in my life. Not that I like being pitied or something but the emotional quotient is certainly not there….

My commute to the college everyday involves taking a bus upto CST and then either taking a cab from CST or another bus depending upon how late I am for the class. So today, like everyday, I went to CST and waited for cabs to come by. Since the drive from CST to my college ain’t that long, not many cab drivers entertain me. After about 5-6 drivers refused to drive me to my college, there came a cab. The driver looked really submissive…. docile if you will. I said, “bhaiya, aakashwani?” and he agreed. While on the way to the college, near Hutatma chowk, the cab was in great speed, I had tuned in to my radio.. and suddenly this guy pressed the brakes hard, and I heard some noise “KHATTTT!!!!” …

Taking out earphones, I asked him as to what happened, and in a really heartrending tone he said “Kutta tha” and I got the connection, that he had hit some dog… I asked him stop the car immediately and turned around to see if the dog’s still there… as I got off the cab a bus came along and the bus driver was laughing at the cab driver saying, “kutte ko mara tumne”. In a more poignant voice this cab driver asks “mar gaya kya wo”, to which he replied, “nahi nahi bach gaya, bhag gaya”. After hearing this, I walked some steps back to see if the dog was still there, but I couldn’t find it.

Then as I sat in the car, I looked at him in the rear view mirror (which is tilted in such a manner that passenger can communicate with the driver) and asked him to continue, I saw tears in his eyes. This guy seemed so sensitive at heart, that I was stunned to actually see him cry. I obviously didn’t let him realize that I saw him, but I was deeply touched too.

I didn’t know what say... I still don’t know what to say…….

Goodnight/day!