Aching to break free

Boozy called to say that he had to work all through the national holiday on monday, when everybody else was at home with family and friends hogging on Diwali sweets.  Often in the past he has worked through Friday nights and weekends, struggling to keep up with deadlines.  That conversation got me thinking about the freakin insanity of the whole thing.  Doesn't the "work to live, not live to work" concept hold good anymore?  I have seen friends in equity sales, investment banking, or for that matter, in many arbit profiles, burning out by the minute.

In our whole distorted ordering of priorities, we end up giving such a ridiculous weightage to achieving (or holding on to) a fast track career, that we actually stop living.  We used to have so much fun in college, with little or no money in our pockets.  But then we walked on a programmed path towards becoming an engineer/doctor/CA/MBA/Businessperson and entered the rat race.  No, this is worse.  This is a shit race.  We are all turds in a fkin shit race, gettin flushed away so fast, without getting a chance to leave any kind of mark. 

Even just in my limited social sphere, i know so many young people who are unhappy with what they are doing.  I'm not talking about people generally cribbing or being greedy for more.  I'm talking about the unhappiness resulting from wanting to do something different.  Something more meaningful or fun, or something reflecting our innate nature and individuality.  And i'm talking about the kind of people who can never be at peace with the fact that they are working on a pre-designed job description in a pre-designed grade structure, and knowing that they can be effortlessly substituted by another dummy in a tie and a good shirt, who'll probably do the job as well, if not better.

I'm not in any way trying to suggest that a corporate job is bad.  If you have a job profile that you like and are getting paid to your satisfaction, it can be really great.  Promotions, bonuses, responsibilities, status....lots of good things to look forward to.

But if you are continuously unsatisfied and are pining to do something else, which will probably give you much more happiness and peace even if it is at a lower income, i hope you are lucky enough to have the courage to make that change.  I'm still working on tightening my balls enough to finally break free.  I want to give a shot at some long standing plans.  If they dont work out, i know i'll be able to pick up a job again, satisfied that atleast i tried.

And that situation need not be all bad.  For example, the place where i work is amazing.  Bosses are great (though you cant have the same bosses forever....who knows if there is gonna be a terrible one in the future), culture is nice, have some good friends amongst the colleagues, etc.  This is the kind of place where I can work for 20-30 years without being desperate to move.  But inspite of all that, for a long time now there has been a constant unhappiness lingering under the surface.  I know i have to try doing something on my own.  And i know i have to explore my creative side.  I just have to do it.  Its now or never.  There's a lot of clarity about that, but its still so damn difficult to take that final call....

Why are silly things like losing a year or having a gap in our CV so scary to us?  One of the things we are probably most afraid of is falling behind our batchmates and peers and being thought of as a laggard.  Fk it all.

This one is from the eyes of my friend boozy, and is for every person stuck and slogging it off in a deadbeat job...

================================

Aching to break free...

I get out of my home and

There's an eerie calm on the street
I head towards the station

Dragging my tired and aching feet

It feels so strange to climb

The railway bridge all alone
Noone pushes or gropes me

Or even tries to flick my phone

Even the train pullin in slowly

Has a lazy air around it
No need to hunt for a toehold

Its so unreal...there's place to sit

My heart is sinkin fast

As the office block gets closer
The security guy signing me in

Seems to whisper "what a loser!"

Project reports & Status reports

& data analysis spreadsheets
Deliverables & deadlines

Hammer down like drum beats

The dull glow from the monitor

Lights up my swollen eye sacs

The keyboard rests on the monster

That I've grown instead of 6-packs

I am utterly exhausted

And my poor back needs some healing

But all thats nothing compared to

This deap-seated unhappy feeling

My tired body and weary mind

Are screaming out a warning
Yet, what am i doing in office again

on a beautiful Sunday morning?

The only great thing today is

I dont have to stand in line
The coffe machine, the photocopier,

food counters & urinals are all mine

But I wonder where i'm heading to

Is this what i'd set out for?
The momentum has somehow built up so

Things dont make sense any more

Get an email from an old friend

Has some pics of the good ol' days
A guitar, drums, beer bottles,

Great buddies who've parted ways

I wanted to play guitar and to write..

