More than meets the Eye

It was one of those rare sunday afternoons in January,2007 when the Sun came out.
Sahil and me had gone to some educational seminar in Sector 33. Ya you can say-What sorta guys go to such seminars but in my defence, that was my first and last time. Anyway, as we were looking for an auto to come back, we couldn't find one and came by foot to Sector 32 Government hospital where we finally got lucky. This journey from Sector 32 to Panjab University turned out to be the most outrageous auto ride I have ever had in life.

As soon as we reached the first of those "typically Chandigarh" round-abouts, our auto was about to hit another one when our auto-walla started to hurl all sorts of abuses in the typically bihari accent at his opposite number. This was something that always happens among auto-wallas but our man seemed to be of a different level altogether. Mother,sister, wife and what not; he didnt spare a single memeber of the poor fellow's family. As we moved on from there, another poor soul had the misfortune of crossing paths with us, this time on a rickshaw and he was greeted with similar greetings. During those 15 something minutes that we were in the auto, He made it a point that he spit his paan on the road every 10 seconds. A minute didn't go by when he didnt shout at one of the poor cycle, scooter,bike or car wallas who were unlucky enough to have crossed us on that journey. Me and Sahil were looking at each other time and again; sometimes laughing, sometimes bewilered-What is this guy?

As we reached the university, we were somewhat relaxed that it was over but somewhere we would have liked to contine as well-It was actually fun as long as we were not on the receiving end. We were supposed to give him a pre decided sum of Rs 60 but we were not carrying any change so he stopped the auto near the University market after a brief mention of how utterly stupid we were for not carrying change. I went to get the change and Sahil stayed back. But, I was in for a shock when I came back with the change. Sahil was involved in a deep conversation with the auto-walla, in English! As I kept on staring, looking at Sahil and then at the auto-walla. He looked at me, took out his hand and introduced himself as Mr X, Regional Manager for Whilpool.He said he started this auto-thing as a weekend time-pass and started to enjoy it and decided to continue. I was totally perplexed and didnt know what to say. He went on to tell us that his father was a doctor at Aligarh Medical College and his wife was a doctor at PGI. His auto was rented out to some "proper auto-walla" during weekdays. He said he generally doesnt reveal his identity but he thought of doing an exception when Sahil told him that both of us were also engineers like him. When we asked him about the abuses and the paan, He said, " If I don't do that stuff, people won't believe that I am actually an auto-walla."

As we started to walk towards the hostel, I think I was pinching myself to confirm if this actually happened.

Revealing Mr X's identity won't be good for his business i.e. if he still is driving autos on the roads of Chandigarh as weekend time-pass.

That MBA guy

Hi Guys

This is a tribute to al the MBA graduates out there or those who are still in the process. Its is just a satirical take and meant to make you laugh a bit and if possible to rekindle some of those memories. Hope you like it :)and even if you don't(and also if you do) please leave a comment...


He entered the hallowed portals with loads of dreams
He was supposedly a part of the country's cream

He thought he is set for life but He didnt know
Soon he realised there is still a long way to go

Everyday had to sit on the same chair
Unannounced quizzes became a daily affair

Relative grading seemed an example of price discrimination
Nomore seemed like a place for knowledge assimilation

Some were fighting for an A+
He got busy with DC++

Daily case studies became just too much
Started to copy assignments Hush Hush

All his life he had been a fighter
took a break, became a free rider

CP Challenge made classes easy to bear
Good ones got cheers, Random CP noone wanted to hear

Got caught up in the 4P's
the insomniac became a fan of late night tea

Marketing and equity research he kept on tanking
CFA level 1 clear, only wanted investment banking

Not placed till day 2
kept on thinking what do I do?

