My Love Life - Quote

Every girl I ever liked was either "elder to me, married or already taken" and in light of the recent developments, "is a lesbian".

LUCK

I have just come back from watching the movie LUCK. A different kind of a plot but executed very badly with exceptionally bad acting. None of the characters made any sense to me, from Aisha-Natasha to Ram to Raghavan. And the "Grand-finale" was the mega-bomb to take away whatever little thrill, No! curiousity, the rest of the movie had managed to arouse in you. The script has few scenes which do not seem to fit into the normal flow of the movie but these are beautifully connected later on in the Hollywood-inspired kind of way. Except that once you have knotted together all the loose ends, you feel like "This wasn't worth it." Bottomline - If it were the work of a amateur, I would say good try but needs loads of improvement. Otherwise, UTTER CRAP. And you definitely are lucky if you haven't watched it.

But what did catch my attention was the concept. I am still wondering, do such people exist? Can anybody have such luck? I do know a few people who are very lucky but I am pretty sure all of them only have their heart in the right place (you would understand this if you have watched the movie). And if this movie even breaks-even, then we will have to call the Producer, Moussa, for getting away with something as bad as this. If I had my way, I would want to... forget it!

If we take the word LUCK literally, even I could be termed lucky, for I always seem to carry (Bad) Luck in my pocket everytime. Infact, I have something like the Sadim's (from Midas) touch - everything I touch turns into dung. And it works better than ever, in the case of girls. Every girl I ever liked was either "elder to me, married or already taken" and in light of the recent developments, "or is a lesbian".

And your rating is...

Finally, I have a Guest Blog. This is from one of my very close friends, Paheli. It's clear he was very frustrated when he wrote this but below is the post just as he wrote it.

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Whenever I am experiencing anything new I get very excited about it. Nothing unusual about it. But if, god-forbid, something is not PERFECT about it, I get inspired to write about it. Scream and tell the world, "Look, how wrong they are". No wonder, I criticse girls so much. (Although I say girls in general, I only intend to criticize only the stereotypes.)

Coming back, I have finished my first ever appraisal in a company. And I haven't been really impressed by it. Infact, I have been heavily disappointed by it. So, I thought I should voice my opinion immediately. And almost instantly after having decided to write this post, I had the every sentence framed up in my mind. And this is how it goes:

Location and Cast: A closed-room packed with a lot of Managers, Vice-Presidents, etc. Put differently, all the guys who call the shots in their respective projects/domains. But most of them are scared to even open their mouth here (unlike anywhere else) because, in the room are also BIGGER people than them (hierarchically). Also in the crowd are some noisy class of people. People who want to voice their opinion, even when they have none. And not to forget the FCPs (where MCP stands for Male Chauvinistic Pigs).

Procedure: A slide is brought up with an employee's details. Then, ideally, a constructive discussion must go on to discuss how well the employee has performed over the year and where all he/she can improve.

Scenario 1: If the employee's progress over the year has only been average, then he/she is immediately awarded "Average" and somebody calls out, "NEXT !!!". Everyone has only one thing on their minds, "Lets get all this done quickly. It's tiring."

Scenario 2: In the cases when the "somebody" on the slide has proven himself above the rest, everybody is silent at first. This is because everybody is waiting for one of the BIGGEST guys or the biggest mouths to speak first.

Scenario 2.1: If one of the BIG guys says, "I know him. We both get along well. I expect he would have done a good job on the project as well." And immediately, the Project Manager jumps in with, "Ofcourse, how could he not have done great on the project." And everyone agrees with whatever the BIG guy proposes.

Scenario 2.2: If instead, the discussion had started out as, "I hardly know him. How did he do in all the aspects." Then it would depend on how many BIG mouths are there to speak for him. And if he/she happened to be in the good books of a BIG mouth, or someone who is himself in the good books of a BIG guy, consider him/her to be rated "Exceptional". Else, it will understood to be written in his Development Needs, that "Need to do more NETWORKING".

Scenario X: This scenario is rated 'X' because it is special. The speciality of this scenario is rooted in the very definition of "Relativity" and its ineffectiveness in rating people. I say this because what if more than 10% of the group had done a great job and proven themselves "Exceptional" on the Absolute scale...

So, this is what you are supposed to learn from the way Appraisals are done...

1) NETWORKING is important. We have always heard this, haven't we? But we only never understood its significance. What it really means is, "At the end of the day, what is important is - Who all know you? So, leave an impression on everyone you meet.. and meet a lot of people"

2) TEAM WORK - Apart from networking you are supposed to believe in Team Work... So leave the work for your team.. It's not only you, I have heard this PJ before as well... Except that, only now can I see where it originated from and also realised that it's not a PJ..

The post I intended to write on Appraisals in companies ends here... It was meant to be an exaggerated view of showing where we were lacking perfection...

But before I got to writing this post, over some coffee-break discussion with colleagues and friends, I realised I wasn't exaggerating as much as I had thought I was... Although the blog as a whole is an exaggeration, but it is still true. In the sense that, each of the scenario's did take place in someone or the other's case..

While I was happy that my exaggerated prediction (if you could call it so) was proving out to be true, I was also heavily disappointed about the same.. And overall, I was more disappointed than I had reason to be happy.. The whole cause of an Appraisal was lost :(

Paheli

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And this is where the Guest Blog ends

Our Roads and Us

In about an year of driving to and fro my office, I have only seen one accident happen and fortunately or unfortunately, I never saw it Live. I only arrived on the scene about an hour late. But this week alone, two incidents took place.