I wanted to do something cool
Something to pour my soul in

But i'm sitting here like a fool

The empty feeling inside me

Is screaming out a warning
Yet, what am i doing in office again

on a beautiful Sunday morning?

- Vivek Rao

================================

2 weekends 2 trips - part 2

1-4 Oct: Sangli - Kolhapur - Saundatti

My mom has been speaking for quite a while about going to Saundatti to the Renuka Mata (who is our "Kulaswamini") temple.  Since 2nd was a public holiday a plan quickly got formed.  Since i rarely get out for religious trips, mom also made plans for a puja at Narsobachi Wadi near Sangli.

Bhau came down to pune on sunday, 27th, just a few hours after dd and i returned from our mahabaleshwar trip.  Mom had demanded his presence for Dassera on monday.  On tuesday bhau, mom and dad drove to kolhapur, while rashmi, chiu and i moved to my in-law's place at karve nagar.

Thursday evening we left for sangli in a hired tavera and reached narsobachi wadi by 10pm, approx a couple of hours after the others had reached from kolhapur.  We stayed at Ved Bhavan, a nice two-storied structure constructed by Sharad Upadhyay (Rashi Chakra) for conducting puja's, yagnya's, philosophical discourses, etc.  The pic below shows the hall in which the puja was done; there is also a yagnya-kund there.  Pittya had also come down in the car, and after a spicy dinner prepared by the caretaker couple, we chatted for a while before hitting the sack.

The puja started early morning the next day and was over just before noon.  Then we took darshan at the beautiful Dutta temple on the Krishna riverbank.  After that it was a half hour drive to baby (!) atya's place at sangli.  In the evening we went to the famous Ganapati temple in the heart of sangli; it is really worth seeing.  It is quite spacious and clean, with a beautiful idol that can be seen even from a few km outside.

Since the car couldn't seat all of us, dad and pittya took a bus to kolhapur while we drove down.  Rashmi and i were visiting after 5 years and in fact we were seeing yogya's wife and kids for the first time.  We hogged on some fantastic khichdi made by Rita maushi and then relaxed.  The whole attention was on the two Aditi's, both looking absolutely adorable.  A.Rao is 1yr 1m old, while A.Chavan is 1yr 9m old.

We left early next morning for saundatti, the car totally weighed down by 5 'healthy' individuals and a completely packed boot.  It had started raining heavily in many parts of maharashtra and initially it was very tough going because our windshield wipers were quite screwed up.  Luckily we managed to get the drivers side wiper changed at a small village on the way.

We had been told that the saundatti temple is closed from 1-4pm everyday, and so we took a small detour to see the Gokak waterfall.  What a sight!  Fed by the heavy downpour upstream, the waterfall looked like an angry monster.  You can check out a couple of great videos on my brothers blog on this link:
http://blog.quasi.in/2009/10/waterfall-at-gokak.html

There is a rope bridge on the river just before the waterfall.  It seems to be quite strong, reinforced by steel cables, and one concrete pillar roughly halfway across, but you have to walk on wooden planks which have gaps between them and the whole bloody bridge sways as you walk across.  It was very scary and real good fun.  The roar of the waterfall and the sight of the dark muddy river thundering past below makes it a nicely terrifying experience.  My dad had given us strict instructions not to go on the bridge, and so bhau, rashmi and I promptly went.  We went halfway and stopped at the pillar to enjoy the sight.  Then rashmi and I actually begged bhau to go back to the riverbank and to a nice small temple (see pic below) overlooking the waterfall and click a photo of us standing on the bridge.  Poor guy obliged.  :-)
You can barely make us out on the bridge though  :-(

We ended up spending too much time at gokak and reached saundatti by 4:30pm.  On the way one of my uncles called from kolhapur to inform us that there was a really bad flood situation in karnataka and south maharashtra, due to which many roads near and around belgaun had been closed off.  Saundatti is approx 65kms from belgaun and we bacame a bit apprehensive, but pushed on.  There was water everywhere in the fields on both sides of the road, and the small streams we crossed were full.

