Happy Birthday Dad.

People say I have a lot in common with my dad
And every time someone says that I feel out of the world
Sometimes I wonder what is my identity, but for my dad
Today if people recognize me and identify me for what I am
If people like my work, its all because of him.

Would I have been the same person if not for him?
I guess not.
He has made sure that I have the right upbringing
The right attitude and the right mix of assertiveness and courteousness.

People tell me that I have a lot in common with my dad
But I wonder, if I am any where close to the kind of ideals he has set
The principles he follows, and the aspirations he sets for himself and for me as his son.

Whatever people say
The truth is, for me he has been my Friend, Philosopher and Guide.
All my life, whenever I found myself at crossroads, whenever I found myself struggling to take a decision
I would just close my eyes and wonder what he would have done, if he would have been in my place. And then the going gets easier for me.

I love you Nanna,

And wish you the very best that life has got to offer on this day and the days to come.

Many Happy Returns of The Day.

Interpersonal Relations

The most complicated relation in this world to understand is how I would like to term it.

I don’t know how the other species maintain such relationships among themselves and I don’t even have any intentions to try and understand that, but I wonder if they have such complex relationships.

Truth they say is greater than God, sadly I haven’t seen a single person in this world who would be ready to accept the most simplest of truths, may be my understanding of it is debatable.

For instance calling a spade a spade can be real unpleasant and would put even the most powerful person whoever he might be in trouble. Dressing it up has always been the best way out.

I had read in one of the innumerable books on how to make friends and be liked by people around, in other words to be social.

Patient listener: Some people never get tired of speaking nonsense, and if you want to or in other words if you need to maintain a good relationship with them you better sit quietly and listen to whatever he has to say, it doesn’t matter how irrational it might be.
Never Argue: During some of these stupid conversations if you do realize that the other person is totally wrong, you better don’t point it out; rather if he calls a dog a donkey agree to that.
Appreciation: On top of that you better find something appreciable in him and tell it to him, one word of appreciation is enough to put him on seventh heaven
Dance to his tune: The last and final blow to win him over completely, speak what he wants to listen not what you feel is right.

The rest of the tricks that he has mentioned in that book revolve more or less around these same lines, and as I am not trying to write a review on his book I wont elaborate on those topics, what I fail to understand though is why do we have to follow these things at the first place, this is a dreadful disease which we knowingly succumb to.

What’s the point of following these rules when at the end of the conversation neither the person who made a point and received accolades for it, nor the person who pretended to have understood the point and appreciated it believe there’s any truth in it.

Take the instance of any relationship for that matter. They say the foundation of any relationship rests on the pillars of Trust, Love and Faith. But does anybody understand the meaning of these words, Do we try to observe these qualities of unwavering faith, selfless love or for that matter uncompromising trust.

We can’t or may be we won’t, because these qualities require not only a strong conviction from our side but also an open minded listener.

A superior at work might say that he is open to a frank opinion or a feedback from his juniors, but can he really have a good sound sleep if one of them points out a flaw in his work.
A wife might say that the best thing that a husband can do to express his love for her is if he would give her a frank opinion about the new recipe she had tried for him, but can she take it if he says that it tastes awful.
My girlfriend might even decide to breakup with me if I would tell her how fat she looks in her new dress.

In most cases the person asking for a feedback knows pretty well that someone might point out a glitch, and at the same time feels disheartened if that is pointed out.

Most of us feel that there is nothing that can be done in this regard because its next to impossible to change how the other person reacts, yes very true, so the best thing to do would be to dress it up nicely and present it in an acceptable way – blunder.

Once we do that, there is one more human tendency that comes into the picture, Expectation. We expect the favor to be returned maybe not from the same person in question but from a different person, maybe from my juniors when I become a Manager, from my next girl friend if not from the present one.