Did a decision tree analysis & decided his positioning
Dead in finance, went for marketing

Wanted to race ahead of his rivals
kept getting screwed,first summers & then finals

From my mind, that MBA Guy's memory doesnt faint
Last I heard, in Kerala he was selling paints

Overcome the Dark

Light may make things bright
But darkness is the real light
Once you have overcome the dark
You never need to hide

For those who fear the dark
Ready to eat you up are many a shark
But if you go on and defy the odds
You will surely make a mark

You may bask in the glory of achieving something
But someday you may lose everything
But once you have failed
You learn to live with anything

You will have your days
But sometimes failure will make hay
But if you are strong enough
You will make your way

I am participating in the WeBlog's Sleepy Sunday contest! You may read other participating posts HERE

My First Love Story

With her mother she came to my home
She said she wanted to see my room
Together we started to play
Soon this started to happen everyday

One day I asked her, "will you be my girlfriend"
She laughed and said, "But arent you already my boyfriend."
Our daily routine went on
I felt nothing can go wrong

Then one day She said they are moving to the US
I went into complete distress
On my cheek she planted a kiss
I knew her I would dearly miss

The day they were to leave was here
She looked perfect with her hands in her hair
She saw me standing far away and smiled
I couldn't control myself and started to cry

Running towards me came she
Hugged me and told me she loved me
That was my first love story
I was eight and she was twenty


*Not to be confused as "my" first love story*

The name is Bond, James Bond

You are the best M has got
Somehow you never get shot
On the hitlist you always stay
Still you come back to Die Another Day

Vesper and tracy took your heart away
You had to come back in dismay
On her majesty's secret service that you cant afford
Hence you pretend you are cold

A danger to enemies and husbands alike
Your virtues overshadow the vice
Winning each battle, no matter how tough
Someone for whom the world is not enough

You always give nightmares to Q
Why do accidents occur so frequently with you
With each gadget you seem to be a master
Each gadget in its destiny has disaster

From connery to brosnan to craig
In your hand holding a Walther PPK
Tuxedos over the years you have preferred
And Vodka Martini, Shaken not stirred

Be it blofeld,le chiffre or Dr No
On fire, water or snow
You can even defeat voldemort without a wand
Because, "The name is Bond, James Bond."

She was all I could see

I saw her across the road
And she was all I could see
Rush of vehicles kept passing by
And she was all I could see

Then again someday I saw her at the club
And she was all I could see
People kept dancing around
And she was all I could see
A girl looked at me and said Hi
And she was all I could see
She walked away with some friends
And she was all I could see

Then one day she came to me and said, "coffee?"
and she was all I could see
its been years now
and she is all I can see.

All this while, she told me later
I was all she could see
On the road, in the club, in her dreams
I was all she could see

A lot of times in life you like someone so much that you can't muster the courage to go ahead and speak to that "someone." Never forget the fact that he/she may feel the same way about you. Our hero in the poem was lucky, everyone is not. So, don't take that chance.

A polite policeman

I moved the car off the road as the traffic policeman showed me his hand.We(myself, ashish & Jaskirat) had been stopped for allegedly having jumped the red light. I still think the light was green but police walon ko kaun samjhaye(how to make the policemen understand). He started giving a lecture to us which included reminding us of the fact that being a student of an institute of excellence, we should follow rules and how hard there life is etc etc.

Suddenly, my dear friend Ashish got off the car and started off with a lecture of his own. He asked the policemen that when there were 10 other cars who had crossed the lights at the same time as us, why were only we being questioned and penalised. I was like, What the F***? I tried to take Ashish away but he was in a different mood. His next lines took the policewalas with surprise. He said,"Just because we were good enough to stop, you are penalising us which means we also should not stop like the others and run away like the others." While one of the two policemen got angry and started shouting at us, the other one(who was the senior) asked Ashish to tell him how things could be managed better.

In the meantime, the angry policeman took me and Jaskirat in front

Policeman: Look at these people, they are jumping the red light. Right?
Me & Jaskirat: Yes
Policeman: Now when I stop them, they will never accept this.

He randomly stopped one of the umpteen cars jumping the lights.

Me & Jaskirat: Thats exactly what we were saying. Why only stop him when the others also were involved in the same act.

The Policeman conveniently ignored us and went to the latest Bakras he had.