On reaching we were shocked to find that the temple was not closed in the afternoon and had just been closed at 4pm!  We somehow talked our way into getting inside for a quick darshan.  There were only priests inside, bathing the goddess and starting the puja.  We got real nice almost exclusive darshan for a few mins and then we had to get out.  There was a brief bad scene when some super aggressive beggar women started harrassing my mom for money, but we escaped.  The pic below shows the mandir kalash.

We were all really tired by now and the drive back seemed to stretch on and on.  The heavy rain wasn't helping at all.  I had been driving all the way since 7am and by the time we reached the highway near belgaun i suddenly started feeling damn exhausted and handed over the wheel to bhau.  We reached kolhapur by 11pm, extremely fatigued, and just crashed.

The next morning we woke up late, had a superb breakfast of some speacial wada's pittya got for us.  Then we were off to the famous Ambabai temple for darshan.  After that were visits to Avi mama's and Nilu mama's places, and then we left for pune.  Reached home late at night, with the wonderful prospect of monday morning hovering just a few hours away....

The whole family of 6 had gone out together after ages.  Overall a great trip.

2 weekends 2 trips - part 1

26-27 sept: Mahabaleshwar

Dd and I spoke over phone on friday and suddenly decided to do a quick mahabaleshwar trip on sat-sun.  I just wanted to get out for a while.  He was on a months break between jobs and was actually quite bored with sitting at home.  Understandable, since his work life is usually quite exciting: stressful days with heartbeats linked to the markets, followed by evenings at some uber-expensive bar, "servicing" some client or the other.

It was a short trip; he picked me up at pune at noon on saturday, and we were back in pune by 7pm on sunday.  The best thing was that we had no agenda whatsoever, and just did whatever we felt like.  I think we were just driving all the time, but since the roads were great throughout the trip, that was very enjoyable.

At night we boozed (dont we always) and had a nice looong chat.  We were anyways jabbering away during the whole trip as a good drive, like booze, makes for good conversation.  With dd it is always familiar territory and we probably said a lot of stuff that would have already been spoken before on some prior occassion.  We are both major cribbers, and most of our topics have that common thread running through!

I hate to admit this, but we ended up doing a lot of romantic stuff together:
- we took a horse carriage ride on the tableland
- we picked a motel room with a bathtub
- we ate chocolate fudge from one plate
- we shopped in the mahabaleshwar market (not hand in hand)
- and to top it all, we went boating

That horse carriage ride was such a big fraud.  We were promised to be taken on a 45 minute ride and shown 10 "points".  The smart-ass carriage boy we got bombarded us with arbit bollywood trivia related to pachgani and mahabaleshwar.  "....amir khan came out of the water here....raj kapoor had a sexy scene there....karishma and amir kissed under that tree...." etc etc.  And from time to time he kept turning back with a wicked grin and asking us "You married?  All married couples come here and enjoy!".  The bas*&%!
He must have said 'enjoy' atleast a 100 times.

He finished off the ten points in the first 5 mins and completed the round trip in 25.  When we asked about this he asked us to spend 20 mins walking around clicking pics like other tourists.  Actually speaking we weren't all that sad....we had anyways been just hanging on for dear life as the carriage had been bucking around like a wild bull in heat.  I dont recommend that ride to any fellow spondylitis sufferer. 

We had one amazing find in the trip though.  The next day, on the way back, we stopped at Parsi Point near pachgani to take in the beautiful view and hog on some super delicious wada pav.  The view from that point is that of a flat piece of land surrounded by mountains on 3 sides and a lake on the 4th.  Looking down, we noticed a surprisingly large temple approx in the middle.  Feeling curious we decided to explore.

We took a small by road from Vai and made our way towards Chikligaon, a small hamlet where the temple is situated.  On the way we passed "Dhom Dam", where entry is absolutely forbidden since the terrorist attack on the Taj.  Beyond the dam is a Boat Club.  The name is misleading as there is actually just a tiny jetty-like structure and a couple of small motor boats.  The caretaker of the neighbouring godown takes tourists on joy rides on these boats.  I'm shit scared of water, but dd forced me into a life jacket, and then into a small motor boat for a long ride on the lake.

