They say that a man’s ‘karma’ eventually catches up with him. It looks like mine just did.
After having ranted about Gandhi, Lord Rama, and Lord Krishna’s ahem… not so respectable activities, what happens next? We get an assignment – a 1000 words essay on Gandhi.
What’s worse is that another assignment on Lord Rama is expected to follow, sometime soon.
Hence, I think I shall reserve my comments on Krishna for the time being, lest he appears in some exam or test or maybe another assignment…
All right, folks! This is a definitive moment for this blog. You see, this post is the 100th to mark its presence on this space. Heck! 100 posts of insanity? In less than 6 months, wow!
I would like to thank my mom, my dad, my brother, my ex-roommate, the washerman, the sweeper, the guard, my profs, all you wonderful folks at Bloggersville, the stray black cat downstairs, those folks who play blaring music around and yada yada yada… *wipes tear from cheek*
I think verbal diarrhoea just manifested itself here. Or maybe narcissism, or may be both.
Anyway, let me shed the ‘Mr. Mope’ tag that has been bestowed on me by my dear pal Ramaa and talk of happier things in life. Well, firstly a clarification. I do not mope! (Though I do concede that there are some occasions when I crib. So what, huh? Don’t you? HMPH!!)
This blog had taken birth as an aimless, directionless entity that began as a whimper, and stayed shut for many months. However, a chance trip to Simlipal and Chandipur-on-sea gave it a new lease of life nearly 5 months ago, and since then the insanity has only grown.
I’ve ranted about my miserable life, dumped some amateurish pieces of writing at people, tried being funny, and sometimes just blabbered on without reason. And well, Google Analytics tells me that nearly 2700 unique visitors from all across the world have been tearing their hair apart over the last few months, having made 6000+ visits to my blog.
Thanks to Google’s eye that spies on people much like Sauron’s, I know which area you’re from, which OS you use, the name of your browser, and yes, the colour of your family dog. (The last one’s a lame joke, eh! Don’t take it too seriously. But the rest are all facts. *evil laugh*)
I didn’t know if I’d be able to post as frequently as I do now, but it’s mainly thanks to you, the readers who keep egging me on. (Your fault, ha!)
It’s been fun, and I hope to write with regularity from now on. Thanks for reading, and appreciating.
Also, another thing that’s making me happy is the launch of my own website. It’s a site dedicated to HR and can be viewed at eleventHR. It’s in collaboration with some of my friends and we intend to run it like a business. A lot of sections are still under construction but we hope to launch in about a week.
Do subscribe to it please, and share the link on your blogs too. We can do with the free publicity. :)
Meanwhile, your bouquets and brickbats will be appreciated. Keep them coming.
Beneath the confident exterior, there’s a world of insecurities.
Behind the veneer of calmness, there’s a hurricane of worries.
Beneath the rainbow of dreams, there’s a spectre of nightmares.
Behind the sardonic smile, there’s a world of sadness.
Beneath the beautiful fakeness, there’s an ugly reality.
I’m bored of this term. I wish I could take a long vacation where I could read lots of books, write a bit, watch loads of movies, and sleep blissfully with no alarm to wake me up.
It’s good to be back to prolific blogging. About a month ago, I though I’d hit a trough that I’d never get out of. Thankfully, that’s not the case.
Ghosts of the past do come back to haunt me. I have no clue about how to exorcise them.
I see my juniors at XLRI and think of how far I’ve come in the last one year. Wow!
I wonder if Richard Bach was mistaken when he said, “Every problem has a gift for you in its hands.”
I am beginning to think that this blog needs a facelift (much like my life). What say?
It was almost a year ago, that some starry-eyed juniors watched jealously as their seniors made merry, while they themselves slogged it out in the first year of their rigorous MBA course. They dreamt of living a blissful life with fewer classes, more chilled out profs, and loads of juniors flocking around them for those elusive bits of gyaan.
Today, those same starry-eyed folks are bleary-eyed seniors watching jealously as their juniors make merry, while they themselves slog it out in the second year of their rigorous MBA course. They dream of living a blissful life with fewer classes, more chilled out profs, and no juniors flocking around for scraps of gyaan.
Now, you might want to sagaciously add that ‘The grass is greener on the other side’ but I’d warn you against it. After all, we might be bleary-eyed seniors, but we’re not cows hankering after green grass. (On a personal note, I’m not a junkie who is looking for grass of the other kind either… ahem!)
If one had truckloads of work in previous terms, now it has got magnified to mountain loads. What with subjects like Managerial Ethics and Global Business Turnaround.
In fact, I still feel that we don’t need tutoring in ethics. If I’m already ethical, the course won’t be of much help, and if I’m willing to stretch my integrity like a rubber band, well, no prof who is advocating ‘the greater good of the greater number’ is going to be useful to me. (Unless of course, I’m the kind who will guffaw at the naivety of the poor, ethical morons.)