So what is the solution to this problem, in my opinion the best thing to do is to clean ones own backyard first before bothering about the filth in the neighborhood. That might be too much of an asking, because this might give rise to one more serious issue, the ‘what’s there in it for me’ syndrome or may be ‘what do I get in return’ syndrome, well, maybe in the short term nothing, as for the long term, well that only time will say.

The Last Week

Have just reached home after a weeks vacation, this last week was very eventful, so thought would pen down my experiences and share them. Will continue my posts on The Trip after this.

Every year we have a week off for Plant maintenance, and this last week was the scheduled maintenance off, as I didn’t get time to meet some of my friends after I took up this job, I had planned to make full use of this weeks time, and though I had a lot of things planned was able to do justice to a fraction of them.

I started for Hyderabad last Saturday evening, Chins was coming from US after a period of one and a half years, and the last time we met him was when we got together to see him off as he left for his MS, so as planned Vicks and Mams had already started for Hyderabad and had reached on Saturday itself, I reached on Sunday and we all were put up at Chits place, the stage was set for a special welcome for Chins.

I don’t know about the others but I was expecting to meet a US returned Chins in a GAP t-shirt and a changed accent, but to my surprise he had not changed a bit, it was as if we had met only a few days back, Just like old days we sat and enjoyed the F1 race together and chatted along about how he spent his time there, his studies, new friends and other things. That was followed with a dinner we even planned to celebrate the occasion but Mams and Vicks had to return back to Bangalore to attend office the next day and Chins had plans to visit the Visa balaji temple, so had to change plans.

The next day I had plans to visit another close friend of mine, infact that was the reason I stayed back in Hyderabad though I had nothing much to do that day, but then due to some other commitments that meeting had to be cancelled at the last minute, so I was left with nothing to do on a hot and humid Monday in Hyderabad, I was really pissed off with myself for not having planned anything else, But then, my father always says that whatever happens, happens for the good, and my sincere thanks to that friend of mine for having cancelled tht meeting that day, because that gave me an opportunity to meet two very old and close friends, We had done our Intermediate together and didn’t get an opportunity to meet or get together for a long long time, infact that day we were meeting after a period of eight years, we had lunch together and chatted away for a long time, reminding ourselves about all the stupid things we did when we were at college. In the evening I met another good friend who was my junior at college, never really spoke to her when we were at college, well I got to know from her much later that, I had a very bad image at college among girls, that I was very arrogant and was not at all approachable, well I don’t know what gave them that impression but anyways after I passed out she had once scrapped me on orkut and then slowly we got to know eachother and finally we met that day, finally in the evening I boarded the bus to Chennai.

I reached Chennai pretty late the next morning, reason – a flat tyre in the midnight in the middle of nowhere, anyways I managed to reach home by 11:30 my caring bhabi had prepared dosas for breakfast, and I hogged them as if I had not eaten for a couple of days. In the evening Mom and Dad arrived from Kolkatta, and all of us Anna, Mom, Dad and Bhaabi spent the rest of the evening chatting. We had a family dinner all five of us together nearly after a year and that was really nice all of us getting together.
The next day was a very special day, well it was my birthday so it was special, I always feel why people make such a fuss about a birthday, but then the truth of the matter is this is the day when everyone no matter who he is feels very important, that day one realizes how much he is loved by all his loved ones, and that is really something that everyone should look out for, and if even one person doesn’t call or send a loving birthday wish it really hurts. And I feel, no matter how busy one is, one should not forget to wish someone on his birthday, especially when he/she is expecting that. But there are so many things that people are busy with these days, so many responsibilities and so many other commitments that they might just forget, and we should have a big heart to forget and forgive such slip-ups.

The rest of the week was more or less a family get together, just the five of us, going out for lunch, dinner, temples the beach, some family photographs and stuff. That’s how I spent the last week, was an eventful week for me and brought back very old and nice memories.

Finally, I would like to thank everybody, my family, my friends and The Almighty himself for blessing me with such nice moments to look back and feel happy about, and look forward to more and more such moments.