The view from that boat club is mind blowing!  Pachgani and mahabaleshwar are really beautiful and all that, but this view was phenomenal.  Amazingly picturesque and serene.  Dd and I will probably always go there on every trip to mahabaleshwar.

A few km onwards, we reached the temple, which is really very large as compared to the small hamlets that surround it.  Chatted with a talkative priest there, had darshan, clicked a few snaps and we turned back.

We reached pune by around 7pm and hogged on lots of chaat outside my building.  That was the first chaat i had after shifting to pune and it felt great.  What a way to end a great trip.

Glorious monday morning!

I see so many grumpy faces in office today morning....and just because its today morning!  Are you feeling the monday blues too?  Why???

Its a  beautiful monday morning and there is loads and loads of work to be done!  Dont you feel the excitement of a full days work schedule surging through your veins?  Doesn't it add meaning to life?  Doesn't it make every rupee lying in your bank account seem sweeter, cause you have really earned it?

Breathe in deeply and let the challenges of a glorious monday morning give you a high that no single malt can.  Walk up to your boss and demand tighter deadlines, tougher tasks and complex deliverables, cause you can do it today.  Repeat to yourself that you can do it today!  Slap yourself tight in the face and let the sting remind you to be grateful that you have a cushy office job and a good home to go back to.

Just think... for the next 5 days you dont need to waste time, just lying around watching tv....you can instead:
- look forward to waking up nice and early after just 5 hours of sleep
- look forward to the restful hours of commute where you get a chance to rub shoulders (and several unmentionable parts) with your fellow countrymen
- look forward to toiling till late in the evening, excercising your grey cells, pushing back your thinning grey hair
- look forward to 5 days of energetic activities like
.......intellectual masturbation to cook up crappy ideas
.......desperate class participation to liven up dreary meetings
.......healthy bouts of back stabbing with colleagues
.......self-respect-crushing directives to juniors
.......and to top it all, some delicious ass licking of customers, seniors and influential secretaries!

So i say, cheer up, cause its a glorious monday morning!

Life...

Does it really matter if somebody likes
These random words, a few scribbled lines,
This life itself is poetry
Those were at most concocted rhymes...
:-)

All down...

Sniff sniff. Spent the last 2 days in bed with a bad case of cold and throat infection, accompanied by burning in the eyes, headache, etc etc. Thankfully no fever though. Wife was down with similar symptoms from saturday to monday, but improved today. Mom also had cold, cough and tummy ache, so even she's feeling pretty low. Dad was alright till today and was managing Choti all alone, but even he has developed cold today. Choti gave us a scare today by vomiting thrice, but is much much better now.... :-)

I've recovered 50% by now; throat seems better but nose is flowing at the rate booze usually flows at our parties...no takers though! hehehe Feeling really tired bec of the persistent cold, but am not complaining too much; have been through worse shit.

Eyes are tired, desparately need sleep but my full and flowing nose is making sleep impossible. Have to get up every few minutes. So thought i'll post my woes here, and then continue reading Othello.

Coupla old pomes

One day our office guys were just doing our usual tp of mail-mail which started because of some over senti goodbye mail sent by a departing colleague. Then all of a sudden Toinng sent us a heavy poem on tears which he had come across. Found it hard to digest, hence scribbled this one:

========================================

Tears

Tears that escape a broken heart
Tears that flow when friends depart

Tears that are due to bruises or cuts
Tears come when you are kicked in the nuts

Tears when you are delirious with joy
Tears when your girl goes out with another guy

Tears when you are holding your newborn
Tears when by mistake you delete all your porn

Tears are crazy unpredictable things
They come out either way your fortune swings

Tears make you an emotional mess
So its better to shut that tap soon, unless

Pretty girls sympathise with "oh my poor baby"
And that leads on to more interesting things, maybe!