As we returned to Ashish and the senior policeman, we heard Ashish giving him ideas like putting up barriers on the road so that people can't run away if they are stopped etc. The Policeman explained to Ashish that such a thing requires money and only the government or the senior officials can take such a decision.

By then, the other policeman had returned and started talking about challaning us. I told him to do a on the spot challan as it is very difficult to come to the court for us as our institute is far away. The senior policeman came in and said

"No, we have learnt a lot of things from the students of WIMCI* today. Go, no challan."

*WIMCI-Well Known Institute of Management in Central India, also known as IIM Indore

Romance-1920 v/s 2010

Disclaimer :- All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

July 18, 1920


Dear Pratap

I hope this letter finds you in the best of health and spirits. You will be glad to know that I have safely reached England. I know you are probably still angry that I left without informing you. Believe me it was not easy for me as well. I knew that if I told you that I am leaving, you would surely have come over to see me off but I don't think I would have been able to leave with you standing in front of me.

We shared a great relation in the last couple of months but it was bound to end and both of us knew it. You may feel that we could have tried to defy the obvious but do you really think we could have gone through with it without hurting anyone else? and we didn't want to hurt anyone, did we?

Hope to hear from you soon.

Yours
Elaine

July 18, 2010

Amey,

How many times do I have to tell you to stop bugging me. I am fed up of you. I have told you once that I don’t see any future in this relation. Stop giving me crap like I can’t stay without you and all this shit. For god’s sake, we were together for only a couple of months and who talks such stuff so early. We were just dating and having a good time. Now its over and it will be better for you if you accept it sooner rather than later.

Stop making a joke of yourself in front of my friends by pestering them all the time. Don’t ever dare call me or message me.

Tisha


P.S.-Don't accuse me of stereotyping. Just looking at things in extreme..

Laughter of a Friend

Friends are people who make life what it is and this poem is dedicated to all my friends

It has always been the same
Laughter of a friend
One cracks a joke and the other goes insane
Laughter of a friend

Teased me when I cried
Laughter of a friend
Cheered me up and made me smile
laughter of a friend

Less frequent is these days
Laughter of a friend
But makes up for all the delays
Laughter of a friend

Always followed a massive fight
Laughter of a friend
Made living into what we call life
Laughter of a friend

Wish

This post has been published by me as a part of the Blog-a-Ton 12; the twelfth edition of the online marathon of Bloggers; where we decide and we write. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton.

A day doesn’t go by when we are not wishing for something or the other. Today I wish it would rain, tomorrow I would wish for the rain to stop. When I look back at what I wished for and look forward to the things I now wish for, it is not about whether or not my wishes came true or not, it is more about a pattern that exists.

My Wish When I was:-

9 yrs old- I was in class IV and there was nothing I wanted more than entering class VI and being a senior wing student in school.

15 yrs old-I was in class X now and all I wanted was to leave school as the world outside school was supposed to be heaven where I was not required to wear school uniform, where I would not have to give class tests, where I could bunk classes whenever I wanted to and where I will be with a girl whom I will start dating and have a good time with.

17 yrs old-A non-medical student in class XII can’t wish for more than getting admitted into an IIT. I wanted the same, just that I didn’t want to work hard for it.

20 yrs old- After not making it to an IIT- infact not even coming close, I ended up studying chemical engineering at Panjab University. I thought, “Maybe IIT never was my type of a thing, I am tailor made for an MBA.” Hence the latest on my wishlist was a wish to join an IIM.

23 yrs old- Now I am in an IIM and my wishes include a good job which pays well, a good business of my own someday, publishing a book someday........

When I look back at what I wished for and look forward to the things I now wish for, it is not about whether or not my wishes came true or not, it is more about a pattern that exists.

When I was a 9 year old, my wish was to go to a higher class in school. It was a wish which eventually had to come true and I knew that. But still my mind could not think beyond the things that just had to happen. So maybe, I only wish was if time could run faster or if I could skip a class or two in between.

