How would it be to...

... not do anything?
... not sleep at all?
... get the mind to move things?
... have flying spoons and forks feeding you when you want to be fed?
... lie in bed till noon each day?
... talk to a cow - as in have a real conversation, one on one?
... have pets? (Eeeks!)
... have four day work weeks with Wednesday being the day off as well?
... get rewarded adequately for all the good work done? [Never happens as easily]
... be a lot luckier? [I can vouch for that.]
... feel a lot luckier?
... teach kids at/ through an NGO?
... talk less? [Scary thought!]
... spend lesser?
... spend more?
... vacation more frequently?
... be tireless?
... just have someone drop by to have a drink without 'asking' if they should drop by?
... not have maid support? [Chaos!]
... not have bootleggers on call?
... not have man-fridays to do odd jobs?
... not have mobile phones?
... not have the internet? [Phew!]
... just feel relaxed without telling yourself you need to take that break to feel so?
... be shared? [Controversial, huh!]
... not have hair loss issues? [I wish!]
... not a bad hair day? [Every day is one.]
... have a unbelievable phase of great luck and providence? [Waiting...]
... roll back the years? [May be not.]
... not smoke? [Well...]
... do different things beyond routine?
... have no watches, anywhere? [Ahem.]
... work from home, always? [:o)]
... be invisible? [No fun.]
... cycle to work?
... be lonely in a crowded place?
... not have cricket as a game?
... have perfect vision?
... be a farmer? [Back to the roots.]
... not know to walk, talk and speak in 'Engleees'?
... not have social networking sites?
... be overhelmed with the noise of silence?
... be at peace with the pace?
...
...
...
... feel good, always? [I feel good now.]

[Unfinished but I guess the list is endless.]

Thinking Aloud... 'Feeling Good'!

1200 hrs, At the Office. On a mini-break from the frenetic pace of juggling multiple tasks over the past fortnight. The past week was particularly crazy but it is all good. The fun part is that it gives me the rush that keeps me going.

I just told myself over the weekend that I should be more regular with my blog posts. It is not meant to be a personal diary made public. It is always nice to feel good about the fact that your friends get to read a bit about you every now and then, even though you are not as apprised about their lives. Sometimes I wonder if all the effort that I make to be in touch is really worth it. But again, it is all about the 'feel good' factor.

I feel good about making the effort to be in touch. I feel good about knowing or in most cases assuming that everyone who I have ever known this far is out there doing well while fighting their own battles and waging their little wars. I feel good just being me.

Each day has its share of surprises. Hopefully, the happier surprises are the ones we all should be dealing with for a long time to come. On that note... I am getting back to work. Cheers!

What More Can One Do...

... to prove you are not a potential immigrant.

Life has been a roller coaster but the hits were taken well with a lot of positivity and renewed zest to fight the odds. Having traveled moderately well to a few countries on business which include Australia and having traveled to the United States to study (although for a brief while), the last thing that was expected was a business visa application being declined at the US consulate. Not after more than 12 years in the industry, not after having all the documents in place, not after actually aspiring to get back to servicing the US market from India. It surely is inexplicable in many ways.

Then on the other hand, there are scores who get to the land of opportunity to stick one's guts into the soil just because they got 'lucky'. That is surely the operating word when it comes to being 'granted' or rather 'blessed' with a US visa. And many of these people get to do what they aspire to do but I am very sure that there are quite a few out there who 'hang around' despite not doing well just because they want to live in America. It's not a case of sour grapes at all. Almost everyone I know who went there to study has never returned for good. And everyone who has ever said that they will, won't for the longest time. Not qualms there as each has their own destiny and aspirations to deal with and I am happy for every one of them. It gladdens me that they are all doing well, wherever they are.

Here one has pretty strong roots in India, has a stable job that ensures a good enviable life, has a child who will grow up in India as there is no way the cultural ethos of one of the world's oldest civilizations can be compromised with the Aston Martin's of the world. The list is endless but here one just wants to do justice to the job that your employer has hired you for.

To try to excel is in our DNA and we are brought up with that drilled into our impressionable minds from our childhood days. But what can one do when a mere whim can rule things against you.

I really can't fathom what more is needed to get 'lucky'. I am sure there are quite a few out there who want to travel the world but still will never leave India for greener pastures. There can be nothing better for me at least as you get the best of both worlds. And as I see the plight of many who are denied a chance to get ahead in life, I wonder... when will be a time when at least the well qualified and experienced professionals don't have to live on a prayer against a whim!

Being born on India's Independence Day, I can only say that patriotism runs in my blood. Tomorrow is another day! :)

Adieu - Mr King Khan!

Feroz Khan. The very name effuses panache, style, confidence and and glamour. He was flamboyance personified. His raspy voice tangoed with his swagger.

For the audience, his presence on screen always meant that something different was to be expected. He was the master of bedazzlement. He was one among the bastion of actors who had the charisma and the guts to chart his own niche to become the Cowboy of Bollywood. He stood tall for me in all I could see of him. He was pure fun to watch.

Award shows will miss his larger than life presence. The red carpet is surely in mourning. He always wore a big smile and never failed to surprise his audience by doing something different.

I read that he lived a very lavish life and I hope and pray that he gets to rest in royal style that is only his to claim. I surely will miss his swagger, the warm smile that he always wore and of course, the sunglasses.