- Vivek Rao

========================================

My wife has a pair of twins for cousins...two really sweet girls, Asmu and Appu. Hardly a few years back i knew them as tiny tots, and they are already more than a head taller than me (now we all know thats not very difficult to do!). Now A&A keep running into school projects that are over their heads (thanks to our great education system), and wifey tries to help get them out of the mess by: helping build something for their craft project / doing net research for some stupid write-ups / hunting for arbit photos or images on the net, etc etc.

A few months back we got a frantic, last-minute call from the twins about a project where they were supposed to write a poem for class the next morning, and they had made no progress at all. While wife was directing them to search on the net for obscure poems which they could copy, i got a thought and wrote this thing:

========================================

half of me.....

do you want to know a funny little thing about me?
i'll tell if you promise to listen with care
its about the best gift i've got in my life
nothing else even begins to compare

i'm a little different from what you can see
you see... i am actually just half
its just half of me standing and talking right now
i can see you are just itching to laugh!

my other half is pretty and smart and witty
my other half is a big part of me
my other half is actually my beautiful soul mate
my best friend for eternity

we share all our things, our thoughts and our dreams
we've even shared our first heartbeat
i'm talking about my darling twin sister
she is the half which makes me complete....

- Vivek Rao

========================================

I dunno how that went down in class, but the kids liked it; atleast they said they did!

Back for a weekend

Left from office a little early on friday. Reached mumbai by late evening, greeted by the familiar stench and thicker air. Loved it. The office gang were just about reaching Rajyog, near the highway. Felt good to see them all; Surve, Toinng, Bidrya, Dickya, Chaudhari....good buddies from the good old days at IL&FS. Had a great time boozing and hogging with them; lots of office goss to share and some old ghise-pite jokes to repeat.

Bidrya was teased on his secret liaisons, survya on being "retail retail" now, toinng on his impending charge as our superior, dikya on his incessant questioning, chaudhari on his special class of roadhouse humour, and me on my knack of closing down most things i get associated with....some things should never change!

Went to dj's house late in the night and met up with dj, rashmi, dd and annie. Poor guys were forced to stop some stupid horror movie they were watching. Dd suddenly got completely obsessed with watching a tennis match and struggled to get the set-top box working, but engineering ch*t that he is, he couldn't....hehehe

But then i got a throbbing headache and just wasn't able to continue having fun. I think the Rajyog guys had slipped us some cheaper liquor. Pushed off at around 1245 am, dropped annie of at takshila and reached home by 0130 am.

Was lookin forward to once again step inside the flat where we had spent a memorable 2.5 years, but simply couldn't recognize the place! My bro had completely converted it into a bachelor pad; much like his previous two homes at bandra and matunga. Was greeted with the sight of a shining electric guitar and amp left by raju and scratched some strings for a while.

Saturday was lazy. Watched Omkara (for the 3rd time) with bro...good fun...any movie with the opening dialogue "bewakoof aur chootiye me ek hi farak hota hai..." has to be great.

It is midnight now. There are 12 other guys in the hall. Lots of booze flowing. Razoo on the guitar. The night is on...

Morning Beep

Some time back, a friend of mine had got into a habit of forwarding heavy philosophical messages by shri shri ravi shankar. Now, i feel the last thing we need in our already stressed out life, is more serious stuff to read. Instead people should forward jokes, even sad pj's; anything that could bring a smile to the readers face. Anything to give a them tiny break in all the shit thats going on through their day.

So on a whim i started sending morning sms's to some of my closest friends. I titled each message "Morning Beep" and signed off as "shri shri vivek rao". It wasn't really planned or anything; just thought i'd send any crap that came to my mind as long as it was not serious. So i msgd stupid advice, exaggerated comparisons, sexist comments, etc etc, and soon was really enjoying the activity; every morning it occupied my mind while on my way to work, and gave release to some pent up creativity - with mixed results. Basically, i generally got to goof around a lot, writing arbit stuff!

Some of my friends started responding. People would come up and say stuff like "yesterdays was really nice yaar, but todays was crap!". On days when i didn't send a beep, i'd get messages and calls askin what the fuck was wrong with my lazy arse. I started feeling as if i was suddenly in touch with a lot of these buddies, all of whom are otherwise tied up with their own stuff. Really started looking forward to this morning exchange of messages.