At 15, my wishes started to evolve. I was starting to get fed up with the routine. I wanted to be independent & didn’t want any boundaries around me. My wishes now had a “wish” in them. They were things which I didn’t know will happen or not but I loved to think that they will. But if we look at the larger scheme of things, one day all this also had to happen. I may or may not have found a girlfriend in class XI/XII but someday I had to, a wife if not a girlfriend. So, the wants and fantasies of life were still real.

As I entered my late teens, I realised the importance of studies and career or rather others made me realise. If IIT was the aim in XII, IIM was the aim in graduation. I didn’t get what I wanted in XII but do I regret it now, No. I had a great time during my graduation and now I feel,” Thank God I didn’t make it to an IIT.”

Now, being the second year of my MBA and the final year of classroom education, I still have similar desires and wishes. Admission has turned into a job; a girl has changed into a published book and so on....

Putting everything into perspective, one thing that comes across clearly is that no wish is the “ultimate” wish. Had I not got into engineering, I might have got into arts and might have already written a book which I now dream of. Our wishes keep changing as we move on in life. A wish is granted, we wish for more. A wish is not granted, we again wish for the same or we find an alternative wish...

Wish I Knew what to wish for
Wish I knew what I want
Wish for wish you can & wish you will

The fellow Blog-a-Tonics who took part in this Blog-a-Ton and links to their respective posts can be checked here. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton.

Is this what "We the People" are?

"I feel sad that I don’t have another son and that my son wasn’t married and had no children as I would have sent them as well to serve the nation." These were the brave words of Capt. Devender Singh Jass's mother when asked if she was repenting the fact that her son joined the army after he laid down his life for the country in J&K. Such passion and such courage says everything there is to be said about the Indian Army. I felt a sense of disgust while watching a discussion on the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) 1958 in We the People, a programme that runs every Sunday evening on NDTV. Some so-called human rights experts were accusing the army for all the excesses taking place on the civilians in Kashmir and the North East. Such people conveniently ignore the hardships the Indian Army goes through to make sure that we, including them, are safe. Asking for cutting down the powers of the army in terrorism affected regions like the North-East or Kashmir is like asking Sachin Tendulkar to hold the bat with just one hand while playing cricket. Just that the repercussions in the case of the army are going to be of a much higher scale.

My heart goes out to civilians and their families who have lost their lives during army operations in Kashmir and other parts of the country. There have been accusations that some of these killings have not been fatalities due to the operations but paid killings. I won't say that it is totally untrue as there never is smoke without fire but branding the entire army in the same category and cutting down their powers is no solution to this problem. We must remember that there are bad elements in every group, so we need to have checks and balances in place so that such bad elements in the army are not able to misuse the power that they have been given to serve the nation. But saying that the powers have to be curbed for proper implementation is nonsense. People in favour of this cutting down of the powers highlight the fact that fatalities in Kashmir have come down from 4507 in 2001 to 377 in 2009 which according to them shows that the situation has improved. They just tend to ignore the fact that it is because of AFSPA and the efforts put in by our armed forces that this decrease has taken place. The terrorists have on their end got stronger through better arms & advanced technology. If we commit the fatal error of repealing AFSPA, the situation can become worse than ever before.

Captain Devender Singh Jass used to tell his mother that what is there to live if you don’t live for a cause. By taking away the powers from the army, we would be telling them to fight for a losing cause. Is this how we, who according to a dialogue in my favourite film Lakshya “Are having a sound sleep because someone is awake on the border to take care of us”, want to payback those SOMEONES? Is this how we respect our soldiers? Is this what "We the People" are?

Rainy Day

Fed up of the heat,
people had accepted defeat.
rain has brought a new hope,
forced the sadness to elope.
A droplet of water fell on my face,
suddenly heaven-like felt the place.
As the water came gushing down,
cheers echoed in the entire town.
Now as the rain drizzles down,
I see smiles, smiles all around.
Dancing in the rain made me feel like a child again,
I hope forever in me this child remains.
Sing or dance or whatever be your way,
Just enjoy, today is Rainy Day!