As far as Global Turnaround goes, I had walked into the class with visions of me stepping out of a black Mercedes, immaculately clad in an Armani suit, sporting Gucci glasses, and talking incessantly on my Vertu, into a board room. And there, some of my minions – all these senior vice-presidents and global heads of operations fellows would listen in rapt attention while I narrated my strategy to get companies like GM and Ford back on track and the world out of the recession.
Alas! That was to remain a fond dream as I slogged it out with reading lengthy articles on ‘urban blight’ and making assignments on ‘revitalizing Jamshedpur.’ Aargh!!
Perhaps, the administrators included a course on Indian Philosophy and Leadership Excellence (IPLE) just to counter the violent thoughts conjured by some of the other courses. Well, we’re studying the Holy Geeta, some parts of the ancient scriptures, and also how despite his promsicuity early on, Lord Krishna was a transformational leader. So what, if he resorted to a few underhanded tactics to win the Mahabharata war? After all, ‘Winning is not everything, it is the only thing!’ Also, we read about how Lord Ram refused to take his wife’s word on her chastity, but is still to be revered as a great leader of men (and monkeys? :O).
Another character that I rather object to is Mahatma Gandhi. I might be ruffling a few feathers by saying so, but I think we give too much credit to that one man for our independence. He may have been a major contributor, but ‘Father of the Nation’? Oh, please!! Of course, of course. He was leading the nation to victory over the Brits, and so what if he neglected his own family, right? After all, ‘the greater good of the greater number’… BAH!
Anyway, I think I shall leave you to read my ramblings and comment (hopefully) while I study the Geeta for a test tonight.
I opened an old mail dating back to 2004 and saw that my email signature had a quote that I totally loved.
There are three things in life: earning, learning, and yearning.
I think it’s a beautiful thought. What do you think?
Dear readers, you can accuse me of narcissism for creating this post. But, how could I deny you the pleasure of reading ‘The ABC of me’? Of course, even if you do believe that I am narcissistic, you should write to Roshmi and accuse her of letting loose that streak in me (again).
Anyway, so let’s give my itchy fingers some rest, and without blabbering too much, I shall get going!
Here are the rules:
a) Link the person who tagged you. (Check one completed)
b) Post the rules on your blog. (That’s precisely what I’m doing!)
c) Share the ABCs of you. (In due course of time…)
d) Tag 3 people at the end of your post by linking to them. (NOOO! Don’t run away yet! Puh-lease…)
e) Let the 3 people know of the tag by leaving them comments.
f) Do not tag the original ‘tagger’. (After all, you wouldn’t want to read another set of ABCs about the same person, right?)
Here’s the ABC of me then…
A – Available/Single? Would it suffice to say that somewhere mid-way is where I am? :D
B – Best friend? Riya
C – Cake or Pie? Now that’s a real dilemma! Can’t I have both? Please…
D – Drink of choice? Thums Up
E – Essential item you use every day? Dell Inspiron 1525
F – Favorite colour? Red
G – Gummy Bears Or Worms? Yikes! What the hell is this? But if I had really wanted worms, I’d have been an early bird, which I’m not. Hence, the answer is Gummy bears.
H – Hometown? The City Beautiful - Chandigarh
I – Indulgence? Sleep (which I’m getting lesser and lesser of…. *yawn*)
J – January or February? Are you selling me calendars? Dumb question! Anyway, February it is.
K – Kids & their names? Not applicable
L – Life is incomplete without? K (Stringent privacy regulations prevent disclosure of name here.)
M – Marriage date? You mean what date I’d like to get married on, right? *sigh* Any day’s a good day!
N – Number of siblings? One
O – Oranges or Apples? Oranges
P – Phobias/Fears? No fear is the name of the game! Ha!
Q – Quote for today? Richard Bach’s “Can miles truly separate you from friends... If you want to be with someone you love, aren't you already there?”
R – Reason to smile? Do I need one?
S – Season? Autumn
T – Tag 3 People? Of course! I’ll make sure others also get to answer some dumb questions. :D
U – Unknown fact about me? I can’t sing to save my life. (Of course, if you ask my neighbour, he’ll vehemently protest and say that the fact is not unknown in the least.)
V – Vegetable you don't like? I am an animal lover… meat is the way to go!
W – Worst habit? Procastination – I never put off till tomorrow whatever I can put off till next week.
X – X-rays you've had? This question deserves the ‘WTF’ prize – by the author of this post, for being utterly dumb and irrelevant. (Btw, I have had too many X-rays to count.)
Y – Your favorite food? I could write volumes about favourite foods. But let’s say ‘Rajma Chawal’ and leave it at that.
Z – Zodiac sign? I am an Aquarian – the water bearer.
I Tag... in Alphabetical Order: Aparna, Choco and Nikita. Ladies, get going!!
I know, I know! I’ve been missing for too long from this space. Well, if I hadn’t gone away, would you have missed me? Obviously not. (I’m making the gargantuan assumption that you did miss your favourite blogger*, so just play along puh-lease, ok?)