And then one day one of my pals wrote back something nasty about these messages, and the resulting argument took away all the enthu. I guess i completely overreacted, as always. A few days later i got completely busy in shifting to pune. Later tried a couple of times to start messaging again, but somehow just couldn't get back to it. Feel really sad about that. It might have been a silly activity but i had fun while it lasted.

Give below are most of these beeps. You have to remember that these r not supposed to be read all bunched up together, but one in every couple of days or so, while squashed in a crowded train or bouncing around in a rick; perspective changes everything! :-)

"Morning beep: Everybody is short, on some dimension or the other, and the totals all add up to the same. Hence it is better to be tall on the inside than on the outside.
- shri shri vivek rao"
(my height - or lack of it - has always been a favorite topic for friends, and this was a comeback)

"Morning beep: The rains playing truant shows that even Gods can be mischevious. Have we become too serious in life? If u want to live long and healthy, awaken ur naughty self; pull down ur neighbours panties today.
- shri shri vivek rao"

"Morning beep: Troubled by teenage trends, parents are asking: is sex the answer to everything? They dont understand that sex is the question; Yes! is the answer. Be positive, always say yes.
- shri shri vivek rao"

"Morning beep: A bird in hand...can be quite detrimental while wanking. Do one thing at a time. Focus on the task at hand. Distractions of any kind may lead to inefficiency...or in this case, a badly pecked peepee.
- ssvr"

"Morning beep: Homosexuality is a complete win-win. If guys run after other guys, that leaves more girls for the rest of us. And if girls start falling in love with other girls, that creates Lesbians!!! (nothing is hotter than that, right?). Support same-sex jingbangs.
- ssvr"

"Morning beep: Care for animals. Stroke your monkey tonight.
- ssvr"

"Morning beep: A friend of mine recently got circumcised. Now instead of a bunch of wrinkles, he sees a happy face grinning up at him a few times a day. Maybe thats what we all need in this stressful world; more happy faces around.
- ssvr"
(this is a true story)

My friend Bansi couldn't contain himself and responded:
"Morning pee - A sex maniac sees the best of everything in life. Be it lack of rains, homosexuality, teenage sex issues, problems in multi tasking, circumcision, lack of animal love & ofcourse having an inch where the world has a foot. Be a sex maniac, solve all your problems today.
- Baba Bansi Deo."

"Morning beep: A weird thing happened to me. Yesterday i woke up in mumbai, but today i woke up in pune. There's a very important lesson to be learned here, for life. If you travel, there's a good chance that you will wake up elsewhere.
- ssvr"

"Morning beep: Shakespeare sd, the worlds a stage & we r all actors. My dear frnd dd wud want to say, the world is 1 big market and we r all speculators. S'peare also sd, to do or not to do, that is the question. Dd eats and craps acc to his to-do list. Point being, even a middle-aged, gujju, stoke-market addict can have the makings of a bard in him. So dont judge people.
- ssvr"
(you have to really know dd to get this one...)

"Morning beep: Relations are so damn confusing in India. I mean, this is a country which preaches incest!! Millions of kids grow up saying 'all indians r my brothers & sisters' every day in school. Now which ones do we screw? And we r a bloody horny race. Now u know why raksha bandhan is so imp here. It is a 'pls dont do me, bro' appeal.
- ssvr"

"Morning beep: Its pouring hard & i'm in a rick, getting badly splashed on by passing bikes & cars. A year back i wud hav been so frustrated & angry as i'm on my way to a meeting. But strangely, now i'm able to laugh at this shit and have a good time! If u can change ur response u can change the situation itself.
- ssvr"

"Morning beep: Nuclear families shd take care while planning a 2nd kid. Having the 1st one in the bdroom is nt very good for sex! I guess either u have a quickie on the floor or rush home for an hour in the aftnoon when the kid is in daycare. Else u end up raising a severely disturbed child, who has witnessed too much...too soon.
- ssvr"

Bansi responded:
"Evening pee - Nuclear family, joint family with/without kids are only reasons to justify having or not having sex. It is scientifically proven that while women need ocassions to have sex, men just need a place. Let there be no further delay, explore your kitchen and bathroom today.
- Baba bansi deo"

"Morning beep: Women r power hungry animals. But God has made up for that by giving them very low intellect & grasping power. Hence, smart men shd giv their mate an illusion of power, (eg: by letting them buy the stupid pink curtains) while quietly running the show in the background. Yet, frm time to time butt-slap them hard to remind them who's their daddy.
- ssvr"
(got lots of responses for this one: enthu ones from guys, hate ones from gals!)