The Trip – The First Plan and its planners.

As if Dil Chahta Hai wasn’t enough, one more movie had to add fuel to the fire, any guesses, well this time it was ‘The Wild Hogs’. Now this really had me wondering why we weren’t going out on that trip that we had planned long ago, thanks to G Talk and Yahoo Messenger, we were able to plan a trip even though we were sitting miles apart in our Air Conditioned corporate cubicles under the watchful eyes of our bosses, What would we have done without Google, well frankly Google was our friend, philosopher and guide right from the beginning.
Talking of friends, without them this trip wouldn’t have been possible.
There was Vicks who had too many reasons to just sit at home, the programming job had taken its toll on him and the only thing he enjoyed to do was sit and watch TV in that hideout he called his room. For every reason I gave him to make him move out, he had two different ones to sit back and continue with his life. If this was Vicks then Mams was another personality. He had just returned from US, and was ever ready to do something different, I just had to tell him that we were planning to be the next team on the Columbia space shuttle and he would jump at it. So I knew he would never say no to any proposition of mine, Finally there was Chits, well convincing him is neither too difficult nor too easy, it all depends on his mood no not his mood, he is not at all moody, it all depends on him oh whatever, frankly, I have never been able to understand him, the only thing I am sure of is that he is a true friend and a great person to be with, and such a trip without him would be an utter waste. Then there were Ravs and Chins but they were in UK and US respectively and their joining was not possible but still then they chipped in with their thoughts.
When I put this idea of mine of all of us getting together and going off to some nice place for a day or two not worrying about our responsibilities our jobs our bosses no one, just for once before our families start worrying about getting us married, Initially everyone was interested.
Then I put forth the idea of all of us going for a ride instead of going for a trip in a train or a bus, that’s it that was the end of it, suddenly Vicks wasn’t interested and Chits put forward a potential and practical problem, Vicks and Chits had never tried riding a bike in the past and that posed a problem, only me and Mams had to ride for the whole journey, it wasn’t that we weren’t up for it, but then there were a lot of what if’s involved. For instance, First of all Goa was out of question as it was too far from Bangalore, and riding that far according to the others was dangerous and risky. Vicks wanted that we should inform our respective families about this trip, and so did Chits, but me and Mams were pretty sure that our folks would never approve of something like this, and this argument went on and on till it all got heated up and finally we dropped the idea.

The Trip - Background

It was during my 3rd year engineering that Dil Chahta Hai was released, and since the day we saw that movie, me and my friends were gung-ho about going to GOA as a group and wile away our time there for a day or two, that was way back in 2003, soon after that we all got held up with final year projects, exams and then job hunts, not that we were some book worms, but then clearing the exams was necessary and so was getting a job for some of us, yes that some of us is important, I wasn’t one among that some, I wasn’t sure at all what I wanted, and what do most engineering graduates who are not sure what to do after graduation do, well if you are wondering then preparation for CAT what else, my sincere apologies to all those sincere CAT aspirants and stalwarts, I am writing about myself so just chill. It took hell of a time for few of us to get into respectable jobs, and myself I managed to join a B-school and finish my MBA and in the process made new friends and irritated a few more lecturers. I hope my parents and my brother don’t read this at all, I just can’t imagine how they are going to react.
And by the time the summer of 2007 made way for the monsoon of 2007, I found myself in Chennai, my experiences in Chennai will be a different post, I wouldn’t want to miss sharing that, but some other time. Yeah so I saved some cash for a couple of months borrowed some from the bank which has been a true friend since the day I opened an account with them and took a credit card, and bought the love of my life – A Hero Honda Karizma.

The Trip - Introduction

Let me begin my blogging with the best thing i did this year, something which for me was adventurous and entertaining. It might not be for some people as they might have done something like this many a times in their lives and for some others something like this might not be exciting at all, but for me it was exhilarating.