*This is another assumption, within an assumption. So, I presume that my programmer friends will call this a nested assumption. :D
On Roshmi’s demand, I’m posting a picture of the escaped convict look that I mentioned in an earlier post. I’m nowhere close to my handsomest best**, I guess, but presentable enough, right?
**Now now! You’re pushing things a bit too far. That is certainly not an assumption, for God’s sake!
I shall expect you to be ‘hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise’. If not, then I shall rightfully presume that you’re still from the Jurassic era and have not had the chance to thumb through Dale Carnegie’s ‘How to win friends and influence people’.
P.S. This post is called ‘The Great Escape’ for two reasons:
a) The pic should give you some idea of what an escaped convict ought to look like. (Believe me, the chocolatey folks you see in Prison Break are not real. The ruggedness of the pic above has to be seen to be believed.)
b) I managed to escape the drudgery of daily chores to make this post. Yay!
I sit beside the shore of the sea,
and hear the waves sigh.
I look at the stars shining so,
in the moon kissed sky.
I smile at the antics,
of the frivolous frolicking fawn.
And marvel at the coming,
of yet another beautiful dawn.
A teardrop escapes my eye,
as I hear the beautiful lark sing.
Thinking about you,
I let my dreams take wing.
I'm can’t enjoy the dreamy surreality,
and I don’t cease to wonder why.
There's so much life around,
and yet....deep inside I die....
I think I’ve mentioned before that sometimes songs get stuck in my head and keep replaying themselves like a broken record would do.
For the last couple of days, there’s been a song that just refuses to budge from my sleep-deprived, caffeine-kicked brain. I don’t know if I can really relate to it at this point of time, but it sure does seem so. Here’s the video link to it:
Linkin Park’s raw lyrics seem to capture everything I feel at this moment of time. Here are the words to the song:
I'm tired of being what you want me to be
Feeling so faithless, lost under the surface
I don't know what you're expecting of me
Put under the pressure of walking in your shoes
(Caught in the undertow just caught in the undertow)
Every step that I take is another mistake to you
(Caught in the undertow just caught in the undertow)
I've become so numb I can't feel you there
Become so tired so much more aware
I'm becoming this all I want to do
Is be more like me and be less like you
Can't you see that you're smothering me?
Holding too tightly, afraid to lose control
’Cause everything that you thought I would be
Has fallen apart right in front of you
(Caught in the undertow just caught in the undertow)
Every step that I take is another mistake to you
(Caught in the undertow just caught in the undertow)
And every second I waste is more than I can take
I've become so numb I can't feel you there
Become so tired so much more aware
I'm becoming this all I want to do
Is be more like me and be less like you
And I know I may end up failing too
But I know you were just like me
With someone disappointed in you
I've become so numb I can't feel you there
Become so tired so much more aware
I'm becoming this all I want to do
Is be more like me and be less like you
I've become so numb I can't feel you there
I'm tired of being what you want me to be
I've become so numb I can't feel you there
I'm tired of being what you want me to be
Call me a narcissist if you want to, but this post is dedicated to ME. Obviously, someone as talented, brilliant, and superb does deserve at least one post, right?
Well, the entire idea of this post is not just to praise myself to the high heavens. (Though of course, that will keep happening intermittently.)
I can’t believe it’s been just two weeks since I got back to the beautiful XLRI campus. For the first few days, it was tough getting used to the sultry heat of Jamshedpur, after the beautiful climes of Bangalore. (I appreciate ‘sultriness’ in certain other forms (wink wink) but surely not in the weather.)
However, what added to the excitement was the presence of 240 new juniors. It sure is a good feeling to attain the status of an all-knowing, wise, exalted senior. (Little do those poor newbies know that we seniors are not so wise and intelligent after all.)
And what has been killing me is the fact that I have zillions of classes each day, loads of assignments and projects, juniors to mentor, and of course my Placement Committee work. I totally enjoy the last bit – all the thrills, spills, and grills (you get the picture, right?). Of course, it keeps me occupied for long, but then as long as I enjoy it, that’s good enough, I guess.
Another significant incident that took place this week was that I finally picked up enough courage to express my love to a girl. I’d been trying to say it for weeks. Sadly enough, she gave me the ‘Golden Boot’. But, she and I stay good friends, and that does matter. Significantly.
The coming week promises to be even tougher, and if you could just see the bleary-eyed, wild-haired, unshaven writer of this post, you’d probably be forgiven for thinking that he bears a rather striking resemblance to an escaped convict.
I’ve been meaning to join the gym to get rid of the camel-esque storage of resources that I’ve been carrying with me. However, time just seems to fly by each day, and by the time I pause in my busy schedule, most of the day is already gone.
I may soon start showing signs of narcolepsy, if the schedule doesn’t ease up…..zzzzzzzzzzzzz….