"Morning beep: Baba bansi deo is right, women cant be united. In fact women r most viciously cruel & vengeful with each other, while men can forget fights simply by drinking beer & burping together. Lesbians r just abberations created to give men something better to fantasize about (logic: 4 boobs r better than 2).
- ssvr"

"Morning beep: The key to true success lies in a loving, happy family. Targets, promotions, job profiles, pay hikes, are all secondary. Please dont let anyone convince u otherwise.
- ssvr"
(i broke my own rule about not allowing serious stuff)

"Morning beep: Rickshaw wala's in any city:
1. like to live on the edge
2. want to play racing racing with other rickshaw's
3. have a physical inability of spotting potholes and speed bumps in time
4. seem to have tie ups with spondylitis clinics on a pay-per-damaged-vertebra basis
Smoke & drink but dont rick-it if u want to live longer.
- ssvr"
(its true; i have cervical spondylitis and rickshaw rides negate every medicine i take)

"Morning beep: The true measure of a mans worth is his beer-belly. The more rounded, bouncy and jiggly his belly, the more loving, warm, honest, caring, good natured, good humoured and wise he is bound to be. Man-breasts are a bonus, a sure sign of a virile and exciting partner. Women shd avoid guys with flat abs as they r vile, dishonest bastrds...and probably impotent.
- ssvr"
(i'm proud of my curves!)

"Morning beep:
It is a beautiful day, Well i have nothing to say
And it is my belief, I hear a sigh of relief
For no stupid word play, Will invade ur senses today
But dont look too happy, Or i'll send smthing crappy!
So lets just keep it this way, For every beautiful day.
- @$vr"
(had written this immediately after that argument with my friend; had decided then that there'll be no more)

"Morning beep: Life is full of change & thats a fact. Change can be quite tough to handle (with all the moving cheese etc). Resist, & u might push away the very change u needed in life. So just embrace it with open heart, but keep spending some on cigarettes & mint, or it'll fatten ur wallet & become a pain in (half) ur arse.
- ssvr"
(this one was a complete failure as most people thought i was writing about actual change management)

"Morning honk: All women marrying BEST drivers...end up with bigger left boobs.
- ssvr"
(hehehe...felt like taking a survey in the BEST colony after sending this one)

"Morning beep: I've always heard of stuff like 'brain is mightier than brawn' or 'the pen is mightier than the sword'. Who would have thought that pigs would be the mightiest of all... Come to think of it, men might have reached the moon, but swine flew.
- ssvr"
(this was just after i shifted to pune and the whole swine flu scare started; the use of 'flew' for 'flu' was borrowed from a fwd)

"Morning beep: If ur rickshaw wala today: agreed to go where u wanted, took u there with only a few minor shaves with death, and (gasp!) asked only for the metered amount, give him a kiss from me. Such nice fellows dont exist in pune.
- ssvr"

"Morning beep: If u think life really sucks, imagine u are getting the blow of a lifetime and say YIPPEE!
- ssvr"

"Morning beep: Beer and boobies...the only proof we'll every need that God exists.
- ssvr"

"Morning beep: Why is it so tiring to make new friends when u r all grown up? Was so easy when we were kids. School friendships r probably the strongest bec they r the most innocent. At work its all abt give & take, positioning & politics. And if u r lucky enough to find genuine frnds at work, u'll fkin probably get transferred somewhere else. Life....
- ssvr"
(was really missing my mumbai office gang)

And that was the end of the morning beeps.

This has already been a frikkin long post; i wish i could also put up all the amazing, and often witty, responses i got.