Feroz Khan, for me, is the true King Khan! May God bless his soul.

The Buzz about the FIP!

I got on to reading the current buzz boy's notes on the ongoing IPL tourney in South Africa.

Irreverent, crass, interesting, humorous, insinuating, entertaining... are some of the words that came to my mind as I moved from one post to the other.

The casting of the players with their idiosyncracies and their call names on the blog has been well thought through. I am not trying to critique the blog and neither am I trying to glorify it. It is sheer entertainment paisa vasool for the general online readers who also need to quite well versed with the cricketing world and its constituents.

Fake or not, it sure is quite riveting. Let the buzz buzz around...

Sad-yam. Very Sad-yam.

The man who stirred the hornet’s nest is one of our own. Barely a month ago, he was one of the stalwarts who had earned a place with the stars among the stellar entrepreneurs who transformed the IT industry.

Byyraju Ramalinga Raju now is associated with ‘Bhayyam’ (the vernacular word for fear in the Telugu language). The gults (as Telugu people were referred to at our famous alma mater) are an extremely proud lot. Now that pride is dented by the hammered force of the greed of the son of the soil.

Well, he is on the boil now… with the world calling him the greatest ever fraudster from India. We are all wondering about the sheer callousness and irresponsibility with which he staked the lives and careers of people who were sworn in to be his loyal comrades at Satyam. He is probably being called ‘Deyyam’ (meaning ghost in Telugu) whom everyone wants exorcised.

Maybe this was the reason why there are two ‘y’s in his name. He became the satan that he didn’t intend to become. On the contrary, having names that means God in some way, couldn’t dissuade the Raju brothers from being erroneously human.

But hey, let’s not get myopic with the ‘blame it on, Andhra’ rhetoric. There are overtly greedy, charlatans of goodwill and trust in every corner of the world. The latest (as and when it happens) is always the biggest and the most disturbing. And this day’s latest is the Satyam fiasco. I can’t say there won’t be another new swindler on the podium tomorrow but I definitely can hope that there won’t be.

As the elder Raju admitted, they probably thought that the tiger they were riding on was worth the risk as long as the juggernaut continued. Unfortunately for them, they didn’t realize that greed ends at infinity. And the tiger lost steam along the way.

[In his most innocuous way, Aravind Adiga might be sniggering at Raju for his reference to the Tiger. And I am not even hinting that Adiga might have got himself a few more readers for his book thanks to this ongoing saga.] (Bad joke, I know. I am yet to get over the White Tiger. Read my other recent post)

‘Plain Woeful Crooks’ should be what PwC should rechristen itself as. They still seem to be hanging on to the ‘disclaimer’ note claiming they didn’t do anything. But the whip is about to slam into them any one of these days (or so we think)!

Raju, in all his goodness, attempted to hoodwink the world by stating that he was the sole master chef that cooked the books with no fringe players to support him. A scam of this magnitude definitely needed a lot more c(r)ooks to stir the stew.

From ‘Brothers in Arms’ to ‘Brothers in Alms’. My heart bleeds as an Indian and as a gult. Let the truth prevail.

Sad-yam. Very Sad-yam. :(

A Roar or a Whimper?

Ah… the White Tiger!

Well, the book promised a lot more from the outset – the Booker win, the unassuming South Indian who stirred the literary world with the roar of the Tiger, the media buzz around it, etc – than what it finally delivered. It was a good read and I am not complaining. The story is a mug shot from life around us. It could have been a short story within my own ‘Survival Ecosystems’ piece on this blog. It is subtly comical at certain places. It is satirical in most. It was irreverent, amoral, self-deprecating, repulsive, stirring and quite obviously boring as well.

Maybe Aravind could have held on to the drama/ suspense till the end even though I did not expect a very shifty plot. The enigma of unraveling to myself what maketh a Booker winner pretty much goaded me to finish the book even though I lost interest midway through it. I had my wife asking me if the story was so riveting that I refused to let go of the book even when my glass needed a refill. I replied, “I just want to finish it.” I finished it over two 4 hour sittings which were continually disrupted by the din of the television (that my wife was watching), our kid’s nursery rhyme rehearsals (playschool hangover at home) which had me participate and the attention that my mobile phone demanded when it buzzed. Not that I am slow reader. I just wanted to read each and every word of the novel unlike the more accomplished speed readers who do a 400 page novel in 2 hours. And I didn’t want to do the ‘do’!

I wanted to get under the skin of the protagonist of the plot. I wanted to be ‘a diggah’ (a digger, not Adiga)! A diggah of the subterfuge that Adiga pulled off so well. I kind of liked the imaginary conversation with the Chinese Premier but it was a real drag after a while. The Chinese connect is difficult to justify despite certain references to the nation.

Maybe it is not so difficult to write a book after all. It just requires some serious intent and a story (any story). The catch is probably about what the reader would take away from the effort. And this book kind of confused me a bit on that front. Maybe the reader is not looking for anything. Works of fiction are not read to take home a message that one would seriously consider working on. They provide the non-rush hour rush. The White Tiger hardly roared along its journey. Even at the end, I felt the protagonist’s personification was quite misplaced. But hey, the jury lapped it up as they probably heard a roar while I heard a whimper. The world is creaming over it. And some more people are probably even more motivated to write.

The book is worth a ‘A Dig, eh’, for sure!