Incident 1:

I was on my way to the office, as usual on my bike. Then along the way I saw a huge crowd at the side of the road. There were even people who had climbed the divider to get a glimpse of what had happened (such a thing can happen only in India). As I crawled through the inevitable traffic jam, I saw a couple of people who were bent double and they had long bamboo sticks in their hand. I noticed that the ends of the sticks were damaged a little. There seemed to have been a lot of beating that took place. Further there was a bike standing nearby with its seat removed. And everyone was looking on the ground. I strained myself a little - stood on my toes, bent sideways - to get a glimpse of whatever/whoever it was the crowd was lost in but I could get a glimpse of neither a body nor blood. I crossed the scene of the incident, parked my bike at the side and asked somebody who was coming out from the crowd, "What happened?", and he replied, "Snake".

Incident 2:

This incident happened just the day after the previoud incident took place. I reached a junction and noticed that the traffic was stagnant. Nobody was moving. Rather everybody had tried to move and got into the way of someone else. The result - Something similar to the pic below.

(this pic has been flicked from Hindu.com)

Everyone was stuck behind someone else in a circular kind of a fashion. Taking full advantage of being on a bike, I weaved my way through the traffic in what could have been the longest route to cover 25 m. Then I noticed what could have triggered the congestion. There was dust all over the road and half the road was blocked by some large object. Whatever it was, had fallen on the left side of the road causing some amount of damage to the one-room, tiny shops alongside the road. And the object was nothing but a, lorry. A lorry carrying dugged earth had overturned and fallen on its side blocking half the road. I couldn't even imagine how such a large, slow-moving vehicle with a full-load at the back manage to overturn. And this proves, that "IMPOSSIBLE" isn't a word in the dictionaries of Indians. It also justifies the love we have towards Physics laws-defying stunts in our movies.

My SUPERHERO

Everyone has got superheroes. My childhood superhero was Batman. I liked the fact that he was a superhero without any super powers. And his collection of gizmos was mindblowing, not to forget the Bat-mobile. And he was also RICH, filthy rich. It was wonderful - growing up as a kid. It was then that I set my goals for life:

1) Become filthy rich.

2) And attain the power to fight evil.

"A powerful, rich businessman with a secret Black Army to fight evil and teach every bad man, a lesson."- That's who I wanted to be.

But, somewhere down the line, the kid in me died. Or as they say, I grew up. I was now treading the beaten path. I did decently well in College, joined Deloitte, a great company to start my career. Although I am paid well, the possibility of maintaining a secret Black Army now seems distant. But I didn't care anymore. My only goal now - to be better than my peers.

Portraying a "flawless personality" became part of life, even if it meant fooling myself at times. Now I admired Jack Welch for his business acumen, Donald Trump for his branding and Steve Jobs for everything he means to Apple. The latest addition to My Heroes list is someone I met an year ago. He has a charismatic personality and is a brialliant writer, which makes me admire him even more. And after I read an ultra-brief biography of his phenomenal growth in the corporate world, he instantly became my role-model. He was who I wanted to be. And he is:

(For those of you who can't recognise him - he is Parag Saigaonkar, the Regoinal Managing Director at Deloitte Consulting - R10.)

I admire every single Hero on my list because each one is special in their own way. Yet, (no offense intended) none of them ever came close to Batman. While all of them have set some benchmarks in my life, I never have the connect with any of them the way Batman did. It's something like this. I greatly admire multi-talented Farhan Akhtar but I would myself never take up acting, singing or directing to match him. Maybe the fault lied in me. Maybe, I should blame it on the fact that I had become "tough" and "independent".

But 3 years ago, I met someone who changed my life forever in a way I never thought it would. HE was the main reason for me to decide on joining the Hyderabad office of Deloitte rather than the Mumbai office. And I can tell you that in the last 1 year, he has steadily grown up to match Batman on My Heroes list. Infact, as against the fictious Batman who made my dream of my future, he is teaching me to LIVE my present. He is clearly my SUPERHERO and you have guessed right, if you had guessed that my Superhero is none other than:

Advaith - my 3-year old nephew. There is just so much to learn from this little guy.

If I had to list the things I learnt from him, they will be:

1. Have a passion for life; and carry so much energy into every single day of your life that it infects others.

2. A smile is your single greatest asset. It can win hearts in seconds.

3. Dream big: Advaith's dream is to go to California in their car to get some more toys. Once he started on his bicycle to meet Nikhil (a friend of mine). Silly they might sound now, but the innocence coupled with big dreams is an amazing combination.

and the list would go on. I could probably have written an entire book if only I could put everything into words. A video documentary about my Superhero should be a better idea.

Infact, I would be honest and tell you that I went through numerous ups and downs over the last year. There were quite a few moments of near-depression. But everytime I felt low, I would go to my nephew and he would cheer me up in no time. Maybe all my friends would have listened to me patiently but none of them could have brought me back to normalcy so quickly.

But if you really want to feel what I'm trying to convey, you will have to grow up with a kid, as a kid. Only then would you learn from them, rather learn from your past - because we all were just like this when we were 1-3 yrs old. Trust me, its simply amazing.

My nephew has now begun going to the school. So, I guess from now on I will learn how "Education" and "Society" ruined me.

Infact, a year ago, one of my friends asked me to define Happiness and I said:

Happiness: a feeling when u feel on top of the world.. generally felt as a sense of accomplishment and success..

Success: when you have done something that makes others jealous of u.. then u have achieved success in that thing

Peace, as in mental peace: permanent memory loss :P so that u forget all ur probs

But today I would say, Happiness is a totally independent feeling by itself and it has got nothing to do with anything else. Infact, it should be the other way round. Success is having learnt the art of staying Happy forever.

And my 2 cents on this: Everyone has got a SUPERHERO and he is the 2-yr old in you. And the day the kid in you died, you have practically stopped living.