Pune ahoy!

A couple of months back and completely out of the blue, came instructions from my bosses that I was being transferred to pune to acquire SME clients in pune, nasik and aurangabad. Logically it seemed like an okay thing to do (not that I had much choice in the matter) and hence we packed up all our stuff and shipped our arses to the city of two-wheelers.

We've been here for almost four weeks now, and I'm missing mumbai sorely. Everything seems different here, alien in some way. Thats quite surprising since its not as if its in a different part of the country where there would be a cultural shift. Pune is a fking 4 hour drive from mumbai, and i'm anyways no stranger to this place at all. All through my childhood I've spent a decent chunk of my holidays here visiting an odd assortment of uncles and aunts and cousins. And then over the last few years, there've been these numerous visits to my in-laws, especially during the time that my wife was expecting. I guess we react quite differently to places when we are just visiting. Was suddenly reminded of an old song, one of my favourites from Sting:

I dont take coffee I take tea my dear
I like my toast done on one side
And you can hear it in my accent when I talk
I'm an englishman in new york

See me walking down fifth avenue
A walking cane here at my side
I take it everywhere I walk
I'm an englishman in new york

I'm an alien I'm a legal alien
I'm an englishman in new york


Over the last few days as it has slowly started to sink in that I've actually left mumbai, the city of my life, and come here for a few years (hopefully not more), i've begun to compare everything. Mostly i'm amused at the idiosyncrasies here, and try not to get irritated. Let me just list some funny stuff:

- the locals here are bloody rude most of the time

- a huge proportion of restaurants and shops open after 10:30 am

- many shops still shut down for a few hours in the afternoon

- shopping malls start their air conditioning only during evenings on weekdays and a few extra hours on weekends; the staff greet you with glistening faces and clothes sticking to their bodies, but you dont notice as you start feeling suffocated within 15 mins...

- there are no taxies anywhere

- the rickshawala's will always always always ask for extra money

- in many parts of the city there is no concept of home delivery

- the famous "puneri patya" - oversmart, arrogant and hilarious - are everywhere

- bikers remain in the leftmost lane till the last minute for a right u-turn and vice versa

- people comfortably drive on the wrong side of a crowded road if its convenient for them

- every few meters at every possible intersection and break in the divider vehicles from all directions converge to reduce average speeds to sub-20 kmph and create one of the most inefficient traffic scenes in this side of the world

- maids, shop keepers, rickshawala's, drivers, etc, glare (and sometimes shout) at you when asked to do a little bit extra; they will coolly let go of opportunities to earn something extra if it: interferes with their chillax time / they are not in the mood / the way you ask them touches their over-sensitive ego / you appear shocked at their exorbitant quote / etc etc.....

- it is very common to see a girl in the drivers seat of a 2 wheeler with the guy sitting pillion

- it is also very common (and very very disturbing) to see large-sized, rough-looking bearded men riding a scooty or an activa

- the girls all ride with 95% of their faces covered with scarves or dupattas so that a hyper-mumbaikar like me constantly expects one of them to whip out an AK47 from an innocent looking purse

- thrice i have seen a biker stop IN THE MIDDLE LANE of a busy road to answer his mobile and then slowly, taking his own sweet time move to the side while yakking away, head tilted 90 degrees to hold the phone

Shit, what a list! Proved again that I crib a lot. :-) But all said and done, the weather is really good here. A pleasant break from the hot and humid mumbai; and since i dont exercise at all, my sweat-pores are really on a break. The girls are quite pretty too, especially the konkanastha brahmin babes (shivaji park types). Also seems like their dressing sense has improved by miles from what i remember; spotted a few bare shoulders and belly buttons; not much of arse-cleavage though, i guess low waist jeans are yet only to be seen at Mithibai, HR, Xaviers and the like.

And its a more relaxed city, perhaps just what i need. Take time out to see the birds and sniff the flowers and shit like that, you know... Other guys who've shifted from mumbai to pune say that the initial comparisons are akin to withdrawal symptoms, and that once i've been here for a year, it will be almost impossible to go back.

Fuck.